David 0:00

There is a ton of talk in the industry, and there has been for a long time about workplace well-being. Seems that everybody has their own definition, everybody has a different idea of what it can do for you. We thought today we'd talk about what it really means and why does it matter to your clients? We'll find out on this episode of Shift Shapers.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

This is the Shift Shapers Podcast, connecting benefits advisors with thought leaders and entrepreneurs who are shaping the shifts in the industry. And now, here's your host, David Saltzman.

David 0:34

And to try to answer that question, or to definitely answer the question, we've invited Haley Profit. Haley is owner of Haley Profit Consulting, a Kansas City-based firm. And we were just talking about the Super Bowl as we record this. It was just last weekend, so we had a lot to talk about. And they're very happy out there. See the big smile on her face? They're very happy out there. And she understands both the problem and knows those answers. So welcome, Haley.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Great timing on a very important conversation to be had.

David 1:01

Absolutely. And thank you for taking time. So give us a quick, you know, minute-long synopsis of your journey to be doing what you're doing today.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Sure. I'm very blessed to have been in this industry for nearly 20 years now, really watching the true evolution of workplace wellness and into well-being and making a very distinct correlation between high-performing cultures, how we engage employees, how we assess the workplace and meaningful work that is happening there to ultimately live happier, healthier lives.

David 1:32

And so what's your CV? I mean, do you come to this just with 20 years of knowledge, or is this something you studied or both.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

So I'm privileged to have had almost 20 years working in the industry, being embedded in corporations, you know, having the experience goes a really long way. Understanding the language and the terminology, the needs, but I grew up in this space. I mean, I've always been someone that was active and involved in these types of conversations, which led to my bachelor's degree being in this focus area. And taking that as something I needed to own and I needed to decide my passion level has continued to drive not only the work I do, the work I support, because that is how we make change. That is how we evolve and grow. And ultimately, you know, what I'm focusing on is helping a workplace drive healthy people, drive healthy teams, healthy leadership, which then influence cultures in our communities and ultimately that healthy community.

David 2:27

And that's huge. So you you started by talking about terminology. So let's level set for the audience. What is, if there is one overarching definition of well-being in the corporate sense, in the workplace sense, what is it?

SPEAKER_03 2:39

And I think we all know that the answer most likely is going to be, well, there isn't necessarily one. It's very intentional that workplaces evolve into a space of knowing autonomously what they want it to be. There's ample research. There are certainly frameworks that I provide when places aren't sure where to start. But ultimately what we're looking at is it's not just about being active and being, you know, quote unquote healthy. It's truly how am I as an individual? Am I living a thriving life? Am I working on integration of multiple dimensions of what my well-being looks like as a person, as a human? And then especially what I am doing is having the conversations with clients and organizations on what does that look like from a business perspective? What do they define well-being as? Because they as an employer may have a different definition. And so how can you merge the two together to truly support the individual and the workplace?

David 3:35

Well, I mean, back in the in the old days, 10 years ago, well-being was wellness, and it really more centered around physical stuff. Has it broadened now?

SPEAKER_03 3:45

You know, what I would say to that, David, is really it's been similar all along, but what we're seeing is it's the acceptance of using, again, I'm going to go back to language, using language around holistic well-being in the workplace. When you think 10, 20, 30 years ago and it was the standard wellness program, you know, the language wasn't necessarily focused on things as much like happiness, or it wasn't focused as much on that holistic care, whole person mentality. And so really what it is is just the trajectory that this is gone, the openness to the discussions, the key recognition that talking about things like happiness and thriving and building a strategy around it embrace the same things that individuals are seeking to find their own sense of well-being and in the workplace. It's that shared responsibility between how many hours a week our employees are spending in the workplace to just embrace we do want them happier, healthier, and thriving. And so when they come into our environment, how are we at least acknowledging and embracing them?

David 4:49

What are some of the pain points that you run into most frequently and that you would say are probably common to most organizations?

SPEAKER_03 4:55

You know, that's a funny question because this has been something that I've experienced for the duration of my 20 years in the industry, and it's time from an individual's perspective. It's I don't have time to prioritize my well-being. And so it certainly is changing that paradigm shift, assessing why that is and how the perceptions can be changed. How do we look at burnout and stress and drive that to start prioritizing things in their life instead of putting them on the back burner? And then time from an organizational standpoint is the reality as well. You know, if nothing else, during the pandemic, we've seen managers and leaders are being tasked with even more. It's managing new hybrid remote models that perhaps a lot of businesses may have not had that before. And so when I say time, it truly is how do you not put this on the plate of a leader, a manager, a supervisor with the expectation that, you know, we're asking them to do more, we're asking them to personally care for the team and instead have those really intentional conversations about what it does mean. You know, it doesn't have to take more time, but it is being intentional. It's being efficient with the time that we do have when we're together to embrace this culture of well-being.

David 6:09

A lot of folks, when they talk about well-being, talk uh almost simultaneously about bringing in a cartload full of vendors. Are there things that employers and organizations can do on their own without, as you said, taking up a ton of time or having to go out and find a bunch of vendors to fill in the backlog of all those well-being things?

SPEAKER_03 6:29

Absolutely. The reality is, and I think we all see it, there aren't endless dollars to be spent. And so how do we look at, okay, what is our commitment level? Now, I want to break for a minute, and the caveat to that is there's also setting a tone in a workplace culture of what you are investing in benefits and what you are investing in programs. And if you suddenly have zero budget for well-being, then does it really elevate it to the same level that you may be intending for it too? And so, what does that message send? So I always kind of break and pause in the conversation with leaders in that sense. But going back to what they can do, absolutely. And I work with a handful of clients where they just want to start with an audit. How can we audit our workplace well-being to have a sense of here's the perspective from a leadership level, here's the perspective from middle management or employee level. How do we bring that together and then reflect on what does this mean? Where are we today? Where do we want to drive it to? And then what do we want to measure along the way?

David 7:30

So as you get called in on cases, I mean, every organization has a culture, whether they realize it or not. And some of it is awesome and some of it is terrible. In the case of a company that's got terrible culture, what might the leaders of that organization start seeing as symptoms that, hey, we need to look at this and do something different?

SPEAKER_03 7:50

You know, I absolutely agree with you, David. You know, one of the best things that a leader can take in is what is that water cooler talk? What's the talk outside of the office? To your point, culture's there, whether you address it, whether you are setting it as a priority and have actionable tasks that you're outlining to achieve the culture that you want, it needs to be intentional and meaningful. And so it's picking up on what are the stress levels? And you don't have to necessarily ask. If you watch the workplace, if you watch the level of work and performance being done, if you watch the interactions of the people, you're gonna garner just as much. I'm a huge believer in surveys, but we all know we don't want to over-survey. So how are you utilizing the pulse surveys? And if that isn't a place that you're at, by simply, I always say it's listen to learn. If they're listening in the workplace, they're gonna pick up on all of these things. And if there isn't a place of trust and care and compassion and empathy in the workplace, it's gonna be really hard to ask for the feedback because they're either not gonna be transparent and upfront, or you're not gonna get the most honest feedback from them. So how can you just start to listen? How can you have focus groups is another really successful way of achieving that.

David 9:05

But entrepreneurs build businesses and they get caught in the vortex of the culture that they believe works. And sometimes a firm will go from three or four employees to 15 or 20 or 25 employees, and all of a sudden all is not well in the Golden City. If I'm an entrepreneur, if I'm an employer who's built this business, what do I start seeing? What's that behavior that I might expect to see that would trigger me to go, boy, something's rotten in Denmark. I gotta, I've got to work on this. I've got to call in somebody like Haley and help us get out of this mess. Because as I now add my next 20 employees, it's gonna become even worse.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

You know, I am gonna go back to language. It what is the language the workplace is using? And if you're hearing things or seeing things that aren't in alignment with the culture that you want, how do you change that? How do you begin to address it? Not only what is the leadership language and what are you hearing from the leaders, but what's the language from the employee? And then we all know language is also translating into the behaviors. What are we seeing? Are they coming in right at the start of the day and leaving at the very end of the day? Is it sitting in that office by themselves? You know, what about body language are we starting to pick up on too? How's the connectedness in the office? I mean, if organizations are really saying that their people are their greatest asset, then if poor well-being is directly impacting their performance, it is conversely impacting the business's performance. And that is part of this culture discussion. I know for a lot of businesses, culture and engagement are a very different pillar than perhaps well-being. And really, for me, the philosophy and the work I focus on is more about how do you start to blend the two? How is well-being supportive, supplementary to enhancing the culture, maintaining the culture if you have a great one, but also recognizing culture and engagement don't stay the same forever. They are an evolution. That's okay. It's a great thing. So this isn't about we're laying the foundation, here's our goal. Once we achieve it, we're done focusing on it. So, how does that strategy continually evolve?

David 11:15

So you wouldn't necessarily say that culture is downstream from well-being. What you're saying is they're kind of two parts of the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Absolutely. I see them as two rivers that are merging together. And how do you enhance both of them by leveraging either in the given moment an opportunity that you need to?

David 11:36

A lot of times we hear folks talk about, especially if you're an advisor and you're talking to C-suite, we hear them talking about, okay, what's my ROI on this? And another measure that I know you use is VOI. Explain what those are, explain why they matter to executives and how you track them. To say, hey, if we make this change, how am I going to know it's actually done what we intended it to do? Besides maybe employees don't grumble or dash out the door all at once at 5 p.m.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Yeah, absolutely. You know, VOI isn't necessarily a new concept. I will say it's a little bit newer for businesses that wholeheartedly are embracing it and running with it. It's taking some time for businesses to catch on in that.

David 12:14

Explain VOI to our audience.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

Absolutely. So that's more about the value on investment. You know, you had asked, how do you prove the ROI? How do you track the ROI? And it's an absolutely valid, needed, necessary business approach to any program, well-being or other. But with value on investment, it's looking at if you are implementing language that is supporting a culture of well-being, a culture of care, your value is you are reducing the odds of burnout. You're reducing the additional stress, workplace stress. You are reducing worry, anxiety, perhaps depression, if that's applicable in the workplace. So it's more about that value that you're bringing. I would also, you know, challenge, it's more about the performance and productivity in a holistic measure. So looking at do we have purposeful benchmarking that we're following? You know, there's something to be said for organizations, and there are tremendous organizations very successful in this space that are not caught up in only looking at medical plan reduction, pharmaceutical reduction. It truly is more powerful metrics that they're looking at and KPIs that are different in this side of the pandemic. You know, we can't necessarily use those same measures we were pre-pandemic. So when you talk ROI, it needs to be really intentional. What's the why for it? And it's safe to ask. You know, I get challenged a lot on, but we asked you to prove the ROI. Why are you asking me? Because first, the organization needs to know this is why we need the value. Is it financial? Is it cultural? Is it engagement in language? Is it retention of our employees? So you do need to be very clear on the paradigm of why is ROI part of the conversation. And perhaps if there isn't some clarity, that's when you begin to consider that VOI approach.

David 14:06

Can you give us an example from your practice of a firm that you went into that that really had a serious problem and what it how it manifested and what it looked like both on the on the management and employee side and how you overcame some of that?

SPEAKER_03 14:18

Sure. You know, there's a great group that I've been working with, and the focus is definitely around mental health. Not a surprise. We're seeing that all over the place, and it's a great thing to be focusing on. But when we drilled down with leadership on what was it, it was more a fear-based, we need to do this, we need to talk about it. And when we hosted some focus groups, we actually found that from an employee level, they just wanted to know they could come to the workplace. So here's what happened. The paradigm was the managers felt they had to fix something and have an answer and know how to address mental health as a manager, supervisor, leader. And all the employees wanted was the safety to come to work and say, I'm really struggling today. Here's what's going on. You know, there's this misconception in the workplace right now that you can't show up and talk about those things. You can't show up and share personal experiences and personal stresses without being judged. That's a whole different conversation. We can have a whole different podcast on what psychological safety means. But really, what this workplace did was hear their people. As much as I talked about influencing that language, they just heard what they needed. And then we were able to create well, here's some opportunities for outlets that we can build internally to support them ongoing. The manager doesn't need to be the be all end-all solution, but can they be an outlet and sounding board? And so what that workplace did at the end was reflect on we had manager trainings, we had employee trainings, we had focus groups. And at the end, when we asked once again how they felt about the workplace, it was that safety piece. And so I share that example, David, because it really alludes to well-being is so broad in every workplace. Again, I go back to that audit perspective. If they're not asking, if they're not paying attention and having that audit occasionally, it's really hard to notice where you need to spend the time. And then it's way more work when you're downstream.

David 16:19

No question. So, how has the remote workplace affected what you do and the need to reach out and create that culture in which people do feel safe and comfortable and not feeling as though they're doing something bad by working from home or working remotely? Because I mean, with my clients in my consulting practice, we see it as a great thing because now you're not limited to hiring from within a driving distance of your bricks and mortar location. You can hire people worldwide. But it does put different stresses on what you do, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 16:52

Absolutely. It certainly does. And it's different not just for what I do and what I'm providing to these organizations and businesses, but it's how the businesses reflect on the scenario too. It is needing to look at it from a multi-prong approach in terms of is there connectedness, is there safety, is there trust, is there care and compassion? I mean, the reality is it's three years. We have all uh three years feel like a lifetime. You know, I funny side story, we were talking about the Super Bowl. So many individuals at the parade in Kansas City this week referenced the Super Bowl parade from 2020 as last year. You would consistently be in conversation and say, When I saw you here last year, and to the point of the pandemic was long. We're still fighting this, you know, and so from a workplace, how do you begin to assess if we're in hybrid, if we're in remote, how did these become opportunities? I intentionally use language that isn't just looking at challenges and problems. What are these opportunities? How can we glean something to learn from this to evolve and grow? You know, people in the workplace right now are wanting trust. They're needing the care and compassion. And I do understand that that sounds like it's asking more of leaders. It's not asking more than what we've always expected of leaders in healthy, thriving organizations. But what we are doing is shifting that mindset from a leader is not just a manager, they're not a boss, they're truly coaching. And so, in these environments, in this evolution of flexibility, what I'm seeing more successful is we have the option of virtual and in-person. We have the option to meet you where you are. Can a workplace always address everything that they're hearing from, let's say, a survey or a focus group? Of course not. But how can we at least take that, brainstorm it, tease it apart, and say what's best for our workplace and our people, and come with that human-centered, people-focused approach when we return?

David 18:54

And that is a great place to end our conversation for today. Haley Prophet, owner of Haley Profit Consulting. Haley, thank you so much for giving us some insight into a really important problem for all of our organizations.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

Thank you so much, David. It's been wonderful.

Announcer 19:08

The Shift Shapers Podcast is a production of Shift Shaper strategies and may not be reproduced or quoted in whole or in part without our express written permission. Copyright 2020, all rights reserved.