Workplacely: How to Boost Talent Attraction and Retention. a Use Case

[00:00:00] How do you discern between those employees that are answering truthfully from the

[00:00:05] harm versus just answering because they feel like they need to? Yeah, we just had a

[00:00:11] case like this where we can't say who it was where it was a definitive pattern of

[00:00:19] of deceit and we identified it because we have data scientists and they could do

[00:00:28] a lot of stuff. They can figure out they smart people, way smarter than all ever be and

[00:00:36] they found patterns and they said, Lou, we got one. Yeah. And so we know when they're

[00:00:43] lying. You know what I like about I solved everything. I solved these people's

[00:00:49] centric and in a people's centric world you need a people's centric solution. I saw

[00:00:54] people cloud is a comprehensive human capital management solution that helps you employ

[00:00:58] enable and empower your workforce throughout the entire employment life cycle from tracking

[00:01:04] to recruiting, to onboarding clients, from barrel of benefits, time and labor management,

[00:01:09] transform your employee experience for a better today and a better tomorrow with I solved.

[00:01:14] For more information go to I solved HCM.com. Welcome to The Use Case Podcast. This is William

[00:01:23] and I'm going to talk about the best practices institute. He's also got a couple of other

[00:01:30] things going on. We're going to be talking exclusively today about work place. Let's say that

[00:01:37] right Lou? Yes, work place. You got it. Yeah. All right. Well yeah. And he did check.

[00:01:43] Lou do us a favor and introduce yourself and then tell us a little bit about work place.

[00:01:49] Thanks. Thanks William. I appreciate you having me on today and yeah, I've been around

[00:01:53] for a while in this fun field of leadership development trained organizational psychologists

[00:01:59] graduate degree from Columbia and really dove into this field because I love developing

[00:02:05] leaders and I was blessed enough to be able to work with some brilliant people like Warren

[00:02:10] Benis and all the dead poets society because they're not going around anymore Richard Bechard

[00:02:17] finding awesome mentors like Marshall Goldsmith and now finding you really in the SAS space which

[00:02:23] is awesome. You're one of the legends and not that you'll be one of the poets society.

[00:02:30] It's like when they say here's Jimmy. He's never missed a field goal

[00:02:39] and it's a two game. It's 22 yards out. Mrs. It wide right like I'm

[00:02:45] you did write your own obituary so I did. I did. I'm done twice. I'm done twice. I did

[00:02:53] on the physical talent a decade ago and then I did it with chat G.P.T. the first time

[00:02:57] I had access just to see what it would write. I kind of feel like every episode, the last

[00:03:05] couple of episodes, we've gone down the dark. Death. Death. You're dying. You're getting

[00:03:15] older. We don't want that. We don't want that.

[00:03:20] Sarah.

[00:03:21] We're going to try.

[00:03:22] It's not as nice place to work. We'll just say that.

[00:03:24] This is Tardar.

[00:03:26] I said a lot of work played.

[00:03:27] Tell us also about that because your best practices institute also has an award they

[00:03:34] all put out around loved most love workplaces.

[00:03:37] Yes.

[00:03:38] It's fascinating because when we talked to you a couple of weeks ago, that just is a cool

[00:03:43] award and tell us a little bit more about that.

[00:03:46] Yeah thanks. I love that conversation we had because it focused on how a loved workplace

[00:03:52] really is how people listening co-created together, lining values, having a shared vision,

[00:04:00] respecting and feeling respect, and being able to achieve outcomes together.

[00:04:03] This is Spark model we have. The fact that we ask questions around do you really love your

[00:04:08] company? Do you love your CEO, your managers, and then asking questions really about what

[00:04:15] do we do well to be loved? What can we do better, Tether to be loved?

[00:04:19] Listening deeply to those comments and then the company doing something about it.

[00:04:23] Not just hearing and not just understanding it's doing something about it, developing

[00:04:27] skills and addressing these comments right into the bowels of the organization, right

[00:04:33] to the front lines and being able to transform what that workplace is really all about.

[00:04:39] That's what most love workplaces did it within a research project for my book and great company

[00:04:45] originally and found out why do people fall in love with each other first?

[00:04:51] That was my first question.

[00:04:53] A crazy way to begin a study on organization development but I looked at it in Sky Arthur

[00:04:59] Arons. He found out how people fall in love with questions and staring, right?

[00:05:04] So I did the same, it's literally staring each other like this.

[00:05:08] And so I did the same thing in companies but instead of for 60 seconds that Arthur did

[00:05:14] I brought it down to about 20 seconds staring so it didn't get as creepy as it was with

[00:05:19] Arthur. So and then I asked different questions, the questions are different.

[00:05:24] It's about how do you co-create?

[00:05:27] How do you feel like you align your values?

[00:05:29] What are your values?

[00:05:30] How do you respect and be respected?

[00:05:31] These more work related questions that when we share them and understand them and we

[00:05:36] get to know that person and how they operate right and how they consider what love really

[00:05:42] is to them in the workplace so getting to that qualitative and then saying well what

[00:05:47] is the worst situations you've been through?

[00:05:49] Tell me your horror stories and then tell me the stories of you doing, being in situations

[00:05:54] at work when you really love it.

[00:05:55] So this deepening of understanding about this other half or more of your life that we

[00:06:00] spend working has been debunked by virtue of this emotional connectedness concept and

[00:06:06] a loved workplace concept.

[00:06:08] And love in a way that you're framing it up I would assume that's dynamic right?

[00:06:13] Like it's not like a postcard, like a Polaroid where you just take a picture in time and

[00:06:18] like okay that's it, that's the criteria.

[00:06:20] It just seems to me that that's something that's going to be more fluid or mercury.

[00:06:25] Very much so because the external factors play a key.

[00:06:31] Also things could be technology where you talk to views case new tech coming out.

[00:06:38] It could be that people are frustrated in the front lines because they're not getting

[00:06:41] the tech they need or it could be as deep as we're having retention of our top bosses

[00:06:49] right?

[00:06:50] And this new the CEOs leaving whom we loved and there's new ones coming in that we need

[00:06:54] to get to know even more right.

[00:06:56] There's all these different factors and that with that then the fluidity of the spark model

[00:07:01] is definitely definitively correlated to external factors.

[00:07:07] We see that time and again growth phases.

[00:07:10] There's cultures at scale during growth periods, declines as well when we lose lots of talent

[00:07:17] similarly when we gain lots of talent right they're both factors so we lose culture and

[00:07:23] sometimes we need to gain culture at certain points of time all fluid as you said and

[00:07:29] affect the mercury.

[00:07:31] This is all fascinating to me.

[00:07:35] I've always been personally I've always been the cynic of employees loving a company.

[00:07:43] I've always felt that way out of all the companies that I've worked with there were two one

[00:07:50] was enterprise Renacar way back like long time ago where I kind of was like what am I

[00:07:56] doing here?

[00:07:57] But then afterwards I've appreciated everything I've learned from there but the one company

[00:08:03] out of every place that I've worked connects them.

[00:08:07] I legitimately fell in love with that company.

[00:08:09] I bought into the mission, I drank the cool aid, I love the leadership, I love the people

[00:08:14] everything about it and if you but if you would have given me a survey back then or asked

[00:08:20] me how do I feel about the company?

[00:08:23] I would have said yes either way like I love them because I would have been afraid that

[00:08:29] they would have you know there would have been some type of negative to come back to me

[00:08:33] had I have not.

[00:08:34] So my question to get around that or my question in the long way to get to the question is

[00:08:42] how do you discern between those employees that are answering truthfully from the harm

[00:08:48] versus just answering because they feel like they need to?

[00:08:53] We just had a case like this where we can't say who it was, where it was a definitive pattern

[00:09:01] of deceit and we identified it because we have data scientists and they could do a lot

[00:09:11] of stuff.

[00:09:12] They can figure out the smart people way smarter than I'll ever be and they found patterns

[00:09:19] and they said, Lou we got one.

[00:09:22] So we know when they're lying.

[00:09:26] Is that the first one that you were able to or that you've actually ever found?

[00:09:31] Was it a kind of a shock to you?

[00:09:32] The first one I was told about certainly came to my attention.

[00:09:36] We've been doing deeper looking into it now would companies want to know that?

[00:09:43] I'm not sure if they're.

[00:09:46] Well, it depends on who you talk to at the company.

[00:09:49] Marketing when you're doing with an award, marketing just wants to award.

[00:09:53] Like buying large whatever you have to do to get the award if you got to put a gun,

[00:09:58] the employees had to answer their questions correctly.

[00:10:01] That's been going on for a long time in the awards space.

[00:10:06] Now if you talk to the C-suite they'd probably be like, oh no, no, we just wanted the truth.

[00:10:10] We wanted this and the other but if you're talking to a marketer that just wants to put

[00:10:14] a sticker on something that says that we won this award, they don't care how.

[00:10:19] And that's for the absolutely.

[00:10:22] I mean, sorry to interrupt because I'm excited about what you're saying.

[00:10:28] That's exactly where certification comes in.

[00:10:31] So with certification we guarantee that you get certified which means you go through

[00:10:37] workplaces, you go through the MLW app several times, get correct data.

[00:10:41] We ensure that we know it's accurate data.

[00:10:44] You are able to look at the proper sentiment, emotions, themes and identify the spark areas

[00:10:51] that benchmark against the averages as well as the love or sentiment toward those areas.

[00:10:59] And we can identify where there's discrepancies in the data itself.

[00:11:03] There's too much positive, too much negative variances.

[00:11:06] And they do it over again until they get certified.

[00:11:11] So we guarantee it because you keep going until you get honest and we take being honest very

[00:11:19] seriously.

[00:11:20] We'll see.

[00:11:21] OK, so sentiment to me, if I go to a site and it's all positive like a sushi restaurant

[00:11:32] will just use something simple.

[00:11:33] OK, let's say Kip is a right.

[00:11:35] So a sushi restaurant and it's all positive like there is no negative sentiment.

[00:11:40] I don't trust it.

[00:11:41] You had 6000 customers last year and no one had a bad experience.

[00:11:45] I don't trust that at all.

[00:11:47] I also don't trust equally as much.

[00:11:50] I don't trust all negative sentiment.

[00:11:54] So something that same sushi restaurant is like everything is just getting hammered.

[00:11:58] Why are they still in business?

[00:11:59] Come on.

[00:12:00] There's something to be in there.

[00:12:01] To me, it's an 80, 20, 70, 30.

[00:12:06] I want to see a preponderance of positive sentiment.

[00:12:10] But I also want to see some negative sentiment.

[00:12:15] On the reviews, I go to the three and fours.

[00:12:17] I look at those three and fours.

[00:12:19] I do on Amazon.

[00:12:20] I'm guilty.

[00:12:21] Five.

[00:12:22] Yeah, I just go down.

[00:12:23] I'll see them.

[00:12:24] But three and four is what makes me make my decision to purchase.

[00:12:29] How does that translate into the world that you have to lose?

[00:12:33] Yeah.

[00:12:34] So the science behind it is true.

[00:12:37] You can find patterns like that, right?

[00:12:41] Then we have seen companies that are far below averages and there are comments that substantiate

[00:12:48] those averages.

[00:12:49] So the reason why this is particularly useful is that we have three different steps which

[00:12:56] is the question about love of these different areas and then the spark construct itself

[00:13:03] and combine with the comments and the story, right?

[00:13:07] So what story your culture profile are you really giving?

[00:13:11] So all those have to be aligned.

[00:13:13] Yeah, I'll have to be aligned exactly.

[00:13:15] So is your story the same as your spark?

[00:13:17] Is same as your love scores, same as your comments?

[00:13:20] That's harder to game, right?

[00:13:22] It's harder to game, exactly.

[00:13:24] The more variables you give, the harder it is to game the system.

[00:13:28] Right.

[00:13:29] So I hate software categories in general but if those practitioners listen to the show,

[00:13:36] what would they think of where they place the league?

[00:13:39] Where would they put that in their tech stack for like a better terms?

[00:13:43] We've got an awesome feedback.

[00:13:45] You know, this is people are actively using this platform and when we did initially introduce

[00:13:54] it, people love the fact that they can take the proper feedback that's taken for them

[00:14:03] and identified for them where it is inside the company and action it with managers or

[00:14:10] BPs so that they don't have to send angry texts to managers and say, hey, I got this horrible

[00:14:17] feedback.

[00:14:18] Go take care of this.

[00:14:19] They send them directly to all of it to the managers for their particular locations

[00:14:25] and can follow up with them on these action transformation plans that is set up and we

[00:14:32] set it up with their demographics, their locations, departments so that it can be more accessible

[00:14:41] and simple to use for any CHRO.

[00:14:46] And what's important for them where they truly understand the value of it is that it's

[00:14:52] specific to the level of workplace index.

[00:14:54] So while you could take data, put it into your own system and you could do that by the

[00:15:00] way, you could take all the level of workplace data, put it in a CSV file, throw it into

[00:15:05] Qualtrics or others which are wonderful tools.

[00:15:08] We love you Qualtrics.

[00:15:09] We love you all the other areas.

[00:15:11] It's your amazing what you've done throughout the years.

[00:15:14] I highly value everything you've done and the key is that we all are here to play together

[00:15:20] right because we are the level of workplace index because we are the emotional connectedness.

[00:15:26] It's a specific tool that we use that it cannot be utilized other places.

[00:15:32] So if you want to get a qualified or certified in say, diversity in career advancement and

[00:15:39] for women, for LGBTQ plus all of the various ERGs, it comes from us because we are looking

[00:15:47] specifically at that love component to what degree is this a love workplace for women

[00:15:51] for diversity?

[00:15:52] And then we have the lower place index certified.

[00:15:55] So, you know, we have an action plan just for that.

[00:15:59] So what we recommend is if you're super tech savvy, if you're that where you're like the

[00:16:05] tech savvyist to this aviace and there's a lot of them out there.

[00:16:09] Then use our platform and connect it to yours, use it for the and we're totally cool

[00:16:15] of that.

[00:16:16] Just realize that we have a construct that you can't recreate.

[00:16:20] Because it's part of the certification and what matters is certification.

[00:16:25] There's enormous value and certification in this process of culture profile, of getting

[00:16:31] those kinds of insights just from profile, of taking the love workplace index and exploring

[00:16:37] how that impacts your company both in love and in comments and in the spark scores and

[00:16:43] taking an action plan from that and pushing it into the organization is just it's hard

[00:16:49] to do.

[00:16:50] First of all, you can't just do it because our team actually labeled everything based upon

[00:16:57] the spark scores.

[00:16:58] We actually looked at how comments relate to specific spark components.

[00:17:04] That took a long time.

[00:17:05] That was an easy thing and a lot of money.

[00:17:08] You know, so right?

[00:17:10] I mean, that took a lot of money and then only got one person funding it right now,

[00:17:14] right?

[00:17:15] Right.

[00:17:16] And God love our customers because it's cash positive, right?

[00:17:20] I God bless you all.

[00:17:21] Thank you for believing in us and this team because we will be here without you.

[00:17:28] So Lou, take us, take us through the use case here.

[00:17:32] I'm interested.

[00:17:33] I want to know.

[00:17:35] I want to know all the information in my company, right?

[00:17:37] I want to know where to start.

[00:17:39] I'm not love.

[00:17:40] Yeah.

[00:17:41] Where do I start?

[00:17:42] And what is that process of life for me?

[00:17:44] The first part of the process because I can give a use case on this.

[00:17:47] I mean, and let's, I'm going to give you use case.

[00:17:49] I'm not going to say the name of the company.

[00:17:51] They probably would let me and I should have it separately.

[00:17:55] So it's a, it's a, it's a $3 billion company and they're growing and they're awesome

[00:18:02] CEO, super amazing strategy.

[00:18:06] The key is growth and the key is retention during growth.

[00:18:11] That was really the, it still is the number one thing.

[00:18:14] So, the first step, I'll get tactical, right?

[00:18:19] And then we can go into the wise.

[00:18:20] So the first step around this is to really take a deep dive into your categories, demographics,

[00:18:27] locations and the job, job categories, right?

[00:18:30] We need to know who it is that is really our most important frontline, which is what it

[00:18:37] came to actually when we dug deeper into it.

[00:18:40] And who are the people who are supporting the frontline and ultimately the biggest end

[00:18:45] user, which this could happen with a lot of people.

[00:18:48] It's happened to be physicians.

[00:18:49] Okay?

[00:18:50] So in this case, it's physicians were serving physicians to give them a differentially better

[00:18:55] experience and thus patients to give them an even better patient experience.

[00:19:00] So the staff is completely in service to physicians, right?

[00:19:05] So we had to find out what's happening in this environment where people are leaving so much,

[00:19:11] right?

[00:19:12] That, so we, so the first step is take the lower workplace index.

[00:19:18] That was the first thing.

[00:19:19] And do the profile in terms of things that you're currently doing because you want to take

[00:19:23] an inventory, right?

[00:19:25] Everybody thinks they're doing the right thing at first.

[00:19:28] Everybody like oh, we have a leadership development program.

[00:19:30] We have organization shit great.

[00:19:32] Okay, let's slow down.

[00:19:33] Let's look at what's really happening.

[00:19:35] So we did low lower place index.

[00:19:37] We looked at very carefully where are the pockets in the spark model that are lower, which

[00:19:43] ones are higher?

[00:19:45] And then we looked at the love scores and the comments.

[00:19:49] So here's what we found.

[00:19:51] So the key was frontline collaboration and respect.

[00:19:56] Okay.

[00:19:57] That so as a lesson that are those were the areas that needed more help.

[00:20:02] And let me tell you why there's two reasons.

[00:20:06] Number one was because of the tech that was happening.

[00:20:09] So tech was changing.

[00:20:10] It was harder to do your job in the front lines because of the tech.

[00:20:13] It was post COVID so that the CEO wonderfully kept everybody during COVID.

[00:20:19] He was the only healthcare institution during COVID that really kept and retained all talent

[00:20:25] which is extraordinary, which also attributed to his great growth and his testament to

[00:20:30] his leadership.

[00:20:32] While other hospitals were more some way he was keeping them and they were massively successful

[00:20:39] during that time.

[00:20:40] Africa though not as many people came back, right?

[00:20:43] It's harder to keep after that and technology got a little harder.

[00:20:47] I was harder to interact more with patients.

[00:20:50] Physicians were turning over because it's after the 30 year cycle.

[00:20:53] That's what physicians are.

[00:20:54] Three year cycle you retire and play golf the rest of your life, right?

[00:20:58] So that's the thing.

[00:20:59] So there was this physician profile, right?

[00:21:05] Of these love physicians in each of these areas or locations.

[00:21:10] And they we have a famous thing called the Ernie profile because Ernie was a physician,

[00:21:17] loved Ernie, loved everything he did, gave Christmas presents to him, he gave Christmas

[00:21:21] presents to them, everyone wanted to come to the job, hugged him in the morning, Ernie

[00:21:26] we love you, patients loved them.

[00:21:28] You know they're thank you, he's like a guru and the place was totally aligned and totally

[00:21:32] loving it and they were jiving and everything was good.

[00:21:36] So the respect was tight, the collaboration was tight, they achieved more, they had the vision

[00:21:41] more.

[00:21:42] So we asked how do we make that even better?

[00:21:47] So because now that new physicians are coming in, they don't know who these people are,

[00:21:51] now nurses are mad, front desk are mad, I don't feel valued respected.

[00:21:56] No actually we got to value respect physicians too.

[00:22:00] They'll write it right?

[00:22:01] So how do you go both ways?

[00:22:03] So this physician catalyst experiences get to know more, love them more immediately when

[00:22:10] they come in.

[00:22:11] We don't have 30 years.

[00:22:13] We have six months, we have two months at most.

[00:22:17] So there's one example, right?

[00:22:20] The other example is transformation through new systems, we got to change systems, let's

[00:22:25] do it immediately.

[00:22:26] And then good training, core development, front end they're doing a fantastic job at it

[00:22:31] and they're realizing that it was that their retention is an issue about the technology

[00:22:38] and this feeling of oneness inside the front lines rather because when asked the question

[00:22:45] why do you think people are leaving?

[00:22:47] They said I think we're stressed out or burned out, I said what's post COVID.

[00:22:51] Tell me more about that, I don't know.

[00:22:54] So they couldn't identify these underlying issue that we were helping them now understand

[00:23:00] tech, it was true, tech was it, change the tech, make it simpler, make the operation simpler,

[00:23:07] give them a simpler way to initiate with patients and work with patients like the way

[00:23:13] it used to be, they wonderfully elite job to be able to be with patients like even to help

[00:23:23] them.

[00:23:24] That's the way it was and we're bringing that back now with this new work bringing the

[00:23:28] back the elite right because these are wonderful, wonderful people like Salt of the Earth, amazing

[00:23:35] people, the center of the country who love people okay?

[00:23:40] So it's you wonder what's going on?

[00:23:44] Well, it's tech and people leaving, physicians so we help them see the things that are human

[00:23:49] in their lives but they're just not seeing as much and give them ways to interact with

[00:23:55] new processes and new ways of getting back in sync and connected with the stakeholders

[00:24:02] so that it's not so detached.

[00:24:05] And identifying that in each of those individual departments and the sentiment and how

[00:24:11] they've lowered enable us to start bringing them higher and realize the things that really

[00:24:15] matter in life.

[00:24:17] So one of the things you mentioned at the beginning is turning inside or comments etc into action

[00:24:26] so I want to go back to that for just a second because it seems like it's a closed

[00:24:29] loop, it also seems if I'm a practitioner this isn't a one and done, this is a that seems

[00:24:37] to be kind of a constant pursuit so you can be at a certain place but next week, you

[00:24:43] know two months later, two years later you might be in a much different place with inside

[00:24:50] so you might be getting inside okay great you get comments fantastic reading ratings

[00:24:55] whatever but that turns into an action plan.

[00:24:58] So tell us a little bit about how that inside how you garner that inside or how the technology

[00:25:03] helps you garner that inside and what that does for people so that they can actually impact

[00:25:08] change.

[00:25:10] So in this case we'll take the use case and I can look at other use cases too, let's

[00:25:13] take this particular case so in this case there's different there's many locations it's

[00:25:18] about 120 locations so one might say that they're all micro cultures right?

[00:25:25] And what is important what we've done is we each of those locations have different managers

[00:25:31] ops managers so they all get their own action plans with comments positive and negative

[00:25:37] and the skills or actions that need to be improved.

[00:25:40] Now because of that they can better see what people are saying in each of these locations

[00:25:46] what they're feeling how they're going what they're going through in their minds and

[00:25:49] make it easier to implement these kinds of new programs number one but also address them

[00:25:55] one-on-one with people and weren't doing that as much.

[00:26:00] So people were detached from communication so there was things as simple as you know

[00:26:09] the rug needed to get changed right?

[00:26:13] And they didn't feel comfortable telling the headquarters that just for whatever reason

[00:26:18] because they have this wonderful head of facilities, he's an awesome dude he wants to find out

[00:26:23] all the time what to do.

[00:26:25] Now this gave the head of facilities of the whole enormous health care company clinic

[00:26:34] it's a clinic the ability to get that feedback quickly change it and get it done.

[00:26:39] So when it gives an open line of comps right any time feedback open line of comp so that

[00:26:47] he can get it done because if you guys up to him he'd be at all 110 locations simultaneously

[00:26:53] but there's going to be three or four who fall off just by virtue of the sheer numbers.

[00:26:59] So the system reduces that kind of error by giving a free line into that head of ops or

[00:27:09] head of maintenance that facilities.

[00:27:12] Lou how does the tech, how does your tech play into the recommendations or the action plans?

[00:27:20] Yep so the two recommendations that we look at are the spark model so that and that has

[00:27:27] 220 skills related to each of the spark areas so that they can action on.

[00:27:34] So they're actual actions so you might be low on let's say co-creation right or systemic

[00:27:41] collaboration area and the action would be actively listen mirror back and create with

[00:27:48] each individual a plan for moving forward and follow up that would be an action right

[00:27:54] and and that's different for for a leader and we change we differentiate it leader manager

[00:28:00] or staff level so at a leader level you'll be open about it and then you'll press down

[00:28:04] to the manager to actually do the action learning and project management at staff level

[00:28:08] you're doing the co-creation and you're taking part in it.

[00:28:12] So all the different actions are different so there's that component in the action plan.

[00:28:16] The second component to the action plan is getting the positive comments and having

[00:28:21] people brag about you more in glass tour indeed right because we found is that 80% of

[00:28:28] the people in glass tour and indeed are our frontline managers so your frontline managers

[00:28:35] are the ones who are speaking up the most and the executives who you communicate with on

[00:28:40] a daily basis they're not saying anything and they're the ones that are happiest.

[00:28:44] So we want more frontline to say the things that are positive when they feel them and then

[00:28:52] address the negative in front line directly with them one-on-one with executives and leaders

[00:28:57] so you can bring them up to positive sentiment and then to be the branch champions for your

[00:29:02] company.

[00:29:04] So now or do you think in the future that you'll look at kind of listening tools so signaling

[00:29:13] tools and things like that because right now I'm assuming that a lot of this is inside

[00:29:17] the attack it's also a lot of surveys of the zoom that you're getting the data somehow

[00:29:23] from folks.

[00:29:25] So if not now do you think there's a future in the product for actually doing signaling

[00:29:31] and listening to employees?

[00:29:34] Yeah exactly that's exactly right so the additional custom surveys are

[00:29:42] can be pinpointed into the department's location's divisions or to the managers or

[00:29:51] whoever it is so that they can use it to go to Garner and collect feedback and immediately

[00:29:57] get the same kinds of insights they would with a level or place index which is sentiment

[00:30:03] emotion of love or disappointment anger all the things that usually come up and positive

[00:30:10] negative neutral sentiment and then theming according to the model itself so you know

[00:30:16] while people probably know the the Burt analysis from Twitter which is a machine learning model

[00:30:22] from Twitter we did was we adapted that Munt Burt model to our own level of present-ex

[00:30:31] model so it's not just Twitter statements it's all the comments from Loveroy's index

[00:30:36] which is like 600,000 and we put it through the our model rather than Twitter model which

[00:30:42] has very different Twitter back then it was done back during Twitter before X so we actually

[00:30:49] we adapted it made it better and it's our own so that applies to that listening that

[00:30:55] being a listening skill listening system right so that any any survey that goes out now

[00:31:01] has that lens of the most love workplace answers and can identify properly how it relates

[00:31:10] to improving your scores getting certified or for that matter being a more engaged high

[00:31:15] performing high recruitment workforce because according to what we've found four up your

[00:31:22] four times more likely to not stay perform more and choose a most love workplace than other

[00:31:29] most love workplace other other workplaces the company so you this model is proven to

[00:31:35] show to be a retention talent acquisition and and also a performance tool directly related

[00:31:42] in research and attributed to other studies you know how long does the process take so if

[00:31:48] we were to say yes Ryan and I are running a billion dollar company blah blah blah okay

[00:31:53] and we say you know what we never yeah no we we've never done this bit it seems pretty interesting

[00:32:00] let's go yeah absolutely so the culture profile we can do you get that set up in a week right

[00:32:08] um easily uh second second week uh we do the love workplace in this get it set up do your

[00:32:15] do your data put your data get it set up and all your demographics then we set up the email

[00:32:21] send it out to everybody uh usually takes about three to four weeks to collect the information about

[00:32:27] that's a simple love workplace index um though it takes up anywhere from three to five minutes for

[00:32:32] an individual take it we consider it to be a pulse so it's not not wrong right and then uh

[00:32:39] getting the data uh once we close it you get it same day you know it's right so you get all

[00:32:44] the same data so let's say six weeks right each week yeah all right so let's say six weeks

[00:32:50] right and why wouldn't we use this if we were a VC about to invest in a company

[00:32:56] hmm okay let's say a BCD round so it's a large enough company yeah maybe your private equity at

[00:33:03] that point or if we're doing M&A and we're thinking about acquiring a company and merging it with

[00:33:09] another company yeah why wouldn't we do this as due diligence so I'm not even thinking about it

[00:33:13] as the award makes the company better. I'm trying to figure out is this actually a good company?

[00:33:19] I can see all the numbers, I can see the PNLs, so I can see profit and loss and all that stuff.

[00:33:23] But do people love me?

[00:33:25] Yeah, but do people love you?

[00:33:26] Yeah, it's six weeks of time.

[00:33:29] Yeah, it's an interesting point.

[00:33:31] I was going to ask what's the trigger for a leader to bring you in?

[00:33:37] But I like this question better. Why?

[00:33:40] Why not? It makes complete sense. I love it.

[00:33:43] If I'm going to go out and spend 300 million into a company and buy them,

[00:33:48] why would not want to know this?

[00:33:52] Yeah, I would want to know.

[00:33:55] Personally, I would very much want to know and I would use it personally

[00:34:00] to make that decision if I were to invest in a company.

[00:34:03] I'd want to know this because...

[00:34:05] Is that a use case for you now?

[00:34:07] Are our investors or VC firms using this?

[00:34:10] No, they're not.

[00:34:12] I would invest in a VC firm or giving them money.

[00:34:17] That's blue ocean right there because again, those folks that...

[00:34:21] especially the people that put the deals together,

[00:34:23] so the gold and the stocks of the world, etc.

[00:34:26] Before they take our company public,

[00:34:28] this would be something that they could do that.

[00:34:31] Again, you can see all the numbers in the world but you still don't know the soul,

[00:34:35] which is really what we're talking about as the soul of the organization.

[00:34:38] You still don't know the soul, which again,

[00:34:42] some people probably, some capitalists would probably not care fair.

[00:34:45] But by and large, if you're thinking about a business that's going to last for a long time,

[00:34:51] you're going to know what you're getting involved with.

[00:34:54] I think it's a huge market.

[00:34:56] I mean, again, six weeks isn't for those folks.

[00:34:58] Nothing.

[00:34:59] Six weeks is around here.

[00:35:01] Nothing.

[00:35:02] It's funny you say like soul of the machine, right?

[00:35:05] Great book and it matters.

[00:35:09] Soul is what drives companies, is what drives profits,

[00:35:12] which drives legacy.

[00:35:15] It's what improves or increases stock price.

[00:35:22] It's what moves cryptocurrency.

[00:35:24] It's what moves the new market,

[00:35:27] the new way that we perceive the marketplace.

[00:35:30] Bitcoin.

[00:35:31] Let's see, when you're talking about the use case for the healthcare facility,

[00:35:35] come to me, the two billion dollar company.

[00:35:37] What drives them,

[00:35:40] everything kind of leads to if you do NPS with them,

[00:35:43] everything leads to patients satisfaction, right?

[00:35:47] That's the end game for them is if they can increase that number.

[00:35:52] So really becoming a loved workplace helps them fix all of the whatever problems

[00:35:58] that are there, address all of that stuff.

[00:36:00] But really what it does is it increases patient satisfaction,

[00:36:04] which is the game.

[00:36:05] Absolutely.

[00:36:06] And the way they look at it is their soul is physicians, right?

[00:36:12] They love that they're there to serve physicians to serve patients better.

[00:36:16] Right.

[00:36:17] So all of their everything drives there, right?

[00:36:21] That's their strategy and model to improve patients' experiences.

[00:36:25] And if you know, if in the event that there's as you said,

[00:36:29] the mercury is rising or lowering,

[00:36:32] if you can make the constant emotional connectedness and as you said, soul,

[00:36:38] and enable that kind of homeostasis, right?

[00:36:43] To occur, you're in a better position than you were before.

[00:36:49] What type of company should be looking at this?

[00:36:53] What size company is there the size company?

[00:36:56] I mean, can 10 person companies do this?

[00:36:58] What's the, yeah, what's the floor?

[00:37:01] Because I think the ceiling could be whatever it is, right?

[00:37:04] But what's the floor?

[00:37:05] What can we, you need data?

[00:37:09] So what can we, what's the, what's the floor of this thing?

[00:37:12] Well, there are some interesting data around floor.

[00:37:16] So if you have five or less,

[00:37:19] you actually can determine who the people are when you take the survey.

[00:37:23] So it becomes a different kind of question.

[00:37:26] 10 is similar to, yeah, 10 or two.

[00:37:29] So small companies, while they could do it, probably 50,

[00:37:34] it most likely isn't truly small.

[00:37:37] I don't mean just the small, medium size business,

[00:37:42] without a true dedication to culture,

[00:37:45] like an actual dedication work,

[00:37:47] you may even have human resources

[00:37:51] head who is dedicated to it or has it in their remit,

[00:37:55] or you have dollars budgeted for it.

[00:37:59] Unless you do, most likely you're 50 on up.

[00:38:03] Our sweet spot starts at 100 on up.

[00:38:07] The better ones that stick with us are around the 400 mark, 500 mark

[00:38:15] and growing.

[00:38:17] We've seen a lot of 500 to 800.

[00:38:20] And then some 1,000 to 5,000, a good amount there, 5,000 plus also.

[00:38:27] So it kind of moves around that space.

[00:38:30] Definitely the lower ones though in the 100 less aren't,

[00:38:34] aren't as, um, aren't as helpful because we would have to anonymize too much,

[00:38:39] too much and we, not just that are themes that come out,

[00:38:42] we would be just out of our own responsibility,

[00:38:45] our own ethical responsibility.

[00:38:48] We would have to not give a comment, we'd have to theme it even more

[00:38:53] just to protect people's anonymity.

[00:38:57] Can you publish your, uh, you publish

[00:39:01] give a relationship with I think a magazine?

[00:39:03] Is it fortunate?

[00:39:04] Newsweek.

[00:39:05] We have, uh, we have four issues in Newsweek.

[00:39:09] America's most love workplaces, UK's most love workplaces,

[00:39:13] global most love workplaces and the excellence 1,000 index

[00:39:17] and companies when you get certified,

[00:39:19] you can get considered for any four of those.

[00:39:24] And, uh, do you see remote impacts love?

[00:39:29] And, uh, our flexibility is probably more, uh,

[00:39:33] the thing that's at least coming to run and eyes attention as people

[00:39:37] don't care so much about remote pure remote.

[00:39:39] More questions just flexibility.

[00:39:42] So, have you seen kind of the intersection of those two things?

[00:39:45] Absolutely.

[00:39:46] Um, our clients who are in information technology,

[00:39:50] who are in various, uh, tech-related fields,

[00:39:54] hybrid is very, very popular.

[00:39:57] It hits into a lot of a lot of the telecom especially and

[00:40:01] feels where you can, uh, you can have that kind of flexibility.

[00:40:05] Um, and, um, you know, remote obviously is a different game.

[00:40:11] Then the hybrid or onsite and this helps because you're able to get

[00:40:18] a finger to the wind despite the disparate locations and

[00:40:22] the distance between you and, um, you know, let me say roomy always said,

[00:40:27] I love the distance between us, right?

[00:40:30] I learned to love the distance and the great letters from a young poet

[00:40:33] and that's what this is about.

[00:40:34] It's identifying what that distance between us really is

[00:40:38] in a remote workforce and what it takes on a skill

[00:40:42] and comments level to really get to, to a place of connectedness

[00:40:46] and that, that takes work and requires a deeper look into these five elements.

[00:40:52] I feel like

[00:40:54] Lou would be a fantastic person to ask this question, William.

[00:40:59] Oh,

[00:41:00] it's not bad.

[00:41:02] It's a good question.

[00:41:06] No, I lost them just kidding.

[00:41:08] How do you define work?

[00:41:10] Mm-hmm man, that's a big one.

[00:41:11] Wow.

[00:41:12] That's a big one.

[00:41:13] That's another, um, that's another, uh, episode.

[00:41:19] Yeah, so all right.

[00:41:23] Ah, it's a big one.

[00:41:24] Now work can be different things than different people, right?

[00:41:28] I tend to today think about work when it comes to well-being.

[00:41:34] That's how I really connect work these days, um, to, uh,

[00:41:39] to how we can take create, how we can,

[00:41:43] but we can do work, if you will, like actual work and we think of it like potential energy

[00:41:48] and physics actual work that we push and a,

[00:41:52] an opposite or equal reaction becomes of our work

[00:41:56] because work is actually a physics term, right?

[00:41:59] And in order to give that energy, there has to be some sort of release of that energy later

[00:42:05] or reenergizing, um, to get there.

[00:42:08] So I think work must be redefined, especially with remote opportunities and even

[00:42:15] onsite opportunities where we're not constantly pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing

[00:42:20] and constantly looking at, um, you know, this response marathon, right?

[00:42:26] That we're doing and we, we could take our 40 minutes and find 20, 15, 20 of those minutes

[00:42:33] and, uh, and pull back deep breathing, coherence, meditation, walk away, let it go,

[00:42:40] stay to get to a cool place where you're at.

[00:42:43] So work is really, um, it's physics.

[00:42:47] It's really physics.

[00:42:49] It's pushing.

[00:42:50] It's how we do.

[00:42:51] It's how we succeed, how we achieve and the choice of what we do being related

[00:42:57] and, uh, or unrelated to what, um, we are most successful at.

[00:43:03] So if we're doing the wrong things too much, we're doing too much of the 80, not enough of the 20.

[00:43:10] So work is, uh, is, is about, it's very personal.

[00:43:15] It's redefining how you push what you do and how you renew and reenergize

[00:43:21] this, this core physics function that we all engage in every single day.

[00:43:26] So I'll ask this, last question for me, but I'll ask a super, super easy question.

[00:43:32] A lot of the, uh, the large language models are based on moral models, ethical models.

[00:43:39] So when we talk about love, of course being me, I would think of like the wolf of Wall Street,

[00:43:47] like Stratton.

[00:43:48] So if you were to survey those employees, they loved their work.

[00:43:56] Now they're doing, uh, a balls of cocaine every day, right?

[00:44:00] So like, but so is there, is there ethics and morality in love to workplaces or can the two

[00:44:09] be separated? Can you run a bad, um, can you run an unethical company

[00:44:15] and still be a loved company?

[00:44:19] So this is a big question, um, when they, when that we've had before, we talk about this a lot.

[00:44:25] And um, so okay, so here, here's the answer.

[00:44:30] Yes, you can absolutely 100% be loved and do unethical things.

[00:44:37] Right.

[00:44:37] 100% and in fact you can, you can perform on ethical activities, right?

[00:44:45] 100%

[00:44:46] People love it and you actually create a group think to do those negative things.

[00:44:50] Right.

[00:44:50] And that's happened at Enron, right?

[00:44:51] People loved it there.

[00:44:52] I'm making more money feeding my family better, right?

[00:44:55] For example,

[00:44:56] Right.

[00:44:56] It's like an old caloric cartel but yeah

[00:45:01] They'll do the thing.

[00:45:02] Enron said they had golden oozes, but

[00:45:06] you know, again, it's worth it.

[00:45:09] Sam Friedman, right?

[00:45:10] St.

[00:45:10] Right.

[00:45:10] Right.

[00:45:11] Yeah, he did the same thing, making people rich and they loved it.

[00:45:14] So so that is a great example.

[00:45:16] So the the check and balance of that is what we do in the excellence index and we're

[00:45:21] and we apply and we apply it in most of workplace which is there is a check

[00:45:26] that occurs in terms of their ethics in terms of we do legal case checks as well.

[00:45:31] Now, we've done two things though.

[00:45:34] William, we've we've number one, you know, people actually give us the legal

[00:45:39] case out externally and we're giving it to them.

[00:45:43] We have actually number one, we've we've

[00:45:47] supported those companies because we believe some of the lawsuits were unjust

[00:45:53] and unfair.

[00:45:53] So we've made our own decisions about these lawsuits and said, you know what?

[00:45:58] These aren't these are unfair.

[00:45:59] You know, we what they did because it seems that we've had

[00:46:02] situations where we'd seen people sue them for competitive purposes.

[00:46:07] Right?

[00:46:08] And they were nefarious the lawsuits were nefarious in of themselves.

[00:46:12] So we're extremely fair with lawsuits and how we perceive them.

[00:46:16] Then we've seen the opposite of that which is the end runs

[00:46:21] and that we cannot allow.

[00:46:23] So we will not allow and we play a hard line.

[00:46:28] But we are very forgiving when it comes to nefarious legal

[00:46:32] environment and my CEO and I Scott, it's got I talk about these issues all the time.

[00:46:38] We talk all the time and and we spend a good part of the year

[00:46:45] being lawyers for companies for brands

[00:46:49] and supporting the brands that need support.

[00:46:52] And they need somebody to be an advocate for them.

[00:46:59] Because they've been taken advantage of by people in lawsuits and unfairly and unjustly.

[00:47:04] And it's just like anything else, it's a maturity model.

[00:47:07] And so you catch somebody that already gets it.

[00:47:11] And so you can that already understands

[00:47:14] how to make a great place best place, etc.

[00:47:17] They understand how to make a really, really cool environment

[00:47:20] and make people feel like they're wanted and needed and all that other stuff.

[00:47:24] There's there's additive to that be to me, there's value in just making them better.

[00:47:30] Okay, that's I'm going to go out on limb.

[00:47:33] That's 20% of the workplaces in America.

[00:47:37] The other 80 are skewed the other direction

[00:47:41] in the sense of maybe they don't even know where to start.

[00:47:45] And so there's to me, there's tremendous value.

[00:47:48] If you're running a bad company, you're just, you know, let's just say it's a family business

[00:47:52] and your third generation into it.

[00:47:54] You just got into some bad habits, etc.

[00:47:57] Whatever, I think there's tremendous value in going into a poor company

[00:48:03] than and actually giving them this audit and saying,

[00:48:07] all right, here's where we are.

[00:48:11] We do it suck.

[00:48:13] Okay, here's all the data.

[00:48:15] Here's what we do now.

[00:48:16] Let's suck less.

[00:48:18] Yeah, right on.

[00:48:19] You're right on.

[00:48:20] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:48:21] And that's what we encourage that.

[00:48:25] And we want people.

[00:48:27] Yeah, we encourage sucking less.

[00:48:29] That's our tagline.

[00:48:30] We encourage sucking less.

[00:48:33] Let me work please.

[00:48:34] And I encourage you to be honest when they come to us.

[00:48:38] Because not enough people are honest.

[00:48:40] They come to us saying, oh, we're great.

[00:48:42] I said, no, it's chill out.

[00:48:43] It's okay.

[00:48:44] You don't have to be great.

[00:48:46] You know, I'm not going to go tell the culture police on you.

[00:48:49] And right?

[00:48:51] It is.

[00:48:52] If you're telling me you're great, that would be cool.

[00:48:55] Now that would be cool.

[00:48:55] I want to be a member of that.

[00:48:56] Hold your please.

[00:48:57] But if you're telling me you're great,

[00:49:00] I'm assuming that you're not great.

[00:49:02] You're not.

[00:49:03] Yeah, yeah.

[00:49:04] And love.

[00:49:05] Like all I'm really love.

[00:49:06] People love me.

[00:49:07] Oh, it's not.

[00:49:09] I would never something I would never ever say.

[00:49:12] So I'm totally comfortable with it.

[00:49:15] Lou, thank you so much for coming on the show.

[00:49:17] This has been so enjoyable.

[00:49:19] Just get to know you a little bit more and talk a little bit about

[00:49:21] every all the things that you do.

[00:49:23] And thank you so much.

[00:49:24] Thank you, William.

[00:49:25] I appreciate you so much as well.

[00:49:27] You understand what you've done for me

[00:49:29] and help to help bring awareness

[00:49:32] about most of workplace and workplaces

[00:49:35] and care deeply about our mission,

[00:49:37] which means the world in it.

[00:49:38] Thank you.