How do we navigate a major shift in workplace dynamics after COVID? Tony Deblauwe, VP of Human Resources at Celigo, has some ideas. He explains how holistic thinking, adaptability, and showing up with authenticity lead to both organizational success and employee satisfaction.
How do we navigate a major shift in workplace dynamics after COVID? Tony Deblauwe, VP of Human Resources at Celigo, has some ideas. Celigo is an integration platform as a service (iPaaS) that allows IT and line of business teams to automate both common and custom business processes, enabling the entire organization to be more agile and innovate faster than competitors.
Tony explains how holistic thinking, adaptability, and showing up with authenticity lead to both organizational success and employee satisfaction. Join us on this episode of Office Libations Unwrapped, as we explore beyond data and metrics, and dive into the human element of today’s workplace.
“We look at that holistic view. What is the person looking to achieve while they're here? What is the employee experience? And then you start to mold different pieces together around that. So I feel that our success is rooted in that holistic thinking. To ensure that it's not just, hey, find the best person for the job. How are those skills going to evolve and grow over time so that there's that mutual benefit between the employee and the company?”
“I always thought it was funny when people would ask, Where do you see yourself in five years? That's a ridiculous question. My joke was always, I'm going to be your boss. Just to see the reaction, right? Because I never understood. I don't know where I'm going to be in five years. So all of that is completely thrown out the door. It's more about, What are you going to learn and contribute here holistically that contributes to your view of a professional growth path?”
“We have to think about it still as a business, still with some structure, but it's always in the showing up part, right? How do we show up? How do we listen? Let someone have their voice, but put it in some kind of a structure that They can understand and they can work with you.”
“It's very difficult to gain trust and motivation for people when you start to put forth demand, when we just went through the great social experiment where you were forced to shut down, forced not to come into office, and it worked, people got promoted, people got increases, people came and left. So, it's difficult to then mandate: that's all gone now, COVID's no different than the flu, so come back, do 9 to 5. It's very difficult, and so we've moved away from that.”
“There's a difference between making an effort and then we make a stumble, versus, I'm deliberately doing it this way and I'm completely oblivious to the effect that it's having in my remote workforce. I think that's the difference now because of the difference of not just where people are, but again, the age side of the workforce, you have to be a little bit more deliberate how you think about rolling things out and not just mandating it with a limited group of stakeholders in a room and then just throwing it out there.”
“Everybody's gonna say, what does the data say? Data can be, again, survey, anecdotal, login time, like there's a lot of different ways people look at the data. But I try to look behind that, right? Because as an HR person working in business, that's always the first thing that's thrown out. Well, you know, data, decisions based data. But there is an element that is intrinsic to how a person works that no one set of hard data is necessarily going to answer.”
00:00 - Big Takeaway
00:38 - Quick Hits
03:27 - Hiring/Retention Experience
04:58 - How to train successfully
06:16 - Tony’s story
09:09 - Four generations in one workforce
24:54 - The Rebuild
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[00:00:22] Hello, and welcome to Office Libations Unwrapped. I'm your host, Claude Burns, and today we're speaking with Tony Deblauwe the VP of Human Resources at Celigo. Tony, great to have you here today.
[00:00:31] Tony Deblauwe: Thanks, Claude. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to our, uh, our convo.
[00:00:35] Claude Burns: Yeah. And so to, to start off, we kind of like to start with some quick hitters, uh, to get to know you a little bit better. Um, so we're gonna, we're gonna kick that off. Ready?
[00:00:44] Tony Deblauwe: Ready.
[00:00:45] Claude Burns: Alright, coffee or tea?
[00:00:47] Tony Deblauwe: Coffee.
[00:00:48] Claude Burns: Alright, do you have a favorite brand?
[00:00:50] Tony Deblauwe: Out here locally, uh, there's blue bottle coffee. So, that's one of my favorites.
[00:00:55] Claude Burns: Yeah, Blue Bottle's pretty awesome. What about your go to work, drink, or snack?
[00:01:00] Tony Deblauwe: For snacking, it's always, uh, dried fruit or like a trail mix.
[00:01:06] Claude Burns: Like with mangoes, or apples, or just any dried
[00:01:09] Tony Deblauwe: The, the peach for the dried.
[00:01:11] Claude Burns: Oh, okay, alright, I like it. Um, you're retired, money's no object, where do you live?
[00:01:17] Tony Deblauwe: That's easy. Pienza, Italy.
[00:01:19] Claude Burns: Uh, that sounds like, uh, my kind of place. What's the best meal you've had recently?
[00:01:24] Tony Deblauwe: Well, there's a restaurant in Palo Alto called Protégé, and I was there every year I go there dressed up for Halloween. Well, I mean, other times, but that's the main one. And so I got to have a great meal there dressed as Star Lord.
[00:01:43] Claude Burns: Okay, Italian place? Is there a theme here?
[00:01:45] Tony Deblauwe: It's kind of, it's, it's, it's mixed, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's a fine dining place over, uh, off the beaten path, uh, in Palo Alto. So it's kind of like a mix French, you know, fusion type food.
[00:02:00] Claude Burns: Awesome, awesome. I'll have to check it out. What's the last book you've read?
[00:02:04] Tony Deblauwe: I was speaking with a friend of mine, uh, Jacqueline Wales, and we reconnected after a long time and she wrote a book called The Fearless Factor. And I didn't realize she'd written the book called Fearless Factor at Work. And so I was reading that, uh, as part of some training and development ideas that I was having working with her. So that was the last book, uh, Fearless Factor at Work by Jacqueline Wales.
[00:02:30] Claude Burns: Alright. What's your favorite historical figure? It can be dead or alive.
[00:02:33] Tony Deblauwe: Given that I went to Italy this year, uh, I was reminded of all of the accomplishments of Leonardo da Vinci, and I would say that would be someone I would absolutely, uh, you know, like to meet, and I admire how much he got done in such a short period of time, there are like significant impacts, you know, to this day, so he would be one, top of my list.
[00:02:59] Claude Burns: Yeah, absolutely. True definition of a renaissance man. Helicopters, anatomy, famous artwork. Yeah, I mean, it is truly impressive. Alright, you ready to move on to, I guess, the main course, and I think what most of the audience is interested about?
[00:03:16] Tony Deblauwe: Absolutely.
[00:03:17] Claude Burns: Awesome. So let's start with, you know, how does Celigo think about hiring, retaining, and, you know, crafting that employee experience so your teams can be the most productive?
[00:03:27] Tony Deblauwe: When we look at what a professional growth path is outside of the job, you realize that a lot of what makes that successful is connecting the value and contribution that the person has within the role to the greater good or the greater, uh, goals of the company. And so I think when we have looked at our hiring packages, our efforts and initiatives around engagement, retention and so forth. We look at that holistic view. What is the person looking to achieve while they're here? What, what, what is the employee experience? And then you start to mold different pieces together around that. So I feel that our success is rooted in that holistic thinking. To ensure that it's not just, hey, find the best person for the job, of course, how are those skills going to evolve and grow over time so that there's that mutual benefit between the employee and the company?
[00:04:35] Claude Burns: Yeah, I saw that you guys recently, uh, won best employee training program, uh, for the third year in a row. So it sounds like that's,
[00:04:42] Tony Deblauwe: yes, our partnership with
[00:04:44] Claude Burns: Yeah, you just kind of talk about, like it's important to train. It's something that you guys actively, uh, uh, work with your employees and sort of built something around, uh, an LMS. Um, can you talk a little bit more about that ongoing training?
[00:04:57] Tony Deblauwe: Sure. So the, the, the core is understanding the product. So that is something that of course many teams need. And we have to make sure that they understand feature changes. How to position it correctly and so on. It's also important to our customers and partners.
[00:05:16] So, our, uh, the, the Celigo University has built this training around that. And, and recently, we started to leverage it further on learning paths for professional growth and development. Courses like Empathy, Curiosity, things that really form core competencies. So regardless of where you are in the world, if you're R& D, like in our India site, or you're in sales, there are certain things that, delivered through the platform, help to ensure, across the org, everybody's getting the same focus and same development.
[00:05:55] Claude Burns: Makes sense. And, and your background, sort of psychology, organizational development. It seems like those would fit really well in sort of an HR skill set. But you didn't actually start out with thinking that HR was going to be your career path, did you? Uh, can you kind of tell us, like, sort of how that, how that went about and sort of how those things have helped you in your career?
[00:06:14] Tony Deblauwe: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, the funny story is I always thought I was going to be a genetic engineer. And part of the basis of that was, uh, I, I was, I was a mischievous child. And, uh, I was always fascinated with... What happens if I mix this and I mix that? I wasn't the volcano kid. At the science fair, I was the blow it up kid. So, you know, as I started to get into structures and things and I had a lot of fast, I've always loved animals, I've loved nature. You always find me in the mountains, hiking and so on. I, I, I started to evolve over time more the, you know, that human side of, well, I really wanna understand what makes people tick. So interestingly, uh, that science place took, you know, took, took root.
[00:07:05] Then something, you know, kind of changed a little bit in the trajectory. I started to explore something called biopsychology, which is, I thought was a very interesting fusion of the science background with Um, you know, some of the work in genetics I was looking to do, and from there, where I happened to be going to school, I ended up with a lot of science behind me and then a psychology degree because that needed to be there for this evolving field. So the funny part was, I wasn't a genetic engineer, uh, I didn't graduate with a typical science degree like in biochemistry or biology or something, and I was like, hmm, this is gonna be, well, it's fine. I have all the science. No big deal, right?
[00:07:54] And so I went to all the biotech companies and they were all turning me away because I didn't have a hard science degree. So then I started to panic. And I'm like, what am I going to do? And fortunately, a friend of mine who went to UCLA did, was a biochem major, was at a startup in Palo Alto that was a pharmaceutical startup.
[00:08:20] So I said, Oh, you know, you should come over here. I was doing some, you know, kind of, uh, odd jobs in between, uh, cause you know, my parents were yelling at me going like, what did you do? Yeah, so, uh, I went with him there, and it was a great learning experience because I asked everybody there, like, what's your degree, like, what did you do, how'd you get here, et cetera, because I'd never been in a startup, I didn't know what a startup was, let alone a pharma software engineering startup, I didn't know any of that stuff.
[00:08:47] And the supervisor said, you know, I don't, I don't know if this is your thing. Like you're definitely technical and so forth, but I see you talking to people.
[00:08:56] Uh, your focus seems to be more around understanding that than it is the tactics of the work. So it was through that supervisor that he put me in contact with an agency that did recruiting for companies like theirs and others,
[00:09:13] And so that's how it started. Technical recruiter in biotech.
[00:09:16] Claude Burns: That's awesome. Yeah, it's always funny when you talk to people how their path always ends up being kind of different than they played it out. Um, and I think, you know, especially as, you know, work continues to change, we're starting to see that. Different generations have different paths and different expectations of the paths that, uh, that they're on and that they take. Um, can you sort of talk about some of the generational differences you're seeing at work as, you know, something that's really popular in the media? And I think a lot of companies are really struggling, uh, with how to, to manage, I think, four different generations in the workforce.
[00:09:51] Tony Deblauwe: Yeah. It's a very interesting phenomenon. We, even before, you know, Gen Z, we talk a lot about that now back in the X. I happen to be Gen X, and that group was where a lot of these conversations started. Um, you know, their population wise were not as big as the boomers or the millennials, and we had different exposures growing up.
[00:10:21] You know, we had the computers at school, we had the mobile phones, and maybe all of it was at the very beginning and fairly, you know, old, but it definitely... I mean, by today's standards, but it, it created that, I would call disassociation with what we should expect and get out of work. A lot of the conversation that you'll hear, if you look back, talked about, you know, divorce rates, mass layoffs, a lot of these things that we're seeing some glimpses of today, that was the generation that started to see some of those things, but they had a connection outside of the traditional paths where, uh, you know, you, you really did have to have some degree in training.
[00:11:10] You couldn't be, you know, right out of high school and then you're trained like some of my, um, peers were.
[00:11:17] And so, uh, the workplace wasn't as homogenous. And then suddenly with the millennials, the mix started to occur. And now with the Zs it's even more pronounced. So you have more companies are multi generational more than ever before.
[00:11:35] And you're seeing these philosophies clash the idea of, well, you have to pay your dues and you have to follow a certain path and you, you have to do certain things that boomer, maybe somewhat X view of the world is almost non existent for a large population of Millennials and Zs. They obviously, they need a job and they need income, but what they're willing to do for that, you know, what they're willing to sacrifice, if you want to call it that, the whole paying your dues thing is wildly different, uh, I'm not going to be subjected to constant toxic behavior. I'm, I'm not going to be, uh, sitting around, uh, feeling like, um, you know, my best self isn't being, you know, brought out and, and, and, and produced. Um, I'm not a robot here to do a tactical job. So you hear a lot of those conversations and philosophies that, you know, I've witnessed personally with people in my office talking about how they're frustrated with these attitudes of, uh, of people where it's hard for them to get comfortable with that different point of view, that what you did to get where you are in a, let's say, senior level role is not necessarily the path that they have to take. And so when you have enough numbers now, with that attitude, companies have to pivot, and that's what I'm seeing happen.
[00:13:05] Claude Burns: And, and how are you guys addressing this at Sealy Go?
[00:13:09] Tony Deblauwe: Well, one of the, you know, challenges we have really is that the numbers of people that are coming with, Hey, I want celigo to be, uh, an employer of choice. I come here because I'm interested in technology, in the space, and I want to grow in a bunch of different directions. So, the first step is, how do we think about the traditional career path?
[00:13:36] So yes, you have the traditional job description. Here's what, you know, mostly that you're doing, but you have that balance between, I want to make sure that I'm always on top of the latest and greatest, you know, technology's changing a lot, different programming languages are out there, how I work and synthesize those things are important to me. But the project I'm working on may not need all of those things. It may need these other things, uh, as far as programming languages or focus areas. So we spend time with broader development and training and exposure. We find ways where people can either... Through a mentor situation or like a tiger team or something have some exposure that we still need to get core things done and that might mean people have to spend some time in a certain role before they rotate into something else where some of these other skills are used, but we're at least we're conscious of that and part of that consciousness is, well, let's think about Well, what is the plan? Where do you want to go? How do you want to go there? Those conversations are a little bit different, because the sense of the future is different in a lot of these younger populations. Like, the fa I always thought it was funny when people would ask, you know, what's your... Where do you see yourself in five years?
[00:14:54] That's, that's, that's a ridiculous question. My joke was always, uh, I'm going to be your boss, just to, just to see the reaction, right? Because I never understood, like, I don't know where I'm going to be in five years. So all of that is completely thrown out the door. It's more about... What are you going to learn and contribute here holistically that contributes to your view of a professional growth path?
[00:15:20] That's a very, very different conversation. I'm not saying it's always easy to manage expectations, but it's a different conversation than just, here's a grid, you're here. Learn those skills, and then you'll be considered for promotion here. That linear type of career path and the absolutes that come with that has changed.
[00:15:42] So we try to do a better job of being more flexible, matching the personal expectations of your professional growth path and the needs that the business has of you with certain skill sets.
[00:15:55] Claude Burns: My background before was military and very linear. You got to check all the boxes to sort of get promoted. Um, and it sounds like you guys still have some of that structure in place. Like these are the roles, one, two, three, senior manager, um, all of those things, but you're really focusing on kind of job crafting. Um, around skills that your workforce really wants to, to learn and sort of develop. And what's interesting to you, it may be A, it may be B, uh, but they don't necessarily want to go through that path. If you have to learn A, B, C, it's kind of pick what you want and sort of try to manage that workforce, which as you mentioned is, is sometimes a challenge because the organization needs A, B, and C, so somebody may not always get their kind of first choice on, on what work that they're actually doing or what they need to develop skill wise. Is that, is that sort of accurate assessment of, of,
[00:16:42] Tony Deblauwe: absolutely. And the other challenge, of course, is really, again, the expectations of a person's capability. There's a lot more push to take on scope of responsibility or higher level roles that they're not ready for, and it's sometimes difficult to have that explanation. So that's why it's important that your development side, here's what we can do about it, if your interest is in this direction, versus, no, you can't do that.
[00:17:20] We have to think about it still as a business, still with some structure, but it's always in the showing up part, right? How do we show up? How do we listen? Let someone have their voice, but put it in some kind of a structure that They can understand and they can work with. Again, some people may be more impatient than others, and again, we don't have it perfect, but I feel that the effort people recognize in the way we're going to approach this conversation about where you're going and why you want to go there and your readiness and so on is what people appreciate versus just slamming the door or a hard no or what have you.
[00:18:04] Claude Burns: Yeah. And I think, I think, uh, you know, most HR training and it kind of focuses on that skill development or like working with underperformers to try to get performance up to a certain level. Uh, but you actually wrote a book, uh, that sort of flips that on its head, uh, called Tangling with Tyrants. And it talks about how to manage kind of, uh, maybe a not so good boss. So kind of going the opposite way and like, how do you manage up? What do you think in like today's world where you got a lot of remote employees, hybrid teams, what, because you wrote that about a decade ago or so. What about that book still is applicable to, to the challenges, particularly for remote or hybrid employees?
[00:18:41] Tony Deblauwe: I wrote that based out of personal experience and as a practitioner in HR, how can I parlay that into a learning moment, not just for me, but for others? And as I was going through the work and the research behind it, a lot of the focus was, well, just leave, just leave, you know, I'll just leave. And I said, well, but what if you can't? You know, we all have obligations. We all don't deserve toxic behavior, that's for sure. You know, companies, it's not as clean cut as people think, right?
[00:19:18] Claude Burns: Yeah. People are a little
[00:19:19] Tony Deblauwe: are people, yeah, people are messy, and I think we've all heard stories, probably at some point, of, uh, you know, this person brings us sales.
[00:19:30] Uh, this person's are, you know, key to our customer or whatever to make up the excuse behind the behavior. So there's a lot of structural elements that, that force that. And so, of course, if you're remote and you're dealing with this. You know, not that you want it anymore in person, but it's, it's, it's almost, uh, it feels like there's more of a pass when it's virtual, uh, you know, that you can, uh, treat somebody with a heavy amount of disrespect or, uh, you know, passive aggressive behaviors. And so for all the things that toxic managers and leaders typically do at one point or another, um, what I found over the years and what I continue to do in terms of telling people is, trying to control the person, you know, you're always going to fail. Right? It's like the classic understanding of motivation. I can't motivate you. I can create an environment that taps into the thing or the trigger that will give you a sense of motivation, right? So it's in that similar thinking, right? What, what are the conditions, what are the important areas that's around this person?
[00:20:46] Because unlike a lot, what a lot of people think, super toxic leaders, managers, peers. It's not because they're, uh, under, under the cover of sociopaths. it's... Something different. And, you know, when you, when you're suffering with a relationship like that, again, in person or remote, and you see somebody else on the team who's not, this is always the challenge, right? One person's tyrant is not to someone else. Why is that? Is it because they're also toxic? Usually not. They have a different reaction mechanism or they're looking at things through a different lens and they figure out a way to work with this person, right?
[00:21:31] So my guidance remains the same with situations that come up like that. Um, where I start to really kind of, let's, let's take a step away from your emotion, let's take, let's, let's pull back from the, this person, bad person, like, let's, let's get out of that mindset, and let's really think about, like, what's going on, what's the situation, how are you approaching that, you know, what information is going on, because ultimately, while not every single relationship is, you know, fixable, there's an attempt and an approach of taking yourself out of that, you know, emotionality part to say, okay, well, what have I missed?
[00:22:10] What am I looking for? And so forth. And you owe yourself at least the attempt to do that before you decide to leave or, you know, go to HR or whatever. I, I, I'm very much a proponent of we're all adults. Let's try to figure this stuff out and let's understand where do we get off the track. Um, and there's things about, you know, nonverbal tone.
[00:22:32] That you can start to control a situation. The one thing that I always joke about when we talk about non verbals and other, uh, things around skills like empathy, curiosity, and so forth is it's so important to know that when, when somebody's acting in that highly emotional state, they're yelling at you or, you know, whatever, oftentimes they're going to the base part of the brain, right?
[00:22:59] You hear the fire, the flight. And when you have somebody in that mode, They're the easiest to control and people get confused by that. I said, listen, the front part of the brain that can control tone and pitch and you know, you can pause a certain way and that actually takes control. So when you're not reacting to the behavior, if there's nowhere for that energy to go because you're using it up here, not back here, you start to control.
[00:23:34] I'm not saying you're not upset, biting your tongue and, you know, of course you, you're, you're human, you're going to feel those things, but the more that you practice that, the better. And so again, in a Zoom call, in particular, people have to, you know, take that control. Reset and move the conversation in a different way.
[00:23:58] So, that's usually where it comes down to, and of course, it's trying and then assessing, pro and con, and you know, sometimes it doesn't work out and sometimes it doesn't turn around. I've always come from the perspective, you have to take a look at this and try. You know, the universe is putting you in the situation with this person for a reason.
[00:24:17] What's the opportunity? What are you learning from this? And then, you know, try to do your best to work through it.
[00:24:23] Claude Burns: Yeah, one of, one of, uh, one of our leadership lessons sort of, uh, in the military was like, if you have a bad leader, it's a great, uh, time to learn what not to do when you're, you're in that, uh, leader shoes. Um, so let's switch gears a little bit and, and start talking about, um, you know, kind of the future of work and how things have, have, have kind of changed, you know, pretty dramatically with, with COVID and teams sort of going remote.
[00:24:46] But you're of the belief that... We would have been here eventually anyway. Can you kind of talk about that a little bit?
[00:24:54] Tony Deblauwe: Yeah. Uh, I, I, I think that there's patterns in the workforce changing that just got accelerated in COVID. So when you think about the multi generational workplace, that conversation has been going on for 10 years. And we've seen differences in, what do I want out of a job? Do I need a job? You know, uh, living with the parents longer.
[00:25:17] We started to see many, uh, conversations, surveys, research, and so on, showing that trend to change the way, uh, newer, uh, workers, younger workers, expected work to be. Or how they would approach and show up to it. So when we all went on pause, so to speak, you know, with COVID, the greatest social experiment we could have ever hoped to have to truly test.
[00:25:47] You know, the validity and the structure of the, you know, what was the typical, you know, nine to five work thing that's been going on since what, uh, late 1800s. Um, people started to morph the two, like, oh, the way that I think about work or the way that I was going to approach work, it's already been in the conversation.
[00:26:08] And like, why do I have to come in every day? And it doesn't make sense. And all these things. Just got tested,
[00:26:14] Claude Burns: Mh, mh.
[00:26:14] Tony Deblauwe: and so that's why I say I feel that the conversation and a lot of the points that got accelerated and popped up and became everywhere with COVID was already just waiting there. So I feel ultimately, even if we didn't have this, uh, You know, this blip in time, we, we, we would have started to have similar conversations and see a similar path.
[00:26:38] Claude Burns: And your company sort of took advantage of this situation, like many companies did, and sort of expanded where you were hiring from. Um, it sort of opened up, not just in your HQ city, but other cities around, you know, around the country. Uh, do you think that that's, uh, a structure that's going to remain in place?
[00:26:55] Is that something that you think companies will pull back from and go more headquartered centric? And then, uh, I'll let you answer that, and then I kind of want to talk about what you guys do. And, uh, those are just a couple of examples of what I think we can do to sort of build culture with those employees that are in sort of remote cities.
[00:27:08] Because I find that really fascinating.
[00:27:10] Tony Deblauwe: Sure. Yeah. I don't think that the trend's going to change. Yes. Like a lot of companies, uh, it, it, it, we didn't know what was going to happen with COVID. We didn't know what, how long this was going to be, but. We still had business to run. There were still things going on. Uh, and so we started to be much, much more broad in our remote hiring.
[00:27:34] So Soligo's always had remote hiring and just that, you know, where, where it was possible. And some of it's cost, some of it's where our customers are, that kind of thing. But of course, being together in each queue was, uh, in Silicon Valley was always. It's, uh, de facto way to hire, right? And then our big, uh, R& D center in Hyderabad, it was always there like, yeah, you're going to hire people who are local to Hyderabad coming into the office.
[00:28:02] So as this started to evolve, we had people who now we might not have otherwise have been able to hire or get our hands on because they didn't have to relocate and all those things. It, it, it opened up a huge talent pool. And when you look at some of the roles. In the U. S., particularly sales, customer experience, professional services, and so on, they don't actually go to a customer site to implement our software, right, or provide services, right? So it was largely remote anyway.
[00:28:38] Where we didn't have these, you know, huge constraints of location, obviously cost, salaries, and so forth. Uh, it had to broaden, broaden out. The flip side, of course, is you had to think about things like, well, in the U. S., uh, we don't have payrolls set up in that state. Do we want long term to have one person, onesies, twosies all over the place?
[00:29:00] What about employees who want to relocate out of a very, you know, high expensive area now that they can work in another location? So those conversation morphed are, you know, compensation, rewards, recognition, packages, like how do we think about those naturally morphed With it. So, I think we are where we're at.
[00:29:22] The people who are local will, you know, come into HQ, even though the percentage of people who are HQ eligible, we don't have, you know, full office capacity often. They don't come in every day. So, I think some of those trends won't go away anytime soon. the way we think about a connected workforce obviously has to change.
[00:29:44] Claude Burns: Yeah, I think, I think one of the things that I thought was interesting because when I talked to a lot of CEOs, leaders, and one of the challenges with remote work is how do you create that culture, right? That sort of like bond that you're shoulder to shoulder with somebody and you know you're going to go that extra mile for them. The remote team not seeing it, some of that, you know, human contact sort of gets lost. And I think what you guys are doing with your managers and sort of flying them to sort of your, uh, uh, remote. Sort of remote teams that are kind of dense, say in like a city like Atlanta, you have seven or eight employees that are there, you sort of fly in a manager and have that manager meet with each of them is really, really interesting.
[00:30:25] Can you sort of explain the kind of the decision that went into that and why you decided that was sort of the, the way to sort of build that, uh, human to human connection?
[00:30:34] Tony Deblauwe: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, the... Where it all starts, of course, is the strategy and the business focus. Uh, you know, where are we going, uh, as far as, you know, product wise, customer need, et cetera. So it always starts with a business need, and then we start to take stock of, okay, well, how do we make sure if we have to change the script?
[00:30:58] On people in, in, in terms of the kind of conversation they have or how they present us and, uh, you know, feel more connected to those strategic business changes. There's only so much we can do virtually, right? So the decision was taken that. Uh, some of our sales team would have enablement, you know, sales enablement training, uh, around some of these new directions and features and so on.
[00:31:23] And we created these pods with around the country to go deliver that, that had a, you know, uh, grouping of different employees. So Colorado, Seattle, Austin, Atlanta. So we said, okay, there are people all over the place, Indianapolis. Is it where we have another group of people? So we're going to make it available where people can come in.
[00:31:46] They don't have to come all the way to California. Uh, let's, let's get them distributed. So that was the first strategic decision of let's get out of this, you know, behind a screen thing, because you really need to impart this knowledge face to face. We got to do, you know, role play. It's not something that's going to.
[00:32:07] get into the DNA solely virtually, right? So we made a conscious decision and conscious budget decision for making that happen. In between, uh, where we're seeing, say, follow on to that training or other kind of more specific needs. There were smaller groups of people that would come together, maybe they could HQ and, you know, out here in Silicon Valley, or they would go to Indianapolis, right?
[00:32:35] Those are kind of our two sites where we have, you know, structure and people can come in and so forth versus, you know, we working all over the place or something like that. A few of them did, definitely did that, but so then that we looked at that next layer of who needs to get together. And then the final layer was If we have more conversations, more strategic planning, whatever the case may be, and we have enough, uh, footprint of people in this particular region, does it make sense that that person, whether it could be their manager, it could be a key individual contributor, project manager, so forth, you and you alone fly to them?
[00:33:14] And, uh, yeah, maybe it's a WeWork situation or, you know, something like that. But what we found was, A, people were craving that contact.
[00:33:26] You know, we've had people who were hired. Uh, right in the middle of COVID, never, and they had a year, year plus time with the company, never met, met someone in person, right? And again, our objective wasn't to have every single person in the company who's remote, you know, meet each other at some point, but these bigger groups, where the biggest amount of hiring remotely happened, did get that opportunity to come together. Because, you know, we weren't doing trade shows either, and then I was all shut down. When that started to come back online, we would send people there and say, Hey, you didn't have a chance to participate in some of these other things, you know, you know, go, go over here.
[00:34:07] And so we found that even people who are comfortable working from home and have no problems doing it, did feel something, did feel... I, oh, I, I am missing a little something here. So, as we hoped, between the enablement, this sort of spot group flight thing that we really focused on last year and, and, and to the first part of this year especially, did have that difference. We saw in survey data and, you know, anecdotal data that people felt like they understood their counterpart teams, and they might have only met for, say, two days. But that contact really opened up doors. They could laugh together. They had a shared experience. And so it proved that even in a tech company where you kind of already had a bit of a remote culture and so forth, uh, completely stripping people away from human contact, uh, you know, there is an effect. So I'm glad we were able to... Think of it prudently and get people together. It made a difference.
[00:35:19] Claude Burns: And that's sort of your, your remote hybrid teams. How do you think about your, your team that's, you know, more traditional, you're in office staff at HQ. Are you doing anything different, you know, post pandemic that you were before or anything that you're trying to emphasize more?
[00:35:34] Tony Deblauwe: we don't have the, uh, stereotypical ping pong table anymore. Uh, but, you know, snacks and things like that, which, look, it's... I've always felt these are things that are nice, but they're not necessarily, you know, um, and of themselves, uh, the way that people come in. But we did, we did things differently, like we did the, we, we had the lunch, you know, we have, uh, hosted happy hours or special events.
[00:36:03] but there is something to be said about connection. There is something about seeing the CEO. Seeing the executive staff walking around, uh, there is something there from a, just a purely human social interaction perspective. And when we think about wellbeing and, you know, uh, mental wellness and so forth, even the most comfortable, I got this awesome home set up and 4k monitors and everything that there is something to be said about detaching them for a little bit. And so I think in that emphasis, it's worked. And sure, we've got people come in for say, uh, one of our monthly all hands, have lunch, chit chat, and leave. And we're okay with that. You know, it's, it's, if our objective is making a space for connection, whatever that connection looks like, that serves us better than, you know, the demand, you know, well, you're within, you know, commutable distance,
[00:37:05] As we've seen with other companies externally who did, and again, it's not that they don't have a good reason to do that, certainly, right, but it's very difficult to gain the trust and the motivation for people when you start to put that demand, when we just went through the great social experiment where you were forced to shut down, forced not to come into office, and it worked, people got promoted, people got increases, people came and left, So, it's difficult to then mandate, well, that's all gone now, COVID's no different than the flu, so come back, do 9 to 5. It's very difficult, and so we've moved away from that.
[00:37:46] Claude Burns: And a lot of companies are, you know, with, within sort of the purview of sort of hybrid teams in office teams. Are you guys thinking about like how you allocate budget for employee experiences between those two groups? Is it sort of a flat, uh, you know, sort of pre COVID this is how much we spend on, you know, training and perks and benefits and all of those things, or have you guys shifted how you think about, uh, those two subsets of, of employees?
[00:38:15] Tony Deblauwe: There's definitely been some cost adjustments that needed to, you know, be made for the new arrangement, but nothing dramatic. Uh, we use a platform called Awardco. Which is a recognition platform, and that's democratized, right? It's, it's, it's points that peers can give out, managers can give out to all the people that they're connected with. So that was a great unifying, uh, app investment. Uh, to, to create that and extend that connection through recognition. So, those, those are, uh, you know, efforts that we've made, but I wouldn't say that there was any more or less, uh, depending on, uh, if they're local or if they're fully remote. that we did on in terms of budgets.
[00:39:03] Claude Burns: You kind of, you talked about, uh, you know, taking surveys and trying to get feedback from employees. Are there any sort of tools you use to do that? We talked, uh, uh, the tool you just mentioned, uh, what, uh, Litmus, is that the LMS, um, can you kind of talk to a little bit, some of the tools that you use to sort of craft an employee experience? Cause you guys seem really intentional about that.
[00:39:25] Tony Deblauwe: On the org survey, we do, uh, twice a year and that's outside of, you know, the surveys that are involved for, you know, external stuff like best place to work, top workplaces, right? So we, you know, there's sometimes there's a joke that, you know, we're surveying people to death a little bit, but the main, the main internal one, right? We, we partnered with a company called Energage. And it's like most org surveys that people are probably familiar with, right? It has a bunch of categories, there's certain statements, it covers different sentiments from, you know, leadership, benefits, my manager, etc. And we just finished one, actually. And we go through it and we hold our department heads and leaders accountable to go through the results for their groups and build action plans, that have, you know, the best impact for the team, you know, as a, as a whole. So, uh, aside from that, you know, we would look at things like, you know, diversity surveys or other sentiment stuff. Uh, for new hires, we do a 60 day check in. So we just want to make sure that we're able to, within reason, understand what a person's journey is and what experience that they're having so that we can, you know, quickly readjust if needed or think about different initiatives. You know, we have, of course, our monthly all hands, we have ask me anythings, so people can get deeper dive on different departments where typically execs come and talk. We have town halls. So I feel that a lot of the vehicles that we use to create that connection and to, you know, have us bonded are tools that aren't necessarily unique to, oh, well, you get more out of it if you're in person. Like, I think we were intentional. About how these tools interconnect with the workforce that we have. Right. So that's where I think our energy is going, you know, to continue is if it's leveraging the ability to have that broader impact, I can recognize somebody in the U. S. In India, right? That's what Awardco helps us do.
[00:41:45] Claude Burns: And, and, you know, it's never, uh, it's never a straight path to success. Right. Um, do you have any sort of things that you guys have either tried at this company or past companies that sort of have failed to sort of create, you know, a, a better employee experience or things that you're like, this is going to work. And turns out that it, you know, the, the employees didn't really care or didn't like it, um, and it may have actually been more detrimental that you kind of share with people,
[00:42:09] Tony Deblauwe: I can't think of one at Celigo per se,
[00:42:12] Claude Burns: good answer. Right.
[00:42:14] Tony Deblauwe: you know, but, you know, certainly, you know, we, of course, there's always room for improvement and there's probably some things we're, we're not doing enough of or not we're not intentional enough about, uh, certainly things like, you know, mental wellness. While we've made efforts with, you know, benefits apps and things and our benefits packages, specifically within, you know, US, India does something similar but unique to their area. We probably could spend more time there.
[00:42:46] And burnout around the meetings and the amount of meetings and the time of those meetings is something that's, continues to be a challenge and we have to be sensitive to as we scale and grow.
[00:42:57] But there's a difference between Um, an effort and then we make a stumble versus I'm deliberately doing it this way and I'm completely oblivious to the effect that it's having in my remote workforce. So I, I think that's the difference now because of the difference of not just where people are, but again, the age side of the workforce, you have to be a little bit more deliberate how you think about rolling things out and not just mandating it with a limited group of stakeholders in a room and then just throwing it out there.
[00:43:36] Claude Burns: All right, that's, yeah, I like that. Um, got a, got a question for you or some advice. Um, I come across sort of two people, um, pretty frequently in kind of these two groups. One is sort of a leader that, you know, uh, wants a hybrid workforce, wants a remote workforce, believes in it. But it's not always getting the results that they want. What advice would you have for them to, where should they look at their company? You know, what, what would you sort of say to help them, you know, make a more successful, uh, hybrid or remote, uh, workforce?
[00:44:07] Tony Deblauwe: Of course, everybody's gonna say, you know, what does the data say? Data can be, again, survey, anecdotal, login time, like there's a lot of different ways people look at the data, but I try to look behind behind that, right? Because as an HR person working in business, that's always the first thing that's thrown out. Well, you know, data, decision based data. It's like, yeah, but there is an element that is intrinsic to how a person works that no one set of hard data is necessarily going to answer. And that's where those conversations with people who are very much the, I believe people have to come in the office or they won't be productive and they'll slack off and this and that, you know, you have to be a little bit more, yes, data driven, but you have to try to bring that intrinsic feel of what do people always ultimately want? And this has been shown many, many times and that's the answer where people say, you know, compensation isn't even in the top 10 and all that. being heard. That's always the number one thing, right? Is I want to be heard. I want to provide value and I need to be recognized that there's value to my contribution, right?
[00:45:34] Those things are just that's core for people. Yes, everybody's got different degrees of how much they care or don't care about those things, but generally speaking, becomes the real key issue. So, if you embody that in your mind when you're planning, so what should our workforce look like? What, what will have the greatest good for those that are remote versus those who have an opportunity to come in. What does it mean to always make sure those folks are, you know, connected? So, data will take you so far, right, in terms of some element of engagement, but sentiment It isn't just about those things that I log on, that I log off, am I on, am I off, uh, you know, what's the work life balance, which has always been a very funny word for me, but, uh, you know, we're, we are in a, in a pattern between how we work and how we live, always, right?
[00:46:35] Some people, 9 to 5, which we all know is a, you know, really not, kind of a made up thing that just, It just became a standard but it was for a specific industry, it was different than farming, like there's a lot of different ways that we're starting to, uh, dissect that sense of what does it mean to work, exactly. Right? What, what are the messages that we want ultimately to happen? How do we dumb that down so that we get less hung up on what is the technology we're using? How much are you engaging with that technology? How many hours are in on? We're going to be, we're already forcefully starting to move away from that in my opinion to the conversation around back to what I was saying in the beginning is there's a holistic self that is coming to work that we haven't really spent a lot of time on like we are today.
[00:47:31] So the further you are from embracing that fact and looking at the holistic self and then breaking all of these things down to how we work, the more fractured your group, your culture is going to be. Because you're not looking at that from a, from a reality perspective, right? So it's a bit of a broad brush, but I'm seeing that that's where we want to go.
[00:47:57] And in that conversation of how do we align the work to the sense of holistic self comes back to the same psychological things. Will that make my voice heard more, better, more effectively, optimized? And how does that affect. Then, the value I bring and the recognition for that contribution, it all comes back.
[00:48:24] Claude Burns: A
[00:48:24] Tony Deblauwe: So that's what's fascinating about all of this, but also how much it hasn't really changed when you really start to pick it apart. Yeah,
[00:48:33] Claude Burns: Of comes back to a lot of kind of psychological safety. Are you, are you feeling heard and, and, and valued in, in your contributions and safe and, and being, being you, uh, at, in a work environment? So you talked about sort of, you know, technology being, you know, a part of the industry you're in and one of the biggest things today is AI. How do you sort of see AI shaping, you know, your industry and HR and sort of work in general?
[00:49:01] Tony Deblauwe: I think that it's, it's, it's, uh, a great thing. If I take away sort of the typical conversation, reduces manual work, uh, you know, frequent questions and things that you see like in HR operations, yeah, that's all true, and that's where a lot of it begins. But I want to focus on what does it mean to this conversation of the holistic self. The, the consideration of value, how do I rethink value leveraging this tool, right? What I want to make sure that companies do, you know, judiciously is. If AI is a tool that makes your best self more optimized for you, you can, you know, get more things done, you're, you're, you're happy about the work, it obviously is going to be more efficient, cut time, all those things, all that's great. But if we can do that as a handshake, it's great. When we start to move to, well, I have the view that it's a replacement of, right, I get cost savings, headcount savings, like, again, that very linear thinking, which you can't avoid completely, but you stop again to think, well, how is it going to make my broader workforce, better, more connected, more motivated, more engaged, because they have access to these things. That's my biggest fear, is that we, not just in HR, but just generally, we start to divorce those two things. Because the conversation always starts with, oh, we can save all this money and all these redundant tasks. And so you already hear the conversation drift. Away from the person again, and I feel like we went through all this generational change and approach to work and, you know, COVID, the social experiment, don't find an excuse to go separate from that conversation of the holistic self again, find a way to bring it together together and make the work that you've done better. So I think HR has to keep their eye out on that from sort of a talent profile management, uh, broader perspective with leadership and running the business. But absolutely, I feel like it's a game changer in terms of making the, the person and the company more optimized.
[00:51:28] Claude Burns: yeah, I, I think it's going to be a really interesting time, especially as the technology develops and, uh, hopefully it all, all makes us just better at our roles and, and hopefully eliminate some of the things we don't really enjoy doing that much. Um, and, and so we can be more effective and productive in our roles. Uh, I really want to thank you for your time today, Tony, and sharing all your expertise. Uh, really enjoyed our conversation and, and learning more about you and your background. Uh, really, really appreciate it.
[00:51:54] Tony Deblauwe: Thank you, Claude. Appreciate it as well. Um, yeah, this is, this is a fun topic. I not only literally live and breathe this, but you know, very, very happy to talk through it. So thank you.
[00:52:04] Claude Burns:
[00:52:04] Thank you for joining us today on Office Libations Unwrapped. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast for future episodes filled with inspiration, ideas, and strategies to optimize your workplace culture. And remember, happy employees make happy customers. Until next time, I'm your host, Claude Burns.