Talent Development with Mimi Kravetz, Hillel International

Mimi Kravetz, Chief Talent Officer, discusses her experience creating this new department and managing professional development opportunities for staff at campuses spread around the world. Read Mimi's full bio, get links to Hillel International, find other episodes, explore podcast partners, learn how to start your own podcast, or send us your guest suggestions at www.itswhoyouknowthepodcast.com Have a great week!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to, it's who you know, the podcast, bridging the gap between Jewish leaders and those who follow them. Gain insight from Jewish professionals who make the decisions that influence your Jewish world.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Welcome to, uh, to you know the podcast. This is your host, Michelle Wu. Malkin am I guess today is Mimi Kravitz, who is hillel international's inaugural chief talent officer, which she had started this role in 2015. She's responsible for creating new strategies for Hillel and the Jewish nonprofit sector to invest in the most important asset. It's professionals. Amy came to this role after more than six years as a Google executive in the marketing and people operations. She brings a passion for building great workplaces, empowering employees, creating products and projects for deeper user insight and driving innovation while@GoogleandmaybeworkedinGoogle.org spearheading passion projects, including educating nonprofits on Google tools through Google for nonprofits, as well as partnering with the Israel Museum to make the Dead Sea scrolls accessible online and with the od of the Shim to bring it's photo collections to the web. Have asked me me on the program today because Hillel is reputation for being a great place to work, is well known and I think we could learn a lot about their model. Must've curious to hear how they got such a reputation and how they manage the organizational environment of hundreds of separate institutions internationally. Welcome to the program. You mean? Thank you. We will start as we always do with your story and how you got into this position and as I mentioned from your intro, a little less conventional than maybe most that work in the Jewish field, so I'd love to hear about it. Absolutely. So you asked me to talk about my professional journey, which started in my very first job out of college. I took a role as a Jewish campus service corps fellow, sometimes also called the Steinhardt fellows at the Hillel at Stanford and I did that in a moment where I had decided that I didn't want to go the path that I thought I was going to go in college to a position in the foreign service or on the hill in DC and the hillel director at Stanford. At the time used to work at Tufts, we knew each other peripherally through some development work I did as a student worker and she invited me to come out and live in California for the first time and said to me that it would be my job to engage students and that I would have a coffee budget, that I could go out and understand who these students at Stanford were and what they would need and I could build anything, programs or initiatives that would meet the students' needs and that sounded so much more exciting than any other opportunity I had right after college. So not everyone gets a copy budget and back for years after and when I was working in the corporate world, I would often tell people it was my favorite job because it was my. You know, I had a coffee budget and I was supposed to just go out and talk to people. It was a fantastic experience and I

Speaker 3: 2:59

ended up doing that job, which was only a one year commitment for three years and grew the role beyond doing engagement work at the hillel at Stanford to to a social justice programming and Israel programming and having supervision experiences, so it was really lucky to have people invest in me from the beginning at Hillel. My third year I even wanted to try and start my own nonprofit organization and was thinking of leaving and they kept me by saying that I could stay and use some percentage of my time to work on this outside social entrepreneurial venture and when that venture failed, after working on it for a year, I decided that what I really needed was business and management experience. So some day I could come be a leader in the Jewish nonprofit sector. Can I ask with that endeavor with. It was called peace generation youth camp. I was actually working with a friend of mine who I'd been a counselor with the seeds of peace camp in Maine to try and start a program in the San Francisco Bay area for Jewish and Arab Muslim teenagers and we actually made a significant amount of progress locally with the community's got started on some fundraising, had a partnership with hosteling international, but were never able to get everything done including camp sign ups and all the fundraising we needed to get it off the ground. And it really showed me that, you know, while I could have passion and relationships that there is some knowledge and experience in business management that I needed to be successful in this kind of work. So I went to business school. I went to Harvard business school and surprised myself and really loving business and being really interested in the cases that I was learning about all different businesses. And I think realizing that a lot of businesses are really helping with some of the social missions that I was passionate about. And so I decided to stay in the business world for awhile. I went from business school to a job at American Express accompany that I absolutely loved working for because of how deeply they care about their customers and I worked with small business owners who love what they were doing, helping them get the right financing they need to make their small businesses successful. I was in the marketing department as a product manager and then when my husband and I decided we wanted to move back out to California through some connections from business school, I was able to get a similar job working with small business owners at Google and I spent seven years at Google first doing a traditional ad words, which is Google's core product, customer marketing job with small business customers like what I had done with Amex. Then I was presented with an opportunity to join Google.org. That's Google's philanthropy division that does technology work to help nonprofit organizations and I train nonprofits on Google tools and then I was asked to move over and take a marketing job, leading employment branding for people operations, which was what they call hr or talent at Google. Over the course of three years, I had the opportunity to really examine how Google did it best practices through working closely with every part of the people operations team at Google. The last project I was working on was helping on the messaging and get out the messaging around a book written by Laszlo Bock, the longtime head of people ops at Google called work rules, insights from inside Google that will change the way you work and live and I was teaching other company is how to do what Google does and invest in their people. When I got a call from a recruiter asking if I knew anyone who would want to come lead this new exciting division as part of Hillel is trying to excellent strategic plan as the first chief talent officer and I decided that it was a way to bring it all together and it actually, as much as I want to hear more about you, I'd love to hear more about how they came to that place of realizing that they needed somebody like you to be in this kind of a role. You mentioned a strategic plan and excellence. Was there something that was wrong or was it just, you know, if we want to be awesome, we have to have this focus, so hillel international has this strategic plan called the drive to excellence. It's a little over four years old now and it's actually a strategic implementation plan. We didn't want just a strategy, but we wanted to know how to execute it and the big insight of the drive to excellence is that there is a way to do this work of inspiring every Jewish student to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life with excellence by using data and best practices. And so the drive to excellent strategic execution plan was trying to figure out what it would take to get every hillel to that vision of excellence. And they identified three pillars to get to excellence. The first pillar of which was talent and the reason is as a large distributed organization, trying to create excellence in all different locations on all different campuses throughout the world. Really the only way to make sure that the best work in the best practices are getting implemented is to have the right people, the right talent. I'm working on every single campus and to give those people the training and support they needed. And that was an insight that was here before I got there. So they said the most important and impactful thing we can do as a central organization serving these distributed local hillel is to have the right people with the right support. And that's what created the talent pillar and lead them to go hire a chief talent officer. So tell us a little bit about the work, what it looks like to be a chief talent officer and what kind of areas you focus on and maybe a little bit about how that's evolved over the last three years that you've been in this position. So the work I do is to make sure that we have the right professionals on every single campus throughout the country and that they have the training and support they need and that they know that they matter to us and are invested in. And I have a team at Hillel International and excellent team and they are made up of people who do talent acquisition, so the talent acquisition team helped support the hiring on local campuses and helps identify people who could get really excited about and be successful at work and then does the really complex matching work of getting them on the right campuses in the right roles that are the best fit for them and the needs of that campus. I have a team called Hillel you, which is a program that we've launched and scaled within the last three years that is about professional development and training for every single Hillel Professional. There are thousand, 200 people who work for Hillel and represent the Hillel Brands. One of the big insights of the talent pillar and the work that our team is doing is that all of those people need training and support to be successful and really represent the vision of hillel and the Halo Brand. Lots of organizations have some sort of professional development opportunity, but often it isn't given to everyone. It's given at the moment of onboarding or to an elite cohort. And what we've tried to do is create this division that is about giving training and professional growth to everyone so that they can succeed today and advancing their careers. So talent acquisition, professional development, talent grants. We have a program that is about giving funding to campuses to make investments in their professionals, whether that's to expand their staff so that they have more capacity to do their work with students or to retain someone who's really excellent through an additional investment in their compensation and their development. And then we have a core hr team that's about creating best practices for the field. And so that looks like making sure people have goals and making sure that we have transparent compensation bands so that our campuses are equipped to live this vision of investing in talent in all of its intricate detail because it's really the details that matter. So what are some of the areas in this professional development that you offer everyone, which granted, you know, a lot of people are at different levels. What are some of the areas that you tend to focus on? What does it seem like the need is in those development forums? So say a couple things about hillel. You intentionally and by design. The first department that we launched is the center for Jewish and Israel education and it's because we recognize the unique offering on campus that we have is to be that center for Jewish education and engagement and so it's critical that all of our professionals on campus feel like they have the competence and competence to be able to offer uniquely Jewish experiences that are effective and impactful for students and our professionals are at all different levels of Jewish education. But we know that people go into this work because they have a Jewish spark that they want to foster and others and that we have a unique role we can play in advancing that spark and giving them more content and information and skills to be able to bring that to students. And we've been offering from the beginning Jewish education programs for our professionals. For example, this summer we're offering a one week program that 100 professionals will attend called dwell, which is really an experience for our professionals to have a camp like experience that's about investing in themselves and their own Jewish spark and nurturing their own Jewish identity and also is about giving them concrete skills that they can bring back to campus to provide Jewish education for students. So the first center we launched was in Jewish education. We've also made a really concerted investment in management and specifically in supervision since I came and took on this talent mandate. One of the things that I've heard from supervisors and supervisees alike is that we just didn't have what we needed to train people. Managers, supervisors have other people to do their work well. One of the first courses we created is called the Kaplan supervisory leadership program, and that program is to train supervisors in the craft of managing other people. Well, often this is a job people take on because they've been successful at other things, but they don't always take it on. With recognition and intentionality. It is important that people who are responsible for other people's work are trained in what they're doing and are being thoughtful and giving it the time and attention it needs. So that's one of the other significant upfront investments we've made in our training program. What sounds really awesome, what I'm hearing is, you know, it's not generic, right? It's not a time management skills and how to stay organized and you know, it you really looked at

Speaker 2: 12:55

for our hillel is on the ground doing this work. What is it that they need? Right? And you recognize, I mean I think all of our listeners are very aware of the Israel issue on campus, that that was automatically right off the bat, something you're like, this is not just like something we think everybody needs, but very specific to your organization to the type of work that they're doing. And then you listen to your people, right? You ask them what is it that you need? And you got that feedback to say, okay, you feel like you need some more training and management. So those are two very awesome things that I'm hearing as far as the way that you kind of approached creating this culture of learning as opposed to, like I said, just kind of generic professional development type things that anyone can almost get anywhere. Right. That's wonderful. Intentionality with that. And so it's a little different from where you came from to kind of where you are now. As I've touched on before, you know, Google is pretty much a single facility, right? With the people you're working with and they have lots of perks. I guess there are. So I've heard with in kind of that environment,

Speaker 3: 13:55

so taka a little bit more about do you visit these different hillel?

Speaker 2: 13:59

Yeah, I assumed that the culture in Hillel and Boise, I know it might be a little bit different than the culture, you know, have a hillel at Stanford. Kind of how you're sensitive to all those different cultures and ways that leaders do their work in those different institutions.

Speaker 3: 14:14

The work that we do is designed to provide inspiration, training, support, and best practices to each local. Hello. And then they're implementing in the way that's best for their campus. So what my team will do is provided training on hiring best practices and provide templates on the skills that we should look for in hiring and we will source candidates who are outstanding fits for Hillel and teach them about the movement, but then the ultimate hiring decision, for example, is made by the local campus because you're right, every local campus is different and that

Speaker 2: 14:51

and that hiring manager, whether it's the board lead search committee for an executive director or the program director who's hiring for an engagement associate, Dino Bash, what's going to work on their campus. And that's true of everything we do. So we're centrally providing training best practices and support and then it's being implemented locally in a way that's the best fit for their unique culture and situation. So you're just going to giving them the tools and saying, you know, hopefully you do a good job at implementing these within your culture, which is great. One thing I was going to tell you, I hope it's a little better than like, hey, we hope you do this. We've made very clear our serious commitment in the space, you know, we're on the phone all the time, answering questions, helping people understand their leading edge scores and what they can learn from them and how they might make changes, so yes, we're providing this information and we're also really in relationship with the campuses and the professionals on the campus to make sure that this works in practice. What we also know is that campus has learned from each other and the hillel is that are taking this work in talent really seriously are uniquely successful in hiring and retaining their professionals and other campuses notice and pay attention and so we're really also are trying to learn from some of the campuses that are doing an excellent job by the way some of them in outlying areas that are doing such a great job at investing in their professionals that they're able to get and keep the best and so some of what we can do centrally as noticed that and share the best practices with others. Yeah, so I was going to say the one thing that really jumps out to me a lot in your work or your job descriptions and the way that you advertise for positions and it really was the first time that I kind of started seeing those two new outline for descriptions as opposed to the very standard, you know, these are the qualifications, these are the job responsibilities, this is our mission statement, right, and you get to obviously not go and more about it, but it's kind of been turned on its head as far as who you are, who we are, what would you be doing? Kind of this more practical vision for somebody who's looking for a position as to what this job really is. So that's one piece of your work that I would love to see implemented in workplaces and I wonder if it's just easy to do kind of the old version, but I'd love for you to talk about that intentionality behind the way that you recruit. Cool. One thing you know is that I was in marketing that actually in people obviously google, so I thought a lot about how do we talk about jobs and what matters to people about jobs. So one thing we know is that people actually do go right to the job description. They spend a lot less time on the website and the reason they go to the job description besides that, it's the most practical piece is the reason people take a job is because of the work itself. And it is. One of the things that we have going for us in the Jewish world is that we do work that's really meaningful to people. And one of the things I learned when I was doing this work and employment branding at Google is that people wanted to feel like they were doing work that mattered and had an impact and they wanted to see in the job description that what they were doing laddered up to the larger mission of the organization. The impact it would have on the world. And so that's what we're trying to do in the job descriptions is to bring that to light and help people understand, you know, what is pillows mission, what is the goal of this job and what are you specifically going to be able to do in terms of your personal impact in helping influence that mission. So you're just trying to make sure that that's properly articulated when you're talking about a new position that's available. It's got to be properly articulated and exciting in a way that it's authentic is the other thing I was talking about it with a previous guests about being transparent about your organizational life cycle, right? Being transparent as part of those job descriptions of, you know, is this, and I'll just use hillel because that's what we're talking about, you know, is it a small hillel, you know, going through a rejuvenation. Is it a bigger hello? That's Kinda just trucking along, right? They're kind of at that plateau piece where everything's working. Are they struggling? Hillel, that really needs some new creative ideas, right? Being kind of honest with candidates of saying this is the kind of organization we are and this is where we are in our organizational life cycle so that you understand you're walking into x, Y or Z, right? So if you're full of ideas and you want to get them out there but you're going into a huge organization that's kind of do pretty well and you know, isn't a good place or you're really looking for that stability and you walk in and everything's kind of falling apart a little bit, you know, being a little bit more transparent about where organizations are at the time that they're trying to hire these key positions. So I've explored that with some other guests as well. And I know that's not necessarily part of your job descriptions, but I don't know if you've ever thought about that before. I'm big fan of transparency and job descriptions because I think the more transparent and honest you are, the better fit the candidate is going to be. It comes up for us in organizational life cycle. Being able to say, and you can frame it in the positive, but this is an organization that's really growing and going through a transformation and we want someone who's excited to be entrepreneurial and has comfort with ambiguity, so if you say that you're gonna attract a person who's a better fit for you and where your organization is, it all still comes up a lot around salary transparency and people wonder whether they should be honest with candidates about the compensation and I always encourage people to be transparent wherever they can and be comfortable, whether that's in the job description or some of our campuses, aren't comfortable doing the job description, but we try and put it early in the interview process because you really do need people to understand what our role would look like and if they can take it so that it's best use of everyone's time and you attract the right person you've been listening to. It's who you know the podcast. I'm your host, Michelle w dot Malkin. Before turning to my conversation with be mean, I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to the guests. For our next podcast, episode apron, Lepen, president and creator of the lap and Group discusses with me how development has changed over his many years of consulting experience and which challenges are still pervasive in our organizations today. Here is a clip from our upcoming conversation. One of the things that is very, very much a part of the upcoming organizations

Speaker 4: 20:48

in the last five years or seven years or 10 years that they are focused on results and they're not focused on organizations are focused on an activity or on helping a certain cohorts or on education for children or on find blankets for something or ending forced migration. Whatever the issue is that that organization has chosen as his mission. There are about results. They're not about organizational identity, you know, in so far as it enables them to raise money, but donors, donors are looking for those organizations that can achieve those results so that if today they're giving the organization a and next year they see organization be doing it better. We're going to shift their money to organization and be in a moment, so the imperative is always to stay competitive and to stay practical and to really achieve excellence in what you do and quantify what you do. You know that the emerging leader today says, if I give you$100, a thousand dollars or a million dollars, what's the demonstrable result that you can prove somebody from that money, which is a phenomenon that people asked but has not been a central question. Where as central question as it is today,

Speaker 2: 21:47

be sure to listen to the rest of my conversation with Avram in our next episode of it's who you know, but for now, so you'd mentioned leading edge and they're very wonderful efforts to create these great places to work within the Jewish community. I'm curious just from your perspective, obviously you're in an organization, they're very much, this is a value of theirs at friends they've hired you, you have a team, you know you're really making this on the forefront of your work. What might some other organizations might be missing? Like what do you think, just from your interactions, might some other organizations like why this isn't as prominent of a field or a head professional enough that there's a whole organization who's trying to make us all better? Right? Who's trying to look at ways to make Jewish organizations really great places to work? What do you think people are missing? So when I was at Google, we always ask that question because when I was there we'd won the great place to work or something like seven years in a row and I remember us saying like, this is ridiculous. There should be people at our backs. What I will say about talent in the Jewish nonprofit sector right now is there are people at our backs and that's good. So we're not the only ones who have noticed this is important. We are working closely with leading edge. We are in a partnership called the talents alliance, which was started by the Schusterman Foundation is now moving over to leading edge and it's a partnership between Hillel, Bbyo and Moisha House. And I have had numerous conversations with so many other organizations in the field who are saying to me, we're also doing this. We're doing this for camps, for doing this, for federations, we're doing this for foundations, let's learn from each other, let's work together. So I really feel like this is an issue that's right, the Jewish nonprofit sector now and while hillel may be in the lead and I'm proud of that, I want to recognize that it's happening across the sector in a way that's really fantastic for those organizations who aren't doing it yet. What I think that they're missing is that this is the most important way that they can drive towards whatever their outcomes are. So the the reason I can think of that, you wouldn't invest in talent as you would, for example, be concerned about putting budget dollars into talent that should go to whoever your end constituents are. The kids at your school, the elders in your community. You'd say, I need to get dollars to the work and I can't put it in my professionals for their training because I need to get to the ends work. Or You'd be worried about a limit of time and say, I need to put my time into fundraising. I can't put it into training. And what I'd say to any of those questions about resources going to talent is this is the way to accomplish your other goals. Because if what you want is the best service to your end users, you need people who are good at their work, who want to come and stay and innovate and create in order to lead to that end outcome. And if you want great fundraising outcomes, you need your fundraising professionals to be invested in train supported. All of that. So for me, it's not a trade off, but it's in my own mind. It's a theory of change of getting to whatever other outcomes people are choosing to prioritize over talent. And I think a lot of that is messaging. I'm in philanthropy work and we're really looking at that bifurcation in our organization between the dollars that go to something really awesome write our grants are our programs and the dollars that quote unquote go to our operating budget and saying, you know, you benefit the organization. Benefits from having a well trained skilled staff that can implement your work that much more, that bring in new ideas that feel like they are growing even if their position doesn't change or their salary doesn't change or you know they're staying within the organization longer because they feel invested in and I think trying to find the best way to articulate that to donors can be tough. Those operating dollars, which really is what staff development is in the way that we kind of talk about that and obviously for hillel it's a huge piece is very apparent to your donors that talent management and happiness is very important to. You have a whole team. But yeah, trying to find the ways for that donor that's like, no, I want my money to go straight to the kids. Right. I wanted to go straight to a Shabbat dinner or to a program or like you know, straight to something that's going to do something right without trying to have to shake up and help them see, well this is, you know, empowering our associate director of development at Stanford Hillel with skills is just as valuable as putting on a Shabbat dinner for 100 people. I agree and I would take it a step further, which is to say investing in the assistant director at Hillel at Stanford is the most important thing you can do to put on a Shabbat dinner. People over chicken, you know, it's like chicken is really important to have there, but that person who's invested in who's the one who welcomes people when they walk in the door is what they're gonna. Remember, it's what's going to sustain. It's what's going to engage students week after week. Another way I talk about it or frame it, you said operating dollars, which is kinder than the word other people use where they'll say it's overhead and people are not overhead. They are the program, especially in what we're doing in Jewish communal life, which is about building and engaging people. You know, whether those people are the kids who were serving or the students who were serving or the funders. The most important thing we can do is have somebody really dynamic, engaging, educated in front of them. That is the program. It's not the overhead. I have to say. I've been really lucky to work with a lot of philanthropists and funders who also really believed that and have been excited to invest in that belief or that theory, that vision, and that's where you get your reputation for those people that leave Hillel, right? They go another organization. It's like, Oh, where did you come from? Oh, I was such interesting. Oh, how was. It was amazing. There was so great at this and they were really great at that. Or you know, I've heard people that come to work for a while and say, why didn't I come to her for all sooner? Like, this is such a great place to work. And so kind of in thinking about the benefit of that to your organization, right? The reputation it has within not just the larger Jewish community but with their friends, their family, their lay leaders are donors of saying, you know, even if I'm not here my entire career, I'm taking this wonderful experience that you've invested in me to my next place. And continuing to perpetuate that reputation that I was important to allow that my professional and personal development was something they valued. Which is good. You want a good reputation, right? Absolutely. And actually that idea that you presented that people would come work for Hillel and have a great experience in line with our talent, vision and best practices and then they will go out and serve other places in the Jewish world is a really exciting part of our vision. We have a belief that's written into the plan from before I got here that the job of this talent department, and I think it's even in that bio you read in the beginning, is to create professionals and the leaders we need for hillel and the Jewish world. And that's good for us reputationally, but it's good for the whole sector. It's good for the Jews. Now let's kind of look to the future. What are maybe some things that your team is currently working on or devising and what are some of those kind of pie in the sky dreams of if you had an unlimited staff and unlimited money, what would you be able to offer the talent? Hello? Our team has really been able to start to implement some of those pie in the sky dreams. So I talked a little bit about Hillel, you and we have launched some of the training that we want to, but we're certainly not there yet. And there's other things we'd like to build out. What I'm so excited that we're building out this year is a new department of hell, you and engagement in wellness. And now one of the issues that we know is most prevalent on college campus says is with mental health and wellness. And we also know that Judaism and Jewish life has something unique to say about this and to offer students to help them live good and happy lives. And we want our hillel professionals to be trained in doing this. Certainly actually many of them are doing it through their work in building Jewish communities and building strong relationships. But this next year we're really going to be building out our training program in engagement which has a long time Hillel Strategy and success and even more so in this new area of wellness, which is critical and so what that will look like is that we'll have some

Speaker 3: 29:42

courses that help people both proactively build wellness programs in their house as well as reactively respond to students who are in need and we'll have a few hills that are working with us in Hillel. You as part of a cohort that's piloting new strategies and student wellness. So I'm really excited about that work and I'll say that it's not only going to be good for our students, but it'll be good for our professionals because we know that our professionals are working really hard and themselves needs to be able to find wellness and balance in their life in order to keep bringing their whole selves to work and to students. So. So real quick, when you say courses, does that mean a Webinar? Does that mean like a zoom meeting? Does that mean like each campus gets the tool? Is that there's a facilitator that meets with the staff? What do you mean by courses? It's a good question. We run our courses differently. We tend to use most often a model of blended learning, which means it's both in person and online. We run two in person conferences a year and often use those as opportunities to kick off learning in person because we know that when people start learning in person and build relationships with each other and with the educator in person, the relationships are deep burn off in the learning's more impactful, but all of our learning eventually goes online because of the distributed nature of our movement and the fact that we want people to be learning on the job. So most often the model we're using is that we kick off a course in person and then we bring it online either through webinars or video classes, taught on zoom where we can do breakout groups and things like that or through every test study or through coaching. So we usually go from in person to a more virtual methodology. We do sometimes offer one off courses that are just online. If there's a topic we think that doesn't require as deep of an engagement or has some urgency around it, we will offer courses online exclusively and often. Those are really well received. And Is it other than these imperson conventions, are people interacting virtually cross campus or is most of the work done within your colleagues within your campus? Hello? It's mostly virtually across campuses, so it's groups of people who are on all different campuses. We're serving 550 campuses through 180 local organizations, so the thousand,$200. All employees that I spoke about are all over the country and all over the world and different people are at different places in their learning journey is. And so in order to be able to teach topics across that group, we really need the people who are most interested in, in the place where they want to learn that. And that is one or two people often at a hillel but not a whole staff. So mostly the way we're doing this is teaching topic based courses or running communities of practice of people with similar roles across geographies online. Great. So let's go back to pie in the sky. Have you had other money in the world? What would you be doing? I mean maybe it's laundry facilities and free food for all your staff at each shallow. But I'm kidding. A lot of what I want to do, we've started. So I'll talk about two other programs that I think are really interesting and exciting. I will say because you brought up the perks at Google that we did all of this. In fact, it links to. One of the ideas is I'll talk about. We did a lot of research at Google to try and figure out what made Google such a great place to work. And of course, and not surprisingly, perks fall to the bottom of the list, they're fun to talk about, but when we used to read articles about ourselves at Google and people would say, oh, it's about discount massages and free food and lava lamps and bouncy balls. We'd be so annoyed because the things that Google has discovered are most important are all about culture and investment in people. So that means that Google thinks a lot about how people interact with each other and how management is transparent and how people are empowered. And so I really do think it's, you know, culture over any of these other things that make a huge difference. And the culture we're trying to create is one where we invest in our people. One of the things I didn't know when I worked at Google though is how much compensation matters as part of investment in people. Because I think that if people have some minimal threshold of compensation, then it's everything else about culture and job description and empowerment that matters more. But I think what I've found since I came to the nonprofit world, and this isn't unique to hillel, it's really also talking with colleagues throughout the Jewish nonprofit sector and the nonprofit sector writ large, is that compensation matters at a certain point where people need to make more in order to feel like they can live and they can stay in a career longterm and so it is one of the areas where we've made investment and will continue to make investment and we've done that through creating compensation bands and guidance and also through providing a talent grant program where we are giving grants in order to ensure that new hires are hired at a level that will attract really great people and that current staff are able to get raises that are appropriate for their level and their performance, their hellos want to make in them and get the raises that they need to make them feel like they can stay and continue to succeed. So certainly if I had more money, there's always more we can invest in that space. There's a lot of amazing professionals throughout the Hillel Movement. One other program I want to talk about as the springboard fellowship, so when I was doing this research, when I first came to hillel, people kept saying to me they needed a program like the one where I had started my career, the Steinhardt JCSC fellowship to come back and they needed it because they missed. This cohort of young professionals is newly graduated from college with recent Hillel experiences and new ideas to bring to the table, banging down our doors to get into Hillel and Jewish nonprofit life and will certainly. We've attracted people in the years since JCSC existed. We weren't creating the same pipeline of demand to get into this work that we had in the past and we have been able to do that with springboard. The springboard fellowship is a program that we launched a little over two years ago with the first cohort started two years ago in his graduating now that is a fellowship program to attract some of the best and brightest out of college to give them the investment and work skills that you need to be successful on campus. To have an impact today and to continue to invest in their career success in Hillel and Jewish life into the future. We had 20 in our first class and we're growing the classes. We have 25 and the second class we're going to have 40 in the third class that we're recruiting for now. The program has continued to grow, but there's more demand out there. There's more campuses that need springboard fellows. There are more springboard fellows interested in coming in and doing this work and by the way, this is an offering, again, not just for hillel, but for the Jewish world, both in what these fellows are going to do when they're done with their two years in hillel and the kind of people who are attracting that. I hope those who can't come to work for Hillel might choose other positions in Jewish life if there equally attractive and compelling and innovative.

Speaker 2: 36:32

And so again, these are employees who are brought in right after college for two year fellowship and then are they brought together in some way.

Speaker 3: 36:42

Springboard fellows are full time employees that are hired right out of college for the most part and that's been two years working at a local hello. They are brought together as a cohort prior to the first year and then at our global assembly, at our major staff conference in December, and then between the two years of the two year fellowship and in addition, again, like I explained, we do in person and online, so they're meeting online throughout the year, both for Jewish education as well as in education around the skills that they're utilizing on campus in areas like innovation and design thinking, social media, social justice and community organizing and then Jewish experiential education. So they're taking this group of skills that we're giving them and they're using it in order to impact Jewish life on campus and engage more Jewish students.

Speaker 2: 37:30

Is their portfolio the same across the campuses or is there a portfolio dependent on the needs of the hillel of what particular particularly they're doing

Speaker 3: 37:38

so their portfolio depends on two different things. When it depends on what track of springboard they're in. We now have four tracks that will. We offer and a campus when they're deciding to recruit a springboard will say we want someone who's going to have an expertise in social media or Jewish experiential education or innovation, and so their portfolio is dependent on the tracking area and then it's always dependent on the campus because in all the work we do, we're offering some centralized training and support, so in a track area and in Jewish education and then we're working really close with the campus so that we can customize the goals and the outcomes to what's needed in that particular environment, which is just different depending on campus size, campus location, the personality of the student population and the relationship with the university. So there's some uniformity to what they're doing and the skills we're teaching them. And then there's a lot of customization and support.

Speaker 2: 38:29

So looking at and thinking about our listening audience, what's some advice that you might have for people either

Speaker 3: 38:35

those that are in hr, those that manage other people, those at the top of the organization, those coming into new organization. What are some things that people should be thinking about and some advice that you might have for them? One piece of advice that I would have for all people at work who are engaging in supervisor, supervisee relationships in any form is to invest in the relationship. To really think uniquely about each relationship and its importance and make sure that that relationship is critical and central to the work you're doing outside of your direct goals. In terms of impact for managers. That is because spending time on supervision and investing in the people who work for you is the very best way to make sure that you achieve your outcomes. But it's also true for people who are being supervised. I think that sometimes people who are being supervised get in the trap of thinking about their needs and forget to think about their manager and that owned production and their situation and their needs and one of the most important things is in performing at work is not only understanding your individual goals and growth trajectory, but how that lines up with what your supervisor, your manager is trying to accomplish and how you can do your work best to help them accomplish what they need to in their own work. It's not always easy, always easy. The reason I answer that first is both because of. We talked about who you're listening audiences, but also because you know, I spend a lot of time talking to managers and supervisors about how they can do their jobs better and I think it's critical and we cannot forget the importance of management and because I want people who are supervised to also feel empowered that there is something they can do to make that dynamic in that relationship better. Take it back to you personally. You mentioned a husband. I don't know if there's extended family within that, but you have this position and I can only imagine a staff and lots of demands. What are some tools that you implement, some ways that you get all these exciting ideas off the ground and you know as you're about to teach all year, hello employees, take care of yourself and your wellness and keep everything balanced. I have a husband and two kids who are ages six and seven, so I have plenty of things to juggle at home and at work. The first thing I would say is hire great people who are better than you. I think if you can be competent enough to hire outstanding professionals to be on your team who you think are significantly better than you in some meaningful way, then you can empower them to do their work and support them in doing their work and feel comfortable going home when it's time to go home. For me, I also do try and make intentional time with my family. I work a lot, but there is a period of every day where I'm home with my family from the time I pick my kids up until the time that they're in bed at night when I get back online, I try and be offline and off my phone and know that very few things are urgent enough that they need me during that time and having that time with my family is critical to coming back and feeling like I can really do what I need to do in the office. Wonderful. So we've covered a

Speaker 2: 41:33

bunch of different topics from your previous work and how hallel implements its vision, but this strategic plan through your work and your team. Anything else that we've left on the table? Any other things that are stirring within you that you'd like to mention? I think there's one more point that I want to make about talent, both for professionals that are coming up in this field and for people that are thinking about how to advance the talent in their organizations. And I just say that we've made a really intentional decision in our own talent strategy at Hillel to invest in those who are within our organization. And I want to point out that the reason we did that is because I think the best people are often the ones who you already know and are already working with. And sometimes in fact, at first when I came in here, I left Google to take this job. People kept asking me how they could get more people to come and do this. And I respect a lot of my colleagues who similarly have outside experience. But I think it's really important that we recognize there's outstanding people who could do so many things in the world and are choosing of the impact they want to have on this world is building and investing in Jewish life. I'd say to people who are in the space of trying to build organizations that recognizing that and giving stretch opportunities to people who are making that choice is going to be the best way to build up those individuals and the sector at large. And to those people who are early in their career, I want them to know that this is something that not only I see, but other people who are in leadership roles in Jewish life or seeing and that there really is an exciting opportunity to serious career in the sector and more and more people are recognizing the need to create that talent pipeline. We want people who want to be on that path. I was going to mention that it's one thing to look at people in the outside and say, oh, they're so well trained and they have all these skills and experience. They want to bring them in as opposed to looking internally and saying, what are we doing wrong and what could we be doing better to be doing that same kind of training and investment that's done in other places.

Speaker 3: 43:32

That's exactly right and there's a lot of data to show that people who have experience in your organization and in your sector are often more effective in leadership roles because they have the relationships. They know how to get things done. They understand the organizational culture or they've learned on the job, so it is better to hire internally and that means it's evermore important for us to make the relatively minimal investments that we're talking about, an additional training to make them have some of the quality that people find attractive and external candidates.

Speaker 2: 44:04

Well, wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for participating in this project. Sharing your experience and how you go about doing your work and where this is such an important piece of Hillel is culture.

Speaker 3: 44:15

Absolutely. Thank you so much. It was great to talk to you.

Speaker 2: 44:20

Mimi left her position at Google Hillel International when through process where they examined what they needed to do to become an excellent organization. One of the things they realized they needed to do better was the way they managed their talent and really looking at the people that run their programs that engage their students, that are responsible for their institutions on the ground needed to feel invested in and developed an important to the overall success of the institution. Their response to that was bringing me me in and creating a brand new position at the highest level possible to not make sure that people's paperwork was okay, not to make sure they were getting paid appropriately, but so really look at how Hillel as an organization developed their talent, what environments and cultures, where their institutions creating and where they. Cultures, where people felt really great about working there and the work that they were doing in Mimi's time there. She's created a number of learning opportunities for all of their staff to engage in with issues that are not just generic management issues or how to be really great professional issues, but things very specific to the culture of the kind of work that hillel does. Really looking at issues that are really important to those that are working on the ground and that seems. She's been thinking about ways to connect to these professionals together. That although the culture in Boise, Idaho might be different than the culture in Santa Barbara. That these professionals can learn from one another and that increasing this community that might meet twice a year in person, but have connections in ways of being together throughout the year, just makes for a stronger institution and as we've discussed on this program before, all that does is perpetuate a wonderful culture within our Jewish community were younger adults can look at the institutions they interact with and say, I want to do that. I want to do that career. I want to work in I institution. These are wonderful, great places to work and I want to be a part of that, and Hillel is on the forefront of that work and as we heard from amy, there are many behind her and obviously the efforts of leading edge to help other people make this a focus of their work and so we can make really wonderful, fantastic organizations to work with that produce a really wonderful, fantastic result in pursuing their mission and vision. I have a bittersweet announcement to make today. My husband Barack and I will be expecting our first son in early October. What this means for the podcast is that I will be wrapping up the project at the end of this calendar year and putting it on hiatus until 20, 20. We will still be coming to your feed through the end of December with many more guests and insights for you, so don't worry about that, but if you have any questions about this project's future prospects, please feel free to contact me at any time. Michelle Wu Malkin had gmail.com. This program has been funded in part by the Jim Joseph Foundation. Our editor is Nick Bowden about and sound, and our fiscal sponsor is Jewish creativity international. You can find previous episodes, guest bio's, podcasts, articles, how to start your own podcast and more on our website. It's who you know, the podcast.com. This is your host, Michelle w dot Malkin. Thank you for listening and have a wonderful week.