Date: Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Time: 1:00pm Eastern / 10:00 am Pacific
Presenters:
Christian Nielson, Chief Revenue Officer
Matthew Wride, President
Deskless workers make up over 80% of the global workforce, but they’re often left out of traditional employee feedback programs. This can lead to low engagement, high turnover, and a disconnect between the front-line and decision-makers.
In this webinar, learn how to use employee feedback solutions to empower your deskless workforce and improve engagement, retention, productivity, and performance. Discover how to identify and address the needs of your front-line employees, and create a more inclusive and equitable workplace.
Transcript
Christian Nielson | 00:00
<silence> Hello and welcome to this webinar, uh, part of our webinar series today. We’re excited to have a number of you joining us here. Stalling is a few more folks join us. Uh, my name is, uh, Christian Nielson. I’m part of the leadership team. I’m joined here by, uh, decision wise, president Matt Wride.
Matt Wride | 00:23
Yeah, hello.
Christian Nielson | 00:25
And we’re, we’re excited to, to get into this conversation. We do hope it will be a conversation. We’ve, we’ve prepared a, a, uh, some, some content that we’re excited to explore, but we becomes, uh, much more meaningful when we get some engagement from our, our participants in the chat, um, in the chat function here for this session. This session is being recorded, and the recording will be sent out following this. Additionally, uh, I always forget to mention this, but the, uh, this session does qualify for, uh, Shem and HRCI, uh, credit. So, uh, a code will be sent out, uh, following the, the session as well. So, a pleasure to have, uh, everyone joining us today for this discussion about, uh, desk, desk list workers, and giving a voice to the desk list workforce, uh, something we haven’t really explored in, in any of our, our web series.
Christian Nielson | 01:17
Uh, something we certainly talk about quite a bit behind the scenes and with our clients. Uh, we thought it would deserved, um, uh, more of a public conversation. And we’re excited to get everyone’s thoughts on this topic as well. I’m losing my voice, so that’ll be a, that’ll add some drama to this. It will my voice hold out for the whole, uh, session today. It’ll be a, it’ll be a really good, uh, <laugh> side story as we go through this. So, just to, to get us primed, and this, this is one of those questions where the answer is in the question. Uh, what is a, a desk a desk list worker? Um, you know, we’ve got a, a definition that I, I pulled that I really like. A desk-less worker or desk-less workers rather refer to employees who don’t primarily work at a desk or in a traditional office setting. They’re often on the move, engaging in tasks that require physical presence and mobility, physical presence and mobility. I, I mean, this is a really broad category, I think. I think as we get further in here, uh, certainly as I was preparing some of the content for this session, my mind was really expanded to just how broad this category really is.
Matt Wride | 02:28
And I think we’re gonna, are we going to open that up to the, to the chat? Maybe if people want to, if they have any thoughts about what, you know, as we talk about things or as we ask questions, we encourage you to throw that in the chat. But as you and I were talking, Christian, uh, desk list worker is not the same thing as a remote worker. And sometimes we can conflate those two, those two. But desk list workers have a really unique employee experience, which is why we’re excited to talk about it today and really focus on how do you listen when you have a different employee experience, and how does that change things, changes what you ask your approach. So that’s what we hope to cover, I think is, and, and give some insights that the desk-less world and their culture is different.
Christian Nielson | 03:14
Yeah. Uh, good point. It’s, it’s very different than, than a remote worker. This isn’t your, your, your nephew that is doing, you know, SEO on the run, living that van life. It can work from anywhere. That’s, this is a different category that we’re talking about, these, these, um, and such a broad category and so important to make that distinction. Some of the, there’s some overlap in some of the concerns or, or communication needs, but it really is its own category as, as we’ll. Get in here and see. And please, yes, as, as we ask questions, or if you have thoughts or questions, please use that chat. We’ll, we’ll go to that frequently. That’s really been, um, uh, a really enhancing aspect of these web sessions.
Matt Wride | 03:56
One thing that stands out to me in the definition is just the mobility and physicality sometimes associated with, with desk-less workers, is so we, we need the ability to understand that their needs, and sometimes the questions we ask as we try to listen and give voice to them, a collective voice that, that, that has to account for that physicality that’s often associated with a desk-less worker.
Christian Nielson | 04:19
Yeah, that’s a really good point. And, and as you made that point, it really has been occurring to me that, you know, with the, the, the presence of AI just in, in every aspect of, of just modern conversation now, it, you know, it used to be that we thought, oh, AI’s coming for to take people’s jobs. Well, it is, but I don’t think it’s coming first for the Desko workers. I think these are, these are many categories of employees that we absolutely can’t live without, and there’s no immediate, you know, AI replacement or, or for, for the services and the value that they bring, uh, to the workforce. They really make the world go round in, in, in a lot of ways as we, as we get in, and we’ll, we’ll see that. Um, in fact, I think that’s my next slide. I stole my own thunder here. Desk-less workers are vital. Um, they play a crucial role in the various industries. We’ll, we’ll go explore some of these, but really the operational backbone of many industries, many businesses, uh, uh, I love that the, the, the customer facing aspect of a lot of, a lot of businesses are, are really comes down to deathless, uh, workforce. Um, we’ll, we’ll get in and see, and maybe actually that’s a good segue into, let’s look at some examples.
Christian Nielson | 05:33
We’ll have a, a few slides of these, but there, there’s broad categories here. Many industries, maybe every industry has, uh, some form of desk-less, uh, workforce, uh, retail associates. Uh, we see our cashiers, Salesforce stock clerks, healthcare. Healthcare is the one that really stood out to me. Um, you know, immediately as we were thinking that, you know, I think through my, um, you know, all of us have had either ourselves or, or those close to us, um, with, you know, ex probably everyone has had medical needs and have relied on, on nurses, paramedics, home health, uh, care, those type of things. Uh, those type of roles. And those are desk-less employees. They don’t have a desk that they return to, or they’re not sitting in a cube or an office or even at home on a laptop all day. They’re on their feet, they’re moving around. It’s that mobility, that flexibility side. Um, healthcare certainly relies heavily on, on, um, desk-less workers. That’s field service technicians. I had, uh, someone doing some repair work at my home yesterday, and I was, I couldn’t help but think, you know, what’s their sense of community? What does it feel like to be in their shoes? How do they relate to their manager, their boss? How do they identify with their, their employer? It’s, it’s, it’s a fascinating way to, to look at the world, uh, construction workers.
Christian Nielson | 06:57
Um,
Matt Wride | 06:58
And, and these lists are helpful because they, um, tell us that desk that not, not every desk-less worker environment’s the same. So look at healthcare. Healthcare. They still go to a place, they’re still a place of congregation. There’s still a place of, that they commute to regularly. But the technician that you talked about that came to service your, I think you said it was your stove when we were chatting before, may not actually have a home base anymore. What does that, what does his or her employee experience look like, um, as it relates to, you know, someone who is a chef or in food service and they’re going to a place every day? You, you’ve, you’ve gotta think about that and really, you know, I think that the, the point is, is those who are HR professionals on this webinar, thinking about how to set up listening programs for their desk list workers, step one is, okay, I gotta have a real clear understanding. ’cause not every desk list scenario is equivalent.
Christian Nielson | 08:02
Yeah, really good point. Really good point. And, um, you know, this is, this is a category, as I mentioned, we behind the scenes have talked a lot about, because a number of our clients, um, work with us specifically because we have experience with the desk-less workforce. You know, we have, um, huge depth in healthcare as well as manufacturing, retail, a number of industries where desk-less workforce is really the majority of their workforce. So, uh, really an important conversation for us. Something we care, uh, quite a bit about, uh, just a few others, delivery and logistics. Um, and that, that’s such an interesting one too, in terms of, you know, we, we use that magic acronym that if you’ve ever attended any of our, our webinars, you’ve heard us use and, uh, uh, meaning autonomy, growth, impact, and connection, you know, meaning a lot of meaning comes from serving the client, but a lot of meaning also comes from feeling like you are part of something, a sense of belonging. And so, you know, being on our feet, being on the move, even if we’re on the move within the same building, uh, are, are we, how are we forming that, that connection, uh, that those ties and that sense of belonging. Um, and I think as we look through these categories, that’s a, that’s a constant across all of these, uh, manufacturing. Yeah, go ahead, please.
Matt Wride | 09:22
Well, I don’t know if you’re willing to share this, but I think you worked for UPS, right?
Christian Nielson | 09:27
I did. I was a, a seasonal driver for one.
Matt Wride | 09:30
And so a
Christian Nielson | 09:30
Wonderful Christmas.
Matt Wride | 09:32
But it’s interesting how they tackle some of those belonging issues, right? The, the uniform, the, and, and they said, uh, what were you saying? They bleed? What? Yeah.
Christian Nielson | 09:42
Well, you, you brought up a, you know, a constant across a lot of these not, and not, not every single category, but a lot of them do have some form of a uniform. And at, at UPSI was amazed at how just wearing that uniform was a sense of community. They talked about, uh, do you bleed Brown? Um, it was a, a really wonderful organization to work for. Uh, but that uniform, uh, you know, even though I, I spent 97% of my day away from other UPS employees, I still knew that I was a part of the team. It connected me back to the larger identity. And, um, and so sometimes even just the color, you know, we’ll talk technology, but uniform and branding that we, we, uh, carry with us is a form of that technology that connects us. There’s a really good call out.
Matt Wride | 10:28
Just wanna touch also on that, the magic acronym. And you mentioned autonomy. There is a, I just wanna call out for our, our viewers. We think these folks have autonomy, but in many respects, they have less autonomy than workers in a desk environment. Uh, if you’re a UPS driver, you’re on schedule, you have no, and so we have to build breaks and flexibility. If you’re a nurse, you don’t often have a lot of time for yourself, except in these structured moments. So are we, are we surveying on that? Are we talking to our desk list workers about how, when do they have a moment to catch their breath? Because they often move from back to back scenario. And, and, and growth and impact. Those, those things are critical, but they, they come from a different perspective.
Christian Nielson | 11:20
Yeah, it’s a, a, a good call autonomy, you know, and some things you think, oh, they have so much autonomy, but in a world where we’re always looking at efficiencies, sometimes they’re, you know, they can be seen as a cog in, in a, in a larger wheel. I, I am thinking through a client I had years ago, um, where I talked to some of their drivers and asked them about their experience. And they said, well, it was great. And then a few years ago, they put GPS in our truck. And now if I take a right turn when they think I should take a left, I get, I get a call on the walkie-talkie. You know? And so sometimes, uh, you know, tho those things that are in the spirit of efficiency can, that we can tighten the screws a little bit too much and really squash any autonomy.
Christian Nielson | 12:02
And also they become symptoms or, or signals of distrust and things like that. It’s really interesting. So look at one more slide on these categories. And there’s, there’s so many more, this isn’t a completely exhaustive list by any stretch, but security personnel, uh, yes, I would like to have anyone that’s, um, over security to have some flexibility and mobility to get around to where the areas they need, uh, they, they have to be able to move to where, uh, they’re needed. Uh, event staff, transportation, uh, maintenance and repair emergency services, uh, first responders, of course, you know, a lot of, um, when we think about the early days of the, the covid shutdown, uh, essential employees, um, whether or not we agree with that, that term or the classification, or any, any of the politics, a lot of those that were de deemed essential were certainly our desk-less workers.
Christian Nielson | 12:55
It’s kind of interesting to see. And if you really zoom out and think of how, how much we rely on a desk-less workforce in every aspect of modern life, it’s, it’s pretty staggering all that to say they’re pretty important. Um, they’re pretty important and they experience some very unique workplace challenges. So I wanna open this up to the group, and I, I really hope that, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll use that chat function, um, within teams here. Uh, let’s answer this question. What are some of the unique workplace challenges experienced by deathless workers? Some of us have been deathless workers at different times in our careers. Perhaps some of us see ourselves as that now. Um, but, uh, others, you know, we support employees that are deathless. Uh, what, what challenge do they face? What challenges or unique challenges, uh, do we see them experiencing? Please enter that in the chat.
Matt Wride | 13:52
Yeah. And to prime the pump, uh, one of the things I, when I, I had a job, I worked for a construction company in college for a few summers, and one of the things I didn’t like about it was I would go to a pro. My nature of my role is I would work with someone for about two weeks, and then I’d get moved to another group, right? So there’s a challenge is I never had any consistency. I didn’t build some of those work friends that you can build in an office, that those friendships are really meaningful, right? Like, um, I had surgery last week and I was excited to get back to work ’cause I wanted to see my friends <laugh>, right? Right. And, and so that’s, that’s, um, a difficult, uh, we had Chris, Chris Carlson, uh, difficulty with aggressive customers, difficult customers, non-office hours. Yeah.
Christian Nielson | 14:42
Work, work. I love that comment from Chris. A lot of times, you know, especially as you, even if you were customer facing at one time and you move up in the organization, you get away from that. You forget what that feels like to be the front lines. And not all human beings are having the best day of their lives when they come to, to buy our products and services. Um, and so dealing with that and being that, that first line of defense, uh, non office hours, I think that’s a really great one. Work-life balance can, can, uh, really go the wayside when we’re, we’re desk-less. Um, we can lose that balance. Working hours, second shift, the shift work, especially communication, connection from senior leadership, weather and environmental conditions. Such a good point. Um, safety too. I, I would throw out there, um, a lot of desk-less workers have, have, uh, more safety, uh, concerns or, or risks than, uh, maybe a desk office, uh, employees lunch breaks with no home base. Yeah. Yeah. That could be tricky. You can’t necessarily, um, you, you’ve gotta plan a little bit differently there. Communication, feeling heard. Sorry, Matt, go ahead. Read.
Matt Wride | 15:51
Well, I was just gonna say, this little exercise we’re doing is a good, um, preview of how to, of what you have to do when you, when you sit down to give voice to your employees, right? If you’re gonna run a survey, do this, brainstorm some of the challenges they face, because this will inform survey design. And when you’re working with one of our consultants, or as you’re doing it yourself, you can’t just take an off the shelf survey and realize, did we ask enough about communication? And then you also realize maybe the best vehicle for understanding these issues isn’t going to be, um, through a organizational organization wide survey. Ha It may have to come differently, whether that’s a focus group, and we’ll talk more about that later as particularly. But this is a good exercise to do as you prepare for each listening campaign that you do.
Christian Nielson | 16:44
Yeah. I love it. And, and just to go kind of finish up Skyler’s note, because I think it ties so well into, uh, some of the, the, the conversation we’re about to have. Uh, many don’t have an email address. So how do they hear what’s new in the organization, or how do they voice issues? They, they see different beyond or to a different level beyond direct supervisor or peers? I think communication, um, challenges are so key. And, and by the way, across almost any organizational issue, communication is, is, um, at the heart of it. Uh, but for deathless workers, I think there’s some very unique aspects of that. Um, so let’s go to, you know, these were amazing. I just to round out the list. Uh, limited access to technology. You know, sometimes they don’t have the same access. If something breaks and they’re not near it, it can cause different concerns as well.
Christian Nielson | 17:38
Uh, communication barriers, um, those are, uh, broad and and complex. We’ll get into some of that lack of training and development opportunities. Opportunities. So the g in our magic acronym is growth. Employees wanna grow. We wanna become better, even if we don’t wanna move up in an organization, um, we want to improve and explore our potential. And that can be difficult when we’re in, in kind of this desk list role or state, um, physical and safety hazards that, that’s been mentioned. Um, a lot of deathless workers are, you know, even if they’re not in a, you know, a, a construction environment or a, a safety or, or, or security situation being on our feet, there’s slip and falls. There’s, there’s a number of healthcare’s so full of, you know, uh, risk around needle pokes and other things. There’s a lot of safety hazards that, um, other employees don’t have to, um, think about work-life balance, uh, challenges that was mentioned, shift work, um, can, can, uh, create that as well.
Christian Nielson | 18:40
Feeling disconnected from company culture, that is so key. Uh, Skylar kind of alluded to that. Um, and, and also Matt mentioned just how important it is to not only see our friends, but to feel like we’re part of what’s going on in the bigger picture. And if we’re we’re, um, on a different site or, uh, you know, in a, in a more of a, a delivery row role, um, we’re, we’re, uh, not physically connected at the same way. Limited opportunities for recognition. This is such an interesting one. Um, and, and certainly one that I think, uh, a lot of Deus workers experience, you know, the, let’s go back to that comment around a difficult or aggressive customer, you know, who sees that happening a lot of time, it’s just that difficult customer and the employee. And so how does, how are they recognized for, Hey, you handled the tough situation well, or how, you know, where, where do they see that sense of impact? They may feel it themselves, um, getting some things in the moment, but does the organization recognize those efforts or do they feel that, uh, lack of team connection and then of course, limited voice. Limited voice. We’ll, we’ll spend some time on that.
Matt Wride | 19:54
Well, and we, just to follow up on my point, this list right here is the list you wanna pull out when you do survey design or listening design, right? These are the areas where you, we may not ask a lot of safety questions when we’re surveying a tech company, but we should be incorporating those, um, into, uh, if we’re, if we’re doing a, a trucking company, which, which, which we do, or something like that. So this is, this list can be of, of, of use.
Christian Nielson | 20:24
And that, I think that brings up a really good point. And, and Matt, as you and I spoke about, uh, about this conversation, um, we talked about something we love from the marketing world, which is, you shouldn’t ever market to yourself. You, you wanna market to your customer and to the, their world, their needs. And we’re, when we’re designing employee listening, we shouldn’t just design it for ourself. We should think through the needs. And if we’ve got desk-less workers, these are some of the challenges we should consider. And that safety piece is a, is a key part of that. Uh, but making sure we’re tailoring the instrument, not only that we’re asking the right questions, but so that we can see a desk-less population in isolation, so that when we filter feedback, if we’re doing a survey, we can actually put in a, a demographic filter and say, okay, well, what do our desk list workers say? And we can do comparison. How do they feel about safety, uh, versus the rest of the population or feeling heard and having an employee voice, uh, uh, versus the rest of our, our, um, uh, employee population.
Matt Wride | 21:27
And when we’re talking about safety, we’re not trying to sort of have a big sign that says, zero days, or, you know, 10 days since the last accident. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re talking about do you witness safety? And you, you don’t, and it’s not reported. Your manager isn’t taking action. We want make sure that this, by giving voice to people, we learn where they feel vulnerable so that we can fix it. Uh, because, and so that’s, I just wanna stress, we’re not trying to sort of give a scorecard for the organization. We’re trying to understand where people feel vulnerable. Yeah.
Christian Nielson | 22:01
Yeah. A really good, a really good point. Um, all right, so I’ve got some unique challenges. How can we improve the experience of desk-less workers? Um, I should have put group question here, because it really is, we want everyone’s ideas. We’re, we’re here to collectively surface best practice. Um, we’ve got some things that we, we found that we’ll certainly share here as we go through this. But, you know, as, as you think through your employee population, and especially those desk-less workers, what techniques, tools, tips are you using to help strengthen their experience, to improve, um, the, the experience of the, your, your desk list workers? Again, go to that chat if you’ve got, if you’ve got thoughts, is just to kind of prime the, the, the conversation a little bit more. Um, uh, you know, we talk about the employee experience. That’s such a key aspect because the experience you, if you’ve been in these sessions before, you’ve heard me describe it as the, the invitation. We’re building an employee experience at every organization. You’re building an employee experience, whether you’re doing it deliberately or not, you’re building an employee experience. And that experience can be seen as your invitation. What are we inviting employees to do? Um, uh, are we inviting them to engage and bring more of their best selves? Are we inviting to disengage or to, to, to look for opportunities elsewhere? And that experience that we’re creating is really what they’re going to use to make those decisions. So, um, if we’ve got, oh, go ahead.
Matt Wride | 23:37
Yeah. Well, people are populating the chat. What I was gonna to give a practical suggestion, I think some of the lessons we learned with remote workers, we can apply to, um, re uh, the desk-less population, the desk-less population’s kind of been around forever. And so I don’t think we think of them the same way. When everybody went remote, it was top of mind. I remember my daughter started working remotely for a software company out of the, out of, out of Silicon Valley, and she got this package, and when she, when she started and was onboarded, it contained, uh, a number of things including, um, a jacket that have the, the company logo and just things to try to build that connection. I don’t honestly think sometimes that’s happening as much frequently with like a desk list worker, right? They’re viewed more as widgets. But if we wanna retain good talent, and the reality is that the workforce is softening in the sense that we are having less workers because the population changes. It’s going to, it’s in 10 years, retaining talent and attracting talent is gonna be harder than it is today. That’s why voice matters, right? Voice of the employee matters. So, you know, can you use some of those things? Yeah, you could think about, Hey, even if I just send a T-shirt to all everyone on my construction team, and they, they get it in a package, wow. That, that might send, Hey, I belong to something.
Christian Nielson | 25:07
I love that. And, and, and what your comment just kind of reminded me, or, or help clarify, just the, they need to think about it in the entire employee lifecycle. You know, we should do this for all of our employees, but especially if we’re thinking through desk-less workers, um, what, what does it look like? What do we want them to see and feel and experience during onboarding? What do we want them to experience their first 90 days, their first year with the organization? What about when they’re promoted? What experience do we want them to have? Uh, and, and we of course do, do listening, um, interventions or listening, um, uh, moments and across the life cycle onboarding and, and, and certainly exit, but also, you know, anniversary surveys and checking in and being able to, uh, isolate the, the experience of your deathless workforce across a lifecycle is really important and extra credit if you do it at the candidate level, if you’re doing it pre-hire as well. Uh, because you can really, uh, under not only understand their needs, but you can also shape that experience, um, by, by being very deliberate in those moments that really matter in the employee, uh, experience.
Matt Wride | 26:16
And, and I think you lean into it too. Hey, we’re onboarding you. You’re gonna be a desk-less worker. That means this, it has, its, this is where it’s great and these are challenges, and we’re here to support you through those. Like, help identify the journey for them. They don’t, we don’t need to sort of send them out there and let them discover without any sort of help from the past. We can say, Hey, expect to fill this, and, you know, we can be better at, at, at onboarding our desk list workers in that, in that sense.
Christian Nielson | 26:46
I like it. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll single out. Uh, Skyler’s comment here, uh, he, he’s talking about working with an organization that had technicians that would go out and do cleanup at people’s homes. And the organization emphasized how special it was, uh, that their employees got to be welcomed into people’s homes and emphasized how special and sacred a person’s home is, and how they had a, a duty to be respectful and, and should be honored, uh, created a lot of meaning and purpose. I love that. And, and the way we frame things. An organization could do a lot to frame things. Um, it reminds me, I worked, um, with, um, Intermountain Healthcare and they called all of their employees caregivers, whether they were working directly with patients or not. And that, that created a lot of meaning. So just paying attention and framing things. Now, it can’t be too much of a stretch to be where it becomes just meaningless propaganda. But there are ways, like Skyler’s example, where you can meaningfully frame, uh, how you see the experience. I think that’s a really good call out.
Matt Wride | 27:47
And lastly, lastly, I just wanna make one more point. Match your technology to the technology, right? If, if your, if your desk list workers have limited technology, you can’t expect to reach out them with highly technical apps. And we’re gonna talk about that later. Choosing the right technology. Choose the technology. So if they’re not technologically sound, then it might be paper. And guess what? It works. And we recycle. So it’s not bad. We can, you know, we can use older technologies.
Christian Nielson | 28:15
That’s a a fair point. I, I, I think we’ve got a slide coming up where we’ll, we’ll celebrate, uh, going back in time a little bit. Um, I, I’ve got a few extra things here just to kind of add to the list. Supporting desk list team members. I just noticed that Jack Daniels, this must be a Jack Daniels team building exercise. I don’t know <laugh> a picture I got in there. But, uh, a guy’s rep in his favorite brand, uh, provide mobile friendly technology to kind of Matt’s Matt’s point, you know, make sure we’re considering the, the technology they have and that they’re comfortable with. And that might be mobile friendly in a lot of deathless cases. That’s what we go to for capturing survey, but it might not be mobile, might not even be an option. We’ll, we’ll talk a little bit about that. Use effective communication channels and test those channels and get feedback on them.
Christian Nielson | 29:04
Are they working? Um, I’ve been in a lot of conversations where I’m being sold different tech platforms to use and, and different tools. And the salesmen are always convincing. It doesn’t mean it’s gonna work for my people. And so make sure you’re bringing in, uh, the, the, the needs of, of these, the, these deathless populations as you think through communication channels and audit them periodically because things change. We get more comfortable with different technology, new technology evolves. And so making sure that if, if it’s effective today, doesn’t mean it will be tomorrow. Offer flexible training options. Growth and development is so complex for desk-less workers. Um, we, we’ll talk about a, a key intervention here in a bit that I think really helps move the needle on, on growth and development perceptions and experience. But training options, if people are on the move that need for mobility and present physical presence, it can be difficult to say, Hey, go to this six week training course. And so you’ve gotta think outside the box and really tailor offerings to their needs
Matt Wride | 30:08
And, and don’t get in the rut that because they’re re they’re, they’re desk-less, then therefore they’re remote. And so the only training option that you can think of is online courses,
Christian Nielson | 30:19
Right?
Matt Wride | 30:20
Be committed to in-person where you can, and other forms of training and development options, because you can’t just serve ’em up the same thing,
Christian Nielson | 30:30
Right? Right. And, and so asynchronous options mentoring, uh, uh, is usually a flexible option for some of these things as well. Um,
Matt Wride | 30:40
Some good things and just, and just chances ridealongs, like right, in the, in the, in the delivery business, sometimes managers just do ridealongs with, with drivers to just connect on a, on a regular level. You, you have to be flexible, right?
Christian Nielson | 30:54
Right. And it’s amazing once we, once we get past that initial onboarding and training, um, how little, how rare it becomes that we get to see our peers work and say, oh, I didn’t know that. Oh, you’re doing that, uh, in a way that’s better than what I’m doing. Uh, or, Hey, have you tried this? And so, um, some of those opportunities just don’t happen organically. We have to orchestrate them, implement safety protocols and training, uh, safety, safety, safety for deathless workers, especially, this is, it’s on top of mind. It’s a way that, you know, obviously it’s, it’s the virtuous thing to do. Uh, it also signals that you care about the employee in a big way, um, by, by keeping them safe, work life balance. I mean, that’s, that’s for a lot of us. But, uh, the dec dustless workers especially can slip through the cracks.
Christian Nielson | 31:48
We’re not seeing them, um, the hours they’re putting in, the strain that they’re going under. I mean, they’re not being witnessed by a single, um, manager all the time. And so it, it’s very important to build a culture around it, promote it, go out of your way to observe and recognize when it’s out of balance, those type of things. Easier said than done in a a lot of cases, foster a sense of belonging. Um, belonging is so key. It’s, it’s, um, again, it’s one of my soundbites in a lot of cases. We, we talk about building belonging and engagement comes from belonging. Uh, once we feel like we belong, we feel like we choose to engage. So belonging is so key. Um, and, and it can be difficult before all was on the move. And then build strong managers. We’re gonna talk about this in a few slides because this is so key. Um, and, uh, you know, we spend a lot of time building wonderful listening instruments, but a manager by themself is a wonderful listing instrument. If, if they’re, they’re trained and taught to, to function that way, and they can do things that, uh, that you can’t replace anywhere else in the org, if you’ve got a, a very strong manager that can, can help
Matt Wride | 33:02
Communication. Yeah, I think, I think this is gonna be our key point, right? Our key takeaway is train the trainer. In this sense, if you teach managers how to listen and you give them some structure around that, they can be your most powerful listening tool for desk was workers. Um, it’s may not be the org wide survey, it may be managers, but that means you have to have a program for helping them know what to talk about and then getting the feedback upstream to where it can be used organizationally. So, we’ll, we’re gonna go into this, but this is our big point. Your most effective listening tool with desk list workers are well-trained and managers that you’ve deputized to help you understand the needs of the desk list workforce.
Christian Nielson | 33:47
Yeah, I think a really good, really good point, and we’ll, we’ll make several more times as we, as we go through this, right? But managers matter in, in a very big way. Um, two vital questions. Um, I’m gonna shift gears a little bit here and go into to listening, um, because that’s what we specialize is in, in listening. Um, and better employee experience starts with better employee listening. Um, uh, decision wise, we’re always trying to answer two really important questions, and I’ve tailored it a a little bit here. But what experience are we creating in this case for our desk-less employees? And then the second part of that, is it the right experience? Are we creating it? And so that’s what we are doing with employee listening. We’re trying to tap in through structured and unstructured listening to understand, are we creating the right experience it and it’s the right experience if we’re getting outcomes that we’re comfortable with, if we’re, um, getting higher employee engagement, lower turnover, if we’re also getting the business results, but also if we’re having, creating a meaningful experience for our employees.
Christian Nielson | 34:47
So there’s a lot of wonderful benefits for employee listening. I’m not gonna try and sell employee listening, uh, too hard. Uh, but it’s important. It’s important. And it’s uniquely, uh, challenging with our desk-less workforce to, to get into, to capture their feedback. Uh, but all these things are true. There’s many more, uh, benefits of employee listening. Here’s my favorite side of it. We’ve got a lot of data to support this, but when I feel heard, I feel cared for, I feel valued, and I feel like I belong. So listening’s good because it gives us intel that we can actually take action on, but there’s this other impact, um, that when people feel heard, they feel like they belong, they feel cared for. Um, one of the, the items that we ask on a lot of our, our different listening instruments is, uh, this organization cares about employees. Um, and we can correlate that strongly to, I feel cared for when I feel heard. Um, and it’s really hard to, uh, build the sense of belonging if they don’t also have a sense of voice.
Christian Nielson | 35:57
So I thought it’d be interesting just to, to, to pull up a, a a little bit of a, a structured listening program. This is what a year with us looks like. Usually we’ve got our annual surveys, we might call those anchor surveys or engagement surveys. Those are the big bang surveys that ask maybe 50 questions, and they give you some robust data on the employee experience. But in between there, we’ve got lifecycle surveys, like onboarding and exit, as well as something we love called anniversary surveys where we’re capturing feedback on those anniversaries. We might also be running pulse surveys, and those pulse surveys might be follow ups to the anchor surveys. They might also be topic surveys like a, uh, during covid, for example, a return to work survey. You know, how do we feel about this? Are we ready? Well, those type of things.
Christian Nielson | 36:44
Um, and then additionally, we, we also feather in 360 feedback assessment to capture individual experience, uh, with a manager or a leader to help them grow, develop, and grow. Uh, I, I thought I’d put this here so we could talk a little bit how this is different when this is all great and it works wonderful when we can email them and they can sit down at their desk and write this. But there’s some unique challenges when we were trying to capture feedback in this structured way from our, uh, DELA workforce. Um, access to communication and technology is, is part of that, um, uh, smartphones, uh, is, well actually, maybe that’s a good segue. Can you just
Matt Wride | 37:27
Stay back there though? I just wanna hit the point that, so this is, this is a great, um, graphic ’cause it shows kind of every, everywhere we can sort of deploy a listening device. But 360 degree is probably has greater importance in a desk list environment than maybe just the surveys. And the reason that is, is as we noted, the manager experience is probably more vital in a desk-less environment. And I, I know this, having worked with a large healthcare organizations for the past several years, the manager experience is probably has, is greater, has a greater weight than it may have in other sort of office, white collar sort of environments. And, and so that 360 degree feedback is a really great instrument that helps us understand what that micro level experience is that manager to team experience is like. So when you look at this, we often think of and focus on annual, but I’m stressing that probably the more important one to focus on for this, this environment is the 360.
Christian Nielson | 38:37
I, I think that’s a really good point. Um, and, uh, and we’ll, we’ll, uh, drill in even deeper here on that. But it, it’s really that individual leader. What experience are you creating for this? Uh, especially for the desk-less workers. Are they getting what they need from you? Uh, where are the gaps? Um, and an annual survey can also kind of tie into the highlight, Hey, your, your desk list workers aren’t having the experience they need. It’s, you do need to run 360. We do need to see what, what, which managers are getting it right, where we need to make some improvements. Um, but even accessing, uh, our desk-less workers, uh, can be, uh, trying at times. And this has been an interesting one to, for me. Uh, technology helps and I, I added this little part. Usually, uh, technology helps usually if it, it helps if we get it right, if we’re not prescribing the wrong tool for it.
Christian Nielson | 39:29
If, um, as Matt mentioned earlier, some, some populations aren’t comfortable with technology. What’s been interesting for me, um, as I’ve, you know, approaching 10 years, uh, doing employee listings specifically, is how attitudes have changed around smartphones. You know, Matt and I, you know, years ago when we were doing this, there’d be, um, you know, people usually wanted it available on smartphones, but people were a little bit wary. Employees were wary of, Hey, my smartphone is my smartphone. I don’t want, I don’t wanna receive a survey on it. And, and certainly I didn’t wanna be texted on it because it was my data plan or, or I, or I felt like it was too much of an intrusion. Big brother was watching that type of thing. That has really shifted quite a bit to where now clients are saying, no, we wanna be able to te text our employees.
Christian Nielson | 40:19
Text is the best way to reach some of our de desk list workers. They’re calling for their, you know. And so it, it’s been interesting to watch that shift and see that, um, technology is how it’s evolving and how attitudes towards it have have evolved as well. And also, um, different generational, um, attitudes is younger employees enter the workforce and, uh, they, they don’t know a world without a smartphone. And so it’s, um, it, it, it would be very foreign to them to take a, a a give feedback on anything else. Um, I don’t know, Matt, if you have anything on, on just kind of the technology side of capturing here.
Matt Wride | 40:57
Yeah, there are a lot of wonderful tools out there. You can find market maps or, or software review sites that are gonna tell you how to communicate with desk list workers. One that comes to mind is beekeeper. There are others out there. Um, but I had an experience of, during Covid, we needed to create a community. We were trying to comm in my community, we were trying to communicate to a variety of people. And so we set up an app that, and what we found is that it just beeped at people so much that they didn’t use it, they didn’t listen. And it’s gonna go back to this point that while technology is there, and it’s, I think it, it, it is a way to, um, ensure that people can find information when they want to go back to and confirm you should not buy technology as a replacement for the technology that can come through managers, which means you need to find tools that communicate talking points to managers, and then work with them to communicate it down. Because I still, technology isn’t a good replacement. And if you think it is a, a magic, uh, cure for for what? For what ails you, it won’t be, yeah.
Christian Nielson | 42:08
Yeah. I, I, and I’m thinking through a lot of different client examples where they’ve, you know, a lot of the feedback we get is, you know, in, in an engagement survey, a lot of the comments will be about technology they hate. They’ll say, Hey, we need to get rid of this. It just doesn’t meet our needs or it’s a hassle. Um, you know, a lot of times Matt and I are, are one of the taglines we use to kind of differentiate our approach to listening technology is this concept nudges are annoying. You know, that, that beeping or, um, if we’re over, um, prompting or nudging our employees or our managers, it’s very counterproductive. It becomes more like a mosquito buzzing in their ear versus a tool to help them and to help the organization. And so technology helps. Usually, if we get it right, technology can help.
Christian Nielson | 42:56
And I think it’s an important distinction. Matt, Matt alluded to this, you know, if I go back 10 years ago, we used to do a little bit more of this. We, we certainly don’t do nearly as much. Um, but believe it or not, this is still a part of employee listening. For some organizations, a paper survey is the technology that’s right for that population. Now, I, as I mentioned, we’re seeing less and less of this, but there are still use cases for it. Um, some manufacturing environments especially, um, in, in other countries, uh, in particular, we’ll still see a, this leveraged quite a bit. And of course, I, I couldn’t leave this without, its, its partner in crime, the number two pencil. Um, they go hand in hand, of course. Uh, many of us remember doing a lot of these type of, uh, scantron assessments. It kind of reminds me more of school than feedback. But, uh, we’ve, we’ve run hundreds of thousands of, of, uh, um, instruments with, with paper surveys, with the scantron form that we scan in. And it’s still the right technology in certain cases. Uh, but for for many organizations, it would feel like a, a giant step backward. And certainly for our team, uh, if we can avoid using paper, we love to, it’s, it’s, uh, it slows down the feedback process, but, but it definitely has it case.
Matt Wride | 44:15
But we’re, but we, we still know how to do it. We’re willing to do it, right? Oh, yeah. Uh, we have perfected a way of doing it. Um, and we’ve, and we kind of still have that institutional knowledge, and if it’s the right choice, don’t be afraid to use it. I think that’s kind of your point, right? Yeah. Is don’t be afraid to use a paper survey because it’s better to give voice than to not do it because it seems like it’s clunky.
Christian Nielson | 44:38
Right? Right. And we get wonderful participation. We can still do, uh, provide confidentiality. They, they don’t have any, uh, uh, they, they tear off anything that, um, aligns them with the paper. And then, uh, we capture the demographics behind the scenes. So you still have all the power and, and technology of on the reporting side, but, um, we, we have to deliver the medicine in the way or, or capture the, the feedback in the way that’s right for the audience. And in certain cases, papers is still the absolute best fit. Um, I, I mentioned reporting. I don’t think I have a slide for this, but it’s a really important part. That’s another challenge for managers of desk-less workers. A lot of times desk-less managers are the managing desk-less workers. And so how do we get the results back? Part of capturing feedback in, in a, in a healthy way is help helping people know they’ve been heard.
Christian Nielson | 45:31
And so making sure that you can feed that back to the employee saying, here’s what we heard from the employee population. Here’s what we heard from your team. And, you know, while protecting confidentiality and things, but there’s that reporting side that needs the right technology. Um, uh, most employees, and certainly most managers do have email addresses and at, at, at a minimum. And so we’re still providing that. But rather than sending them to a portal, uh, to log in and get their results, a lot of times we’re going back to PDFs because it’s, it’s reducing some friction, getting those results to them, them quicker. Alright. As Matt mentioned, kind of the, the star of the show managers matter a lot, a lot for all of us at, at, at every level, a manager really matters, but it, particularly in this conversation for our desk list managers, there’s things you can’t replace, uh, with, with a, uh, with technology or any, any other kind of, uh, process, uh, that a manager, a meaningful conversation with a manager.
Christian Nielson | 46:38
Um, you know, even if, if we see a, a, an item in a, a survey that people don’t trust senior leadership, the first place we go to, well, one is, is there anything glaring? Has senior leadership given them a reason not to trust them? But also what’s the manager saying? Is the manager, um, helping to connect the dots for, um, the frontline employees to the, the top of the organization or to the mission of the organization, um, that, that frontline manager, um, impacts more than they realize. And what we found, um, and I I’m sure this will sound very familiar to those, uh, listening in, uh, is that most managers were promoted the first time, not because they were showed aptitude to be a good manager, but because they were great super doers, they were high achievers, they were very competent as an individual contributor, suddenly they were made a manager and they might have gotten some training and, and, and certainly they, they learn on the job. But one thing that’s rarely communicated is how much the, how important their role is in shaping the employee experience and also functioning as a communication, um, uh, function, uh, communication node for their frontline employees to both provide information and also capture feedback and to help employees feel heard.
Matt Wride | 47:57
One thing I’ve, I’ve sort of felt as we prepared for this, this webinar is that when we try to give tools on how to be, you know, how to become a manager, right? Someone’s promoted, we try to give the manager one-on-one training. We tend to make that all the same. And I’ve noticed that no one is, is adapting it or customizing it for, for Desus workers, because what it means to be a manager of Desus workers looks different than what it means to sort of manage a group, uh, be a project manager on a, on a tech team. So my plea to those that do, to do any learning development that are on this is think about that and, and customize and personalize our training so that we, we recognize that the de that you are leading, but you’re leading in a desk-less environment. So all the stuff you can go out and find on the internet and all the blogs and the listicles, they, they’re not completely a one-to-one, uh, match.
Christian Nielson | 48:52
Yeah, I, I, that’s a really good point. It, it remind me, you know, one of the things we saw during early days of Covid, if I could borrow a comparison from our remote population in apply to desk list, but it is that when all these teams that were previously not remote went remote, suddenly the managers had to do something interesting. They had to be more deliberate in their, their, their connection with their employees. Suddenly they had to structure time with them and, and be more, uh, focused on that. And, and we saw some interesting things happen. Connection to the manager, connection to the organization went way up. And I think a lot of that was because they were having more of these meaningful touch points because they actually had to structure them versus, Hey, we’re I worked 10 feet away from you, it’s gonna happen organically.
Christian Nielson | 49:35
It didn’t, it doesn’t. Um, and, and making it a priority is, is really meaningful. And that, that kind of leads us to this, um, very simple slide here, which is one-on-ones, uh, there’s not one single, uh, action or intervention to take, but if there were, it would look a lot like this. There’s amazing power in a one-on-one conversation. Um, it it, we’ve got a lot of data to support it. Matt has survey data with his clients. I certainly have it as well that if manager one-on-ones, when we track, if a manager one-on-one is happening. And if we don’t even track anything else, we don’t ask, did it go well, did they follow the script? Did they do this or that? We just say, did it happen? And sometimes when we’re not even asking, did it happen frequently, say, have you had a conversation in the last six months?
Christian Nielson | 50:28
If we can track that, we can positively correlate that to all sorts of amazing things. Their perception of the organization go up, their belief in individual growth goes up, uh, their engagement goes up, retention, uh, improves, uh, all sorts of things We can tie back to if these manager one-on-ones are happening now that becomes even more potent if they’re happening effectively, if they’re happening frequently. And if the manager is bringing some structure and, and, and not just, uh, you know, talking, uh, about hobbies or, or, or small talk, if they’re having a meaningful connection and tying it in, uh, uh, amazing things are possible. And you can see why this would be so critical for a desk-less workforce that’s on the go and often see it feels invisible, overlooked. Um, meaningful manager. One-on-ones, uh, a, a real powerful tool to, um, improve the experience of desk-less workers.
Matt Wride | 51:23
And you hear a lot about this. There are a lot of apps, there’s a lot of technology that will support one oh ones. But one of the things that I think we’ve noticed from our findings, Christian and from the surveys that we collect, is that organization doesn’t do a good enough job helping to help managers know what to talk about. Right? And I’m not saying, and I’m not talking about have a growth conversation. I’m saying if there’s something to be communicated to, to build that connection to the org, you can do a better job by saying, managers, we need you to highlight these three issues. Managers, don’t forget to give, uh, a notice that these, these things are happening. Again, let managers be a vehicle of communication and that takes work to build an organization that’s capable of having the systems to do it, but it can pay a lot of dividends and it can create connection back to the org. Um, we found as we looked at it, that if, if you have org first leaders and there’s a, that the, actually the connection to the org is probably more significant than a connection to a team.
Christian Nielson | 52:33
Yeah.
Matt Wride | 52:34
Right? And that’s, and that you can use one-on-ones to do both. You can use one-on-ones to build connection to team, but the org can actually provide talking points, ideas, announcements and things so that these one-on-ones could be a both a feedback tool both ways, bilateral, right? And then, and then making sure you find out what people are talking about from your managers. And that can be accomplished very easily through OpenText questions and other things. Hey, what’s on top? What are your people thinking about? And you can get that back. And with wonderful technology tools you can quickly see and surface topics of concern.
Christian Nielson | 53:13
I love that. A really good point. It reminds me, I, I, several times when I met with executive teams to go through a, a debrief of survey results or whatever it was, we’d see a low communication score and they’d be scratching their heads. And I, I would ask them, I’d say, if I asked you, you know, are there, what, what are the top three things you wish every employee in this organization knew? Uh, that that was an interesting exercise in itself? ’cause sometimes they, they knew right away, sometimes they didn’t. But then the next step would be, well, how do you tell ’em? And, and I would always advocate for Cascade It through the managers. You have the managers who they trust, uh, introduce this and translate it to their, their unique needs of the, of the team. Uh, a lot goes from a, a local, a message being received from a manager that they see, they trust, they interact with.
Christian Nielson | 54:02
And, and so we can’t, um, uh, you know, overstate the, the importance of these manager one-on-ones. And unfortunately, and I’m certainly guilty of this, anyone from my team that’s listening, um, I’m certainly guilty of this. It’s the first meeting that gets rescheduled when the calendar starts to fill up. Because there are people that we, you know, we work with, we feel like there’s some flexibility. Uh, but wherever possible make them a priority. Uh, help our managers, um, make them make these things, uh, happen regularly and, and be me a meaningful touch point. It goes a long ways. Alright, some closing thoughts as we’re, as we’re getting to the home stretch here. Uh, I’ll just kinda recap some thoughts here. Dustless workers are vital. They ex experience unique challenges. They deserve unique cha uh, solutions. We covered many today. Uh, a better employee experience for all of us, but especially dustless workers starts with better listening.
Christian Nielson | 54:57
Understand their unique needs. Uh, don’t just assume that their, their experiences is like your experience. Get the techno technology right. Tailor it and check off and get, you know, that’s a wonderful thing to capture feedback. Hey, what’s working for us right now? What, what technology or communication gaps do we have? Build stronger managers, uh, and make sure they’re holding one-on-ones. Give deathless workers a voice, help them feel like they belong. And again, I, I would come back, you know, we love all the, the listening instruments we have, uh, but we, that, that can only be augmented by strong managers holding those one-on-ones. Um, my last slide, I hope this analogy comes over, uh, but, you know, when I, a lot years ago, many years ago, uh, when I started driving, I, I would see all the bumper stickers that say, start seeing motorcycles. I’m like, well, they’re hard to miss.
Christian Nielson | 55:50
Uh, you know what, why wouldn’t we see motorcycles? It wasn’t until I, I started driving a motorcycle many years later. I’m like, oh, nobody sees me. I’m invisible out here. And I think there’s an analogy there, or, or at least we can draw that connection to deathless workers. In a lot of cases, uh, we think that, oh, yeah, we see them, uh, but unless we’ve really walked in their, their shoes we’re really tapped into their experience through listening. We don’t know what they’re feeling or, or seeing ’em. So it really is this, this idea of start seeing deathless workers. Um, and, and it, there are a number of ways to do that through, through better listening, um, of course, but, uh, not only through hr. I think HR is pretty great at seeing them, but helping senior leaders know that there’s, this is a category of the workforce, and it helps to see them through that lens of, okay, this is, they have some unique needs and we need to consider them, um, uh, occasionally consider them through, uh, that unique lens.
Christian Nielson | 56:50
We covered a lot of ground. Uh, my voice mostly held out for, for the majority of us. It’s, uh, getting a little raspier. I should record a country album after this. But, uh, any, any questions for the groups or, or comments? While we do that, I’ll, I’ll also just flash this up. Um, certainly if you, you’re interested in anything we’ve talked about or wanna reach out to us, info at decision wise, uh, should get you to, to us, and we can, we can respond. But hopefully, again, uh, you could tell we care deeply about this employee experience and employee listening. Uh, appreciate the, the engagement, uh, from the group and those who have attended a number of these sessions and consistently come and bring value to these sessions. We really appreciate that. Matt, anything to add as we wrap up?
Matt Wride | 57:35
Yeah, I just wanna encourage those that if you haven’t checked out our website, we have a really great resources page that contains a lot more than these webinars. It contains articles, white papers. We spend a lot of time on it, and I feel like it’s a bit underutilized. If you need a good, it’s all free. It’s a great place to go. It’s not behind. We don’t put it behind, uh, paywalls or, or put it behind. Um, you have to give us your number to download a white paper. So I just put a plug in that, that if you come to decision wise, you’ll see our resources page and you’ll see lots of great content for employee listening, um, and how, and, and, and ideas to help you become a better HR professional and a better talent professional.
Christian Nielson | 58:18
Yeah, I think that’s a good call out. We, we love, uh, this stuff and we love to give a lot of it away and, and, uh, put our, our best practices out there. So please, uh, take Matt up on that offer and, and check out our website. Uh, I’m not seeing any questions. So with that, we’ll just say thank you for everyone for your, uh, time and attendance and participation today. And, uh, look forward to seeing you, uh, next month in a, another webinar.
