Technically People: Recent Episodes

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Becoming a B-Corp certified company represents a commitment to people, planet, and profit — and that can make you an attractive employer for both candidates and employees, explains today’s guest Paul Hunter, Responsible Business Lead, Kin + Carta. Responsibility and sustainability are baked into the Kin + Carta brand. 

“Just as people are starting to prioritize responsibility more in the ways that they purchase goods and services,” says Paul, “they're also prioritizing it more in choosing where they work.” 

Millennials and Gen Z have long been hailed as the most purpose- and cause-driven generation of workers; this interview with Paul bears that out. Not only does Paul make the power of becoming a B-Corp for recruitment indisputable, but it tells the story of how one company did it — and did it well. 

KEY HIGHLIGHTS 

• Limiting global warming to only 1.5 degrees Celsius will take commitment from businesses
• Why Gen Z and Millennials value environmental responsibility in workplace values
• How building B-Corp certification into your brand yields profitable partnerships
• What your data retention strategy is costing the environment
• What the B-Corp certification process is like — and how to begin

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report
• Meet the 2020 Consumers Driving Change: Why Brands Must Deliver on Omnipresence, Agility, and Sustainability, a report by The IBM Institute for Business Value and The National Retail Federation
• Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois

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For many employees, the thought of an upcoming performance review, at least if a company handles it traditionally, is likely to bring up anxiety, cynicism, or some combination thereof. It doesn’t have to be that way, says today’s Technically People guest, Rhiannon Staples, CMO at hibob.  

“This shouldn't create angst,” she says. “This isn't a test. This experience shouldn't be negative for the employee. It's not a way to grade or rate them.” 

A semiannual or annual formal review can and should be an incentivizing, motivating conversation employees are excited to have. It can and should be a conversation that drives engagement and, in turn, retention. And in fact, there’s a formula (of sorts) to make that happen. 

“If you were to stop and ask someone their perception of a performance review,” says Rhiannon, “historically speaking, they'd say that half the conversation is reflecting on the past — what you've achieved, what you could have done better — and 50% of it is focused on the future.”

Rhiannon has a better ratio. Specifically, she advises managers to spend 80% of the conversation on the direction an employee wants to take their career, how they’ll get there, and how the company can support them. That leaves 20% of the conversation for reflecting on the past, including what an employee achieved and what they might have done better.

“That conversation feels a lot more like mentorship,” she says, “and it's a lot more about growth than assigning or ranking people within the business.” 

No part of the conversation about the past, incidentally, should come as a surprise. “Feedback and continuous engagement with employees on performance, on goals, on objectives should be happening throughout the year,” says Rhiannon.

In fact, giving continuous feedback before and outside of the formal review frees it up to be a celebration of employee strengths and a time to chart their path forward. 

“We want employees to come into these conversations not with worry and fear,” adds Rhiannon, “but with optimism. And we want them to be invested and excited to share: Here's what I really did well — and to be transparent and open enough and confident enough to talk about where they feel they could have improved.”

Tune in to the episode to learn more ways to take the angst out of performance evaluations, creating a more human, modern and motivating experience for your employees.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS 

• Performance reviews should create optimism about the future, not angst about the past
• Pitfalls HR practitioners should avoid when rolling out an evaluation process (Hint: Don’t get mired in the logistics)
• Empowering managers to make their evaluations more effective
• Ongoing feedback is the preferred mentorship style for Gen Z and Millennials
• How performance evaluation should happen in a remote/hybrid world

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Who among us hasn’t been fooled by a shiny resume? A candidate might feel like a sure thing on paper or in an interview. But when that new hire doesn’t work out, managers are nonplussed: What did we miss? 

According to today’s Technically People guest, Shanan Fennema, Executive Advisor at Culture Index, what you missed is personality.  

Culture Index is an assessment (not a “test,” it’s important to note) that measures employees’ and candidates’ work-related traits. It’s designed to help companies make successful hiring decisions and improve retention and team performance. 

In a candidate selection scenario, companies using the tool consider a candidate’s traits against a benchmark of traits that are likely to yield success. Shanan emphasizes this is not about a candidates’ “passing” or “failing,” and the assessment doesn’t trump experience and expertise. Rather, it’s one more tool in your arsenal for making smart selection decisions.  

Employees who take the assessment answer questions not just about their personality but about the extent to which they feel they need to modify who they are at work. If an employee feels they need to change dramatically, they could be stressed or dissatisfied. Knowing this, a manager can triage before an employee is compelled to leave. 

Culture Index also helps team members understand each other. What makes each person on the team tick? Why do they do what they do? When team members “get” each other in that way, even the most dramatically different personalities can work exceptionally well together. 

In fact, teams thrive when personalities are diverse, and some of the best collaborations emerge between people who might be considered opposites.  

“The beauty is that yin and yang,” says Shanan. “That’s where companies really get the benefit from this. It’s not that we want to one-size-fits-all our organization. Rather, we're going to honor and understand that the different ways we approach things is where we hit home runs.” 

To learn more about the role of personality in hiring, retention, and performance, tune in to the episode. 

KEY HIGHLIGHTS 

• Managing employees according to their personalities
• Why personality is not a “warm and fuzzy” proposition but directly tied to growth
• The stability of personality over a lifetime
• Manager personality as it relates to attrition
• Why pass/fail does not apply

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As a leader, would you rather make business-critical decisions based on your often biased and incorrect gut instincts? Or on data that can predict with a high degree of certainty which candidates are likely to succeed, for instance, which employees are likely to leave your company, and which strategies will best retain people?

It’s a rhetorical question, but it gets to the power of people analytics.

In today’s episode, guest Brett M. Wells, PhD, the global head of people analytics at Perceptyx, shares how this discipline uses data (census surveys, pulse and lifecycle surveys, performance reviews, and more) to help leaders make sound decisions, including about attracting, selecting, and retaining talent.

Organizations have never had more access to data, but it’s overwhelming, noisy, and difficult to interpret. People analytics finds the signal amid the noise, giving organizations insights they can act on.

As an example, it can determine criteria that predicts success for specific roles at specific organizations, whether that’s experience, knowledge, skills, abilities, traits, or a mix thereof. The success rate for hiring is often cited as 50%. According to Brett, people analytics bumps that to 70%.

“You're already using certain criteria to make selection decisions,” he says. “You can see under the people analytics microscope which of those factors are more indicative of success.”

Another application that would make any HR team swoon: Perceptyx can predict which employees will leave an organization, and their reasons why, within the next 12 months with 85% accuracy. That leaves enough time for a company to intervene before employees set sail.

“We get a really good sense of which way the wind is blowing for them,” says Brett. “Are they committed to the organization? Do they have intrinsic joy at work? Those that do not are 300% more likely to leave the organization in the next 12 months.”

In this far-ranging conversation, we also explore Brett’s theory of “officism.” As hybrid work becomes the likely norm, officism is the prospect that leaders could come to view people who opt to work remotely as less committed than their in-office peers, who would then potentially be promoted faster and further.

Given that parents, women, caregivers, and people with chronic illness and disabilities tend to benefit from and prefer remote work, the specter of officism raises equity issues.

Painting a picture of the implications for just one of those groups, women, Brett says: “All of a sudden, you start seeing the glass ceiling arise again, and if anything turn into a concrete ceiling, because the office in large part is heavily male dominated [if officism were to take hold].”

Listen in to learn Brett’s recommendations for getting ahead of this potential blow to workplace equity before it's too late.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

• Predictive criteria for the success of any candidate

• The attrition risk for remote employees who never worked in your office (and what to do about it)

• People analytics as a means to improve DEI

• Why years of experience is a poor indicator of success

• The benefits of bringing on a leader dedicated to the remote experience

Read Brett’s article in Forbes:

• What ‘Officism’ Means For The Hybrid Workforce (And How To Curb Its Effects)

Contact Brett:

• BWells@Perceptyx.com or LinkedIn

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No matter your thoughts on remote work (“It’s the future!” “It’s the end of us!”), one thing is clear: Work-from-home is here for the foreseeable future — and people teams need to be creative, empathic and flexible in building culture for remote and hybrid employees. 

Today’s guest, Debbie Gunning, Vice President of People at Human Interest, has been managing the complexities of a geographically distributed workforce since Covid began. Two years ago, Human Interest was a 50-person office in San Francisco. When the company entered a period of rapid growth, its hiring needs accelerated. Today, Human Interest boasts nearly 500 employees, two thirds of whom are full-time remote workers. 

“Hiring remote workers allowed us to scale faster,” she says. “When you have really aggressive hiring goals, you can open up a candidate pool that you maybe couldn't tap into before.”

Debbie sees value in both in-office and remote work — and her San Francisco employees will return to the office in a hybrid capacity when the time is right. But she challenges the perception that remote is detrimental to productivity. Moreover, she posits that one of its benefits is retention.

“Office life for some people means an hour commute or more per day, probably an hour on the lower side,” she says. “If you can use that time for work, for wellness, to connect with the people you love, you're going to be more productive and happy. And if you're more productive and happy, you're probably going to stay a lot longer in your current role.” 

That said, Debbie recognizes the need to create opportunities for remote employees to stay connected. She shares the details of a forthcoming Human Interest remote program intended to replicate the sense of interpersonal connectivity that in-person employees develop organically.  

For HR teams that are drawing up plans for remote, hybrid, or in-office arrangements, she offers this advice: Instead of creating a blanket return-to-work plan, take time to understand the unique stressors of individual employees, then create options that accommodate them — to whatever extent you can. 

“I challenge all of us to put on a variety of lenses — to put yourself in the mindset of all sorts of different people that are employed at your company,” says Debbie, who specifically calls out caregivers and people with health conditions. “Listen, learn, and use that in building out a plan.”

KEY HIGHLIGHTS 

• How remote allowed Human Interest to scale faster
• High-touch remote onboarding to make the experience more engaging
• The benefit of appointing a designated team to manage the remote experience
• The kind of return-to-work policy that keeps employees happily retained
• A program for Human Interest’s remote workers designed to replicate the sense of connectivity that in-person employees enjoy
• Providing leadership opportunities for remote employees

Check out the study we mentioned during the podcast:

• A 10-Mile Commute Can Hurt Your Health

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Today’s guest, Dick Burke, says companies can’t expect to fill their technical roles at the speed required without turning to foreign national talent. The CEO of Envoy Global, which helps employers streamline the process of sponsoring foreign nationals, notes that 78% of students pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees for computer science are foreign nationals. 

“You should be thinking of this as a whole other pool from which to fish,” he says. “While it can be complex, there are a lot of fish in that pool.” 

Dick shares tactical tips for HR professionals who want to take advantage of the benefits of foreign national sponsorship. He also dispels misassumptions about foreign national sponsorship, as well as misassumptions about immigration in general. 

“Don't we want the Sergey Brin’s and the Jerry Yang’s and the Elon Musk’s and the Luke Nosek’s — don't we want those people on our team?” he says, underscoring that the dialogue around the topic needs to divorce illegal from legal immigration. “I would think so. And don't we know that folks who create patents and win Nobel Prizes are disproportionately foreign nationals?”  

KEY HIGHLIGHTS 

• Primary sponsorship scenarios, starting with foreign nationals who are already in the U.S., including students.
• Notable research on the topic, including the fact that 82% of HR professionals expect their foreign national headcount to increase or remain the same in 2022
• How to navigate the pain points often cited by HR professionals, such as cost, persistently insufficient availability of H-1B visa slots and a lack of predictability in the regulatory environment
• The need to recognize that the economics around the topic isn’t a zero sum game; immigration doesn’t take jobs but makes them
• How to build onboarding that’s welcoming to foreign national talent

See these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Envoy Global Immigration Trends
• Learn about employment-based visas available in the U.S.

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Ade Akin-Aina, CHRP, Founder of the Africa Talent Project, and Talent Lead at Wave Mobile Money

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Today’s guest Ade Akin-Aina, a global talent acquisition leader who was recognized on the Financial Times’ list of top 100 black and minority ethnic leaders in technology, founded the Africa Talent Project in 2016, when she saw the need to help place leaders in fast-growing businesses in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in the tech space.

The Africa Talent Project places professionals who live in sub-Saharan Africa with companies either in other African countries or in the countries they already live. Increasingly, Ade is also placing talent from sub-Saharan Africa with companies in Europe and North America — while the reverse has also begun to trend: Professionals in Europe or North America, looking to make global impact, are reaching out to Ade and accepting roles at startups across Africa.

“There are so many inspiring companies tackling challenges that are unique to Africa and have a great impact in healthcare, edtech or fintech,” says Ade, who by day serves as the Talent Lead for French-speaking markets at the fintech unicorn Wave Mobile Money. “And then you pair that with the tech industry’s really narrow definition of available talent. Everyone's so focused on who's in their backyard. And they're overlooking a massive population that doesn't sit in New York or San Francisco that's more accessible right now.”

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

• Broadening the definition of available talent
• The innovative work African companies are doing
• Ade’s learnings on how DEI needs differ in Africa versus in Europe or North America
• How the Africa Project changed one professional’s life
• Attracting top talent by providing growth opportunities
• Looking past your own backyard in your talent search
• Ade’s advice as a global TA leader for fellow practitioners
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Employers are facing a shortage of tech talent exactly as they’re investing more heavily in tech than ever, intensifying their need to hire more skilled professionals. 

In a 2020 McKinsey survey, 87% of companies say they’re experiencing skills gaps now or expect to in a few years. One third say they know how they’ll overcome this, citing a range of skills gaps: data analytics, IT management, executive management, HR and math skills, among others. 

Our guest this week, Fahim ul Haq, Cofounder and CEO of edtech company Educative, says that hiring to fill gaps isn’t an option when there just aren't enough professionals out there. Instead, the answer lies in hiring coachable talent who may be just slightly below the bar, then upskilling and reskilling them. 

“The idea is to convert your silver medalist into gold medalist,” he says, noting that this investment in people’s futures makes you more attractive to candidates and boosts employees’ retention and engagement.  

In the episode, Fahim also offers advice to help non-technical recruiters attract technical talent more effectively: Learn relevant technical language, he says, as well as engineers’ general preferences, like the desire to ship code without a lot of red tape. 

“Understand that ‘react’ is not a verb,” he says. “It’s a JavaScript framework developers use to build websites. Understand that ‘rust,’ for us, is not something that happens to iron. You know, I'm making fun of this, but I have heard recruiters use terms in weird ways and it can be a turn-off for candidates.”  

One approach is to tear a page from Educative. Employees there interact with technologists every day, whether customers or the instructors who author courses. So all employees take a Python course to grasp general concepts. 

“Angular” is not just something that’s pointy. And recruiters who know this will make deeper connections with tech candidates. 

EPISOD HIGHLIGHTS 

• The cold hard truth if you think it's risky to hire less seasoned talent with the intent to upskill
• Why hiring and training "silver medalist" talent leads to better retention
• A trend in which companies are giving candidates courses before their interviews, giving them the best shot at success
• The need for recruiters to show they understand what matters to engineers, from shipping code quickly to working on new tech
• Per McKinsey, among companies that offer reskilling programs, 48% say the programs have enhanced bottom-line growth

RESOURCES

• Beyond Hiring: How Companies are Reskilling to Address Talent Gaps (McKinsey, 2020)

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To find and reward hidden talent among your engineering team, look past the self promoters and dive instead into the data. 

That's according to guest Kathryn Murphy, who at the time of the recording was the EVP and GM of Pluralsight's engineering productivity insights product, Flow. Flow uses data to help engineering leaders understand how their engineering teams collaborate. 

By pulling data like code commits, ticket data and pull requests, Flow not only reveals team dynamics but individuals who contribute at a high level without announcing it over a loudspeaker. This allows leaders to recognize and reward them — a critical factor because these quiet influencers can often be from underrepresented groups. 

For instance, Kathryn tells the story of an engineer who wasn’t sure she was on par with her new team after a decade-long hiatus from the workforce. But the data behind her work — again, the code commits, ticket data and pull requests — showed that she was in fact extremely talented and proficient. 

The data set her free, says Kathryn, who adds: “It's too easy to define a high-performing contributor as the person who stayed up all night, working on a production issue, or the person who's really loud about all the new things they're doing. We often ignore the more quiet but meaningful contributors: the people who are helping others, the people who are learning new skills, the people who are working cross-functionally.”

When you honor these less flashy but high-impact behaviors, you create a culture of trust. That’s an important lesson for every leader, whether you're VP of engineering, a CHRO who wants to learn how engineering teams operate or any leader who seeks to reward those who contribute significantly with a below-the-radar personality.

Episode Highlights:

• Using data to gain visibility into the dynamics of remote teams
• The need to redefine what it means for employees to have influence
• How data helps leaders support employees from underrepresented groups
• How to onboard engineers faster for higher-performing (and happier) teams
• Why data can put employees’ performance fears to rest
• How to ensure data insights are used as a force for good

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Reach Kathryn on LinkedIn or at her current company, Twilio

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“Many people think their work is their worth,” says Robbie Green, MSIO, Executive Coach at Talking Talent, who goes on to make clear: It’s not. In this first-ever sequel of the show, part 2 of the previous episode with Talking Talent’s Teresa Hopke, Green offers ideas to help leaders overcome workaholism and set boundaries so they can support employees’ own efforts to do so. 

Enjoy this sample executive coaching session in podcast form. It’s full of “Robbie-isms” like this gem: “Setting boundaries teaches people how to treat you. Some folks learn slower than others, but that doesn't mean you should cancel the class.” 

Episode Highlights:

• How leaders can show empathy even if they’re not natural empaths
• Learning to lead amid unprecedented uncertainty
• Why understanding that “your work is not your worth” makes you a better leader
• Setting good examples for employees to foster their wellness
• Why some people struggle to set boundaries and how to learn this skill
• Setting work-life parameters that actually work
• The need for leaders to accept that they don't have all the answers — and to courageously say so

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Reach Robbie on LinkedIn or at Talking Talent
• Why keeping TABs on remote workers is key to building culture of trust (Remote Report)
• Effect of a Workplace Wellness Program on Employee Health and Economic Outcomes A Randomized Clinical Trial

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Teresa Hopke, CEO of Talking Talent Inc., doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that companies need to get serious about their employees’ wellness and mental health.

“Quite honestly,” Teresa says, “a lot of CEOs have their head in the sand when it comes to this issue. We need to start there and acknowledge and own the fact that organizations are playing a role in creating some of these stress-induced mental health issues.”

In her work with clients, she has seen people whose workplace stress has led them to develop alopecia and panic attacks. Teresa doesn’t countenance the hypocrisy of companies that place unreasonable demands on employees and then wonder why they burn out or leave. Corporations need to prioritize this now, she says, destigmatizing mental health, focusing on prevention and changing the way work gets done.

In this episode, Teresa also shares a personal story of tragedy that led her to pursue her own wellness. At the time of the event, she was in a role she didn’t love. The crisis led her to conclude: Life is too short to be anything but happy. She joined Talking Talent shortly after.

Teresa’s story runs parallel to the way the global crisis of 2020/2021 has led millions of people to similarly take stock of their own happiness at work, leading many to leave. For companies seeking to retain their workforce by keeping people well, this episode offers both inspiration and tactics to apply today.

Episode Highlights:

• The need for individualized approaches vs programmatic fixes
• How to talk to workers about their wellness
• Breaking down stigma about mental health
• The need to talk about prevention
• Setting realistic employee expectations
• Corporate and individual responsibility to mental health

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Reach Teresa on LinkedIn or at Talking Talent
• The Implications of COVID-19 for Mental Health and Substance Use
• New Ginger Data Challenges CEOs to Step Up Support of Employee Mental Health
• McKinsey Women in the Workplace Study
• Dying for a Paycheck by Jeffrey Pfeffer.
• Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Interviewing isn’t The Hunger Games. The goal of interviewing is to hire, says this week’s guest Nate Smith. And yes, he agrees it’s somewhat ridiculous to point this out, but he believes he has to. The Founder and CEO of Lever says too many hiring managers, especially in tech, interview as though they were proctoring an exam. Too often, people look hard for evidence of how a candidate won’t fit, verus how they will. 

Empathy is the better way. At best, an interview is uncomfortable, says Nate, whose company does all it can to make the process feel more natural. Candidates can use keyboards, editors and languages with which they're familiar. They can search Google. 

That replicates how a candidate would go about their tasks at work. Nate asks, rhetorically: Don’t you want to know how a candidate will perform in your actual work setting?  

“Look for every example, every bit of evidence, that this person would be amazing on the team,” says Nate. “And when you find that amazing person, it's really important that, during the interview process, they've been falling in love with your company.” 

By the time you extend the offer, then, they’ve already decided: Yes. 

At Lever, empathy isn’t just a must for hiring. It pervades every part of the company’s culture. Listen in to find out empathy fosters trust, deepens relationships and attracts and retains exceptional talent.  

Episode Highlights:

• Empathy is about centering what you say and do around what matters to the individual
• How to run an empathy-based interview
• Advice for recruiters: Stop telling candidates how great your company is. Instead, say this: “Tell me about you.”
• Why understanding a candidate’s preferences allows you to tailor your offer to show how you can meet their needs
• The role of empathy in helping employees grow in the directions they want

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Reach Nate on LinkedIn or at Lever
• Topgrading interview methodology

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In today’s episode of Technically People, Dimitris Psaltoulis, VP of People at Blueground, dives into the company’s work-from-anywhere initiative known as Blueground Nomads.

When most of us think “remote,” it’s likely to conjure up images of kitchen tables turned workstations. But Blueground, a real estate company that offers customers flexible leases on fully furnished apartments across the world, gives remote new meaning.

Employees can work from anywhere around the globe, for as long or as little as they like. The company even incentives it: Employees get discounted Blueground apartments across the world.

The program is not only a way to deliver the flexibility employees demand. It aligns with the company’s employer brand, one of whose values is “exploration.”

“As a company, we believe that humans are hardwired to explore,” says Dimitris. “Many of our employees are avid travelers and explorers themselves. This is something we share in common with our customers. We fundamentally believe that the experience of different locations and cultures help significantly to broaden one's perspective.”

Dimitris concedes the tax and legal ramifications of a program like Blueground Nomads can be intimidating, like the need to set up a separate entity in each new location. But Dimitris says it’s not as onerous as it seems. He offers a few solutions you may not have considered.

Episode Highlights:

• Remote fosters productivity, not the reverse
• How being globally distributed before Covid prepared the company to launch Blueground Nomads
• Handling compensation for work-from-anywhere employees
• Ways to cut through legal and tax red tape
• The importance of exploration for employee engagement and innovation

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Reach Dimitris on LinkedIn or by email
• Built In’s 2021 Survey

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“What if this is our one shot?” says Dominique Hollins in this episode of Technically People. And if it is, she asks, who are we going to be? Barrier makers or breakers?

The Founder and Connector in Chief of WĒ360, a consultancy focused on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, makes clear the urgency of this moment. Amid the tumult of social unrest, socio-political divisiveness, changing demographics and a global crisis, companies are being forced to answer: What side of history will we be on?

In fact, in her work with clients, she uses history as an anchor. Dominique walks leaders through an overview of corporate diversity initiatives from 1964 to the present.

In this conversation, she gives the same overview to our listeners — an approach to center people in shared understanding. And she also looks toward the opportunities that lie ahead.

“The present is a function of the past,” she says. “So whoever we are today is because of what we did yesterday, which means whatever we build for tomorrow is based on this moment in time — what we do right now.”

The episode also provides listeners with resources for deeper understanding and Dominique’s recommended actions for leaders who seek to create a just and equitable future of work.

“Generations to come are watching us,” she says, “and they’re depending on our collective fortitude.”

Episode Highlights:

• The history of diversity in the workplace from 1964 to the present
• Dominique’s preference of the acronym “JEDI” over DEI. The “J” for “justice,” she says, incorporates the intended outcome of her work
• The definition of race, per the Oxford Bibliographies on Race and other sources, as a social construct designed to maintain systems of power that fuel racial injustice
• How to discuss race and politics at work constructively
• Dominique’s hope for the future

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• WĒ360
• Reach Dominique: dominique@wethreesixtymodel.com | LinkedIn
• Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters (McKinsey, 2020)
• Online Class: DEI Fundamentals (Ask for facilitator Dominique Hollins)
• The National Museum of African American History and Culture Oxford Bibliographies on Race
• How to Be an Antiracist (2019), by Ibram X. Kendi

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Lorraine Vargas Townsend is a people enablement veteran who’s good at “breaking HR” in order to fix it. In this episode, she shares her passion for creating safe and equitable workplaces for LGBTQ+ employees and, by extension, all employees.

According to Lorraine, too many companies focus their DEI efforts on recruitment, but that’s missing the mark. Instead, she says: “Start with how you fire people.”

“Audits are the sexiest work in my book,” she says, possibly representing the first-ever leader to say as much. But she has good reason. Through her career, separation audits are often the point at which employees’ experiences of bias and inequity emerge, giving her the data she needs to make change.

That said, the onus is on leaders to begin the hard work before a separation of any kind. Lorraine urges leaders to regularly pulse check LGBTQ+ employees about their experience of equity, or lack thereof, in the workplace.

“I get that it can be uncomfortable, especially if you don't want employees to feel like you're singling them out,” she says. “But at the same time, you want to know what their experience is. My biggest advice here is: Just be brave.”

To start productive and safe conversations about inclusion for LGBTQ+ and all employees, Lorraine offers these and other prompts:

1. What supports or hinders your growth and prosperity at this company?
2. What gives you Sunday night dread?
3. And more.

“What I'm giving you are not ‘magical queer questions,’” she says. “These are just questions about building a culture of belonging. Whatever you uncover will make your workplace safer and more inclusive for every single employee.”

Episode Highlights:

• 2020 was the most deadly year for transgender and gender non-conforming people since 2013, when the HRC Foundation began tracking known deaths
• Suggestions to start conversations with LGBTQ+ employees about equity
• Why the separation audit is a powerful place to uncover inequity
• Understanding that LGBTQ+ employees must evaluate the implications of when, whether and to whom they come out, over and again (and “it never gets easier”)
• The need to revise travel, bereavement and family policies with an eye to inclusion

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Technically People Episode: Hannah Rose Olson
• Technically People Episode: Shannon Hogue
• The HRC Corporate Equality Index

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“The softest of skills — empathy, emotional intelligence, DEI, growth mindset — those are actually the hardest skills to build,” says Elisa Vincent, VP of Global Talent Enablement at Skillsoft, which supports customers’ learning through L&D content and technology. She adds: “They're also power skills.”

Since the onset of Covid, people have certainly turned to Skillsoft to learn digital skills — but the company has also seen significant increases in demand for soft skill learning. “Become a Great Listener,” for instance, was Skillsoft’s number 1 completed course in 2021.

In this far-ranging conversation, Elisa draws from her expertise across HR to discuss the evolving role of the L&D practice, the implications of the pending mass exodus of women from the workplace (and what to do about it) and how L&D can help people redefine career success.

Elisa also offers support to people enablement leaders: “We are called to be a new frontline in our organizations,” she says. “Look at everything that we talked about today [on this podcast]. We talked about skills, mindsets, health and wellness, the mass exodus of women in the workplace. These are stressful and high-gain topics.”

Leaders in the people space, she says, need to support one another in the same way we support healthcare professionals on the true front lines of the pandemic.

Episode Highlights:

• The evolution of the L&D practitioner from “trainer” to “Chief Transformation Officer”
• Soft skill training is on the rise (and why there’s nothing soft about them)
• The long-term ramifications of the mass exodus of women from the workplace
• Many employees, especially women, see the global upheaval in work as a chance to redefine career success
• Why companies should rethink their attitudes toward transferable skills, plus who and how they hire, as more professionals break free from stale corporate structures to forge new career paths

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• GCS’s Enterprise Learning 2021 Annual Report
• Skillsoft Aspire Journeys

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At Canada-based Jobber, the coaching and development team historically supported employees’ professional development. But as Chief People Officer Sara Cooper explains: Career development is one of many ways employees can grow.

That became eminently clear as Jobber employees were forced to contend with Covid’s challenges. They had less appetite for career development and a greater need for wellness support, so the coaching team pivoted to meet that need.

One of the company’s most unique approaches is its certified mental health support team, which Jobber doubled since the pandemic. Trained not to offer therapy but to connect people to resources, the volunteer employee team was built on the premise that peers are more likely to open up to another peer than a manager or executive.

Other programs and policies include job-protected leaves and an option for employees to shift to part time if needed, returning when ready. An “every other week” schedule supports parents who split child custody with a former partner.

“We wanted to ensure that people knew that their health, wellness and families came first,” says Cooper. “And we didn't want people worried that taking time to focus on themselves and their families was going to put their roles at risk.”

Episode Highlights:

• The impact of Jobber’s certified mental health supporter team
• Talk points for leaders to broach mental health with employees
• Addressing root causes before employees need to tap mental health insurance
• Why mental health is not a perk
• The lesson Jobber learned in devising its return-to-office plan
• Accepting that creating return-to-office plans is a “figure it out together” process

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

• 2020 Maestro Health survey referenced at 5:50
• 2021 McKinsey report referenced at 17:18

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To gauge Joey Price’s impact in the field of HR, do a quick Google search. His name graces scores of HR lists, including SHRM’s “30 under 30” HR Professionals and HR Executive Magazine’s “Top Influencers in HR Tech.”

The CEO of HR consulting firm Jumpstart:HR, who also hosts the Business, Life, and Coffee podcast, joins Technically People to answer trending HR questions and offer advice on leading with transparency, managing and compensating talent across state lines, finding new ways to tell your employer brand story and more.

Episode Highlights:

• Key considerations in onboarding, managing and retaining remote employees
• Joey’s revised opinion on how to compensate employees across state lines
• Why pay isn’t always the reason people are leaving their jobs today
• Reinventing the employee handbook as an inspiring part of your culture (yes, the employee handbook!)
• Why leaders can’t afford to insist they know their culture better than employees

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

• Ep. 276 of Business Life and Coffee

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Janine Yancey is Founder and CEO at Emtrain, which provides companies with culture analytics and trainings on bias, discrimination and harassment. Emtrain’s unique model gives companies a way for employees to call out moments in which they feel peers’ behaviors have been disrespectful on a spectrum from red to green, red being toxic and green being respectful and conscious.

The approach is designed to enable psychologically safe conversations, reduce conflict and effect change.

“It's hard work,” she says, “but it's not rocket science to build a workplace that is healthy, where people feel like they're valued, where they’re respected, where they belong.”

Yancey is also an employment law attorney, whose expert testimony has helped shape workplace equity legislation in the state of California.

Episode Highlights:

• Yancey’s work as an expert witness on workplace equity in the California Senate
• How a shared language enables constructive conversations among employees about behavior and matters of DEI
• Understanding that definitions of respect differ from person to person
• Fostering allyship among employees
• Why psychological safety is key to change-making

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

• Emtrain’s 2021 Workplace Culture Insights

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Senior women are more likely than senior men to feel burned out and under pressure to work more, according to a 2020 McKinsey report. They’re 1.5 times more likely than senior men to think about downshifting or leaving work, and almost three in four cite burnout as the reason.

Dr. Charlynn Ruan is CEO and Founder of Thrive Psychology Group. One of her areas of expertise as a clinical psychologist is working with women in senior leadership roles. She helps clients process the pressures unique to them, including “the second shift,” where many women shoulder most or all of the burden of unpaid domestic labor after work hours.

Even as she acknowledges that modern work is built on broken systems, Dr. Ruan aims to help women find ways to move the needle forward for themselves and those who follow.

“There are the things we can't fix and the things we can,” she says. “Let's focus on the ones we can. We'll be surprised how much progress we can make.”

Highlights from this episode:

• Access isn’t equity.
• It really is lonely at the top for women leaders.
• The second shift is a relic of previous generations society hasn’t yet fixed.
• Discrimination against fathers who take parental leave is especially insidious.
• What Sweden is doing to incentivize paternal leave for both mothers and fathers.
• How men can model egalitarian behavior and be allies at work.
• How Dr. Ruan created a culture of support for women at Thrive.

View the resources mentioned during the podcast:

• The Journal of Managerial Issues
• The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home (2012, Revised and with a New Afterword)

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In this episode of Technically People, Jennifer Carlson, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Apprenti, discusses how her apprentice program helps enterprise companies increase diversity while meeting their aggressive headcount needs in the midst of a tech skills shortage.

Apprenti blends classroom learning with on-the-job training, preparing apprentices to fill mid-level roles (software dev, cybersecurity, tech sales, cloud ops). Most apprentices are members of the BIPOC community, women, veterans and people who don’t have a formal CS education but who demonstrate ability in math and critical thinking.

Carlson works by unearthing hidden potential. For instance, upon meeting with one applicant, a Burger King manager, she dug deeper to find he was actually doing supply chain management. While a “Burger King manager” resume wouldn’t see the light of day at a typical tech company, his history of solving complex problems landed him an apprenticeship.

Highlights:

• Tech roles outpace the number of CS graduates coming from U.S. colleges
• Less than 5% of the national tech workforce is composed of people from BIPOC communities versus 56% of Apprenti applicants
• 84% of the program's apprentices stay at the company in which they’ve been placed
• Upskilling apprentices is fiscally responsible; it costs less than acquiring new talent through traditional sourcing and recruiter fees
• How to work with Apprenti

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• apprenticareers.org

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After more than a year of work from home, professionals have sampled the greater degree of freedom that comes with remote. When it’s time to return to work, they say they want flexibility and choice in how, when and where they work. Given the tight labor market, every professional in the TA, recruitment and employer brand realm should take heed of the numbers from a 2021 Built In survey.

In this episode, Shelby Eversole, Built In’s senior marketing manager, shares survey insights with Technically People’s co-host Tiffany Meyers. Engaging both employees and employers, the survey found these and more highlights:

• Sixteen percent of employees in the survey said they want to stay fully remote.

• No one said they want to work from the office for five days.

• Fifty three percent said they want to work from home regularly but have office space available for team meetings or gatherings.

• While 84% of companies indicated they plan to or have already asked employees about their return-to-work preferences, only 21% said they plan to use the preferences as a driving force behind their return-to-work plans.

It’s a candidates’ market, given low unemployment rates, especially among tech talent. Moreover, experts are projecting that employees are about to leave their current jobs in droves. This latter factor is known as the “Great Resignation,” and it has companies concerned about attrition.

They should be. Seventy five percent of employees in the survey said they’re at least slightly to apply for a new job in the next year. Eighty five percent of employees said that, when they’re looking for a new job, they’ll heavily weigh whether a company offers remote work.

In this conversation, Eversole highlights:

• The misalignment between companies’ plans and employees’ preferences.

• The need for employers in a tight labor market to act on what candidates want.

• Employers who don’t do so will struggle to attract in-demand talent.

• Why companies must use employer branding to build a reputation as a company that listens to what candidates and employees want.

Download Eversole’s full 2021 report:

• The Great Return to the Office

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Isn’t recruitment the recruiter’s job? Not as we know it. And not if Mike Dwyer has anything to do with it. The Global Talent Acquisition Lead is creating a culture of recruitment at Feedzai, where every employee shares responsibility for talent acquisition. It’s a point of differentiation, he says, since the people doing the work are more likely to build meaningful relationships with candidates.

That culture will free recruiters to evolve, says Dwyer. They’ll become internal talent consultants who empower, enable and educate, delivering the resources employees need to be a vital part of recruitment. Dwyer adds: It’s time recruiters say no to being treated like administrative assistants. Instead, they should own their rightful place as experts.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The definition of a culture of recruitment

• What the recruiter of the future will do

• The need for empathy in recruiting and hiring

• Navigating the complexity of post-pandemic return-to-work plans

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In her earliest days, Kellie Wagner, Founder and CEO at Collective — a DEI Lab, felt inclined to apply a structured set of academic processes to help companies create inclusive cultures. Over time, she realized the need to evolve. Today, her practice is immeasurably more nuanced.

When she works with companies, she validates and provides context for individual narratives around sexism, racism, homophobia and all “isms” and phobias. But ultimately she aims to transcend narratives by helping people discover universal points of connection — the human need for respect, for instance, dignity and psychological and physical safety.

In this episode we discuss:

• How Wagner’s experience with inequity in tech inspired her to found Collective

• The evolution of Wagner’s DEI training paradigm

• Making change in an era marked by intense fear of other people’s differences

• Why admitting you’re not ready to do the work is better than giving DEI lip service

• Wagner’s belief that we’re in a movement, not a moment

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Every stage of hiring — from your job postings to your interview questions—is vulnerable to bias, particularly for employers that need to hire tech and tech-adjacent roles with expediency. If companies seek to foster DEI and gain the benefits that come with a diverse culture, they must put in place formal structures to de-bias hiring. In this episode, Shannon Hogue, Global Head of Solutions Engineering at Karat, outlines a model from her work and offers key strategies you can implement as early as your next interview.

Karat performs the first round of technical interviews for employers, aiming to make interviews better — more equitable, predictive, fair and enjoyable. In addition to designing and testing every interview question, Karat helps clients build rubrics and align on necessary competencies, enabling them to make decisions based on qualifications.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Shannon’s nontraditional background and the bias she herself encountered in her early career

• The use of structured interview protocols to ensure candidates pass through on the strength of their qualifications

• How to build a diverse pipeline of professionals from underrepresented communities

• The importance of setting and aligning on competencies and a hiring bar

• Inclusive language for recruitment materials and job posts

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Women Who Code

• Brilliant Black Minds

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In America, 157 million adults have at least one chronic illness. Hannah Rose Olson, Founder and CEO at Chronically Capable, makes one thing clear: A person who lives with chronic illness or disability is not just capable but they bring important skills to the table, like resilience and empathy. People with these challenges represent a massive pool of untapped talent for the workplace, which has already started adapting to the most requested accommodation: remote work.

In this inaugural episode of Technically People, we interview Olson about strategies employers can adopt to attract and retain this capable and often untapped talent pool.

In the interview, we discuss:

• What it takes to build inclusive workplaces both in-office and virtually

• Intersectionality for people of different communities with chronic illness

• People’s fear of telling managers about an illness

• Job descriptions that signal you’re inclusive for this population

• 3 strategies for allyship

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Welcome to Technically People, a podcast brought to you by Built In.

This show will feature experts, thinkers, doers and futurist leaders on the vanguard of workplace issues. They’ll share ideas and tactics to shape a human-centered future of work in the tech industry. Topics include DEI and Belonging, hybrid and remote work, wellness, burnout, organizational psychology, human-centered leadership and much more.

In this trailer episode, Tiffany Meyers and Sheridan Orr share how the podcast:

• Aligns with the mission of Built In

• Inspires leaders to approach their people matters in future-forward ways

• Reflects the ongoing conversations Built In has had for years with the most future-forward companies and leaders in tech

To pitch an idea for the show or send a note to the hosts, email TechnciallyPeople@builtin.com. And join us on LinkedIn.

Tech employers need top talent now more than ever. Visit Employers.BuiltIn.com to discover how Built In can help you attract the sought-after tech talent you need to fill your roles of the future.