Staying Ahead: Navigating the Challenges of a Five-Generation Workforce

For the first time in history, the workforce spans five generations, presenting unique challenges for companies striving to stay relevant and competitive. In an era where choice is abundant, it's crucial to stay current, anticipate trends, and remain vigilant for the sake of clients, partners, and employees. This session will explore how an empowered workforce is a thriving workforce, focusing on key strategies for success. What you'll learn Effective methods to attract and develop talent across all generations. How to foster collaboration and understanding between different age groups to improve retention. The importance of adopting modern technologies to create empowered and dynamic work cultures.

Transcription:

Erica Gunaca (00:09):

I am so excited today to be moderating for these wonderful people. I would love to go down the line and just introduce yourselves. My name's Erica Gunaca I am Head of Performance and Talent Management of Jitjatjo.

Wende Smith (00:23):

And I'm Wende Smith and I'm Head of People Operations at Bamboo HR

Kristin M. Reed (00:28):

Kristin Reed with UC, San Diego in our Organization Development and HR Strategy.

Gabriel Aponte (00:33):

And I'm Gabriel Aponte. I'm a Benefits Advisor with Black Ink Benefits. We're an Intermountain West based, regionally owned, family owned benefit brokerage.

Erica Gunaca (00:41):

Ooh, we got some cool people in here tonight. Okay. Alright. So oddly, my company sent me swag and they sent me tide pens. I don't know why. So if you ask a question, you're going to get a Tide pen. Alright, we're up to a good start, so let's get right into it. I would just want to start with this image right here of representation of different backgrounds and experiences. We are a five generation workforce right now, which means that we need to stay competitive and relevant. You can see the stats over there of each company that we're a part of. So it's not every day that you get to sit in a room with so much wisdom and creativity and innovation across the ages. Very rad, right? I said rad. I'll throw in nifty. What generation is she from? So let's start with just the umbrellas of retention and attraction. So going into a helicopter view in terms of fostering an environment where Gen Z to boomers can feel heard, seen and still have their impact and collaborate, what are your passions about this topic, technology and tangibles, and how can you nurture the gap within that pocket?

Wende Smith (01:52):

Yes, I'll go ahead and go first. So it's an interesting time that we're in from so many facets, but when we think about communication and inclusivity in the workforce, I think that we just have to be sensitive and realize that what may have worked 10 years ago doesn't necessarily work today. And I think we've all experienced the movement from very heavy email base to now very heavy instant messenger base, whether it's Slack or whether it's teams, and having that really sort of impact your culture from a how do we communicate and get information out and how do we communicate with one another? It's very different. And I personally am a Gen Xer, and so I've sort of seen the evolution of the technology, honestly, that sort of supports this different communication style. And so when I think about the different organizations I've worked in and currently the organization I do work in, you can see that we have a pretty young workforce and they're very technical. They're very much instant information, instant gratification. I spend 99% of my day in Slack, which is crazy to me. You never would've been convinced me of that 10 years ago. And so it is, it's something that's different and you have to be sort of flexible and open. And I think you just have to remember that everyone's kind of approaching how they think about inclusivity at work differently because they're coming from frankly different generations. I dunno if you want to add anything to that, Chris.

Kristin M. Reed (03:26):

Yeah, those are great examples. I would say walk away with two things. There are two things that I think is most important and I've been talking about generations at work for 21 of my 24 year career and two things, again, look at your own recruiting and retention policy and double check. Are you about to endorse something that might be shortsighted? You may be wasting costs up to 34% of an annual salary according to Gallup data or in a place where you'll be left holding the bag saying, yeah, I did this, but it's not shortsighted. And what's behind that for me? And what I fully believe is that, as Wendy mentioned, we do have to continue to evolve the way that we approach looking at generations at work. And this is the second thing we have to continue evolve that we can't do the same things, but we have to be committed to engaging and retaining all of the generations in our workplace. Having five generations in the workplace has been going on for a long time, a long, long time. It's just a new set of five that we come across every new generation. So we do have to look at how do we look at holistically at that. Earlier this morning we heard about personalization. There is some of that, but there are a lot of things that are common to all of us as we go through the life stages, an employee cycle.

Gabriel Aponte (04:53):

I really appreciate that. To speak to what Erica asked, which is kind of what are our passions on the subject in our practice, we do a lot of focus groups with our HR leaders and the hot button topic, which has been for at least the last three or four years is just how do we engage and retain this up and coming generation and do it in a way to where they can interact effectively and commingle on teams with their counterparts. But more than that, how do we get 'em to stay? I mean, honestly in our practice as advisors, we sit in a room all day and we try and figure out how to retain the workforce. And I think that we as a whole are figuring out that these newer generations don't react the same way to the same benefits that have always been in place.

(05:38):

I'll be the token, I'm the token Gen Z here. A lot of things, something actionable that I'm very passionate about that I tell our HR leader clients is I think that giving those hires and those newer employees clarity on their path is paramount. If you think of Gen Zers, we grew up in the recession. A lot of us didn't know if our homes were going to be foreclosed on or not. Parents got divorces. We grew up in an era of uncertainty unclarity about where we were going, why we were even going there, and the circumstances that were pushing us in that direction. And so I think doing what you can internally to give those employees and those team members clarity on, hey, beyond the paycheck, this is where you could be in 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 years at this firm. Do you like that? What do you want to do?

(06:25):

And help get them excited and motivated beyond just their base pay and benefits, which it's kind of a buzzword and I'm sure it's a bias we may even overlook as we do biases to see it's not that true. But there's this sentiment that these younger kids, they just want something more than money. They want this big life purpose. They have to be curing cancer or solving world hunger or they're not going to stay. And I don't necessarily think that's as true as we might think, but I think that they're trying to solve their own crises and look at a firm and say, what's my long-term path here? And the more clear that we as HR leaders can make that for them, I think is paramount. And it's what I'm super passionate about and I'm super honored and glad to appear with them. They have their perspectives on the other generations that I don't have as much. And so we can interchange and make sure that all are accommodated and figure out a way for us all to work together within our teams.

Wende Smith (07:15):

Well, and something else that we're very passionate about at Bamboo HR is, and I think you all this will resonate with a lot of you. We prefer things to be leader led, not HR said. And people I think we can collectively agree, you can have the best benefits package in the world, your pay could be right on market, but if your leaders aren't able to develop and manage their teams in an effective way, people quit their managers, they quit their companies. And so when we think about a person who may have a team of five generations or different generations than their own, if they're not cognizant of that and thinking about those things when they have team meetings, when they're talking about goals and OKRs and having their one-on-ones, it's developing those leaders to be able to have effective conversations because you are going to have different motivations with different members of the team. And HR can't be in every conversation. We're definitely not staffed for that and nor should we be. So yeah.

Kristin M. Reed (08:19):

And I just want to add something that both Gabe said and that Wendy said that is very important. Gabe mentioned purpose and going through all of these things like mortgages and job loss and family dynamics and all those things. And those are hard and those are things that we just want to feel safe and secure. So if you go back to the fundamental human needs, whether it's Maslow, whether it's scarf model, whether it's all kinds of different things, but what are those fundamental needs that we need for status, for security, for purpose, for meaning, and believing that we're doing well and being able to grow and having clarity whether you're new to the workforce because you're a Gen Z or Gen Alpha as my grandkids are, or if you're new to role, you need clarity and what do I do? How do I find and going through?

(09:09):

And that's one of the things that's important to remember across the generations if you're mid-career and 50 is mid-career because many of us want to work until we're 70 and there are things that we still need around clarity and purpose and understanding that. And if you're at the end of the career and maybe you're in the stage where you're actually transferring knowledge and really focused on how do I prepare the next generations, those are all working together. And that part of that very important retention strategy, when those things are happening that 34% waste costs might not sneak up on you because someone is going to be engaged more often than passively or actively disengaged. And Wendy, and I just lost my train of thought. So and I think Wendy mentioning just for leaders, understanding managing a multi-generational workforce is not much different in some respects than managing a multiple expertise team, a multi-location team. There are unique things that you need to know to engage and retain, recruit people, but there are also lots of common things, clarity, purpose, getting stuff done, things like that.

Wende Smith (10:31):

And at the end of the day, it's not that hard if you're clear. And that's something that I think is a hurdle for a lot of organizations.

Erica Gunaca (10:39):

Yeah, can't you just listen to them talk, I mean podcast, get a podcast. So I definitely am a believer that this is your conversation, it's your conference. So while we're on the topic of retention, I would love to just do a couple questions before we move on for a Tide pen, any questions in terms of retention? And we are recording the audio, so I will pass the mic around. Yeah,

Wende Smith (11:05):

I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

Kristin M. Reed (11:08):

Thank you. You're welcome. To elaborate on what clarity looks like for Gen Z that you talked about.

Gabriel Aponte (11:17):

Maybe the best way to answer your question might be what action would I take in a leadership position to help foster that clarity? For me, I think of mentorship personally. So creating programs, processes, systems within your organization to foster mentorship between senior leaders and junior employees for extended periods of time, I think is key to that so that they can see this is where I would be if I stayed here. Do I like this, do I not? And really allow them and give them the space to engage with those mentors is a big one that I encourage within our clients to implement. Yeah, that's a huge one. And then I honestly think this sounds super cliche, but just interviews not to get the job. Once you're in the job progress reports, check-ins with super that are geared towards, hey, this last six months you've improved. Do you still like it here? How are you doing? Where do you want? And really dialing in those conversations to give them that kind of clarity. And of course salary is a part of that and to where say, hey, the longer you stay, obviously the more you'll progress, ideally the more that you'll make. And that's important. But I think mentorship one-on-one engagement interviews, conversations over extended periods of time, I think is a good way to get started to establish that kind of clarity. Does that make sense? Does that answer your question?

Erica Gunaca (12:42):

It does and it does. Any other questions while we're on this topic? Okay, have dirty clothes. That's fine. No tide, pence. So next topic, we talked about retention. I really want to bring it to attraction. So I've had the honor and privilege to talk to a lot of candidates from all walks of life and a lot of what I hear sometimes is fear. So I feel like I'm too old to apply for this job or I'm a young leader and will people listen to me, although I'm capable. And I think that there's fear in all generations. So as a company, how are we able to brand that? How are we able to extend our arms and open them to all generations and what's the importance of that? So

Wende Smith (13:26):

I think it's really important and when you talk about what we term the employee value proposition, that you have a really defined one and that you're able to elaborate how your employee value proposition shows up and whether that be through attraction or retention or the employee life cycle, we need to be reinforcing that on a regular basis. And at Bamboo hr, we are a mission-driven company, so we have a very clear mission, we have very clear values and we take great care and ensuring people understand how those values show up and how decisions are made and then how we make big decisions like moving our building or what are we going to do different with our product and why are we doing that and is it still grounded in our mission and our values Having worked for a while now, a lot of organizations do have values, but they don't necessarily get sort of tied into how you show up at work. They end up being kind of on your badge or they're on the wall and you're kind of like, oh yeah, those are our values. But I think truly embracing your values and living your values goes a long way to propagate the value proposition because it's not just at point when a point of entry, it has to go through the whole life cycle

Kristin M. Reed (14:45):

Plus one on the strength of a employee value proposition, people proposition as we call it at UC, San Diego. And I think that you want to avoid a bait and switch type of a thing. So when you're trying to attract candidates, whether they're brand new to working at the young end of the spectrum or someone in the middle or someone who's on a different turn towards the end of their career, it is about how are we going to meet those fundamental needs through the value proposition? How do we care for people? How do we help you grow and learn or share knowledge and mentor others as you mentioned, that's very important. How do we look at inclusion and equity and belonging, all of those things. Erica, you mentioned biases and how those get in the way and especially working with leaders or any hiring managers, even teams, having a conversation about how do those biases get in the way We're looking for people like us like that in-group or people who are nearby or there are 5 million different biases names that you can go to. What we do know though when we're thinking about generation differences, and we had a great spirited conversation as we were preparing for this, but just understanding that those biases and looking at retention and attraction of generations through an age or a generation label is actually opening the door for some ages thinking and some liability frankly. But really how can we focus that and shift it on something different? Shared values, shared purpose, shared value proposition goals and the things that people need through their employee life cycle, new, middle and back and forth in between.

Gabriel Aponte (16:40):

I love how come of steal your word. I love the term employee value proposition. I love that because giving me ideas internally in our industry, okay, ask any benefits advisor that's worked at a regional mid-market firm. Finding people, anybody, any generation is hard finding new benefit analysts, account executives, account managers, support staff. It's incredibly difficult. They don't teach this stuff in schools. The industry hasn't yet caught up to paying people for the level of acumen that's now required because a CA and everything has risen the level of competency you need to do this job. Whereas 20 years ago you could just have a secretary or whatever and they did your insurance stuff for you. And so we've had a huge challenge in finding candidates that are sold on the value that they gain beyond the check for the experience that they're getting working with us, especially since we're in, we have offices in rural Idaho towns, it's not San Diego, California.

(17:33):

And so we have to work with our restrictions and I think that's just a really wonderful idea that I would use as an action item. Do whatever you can internally in terms of attracting new employees to help sell them on the total value prop of what they will gain if they were to leave the organization beyond the check for the periods they were there. In our role, if I have a 20 or 21-year-old person that's looking to do some basic benefit analysts, zero experience entry level work and they're comparing the pay versus other jobs they could do, which is relatively similar and or more, I go, look, you're going to leave here with a bunch of relationships with CFOs, HR directors, business owners and executives. You'll care with you the rest of your life. You'll be able to walk in any HR team and know what's going on benefits wise and speak a language that is not taught hardly anywhere. These kinds of principles and our team members catch on that and they go, wow, this is awesome. We're learning stuff that HR curriculums haven't caught up to yet in terms of what we're doing on the benefits side. And so I love that term employee value proposition as opposed to just job offer.

Wende Smith (18:35):

It's not coined by me, I don't own that, but yes.

Gabriel Aponte (18:38):

I'm going to steal it. I just want to be very clear.

Wende Smith (18:40):

So I want to touch on two other things I was just sort of occurring to me as we're having the conversation. So I want us to wrap up the EVP piece to ensure that it's landing where you want it to land. You need to have a listening strategy. So whether that's an employee engagement survey that you do annually or every 18 months or two years, or whether it's pulse surveys, which are also very effective to really understand how they're receiving and information in the organization, how they're relating to their leadership, how clear are the goals of the organization. Those are really important feedback loops that can help you tighten up certain areas, especially if you go through big change. If you have a lot of leadership change or you're doing a lot of reorgs, it's really important to get that listening strategy implemented so that you're not finding out at the point when someone's submitting their letter of resignation.

(19:37):

So that's sort of to wrap up the EVP, the other piece I wanted to touch on, which I think you're all experiencing at some level is how AI is being introduced into our lives. And as we think about bias, we see products, our own included where we're developing AI to help make work easier. That's the whole point. It's like how do I get this task done in the simplest way possible and can that be automated or is there artificial intelligence that can answer the question so I don't have to have a person do it. A lot of the bots that you engage with online are not people until you get to a point where that bot can't answer your question anymore and they need to pull in a person. And so we're seeing that start to happen in applicant tracking software. So as you think about going through this process of applying for a job, this artificial intelligence they're trying to build in capability that allows it to be a bias-free process.

(20:40):

But I would ask you to lean very heavily into that if that's something that's being introduced into your own tools and your tech stack because it's only as good as the information that's out there because AI is really just regurgitating what they're scraping the content, they're scraping wherever they're scraping it from. And so I know personally for our organization, we're being very intentional around AI, very intentional around ensuring that we're not inadvertently creating a bias situation because we have a bot doing something that a person used to do. So it's an interesting time and I think we're going to see a lot more in this space pretty quickly moving fast. So I don't know you want to jump in on that? Yeah,

Kristin M. Reed (21:24):

Just a couple of thoughts. You mentioned having regular conversations stay interviews is a term that I had learned that on in the different types of surveys and different ways to get feedback. And we heard this morning really thinking about those who are staying quiet, who don't say anything. How can you as leaders or even team members make those connections to get people to talk? And those are many, many different ways. The other thing I think that's important when we think about many generations at work and looking back so that we can look forward and continue to evolve is that every generation has a different relationship to work. We know that you think about back in the change from the industrial royal revolution to the knowledge work revolution, it was all of a sudden you had not only eight hour workday or and some protections, but also desk four jobs.

(22:20):

Desk jobs versus or industrial more choice. And then you think about the, I'll say boomers, lack of a better term, but in the sixties and how women were looking at really pushing for more choice and freedom and some flexibility, mostly choice and freedom and even being able to work or being able to make some decisions and new tools and new technology. Although room size technology was really changing the way that we look at the way we work Gen X and us and coming in, I always say I started college and went through college, mostly analog, some computer, and then all of a sudden mid nineties you come into the workplace and this computer. So navigating lots of change and looking at our relationship to work very differently is different technology, big change economy, booms and busts. Two times in my early career with the 2008 recession being most notable and there's some similarities, what we experienced then is a lot of what Gabe is mentioning and what is experienced financial questions, family dynamic questions, changing, changing lifestyles. So I would encourage us to think about, and then with younger generations being able to push that envelope in more flexibility, more choice, more of a balanced employer employee agreement or alignment on what does work actually mean.

Gabriel Aponte (23:51):

I love that because it segues me into what I was thinking. I think for me one of the most fascinating ways to tie in all the technological change that's happening, and we talk about working with multiple generations, I think at least for us in our company, the idea of the standard of work. So here's what I mean by that. My partner brother boss is a Gen Xer. I'll get into that story later. He has this and he's slowly and trying to adapt, but I feel that older generations have more of an idea of attaching work product to time spent in the office, physical time like trading time for work output where it's very fascinating. With all the tools that are coming out now, I can get twice as much done and half the time depending on what it is. And that is a very interesting dynamic to look at when we're talking about how technology is affecting the way that generations communicate and work in the workplace effectively.

(24:50):

And it's one of the things that we've seen and it's still something we're struggling with because old habits die hard. In some cases it's better the older way. And so you just kind of have to adapt and not adopt biases or adopt a one size fits all mentality. But I would encourage all of you to try to be flexible and place your focus more on output and identifying are the objectives accomplished? And if so, to what degree? And I think it will help all of us evaluate that standard of work and caused some really good discussions in our organizations.

Wende Smith (25:22):

And what you're touching on actually takes us full circle to kind of where we started with the conversation around leader capability. In order for you to, as a person in the workplace to know whether you're being effective and getting work done correctly, you need clear expectations, you need clear objectives, you need to understand what right looks like and whether or not you're meeting those expectations. And if those aren't clear to you and you're being measured by time in a seat, so I call it the but in a seat that somehow if you're visible in an office, sitting at a desk that you're seeing potentially is more productive than someone who's remote. That's something we've all been experiencing since COVID. It's something we're wrestling with to try to figure out what right looks like. There's been a lot of mistakes made. I think we've seen it in the news, we've seen it, the back and the forth. You're in the office, you're not in the office. It's very confusing time. And I always come back to, you just need to be clear on what are the outcomes because if we're so worried about whether John's sitting in his desk for eight hours a day, we're focused on the wrong things. And if we really want to achieve the business strategies that we're out here to achieve, it has to be focused on outcomes because, but in a seat doesn't guarantee anything in terms of productivity or quality of work.

Erica Gunaca (26:42):

Thank you so much. And so that's a lot of gold being thrown at you, so we're going to turn it back to you out of what you just heard. Any questions? Yes, I got you. You got two mics to choose from.

Audience Member 1 (26:56):

Hi. Do you have any data on the commonalities that the generations share as far as what they want in a workplace, aside from an attractive salary? What do they have in common?

Wende Smith (27:06):

Well, and I think that Kristen did a nice job articulating that. I think we all have the same basic needs. We all want be safe. We all want to be in a trusting environment. We all want some level of status. These are basic human needs. I think we can all relate on a human level. I think whether you're my age or Gabe's age, and he could be my son. I mean I'm 54 years old, he could be my child. But relating to him, I'm relating to him on a human level, not on a, I'm older, therefore I dunno, I know more. I don't know how I would approach that differently. I think it's the humanity side of it. You just have to remember because everyone has the same basic things they need to do. They need to pay their bills, they need to take care of their families, they want to have love in their lives and relationships and all of those things. And I think if we can just come back to the human and human resources, then we can reinforce that.

Kristin M. Reed (27:59):

And a couple of my favorite data sources to get some context and to look forward. Again, there's a study done by both MIT and EA, I-N-S-E-A-D, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but the study came out just before C, and they looked at Gen Z, millennial, Gen X and boomer. They're one of the few who remember Gen X. So many studies double check because they lump together Millennials at all or boomers. And there are differences, and again, not from an ages perspective, but it's from our experiences and have having a good data set frankly. But that's a great data set. And what they show again to those fundamental values is that we all want for purpose. 40% of the people in all of those four categories in the NSEA study said that that's the most important. That was the biggest bubble, but it looks a little bit different. For Gabe, purpose might be X, for me purpose is going to be X or Y because I'm either a different place, different understanding or starting over. And for Wendy, purpose might be Z. It's still purpose. And that doesn't mean that a company or a leader has to juggle three different things all the time. A lot of commonality. We just need to know clarity. We need to have a voice input and feedback. We need to have the opportunity to do our best to grow and learn and develop, to build our networks and connections.

Audience Member 1 (29:22):

There's something else that starts with P that's often overlooked and it's parking. Everybody cares about parking anyway.

Kristin M. Reed (29:28):

So the hygiene factors, pay, parking, those kinds of things, those are important, but they're not drivers of engagement necessarily. They're expectations. You must pay me. Well, you must provide. Benefits are becoming in many cases an expectation, but the things that really motivate us from deep down intrinsically are the things that we've been talking about. It just looks a little bit different depending on where you are on that cycle. The last data point, Dave Aldrich, and again, this from, he has an article on LinkedIn, I forget the title, but he does a great job of looking across the generations and again, how we view work and how our relationship with work. And as you read this table, it's fascinating because there are differences like we are in the office or in the eighties we wore suits and panty holes. Well, no one really liked that, that's just what we had to do or even in the nineties and different things. But there are so many common threads and different things, and it's great to help to understand when you're at that group and to this morning when they talked about the personalization. So in those stay conversations, tell me more about this or help me understand more. I thought that was a great prompt that we heard.

Gabriel Aponte (30:44):

I think to kind of come full circle, I agree wholeheartedly with what Kristen and Wendy had said. Fundamentally, we all want the same things. I think understanding the differences in terms of your method to fulfill those needs on a generation by generation basis, that's the trick, right? Understanding events, beliefs, ideologies that may exist within the generations that shape who they are and what they do and why they do it will give you the keys to be able to engage with them and give them what they want, which we all fundamentally want the same things. I think that's kind of the trick is just understanding those dynamics and kind of being able to speak that language in a way. Not that you should talk differently, but just with a different mindset, if that makes sense. Thank you.

Erica Gunaca (31:30):

Yeah, thank you for your question. I'm going to stop bracing you. I'm not going to take your job anymore. We're racing the whole time. Poor thing. Any more questions? Yeah.

Kristin M. Reed (31:44):

Michael, sorry for tucking over you a moment ago.

Audience Member 2 (31:47):

I'm a foodie, so I need that pen.

Erica Gunaca (31:49):

I got you. I got you after class.

Audience Member 2 (31:52):

I was just curious since one thing that absolutely affects, I think every organization is retention and employee recruitment and the fact that I totally agree, you have to touch base with the employees, listen to your employees, give 'em an avenue to kind of express themselves. So I know. And then specifically with you two, Gabe, talk to me about some of the non-traditional unique benefits that in your discovery with the employees or your organizations you work with, what are they asking to input from a benefits perspective to help with some of the recruitment or retention or just what are they asking for from a unique benefit perspective?

Wende Smith (32:32):

Yeah, so I can touch on that a little bit. So I think where I am currently, there's a lot of ask for flexibility around time off. And so we have actually created a program called Paid Pay Vacation, which means at six months, once you've hit your six months, you're eligible for a $2,000 stipend to go on vacation. And you use that to go, I mean, you still have to accrue your PTO and all the things, but we pay you to go on vacation basically. And that's a very unique benefit that I have not seen in the industry. It's very unique to Bamboo hr and it's all anchored to our values and our mission. One of our values is quality of life, and that's all about having that balance and being able to be with your families as well as being able to be achieving in a professional,

Audience Member 2 (33:25):

Where do I apply?

Erica Gunaca (33:27):

I was like, are you hiring bamboo hr.com?

Gabriel Aponte (33:30):

I think too, I agree, hundred wholeheartedly, PTO and flexibility. That gets back to this idea of the standard of work and is this a place where are we output driven? Are we results oriented? Can I have enough flexibility in my sphere to perform the way I feel I can perform? And I think fundamentally though, you have to ask yourself the question, what problems am I trying to solve? Instead of what benefits do they want? I would phrase the question more of what are my new hires looking for? What are their issues? Just speaking on Gen Z, and I don't want to make this Gen Z soapbox, I think of traditional health insurance. A lot of 'em don't care about it. They don't get excited. They don't go, oh, this is awesome because largely they're younger, healthier, don't have high claims. It's not a bit as big of a driving force, but flexibility might be fertility benefits might be tuition reimbursement programs might be house down payment assistance programs might be, these are the things that maybe they interact with that are more on their mind.

(34:33):

Now is medical important? Of course it's so dental, vision, all of the traditional benefits. But I think just asking yourself, who are we going after? It's like if I were to call any of you to try and be a client of mine, all your HR people, I would try to figure out what your problem is and I would try to solve it instead of just selling you on why I'm awesome and why you should replace your broker with me. I would try and figure out what are your issues and then see if I can help you solve 'em. And if I can, great. I'll probably win your business. If I can't, we'll walk away. I think it should be kind of the same focus in a hiring situation. What are your needs? How can I fill them? Is this a good organization for them to be filled? And what ideas do we have? I hope that gives some clarity.

Audience Member 2 (35:10):

That helps. Thanks.

Kristin M. Reed (35:12):

Just add just from a user perspective, what Gabe talked about and different options and looking at what problem are we trying to solve, but what's getting in the way of my employee feeling like they can thrive at work and come to work. And for some people it's just, let me just get my job done and go home, and that's okay. We need people who are steady, Eddie and then others who are like, what's getting in the way of me feeling like I'm doing my best? And maybe it's like financial packages, retirement or down payment assistance or second home, any kind of thing or different kind of investing depending on your life cycle or care. I sat in a session before and it was about all the different types of caregivers, children, parents, others that you're caring for or just learning how to care for each other. And there are all kinds, but those things come to my tuition

Gabriel Aponte (36:10):

A hundred percent. And I think something too to be careful of is when we lay all these ideas out, usually a broker's first thought is great, what vendors do I know that can do that? And I'll bring it to my client. They know what they're doing. And I would encourage you guys to think internally as how could we do these kinds of programs just on our own? How could we in-house create certain programs, processes to facilitate these kinds of off the wall idea of benefits indoor organizations rather than relying on A-P-E-P-M. And I'm all for making money, I'll make money, I'll sell products all day long. But as some advice, I would say start within yourself and see if you can self administer a lot of these things and come with ideas and test and tweak. And don't just look to the awesome solution providers that are out there to solve everything. I think we sometimes get lost in that and pay a little more than we should.

Erica Gunaca (36:58):

Thank you so much. And so with these last two minutes, are there any closing thoughts that you three can think of or things that maybe have been unsaid in terms of this topic?

Wende Smith (37:11):

I don't think that anything's been unsaid. I think it's, we kind of just go back to the basics. Let's understand our workforce. Let's understand what our values are. Do they show up well? Can we tighten that up a bit? Are we listening to our employees? Are our leaders clear? Are they having regular conversations with their teams? I mean, these things seem really basic, but it's a real thing in companies. Not all leaders are great leaders and you've really got to double down on that. And yeah, take a look at what is the snapshot for your organization and then how can you tailor programming around those different and unique needs.

Kristin M. Reed (37:51):

Yeah, just repeating what I've been saying, our generational differences exist. We are different, but they're much smaller than we think. And don't let maybe some of the myth around extreme differences get in the way of creating some biases around decisions you might make around feedback or benefits or things like that. But let it motivate us to talk to one another and figure out where are we common? How can we really double down on those shared values but understand that as we're evolving, things will change and we will understand and have to try and experiment.

Gabriel Aponte (38:26):

Honestly, I think the only thing I love is spend more time talking about is biases and understanding what drives them, because that is a big dynamic of inner team communication and a big opportunity to either improve or there's huge exposure in liabilities for biases or judgment within teams. And I love it personally because a walkin example of it, I mean, look, I'll just be straight. I'm 23. My average competitor's like 58, 59, right? I've been in this business since I was 16, making spreadsheets as a kid. I grew up on this. I have almost eight years of experience doing this. I have employer clients that trust me, I'm their advisor, and I compete because I committed early. And so I'm a bit of an anomaly, but I feel it on a day-to-day basis. It's funny, you look at my facial hair and my receding hairline, right?

Erica Gunaca (39:13):

Stop.

Gabriel Aponte (39:14):

And I think it's my superpower. It's how I'm going to compete against Bob, the guy who's golfed with the CEO for 30 years. I haven't been alive 30 years. So I look at my signs of age as my strengths and superpowers because I feel like I have to in our industry. And so it's just a very passionate subject for me personally. I deal with it on a day to day. And there's clients of mine that it's so funny, they have no idea. And then they'll find out later and they'll be like, oh my gosh, I thought you were like 40. Dude, it's funny. You can ask Eric Silverman. You can go ask him. We were at the U Powered symposium last year, and my partner and my brother Carlos, okay, he's not here today. He is 23 years, so he's 46 and I'm 23. Yeah, I know.

(39:59):

That was an accident. There's a big gap and he looks like the rock. He's bald and he's jacked, right? And we're sitting at dinner and we'd met Eric for the first time and Eric's like, oh, your brothers, what's the age gap? And we're like, oh. And we're like, who do you think? How old do you think we are? And he points to Carlos and goes, I think you're mid to late thirties. And they looked at me and said, I think you're late thirties, early forties, straight up, dead serious. And we told him and he just, his jaw outhit his food. It was funny. But just those kinds of things. And I think that's one of the biggest areas of opportunity and risk that you all have in recruiting your retention and enter team engagement is trying to let those biases get to you and trying to evaluate each candidate as an individual and leverage their strengths to help them.

Erica Gunaca (40:49):

Yeah, and I love ending on an anecdote and the words of Bob Ross, you're a happy accident. It's obvious that all three of these beautiful people have superpowers. Thank you so much, so so much. Thank you for listening. If any of you get a stain, I'm your girl. Have a great day.