This episode features an interview with Julia Christenson, U.S. Employee Experience Chair at Edelman. Julia has over 15 years of experience helping clients design employee engagement programs to drive stability and connection. She has developed employee sentiment dashboards, manager trainings, go-to-market message plans, and culture roadmaps. Prior to joining Edelman, Julia led the People Advisory Services at EY and organizational change management at IBM. In this episode, Amanda and Julia discuss the sticky factor of employee experience, the power of employee recognition, and how to establish trust in difficult times.
This episode features an interview with Julia Christenson, U.S. Employee Experience Chair at Edelman. Julia has over 15 years of experience helping clients design employee engagement programs to drive stability and connection. She has developed employee sentiment dashboards, manager trainings, go-to-market message plans, and culture roadmaps. Prior to joining Edelman, Julia led the People Advisory Services at EY and organizational change management at IBM.
In this episode, Amanda and Julia discuss the sticky factor of employee experience, the power of employee recognition, and how to establish trust in difficult times.
-------------------
“I think one of the other things is when there's just a lack of communications until all decisions are final. Bring us to the seat at the table, even if you don't know the decision yet. Even if you don't know if we're going to switch our benefits or IT platforms, or if we don't know how the branding's going to change, bring us in and have it be a part of the discussion. I do think where it's challenging is where there is just a vacuum until all decisions are final. Without communications, that's where rumors start, misinformation, distrust is because we don't understand what's being decided or even what the process looks like.” – Julia Christenson
-------------------
Episode Timestamps:
*(02:21): How Julia defines employee experience
*(09:30): Segment: Story Time
*(14:19): Julia dives into the Edelman Trust Barometer
*(20:08): Segment: Getting Tactical
*(20:55): Why employee recognition is important
*(28:20): How leaders can establish transparency during difficult times
*(35:44): How to rebuild trust after a layoff
*(44:49): Segment: Asking For a Friend
-------------------
Links:
Connect with Julia on LinkedIn
Check out the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer
Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn
Amanda Berry: Julia, thank you for joining me today.
Julia Christenson: Of course. Of course.
Julia Christenson: Happy to be here. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: We've got a lot to talk about. So I just want to kind of jump right in. It's worth calling out that you're the EVP of Employee Experience at Edelman and we'll get to what that all means later, but let's start with a rather simple question or I guess it could be a hard question depending on our listeners, but how do you define employee experience?
Amanda Berry: I feel like. When you read articles or when people talk about it, they use so many different ways that they talk about it. So I want to get from the expert here. What is employee experience?
Julia Christenson: Yeah, it's actually a great question. Often we have people come to us and they think of employee experience in sort of one dimension.
Julia Christenson: It's internal comms. Is it HR and benefits? Is it just onboarding? So they look at it from one lens when really we see employee experience as the way employees That's the relationship that they have with the workplace. So what is the relationship that they have with their employer? And that begins everything from the recruiting process through the onboarding to the exit interviews.
Julia Christenson: And so how do they see experience? And so it really is multifaceted and there are so many parts that go into it. It's not just internal comms, take for example.
Amanda Berry: Right. It could be the chairs in the conference rooms, the tech stack you use, benefits, it could be everything and anything. What isn't a part of the employee experience if there's anything?
Julia Christenson: What is not is what is outside of the company's control, and what is interesting is that was questioned a lot when we went through the pandemic, right? Of like, where does the responsibility of the workplace end? My social network has come to a grinding halt because I'm unable to travel, unable to go see friends.
Julia Christenson: Where is the responsibility of my company to fill in that void? Of to increase opportunities to socialize, be it virtual or in different ways. With my colleagues or if there is something happening locally, a different, a challenge. Of course, it's always wonderful if the employer can step in, help take a stance, but it is really like that is out of the control of the employer and so I think that's one of the things that we saw a lot of the lines blur and employees looking to employers for more than just that one dimensional relationship.
Julia Christenson: It has taken on more of the. What's the community that I have? What are the connections that I have? What are the relationships that I'm building? You know, what's your point of view on societal issues? And so, while it's out of the control of the employer in many ways, they are expected to have a point of view and to help build the relationships and have responses on those different topics.
Julia Christenson: Are there parts
Amanda Berry: of the employee
Julia Christenson: experience that get overlooked? Interestingly, I think one of the things that gets overlooked is one of the most Foundational pieces, which is what does it mean for me? Often executives, senior leaders spend so much time thinking about what does it mean for the broader organization to move the business forward, to move the customer experience forward, that they don't think about the employees sitting in the seat of answering the question, what does it mean for me?
Julia Christenson: And I think that's one of the fundamental things that gets overlooked. It's also sometimes not the easiest. To answer if you're rolling out a broad five year strategy, what does it mean for John who's sitting in a site at a different global location? And so I think that's one of the things that gets overlooked is answering that.
Julia Christenson: I think another thing that gets. What gets overlooked in the employee experience is the thoughtfulness and you see more movement towards that of the consumer experience or the customer experience mapped to the employee experience. But what gets overlooked is the amount of work that goes In tender train, that consumer experience, the data, the relationship building, the close tracking of what it looks like.
Julia Christenson: And so a lot of companies we see come to us to say, we understand how important our employees are, but they don't reflect on how much they put into that consumer experience of what that would look like on the employee experience. So the data to truly understand how well was this initiative received our employees leaving because of this, are they disengaging because of this?
Julia Christenson: So a lot of that.
Julia Christenson: It's set in thought by the employer, but it's not actually done in practice then to really see and understand what is influencing the experience. Well, let me back up. You
Amanda Berry: mentioned we don't think about it just on an individual level. Because for me, you know, when you think about that, like a company has 10, 000 employees, that's 10, 000 employee experiences.
Amanda Berry: How does a company then think about it on a macro level, like, you know, this collective Culture, while also focusing to make sure each employee has their
Julia Christenson: individual needs met. I think the thing that we have seen throughout our work is what is connecting these employees is the purpose of the company.
Julia Christenson: What is their purpose? What are their values? What do they hold true? And I, I, again, going back to COVID, we saw that tested time and time again. And we also see that because we work with a lot of companies to articulate what is their employee value proposition. Why come to work for us when the same company does?
Julia Christenson: Similar work a few thousand miles away. And so I think the thing that we really, you know, have seen that makes a difference and that brings the employees together on the enterprise level is what is our purpose? Why are we here? What makes our organization unique? And we've spent a lot of time with them articulating.
Julia Christenson: It may not be what you think it is. You may have your purpose and it may be the values, but how are you articulating it and what we would call like the sticky factor, the stickiness that makes you want to stay and really being honest about who you are and who you aren't, because who you aren't and what you don't bring can also be as important as what you do of not overselling that or trying to be everything for everyone.
Julia Christenson: I'm going to put a little
Amanda Berry: note over here that says I want to get back to that sticky factor. And what is that sticky factor? We'll get to that in a little bit later. I just want to tie this sort of up. Who owns employee experience? You'd mention HR often gets tasked with it, internal comms. I know I've worked at places where I was on the employee experience team doing internal comms, and I also owned employee experience.
Amanda Berry: It just felt very overwhelming. So who should
Julia Christenson: own it? I love that question, Amanda. I love that question because I think when it's done truly right is when it's integrated, just like if you're going to consumers, it's external facing, it's really integrated, it's marketing with the commercial team, with the sales team, so that you get all of the power behind it.
Julia Christenson: I think it's the same. On the employee front that it is the sweet spot of HR who often has the systems and the process and the policies and what would be seen as internal comms. So we've seen a lot of companies roll out more of the chief people officer shifting, not just for CHRO, but shifting more on the people officer.
Julia Christenson: And that's where the employee experience lives. And it's a hybrid of a blended role of HR purpose. As well as internal comes into really bringing that all together so that you are touching from the moment the employee is interviewing to the minute that they're exiting and it's not a disjointed look at what the experience is.
Amanda Berry: Everyone all together. Yeah. Let's move into our segment story time.
Julia Christenson: So in the beginning, you're the
Amanda Berry: EVP. Your title is EVP employee experience group head at Edelman. Tell us about Edelman and what you do
Julia Christenson: there. So we're the largest public relations firm, and I think one of the things that is really critical and that Edelman is known for is trust. Every year we have a trust barometer that helps to measure.
Julia Christenson: The level of trust between society, companies, governments, media, and one of the trends over the last, I would say, five years is the rising importance of employees and employer and the trusted relationship there. So Edelman runs everything end to end in terms of a public relations firm and in our sort of Sweet spot.
Julia Christenson: It is all things employee and the trust data is that we've been seen over the past few years show. The most trusted source for information is the employer over NGOs, over media, over others. And we see that also with employees, is that just taking a small snippet, if an employee shares a piece of data, it's on social, it's 11 times more likely to be amplified because there is the trust factor there.
Julia Christenson: The public has seen that, they know you know the real story. Scoop. You know the real deal. You're in. You have been there and working and understand. And so it's 11 times more likely to be shared because of the trusted source for information. So long winded way of saying that's core to what Edelman does is understanding what's going to build, promote, and protect that trust for the companies.
Amanda Berry: I'm so excited to dig into the trust report because there's so much content in there, but I want to just first ask you how you got interested in the employee experience. I feel like everyone has a great story behind this and I'd love to hear yours.
Julia Christenson: Yes, so my background, I started in marketing and then shifted into consulting and I think the thing that really stood out to me is The impact you could have with employees.
Julia Christenson: Like, I have such deep respect for our colleagues that work in media and marketing, but I find it to be a more fickle market. You almost don't know necessarily how something is going to land. While you do understand what's going to get picked up generally, and generally how it's going to be received, I feel like there's less ability to impact.
Julia Christenson: So build the relationship, build the trust, understand what makes someone tick. And I, what I really do like, About the employee experiences, someone goes to a company for a reason. There is a purpose that attracts them. There is a relationship there. And that is something you can nurture, you can grow, you kind of build on.
Julia Christenson: And I, so I think it's that ability to have that closer relationship that really drew me. to it and kept me there. It was one of those that you could have started on a variety of different projects, but the first one that really stuck with me was a mergers and acquisition project. And I just found it to be such a, uh, an important moment.
Julia Christenson: And we were seeing all these questions employees were asking and so much uncertainty, and it really felt like you could make a difference. You might not be able to answer all the questions, but you could really push to get the right information out. As soon as possible. So I think that was really what sold me.
Amanda Berry: I have very, very strong opinions and feelings about mergers and acquisitions. I have some deep feelings. Good. Good. You know, being in internal comms, going through a number of those and not being, I've had somewhere I'm brought to the table four months in advance and I've somewhere I'm alerted the day before and I can tell you which ones go a lot better, right?
Amanda Berry: Because Yeah. If the company that's being acquired, they don't know what their pay schedule is. They don't know, do they have to, how long are they gonna have their email address for? Can they get stuff off their drives? Like everything you could possibly think of. And when all those questions come crashing down the day that they're told, which is usually like the acquisition date, it leads to a very bumpy Experience for those new employees and for the existing employees in the company that's acquiring them.
Julia Christenson: Yep, yep, I completely agree. I know how that is and is that not only is the news being announced, there is a here's how much is changing and how quickly or we don't know. We don't know. So I'm with you. I love that. The very different experience of having a seat at the table, knowing, understanding versus the curtains up and now things are changing.
Julia Christenson: Yeah,
Amanda Berry: it's intense. I have very strong feelings happening right now. It's like I'm back in there. So, it's one of my favorite things to really just start on a tangent about and, you know, I can go for hours. Love it. Let's talk about that trust barometer you mentioned earlier. It's created through Edelman and Catherine King from Etsy.
Amanda Berry: She was on the podcast. She's the one that initially sort of brought that up. I want to first say thank you to everyone at Edelman. When you go get it, you don't have to like, Log in, you don't have to put in your email address. It's just right there available and it's fantastic information. But would you mind explaining to our listeners what it is and how the data is
Julia Christenson: collected?
Julia Christenson: Sure. I believe we're on our 22nd year for the barometer and the data is gathered from a global mix of audiences. If you go on to our site, as Amanda said, thank you for that. It is, it's all publicly and easily available. One of the first few sides is what's the composite of the participants. And it is a survey.
Julia Christenson: However, the reason it's called a barometer and not a survey is that it's just that it really does take the pulse over time and note The shift in responses. And so I really believe there are kind of four factors that go into it. It's the relationship externally and as well as internally. And it's benchmarked against sort of those four key audiences.
Julia Christenson: And so one of the things that's incredibly helpful about the insights from the Trust Barometer is a deeper understanding of. What and how over the past year's events have influenced what that trust looks like. And as you can imagine, societal, political, economic, there is a good understanding and each year there's a lot of deep trends that are shown in terms of what is the pulse right now.
Julia Christenson: of trust and the ability to build trust. Is there something in there
Amanda Berry: that the 2023 report that surprised you? Because there is a lot, I mean, you talk about trust in a government, trust in politicians, trust in business. There's just a lot of content in there, a lot of good data. Is there anything in it that surprised you when you saw the
Julia Christenson: report?
Julia Christenson: The piece that surprised me was To get trust, you have to give trust. And there was a lot in this report about the CEOs who earned trust from their employees gave trust to them. It's exactly what you had said, Amanda. They had a seat at the table during M& A. They knew that what was happening. They were able to share their feedback.
Julia Christenson: They were brought in on news and information early. And so they gave a level of trust to their employees and it was. Returned in dividends. And so really that was one of the headlines was to get that trust, to earn that trust. And we see that with companies, ones that keep it closer to the best. We were just working with one the other day that said, you know, it's just not really true to our culture in terms of the transparency that you're kind of recommending that just doesn't sit well with us.
Julia Christenson: We might get these questions, even though it's. It's, in my belief, it's the right thing to do, just didn't align to the culture. But it's one where you can also see that distrust from the data we've seen in the past. There isn't the feedback we've seen from the surveys is, I don't feel like we are seeing the full picture.
Julia Christenson: I don't think we fully understand what's going on. Decisions are made in a vacuum. So I think, I, I'm not surprised, but I was surprised at how strong the point was that to get the trust. As the workplace, as the CEO, you have to give it to your employees and that's where it'll show up. Yeah. I mean,
Amanda Berry: I think about that a lot and especially going through that report, the trust we have with our employers, it's like any relationship, right?
Amanda Berry: A marital or family, right? There has to be trust, a lot of trust on both sides for it to really work well. I'm just curious, how did you respond to that company that says it's not in our culture? Because I feel like I'd be like, well, why not? Why isn't it in your culture? Why is it not important?
Julia Christenson: So. Uh, that is one of the things I, I think the, this company said, we're bringing you in for best practices.
Julia Christenson: We're bringing you in to help us with the thinking and knowing what others have done. And so I, you know, it was one where I said, well, you said this in the beginning, so I'm going to kind of go back to why this is a best practice is because it was around financial transparency and one of the pieces that we've.
Julia Christenson: Seeing as a best practice for other companies is employees then understand what they're marching towards because with the transparency, they know the opportunity that they have to continue moving up. And it's part of what is the motive for the input to performance. It's sort of that drive it's where we're headed.
Julia Christenson: And it's also for the senior leaders, what they will be held accountable for. So if they don't meet it. There also is an accountability factor. So we shared with the company, you know, again, this is why you had brought us in. Here's what we've seen and here's the feedback and here's how it does help to build dividends.
Julia Christenson: You will not be shocked. We were not able to make headway on that, even with the best practices. And at the end of the day, you have to respect that. And they felt like the risk was not worth the reward. And we even shared examples of how they could do it, how they could. Have information sessions and have the managers, but at the end of the day, it is their decision.
Julia Christenson: We gave them the examples and talked about how others had done it and how it'd been well received.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I think employees can pick up on that pretty easily. I worked for a company, when they would have a senior leader leave, they would say always in the internal message they left for other opportunities.
Amanda Berry: So it just became a way of saying, you know, they were let go. And I thought, why aren't
Julia Christenson: we just being honest? Why aren't we just being honest? Why aren't we
Amanda Berry: just... They're adults. Yes. What are we afraid of?
Julia Christenson: Yes.
Amanda Berry: Yes. Go through my head. What's worst case scenario in my personal life to like, if I do this, what is the absolute worst case
Julia Christenson: scenario?
Julia Christenson: Completely. Completely. And then it also gives it for that person, opportunity for people to reach out, to connect, to know I'm with you. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: Well, let's move into our next.
Producer 1: I'm
Julia Christenson: trying to figure out tactics and to be perfectly honest, I didn't have to worry about tactics too much. Here I am in charge and trying to say, why did you sleep through tactics?
Amanda Berry: The past few years have been pretty difficult for a lot of people at work with layoffs, hiring freezes. Lack of merit increases or bonuses. There's just been a lot happening. And then we had COVID on top of that. So there's just a lot happening. Given that I want to talk about employer recognition, because I feel like that's such a big part of, of trust and being able to give something to employees.
Amanda Berry: If you don't have the money or the ability to hire more people, why do you think employee recognition is so important?
Julia Christenson: I think it is hugely important and not just because it's. My area of focus, but I think Amanda, when you were saying like, what got you in to this effort, focus and employee, I would say you can see the difference it makes for someone when they feel recognized and appreciated and genuinely acknowledged.
Julia Christenson: And as someone said the other day, I see you, I see what you're doing. I see how hard you're grinding, how, you know, much you're stretching yourself. And that's really important to be seen because it feels a lot of times like you, you can put in work and it's not seen. And so just that. Component is critical.
Julia Christenson: I think what we have seen over the last, let's say nine to 12 months as the market has slowed, as you know, there has been an increase in layoffs, is as performance has become more and more challenging, companies have pulled back from recognizing employees because they are equating recognizing employees with then the need to provide a promotion, provide a merit increase, give a bonus, and.
Julia Christenson: One of the reasons that I think it is so important now to continue on the recognition, if not double down on it, is that is one of the things that you can do, you can control. I hear from a lot of companies, well, we have no control over the compensation. We have no control over the merit or the bonus pool or the different pieces.
Julia Christenson: But one thing you do have control over is that recognition. And you might not be able to tap The CFO or chief people officer on the shoulder and say, can you recognize Sarah for her great job, but you can do it. And I think one of the things that we have heard time and time again from employees is it's who recognizes them matters, who it is that is saying, I see you, that they're either in the trenches with them or they intimately know the work, or they know them personally, that it was a push assignment for them and not just good job, but really getting.
Julia Christenson: Specific. One of the best pieces of thank you I received from a client was a very senior leader, but honestly, I hadn't thought she noticed our work. She had not only noticed it and thanked it was three of us that were on her team. She went into the specificity of what we'd done over the time. We worked on Thanksgiving.
Julia Christenson: We had gone above and beyond in delivering. We didn't have to do certain pieces and went and partnered with other consulting firms to really help it. And it was. The amount of, I see you, I saw what you were doing, I saw it, I appreciated it, I know it. And that was huge and so I think the recognition can go a really long way when there's so much right now for employers that's out of control.
Julia Christenson: It feels out of control, the performance, it feels out of control, the ability to hire, the ability to promote, but what isn't is that like recognition piece and it matters. Let me ask you
Amanda Berry: this because I've been at companies where they do. Once a year, eight employees out of 5, 000 get recognized. And then I work, I'm the current company I work at.
Amanda Berry: We, of course, we use our own tool, our employee recognition tool, but I could go in now and thank everyone on my team. At any point it gets posted, you get a little award. Is there one that you see works better for employees, ones they
Julia Christenson: appreciate more? I would say the more agile one and the more Always on one works more.
Julia Christenson: I will also say seen with more of the Gen Z, more public recognition is what is appreciated. So every work generation, it's a different piece. I've seen the older generations prefer to have like almost one on one. That's where it's valued is the one on one feedback. This person was recognized. I've seen more public for coming up with Gen Z of it.
Julia Christenson: If it's on the team's channel, if it's in a team's meeting, if it's the more public, Because that sort of group recognition, I have found the companies who have it so that it can be honest and authentic and genuine, but more regular is appreciated because it can feel as though there is a bit of a gap. If you have to wait for certain moments, certain awards, certain milestones to give the award, things move so quickly that often then.
Julia Christenson: It is a, I got to remember to go and recognize that person and then it's three more things that pop up and it sort of shifts to someone else. So really to be able to do that in the real time is helpful.
Amanda Berry: Something you said earlier, I wanted to call out and see what, if you have any understanding of why when I was working at a company where we did the, you know, eight big awards a year, When we were rolling them out and gonna tell the employees that they won, I was thinking, should we have the CEO show up to one of their meetings and just, you know, bust in with balloons and say, you won, or is there a better way?
Amanda Berry: And what I found is people would rather have their managers do that. Yes. Do you
Julia Christenson: know why that is? I think it is because, again, of the trust. We saw that on the trust score is that it literally by points decreases from the CEO to senior leaders to that manager. It's that trusted relationship. They see me, they know what I've done.
Julia Christenson: They also know that they're going to advocate. For me. So it's really that like personal feedback. One of the things that we do also at Edelman, we do it ourselves. We have annual, and then we also have real time. So, you know, ongoing different awards, but as we share the submission that other leaders put in for the employees, even if you didn't get it, and I have to tell you, we've heard from team members, some of the most.
Julia Christenson: Touching is again, it's these team members. It's this leader. It's this person I worked with really closely that took the time to write this feedback. Even if they didn't get it, it's the sticky factor. That's why I stay is because I feel connected. I feel like people appreciate me. And I'm recognized for what I do.
Julia Christenson: So I do think the manager, that's probably why it's just that relationship. It's already established.
Amanda Berry: I once worked for, with the leadership team when they would start the meetings talking about who's doing what in their area that they're proud of. And then a lot of those leaders Would go behind the scenes and email that person who wasn't on their functional team.
Amanda Berry: I saw every week that would happen. Just like, Hey, we heard about the blah, blah, blah project. Great job. We're so excited for that to happen because this is the impact it's going to have on my team and just
Julia Christenson: recognizing them that way. I love that. And that is the kind of stuff, well, it can be quote taught.
Julia Christenson: It's sort of, those are leaders who just kind of, who get it, who get that that is how. People feel connected. They feel as though someone's looking out for them, listening, recognizing, even if they're not there. So you weren't in a meeting. A shout out was Gideon. Then it, it goes on deaf ears. It's no, this was awesome.
Julia Christenson: And you know that leader then is going to take and talk about that with others. Like it's just going to create that connectivity that makes people feel appreciated. So yeah. And for my,
Amanda Berry: I have to imagine how that leader then is perceived, you know, if they're emailing four people a week outside of their functional area, that buzz, that's going to keep building around them.
Amanda Berry: Oh, I love. That person or you know that person's they reached out to me like it really builds rapport with people. Definitely. Yeah, it builds that
Julia Christenson: trust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: I want to talk about the other side of that and talk about the opposite of trust, which may not be dishonesty, but just talking about that lack of trust because that can be really when people are dishonest or not giving the full story.
Amanda Berry: Employees recognize that. There's no doubt about it. But how can leaders establish that transparency during these difficult times? Like, how can they be more transparent and build more trust?
Julia Christenson: So first is, and this is again going to Edelman's piece, and it's also what I truly believe in, is that action builds trust.
Julia Christenson: And trust is an indicator of the behaviors that you can anticipate. And so one of the things that I think is really critical is if a company Knows that the actions coming up are not gonna match the messaging to just stop right there. And I think we have worked with companies and one of the things that we're sort of able to do is pressure test on, well, the means are some of the questions that you're gonna get and they're valid or they're not valid.
Julia Christenson: They're just typical questions you're gonna get anytime you change. Compensation or your reward programs. These are going to be it. But I think one of the things that companies can really do in terms of building trust is saying, does the messaging match to the actions we anticipate? And sometimes you don't know all the actions that may come with an initiative, but if you know a good set of them of saying.
Julia Christenson: Does this ring true? And then does it ring true to all employees? We see a lot where companies will focus on 60 percent of the employees or not think about frontline of, you know, we're really great at recognizing employees, but there is no recognition program at the frontline. That's some of those where it's really like thinking holistically about the employees.
Julia Christenson: So definitely the actions piece of it. And then in terms of. Building trust. It is, I know it makes perfect sense, but of the values and things that don't align with the values of really like speaking to that and speaking to it in an honest way of we do hold our values. Because the minute that you sort of derive from that, it sort of calls everything into question.
Julia Christenson: That's why I work here at The Purpose. That is why I stay is because of the values you're seeing. You know, if you're an innovative culture and you've clamped down or if you're client centric and you're making a lot of decisions that aren't client centric of saying, of owning it and taking that onus and being able to put like a period at the end of the sentence and owning it.
Julia Christenson: I think one of the other things is when there's just a lack of communications until all decisions are final. And I think it's, you said it Amanda, when Bring us to the seat at the table. Even if you don't know the decision yet, even if you don't know if we're going to switch our benefits, or IT platforms, or if we don't know how the branding is going to change, bring us in and have it be a part of the discussion.
Julia Christenson: I do think where it's challenging is where there is just a vacuum until all decisions are final, and that's where, without communications, that's where rumors start, misinformation, Distrust is because we don't understand what's being decided, or even what the process looks like. So I think that's one of the key things.
Julia Christenson: And then, final, I know this is multiple points on the distrust, is so often employees are asked for feedback, but they never hear what the results are. Then they don't have a clear line of sight as to what's being done. And I think that is where we've called it, like, feedback fatigue. It's just time and time again, I was in...
Julia Christenson: One focus group and a woman said, you know, and this broke my heart. She said, this is like the eighth time I've participated in one of these focus groups and I don't know whatever happens with the results. And so that builds just trust is that you're asking for the feedback. You know that. It is important, but then I don't even hear what the results are and what's going to be done, even if it's just one thing we're going to try and work on in a year.
Julia Christenson: So I think that is where employees feel you're sitting on this data, you're sitting on all these insights, but then not really using it to inform decisions. And that's where the distrust comes in is because the perception is we care. The perception is we want your feedback. The perception is like, it matters, but then it really, it doesn't.
Julia Christenson: And that builds even more. That's such an
Amanda Berry: interesting point, love to have just your opinion on this. Sometimes also the problem with those like giving feedback, whether it be in a focus group or an employee engagement survey is the timeline involved, right? You do it in October, C suite gets results in November, then it trickles down like through November and December.
Amanda Berry: And then they report it in January to all employees. And so February now starts when maybe things could change. But there's already been new problems now. And you keep going forward. You have all these projects moving on. Do you have any thoughts on timeline as a part of trust? Because it, it impacts when people act and if they can act, or if it's even important to
Julia Christenson: act anymore.
Julia Christenson: I think it is definitely important to act. One of the things that we have been trying to do with companies is actually Before these feedback sections bringing, okay, you probably can anticipate what your top five issues are. You're going to get more granularity. You're going to get more specificity.
Julia Christenson: You're going to get more insights, but you can anticipate what your top five are. And before we actually even start the feedback sessions, we lay out, okay, here are the top five. In the coming year, do you think you will be able to move the needle on any one of these fives? Because I have seen that employees understand you can't tackle all 25, 10, even 5, but to make meaningful movement on one of them, even if it's not number 1 or number 2, but to make meaningful movement on one of them.
Julia Christenson: If you're not willing to do that before even starting the feedback process, Then I don't know if it's worth starting the feedback process. And in some cases we've had success with that because it's really stopped them to think about, okay, we can share the results and sharing the results is good, but actually starting on the initiative then means we need to front load who's going to be in charge of the results, who's going to own it, who's going to like drive it forward.
Julia Christenson: And it helps to say, we're getting things started. Even going into it. So in terms of the timeline, I think if you can do it within a three month period, in terms of you had the focus groups, you had the interviews, you compiled the feedback, you showed it to executives, and then you shared the feedback, so it was a three month sort of window, that is good.
Julia Christenson: Employees are like, that's helpful. That's wonderful. I think the part where the rubber really sort of falls off is. Then taking action. It's an issue around pay transparency or bans. It's an issue around consistency or like challenges in terms of our mid level managers. The experience is inconsistent.
Julia Christenson: Some are really good. Some don't seem to value us. Like, can we address this? So knowing that that is going to be one of the issues of saying before even starting the process, we're going to commit to it. That means we're going to hit the ground running. Month 4, after it wraps, that I think is really the part that is challenging for companies.
Julia Christenson: Holding themselves
Amanda Berry: accountable to a timeline, even before they get started.
Julia Christenson: And knowing that, like, it's gonna take time, it's gonna take time, but even saying, we're gonna put someone in charge of the results, who's gonna be in charge of the results, what is one year back gonna look like that we're gonna be able to say to employees, we made progress.
Julia Christenson: I think that's the timeline that's really the most challenging. Let me ask you
Amanda Berry: this. I'm going to switch topics here. For me working in internal comms, one of the biggest impacts on trust at a company and with leadership is layoffs, right? So people are let go for whatever reason, but then the people that stay often that really damages trust and it's really hard to rebuild that and has a huge impact on employee experience.
Amanda Berry: How do people begin to rebuild trust after something like
Julia Christenson: that? Um, Okay. It's a great question. I think one of the things that the employees who stay do look to understand is how was the exit experience for each of the individuals that were impacted? We just went through layoffs, Edelman did, and I, I can say for our team, one of the things that they really followed up with, paid attention to, wanted to know about is what was it like for each person?
Julia Christenson: What was the outreach? What were the conversations? What was the follow up? So, how was it done in a way that The individual who was impacted really felt that the communication was done as thoughtful as possible, which is difficult because it's highly confidential. It's up to the last minute, sort of making sure everything's in place.
Julia Christenson: So it's difficult, but I think that is one of the things that employees look to understand. I think they also really look to understand, we call it sort of bridging to the future. The impacts have been communicated and knowing that it was a thoughtful process and being as thoughtful as we possibly can in delivering challenging news, then how do we ensure that we're not in this position again in six months?
Julia Christenson: And so I think there's a timeline between that announcement and giving some breathing room and bridging to the future. I've seen some companies try to tackle both in at the same time, and it's too much. And I think that's where you burn trust is if you communicate these. Really big decisions in the same day and then try to pivot the organization to, okay, we're headed here.
Julia Christenson: And I think that's one of the things that burns trust is that there isn't enough sort of respect and thought given to those individuals that We're being laid off, have to go home, tell their family, figure out what's next. And so give some breathing room there and everything from what are you posting on social in terms of, you know, the success stories and the moments of pride and how great we are given that announcement and being thoughtful around that timing to how are we communicating with our teams during this period.
Julia Christenson: And then giving that a bit of space, week or two. Three, potentially even of then to bridge to the future. What does that mean in terms of account coverage? How are we learning from what we did in the past, setting ourselves up for better success? And I will say, having done this, we do work with companies as they're going through restructuring, as they're going through layoffs is there's no silver bullet.
Julia Christenson: There's no guarantee, but I've really been thoughtful about. Addressing what the challenges were and being pretty transparent about it. I think those are the companies that are better set up for success is owning stuff and not just blaming external factors. I think there's something really great about a leader who can say.
Julia Christenson: I own it. I was a part of it. I was leading it. I was driving us in this direction, and I would have done this differently. And I own it. And I think that's the same for companies when there isn't an onus and it's blamed on everything external or not even discussed. The trust is lost a little bit there, because you can easily do that, and it's not easy to like, own it.
Julia Christenson: And it makes it personal, and it makes it so that someone That employees know, like, this person values each person who is impacted and really cares to not have us be in this situation again. Well, and there's a
Amanda Berry: recklessness. I feel like there's a recklessness, too, that keeps employees on edge if they don't own it.
Amanda Berry: To say, well, we had no control over this, and then employees go, well, how many more times are you not going to have control over this? Or did you learn from your mistake, and you're going to make sure that doesn't happen again on your watch? Yeah.
Julia Christenson: Definitely. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: It's a big hill to climb. I know I've worked for organizations where that's been a common theme and just trying to get employees to build trust after that's really
Julia Christenson: tough.
Julia Christenson: I agree. Definitely. Well,
Amanda Berry: so we've talked a lot about trust. One of the things I want to talk about, because it feels like we're talking a lot about change, right? It's hard for people to go through a lot of change just over and over and over. And I personally believe we are just all going to have to evolve and change all the time.
Amanda Berry: Transform. Change. Change. What are products? It's just going to be a constant. I remember I worked at a company where they spun up two big projects, digital transformation. And I remember hearing people go, Oh, I'll be so glad when this change is done. And I went to my boss and I said, we need to tell people this isn't done.
Amanda Berry: This is beginning because it's going, things are going to change. So I wanted to ask you, having an inside an employee experience, right? Employees can seemingly suffer from change fatigue and are often hesitant to continue to buy into change because of it. So can you talk about how companies can get employees to engage and adopt change?
Amanda Berry: Because it's happening all the time.
Julia Christenson: It is one of the biggest things we've seen over the past year, I would say. I think a lot of companies, there was a constant state of change. Things were changing constantly, but there was a little bit of, while we were in, someone said this, You know, like sort of the peak of COVID, there was, we're all in this together.
Julia Christenson: We're going to lean in, we're going to figure it out, even if things are difficult and even coming a year out from that, there was still a holding the breath to see how things evolve. Will we be hybrid? Will we be this? And there was a lot of slow rolling things. So it felt as though things were being rolled out.
Julia Christenson: There was definitely change, but it was. You know, starting this past a year ago, it felt as though companies were like, okay, we're back, we're back. And we've got to keep moving things, move forward. And there's a lot more pressure on performance. So the pace of change was quickening because everything was focused on how are we driving better performance?
Julia Christenson: And one of the things that we've been brought in a lot with companies. is everything seems to be just washing over employees at this point. You know, one employee survey we saw, there was a new operating model that was being implemented and the employee said, you know, I have been here however many years and I've seen a change every year in our operating model and organizational design like end to end.
Julia Christenson: And so they said if I just sort of stand still, Between now and next year, another one will come in and I can assess whether or not I want to adopt that one. So I think one of the things that we've found particularly important is we say this, but like the compelling reasons to believe. So we worked with one company recently that said, you know, we're making this operating model change to move closer to the customer.
Julia Christenson: And that was good. And that's great. Like customers, they are the lifeblood, the reason we exist, thriving the business, but we really push them to articulate the how. In going through this process, they saw that there were 16 different data points, and we literally mapped the conversations that they would have to have the last time around to make a decision that then impacted the customer.
Julia Christenson: And in the new operating model, there were three, 16 versus three. And when they went to go talk about it with employees, they showed here were the 16 and here are the three. And also, one of the changes was Their geographies were very different in terms of their customer. They were a consumer good company and the consumer products and goods, the way that they sold and were marketed and packaged and received in India was very different than in the United States.
Julia Christenson: And the ability to understand the needs within market was very far from the customer, right? Like in terms of the production, the design, the innovation. And so we were able to show them. In this new model, this is what it will look like. And not just theoretical, but it is literally this team talking with this team.
Julia Christenson: Now, in the end, it's still going to be difficult. It's still going to be change. It's still going to be, like, working towards it and challenging. But for the first time when we went back to this company with the model, employees were like, I get it. And if this actually works... This makes sense. Of course, there was this still like, let's see how this works, and we have the big hill to climb up still, but it wasn't one where, you know, it was give me the reasons to believe, and I, I can see how I feel about it as it unfolds, but it's Even starting with good reasons to say, it makes sense why we're changing.
Julia Christenson: We're not changing just because we need to change to something. And this is the something to hopefully drive performance. It's like, no, this, okay, this makes sense. I got it. And that has helped to open the door on the change fatigue of like, okay, it has solid, it makes sense. And I'll, I'll see as we move through it, but I'm open to supporting it.
Julia Christenson: Versus It's change for the sake of change. Help them
Amanda Berry: understand why you're doing it. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get into our last segment, Asking for a Friend.
Producer 1: I was destined
Julia Christenson: for a friend. Hey. Asking for a friend. Asking for a friend.
Amanda Berry: This is sort of a rapid fire questions to you, Julia. 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer
Julia Christenson: will reveal? Oh, that's so interesting. Thank And love the asking for a friend section. So I think what will be interesting to see is the companies who are able to figure out how employees contribute to performance, how does that translate to trust so that they have gotten a strong employee experience in place and will actually see how it.
Julia Christenson: It translates to return on client satisfaction, product and goods, and we'll also see the trust. In higher scores with that, I think that's what we'll probably see is that they're going through less ambiguity and less we're hungry for the trust. Then we've built it up over the years and we're leaning into it to try to drive the better performance.
Julia Christenson: So I think that's what we'll see. You think that will
Amanda Berry: continue, that trend will continue over the
Julia Christenson: next few years? So I think we'll be in a challenging financial environment for at least another year. I think similar to the pendulum swing, I think the pendulum will swing back to where the labor market was so tight, performance was so strong, and I felt that there was more of a focus from companies on purpose because the performance was just...
Julia Christenson: People were up 20%. And so the labor market got so tight, it was flooded in the door. And so I think like a pendulum, it's swinging the other way right now, where the performance is down and companies are trying to figure out how do we get that back? How do we get the most from what we're doing, the most efficiency, gain the most sales?
Julia Christenson: And I believe it'll probably take two years to get there. But I think the pendulum will swing back just because that's the course of back and forth with the economy.
Amanda Berry: Always. I'm old enough now to where over the past few years, I've just, I know that it's going to swing the other way. So it'll be back.
Amanda Berry: Julia, this has been so much fun and I really appreciate you being here
Julia Christenson: today. Thank you so much. Thank you. This was wonderful. I love this.
Amanda Berry: Before I let you go, will you let our listeners know where they can find you?
Julia Christenson: Of course. Julia Christenson and I am at Edelman, so you can find me on LinkedIn at Julia Christenson.
Amanda Berry: Great. Thank you so much for being here today, Julia.
Julia Christenson: Thank you.