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In an era where the line between work and life blurs, we're asking: why do we still treat employees less like humans and more like machines? There's plenty of talk about "enhancing the employee experience" but the conversation overlooks the core of it all - the human experience.
Getting Personal with Compt, hosted by Head of Brand and Communications Lauren Schneider, ditches the formalities and gets real with trailblazers and thought leaders who simply give a hoot about humanity. Join us as we explore the successes and challenges of shaping a workplace where people come first.
Stay connected with the movement and follow Compt on LinkedIn, or explore our insights and updates at www.compt.io.
[00:00:14] Lauren: Today I have with me Debra Corey, consultant, speaker, best selling author, people leader. Debra, thank you for being here today. Thanks for having me. Of course. I was hoping that you could tell us a little bit more about yourself because giving everyone that kind of headline certainly does not do you justice.
[00:00:35] Debra: Well, I'll confuse you even more because my job title is chief pay at forward officer, so nobody ever knows what the heck I mean by that. Um, so as you said, I've been in HR for a couple of years. In my entire career, actually, and I sort of break it into a couple of different phases. My first was really my traditional part of HR.
[00:00:52] Debra: So I was an HR leader, lots of different organizations, both in the US and the UK, and then I sort of moved into my rebellious phase where I started really trying to challenge and do things differently. And that sort of moved me into my pay it forward phase where I'm still doing that, I'm still shaking things up, but I'm doing it in a more intentional and proactive way.
[00:01:15] Debra: So instead of just doing it at my one company, I'm now doing it through having conversations with you, consulting, speaking, writing books, all those types of things. So that's my over 20 years summarized in one minute. That is
[00:01:30] Lauren: a great way to summarize 20 years. And yet there is. I could probably spend hours upon hours talking to you about all of the different roles that you've had, the different experiences you've had.
[00:01:43] Lauren: Um, but I want to start with the books that you mentioned. You said that you've written six books on various aspects of HR, workplace culture. So, what do you do? First drew you to focusing on the human side of work. How do you sit down and decide, I'm going to write a book about this or six?
[00:02:03] Debra: Well, first of all, I have to say that my brother is the writer in the family.
[00:02:07] Debra: So he's the one who went to school, studied how to write. He's written many more books than me. I just sort of fell into it in the same way that I fell into HR. So I didn't wake up and say, I'm going to go to college and I'm going to study to go into HR. I completely fell into it. My last year in college.
[00:02:26] Debra: I had stopped doing competitive gymnastics. I was a little bit bored. So I took on a part time job and it was in the HR department. And it was just love at first sight. I absolutely loved the type of work we were doing, what we were all about, that whole idea of what you talked about, focusing on people.
[00:02:43] Debra: So that was why I fell into HR. And then I fell into writing books because, um, I got put on gardening leave. In the U. S. you don't have gardening leave, but in the U. K. we have something called gardening leave, which is when your job is eliminated at a senior role. I guess they don't want you like going out and sharing all the secrets with competitors.
[00:03:04] Debra: So you're put on six month gardening leave where you cannot work.
[00:03:08] Lauren: Interesting.
[00:03:09] Debra: Which sounds great, but it was in January, so not really much to do, and I had young kids. So I couldn't go traveling or anything like that. So I got my bucket list out and on my bucket list was to write a book. And I thought that was going to be my only book, but I loved the whole process so much.
[00:03:28] Debra: I loved everything about it that I just keep writing.
[00:03:32] Lauren: And there's so much to talk about when it comes to HR and the employee experience and, and even just sharing your unique experiences that you've discovered throughout your career. So, um, One thing I'm particularly interested in, and this is part of, uh, what I've been thinking about since our Preparation call that we had for this podcast was about your perspective on employee trust and Autonomy because I think now more than ever we're seeing a divide or a push and pull between Employer and employee, employees really wanting, uh, more support, more autonomy.
[00:04:16] Lauren: Like I'm an adult, I, I'm an expert in my field. You should trust me to do what you've hired me to do. So tell me about how your perspective has evolved.
[00:04:26] Debra: Yeah, it absolutely has evolved. If I think about when I first entered the workforce, um, it, there was no autonomy. It was pretty much your boss would set your goals.
[00:04:36] Debra: You would go away. You would think about maybe how you would do it, but then your boss would set the direction. Um, I don't know if there's not necessarily mistrust. It's just really that's just how we did it. And I think little by little to your point, we've realized and it's it's amazing that it's taken so long to get here that, as you said, we're hiring adults.
[00:04:56] Debra: So, I always joke when I do talks and say, you know, you hire someone because you think they're the best person, then they walk through the door and all of a sudden you don't trust them. It's like, why would you hire them to begin with? So, you know, if you can't trust them, don't hire them. So, I think people are starting to see it and also people are demanding it.
[00:05:14] Debra: You know, I think as the new generations enter the workforce, who haven't been like, you know, been in situations like me where this is just where it's done, they're like, excuse me, you know, I want to have a voice, I want to have opinion, and, you know, I can say that I've evolved because at the beginning, I have to be completely transparent, it was hard for me, but I've learned that actually, if I don't trust my people, if I don't give my people autonomy, if I don't listen to my people, I'm just missing out personally because I'm learning so much from them and doing so much better from them, but I'm just not giving them the full employee experience.
[00:05:52] Debra: So I don't know if everyone has, has evolved to a, where I have, but I'm a huge advocate of it so much so that my latest book, which is a book for leaders and managers. It has a model called the Grace Great Boss Building Block Model, and it has building blocks that focus on things like trust and autonomy, because I genuinely believe that bosses need to use these as building blocks.
[00:06:18] Lauren: You said that it was hard for you. What about it was hard? Was it, um, just where you sat, um, from a leadership position? Was it some of your colleagues in the C suite? What was going on at that time?
[00:06:30] Debra: You know, it's interesting, and I'm sure we all have these moments in our life that we just keep bringing back in our memory.
[00:06:37] Debra: And I can remember like it was yesterday. Gosh, it was probably 15, 20 years ago. Where I had a boss once where I was designing benefit programs or something and I said to them, I want to go out and I want to do some focus groups. I want to go talk to other leaders in the company and I want to get their thoughts.
[00:06:54] Debra: And he just looked at me and he said. That's what I pay you to do. Why are you doing this? So I have that in my ear. I had it in my ear for a very long time. Now, I don't hear it at all. But I think there's a lot of people that have that voice in their ear. You know, we hired you in this big job. You have to have all the answers.
[00:07:13] Debra: You need to manage in a certain way. And I think we need to just, you know, just flip that voice away. I certainly do.
[00:07:21] Lauren: I think that's interesting because, um, It reminds me of a conversation that I actually had recently where there is this, I don't know, phenomenon, I guess that's happening with employees where, and I'm totally guilty of this, where I assumed that HR had all of the answers.
[00:07:42] Lauren: Like, these are the people who know. They should be telling me, uh, what I need to do for compensation, for my performance review, for benefits. But, Now that I am so entrenched on the other side of things, I understand. Well, why would they be deciding those things on your behalf? Wouldn't you want to participate in the benefits that would benefit you?
[00:08:08] Lauren: Wouldn't you want them to poll you, ask what you're interested in, what you need to be supported in this time? I just, I think that's so interesting. I'm glad that you brought that up.
[00:08:18] Debra: Well, yeah, I mean, and again, another conversation with another boss way back when it's like you're the expert on benefits or whatever, whatever area, what are your employees going to know that you don't know?
[00:08:29] Debra: So, if you do a focus group with them, what are they going to tell you? And I just think that's so disrespectful. It's like, they're going to have ideas and thoughts that I might never have considered. And that's, that's why I love talking to my employees in the same way that, you know, if you're somebody who is on the customer side.
[00:08:49] Debra: You do focus group with your customers. You talk about how do you use our product? How can we make the product better? So I think HR is sort of catching up on, you know, what we need to understand and leverage the power and the, the, you know, the brain power of all of our customers who are employees.
[00:09:07] Lauren: Sure, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:09:09] Lauren: So, I think this leads into the concept of choice, and giving employees more choice. Um, which I realize in some organizations is not even talked about. In others, it's very scary, and then in others, it's Second nature. So I want you to take me back to maybe your first experience with this or an experiment that you may have did Or done because you realized We should be doing this that this is something that's going to Positively change our culture.
[00:09:47] Debra: Yeah, and I have to say i've always been a believer of introducing choice However, I can and all of the different HR programs that I would do, but I think when I look back on it, I think it was limited choice. It was choice within boundaries. So, you know, as far as my first experiment, removing the boundaries, and it was very, very scary.
[00:10:09] Debra: Was when I was it's it's a benefit program. I do more than benefits, but this just happens to I think choice is a really good example when it comes to benefits. Sure. I was doing a review of our global benefit programs at a company and I was doing focus groups and I was having everybody have all these like voting cards, which are the ones that you like, which are the ones that you don't like.
[00:10:28] Debra: What are the new ones? that you'd like to throw out there that I might not have considered. And every single focus group in every country all talked about well being. And I thought, this is great. I want to do something new about well being. But everybody had a different thing written on their card. And I went back and I thought, how can I put something in place that is going to support my global workforce, which is very diverse?
[00:10:51] Debra: Um, and meet their individual needs. And that's where we came up with the idea of a well being allowance. And I had just written a book and I interviewed a company who had a well being allowance, but it was within boundaries. So I think one company, I think, gave people three different things that they could use their well being allowance on.
[00:11:09] Debra: Another company let, um, people choose between ten things. And I thought, you know what, I just co wrote a book called The Rebel Playbook. I'm going to be a real rebel and I'm going to say, you know what? You can do whatever you want to do. And I was scared, I have to admit. So I did sort of have a get out of jail free card in that I said that it needs to come through me to approve.
[00:11:34] Debra: I didn't really approve it. I was just being nosy, um, to approve. And I saw, you know what, everything everybody was doing, I, you know, most of them, I would have said yes to, I would have thought of those, but there was a good, like, a third that I never would have thought of. And I was so glad that we went with this complete flexibility.
[00:11:54] Debra: I only said no to one thing. One thing, because I think somebody wanted a refrigerator and I pushed it back to them. I didn't say no. I said, if you were me. And you were approving well being allowances, how would you defend this? And they're like, you know what, maybe I shouldn't, I'll, I'll, I'll change it. I think they changed it to like, um, a food box or something like that.
[00:12:17] Debra: That still did the same thing. Cause they wanted to eat healthy food. Sure. But it wasn't a refrigerator.
[00:12:24] Lauren: So how, um. How did that impact, I guess, what it looked like moving forward then? It seems like an experiment that went really well. So, was this something that you were able to scale? Or, I just, I want to hear more about the impact, or, um, I guess, the buy in that you ended up getting from the rest of the team once they saw like, Oh, this, this does actually work.
[00:12:50] Debra: Yeah, I mean, luckily, I was part of a leadership team where we were all very rebellious. It was, it was an HR technology company. So it was a company that understood the importance of engagement and the importance of giving people choice and such. So it wasn't difficult, but what I had to convince them was that I would do a really good job of, of explaining it and supporting people and making sure in each country that it was legal to do.
[00:13:15] Debra: So some of the common hurdles that people might've had concerns about, I would continue to manage it, to monitor it, to show them reports. And it's interesting. Just last week, I saw, I'm not at the company anymore, but last week I saw someone who is still at the company and they posted about how they, um, used their well being allowance to take a food intolerance test and then it completely, completely changed their life.
[00:13:43] Debra: They said that they found out that some of the foods that they were eating was causing them to be tired all the time and to have aches and pains. And I thought, do you know what? This is exactly why we put this in because I never would have thought of a food intolerance test as a way to use a well being allowance.
[00:14:00] Debra: So I'm pleased that it's still going strong.
[00:14:03] Lauren: That's amazing. I love to hear that. Um, that goes to show The impact that can happen in a company long after you've left just by listening to people and putting something in place that is scalable and supports them in whatever unique journey that they're on, especially as it relates to wellbeings.
[00:14:26] Lauren: We know that's such a huge topic right now and I think always will be.
[00:14:30] Debra: That's one of the things I love about HR is, you know, when, when days get tough and it's challenging, I just remind myself of the difference that I've made to people's lives. I remember, um, about six months ago, um, I wrote some post about something and they're like, I remember you, you're the one who bullied me into joining the pension scheme, or the, uh, 401k when I was 21 years old.
[00:14:53] Debra: And I'm so thankful that you did that. I didn't bully them. I educated them. So I thought, you know what, we're, we have ripple effects that we don't even know. That we're causing in HR and that's what makes it such a gratifying field to be in.
[00:15:08] Lauren: I love that. I want to go back to something that you had mentioned about the, uh, wellness allowance and having everything come through you and wanting to approve everything, which I realize is Uh, I think a great example of how a lot of HR people feel in this situation where you want to maybe put up some guide rails, but also have a little bit of a fail safe to make sure like, okay, we're all on the same page here, nothing crazy is happening, there's no weird, um Requests coming through that we don't know about or we don't see, um, tell me about what that process was like trying to prove everything or see everything, um, especially as it relates to, um, you know, things beyond benefits.
[00:16:02] Lauren: I know you and I have talked before about like peer recognition and what that looks like.
[00:16:07] Debra: Yeah, I mean, I'll give you two examples. So, in the well being allowance, again, the main reason I approved it was just, I wanted it, it was new and I wanted to have an idea of what were the types of things that were people doing, and I'm a big believer that you do not put something in a process that is going to cause problems.
[00:16:25] Debra: So, at the time, you could only request it twice a year. So it's really easy for me to very quickly sign off. I wasn't slowing the process down.
Because
[00:16:35] Debra: I've put changes in programs before where I was actually a hurdle in the process. It was like, why am I signing off on this? All I'm doing is slowing it down.
[00:16:45] Debra: I'm not adding any value whatsoever. Whereas this, I wasn't slowing them down. Also from a value perspective, um, I could see that maybe somebody was doing one thing and they weren't spending all of their money. And six other people were doing one thing plus two other things. So I could go back to them and say, you know, you're spending, I'm just making this up.
[00:17:05] Debra: You're spending your money on a pair of sneakers. But did you realize that actually you could buy sneakers and a new track suit or something like that? So I felt like I, you know, again, wasn't slowing down. I was adding value. In another situation, and we spoke about this in our pre talk, I was putting in place a new recognition program.
[00:17:26] Debra: And one aspect of the recognition program was that my employees could send up to 10 recognition awards to anyone they wanted to whenever they wanted to do it for up to, I think it was 10. It wasn't a lot of money. I was getting ready to put in place a process where I would have to sign off on it. And I sat down with my boss and this is my boss.
[00:17:51] Debra: I wrote the rebel playbook with, and he's like, why are you doing that? Why are you signing off on everything? Because these are going to happen every single day around the world. You're going to slow this process down. Do you not trust your employees? And I thought about it and I was like. No, I completely trust my employees.
[00:18:09] Debra: It's a company where I absolutely trusted our people. I said, I don't trust myself. And he's like, what do you mean? I said, well, I just don't know if I can get out there and explain the program well enough, quickly enough so that everybody uses it in the right way. Cause I don't want to set my people up for failure.
[00:18:27] Debra: Right. And, um, he just laughed cause my first book I wrote was on communications. He's like, Deb, just. Do it. And I trusted him, I did it, and it was the smartest thing I ever did.
[00:18:40] Lauren: That's really interesting that that came from your boss, because I feel like so often I hear HR trying to make the case in both directions.
[00:18:52] Debra: Yeah. Well, I was very, very lucky. So this was The CEO, the founder of my company, he wrote the rebel playbook with me. He is like the biggest rebel I've ever seen. He's the most, you know, uh, trusting person. Yeah, you're right. Most CEOs would have, would have gotten into an argument with me and said, you need to convince me that we can do it this way, but another reason we wanted to do it is we were trying to role model things that we wanted to encourage other companies to do.
[00:19:21] Debra: And we wanted to show people that we were willing to give it a go and you should give it a go and it was a really interesting experiment because we pushed ourselves to do a great job communicating it. And what happened surprised me, because some people thought, oh, yeah, people are going to start giving them to their friends, or they're going to use all 10 of them, like, the 1st month and what I found, because I did.
[00:19:45] Debra: You know, I am analytical. I did monitor the results all the time. I almost had to force people to get out and use them because they had ownership of these 10 awards and they wanted to make sure that they were worthy of giving them this 10 card. I'm like, just get out and use it. I trust you use it. So it's, it really is interesting when you put things in the hands of your employees, you might be surprised how they take it.
[00:20:12] Debra: More seriously, because they own it. It's their responsibility.
[00:20:17] Lauren: It's really interesting to see the evolution of recognition in the workplace where so often I think we've seen in the past the maybe even annual awards at whatever company party is happening and it's the CEO standing in front of a conference room full of people and handing out awards for best this and most improved that and it's a very top down approach but what you're talking about is Employees recognizing each other for daily things that they're doing, for help on projects, for um, even like more meaningful support.
[00:20:57] Lauren: Like, hey, I, I realize you're going through a tough time with XYZ, I just want to send you this to let you know that I'm thinking about you, or here's five bucks for coffee, because you and I both need it this week. So, what about, um, Your experience in this company or even prior experiences led you to challenge the top down approach and put this.
[00:21:20] Lauren: I guess power in the employee's hands.
[00:21:23] Debra: Yeah. So my fourth and fifth books that I wrote were on recognition and I was already starting to lean towards this idea of why are we spending all of our recognition money on the top three to 5 percent of our people? And I was getting really, really frustrated because I would try to design these programs and I wouldn't get any more money.
[00:21:45] Debra: And finally I was like, okay, fine. Why do I need to give? You know, three to 5 percent of people, 1, 000, 2, 000. Why can't I spread it like peanut butter across the, all the other people who are doing great things. And another thing that really made me want to write the book and challenge the status quo is I read something that said that the 79 percent of people said that they had not been thanked or appreciated in the last year.
[00:22:12] Lauren: Wow.
[00:22:13] Debra: Which makes sense mathematically, if you think about it, if we're wasting all our time on those top people. Then it's not going to make a difference, right? I've attended enough of those, you know, employee of the year awards and don't get me wrong. I think they're fine. Sure. But some of them are just like so grand and you spend all this money and then yeah, and then you see everybody else like rolling their eyes.
[00:22:36] Debra: I call them the eye rollers in my book, you know, looking at those people like, yeah, right. They're getting all the attention. What about all the things that I did? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and it's one of the main reasons people leave companies, actually, is they don't feel appreciated. Yeah. So I thought, this needs to change.
[00:22:51] Debra: We're not going to get more money. We don't actually need more money. Let's just spend our money in different ways, and to your point, turn the recognition pyramid upside down and start at the everyday recognition, which is that bottom level in the recognition pyramid. You
[00:23:07] Lauren: know, it's so interesting because you're completely right.
[00:23:10] Lauren: There are those. Moments that might seem small to some people but are really big to others where maybe an employee goes out of their way to take on an additional project or help someone with something and not being recognized in that moment could be this fleeting thought like, Oh, well, no one said thanks, but then it festers and it becomes so much larger than it initially started as.
[00:23:37] Debra: It does. Absolutely. And I, um, I share a story in my book about something that happened to my daughter. It was her very first job she had. And she was working in one of those soft play areas where you take your kids and they jump around and go down slides and stuff. And she went out of her way to help this one little girl.
[00:23:53] Debra: And at the end, the father came up and thanked her. And then she saw the father go up and tell her boss about it. And like point at my daughter. She waited all day for her boss to come over and say, I heard what a great job you did. Well done. Didn't do it. Came in the next day, didn't do it. Bottom line, the end of the week, she quit.
[00:24:11] Lauren: Yeah.
[00:24:12] Debra: she was what? 16 years old. She goes, if my boss can't say, forget about an award. Can't just come over and say, I saw what a great job. I'm not taking it.
[00:24:23] Lauren: And it's something that sticks with you forever. You telling me that story reminded me of that time that I, in college, I worked at a shoe store, and my manager, uh, gave me so many responsibilities.
[00:24:36] Lauren: I was opening and closing, and I was going to the mailbox, and I was doing timesheets, and then someone else came in and started, and she gave them the assistant manager position, and I thought, Well then what am I doing? What are all of these tasks that are meant to go to an assistant manager, but you're not giving me that responsibility?
[00:24:58] Lauren: And um, a couple days later I quit, and she was shocked that I quit. Which made me more annoyed, but here I am 10 something years later, and I will never forget it.
[00:25:10] Debra: Absolutely. And that's the informal side of recognition, because I always tell people, you know, in HR, we create all these great formal recognition programs, but then there's all the informal things that you can do, how you develop your people, how you promote your people, all of those types of things, which cost nothing to do.
[00:25:27] Debra: So, yeah, that is amazing that you still remember it though.
[00:25:30] Lauren: It's, it's so funny how, I, it just immediately took me back, and it, it's like I can relive that experience as if it were yesterday, it's so, so important to recognize people, even in the smallest of ways, on a daily basis.
[00:25:47] Debra: Yeah. And to recognize what's important to them.
[00:25:50] Debra: So for, you know, if your boss had taken the time to understand you, they would have realized that that was the most important thing for you, which was to get ahead. Right. Um, yeah. And even if like, if you, if they decided for the right reasons that you shouldn't get the job, they should have come to you beforehand and explained, I'm giving the job to so and so.
[00:26:08] Debra: These are the two things that I really want you to work on. I'm going to help you do it so that next time I can promote you and you would have stayed. Right.
[00:26:18] Lauren: I mean, I'm glad that I didn't, but yeah,
[00:26:20] Debra: we learned something from those situations. Absolutely. Yeah,
[00:26:24] Lauren: exactly Speaking of lessons learned I want to ask you what the biggest lesson you have learned about trust flexibility in the workplace or even things That surround those ideas or ideals, even.
[00:26:42] Debra: Well, I guess we've all learned, you know, through what we've been going through is how critical they are. So, you know, three, four years ago, if we had been talking about trust and flexibility, people would have been like, it's not really important. It's not a driver of productivity. It's not a driver of engagement.
[00:27:00] Debra: So I think some of the biggest lessons and the ones that I'm trying to impart on others is how critical they are. Maria, I mentioned earlier how they are building blocks. In our great boss building block model, that's so important. They are, um, but also lessons I've learned is how people see them differently and what it means to them.
[00:27:20] Debra: So, I'm doing a talk with a company on balance, and we did the pre panel conversation and everyone was talking about how balance inflects. different to them. Like one person was saying how, you know, things are so challenging for them at home coming to work. Is there like, you know, there's safety net. And so for them, flexibility is being able to come into the work.
[00:27:40] Debra: Whereas another person was saying actually flexibility is being able to be home to pick my daughter up from school. So I think it's that idea of going back to the listening and making sure that you understand for your employees. What does flexibility mean to you? What does trust look like? What do you expect from somebody when it comes to respect and trust?
[00:28:03] Debra: And then I think the last lesson is how nervous some people are about it. I mean, just look what's happening in the world, how people are making people go back to the office. To me, that's a fear of flexibility. And to me, that is just so, so sad that, you know, we got to the point where we're introducing flexibility.
[00:28:21] Debra: And I genuinely believe it's a fear and also a lack of understanding of what does flexibility mean.
[00:28:29] Lauren: Yeah, weren't there a variety of articles that came out proving that Working from home and having that flexibility, saw productivity skyrocket. What
[00:28:42] Debra: happened? I have no idea. I'm glad you said that because I see it all the time.
[00:28:48] Debra: And, you know, don't get me wrong. I genuinely believe that there are times to come into the office. There are certain things. that makes sense to be in, in the office. And I wish organizations would go to a structure was more based on the work that people are doing and less about the where. So, you know, if we're doing a brainstorming session, you know, over zoom, it doesn't work as well, you know, go in the office, do those types of things.
[00:29:15] Debra: Creativity flows in different ways. But, you know, if you're doing an update meeting or something like that, do you really need to drag yourself an hour You know, to the office to have that conversation. So, yeah, I'm not sure what's happening.
[00:29:32] Lauren: What advice would you give to HR leaders who You know, I originally had worded this or hesitating to give employees more choice, but maybe it's, it's so much more than that.
[00:29:46] Lauren: There's so much nuance to everything happening in the workplace. So maybe some HR leaders are hesitating, but have the ability to give employees more choice with whatever programs they're putting in place. And maybe some really have their hands tied. So there's two different directions we could go here.
[00:30:04] Lauren: Um, first I want to talk about those who are hesitating. What advice do you have?
[00:30:08] Debra: Yeah, um, and you are right. I mean, one of the thing reasons when I write my book is I tell stories is to show that it doesn't mean the same thing to everyone because you're right, because flexibility and choice in one company might mean one thing, but not at the others.
[00:30:21] Debra: But my overarching advice would be, first of all, make it intentional. So in our HR strategy, one of our principles was flexibility and choice. That was intentional. So anytime we had to re evaluate an HR program, put a new HR program in place, we had that as a principle. So make it intentional. Um, go back to the why and think about why you're doing something.
[00:30:47] Debra: So, you know, my well being allowance. I was putting in a well being allowance to support my people's well being, no matter who they were, where they lived, what they needed. And if I hadn't given them flexibility, I wouldn't then have met the objective. So challenge yourself on the why. If you don't give flexibility, can you meet your objective?
[00:31:07] Debra: And then the other thing, and it goes back to my recognition example, is ask yourself what's the worst thing that could happen if you give flexibility? You know, I gave people ten dollars. The worst thing that can happen in the first month Every single employee used all 10, and it would cost the company X amount of money.
[00:31:26] Debra: Will the world end? And is it worth the trust? So the message I sent to my employees was, I trust you, which was worth much more than 10 per employee. So really just think about is there actually more pros to doing it than cons and are there any other subtle messages that you're sending to your employees by adding this, this flexibility to it?
[00:31:50] Lauren: Do you think one of the hurdles there might be the fear of if I put this in place and it doesn't work out? Not going to take it away from people, and that makes everything worse.
[00:32:02] Debra: Do you know what, though? I told everybody when I put it in place, I said, This is an experiment, and it's up to all of us to make it work.
[00:32:11] Debra: So, you know what? I have the ability at any point in time to get rid of it. And I was very up front with people. But I think one of the things that we do, and I write a lot about this in the Rebel Playbook, is that we design programs and policies. around the 1, 2, 3 percent who are going to abuse it. And I think we need to stop doing that.
[00:32:30] Debra: So, you know, my 10 gift card. Yes, there might have been 3 people who abused it. Again, will the world end that they abused it? No. People will see that they abused it. I won't have to say anything, because their colleagues are going to go, Come on, mate, why did you do that? That was the wrong thing to do. So, yeah, we need to stop being afraid of those types of things.
[00:32:53] Lauren: So, then let's look at the other side of HR, the people who are in companies where maybe they don't have the power to give employees choice. So it's not a matter of hesitation, it's a matter of red tape or whatever else. Um. But maybe they're really passionate about this. So how can they advocate, uh, make the case to whoever in leadership decides this?
[00:33:21] Lauren: Maybe it's finance, maybe the CEO, maybe it's the entire board that this is something that we should be doing.
[00:33:27] Debra: Yeah, I mean, it goes back to the question why, whenever I get people who just, you know, put hurdles in place, raise the red flag, I just really try to understand why they're doing it, because sometimes they have legitimate reasons, you know, maybe they had a really bad experience once.
[00:33:45] Debra: Maybe they don't understand it. So often if you just sit down and have that really honest conversation and explain to them, or ask them what is it that is making you think that it's the wrong thing to do. And then once you understand that then you can go back to them with ammunition. You know, you think that it's not going to work because X percent of people are going to abuse it.
[00:34:07] Debra: Well I've got examples from three other companies where they did something very similar and it didn't happen. So, they've got valid reasons, you know, I think that's the first thing, is respect the reasons, and then try to convince them. Cause we all have different perspectives. I used to think that you go into battle. It's not a battle at all. You're standing side by side that person. You just need to be able to show them your perspective, your view, and then bring them along with you.
[00:34:36] Lauren: I love that. That is absolutely something that I think we talk about a lot, or frame it as a battle a lot, but that is in itself a slippery slope.
[00:34:49] Lauren: Because it's not us against everybody else in the workplace, or all of us against each other. If we want to make the Workplace more human. If we want the future of work to be more supportive for everyone, don't we need to start by supporting one another and not battling each other?
[00:35:06] Debra: Absolutely. And I learned a really important lesson.
[00:35:08] Debra: The very first time I sat on a leadership team, my boss told me never go into a board meeting alone. So I know it's going to take more time, but go to your peers and your colleagues and tell them your story. Tell them what you want. And then when you propose it at the board meeting, you now have allies and I can remember the 1st time I did that.
[00:35:29] Debra: I was putting in. I wanted to put in place this pretty complicated program, but it was going to save the company money. And I've been in other companies before and really had a lot of people who are challenging me on it. And I went in with my allies. I got on the 1st slide and about 3 of the senior vice presidents jumped in and said, best idea ever heard.
[00:35:50] Debra: Let's do it. And the CEO was like, I don't need to see anymore. Let's do it. I'm like, I want to show you the other 30 slides. He's no, no, no, no, no. Just do it. So it's a really important lesson for me.
[00:36:02] Lauren: I love that because it's like, well, great. I'm so glad that everyone is bought in, but I put all of this effort together.
[00:36:07] Lauren: At least sit here for the presentation.
[00:36:11] Debra: They're
[00:36:11] Lauren: like,
[00:36:12] Debra: quick, run
[00:36:12] Lauren: out,
[00:36:13] Debra: run, leave quick before they change
[00:36:14] Lauren: their mind. That's so funny. Um, before we go, Debra, I want to have you look back at how you've seen the, uh, evolution of flexibility in the workplace and then. Tell me what that looks like. And then also your thoughts for how you see the future of flexibility and trust and autonomy and all of the things that we've talked about evolving.
[00:36:42] Debra: Yeah, and you know, we've talked a little bit about this already, so it's more just bringing it all together. I think that We were taking baby steps with flexibility. Like, I remember the first time we'd introduced flexibility and we'd say, you can choose between this benefit or this benefit. But that was flexibility back then, you know, before it was like, you only have this one.
[00:37:02] Debra: So I do think that we've been taking baby steps and people are getting more and more comfortable with it. What's helped is technology because a lot of the resistance in the past was we would have to manage these things manually. And I've worked for really big companies, you know, like 100, 000 employees, so managing it on a spreadsheet doesn't work.
[00:37:21] Debra: So I think technology has really, really helped us. Do that, so I think flexibility is good. I think we went a bit crazy with flexibility and we put things in that didn't really matter. So, I think, you know, being intentional about flexibility flexibility based off of what your people want and not just like what you're seeing at other companies.
[00:37:42] Debra: I'll give you a perfect example. Um, in the UK, there's a company called BrewDog, and they put in something called a paw paternity leave, P A W. So dogs could, you know, you could take time off to, you know, take care of your dog. And my employees came in and they're like, Oh, we have to do that. We have to do what we heard all about it.
[00:38:02] Debra: We have to do it. And, um, you know, in talking to my employees, I found out that we weren't just a dog company. You know, we had people who had cats, we had hamsters, we had this, we had that. So instead of putting in paternity, we just created a bit more flexibility in our time off policy so that people could do it.
[00:38:20] Debra: So I think it's more intentional and strategic flexibility, not just gut reaction. I'm going to put this, this new program in place, or I'm going to do that. And I do hope that that's What the future is that we're intentional and we're strategic and we're meaningful in, in how we use flexibility.
[00:38:40] Lauren: I love that because I think we've seen some rigidity, whether it's intentioned or not, in just the, even the way that we name policies.
[00:38:50] Lauren: Um, so if you think about The various buckets of leave, uh, the bereavement leave, the parental leave, the short term disability leave, long term leave, all of these different things, um, even we have started to reframe it as what if we had one bucket and we called it compassionate leave? And you use it for whatever you need to use it for.
[00:39:14] Lauren: You don't have to tell us, it's your time, like, you understand what kind of support that you need and we want to give you the time to do it. And that inherently allows for more flexibility, you give people more autonomy, they don't necessarily feel embarrassed or. Or, if it is bereavement, they don't have to totally worry about, like, I'm in the middle of grieving, I don't necessarily want to email HR a bunch of details about how many days I need off, and well, it was my uncle, so I only get half of a day, or whatever that looks like.
[00:39:48] Debra: Yeah, and I think it goes back to trust, and I love what you guys are doing, because that is the foundation of what we're talking about in flexibility is trust. Yeah. If you don't trust your people to do the right thing. You're never going to be able to offer flexibility, especially when you talked about, like, compassionate leave or anything like that.
[00:40:06] Debra: And I, I mean, I remember putting in place a compassionate leave program and I remember having one of my senior people say, I don't understand just because they have someone sick or just because they had someone, you know, pass away. Why do we need to give them time off? But I knew that person was very numbers focused.
[00:40:22] Debra: So I tried to, I showed them the impact of how your productivity and mistakes are made when your head is in another space. So, yeah, you just need to figure out what it is that's going to make that person sign off on it.
[00:40:36] Lauren: It's
[00:40:37] Debra: true.
[00:40:38] Lauren: Debra, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
[00:40:41] Debra: Yeah, it was a great conversation.
[00:40:42] Debra: Thank you.
[00:40:44] Lauren: And, uh, before I let you run off, uh, I want to plug your books because I think people need to read them. Is another one coming? Like what, what is happening? I feel like six is a good number, but we could maybe go for seven to ten, right?
[00:41:00] Debra: Yeah, you know, one of the reasons that I write books is I learn every time I write a book, because my book is not just Debra Corey's way to do things.
[00:41:10] Debra: I interview hundreds of people every time I write a book. So for me, it's like, okay, what do I want to learn next? So, you know, watch the space. It might be around flexibility or something like that, but, um, I'm sort of ticking off all the areas where I feel as HR people, and now as managers, we need to be more rebellious.
[00:41:27] Debra: So things like engagement, I wrote a book on values. I wrote a book on recognition. My most latest book is bad bosses, ruin lives to try to help bot. It's not for bad bosses. It's for good bosses to show them actually, you know, you have a big impact on your people. So yeah, watch this space. I don't know what's next yet.
[00:41:47] Lauren: I'm sure that you will have something to say because there's always something to say about the workplace, HR, the employee experience as we know it. Thanks again, Debra. Thank you.