52. The Whole Person Workplace

Intro: Duration:

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Hey everybody, it's Jeff Hunt, your host of Human Capital produced by GoalSpan. I rarely talk about GoalSpan, but just as a reminder, we help humans work better together with great performance management software in the US and 13 other countries, the last few years have demonstrated the need to better support the whole person in the work.

This includes every part of what they bring to work. Their needs and wants, their passions, and even their personal situations. Employees are not your family, but understanding and supporting their needs is one key to long term sustainable business success. If you can create a whole person workplace, it will help you attract the best talent, keep people engaged, and ultimately lead them to treat your customers better.

My guest today is Dr. Scott Behson, who is a professor of management, and he's a Silberman Global Faculty Fellow at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Scott is a leading expert in work life wellness and supportive workplaces. He's the author of three books most recently, The Whole Person Workplace, which is based on his research and interviews with over four dozen business leaders in their journeys navigating business success and employee wellbeing.

Welcome, Scott.

Scott Behson:

Hi, thank. I'm so happy to be here.

Topic 1. Who or what inspired you along the way? (01:21)

Jeff Hunt:

It's great to have you on the show. I'm really looking forward to unpacking your book and what this concept of the whole person workplace looks like. Before we do that, let's start with having our listeners get to know you a little. Just give us a short career summary, both in academia and otherwise.

Share if there was anyone who really inspired you along the way.

Scott Behson:

Great. Yeah, so I've been a long-time work life scholar and professor, so my 1999 dissertation was in work life kind of issues. But yeah, so I've been a long-time management professor teaching things like human resources and things like organizational behavior and supervisory management.

But then I got to like mid-career as an academic and I had a mid-career crisis a little bit where I was getting tired of writing these academic articles. That like another a hundred management professors would read. And that was about it, right? And I wanted to have more impact. And as a work life scholar, I'm like.

Who needs to know good information about this? And it's working parents and their employers. So that kind of started me on a journey of doing much more public facing, business facing, practitioner-oriented work and, and it started actually with a blog for working Dads, which then culminated in my first book, which is called The Working Dad Survival Guide, and that was back in 2016.

And also, that was working with companies on their work life policies, especially about how do we enroll and motivate men to participate more in things like parental leave or in the planning process of work life programs and things like that. So then I shifted my work to more the employer side, and that culminated with the book that that launched just about a year ago.

The whole person workplace. And that's really the culmination of a lot of my, again, these interviews and we'll get into that, but also my, I've always done side work doing workshops and consulting and things like that with leading companies. And so that's what this book and some of my work really is about, is what are lots of leading companies doing when it comes to, especially leading through these last two very turbulent years.

And I think that requires a whole person approach that we'll talk about.

Topic 2. The journey of writing a book while understanding the whole person (03:29)

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. And the great resignation is underscoring or highlighting the need for employers to really take a look at the whole person. So, when you're writing your book, I know there were a few twists and turns, can you share about that journey for you?

Scott Behson:

I started, I signed the book deal in like winter 2019 and started outlining and everything in the early 2020 and then March 2020 happens, right? And actually I was actually teaching at my university's partner business school in Paris at the time, and I was one of those people you saw in the news who flew back home in a hurry, crowded airports and everything.

I was in there, but it really changed. So, I had lined up all these interviews with like chief human. Officers and small business owners and other business leaders, and it was all set up for April, May, June to do the core interviews for the book. And the book was really just gonna be focused on how could we be a more family forward or family supportive workplace talking to these business leaders during the initial height of the, when Covid first smacked us, it was interesting cuz I talked to them right when they were thinking, really, Oh my God, how do I keep this place in business?

And how do I take care of my people? And, but the convergence on everybody I talked to was like, it was actually one challenge. The two of those things were like, intertwined. And that really led to the, the insight that it's beyond. It's not just work family, it's not just whatever.

We have to really rethink how we take care of our employees in a whole person way. And in fact, the whole person, that was not my initial working title of the book or anything that came out of an interview when someone said it so beautifully. And if you don't mind me quoting them, this Chief Human Resources Officer said we have to realize we get the whole person through the door and we get their backs and their hands and their minds and their hearts, and that they're all at different places in their lives.

And we have to do what's best to take care of them because first off, it's the right thing to do. But secondly, because they'll take care of us and that that just encapsulated it so well that I took it for my book title. And because it really backs in hands and minds and hearts, right?

So that means, cuz that's physical, mental, that your priorities and your caregiving and your other things that are outside of just work that are really important to you. So it really talks about all those different facets, plus everybody's at different phases in their lives. So it's not just parents with young kids, it's everybody in a four generation work who deals with all different types of life challenges.

So we need to really be open to all of these.

Jeff Hunt:

Which really, I know you're gonna talk about this, but it speaks to the importance of really understanding each person and where they're at with their back, their hands, their mind, their mind, their heart.

Scott Behson:

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean it so whole person workplace values.

So I think that's where you start value employees is whole people, and we'll get into that a little bit more too. But how it expresses itself is very different based on the employee, their work, their needs, your culture, your, the dimensions of your business. So, I really made sure to try to highlight lots of different industries, lots of different sizes of businesses, blue-collar businesses, hourly employee businesses, and the, the same values apply.

But for example, I, when I spoke with or did some research on wellness programs, people who work on oil rig, they're not gonna get into like touchy feely wellness and meditation apps, core strength classes and exercise programs that help them not get injured at work is a really important way to help their backs in their hands.

Right? And that demonstrates care for them as people in addition to, that's obviously a good thing for the workplace if there's fewer injuries and accidents.

Jeff Hunt:

So it's really gonna be a customized approach based on the organization and its space that it's in, its size, which industry, et cetera. It's also gonna be specific to the employees that work for that organization.

It sounds like you're describing the importance of understanding the value that people bring to work in a new way. In other words if I have an apple tree in the backyard and I look at that as an asset and it's only returning apples, I'm gonna lose a lot of the beauty that's associated with that plant, that tree that I have in my backyard when the apple blossoms calm, and if I'm not paying attention to that.

Scott Behson:

I really like that. That's a really neat way to think of it. It's nice visual. Yeah. That I think you're right on.

Topic 3. Strategies to show care to your employees, understanding the value of people at work (08:00)

Jeff Hunt:

You mentioned the hands, the back, the heart, the head as the person. Talk about a little bit more pragmatically, Scott, what some of the strategies are internally for organizations around their decisions, their benefits, what they, how they approach the employee at work in every aspect.

Talk about pragmatically, what that looks like.

Scott Behson:

Yeah, so again, it's gonna differ in lots of different places. So, let me take two examples from like big businesses, so B A S F, which is a company I've highlighted, and they have everybody from corporate types to like people literally working in chemical plants, right?

So, it's a big wide variety of employees and they have, if you go to their website for like their HR or careers website, they have what's called the periodic table of benefits. And it's really, it's looks like the periodic table of elements. Right? It's all color coded. Yeah. And so really they're a big organization that can invest in lots of things, right?

But it's, here are our financial supports, here are our wellness supports, here are our work life supports. And they're all color coded in different columns. And, but here's our development, here's our recognition, here's our ends, here's our workplace safety stuff. So, a big organization, one of the things a big organization could do.

Is provide lots of different ways that employees can plug in to different types of benefits, the ones that are most appropriate for them, depending on where they are in their lives, etcetera. But when I talked to the people at bsf, they were also really proud that the people working in chemical plants get the same kind of.

Educational benefits and wellness program benefits that anyone else gets in the organization. So if they were, wanted to take a community college class or anything else to further their education or their skills at work, it's paid for. And so it's not, The corporate office gets this and you work in class, people don't.

I thought that was really nice of them. Adidas I love this example. They opened a new facility, This is out in Germany, a new facility in a city they had not operated in before and in addition to hiring locally, they were transferring employees from other facilities. And what they did, and it was during like late spring, early summer, and so for the families that were getting tr, the employees who were being transferred and their families were getting relocated, one of the things they did, lots of companies do relocation services and lots of other things, but they.

Booked summer camp, kindergarten slots, things like that for the children of these employees. And that's just, if you think about if any of us moved from one city to another, right? And you're a parent of young children, like your support network's gone, right? Maybe you had local family, maybe you had a babysitter you really liked.

Maybe you had daycare that you really liked, that's all gone and you have to find it. Adidas took that off of their plate for at least the transition part. And I think that's just a really smart one-off approach. I talked to, again, this food store in, in a small town, but also I had a kind of a general store in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and they do things there.

They not as extensive or not as formalized. But they're small enough that they can really hear their employees, listen to them, and come up with solutions they had, so this store in Trucky, they had a husband and wife. They have two locations in Trucky. They have 80 employees to account all the part-timers and stuff like that.

They had a husband-and-wife team that was working for them. They had a baby, and the first thought the parents had was like, split our shifts so that one of us could always be the baby, but the boss was like, Wait a second, then when are you ever together as a family? So you're like, just bring the baby.

Let's see if that works. So actually it turns out like one of them usually just has wore the baby for a while and in the back room they had a pack and play and it was fine. We were like, Well, we'll try it. And it might not have worked, but it did. Now this kid is seven years old both mom and dad still work there and the kid is grew up in this store.

Knows all the regular customers. All the regular customers ask about her. She's like the mascot of the place and just had these ripple, if the business owner was telling me about people come and ask about the girl all the time and it creates a little bit of community. Not just in internally, but in the community for a local business.

Jeff Hunt:

I love those examples that you shared, Scott, because if you think about the Adidas one, what was involved there? It was really a matter of being proactive, knowing that they have a whole group of employees that's going to be moving to a new location, and they needed fast community, they needed ways to get set up and support.

It was being thoughtful. So they knew their employee population and they responded accordingly. And if you think about the example in Trucky, it's something that is not super costly from a financial standpoint and it's an experiment. And I think oftentimes we forget that the decisions we make are not terminal.

We can always change them. If they're not working, we can do something different, but in that case, you created more loyalty, more engagement. You really created a sense of knowing and understanding what was important. I wanna stay on this line for a minute because you're describing strategies that go beyond corporate strategies, which are really more about knowing people and having deeper relational connections at work with peers maybe your direct reports, your manager,

Topic 4. The whole person concept (13:00)

Jeff Hunt:

Is that part of the Whole Person workplace concept?

Scott Behson:

Yeah, so it's really some of the core things about a whole person approach is listening to employees really well and getting to know them, having empathy for what their situation is, and then if you could figure out a solution that helps them, great.

No should not be the first answer or the first thought when it is something possible. No might be the eventual answer, but we should pursue things first. Oh, we work in a food store. It's not like we can't have a baby here. That could have been the No, but they were like, Let's try it and it worked out and they food in retail, this is what a hundred percent turnover industry and year to year and these two employees are still there seven years later.

That's pretty good. Although that wasn't exactly calculation at the time. Right. But yeah, so strategy is, is corporate strategy, which is how do we position ourselves to the marketplace and get customers and compete against competitors and substitutes, etcetera. That's one thing that what I'm really talking about is your, in your strategy internally for your culture, and again, listening.

So small business can just talk and listen. Large businesses need to set up good systems of communication. And also local management can make sure to listen as well. And you're talking about just understanding the person for a second. Can I give you one more thing? Back when I was in grad school, actually I was on a co-ed softball team, was like a pretty good one.

But I had this teammate and she had just graduated college. She was a college softball player. This team was important to her in her new life because like it was connections to her athletics. So she was interviewing for a job and during the interview process, and then she got hired. And then during the onboarding process they talked, they got to know her as a person and they found out how important this team was to her.

So, the next game we had after she got hired, we go back to the bar afterwards and we get a couple pitchers of beer or whatever, nothing major. And at the end of the night when we're going to settle up, the waitress is, Nope this has all been taken care of by the boss of this teammate of ours. It's probably what, a hundred bucks for beer?

Right? She could have floated out of the bar that night. Think about the recognition, right? This is, we care about you, not just for what you can return for us, but we care about the things that are important to you. And your softball team is important to you. It's not like a baby, it's not elder care, right?

But this is important to you, and so it's important to us. And so we're just gonna recognize it with a little bit of resources and creativity.

Jeff Hunt:

Even in that case, with the softball example, it was a hundred dollars, but it did require some intentionality about getting to know that person and what's important to them.

That usually requires a regular relational connection on things that are going on outside of your performance at work. It's not just, are you a producer? Have you met quota? Have you achieved your goals? But hey, what's going on in your personal life? And I think if we can do this well, that's when we really see the fruits of our labor come to fruition.

But we do it for the right reasons. We do it because it's the right thing to do. Getting to know. They spend one-third of their entire waking lives at work, right? So if we get to know them, it's just a much more fulfilling workplace. But the reality is it does pay dividends though.

Topic 5. The ROI of being more human in the workplace, assessing the effectiveness of your policies (16:26)

Speak to the ROI for a minute.

For financial people that are out there. I might be a CFO listening to this and thinking this is all touchy-feely. That's fine. And by the way, I don't know that I can really afford to do what Adidas did in my company. Maybe I have 250 employees, but I still can afford to pay for people's education the way that I'd like to, or some of these other things. So, what is the long-term sort of ROI?

Scott Behson:

Yeah, so there's in one of my MBA classes, I flashed a few of these statistics up just the other day, so I have them top of mind, which is in a recent Harris Fast Company poll said 58% of middle income employees are at least on the lookout for other opportunities, and that would scare the hell outta me as an employer.

And then McKinsey is something like 40%, or a little more than that are like 40% are doing even more being open. They're kind of looking at looking around at least. And that would scare me too. And, but then Gallup, they did some research and highly engaged employees versus like meh engaged employees, how much more money it would take each of these groups to go to another job.

And for people who are not particularly engaged, almost any increase in pay anywhere else, they'd go. Great resignation at in retail and hospitality and things like that. That's exactly it, right? Like, why am I gonna stay here when this place is paying $3 more an hour? Because it's not an engaging work environment.

Right? But for highly engaged employees, it takes something like 25% more money than you're currently making to make the jump, money eventually talks. There's a lot there in between. So if I can engage my employees, keep them emotionally invested in their work, help them feel like they're developing, that they're valued, that they matter, that they have a purpose, that you know they're doing work that's speaks to their talents and their personality, then we're so much more likely to keep them.

And if you think about losing a good employee in everything that entails. I know there's metrics about how much it costs, but it, it's more than just the cost of replacing somebody and getting them up and running. It's like you have a hole in your organization for a little while. Right. I know it's a little clunky mechanism to get to the ROI here, but just employee retention is, the name of the game right now in such as height, labor market, that providing people the flexibility they need or even just making sure that when we do our goal setting and performance reviews that we're assigning people work that they care about or they feel like they develop like so basic.

Job development, career development, that kind of stuff is part of this too. It's not all just like the add on whatever. It's are we providing them a good work that really engages them or a workplace that is welcoming for them?

Jeff Hunt:

For organizations that are interested in jumping into this, obviously they can go find your book and read it and learn how to implement some of these policies, but how do they assess their effectiveness as an organization? With regard to the whole person workplace, can you use things like surveys? Is it more informal? How do they know how well they're doing in this area?

Scott Behson:

Yeah. You could do this in an formal or informal way. So, one of my favorite companies is Ryan, which is a financial services firm based out of Dallas. But they all this recognition there are result results only workplace, even pre Covid.

People could work wherever, whenever they wanted to, et cetera. They win all these awards for being an amazing workplace, and they are, they're amazing Success story. I was talking to their chief human resources officer and he said they have three levels of metrics in their organization. The first is they use Gallup's 12.

No, actually they're newer thing on thriving. So, they use that as the first thing management leadership looks at. So, our people thriving in their careers, in their physical and mental health, in their social and community needs, and I forget the other, but our employees thriving in this and they do regular surveying of this as we go along.

And then secondly is how happy are our customers? And then they look at the money and, but he was saying they're all the same. Like they all go up together. They all go down together and they measure the performance of individual managers on the engagement level and the turnover rates in different units.

And you said also the fact is when they switch to their new system, they started transitioning in like 2008 and had fully transitioned to this in like 2012. A lot of managers were skeptical, right? Because if I can't see you working, how do I know if you're doing your job, etcetera.

So they first off said managers, you gotta get on board with this and you're gonna be responsible for, for those things. But also they were like, We gotta give you something to make it easier for you. They changed their performance evaluation from somewhat of a typical, traditional system. But every employee now just has a dashboard of five or six, depending on their role metrics that are continuously tracked towards their goals.

If their revenue generating, what their revenue is, if they're not, it's like NBO goal setting and they can see it every day, you could go into your account on their internet and see it. Their managers can see it for all their employees up the chain. Basically, they said, Well, managers, we're making it easier for you to figure out the performance of your people in return for this.

You have to be as flexible as you can be. I guess to finish this answer, the most important thing an organization can do if they wanna get started and they want to really track this stuff, is they really have to, you have to think long and hard about articulating your values, and I would suggest. Whole person workplace values has to be among the forefront of these values.

But when you do that, then you know exactly how you measure and exactly how you implement is going to vary, but I think it's important to build. So a question I've gotten is, what if somebody doesn't, or you give somebody the flexibility, but then they blow off work and it's like, we're not running daycare here.

Like there has to be accountability. A high trust work environment will over time, and in most cases, get you better performance. It's not for everybody and maybe those aren't the best people for you, but if you don't have accountability, then it's just discretionary to do the right thing. You need to have accountability behind what you're doing, not because you're trying to catch people doing something wrong, but you have to make sure what you're doing is on the right path.

Topic 6. The first steps in becoming a whole person workplace (22:49)

Jeff Hunt:

If I'm a company and I've never really heard of these concepts, what are the one, two, or three things that I should just do?

Scott Behson:

I think number one would be to listen in some way and to understand the situations of your employees. And again, the big workplaces, right? What you wanna do is provide lots of things that people could plug into a smaller organization, really talk to them, or like what Adidas did.

They identified a target group that had a particular need and they did something there. So listening, getting employee input, there is like job one. And then secondly, maybe picking something that has a fairly good impact that you.

Really fully implement so that you're building the trust around it. You don't wanna be like, Hey, we have this whole new thing.

We're a whole person workplace, and then you don't really follow through on a lot of things. I'd rather do fewer things, at least to start the flywheel effect one organization. Again, little thing they used to have an, this is pre Covid story, but they used to have an all hands meeting every morning at eight 30 in the morning.

This relatively small business, and a few of these employees, they had to drop off like a kid had daycare and a kid at school and this and that and then, and it was like, Oh my God. Like all that stress to get there at eight 30 and they were getting there at 8:35 or whatever anyway, but they were waking up at six 30 with this pit in their stomach about how am I gonna get this?

I'm rushing little kids and all that. And so one time the managers just went, to this guy looks pretty stressed, came in 10 minutes late and he is like, pulled him over after the meeting, was like, what's going on? He's, it's so nerve-wracking. You get here at 30 and it's like the, the leader was like, Oh my God, I never thought of that.

Let's make all hands at 10. And you think about for whoever was in that situation, waking up every morning with a pit in the stomach might mean you go to bed with a pit in your stomach, right? And you think about how a small change can really have a pretty good impact on somebody's life, right? Maybe this person can like sleep easier now.

Jeff Hunt:

And it's also the contrast of them entering into that all hands meeting in a place of stress and anxiety or in a place of spaciousness and being able to be more open and listen better and present correct?

Scott Behson:

Yeah. So that's the whole thing, right? So if you're doing better outside of work, you tend to do better inside of work.

Topic 7. Lighting round questions (25:00)

Jeff Hunt:

Okay. Scott, are you ready for the lightning round?

Scott Behson:

Absolutely. Ding ding ding.

Jeff Hunt:

Share what you're most grateful for?

Scott Behson:

I know it's cliche to say, but obviously my family is the thing that's most important to me and the thing I'm really most grateful for in my life.

I married just a fantastic partner for my life. She's amazing. The son who is the joy and the pride of my life, and so that's what I'm most grateful for in terms of career and work. I am grateful that as a university professor, I have a career that really enables me to have the work life balance that works for me and the autonomy to pursue.

Other things right? And to craft my career, I feel very confident. I do a great job teaching my classes, doing my traditional research, and doing my service to the university. But as long as I do that, they're like, great write books. Go do this. Go talk on a podcast. Go. And so I, I just feel very fortunate.

I'm in a situation where I have so much kind of freedom to craft my own career.

Jeff Hunt:

Sounds like a great place to be, so.

Scott Behson:

It really is I thank my lucky stars every day.

Jeff Hunt:

What's the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

Scott Behson:

It's gonna relate to my students cuz I, not that I'm the leader of my students or anything, but I used to get very upset.

Personally, when like students would blow things off or do a crappy job because they was like, they're not respecting this, whatever, and my wife once said, Scott, they're not doing it to you and they're doing it to themselves. That gave me a little more empathy. Again, having empathy for the people who are under your care leads you to do some things that you might have not have thought of before.

Jeff Hunt:

Very meaningful. Yeah. Who's one person you would interview if you could living or not?

Scott Behson:

So keeping it to the workplace, I would love to go back to like the Frederick Taylors of the world and tell them, try to convince them to not just focus only on like performance inefficiency, but also on bigger picture employee issues.

Jeff Hunt:

You've written a bunch of books, but I'm sure you read a lot too. Do you have a top book recommendation?

Scott Behson:

Yeah. Right now I'm reading this amazing book and I couldn't find it today, but I've been reading, so I don't have the author's name, but it's called America A Beginner's Guide, and it's fascinating. It's written from the perspective of this woman talked to all these refugees who came to America, but it's written like in a single voice as a refugee coming to America, explaining to people who are about to come to America about what it's like transitioning to living in America.

Jeff Hunt:

And Scott, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Scott Behson:

I mentioned up top that I was dissuaded during my doctoral program from like pursuing work family and work life as an area of research and work because it was feminized and it wasn't like as legitimate as doing some other pieces of management.

But I did receive some good advice during that time, which is you gotta do the things you're passionate about and the things you think you could have impact on, and just to follow your path. And it is true that in everyone's career you face barriers and you face things, and it's easy to give up sometimes, but as long as you're doing the necessary look for opportunities to, to build the path you really want to have.

And so the best advice was to, to really figure that out and follow it. And where your path won't lead you exactly down a straight line. But you gotta keep that in mind that you just don't want other people to dictate what happens to you.

Jeff Hunt:

Your passions and motivations are good teachers, aren't they?

Scott Behson:

Yeah, they really are.

Jeff Hunt:

And if you had to summarize our talk, what's the most important takeaway to leave our listeners with?

Scott Behson:

I think the thing is, this might seem like a really big mountain to climb, building a whole person workplace. It's really not. You start where you are and you make progress, and you do that with listening, empathy, and creativity.

And if you do that, you'll be well on your way. And finally, just have to say, if I could, going back to your very first question, I meant to really say this, but my career path and everything I came up with a little mission statement for myself about three, four years ago, and it's, I wanna make the world a better place, one workplace at a time.

And I think that for the workplace, and you mentioned this before, is really such an important part of so many people's lives, right? If you have a good workplace experience, it adds to your life. You have a crappy wor workplace experience. It. Affects your life negatively in so many ways, and people spend so much time at work.

So, can you make your workplace a better place? You know that that would be my challenge to you. And if you think about it, there's thousands of different ways on any budget that you could get started doing that.

Jeff Hunt:

Well, Scott, thank you so much for coming on the show today and bringing all this wisdom to our listeners.

Scott Behson:

Thank you, Jeff. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Outro (34:31)

Closing music jingle/sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Thanks for listening to the show this week. We release new episodes every other Tuesday. Let me know what you thought of this episode by emailing humancapitalgoalspan.com. Human capital is produced by GoalSpan. Subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. And please share this podcast with your colleagues, team, or friends. Thanks for being human kind.