This episode features an interview with Ellen Maier, Human Resources Director at Zignaly. Ellen is an experienced HR leader committed to enhancing remote work settings and empowering employees. With a strong background in HR and organizational psychology, she fosters an inclusive and growth-focused culture for the Zignaly team. In this episode, Shawn and Ellen discuss creating trust within a remote team, the importance of personal connections in the workplace, and benefits and practices of being an email-free organization.
This episode features an interview with Ellen Maier, Human Resources Director at Zignaly. Ellen is an experienced HR leader committed to enhancing remote work settings and empowering employees. With a strong background in HR and organizational psychology, she fosters an inclusive and growth-focused culture for the Zignaly team.
In this episode, Shawn and Ellen discuss creating trust within a remote team, the importance of personal connections in the workplace, and benefits and practices of being an email-free organization.
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“When you say email-free, it's equal to clutter-free. When you consider you're wasting so much valuable time because, time is money and you also have an amount of energy. The crazy thing is that everyone that works with email, they start reading, checking everything in the morning. Once they finish that, they have no other energy to do anything else. You can miss important information, important updates.” – Ellen Maier
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Episode Timestamps:
*(02:12): Getting to know Ellen
*(06:39): Building a trusting remote culture at Zignaly
*(22:14): How Zignaly manages an email-free work environment
*(28:51): Strategies for global team management
*(37:11): AI in human resources
*(41:47): What’s next for Zignaly and Ellen
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Links:
Connect with Ellen on LinkedIn
Connect with Shawn on LinkedIn
Shawn Pfunder: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Cohesion Podcast. Today I'm joined by Ellen Maier, Director of Human Resources at Zignaly.
Shawn Pfunder: Ellen is a seasoned HR leader dedicated to optimizing remote working environments and empowering talent with a proven track record in HR and organizational psychology. She creates an inclusive growth oriented environment for the Zignaly team. Ellen, welcome to the show. We're excited to have you.
Ellen Maier: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
Shawn Pfunder: Well, what we do at the very beginning, ask you some questions that, listen, they're not super personal, but it's just a chance for us to get to know you a little bit better. I know we're going to end up talking about that, but kind of building, building trust with the audience. So they know you a little bit better as well.
Shawn Pfunder: So I've got five, get to know you questions. The first one, what are the top five most opened apps? On your phone right now.
Ellen Maier: Okay. I think probably the top one is Instagram. I'm a millennial. I'm going over Instagram. TikTok is not for me. So probably Instagram. But after that, it's only a few things that I use.
Ellen Maier: Probably Twitter X to read the news. And then one app that is pregnancy plus because I'm pregnant. So I always go and check if there is any outlay. Um, after that though. Probably will say like Google Maps, Google Maps and a Google Authenticator and that's it. Like, I don't use my phone. I only when, when I want to scroll, I do it.
Ellen Maier: Then I forget my phone in some place of the house. That's, that's on my part.
Shawn Pfunder: Wow. It seems healthy that you forget your phone, leave it somewhere in the house and live your life.
Ellen Maier: Another app that I use a lot, Duolingo. I love it. I love it. Yeah, I love languages. I love languages. So I'm learning Italian. That is my fourth language.
Ellen Maier: So yeah,
Shawn Pfunder: Italian is your fourth language?
Ellen Maier: Yes.
Shawn Pfunder: Oh, wow. What level are you on Duolingo? Do you know off the top of your head? For Italian?
Ellen Maier: I don't know how that works. For now, I'm able to understand everything if I tell it in Spanish. person speaks, but I'm really shy to talk yet, but yeah, it's fun. It's fun.
Shawn Pfunder: I know what that's like.
Shawn Pfunder: A lot of people, if you haven't learned a foreign language, you don't know the, I understand everything, but I don't say anything.
Ellen Maier: Yeah.
Shawn Pfunder: I know what that's like. Well, what is a common myth? About your field of expertise, a common myth.
Ellen Maier: That is not as much as a myth, but it's a really common thing for everyone.
Ellen Maier: It's that human resources only appears when they want to fire someone. That is the only moment that they appear. They show up and everyone is scary, so probably I would say that one.
Shawn Pfunder: Jeez, be more direct, will you?
Ellen Maier: I'm working to break that idea that it's like, okay, Human resources, it's like, it's more fun.
Ellen Maier: It's more like connection. I'm working to change that.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, we are seen sometimes as the grim reaper. Like it's no fun to join a meeting and HR isn't on the meeting. And then all of a sudden HR is there on the meeting. You're like, okay, yeah, now I know. You're out.
Ellen Maier: Like, I think for everyone that knows that like, if HR connects from the Google is that you're out.
Shawn Pfunder: You're done, that's great. So final one, if you could get the answer to any mystery, what would it be? So like think about, I don't know, X Files, aliens, whatever, like any mystery, what would it be?
Ellen Maier: Probably would be like what happens after we die, because if like, if you have that mystery solved, you will probably live your life totally differently.
Ellen Maier: So I think that would be an interesting one to have the answer to.
Shawn Pfunder: That's super meaningful. That makes me feel bad that I would answer about What was your answer?
Ellen Maier: What was your answer? I need to know it right now. What is yours?
Shawn Pfunder: Listen, probably aliens. I probably would want to know it. But now I want to sound more poetic.
Shawn Pfunder: No, I want to know what happens in space. After we die or I don't know like what's the structure of love? I don't know.
Ellen Maier: I know I want to sound like if you know, for example, if you know that they so leaves after maybe there is like Everything is possible. Like aliens are possible. Everything is possible.
Ellen Maier: You can travel the galaxy I don't know. I think that opens a really big like window to everything.
Shawn Pfunder: They're all tied together. Yeah, if we know Then aliens are possible, which is great. All right, well, let's, let's talk a little bit about Zignaly. I, like, I know that Zignaly has a unique culture. It's distributed worldwide.
Shawn Pfunder: Can you explain how you cultivate a culture of trust, transparency, and independence at Zignaly?
Ellen Maier: Yes, of course. So, before I start commenting, I want to comment something that I read this week. It was, I think, the CEO of Spotify, they
Ellen Maier: were asking him about, like, remote work, and his short answer was, we do not hire children.
Ellen Maier: And I love it. Wow. And I love it. Because when I'm always talking, for example, with candidates, I comment like, in Zignaly, we really trust everyone. We trust that everyone is a responsible adult, so you don't need someone micromanaging you. You can do the best job at time on your path. You can organize your life around it.
Ellen Maier: And I think it's also really connected with the values that we have. On one side, we really trust. The people that we work and we know that if they're in signal is because they love what we do. They want to be part of, they want to add their work and to make it better. So everyone can grow and thrive in, in a really great culture.
Ellen Maier: I think that also it starts when you're hiring someone. It's like we put like a lot of effort in the kind of people we hire. That they are aligning with their values. So we start from scratch with a good relationship. So we hire the top people in Web3, some other people that doesn't came from crypto, but we try with everyone.
Ellen Maier: We develop some of the teammates. They never worked remotely before, so it's a challenge as well. So, yeah. But I think, like, if you have the growth mentality, like, you can learn everything. You have no ceiling. Everything that you think is possible, you can do it if you put the effort. And I think it's really interesting seeing everyone that has.
Ellen Maier: Full flexibility, for example, in Signal you have unlimited vacation days. So that is also great. Like if you are tired, if you're sick, if your kids are sick, if you need to do an errand, it's okay. You can have your life and you can organize the work in the way that is more efficient. I don't know. Some people love to work at night.
Ellen Maier: Other people love to work at morning, and we provide the flexibility to everyone to say like, okay, I trust you, you're a grown up person, and you're really responsible, you have this task, for example, or this project to complete, and I trust that you will do it in the best way. So, I think that it's great because you can see that people thrive in that environment.
Shawn Pfunder: It sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, so it sounds like you, you start with this, like, we don't hire children, which I love that that's what the Spotify CEO said. And then one way that you create trust is by trusting on, on your side. So as a leader, as a company, whatever you just say and illustrate, we trust you.
Shawn Pfunder: Like, get your work done when you need to get your work done, do we hire talented people, we don't hire children, we trust you, like you illustrate that really clearly. Is that right? I mean, one way that you establish trust with your employees?
Ellen Maier: Yeah, I think we've heard from the base that everyone is amazing.
Ellen Maier: So it's not that you're like a really bad person and need to see if you're able to do the work. No. Because we hire talented people. Top candidates. We hire the best people that exist. We hire for signaling. So if I already Hire you if I'm able to say, okay, I will pay all this money into you. Why I will not trust you.
Ellen Maier: Like I will hire you to do a job and then I will not be sure that you're able or capable to do it. That is insane. And for me, for some companies to keep working on that way is, is insane. It's like, okay, I hired the top talent. I trust that they can do amazing things and they will have the freedom to make the company better.
Ellen Maier: Because they know how to do it in their spot.
Shawn Pfunder: That changes everything culturally, it feels like, because first you're saying to everybody, if you're here, you're talented. If you're here, you're amazing. Like, we know you're amazing. So, if there's anything that's not working, performance wise, or communication wise, or collaboration wise, it's not an immediate, oh, they're not good at their job.
Shawn Pfunder: It's more an immediate, like, listen, we know you're talented. We know you're good at your job. We know you're good at this work. There's something else going on that we need to work out to make sure that you can thrive instead of the immediate, they're in the wrong role or that's changes everything when you start that way with them.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. I'd love that.
Ellen Maier: And it also, I think is, is different for the person that is starting, because for example, if you're starting in a company that they are like, It's your first day and you have your boss in your shoulder checking everything that you do. The most possible thing that you will do is that you will make an error or several errors because you're like, you're afraid to make an error.
Ellen Maier: So it's like, in our side, it's the opposite. It's like, I know you're going to do amazing. Do it in the way that you feel the most comfortable doing it.
Shawn Pfunder: Well, this is what we get having a psychology expert on the show to understand this better, which I love. Is there anything else? So apart from trusting them and making sure that they know, Hey, you're, you're, you're A grown up, you're an adult, like, manage your time.
Shawn Pfunder: We know you're talented. Is there anything else that you would recommend to our listeners? Other ways to, like, build trust outside of that?
Ellen Maier: Yeah, I think that having a good organization, a company that the operations works, it helps everyone. Because, for example, if the only record that you have of the track that you're doing, the project that you're doing, is just talking to people.
Ellen Maier: You will have to be like, okay, Shawn, have you done that? Have you done that? Have you done this? How we are on this project. But for example, we work with Asana as a project manager. So that is great because only one person can be responsible of each task. So you can go to the project, you can see how much.
Ellen Maier: They progress on it and you can have, for example, theme leads, they have a weekly check in with the CEO. So they have the space to say like, okay, this is how these projects are going on having or I'm struggling this part, like anyone else have an idea on how to solve this? So instead of focusing on like how you're doing, how you're doing, or like give me an update, you can focus on how can I help you?
Ellen Maier: Like, I'm here if you need any help. So it's like changing the table, having everything organized, it's great because some times happen and it's sad because it happens with the people that are the best people in each company. That's if you have, for example, two employees, both of them, they have the same role.
Ellen Maier: One is an overachiever and the other person does less than the bare minimum.
Ellen Maier: Usually what happens is that the team lead of those people is going to say like, okay, I'm going to put all the tasks to the overachiever. The overachiever ended up really burned, really tired because he's receiving probably the same pay as the other person doing a thousand times more.
Ellen Maier: So having things like Asana is great as well because you can see, okay, how many projects this person has, how many things they are working on, how many tasks do they have, are they overworked or not, are they free, can I talk to them, they can help me on this, on that. So I think it's really great because you can see their workload as well on the other person.
Ellen Maier: Do not overwork them.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, I haven't even thought about that. Usually I like to try to be the overachiever, but then what happens eventually is you're just beat or you know you're gonna miss something. That's a great way to think about it, that. That impact, it feels like you get the chance to have more meaningful conversations if every time you talk it's not, what's the status, what's the status, what's the status, so how can I help you?
Shawn Pfunder: But also legitimately, what did you do this weekend? Or how are you feeling? How's the travel around the city with Google Maps? Like whatever that is, that opens that up so it's not constantly the task driven check in, check in, check in, because I don't trust you.
Ellen Maier: I think it's also really important to connect with people into a personal level.
Ellen Maier: I fully understand probably the managers always think like, okay, we have to think in numbers. And of course, if the company is not thriving, if the company is not having like success and money, there is no company to exist, right? Right. But once you have your company, you also want to create a personal connection because everyone Wants to feel that they are part of something that if they miss today or if they are not here tomorrow, someone is going to miss them.
Ellen Maier: It's not that they are only like a person that is replaceable and everyone else can do their task. So I think it's really important to connect with people. It's like, okay, you're not only a developer. Okay, you're a developer that does this task, but I know you have a family, you have your kids. You commented to me last week that your kid was sick.
Ellen Maier: How is your kid? So People have, have a life, and I think it's really important to, to remember that if we want the best people, we need to treat them as a people. So, they are person, they can't change work anytime.
Ellen Maier: But they will not change their family. They will not change their life. So it's really important to get connected with that as well And I think that that is one of the things with remote work that you need to really work on because you're not Cursing everyone like in the coffee or anything like that.
Ellen Maier: So you need to be really Like, driven into that part to, like, okay, I want to make people have personal connection between each other to feel that they are part of something that is important and to feel that they matter as a person, and not only as, A person that only will do a certain job and it will serve me for something.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, more, more valuable than the job. The people are more valuable than the job. We were able to chat in another session before the show, and it's clear that you are really good at creating that, that quick personal connection. Like even now you asked me what. The mystery is that I would want to solve and no other guest has then turned around and asked me what mystery, but that's clear that you either have a natural talent for that or you've learned it and being able to do that.
Shawn Pfunder: Do you think that skill, like the making the personal connection or checking in or not always thinking about the numbers, is that something that a leader has to learn or do you think that's something that's more innate? Like can you teach a leader how to make those types of connections with their employees?
Ellen Maier: Yes, of course. I think, of course, this is something that is really natural for some people, that you really care about people. So I care about people, even if it's in the supermarket, even if like, I generally care about people. But for some other people that is really probably focus on the operations or the goals or the achievements.
Ellen Maier: It's like, it's really great for, for like, we are all learning in everything. And this is another part of the learning experience that we have to improve. So it's like, okay. It's not only the important part about, like, achieving the things, if I don't have the personal connection, for example, a team leader with their team, they will not have that connection.
Ellen Maier: Loyalty to them or even though for I think in every company and in every work that you do there are some times that you have like Really low amount of job and there are other days or other months that you're working like crazy Tons of hours and that's okay, and that is really common in almost every job But the only way that the people do that part happy is if they feel okay I think it's really important, and I think that everyone can learn it, is just to, they need to change the mentality to, it's not important, and to change it to, it's really important because this, it's like having a marine mentality, like, they are your team, they are your team, you have to be there for them, and it's not only they have to be there for you.
Ellen Maier: You have to be there for them as well. And this is really important and getting, get the personal connection. I don't know, for example, I remember different companies, or when I talk with other colleagues and they were commenting a situation and I was like, okay, but how is the life of that person? And they had no idea if the person was married, if the person has a partner, if the person has kids.
Ellen Maier: And it was like, there is a full life in the back. And sometimes people are really straightforward and they can come to you and say, Okay, like, my parents passed away or stuff like that. And some other people, maybe everything is collapsing. behind them and they will not say a word. So I think it's really important and it's a really big part of being a leader, caring for this part, and if you do that, you will make a really big difference.
Ellen Maier: And finally, your company will make a really big difference. Because everyone will try.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. Sometimes a hard sell for a CEO or somebody else, but then the results speak for themselves when you have employees that are engaged. And now, speaking of employee engagement, establish the trust. Once that's there, hopefully collaboration, communication, cohesion happens a little bit more.
Shawn Pfunder: But you work at a company that's email free. And that's nuts for so many people to hear. Like we're getting close to getting something like that. There's just some holdouts with finance or legal or something, but I can't imagine what that's like. Tell me a little bit more about that. Has it been email free the entire time you've been there?
Shawn Pfunder: Like, how do you move to email free? That's really interesting. And then how does it affect the culture to be email free?
Ellen Maier: I think that when you say email free is equal to clutter free. Like, there is no other way to say it. If you have different tools, you can find the email of anyone on LinkedIn. So when I open my email for x reason, I have hundreds of emails of people that I don't know.
Ellen Maier: So it's really hard to focus because you'll have so much time going one by one, moving to folders, deleting and everything. Clutter free, since it started, so we use the different tools, for example, for chatting, we use the Slack. So, for example, if I need something from you, I can go to Slack and, hi Shawn, I need this, this, and this from you.
Ellen Maier: Can you please check it? But imagine if I, instead of going, And send you a ping, a message, and you will see like probably 10 message tops from people. You go to your email and you have 300 emails from the weekend, 400 emails, and you will probably never see my, my ping, my message. And this is really crazy when you consider like you're wasting so much valuable time Because actually, like, if you're paying someone, time is money, and you also have an amount of energy.
Ellen Maier: And the crazy thing is that everyone that works with email, they start reading, checking everything in the morning. So once they finish that, they have no other energy for do anything else. They're tired, they don't even start working and they are already tired and you can miss important information, important updates and everything.
Ellen Maier: So Zignaly worked like this since the beginning. We never used email as a communication tool. So I think that was really great because for example, when I have to go to the email, I only go to send. I go to Send and I check if any one of the people that I contacted for x reason, if they came back to me.
Ellen Maier: I don't check my inbox. I don't check it. And I think they have like thousands and thousands of emails. And it's great because I can start my day with no clutter. I can go to Asana, check if there is anything new on my inbox. From my team, any update, and I can help them, they can help me, and that's it.
Ellen Maier: There is no clutter.
Shawn Pfunder: Oh wow. So I'm curious, so often, when we have to communicate something, so if it's annual review cycle or open enrollment for folks in the US. So often email is a big part of that. So I would like, usually for most people, it's like, because it's going to be long, or it's going to have a lot of information that we need to share.
Shawn Pfunder: And Slack most of the time is more, more short form, perhaps in some of those situations, or it could get lost. If you post to the general channel, somebody else posts about their trip to Europe in the general channel, and it kind of goes up. How do you communicate some of these big things that we need to work with employees on or make sure that everybody's on the same page or even celebrating really big wins?
Shawn Pfunder: Do you use Slack to do that? And if you use Slack and, or is there another tool, is there another way that you communicate some of these big things?
Ellen Maier: We try to reduce all the tools that we use. So for example, if we need to connect in a video call, we use Google Meet. If we need to have a short chat with someone, we use Slack.
Ellen Maier: Inside Slack, we have the general chat when we say like, good morning, everything like that. We have a random chat that is for anything random that can occur, like any trip, anything weird that you saw, anything that you want to share, anything regarding the market, like. And then I know that every team, they have their own chat, they try to use it, like, only for things that are necessary, like, Hi, please check Asana that I tagged you in something.
Ellen Maier: But the great thing for us working on Asana is that you can have all the information and everyone on the loop in there. So, You have the project, you can have, for example, if I needed to ask you for help in some task, I can tag you, and then I can add collaborators to the tag and say like, FYI, XXX persons, be aware of the situation, and that's it.
Ellen Maier: You don't need to see a 50 email thread in order to be aware on what is important. So I think it's their email is something that we use for I don't know how many years already and I don't know why companies Improve it in so many parts, but they are still using Email, like you're losing a lot of money because people are tired because things are not get done and then they get mad because things are not get done.
Ellen Maier: It's like you have this clutter in the middle that is making everything harder. So if any company wants to considering deleting email and only using, for example, two contacts, an external team, person, or anything, I think that is the best approach possible.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, well, you said at the beginning when talking about the general channel that you would go in there and say, good morning, but I think that that would probably be hard for your team because you're so spread out.
Shawn Pfunder: So you've got a global team, like all over the world. I mean, I'm the type of guy that would say good morning, even though I know you're in like Portugal or Spain or whatever. And then they'd be like, Hey, listen, I'm going to bed. Why'd you say good morning? But how do you manage a team? Like you're heading HR.
Shawn Pfunder: For this vast, like, different time zones, different cultures, different, like, how do you juggle that? How do you manage that?
Ellen Maier: I think it's really important. Okay, Asana helps us a lot on the organization, but it helps us a lot to know that you need to create a strong documentation. So, for example, in Asana, all the information regarding a project, a task, is there.
Ellen Maier: So, if you're working, because he's 10 a. m. for you and 5 p. m. for me and I will be stop working right now. It's okay You can go to a sauna. You can check everything and you can work asynchronous So I think that is really important and that's something funny, as you commented, as we have people that is in every time zone that exists, you will see some people saying good morning when you're going to bed, and it's okay.
Ellen Maier: And that is perfect because that's their good morning, they're starting the day. So this is really great because you can also say like, okay. We are so flexible that, for example, even if you start every day at 7 a. m. 7 a. m. 7 a. m. Everyone is used to say like, okay, Shawn starts at 7 a. m. When it's 7 a. m. for him, I will ping him for, to help me with X thing, right?
Ellen Maier: That day you, I don't know, you needed to take your dog to the vet. So instead of starting at 7am, you start at 10, and when I see you, good morning, I was like, okay, it's working, so I will text you in that moment. So it's really great because that creates that personal connection with the person, and you can see some people that had like, Really crazy schedules, or sometimes they work in the morning, sometimes they work in the afternoon, or, I don't know, 3 a.m. in their time.
Ellen Maier: That is great because we provide the flexibility and everyone can decide in what time they work. And if, for example, you decided, I don't know, something changed in your life and you decide to start working at night, it's okay. You can do it.
Shawn Pfunder: It's okay. It's okay.
Ellen Maier: You probably, instead of saying good morning, you will say, like, good night.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah.
Ellen Maier: And that's it.
Shawn Pfunder: And that's it. It just switches quickly. Do you think, or what's your, I guess, looking forward? Do you think more companies? We'll move towards this type of setup, like making sure that you have the tools in place to do asynchronous communication, treating people like adults. You don't have to keep like asking, where's this task?
Shawn Pfunder: Where's this task? Where's this task? So that you can be all over the world. Do you think companies are moving in that direction? Cause it seems. Like some bigger ones like in the news that we've seen are doing this really big call back to office come back to office Come back to office. Like where do you think where do you think we're going?
Shawn Pfunder: Do you think we're gonna end up like like Zignaly for most folks or will it be different?
Ellen Maier: I think it's complicated because That is a hundred percent related on how confident are you on the people that you're hiring?
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah,
Ellen Maier: because If you, one, have no idea what people are you hiring, or if two, even if you hire the top people, you do not trust them, I do not think that they will go to remote, right?
Ellen Maier: And they will try to keep checking what everyone is doing and like that. But I think, slow by slow, at least some companies are going to go like into hybrid and then remote. Most than anything, because people, they move from one work to another if they're not comfortable. So once they stop commuting, I don't know, one hour and a half, going to work, one hour and a half, coming back from work, they were like, okay, I win three hours now, what can I do?
Ellen Maier: I can go to the gym, I can have time for my family, I can time for my pets, I can do anything that I like. So after the people goes remote, it's really hard for them to come back to the office. It's really hard. So they start even negotiating with the companies. It's like, okay, reduce my salary, but allow me to work from home.
Ellen Maier: It's insane. But I really hope that companies grow in mentality as well, and they will see like really big improvements. But okay, this needs to be done from a world structure. Because for example, if you You say that you allow everyone to work remotely, but then you keep email, and then you make everyone lose five hours, six hours a day going through emails.
Ellen Maier: Of course, they are not going to be, like, really productive, but it's not their fault. They will lose the same amount of hours if they are at the office, but you will be happy because they are there. Maybe it's the same. So I think it needs to be a change in the mentality, like, We hire the top people, we trust the top people, and we will give them the best tools for them to do great things.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah, well it sounds like what you're, you and the team clearly, or your theory and the way you understand it, is If there's lack of productivity, or lack of collaboration, there's a good chance it doesn't have anything to do with people being together in an office. There's something else going on that you can be highly collaborative, highly productive, and not have to be in the office and be able to have a distributed team like that.
Shawn Pfunder: And that's, that's impressive. I think that's some, something new. Cause usually when we talk about remote work, it's, it seems more like a benefit. You have your personal life. You can work through these types of things. And it is. That's for sure, that's part of it. But being able to make the case that more collaborative, more creative, get more work done.
Shawn Pfunder: That's unique right now because so many people have the theory that it's the, that it has to be the opposite to make that work.
Ellen Maier: I think that unless there is like needed for people to be at the office because I don't know, we have an open office, clients come to the office or anything like that. You are treating the employees or the team members of your company as children because you have to tell them what to do.
Ellen Maier: You have to tell them, like, you have to work and you have to be here at 9 a. m. even if you are making as you are working. Because suddenly that is the thing what happens in companies, like, people Or they don't want to work and they spend a lot of time making like they're working or in the bathroom or in different ways.
Ellen Maier: That's not good for anyone.
Shawn Pfunder: No.
Ellen Maier: No one wants to be told what to do. It's like that. You don't want to be said like, no, don't go and sit in that chair. You don't have five years. You would like to do the things that you like to do. So I think when you start thinking about working in an office and when you really think about it, it's like, yeah, I Everyone is being treated like as a kid.
Ellen Maier: Yeah. It's like when you were going to the school like you need to hear at this time. Yeah. You have the break at this time and it's like, I like this.
Shawn Pfunder: No, I don't like it.
Ellen Maier: yeah. I really hope that companies move and improve because it will make like people happier. It will really increase their revenue and everyone will be happy after that.
Shawn Pfunder: Yeah. Yeah. Do you hear that super large tech company. that will not be named. Ellen's letting you know. You're hiring, you must be hiring poorly and not trusting the people that are on your team. So moving on slightly, we've got a few minutes left. I want to know your thoughts on AI. Within the human resources world, have you seen ways that people are using generative AI or using sort of this up and coming technology to, I guess, to increase this engagement or to support employees?
Shawn Pfunder: How are you seeing it being used right now?
Ellen Maier: Okay, so I think that the most common use that everyone uses is ChatGPT, like, help me to redact this email, help me to redact and make it, like, really nice to read this content and stuff like that. I think it's really great that we use the tools. To save us time, but on the other side, you can see that they have a lot of issues.
Ellen Maier: When you think about it, like, AI can be trick, right? And there are a lot of things that only a person can have the feel. It's like, okay, I can see this person have like X amount of years of experience, but I can go to the LinkedIn and they actually don't have that. So it's like The human touch is really needed.
Ellen Maier: Yes, you can use AI for a lot of different things, but I still think that if you use AI as a intermediary, for example, for recruitment selection interviews, there is no way that they will be connected or that they will have a personal connection with the company. There is no person in the middle, and in order to have a personal connection, you need a person.
Ellen Maier: So, there are a lot of tools that we can use to save us time, but at the end of the day, you don't want to complain or talk with an AI. You want to talk with a real person to help you or to solve that problem or to at least hear you. So I think we, we can use it, but we don't have to lose the focus on what is the goal.
Shawn Pfunder: Using AI to, to generate that or to take a, go through a list of candidates or something like that. It's almost like you speaking a foreign language. You're learning a foreign language, you're hanging out with your friends, you're in Romania, but there's somebody there that speaks better than you, or somebody that's native that can Listen to what you say and then say, okay, that's close to what you're supposed to say, but this is the actual thing.
Shawn Pfunder: The same thing with AI is it may generate a cover letter or a policy or something they're going to use, but you need the human on the other side, at least right now, you need the human on the other side to go, okay, This works for us, or really this is more accurate than what we want to say to the employees.
Shawn Pfunder: And in many cases, unless you're just going to post to Asana, you might have an, you know that the all hands, the weekly meeting, the weekly call is going to be better. And right now, that's not a generated, AI video of the CEO talking to everybody and sharing that. There's a real human connection that's still happening.
Ellen Maier: I think that is awful. Also, like if you, if you actually think about, about that, it's like the best ideas. We, between the team leads and everything, came when you're talking about the weather, you're talking about this game, you're talking about that, they came in that moment like I saw this and I thought that, I thought this was really funny, oh, but I saw this part implemented in this way, and this is how ideas are created, so AI cannot create something from scratch.
Ellen Maier: You need to give the input or they will process what they have. So that is the part that the human is still one step ahead. It's like, okay, we have this technology, the people. We need this or we can solve this problem, we can solve this situation. How can we do that? And like, all brains on the table can work and generate an idea that there is no AI capable to do that.
Shawn Pfunder: A thousand percent. This is exactly how creativity works. You know, it's always been the joke of demanding somebody be creative. You're all together in a room and I say, Ellen, be creative. Right now. Do it. Do it. And it doesn't work like that. It never works that way. Yeah. It never works that way. Well, what's next for you?
Shawn Pfunder: What's on the horizon for you, Ellen, moving forward within the HR world, within the personal world? What's next?
Ellen Maier: Okay, so I think a few things. One is my maternity leave. I'm seven months pregnant, so probably soon.
Shawn Pfunder: Congratulations.
Ellen Maier: Thank you. I will have to make a pause because the kid is not going to allow me, but yeah, there is no other way to say it, but I'm really excited.
Ellen Maier: Signal is growing a lot. Zignaly is doing amazing things for the people, and I'm pretty excited to see everything that Zignaly is creating.
Ellen Maier: We are moving to blockchain, so it's a whole new world, the blockchain technology, and I think this is going to help a lot of people, because finally our goal is to make everyone being financially free.
Ellen Maier: So I think that is amazing, and that is something that Also makes everyone so excited in the team. It's like, okay, it's not only like wealth for myself, it's wealth for everyone to achieve that. So I think that keep working on human resources, keep putting my ground of sand, and yes. Keep, keep working on personal projects as well. I really love to. So, yes.
Shawn Pfunder: It sounds like you, so you may disappear for just a little bit while you're with the new edition and everything going on, but what are the ways that we can, our listeners can stay connected to you or to follow Zignaly, what they're doing to create financial freedom for every, everybody, where can we go?
Ellen Maier: Yes, like, simple, you can search me on LinkedIn. I also have my Twitter. I don't post much, I should do that, but I try to stay connected with all the messages and everything that they send me. Other way is Zignaly website. We always post there everything. Our signal is TwitterX as well. We, we have and we post all the information, all the updates, and how people can improve their lives as well.
Ellen Maier: So that, as I commented, I like people and I like to care about people. So If everything that I can do for any other person is say like, okay, there is a way that you can improve your life over financial freedom. You can do this. And if I'm the middle person to let you know that this exists, I'm happy to do it.
Shawn Pfunder: That's fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the show and everything that you've shared about. Treating folks like adults, they're talented, they're capable and showing them that. I just, I really appreciate it. It's given me a lot to think about and hopefully a lot to implement in my career as well.
Shawn Pfunder: So thanks for joining us.
Ellen Maier: Thank you. It was a real pleasure. I hope that we have the opportunity to talk again, and thank you for inviting me.