Mindful Monday’s

Transcript

Michelle

Hi, welcome to Mindful Mondays. My name is Michelle Precourt, and it's a real pleasure to be with you here today. We are episode 15 with David and Deepika, and I'm so excited to tell you all about their backgrounds and experience and I know they'll have lots to share. Before we do that, a couple of things, I'd invite all of you our viewers, as well as you David into Deepika to reflect on where you are calling in from today. I feel blessed and honored to live in this beautiful part of British Columbia, which is on the land of the Skwxwú7mesh people. It's otherwise known as Squamish, British Columbia. So to our viewers, please chime in, tell me where you're calling in from. Previously, we've had international guests, we've crossed ponds, so to speak, and borders and all of that sort of thing. So love to hear where our viewers are calling in from, please do share in the chat. Before we get into this great conversation with you two today, I'd like to tell anyone who might be new to Mindful Mondays, what this is all about. Michelle, why are you doing this? It's really about sharing knowledge, in a way, what I hope will do, is to create healthier humans and more sustainable workplace cultures. And so by doing this, I bring in guests to talk about things like career stress, conflict in the workplace, organizational culture, and today, we're talking about the future of HR. Let me take a quick look at see who's joining us today. Let's take a look. So far we've got Barbara, thanks for joining us all the way from Florida. Fantastic! Tammy, nice to see you as always. And, and then our guests. So let’s, take a quick look at my notes here. So I don't forget anything. So Deepika, welcome. Welcome. Thanks for joining us today.

Deepika

Thank you so much, Michelle. It's really a pleasure to be part of Mindful Monday’s, I have been going through your LinkedIn page, and I saw that there have been interesting interviews done by you. And it's really a pleasure that I got an opportunity to come. And in terms of profile, I am currently at Vancouver, it's quite sunny today, I think it's 20 degrees outside, I'm enjoying the sun.

Michelle

Wonderful. Deepika is new to Mindful HR Services, started with us just a couple of weeks ago as our intern. Deepika is currently an MBA student, which is why she's with us here because she needs this internship to graduate from herprogram. Deepika brings 10 plus years of HR experience from her home country in India. So I thank you so much for being part of our team, and for being part of the broadcast today. Thank you Deepika.

Deepika

Thank you so much for your humble introduction.

Michelle

And David, welcome to you as well. How are you today?

David

I'm doing wonderful. I'm feeling very blessed to be here. Thank you so much for having me on.

Michelle

Of course! David also has some experience to share. Let me take a look here. So currently, he is working for a really great individual, the Independent Living Housing Society on Vancouver Island. If you don't know who they are, please check them out. But he comes from Alberta, spent most of his life in Alberta. We had a great conversation about growing up in Grand Prairie and his background is from Grand Cash. And now he's back in British Columbia. And we're so happy that that you're with us here. He's also doing some work with Petra Mayer and Associates doing some research for a white paper that they're going to be publishing soon. So I look forward to reading that. Thank you again for joining us today.

David

Happy to.

Michelle

Okay, so we've got some questions here. We want to dive right into things. And Deepika, I'd like to start with you. So you're going to soon graduate from University Canada West and have been in Canada for about a year now. So I'm guessing you have some perspective to share. There's there's a lot of talk about employee retention issues these days and as a new Canadian and someone with 10 years of HR experience. I'm curious to hear from you where we might be missing the mark in terms of retaining top talent.

Deepika

My combination in experience working with different corporate and consulting, what I realize is that the employer should understand what their employees are looking for. So, one of the most important thing for retaining any employees or sustaining their current workforce is to understand the need of the employees. So, there need to be set process wherein they are doing a regular surveys on frequent intervals, and they try to understand what is the need of the organization. For instance, if the organization is looking for monetary benefits, if the employees are looking for a better workplace to work for, if they are looking for more flexibility in terms of maybe working from home, working remotely, or maybe a combination of hybrid. So, it is really important to have some surveys, have some database to understand what the employees are exactly looking for. So, as for my as for my understanding, to retain any employee, it is important to know what is their need. And, and apart from that, most importantly, once you understand what the employees are looking for, they need to be a set process to share the feedback or share the progress of that survey that you have done. For example, if somebody said that the food court of the offices it's stinks at times and if the organization is working towards this, they should be on flow, there should be an ongoing process to tell them that yes, this is what the organization is doing to improve the same and this is the deadline by this time, we should be able to overcome by the situation so that the employer should know that, yes, the company is working on their feedback.

Michelle

Thanks Deepika. If I heard you, right, what comes to mind is the little things are the big things, right. So, something as simple as the if, if they are an on site at the workplace, the cafeteria is what you were talking about there. That if you know, there's garbage not picked up, this sort of thing. The little things are the big things. What also comes to mind is we're not easy to please are we? Because everyone is so different. How do we make everybody happy? I think employers are really challenged. But I also think that job seekers have today are a lot more savvy in terms of what they need. And so maybe David, I'll pass it over to you to comment on this as well, in terms of retaining talent.

David

You got it. So I think that with regards to Deepika's comment, you made a really good comment to Deepika that the employer needs to understand the employees. And as everybody is so different, as you're saying, Michelle, the way that I saw this put into action, during my time here at the Independent Living Housing Society of greater Victoria, is that Tammy put out a survey to all employees asking one simple question, how do you like to be recognized? And the different options were presented. Obviously, there was an option for if there's another way, but you can choose things like praise, you could choose things like monetary compensation, there were different options on how people should be recognized for the good work that they do. I think that goes a long way in terms of retaining top talent. That's a really important point to consider is how do you want to recognize people for doing a good job in your organization?

Michelle

Thanks, David. And Tammy, you mentioned Tammy, Tammy Khanna is the executive director of Independent Living Housing Society. And she's online with us today. So thanks, again for joining us. And that is a fantastic example. And, you know, what also comes to mind is, it's leaders of today have a lot of pressure. And frankly, that's not going to go away. And the reason for that is to what you were saying, David, so in a smaller organization, it might be easier to give an employee exactly the type of praise that they want all of the time. But in larger organizations where say you have 50 to 100 employees reporting in to you, the challenge becomes if all of them want praise, if all of them want your time, all of them want like to go for a cup of coffee. How do you manage that? Right? And the thing about Mindful Monday's and the discussion that we're having here today is that guess what, folks? We don't have all the answers. We're here to provide some ideas, some solutions, but we don't have all the answers. And I think that this is one that continues to be a challenge around, making folks happy. What also comes to mind about retaining talent is if you think back, there were no provisions for employees. It was very much an employer based society, you know, before employment standards came in before labour legislation came in. Employers were the ones who got to demand and the employment contract was, I will pay you to do the job period. And now I think that we're recognizing the world of work is changing, it's changing, a lot continues to change. And so where we go from here, hard to know, but at the moment, the pendulum has shifted, folks, the pendulum is definitely on the employee side of the fence. And so when it comes to employee retention, finding those nuggets of information in terms of what your employees are looking for, in essence, is what David and Deepika are saying. We're seeing a lot more comments in the chat here. From a few folks all over the place. Good morning, good afternoon to you, Greg calling in from Ottawa. It is a thanks for joining us, we also have Morris as well. So lots of folks chiming in here. Nice to see that. If you have any questions, please do share in the chat. We'd love to engage with you the best that we can. And one way of doing that is by sharing your questions in the chat. I would like to move on. So let's talk a little bit about job search challenges. And the three of us attend something that's called Wake-Up HR. For those of you who don't know about it, I will share this momentarily in the in the link actually, Tammy, if you're still with us, if you could share a link to Wake-Up HR, I would greatly appreciate that. And it's all about networking at Wake-Up HR. It's hosted through CPHR, Charter Professionals in Human Resources of BC and Yukon. And this is commonly where we see a lot of job seekers. This is where I met David, in fact. And speaking of you, David, I know that your time at Independent Living Housing Society is coming up to an end, and you'll be looking for permanent work shortly. So I'd like to direct this question to you. What challenges are you facing when it appears there's a plethora of jobs, tonnes of job openings, yet job seekers are still struggling struggling to find employment. I'd like to hear from you. David, what are your thoughts on this?

David

I would first like to say that my time ILHS has been incredible and the end of my temporary contact. And I'm feeling so grateful that I got this experience. And it was a wonderful time to have in terms of looking for the next thing I've been lucky to get some contacts. But with regards to the market for for new employees and for employers there, I feel that there is always going to be a lot of competition for those top jobs. So if you're somebody who is trying to get into a good position with a good company with a good reputation, and then there's going to be a lot of competition for those positions. So I feel that with regards to there being a lot of job seekers out there, those job seekers have access to a lot more information than they've ever had before. And they are looking to get into those organizations that will respect them as human beings that will take care of them that will compensate them fairly. And that will understand their needs, as we were talking about before. So that is something which is really important to a lot of people. If we also look at another thing that is going on, the differences in sectors start to factor in, for example, you look at something like the restaurant industry, the healthcare industry, and the tech industry post COVID. When you're looking at these three industries, you immediately see huge differences in the way that people, a potential employees interact with these different sectors. And you can immediately see that people are gravitating towards the sectors where they feel that they'll be able to be the most fairly compensated in the most respected and in terms of their pay, and in terms of their benefits. So that is something that is also a factor as well for the job seekers and the employers as well.

Michelle

Yeah, thanks for that, David. It and so what I think what you were talking about is a little bit of employer branding, those brands out there that have really great presence, that frankly work really hard to market themselves and could be doing all of the things that we were talking about from an employee engagement perspective. You go to places like oh, it's slipping my mind, Glassdoor. Glassdoor, and learn about what people are saying, as if once again, job seekers of today are, are okay with being really vocal about good experiences, and not good experiences. So this is where we have to become a little bit more savvy here. As employers and as leaders about what we're saying, how we're doing. I talk a lot about positive leader role modeling and what that looks like. And frankly, kindness just goes a real long way as well. This is also where I just shared a link to the calendar for CPHR BC and Wake-Up HR is full of really kind people, which is why I show up every Friday as well. Deepika, let's go to you. Tell me about job search challenges that you've faced.

Deepika

To start with, I totally agree with David that there's a lot of competition in the market. You have to market yourself in a best way in order to grab the best job as a newcomer, or somebody who will be just graduating with the MBA. The challenges which I have faced, personally, one of the most, one of the most important challenge, which I have usually faces like, it's for the professional jobs, like jobs in HR or any office professional jobs. Most of the time companies want somebody who's a full timer, they are not interested to hire a part timer, because this lot of follow up now in the HR jobs, there's lot of work which cannot be done in 20 hours or something like that, or they're not sure they hire somebody as a part timer, whether that person will stick to the organization for a longer time, or there are many reasons attached to the same. So that's one of the major challenge I have been facing while I'm trying to look for a full time job to have battle of experiences from from back home. Plus, there have been situations where and have qualified couple of rounds, I have just reached the final stage. And the moment they realize, Oh, I'm a part timer. So they get a little apprehensive hiring a part timer for this position. But I think that will eventually should work because from middle of November, the government is coming with a new policy where students can also work full time. So I hope this this issue can be can be resolved. Other issue which I have heard from a couple of friends, when it comes to finding a job here, everybody wants people with Canadian or North American experience, because they don't want to spend lots of time and training and developing resources. They prefer somebody who has already worked in a similar industry, similar background, that they're just good to go there. The moment they are hired, they're onboard, and they're good to go. They're ready to shoot the fire. So that's that's another challenge, which I've heard with couple of friends from similar background they have been facing.

Michelle

Thanks Deepika, a couple of things come to mind, I agree with you 100%. The amount of of job alerts that that come up on LinkedIn, for example, and that's only one place. There are full time, I rarely see any part time. And so if there's any employers online, I'd be curious to hear from you about this idea of full time versus part time, hiring to part two part time people for example, or job sharing opportunities. I'm curious about the hesitation around hiring part time workers, professional workers. There's a lot of part time jobs out there if you're looking for retail and food services, restaurants, but when it comes to some professional environments, like human resources, like finance, like operations, I'm seeing full time so if there's any employers online that would like share in the chat, I'd love to get your perspective here we might be able to banter a little bit more. The other piece that comes to mind is remote versus on site. I continuously hear, especially through Wake-Up HR folks that frankly are really comfortable working from home. And yet there are so many jobs that are on site. And it's again this balance between you know what employees of today are looking for, it appears that remote work is what employees are looking for. And yet there are so many jobs that are posted that are on site, some hybrid. And I'll share a really good example of where on site doesn't always work. Well, I was recently in Winnipeg talking with a client of mine Celero solutions. And I went to their office and I was meeting with their VP of Employee Experience, Lianne, and she goes into the office about once a week, and she's like, you know, Michelle, when I come into the office, I don't get anything done. So I know that there's this concern about productivity going down when we are at home, because you know, we're sitting here watching Law and Order during the day, probably not. But I would agree with that, that sometimes there's a lot of , there can be a lot of really important conversations and connections that you can do face to face. But in my experience, you can also do those online. Those are just some initial other comments that I have here as well around finding work. The other thing that I want to address as well as something that you said Deepika that I completely disagree with your struggles, your struggles around this, quote, unquote, Canadian experience. And you're not the only one, experience is experience. That's the way I look at it. So whether you're writing a job description, whether you are, you know, interviewing a candidate, experience is experience, certainly there's some culture that you need to be aware of. But those can be learned, they can be discussed in advance. And so, you know, to the employers out there who are looking for Canadian experience, I challenge you to think in a different way that experience is experience. So I'm going to pause there and see what's happening in the chat here. Let's take a look here. Yeah, there's some some good comments in the chat here. So let's take a look at this one here from Greg. Employer Branding is an incredible opportunity for a competitive advantage. Yeah, we talked a little bit about that. Thanks for chiming in there, Greg. Let's take a look what else might be happening here, oh, I just wanted to share this link here. Anyone who's interested in joining us for Wake-Up HR, you can go to the CPHR BC website and check out all of their events. Wake-Up HR  is free to anybody, you don't even have to actually be in HR, you can join. My previous intern who had a background in finance joined us as well. Great opportunity to network and doesn't cost a thing. Okay, we've got one more question here that we're going to address around employee engagement. So David, let's start with you. What is in your opinion, what is one tried and tested employee engagement strategy that has worked well.

David

Praise. The understanding that goes into good praise of the employee is so important, and it can be done in small teams, it can be done to large groups, it can be as simple as saying thank you. And those are the moments where people really can feel like they're bonding and creating connections. It is so important for employee engagement, to remember that small detail of just being grateful to have those employees have that good team and be able to say when work is done well, that that work has been done. Well. That's so important.

Michelle

Thank you. I couldn't agree more, understanding what employees are looking for in terms of the type of praise, which is where our conversation started. How do you like to be recognized? Excellent. Thank you. Deepika, what's your thoughts on this question?

Deepika

I would say again, that understanding the workforce understanding what your team is looking for understanding what your employees are looking for, so it's that that's the most important or the initial stage of employee engagement. You need to engage you need to sit with them. You need to understand what they're looking for, you need to address their issues and Then accordingly act on the same. So employee engagement has so many phases, it has rewards and recognition, it has appraisals. So appraisals can be any sort of like it can be appraisals, it can be rewards and recognition, it can be maybe a promotional offering a new higher designation. So it can be anything, but the base, the baseline should be understanding, understand what they're looking for, and then address accordingly.

Michelle

Thank you Deepika. You know, to wrap this up, I think what we're talking about his intrinsic motivators. And recently, I did some work with two groups, around values. And you know, what is important to you when at work, if we can take a step back, and yes, there's, you know, the skills, the hard skills that are required to perform the job 100%. But what is going to motivate me to work harder to fine tune to tweak to, you know, get the job done with passion, versus getting the job done. I think there's a nuance there. And that's intrinsic motivators. And so I've I've done some work around values in the workplace, and what's important. And when we do this, what I've seen when I've done this work with teams within tech teams, is the light bulbs kind of go on going, Oh, I didn't know that, recognizing David publicly was so important to him, I have to remember that. And then as leaders we can, we can augment our style to those that we work with. And then as peers, we can understand going, Oh, that's a trigger for Deepika. She told me about XYZ when we did that values exercise. So what it does is it it helps us to come together a little bit more, understand who we are in a in a safe way. And help us to, you know, like I started all of this off, create healthier humans and more sustainable workplace cultures. So I am noticing the time here. And so I'd like to before we close, tell you a little bit about what is coming up. Our next Mindful Monday is on November the 21st with Dr. Ken Keis. We're talking about a subject that is very near and dear to me, workplace wellness. We're going to be talking about how engaging employees and their wellness journey today creates a healthier, more sustainable workplace culture for the future. We're going to discuss real workplace examples of how leaders can retain talents and create more cohesive teams and drive productivity through healthier workplace culture. So that is coming up November the 21st. Stay tuned for more information. I want to thank all of our viewers here today. Barbara, Ashy, Elizabeth, Tammy, Greg, Neema, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. And, of course, to my guests, David and Deepika. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your knowledge. And I wish you both an amazing journey going forward. You are the future of HR, you're going to do some amazing work. I can't wait to see where you go with your careers. And with that, we'll say goodbye and until next time, everyone be well.