 Thank you for being here. I am so glad, Skye, that you are here. Skye Mercer, CEO of Skye HR Consulting. She's amazing. I've worked with her many, many ways with many clients. And today Skye's here to talk to us about creating community in the workplace. So before we dive into the conversation, thank you to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy that created this beautiful platform of conversation. We have more than 500 episodes that have been produced live and then recorded. I am privileged and honored to serve alongside Julia as the co-host. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. And we are also honored to have the continued support of our presenting sponsors. Thank you so very much to Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy, Nonprofit Nerd, your part-time controller, the Nonprofit Atlas, Nonprofit Thought Leader, as well as Staffing Boutique. And we just had Staffing Boutique on yesterday, fantastic conversation with Dana Skirlock talking about the workplace and hiring. And so your conversation today, Skye, right on cue. If you miss any of these episodes, are you say, hey, I wanna listen to that again because Skye is amazing, just like Jarrett warned me. You can find us on Roku YouTube Amazon Fire TV and Vimeo. But wait, there's more. It's my favorite thing to say, Skye. It reminds me of the whole, like, ShamWow. ShamWow. There's more. So you can listen to the Nonprofit Show now wherever you stream your podcast, just tell Siri or whoever lives in your little smartphone, cue up the Nonprofit Show and we will be there. So check that out because today's conversation, again with Skye Mercer is going to be one for the books. You're going to want to grab a pen, paper, however you take notes and really just pay attention because Skye is going to share with us really about, you know, creating community in the workplace and what that looks like. So welcome. Thank you so much, Jarrett. I am really grateful to be here. And I love that you and Julia have this format for nonprofits to share and learn, exchange ideas. We are in this together. And so I love that you've created a space for collaboration. Thank you so much. And Skye's been on several times since March of 2020 and we keep coming back to her because you're such a wealth of knowledge. You know, when we started this, it really was a labor of love. And I've said this before, this isn't new. It's been a labor of love. And now I find myself waking up loving the opportunity to have these high level conversations with thought leaders like yourself. I mean, you are joining us from Iowa, is that correct? Yeah, yeah. So I'm a virtual HR consultant. I focus primarily on mission driven small businesses, nonprofits and local governments. And interestingly enough, the bulk of my clients are actually in Arizona, Washington, Idaho and a couple other states because people just, you know, I've lived in Arizona, I lived in Oregon, I lived in Washington, I lived in Idaho and then now I live here in Iowa with my husband and his multi-generational family has lived here for a long time. And so yeah, you know, with the onset of online work, it's allowed me to maintain nonprofit clients in multiple states, which is just awesome. It's fantastic. So you are available anywhere. I just tagged you, I think yesterday in a Facebook group, someone was really in need of some HR service, had no idea where to turn. And I said, I do. So share your information. I love that you're virtual. I think that's fantastic because you are available. Now let's talk about as we build community, you know, we hear sometimes Sky, you know, we are a family. My workplace is a family. Can you talk to us about the team, you know, and the realistic viewpoint maybe or a family versus community, what's different, what's good, what should we be alarmed with? Talk to us about this. Sure. So I don't know about you, but I like most employees. I'm not looking for a second family to pay me a paycheck. So there's a unique distinction between a family and the company or a nonprofit. I mean, my family doesn't pay me. So that's a big distinction, right? I think difference, yeah. Yeah, it's a huge difference. Yeah, that's not what I'm looking for. That's not what most employees are looking for. So speaking broadly, and this does not apply to everyone, but when we think about the typical characteristics of a family, typically a family isn't chosen. Typically boundaries are super challenging. There's no payment involved. Like I said, you don't typically fire your family and you don't typically quit your family, although all of those things are acceptable and everyone's different and sometimes having a family is a privilege and sometimes having a family is a challenge. But the word that I think encompasses what nonprofits should be looking to build is a organizational culture of community. So when we look at a family versus a community, a community is built on trust. It's built on shared values and mission. There are agreements for how we agree to treat each other. And I mean, that could have helped in my teenage years with my family. We have to establish boundaries because there are positional power dynamics at play here. It's a place where we're creating a community of choice. We're creating a community of empowerment, of feedback and creating systems for healthy feedback, healthy communication. So for me, when I think about family versus a community, they're very different things from my perspective and the community is really where it's at. Yeah. Skye, you're very involved and active on LinkedIn and you're sharing not only your own thoughts and perspectives, but so many great thoughts and perspectives from other leaders. And I remember seeing this concept written and I apologize. I think it was written by you, I'm not sure, but that is exactly what I was like. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about this on the nonprofit show. Let's put it on the airwaves. This is a topic that really needs to be discussed because so many of us in this organization, and I will admit, Skye, when people say what took you to nonprofits, I grew up in a small town. My parents typically knew what happened at school before I even got home because it was such a small town. I mean, the joke is, and this is really not a joke, it's reality, but my first speeding ticket, my dad knew about it before I was even sitting down at the dinner table, you know? And so it was like you couldn't get away with anything, but for me, I loved being known. I loved that small town feel, and I feel that I do get that in the culture of nonprofit. I feel the nonprofit culture and community really is about the person and not the number, right? And so seeing this differently, family versus community, I appreciate the difference there. So let's move into this employee feedback. How might we ask our employees for feedback knowing that now we're building this community, right? We're really focused on that community. So how do we go about this? Yeah, feedback is critical. And so communities hold each other accountable, right? But we have to co-create our accountability agreements. We have to co-create how we plan to show up with each other. We can't just have leadership come in like back in the day and say, hey employees, we're not gonna ask for your feedback, but here's how we are going to be a community. Here's our values, here's our mission, here's our team agreements, here's our charter, like we're ready to go. So that can't happen anymore, right? It doesn't fly. It's not healthy, it doesn't create a community that's co-created. So it's so, so important to involve employees at every step of the way and ask for feedback up front. Feedback has to be created as a system. We have to create systems for feedback because that way the communication can flow easily. If we're just like ad hoc giving feedback here and there, it doesn't work. So what I mean by system, I'll give an example, although every organization is different based on the nonprofit size and budget, a system for feedback would look like this. There's an annual employee survey that's asking about how satisfied employees are with pay, benefits, do they feel valued? Are they receiving proper professional development opportunities? Do they feel trusted? So that's built in, it's baked in. It's something we do every year, something that we act upon after we get the feedback too, right? Then we have quarterly discussions between a supervisor and their employee where they sit down, maybe they go off site, they have a checklist to go through where they're talking and giving each other feedback. Feedback's the two-way street, the supervisor's giving direction, you're co-creating goals. So it's a system, right? Every quarter we sit down and do this. Then there's team meetings, depending on the size of the team and the needs, it could be that you're meeting weekly. At the end of every team meeting, maybe you debrief, maybe you share feedback. It's a system for feedback. Weekly check-ins, 15 minutes, how can I support you? What's going well? What's not going well? There's a system for feedback. So we have to create these spaces, they need to be baked in, they need to work for the nonprofit that you're in and for the person that you're working with and the role that they're in. But we've got to create opportunities for feedback. My number one favorite tool for feedback right now is an employee stay interview. Nonprofits are really grappling with turnover and we're going through the great reshuffle, right? Many people are changing jobs, we're seeing turnover at nonprofits have so much to offer as competitive advantages when it comes to recruitment. But to find out, like I hate when we get to an exit interview, right? Like to me, that's when I know with a good employee, we failed. When we're watching them walk away, we're happy for them as a person, but we're like, oh, we're sitting down as an exit interview. Why didn't we sit down for a stay interview six months ago and talk about, are you thinking about leaving? What would make you decide to stay? What can I as your supervisor or HR person or whoever do to improve your work environment? So that feedback is critical to creating our communities. I love that. And I remember hearing the stay interviews six, eight, nine months ago, like really considering this because one of the things you just shared is creating these systems for feedback. And we can do that, but as I'm thinking through this, what if the supervisor leaves? What if the employee leaves and the quarterly meeting doesn't take place in Q4 or whatever that might be because we are seeing this great reshuffle. We're seeing a lot of different opportunities for talent to find a new career, a new position, a different position, a higher position. So really these employee feedbacks and we're gonna have to have you on again to talk about those stay interviews because I can see that there's so much value in that conversation. We are just flying through this episode. It's only 30 minutes, but let's talk now about the three things in which we should be prioritizing in our current economy. What are these three things that we really need to have top of mind sky? Yeah, so it is a challenging time for nonprofits and I see so many nonprofits that I work with and small businesses that I work with that are doing really great things to improve organizational culture. I just am delighted to see the leadership I'm seeing show up and do these things. And where I'm seeing them focus is really starting with a mission to improve organizational culture through turning their mission and values inward into the organization. So if we are creating, say our mission is to create a livable wage for folks who haven't had homes or to place them into permanent housing, then we certainly should be paying employees a livable wage and ensuring they're well taken care of in those ways. And so that's just a rough, rough example. We could do that for every single nonprofit value. The value of diversity, how's that showing up in our workplace? The value of respect, how's that showing up in our workplace? And so really organizational culture based on applying the mission and values to employees and volunteers is like number one. And that's gonna look different for everyone. And then the two other areas to get simple but also very complex is there has to be a focus on pay, nonprofit financial sustainability for employees. That's a very big topic, a very challenging topic. And it requires funders to look at things differently. It requires the government to look at things differently. I always say overhead is programs. The people who run the programs are the programs. Do not add a position unless you have a five year plan for pay. Like please let's look at it a little bit differently. And the really, really rough part of that and I don't wanna gloss over it is when we have somebody come in to an organization, like I'm working with an executive director right now who is doing this brilliantly. They're a passionate mission driven, heart driven person but they also have a financial mindset. They understand that they need to look at billing the grant more and they found opportunities for that. They need to look at employee pay raises. They found opportunities for that through managing through attrition. So they're doing things in a different way. And yes, that sometimes means that the program shrinks or the program looks differently but the people are taken care of and then they're better able to take care of the participants. So I know that's a lot to unpack there before I get to the third item. Yeah, but that is brilliant. And I am a huge advocate for the pay to be accurate competitive that there's no pay gap. That's really important. I am gratefully part of a conversation now that we're really looking at compression pay in the workplace and we're doing an entire compensation study to identify, okay, where are all of the staff? Because it's really sad to see that some are not being paid a livable wage. And how do we allow this? And so really it's looking at, you know the low to middle range paid people not touching the highest paid people but right sizing, right size pay, you know right there where it matters. And that's typically, you know that direct client engagement staff. So you're right so much to unpack with all of us but take us home with number three because there's a third priority. Number three is to me it's easier, flexibility. I just gave a workshop yesterday for a trust up in Walla Walla Washington they're called Sherwood Trust. They're one of the good ones. They're doing great things in the community. And we did a four part nonprofit leadership webinar series and the last one was creating flexibility without breaking the bank. Flexibility does not look the same for every organization, every job, every person, every budget. So I don't wanna paint too broad of a brush here but there are things that can be done with regard to flexibility that are low cost, low commitment to increase autonomy, increase control empowerment that employees have over their work prioritization and what they work on and when they work on it. And so this has been an area that in my experience and I think we've talked about this before Jared, nonprofits typically do a fantastic job when it comes to this type of thing. Flexible holidays, flexible work, scheduling to the best of the positions and organizations ability. I've been a part of nonprofits where I've specifically taken a pay cut because of the nonprofits flexible community type environment. And so if you're gonna work on anything this year or culture pay flexibility, those would be my areas of focus to really focus on attracting and retaining the best employees in your nonprofit. The flexibility is so key. And again, with our conversation yesterday, staffing boutique, it's being talked about in the negotiation and not just new employees coming into the fold existing employees saying, hey, wait, I wanna do things differently. I am now ready to use my voice and speak up to say this flexibility that we've all experienced during COVID, the height of COVID, I want more of that. So you've done a survey, I wanna say Sky out on the LinkedIn. Well, like what are you seeing by way of flexibility and that negotiation for both the new employee as well as the existing? Can you talk to us about that? Sure, yeah, I just, yes. So I did a LinkedIn survey a while back to see if people liked 100% remote versus hybrid versus in-person. And there was not a large portion of people who wanted in-person only. And then yesterday during a workshop, I did a survey and found that it was primarily leadership in the workshop. And over these past couple of years, there's been a lot of research around, oh, there's a disconnect between leadership, wanting flexibility and employees wanting flexibility. Well, in this group of leaders, we're talking flexibility was very important to each of these people or moderately important to each of these people. There wasn't anybody who said, no, I don't really need flexibility in a job. So I think what we're seeing is even leaders, potentially even executives shifting toward that, yeah, flexibility is really nice. Some of the nonprofits that I'm seeing do it well. They're advertising flexibility in their job ads. They're even saying things like work from home up to two days a week after six months successful onboarding or work from home three days a week or remote in the state of Arizona or remote in the state of Oregon. So really putting it upfront with people who are joining the organization. And then for existing employees, I think that's been a little bit of a shift and a challenge, but I'm seeing even like six months ago where we were as nonprofits and HR kind of working through these things versus now where we are, it's much more becoming the norm to just allow the flexibility and really that shift toward outcomes. I always say outcomes rather than attendance. So what are we achieving? What are we getting done? Are we being accountable? Are we honoring our work agreements? And can we do that whether or not you see our faces? So yeah, it's been a really cool workplace evolution. Yeah, a big one. And that's something huge for me. My why is freedom, flexibility and travel. So for me being able to work the times that work for me, take the time to spend with my family when that's a critical piece. And I also find that I'm more of a morning person. And so when I can identify my power hours, if you will, of when my brain is really all pistons firing at the highest possible way, that to me is in the morning. And so when I can shift my schedule with that flexibility to say, okay, I'm gonna have these power hour work times in the morning. After two, that's when my brain shuts down. And that's when I can start doing some of these more mundane tasks and responsibilities that don't tax my brain. Because my brain is taxed in the morning, it is firing again with all those pistons and so really looking in the afternoon, I need to be able to write size in my schedule and my day in a way that really allows for the greatest highest effectiveness and productivity on those times of the day that just, they just come natural to me and then be able to fill in the remainder of tasks that aren't so brain-taxing. Yeah, and each person is different, right? So everything you just said, I'm like almost a night and day opposite. Yeah, it is so good to know that with your team. It is so good to know that with your team. Exactly. And in fact, you know, I would think, it's a great guide that you really wanna have a team made up of such a diverse group of those power hours and so genius because that's when you really, you know, you have this comprehensive, holistic team, community supporting one another. Yes, oh, support, love the word, support. That's what community is about. Well, there's so much to unpack here. I think we've done a fantastic job giving, you know, our time, so these three areas, you know, you heard it from Sky, again, you can go back and find them on our channels. And, you know, if you're like, what exactly was it that she said? What were these three? What were, you know, how do we build community and kind of move beyond that family? This is such a great conversation to play back not only for yourself, maybe for your team, maybe for your board, maybe for your leadership. Right. I can't share that anywhere. Sky, thank you. Thanks for all that you do. SkyHrConsulting.com, check it out. Virtual HR, literally here in your community, wherever that might be to help provide support. So SkyHrConsulting.com, thank you for being here. Thank you, Jared. So great to be here. Always, always an honor. And thanks again to Julia Patrick for creating this amazing platform for discussion and conversation, like the one that you just witnessed with Sky Mercer. Thrilled to be a co-host with Julia here. And I'm thrilled to share, I'll be broadcasting live. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. I feel like that's the breaking news here. Broadcasting live in Las Vegas next week, May 2, 3, and 4. And so I will be there on the show floor of the AFP icon with Bloomerang, one of our presenting sponsors. And just again, honor to be there. Honor to be in real life. It's gonna be a family reunion. I'm using family again here of that community support because so many of our leaders, we have not been able to see each other in person. So Bloomerang, I'm super excited to see you and be there on your show room floor. American Nonprofit Academy, thank you so much. Fundraising Academy, you're gonna be there. So get ready for those in real life hugs. They're not gonna be virtual hugs. They're gonna be like real juicy, embraced hugs. I'm excited for that. Nonprofit Nerd, your part-time controller, the Nonprofit Atlas, Nonprofit Thought Leader, as well as Staffing Boutique. If you haven't checked these companies out, please do because just like Sky, they are here to help you move your mission and your people forward in around and throughout your community. So, Sky, again, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love to be a friend and I'm honored to have you here as a guest, so please do check out Sky and all that she's offering. Connect with her on LinkedIn because I can guarantee you she is always pushing out some really, really good like conversations, so thank you for that. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Jared. I just adore you. I love what you do and I'm so grateful to know you. Yeah, same, glad to know that we're in this together and for all of you that have joined us, we are here to support you. We'll be back here tomorrow and until then, please stay well so you can do well.