Side of Design

Revolutionizing Employee Engagement: Insights from BWBR on a People-First Culture

• BWBR • Episode 51

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Employee engagement goes beyond happiness and job satisfaction—those are byproducts of something deeper. As BWBR's Director of People and Culture Tricia Eiswald and Knowledge Manager Kari Shonblom discuss in the latest Side of Design episode, engagement means genuine involvement and enthusiasm at work and in the workplace. Their insights delve into factors that drive engagement, BWBR’s own engagement strategies, and how organizations can go beyond employee satisfaction to unlock the full potential of their teams. 

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Matt Gerstner:

This is Side of Design from BWBR, a podcast discussing all aspects of design with knowledge leaders from every part of the industry. Hello and welcome to Side of Design from BWBR. I'm your host, Matt Gerstner. On this episode, we'll be digging into employee engagement. In a competitively remarked and during a time of huge change to the norms and expectations of work, it's more important than ever for organizations to understand how their employees view their culture and take practical action from those insights to continue to grow and evolve. Joining us from BWBR are Tricia Eiswald, Director of People and Culture, and Carrie Schonblum, Knowledge Manager, who will be digging into some of the material they shared at the 2024 AIA Conference on Architecture and Design. Tricia, Carrie, thank you so much for joining me today.

Tricia Eiswald:

Thanks so much for having us, Matt. Thank you.

Matt Gerstner:

I'm just going to jump right into the questions here and get going so we can get some information out to all of our listeners. So just for quick context what do we mean by employee engagement and why is it so important? What do we mean by employee engagement and why is it so important?

Kari Shonblom:

So we've decided to use the Gallup definition of this, because Gallup is a leader in this space. They've done a lot of work around this, so why not just use what they have already produced? So the Gallup definition is the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace, and this is not to be confused with happiness that's a byproduct of engagement. And it's also not to be confused with satisfaction, which can be more transactional. If you're simply satisfied with something, you're not going the extra mile, you're not really committed to it. If that makes sense and it's important because, as Gallup has proven, engaged employees are invested more in their work and the outcomes and it shows in measurable ways like increased customer loyalty and engagement, increased productivity, increase in employee well-being, in company profitability and also, to be noted, there's a decrease in things like absenteeism and attrition. Okay, some of the drivers of engagement that we use to sort of frame this and why it's important things that we keep referring back to.

Kari Shonblom:

There's five main drivers purpose having a feeling like your work is meaningful, it's contributing to something greater than yourself, or something that you believe in Opportunities for development, having a sense of control over your own career path and how you want to learn and grow, having a caring manager, somebody who's an advocate for you, because they're the person that's going to be, hopefully, your champion in helping you to achieve those development goals. Ongoing conversations we'll touch back on this but having some clarity around what you're expected to do and how you're expected to meet goals and how you're expected to achieve those development goals you've set for yourself is having frequent dialogue between yourself and your manager or between leadership and staff, like that. Transparency is so important here. I think we'll touch on this some more, but I found that to be one of the biggest factors in my own engagement is I never have to question what's going on or feel like I'm in the dark. Right, I feel like it's always very well communicated and leadership does a great job sharing what they can, even if something's a work in progress.

Kari Shonblom:

The final driver of engagement is a focus on strengths and in my world of knowledge management, we celebrate what we know. That's the whole point of knowledge management is caring about the expertise we have in house, because we don't sell a product on a shelf. We're selling our people and what we know. So focusing on people's strengths and allowing them to showcase that and help other people learn the same thing and upskill Like, I think that's such a cornerstone of our culture here.

Matt Gerstner:

That's kind of funny because I think I've heard a lot of those individual drivers not all of them, but I've heard a lot of them talked about in different publications and different articles you know, just the employee satisfaction the feeling of well-being. Yes, All of those things I've read about in different articles related to culture, related to engagement.

Kari Shonblom:

Yeah, and it's such a complex, complicated thing, right, but when you start weaving it all together, I feel like that's where we have had a lot of success and I know I'm newer to the company but I'm like fully on board and in on B2BBR because of these things, like I've been other places and this just feels different. Okay, it feels good.

Matt Gerstner:

So, as a newer employee to the firm, you have sensed all of these drivers.

Kari Shonblom:

I have yeah. Fantastic Like in a really positive way.

Tricia Eiswald:

That's really good to hear. That's very good to hear.

Matt Gerstner:

So can you walk us through some of the highlights, then, of BWBR's most recent survey results and the stats and put them kind of in industry context?

Tricia Eiswald:

Absolutely yeah, I'm excited to, actually, because in 2022, we had really positive results where we had I believe it was 81% of folks responded, and in 2023, our most recent one we had 91% of our employees respond to the survey. So that is actually almost twice the national average for participation. So we're doing something right here in terms of getting folks to respond to the engagement survey to tell us how engaged they are.

Matt Gerstner:

That's just stunning that it's twice the national average age they are. That's. That's a stunning that it's twice the national average. That's. I think it says a lot about the people here and the company and how it, how everybody really feels if you can get that many people to actually take a survey.

Tricia Eiswald:

Right, I agree, Especially one that you redo annually. You do it once a year. You know it's year over year it's keeps ticking up in the right direction. So it's been positive.

Kari Shonblom:

Right, and it's not like we had to sit in front of each person and ask them to fill it out Right. Twist their arm it was just via our standard communication channels, which goes to show that people are paying attention to those Right. I think that's important.

Matt Gerstner:

I'd say that's another sign of engagement. Right People are really paying attention to every one of those channels.

Kari Shonblom:

I would tie that back to those ongoing conversations. It's the communication channels, how information is being disseminated throughout the firm. If people know that it's not just noise, it's pertinent and relevant to them, so they do pay attention.

Matt Gerstner:

That's fantastic. So what are some of the aspects of BWBR's history and culture, then, that have contributed to our current high levels of engagement?

Tricia Eiswald:

Sure, I can start with a couple of points. I would say the fact that we put people first, not only on the wall right in our mission, vision and values, we actually walk out putting people first, walk out, putting people first. So in every decision that we're making at the people and culture team and the board at the leadership level, we are thinking with a lens of how does this impact our folks? How does this impact our people? In order to demonstrate that we have a people first culture, it's important to have transparency. So, as Carrie alluded to, we have to be open and honest about what's going on in the business, what's going on in the markets, what's going on in the economy. And I think that's one thing that we've done really well with over the years is since we put people first.

Tricia Eiswald:

One of the best ways to build trust is to be open and honest about what's going on, and we do that as much as we possibly can. So we try to be transparent, we try to make sure that people know what kind of big things we're trying to work on and peel back the curtain a little bit to the inner workings of the business a little bit more, so people feel like they can come along on the journey, versus. This is how these decisions are going to impact you eventually. They're along for the journey. They're along for hearing what's going on and seeing the change and being bought into it all along, so they can be advocates and champions, and so I think that's one thing that's a little bit different.

Tricia Eiswald:

Some other cultures and organizations that I've been in previously have held it kind of close to the vest, where they have a little bit different. Some other cultures and organizations that I've been in previously have held it kind of close to the vest, where they have a lot of information. There's a lot going on at the company, but that isn't disseminated to all staff. So there's only certain pockets of people that are in the know, if you will, and everyone else is just sort of guessing and making up their own stories about what might be going on, and that is just breeding ground for gossip.

Matt Gerstner:

Exactly, gossip just erodes your credibility.

Kari Shonblom:

It erodes people's engagement. It erodes their desire to want to contribute to something if they feel like they're not really part of it. Yeah, exactly.

Tricia Eiswald:

One of the other points I would say is we've always had an open-door policy. So with this new, remote, kind of distant world, you still can feel the open-door-ness of our culture. So you can walk up to our president, ceo, who's in one corner or the other of the office, and literally just walk up and ask a question, say, I have an idea, hey, what do you think about this? And there's an openness and there's an invitation for a conversation. Yeah, she might be busy and she might have to say, hey, could you set up something in 15 minutes. And that goes for not just the president, ceo, but every other leader in the office. I feel like it's pretty approachable and is willing to and open to ideas. And that makes every one individual who comes up and has an idea or a thought if you listen to them and hear them and then take the next step of like actioning whatever their idea was, that builds trust and it makes us all better. So why wouldn't we have an open door and be transparent as much as we possibly can?

Matt Gerstner:

Yeah.

Kari Shonblom:

And I'll say from my perspective, this is not just lip service Like from day one. Trish, I hope you don't mind if I share this, but you shared internally it was at a meeting about equity and involvement with employees. You shared that you had a really negative experience with an HR director early in your career and you said you made it your mission that you would make sure no one else ever felt that way and I felt it from day one. I remember being toured around the office. You had just come in. You had been out on PTO or something. You came in. You made a point to come and say hello to me and introduce yourself.

Kari Shonblom:

I've seen you be so hospitable and go out of your way to make sure you know everybody's name, know some information about them as a person, not just their role, but like something they're interested in or what they're doing sort of on the side. Like you care about the people that you work with and I feel like as a senior leader, as someone on our board, you set that tone for the other leadership. I feel like that's so impactful that all of you leaders help, sort of like encourage each other in certain behaviors and keep each other in check and it just transitions down throughout the rest of the firm. It's really felt is what I'm trying to say.

Tricia Eiswald:

Oh, thank you for that. It's a hard balance in the director role because you do have to balance what's best for the firm and what's best for people and when we put people first, it's a tough spot to be in when you're like, okay, the person over here needs this and is struggling, the business needs this. How do we blend and advocate for both? And that's where I do think our leadership genuinely cares and I really appreciate hearing that you feel that, because I think it's not just me, you know, it's every leader here, like you said, and I hope that people feel that.

Tricia Eiswald:

I hope that when people come in, it's not that they're sold a. Hey, we're caring, we're empathetic, we're, you know, trusting. Yeah, we're a family oh, never use that term. Right? I hope people feel that because it is the intent, that's the spirit, my personal mantras, you know, making sure everyone feels valued, appreciated and supported. Because of the history that I have in bringing forward, to the fact that I don't want anyone ever to feel what I felt in a seat at one point in my career and have made it my mission as the people and culture person to care genuinely about people, and I think all of our leaders do and everyone we hire is really along that same lines. In alignment with that, people first approach.

Matt Gerstner:

Now I know I've heard a few times from different co-workers that it's especially the newer with the coworkers that they're somewhat amazed sometimes at how accessible leadership is here.

Kari Shonblom:

It's a good thing, it's a real good thing. Like you said, defining that balance of what's good for the business and the person. I've seen you and our other leadership have to deliver hard messages.

Matt Gerstner:

Yes.

Kari Shonblom:

But you always back it up with the business decision and even if people don't like it, we can at least respect the fact that you're giving us data and information about why the decision was made, so we can at least feel like it wasn't arbitrary.

Tricia Eiswald:

Absolutely. We want to give you enough context and information that you know it tells as much of the story as we possibly can. There are some things, as everyone knows, in people and culture that you just can't say. So we try to come up with you know what is appropriate and what is the most transparent approach that everybody can be on the same page and then change management is hard, you know. So you have to figure out how to navigate and communicate properly and then when's the right timing to kind of push forward, and it is tricky and it is a balance.

Tricia Eiswald:

So I'm happy to hear that you feel that and that you're seeing the information get disseminated to the firm.

Kari Shonblom:

When we're talking about our culture. I think it's really important to note that, like I said, we have solid communication channels, but we also have avenues, like our town hall, which typically, if we have a big communication, we'll post something on our intranet, we'll mention it at a staff meeting which happens monthly and then we will have a town hall about big events, big changes, big things that need to be discussed, and that's a chance for people to submit anonymous questions, and leadership does to the best of their ability, from what I've seen, addresses all the questions that come in.

Kari Shonblom:

Absolutely, even if, like you said, you can't share everything, you share what you can. I've seen leadership say you know we're still looking into this. This is still a point of discussion. We don't have an answer quite yet, right, but we are considering these various things when making our decision and we'll report back once we've landed on something. And I think that's really important to make sure that people feel like they're heard.

Tricia Eiswald:

Absolutely that Poll Everywhere tool that we use during the town hall, setting it up a week in advance, you know, and giving people an anonymous opportunity not to mention you don't even have to put your name in you know anonymous opportunity to say or ask anything and we sit and answer them on the fly in the hot seat. But it's one of the things that I appreciate most, even though it's hard to not know what's going to come out, because it could be about anything. But we're honestly wanting to get feedback and input and communicate as transparently as possible. So, like you said, we can't always answer everything in depth, but we'll do our best to provide answers to whatever's being asked and that's an hour long.

Kari Shonblom:

Meeting typically happens four to six times a year and we get really high participation in those Don't we the majority. The people attend in person or virtually yeah.

Matt Gerstner:

And then the fact that we do record those make them available after the fact, in-house only, and any staff that did miss it can still catch up and still see. You know all the information that was presented, hear the questions that were asked, yeah. And then they have the opportunity then later on to maybe approach leadership, who is presenting at that, and ask another question if they so choose. Or they could submit it at the next town hall anonymously if they want to make sure that their voice is still heard but don't quite feel like they want to put their face out there for it.

Tricia Eiswald:

Yes, yep.

Matt Gerstner:

So I'm going to ask a weird question. So what kind of questions go into this survey that you've talked about that go out to the staff and try to gauge the engagement.

Tricia Eiswald:

Yeah, that's a great question. So 75%, I would say, of the survey remains the same from each time we do it. We initially started with hey. When we started this about five years ago, we literally went out to Gallup. You know, carrie, read the definition of engagement from Gallup they are survey company extraordinaire. So we literally went okay, let's Google, you know where do we start, and got some sample questions. A lot of it is around well-being, you know. Do you feel like you are challenged in your role? Do you feel like you have autonomy? Do you feel like you are trusted? Things like that that really get at. What is your employee experience? You know? Give us more details about that. What's it like to sit in your seat? And then, what we do with the other quarters. We pick whatever might be going on at the moment, either in the climate, in the environment, in the office, in the whatever. If there's some specific issue or topic that we need to dig into a little bit, that's what we use the other quarter for.

Tricia Eiswald:

So three quarters will remain the same. People get used to filling out the same things, and then there's a bit of a pulse check for whatever might be going on Excellent, excellent.

Kari Shonblom:

And I appreciate that there's the you answer a question right on a scale or yes or no, or whatever it might be. But then there's in several places the opportunity for open comment to get some more clarification about that. And I've heard you say you read all of those Absolutely.

Kari Shonblom:

Every word you try to provide feedback, like when you're regurgitating the results back to the rest of the firm. You're trying to bucket all of those responses into some way so every single person can feel like their responses are seen and heard as part of the results.

Tricia Eiswald:

Yes, that's the challenge of it is making sure that when you get the results, you have to. There's a few key things around the engagement survey to remember. One if you're going to do an engagement survey and I highly encourage folks to do it, whether it's five questions or 25, you know, whatever fits your organization, I highly encourage you to do it. But only if you are ready and willing to take action on the results. Because if you're asking questions that you're like, well, if it comes back in this direction doesn't matter, because we're not changing then don't ask, Don't do the survey, don't ask the questions if you're not willing to take action on the responses. So that would be one key tip.

Tricia Eiswald:

The second one would be you have to be willing to take action quickly. You can't get the survey results and say yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do that in three years. That won't fly. People will not fill out the second engagement survey. They will say I've said my piece, I have used my voice, you've heard my comment, nothing has changed. So then guess what? When the next engagement survey comes around, they're probably not as inclined to do it because nothing happened as a result of the first one. So you have to be willing to take action, and take action quickly on what you find out. The third tip that I would say if you're doing this is Carrie alluded to the buckets of the messaging. So when you get all of the comments in, if you can distill it down to a few key themes, but make sure you're giving enough information that everyone can see their voice in the themes. So if some individual said you know, I'm really fed up the fact that there's not this type of coffee in your office in one of our offices.

Tricia Eiswald:

If somebody is really distraught on any one particular issue, if they don't see that reflected in the feedback or the themes anywhere, they're going to start to wonder about how the results were maybe skewed or the lens to which they're being delivered.

Matt Gerstner:

How was it filtered Exactly?

Tricia Eiswald:

They're not going to trust the results.

Matt Gerstner:

Right.

Tricia Eiswald:

So you have to make sure that you don't need to put in you can't there's not room for every little comment but make sure you're capturing enough of the theme buckets so that everyone can see themselves in the feedback Right and not sugarcoating. Exactly, that's really important too. Yeah, absolutely. It's a really fun process, honestly, and I look forward to getting the results every year, kind of with one eye closed you know, it's always a little bit of a Ooh. It's kind of like a performance review for the leadership team and the board.

Tricia Eiswald:

Yeah, that's what it feels like Cause, you get all of your results back from your review and you need to act on them and you need to you know, I can see how easily this, like sending out a survey, could go south. Absolutely.

Matt Gerstner:

If you're not willing, like you said, to take the information and do something with it right away.

Tricia Eiswald:

Yeah and be honest about the results. Yes, you have to have some vulnerability in there. If you see feedback that makes you a little prickly, you need to deliver it anyway because it's honest.

Matt Gerstner:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Kari Shonblom:

Because, even though, as a leader, you may not have known that that type of response was coming in, I can guarantee that the gossip and everything that's happening, the undercurrents throughout the company, people know this stuff innately anyway. Exactly so why not bring it to the surface, where you can do something about it, right?

Tricia Eiswald:

The fact that 91% of the office is willing to share that with us. That's huge. Yeah that we really take that as an encouraging sign that we're moving in the right direction.

Matt Gerstner:

Yeah, love it, absolutely love it. Can you speak to the realities of the investment needed, so both in the survey itself and in the resulting action items, and then like the return on that investment that you've seen?

Tricia Eiswald:

Sure. So in terms of putting it together, in terms of an investment, of creating the actual survey, it doesn't take that long. The first one took a little bit longer and I would say a few hours, right. So a few hours to come up with the first one that we did and then get a little bit of a pulse for the other quarter of the questions Subsequent years when we do it year over year. If 75% stays the same, obviously the investment shrinks through time and it's just a little bit of editing. You know, it's a little bit of what's the current topic, what are we curious about right now, and then change up those few questions and then that's pretty much it in terms of. And then there's an investment on the reading, the comments side. So there's a manual, you know, actual person investment processing it through and getting reading and sorting and bucketing all of the feedback.

Kari Shonblom:

The investment to actually do the survey is pretty minimal. Yeah, you know it's coming up with questions, it's finding a survey tool. I think it's important that you allow people to submit their response anonymously.

Tricia Eiswald:

Yes, right, so feel free to express anonymously yes.

Kari Shonblom:

Right, that's always huge. They feel free to express whatever opinions. Yes, and we do not ask any qualifiers about their role or what office they're in.

Tricia Eiswald:

Exactly.

Kari Shonblom:

Anything like that that could tie their response to that specific individual Right.

Matt Gerstner:

Making it truly anonymous.

Kari Shonblom:

Truly anonymous and like really a safe place to share your voice honestly, which is huge. Yeah, like really a safe place to share your voice on, which is huge, yeah. So I think underpinning this is that cultural element that we want to hear constructive feedback so that we can make improvements. Because it's that old adage you can't manage what you don't measure. Yeah, absolutely. So having points like real points to look back on and say, okay, this is what we're going to focus on, here's how we're going to do it.

Kari Shonblom:

I think we also have a really strong planning process here, like planning and budgeting an annual cycle of that and robust communication and the leadership groups to make sure that action is taken. The way our organization is structured, we have the board of directors, we've got principals, business unit directors, we've got key managers so this accountability and responsibility gets dispersed and I think that's really critical to not overburden any one person or particular group. And I think that really plays into so I'm at the key manager level right. That plays into my engagement when I'm told I own something and I have some autonomy over how I'm executing that.

Kari Shonblom:

If it falls into my world and I'm ultimately responsible for it, that's huge Then that I can run with it and have some leeway on how that gets defined and executed. Obviously, it's being like cycled up through the levels of leadership and make sure that everyone's on board and everyone approves and it aligns with the overall firm goals. But I think those are really key, critical things to have in place. Yes, definitely, some some way of taking action on the results right, you need to be able to identify the priorities, have the people, you need to make a plan and then take action on it and make sure that you're smart about how you're budgeting. Yeah, absolutely, because some of the things we invest in, we've been questioned. I remember hearing this at the town hall some of our social events Right, things like that. People questioned why are we still having lunches for everyone every week at our eat and greet?

Tricia Eiswald:

Because that's part of our culture, is our response. So, as a result of some of the survey results through the years, we have incorporated things like that. So we have an eat and greet on Thursdays where we have lunch for everyone. If you want to come to one of our offices, well you know everybody has lunch, but the deal is you need to sit there and interact with colleagues and it is called eat and greet for a reason. We've also done in this whole remote environment and distant and hybrid working.

Tricia Eiswald:

One of the other things that we feel is key to our culture is gathering, so bringing folks together at least twice a year.

Tricia Eiswald:

So we have done that now over the past two years at least, and over last year we were reminded significantly at the winter party of how important it was to gather at least a couple of times a year. Everyone from all offices, any houses or wherever they might be, comes to one of our locations twice a year, and that is where we build trust, we have collaboration, we have fun together. We might have different teams, have different meetings and things. So those in terms of investment, when we're talking about engagement survey, the actual survey itself isn't necessarily what costs you. Let's say it's kind of the action, steps and things that you take as a result. And if you look at just to give other firms an indication the social things that we put together, our budget, the social aspect is 0.003% of our overall operating budget. So just to give you an indication of the scale of our investment in sort of cultural things, it's 0.003%, so not huge but very important.

Matt Gerstner:

Yeah, I was going to say it's not huge, but it's huge.

Tricia Eiswald:

Right.

Matt Gerstner:

Because it's huge in that we do get together twice a year fully as a company. And we have other little events scheduled throughout the year that are part of that budget, and you've got the eat and greets on Thursdays and there's all these little different things, but those are the things that really make it.

Tricia Eiswald:

Right, and we do this one other really fun event annually called BWBRU, and it's intended to be just firm knowledge but really the value of it. So we take 50 people, 50 colleagues, from our St Paul office and we drive them up north, take them up to a resort in northern Minnesota and we spend about a day. It's literally about 24 hours total, but we bus everyone up together. We've got team collaborating events, we've got a scavenger hunt when we're there and the whole point is gathering but also making our business better. So we do a couple of business content sessions where we might brainstorm a topic and get ideas from everyone who's there. But we also just play and that is a significant contributor to our overall culture and bringing people from other locations, environments, who may not work physically together and with each other, but the fact that they can, at least a couple of times a year, at our spring event and our winter event, gather and develop trust and relationships and then we do this one thing a year that rotates through people attending, that's really fun.

Matt Gerstner:

It's just fun. I've heard nothing but good things.

Tricia Eiswald:

And.

Matt Gerstner:

I participated in it several years ago, which was fantastic.

Kari Shonblom:

I got to go my first year and it was so invaluable in terms of getting to know people because I'd only been with the firm for six months. At this point I'd hardly had a chance to get to know most people, and we bring people from all offices or remote locations. We just depart from the St Paul office.

Kari Shonblom:

It's not only employees from our St Paul office and the time it would have taken to establish some of the relationships I made just in casual happenstance and in opportunities to work with people. It would have taken years, versus what was accomplished in two days.

Matt Gerstner:

Because there's elements of it that are work-oriented, but it's all wrapped in fun. It's all wrapped in getting to know each other. It's all wrapped in working Right. It's all wrapped in getting to know each other. It's all wrapped in working together Right, in a fun way, right.

Kari Shonblom:

From my perspective, the world of knowledge management, which is really about, like I said, caring about what we know collectively, finding ways to identify that, collect it and amplify it. You only share what you know with who you know.

Matt Gerstner:

Yes.

Kari Shonblom:

You need to have that element of trust because it's a little bit vulnerable to put something out there to say, hey, I know this really awesome, cool thing. Yes.

Tricia Eiswald:

I think it's really smart.

Kari Shonblom:

I hope you think it's really smart. Yeah, awesome too, yeah, so having these social interactions is critical for people getting to know each other on a personal level.

Tricia Eiswald:

Absolutely.

Kari Shonblom:

So you have that level of comfort you for people getting to know each other on a personal level Absolutely. So you have that level of comfort. You understand how the person likes to communicate, there's a sense of camaraderie.

Kari Shonblom:

Yeah, then, like we're together working on a team. Right, we're in it together for collective success. And I heard Larry Prusak is a very like well-known and accomplished author and lecturer and stuff in the world of knowledge management is a very well-known and accomplished author and lecturer and stuff in the world of knowledge management. He said once bringing people together over food, paying for their meal is much cheaper than paying for their time.

Kari Shonblom:

Oh, absolutely yeah, so he felt like the best knowledge management happens over food and around food Interesting, so the things like the eat and greet, because the expectation is that you don't just grab your food and go back to your desk and squirrel it away inside. Right by yourself. You're getting to know people, yeah, and that all contributes to this culture of like we know each other. Therefore, I feel comfortable sharing what I know with you. Yes, and I think it's a really nice like cornerstone of BWB are that?

Kari Shonblom:

I feel like deeply when I see some of the things we have going on here that people love to learn here and it's very celebrated we don't have the experts that are hiding in the corner trying to hold on to their knowledge because it feels like it gives them job security. Right, we definitely celebrate people for sharing what they know and you're, like, more elevated if you become the mentor and you're hosting various events internally and sharing what you know. You get so much more like internal publicity and credit for that versus I'm the singular expert. I'm not going to tell you what I know, you have to come to me to extract that and it gives me a sense of value.

Kari Shonblom:

That way it's like completely flipped on its head, which I really appreciate.

Matt Gerstner:

It's kind of funny because everybody here is a knowledge leader in some way. Everybody has something that they know, that someone else here does not know, right, and they share it.

Kari Shonblom:

Yeah, that's true, very true, because we've had this knowledge management culture. Like I'm the only knowledge manager here, but my job really is just to steward, like I said, this identification, collection and amplification of what we know. But it's not like I'm doing this all myself, and we've had the knowledge management program since 2007. So that's a really long time to continue to build on this culture and help people understand and develop the programs that support that culture, like the internal landmark learning sessions that we do. That's upskilling staff.

Kari Shonblom:

Our forum, which is anyone can say I'm working on this cool thing or there's a change in process and share it with the rest of the firm, the fact that we document all of this stuff and share it on our very robust intranet so everyone always has access and can stay informed via that, and like robust search capabilities to find exactly what you're looking for yes, I think that's all really, really important to help people do their best work yeah, you always have a resource that you can find the answer oh, whether it's written down, or it gives you the path to find the person to ask the question in person and then, because we've had all these social events, you maybe already have interacted with them so you're not scared to pick up the phone, or, if you happen to be in an office, go swing by their desk, or something like that.

Tricia Eiswald:

Yeah, it's a great point.

Matt Gerstner:

As a social mentor, because I've mentored at least a half dozen people in the office.

Kari Shonblom:

But even the fact that we have social mentors. That's baked into our onboarding, yeah.

Matt Gerstner:

I mean, one of the first things I tell them is don't be afraid to ask questions. Yes, good, you will never be looked down on here for asking a question and getting something done and getting it done right. The first time down on here, for asking a question and getting something done and getting it done right the first time, I said and if you have a question for me, come and ask me and I will be. I will guarantee you that if I know the answer, you're going to get it, and if I don't know the answer, I probably know someone who does.

Kari Shonblom:

Exactly, and I can get you there faster. Yes, yeah, but even pausing. What is the expectation of the social mentor? As, as a social mentor, what are you expected to do? As a social mentor.

Matt Gerstner:

You introduce them to the people in the office. You show them around, show them where resources are. You take them out for lunch on their first day with several other employees and get them acquainted with people here and then, in a week or so, after they've been here answering questions, kind of touching in with them and making sure everything's going good, take them out with leadership, yes, and go out for a lunch and that kind of thing, and you really bring them into the fold so they know who they can go to. They know people. It's not just coming in. Here's your desk, sit down, here's the manual, get to work.

Tricia Eiswald:

Right yeah manual get to work Right. Yeah, I knew the answer, but that was just a leading.

Matt Gerstner:

I loved it. Yeah, did I do good? You did great.

Kari Shonblom:

I've never been in the social mentor role, so yeah, I've done it for perspective. It's great.

Tricia Eiswald:

I really appreciated having it when I started.

Kari Shonblom:

It was awesome to have somebody baked in that's like your buddy from the get go.

Matt Gerstner:

Yeah, it's great, it's fun. It's fun to be the mentor.

Kari Shonblom:

Right.

Matt Gerstner:

So what are some lessons learned or best practices that you would share with other firms that are looking to increase engagement in a lasting way?

Kari Shonblom:

I would argue to look at your culture and look at your senior leadership. Yes, you know sometimes the best. I say this a lot sometimes the best doers are not the best leaders.

Matt Gerstner:

Right.

Kari Shonblom:

And I think some firms potentially promote folks that are the best doer in whatever category they fall into and maybe aren't trained enough on the softer skills in terms of leading people and I've seen this throughout my entire career that leadership is so fundamental in setting the tone for everyone else. Like I said on our intranet, we have high engagement on there, but it's because we have leadership posting and letting people know that it's okay to spend time on there. Sure, at all of our meetings and events we've got leadership who are jumping in and providing context or leading certain meetings. We don't have leadership talking out of one side of their mouth and then showing with their actions something else. Yes, Right.

Tricia Eiswald:

I feel like that's really critical.

Kari Shonblom:

I see our leadership like talk the talk and walk the walk.

Tricia Eiswald:

That is very critical, yeah, otherwise you lose trust. You know if you're one person in one conversation and behind closed doors or whatever, and then you show up as a different person. That erodes trust, because you're like who are you really?

Matt Gerstner:

Exactly, exactly, and people can tune into that instantly.

Tricia Eiswald:

Yeah, you can tell. You get kind of the vibe that it's not authentic Totally.

Matt Gerstner:

I don't think enough people realize that leaders are developed. You're not just a born leader.

Kari Shonblom:

Some people are, some people can be, some people have some innate qualities and capabilities.

Matt Gerstner:

But even they develop those skills over time and they refine them. But leaders are absolutely developed and I don't know if that's necessarily something some companies spend enough time on. Right, Especially if they're trying to develop and promote from within.

Kari Shonblom:

Right, and that's why I feel like here I've seen we've got more hierarchy and more roles involved in various different parts of leadership, which I feel like is really important that you're not burning out any specific individuals and you're letting people play to their strengths, which again goes back to one of the drivers of engagement, because I've seen that before, where it's like you have senior leaders who are wearing too many hats and they just don't have time and often, unfortunately, when you're caught between like, we always refer to principals not always, but we sometimes refer to principals as seller doers.

Kari Shonblom:

Right, they're out there trying to make sure that we have solid client relationships. We're trying to bring in new projects. You have to actually then do the work.

Matt Gerstner:

Overseeing teams.

Kari Shonblom:

Perform that highest level of oversight that the team needs and only that leader can provide. But then, when it comes to things like staff development or focusing on, like some of these bigger initiatives, right, when we're talking about the output of the engagement survey, all of the work from that is overhead extra projects right, it's not related to the day-to-day client project. So how do you find the time for that and the resources for that? And being able to distribute that workload, I feel like is part of our success, from what I've seen, absolutely.

Matt Gerstner:

So what if you're not in HR or you're not on the board or you're not in the leadership team? What can someone do to support better culture and engagement?

Kari Shonblom:

You can lead from any position, matt, any role in the company. You can serve as a sort of leader and, like we talked about, I think one of the biggest cultural elements is bringing people together to help them get to know each other. So, even if you're the new hire, try to get people together. Ask people to go out for happy hour, ask people to go out to lunch. Just get people talking to each other and not isolated in their own world in front of their computer.

Matt Gerstner:

Yeah, that's elements of culture and engagement just within your project teams too, in the different roles that each of us play. Even if you're the person working on details and you don't necessarily feel like you have, if you're not higher up in the food chain on your team, you can still lead in what you're doing. You can still lead in developing those details and then calling people together and saying, hey, take a look at this with me, would you? I'm having a hard time figuring this part out and that shows engagement. That shows you know developing culture and being able to bring people together even on those little work tasks.

Tricia Eiswald:

Absolutely Cause.

Tricia Eiswald:

Then what ends up happening is that level of engagement in every seat is the whole point of this right.

Tricia Eiswald:

So the why behind this is that it actually helps your bottom line because all of your employees are more engaged in what they're doing, so they're bringing their best, they're bringing their ideas, they're bringing their full selves and that's where you really get the best product, that's where you get the best output, where you're playing to everyone's strengths and they are feeling like they're trusted to do what role that they have. They are trusted to have ideas that are innovative and risk-taking a little bit. They're encouraged to own it and, yep, take it and do it. You just run with it. That's why you need the engagement, because in the end, our clients get better output. We get happier, more engaged, more satisfied employees who want to be in it for the long haul and want to keep playing in that space, want to keep enjoying the culture together and doing great work together, because they feel trusted and they feel like they have agency to do what they need to do within their seat. To right To make it better.

Kari Shonblom:

But also I'm going to turn this again back around on leadership. That leadership here is really cultivating a culture of making sure people feel safe to voice their opinions yeah good point. Or I've seen this as well. If somebody didn't quite do something, I don't want to say they made a mistake, but if they didn't quite do something to the expectation maybe of somebody that was more experienced, we don't say I can't believe you didn't know that. Or like reprimand the person or make them feel bad.

Kari Shonblom:

I've seen this multiple times, where the senior leader is saying hey, this is a growing opportunity for you, this is a learning opportunity and also, if you didn't know that, I bet there's a handful of other people who also don't know this. So let's put together some sort of training or learning session around this to make sure that you understand the expectations for this particular task, and so does everyone else, and now we've got some sort of artifact that is also searchable. So if this comes up again, a senior leader or somebody else can say hey, go watch this 10 minute video.

Tricia Eiswald:

You'll learn a lot.

Kari Shonblom:

This will answer a lot of your questions. It's always in the context of it's okay, like we can fix this, you can get better.

Tricia Eiswald:

We can all get better. There's a lot of grace there and just wanting to help, support each other to get to the best resolution, best outcome, and I feel like in the long run it makes us more efficient because people aren't quietly executing tasks for fear that they will be called out or hiding mistakes.

Kari Shonblom:

They're more likely to ask questions earlier in the process before it becomes a problem. I think that's a big deal.

Matt Gerstner:

That's huge. That's huge. So, in the big picture, we've talked a lot about engagement and developing your culture and making things better, and I'm guessing a lot of our listeners might be thinking, okay, that's great, that's how we do it in the office. So how does work from home play into this conversation then?

Tricia Eiswald:

Yeah, the work from home has made it just a little bit harder. I would say you have to be more intentional in order to create the same level of engagement.

Tricia Eiswald:

Because, as we've talked about, gathering really does build trust and you get to develop relationships and sort of hit fast forward on developing connections with people. When you're spread out and when you're kind of all over the place, you need to be more intentional for those things to happen and that's part of the reason why we bring folks together twice a year. You know we really need that collaboration, that trust building. So it takes more intentionality with it, but it can be done. So that's what I would encourage every other firm who is looking at this and thinking through it is don't take the easy button route. Don't just say, well, it is what it is. You know, let's force everyone back to the office so we can have our culture again.

Tricia Eiswald:

Get a little creative and innovative on how can you solve that? How can you meet folks part way who are, you know, hours and hours in other states and all that? How do they experience our culture now? Well, one, we bring them and gather. Two, we intentionally do firm, wide connection events where we'll have an online Zoom, where it's a happy hour or a lunch or a breakfast meeting and it's 15 minutes, sort of over break time, but somebody leads it and it's a happy hour or a lunch or a breakfast meeting, and it's 15 minutes sort of over break time, but somebody leads it and it's for everyone, and everyone can get on one zoom screen and feel like they're in the same sort of room for a little bit and connect and just talk. So but that doesn't just happen. You have to be intentional and creative and be willing to think outside the box in our new hybrid environment.

Kari Shonblom:

Yeah, I feel like so often companies are saying come back to the office. That's where the culture happens, thinking it's just going to happen innately. Right, like people are going to have this magical water cooler. Talk Right as friends just by sitting in the office.

Tricia Eiswald:

Yeah, it just doesn't happen. It doesn't takes a strong intention to build relationships and help folks collaborate and I think it takes an honest intention absolutely to build it. It can't be fabricated, or yeah, it has to be genuine and authentic. That's right.

Kari Shonblom:

Absolutely. And I'll add, we have very clear expectations about communication channels right which avenues like, for example, we don't necessarily chat on Zoom. We save all of that for Teams right, so people aren't confused and split their attention between multiple different tools. We've tried to consolidate that as best we can. We also have a culture of camera on yep for when we have meetings, except for, like the all staff meetings it's a very large meeting.

Matt Gerstner:

You get over 50 100 people.

Kari Shonblom:

Yeah, I see everyone's face on the screen anyway but if it's a smaller meeting, we ask people to turn on their cameras just because you can see all the body language and get contextual cues. It helps people to stay accountable to paying attention during that and not multitask and be caught up in email or other things, and we've invested in the technology to make sure that we can host all events in a hybrid fashion, so there's an in-person and virtual component and it works pretty seamlessly that way.

Matt Gerstner:

Everyone can always be included, yeah Well that was some fantastic information you've all given me today. I really appreciate this conversation and I've taken more than enough of your time today, so thank you both for joining us.

Tricia Eiswald:

Thank you, Matt. Thanks for having us. It's been a pleasure.

Matt Gerstner:

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