Bring Out the Talent: A Learning and Development Podcast
Tune into The Training Associates (TTA) “Bring Out the Talent” podcast to hear from learning and development talent and partners on their innovative approaches and industry insights. In each episode, TTA’s CEO, Maria Melfa, and Talent Manager, Jocelyn Allen will chat with subject matter experts and bring you casual, yet insightful conversations. Maria and Jocelyn use their unique blend of industry experience and humor to interview the L&D industry’s most influential people, latest topics, and powerful stories. Each episode has important takeaways that will help to create a culture of continuous learning within your organization. Tune in as we Bring Out The Talent!
Bring Out the Talent: A Learning and Development Podcast
Work Life Balance for Leaders
According to recent studies, a staggering 70% of employees report struggling with work-life balance. This statistic highlights the pressing need for leaders to address this issue and create supportive environments for their teams.
In this episode “Bring Out the Talent,” we discuss effective strategies to help leaders navigate the delicate balance between work and personal life with our guest, Phil Cicio. Phil, a certified high-performance coach with over 20 years of experience from small companies to fortune 500, brings his expertise to shed light on the challenges and opportunities associated with work-life balance. We will explore practical strategies that leaders can implement to foster a healthier and more harmonious integration of work and personal life because achieving work-life balance is not solely an individual pursuit but a collective effort that starts with leaders.
Tune in for a compelling conversation that will equip you with strategies for fostering a healthier work-life balance.
Bring out the talent.
SPEAKER_04:Bring out the talent. Bring out the talent.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like we're dancing like the guys at night at the Roxbury. It
SPEAKER_01:was like every single move I just pulled out was either Will Ferrell or Chris Kattan. It was one or the other. What is love? You're going to give me a concussion with the head thrashing I just did. Let's not go there. It's early still.
SPEAKER_03:I used to have fun back in the days imitating them on the dance floor.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yes. So good. You have to, especially if that song comes on, which I feel like it always does. It's like it's opening the dance floor for that type of interpretation.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, David. So good.
SPEAKER_03:So good. So I'm very excited about today's topic because I believe it's something that we all struggle with. According to recent studies, a staggering 70% of employees report struggling with work-life balance. This statistic highlights the pressing need for leaders to address this issue and create a supportive environment for their teams. In this episode of Bring Out the Talent, we discuss effective strategies to help leaders navigate this delicate balance between work and personal life with our guest and our long-term friend, Bill Ciccio. Phil is a certified high-performance coach with over 20 years of experience working with both small and Fortune 500 companies and everything in between. Phil brings his expertise to shed light on the challenges and opportunities associated with work-life balance. We will explore practical strategies that leaders can implement to foster a healthy and more harmonious life. I like that word, harmonious integration of work and personal life, because achieving work-life balance is not solely an individual pursuit, but a collective effort that starts with leaders. Welcome, Phil. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00:Appreciate you having me.
SPEAKER_01:To say we are excited is an understatement, my friend. I think that this is a long time coming, not only because of how fabulous you are and working with you has been an amazing experience. But like Maria said, this subject matter is so important. We're never going to stop talking about it because it's something that is not a perfect science. We were just talking before this episode even started that it's one end of the spectrum or the other. We haven't quite figured out the middle yet. What that middle means is different to everybody. But work-life balance, I mean, and again, bringing it back, Maria, that word harmonious, like making a harmony between like both of the responsibilities that you have, which is like your professional life and your personal life and maintaining both of those. So we're reading all over the place about it, especially now, all of the changes that have happened in the world the last five years or so, we'll call it that because it's been just about that long already. When did this become such a big topic? Has it always been that way? And like, Has recent burnout factors played a part in this resurgence of the work-life balance term in conversation? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I really believe that there's more hyper-focus now on it, right? I think that work-life balance, it's been out of balance for quite some time. And so if you look back and you really think about it, maybe the boomers sort of started this, right? The boomer trend where mom and dad went to work versus just dad going to work. And so both people at work striving to keep up with the Joneses, things got more expensive during that period of time, bigger homes, bigger, nicer cars, greater vacations, kids and activities, all these things accumulated. So the boomers tended to have really poor work-life balance, right? Putting in a lot of effort, extra hours. It was sort of a notch in your belt to have overtime and things like that. And I think that's where sort of the whole idea of working way too much started. But I think it was out of somewhat necessity and somewhat trying to keep up, right? And then if you think about that, so how do we get here? The children of those boomers, right? The Gen Xers were coming home No one was home, right? They're on their own to do their own thing. And when you think about a child coming home and doing their own thing, it was probably fun when they were kids. But as they grew up and they began to have children, they realized, hey, that really wasn't a good thing. Kids shouldn't be coming home without a parent in the home. Parents should be involved more. They should be helping their kids with their homework. And they wanted to be more of a part of it. And I think that's where... at least the mindset shift happened with just people in the workplace now saying, I need to spend more time with my children. I didn't get that when I was a child. And now those parents have grown up, they're having kids and we've got now the Gen Y generation and they're really hyper-focused on this. And it's like, you know what? I need more time. I want to have purpose in life. I want to work and I want to do things, but I don't want to give up. What's really important to me is this, not only my social life, but my family life, my health, my love life, my experiences in life. And so It's been a gradual sort of shift towards this, but it's hyper-focused now. And I think much of it, because of the pandemic, especially people working from home and now blending work at home. Imagine being at home working and then you log off and you're still at work because your home is your work. So I think it's become a much bigger and greater, there's a bigger and greater need for awareness about this because of how much people are sort of blending their work and their personal life all into one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you make a very good point because I feel like the scales... Mm-hmm. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, when you log off of work, if you're working from home and many people are doing some hybrid or still working from home and you log off and you're still at your kitchen table, right? There's always that sort of thought, oh, I go check. Yeah, you hear the notifications or you're going to check another email. It's hard to disconnect. The thing about work-life balance that I think that some people there's maybe a misconception about is that we need to have a balance of time that we spend at work. You'll say I work way too much and we need to kind of balance that out with how much time I'm spending in my personal life and trying to kind of balance the hours. But ultimately, we're awake essentially 16 hours a day. If you get eight hours of sleep a day, let's just say those that do. And eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours are working. And so we could be spending most, well, half or more of our waking hours during the week working. And so it's unrealistic to say, well, I need to have an even amount of time at home as I do at work, right? And I think this is where people get stressed out. And so My thought around this, and for me, it's really important because I had really bad work-life balance to the point where I ended up in the hospital for a week because of just so much pressure and anxiety on me. And so this is near and dear to me. I was trying to... put as many hours as I could at work and put as many hours as I could at home. And it's just, it's just unrealistic. What I realized after that episode and changing my life a bit here was what was important was to make sure that I'm adding value at work. I'm contributing at work. Okay. I'm achieving at work and I'm putting in maximum effort there. Okay. Of course I need to be happy at work too, right? So there has to be some sense of satisfaction in the work that I'm doing, a sense of purpose and meaning in the work that I'm doing. I go home at night or log and say I made a difference. So those things are important. And all that effort and all that achievement now gets balanced out with how much I enjoy not being at work, right? The things that I do outside of work. Now, there won't be as much time outside of work, but am I truly present in the moment when I'm with my family? Am I really there or am I grabbing my device and checking emails, right? Am I still thinking about the presentation I have to do tomorrow or am I present in the moment? So If I'm working out, am I working out or am I thinking about work as I'm on the treadmill, if you will, right? If I'm with my loved ones, if I'm doing a sport, what am I thinking about? Am I present in the moment? The quality of that time that I'm trying to enjoy is more important than how much time I'm spending there, because there's no way I'm going to spend more time in enjoyment as I am in achievements at work and contribution at work. I'm always going to put, especially for those people that are high performers and want to excel in their role and want to get to the next level, they're going to put in extra effort. And so is there a good balance between the effort, the contribution, the value that I'm contributing at work, and the enjoyment that I'm experiencing? And can I be present there? If we can balance those out, it can really be a wonderful life. And this is what I've experienced now in my life where I was completely the other way around because I was trying to manage hours rather than enjoyment and achievement. And if managers and leaders could focus more on that productivity, contribution, adding value versus hours and shift their mindset, right, then I think that that would be easier for them to embrace the idea of work-life balance. And I think it's just a matter of conditioning. People, managers have been brought up in an environment, especially if you go back through generations where you walk uphill both ways in the snow, right? That whole mentality, right? And you put in the extra effort and you work long hours and you get there first and you leave last. Those days are over. That's not a healthy way to consistently work at a high level and be productive. The highest performers are the ones that do breathe once in a while. They're not the ones that are grinding it out. Grinding it out and causing stress in your life is bad for decision-making. It's bad for engaging others. I mean, we have to have some more breathing room and enjoyment in our life. And the challenge, one other challenge I think that people find is I enjoy my work. You do too, right, Jocelyn? I know Maria does. And so- So now we take the enjoyment of work and the achievement of work, and then we bring it all there. I enjoy my work, so I'm spending so much time here because I enjoy it. We want to enjoy work, but not at the cost of other things like our family and our life and our health and the other things that are important to us. And I think we just got to be thinking from that perspective, not ours, but contribution, enjoyment, right? That's really what we need to be balancing out.
SPEAKER_03:So for many organizations, it is a challenge for them to figure out what is the right balance between ensuring productivity, making sure they're meeting goals and allowing their team to have a healthy work life balance. Where do they begin?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think there's some, you could look at some, we were talking about this before we actually started recording here, looking at what other countries, people, other countries are doing. And you can find that other countries do prioritize longer breaks, afternoon kind of siestas, right? Things like that, where there's a little bit more time for people to re-energize themselves. When I lived in Europe, my lunch break was two and a half hours. And I'm not suggesting a two and a half hour lunch break, but we worked a little bit later because of that. But we went back feeling like we just were fully energized, right? You spend Spent a little bit of time at home. It was different. We spent a little bit of time at home. You always went home for lunch with your family. And then you spent some time with your friends at the local coffee bar or whatever. And then you went to work and you had this sort of siesta, this time in between. And I know that's kind of an extreme. We were just, and Jocelyn opened up by talking about this. What's the spectrum, right? There's the go to Europe and work isn't the highest priority, but obviously their economies aren't as strong as ours. And then you're here and work seems to be sometimes on the top of the food chain for people. It's like work. and then everything else. And so there's gotta be a balance. And so I think organizations can focus more on making sure people are taking their breaks and are grinding it out for long hours. They're telling people, hey, it's time to go home, right? Set these times. And not every day, right? I mean, some days you're going to work longer hours, but there should be some set times where, hey, it's time for you to go home and get some rest and be with your family, right? And things like that. Because there's a loss of productivity when people are grinding, grinding, grinding. It seems like they're putting in more hours and pushing really hard is actually more productive, but Many studies have shown that it's not, right? Because you're actually slowing down the thinking process decision. You make mistakes. You become less efficient. So ways that they could do this is, I think, encouraging breaks, encouraging time off, encouraging parents, sort of different policies for your environment. For instance, I don't know what every employee's vacation or time off policy is, but does a manager make you feel bad when you took personal time off? Does it manage to make you feel bad when you just say, I need more work-life balance, right? So there's gotta be some understanding of what it means, but also some real policies put in place and strategies put in place to help people. be focused on a healthier lifestyle, be focused on doing fun things even at work or after work, having fun committees, doing things like that. I think many leaders could do a better job with making some of the work environment more fun, but also allowing people to have some freedom and flexibility in their hours, right? if we're focused on productivity and getting things done and we're no longer focused on working from nine to five, right? Then a person can work from maybe 11 to seven, right? Because they're doing something in the morning. As long as they're getting their work done. I like to focus on, did you meet your deadline? Were you productive? Did you get your things? When you're doing it, isn't that important to me as long as you're meeting your deadlines and things like that. And I think having that kind of flexibility in certain environments, I know we can't do that in every environment, can make people happier and happier employees are more engaged employees, right? Happier people whistle while you work are more engaged. And if they're happier or more satisfied, satisfaction produces engagement and contribution. And so how can you make your people more satisfied? Encourage time off, encourage work-life balance, encourage fun activities, encourage health and wellness, all of those things that are talked about, especially during an interview, right? When you're recruiting people, oh yeah, we're really focused on health and wellness and work-life balance. And then are you really implementing it, right? So many of the organizations are probably promoting this in their interview. They probably have an idea of what they want to do, but then, you know, people start grinding it out and do they actually push them towards it? That's what we have to really look at.
SPEAKER_03:So we're starting two and a half hour siestas today, Jocelyn.
SPEAKER_01:I know Phil, when you said that Maria looks at me, she starts nodding her head. You were like, I'm not suggesting two and a half hour lunches. Maria's like, I am. I know there's a couple of places that I think would be happy to have us in the area, Maria. Off to a Biva, a nice Italian restaurant. But again, blending the, the European with the American lifestyle. We're going to go to Aviva and start our siestas. Fantastic. No, this is... I mean, this is... important stuff to think about because of all of the changes and because there are so many different ways about thinking about this. I love, I, a lot of what we think about now in our space too, not only like as employees of TTA, because we do have an incredibly flexible schedule based on the things that you said, Phil, like, do you have stuff going on? Are you still able to make your deadlines and like, do what you need to do? Just make sure we know what's going on so we can support you in that. That's like, like essentially that's how we operate. And with the business that we do, it's often how we operate too, because we work with professional contractors who are being implemented in a location and it's based on deliverables and deadlines and meeting certain goals. So what role though, with all of these different facets and like things that contribute to being close enough to an employee to understand that they're getting work-life balance, I guess, What, what role does leadership play in ensuring that that is that that happens or that that message is being delivered because if somebody is working from home 100% of the time, how does the hybrid manager help support that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think that leaders have to take a look at themselves too, right? And are they actually expressing what you're hoping to get out of others, right? Do they have good work-life balance? Or are they emailing people all through the night and on the weekends expecting a response? Or even not expecting a response, but emailing anyways and setting that expectation. If I get an email over the weekend from my manager, am I supposed to respond to this, right? So their behaviors, right? What they're doing. Are they practicing what they're preaching if they're talking about work-life balance? Many organizations are talking about work-life balance to recruit more people, get better people into their workplace. But then are they exhibiting that? I think that's important. Also, really talking to your people. What does it mean to have work-life balance to you is different than it is to me, right? I'm sure it is. And so getting clear on what it is for each individual. What does work-life balance mean to you? Somebody might say, you know what? I just need to make sure that I can be home for my children when they get off the bus, whatever it might be. And that might be all that they're looking for, for some balance there, to be there to bring them in, to give them a snack, whatever it might be. But for some other people, it might be different. So I know for me, I'll definitely put in more work effort. Obviously, my children are grown up, they're married, they're gone, they're not in the house anymore. So I don't really have to have that kind of focus. So my balance can be a little bit different than somebody else's. There could be somebody that has a parent in the home that they're taking care of. So is the manager aware of that, that there's a dependent in the home that they're caring for? Or do they not even know that? So getting clear on these kind of things are important because Each individual's work-life balance, I guess, idea in their mind is going to be different. And I would want to know that from each individual saying, hey, what does it mean to you? I mean, simply ask them, what does work-life balance mean to you? Just be honest with me, because I want to try to help you achieve that if it's possible within the parameters of being productive and getting things done, obviously. You might be surprised what one person thinks about work-life balance. You might be like, geez, that's so easy to accomplish. I can help you just like that, right? Just we'll shift this to that. We'll move this, right? And suddenly the person feels They feel so much greater. They feel so much more satisfied and happy. And suddenly they're more engaged because they're not stressed out that they couldn't do this one thing, come in an hour later because they like to put their kids on the bus or they have to take care of a parent or they have to stop by and do something for somebody else. Right? So just knowing what it might be, you'd be surprised. More often than not, I think people will be surprised that work-life balance won't be, the response you get from somebody won't be, well, I need to have five hours of breaks during the day. No one's that excited. You might have some exception, right? Some outlier, but most people are just looking for one little nugget of extra time or something that they could do differently so that they could feel more balanced and identifying what that is and hopefully being able to offer that would probably be the best strategy you could ever think of.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, versus somebody coming in. Yeah, I only want to work Wednesdays and Thursdays between 10 and 12, and I need to leave Fridays at one. So rare, right? Yeah, you are right, because we have talked a lot about trying to structure a little bit more around what work-life balance means here. We do give a lot of employees flexibility, but we've even considered, do we go to a four-day work week? And I know there's been a lot of studies, especially And it's interesting because when we have had open discussions on that, I did assume that everybody would say, of course, that is what I want. But a lot of people didn't necessarily want the four-day workweek. They would rather have much more flexibility during the week. So if one day, and I know that's what I would rather, I would rather one day somebody comes in and they have to leave at two o'clock to go see their kids game. And then the next day they might have to work a little, a half hour later to make time up. And then the next day they leave at one. So, you know, it's just, I think, again, like we're talking about working to make sure that you get your work done. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think that the flex time is probably most people would say, yes, that's what I want. Most people, if you can create an environment and this is the, this is the challenging part, I think for a lot of managers where let's just say you asked your folks, Hey, what would you rather have a four day work week or this flex time? And some people said flex time. Some people said four day work week. If it was possible to accomplish that, where some could have the four day work week and some could have flex time, then that would be a great thing. Now that's not always possible in every environment, right? Because teams need to work together and collaborate, but that would be a perfect way to do it. So, okay, so we've got two people that would rather work the four-day work week. We'll allow them to do that. The rest of you will do flex time. if you could do that. Consensus, I've worked a four-day work week. I can tell you this, and many of the people in my organization when we were doing this worked a four-day work week. We were way more productive in the four-day work week. However, there were longer hours, right? So those four days, I wasn't able to do much with my family, right? But those other days that I had, I was all in. And so for me, it worked, right? For many of us, it worked. I think it's asking and making sure that in your organization, you can accomplish this. But if you could give people the option of either. I think that that would make it a really great environment as long as other people on the team aren't feeling, oh, that person gets to come in at 10 and I have to be here at eight, whatever. As long as there isn't resentment between the teams, if everybody's understanding, I think it can work. But remember, we want to keep team synergy. So we all want people feeling like they're getting something. Somebody's getting something that they're not because they made the decision that they made.
SPEAKER_01:I agree. I, and with both things that you both said, because I think that there would be some weeks that I would want like a four day work week. And then other times where I'm like, I just need to like operate the way that I need to operate at this point. I think that I'd like to think that I have it figured out, especially to a point where if it's not my normal, I know how to accommodate it and balance it out. And then I automatically have that energy kind of going into the weekends to be like, okay, I just, I invested. all of this and feel very accomplished and got a lot of stuff done by like putting my head down and making sure things were done that like now i'm really ready to enjoy all of this and put every single part of myself into the other half of my being which is the life part of it how does that i mean you you just touched on it where you said you you and your team were a lot more productive when you had that four-day work week figured out so how does that having that balance and allowing that accommodation really affect employee engagement and like overall job satisfaction. What have you seen from your trainings and putting these things into place?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, what I've found is if you want to have the most contribution, look, leaders, what leaders want from their employees people, their team is maximum contribution, right? They want people to contribute as much as possible in order to achieve their goals, right? So for an organization to achieve its goals, financial goals, whatever it might be, people need to contribute. And a leader has to understand for somebody to want to contribute, if somebody really is going to contribute to the maximum, give it all that they've got, the only way they're going to do that if they have a sense of satisfaction. So leaders are looking for contribution, but employees are looking for satisfaction, job satisfaction, right? Do I like working here? Are the people fun? Is this environment, does it offer work-life balance? Is my contribution being recognized? When I add value, do people recognize that? Because that creates satisfaction. So while leaders are looking for contribution Yeah. most of the people that they're leading are looking for a sense of satisfaction. So if you can create satisfaction for those people, right, making sure that they're in the right job role, basically the right seat of the bus, making sure that they're happy and they have, whether it's flex time or whatever it is that they feel at work like balances, they're going to be happier, more satisfied, satisfied employees contribute more because satisfied employees are more engaged. Okay. So if you have somebody who is not satisfied, they're going to be less engaged and less likely to contribute. And so we need to make sure that our Our focus is what is it going to take to satisfy Jocelyn? So I would sit with you, Jocelyn. I would ask you, hey, what does work-life balance mean to you? What makes you satisfied at work, right? And you might say, well, Phil, you know what? I really like to work with people and collaborate all the time. And you keep me in this cubicle all day long looking at a screen. And it just doesn't give me a sense of satisfaction. I love to be able to collaborate and work with teams and be with people. And I realize that I've got this exceptional employee just in the wrong role or, you know what I mean? Maybe on the right bus, if you will, right? But I'm the wrong seat of the bus. And I need to change your seat to create more satisfaction for you so that you'll contribute more because I'm looking for contribution. You're looking for satisfaction. I think that many managers miss the mark on that. They're looking for contribution. They think that they're just going to get it by putting a person in a position saying you need to produce, but that person is going to produce at a higher level if they're whistling while they're working, right? And I think that's a key component to it.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. So what about helping people disconnect, right? Because like you said, we're looking for contribution here. And so I want you to kind of give me the output for your input. When it comes to engagement, creating that, the other side of it is completely disengaging and signing off and removing yourself and therefore the balance comes in. So how do leaders encourage that without sacrificing kind of like the message that they're trying to deliver about hard work and effort and then playing just as hard as you work, I guess, is what it comes down to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, I think, first of all, leaders have to disconnect too, right? I find that many leaders are just, they're putting in a lot of work effort, whether it's they're managing or they own a company or whatever it might be. And they're putting a lot of effort and the message that they're sending is, this is how you should work. You need to meet these expectations. And I think making it clear to your people that, or at least behaving in such a way that's conducive to what you're trying to get them to do, to have more work-life balance is important. But leaders have to disconnect too, right? And share that they've disconnected You share that they spent the weekend doing something fun, right? Things like that. I mean, as a leader, I'm a pretty open leader and I like to share my life story with people. And so for me, it's really easy to let people know, look, I'm enjoying my life, right? I'm very productive. I work really, really hard. I get it done. I meet the deadlines, but I also am enjoying life. And I know that that's important. And I want you to as well. I've had leaders ask people, hey, what are your goals? I remember going to, I was working with an organization up in Vermont and the sales team, I was working with the sales team and the owner says to me, I don't know, everybody seems like not that motivated and things like that. And I said, well, what are their goals? And he looked over at a big whiteboard. He said, they're right there. There's their goals. I said, no, those are your goals for them, right? Or those are their goals that they think you want them to achieve, right? Those numbers. That's your goals for them or their interpretation of your goals for them. I said, what are their actual goals? And he said, I don't know what you mean. I said, what are their personal goals? What are they striving for? Why are they here? What are they working towards, right? Are they working towards a different position here? Are they just trying to put their children through college? Are they trying to, what is their ultimate goal for being here? And he never really thought of that. So he sat and met with everybody. which I thought was interesting, and asked them, hey, what are your goals? And some people probably shared some maybe work-life balance type goals, and some people shared some things that they were striving for, whether it was to take a trip someplace or to buy a fishing boat was one of them, to just give you an example. And it was interesting, this leader, what he did, I thought was pretty amazing. He and his wife went out over the weekend, one weekend, and found either really high-end artwork, prints, pictures, photographs of some of the ideas or the goals that these people had. And they had them framed and matted and then put them in everyone's office during that following weekend. And when people came in on Monday, they saw these images of what they wanted in their workspace. And they asked the owner, what's this? He goes, well, I just want to be reminded every time I come into this office that that's your goal and I want to help you achieve it. And I want you to remember your goal too. And so he really got intimate with understanding what his people wanted. and therefore was striving to help them achieve that. Now, you have to remember if you're going to behave in such a way that you're completely focused on other people, right? Then you gotta, it can't just be you put the picture up there and you're done metaphorically, right? Now you have to make sure that you're encouraging that every day, right? So when it comes to, you mentioned, how do we make sure that they're still getting things done and being productive when we're striving to get them to be home more or do more things? I can tell you this, When people have more time to re-energize and recharge their batteries and have a really fulfilling personal life and they're not grinding it out all weekend working and answering emails, they come to work and they're more productive. They're more productive because they're happier, more satisfied, more energized and not so stressed out. If people are working late into the evening and on the weekends, you might feel like, hey, they're grinding it out and putting more effort in and all that. And they might be, but they're not as efficient, which makes them less productive and ultimately makes them less happy and more stressed. And then bad decisions are made. And when bad decisions are made, things break. And when things break, it takes longer to fix those. And so I don't want to be fixing things. I want to make sure things don't break. And I need people that are relaxed and feel good and satisfied and happy at work with a sense of a fully charged battery every time they come in, in order to make sure that it's a very efficient workplace. And I think that a leader's responsibility, a huge responsibility is making sure that that's what they accomplish with their people.
SPEAKER_03:I love that example that you just shared. how you work with that company in Vermont. Are there any other ones that you would like to mention?
SPEAKER_00:So other organizations that I work with, when we were focusing on work-life balance, many of them, really their main focus has been to lead by example. So taking initiatives at the management level to make sure that they're living their work-life balance and then sharing that, right? So look, people... People believe what they see and hear and they read, right? But if they don't see here and read it, they've got nothing to believe. So when your initiative at the leadership level is, hey, let's really behave and share these behaviors that we want our people to express, right? So let's have better work-life balance ourselves. How can we do that right now? It may not be the work-life balance that everybody is striving for in your organization, but it's yours, your personal work-life balance. What does that mean to me as a leader? And so if a leader expresses that, okay, for me, it means that, you know what, on weekends, it's my weekend, right? You can email me all you want. I'm not responding. I'll get back to you Monday, right? And then they actually behave that way and they do that. And then they come in on a Monday and they respond to all their emails. And at the first meeting, they talk about how wonderful their weekend was and how fully present and engaged they were with their family. And they're doing this, they're leading by example. And when people see that, they tend to follow the leader, right? But But if the leader all weekend is firing off emails and saying, hey, you don't have to respond, but then people will think that they have to respond. And so we have to be really careful, again, reconsidering time off policies, increasing support for people that are dealing with children or elderly parents in the home. And again, it goes back to focusing on productivity issues. over hours worked, right? And so every organization has their own, I think, initiatives that they put into place. But I think that the ones that focus mostly on their people and say, okay, what can I do to make sure that your life is better? Not just your work life, but your personal life is better. Those are the ones that are going to have the happiest employees. I worked for a company for over 21 years before the company was bought out. We were an employee-owned company and our leadership They really were focused on making sure that, and this is way before work-life balance was even sort of even talked about, that we had good work-life balance. I mean, I remember the president of the company coming down to my office saying, you need to get out of here. You need to go home. And if I popped in on a weekend, right, just to check in, you know, he would be really disappointed that I would do that. He goes, look, this place isn't going to fall apart. He, he, He practiced what he preached, but he also impressed upon me the need to be with, have my own personal life. Now, I know that he knew, right, that if I was more energized and enjoying life and golfing and doing things that I love to do, that I'd come back to work and be happier. And if I'm happier, I'm going to produce more for him. And so satisfaction produces contribution. Satisfaction produces engagement. And if I'm dissatisfied, I'm unlikely to contribute as much as I have. I'm going to probably just come in and trade my time for money. and benefits, right? So how much time do I need to put in to make sure I still get paid? Because I'm not satisfied here, right? I don't want people working like that. I want people to come in and say, how much can I contribute in value? How much value can I add? And the money should be a byproduct of that. And that's only going to happen if a person feels like they're satisfied in their job and they have a good work-life balance and they're healthy and they're happy and they're enjoying their life, right? Coming in and being able to talk about it. It's not going to happen if people are grinding it out day in and day out. It's just not going to happen. Those days are over.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I totally agree. I know we certainly have worked on some initiatives. And in general, we do have a very happy and fun environment. So it starts off with that. And we want to make sure that people are not taking themselves too seriously, that we're not so stressed out. So I think that certainly helps. I know we do. We have one best places to work for the last many years. And we've had about 96% in the highly engaged category. And I think a lot of that has to do with having fun, being able to respect the work-life balance. One policy we implemented many years ago is fun days. And what it is, is I was thinking that kind of what you were saying earlier, Phil, that people would always feel bad about taking days off, right? Or even taking sick days off. So fun days is basically that it's a spontaneous day off where you don't have to plan. I mean, obviously you have to make sure that somebody else can fill in for you, which we have no problem doing that. If you wake up one day and it's beautiful out and you want to go to the beach, you call up and say, you know what, I'm taking a fun day today. So it just kind of changes the whole idea of not feeling guilty about, again, taking a day off. So
SPEAKER_00:that's really powerful, because most people, if it's a really sunny day, and they want to go to the beach, you're going to call up if they if they don't have a supportive work environment that supports this healthy work life balance, they're going to call up and they're going to lie about how they're sick or something. Yes, exactly. And then they feel guilty, right? Yes, feel guiltier. So you want to be able to You'll say, hey, look, I'm taking a fun day and that's okay. And nobody's going to resent you for it or criticize you for it. That's a really, really great way to do it. Honestly, congratulations on this achievement of best place to work and this 96% engagement. Rarely, fully engaged, rarely higher than 30% for most organizations, right? So that's quite an accomplishment.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it's people understanding, like having your outings and things like that, where people can socialize and recognize you're not just a manager or their production manager or the accounting person. You're Phil and Jocelyn and Maria and Sue. And so we're people. And when people connect at that personal level and go out back and throw a Frisbee around metaphorically and just have a little bit of fun every once in a while, it can be really, it can just make people feel like they're part of something different and special.
SPEAKER_01:You took the words right out of my mouth, Phil. That's the part of it for me is the relationships that we have. We are the definition of a team organization because there is nothing that any of us do that doesn't include the participation. participation of somebody else or another department. There's ultimate collaboration, growth mindset, and teamwork here. And so on a regular basis, I'm interacting with my colleagues and my friends. I know so many things about them because we interact on different opportunities and different talent resources and different initiatives that I'm getting to know what they're doing and helping them do that professionally, but getting to know who they are. And then it's It's just the continuous thing where it's like, Oh, Hey Phil, like, how was, how was that? The golf course last week, sports ball things. Right. Because I know that about you. Like, I know that you're an avid golfer and that fun days are probably the greatest thing that you've ever heard. Cause I know that there's been a really nice Wednesday where you were like, wow, I wish I could call out right now. Oh, like you could do that here. Like, so I like, it's, it's all of that where it does make me want to put in the work to enjoy the time because because I enjoy both sides of it and I know what's expected from all of us based on that and the environment that's been created around it. And Friday off this week. Yeah, that's the other thing. We have a four-day weekend coming up because of this lovely lady on the second microphone here.
SPEAKER_00:Those are the things that has a greater impact than sometimes just some bonus or something like that, right? To get a four-day weekend. Who gets that, right? So doing things that really stick. in the heart of an employee are important, right? So this fun day thing is a great example. Think about this. I'm able to call up and say, hey, Maria, I'm not, it's just beautiful out there. Some of my buddies want to go golf and I'm going to go golf and I don't have to lie to you. And you're like, go, go do it. Have a good time. And I go do it. Do you know that I'm going to put my head through a brick wall for you, working for you after that, right? You know what I mean? Like that you would just, because most people that I've golfed with during the week are like, oh yeah, boss ever finds out, don't post anything. I'm so afraid. All these things that people are sneaking out. Imagine grown adults, we're talking in their 50s, having to sneak out to the golf
SPEAKER_02:course.
SPEAKER_00:That feels horrible to me. I remember I worked for this guy a long time ago. He was short-lived, but my wife wasn't feeling well. She was going to go see the doctor. I said to her, hey, I want to come. I want to be there. During my lunch break, if you will, now I was a salaried employee, right? So it wasn't like I was hourly. I went and I met with her at the doctor and it went obviously over my lunch break, probably two hours or so. And I came back and this guy's like, where were you? I'm like, oh, I, my wife wasn't feeling good. So I, I wanted to make sure that I was with her. We were at the doctor's care. He goes, you need to let me know something like that's going to happen. And I get, I get where he's coming from, but he made me feel like I was in third grade. Like I'm a, I'm a grown adult dealing with a family issue and it just made me feel horrible. You can see after that, just that one interaction, how dissatisfied a human being could be working for somebody like that. And how I'm the type of person who's still going to grind it out and contribute, but I'm going to look for another place to do that. Right. You're looking for another place to do that for somebody who can appreciate you and doesn't treat you like you're in third grade. So yeah, obviously we don't want everybody just taking fun days every day. So, you know, we're not going to open up the door that wide. Right. But just having the, the, the ability to be honest and say, Hey, look, it's beautiful out. It hasn't been this nice out in weeks. I just want to get up and I got coverage, right. I got coverage and I'm going to make it up without even having to say it. What a wonderful work environment that must be. I can see why you have 96% engagement, but it's commendable.
SPEAKER_03:Although I do send emails sometimes on the weekends. Don't do that. Not a lot, but sometimes what happens is that's the time I catch up. You do it without expectation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I do. And I'll be like, oh, Maria's doing some research, I see.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. And a lot of times I am a night owl. So my favorite time to send emails is like after 11 p.m. So every once in a while, I'll have some employees that will respond. Yep. I'll tell him to get to bed, but.
SPEAKER_00:It sounds like people know, right? So if people know that, hey, it's just you doing it and you're not expecting them to respond, that's one thing. But the way that I typically like to do that is I like to just draft the email and then schedule it to send them in the next morning, right? So sometimes you'll get emails from me at eight o'clock, like people, everyone's getting an email at eight o'clock. And it's because I drafted the email at night when I had a little bit of time, my wife was doing something. I was like, you know what? I'm going to bang out a few emails. And then I don't send them typically at night, but I'll schedule them to just go out in the morning, right? So that the expectation isn't to respond to me at night because some people do. And then I feel badly when they do. I'm like, dude, you don't have to respond to me. So I try to schedule. I mean, if your email platform allows you to do that, it could be a good way.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, because a lot of times I'm doing it on my phone. So is there a way to do a delay send on my iPhone?
SPEAKER_01:We should look into that. I know, we should do that. We'll put a tech meeting on right after this.
SPEAKER_03:Although... First time I used delay send in a while for Mother's Day. and it went out like five days later so i sent it on like friday i swear to god i don't know i sent it friday to be delivered at like 2 30 in the afternoon i did it friday morning yeah and then no i remember yes and then it came out on monday afternoon or something so i don't know what happened so you were like well anti-climatic
SPEAKER_01:happy pass to the moms like we really did
SPEAKER_00:i did want you to know that you were appreciated yeah i hope last week you had a nice day Yes,
SPEAKER_03:exactly. So yeah, no, there's just there's a lot but I know what I was thinking too about fun days people are kind of scheduling them a little bit in advance, which I guess is okay the original idea was kind of like the last minute spontaneous thing, and I don't think people do the last minute spontaneous as much but. We'll have to talk more about that.
SPEAKER_01:We will have to talk more about it. Cause I agree. I think, I don't think it's not, it may be like for the Monday, it's the Friday kind of thing. Like it's being scheduled. Yeah. They're used, there's
SPEAKER_03:flexibility there.
SPEAKER_01:There is. And it was supposed to
SPEAKER_03:be kind of the last minute. I mean, people used to do it a lot more like last minute and now it's kind of become more of a, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We'll talk more about that. Yeah. So, I mean, we're coming close to the end here, but would love to hear. from you, Phil, kind of like the flip side of things and what sort of tools people can put into place to avoid this? Because I'm sure that just, I mean, this has been nothing but like really good conversation around like the positive change that a work-life balance can create. But what about, what are the consequences of not instilling that balance? And what is one tool that you can recommend somebody put into place kind of immediately to reinforce the idea idea as a leader that I want you, my team, to have work-life balance.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the consequences are burnout, unhappiness, stress. Those are the consequences. For me, the consequences are even more severe than that, where I actually dropped to the ground and was ambulance to the hospital, right? So burnout, happiness, unhappiness, and stress. But I think that if managers really focus on how much an individual is contributing versus how much time they're putting in is really important. So how much is an individual able to contribute while still having life enjoyment? And so that is it. individual question to ask. So if I was going to say, what's one strategy or tool that I would share, it would be, I would sit with each individual employee as a manager. And I would say, I want to make sure that you're contributing as much as you can here, right? In such a way that you feel like you're having a sense of achievement. Okay. And we're meeting our mark here, but I still want you to have life enjoyment. And so how can we accomplish that? What could I be doing better as your managers to accomplish that where you're contributing here and you're achieving, but you're also having life enjoyment. just speak with them, right? And be open-minded. You might be surprised that what they want is so much smaller than you could imagine, right? It could be something so simple that you would be shocked and you say, I wish I thought of that four years ago, right? So something like that. But you set the bar too as a manager. All managers are setting the bar. Make sure you're creating a culture of work-life balance, right? A culture of work-life balance means that people believe, because culture is what a group of people believe, that work-life balance is important to this organization. And so The only way people are going to believe that is if they see it, right? So we've got to create this culture that work-life balance is important. So again, we look at some of the strategies, right? Offering flexible remote working, flex hours or four-day work week, as you suggested. Focus on productivity rather than focusing on hours worked. Encourage breaks where people aren't taking breaks. When people work from home, sometimes they never even take a break, right? So regularly review workloads, right? So what is the workload of each individual? And is it overwhelming, right? Am I, if they are there, overworked. Lead by example. Consider your policies when it comes to time off. Sounds like you have a great one, right? And then increase support for those that are taking care of parents or our parents too, right? That doesn't mean that people that aren't parents don't have some support, but there is a difference, right? If you're giving a fun day to everybody and somebody's using their fun day to take care of a parent, right? That may not be a fun day for them, but they're using that to take care of a parent. So we want to make sure that everybody's getting the same benefit. And then I'm going to drop that one tool and it's your tool. Have a fun day. I mean, I think that's just an amazing way to tell your people that we're really serious about work-life balance and we're offering this to you and we want you to take it. Some people don't even take their vacations, right? Make them mandatory. There's organizations that I've done work with that they used to say, well, if you don't take your vacation, we'll give you the money. And people took the money. Never. I would never recommend that. Make them take their vacation because it's so necessary for them to be the best version of themselves when they come back rather than not taking vacation.
SPEAKER_01:Time is money too. You know what I mean? Just as satisfying as it is to, to feel fulfilled financially from the job. I mean, your, your time is, is just as much of an investment that you need to take. So here, here to that Phil. Yeah. Great info. And while we're on the subject of fun days, fun times, just having fun in general, I think it is time for the TTA 10.
SPEAKER_04:It's the TTA 10, 10 final questions for our guest.
SPEAKER_01:All right, Phil, not Philip, but Philip in our hearts. We are here for the TTA 10. We talked about this briefly before we started recording. Fun little segment. I'm going to ask you questions. We're going to put 90 seconds on the clock, and the goal is to answer them in less than 90 seconds. And if you do, you shall be celebrated. If you do not, you shall not be. But it will be fun either way, my friend. I promise you that. So the first question, not included in the 10. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay, cool. David, can you please put the time on the clock?
SPEAKER_04:90 seconds on the TTA 10 clock starting now.
SPEAKER_01:All right, Phil, who is your favorite SNL cast member?
SPEAKER_00:SNL, I don't watch SNL, so I don't really have a good, I couldn't give you a good answer there.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, no. Okay, that's fine. I'll skip it. What song will cheer you up no matter what mood you're in?
SPEAKER_00:It's called Love of My Life. I actually wrote it for my wife.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? Right where I am right now. Okay. What is the, so knowing that you're an avid golfer, tell me the best course you've ever played on.
SPEAKER_00:I was in Bermuda. It was called the Ocean Club. It was absolutely amazing and I was not worthy of it. Oh my
SPEAKER_01:gosh, neither are we. You order a chicken and an egg from Amazon. Which is arriving first?
SPEAKER_00:The chicken.
SPEAKER_01:What is six minus three?
SPEAKER_00:Three.
SPEAKER_01:How much is that doggie in the window?
SPEAKER_00:25 bucks.
SPEAKER_01:Name any hot pepper.
SPEAKER_00:Habanero.
SPEAKER_01:What is a TV show that you are always recommending that people start streaming?
SPEAKER_00:I don't watch a lot of TV, but recently I watched this show called The Americans, and it's been interesting, so I would say that.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Settle the score once and for all for all of us here in New England. Is the correct terminology on Cape or down the Cape? Down
SPEAKER_00:the
SPEAKER_01:Cape. Okay. There is our 10. David, can you give us
SPEAKER_04:the results, please? Would you like the results? Yes, yes.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:With a time of 1 minute and 17 seconds, including a long-winded question by Jocelyn, Phil is indeed a TTA 10 champion. It wasn't even close. So, Phil, we like to set the mood appropriate for the guests, so therefore...
SPEAKER_02:Perfect. Don
SPEAKER_03:Ciccio. They had the Godfather Marathon on this weekend, so I actually watched several of them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I get a comment because they have Don Ciccio there, and that's my last name too. That's right. In Corleone, it's just a couple of towns over from where I'm from.
SPEAKER_04:Well, for the record... And for our English-speaking listeners, Phil, the pride of Sicily, congratulations on successfully navigating the TTA-10. You stood up to the challenge with the trademark boldness of the Sicilian people and kicked butt, much like the geographical outline of Italy booting whatever that silly little island is at the end there. Part of your mission is to take mundane business topics and transform them into compelling life lessons. Today, you have shown us that you could take a can of Chef Boyardee beefaroni and transform it into a lovely garlic butter pasta with a little prosciutto in there. We vowed to go out and buy your book, Oil Rags to Riches, of course. And we know before long, we'll be singing just like that famous Italian crooner. I'm talking, of course, about Carnival. You know I go from
SPEAKER_02:rags to riches.
SPEAKER_04:So, to celebrate, Phil, pour the Chianti, pass the mozzarella, leave the gun, and take the cannoli. Congratulazioni! Complimenti! Complimenti! And bravo, Phil, you are a TTA 10 champion.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. Your Sicilian was very good, by the
SPEAKER_01:way. Oh my gosh, David. Impressive. David. Oh my gosh, Phil fantastic job. My friend really
SPEAKER_03:was excellent.
SPEAKER_01:Great dialogue. Yes, it was. Yeah. You created a lot of like really good flow and allowing us to storytell and like ask more questions and engage. It was like fabulous. Really, really, really fun. I
SPEAKER_00:enjoyed it. I enjoyed it as well. So thank you for allowing me the opportunity to work with you. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01:For more information on Phil and bringing work-life balance into your organization, visit us at thetrainingassociates.com. We'll see you later.