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Industry Ignited Podcast
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Industry Ignited Podcast
Why Employees Really Leave Their Jobs | Ep. 108 [Jamile Dingle]
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What does it take to build a workplace where people feel supported, accountable, and motivated to perform? In this episode of Industry Ignited, Dr. Leeanne Aguilar sits down with Jamile Dingle to explore why strong HR foundations matter from the very beginning. Drawing from his experience across the military, manufacturing, workforce development, and HR leadership, Jamile discusses the importance of clear expectations, consistent policies, documentation, intentional onboarding, communication, and a strong workplace culture.
The conversation also explores why employees often leave managers rather than companies, how leaders can approach accountability as an opportunity for improvement, and why businesses shouldn't wait for problems before investing in HR. Jamile also shares insights on responsible AI use in the workplace, protecting sensitive company information, and recognizing the valuable transferable skills veterans can bring to industrial and manufacturing organizations. Tune in for practical lessons on building stronger teams, reducing organizational risk, and creating a people-first culture that can grow with the business.
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What if HR is not a people problem function, but one of the most important risk, culture, and growth systems inside a business? Welcome to Industry Ignited. I'm Dr. Leanne Aguilar, and today I'm joined by Jamail Dingle, a regional HR leader, veteran, and founder of Salute Me Gear. Jamael brings more than 15 years of experience across manufacturing, military, workforce development, and multi-site HR leadership, helping organizations strengthen compliance, culture, retention, and people operations. Jamael, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you for having me, Leanne, and it's a pleasure to be here.
unknownYeah.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarSo your career spans the military, manufacturing, workforce development, and now HR leadership in events production. What shaped the way you think about people, structure, and leadership?
SPEAKER_00Well, great question. I think my perspective on people structure and leadership has really been shaped by the diverse environments I've worked in, from the military to manufacturing to workforce development and event production. I think that every space has taught me uh something different. I think the common thread, though, is the people performance and then understanding that. I think people perform best when they have clear expectations and they have a constant within that. And then knowing that leadership is intentional. So having that has, you know, really shaped um the way I think about you know everything. Yeah.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarNow you've often stepped into organizations where HR systems either needed to be rebuilt or created from the ground up. What patterns do you notice when companies operate too long without a strong HR foundation?
SPEAKER_00Ooh. That is a million dollar question. I see it all too often. I think a few consistent patterns that I see organizations first do is they go without HR too long. Um and they don't have that foundation as a first thing. And looking at that, I would say just the understanding of policies existing to be informal. I think they make policies, but they don't make them formal enough. And when they do make the policies, they are applied differently across an organization. And that creates confusion and then the perception is unfairness. Then secondly, is decision making. Every command, every organization has an idea of what they want to do and how they want to do it, but without the proper structure, companies begin to do things kind of unconventional. And when that happens, it becomes a problem, whether it's turnovers or compliance risk or employer relation challenges. Once that happens, in that sense, it can have second and third order effects, like legal, you know, complications, accusations of a company, and then you get bad reviews for your company and things like that. And then another thing I see, another big mistake I see, is lack of documentations. Um I'm a big firm believer of saying if it's not documented, it didn't happen. Um and I posted that on my professional LinkedIn page. You can find it under my name and under salute me. If you look it up, you'll see I wrote a small piece on that. I think that that becomes a major liability when you're dealing with performance management and then legal matters. So it all comes into play. And then finally, I want to talk about probably culture. Without that clear expectation, accountability, the culture is defined by next and all the initial values, but more so by individual managers. So that culture is going to be the key piece into a lot of that. Um so ultimately to say everything um the longer a company operates without HR, it becomes more complex and more difficult to fix. So building a strong HR function um infrastructure from the beginning, it will stabilize that and keep it from being so critical.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarSo with small businesses with only a couple employees, let's say, I mean, how should they go about Shar? At what point do they bring HR in? Or is it just uh a matter of putting like policies and procedures in place? Or what would you advise for very small companies just getting started?
SPEAKER_00I would say no matter what from a small company, if you can, let's say your first and foremost should be you know HR to build your you know organization so you can get that that foundation to know about you know correct policies, sciences, and getting things in order for to build the culture because the culture is gonna out you know ultimately make the company. Because as always, I tell everybody, you know, even from directors to CEOs, I say people usually don't quit the actual company, they quit for personalities and different conflicts in between people. Yeah. So exactly.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarSo small companies who maybe, you know, a full-time HR person wouldn't make sense. I mean, do you consult with them? Are there consultants available that they can bring on to like help them develop those policies and get their HR basically the in order?
SPEAKER_00Yes, and I agree. I think that uh consultants would be probably one of the best things they can do if they don't want to do a full program, get a consultant in and get it started and go from the base from the base foundation up, get that consulting, and then proper platforms, making sure you have a platform to have an HR system and use things so that way you can at least when you get the consultant information, you can apply that and you can kind of have a structure, you can kind of work it, you know, until you can get into a space where you can get an HR, you know, full time, but definitely have a consultant would would help tremendously in an organization.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarLike from the very start, like just getting started. Okay. So, how did your military background influence your approach to accountability, documentation, employee relations, and building trust inside organizations?
SPEAKER_00You have me have flashbacks here. That's a good question. Um I think my military background has a significant impact on how I approach accountability and structure. It instilled me, um, accountability isn't a punishment, but it's just clarity and ownership and then it's consistency. I think everyone should know what is expected of them and how success is measured. When it's when it happens and standards aren't met, um it creates confusion. And I think the military kind of instilled that into me. And then um with the documentation portion of it, I think that that's very clear that you need it. And the military documentation was non-negotiable. Um, the mindset is carried over from the military into my HR approach, whether it's uh performance compensation, corrective actions, policy enforcements. I don't like to say negative words like disciplinary, so I say corrective actions. Um and I think everything is need to be clarified and recorded so you can have a great approach to an organization and employees. I think that that communication is um that's key to anything. And I think sometimes people get communication confused. And then this day and age, everything is so electronic and digital. People want to just send a message. I still think to this day the best form of communication is to have that one-on-one with an individual, whether it be via Zoom video or in person, rather than be an email or teams or a Slack message or whatever platform it may be using. I think that is great, but I think to have that one-on-one in person is I think a thousand times better. Right. And then when it comes to employee relations, I think trust is the key factor of it. Um I've learned that the destructional, the structural actuality of building trust is the best way, and there's no other way around it. I think employees feel more secure when they have that expectation that is clear, processes that are fair, and then leaders that follow through with consistency. I think that that makes it good. So for me, I think it's balancing structure, discipline approach, with empathy, communication, when you have those, those things that come into play. Uh, when you do both well, you'll create an environment where people feel supported, but also accountable. And that's how you build, you know, higher performing cultures.
unknownYeah.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarSo I'm hearing like the military really provided that structure and it gave you a system for organization and modeled that communication, accountability, and it just gave you frameworks for that you could carry over into organizations. And I like what you were saying about accountability not being like a negative thing. I mean, tell me more about the mindset around accountability and how it's actually an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00So that's a really good question. So I think that is something that it can be taught, but it has to be instilled. I think from a from the military, it instilled to me not everything is a bad thing, and sometimes it's a learning process, a learning tool. That's why I said that's why I get to an organization, I talk about corrective action instead of disciplinary. So I always want them to know that it's a corrective action because it's an issue that you have, but you want to correct it.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah.
SPEAKER_00It's not so much that you want to slap someone's hand for going to the cookie jar, but you want to say, hey, look, that cookie jar is money being taken away from us. So when you go in there, you have to have the mindset that we're gonna we're losing instead of gaining. You can get that to every individual because this action you're doing sets this and this back. These are effects that it has when you do these things with correct max. You want to talk about it, but you also want to provide, you know, a way ahead of helping that or helping them learn. I see this, me as your supervisor and manager. What I would do, and what I'm going to do is help you with XYZ. I'm going to show you this approach, or I'm going to help build some kind of foundational tool that you can use. And we're going to check on this periodically, whether it be every week, every other day, however, you want to set up in your organization, but those things that help make it a lot better and more positive. Yeah.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarSo the corrective action, yeah, I like that too. So it's pointing out, you know, this is not working. And this is why it's not working. This is the impact of these actions. And instead, we're going to, you know, do this instead. And this is the better approach, and this is why. So really giving them an understanding of what they're the consequences of their actions and what they need to, you know, do instead. So it's redirecting is from what I understand.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah.
SPEAKER_00Yep, exactly.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarNow many growing companies wait until there's a problem before investing in HR. Why is that such a risky approach?
SPEAKER_00Oh man, it's risky because by the time the problem surfaces, the damage has already been done. And then more often, it's probably more expensive and more complex to fix at that point. Um, so when companies delay investing in HR, they're pretty much essentially operating with without guardrails. And that can lead to inconsistent decision making, compliance exposures, and then of course unresolved employee issues. That quality builds over time, and when that does, it builds a small concern within a group of any organization, and it can lead to unclear expectations, inconsistent discipline methods, and it can actually and it can escalate into like a high turnover, legal, or critical breakdown. And that that isn't what any organization wants. Um, HR shouldn't be reviewed or viewed as um a reactive function, it should be a baseline foundation. We're more you know strategic as an investment to a copying organization, and we want to help prevent problems before it happens. That's is that's the key to having HR and why you want to have it, or a consultant like myself, right to help an organization. The most successful organizations, they don't wait um for disruptions, they kind of build infrastructure early so they can scale um with stability and be able confidence to get ahead of that.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah. No, so it's really a proactive approach that you're talking about. So it's companies investing in themselves and preventing potential problems in the future. Yeah. And yeah, so right. So it's avoiding risk, is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00It is, yes, you definitely want to get ahead of it because it's like anything you see, like if you avoid um anything too long, it becomes worse. Uh, the example I can give is like everyone knows about the highway, and everyone knows about toll lanes. And if you take a toll lane and you don't pay that toll over time, it can become really expensive and really painful. In some cases, if you ignore it too much, it can be very costly, cost you a license and other things. That's the kind of the best analogy or example I can kind of base it to is like something that's so little as a dollar toll that can escalate and turn to a $1,500 payment really quickly.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah. Now you've said it's not really about company size, it's about whether the company has employees and plans to grow. What should leaders put in place early, even if they are still small?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Once you have employees, the growth plan, you need you need to have that structure. So a minimum, leaders should establish clear policies and expectations. That's the baseline. And then a basic employee handbook, because that would that right there will set the tone for everything else. And to me, I like to say the handshake of an organization, which is the onboarding. I tell every company to say that you want to have a really good handshake. So your onboarding is one of the practices you want to kind of have that's gonna be very healthy and robust. Shouldn't be a I you at nine o'clock, you come in, I shake your hand and appreciate the work. Onboarding. It should be intentional, it should be something well thought out of, um, and it should have the meaning of you're coming to an organization that cares about you, and we're gonna show you that by how we bring them into it. So I think that's first and foremost. You also need to define roles and accountability for people to know, you know, what they're doing, what success looks like in their position. Because without that, when someone gets hired, as any anyone does, they want to also know, you know, how can I get more? Like more money, more in my position. That's the key thing to show that succession in a position um is great for people to know what they're going after and what they can achieve. Um kind of like, you know, I mean, like you have your podcast. You knew it, you want to grow into it, how you want to look. So you start one place and you just grow and evolved. So the same process with with any company should be kind of the like the foundation of what they want to do.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah. So basically having policies and procedures, creating an employee handbook, and then the onboarding. So it's not only creating the policies and procedures in the handbook, but you're basically setting them down, going through it, training them, and then setting those expectations. So during the onboarding process, setting expectations, telling them what you expect from them as an employee, and then also uh communicating opportunities, setting their course. I think that that probably really helps establish the culture from the beginning as well.
SPEAKER_00Great segue, because I was gonna I was gonna say don't forget about the cultures. That's very important how you set that tone and you kind of hit it on the head. So you see by setting these things up how it's gonna also play into the culture and how it would, you know, make that great design for a positive um team.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah. I know I've often said if if you don't establish the culture, the the culture will establish itself. So if you don't want to take the ring so it will organically develop and it's not always into something that you want. So yeah. So being very intentional about establishing that culture.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah. And making sure everybody's in alignment with your values, I think, is is super important.
SPEAKER_00No, I agree. I totally agree with you.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarNow in manufacturing and industrial environments, where where operations move fast and teams are often under pressure, what are the most common HR blind spots you see?
SPEAKER_00I think one of the biggest blind spots is prioritizing reduction over people processes. When operations are moving fast, HR can unintentionally become an afterthought. And when that happens, they see often too late that it's most needed after the fact. Another common issue is inconsistency with enforcement of the policies. So some supervisors are focused on hitting targets, so accountability and documentation can vary widely from one manager to another. And that goes back to what I was saying, you know, having that platform where you build the culture so it's evenly about the organizational value and not the individual managers. So that's key to the understanding of that. Um then communication gaps is another fast-paced environments, information doesn't flow well, um, effectively between leaders and then frontline employees. And that can lead to, you know, disengagement and misunderstandings. Um, I worked for a corporation before where that was the big issue. Um things small things as of you know, a late logistical era where trucks can't get any parts in, and that no one will be working on Thursday and Friday. Small things like that, not being communicating through everyone, and individual manager supervisors may tell the people immediately and then let employees go on break, talk to different different departments, but I didn't know that yet. Yeah, they came to the morning meeting, they put it out. Like my supervisor didn't say a thing about that. And not having that communication or a plan to have it okay after every meeting, this is our structures. We're gonna do every meeting. Every supervisor's supervisor, every leader is gonna talk to their employees about what we talked about immediately, and in some cases individualized with different managers. I said, We're going back to what we talked about in the second ago. Well, I gotta hit these numbers, I gotta hit this performance, and versus giving that in communication. So that's what sometimes the gap can also be the hinder within an organization. And then finally, trend development. So that's a big thing. Having that trend development overlooked can also dampen or hamper companies. So when you don't invest in developing their people are trending over the long period, it has an effect on your retention, and then of course, long-term performance.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah. I think you're we have a great point about the communication, because I think communication can often get siloed, like in one department. And if there's not you know a chain of of um communication where there's that handoff and there's you know, it there can be problems that leaders just don't know about. And so making sure that there's that communication flow so that important information gets to to the top to the decision makers who can actually do it, do something about it is important. And then yeah, training as well. I mean, you're as a company, if there's there's not training, then efficiency is compromised. Not only that, but information isn't conveyed to those who need to know it, right?
SPEAKER_00This is larger than just that because when you say information not being handled, like people not being trained, but also for people who are trained and are going through this cancel, that's that process switched. Now we bought a new part that's more modernized or more technologically savvy that we can use or technical savvy that we can end the input into this process. Now we have to change it because now instead of doing this by hand, we have a computer part that does it, now a robot that does it. So that also alters the training. So in a lot of organizations, you have a foundation of training, they forget about it. And 20 years from now, when that person quits, they go look at this trade doc. It's like, man, I don't, this is nothing we do anymore. So losing that tribal knowledge hurts also as well. So keeping that current is an important part of the trade documentation.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarAnd I would think if there's not formal training, that could be a liability for a company as well, right? If they tell me about that.
SPEAKER_00From a workers' comp perspective, yeah. So a lot of organizations don't look at it that way, but employees will be very quick to say, like, well, I didn't, I wasn't trained on that. And if that is truly the case and someone has gotten hurt in in in a job or an environment, that can lead into legal matters. Hopefully, that you know it has a good outcome versus a negative or bad, but not having that training, like you said, in place, and that can lead to a compliance problem as well.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarRight. So even if a company is small from the start, putting training in place, making it formal. And then, like you mentioned, documentation is one of the biggest company killers. Um what should leaders understand about documentation before they face termination compliant or compliance issues?
SPEAKER_00That is that is the Achilles of almost every HR. I probably can speak for almost 90% of HR personnel. That's probably the number one most Achilles. The most important things leaders need to understand is that documentation is your organization's protection and your credibility. So without those things, you know, you're gonna set yourself up. If something isn't documented, it becomes very difficult and almost impossible to defend decisions around performance, discipline, andor terminations. And that puts the companies at uh at risk, especially in situations involving um complaints or any type of legal scrutiny. The documentation should be consistent, should be objective, and it should be timely. Um I say that's key, yes. So don't get again as an example. Don't wait two weeks to write somebody up for like coming in late two weeks later after the fact that it happens. You want to do something like within that day. You don't have to do it immediately when you walk through the door, but at least within that day, you want to say, Hey, look, I didn't get around to it, but this morning you came in 40 minutes late. Right. You know, and here's what we've got to talk about, you know, have that you know that corrective action to find out why. Because it can be more to that. You might can find out a little more when you peel that that low layers back to find out why was this person late, what happened? And then you can look against your employee handbook that you now have from a small company, and you can look and see if that falls within your guardrails. That way, you're not operating without the guardrails, so you're within confines. So you want to make sure you have that.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarRight. Not only are do you have your put procedures, you're following your procedures and in a timely manner manner, then you're documenting along the way as well. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And the key thing also remember this is when you're writing someone up, it's not always about you know what goes wrong. But like I said, area is about you know understanding what happened. Um you want to go into expectation, recording that and again giving feedback, and then of course, actions. How are you going to correct that? You and the supervisor and then employee. Right.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah. So you you said that people don't usually leave jobs, they leave people. What does that reveal about the role of managers in retention?
SPEAKER_00Oh, well, it highlights um the most critical dividers of retention, or drivers of retention. In many cases, that is the deciding factor of people staying. So I think employees having that negative experience with the company policies, audition statements that they experience through their direct leader sets a tone for everything else as far as communication, um, accountability, overall day-to-day culture, even recognition. So I think um it affects on many aspects. People leave their jobs. Some people like to be praised, and as small as it may seem, just for like sounds weird, but it's not giving a trophy. Like someone coming to work for like seven months straight, not missing a day. And there's some people that's like, well, you know, you're supposed to go to work. But some people they never gotten sick on never took a sick day and they come in day in, day out. They may not work their normal schedule, but work over. So that's kind of a big accomplishment. So small things like that going unnoticed also leads into the culture and individuals not being recognized, and why people sometimes leave not feeling appreciated, as well as not having clear guidance and expectations or employee and relations process. So by individual managers doing things differently, it doesn't set a clear path that this organization has everyone's best interest versus certain. departments are sort of managers.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarRight. Now, because people receive communications differently. I mean, I don't know if you've heard of like the the five love languages, let's say, where where people depending on the individual, the way that they receive recognition is is different. Some people like praise. Some people like tokens of appreciation like gifts. Some people, you know, it wants acts of service. Or so when it comes to you know different people in each individual, how they receive and and feel appreciated, how can companies work that work with that? Because company needs to be fair and they need to, you know, communicate.
SPEAKER_00I I see where you're going. And that is that that's a multi-scale thing that you could look at. So it's just depending on ideas, bringing some with different you know managers, but also with the actual mission and vision of the company, what they want to do, how they want to look at it. Being creative is basically what it comes down to what you're saying. Not having one focal point of recognition recognition, having multiple points of it.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarRight. Like is there flexibility? Can a company still be fair and acknowledge an employee in a different way so they feel acknowledged yeah and still be considered fair. I guess that's my question.
SPEAKER_00That's a great question. So I'm glad you asked that because a lot of companies think of recognition as being employee of the month is Leanne is the bees me. She does everything from coaching the basketball team to playing on the team herself to also refereeing. You're just well rounded. And that's great for some companies or you can do an employee spotlight. But it doesn't require any performance doesn't require any subjective input from managers is just names of your employees and it's a fair spin of a what I did in one example as a digital wheel put everybody and once the name comes out you just keep spinning the wheel so that way it's fair and impartial and everyone gets a chance to be a part of Employee Spotlight. And you can get like something as simple as your picture and a few questions put up on the company's website on the company's LinkedIn page and small gestures like that go along because some people go home like hey look I made the company's phase this week I'm an employee of the week and they put their spin on it from that point. And that's one creative way. Another creative way is just having a contest and all employees every week we're gonna if you go in here and give a suggestion or give a comment how you feel about the company every week you get entered to a contest but you can win a $25 visa card or something.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarRight, right. And maybe it's giving the employees the opportunity to decide in some way because some employees would appreciate the acknowledgement it made public on social media where others would be highly embarrassed and don't want to be you know out there and you know would you would rather not their picture be you know posted.
SPEAKER_00Some would rather get a gift card let's say than um you know the optional you can make an optional for that person a lot of companies has their branding if they don't I can help them with their branding and they have branded giveaway free apparent like a hat or a shirt from the company for that we're saying right like you said like I don't want to be up there. Okay well since you won't be up there with you and you'll get a Leanne podcast hat or the Leanne um podcast mug. And then oh I would love that versus having my picture up there I'll get a Leanne ID or Tumblr.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarSo that might be right yeah yeah okay so maybe just asking and so there's some kind of creativity is allowed in there and some flexibility as far as acknowledgement. Yeah. So how do um companies then create fair, measurable promotion and succession practices so um employees understand why decisions are being made.
SPEAKER_00Ooh so it starts with clarity and transparency. So those are two powerful words that you hear a lot nowadays. So organizations define you know what success looks like at each level clear competencies performance expectations and then leaders behaviors tied to their advancement. So when employees understand you know all the criteria promotions feel earned and not subjective so it's not a surprise to them companies should implement consistent performance evaluation process with manageable matrix whether it's KPIs behavioral competencies or business outcomes calibration across leadership teams is also critical to it you know the fairness and alignment. So I say calibrations that means every leader must do it the same way. So one shouldn't be like okay I'll do true and false or one should do like multiple choices. It should be a fair platform that when everyone gets graded they can be like yeah I can see that that's right you know even though the apartment may be smaller or may have a larger goal how it is done across the board it'll equal up to being the same no matter what how you get rated so it's no unfairness to it. And it's not like well you only got to do like one thing I got to do 30. It's measured out to where when you get these evaluations it'll be balanced and they should make put in a way so that when you look at that in the structure point every manager is saying the same thing well I rated this person on this may you may have 20 you may have 10 but the outcome is the deficiencies of the corrections that had to be made you know the number of errors that you made when you were 20 things versus 3 it could make more errors in this one thing than you can make it 20. So it'll balance that then succession should be proactive and not reactive. So identifying high potential talent early providing development opportunities and then communicating a clear career pathway helps out a lot.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah right so creating rubrics basically where they're they're measured on just specific um you know outcomes or or behaviors like behavior fairness is such a slippery slope I would tell my kids all the time while they were growing up it's like there's no such thing as fair. You know they're like that's not fair. I'm like there is no such thing as fair because what one person thinks is fair, the other another person thinks is not fair. And everybody is you know looking at it from a different point of view. I mean I think it's just a challenging challenging thing because even when answering questions on a rubric, you know, it's like there's still subjectiveness you know worked into it.
SPEAKER_00But if it's done right, every employee knows that is is going to be clear, going to understand and they don't have to guess growth they know that they know they don't trust the process and they understand the expectations.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarRight. Yeah. So make it as fair as possible. Now another question. So when leaders see candidates who have moved between jobs frequently especially veterans or younger professionals I know that's definitely you know a thing thing these days how should they look beyond the surface of the resume? Because I I know it's not always a negative thing that people have a lot of different jobs on the resume.
SPEAKER_00So I think when leaders they shouldn't focus on the frequency of movement. They should be less on that but more on the story behind it. Like understand the story behind it because then it might open up some great you know talking point and it might be something relatable to the company that they're in already. So because with veterans, you know, the transition often affects the nature of military assignments rather than instability because you might think moving a lot in you know in the civilian is crazy but in the military someone could have moved seven times within five years. And that's that's normal to them to move from this job to this place to this place. So until a veteran's mind is like oh that's normal I mean this is what we do. But on the outside looking in it's like oh you can't keep state job you know more than one time you know more than one year. Whereas in there like okay I think I've done all I can done here and I want to move over something bigger and better. Or I don't think this place is fitting me in the way that I want to be you know embraced or culturally or whatever may be the case, they may not feel like they're a good fit there. And it's okay to say as a personal you know what I appreciate the opportunity but I don't think I'm a good fit here and I move somewhere else. And those things happen with veterans a lot too as well. So I think it should focus on that story behind it versus more so the number of movements frequency happens because we as soldiers and military veterans, you know, we adapt how to work under pressure and we can operate in many diverse environments. So with younger professionals can reflect an intentional career in our story. It can also show scale building or can be like I say seeking a better alignment. So not necessarily a lack of commitment but more so other things. So the key is to look at the the pattern of growth if you're gonna look at that are they gaining new skills are they delivering results in each role so you're you know an organization looking at veterans look at key things like okay they're gaining new skills and where they left they left an impact for positive for that role and you can see these things if you ask you know the right questions it'll help them out. And that's also my consultant parts the business and individuals.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarRight exactly so just getting to know the story asking about the story and making sure that they're gaining skills along the way that there's a growth pattern is what I'm hearing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What does a strong employee engagement strategy look like when it's not just words in a handbook but something people actually experience a strong engagement strategy is probably felt day to day and not just documented consistent communication employees feel informed and heard having being inclusive is really great. It shows up because we talked about and give you um recognition so talking about giving these different ways to try to recognize employees where they are very appreciated and where their contributions are acknowledged that's key in real time and not just doing annual review. So every month and every week something coming up it shows that okay okay this is great. And then of course um leadership visibility accountability I say that a lot because as HR you hear a lot leaders need to be present accessible and aligned with the cultures that they're but that the organization is promoting. Because too often you hear employees saying my survivors never around or my manager's never around and that can like you said it can move the culture not in a positive way and it can have a stain with the organization like saying well he's a great manager hits the numbers and targets or she's the numbers and targets might not be the the best thing to brag about um but it may be as a a metric point yes on paper yes but for your company nomination for your culture overall your growth that's a good having you know that presence and accountability is great not just for employees but also your leader your your leadership team as well. Right and then the action behind it doing surveys getting feedback having conversations with the employees managers as well and making sure that just not having a conversation but making sure it leads to a visible change. So you can see that um when employees see their their input drives a decision or make a change in engagement it becomes real and it's not it's no more done or said so it engages you know trust consistency and also helps with your follow through.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarRight. So I like that too about active manager engagement and feedback. So the employees I mean that tells the employees a lot I mean if they're the manager should be modeling the behavior and not only that but demonstrating that they care and demonstrating that they're listening to employees and that they're taking action and what the employees are saying actually matters. And so they're taking it to heart and then doing something about it by modeling their behavior and setting the tone for that culture as well. Yeah. Now AI is changing how companies operate but you see it as an enhancer not a replacement for the human element. How should leaders think about AI inside HR and operations?
SPEAKER_00I think AI is incredibly effective at improving efficiency. They can use it for analyzing data, streamlining administrative tasks and also identifying patterns that might otherwise be missed because this you hate all the time the phrase human and we say it a lot using AI to help with day-to-day things can make things a lot better and it can free up time for other things leaders can focus on it can add you know high value to employees for strategic planning and then cultural building so a lot of things you can't just take out the human element of everything because that human element has something that AI can't do empathy. It can't look at stress points or things that you know within your organization or your business feel what can happen. It can give you basic general understanding but you being a person with that knowledge of going through things you kind of know okay this is perfect but we're not in a perfect world so I know this can go wrong. You can add these elements to it to make it better. So AI does know it lacks you know that emotional intelligence the ability to understand nuances which you kind of talked about yeah and then that that context of knowing in the moment so that's where you need that human you know leadership or that human presence to be essential for it.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarExactly I mean AI will never be human and it doesn't have the empathy it doesn't have the real care it's gonna spit out you know it gathers from its uh database but it's not human. And so that that real human touch I mean can't be replaced. Now you recently though created an AI policy what risk should companies be aware of when employees use free or unsecured AI tools?
SPEAKER_00The biggest risk is data security. I cannot stress it enough air quotations data security if you have anything of importance and you're not doing it or trying to establish a fundamental AI protocol if you don't have a process I would recommend being very generic and not using anything that can compromise your company organization as far as anything that needs to be like anything that's patent or unique to your business that you don't want to be leaked out there for the world to have then I would say keep going to the old you know pen and paper method or keep it within protected databases within your company and platforms that you use that are secure. And if you do want to venture to AI then of course looking at getting the process dialed in because if you go to an AI platform and you're not putting things in place and you I'm gonna say people don't do it intentionally but you can put a lot of setup information at risk employee data financial data and proprietary things that can leak out. So you want to make sure you keep this stuff kind of buttoned up and then another concern is inconsistency. If you don't have a platform that is stamped by your organization AI will change things up. So if you don't have a model tab just for your company get the program paid and put all the information you want in first before you start using it it's gonna give you different answers different results every time you go in and use it in AI platform.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarSo that's also crucial to know that it's critical for guidelines in the company to get things dialed in the way you want to be yeah right and so that's where training comes in and that's where yeah creating your own you know custom GPTs let's say and having them set to private and so they're they're not open to the public and then they're streamlining the flow of of information and they're outputting in the same consistent way every single time.
SPEAKER_00Definitely yes because you know why we need guardrails and without guardrails you introduce tons of risk.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarYeah yeah there's definitely a lot of risk and not only yeah risk and exposure but risk in uh like the the hallucinations or AI providing you information that's not right not correct or consistent or that kind of thing. Yeah so you also have deep experience supporting veterans and workforce transition.
SPEAKER_00What do industrial and manufacturing companies often miss about the value veterans can bring I would say one of the biggest things companies miss is how transferable veteran skills really are veterans are trained in leadership ability teamwork and then of course operating in high pressure environments like you can't like you can't have a class for those a lot of those things you just can't have like there's you have to have it in real time go through it and actually live that right um in which the you know all veterans have that for in the environment it aligns with industrial manufacturing settings really great they're adaptable in the custom structure process and safety protocols because in the military no matter what branch is high on protocol because you deal with things that pertain to life or death no matter what. However, all experience does not translate clearly on paper for veterans. So that's a big gap. Things we do in the military does not read or write well for most organizations on paper and that gets veterans overlooked a lot of times. So it doesn't match up to the job description of organizations but when a veteran looks behind that curtain like oh yeah I do this all the time in this capacity and then they can explain it a lot better. So that is also a a misopportunity with um any type of organization is when we try to recognize that portion of you know veterans and of course the leadership potential yeah it's unmatched. Most veterans manage teams resources like operations um very early in their career and it it doesn't come out on paper that way as you would see in a military documentation or a military write-up when you try to translate it. But once they get those skills they can understand that a lot of veterans don't have the opportunity to sit down and have a consultant help them out with that but a lot consultants can do very good things for veterans as well as organizations. And I was very fortunate to have that ability to work for the state as that workforce transition for veterans and organizations kind of get that bridge and explain that. And I brought that within to my business to help even further that reach to veterans as well and organizations.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarSo Jamil for companies that want to recruit more veterans where should they start and what programs or partnerships should they know about?
SPEAKER_00I would say the best place to start is by being intentional. And I just go out and look for veterans like just be intentional with it. And this you know whether strategy or in partnership they can look at a lot of places starting off with you know military resource as far as the transition programs for any military basis. They can start by looking at their they have state organization programs ran that have veteran liaisons that help out with it. So every state has a different one so they can type in veteran liaison for employment they whatever state they know pop up with that program may be North Carolina. One of the programs will be NC Works and they have veteran program specialists to help out with that the names vary from different organizations but it's going to be a veteran rep to help out with that.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarAnd each state will have this you know opportunities in in different offices or that they can go to to find out how to engage.
SPEAKER_00And then they can look at some key partnerships for different organizations like Hiring Our Heroes, Skill Bridge, Veteran Bridge Home. They provide direct access to transition service members and veteran talent pipelines. And they can go to these programs and get started with any of these programs and they would help them with job training opportunities. They would help them with you know certificates if they need anything background before they get hired so it's a cost savings to any organizations with these programs to help pay for things that organizations would need where they would have to pay and send someone out they can get that person in there before they even enroll and come to their company with a key you know trait that they need and they can be a very you know helpful advantage or asset to the company's growth.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarJamile thank you for joining me today how can listeners learn more about you your HR consulting work and salute me gear great question.
SPEAKER_00So anyone can reach out to me on LinkedIn the professional platform of Jamal Dingle or salute me and either way you'll be able to contact me if you go out to my branding website, www.salutemegear.com, you'll be able to message me as well on there and I am working with the Military Founders program right now to build a one-stop shop hub where you can reach me and it'll connect all the social media platforms into one where you can connect and reach out to me and you can start getting everything you need whether it's for your business or for an individual to get help in that space.
Dr. Leeanne AguilarWonderful Jamile thank you for joining me again and thank you to our listeners for tuning in to Industry Ignited be sure to subscribe and join us for the next episode. Until next time stay bold stay curious and keep igniting industry