The gap between declared culture and felt culture, with Leah Lenihan

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Morning, Leah. [00:00:02] Speaker B: Good morning, Chris. [00:00:03] Speaker A: How are you? [00:00:05] Speaker B: I'm good, I'm good. We are coming into the end of the year, so I'm looking forward to getting kickstarting 2026. [00:00:13] Speaker A: Yeah, but say what? Before we hit 2026, I'm looking forward to, like I was going to say, two weeks of putting my feet up. But similar to you, I've got, you know, I've got a few children and I don't think it'll be much putting feet up. I'm looking forward to a little bit of recharge at least. Hopefully you get the same. But, Leah, thank you so much for joining me on the Employer Land podcast. So today we've got Leah Lenihan. Can you introduce yourself first and foremost for, you know, there'll be lots of people who know who you are, but, you know, for the people that don't. Yeah, can you just give us a brief intro, please? [00:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So I, I'm Leah, I'm Irish, I'm originally from Cork. I live in London. After taking a very long haul route here through first of all to Belgium, then to France, then through Greece and spent some time in the Middle east and then landed myself back in London, I fell into employer branding or recruitment marketing through the sort of backdoor route of being based at hotel level, working in marketing for hotels. And then seven years ago, Marriott was looking for somebody in recruitment marketing that had a background in hotels. So I sort of dovetailed nicely. It kind of one of those rules that opens up just as you're looking for a role that sort of makes sense at the time. [00:01:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:33] Speaker B: I think it's funny because whenever you speak to people in employer branding, there's always a. How did you end up in employer branding? It's always a strange routine, right, where people came in through some sort of back door. [00:01:43] Speaker A: So many different doors have been taken, haven't they? [00:01:45] Speaker B: Yeah, down the chimney, something like that, yeah. So I've been. I work, I spent six years with Marriott focusing on employer brand and recruitment marketing for emea. So that's everybody from Iceland all the way down to South Africa. So quite a lot of markets, big focus on localization, regional context. Basically translating our global EVP and deploying that across India. Lots of very interesting markets in there. Right. Some that are kind of local recruitment, others that are expat, recruitment driven. So just a. Generally a very interesting role. Right. Where depending on the time of the year, the month, we're talking different conversations of very different strategies. [00:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. And that localization, regional context, Piece I think is super relevant for what you and I would like to talk about today. So let's get straight into it. So we're going to be talking about from promise to felt culture. So why EVP only works when people actually experience it. So the first kind of area that, if you're okay with it, Leah, I wanted to kind of dive into was, you know, I suppose why a single global EVP can often fall short without that territory, team level nuance, that localization you were kind of talking about a couple of moments ago. But yeah, you know, first and foremost, your kind of thoughts around that topic. [00:03:21] Speaker B: So it's funny because I again, I guess because this is an area I sort of drifted into when my role was originally created at Marriott, it was because we were looking at this global EVP and there was pockets where that wasn't necessarily landing. So when you looked at that kind of global evp, it was like, well, it sets the direction, but it's not necessarily telling our people on the ground or our HR leaders on the ground how to navigate within their own markets, right? Because you can create this amazingly beautiful EVP in the boardroom, wherever your headquarters is, with an expectation that it's going to land everywhere. But then when you think about your employees, they're obviously living their day to day within their own culture, within their own frontline context, and they're not living in your boardroom. [00:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose that's the whole point, isn't it? Like the EVP needs to be like a fundamental kind of level for it to work. It needs to be felt, felt by everybody that has a touch point, you know, with it. And so with that in mind, where do you most often see global EVPs, you know, that maybe haven't got that territory or localized nuance, you know, where do you see them breaking down Sometimes? [00:04:33] Speaker B: I mean, I think sometimes they break down in big, deep, meaningful ways. But others, it could be really, really basic, right? Where we've taken, let's take translation, right? Which is a thing that I think most businesses that operate globally will battle against, right? Is that, you know, translation itself, taking the meaning or the pillars of your EBP and then translating them, right? So you can obviously take a literal translation, but they, that might not deliver the nuance that you're looking for. I think if you look at that kind of global promise, right? So if I look at a married example, right, Belong is one of the pillars of their evp. But if you think about it from that context, right, in Europe, in the Middle east and in Africa, belonging can mean a very different thing to people. So whilst that might be the promise, right, people have a different lived reality on the ground and that is of course going to impact their interpretation. I think when we look at a lot of that, you look at sort of trans creation as opposed to translation, which sounds like a sound bite, right? But it's a meaningful, it's a, it's a very big differentiation, right. When you're talking about here's our material and this is what we want it to look like, sound like, and this is how we, we want to deploy it in this area. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. And, and in your experience, Leah, you know, where you've maybe seen this work? Well, maybe not so well, whether that's in a company you're, you're working for or, or you've observed externally or whatever. But how does that, how does that work in practice, do you find? So you've used that kind of Middle East, North Africa kind of territory versus maybe North America or, or Europe or whatever it may be, you know, is that typically in your experience, you know, is the global EDP managed by like a central hub somewhere, Maybe it's the, you know, London headquarters or whatever it may be, wherever in the world, doesn't really matter. But then do you have boots on the ground in these localized territories that are feeding back to that global evp? You know, how does that, you know, from a, from a, from a leadership and, and information gathering perspective, how does that tend to kind of work in your experience? [00:06:41] Speaker B: I think it's that it's, it's the allowance for nuance, right? Because your evp, it's really easy for that to become posters on the wall, right, that it's, it's visible, but people generally ignore it or they walk past it. And I think what, what's really important, right, is that you've defined what are your core truths, right? Whether what's your purpose, where do you sit in the sustainability space? What does belonging mean for you as an organization? But you've taken it and you're empowering the local teams to interpret that for themselves. So it's not that like is it global? But it's, it's, can your people on the ground see themselves in it and can they identify with something in the material? So that's sort of like you have that initial declaration, right? This is our evp, these are our pillars and this what's important to us as an organization, right? Then there's a piece around, how do we translate this? And how is it, how is it interpreted in these translations? And then lastly, it's kind of that testing piece. Right. So when we deliver it to the different markets that we're operating in. [00:07:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Does it translate into the local realities of the people who work for us in their day to day job and what they're doing? [00:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Because I could imagine a scenario where, you know, a global EVP delivered not quite in the right way into, into these individual regions. You could potentially find yourself with a lot of disengagement, couldn't you? This is an assumption I'm making. But. And then the cascading kind of issues that come with that, you know, culture and otherwise, they could be pretty catastrophic. But is that, is that, is that something to be really mindful of when you are delivering these kind of, you know, big EDP pieces into territories? Just making sure you do get that cultural nuance delivered correctly to make sure this engagement is something that you've kind of got front of mind. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think people listening can identify with this whether they're sitting at the global level or whether they're sitting on the ground in receiving the work. Right. It's that if the local team is pushing for a change, which is common. Right. And saying, you know what, this doesn't feel right for us, or we are very far removed from this global narrative, then that's a signal to you as a business. Right. It's not that it's a threat to your work or to your EVP and everything that's been created. It just means that the global promise that is not mapping to the lived reality in some or all of your markets. So this is where you have the opportunity, Right, to open up that dialogue. Right. It's not about enforcement and pushing it down the line. It's that you can open up the dialogue and say, like, how do we adapt this? How do we put that level of nuance and transparency in it for it to be usable for that local market? Because the reality is, right, it's much more inefficient to break the trust and have to rebuild it than, than necessarily create that nuance before it's deployed. [00:09:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So in regards to like creating these territory level value propositions, TVPs that honor the local realities that we're talking about staying true to the core brand. At the same time, because you're kind of connecting this huge piece to these local areas, it needs to kind of, you know, stay true to the local realities and stuff. You know, what, what should Be if any, you know, are there non negotiables, do you think, in, in a core evp, so that global EVP non negotiables and then what elements potentially of that can be adaptable kind of, you know, cascading that into territories? [00:10:25] Speaker B: I think everybody's always afraid of losing control, right? So to your point, right, it is about defining the non negotiables. So when you think about things like purpose, values and the core promise of your organization, those things need to stay fixed, right? These things aren't open for interpretation, but everything else is in a lot of ways open or it is adaptable within the translation. Right. So we need to look at the translation as transcreation, right, not as deviation. And I mean, that can be done obviously in ways that, you know, you're building a framework that allows you to kind of gather the local stories, right? A listening campaign to start with, then that sort of translation where you're mapping them back to the global evp and then that's sort of the campaigns that feel kind of local and yet globally consistent. [00:11:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because I think ultimately those pillars that you're, you're referring to there, they're, they're simply kind of basic guardrails, aren't they? The stories that actually, you know, come through each of those pillars, they're going to be extremely different, you know, across these different territories. But keeping the kind of chapters of the book the same is probably, it's pretty critical, isn't it? So, so is there a way that you can stop PVP's from becoming like these mini disconnected small brands, you know, because completely appreciate, like I'm with you, a huge advocate of creating this localized nuance. But there could be a danger of over time you do have these like, you know, tons and tons of these mini brands doing their own things. Is there a danger if this isn't managed in quite the right way that that could happen? [00:12:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think if you think about it, right, you don't want TVPs to dilute your global EVP, right? That's the, the end goal here. But it means that when you get those local insights back and you're getting the local stories back, they should be sort of mapped or laddered back up to their pillar or else they don't go in. Does that make sense? So, you know, I always think of that as that, you know, that kind of. We have lots of post IT notes and everybody wrote something on a post IT note. So those post IT notes should go into the three main headings. Three or four, Right. Depending on the brand. [00:12:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:12:41] Speaker B: If there's a few post it notes that are sort of left astray, then potentially they just don't go in. And then if you're finding that there's way too many post it notes to leave aside, then you have a problem. Right. Then that's when you really don't have residents of the global evp. But most of it should be able to say, well, this is evidence of belonging in this region and it belongs in that column. It just is a slightly different take on the campaign here, but the core truth remains the same. [00:13:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. That makes an awful lot of sense. And looking at that balance between consistency and flexibility across regions, cultures, functions, that type of thing, where should consistency show up more strongly? You know, if we're looking at things like language, values, behaviors, experience, you know, is, is there a particular, particular element where you think consistency should show up more strongly than maybe others? [00:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I always think that when you think about the guardrails, right, it should be behavioral, it shouldn't just be aesthetic. And I think a lot of people get hung up on the aesthetic. But at the same time, right, if, if you're low, if your global teams are resisting, if the global team is resisting giving the local teams more freedom, then they tend to have a governance issue, Right. Where there's lots of spin off and people don't. I'm not looking at EVP as a shared asset. Right. They're not looking at as this is something that we all share together. Right. And then you're starting to have this governance issue. But it's also, you know, have we defined a shared outcome? Right. Because if you think about ebp, ownership exists with both hr, but with comms and with marketing, it's not just an employer brand owned resource. So it's like, is everybody being measured on the same promise? Right. Is everybody agreed that we are aligned together to create something that feels natural for our people? Right. And then are our people looking at it going, yes, that sounds like me, or I can see, see myself in this material or I resonate with what's being said here. [00:14:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And how do you sense check that? And how often maybe do you sense check that, Leah? So, you know, making sure that this stuff is landing in those individual regions, you know, making sure that hopefully continuously these people feel like they belong, they feel included, you know, culturally, it feels like, you know, that region's in a good place and hopefully those people are going to stick around, you know, you're going to retain those people and it's a nice place to bring new people into all of that stuff. How do you sense check that stuff? What you know is, is, is there anything you measure? How often might you measure? Yeah, yeah. [00:15:30] Speaker B: I mean, I think it's interesting. I read a piece of research recently that said that only 23% of employees typically agree with their company's EVP promise. I mean, that's a really big gap, right? [00:15:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Only one in four. Yeah. That's crazy. [00:15:48] Speaker B: And I think when we look at things that we measure, right. We're really looking for something that's easy to pin a number on. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:55] Speaker B: But it's not always about, right. Engagement scores. It's about kind of are the safeguards in place to protect the promise. Right. So you're looking at things like engagement retention, advocacy metrics. I think it's Google that actually map their advocacy against their engagement score. Qualitative stuff. Right. So those sort of listening sessions, focus groups, social chatter. Right. Lots of things are said online that are anonymous. Right. So sometimes you get a kind of a more accurate picture of what people are saying on the various glass doors. Indeed. Review sites, those kind of places. But then it's also. Right. That sort of experience. Right. So you can obviously observe whether or not behaviors are aligning with your shared values. Right. And I say this because you see things like where you have the storytelling, for example, where you roll out the storytelling. Do other employees recognize themselves in that storytelling piece? Right. Yeah. But you know, are we asking employees, do you feel this promise in your day to day? Right. Are we asking pulse checks in engagement surveys? And again, that's a really easy pulse check. Right. And then it could be that, you know, you declare a value. So let's take innovation as a value. Right? So if innovation is a value, how do we recognize people for that innovation and how do we make sure that we don't? Kind of a system of fear that if they try something and they fail. Now we have a culture of fear around innovation. So actually we're not encouraging it because part of innovation would require also celebrating failure. [00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a really good point on that note as well, because there's a couple of things you said that really kind of, you know, struck a chord with me around, I suppose, creating a culture where you encourage that like constant feedback loop of like how people are feeling and are people still resonating with, with what's written down there and you know, do is the needle moving? And if things need to change, do People feel confident enough to be able to have those, you know, sometimes, you know, not awkwardly challenging conversations, but challenging conversations of like, look, I think we're trying to head in this direction, but I don't know if this is working. And, and I'll give you some honest feedback. So, you know, in your experience, is it really important that a leadership level that you create that really healthy kind of, you know, I suppose, openness to feedback kind of culture to make sure that this thing doesn't just, if it does start failing, it doesn't start failing really quietly under a carpet and then gets thrown onto glass door six to 12 months down the road when it's. Everything's too late. Is that something to be mindful of? Did you think or not? [00:18:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is, right, we have the nice things that we write in our handbooks, right? And we have the nice things that we write in our advertising material and our internal comms material. Right. But the reality is our culture isn't what we've written down in a PowerPoint slide or in a handbook or it's not even what we say when we stand up at town halls. It's basically what people live every single day, right? [00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:23] Speaker B: That is your culture, right? So you have the culture that you declare, right? That's what the leaders say. And then you have the culture that people genuinely live and then trust lives in the gap, right? So it depends how big or small that gap is. And like if we go back to that kind of example of innovation, right, As a value, if you punish employees for risk taking, then the value may be innovation, but the culture is fear. It's not, it's one or the other, Right. You can't. So you can only prove your culture is true in little moments, right? And that's how do managers respond to people? How do peers support one another or how do they recognize one another? And also how do you enable that part of your culture? Right. If you look at a culture of belonging, right. How do you create that sort of moment where people feel recognized in their day to day job. [00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:19] Speaker B: So like, you can tell the stories, right? You can tell stories. [00:20:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:24] Speaker B: But can you prove it though? Like I, if you're kind of listening to this now and you're like, well, where would I start? I, I would usually say if you went into your office tomorrow and you asked five people to tell you a story about where they feel your EVP promise. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Would those stories match what you would consider to be your values? And if they. That's where you start. Right? [00:20:49] Speaker A: Yeah, such a good point. And on that note, you know, how, how often do you think, you know, so a global EVP level, obviously we're talking about it cascading into these nuanced TVPs, but how rigid is that global EVP, do you feel? Or how often does it need to be refreshed? Or is it just a matter of constantly adapting? You know, what, what's the, you know, how fluid is this global thing? [00:21:16] Speaker B: I think this comes back to the, like your, your EVP doesn't necessarily need to be changed or adjusted every couple of years. Right. But I think that when we look at. There may be parts of your EVP that depending on what's happening in the world or the environment, you know, the country that the person is in, where we potentially need to kind of look at over indexing in one area, dialing down another, because that's the lived experience of the country at the moment. Right. It could be that that country is in financial difficulties. It could be that your organization in that market has had to do redundancies. You know, that all of these things impact our day to day culture. Right. So it could be that when we're looking at it that we're like, we really need to put more time and focus on this kind of belonging pillar and dial down our innovation pillar at the moment. Just because these are the two we've spoken about. Because we aren't investing so much in innovation at the moment because financially that country is not in a great shape. [00:22:16] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, so ultimately and again I've interpreted this. Right, but is it almost viewing it as this, as this thing that doesn't necessarily have a start date and an expiry date, but it's like this incredibly precious asset that you just constantly mot. That's the kind of. Is that more of a. As an analogy? [00:22:36] Speaker B: Of course. And I mean I think our culture and the atmospheres in our businesses and the atmosphere in our office. Right. That that is a living, breathing thing that small things throw it out. Right? [00:22:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So on the kind of, I suppose testing the experience, you know, making sure people are actually experiencing this thing, are there, are there certain signals that you think matter more than engagement scores? [00:23:06] Speaker B: I think this kind of goes back to that piece around the listening. Right. And that questioning of. Yeah, engagement scores I think of as one. Right. But there's also things like your retention rates. Right. Are we retaining people? What does your quick quits look like? Right. So is our external employer brand Is that mapping well into that first 30, 60, 90 days that people join us in the business? Right. How well are we delivering on that promise once somebody has started? Right. Because that's when EVP is truly felt. Right. Before that, it's just employer branding. But also those advocacy metrics, how much are people speaking about their experience in our organization without us having to script it? If you're running an advocacy program, how easy is it to enroll people in that program? Right. Or do people sort of hesitate and hold back because they don't really want to be seen to be saying something they don't believe is true? [00:24:07] Speaker A: Yeah. On the advocacy piece, Leah, you know, because I think we can both attest to the fact like, you know, it's crucial to try and define a strategy around advocacy. And that obviously feeds into everything that we're talking about, a fundamental kind of EVP global and territory level. But like you've just articulated, like getting people involved in on the advocacy piece can be a massive challenge. But so moving into like 2026 as we are at the moment, like knowing the importance of advocacy and people having a voice, hopefully that voice being projected and kind of listened to by the right people, how do we kind of build momentum on the advocacy piece without having to hold a gun to people's heads? Because it feels like a lot of the time, but that's the strategy that's in place. People don't want to do it, people don't want to get involved, but you have to. How do we try and create more momentum with advocacy and actually getting genuine buy in to that process? [00:25:14] Speaker B: I think in my experience, Right. Usually the biggest challenge of getting people to participate in an advocacy program, it's kind of twofold or threefold. Right. The first is confidence. Like they're kind of worried about what would they say, how would they say it, how do I, if I have to make a day in the Life video? Because those are quite common, Right. Like, I don't know how I would come up with 60 seconds and edit it and create it. And you know, it sounds monumental in their mind, especially if that's not your kind of reality of the type of thing that you do on a day to day basis. Right. If you're in marketing, maybe it is, but if you're in other disciplines, maybe not. But then the second is also like, and it's kind of building on that confidence piece of like, where will I find the time in my already really busy week to do this? [00:26:00] Speaker A: Yeah, right, yeah, absolutely. [00:26:03] Speaker B: So, and I think that probably where A lot of advocacy programs fall down is that they go straight to, we're going to identify 50 people in our business and we're going to send them all the same brief and then we're going to trace them and we're going to have them submitted onto SharePoint and then we're going to have them, we're going to scrutinize it, we're going to make sure that we're happy with absolutely every single aspect. We're going to go back with changes and then we're going to ask them to publish it. [00:26:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:32] Speaker B: So now you have an employer brand team that's trying to vet 60, 50, 60 posts and control everybody. And five people want to say. And oh, we don't want them to say that because that's not quite accurate, even though that's their lived experience. Right, yeah. But we kind of forget to just start small. Right. So could we start with just a photograph where the only learned skill is, you know, some suggestions of an angle for the camera. [00:27:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:03] Speaker B: Where we just want you to take a photograph of your day. Right. Or your project or something that struck you this week. Right. Whatever your prompt is. [00:27:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:12] Speaker B: And caption it and put it up on your LinkedIn. And this is how you post on LinkedIn that suddenly that becomes a very manageable task. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. You've broken it down into a bite sized chunk that actually I can do that. That's. [00:27:24] Speaker B: Yeah, like that's okay. I can achieve that. Right. And then next month we've kind of mastered the how to post and how to use the how to take a picture. So maybe next month we have, I don't know, a carousel of photographs. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That makes, that makes a lot of sense. [00:27:40] Speaker B: And then maybe the month after that we do something that's a bit more opinion led. [00:27:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Tell me about a project that you're working on or tell me about something meaningful that happened this year that's maybe more culture driven, for example. And then maybe after a couple of months we can get to. Can you record a day in the Life video now? [00:27:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Once you've got a bit of cadence, bit of momentum behind you and a bit of confidence in the process, then that kind of makes more sense. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Scary, right? Because you've seen that, posted that photograph or you posted that carousel and the world didn't burn. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. 100 on, on the point that you made really interesting point around, you know, utopia scenario. 50 advocates, 50 lovely bits of content, 50 potential LinkedIn posts to go out from those people and then you Know, you mentioned the layout which is so common. I see it all the time. You know, make sure that stuff gets vetted first. You know, it's okay, it needs brand guideline, nobody's saying anything they shouldn't say, blah, blah, blah. Is there a world where even in the largest, you know, company with the most red tape wrapped around it, where we can do away with that, where we can actually trust these people with a brief and say if you're able to do that and post that, we're just going to trust that you, you will do that and get it done. Is, is there a world where that, that, that could work? [00:29:03] Speaker B: I mean, I feel that first of all people can post anyway. You don't have control over that. But secondly, if we can start small and sort of train that, then eventually we can take off the reins. [00:29:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:19] Speaker B: So perhaps we can take off the reins before they get to a point that we're asking them to write an article or asking them to do a collaboration or to recognize a team member. So, you know, is on in those first couple of months when the confidence level is also lower. Yeah, but I mean if this person has submit content to us four or five times in the past and we've had very minimal change, do we need to continue to vet it? [00:29:42] Speaker A: Yeah, true, true. So, so some guardrails, ideally at the early stage of the process, get people confident in the process and what they're doing and then over time kind of just, just reduce those guardrails. Basically where you're. I suppose it's giving people the confidence, isn't it? Because I, I feel as though most of us any certainly include myself into this, but it's nice to have those early day guardrails just to know that you're kind of, you've interpreted this whole thing in the right way and we're moving it in the right direction. Once you've got momentum and you know that things are going well and you're doing the right stuff, having then the freedom to, to do, do what you like after that, that kind of makes, makes an awful lot of sense. [00:30:23] Speaker B: I mean, I would also hope that you get to a point that people advocate without being scheduled to advocate. [00:30:29] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, that becomes that. That's advocacy, isn't it? Yeah. As opposed to the gun to the head. [00:30:35] Speaker B: Like I kind of think of a program as sort of the training wheels. Right. Where we're just sort of helping people to get to that point and then allowing them to decide for themselves. Right. Because you want to get to a point where people say, oh, I just had a really great day in the office, I won an award, or we just finished an amazing project, or we landed a big client, you'd like them to just post that themselves by choice. [00:30:57] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course, that makes sense. So on, on that same point of like declared versus felt culture, is there anything that you've seen in your experience, whether internally or, or observed externally read case studies, whatever, but where leaders can unknowingly, like undermine their own evp? [00:31:19] Speaker B: I think that this, this all comes down to, right, that sort of recognition piece that leaders talk about, right? So if you were to ask your leaders, what is our evp and how does that show up in your day to day and then how do you make that show up for your team members? Right, like so for. And it's that point around those kind of micro moments, right? When something happens in our organization, good or bad, what is your response? Right. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:47] Speaker B: We recognize people when they succeed, do we support them when they fail, and how do we enable this to cascade? If that makes sense. So a lot of the time, right, if you think back even of your own work history, right, the moments that you felt recognized and supported are kind of the moments when something went really, really well or really, really badly. Right. We can recover from bad. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:13] Speaker B: When I look back at my hotel days, right, you would have always said like a, a guest stay that went well, maybe have been unremarkable because there was nothing to recover from, right? Something went badly and you dealt with it really, really well, then suddenly you have now an advocate, Right? [00:32:32] Speaker A: It's a really good point actually. And it must, in, in that line of work, it must be almost tempting to make certain things not work. [00:32:42] Speaker B: I kind of come back to the, to the innovation point, right? Like if somebody tried to show innovation and they did really, really well, have we now tried to embed that and showcase that this was developed because of the freedom that we create in our organization? Right. If something didn't go well or requires tweaking, but the idea was great, did we actually put some muscle behind it to actually make that succeed? Yeah, because that recognition or that spark of an idea is endorsed in this business. [00:33:10] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. So lit, to round things off, I just wanted to touch on a point of, I suppose like there's, there's a messaging versus experience trap potentially. So you know, where companies can over invest in campaigns, like unique campaigns, but under invest in, in reality, you know, what is it actually like internally? How do people actually feel inside? What are your thoughts around that we, we see a lot of campaigns running, you know, individual campaigns to solve an immediate problem sometimes is there's a hiring need for, you know, in, in the hospitality world. In one hotel they need 30 people to, to fulfill a certain type of job role. It needs to be done within two months. Like quick, let's get this campaign out. What are your thoughts about, about that the kind of, you know, campaign driven efforts versus what's actually felt felt inside and the importance of both sides of that fence. [00:34:08] Speaker B: It's funny, right, because if you think about campaigns, they're kind of easy to fund in some respects because they're visible. Right. We've created something that's glossy, that's attractive, but we don't always take the time to go back and invest in the sort of lived reality and in that big kind of organizational operational change. Right. So that's kind of manager training, you know, recognition systems, career pathways. Like often we do the EVP campaigns, we did the employer brand campaigns. They look amazing externally, but they really don't land internally because employees internally will be saying, but that's not actually my lived reality. Right, yeah. Lots of people or lots of organization kind of have moved in a direction and they're doing it quite well. Right. Of avoiding that trap by making sure that EVP is in employee experience. Right. And that could be things like flexible working policies, well being programs, manager enablement. Right. Creating that sort of independence for people within the organization that says well yes, actually I do feel that in my day to day because at the end of the day, right, it's not. Your employees aren't judging your EVP based on how pretty the posters are in your lobby. Right. They're judging it some their interactions with their manager. Right. They're judging it by how easy you make it for them to attend their children's Christmas play. [00:35:35] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. And I suppose that the temptation to fulfill those short term needs, those hiring needs ultimately can obviously have such a detrimental impact on the long term. Like there can be long term cultural effects, there can be disengagement like and, and also I think a lot of people also feel a sense of kind of, you know, how can you portray that to the outside world when that's not happening internally? So that need to kind of make sure there's at least some marrying of the two. It's important, isn't it? Leah, thank you so much for taking the time out. I know this time of year, particularly just before we hit the like festive break can be just so crazy, but yeah, I really appreciate you taking some time out. Thanks for joining me on the podcast. [00:36:25] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Chris. [00:36:27] Speaker A: All right, take care. Bye. [00:36:28] Speaker B: Bye.