The Experience Expert: Employee Retention

In today’s episode, we are teamed up with Amanda Boyle, guest host of The Experience Expert, and special guest Brad Nycz to talk about Employee Retention. Tune in to learn about what's motivating employees to stay in or leave a role, and what companies are doing about it. Spoiler alert: it's all about flexibility.

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Transcript

Amanda Boyle: Hi everyone and welcome back to the Working Smarter Cafe podcast. I'm your host today, Amanda Boyle, and I'm excited to welcome back Brad Nycz, who will be joining me for today's episode. Once again, we're bringing the experience expert and the Working Smarter Cafe together to discuss our latest topic, employee retention.

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Amanda Boyle: We have a great episode in store for you all today, but before we get started, I do want to take some time to introduce ourselves. My name is Amanda Boyle, and I'm a customer marketing program manager for UKG Ready. My focus within Ready is specifically on all things cross suite and HR related and I'm really excited to be here today hosting my first ever experience expert with Brad.

Bradley Nycz: Hi, Amanda. I'm glad to be here with you as well. So very excited for today's podcast. And hello everybody that's listening in. My name is Brad Nycz as Amanda said, I am one of our executive relationship management leaders here at UKG and was a customer prior to joining actually a few times over. I was a customer prior to joining UKG but been here a while and just love working with some of our fantastic customers and I think they've given us some good insight that we'll be talking about today.

Amanda Boyle: Yeah, Brad. And we are so excited for you to be back on the podcast again. I know you've done this a couple of times, so if you've been listening to our podcast for a while or have joined us for any previous experience expert episodes, you'll know kind of before we dive into the content, we like to do a little ice breaker. We just think it helps you get to know us a little more and it's a fun way to kind of kick off our episode. So, I'm a big traveler, I love exploring new places, and I thought today we could just kick it off with the question of, “If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?”

Bradley Nycz: Wow, that's a great question. I love to travel as well. I live in Wisconsin. I should have maybe said that to begin with. That's where I'm based out of and you know, it's cold here, a lot of the year. So, for me, going somewhere warm somewhere nice somewhere with water would be wonderful. So actually, on my bucket list is Greece. My in laws are from Greece originally, so it's on our bucket list to be able to get there, be able to explore it, be able to explore the islands. I've known a couple people that have traveled there recently and just said they've had an absolute wonderful experience. Plus, the food, right? When you travel, you got to find some good food and stuff as well. So that Greece would be on my list to travel to somewhere soon. So, what about yourself?

Amanda Boyle: Yeah, Greece is definitely on my list, but I was thinking about this, and I feel like it's such a simple but hard question at the same time. I'm going to have to go with... I would love to go back to Utah. So, I had spent two months in Utah a couple years ago just exploring all the national parks. I think it's beautiful and it's definitely one of the places that — once I was there, I was like, I need to keep coming back. There's just so many different things to explore, and I feel like it's just one of my favorite places.

Bradley Nycz: That's crazy to hear. Great to hear. I was debating with that question because international it is certainly Greece as I said, but domestically here kind of traveling out to the West was going to be on my list. So yeah, love to hear stories about that sometime.

Amanda Boyle: Yeah, definitely it was. It was a great trip, and I recommend it for anyone. So, with that, I do just wanna kick us off. I know we... want to focus on a hot topic today. And Brad, I know you've kind of you've been seeing in your role, and you interact with customers and that topic is just employee retention. So, I know like there's a lot going on right now. So, can you just tell us what you've been hearing, what you've been seeing around this topic of retention?

Bradley Nycz: Yeah, absolutely. Retention is definitely a hot topic, just like you said, and it's changed quite a bit, right? I've, you know, I spent. I should've said it in my background, but I spent about 20 plus years in the HR space and retention. Now in the conversations I'm hearing with our customers is different than it was when I was back in HR. Even so, probably the biggest shift that I've seen in retention is that customers or you know HR departments, if you will, are no longer expecting the 30-year employee, right?

They're not expecting employees to stick around with them for their entire career to kind of wait out and receive that pension at the end, which in a lot of cases doesn't exist anymore in a lot of the workforces. But those days are gone, right? With everybody I talked to, they just, the employees aren't sticking around for 30 years, but the employers aren't even expecting that anymore, right? They're just, they know that they're have employees for a period of time. And that conversation has really shifted because I've kind of dug into that to say, well, if you're OK with the employees leaving or you're expecting those employees to leave at some point. Where do you typically see that or what's important to you?

And without fail, everybody I talked to says there's a tremendous focus on getting their value out of the employee. And so, of course I asked what that means, and it's an employer, invest a ton of money upfront to onboard and train and get a new employee up to speed. And so, from their perspective, they're really focused on retention beyond that first year of employment when they're going through all that onboarding, when they're going through all that training because they don't really as the employer see the value, they don't get all the value of that new hire until after they get through that period and they're fully productive in their workforce.

And so, there's a ton on streamlining, smoothing out the onboarding process, making it quicker and easier to get somebody fully up to speed and really focused on that, I'm going to say first year of employment because like I said, that's where it just cost employers so much money to get somebody up to speed.

The other part of that, the trend I'm hearing and I'm sure you and I will talk about this more later, but flexibility comes up across the board with every single customer I talked to. And flexibility in a lot of different scenarios, right? I think a lot of organizations right now are struggling or maybe not even struggling but debating working from home, hybrid, back in the office, you know. COVID sent so many people to work remotely and now that we're past that, I think everybody's reevaluating, does that work for their workforce? Maybe, maybe not. But it plays a role in that retention game, right?

If I can give somebody that level of flexibility and those types of things, the benefits we offer, I mentioned before pensions, maybe those aren't there anymore, but the flexibility to choose a benefits package that's right for me, all of those things, like I said, if I kind of summarized it or boiled it altogether. Certainly, there is a tremendous focus in that first year, but also a tremendous focus around just flexibility and being a flexible employer, right. I hate to keep using that word, but it's the word that comes up so much with our customers, but they need to be flexible in every aspect in what they look at in that employer/employee relationship. I know you've done a lot of research as well and talk with people too. Are you hearing the same things as what our customers are sharing?

Amanda Boyle: Yes definitely. And I think, so, it's funny, like you were talking about COVID and shifting everything, and I think it's funny because I was thinking back on my own personal experience of, I started my career in COVID, so it was definitely just a crazy time.

But even now I feel like the mindset of just some of my peers, flexibility is huge for them. So now flexibility, whether they're going to take a hybrid job or a job that's in the office five days a week. I think back to when I was kind of looking for a job right out of college one of the key things that stood out to me specifically about UKG was the PTO and the unlimited PTO.

So, I think people are definitely looking for that flexibility and I think it's funny. My friends, I'd see some of them stay in jobs for a while and some of them are definitely, the thought that I have been at UKG for five years kind of makes them pause for a second, and they're like, well, why? And I'm like, I do have good flexibility. And that is definitely something I want to dive deeper in on because I do think that based on the things like I said, I've been seeing, and you've been seeing flexibility and sometimes that lack of it can be a dealbreaker for employees. So, I'm interested to hear your thoughts further on that and just kind of see where you think organizations can be flexible, just diving in on that a little more.

Bradley Nycz: Yeah. Yeah, that's. I mean, you nailed it. It's very much the common trend, your own personal experience is very much the trend I'm hearing with customers of, you know, we do all kinds of surveys. We obviously have great places to work. That's a part of our organization now here at UKG and we get all kinds of data, but our customers are telling us the same thing that Comp and those types of things, while they're a factor in employment, they don't weigh as heavily as something like flexibility like you described, right?

It's maybe just being as accommodating as saying, OK, I'd like people to come back into the office because we have these buildings, we have these offices, we want people there, face to face interacting with each other. But does it have to be five days a week? Or can I say you can work from home two or three days a week in that case. And that level of flexibility, similar to your experience, has just resonated with people. It gives me the ability to balance my personal life. You know, it's a true work life balance and that scenario, right?

But it's what people are really looking for, and employers have to seriously consider as they're putting mandates on getting people back into the office and those types of things. It's employees will make the decision to go somewhere else, go somewhere where they are offering much more flexible work arrangements. I can do it remotely. I can do it from multiple locations.  I can go — I've even seen some customers talk about how their employees going in and out of different offices that they have around the country, right? So I'm spending my summer traveling and I and I spend a weekend at a time in a different office. And yes, I'm in the office, but it gives me that flexibility to live the lifestyle that I want to be able to live, and that's tremendously important.

I think a couple other things based on what you said, Amanda, benefits is right there as well. Right, we at UKG, you nailed it, one of I think one of our best and greatest benefits is that unlimited PTO that you mentioned. But I think... employers and employees are looking to offer what I'm going to call custom benefit packages, right? Like they want to be able to offer a variety of things. A true marketplace of benefits so that employees can pick what's right for them. So, they can pick and choose because I may not need medical coverage because my significant other may carry the medical coverage in the family, but that unlimited PTO might be the biggest driving factor for me as I look at UKG as an example as the employer.

I think a lot of people, a lot of employers, are challenged to continue to offer that variety in their benefits package but do it in a way that offers just tremendous flexibility and availability for employees to pick what fits them and their lifestyle the best. We're seeing trends continue in the Wellness space. Right, so people want to live a well lifestyle and those types of things. So let me offer some items in that space. We're seeing a significant uptick in financial wellness offerings in customers as well.

Because — I mentioned it in the beginning, the pensions tend to not exist anymore, and they don't expect those long-term employees. So now how do I educate, support, enable my employees to be more financially stable? Well, I'm giving them financial wellness offerings that tend to be able to help in that retention package. You're helping me understand how I plan for my retirement. How I do it in a way that if I'm there for five years for 10 years and not the 30 years, I can take that with me and I can still be set up for retirement as I go through my career.

So just a couple examples, but those are, I think all the different types of scenarios I hear a lot of our customers talking about is them paying significant attention to the working arrangement. We want people back in the office. Can we do this in in a hybrid method or some other scenario to allow my employees flexibility? And then the same with benefits. Can I offer you a package, so you pick what's meaningful to you and important to you and your family? Not what I think I should offer as an employer, but let me give you the choice and give you that and it just gives that more custom feel to anything, right?

Amanda Boyle: Right.

Bradley Nycz: So, it's amazing. It's a different world, I think HR people have their hands full because they're looking at all of these different options these days to be able to truly provide their employees a full package to look at.

Amanda Boyle: Yeah, definitely. And I feel like even from the employee side, like you were talking about working arrangements and hybrid and flexibility and I know for me at UKG, I go in two or three days a week. But there's always that flexibility of if something does pop up; if a family emergency pops up, or I'm going to be in a different place, I have that flexibility to maybe work remote for the week, go into a different office if I'm by a different office, and it's one of my favorite perks that have. So, it's nice to kind of be able to not necessarily pick and choose, but just know that if something comes up because life happens and we know life happens, that it's not even a question of, OK, something came up you're not going to make it into the office today. You're not going to get reprimanded for not being there for a week because of just what has happened in life.

But I think I do want to switch gears for a bit. I know we've dug into kind of like flexibility a lot. So, I want to talk a bit about employee engagement and the role that that plays in keeping employees at your organization. So just what have you been hearing? Do you have some strategies that you think organizations might be able to start thinking about to put in place to help, maybe re engage employees?

Bradley Nycz: Yeah, I think that's a fantastic topic because right engagement is the buzzword. One of the buzzwords in HR these days, and it's true though, but it's different than I think how we thought about engagement in the past, right? So, I'm going to go back a little bit and use the analogy of the comments I made about benefits being a custom approach, the same holds true for engagement, right? 

We live in a world now where when I go out to Amazon and I go shopping, it shows me all of my things that based on my past trends, it's customized to me. These are things you might like. These are things you might want to look at again. Those types of things. I think engagement is that same model and expectation in the workforce now, right? Which is different than what it's been before. And specifically, around communication.

Where we live in a world, I can go out to Twitter or X it's called now, right? Or any other social media platform, and I get stuff that's tailored specific to me in communication, and I don't have to wait for it, right? I don't have to wait at all. So, communication continues to be, in my opinion, the top pillar of engagement. It's the most important piece, but it's evolved to be very custom, very specific to the employee very relevant, right?

So, I'm not just flooded with communication that's not relevant to me, not, you know, I'm not told about benefits that I'm not even taking advantage of or, you know, more information or more communication on those. I'm given specific communication to the parts that I'm using, I'm taking advantage of within my employer, right? So, that's unique.

I know we at UKG have much more tailored communication. I think that is going to be the continued trend, but where it really stretches a lot of HR departments, how do you personalize things when you have a large workforce? But that's what people want. They want the stuff that's relevant to them, and that's how you engage them, and that's what's important, you know, to keep picking on our topic that we talked about earlier, whether it's working arrangements or unlimited PTO, if I know that's what's relevant and that's what's meaningful to somebody, I want to tailor all my communication around that because that's really what's going to get them to engage and embrace sticking around here as an employee longer.

One of the unique one it's almost like a bad word. I don't know how else to say it, but it's the reality of what we need to face is boredom. We're in an instant society, right, I mentioned social media, right? I can find out what's happening at any point in time, right by picking up my smartphone and searching on any social media platform. And I get instant communication about what's going on in today's world, right? And I think that holds true. Employees don't do the 30-year career because they get bored. They want to be challenged. They want to be tested. They want constant communication. They want constant feedback. All of those types of things.

I give our current workforce a lot of credit. They're used to multitasking. They're used to seeing information come through multiple platforms. We have to evolve as employers and that's what a lot of the customers I talked to her saying too, right. Like the days of a quarterly update are fading away, right? That's too long in between and I need to engage my employees, find ways to keep them engaged on a much more frequent basis. And initially, I think departments looked at it and says, well, I don't need to hand hold people. It's not hand holding, it's feeding them information that's relevant to them as it happens, right. And that's key, but it's a big difference.

And then last, the common trend in that engagement space that I continue to hear, I don't think this will be new to HR people, but again it's a little bit more customized, is recognition. I think people love to be recognized still for the work they're doing. They love to be recognized, what's important to them. We've already talked about that, right. Like any level of recognition to the employee, I think still carries a ton of weight and means a lot to them feeling connected to the organization as a whole.

So here at UKG, one of the ways, one of the best recognition tools I think we have that I don't think it's always talked about even as a recognition tool, some of our ERGs, our employee resource groups. But we have a variety of ERGs that talk about whatever is important to you; people with disabilities, people who are vets from our military, those types of things, Pride, and I'm going to forget a lot of them, but we have a ton of them out there. And to me that's a level of recognition because it recognizes what's important to me as a person, right?

So, if I'm a vet coming out of our military and that's important to me and that's important part of my background and I'm being recognized as a vet here... that carries significant weight. That helps me feel more connected to the organization. Now I get communication that's tailored to me. I get all that stuff we talked about before. That's specific to me, that says my employer recognizes me as a person, not just as an employee. Those types of things, and if we can, customers are saying if we can tailor our communication to be that specific to an employee, now I'm hitting more than just a job for somebody, right? I'm hitting stuff that says I'm a place you want to be. You feel connected to me as an employer, so maybe a little bit different spin than what we've heard and seen in the past.

But your question, your comment was spot on. Engagement is still probably the top piece in terms of employee retention. Just the fine points underneath engagement if you will the communication, the more instant communication, feedback, those types of things, and then the recognition. I think those look a little bit different today then, and that's what I'm hearing from our customers, then maybe what I've experienced in my past with within HR. You feel the same way, or you've seen the same things with some of your stuff?

Amanda Boyle: Yeah, yeah. And I'm actually really glad that you brought up the ERGs the employee resource groups for recognition, because that's just a way that I had never thought about, like looking at it before. But when you started talking, I was thinking about the resource groups that I'm a part of.

So, I just joined that we have a brand-new ERG at UKG that's launching later this year called Rise for young professionals. And I have kind of been with that for, I want to say two years now from the ground up and that kind of just came about and wanted to get it as an ERG because we were seeing just we had all these young professionals and we all... kind of started our career back when it was COVID and the world is definitely different now and people are remote, people aren't in the same offices like it was just something that, when they finally announced that it was going to be an ERG, I personally felt so recognized and was like I'm going to have a place now and all these young professionals who start their career out here are going to have a place. And it was nice to feel that UKG was kind of listening to us, and I never really thought about that as recognition until you brought it up.

Bradley Nycz: Yeah, I love that example. And I do believe right, because listen to the passion in your voice just as you described it. You feel connected to us here as UKG because of that of that rise ERG, right? That's to me that that is how I think employers are starting to look at recognition different, right? It's not just a pat on the back for doing a great job. That's part of it, certainly, right. You did great work today. But it's recognizing you and the values and the beliefs you have that that make you want to come to work everyday, right? From that standpoint. So yeah, love it.

Amanda Boyle: Yes. Well, Brad, that brings us to the end of our episode. I don't know if you have any final thoughts you want to give before we conclude today, but I do just want to thank you so much for your time and providing us with your insight and perspective around retention.

Bradley Nycz: Yeah. No, I appreciate the invite to come on and talk with you. I always love these discussions, and talking with you, and even hearing about your experiences. I think those have been fantastic parts to it.  I think this is going to continue to evolve right as a topic, right as we see the job market change and those types of things employee retention, I think is always going to be a hot topic as it continues to evolve.

It's just I think I would challenge all the listeners; I know I've learned a lot from talking to our customers that we have to be flexible and willing to adapt and think about employer retention differently as we have different people coming in and out of the workforce, right? It's it means different things to different people. So, I'm glad we picked this as a topic to talk through. It's been great.

Amanda Boyle: Yeah, it's been a great discussion. Thank you so much, Brad. And with that, I'm your host Amanda. And thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you next time. 

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