Latest / Humanity Working / Tal & Dev with Michele Volpi

Transcript

Tal & Dev with Michele Volpi · Humanity Working

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's been proven all along that uh companies with high levels of engagement win in the marketplace.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, you know, even if you don't look at the statistics, it's just common sense, right?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is that common sense is not so common.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hey there, Paul here.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: A few weeks ago I had a great conversation with Michaeli Volpey, the founder and CEO of Tal and Dev.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now they bring a revolutionary approach in matching employees and employers based on shared values and core skills development.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: I loved hearing about the highs and lows of Michaela's own journey and also his views on how the employee experience will become an increasingly important part of successful companies going forward.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, Michaeli, you're uh you're based in Italy.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: How are things out there right now with with COVID and and uh and hopefully us coming out of this really traumatic time with the pandemic?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh things are recovering well uh in Italy, but I would say all over Europe from uh this pandemic.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Spirits are pretty high.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh vaccination rates, which of course are uh a key enabler to that, are uh high, are 80%, 85%.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: So you see it, you know, restaurants are full, uh, uh airplanes are starting to take off again.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: So hopefully we left uh the bad and the worse behind us.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And what about the workplace?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you does the workplace itself look and and seem fundamentally different to before the pandemic, or is it actually everything returning back to how it was before?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, no, I think, and we'll we can talk more about that later, but uh the new normal, which I fundamentally believe is gonna be there to stay, is flexible work.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that means that you know, employees they have uh experienced uh this new reality, that they can do a lot of work, especially routine work, right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not talking about landing new clients or developing new relationships, but managing the day-by-day also from home.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I think remote work is gonna be there to stay.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and employers that are going to win the world for talent are those that will be able to manage in a smart way that flexible work environment.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, up till now it has been forced by the pandemic, but I think uh that is is is a fantastic success, is gonna be having epic proportions.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's let's go back to to your career.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's very it's a very interesting career.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody who is to look up on LinkedIn will see a whole bunch of different uh different roles and a pretty impressive career trajectory.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things that many of the listeners to our podcast are very interested in is when we speak to senior leaders inside organizations, it's less about where they are and more about how they got there.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so uh why don't you take us back to the start of your career, where this kind of all began for you?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think uh that maybe when I discovered myself, right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because you know, careers are a journey of uh self-discovery, was actually my first job.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: I was in a Swiss uh multinational, a small multinational, not one of the major ones that everybody talks about.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: But pretty soon I was sent to what I call quote-unquote war in what uh proved to be a great training ground.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was a dramatic turnaround in the in their Spanish subsidiary, where uh the long tenor GM had been just fired for embezzlement.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was there doing an internship, and there I was at 28 taking over the reins of PL and having to cut costs, negotiate with banks, and then raise prices.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, my first PL and my first turnaround at the same time.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I think I started uh losing my hair already then.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh look, I I had started just two summers before as a telemarketeer, and there I was uh doing my internship when everything happened, so it wasn't at all planned, but I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, have some of the required skills like languages, education, but most importantly, have the courage to take the chance, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: And uh uh I realized that that was uh really a defining point in my career, early stage, when uh one of my mentors, Ram Sharan, who is a great guru of management, he wrote fantastic books with Larry Bosni and Jack Welch.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: He asked me when I had my first PL.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Look, when people have their first PL or experience of a PL early in their careers, is a defining moment.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I learned that later, but I fundamentally agree with that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was uh a very probing experience.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: When you were actually immersed in that, did you feel like you knew what you were doing?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Did you feel like you were ready, or did it feel deeply unfamiliar and scary?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: They throw you in the middle of the football field and uh it's muddy, you are uh down by 10.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't think you really think that much.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: You just go into action and you try to do your best, figure out.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: The exciting thing is that you learn as you go, right?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And if you are uh driven like I am driven by learning, by experiencing new stuff, uh that's a fantastic environment.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then really uh by mid-career, uh for many people, you already made it to really the top job, uh, like at that point at CEO level.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I'm curious when you had it always been an ambition to be a CEO?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Did you want that, did you explicitly want that top job?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or what were your motivations that that led you to that point?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, it wasn't.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't have in mind a specific uh CEO goal, right?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh at 42, I was still developing.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: And uh in that case, it was the company called HB Fuller.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: I had just been promoted to EVP two years before.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I didn't even notice that there was a succession race going on.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so maybe the learning here is to always focus on performance and values more than organizational politics, which by the way, personally I hate them, right?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: And even if I understand that you have to be organizationally savvy and you have to really understand how things work in a complex organization, I think I have lots of uh people that think like me, especially Gen Z and Gen X, that they abore that, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that doesn't mean being naive, but also uh but means uh not working too much on internal politics.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and careers look are made of ups and downs, and I think that key success factors are uh agility for once, being able to adapt to circumstances.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: So in my case, the you know I became CEO and it was uh a chance uh with a lot of luck that happened to me.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: I took it, and um and still uh what I can recommend is uh when those things happen, understand if you like it, but also understand if they are in line with your purpose in life, and then make sure you follow your contacts, your you follow your compass.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that is uh really what uh I would recommend anyone.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: You touched on something that I want to dive a little bit deeper.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: You said career is a made of up and downs, and um I think many of us personally recognize uh that that is uh that that is true.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um but can you give us an example of a time where a down point happened, right?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Where something where where things took effectively a negative turn for you and you were able to learn and grow from from that experience.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that same company where I was uh promoted from manager to executive vice president to CEO.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: After uh four years as a CEO, I was fired on the spot from one day to the other with no warning sign.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was summoned uh to uh a City Club by the chairman and the chairman of the committee, and they told me, look, you're out.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, no explanations, it wasn't performance, it wasn't any wrongdoing, um, simply internal politics.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that was uh shocking, right?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: There I was at 46 without the job, things come out on the internet, you know, there are no explanations, everyone thinks always of the worst.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I had to reinvent myself, and that is what I said earlier, where resilience comes in.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you don't get depressed, uh, you get out of the hole, you start thinking, okay, how am I gonna play the next match?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh you understand that you have your purpose, you know who you are, what you have done, what you believe in.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: And look, if you just went uh doing the right things for the company, and you hire your successor, and you followed by the book to always have a good succession plan, and then that played against you.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so be it.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're saying you're better than that.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So let's fast forward.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in the last couple of years, pretty dramatic shift founding a startup, uh, Talent Dev.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me about Tel and Dev and what were your motivations for starting the company?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I like change, right?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: I said that already earlier.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: I get bored by routine and I'm not a good administrator.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: So actually, if you have to manage a steady state business, you have 100 people that are much better than me, and and I would never do it.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: So after seven years in private equity portfolio companies and having tried already the corporate world as well as management consulting, I was ready for a new challenge.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: And my internal purpose, um, my blue north, as uh Bill George, which was one of my mentors, always says, was driving me towards something uh I hadn't done before, starting a business from scratch, inventing a new business model, a disruptive one.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it was uh, you know, lots of things at the same time.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: I really wanted to change, and coupled with my passion for people and my ability to operationalize things, I came up with the idea of making people happy and successful at work through something that has always been done in a high-touch manner and to have impact instead that needs to be automated.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: So Talent Dev, Talent Development is an HR Tech platform that provides automated career insights, orientation, coaching, mentoring, as well as matching candidates and progressive employers.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that you've you've recently had um a fairly significant product announcement.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: We we launched uh the matching network by Talent Dev, which is a different way of matching talent and employers.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, is uh a two-way dialogue.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, companies are required not just to post a job, but to tell much more about their company, what they believe in, what is like working there, what kind of profiles they seek, because we believe in self-selection, right?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: You tell people what is the opportunity, and they know themselves better than any headhunter.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we believe in self-awareness, in self-selection, and it all starts with uh making sure that uh you, as an employer, understand also which are the ambitions of the individual, what are uh her or his uh workplace preferences, based in a nutshell, what the candidate is really willing and able for.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: And when you have a clear dialogue right from the beginning, and you create trust, but you also allow people to manage their own destiny, and therefore, we'll speak about the great resignation later, you won't have surprises later, because one of the most scary statistics in the HR world is that 25% of new hires are no longer there after the first year for any reason, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: People get terminated, people quit, but it's really uh that, and we are trying with the matching network to really close that gap, to give a more holistic view of candidates, to be really a diversity, equity, and inclusion tool by going blind at the very beginning steps of uh the recruiting process, and by having algorithms that capture also what Professor Fuller of Harvard calls them hidden workers.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because the fact is that everybody says there are uh uh no candidates, actually, it's not true.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there are lots of jobs, there are lots of candidates, but the matching is not working.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe the dating is working, but the matching is not working, is broken.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot is because ATS and uh recruitment management systems are dumb, but also it's even more than that, Paul.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Companies are in many cases to blame because they continue ballooning job specs, adding every day more requirements.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, of course you're not gonna find anyone because Mr.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: or Mrs.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect doesn't exist.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: So define what are the critical few elements and what is a nice to have versus what is a must-have.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what we're trying to do with talent there.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's very, very interesting.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to delve a little bit deeper on that, actually, Michaela.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um Billy Mines is a start.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're just at this point now where we're starting to hire folks into our organization.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there are a lot of challenges, particularly for organizations that are just starting up and don't have the infrastructure in place to do deep um talent searches because they're trying to grow and run the businesses that uh you know as they do it.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um there are to give you a few of the things that that organizations, particularly when they're starting up, struggle with, it's it's things like, for example, do you worry about diversity inclusion immediately, or do you push that out later on?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And before you know where you're at, you've got you know 25 people that look and sound exactly like you.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you have a serious problem.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, first of all, this goes against um hiding for cultural fit, because that is so much at odds with diversity, equity, and inclusion, which basically we're telling people hey, we are just gonna follow our cookie-cutter approach and we're gonna just do more of the same.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what about if more of the same is wrong?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, typically it's wrong because you know, diversity of opinion, you know, even calling cognitive diversity, it brings you so much more, brings you innovation, brings you different perspective.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: And that is closely related to differences in gender, in race, in sexual orientation, in different physical abilities.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: So you name it, there are so many, the list of diversity is so long because that's a representation of society.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: And uh therefore, really going for those hidden workers is a combination of things, starting, as you say, in getting specs that go for holistic fit with the candidate, that look at the potential and look for diversity.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And to do that, you cannot just have a data scientist and a psychologist, right?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: You need also to have a dialogue, you need also to have the expertise of what the different careers require to make people successful.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Successful, and you have to divulge that.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Let me give you an example, Paul.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: I was talking to the CHRO of a blue chip management consulting company.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: And we were discussing about some of the questions that we have in our uh uh service, which are pretty much in your face, straight to really be absolutely clear.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: And say, oh, we can't ask uh people if they're ready to work 16 hours a day, because if we do that, no one can't.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: And trust is bridged before even starting, right?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And don't complain that uh you have 25% resignations within the first year.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: So those are some of the basic, and thank God that person is no longer there, right?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: But those are some of the basic mistakes.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: And look, we we are not rocket scientists.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: What we want to fix is the basic things that change mountains.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Billion Minds has taken over a dozen years of research into the habits of the most effective among us in this new world where work and life are merging.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: They've distilled it down into a 90-day program targeted at employees that do unstructured, ambiguous work.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Employees from five different countries around the world are using Billion Minds to help them start each day with a purpose and end it with accomplishment.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you or your team wants to discover how Billion Minds can help employees optimize their work in the context of their broader life, go to BillionMinds.com slash learnmore today.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's billionminds.com slash L-E-A-R-N-M-O-R-E.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Billion Minds, providing practical tools for our way too busy lives.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about um soft skills that are that are needed in the workplace today.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think one of the really interesting impacts of the of the pandemic has been that the places in which we work and the way in which we work with others has changed fairly dramatically.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so whether people realize it or not, they've actually started to develop a new set of soft skills that are helping them work in those types of conditions.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think are some of the primary soft skills that would be necessary for people to do well in the workplace today?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if you like, you could break that down into early stage professionals, mid-stage professionals, and then uh senior leaders inside organizations if there are if you think there are any differences.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very difficult question, right?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh soft skills are uh paramount, right?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Are paramount.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I even don't like uh how they are called soft skills because actually at the time we call them hardwire capabilities, right?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Which is you know are really pretty much part of our own DNA.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: And clearly those hardwired capabilities, you know, when you are uh uh in the early stages of your career, uh you can still do a lot with them, right?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like half of them you can improve, strengthen, really you can develop much more.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, when you get my age, right, uh it is more difficult.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Still, you can do something, right?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that 50% becomes a 15%.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, if you really want and you you try harder, uh you can discover that you can still learn at our age, right?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: So um, soft skills, there are uh many.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: What I personally think is and looking at the more general, because if we go into the different careers and the different seniority levels, that's basically what Talent App does, and is is a longer discussion because there are different levels of proficiency, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'll give you an example later.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: But first of all, being authentic is critical and is even more critical today in the age of uh social media, broadly available, deep information, and 24 hour always on connections.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's very, very difficult to hide today.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: So people and tools are becoming better and better at spotting you if you lie.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so being sincere, open, honest, and transparent becomes a key success factor.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because it generates trust.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: And when there is trust, there is a trust-based system, there comes performance, there comes uh loyalty, there comes retention.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: And in addition, just to be very clear, uh, I'm not a monk, uh, but I believe in purpose, and it makes you feel better inside and reduces your stress and uh reduces also burnout risk.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm fundamentally a believer of that.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: And uh because of the fast pace and the speed with which things evolve today, um, and the reduction of the length of economic cycles before it was every seven years.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, cycle can last two years, right?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Just look at the pandemic.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think there is another soft skill that is as critical as being authentic, and is agility, right?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, because you really have to adapt, and you have to adapt to changing conditions, fast changing conditions, you have to adapt to different cultures, uh, to really different situations.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that who is agile is is uh is going to be more and more a winner.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, if your ambition is to climb to higher levels of responsibility, there comes uh one of our favorites, which is accountability, right?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: For results, accountability for results is paramount.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so if I can paraphrase those three, accountability uh together with performance brings you there, while agility and authenticity keep you there.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Agility is a little bit of an interesting one, right?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because um many of us fear change.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um it can be a difficult mindset for many mindset shift for many people to go from the idea of I want stability and security and I want things to stay as they are because that's my comfortable place, to actually get to a point where they enjoy the uncertainty and ambiguity, and they're able to embrace this type of change that we're talking about.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you A, do you agree with that?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And B, um, is there anything that you've seen that kind of helps shift people to a to a point where actually this idea of constant change, this idea of reinvention, actually is something that they can at the very least accept or in some cases even embrace and enjoy?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I I agree fully with that.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um big believer of that.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I think that what helps people, uh, because those that are change agents that are agile in nature, uh, of course, they they are flabbergasted by this.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: They it's their natural um you know turf.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um but for those that aren't, what can be done is really to put them into a more diverse environment.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: And again, diverse really in the 360, right?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Because unfortunately, too much of uh the corporate world has reacted to diversity, equity, and inclusion, you know, in a okay, we have to do it from a corporate governance standpoint.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: But we are believers, and we just did a webinar with Scott Taylor, that at the end is a source of competitive advantage and is a source of personal growth for individuals.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: So put them in a diverse environment, expose them to different points of view, expose them to different situations, and people will naturally adapt.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: At the beginning, it's kind of adapt because you have to survive, but then they will understand hey, I'm so much better, I learned so much more that they are just gonna flourish.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: So creating that ecosystem of diversity, not because you have to, if not, you get a lawsuit.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, that's not the reason, is you make the company so much more competitive and you make individuals so much better, stronger, and open and receptive to change that everybody wins.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the strongest argument I've I've seen for diversity and inclusion is a combination, I think, of what you just said, and also a reflection of by having your your company reflect your customer base is an enormously powerful weapon.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: And most of the companies that uh that are out there serve a pretty diverse customer base.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are uh if you're in a position where the people that you're selling a product to, the people that you're selling a service to look, feel, and sound nothing like the people that work inside your company, then you can wind up with uh with significant challenges.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I completely agree.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the um the diversity and inclusion is definitely, definitely a source of um business advantage.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so many organizations are still at the point where they think of it as a means of not being sued, which is extraordinary, right?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: That we're not able to see the strong benefits internally to our organization and the strong benefits of developing a deeper understanding of our of our customer base.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's extraordinary to me how little that is seen in some organizations.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Let's um let's shift now, shift gears a little bit now and talk about um the changes that are happening in the workplace.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think are some of the primary reasons why so many people are optimal either opting out of the workforce or reporting lack of engagement in employee engagement surveys, those types of things?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: What's what what is the underlying set of causes from your perspective?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um look, yes, we are uh a good observatory for this, right?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because we measure happiness at work.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we do that on a global basis.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, uh Paul, our tool is a global tool.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh more than one-third of our uh users come from the US, the rest is uh UK, Canada, Australia.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: So um it gives us a pretty good uh picture of what is going on, and uh you know, we notice that 20% of our members are very dissatisfied at work, and another 20% is dissatisfied, right?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that calls for uh 40%, which is pretty much aligned with all the statistics that you hear around of people quitting or ready to quit their job.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I can tell you that that is not just in the US, it's really globally, and I think that COVID has played the role of being the catalyst for opening the eyes of people, right?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: And uh if we go into the main reasons that we see, and again, I'm not coming with specific statistics because uh uh we still have work to do there to really give numbers more than those that I gave you, but the main drivers of dissatisfaction uh that come across, especially from young and mid-career professionals, is the lack of commitment to employee developments and career opportunities.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um Gen X and Gen Z, they want to learn to grow and want it fast.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: So learn to grow, right?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: So learn as a mean to their goal of uh growing, and growing is developing themselves, right?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone is different.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: There are those that want to become a CEO and make a lot of money, and uh there are those that just want to enjoy the journey, but they really want to grow, and uh that's maybe one of the reasons why more and more people quit in the corporate war and move to startups.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because uh at the end, it's all about fast growth, right?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I know of uh of a young professional that uh he was in the management graduate program of a great multinational, and after the first three years, top of the run, they told him, Well, now wait, because it's gonna take you seven or to ten years to get to a general management job.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and meanwhile, what do I do?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: I warm up the chair.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I think development is critical, and uh and another thing that we notice is uh the gap between reality at work versus the expectations that are set during recruitment.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, too much selling, selling in terms of interview selling and top-down processes, and too little understanding of candidates' expectations.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, this is also uh a dual responsibility, right?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because also the candidate uh needs to be clearer as far as what she or he wants, uh needs to do a much better job at performing due diligence uh with the employer.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I tell you, you would be surprised how even people are 50, 55 years old, they get lured by headhunters uh to really make changes without really knowing where they're stepping into.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that is clearly an area where Talent Dev tries to help individuals uh document yourself, read our insights, read the testimonials of people that have been there and done that, uh uh assess yourself basically, right?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: What are you what is really your best fit, and then work on your development.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so those are uh things that we we believe in at Tavandeb, and we are trying to help people.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: That really is interesting.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think that when when you consider what interviews are like, um they've not really changed that much in the last uh 20 or uh 20 or 30 years.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: From the perspective of the employee, often very little curiosity beyond uh um maybe a question in the interview of what's a day in the life like in this new job, right?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Very little, very little curiosity as to what the actual new job will be, and so much focus placed on things like what is the uh what's the size of the paycheck, what's the size of the bonus, what's the what are the benefits like, and all of those kind of things.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then everything else, once you're gonna step in the door and change your life, well, we'll figure that out when we get there.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it is really interesting because that is almost done two ways, whereby the employer knows very little about the employee in terms of uh of how they will function in the role once they get it.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the employee knows very little about what the experience will be like at the employer, and they'll just figure that out when they get there.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And no wonder, to your point for earliest tech, no wonder when it's like that, that a year later 25% of the people are no longer working inside those organizations.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can once you when you take a step back and you think about it, it's blatantly obvious, and yet we still by and large recruit people in the same way, interview people in the same way, um, and get the same kind of result.
• 34:12
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• 34:17
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• 34:19
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• 34:32
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• 34:35
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• 34:39
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• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Let's think about the just dive a little bit deeper now into this uh this concept of people being engaged continuously at work on a day-to-day basis.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um obviously uh there is some responsibility on the individual themselves to be uh to uh to to find a way to be engaged and to do their best work in the workplace.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a set of skills that that we can cultivate as individuals.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm curious, do you think that um there is a specific role for the employer in this as well?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Is it the responsibility of um an employer to create the conditions for employees to be engaged, or is it simply the responsibility of employer to offer a few training programs?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: The answer is pretty easy.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: If the company wants to make money, they have to, because it's been proven all along that uh companies with high levels of employee engagement win in the marketplace.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, you know, even if you don't look at the statistics, it's just common sense, right?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is that common sense is not so common.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: And uh basically uh the responsibility, while it is a two-way story, uh, the biggest responsibility is in the hands of big pocketed employers, right?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: What do I mean?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, you know, the company has the headhunter, the company has the human resources department, uh, the company has all the tools uh for recruitment and for managing engagement, the company has the budgets for the training and development.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's where the biggest responsibility lies.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, look at uh, for instance, how engagement services are done today.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um the typical practice is that the CEO and the CHRO sit at the table and decide what they're going to ask that year to their employees.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: That is very top-down, and you can get very easily biased.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: Let me give you an example.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: You say, hey, let's ask about compensation, because we have hair here and there that's compensate, everyone is complaining about compensation.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but that's what you think is the problem.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and therefore you you run an engagement survey with those questions, and of course you're gonna get an answer to those questions.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe you don't know that people actually do care about development even more than compensation.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: Not that people don't want to pay check or don't want to make more money, but the real driver of engagement maybe is development.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you don't ask people, they're not gonna tell you.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: And therefore, for instance, what we do at Talent Dev, we ask employees to do their bottom-up survey.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us what are the key drivers of satisfaction for your work, how do you rate your employees on those axes?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then what we are going to develop is we're gonna go and tell, of course, in an anonymous format, because that's paramount for us the trust with our members hey, you've got a problem because you are not asking the right questions.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: So have a bottom-up approach and let people tell you, first of all, what they care about and how you rate you're rated about those things.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one way to generate employee engagement.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: Start by even before taking action, ask your internal customers what they care about, what's important to them.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it raises kind of a fundamental question, doesn't it, as to what's the point of your employee engagement survey?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is the point of your employee engagement survey to reinforce preconceived opinions that you have?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Or is the point of your employee engagement service to kind of act as a as a pulse, a real pulse, true pulse on where your employees are at?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so it's a it's a good question, I think, for senior leaders inside organizations to fundamentally ask themselves, which is why are they why are they doing these employee engagement uh surveys in the first place?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um because frankly, if you I've seen, I'm sure you have too, organizations that have conducted employee engagement surveys where everything looked fairly good, and yet routinely the number of uh resignations inside their organization were ticking up at the same time.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: And in part, it's because of the disconnect between what you're asking and the underlying motivations of the people that you're uh conducting the survey with.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but also it's because Paul, you know, the all these HR uh activities, recruiting, uh, engagement, performance evaluation are strategic in nature.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and uh HR should be at the top of the organization because any organization behind the products, behind the customers, behind the services, behind the patents is people.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: But we say it's the most important asset, and at the end, you barely find a CHRO that is one of the top five named executive officers that sit at the top table with the CEO and the CFO.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, it's more uh become an administrative function.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, it should be mainstream to careers within organizations, because at the end, if you have engagement, if you have the right talent, you have the right performance management, the right development, you're just gonna win in the marketplace.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that uh requires doing things because they're the right thing to do for the company and for all the other stakeholders, rather than, well, like diversity.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we need to have some metrics because the board asks us, right?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: Or we need to do an engagement because it's part of the board agenda, and you know, we've done it, we tick the mark.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't bring anywhere.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: You don't need a CO for that.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: People, you know, can do that in automatic pilot.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a slightly uh controversial viewpoint, Billy Minds, about um some of the mindset training that is very in vogue today.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm actually curious to get your uh uh to get your viewpoint on this.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so many of you will be familiar with things like grit and growth mindset and things of that nature um that are being uh rolled out inside uh some of the uh larger organizations today.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um we would say inside building minds that that while that training can be useful uh for uh for individuals and it can certainly help uh with coping skills inside inside the workplace, that there's a real danger that organizations think of that as being not just necessary but sufficient, right?
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: That they think that um by simply uh training their employees to think differently, it kind of absolves them of the responsibility of going deeper into employee engagement and creating the conditions for their employees to be able to thrive.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wonder what your what your take is on that.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um do you agree with the statement I made, disagree with it?
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts on that?
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think that uh look, training and development is paramount.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh at the same time, what makes something difficult even more difficult is that you cannot have a standard approach.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you really like you stratify customers to a segment of one, you should stratify employees to a segment of one.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: And each one, every employee and every candidate, we encourage because that's what talent debate is all about, have your own spec.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: What are you ready, willing, and able?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_02: What are your top strengths to be leveraged?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: What are your key development needs to be developed?
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: What are your ambitions?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then the goals and objective setting should be a two-way dialogue.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: It shouldn't be okay, here are the company's goals and objectives.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: Let's see how you did about it.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and what about my goals and objectives?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, and this is really a much more balanced view, a much more holistic view of the relationship between the employer and the employee, that is not just because it's philosophy or his religion or is feeling good, is simply a good way to do business.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, here what you have is a CEO that over the years and late in his life has learned the importance of HR.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh then operationalizing that is really what uh uh gets me going.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Every morning when I wake up, and is what I believe is going to be a driver, not only to make employees happy and successful at work, but also to make companies successful at work because that's also where I come from, right?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: I've been uh starting a career, the low bottom end of the hierarchy, I've been at the top, and you need to make everyone happy.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: To work has to be balanced equation.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: We could not agree more.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think that uh the way in which we frame it, uh Billy Minds, is personal effectiveness is personal.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um and it is it's interesting and useful to create sets of skills to train resilience into people, for example, but doing so in a in an entirely blanket fashion and consider it job done is is a recipe that will not lead to success for many organizations, particularly as we go forward, which leads me to actually my last question for you today, which is I'm curious as you think forward another five to ten years.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the world is going to look very different.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be a lot more robotics and automation, the role of human beings inside the workplace is gonna look pretty different in general.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: But what do you think, if anything, will fundamentally shift about the experience of employees in, let's say, some of the most forward-looking uh companies in say five years or ten years?
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: What will feel, what will look and feel different, do you think?
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think that employees uh will be much more in control of their own career destiny, will have become even pickier, forcing uh employers to execute some of the above changes we discussed before on engagement or recruiting or DENI, and become much more marketing-oriented and more employee-oriented, marketing not from a customer perspective, but from an employee perspective.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: And as uh Professor Hubert Jolie of Harbor and former CEO of Best Buy, great friend of mine, says profit is important, but it's an outcome.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Everything starts with people, then goes through customers.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: And because of doing a great job there, you make a very, very good profit, bigger and better than anyone else.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: So those are things that, in my opinion, are going to shape uh the world of work or what we call the future of work in the next uh five, 10 years.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: Some things are already happening today, and maybe the other theme that is going to become a constant is really flexible work.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the companies that will be smart, fast, and able to operationalize and scale flexibility at work will be the winners of the future.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's a trend that started, you can't go back.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes I am a bit sad.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be ironical because it would be disrespectful.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: When I hear CEOs that say, okay, we've been choking, now come back to work.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, you know, we're going back to uh periods of slavery, and employees are there, you know, just follow me and I know it better.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: Forgetting that CEO that is saying that, that he or she also started at the bottom of the organization.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's it's really ironical, right?
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh, but I think that that is a great opportunity, and we hope that as talent there, but also as billion minds, you know, maybe together we can uh uh shape uh the future of work and make this a better environment for everyone.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because at the end, yes, I also love if the startup is successful and we make a lot of money, but that's the outcome, you know.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we want to have really social input here.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: Michaely, thank you very much for speaking to me today.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: A pleasure.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: The way too busy podcast was presented by Paul Slater and produced by me, Matt Matt Neal, and was brought to you by Billion Minds.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to get in touch with us, tweet us at Rising Billion or email us at WayTooBusy at Billion Minds.com.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: Billion Minds, creating practical tools for our way too busy lives.