S2 Ep4: Process Creates Culture: Starting Appreciation Early with Vicki Yang

In this episode, Thankbox Co-Founder Tsvetelina Hinova sits down with Vicki Yang, a fractional Head of HR with over 20 years of experience spanning startups, nonprofits, and major tech companies including Google and Looker, to explore one of the most underrated levers in building a thriving company: appreciation.

Vicki makes a compelling case for why appreciation needs to be woven into every process, from hiring to offboarding. She shares why most organisations wait too long to start, what it looks like when peer recognition actually works, and why her mantra - “process creates culture” - is the key to making appreciation stick.

💡 What you’ll learn

• Why appreciation is strategic and how it connects directly to retention, engagement, and performance
• Why most organisations don’t start with appreciation (they don’t object to it, they just never begin)
• The “process creates culture” mindset: why one-off gestures don’t build culture - and what does
• How public, peer-led recognition helps remote and global teams discover each other’s strengths and collaborate better
• Why specificity is the secret to appreciation that actually lands
• How to build the commercial case for appreciation - starting with values, data, and embedding it across the employee lifecycle
• Why the offboarding experience matters just as much as onboarding - and what it signals to the team left behind

Transcript

0:06

Welcome to Lead with Bangs! In season one, we explore why appreciation matters at work. In season two, we're going a step further. Because believing in appreciation is one thing, but making the case for it inside your organization is another. In each episode, I'm speaking with leaders and practitioners who have to justify appreciation in business terms, tying it to retention, performance, culture, and real business outcome. If you've ever struggled to get buy-in, budget, or belief from the leadership team, this season is for you. I'm really excited to welcome Vicky Young to Link Lead with Times. Welcome Vicki, how are you today? I'm doing great, Satlina. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here and talk about this topic. Me too. We actually only met a few weeks ago, right? And uh thank you to um Eliscone for the brilliant introduction. But we had our chat and it felt so easy. And um, I think we really connected quickly about how passionate we are about appreciation and the importance of it, and how passionate we are about wanting people to know that as well. So you made some really, really amazing points during our talk, and I can't wait to go through them as we're doing this episode. So, without further ado, why don't you introduce yourself? What are you passionate about, what you do, and what do you care about, and then you can get. Yeah, sounds good. So I am a people leader. I've been in the HR space for over 20 years, spanning large and small companies, mostly in the tech space, but also started actually with nonprofits. So had done companies of the size of like Looker, which was a data analytics company, all the way through Google, even. Now I work with fractional startups to really help them build out their foundations for their people programs. I truly believe I'm well, one, I'm a builder at heart. And two, I think we don't start early enough building some of these foundations so that we can build in things and make culture stronger through things like appreciation and recognition and reduce bias in how we do compensation or performance management or any of these processes that that kind of fall under the people umbrella. And I love that there are companies who are willing to invest in this a little bit more early on so that we can, again, build these foundations because that's what's gonna help your company scale. That's what's gonna help culture amplify and help you be a bit more successful in what you do. Yeah, it's interesting that we think about culture and employees only when something becomes a problem. And the startup stage is the right place to start because you're building the business, you're setting the right foundation, so why not do it for you people as well? Amazing. I love that. Um, you've got such a great experience uh in lots of different areas. So I guess the question that I would I always like to start with is do you believe appreciation is powerful in the workplace and why? Well, absolutely, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Um I think it's really important because it generates a lot of trust and respect. And um I think the human brain, our natural fight and flight response is so high, like our response towards threats is so much higher than rewards that we need to make sure that we're balancing that, right? I think some people have heard probably the you need to give seven pieces of recognition before you, you know, to before it actually lands, versus if you give one piece of critical feedback and you're already like, oh my God, I'm not good at my job. What did I do? Everything is wrong. And it's just the way our brains work. And so I think this is where appreciation um becomes important, especially after the last couple of years, and even now, we've had a pandemic. There's so much going on in the world. I think connection and community has become more important. Our companies are becoming more remote, more global. And so if we are not having these connection points, um, it's actually going to break things apart. You're not going to be able to communicate as well, which is one of the key factors in how we work together. And so, you know, directly impacts work. Um, and studies have also shown that gratitude can increase resilience and engagement from your team members, right? So it's kind of like, well, if we know that, why wouldn't we do that when appreciation is a really easy step towards that? The whole mattering idea is becoming more and more um key for people and hence for businesses, isn't it? To feel like you matter, to feel like you belong, to feel like you're part of a community. Obviously, people who come to the podcast, they're they're very passionate about appreciation. And I love that. And what I still struggle to understand is why is appreciation still seen as something soft, as some as a nice to have within an organization, despite everything that shows you how important appreciation is. We still struggle to convince management that it's important. Why do you think that is? Yeah. Uh, I think for a variety of reasons. One, it is that soft and squishy side of things, and that often gets dismissed from the workplace, right? We we want the thing that's going to show the impact faster. Um I think that's only become more prevalent. And so appreciation and the effects of it are really hard to see because it's not I mean, there there will be like fast impacts to it. Like you'll see something kind of happen really quickly in this in the sense that someone's gonna be grateful, maybe excited. But to see the effects of appreciation is gonna take more time because it's also doing it once, showing you appreciate someone once does not create a culture, right? Culture is created over time, and it is um one of my favorite sayings recently is process creates culture. And so to do one thing one time, you might change something, you know, just for a short bit or just in that moment, make someone feel something. But if you want it to truly change over time, you have to make it a process. Um and so if we consider appreciation to be positive feedback, right? Because that's kind of what it is, there isn't necessarily a lot for someone to act on. So one, it could be we're not specific enough, even in our appreciation of someone, like, you know, okay, happy birthday. That's great. But maybe it's happy birthday, you know. I hope you have a wonderful day and you go get to eat and you can insert the person's favorite ice cream or favorite or go do their favorite activity, right? So it means that you've kind of seen them as a human. Um, and then you're making this connection with one another. And I think that just like positive feedback, if we can be more specific about why we appreciate someone, then then that's that makes it even more powerful and makes it stronger to build those relationships across borders and you know, in our remote world. And then I would say the softness piece of it is almost more important, but because it's really hard to measure, right? It is what it shows up in is like, you know, our attrition numbers or engagement survey numbers or things like that. But then we often, when we go and look at those things, we will excuse why it happened, why that person left or why this team is low, because the actual work to change that stuff is also much harder. It takes more time, it takes a lot of deliberate like planning. But the funny thing is, if you really think about why a team is disengaged, there are real reasons and reasons that if you fix would actually help the business do better. So I think the hard work takes time. It does, it does. Process creates culture. I love this. I'm gonna put it on my wall there. It's brilliant, and I think it's spot on. You can never win a culture if you do one thing once a year. That's never gonna be the case. And I also loved what you said about intention. You have to really be intentional with why are you saying I am why are you giving appreciation? Why does it why does it matter? Not just, you know, with a wave of the hand, oh thank you there. Are those the the objections that you see from leaders mostly, or is there anything else that um stops them from introducing appreciation in the workplace? That's interesting. Um, what stops them? So it's almost like it's not the stop, it's like they don't start more than more than they stop. Because there's so many other things to be thinking about, right? Like, what's our revenue? What what's our plan for next year, next quarter, really, or even next month, right? Where are the numbers standing right now? Because those are the things we need to move. And because this is the bigger that takes more time, it takes more planning on how you're going to shift this, that work often gets put last. Um, and especially when it's as fuzzy as this. Because defining what you want your culture to be, and then how are you going to weave in all the things? I think I don't think anyone actually objects to it, right? When someone's when an HR person goes to their founder or their CEO or whoever and says, hey, I think we should take a look at our culture, make sure we're we're doing the right things around it, that we're being clear about it. My guess is the first thing the CEO or founder is going to think is, well, yes, of course, we should definitely do that. And here's all the things about how I want people to work faster and be more innovative. And those are the things that come first. And at the root of all, but we don't get to the root of it, like all the way down into like, how are we motivating people to do this work? The most we'll probably do is stay at the what are our goals? What are we trying to accomplish? And those are all great things to do, and those are all important things to do. But again, process creates culture. So those things are process. How are you making sure that there's clarity and that there's context and then and then going into how do you want people to work? And how are you going to get them there? And I think that's for the appreciation and that and the feedback. How are they feeling and you know, engaged with our mission, our vision, our values? And so when we think of appreciation and things like that, that falls all the way to the bottom of the list. But it is one of the most powerful tools you can use to amplify a lot more of that, to help people feel a connection to the company and to the mission and stay engaged so that you can do kind of the rest of this stuff. And I think the other objections really is like everything else that seems so front and center, which is important. But then let's also think of then if you are trying to get someone to do something, how do we motive motivate them the best to go do that thing then? Be proactive instead of preventative, right? But I think a lot of people, by the time they realize they need appreciation, they need to move motivate their staff, it's at a moment where retention is really low or they can't recruit the new talent, the best talent, or when something is suffering. But realistically, it doesn't start there, does it? It started a long time ago when somebody's done something amazing and we never acknowledged it. We and we've never sent a sick signal that this amazing thing matters to the organization. Um yeah, it's it's interesting what you said about we're we're keeping the numbers in the center of an organization, right? Like how productive we are, what the revenue is, but all of that is driven by the individuals. And the individuals are driven by their purpose or by their motivation, or again back to the mattering, do they matter for the organization? Um, and something so small, as people call it, as appreciation, can have such a huge impact on how people feel and hence on your productivity. So when you talk to leadership about appreciation, is this where you're coming from? Is this what gets their attention when you're talking about appreciation in culture? Usually the people team will generally see something first, right? Because we hear a lot of the signals for if someone's unhappy or there's burnout, or if someone says, I'm not really happy with the culture here, or I don't feel appreciated, right? Like you see the engagement survey results a lot because a lot of those questions will lead to that. And then HR will come up with a plan. Usually there's a tool, and I think that's where the conversation starts, is okay, now I'm gonna go ask for money for something to come and fix this, not fix this problem, but change what's happening, right? And so I think it often will come from that first. Can I just interject here? Should we start earlier? Should we not wait until we need money to go to leadership? Should we should we start earlier than that? Because the minute it gets to talk about money, there's naturally a defense mechanism there because you're running a business, you want to protect the business. So it almost feels like there's there's a barrier there already. But if we start earlier, would that not have a better impact? Percent. And I think that is where this is why I wanted to do this work as well as a fractional head of HR, because most times companies will hire someone just to do recruiting or just to kind of like run payroll and do all the simple kind of HR stuff. And it's like, but if we think about it strategically of what we want the company to do, and how are we going to motivate our people earlier than that, then we can build the foundations and the structure to make that happen, right? I worked at a place that had very, very, very strong values. And it was not only that, I mean, the the founders also had a very clear vision of what problem they were trying to solve with the product. But it was those two things combined that really made them successful and they were later acquired. It was this like, we know how we want to work. We know the kind of company we want to create. And they had this clarity very early on. And I would say there are quite a few founders that know and are able to define what they want that to be. And I think those companies will be more successful than others because they hold on to that. And then it is great if you know that. Then how are you weaving it into your processes, right? Process creates culture. So, how are you doing? What questions are you asking in the interview? One of the found founders and the CEO would interview every person that came through, all the way to I think 400 employees. We were still doing this. Final interview was them. It was a quick conversation. It wasn't like, you know, really long conversation, but every single interview. And so that's a process. That is the I care about this enough. I need to know that this person is the right person that's going to be here and help us fulfill this mission in the way that we want to do it. So that's the power of doing it, of, you know, kind of defining like not even who do we want to be, who are we now? What is making us successful now? And is this what's going to make us successful as we scale? Like defining all of those pieces so that you can put it into the way you interview and make sure you're hiring people who think that same way too, right? Who believe in those things, putting it into your performance review processes. So you are looking at how you give feedback on it and how are you rewarding it if that's what you do? Um, and how are you recognizing it, right? How are you showing appreciation? So again, weaving everything into that process. And then it's not about the tool anymore because tools are tools. They can be free, they can cost money, right? You can find a way to do things, but do you know what you're doing it for? Like, do we have clarity around that? And that I think is more important than anything else because when you can define that, then you at least know what direction you're moving towards. You know what it looks like and what it doesn't look like. I I love this. A couple of things that I love from what you said. The first thing is appreciation is strategic. It goes into every single role, right? You can't single it out to a specific role or specific uh person. Like it needs to be in the heart of everything you do for the organization. And I and I love that. Um, and then what you said about the buy-in from the business, you can have tools, you don't need to sometimes like tools can be helpful, yes, absolutely. But what I personally really always start my conversations with our clients with do I have a buy-in from the business to action or appreciation, right? Because it's exactly what you said, you can use the best tool unless you have the buy-in from the leadership and the the business that this is the strategy, this is the goal for the business to be more appreciative, then there's no, you know, it's not gonna help if you've got the best tool, if you don't have the buy-in, right? And the other thing as well is you need the involvement of the business, whatever strategy you decide on, if you just drop it the minute the strategy is done, then nothing's gonna happen. You need uh consistent action from the business. So can you can you share a practical example of uh when you've introduced appreciation or scaled appreciation? Um and what's changed as a result, what happens? Yeah, I've been at a couple companies now that do like public appreciation. So where you put it in the hands also of peers, and I think that has way more power than kind of um your more traditional, like, okay, the leadership team gets together, maybe they take nominations, they kind of decide, you know, who wins what, and and you talk about it and you give examples of it. All of that is good, all of that should also be done. But again, that is like one moment in time, right? Whereas power to the people, if you give them the ability to do this with each other, because they are also closer to the work and they are closer to each other, and they're able to get more specific about, hey, here's why I appreciate you for doing this, or here's something that, you know, I appreciate it because you helped me do X, Y, and Z, or something like that, right? Or here's the impact you had on me, and maybe you didn't know that. We hire people for their strengths. And sure, we want them to know or to learn other things, to grow and to develop. But when someone's trying to do their work, they're going to lean into their strengths. And the only way to amplify strengths is through appreciation and recognition. Because the things that we're strong at, we don't necessarily, we can't necessarily define for ourselves because we're good at it, right? Someone once asked me, she's like, Vicki, you're so good at these, like being an HR business partner. You know, how do you do it? And that was the first time anyone's ever asked me that. And I was like, oh, I had to stop and think about like, what is it in my actual process of working with someone that generates that trust and that respect and that ability, and then so that I can do my job better, so that we can, you know, partner together to get stuff done. And I think it is through like there's another moment, my another friend of mine told me, she's like, You're so creative. I would have never thought of myself as a creative person, but she gave me examples of what that was. And she's like, I really appreciate how you're able to do these things. And I was like, wow, if no one told me that, I would not have the words for it. And then now that I have the words for it and I can see it, then I'm going to do it more because I am able to name it. And so I think that the most powerful thing, it's like, if we can put it in the hands of peers to be able to go and do these things, that is what scales. Because that's, especially if your team is global or remote, right? You want, if you want your culture amplified, you want every office, whether that is a home office or a physical one, wherever it may be, to feel like that, feel like the company, to feel like, yeah, I know how to communicate, I know how to work the moment I walk in here because this is what we do. This is how we operate. And so um, yeah, the two companies I worked at where there was a lot of very, very public recognition from peers, uh, are the ones where we saw that scale, the communication be a lot easier, which makes it a lot easier to work with each other then. Did uh what did the peers do? How did they manage? Was it uh with nodes? Was it a platform that you used? What was the way that peers could share a piece of it? Yeah, so one company used a tool, um, which just made it a lot easier. It also was really interesting in that when we're able to show appreciation and recognition for each other on that, because they're talking about, you know, we the the tool uh would prompt us to be more specific. And so we would actually see the work that each other was doing, then then you've got another connection point there. Because I would reach out to someone say, hey, I noticed you were working on this. Here's some other things that might help, or hey, could we collaborate and partner on X, Y, and Z because you're already doing that thing. So that also led to in this remote culture being able to see each other's work. So this is you know, public peer recognition. Can I just say that? I love that because you see what people are appreciated about, you learn more about their skills and what they're really good at. And then that makes you lean into their strengths better. I love that. You know, I've not actually heard it described that way, and I love it. It's a brilliant um insight that you can get into people's skills. Yeah. And it's just again that whole being, because this was in the middle of the pandemic, this was happening too. And so that became even more important because we can't we're not in that same office. You don't overhear those conversations anymore. This kind of becomes a water cooler talk. I love that. One of the things that I absolutely love uh about this job is how you can find so many different benefits in it, and people find different benefits and appreciation and how it influences their organization. And you can pick and choose how it works for for your business, right? It can work in so many different ways, but you can you can make it work for for you. Um and being able first to appreciate your peers that builds such strong team community feel that helps collaboration, it helps belonging, but being able to see their strengths and actually use it in the workplace, that's that's that's brilliant. That's what you want, isn't it, as part as an organization? Oh, amazing. If you if you have to build the case, the commercial case for appreciation now for a client or for your team, where would you start from? You're starting from scratch, they've got nothing. Yeah. I think this is back to your early point. If we started earlier, you know, would that be better? And I think that that's where I start. So going with that identifying your values, um, what is it that you want to amplify or change? Because you need to have clarity around that to truly be successful. And also know that it doesn't just stay there. Like once you define it, it's not like, okay, we've carved this into stone and this is what it is forever. We're never gonna change this, right? It's not what it is. It's understanding who you are now because things will change. That's just the nature of what we do too. And so you also have to be ready to do that. And then kind of getting a baseline on where things are at, depending on the size of your company. Maybe that's looking at engagement scores. If you're smaller, where you'd, you know, okay, it's like 13 people, you probably don't necessarily need an engagement survey to tell you kind of where folks are at. But understanding that, understanding, you know, how engaged folks are, your onboarding data, your offboarding data, that's I think that's the start. That is then you know what you're working with, and then you start to embed that into your processes. So that is inner, that's from recruiting to when the person starts at your company to when they're in the company, even to offboarding. Like, what is it that you want to weave through all these things so that we are living kind of how we work? And then, and then if you think about it, that's when like this like tools become this like support thing of this greater project that you're working on. Uh, it's not about the tool anymore. It is about, I don't like I know it's easy to say it's about the problem we're trying to solve. It's not really a problem, but it is about, you know, making sure that we are clear on who we are and how we work together, because that's going to help us get stuff done. It's gonna help us be more successful. Yeah. I love the fact that you said it's not actually the problem. It's it's more like you are enhancing um what you can get from your people, or you are you're protecting against the risks that you might get to if if you're not doing appreciation. So it's not so much solving a problem, but you are proactive in um getting the best out of your people, protecting against risks and what could happen if if they're not appreciated. One thing that um I I really liked is when you said when you mentioned about leaving as well, that it's it's not even just during the process of when you work in an organization, but the the leaving part is really important as well. I was um I was just reading this book called Power of the Power of Moments. Um, and one of the things to say is that the things that really stay with us is the ending. And the ending for an employee is when they leave. So if you don't send off something the someone the right way, then you're risking your reputation, you're risking um ultimately sending the wrong signal to your current employees that they don't matter the minute they hand in their notice. It's the whole journey that we need to think of, not just specific moments in time. It's interesting because we especially right now, when I think of like, you know, there's the voluntary endings, those are a lot easier for folks. Um, you know, you have time because there is a there's the what the leap person leaving is feeling, and there's also the people who are left and still at the company, right? There's gonna be sadness on both sides. And I think of all the layoffs that are happening as well. I think there are definitely ways to do this that help both sides with the exit. It's never anything people want to do, especially in those situations, but how we do it is so important. Um and it's really about treating people like people. It's almost as simple as that. How do we how do we want to make sure that that is what's how how we're how they're walking away? Treating people as people for the benefit of the organization. I love that. And uh look, thank you so much. That's that's been incredible. I think if I have to choose one thing, although it's difficult, I've been taking notes, um, process create culture. I love that. I think more people should hear that that it's not a one-off solution. It takes time, it takes process, it takes intention. And I think definitely I'm gonna put it on my wall here, just as a reminder. Um, look, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate the time uh you took to spend with me today. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. I hope this episode gave you some practical ideas on how to turn appreciation from a nice to have into a business priority. If you like the episode, please reach out and share your thoughts with me. If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it too. Thank you for listening and don't forget to share appreciation.