Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:11 Hello everyone, this is Josh person. You know, one of the things I get asked quite frequently by journalists and other people is, what is the biggest thing we've learned from the pandemic? And what, if anything, is the one thing you would tell HR and business people to do differently as a result of what we've been through? And I was thinking about it the other day, and it's kind of a difficult question to answer cuz there have been so many things. But there is one, and I think the lesson for all of us is about the unquenchable power of the human spirit, the incredible adaptability, resilience, energy, and flexibility of people. In fact, many of the early conversations we had about the pandemic a year and a half ago when we first wrote about the big reset and what was going on in the crisis was how disruptive this was going to be.
Speaker 1 00:01:05 We were going to have to shut down our companies, send people home, lay off our employees, change our operations, go out of business, stop selling things, stop delivering things, stop entertaining people, stop taking care of people because we were all so worried about the pandemic. And look what's happened, here we are, 18, 19, 20 months later, the economy is booming all over the world. Millions and millions of people have figured out how to work from home or work remotely. The entire economy and job market has completely adapted homework and remote work is becoming highly productive and very carefully engineered. An entire new market of technology has been introduced to help us manage hybrid work, remote work and vaccine implementations and safety, an industry of wellbeing and health and caring and mental resilience has been created. And of course, we've adapted our entire business practices for leadership and management and listening and surveying and caring for people in business.
Speaker 1 00:02:14 And through it all, despite the fact that every one of us have been worried at some point about whether we're gonna catch this virus and maybe die, or maybe our kids or maybe our families or maybe our parents, we've all managed to thrive. Now, obviously many of us have not. There have been a lot of people that have been negatively affected by this. But despite that, if you look at all of the data and all of the information on the economy and the job market and the political system, human beings persist. Human beings adapt. And I'm reminded of a very painful experience. I had the Christmas before the pandemic when my family and I spent a day or two going to homeless shelters in Oakland. And I live in Oakland, California. And unfortunately there are many homeless shelters and homeless encampments all over the city.
Speaker 1 00:03:05 And we created a bunch of bags of food, of lunch, and we went out and we delivered them to lots and lots of people. And we met all sorts of people in different homeless shelters. And what amazed me is that these people were, I wouldn't say they're thriving, they're very uncomfortable and very unhappy, and many of them were under a lot of medical issues and psychological issues too. But they were, they were thankful, they were willing to talk to us. They were dealing with their issues, of course, asking for help, of course, expecting people to do much better things for their lives, but they were surviving. And I think what we've witnessed during the pandemic is that human beings are survivors. Human beings adapt, human beings learn. And even when we don't know what's about to happen next, amazing things happen. What's going on in Afghanistan right now as painful and chaotic as it is and difficult to watch, is another example of how people always win in the end.
Speaker 1 00:04:09 And this is a big, big lesson for business. If you unleash this energy and adaptability and desire to learn in the people in your company, they will transform and they will transform your business. And that's the lesson for hr. Don't underestimate the power of the human spirit. Some people call it the abundance mentality. It's sometimes called the infinite mindset. It's sometimes called a growth mindset. There's lots of words for this, but the core of it is that we are born with a certain human and physical energy and desire to learn. And when conditions are uncertain and difficult, we adapt. Now, sometimes we don't adapt. And one of the things in HR that's really, really important is to create a work experience that allows people to adapt, that gives people the information and flexibility and sense of trust that they will lean into the problem and deal with it.
Speaker 1 00:05:11 And if you do that, your organization will excel. And, and I have no question of that at all. And there's many, many ways to do that. Giving people information about what jobs and skills and opportunities are available to them inside the company. Giving people enough pay and benefits that they can make decisions on how to run their lives and do their jobs well without micromanaging them. Teaching managers how to be facilitators and coaches and developers of people being crystal clear on what you're trying to accomplish in your company every month, every week, every day. So people are not confused about where to spend their time. Giving people a simple experience at work, not overloading them with too many things to do, or too many systems, which just frustrates everybody. You've read my piece on the process shredder. We all need to shred a lot of processes and that a lot of that happened during the pandemic, taking a management philosophy of empathy and care and listening.
Speaker 1 00:06:14 You know, people don't always speak up in organizations. We've seen this in the political system. Look what's been going on in all the things that's been happening in Washington. Many people at the mid to lower levels of organizations are quiet. They don't feel safe to bring up an issue that they see in front of them. But when you open up that aperture and you give people the opportunity to tell you what's going on in their life, you'll learn what needs to happen in your company to make it better. They'll tell you, in fact, one of the lessons we learned from our employee experience research in the last couple of months is that of all the things we can do to improve the employee experience, the number one by far is to learn how to listen. And I don't mean just having a town hall and doing a bunch of surveys.
Speaker 1 00:06:58 I mean getting really good at taking that information and acting on it and adapting and changing in response to employee needs because people will tell you what makes the company better. Now, the other part of this issue of the human spirit is an understanding and a belief that the employees probably are the most vested stakeholders you have. Now, I know most CFOs and CEOs are worried about the board, they're worried about the shareholders, they're worried about the investors, they're worried about the analysts, they're worried about the broad market perception of the company. But all of those stakeholders can change quickly. People can sell their stock, people can follow another firm. People can lose interest in your company if they're not invested heavily in your company. And even if they are, they can sell their shares and move on. And by the way, customers can too.
Speaker 1 00:07:56 Customers can just decide at some point they don't wanna do business with you for whatever reason it may be, and they can go elsewhere. The one group that cannot do that is your employees. Your employees in a sense vote with their lives when they come to work for you. They attach their earnings, their family life, their kids' education, their careers, their time, their energy, their commute hours in your company. So they want your company to succeed even more than you do. So they will always have the best interests at heart. So when employees give you information or give you feedback or recommend things or ask for things, they're not doing it out of a feeling of selfishness. Yes, of course everybody's selfish to some degree, but they're really trying to make your company better so that they can have a better experience in your company too, which in turn will make customers happier and make them happier about their jobs.
Speaker 1 00:08:54 So if you can unleash the power of the human spirit, if you can listen to what employees are telling you, if you can give them a safe and flexible work experience, if you can reassure them that in this new role, in this new job, in this new assignment, things are gonna be okay and we're gonna take care of you. If you just lean into the problem and help us get through this, you're gonna be fine. And the pandemic experience of the last two years proves this. I mean, I cannot tell you how many companies we've talked to for the last two years that have told us incredible stories of complete transformation of their businesses. Companies like airlines or travel companies or cruise lines or retailers or pharmaceutical companies, by the way, who've been through an enormous amount of stress. Healthcare companies where 40 to 50% of the nurses have almost given up in the profession, all of which are digitizing their products and services changings, the way they manage people coming up with hybrid work strategies, modifying their entire customer experience and their entire employee experience.
Speaker 1 00:10:03 And of course, we in HR have been in the middle of all of this. And so if you think about the most maybe surprising learning that you've had as an HR professional, I would bet it's a story of some individual in your company who did something far above and beyond what you ever expected, really out of the spirit and generosity of their heart. Now, you know, the real message here is not that people are good and people are great, sometimes people aren't good. I mean, sometimes people get wrapped around the axle and do the wrong thing. What we really are here to do in HR in many ways is to create an environment that encourages the best possible results. And that means we reward great behavior, we applaud and celebrate success. We recognize and appreciate people. We hire people carefully and make sure that they fit our culture.
Speaker 1 00:10:58 We manage people and communicate with people in a human and ongoing way. We respect people's ability to change and grow. You know, one of the things that comes up all the time in conversations with CHROs and CLOs is this topic which people call reskilling. I'm tired of hearing the word reskilling. There is no reskilling. Everybody is always upskilling. Everybody has some skills that are outta date, including me. There's some things I just don't know how to do very well. And we all have things we can do better. So this isn't a problem of saying this person is a square peg in a round hole, and we need to round off the edges and move them into a to a new spot. This is an issue of allowing every individual in the company to continuously upskill themselves. And that means creating a clear perspective and direction on where we want the company to go.
Speaker 1 00:11:52 Yesterday I talked with the head of talent at Allstate, and Allstate is a 90 year old company. They're in a very interesting traditional, but constantly changing business of insurance. Insurance is a very complicated and dynamic space. It's being automated very, very rapidly. The entire claims process is done in digital ways now. And the company has one of the highest retention rates, the highest internal mobility rates and strongest employment brands amongst its employees and its partners of any company in its industry. And why do they have that? Because they really empower people. They've had an internal mobility talent marketplace for 10 years. A lot of you are just examining this now for the first time. They've done this for 10 years. They had 11 corporate capabilities that they were pushing into the company for years. Now they have six. They have very clear direction for people.
Speaker 1 00:12:47 They spend a lot of money on education. They pay for people to go back to school. They encourage individuals to take new roles and jobs inside of the company. They really take good care of people. And I haven't looked at all states' financials, but my guess is they've probably been a financially successful company for many, many years. And they've been through all sorts of ups and downs as part of that. And again, I think it's because they've been able to unleash the power of the human spirit. Well, you know, I would encourage you to think about this because this idea of unleashing the power of every individual in your company is really a big deal. And by the way, it's very different now than it was 20 years ago. I got outta college in 1978, so I've been working for more than 40 years. And I distinctly remember in the seventies and eighties that work was all about conformity.
Speaker 1 00:13:39 In order to be successful in the business world, you had to find an organization or a company that would hire you and then conform to their way of being. Take a job that was clearly defined, wear the clothes, go to the office, behave, do the work, get to know the people, and kind of do the company thing. And that actually was a great time. I had a very successful career at Exxon and then later at IBM, and then later at several other companies. And then sometime around the mid to late 1990s and early two thousands when the internet really became popular, it all changed. Suddenly jobs were available on the internet. It was very easy to find another position. And employees said, you know, maybe you don't wanna be this person in this company. I wanna be myself. And so we started this 20 year journey of the power of the individual.
Speaker 1 00:14:34 And here we are in a situation where individuality and uniqueness is what people wanna have at work. Workday told me that I believe there are 40 or more definitions of gender in the H R M S. People get tattoos, people shave their heads, people have beards, people don't have beards, people have orange hair, purple hair. I mean, this is a world of people wanting to be unique. They want to be honored and respected for their uniqueness, but they still want to come to work. They still wanna do their jobs, they still wanna make the company successful, they still want to take care of customers or patients or clients. They just want to do it in their own way. And that's another interesting part of what's going on in the pandemic. We have become comfortable now allowing people to be themselves. Look at the way the Zoom meetings work.
Speaker 1 00:15:28 People have their dogs and their cats and their kids and their family lives right in the middle of their work experience. And it's okay. Most companies are okay with that. And I think that's one of the other dimensions of unleashing the power of the human spirit. Obviously, you will never unleash the power of the human spirit until you create a fair and inclusive environment where people feel they belong. And that has been a big issue in HR as well. So let me leave you with that thought that maybe the biggest thing we've learned from this pandemic is the unquenchable power of the human spirit. And that our jobs as HR people, as business people, as supervisors, as managers, is to figure out how to unleash and harness that power of the human spirit. And I can pretty much guarantee to you that whatever you're working on in hr, if you think about it in that context, the project's gonna go well and I'll have a great outcome. Thank you very much and I obviously would love your feedback at any time. Thank you.
