Description: MRA’s Talent Report is an up-to-the-minute review of what is going on in the world of business with an emphasis on talent. This month, MRA’s Jim Morgan, VP of Workforce Strategies, and Alicia Kiser, VP of HR of member company M3 Insurance, cover recruiting & retention innovation, talent thinking, HR creativity, and more.
Key Takeaways:
- Work/life balance: Are your people “blenders” – those preferring a work-life blend, or “splitters” – those who prefer work and life to be separated entirely?
- “Talent Mobility”: Enabling employees to move within the organization is becoming an area of emphasis for many employers
- With the varying generations in the workplace, HR professionals are spending more time helping with communications including coaching people to avoid statements like “all young people…” or “all old people…”
Resources:
Become an MRA Member!
Talent Report + Webinar Series
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Alicia Kiser
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Alicia Kiser
Guest Bio - Jim Morgan
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Jim Morgan
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03
Intro
Hello hello, everybody, and welcome to 30 minute THRIVE, your go-to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA - The Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever-changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We’ll be the first to tell you what’s hot and what’s not. I’m your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you’re here. Now it’s time to THRIVE.
00:00:23:14 - 00:00:50:16
Sophie Boler
Hello everybody. Thanks for taking the time to spend part of your day with us. I’m excited to introduce our topic and our two guests for today. We’re going to be covering how to leverage HR for critical business decisions. So we’ll be talking about the current best practices for HR and building strategy. So good thing I have two experts here with me today to really debrief this topic.
00:00:50:23 - 00:01:19:06
Sophie Boler
And that is Alicia Kiser, vice president of human resources at member company M3 Insurance, and MRA’s Jim Morgan, vice president of workforce strategies. So Jim and Alicia really make a strong duo for today’s episode, really based on their expertise and HR background. Alicia started at M3 insurance as an HR business partner back in 2011 and has climbed the ladder to VP of HR, where she is now.
00:01:19:06 - 00:01:48:05
Sophie Boler
And Jim Morgan has an extensive background in business development, HR strategic planning, and he’s a keynote speaker on those topics, most recently being on his monthly Talent Report+ webinar. So he’ll be sharing some ideas from that as well. So I’m excited to talk to you two today. Thanks for being on the show. I want to really kick off our conversation today with what’s happening in the recruiting and retention world.
00:01:48:18 - 00:01:53:05
Sophie Boler
So, Jim, do you want to start us off with what innovations you’re seeing here?
00:01:53:18 - 00:02:20:14
Jim Morgan
Sure. And I’ll back it up just a little bit with the Talent Report, because this was something that we started putting together for our 3,000 member companies. One of the values of that and one of the things we can bring back to our members is having the chance to steal some best practices from different organizations. And M3 being one of those leaders who shares what they’re doing and some of the ways they’re getting around some things to be more effective than the ways they used to do it.
00:02:21:02 - 00:02:44:07
Jim Morgan
So we really are, we put the Talent Report webinar together to talk about what’s timely, what’s happening now, what are the best practices. And so the thoughts and ideas that I’m going to share with you are, you know, this is what we’re hearing right now, this is what some of the companies are doing. And Alicia will be able to dig into that a little bit deeper and talk specifically from a company’s point of view, some of the things that that they’re doing.
00:02:44:07 - 00:03:02:13
Jim Morgan
So in the last month, here’s a couple of things that we heard in the whole recruiting and retention area. One of the most fascinating things that I found was there was a survey done by Gallup and they were looking at how people manage work-life balance. And they found they really fell into two groups of people that they called splitters and blenders.
00:03:02:22 - 00:03:19:17
Jim Morgan
And the splitters were the people that were able to just divide their world, like, “Look, I’m working from 8 until 5 and then I get home and that’s it. Now I’m on life balance time,” and others that were more blenders that were like, look, I’m working and I’m, you know, and I’m doing my life at the same time.
00:03:20:03 - 00:03:47:09
Jim Morgan
And what was interesting is some of it fell by industry and some of it fell by job type. But the one that was the most interesting to me is when you got into people that were managers of people, it was almost a 50/50 split between blenders and splitters, which I found interesting. But the point in the whole thing was you need to know whether your people are blenders or splitters when you’re talking about benefits. You might be giving more hours and that’s not what somebody wants.
00:03:47:09 – 00:04:13:06
Jim Morgan
Or you might say, “You can leave a little bit early” and they’re like, “I don’t leave early. I never leave. I’m always working,” and truly understanding how your people are managing. That whole work-life balance really made a difference. The second one that we learned a little bit about was just everybody’s focused on learning. And I know Alicia can talk about this and the learning development they do at M3, but companies are really now starting to say, Look, we have to have somebody in charge of this.
00:04:13:06 - 00:04:55:17
Jim Morgan
We can’t accidentally do our learning and development here. It’s got to be more conscientious. It’s got to be more specific, and especially with a lot of the younger workers, that career path and development is really a big deal for them. And the last one that we spent some time on was when I called “catch ’em young.” And I think manufacturers have done this for a long time, going back to when the skill sets of skilled technology people, skilled tradespeople, carpentry, masonry, IT, things like that, they weren’t finding the people they needed, that they realized that they had to really go back, almost into the middle schools, and start saying, these are jobs that are available.
00:04:55:17 - 00:05:30:07
Jim Morgan
So don’t rule them out because people have said certain things. And then in high school, getting on the advisory councils for the tech department and making sure people know and at the tech colleges and universities and there we’ve seen just a huge growth in co-ops, youth apprenticeships and internships that companies are starting to realize that we gotta be the first ones to get in there and find these kids and university students and young adults, and not wait until they’re 18, 22, 23, because by then everybody’s looking for them.
00:05:30:15 - 00:05:42:10
Jim Morgan
So just the strategies that companies are starting to put into place now that say this talent supply chain starts much earlier than the age of 20, and we’ve got to figure out how to get in there a little bit quicker.
00:05:42:10 - 00:05:58:23
Sophie Boler
Absolutely. It’s kind of crazy to think that companies are targeting as young as middle school. It just sounds crazy, but that’s what’s happening. Alicia, Jim mentioned about work-life balance, so I’m curious to know what M3 is doing around work-life balance for your employees.
00:06:00:08 - 00:06:22:07
Alicia Kiser
Yeah, absolutely. But first of all, Jim, I need you to send me that report on blenders and splitters. That’s fascinating. I’m definitely not a blender. I’m a splitter. If you’re a splitter and you have a team of blenders, I could certainly see how that would bring about some conflict. I think that’s really fascinating and a great topic for us to plug into.
00:06:22:07 - 00:06:46:12
Alicia Kiser
So kind of in that vein, you know, work-life balance—so we, M3 has chosen to have a hybrid approach to where people work. So what that means for us is that we, and we actually kind of branded this, right, so we could help people understand it with a nice flashy one-pager and did some all-company meetings about it.
00:06:46:12 - 00:07:17:03
Alicia Kiser
But what that means to us, what hybrid means to us, is that the office is primary and from there we just ask M3ers to work with their team to figure out when and how often they’re in the office versus not in the office. And to us not in the office could mean working from home, but for us, because we are, really revolve around our clients that could also be in the marketplace meeting with prospects and clients in the marketplace.
00:07:17:03 - 00:07:39:17
Alicia Kiser
And so and for us, it’s really not about butts in seats. I like to talk about that because I think there’s a difference in an organization’s posture, if you’re talking about butts in seats versus being in the office for the right reasons. And we went so far as to define here are some specific instances where we feel like being in the office is a must.
00:07:39:22 - 00:08:15:18
Alicia Kiser
So when you’re onboarding a new person to your team, when you’re having performance issues or communications within your team, you know, during, we are we’re in the insurance industry. And so there are certain times of the year where being on the same page and collaborating and connecting is extremely important, maybe more than others. And there are many, many others, but we want to define what are those kind of moments that matter, where being together, physically together is super advantageous and really help
00:08:16:17 - 00:08:18:10
Alicia Kiser
M3 stand apart from the rest.
00:08:18:18 - 00:08:36:02
Sophie Boler
So I mean, you just mentioned being a hybrid workforce, which is great. So can you dive in a little bit deeper on how you’re really handling that to ensure that all your employees, your customers, and M3’s needs are being met?
00:08:36:02 - 00:09:10:06
Alicia Kiser
Yeah. So: trust. We are not tracking fob swipes or we don’t have someone walking around taking attendance every day. We work really hard in whatever we roll out not to manage to the exception. I think it’s easy to think about, well, what about, you know, all these people that are going to take advantage of us and, you know, do 2-hour lunches in the middle of the day or do their laundry while they’re working from home, and we try to really kind of center around let’s not manage to the exception.
00:09:10:23 - 00:09:44:10
Alicia Kiser
Let’s focus on the majority and deal with the exception as it comes up. And so that’s our philosophy around the hybrid work, the hybrid workforce, but just generally most things at M3. And I think that that bodes well for us from a recruitment and retention perspective. The hybrid, as we’ve been recruiting, we’ve had a lot of success in bringing people onto our team whose companies have said, Hey, we aren’t going to come into the office until we don’t know when.
00:09:44:10 - 00:10:08:23
Alicia Kiser
We’ve also had a lot of success in hiring and bringing people onto the team whose companies have said, like, Hey, we want you to be in the office, butts in seats, every day because of our approach. And I would say as the weeks and the months go on, I am seeing more and more people in the office because I think the kind of excitement or novelty around working from home is wearing off a little bit.
00:10:09:12 - 00:10:16:22
Alicia Kiser
But just to have the option and feel like you have the freedom to make a choice, of course, in working with your team, I think goes a long way.
00:10:17:12 - 00:10:39:18
Sophie Boler
Oh, absolutely. And I like how you brought up the whole trust aspect because that is so important. I mean, some employees, like we’ve seen, Jim, they like to work at 9:00, 10:00 at night, and you almost just have to put that trust into them, like they’re getting their work done when they feel most productive. And that might mean working at different times depending on the employee.
00:10:40:04 - 00:10:41:12
Alicia Kiser
So the blenders, right, Jim?
00:10:41:12 - 00:10:47:01
Jim Morgan
Yeah, the I get at 3:00 in the morning are the ones I don’t respond to.
00:10:47:12 - 00:10:50:08
Alicia Kiser
Yeah. So you’re, you’re not a blender then.
00:10:50:08 - 00:10:53:06
Jim Morgan
I think I am just not between 1 in the morning and 5.
00:10:55:01 – 00:10:55:22
Alicia Kiser
There are boundaries.
00:10:56:08 – 00:11:09:18
Sophie Boler
I would say I’m a blender, but. Well, moving on, another topic that I’d really like to discuss is what’s going on in the talent world. So, Jim, do you want to talk a little bit about what you’ve been seeing here?
00:11:09:18 – 00:11:39:23
Jim Morgan
Yeah, we had three things that we discussed in the Talent Report. The first one was the imposter syndrome, and that was the title that’s been given to the 2 years of COVID for employees and college students. And really what it relates to is if you think about those students that lost their junior and senior year in college and what happened in those 2 years, or you think about the people who came out right before the pandemic and their first 2 years of work
00:11:40:09 – 00:11:58:03
Jim Morgan
were right in the middle of COVID, that they missed out on a whole bunch of experiences. You know, for the kids in college, that’s where you sometimes get your internships. You get to go work for people. You didn’t have those opportunities. For those that had started work, you know, how do you figure out the culture? How do you figure out who your mentors are?
00:11:58:04 – 00:12:19:16
Jim Morgan
Who do you get to go talk to when you’ve got questions? Those things got disrupted and companies are now starting to realize things got missed during those couple of years and we may have to back up a little bit and say, you know what, We didn’t really get a chance to onboard them the way we like to onboard them or set things up the way we like to because we just couldn’t because of the circumstances.
00:12:20:00 – 00:12:42:15
Jim Morgan
And so that’s been an emphasis for some companies now to say what got missed out on and what blanks do we have to fill in now. Somewhat related to that was one that I called “Got Onboarding?” kind of after the “Got Milk?” campaign. But the whole onboarding process as companies now are moving from the, just the endless search for new employees and recruiting—
00:12:42:16 - 00:13:05:10
Jim Morgan
We got to find 10 more and then 10 more and then 10 more—stopping now and saying, well, that’s part of it. But once we get ’em, we got to figure out how to keep ’em. And that first week, month, 6 months of the job is just so critical. And so just like in the learning and development area, companies are now looking at onboarding and saying, we really need somebody to look at this strategically.
00:13:05:10 - 00:13:26:12
Jim Morgan
Not we got to check these seven boxes, but at the end of it, are people feeling welcome? Do they have a feel for the company and the culture? Is this a place they want to come back to? And I was in M3e just a week ago, and Sean LaBorde, the president, was saying, “You know, we’re trying to be a magnet for people,” which I found really interesting, that we want to have spaces
00:13:26:12 - 00:13:56:03
Jim Morgan
they want to come to and they want to have conversations they want to be a part of, and then they’ll want to be here. And I think that’s another part of this whole onboarding and building that culture is creating a spot that’s inviting and that that’s a place that I do want to be. And then lastly, a discussion on talent
mobility and again, trying to hang on to people and looking at it from, you know, some companies are very passive and they say, Wow, Sophie’s a great employee.
00:13:56:09 - 00:14:12:11
Jim Morgan
We should figure out how to make her happy and keep her. And they just look at Sophie and say, Wow, we can give her an opportunity here or have her do this and have her do that. And it’s a great plan for you to hopefully help you understand your mobility within the organization and your chance to rise in it.
00:14:12:21 - 00:14:31:22
Jim Morgan
But it’s not really active for the organization. It’s not the organization saying, well, not just Sophie, let’s find all of our high performers. Let’s find everybody and see how do we move them, how do we give them different opportunities, whether it’s lateral or up and down. And so then we get into, okay, let’s be more active about it.
00:14:31:22 - 00:14:53:14
Jim Morgan
Let’s put a plan in place that gives people opportunities to figure out what they want to do. And then leading up to ultimately, how do we make this strategic? How is this mobility part of our succession planning of making sure we’ve always got the next person up so they can get their job done? And talking with companies about where are you with that.
00:14:53:14 - 00:15:13:07
Jim Morgan
Because traditionally or historically, I think it’s been more of a, well we find a person, let’s make sure we hang on to them versus an organization-wide opportunity to say strategically, we’ve got to look at people and figure out how can we keep moving them up in over 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and no longer have it be:
00:15:13:13 – 00:15:36:13
Jim Morgan
“Well, Alicia, if you stay here for 27 years, here’s the opportunity for you to maybe move up a little bit”. So a lot of work on talent, mobility and helping both the employee find their niche and what’s going on and the employer making sure that they’re not only have the butt in the seat, but that they’ve got the right people in the right seats so they can be as effective as they possibly can be.
00:15:37:11 – 00:15:48:11
Sophie Boler
I love that example, Jim. And just talking about talent mobility, Alicia, is that really a thing at M3? And if it is, what have you really implemented around this?
00:15:49:19 - 00:16:16:01
Alicia Kiser
Yeah, so I’m a huge fan of this topic. I actually started my career at a very, very large organization in a role, like a leadership development type program where every 18 months we rotated from one kind of department or discipline to the next, like think operations, HR,, logistics, customer service and while working for a very, very large organization wasn’t my cup of tea—
00:16:16:07 - 00:16:51:00
Alicia Kiser
I’m certainly happier at a midsized organization—I learned a lot. I would never take that experience back and, you know, the reason why is because I think that it really helps you understand, it helps you build your business acumen. It helps you learn about each of the functions of an organization in that particular industry and in that particular organization and the different levers that can be pulled to produce certain outcomes within that organization or that industry.
00:16:51:09 - 00:17:26:16
Alicia Kiser
And without getting the perspective from lots of different disciplines, it’s not as easy to do that. And I also think it helps you appreciate what your team, what your peers and coworkers are doing every day. And I think it allows you to have more empathy but just work better together on the softer side of things. And so specific to M3, I would say we are kind of in the early stages of this or working to find more opportunities to infuse talent, mobility, into our development efforts and into our roles.
00:17:27:00 - 00:18:07:17
Alicia Kiser
Right now we are absolutely doing it with our internship program, kind of our sales accelerator and sales development program. And, you know, per the reasons that I cited and why I think it’s so valuable, we’re certainly seeing, you know, those, that work pay off in those particular roles. The other thing that we’ve done to your comment, Jim, about college students who have lost their junior and senior years potentially entering the workforce: So in our internship program, I mean, we rotate and give them exposure to the different parts of M3.
00:18:07:17 - 00:18:32:03
Alicia Kiser
But we also started to partner with our insurance companies that we partner with. M3 is a broker. So we work with hundreds of different insurance companies and you know, those who have offices where we have offices, we’ve done intern swaps, and that is a fan favorite amongst our interns and interns from our carrier partners, because again, it gives you different perspective.
00:18:32:03 - 00:18:51:21
Alicia Kiser
And I think our perspective and our career partners perspective has been, you know, because one could say, well, what if they like that internship program better than this one? It’s like, well, we’re you know, the rising tide floats all boats, right? We’re gaining exposure and excitement and engagement throughout the industry. And, you know, we’ll all win in that way.
00:18:51:21 - 00:18:55:14
Sophie Boler
Mm. I love that example of intern swapping.
00:18:56:13 - 00:19:02:17
Alicia Kiser
It was it’s fun. And we’re just because it is such a fan favorite looking for more opportunities to do things like that.
00:19:03:04 - 00:19:20:23
Sophie Boler
Oh yeah. And even when I was younger or in college, job shadowing companies in their different departments was something I loved to do, to just get exposure of what each department is doing. And then I could find what I like doing and carry on from there.
00:19:20:23 - 00:19:38:08
Alicia Kiser
Yeah, as a young person, you kind of know what you want to do, but until you gain those experiences, I don’t think you really know and you’re secretly building up this business acumen that will for sure to your advantage in the future that you’re not even aware of at that time for sure.
00:19:38:11 - 00:19:55:05
Sophie Boler
Absolutely. Well, you know, more than ever, we’ve seen businesses needing to pull together some creative plans when it comes to some of the topics that we’ve discussed today. So, Jim, I’m curious to know some of the top creative HR strategies that you’ve been seeing.
00:19:56:08 - 00:20:04:06
Jim Morgan
Well, first I have to react to when the host of the show who I think is, you know, in her mid- to early 20 says, “When I was young ...”
00:20:06:05 - 00:20:07:05
Sophie Boler
I knew you would say something!
00:20:10:17 - 00:20:36:07
Jim Morgan
In the creativity area, a couple of things are happening. We have a lot of companies, especially manufacturers, that English is not the first language for a lot of their workers. And so companies have been spending a lot of time on helping those employees learn English as a second language. But now we’re seeing it work the other way, too, and expectations of supervisors and managers to learn the language of the people who are working for them.
00:20:36:07 - 00:20:57:09
Jim Morgan
And they’re sort of looking at this as if we come at it from both sides, we’re going to improve the communications one way or another. And so we’ve got a lot of people becoming bilingual, both as the worker and as the supervisor, as they try to figure out ways to make sure everybody is communicating as accurately and easily as possible.
00:20:57:09 - 00:21:18:10
Jim Morgan
I had an interesting experience in a manufacturing facility where they’re always trying to motivate the people that are running their machines, helping them know that, you know, the value they bring to the organization, which is fantastic. And also trying to subtly remind them occasionally that this is a $27 million machine you’re running here. So let’s make sure, you know, we’re taking good care of it.
00:21:19:00 - 00:21:39:02
Jim Morgan
And they had actually put the price tag of each machine right on the machine, saying that this lathe is worth this much money or this manufacturing piece is worth this many million dollars. And they said they do it as a way of saying to the people who are operating them, we’ve put this much trust in you, that we think that this is fantastic.
00:21:39:02 - 00:22:12:02
Jim Morgan
You’re a skilled operator and that’s wonderful. At the same time, you know, saying let’s not get sloppy here because there’s a lot at stake. And sometimes people sort of take that for granted. Now that I just made fun of you as a young person, generational diversity is one that we’re seeing, you know, popping up more in everyone’s diversity, equity and inclusion, especially as we have a whole bunch of younger people coming in and a pretty big generation of people still there but on their way out and the HR
00:22:12:02 - 00:22:31:22
Jim Morgan
people really having to spend more time with people helping them understand that sentences start with, “Well, you’ve been here so long, you probably don’t know that” or “You just got here. You’ll eventually figure it out.” That you know, the harm that’s done in a lot of these assumptions of saying, “Well, you’ve only been here for 2 years, what could you possibly know?”
00:22:32:08 - 00:22:59:21
Jim Morgan
And one example here where someone said, Yeah, somebody just said to me, “Well once you’ve been here longer you’ll figure it out.” And your reaction to that is, “Why would you have me figure it out over the next 5 years and keep making the same mistakes? Why don’t you just tell me what you know and we can both learn, you know, together,” that there’s a lot of things that are kind of taken for granted in the age compartment that, “Oh, that’s just a joke” or this “Everybody understands that, you know,”—not so much.
00:23:00:05 - 00:23:25:03
Jim Morgan
And so as the generations have very different communication styles, very different ways of communicating, very different life experiences, more time being spent on helping, you know, millennials and Zers understand boomers and Xers and everything in between that we’ve all done different things. We all bring great assets to the organization. And some of the stereotypes are in the way of that.
00:23:25:03 - 00:23:54:04
Jim Morgan
So spending a little bit more time on generational diversity. And then one last one that we had is people have been churning folks like crazy. And an HR department was having a hard time explaining to people that when we get these people in and they stay for 3 weeks and they walk out the door, that’s a lot of time and effort wasted, and trying to develop a corporate strategy that says this is HR and the recruiters and the hiring managers and the other people that they work with.
00:23:54:04 - 00:24:14:07
Jim Morgan
All of them have to do this together in order for us to hang on to these people. And so they decided to use an all-staff meeting as an example. And they had churned about 30 percent of their people in the past year. So they had talked to 30 people in advance and they got up and said, We’re trying to visualize here how much work we’re doing, trying to hang on to people.
00:24:14:15 - 00:24:43:17
Jim Morgan
And so we’re going to give you an example right now of this is how many people walked out the door in the last year and 30 percent of the audience, which was about 100 people, got up and walked out of the all-staff meeting to try to help visualize for people: Do you see how much work this is? And so that was their creative way of saying it is kind of everybody’s job and we would really like your help because otherwise we have to go fill those hundred jobs who just walked out the door in the last 35 seconds.
00:24:44:00 - 00:24:48:11
Jim Morgan
So I thought that one was a pretty creative way for people to try to get everybody on board.
00:24:48:20 - 00:25:06:07
Sophie Boler
Yeah, that is a creative way to show the impact. So Jim talked about generational diversity here. Alicia, how is M3 really handling diversity, equity and inclusions in general and how are you dealing with the whole generational diversity specifically?
00:25:08:01 - 00:25:44:03
Alicia Kiser
Yeah, it’s certainly ongoing. And I will say we are definitely not an expert in the space, but man, are we grinding. And so I actually co-lead, we have a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, which is a cross-functional group of some leaders, some individual contributors from across the organization, from all of our offices. I work with our CEO to put a strategic plan, if you will, together around diversity, equity, inclusion.
00:25:45:05 - 00:26:38:21
Alicia Kiser
And our committee is charged with education and awareness. But we really look for our leadership team to be accountable for and live out within their respective areas, helping M3 move the needle on all things diversity, equity and inclusion. And it’s been fun to see how, as we kind of, I recently saw a continuum of an organization’s DEI efforts from compliance to committee to leadership owned and then being a truly inclusive organization. I would say we’re moving into that leader owned phase of DEI and it’s been fun to see our leadership team find their own ways to lean into DEI work.
00:26:38:21 - 00:27:08:15
Alicia Kiser
And it’s been very different, but it allows them to own it and feel comfortable in leading on it with their respective teams. And so that’s been, that’s probably been the most notable and most fun thing for me to see. One of the things we moved away from when we were in that committee phase putting the organization’s DEI efforts on a committee, a cross-functional committee is a lot and that’s a heavy load to carry.
00:27:08:22 - 00:27:36:18
Alicia Kiser
And it’s tough too because this is this is like not a project, not an initiative. It’s a long game, it’s a marathon. And it can become discouraging when you’re not seeing maybe the immediate results that you want to see. And so when we made that, when we kind of articulated flipping the switch from, Hey, hey, committee, you’re actually not, this is, the responsibility for this work isn’t on your shoulders, but we’d like you to lead on education and awareness.
00:27:37:01 - 00:28:04:22
Alicia Kiser
This, the responsibility and accountability is on the leadership team. That was a big game changer, I think a big moment for us in moving our efforts forward. So maybe that’s that’s what I would say from a DEI perspective. There’s certainly other things. I mean, one thing we’re really proud of and I’ve had an opportunity to talk about with MRA in lots of different forums is our Women’s Business Resource Group.
00:28:04:22 - 00:28:30:14
Alicia Kiser
So it’s essentially an affinity group. We have over half, over 60 percent of our overall population is female. And so that was kind of a natural place for us to start is with women at M3, and especially with all the stats that you’ve seen kind of within COVID and post-COVID about women exiting the workplace, our focus is keeping M3 women in the workplace.
00:28:31:00 - 00:29:02:03
Alicia Kiser
And we started that group in 2018 and just have had a lot of great evolution in terms of providing development opportunities for women at M3 up to giving them opportunities to lead in ways or have more global involvement in work at M3 outside of like the key area that they’re focused in from a day-to-day basis, which allows them to get exposure amongst leadership and other people throughout the organization.
00:29:02:18 - 00:29:43:08
Alicia Kiser
But it is also a professional development opportunity as well. So those are just a couple of things maybe I would mention. And then as it relates to generational diversity, we’re hearing more and more about this in terms of M3’s interest in learning about how to navigate through generational diversity—certainly a hot topic. One of the things I’ll talk about that we’ve had a lot of success with and are trying to do more of is finding more natural ways to get different generations to collaborate and build relationships and respect for each other.
00:29:43:17 - 00:30:43:09
Alicia Kiser
And so, for example, we’ve got an overall mentorship program throughout the organization, but we also have mentorship in different pockets. Like, for example, we have a shareholder development program and are really intentional about how we match people up. I think that’s one way that we’ve supported generational diversity, but also going back to your comments, Jim, about onboarding and our development efforts, career planning, career mapping, we as much as possible with so much institutional knowledge with some of the folks that are nearing retirement, we try to lean on those individuals to facilitate our development sessions, training sessions, you know, use their expertise to educate other M3ers and obviously they’re not
00:30:44:01 - 00:31:07:09
Alicia Kiser
professional speakers or facilitators, or and they don’t have that expertise. But our talent development team works to provide the framework for them to share their knowledge, whether that be in-person or on demand, using our learning management system. So really like organize that and deliver it in a way that can be impactful for M3ers of all generations.
00:31:07:09 - 00:31:16:03
Alicia Kiser
And so that’s maybe a little bit more indirect way of navigating that generational diversity topic.
00:31:17:00 - 00:31:28:06
Sophie Boler
I like that, and I like how you brought up mentors. I think mentors are, can, I don’t know, lead to huge impacts on the organization and the employee too. But as we really wrap, oops sorry go ahead.
00:31:28:13 - 00:31:52:14
Alicia Kiser
Oh no, sorry. I was just going to say I was just on a call this morning with our CEO and he said, “You can’t rush wisdom.” And so I think that’s very true. And the more that we can get these folks working with each other, I think, you can’t rush wisdom. But the more we can help infuse and ensure that that moves from one generation to the next.
00:31:53:04 - 00:32:15:05
Sophie Boler
And like you said in a natural way. I like that. But as we do wrap up here, Alicia, Jim has mentioned to me your role at M3 and not only in HR leadership, but just as a leader at the company overall. So what advice would you give to HR professionals trying to move from a tactical position to more of a strategic one?
00:32:15:05 - 00:32:21:06
Sophie Boler
And Jim, feel free to offer your thoughts and advice as well.
00:32:21:06 - 00:33:17:18
Alicia Kiser
Yeah. So thanks for asking this. I would actually go back to my comments earlier about business acumen. I think, ,and I recently was reflecting on this with my coworker, my colleague, our HR director, and we both agreed that the, our early exposure to an ability to build business acumen was one of the key things that I think helps make that jump from I call it like taking off my department hat on and putting my M3 hat on and I think what that has allowed me to do is, of course, truly understand the business and the different levers that make the business work, but also helps me to be viewed as a more valuable partner
00:33:17:18 - 00:33:45:16
Alicia Kiser
to the other leaders throughout the organization, and helps have my opinions and perspectives validated because I’m not necessarily just approaching it through my department’s lens, but trying to frame it in a way that considers all lenses. And I certainly so. so I just I would go back to that business acumen. I think that’s a really big one.
00:33:47:04 - 00:33:54:10
Sophie Boler
Jim, anything to add?
00:33:54:10 - 00:34:13:12
Jim Morgan
I would say that’s the biggest one. And I think the advantage right now is with the talent issue being what it is, you all of a sudden are one of the most important people in the decision-making process because they can find land, they can find a building, they can get a loan. But at the end of the day, somebody has to say, well, where are we going to find people to do it?
00:34:13:12 - 00:34:36:06
Jim Morgan
And that is the HR person. And the second one is with all of the HRISs out there and all the data that’s being collected in the HR department now, you also become a data analyst, and you can provide information on an awful lot of things that’s very business related. So I think both of those go right back to what Alicia said is that you’re not making HR decisions.
00:34:36:06 - 00:34:42:20
Jim Morgan
You’re making business, strategic business decisions, and that immediately elevate you to a different level.
00:34:42:20 - 00:35:14:06
Alicia Kiser
And if I could if I could summarize, I would say I always view myself—and I think this can apply to any department, whether you’re marketing, finance, HR, customer service—I consider myself a business person first, and HR just as the discipline or the way that I choose to channel my business skills, and I think if we think more like that, making that jump from tactical to strategic becomes, it becomes easier and fun.
00:35:14:16 - 00:35:37:09
Sophie Boler
And that’s some good advice. Yeah. Well, I want to thank both of you for being on the 30 minute THRIVE podcast today and sharing your knowledge on the latest of using HR as a strategic partner. So if you liked our chat and topic today, I want to encourage listeners to share this episode, leave a comment or review, and consider joining MRA if you aren’t a member already.
00:35:37:14 - 00:36:00:15
Sophie Boler
We’ve got all the resources you need in the show notes below, so take a look at those and we have linked Jim and Alicia’s email and LinkedIn profile in the show notes below. So if you’d like to get in touch with them or just chat about whatever, they’re available for you. Otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in today and thank you both for the great info and we will see you next week.
00:36:01:01 - 00:36:02:00
Alicia Kiser
Thanks for having me.
00:36:02:13 - 00:36:03:07
Jim Morgan
Thank you, Sophie.
00:36:04:01 - 00:36:26:08
Outro
And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes, where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.’’’
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