Good morning. It’s John Garrett coming to you with another episode of Green Apple Slices. I have on the other line the Accountants and Alliances for Sage Canada, Rachel Fisch.

Rachel: Hey, John. How are you?

John: I said “the” didn’t I?

Rachel: I was just going to say like you said — don’t say it’s me. It throws you off.

John: Then I said it, but whatever.

Rachel: Yeah. That’s okay.

John: You’re a person. It’s you. You picked up.

Rachel: Yay.

John: But yeah. But every Monday, we always get everyone’s week started talking through an article we find online about employee engagement or corporate culture, things like this, just something to get their week started to think differently. I found this article on Fast Company, “Do These Things to Create an Engaging Employee Experience from Start to Finish.” Yeah, from start to finish because I think a lot of people don’t think about this until it’s really too late. Then they roll in like a Ping-Pong table and say, “See, everything’s fine.” “Not really. Not at all. Not at all.”

Rachel: Yeah. I actually thought that it was a really — so it’s by Rob Deluca of Glassdoor. I thought it chronicled the journey of culture really well going right from the recruitment process and then all the way through to exit interview. Now, in order to do that well, it had to stay pretty high level, but it does give some really practical tips along the way. The thing about to-do lists when it comes to company culture is that you can check all the boxes and still not have a great culture because it just has to eventually seep into who you are as an organization and be really authentic. I’m afraid that if there are checkbox checker peoples, then they’re like, “But I’m doing all the things, why isn’t it…” Anyway, but there is an authenticity to it and that I think that’s the glue that holds all of it together. But yeah, it was a really great overview.

John: Yeah, for sure because I mean every organization is totally different just like every person is totally different than the next. So when it comes to the hiring process — and he just says how critical communication is at the very beginning. That way then you’re hiring and attracting and retaining the right people so then turnover is less. You don’t have to be interviewing all the time and hiring all the time because you actually hire the right people by communicating clearly, “Look, this is who we are,” type of a thing. Yeah. And the three C’s of good recruiting — clear, consistent and caring — which I’m not sure if any of those three happen on a regular basis. But caring especially, I think that maybe you care a little bit. Then once they’re hired, “Yeah. We’re done. Your here.”

Rachel: Yeah. You’re talking about, “Building engagement within the hiring process.” I thought it was interesting all these talking about employee engagement and relating it to romantic relationships. You usually don’t propose on the second date, right? These things are understood to take time. Yet people think that they can find an amazing match for their company really quickly. I think one of a really great way to hire amazing staff is to basically always be recruiting. Keep tabs on people in your industry that are the movers and the shakers or that would be a really great addition. Then you actually have a sense for who they are and what they can do without actually needing to be in an interview process, right? Then when a vacancy does come open, then you should have at least almost like a shortlist of people that you would want to reach out to be a little proactive to join your organization.

John: Yeah, yeah. But you also have to know what your organization is and what that culture is and be honest about it.

Rachel: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Right.

John: Then also it needs to be clear to the other people that work with you and are around you to be like, “Oh. Well, that’s what they stand for. That’s what they do,” type of a thing. But yeah. But it’s just – it walks through that and then the onboarding process and just letting people reinforce the culture that they got to see during the interview process. But the thing is I love this part where they talk about benefits and how — I think that a lot, especially professional services firms, think, “Oh, we pay them really well or we give them a lot of vacation or we whatever,” but do you let them use the vacation? Do you let them use these benefits?

Rachel: Right. Yes.

John: Do the people even care about these benefits? Have you even asked them?

Rachel: Right. Are you getting benefits that your employees care about? Yeah, absolutely. Or allow them to even create their own plan?

John: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. There was a study that Sage did that I just read about where 47% of employees say that their employer has never asked them what benefits they value. And that’s scary.

Rachel: I actually would have thought that it was higher because I’ve been in organizations where we’ve changed benefit plans. There has been zero feedback on, “So if we’re looking for other plans, what is it that we should be looking for?” Instead, it’s just, “I want to get the same plan for cheaper.” That’s like the parameters of the search, right?

John: No, absolutely. Yeah. Then the last part there about just in career development, I thought it was interesting as well.

Rachel: Near the beginning, he also talks about basically a link between customer engagement and employee engagement. I mean this is something that we’ve talked about, right? Even if you’re thinking about the life cycle of a client or a customer, there has been a lot of thought that has gone into, “How are we going to reach our potential customers? How are we going to secure the deals for those customers? How do we keep that customer engaged and keep them doing business with us? If a customer doesn’t work out, how do we reach out to them?” So I really doubt that organizations that put the level of thought into a customer journey put the same level of thought into an employee journey. Of course, Richard Branson says, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of the employees, they will take care of your clients.” Yet the whole focus is customer facing and then not even relating those things back to your employees. I thought that was a really great call out right from the beginning to relate those two.

John: Absolutely. If you want to read the whole article, you can go to greenapplepodcast.com. There’s some really great tips in here and just walking through the whole process and for you to think about your organization and have you really thought this through from the employee experience side of things and creating the culture that makes people want to be engaged. It’s really where it’s at. Yeah. Check out greenapplepodcast.com. Don’t forget to hit subscribe so you don’t miss any of all the episodes that we have every Monday with Rachel and every Wednesday with a new professional that’s known for a hobby or a passion outside of work. If that’s you or someone you know, definitely reach out and let us know because I’d love to have them be a guest and showcase them. Have a great rest of the week, Rachel. We’ll talk to you next Monday.

Rachel: Yep. Talk to you later, John.