Best to Be True Than Perfect w/Sarah Reynolds

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Recruitment Flex with Serge and Shelley, I'm Serge.

[00:00:10] And I'm Shelley and we talk all things recruitment starting right now.

[00:00:17] Bones you and welcome to The Recruitment Flex.

[00:00:20] Shelley in 2024, we've had a ton of great guests and we have another great guest today.

[00:00:27] Be sure to and this is someone I have been eagerly awaiting to have a conversation with.

[00:00:34] I have just admired the company, so big drum roll here.

[00:00:41] I have the pleasure of introducing Sarah Reynolds who is the Chief Marketing Officer at Highbop.

[00:00:48] Welcome to the show Sarah.

[00:00:49] Thank you so much, Matthew for having me on.

[00:00:52] Oh, do you speak French?

[00:00:54] I do not except for the occasional baguette and fromage on my travels.

[00:01:01] Yeah, so my French is limited to Bonjour and Orphois, so I know Merci as well.

[00:01:10] There you go.

[00:01:11] So who's are the kick things off for the audience that may not know who Sarah Reynolds and what

[00:01:19] is Highbop?

[00:01:20] Very clever name.

[00:01:21] I think you could talk about those couple of things to get us started.

[00:01:25] Sure, so maybe to start with Highbop is an HCM technology company.

[00:01:31] I like to joke that we make HR technology that employees really love to use as opposed

[00:01:37] to maybe having to resent having to use in your organization.

[00:01:41] We are the HCM platform of choice for companies that are part of what we would call the 3M

[00:01:48] club.

[00:01:49] We are mid-size, meaning you're more than 100 employees and less than 10,000 employees

[00:01:54] but you're on that growth journey.

[00:01:56] If you're modern, meaning you really care about your people, you're very much a people

[00:01:59] first company.

[00:02:00] And oftentimes if you're multinational or global in your footprint, you're a great fit

[00:02:04] for Highbop and hopefully you'll come and say hi to Bob which is the name of our platform.

[00:02:09] In terms of me, as you said, I'm Sarah my pronouns are they in them.

[00:02:14] And I had the great fortune of not really knowing what I wanted to do when I grew up but

[00:02:18] accidentally landing and marketing and accidentally landing in HR technology and determining that

[00:02:24] I absolutely loved it.

[00:02:26] So I grew up in the HR technology market, I've had the opportunity of working for some big

[00:02:31] names here in the Boston, Massachusetts area where I am based.

[00:02:35] So I spent some time working at Kronos before they were UKG salary.com which is employee data

[00:02:40] software and compensation analytics.

[00:02:44] And I have also done some time outside of the HR market to grow my career experience.

[00:02:49] And while it taught me a lot about marketing, it ultimately taught me that I love HR tech.

[00:02:53] I talk about HR tech at my free time especially because I am an openly queer and non-binary

[00:02:58] CMO and I think about things like diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging regardless

[00:03:03] of if I'm a chief marketing officer here or at any other type of company.

[00:03:08] I knew that I really wanted to get back to the industry that I feel like is my home and

[00:03:12] the industry that lets me really talk about the topics that I'm so passionate about.

[00:03:17] I'm so grateful to be at high bob, I love working at high bob and it's an incredible

[00:03:22] opportunity to get to do things like talk to you folks.

[00:03:26] So you know what I love about what you just said?

[00:03:28] We're both coming out to hear Sarah is how you describe your ideal customer being someone

[00:03:37] who's modern.

[00:03:39] That is so important to understand about your ideal customer because where in the buying

[00:03:47] decision does HR live?

[00:03:50] Usually we end up deferring decisions around HCM or HRIS over to legal or finance and they're

[00:04:00] not maybe particularly known for coloring outside the lines or even considering themselves

[00:04:04] modern.

[00:04:05] Current yes but not modern so I love the use of that word.

[00:04:10] I want to know where high bob came from.

[00:04:13] Do you have the backstory on how they came with the name high bob?

[00:04:17] Yes, I can share a little bit.

[00:04:19] Bob was a code name of the platform even pre-having any beautiful high bob customers and it

[00:04:26] was always a discussion about naming the company Bob and the platform is called Bob.

[00:04:31] They were inspired even just for a company URL by some other companies in other spaces

[00:04:37] who had very human, like a very personified name of their product and they used things

[00:04:44] like say hi to a person's name which is also the name of the product.

[00:04:49] We evolved to be high bob and we really enjoy the nice interplay between high and bob.

[00:04:54] We love saying things like say hi to Bob.

[00:04:57] Have you met Bob as you can see behind me?

[00:05:00] We really love the human aspect that it brings to it and I'm glad to see other folks in

[00:05:05] the HR market thinking a little differently about how they name their products and bracing

[00:05:10] a little bit more of that consumerization of enterprise tech and friendly human, modern

[00:05:14] nature of enterprise tech that we so firmly believe in.

[00:05:17] Yeah, you can only have so many companies named Job Something or Career Something so I appreciate

[00:05:25] the out of the boss thinking.

[00:05:27] I'm curious.

[00:05:28] So you spend quite a bit of time in the HR tech space and also outside of the HR tech

[00:05:32] space.

[00:05:33] And as a marketer, what have you found this different?

[00:05:36] Is it very similar and where is the difference between both?

[00:05:40] I think it is that focus on the people that brings me back to HR technology again and

[00:05:45] again when you sell into HR, it's different than selling into any other department because

[00:05:52] the best HR leaders as you folks know, they're really focused on their people and they are

[00:05:58] thinking about how to make their company people first.

[00:06:01] And they really view people as the center of all of the other business strategies that

[00:06:05] the other functions think about executing right?

[00:06:08] Your business isn't going to run if you don't have the people to execute the change

[00:06:13] or to drive your innovation or to do any of the wonderful things that you might put on your

[00:06:17] business plan.

[00:06:18] So the marketing is much more employee centric.

[00:06:21] It's much more people centric.

[00:06:22] It's much more human in general.

[00:06:24] And while we are smart, influential HR leaders is what we like to say, HR at the center

[00:06:29] of the organization influencing every other department and influencing outcomes.

[00:06:34] And of course we can speak the language of the business and I can tell you about P&L

[00:06:37] impact of HR technology.

[00:06:40] It's ultimately also important that we talk about the real human aspect of what we do.

[00:06:46] How technology can impact people's lives for good and for evil.

[00:06:50] And how we can really help make that modern world of work something that truly represents

[00:06:55] that best sort of people centric strategy that we want to bring to the table.

[00:06:59] Hmm, perfect.

[00:07:01] So Sarah I want to dig in a little bit deeper something that we become quite passionate

[00:07:05] over the last year.

[00:07:06] And that is onboarding and pre-boarding and employee.

[00:07:10] We feel that it's one of the areas that most company fail.

[00:07:14] So how can companies leverage technology like high-bob to really give them a kick ass

[00:07:19] onboarding experience?

[00:07:21] Yeah, technology is an enabler of course of this experience.

[00:07:25] Right?

[00:07:26] So when you sit down with your team and you think about how do we want to introduce

[00:07:29] folks to our organization.

[00:07:32] The first thing to recognize is you already introduced them to the organization.

[00:07:35] You probably already introduced them to your brand, to your values, to your teams,

[00:07:41] to your ideas and even your strategy in the recruiting process.

[00:07:44] So they already come to the table with an idea of what your organization is like.

[00:07:49] And onboarding is your first opportunity to really make good on the promise that you

[00:07:54] made in the recruiting cycle about what is true about things like let's take your company

[00:07:59] values, for example.

[00:08:00] So you can explain to someone your company values.

[00:08:03] You can also leverage technology to introduce folks to your company values.

[00:08:07] Maybe you have some great interactive programming on what your values are and what they need.

[00:08:13] Maybe you want to give some great training or some great onboarding coursework around

[00:08:17] values in addition to all the other things that they need to know about your company, like

[00:08:21] how to use systems and processes and how to log in and how to get in touch with their

[00:08:26] manager HR, all of those great things that you might include.

[00:08:29] So I think technology is a great enabler of communication.

[00:08:32] It's also a great way of thinking about standardizing and ultimately reducing the

[00:08:37] bias in all of your processes.

[00:08:39] And onboarding can be one of those you want to deliver a great first or second or third

[00:08:44] experience because that's really what it is, right?

[00:08:46] It's not really the first, but you want to welcome employees to your organization with

[00:08:51] a great experience, with a consistent experience that doesn't totally depend on just who their

[00:08:57] manager is and you want to introduce them to your organization with an experience that

[00:09:01] puts your company culture and what you believe first and foremost in their experience of

[00:09:06] your organization.

[00:09:07] I love what you said as far as really this is the first chance for a company to demonstrate

[00:09:13] all the great things they talked about during the interview process, about the culture,

[00:09:18] all of these elements.

[00:09:19] So when we talk about onboarding, how should you translate that culture part as part

[00:09:25] of your onboarding process?

[00:09:27] Yeah, so I think you do want to try your best to translate it as part of the onboarding

[00:09:32] process because it was probably already a discussion to your point in the recruiting

[00:09:37] process.

[00:09:38] I don't know any of the folks that I've hired recently, I don't know a recruiting process

[00:09:42] that we would have ever gotten through without talking about company culture.

[00:09:47] Of course, high bob loves talking about our beautiful company culture but I think that's

[00:09:51] true regardless of the organization that you work in because to your point people want

[00:09:54] to find a culture they feel they can be a culture add to and as an organization you want

[00:09:59] to find someone who's a great culture add for your organization.

[00:10:02] So it's like a two way street, right?

[00:10:04] Now it becomes the okay we like to say drink our own Merlot when it comes to what we talk

[00:10:09] about.

[00:10:10] So do we drink our own Merlot onboarding is a great opportunity for you to do that and I

[00:10:13] think it can take many different forms.

[00:10:15] One is you do want to showcase the people not just the technology with high bob you can

[00:10:20] automate your onboarding process and you can assign people tasks and you can assign them

[00:10:24] things to do or training courses to complete or forms to fill out or IT tickets that get

[00:10:30] submitted but that's not enough.

[00:10:32] You want to make sure that your onboarding process is showcasing your people not just how

[00:10:36] good you are at automation and then to the point about values I think this is one of those

[00:10:40] great places where culture can be very tangible.

[00:10:44] You want to lead with these are our values and more specifically what do these values mean

[00:10:51] for my organization you probably want to teach somebody about associated behaviors or how

[00:10:56] these values get repeated in other parts of their employee experience.

[00:11:00] So once they complete onboarding it's not that like values disappear or just become pretty

[00:11:05] words on a poster it's that values underpin everything that you do here's how they show

[00:11:09] up or here's how you as a new employee can expect them to show up in one-on-ones with

[00:11:14] your manager and interactions that you have with team members or with leaders in performance

[00:11:20] reviews in conversations about promotion in any of the other parts of the employee life

[00:11:25] cycle because then I think it really helps to articulate not just that values are important

[00:11:31] and that our culture is important to us but also that we do drink our own more low when

[00:11:35] it comes to making this an ongoing conversation in the organization.

[00:11:40] Wondering if I could just jump in here so how does high-bub communicate with the applicant

[00:11:45] tracking system?

[00:11:47] How does that work?

[00:11:48] So we're very partner friendly at high-bub so if you love your greenhouse or your lever

[00:11:53] or another applicant tracking system we want to make it easy to pass the data back and

[00:11:58] forth that's a huge part of our integration work and our work in general with our partners

[00:12:04] regardless of their ATS focused or something else.

[00:12:07] We want you to be able to have some visibility into what happens to the employee after they

[00:12:12] become an employee and as we move on our roadmap to something like a hiring solution from

[00:12:17] high-bub we really believe that influential HR leaders know that there's a tremendous amount

[00:12:23] of value in that ATS data and the data that they collect in the recruiting process and

[00:12:28] it becomes even more valuable if you can marry it with the data in Quarer HR system.

[00:12:34] So imagine if you could tell your recruiters, hey the places that you source candidates

[00:12:39] from that two years later become high potentials, high performers entering to our leadership

[00:12:45] track.

[00:12:46] Actually it's these channels, not these channels or these sources, not these sources that's

[00:12:52] incredibly powerful information that your recruiting teams can use to spend their limited

[00:12:58] budgets in making sure that they are promoting and marketing your jobs in the right place

[00:13:03] that they are using the right channels that they're bringing in quality of candidates

[00:13:07] right?

[00:13:08] That matches what your organization really needs not just in the first 30 days or 60

[00:13:13] days but ultimately in the employees whole life cycle with your organization.

[00:13:17] Sarah, quick question for you on who do you think should own onboarding?

[00:13:25] Do you think it's Quarer HR or is it talent acquisition?

[00:13:29] That's a really good question.

[00:13:31] R's is actually owned by our learning and development function because we think that

[00:13:37] it's a critical learning opportunity.

[00:13:40] Of course you're communicating some important information about your company but really what

[00:13:45] you're asking the person to do is learn how to become a great corporate citizen and

[00:13:50] to your point about culture being a set of information that helps drive behaviors and

[00:13:54] how we react and how we relate to each other.

[00:13:57] You know about it from the recruiting process but we want to teach you what it means to

[00:14:00] be a great barber in our case.

[00:14:02] So we think about it as part of learning and development which sits in our overall people

[00:14:06] and culture team but I know that they have a really strong partnership with the folks

[00:14:10] on the recruiting side because it is really important to us that we are drinking our own

[00:14:15] Marlowe and that we are really representing the same things pre-higher and with the organization.

[00:14:22] Interesting.

[00:14:23] Let's talk a little bit more here about the whole notion of selecting a human capital

[00:14:30] management system.

[00:14:32] What sort of advice do you have for HR leaders when assessing vendors?

[00:14:37] What would be some tips here?

[00:14:39] I love this question.

[00:14:40] I think I would maybe give two big pieces of advice.

[00:14:45] One would be I talked to HR leaders all day long as I'm sure you folks do as well and

[00:14:50] probably one of the things that you've heard come up recently is that it feels like

[00:14:53] the only constant in the modern world of work is change.

[00:14:57] And that means that our organizations are people and also our technology needs to be

[00:15:03] able to be agile and flexible and adapt to change as our businesses go through change.

[00:15:10] We really believe at high bob that you shouldn't have to call a developer or hire a team

[00:15:13] of consultants or engineers to be able to change something whether it's your onboarding

[00:15:20] process or your performance management process or your compensation management process or how

[00:15:24] you do your employee surveys or how you set up your job catalog.

[00:15:27] All of these things are things that we want you to have the flexibility to adjust yourself

[00:15:32] as an admin and we want you to have the resources you need from a customer perspective to be

[00:15:37] able to do those changes or to know who to call on our side for a little bit of help.

[00:15:42] We want you to be in the driver's seat when it comes to change management because we

[00:15:46] think that influential HR leaders they know what changes are coming right they know what

[00:15:50] they need they know how technology can help support their businesses through those change

[00:15:55] and we don't want them to have to wait or slow down or be a blocker in the organization.

[00:16:00] The other thing I would encourage folks to think differently about it talked at the

[00:16:04] talk about consumerization of technology like it's coming for us that human element is

[00:16:09] really important to us when we think about HR technology especially but we really believe

[00:16:14] that H.D.M. should be for everyone.

[00:16:16] It shouldn't just be a back office tool that HR or HR and IT or HR and legal HR and

[00:16:21] finance have access to.

[00:16:23] It should be something that your employees do really love to use and we want them to feel

[00:16:27] like they can use it for so many different things because we fundamentally believe that

[00:16:32] the more that employees use the system the more great insightful data points you're going

[00:16:37] to get and ultimately when you take that great data that you're collecting throughout

[00:16:41] the employee life cycle and you start to think about it with your strategic mindset that's

[00:16:46] how you get that great intelligence that allows you to drive influence in your organization.

[00:16:51] So really really think about how do we make technology that employees they want to use

[00:16:56] they want to engage with it's easy to use it's intuitive anyone can do it and that will

[00:17:02] help us hopefully collect some more great data as HR practitioners and make even more

[00:17:07] smart decisions for our organization.

[00:17:10] So tell me how do you believe that HR should prepare when implementing either new technology

[00:17:18] especially when you talk about companies of just over a hundred and I think up to 750 is

[00:17:24] kind of that zone where they don't really have anything or they have hobbled together

[00:17:28] a bunch of stuff and it's starting to break right especially as the company grows.

[00:17:33] So is there any advice or tips that you have for HR to prepare?

[00:17:41] I think that at least in talking to our customers especially those that get to a larger company

[00:17:46] size with that sort of homegrown solution or what an old head of corporate strategy of mine

[00:17:52] would have called substitute goods like I'm going to use word documents in Excel instead

[00:17:56] of compensation management.

[00:17:58] There's a reason they stuck with that for this long because they knew even from day one

[00:18:03] that it was an imperfect solution.

[00:18:05] I recently met a customer of ours who was fourteen hundred or fifteen hundred employees

[00:18:10] before they bought their first hcm solution the reason they gave because I found this

[00:18:15] really fascinating.

[00:18:16] The reason they gave was our employees know how to use those tools and we knew that adoption

[00:18:22] is a critical blocker of getting the value and getting the return on investment from

[00:18:27] a big and sometimes quite expensive solution like an hcm platform.

[00:18:32] We wanted to make sure that we were going to find a way to get that value.

[00:18:36] I could talk your ear off about you know get your data in order if you are working in

[00:18:40] this Fredsheets we can't where they all live and understand where your data lives today

[00:18:44] and think about how you're going to integrate it into a system that's fundamentally different

[00:18:48] or we could talk about change management.

[00:18:50] How do you roll it out to your employees?

[00:18:51] How do you make it a celebration?

[00:18:52] How do you introduce technology so effectively that folks do want to adopt it?

[00:18:58] So I want to move into marketing.

[00:19:01] Consumers want to buy products from what they feel is authentic companies but even more

[00:19:07] employees want to work for companies that they feel authentic and are telling a real story

[00:19:12] and unfortunately all the recruitment marketing and all the employment brand messaging that

[00:19:18] is on websites is it's all the same.

[00:19:21] It's your take on companies of being really authentic telling the real story.

[00:19:26] So how should companies look at their message when it comes to employment brand and when

[00:19:31] people go on their websites or career pages what advice would you have for them there?

[00:19:36] It's better to be true and authentic than it is to be perfect.

[00:19:42] I think about lots of things in the world of HR as being a journey not a destination

[00:19:49] and your company culture is probably one of them.

[00:19:52] Just like the idea of inclusion is probably one of them.

[00:19:55] There is no perfect end state of the most inclusive company in the world or they perfect

[00:20:02] company culture right?

[00:20:04] You can't point to it and it will be different for every company and industry and person who

[00:20:09] interacts with it and one person might love your company culture and think it is perfect

[00:20:13] and the other person might have a very different experience of it and not love it.

[00:20:17] I think that's what makes the idea of all of these things like so interesting and fun

[00:20:23] and challenging to work in.

[00:20:25] But I would say rather than taking the five things that consulting firm tells you or

[00:20:31] your employee survey is say people want, think about the five things that really represent

[00:20:36] the reality of the organization that you live in.

[00:20:40] It's kind of like writing your job requisition right?

[00:20:42] Everybody wants a passionate CMO.

[00:20:45] I don't know any CMO who would show up in an interview process and be like, I'm actually

[00:20:49] I'm dispassionate about marketing.

[00:20:51] Don't love it.

[00:20:52] That would not work.

[00:20:55] So thinking about how do you write whether it's a job ad or recruitment marketing or even

[00:21:00] marketing for your company in general?

[00:21:02] Do you sit down and write or pick what are your company values and how are we going to

[00:21:06] describe them?

[00:21:08] You want things that are true to your company or true and aspirational.

[00:21:13] You don't want something that's completely different and has no relationship to what

[00:21:18] folks will authentically experience because you might get the best recruitment marketing

[00:21:21] in the world.

[00:21:22] But fundamentally, it's going to hurt you in your turnover statistics on the back end.

[00:21:27] Exactly.

[00:21:28] We want a track talent, right?

[00:21:29] But we want to track a talent that's actually going to enjoy working there.

[00:21:32] And I think the perfect example is Elon.

[00:21:36] Elon Musk, many people feel different ways about him but going to work for him, you know

[00:21:39] is exactly what to expect.

[00:21:42] It's going to be probably a really shitty culture but you're going to build something that's

[00:21:47] amazing and for a lot of people that's just not what they want to do, but for some people

[00:21:52] that's exactly what they want to do and they don't care.

[00:21:54] I think you have to be real about what's good and what's not so good.

[00:21:59] The thing that we've been seeing the last couple of years is what we call influencer marketing

[00:22:04] and B2B and consumer marketing.

[00:22:06] It's been a big part of their strategies.

[00:22:08] But we haven't seen it really in recruitment marketing yet.

[00:22:12] What's your overall thoughts about leveraging influencer marketing in recruitment marketing?

[00:22:19] I have lots of questions about this and I don't know that I have the answers but I feel

[00:22:25] like authenticity is going to be my stick for this podcast.

[00:22:28] Yes.

[00:22:29] But I fundamentally have questions about employing an influencer to be the voice of your

[00:22:35] recruitment marketing.

[00:22:37] Creating a job is not like choosing your next shade of lipstick or your next water bottle.

[00:22:43] You are forming a contractual long-term relationship with something that you are going to do for

[00:22:51] eight hours a day, ten hours a day, 40 hours a week, 50, 60, whatever it is, right?

[00:22:56] You're choosing a partner in a way that's fundamentally different than shopping for something

[00:23:01] that is more on the consumer side of decision making.

[00:23:05] Of course, I love that we bring the human element and the person element to how people

[00:23:11] make decisions in HR or even how we select technology.

[00:23:14] But we are buying ultimately for a business as well, right?

[00:23:19] It's the same thing with work.

[00:23:20] Yes, of course you want to pick something in the moment that feels really good but ultimately

[00:23:26] you're buying for yourself.

[00:23:28] It's so fundamental.

[00:23:29] It's how you're going to feed your family and pay your rent or your mortgage and make

[00:23:34] all of the other things that you do with your life possible often times because of that

[00:23:38] deep financial relationship that you have with your employer.

[00:23:43] Then my question becomes, if you use an influencer, if the influencer doesn't work at your company,

[00:23:49] I have questions about if a candidate believes that's really an authentic voice and an authentic

[00:23:54] representation of your company or if they see it as the language on the recruitment website

[00:24:00] that clearly was written by the same sort of like consultant to pitch it to you.

[00:24:05] If you do need to hire an influencer to be that person, what does that say about the reality

[00:24:11] of your culture that that person doesn't actually work there?

[00:24:16] I have more questions than answers.

[00:24:19] Well, how about taking the approach of creating internal influencers?

[00:24:23] I think it was Revlon basically put all of their employees true personal brand training

[00:24:28] to build their personal brands, then to leverage those personal brands to do influencer

[00:24:33] marketing for their company to work, which I think is genius.

[00:24:37] Because it's authentic.

[00:24:38] It's really growing the people within your organization to grow their own brand because

[00:24:43] all the points you put together as far as how you describe influencer marketing, they

[00:24:47] all make sense.

[00:24:49] I don't think it makes any sense for you to hire Jim because he's an influencer in this

[00:24:54] particular space to try to advertise some of your job.

[00:24:58] But I think where it's going is leveraging your internal employees that are actually really

[00:25:02] happy in giving them the training to have the ability to go out and build their own personal

[00:25:07] brand.

[00:25:08] Do you think that's an approach?

[00:25:09] I think employees are always going to be your best advocate.

[00:25:12] It's why referrals are one of your best most productive recruiting channels, and their

[00:25:16] network is powerful.

[00:25:18] They're always going to be your best advocate if you find a way of making that content

[00:25:22] feel not mass-produced and feel like it is really authentic to them, of course.

[00:25:27] I think we saw maybe about a year ago there were two very prominent examples of companies

[00:25:33] who had tried to do this with their employees where it didn't land.

[00:25:37] It was both video-based content.

[00:25:38] One was like a day in the life of a big four consultants, ironically, for this conversation.

[00:25:43] One was about being a product manager at a very large technology company.

[00:25:48] Both of them, the gist of the video, it came across in the wrong way.

[00:25:53] They were trying to showcase all the perks that their employees get.

[00:25:56] But for many people, it felt tone deaf because it felt like does this person have a real

[00:26:01] job at your company?

[00:26:03] I think that if you can find a way to use your employees basically to build that influencer

[00:26:10] marketing or that recruitment marketing muscle, maybe thinking of them less as influencers

[00:26:17] in the way that we think of social media darlings or TikTok stars as influencers.

[00:26:21] But more as influencers of their network, regardless of how big or small that network is,

[00:26:27] it is going to be a powerful channel for you to tap into.

[00:26:30] Yeah, I've seen those two videos I know exactly which one you mean.

[00:26:34] There is the other example though of Sherwin Williams, the person that was mixing paint

[00:26:38] on TikTok which I thought was fantastic obviously, Sherwin Williamson feel the same about

[00:26:43] it.

[00:26:44] Yeah, and that to me is such a disappointment.

[00:26:46] A thing I think that people are maybe missing or companies are maybe missing in the social

[00:26:51] media age is that when you do have something like that, penalizing the employee who has

[00:26:58] brought so much good will to your brand and so much interaction with your brand and so

[00:27:02] many impressions that as a marketer, I can tell you that would have cost tens or hundreds

[00:27:07] of millions of dollars for you to get and to have it be so positively received and then

[00:27:12] to make it controversial.

[00:27:14] I personally, I can't understand that as like a marketing choice or as a company choice

[00:27:19] in the modern world that we live in.

[00:27:23] Sarah, I completely agree.

[00:27:24] I think everyone in talent attraction are jaws just hit the floor.

[00:27:30] Did they really let this person go?

[00:27:33] But it comes back to my favorite word and I'm going to start using it more.

[00:27:38] Sarah is modern thinking.

[00:27:40] If all you're worried about is risk and what could potentially happen, they just completely

[00:27:46] miss the mark.

[00:27:47] Right?

[00:27:48] So I think the modern world of work is changing.

[00:27:52] And I think that part of the push and pull when you are an influential HR leader or an

[00:27:57] influential TA leader or an influential marketing leader, you are pushing and pulling with some

[00:28:03] of the folks who wrote those policies to begin with or some of the folks who advise on

[00:28:08] risk.

[00:28:09] Part of my job is advising on risk.

[00:28:10] If you go out and say that, here are the potential risks that could happen.

[00:28:14] You might still decide to go and say that but you should be informed.

[00:28:18] I do think that there is a push and pull and I think that we will see companies who

[00:28:23] adopt that sort of modern mindset find a different way of pushing and pulling.

[00:28:28] That would have been a great opportunity to rebrand that and take that in as a company

[00:28:32] program and expand it and leverage it and use it in recruitment marketing and talk about

[00:28:39] even from an HR case study perspective, why you changed the policy after you discovered

[00:28:44] that it didn't reflect what was real and true in the modern era.

[00:28:48] I mean, that would have been really interesting and exciting.

[00:28:51] Unfortunately not the path they went down.

[00:28:53] Such a missed opportunity for sure, for sure.

[00:28:56] And coming back to what you were just talking about a minute ago, when companies are going

[00:29:01] on their career page and they're publishing, these are our values.

[00:29:05] And they may be true.

[00:29:06] They may be authentic but certainly my personal irritation is that they're mostly aspirational.

[00:29:15] They're where they want to be.

[00:29:16] It's not what it's really like today and getting approval to publish something, especially

[00:29:22] if it's a risk-averse organization, they're going to go with what is safe and what is

[00:29:27] aspirational but not necessarily true.

[00:29:30] And that's the challenge.

[00:29:32] I'd love to be able to point to organizations who went from this to this.

[00:29:38] They went from an organization that had the same posters you see in Walmart, right?

[00:29:43] We are honest.

[00:29:45] Our workplaces are safe.

[00:29:46] To here's how they communicated what they really are.

[00:29:52] Even with HighBog, how was it that you communicate in your values to the outside market and know

[00:30:00] that's really how we treat each other?

[00:30:03] So first I think the question is, how are your values developed?

[00:30:05] Are they developed through a large, very safe consulting project or are they developed

[00:30:11] in concert with your employees?

[00:30:13] Are there developed in concert with our employees?

[00:30:15] We actually have a cultural committee.

[00:30:16] Wow.

[00:30:17] And one of the things that we asked them to do was to think about our company values and

[00:30:22] to advise on what are values that really represent who we are and what we believe

[00:30:27] in.

[00:30:28] And the reason I've talked about values so much on this call is we do make them part of

[00:30:32] every single thing that we do.

[00:30:34] They are in our recruitment marketing, right?

[00:30:37] You will be introduced to our values.

[00:30:40] We will talk about them in onboarding.

[00:30:41] We will talk about them in one-on-one.

[00:30:43] We will talk about them in performance reviews.

[00:30:45] We will talk about them in company all hands in Bob.

[00:30:48] We have what we call a value village which is basically a document on every employee's profile

[00:30:54] that they have access to any time of the day or night that lists out all our values and

[00:30:58] it lists out corresponding behaviors.

[00:31:01] And questions you should be asking about how you show up in high Bob and participate

[00:31:07] and live those values out loud.

[00:31:10] I actually knew that I wanted to work at high Bob because when I applied or when I was

[00:31:15] interviewing for a CMO job, I went to the recruitment website and I used to tell my teams'

[00:31:21] aren't just pretty words on a slide for HR and they had something like values aren't

[00:31:24] just words on a poster.

[00:31:26] And I was like, oh, it's my people.

[00:31:28] You genuinely believe this and our values, they're not in little consulting language,

[00:31:35] they're not like be kind to each other.

[00:31:37] They're in very high Bob friendly human-centric language.

[00:31:41] One of my favorites is bring me when is we because all about bringing your authentic self

[00:31:46] to work and collaborating with your peers.

[00:31:49] We interact with transparency and openness.

[00:31:52] We grow through what we go through, a lot of them rhyme and I really struggle with this

[00:31:56] just speaking them.

[00:31:58] But I love the idea that we grow through what we go through is one of our company values

[00:32:02] because that says to you right up front, we might not be perfect, we might make mistakes

[00:32:07] but we're going to learn from it and that's okay and that's something that we embrace in

[00:32:12] the organization.

[00:32:13] But I think you can see that's a really different tone and a really different development

[00:32:17] process and a very different way of integrating them in a company culture than paying someone

[00:32:21] to do it offline, using it a couple of times or making it that poster in the break room

[00:32:26] and never approaching it again.

[00:32:29] Great example.

[00:32:30] Thank you, sir.

[00:32:31] Thank you.

[00:32:32] That's what I was looking for.

[00:32:33] Like how do you communicate it?

[00:32:35] It is a struggle.

[00:32:36] It is because we always fall back on what is safe and nobody's going to disagree that

[00:32:41] it's good for business to say that our values include honesty.

[00:32:46] Okay, that's a good thing to say but it just it doesn't resonate with anyone.

[00:32:51] So I think the question is what does honesty means to your organization?

[00:32:54] I worked for a company where the value evolved from something that sounded like that to

[00:32:59] candid and direct because what they believed was that honesty was candid and direct feedback

[00:33:06] about how somebody feels, how something went, what's working, what's not working every

[00:33:10] single part of the organization.

[00:33:12] And that's a very different tone.

[00:33:13] It's a different approach.

[00:33:14] It is a much more personal or much more representative and a much more explanatory way of telling

[00:33:21] someone what you mean when you say something like honesty.

[00:33:27] Very good point.

[00:33:28] Last part, we always like to ask for predictions looking into 2024 and beyond.

[00:33:35] Do you have anything that you are seeing as maybe a disruptor in HR coming for 2024?

[00:33:43] I'm going to cut against the grain maybe of your other recent podcast guests and I am not

[00:33:49] going to say AI.

[00:33:50] I, thank you.

[00:33:54] Thank you.

[00:33:55] I made it through I think this whole podcast without saying AI and I'm not going to start

[00:33:59] now.

[00:34:00] I think you've heard about that.

[00:34:01] I'm going to give you a different perspective and one that is very personal to me.

[00:34:05] I think the easy answer for me is the changing landscape of compliance and compliance isn't

[00:34:11] necessarily a fun or sexy topic like culture in HR, but it's something that is fundamentally

[00:34:17] changing.

[00:34:18] I think not only the ways that employees experience work, but also the ways that we need to think

[00:34:23] as human centric people centric HR leaders about the roles that our companies play in protecting

[00:34:30] and embracing folks of all different ethnicities and identities in our organization.

[00:34:39] I think that compliance in terms of pushing the conversation forward and pushing HR in

[00:34:45] different directions is going to come in many different ways like in the next year.

[00:34:51] I think about, for example, pay an opportunity transparency laws.

[00:34:55] Lots of folks know about paid transparency laws especially in the recruiting landscape.

[00:34:59] Some of them take the form of you can't ask someone what they make now.

[00:35:02] You have to post a salary range on a job description.

[00:35:06] Those are great first steps.

[00:35:07] There are states like New Jersey who are now thinking about how do we make opportunity

[00:35:11] more transparent in our organization?

[00:35:13] How do we make sure that people know if there's a promotion that's going to happen or a new

[00:35:19] position that's open that we want to recruit for?

[00:35:22] How do we make sure that people know that opportunity is available to them, especially if they're

[00:35:27] internal to our organization?

[00:35:30] Because we know that, for example, talent and skill is equally distributed throughout our

[00:35:34] beautiful, diverse textured world.

[00:35:36] But opportunity is not.

[00:35:38] Sometimes knowing who to ask is the gatekeeping that happens in that landscape.

[00:35:43] I think this is a really interesting idea that we should engage with and embrace HR professionals

[00:35:48] rather than sometimes what we do which is dread the compliance activity.

[00:35:52] What exactly am I going to do from a systems and technology perspective to keep pace with

[00:35:56] this?

[00:35:57] The other one for me is if we think about something like abortion access or the access

[00:36:02] to gender affirming healthcare or the access in general to healthcare for folks who are

[00:36:08] like me, trans or non-binary.

[00:36:11] I think we need to have a conversation about the role that we play as HR folks and as

[00:36:16] companies more broadly in protecting our employees who represent marginalized groups because

[00:36:22] you can't wait for the law which in many places is moving away from protections for those

[00:36:29] folks to create a safe and welcoming and inclusive and authentic environment where people can

[00:36:34] really bring me and help you win as we.

[00:36:37] You miss out on an incredible population of talent if you're not thinking about the marginalized

[00:36:42] folks in your organization regardless of what that means to you or the underrepresented

[00:36:47] folks in your organization, regardless of what that means in your city or your state

[00:36:51] or your location.

[00:36:52] I think it's an incredible opportunity for HR leaders to say we have a duty to these

[00:36:58] folks who represent such a skilled, incredible population and we can do more as companies

[00:37:05] and organizations to make sure that they feel safe and that they feel protected and

[00:37:12] that they feel like they belong in our organizations even when the compliance landscape is going

[00:37:17] the other way.

[00:37:18] That's maybe not like the most upbeat of predictions for 2024 but I think it's a really important

[00:37:24] one because regardless of where you live, state or province for country or city or municipality

[00:37:30] or whatever it is or all the different places that you operate sometimes they can be very

[00:37:33] different from one another.

[00:37:34] Sometimes they can have a very different perspective and sometimes they can wildly swing

[00:37:38] from one legislative session to another.

[00:37:43] We have definitely seen that in the US in the past year has been an ever changing moment

[00:37:47] so thank you for giving us that because yes, you are right.

[00:37:51] We've had AI so many times that it's really refreshing to get a different perspective

[00:37:56] and a different focus.

[00:37:58] Anyone wants to get a hold of Sarah Reynolds?

[00:38:01] What is the best way?

[00:38:03] If you want to say hi to me, Sarah, you can find me on LinkedIn at slash Sarah Liz Reynolds

[00:38:10] or on the artist formerly known as Twitter where I will be tweeting into that good good

[00:38:16] night at Fair Pay Monster because I really do love transparency and pay equity.

[00:38:22] If you would like to say hi to Hi Bob, please visit us at HiBob.com.

[00:38:27] We would love to talk to you about any and all of these topics and of course show you all

[00:38:31] the great things that we're working on to help support your modern people strategy.

[00:38:35] Sarah, it was a real pleasure of having you on the podcast.

[00:38:40] Thank you for coming on such great insights.

[00:38:42] We need to have you again.

[00:38:43] Yes.

[00:38:44] Thank you.

[00:38:45] It's so nice to meet you and reserve the right to have you come back and talk some more

[00:38:50] with us.

[00:38:51] I would love that.

[00:38:52] I could talk to your ear off about employer branding and recruitment marketing and building

[00:38:56] strong relationships with your friends in your marketing department.

[00:39:00] So I look forward to that conversation.

[00:39:01] That's a day.

[00:39:02] Perfect.

[00:39:03] Thank you for listening.

[00:39:05] Have a good day.

[00:39:06] Bye friends.

[00:39:07] Au revoir.

[00:39:08] Shelley, let's face it.

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[00:39:33] This is where our friends at RecTex come in.

[00:39:35] They've created simple yet powerful text recruiting software that works with your ATS.

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