Speaker 1: You know, the greatest advice I always give HR people is learn the business of the business.
Speaker 1: You have to speak their language.
Speaker 1: You have to understand that.
Speaker 1: You have to worry about the people but you have to worry about the business right.
Speaker 1: Instead of flooding an organizational layoff, perhaps you should be triggering discussions on a layoff because you understand the business right.
Speaker 1: So you know, really understand the business and learn to say yes, not get your influence by saying no.
Speaker 2: This is the Rebel HR Podcast, the podcast where we talk to HR innovators about all things people, leadership.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for places to find about new ways to think about the world of work, this is the podcast for you.
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Speaker 2: Rebel on HR Rebels Welcome back.
Speaker 2: Rebel HR listeners.
Speaker 2: Extremely excited for the conversation today.
Speaker 2: I had to hit record because we were just having a wonderful conversation about everything from working back at the deli shop to weddings and wearing ties, and so with us today is Bob Kelleher.
Speaker 2: Bob is an author, speaker and founder of the Employee Engagement Group.
Speaker 2: He also has founded the AEC HR Summit.
Speaker 2: He is a thought leader on employee engagement and leadership.
Speaker 2: He presents to audiences, including my company, about all things related to employee engagement and great leadership.
Speaker 2: A really great friend and a great colleague.
Speaker 2: Bob, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Kyle.
Speaker 1: I am absolutely delighted to be here with you and your audience.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Thank you and I appreciate you taking the time today, and I really think that our listeners are going to get some great content.
Speaker 2: I think that my personal experience with some of the work that you've done and the things that you've shared with my team have been really impactful, and I've heard nothing but wonderful, wonderful responses from some of the work we've done, and I just think it's going to be really valuable for our listeners.
Speaker 2: So I'd like to start out by just understanding a little bit more about your background.
Speaker 2: What brought you into the rich world of employee engagement?
Speaker 1: Well, I think this will certainly resonate with your listeners.
Speaker 1: I'm a human resources professional, so I spent many years in the trenches.
Speaker 1: I think I'll be giving my age away, but here goes.
Speaker 1: I was a personnel rep in 1985 and to a series of jobs in the human resources area.
Speaker 1: I became corporate employment manager, became director of training and development, became chief HR officer, became executive VP of human resources and organizational development and actually became chief operations officer.
Speaker 1: So I've spoken at a lot of HR conferences.
Speaker 1: Just on that note alone.
Speaker 1: As you know, Kyle, hr doesn't usually get a seat at the table in which you are running the company, and I did, and I think it speaks to your audience that if you operate as the HR traditional caretaker of policies, you're not going to become chief operations officer.
Speaker 1: So I did that for over 30 years.
Speaker 1: In 2009, I was chief HR officer for a global 50,000 employee company.
Speaker 1: I had an epiphany I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I heard from so many people that I needed to write a book.
Speaker 1: You know I had spent many years inside focusing on engagement as a business driver, not as a nice to do thing and just so many people said, hey, you have to capture this.
Speaker 1: You know this is a case study.
Speaker 1: So I wrote my first book.
Speaker 1: People started asking me to talk on the book.
Speaker 1: That led to really a speaking business.
Speaker 1: People started asking me can you come and help us?
Speaker 1: And that led to you know, a consulting business.
Speaker 1: Then they started asking, hey, do you do surveys?
Speaker 1: And too much of a capitalist to always say no.
Speaker 1: So I finally said yes and that led to you know selling products, and, and, and here I am.
Speaker 1: So for the past 13 years I've, I've.
Speaker 1: People could find me at the employee engagement group on employeeengagementcom.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and you know, I, I think, I think it's really important to uh, uh, you know, maybe take a step back and and and dig into one of the comments you made, cause it's something that I, you know, I I've seen, um, again and again.
Speaker 2: When employee engagement works whether it's a department that's engaged or a company that's engaged, or a leader that's engaged, the business just runs better, it just works.
Speaker 2: You see better results, and you mentioned that engagement in your role was really a business driver.
Speaker 2: So unpack that a little bit.
Speaker 2: You know, as we look at employee engagement, we think about all the things we do.
Speaker 2: How do we really tap into that engagement as a driver of the business?
Speaker 1: Yeah, selfishly, when I started focusing on engagement, I didn't really know, kyle, it was going to be a business driver.
Speaker 1: I just didn't want to spend my career showing up to various locations and having people hate to see me because they would view that I was there to manage a layoff or a termination.
Speaker 1: I was there to let them know that their benefit premiums were going up, so it was all bad news stuff.
Speaker 1: So I really started proactively showing up to help facilitate.
Speaker 1: I had facilitation skills, like a lot of HR people do, and I started facilitating group discussions about their business If you're underperforming in sales, why?
Speaker 1: So I was able to leverage facilitations, my facilitation skills, to really help the business.
Speaker 1: And this became an internal program and businesses started asking me to appear to do an all-day workshop on this.
Speaker 1: We called it Leadership Excellence Through Advanced Practices, but it really was an HR-led internal initiative.
Speaker 1: That was a business improvement program and the outcome of that, managers and employees would say we were engaged in the business.
Speaker 1: And I was so early in this whole concept, kyle, that you know employeeengagementcom was a domain that I acquired.
Speaker 1: It was sitting out there.
Speaker 1: I acquired it because so many people said, you know, started calling me the engagement guy.
Speaker 1: So it was really in some ways, selfishly motivated to get myself doing things that were more positively received by the business instead of negatively received.
Speaker 1: And, as it turned out, we started tracking the business.
Speaker 1: If I would appear and do a workshop, we would see business results going up and at the time, you know, we got acquired by a private equity firm and the private equity people loved this process that we were using and they started asking me to use the process with sister companies and we started measuring the business results.
Speaker 1: So I was living a case study and you, and when we got acquired by a global company, they started asking me to do the same work with their Hong Kong operations, in Brazil, in Dubai.
Speaker 1: So I lived it.
Speaker 1: I lived it.
Speaker 1: Now, if you Google employee engagement business results, you'll see Gallup.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a whole boutique industry right now that measures this.
Speaker 1: If you have higher engagement, you're going to have higher results on your business.
Speaker 1: And if you have lower engagement at some point in time, it will negatively impact the business.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I think what's really interesting is and I'm sure many HR professionals feel this way you know that there's this constant question out there the seat at the table, as you described it right.
Speaker 2: You know how do you gain the, you know the credibility, how do you get that seat?
Speaker 2: And in my opinion, it really comes down to solve business problems and drive results, and then you don't have to fight for a seat, people will just ask you to be there.
Speaker 2: Was that your experience?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hated the perception of HR as the evil HR director in Dilbert and in some cases and I hate to insult your audience so I will apologize in advance for what I'm going to say but in some cases that reputation was deserved, with the HR professional who truly viewed their power, their influence, was the gatekeeper of policies, right?
Speaker 1: No, you can't do this because we'll get sued, and I always wanted to introduce a concept of you know, learn to say yes.
Speaker 1: So, if the benefit form is arriving two days late, instead of saying we can't give our employee and their family benefits, why can't we Like, why can't we?
Speaker 1: So let's learn to say yes, let's try to help.
Speaker 1: Or if somebody wants to lay someone off, I don't want to tell the president of the European operations they can't.
Speaker 1: I want to be in the position of counseling them, give them the pluses and minuses and letting them know this is your decision, not my decision.
Speaker 1: I'm here to help you, not here to tell you what you can and cannot do.
Speaker 1: So you know, the greatest advice I always give HR people is learn the business of the business.
Speaker 1: You have to speak their language.
Speaker 1: You have to understand that.
Speaker 1: You know you have to worry about the people, but you have to worry about the business, right.
Speaker 1: You know, instead of flooding an organizational layoff, perhaps you should be triggering discussions on a layoff because you understand the business right.
Speaker 1: So so you know, really understand the business and learn to say yes, not not get your influence by saying no.
Speaker 4: We'll be back after a quick break.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely Couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2: One of the interesting things about my early career that I reflect on is, you know, one of the best things that I got to do is I was in an operations role before human resources and I wanted to be in human resources after I was in that operations role, when I figured out what HR did and that was interesting to me.
Speaker 2: Hr did and that was interesting to me, but I had to figure out the business before they.
Speaker 2: Let me do HR and that for me that was a really big blessing because I had a team of you know, at certain times, well over a hundred employees that I was supervising and I was struggling as a new leader and as just as a leader in general, that when I went into HR, I understood the day-to-day struggles in the life of somebody in an operations role so I could be a better partner for them, and I also knew what their job was right.
Speaker 2: That helps you have to understand those things.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why some of these long-standing, most admired companies you know, pepsi, procter Gamble, ge before they had their recent hiccup, they would historically rotate people from operations into corporate roles.
Speaker 1: Right, because they wanted them to understand.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 1: If you're an HR person and you have no idea what the business is like, oh, you don't know what being in the field is like versus being in corporate headquarters, and I think that is such an important evolution.
Speaker 1: I always tell HR functions if you can spend time in operations, if you can't do it through a transfer, get out there, be proactive, do something that you do well for them and get you know, get to know their business, have them see you as part of their team, not part of the HR function.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 1: So you know.
Speaker 1: I think your experience in operations, my experience as COO, taught me as much about my function in human resources as my prior.
Speaker 1: You know, 25 years at the time in human resources.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a powerful learning moment for me thing.
Speaker 2: That, um, that, uh, your, your, your comments kind of jogged my memory about was uh, uh, you know a scenario where and I've told this story on the podcast before, so if I'm boring any listeners I apologize, but I had, uh, uh, an HR mentor early on who literally told me you know, hr's job is to be equal opportunity.
Speaker 2: You know, hate everybody the same, and it was.
Speaker 2: It was said as a joke, but there, you know, under every little bit of sarcasm there's a little bit of truth there.
Speaker 2: But that really, you know, that kind of that compliance mindset that, hey, let's just make sure we don't get sued, like just thinking in that context that will ripple out into all of your actions and that, just like I don't know about you, bob, that just sounds like that would just suck.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that job in a selfish way, I know.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: And you know I have a lot of clients really all over the globe and you know once again I might be insulting the function, but if I'm hired by the CEO or COO, it's a different relationship.
Speaker 1: If I'm hired by some of the human resource folks who are still in that compliant telling me, you know well, you can't say this, you can't do this, you can't, you know.
Speaker 1: So it runs deep inside the function and I do think it has changed.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's changed so much for the better.
Speaker 1: Kyle, you know the vast majority of human resource professionals.
Speaker 1: When I first entered HR in the personnel department, you know we weren't trained personnel people.
Speaker 1: I was a former school teacher, right?
Speaker 1: You know we weren't trained personnel people.
Speaker 1: I was a former school teacher, right?
Speaker 1: You know it was always funny that the CFO was, you know, a CPA and they had an MBA.
Speaker 1: And you know the HR person.
Speaker 1: You know, six months prior they were in charge of the receptionist.
Speaker 1: So the evolution of the function has evolved for the better so much in the past 30 years.
Speaker 1: So it's a function that I love daily.
Speaker 1: Even when I was COO, I was a successor to the CEO and I want to get back into my comfort area of focusing on the people, which I always found to be the best part of the job, but the function has certainly evolved.
Speaker 1: The best part of the job, but the function has certainly evolved and these associations and podcasts and Disrupt HR.
Speaker 1: There is a breed of HR people that I think have been doing some great things pushing the function, and I'm on the second nine, not the front nine, but I do see a lot of people really pushing the function in a more innovative, edgy way.
Speaker 1: That I think is great.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I think that's certainly been my experience, at least over the last decade or so that I've been working, you know working, you know more more directly in the function, and, and I think you know what's what's really been interesting is the just the change over the last few years, kind of the acceleration of change, with, you know, trying to figure out work from home.
Speaker 2: You know social unrest, dealing with something that that we never thought we would deal with.
Speaker 2: You know a global pandemic and, and you know, I, I remember talking to, uh, to my CEO, um, who you know really well, bob, and you know, and, and his comment at one point was this is all HR.
Speaker 2: You know all of this.
Speaker 2: This, this is the most important thing right now is taking care of the people and putting the people first, and having a leader like that, having a focus like that, especially in these times, I think is so critical.
Speaker 2: But I guarantee you that there's so many professionals listening to this right now that are nodding their heads up and down.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I agree.
Speaker 2: But then the next question is but how do I do that in my organization?
Speaker 2: So, from your standpoint, bob, as you think about the changes that you've seen and the changes that maybe still need to occur in many of our organizations.
Speaker 2: What would be some steps that you would recommend an HR professional do if they see that there needs to be some level of change or elevation or focus on the people?
Speaker 1: the culture that the function is not being allowed to, you know, be influential, or is it the individual sitting in the seat who's incapable of being influential?
Speaker 1: So it's a tough one to paint with a broad base brush, right?
Speaker 1: But I would say, say, if you view yourself as an innovative, disruptive type of HR person or function or team and you have some resistance because the CEO, him or her, is resistant to the HR function Maybe they had a bad experience, right.
Speaker 1: So maybe they view the HR department as the police department Then I would encourage you to find the most senior person organizationally who does support the function.
Speaker 1: Bond with that function, get them as your partner and increasing that visibility of both you personally as well as the function, because there's always someone who reports up to the CEO, who gets it in case the CEO or COO doesn't Find that person.
Speaker 1: Partner with that person.
Speaker 1: Create value If, by some chance, that it's the culture and it's an old-fashioned organizational culture that the function is never going to get the respect.
Speaker 1: Life is too short to not have influence and I would encourage people to weigh their career options elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Try to fix where you are.
Speaker 1: It's always easier, I think, than to look to change the jobs every time there's a hiccup, but occasionally you might find yourself in an organization that, if the frustration level is so high and you can't influence, there are so many organizations that are looking for HR to lead that I would encourage you to weigh some alternatives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: I think it's a really important point.
Speaker 2: I think having an ally is really important, the right ally, and I think, being honest about that, you know that cultural question.
Speaker 2: But I also think I think the other point I think that is really important was the comment about you know, is it the individual?
Speaker 2: You know, before you jump, have you really done everything you know that you can do to expand your influence?
Speaker 2: You know, are you saying yes as much as you can?
Speaker 2: Are you really thinking outside the box or are you just frustrated because somebody asked a question that you didn't like the tone of?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, and and but, there's, there's, you know, you have.
Speaker 2: I.
Speaker 2: I truly believe you kind of have to ask those questions internally and, yes, once you've checked the box, that, yeah, I really have checked asked those questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's time to think about doing something else of the CEO.
Speaker 1: But she's bonded with the COO in such a way that it has given her hope and encouragement that it's a good company.
Speaker 1: She also views CEO tenures aren't that long and she's concluded that the organizational culture, the COO, other people it's worth sticking it out, even if the head person maybe has a legacy opinion of HR that isn't favorable.
Speaker 1: So you know there's such personal decisions.
Speaker 1: You know I do believe the HR folks can help themselves.
Speaker 1: Stay current, Read the latest, Go to the conferences, you know, hear what other people are saying, Build your network and look at your function in the mirror Are you a business partner or are you a business police department?
Speaker 1: And ask what can we ourselves do differently?
Speaker 2: And ask what can we, what can we ourselves do differently?
Speaker 2: Yeah Well, I mean, I, you know, self admittedly, I certainly fall into that trap of like, almost like being like the traffic cop, right, and and it's, and it's because it's how many of us were trained or brought up?
Speaker 2: You know, it's, it's, you know, you're, you're, you're supposed to be the policy police, you're supposed to be the black and white decider in a lot of cases.
Speaker 2: But so often you lose the human element, you know, and you get stuck in this.
Speaker 2: It's almost like getting stuck in a rut where you just kind of become, you know, an autonomous decision maker.
Speaker 1: It's just terrible.
Speaker 1: The greatest advice I give people and I used to practice this myself If you are in human resources, everything you do that's reactive doesn't get noticed unless you do something wrong.
Speaker 1: So think about that for a moment.
Speaker 1: All of the administrative things that people do, all of the reactive things filling requisitions, you know, managing open enrollment in your paid program and trying to deal with the escalation of salaries and inflationary period all of the administrative things that come across our desk which can exhaust all of us I put in a reactive camp, which can exhaust all of us.
Speaker 1: I put in a reactive camp.
Speaker 1: True, personal engagement occurs when we are proactive.
Speaker 1: So how do you establish a day?
Speaker 1: And I used to tell my team I had 450 HR people reporting to me and I used to say try to schedule your week so that 50% of your week is proactive and 50% of your week is reactive.
Speaker 1: Proactive would be you're inviting yourself to a department meeting, you're creating a virtual training program for employees, you're introducing a new employee referral program, and personal engagement comes when you're introducing and doing something proactively but the function is so administrative heavy that you find yourself in a rut.
Speaker 1: You can just like sit there Like I used to joke with my wife I could sit in my office and never do anything that would be proactive.
Speaker 1: Like everything comes to me emails, telephone calls, time for open enrollment boss wants to see me like everything comes.
Speaker 1: And when I would separate myself and introduce stuff I'm designing a new program, I'm showing up to a department, I'm creating an event those were the things that would just make me be electrified and the things that would get me noticed.
Speaker 1: So I finally concluded hey, any proactive thing I do gets me positive press or the department positive press.
Speaker 1: Anything that's administrative that comes to me.
Speaker 1: The press can only be bad when you do something wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, recruiting comes to mind.
Speaker 2: It's only bad when it's you know it's expected that you fill all these open positions, but it's bad when you have too many.
Speaker 1: Absolutely the ghost positions right.
Speaker 1: So people get the approval for a rec and they really don't want to fill it.
Speaker 1: But it kills your process, your recruiting team.
Speaker 1: Days to fill a rack, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Those things can be tough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've had that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Especially lately.
Speaker 2: I seem to have a lot of those dialogues, but it's been interesting.
Speaker 2: But here's one thing that I will say on that is you know, in one of my, one of my locations, I have an, a leader who truly believes in employee engagement.
Speaker 2: You know, he, he, he lives it, he breathes it, he's involved, he listens.
Speaker 2: And guess who?
Speaker 2: Has zero open positions right now in a manufacturing setting?
Speaker 2: He has people asking to work here because they, they have referrals in front and you know, and that's just another great example of like the, the business is running smoothly.
Speaker 2: You know, retention is great because we have a leader who believes in employee engagement and truly supports.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 1: It's not coincidental, kyle, it's it.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why he has no open requisitions.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So even if you're just looking at this from a purely selfish standpoint, it's like it really isn't fun to have to hire people and have vacant positions.
Speaker 2: So if you don't want to do that, then employee engagement can really help.
Speaker 1: Well, think of filling your swimming pool.
Speaker 1: If you have a big giant hole in your liner, right, it's really difficult.
Speaker 1: And it's the same concept If you have low engagement, which usually results in higher than industry average voluntary turnover right, and you're trying to grow your business, the hardest thing in the world to do is add headcount while you're also replacing headcount, you know, and it becomes toxic.
Speaker 1: You know, as people leave, even people who weren't thinking of leaving start thinking of leaving.
Speaker 1: Right, it's the Pied Piper effect.
Speaker 1: And I think you know focusing on engagement has just so many tangible benefits.
Speaker 1: Something as simple as your employee referral percents go way up when people are engaged enough to refer their colleagues.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so.
Speaker 2: I do want to talk about that a little bit Obviously.
Speaker 2: You know you're a subject matter expert.
Speaker 2: You've lived it, You've written the books.
Speaker 2: Subject matter expert You've lived it, You've written the books For organizations that are looking at engagement or maybe are wanting to look at engagement.
Speaker 2: Where would you say the best place to start is?
Speaker 2: Do you start with measuring how you're doing?
Speaker 2: Do you start with learning and development?
Speaker 2: Where would you advise that we start to think about this?
Speaker 2: If this is new for us, yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is going to sound self-serving because we do engagement surveys, but I don't really care who you use to do an engagement survey, but you need to have a baseline right, and the baseline can't be this is what HR thinks or this is what the leaders think, because the leaders in HR always think more positively than what is really happening, right.
Speaker 1: So the metaphor I like to use, kyle you would never go to your doctor's office the annual physical without getting blood work right, and I think an engagement survey is your blood work for your organization.
Speaker 1: You need to know where are the pain points.
Speaker 1: So, before you, you know, focus on training and development.
Speaker 1: Is that a pain point?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 1: Is that where the focus should be?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 1: Do you have a leadership issue?
Speaker 1: You know, I always look at an engagement survey and I can tell from the first review that you don't have an engagement issue.
Speaker 1: You have a leadership trust issue and because you have a leadership trust issue, it's trickling throughout the organization.
Speaker 1: So if you focus on training and development, that's not going to fix your leadership trust issue.
Speaker 1: So, you know, give yourself some data and view engagement like the CFO views.
Speaker 1: You know, views the P&L statement Capture your data that gives you some idea of where to focus your energy, as well as what locations or departments or divisions you should be focusing your energy on.
Speaker 4: We'll be back after a quick break.
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Speaker 2: It really highlighted some areas of focus.
Speaker 2: The other thing that really helped us do was figure out what to actually prioritize, because, like you said, you could sit here and even in the 50% proactive stuff that you're trying to do, if you're throwing all your energy at a program that your employees don't feel like is a need, you're not going to move the needle as much as if you actually try to solve a problem that they have in their day-to-day work.
Speaker 1: Great case study on that Near 2000,.
Speaker 1: We were owned by a German firm, the firm I was with.
Speaker 1: We were about at the time about 1,200 employees, and we were acquired the German parent.
Speaker 1: They wanted to exit their North American business, so they brought in a private equity firm and we partnered with them.
Speaker 1: So I became a management owner, because we all had to write checks too and the private equity folks wanted to come in with a bang.
Speaker 1: So they said Bob, what do you think of us doubling the 401k match?
Speaker 1: And you know the typical HR response might be oh, that's great news, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So I said well, you know that's going to cost us.
Speaker 1: You know I forget the amount, but let's just say you know that was going to be like a million dollars.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I don't really.
Speaker 1: I'm not hearing a lot of people tell us that our 401k match is not competitive.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's probably right at the baseline of competitiveness.
Speaker 1: Why don't we ask our employees what they think?
Speaker 1: So we actually did a pulse survey and overwhelming the response was training and development.
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't even close.
Speaker 1: We had over 1,000 comments.
Speaker 1: Now one person said can we have more 401k match dollars?
Speaker 1: So what I use?
Speaker 1: I took that and I said we could build a corporate university for a smaller amount than what you want to spend.
Speaker 1: Let's create a best-in-class corporate university.
Speaker 1: And that's what we did and it was a game changer.
Speaker 1: So we were all set to spend money to fix a need that we didn't have and we reallocated the funds to a need that we did have.
Speaker 1: That, you know, truly became an engagement game changer.
Speaker 2: That's a great example and, I think, a great reminder that we need to have a baseline and have a consistent measurement style as well.
Speaker 2: I think I will put a plug in here, not necessarily to be serving you, Bob, specifically, but I do strongly believe you need to go to a professional survey company as opposed to trying to do all these surveys yourself, because there are.
Speaker 2: You know, survey design is one of those sciences that there's.
Speaker 2: You really need an expert to understand and then to, and then probably more importantly, to actually interpret that data in a way that's actionable, right?
Speaker 2: That's the other big issue, right?
Speaker 1: And you know any survey provider and you know, I know all of them and they all provide great benchmarks, right?
Speaker 1: Because if you do a survey without external benchmarks, I'm going to tell you right now compensation is going to come in low and you're going to think you have a compensation issue.
Speaker 1: Now, as it stands in these inflationary times, you probably do have a compensation issue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're probably legit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but typically you don't have a compensation issue and as soon as you benchmark it, you'll see that your compensation scores, based on engagement, could be in the top 90 percentile right.
Speaker 1: So you end up focusing on things that you shouldn't be focusing on, based on an artificial benchmark against yourself.
Speaker 1: So having the external benchmarks I think you know provides a very accurate prism on where you should be focusing your time and energy, Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Well, this has been a great conversation.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, we're coming to the end of our time together and I'm sure you're running off to another all-day workshop or something like that, so I want to shift gears and get into the Rebel HR flash-around questions.
Speaker 2: Question number one where does HR need to rebel?
Speaker 1: I would rebel on the administrative perception side of things and, you know, be viewed organizationally as a driver of innovative thoughts inside your organization.
Speaker 1: You know, when you think of innovation you generally don't think of the HR department, right, but if you think of it, the HR department is the people department.
Speaker 1: Innovation is born from people.
Speaker 1: So how can you shift the perception organizationally that we are here providing administrative support and we are here providing cutting edge consultative insights to the organization?
Speaker 1: That's what I would suggest.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Question number two who should we be listening to?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know I.
Speaker 1: So here's a plug for you.
Speaker 1: You know I love these disruptive folks that are doing the podcast and the conferences and and you know I think there's a whole new breed of disruption taking place.
Speaker 1: And you know, inside the function, you know people that I tend to kind of read and listen to.
Speaker 1: You know I love Malcolm Gladwell.
Speaker 1: You know I think he bridges personal and business in such a great way and I've spoken alongside Dan Pink and his work is always exceptional and it leads always with the people part of the business.
Speaker 1: Thomas Friedman is a brilliant mind.
Speaker 1: I think if you're not a global company today, you will be tomorrow, and his work, his legacy book the World is Flat, is probably the greatest business book you'll ever read.
Speaker 1: Innovation side the Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen from Harvard Business School is a must-read for every HR professional.
Speaker 1: Even if you read the Steve Jobs story, he'll reference it that it changed his life.
Speaker 1: And if you're trying to be disruptive, one of the ways of getting there is to be more innovative yourself, and Clayton Christensen's work is a cutting edge work in the work of innovation.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I'll put a couple of plugs out there.
Speaker 2: Bob's got a couple of great books as well.
Speaker 1: I'll put a couple of plugs out there.
Speaker 1: Bob's got a couple of great books as well.
Speaker 1: I Engage your Personal Engagement Roadmap Is that.
Speaker 1: The most recent book Talks quite a bit about what happens at home influences you at work, and it was written for COVID times in some ways because of as we all found ourselves, you know, in hybrid workforces, right.
Speaker 1: So it's a terrific book.
Speaker 1: It's personal, it has 22 career rest stops, so it's not so much a book for leaders although leaders love it to do with their team but it's a wonderful book for an individual to figure out their own personal engagement and why it might be waning Absolutely, and then we'll also include in the show notes.
Speaker 2: There's actually on Bob's website.
Speaker 2: There's actually a page dedicated to employee engagement books.
Speaker 2: There's some other recommendations out there.
Speaker 2: Of course, his books are available, so open up your podcast player and click in there and you'll be able to find that.
Speaker 2: So last question how can our listeners connect with you?
Speaker 1: If you go on YouTube, you know some of the most watched videos in the world.
Speaker 1: You know who's seeking your boat.
Speaker 1: It's a video I did a few years back.
Speaker 1: It's at 1.3 million views.
Speaker 1: So there are some cool ways of connecting with me just on YouTube, and those are free ways, right.
Speaker 1: You know things that you can do and share the videos.
Speaker 1: They're four minutes long.
Speaker 1: Share them with your team A great way of leveraging engagement in a very inexpensive way.
Speaker 1: You can find me on employeeengagementcom pretty easy website, and you know there's a resource section.
Speaker 1: We post articles, best practices.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of free stuff and then there's ways of seeing how you bring me in either to give a talk.
Speaker 1: We do workshops was I was joking, uh, with kyle before we uh went live that you know these.
Speaker 1: These zoom talks have been very powerful because it allows me to wear shorts as I give a talk, so that's a benefit.
Speaker 2: yeah, and as far as you look professional to me, bob, so you know shorts or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, we talked about that on our first podcast ever and I think we described it as it's like a reverse mullet, right, it's like there's business on top and a party on the bottom, party on Bob.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to steal that, but I will give you, I will give you credit that but I will give you credit.
Speaker 2: I think I stole it from some video I saw somewhere, so I can't take credit, but I love the description.
Speaker 2: Bob, this has just been absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 2: Again, I know your time is very valuable.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you giving us a couple minutes here.
Speaker 2: I know that our listeners are going to take a lot away from this.
Speaker 2: We'll have all that information in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Check it out.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate the time, Bob.
Speaker 1: Hey, you're both a great professional colleague as well as a friend.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Kyle.
Speaker 1: Thanks Bob, Take care.
Speaker 2: All right, that does it for the Rebel HR Podcast.
Speaker 2: Big thank you to our guests.
Speaker 2: Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR Podcast, twitter at RebelHRGuy, or see our website at RebelHumanResourcescom.
Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed by RebelHR Podcast are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent.
Speaker 2: No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast.