E4: Hiring, Leadership and the Truth About Disengagement

Hiring is not just about CVs.
Leadership is not just about job titles.
And disengagement at work does not happen by accident.

In Episode 4 of With All Due Respect by Kass & Zena, we sit down with Jocelyne Elias to discuss leadership, workplace behaviour, burnout, disengagement, and the neuroscience behind how people show up at work.

This episode covers:

• Why employees disconnect from their work
• How leadership behaviour affects performance and culture
• The difference between pressure, burnout, and genuine disengagement
• Why people wear masks at work instead of showing up honestly
• How organisations contribute to low motivation without realising it
• The role of emotional intelligence in leadership
• Why authenticity matters in the workplace
• What neuroscience can teach us about behaviour, trust, and decision making
• The limits of AI when it comes to understanding people, character, and human behaviour

Whether you are a leader, founder, HR professional, recruiter, hiring manager, or employee trying to understand what is really happening inside the workplace, this conversation will make you think differently.

This is leadership truth.
This is workplace reality.
This is what people feel but rarely say out loud.

Support the show.
Saying the things people think but rarely say, at work and beyond.

Subscribe and stay with us. New episodes released regularly.

Socials:
[https://linktr.ee/Withallduerespectbykassandzena?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=121761e5-832b-4776-8778-369d06463afd](https://linktr.ee/Withallduerespectbykassandzena?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=121761e5-832b-4776-8778-369d06463afd)

Connect with us on LinkedIn:
Co-Hosts:
Kassem Zaiter: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kassem-zaiter-71b620121/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kassem-zaiter-71b620121/)
Zena Kassab: [http://linkedin.com/in/zena-kassab-b63bb411](http://linkedin.com/in/zena-kassab-b63bb411)

The Guest:
Jocelyne Elias: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jocelyneelias/)

#Leadership #WorkplaceCulture #EmployeeDisengagement #Burnout #Neuroscience #EmotionalIntelligence #Hiring #RecruitmentReality #HRLeadership #WorkplaceBehaviour #OrganisationalCulture #CareerGrowth #MiddleEastCareers #DubaiPodcast #WithAllDueRespect
#fypシ #podcast #viral #trending #foryou #foryoupage

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

If this is just a mask, this is where the problem comes.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

We talk a lot about success, titles, growth, achievements, but rarely about the mental and emotional cause behind them.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

You find that most people leave managers, not organizations, not really jobs.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

From the outside, many careers look great, yet internally people can feel drained or disconnected.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

At the core of all of that is how we do it.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

That unseen side of success is where today's conversation starts.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Her perspective is shaped by experience. She spent 15 years in multinational corporations leading marketing and communication right inside high-pressure environments. Then came a personal turning point that pushed her to rethink how success and well-being really works. She specializes in applied neuroscience, depth psychology, and human potential development. The certificates you see reflect that shift. She is also a coach member of the Global Center of Human Potential. Today, she helps organizations build healthier workplace cultures and stronger leadership from the inside out. This is Jocelyn. Hiring, leadership, disengagement, and limits of well-being intervention. We want to go deeper where this actually begins. Who we hire, who we promote, and what we reward.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

So this is a very interesting topic for me because it's how the psychology, the behavior, or the decision making by certain individuals impact the organization. So the question to you, Jocelyne, is why do organizations underestimate the human impact of this decision?

SPEAKER_03 2:01

When we look at what's happening today, we want to look at different layers in the organizational structure. And I just don't mean only who is there, who is sitting there, because there are many components today affecting what's happening globally and the causes on the causes of disengagement, on the disconnect, and the widening distrust between leadership and employees. So there isn't one single factor, and it's not just at the hiring level. When we look at what's happening today, you can see a lot of people are burning out. Burnout is is um is rampant, I would say, today. Um not because people are overloaded, of course, I mean there is the workload pressure. So when we look at collectively at what is happening, it's not just um leadership, I would say, failure, of course, because anyone who is operating under so much pressure and looking at uh one of the uh contributing factors, which is cognitive overload, dysregulated uh nervous systems, these shape businesses and cultures more than we like to think. Um so anyone with the highest uh skills, very competent, uh, well-poised character is going to deteriorate under those uh conditions. So I I I wouldn't say it's just like a hiring, uh only a hiring issue.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Okay. But then look, if that's not about hiring, how about leaving? Because then why why people um when people can't easily leave their job that they don't like, how does that affect them from psychologically and ethically as well?

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Um also here I would say there are many things that happen to an employee who doesn't have the luxury to leave. So this is why we're seeing today uh quiet quitting or uh presenteism, or um, you know, when you are just physically there doing the bare minimum um disengagement. Uh that that's why uh we see a lot of disengagement, not because only there is there aren't many opportunities out there.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Um they could be scared as well.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

And they could have personal reasons that doesn't allow them, uh, for example, to uh not have the luxury for leaving. So this definitely impacts them psychologically and in turn also impacts the business and the performance of the business. And this is why today we're seeing the um lost productivity is is uh costing globally more than 4.5 billion uh dollars per year. Um so there is a lot of cost, not just on the psychological, physiological, health-wise of the employee, also their own uh capabilities and capacities to develop and grow and alternative also um uh grow the business with them. Um so the cost is both on the employee as well as on the organization and the bottom line of the organization.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

You mentioned by the way, quad quiet quitting. I mean, I think I recently wrote an article about it. It's like, yes, top performers would say they always leave quietly. And because something, either the culture is not the right fit for them, they don't want to change things in a positive way, they just leave as well. But then a lot of people, I said, they're not risk takers well. You know, they don't want to leave, they're scared, they don't say personal reasons, but I mean, thank God I consider myself a risk taker. Like I prefer to leave if something is not going well in that organization, no matter what is the consequences, I would rather leave.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Personally, there is another flip side here given that we're also touching about uh hiring. Many high performers also leave because they are not getting the opportunity to be promoted within or have those development plans to be able to get there. And we can see that many organizations today, unfortunately, still prefer to hire or promote based on past performance rather than leadership capacity. What's your view on that point, Jocelyn?

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Definitely the um promoting based on uh performance or results is being highlighted as well nowadays in research because someone who has um good skills, uh good performance, has done a great uh job in their role, it doesn't mean that they have the leadership capabilities or capacity or uh even like the interrelational intelligence between um a leader and um an employee. And this also cannot be fostered through leadership skills training or manage uh management. Absolutely not uh training because we've had those for decades, and nowadays you can find them easily on um online in any course, and this doesn't cut through the interrelational intelligence. Uh one of the points that impact this is self-awareness and what we know from research as well. Uh self-awareness is the rarest, not because it's um personal flaw. Um today, people who are, I would say, self-aware, at least this is what we know from research, is at max 15%. Um, this also has to do with the structure of the mind, how the mind um functions. We know that our conscious awareness is around, I don't want to give uh percentages, but we know it's it's between 5 to 10 percent. And neuroscience tell uh tells us that uh basically you wake up and you sleep every day with the same thoughts. So this tells us also that a lot of our um behaviors, choices, emotions, all of them come from the um below the conscious awareness, which is the unconscious or the subconscious mind. And um this is also impacting a lot how we tackle behavior in the organizations.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

And this is actually fascinating because it brings you to charisma, confidence, uh false signals or behaviors that people usually also portray uh while they're carrying themselves uh at work or in life in general. Charisma often reads as competence in interviews. From a neuropsychology lens, why are we so easily convinced by it?

SPEAKER_03 9:14

There isn't a single answer, but definitely uh confidence influences how how the how a person interacts with uh with people, how they influence the energy in the room, as long as it it's not dominant. It is it is I mean like something that we all like to cultivate in ourselves. However, if this is just a mask, this is where the problem uh comes. I mean like the the persona that we show outside is not truly who we are. And I think today in organizations, rather than fostering uh fostering or focusing on uh authenticity, we we focus on uh what the what the mask is showing. And this breaks usually under pressure, under threat, under competitiveness, uh challenges. So this is why also we may see the this might contribute to the disconnect and the distrust between leadership and employees. So this is this is one aspect, but we we cannot count only on what the character is showing because our personalities are very fluid and they change uh with experiences. So again, probably the best uh enhanced, uh well-optimized, I would say, personality may erode under pressure or the essence might come out as not what the person was showing.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Now, in the context of interviews per se, and obviously it's a short little time for the interviewer to be able to assess this mask, if uh so to speak. Any tips or high-level comments you can share that would help people to kind of uncover these traits?

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Body language, of course, tells a lot whether a person is tensed or uh especially when you start to challenge them, you need to look also at the narrative shift, I would say, if you ask the question in different um angles. Uh I'm sure this is this is common, but also you want to uh you want to look at um some questions that may test their character, where uh let's say you ask them uh something along the lines of like, tell me a time when someone uh showed more competence, let's say, in the area that you are working with and had to take the decision. What was your reaction? Tell me how did you handle this situation? Because today uh people go to interviews, people come prepared, uh, they know uh what to say probably. They've rehearsed questions.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

No, a lot of them.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

They simulate now easily with AI, you know, the interview and they get the toughest questions. But you you want to look for uh how they may deflect, let's say, um, failures. Where do they, let's say, how do they speak about this situation? Is there any blame? Is there any, let's say, um, sarcastic tone uh sometimes that goes as joke or like as confidence? So you you you want to look for those uh hints uh that shows a little bit the essence.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

What warning signs are typically missed in an interview when the interview is kind of overly polished?

SPEAKER_03 13:01

When the persona is very polished and I would say very optimized and well adapted, this is, I mean, like it's it's not easy. So the interviews don't have to be, let's say, how much we focus on character or how much we focus on uh uh competence, both are equally important. Uh and what's important is that both evolve. The question is, are organizations willing to wait until let's say something negative happens before they because most organizations are reactive and um sometimes uh let's say poor behavior in leadership is uh blamed, uh is put due to uh pressure, uh stress, chronic stress, etc. And uh it's it's considered as normal. So we want to look at what are we normalizing under the name of success, the cost of success, or uh under work pressure and busyness and productivity. And also in parallel, take into consideration that those are not normal, shouldn't be normalized, but instead we we must be willing to work on the developmental layers of what helps those poor behaviors improve, not impact negatively, I would say, the culture, the people around, because today, also if you look at the data, you find that most people leave managers, not organizations, not really jobs. And even when the work load is very high, but the culture, the environment is nourishing and it's uh free of those interrelational friction, people stay. But people today are leaving, and as well, looking into the data, today leadership are equally disengaged as employees because the numbers are um really staggering. In UAE, we know that um only 26 percent are engaged at work. 26. 26. And last year it was 29, so there is a drop of uh three points in engagement. 69% are looking for other opportunities, and this is not just UAE, it's it's the trend uh globally. And today organizations need to kind of pause and and ask different questions and take different actions because um if we've had decades of leadership skills training, development uh programs, etc., emotional intelligence workshops, that's I mean, like that should be telling us that probably we need to take a new approach, a more human-centric approach, and look at what really helps the individual grow inwardly, which helps them also inwardly. I mean, I I look at capacity or reorganizing or re-engineering the internal architecture of the leader as well as the employees, because that's something doable. And with the current state, with the cognitive overload that they are undergoing, um, the uh dysregulated nervous system, those are huge to not allow people to uh embody the skills that they are training for.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

You know, I wonder those numbers you just mentioned, are they coming from those big international companies or as well as startups too? Because I feel like startups have a completely different mentality.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Startups I would say are more flexible because um in in multinationals um the policies and everything is cascaded from uh global, area, regional, uh etc.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

So there isn't much flexibility for um regional offices, I would say, to uh but they shouldn't adapt to each country or to each culture, for example, rather than using one standard international They do.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Many global organizations have a way of working, but then they tailor to local labor laws, legislations, and in certain things uh the regions or the country have a particular freedom. But if a company adopts a specific platform, for example, then obviously the entire organization adopts that platform, but then you tweak how the process goes in one country or the other. So most organizations they think global but act local to a certain extent, uh depending on the industry as well, the maturity of the organization, uh, etc.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Those numbers tell us something else, like things are not working then.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

In terms of adaptation into local culture, this is one layer of uh uh policies, uh uh governance, uh, etc. Whatever needs to adapt on a country level. This is one layer, but the human element here is not taken into consideration. So when cultures aren't just um emerging from policies, values, uh value statements and uh missions and visions uh of the organization, they emerge more from the interrelations of people, from uh how people think, feel, and behave. This impacts the culture much, much more than policies. And this is this is what we're trying, or this is what data is showing today.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

And this is engagement. Then the organization and leadership, it's basically how they enable or what they enable themselves or people to be able to uh uh behave as or act as.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

I think this is actually a very interesting topic for me because it's about psychometric tests. Whether psychometrics are widely used but often misunderstood. So my question to you is what role should they realistically uh play in hiring?

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Personally, I don't use them as a verdict, but maybe some people do.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Because uh I've mentioned something earlier, which is like our personalities are very fluid and they're uh they're adaptive, they're changed by experiences, and so are our brains, uh not by information. Uh, and also there is an important element uh which we take into consideration usually in any test that we give to uh to people uh on personalities or um anything related to them is first the objectivity of um how they are answering, let's say, the uh the questions versus uh automatically people uh answer uh sometimes like, oh, this looks better, or it should be like this, or I um I like to think I'm like that, you know. So we we tend to have this uh bias, cognitive bias. Yeah, and also we need to take into consideration that this psychometric test taken on the same day in different moods, in different situations on a different day is gonna give you different results.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

And we spoke about sometimes when you're not a native English speaker, how you understand certain words also uh differs.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Yes, and also we want to we, I mean, like it's an invitation also to see organizations how much are they using them? I I use them personally as a conversation starter, you know, with with people, but it's it's not a verdict. And like we do look at certain aspects, like which one you want to enhance, where where do you see yourself here? But but it's it's not indicative or a verdict about who a person is truly.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

You see, this is what I when I said it's misunderstood because what's going on nowadays, people using exactly this the results of that test to decide if I want to hire this person or not. For me, probably it should be used, like you said, to know where they lack, for example, what where they need to improve the skill.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Rather than having it as a decision maker to instead not hiring that person, this is why I feel they're not really useful here, maybe because people don't know how to kind of read it properly. Hence why I don't see people using it in the right way.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

And and this also depends on the maturity of the organization and the the maturity. Of understanding how those tests are serving us. Same like now we we look into rethinking 360 feedback and the influence that it has psychologically on the people and how much how much it's bringing benefits, I would say, versus the damage that it causes. I mean, like you sit there in a 360 feedback and you feel like your soul is being scanned, uh, let alone if someone gets, let's say, a negative uh uh feedback or uh comment anything, that person it's gonna erode his best behavior more than sitting on a round table discussion uh discussing, let's say, uh certain aspects of the business, of certain behaviors with someone who uh I mean that doesn't feel uh like you're being judgmental.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Again, here the maturity of the organization, how much the feedback and coaching culture is embedded, how much people practice what they preach. Um I worked in an organization once which really had that at the core of their values and they lived it day by day, and feedback was always prompt, and it was not only constructive, it was also to strengthen uh positive behaviors uh or interactions. And the CEO at that time created something and he started it with himself called the hot chair, where he sat initially with his leadership team and asked them all to give him three uh positive uh feedback and three constructive feedback. And where he wouldn't comment or defend or debate, he would just go reflect on it. And then if he wanted to have a conversation, to um go deeper, etc., and then put corrective actions on what he should do more of and less of with his leadership team. And while time passed, those leadership team members then did it with their teams. I found it personally at that time very enriching and it was an eye-opener for people, but then again, that was a mature organization.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

If we look at the uh state of organizations, this engagement, the figures, what's happening, this begs the question is that we need to think so many things. A few things are not working. So it's not an employee problem, it's how you how you are developing the employee, not just on a career level, but also internally, because obviously this is what's breaking and this is what's impacting the organizational culture, people, and the bottom line.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Couldn't agree more. And here I'll I would like to add another layer here, uh, the big bubble of AI and how most organizations are adopting it in hiring, doing the automations, uh, uh, etc. And genuinely the support in AI for better hiring is being compromised. Where in your in your view or in your opinion does it risk replacing judgment with pattern recognition and how we really look at hiring people rather than staged answers?

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Definitely AI can, let's say, recognize patterns, the club probably competencies, uh skills, look at uh uh, you know, like the uh core, I mean like pull things into um categories, and yeah, I mean like as per skills, etc. But can AI let's say detect how that person is gonna uh handle pressure? I don't know if this person is gonna be political, manipulative, backstabbing, overstepping people. Is I I don't know if AI can do that right now. The human element is important because I mean like we we know that keywords and skills are not just like the things that will make it or break it, but also the influence of AI on on organizations is is also becoming not in the very positive ways. Recent research from Harvard Business Review revealed that AI is intensifying work rather than making work less easier because people are doing things faster. And basically, people are competing with a with AI, and also they are uh compromising. This is what we know from neuroscience, certain uh cognitive functions are being compromised by the usage of AI, and this impacts people psychologically, emotionally, how much they are engaged, I would say, at work.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

One of the organizations I've heard, the CEO, everything every simple question is ask chat GBT. Anything, ask Chat GBT, for example. Or we we stopped using our brain, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

It's compromising definitely creativity, analytical thinking, um, metacognition, which is like a very underrated skill, I would say, nowadays that organizations need um to focus on. Absolutely. So we want to measure also how much AI is, let's say, saving or bringing return on investment versus the um the human element cost of disengagement, burnout, etc.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Some organizations, of course, are trying to utilize it in the right way as much as they know. Yeah. But you can see also the trend of just doing so or counting so much on AI without really filtering or uh looking what value does it bring, uh, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

It's about the value they can bring. The problem is we don't know its value yet. And we use it. We normally, I mean we is the common people, not the AI experts, right? We use an organization for simple daily tasks. But yeah, it can help us in other things. It can some things can be automated easy, other things you still need.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

Human judgment, then you need the human supervision. You need to uh also probably look at why AI took that decision because AI lacks ethics, I would say, or integrity, you know, and agrees with you on everything. Yeah, I mean, like uh the maybe in the in the AI formats that we use today, you and me, I don't know, on on uh different uh sectors I would say how AI operates. So we need to to to to ask questions based on what, let's say, because is it just based on data? It's it's it's a data collector and it synthesizes data after all, but it doesn't have the let's say human creativity. I mean, like that's one aspect, uh the ethical, the also probably foreseeing uh to the future, maybe testing really what's happening on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

And and if I may, it's also connecting different contexts that wouldn't be feeded as a prompt uh in terms of also circumstances uh or being pragmatic, especially when you are dealing with humans and people.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

Yeah, so for AI, I mean like lovers or enthusiasts, it's not we are anti-AI. We are not at all, not at all. AI and humans, but let's understand more where to use it, where it adds value, where it doesn't add value.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

On that point, actually, I think this this kind of topic will be good for both of you to kind of challenge me on this anyway. Um, it's about the HR behaviors angle plus the AI connection to it as well, especially in hiring. So it is an opinion that I heard multiple times uh from professionals who are not in HR. They say HR with all due respect are not there for the employees, they are there for the uh to support the leaders in the business, right? Now, and this is typically technically 30% of the job to kind of support the employees of the business. Now, the other 50% is being automated now, which is AI from either uh the AR screening, the assessments now. My question is so if AI and tools are are not there to answer, um, and when employees already question whether HR is there to help them, what kind of due diligence is HR truly responsible for today, and how does that responsibility impact employee trust?

SPEAKER_03 30:46

I see HR usually more as the shock absorbers from between leadership and also employees. And employees don't don't know or don't understand exactly what HR covers or they do, and um the work that runs behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

It all depends on the context. If you are an organization and you have one HR person doing everything, you can see that this person will be a generalist, firefighting most of the time, and under delivering because they're some, if you are happy with how they're hiring for you, you're not gonna happy how they are managing performance and rewards, etc. There is a lot of admin recurring activities on a continuous basis that they have to attend to while trying to do the business partnering strategic side. And also it depends on the CEO or the leadership of that organization, how much they involve the HR in people decisions or in projects in general, and how HR is part of that strategy. In an organization, when you have that context, I mean, also the individual, it depends on their experience and how they're skilled with the core functions of HR, because this is when you will be dissatisfied with HR. And as she said, it is the absorber or shock absorber, and it's easy to blame that it's HR's decision. Most of the time, HR have to carry forward a decision even if they don't believe him, but then always the how matters. Now, in different organizations, you have different teams. Some people focused on governance, uh, employee relations, policies, compliance, etc. All the COEs and functions within HR, but HR business partnering and also not to forget how HR is evolving with the future of work and the role is developing. It is basically an enabler rather than a support function as it used to be, to be able to understand where the business is going to support uh whether in a resilience strategy, sustainability, scale up growth, or sometimes unfortunately, reorganization uh projects. But at the core of all of that is how we do it, as much as what we do.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

But the thing is, you know, this is 50% of individuals who probably do exactly what you just said. However, the other 50% that they are a bit for me immature. So the thing, for example, because technically HR is the safe place for the employees if they have any complaints in the organization. They want to talk about their well-being, or they want to talk about their issues they've been facing. But sometimes those kind of issues, if you go and talk to HR, it can be used against you because then other leaders in the business knows.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

I completely agree with you. Again, it's the maturity, the size of the organization, how gossip spreads. But basically, in many organizations, they respect this so much where there is either a hotline that is outsourced, not from within the organization, or there is an ethics committee or compliance committee, or usually you would tend to go to someone you would look up to as a coach or a mentor to discuss. It doesn't always um funnel to the HR. And if that HR professional isn't senior enough, then you wouldn't feel comfortable going to them in the first place as well.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

Probably, Casim, what you were referring to is more into the uh I also hear the same. I've been in organizations and I've heard the same thing. I mean, like you're supposed to be human resources and like all you do is like technical, mechanical stuff. And we've heard it. No, no, I I I agree. There is a mis um misunderstanding of the HR role, even when they are trained in coaching um in understanding human behavior. Again, the results today are showing that there is a missing link. So the behavior, I I always say, behavior is is a symptom, uh, and we've been treating symptoms so far, which is why the gap is widening and the results are declining rather than stabilizing or changing. So we we've been tackling symptoms for too long and we're still doing so.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:14

But rather than the drivers of the behavior, we we want to look at the all those surveys taken in the organizations, which layer are they touching upon?

SPEAKER_01 35:28

But you know, on those servers as well, you know, most of organizations, again, what I've heard and what I've seen as well, it's supposed to be confidential.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

But it's it it's not if it's not managed through an outsource provider, even if they say it's confidential, I'm telling you it's not. But when it's managed from an outsource provider and you get the results of the survey, then it is truly confidential.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

You go and complain about manager, you walk up to the office next day, manager looking up and down.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

But that's what today, I mean, like so much more is driving also the employees. Um, I would say, yes, I've I've been there. I mean, like you wouldn't trust that the questions remain confidential. But also what I have seen and what so many I work with and like complained about is that sometimes the questions are rhetoric and like they're as if like they are asked in a way to lead into a specific answer and specific answer. Um whether it's talking about engagement, let's say, uh surveys, what are we doing about them? I mean, like, and if we've been doing those um MPS surveys or pulse surveys for so many years, I mean, like why this why engagement is declining? Uh so what are the questions are we asking? I mean, like, are we measuring vibes in the in the organization, or are we measuring truly what makes an impact?

SPEAKER_00 37:00

And it's basically the action plan that is taken uh to be implemented to serve the purpose of the feedback, but also when organizations roll out these tests and they don't specify. And if it's a leadership question, am I answering on my direct line, on the layer above, or the overall leadership? So sometimes it is confusing for people to understand. I mean, am I speaking about my direct line? And usually when results are shared, if a department is very small and you have two employees reporting to you, you do not get the results of your function because then it would easily be easily uh uh you can directly predict who answered what. So there is uh a way of doing those things and ensuring confidentiality. Now I have one question that along my career, uh Jocelyne, I've always noticed it. Either when I was a recruiter or later as a senior HR professional, being in interviews with line managers, etc. And I often do notice one particular thing that many uh hiring managers do not like to hire someone stronger than them, uh personality-wise, experience-wise, etc. If we continue with that trend, which is actually what happens in today's world, in your opinion, how does that replicate into the culture of the organization?

SPEAKER_03 38:27

It impacts, I would say, the business as well as the culture. I mean, of course, um we all have our own insecurities, and since um since uh most organizations uh promote this culture of competitiveness, well, don't expect that someone is gonna bring uh some someone who's more competent or stronger. I don't know what's strong. I mean, like it it depends on the context. Also, maybe let's say what we call in psychology weak personalities, yeah, usually they are avoided because um when there is an attitude, yes, of course.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Not from the attitude angle. Uh but for example, you have an experience in something I don't have. If you join, we'll complement each other and we'll grow further. But if I am insecure and see that she is better than me in this, which would add value to my team and the organization, my insecurity will sideline her and I will bring someone not as experienced that will not add a lot of value for me if I was that person to remain in control.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

Yes. Exactly. I mean, like this is one of the things that I that is mostly played out in organizations. Unfortunately, it's like uh the industrial age, uh, because people who have an agenda will sabotage, I would say, a lot of um a lot of things that impacts the business and the culture positively. And I think Peter Dracker said it once. I mean, like we always remember him for uh culture eat strategy for breakfast, but he he also emphasized that uh people have the pervasive tendency to behave like human beings. And so far, what we've seen, we we don't understand what it takes, you know, to establish a human-centric approach.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

So if you accept that this engagement is an outcome, so uh what kind of leaders are we intentionally hiring today?

SPEAKER_03 40:37

Intentionally, yes. It depends on the organization itself and who we are hiring and for what and what the organization is looking for. I I wanna say uh when we look at how this engagement is is still very pervasive in the organizational world and how it's impacting both people, it it means that there is a missing link or missing points and blind spots that we haven't addressed yet. So is it just the leaders? Is it the interventions that we are using to improve engagement? Uh is it is it helping or empowering people on a personal, cognitive, emotional level? And also what are we doing with regards to workload and the layoffs, the forever uh trend, this trend of layoffs. And um, is AI really helping? No, it's intensifying the work, so what are we willing to do for that for every organization? It's gonna look differently. Where is the biggest impact or where is the biggest gap so that we can start uh closing? But usually in general, it's it's an outcome because related to people, so we start with people and not re-evaluating our values and absolutely to create that culture of change. Policies, yeah. I mean like those are important, they are really important. I don't I don't think they are basic and they should always be there, but also we need to re-look or to rethink the interventions and also the overall people policy or what do we want to do, how we want to help people. And this is not only uh it doesn't come only from policies. No, no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

With all due respect, every culture problem started as a highing decision someone felt comfortable with.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

So hopefully that would inspire a shift. Thank you very much, Jocelyn, for the discussion.