Recorded Webinar

Transcript

[00:00:00] Azure Rooths: Hello, and welcome. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are finding yourself in the world. We are so excited to have you here with us today. My name is Azure and I bring you greetings from Northern Virginia, right outside of Washington, D. C. I will serve as your host and moderator. Laura will be our producer. I would like to thank you for being here and take a moment to turn it over to Laura.

[00:00:29] Laura Mastrorocco: Thank you, Azure. So my role is to ensure that things run smoothly from a technical standpoint. We will be using the Zoom chat throughout. Feel free to drop questions in the chat at any time if you have a question for our presenters. This session is being recorded and PILOT will send out that recording in the next couple of days via email, so keep an eye out for that.

[00:00:53] Azure Rooths: Wonderful. I want to start by introducing one of our amazing guests today, [00:01:00] Matt Jackson. Matt, can you take a minute and introduce yourself? Welcome, and we're so happy to have you.

[00:01:07] Matt Jackson: Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Good afternoon. Good morning, everybody. So I'm Matt.

[00:01:13] Matt Jackson: Despite my accent, I have the privilege of leading the charge for Unmind here in the US. My journey to workplace mental health and well being was not one of academic or clinical reasons, but it was because I worked for a company that had an incredible culture. for about 12 years. And I loved every second of that.

[00:01:32] Matt Jackson: And that culture centered around wellbeing. And what I've come to learn now is that that culture was psychologically safe. It was mentally healthy. And that company actually offered Unmind to us. And I fell in love with what Unmind stood for, what our mission is and made it my mission to work for the organization.

[00:01:50] Matt Jackson: And I think it was 16 months to the day that I did. I that I started using it. I was able to join the company to lead our U. S. operations. So. safe to say you've got someone who's [00:02:00] incredibly passionate about mental health and well being, but also I feel like the luckiest person alive that I get to do this every day and talk to folks like yourself, and somebody pays me for it so excited for the conversation with you today.

[00:02:12] Matt Jackson: Yeah, so Unmind. We are a company that is intent on driving cultural change as it relates to mental health in the workplace. And that comes in many shapes and forms and ultimately what we help provide is a enterprise mental health platform. that impacts every level of an organization from the executive level through to leadership to managers and importantly as well to employees that allows them to measure, understand and act in a way that helps drive cultural change.

[00:02:38] Matt Jackson: And I'll bring to life some of those examples throughout the conversation today, but we get to work with some of the most incredible companies in the world who are intent on driving cultural change as well. And I think I spied a few of those wonderful clients in the participants already today. So excited to share more.

[00:02:56] Azure Rooths: Thanks so much, Matt, and thank you for being here. [00:03:00] Now I'd like to take a moment, it's such a pleasure I want to introduce you to, it's my pleasure to introduce you to the founder of PILOT, our CEO, Ben Brooks. He is one of HR's Exec Top 100 HR Tech Influencers, and the author of HR Executives Coach's Corner, where he shares insight and advice on the dynamic business landscape, and how HR professionals can maximize their impact on their business.

[00:03:28] Azure Rooths: He is a pillar in the HR industry, founder and sole CEO and sole investor of PILOT, an award winning virtual employment development and group coaching program. Throughout his career as HR executive himself and as a private CEO and executive coach, Ben has been a driving force to help other HR professionals avoid needless turnover.

[00:03:53] Azure Rooths: He's also an active advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. having served on the board of [00:04:00] directors for Outserve SLDN, which helped to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and co founded an LGBT employee resource group at his previous management consulting firm. If you don't know, if you don't already follow Ben Brooks on HR and Twitter, I have to tell you, you're missing an opportunity to get to know one of the most dynamic and knowledgeable HR influencers around.

[00:04:26] Azure Rooths: And today, he's here to share with you. Welcome and thanks for being here, Ben.

[00:04:33] Ben Brooks: Thank you, Asher.

[00:04:36] Azure Rooths: As we continue to move forward, I'd like to share a little bit about PILOT. which was founded to help everyone feel powerful at work. We show participants how to use self reflection, how to solicit feedback, and accept how to solicit and accept feedback, advocate for themselves, and take effective actions within their organizations.

[00:04:57] Azure Rooths: This is done through four methods of [00:05:00] learning. Technology enabled group coaching, where participants are broken into cohorts to begin their pilot development journey. Individual reflection activities, where That can be done on their own time through scaled mentoring, which gives participants access to higher level executives.

[00:05:17] Azure Rooths: And finally, through one to one feedback sessions with their managers. As we move forward, you have to check this out. Wow. PILOT works with businesses of all shapes and sizes. and look at the number of organizations that have taken advantage of PILOT's award winning program. At the bottom, you'll see some of our recognitions and awards from Brandinghouse, HR exec, and we were just nominated and named top supplier award from our customer Diageo for diversity excellence.[00:06:00]

[00:06:02] Azure Rooths: And on that, I am ready to jump into our first question. As I said, I will serve as the host and moderator. And the first question that we are here to explore, how does employee wellbeing contribute to employee retention? Let's start with you, Matt.

[00:06:24] Matt Jackson: Thank you, Aja. For me, I often think that the simplest answer is often the best answer.

[00:06:30] Matt Jackson: And when I think about well being as it relates to retention, it's greater well being equals greater engagement. That surely equals a greater likelihood to want to stay and importantly perform an organization. And something I learned at a Gallup event that has stuck with me now for about 18 months is that when you think about the link between engagement and well being, and if you think of that as a [00:07:00] precursor to retention, the greatest impact on your engagement is your well being.

[00:07:05] Matt Jackson: And what Gallup found is that the greatest impact on your well being is your manager. And did you, through tens of thousands of surveys across the world with different employees, that the single biggest thing that a manager can do to have an impact on your well being is to have one meaningful conversation with you a week?

[00:07:28] Matt Jackson: And that blew my mind. You think about the well being industry in the U. S. is about 16 billion dollars, and it's growing at a 6 percent CAGR every single year. The number of solutions available is phenomenal, and that shows the importance that well being has within organizations now to drive engagement and retention.

[00:07:46] Matt Jackson: But it blew my mind that the simple and the single biggest impact on your well being is a human being having a meaningful conversation with you. It made me take a step back and think, what is it that we're actually investing in all the well being solutions? And what are we helping and equipping people [00:08:00] to do to help support well being?

[00:08:02] Matt Jackson: And I think over the past few years, it's absolutely become apparent that well being has a huge impact on retention. We all now, as individuals, we're all in different places. You go back three, four years, we may have all been in our offices because we were enforced to, but a key element of well being now is that flexibility to work where you want, if your company so allows.

[00:08:26] Matt Jackson: So I think on a retention level, there is a higher expectation of us as employees, that an organization is going to look after our wellbeing. And therefore I'm going to choose where I work based on how you look after my wellbeing. So I think it has a huge impact on that.

[00:08:43] Ben Brooks: I love the meaningful conversation weekly with an employee because it's So tangible, like you don't need to go get a million dollars in budget to go do that.

[00:08:53] Ben Brooks: Right? That's something that, can just can happen. I would love, I put in the chat, I'd love to know from people at your organization, yes, sometimes, [00:09:00] no. Are your managers having a chat every week with folks? Do you know, do you have a sense of that? I'd love to see in the chat just a little benchmark.

[00:09:06] Ben Brooks: We always like to learn from our community. In that regard, sometimes no, sometimes because I think that, yeah, that, that's, you think about relationships and, this idea of retention and well being kind of coming together, what I've noticed, Matt, is that people will quit when they're desperate.

[00:09:22] Ben Brooks: Sometimes we call it job bankruptcy, right? You blow it up and you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, which may not even have anything to do with work, right? It may be, and we saw, in the height of the great resignation, right? A third of people were quitting without another job, right? I think people, if their wellbeing is not being managed,

[00:09:42] Ben Brooks: then I think what often happens is then people have to make a change. And, you can't give what you don't have, right? I've heard that from Dr. Phil or something a long time ago, and it was like, you can't give good service if you're not in a good place, right?

[00:09:55] Ben Brooks: You can't give good feedback or create good, products or quality or operations, [00:10:00] etc. So, I think, the way that I look at it is oftentimes, when people are the most helpless, right, they lose their common sense, and they often do rash things, and quitting a job unexpectedly can be one of those, right?

[00:10:13] Ben Brooks: And we also get the allure that it's going to be better somewhere else, right? But, we'll talk more about this today, Matt, but just, people, I think, think the grass is greener, but, no matter what grass you're standing on, there you are, and so what's the employee's contribution to their own well being as well?

[00:10:28] Matt Jackson: That's true. You mentioned something interesting there about people leaving, like, was it a third of people left without having somewhere else to go? Yeah. One interesting trend I've seen over the past three, four years is that well being has always lived within benefits. And there's the saying that well being is a benefit.

[00:10:47] Matt Jackson: And what we've seen over the past three, four, five years is no, actually well being is not a benefit. It's a human right. And there are organizations that would be in the top 25th percentile that gave what they described as [00:11:00] the best benefits program in the world. And we have the best health benefits, we have the best EAP, we have this, we have this, we have this.

[00:11:06] Matt Jackson: And yet people are still leaving. You see it within the legal industry. The law firm spends so much money on compensation and they have top level health insurance, etc. But they also see on average 32, 33 percent attrition because it's a hard industry. And what people are trying to work out is, well, if I give everything and spend millions of dollars on benefits, why are people still leaving?

[00:11:29] Matt Jackson: Like, I'm giving them good well being, but it's so much more than that now. Well being needs to be ingrained in the culture of the organization. And to draw on the the legal analogy, a little bit more. You go back five years. And when I was having conversations with people in law firms, they were the most wonderful human beings that were trying to drive the wellbeing agenda.

[00:11:48] Matt Jackson: And they typically sat within benefits. Now you see the rise of director of wellness and director of wellbeing and chief wellness officers. So there's a real focus on how do you drive cultural change within law firms. And [00:12:00] interestingly as well, I'll speak to a lot more professional development people within law firms.

[00:12:04] Matt Jackson: about delivering the right level of training to leaders or support from a manager perspective, completely separate for benefits. Now I'm a benefits nerd, that was where my life existed prior to joining Unmined, but I am so happy to see the separation of well being and benefits.

[00:12:22] Ben Brooks: Yeah, when you think, Matt, well being, if we were to define that, right, because, wellness or well being, I think when I was first got into HR, 10, 15 years ago, we talked about wellness, which is getting people to, lower their their cholesterol or, lose some weight or get a preventative care or get things, coronatal cancer and things like that screenings, and so it was great, right, because it was basically getting people to just go to the doctor and do the basics.

[00:12:46] Ben Brooks: Yeah. But when you talk about psychological safety and the culture that you used to be in and why you like this so much, that to me is on a whole different level than, I mean, obviously it's important if you've got, a heart condition or diabetes or [00:13:00] hypertension or something, mental illness that you need to have, medication or medical supervision.

[00:13:04] Ben Brooks: That's like, that's almost like from a Maslow's hierarchy, right? That's like the basics you got to get. It's hard to do much, right, if you're, not managing epilepsy or whatever your thing is but you're talking about this other thing of like connection with a manager every week and ability to speak up and to be supported, which I think often gets missed when we focus on medical claims and biometric health outcomes.

[00:13:27] Ben Brooks: And we don't get into what's the experience because one of the one of the questions I always say with well being an employee experience and retention is what do people say at the dinner table at night when someone says, Honey, how was work today? Roommate, how was work today? Friend, date, someone on FaceTime, a child.

[00:13:45] Ben Brooks: That is often a great measure of someone's engagement and it can be predictive of retention. Asher, is that hitting something for you?

[00:13:51] Azure Rooths: It is, absolutely. And with that, using the conversation that is had at home and at the dinner table, why do you, why has [00:14:00] employee well being become a priority in recent years as we move forward to the next question?

[00:14:06] Azure Rooths: That was a perfect segue. Ben, let me start with you.

[00:14:11] Matt Jackson: Ben, before you answer that, can I just add one thing? I think it's really important what you just said about the health aspect of what you described from wellness is one element of it. The way we describe it is that your well being is your whole person and it covers let's say seven core areas.

[00:14:27] Matt Jackson: Health is one of them. So important. Measuring those health conditions that then impact onto your mental health, whatever it may be. But you also have things like sleep huge impact on your wellbeing. Connection, fulfillment, calmness, coping, happiness. All of these elements are impacted by your workplace, and they have been under attack for the last three, four years.

[00:14:49] Matt Jackson: That's well being. If I don't feel fulfilled in what I do, if I don't feel connected to the purpose of my organization, if I don't feel connection to the people I work with, I'm going to [00:15:00] have low well being. And therefore, why would I want to stay at that organization? But I thought I loved what you said there about it's moved from the health element to the broader aspects.

[00:15:08] Matt Jackson: And that's why it links to retention, but sorry, I jumped in.

[00:15:13] Ben Brooks: Because I saw a stat that, loneliness for men is a top three killer in America now, because it's related to fentanyl. It's related to suicide. It's related to obesity. It's related to these other chronic conditions. But yet loneliness, you think is like this emotional, social thing.

[00:15:32] Ben Brooks: people sitting at home. And the number of Americans that don't have a single friend has doubled in the last 10 years. Think about navigating the world without a friend. Think about celebrating your birthday without a friend. Think about dealing with a loss in your family without a friend.

[00:15:48] Ben Brooks: Think about going to an event and not having a friend to invite, right? These are the human factors, and this is where I think it's just such an important thing into the question here about, why it's been a priority. We always talked [00:16:00] about, 10 years ago with DEI in particular, bring your full self to work, right?

[00:16:05] Ben Brooks: Like work was this place, it was an office park, it was a skyscraper, right? But now work is in our person, our pocket, right? With mobile technologies and cloud computing and work from anywhere and remote and hybrid. And so I think one of the big shifts is that, rather than the rest of our life fitting around work, and we keep that to the sides, work fits into the rest of our lives in a lot of ways.

[00:16:26] Ben Brooks: And so things like how we're feeling and what our mental state is affects the performance of the organizations, right?

[00:16:35] Ben Brooks: And so that's one of these things that ultimately this isn't just like a nice that this is around dollars and cents. This is around fulfilling strategies is around earnings calls and board reports and KPIs.

[00:16:46] Ben Brooks: And so I think that that's been a part of it because, think of three years ago. 2020. The pandemic was in its infancy, right? We had, a naval hospital floating into Manhattan, and insanity, right? [00:17:00] And you think about what we're like, wow, like this is affecting people.

[00:17:03] Ben Brooks: Like their kids are doing distant learning at home and, people are isolated and they can't go do sales trips and all this. So I think we all of a sudden got this empathy also as well of that like we have to consider the human factors, the environmental factors that employees are dealing with at work and beyond.

[00:17:23] Ben Brooks: Because it affects someone's day. And like you said, if someone's not getting sleep, they're not going to sell very well during the day. They're not going to product manage very well. They're not going to do accounting very well. They're not going to do customer service very well. And even though you say, well, but they're at the office, they're at their desk, their cubicle, or they're logged in.

[00:17:41] Ben Brooks: We have expectations, we have training, we have systems, we have process. Great. But I don't know how someone that gets three hours of sleep can do a great job in a contact center or doing customer service. I'd be pretty grouchy with folks. Matt, what do you think?

[00:17:56] Matt Jackson: Yeah I'm smiling because I have a six year old and a four year old and I've [00:18:00] been blessed that those kids have slept very, very well.

[00:18:03] Matt Jackson: But amongst my friend group, sleep is the biggest complaint. You just can't show up in the way that you had them previously. And for those parents with young kids out there, you like, you find a way to work through it. But if I put my hand on my heart probably didn't deliver to the degree that I could have done when the kids were very small.

[00:18:20] Matt Jackson: So I completely agree. I think for me, this specific question there's a generational impact as well. And I think when I link it specifically to mental health, which is our area of expertise here, We are. Attempting to overcome hundreds of years of stigmatization on the topic of mental health, hundreds of years on lack of education around mental health, and What we're seeing in the generations that are coming through now is they're experiencing more mental health challenges than any young generation has ever experienced before.

[00:18:56] Matt Jackson: But we're also talking about it a lot more. We're also trying [00:19:00] to identify the ways that we can help improve that. wherever we lie on what social media has done or what apps or what technology has done to the young people's mental health, what I think is we can't deny is the conversation is there. And what that means is when entering the workforce, younger generations have such a bigger expectation of their organization supporting their well being.

[00:19:23] Matt Jackson: And I have two examples for you. One, I was fortunate to attend a roundtable with SVPs and C suite executives from large pharmaceutical companies in Jersey, where I am, and we're in a round table, probably 12 of us. We were talking about the topic of mental health and there was a grad, a post undergrad student from, I think it was who was there to take notes, but spirit of being very inclusive in the round table, we asked everyone what mental health meant and we asked what it meant to them and how you should address it.

[00:19:56] Matt Jackson: I kid you not, the most meaningful, thoughtful, [00:20:00] and impactful comments came not from the C suite, it came from the undergrad student. And it's because they were so much more in touch with what it means and what it is and how you measure it and how you nurture it. And therefore, the rest of the C suite and SVP were looking at that person thinking, Oh, wow.

[00:20:16] Matt Jackson: So this is the talent that I'm going to need to attract, retain, and engage on an ongoing basis. And you see that the other example I would give would be, again, legal industry. It's an area we specialize in. Law students are the most under pressure students of all types, maybe outside of medical students.

[00:20:33] Matt Jackson: And there's recent law passed It's not a law, it was an article, I think, that says it is now a mandatory requirement for any American Bar Association schools that they include curriculum on professional development and well being, because they just recognize now that it's something that people need, something that they expect, and I think This means the next wave of individuals coming into the workplace are going to continue [00:21:00] to drive our well being agenda, and that's why it's becoming a priority.

[00:21:03] Azure Rooths: Matt, thank you so very much. That is just to connect what the both of you are saying. Work is definitely a part of life, but it is not life, right? And the pandemic has showed us that there is so much more of a human factor, and This generation is experiencing it, but Matt, what I hear you saying more importantly, they're willing to talk about it.

[00:21:26] Ben Brooks: As we go ahead you know, cause I think Matt brought up a couple of important things I want to just build off of is the, I think part of it is also just the societal trend, right. Into talking about these things is important, but like, I see a therapist every week and I try to make a point of talking about the fact that I do that.

[00:21:43] Ben Brooks: Right. I don't know many CEOs. If you were to think of right now, how many CEOs do you know that see a therapist or talk about the fact publicly that they see a therapist? Not many, right? Like it's just the normative part, right? That this isn't a weakness thing to do [00:22:00] this and that. I think with the burnout, you know, people talk about a lot about burnout.

[00:22:04] Ben Brooks: There's a lot things that people do that burn themselves out. . So with PILOT we're in the employee development space and so we look at well being from the perspective of the employee effective, right, in their role. No one's saying generally, if you work at a place that says you have to check your email at midnight, that's a different story, right?

[00:22:21] Ben Brooks: You may not work at the right company unless you're in a role that's like an on call sort of role or something, but we, but employees will check their emails at midnight before they go to bed. Well that f's up their sleep and then they go to work the next day and they don't get much done and then they're behind, they get overwhelmed and they feel burnout and then they quit.

[00:22:39] Ben Brooks: But what's the root cause there? It's like, Oh, it's a behavior around logging in on your phone when no, your manager's not asking you to check email at midnight, but it's a thing that we do because it's there. We distract ourselves. We're anxious. So those are the kind of behavior change with PILOT - we really try to have people realize where they're getting in their own way.

[00:22:56] Ben Brooks: Have they scheduled a vacation? They have something to look forward to. [00:23:00] Medical evidence says that one of the biggest benefits of vacation Is the anticipation in advance of it. You're doing the, I'm going to Hawaii dance three months before. You're in Cleveland, but you're talking about going to Hawaii, right?

[00:23:11] Ben Brooks: And so you're looking forward to it. So I think that's just a big part as we think about this conversation of also from a developmental perspective. Right. We can't just say Oh, go do these things. You have to equip and help people understand their part in it, because it's very easy when we're down in our wellbeing to want to like project or blame or justify anybody but ourselves.

[00:23:33] Ben Brooks: But in reality, boundaries, clarifying expectations, speaking up about our needs, making priorities and tough choices, getting clear, focusing, prioritizing, digital hygiene. These are all things that the employee can do that certainly affects their wellbeing.

[00:23:47] Azure Rooths: Absolutely. And I think a part of the thank you so much for your transparency and being healthy is the willingness and ability to advocate for yourself.

[00:23:56] Azure Rooths: So I want to reach out to our participants right now as we move forward. Let's take a quick [00:24:00] poll. How did the pandemic affect your organization's focus on employee well being? Lauren's going to launch that right now. Would you say that as a result, it has become your top priority? Would you say your organization is saying we're mindful of its impact but aren't taking action, is less important now, or there has been no change at all?

[00:24:24] Azure Rooths: If everybody can jump into the poll.

[00:24:27] Ben Brooks: Helps Matt and I and Azure get some data too just to calibrate the rest of our conversation relative to your needs. So

[00:24:34] Laura Mastrorocco: if you haven't already done so, go ahead and click on your response and then you'll click that submit button to the lower right corner of the screen.

[00:24:41] Laura Mastrorocco: We'd love to hear from everyone.

[00:24:46] Matt Jackson: Yeah while we're doing that, Ben, like for us, obviously we're a mental wellbeing company. So we need to walk the walk, drink our own champagne. But what I found with the pandemic was [00:25:00] we got a lot more insight into the kind of things that you just mentioned of the small tactical things of how you manage your wellbeing.

[00:25:07] Matt Jackson: So I started to learn that my CEO, who to your earlier point, actually is it. clinical psychologist. So he he's definitely very open about that, but he would. model the right behaviors in blocking out in his calendar, bath and bedtime for the kids, like non negative. I don't care whether you're an investor or whatever it may be, you can't talk to me during that time.

[00:25:29] Matt Jackson: And he did that. And that gave us permission to do it. And then even because we all went virtual and we use Slack, there were people that would come on and do a five minute Slack masterclass video that changed my life in terms of how I use Slack. And therefore I'm not the person checking it at midnight.

[00:25:44] Matt Jackson: Okay. I've trained myself in that behavior. So it was really interesting. It's always been a top priority, but there was a lot more visibility and ways to manage it because of the pandemic for us.

[00:25:55] Azure Rooths: Thanks, Matt. Ben, you want to talk a little bit about our poll that [00:26:00] we're sharing now?

[00:26:00] Ben Brooks: Yeah, it looks like almost half this audience, it's a top priority, right? Well being a top priority. Some people, no change or less than, but that's, about only, wow, one quarter, right?

[00:26:11] Ben Brooks: And then some are mindful, but aren't taking action. And Emma made a comment here in the chat, In regards to the poll, I'd say that we're in between top priority and acknowledging and not doing anything, which, organizations and individuals work similarly, right? You know something, but do you do something?

[00:26:27] Ben Brooks: We know we have a diversity issue, do we do something? We know we have an innovation issue, do we do something? We know we have a global issue, do we do something? That's a big thing we talk about with PILOT and really challenge employees. I know I'm not getting enough sleep. So what I started to do is wear my aura ring.

[00:26:42] Ben Brooks: It measures the frickin sleep I get every night, and I'm setting a goal about the amount, and I tell my friend once a month what my monthly rolling average was. That's the doing of it, right? I've gotten my sleep up 36 minutes a night, on average, year to date, right? So that's, that's been helpful, right?

[00:26:58] Ben Brooks: That makes a difference. I actually can feel [00:27:00] it and experience it. But I think that's one of the things, for those of you that are in HR joining us today, that sometimes we can get a little bit complicated in our strategies and our approaches. We design something and we take a long time to roll out, if you take a year to roll out a development program or a well being program, a mental health program, that means you have a year of people suffering, a year of people underperforming, a year of people resigning, a year of people burning out.

[00:27:28] Ben Brooks: So you want to balance like an urgency because I think, put a plus one in the chat by the way, if you agree that people are challenged right now with their well being, maybe you personally or your colleagues, your managers, your employees, your executives is, people's well being not great right now, if that's so put a plus one in the chat because I'm seeing it across the board globally, domestically here in the United States et cetera.

[00:27:51] Azure Rooths: Thank you so much for sharing that, Ben, and thank you to everyone, all of our participants for participating in that poll. Matt, you said something so [00:28:00] powerful about the CEO scheduling that time. There's a book called The Perfect Day Formula.

[00:28:05] Azure Rooths: And top three. highlights of this book, right? Control your morning, conquer the chaos of your day, and concentrate on what matters at night. The fact that they have blocked out that kid time, wash, spend time with kids, concentrate on what matters in the evening. And we talk about people modeling the model.

[00:28:26] Azure Rooths: He's modeling the model. Then your willingness to say, Hey, I'm a CEO. Every week I see my therapist. Why? Because I need to process everything that I'm carrying. And if I, as a CEO, am carrying, how much more are those around me? So thank you so much for your transparency. I think that's a perfect segue into our next question.

[00:28:46] Azure Rooths: So Matt, for this one, I want to start with you. What can an employer offer that will help to improve and improve the well being of its employees?

[00:28:59] Matt Jackson: [00:29:00] So I, to Ben's point before about the kind of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I think it's safe to say you have to have the right level of benefits program in place.

[00:29:11] Matt Jackson: And by that I don't just mean like I offer health insurance I offer EAP etc. It's about understanding and making sure your benefits are fair and equitable, and that they take into account the diversity across your organizations and that takes a little bit of time to go in and look at the specifics of your benefits program but I think that's table stakes that's there in going back to my earlier comment about the separation of well being and benefits.

[00:29:38] Matt Jackson: I agree with Ben that there is a huge responsibility on us as individuals to protect and look after our own well being, but we are talking about the workplace here. And I think what we've seen over the past few years is a proliferation of solutions that have been provided to employees, and it's an organization spending money and giving you [00:30:00] this and giving you that to say, Hey, Go and help yourself, go and make yourself fitter, go and make yourself more resilient, go and look after yourself, go and recover yourself.

[00:30:06] Matt Jackson: And after a while, employees have said, Hmm, hold on there's a lot of 'self' here. I get it, and thank you, but what's your responsibility as an organization where I spend 50, hours a week in your care? And I think what that tells us is that there has to be a very internal, sorry, very intentional focus on well being as an organization.

[00:30:31] Matt Jackson: And one way that we would recommend is you break it down by the different layers within your organization. Because that's, if you address each of those layers and the challenges that those layers face, and assess what solutions are required or initiatives, then you're going to start to see more broad scale organizational transformation as it relates to well being and therefore impacting your employees.

[00:30:51] Matt Jackson: For example, let's go executives, leaders, champions, employees. At the executive [00:31:00] level, there is so much data available to executives right now, but a lot of it may not make sense. And a lot of it may not link to the financial impact of wellbeing of employees. I was reading Michael's comments here around the top priority is deadline of client deliveries.

[00:31:17] Matt Jackson: I think it is a fallacy and there are a lot of organizations that are coming to the realization now that well being is in place of performance. It's not, but like with greater well being comes greater performance, but executives haven't been given access to the data sets that show them if I improve well being, I will improve performance.

[00:31:37] Matt Jackson: And that may be the quality of client deliverables or meeting timelines, just as an example, not to single out Michael there. Thank you. So if we're able to provide executives with the right data, we can then help them model, make the right decisions, but then also model those behaviors from the top.

[00:31:52] Matt Jackson: Managers. All we need to do is provide, I say all we need to do, it's a big task, but provide managers with the relevant tools and resources by [00:32:00] which they can learn to create psychologically safe and mentally healthy environments. Think about trainings that focus on EQ rather than the traditional classroom trainings that we've had previously.

[00:32:10] Matt Jackson: Think about trainings that are delivered in a nano or micro learning environment rather than taking managers out for four days a week to go and learn about something. Then your champions, I think there's executives, there's managers, but there's that grassroots layer within an organization where if you empower champions to go out and talk passionately with their peers about well being and about the initiatives the organization can run, you create this groundswell of belief, work.

[00:32:39] Matt Jackson: Work BFF. So you talked before about loneliness and that was a harrowing data point, by the way, Ben, but I think there is another data point. Keep me honest here. I think it may have been Gallup that another big impact on your well being or engagement in work is having a work BFF. If your work BFF turns to you and tells you about their oring and that you've got [00:33:00] 36 minutes sleep on average more, you're probably going to listen to it perhaps more than I have than my manager.

[00:33:07] Matt Jackson: And then there's the employee level, which we've already covered in terms of relevant personalized solutions for them.

[00:33:13] Ben Brooks: I think Gallup wrote a book, Vital Friends, the research 12, a longitudinal study, 12 million people. I think it was something like an 11 X higher likelihood that someone stays when they have a friend at work.

[00:33:25] Ben Brooks: When people leave, when they retire, when they quit, what do people always say? What are they going to miss? The people, right? We're humans, we like connection. Now, I think to your point, Matt, around, also being empathetic, because sometimes we roll out well being training development programs.

[00:33:36] Ben Brooks: We're like, oh, go do a training and development program for six hours today in the conference room, and then do the rest of your job all night. Did we really that, that is not so great, right? So I think, you said the nano training and with PILOT, we often, do these reflection activities that are five or 10 minutes, they work on any smartphone, you don't have to be at the computer network, you can do it while you're commuting, you don't need a password to sign in.

[00:33:59] Ben Brooks: So it's [00:34:00] like the empathy around making these things easy to do and light touch is really important. We also find that, when you do training and development, you start to create a shared language. So one of the things that PILOT people work on is this idea of getting their needs met or advocating for themselves.

[00:34:15] Ben Brooks: So then when someone says, Hey, I'm not clear about the expectations, they can start it and say, Hey, I'm working on getting my needs met. I'm not clear about the expectations. It gives a context. It's a shared, it's like an API for conversation where people can talk. So this is where training and development programs can offer Again, a way for a common language to talk about these things because it can be awkward to say, Hey, like I'm struggling here.

[00:34:38] Ben Brooks: I've got a lot of anxiety or, I've lost my confidence or I'm sad, right? I've got postpartum depression. I got other things going on. This is real life stuff. So I think, also the facilitated conversations that are part of training and development. The distinctions, the permission, the nudge, the reminders, these are some of the things we can do as well.

[00:34:59] Azure Rooths: [00:35:00] Matt, that is so great and you said not having a party all day and then saying go home and do this work at night. In 30 seconds or less, what activities should we avoid? Anybody have one or two quick bulleted, Ben or Matt?

[00:35:14] Ben Brooks: I'd say overwhelming employees and managers. They're already on the brink. So we have to make small asks and not have them like immediately check out, reject, resist.

[00:35:27] Ben Brooks: So I think that's the thing to avoid is don't overwhelm them with the 87 point wellness assessment or the four day wellness retreat or the this or the that. Don't overwhelm them. Keep it simple.

[00:35:40] Azure Rooths: Love it. Matt?

[00:35:42] Matt Jackson: Avoid just ticking the box. Be intentional. So don't just see like a nice shiny billboard and think, Oh, it looks like it's good for wellbeing.

[00:35:49] Matt Jackson: I can tell my employees I've done it. So avoid ticking the box. Be intentional.

[00:35:55] Azure Rooths: Love it. Thank you so much. So utilizing that concept of being [00:36:00] intentional as we move forward, what can HR professionals do to create a psychological safe culture among managers and employees?

[00:36:09] Ben Brooks: I think, we sometimes think of psychologically safe In a way of like, no A holes, right?

[00:36:15] Ben Brooks: Like someone, just being really toxic or really horrible. Often times psychological safety gets chiseled away at in smaller moments that are less obvious. So, in a meeting, Azure brings up, an idea or a piece of feedback, and then there's a pile on, right? Teaching people to facilitate properly to say no, like you may not agree, but we need to create space to have this come up, right?

[00:36:41] Ben Brooks: Helping, managers ask employees questions beyond just the work status, like, how are you, Matt, right? Beyond work, let's not talk about work for a minute, right? Encouraging people to meet in person when they can. Have an offsite, give them travel budget, let them expense a lunch to take their teams [00:37:00] out to break bread, have that sort of fellowship, these are parts of it, but it's, and it's also understanding, the incentives to, you know, there's, you think about what happens at a town hall when someone asks a question that the CEO doesn't like, does that person get reprimanded?

[00:37:15] Ben Brooks: Is there a little internal noise or do they get cut off? These little moments affect the psychological safety, but it's also, we need to build psychological strength in the employees to say, Hey, you might advocate for something and not get it immediately, but you don't expect a hundred percent batting average.

[00:37:31] Ben Brooks: Don't expect a yes on everything. It's also having people get a little thicker skin too. It's a balance of both. And so I think we need to just be a lot more thoughtful though, about, exclusion and things like that. There's the toxic, horrible people. We should just lance those boils, right?

[00:37:46] Ben Brooks: But there's often these micro moments that really chisel away at people feeling powerful at work, which is what PILOT's mission is. Matt, what do you think?

[00:37:56] Matt Jackson: Yeah, the two big plus ones on I define it as helping [00:38:00] teach people EQ and provide training for managers and leaders on how to set the first 10 percent of your one to focus on what's going on outside of work.

[00:38:10] Matt Jackson: How are you within the boundaries of what people feel comfortable with. And then the other one would be setting a tone from the top of senior leaders that it could all be very well that your website or your brand says we care about wellbeing, but if that's not. manifested in how a managing partner, a CEO, a CFO, a COO interacts with their people.

[00:38:30] Matt Jackson: It's pointless. Like it, it just doesn't, it just doesn't work. The two additional things I'd say is and we touched on it earlier on, we have, Such expectation on managers now, and they're designed to support everyone else within the organization. And they are busy people, and often they are running on empty.

[00:38:47] Matt Jackson: So ensuring that managers are equipped to look after themselves with the necessary tools and education, you will then therefore be able to better look after your teams. So it's a whole, you put on your mask before you help others, [00:39:00] get your oxygen mask before you put on others. And then very tactically, just picking up on this nano learning.

[00:39:06] Matt Jackson: speak to people in the right way and how they want to learn, meet them where they are. But also it's incredibly important to do continuous learning. So the World Health Organization recognized that rather than just giving managers a kind of metaphorical mental health first aid box, that if you provide them with continuous nano learning, it's going to start to absorb a lot more and then people will start to adopt those behaviors a lot quicker than just the toolbox approach.

[00:39:33] Ben Brooks: Well, I'll tell you one, one crazy story is I heard a company that does the wellness day once a quarter, which I've got mixed feelings on in particular was what happened is the senior executive team did a senior executive offsite on the wellness day. So they didn't walk the, they didn't walk the walk.

[00:39:50] Ben Brooks: Guess what happens with executive offsites? People, many levels below have to prepare decks and be on call and answer data. So it turned out at this [00:40:00] company, this like SPAC public traded company that was in the healthcare business, they had this offsite on their wellness days, and then everyone else at the company felt pressure to work on the wellness day.

[00:40:12] Ben Brooks: And so then it's all this sort of faux wellness, right? So I think there's a level, you know, I heard Matt and what you're saying is like of integrity, right? That if this is the thing, like If the CEOs in therapy, but it's well, let's not have a meeting, encroach on her ability to go see that therapist, right?

[00:40:27] Ben Brooks: Model the behavior, do the thing and prove it rather than just say or claim the thing.

[00:40:33] Matt Jackson: Absolutely.

[00:40:34] Azure Rooths: Yeah. And that is perfect. And thank you so much, Matt, before we move into our poll recently I was at the Apple store getting a new phone and my earphones. Everything that Apple does.

[00:40:48] Azure Rooths: And while the manager is working with me, an employee came over to ask and he stopped and he said, pardon me, ma'am, how's your day going?

[00:40:56] Azure Rooths: Then he went on to answer their question. And I looked at him and I [00:41:00] said, I worked in residential care. And while I managed 130 staff, I had one immediate supervisor and not one day in the two years that I worked for this said, Exec, did they ever ask, how are you today?

[00:41:20] Azure Rooths: And in that moment I said, thank you so much for modeling excellence. You are doing good work. So I'm curious, let's move forward in the poll. What is your organization doing to support employee wellbeing?

[00:41:39] Azure Rooths: Let's utilize the chat.

[00:41:41] Laura Mastrorocco: If you will go to your chat panel, be sure that it's set to everyone, and share with us. What is your organization doing to support employee well being?

[00:41:58] Laura Mastrorocco: We have [00:42:00] Wellness Wednesdays. I would love to hear more about that.

[00:42:04] Laura Mastrorocco: Measuring it. Ah.

[00:42:07] Matt Jackson: I can, as people put in their answers, I can fill in a bit more of that. We are firm believers that you can't manage what you cannot measure. And what we've seen historically within the workplace is we will measure the. state of well being. We don't need another survey that tells us what the state of well being is.

[00:42:27] Matt Jackson: We know, as you said before, Ben, it's not great right now. Geopolitical, financial considerations, we are running out of adrenaline following the last three years of what we've all been under. What we need is an index or a survey that tells us what is contributing to the state of well being within our organization.

[00:42:48] Matt Jackson: Because once you understand what's contributing to it, you then have visibility into the levers that you can pull to improve it. So right now we're going through our quarterly measurement of the contributors to well being and [00:43:00] we will then dictate the next three months strategy for us.

[00:43:04] Ben Brooks: Yeah, I love that.

[00:43:05] Ben Brooks: Sometimes I find people in HR are like, well, we have to do a survey. We have to do things. We know a lot of this shit, right? If you've been in life a bit, if you've been in HR or management for a while, you know, so trust some of your experience.

[00:43:18] Ben Brooks: Experience is data driven, right? And measure along the way, like what Matt's saying, right? And have it be dynamically reprioritized and assess your progress, but to, to be like, well, we have no idea of wellbeing as a problem. And yet you've got all this data and all this experience and people were quitting left and right and all these other things as well.

[00:43:36] Ben Brooks: But I'm seeing a lot of great things here. I saw that Melissa put in here, a weekly huddle to work on personal growth, nothing specific to the job. Right? You know, we do something at PILOT, at our own staff meetings, the first 10 minutes, we rotate who facilitates them, so we share the wealth on that or the stress.

[00:43:54] Ben Brooks: But then we have each person ask a question, right? What was your favorite holiday as a child and why? What was your [00:44:00] first job? Where would you give a million dollars to charity if you could? And we start to like tap into the personal side and sharing and expressing more.

[00:44:09] Ben Brooks: Even asking people in Slack, we have a bot that says, how was your weekend? What did you do? A place where people to share and to celebrate the things they're doing. And I think that's bringing the human back to human resources, right? That's the, that we, think about, goals and cascading and KPIs, which are really important.

[00:44:26] Ben Brooks: Well, we have to realize that our innate humanity is pretty hardwired. And the more we can lean into that, the better results we're going to get.

[00:44:36] Azure Rooths: Love that. Thank you so much. Ma'am, I just Ben met this, you can't measure, you can't manage what you can't measure. So the buzzword for me was that measure.

[00:44:46] Azure Rooths: And while I said the two years, I was thinking, wow, that was really uncomfortable to say out loud. But as I reflected, there were two times, one, my grandnephew was hit by a car. How am I doing? And then [00:45:00] secondly, I had a surgery. So if we were the measure two and two years, That's not a good engagement. So moving forward to this next question, what are some top tips to drive engagement, retention, and loyalty?

[00:45:17] Ben Brooks: I will tell you, and maybe Matt, we could just we can go back and forth on these. You each do one, right? One, help make things more organized, your company. Nothing will stress out your people more than like chaos and disorganization. Be clear on priorities, build intranets, create standard processes.

[00:45:33] Ben Brooks: Matt?

[00:45:35] Matt Jackson: On that, there is a real fatigue of inaction and hate, hatred of inaction right now that you mentioned before, Ben. Survey, survey, survey. Very important, but do something. Tell me why you're doing it. Tell me what you've done from it. So feedback

[00:45:49] Ben Brooks: loop. And I think to build off of that point, I think when you do something, you don't need to have the 35 point solution, right?

[00:45:56] Ben Brooks: Pick a smaller scope thing. Part of the reason it takes a while to do [00:46:00] things is we get complicated, and you get in a meeting, and you get in a committee, and everyone's, it's like earmarks on congressional legislation, and it grows out of control, versus saying, Hey, we heard everybody around this one thing.

[00:46:10] Ben Brooks: Let's solve that today. So it's like an urgency and a speed. But you have to sometimes cut the scope or the complexity, which often we don't need all that anyway. I would also add to Asher's point about the Apple Store, right? Encourage people to ask that question of how are you really?

[00:46:27] Ben Brooks: Sometimes it's just the question is, makes all the difference, right? Or a question, Tell me about you outside of your job or outside of work. How's Azure beyond work? Azure may not even know because she's so busy. She hasn't slowed down because she's a high performer and she's hauling butt.

[00:46:45] Ben Brooks: Matt, what else?

[00:46:47] Matt Jackson: I'm going to steal Teresitas about pay attention to ERGs and affinity groups. Because yes, well being is a very personal thing, but we are also social animals and we all identify with different [00:47:00] groups. And within an organization, if you acknowledge that there are different groups that people identify with, well being is an intersectional topic across all of them.

[00:47:09] Matt Jackson: But well being could mean different elements and different groups. Groups. So that is a top tip to driving engagement, retention, and loyalty. Make people feel heard. Make people feel like they can turn up to work and be them, their full selves.

[00:47:21] Ben Brooks: I would add, bring empathy to when you make corporate changes.

[00:47:26] Ben Brooks: I met with an executive today at a company that is a 700, 000 employee company, and they had, they're moving to some one password system, and it was a 33 minute process for him to do that, that they have to repeat 700, 000 times. And this crazy email, like, you look at this, you want to fire the person who just made this thing because it looks so bad.

[00:47:45] Ben Brooks: Like, slow down. Would you have a customer do that? Would that be what you do in a sales? If it's not what you'd make a customer do really look at employees as customers. Is this easy? Is this clear? Is this, is there support? Right? So, that's a big thing of bring [00:48:00] empathy to your system.

[00:48:01] Ben Brooks: Solve the pain point. Fix the data issue. Adjust the process. That can be another one because, it's not just the benefits or the offerings or the programs, it's the core of work day to day. Some of these people, when they answer the question at the dinner table, how was work today? It's a nightmare.

[00:48:15] Ben Brooks: Our system is horrible, right? Or it's really hard for me to do my job. That affects our well being because it's the frustration. Matt?

[00:48:24] Matt Jackson: Plus one on all of that. I think repeating a lot of what we've said so far, the be intentional piece is key. And that links into the measurement piece. So understand what it is that you need to do to drive these three areas and speaking specifically around wellbeing, make sure we're measuring what those levels are that we can pull and therefore you're going to be intentional.

[00:48:43] Ben Brooks: I'll add one more point is just invest in people and have them feel it. Think about being in a romantic relationship, a friendship. When someone does something and you can like notice like they planned a trip or they booked a, they got a hard to get dinner reservation, or maybe they cooked you [00:49:00] dinner or, they're rubbing your feet or they're doing whatever they're doing, right?

[00:49:02] Ben Brooks: There's a thing where you. It's this, it's not just words, it's not just talk that there's like this sense. And so it could be a mental health wellbeing program could be a development program, but you know, demonstrate through action, right? Show rather than tell is a big part of this. This is a thing your organization values and you want the talent.

[00:49:23] Ben Brooks: You've got to, you have them feel invested and feel special, feel wanted because recruiters and recruitment marketing is going to make them feel real wanted in a competitor. Right? And I, my first boss in HR, Orlando Ashford, a great human being, always said, if you're not marketing to your own employees, you're the only company that's not.

[00:49:45] Azure Rooths: Love it so much. So, Ben, you're, the key takeaway that I'm getting from you is paying attention. And right now, Matt, being intentional. And both matter. Thank you all so very [00:50:00] much for everything that you have given. I want to reach out to our participants. As we move forward, what questions do you have?

[00:50:08] Azure Rooths: Where have we still missed it? How can we add or lend? I'm utilizing the chat now. What are your additional questions? comments, concerns. Yes, this is recorded and you will receive the recording within the next 24 to 48 hours.

[00:50:33] Azure Rooths: Okay, so for the sake of time, I'm just going to spotlight on this one. What is at the frontier on the quest of well being?

[00:50:41] Ben Brooks: I think, from my perspective, it's some of the frontier is a focus on the fundamentals. I think we are like seeking panacea things or like this new whatever.

[00:50:51] Ben Brooks: And we talked about sleep. This is the fifth time we've talked about it. Fundamental. Something we do every single day. So I [00:51:00] think that there's going to be more of a focus on fundamentals in well being, rather than, kombucha fountains and purpose maps and all these things that are like squishy and fluffy and nice to have and dream catchers.

[00:51:11] Ben Brooks: It's going to be back to the basics now.

[00:51:14] Matt Jackson: Yeah. We went 56 minutes without mentioning chat GPT, which might be a record on an hour long, but in the spirit of time, a huge plus one on that for people to think what's next in well being, don't think about what's next, think about what you've failed to do already, and that's basic.

[00:51:30] Matt Jackson: Some wonderful chat here around. that the lack of human or we're losing human in HR and we've talked about intention. We've talked about empathy, be human, remember that we're all humans. We're not just employees and the fundamentals remain at the frontiers.

[00:51:48] Azure Rooths: Thanks. And with that, for your presence here today, we have a wonderful gift.

[00:51:55] Azure Rooths: Everyone gets a gift. So Matt, tell us about the gifts we have today. [00:52:00]

[00:52:01] Matt Jackson: Yes. And thank you to Izzy who shared this in the chat earlier on from unmind. So we recently surveyed over a thousand HR professionals from across the world to understand their take on the latest workplace mental health trends.

[00:52:13] Matt Jackson: Scan the QR code, download the report, get your questions down and reach out to us because we would love to have a chat with you about that and hear what you're doing.

[00:52:21] Azure Rooths: Thank you so very much. Now's the perfect time. Put out your phone. Make sure you scan. As we move forward, Ben, can you tell us a little bit about PILOT? You have some gifts from PILOT.

[00:52:33] Ben Brooks: Yeah, I just mentioned we're not marketing to our own employees. You're the only one not. We've talked about recruiting your own employees and helping them.

[00:52:39] Ben Brooks: So we've got some videos here that we want to offer that you can scan this QR code. We want to be here to answer questions, to connect on LinkedIn I know Matt and I both love to connect with different folks on LinkedIn, so we'll drop our LinkedIn profile, so connect with us there so we can be resources.

[00:52:55] Ben Brooks: Azure, can you go to the next slide? Or I guess that's Laura, I'm sorry. [00:53:00] And then we got a poll, right? This is a poll poll, right?

[00:53:03] Azure Rooths: It's a real poll. All right with our final poll poll, this is what we would like to know.

[00:53:12] Matt Jackson: Are we supposed to do a sales pitch now? Ben, I was just going to go back to something you said 11 minutes in about Cleveland and anyone in Cleveland.

[00:53:20] Matt Jackson: I'm a big fan of Cleveland, just for the record. I'd much rather go there than Hawaii.

[00:53:24] Ben Brooks: Cleveland is underrated. It was a city with incredible history and architecture and infrastructure. And yeah, Rockefellers have a big history there. Very interesting place. And, you know, and again, Unmined in Pilot Bowl I hear in the HR industry, the online name come up a lot in a very positive light as an innovative provider. And that's part of the reason, we only partner with companies that have really market leading offerings. And so that's part of just spreading the word. And it looks like a lot of you would like to learn about both, which is fantastic.

[00:53:54] Ben Brooks: You know, really we'll be following up with you all in that regard.

[00:53:59] Azure Rooths: And [00:54:00] with that, with our last one minute. And our final slide. Please pull out your phones. Now will be a wonderful time for you to simply scan the QR, utilize your QR, and you can get information about both PILOT and UNWIND.

[00:54:17] Azure Rooths: UNWIND. I'm sorry, UNWIND.

[00:54:21] Ben Brooks: You just started UNWIND as we're talking about UNWIND on track.

[00:54:25] Azure Rooths: Yes, with our last minute. If you didn't get a chance to respond, thank you so much for utilizing the QR code. I am Azure. Thank you to Ben and Matt and thank you for spending this hour with us. Please be sure to look out for this recording and it has been a pleasure to serve you today.

[00:54:45] Ben Brooks: Matt, any final word of advice? I'll give one too, but any last mantra you want to leave with folks?

[00:54:53] Matt Jackson: Oh last mantra. I would say be kind. That's my mantra. Be kind. But thank you so [00:55:00] much everyone for today. It was fantastic.

[00:55:02] Ben Brooks: And I will say if yours is be kind, I'm going to use a two word one of 'do something'.

[00:55:07] Matt Jackson: Love it.

[00:55:08] Ben Brooks: Do something and take on the be kind is the intention. And with that do something. And I think that's a one, two punch there. That, with kindness is a North star because none of this matters. If you just are like, Oh, that was cool. I've got a recording. I was inspired. Nice. Do something.

[00:55:27] Azure Rooths: Thanks for being here, everyone. Have a great day.

[00:55:30] Ben Brooks: Cheers. Thank you.

[00:55:31] Azure Rooths: Bye now. Thank you all.