Episode 15: Jennifer McClure - Talent and Culture in the workplace

Joining me on this episode of the Culture Secrets podcast is Jennifer McClure. She has experience in various HR roles, including leadership and executive positions. She also spent about four years in executive search. Since 2010, she has had her own business as a professional speaker, focusing on people strategies and talent acquisition.

In the current landscape, talent is scarce, and people are changing jobs more frequently. This makes it challenging to recruit and retain talent, as candidates often demand higher salaries and have shorter career tenures. The way people approach work has shifted, and organizations need to adapt to these changes.

Culture has become a significant factor for individuals considering job opportunities. Even before 2020, culture was already a top consideration for job seekers. However, defining culture can be challenging as it varies based on individual perspectives and experiences within the organization. Companies need to ensure their stated values align with the actions and behaviors of their leaders and employees.

To evaluate the culture of an organization, job seekers should first determine what is important to them. They should then research companies and ask relevant questions during interviews to gauge whether the organization aligns with their values and preferences. Platforms like Glassdoor can provide aggregate employee reviews, although it's essential to consider the overall picture and not rely solely on disgruntled employees' comments.

Overall, understanding and assessing culture is crucial for both job seekers and organizations. A strong culture that aligns with employees' values can attract and retain top talent.

Thanks for listening. Grab the book the podcast is based on at https://mybook.to/culturesecrets . Check out my website www.chelliephillips.com for more great content. Follow me on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Chellie Phillips: 0:06

If workplace culture is your jam, you're in the right place. Check out this episode of culture secrets, the podcast dedicated to creating workplaces for both employees and the companies thrive. On this episode of the culture secrets podcast, I'm joined by Jennifer McClure. She's the CEO of unbridled talent and disrupt HR. She is also a keynote speaker who travels the globe sharing her insights with 1000s. and a high performance coach who helps leaders to leverage their influence, increase their impact and accelerate their results. She is recognized as a global influence or an expert on the future of work, strategic leadership and innovative people strategies. She has decades of experience working with everyone from startups to Fortune 500 organizations, her expertise comes from her HR experience her work as an executive recruiter, and the lessons learned and shared as an executive coach. Today, Jennifer is sharing a conversation with us centered around talent and culture in the workplace. I can't wait for you to hear what she has to say. Give me a little bit of your background, Jennifer, like how long have you been working in the recruiting field and kind of what are some of the things that you're seeing out there right now?

Jennifer McClure: 1:15

Well, I said 18 and a half years and HR, generalist roles, leadership and executive roles. So had responsibility for recruiting and all of those positions from everything from the janitor to the CEO have some experience there. And then I spent almost four years or about four years in executive search after that, working with a company to retain search, bring in leaders into organizations of all types. Since 2010, I've had my own business where and I am a professional speaker, talk about topics related to people strategies, which more and more you know, I'm not direct recruiting anymore, it's been a while. So I certainly talk more about concepts, rather than the how tos. In the beginning, I talked a lot about now tos, but more from the standpoint of you know, what you need in order to be successful in recruiting talent to your organization, what is required from leadership, etc. trends right now, everyone is hair on fire, and, you know, stressed out to the max, because for a lot of reasons, you know, talent is scarce, people are changing jobs, it's difficult not only to recruit talent for a lot of reasons, but then if you can find someone that has the skills that you want there, they want a lot, a lot more money than they did in the past. And so that that causes internal equity issues, if you end up having to pay that in order to get talent. And then of course, people have changed their mindsets, in terms of you know, it was happening, certainly before the pandemic, they weren't thinking of 2030 year careers, maybe they were thinking of 1015 year careers. But now they're thinking of year and a half, two and a half years, and then moving on to what's next. So I think that's causing a lot of leaders at companies to have to really rethink a lot of things in terms of what they thought were reasons why people would join their company before sometimes it's a real wake up call that what they thought was important is not why they joined the company 20 years ago is not why someone would join today and that people, you know, Will Will there be ebbs and flows, you know, right now talents in the driver's seat? Will it go back to employers being in the driver's seat with a lot less choice and higher unemployment at some point, certainly. But I still think that the way people are approaching work has changed forever, and will continue to change. And so I see a lot of employers who are some are sticking their head in the sand and saying, I hope it goes back to quote, normal, some are like, I don't like this new way of work. And I want everybody to think like me, that's not working. And then some are saying we don't really understand what we need to do in order to kind of move into this new phase of working, but yet they're trying to learn. And then of course, some companies and organizations are doing really well.

Chellie Phillips: 3:45

So one of the things that we're seeing more and more is that culture is something that people who are looking to make a shift or looking at new opportunities are really paying attention to you. Have you seen that as well with what you're doing?

Jennifer McClure: 3:59

Yeah, I think culture, if you looked at some of the survey data, again, even before 2020 culture was becoming the number one reason why people would consider joining an organization or leaving an organization. So that's just continued. I think the challenge there is defining what culture is, and what it means to whom, you know, what a company says is our culture, you know, we value honesty and integrity, and blah, blah, blah. And that's what's on the plaque and the lobby and the cards they give out to employees. But then the culture is what people actually really feel and their experience with work which if you have 10 employees or 10,000 employees, that ultimately means you've got a lot of different perspectives on what the culture is. So I think the challenge is still there to set kind of the overarching values of a company to understand you know, who we are and what we work, but then also understand or how we work but also understand that each individual leader and their team is going to have a mini culture within the culture. So how do you kind of make sure that those are connected to what you want? have to be

Chellie Phillips: 5:01

like that, that many cultures throughout the organization and as so true, I mean, I've seen it in my own corporate life as well, like different departments function so much better than others because of the freedom of information that the communication that they have the the getting to know people on a personal level, and that kind of thing, as I've been doing research for this book. It's funny for some people, when I talk to them about culture, and I'm going to cut for lack of a better word, I call them the tech industry idea of what culture is like with ping pong tables, and the snacks and the break room, and then all this other kind of stuff. And that's what makes culture but I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. And you use the word that I really liked when you're talking about the values that the organization stands for and the people. So in your opinion, how can a company communicate the value aspect of what they're what they're bringing to the table in a way that is that connects with potential employee employees are even the current employees that they have that they want to make sure that they keep and maintain instead of have to re hire for positions, because someone has decided that, oh, this is maybe not the best fit for me anymore?

Jennifer McClure: 6:05

Sure, well, I mean, values are something you have to walk the talk, you can say a lot of things. But if you're not, if your leaders aren't actually living it out in their organizations, if your values are that we value work life balance, and we want people to be whole people inside and outside of work, but then you have a leader who's sending emails in the evening and calling people on the weekends and expecting people to be in the office, five days a week from eight, five, when they're there than that's not walk in the values and people won't feel that. So I think with anything, if you say your values around sustainability, it has to be more than just a logo on your website, you have to have leaders who are out in the community demonstrating the commitment to sustainability, I think you see a lot of that, where people will talk about diversity, and inclusion and belonging as part of you know, being who they are, what they're about. But then you look at the picture of their leaders on the website, and they're all white males, there's no involvement in the community and diverse organizations don't have anyone in leadership positions that are, you know, diverse employees, or they have one and that person is brought to every interview, you know, so there are ways that values are not really lived out. And I think people see that and they're much more attuned to it now, especially diversity, equity inclusion is a good one that a lot of companies will say it's part of their culture or their values, but they haven't take the time to really think about, well, how are we living that out?

Chellie Phillips: 7:25

How important do you think it is, for an organization for the culture, just discussion, not to just start at the upper level, but that it includes multi levels from inside that organization?

Jennifer McClure: 7:39

Well, I mean, the culture is the whole organization. So again, if you're just at the top levels, talking about what what culture is, and you're just creating a statement to put on a piece page, it's not the lived culture, a definition of culture has always been the employees experience of working for the company, and what they what they're telling other people their experiences. So that's all employees. So any company that thinks they're going to go away on a retreat and do their mission, vision values, and establish their culture is missing the boat with their leadership team, because that's not ever going to be what the culture is, or will be.

Chellie Phillips: 8:12

So if someone is looking right now for maybe the next opportunity for them, what is the piece of advice that you would give them as far as how to evaluate a culture inside an organization because we know both sides are on their on their best game, when you come to the interview, everybody's talking the game, everybody's showing up? You know, they got their best outfits on and ready to go. So how can a potential employee dive a little deeper and make sure they're getting an accurate picture of something before they sign on?

Jennifer McClure: 8:41

Why do you think first they have to do the work of figuring out what is important to them? You know, when I worked in executive search, I'd meet with a lot of executives who were in transition, I gave away 10% of my time to help executives in transition. And so I'd start with, you know, what are you looking for what's important to you? And I can't tell you how many times I wish I'd written a book, then, you know, I'd be meeting with like a 45 year old senior sales VP, who, you know, has either been let go laid off or you know, downsized or whatever. And so you're talking, I'm talking to him, and I'm like, so what do you want your next job. And he's like, you know, I traveled all the time. In my last job, I commuted to work in San Francisco from Cincinnati, and I missed my kids growing up. And so I'm at a stage in life where I really want to be home for my kids, I don't want to travel anymore, maybe one day a week. Okay, so to hear all this from them, and then like couple months later, I get an email from home or a call, maybe like I took a job. I'm like, great when you take a job. Well, the company's in San Francisco and I'll be flying out there and staying bored because they got scared that they weren't going to actually get a job. So they took the first thing that you know, match their salary requirements, whatever they had not taken the time to say, you know, I really like driving a nice car and having a corner office. So that's important to me. I want to make sure that I get to my next job. I do want to be home with my kids everyday though, so I'm not going to consider a job where you know, so I I think comedy, people who are looking, they don't have to be executives to go to work for a company need to sit down and say I want to work remotely, at least three days a week, I want to work in an environment where I can work on my own time at eight o'clock in the evening, if I want, I don't have to work, you know, nine to five, I want to boss the gives me a lot of freight, they need to do that work up front. And then when they're interviewing, they need to be, well, when they're doing their research on companies, they need to see if that's if those things are playing out. And then they need to have some good questions in the interview to ask, tell me about your style as a leader, do you expect your employees to be working from eight to five? Or do you allow them to freedom, you know, to ask the questions to get the answers that they want to what's important to them. And then as much as you can talk to people who work there, if you can't talk to people that work there, or you feel like that's a daunting task, at least look a bunch of them up on LinkedIn and see what they're posting about sharing about, you know, they're probably not going to be complaining on LinkedIn, maybe I don't know, some people do. But you should be able to get a tone if you know, especially if you're looking for a leadership position. If you Google all the profiles of the leaders in the organization, I think you can learn a lot sometimes from what they're saying and what they're not saying. And doing some research just in general ledger, the company, obviously there's going to be you know, interviews with the CEO, etc out there. And of course, they're going to be talking their talking points. But if you read enough information and do enough research, you should be able to get a good clip.

Chellie Phillips: 11:23

Accurate. Do you think diets like Glassdoor and places like that are that allow employees to leave reviews?

Jennifer McClure: 11:29

I think they're, they're helpful in aggregate, if you look at, you know, I've had clients before, one of my first clients is when I started my own business brought me in because he said, you know, we had high turnover, and this is a great place to work. And it's wonderful, and we pay good money. And you know, so he went off with all these things. Well, the reality was, it was almost a billion dollar company, that was he owned himself, he started in his garage, that was like, it is a great place for you. You know, you you have all the freedom in the world, the autonomy, you make all these things, etc. But you know, after I knew some things about the company, and I spent some time talking to people there, it wasn't great further on down the organization. And one thing that I shared with him by hit them before I went in to meet with him the first time was I looked up their reviews on Glassdoor, and indeed work forums. And the first thing he said to me was, those are just the disgruntled employees. And I said, maybe, but if I see 300 reviews, and you know, the majority of them mentioned, that you expect them to be on call 24/7 that they have to have their cell phone on at all times and be available to client, you know, this is a problem, you know, so even if it's the disgruntled employees, what's the totality of the result? And more and more, I don't think it's just the disgruntled employees, it's certainly going to skew that way there aren't, you know, I don't do it. I have a great experience at a restaurant, I don't think I need to write a Yelp review. I'll tell my waitress thank you or my waiter, thank you. But I don't go online and necessarily share it. I saw the do sign guy on Instagram this week was like who's reading your previous people who are getting paid? So that's the opposite? You know, they're getting paid to write positive reviews, I guess. But I think you could, again, it's like looking on LinkedIn, and doing some of that kind of underground research, you can look at those forums and say, Are there things that are consistent where people are saying that they're paying below average, or that in the interview process, they were asked questions that weren't diverse or inclusive, you know, they often share their experience, were either working at the company or not. So I think you have to look at it and see, are there clues? It's not, you know, if you read 30 reviews on Glassdoor for a company and one of them says something negative, then either that's something you can explore further and try to find more information about or you could probably kind of discount that as one person's opinion.

Chellie Phillips: 13:42

So let's flip the shoot to the other foot and say that you're sitting in HR, you've done some exit exams, and you're starting to see a trend that these are shifting away that you might not think is, you know, the best for the organization as an HR professional, how can you start those conversations with your upper leadership and upper management and start moving them to think about maybe it's time that we take a look at our culture, and here are some some key things that we might want to be looking at, say you're starting to have more and more turnover? Or, you know, maybe people are taking their early outs, you know, just different things or you're having harder and harder time recruiting for certain positions? How can you begin those internal conversations in a way that can be very productive and proactive and get the ball moving?

Jennifer McClure: 14:26

Sure. You got to figure out what data you can collect to tell that story, rather than just anecdotes are one off stories. If you're starting to see a trend in turnover, then dive deep into is the turnover in one area, one manager across the organization? Hopefully you're doing exit interviews, and you know, what are people saying? What are the themes that are coming up and get enough data to be able to make a case to your leaders that there's something here that we need to address and change? If you just go in and say I'm hearing this, they're gonna say that's just one person, you know, so you really have to have enough of a data set. If it's starting to concern you again, what data can You gather to show that it is more than just your spidey sense. That's telling you this is a problem, you know, an example not culture related. Obviously, when I joined my last company as VP of HR, it was a confidential cert, so I didn't get to talk to the current HR VP, but I talked to all the other executives, and every one of them to a person, including the new CEO is like, you've got to fix turnover. turnover is horrible, you know, people are leaving left and right. And so I come into this organization thinking I've got a real issue with with turnover. And after taking some time, they had really old systems. And so I had to do like two weeks of, you know, sleepless nights of diving into their old mainframe system to get turnover data, it was 107 year old organization. So I went back as far as I could get it, reasons for termination just in the system. And what I came up with the turnover rate for the whole organization was 1.5%. Excluding retirees and death, when you look at that, and you're like, everybody's telling me turnover is a problem. It is so not a problem. But I need to dig deeper. And when I dug deeper, the turnover was in second chip manufacturing. And when you dig deeper into why are people in second chip manufacturing, it's because we were hiring, you know, really young kids, because it was $7 an hour, then, you know, for not much money, we're throwing them into the worst shape possible. And we had, it was making playing cards. So it's not rocket science, we had seven or eight jobs where they would do one task, taking sheets of cards off of the pallet and loading them onto another pallet or loading sheets into the machine or stacking boxes. And so we would hire them, and they would be the box stacker or the sheet loader. And they were bored out of their minds, because they're doing this one task all day. They're not making much money. And so by meeting with the operations VP, we kind of sat down and talked about, hey, we've got the seven jobs, they all pay the same thing. Why not have these people at least rotate. So they get some variety, they get the opportunity to learn new tasks, new jobs. And he said, Well, we've got employees that have been here 40 years doing those one jobs, and they won't do that, okay, fine. They don't have to rotate. But the new hires coming in, they can rotate, and it significantly impacted turnover, because that was just one reason. The mean, there were there were other things we needed to fix, can't fix that they got to start on second shift can't fix it, they're gonna make $7 an hour. But by digging into why people were leaving on that shift, we were able to identify some of the things that we could change to make their work and their lives better.

Chellie Phillips: 17:21

So how important is it for an organization to have professional development plans for their their team members and everything as far as the work on keeping them engaged and keeping them growing and being aware of you know, who maybe their rising stars are at this point in time, and who we want to really engage for future opportunities.

Jennifer McClure: 17:41

That's always been important, again, like culture was becoming a reason why people would choose or stay at a company prior to the pandemic. And certainly now, it's same as for career development. But career development in terms of the perception is different than again, a lot of companies are still thinking about career development, career development for companies is still we put you in our high potential program, and here's the classes you will attend and the certifications that you'll get. And so you are in this professional development program. What people are thinking about in terms of career development now is will I grow, I don't need to come in and as the marketing assistant and have you tell me how long it's going to take me to be the VP of marketing, but I do want to know what I'm going to learn. And I do want to be able to have a plan for that. So that I can say, I'm going to learn how to do market data analysis, I'm going to learn how to do advertising, I'm going to learn how to do breathing, I'm going to grow my skills. So it's more about growth than if I take a job or if I leave a job for another job, it's because they've offered me an opportunity to grow in some way. So when you're hiring people into your organization, and certainly for your existing employees that you want to retain, you should be having regular conversations with them about where they want to grow. You know, I while I'm advocating for people to do not exit interviews, but retention interviews, especially with your top talent, sit down with them and say, because I wasn't executive recruiter, I know how this works. If I can get you on the phone, I can talk to you and get engaged in a conversation. And I can say you can say, I can say Charlie, you know, I've got this great opportunity as a VP of whatever at this company, you're like pinner. I'm completely happy where I am not looking really. That's great. I love talking to people who are happy keeps give me five minutes. Tell me what you really like about your job and tell me what you like. And I say, okay, that's amazing. But you know, if I gave you a magic wand, and you could change one thing, just one thing, and it didn't matter how much it cost, who had to do it, you've got a magic wand, you can change it, what would that be? You'd be like, Well, now, my boss is 45 and they don't look to be going anywhere. And I'm, I'm in my 40s and so I don't really see a path. Okay, now I've got you because I know that you really want to grow and you don't see a growth path and your company employer should be doing that with their existing employees. Not saying what you know, give them a magic wand. If you could change one thing, what would you do you know, what would you like to be doing next in your career, find out what their aspirations are and find ways to meet that and your company so that when a recruiter calls they don't have anything thing that they want to change with that magic one. So it's really about offering growth opportunities. And for everybody, that's not necessarily title change or salary change. I mean, everybody likes to make more money. But it's really about I want to learn more, I want to do more, if you

Chellie Phillips: 20:15

can talk to a CEO sitting there, right now, there's three things that you need to really get the pulse of, to be able to understand is the culture where you think it is and what you need to do to make sure it's moving in the direction that are staying in the direction if you think it's already there, or either of how I need to move it, what would be the three pulse checks that you would say that someone as a CEO, or even the HR professional really needs to look at as they begin diving into the culture of the organization?

Jennifer McClure: 20:43

That's a good question. Three things that I would look at the kind of understand if our cultures where I think it is or where I want it to be. I'd probably want to know what new hires are saying about us, you know, 3060 days after they've they've joined, you know, did it match to what we offer match with what their actual experience is? You know, was there anything that they were surprised shocked about? Was there anything they were delighted about? What's missing, that they thought they were going to get that they they didn't, that they haven't gotten? So I kind of want that new hire, I'd want to know, again, people that are leaving the organization, why are they leaving? And then it also wants to know, from a recruiting perspective, are there people that we're not able to recruit because there's something that we don't offer or that they found out that they won't get in their organization or that they got cold feet about in the interview process? So new hires people who are leaving people who didn't join?

Chellie Phillips: 21:38

Well, all right. I think that does me, Jennifer, I appreciate it. And thank you for listening to the culture secret podcast. Jennifer's three pulse checks on where the culture is or isn't currently in your organization are great ways to start the conversation. You can use that information to change the atmosphere of work and create positive lasting change that will propel your organization to success in the future. If you want more in the trenches. Advice from Jennifer, you can read more in the international best selling book culture secrets is available on Amazon or wherever you buy books. If you've enjoyed what you heard, please like subscribe and share the culture secret podcast feel free to drop me a rating or leave a comment about topics you'd like to see covered on future episodes. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or Facebook or you can visit my website at WWW dot Chellie phillips.com That CAG L L I E P H I L L ips.com. Remember, building a value culture is your competitive advantage and the backbone of any successful organization.