Career Club Live with Bob Goodwin
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Career Club Live with Bob Goodwin
Founder and CEO of People Experts LLC - Alberta Johnson - Career Club Live
In this episode of Career Club Live, host Bob Goodwin, President of Career Club, welcomes Alberta Johnson, founder and CEO of People Experts LLC. Alberta brings over 20 years of executive management experience in human resources, diversity, equity, inclusion, and employee engagement. She shares her journey from working with civil rights organizations in Chicago to leading HR and DEI initiatives in various sectors. Alberta emphasizes the importance of embedding DEI into company culture and the role of leadership in fostering a supportive environment. They discuss the impact of social changes on workplace dynamics, strategies for promoting mental wellness, and the significance of trust and empowerment in leadership. Tune in to gain valuable insights on creating a thriving people-centric workplace.
I know you're gonna find it. You gotta keep on at it. Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. I'm Bob Goodwin, the president of Career Club, and thank you for joining us today. Before we get started, just a couple of announcements. We are now offering a free coaching class every Thursday at one o'clock Eastern. If you go to careerclub, the main banner on the homepage is how you register for that. It's free, it's always free. It's every Thursday at one o'clock Eastern. So if you're in job search or you know someone who is, I'd really encourage you to register for that. If you are a talent acquisition professional, we are launching a new program that we call Journey Forward, where we are giving you the opportunity to both enhance the candidate experience as well as build your employer brand. You can learn more about that on careerclub for employers and then click on candidate experience. So I am pleased today to welcome Alberta Johnson to the podcast, and let me get Alberta on here real quick.
Alberta Johnson:There she is how are you doing today? And I'm good, how are you Great?
Bob Goodwin:to be here, it's great to have you Now.
Bob Goodwin:this is very impressive. So I'm going to read your background to kind of introduce people to you and then we'll kick it off here. But Alberta is the founder and CEO of People Experts LLC. She's over 20 years of experience in executive management and has directed overall operations for various organizations in the areas of human resources, diversity, equity and inclusion, and employee engagement.
Bob Goodwin:Alberta's dedicated her career to balancing inequities and civil rights, which we'll talk some about. She's held leadership roles in the public, private, nonprofit and government sectors, including the city of Chicago, ymca, metro Chicago and the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. She holds a BA in sociology, an MBA and a master's in Public Administration and MPA. Alberta served on a number of volunteer boards, including the Illinois SHRM Society of Human Resources Management, as many of y'all will know, as Director of Diversity, equity, inclusion and Belonging, the Chicago SHRM and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs. Alberta currently serves as a veteran ambassador, rather and mentor, for the SHRM Executive Network and is president of the Friends of Pediatrics for the Children's Hospital at University of Illinois, at Chicago UIC. She's also and this is it, and I'll catch my breath a LinkedIn top voice in HR, leadership development, public speaking and strategic communications. I'll catch my breath, alberta. You are a very well-versed person in a number of topics and I'm so pleased to have you join me today.
Alberta Johnson:I'm so happy to be here. It's just been a whirlwind of a journey, as you said.
Bob Goodwin:I've kind of been doing this for a little over 20 years, but it goes by quickly, okay, so let's do as we want to do just a few icebreaker questions so people can get to know you just a little bit more.
Alberta Johnson:So obviously Chicago came up a lot. Where were you born and raised? In Chicago. I didn't always live directly in the city but grew up in a surrounding suburb but currently live in the city of Chicago Awesome.
Bob Goodwin:And then I read your degree.
Alberta Johnson:So where were your different degrees from? My undergrad was from University of Illinois at Chicago, so that's UIC. I got my MBA from Roosevelt University and my master's in public administration from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Bob Goodwin:Wow, so you're one well-educated lady. And then just a little bit about your family.
Alberta Johnson:My family has primarily lived in the Chicagoland area. I'm very close to my sister, my mom. I have a few family members that are no longer with us, but most of them have lived here in the Chicago area. I live in the city of Chicago. I'm single, but I have a lot of friends and family that are in the area, so they definitely keep me busy and it's you know. I think it's just always been important for me to be close to my family, and having them nearby has always just been a blessing.
Bob Goodwin:Yes, well, I admire people because we've moved so much that somebody that has been generally in the same area most of their life, you know now, chicago is not like you know small town USA, it's obviously quite big. But I just think it's cool that you know people, have roots and you know where you're from and you know family also I think you're sort of alluding to this takes on a broader definition than people that we share blood with, right. So because you've had such a diverse work experience, it's going to be hard for you to maybe consolidate all this, but do you mind just sort of walking people through your career arc just a little bit?
Alberta Johnson:Yes, yes. So I started my career in a nonprofit, which it was with the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. I was with another organization that also kind of focused on fair housing, discrimination, and through the work that I did with those two organizations I interacted a lot with government officials, which then led me to the city of Chicago, where I was there for about 10 years, went through four different departments, a few different positions, and then moved on to the private sector and worked for a national law firm where I was the head of diversity and managed their DE&I programming. And from there I had dedicated so much of my career to the DE&I piece of it that I really started to see that in order for me to have a seat at the table, I needed to started to see that in order for me to have a seat at the table, I needed to move up the ladder to a head of HR position, where I felt that I would not only have a larger voice at the table but would be able to impact the companies that I was working for a little bit more broadly. So that led me to the YMCA.
Alberta Johnson:I worked for several of them One of them was the Metro Chicago but also did some consulting work with YMCA of the USA, which is the national office of the YMCA nonprofit, as a head of HR. So I've kind of ebbed and flowed into these different industries. But most recently was the head of HR for two consulting firms, one that focused on Fortune 500 companies, the other focused on startups and nonprofits. But in that role I not only led their HR department but also their HR service lines with their clients. So that's how I got you know to the current state of affairs where I own my own firm, because I just learned so much over the years being in those different sectors, different industries, but definitely saw the importance of having an HR and DEI department and program within an organization as well as the impact that it makes on the people and culture.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, and so do you mind just explaining to folks just a little bit about what People Experts LLC does?
Alberta Johnson:So we are a professional consulting firm. So we are a professional consulting firm. We have typically worked with small to mid-sized companies that are high growth and all different industries so not one particular industry but they're typically companies that don't have a dedicated HR staff member or they have another staff member that doesn't quite have the expertise in HR DE&I. So we lead those organizations through change, we help them build out their HR departments and we help them identify the best tools and resources to support their growth and success of their people and culture functions.
Bob Goodwin:Cool. And then last last icebreaker question, we'll dive into it. What do we find you doing when you're not doing HR stuff?
Alberta Johnson:A lot of yoga, so I do enjoy hot yoga. A lot of running, a lot of cycling, so I do love being outdoors, but you know, always, you know, part of, I would say, being an HR professional is understanding the importance of mental and physical health. So I think it's good to kind of get out and move your body every day, and it's always been something that I've incorporated into my daily routines and my schedule, you know, just to make sure that I stay at the top of my game.
Bob Goodwin:And so how do you do that in a Chicago winter?
Alberta Johnson:It's not as cold here as people may think, so today it's almost 60 degrees, so the weather's great, and we do have some mild winters. So I continue to run, usually until it's probably about 30 degrees outside, but then once it hits below that, then I tend to stay inside a little bit more, but not as brutal as you think.
Bob Goodwin:It's hot yoga though, so that's funny. So you know, in preparation for our conversation today, you were kind enough to share an outline of topics. Because of the breadth of experience that you've had, we could go in a lot of directions and I think you know we can probably start off with and start to bring this into focus a little bit. I know that, just broadly, people in culture are very, very important to you. I look at as you're describing your kind of your work history, you know, in the nonprofit world and the DEI you were DEI before. Dei was cool, and so could you maybe just sort of kind of kick us off a little bit with you know why people and culture matter so much to you and how you might encourage our audience to be thinking about it.
Alberta Johnson:You know, I think, not only as being an HR professional, but also, you know, having been a DEI leader. You know I've seen how leaders can impact the culture, and it's not only from the perspective of how they lead or who they lead, it's, you know, how they implement core values. Are we models of those core values? Do we lead by example values? Do we lead by example? And a lot of this has not only come from being in the industries and sectors or having the knowledge and expertise, but having to be responsible for other people.
Alberta Johnson:When you're leading teams, when you're leading organizations you kind of think of of, you know how am I impacting not only the company, but how am I impacting my team and the staff? And that's where I started to see this marrying of people and culture, where it was a combination of not only HR and DE&I. But you know, how was this affecting the overall culture? Because it's so many things. It's how we engage, how we provide opportunities, growth, development. And then you know how are we encouraging our staff and our team to embrace diversity and inclusion? How do we embrace core values and are we fostering trust and empowerment within those teams? So it goes beyond. You know, just the surface of you thinking about HR and DE&I, and that's why I've been very welcoming to the term people in culture, because before it was this distinction between the two and I think that we really can't think about culture without thinking about the people.
Bob Goodwin:Hmm. So I'm curious, because some of those themes you know should be very durable. How have you seen things change from maybe how they were, and I'm talking about people and culture before the pandemic, after the pandemic? And then I'm very curious to ask a second question on the heels of that how do you see that changing generationally?
Alberta Johnson:Yeah, I mean I would say before the pandemic, you know you definitely had companies that had created, you know, de&i committees, de&i programming. But then, when we had this social unrest during the pandemic with George Floyd, you saw this huge uptick with companies not only looking to hire chief diversity officers but making DE&I a priority. And it was this sense of you know there were a lot of kind of rebellious actions that you saw at that time. You saw the quiet quitting. You saw, you know, employee advocacy. You saw all of these voices getting louder, not only from the workforce, but you also saw leaders being more vocal about it and I posted about this today and I mentioned it.
Alberta Johnson:But there was an article that was posted today about the US House Office of Diversity and Inclusion closing today and I thought what kind of message is this sending if our nation's capital is doing away with their DE&I programming? But I've often found being in other companies and it didn't matter whether it was a nonprofit, private, for-profit, whatever it may be when we got to that point where there was a drop in revenue or we had budget cuts. These DE&I programs were the first ones to be targeted and the positions were as well to be targeted and the positions were as well. So when?
Alberta Johnson:they were looking to eliminate when they were looking to save money. This is where they were looking to kind of cut back because it was seen as more of a nice to have rather than an absolute need. And HR can be seen that way as well. It's seen as overhead, it's not seen as anything that's contributing to the business or bringing in revenue. But it's when companies start to see themselves in these positions where they have employee relations issues or they have someone that files a complaint complaint and I know I kind of went off a little bit there.
Alberta Johnson:But when I'm thinking about what's happening today, do I see that there's a future for this In terms of it still being called DE&I or there just being a focus on DE&I? I don't know that it will continue in that capacity and that's why I think that focusing on people and culture, not only from the leadership standpoint but also from the HR standpoint, is so critical as to how companies will continue to be successful. It impacts so many things, which I know that we'll get into further in the conversation, but it's definitely evolved over time.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah.
Bob Goodwin:So I think you know and listeners will know, that we have another podcast that we do with Johnny Taylor from SHRM and we had talked about this on the WorkWire.
Bob Goodwin:Johnny's take on this and I'd love to hear what you think is he's not surprised to see, you know, a lot of these DEI offices and chief diversity officer roles go by the wayside, because he feels that you mentioned George Floyd and that was definitely like this very catalytic event on so many levels.
Bob Goodwin:But there was a lot of virtue signaling going on and you know that time's kind of come and gone and it's sort of not in the new cycle and we see what's going on at colleges and universities with affirmative action and like, like you're not, I'm going to use the double negative, you're not not virtue signaling by shutting these offices down. So it's like, oh my god, how are we going to handle the negative pr that comes from this? It's almost like you're on trend to do this now, but but johnny's take on it was it may not be an altogether bad thing to press the reset button on these programs, because and I know maybe this is the right place to insert this is that they really shouldn't be programs as much as an integral part of the business. Will you pick it up?
Alberta Johnson:from there. So, yes, definitely that that's where I was going with. This is, um, you know, it shouldn't just be one person's job to create inclusiveness for the entire organization. It has to be everybody's job. So that's where it's not only creating leaders that embrace this. And now you have to hope that all of the training and education that they received from these offices or from these chief diversity officers did not only get instilled into them but also embedded into the organization.
Alberta Johnson:But you know, a lot of times, if it's not reiterated or if there's not continuous talk and training and communication about it, then it does just become a program. If it's just a celebration that you have during one of the national heritage months, then it does not become part of the culture. It has to be ingrained in your core values. It has to be a part of everything that you do, from your marketing to your supplier diversity, to how you hire and also when you're looking to promote and create career paths for your workforce. And I'm not.
Alberta Johnson:I'm not surprised either, because this has to be everyone's job and that's why I don't. This has to be everyone's job and that's why I don't. I like that SHRM wants to recognize HR leaders as strategic partners and advisors, rather than just this administrative, operational piece that it's always been thought to be. And there's also, you know, a perception of HR people that they're not friendly or you know whatever that was in the past and you know, now we have to be those chief people officers where we are inheriting not only the DEI function but we also have to think about the business needs as well as advocate for the workforce.
Bob Goodwin:If you were speaking to a group of CEOs or whoever and you had to make the case for DEI, not just as it's a good thing to do, or even it's the right thing to do how would you make the case that it's the smart thing to do?
Alberta Johnson:You know, everyone wants to talk about the bottom line and that's what it affects in the end, because if you're not thinking about DE&I, it's who are you marketing to and how are you targeting those markets? Because your customers typically are not a one-size-fits-all. They're in different geographical areas, they have socioeconomic differences and you need to have people on your team that reflect you know your customers in the communities that you're serving, and that's always been the premise behind all of the programming and positions that I've been in is that we wanted our workforce to reflect our customer base or our clients or the communities that we were serving. And who better to give you the information about how to best service that market than people that have lived experience or that they understand the culture? And you've seen this happen with a lot of corporate companies where they try to launch a product in a country or a culture that they're not familiar with, and if they didn't do their research and development on the front end, then it usually doesn't do very well.
Bob Goodwin:And that's a good example of that. A Chevy Nova. Nova means it doesn't go. It's not a good name for a car Nova.
Alberta Johnson:Yes, yeah. So I mean, when you think about all of these kind of epic fails, when you hear about them, it's like, well, why didn't they just kind of invest in the people to do the research or have the right voices at the table, so that it would have saved them a lot of money on the front end. But it also saves them money on the back end as well, because when you think about when the business is not doing well and you have to have, you know, reductions in force, then you know that that has a ripple effect. It can create burnout. But then if you also have to go back and retrain a lower level of worker, because now you want to reduce your costs and you want to bring in someone with less experience, now there's those training costs, there's the you know revenue loss during the time that it took you to go through that reduction force. Bring in new people and if you have a high turnover rate as well, that's going to impact your performance as well in the bottom line.
Bob Goodwin:So on the culture piece, I don't want to skip past this too quickly because you know we talk about diversity. Ok, I'm going to project on people demographically, socioeconomically, country of origin, things like that. Maybe sexual orientation, right, but we're in a political year right now. We're in a political year right now and if the risk is stating the complete obvious, america is very polarized right now and the kind of the vitriol, the tone, the volume is about as shrill as it's ever been. And how would you help companies build a culture that is inclusive, civil, to where we can disagree about things that we feel very, very strongly about, and not create a culture that well? I'm not going to work with her because she's crazy, she's voting for Trump, she's crazy, she's. She's voting for trump, she's for abortion, she's against abortion. I mean things that just like really get people keyed up. How would you, if you were coaching a client on culture and that was the topic how would you encourage them to think about that?
Alberta Johnson:you know a lot of people don't want to talk about policy and procedures, but you know, really, your employee handbook kind of sets the tone for what's acceptable and what's not. I mean, it's just like we have laws, ordinances. You know, that creates the culture that we live in. We know what is acceptable, what's not. I mean, I can't, you know, drive 90 miles an hour and then if I get pulled over and then I'm asked you know why am I driving so fast? I just say I want to. You know the sense of you know what are our core values? How do we communicate with each other? Can we agree to disagree? But are you going to create this respectful culture where you can, creating this inclusive, open culture? But it's also being very clear about what is acceptable and what's not. And I won't just say that it's just policies and procedures. Yes, all companies need that, but it's more of your leadership.
Alberta Johnson:When you have leaders that foster trust and they empower, they have ways of receiving and giving effective feedback, I think that very much impacts the culture, but not only by modeling values and behaviors, but it's also kind of setting the stage as to you know how you expect others to respond to you and what that will look like moving forward.
Alberta Johnson:And you know, when there are staff members or leaders that do behave outside of that accepted culture or the accepted norms, then how is that dealt with? And a lot of where you see this decline is if you see someone acting unruly or being very rude or obnoxious to someone else or you know making inappropriate comments, and then there's no, you know there's no reprimand there, there's no sort of action taken against the person, and then it becomes is this acceptable to the culture? Because I'm looking at my handbook here and it's saying that we value respect, we trust we have, you know, open conversations, but then I was just insulted. So I think it's very much that lead by example, I can't say it enough, but that that's really what creates the culture, despite having policies, procedures or whatever else is in place.
Bob Goodwin:No, I appreciate what you're saying and maybe that's a good way to you kind of?
Bob Goodwin:bridge into the leadership and management part of this, and I was really encouraged to hear you talk about that. Yeah, we do need to have standards and those need to be clearly communicated, but what they really really need to be is lived out and modeled Right, and you kind of know what the rules are when the rules get violated, right? So Bob insulted Alberta about her political beliefs or whatever, but Bob's also our best sales guy. So like what are we really willing to put up with Bob's, the only person here that knows how this old tool that we still use works? So like we can't get rid of him. Okay, he's a little eccentric, he's a little odd. Yes, does he go, you know, off the reservation sometimes and say something that might be inappropriate, but he is, for whatever reason, viewed as being indispensable to the organization?
Bob Goodwin:What would you tell that company?
Alberta Johnson:How valuable is Bob? How valuable is this person to your company? I mean, I do understand that typically it's revenue, it's clients, it's whatever that person is bringing in. But in the long run, how much is that person costing your organization in turnover, in retention, in lawsuits at some point? And that's kind of where the HR person kind of becomes so critical.
Alberta Johnson:But then you have to be objective, you have to be neutral and you do have to think about the business needs as well as advocate for the workforce. So to answer that, that becomes the culture. I mean, if you allow it, it will become the culture and it will cost you more in the long run by keeping that person. So is it better to start thinking about succession planning or maybe, you know, trying to transition? You know some of that knowledge, that knowledge transfer to other staff members that don't behave in that way. But you really start having to look at the plan B and what the next step is, because that's not. The answer is to keep that person and allow them to heavily impact the culture and, depending on what position they're in, they can have a very large impact. And I say this because I had a client that had a COO that acted in this manner.
Alberta Johnson:And it was. There was, literally, you know, no actions taken to alleviate the situation. They were given kind of coaching, they were given all these options and the behavior still continued. And it's you know when do you get to the point where you finally have to make a decision. That you know. We've attempted to coach the behavior. We've attempted to, you know, have multiple conversations and it's still not changing. So you, I think you have to. That's part of being a leader. Part of being a CEO is that you do have to make those hard decisions, but you also have to be strategic about how you make them.
Bob Goodwin:You know you were making. The point, which I really agree with, is ultimately, culture isn't declared, it's demonstrated, and so it's. What are we willing to put up with? How does stuff really get done here? That's your culture. You can have all the success stories, posters on the walls and all the other stuff, but if we put up with that CEO who's doing whatever he or she's doing right now, that is your culture, because you've told people we're willing to tolerate that in in the context of what we view as superior, indispensable performance, knowledge, something, and so you know, for me it's kind of like when people talk about integrity. Integrity is very easy to claim, but the only time you really know it is when it's called into question. Right, and so culture can be easy to claim, val can be easy to claim until they're called into question. And are you really really, really, really willing to make the hard decision that communicates to everybody else? That's not okay. We do not reward that kind of behavior, and I think you know it's some very palpable level. That's real leadership.
Alberta Johnson:I agree, I agree and I think that it takes real leaders to be honest about what's happening, why it's happening and you know, in involving your team and discussing with your team on how's the best way to move forward when you have to address that behavior, because if it's, it continues to happen. So this is not a one-time event and once you start to see those patterns, then you know that it's not just one person complaining and it's not just impacting one person and it will impact the way that you lead when you have to be in an environment like that. So it's not only when you think about the person that's causing it, but it's the how is this impacting the rest of my team?
Alberta Johnson:How is it changing the way that they're leading and leading their teams, because they have to deal with this behavior?
Bob Goodwin:Let's talk about good behavior for a minute From a leadership perspective. How do you teach or encourage your clients to build a culture that's kind of grounded in trust and empowerment.
Alberta Johnson:I know that a lot of companies are not. Some like doing surveys, others don't, but I think that keeping your finger on the pulse of the workforce is very important. No matter how you get that information whether it's direct feedback, it's surveys, it's focus groups, whatever that may be I think that the people have the most valuable insight and input that you can know. You just you can't. You can read as many documents as you'd like, you can look at websites, you can look at white papers, but having those, um, you know, one-to-one conversations, I think, are invaluable. Um, you get so much information just from having a conversation.
Alberta Johnson:Uh, and that, that, and that's one of the reasons why I've stayed involved with SHRM. I love the campaign that they just launched on having one million civil conversations. I think that that's so important. And when I have found myself and not only working with clients, but when I was in other leadership positions, one of the first things that I would do was go on a listening tour to meet with as many staff members as I could to find out what they did for the company, what they liked. You know why they've stayed with the company, for those that had been there for many years, and you know what were their pain points.
Alberta Johnson:So I think it's not only understanding the good, but also understanding what needs to be fixed, and they're more willing to give you that information when they see you as a real person and someone that they can talk to rather than just taking a survey.
Bob Goodwin:Which is trust. Right, and I in leading teams for longer than I care to remember at this point. But you know, you have to demonstrate to people that you care about them more as a human being than as a work producing unit, and when people genuinely believe that you care about them, they will tell you the truth. And, to your point, that's where the feedback becomes so valuable. But in a lot of cases, for whatever reason, trust isn't granted, it's earned, and so, to your point, like being visible and kind of being consistent is very, very important to build that trust that somebody feels comfortable enough telling you whatever. X is not going well, or usually that would be in the delivery of bad news, but trust can also be in. We're gonna launch a new strategy and I don't completely understand it, but I trust you, I assume good intent and I am willing to take a leap of faith to follow you, even though I don't completely understand what we're doing or why we're doing it.
Alberta Johnson:That's trust we're doing it. That's trust, yeah, and I I would say even from you know the consulting standpoint, um, it's the you know are. Are your clients willing to give you all of the information? Or even, when you come into an organization you know, is there a level of transparency there? Um, are you being given? Is there a level of transparency there? Are you being given all of the information? Are you just giving pieces of it? And then, is there some sort of control that you're seeing over information, over how the work is done? I think that that definitely starts to impact not only how you lead but how your team views you. And if they don't feel trusted, if they don't feel appreciated, then that's when they start to, that's when you start to lose engagement and that's when you start to see turnover. And it's not only because they don't feel that they are valuable to the company, it's that they feel that they're not being heard or even if they wanted to speak up, that nobody would listen.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, and part of the problem with that retention issue is the slow burn is decreased productivity.
Alberta Johnson:Right.
Bob Goodwin:I'm not as engaged, you're not getting my best thinking because I'm starting to disconnect emotionally from the company but, I'm not all the way to quitting yet.
Alberta Johnson:And then that's where the quiet quitting comes.
Bob Goodwin:Exactly. But in this environment it's very interesting because, as you know, we work primarily with people in job transition, whether it's just individuals, or they come to us through our outplacement practice and you know people are afraid. Right now it's a very challenging economic environment, so there's not quite so much straight up quits as you would see, like in the Bureau of Labor Statistics kind of stuff, but just people like I'm not into it, like there's a great article or two articles maybe you saw this in Business Insider. It was talking about the fabric of loyalty has pretty much come completely unraveled. Has pretty much come completely unraveled and it's mutual, which is kind of sad too, that you know people feel less loyal to the company and companies feel less loyal to their people and like that is not a great recipe for success. Yet people will stick around because I'm not really sure where the next job is, because this isn't the greatest job market right now. So are you getting my best work? Probably not, but at least I haven't been laid off yet. So there we're, even.
Alberta Johnson:I would say that's a very accurate depiction of what typically starts to happen and it just becomes a job. It's not a career, it's not anything that they are investing in or passionate about. It's just doing the bare minimum to get by and to keep collecting a paycheck and then it's not even really caring about. You know how the work is getting done and that's when you do see the productivity going down. So I definitely agree with that and you know those are things to think about when you're talking to people that are in transition, that you know what did they like about their previous positions, what did they not like, what type of company they're looking for, and I think it does give them an opportunity to start being a little bit more clear about you know why some of these things happened and to notice those red flags going into other companies.
Alberta Johnson:But definitely in the work that I do, red flags have always been the company's not communicating. The interview process didn't go very well, they didn't get any feedback, they didn't receive the information that they needed during the onboarding process, and you know that first 30 to 90 days is so critical when an employee is coming into a work environment, but it's very telling of what it'll be like to work there. You know, did you feel supported, did you feel heard, did you feel that your manager spent sufficient time with you, were your team members receptive, and those are all of the things that our culture, that people kind of think of as sometimes administrative or operational, that you didn't get the manual, you didn't get the email, but it becomes the culture.
Bob Goodwin:It's funny. I won't spend much time on this, but I took a call a couple weeks ago from a friend who had left company A, went to company B. Company B, very not long thereafter, had a layoff because some funding issue, and so he wasn't there very long, but long enough that he needs to have it on his resume, long enough that it's on his linkedin profile so he can't completely sweep it under the rug. And then he moved company c, and company c is what you just described, alberta. It's like horrible onboarding experience.
Bob Goodwin:His boss is overwhelmed and or doesn't care and he's just like what have I done? Like what new mess have I got myself into? But I gotta ride this out for a little while because I can't just keep, you know, changing jobs all the time and and so. But to your, he's found out the culture of company C is not great, but he feels stuck to have to stay there and ultimately company C is paying the price for that. Right, because he, he's, they're not getting his best work. One, because they haven't enabled it, because their policies aren't great. Two is their organizational structure isn't designed to support new employees and so he's just going to, kind of, like I said, write it out and just sort of biding his time to get the heck out of here Real quick in our remaining time because I know this is a topic that's important to both of us and maybe it kind of relates to this last piece we were just on is the whole thing around mental wellness, like people are stressed out, you know whether it's.
Bob Goodwin:hey, I never really kind of got over all the trauma of the pandemic, you know, and then we've got you know, the news every night just keeps you upset with politics and wars and recession, or maybe recession and layoffs and just like the swirling mess of things going on. People are just like off balance and what can companies be doing? What do you recommend to companies? To kind of just like breathe, let's just settle down.
Bob Goodwin:You run, you do your hot yoga and you do all that stuff. But more broadly, what can companies be doing to just help their associates be a little more settled so they can be the best version of themselves?
Alberta Johnson:You know, I think, promoting your health and wellness benefits and also, you know, having your leaders be more informed about what resources are available for their teams.
Alberta Johnson:You know whether that's an EAP if they definitely need that. So an employee resource program or employee assistance program program. But you know, it's about encouraging your team to not only use paid time off. If there's flexible work that's available, encourage them to use flexible work. And that's kind of just being more empathetic, sympathetic when a team member maybe has a sick family member or they're, you know, having some other sort of you know life event happen where it would be easier for them to work from home. And if there are those remote work options, how are you promoting them? Are you trusting your team to do the work while they're at home? Are you someone that you know demands that they be in the office?
Alberta Johnson:You know, I think that you know benefits wellness should not just be promoted. When you have your kind of annual benefit review every month, I would say at the end of the year, beginning of the year, when you do your benefit renewals, you know, have some of those service providers come out throughout the year and kind of talk about those benefits and remind them of what they have available to them. You can do lunch and learns that talk about wellness, not only just the benefits that you offer. But maybe there's a walking club that you know one of your employee resource groups has started, or you're gonna have a fitness challenge.
Alberta Johnson:I've seen Weight Watchers you know a lot of. When I was at the YMCA they did a lot of kind of like Weight Watchers challenges, but then they had one that was like a step challenge, like people wear fitbits and they wear apple watches and all those things and who did the most steps that day. So I think that there's different ways that you can incorporate it into the culture. But also, if you're leading a team, um, and you are remote, there's water cooler chats that you can create and, and you know, just taking that time to check in with your team. That is not work related and not focused on production, but really just checking in to see how was their weekend, how are they doing um, and if you are noticing that their work is declining, maybe that warrants a conversation, as well because maybe something else is going on.
Alberta Johnson:But I think you just have to continue to encourage work-life balance. And I will give one example of this is where I worked for a wonderful CEO that encouraged wellness, encouraged work-life balance, but yet he worked until like nine o'clock at night and he was sending emails at that time. And if you are trying to encourage that into the culture, you know that's not the best example, sending emails late into the evening, or they're seeing you kind of overwork yourself, but yet you're trying to tell everyone else to, you know, to take some time off, but you're not doing it yourself. So again, that's another example of where you know, do as I say, not as I do, and that's impacting the culture as well. So you know, make sure not only your executive teams are, you know, taking advantage of those wellness programs, but also that they're encouraging their staff to do so as well.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, so that's really good. You know, it makes me think about a couple of things. One is very similar story about president and CEO of the company. It's like where's everybody? Well, sir, it's spring break and a lot of people are off with their families at spring break. Why are you here? Well, because I thought you wanted me here. No, go home, Go be with your family. But it all kind of gets back to trust and empowerment right.
Bob Goodwin:I trust you, I'm empowering you to do the job. You know what the expectation is, so I kind of don't care if you do it two in the morning or two in the afternoon, as long as it gets done and gets done well and on time. So I trust you go do what you need to go do. And you know, career club apparently is a migraine magnet, because we all suffer from migraines from time to time and I tell my wife that's the price of genius, but she doesn't believe that. But seriously, it's like you know, like just do what you need to go do. Like you don't need to tell me anything, like I just trust you to tell me anything, like I just trust you and you know if you need to go lay down, or like you just need to take today off because you're seeing stuff like that's okay, like just go do what you need to go do, does it?
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, I mean, and people appreciate that, they appreciate being treated like an adult, you know, and and you have that trust goes both ways and you need to be able to trust the people in your care, right, because we're human beings again, we're not just work producing units. We have aging parents and sick kids, migraines, and just I'm burned out today and I just need like to tap out for a day and just like recharge I need to. I need to leave the office at two o'clock and, like you say, go walk, like I just need to press the reset button. It's little, just it's the accumulation of a lot of little things versus this one big thing that will, you know, be the cure-all to things and ultimately, I think it comes down to treating people with respect.
Alberta Johnson:And ultimately, I think it comes down to treating people with respect, definitely and I think I mentioned this to you, that I was quoted in whether they're sick, you know not feeling well, and then when they do, then you know people are kind of like well, why did you come in if you were sick?
Alberta Johnson:But if I had stayed home, that would have had kind of a negative perception or a negative outlook about how dedicated I am to my position or to the project or to the workload. So where is that right balance? Because you want to be able to take that time, but then if you are trying to still just kind of power through it and come into the office, that's frowned upon as well.
Bob Goodwin:So Well, I'm not right, because you've got a running nose like why are you here? Like you're trying to make me sick too. It's like well, pick one, I can't do both. So somebody has got to make a decision here. But again back to civility. So somebody's got to make a decision here. But again back to civility. Trust, just treat people the way you want to be treated.
Alberta Johnson:I mean, sometimes this comes down to things we learned as six-year-olds.
Alberta Johnson:Yeah, I mean, and that's kind of the baffling part about all of this is that a lot of what kind of HR and DEI tries to reiterate are things that you would have learned very early in life. So it becomes a bit frustrating when you feel like you're kind of teaching a much lower level group of people and I don't want to term it that way. But, um, you know, it's just those essential things, just respect, trust, um, you know, knowing when we are being inappropriate, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, um, and some of the things that come very easy to certain people. But then it's a challenge for others and then it's, you know, how do you make them aware that the behavior is not appropriate and then get them the correct kind of management and training, um, and development, so that it doesn't continue to happen. And some people, believe it or not, are not aware that they're offending somebody, but you know, once it's, it's, they're made aware of it, then it's the you know how do they handle it moving forward which is why I love the expression assume good intent.
Bob Goodwin:right, maybe she didn't know. I mean, like you know, I thought everybody knows, but maybe so we'll give people the benefit of the doubt but we will also kind of reset expectations. I want to be mindful of the time, alberta, is there anything? Well, I'm sure there's a million things. Is there one or two things that we haven't talked about that before our time is up, that you would really want to make sure that we get across?
Alberta Johnson:get across. I would just really say that you know it's not. I think I would just go back to saying that you know HR, de&i, people culture. It's not just the job of the HR person or the DEI person. It really is your executive leadership team, it's your CEO, it's your. You know your mid-level managers as well because they manage so much of the workforce. But really, just reiterating the value of investing in people and knowing that you know the people ultimately decide the culture. So just be mindful of how you treat them. Um, you know how you hire, where you hire, and you know make sure that they're set up to be successful and that they have the tools, the resources and the empowerment to do their jobs. Um, because it it does have a ripple effect, um, and you want it to be a positive one.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah Well, I very, very, very much appreciate your wisdom. I wouldn't call it your expertise, alberta, but your wisdom today, yes, you've got amazing education, all these great work experiences, but the way that it's all kind of come together, and I really like your banner of people and culture and and maybe the third leg of values and kind of bringing all that together is is awesome. If people want to learn more about your business, what's the best way for them to reach out to you?
Alberta Johnson:Well, I am on LinkedIn, so you can find me on LinkedIn as well as my company, people Experts, and then we also have a website, which is wwwpeopleexpertsllccom. But we're here to help and definitely, you know, looking forward to connecting with others that are in this space, but I, I love what I do, so, um, I look forward to connecting with other companies, other individuals that are in this space as well.
Bob Goodwin:Awesome and also, just before I forget, thank you for all of your leadership and charm and everything that you do to kind of share the gospel, if you will, on uh things we've talked about today. So with that, um, we'll bring this one to a close. Thank you, everybody, for taking a few minutes out of your day to either watch on youtube or listen on your things we've talked about today. So with that, um, we'll bring this one to a close. Thank you, everybody, for taking a few minutes out of your day to either watch on youtube or listen on your favorite podcast platform. If you've got a second to leave a rating or review, believe it or not, it really does help. So with that, alberta, thank you so much for having me.
