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What if your company culture wasn’t just an HR buzzword but the secret weapon to scaling your business?
Welcome to Kan Talk Kulture, the podcast that dives deep into how remarkable company cultures are intentionally built and how they can transform your team, your business, and your bottom line.
Hosted by Kylie Anne Neal, founder of Kan Kulture and a passionate expert in people, culture, and leadership, this show is designed for business owners, CEOs, HR professionals, and anyone who believes that empowered people are the key to long-term success.
Each episode features real conversations with inspiring CEOs, business leaders, and culture champions who share how they’ve shaped their team environments alongside case studies, practical tips, and bold questions that challenge the status quo.
Whether you're looking to boost employee engagement, create a high-performance team, or align your people with your vision, this podcast will help you connect the dots between culture and growth.
At Kan Kulture, we believe in Kindness, Understanding, Learning, Trust, Uniqueness, Respect, and Evolving, and this podcast brings those values to life.
If you're ready to turn your team into your biggest brand ambassadors and create a workplace people love, this is the podcast for you.
Find out more at www.kankulture.com
Hi, I'm Kylie Ann Neal, founder of Kan Kulture and welcome to Kan Talk Kulture In this podcast, I sit down with some of Australia's most progressive founders and CEOs to explore the heart. Of their company Kultures what drives them, what they value, and what it's really like to work for the companies they lead.
You'll also find occasional episodes packed with practical HR insights to help you build safer, stronger, and more trusted workplaces. So whether you're a new team member, getting to know your workplace, curious about creating remarkable company Kultures Or just wanting to know more about implementing HR best practice.
You are in the right place. Let's dive in.
Hi everyone. I'm Kylie Neal, founder of Kan Kulture Welcome to the very first episode of Kan Talk Kulture Now being that this is an introductory episode, it's gonna be a little different from what you'll see moving forward. Normally I'd be sitting here with Australia's most progressive CEOs and founders talking about the heart of their company culture What drives them, what they value, and an insight to what it's really like to work in the companies that they lead. But for today, I'm flipping the mic and stepping into the hot seat myself. I'm here with Adam Bell as CEO himself from Pod Pro Australia, and he's gonna be interviewing me. So that you can get to know who I am, who Kan Kulture is, and why this podcast exists in the first place.
If you are a CEO or founder who would be interested in joining me for a future episode of Kan Talk Kulture or someone curious about what this podcast is all about, this is where it all begins. So Adam, welcome to Kan Talk Kulture
Kylie, thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute privilege to be here on the very first episode of a series that I know is going to be very successful and have a lot of benefits for all of those who actually listen to it throughout all the platforms that it's gonna be available on. And of course, the videos and the uses that I know you've got for it because you came to me with this idea. Probably over a month ago now, and I'm very impressed with what you're aiming to do.
And yeah, let's flip the mic. I'm gonna ask you a lot of questions, put you in the hot seat, and we are going to discuss what this is all about. So let's start with you.
Okay,
your backstory, where did it all start? How did you get into hr? And tell me a bit about Kan Kulture at the same time?
Yep, absolutely.
So thank you Adam, and thank you for leading this conversation today. So a bit about me. I have been working in HR for about 25 years or so. I've always been. Big believer that you spend a lot of time at work and being satisfied and happy in the workplace is very important. When I left school, I studied psychology, and to me I do HR through a psychology led mindset. Okay? I believe in motivation. I believe in engagement, and I believe that companies, regardless of size industries, can have remarkable company cultures where their team are inspired and energized to do their best work every day.
Fantastic. So Kan Kulture it's a company that obviously does help and provide services in the HR space, but culture is the driving force behind what you actually do, isn't it?
Absolutely. So when I think about HR or people and culture there is that side of. Governance. There's policies, there's procedures, there's employment law, all of those all that
really interesting stuff, all
that
fun stuff
that, companies really need to abide by. They do from all employees. It is about bringing that governance and compliance through the lens of having happy workplaces, people feeling inspired, people.
Wanting to abide by the boundaries that those governance and the awards allocate to their particular industries or roles? So definitely culture first, we look at the employee life cycle. We help companies strategically and operationally bring to life their recruitment practices, their performance management practices, their offboarding, their talent management, their calibrations, their salary reviews.
All of the touch points from people, practices that exist within an organization, we really help bring that to life.
Fantastic. And that's, I think what's really exciting about what I've learned about what you do as we have spent this time together that, look, we do know what HR is and the HR department, and like you said, procedures, policies, handbooks, rules, regulations, hr, hr, but you bring it to life in a very different way and.
As we've said, have that focus on culture which is a funny part to HR from a lay person's point of view, because that is about the people. That is about the feel, it's about the emotion and the fit and all of the human side where. As a contrast to what I just said against the rules, the regulations.
So I'm really looking forward to what you bring to this podcast because now's probably the time that we should bring up how this is going to look going forward, because I'm super excited. So tell me a little bit about what the plan for this podcast is.
Sure. So KAn Talk Kulture is a podcast about hearing from CEOs with the intention of the audience being the new starters and the employees.
So when people engage with an organization, they wanna know what's at the heart of the organization, what's
gonna go on, what's gonna happen when I work here, I've just left my old place. I wanna know 'cause it's scary.
Yeah, it is very scary. And it is. Big decision. Changing a role going into a new workplace.
You can have all the bells and whistles of recruitment process, but you don't actually really understand what you're getting yourself in for until you've actually started. Yep. And then there is the role, so what the person will actually be doing, but the Kulture side of it is just as important and it's really important that they can.
Engage the CEOs and the hiring managers and leadership and the team around them can really engage that emotional state from day one and make them feel very safe and secure in the environment, but also give them that confidence that they're going to have. Fun along the way, or that they're going to act with high levels of integrity, whatever the value set is of the organization.
For sure, and this is amazing because, this will be, you're going to be doing interviews with the CEOs and talking to them directly about the companies they lead. Who they are, what they do, how they lead, and how they've built. The Kulture that they do have within their organization, and I think this is quite unique and will be of major benefit to somebody who does, is going through that onboarding process.
I've thought this through as you've released the concept to me, and that is a. I remember what first days were like, a lot of checklists, a lot of signing documents, a lot of read this handbook, a lot of, and we've all also always heard the horror story. I thought you were starting next Monday.
Grab a seat over there. I'll see if Shirley can grab the stuff. And so to have a. Have a process there that includes, watching the podcast that you've done with the lead. 'cause we know that Kulture starts from the head down, doesn't it?
It certainly does. And I feel like that is regardless of the size of the organization.
So yes. One of, one of the big intentions of the podcast is to bring out the vulnerability and that raw essence of what. Drives the CEO or the founder, what drove them on day one and what they want in the blueprint of the Kulture I think sometimes people think that culture organically happens.
It can be crafted.
Crafted. Yeah. Crafted.
Absolutely. Yeah. It can be crafted and it can be great, and I think most
businesses and most CEOs realize that now, do they not?
I think, yes. In most instances, yes. But I think, part of my role and the team's role is to. Bring about the unique, that unique feeling, that unique vibe that they wanna create in the organization and thread it through their people practices.
So it is definitely complex and there is definitely an art to it. Yeah. And. I think sometimes CEOs and leaders need to be educated on what some of the consequences of the different touch points are through the employment life cycle and what the consequences are from a culture perspective, like tolerances in performance or that really emotional drive that people come when they're onboarding into an organization and being real, not just being a.
These are what the values are. That's like actually bring personalities. That's, and that's what
I love about what you're doing here, because anyone can put anything on a PDF on a brochure and say, here's our company, here's what we're like, here's, read the employee handbook and we'll write that in a way that makes you feel, but you want to, it's a human side, isn't it?
Yes. There is a leader, they are the main person crafting the culture and. I think you've hit on something incredible here to have a video, a personal, almost a personal interview that is tailored towards new staff members coming on board as a standard part of their onboarding process is absolutely brilliant and real way to make them feel welcome and get a real essence of what it is like without just reading the stock standard documentation.
Yes.
No, fantastic. But it's gonna be a little bit more than that as well, isn't it? So obviously there is the culture side and that's going to be 90% of what we, what you create here. But we're gonna put in some episodes just with some very high value content around some really important HR practices and functions as well.
Yes, absolutely. We have developed at Kan Kulture some really signature touch points across the employee life cycle that we work with our clients with. So we really want to educate the audience on what they are so that they can take the tips and tricks that we've crafted and that we find really useful.
The beauty of what we do and the way that we approach hr, it's not industry specific, it's not role specific. It can be filtered through any organization.
Great, great. And so therefore, the mix of those episodes. So CEOs talking about their companies, I would gather we're gonna get an audience of other CEOs who want to see how.
They're contemporaries in other organizations and what they're doing and how they're doing and how that can be educational towards what they can do in their own organizations. So there are many far reaching benefits of what this podcast can actually do. I'm actually really excited about where this is all gonna go.
And who's gonna be with you on your episodes, where you are talking more HR practice and function. Who's gonna be your guest there?
Yes, so Georgina Walker, who's a people and Kulture consultant for Kan Kulture She will be joining me on those episodes and I'm very excited. She's a great girl. We've been working together for quite a while now and we do have a really good energy between us and she's also academically psychology based. Yep. So Georgina is also psych led, so Sure. It's, we've got a really good alignment with how we approach people and culture
Sure. So we've probably got a few people out there listening to this introductory episode thinking well. Kulture's a buzzword. It's been around for a little while now, but I run a good company.
I do all the right things. I treat my staff well. How important is actually culture and doing things to craft it.
It's very important, and companies that have great Kulture cannot become complacent with their Kulture It's forever growing. It is forever changing, and the tolerances within an organization need to be kept front of mind to keep the culture positive.
It's not something that you can set and forget. With psychosocial factors these days, there's always things that can be improved. Upon, and there's always ways that you can showcase to your people how invested you are in them as employees from a heart space as well as a role space.
I can imagine, from my perspective, having known a little bit about this throughout my career.
I understand just exactly how important it's, and it's actually funny, I was only speaking to a friend of mine in the last week, and this is probably a really good example, works for an organization that has just been bought out. Only 10 or 12 employees were having lunch and she was telling me about this, how happy she's been there, has been given a bit of free reign to do a job and gets great results.
New owners in much more corporate. Much more paperwork, paper trails. Suddenly she's really not happy and saying, from what she can see, maybe 75% of the workforce in there aren't happy, and already within three to four weeks considering. Their options to me that screamed, look at this change in Kulture straight away and what effect it's having.
Yes. Yes. And you do really need to be cognizant of what change looks like and the impact that it has on people There is. If you take people on the journey when there are changes like takeovers or acquisitions or mergers or whatever it might look like there's a way to do it that is. Respectful of the process, but also engaging to the employees.
And it is really important to be able to, in those instances really clearly see and articulate what the Kulture is and if you've got two organizations coming, what the two Kultures are, what's distinct about the two of them, and then purposefully aligning them together in some way.
Sure. Tell me, Kylie, when you go and start working with a new client and what, how do you, and I know this is probably a hard question to answer in a short, succinct answer, but how do you go about helping a business?
Improve their culture What is it that you do?
Sure. So generally when a client or potential client engages with can Kulture they have a particular issue, or we call them pain points. Yep. But they have a particular concern that they come with. It might be that they have. A poor performer in their team that's impacting Kulture It might be that they've recently gone through rapid growth and their people practices haven't quite caught up with that and that's having an impact 'cause they can't provide clarity and alignment. There's all types of reasons why people, why potential clients engage, but there's normally a very specific pain point.
Okay,
that's interesting.
So we work with the clients too. First of all, solve. Solve that pain point in whatever that looks like, and then we get a bit deeper. Normally what is presented to us is not actually at the core of the issue. I was gonna
say, it's probably a symptom, isn't it? It is. Rather than the cause.
It is. Yep. It
is a symptom. So we work with them to really identify what's at the core of. The issue. And then we look at the employee life cycle, the different touch points that they have, and then we create a plan to really strengthen their people practices. And sometimes it is starting at one point and then going through the employee life cycle.
Sometimes it's starting with one individual. Sometimes it's starting with the leadership team. It can be, it's very diverse, so it can be structured in. Different ways, but the most important thing that we keep front of mind is what is the unique proposition of that organization when it comes to Kulture and how can that be?
Celebrated through the different touch points.
Sure. And I think that probably leads me back to this podcast itself because we all know how important first impressions are, don't we, in, in all forms of life, whether, whether that's your first impression in walking into a restaurant or in the dating scene, you know how you look at even job interviews.
First impressions when you do, are doing your onboarding process, that first day, if every, everyone can think back to their first day on, on any job. You're nervous, you're, you are wondering whether you've made the decision the right decision. You've literally closed the door on something. Else?
Yes, that is pretty much gone. There's no turning back at that stage. The last thing you want is for a new hire to have a bad first impression through their onboarding process. You want it to be, you want it to be amazing. You want them to walk away on that first day. And look, historically I'm of a vintage where, there wasn't a lot of effort put into that.
I have had that experience was, oh Jesus, is that today? And half the people didn't even know I was starting. And that does give you jitters and I think. Especially with the, the environment we are in today and the generation we're in today where people job hop a lot easier than they did back in my day.
Getting a good first impression and having someone feel comfortable is gonna go a long way towards keeping them longer, longer term and having a happy, more productive employee. And I think, lodging this podcast interview and seeing what the leader of the organization has to say, how they say it, and seeing them as a human being and what they've done, how they've done it, why they've done it, and what they're walking into is just amazing and something that I think, will really be a huge benefit to their organizations.
Yeah, absolutely. We work a lot on focusing on the onboarding process with our clients. We. Build our employee handbooks.
We've obviously got the policies with that as well, and we generally really craft the first one to two days of an employee experience and we've had really fantastic feedback where if we touch base with the new employee later in the week, they are often. Really impressed by the organization because we've taken the time to put together the information that's really critical for them to know and it being an engaging process.
So not where's your laptop or you don't have a laptop, okay, you can sit on my laptop, but, and read the policies so that you can abide by them. It's not about that. It is about. They're engaged, they're bright eyed, bushy tailed. Yeah. And you wanna really invest in that emotional state as best as you possibly can in the first couple of days.
Absolutely. '
cause it could go one of two ways, can't it? And that's gonna have a massive impact going forward. And where that, that ends up, because we do all know the cost of a high that doesn't last long. Yes. Let's put it that way that the cost involved in that is, is huge. So now, and look, I see all sorts of.
Potential with, you can take this series too. Things like maybe you want to get a new hire back in here as a guest at some point and talk about that, the process they went to, there's another video for new hires to be able to see not only, I watched and did all my onboarding, but I can tell you how it went and how it made me feel.
And there's social proof, all sorts of different angles that this could actually take that have benefit for you, your clients and anybody listing. So I'm. Absolutely. Really excited about where you are. You are able to take this and of course, weaving in some, can we call it the boring stuff?
I won't call it the boring stuff. We can, but we're won't boring. But you're gonna do it in a, and again, this is what I love. You are gonna do it in a different way. We, you know it. Yes, it is boring, but it's necessary. You do need to know what employment contracts are all about. You do need to know why you should be doing exit interviews.
You do need, am I sounding like I know hr?
You are. You're doing very well, Adam.
You've got 50 things that people do need to know about. They need, and you are gonna, you're gonna break it down with Georgina and where you don't have to sit and read a boring PDF on. On why e exit interviews are important.
You can listen to you and Georgina just have a chat about it and put that on in the car and and get some really high value information around the things that you, your organization needs to know and needs to be on top of. Yeah,
absolutely. Absolutely. And we will not make it boring. I think, we can really bring it to life and I think it is the type of information, if you talk about contracts or leave questions and Yep. And those types of things. Yep. Being able to have little snippets in a podcast, it's the way forward. People don't like reading policies these days,
absolutely. Look, I'm really looking forward to it now. I want to say to anybody listening out there to this first episode, if this is of interest, you are looking for progressive CEOs out there to.
To be on the show. Do get in touch. You're more than happy to have a chat. You do wanna showcase great companies, great Kultures So how do people get in touch with you, Kylie?
Yeah, absolutely. So the website is www dot. K-A-N-K-U-L-T-U-R e.com. So K Kulture Kan Kulture
with Ks.
With ks.com. Yep.
Yep.
Or very welcome to email me directly at Kylie at k Kulture with two ks.com.
Fantastic. I know you've already got some. Fabulous guests lined up for your first few episodes and can't wait for that. So please do reach out and of course, look, there is gonna be some great information here, so please do hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode on your favorite podcast channel.
This is, if you're listening, this is available on YouTube to be able to watch. So you'll get to see the same videos if you are a new employee who's just watched your own. CEO and decided to listen back to the first episode. Hello and welcome to your job. I'm excited. I know you are excited. I can't wait to see where this goes.
And look, congratulations on putting this concept together. And look, I know this is gonna be a series that's gonna have some far reaching benefits for all people who were engaged in it.
Yeah. Thank you, Adam. I'm very excited to see where this goes.
Excellent. We will see you on your first official episode.
Official. Thank you. Thanks for joining me on Can Talk Kulture I'm Kylie Anne Neal. I hope today's episode gave you a clear review into the values driving your workplace. All sparked new ideas about building a remarkable company Kulture If you're a founder or CEO interested in sharing your Kulture story, or if you are looking to build a safer, stronger, and more trusted workplace, let's connect.
Visit can Kulture.com That's KAN k-U-L-T-U-R e.com to learn more. Please hit that subscribe button to hear more real conversations with founders and CEOs and hands-on episodes full of people. First Kulture advice. I look forward to connecting with you on our next episode.