Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Reality Bytes #43: What Makes a Great Workplace?

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Reality Bytes #43: What Makes a Great Workplace? · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:01
Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim Flower and Tom McGrath.
0:07
Let's get into it. Hello, change Makers, It's the Deck Shows
0:11
show within a show, Reality Bites. We got a full house today as
0:15
well. We've got we've got Tim in the building back from seven weeks of
0:20
professional travel. Tim, Oh my goodness, and now you've come down to
0:23
a cold, right inevitable? Yeah, seven weeks and I'm about ready to
0:28
drop dead. And yeah I got a little head cold. So it's all
0:30
good. He's sharing his last breaths with us, ladies and gentlemen. We're
0:33
a very very fortunate. And we also got my four four panel. We've
0:39
got Shaw, Sean, Dina, Hydna, oriund and Megan Hi, Meghan,
0:44
and we've got it. We've got, you know, a bit of
0:46
a bit of a light topic today. Things we had for those who listened
0:50
to the last Reality Bites interview with Sergio Mylis it was a it was a
0:56
career special. Sergio shared his thoughts on so successful career transitions between IT ups
1:03
and software vendors and he had a lot of I think, really stirring words
1:08
and we've got a really, really fantastic response from it, and we don't
1:12
often talk about, or haven't often talked about the tech career here on the
1:17
deck show or Reality by It. So we thought in the Reality by its
1:21
chat we we short came up with the idea of discussing sort of successful it
1:26
career longevity, which I think all of us, all of us can point
1:30
to to some extent or another, somewhat dependent upon things like age. You
1:36
know, the old, the older some of us get, the longer other
1:38
career spands tend to. Now you thought I was going to make it.
1:42
I would never. I would never, not with you with your cold and
1:46
your long trip, No sir, No sir, but we do. We
1:49
thought we would talk about our anecdotes is in our tech careers. We would
1:53
think about the learnings from them. We would think about what it takes to
1:57
be to be successful as an employee or indeed an employer. So we'll go
2:04
to you, Shawn, first of all, because you did bring us this
2:06
idea, as you so often do. And one of the things that got
2:09
when I was thinking about it earlier this week, I was like, well,
2:12
there's this parallelism with dex right, because a fundamental sort of raison detra
2:17
of digital employee experience is to help employers retain talent, to help keep employees
2:24
productive and therefore satisfied, to reduce employee churn. What's your sense of the
2:31
picture of the broader technology industry at the moment in terms of in terms of
2:38
employee retention and in terms of obviously we all feel the career lifespans are getting
2:43
a lot shorter. Why do you think that is? And what if you
2:46
culled from your own observations and experience as it shed light on that big question?
2:52
Way to start it? I do, I guess for the industry as
2:57
a whole. It sounds a little silly, but I do you feel like
3:00
the products that you have that you're selling, there's like a tangible product or
3:06
software. It does need to evolve and that can have a knock on effect
3:12
for your employees. So I feel like with our employer with the next thing
3:15
that tends to happen every year, which presents new challenges and opportunities, and
3:19
it kind of makes it fun because you're, you know, learning as you
3:23
go and it's almost like every year it's a different company. But it can't
3:27
be so drastic that it feels entirely different. And I think that's probably the
3:32
case. Then for those folks who feel like they can't you know that they
3:37
don't want to stay in a particular place for more than a year or two,
3:40
it's probably because, you know, either the products that they're putting out
3:44
are just boring and they're not evolving with them, but they're not presenting fun
3:47
challenges for people to grow their careers. And I think that's that's probably the
3:52
main driver for folks that want to go elsewhere and seek seek different employment.
3:57
That's an interesting point. I mean, I think makes me think of my
4:00
experience. Sean and I both market is and you know, one of the
4:06
things about working in startups in particular, his startups are often kind of completely
4:13
re reforming what their technology does. You know, they've got a solution,
4:16
they've got some software, and they often completely turn one hundred and eighty degrees
4:20
and reposition it almost entirely. And that can keep you a little too busy
4:26
as a marketerer when you have like too fluid an organization. But I do
4:30
feel that a company like next Think is always updating. It's very very dynamic,
4:33
but there's a vein of consistency, right Sean, Like it's not it's
4:38
not a completely different company from when you're to the next there's just enough change
4:42
to keep it interesting and keep it challenging. Yeah, yeah, I completely
4:46
can cur And you know, I said I wasn't going to make any jokes
4:48
to him, but you know, when it comes to longevity and the tech
4:51
career, we've got to go to you, my friend, We've got to
4:55
go to you. But for most of us, I think of a panelty
4:59
are longer Corristance have been at Next Think, but yours would take some beating,
5:03
I believe. So you have a you have a longer stretch prior to
5:08
your Next Think life. Right. Yeah, And it's interesting too my former
5:11
coworkers at Hartford. I have some people, some friends that are still there
5:15
after forty years, double my career, which is amazing to me. Why
5:19
why right retire? Go enjoy your life. But yeah, I've only changed
5:25
jobs twice. I had three jobs in my life, and I changed for
5:29
opportunity, career, growth, technology change, pay change. But you have
5:36
twenty years at Hartford, and I think it's interesting to look back at the
5:42
twenty years in that one role. In the little there's almost micro careers throughout
5:46
the whole time. Projects, change, leaders, change, businesses, change,
5:53
and to look at that lifespan at one place as an equal time as
5:58
next think in its so definitely interesting retrospective to look back and kind of think
6:04
about why I stayed that long and think about some of the things that we
6:08
did. I mean, I got to ask, I mean, going from
6:11
a job tim after twenty years to a new company, did you feel a
6:15
lot of anxiety about that shift? I would have been sleepless nights leading on
6:19
to that journal. It wasn't really anxiety. It was more the excitement of
6:25
change. Right, you guys are just talking about how startups morph and change
6:30
and modify. Hartford's over two hundred years old. It's not changing, so
6:33
things do become stagnant and repetitive projects come and go. But I was really
6:40
looking for that change. I was looking for something that would get me reinvigorated
6:44
in my technology career, and I didn't. I guess I didn't have the
6:49
anxiety overjoining essentially a sales organization because I'd been selling internally my whole career.
6:56
In order to get any technology, and you have to sell it inside,
6:59
and I wasn't too concerned about that. So, you know, there's more
7:02
excitement about the change and the opportunity and how long the next thing that's in
7:05
yourmoney? Eight and a half. So I had eight years at Digital Equipment
7:09
than twenty at Hartford, and now in the fall will be nine years.
7:13
It's amazing. And Dina, however, Dina is heels seventh year is the
7:21
next thing. Yes, so this June is going to be my seventh year.
7:26
And echoeing to what Schehan was saying earlier, I have been changing my
7:30
careers within or my my jobs with the next thing every second year or a
7:35
year and a half in the last seven years within next thing. So it's
7:40
been exciting. It is still exciting. There is no boring day as long
7:44
as the product is evolving, and it keeps on evolving. So I remember
7:47
starting to use the product as a customer nine years ago. It's completely different
7:54
in a very amazing way, where now you have all of the dreams and
7:57
hopes, Oh I wish it could do this, it could do that.
8:01
Now you can do all of it and all the wishes are actually happening.
8:05
And now with Infinity you have more and more to come. So there is
8:11
no one boring day, whether you're delivering the product or using the product in
8:15
the background, so it keeps on evolving. And I think this helps when
8:18
you're staying for the job, the or in the same company. And this
8:24
is the longest I have stayed in the company before, and it's the people
8:30
that makes you stay alongside, of course the product at the end of the
8:33
day. I mean, it's interesting that we spoke to Surgeries last week.
8:39
We have heard from Tim Head, from yourself, and you're by far not
8:43
the only Next thinkers who went from users of a product customers effectively to Next
8:50
thinkers. What's that transition? What was that transition like for you, Dina,
8:54
And what is the key to make that transition successfully? In your looking
9:00
at things from a different perspective. So I'll go back to the first slogan
9:03
that I started to see with Next think it was change your perspective. And
9:09
if you put that at heart, this has been the most successful thing at
9:13
using the product, whether I was a customer on the next Thing side or
9:18
giving some partners trainings or enablement, enpowerment, et cetera. So looking at
9:24
the product from different perspectives has been the most powerful and actually looking at actionable
9:31
data so you don't just have an enormous amount of data that keeps on getting
9:37
in displayed on dashboards or however we want to display it with the Next THINGK,
9:43
but actually operationalizing this data and utilizing it in real life. So finding
9:48
a problem, do the fix, monitor it as you go forward, avoid
9:54
doing it in the future, so moving from the incident management to the problems,
9:58
et cetera, et cetera. All of this gives a lot of power
10:01
and a lot of value. So at the end of the day, it
10:03
is value that drives that transition and success. And this has been one of
10:09
the things and is still one of the things that makes me super excited in
10:13
the morning to wake up and find new challenges to fix. It's the value
10:16
that we keep on adding to everybody's lives, whether it's directly impacting their organization
10:22
at the customer side or impacting them personally. And I have heard and seen
10:28
multiple champions of Next THINGK evolve in their careers, within their current employers or
10:33
even move between companies just because of how successful they have been demonstrating how to
10:39
use next Thing to its fullest capabilities. Le let's tell the this is that
10:43
if you think Dan is just being nice, about next Thing. She says
10:46
the same thing in the chat. It's a true fact. So it's facts
10:50
and figures. That's mostly my argument that generally wins when we're arguing with customers.
10:56
I don't see this, I don't see that, but it's the facts
10:58
and figures if you have the data and keep your eyes behind it. And
11:01
I do have it. So, on the other hand, did not transition
11:05
from using next Thing as far as I know, Correct me if I'm wrong,
11:09
you transition from as we know, being being a gamer into next week
11:13
because that was the technology you were most using. But I'm not wrong.
11:18
You weren't. You were quite, not quite. I mean before next I
11:24
was at a cybersecurity company doing user experience research. So I have definitely found
11:31
my niche in doing UX researcher companies that have highly complex products. And it's
11:39
for that exact reason that everyone mentions when you're working on these extremely technical types
11:46
of software, it's not a solved problem. There's always questions of how can
11:52
we make computer information literate to human brains, and that's a really interesting problem.
12:00
Really enjoying working on it. I've really enjoyed working on it at different
12:03
organizations that have different approaches to the problem. And I also think that it
12:09
means that there's a constant evolution that keeps things novel and interesting and exciting to
12:15
learn about and challenging to work on. So I definitely value that part.
12:18
Interested in your perspective on the question or I am of the disappearing or the
12:24
shrinking career in general, because at the moment, we do hear and see
12:28
that organizations want to retain more talent longer. You know, it's not just
12:33
that the you know, the time people spend at companies are shrinking because they're
12:37
not necessarily wanted. There are a number of factors at play. And what's
12:41
your overall perspective on this phenomenon? And you know, how important do you
12:48
think it is that we have these I know you were saying in the chat,
12:50
this is your longest stint right four years now as a next thinker,
12:54
So you've found somewhere you feel, I hope, relatively at home. And
12:58
how important back to you and how important is that in general? Yeah,
13:01
you know, I'm usually a fairly optimistic person, but I do think that
13:07
in this case I'm a little bit cynical. I don't know that organizations do
13:13
necessarily want to retain employees longer. In many cases, I think what they
13:20
want is to really have a lot of agency over that, and we see
13:24
that in both policies in the US right, I mean, most of the
13:31
US is at will, and in the industry trends at large. Right,
13:37
there have been both massive layoffs and massive hiring sprees over and over again in
13:43
tech. So I think it is a little bit more complicated than companies do
13:48
or don't want to retain employees. I do think that there's a certain amount
13:50
of the norms have changed, and I personally really like stability longevity. I
13:58
chose my career. I chose to get a master's degree in my field because
14:03
I wanted to have a very specific focus, and I really enjoy working with
14:07
a team of people who have really focused on a particular area for a while.
14:11
I think it's one of the things that I enjoy a lot about.
14:13
Next think is so many people who go really deep, and I think that
14:18
that's one of the advantages of longevities, you can go really deep. But
14:24
I do think that, especially when I talk to my peers of different generations
14:31
in the industry in similar roles, our experiences have been very, very different,
14:37
and there isn't a guarantee of stability the way that there has been in
14:43
the past. So I think there is a cultural factor in tech as a
14:48
whole where that stability isn't necessarily a guarantee. It's very hard to count on
14:56
that, which is a shame because like I said, I value it a
15:00
lot and I get very attached to the product that I'm working on. So
15:05
that's, you know, also my personal preference. I think there there's a
15:13
give and take and a cultural shift, and there are definitely advantages and disadvantages
15:18
on both sides. But I am a big fan of building really connected teams,
15:28
and I think that that requires some amount of investment and trust and that
15:31
organizations know that, so I think they're trying to balance that. Yeah,
15:35
that's a really good point, and yeah, that expectation has definitely shifted.
15:41
And then you have the continental differences as well, right, Like US sort
15:46
of employment law, as Oreana just alluding to, is is so radically different
15:50
to European employment law, and you find as a consequence, more longevity and
15:56
a lot of European careers, like you just talk to the next thinkers who
16:00
have been you know, without any diminishment of their passion and enthusiasm, have
16:06
been working sometimes for decades on this technology and it's it's it's deep in them.
16:11
You know that that attachment to the organization, that attachment to the technology,
16:15
and that is to an extent dictated by the conditions that you know,
16:18
companies can't just let people go or be too foot loose in who they hire
16:22
and fire. Megan, Meghan, I'm interested in this. I think I
16:29
think you've probably got a lot to say about a couple of these a couple
16:33
of these themes, and please say say whatever occurs to you. But also,
16:37
you know what stands out to me is when you joined us, you
16:40
joined us from the charity sector, so you kind of join the tech sector
16:44
with pretty fresh eyes. And if you, if you wanna, you want
16:48
to kick off whatever your takes are with with what the tech sector look like,
16:53
you know, coming to it afresh, I think that would be a
16:56
really interesting way to start of Okay, yeah, I can't touch on that.
16:59
I just I first want to kind of react to what Tim was just
17:03
saying about the portfolio career, because I think this is an interesting moment where
17:07
I've seen the same thing tim people saying like, oh, the portfolio career,
17:11
and you see jokes and commentary online about how gen Z, the youngest
17:17
generation job hops all the time because they can increase their earning potential, at
17:21
least in the United States by job hopping all the time. You get the
17:23
biggest bump in your salary by job hopping, and that has become sort of
17:27
the standard wisdom is like, after whatever period of time you deem appropriate,
17:33
then your job hop to increase your earning potential and build your portfolio career.
17:37
But I think a lot of the conversations I see about that lack the psychological
17:45
influence of that lack of stability in your career. I do think that there's
17:49
a psychological toll to constantly having to put yourself into the market and constantly having
17:57
to put yourself out there. I mean the job interview process over the course
18:03
of my career, which is I mean, I guess I entered the working
18:06
world in twenty eleven, so thirteen years. I feel like the interview process
18:11
has just gotten more and more extreme. I will say to interview it next
18:15
think actually wasn't very extreme. But I've had other experiences with other companies where
18:18
they just really put you through to the ringer and so it's this really sort
18:22
of dehumanizing process. And so if you are thinking about job hopping every year,
18:25
I mean, you're putting yourself through a really dehumanizing process every year in
18:29
pursuit of I guess more wealth and more experiences. I don't know. I
18:32
think there's a psychological impact to that that I just don't see. Disgusted as
18:37
often as I don't know, people are saying like, oh, yeah,
18:40
now you're building a portfolio career. So that one kind of stuck out to
18:44
me. Not that I don't. I mean, build a portfolio career if
18:45
that's what you want, Get as much money as you want, if that's
18:48
what you want out of your career. But you know, I think we
18:51
are losing something where we lose that trust and that stability, and that kind
18:56
of segues into yeah, experience coming from the charity sector. So the reason
19:02
that I left the charity sector actually was we don't call it the charity sector
19:07
in the United States but nonprofit world to speak American. Yeah, the reason
19:11
I left the nonprofit sector was because I got laid off. I had My
19:18
career has been kind of crazy. I'd always worked for like a year.
19:21
I job hopped a lot, so I guess I'm speaking from experience with the
19:23
psychological toll. But I would take year long contracts at these nonprofits abroad,
19:30
and then they can't lay you off. It's a different employment, Lise,
19:33
you were saying, Tom, So, I would work for a year with
19:36
a contract, and then the contract would be up, and either they would
19:37
offer to renew or I would decide to go somewhere else. And then I
19:41
moved back to the United States a few years ago and got a job with
19:45
a nonprofit here that felt like such a dream job. You know, Oh
19:48
my gosh, so amazing. I love it so much, and I really,
19:51
as Oreota was saying, you know, you get attached to what you're
19:53
working on. I think in the nonprofit sector that's especially true. You get
19:57
really attached to the mission you feel. Like for the one I was working
20:02
at, you know, we worked with kids in the city and running programs
20:07
for these kids, and so I felt really attached to these kids and really
20:08
attached to the work and the mission. I mean, I was still working
20:11
in that sort of marketing communication side. I was helping to tell the story,
20:15
so we could raise more money, but I felt really attached. And
20:18
then you know, the pandemic hit, which is obviously an extreme circumstance,
20:22
but I got laid off and it was really a hit for me. It
20:26
was really you know, I felt like, WHOA like my kind of identity?
20:30
I gave too much of myself to this job. And so I'll admit
20:33
somewhat cynically that when I was like, maybe I'll try the software sector,
20:37
there was a cynical part of me that was kind of like, and I
20:40
won't get so attached, I won't get so emotionally bought in because it won't
20:45
matter as much. So I'll admit that, But I was wrong about that.
20:51
I think I came into the tech sector thinking that it was just going
20:53
to be a bunch of like cynical businessmen trying to make as much money as
20:56
they could. And instead, you know, I found this world next thing
21:03
where we're talking about digital eploy experience and where our customers really seem to see
21:10
the vision that we're putting out into the world. And now as my role
21:12
has evolved here and now I have a role where I get to speak with
21:15
customers more frequently and hear what they're doing with the product, and to what
21:19
Dina was saying here, how it's revolutionized their careers. I just I feel
21:26
really bought in yet again, because you know, you're hearing about how this
21:30
software is making people happier at work, and it's giving people a new direction
21:33
for their career, and it's making them feel more inspired about their career,
21:37
and it really does have like a personal impact. So I think the software
21:42
world and the nonprofit world are actually not that different. I think the nonprofit
21:45
world gets a reputation of being a place where less skilled people go to work,
21:52
and I don't think that that's fair. I think a nonprofit world is
21:55
full of really intelligent, driven people who want to do the best work possible.
21:57
And I think that the software world is the same. And I was
22:00
expecting the tech world to be full of you know, synics who really want
22:03
to make money, But instead I have found people who are really intelligent and
22:07
really driven and really just want to make the best product possible and make a
22:12
difference with their works. So I think across the board, people just want
22:15
to find meaning in their work. You know, That's kind of my takeaway.
22:18
Yeah, And I think, like you picked up at the top of
22:22
answer as well, which is they also want to find community. People want
22:26
to find jobs with they feel at home. You have to spend a lot
22:27
of time with jobs, and you have to be quite thick skinned, as
22:30
you say, Megan, not only to go through crazy interview processes and with
22:34
it probable rejection and such like, but also then to adapt to completely new
22:40
people and to play the game of Russian roulette that a new workplace kind of
22:45
presents, because you know, the worst thing for somebody's peace of mind in
22:49
life is a toxic workplace and an unpleasant people. And if you if you
22:53
find somewhere where you get home with people and you know you're going to be
22:57
treated in a decent you're going to be treated decently, and you're going to
23:02
have work, which is which is engaging, et cetera. Quite often,
23:04
I think that can outweigh whatever material advantages you might look to gain or be
23:11
offered in making these continuous switches and changes. So that's my own that's my
23:18
own take on it. Sorry, you mentioned one thing that I think is
23:22
really important. We've referred We've referred to people a few times, and I
23:27
do think that's a really important element too, right, Like this saying goes.
23:30
People don't quit jobs, they quit bad bosses, and so I do
23:34
think there's also it's a very complex set of factors that leads to any specific
23:40
job change. And I think that for a lot of us we may want
23:45
stability, and there are so many ways to create great workplaces that keep people
23:49
around, and I think tech is a good part of it. But also,
23:52
obviously from this conversation, having an interesting problem to work on and good
23:56
people to work on it with is really the most fundamental thing. And there's
24:00
no one common situation either, right. I didn't Many people leave bad bosses,
24:06
but I left a great boss, and I decided to not stay and
24:11
and stay stagnant and complacent and take the easy path. I could have spent
24:15
another twenty years at Hartford like my friends and retired there, but you've got
24:18
it. In my case, I wanted to challenge myself and get a new
24:21
challenge, despite the fact that I had a really good boss. So you
24:25
know, it goes from one end of the spectrum to the other. You
24:27
can build that portfolio career and change every year or two and take the risk
24:32
and the stress and anxiety that goes along with it, or you can stay
24:36
in an employer for forty years and not worry about that. It's it's all
24:38
a very personal decision and what you do with your career. That's why why
24:42
careers are so interesting to me. Oh, I know Tim's filmer Boss was
24:48
so great. Tim's still worries that they're listening to the Deck Show. Yeah,
24:55
how good that boss. That was a wonderful chat everybody. We are
24:59
out of time, but thank you so much everyone, And I think that
25:03
was a really, really worthwhile discussion and I really enjoyed it. So we
25:07
will include links to the interview I mentioned at the top of the show with
25:12
Sergio, who I called Sergia certain sorry about that, Sogio. Do listen
25:18
to that if you enjoy this conversation and you missed that episode, and be
25:22
sure to tune in over the next few episodes of The Deck Show, where
25:26
we will be celebrating throughout the month of May, the incredible milestone of Next
25:30
Think's twentieth anniversary, and a final plug before I go. I know it's
25:37
a long way off, but Experience twenty twenty four is coming towards us.
25:41
It's in October and November in London and Boston both this year, and you
25:47
can register now. There will be a link in the show notes to check
25:49
out the specific dates for venues, find out something about what we're going to
25:55
be covering this year, and get your name down at this early stage,
25:59
so be sure to do that. Also just leaves for me to thank the
26:03
wonderful Reality by Its panel Tim, Sean, Dina, Arianna, Megan,
26:07
and of course our super producer Catherine. Thank you all so much. To
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make sure that you never miss an episode. Subscribe to the show in Apple
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over to Nextthink dot com. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time,