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How To Hire People Who Never Ever Quit · Mork Unfiltered

• speaker-0: We hire and fire really based on value. speaker-1: The single biggest thing that you know managers are struggling with isn't necessarily a skill, it's resilience. speaker-0: can't work together with other people, always causing like disruption, that one person can destroy results. speaker-1: They all say the same thing when you ask them what's the toughest part of like your job running the business? They're like speaker-0: You gotta have grit. Times are gonna get tough and you gotta have some grit to get through that. You're just not seeing that in young people. speaker-1: What's the first step a new CHRO could take to start the process of really hiring for culture? Welcome back to Mork Unfiltered, folks. Everybody in business says people are their greatest asset. Yeah, we've all heard that one before, but almost nobody can prove that on a spreadsheet. My guest today could do just that. She runs people and culture at a financial institution that has grown double digits organically for decades. No acquisitions. More expensive benefits there than her peers, more expensive comp than her peers, and she outperforms them in almost every single way on every single metric. She has spent 34 years arguing that HR is not just compliance, it is the engine of the company. And guess what? She has the numbers to back this up. So today we're gonna get into it. We're gonna get into how you actually tie purpose and culture to financial performance, why she thinks personality tests for hiring are malarkey, BS, whatever you want to call it, and the that was the resilience gap she sees in a whole generation that's entering the workforce. This is more gun filtered, and this is the story of Sean. Primer. Sean, welcome to the show. Glad to have you. Glad to have you. So one of the things that I wanted to start off with, because it's unusual that most people, when they get kind of a job offer, they they might say yes, they might say no, but you actually turned these guys down like three times. Tell us what happened. speaker-0: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. So at the time when the position up here at Consumers, I lived in Lansing. Count ⁓ right now I'm based in Kalmazou and that's where Consumers Headquarter ⁓ headquarters is. And I was the head of the HR association for Lansing. And so I received a call from a recruiter saying, Hey, we have this job in Kalmazou and I think that you should you should listen. And I was like, Listen, I'm happy in my job. I love what I'm doing, but I'll post it. you know, to our HR association and see if I can find someone for you. Well, he got some inquiries and maybe a week later he calls me back and says, Hey, I've had a couple of people say that they think you'd be great for this job. And I was like, listen, I'm from Lake Michigan. I got three kids. I've never even been to Kalamazoo. Like, I'm good. Thank you very much. And then maybe like a week after that, I got a call from somebody who had mentored me through throughout my career. 20 plus years. And she said, Hey, Sean, have you talked to this recruiter about this job in Kalamazoo? And and I was like, No, I've said no to him a couple of times. And she's like, You need to listen to him. This is your job. This job is everything you've told me you want and more. And I think you'd be a great fit. You you need to listen. So, and the rest is history. Here I am. speaker-1: Why do you think your friend said this? I mean, obviously she knew something about you that you kind of innately knew, but she saw it differently. What what was it about this opportunity that she saw that made it such a good fit for you? speaker-0: Yeah, so you know, at the public accounting firm, which is a great firm by the way, I would refer anyone who's interested in public accounting to for working there, you know, there was always a little bit of like push and pull. And it was me, you know, saying, Hey, here's the things that I think are the right strategy for people for comp. And then always that resistance on the other side saying, Hey, listen, we had to keep comp flat for three years. And and I was like, you know, when you keep comp flat. You're really gonna struggle to recruit the best talent, you're gonna struggle to retain people, engagement's gonna go down. So it was like examples like that. And so there's always like this push and pull. And she said that when she had talked to this person about the job, that he was like, They're ta they want a visionary. They want someone who understands what drives people, what drives business to really take them to the next level. And in the history of consumers at that time and even still today. Is average growth 18 and a half percent year over year at that time for 25 years. Now we're at, you know, 30 or almost 40 years of 18 and a half percent growth year over year, all organic. And you can't do that if you're not like driving right the best people, the thinkers, innovation, right? All of these things. And they're like, they want someone who has a vision to help them do that to continue this organic growth growth path. So You know, when I started here, we were three hundred and fifty-four million in assets. So that's fifteen years ago. Fast forward now we're two point six billion, all organic growth. So, you know, she's like that that's what you're designed to do. And so rather than be a cog in the wheel of an organization that's driven a little differently, again, great organization. They treat their people very well, just a different vision on how you get what you want from a long term growth perspective organically. Your recruitment and retention. speaker-1: And and when you when you went there for the interviews, what did the culture tell you about the organization and why it might be such a good fit for you? Like what what people never seem to pay enough attention to company cultures. I've heard so many horror stories of people like being like, ⁓ yeah, you know, and I was getting a bigger title and it was more responsibility, it was more money, and then they get there and then for X, Y, Z reason it didn't work out because it was a terrible culture fit. Wha what made you intuitively feel that this was gonna be the right fit for you? speaker-0: Well, it's interesting because I go into this interview all armed with with data and numbers about results that I've gotten over, you know, my career. And consumers said to me, like, We know all of that stuff. You have a successful career. You're director of HR for a large public accounting firm. We know that. We wanna know what's not that. What's what is it about you? How are you gonna look at our culture? How are you gonna drive our organization full? Forward with people strategy. And so it was just a different line of questioning versus tell me about, you know, the time you manage this, tell me about the time you manage that. It was like, no, what's your vision? How do you see our organization continuing to grow organically? We're, you know, nine locations today. What if we're 50 locations? How, how would you drive that vision? And so that was my first interview. After that first interview, they gave me a project to work on. Okay. And they said, here's the things we see in our culture, challenges we see. opportunities we see, how would you address them? So I had a, you know, I put together this whole project and presentation based on that. And yes, did it use my skill set and my degrees? Sh of course it used all of that. But ultimately they were looking to see my vision and how you drive success through culture and people, which is different than any organization I'd ever interviewed with or talked to. In my final interview with the CEO, he didn't ask me anything about HR. He just wanted to know me as a person. And get me to open up about, you know, what's important to me, what what are my values, you know, and what are the top things that I'm looking for in an organization I go to work for to make sure that we were aligned from a values perspective so that I could, you know, live and work inside that organization and be a great part of the team. speaker-1: And it's funny because you mentioned in one of our previous calls, you said that your husband had once pointed out that you were sadder to quit the job than you were excited about the dream job that you were chasing chasing. I mean, t tell me a little bit more about that. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, that actually that that statement actually dates back to why I'm in HR today. Right. ⁓ because I was going to school to be an elementary school teacher. And when I got to the point, I was working as a recruiter to put myself through college. And when it got to the point of quitting my job as a recruiter to be a teacher to do my student teaching, I was like not excited about it. And he goes, Well, then why are you doing it? And really the rest is history. That's why I sit here today. ⁓ so a lot of people are like, ⁓ you got married so young. I'm like, Okay, that saved me because If I wouldn't have gotten married so young, I'd probably be a a school teacher and I probably wouldn't be very good at it. So I love kids, but I kinda learned that, you know, it's n wouldn't have been my gift, I guess. speaker-1: Interesting. That's interesting that he saw that. I think it's it's always it's always very helpful to have people on the outside that know us maybe better than we know ourselves in certain cases and can kind of like rein us in when they see us kind of deviating off in a direction that maybe isn't the right one. ⁓ it's hard because oftentimes, you know, sometimes the people closest to us, you know, they want to protect us, so they want they want us to be safe, right? So there's an interesting kind of duality there. One thing speaking of dualities that I thought was interesting from our previous conversation. And something that definitely is not intuitive for a lot of professionals is people these days are always talking about, you know, efficiency and ROI and results and staying lean. And yet you come up and you're like, well, we're spending more on benefits and more on comp and we're still able to outperform our peers. Most people would that just would seem like a contradiction to them. How do you actually explain the link between investing in your people. And I think that the key word is investing, whereas most people see it as an expense. And the results that that you guys have been getting, this crazy 18% year on year growth organically over three decades. How how does that work? speaker-0: So I think feeds into a couple of things. Is one is our turnover is extremely low, right? So, you know, we're at we average under 10% turnover, which is really good for us because we invest a tremendous amount in developing people. So our internal promotion rate is right around 90%. So most of our leadership roles, most of our advancement roles are filled with people we've hired entry level here in our organization. speaker-1: That's a that's a question I was I was gonna ask you actually. It's like what I and I I know that some of these things you can't are numbers you can't talk about publicly, but like if you look at the number of people that you promote internally versus people you bring from the outside, how does that look? speaker-0: The exact number in front of me, but I can tell you when it comes to a leadership position, we probably have 10 to 15 open in a year and we maybe hire externally less than 10% of the time. So we really do try to to promote that internally. You know, sometimes when you're looking at like a vice president level, sometimes you you might have to hire externally. But even in that case, our last vice president that we hired in this organization wasn't an internal promote, but it was somebody who worked for us previously that we brought back into a VP role. So we have a lot of that. So yeah, it's, you know, that's one of the big investments we make in people is is training and development. Whether that's training and development that we develop, which we have a lot of that, or externally, we make a lot of those investments. So that's in addition to the comp and benefits. What the comp and benefits does. Is it really helps our employees focus on work when they're at work and they're not stressed about money? I'm a firm believer that you have to pay people enough and give them good enough benefits that they're not stressed about those things outside of work. Now, do I say our employees don't have any money stress? I'm sure they do. They absolutely do. We all do, right? But ultimately we know that we're paying more than competitive in our market in order to make it a less of a stressor. So when you do those things, and employees can come to work and their mental and ⁓ financial well-being is not in the tank, right? Because of their stressed about their health, they're stressed about this. Then when they come to work, they can be better teammates, they can serve our members better. And in then that's what drives results. We've seen year over year the direct correlation between high employee satisfaction and high member engagement. So, like our you know, employee satisfaction scores are about five point five out of six, our member engagement scores are like four point nine out of five. And so when you can do that, that drives your growth, right? That that drives your financial success as an organization. So when we've ever like years we've seen tiny dips in employ engagement, we will tend to see those tiny dips in member engagement. So there's a direct correlation between that, right? Because when your employees are excited to be at work and they're happy to be there and and they're engaged. They're excited to serve the member and the member feels that when they walk through the door. You know, when you walk into an organization and then and the employees are unhappy, yeah, you're not excited to be there either. So so yeah, I think, you know, for us that makes the ⁓ every bit of the investment worth it. And then the financial the financials back it up, right? speaker-1: So it's interesting. So so the argument that you make is you say, okay, we spend we invest a lot on people, but we have low employee churn as a result. So people stick around because they realize that companies investing not just in their salaries being competitive, but on their growth as individuals. They are more engaged at work and happier, which means that translates into consumers feeling more happier when they they go to one of your branches. That that's basically the argument that you make and the data correlates to to that from what you're saying. That's super interesting. Yeah, I mean the other organization that that you know I'm dying to get on the podcast. There's two other people than two other organizations I want to get on the podcast. One is Patagonia, because I think it's very much the similar the culture is very similar to what you're saying with the credit union. And the other organization that I'm really interested to get on the podcast is Trader Joe's, the the retail supermarket chain. Because I I I have one two blocks from my house and every time I go shopping speaker-0: Absolutely. Absolutely. speaker-1: There's just the people there. There's just an energy. There's a vibe. It's like people are nice and everybody's friendly and joking around. And yet, you know, they're very serious about their work. They're very well organized. The attention to customers is like, you know, people come up to you. Hey, did you find what you needed? Do you know do you know what you're looking for? And, you know, they're they're just always very friendly. And it's like I'm always happy to shop there. So I I I can see how there's a d direct result. I think the reason I asked you the question, Sean, is that So many people that I talk to, it feels like a disease. It's like people be like, well, if we spend on our people, you know, then we're raising costs, right? We, you know, our CFO wants to see the direct ROI. What would be your answer to that argument? speaker-0: You know, it's interesting 'cause our CFO tends to be even as generous or more generous than I am sometimes. So speaker-1: Like so I've gone and go ahead and invest more. speaker-0: We got we have a great CFO. He's like, you know, he's always worried about our bottom line, but at the same time, he gets it. So I'm not having to make that argument with him. ⁓ and we have a lot of, you know, discussions around that. You know, at the end of the day, your leadership team has to believe it and be invested in it too. So if you're and I'll use the example of my old role. Again, I loved my company, I loved my boss, our CEO was great. It was a different alignment, right? in what the strategy needed to be around people. And so, you know, instinctively, and and you can't blame them, right? Because of the works for with 800 accountants, right? I mean, it's it's a different environment. But I would say like the first thing they would think about, right, is the people side of here's where we need to make some cuts, right? So how like do we cut the 401k? Do we make the benefits more expensive for the employees or speaker-1: Right, right. speaker-0: raised deductibles, all those things. Those were all the discussions we were having on the HR side. And ⁓ here it's the opposite. So sometimes do we have to make changes to our benefits? Yes, absolutely. Because the market around benefits is very challenging right now. But we offer a hundred percent match on our four ⁓ one K up to ten percent. We have never touched that. Never. And we have zero intention. We would cut anywhere else, but not cut our employees' opportunity for financial well being in their retirement. So You know, ultimately I think as an organization, you have to have this is what we stand for, this is who we are, this is our culture. Our whole theme of our strategic plan is growth through culture and performance, meaning we grow and we grow fast, but we do it through our culture and we have to perform well as an organization. Right. So that means you don't grow at all costs. So if something breaks in our culture, we might slow growth. Or if our performance is faltering and we're not meeting numbers, we might make some adjustments to growth, right? But the culture is the middle and it's the foundation. And you just you don't you don't mess with the culture, right? That's what drives drives all of it. So we've doubled down on that. Our very first strategy. So that's our strategic plan theme. And then our very first strategy is culture first. And culture includes employees. Our members, giving back to our communities, all of those things make up our culture. And that's really first and foremost in everything that we do. And it drives results. So we're one of the top performing credit unions in the country. So I don't know what speaks better. speaker-1: Yeah. No, it it's it's interesting, right? Because cause you guys definitely have the numbers to back it up and you've been doing this for some time. So this is not a new formula. It is just like you have stuck to this formula of investing in people and investing in culture, and the numbers have shown that it works, right? What do you think boards and CFOs or even CEOs at other companies are getting wrong when they when they look at how money works when it comes to spending on employees, to use their word? What what are they missing? What are they getting wrong? What are they not seeing? speaker-0: Yeah, I think a lot of companies I speak to because I have people call me all the time and they're like, What are you guys doing? Like, what's your secret sauce? And I'm like Yeah. But but I think a lot of companies have made their peace with high turnover. I talk to ⁓ organizations that have two hundred percent turnover and they're like, That's just how it is. And I'm like, Do you understand how much two hundred percent turnover costs? That expense is way more than anything I'm spending. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so speaker-1: Can't you can't you come do that here? Yeah. speaker-0: But they haven't def they haven't calculated out what the cost is of the model they're using today. Right. Right. So when you have high turnover, that's one of the high costs. When you can't promote people within and you have to hire all of your leadership ta talent externally, that is a significantly higher expense. When you don't have any internal mechanisms for growing your people, they're gonna go somewhere where they can find growth, right? So I think speaker-1: Yeah, exactly. speaker-0: You know, the cost of that model is so expensive that like if you just take the slate, wipe it clean, and take the model of, hey, let's hire great talent and make sure we invest in them and find out what they need for them to be successful, then typically you'll find your organization like flourishes, right? And ⁓ but that's just such a hard Thing to do. And I say to HR people all the time, like, well, I don't have a seat at the table. I don't feel like I have a voice. And I'm like, you're working at the wrong organization then, because that organization has already decided that that's not their strategy. Yeah. Right. They want someone to come in and push paper and bring people through the door, but their strategy isn't to drive results through people innovation, through people, through culture. Right. And so, you know, I don't know that you can change the mindset of a CEO. Who doesn't believe that's a strong ⁓ business strategy. Actually speaker-1: Is is that is that in your words, is that the key? Is that if the CEO does not believe that people and culture can drive the strategy, then you're kind of shit out of luck, basically. Yeah. That's that's speaker-0: Absolutely. Yeah, because it has to come from the top, right? Exactly. I don't wanna constantly fight with my CEO and argue why it's the right decision. Now we I may come to him with an idea that I think is a great decision. He may go, Is it really? And let's talk about that and we might decide not to move forward with it. But it's not because he doesn't believe in our culture. He's just like Let's look at this a different way. Or I or he might come to me with something. I'm like, let's talk about that. And maybe that's not what we do, but let's look at it different way. But there's never a time when I question his commitment to people and culture. And I can't even think of anything that he said no to. But I think that could happen at some point, but it's not because he's not committed to people and culture. Right. And it might be we just have a different vision on that particular subject. But when it comes to comp, when it comes to benefits, when it comes to training and development. Those are non negotiables in our organization. And I fully believe it gets the results where people feel like they can perform at their best and be efficient and do all those things in order for us to exceed our goals. And we do exceed them nearly every single year. So speaker-1: That's amazing. That's amazing. So, so so let's let's let's talk about one part of your culture that I found very interesting because it reminded me a lot of my time in Google, because Google tends to be the same with regards to this and many other things that you spoke of. You guys run a five-step hiring process, and four people like have to say yes. One unconvinced person can sink the candidate. Yes. That that sounds like especially, you know, I so I I've worked with a lot of high growth companies and a lot of scale-ups. That sounds like so slow and expensive. Tell me more about this. Like what what does that process protect you from that a faster process would? speaker-0: Yeah. So it it's really interesting because we're we're hiring based on values. So I need to make that very clear. We hire and fire really based on values. We can teach you anything here. So we're not I mean, some things you need a certain skill set for, right? Like a workflow developer or whatever. You do need a skill set. However, most of our work for flow developers are people that we have trained to do that job. So we truly believe we can train you to do anything, but we can't train you for what your mother didn't teach you, I guess. If you wanna like, you know, values are really that foundation. And so, ⁓ you know, our recruiter, you know, she is step one, she's going through and she's doing some ⁓ you know, that that initial screening and she has to say yes to turn it on to the to the cultural team. And the cultural team is three to four people who sit in a room and really have that same interview that I had when I came in, where they're really trying to drill down to values. And so they have a a chart that they use like, hey, is this person coachable? Is it you know, all of those things. Yeah. And if one person feels strongly that they this person doesn't pass, if they can't con ⁓ if the other three can't convince them otherwise, that person does not go through to the what's our final step in the process, which is a a a realistic job preview or job shadow where they sit in the job to kind of learn what it'll look and feel like when they start. And that's so important because and we've maybe veered outside of that where we said yes to somebody, even though somebody in the process said no. I think we've done that twice and both times the person turned over in ⁓ wow in less than two years. speaker-1: Wow. I mean, what would you tell somebody what would what would you tell like, you know, a company that's growing fast to make the argument on why they should maybe not hire an outstanding candidate that does not necessarily fit with their culture? What why why would they not handle that hand hire that person if they really desperately need that? speaker-0: Yeah, I think again, it it's all what what's important in your organization. And if having an organization where people work together, thrive together and drive results together in a team environment, then you've gotta double down on that culture. Now if you're hiring people to work in their bedroom at their office and they're not interacting with a team and you know, that's not what's important to you, then then maybe you can make that decision. But in our organization We've we're five hundred employees that all work in an office or in our corporate office together and we're collaborating as a team. So you get one person who is negative, can't work together with other people, always causing like disruption, that one person can destroy results, right? Whether that's the culture, whether that's performance. And so we we are very slow to hire, but we're also quick to remove somebody. Who isn't adding to our culture in a positive way? speaker-1: So yeah, that that reminds me exactly of the best companies in Silicon Valley. There was an old saying which was hire slowly, fire fast. Mm-hmm. It was basically that. Yeah. And and and I I admit every time I've made a decision, a hiring decision that went against the culture, it didn't work out. Without fail. Yeah. Without fail. speaker-0: Yeah. And it's just and it always fathoms me when a manager tries to push us outside of it and says, I know this first will be great. Well, and I'm like, listen, they didn't pass. And and you know, if you decide to make that decision, I'm not gonna trump you, but if we turn that person over in two in less than two years, here's what this has cost and this is what it might cost your team. So you have to decide if you're ready for that expense. Because, you know, and the two times that that's happened, they were like, Should've listened to you. Should've listened to the you know or whatever. And I'm like I'm like, Well, I don't need to say I told you so, right? I never need to say that because they're always speaker-1: Conversation you have over over beers or tequila shots on a Friday evening. That's right. Should I I should have listened to you, Shaw? I don't know why I didn't listen to you. ⁓ what would you tell somebody who kind of wants to try this out? What what what what what's the first step a new CHRO could take to start the process of really hiring for culture? What's step one? speaker-0: Yeah. And I will this is something that we have developed over time. So when I started here, it was personality testing, which you mentioned that in your so like we had a personal test. Yeah, we'll get more Yeah. So we had a personality test, we had something else. And so the very first thing I did is I went through the hiring process again as an applicant. Like not with the lens of I'm getting hired, because that's the first time. So you're not really thinking about any of the things that didn't work well. speaker-1: We'll get back to that. Right. speaker-0: So I started to I went through our whole new hire process again as an applicant. Right. And kind of figured out where the things were not working and working. So I looked at our personality tests for over a year and said, I'm just not seeing where this having this score on this test is reaping us any results. And when I I should say, when I started your turnover was 20%, our CEO challenged me to cut it in half. And I was like, Okay, great. All right, let me see what I can do. So it was going through that. And so I'm like, well, what if we try this? What if we try that? So there's a lot of iterations of it. Right. Until we got to where we are today. And so I think you have to trial and error some things. But I think the very first thing you can do is look at your process and say what's clunky, what doesn't work well. Right. And then what are the things that new hires are saying worked well in the process and didn't work well in the process? And then let's look at our first year turnover. And the reasons why. And that's what we have to try to uncover in the interview process or in the hiring process to see if we can avoid that. Because most of the time in first year turnover, it was that somebody wasn't coachable, that they weren't they weren't a good team player, that they gossip about people behind their back. They so these are things we had to try to uncover. And no personality test is gonna tell you those things, right? Right. So It was how do we uncover these things through a process and that's when we came up with our cultural interview. speaker-1: Gotcha. That's that's super interesting. I mean, I I could not agree with you more. I have experienced it myself working with leaders. I had one young entrepreneur in Chile that he, you know, it took some convincing, but his 20th hire was his CHRO, which is very unusual for startups. They don't usually hire a head of HR that early. Most of them don't. They wait until they're like they're a hundred or a couple of hundred people. He hired him within the first twenty five people. She was absolutely amazing. She came in and sorted out, you know, the values, the purpose, the cultural rubric, you know, tet you know, ⁓ recruiting for attitude and values versus pedigree. And ⁓ and it was one of the most unique things of that of that company. And like you, they had very low turnover, ⁓ very high loyalty, very high engagement, and that resulted in very high financials. Yeah. So Yeah, I've I've seen it work in startup organizations as well as organizations of different sizes. And I wish to God more people listened to you and more CEOs understood this logic because I think it would change employment across the board. ⁓ I wanna switch now to the topic of resilience. We talked about this a little bit on our on our on our first call. And you told me, if I remember correctly, that, you know, the single biggest thing that, you know, managers are struggling with isn't necessarily a skill. It's it's resilience, right? It's People arriving without, you know, coping mechanisms, you know, to handle a tough day, people now who are just overwhelmed with the amount of new information, overwhelmed with all the changes coming from artificial intelligence and new ways of working. And they don't see they don't see, you know, they don't see where the end is, right? What are you actually seeing on the floor that made you name this as like one of your top issues? speaker-0: Yeah. So I think especially I mean, you always think of the world like before COVID and post COVID. I think we've seen it more since COVID and and even during COVID. So, you know, I live in the state of Michigan that was, you know, really shut down for a long time and technically weren't allowed to have employees w here in our corporate office. We've we have a ninety two thousand square foot building here. And we weren't even allowed to have people in. And after about six months of people working from home, we started to see a breakdown of like mental well being and and I literally petitioned the state of Michigan and said, Hey, I need to allow s people to come here into my office because if I don't, I'm worried about their mental health. So that was kind of the the first time I'd ever seen and what we were doing in HR is we were just ran we were just calling people like, Hey, just want to check in, see how you're doing. Yeah. You know in that and then we'd find out that people were really struggling mentally. So that was the first time we saw of it. And then after we came back to the office, you know, you we've got a lot of young people working for it for us that probably graduated high school during COVID, maybe like were freshmen, sophomore during that time frame. And I'm not saying COVID's the reason why, but I feel like all of a sudden there was a lack of like support systems for young people. Right. And and so they they come into the workplace and they really don't know how to handle these difficult situations. So either they were in isolation too much. I think we got into a mode where like parents really kind of took over life for the kids. So like if they had something bad happen at school, the parent immediately took over. If they had they got a grade they didn't like their parent would immediately take over. Some things like that that didn't happen when, you know, most of us were young. You talk about millennials or Gen X, like really we didn't have that. like sense of ⁓ protectiveness of kids. So now they're coming into the workplace and what happens is they get like an angry member or a teammate. They disagree with a teammate or they're having a trouble with a teammate. And in a time where you want them to just, hey, let's face it head on, let's talk about it. Let's work through it. Instead it's like they struggle mentally with some of that. And so the word I'm giving it is like resilience. There's an like it's like teaching people how to cope with the tough, right? We use the word grit here a lot at consumers because we work really hard here. We play really hard too, but you gotta have grit. Times are gonna get tough and you gotta have some grit to get through that. And we're just not seeing that in young people. Like they have a bad week and all of a sudden they'll call off for four days. Yeah. Because they can't seem to figure out how to cope with it. And so And and I and we're trying a lot of different things here. Like we partnered with a program called Be Nice, which really is about mental health and suicide awareness. We have all these resources for our employees from a mental health perspective, but I just don't see it moving the needle as much as I'd like. And I'm trying to equip managers the best I can to help them face that. But it's something that in all of my 34 years, I have not seen until the last five. And so it's the skill set that I'm trying to learn along the way as well. speaker-1: Yeah, no, I mean, look, I I I hear you. I see it a lot across the board. ⁓ it doesn't depend it doesn't matter on the industry, it doesn't depend no matter on the country, it doesn't depend no it doesn't matter on, you know, the level of seniority. I mean, I think young people are more prone to it than older people to some extent. But ⁓ but it's it's it's universal and it's it's so bad that you know, oftentimes I I that's one of the main topics I get called to speak on is you know, I go to organizations, I speak about resilience, I speak about the things that I went through. And I talk about what I learned from those things. And and one of the things that I learned that was very interesting, which has now been proven by neuroscience I find fascinating is the more hard things you do, the more resilient you become. It you just get wired that way. But also I think the reverse is also true. If if you refuse to put yourself in situations that are very difficult and you don't face adversity, then you don't train that muscle. So You know, what I learned is that resilience is a muscle that you have to train and there are different ways of training. It's like when you go to the gym, you know, you want to train shoulders, you do shoulder press. You want to do legs, you do leg press, right? Now resilience is the same. There are different ways to do it, but most people they would rather not put themselves in an uncomfortable situation. And so when they get into an uncomfortable situation, they don't know how to deal with it. So that's that's a fascinating conversation. I mean we we we could go on about that one for hours and hours, to be honest. It's so yeah, it's it's very understandable. speaker-0: It's tough. You know, I always think back to like and and that makes a lot of sense when you think about like when I was a kid, I would never tell my parents that I was having a problem. It's like I better figure this out because if I call my parents in, there better be a problem or they're gonna give me a problem, right? Or whatever. And so and I, you know, and I worked in HR from the time I was you know, I started working as a recruiter when I was 18 years old. So by the time I had kids, like I saw everything there was to see in the workplace. So I'm like, I'm gonna raise you to be kind. And a good employee somewhere or a good leader because I don't I don't want any of this nonsense from my kids going into the workplace. So and so it was like, hey, you need to try to figure your stuff out. If you can't, I will help you. And I think that's how we want our leaders to be here, right? Try to figure your things out. I'm here to support you as a leader. We're just finding it challenging because a lot of our and I would say it's primarily younger people, but there's some, you know, probably in different age groups as well. But it's like they don't want to try to figure it out, right? The easier thing to do is call in sick. Yeah. Or the easier thing to do is I don't want to talk to this employee who I disagree with. K you just take care of it for me. But ⁓ by the way, don't say my name 'cause I don't want them to know. It's you know, so it it it's just a really different environment than what we've ever seen. speaker-1: How much of that is a question of resilience? So yeah, absolutely. If the person is not resilient, you're right, they're gonna stay home. Right. Versus how much of that is a question of have they learned the skills to deal with a situation? For example, I I might be very resilient, but if nobody has taught me how to give difficult feedback, I'm gonna try and avoid that conversation like the plague because I just don't know how to give feedback and it's uncomfortable. So where where's the line between the resilience? Okay, we can how do we train them to be resilient versus do they have the right skills to actually manage the situation? speaker-0: Well, we tr we we do a lot to teach it those skills. And we will even coach them and give them talking points for a conversation. Okay. And still hear that they they don't wanna have it. So it's a lot ⁓ it's just a different environment. If you like the statistics, I was just in a session not too long ago and they were talking about the statistics of people now that wanna go into management versus like twenty five years ago. And the numbers are so low that actually there's gonna be a huge shortfall of leadership. When all of us Gen Xers retire because then the next generations do not want to go into leadership. Like they have zero speaker-1: It is hard. People don't realize how hard it is to lead. It is like every single CEO that I've worked with, they all say the same thing when you ask them, What's the toughest part of like your job running the business? They're like, it's the people part. The people part is always the toughest part. Right. But it but the flip side is that we we also have a generation of CEOs who refuse to invest in people. So you're telling us the people part's the hardest, but then you don't want to invest in making your people better. So there's like a cognitive dissonance there, right? speaker-0: Yeah, that's why the people part's the hardest for them. Yeah. Because I would say people who are it's fine. Not that we don't have our challenges. We absolutely do. But I would say, you know, then the the amount of time I spend putting out fires here versus anywhere else I've ever been is like here. We use an analogy here too at consumers. It's like every employee comes to work every day and they have two buckets, right? And it's like the scale, right? And you have the bucket of good things that happen, bucket of bad things that happen, because there's always gonna be bad things at work, right? Right. So our goal is to always make sure the bucket of good things far outweighs the bucket of bad things so that that's not your focus, right? Gotcha. And so if you think about that in terms of all the things employees see, face, touch, how do you make sure that good bucket is full? Well, some of those foundational things, right? Is the employee experience, their compensation, their benefits, their their development, the investments you make in them, their their time off. Everything that that you do and they're like, Okay, yeah, this This thing kind of isn't great here. Or this day, you know, I talked to hundred feels like I talked to all of our angry members in one day. You know, I can live with that because this stuff is so good. And I know tomorrow it'll be better. Right. And so that's how we try to approach it. And for the most part, I think it's it's really good. And so the fires I'm putting out are so low in comparison to the good strategic, positive things I get to do. speaker-1: So, you know, no conversation about HR and talent and leadership can avoid the elephant in the room, which is artificial intelligence. So I mean it if you look at AI, I'm very curious about how do you see AI changing the nature of leadership at work? What's the impact for people and and how does it change their perception of what it is to be a leader? speaker-0: Yeah, you know, we are ⁓ organized here. We're just we're just embracing AI, right? How can we use it to to help our talent be even better at what they do? How can we use it to help our managers be even better at their jobs, ⁓ and all of that? But there's you know, I listen to all kinds of podcasts and things about AI and the the opinions on it are it's gonna end the world or it's gonna make the world better, all these things, right? So it's it's It's hard to predict, right, really what's going to happen. But I think if as an organization you acknowledge it, so we've acknowledged it here. We understand there's fear around it. And employees can can feel like you'll hear on the news that you know, jobs are going away, all of these things. And as an organization, we've said, listen, we want to use AI, but we want to make use AI to make your job easier and better. And here's how, and here's how you can leverage it in your role. Yeah. And for managers, I'm sitting down with them and saying, hey. Instead of that first call to A ⁓ to HR, why don't you go into Copilot and ask it to be your your coach and you've got the employee that's doing this, coach me through a conversation with his employee. So, you know, when I think about my own team, we have a great HR team here. I'd love not to have to grow it by twenty as we continue to grow here. Sure. You know, how can we leverage AI too to make us better and more efficient and have tools and resources for our managers to help lighten the load of having to always have a live person sitting here to coach you through how to have these tough conversations. I don't know if you've ever played with it in that way, but it it does a decent job. And a lot of times they'll come with us and say, Hey, I put it into Copilot, and this is what Copilot said. And I'm like, Okay, that's good. Maybe adjust this a little bit. So I have this where I don't have to help them come up with the whole conversation. I can just help them tweak the one that co pilot. And I think it's only gonna get better and better. I think when we look at training leaders in the future, AI could be the one of the best resources that we have to create live environments where you can actually practice these sessions. We can help you become a better leader, but with some with some live sandbox environments where you can really dig in and have tough conversations with a with an agent. So, you know, I see seeing it be a great tool to leverage. But you have to be honest and you have to be careful and you have to put the right safeguards in place so that it doesn't get misused as well. Yeah. speaker-1: I I agree a hundred percent. I mean, look, I ⁓ I've used I have an AI that a GPT that I customized heavily. I uploaded, you know, six or seven different leadership books to it. Custom gave it instructions on how I want it to work with me when I have a question. And it has essentially become my my advisor. And it and now that, you know. Because it relies so heavily on context and it now has over a year of conversations and I uploaded all the results of all the different diagnostics that I use with my clients. I've built I use for myself. So it has my hijackers, my work values, my personality assessments, my disk, a whole bunch of things. It is able to call me out on things with an uncanny amount of accuracy. Like it'll be like, Well, is that really using that? Or is that your like climber hijacker that's always looking for the next achievement? And I speaker-0: I love that. speaker-1: ⁓ my God, you're so right. Right. Or I'll I'll I'll be stuck on a on a decision that I need to make and it will be like, Well, Patrick, you know, you've told me that, you know, one of your core values is, you know, the good father. So what would the good father do? And I'll be like, you know, you're right. It's actually so I I have seen it work incredibly well. I use it a lot with my clients that do that I do advisory work with. I'm like, look, if I'm not available, talk to my GPT, right? So ⁓ it's interesting. I mean the the world is is definitely, you know, changing really quickly. I mean, when when you look at, you know, in a world where AI potentially is going to either eliminate jobs or redefine and transform a lot of jobs, maybe transform jobs in a way that, you know, people didn't expect or didn't see, what would you tell somebody who's like, you know, entering the workforce for the first time in in their career or they've been doing something for years that they realize is no longer working? How how what do you tell them is next? Like how would you advise them to deal with that? speaker-0: Yeah, we have questions like that even here, right? Like, hey, I can see where AI could take over my job and this could become automated. Then we have the conversation about, okay, well, what's the reskill gonna look like? How right, what skills are we gonna help you build so that you're either running the AI that takes over the manual tasks. And when you're doing that, what more value add can you can you do? What other types of skills can you or other types of activities can you do? So we're we have some courses here that we've developed and we're working with an external team to get certifications in AI so that we can help employees upskill. Cause we have employees here today that are doing, you know, basic data entry, right? Yeah. Well, some at some point we'll be able to have AI do that. But those employees still add a ton of value to our organization. So how are we gonna upskill them? You know, here's what I see. And and we don't have a lot of like low skill employees here. And most of ours are like live, you're working with people live, right? It's more of our back office positions that maybe could be automated a bit more. I don't see where AI is gonna eliminate jobs for us. What I see is AI is gonna help us be more efficient in what we have to hire. So, you know, I think there is a talent shortage in the United States, absolutely. And we know that by 2030, we're not gonna have enough people to do the jobs. speaker-1: Right. Right. speaker-0: based on a lot of things, twenty thirty, twenty forty, it gets worse, right? If you look at those projections, I think what AI is gonna do, especially for our organization and our growth rate, it's gonna help us need to hire less people. So it's not gonna replace anybody we have today, but it's gonna, you know, minimize the need to hire fifty people. Maybe we'll only have to hire fifteen. And so when you look at that, you know, how can we how can we, you know, reskill people and make sure that we've got the right people in the right place. ⁓ Yeah. speaker-1: Absolutely. I think I think you're absolutely right. I I'm actually very bullish on it. I think ⁓ I always look at, you know, lower level jobs and I always think to myself, wow, that's a human being doing that job. That person is a human being. They have a brain. They are so much more capable in terms of the impact that they can bring to the organization than just doing that. So I always think of AI as a tool that can potentially liberate people from the more mundane, lower value jobs to doing something that's potentially far more exciting that gives them a lot more energy where they really can provide legitimate value and be very happy with their contribution to the organization. I I honestly believe that. And I and I think that we're going to go through a period where it's going to be difficult to make that transition. We're going to have to help our people reskill and figure out what's next. You know, I was talking to a CEO the other day who said, you know, I'm having people of my organization rewrite their job descriptions to think of what their JD looks like in two years. And that's hard. Mm-hmm. Right. And thinking about what skills am I going to need to have in two years, what skills am I no longer going to need to have in two years? Anywhere. Yeah. speaker-0: It's like the conversation of the world, right? And and really trying to really trying to figure that out. And I mean, none of us have the answers, right? But at the end of the day, all we can do as an organization is really try project that. Yeah. And, you know, reskill, upskill along the way and and hope that we're ready when the time comes to face it all. But I think we're we're super proactive about it. Yeah. So I think we're in a good position, but only time only time will tell, right? speaker-1: We don't. We'll get there. You guys have a you have you guys have an amazing culture. And so I think, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast in my book. And so I think ⁓ you know, the credit union is really, really well positioned. Before we wind down completely, we have a tradition on this show. It's called the lightning round. Three quick questions, three quick answers. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right. Question number one. If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? speaker-0: to travel. So I would love to be able to just fly like that. speaker-1: Alrighty. I'd love that too. Question number two. If you could have anyone if you could have dinner with anyone in history, alive or dead, who would you choose? speaker-0: Ooh, that is a difficult, difficult question. Actually, I would love to have dinner with Condoleezza Rice. There's actually no question about that. Huge fan. speaker-1: Interesting. Okay. That is the first. I have not had Condoleezza Rice before. She's a remarkable woman, but I have not had it before. And last but not least, if you could give one piece of advice to a young person, you know, looking for a career of meaning and purpose, what would you tell them? speaker-0: Choose a job in an organization that aligns with who you are. Right. I think the best way to find purpose is you know, you had the old adage like do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life. And I think that's great, but I could be a great painter and I probably would never make enough money to do that. So but I think speaker-1: Yeah, you'd starve. Anybody got some pizza? speaker-0: I think at the end of the day, make sure the ladder you're climbing is up against the right building, right? And and you will find purpose in what you're doing. speaker-1: I love that. I think that is so, so true. I think people often climb the wrong mountain and then they realize as I did eight years ago. They're like, ⁓ my God, I climbed the wrong mountain. I gotta start all over again. Sean, this has been awesome. This has been a a master class in in culture, in leadership. You know, so much of what you said resonated with me. I wish more people really paid attention to what CHRs like you who understand this can bring to the table and the importance of culture, the importance of you know, hiring slowly, firing quickly. ⁓ you know, there's a lot that sticks with this episode and and so much good advice and practical learning from somebody who's been doing this for three decades. And you know, most of this, nearly all of it, really applies on in any company in any part of the world, across any industry of any size. So thank you so much. I think you know, when when we put our people first, legitimately and honestly, good things happen. And you guys have clearly proven this with 18% year in year growth for, you know, two plus decades. With a a turn that is like in the single digits compared to where it was when you joined at 20%. There's no denying the results that you guys have had. The numbers are there, and you have an amazing culture and engagement scores that you know make happy customers. And when you have happy customers, you know, everything else follows. For everybody that is listening, if this hits home, please don't forget to hit that little subscribe button, like the episode, comment, send us questions and share this with somebody who you think might benefit from it. This has been another episode of More Gun Filtered. Sean, thank you so much for being on the show today. speaker-0: Thanks for having me.