Easy steps for building a healthy employer brand.
A brand is an organization’s reputation. The first thing that comes to mind for most people are the visual aspects of a brand like its logo or the style of imagery it uses, but a brand can also be a general feeling or an expectation. This experience called the corporate brand, is what most of us associate with a brand. But what does it mean to have an employer brand?
A strong employer brand can attract diverse, talented teams and keep current employees happy.
How a company is perceived internally and externally has lasting effects on its success and can attract candidates that would not have considered working there in the first place!
How your employees feel about working for your company paints a picture for potential clients and candidates. Employment branding is more than just superficial perks like a gym in the office, employee discounts, and casual Fridays. Employment branding is a promise an organization makes to serve its employees and make their work and life better.
On Episode 8 of Growing A Fruitful Brand, join Fruitful Founder, Ben Lueders in an exclusive interview with Brett Hicks. Brett has worked with big Omaha brands like web hosting provider Flywheel/WP Engine and the beloved Mulhall's plant nursery. Listen in as Hicks shares insight into why more and more, companies are focusing on their reputation as an employer as a major part of their marketing strategy.
Subscribe and don’t miss an episode. The Growing a Fruitful Brand podcast was made for you! Listen in as we share brand strategy and design tips aimed at helping you clarify your message and grow a brand that brings more to the world around you.
Join us for an exciting and inspiring episode wherever you enjoy podcasts and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!
Ep.8: How to build an employer brand.
Automated Transcript
Ben Lueders:
Hey. Welcome to Growing a Fruitful Brand, where we discuss how to create and grow a brand that makes the world a better place for you, your customers, and your employees. I'm Ben Lueders, founder and art director of Fruitful Design and Strategy. And my guest today is Brett Hicks, an expert in employee experience and company culture. She's led training and engagement at places like C&A Industries, Flywheel, WP Engine, and Mulhall's. Brett is a personal friend of mine and who I turn to whenever I have a question around company culture or people ops. If you want to build a brand that attracts and retains amazing talent, then this conversation is for you. Enjoy.
Ben Lueders:
Brett, thanks so much for being on Growing a Fruitful Brand.
Brett Hicks:
I'm so excited to be here. I'm obsessed with podcasts, so this is a joy.
Ben Lueders:
Well, hopefully you'll be obsessed with this podcast when we're done with this episode. We want to talk about employer branding or employment branding. These terms seem to be a little bit synonymous and interchangeable. But how would you define employer branding?
Brett Hicks:
So I know that at Fruitful, you guys talk about branding in part as traditional branding as being the way that the public views your company, so your reputation with your customers or your potential customers, the folks that you want to buy from you. And so when I think about employer branding, I think about it as your "current customers" but rather your current employees. How do they feel being a part of your company? And then potential candidates, potential employees, when they think about your brand, when they think about your employer brand, what do they feel? What do they think about in terms of what it would be like to work for you and work within your company?
Ben Lueders:
That's a good distinction. So you have basically that consumer brand that is how your potential customers see you. And so, then there's this hiring side, the side of the people who might work for you or do work for you. How do those two intersect? Is there overlap between what your customers see and what your employees should see and feel?
Brett Hicks:
Definitely, yeah. And I think about some of the companies I've worked for. We want our customers to become employees because they're already brand advocates. They're people who love our product for one reason or another, have used our services in the past, or are our brand ambassadors to the point where they're talking to their friends about this service or this product that they love. And so we want them to come work for us because they're hopefully, theoretically, going to do the same thing once their employees and tell all of their friends what a great place that is to work as well as use our services or our products. And so, yeah, I do think that they do overlap. And you'll see, especially right now, just in the era of work that we have that we're in right now, which is that the employees are so powerful. They have such a powerful voice right now, even more so than the employers.
Ben Lueders:
As an employer, I totally feel this. It's a good thing.
Brett Hicks:
Yes, exactly. So it's such a powerful time right now to have your brand advocates as customers become your employees. Yeah, so I think I was going to say that you'll see a lot of companies are really starting to invest in the employer brand side. There are companies ... for instance, I have a huge company crush on Airbnb. I was a Airbnb host for four years, and-
Ben Lueders:
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Brett Hicks:
So I followed along with what Airbnb is doing in terms of from the host side but also from the employer side. And they've been very progressive for a decade longer than a lot of companies have.
Ben Lueders:
I've had a branding crush on Airbnb for a long time because I think their design, and branding, and messaging is unbelievable.
Brett Hicks:
Absolutely. And you're probably thinking of it from the customer side.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Brett Hicks:
And I'm thinking of it from the employee side because if you were to look ... and Airbnb, for instance, they have an entire webpage designated just exclusively to attracting talent and talking about their employer brand. This is what you would get if you worked here. And I have just been obsessed. If you follow the story of how they served their employees when they had to lay folks off with COVID, it's unbelievable. I mean, the lengths that they went to moving heaven and Earth to really support the folks who they were having to let go, even just down to something so simple, which is like, "Hey, you have a company laptop, and we're laying you off, but you get to keep it because we want you to have that if you want to go into freelancing." And then they turned around, and they used their entire internal talent team and made them now recruiters to helping the folks that they laid off find new jobs.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, my goodness.
Brett Hicks:
So I'm like, "Wow, they are such a incredible pillar in terms of employer branding in the world." And so companies like that, I think, are just making waves and making it harder for other companies to keep up. Right?
Ben Lueders:
Oh, I know. Way to set the bar high, Airbnb.
Ben Lueders:
Well, and that's so interesting, though, because what if they hadn't done that? What if they hadn't gone that extra mile and really taking care of people as best they could? Think of how that could hurt their consumer brand too. You know what I mean? That bad press, that bad publicity. I'm sure they weren't just doing it for the optics of it, but it's interesting how ... I think as someone who goes on LinkedIn now, what I think about a lot of companies is what I see them posting about their employees, what they're doing. And there's something about, man, I would rather do business as a customer with an employer who's taking good care of their employees and is a fun place to work, as opposed to one that doesn't really seem to care.
Brett Hicks:
Yes. You're so right about what you read online about a company is effectively what is going to influence all of our thoughts about them because that's the only access that we have to them. And I think about ... this is probably a year ago now or so, but Bumble the company. I think it's the dating app.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, it's a dating app.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah. It's not a company that I would naturally think, "Wow, what an incredible employer." But I've also been married for closer to a decade, so I just haven't used those tools personally.
Ben Lueders:
Those things didn't exist when I was on the market.
Brett Hicks:
It was just barely scratching the surface when I got into my marriage, so also not using it. However, what I saw a post from Bumble, their CEO, and they ... led by a woman, which I think was neat to see in Silicon Valley, but she was promoting some of their unique people-first benefits. And one of the things that she shared was that they were providing leave for families who were going through miscarriage just the way that you would if you, in a traditional sense, lost a loved one. But families do grieve when they miscarry, and so being able to get a bereavement in that setting or in that situation ... I thought, "That's really powerful."
And so these companies, I think, that are coming up with the really creative ways to retain their employees and then putting it out there for the world, I think, are saying, "Are you guys going to step it up too like other companies? What are you going to do in return?" So yeah, I've been amazed seeing some of the creative employer branding messages out there because, yeah, it's lighting a fire under other companies by saying, "Okay, are you going to be people-first like you say you are?”
Ben Lueders:
Yeah. Well, actually, let's talk about that because for a small little company like mine, should I be expected to be able to have the same kind of fun company culture with everything that an Airbnb might have?
Brett Hicks:
No, I don't think so. Things like that, like the bereavement leaves and stuff like that, that takes funding. It takes wealth, if you will, in more ways than one, not just financially but also having a team that's big enough to cover for folks who might be out. But it brought to mind this idea that you can start to build in processes that are smaller scale but still feel very people-first. For instance, I don't know if ... you guys probably have heard this phrase or this line that great design is invisible. Obviously, Fruitful working with design all the time, but that idea of great design being invisible is this idea that when something just works, you barely even notice the system or the process that was in place to make it work. So if I get up in the morning and I go pour myself a glass of water, and I turn on the faucet, and it works, I don't think anything of it. I just get my water and I drink it, and I go on with my day. But if I turn on the faucet and it doesn't work, then I'm like, "What?" I'm frustrated. I'm mad. Oh, great. My day started off horrible.
Ben Lueders:
We pretty much just notice bad design. Good design we just take for granted.
Brett Hicks:
Yes, exactly.
Ben Lueders:
This industry, I swear.
Brett Hicks:
Yes, that is 100% true.
Ben Lueders:
We get no respect.
Brett Hicks:
And I think that's the same thing as an employer is you're probably not always going to get the credit for it. But when you have these systems and processes in place that just work, then people are happy, but they don't even know why they're happy. And so small companies can do things like that. I worked for a company that had just one of those, oh, how did this even happen amazing moments. So anytime somebody did lose a loved one, a team member lost a loved one, then our people team went to work to not even ask them for information regarding to the situation in terms of, "Okay, where is the service being held? Where is the memorial being held?" But they would show up to the memorial, and there would always be flowers from us. Or if a team member got engaged, the next morning, they'd come back to their desk, and there's a bottle of champagne waiting for them. So these are these invisible systems that actually take a lot of work behind the scenes.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, yeah. Well, that's what I'm thinking. As a small company, there's some real personnel that you have to be dedicated. How many people did it take to pull that off? Was that just you? Are you just Superwoman saving the day?
Brett Hicks:
I would say some of these were certainly not just my idea or me at work at these, but I would say that it was a culture of people-first processes. So from day one, when people go through onboarding, we're instilling this mindset that we are people-first. So then fast forward a year, and then maybe you become a manager at the company. Then you feel empowered to share, "Oh, one of my team members just got engaged. I saw it on Instagram." And then it wasn't even a really intentional formal thing, but they would pass that message along in a quick Slack message to somebody on the people team. "Oh, okay, swing right into action.”
Ben Lueders:
In a secret Slack message, and it's like, "Okay, this is happening.”
Brett Hicks:
Truly. I mean, those things ... I don't know, they just ... that's what great design is. It just happens. It's invisible. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely was a part of making some of those surprise and delight moments happen, but I think it was a group effort. And I will say at the time, I mean, it was a company of probably 50 people when some of those things were happening.
Ben Lueders:
That was going to be my follow-up question. What size should a company be before they hire someone full-time to be head of people and really keeping their eye on this kind of stuff?
Brett Hicks:
I think that you can have an individual contributor doing some tasks that are "people-related" before you need that higher-level leader in terms of a head of people or a director of HR or something like that. It really depends on the type of company that you are and what you need most. As you grow, though, obviously, you start to add more individual contributors, and then it would be time for a leader, probably around the 50 to 60-person mark, as your people team needs are growing.
Ben Lueders:
As we said, Brett's worked at Flywheel and also at Mulhall's as well. These are two companies here in Omaha that are just known for ... I feel like their employment or employer brand is synonymous with the brand they put out in the world for their customers, and they're really known for that. I mean, when I think of either of those two companies, I think of things that I've seen on LinkedIn that their teams are doing and stuff like that. And so, you got to be a part of that, a big part of that, I think. Can you just share some stories of fun stuff that you were able to be a part of at either Flywheel or Mulhall’s?
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, I would love that. Thanks for the praise for those companies. I hold them both in high guard as well. One of the things I probably am most proud of at Flywheel, I'll start there first, is the manager training that I got to be a part of. So I really credit the CEO, the former CEO at Flywheel, Dusty, with believing that every employee has the right to work for an exceptional manager. Because you've always heard that cliche that people don't leave jobs, they leave managers.
And so, yeah, I think that he so believed and lived this idea that we need to have extraordinary people managers and people leaders if we are going to be successful. Because I was in charge of training and development at the time, I felt really privileged that I got to be the one to work closely with him to say what that looked like for us to level up all of our managers so that we can give our team members extraordinary leadership. And so, we just literally called it leadership training. It didn't have some great branding. I suppose there was an aspect of it that we called Elevate, but nevertheless-
Ben Lueders:
There you go. That's a little more branded.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah. Yeah. So Elevate, as a program, I got to spearhead and build, and basically, it had three to four different components. So every time an employee became a manager, they went through manager onboarding with me. And then all the folks who were currently managers at the time of launch, they also went through the same onboarding. So beyond the onboarding process, you got enrolled in what we called a cohort. And so, literally, every single week, and I did this for two years, so we're talking at least 100 weeks of an hour with every single people manager. So there were about 40 people managers.
Ben Lueders:
How did you do with the pressure of that? Was there any ... us designers, we struggle with imposter syndrome all the time, always just thinking that our work isn't that great, and we're just devaluing it. Did you struggle with that at all?
Ben Lueders:
Did you feel like the pressure weight of all these people are going to be managing other people? Who am I?
Brett Hicks:
Yes, 100%.
Ben Lueders:
I think you're great.
Brett Hicks:
Thanks, Ben. Oh, no, for sure. Imposter syndrome was a frequent topic within the cohorts, even among all the managers, but myself certainly. In fact, one of my favorites ... So I used to train on the concept of radical candor, which is a feedback framework. Plug for that book by Kim Scott. But yeah, one of the things I taught in that class was actually my own radical candor story. When someone gave me feedback that really impressed an important reality on me, which is some information that I needed to hear ... basically, I had been leading these cohorts. So we took the 40 managers, and we split them into four unique cohorts, and I met with each cohort an hour a week. And one of the cohorts was our senior leadership team, and so the senior leaders included all of the C-suite, CEO, chief product officer, chief financial officer, chief operating officer.
And of course, little old me, I'm like, "Who am I to come in here and tell you guys how you ought to do things?" And so, oftentimes, in that room specifically, I would find myself just shrinking in a way. Because if somebody took the conversation down a bunny trail that really wasn't what we came to talk about, I wasn't being assertive and stepping up and saying, "Let's get back on track." And so, a lot of times, I would be kind of disappointed with how those conversations would go because I was not keeping us on track. But that was because of my imposter syndrome. And I was like, "I don't want to be like, 'Nope, let's talk about what I want to talk about.'" So anyway, I actually got some radical candor from my boss at the time, who was a part of that cohort. And so he was witnessing this trend. And he said, "Can I give you some feedback?" And I said, "Yeah." And he was like, "It's hard for us to take you seriously in that room because you don't take you seriously." And I was like-
Ben Lueders:
You're going to take that through the rest of your life?
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, I've never forgotten it, and that was years ago. And at first, my ego was definitely hurt because I was like, "Oh, my gosh. They found me out. They know that I feel awkward in there." So that was the high challenge, but then he had high personal care. And he said, "We're all just waiting for you to take ownership. We have your back. Go in there knowing that we want you to succeed, and bring your A game.”
Ben Lueders:
Wow. No pressure.
Brett Hicks:
I know. So I did that next meeting, that next cohort training. I came in knowing exactly what I wanted to say, being prepared, dotted all my Is, crossed all my Ts really, really thoroughly. And then, as soon as things got off track, I pulled us back in. I said, "That can wait. Let's get back.”
Ben Lueders:
Look at you go.
Brett Hicks:
I put on my assertive pants.
Ben Lueders:
I'm picturing you in a power suit or something like that.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, I had to power pose before I went in the room to feel confident. But no, it was actually so powerful-
Ben Lueders:
That's awesome.
Brett Hicks:
... because nobody else in the room besides my boss at the time knew that that conversation had happened, that feedback conversation had happened. But I actually got a Slack message from my CEO, and he'd said to me, "Hey Brett, you did an awesome job in our senior leader meeting today. I really appreciated that you kept us on track, and it felt super valuable today." And I was like, "Wow! "This is the power of great feedback." Because if I had just gone on operating with my imposter syndrome, feeling like, "Oh, I can just fake it until I make it. No one's noticing that I'm shrinking in this room," then I would've just failed. I just would've plateaued, and it wouldn't have been valuable, and I would've been wasting a lot of people's time.
But I appreciated that my boss had the empathy, honestly, to give me critical feedback so that I grew and improved. Although it did hurt my ego, no lies. That was hard. That was hard to hear. But it helped me, and it improved my ... I was more successful because of what he shared with me. So yeah, I definitely struggle with imposter syndrome. Those settings were intimidating a lot. But what I always tell people who are fearful of having to go have a hard conversation or becoming a manager, "Who am I? I don't have this experience. But you have been managed before, so you know what you want from a manager. So now go try all those things that you didn't get to try when you were just being managed now that you are the manager and you get to try them yourself."
So yeah, there was a lot of grace in those settings, and we were just very experimental. But that manager training program, Elevate, that was one of my proudest programs that I got to spearhead because another component of it was something we called Coaches, and it's a mentor program that I built. And it was just really remarkable to see. Actually, the way that it was set up, it was managers coaching managers, and you applied to get coached on a specific topic. And then my CEO and I, we would actually pair people based on the application they submitted and say, "Oh, I want to get better at public speaking or something." Then we would choose somebody else on the leadership team who is an extraordinary public speaker and say, "Hey, for a quarter, will you guys meet once a week and just work on this?" And I would do a little kickoff call with them where we set a goal, and we set milestones so that you can measure your success along the way.
And I would say the Coaches program was one of the biggest successes in terms of actually getting that feedback after the fact to say, "This made a huge impact on me and my career." And nine times out of 10, if you applied for public speaking help, yeah, you might become a better public speaker. But I think 90% of the time, at least the folks who were getting coached were just grateful to have a quarter to just sit with and learn from somebody in the company who they wouldn't otherwise get a chance to just have undivided attention from. So yeah, it was really unique to have pairings of our VP of customer success paired with a demand-gen marketing individual contributor.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, isn't the collision that they talk about at Google or something like that? Just different people from different parts of the company who wouldn't usually be working closely together. I see that sometimes even in our small company. It's funny how quickly you can become siloed, and it's like, "This is my team. That's your team. These are your people." And then, every once in a while, I'll get a one-on-one interaction with someone who doesn't directly report to me, and it's like, "Oh, you're awesome. I could learn so much from you." It's just funny when you mix it up a little bit, how you can actually build stronger bonds and a stronger team. Yeah.
Brett Hicks:
Yes. So at Mulhall's, a part of the ... so we called it NEO, which is new employee onboarding.
Ben Lueders:
Do you name these? Is that you?
Brett Hicks:
Yeah. So NEO I actually stole from WP Engine.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, you did? Okay.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah. Yeah, but I loved it because I'd been calling it "New Hire Week" for four years, and NEO just was so much quicker. And it took on a life of its own. A lot of people had images of the Matrix NEO and stuff. But no, I brought NEO to Mulhall's, so at least some folks there probably thought that I made that up. I'm not trying to take-
Ben Lueders:
To take all the credit.
Brett Hicks:
... credit. I'm really not trying to take the credit.
Ben Lueders:
That's funny.
Brett Hicks:
But yeah, so I got to introduce NEO at Mulhall's, and one of the things that I included as part of that program ... so at Flywheel it was four full days. At Mulhall's, for full-time year-round team members it was two full days, so just a little bit of a different program. But one of the things I always included was having people do a three-hour shadow in a business unit that they're not going to be part of long-term.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, interesting.
Brett Hicks:
And the reason is, and it's to that idea of these collisions, is people have the best of intentions when they started a job. I'm going to get to know everybody one day down the road. I'm totally going to sit with you, and I'm going to take sales calls with you. Or I'm going to sit with you, and I'm going to learn how you run NEO. Or maybe I learn how you run the social media or something like that. But let's say I'm an accountant. Do you really think six months into your job that you're going to even take two hours out? No. You're too busy.
Ben Lueders:
Not at all.
Brett Hicks:
The emails start piling up, and the tasks, and to-do lists, and the deadlines, and it's so difficult to make time to see other parts of the business. Anyway, I just so believe in those collisions. You talked about linking people together, but do it early on in people's times at your company because you will find every reason and excuse to not do it as they get deeper into their-
Ben Lueders:
As soon as the work starts going.
Brett Hicks:
Yes!
Ben Lueders:
So we've started to do that here at Fruitful. It's probably because you suggested it now thinking. I know that I had a couple of conversations with Brett. Was that one of the things she told us to do? Because in the last year and a half or so, when we onboard someone, they go, and they get to experience every part of the company. And it's really fascinating. It was really fun for ... I've already mentioned her once ... but Angela, our administrative assistant. She's not someone who's actually in production. She's not a designer. She is not a strategist or whatever. It was so fun for her to learn what everybody does, and then she better knows even just for her own work, she better knows who does what and what it is we do so that she can talk more expertly with people who inquire, etc.
And the education piece is just really good for everybody. And I love to be one of the people implementing it, actually teaching, because I get to relearn things about my company every time. It's like, "Oh yeah, that did happen." I teach the history of our company and some of the design stuff. And it's just always good for everyone to be reminded. And it's good for some people. It's easy for, I think, employers sometimes to just assume everyone gets it. They do not get it. People need to be reminded. Think of how often we need to be reminded of what we do. Your customers do, but so do your employees. There's a lot of overlap there, which actually takes me to something I wanted to talk about.
So here at Fruitful, we're always harping on the story brand framework that puts the customer as the hero. So when we're thinking of an employer or employment brand, obviously the employee or the potential employee, they're the hero of this story. So I'm curious from your perspective, being in this world for a while, what kind of things did you do to put yourself in the mindset of an employee or a potential employee?
Brett Hicks:
Great question. I think that's part of why I so love being on the people team is putting myself in the shoes of that hero, if you will. Putting myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't know what it's like to work here. So from day one, with every NEO that I ever ran, which I've been running onboardings at three different companies for almost 10 years, so I've onboarded a lot of people.
Ben Lueders:
Do you know how many people? Could you guess?
Brett Hicks:
I could guess. I could probably guess.
Ben Lueders:
Would it be 30?
Brett Hicks:
Oh, gosh.
Ben Lueders:
I have not gone anywhere near there.
Brett Hicks:
It's literally probably closer to 500.
Ben Lueders:
Wow! Congratulations. See, I told you she was an expert.
Brett Hicks:
It's so much fun for me, though, to get to be that person's first impression of the company. And I always told ... when I was training trainers to be on my team, I would always say, "You have to work really hard to remember what it feels like to not know. Because when you do know ..." even something so simple ... if you're working in an office, something so simple as where are the bathrooms ... people can feel such anxiety on their first day, going, "I need to go to the bathroom. I literally don't know where to go." And it can be so debilitating getting up from training and looking around the room, trying to figure out is there a sign.
Ben Lueders:
And then it puts them in an awkward spot. They have to be the person to ask because they have to go to the bathroom. And at this point, you're dancing. I just want to say real quick, Raj, my co-host, who's not present, he's always so good about when we have clients in the office. He always shows them where the bathrooms are. And I always forget about that kind of stuff. I'm like, "Let's just get into the meeting." But he's always like, "Would you a drink? And the bathrooms are right down the hall and to the left," and walks them to the door. And sometimes they're like, "I'm going to go right now." That's not for an employee, but how much more important it is for an employee too.
Brett Hicks:
Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. Exactly. I would always first thing start with, "Here's the things that seem ..." if you were a long-term employee, you might look at that PowerPoint slide of all the things I have listed that you'd be like, "Wow, that's so simple. It's so basic. Why are you even telling them?" But I would remember what it feels like to not know that information. So it's literally like, "Hey, we expect you to be here at 9:00 AM during Neo, but otherwise, we're a really flexible in-and-out kind of company. But I don't want you to accidentally show up 10 minutes late and be like, 'Oh, I thought you guys were a flexible company.' No, I'm trying to set the precedent early that this week is the one week that we're going to be strict about that timing."
Just really calling it out because so many things ... even just cultural norms people learn through osmosis over time because they're just experiencing it and getting exposed to it among their coworkers. But I'm much more in the camp of let's just be deliberate and talk about this first and foremost and right away so that it takes the guesswork out of it. If I do want to leave for a doctor's appointment in the middle of the day, how do I handle that? Is that allowed? Just those types of norms. If I do take off, do I need to send a message in Slack? Do I need to post it to the whole team, or can I just tell my boss?
Ben Lueders:
Just stand up in the middle of the room and announce with a megaphone, "I am going to a doctor's appointment.”
Brett Hicks:
Totally.
Ben Lueders:
These are the kind of things that we've struggled with defining sometimes. We were a really, really small team for a long time, and then we started to grow in the last year. And some of us just know how things are. Right? It's not clear to everyone else, though. And it's really easy to say, "No, we're fun. We're flexible, whatever." But then there's sometimes like, "Okay, well, we're not that flexible. We've still got to get work done." So finding that balance can be hard. I see with you, you just seem really gifted at being able to anticipate those things, and that can be hard at times.
Sometimes, we found ourselves ... we're not realizing these potential problems until they are problems. And so how do you anticipate that? It sounds to me you just come in like, "Oh yes, this might be a problem 10 years from now with this person, so we're going to create a policy, or we're going to communicate this." But I'm sure it's not like that. Are you just a worst-case scenario person? Are you like a Enneagram six, and you're just always expecting everything to go wrong? And so when it does, you're like, "Yes, we planned for this."
Brett Hicks:
Actually, I'm an Enneagram three, so it's like a drive to figure it out.
Ben Lueders:
I love threes. Get it done.
Brett Hicks:
Yes, yes.
Ben Lueders:
Just get it done.
Brett Hicks:
No, but I think you're right, Ben. You can't anticipate all of it. And it's not even to say that, oh, it's just my personality that I'm able to do that. I genuinely think that a lot of times, it's failing, and it's learning from a past mistake. I was actually just talking with a friend who works for a company that's right about the size of Fruitful. And she was like, "We are such a flexible company, and so we don't have any sort of policy in place for ..." she was referring to it as moonlighting, basically side hustles. Are people allowed to freelance on the side?
When and if that becomes an issue with their day job, their full-time gig, how do we address this? And I was able to share with her, "Look, I have been through this with a company, and it went really poorly to the point like ..." basically, what happened was there were two people who were working on their side hustle during office hours in the office. And it was such an awkward situation where we're like, "We know they're doing this. We don't know how to talk about it." I mean, the person's boss came in and just, "Don't do that anymore!" And there was no strategy behind it, and there was no compassion.
Ben Lueders:
No, no.
Brett Hicks:
Right. Oh, am I getting written up for this or something? And it ultimately ended up being the beginning of the end for those folks, and they ended up leaving, I mean, pursuing their side hustle, which is-
Ben Lueders:
I've heard these kind of stories happen all the time. And if you don't address it or have a plan in place, it will happen, especially if you're with creative people. You cannot contain people's creativity, so by default, they will moonlight. Fruitful exists because I was moonlighting Fruitful at my other job. But to my old boss's credit, Donovan [Beri 00:36:52] at 1119 ... he told me right from the start, he's like, "Hey, this is totally cool by me.”
Brett Hicks:
That's awesome.
Ben Lueders:
Now, I didn't do it in the office during work hours. It was nights and weekends. But he was always very supportive. And I publicly posted the stuff I was working on, but it was okay with him. Other places, it's not okay, and you just have to ... but it's better to know that stuff.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah. And having gone through that situation where it wasn't a success story, I think I was able to talk to my friend going through it today and say, "This is how I would handle it differently." So that's me anticipating things today. I probably wouldn't think of half of those things in year one of my career, but with experience comes wisdom. And I think nine times out of 10, I would always joke that human resources, HR, it's 90% just good judgment. A lot of people go for their certifications and their senior professional of HR. It's big business of getting these certifications and class taking classes and things like that. And those are important, especially for the compliance side of HR.
But when it comes to employee relations and conflict management, and even training and development, onboarding people, 90% of the time, it's just good judgment. It's like, "Well, y'all never seen this before. Let's get into the war room and talk about it." I remember a new hire. She was brand new. This is week one, week two, something like that. And she comes to me, and she shares that she's pregnant, and she's due in a month. I don't want to get into the details of I literally didn't even physically notice.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, wow!
Brett Hicks:
It was shocking. I was taken aback by the news just because I hadn't heard yet that she was pregnant. And so I went to that individual's manager, and I said, "Did you know that and so and so is pregnant?" And she's like, "No, I had no idea." And I was thinking, "What do you do in that situation?" Because we were an employer that we prided ourselves on taking care of our people, and we had a very generous maternity leave, but we had never been confronted with the situation of, I've worked here for four weeks, and now I'm going to be gone for 12, or whatever. And so we were just like, "How do we navigate this?" And it's things like that you can't really put in a textbook. You just have to experience it, and figure it out.
Ben Lueders:
Okay. So everyone wants to know what happened. What did you do? Did you just fire her, or what did you do?
Brett Hicks:
No, God forbid. No, no. Oh my gosh, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It's like, golly.
Brett Hicks:
No, we just grandfathered her into the program. On paper, you had to be there for 12 months to get the 12 weeks off, but we just grandfathered her into it and just said-
Ben Lueders:
You're so nice.
Brett Hicks:
No, it wasn't nice. I mean, truly, that was covering our ass.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Brett Hicks:
No, that was probably really just a liability thing. No, but I actually think we ended up giving her ... we went through a short-term disability versus ... so it was more an insurance thing. And yeah, there's probably a lot more nitty- gritty, boring stuff behind the scenes on that. But it definitely was like ... we had to talk to our lawyers and stuff. This has never come up. So I would say that, yeah, a lot of my knowledge today is just having experienced it in one way or another through various companies and scenarios.
Ben Lueders:
That's awesome. So Brett, why is an employment brand valuable to an organization?
Brett Hicks:
Well, do you want to hire good people?
Ben Lueders:
Oh, there's the clip. That's the clip.
Brett Hicks:
I love it. No, it's so important. I remember when I was a student getting ready to graduate. I had this really strong desire. And granted, this is 10 years ago, well before I was even aware of the startup scene or the tech world that had all these cool, unique perks and things like that that are really drawing people in today. But at the time, I had this strong desire to work for a big name company. If I'm living in Omaha, I was thinking of the ConAgras, or TD Ameritrade, or Gallup, or something like that. And so that's where I was putting my resume in, but I was not hearing back from anybody. It was just at the time, something where I was thinking, "Man, why can't I get noticed?"
I ended up working for this staffing agency instead. And at the time when I got hired, I thought, "Well, this doesn't seem as glamorous because it's not this big name." But after years of working with them, realizing, "No, this is ..." I was able to get my foot in the door here, and I was able to make a name for myself and succeed quickly here because I wasn't just a number. If I worked for one of those Fortune 500 companies, you have tens of thousands of employees. And then I went to a company that had 500 employees, and so I was able to really level up really quickly because I didn't get lost. I wasn't just a little fish in a big pond. I actually was a big fish in a little pond.
Ben Lueders:
That's what you want.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, that's what you want.
Ben Lueders:
And listeners, that's what you want. Big fish, little pond, just remember that.
Brett Hicks:
Exactly. So I started realizing that name brand didn't mean as much to me as an employee as employer brand. And so, in this era of work in 2022, the workplace, the workforce, nine times out of 10, unless you were crazy specialty in your area of your niche, you have tons of options of where to work. And so it does matter. What is it going to feel like to work there? How are they going to treat me? Is this a nurturing environment, or is this competitive in a way that is unhealthy? I think that an employer brand in this day and age is so critical to people's success because are you going to draw in the right talent, and are you going to retain that talent? Some of that comes is what comes to mind, but I don't know if that fully answered your question.
Ben Lueders:
No, I think that's awesome. Yeah. Some of you listening or watching may feel a little overwhelmed. You need to basically hire someone like Brett. Obviously, they're very hard to find. They're very important, busy people, maybe very expensive. Who knows? They have to be able to anticipate all these problems, etc. And it may seem like this daunting thing to have a employment brand. But what are some just easy, smaller things that any company could do to work towards having a brand that is really appealing, and is really able to attract and retain their employees?
Brett Hicks:
I think about the keys to retention are in Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Ben Lueders:
I told you. She's so smart. Okay. Yes. Okay.
Brett Hicks:
You know what I'm talking about, the pyramid?
Ben Lueders:
Oh, of course. But for the listeners, can you just explain it?
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, that's a great ... I mean, let's see if I can explain it. So basically, whoever Maslow is, some smart philosophical guy at some point in history, he developed this hierarchy of needs, which basically starts at a base level of having your physiological needs met. And then you move up to your safety needs and then move up to feelings of belonging. And then you move all the way up to the top of the pyramid, and it's self-actualization. And it's this idea that if you don't have your foundational physiological needs met, then you can't possibly think about love and belonging because you haven't eaten in a week. And it's so important to start from the foundation and move up the pyramid. And I think about that in terms of retaining talent too.
A lot of companies, especially in this time and this era of work, they're thinking first and foremost about mission, vision, and purpose. I want to attract people who are passionate about ... at Mulhall's, it was beautifying the community. I want to attract people who care a ton about sustainability and the climate and that type of thing. And we were able to find folks who were passionate about those things. But a lot of times, we would step back and say, "But do we have the physiological piece down?" For instance, do people know what's expected of them at work? They have job descriptions. If you don't even know what's expected of you, how can we expect you to have, at the top of the pyramid, have a best friend at work? We cared about all those things, but if you don't have the tools and equipment to do your job well, then how can we expect you to be passionate about our purpose when you can't even do your day job?
Ben Lueders:
That's interesting. It's like there's a certain order you need to go in.
Brett Hicks:
I think so.
Ben Lueders:
Instead of starting there at the top, it's like, "Hey, let's make sure we've got this." And then you graduate.
Brett Hicks:
Exactly. I mean, the dogs in the office, or ping pong tables, or lunch provided every day-
Ben Lueders:
Yeah. I was hoping you were going to say just get a ping pong table. Get some beer on tap. Everyone gets a cool shirt. Those were the three things, but never mind. I guess it's a lot deeper than that, but-
Brett Hicks:
Those things don't hurt. Those are valuable things. Don't get me wrong. But I think that you'll see that they make a bigger difference to the folks who are really cemented in what it is they are expected to do. have the tools to do their job well, and then the pizza parties and things like that are towards the top of the pyramid where it's like, "Take it or leave it. I'm not going to stay at a job that I don't know what's expected of me, and I feel like I can't win the day." So yeah, if your people don't feel like they can be successful because they don't have those foundational things ... My husband always says ... he's in finance, but he's always just like, "I just want to get people paid." Because that is literally the first and the foundational thing that everybody wants out of their job.
I mean, I don't care who you are, the company is not a charity. You don't work for free. And so pay is part of that physiological ... that foundational piece of pyramid. And so make sure that you have those foundational important pieces of the puzzle established. And that might be an employee handbook that outlines things that are clear cut, but then you can move on to more of those fun things.
Ben Lueders:
That's super good. I think for me, I'm a business owner of a mission-driven organization, and I like working with other mission-driven organizations and stuff. And I think there can be this feeling of I just need to get everyone excited about this mission, and get on board and just put it in more places and whatnot. But if they don't know how to do their job, what's expected of them, they're not able to ... what would you say, win the day or the day, or-
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, win the day.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, be able to win the day. They're not going to really care about that mission. What about their mission right now? And maybe if that is really clear, they can tap into that bigger one. But I think sometimes even guys like me, we can get that. It's like, "Why don't they get it? Why don't they get it?" And it's like, "Well, do they know what's expected of them right now?" And I know what that feels like to ... well, both ... to know exactly what's expected of me and be able to crush a day and just feel like that was very satisfying. I could stay here forever. And then I also know what it's like to feel like, "What am I doing here?”
Brett Hicks:
Yes, it's overwhelming.
Ben Lueders:
I don't know. I have a hard time shutting work off because I don't know when it's done, what's expected. A lot has changed in the world in the last few years. And I imagine the industry that you're from has also changed too with COVID-19, lockdowns, people working remotely. I feel like we've posted a few jobs in the last couple of years, and everyone expects this to be a fully remote position potentially. So there's just been a lot of changes. What are some changes you've seen for the good or for bad?
Brett Hicks:
Yeah. I don't have a silver bullet answer, and I don't know how to make things easier for companies that might be challenged by this new reality. But one of the first things that comes to my mind is just the idea that remote work is a privilege, and not every employee gets that luxury of that flexibility and the option to work from home. I worked at Mulhall's. A lot of blue-collar workers always joked that you can't landscape someone's yard from behind a desk at your house.
Ben Lueders:
Remote like robots that you can do something remotely.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, maybe one day, but in the meantime, really, really grateful for those workers who just grind it out every single day, and they don't ask for the option to work from home. And for them, I just appreciate that work ethic and tenacity. But secondly, I will say I worked remotely for about nine months during 2020 when COVID hit. And just in terms of my skill set and what I love doing, I did not find a lot of fulfillment doing it from home. I think that I'm best utilized in an office space where I can be face to face with people and nurture relationships that way, not to say it's not possible remotely.
But my other thought is just that the pendulum is always swinging. And there was a time, even at my first company, at a college, at the staffing agency, we didn't even have casual Fridays. I wore business casual five days a week. There was no such thing as flex time or anything like that. I didn't even have email on my phone. I didn't have a laptop. I came to work. I sat at a desktop computer eight to nine hours a day, and then I went home. The days of that are over, I feel.
Ben Lueders:
Oh yeah, but it'll come back.
Brett Hicks:
And I am grateful for that. Right? No, the pendulum swung that way, but now the pendulum is swinging to the far extreme of the other side where everyone is demanding that things have to be remote-friendly or even remote first. And they're demanding things like I need a home office stipend. And if you were going to pay for my food in the office, or you do so with your in-office employees, you better pay for my lunches at home or things like that.
Ben Lueders:
I don't want my remote employees to hear this.
Brett Hicks:
And getting ideas?
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, and getting ideas.
Brett Hicks:
Right.
Ben Lueders:
All right, Brett …
Brett Hicks:
I'm not suggesting those are good ideas at all. It's just how the pendulum has swung. And I do think, as with all things, the dust will settle, and things will come back to center as they almost always do. And I think for companies who are struggling with ... "I want an in-office culture, but I don't have team members who want that back." Maybe it's time to invest in retreats and flying people in for those quarterly meetups and things like that so that you can start to build those face-to-face dynamics that you're not getting day to day. And maybe you're in an office, or you're sitting in an office, and you wish that you were remote. And maybe you can start to bring up the idea of hybrid work and find a happy medium.
But like I said, I don't have a perfect answer for this. I know it's challenging, and I would say that we've talked about this already, but this is like ... we talk about the housing market as being a buyer's market or a seller's market. Right now, this is a worker's market. They have options. They do not have to stay working for you. They can work anywhere they want. In fact, I recently heard a story of coworkers banding together and trying to fight for a four-day work week. And when their CEO said, "We're not going to do a four-day work week. That doesn't work with our business model." Then they were posting in Slack, a LinkedIn feed of all the 32-hour-a-week jobs that they found. And it's like, "Well, what do we do with that?" This is a worker's market.
Ben Lueders:
That is so different than the world that a lot of us graduated into the 2008 recession and stuff. And Raj tells stories about how hard that was for him. And it was just a different world where there was not enough jobs to go around and everything. And what a different experience we have now, which is great. But of course, employers like me are a little scared because that's one of those things. I see these four-day work weeks, and there's times where I'm like, "Man, maybe we could do that. We get most of our best work done between Monday and Thursday anyways. I pretty much just do the podcast on Friday.
Brett Hicks:
Right. Look at us here on Friday.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, we're like Friday after work hours here, defying that, I guess.
Brett Hicks:
I would just say a word of encouragement. I think most sources or studies would say that onboarding a new team member is quite expensive because those initial costs are really pricey, whether it's paying the recruiters to get them in the door, but then also just all the tools and equipment it takes to train them and get them settled. But they end up ... you get a return on that investment within about six months to a year. And so I would just encourage companies to think about if you can get three good years out of an employee, then that's actually three powerful years. And it's okay if they were to leave at that point because the speed at which business is moving, the pace of business in 2022 is like ... I don't know if you've ever heard this saying that what got us here won't get us there.
Brett Hicks:
And so this idea that we thank you for your three years of service, or whatever it may be around that, but you got us here. It's okay if you leave because we're going to find somebody else to get us there. And so just being gracious and not being overly concerned or fearful of-
Ben Lueders:
Or clingy or not able to let go.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, clingy is a good word. Exactly. Yeah. That's what I've heard some business leaders say. If they can get those few years out of folks, they're happy. And so yeah, I would just encourage business leaders to be thinking in that way and try not to be overly clingy. My old boss at Mulhall's, he would always refer to it as talent hoarding. We do not want to be a talent hoarder. So this idea that we actually know that, Ben, you're in this entry-level role, and we don't have any room for you to move up. And we know that you would kill it over here. Or actually, it's more to say, "We know that you would love to work over here, but you're killing it over here, and we just can't afford to lose you." And so we're going to say things like, "Maybe in a year or something like that," but we just keep putting off giving you the opportunity to advance or grow and develop in your career because we're hoarding your talent over here. Don't do that. A lot of people go because they're going to go anyway.
Ben Lueders:
Yeah. That's just so interesting, that suggestion for employers to maybe adjust their idea of what retaining looks like. I think of ... at our company, Aaron just celebrated seven years as an employee here, and we're giving her a sabbatical-
Brett Hicks:
Oh, she's the best.
Ben Lueders:
... and all this stuff and just so thankful for that time. And I don't take it lightly. Seven years is a long time. I can't believe I've made it longer than that. And then Nick, our good friend and designer for a number of years, I think he almost made three years full-time. He moved on to another job. He actually sold offices with us because the company works for offices remotely here at our office, so we haven't really got rid of them. But I remember how nervous he was to tell me that he was considering this other job, and he thought he was going to lose a friend and all this. And in that moment when I heard how excited he was about the opportunity that he had at other places, it was like, "Who am I to hoard your talent," to borrow your phrase?
No way. This is so amazing. First of all, I knew we had gotten so much out of him. It felt like it was just such an amazing amount of work, and I knew that we would still be friends and all that silliness.
Brett Hicks:
That's not silly. That's huge.
Ben Lueders:
But it can be hard, though. It can be hard, though. I mean, we've had that a few times now with people leaving, and it can be just so hard when you see that talent going out the door, what could be, especially when you're small. I think sometimes in a bigger company, people come and go, and maybe you get used to that cadence. But there's, I think, an expectation when you're a smaller 10 or fewer, maybe 15 or fewer. It's like, "No, we're family. We refer to ourselves as family." And sometimes that can be a little unhealthy when it's like, "No, you're not family. You're paying them." And I need to change that. I think it still says family on our website somewhere. Sorry, that will be redacted.
Brett Hicks:
People do love to say that. We used to say that at Flywheel. But I recently listened to another podcast that was talking about factory workers, and that demographic was like, "Don't call us family. I don't do this with family. I do this for family." And so I work here for my family. Y'all are not my family. And I think again, that's two ends of an extreme, and somewhere in the middle is probably a healthier place for your culture, really having nurturing relationships in the workplace and having safe spaces for people, but also recognizing that they might not want to do happy hour every week with the team. Because okay, if we're stopping work, I want to go home, and that's fine. That's okay too. So yeah, it is really tough, especially as the business owner because you're like, "Well, this is my life, so is it not yours?”
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, that's so interesting. I felt both sides of that. Full disclosure. At Fruitful, we have about half fully remote employees and half here in our beautiful ex-Flywheel office in downtown Omaha. And I'm here at the office in Omaha, and we have our amazing remote workers all over the globe. We've got a guy in Istanbul, Turkey. We've got someone in Washington D.C., someone in Arizona, and someone in Washington state. And I always feel so bad that they don't get to be a part of what we're doing here and having our team lunches and all. They don't get the exact same experiences they would if they were here. One of the team members is like, "Hey, we're trying to get a happy hour together and all of us hang out after work." And it's been hard to schedule just because a lot of us just, we want to go home.I've got 100 kids at home, and I love them, and I want to see them.
And so, it's an interesting thing. Not everyone has the same expectations, and trying to, as an employer, just being open to one person's idea of what is satisfying in their work may be different, even where they are, how they're working. For myself, when it comes to remote work, other than the fact that I've been able to work with people all around the country and stuff, there's some perks to that. I like the ability of being able to work from home. I've got a great work-from-home setup. Thank you, COVID. And I have the privilege of if a kid is sick or if Meg needs to run to the store or whatever, I can work from home. I have that ability. It's awesome. But, Brett, I want you to say something controversial. Isn't there something special about being in the office?
Ben Lueders:
Okay. So I'm not trying to get you to knock remote work at all because we are promo work and hybrid work. But isn't there something special or something that we're losing not being in an office together?
Brett Hicks:
Oh, yeah, 100%. I think that's why, at least in my experience, that's why COVID and working from home stung so much is because I was very attached to my in-office experience and seeing my people. Yeah, I remember being so down in the dumps that I couldn't come to the office anymore. And so yeah, I'm team office all the way. I think that companies are at a competitive advantage when they have their team in-office every day because you the ideating .... And I know that's probably just a buzzword, and I don't mean to be cliche, but just that ideation that happens. For instance, I remember just being able to just roll a chair over to someone's desk and be like, "Can I pick your brain about this? This is something I'm struggling with." I'm just so much more inclined to roll a chair over versus send a Slack. "Hey, do you have five minutes? I know I'm interrupting you. And let's start a Zoom call." And it's never just going to be five minutes. And so they're like, "Well, I really have to stop what I'm doing if I'm going to entertain this.”
Ben Lueders:
And you can't read their body language as they react to all that.
Ben Lueders:
By the time they get on the Zoom, maybe they've dealt with whatever, if they were rolling their eyes-
Brett Hicks:
Yeah 100%.
Ben Lueders:
... being bothered, or brushing their teeth. You just don't know. Whereas there's something to be said for here in the office. I can just visually see how are we all doing before I interrupt you or before I take your side. Whereas it's not that it can't work, but we did fly everyone in for the first time. We did Top Golf. We did a big team meeting, and it was so special. I mean, if we could afford to do that every quarter, that would be so awesome. So yeah, maybe that's our next step. We just need to make sure that that happens at least twice a year or something.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, pull back in other areas so you can really splurge. And I can just hear it now, naysayers listening to this call or listening to this podcast and being like, "I am the most efficient and effective employee I've ever been working remotely." I don't argue with that. I think that there are tons of folks, especially who are more individual contributors, who just really loved that focus space. I'm sure there's tons of people who truly are their best worker from home.
Ben Lueders:
Well, you're all about people, of course, being head of people, but you're also all about, I feel like, experience. And experiences are very hard to ... control is a bad word because control sounds a little bit manipulative or controlling. But it's hard to curate experiences when-
Ben Lueders:
... you're doing it remotely, and you're dependent on the quality of the Zoom camera or whatever. We all know. We all endured 2020 and 2021.
Brett Hicks:
You can only play so many Jackbox games before you lose your mind.
Ben Lueders:
We did that a couple of times. Oh, man. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, definitely pros and cons. I think I am one of the people that there are times when I do just need to work from home and to get that focus in that zone. Because I'm such a social person, I'm such a talkative person, I could spend all day just smiling and bopping from desk to desk, and I don't ... Sometimes being at my desk that's in the midst of all of the other designers and other team members desks, it can be really hard for me to just focus and get into that zen state that I need to be in to do my best design work, and so I do get that. And having the ability to do that or to go to a couch over here, to go to a coffee shop, having that flexibility, having things like laptops, I'm glad that you call it a privilege. It really is a privilege that we have in this day and age. Not only do we have this technology, but it's just so dang transportable. And we have this thing called the internet.
Brett Hicks:
Don't take it for granted.
Ben Lueders:
There's a lot of talk about privilege these days, but just thinking about the kinds of the work privilege that many of us enjoy ... And I think a lot of our listeners probably fall into this demographic. We have the ability to do this stuff, and that's unbelievable. It's unbelievable that we were able to weather 2020, 2021. But I would challenge. I wouldn't go so far as to say stop offering remote jobs and stuff like that. I think you're right. It's here to stay. But I think let's not diminish just the power and the magic of being in the same room with each other. Because I heard several of the out-of-town folks from our team when we were all together just talking about it and being like, "Oh, that was so special. Oh, that was so cool. Oh, so and so is so much cooler in real life," kind of a thing.
It's like, "Oh man, I didn't know so and so was that tall or that short." You feel like you connect in a way that you can't replicate virtually. And I was just reading this book called Culture Code by ... is it Daniel Coyle? And one of the things that he found is the difference between really, really just productive and efficient teams and those that aren't as productive and efficient was how close their desks were together. I think that was maybe Google or something that had done a bunch of research on that. But literally, the further apart people just physically were, the less they were able to collaborate, and synergize, and really combine their talents into collisions and all that kind of stuff. And think about not only furthering them apart, but literally putting them on other sides of the world, different time zones, etc. Something does break down, and hopefully, we don't get canceled for this.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, I know. I know. I do feel like I'm in-
Ben Lueders:
We're trying to make some clickbait in here, some little clips.
Brett Hicks:
I feel like we're in the minority right now in 2022. And this is coming from somebody who ... I'm at home now with my kid, and so
Ben Lueders:
Yeah, you're always working from home now.
Brett Hicks:
I'm always working from home now, so it's so funny.
Ben Lueders:
Full disclosure.
Brett Hicks:
But yeah, I did want to share that. As I think about how do you ... because I think working remotely fully is a very progressive thing. And obviously, some companies have allowed and have had fully remote employees for probably decades or something, but it's just now so hip.
Ben Lueders:
Expected, though.
Brett Hicks:
And expected. You're right, you're right.
Ben Lueders:
It's expected. Yeah, that's the difference, I think. My dad has been doing a hybrid part-remote.
Brett Hicks:
Mine too.
Ben Lueders:
Really? Part-remote work. He works for Veterans Affairs in Lincoln, and he used to drive from Omaha to Lincoln every single day to and from. And he convinced him like, "Dude, I could do maybe two days in Lincoln, and I could do the other three at home." And so he'd been doing that for years, and then it went to fully from home, but he was all set up. He was all ready to go.
Brett Hicks:
Right. That's great.
Ben Lueders:
So for some people, it has been a thing.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah. And my dad's been working from home since I was ... I mean, he's off and on since I was like 10.
Ben Lueders:
Before it was cool.
Brett Hicks:
Yeah, exactly. I was just going to say, if you can bring some of those progressive experiences ... I think remote work is semi-progressive ... to bring that into the office. For instance, I got to bring my baby to work for several months after I left, or when I came back from maternity leave.
Ben Lueders:
How did that go? I'm so curious. I've seen people posting, "Pro bring babies to work," and having this ... which I'm very, very pro-baby, very pro-mother. And obviously, Brett knows she could work here with her baby. I want to make sure that's recorded. But how did it work for you? Was it challenging?
Brett Hicks:
Yeah. It worked out so much better than I ever envisioned in my head. I thought that I was just going to be this Guinea pig to this very avant garde experience, but it ended up being such a success. And truly, I mean, talk about a retention builder. It was like, "Wow!" I mean, I think everyone looking on at this program that we built at Mulhall's was like, "We're putting our money where our mouth is. We're actually doing this." So anyway, I was just going to say that I remember my boss, our CEO, he was like, "I was certain that I was going to have to tell everybody, 'Stop being a jerk.' I know that there are crying babies in the office, but just be nice and go back to work." But he was, "It was the exact opposite. It was actually, 'Guys, start working. I know the babies are cute.’"
Ben Lueders:
Stop playing with the baby.
Brett Hicks:
Yes! Everybody was-
Ben Lueders:
So did other people bring their babies too?
Brett Hicks:
Yes. So we had three mothers give birth within six weeks.
Ben Lueders:
Oh, man.
Brett Hicks:
And we all brought our babies to work. I mean, it is literally one of the most memorable and delightful experiences of my life. It was a privilege. I felt so lucky to get to do it. And people were just so generous, so kind. I was nursing at the time, so it's like, "Hey, you know what? I just need to step away. We're in this meeting. Can we delay it by 10 minutes? I'm going to the wellness room or whatever." It was so funny. We would have insurance brokers being head of people. I was in charge of things like that. So we'd have insurance brokers come in, and I'm in there like ... I literally had a pad on the table with a baby laying there while we just had this meeting.
Ben Lueders:
Dude, I love it. I feel like you should have brought your baby, Cam. You should have brought him here.
Brett Hicks:
Well, he's almost 11 months now.
Ben Lueders:
How cool would it be? Oh yeah, that's true. He's a little big.
Brett Hicks:
So he would have been pulling at all of this, and all of this beautiful equipment would be destroyed.
Ben Lueders:
It would be destroyed. Oh, yeah. That's why none of my hundreds of kids are not here. They would be destroying this place. There's so much more we could talk about, but here on Growing a Fruitful Brand, we like to end with an action step. So if there was one thing that you could encourage brands to do to take a step towards making a more healthy or a better employment brand, what would you recommend?
Brett Hicks:
If I were to say something that I haven't already said, something that comes to mind is when you think about your brand and your employer brand, be realistic and don't be aspirational. I think that people have their BS radar on as applicants, and they can tell when things are just box-checking on a website, the dogs in the office, the beer fridge, things like that. And so, as you're writing core values, as you're thinking about who are we and what do we stand for, try not to be aspirational. Try to think about who are we actually. And so I think a good first step for companies is to just really take stock. Talk to your customers if you have yet. Maybe you're brand new. Talk to your employees if you have any, and include them. Involve them in the process of talking about who are we as an employer.
And yeah, I think that that is going to put you on paper as more authentic than just trying to say, "Oh, we are so flexible. You can do anything you want here." And then somebody starts, and then they realize, "Oh, I can't do anything I want here." There's actually rules and guidelines and stuff. So I would encourage companies to just take stock of who are you actually today and run with the best parts of that. And that will shine through as why someone would want to come work for you and highlight the best parts of who you are as an employer.
Ben Lueders:
Brett Hicks, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Brett Hicks:
Thanks for having me, Ben. This was awesome.
Ben Lueders:
Thanks for joining us today on Growing a Fruitful Brand. If you found today's show helpful, don't forget to subscribe and consider sharing it with someone who might also enjoy it. If you'd like to work with Fruitful on a branding website or messaging project of your own, you can always reach out on our website fruitful.design. So until next time, don't forget to grow something good.
