Engagement First with Sarem Yesus

“A lot of HR projects fail because we haven’t asked the right questions.”
-Sarem Yesus

When you come into a new organization as the lead for Talent and People, how do you decide where you should start?  In today’s episode, my guest shares why she focused on understanding engagement first, before moving on to look at other core programs and systems.

My guest is Sarem Yesus. Sarem is Executive Director of People and Engagement at Nelson Education and brings over 13 years of experience in the field. With a career spanning multiple countries, including the UK, Australia, Canada and the US, she has developed a unique perspective on HR practices and policies from around the world.

Her expertise covers a range of HR disciplines, including global mobility, payroll, and generalist HR work across industries such as consulting, real estate, retail, and, most recently, supporting a tech start-up.

Throughout her career, Sarem has been passionate about employee relations, recognizing that an engaged and satisfied workforce is key to the success of any organization. She has a proven track record of building strong relationships with employees, managers, and stakeholders and is skilled at managing complex HR issues with sensitivity and professionalism.

With her wealth of experience and commitment to employee relations, Sarem is a valuable asset to any organization looking to build a strong HR function and foster a positive and productive workplace culture.

In this episode of Talent Management Truths, you’ll discover:

• A powerful description of what engagement means and looks like in action
• Ideas for engagement survey vendor selection criteria
• A robust example of a multifaceted communication strategy

Links

Sarem Yesus on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sarem-yesus

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Transcript

LM Ep 114

 [00:00:00] When you come into a new organization as the lead for talent and people, how do you decide where you should start? Well, in today's episode, my guest shares why she focused on understanding engagement first before moving on to look at other core [00:01:00] programs and systems. I. My guest is Sarah S Serum is executive director of People and engagement at Nelson Education, and she brings over 13 years of experience in the field.

She's worked in multiple countries, including uk, Australia, Canada, and the us, and as a result, has developed a really unique perspective on HR practices and policies from around the world. She's worked in several HR disciplines, including global mobility, payroll and generalist HR work across industries such as consulting, real estate, retail, tech, startup, and now publishing.

In this episode of Talent Management Truths, you'll discover a powerful description of what engagement means and looks like in action, ideas for engagement survey, vendor selection criteria, and a robust example of a multifaceted communication strategy. Thanks for listening.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Truths. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell, and today I'm joined by [00:02:00] Serum mes. Serum is the Executive Director for people and engagement at Nelson Education. Welcome to the show Serum.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Thank you so much, Lisa. Thank you for having me.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: My pleasure. So let's begin by having you share with listeners a little bit about who you are in your career journey to date.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, absolutely. I've been in the HR space. I, I don't know as long as I can remember at the moment, but I would say about 13 plus years. I've worked across three different continents three different countries. I started my career in Australia where I was introduced to HR via, recruiting and campus recruiting.

Then I shortly moved to the UK to do my postgraduate education where I worked as a global mobility administrator and kind of moved into more of the traditional HR VP space. From there throughout my time at the uk I was able to work for different engineering companies and then moving back to Australia.

Shortly after that I worked [00:03:00] across various industries there as well where I then landed back in Canada to work in startups and where I am today at Nelson Education. So a lot of experiences in working various size companies predominantly focused as an hr, BP or generalist over the years with a really kind of a focus on employee relations and really focused around helping employees be successful in any of their work journeys.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Okay. Excellent. So you recently made a, a job change. So we're recording in November and I believe you left your previous role in July and moved to Nelson. So it's just what, four months or so? 

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Us about Nelson and what they do.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, Nelson. I mean, if you have grown up in Canada and have gone to school here, you would've probably seen them in your classrooms from K to 12. We're essentially the largest Canadian owned and operated K to 12 publisher. We are a Heritage Canadian content provider. We're very you know, we [00:04:00] strive to create very dynamic.

Curriculum aligned content that caters to diverse learning styles. That part is very important to us, focused on accessibility to all and ensuring that both teachers and students are equipped with the right tools in order to, to learn in a really inclusive and fun environment as part of our initiative to, to always innovate and create new ways of learning. We came up with Edwin about seven years ago, so we're diving deep into a digital learning ecosystem as we speak. We've created this learning platform that is you know, still provides curriculum linked content. But also has additional engaging tools and unparalleled support for every single student and teacher alike.

So really exciting to be part of a company that's always transforming and changing to you know, the complex needs of how education overall is, is, is developing throughout Canada.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Great. Okay. Yeah, so [00:05:00] I was a teacher, I think I'd mentioned to you many decades ago. And so, but I taught French immersion think some of the, the textbooks. May have been by Nelson a long time ago, but it's funny, my son is in grade 12 now and he's in a francophone school. And so it's not Nelson, it's Abiqua company,

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Full, full French.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: are ancient.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: like, what, 20 years old though? The physical ones that he is, that he uses, you know, for math and stuff. It's interesting. So yeah, so hearing that they're kind of making this. Shift and have been in that process for about seven years into the digital learning space. it's good to hear because, you know, I come from the corporate learning background where we were doing that a really long time ago.

So it's, you know, education for kids took a little longer to catch up, I think on the e-learning space.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: absolutely. Content is so much more easily available and it's. Relevant. It is exactly addressing any, any part of the content that is needed, whether it's curriculum or you know, the kind of any extended information that you may be requiring as a teacher to [00:06:00] teach your students in the best way possible.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: And did Covid accelerate in any way, sort of the the content use or the digital the access people wanted for the digital learning?

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, absolutely. It absolutely did. It was kind of timely in a way. We had created it already that. Platform already existed, but absolutely teachers and, and students alike we're very grateful to have an opportunity to continue engaging and really teaching their students even from home. So it absolutely did it, it, it kind of brought on that need at the forefront of it.

But even now, it's not necessarily a one-to-one equivalency. You don't. Not everyone has to have a computer in order to utilize the digital platform. So there's still multiple ways of utilizing Edwin to learn and engage throughout the year.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Interesting. So, all right, well, so let's, let's hear a little bit about, so what you are doing at Nelson and, and tell us a little bit about your team and what are, what are your, what are your key priorities right now?

, 

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: [00:07:00] yeah. Well, Lisa, given that I just started this role four months ago, my focus has been to really get to know employees. I'm making a conscious effort to connect with leaders, employees alike. To really just get a better understanding about where the company has been, where, what, where it's going.

And really just get a better on pulse on, on the people.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Take the pulse. Yeah. So critical when you're starting in a new place. So I, I think it's interesting. That you're starting with the engagement survey and the name of the department is people in Engagement. Now, was that the case when you came in?

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: So they changed it just before I joined. Uh, And that was a conscious effort by our CFO, essentially to make sure that the focus is on people and focus on engagement and making sure we're bringing everybody along the ride of all of these really exciting projects that are happening at Nelson at the moment.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: So, it's [00:08:00] funny because I, I felt like, I think it was about two weeks ago, I had done several interviews and it felt like every single person, the, the, the title of their HR department was people and culture. So that is a really. Bonafide trend in the industry, both US and Canada? Not so much. I'm not sure so much about, about Europe and Asia, but that's certainly been a trend in North America over the last two years or like tons and tons of companies moving to people and culture versus human resources.

And I, I think there's a lot to be said about that. So this is interesting where instead of culture, you've gone with the engagement piece. Tell us how you see the difference, if any, what are your thoughts around that?

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah. We believe like engagement means kind of committed, being committed to the company. It means you want to be helpful, you wanna collaborate. It means you want to help the company achieve its goals and reach the next level. It also means you have really great connections, really great relationships [00:09:00] internally as well.

I think culture sometimes could be a little bit more broader and. Predefined by, by the company rather than the individuals. I feel like the engagement gives you a much better indication about what the employees themselves think of the co, the culture is, or think the company is.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Yeah, I think you make a good point. So I think people and culture, there's so much goodness in that, right? Because it is, it is broad. What's interesting to me, and I'm just thinking out loud here, so with people and engagement, the engagement piece is almost getting at. You can visualize the behavior people, you know, actively engaged in the work.

So it paints a, a more vivid picture for me in some ways. So, so it's, it is quite interesting. I I, I love that, that you, you've shared this example, so, so you come in four months ago into the people engagement department to lead it, and you decided, okay, we've gotta get this engagement survey piece done.

Hasn't been done in a minute, [00:10:00] in a few years. So what led you to that decision as being the best place to start versus I see some people roaring in, they're like, oh my God, there's no training. You know, like we, we don't have our mandatories in place, we don't have leadership training. And so they start there.

Tell us about your decision. I.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Absolutely. So I mean, I did get a lot of feedback about you know, different managers and individuals reaching out to me to say, you know, we, we need a performance management system, or we need you know, to focus on compensation reviews and multiple subjects that I thought very, all valid, very interesting.

We, we definitely need to, to address them as well, but I do think the most important thing and, why I feel like a lot of HR projects tend to sometimes not do very well or fail is that we haven't asked the right questions. We, we haven't asked any questions to employees. And in order to get buy-in, in order to get employee support and backing essentially from the, the population, I think it's important to ask them [00:11:00] questions first.

And, you know, cohesively agree on. You know, what are some of those important topics that everybody is concerned about? And I think more people will be willing to step in and address if it is performance management or, you know, whatever the, the, the opportunities are. They'll be more willing to engage and work with the p and e team if we, if it's come from them directly.

And maybe we'll end up in the same space. you know, these same problems that the managers have told me about may be the same issues that employees are also thinking about, which would be obviously wonderful to hear. And we will address them. But I just thought for, for, from going back to engagement and going back to commitment and buy-in from employees, I thought this was the first important step.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Yes, and I, I would agree with you. I think that you know, when projects go wrong, as be, you know, that impact peoples, that we haven't really gotten all the perspectives upfront and as you said, ask the right questions. So, you know, I'm really picturing [00:12:00] you doing it, you know, through the use of the survey, this deep listening piece, right?

We're listening to people, it's. It's it's really helpful to inform direction and get that buy-in. Right? People feel like they have a part

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Absolutely. It's also not knowing I'm new to the industry. I know the tech side of things, but publishing education it's very new to me. So I think this is a, a great opportunity for me and my team to learn more about the company and, you know, from a people perspective.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Right. Got it. Okay. So you, you decided, you made this decision you made. Sold it in, in internally. Okay, we're gonna do this engagement survey really here, what people really need. So we know where to start. And so you had to do a vendor selection, so you don't have to share who you looked at or who you decided on necessarily, but tell us about that, that process.

I think for, for some listeners that really connect and be, be in the same sort of boat themselves, where they're starting to look at, at vendors, what,

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, [00:13:00] absolutely. We, we essentially came together as a team and came up with a list of requirements that we thought were important. One of them being obviously user experience. uh. Being able to compare our data to other companies. So doing some benchmarking, an opportunity to do that through the platform.

Really effective reporting. Anonymity was another one, making sure that it was fully anonymous so that we can give employees full rights to, you know, provide all the feedback that they wanted to. Pricing of course was an important one as well. And also realistic reporting. The last part of the reporting is that it provides not only, you know.

One to three items for us to actually address. So more realistic expectations from that side of things was important because it's one thing to do the engagement survey. It's another not to deliver on promises that you may make. So we wanted to, to have, and to use a platform that would give us those realistic.[00:14:00] 

Projects that we could focus on, realistic opportunities and also giving us some tools for action planning and putting those actions in in place. So those was some of the core criteria that we looked at when we looked at engagement survey. And we did also wanna work with an external provider because of.

Expertise you know, being able to help us design questions that would get the information that we're actually looking for. And we're not leading, you know, the employees into a certain one way or the other when we are asking questions. So those were some of the things that were important to us in in, in doing the vendor selection.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Okay, so let me just kinda rewind for, for listeners. So, so list of criteria. Four vendor selection here. User you know, great user experience benchmarking effective and realistic reporting, anonymity, pricing, tools for action planning and that external expertise that helped you design questions that were specific to [00:15:00] Nelson, which is interesting because some companies choose to just go with the Gallup, you know, the straight up Gallup, the 12 questions or whatever it is.

And, and I remember in my last organization, they didn't, you know. Budgetary reasons and so on. And, and also to be honest, didn't necessarily feel they needed to go external for whatever reason, felt, leverage, the expertise we had in-house, that was me and my team and so on. And, and so we actually built a custom internally designed based on Gallup initially, and then, but then customized to what we were, what we, what we were wanting to learn from people.

And it really did help inform. The, the three year strategy that we put in place from there for, for talent management. So what are you thinking that, I know your results don't close until a couple of weeks from now. What are you, what are you anticipating and how is this going to help you moving forward?

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, I'm, I'm anticipating that the workforce is going to be really transparent. Just knowing that we are using an external [00:16:00] vendor and when we are not gonna be privy to any raw data that comes out of these surveys. Like, I'm really hoping that people could be really honest and transparent. I have an idea of what I think some of the things will be.

I think will be around obviously change management transformation, and just being able to have additional tools and support around those spaces as the co company continues to evolve and grow. And I'm excited to be able to address. Them at, not just at a company level with our ELT, but also at each department level with the managers.

We will be doing listening sessions right after the reports are released. And we are, we have asked employees to support us in, in making some of these changes as well. As part of the launch of our engagement survey, we did training with the entire organization just to let them know, you know, who our engagement team is, which includes p and e, but also all of the department leaders, our ELT, our CEO [00:17:00] included.

We've let them know there's going to be some, some opportunities that we need to solve at a higher level and we will let you know what that looks like. There's also going to be opportunities that you have the power to solve today. And that's how we are kind of embedding the engagement piece and getting their buy-in that way as well.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Right. I like how you call them opportunities, right? Because that's really what it is. We're getting feedback so that we understand what's most important to people right now and where we wanna focus, right. So that we keep, you know, upleveling moving to the next level. Yeah. Because if it's positioned as we're trying to figure out what's wrong, where gaps, you know, then we're, we're kind of, you know, creating this context where, where people are thinking, what are we broken? Like, what's going on here? You know, so, so this is more about that continuous improvement piece from the way you're positioning it.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: And that was my biggest learning in constructing some of these questions was that a lot of my questions were kind of asking for what's wrong. And really I did learn through this experience [00:18:00] that asking for the opportunities or Making questions more positively aligned will actually get you more constructive feedback that you can, you know, take direct action on

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Yeah, well, it's appreciative inquiry, right? Like

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yes,

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: it's been around for, for a, you know, decades. But that's really what we're talking about. It's, it's, you know, what do we appreciate? You know, and then what do we appreciate enough that, that we wanna do something, you know, that makes things better.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Improve it exactly.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: So we're coming from a much different place. Okay, so, so let's, You know, move away from this topic, a little bit of the engagement survey, but you know, something that, you know, when you and I first met, you had talked about how you have such a passion for employee relations and, and how you see the connection for that to, to all kinds of skills that we can help employees with.

And I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit around what, what is it some people hate employee relations as part of their, their job and people in culture, people in engagement. What, what's what? It makes you [00:19:00] smile like that.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: absolutely. I think one of the most fascinating parts about human resource or more specifically employee relations, that it's about people. And for me, coming from, I. You know, a finance background. Actually, when I moved into human resources, what I liked about was the relationship building and fostering relationships and learning to understand that interaction between employees and employer, and understanding how I can better facilitate and support that relationship in all aspects, whether it is through.

What it says contractually or from a practical perspective or looking at the more important piece, which is the emotional dimension. I've just been generally interested in psychology and just relationships and dynamics between people and that's what made me really interested in employee relation and where probably I spent most of the time specializing in and, and dealing with all aspects of employee [00:20:00] relations.

Whether it's performance-based conversations, conflict, re resolutions, or even the notion of you know, onboarding and offboarding individuals as part of that conversation and that relationship with the organization. So that's what fascinates me about it's very dynamic, it's complex and it's always evolving.

There's always ways to understand employees and, and, and help them understand the company and vice versa as well.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Yes. So, so when you think about, you know, employee relations and how you're kind of setting things up within the people and engagement team, what, what are you, What's taking shape in your mind around how you're going to, to manage and support employee relations at Nelson?

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's two parts. The first part is me and our team as, as, as as a p and e leader being focused on providing tools resources and information about how individuals can. Successfully interact with the company. The other part is really helping [00:21:00] employees advocate for themselves and really providing different mechanisms for them to either express their concerns put their ideas forward to solve a problem or, or essentially engage with the company to help us reach its goals.

So I think that the two components are very important in, in, in ensuring a successful employee relationship management at Nelson.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: So if you think about, you know, all your experience in different industries not necessarily at Nelson in a short time, you've been there, but like, what's been the most successful way you've witnessed to, to help people advocate for themselves? You mentioned a couple of things like mechanisms. Systems to help people express themselves.

But what, like what's, what's a specific example of where that came true, so to speak?

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, I think the most important thing is firstly, understanding how employees voice their opinion. There are some individuals who are a lot more open, so they would be comfortable in speaking in a space like a town hall, for example. [00:22:00] But as part of that. They would be a group, individuals who wouldn't want to speak up, but still had some questions that they want to bring up.

So we set up a virtual you know, anonymous ebox for individuals to submit questions, their concerns, and they would be addressed, addressed in a formal setting such as a town hall. Another part of it is actually the engagement survey itself. And any pulse or engagement survey that you would put in place would help you gather a lot of information and input specifically about some projects that employees may feel and may deem.

That's really important. Another I guess project that we implemented was working with managers to create a more formalized feedback mechanism once a month. You know, moving away from just talking about tasks and completing tasks, but having a really productive conversation about. That employee's development, growth, and really asking specific questions to open them up to, you know, provide their feedback and actually talk about how they're [00:23:00] feeling or what they're advocating for at that any one time.

So those are some of the things that I've worked on in the past.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: So really multifaceted approach, right? Which I'm a huge advocate of as well. I call it the embed and thread method, right? So it's, it's, it's this idea where if, if you really, truly want to help employees. Advocate for themselves in this instance. How do you create multiple ways for them to avail themselves of, of opportunities for that in ways that suit them, which is, which is also very respectful when it comes to, you know, EDI really, right.

How do we, how do you know? It's funny, like we say EDI now, but you know, even if I think about 30 years ago in schools, we know looking at. I, I remember as a teacher receiving training around multiple intelligences, and I think I've talked about this in the show before, but it was this idea of it's not, are you smart?

It's how are you smart? And some of us are more linguistically gifted or kinetically or physically or, mathematically there's all these different ways that we can, we [00:24:00] can, you know. Be our own genius, so to speak. And so, I, I really appreciate what you're talking about is, is having multiple ways for, for people to to honor and be able to participate.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, that's exactly right. In addition to that, it's also walking the talk in a way, you know, us as a department ensuring we're really. Transparent about what the, what our business is. You know, providing updates and making sure we're communicating in a clear manner making sure information is available for employees to be able to, to speak on a specific project.

And really working around recognizing and applauding individuals who may be problem solvers and actually out here trying to solve issues that we may have. And I think that inherently, hopefully encourages other employees to do the same.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: And that makes me think of. Of, you know, you had shared with me earlier, before we hit record, how, you know, you're doing some great stuff in the [00:25:00] area of communication with employees and I'm, I'd love for you to share with us a little bit about what you're doing there. That, that's very multifaceted approach once again.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, one of the. Feedback that I had received from a few individuals when I was having one-on-ones in my first few weeks was that there's a lot of missing information between departments. Sometimes company-wide information is not delivered to them fast enough in order for them to maybe make a change or shift within their respective departments.

So in, in thinking about that and, and knowing that we had a town hall I worked with. Our various departments to say, Hey, I think we need to make this more interactive. You know, have more heads of department join in the conversation or even lead specific town halls. And then the last part is making it more interactive.

Giving employees an opportunity to, you know, send questions before, send questions during and also having like a fun component, a learning component to make [00:26:00] sure. Whatever we've presented is had actually been received and heard by individuals. So we always kind of end the town halls with the game.

just to, to on whatever subject that we're we're speaking about. And our first, the first town hall that we completed successfully, we talked about EDI and the importance of language and how you use language.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Mm. Beautiful. And then I think you've got some other pieces in there too that you've added to the mix besides the town halls and that, that's really useful information for listeners who, who may be doing town halls or looking to reinvigorate them. But I think a newsletter you said and, and a

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, so we're, we're just lo So we've always had an EDI newsletter before I joined the company, but we are actually expanding that towards just a general you know, newsletter where we're going to be adding you know, new policy information or updates throughout the company. We're also going to be adding, you know, celebrating birthdays and, work anniversaries and other achievements that we want to get [00:27:00] involved in. And that is also being tied into a social committee calendar that we've created for, to give employees an opportunity to, to, you know. To speak to each other outside of work. And sometimes it is about work. Maybe, you know, we're, we're doing a session on mental health or unconscious bias, for example.

So really figuring out ways to intertwine all of these different elements of the people space. We do also, we've also created a couple of teams, groups, slack groups to be able to interact in a more formalized manner to keep employees informed. Going back to keeping them informed in different avenues, in different ways and diversifying how we communicate with employees is really important.

So, so that, those are some of the things that we're doing to improve the internal communication.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Yes. Excellent. So with the Slack groups, are these employee resource groups, like they're around a particular topic or interest or they're just general for

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: they, they general groups. So we have one for the Toronto office for those who come in. And there's [00:28:00] another one, a general one for Nelson. We call it Nelson Connect. We do also have one for EDI. So different groups, so different topics.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: okay. So some are specific to an interest.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: that's right.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Okay. Okay. And what do you find is the, is the takeup on those.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, so there hasn't been a lot of comments, but there's been a lot of likes and we also have an intranet that we created. We're seeing a lot more views on there, so we can see the interaction on that. And we are hoping with the introduction of the new newsletter as well, we'll be able to get some more data on how people are interacting.

We do know that we did a. We recently did a Halloween competition and we had over 60 individuals voting. So we know there's some interaction there in that way.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Yeah. That's, that's great. Well, yeah, everybody likes to see people dressed up in silly costumes, right?

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yes.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Yeah. It's always interesting to me. I always like to ask that particular question about take up and usage because, you know, it's, it's I always say to my, my private clients. You [00:29:00] know, it's, it's not necessarily if you build it, they will come.

In our world we can have the fanciest tools, forums, whatever. It does not necessarily guarantee participation or that people will value it. There needs to, so there needs to be a real kind of like marketing communication campaign about. You know, we can't, we can't drown people in options too, right?

Like all, all the channels. So, so it, you know, it sounds like you've got just enough where you are. Wonderful. Well, so we're nearing the ti the end of our time together, which, which is, is wild. So I'd like to ask you just one last question. Like if you think about. You know, your, your last four months being in this new organization, new industry, you're not new to, to the domain of, of people engagement.

Certainly. What would you say has been your biggest learning? I.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah, absolutely. My biggest learning is that I've worked in really large, you know, global organizations and I've worked in really small [00:30:00] startups. This space is so unique in that I'm working for a, a, a heritage company that's been around for more than a hundred years. But also where there is a, a growth stage, you know, eTech company that's kind of linked to it right now.

So I think really marrying those two roles together as an HR leader has been such an interesting learning. I'm learning about. Publishing overall education you know, as the key pillar to our business and our product and really understanding the employee population in that same way. We have amazing, great tenured employees who understand this world in and out.

And we also have some new employees who are come in with great ideas, excited about the opportunity as the company continues to transform. So learning how to. Make sure both sets of groups are, have the right tools, the right resources, and the right support to continuously make this company great. And the thing, they've done a fantastic job over the last seven years.

I just wanna be an add-on to that and [00:31:00] just continue growing from there.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah, it is interesting what you say about a heritage company with this growth aspect, right? Very, very unique. And I imagine sometimes little, some tension points in there too. As people sort of learn how to, how to, how to work together, right? Yeah.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: Yeah. Making it attractive for both groups is very key. 'cause it's a, a very unique set of requirements, even for some of the roles that we have here too.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Indeed. Excellent. Well, thank you so much Sarah for coming on the show and, and sharing your experience with us. We really appreciate it.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate2: So thank you so much for having me, Lisa. It's been a pleasure.

Sarem Yesus GMT20231107-161531_Recording_separate1: Likewise, [00:32:00]