Have you ever wondered what it takes to turn a lackluster office into a hub of excitement for the workweek ahead? Join us as corporate culture visionary April Whitson, formerly of Amazon and other industry giants, shares her inspiring journey and invaluable insights into building a workplace that buzzes with inclusivity and fulfillment. As April candidly discusses her transition from HR fatigue to a beacon for corporate culture transformation, the episode illuminates the symbiosis between individual values and organizational ethos, and the profound impact of leadership that prioritizes the welfare of its people.
Navigating the evolving landscape of work, we delve into the untapped potential of experienced employees who are redefining traditional career trajectories. April and I dissect the generational shift towards continuous experiences and growth, stressing the pivotal role of mentorship and knowledge transfer in leveraging the wisdom of long-standing team members. Furthermore, we confront the complexities of remote work, emphasizing the need for leaders to adapt their strategies to preserve productivity and morale in the face of these changes.
As the conversation shifts toward personal growth, we unveil the essence of impactful leadership in today's employee-focused enterprise. We share pragmatic tools and attitudes that can transform anyone into a leader who not only listens but also acts to foster a vibrant and loyal team. The episode culminates with a look at the revolutionary concept of "stay interviews" from her book, "The Stay Challenge", and encourages employees to step up and shape their workplace culture. For those ready to incite positive change and eager for more resources, we invite you to discover how at the link below.
https://www.aprilwhitson.com/home-page59116733
Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/
If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:
Maybe you can help me get there****
Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!
Have you ever wondered what it takes to turn a lackluster office into a hub of excitement for the workweek ahead? Join us as corporate culture visionary April Whitson, formerly of Amazon and other industry giants, shares her inspiring journey and invaluable insights into building a workplace that buzzes with inclusivity and fulfillment. As April candidly discusses her transition from HR fatigue to a beacon for corporate culture transformation, the episode illuminates the symbiosis between individual values and organizational ethos, and the profound impact of leadership that prioritizes the welfare of its people.
Navigating the evolving landscape of work, we delve into the untapped potential of experienced employees who are redefining traditional career trajectories. April and I dissect the generational shift towards continuous experiences and growth, stressing the pivotal role of mentorship and knowledge transfer in leveraging the wisdom of long-standing team members. Furthermore, we confront the complexities of remote work, emphasizing the need for leaders to adapt their strategies to preserve productivity and morale in the face of these changes.
As the conversation shifts toward personal growth, we unveil the essence of impactful leadership in today's employee-focused enterprise. We share pragmatic tools and attitudes that can transform anyone into a leader who not only listens but also acts to foster a vibrant and loyal team. The episode culminates with a look at the revolutionary concept of "stay interviews" from her book, "The Stay Challenge", and encourages employees to step up and shape their workplace culture. For those ready to incite positive change and eager for more resources, we invite you to discover how at the link below.
https://www.aprilwhitson.com/home-page59116733
Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/
If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:
Maybe you can help me get there****
Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week, I have a rebel that is joining me today. My guest this week is April Whitsam, and she's a waymaker and you might be thinking Rebel waymaker. What does this woman do? This woman creates culture. I know that that's a big, weird-sounding word to describe her, but that's what she does. She creates cultures within organization so that everybody is included and everybody wants to be there. I know I told you this was rebellious. She's actually creating situations and cultures of organizations where people want to come and yes, I am talking about work. She actually makes it, so people look forward to going to work. What an amazing concept.
Audra :She is a global speaker. She also is in demand for her services, and just some of the companies that have used her services are people that you've heard of. They are Amazon, Textron Corporation and ABB Inc. Yeah, she's a big deal. Can't wait to hear more about this. So it is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you April Whitsam. April, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
April :Thanks, Adra. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Audra :I am super excited for you to be here. I love rubbles, I love Make your Own Way and you chose this. Yes, it sounds super radical because people think about work and they're like, oh, oh, my gosh, this work is this work, is that? But this is your purpose. So let's start there. How did you find your purpose and did you stumble into it? Did you fall into it? How did you find this purpose?
April :Yeah, so it's a great question. Thank you. Really, it's been happening over time. So I started my career in HR quite early, spent the first 15 years of my career with the same company and really thought that I would probably stay in that same, with that same company, and make a life become a lifer. I loved where I worked, I loved the people that I worked with, I loved my leadership and felt like it was really the place for me.
April :And then, overnight, leadership changes happened and I immediately was exposed to what it really means to work in an environment where leaders care versus working in an environment where leaders don't care. And so, as in HR professional, I was in a position where decisions were being asked of me that I couldn't live with. I was being put in positions where I had to impact people's lives. That just didn't feel good to me. I wasn't sleeping well at night, I was not looking forward to going to work the next day. I absolutely dreaded it, and it all happened really through a leadership change and the impact that that leader had. So for me, it was an opportunity for me to really reflect on do my values align here and do I feel like I can continue to be successful in this environment. I started to re-bell, I guess you could say, to use your word and I just couldn't take the decisions that were being asked of me. And through a few discussions in a period of time, it became more and more clear that I was not going to be successful in this environment any longer because of the differences in my values and the values of the leader. At that point in time, that leader decided that I was not right on her team and mutual decisions were taken and I left and through that experience, initially I thought, wow, what am I going to do with myself? And then I had the opportunity to move on to something else, experience a completely different culture, and it's an environment where it was a lot.
April :It was a very tough environment working for Amazoncom For a little bit. You guys know the company out there, so I have nothing bad to say about Amazoncom. I know there's a lot of things out there about their culture and their environments and I learned a lot. I learned a lot about distribution. I learned a lot about leadership. I learned a lot about how you can performance, manage and things like that. It was a good learning opportunity, but I also felt like it wasn't the place for me, so I still didn't fit into that culture, moved on, and through this whole period of time it just started to really sink in that for me, staying in an organization, going to work every day, I have to fit in. The company's values have to align with my values. The culture has to be one that I feel like I can bring my whole self to work. I don't need to bring a portion of myself to work, and so I ended up working in again. I'm a corporate executive now.
April :I work for this awesome company, abb, and the culture just fits very well for me and the values align for me as well. The leadership is very caring. One of their core values is the word care. We care about our people. We create the culture where employees don't want to leave. We care about how they value our employees greatly, and so through these experiences, it just really started to click with me that my biggest passion, my whole purpose in life, really is to create these experiences, so that when employees go to bed on Sunday night they look forward to going to work on Monday morning, because it's just so important. They are our biggest asset in business, and so why not try our very hardest to create these cultures in which people want to come to work and they want to stay. So, yes, it's a lot of fun, I love it. I'm very passionate about it.
Audra :You said a lot of key things in there that I took note of. First thing that jumped out to me was leadership the leadership that you had previously versus the one, the new one, that you had changed the whole culture overnight, yes, overnight. So that should highlight the importance of who your leaders are. Yes, because your leaders will change and influence the culture of your entire organization, regardless of what type of organization it is. It could be a corporate organization, it could be a nonprofit, it could be anything, yes, but the expression it starts at the top is real. Okay. So this shifted for you, that this whole thing shifted.
Audra :The other thing that jumped out to me is this radical thought of employees looking forward to going to work on Monday. I haven't heard a lot of that in quite a while. I will tell you that, probably at the start of the pandemic. That is when I started to hear more and more disgruntled comments about what they're doing, and I think part of it is because we had more time to think about what we were doing and feel things and really examine our values and whether or not our values were aligning with what we were doing. I've heard a lot of discontentment over the last three years and you're saying that that can be completely turned around and we'll focus on corporate America for a while. We'll pick on corporate America because there's a visitor in it.
Audra :Yes, I've made the statement many times that corporate America was not built for women. It wasn't. You can tell by their culture, you can tell by their policies. It was never built with a female in mind, because our needs, our desires, our goals all of those are completely different than most of our male counterparts. I can't say all. I'm going to say most. So let's start there. Let's pick on that for a minute. Tell us what a culture that is inclusive and considering us all. What?
April :does that look like? So that's a really, really good point, audra, and I think in the environment that I really try to create with my leadership, is definitely inclusive. And through the pandemic we did. We went through the Great Resignation Most of us have heard this term, the Great Resignation and we went through that where a majority of the resignations that took place were women. We lost a lot of women in the workplace during the pandemic and again, we lost a lot of women in the workplace during the pandemic, oftentimes because the culture did not necessarily adapt to the needs. That's true. What we try to do and what I really am encouraging leaders all the time to do is to think differently, to think outside of the box and how we structure our workday, how do we structure the work demands? I just had a conversation last week Actually, it was just earlier this week. Time is flying.
April :I had a conversation with a leader just earlier this week about a resignation from a woman in the business who has just a super strong talent in our organization but she is a new mom. She wants to spend some quality years with her daughter. She has basically just decided to stay at home and be a mom and not be in the workplace. My first response to this manager, when he came to me and said, hey, we're losing this employee, was have we talked with this employee about different schedules? Does the employee want to quit working completely or does she just want more time with her daughter? There's a difference and oftentimes we just we too, as women sometimes we just assume that, because the workplace is really not designed for us, that our only option is to either be a stay-at-home mom or to be a professional, and so, as leaders, we need to be offering up a different view to that employee to say, hey, would you consider, have you thought about this? If you want to stay home full time, that's great. A lot of moms want to do that for a while. I did that for a little bit when my children were young, and that's okay. But there are some who maybe just want to go part time, that might just want to work a couple of days a week instead of five days a week, and they don't want their children in daycare. So why not offer these things up In talking with the employee? Following the conversation with the manager, the employee was willing and interested, potentially, in fact, the employee told me I'm actually worried about leaving my friends. I'm afraid I'm going to miss my friends, my social connection Again.
April :If we just if we're listening to our employees, if we're hearing their needs, if we're understanding where their values lie, what is their purpose? And we all go through different phases in life, especially us as women. There are phases in our life where we want to, first and foremost, we're mom or we're a wife or you know, and there are points in our career me personally at my career now my children are adults, they're grown, they're gone, they don't live anywhere near me. So I'm a professional, I'm still a wife, but I'm a professional and I can dedicate a different mindset to my career now than what I might have 25 years ago.
April :So it's getting leaders to think differently, that you don't have to have a 40 hour work week, you don't have to have an eight to five. I've asked leaders why do we not offer a nine to three shift for moms that want to drop their children off at school and then pick them back up at the end of the day? What's wrong with that? Dads too Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of dads out there that want to stay home too. And so, just thinking differently about how we tailor to these types of things.
Audra :I started this by saying you're a rebel, because if you said that out loud, in certain corporate situations they would be like what? What do you mean? No, work only happens Monday through Friday, eight to five. And that's simply not true. I mean, guys, let's be real. When's the last time you actually worked straight all nine hours? I mean, let's be real, you can't. First of all, you cannot. You cannot hold your concentration at that level for nine hours. You cannot, because, if there are some of you that are still working from home, you're eating lunch at your desk. I know it because I am too. I'm eating lunch at my desk. So it is nine hours and no, you cannot hold my attention, that level of detail and that level of concentration for that period of time. You cannot. So you're saying there's this radical idea of I don't know, let's adjust to what the needs are of our employee.
April :Absolutely.
Audra :What a crazy idea.
April :Yeah. So I do think that the needs have to be adjusted for I don't think we no longer live. Whether we want to talk about gender or we talk about generational differences. I'm seeing that it's also very much important that we think about what is the life, the work and the life balance that we're offering to even some of our Gen Z user, our young millennials, coming into the organization as well. It's important to them. It's very important to them and they also keeping in mind they're also the same generation that's at that age where families are starting Right. I mean, it's so different than. I'm definitely not a millennial or a Gen Z, but even when I was in my late 20s I was having a family and my needs were different then, and so I do think that we have to be creative in offering the flexibility in the organization to accommodate different periods of people's lives. It's also true of later career.
April :I was just attending a retirement celebration this afternoon for an employee and in asking this employer, are you excited about your retirement? He said I have a lot of emotions. I have a lot of emotions because I just don't know what the next phase of life is going to be like. My experience is that a lot of times people phase into retirement a lot better than they will to just turn off a full time job and the next day they're no longer employed.
April :As an organization, we try as well in my business that we try to offer a phasing retirement plan. We allow them to work part time, we give them that option, if they so choose, to consider the retirement in a phased process, because we're gaining, the company is gaining. In that situation you often get time to cross train, to bring somebody new up to speed. You get that opportunity to capture the knowledge a little bit longer and they are able to phase in, because that's also a very significant time in a person's life when you go from having a purpose and an identity that might be tied to a career versus losing that identity and that purpose the next day. And so again, as an employer and as leaders, more importantly, in my opinion, it's the leaders responsibility to really try to find those avenues, to be creative and create that culture where people want to come to work and it doesn't mean they have to come to work for eight or nine hours. We can be creative in how we offer these opportunities to people.
Audra :The abrupt. You know you're full time today, you're retiring tomorrow. That is that is jarring to the system, because there is a generation that is retiring now. That was of this idea of you. You get married, you have children, you work, you retire, you die, and that is. That is a depressing thought, quite frankly, and there's a lot of women that are in my same generation. You and I are of the same, we're both Gen Xers, we are both empty nesters and we're starting to examine. We don't want that to be our reality. We don't want to be. Let's retire and we'll, and then we die. We also don't want to postpone doing stuff. Thank you for watching until we retire. We wanna start experiencing it now.
Audra :You and I are both very young, very active, and we don't have kids at home anymore. So suddenly, all that brain cell power that we had trying to raise two humans is now open and available to us. Yes, we have organizations embraced that, because I mean, there's all kinds of things that are going on in the background. I have open kind of time. I have open time of brain capacity that I didn't have before and how its companies thought about taking advantage of that and going what else can she do, or what else can he do besides their job? What else is there an opportunity to contribute, to learn, to knowledge transfer, to anything, I mean there's For sure. I find that in many environments it's very confining. It's like you just stay in your lane, don't ask questions and just be there. But we're humans and it's very possible to that you can be multiple things at the same time in the same space. Yes, how do you promote that?
April :My experience actually would say that it's not necessarily corporations who do that, it's individual leaders. Once again, I do put up a lot of responsibility on leaders and I think the corporation's responsibility really is making sure that you're hiring the right people to lead and that people who are leading have the right purpose for being in that leadership role, so making sure that they wanna be leaders, because they do wanna grow people and they want to get the most that they can out of their employees and see them be their best, bringing their best potential to the table. If leaders have that purpose and they really want that, the corporation has done exactly what their requirement really is, which is bringing the right people. And if leaders are there, because and I see this quite regularly in big business especially there's too many leaders that have promoted into their leadership positions because they'd been in the job for a long time or they were the most technically sound, they had put in their time so they get these opportunities or they apply to these jobs because it's the only way to maybe get more money or to get the next promotion. There's not something more that they can do, and they're just after the promotion, they're after the. They're kind of chasing the dollar when I get to the highest level of compensation I can get to before I retire, kind of thing.
April :Sometimes they don't always make the best leaders because they don't necessarily have the same passion for seeing people grow and to getting the most potential out of their people. So I'm constantly talking about this topic of leadership. Why are you being a leader? Why are you in your leadership position? What is your purpose? Because that is at the core. What's going to drive whether an employee is going to give you 100% or not. If that person has the passion, they're having good conversations. If they're having good conversations, then they know they have a trusting relationship, they're very supportive of them, they're helping them grow in their career, they're challenging them, they're raising the bar, making sure that we're not just getting comfortable with status quo, that we're always having these good conversations. It comes back to these great conversations. I'm a big fan of one-on-ones. I push them a lot, and so if leaders are having good conversations, they know what their people's potential is and they're pushing them to meet that potential, that will, by leaps and bounds, create the culture that allows that employee to feel good. They're going to feel cared about, they're going to feel supported. They're going to have development plans.
April :Capturing knowledge I talk a lot about this white papers. Not everybody wants to climb a ladder, not everyone wants to continue to grow, but we have to keep raising the bar for our people and you can do that by just giving them opportunities to teach others, Even if they don't want to learn something. Have them teach something they can do lunch and learns with their peers. They can write white papers about something they know a lot about, so that you capture that knowledge. Coming back to different phases in our life, we definitely have more brain power to give to an organization at different stages in our lives, based on what's going on in our personal life or how engaged we are. And I do feel like there is this place where an employee will tend to get to a plateau or get to a place where they don't want to climb. They don't necessarily want to keep growing. They have a lot to give because they have a lot of brain power right at that moment.
April :And now, with remote work as well, people are very productive. They are very productive working from home. There are some where there's behavioral issues maybe that have to be addressed because they're not staying engaged, but for the most part, people are more productive working in their home office than when they were at the office and they were constantly interrupted or spending a lot of time at the water cooler, and so their productivity is pretty powerful for people who are in this work from home kind of situation. But leaders still struggle with the idea of are they really using all of their brain power? Are they really being productive?
April :Because I can't see them, I'm not able to see how much they're giving.
April :I can't see if they're on their computer all the time, and I'm constantly saying that doesn't matter.
April :Why do you care? Why do you need to see them? Are they getting the job done and meeting your expectations? In fact, probably they might be exceeding your expectation, and if they're meeting your expectations and you're challenging them, you're raising the bar for them, you're making sure you're getting full potential and they are able to accomplish all of that in seven hours. Is this a problem? I personally don't think it has to be a problem. Now, if you want to get more out of them, I guess as a leader, you have every right to encourage more or set your boundaries or, excuse me, set your expectations a little bit higher if you feel like they have more to give, but if they're meeting your expectations and we're doing a good job of setting those expectations with our employees, what does it matter if it's a seven hour day or an eight hour day or a nine hour day, Because sometimes those same people that might take seven hours will also give you nine or 10 when you need them to, because you treated them as adults.
Audra :You treated them with respect, which is a crazy thing to say. Oh my gosh, adults adulting, I mean, come on, we were all at home juggling family, school and our jobs. Yes, it was easy, and the world did not stop turning on its axis. It kept moving forward. It was a little bit more complicated and now organizations are starting to realize they had even though there was loads of complications while working from home, kids at school, loads and the stress level was extremely high and everybody was expected to be flexible because it was really hard. But organizations have found it was much more productive. You had employees that were more engaged because they had limited time to give, so that time that they knew they had to give, they concentrated and they were productive on what they were doing. Some of them they only had five hours to give because the kids were on Zoom doing school, and that was the time that they had to be productive.
Audra :Why are we suddenly going? Oh well, nobody's locked down anymore and let's go back to the old way, which maybe it's just a habit, but that old mindset is still the mindset that was created during the age of manufacturing. That's the reason for the rose, that's the reason for having to see people, because it was in an age where we were primarily manufacturing goods and services in factories, in giant organizations, and that's just not the case anymore. I don't know I understand why it was so easy to be flexible when we had to be, and now that we have a choice, it's oh, let's go back to the old way. Why the old way is out of date.
April :Yeah, I do agree. I do believe that there are definitely companies out there that are still trying to revert back to the old way. Fortunately, that is not my mindset and fortunately for the leaders that I work with, that is not their mindset either. So we are quite flexible with that situation. We have not mandated a return to office. It's not something that we felt. It's up to each leader.
April :So, again coming back to, if we've hired the right people to be leaders, then we should empower them to make those calls and there are teams that based on the role, the job that they have, the connections that they might have, because in our business we have manufacturing. So definitely there are going to be places where people need to be in the building and there's going to be other jobs where you need to have some level of connection, and that during the pandemic it was very difficult and didn't work very well. So there are times and places and opportunities where that might need to shift. But again, it should be case by case. It should be based on that team and how they operate as a team and the leaders' clear expectations being set for the team. So if leaders can do that, I think organizations will be a lot better at creating that really nice culture for employees to want to stay.
Audra :Let's focus on the characteristics of the leader that organizations need not necessarily the the characteristics of a leader that they have. You had mentioned previously how leaders typically get into the role, which aren't necessarily. They aren't necessarily built to be leaders or trained to be leaders or even wanna be leaders. They're there because of the things that you talked about before wanting more money and trying to grow, that kind of thing and you said something that stuck out to me about being technically savvy, and it has been my experience that those that are technically savvy aren't necessarily the greatest leaders. So let's pick on the leaders for a moment, and I don't mean that lovingly picking on the leaders. What does a leader need to look like today To adapt to a culture that is more employee-centric?
April :In my opinion, of course, and what I've seen in my years of being an HR and really doing a ton of coaching of leaders, I do think I will say I do think that leadership, good leadership, can be taught. So I do believe that technically savvy employees who want to grow into a leadership role, if they want to be good leaders, they can be good leaders. They can be taught. I believe the skills they are teachable. You're not born with them always. Some people are, but I do the argument of whether you're born with these traits or not born with these traits. I tend to think and I have seen through my years, I have seen leaders really turn into great leaders who maybe weren't in the beginning of their leadership role. So what does it take? What does that look like? What does that profile look like? To me it's about purpose. It's really about making sure that they understand what their purpose is in the role. And if they have good clarity around what their own purpose is in the role, that is a very, very good start. So if their purpose is there because they want to see their employees be successful, they want to grow the business. There's always going to be KPIs. There will always be an aspect of leadership that you need to meet certain criteria. You need to meet certain business objectives. We understand that and that will never change. But, more importantly, if a leader has a higher level of passion and purpose around the people that they're serving, that is a stronger leader than someone whose sole purpose is really to deliver the highest volume of revenue, the highest profit margin. So it's finding those leaders who have that true passion for growing teams and empowering teams and providing them with great support and trust. So for me, it's really that it's defining their purpose, making sure that their purpose is aligned with seeing employees be successful, creating a culture that employees want to be a part of. If they have that purpose, they will be successful.
April :There are certain skills that you have to have, in my opinion, to deliver such culture. You have to be a good listener. I truly believe that in order to create the culture that keeps employees coming to work every day, you have to be able to set up good conversations with your employees. You have to listen more than you speak. I love the saying we have two ears and one mouth. For a reason, we should listen twice as long or twice as much. So good listening skills. By doing that, you learn a lot about your people, and the more you know about your people, the more you can coach and develop and empower them. If you know that your employees aspire to grow in their career, you should be helping them to grow in their career. If you have employees who are struggling with something in their personal life that might be impacting their ability to perform, then you can have grace and you can have an opportunity to give them the time that they might need to focus on these personal things, which will essentially give your employee that feeling of trust and respect for you as a leader. So the more you converse with them, the more you learn about your employees, the more in touch with their values, with their needs, with their purpose as well, the better leader you're going to be and the better the culture will be for that employee.
April :I also think, too, that employees need to own their career, so I'm also a very big proponent of telling employees to really own your career. You need to be seeking out opportunities. You need to be making sure that you're having open dialogue with your managers the last thing we ever want to hear from an employee. If an employee decides to leave the organization and they tell us they didn't really have a career path or they didn't have a development plan or something like that. I want to be able to ask that employee have you been asking for this? Have you talked with your manager about this? Is this something your manager knows? Because I don't want to get to a place where the manager had no idea, the leader was not even aware that this person wanted to go develop in this area or grow in this area, because that person wasn't willing to be open to communicating their wishes as well.
April :So the communication does have to be two-way, but I believe that leaders who are strong, effective listeners and that take the time to listen to their employees, that have very effective one-on-one conversations not just one-on-ones to see how they're progressing on a project or how they're doing against a KPI, but to really have a good one-on-one conversation with their employees to know what is it that you need from me? What can I help you with? Where do you want to go? What are areas you want to learn? Is there anything you need help with? Is there anything going on in your life that you want to share with me? Just having good questions that you're asking and then listening so powerful.
Audra :So actually showing up as a human being first, and then an officer of the organization second? Absolutely.
April :It's a great way to say it.
Audra :So weird, what a weird concept you had mentioned earlier, that there are natural-born leaders and then there are leaders that are made, that are developed. What if there are individuals out there that are like I need to be a better leader, I need to learn these skills, but I have no idea how to do it. Where would you direct them to say this is a good place to start?
April :For sure they can check out my webpage if they'd like. I have a great checklist out there, thestaychallengecom. I have a checklist that actually leaders can download and it'll help them with the types of questions, the culture that they're creating currently. But there's actually a lot you can learn everywhere. Honestly, and if I go back to just listening instead of being the one doing the speaking, that's not hard. That is not a hard thing for any of us to learn. It can be difficult because it might be different. We may not have naturally grown up in that type of way, and so listening might not be our strongest suit. But we can all improve on that.
April :One simple task. It's really setting up those effective one-on-ones, and the checklist that I have would be a great start. I'm very passionate about it. It's a great tool. I have a lot of leaders using it. It can really help with what is. When you go through a checklist like that. It's really picking out the one thing that you're not doing. Well, because this is a tool for you to be honest about what you're doing and what you're not doing, and then pick something you're not doing and just go work on that one thing. I have a book coming out too, so I'll plug that. It's going to be called the Stay Challenge and it's all on employee retention and what leaders can do to improve in these areas that I've spoken about.
Audra :So tell me again the name of your book that's coming out, the.
April :Stay Challenge.
Audra :Tell me a little bit more about that. That's an interesting title. A stage, I'm assuming, meaning Stay with the organization.
April :Yes. So it is an interesting and there's a little bit of a kind of maybe a twist on the way that I wrote the title or came up with the title. So Stay is an acronym in my book. So the acronym is Support, trust, appreciate and Yield. So it's the four different traits that I believe make strong leaders, and the challenge piece is we won't always keep everyone. So the great resignation happened. Then we get into the stage that we're at now, which is, I often call it, the great stay. We need people to stay. We want people to stay. We need to be more flexible and leaders really need to focus on these four areas in order to keep their employees longer, but it's okay if people are leaving.
April :The issue that we run into oftentimes, and what I ask a lot of my leaders, is that are the right people staying or are the right people leaving? So the challenge really is to focus on the emotion that you have when someone resigns. I will ask leaders this when they tell me an employee has resigned, I will ask them their emotion. What emotion are you feeling right now? What I don't wanna hear is that they're surprised, they're shocked, they're frustrated, they're angry, they're mad. What I really want them to come to me and say is that I'm happy for them, because we can't promote everyone, but we can develop people and so we can't be afraid that when I work really hard as a leader to grow my employees, it's possible they may have to leave to get their next promotional opportunity. But if we roll out the red carpet during that resignation process and we treat them with respect and dignity, there's a very high likelihood they'll come back. There will be a point in time where you might get them back.
April :I also believe that sometimes we're not a cultural fit for everyone, and so it's okay if somebody makes that realization that this is not the place for me. I don't fit in as well here. I need to go try something different. But the question really is do we know ahead of time? Are we doing stay interviews? Are we asking our employees why they stay? And then are we prepared for that person when they come and give us a resignation, because we had had good conversations and we knew this day would probably come.
April :If that's the case, we shouldn't be angry and we will lose these people. You want the number of resignations to be low. I spend a lot of time sharing the cost of replacing employees with my leaders, because it's huge impact to our bottom line when we have people leave. But you won't keep everyone. So the challenge is keeping the people that fit well in your organization, keeping your employees motivated, growing them, developing them, being proud of them so that they can be proud of you as an organization and you as a leader, and then minimize the amount of people who leave, because getting to 0% turnover is just not possible. It's just not possible. There would be something wrong. I think that's the case.
Audra :Now, where is it the goal? Because that means that you'd be stagnant as well. Yes, that's right. If that's zero, that means nothing would be changing. Everybody thinks the same. That's right. And that's not growth anymore. Exactly, before we run out of time, I wanna talk about the flip side of what happens when you do this shift of culture, where you're focusing on what the employee needs, rather than here are the metrics, here's the KPIs, and we're going to manage to that. We're gonna. Instead, we're switching it to we're gonna manage to the employee and then work our way backwards. What's the result of that? And let's talk about it in dollars and cents, because everybody understands math, so let's talk about it in those terms.
April :I'll start out by saying I am a corporate employee and I understand KPIs and I, just like everyone else on a leadership team, have expectations to achieve certain profitability in the organization. So I believe that we all still have to be very focused on the financial KPIs. That is incredibly important and that will not ever go away. I think the biggest piece to really getting leaders to understand that you can do both is when you start talking about the dollar impact to losing employees, which is significant Right now. On the average total avoidable turnover cost for the US is around $50,000.
April :So replacement costs, recruiting efforts, loss of productivity by the team, by the person who's left there are just a number of things that come into play when you think about somebody who leaves your organization and the cost to replace them. And I use this with my team. In one quarter, in the first quarter of this year, we I just shared $1.2 million with US dollars to the team and said what do you think this means? And nobody really understood and I said that's how much money we lost in the quarter, based on turnover. And so when you think about when companies really think about the impact it's impacting, so why not make this a priority to be thinking about retention and turnover because it is impacting your KPI. That's $1.2 million of avoidable expenses that you just threw away.
April :Potentially, I mean, you would still have some level of turnover. You're always going to have some level of turnover. The second thing is really looking at the list of the names of those people that are leaving, right, and again coming back to that emotion that leaders will have like, are you, were you frustrated, shocked, surprised at these people who were leaving. So when I think about business, we always will continue to strive to achieve profitability and hit our targets, our KPI targets. It's important if you're in a for-profit organization anyway in big corporations, that's important but the impact to employee turnover is so significant to those KPIs. So we have to do both. We have to keep putting the focus on the employee and the employee experience because if we don't, we're going to continue to negatively impact the profitability of our business.
Audra :That's what we refer to as leakage. Yes, where you're looking, when you look at the bottom line at the end of the year, end of the quarter, and you see leakage, it's usually in retention, it's usually in turnover and it's expensive. Yes, it is very expensive. Think about all of the knowledge that you currently have, whatever you're doing, whatever role you play. Think about all the knowledge that you currently have. What would happen to your team, to your organization, whatever the case may be, if you left? That means you take all the knowledge with you and that leaves a big, giant gaping hole and it's expensive. It's expensive.
Audra :There's a lot of people that are listening, that are like I wish I could do something, I wish I can impact this, I wish I can change it, but I feel too small. What could I possibly do? How can I influence? And it sounds like you have this checklist that they don't necessarily have to be in a leadership role per se, like an official role. You can just change your environment by changing your mindset. I want to make sure that I heard that correctly Absolutely, absolutely. If they went and got this checklist and they're reading through it and they needed to make some changes, how would you advise them to do that?
April :The checklist is tied a little to the leadership piece, but it's absolutely something that can be used by individual contributors all day long, and mindset is a big piece to that. I completely, 100% agree that if a person wants to make a difference in their workplace culture, their own environment, the biggest thing that I can say is to take an ownership mindset, take ownership of the situation and just make sure that we're not victim is too hard of a word. Most people don't seem to say they're victims, but be careful not to get into this position of thinking other people are going to be who create the culture that I'm exposed. To Find a way for you to create the culture you want to be a part of. Set up your own one-on-one with your leader. If your leader isn't having good conversations with you, then have the conversation with them. Set up the conversation with your leader and use the checklist to be an outline of the types of things that you want to talk to your leader about, giving them the information about where you want to go in your career, what are your values, what are the needs that you have, which are all things that are discussed here.
April :Provide feedback to your leader or seek feedback from your leader if you're not getting these kinds of things, because all of that will create a relationship with the leader. That will ultimately, if you have a good leader, it's going to create a good caring relationship and that care, that piece of our needs, will be fulfilled and we will now find getting ready for bed on Sunday night to be a more positive experience, because we're going to look forward to Monday, so you can definitely own it yourself. I believe that 100%, if you take that extra effort to make it happen. Where there's leaders that might be a little more toxic in the environment and make it difficult, as what I have experienced earlier in my career, sometimes you do have to make a change. Sometimes that does mean you have to think differently about where you belong, but for the most part, I think any of the listeners out there that feel like they're in a place where they could make change happen they likely can, just taking a little bit of ownership.
Audra :I'm going to ask you for your reaction on something that I've done recently and my leader was a little taken aback because I did this. I actually happened to work for a really wonderful group. It's a wonderful culture, it's very respectful, it's a good, cohesive organization. I actually gave that comment and a compliment to my leader because I let him know that I recognized that it was his mindset and his leadership that made all of that possible. So I gave that feedback to him and he was a little taken aback and a little surprised that I said I have feedback for you and this is what it is and I appreciate what you have done, and he was a little stunned. He didn't know how to react. So I and it wasn't, it wasn't a negative thing at all, it was a positive thing but he just was like oh okay, thank you. I want to hear your reaction as to what I did and your reaction to how he responded.
April :So I think it's amazing that you did that, and I think more people need to do that to their leaders. Leaders are people, we are all people and we all need feedback from time to time on how we're doing, both positive and negative. If there's something we need to improve, great, but if there are things we need to keep doing well, then let us know. We need to keep doing them. So I think what you did is great. I commend you for having the courage to do that. I'm not surprised, honestly, at the response of the leader. Not knowing your culture or the leader themselves, but just having worked around a number of leaders that don't receive feedback very often, I'm not surprised by that, because it's not a common practice. It should be. So I would encourage you to keep doing it right and and maybe this, this leader will get more comfortable with receiving it, but a lot of it is probably just that comfort level of where is this coming from? Why are you doing this? A little bit of that skepticism like what's what's going on? Why are you doing this? This is unusual.
April :So the more you do that, I think, the better it will be received in the future, or if some of your peers can do the same right If you just take that initiative to provide that feedback. What I love is when leaders ask for it. So I definitely think that leaders who are, who are open to you and and courageous enough to seek the inputs from their employees they are very strong leaders typically and so hopefully you can get him to that place of of accepting the feedback and creating an environment. I also will say if you create an environment of giving positive feedback, then at some point when you need to give maybe a little bit more constructive criticism to something that he might be doing, he will be more receptive to receiving it right, because it's not that you always come with negative. So if, if leaders are hearing both, it makes those conversations a lot easier for you as the employee to give them the not so positive feedback that you think they should hear.
Audra :Well then, I wasn't nuts then, because I. I just decided that my leader has a really tough job and probably didn't doesn't get a whole lot of recognition for what he does manage, and so I just gave it to him.
Audra :Good, for you and I was just and I felt good giving it to him because, quite frankly, everything that we're talking about today, it's an environment I want to be in, it's an environment I want to spend my time in, and the only way to make it grow and flourish is to act accordingly, and so that's what I decided to do, even without your checklist.
April :But now I am going to go and get your checklist.
Audra :So I want to take a moment and allow you two things. First thing, I'm going to step away from the mic and allow you a personal moment directly with the audience and then after, please give us your web address one more time and where they can connect with you. Absolutely.
April :So my message, so audience listen. It is such an awesome feeling to go to bed on Sunday night looking forward to Monday morning. It's an awesome feeling to know that the culture in which you work is amazing. I challenge you to find that, if you don't have it, find that if you have it, my hat's off to you and you need to hang in there, because there's not a lot of those environments in today's, today's workplaces that that people feel like they can just flourish and bring their full self to work.
April :So again, if you need help, if you want to check out my checklist, it's thestaychallengecom and it's a free checklist. You just have to sign up, of course, with an email address, and the only purpose of that is so that I can keep you informed of when my book is going to release. I'm super excited. The book is called the Stay Challenge, so very excited about that. You can reach me at aprilatthestaychallengecom or hello at thestaychallengecom. I'm open to discussing challenges that you might have in your workplace with you as well, so just reach out anytime. Happy to connect.
Audra :April, thank you very much for the information that you've shared with us today. It's been really informative. It's also been intriguing and challenging. I mean it's going to challenge the status quo, because if you don't like how it feels, change it, and you might be the right person to change it. So, april, thank you for giving us a smaller roadmap on how to get there.
April :You are so welcome.
Audra :Thanks for having me, audra, audra, thank you and I want to thank all of you for tuning in this week and we'll see you again next time.