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HR entrepreneur Mike Coffey, SPHR, SHRM-SCP engages business thought leaders about the strategic, psychological, legal, and practical implications of bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. As an HR consultant, mentor to first-stage businesses through EO’s Accelerator program, and owner of Imperative—Bulletproof Background Screening, Mike is passionate about helping other professionals improve how they recruit, select, and manage their people. Most thirty-minute episodes of Good Morning, HR will be eligible for half a recertification credit for both HRCI and SHRM-certified professionals. Mike is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Fort Worth and active with the Texas Association of Business, the Fort Worth Chamber, and Texas SHRM.
If I'm an employee of a company, I will take a survey every day if the employer listens to that feedback and takes action on it. That's the problem, is that where where there's there's no not only feedback loop, but also actions that are taking place. So for those companies that are worried about it, go through the filter first to be able to say, instead of quantifying the number of surveys, talk about how you're going to act on the first one.
Mike Coffey:Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. And this is the podcast where I talk to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. Please follow rate and review Good Morning HR wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or at goodmorninghr.com.
Mike Coffey:If you evaluate modern workplaces based on social media posts, especially TikTok and Reddit, you might have the idea that most employees simply wanna do their time at work each day, doing as little work as possible, earning a fair wage or more, and then simply disconnect from their job at the end of their shift. However, studies have repeatedly shown that employees want to be engaged at work. They need to know that they're seen, understood, and that what they do matters. My guest today says that leaders should focus on creating cultures where employees affirmatively answer the question, is my life better because I work here? Mark Mohammedpour is the founder of Chasing the Sun, through which he helps companies design cultures of well-being, retain healthy employees, and create a healthy bottom line.
Mike Coffey:Mark spent a career in communications leading programs for organizations like Adobe, Microsoft, and the US Army. And now through Chasing the Sun, Mark works to empower people to shine. Welcome to Good Morning HR, Mark.
Mark Mohammadpour:Good morning, Mike. Good morning, HR. It's an honor to be here.
Mike Coffey:Well, thank you for being here. And let's just start with that first question. Is my life better because I work here? Why is that an important question for leaders to ask?
Mark Mohammadpour:Every day, Mike, I'm hearing from people who are reimagining their relationship with work. And we've seen this over the last few years if we've shifted our relationship with work, everything from where we physically sit at, to our roles, to our purpose, and to our tenure. And it's these questions that people are asking every day. And they're thinking about it not just in terms of their salary and their compensation, which is important, but also, am I sleeping well at night? Do I have enough money to take care of my children in daycare?
Mark Mohammadpour:Do I have enough in healthcare insurance? Am I able to take time off away from work, even though financially I may be able to? Do I feel empowered to do so and still feel safe coming back? All of this might ties into the well-being of the employees. And it's getting people every day to ask, is my life better the rest of my life because I work at this organization?
Mike Coffey:So and you're changing it. I mean, is my life better because I work here? Because most of the conversations seem to have traditionally been, is this job taking something away from me? Is this job costing me something by being here? And I think a lot of the work life balance, which I think is you know, I think that's not the way to look at it.
Mike Coffey:I think it's all for most of us is a work life integration. We've got different priorities at different times. But, you know, most of the time, we're those conversations are about how is work getting in the way of doing what I wanna do. And you're talking about making life better. And some of that's you know, some of the things you you mentioned, like psychological safety and the ability to take care of the business you need to take care of personally.
Mike Coffey:What are other things that really kinda drive in a culture making somebody's life better?
Mark Mohammadpour:I think one of the interesting things, Mike, we've also seen in this shift in how we're working, where traditionally people would come into an office or go to a physical place of work and do their job and then come home. We've seen over the last few years this evolution of realizing for a long time actually, society has caught up to technology over the last five, ten, fifteen, twenty years that for a lot of us, we can do jobs independent of a physical location. And we have also seen companies making decisions as far as, well, maybe that's not best for the company. Well, is it? Is it are we asking is do our customers care about where we are physically at?
Mark Mohammadpour:So these are the questions that not only employees are asking, but employers are starting to think about this as well. And we've had this monumental shift over the last few years with the pandemic and getting people to reimagine their relationship with work. But the other part of this, Mike, and when we talk about company culture and one of the things I talk about in my keynotes and my workshops and consulting with companies is there's company culture, big picture, where you talk about your mission, vision, values, benefits, the company offers. But really, Mike, it comes down to the people you're spending a lot of the time with. And it doesn't matter if you're working in a company with 10 employees or 10,000.
Mark Mohammadpour:The your relationship with your company are gonna be the people you're spending most of the time with. It's gonna be your manager, people that you're managing, the department you're in, your geography, your clients, your customers, your external partners. That is your relationship with your company, and that is how we are starting to see our relationship with work evolve beyond just what does it say at the enterprise level, but the team level. What does culture mean? What does our experience mean?
Mark Mohammadpour:And from a well-being standpoint, how are we thinking about why is our life working here through that lens? And that's the challenge that I I pose to the HR community and executives when they're thinking about really lasting changes with employee culture and well-being.
Mike Coffey:How much of this is data driven? How much data do we really know whether it's surveys and you know, everybody wants to go to Glassdoor and look at you know, review this company before they take the job. But do we have good information? I know Gallup does a lot of of interesting workplace stuff. What does the data tell?
Mike Coffey:I mean, is there is there hard data out there that leaders can really point to if they wanna start making these these changes?
Mark Mohammadpour:Well, I think one of the first things is, you know, our world in in HR and I kinda come from the communications world where we are constantly having to prove our our worth and the bottom line. And I'll just start with the the biggest bottom line is that it costs more money to replace people than it is to take care of them. And this is data from SHRM. It can cost up to twice as somebody's salary to replace them. And that's not just in reputational cost.
Mark Mohammadpour:That's in that's in productivity cost. It's in paying recruiters. It's in advertising. And then it's potentially lost relationships with with customers who had a good relationship with that employee. And a fraction of the cost likely to to keep them, whether it's training, benefits, and just overall awareness of communication between the employee and and the employer as far as what their relationship is like and what those employees need.
Mark Mohammadpour:That alone is a significant data point that we need to make sure that we are delivering to executives. Because in their mind, and and rightfully so, they need to be thinking about the bottom line. They need to be thinking about their their shareholders. But the more that we can tie the reputational impact of, of retaining employees and keeping them, and also thinking about them beyond the, when they leave. And that's part of the whole employee journey.
Mark Mohammadpour:And we think about communications, everything from what is written on the job description, what's written on the, on the, on the website, what is the recruiter talking about as far as the company's concerned, all the way through when they leave and how they feel. Collectively, that has such an impact on the bottom line. So there's that's one data point. I think the other data point, which it seems a bit completely different direction, but I just want to discuss is just we are leaving weeks and weeks of paid time off on the table. The US Travel Association says that we are leaving more than seven hundred million days of paid time off in The United States alone.
Mark Mohammadpour:And that has a ripple effect. Has a ripple effect on our productivity and ultimately people's interest in staying. And so that's just one example of a benefit. And if we can work to communicate with our work streams in a way that's relatable, practical, actionable for that alone, that's just one extra data point around time off and empowering people to take time off. We can retain employees, keep them healthier and ultimately make the company more money or reach whatever business objectives they have.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And you've mentioned the term well-being, several times. How do you measure that? How do I know if my if there's a sense of well-being in my organization? And and let me ask also, as you define it, what's the opposite of well-being?
Mike Coffey:Please don't say toxic because I'm so tired of that term. But, but what's the opposite of of, you know, falling short at least of well-being?
Mark Mohammadpour:Well, I see a a well-being as as scalable. Right? So we don't necessarily need a word to replace it. So let's let's look in terms of, to your point about about data. I think to take a step back, you know, when I launched Chasing the Sun, it was primarily around physical health and I came from a weight loss journey.
Mark Mohammadpour:I lost, kept off more than 150 pounds.
Mike Coffey:Wow.
Mark Mohammadpour:And I started Yeah. I lost and kept that off. No shakes, no pills. Thank you. And that was part of this journey.
Mark Mohammadpour:But as I started launching the company and started talking to people about well-being, there are opportunities to look beyond physical health. And so I have started to look at broader well-being and I think about it in terms of similar to The US Surgeon General who has released guidance around well-being and that's around physical health, mental health, career well-being, thinking about the the tenure of your career and how's the company support that. The community aspect. So those physically around you in the community and how often are you able to to give back because we can be more empathetic by being around those who are more vulnerable and giving back time. From a social aspect, a lot of data talking about isolation.
Mark Mohammadpour:There's this article in the New York Times recently about that. And we, we, we have, we have seen that evolve. And so from a company standpoint, how are we supporting people working in different places? I think we need four workspaces. I think we need a physical location where if we have that allowed for us to, to be an office or a workspace, we need a a a a place where we are alone at home, where we are working and being productive.
Mark Mohammadpour:We need a social environment like at a coffee shop somewhere where we or a library where we have, you know, people around us and there's that kinda different energy. And then we need a place where we're off our devices and we are just by ourselves in a park, in a forest, and we're thinking. We need and and so that's in itself is around that social well-being. And then there's the financial well-being and thinking through the stress levels of of those that that we're working with and making sure that they're aware of the financial benefits that are related. Now tied to that to your point about the the measurement, and this is really situational, which is why this takes work.
Mark Mohammadpour:This takes work to really drive a lot of impact. I think one of the things that can intimidate companies no matter what level you're at or what department you're at, but we're talking with the HR audience, is how do we shift our company culture? That's a very broad and can be very overwhelming area. So what I work with companies on is to is to create pilots around a particular work stream where there might be a particular challenge. So for instance, there might be a work stream in which there are certain benefits not being used.
Mark Mohammadpour:And so we could measure the impact of increase in certain benefits being used, whether that's paid time off, whether that's a therapy that's being offered, whether that's particular financial adviser, you know, usage being amplified. And then that's the objective. That's the measurable objective, and then we go through, okay, what are the tactics and then what are the communications channels in which we're gonna do that? Again, back to the work stream part of it. How we work with one work stream and communicating benefits and their needs are gonna be different from another.
Mark Mohammadpour:It's gonna depend on the work stream, your physical location, the demands of your job, how you receive information. All of these go into whether or not we can create a healthy culture be because we have to think through the lens of of the employees and the reality of how they receive information and and how they like to to connect with the company.
Mike Coffey:And let's take a quick break. Good morning. HR is brought to you by Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. When I founded Imperative over twenty five years ago, there wasn't a lot of technology relevant to conducting background investigations. Over the last couple decades, some amazing technology has been introduced to make the process of ordering and retrieving reports more efficient, ensuring compliance with all the different laws across the country, and even improving the candidate experience through the background check process.
Mike Coffey:However, many background check companies have implemented technologies that focus more on improving their profit margin even as they diminish the quality of information and customer support their employer clients receive. At Imperative, we have some amazing technology. However, we always rely on our professional analysts over algorithms to ensure that our clients receive the most reliable, thorough, and legally compliant information possible. And if our clients ever have a question they don't have to Google to get an answer, They can just pick up the phone and talk to one of our real people who will resolve their issue right away. It may sound old school, but I believe the human element is still critical to ensuring that our clients make well informed decisions about the people they involve in their business.
Mike Coffey:You can learn more or reach out to us directly at imperative info dot com. If you're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been pre approved for one half hour of recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information visit goodmorninghr.com and click on research credits, Then select episode 179 and enter the keyword chase, that's c h a s e. And if you're looking for even more recertification credit, check out the webinars page at comparativeinfo.com. And now back to my conversation with Mark Mohammedpour.
Mike Coffey:And so, like you said, we all went remote '20 in 2020, and, you know, for for some of us, that was just, you know, weeks long, you know. And, you know, I'm in Texas, and by June or July, we were kissing strangers on the street on the mouth. You know? It was it was over here, and we weren't doing it anymore. But a lot of companies stayed remote, but we just you know, the COVID wasn't you know, we weren't as locked down as other places.
Mike Coffey:Other places stayed, you know, locked down and fully remote for a year, and employees really got to set that expectation or they had that set expectation set. And now we're it's all over the place. My company, we stayed fully remote. I've got folks all over the place, and we've invested in the technology and the security and all the things that are involved there. A lot of companies are doing some sort of hybrid, and you're hearing about some large companies that were doing hybrid in office one day a week.
Mike Coffey:Now they're moving to two days a week. Now they're moving back to, you know, RTO three days a week or full time. How do you know as a leader what the right balance is for your organization, you know, based on what you have to do and the people you have and what their expectations are?
Mark Mohammadpour:Yeah. So it's two parts. It's a great question. There's two parts to that. I think the first is if you're going to have people come into the office, there better be a very unique purpose that is different than any other experience.
Mark Mohammadpour:There, there better be a reason. And there are reasons. It's difficult to brainstorm virtually. You can do it as a group. You, you, you can brainstorm and there's the technology available and you can have discussions and you can have scribes to be able to do, but there's nothing like getting together and and and brainstorming and and going deep on particular problems.
Mark Mohammadpour:So the opportunity for executives is what are the scenarios? And this would something that I would work with companies on is what are three, five, seven scenarios in which we need to be in the office for? It could be for a brainstorm. It it could be we are preparing for a a big announcement, a big product, or big initiative, and and we're gonna be in the office for the next three weeks or just making us up. And and we're gonna be heads down on that and this is the reason why.
Mark Mohammadpour:What are those scenarios? So that again, the employee understands that this is going to be a different experience versus coming into the office And you're in a, let's say you're an office of 200 people and 180 of them have their doors shut all day because they're on calls. Different experience. What's the point? Right?
Mark Mohammadpour:Another scenario could be, we are going to have very prescriptive times that we are together to have conversations, to learn from one another, and they could be as informal as as pizza time, happy hours, or they could be much more formal. And we are going to learn about the business from one another, and we're gonna this thing I've worked with companies as well as what's your professional development plan within your employee base? Not even just having outside people coming in delivering professional development, but we have so much to learn from one another. What are the opportunities that and then out of that comes networking and getting to know each other and things like that. So that's one part of it.
Mark Mohammadpour:But I think the one group that we forget to discuss when it comes to the return to office discussion, what does the customer need? Does the customer need us to come into the office? Again, coming back to having this discussion with employees and understanding why we're having people come in. It's one thing just to say, Oh, we need you to come in because it's more productive or it's better.
Mike Coffey:Collaborative or
Mark Mohammadpour:Collaborative. These kind of vague words. If we are hearing from 30%, fifty, seventy % of our customers that are saying, look, you your your teams were much better when you were all in the office or we are missing this or some either quantifiable or even anecdotal feedback to be able to discuss with the employees. That's important. I think we miss that a lot when we're just communicating to employees that we need people back for morale and for connectedness.
Mark Mohammadpour:And I'm not saying that's not important, but we need to discuss this through the lens of the customer and what's important to them. I think that's a that's a missing element that that needs to be brought up more.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. Because we are, at the end of the day, in business to execute a mission. And if you're for profit well, well, even if you're not for profit, it's to deliver often it's to deliver service to a specific customer that you serve in a unique way. And my clients are spread all over the country. They never walk in the office.
Mike Coffey:And as long as you know, and our big goal is the phone gets answered if somebody has a call, that we know our customers well enough to anticipate the questions so they don't have to call us and all those things. And we found that we do that really well remote or in person. And we've been able to bring on new employees and incorporate them into that culture remotely. It works for us. But I have clients who done everything they can to try and do that remote.
Mike Coffey:And either and, you know, and I've talked about it on the podcast before. It's, you know, I've got a son who's now 25, and he's an engineer. And he was actively he just recent he's with he was with a great company that was fully on-site because of the kind of work they did and the security clearances and all that. And he loved that because he had good mentorship. And in his next role, that was really important to him, that he have that mentorship.
Mike Coffey:And so if if it was fully remote, he would have been less interested in the role. He's got an amazing job. He's actually designing stuff, and this is me bragging, designing stuff for the lunar rover that they're gonna put on the moon in, like, 2026 or '7 or something. And, I mean, it's an amazing job. Right?
Mike Coffey:And he's in he's he gets to do it, so that's his proud dad talk. But how do you you know, you've got different employee groups who want different things. You've got clients to balance and all of that. And I I guess that's the leader's dilemma. How do we balance these things?
Mike Coffey:And maybe it means either not every client in the future is gonna be an ideal fit for you or maybe not every employee, no matter how qualified they are, is gonna be the right culture How do you balance all that? What's your what are your thoughts there?
Mark Mohammadpour:Well, first, congratulations to your son. I'm a big I'm a big space exploration fan. So, kudos. I'm glad
Mike Coffey:to see us going back to the moon with something. Yeah.
Mark Mohammadpour:I love right. Right. Well, I love this because your your son is mid twenties, different generation, and yet wants to to come into the office, want that mentorship. That's another thing. We we have to sort of evolve past this generation versus generation differences.
Mark Mohammadpour:And there's a graphic that I've used in some of my talks around. There was a magazine cover from the nineteen seventies, '19 nineties, '20 tens, and twenty twenties about the future generation and all of the words that were described very similar to what we talk about as far as future generations. So we need to sort of evolve this. It's important to learn if there are some nuances and differences, but we're all just people. And we we all have sort of the same challenges growing up.
Mark Mohammadpour:And and and we also crave that mentorship. We crave that attention. So I just wanna share that. I'm so and I'm so glad to hear that your your son had is is very, descriptive as far as what he wants in a future relationship. And I think that's part to to answer your question, that's part of the opportunity that we have.
Mark Mohammadpour:And, again, coming back to the employee journey as we think about the job description, the website, how we talk about the company, the recruiter, the hiring manager, the onboarding. Each of those steps, we typically think of as a test for the employee or the prospective employee. They're also a test for the employer. How are we talking about the company? How consistent are we with when we talk about the employee experience?
Mark Mohammadpour:How consistent are we when we talk about the culture within a particular work stream? When communicating benefits within the company? When we're talking about trainings and opportunities? And when we are thinking in terms of, to your point, about customers and what their needs are, one of the things I work with teams on is is thinking through the perspective of not only ourselves, but also our customers. What are their challenges?
Mark Mohammadpour:What do they need? I call it creating an empathy map, and it's an exercise where we go through and this this works within your team. It works with executives at your company and your, and your customers. What are their goals? What are their ambitions?
Mark Mohammadpour:What are, how are they influenced? Right? What, what are their needs? And the more we can have those discussions and ultimately tie them back to the individual, the employee's needs, the better. A lot of this comes down to communication, Mike.
Mark Mohammadpour:And it sounds like a lot of extra steps, but back to how we're measuring this, the companies that I see that have clear, concise, consistent communication at every stage of the employee journey are the ones that are going to keep happy employees. They're going to be productive. They're going to do right by the customers and ultimately right by the company. And then obviously, that's gonna come back to the employee as a result.
Mike Coffey:And you you mentioned something you called it, I think, an empathy map? Yeah. Talk more about that. That's interesting.
Mark Mohammadpour:Yeah. So I have whole keynotes and discussions around empathy. And and, you know, there's there's multiple different types of empathy, but the one I'm talking about is primarily the understanding. Right? There's one part of empathy that's like, I'm literally feeling how you're feeling.
Mark Mohammadpour:This is more about the understanding of of somebody. And this was something that I had to learn quite a bit throughout my career. I worked primarily on an agency side, working with with big brands. And sometimes there would be a, a big change at a company or a big pivot was being made or a big campaign that we were working on suddenly is delayed. It would get frustrating, would impact your confidence.
Mark Mohammadpour:We would be two, three, four degrees away from the decision makers. And I didn't have then what I do now is being able to feel compelled to ask why, what's the motivation, what what is the business impact, And a number of questions that might seem very obvious, but the more degrees you are away from the executive bench, board of directors, other influencers, the more that you're the information that you have about particular situations at your company is becomes more vague. How does this all impact well-being? Well, it impacts confidence. It impacts sleep.
Mark Mohammadpour:It impacts our our anxiety about the business. I've seen a number of of executives not wanting to share financials with junior staff or or or no folks who do the profession because we don't wanna scare them. These are adults. They they can do all typical adult things, and we can't trust them with numbers for a company that they're working for, that they're advocates for.
Mike Coffey:And I think that's one of the things is people are often, in the absence of information, are often gonna assume it's worse than it really is.
Mark Mohammadpour:Correct. So it's better to think
Mike Coffey:human nature. Yeah.
Mark Mohammadpour:Exactly. So it's better to be upfront. So, really, these are conversations that are important to to have with not only your your your immediate team, your manager. How are they influenced? What are their goals?
Mark Mohammadpour:We should be having discussions with our employees, what they're what they're thinking about it. And then, again, think through the lens of of the executive and what's their motivation. And that takes some work. It takes some questions. It might take some chatting with executive assistants.
Mark Mohammadpour:It might take some chatting with their peers. I'm not trying to say that this is a sort of cohort operation or anything like that. But this is about research about about people and and and what's important to them. That impacts everything from, again, ultimately, how we feel to our relationship with the company and and everything in between.
Mike Coffey:Well and you you talked about asking that why, and that's one of the things in my HR consulting practice over the years. Clients often come and say, we want to implement an employee satisfaction survey. And, and, you know, they just want something out of the box just to, you know, throw out there, check the the the KPI off. We did three employee satisfaction services this year. But my question is always, why?
Mike Coffey:What is the issue driving this? Why do you wanna do this? And what do you wanna get out of it? What's what's the goal? I mean, you know, if the information comes back positive or negative, how do you plan to use it?
Mike Coffey:What you know, how are you gonna implement it? And do you have the buy in from the executives to do whatever you need to get where it's where you want it to go? And I think that's you know, I'm an entrepreneur, so it's easier for me because I'm always looking to solve the problem, and I I wanna understand the problem. I think for a lot of your frontline managers, your your frontline employees, they're not thinking that way. By default, it's more like, give me this task, and I'll do this task.
Mike Coffey:And, you know, it's coming from, you know, on high down to them. And so they'll do the task, but maybe they're not putting everything into it, that discretionary effort that we call employee engagement, because they don't understand the why. So how do you think that why should get down from the decision makers to the front line?
Mark Mohammadpour:Well, I I I think it comes down to, again, your relationship with with your company. And you you said it so well. Right? If I if I don't know why I'm doing it, I'm just doing it, I'm ticking a box, so just do do the job and and all. And let's be let's be honest.
Mark Mohammadpour:There there are some people who operate that way, and we need to make sure it's okay. Right? There's an agreement between the employee and the employer that they're doing a task, and they're they're getting they're compensated for that task. There are gonna be certain people that have elevated or or different levels of of connectiveness and engagement, and we wanna make sure that we are that we are empowering those folks to do that. And, again, a lot of that comes down to communication about why decisions are made, about what this means for you, about what the opportunity is for you.
Mark Mohammadpour:One area would be around career growth, back to career well-being. How many times in our respective careers and lives have we seen a manager employee relationship sort of go sour because that employee doesn't see an opportunity to grow, maybe that manager doesn't want them to grow. Don't mean to be cynical, but I've seen this.
Mike Coffey:Right. Well, yeah, you don't wanna lose this talent. This guy is great at turning this wrench. Right? And I don't wanna lose that great wrench turner to another department or moving up the chain.
Mark Mohammadpour:Exactly. I the I've I've counted on that person for years. I I can't take on their time. No one else can do it as as good as they well, what happens, not only do they lead the team, they lead the entire organization.
Mike Coffey:Mhmm.
Mark Mohammadpour:And so that comes from a place of insecurity and we need to make sure that managers understand their role. Right? And understand that, look, their their role is to really help get a job done, right, as as as defined, to be able to empower people to to grow in a way that works for them. So we need to make sure that we're we're putting this in in respect. And you have some people who want to be lifers within a team, but let's also make sure we're having those discussions early and often with our employees.
Mark Mohammadpour:Back to your point about surveys, you know, I've, I've heard from some companies who say, Oh, we're worried about surveying our employees too much. Look, if I'm an employee of a company, I will take a survey every day if the employer listens to that feedback and takes action on it. That's the problem, is that where there's no not only feedback loop but also actions that are taking place. So for those companies that are worried about it, go through the filter first to be able to say instead of quantifying the number of surveys, talk about how you're going to act on the first one. And then you will see change.
Mark Mohammadpour:Then you will see people okay with taking those surveys. Forget about how long the surveys are. Forget about the frequency. Focus on the work that's going to be done to listen to the results. And then back to the employee employee relationship and back to the culture of well-being, it's one thing for the chief executive or the C suite to talk about the survey data.
Mark Mohammadpour:It's to compartmentalize that for your work stream. Right? This is what we're seeing. And even if you don't have the the survey by work stream or by department, but be able to contextualize that feedback and have a discussion to be able to say, how do you feel about this and make it a a safe environment and be able to discuss at that work stream level, what are some things that we can adjust? That's a critical part of this whole process.
Mark Mohammadpour:And, again, back to engagement, back to having people feel heard, ultimately, it's it's makes for a positive experience for everybody.
Mike Coffey:So just to kinda wrap this up, we're running short on time, but if I'm a leader and let's say we're profitable, we don't have high turnover, you know, our as far as we can tell, anecdotally, our employees seem to not hate us and like to come to work. We don't have a lot of employee relations issues, those kind of things. But I wanna get a good pulse for really what is our wellness level. You know? What how healthy are we?
Mike Coffey:What yeah. Would that be a survey, or what would you say look at first?
Mark Mohammadpour:I think I think it's it's it's three parts. It's first and this will obviously have in conjunction with HR, an understanding of the of the benefits being used by your work stream.
Mike Coffey:Okay.
Mark Mohammadpour:And there's a lot of data out there that talks about the big delta in what companies offer versus what employees use. So getting a sense of that. And then as part of that, are your employees aware of those benefits? And again, this comes down to communication. You think about yourself as a buyer of of a product.
Mark Mohammadpour:How many points in time do you do you need to hear about that before you make a decision? It's very similar with benefits, open enrollment, everything, right, as far as that's concerned. So you tie that to the conversations that yeah. I think it's a quantifiable and qualifiable discussion with your with your specific employees. And you're maybe work at the HR department or your employees' comps department about three to five questions that are very specific to your work stream around how they're feeling and tie that with some conversations that you're you're having with them.
Mark Mohammadpour:And I think between that those three, right, understand the benefits that are being used because that's ultimate that's part of compensation, your quantifiable data based on a pull survey that's defined specifically for your work stream and then conversations with a select group. And then let's look at that data and identify what are two or three things that we can put together as a pilot to to be able to to make some adjustments as needed. And that and that's what I would then implement over the next three, six months, and come back and see and see how the how the results look.
Mike Coffey:So we plan, do, check, act. Alright? We get our data. We implement something, see what the results are, revisit it, and make adjustments, and try it again.
Mark Mohammadpour:Perfect. Absolutely.
Mike Coffey:Well, hey. That's a great place to end it. Thank you for joining me today, Mark.
Mark Mohammadpour:Thank you, Mike. It's a pleasure.
Mike Coffey:And thank you for listening. You can comment on this episode or search our previous episodes at goodmorninghr.com or on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. And don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast. Rob Upchurch is our technical producer, and you can reach him at rob makes pods dot com. And thank you to Mary Anne Hernandez, Imperatives marketing coordinator who keeps the trains running on time.
Mike Coffey:And I'm Mike Coffey. As always, don't hesitate to reach out if I can be of service to you personally or professionally. I'll see you next week and until then be well, do good, and keep your chin up.