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💥 Ignite your company culture with the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast!
We bring together incredible leaders, trailblazing entrepreneurs, and expert visionaries to share the secrets to their success, explore real-world challenges, and reveal what it truly takes to lead with energy, passion, and purpose as a 🌟VIBRANT🌟 Leader.
🎧 Tune in every week as Nicole Greer dives deep with a new inspiring guest, delivering fresh insights and actionable wisdom to elevate your leadership game!
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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and smarts you need to turn possibility into purpose. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:36] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me The Vibrant Coach, and I am here with another amazing guest that you all are going to love. Let me introduce you to Mary Rusterholz. She is the Chief People Officer at Constant Contact, and I'm a customer of Constant Contact. Yeah. And they are the leading digital marketing and automation platform for small businesses and nonprofits. She leverages her extensive human resource management experience to build a forward looking, scalable, and sustainable platform for growth. This includes integrating new systems, enhancing existing professional development programs, and amplifying the company's commitment to an inclusive and engaged workforce.
[00:01:21] Before joining Constant Contact, she served as the Chief Human Resources Officer for Lightbox, a leading provider of due diligence, risk management, location intelligence, and workflow solutions. Welcome to the show, Mary. How are you?
[00:01:35] Mary Rusterholz: Thank you. I'm well, Nicole. I appreciate being here. I'm excited.
[00:01:38] Nicole Greer: Yeah, I'm excited to have you here. So first of all shameless plug for Constant Contact. I've been using them for a long time. I've built a list of like 11,000 people on there that we send messages to. Yeah, so it's very helpful in building what we're trying to do over here at Build a Vibrant Culture, keep people plugged in.
[00:01:57] So what a great product. I'll just say that right outta the gate, but tell me a little bit about you, Mary. How did you get started in Human Resources? I have all my human resources peeps who are listening to this right now. How'd you get started in the biz?
[00:02:09] Mary Rusterholz: You know, I was an accounting major, 'cause I loved numbers, but it was quickly apparent that my desire to be part of the people fabric was stronger than my desire for numbers. So I used the accounting part of my brain to help me, but I loved the idea of really understanding business and then applying the human element to it.
[00:02:32] And I was fortunate enough to have amazing mentors and experiences, cross-functional experiences that led me down my path and led me to Constant Contact.
[00:02:43] Nicole Greer: Oh, that's so good. That's so good. I picked up on one word you said immediately, which is I had mentors along the way, and one of my philosophies is that if you want to build a vibrant culture. There are four kind of hats that leaders need to wear and one of them is being a mentor. So I'm curious, will you share a little bit about your thoughts on mentoring and maybe even a little something about one of your mentors along the way?
[00:03:09] Mary Rusterholz: Yeah, so I, to me, leadership is all about people. And it's not-- you know, often that gets discounted of, oh, touchy feely, but there's not a business that exists who doesn't exist without its people. That's just a fact. And so as leaders, knowing how to listen, really lean in and mentoring people from where they are. Right. Whether you have the fresher, as we call them, you know, right out of school, you have somebody who's reinvented themselves. What are they trying to achieve and how can you help them with that? It's not about giving them the answer, it is not about telling them you have to go down this path. It's creating a forum to help them think through their ideas, their approaches. Helping them when they trip, you know, and giving them, again, not an answer, but here's another way to consider it going forward. I think it's absolutely essential, and it's something this year more than ever, we're putting a lot of time, energy, and tools in the hands of our leaders at all levels to really help them understand the difference between being the boss and being a leader, and a lot of that is the mentorship that goes with it. And then encouraging people, even if there's not a formal mentor program, there's always somebody who's open. So we talk about networking and we often think of it outside of the company you're in, but it's inside your company. Reach out to somebody in another function that you've seen them, you, you admire what they do, you want to learn more. Ask them to spend some time with you. It's such a powerful way to develop.
[00:04:40] Nicole Greer: I couldn't agree more. In fact, I have a dear friend. I coached her for a very long time and then, you know, just after a while they just become your dear friends. Right? If you coach for 10 years or more, you kind of grow up with people. Yeah. And so, uh, I was working with her and she worked at Bank of America and she was talking about this position she wanted, and I was like, well, who does that position report to? And she's like, oh, you know, Susan, or whatever her name was. And I said, you need to call up Susan and see if you can, you know, 'cause this is an internal promotion. I'm like, see if you can get some time with Susan.
[00:05:11] She's like, I could never do that. And I'm like, well, you can make a phone call. I've seen you, you've called me before. I know you can make a phone call. You know, so like, make a phone call, leave her a voicemail, see what she says. And by gosh if Susan just didn't set up a time to talk to her and was so impressed by the fact that she did what you just said, networked within the company.
[00:05:31] Mary Rusterholz: Absolutely and it's amazing, you have to be willing to be a little vulnerable. And that's something that people have a tendency to think that's a sign of weakness or I don't know what I'm doing. But when you lean into somebody else and ask them to help you on your journey? My original boss in HR is somebody I still call to this day. Sometimes if I need a, just a kick in the butt, sometimes I need somebody who will fight with me. 'Cause I find fighting in the most professional way, the best way to learn and grow and listen.
[00:06:03] Nicole Greer: Right, debate! Let's do it!
[00:06:04] Mary Rusterholz: Exactly. Absolutely.
[00:06:06] Nicole Greer: Oh, that's so good. That's so good. And the other thing I love about what you're saying is not burning bridges and keeping these people in your network for the long, long haul. You know, sometimes I'll talk to people about, how do you quit the right way? I'm like, you quit by making sure everybody knows you'll still be calling, you'll still be in contact, you know?
[00:06:24] Mary Rusterholz: Absolutely. And that applies too when companies, when you have to make a tough decision that an employee is no longer the right employee for the company. Has nothing to do with their value. Sometimes change results in, in transitions. How you treat that person is so important. To me, how you treat somebody if they're leaving is almost as important as when they start. Or equally important. And I have many people who, over the years I've had to be part of tough discussions and they still call me, and I find that the ultimate compliment.
[00:06:57] Nicole Greer: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. All right, so, uh, you said something earlier that I just want to harken back to for a second because I think what Mary said was so important. You said, Mary, there's nothing, there's no organization without the people. Like you got the people are the organization. Is that what you said?
[00:07:13] Mary Rusterholz: I absolutely did.
[00:07:14] Nicole Greer: Okay. All right. I couldn't agree more. And so I think when you want to work on the culture, it's not like you work on the stuff. It's like you work on the people. 'Cause when the people are awesome, then the culture is awesome. So at Constant Contact, what are some of the ways that you quote unquote work on your people or help your people? I heard mentoring, but what else?
[00:07:35] Mary Rusterholz: Yeah. Well first of all, you know, when you're dealing with people, clarity, respect understanding where they're going is so important. All the training in the world, all the aspirational goals don't matter if people have no idea what they're aiming toward. So I do think clarity and openness is critical. Over the last few years, we've put in a series of programs and tools. We started with our online learning system, narrowing it down, we put in a new one. It's very AI generated, so it becomes that shared responsibility of both the company creating the forum and the employees taking advantage, but through their process, it puts more programs to them. We developed two internal programs that combine experiential learning and formal training. One was called Amplify. One was called Ascend. One focused on our higher potentials that we want to prepare for future roles. And the other one was for historically underrepresented in tech. And it was so fun to see people go through there, individual contributors who were given a Capstone program and they were able to present to a group of senior leaders, get exposure that they might not have gotten, and help people lean into it. We've created career guides. And we're a small company, relative. We have 1200 employees, so there's not the, if you do all these things, there's the next step. So we talk about growth, being broad, not always up, and giving people career guides to have meaningful discussions with their manager. Here's what I want to be when I grow up. Well what types of skills do I have to get? What type of experiences? And then we do a lot of cross-functional project work. You know, picking somebody up and saying, you're an HR person, we're doing something in product. Do you want to be part of that? And giving them the chance to get that exposure. And that's just a handful of the things that we're doing.
[00:09:32] Nicole Greer: That's fantastic. And so I love the names of your programs, by the way, if you came up with them. Good job. I love them. Amplify and Ascend. I totally love that. And you mentioned something in there, you said my high potentials. So let's go poke on that for just a second. I think inside of every organization there's always the hungry people that want to get ahead, they want to do what they need to do so that they can be promoted and don't miss what Mary said everybody. She said, you know, we're not a huge company, but we can give people experience, we can give them the opportunity so that when and if-- final part's really important-- and if this happens in their lifetime or their tenure with us, they'll be ready to go. I mean, I think that's the most important thing of a vibrant culture is we got people ready to go when the opportunities come. 'Cause we never know what could happen to Constant Contact.
[00:10:20] Mary Rusterholz: Absolutely. And as leaders, we have an obligation to prepare the organization for the future. And it's not just about the numbers and the balance sheet-- that's a given. But it's about the people. So the measurement of if you can fill jobs internally, that's great news. You know, if you don't have to go outside, that's always ideal.
[00:10:39] But making sure that we position people, you know, our Hi-Pos and the Hi-Pos could be at all levels. It might be somebody who's going to be ready for a product manager role, or somebody who's going to be ready for a VP role. But giving them that experience, giving them cross-functional exposure, giving them projects that again, they wouldn't naturally work on in their functional silo. That helps us fulfill our obligation to the people.
[00:11:06] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So I'm wondering if you could give us an example of a couple of these things you're talking about. You know, so you said we can give them cross-functional exposure. They in the one program, they do a capstone. These different little things that you're doing, can you kind of tease those out and maybe give an example? I know that the HR minds listening to this are like, okay, well how do you do that? What exactly does it look like?
[00:11:28] Mary Rusterholz: Would love to. So first, for our Amplify program, which was our historically underrepresented, we identified primarily individual contributors, and we used a program called Exec Net, or Exec Online, I apologize. Exec Online is a very robust online training portal that's associated with large universities. So it's Yale, it's the Wharton School. And working with their manager, we identified areas that would help them in their future development. It could be financial acumen, it could be presentation skills, it could be change management. And we identified four different programs for them to take. And at the end of the program it's time they're doing it at night, they get a certificate from Yale or from Wharton.
[00:12:17] So they get bragging rights, but they're building their toolkit of skills. After they do that, we identify a project for the company. So for example, one was-- what did we do? Oh, we wanted to look at our diversity with our partners, specifically for our procurement platform. So we had a group of eight people and they looked at everything. They had six weeks to come together to evaluate what we were doing, maybe what we weren't doing, do some external research, and then come up with a presentation to talk about, here's our current state of the union, here's what we might be able to do differently. If we wanted to basically expand our diversity amongst our vendors, how would we do it? And they presented it to the executive team.
[00:13:07] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And so you've got to have an executive team that has an open mind is what I'm hearing, because they're thinking. We do have time to listen to these folks.
[00:13:19] Mary Rusterholz: Yeah, well, and whether you have time, whether you have time or not, you need to make time, right? You cannot speak out of both sides of your mouth and say, we want to develop people. We want to get them ready. We believe that they're the engine and then not find the time to make it happen. And so that exposure alone, and with that, not only did they get a great experience, but they also developed this other community in the company 'cause they were working with people who they might not have otherwise met. So all of a sudden they know somebody in customer success and they learn, oh, that's what customer success is. Or, I'm working with somebody in finance, here's who I can call in the future.
[00:13:58] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. That's so fantastic. Yeah. So, you know, culture is the people in the, and the coming together of the people and then how we're working on the people. And so Mary shared that. And then I'm kind of hearing that there's, you know, the philosophy, right? And philosophy, the way we think about things that we have to make time to work on the people. That's a core part of your culture. And then another thing is that we've gotta provide them you know, the different aspects of learning. So what would be some more of the philosophy behind what you do to build a vibrant culture at Constant Contact?
[00:14:33] Mary Rusterholz: Our values are really important to us. They're simple, they're clear. They're not simply things that are on the board. So whether it's, you know, customers are our constant, we want everybody to understand who our customers are, and we make, and it's such a north star for our employees. Like when we do quarterly pulse surveys. Say, how are we doing? You know, have we made changes? Have we improved in certain areas? And the one thing that comes out consistently is the passion that people have for our mission as a company. That we support small businesses, which is the fabric of everything we do. We, you know, think big, go bigger. Don't be afraid. Sometimes you have to break things. So we encourage people to be innovative, be intellectually curious. Complacency is the worst possible thing. So we incorporate that. We incorporate it into our reviews, we incorporate it into our onboarding process. We incorporate it in our one-on-ones to make sure that managers are, ask your employee how they're doing. Do they see opportunities? We do exit interviews. But my feeling about exit interviews is somebody's made a decision. So we do a lot of stay interviews and we talk to them what's working, what's not. Are you clear on what your goals are? Are you clear on what we're doing as an organization and we take the time to listen and then incorporate that. And it might be a small tweak to our all company meeting. It might be a small tweak to some of our written communications, but always being willing to listen and change, you know, is the way you get a culture to believe in, okay, they actually do care. They care about what we're doing and again, it's not about being soft and squishy. It's about understanding engaged employees who understand what success looks like, who understands that we're going to support them in good and bad, right? Because everybody has a moment where there's things going on in their lives and they might not be their best selves. So we have forums for that, whether it's our affinity groups. We have amazing mental health benefits and support that meet people where they are. And so in every aspect of their work environment, we try to find a way that they have the support that they need and they know what they're accountable for.
[00:16:57] Nicole Greer: Yeah, that's so fantastic. And so right now I have to give a shout out for Joletta. Who is the person that I talk to who's my marketing advisor, who holds my hand and takes me steps by step through every little click on Constant Contact. And the gal is excellent. Like, I think one of the things about building a vibrant culture is that when you experience the employee who's living in that culture is you get like an excellent experience. So, Joletta Boyer, I love you. So
[00:17:28] Mary Rusterholz: Love that. Love that shout out.
[00:17:30] Nicole Greer: Yeah, she's awesome. She is awesome. She's so fast too. Like sometimes like Joette slow down. She's like, oh, sorry. But like you could just feel her passion for wanting to help me do better. I think it's so wonderful.
[00:17:41] Mary Rusterholz: I was just going to say, I think too, you know, the way we approach our customers, you know, we want to be with our customers every step of their journey, right? Whether they're making soap in a garage and that's their start, or they're five years into their journey and they're getting their first brick and mortar. We provide marketing services for every stage of that. When I look at what we need to do from a people standpoint, it's very similar. How do we help people on their journey? Whether it's out of school or they're 30 years into their career.
[00:18:12] Nicole Greer: That's so good. And you mentioned this thing about in the beginning you said, you know, people need to be clear about where the company is going. So, I just want to say that to everybody is that another major part of a vibrant culture is that people understand there's a vision. This is where the company's trying to go. And then I understand how my role makes that happen. So I'm curious about, you mentioned Mission. I'm also curious about vision. Will you talk about the mission and the vision of Constant Contact and how
[00:18:40] Mary Rusterholz: Again, the mission is very much to be the single source of marketing support for SMDs and nonprofits. We want to be that company that allows businesses like yourself to do what they do best, and we'll handle the marketing piece, like we want to be that partner. And the vision is to continually listen to the feedback. Right. What is a customer saying? We can't develop products because we think they're cool. We have to develop products and tools that customers say, I need help with this. That's the way we should be doing it. Our employees need to understand that, and so we have multiple areas of communication that we use that for, whether it's our Slack channels, whether it's our monthly all company meeting, whether it's our monthly managers meeting, our weekly communications that we use our product for, that we're excited about. And then we translate that into goals. Right. Like if an employee doesn't know what he or she is supposed to be focused on, nobody can be surprised when the results might not yield what one wanted. So during our annual review process that we talk about the goals, but it's not an annual review process, right? You start with the company, it's a 90 day onboarding where we check in, we make sure your goals are set. Both the hard ones as well as the competencies that we look for. We check in again, we have their manager check in, and then quarterly we look at how are we doing? Yeah. Are we meeting our goals? Have things changed? Do we need to adapt? Is somebody struggling? How do we lean in and provide them direction? So it's not a moment in time. It has to be a process, an ongoing journey.
[00:20:27] Nicole Greer: Yeah. It's systemic, right? you've got to have a system in place. And what you're talking about, I would call employee performance management. What would, what, how do you guys phrase it at Constant Contact?
[00:20:36] Mary Rusterholz: I would call it performance management as well and I try to get away from it being like that annual event that anybody who's ever done a review hates, right? Whether you're receiving it or writing it, nobody gets excited. So when you make it part of a process and a whole system, it becomes less onerous. It becomes like, oh, now I get it. Like Mary's doing better because we sat down and we reviewed our goals again.
[00:21:02] Nicole Greer: That's right. And you know, I really think, in terms of a culture, I think about like, a culture inside of my town, my city, my state, that kind of thing. The most important relationships are with like, the people who are, in my nucleus, right? So like the relationship with, parents or with a spouse or something like that. And it's analogous to like having a really great relationship with your manager. You know, Mary, you've seen all the stuff from SHRM Society for Human Resource Management, where people are like, oh, employee engagement is way off. I mean, I believe that performance management is the cure-all almost to employee engagement problems. What do you think?
[00:21:44] Mary Rusterholz: I think performance management done well definitely enables engagement. No question. Yet if the behavior surrounding the day-to-day interactions does not reflect the same, that's when you get into trouble. If a manager simply goes through, I follow the process. I do what I'm told to do, but he or she doesn't take the time to just lean in, day in and day out. Check in, make sure that the clarity is there. Empathy. When people are going through crazy times, that's when it goes a little awry, and we've been lucky. We have a very high level of engagement, but we have ebbs and flows. We've had the tough lessons where we've done some changes and we thought we were brilliant and we realized, ooh, maybe we, we did this really well, but we could have done this a little bit better. The willingness to change and acknowledge that is what makes the difference.
[00:22:41] Nicole Greer: Right, some humility from the top. Yeah.
[00:22:43] Mary Rusterholz: Exactly. Leaders who believe they've got all the right answers. Shame on them. Right? All of us have to know. I've always got an opportunity to learn from somebody and we take that seriously and we incorporate it into the way we work.
[00:22:58] Nicole Greer: So good.
[00:22:59] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within! Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:23:31] Nicole Greer: And so another thing I just want to highlight because Mary's a pro and she's just whipping this stuff out, but she also talked about this thing called the employee lifecycle. So whenever I'm working with an organization a lot of times they don't have their, the handle on the lifecycle. So we attract this person to Constant Contact. We go through the recruiting process, we onboard, we orientate, you know, the onboarding I think is-- it's not a day. That's orientation. Right? Onboarding is this thing that's long time, you said 90 days, I think. Right. And then the stay interviews and the training and everything in between. So what's the lifecycle like for somebody that joins Constant Contact? How have you guys made that beautiful for people?
[00:24:16] Mary Rusterholz: So obviously the recruiting process itself is really important. So how they're treated during that, even if they don't get a role because you never know they might be right for a future role.
[00:24:26] Nicole Greer: That's exactly right.
[00:24:28] Mary Rusterholz: So we work hard to make sure that people get responses in a timely manner. And that's always a challenge, especially in a market where sometimes you'll get thousands of resumes. But we work hard at doing that. Once an employee has accepted their offer, we send them a little welcome gift, which is a box of stuff, just to remind them they're coming and we're excited about it.
[00:24:47] Nicole Greer: Oh what's the box? We all want to know what to put in our box .
[00:24:48] Mary Rusterholz: A coffee mug. It could be a hat, it could be shirts, mouse pad, various items. And then a couple days before they start, we reach out. HR reaches out as well as the manager reaches out. They get a bunch of links through Workday that they have to fill out so we can pay them.
[00:25:08] Nicole Greer: And they always fill those out.
[00:25:10] Mary Rusterholz: Yes. And then day one, they have both an IT orientation to make sure that they know this is your computer, this is how you get into it. And since we have a hybrid workforce, often it's, you know, on a Google call. So making sure everybody starts from day one. Turn on your camera. Like, let us see you and say hi to you. Let us walk you through. IT orientation is followed by a company orientation. This is who we are, this is a bit of our history, here's our structure as an organization, HR tools that are available to you-- within reason. We don't try to give them everything in that first meeting because if you do, people's heads are spinning and they remember nothing. So we spend a little time even with their orientation class, making sure they know who each other are because that becomes their graduating class. And a person they can call and say, I, I know they told me this, but I have no idea what they said. And then each week there's something else. It might be the introduction to Skillsoft, our online training portal. It might be an introduction to our Slack channels. Here's all our Affinity groups, you know, please, and then the Affinity groups will welcome people. So that they get that ongoing feeling of, yes, I'm new, but I don't feel like I'm on an island. And then the manager is expected to finalize and discuss goals. They're probably going to have 30 day goals, and then they're going to have their set goals just to make sure that they're ready to rock.
[00:26:41] Nicole Greer: So good. So good. All right. So you've mentioned like a couple of times now Affinity groups, and so, I love the word affinity. It means like, I care about you, I love you you're like-minded, like you're with me or whatever. So tell us a little bit about your Affinity groups. How do they get started? What might be a couple of them. And do you have like a success story from putting that in place? Because I know that a lot of organizations they have to typically be larger to get that. 'cause you need like, you know, this mass of people so that you can have people at your different meetings, but you've got 1200 employees, you're pulling this off. How are you doing that?
[00:27:16] Mary Rusterholz: I would love to say that I was the mastermind behind creating them,
[00:27:19] Nicole Greer: Oh, well
[00:27:20] Mary Rusterholz: They were
[00:27:21] Nicole Greer: it all, Mary.
[00:27:23] Mary Rusterholz: Yeah. At the same time I just love the energy that they have. We've got our impact group, we've got, you know, our Pride group we have our veterans group, we have our parents group. We have 10 active Affinity Group, our veterans group. And what's wonderful is we don't try to run it. 'Cause I would never be as good as the champions who step in from the employee base to run them. And they're given a budget. So they have an opportunity to run events. Veterans Day is always one of the favorites because employees send in, you know, people who served in their family could be a dad or a grandfather or a child. And they put together most remarkable presentation and send it out for everybody to see. And it's an opportunity to celebrate those people that are important to them. You know, our disability group, our ability, I like to call them. They share stories of things that are going on, things that they've tried. Our Pride group they're so fun and they share, you know, changes and everything from oils that they're using, if they're going through a transition to events that they attended. Most recently, they set up a great speaker and we had over 150 people attend. You know, just to learn more. And that's what the Affinity groups are all about.
[00:28:44] It is not about some broad statement, it is about creating a community where people can, again, you know, one of our values is you belong here. Where they have that safe space. They can talk about, my 2-year-old is having fits in the grocery store. Anybody have any advice? And they share with each other. It is something that I am very proud of. So.
[00:29:06] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. And what you're highlighting is, I've got this thing I always say when I teach the Vibrant Culture Toolbox, I say, sometimes people want to separate work and their personal life, and I'm okay with that, but like it's really hard to separate the two. Because if I come to work, I brought everything that happened at the house, kind of, you know, it's with me. And then everything that happened at work, I kind of take it home with me. And when people have a relationship that's deeper, wider, broader than just their work relationship I think it does this amazing thing. Builds trust.
[00:29:39] Mary Rusterholz: It does build trust and it builds again, that willingness to be a little vulnerable. You know, in, in a world where, I mean, especially in our world, change is nonstop. And we've gone through a lot of change over the last 18 months and it can be invigorating, but it is scary. So making sure that as people are going through, whether it's change in the business or change at home, that they have these outlets is really important.
[00:30:05] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. And so you've mentioned the core values also, which I think is an absolutely essential part of building a vibrant culture. And I love what you're saying about how we're not just, you know, have them on a wall somewhere. We are actually living them out, which is huge. You know, how do you incorporate the values into the whole lifecycle? Do you use the values from the attraction, the recruiting, from there all the way through? How do you use your values as a real tool so that it's not just fluffy stuff?
[00:30:38] Mary Rusterholz: It's so fair. We speak to them during the interview process, but not like, here are our five values. We speak to how those values are embedded into the way we work. You know, one of our values is: Keep It Real. Do it Right. We're going to tell people the truth. And the truth is not always easy, right? We're going to be respectful, we're going to be honest. But you know, if things are going well, you're going to know. If things are a little off, you're going to know. And for many people, they might not want that. You know, they want to hear the good stuff. I don't relate to that personally, but I understand. So for people to understand what guides us in the way we work, day in and day out, is important from the beginning. We do talk about them during the onboarding process. We talk about them probably at every company meeting. We're referring to one or another, whether it's You Belong Here. Think Big, Go Bigger. Adapt and Act for Impact. Like when people are feeling like, I don't know if I want to make the change. It's like, why not? We've got all the data. Let's go, let's try it. So I think making the values fundamental to the way we want our employees to work. And again, I go back to intellectual curiosity is probably one of the most profound thing you can find in a person. It's their willingness to challenge, to think, to learn, to change, and those come out in the way that we embrace our values. And it's top down, bottom up, side to side. It is not a, you know, one size fits all. Everybody kind of brings it all.
[00:32:17] Nicole Greer: Yeah, and I love what you're saying. I think there's nothing worse than having a list of core values and there's like some hypocrisy in them. For example, the most overused core value of all time, Excellence, you know, something like that, right? And so I'm all about excellence, but then my gosh, the folks at the top, they've gotta be excellent. We've gotta hold people accountable for excellence. So it's got to really be the thread that goes through the whole fabric. I agree.
[00:32:42] Mary Rusterholz: And we have, you know, we are lucky enough, we have a CEO who is a continuous learner. In everything he does. So he's always challenging to make sure we're reading things that we're thinking
[00:32:55] Nicole Greer: I love that.
[00:32:56] Mary Rusterholz: He makes the time is the first thing that he will say is, we're in the business of people. Yes, we have a business to run, we have numbers to hit, but unless we do it by developing our team and making sure we have the right people in the right seats, and the team that he hires and it, I was going to say, encourages us mandates that we think that. Yeah, day in and day out, which is what excites me in my role is let's find the right people, right? And so in a time where everybody wants to fill the job now, you always have to strike that balance between there's speed and there's reckless. And I love going fast, but taking the time and care to bring in the right individuals is the right thing to do every time.
[00:33:41] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So I'm going to kind of put you on the spot, Mary, but only because I'm super curious. You said that he encourages us to read and so, one of the big phrases I use all the time and like I will go work with a team of individuals and I'll be like, this is the book I want you to read. And like the eye rolls and deep sighs just grieve my heart. I'm like, how are you going to get better if you don't learn something? You've got to learn. So I'm curious what book is going around. Constant Contact right now, that we could all put on our list or something that was in the past that you're like, buddy, we love this thing.
[00:34:13] Mary Rusterholz: You know, it's funny, there's not a book right now. There's a few podcasts that have been dropping our way to listen, which is great and I'm personally a big audio book person. It's funny, this last two weeks I've been spending a lot of time on an old book that I read years ago, _The Culture Code_.
[00:34:30] Nicole Greer: Oh, so good.
[00:34:31] Mary Rusterholz: It really is. And just again, the whole idea of safety, vulnerability, purpose, and reminding people, and I've gone back to that because in times of change, again, simplicity and clarity is so powerful and that's a lot of what we all do. So. He's always challenging. It was last year we went back to _Good To Great_. Just to remind ourselves, you know, all the things. And one of my personal favorites from ever and ever is _Everything You Ever Need To Know You Learned in Kindergarten_.
[00:35:03] Nicole Greer: Oh my gosh, so good. Yeah. These are all on my shelf.
[00:35:06] Mary Rusterholz: Right? They're
[00:35:07] Nicole Greer: Y'all write these down and go get them in your cart!
[00:35:11] Mary Rusterholz: Because the idea of, if you treat people like adults, if you give them flexibility and clarity, they rise to the occasion.
[00:35:20] Nicole Greer: Yeah they do.
[00:35:21] Mary Rusterholz: And I think sometimes business can forget that, and I think you have to just tell everybody, do you know, do A, B, and C rather than let me tell you what we need to achieve. And now let me lean in and ask you what do you think? This is how we're thinking of going down that path. Would you do anything different?
[00:35:40] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And Mary, you say this thing over and you, I don't know if you know, you say it, but it's so beautiful. You say, lean in. We tell our managers to lean in. Lean in. Yeah. And so, I got a picture of my dad, like when he was trying to get my attention, he'd be like, now Nicole. And he would come real close, almost forehead to forehead with me, and I'd be like, yes, sir. But it was like he wanted to make sure I was getting it. And he loved me enough to like get my attention. So when you say lean in, can you tease that apart a little bit? What does that look like when a manager leans in or you as a company lean in? What does that mean?
[00:36:16] Mary Rusterholz: I think it, it means you listen to the feedback. You stay open, you stay grounded in the values. You're flexible enough, not flexible to break everything. And it is, I do say lean in a lot because my head it is that, talk to me, tell me what's going on, how do we fix this? And I always go back to, in the middle of crazy, ask the question, what are we solving for? Very simply. And then stop talking and listen to what people say. So I think that's absolutely essential, and that's the advice I give leaders. You know, be okay with humility. Recognize you don't have all the answers. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and better at things than you are.
[00:37:04] Nicole Greer: Oh, that's good.
[00:37:05] Mary Rusterholz: And that's how you, and that's how you succeed. That's how everybody succeeds.
[00:37:10] Nicole Greer: That's so good. I love it. Yeah. And so, one more thing I want to ask you about. You've mentioned that you have everybody in the company on a call. I don't, do you guys call that a town hall? What do you call that?
[00:37:20] Mary Rusterholz: We call it an all company meeting.
[00:37:22] Nicole Greer: All company meeting. Okay.
[00:37:24] Mary Rusterholz: Yep. We do it every month. It's an opportunity, and that's a great example of that has evolved over, over the quarters and the years. It's now half and half. It's half is content, half is just open Q&A. And it's an opportunity to say, here's how we're doing on our business metrics. Here's an update on maybe one or two fun things that are going on. Big initiatives that you might have heard about. We want to give you a bit more clarity. And then it's open forum.
[00:37:55] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:37:56] Mary Rusterholz: Like what's on your mind?
[00:37:57] Nicole Greer: And so isn't that so lovely that you know that like once a month you're going to have an opportunity to speak up and to ask the questions you need? And it goes back to what Mary said. Y'all don't miss this. She keeps saying clarity as well. People are clear, you know, and when people are clear, something comes their direction, they're like, oh, I know what to do with that. Because of the clarity that I have, but it's when I don't have clarity, I'm like, I'm not sure what to do. And so stuff gets stalled and stuck and not happening. I just love this. Yeah.
[00:38:26] Mary Rusterholz: And I think people can often think, when you say clear, there's an assumption of everything is neat and clean, and the playbook is all written. That is not the case. That means, more specifically, when things are changing, evolving, you're buying a new company, you're launching a new product, you're implementing a new system. Making sure people understand what we're doing, why we're doing it, the benefit, and the role they play. It's just that tiny bit of time to bring it all together allows people to spend their energy on working up toward it rather than obsessing about it.
[00:39:02] Nicole Greer: That's so good. Yeah. And don't miss that. 'Cause what I just heard you say is that like, at least we're telling you where we're going. We're not sure how to get there. We've never done this before, but just so you're clear, make a choice that gets us over there.
[00:39:17] Mary Rusterholz: Absolutely. And as we have more clarity, we are committed. You're going to know, right?
[00:39:23] Nicole Greer: Right, right. A hundred percent. Yeah. Okay. So I want to talk a little bit more about communication. So there's where they have everybody come together. I love that it's a hybrid and it's an update. And I think too, people they get that peace of mind or the psychological safety that's in culture code because we're sharing how the company's doing.
[00:39:42] You know, and like you said in the very beginning of this this podcast, as you said, you know, we want to tell people what the good, the bad, the ugly, everything in between. We just want the clarity. So there it is again. So you have that, and then what is kind of the cascading effect or the requirements of communication at Constant Contact? 'Cause don't miss the name: Constant Contact. You know, communication's a huge part of the culture. How else do you guys embed your culture in the communication.
[00:40:09] Mary Rusterholz: So a few ways. We also have a monthly manager meeting and a monthly director and above meeting. It's on the same day. And that's a forum to do some micro trainings. Maybe there's some new things coming out. If we're doing an acquisition or there's a change in a product, it's a smaller audience to make sure that the managers and leaders are prepared for any questions they might get from their team. We are bullish on one-on-ones.
[00:40:37] Nicole Greer: Oh, say it again, Mary. Say it again.
[00:40:39] Mary Rusterholz: Bullish on one-on-ones. And the one-on-one is not for you to just throw up on your employees and say, I need this, and this. It really is about that employee having a forum with you. If you have a lot of employees, even if it's 15 minutes every week, every other week. If it's a skip level and it's once a month. But creating that forum to give an employee the chance to say, here's what I'm doing, here's where I could use your help. Really important. So those are more the formals. And then of course there's just the team meetings. Like I have an expectation that my team meets every month. You know, very specific to the functional areas, and we invite guest speakers in. So again, do you guys want to know what's going on in customer success? Joining us today is Jamie Self, who runs our customer success organization. So it's to really drive education.
[00:41:33] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So don't miss that that just cuts that whole silo thing apart, right. When I have the customer service leader come over and talk to the HR team or, and vice versa. Right? So beautiful. It sounds like you guys have a serious intention to build a vibrant culture and then also give it attention. I think you've got to have both the intention and the attention. So a lot of times people talk culture, but they're not really doing anything.
[00:41:58] Mary Rusterholz: Yeah. And listen, when we get feedback and the pulse surveys allow us to better understand if we have groups that maybe they're falling off in terms of the frequency or the content. Great, we lean in. How do we help? What do you need? The HR business partners can work with them. You know, how do we get this back on track? Do you need my help with setting up some follow ups or some guests? It's an opportunity to, again, realign them and it's appreciated.
[00:42:30] Nicole Greer: I bet. That's so good. Yeah. So if you were going to name the culture at Constant Contact, you're going to give it a little moniker. You know, I like to talk about, of course, building a vibrant culture. Would you have a name or a phrase that might just kind of show people what you're doing with your culture?
[00:42:49] Mary Rusterholz: I always use the word evolving. And I use evolving because I'm very confident there is no such thing as a set culture. It's always growing and changing and morphing, and when you're open to it, it can only get better. And if you have blips, and you are willing to say, okay, we kind of messed that one up. And continuous learning? Then it'll get better again. So I think of us as kind of an evolving peak of communication.
[00:43:20] Nicole Greer: That's so beautiful. That's awesome. That's wonderful. Well, we are at the end of this podcast and it just flew by because I just feel like Mary's my sister from another mother or something. We're just culture HR chicks from the way back. So I'm curious is there one more nugget, like maybe I haven't asked you a question and you're like, dang, she didn't ask me the right question so I could tell them this about culture or tell them this about Constant Contact. Is there a thing in particular you'd like to share? Make sure everybody gets it?
[00:43:52] Mary Rusterholz: I mean, obviously from a Constant Contact standpoint, I just love the fact that you're a customer and everything we do is rooted in what do our customers need. Yet when I turn around and look at what's coming down the pike for the organization, I would say to people. Lean in again, not just to communication, but AI for example. Like we are encouraging people to don't be scared off by the technology. It's an opportunity to really figure out ways to accelerate processes, maybe make it easier. Nothing makes me more crazy that if I hear an employee say I had an issue on Saturday and I didn't know how to get an answer. So I always think of AI as an opportunity for us to continue the way we support and service our employees and the organization overall. And don't be afraid to talk about change. Don't shy away from it. You know, embrace it, recognize that it can be scary, help people through it, but that's the way you grow. As a person, as an organization, that's going to change everything and I think that's most critical for leaders and employees alike.
[00:45:08] Nicole Greer: Yeah. I love it. Yeah. All right. So embrace the AI. Don't be scared. And I'll just tell you a funny one. I was working with some folks in manufacturing and we were talking about getting written down policy and procedure for working like on a CNC machine. Okay? This is very dialed in. They're like, do you know how much work that's going to be to write that down and get that written out? And these are fellows and ladies who just want to do stuff. And I'm like, Nope, y'all need to learn to get stuff written down. So I said, hold on, we're going to play a game right now. It's called Chat GPT is my friend. And so anyways, we went in there and we typed in some kind of process.
[00:45:43] For using the CNC machine and like it just spit it out. And I showed it to them. I said, how's this? And they were flabbergasted. Like, that's pretty close. I'm like, okay, let's use this thing. So this change thing, it's huge, isn't it?
[00:45:58] Mary Rusterholz: It really is. And you know, a chat bot that is fed by your policies and procedures, if an employee doesn't have to reach out to a, if they're like, I don't want to talk to Mary, I just want an answer on when this starts.
[00:46:11] Nicole Greer: Right. How does Cobra work again?
[00:46:13] Mary Rusterholz: Yeah. yeah. they can get that answer first, and then if there's follow ups, they can call somebody. It's so nice. Documenting procedures and policies. Nobody gets overly excited about it.
[00:46:25] Nicole Greer: No.
[00:46:25] Mary Rusterholz: It's really important! But, we use Gemini which is part of the Google suite. It's amazing. And even when I talk about things like Skillsoft, the online training, the AI behind it, if I start-- we just bought a company that happens to be based in Athens, Greece. They're new part of our Constant Contact family. I wanted to,
[00:46:46] Nicole Greer: Are you getting to go to Greece?
[00:46:48] Mary Rusterholz: Not yet, but it's going to happen.
[00:46:49] Nicole Greer: Keep working it.
[00:46:50] Mary Rusterholz: Being able to go and learn more about some of the cultural nuances, some of the policies, I was able to go into our online training and it came up with 10 different programs that can help me. So yeah, technology is very powerful and people are not going anywhere. It's people doing this to embrace that technology that will help them.
[00:47:16] Nicole Greer: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. That's so good. All right, everybody, time is up and I know you're like no, don't let Mary go, but we love you, Mary. Thank you for being on the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. Now, here's the thing, you can follow Constant Contact over on the Facebook and on the X and on the Instagram, and of course you can find Mary on LinkedIn. Her name is MARY, last name is R-U-S-T-E-R-H-O-L-Z. And so check out Mary there and of course you can follow LinkedIn, their company page Constant Contact on LinkedIn so she could be found all of those different places. Mary, it has been a delight to have you on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast.
[00:47:56] Mary Rusterholz: It's been my pleasure, Nicole. I really appreciate it. And hope I gave some nuggets that are helpful and I'm always around If anybody ever wants to reach out.
[00:48:03] Nicole Greer: That's so fantastic. All right, everybody go down real quick. It takes one hot second. Click the like button and leave Mary a little one sentence. Love Note that you enjoyed having her on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. Until the next time, we'll see you later.
[00:48:17] Mary Rusterholz: Thank you so much. Bye.
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