Recorded Webinar

Transcript

[00:00:00] Liz Palm: Welcome everybody. We are thrilled to be here with you today and presenting seven steps to successfully rolling out a new HR initiative presented by Ben Brooks, founder and CEO of PILOT.

[00:00:13] Now, before we jump into the presentation, we'd like to get to know you just a little bit better and want to take a poll. With your comments in the chat, we wanna see what you all are seeing with employee development.

[00:00:24] Liz Palm: So if you can add your top challenges that you're facing into the chat, that would be great. Now, without further ado, I do want to introduce our founder and CEO, Ben Brooks. He's one of HR Executives Top 100 HR Tech Influencers, and he's the author of HR Executives Coach's Corner, where he shares insights and advice on the dynamic business landscape and how HR professionals can maximize their impact on their business.

[00:00:52] Liz Palm: A pillar of the HR industry, Ben Brooks is the founder, CEO, and sole investor of PILOT, an award winning virtual employee [00:01:00] development and group coaching program. Throughout his career as an HR executive himself and as a private CEO and executive coach, Ben has been a driving force and advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, serving on the board of directors for Outserve SLDN, which helped repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and co founding LGBT Employee Resource Group at his previous management consulting firm.

[00:01:25] Liz Palm: Ben founded PILOT to help everyone feel powerful at work. It's a turnkey coaching and career development program that drives instant boost of engagement, productivity, and retention for your workforce. And we do this through helping our members work through work on self reflection, soliciting and accepting feedback, advocating for their own priorities and their self, and taking effective action in their organization.

[00:01:53] Liz Palm: If you don't follow Ben Brooks on LinkedIn and Twitter, you're missing an opportunity to get to know one of the most dynamic and knowledgeable HR [00:02:00] influencers around, and we'll be sure to share those links for you in the chat. Today, he's here to share with you his seven steps to successfully roll out a new HR initiative.

[00:02:10] Liz Palm: Ben, take it away.

[00:02:12] Ben Brooks: All right, Liz. Thank you so much. Virgin Pulse, amazing organization and product. HR Executive Magazine, we love being with you and working with you and partnering with you as well to put on. Such high quality, interesting, engaging events. I'm Ben Brooks, excited to work with you all and to hopefully energize you today.

[00:02:30] Ben Brooks: We already have a bunch of great conversation in the chat about specifically what everyone is working on. A couple of you are having a couple audio issues, which is a system configuration. So Peter is messaging you individually. It says WebEx producer in there with some tips.

[00:02:45] Ben Brooks: If you're having audio issues you can go right there, but you may not be able to hear me say that. So hopefully you're reading the chat. Welcome everybody. Hope everyone's year is off to a great start. With these webinars, what we like to do is really have the chat be very energizing. I've got a bunch of my PILOT [00:03:00] team here to help answer questions, provide resources, etc.

[00:03:03] Ben Brooks: So part of the reason, again, I'm just getting a bit of a pulse check. In addition to what I saw, what you're working on, trying to get executives engaged, finding budget, getting employees to participate in programs, and the big R word, retention, retention, retention, seems to be again a major focus for what we're doing right now.

[00:03:23] Ben Brooks: So at any rate, I want to talk today about these seven HR executive article in the column there, right? I actually used to be in HR myself and, I was a senior vice president at a big global company. We had offices in a hundred countries. And I was tasked with rolling out strategic initiatives and projects, new things around culture, learning, people, analytics, people, strategy, sales, enablement, all values, all sorts of different things.

[00:03:52] Ben Brooks: And what I found is it's really hard to roll out a new HR initiative. Think about benefits and [00:04:00] enrollment. You probably had a long time. You might change your broker or carriers, that kind of probably goes pretty smoothly, right? There's certain things you might have, compliance training or leave management, recruiting.

[00:04:12] Ben Brooks: But when you try to do something net new, something like DEI, something in leadership development, something with culture, something with new collaboration technology, if people are working hybrid and remote, it can often be really difficult. So I'd love to see, in the chat when I say, You're going to roll out a new HR initiative, right?

[00:04:31] Ben Brooks: If I was your manager or your CEO, I would say, you're going to roll out a new HR initiative. What's your immediate feeling or thought? You're going to roll out a new HR initiative. What comes to mind immediately? What comes up for you? Are you excited? Are you fearful? Oh, what the heck, right?

[00:04:47] Ben Brooks: Time, excited. Oh, nervous excitement. Oof, right? As long as it's possible. Oh no, stress, busy, another one, another one. Oh shit, how do I get buy in from the organization? Buckle up. [00:05:00] Excitement. Oh no, am I going to get the support I need? Right? Better have a plan. I don't have enough resources to help. How do I get buy in?

[00:05:10] Ben Brooks: I have to get buy in. I'm a bit nervous. Resistance to change. Cultural EEC. What's the deadline? How do I find a champion? These are so great. We're going to cover so many of these. I'm excited. Will I get buy in? When do we start? Depends if I'm behind, you know, if I'm behind. Do I have passion? Stress? This is so perfect everybody, right?

[00:05:30] Ben Brooks: So perfect that this is coming in right now because we're going to get a better sense, how do you get buy in from the employees? Are people open to change? Am I overwhelmed or leadership going to do it? Do I have time? Communication? What's in it for me, right? Do I get a team to work on this?

[00:05:43] Ben Brooks: What's the goal of the initiative, right? A lot of these things come up, and by the way, Peter with WebEx, I just want to make sure that I see Liz spotlighted. I want to make sure that everyone's seeing me spotlighted as I speak. Maybe I have just a different view. But when you buy a new HR program, consulting, technology, [00:06:00] something else, you do something internally, you build yourself, right?

[00:06:04] Ben Brooks: 35 percent of the financial benefit is lost as we implement it. And we saw another stat recently that 75%, 3 out of 4 corporate change initiatives fail. Oh, we're going to do this. Oh, we're going to outsource this. Oh, we're going to move this to self service. Oh, we're going to do this to the cloud. And that's a very common thing for the same exact reasons that you all are putting in here. Buy in, push back, change management, what's in it for me, how do I get the team aligned, right? Resistance, etc. I think that this is, a really important topic. It's why I wrote about it because HR is expected to deliver, right? You think about what is HR doing about DEI?

[00:06:45] Ben Brooks: What is HR doing about our culture? What is HR doing about hybrid work? What is HR doing about, engagement, campus recruiting, retention? Then HR is expected to do new things, [00:07:00] but those new things are turned out to be really hard to do. So we're gonna walk through Seven core elements, and I want you to be, putting comments in the chat, but also questions, right?

[00:07:10] Ben Brooks: You might think of something like, I'm going to talk about champions right now. You might have a perspective of how champions work at your organization. You might have a best practices. You might have read a book called, how to get an HR champion, and you have an Amazon link you're going to throw in there for that person.

[00:07:25] Ben Brooks: We'd love that because I'm not the only person with expertise on this webinar. We have literally over a thousand people had signed up for this. A lot of you are going to have a lot of perspectives, right? So please add to the conversation as well as advocate. So add what you can contribute. Maybe it's a different point of view than mine.

[00:07:45] Ben Brooks: There's no right way on this. as well as advocate. What do you want to know about? How can I help today? How can the community here, the HR community that we built, help you today with your initiatives? What questions and challenges do you have? And Maria's asking about [00:08:00] chargeback models.

[00:08:00] Ben Brooks: How much does this cost us, right? What can you contribute, etc. So, champions, you think about a big change that needs to happen in society, a political change, a change inside of an organization, There's always people that are behind the change, the change agents, right? And what's very important with HR is you get people outside of HR, as well as people inside of HR.

[00:08:29] Ben Brooks: And you think about a parent that really supports their kids when they're playing sports or they're in the arts or they're in the scouts or whatever, in their faith and, the school musical and they're just rooting for their kid. They're so excited. They're staying, they're helping make, they're removing barriers.

[00:08:44] Ben Brooks: They're helping them practice. They're getting them enabled. They're creating opportunities. They're at the volleyball meet all day Saturday. Like that's a champion, right? You need to find the equivalent inside of your organizations. for your initiatives. And you want to think [00:09:00] about people that are credible, right?

[00:09:01] Ben Brooks: People that the organization respects, someone that has maybe a lot of reach, right? And these champions are very important because they're going to lend some credibility to the initiative. They're going to say this is important. I remember early when I was rolling out, values at our organization in Marshall McLennan companies, I found people that had worked in other companies where values were a real big part of the culture.

[00:09:27] Ben Brooks: And they were desperate for us to have values for them to be effective as business leaders to align their teams. So they were already bought in about the idea of having values. So they were really wonderful champions to bring into the conversation because they believed in that. I didn't have to convince them, right?

[00:09:43] Ben Brooks: So often there's a phrase, go where it's warm. Find the champions that are already on board. If you were in, in the Congress or, a parliament or something, you would find legislative co sponsors. People that put their signature on something, that risk a bit of reputational [00:10:00] capital. And this isn't just to get the budget approved, right?

[00:10:04] Ben Brooks: This is to roll it out, to sustain it, right? This is almost a mini board of directors for the initiative itself. And, that's part of the governance, right? Because, think HR platform, an intranet, a new website or something, You're not done when it goes live. Then you find bugs, and people need different issues, and you've got to update things, and new functionality rolls out.

[00:10:26] Ben Brooks: So you have to think about a life cycle, and that's where the governance aspect of these champions, that you want them to help roll it out, and, be the ones to try it first, to PILOT it if you will, or do it proof of concept. To meet with the vendors, et cetera, to go to conferences to speak about it, but then also to help make sure it's successful over time.

[00:10:46] Ben Brooks: Jeanette says, find the helpers, fantastic. I think that's the Jeanette that I know. Hi, Jeanette. Anne Marie asked how to get motivated people to join the initiative when everyone's stretched thin. I think that ideally if they're stretched in, find the people that this initiative would stretch [00:11:00] them less, right?

[00:11:01] Ben Brooks: Imagine there's a bunch of turnover in your organization and people are always having to recruit and onboard and train or try to save people from leaving with counter offers. They may be people to sponsor the initiative that would reduce turnover, because it would reduce some of that chaos for them, right?

[00:11:18] Ben Brooks: Think of WIFM. What's in it for me? WIFM. So think about that. And then, again, find a role for them to play, right? And set a goal for that group. Hey, our goal is to Get the budget for this. Our goal is to start this in a particular region, et cetera, and really set explicit responsibilities because what you don't want is a champion in name only, right?

[00:11:42] Ben Brooks: A champion, a faux champion, a figurehead champion. You want someone that, we had a president of the division that was a champion for us, and he would recruit country leaders, right? He was over all these different countries to use our social learning platform. So he'd actually pick up the [00:12:00] phone.

[00:12:01] Ben Brooks: 62 year old president of a business and would talk to them and say, Hey, I'm involved in this initiative of social learning at the company. I'd love to get your participation. I know you're passionate about X, could you talk on the platform about that? He became our best recruiter, now we gave him a script, we gave him a list of folks, we made it super easy.

[00:12:20] Ben Brooks: But boy did they respond differently when Joe called than just a member of HR. So give them an active list. If you're on a board of directors, there's things you do. You go fundraise, you do diligence, you interview CEO candidates. There's like, you have roles, you have responsibilities.

[00:12:34] Ben Brooks: It shouldn't take a lot of their time, but it should be very high impact. Janice says, position the effort as a career development opportunity for champions. Absolutely. And we've got someone that with PILOT, you know, at a large global financial services company who's a champion. of the work, and they're in the business, revenue generating, client facing, and it's helping to round out their reputation, because they're very good at delivering the financial results.

[00:12:56] Ben Brooks: But they haven't always been known as a culture and people and [00:13:00] talent focused leader. And by, by championing an HR initiative, it's rounding out their reputation, which is going to unlock future advancement opportunities for them in the firm. They're responding to data they've gotten in 360s and talent reviews.

[00:13:14] Ben Brooks: So Janice, that is a very savvy point. And Zulema mentions who has the most skin in the game. Alyssa asks a great question. Define governance of the platform. Can you explain? Great. Thank you Alyssa for advocating. So think of governance as like the people responsible for taking care of something.

[00:13:32] Ben Brooks: How do we keep this thing on the on, on, successful going forward? What happens when there's a breakdown? The system gets used in a, in an unintended way. What happens when the vendor changes the way something is set up? How do we set goals and measures for this? So a board of directors of a company, publicly traded company, or even private has governance responsibilities. They're looking out for the bigger picture. They're not always doing all the, they're not doing the work like [00:14:00] they're in management, but that's a part of the governance. So really a group of people that is really, fostering and taking care of those things is what we're talking about with governance.

[00:14:10] Ben Brooks: All right. So, we, and we, Vivian, we will have a recording asked about that. And Jennifer asked, or said, keep them engaged when it's going very very well. Right. So that's a great point. So sometimes we only engage the champions when we're in crisis, or there's a problem, which then also creates a bit of the brand that you have.

[00:14:26] Ben Brooks: And the thing has is, oh, I get a call when something's off, but the champions want to know when something's great. I remember we set a goal, the governance group on an initiative that I had in when I was in HR. And we set a reasonable metric for signups on this new platform, and we achieved 7 times, 7x, 700 percent of the goal.

[00:14:45] Ben Brooks: It went way better than expected. Well, our champion, one of them worked for the CEO. He told the CEO of a 25, 000 person, 5 billion dollar company, And the CEO put it in his quarterly update to the entire company of what went well in [00:15:00] Q1, which was one slide with about 10 bullets, and our initiative showed up on it.

[00:15:05] Ben Brooks: Never had an HR initiative showed up on the CEO's what went well list, but he finally had a measurement, right? Because. Senior executives want measures. So if you can exceed the goal, like they want to feel competitive, they want to feel successful. They want to know that a use case worked, even an anecdote or a story.

[00:15:23] Ben Brooks: So that's a really important point that Jennifer is making. If that makes sense to you as well, drop a plus one in the chat if what Jennifer just made that key point of go to them when things go well. Right? Amplify good news. This is something that HR isn't always the best at, which is sharing the good news.

[00:15:39] Ben Brooks: We're often the people that go to when there's a problem, there's a bad thing that's happening. We have to learn to have a bit of a marketing muscle in how we work, so we can amplify and share the good news. Because, look, organizations Right now, there's a lot of bad news. Whether it's layoffs in the tech sector, or turnover across all industries, or supply chain issues, or burnout, or [00:16:00] mental health, or stock is depressed.

[00:16:02] Ben Brooks: A lot of organizations are in the doldrums right now. And everybody wants positive news. We want a win. So let's share, a win in that regard. Maria, let everyone let Josh and Dee and Tran know that they're, your message are going to attendees only. So make sure it's everyone, because if it goes to attendees only, I don't see you.

[00:16:21] Ben Brooks: So if you have a question, make sure you have the dropdown. It goes send to everyone. Fun of virtual events. So, all right. Point number two, start with the end in mind. Anyone, I'll look in the chat. Anyone, can you quote who I'm quoting? Start with the end in mind. Does it ring a bell? A teacher? Maybe. Yep.

[00:16:42] Ben Brooks: Candy gets it. Stephen Covey, right? Seven Habits of Effective People. Stephen Covey. Great book. A classic, right? Start with the end in mind. Think of the vision you're where you're trying to get in work backwards. One, this generates a lot of excitement. It's like, wow, we're doing a thing. [00:17:00] We are really excited, right?

[00:17:02] Ben Brooks: And two, it helps make sure you're scaling and sizing things appropriately, right? Imagine that you have an HR initiative where you want, 100 percent of people to have a development plan and you're a 10, 000 person company, if you're figuring out a way to get 30 people to do it in the first year, you're never going to get to 10, 000, right?

[00:17:20] Ben Brooks: You'll just never get there because the scale, you're not thinking at the right scale. You want to think about before you get into the details because, HR is often a how function, right? You want to be in the what and the why before the how, right? What are we trying to do and why are we doing it?

[00:17:36] Ben Brooks: The why should tie back to the organization's strategy, the needs of the C suite and the CEO and the board, their personal career motivations. If you know a leader was brought in to make an impact on DEI, globalization, on on, transformation, right? And your initiative supports that they should be a champion.

[00:17:58] Ben Brooks: And when you [00:18:00] communicated about it, it should be linked back to them, right? Make someone else look good. They will run the distance for you. So again, the right questions to think about, what are the objectives? What are we trying to achieve? Rather than saying, Hey, Oh, we're rolling out an employee retention program.

[00:18:15] Ben Brooks: It's like, hey, we've had a lot of turnover and it's really disruptive to our business and it hurts our client satisfaction scores. So we want to minimize regrettable turnover. So we're implementing an employee development program that'll help with retention. See how I really connected the dots there and brought people along even very quickly.

[00:18:36] Ben Brooks: It's very different than just categorically naming something. And again, what do we need to show? How will we know it's successful? Peter Drucker, how will you know? We're going to know that we're trying to reduce, voluntary, attrition by 30%. Okay, great. Now we have a sense of what success looks like, because it doesn't mean that no one will ever quit.

[00:18:55] Ben Brooks: That's not the goal, right? And you set yourself up for failure if that's what the expectation was. [00:19:00] And how long will it take? Well, this is a two year journey, right? Or this is a part of a one quarter program or whatever it might be. So you start to frame and set the expectations. And you notice in the tip below it says, keep your answers focused, concise, and crisp.

[00:19:14] Ben Brooks: That's why I'm saying very simple things. I'm not giving you a filibuster. of, paragraph and paragraph and paragraph. I'm giving you the tweet level things that ideally will create demand for more information. There's a great book, and I'll ask one of my PILOT team members to put a link in the chat, called The Art of Explanation.

[00:19:34] Ben Brooks: The Art of Explanation, and it talks about an effective explanation isn't exhaustive. It doesn't give you all the information, but it is clear enough that it gets people excited and it creates demand for more information. So people in sales and marketing often do this well. They have a tagline, a call to action, something like that.

[00:19:54] Ben Brooks: And people are like, huh, that sounds interesting. I want to know more, right? They sign up for a newsletter. They book a sales [00:20:00] appointment. They download an ebook or an asset, right? They sign up for a subscription. So you have to, Liz just put it in there. Thank you, Liz, for being laser fast and quick on that that, that's where explaining something crisply and succinctly rather than exhaustively starts to then have the information being pulled for rather than pushed, right?

[00:20:20] Ben Brooks: Think about when we push all these email updates and internet articles and nobody reads them. The employees aren't checking out. Versus the employees going, Wow, this sounds really exciting. How do I learn more? What a difference when you flip from push to pull, but you have to make it exciting enough.

[00:20:34] Ben Brooks: And we'll talk about rolling out with FLARE and SIZZLE in a little bit. Now, the other thing I want to bring up is, has anyone ever heard of William Bridges and the four P's? Have you ever heard of the change management expert William Bridges and the four P's in Paul? Put a plus one in the chat if you've ever heard of this.

[00:20:52] Ben Brooks: I'm going to give you a really great framework, Janice has heard of it. Great. Taylor. Awesome. Layton. Candy. All [00:21:00] right. So the four P's and I'll have my PILOT crew type this in the chat. So we also have it in case you're a visual learner, not just auditory. First is a picture of the future.

[00:21:11] Ben Brooks: Where are we going? What's the promised land? Picture of the future, right? That's the what, right? What is the picture of the future? It should be compelling. It should be exciting, right? That's key. Second P, the purpose. That's the why. Remember I mentioned what and why? Purpose. Why do we want this picture?

[00:21:33] Ben Brooks: What difference does this make to the organization? How does this affect me? How does this change the employee experience? What's this going to do for our stock price? What's this going to do for our ability to recruit? How is this helping? Why? Because if you just say, Hey, we're rolling out, a DEI initiative, And it's not tied to, so we can be competitive, right?

[00:21:52] Ben Brooks: Or so it's aligned to our values. Or it's, part of a larger thing that our parent company is working on that we're a part of. That's [00:22:00] missing. So picture the future, right? The what? The purpose. The why? Right? Give the context. We often in HR go real quick into the how, to the next one. Is the third one.

[00:22:14] Ben Brooks: What's the plan, right? The plan makes it believable. Okay, leader, I hear your vision. You have a very compelling, let's say, CFO or CMO, and she gives a great presentation and, or CEO and vision, and then she explains the purpose, but everyone's a little skeptical. Like, how is this actually going to happen?

[00:22:33] Ben Brooks: Is this real? We've heard this before, the arms crossed, right? Well, then you've got the plan that says you can believe that this is going to happen because we've got a plan. Phase one, phase two, phase three. We've hired this person. We're bringing in this vendor. I've set aside budget. We're redeploying teams.

[00:22:50] Ben Brooks: I'm getting the barriers out of the way. We looked at the feedback about why the last one failed. We know the three reasons. We have a plan to address all of those. right? It increases the [00:23:00] believability when you have a plan. Third P is a plan, right? So picture the future. What? Purpose? Why? Plan? How? Fourth one.

[00:23:11] Ben Brooks: Are you ready? Are you ready, folks? The fourth one is a part to play for everyone. So change management right? People hate change, right? Because the brain hates change. The brain is there to survive, and it likes certainty of if then relationships, right? This is when you think about AI and machine learning and how it's programmed.

[00:23:34] Ben Brooks: It's actually programmed based upon how the brain works, and that's how computers are largely built. And so you, if tiger, then run helps us survive, right? Fight or flight. When change happens, it's like, instead of if tiger, it's if spaceship, and we're like, I don't know what to do with spaceship. Right?

[00:23:51] Ben Brooks: We freak out, it's a change, and we'll talk more about that in a second. So, the part to play has the change rather than happening to someone. Kind [00:24:00] of like, remember Nickelodeon when they dropped the slime on the kids? You slime your employees with a new initiative or something like that? Ew, gross. No, they're participating, right?

[00:24:11] Ben Brooks: They're helping to build the change. They have a part to play, a role. So then they're helping to shape it. It's not happening to them, such that they feel out of control or dominated. They're a part of it. And so they're not being left behind. They're a part of the change. So I didn't expect to get into the 4Ps today, but hey, that's part of the inventive emergence of some of these conversations.

[00:24:31] Ben Brooks: So start with the end in mind, which is that big vision, right? Because that's the exciting part. Everyone's like, Oh, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to work. We're going to update workday. We're going to change the recruiting systems. We're going to re level jobs and we're going to do it like.

[00:24:49] Ben Brooks: Right? No, we're going to do this and we're going to enable it with these things. Makes a big difference. Michelle mentioned who moved my cheese, punning Michelle at dinner last night in Brooklyn with a [00:25:00] colleague of mine. We mentioned that book, actually a great book. If you haven't read it back from, I think the mid aughts when that came out and then Jasmine asked, are you assigning the part that everyone plays?

[00:25:10] Ben Brooks: Or are volunteering? It's a great question, Jasmine. There's not a right way to do that. So part of it is ideally an opt-in, right? Hey, we need people that want to, test out this new software, or we need people that, are willing to be the first group or to do this. So you can create sort of an opt-in, and ideally you have SurveyMonkey or a Google form or something where people can sign up, right?

[00:25:28] Ben Brooks: To do something. But you can also say, Hey, different departments or leaders are gonna do different things, right? My marketing team's going to do this. My HR team's going to do that. My operations team's going to do this. My technology team's going to do this. So you could predefine those parts. But ideally if you give people choices, say we need three things.

[00:25:46] Ben Brooks: We need to help people go be spokespeople We need people to be testers and we need people to give you know feedback or to train others, right? You say those are the three things so pick which one of those you'd like to do the most, right? Well, that's a lot more fun if I'm involved in [00:26:00] change if I have a bit of choice in the matter Rather than being voluntold What to do?

[00:26:07] Ben Brooks: Great questions and great suggestions and comments along the way, everyone. So, success, right? Picture the future, right? Purpose, plan, part to play. Okay, well, how do we know if we've succeeded? Right? Keep in mind that if you work in a commercial organization, you may work for a government organization, you may work in an NGO, non profit.

[00:26:29] Ben Brooks: That's fine. But in general, organizations are often measured in some way, shape, or form. We work with PILOT, we work with a amazing organization in New York City called Housing Works, and they have a dual mission to end HIV and homelessness. And homelessness. Those are intricately linked. And if you're a Housing Works fan, put it in the chat.

[00:26:50] Ben Brooks: We'd love to see any Housing Works fans that are out there and they are a nonprofit. right? But they measure the viral suppression [00:27:00] of their population that's HIV positive is a metric, right? They measure the number of people who are stably housed, right? They measure the number of people that have wraparound health care.

[00:27:11] Ben Brooks: So they may be a non profit, but they're still measuring something. So wherever your organization is, you want to think about measurement because As much as HR uses a lot of letters, right? A lot of the business leaders are more comfortable using numbers, right? That's why they're in the spreadsheets more than, memos or decks sometimes.

[00:27:30] Ben Brooks: So if you start with some numbers, it gets them really excited because that's their comfort zone. One of the reasons sometimes business leaders don't engage in HR is they don't know how and they don't want to look stupid. But when you bring in numbers, You're leaning into the language that they speak and how they work.

[00:27:47] Ben Brooks: So defining how you're going to keep score. How do we know if this is going to be successful, right? And the metrics and ideally the metrics you want to leverage metrics that have been defined elsewhere because then you have benchmarks, right? If you were to [00:28:00] think, for instance, an employee engagement survey is a great example.

[00:28:04] Ben Brooks: Not new. Employee engagement survey has been done for a long time. So the vendor that you use or the consulting firm that you use for an engagement survey should have participation benchmarks. as well as benchmark questions that you can measure results. So if you were to say, hey, we got, 85 percent participation on the survey.

[00:28:21] Ben Brooks: Well, if your CEO thinks it should be 100% and wants you to beat people into getting to 100 percent and yet the benchmark is 80 and you achieved it by 5 percentage points, you exceeded it. That's an important distinction that you need to set up before, because what typically happens is the benchmarks and the success all happens afterwards.

[00:28:41] Ben Brooks: And then you're on your back foot negotiating. Well, no, 85 is really good. You know, we can never get to 100 and stuff. You need to upfront say, our signup goal is this in phase one. We're going to do that. We're measuring it by this. We're going to have the data with this, right?

[00:28:57] Ben Brooks: So that's one of the ways that I think that [00:29:00] you really want to think up front. So leverage your vendors, leverage the software platforms, because they know how to invent metrics or benchmarks. And by the way, catnip for executives is competitive benchmarks. You want to get an executive fired up about doing better or investing more or moving faster or breaking down better barriers to say, Hey, we're behind our competition.

[00:29:23] Ben Brooks: You will get their fricking attention, right? Put a plus one if you think benchmarks and competitive benchmarks and talking about your competitors, gets your executives attention, right? A lot of resonance around that one. Lori asked, by the way, easy way to track metrics, easy to use system for beginners.

[00:29:42] Ben Brooks: Automate last. Do it manually. Put it in a slide, put it in a shared spreadsheet. Make it as absolutely simple as possible because these metrics are probably not going to change every hour, right? And then the person responsible for them takes the intellectual ownership rather than go. Oh, the system isn't calculating [00:30:00] it correctly Nope, you put it in the slide or you put it in the spreadsheet So I would start with a very low fidelity or low lo fi system, right?

[00:30:10] Ben Brooks: So great comments great things coming in again, you want to repeat the objectives and definitions that we're measuring the success on. And to be reasonable, that Joe, who I mentioned who picked up the phone and called all the country leaders, Joe, with our initiative, was originally pissed off because he thought on a social learning platform that 100 percent of our employees, 25, 000 people in 100 countries, would become social learning bloggers in an insurance company where people didn't even like to use technology, right?

[00:30:42] Ben Brooks: That is a wildly insane expectation, right? That'd be like assuming that 100 percent of people with health insurance get an annual physical or something. You're like, there's a lot of reasons to get in the way, even though it'd be great if they did it. And we showed Joe and he was pissed off because we had 20 25 percent of people doing it.

[00:30:58] Ben Brooks: But once we showed him that the average online [00:31:00] community Engagement for blogging is 1 percent and we're at 20%. We're 20 times. He changed his tune. We made the mistake of showing it after he was pissed about the metric. So, really important part. This is the governance, right? And then you own the numbers.

[00:31:14] Ben Brooks: You say, here's how this is going to be effective. A retention strategy is not going to have a 100 percent reduction in people resigning. It's going to have some reasonable thing. An engagement strategy is not going to get you to a 100 percent on your engagement metrics. Thanks. It's an impossible thing, but it's going to say, Hey, the intent to stay at the company in two years is going to go up by five points or people satisfied with their manager relationship or getting the feedback they need to advance their career or feeling included at work.

[00:31:41] Ben Brooks: Really predictive, important questions that are benchmarked. You'd say, what meaningful increase do you think you'd make and celebrate that? You can always build on that in the future. So the defining success very, very important. And by the way, this also, if you've got CFOs. Increasingly we hear from people in HR that, Hey, I have a [00:32:00] budget, but I can't really spend it without going to finance for each thing whether it's big or small. I'm not sure if that's been everyone else's experience. I'd love some comments in the chat about if it's harder to get spending done in the last couple of years. Seems like it's becoming more complex. A good CFO or finance organization doesn't just say, here's the, Oh, it's, it's a hundred thousand dollars.

[00:32:24] Ben Brooks: You have a hundred thousand in your budget. Fine. They typically want to know how are you going to measure it? What's the ROI, the return on investment? How do we know the value proposition? So even a single one or two metrics will put you ahead of anything that they've typically seen from HR, right? You go and make the ask you say hey, here's my four Ps by the way Here's our governance and the champions behind this and oh, here's how we're gonna measure it to know if it's effective You're gonna be coming in.

[00:32:55] Ben Brooks: They're not gonna have a lot to refute in that regard when you come in and just say hey We saw this cool [00:33:00] vendor. We're like think it's cool. We're gonna try it Kind of a weak ask, right? Alyssa mentions the CEO has to approve, every spend. Wow, right? Janice, or no budget and you have to broker support from the business units.

[00:33:11] Ben Brooks: Again, the business units, you gotta pitch them like they're investors, right? Now, you may say, hey, I want two things from you. I want some budget and I want a champion, right? Because then you can make sure your budget is getting spent wisely, right? One of the things that, you know, that you can neutralize the naysayers by bringing them in the tent.

[00:33:31] Ben Brooks: same thing with sort of activist investors. You can put them on a board of directors, right? And all of a sudden there can't just be the naysayer throwing sand in the gears. They're a part of the team, right? And so that's a good thing as well. And so let's Lisa mentioned it's harder to get strategic spending, easier to get quick solution.

[00:33:48] Ben Brooks: And it may be, Lisa, to position a thing as a quick solution, as a trial. Many of our customers call it a pilot PILOT. Say, Hey, we've got 10, 000 employees. We're going to want to put them through development program. [00:34:00] Let's start with a hundred. That's the pilot PILOT, so it's a little easier to get the spend because we're not asking for five years of budget or a company wide rollout, but that's a strategy to consider as well.

[00:34:11] Ben Brooks: Now, all of the things we've talked about so far lead up to this idea of managing expectations, and we've got a, an article that I wrote on HRE that summarizes a lot of this you can share with your colleagues. But if something you're doing in his organization is new, you're not going to be perfect.

[00:34:29] Ben Brooks: Now, I will, I'm going to make an assertion here, and I'd like you to put in the chat if it's like agree or disagree, or maybe would be the answer that HR has a bit of a perfectionist approach. The HR people and in general, we try to be quite perfect, right? We have compliance and cost and legal ER, right?

[00:34:51] Ben Brooks: It's agree or disagree or maybe. So a lot of agree so far, right? Oh, agree. Nancy says, oh my God. Yes, says Cole, right? So [00:35:00] there's a thousand percent, right? Lots of agree. All right. So I'm not out on a limb here. So you have to realize that that perfectionist impulse may set up misaligned expectations to the organization as you roll out an initiative.

[00:35:16] Ben Brooks: Because if something is new, we have to get over the shame that it's not going to go well, right? I heard Reid Hoffman, the co founder of LinkedIn, part of the PayPal mafia. He mentioned about people that design technology products. And they said, if you're not at least a little bit embarrassed by your product, you released it too late.

[00:35:34] Ben Brooks: This has been a really hard lesson for me with PILOT. Now PILOT, we're seven, eight years in, we have this award winning product, it's absolutely industry leading and amazing, but it hasn't always been, right, and we've learned things along the way and there's still things we want to improve in that. So part of it is to set the expectation to say, look, there may be some unintended consequences.

[00:35:56] Ben Brooks: There may be some use cases that break down. There may be some people that [00:36:00] are confused, people that don't like it, because it's a change, right? So, you start to lower the expectations that this is going to be perfect, that we're going to put a bow around it, as Jennifer said earlier, right? Or Maggie said HR is expected to be perfect, right?

[00:36:14] Ben Brooks: You say no, no. This is not going to be perfect, because we're doing something innovative. We're doing something new and you start to manage the expectation that because you've got good governance, you're going to get feedback. You're going to learn, you're going to make changes, you're going to make things better, but that you're not going to deliver perfection, right?

[00:36:33] Ben Brooks: And that's a very important thing that, you know, to, to set with those expectations, including with the governance, right? Including with your champions. Hey, we're going to get some people as we roll this out that are not going to like it and that's okay. And we're going to actually try to find out why.

[00:36:48] Ben Brooks: You know, jane says, don't oversell it. Right. Laura, new mantra is done is better than perfect. Detached from the outcome, Josh says, so that's a part of it. And so you have to realize that a [00:37:00] change, right? When the brain is used to the tiger and knows to run and a spaceship lands, the brain goes, what the heck, right?

[00:37:06] Ben Brooks: Or WTF, maybe. And so really that there's four stages of change. And look, you a Ph. D. in change management, right, but I'm going to give you four simple stages and think of a little kid. You got a niece or nephew or a child or a friend, a neighbor, etc. Think of maybe, a kindergartner, right?

[00:37:25] Ben Brooks: You know, and there's a change. So first of all, it may be like, ignorance. They don't even know the change is happening. They're in bliss. They're doing whatever. So your employees, your managers, they don't know that, you're going to have a new career development framework or that we're going to do a values day or that this is changing.

[00:37:41] Ben Brooks: Or, Whatever, we're doing talent reviews now, right? They have no, ignorance is bliss, they're, they are, they have no idea. Then they hear about it, right? You finally get their attention. And then what do you get back? What is this? You think you got time for this? Another password to remember? One more thing to do?

[00:37:57] Ben Brooks: I'm already burnt out? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, [00:38:00] right? Can you relate to that? Some of you probably, if that ever happens where it kind of comes back at you, right? You're like, wait, we're, we just did an engagement survey. You had some complaints, we're doing something about this and now you're complaining.

[00:38:11] Ben Brooks: Right? Well, rather than get upset by that, just expect it. Right? Right. Expect people will be pissed off. When you're rolling out an amazing new initiative and don't flinch, right? My friend, Robby Hammond, who co founded the Highline here in New York City, the elevated park. He says, you know, being a good change agent is like being the tide it's coming in, but it's slow and steady.

[00:38:37] Ben Brooks: And it comes in a little bit. I might go out a little bit. But it's slow and unwavering, right? Be that tide coming in. So you're going to get that anger, but the tide is still coming in. Eventually they get to reluctant acceptance. Okay, fine. I'll set my goals in Workday, in UKG, in whatever. I'll use the engagement survey.

[00:38:55] Ben Brooks: I'll get my team to do it. Fine, right? A bit of a compliant, they're fine, [00:39:00] whatever. But eventually it's like, holy cow, it's so great to get this engagement data. Oh my gosh, my employee is so much more capable. Wow, it's great to not have people quit all the time. Geez, it's interesting to have a shared language to talk about leadership and to give feedback, right?

[00:39:13] Ben Brooks: That's the appreciation phase, right? Angela says famous HR quote, you can't please everyone. And that's true, right? Perfectionism will, is a game you will fail at, right? Which perfectionist, if you're feeling like, oh, screw you, Ben, high chance you're a extreme perfectionist, right? You have to succumb that you're going to have some detractors.

[00:39:35] Ben Brooks: You want to bring them in, get their feedback, listen to them, right? But you're optimizing for a particular group, right? Which may be your future leaders, it may be people that are culture carriers to the organization. The other way to also meter change, you think about even like, you think about the change we had in March and April of 2020, a lot of change at once, right? [00:40:00] Distance learning, right? Latin for parents teaching kids. Remote work sticking at home, stay at home orders, masks, all this stuff. Too much change at once. We all freaked out. So think about is there a way to phase it out. Not to go slow, right? Actually to go fast, but not have it be overwhelming.

[00:40:19] Ben Brooks: So if you've got five departments or three regions, pick the one where you've got a friendly, where it's warm. Say we're going to roll it out in the Northeast region. We're going to roll it out in Latin America. We're going to roll it out in the IT function. And we're going to learn and get feedback and then they're going to help shape it.

[00:40:37] Ben Brooks: And then when you roll it out to everyone else, say, Hey, we rolled out an IT, it went great. You're going to love it. And you use them as your spokespeople because they already have the experience. They help shape it and make it better. And it's not an HR thing. It's now sort of an HR thing that's already been tested and that people can get excited about.

[00:40:52] Ben Brooks: So this is a big part of managing expectations, which ties directly back to the metrics. Which ties directly back to the, the part [00:41:00] to play and the four P's and start with the end in mind. All of these things are linked to you. Is it helping right now, by the way, just, I'd love to get a couple of comments in the chat.

[00:41:09] Ben Brooks: Is this helping to frame how to think about being strategic and rolling out new content? HR initiatives, and if so, what's resonating? I'd love just for everyone to learn from one another, like what's popping for you, what's resonating, etc. Because this is a skill set that no one teaches you. If you go get a degree at Cornell in industrial labor relations or HR or something, they don't teach a lot of this, right?

[00:41:31] Ben Brooks: Unfortunately, great school, but they don't teach a lot of this. This is things you learn maybe as a management consultant or in other sort of different industries where I learned it, which made me more effective in HR. Sounds like people love framework for P's. Things are interconnected.

[00:41:48] Ben Brooks: Peggy mentioned, Peggy Anderson, good conversation about lack of marketing for HR. Absolutely. I, there's a talk on YouTube. Maybe somebody can find it from my PILOT team that I did maybe a decade ago at the HR Tech [00:42:00] Conference called Making HR Sexy. And it was all about thinking like a marketer, right, in HR, etc.

[00:42:08] Ben Brooks: Jessica saying the same exact thing simplicity, start with the end in mind. Very much so. It's a structured approach, says Michael. Great. Shanna, applying change management strategy. Done is better than perfect for Jennifer. Skill set needed. Basic fundamentals really helps. Do you have HR experience?

[00:42:23] Ben Brooks: Yep, Angela. when I went into HR, I had to relearn how to do business because when I was in management consulting or in operations or in supply chain, It's a different thing. And anyone in HR knows that. All the way, also Angela, like, do business with vendors who've been in HR and have the empathy, because there's plenty of people that build technology products that have no idea what it's like.

[00:42:43] Ben Brooks: And so that's part of the reason we founded PILOT, Angela, was like, hey, we've been there, we've done that, we get it. So that's why we built a program that works for HR. Okay. Read a couple more comments. Start where you want to go, don't get caught up in the how, right? All the steps being successful in the [00:43:00] process.

[00:43:00] Ben Brooks: They work together. You don't get to solutioning and selling too early. Implementing, great. I'm so glad that this is resonating, Liz and I and everyone at PILOT put a lot of time into preparing for this. This is really wonderful. Liz. Wow. Liz, I mean, Liz, Got to show Liz some love.

[00:43:13] Ben Brooks: She's got the books, the links, everything. We've got the You Can Make HR Sexy YouTube presentation. So check it out. And if you like it, send me an email or a LinkedIn note. I'd love to know. And it looks like, Doom Doomisana, Doomsani, if I got your name right, Doomsani Kala mentioned, preparing for a global leadership program on ESG, partnering with the business school, et cetera.

[00:43:31] Ben Brooks: So this makes a lot of sense to them. Joy Miller would love the idea, right? Taking time to educate others about the plan, right? And that's again, good change management in good project management is slowing down, right? Part of the reason people resist change is they feel out of control, they feel stupid, they feel disrespected, right?

[00:43:49] Ben Brooks: This is a lot of emotion, right? People in HR know that a lot of the core of business problems are really emotion and people and drama and psychology. So we have to lean into that. [00:44:00] I used to have my former boss that got me into HR, Orlando Ashford, became the president of Holland America Cruise Lines. I don't know if anyone knows Orlando, put an Orlando shout out, a legend.

[00:44:09] Ben Brooks: Amazing, role model in black community as a corporate executive. He talked about, you want to think about going slow to go fast. And, he said, use the analogy of archery. And when I was on winter break, I was in the UAE and I got to do archery one day. And, as we had the bow and arrow, the slower you pull back on the bow with that arrow, the further you can go, but as you get further, there's more resistance, right?

[00:44:34] Ben Brooks: But then as soon as you let that arrow go, it slings forward faster. in with greater precision. So think of that, going slow to go fast, right? We're being methodical and strategic rather than just rushing with an implementation announcement. Liz, by the way, has got another link here. We got a lot of go Liz's in there.

[00:44:54] Ben Brooks: Awesome. About the article itself, that's on HRE. So if you know, you might not get people to watch this hour [00:45:00] long webinar, even though we've absolutely crushed it, I believe is you, but you probably can get them to read an eight step article. Right? So think about sharing that great resources as HRE has so many great articles and resources.

[00:45:11] Ben Brooks: One of my go to newsletters that I read every week. So rolling out the program with Flair, right? This is the part of the HR, making HR sexy, right? So you want to create pizzazz and sparkle and fun, right? Think about a name, contest, swag, advisor groups, right? We had our social learning platform, and we created little pins and buttons.

[00:45:29] Ben Brooks: We had a birthday party for the community, for the platform, and we brought big sheet cakes out in the cafeteria, and everyone's like, we're having a birthday party for an IT platform? But everyone, it was like beloved, we had a photo booth and these things didn't cost a lot of money, right? This was about the thoughtfulness.

[00:45:44] Ben Brooks: One of our values at PILOT is thoughtful, and another one is inventive. If you'd like a copy of our values, we'd be happy to send it to you, so you can send Liz or I an email. But, think about how to make this fun and exciting. right? That's the marketing thing, right? Again, if you're buying something [00:46:00] from a vendor, you do, let's say you you buy PILOT, you buy Virgin Pulse, you buy something like that.

[00:46:05] Ben Brooks: We'll ask us to say, can we talk to one of your other customers or what have they done to make this work? What's the extra thing? Because it's oftentimes that little bit, right? Think about an amazing dish, a charcuterie board you put together for a party or something. It's sometimes it's the garnish. It's how you lay it out.

[00:46:21] Ben Brooks: It's not just the recipe and how you cooked the thing, right? It's the presentation, not just the content. So it looks like there's some people that would like the PILOT values and we just, we're really proud of these. So if we can, if you could, email [email protected] is probably the best way.

[00:46:35] Ben Brooks: [email protected]. We'd love to send you those. And then again, you want to engage your marketing team. Marketing teams are really creative and they often don't get to be creative because they have to be really like about compliance and white papers and this and that. With HR and internal stuff, they can break through some of those straight jackets and shackles.

[00:46:52] Ben Brooks: So it's a really wonderful thing to engage the marketing team. Because they're going to be able to really make a difference [00:47:00] in making this fun. I'll mention one other thing. We did a photo contest. We needed to get, we had a bunch of boring stock images. And so we, put a photo contest together.

[00:47:09] Ben Brooks: And we had employees submit photos instead of using stock images. We got incredible. We had a voting thing. We gave away the little flip cameras back in the day. It didn't cost a lot of money. It actually saved us a ton of money compared to buying photos externally. And then there were employees. People were blown away.

[00:47:24] Ben Brooks: There were people in insurance, so everyone's writing values, so we'll grab your names if you want. Again, the PILOT values, we call them the VITOs, we've got vibrant, inventive, thoughtful ownership and striving. A great framework for development as well, so be happy to share those as well.

[00:47:38] Ben Brooks: Now another thing is barrier removal. So a big part of change management is the sort of idea that you have an employee or a manager or an executive at point A, and you want them to do a behavior at point B. And if you believe that they're like a good person, because if they're not and they've got bad ethics or violating policy, you probably should exit them from the organization.

[00:47:57] Ben Brooks: But if they're there and they should be in the organization, [00:48:00] there's probably barriers that make it hard. And in workplace safety consulting, there's a phrase that I love, which is you want to make doing the right thing to do the easiest thing to do. When I used to work with, people that worked in aviation maintenance, putting on the safety equipment, they had to walk across the hangar to some weird closet and it was dark, et cetera.

[00:48:18] Ben Brooks: When we built a cart where it was within arm's reach to grab, eye shield, ear protection, aprons, et cetera, everyone was wearing safety equipment because it was easy. But when you make it hard, right? You make it hard to do your time sheets, to do your compliance, to do a development plan, to join a training program.

[00:48:36] Ben Brooks: They're not going to do it, right? So you're hiring good people and assuming you've done your sort of performance management, things like that, that makes a big difference. Thanks, Jeanette, for joining, by the way. But then, again, you want to get the feedback along the way. What's getting in the way?

[00:48:51] Ben Brooks: How could we make this easier? What's unclear? And again, that's getting out of the perfectionist thing, right? But it's really getting into the [00:49:00] space where you say, Hey, Oh wow, like it'd be helpful if we put a link on the intranet at the top of the page so you always could find it or, Oh, if we had a one page guide to how to do this or if there was a video we could record a reminder, an example, those sorts of things.

[00:49:15] Ben Brooks: That's how you remove barriers. So makes a huge difference to remove barriers. Lori, we will be done in just a second. I'm wrapping up. And I'll be on to answer a couple questions. So think sustainment, right? Just because you launched a program doesn't mean it's, think about the things you've had.

[00:49:32] Ben Brooks: Learning programs, talent, diversity. Sometimes you start strong, but then it fizzles, right? So you want to, that's why the data and the metrics, you want to make sure. that it stays alive. Right? So that's a really important thing. And consider continuous investment, the barrier removal, etc. You want to bring in new people.

[00:49:50] Ben Brooks: You have new hires that come in. People that use the program, the initiative, and they love it. Make them your spokesperson. Feature them in a town hall. Put them on the intranet, right? [00:50:00] And again, you want to kind of refresh. Think about succession and brain drain and kind of term limits on certain things.

[00:50:05] Ben Brooks: Bring in fresh energy. If it's a career development opportunity, someone mentioned. Give them the opportunity to have someone else. The woman in financial services, she's helped been the champion for a couple of years, we've now found another new champion that can have a similar career result, and she's mentoring that person, right?

[00:50:21] Ben Brooks: Inclusive in this sort of sustainability strategy around it can make a really big difference. You just gotta, again, remember, you're not done when you kick off the thing, right? You're not done. You're done when you achieve the objective, right? You're done when you sustain the measurement, which often takes a long time.

[00:50:43] Ben Brooks: Change in organizations, and by the way, mo people, mo problem. The end of the number of employees. The bigger the thing is, the harder it is to change it, right? It's like an aircraft carrier turning it around versus a jet ski. Jet ski, you can turn in a dime, right? Speedboat, you can turn pretty good. You get a ferry [00:51:00] boat, a little different, right?

[00:51:01] Ben Brooks: You start to get a barge, you get an aircraft carrier. Try doing a 180 with that thing, right? Prepare for an hour, right? That thing turns around. So you have to also be patient, right? That it's gonna take some time and you have to invest the resources over the long term. So we're wrapping up. I'm gonna stay on for questions in the chat.

[00:51:20] Ben Brooks: So if you've got questions, drop them in. Liz just put my LinkedIn. So what I would say is I'd love to connect with all of you on today. I put a lot of resources for free on LinkedIn all the time. Add me on LinkedIn. I've got, a ton of HR people on my network. We do a lot of polls, a lot of value added things, let's put my Twitter, et cetera.

[00:51:40] Ben Brooks: And, we have a QR code. We'd love to help you at PILOT. com. If this is a need to roll out a program effectively, to invest in development, Virgin Pulse would love to help you as well. There'll be follow ups from Virgin Pulse. Please check out their offering, it's incredible. My contact info is here, [00:52:00] right?

[00:52:00] So we're here to help you because we're former HR people, we know what it's like and we want to make it easy. This is what we're here to do. Really appreciate your time. We're going to stay on for a couple more minutes. And we're here to, make sure you fill out the survey.

[00:52:15] Ben Brooks: By the way, when you exit the Webex, there's typically a survey gives us some really great data. But if there's any other last minute questions, I'm going to answer them. And, oh, Padma asked today's webinar based on experience or research or both. It's both, right? Primary research, and secondary or third party sort of research.

[00:52:32] Ben Brooks: So, a bit of both, Padma. And, things like Bridges and these other things and McKinsey studies and things we've quoted from Gallup, etc. all third party sort of research, but these are some real tried and true best practices and as you saw in the comments, they seem to really resonate with a lot of people based on their own experience.

[00:52:49] Ben Brooks: And Lori mentioned even harder when you have micromanagers and controlling coworkers, that's a part of getting them excited and getting them on board. So we'd love, again, please, check out, you know, if you're Check out if you've been to a [00:53:00] restaurant in the last three years, you know how to use a QR code reader.

[00:53:02] Ben Brooks: So go, you can scan that code. We'd love to help you out. We've got great resources. If you want the values, send us that email. [email protected]. Send me an email. We'll make sure to get those to you. And then again add me on LinkedIn, and Padma. Thank you. Kalpana. Thank you, Kim and Marie, Lindsay, Darren, et cetera.

[00:53:19] Ben Brooks: On your way out, if you have a takeaway or a feeling right now, it's helpful. Liz and I work really hard on this and other members of our team. So just, I would love to know what you take. It's a good feedback for me that we hit the mark here. It seems like we had a ton of people here engaged, blowing up the chat, et cetera.

[00:53:36] Ben Brooks: If there's any takeaway, it sounds like the four P's, the structure of this, the practicality charisma. Garcia says amazing. I'm feeling so energized. Masha says great advice. Debra inspired. Thanks for the info. Fantastic, informative. Marty loved the webinars. Oh, Marty. Thank you. That's very sweet.

[00:53:54] Ben Brooks: Makes me feel good. And always, Marty, by the way, if we can make them more informative or even better, we're not perfectionists [00:54:00] here either. So we always know that there's opportunity for us to grow one of our values that PILOT is striving. It's a part of that. Marsha says great advice. Imicus is well delivered.

[00:54:09] Ben Brooks: Barry says, I like the basic approach on the ground level and very often times the simplest approach is the best, right? It's the most flexible, don't get overwhelmed, et cetera. Crystal's asking about the recording and presentation, so I'll have Liz or one of our folks comment about that. Susan loves the new tools that you can use.

[00:54:26] Ben Brooks: I'm so glad, Susan, that you felt this is useful to you, right? Anidra says, progress over perfection. Amen. Good info, engaging and helpful. Great, and Sauda says I have a meeting with my CEO members leadership team tomorrow. So we're using some of the tips Let us know how it goes. Let's connect on LinkedIn.

[00:54:43] Ben Brooks: Fantastic, right? Michelle, all great many ideas for HR recruiting and hiring coming up. Love the exclamation marks. I'm feeling that, right? Brittany says, enjoy the rollout with flair and making fun. It's like self expression, right? Be goofy, be silly get people's attention, right?

[00:54:58] Ben Brooks: And Liz says PILOT's going to send [00:55:00] an email with all the information on the recording, so you'll get that as well. So anyone asking about that as well, Maria, great information. Anne Marie says love the interactive chat. And again, we love that too. It's inclusive. And there's so many smart people in HR that are part of the HRE community, right?

[00:55:14] Ben Brooks: HRE's built an amazing community, and we want to leverage everyone's knowledge as a part of being a part of Human Resources Executive. Really, really powerful. The four P's and the seven steps resonated, right? And confirm that you're on the right path, right? For the global leadership journey.

[00:55:31] Ben Brooks: Current Thoughts takes a lot of time to convince leaders through tact to get the convinced leaders through statistics, research, etc., right? Which it does take a lot of time, right? Again Crystal, Layton wants to connect with you, it looks jasmine, lots of great takeaways, notes, frameworks, etc.,

[00:55:45] Ben Brooks: right? Shana says very helpful, right? And yeah, and Shana, if you can send me an email, we would love to get this. We have so many comments here, so Shana, just, my email's right on this slide, [email protected]. We can get back to you, Shana, with your question as well. Great.

[00:55:58] Ben Brooks: Linda, thanks [00:56:00] everybody. We're going to wrap up. If there's any last comments or questions, I'll give it another 35 seconds and then I'll hand it to Peter to wrap up for us. But thanks everyone for a great, I guess it's Thursday here. It's January. We're getting the year started. Hey Jeff. Hey everybody.

[00:56:15] Ben Brooks: Great job. Great job, Liz. Great resources, everybody. Thanks, everyone. Have a great rest of your day. Peter, back to you.

[00:56:23] Peter: Thank you, Ben. And thank you, Liz, as well. As for our attendees, thank you for joining. This does conclude today's event. You may now disconnect your lines and have a great day.