Joe: Hello and welcome to On Boards, a deep dive at what drives business success. I’m Joe Ayoub and I’m here with my co-host, Raza Shaikh. Twice a month, On Boards is a place to learn about one of the most important aspects of any company or organization – its board of directors or advisors, with a focus on the important issues that are facing boards, company leadership, investors, and other stakeholders.

Raza: Joe and I speak with a wide range of guests and talk about what makes a board successful or unsuccessful, what it means to be an effective board member, and how to make your board one of the most valuable assets of your organization.

Joe: Before we introduce our guest, we want to thank the law firm of Nutter McClennen & Fish who are again sponsoring our On Boards Summit taking place this year, in the fall, [00:01:00] again in their beautiful conference center in the Boston Seaport. They’ve been incredible partners with us in every way. We appreciate all they’ve done to support our podcast. Our guest today is Dr. Angela Jackson. Angela is the founder of Future Forward Strategies, a labor market intelligence, design thinking and strategy firm that assists leaders with transforming organizations and human capital infrastructure in organizations to maintain competitiveness while creating positive impact. She is also an award-winning social entrepreneur, a global C-Suite executive, and an experienced board member,

Raza: Angela is also a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and senior advisor to the Harvard Project on Workforce. Among the boards on which Angela serves is the board of Needham Bank, located outside of Boston, [00:02:00] a board on which I also serve.

Joe: And she is the author of a new book entitled The Win-Win Workplace, which will be published on March 11th. There is a book launch event hosted by Nutter McClennen & Fish and co-sponsored by the On Boards Podcast, which is scheduled on March 26th, also in the beautiful conference center at Nutter’s office in the Seaport. Angela, welcome. Thank you for joining us again. It’s great to have you back as a guest.

Angela: Oh, it’s so great to be back, Joe and Raza. Thank you for the invitation.

Joe: So, let’s start with the book, the Win-Win Workplace. We heard about it when you were on last year and now it’s being published. Very exciting. What led you to write the book? What inspired you to write the book?

Angela: Yeah, I feel like I started writing this book when I was born. I was raised [00:03:00] by my grandfather who worked at a Chrysler factory an hour outside of Chicago, and I remember growing up and watching him when he worked at that factory how he was like a Chrysler factory man. But I also watched when that factory closed down and left our community, and it really struck on me the impact and the role that work plays on one’s life and also in a family and a community. And for me and thinking about Chrysler, they train their employees just to do one thing and to do them really well. My grandfather worked in a lot factory line, and for me it was thinking about what if we shifted that? What does it look like when companies actually invest in their workers? And what does that do around sustainability and innovation? And it’s something that I’ve researched for over a decade now.

Joe: Wow, so the book has been gestating for years that it’s exciting. I love the book and I love what [00:04:00] it says. Great to hear that the background goes so far into your earlier life. That’s beautiful. Before we talk about the book itself, let’s talk about a couple of things that kind of are background to the book. One of the things we wanted to talk about is the political impact on HR of federal policy. How do federal government policy changes impact people policies?

Angela: Joe, thank you for asking that question. I was just in DC this week at the Bipartisan Policy Center for an event that was called America’s Workforce: Creating a Blueprint for the Future, and what I was so excited about this event is that you had people from both sides of the aisle. Federal policy actually really matters, and one thing that like rain clear for me from this event, how we think about our talent, how we’re thinking about investments as a country in our talent really determines our economic viability, [00:05:00] also our national security, and it was really warming and heartening to see that both sides of the aisle were thinking that way.

We have to think about investments in workers and upskilling. We have to think about creating the jobs of the future, how people will understand those skills. We have to think about workplace constraints that we have today and what are some of those wraparound supports that workers need to actually be in a mindset to thrive.

Joe: So, looking at boards, one of the things you mentioned when we talked a couple of weeks ago was that a board without human capital experience becomes a liability on the issue of people. Talk a little bit about that if you would.

Angela: Well, the big thing that I think about when we’re talking about boards of directors, they have a fiduciary responsibility to think about and oversee the long-term success and business success and sustainability. One thing I’ve seen in my research over and [00:06:00] over is that research shows that companies that are investing in their employees’ wellbeing, that they experience higher retention and lower hiring costs. They have increased productivity and innovation, stronger brand reputation and also consumer trust.

What we’re seeing here is that these investments in people aren’t just a social good that they become a business strategy that reduces risk that enhances financial performance that helps to attract top tier talent.

As a board, if you’re thinking about having people around the table that actually has a set of experiences that can help drive performance, boards really do need someone that has that expertise and experience around talent and understanding what good talent procedures and policies look like and also what to do when it’s not going well and how to attract the best talent.

Joe: So, does that mean [00:07:00] having someone on the board with that kind of background? Does it mean inviting the chief people officer or director of HR to come to the board meetings? What are the ways that you’ve seen are most effective in making sure that companies are thoughtful about their people policies?

Angela: So, one is having someone on the board that can really think about the people strategies who can advise on that, and it’s always looking through the lens of people on every aspect of the business. Because the through line and everything the business touches, there’s going to be a person and a human there, so really understanding those impacts and also advising.

Second, having the CHR come in. Why that’s important right now? We’re experiencing unprecedented headwinds in terms of labor. We’re moving into a very tight labor market that we’ll see in 2025 and beyond, and that has multiple causes. If we think about the administration, their thoughts and perspective on immigration right now, we’ll have to look at [00:08:00] more of our homegrown talent and have a strategy to do so. We’ll have to look at our incumbent workforce and really think about what are the skills that they’re going to need to be successful in the future of work and also in the face of generative AI so having that perspective there. So, we need companies that actually have a strategy. Again, how are they going to attract talent, sustain talent and continue to develop the talent that they have.

Joe: And I’m going to guess that without that kind of expertise in the boardroom, it’s likely they’re going to fall short of the mark.

Angela: fall short of the mark, they’re going to miss opportunities. When people ask me today, what do workforce needs in the event of generative AI, what are going to be the impacts on actual talent, does it mean that we are going to lose jobs, does it mean the jobs will change and shift, you need someone at the table who’s really thinking about that and helping to develop the strategy real time. [00:09:00]

Some of the best companies today that I’ve studied, they have someone in every department thinking about use cases for generative AI. They’re thinking about how they can automate routine tasks, how they can make workers more efficient, and what we’re seeing is that every worker is going to need to become, on some level, a knowledge worker, and really thinking about from their seat, how do they add value, how do they work alongside tools like generative AI to do their jobs more efficiently. And so again, having a strategy around that and having someone whose responsibility to think through that strategy and also to make sure it aligns across the business is going to be of critical importance.

Raza: Angela, you alluded to top tier talent, and I think that’s another thing worth talking about a little more. How can employers and companies attract and retain top tier talent, especially in the tightening labor market? What are some of the things they ought to do or think about?[00:10:00]

Angela: So, the biggest thing that we’ve seen in the research, and I talk about this a bit in the book, the Win-Win Workplace, and it’s pillar nine, it’s called entrepreneurial strategies and creating an ownership mindset. So, when you have a top tier player, what they’re doing is that they have some ownership in the business. They feel passionate about the role. They’re doing a fantastic job. What are the structures and policies that you have to give them the runway to innovate to bring some of their expertise to bear?

Some of the best companies are actually integrating that into their procedures and policies. If you even think about Google, what they do about 20% time where top employees can have 20% to innovate, to identify problems of practice for the business, to introduce new businesses. Top tier talent will always have optionality.

There’s another big trend in the workplace now when we talk about return to work. Again, top tier talent and what we’re seeing across [00:11:00] corporations, with the widespread return-to-office mandates, many companies are losing their top tier talent. Why is that? Top tier talent has optionality. They know they can go to another place. So, forward-thinking businesses are being more flexible. They’re thinking about how we retain them. They’re thinking about how we can leverage more of their insights and how we can take these top tier talent to motivate other talent throughout the organization.

Raza: And when you talk about ownership mindset, in addition to literally owning a piece of the company such as stock options or units, you’re talking about empowering them to be owner of the parts of the business that they are helping run.

Angela: That’s correct, Raza. So, there is the actual ownership. Also, what we’ve seen with our research is that when an employee feels that they have a voice and say in the matters that matter most to them, they are having a sense [00:12:00] of ownership and they’re part of this. So, that goes beyond even a paycheck or dollars, they want to make sure that they have an opportunity to actually influence their work.

We’re seeing the companies that are building structures to do that, they’re retaining top players. They’re having more innovation. They have policies and practices where employees, at any level, not only can come and bring their ideas and see them implemented.

Joe: You did some significant research on Fortune 500 companies in a published study called competitive advantage of the Win-Win Workplace, which were released last October. Can you tell us what was that study about, what did it address, and what were some of the conclusions that you came to as a result of the study?

Angela: The biggest thing that we wanted to do was really shift this conversation from investments in working from the moral thing to do or the charitable thing to do, [00:13:00] we wanted to see if there was a correlation to the business case and economic case for doing this. So, we looked at 355 of the Fortune 500 companies to identify what practices and strategies they were leveraging to invest in their employees.

So, think about reimagining benefits, centering worker voice, putting in structures for ownership and entrepreneurial structures. We identified nine of these practices, and these are the ones that we identify in the book that’s forthcoming. And what we wanted to understand, looking at the Fortune 500 companies, were which of these practices actually showed a correlation to financial lift on the business side?

What I say to people all of the time is there are many ways that you can invest in employees, and we’re not saying all of those are good or bad, but these nine in particular showed a correlation to lift on the financial side. [00:14:00] So, for example, we started with centering worker voice, what we’re able to see is that companies that have active strategies to do this, they have 43% higher profits than their peers. That’s real dollars and cents when you go in and look at some of these strategies.

I was just recently with a group of CHROs and chief learning officers of major organizations, and they leaned in when I begin to share this data because it actually equips them with the economic case so they can get more dollars to invest in these areas when you can actually do a dotted line and show how they’re driving the business.

Joe: What about smaller companies? I can understand how Fortune 500 companies might have the resources to do this. What about smaller companies or even private companies that are smaller and may not have the same resources?

Angela: For smaller companies and medium-sized companies, this becomes even more critical, and I’ll tell you [00:15:00] why. In a tight labor market that we talked about earlier, that means that wages are going to increase and the companies who can pay higher wages are typically larger companies. With a small- and medium-sized business now, when you have restaurants like McDonald’s paying entry level of $20 or $25, a small- and medium-sized company says, how can we stay competitive? Well, they can stay competitive based on the culture that they’re building with their company.

I spoke to a thousand small business owners at the Jim Moran Small Business Institute last year, and this was top of mind for them, how do we compete for talent if we can’t just compete on dollars and wages alone? And one thing I shared with these business owners that I will share with your listeners today is that the advantage of the small- or medium-sized business has over a large organization is around culture. It’s around the opportunity. If you work there, you can get to know the CEO. He or she probably knows your [00:16:00] name, and that becomes an advantage for people who are looking for community. They’re looking for family. They’re looking for their voices to be heard. And what we’re hearing for, especially for millennials right now, is that they want to know that their work actually matters, and they want to see that it’s having an immediate impact.

At a small- to medium-sized organization, every worker counts and any business leader will tell you that, so that becomes an advantage when you talk about how you’re re-imagining benefits. When you’re thinking about a mom or a dad, and you’re saying, you know what, we’re providing childcare or childcare stipend or caregiving stipend, those things actually matter and become a differentiator.

Joe: When employers or companies ask, what do the best board members want, what I tell them is they want their voices to be heard. They want to know that their opinions will actually matter. And what you’re really saying is, so do your employees, [00:17:00] it’s not just the board members. People in a smaller company or a mid-sized company actually might have an opportunity to think that the voices are being heard. In a Fortune 500 company, that’s a real challenge.

Angela: It absolutely is a challenge. And I was with the CEO of a manufacturing company in Cleveland, Ohio, and as I was talking to CEO, he said one thing he prides himself on was he was like, “I know everyone’s wife’s name.” He was like, “I still take the time to handwrite a birthday card, not only to them, but also to their wife and to their children.”

As I went through and I was on the plant floor talking to actual employees, they were like, “This feels like a family.” And that again makes a difference. All of us want to be seen. We want to be recognized and that gets harder and harder.

Raza, you know this. We’re both on the board of Needham Bank with Joe Campanelli. Our company went public and, I shared this story before, he decided to ride on a chartered bus with the rank and file [00:18:00] employees to travel from Massachusetts to New York. Of course, he could have flown in, he could have had a private driver, he really want to be shoulder to shoulder and celebrate this moment with employees. Those are the moments that matter. Those are the things that you can do with a small- to medium-sized company that you might not be able to do with a larger organization.

Joe: Great example. Could you maybe just let us know what is the second round of research that you’re doing? What is that looking at?

Angela: We are looking at small and medium-sized businesses. As I mentioned, we started with the Fortune 500. What we want to understand now with these nine strategies are what does it look like for a medium-sized business and answer many of the questions that you said, Joe, what are the cost, how do you implement many small- and medium-sized businesses, they don’t have CHROs or chief people officers, so how do they do this in a sustainable way?

What I’m doing with my research team right now are studying case studies of how do you [00:19:00]implement this and how is it sustainable, and that’s why I was out in the middle of the country, at Jergens, looking at this manufacturing company to say, “Okay, you’ve got 2,000 workers, how are you doing this with two HR people? What’s the role in the job to be done of the CEO versus someone that’s in human resources versus the rank and file and frontline managers?

Raza: Angela, we really love that the study tied those nine factors or pillars to profitability, and it also gives us great appreciation that those same pillar might apply even more to small and medium businesses. Now, when somebody is on the board, why should the boards be caring about the win-win workplace overall?

Angela: As I mentioned before, what it is, is that this win-win workplace becomes a strategy and it becomes a business strategy to really think about how we reduce risk, how do we enhance financial [00:20:00] performance, how to like, as I mentioned, we attract the top tier talent. As the labor market tightens and then workplace and workforce expectations evolve, and we’re seeing that with some of our millennial workers, the board needs to make sure that we’re keeping an eye on the fact that the company can remain competitive and really prioritize its people.

Again, there’s lots of talks that say people are the best and most important assets of a company. It’s for the board to look at and say, “Okay, how are we showing that? How are we measuring that? How do we actually know that we’re doing that?” And that will be different for every company, but that’s the role that a board can play.

Again, inviting the CHRO in to give a presentation and say, “There’s a lot going on in the world right now. There’s a lot of headwinds. We have a new administration. How are our rank and file feeling about this?” Keeping our finger on the pulse of like employee sentiment is going to [00:21:00] be more important than ever. Because when there’s uncertainty at the highest levels in the country, that trickles down day to day. People will be trying to make meaning of all the changes that are happening, all the new policies.

There’s a retrenchment around DEI, for example. What does that mean? And when I talk about this, and I’ve been asked about this at the board level, what do I think around this entrenchment of DEI. I say at its core, DEI was about creating work as it relates to work, was creating workspaces where people could actually show up, be their best selves and contribute.

I’m not going to die on the sword of an acronym, but what I say to other board directors and other leaders is, at its essence, how are we continue to maintain that spirit? Because if you take that away and you lose that, that’s a missed opportunity and it’s a mistake for companies not to think about how can people show up fully and be in a mindset to do [00:22:00] their jobs. That should be our number one priority and thinking how we build these workplaces where people can thrive.

Raza: Very well said. It reminds me of that saying, take care of your people who will take care of your product and customer, that will take care of your profits.

Angela: Don’t we understand that? When you talk to someone, you call them in customer service, you get someone who’s talking to you. That’s a frontline ambassador. Are they happy? Are they in a bad mood? You know when you go into places like Trader Joe’s, for example, people go there because of that frontline customer employee experience.

We have to keep remembering that our employees are ambassadors. They’re on Glassdoor. They’re on LinkedIn. There’s so many channels where they’re going to share their thoughts and they have so much influence, and so we just want to make sure that they’re feeling good, that they’re feeling included, and they feel like we’re creating a workplace to the best of our abilities where they could thrive.

Joe: I think looking at DEI as an acronym, but really [00:23:00] looking further to what it is supposed to accomplish is the best way to look at it. how we look at boards. We’re not looking for diversity for diversity’s sake, we’re looking for diversity of perspective because it makes a board better, and that is something that doesn’t go away with a change in policy. I think that was really well said. So, what do you think the most effective ways a board can hold leadership accountable for employee wellbeing and long-term business sustainability.

Angela: When I think about holding companies and boards themselves and leadership accountable, one is making sure that we have the processes and systems in place to measure what we say is most important. So, if you think about requiring executive leadership to present what they’re doing on their workforce investment strategy, how they’re thinking about their talent pipeline development, [00:24:00] what metrics that they’re using and watching and monitoring to understand employee engagement and retention, do they know how employees feel, and what is the evidence of that? Are they looking at Glassdoor and some of these platform?

The other thing that we think about is compensation. So, just like we think bonuses are linked to financial targets, should they be connected to also people metrics along with retention, satisfaction, internal promotions and growth? As I mentioned to you before, in a tight labor market, it’s going to be important that companies have a grow your own talent strategy that starts from the entry level on up and really understanding what are the dollars, how are we doing this and how are we doing it in a more systematic way.

Then the last one is what we shared, just ensuring that HR has a voice at the table. The CHRO or if we have other people on board that are doing workforce strategy and [00:25:00] planning, that they have a direct line to the board, that we’re actually looking at their reports, we’re understanding what headwinds they’re up against in our particular industry and that we’re being thought partners with them as our talent strategies evolve.

Raza: Angela, you alluded a little bit to one or two metrics. What are the key metrics boards should be looking at to evaluate the company’s commitment to Win-Win Workplace principles?

Angela: I’m so glad that you asked that. Many times, HR and talent is seen, again, as an expense. What I’ve tried to do with the Win-Win Workplace book is really show how it can be a revenue driver. What’s unfortunate is that many companies don’t know the actual cost of their turnover, unfortunately, and so getting to really understand talent costs, turnover costs are going to be really critical and beginning to [00:26:00] watch those and have those in dollars and cents.

Looking at employee retention and turnover rates, really understanding the high turnover rate, that’s a signal that there’s some disengagement there. There’s a misalignment with the company culture. Thinking about internal mobility, thinking about how we’re growing our own talent, we see that companies who are growing their own talent, that helps to reduce turnover, you have increased loyalty because people want to stay, and you’re getting more value out of those employees because they really understand the culture and the job to be done.

The other thing that we’re looking at is just employee engagement and wellbeing scores. So again, what we saw during the pandemic was really eye opening and sometimes we quickly forget some of the lessons we learned that were good lessons during the pandemic. We really were brought into people’s home in Zoom. We checked in with them. We were concerned about their health, their family. Many times we forget that the things that are happening in one’s personal life [00:27:00] directly impacts them, how they are able and their ability to show up at work. So, making sure that we’re remaining to be empathetic, that we’re keeping our finger on the pulse of how our employees are doing at work and outside of work and understanding when there are barriers that are coming up that can impact work, that employees are setting up a strategy to address those, and this is such an important point.

There was a New York Times article several months ago about a social worker in Washington state that was experiencing housing insecurity and she was living outside of her car and her day-to-day job working for the state was to go in and to counsel others and to be a social worker. How can a worker do that if they’re facing housing insecurity?

We’re seeing some companies on the leading edge of that, so they’re reimagining benefits to think about housing stipends, down payments, so people can actually afford to live in the communities where they work and in communities. I live [00:28:00] here in Massachusetts where housing is high. Transportation is expensive. These are things that every board and company should be thinking about to make sure that, again, not only can they attract talent, but this talent that come in, especially entry level, can afford to grow with them over the years.

Joe: Angela, how do Win-Win Workplace strategies help mitigate risk? We talk about one of the most important functions of a board is to help identify and address and mitigate risk for the company. What strategies can companies institute that will help mitigate risk?

Angela: When we wrote this book, what the research said and what we saw looking across these companies is that when you’re employing these Win-Win Workplace strategies, it begins to protect the company from workforce instability, and that becomes a huge risk for companies, can you find the right talent? Can they show up and be in the mindset to work? [00:29:00]

Reputational damage, like I mentioned on Glassdoor, LinkedIn, employees are talking, they’re talking to each other all of the time. Having a vibrant strategy and companies who keep their finger on the pulse of employee sentiment can get ahead of anything, of trouble before it comes down the pipe.

The one thing that we think a lot about is. Avoiding labor crisis. Again, in a tight labor market, making sure that we have the talent that we need to innovate in the future. The second thing that we’re saying is that the strengthening of brand trust. When you have employees out there, they’re the ambassadors. When they love where they work and what they do, they’re out there telling everyone, and they are our first customers when you think about it, if you’re doing it the right way.

One thing that worries me in this moment with the retrenchment of DEI and some of the other human-centered policies is that we are creating potentially a very litigious environment where if people are [00:30:00] let go without reason or rationale, that we’re not following the letter of the law, if we’ve decided to change our strategy overnight and decide that certain people can’t work here for certain reasons or certain policies around gender, we need to be very cautious about that and about the decisions that we’re going to make.

For a couple of reasons. One of them is legal, but the second one is our employees are watching. If six months ago, you said inclusion was really important, and as a CEO, you said that you were investing in that, and then six months later, you send out an email and saying we’re dropping all of these policies, what that signals to your employee base is that you may be a bit fickle in your policy. It becomes that you’re maybe a bit more untrustworthy. And what happens when employees don’t entrust their leadership, that increases the odds that they can leave, [00:31:00] that we see this whole phenomenon of quiet quitting, that they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s a distraction from them being focused on work and the job to be done.

So, again, we know that certain policies and procedures will need to be massaged. They will need to be looked at again, but we should always center, one, the company’s values, also we should stand for what we stood for six months ago shouldn’t change six months later. Maybe we need to iterate it and do it in a different way, and there’s an allowance for that, but we have to remain and stay consistent for our employee’s sake.

Joe: Yeah. If basic principles are important, they should remain important. Really well said. Thank you for that. Angela, it has been great speaking with you. Thank you for being back with us as a guest today. It’s been wonderful to hear about your book. And thank you all for listening to On Boards with our very special guest, Dr. Angela Jackson, and [00:32:00] remember, great book launch event at Nutter McClennen & Fish on March 26th. We hope all of our listeners, all of them, will be there for that day.

Raza: Please visit our website at OnBoardsPodcast.com. That’s OnBoardsPodcast.com. We’d love to hear your comments, suggestions and feedback. And if you’re not already a subscriber, please be sure to subscribe at Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, and remember to leave us a five-star review.

Joe: And please tune in for the next episode of On Boards. Thanks.