 Thank you for joining us. Welcome to all of you. So glad that you've tuned in to either watch or listen to today's episode. We are talking with one of my favorite, Elizabeth Wesley-Casella, with L12 Services. And she is here with us today to talk about keeping and attracting talent. So not just, you know, keeping them, but how do we attract perhaps new talent that we might be looking for. Julia is missing out on a fantastic conversation, but I know she's doing well. Julia Patrick is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm the non-profit nerd, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. And we are so honored to have the continued support of our presenting sponsors. You can see here, Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, fundraising academy, non-profit nerd, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, non-profit thought leader, and the non-profit atlas. So thank you so much to our sponsors that keep these conversations going and growing with the one and only today. Today, Elizabeth, welcome back. So much. It is great to be here and in my own natural habitat this time instead of a hotel room. This is good. This is good. That's right. You joined us last time. You're on the road. You're doing a tour. I think I asked for the tour t-shirt because you're hopping around and taking your services and your talent on the road. So welcome back. I'm thrilled to have you here and thrilled to have you talking about the great resignation. Now that's something that if we have not heard it yet, I think we've been under a rock. But let's start, if you would, by telling us what it is. What is this great resignation that people have been talking about, including ourselves? And then I'd love for you to talk about how this is impacting the non-profit sector. Sure. Well, to simplify it, the great resignation is a point in time in our business ecosystem where we're seeing mass attrition. Large numbers of people are leaving the employment and workforce. And it's as though there's a message in the zeitgeist that is saying, everybody, have you reprioritized your life over this pandemic? Have you figured out where you want work to fall in that list of priorities? And if it's not at the top, think about something different. People are leaving for a wide number of reasons. The majority that we've found through our communication with our clients and other surveys and conversations across the nation is that the number one driver is not money and it's not position. So we're talking about everything from professional development to misaligned priorities, misaligned values, to poor communication from management down to teams. So it can be any number of things, but organizations would be fooling themselves if they thought that the driver was cash. And some organizations, unfortunately, are trying to stem the tide by offering cash or title realignment and it's not working. That is very interesting. And one of the things that I've heard before as a statistic is that many people leave their jobs because of their supervisor, because of their manager. Is that still the case? Is that still the number one reason? It's funny that you say that because I was having a conversation this morning where we were kind of teasing that out. And yes, people leave jobs. People leave people rather than leaving jobs. However, if you don't have communication, are you still leaving a person? So yes, if the scenario is misaligned in values or success isn't a clear defined place that you can get to with clearly identified steps along the way that assure that you're doing a great job and you can actually monitor yourself. But the lack of communication or the idea that communication is just your email newsletter or just the blast email from the leadership and there aren't any real relationships developed, then that's also kind of a vacuum that is people are finding dissatisfaction with and they're leaving that too. And how has that changed? And for those of you watching and those of you listening, none of this is scripted. So these are my genuine questions. How has this changed over the last three years? Because of the highly increased workforce moving to remote or this digital capacity, you know, when I think of communication, and I know if Julia was on, she would talk about the water cooler and how the water cooler conversations aren't really happening anymore. And so there's not a lot of organic relationship conversations happening, you know, like we're not talking about the football game that we all watched on Sunday or, you know, because we're not we're jumping on a zoom call or are we're just down to business and we don't really have that crossover in the hallways. How have you seen that impact because of the remote space? Well, there's there's certainly a brain drain to a certain degree. There is a slowing of the transfer of institutional knowledge. The ability to cross train is more difficult. Everything is by virtue of our distance more complex now. So it does make all of the soft skills stuff like, you know, talking in relationship building and more difficult. And there's no one right size fits all answer. However, the the organizations that are going to be successful in this, and they're going to be standing, you know, two, three years down the road. And I kind of want to get to my crystal ball in that two, three years down the road a little bit. But they're going to be the ones that they either take the time and utilize the resources that they have, because they're big enough to have resources in time to mine what their company culture and ecosystem needs from their current talent now. Or they're going to bring in an organization who specializes in, you know, knowing the questions to ask in the focus groups to hold and has the time to perform that work to get really crystal clear answers about what the workforce wants out of a business. And that, you know, eight to 10 hour a day relationship five days a week or however many you're doing that, you know, you're either going to have to do it yourself or you're going to have to bring somebody else in but you're going to have to find a way to listen to what the needs are of the people. And that's really scary for a lot of organizations, especially the ones that are, you know, kind of an architecture of being very top heavy, not wanting to hear what the staff or the teams or the pods are requesting is a problem we run into a lot. And the excuse is, well, you know, this is a business and there's leadership and we're supposed to drive the, the, you know, direction that we're going. Why do we need to have input from every level? Well, it may not be that every level drives the input for what your organizational goals are, but they definitely should have an input into what the new hybrid work model looks like and other cultural pieces and communication pieces as well. Yeah, absolutely. You know, in the slide that I just pulled up for those of you that saw it is really about what keeps the talent and what helps to attract new talent. And I can only imagine bringing someone in like yourself, Elizabeth, and you are for hire, you are available is this communication. And as you said, it could be as simple as knowing what questions to ask. Right. And so can you give us some more examples of, you know, how do we attract new talent and how the heck do we keep the great talent that we already have? I'm going to do that kind of backward and start with how do we keep the talent that we already have because that's a great way to get new talent. The talent that we already have, we're finding that there's a lot of traction and conversation surrounding state interviews right now. And it's an opportunity for an organization with existing high caliber talent and well functioning teams to really mind what it looks like from the individual's point of view to weigh your options. What is it about the current organization that they really love? And if they had a super great offer from somebody else, what would it be possible to counter with to keep them there? Getting that knowledge and kind of storing it away to utilize it and act on it in different ways, not just individual specific is a gold mine. So when you're talking about, you know, getting to know your people and relationship development, that's a really great activity to be able to undertake. Now, along with that, people come to work and this is an opportunity for them to release one less variable in their life. What I mean by that is we are all challenged right now with so many things that are out of our control. We don't really know when we can go to a giant concert next. We don't know when we can see our family next or if we make plans now, if we can have it happen in the fall. There are so many things we don't know. We're still doing it, you know, children and school and grocery delivery and all of that. Great point. Yeah, great point. So if people can look at their work environment without having a lot of things that are out of their control, like if they know what success looks like, if they know what the quarterly goals are, if they know what annual goals are, if they know what the processes are, they can go to work every day or, you know, work from remote every day. When I say go to work, I mean, put your mind there and accomplish the tasks that tick off that checklist that say, I've performed what's been required of me or asked of me or maybe even more and I was successful today and those little wins on top of each other, they add up being able to know that you work in an environment where there isn't a lot of chaos and craziness, takes so much off of your shoulders and frees up so much in your mind. The organizations that have, you know, dialed into their processes and re-reviewed their policies and created workflow maps rather than SOPs, giving a visual that you can take a quick thumbnail of rather than read a bunch of text. Those are the organizations that are seeing their people stay. Wow. And just for the record, you said SOP, not SOB, right? There's not a lot of text in SOB, yes. That is brilliant and not something that I would have ever considered. So when you said to, you know, when you shared, going to work and again, wherever your mind is and placed in that workspace and having that part of your day being somewhat controllable or somewhat knowledgeable about, you know, what's going to happen that day makes so much sense because you're right. We haven't seen family or we're navigating family challenges and issues and health concerns. Perhaps we scheduled a vacation and we don't know if we're going to be able to enter into this vacation or even maintain that vacation. So there's so much going on and that had not even come into my thought process, Elizabeth, at all. I mean, I always learn from these episodes. Again, for me to start my day, again, I start in the morning with the episode. I know many of you are joining us across the world. And so, you know, you're joining us at all different times or watching the recording. But that for me is already a huge, huge takeaway. I would love it if you could go a little bit more into the stay interviews because I know I've heard it a handful of times, but I'm curious. It might be new to some people. What is a stay interview? What does it look like? What's the purpose? If you can dive a little deeper there? Certainly. The purpose is to find out what will, you know, compel your current talent to stay at your workplace. And the way that it's delivered is usually through, you know, someone in HR or someone who comes in as a consultant. It's not usually like a 360 where you're dealing one-on-one with your manager. The way that they're formed, I've seen them, you know, in a wide variety of links, a wide variety of questions, but one really great resource to tap into if you're interested in finding out, you know, more details about, you know, what types of questions are asked is to log into the SHRM, SHRM website. They have a list of a couple different resources, and I think they have their own best practices kind of list of questions as well. That's a really helpful one. And if it's from SHRM, you know that it's high quality and, you know, best in brand. Great resource. Yeah, SHRM. And again, I think you shared what it is, but that is best practice for HR procedures, policies, whatnot. And so that's a great place to go to. Okay, I shared with you before we went live, but there are companies, for-profit and not-for-profit, that make the list of the best places to work, right? How do we get there? How do we get on a list? Like, what are these companies doing right that makes their employees say, heck, yes, I want to work here? Because someone's doing the right thing. I applaud any organization that is being called out for having a great ecosystem. As far as the lists are concerned, I don't know who's compiling them. Nobody's ever reached out to me. But that said, what the activity is about featuring really great opportunities for other people to consider. And I'm all about that. The thing that I think non-profits specifically need to be looking out for or address right now in order to consider themselves leading the way is whether or not their people have burnout or are approaching burnout. I know it's, you know, between the phrase, the great resignation and the idea of burnout, people are already burned out by those two. Unfortunately, that's where I swim, so that's what we're going to talk about for a second. The non-profit world is comprised of people who don't just have a job. They don't just go to work for the paycheck or the benefits. For the most part, people in non-profits go to work because they have a passion. What they do is important to them, and it's highly valued, and it aligns with their values. And they're trying to make a difference in the world. So when we come to a situation where nobody was prepared for transition to work from home, but we had to do it, and then there's a transition that's either in the works or may have not quite had the trigger pulled on it for hybrid, or maybe it hasn't, it's rolled back. Like all of those things mean that the people doing the work are relatively likely to be doing more than the job or different activities with alongside their job than what they were hired to do. And they're not complaining about it, and they're not necessarily talking about it. They're not bringing it up to their managers. And I'm not saying that this is a golden ticket for everybody to say, I work for a non-profit, and I do too much. I'm taking the next two weeks off, no notice. What I'm trying to say is that the people who have been working in the non-profit sector have been really juggling the balls and spinning the plates. And we're two years in now, two years plus, it's time to be able to give them some of your time and sit down with them and talk about what it is that they actually are doing these days, because none of our processes are the same. Most of our policies have changed, and along with that, that means job descriptions have too. So if you usually have a one hour or a two hour a year sit down with your employee, why don't you do like a 90 minute once every two months for the next two quarters and really talk through what do they do? How do they do it? Does it match what their job description says? Do they understand their gates of responsibility, meaning do they know who did what before them and what it should look like when it hits their desk and what a completed product should look like when it leaves their desk for the next person? Having those types of conversations where the person doing the work gets to have a voice and also maybe gets to have some innovative ideas and bring up some potential solutions is a game changer. That is the type of value system that people that work in nonprofits really, you know, it's a common thread through all of the conversations that we've had with the nonprofits we've worked with. And so giving people of your time and listening to them and encouraging them with professional development or personal development, those are the type of well-rounded people that make it through these types of crisis feeling good about where they work. You know, I couldn't have said it better because I think when you ask most nonprofit professionals why you work, where you work, it's they're passionate about the mission, right? You rarely hear I make a heck of a lot of money in my paycheck. You rarely hear, oh, my job's super easy. I could do it in my sleep. Like it is always, I am passionate about our mission. I love who we are, what we do, how we serve. And I think that is, you know, very valuable to know and to keep. And as you said, policies have changed, very likely systems have changed so that there's a time to look at those efficiencies. Let's look at returning to work roadmap. And this could go a lot of different directions pun intended with the roadmap, right? What are you seeing in the work that you offer with L12 services? We're seeing that the good will of an organization to bring in an unbiased third party and talk about, you know, whether it's small contract training or workshops or if it's large contract white glove overhaul of systems policies and procedures is really going a long way. And I'm not saying that to sound self serving. The reason why we're finding that that's successful for nonprofits and other organizations is because that third party with it with no dog in the fight and the ability to listen provides a level of almost comfort and transparency for the necessary conversations that need to happen, whether they're interviews or their focus groups. People will talk to someone they don't report to and that they don't think will impact their longevity at an organization much more readily than they will someone within the organization. Now I need to caveat that with we believe firmly in the work that HR does and sometimes those types of conversations happen through HR. We don't compete with HR. We support HR. Oftentimes HR will be the gateway with which we come into help an organization because they say people see us as part of the team and if we're having this conversation it's like intramurals and we'd like you as a third party to come in to work with us hold these conversations hold these focus groups and then we can create policy together. So it's not a one or the other situation it's actually collaborative support. But the other thing that we're finding because this is kind of twofold the other thing that we're finding is the return to work roadmap often identifies resources and resource reallocation as a common solution and you know it's not always the workers or the staff that knows where the money comes in or how it's spent but they definitely know what platforms work best for their jobs whether or not they need all of those platforms being able to talk about you know communications policies as they align with people's work hours or work product or the type of communication that they're they're sharing. Those types of resources they could be hardware software or cash are good conversations to be able to hold at every level of the organization and have people give input that gets acted upon because there's nothing worse than like holding surveys or holding polls and then the people who've taken the time to complete that survey realize nobody's going to act on the time that I just spent filling that out really thoughtfully darn that that you know creates dissatisfaction. So when when we're talking about resources and and how best to utilize them having the conversation with everybody involved allows for question and answer innovative thought and and use suggestions and deeper understanding in what the organization is doing at that snapshot in time where everything stands what your ability is to grow or to move forward or create new programs and a more well informed workforce is a workforce that is more likely going to become interested in solving problems and feeling as though the responsibility of their job is something they take personally rather than just a task list to complete. Elizabeth I could talk to you for hours and I know many others probably could as well because this continues to be a growing concern and as we started this isn't only impacting the nonprofit sector this is impacting each and every industry across our world you know looking at the return to work roadmap looking at new policies and structures and schedules I know that I've even been a part of onboarding new employees and the interview process and the negotiation process included a hybrid commitment right saying we'd love to take this opportunity however I have family commitments and x y and z commitments wouldn't be possible for me to work two days a week three days in the office and really have you know more or less that that flexible schedule. So if you like what you heard are you like who you heard it from I hope that you will reach out to l12services.com. Elizabeth is the founder and CEO she's phenomenal she works out of the DC area but works across the nation and has helped even international organizations I believe I I know one in particular that is housed in the states but has served internationally so I'm just speaking for my own personal experience. Elizabeth thank you this has been a phenomenal conversation I feel like we barely just scratched the surface so we might need to have you back on for another episode um but please if anyone is interested I will I will tell you she's active on LinkedIn as well and would probably welcome your connection. I would welcome the connection I would welcome that I would welcome an opportunity to talk about what's after the great resignation so yes yes and yes thank you. What a teaser after the great resignation I love that. Well Julia I knew I knew she was going to miss a phenomenal episode but she will be back tomorrow and as will I Jarrett Ransom the non-profit nerd if you missed today's episode or you missed parts of it or you think you might have missed an unnugget of information that Elizabeth dropped please do go back to any of these platforms we're on Roku YouTube Amazon Fire TV Vimeo and we are just shy of showing up as holograms in your living room and on your couch with you we're working on we're working on that software next but the non-profit show is going and growing strong coming up on our 500th episode again thanks to uh to you Elizabeth as our guest today and thanks to all of our sponsors that continue the investment not only here in these episodes and the conversations but the sector at large so again I'd like to acknowledge blimmering and American non-profit academy also fundraising academy non-profit nerd your part-time controller staffing boutique non-profit thought leader and the non-profit atlas thank you to our sponsors again these companies exist to help you do more good in and around and throughout your communities to support your greater mission as do we each and every weekday again it started as a labor of love and now it's what I love waking up to to have high level conversations like the one we had with Elizabeth today thank you Elizabeth and thanks to everyone that joined us thank you so much yeah it was fantastic and we end every episode and I will continue to do so to please stay well so that you can do well thanks again and we'll see you back here tomorrow