Reshaping Employee Relocation in the Era of Remote Work with Pivt CEO, Lynn Greenberg - ep. 065

This engaging conversation between Lynn Greenberg, one of Forbes 30 Under 30, and the Founder and CEO of Pivt, and co-hosts Kaleem and Josh, delves into the complexities of the relocation, inception, and transformation of the Pivt platform, and the evolution of remote work's impact on the industry. In this refreshing capsule, Lynn shares her journey of relocating to London after college, narrating the challenges she faced in adapting to a new city and the impetus behind creating Pivt. Initially conceptualized as a consumer app aiding individuals in adjusting to new locales, Pivt evolved into a platform catering to corporate employees and their families, focusing on mitigating turnover and enhancing social well-being during relocations.

The dialogue navigates the substantial influence of the pandemic on remote work, relocation trends, and employee welfare. Lynn emphasizes a wave of independent relocations following the shift to remote work, prompting companies to recognize the significance of supporting relocated workers. Moving forward, the conversation touches on collaborations with economic development organizations and cities offering incentives to attract remote workers, underscoring Pivt's crucial role in facilitating community integration in these areas.

Lynn also candidly shares her relocation challenges, underscoring the vital role of community, social connections, and the feeling of being at home in a new environment. This personal experience fuels her dedication to establishing Pivt and bridging the gap for relocated individuals. This exchange portrays Lynn's entrepreneurial journey, tracing Pivt's transformation from a consumer-focused app to a business-oriented platform catering to the challenges of corporate relocations in the evolving landscape of remote work. Throughout the dialogue, Lynn elucidates Pivt's evolution and adaptability to meet the evolving needs of individuals and companies in the dynamic relocation space. An entertaining discussion shedding light on the intricacies of modern-day relocations and how Pivt navigates these challenges within an ever-evolving work environment.

Discover the metamorphosis of Pivt, and its role in facilitating relocations and community integration amidst the changing dynamics of remote work. Lynn's insights on the pivotal role of connections, mental well-being, and community integration in enhancing the relocation experience for individuals and families in a shifting work environment are groundbreaking. Thank you for joining us, Lynn!

Learn more about Lynn:

• LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/lynn-greenberg-3515865a
• Webpage - https://www.pivtapp.com/
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/Pivt_App

Transcript

Kaleem: 0:35

Where are you originally from?

Lynn: 0:36

Grew up outside of New York City.

Kaleem: 0:38

Okay, okay. Can we wrap the town or is that, is

Lynn: 0:41

Yeah. Mamaroneck.

Kaleem: 0:42

Did you say Maranat, Maramac?

Lynn: 0:44

Mamaroneck.

Kaleem: 0:45

Ma Maramac,

Lynn: 0:46

Yep. M A M A R O N E C K. It's, uh, in Westchester County, if that's easier to say.

Josh: 0:52

I would just say Westchester County because you've already misspelled it 72 times on the screen

Kaleem: 0:56

It doesn't, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, I could just say it. She's...

Josh: 1:01

No, you've said it wrong three times too, so

Kaleem: 1:03

You should see how I spelt it. M A M M A space M A R O O O O N A K.

Josh: 1:11

I can tell you that, Colleen didn't win spelling contests in Maine. I mean, spelling contests in Maine aren't easy to lose, but Colleen didn't win. So.

Kaleem: 1:20

ma ma ma mama mia, Mamaramack, New York. No, mamamera, oh aw shit, Mamaramack,

Josh: 1:27

screw it up. I know you.

Kaleem: 1:29

Listen, don't embarrass me to our guests.

Josh: 1:32

I'm not, it's your spelling that's embarrassing.

Kaleem: 1:38

Don't listen to him.

Josh: 1:44

Welcome back to Remotely One. I am your guest co host, Josh Morse, joined by my esteemed colleague, Colleen Clarkson. Since you know how to find us now, do us a huge favor and go to RateThisPodcast. com backslash Remotely One and leave us a review again. RateThisPodcast. com backslash Remotely One. If you could do that for us, we'd be so ever thankful. Since 2015, Remotely One is one of the largest communities of remote work professionals with over 3, 000 Slack members and 5, 000 email subscribers. It's free to join, so go check it out at remotelyone. com. With that out of the way, Colleen, give us a tease or two about today's guest.

Kaleem: 2:29

Oh man. Well, thank you bro. For coming on, man. Thanks for being a guest host. You're looking good. You're looking

Josh: 2:35

you. Appreciate you. I know you're

Kaleem: 2:36

Put those shoulders away though. Your shoulders are too big. We need to get you in frame, sir. We need to get you in frame

Josh: 2:43

I know. I know. I apologize. I'll stop doing bench presses and, uh, diamond push ups.

Kaleem: 2:47

Dude eats weights for breakfast, but yeah Mr. Morris, today's guests, all these guests, but today's guest has me really nervous. She's really intimidating. You know, I just don't know what to do. but the first thing about today's guests, all right, they are originally from my Moranek, New York. I couldn't even say it. Yes. Did I get that right? Yes. Give me some love on the name. Mama Runek. Mama Runek.

Lynn: 3:15

More or less. I mean, tomato, tomato.

Kaleem: 3:17

You say it one time for our listeners and viewers. What is it?

Lynn: 3:20

it. Mamaronek.

Kaleem: 3:21

Wow. Lizard is there. It is. Our guest is now a resident of the city. A k a Manhattan. There it is. Oh, our guest today, they are former college soccer player at Franklin Marshall. Shout out to the diplomats

Josh: 3:39

Go Dips!

Kaleem: 3:41

DS Dip set. Yep. She sits also sits on the board of trustees at Franklin and Marshall college. Her professional career started while working at Bloomberg in London guest. When did you go to Bloomberg in London? Did you just go? When, when did you decide to go?

Lynn: 3:59

Three weeks after graduating from college.

Kaleem: 4:03

Shout out just fish and chips right off the bat, fish and chips right off the bat.

Lynn: 4:08

Although, you know what actually the, It always stumps people. Do you know what the national dish is?

Kaleem: 4:13

I do not.

Josh: 4:14

Is it bangers?

Lynn: 4:17

Chicken Tikka Masala.

Kaleem: 4:19

It doesn't sound like it's good though.

Josh: 4:21

Chicken tikka masala is the bomb, first of all. You're

Kaleem: 4:25

gosh.

Josh: 4:27

You're

Lynn: 4:27

And it's really good in London. The Indian food is really good in London.

Kaleem: 4:31

It's hilarious because I just saw a clip of somebody, um, the Superman guy. What's him? The new Superman. He was talking about, you know, American food's not that great. And he's like, English food is way better. And I was like, I can't name one English restaurant that I've ever been to. Ever.

Josh: 4:47

And I can't name one person that doesn't live in England that would ever say that, by the way.

Kaleem: 4:55

Let's see what else. Oh, geez. Oh, geez. Our guests. They've been on the Forbes next 1000. Mr. Morris. Forbes next 1000. She can identify cities and areas based on. Watching HGTV. She's watched so much, Mr. Morris, that she knows locations just based on the show. Come on, guest. What are you talking about?

Josh: 5:19

I'm thinking of shows on HGTV and, like, I'm trying to think of, like, how she could relate to Maine, where Kaleem and I are both from on HGTV. Is that, like, Cabinmasters? Cabinmasters?

Kaleem: 5:32

Yep, yep. Cabinmaster is right there in Augusta, Maine, Bob.

Josh: 5:36

so everyone lives on the lake. They call it a camp and you need a wood stove about December. Yeah, Lynn knew it.

Kaleem: 5:45

Oh my gosh, that's hilarious. So, Mr. Morris, our guest has not only been featured in the Forbes Next 1000 list, she's been on the Forbes 30 Under 30, Morris. Oh, my gosh. So nervous about this guest. They are the founder and CEO of Pivot listeners and viewers. Please give a warm welcome to Lynn Greenberg. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Settle down, crowd. Settle it down. You're too hyped. You're too hyped for her. Woo.

Josh: 6:21

That's what happens when you're 30 under 30 and Forbes 1000 is that that cheer gets super loud. Oh, mm hmm.

Kaleem: 6:28

her security guard in the back was like, Settle your ass down, Cleem. Settle your ass down. You know? Hey Lynn, what's happening? Thanks for joining us.

Lynn: 6:40

Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure.

Josh: 6:42

Great to

Kaleem: 6:43

Yeah,

Lynn: 6:43

Likewise, I've never met you know, people from that side of Maine before. I've seen it in HGTV shows, but you're number one, so always a first.

Josh: 6:55

Colleen was actually on Cabin Masters, I think. He was like, How can I spin a remote work show about people that build cabins in Maine? Oh.

Lynn: 7:07

I just defend myself a little bit on this. So you'll find out later on that I work in the relocation space. And so part of what I'm doing by watching HGTV is just pure research, right? Like it's people looting, gotta figure out what their intentions are, what they need, what they're looking for.

Kaleem: 7:28

And if it just so happens, you're also watching the person hammer their thumb. So be it. You know what I mean? It's just, and you know, so

Lynn: 7:38

argument, weak argument.

Josh: 7:40

But I like it. I

Kaleem: 7:42

I like it too.

Josh: 7:43

Uh, So what led you to be passionate about relocation? A lot of people would be like, why would somebody get into that? So, was it personal experience? Was it, you know, that happened to you or was it somebody else?

Lynn: 7:55

Definitely something personal that happened to me. I'll take a step back. I had no intention of being an entrepreneur. I had no intention of being in relocation. But I would say that this all goes back really to My experience moving to London to work for Bloomberg right after graduating from college. And I was 21 years old, didn't know anyone, and faced the issue that all people do when moving to a new and unfamiliar place, which is, where do you start to make your new city feel like home? And there were two things that I really needed, which was information on my city from people I trusted. Where do I live? Which bank do I join? what are the answers to the questions I don't know to ask? I ended up living in Notting Hill, solely based on the fact that I had seen the movie, and figured if it was good enough for Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, has to be good enough for me. But that's all I really knew. And then the second component, which is how do you recreate your network from scratch? Because as anyone that moves knows, it's friends you need the most when you're adjusting to a new and unfamiliar place. And as a pretty outgoing person, I went to bars by myself. I tried dating apps for the wrong purposes, meetups, Facebook groups, you name it. And I'm just thinking to myself, if this is difficult for me, what are other people doing? And I spoke to other colleagues of mine at Bloomberg London, which is the international hub, and quickly realized it was much bigger than just myself. And, you know, so started reaching out to people on Facebook groups and I actually only took one business class in college. The only tech experience I had was what I was doing at Bloomberg. So I started taking classes, attending workshops. How do you build a startup? Marketing 101, um, spend some time in venture capital to kind of learn the other side of the coin. And, you know, it was just purely driven out of curiosity. And then the thing that a lot of people get wrong about, you know, when they learn that I founded Pivot is that they think of, you know, it was such a, it was a failure for her. She went to London, she had a terrible time, and she relocated, and then she moved back home, and this is why she's doing it. No, it's actually the opposite. That was the best three years of my life. It was life changing. And the reason why I'm so passionate about what we're doing is I want people to be able to take life changing opportunities like I was given to relocate to London. You know, go to an unfamiliar place without thinking twice and make the most of it or even say yes in the first place. Because of the things that I was unable to access to make, you know, my experience in the beginning fruitful from day one.

Kaleem: 10:37

So let me kind of like paint this picture. So you're 21 years old. First off, you get a great job with Bloomberg, which I'm sure people were, would be ecstatic to get that. So then you go across the pond and you start working and you're having these frustrations. At what point did you realize, like, Okay, these are the things that are really challenging. And then how did you kind of productize those things into your company today? And then kind of outline specifically what does pivot do? How does pivot actually help? Could you kind of talk about that a little bit?

Lynn: 11:16

Sure. So I will preface by saying this has been a long journey. I moved to London 10 years ago now, I can't believe it. And that's really when the idea came about. We've been a long way in terms of where we are as a company. And I can kind of go through that evolution because. what we were in the beginning is not where we are today. And a lot of that is because the world is changing. And I realized that things that I needed at the time were not necessarily what everyone else needed. And still today, it's been about, can we connect the customer in the right way, really understand what the pain point is. What are you using, as a resource because this doesn't exist and what do you wish you had? And then, you know, adjusting, learning the art of building something as simply as possible and then testing it out, going back to the drawing board, testing it out, going back to the drawing board. That's kind of been the formula to success to date.

Kaleem: 12:15

So what was that first iteration like? So roughly what year was that? And what was the first? Challenge that you tried to solve with pivot.

Lynn: 12:23

So originally I started this with my brother and he was a, um, entrepreneurship major at Syracuse and he was studying abroad at the time and felt the challenge that I did in a different but also very similar respect where he was traveling and he'd come back from, you know, a weekend trip and say, Oh, I, you know, I just realized after the fact that I had known people there and it would have been great to meet up with them. It would have been great to get that trusted advice. I had a time, but I'm just finding out, on the tail end of it. And so we originally created pivot. It was a consumer app for people moving and traveling to help acclimate in their new city. And we were live in New York and London. And we catered really to everyone and that was mistake number one. So we said, Oh, well, there's so many different types of people that could use this. So we had backpackers on our platform. We had expats. We had. Travelers, we had, you know, digital nomads. And what we ended up doing was we created a good product for a lot of people. We didn't build a great product for one. And serendipitously we were approached by HSBC during this time. And they said, we came across what you're doing. This is something we're struggling with internally with our relocated employees and business travelers. Can you build this for businesses? And we went back to the drawing board and what we found was staggering, which is the average company spends 90, 000 domestically, 300, 000 on average, internationally, relocating someone, and a third of those people quit their job within a year or return early due to the fact that they can't socially acclimate.

Kaleem: 14:12

Wow, that is, that is, that is, um, we're saying just like one third of people quit the job just because they can't get connected to their community in that new area.

Lynn: 14:22

Exactly.

Josh: 14:23

that was within what time frame you said within their first year.

Lynn: 14:27

Yes, within one year.

Josh: 14:28

Oh, wow. That's crazy.

Lynn: 14:30

And so if you think of all the money that is spent relocating these people. And the failure rate is just astronomical. And it wasn't until we dug into the relocation world, the corporate relocation world, where we realized really the missing piece, which is 80 percent of large corporations outsource all of their needs to relocation management companies. They're tasked and paid for to handle the logistics. So moving you and your things from A to B, right? Potentially temporary housing, sometimes language training, but after a couple of weeks, if not a couple of months at the very best, people are then dropped, right? And you have to figure it out. And there's no, um, there's no support on the human side. And so a pivot, what we are now is we are a platform designed to reduce employee turnover and improve the social well being for relocated mobile remote employees and their families. And we're doing that and taking a very different approach, from what has, you know, ever been out there and really playing an emphasis and advocating for the human experience and what that can do, not just by giving employees and their families, which we get free access to, you know, doing well by them, but also doing well in your pocket, right? Because the return on investment when you take care of these people and you make sure that they're settling in and they're getting the support that they need, they end up staying, being more productive, you know, loving the company and advocating for it. And so the return is really, really high.

Josh: 16:12

So I've really relocated four times now and four different cities over what a 25 year period. And so, like, to your earlier point, you're an outgoing person. So am I. I'm gonna go to a bar, restaurant, like all that, like, but I think What I've seen is, like, people that are coming into the workforce, they're a lot different than you and I and clean were when we started out. And I think, like, they connect over phones and over social media and like, and in such different ways than we did back when, because, like, we were all going to the park and, like, hanging out playing basketball and like, You know, didn't have phones and like all that stuff. So I think the way that people relocate and who is relocating is totally changed. So that is terrible and perfect all in the same moment. But yeah, I mean, that must be interesting to have to do research every year on like how people are actually connecting when they get to a new city.

Lynn: 17:08

Yeah. And, and, you know, something that's very close to home to you all. What we saw in the pandemic. Really shifted things, right? And I actually did a talk on this in Berlin last year on remote work, and that's implications on human mobility, right? On cities, right? We found that in 2021, 23 million Americans relocated on their own due to the fact that they could work remotely or more flexibly and taking that newfound ability to, you know, relocate somewhere closer to family, try somewhere new. Be nomadic because they can. And all the while, what was really interesting is, you know, there was a war for talent and companies were starting to reevaluate their employee benefits because cool office space, ping pong tables, and unlimited snacks in the office, we're not drawing people to work at their companies. And so one of the, or pre con, ah, that's pretty enticing. That is pretty enticing.

Kaleem: 18:10

No, Google. I think Google hired Lizzo to get people back to the office and it definitely didn't work.

Lynn: 18:15

It didn't.

Kaleem: 18:15

No. Oh wait, can we say Lizzo right now? Shit. Uh

Lynn: 18:21

your own podcast.

Josh: 18:25

Well done. I guess I'm done. Thanks.

Lynn: 18:29

Um, but yeah, you know, I think one of the great implications of the pandemic was really employee well being became to the forefront and social isolation was felt by everyone and people started to really understand that what happens outside of work actually affects people in work, um, and at work. And what consequently happened was, then companies started to say, I need to start, you know, honing in on our purpose, because people started re evaluating who they wanted to work for and what their purpose was. And it's been a really interesting transformation.

Kaleem: 21:17

So, now we're a few years out from most people being remote. But you kind of mentioned it earlier and I just kind of wanted to double down on what really changed the model for you all, like how did remote work impact pivot. And then I guess the second part of that question is, how does pivot work is pivot a hybrid or remote company.

Lynn: 21:45

It's a great question. To answer your first question, the pandemic switched things drastically. I think, you know, the first thing is that employee wellbeing and social isolation, as I mentioned, started to be felt by everyone and prioritized. And that was a really great shift, I think for employees everywhere, but also for pivot, right, because that's what we, to see. A couple of things. You know, as I mentioned, 23 million Americans relocated on their own due to the fact that they could work more flexibly and companies started to say, well, we still need to take care of them because they may quit their job, right? And so we should be providing them with something, right? So that they can acclimate and find community and be productive in the workplace. And what we also found was that, there was a lot of buzz around work from anywhere. And then a lot of companies that were backtracking and saying, well, actually you need to work where we have an entity. And that still means that you can work remotely. But we need to relocate you to where there is an entity. And so, you had people that were relocating to places and then not knowing anyone, not going into the office. And, we had companies come to us and say, Hey, you know how you help create community? Can you help us create community in that sense of belonging in our workplace? Because people are not going into the office five days a week. They're not meeting their colleagues. They're not attaching to our brand. The way they once did, and so, that opened up a really interesting opportunity as well. And then thirdly, I would say, we started working actually pretty recently with economic development organizations. So there's 71 cities and towns across the U. S. that are incentivizing remote workers to relocate there in order to boost their economy. we saw a big opportunity to take what we're doing, and I'll, I'll get to what we're doing in a minute and really impact that space in a big way.

Kaleem: 23:52

So we had Justin Harlan on from tulsa remote. Great, great person. Great guest. Yeah. And I had a chance to speak with him on a panel at South by Southwest. And what was really fascinating, you know, Josh and I are from small towns. The fact that they really leaned all the way in to being able to offer funding for any person to move to Tulsa. Now you have to apply to that program. A lot of states There's a ton of programs globally, actually. And, a lot of states are really using those incentives bring people to their local economy. A really, really cool, cool idea and cool concept, I think. Ha ha ha

Josh: 24:40

I'm, I was impressed by your resume and all that, but I'm actually more impressed by your side hustle. All 71 of those towns are also probably have an HGTV show on it. So, um, you know, I like how like all this is now intertwining your strategy. You are the Dr. Evil of relocation and HGTV. Nice, nice. One million channels. I like it.

Lynn: 25:13

you're, you're catching on,

Josh: 25:15

yeah. It only took me 30 minutes. I mean, most people, I think, it would probably take two, but I'm a little slow. I'm from Maine. Yeah.

Kaleem: 25:25

That's a negative. We're brilliant. We're brilliant, sir. We have Stephen King, remember?

Lynn: 25:31

I love it. No, but Justin's great. We work with Justin very closely. They're obviously the brainchild. You know, these programs and they just do a phenomenal job and so we're working with them and we're really excited, be able to provide impact to what they're doing because, you know, the impact that they've already been able to show is just is mind blowing. And so that takes me to, to your next question, which is. What's Pivot? How does it work? So Pivot is a 12 month plus subscription, typically given to, the worker the moment they find out they're relocating and then we stay with them throughout their post. We also, as I mentioned, give free access to the partner's spouse because, crazy enough, 70 percent of relocations fail not because the employee has difficulty acclimating. But because the partner's spouse have trouble doing so, and they're so often left out of the mix, so they get their own log in, they can come in, and one of the first things we have you do on the platform is we have you fill out a living assessment, and that gets you starting to think about what are your goals? What are your expectations? What are your interests? And we take that, and we help you level set those expectations, and then connect you to people and resources that can help you achieve your goals throughout your post. The next aspect of what we help with is really feeling that community and that sense of belonging in your new home. And we do that both on and off the app. We will proactively recommend that you connect with people. Based on the fact that they're from your hometown, you know, they speak your language Maybe they just achieved a goal you want to achieve You can direct message them for a group chat We have a community messaging platform where you can connect based on interests goals passions events But we also if we're doing our job, right we really want to get you off the app and into the real world So we may say things like hey Lynn. We know you like soccer Have you checked out these pickup leagues? This is a really great way to build community. Or you know that coffee shop that you go into? The next time you go in, why don't you introduce yourself and tell them your order? Because that next time you go in and they remember you, you're really gonna feel that sense of belonging. The third aspect is really about ensuring a strong and healthy mindset. Um, as anyone that relocates knows, It's a roller coaster, but what we also want you to know, as I mentioned before, is that it's life changing and that everyone on this platform is going through what you're going through and here to help you in that process. We've mapped out the relocation journey to a T and based on where we know you are, we'll do wellness check ins and say, Hey, Lynn, we know you're right past that honeymoon stage. How are you doing? And based on how you respond, we'll connect you to people or resources that can help you at that point. We may also say, why don't you create a journal entry? You can choose to make it public and get advice from the community, or you can make it private, and we may just nudge you in a couple weeks and remind you how far you've come. We have city guides on the platform, we have, 36 plus months of content that's fed to you via email, and also via push notifications, based on what we know your family structure is, where you are in your journey. Again, getting to that, can we answer the questions you don't know to ask yet? What are the things that I wish I knew before moving to London? I needed that brother or sister,

Kaleem: 28:56

Ooh, ooh, what was the thing you should have known?

Lynn: 28:58

Oh my gosh. Where do I, start? Where do I start? what is a TV license? Do you know what that is?

Josh: 29:03

No.

Lynn: 29:04

I got a letter in the mail saying that the government was threatening to come to my house because I didn't pay for a TV license. And I'm scratching my head thinking. Is this a scam? What's a TV license? No, everyone has to pay a TV license in the UK to pay for the BBC,

Josh: 29:24

Interesting.

Lynn: 29:25

That's not something I would have known to ask about, right?

Kaleem: 29:28

Hmm. Could you imagine if there was a TV license in the States? Could you imagine what people would say?

Lynn: 29:34

I know, right?

Kaleem: 29:36

I couldn't imagine. So do you need a license for each television?

Lynn: 29:40

You do, um,

Kaleem: 29:42

What? That is, come on. That's amazing, that's amazing. Well, we'd probably pay for it in some weird cable tax that we don't even know.

Lynn: 29:54

That is true, but

Kaleem: 29:55

Yeah, that is fascinating.

Josh: 29:56

You gave all these, some of the intended consequences of pivot, like stuff that you, you know, thought might happen, but like what's the biggest unintended consequence of pivot, like inside of it, like a feature you were like, Whoa, I missed this. And like, but it became a big thing. Is there something like that that you can think of?

Lynn: 30:16

um, hmm. That's a good question. I didn't realize and actually we just released our pivot 2. 0 yesterday, so we're really excited by that and one of the things that we really leaned into was content One of the things that we found so we started out when we started working with corporates. We said, okay, we're gonna start in Dallas, Texas because we're going to do our beta there. A lot of companies are moving here. A lot of people are moving here. And we did a beta there. And what we quickly realized was, companies are not going to pay for a benefit in just Dallas, Texas. They want you to be everywhere. And so we had to go back and refactor our app to be able to say, Okay, we support all the U. S. And now we support all the U. S. and Canada. And how do you do that? You lean into content. And you connect people experientially. Because maybe, you know, Alan is relocating to New York with two kids and Mary's relocating to the middle of nowhere, Alabama with two kids, but they can help each other because they're both relocating with two kids under the age of five. And so making those intentional, experiential connections, but also digging into content that is universally helpful based on where you are in your journey has been really, really helpful along with some of that wellness content. And I think that's really taken center stage to my surprise.

Kaleem: 31:42

So you're talking a lot about connection and I love it. Cause like connections right up our alley as well. So that's why I was so happy to have you on the show. And I have a feeling what your answer is going to be, but I have to ask you. Let's talk about the idea of the impact of loneliness and connection. Right. There's plenty of stats out there. People go ahead and Google the impact on productivity, et cetera, et cetera. But we kind of separate connections when we're working with clients, we kind of separate connections in a three big buckets and you know, you can separate them in any bucket. But like the first bucket is a, professional connection, you know, like your professional network, your mentors, then we have lifestyle, which is, you know, we like the mountain bike, we have like some things in common. And then we talk about intimate, the idea of You know, how many people know someone we always ask the question, how many people in here know someone that met at work and they're in a relationship with now? We also kind of consider religion an intimate connection and even politics. Actually, it's kind of an intimate connection. What do you think the role of organizations should be, especially in like remote and hybrid companies? What do you think their role should be in ensuring that their employees make these connections?

Lynn: 32:57

I think there is a huge responsibility. And I think the responsibility, again, as I mentioned before, is not just by doing right by way of their employees, but it also shows up in the bottom line. You know, a big statistic that's, that always stands out is that loneliness is just as detrimental as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Right? And you think about historically where people, especially as adults would get their group of friends and their core group of friends, it's the workplace.

Kaleem: 33:34

right,

Lynn: 33:34

And, you know, loneliness as pertaining to productivity and overall health. And, you know, there's been studies that have found that if a company connects you to others, but also, different aspects of your community, whether that be a pickup basketball game or, a temple or a church, they're more likely to stay at your company. And it's, it is very much in their best interest to do that and the question is how, right? I think a lot of companies know that they should be doing it and so I, I actually had a really interesting discussion with, one of the leaders at Health Action Alliance because this is something that we struggled with in the global mobility industry. And I said, there's a lot of people, this is the topic of all of our conferences. And people nod their heads and they understand that this is something that they need to do, but no one's doing anything. And how do you approach that? I'm sure you've approached this across the board with different issues, with different companies. And what he said was interesting was he said, you need to, first of all, publicize your advocates. And secondly, they need to be talking about what specifically they're doing. Because. People don't know how to take that first step. And so I think that's really where we are in terms of making companies understand, that this is in everyone's best interest and maybe hiring someone to facilitate that. I think some companies have been doing that and I think that's great. I think we need to continue to be vocal about how we're doing it and the successes and the lessons learned. And really, make it a norm because it's not, you know, it's no longer a nice to have or a benefit. It's really a strategy at this point.

Kaleem: 35:27

sense,

Josh: 35:28

here's the 1, 000 question that, um, yeah, the 1, 000, 000 question. And I'm actually somewhat famous, infamous, whatever you want to call me because of this question, on remotely one. if you could tell us your most comical or inspiring moment that you've had, preferably comical, while working remotely, would be really helpful.

Kaleem: 35:51

Oh, my favorite question. My favorite moment in the show.

Lynn: 35:55

it's a good question. Well, one thing I'm really thankful for, and I'll start that is, is virtual backgrounds. 500

Kaleem: 36:03

Okay.

Lynn: 36:08

square foot. You know apartment and where you can see my living room and my bedroom all in one and virtual backgrounds have been great I would say the the most comical probably was when One of our employees was on we were we had a team discussion and her son was really sick and just throwing up everywhere and, had to go take care of him while, while trying to, create the perfect work norms, whatever that may be. I think everyone has one of those

Kaleem: 36:40

out of curiosity, how many people are on the call? What are you talking about?

Lynn: 36:45

just just three of us, um, you know, talking

Kaleem: 36:48

All right.

Lynn: 36:49

um, I, I can't even remember at the time, but probably content and strategy and, you know, you just hear things in the background and. You know, her running off and, I think everyone has a few of those stories, but, and actually you asked earlier, which I didn't answer. We are all remote.

Kaleem: 37:07

Okay.

Lynn: 37:08

so we walk the walk and, we have been, so from day one,

Kaleem: 37:13

Awesome. Awesome.

Josh: 37:14

Yeah, mine was more embarrassing, Lynn, it was similar, but, much more, viral than yours. So,

Kaleem: 37:20

you. Anyway.

Josh: 37:24

And I had 25 people on the call and I was trying to sell something which didn't work out so well.

Kaleem: 37:29

So when, where can our listeners find you? Where can we, if we want to learn about pivot, if we want to find you here, what you're talking about, where can we find you?

Lynn: 37:38

pivot app. com, um, P I V T A P P. com, LinkedIn is great. My email is lynn at pivot app. com.

Kaleem: 37:49

Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for attending. Really appreciate it. And, uh, feel free to come back anytime. Appreciate it.

Lynn: 37:58

Thank you for having me so much fun.

Josh: 38:00

Thank you.

Kaleem: 38:02

All right. Later.