The Game Changer in HR: Lauren Fitzpatrick-Shanks

Ready to shake up your HR world? Prepare to be inspired as we sit down with Lauren Fitzpatrick-Shanks, founder and CEO of Keepwall. Lauren breaks tradition, redefining the future of HR and learning development with a game-based, psychology-driven approach that is changing how we view engagement and team-building.

Unearth the power of games in fostering a lively and engaging workplace. Lauren divulges her expertise on the use of game mechanics to trigger team building and engagement, creating a fun, innovative learning environment. We explore how the psychology of rewards and dopamine hits can motivate employees, and how games can be used as a universal language for learning and development. 

In this game-changing exchange, we challenge the traditional vision of HR. Discover how a dash of enjoyment and a sprinkle of game mechanics can revolutionize your company culture and learning development. Lauren unveils the financial wisdom in investing in learning and development programs, providing strategies to boost your HR budget. Finally, we reveal Keepwall's avant-garde approach to monitoring employee engagement, team dynamics, and job satisfaction. This is a conversation you don't want to miss; it's all about breaking barriers and redefining the future of HR.

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:03

This is the Rebel HR Podcast, the podcast about all things innovation in the people's space. I'm Kyle Rode. Let's start the show. Welcome back Rebel HR community, extremely excited for the conversation and the guest. Today With us we have Lauren Fitzpatrick-Shanks. She is the founder of Keepwall as well as its CEO, and we are going to be talking all about how to drive change successfully in human resources and learning and development. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3: 0:39

Thank you for having me, Kyle. I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 2: 0:43

We are extremely excited to have you here as well and really looking forward to the conversation With us. We also have Patrick Moran. Patrick, welcome back.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Glad to be back. It's been a while. I'm excited for this conversation.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Absolutely me too. Well, lauren, I think it's really fascinating some of the work that you've done. I'd like for you to give our listeners a little bit of a background and what motivated you to found, keepwall and drive change in your space.

Speaker 3: 1:16

Yeah, that's a great question. It's a question I often get. I always like to start with a bit of my story, my journey, of my career journey. If you're not aware, which most people are aware by 2025, millennials and Gen Zers are going to make up 70% of the workforce. I think once we throw in Gen X, that's up to 85% of the workforce. In less than two years, On average for the millennials and Gen Z, we're spending less than three years at any company. I actually understand this really well. I'm a millennial. I'm a female engineer. I'm also the first black woman to graduate from the University of Kansas' Aerospace Engineering Department.

Speaker 3: 2:01

When I entered the workforce, I worked at five Fortune 500 companies over the span of 14 years. Some quick math there that's about three years on average at each company. My main issue was that no one in my industry was able to relate to me and I didn't feel like my needs were being heard and proactively acted upon. I created this solution to connect, listen and learn at a deeper level. My whole thought process behind this is like I'm a rocket scientist. This isn't rocket science. We should be able to figure this out. It's not hard.

Speaker 3: 2:38

Keep Wall stands for, keep wondering out loud. Really, what we've built here is this interactive platform that emphasizes cohort-based learning amongst direct teams, because when people leave companies, you'll often hear that they didn't leave the company, they left a manager, but they're really leaving an environment. It's not just the manager, it's the project team, the direct teams that they're working with. It's that complete environment that's happening. We have cohort-based learning within schooling, when we're going to college and things like that or any type of certification, but we don't think about the teams that we work on as a cohort and a collective of support for one another and getting and meeting our goals and our objectives. We took that outlook from it, but we also are using gaming principles in psychology.

Speaker 3: 3:30

We've developed this AI-powered gamification platform that engages, develops and helps companies retain their top talent Keep Walls backed by science and designed to be fun, while providing those actionable insights and people analytics that HR loves so much, but also helping leaders to have ownership in really champion change, improving team effectiveness and elevating company culture. It's not just a hey, the C-suite has decided, this is what we're going to say our company culture is, and we just will assume everyone falls in line. It's like nope. Every new person that comes into this company is creating and making up this culture. As we add people and as people leave, it adapts and we're adapting with it and we're giving that power to direct leaders as well as the team as a whole. Employees really have a say and emphasis on their success and where they're going. That's a little bit about me and what we're building here at Kiphol.

Speaker 2: 4:32

I think it really resonates with me, and I'm sure it resonates with our audience, because I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with individuals of all generations who are like I'm just looking for something that helps me learn, I'm helping for something that helps me understand and interpret the expectations better. I'm looking for where I can continue to grow within my current role. So often our answer is well, I don't know. Here's like a training catalog on this online platform. Does something look interesting? Every once in a while, you'll get a leader that will take the time and seize the value and invest in understanding their goals and abilities and understanding what motivates them.

Speaker 2: 5:22

But that's the exception, not the rule, I think the reality is I'm saying that and I guarantee you, everybody listening is probably nodding along and saying, yep, I've heard that. I agree. So something's not working right now in our organizations. So, as you were founding this organization and as you were reflecting on your experience and some of the research that led you to do this, what were some of those areas where you were just saying this is just a massive gap that we need to address?

Speaker 3: 5:53

That is everything that you just said. No one could see me, but I'm over here nodding Yep, yep. Same sentiments understood it and I think it's very interesting because, how I like to look at it is we currently have a status quo for what we think about when we say what does employee engagement and team building look like and learning and development look like? There's a status quo of what is provided and I feel like oftentimes, like I said, my background is not in HR at all, but I did grow up in a family. My mom has a master's degree in human resources, been doing that her entire life, and my father also has a master's degree in human resources, but I did not work in that field. So my perspective is way different because it's more so of a perspective of like an employee that's receiving and when I'm going to HR for support and something like what am I getting? When I'm going to my leader, like how are they addressing things and how are they directing me to HR? We all know and hear that HR is like the bad word in a company. It's not the like yeah, let me go talk to HR. It's like oh gosh, you got to talk to HR. Like that's kind of how you're feeling.

Speaker 3: 7:09

So, when I think about the current process and when we're looking at the gaps, there's three main elements that I think about when it comes to employee engagement and retention. So number one there's these employee experience platforms that are basically they're focused on engagement and seeing engagement metrics, but they're only focused on collecting the feedback and it's the feedback that they're deciding. Like what type of questions do I want to ask? What way do I want to point it lead direct employees to answering these questions? They're not actually enabling the engage. So that's one thing. I'm like how do we call this like experience and engagement platforms, when I'm like these aren't actually enabling engagement. They're just trying to track is engagement happening, but what are you doing to make engagement happen? I don't understand. So that's one. And with these platforms, they're deploying those surveys, but these surveys are failing to collect and capture that important contextual, nuanced information because they're siloed.

Speaker 3: 8:13

You're doing this by yourself, all text driven. You're not talking to someone, no one gets to ask follow up question and you're doing it randomly, like maybe once a year. The exception to the rule is you're doing this bi-annually or quarterly, like that's the exception, and then the results from this. If you hear anything from an outcome with it, it's like 12 months later and then you have all new problems, a new thought process, or it could either be the next day later, because when you took that engagement survey, you had a really great day or you had a really bad day, right. So that's one. So these employee experience and engagement survey platforms.

Speaker 3: 8:50

Number two is like these team building solutions. So there's like team building solutions that are based off of interaction or slap bots or something that's like yeah, go chat with your colleagues and things like that, but it's very surface level. It's something that you're once again doing through text and what it's doing is it's enabling and emphasizing the interaction, which is great, but it's not doing anything about behavioral change or learning and development. So when you hear team building, people immediately shift to have the mindset of like oh, this is engagement, morale, instead of like, no, this is collaboration, this is dynamics, this is foundation laying. And then the third element that I was like okay, here's the main gap that we're seeing is those learning management systems. So we're talking about learning and development and you were saying like it deploys this and it deploys this like e-learning, and you have this content database of thousands of thousands of courses and you're trying to figure out what the hell am I supposed to focus on at this point, like what do I need that development in? And it delivers this siloed, one size fits all, fails to capture like impact metrics. It's really just capturing that you're completed or not, not your knowledge retention or how it's applied and applicable to your job and how's that showing up in your job.

Speaker 3: 10:12

And so my main thought process was like, with these current solutions, leaders still have to make the connection between the data and the action, so you're not possibly maximizing that potential of each employee. They're not leaning in to do the own professional and personal development. It seems like an extra chore, like they get analysis paralysis when they're looking through all this content that's available if they're looking through it. And so for KeepWolve, that gap that we saw we were like there has to be a better way, that these don't have to be three separate things and that there could be a process that's an efficient process, that doesn't seem like a heavy lift outside of your day to day work, that, because you have your day job too, that you're able to do this.

Speaker 3: 11:00

And so for us, for KeepWolve, we're focused on leaders at all levels who are seeking to efficiently develop their talent, and they use our platform, which we call. It's an employee engagement retention platform that uses a play reflecting growth process, and so, for Play, we promote this live interaction using games that get teams to directly communicate in an effective way, and so you get your team building in there, but you're getting your collaboration, you're getting your dynamic aspect from there. Then we have these post-game reflection assessments that are collecting robust, contextualized data and insights and goals, and it's all based on what's the specific objective for that game. What are you looking to accomplish, challenge, learn, understand, et cetera. And then our software uses those gameplay outcomes to deliver this just in time curated content and action plan to solidify that behavioral change, and that content is delivered in.

Speaker 3: 12:06

If it's not a one size fits all, this is perfect for you, and so we are able. With our platform, we're first able to transform any challenge, team objective, training content into these immersive storytelling games, while simultaneously fostering engagement and learning. And so, as a user is going through this, they don't feel like I'm doing something HR-y or oh my gosh, this is like a waste of my time or not fun. They're enjoying it and then after they're like oh crap, I just learned this, I'm interested in developing here, I have this gap here and it only takes 60 minutes a month to do this. So it's replacing one of your already scheduled team meetings. So you're not adding extra time, you're not doing anything more. You're taking a meeting that you're probably not getting a lot of benefit from and getting a whole lot of benefit.

Speaker 2: 13:00

No, every meeting's fully got full benefits, right? Yeah, all of them. Yeah, I think it's you know, when you just summed up the problem statement that so many of us are dealing with, which is it's like where do I start? You know, and it's you know. I think the other challenge is there's so many different no-transcript, different like platforms and ways to do it, and a lot of times we've got this like this it's like this Frankenstein monster of all these systems and programs that we try to use where it's like well, don't forget about this tool or that tool or this tool, and we rolled this out three years ago and we used it, but I forgot about it. No, we got it better. Retrain on, you know. I mean, it's just, it's just so much you know. So I'm curious. I'm curious on how you, how you came about figuring out that gamifying it it works. What you know, what research led you to think, well, this might be a solution that actually drives some of the fixes to these problems.

Speaker 3: 14:11

Yeah, so there's a few things that led me to it, because when I started Keep Will in the process for like what's the methodology we'll approach this with, it was actually from a personal standpoint. So it was how do I build these relationships, get this learning and understanding in my personal life in a quick and efficient way? Because I have lived in all the regions of the United States. As I said, I worked at five different companies and so, as I'm shifting and moving and changing jobs and stuff, you have to create those relationships quickly and creating them personally, creating professional network, et cetera. And what I was always doing, just naturally, was kind of like this question-answer game. So it was when I come up and meet somebody and like we talking to them, and then we're like ripping, I'm like, well, let's just play a game. I'm gonna ask you a question, you asked me what, and so then it was like how do I expand this? Because I was being told by a lot of people that, hey, you're really good at like conversing and getting a lot out of folks and like understand, like I was the person that knew all the policies and the ins and outs and like what salaries folks were making at work. Before it was like, oh yeah, this is public knowledge, like put this on, like what leveled? Which jobs are opening up soon before they get posted and things, because I was able to have those conversations and I would consistently get asked how were you getting this information? What are you doing? And my whole approach to this was well, if I share and I'm open, I'm vulnerable and I'm showcasing that, like hey, I trust you, this is a safe space, like I'm gonna share, others lean in too, so if I lean in, they'll lean back in. And then I then started to think how can we create this in some kind of game fashion, because I had just had my first child, so this was in 2018, january of 2018. And I'm looking. I had her in 2016, though, and so I'm looking at her going to preschool and daycare and how she's learning. I'm like she's learning through play, she's learning through games. It's fun. She doesn't recognize. She's learning, she's having fun. And so I then thought to myself why aren't we doing this as grownups? We all have game nights. We like just before the show started we were talking about I was in Vegas, and so I liked gambling, I liked playing games, and the main thing around.

Speaker 3: 16:40

It is, games provide you structure, but they also provide that ambiguity, unexpectedness. You have to think on your feet, so all these different life skills that you have to deal with, and I'm like, how do we make this a game? And so much in the HR space.

Speaker 3: 17:01

Gamification was adding leaderboards to something and points, but it wasn't really making something a game and giving these rules and the structure around everything, and so I always was very heavily interested I love playing games in general so like with dive into the philosophy of gaming, the principles of gaming, and then thinking about the psychology and how our reward system works in our brain and that boosted dopamine that you get in that even if you're not very competitive, if someone's like this is how you can win, you're gonna put in the effort because you don't want to lose, and so it's one of those instances that, as we just started testing this methodology out, we really saw people like leaning in because of those key aspects of just the board game that you'd play with your family and friends at home, or a video game or something like all those different things that just have your senses going and making something fun. That's what we saw in. Games are universal. Around the world, everyone plays games, so it's something that was understandable across the board.

Speaker 1: 18:08

How's the reception been from leadership when you're walking into businesses and saying, okay, we're going to get rid of the surveys because nobody does anything with the results and we're going to change the game. So it's me. Yeah, tell me about how that looks, how those conversations go.

Speaker 3: 18:24

Yeah. So it's very interesting because we just started, I want to say this past year, like this year, really doing cold outreach. We had been really focused more so on how do we get to events and be able to showcase that this works, because you'll hear something, especially in the workplace, when you're talking to adults, you're like games and games in the workplace. That is really like what. And even when we were doing this before we entered it into the workplace Because, as I said, we're thinking about this more so from like personal development and like creating your own networks outside of this being in the workplace, what we saw was, as people was coming and experiencing this, they were like I really need this in work. So it wasn't us that went and said this is for the workplace, it was these companies that came back to us and said, hey, an employee had experienced this or had been had done this. Can you bring it into our place?

Speaker 3: 19:25

So initially we were doing this kind of team building thing and then we built it out layer upon layer to really service the overall aspect of that engagement and learning and development. And so when we entered it, we had to start being very specific with what kind of language we use. We can't go in and be like this is a game-centric platform. We're playing games, we're using games to do this. We had to come in and if you rewind back a little bit to listen how it gave our elevator pitch, it was like AI power gamification to do blah, blah, blah. And then you come back and you're like, no, this is like games that then have all this other stuff. So it's not gamification where we added a leaderboard to something. That's really not like a game. No, this is actually games, but it's doing all these other elements of all the other things that you're trying to get done. That's not actually happening. And so the conversations that we're having with people, we're really redefining. How are you looking at team building? How do you look at engagement and engagement platforms? How are you looking at learning and development? What's your real outcome? You want it to be, and how can games work? And so when we attend conferences, we always give a sample of the experience. We play the game so people can understand like, oh, this is how it works.

Speaker 3: 20:50

We get a lot of foot traffic because we use the word gamification. It's the big buzzword in the HR space right now. So as soon as people see it. They always come to us and they're just like can you gamify my materials? I'm like we can take your materials and we can turn them into a keepable game, but what we will not do is create a kid like video game. That is a siloed, individual thing that makes us as adults feel like do you think that my Like? Are you trying to insult my intelligence? Yeah, so we kind of have those different conversations, but the receptiveness with us using the word gamification instead of out the gate saying you're going to play games, is different. So it allows us the space to really explain, like here's the flow on process and methodology of how this works.

Speaker 1: 21:42

I like that. It also sounds like creates a lot of engagement, which is what makes sense for teams that want it, Because we get stuck so many times with so many organizations. They do engagement activities or surveys but they're not intentional about it and, like I said earlier, it's a lot of times they don't do anything with the results. So I love the process and kind of the platform that you guys are creating. That sounds awesome.

Speaker 3: 22:07

Thank you, and even from that because from a like how do our users feel about it? And stuff, because we serve as three audience, really Like HR leaders, those team managers or those division leaders, and then actually the teams, and so for us, for anything to be successful within these organizations, it has to be something that the user consistently wants to do and makes it sticky. And that's the main thing that we keep hearing back is, like I want to keep doing this, like we need to make the space. Let's replace this meeting with one of these sessions. I'm looking forward to it because for the end user, what they're getting is it's providing that fulfillment, it's providing that connection, that reset from the rigors of the day and the stress they get to be authentic, and it's personalized.

Speaker 3: 22:56

Or my favorite is like it's not too corporate. It's one of my favorite HRE things to do. That was something like it's like I never look forward to doing any HRE thing. I got that from a data scientist. They're bare. That was funny. This is the HRE thing I actually look forward to doing with my team. This is fun, it's user friendly and it's improving that team communication and collaboration and the dressing team issues head on and learning and development like mindset head on, so it's really great. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun for us. It's a fun company too, so I'm like it's fun for us.

Speaker 2: 23:34

I love that. Yeah, I'm going to start using that. When I roll something out, I'll be like we're trying to make it not too HRE, or I'm going to use it as a verb Like today I'm HRing, we're going to embrace this. Patrick, let's do this.

Speaker 3: 23:48

Yes, I love it, I love it. If you look at our website too, if you go to the website, go to keepwellcom and stuff, you'll see that a playful element is in everything we do. How can we make things just not so serious? Yes, hr, we have compliance things, we have legal applications that we have to focus on, but that's not the only responsibility of what HR is there to do. So how do we make it not that bad word?

Speaker 2: 24:19

Yeah, it's like a. It's like a like a low-key curse word and like corporate America, right, it's like oh HR's here, right. Like it's almost like saying oh shit. You know, mind your pees and cues. Yeah, we're trying to change that.

Speaker 1: 24:33

That's why I always call. I always call Fridays, hr Fridays, because nobody wants to deal with their HR stuff until Friday afternoon and that's when we get busy.

Speaker 3: 24:41

You just get powed on, powed on.

Speaker 2: 24:45

That is so true. It's, I swear, I swear so today. So we are recording this on a Friday, by the way, and I guarantee you that, like at like 445 pm, I'm gonna get like like a couple emails where somebody clearly is like clear their desk and they're like here, I'm just gonna throw this over the fence and and then, and then run away for the weekend. Yeah, it's coming, yep.

Speaker 3: 25:10

Sounds about right. It sounds about right. But if everyone else's catch-up day, it's your day to get all your work, but probably if Simon's coming for you.

Speaker 2: 25:19

Absolutely, you know, one of the things that I so, first of all, I think that the platform sounds, sounds awesome, and I, you know, I love the idea of changing the perception in the context of what of learning and development, and this is something that's actually enjoyable and and consumable. But one of the challenges that we run into so often is it is how much is this gonna cost and what's the benefit and what? You know, what you know? I mean, I know this sounds fun and I know people will like it, but what is this? You know what? What does this look like? And I know that that that you've done a lot of research on that, as it relates to what, the, what the actual benefit of learning and development looks like, and so so would you share with us just a little bit about what, what some of your findings are and where, as it relates to that, the benefits of learning and development programs and investing in this type of work?

Speaker 3: 26:13

Yes, so happy, like for any users listening to this and they're like, hey, I need something to go in to increase our budget. Been for us to get more HR budget. We have a full ebook like white paper that we're happy to share with you. That just sets it, lays it all out for you to be like. This is why we need more spend at this space. Um, but we collect metrics in five key areas. So with ours, with everything we do and its gameplay and things like that we're still surrounded about around impact metrics, what's the people analytics, what's happening, and so we collect metrics in engagement, team dynamics, innovation, cultural intelligence and job satisfaction. And so our research and what we have seen is for any individual that decides to leave a company, they've left for one of those five reasons, that fall within one of those five reasons or more, one or more of them. And so for us to be able to keep a pulse on that and how we're leaning in, and this is a repeatable type of thing that people look to and enjoy and that you're consistently getting that data from, because it's happening team by team and on a monthly basis, you're able to proactively work towards a lot of the things that your engagement surveys are being reacted to and that are trailing behind six to 12 months, because now you have to have a data analyst and a data science, go through scientists, go through all that information and figure out what's the strategy and what's the plan and, like, our software does all of that for you instantaneously, Like your action plans are built and everything else, and so I think that's one of the huge values.

Speaker 3: 27:53

But for us, when we do the factor for job satisfaction, that's also one of our retention indicators and we've increased retention by up to 30% and so for an organization with a thousand employees, with a standard 13% turnover rate and everything like that, we're saving them $4 million annually for this. In the price spend for it, for like a thousand person organization, it's about $80,000 and you're saving $4 million. So it's just kind of a no brainer. And even at scale, like for the enterprise sizes that we work with, our prices drop down to like $24 a year per employee, so like $2 per employee per month. So it really scales very well and it works for those, especially those dynamic hybrid organizations where you have remote people, you have people all across the country you're trying to fit like.

Speaker 3: 28:52

One of those elements is that cultural intelligence, and we talk about that from, like the different locations that people are working in, how they work best, how to best approach, give them feedback, how they learn best and so All of like. From that, like what's the return on investment, what's the benefit? Like what's the value of this, that's the main thing. When it comes to price, it's like, okay, the expense for this, like the benefits and value, majorly outweigh the car.

Speaker 1: 29:22

Yeah, the cross-organizational engagement alone is a value driver. That's the hardest thing is because you know the remote people. You know they don't feel like they're part of the corporation. You know we don't feel the culture because we're not there. It's like every organization is struggling with that too. So it's not one size fits all. Right, what works for one doesn't work for another. So I mean the idea for this is just makes sense.

Speaker 3: 29:50

Yep, we like to say so. Our mission is unlocking understanding through play to build stronger relationships in the workplace and beyond. And how we set it up? We got to kind of have a Venn diagram type of situation where, like we live in that intersection of a hybrid workforce, next generation collaboration and human connectivity, so we just fall in that sweet spot of like making all that happen.

Speaker 2: 30:16

Absolutely so. As far as the white paper's concerned, I think there's some fascinating takeaways, you know. I do think that you know it's one of the things that we run into a lot and it's you know, the challenge is having that data to back it up. Right, it's that, hey, this is the cost, this is what we're saying, this is the cost benefit analysis, and you know so, hey, look at how small this investment is.

Speaker 2: 30:39

But I think the other thing I would say to HR professionals is you've also got to be willing just to simply have that conversation. And I would say, more often than not, when I've taken a well thought out proposal, even if the data isn't 100% black and white, typically I don't get turned down unless there's an economic reason, like we literally can't do it at a company. Basically, the basis is there, it makes sense to do, to invest in this, but somebody needs to be the advocate for it. And that's where I look at HR departments to say, okay, if it's not working at your organization side note, it probably isn't or there's gaps then you have to be the advocate, you have to be willing to send up and raise your hand and say, hey, this needs an investment. Our people are telling us they want this and if we don't do this, they're going to go somewhere else. It's a simple thing.

Speaker 3: 31:28

You've got to be that rebel, you've got to be the rebel.

Speaker 3: 31:31

There you go. That's why I love the name of this podcast, because you have to be a rebel. It seems like oxymoron, for what in the space that we focus in, but it's. Every industry has broken status quo and it's about time. Like COVID, george Floyd's murder, everything that we're going through, we are now at that, just at that point where, no, we've got to break the mold. It can't like. Status quo is not going to work any longer.

Speaker 3: 32:01

I was one of our head of sales. He loves making videos like the TikTok style videos and post them on social media. And he recently posted one about like different statements that get said to individuals by HR or by their leaders, and it's kind of like those cage responses. And he had said something about okay, have you ever attempted to have a conversation, an open and honest conversation, about where I'm at in my current role, possible frustrations, your unhappiness, your disengagement, stress, burnout or thinking about leaving because you're not having these resolved? And he's like and you heard one of these answers and the answers are like we don't negotiate with our employees. You have to do what's best for you. The grass doesn't always greener on the other side. We don't want to lose you. And I'm like, and when he posted I was like. I've heard all of those.

Speaker 1: 32:58

I've worked five companies.

Speaker 3: 32:59

I've heard all of them more than once from someone and I'm like and when it was heard because I'm sure all the listeners even were that it's an audience of HR practitioners, but I'm sure you've even heard it yourself or had to say it, because it's like script, and I'm like when it's heard, that's when you're thinking is like I want to quit, I'm about to quietly quit, or I just actually quit right here on the spot. Like this is what's happening in COVID. Just had you saw just an influx of that. Like that's, I quit this set, I quit. Like. Or in their mind they're like and I'm gonna take care of myself in well being, I'm going to move that mouse around.

Speaker 3: 33:44

It shows that I'm green online, but I'm really doing this thing and like that's where your mind goes to. Because you're like okay, they're not going to lean into me and put in the effort for what I need to be most successful. I'm not going to do it for them. And it's changeable, it's not hard, but you have to recognize it. You have to like. And then you have to be willing to like, break that mold and say let's try something new, let's try something different, and that's where we're at at this point.

Speaker 2: 34:12

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, we all know that script because we've all been coached to say those things, whether it's, whether it's today or it was, you know, 20 years ago. That's, that is the playbook, right and it's time. It's time for a new playbook and, quite frankly, our employees are demanding a different playbook. So we need to. We need to be listening. With that, I want to transition. We're going to keep on the rebel theme. We're going to shift into the rebel HR flash round. Are you ready?

Speaker 3: 34:40

Yes.

Speaker 2: 34:41

All right, here we go. What does HR need to rebel?

Speaker 3: 34:47

I think HR needs to rebel, in the sense that HR, we know, is a cost center, and I think they need to rebel and figure out a way to think of themselves as a profit and loss center. So when I talked about that white paper, we really lean into like, no, we bring in your biggest asset, which is your people. Your people are creating the profit, we are the profit makers. Like, yes, the sales department sales the products, yes, the engineering department builds the products, but we get you, the people, to enable you to do that. And here's how we need to be able to best support them.

Speaker 3: 35:23

And I think in a lot of instances where I see this, there's just that mindset, more so of like, oh, we don't want to, we need to be more conservative with our costs. And like, figure out a way to not support this when it's like no, we need resources. You can't hire I think about this with DEI all the time. You can't make a head of DEI and then think they're about to solve all your DEI problems. Like, you know, they need resources, they need support, they need technology, they need like, there's so much that they need, so no, that does not solve the problem. Them creating a survey and then getting all the inputs. You've just gotten inputs which they've been giving you, inputs if you've been listening. It's not gonna solve the problem. So I think that's the biggest space that I think rebellion needs to happen is our mindset and thinking of ourselves as no, we're the ones who are actually making this company money by what we do to provide the resources that enable those departments.

Speaker 2: 36:23

You're absolutely. I think, that mindset Couldn't agree more. Question number two who should we be listening to?

Speaker 3: 36:30

Your employees. What if you?

Speaker 2: 36:31

could Kind of a short putt for you, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 36:36

You know, like listen to them. I mean, you can read all the books. You can listen to this podcast, like this podcast. Listen to this podcast like I like it. Rebels. How should we be thinking outside of the box? But listen to the employees and don't just listen like proactively, do something about what's being said, like, yeah, that's simple. Listen to the employee.

Speaker 2: 36:58

Love it. And then, finally, you know we've been talking a lot about about your organization and some of the work that you do. How can people learn more and connect with you?

Speaker 3: 37:07

Yeah, if you wanna learn more in a fun way and just get like insights and just fun messaging and the videos that I'm talking about and stuff, follow us on LinkedIn. That's where we post all of our content. But you can find us at Keep Woll on all social media platforms so you can find us there. But really recommend, follow us on LinkedIn. You'll get all your daily dose of that throughout the week. Our website is keepwollcom, so keepwollcom, you can sign up for our newsletter. You get some fun treats and information and just knowledge. Like we really like to educate too. So it's not just like wanna sell, sell, sell. It's like let's just make people aware, let's educate, let's give tips on how you can think of this from a different perspective. So we always like to provide value, even though if we're not making a sell, and then we also have complimentary sessions and games, so like for you to experience it and just be like oh yeah, I like this, I'm enjoying it. So keepwollcom. And then on socials, find us by searching Keepwoll.

Speaker 2: 38:11

Absolutely. We will have all those links in the show notes. So open up your podcast player, check it out, get connected. Lauren, this has just been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for driving innovation in our space and continuing to help out organizations.

Speaker 3: 38:28

Well, I thank you both, Patrick and Kyle, for being rebels.

Speaker 1: 38:32

That's a bit fun.

Speaker 3: 38:33

You creating this space for other, because I'm confident that there's a lot of rebel minded people in HR and they just need to be given permission to.

Speaker 2: 38:44

We're all low key right now. We gotta step out a little bit. So, Lauren, you're definitely you're in the same group as us. So three rebels today.

Speaker 1: 38:50

It's been a pleasure you didn't have.

Speaker 2: 38:52

Oh shit. Thank you, lauren, enjoy your weekend.

Speaker 3: 38:56

You too Keep on playing. Thank you All right thanks.

Speaker 2: 39:01

All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast. Big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at rebelhrpodcast, Twitter at rebelhrguy, or see our website at rebelhumanresourcescom. Abuse and opinions expressed by Rebel HR podcast are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast.

Speaker 3: 39:30

Baby.