The CultureING Podcast

As the current President & CEO of TELUS Spark Science Center, Dr. Mary Anne Moser is an award-winning designer and communications director. Mary Anne brings more than 25 years of experience in entrepreneurial roles where science meets society. Twelve years ago, Mary Anne co-founded Beakerhead, an international first that brings people together at the crossroads of art, science and engineering, and was their full-time CEO for 6 years. Mary Anne has worked across a variety of not-for-profits from the Banff Centre to the University of Calgary to innovative organizations created by the government. Being a working mother of triplets has made Mary Anne a coveted leader to work for, as she understands the individual needs of her team members and is a major advocate for flexibility. This episode is brought to you by Peninsula, which offers 24/7 HR, health & safety, and employment support to Canada’s small and medium businesses. For the white-glove treatment and an initial consultation just for CultureING Podcast listeners, head to this link and enter the code "CULTURE". In this episode, you will learn: Having a moonshot vision for your team is incredibly motivating and definitely ties to increased employee engagement If you want collaboration, you need to build a coaching culture where performance isn't measured by how well someone does their job, but how much they collaborate and learn together. The moonshot vision you set actually attracts the type of people you want. If you declare that you're going to play in an international league, you will attract ambitious people that aren't interested in a slow-paced environment. Don't be surprised when the right people come to your door when you set an aspirational goal and make it public. Setting up cross-functional teams can help leaders get to know their employees much better and reduce silos in a significant way. "Separate ideas from their owners. It's not personal." When you surround yourself with a strong safety net to funnel ideas through, then about 1 every 9 idea will likely be great and they'll affirm and encourage you. Your crew also needs to be there to help you understand. Steady not flashy is a great way to live to find a steady-state, recognizing it's not supposed to be easy all the time and still being resilient in that place. When going through leadership transition, taking a genuine look at what you've got and being honest about it is crucial. Whatever change mandate that is required, which often is what prompts a transition, lean into that, "set an aspiration together and then see who wants to opt in, and who who might want to opt out." Sign up for our email list at cultureing.com!

Jordan Raynor is a serial entrepreneur and author who has the honor of working to help Christians connect the gospel to their work. In November 2017, Jordan wrote and published Called to Create: A Biblical Invitation to Create, Innovate, and Risk, which became an instant national bestseller. Since then, he and his team have helped more than 3,000,000 Christians do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. In 2020 Master of One: Find and Focus on the Work You Were Created to Do was published, and coming soon is Redeeming Your Time. This episode is brought to you by Peninsula, which offers 24/7 HR, health & safety, and employment support to Canada’s small and medium businesses. For the white-glove treatment and an initial consultation just for CultureING Podcast listeners, head to this link and enter the code "CULTURE" What you'll learn from this episode: Learning that work is a service to the world is incredibly important on the journey towards mastery, it needs to become part of your motivation. To encourage mastery at work, companies should: Have exceptionally high standards for their talent & hiring. Look for ways in your team to allow them to be more focused in their discipline, and remove things pulling away from that core thing. Establish workplace cultures that foster Deep Work. Guard your employees and encourage them to create boundaries so they can do undisturbed, focused, deep work regularly (ideally 4 hours per day). Being efficient with your time is something to be celebrated but believing that work is meaningless isn't the goal. Work was part of the original perfect design by God (Genesis 1). "Passion follows mastery, passion follows service. It grows with competency over time because that's how God created us. God created to serve us. We create the serve other people. When you understand work like that, you're fired up and you want to do as much as much work as you can for the good of others." Your area to master = the area of life you're disproportionately skilled in. Also mentioned in this episode: Jordan's new book Redeeming Your Time releases Oct. 19, 2019, and if you pre-order, head to JordanRaynor.com to enter into the sweepstakes for a Trip to Israel Jordan's podcast episode with Dee Ann Turner (Fmr. VP of Talent at Chick-fil-A) Jordan's course "How to Land a Book Deal with No Platform"

Today's episode was actually recorded before the Covid-19 pandemic with Bench's VP of People, Bonnie Powell, who I admire so very much. While some of the information shared might be a bit "out of date," the golden wisdom contained is truly timeless, and most certainly still music to my ears as I believe it is breakthrough thinking for the HR & company culture space. Today you'll learn: What I love, and is a now bit surreal, was that we actually discussed remote working and creating flexibility for employees before it was forced on us. That is true pioneering folks! How approaching layoffs can be done in a human way. What it looks like to throw HR "Best Practice" out the window, and begin to make decisions about people that actually work and make sense for you, your team members, and your company This episode is brought to you by Peninsula, which offers 24/7 HR, health & safety, and employment support to Canada’s small and medium businesses. For the white-glove treatment and an initial consultation just for CultureING Podcast listeners, head to this link and enter the code "CULTURE" To receive monthly tips on building incredible company culture and a curated list of the best articles & resources on HR, DEIB and culture, subscribe to the CultureING email community here: cultureing.com Connect with Tynan on LinkedIn

For the past 6 years, Habanero Consulting has been on the notoriously tough-to-get-on Great Place to Work list! This is nothing short of incredible. Join Tynan Allan as he interviews Steven Fitzgerald, Habanero's President, and resident company culture alchemist about the nitty-gritty details of what it truly takes to make it on this list. You'll learn about: The humility required by leaders to continually adapt your approach to company culture Why building a culture of shared responsibility for culture is so important How to approach your purpose and make it something that develops without limitation of a charismatic leader always spurring it on What it takes to stay teachable and aware of how you show up as a leader, and how that might need to change This episode is brought to you by Peninsula, which offers 24/7 HR, health & safety, and employment support to Canada’s small and medium businesses. For the white-glove treatment and an initial consultation just for CultureING Podcast listeners, head to this link and enter the code "CULTURE"

Duncan Wardle, Former Head of Innovation & Creativity for Disney spent 30 years with the organization and is now invested in helping businesses like yours wildly improve their innovation capabilities. This episode is the right resource for you to understand how to begin transform your company culture into one where creativity can flourish. Today, innovation is no longer just a buzzword to throw in your investor deck. With the dizzying speed at which technology has progressed over the last decade, innovation has become a tangible difference-maker. A tool that allows companies to create and execute incredible ideas faster than ever, leapfrogging the competition in the process. Some questions I ask: How did you get the job of being in charge of innovation at the most innovative company on the planet? How do you manage having an innovation team and still having the whole company produce novel ideas? How to go about changing to a creative-focused culture? Where does it start? What can we do to build trust so that our creative ideas are well-received? In this episode, you will learn: Crazy stories of Duncan working with Princess Diana, Michael Jackson and sending his son’s Buzz Lightyear into space in partnership with NASA What it looks like to take culture from something you talk about, to something you take action on. Building trust starts with doing crazy, big things without caring. How to make creative meetings go well with “plusing” meetings This episode is brought to you by Peninsula, which offers 24/7 HR, health & safety, and employment support to Canada’s small and medium businesses. For the white-glove treatment and an initial consultation just for CultureING Podcast listeners, head to this link and enter the code "CULTURE".

Co-Founders of Routine, Neige & Pippa Blair make a stellar team. As the innovator, Neige has always been bringing brilliant formulas for natural products to her friends. With the help of Pippa’s business mind, they brought Routine to life! At the heart of their success is a commitment to relationships & caring for one another, and the insights on building company culture are therefore quite compelling! Some questions I ask: What are the ways you’ve found best suit how you work together as a team? How do you take ideas from R&D, bring them to the team and then decide if they go to market or not? What are some of the myths surrounding natural products? How did you begin to be taken seriously as a brand? What have you found to be the bedrock of your company culture? Is Routine Wine coming anytime soon?! In this episode, you will learn: The original story of Routine Deodorant Why Niege & Pippa don’t often use the word entrepreneur How to thrive within family (and best friend) business. How it became natural. Bottom line: it’s critical to find a role for everyone that suits their personality. The whole idea of making a place where people want to be, the culture will take care of itself How most of the beauty & skincare industry is marketing… not necessity. Culture: You can define it, or it can just happen. If you create the space, a place where people want to be, that’s the first step. Neige & Pippa believe that if everything’s fed for their employees (their soul, their bodies), then the culture holds itself together quite well This episode is brought to you by Peninsula, which offers 24/7 HR, health & safety, and employment support to Canada’s small and medium businesses. For the white-glove treatment and an initial consultation just for CultureING Podcast listeners, head to this link and enter the code "CULTURE".

Cicely Belle Blain is a diversity & inclusion business consultant, activist and writer; they are one of Vancouver’s fifty most influential people of 2018, as awarded by Vancouver Magazine, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter – Vancouver, one of CBC’s 150 Black Womxn Making Change in Canada and BC Business 30 Under 30 2019 and has served as a member of the Canadian Youth Delegation to the United Nations. Their work is informed by their professional and academic background at the University of British Columbia and their lived experience as a Black, queer artist, a community builder, an intersectional feminist, and a Black liberation activist. Cicely’s first book, Burning Sugar, debuted in 2020 with VS Books & Arsenal Pulp Press. This episode is brought to you by Peninsula, which offers 24/7 HR, health & safety, and employment support to Canada’s small and medium businesses. For the white-glove treatment and an initial consultation just for CultureING Podcast listeners, head to this link and enter the code "CULTURE". In this episode, you will learn: When we think about diversity and inclusion, we must first think about what an individual adds and brings to your organization. Having all the qualifications isn’t as trustworthy as we think, especially when people may bring the same skills but have shown it over their lives in different ways. Even if someone’s role doesn’t have to directly do with it, we should be screening for an acknowledgment of diversity and inclusion in every hire. The decisions to fight for D&I will often bring a lot of upheaval in an organization, especially before they bring joy. When an organization is just looking for a short-term engagement to increase D&I, such as a couple of workshops, it’s unlikely there will be much change long-term. Anti-oppression is based on the fact that for many people groups, things are simply not fair. There are people alive today who were born on slave plantations for example, and obviously dealing with the repercussions of that, and for their families affects everything including career. Equality speaks to the idea that everybody should get the same thing because everybody’s the same. Equity is that everybody should get what they need to thrive, e.g. specific support or initiatives to help people get to the same end result as others. For people who experience privilege, it’s so important for people within those communities to hold each other accountable. Of note, it’s not helpful to have a “cancel culture” wherein if someone says the wrong thing they are chastised for it immediately without taking the time to educate them; we need to allow people to learn and grow, calling people in through compassionate conversations. Making D&I Councils meaningful comes from a commitment from leadership. Often they are nice to have, but not given financial resources or any decision-making authority to actually bring projects or initiatives to life.

Article has grown over 24,182% during the past 5 years. Caroline Schein, as the VP People & Culture. As Canada’s Fastest-Growing Company, the executive team has its work cut out from them. Specifically, Caroline is responsible for building Article’s people and culture practices across North America. With more than 20 years of senior leadership experience in the hospitality and retail industry with brands such as Best Buy, a multinational consumer electronics retailer, and Boston Pizza, a North American restaurant chain, Caroline has an MBA specializing in leadership from Royal Roads University, and a MA & PhD in Human and Organizational Systems from Fielding Graduate University. She shares wonderful insights about the future of work & how to build a better company culture. This episode is brought to you by Peninsula, which offers 24/7 HR, health & safety, and employment support to Canada’s small and medium businesses. For the white-glove treatment and an initial consultation just for CultureING Podcast listeners, head to this link and enter the code "CULTURE". In this episode, you will learn: 4:55 The culture now is not broken, it truly has been remarkable what the team has accomplished. Article’s has 5 core values – be good, be direct, be better, be adventurous, & be genuine – which ground everything Article does from their strategy to their operations. When addressing culture, in their case, it was more a matter of how to build from where Article is at now, and then becoming open and honest about what is it going to take, where do we need to be and how do we get there. 6:24 When joining a new organization as an executive, how can you make the transition as successful as possible & learn from the organization about what needs to happen. Here’s a hint, it’s all about starting from a place of listening and learning, while beginning to understand the business well. 7:50 The best people & culture systems that can be put in place to ensure that culture stays strong during intense periods of scale. 9:05 What success looks like when it comes to building a killer workplace environment where people (or Particles!) thrive. 9:50 How onboard makes a big deal out of a new Particle joining the team. Onboarding is very serious to them and they do it well! 12:30 The key to being customer obsessed, and sharing that heart for customers across the entire company, especially the executive team. 19:30 How Article is still refining its performance management processes and figuring out a way to provide feedback to leaders, not just the other way around. 22:37 The fact that accolades and awards are always a secondary priority to employees being happy with where they work. 26:40 Caroline’s charge to any new employee, the great new hire, is someone who’s focused on knowing the business. HR professionals specifically need to truly be a partner, making sure that you understand what problems the business is trying to solve, and how to do that through the people & the culture. 28:18 How the future is looking both at employee engagement, but even further to the employee’s health & wellbeing 33:00 A look at Article’s recruitment process and candidate screening.

Some shared failings & learnings about working with technical teams!

Michel Falcon is an entrepreneur, international keynote speaker, and author who leverages his People-First Culture™ philosophy to create customer experience, employee engagement, and company culture strategies to grow businesses. Often he has unconventional opinions like not using reference checks in his hiring process. He is the author of the best-selling book, “People-First Culture: Build a Lasting Business by Shifting Your Focus From Profits to People” and the creator of the Team Operating System online course. Michel also operates a portfolio of restaurants and venues in downtown Toronto. His venues have grown to earn tens of millions of dollars in revenue with more than one hundred and fifty employees in less than two years by using the same strategies he’s going to share with us today. He has been hired to advise companies like Subway, Verizon Wireless, Alfa Romeo, Electronic Arts, and many other globally recognized brands. Some questions I ask: What has been a triggering moment in your career that lead you to develop a passion for company culture? What are some of the tools leaders and organizations can use to understand and create a better culture? What will be the shift in how we hire based on trends and changes we are seeing in employee behavior and expectation? How do we change our hiring practices to find the most aligned candidates? In this episode, you will learn: How Michel started his career working at McDonald’s. What to do with the Gen Z workers coming into the workforce and why he thinks they are open and like the idea of entrepreneurship. How to stop hiring toxic employees. How to understand and create a better culture – the interview process, have the corporate courage to not hire the great candidate that doesn’t fit the culture. The importance of our parents in our careers – Your parents gave you the DNA to be the leader. He does a lot but it comes back to company culture, employee experience, customer experience. Why Michel Falcon doesn’t like calling his team “staff”, or like it when they call him “boss”. What leaders who have side-hustles should do to build a productive team… and how they can work with their team members who also have side-hustles. Give a second look at reference checks. Recognize that you are relying on other people’s judge of character. You may benefit from trusting your own gut than someone else’s. LEARN MORE Connect with Michel: His new blog post: How to stop hiring toxic employees LinkedIn Buy Michel’s Book | People first culture: Build a Lasting Company By Shifting Your Focus From Profits to People

As Founder of The Fearless Life Project & Wake Up Wealthy, Julian Rosen is an unstoppable force dedicated to serving others & seeing them rise to their full potential. You can be fearless at work and lean into bold conversations with your leaders, and Julian is here to show you how! In this episode, you will learn: At some level, we aren’t happy when we sell ourselves short. When we let the internal negative dialogue win, we know we can be better. The crystal of BS = our worries about the future, what we think people think of us, what our boss might be thinking when we say something, etc. We need to take a breath and take inventory on where we are selling ourselves short. Its incredible how we can’t take 25 minutes at the beginning of our day for ourselves… to get to know ourselves better. Avoid, at all costs, reacting and using your phone. Take stock of your time. How are you truly spending your time all day? Taking stock of your time is crucial to know where it is being wasted, and where you can rearrange to ensure you are more present and free. It’s rare that the “Hollywood drama” comes true that we’ve played out in our minds when it comes to having a “difficult” conversation about something like a side-hustle, or outside passion. Often, your manager will be more supportive than you could ever imagine. If you can begin to understand that certain conversations have the potential to change your life (e.g. asking your boss for a promotion), you will begin to make bolder moves… but you also must become self-aware enough that will enable you to recognize the natural stressors & feelings that will come up. If the reactive part of us is constantly in the driver’s seat (e.g. always checking your email… always!), then we will burn ourselves out. Duh, take a break folks, set boundaries and be stern with your boss if you’ve allowed them to believe you are available 24/7. You deserve better!

A celebration of the efforts being done to create gender parity in today's workplace, and a call-to-action for men to engage!

As Founder and Director of People and Culture at The Grief and Trauma Healing Centre Inc., Ashley has nearly a decade of clinical experience as a practicing psychologist, and it is this scientific background that forms the foundation of her signature training program—Conscious Culture Bootcamp. Ashley found her own ‘Why’ early in life following a difficult childhood punctuated by her father’s substance abuse and eventual suicide. From this, the darkest and most painful period of her life, she uncovered a deep and passionate desire to serve others and a natural ability to create a safe space in which to explore life’s most challenging questions—a skill that has been immeasurably valuable in her career both as a psychologist and trainer. The workplace today is in dire need of increased psychological safety. A term made popular by Amy Edmondson coined is the belief that one can speak up without risk of punishment or humiliation. Ashley helps us navigate this from a clinical perspective and how we can build company culture's where this is the norm. In this episode, you will learn: We are hardwired for connection. If we can learn how to motivate, inspire and drive people from an intrinsic level, then we can release untapped potential in our people. We need a secure attachment with our leaders. This means providing emotional availability and responsivity to our people. Unlike what we often think, people bring their full selves to work; they don’t just turn off their human side when they walk in the front doors to our offices. We have a responsibility to set the emotional tone of our companies. At the foundation of a high-trust culture are people being heard, seen and valued. When we provide flexibility to our employees, they in-turn provide our companies with high-performance of their own choice, even going above-and-beyond during non-work-hours because they care. Relationship challenges at work are a direct reflection of a need not being met by the other person in the workplace. Enquiring of that need is crucial in resolving conflicts & maintaining healthy workplace relationships. Leaders have a responsibility to their own cleanup work. You can start by doing the following: Recognizing the clean up emotional roadblocks Recognizing the pain & loss that is getting in the way of us truly showing up for others in an authentic way This is the future of leadership development If we want others to do the work on themselves to improve & grow, we have to do do the work ourselves as leaders A conscious culture is a high-performance culture grounded in trust, psychological safety, and belonging. At the center of a conscious culture are secure attachments;  the leader creating a space for people to take healthy risks, to speak up, to make mistakes, to put their best foot forward, to go the extra mile for their teammates, and to know that they belong and that they matter.

Over the course of 25 years, Tom has used his passion for entrepreneurship and marketing to launch numerous, highly successful companies. At each organization Tom has built, employee experience has been the cornerstone to building effective teams. His expertise and learnings resulted in the development of Kudos as a solution and system to promote and enhance corporate culture, motivate individuals and create great employee recognition & experiences. Tom leads business development, marketing, and customer engagement at Kudos and is active in speaking engagements and thought leadership activities in the HR industry. He is passionate about the role employee recognition plays in creating a great employee experience and is dedicated to educating the world about what genuine recognition can do for people everywhere. In this episode, you will learn: Often leaders are doing things that are fleeting and immaterial when it comes to recognition. Without a system and a purchased tool, good and bad managers alike will continue to recognize their people poorly. It costs approximately $5000 just to hire and train a minimum wage employee. For the same price, you could provide an employee recognition system for your entire organization and drastically reduce turnover. Tips to know when to invest in recognition: If you’ve started a business… it’s now! Go to the parking lot at 4:30pm. If it’s empty, you need it. Walk up to a conversation of your employees. If they stop talking, there’s an issue with your culture. Management and team players have an “us vs. them” dynamic. Just ask, “what can we do better?” or “where can we improve employee engagement.” The #1 thing that comes back is that people don’t feel appreciated. Even if you’re in the office, there’s a 300 ft rule. If you’re about that distance from a fellow employee, you may as well live on the other side of the planet. ASK your colleagues how they want to be recognized. SIMPLE! People seldom leave because of compensation, it won’t come up nearly as much in exit interviews as feeling unrecognized or under-valued. Learn More Connect with Tom: LinkedIn Also mentioned on this episode: First, Break All The Rules – Gallup Organization The Making of a Manager – Julie Zhuo David Zinger – “The Godfather of Employee Engagement” Corporate Culture & Performance – John Kotter & James Heskett How Zapier builds its 100% remote team Gallup “State of the American Workplace” on flexibility being a major priority for employees

Kaleah Baker, COO and Co-founder of BridesMade – Canada’s only bridesmaid dress rental service! After growing up in small town Saskatchewan, Kaleah completed her BBA in Marketing & Management at Bishop’s University, and her MBA at Wilfrid Laurier. Both schools are known for their tight-knit communities, so it’s no wonder that a collaborative culture would be a must within her own business. From startup to standout success story, Kaleah loves telling her entrepreneurship story. Some questions Tynan asks: How do you build a team of millennials leading millennials? If everyone isn’t full time, how do you motivate them? Your team is a well-travelled startup having gone through multiple incubators & accelerators. How have these experiences changed your company and what elements of their cultures have you adopted into yours over time? As a female-only team, how do those dynamics affect your team and what is your plan for the future to grow your team? What are your tips, from experience, for navigating fast-growth? In this episode, you will learn: Finding people who have previous experience with high-level performance such as in sport or music is an excellent way to build a team that can perform at the high level required in a fast-growth startup. Ensuring there are elements of fun in people’s lives is profoundly important to startup culture. In a monthly All Hands Meeting, allowing for people to ask the leaders ANYTHING can be incredibly helpful in preventing conflict or issues down the road Within the incubator setting, such as at Communitech, there’s a concept of “accessible help.” Kaleah’s advice comes with a caveat however, you can book time with her or anyone whenever it’s needed… but it’s your responsibility to know what you want to talk to about and clarify that the meeting is between the correct people. At Communitech, she mentions that when people ask for your time, you typically give it to them with undivided attention… as long as it is with the right person to be respectful! In a bridesmaid dress company, women TEND to be a bit more passionate… so that extra 5% of passion does go a long way to hiring females. It is complex in a female-focused brand to integrate that first man onto your team. The plan for now is to see at a point of exponential growth (~50 people), men will certainly be part of the hiring plan. Ask your people what they want and avoid assuming or telling them what they do. LEARN MORE Connect with Kaleah: LinkedIn Also mentioned on this show: Communitech

One Canadian organization that has made one of the greatest global impacts is WE. We have the honour of hearing from Victoria MacDonald, their former Chief People Officer today for a brilliant discussion of millennials, translating values into actions & leading a team in a hyper-growth mode! Victoria is a 20-year veteran HR professional who is known for building cultures of alignment, accountability and high levels of engagement without pool tables, beer fridges or free food. Some questions Tynan asks: How do you come into a company as a new executive to bring change in a well-established, already world-class company culture? WE has an incredibly diverse set of roles in their 1000+ person organization. How do you hire so that across the organization, in the variety of roles & the types of people each require, to still hire aligned to your values? How do leaders, many of whom are struggling with this, translate their values into behaviours people know how to demonstrate at school? Are there tools & technology to help reinforce core values? What are some key learnings you’ve found that millennials need to thrive in the workplace? “Working with a purpose” is incredible, WE may even have it more easy than most, sometimes work still gets monotonous… how do you keep your workplace invigorated? In this episode, you will learn: Heading into a major growth-period that involves maturing as a company is highly complex. Adding a more diverse workforce (in WE’s case, adding more tenured employees bringing the average age from 24 to 30 years old). Most elements of your people programs much change including your offer letters, performance management processes, the way you set goals, even your career development conversations. WE sets out to always continuously improve, Co-Founders Marc & Craig Kielburger never let themselves think they’re “done.” WE doesn’t see their quarterly employee engagement surveys as a way to figure out whether people are “happy at work.” Rather, they use their surveys to find out: what is working, so they can do better at those what needs to be tweaked or changed > create plans against these things When Victoria created her detailed HR Roadmap, every item on this plan is directly related to something that has come out of their surveys. Hiring for core values such as “we move for purpose & positivity,” guide their interviews. 3 Day Orientation is also integral to having people understanding how to display values at work, this achieves cultural cohesion. Because this occurs in all offices around the world, there’s a similar employee experience across-the-board. What’s rarely discussed is that millennials go to work everyday to create a sense of community and to be with their friends. Nurturing that and giving people the opportunity to work with their friends is really important. LEARN MORE Connect with Victoria: LinkedIn

As you grow quickly, it's integral to listen and respond to the needs of your team. Tia Fomenoff, Senior Director of People & Culture at Thinkific gives her insights on this journey of growth. Some questions Tynan asks: What are company leaders today realizing is the most important thing for their businesses when it comes to culture? Are you seeing a lot of mobility (people bouncing around) between startups in your city? How do you deal with that? When a startup Founder & CEO decides to introduce a Director of People & Culture role, what are they thinking? As a non-native People & Culture leader, what has been the most challenging part of stepping into your role & what have you learned about yourself? How do you balance non-traditional experience with the need for the compliance that a Chartered Professional in Human Resources (CPHR) brings? How do you split up these responsibilities on your team? What is the difference between culture fit and culture add… and what does values fit seem to be something you look for when hiring? How do we build cultures where people speak up? How do we properly survey our employees? How do people at every level of the company bring forward ideas to leadership? What mistakes have you made in your hiring over time? In this episode, you will learn: Great recruitment becomes a primary competitive advantage in a high-paced, fast-growing tech cities How to transition from a different area of business (e.g. in Tia’s case, she was in marketing) to People & Culture (P&C) Having a non-strict-HR background can be an advantage for a leader in the P&C department, you can understand all the roles & their needs, how to help people grow & be happy opposed to having a key focus on compliance Diversity is very challenging to obtain when looking for culture fit. When you look for a values fit however, you will be rewarded in the beautiful diversity you have in your organization. Amazing to see that when people are encouraged to adopt the value of “We give a shit” how people will roll up their sleeves to pitch in when needed. Set up a channel for communication of new ideas to leadership! Having a flat structure internally allows for people to bring ideas forward to their people leader, even one level above without much feeling they are stepping out of place. Structuring your employee engagement surveys with (1) evidence-based questions, (2) net-promoter score (e.g. How likely are you to recommend working at Thinkific to a family or friend) and (3) free and open-ended questions (e.g. What’re your favourite things about working here? What are some things we can do better?). How to act on your employee’s suggestions, group them into themes, and then make them fully transparent by sharing them with the whole company so people know of the progress towards change and understand what is happening! Connect with Tia: LinkedIn EXCLUSIVE OFFER FOR CULTUREING LISTENERS: 1 month FREE with Thinkific plus $500 in Bonuses Also mentioned on this show: Chartered Professionals in Human Resources (CPHR) Blankslate Partners Applicant tracking systems options comeet greenhouse

Darcy Tuer is the Co-founder and CEO of ZayZoon. And doesn’t mess around. His company recently raised $15 million to increase employee financial wellness. As an experienced founder & personal growth geek, he offers a lot of wisdom to other culture builders out there! Most importantly, mastery has become a core component of their culture. You'll find out how Darcy provides leadership to this concept that so many aspire to obtain. Previously to ZayZoon, Darcy was co-founder and president of Spira Data Corp. for 11 years. In his tenure at Spira, Darcy and his team took the company from concept to processing over $3B annually in revenue and payroll data. In this episode, you will learn: Most of your employees experience financial stress which can affect their performance, their ability to work collaboratively and how they show up at work. The importance of onboarding and integration, also spending a lot of time with a new hire even before their first day. How a standard daily 15 min scrum is critical > takes process & discipline. Encouraging employees to have internal side-gigs becomes a crucial part of helping people build mastery and encourage innovative thinking. Daily scrums are also essential for accountability to align with the organization’s core values. Navigating the growth of your team and why it may be wise to bring on an additional, even third, co-founder to ensure you have all the skills needed to thrive as an organization. Conflict is best entered into if you put your ego aside. Navigating decision making with 2 doors, from Jeff Bezos. Essentially, if you can make a decision (e.g. walk through a door), and still come out of it easily (e.g. walk back through the door), you should do that swiftly to try. If you can’t walk out, spend a significant amount of time deliberating on the decision. How do you build high-performing people and sustain this type of environment? As you grow, jobs of your team are quite wide with multiple competencies, as opposed to when you grow, you may need someone who has deep competency in just, for example, enterprise sales. Maintain a high-performing environment by keeping them intimately connected to your customers, the people you serve and the impact you’re making. “Why are we doing this?” Only possible if you share across departments who don’t interact with customers as well. “Predict out of the gates, before you raise the capital, to show investors that you can within 80% of said prediction. That will engender a tremendous amount of confidence from the investor community; they’re looking for a great story, they’re looking for a great team, they’re looking for execution. Can you set a realistic plan where you can achieve certain milestones with the capital available to you, and progress by de-risking the business.” “If I’ve ever seen a common denominator with the successful founders I’ve seen is a grit and determination, along with the team you surround yourself with.” Connect with Darcy: LinkedIn

In today’s workplace where diversity and inclusion are paramount to a business’ success, we must consider all the ways to make an inclusive environment possible for our employees. What is often missed is their spirituality, a notoriously taboo subject at work, yet incredibly important to billions of people worldwide. But why? If we all agree that we are body, soul AND spirit, shouldn’t we explore a bit of what it could look like to start to include the 33% of our employees that we faithfully ignore? Our guest today is Mike Maeshiro, an expert in spiritual intelligence, an entrepreneur, business leader, and a pastor. Most likely you’ll listen and be taken aback at the way Mike approaches certain leadership situations, how he motivates his team and how he assesses the environment at his workplace and how you can too! Some questions Tynan asks: How can we define spiritual intelligence? How can leaders ensure that their employees feel safe during difficult What is the cost of NOT beginning to incorporate elements of spirituality into your day-to-day at work? What should our posture be towards are employees… are they human “resources” or our greatest “asset”? Is there a better way to look at our team members? In this episode, you will learn: How agreeing with things brings them into our environments. When our employees agree with shame, they leak that into the work environment and it affects our productivity and the company atmosphere. Ways to discern the spiritual climate at your workplace. > 1) Looking at your team and what each member’s “normal” is, and adjusting your environment so they can truly show up their best at work. 2) Paying attention to your physical body and emotions, checking-in regarding what might be “off.” The primary way to deal with difficult or “hard-to-have” conversations is to approach it with love at the center… come in very proposing, invitational and asking a lot of questions How to stay consistently kind and helpful as a leader and build an impressive level of trust. Also mentioned on this show: Mike’s Online Courses Google employees dedicating 20% of their time for play & experimentation Patty McCord’s thoughts on retention being a potentially unhelpful measurement Connect with Mike Maeshiro: Website Instagram Twitter

Guarding your company culture is important, so we dive deep on how to ensure there is little disruption to your culture when introducing virtual assistants to your team. Today’s episode is all about Virtual Assistants, Remote Workers & how all this fits within your current company cultures. We are proud to feature Virtual Gurus, once a little remote working agency with a team of 10 people, now a team of 150 people, considered the largest freelancing platform in Canada. Today we’re uncovering some of the secrets surrounding the mysterious world of remote work and virtual assistants, so tune in now! Some questions Tynan asks: How can companies looking to hire a VA get over their hesitancy to this new way of building your team? Do we not all do more remote work than we think? How do you work with VAs to ensure they’re supported, especially since they work by the minute and not on salary? What does it look like for a virtual assistant to get up-to-speed to best perform the tasks required by the hiring company? How can a virtual assistant or team member actually integrate within someone’s company culture? What can a Virtual Assistant DO and NOT DO? What are some examples of how VAs have concretely built businesses & fostered growth? If I’m a client of a Virtual Assistant company and now my VA is doing a significant amount of work, what does it look like to incorporate your VA into your team and company culture? What does a company that organizes and leads a cohort of VAs look like? What is your vision for a company that works with one of your assistants? In this episode, you will learn: The need for your VA to be in a community of collaboration and accountability with other VAs. The importance of complete transparency with your assistant when you hire a virtual team member, time-based (to-the-minute) tracking and productivity, a major differentiator in today’s age of a distracted workforce Helpful tips on “showing up and staying productive” when working from home. The professionalism of VAs is paramount, not only to it being a worthwhile investment but also for the VAs to do quality work & enjoy the process. Virtual Assistants can support businesses in growth from managing emails and calendars, to website support, development and social media. What a typical process of working with a VA company looks like and how to slowly & patiently offload tasks that you’re not strong in or enjoy doing to your VA(s) and you can go back to running your business, doing what you’re best at. Connect with Bobbie Racette and her team: Hire a Virtual Guru using promo code “CultureING” for 15% off for the first 4 months of your Monthly Subscription LinkedIn Also mentioned on this show: The need for social connection in the workplace amidst the increase of technological advances