Podcasts about Ultimate Software

In this episode of The Tech Trek, host Amir sits down with Shawn Stewart, VP of Engineering at Apartment List, to unpack the complex dynamics between individual contributors (ICs) and managers. Shawn offers a deep dive into career progression, fostering growth, and building aligned high-performing teams. This episode is packed with actionable insights for ICs and managers striving to improve their professional relationships, promote effectively, and maintain team cohesion. Episode Highlights: Understanding Manager-IC Dynamics (00:10) Shawn explains the nuances of the relationship between ICs and managers, highlighting mutual responsibilities for growth and success. Career Progression and Managerial Roles (01:41) Managers play a crucial role in shaping the career paths of their team members. Shawn delves into how managers can act as career enablers, providing guidance, feedback, and opportunities. Challenges in Manager-IC Relationships (03:59) Navigating conflicts, differing goals, and maintaining alignment between ICs and managers is key to a harmonious workplace. Importance of Calibration and Objective Evaluations (10:45) Shawn emphasizes the need for managers to calibrate team performance and conduct objective evaluations to avoid bias and ensure fairness. Promotion and Growth Strategies (16:52) Shawn shares strategies for promoting ICs effectively and highlights the importance of setting clear growth paths and expectations. Actionable Advice for Managers and ICs (20:58) Practical tips for managers to build trust and lead with empathy, and for ICs to communicate effectively and take ownership of their growth. Key Takeaways: Manager-IC Relationships Are a Two-Way Street Both parties must invest in understanding, trust, and open communication to thrive. Managers Are Career Enablers Their primary role is to align team goals with individual aspirations while providing mentorship and support. Calibration Ensures Objectivity Regular alignment on evaluations helps maintain fairness and prevents biases in promotions and feedback. Career Growth Requires Deliberate Effort Both ICs and managers must plan and execute career development strategies actively. Tune in to hear Shawn's expert insights and practical advice for navigating the challenges of the modern workplace. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode with your network! Shawn Stewart is a seasoned software engineer and entrepreneur with a track record of innovation and success. He began his career running his own software business and contributing to multiple startups with successful exits. As a software engineer at Sportline.com, later acquired by CBS to become CBSSports.com, Shawn earned over 15 software patents and contributed to major platforms like NFL.com, MLB.com, and the Emmy-winning March Madness on Demand. He has since led critical development initiatives at Fidelity Investments, LinkedIn, Ultimate Software, and Gusto. Currently, Shawn leads engineering at Apartment List, leveraging machine learning and generative AI to revolutionize the renter experience.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irietek/ ---- Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Tech Trek. We would appreciate it if you would take a minute to rate and review us on your favorite podcast player. Want to learn more about us? Head over at https://www.elevano.com Have questions or want to cover specific topics with our future guests? Please message me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand)

Armen Berjikly is a serial entrepreneur and the recently appointed CTO at BetterUp, a human transformation platform founded in 2013 that employs over 3,000 coaches to help individuals achieve greater clarity, purpose, and passion through expert guidance. Before joining BetterUp, Armen co-founded Motive, which was later acquired by BetterUp, and Kenjoya, acquired by Ultimate Software. He holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a master's degree in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.In this conversation, we discuss:The evolution of technology and its impact on the workplace over the past two decades.How Armen's early research at Stanford with professors Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves influenced his career.The development of Experience Project and its role in connecting people through shared experiences and emotions.The journey of Armen's companies, Kenjoya and Motive, and their contributions to understanding and improving employee experiences.Armen's insights on integrating AI with human interaction to enhance emotional intelligence in technology.The unique approach BetterUp takes in combining coaching, technology, and research to drive human transformation and organizational success.ResourceSubscribe to the AI and the Future of Work newsletterConnect with ArmenAI fun fact articleAn episode you might like about extending life with AI

Thomas Otter joined Acadian Ventures in March 2022 as a General Partner. Prior to Acadian, he advised companies such as Workday, Ultimate Software, Personio, and Unit 4, and collaborated with private equity and growth equity firms like Warburg Pincus, Scottish Equity Partners, PSG, and Goldman Sachs on M&A, strategy, negotiations, and diligence. He previously led the product management organization at SAP SuccessFactors, scaling it to over a billion dollars in annual recurring revenue, and served as a Research Vice President at Gartner Group, leading HR tech research. Thomas holds a Doctorate from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and the Strategy and Innovation Diploma from Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society. . A regular guest lecturer at various universities, Thomas grew up in South Africa and now resides in Heidelberg, Germany. He is also a collector of vinyl records and a lover of great music.In this conversation, we discuss:How a chance encounter led to a 30-year career in HR technology.The evolution of HR technology from the mainframe era to modern cloud-based systems.The intersection of ethics, compliance, and technology within HR.The strategic importance of HR in today's business landscape and its impact on the employee experience.The role of technology in automating administrative tasks to enhance employee satisfaction.Historical milestones in HR tech, including the first business application of a computer for payroll.ResourceConnect with Thomas Otter AI fun fact articleAn episode you might like about using AI to get ahead in your career 

Last week, a software update for Microsoft cloud services completely failed grounding planes, blocking news stations from broadcasting, preventing banks from accessing vital systems and more across the globe! Days later, there are still lingering problems. How do we avoid this in future? We spoke with our cybersecurity expert, Dr. Vahid Behzadan. Image Credit: Reuters

Dr. Jessica Kriegel talks with Aron Ain, former CEO of Kronos and UKG, to discuss his journey as a leader who has inspired countless individuals through his approach to trust, respect, and people-centric leadership. Aron shares insights on the evolution of his purpose, the importance of over-communicating, and how trust can be the magic glue in both personal and professional relationships. Tune in to learn about the impactful strategies Aron used to foster a culture where people love to work and his thoughts on the future of work in the age of AI. What Is Your Why: Aron Ain discusses how his purpose has evolved over the years, focusing on making a difference in his community, family, and friends. Leadership and Inspiration: Dr. Jessica Kriegel highlights Aron Ain's reputation as an inspiring CEO, referencing his book Work Inspired and his genuine approach to people-first leadership. Origins of Leadership: Aron shares his belief in treating people with respect and dignity, and how his leadership style developed from observing the impact of his actions. Trust as the Foundation: Aron elaborates on the significance of trust in leadership, how he starts relationships with trust, and the benefits of over-communicating. Strategies for a Positive Work Culture: Aron outlines practical strategies to create a great workplace, including open communication, walking the halls, and recognizing the privilege of managing people. Impactful Policies: The implementation and success of an open vacation policy at Kronos, demonstrating trust and flexibility in the workplace. Challenges and Successes in Mergers: Aron reflects on the merger between Kronos and Ultimate, the cultural differences, and lessons learned from integrating two great organizations during COVID-19. Future of Work and AI: Aron and Jessica discuss the evolving nature of work, the impact of AI, and the uncertainty surrounding future workforce dynamics. Personal Reflections and Legacy: Aron shares personal stories about his leadership journey, the importance of gratitude, and how he wants to be remembered not just as a CEO but as a great dad, husband, and friend. Aron Ain is the former CEO of Kronos and UKG, known for his people-centric leadership approach. Under his guidance, Kronos and Ultimate Software merged to form UKG, one of the most successful mergers in software history. Aron is also the author of Work Inspired: How to Build an Organization Where Everyone Loves to Work. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aronain Jessica Kriegel: Website: https://www.jessicakriegel.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicakriegel Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jess_kriegel/ Culture Partners: Website: https://culturepartners.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/culturepartners/

Too many property management entrepreneurs fail to realize the potential for technology to increase the operating margin in their property management business.  Property management growth expert Jason Hull invites Lindsay Liu to discuss how property management entrepreneurs can utilize technology to make their lives (and the lives of their tenants and owners) WAY easier by automating administrative tasks. You'll Learn… [01:39] Meet Linday Liu, the Technology and Real Estate Investing Expert [03:42] The Ultimate Software for Multi-Family and Governance [08:13] Diving into the Features of Super [17:19] The Biggest Challenge in Property Management: TIME [22:00] How is Super different from Other Software? Tweetables “When I think about what makes the property management industry so challenging… time is your biggest premium.” “And at the end of the day, what are people best for? Dealing with the human side of things.” “It's better to be extremely good at a small number of things than it is to be mediocre at a wide range of things.” “The amount of care that needs to go into maintaining a healthy building is just inherently more complex when you have more stakeholders and parties in a multifamily set up.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Lindsay: When I think about what makes the property management industry so challenging, it really is time is your biggest premium, right? It is a very manual and people oriented set of tasks, right, that need to be done. And at the end of the day, what are people best for? Dealing with the human side of things, right? And so where can we come in? We can come in and help them with all of the other type of administrative, repetitive work that is not as high value from a people perspective, but is definitely very high value from an operational perspective. [00:00:29] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to The DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:01:07] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:31] All right, today my guest is Lindsay Liu. Lindsay, welcome to The DoorGrow Show.  [00:01:37] Lindsay: Thanks so much for having me today.  [00:01:39] Jason: So give us a little bit of background on yourself for those that don't know Lindsay, which is me as well. So tell us a little bit about you and then maybe how you sort of got connected to your business, and then we'll go into your business.  [00:01:52] Lindsay: Great. Yeah, I can go back in time a bit. So professionally, I've been in the technology space for almost 15 years now. So building, launching digital products on behalf of and with companies. So I've done that for folks like Google, Amazon, Mercedes-Benz, the MBA. And then I've also been part of growing the businesses that I've been on that side of, right, really thinking about finding product market fit, creating value propositions that make sense through the lens of technology. And then more recently ventured into the startup world. So I was at a FinTech startup for a bit, actually launched a whole new stock exchange and a software platform around that. And then it finally felt like time to build my own thing out. And the reason that I got into the property management space is that kind of alongside that professional track of work. I'd also been investing in real estate and properties. So I have everything from short-term rentals-- so I've been kind of Airbnb, vacation homes-- to long-term leases and tenants to having done some flips over time. And the common thread with that for me was really just that when you are dealing with the maintenance, when you are dealing with an investment and you're really looking to make that place a home. And a home that's going to grow in value over time. There was just a lot left to be desired in the technology space. And so I thought, why not bring these two passions together? Right? My expertise in technology, alongside my passion in real estate, and start to solve some problems for the space.  [00:03:24] Jason: Awesome. And being passionate about real estate is one thing, but also being super technologically savvy and into technology is a whole different thing. And so that's cool that you're able to merge these two things together and why don't you tell everybody what you came up with?  [00:03:42] Lindsay: Yeah, so I'm the co-founder of Super. Super is a software platform really geared for property management and what we're building is for the multi-family residential space.  [00:03:54] Jason: Okay. [00:03:54] Lindsay: So we're really looking to build tools that help with efficiency, productivity, streamlining communication, and transparency across all of the different players that exist in the ecosystem of maintaining a healthy building. So we have tools for property managers and their management teams. We have tools for sponsors and developers as well. And obviously for board members, owners, and residents of those buildings as well.  [00:04:19] Jason: Got it. So what makes this particular to multifamily instead of other niches in property management?    [00:04:27] Lindsay: Yeah, I think, you know, in my experience anyway, multifamily is a really unique situation, right? You have a group of people that are paying in for the shared maintenance and so things like repairing a roof, that decision becomes really difficult and more complicated when you're dealing with 50 or a hundred people that are part of making that decision and funding that. And so the governance and the amount of care that needs to go into maintaining a healthy building is just inherently more complex when you have more stakeholders and parties in a multifamily set up versus single family. And so we thought we would start with that pain point first. We definitely have big ambitions to continue to grow to support other types of real estate. But the multi-family space felt really like the place where we could solve some immediate pain points for folks.  [00:05:13] Jason: Got it. So when you talk about governance, this manages a little bit of the association sort of situation as well. [00:05:20] Lindsay: Exactly. Yep. So homeowners associations, condos, co-ops, really thinking about the types of tools that are needed to help accelerate decision making and help gain alignment as. Okay, cool. Random questions then. Would this work for HOAs that are not multifamily? Absolutely. We have built the tool with that in mind, knowing that we would need to expand into that. In the case of, you know, for instance, homeowners associations, I think that the level of types of challenges really depends on that community and how healthy it is on its own, right? So the number of shared amenities that you might have, the amount that you're paying in for that shared maintenance and for your common charges. And so, you know, I think if it's just you're paying in for lawn maintenance, that's a different type of responsibility set than if you have, let's say a pool with you know, many common areas that need to be maintained for that homeowner's association as well.  [00:06:17] Jason: Now, is this a tool that a property management company that already has some sort of property management software, they have rent manager or they have Resonant or you know, some sort, is this something that they would use in conjunction or is this replacing that? [00:06:33] Lindsay: I think we've really intentionally built the product to play very well and to play nice and be complimentary to whatever other suite. I think I deeply recognize that each management company already is going to have its own tech stack, right? Whether that's as simple as: we use email and we have a phone service and we use some out-of-the-box tools like, you know, maybe Slack or Trello or Basecamps, something like that. All the way to: we're using Yardi or we're using, you know, a number of other different types of software. I think our perspective on that is one of the challenges for management teams is how siloed a lot of these different solutions are, and the ability to really pull some of that data together and have that play nicely is pretty powerful on its own. [00:07:17] Jason: Yeah, I think integrations are going to be a big deal here in the future for property management. I feel like that's a space that's kind of lagged and there's a lot of companies that will integrate with vendors' property management software. But the challenge is trying to get the entire tech stack integrated can be a mess. [00:07:33] Lindsay: And I think that's exactly where I stand is from what we're trying to build the reason I've been pretty specific around that group that we're building for today, right? We're an early stage startup, is it's better to be extremely good at a small number of things than it is to be mediocre at a wide range of things as well. Right? So we really want to figure out what is the core that we're solving for? What are the biggest pain points that we should be building against, and be the experts in that. And then where we aren't, we want to make sure that we are playing nicely with the people that are the experts in that field.  [00:08:03] Jason: I agree. So tell us what Super does. Tell us about it. Tell us about the features... [00:08:09] Lindsay: mm-hmm.  [00:08:09] Jason: ...and how you can use it and what problems does this solve?  [00:08:12] Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. So at the core, I would say first thing is to really think about us from the lens of a productivity tool, right? So it's software that is supposed to help you save time, save money, and be more efficient. So from a property manager perspective, really this is about increasing your operational efficiency and therefore your operating margin, right? You'll be able to do more things in less time. And so to enable that, we built what we call like an operating core for sets of features and functionality that allow for that. So one of the main things that we're solving for right now is communication. And I think that is the piece that again, and again and again keeps coming up. When you talk to management teams and the residents it's a pain point on both sides, right? Where maybe a request is coming in and the resident is wondering "what happened with that? What is the status of it? Did it ever get done?" And then on the other end, the management team is saying, "I'm so busy getting the thing done. I just forgot to update you on that." Right? And so there's a lot of this unnecessary friction that is happening that we think is a great opportunity for technology to automate.  [00:09:19] And the other thing that we're doing quite differently is we believe that consumers today are quite tired of having to download another app or to learn a whole new experience in order to use something. And what we've realized is we should remove all of that friction and just use the tools that people like to use today and that frankly do work for that baseline communication. So people like to email, and they like to text. So we've built our entire platform around enabling communication around email and text. And what happens is our system is going to parse all of that information and give the managers a really nice dashboard that says "We recognize who this person is, they emailed in, and we're going to make that task automatically for you." So we're really kind of short-cutting some of those steps between if someone emails you today, you have to go look it up. Right? Which property they're in, who they're with, their history, and then you have to go and create that ticket. We do all of that automatically.  [00:10:11] Jason: Got it. So maybe to showcase this audibly, why don't you walk us through an example scenario involving all the parties and how it's facilitating the communication. [00:10:22] Lindsay: Sure. Let's take a really common one. Someone's got a leak, right? And they think it's the most urgent thing in the world, right? So what they would do if they are using Super, is the resident would either email or text the dedicated phone number that property has. So let's say, you know, I don't know, 1 23 HOA , right? Is going to email and say, "I have a leak in my unit." They don't even have to say, "I'm in unit one A or whatever." We recognize who that user is and we're automatically going to create the task in Super. For the resident, what's going to happen is because they emailed it in, we will automatically send them the confirmation, acknowledging receipt as well, and say, "Hey, we got this," and it will automatically be assigned to the property manager that is responsible for that. That property manager, right, will then get notified that they have a new task that's been assigned to them and they can go in and they can say, "okay, maybe I need to reassign this to the Super that's on staff, right, to go and take a look at this. Or maybe I need to bring in an external vendor, right? I maybe I need the plumbing company to come by and see if this is happening from something that we knew was happening with the toilet upstairs, above that unit," right? [00:11:29] So they can then bring in the appropriate parties and liaise with all of them within the platform. They can also update the resident within there. So they could just write back and kind of say, "Hey, we're on this. Don't worry, I'm going to send somebody out right now." And that resident's going to get an immediate paper trail of all of that communication. As soon as this issue is resolved, if the management team marks it as done, the resident's going to get feedback saying, this task has been marked as complete. So we're really closing those feedback loops, making sure that that communication, right, any of those gaps where we can automate with technology, we're using technology to do that. So it's just going to save you those minutes every single day on those repetitive types of emails and communication that have to be made so that you can just move on to doing something else with your day. [00:12:14] Jason: Okay, now what you described is like a really cool maintenance coordination tool. Right? So it's helping to coordinate maintenance. Does Super go beyond maintenance coordination, or is that-- [00:12:25] Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely, and this is where things start to get really exciting, right? So think about in that homeowner's association example, you have a board, they have to run regular board meetings. They have the annual owners meeting. We have templates that allow them to support that governance. So think about a task. There's a certain type of task, right? That is just about board meetings and owners meetings. And so what we'll do is we'll create that schedule for them. We'll set a preset agenda. They can update that at any time. They can add all of the board members to it. And then once those minutes are in there, they use that right to log the discussion that they had and next steps. That is saved, and you don't even have to go and create a separate minutes document. It's already there for you to go and look at over time. [00:13:07] For board members, we also have things like quick polling. So if you need to make a decision on something. I don't know about you, but the times that I've been on boards you're, you know, making a decision on an email thread that's already 70 emails deep, and by the time someone says, "Hey, can you all decide on this?" someone chimes in with something else, and suddenly you're talking better than a topic, and three weeks later, no decision has been made. So we're really trying to make everything very actionable and it's just, you know, it's the fact that if email is the most prevalent tool you're using, it's just not the right tool for creating actionable conversations, right? And so we're trying to build that tooling into a platform that is purpose-built for property management. We also have tools around, obviously all of your file management documentation and storage. That's I think, another challenge with email is you have turnover, you have, you know, for instance, board members that leave and all of that historical information today goes with them. [00:14:00] I'm still getting emails from boards that I was on years ago being like, "Hey, do you remember that vendor that we used for that thing? Do you happen to have that contract somewhere? You can look for it." That should never be something that happens with good governance of a building, right? So we centralize and store all of that information on behalf of the buildings. We help them keep their contact directories really nice and clean and updated. And then we have a whole finances component as well where we help them visualize these really simple real-time dashboards for what's going on with the association's health, how much are they taking in, how much are they spending every single month? You can kind of look at that throughout the year, dive into transactions, and then the next thing we'll be rolling out is the ability to accept and receive those monthly payments as well.  [00:14:45] Jason: Okay. Very cool. All right, so the two, it sounds like so far, I don't know if there's anything else, but the two big components of this are maintenance, coordination, and then the HOA governance and board meetings and documentation, storage and dashboards. [00:15:02] Lindsay: Yeah, I mean, if I think about the things that I wish I had as a board member in my previous-- and I've been on the board of three condos at this point, so I'm just pulling from those personal experiences. I wish that I had a way-- what was that?  [00:15:14] Jason: You're a brave person or a glutton for punishment. I don't know. There's a-- [00:15:18] Lindsay: I know  [00:15:19] Jason: --individual that chooses be on a board of an association.  [00:15:22] Lindsay: Well, you know, it's funny because the first time I joined, I remember a friend of mine being like, he was on the board of his co-op. He was like, "don't do it. Just don't do it. Like you're never going to have a life when you go home." And I was like, "I just feel like I'm really able to solve problems and I'm a really proactive person." then I got on and now I'm that person that tells people, I'm like, "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Like, good luck. Good luck to you," so when I think about the thing that I really wish that I had, right, it was that communication piece. I wanted more transparency and visibility into what the property manager was doing, the decisions that were being made, how things were going overall. I wanted that into our building's finances as well, right? How are we doing as far as our targets for what we wanted to be spending from an operating perspective versus how we are tracking? Do we need to think about doing things like raising the fees? Do we need to do things like leverage a special assessment, right? That type of planning. I really wish we had more visibility and transparency into that. Absolutely wish that we just had better governance around the documents, the history of the building, decisions that have been made previously, and tools to help us just operate in a healthier way as well. So we've really built around those cornerstones of what we think are the, kind of the building blocks, the foundation of what a healthy building. [00:16:36] Jason: Okay. Very cool. This sounds really great. So if people have a property management business and they're managing a large building, a multi-family building, and they're dealing with some of this drama, this would be a great tool for them to systematize things, bring the communication together, deal with some of the maintenance coordination, approvals communication transparency, and then also making sure that the meeting stuff is all held in one place. And I would imagine if property managers are implementing this, then this probably is a really great selling point for these property managers that are doing this work that they have this repository that's been built up with the association's help. [00:17:19] Lindsay: Absolutely. I think. When I think about what makes the property management industry so challenging, and I'm sure you have a point of view on this as well it really is time is your biggest premium, right? It is a very manual and people oriented set of tasks, right, that need to be done. And at the end of the day, what are people best for? Dealing with the human side of things, right? The kind of complex logic, the decisioning that needs to go into making sure that this group of people are happy and functioning. That's like totally something that you need a person to be able to manage. And so where can we come in? We can come in and help them with all of the other type of administrative, repetitive work that is not as high value from a people perspective, but is definitely very high value from an operational perspective, right? So where can we help streamline that? And I think that's a value proposition that resonates time and time again. If we say, I can save you minutes every single day on these 10 types of tasks, right? That ladders up to hours at the end of a week that you are saving and on top of that, your residents feel happier, you're going to have more stickiness and retention. These are things that will help the bottom line of a business.  [00:18:29] Jason: Now, I imagine when it comes to associations utilizing a software like this, rather than the property manager, so the property manager would just build this into their fee structure, I would imagine it's part of their services. They can say, "we have this cool tool and system." and they have an advantage because otherwise the association board members, there's always going to be the negative person that's going to try and like say, "Hey, we don't want to spend all this money on this technology or this software. Somebody can do this and we can figure it out ourselves." And how do you deal with that? [00:19:03] Lindsay: Yeah. You know what's interesting is even though we don't specifically target the individual board members in HOAs, we get a lot of inbound from them. [00:19:12] Jason: Yeah.  [00:19:12] Lindsay: People reaching out saying, "I really wish there was a better way. And so if anything, that gives me signal that the residents and the board members are looking for tools. They're looking for a better way to do things. And I think this is, when I think about technology in general and what's happening even in the enterprise space, we've been talking about this consumerization of IT, right? If I can get a Task Rabbit to come and fix a thing for me within 20 minutes and I can know every step of the way, and the payment's just settled, why can't I have that in every other aspect of my life? Why does that have to be so difficult when it comes to getting a plumbing repair done in my apartment? Right? That's the frame of reference that the resident is using is, well, I can get a card just to my door in five minutes with Uber. Like, why is this so difficult? I think more and more we're going to see that is the emerging expectation of residents. They're going to have these high expectations. They're going to expect things to just kind of feel like magic. And so the technology is a great differentiator, if anything, for these property management companies who say, "yeah we're with you on that, and we've already built that into our workflows." [00:20:16] Jason: Yeah. Got it. Cool. So I see on your website you have pricing for associations and for vendors, but really it sounds like you're just targeting people that are managing their own building. And that would be either they own the building and they are the property manager, they're an owner operator or people that are doing third party management. Is that accurate?  [00:20:37] Lindsay: Yeah, that's right, and I think, you know, we're an interesting tool for those that are more on the self-managed side of things, right? So if you're kind of on that cusp of I need some help, we don't take in enough dues to be able to support hiring a property manager. The software is a great solution for that, right? Where it can come in, it can help you take care of, again, a lot of that administrative, operational stuff give you the peace of mind that we've got your back on the main things that you have to get done. And we'll be a fraction of the price of a management company. The audience that we're really focused on building and kind of finding mutual success with, I think is the property management companies though, because at the end of the day, they are the ones that are responsible for just, you know, some of the companies that we work with and talk to, you know, thousands of units and thousands of doors, right? Where that isn't something that we can help find just even greater scale of efficiency with them. And that's great for our business as well, right? To be dealing with one core customer that's highly motivated to pull this into their business and to find the results of it. [00:21:40] Jason: Yeah. So even you would rather deal with one company instead of death by committee. [00:21:46] Lindsay: Learning from the past. We're growing and evolving here.  [00:21:49] Jason: Okay. Cool. Any other major questions that people might or usually ask about this software, about your technology that you want to make them aware of here on the podcast? [00:22:00] Lindsay: Sure. I think one thing that we hear quite a bit is: "how is this different from..." right? because there are other tools out there. I think one of the things that I would say is we're building for 2020 to 2023 even. Right? So we're really trying to bring best in class technology and engineering practices, thinking deeply about things like security, right? Like you've got information about where people live, about their roles in the building, about if they have kids and right all of their history here. That is really, really important actually, that you have a team that is thinking about the best practices for this modern age, where you've just got more and more kind of threats from a cybersecurity and digital perspective. So I would say that's kind of just one thing is just building best in class. Building from the ground up. And I think what we're also doing is we're really learning from all of those past experiences. We're learning from what has worked and we're also learning from what hasn't worked. We're trying to take a very user-centric approach there. And so even with our customers right now, I would say we are always co-creating. They have space to come and tell us what do they want in the roadmap? We feed that back to them. We kind of say, "here's the things we're thinking about," and we are shipping new things every single week. And that's like a really exciting time for us to be in where every single week there's something new to kind of go to a customer and say, "Hey, we now have this. We now have this." And it's a very rich and exciting roadmap ahead. So I think, you know, it's only going to get more exciting as we get into the next year and the beyond.  [00:23:25] Jason: Very cool. So some people might look at the pricing that might go, "you know, I don't know if we can afford this." How do you help people justify the cost? [00:23:34] Lindsay: Yep. There's a few ways, right? So one of the key offerings that we have for New York City buildings specifically, and that's where I'm based and half of our team is based out here, is there's a lot of compliance work that needs to be done. So inspections, filings, just, you know, disclosures that need to be sent. And I just think there's a level of need to stay on top of that in New York City that is just even higher than other places. Even especially, you know, there's new laws rolling up for energy efficiency standards, right? New regulation that really adds a lot of extra layers of complexity. So one of the things that we have done is we've automated those compliance workflows. So we actually can look backwards sometimes, see when you last did a certain inspection and give you a reminder automatically for the next time it's due. So that value prop is really simple. The cost of an average violation, we're probably going to be less than that. So if we can save you that money and that time and that headache dealing with it then that's a really clear one.  [00:24:29] For the property managers, I think it really does come down to we're saving you time. I talked to a boutique management company. This week and the owner operator was like, you know, "minimum wage is going up and with inflation and what's happening in the economy right now, I don't know that I can justify to my customers like they're not going to accept a rate increase, but my costs are going up, right?" I think that's a very real thing right now. And so for these teams to be able to operate with the quality of service they want to continue to maintain and to be able to do so in an environment economically where there's some constriction, there's a lot of sensitivity I think from the residents around price, right? Even on the rental side, just the cost of rent has skyrocketed. And there's just a lot of different factors there. If we can provide you with the way to be able to scale the number of customers that you can take on without having to increase headcount, that's a huge value add for your business. And so those are the types of conversations that I'm really excited to be having with management teams where there's a very clear value exchange of the ability for us to help them build their business and to be there alongside them for that. [00:25:35] Jason: Cool. So it's fair to say if somebody has a multi-unit building, they probably should talk to you guys. [00:25:42] Lindsay: Absolutely. You said it here, so thank you for that. [00:25:46] Jason: It sounds like you're doing some really innovative things, collapsing time, helping to systemize things. It sounds like it fills kind of a unique sort of gap in the marketplace between property management software and you know, what multi-unit buildings and associations over those buildings need and require. You know, the big challenge with associations though is the pet drama, like pets poop in places. Like that's the real stuff right there. That and packages, right? Those are-- [00:26:15] Lindsay: the packages... huge. Especially this time of year. That's something that I tell you, you know, I'm so glad we have such an amazing technology team. We want to figure something out there, because right now the only package scanning apps work. If you have full-time staff, right? If you have a porter there to actually scan the thing for you. So there's something interesting there that we're definitely trying to figure out. So maybe we can talk about that in the future. [00:26:36] Jason: That'll be a future episode.  [00:26:38] Lindsay: Exactly.  [00:26:39] Jason: You've got the pet poop and the packages.  [00:26:42] Lindsay: I first heard about the doggy testing kits like years ago. it was a thing in one of the condos I was on the board of, I was like, whose pet is on the stairwell--  [00:26:52] a database of dog dna, pet DNA inside of your software [00:26:57] See? That feels like priority number one. We'll get on that. [00:27:02] Jason: That's funny. Cool. Well I appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks for coming and sharing this technology with the DoorGrowShow audience. And I wish you success.  [00:27:13] Lindsay: Thank you so much and thanks for having me on. Our website is hiresuper.com. H I R E S U P E R.  [00:27:22] Jason: Perfect. Cool. Check out hiresuper.com if you have a multi-family building. All right, thank you, Lindsay.  [00:27:29] Lindsay: Awesome. Thanks, Jason.  [00:27:30] Jason: All right, so everybody go check out Hire Super. And we appreciate you listening to our show. Please like and subscribe if you're following us on some channels that'll allow you to do that. And please leave us some positive feedback and review. We'd appreciate it greatly. And check us out at DoorGrow. If you're wanting to grow your business, we highly recommend if you are in the single family residential space, check out our DoorGrow Code. Talk to our team and find out about the DoorGrow Code, which is the journey for an entrepreneur going from zero to a thousand plus doors. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.  [00:28:05] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:28:32] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Following the loss of her father to a drunk driver in 2009, Heather Geronemus took a leadership role with Mothers Against Drunk Driving of Broward County, ultimately becoming the chair of MADD's National Board of Directors and establishing the Annual Walk Like MADD and MADD Dash Fort Lauderdale event which has raised more than three million dollars for the organization. Heather also actively serves a myriad of other nonprofit organizations including the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and American Heart Association. Professionally, Heather's role as Senior Director of Social Equity, Opportunity and Impact at UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group), where she drives the strategic direction of the company's global philanthropic investments and initiatives focused on accelerating equity, opportunity and impact worldwide. Heather has been with UKG (formerly Ultimate Software) for more than a decade, serving in various marketing, PR, and community relations leadership roles.To learn more about the Walk Like MADD & MADD Dash Fort Lauderdale 5K, visit:Website: http://www.walklikemadd.org/fortlauderdaleIG: https://www.instagram.com/madddash5k/Twitter: https://twitter.com/madddashTo learn more about UKG philanthropy and volunteering, visit:https://www.ukg.com/about-us/esg/ukg-philanthropy-and-volunteeringFor more information on the Jason Taylor Foundation, visit:www.JasonTaylorFoundation.orgTwitter & Instagram: @JTFoundation

In this HRchat episode, we ask: why can HR software implementation be painful and how can we make things better? Bill Banham's guest this time is Bonnie Tinder. Bonnie was named a “Top 100 HR Tech Influencer in 2022” by HR Executive Magazine. For over 25 years, she has worked with top Software companies leading implementation, marketing and sales initiatives.  Questions Include:Why is HR software implementation so painful?  Why do implementations fail to deliver results almost 50% of the time?How has ease of implementation improved because of better tech and integrations?What are the regrets or things that HR professionals wish they knew before an implementation?You work with big brands who help enterprise clients e.g. SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, Oracle HCM, Cornerstone, ServiceNow or Ultimate Software. What tech would you recommend for HR pros at smaller orgs? What makes an implementation successful?More About Bonnie and RavenIn 2018, Bonnie founded Raven Intelligence—a peer review site for Enterprise Software Consulting, designed to help customers make a well-informed choice in an implementation partner. Raven Intelligence works with leading Systems Integrators and Software Vendors to understand and interpret the Voice of the Customer related to implementation and project success from an independent perspective.In building the Raven community, Bonnie has interviewed over 2,000 customers about their Enterprise Software implementation experiences and has produced several reports on the state of HCM implementation and software, which are available here.We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.   

Matt McGunagle (matt @ strengthportal.com) is the CEO and Founder of StrengthPortal, a software platform for personal trainers, gym owners, and multi-location gyms to manage their personal training staff and track personal training services. Matt graduated from Cal Poly SLO as an Economics major with a concentration on Entrepreneurship.  In this episode, Matt walks through the features and core functionalities of StrengthPortal specifically the exercise library, program library, client management, workout tracking and reporting, and much more.    Grow your strength training business For all of the show notes, links and resources - Click Here

Angie Mills is a Senior Benefits Analyst at Creighton University. She is an experienced benefits manager with a history of working in higher education and in the corporate world for companies like Ultimate Software, Lindsay Corporation, Vertrue, Sitel, and Baker's Supermarkets. Angie has the experience and a solid human resources background. She has a bachelor's degree from Bellevue University with a focus on human resources management and services.  In this episode… Are you finding the ideal enthusiastic candidates for your team, or are you still hiring employees that just want a paycheck?  Angie Mills knows that life is unpredictable, and having a flexible employer with a hybrid workplace option can be a valuable asset for employees. She knows the importance of viewing employees as individuals and understanding who you serve. By providing employees with the tools for self-management and organization, you're giving them the recipe for success — it gives them the opportunity to network and grow. So, how can you get started finding the people that fit your mission and values? In this episode of Cornerstone Unplugged, Jennifer Bauder is joined by Angie Mills, Senior Benefits Analyst at Creighton University, to discuss human resources in the higher education space. Angie discusses her career journey in human resources, how a hybrid workplace can attract and retain talent, and effective tips for time management in the workplace. 

In her new role at Enboarder, Laura Lee Gentry is responsible for leading their talent and culture functions, focusing on building and investing in employee experience, including learning & development, hiring and retention strategies, that will further accelerate the company's rapid growth. She brings more than 20 years of operational and organizational experience and a history of building successful talent and culture programs to Enboarder. She previously served as chief people officer at Applied Systems and senior vice president of employee experience for Ultimate Software. Laura, welcome to the podcast. Tell us first about Enboarder what does your software do? I see you guys use SmartRecruiters as your ATS, how do you like them…what other recruiting tech/HR software do you have in place? What do you make of the current hiring climate...Quit rates are up, companies cant hire fast enough...we seem to be in a fundamental shift for how and why people work... What initiatives are you going to focus on in your new role at Enboarder? What do organizations often get wrong when attempting to engage and connect with their employees? How can they improve this process? What has your previous experience building talent and culture programs taught you, and what learnings do you want to bring to Enboarder?   As we've moved to more hybrid and remote work since the start of the pandemic, how has companies' focus on building employee culture changed? As many industries are still feeling the effects of the Great Resignation, how can companies balance the focus of attracting top talent, while also making sure current employees have all the tools they need to succeed? How did you get your job….Are you hiring for your team?

Welcome to Reimagining Company Culture, a series discussing emerging trends and priorities shaping the future of workplace culture and employee wellbeing. We highlight thought leaders who are constantly evolving their strategy and can provide insight to folks about how to address new business challenges.  AllVoices is on a mission to create safe, happy, and healthy workplaces for all, and we're excited to learn from experts who share our mission.In this episode of Reimagining Company Culture, we're chatting with Ayanna Edwards, Head of People at HackerOne. Prior to HackerOne, she was employed with Ultimate Software, working in business operations, business analysis, talent, and people operations. About AllVoicesIn today's workforce, people often don't feel empowered to speak up and voice their opinions about workplace issues, including harassment, bias, and other culture issues. This prevents company leadership from making necessary changes, and prevents people from feeling fulfilled, recognized, and included at work. At AllVoices, we want to change that by providing a completely safe, anonymous way for people to report issues directly to company leaders. This allows company leadership real transparency into what's happening in their companies—and the motivation to address issues quickly. Our goal is to help create safer, more inclusive companies.To learn more about AllVoices visit us at www.allvoices.co!

Discover Ted Malley's "X-Factor" advantage in sustainably and efficiently replicating a team's top 10% of performers, and how he became a better leader both personally and professionally (13 minutes). CEO BLINDSPOTS PODCAST GUEST: Ted Malley. With over 27 years of experience as a senior executive in the Human Capital Management Software industry, Ted brings his passion for helping others combined with his enthusiasm for technology to lead the team at Think-X. Prior to Think-X, Ted served as Chief Revenue Officer at a New York Stock Exchange company called Ceridian (NYSE:CDAY) Ted also co-authored RelateAbility: Working Together to Make Work Life Better, a book explaining TeamRelate's behavioral model. Prior to that, Ted served for over 17 years at Ultimate Software, holding a variety of leadership positions ranging from VP Customer Success, VP Product Strategy, and CIO. During his time at Ultimate Software, Ted was introduced to Think-X. He leveraged Think-X to create the highest performing teams in the country. For more information about Think-X, visit https://think-x.com/think-x-leadership/ To receive three complimentary Think-X performance diagnostics for your team, email Ted and mention this podcast; ted.malley@think-x.com CEO BLINDSPOTS HOST: Birgit Kamps. She was speaking five languages by the age of 10, and lived in five countries with her Dutch parents prior to becoming an American citizen. Birgit's professional experience includes starting and selling an “Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Private Company” and a “Best Company to Work for in Texas”, and serving as a Board Member with various companies. In addition, Birgit is the President of Hire Universe LLC, and the host of the CEO Blindspots podcast which was recognized in 2020 by Spotify for having the “biggest listener growth” in the USA (by 733%), and having listeners in 11 countries; https://ceoblindspots.com/

Pour ce nouvel épisode je reçois Selma Chauvin. Selma est spécialisée en marketing SaaS "grand compte" depuis plus de 15 ans. Elle est passée par des entreprises comme Omnicom, Arkadin ou encore Docusign, avant de rejoindre PeopleDoc en septembre 2017. Au cours de cet épisode, elle nous détaille son parcours, comment PeopleDoc s'est fait racheter par Ultimate Software puis a fusionné avec Kronos pour former le groupe UKG. Contrairement à la plupart des épisodes précédents, on a beaucoup parlé de marketing et sales "entreprise". Avec des "ACV" (annual contract value) très élevés. On a, entre autres, parlé d'organisation marketing/sales, de plateforme de marque, de l'importance de rattacher les "BDR" (Business Development Representative) au marketing. Enfin, Selma nous a aussi parlé de la communauté de directeur/directrice marketing qu'elle anime. Vous pouvez suivre Selma sur Linkedin. Pour soutenir SaaS Connection en 1 minute (et 2 secondes) : Abonnez-vous à SaaS Connection sur votre plateforme préférée pour ne rater aucun épisode (2 secondes) Envoyez cet épisode à 2 de vos contacts intéressés par le SaaS (30 secondes) Mettez nous 5 étoiles sur Apple Podcast (30 secondes)

Most business leaders around the world are not good leaders... They aren't bad people, but their approaches to leadership are simply put...obsolete. We can especially see this quite clearly with what has been going on with Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, and the ongoing fight against racism and social injustice. To give you an analogy, it's a bit like trying to fly a modern-day passenger plane while being trained on an original Wright Brothers plane. There's a chance you might get the plane in the air, but you won't go far. Leadership around the world is failing us. Consider some of these sobering statistics take from my book, The Future Leader: 80% of employees say they can do their jobs without their managers and say their managers are not even necessary (Ultimate Software and Center for Generational Kinetics). Almost half of 2,257 survey respondents said they could do their jobs better than their boss (Randstad). 60% of employees have left or are considering leaving their jobs because they don't like their direct supervisors (Randstad). 50% of Americans have left a job at some point in their career to get away from their managers (Gallup). In the UK, nearly half of British workers believe they could do a better job than their boss and 13% actually said their bosses are dangerously incompetent at their jobs (Independent). Only 15% of employees around the world are even engaged in their jobs (Gallup). According to a survey of 25,000 leaders around the world done by DDI, only 42% of organizations said that the overall quality of leadership inside of their organizations was high. Only 14% of organizations have a "strong bench," which is ready-now leaders who can step to replace those who retire or move on (DDI). Half of the organizations surveyed by DDI say their leaders are not skilled to lead effectively today and 71% say their leaders are not ready to lead their organizations in the future. CLEARLY something is wrong with leadership around the world otherwise these statistics wouldn't be as terrible as they are.  All of the human indicators are telling us that we have a problem yet most organizations and leaders are doing nothing to correct the problem. Imagine for a moment that you are driving a car and in the middle of your trip as your speeding down the highway, the "check engine" light comes on, followed by the tire pressure warning, the low fuel light, and the battery light, all while your car temperature indicator is in the red. Now imagine your whole family is sitting in the car with you. Are you really just going to keep driving along? I hope not! Yet here we are, and the business world is on cruise control but the scary part is that we are all sitting in the same car! In the United States alone there are around 25 million supervisors and managers today, these are people who are responsible for others. I estimate that by 2030 we are going to have around 220 million leaders around the world. That's a lot of leaders! We have lots of people in leadership roles but unfortunately, many of them are bad leaders, there's just no other way around it. But, their days are numbered because the way that we think about leadership is changing...Leaders Must Change. Leadership is not about making the most money Leadership is not about a rank or title Leadership is not about playing office politics to get the top. Leadership is not about being friends with other leaders who will promote you. Leadership is not just about staying at the company for a long time until you get promoted. Leadership IS ABOUT putting people first Leadership IS ABOUT being able to influence change Leadership IS ABOUT making other people more successful than you Leadership IS ABOUT rallying people to build a better world Leadership IS ABOUT YOU! Being a leader is the hardest job in the world but it's also the most rewarding. Everyone in the world has the potential to become a leader, even if you're a leader of self. The first step towards becoming that leader is making the conscientious choice that you are willing to get out of your comfort zone and do whatever it takes to positively impact your community, your organization, your people, and yourself. Are you ready to take that first step? What does it take to lead in the future of work? For my new book, The Future Leader, I interviewed over 140 of the world's top CEOs and surveyed nearly 14,000 employees in partnership with LinkedIn to identify 4 crucial mindsets and 5 essential skills to lead in a post-covid world. "Whether you're a current or future leader, this book is one that you should read and keep near you." Ajay Banga, CEO, Mastercard. Click here to grab a copy for yourself and your teams, you'll be glad you did! Get the latest insights on Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience. http://futureofworknewsletter.com/ Let's connect on social! Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8 Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob  

Ken Volk, Senior Director of Creative + Brand at UKG and former Board Chair of IHAF, faced massive change when his team doubled in size overnight. He listened, he led, and he launched a new brand – all from his basement. Ken Volk believes in in-house. As a creative leader at Kronos for nearly 20 years, he admits he got a little too comfortable. His team was seasoned, his processes were mature, and the trains ran on time. Then, just as Covid-19 lockdown hit, Kronos merged with competitor Ultimate Software to create UKG. Ken was shoved right out of his comfort zone. In our conversation he shares what he's learned so far, and the bright future he sees for in-house creative agencies.   In This Episode: ·      Why active listening is harder than you think, and how it can transform teams. ·       The top-3 focus areas that will establish your team as the brand beacon. ·      How in-house and external agencies can partner for the good of the brand. ·      Avoiding the “our way vs. your way” culture clash. ·      Breaking through in-house myopia and institutionalized thinking.

We've reached HRchat episode 300! In the 299 episodes preceding this one, Bill Banham and guest hosts such as Tim Baker and Matt Burns have interviewed global experts, leaders, and those in the HR trenches. Guests have been from brands such as NASA, SHRM, Government of Canada, Hacking HR, Ultimate Software, McLean & Company, RecruitingDaily, ADP, SAP, IBM, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Simon Sinek Inc, JDXpert, Constellation Research, Anchor HR, Unilever, JazzHR, Cegid, orgvue, Shopify, Culture Summit, DisruptHR, Talent Board, Virgin Pulse, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Coca-Cola Beverages Company.In episode 200 we celebrated by inviting the awesome, entertaining and super popular Steve Browne back on the show. 100 episodes on from that chat with Steve Browne, we've all been through a grueling and challenging time. For that reason, HRchat episode 300 is a medley of positive and constructive insights from a bunch of the guests featured between episodes 200 and 299. Listen to extracts demonstrating powerful, inspiring views, experiences, and tips to help you remain resilient and come out of the crisis hopeful and better prepared for the changes ahead. 

For several years in a row, Aron has been on the Glassdoor top 100 CEO list and in 2012 he won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. UKG was rated the #2 best large employer in America by Forbes, it received a 100% on the Corporate Equality Index, and prior to the merger both Kronos and Ultimate Software were separately named a Best Workplace for Parents by Great Place to Work. How do you build an organization where people love to come to work? Aron Ain, CEO of Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG), believes it is all about trust, transparency, and collaboration. Contrary to past fads, creating an engaged workforce is not about free food, free gym memberships, and frequent parties. As Aron says, “I believe people join organizations because of the organization. I believe they leave because of who they work for.” In this episode of the podcast Aron shares: How to keep consistency among leaders in an organization. What it means to be an “un-leader”. How to deal with failure. Why showing true gratitude for employees is so important and what that looks like. The importance of humility and vulnerability How to keep leaders accountable for being the best they can be And much more! The leaders that employees deal with on a daily basis make or break the experience that employee has. You can work for the best organization in the world, but if your direct manager is a horrible leader, you are going to hate your job. Because of that fact, leaders inside of UKG, known internally as people managers, are held accountable to be great. People managers are not just evaluated and rated by their direct reports, they are also evaluated by the employees who work for them. Twice a year employees inside of UKG are given a survey with 19 questions with straight forward questions that measure the effectiveness of their manager. These are separate from engagement surveys as those only measure the relationship between the employee and the organization, not the relationship between the employee and the manager. How to keep consistency among leaders in an organization Inside of any organization there could be anywhere from 10 to thousands of leaders who are in charge of teams. So how do you make sure that your leaders are consistent and living up to the company values? This is part of why UKG has the employee surveys in place. Leaders are evaluated by employees twice a year, and if they aren’t either at a 90% or higher, or at least improving each time, there are steps in place that are taken. Depending on the situation the first step if a leader is struggling is to have a conversation and see if improvements can be made. The next step may be to move the person out of a leadership role, while still remaining at the company. And if all else fails, they may be asked to leave the company if they aren’t a good fit with the company values. Having these ratings from employees is a huge game-changer as leaders typically look at employee engagement surveys to get a feel for how they are doing, but that’s not an accurate picture of the employee-manager relationship. Aron shares a story about when UKG first started implementing these manager effectiveness surveys. There was a manager who asked Aron for a sit down meeting. When they were talking the manager asked Aron, “Are you going to train me to be a better manager?”. Aron told him that of course he would, but wondered why the manager was coming to him at that moment asking for help. The manager told Aron that he had always seen himself as a great leader because his team always gave high scores on engagement surveys. But when it came time for these new surveys he received a 59 out of 100 and he was shocked. He had never had the right data that would help him measure his true performance. Well after realizing it he worked hard to improve and two years later he had a score in the 90s. It is so important for leaders to get an accurate view of how employees see them. How can you expect them to change if they don’t realize they are doing anything wrong. As Aron shares, “Our homegrown training program for our managers is called Courage to Lead. And I tell them the action word isn't lead. The action word in it is the courage, because it takes unbelievable courage to be a great leader. It's hard...it’s hard.” What does it mean to be an un-leader In Aron’s book, Work Inspired, he talks about the concept of the un-leader. What is an un-leader? Well Aron believes CEOs get too much credit when things go well and they get too much blame when things don’t go well. But this shouldn’t be the case. The reason organizations do well or don’t do well does not rely solely on what the CEO does, and CEOs need to have more humility and humbleness. They need to realize that the world doesn’t revolve around them. To be an un-leader means you realize the value of the people around you and as a leader you understand that you are not more important than anyone else in the organization. Un-leaders show respect, they offer dignity, and they are thoughtful to the people they work with. They realize that they play by the same rules as everyone else. When un-leaders don’t know something, they don’t act like they do. They admit that they are not sure. Aron says, “I don't expect everyone to care about people in the full spectrum of how I care about people. But I do expect everyone to be respectful. I do expect everyone to tell the truth. You want to ask people who work with-- you want to get on my bad side quickly, don't tell the truth. It's like, I just have no patience for that. Look, I'm a sore loser. I'll admit that, I play to win. But it doesn't mean I do it in a way that doesn't exhibit good sportsmanship and being thoughtful about it.” How to deal with failures when you give employees autonomy to experiment One of the key components of the UKG values is trust, it is something that Aron emphasizes. He doesn’t ask employees to gain his trust, they start with full trust in the very beginning, the trust is theirs to lose. So as a leader if you give full autonomy and trust to employees how do you deal with failures when they happen? Aron says for him it comes down to not keeping score. He says, “I try really, really hard to not keep score. And the reason I try really hard to not keep score, if you came and sold me on an idea to do something, and six months later, it's not going well-- and you know it better than anyone that it's not going well-- what do I want you to do? I want you to stop it, stop the project, stop throwing good money at a bad idea. But if every time I'm keeping score, and I'm going to put you in the penalty box, then you're going to spend another six months absolutely, positively proving it was a stupid idea. And wasted another six months of time and money. So that's how I deal with failure. Now, if the same people keep bringing ideas, and we say, okay, go do it. And it keeps being a dumb idea. And at some point, I say, well, I'm not sure that this person has great judgment on ideas like this, but I certainly start with the way I described it.” Action items for leaders who want to start improving When asked what advice he has for leaders who are looking to better themselves, Aron says the biggest thing is to understand the world doesn’t revolve around you. Work hard to trust your people, communicate with them, be transparent, and show them respect. You should also respect that people have lives outside of the organization and that their families are the most important thing and they should come first. Take time and think about what it looks like to trust your people. If you trust them to get their work done, how does that exhibit itself? You can’t just say the words, you have to make trust a living breathing part of your organization. “If we want to be great leaders, if we want to create organizations where everybody loves to work, if you want to have these places that have these great people work for us, then you better find ways to engage them and you better do these key components around this that we've been talking about. You may be able to trick the people to come work for you. But you're not going to keep them.”

Jean Freeman, Principal and CEO of Zambezi, which is one of the largest certified female-owned full service creative agencies in the ad industry, started the company with her husband, Chris, and the legendary late NBA player, Kobe Bryant. Her leadership approach is inspired by her agency's namesake, the Zambezi shark, which is a freak in its adaptability and ability to pivot. The Zambezi has taught itself to swim in both freshwater and saltwater. Zambezi's combination of big agency talent and small agency agility allows it to propel its clients' brands forward. This approach led to significant new business wins last year from brands including Experience Kissimmee, Staples Inc., USGA, and Traeger Grills as well as key organic growth from existing clients including Ultimate Software, The TaylorMade Golf Company, Apple's Beats by Dre, The Coca-Cola Company and PayPal/Venmo.

Chip Bell Interview Part Two on Business Developers Network Chip Bell is considered a world-renowned authority on customer loyalty and service innovation. Global Gurus ranked him in 2020 for the sixth straight year in a row in the top three keynote speakers in the world on customer service. Dr. Chip R. Bell has helped many Fortune 100 companies dramatically enhance their bottom lines and marketplace reputations through innovative customer-centric strategies that address the needs of today's picky, fickle, vocal customers. Dr. Bell's keynotes reveal the best practices from the organizations leading the customer loyalty charge, giving audiences powerful cutting-edge ideas and unique strategies they can immediately put into practice. Always customer-centered, Bell customizes all his presentations to meet unique organizational needs through a background study, pre-event conference call, and phone interviews to better understand specific audience challenges. He also has written more than 700 columns for many business journals, magazines, and top blogs. He has appeared live on CNN, CNBC, CBS, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV, ABC, NPR Radio and his work has been featured in Fortune, Businessweek, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CEO Magazine, Money Magazine and Entrepreneur. Dr. Bell has authored numerous national best-selling books including: The 9½ Principles of innovative Service, Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do about It, Managing Knock Your Socks off Service, Customers as Partners, Magnetic Service, Take Their Breath Away: How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers, and Sprinkles: Creating Awesome Experiences Through Innovative Service, Kaleidoscope: Delivering Innovative Service That Sparkles. His newest book, Inside Your Customer's Imagination: 5 Secrets for Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions launched in September 2020. His books have won major book awards including the 2017 Best Book Award in the business category. His books have been endorsed by the CEOs or presidents of such service greats as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Zappos, Starbucks, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Wolfgang Puck, Build-A-Bear Workshops, JetBlue, Marriott, Chick-fil-A, Ultimate Software, WestRock, Morgan Stanley, La Quinta Hotels, Kimpton Hotels, and Southwest Airlines. In addition, his training programs have won numerous awards. These include “Delivering Innovative Service” with a 2016 Best Classroom program awarded by HR.com, and “Service Unleashed,” developed for Forrest Performance Group, was a prestigious 2018 Stevie award winner. Show Host: Artie Ruderman The Business Developers Network where today's leading business developers share and learn innovative business development concepts to generate greater value for their businesses. Broadcasting LIVE from the Pro Business Channel studios in Atlanta. For more info about the show sponsor visit: http://www.igscorp.net To listen to more episodes visit: http://www.BusinessDevelopersNetwork.com To view more photos from this show visit:  www.ProBusinessPictures.com To nominate or submit a guest request visit:  http://www.OnAirGuest.com ‹ › × × Previous Next jQuery(function() { // Set blueimp gallery options jQuery.extend(blueimp.Gallery.prototype.options, { useBootstrapModal: false, hidePageScrollbars: false }); });

Chip Bell Interview Part One on Business Developers Network Chip Bell is considered a world-renowned authority on customer loyalty and service innovation. Global Gurus ranked him in 2020 for the sixth straight year in a row in the top three keynote speakers in the world on customer service. Dr. Chip R. Bell has helped many Fortune 100 companies dramatically enhance their bottom lines and marketplace reputations through innovative customer-centric strategies that address the needs of today's picky, fickle, vocal customers. Dr. Bell's keynotes reveal the best practices from the organizations leading the customer loyalty charge, giving audiences powerful cutting-edge ideas and unique strategies they can immediately put into practice. Always customer-centered, Bell customizes all his presentations to meet unique organizational needs through a background study, pre-event conference call, and phone interviews to better understand specific audience challenges. He also has written more than 700 columns for many business journals, magazines, and top blogs. He has appeared live on CNN, CNBC, CBS, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV, ABC, NPR Radio and his work has been featured in Fortune, Businessweek, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CEO Magazine, Money Magazine and Entrepreneur. Dr. Bell has authored numerous national best-selling books including: The 9½ Principles of innovative Service, Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do about It, Managing Knock Your Socks off Service, Customers as Partners, Magnetic Service, Take Their Breath Away: How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers, and Sprinkles: Creating Awesome Experiences Through Innovative Service, Kaleidoscope: Delivering Innovative Service That Sparkles. His newest book, Inside Your Customer's Imagination: 5 Secrets for Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions launched in September 2020. His books have won major book awards including the 2017 Best Book Award in the business category. His books have been endorsed by the CEOs or presidents of such service greats as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Zappos, Starbucks, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Wolfgang Puck, Build-A-Bear Workshops, JetBlue, Marriott, Chick-fil-A, Ultimate Software, WestRock, Morgan Stanley, La Quinta Hotels, Kimpton Hotels, and Southwest Airlines. In addition, his training programs have won numerous awards. These include “Delivering Innovative Service” with a 2016 Best Classroom program awarded by HR.com, and “Service Unleashed,” developed for Forrest Performance Group, was a prestigious 2018 Stevie award winner. Show Host: Artie Ruderman The Business Developers Network where today's leading business developers share and learn innovative business development concepts to generate greater value for their businesses. Broadcasting LIVE from the Pro Business Channel studios in Atlanta. For more info about the show sponsor visit: http://www.igscorp.net To listen to more episodes visit: http://www.BusinessDevelopersNetwork.com To view more photos from this show visit:  www.ProBusinessPictures.com To nominate or submit a guest request visit:  http://www.OnAirGuest.com ‹ › × × Previous Next jQuery(function() { // Set blueimp gallery options jQuery.extend(blueimp.Gallery.prototype.options, { useBootstrapModal: false, hidePageScrollbars: false }); });  

In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast we are joined by Paul Melchiorre and Mark Petruzzi - authors of Selling the Cloud.Paul has over 30 years of experience in enterprise sales leadership, at leading companies including Anaplan, Ariba, and SAP, and now in Private Equity. Mark brings over 30 years of experience in strategic consulting firms including Deloitte, N3, Accenture and operating roles at Oracle, and Ultimate Software.GRIT was the first topic we covered as a required attribute for every enterprise sales professional. Paul shared some of his best tips to identify grit during the interview process. Mark added the importance of passion as a critical component of the "WHY" behind grit.We also discuss "process versus playbook", and why flexibility differentiates good versus great in the SaaS industry. Paul shares why he believes that no one sales methodology is that much better than another and that the primary benefit is the standardization of language while also maintaining the flexibility to embrace the reality of each company.Playbooks that work at a large, established entity like Salesforce is most likely at a < $10M company without the same brand name recognition....flexibility is key.My favorite topic was discussing why "Discovery" is the most important phase of the sales process. Being able to ask meaningful questions, listen to the answers, and learning everything possible about why the buyer will really buy by putting yourself in their shoes...and it's not about your product's feature/function.Next, we discuss "3 Level Listening", which includes gathering data, identifying what is meaningful to the buyer, as an individual first before their company, and then applying it to your efforts. Mark shared how Charlie Green and his trusted advisor approach highlights the need to control your own ego, be present in listening, and focusing on truly understanding what the buyer is saying - active listening + thinking aloud.Paul then shares why "balance" of performance across the entire sales organization is so critical to building a high-performance organization. Balance was defined as having at least 70%+ of sales reps hitting quota.Finally, Mark shares the lessons he learned from Hollywood and why storytelling is so important to being a top-performing enterprise sales professional - especially customer stories!

The author of 24 books, Chip's newest book, "Inside Your Customer's Imagination: 5 Secrets to Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions,” is due out in the fall of 2020. He is also of such bestsellers as "Kaleidoscope: Delivering Innovative Service That Sparkles,” "Sprinkles: Creating Awesome Experiences Through Innovative Service,” "The 9 1/2 Principles of Innovative Service,” "Take Their Breath Away" (with John Patterson), "Managers As Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning" (with Marshall Goldsmith), “Customers as Partners,” "Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service" (with Ron Zemke), and “Magnetic Service” (with Bilijack Bell). He has served as keynote speaker, consultant, and trainer on innovative service to such major organizations as GE, Microsoft, Nationwide, Marriott, Lockheed-Martin, Cadillac, Ultimate Software, KeyBank, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Caterpillar, Eli Lilly, Verizon, Best Buy, USAA, Hertz, Accenture, Home Depot, and Harley-Davidson. He is a keynote speaker on topics such as customer loyalty, partnering with customers, and creating innovative service experiences. Global Gurus has ranked him for the last six years in a row among the top three keynote speakers in the world on customer service, with two years in the top slot. He was a highly decorated infantry unit commander in Vietnam with the elite 82nd Airborne and served as a guerrilla tactics instructor at the U.S. Army Infantry School. His training programs have won awards including a Stevie Award in 2018. He has appeared live on CNBC, CNN, Fox Business Network, Bloomberg TV, NPR, ABC and his work has been featured in Fortune, Businessweek, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, Success Magazine, Real Leaders, CEO Magazine, and Fast Company.

Chip Bell is the author of 24 books, Chip's newest book, “Inside Your Customers Imagination: 5 Secrets to Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions” is due out in the fall of 2020. He is also the author of bestsellers “Kaleidoscope: Delivering Innovative Service That Sparkles,” “Sprinkles: Creating Awesome Experiences Through Innovative Service,” “The 9 ½ Principles of Innovative Service,” “Take Their Breath Away” (with John Patterson), “Managers As Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning” (with Marshall Goldsmith), “Customers as Partners,” “Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service” (with Ron Zemke), and “Magnetic Service” (with Bilijack Bell).   He has served as keynote speaker, consultant, and trainer on innovative service to such major organizations as GE, Microsoft, Nationwide, Marriott, Lockheed-Martin, Cadillac, Ultimate Software, KeyBank, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Caterpillar, Eli Lilly, Verizon, Best Buy, USAA, Hertz, Accenture, Home Depot and Harley-Davidson. He is a keynote speaker on topics such as customer loyalty, partnering with customers, and creating innovative service experiences. Global Gurus has ranked him for the last six years in a row among the top three keynote speakers in the world on customer service, with two years in the top slot.   Questions   Could you share with us a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got into this whole customer service? You have written many, many books, and I had the privilege of you sending me a copy of the one of your most recent one “Inside Your Customers Imagination: 5 Secrets for Creating Breakthrough Products, Services and Solutions. And I found it really, really insightful. Could you share maybe one to three things that you think is really critical for us to get inside our customer’s imagination? In your book, you talk about curiosity, being grounded, discovery, you talk about trust and you talk about passion, of those five secrets that you believe are breakthrough tactics or strategies in order to really get into your customer’s imagination. Which one do you think is the most important? Could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? Could you share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you, maybe books that inspired you to become an even better writer? Could you share with us maybe one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about - either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people? Where can listeners find you online? Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity you’ll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps you get back on track or to get you more focus?   Highlights   Chip’s Journey   Chip shared that he has always had a fascination and an interest in the customer; he studied it in graduate school. What makes people buy, what influences customers to make decisions that they do and how organizations manage that influence and how do they create cultures that create great experiences? Most of his work has been focused on the customer experience. That is what when we encounter a customer, whether it's face to face, the ear to ear, click to click, we give that experience in such a way that it's a memorable experience and a very positive way. So it's been an exciting, he has been at it for 40 years now. He’s still learning every day, but we're all customers, so it gives him a chance to hopefully influence how that's done through the organizations that he works.   Getting Inside Customer’s Imagination   Chip shared that he thinks it starts with recognizing that the customer’s imagination is inside. And he likes to think of it as a door open only from the inside. So, the challenge becomes, how do I create a relationship or a partnership with the customer in such a way that they want to open that door and share their insights, ideas, creative thoughts in a way that helps them with us, co-create new products, services and solutions. So the book is really about how do I build that relationship, how do I build that partnership that creates a sense of excitement and safety and a willingness for the customer to open that door and share their ingenuity and insight and creativity.   Me: And so, we really have to dig deep into what the customer is looking for. A big part of when I was reading through some parts of the book, it focused on ensuring that you have curiosity. And I'd like for you to share with us in your own words. What exactly is curiosity, especially in the sense of customer experience? Why should we be curious and how do we exercise that skill?   Chip shared that he thinks part of it is the one of the ways which we demonstrate we really care about the customer. We all go to reunions, family reunions or school reunions. And we always engage, we eat too much food and we engage in a lot of superficial conversation. But every now and then somebody, a family member or friend, demonstrates that they really are interested in us. And they ask different kind of questions, “You still work in and are you still doing this?” And so, they really want to know what makes us tick, what do we feel and what matters to us. And we walk away from those conversations feeling not just heard and understood, but truly valued.   So he thinks part of curiosity is how we demonstrate that deep curiosity. One of the techniques he talks about in the book is called Be the Customer.   And he borrowed it from most parents who have children who are in Little League, when that child has the bat and the pitcher is about to throw the ball, they'll yell to that child, “Be the ball, be the ball.” Which is all designed to get the focus, focus on that ball, it coming their way. It increases the likelihood that they'll be hitting it.   And so, he thinks in much the way be the ball, be the customer, try to be the customer. He gave you a funny example. His wife's hairdresser, Johnny Odair, has been known to get a permanent. He said, “Johnny, why do you get a permanent?” He said, “I realized that when women get a permanent is often one of the most uncomfortable and awkward situation, so if I figured if I went through what they went through, then I would see the world through their eyes and because of that, I made changes in the experience to make it a more comfortable experience for them.”   That's to him, a great example of him working to try to deeply understand a customer, when the customer senses that sense of quest to understand them at a deeper level. Then they feel a sense of kinship with us, a sense of partnership with us.   So it's looking for techniques, it might not be just talking to the customer or just doing customer research, it might be talking to people who know the customer in a different way. He gave an example and he uses this example in the book. He has a friend of mine, John Longstry. John used to be the General Manager of a huge hotel in Dallas, Texas, and he realized that he wasn't learning enough about what really was important to customers through the front desk.   Now, if you think about checking into a hotel, when you check out, typically the front desk will say how was your stay? And we usually have a one-word answer, fine. And not much learning is going on from the word fine. So, what did he do? He'd already been doing focus groups with the taxi drivers who frequented his property to take guest to the airport, DFW airport.   And so every quarter he would hold a focus group, he buys these taxi drivers who frequent his property hanging out because it's a nice fare from his hotel to the airport so a lot of them would hang around to take now, Uber, Lyft.   But then it was it was taxi drivers. And so he would hold focus groups with these taxi drivers. And what he would learn is not just information and understanding, but insights. For example, he learned that when the customer complained to the taxi driver that their towels in their bathroom smelled a little scorched like they'd been in the dryer too long and housekeeping, what they really were worried about was a hotel fire started in housekeeping or dust bowl under their bed, in their room. What they really were concerned about were are there bugs in my room?   So the goal was not just information that gave you superficial information. Like there's a light out in the parking lot, thank you so much, but when the customer spotted a security light out in the parking lot that was burned out, they worried about security in their hallway.   Well, by taking that insight level, he was able to make improvements and changes that really impacted customers in a way that they couldn't even describe. Not something you'd necessarily write on a comment card when you're checking out, but it taught him a lot about what was really going on in the mind of that customer.   Well, that's the kind of technique, who knows my customer? What if I talk to them, not just my customer, what would I learn from that? And so, again, that's part of curiosity is how they look for ways to demonstrate to the customer that they really, really do care. And part of it is how they show them that when they provide feedback, that it really matters.   The research shows 95% of companies in the industrialized world asked their customers for feedback, 95% of them, but only 5% of them let the customer know what they did with that feedback.   And so, when we get those surveys, it's no wonder that we don't fill them out because we go, “Why should I, it is not going to make any difference.”   And so it's learning to tell the customer, you did this, you asked for this, this is what we're doing with it. And so, it tells the customer, you matter, you're important, you're valued. And from that kind of relationship, when you ask them, what's something cool we can do, they can give you creative ideas.   Me: There was also a part in a book that you spoke about as it relates to curiosity, where the company got permission from the customers to watch them shower. I found that so interesting. I was like watching them shower.   Chip stated exactly. He’s doesn't know who volunteered to do that, but yeah, it's MOEN revolution. And what they did was they wanted to learn how customers experienced a showerhead and what they found from their research by getting customers to say, “Let us watch you in a shower and see what you do and not just invade your privacy.” But they found it about 35% of their customer’s time is spent avoiding the spray. It gave them the insight they needed to design a different kind of spray that they didn't spend so much time avoiding the spray for the shower. Giving a similar example.   He works with the major hotel chain would ask customers when they checked in if they were a familiar customer or a frequent customer. They would say, “We'll give you a discount on your room rate, if you'll let us follow you to your room and watch you unpack.”   And a customer goes, “What?” But what they really were interested in is they wanted to see how the customer settled into the room. And so what they discovered at that particular time, this is a giant hotel chain. What they discovered is that sometimes customers will bring up their own hairdryer. Well, most of us bring hairdryers. But back then, what you would do is in order to use your hair dryer, you had to unplug the one that was plugged in the wall. They already provided you a hairdryer, but you like yours because it's hot or whatever. Well, nobody complained about the fact that you made me unplug your hairdryer to plug mine in. But there's a little irritant, there's a little negative, or they found that when a couple checked into a hotel, there was only one luggage cradle in the room for them to put their own luggage.   So we all know what happens then, he puts his luggage on the floor. Well, there's another little work that's a negative, but nobody ever put that on a comment card. But you add up enough little workarounds like that, you got a negative experience the customer can't even talk about it because it's so subtle.   Watching the customer, they go, we could fix this, we could provide another receptacle for their own hairdryer or we could hardwire ours into the wall so the receptacle is available for them to use their own hairdryer or every time a couple checks in, we can have housekeeping bring another luggage cradle to the room, all of these easy fixes. But there are things that the hotel didn't notice or didn't know because they were too subtle for the customer to say anything about it. And we don't notice the things where we live. We quit seeing the wallpaper a long time ago. And so, we take it for granted, we don't see it. And so, we're blind to the details that customer sees. So, again, it's looking for those ways to say, “I want to go deep inside that customer's world and their experience to understand and demonstrate my understanding to that customer so they feel valued.”    Important Breakthrough Strategies To Get Into Your Customer’s Imagination   When asked about which of the 5 secrets is the most important tactics or strategies in order to get into customer’s imagination, Chips stated curiosity. He thinks it is the foundation, that's what started with it first. Interestingly enough, where these five secrets came from was, he knew the book was going to be about innovation and co-creating with your customers.   And so, he looked at organizations that we all know famous for innovation. And we can all think of if you ask anybody, who are the most innovative companies on the internet, most people will talk about Google or Amazon or Pixar, they'll have names like that. If you go in those cultures and you say, “Okay, what are these cultures have in common?”   You find their cultures are all about curiosity, they're all about grounding or focus, they're all about risk taking that leads to discovery. They're trust and they're about passion. So those are the five things that are common among cultures. So he thought, what if you took those same five features of an innovative culture and apply them to a relationship, in this case, a relationship with a customer? What would that be like? What would that partnership be like? So that's the basis for those five secrets to breakthrough products, services, solutions.   They're fun things to do but part of it is how do you get customers to drink with you? He knows the listeners love tactics that they can use and apply, but sometimes we focus on asking customers only about their needs and expectations when the world of the imagination is around the customer's hopes and aspirations. And he'll give a fun example. He was working with a large pizza delivery company, one world-wide, we all know this pizza company. And he believed when he did started the research that when you talk to lots and lots and lots and lots of customers about this company that they were going to focus on product, price and process, meaning your pizza is not very good or it cost too much or it takes too long to get it to him, pizza price, product and process. But when they asked dreamer questions, they learned a whole different set of things.   For example, a dreamer question is where you asked the customer to think beyond what's now present. For example, one question they would say is like, “What’s something no pizza company is doing that would be really cool?” Well, one of the answers they have here in is, “What about the pizza box?” They said, “What?” “The pizza box? You know, I get this delivered pizza, it's got this box and I end up having to throw the box away. What would it be like if you did something with a box?” “Well, like what would you have in mind?”   Well, it could be like a color a picture or a puzzle or it can be a mask you could have for kids to wear a mask. They could just cut it out.”   And so, sure enough, several years later, he’s working with the paper manufacturer that made pizza boxes for this company and sure enough on the inside lid, they had put puzzles or coloring things for kids or various different things. And they put a sheet of wax paper between the lid and the pizza so it didn't soil the inside of the lid. And it turned, nobody would have thought of that. But they only get those kind of things when you take your customer into the world and you focus, that's what grounding is all about. You focus on new applications, new solutions, and all of a sudden you get a whole different world.   Me: That's so true, that's really innovative. And that's a good point because we really do throw the pizza box away so why not find something else to do with it that could be more than just throwing it in the garbage.   Chip agreed and shared that the really wise companies get their customers to help them. A good example is Starbucks. Starbucks is a very creative company, but they get customers to help them. For example, things like splash sticks that go in your coffee cup lid, customers came up with that, Starbucks didn't come up. Cake pops that looks like a little lollipop, but it's made out of cake, customers came up with that. Pumpkin spice latte in all the stores, these are all things the customer came up with, company didn't do that.   But it means you got to take your customer into an imaginary world with new ideas and new concepts and new applications and help them think with you. And that's why he loves the concept of creation, is you're not making stuff for the customer or on behalf of the customer, you're doing it with the customer. And so, not only do you get their creativity to add to yours and come up with all kind of new stuff, but you're also building the loyalty of that customer, because when they got their fingerprints on what you're creating, they feel a commitment to it and their loyalty goes up.    App, Website or Tool that Chip Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business   When asked about online resource that he can’t live without in his business, Chip stated that he will share two of them. One he can't live without in his personal life is called Sound Hound. And sound hound is a great website because how many times do you go in a store and they're playing music guide, you go in a store and they’re playing a song and you go, what's the name of that song? Sound Hound is an app that allows you to hit that thing and it listens to that song, not only does it tell you the name of the song, but it also gives you the lyrics and if you want to buy it, you can buy it right there. So, for him, it's a great app that he that he uses a lot.   And in his business life because he’s a writer and he writes a lot of stuff, lots and lots of articles and blogs and so forth. Grammarly has been a godsend because he doesn't know anything much about the English language from the standpoint of grammar. He doesn't think he did very well on those courses in school. And so, Grammarly is a program that allows you to when you finish writing a blog or an essay or a letter or anything, you can simply put the letter inside Grammarly and it'll bring up and tell you, this is a different way you need to say that or you've got this misspelled or this should be an ‘are’ not an ‘is’. And it'll correct all your grammar or at least tell you what it sees is wrong and give you the choice to correcting it or not. But it also provides you the rationale, so you get to learn a little bit more about what a ‘dangling participle’ or a ‘split infinity’ is. But it's a great tool for him, particularly from a writing standpoint.     Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Chip   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Chip shared that the one he remembers that he thought was a powerful book was a book called Watership Down: A Novel. It's an old book by Richard Adams. And it's a favourite book of his because it's basically a fiction story of a group of rabbits that get the feeling that they're down, their warren where they live is in danger. They don't know why, it turns out it's like a construction crew that's come in and build housing development where they live. And so, they have to journey across England to find a new home. There are many, many, many adventures and stories. And it's a great story, they actually made a movie of it. But the use of stories, the use of myths, the use of fables in their interaction is, he thought, one of the most creative uses of how they do that. So, that's one book that's been an inspiration for him.   Another one is a book by his friend Seth Godin called Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. Great book and it's in the marketing category, but it underscores the power of being distinctive, to being different. And he's a very, very creative guy who's written many, many books. But how you will only succeed through your service and product if you find a way to make it unique, different. What he calls value unique, not value added. And that's been his work in the customer experience world. Value added is taking what customers expect and add more. The problem with that is you run out of room because the expectations of the customers go right up with you and so you add more and more and more and more, and pretty soon you’re going to go bankrupt or run out of room. And so it's like, “You're a great customer of ours, we'd like to upgrade you to the first class or if you're a frequent flyer.”, that approach of a linear value added approach to him has limitations.   So, his work is all around value unique and it's not looking at generosity, but ingenuity, what can add to that’s unique, that's different, that will surprise the customer in a way they didn't expected. Value added usually that you aren't shocked by the fact that they upgraded you or added more comped your dessert, it doesn't shock you. But if you did something that was totally unique, different, all of a sudden you'd be talking about that. And his belief is that the pinnacle, the height of customer loyalty is when the customer tells great stories about you, not just recommends you, but they say, “You're not going to believe what happened to me.” And they tell a story that's going to have more influence on a prospect than simply a recommendation. And so how do you create the stories? Well, that takes something unique. His wife as a new car and she traded in old car and got a new car. And a week after she had a new car, she turned on the radio for the very first time and discovered they had programmed in her radio stations from her trade in.   Ingenuity and she tells everybody about the radio and not about the car. And so, it's little things like that, it's making sure that when you take your car in to be service and you're going to be waiting for it, they've got in your profile and they've got a current machine or, one of those cake cup machines, that your favorite coffee is there available. So when you have to wait on your car to be serviced, you got hazelnut coffee, which is the one you like, it's little things like that that personalize the experience.   But it's thinking about it; think about Crackerjacks in the world of service. Crackerjacks is a 100 year old product. And what we loved about Crackerjacks was not the caramelized molasses flavored popcorn, but the free prize, which was actually workless, but emotionally priceless, we knew we were going to get a prize because it said so on the box, but we didn't know exactly what it was going to be. It’s that thinking, that concept applied to the world of experience, to the world of customer service is his world and Seth’s book, The Purple Cow, he thought was a very, very insightful book that was very helpful to him. So those are two he’d recommend.    What Chip is Really Excited About Now!   Chip shared that he and his wife are on the board of the Georgia Writer's Museum, he lives in the state of Georgia and they have a writer’s museum that celebrates famous writers that live in the state, many of whom have all passed on, people like Jimmy Carter and Martin Luther King and folks like that. And he’s on the board of that museum and so he gets to serve as sort of the museum curator to design new exhibits. And so, that's a fun thing for him to do.   The other thing in terms of his work is he stumbled onto a new concept called anticipatory innovation. And so now he’s developing a whole new body of work around anticipatory innovation.   And what that is, he gave an example and then he’ll come back and describe it. When he and his wife stayed in a Hampton Inn, they provide you a coffee pot and they provide you paper cups. Now, if you happen to be in a situation where you and your significant other both fix your coffee the same way. And you fixed a cup in the room and they got the paper cups in the room for years, invariably you're going to run into a situation where you go, “Is this my cup or yours?”And so, what they did is they put on the front of the cup, on one cup they put lips like somebody put lipstick on and kissed it. And on the other one they put a mustache and so it's very clever, but it fixes a situation that you encounter they go, “Oh, I know this one's mine because it's got the lips on it or it's got the mustache on it.”   But it's that you anticipate you're going to encounter. Another example, Tampa Airport, the rental car where they put all the rental cars is inside the parking deck. The first thing you do when you get inside a rental car is you going to set your GPS. The problem is there's no internet inside that structure. So, what did they do?   As soon as you exit the parking deck, there is a GPS, pull over and little parking slot you can pull in that does have does have Wi-Fi internet so you can set your GPS before you actually leave the parking lot. But they thought about that, they thought ahead and say, “What’s a little problem or challenge or hiccup that the customer may encounter that we can anticipate and provide an easy fix before they get to that hiccup?” And so, that’s a whole new world, he calls it anticipatory innovation and there’s not much research done about it, nobody has written much about it, he has written recently an article for Forbes that’s called, Are You Using a “Boy” or “Girl” Cup?. But it’s little things like that that now is a whole world he’s researching and trying to create a whole new body of work around. In his business life, that’s what he’s working on.   Where Can We Find Chip Online   Chip shared listeners can find him at – Website – www.chipbell.com Email – chip@chipbell.com   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Chip Uses   When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Chip shared, “Give to the world the best you have and the best will come back to you.”   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners   Links   Inside Your Customer’s Imagination: 5 Secrets for Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions by Chip R. Bell Watership Down: A Novel by Richard Adams Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin Are You Using a “Boy” or “Girl” Cup? By Chip Bell   The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Après quelques années de bouteille dans les métiers du marketing et de la communication, les professionnels  du secteur prennent du galon et en arrivent au stade de la recommandation. Lorsqu'on en est à ce niveau d'expertise, quelques pistes possibles de carrière sont de devenir CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) ou CCO (Chief communication officer ou Dircom). On peut aussi être freelance et conseiller des entreprises, ou encore travailler en agence de communication avec un portefeuille clients. Nous voulions donc réunir des professionnels qui occupent ces responsabilités pour se projeter dans leur quotidien. Quelles missions remplit-on lorsqu'on est expérimenté dans ces domaines ? Comment manage-t-on une équipe marketing ? Comment formule-t-on des recommandations sur la marque, l'acquisition, la communication, pour un client ou pour son entreprise ?  Comment manage-t-on et fait-on grandir son équipe à ce niveau de poste ? Pour répondre à ces questions, nous sommes en compagnie de Selma Chauvin, VP International Marketing chez Ultimate Software, Thibaut Chaussy, ancien responsable communication et marque chez Innocent Smoothies qui est aujourd'hui freelance en communication stratégique, et  Daniel Saltzman, expert en stratégies médias. 

Merging is hard. Merging during a pandemic is VERY hard. This is the story of how Aron Ain did it — overseeing the merger of Kronos and Ultimate Software (now called UKG). It's a tale of leadership under stress, with lots of lessons about how to build trust, merge company cultures, and find a focus for your business even under the hardest of times.

We continue our run on legendary authors with our guest today, Annie Duke. She's got a new book out called How To Decide: Simple Tools For Making Better Choices. In this episode, she teaches us about how she thinks about decisions, and how building stronger decision skills can make a difference at a time of crisis, particularly like the kind of time we're living in now.  She was one of the world's top professional poker players. She tells us how to think about the possible and the probable, how to think about the different futures that could occur. Anne’s got a very provocative point of view about luck that I think you'll find fascinating. In addition, I would suggest you pay close attention to her thoughts on the power of a hedge.  Bio: Annie Duke has leveraged her expertise in the science of smart decision making to excel at pursuits as varied as championship poker to public speaking. Annie’s latest book, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices, is available on September 15, 2020, from Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint. Her previous book, Thinking in Bets, is a national bestseller. In the book, Annie reveals to readers the lessons she regularly shares with her corporate audiences, which have been cultivated by combining her academic studies in cognitive psychology with real-life decision-making experiences at the poker table. For two decades, Annie was one of the top poker players in the world. In 2004, she bested a field of 234 players to win her first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet. The same year, she triumphed in the $2 million winner-take-all, invitation-only WSOP Tournament of Champions. In 2010, she won the prestigious NBC National Heads- Up Poker Championship. She retired from the game in 2012. Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her master’s degree. Annie now spends her time writing, coaching, and speaking on a range of topics such as decision fitness, emotional control, productive decision groups, and embracing uncertainty. She is a regularly sought-after public speaker, addressing thousands in keynote remarks at conferences for organizations ranging from the Investment Management Consultants Association to the Big Ten Conference. She has been brought in to speak to the executive teams or sales forces of organizations like Marriott, Gaylord Resorts, and Ultimate Software, among others. She is a sought-after speaker in the financial sector, with clients such as Susquehanna International Group and CitiBank. Annie regularly shares her observations on decision making and critical thinking skills on her blog, Annie’s Analysis, and has shared her poker knowledge through a series of best-selling poker instruction and theory books, including Decide to Play Great Poker and The Middle Zone: Mastering the Most difficult Hands in Hold’em Poker (both co-authored with John Vorhaus). Annie is a master storyteller, having performed three times for The Moth, an organization that preserves the art of spoken word storytelling. One of her stories was selected by The Moth as one of their top 50 stories and featured in the organization’s first-ever book. Her passion for making a difference has helped raise millions for charitable causes. In 2006, she founded Ante Up for Africa along with actor Don Cheadle and Norman Epstein, which has raised more than $4 million for Africans in need. She has also served on the board of The Decision Education Foundation. In 2009, she appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice and raised $730,000 for Refugees International, a charity that advocates for refugees around the world. In October 2013, Annie became a national board member for After School All-Stars. In 2014, Annie co-founded The Alliance for Decision Education to build a national movement that empowers teachers,

We continue our run on legendary authors with our guest today, Annie Duke. She's got a new book out called How To Decide: Simple Tools For Making Better Choices. In this episode, she teaches us about how she thinks about decisions, and how building stronger decision skills can make a difference at a time of crisis, particularly like the kind of time we're living in now.  She was one of the world's top professional poker players. She tells us how to think about the possible and the probable, how to think about the different futures that could occur. Anne’s got a very provocative point of view about luck that I think you'll find fascinating. In addition, I would suggest you pay close attention to her thoughts on the power of a hedge.  Bio: Annie Duke has leveraged her expertise in the science of smart decision making to excel at pursuits as varied as championship poker to public speaking. Annie’s latest book, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices, is available on September 15, 2020, from Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint. Her previous book, Thinking in Bets, is a national bestseller. In the book, Annie reveals to readers the lessons she regularly shares with her corporate audiences, which have been cultivated by combining her academic studies in cognitive psychology with real-life decision-making experiences at the poker table. For two decades, Annie was one of the top poker players in the world. In 2004, she bested a field of 234 players to win her first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet. The same year, she triumphed in the $2 million winner-take-all, invitation-only WSOP Tournament of Champions. In 2010, she won the prestigious NBC National Heads- Up Poker Championship. She retired from the game in 2012. Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her master’s degree. Annie now spends her time writing, coaching, and speaking on a range of topics such as decision fitness, emotional control, productive decision groups, and embracing uncertainty. She is a regularly sought-after public speaker, addressing thousands in keynote remarks at conferences for organizations ranging from the Investment Management Consultants Association to the Big Ten Conference. She has been brought in to speak to the executive teams or sales forces of organizations like Marriott, Gaylord Resorts, and Ultimate Software, among others. She is a sought-after speaker in the financial sector, with clients such as Susquehanna International Group and CitiBank. Annie regularly shares her observations on decision making and critical thinking skills on her blog, Annie’s Analysis, and has shared her poker knowledge through a series of best-selling poker instruction and theory books, including Decide to Play Great Poker and The Middle Zone: Mastering the Most difficult Hands in Hold’em Poker (both co-authored with John Vorhaus). Annie is a master storyteller, having performed three times for The Moth, an organization that preserves the art of spoken word storytelling. One of her stories was selected by The Moth as one of their top 50 stories and featured in the organization’s first-ever book. Her passion for making a difference has helped raise millions for charitable causes. In 2006, she founded Ante Up for Africa along with actor Don Cheadle and Norman Epstein, which has raised more than $4 million for Africans in need. She has also served on the board of The Decision Education Foundation. In 2009, she appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice and raised $730,000 for Refugees International, a charity that advocates for refugees around the world. In October 2013, Annie became a national board member for After School All-Stars. In 2014, Annie co-founded The Alliance for Decision Education to build a national movement that empowers teachers,

Quel rôle les professionnels des ressources humaines ont-ils à jouer dans le climat actuel? Selma Chauvin, VP International Marketing d’UKG a répondu à nos questions. UKG est l’entité récemment créée à la suite de la fusion entre les géants américains des solutions RH Ultimate Software et Kronos. Ce nouvel ensemble comprend également la pépite d'origine française PeopleDoc qui avait été rachetée par Ultimate Software en 2018.

Interview by Chicke Fitzgerald of the Game Changer Network, showcased on C-Suite Network  "Chip Bell's unique perspective, lively illustrations, and practical advice result in one terrific resource for anyone eager to tap a customer's ingenuity for creating breakthrough results." --Jeanne Bliss, founder and CEO, CustomerBliss; and cofounder, Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) Organizations need to offer customers breakthrough products, services, and solutions to effectively compete in today's innovation-hungry economy. The challenge is customers often don't know precisely what they want. As Henry Ford is reputed to have said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." To surprise and awe your customers, Chip Bell advises developing co-creation partnerships with them. Co-creation partnerships are about fulfilling customers' hopes and aspirations, not just their needs and expectations. Co-creation partnerships require (1) curiosity that uncovers insight, (2) grounding that promotes clear focus, (3) discovery that fosters risk-taking, (4) trust that safeguards partnership purity, and (5) passion that inspires energized generosity. Using examples from organizations like McDonald's, DHL, Marriott, Lockheed Martin, Discover Financial, Ultimate Software, and many more, Bell shows how co-creation partnerships enable you to tap into the treasure trove of ideas, ingenuity, and genius-in-the-raw within every customer. Chicke Fitzgerald is an e

For this week's Inspirational Leadership Podcast I spoke with Janine Dennis, the Owner/Chief Innovations Officer for Talent Think Innovations, LLC, a business strategy and management consulting firm. Her career spans over fifteen years in HR, Talent Acquisition, and Talent Management that has taken her through the world of pharmaceuticals, K-12 education, technology, private equity, healthcare, staffing, and R&D. Janine is a dynamic speaker, entrepreneur, and an important and respected voice bringing both a human touch and business savvy to the companies and businesses she works with.Janine doesn’t just preach innovation-she lives it. A globally-known figure in Human Resources and Business, she is a contributor for HRD Connect and Ultimate Software. Janine is a rare professional who isn’t afraid to tackle the obstacles and issues facing us as a society and global marketplace. She has been quoted by HBR, Thrive Global, Bustle, The Cut, Atlanta BlackStar, Newsday, SHRM, USA Today and has been featured by Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Black Enterprise, and Ebony Magazines. In 2013, Janine was also named one of the Top 100 Most Social Human Resources Experts on Twitter by Huffington Post and one of 50+ Unstoppable Women in HR Tech by Clear Company. Additionally, she was a part of the first-ever IBM + Purematter VIP Futurist Project.⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://kristenharcourt.com/2020/09/08/from-surviving-to-thriving-with-janine-dennis/

Just as there are no two recipes that contain the exact same ingredients or measurements, there are no two success stories exactly the same. Recipe For Success features entrepreneurs, visionary leaders and innovators of all ages who will share their ingredients that make them successful – personally and professionally. Let's get cooking! Heather Geronemus trained as a professional ballerina while completing her Bachelor of Science in Marketing at New York University. At NYU, she also became a leader for the school’s Jewish Heritage Program, supporting and developing student mentoring, peer networking and education programs. Heather remained active in JHP post graduation as an on-campus fellow. She was honored by the organization in 2012 for her leadership and personal charitable efforts. Ms. Geronemus began her professional career at Bloomberg in New York as part of the publishing organization, later moving into the company’s financial products operation, where she held both marketing and product training roles. She moved to South Florida and joined Ultimate Software in 2010. Heather began her career at Ultimate Software in Marketing in 2010, promoting the company’s cloud based-human capital management and employee experience solutions. Heather now serves as the Director of Public Relations & Corporate Social Responsibility, overseeing Media, Customer & Community Relations. Ultimate is one of South Florida’s most respected technology businesses, supporting customers including the Miami HEAT, Bloomin’ Brands, Feeding America, SUBWAY, and Yamaha Corporation of America. The company is regularly recognized as an employer of choice, ranked in the top 25 in Fortune Magazine list of Best Places to Work for nine consecutive years. Heather is one of Broward County’s leaders, remaining constantly and actively involved with the South Florida community. Following the loss of her father, Dr. Robert Geronemus, to a drunk driver in 2009, Heather took a leadership role in Fort Lauderdale’s Mothers Against Drunk Driving organization. Heather established the Annual Walk Like MADD & MADD Dash Fort Lauderdale in 2011 and has since then continually chaired the event. Heather is thrilled to chair this event for the tenth year in row, it has raised more than $2.5 million to date. In addition, she regularly represents MADD with local, state and federal elected officials, travelling to Washington D.C. to meet with Florida’s Congressional and Senatorial delegations. Heather’s efforts were recognized at MADD’s 2012 national conference, where she was awarded the Linda Kitazaki Volunteer Fundraising Award. She was named Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser of the Year by the Association of Fundraising Professionals at their National Philanthropy Day 2014 for her work with MADD Broward. She also received the 2011-’12 and 2014 MADD Florida Hero Awards for outstanding achievement, in 2019 this award was renamed the Geronemus/Unfried MADD Florida Hero Award in honor of Heather & Linda Unfried’s dedication to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Heather is proud to assume the Chair position on the National Board of Directors of Mothers Against Drunk Driving after serving as a Director and then Vice Chair over the last four years. Learn more about Ultimate Software at https://www.ultimatesoftware.com/. For more information about Junior Achievement of South Florida, visit https://www.jasouthflorida.org. Follow us on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jasouthflorida LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/junior-achievement-of-south-florida/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasouthflorida Twitter: https://twitter.com/JASouthFlorida

In our fifth episode of Breaking 404, we caught up with Monica Bajaj, Senior Director of Engineering, Workday to hear out the different biases that exist in tech roles across organizations and how difficult it can get for a woman to reach a senior position, especially in tech. We also talked about the best recruiting practices that Engineering Leaders should follow in order to hire the best tech talent without any biases.About Monica BajajMonica Bajaj is an engineering leader with a wide variety of experience around building high performing globally distributed Engineering teams aligning with product delivery and customer satisfaction. Her prime focus has always been around developer productivity and enriched experience for customers. Monica is currently Senior Director of Engineering at Workday where she is responsible to build a Community 2.0 platform along with other partner teams. Prior to Workday, she worked at various Tech giants such as Cisco, NetApp, and Ultimate Software. She also serves as a Board member at WomenInLocalization, a global organization focused on Women mentorship and localization activities. She is a featured mentor on Plato and Everwise mentorship platforms.Monica holds a CS undergrad from Indore and grad from IIT Mumbai in India.Finding outdoor activities keeps her refreshed. When she is not working, she is either gardening, hiking, or mentoring. She can be reached on:Twitter: @mbajaj9LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mobajaj/

Cecile Alper-Leroux is vice president of product innovation at Ultimate Software. She is a keynote speaker, author of From Dissonance to Resonance, and a visionary on HR trends and global strategies. An economic anthropologist with more than 20 years of industry experience, she focuses on helping companies design person-centered experiences that enable all people to achieve highly purposeful and productive work lives. A recognized voice in the HCM industry, Cecile has been featured in Forbes, HuffPost, HR Magazine, HRD Canada TV, and The Wall Street Journal; she was named a Top HR Influencer of 2019 by FitSmallBusiness.com, a Top 100 Influencer by HR Executive Magazine, and a 2020 Great Place to Work® For All Leadership Award Honoree. LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecile-alper-leroux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/cecilehcm@cecilehcm Medium: https://medium.com/@cecile_leroux Books:From Dissonance to Resonance

Like this episode? Why not send me a tweet or DM and Subscribe! iTunes: https://apple.co/36RN7PN Spotify: https://spoti.fi/36PuhJ9 Podbean: https://bit.ly/2RgNhtm RSS: https://businesslifeandcoffee.com/   Want To Know What It Takes To Be A Better Entrepreneur? Check Out This Course! https://bit.ly/2us72H1    Show Sponsors: HR Outsourcing for Small Businesses and Companies - www.jumpstart-hr.com/contact    Coffee Shop Q&A ...with: Cecile Alper-Leroux VP of Human Capital Management (HCM) Innovation at Ultimate Software   .   Thanks for tuning in for this week's episode of the Business, Life, and Coffee Podcast. Stay safe everybody!    --   Show Credits: Host - Joey Price [@joeyvpriceHR] - Instagram | Twitter | Facebook Music - Ayo

David Almeda is Chief People Officer of Kronos, Inc and Ultimate Software. In this role, he drives the company's human capital management strategy for more than 12,000 employees worldwide.Dave's vision and leadership has evolved the employee experience, leading to top place to work honors in both Fortune magazine “Top 100 Companies to Work For®” and on Glassdoor's “Top 100 Best Places to Work.” Dave, who was named CPO of the Year by Mass TLC in 2019 and CHRO of the Year in 2017 by HRO Today, has led the implementation of innovative benefits and employee development programs that have been featured in several leading publications, including Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal .Dave brings a wealth of expertise to Kronos and Ultimate after spending 16 years in various human resources functions at Staples, a $25 billion retailer with more than 90,000 employees worldwide. His most recent position with Staples was as vice president of global human resources. Dave is an active member of the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM); serves on the Board of Directors of the New England Human Resources Association; and is an advisory board member of both The Workforce Institute at Kronos, and the Executive Program in Work-based Learning Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania/Wharton. 

A conversation between Aron Ain (CEO of Kronos and Ultimate Software) and Gail Goodman (CPO and cofounder of Pepperlane & former CEO of Constant Contact) that covers Aron's insights into the recent Kronos and Ultimate merger and advice on building and maintaining a strong work culture during the "new normal."SHOW NOTESCreating a merger like no other (0:59)COVID strikes during merger (4:35)Combining two company cultures (5:15)Dealing with employee burnout (8:08)Supporting our teams however we can (15:49)The importance of leadership (17:02)

This week in HR tech news: Low-code development tools begin creeping into HR; Ultimate Software and Kronos want employers to actually use D&I research. And more.

The Floridaville Get to Know the People Behind the Florida Names You Know Heather Geronemus is a public relations expert for Ultimate Software, a technology firm in South Florida that has ranked on Fortune Magazine's Top 100 Companies to Work For list for nine consecutive years.  She is also very involved with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).  She will serve as the Chair of the National Board of Directors for MADD this year and will once again Chair the Walk like MADD and MADD Dash Ft. Lauderdale fundraiser that she started. 

We are one week away from the 2020 MLS is Back Tournament in Orlando. Huge news coming out of camp with not one... not two, not three, but four New Inter Miami sponsors! Baptist, Publix, Ultimate Software and Bodega Trivinto... We Thank You!  We have one new singing who’s an ex-US National player and a previous #2 pick in the 2008 SuperDraft. And no... he’s not in the attack. But get hyped! Because Brek Shea is clearly a favorite of our general, Paul McDonough.  Vamos Miami!!  We love feedback from the Inter Miami Community! Write us a review in the Apple Store. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook @InterMiamiPodcast. If you want to email us with your questions, please do so at jayandalex@intermiamipodcast.com. Vamos Miami!! #InterMiami #InterMiamiPodcast #IMPC

Punk Rock HR Episode 115: This week, I’m joined by Karina Schultheis. She is a manager of human insights and HCM evangelism at Ultimate Software. However, even though Karina has an amazing job now, it hasn’t always been that way. She has worked in other jobs with other bosses and therefore brings a unique perspective to the table.  Currently, Karina is a newly promoted employee at an amazing company. Ultimate Software really gets it right on so many levels and they have been recognized for it. It is one of the best companies to work for, not just in America, but the world. Karina is also a working mother who is about to give birth to her second child.  In this episode, Karina and I talk about the future of work post-COVID. If you like insights on human behavior and what it’s going to take for companies to turn it around, listen in to this conversation with Karina Schultheis. In this episode you’ll hear: How integral the human element is to a company’s culture. Why personalization is going to become crucial for organizations. What it takes to build a culture of trust in a company. The importance of well-being for the employees and leaders of an organization and how it leads to better retention rates. The role of authenticity and flexibility in leadership teams. What substance abuse is doing to our workforce right now as influenced by COVID-19. The role of HR in driving productivity and maintaining healthy boundaries. How we can move forward post-COVID and amidst all the social justice reforms happening in our country. Karina’s hopes for HR and for the workforce going forward.   Resources from this episode: Karina's Twitter Karina's Instagram Ultimate Software On Twitter Ultimate Software On Instagram Ultimate Software Facebook Page Equity at Work Council Equity at Work Social Room Laurie on Instagram Laurie on LinkedIn Read more from Laurie Work with Laurie   *** EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com 

How do you make the world of work more engaging for your people? How do you bring your workplaces back into sync with better engagement and how can you break down the existing constructs of the workplace to improve the overall efficiency of your business? Chris talks to Cecile from Ultimate Software about her book ‘From Dissonance to Resonance'

World-Class Motivational Speaker, Author, Leadership Expert, Life and Performance Coach, Dr. Rick Perea practices cutting-edge Psychotherapy to mold champion athletes who, like him, have faced trauma and loss, into peak performers and World-Class Champion Athletes, both on and off the field. He practices at his world class performance facility, Think One, in Denver, Co. and shapes Champions from Athletes to Astronauts and everyday leaders like you and me. A World Champion (NFL), National Champion (NCAA), and Batting Champion (MLB) Psychologist, C.P.C., C.E.P., and S.I.P., his life reflects his philosophy to live at 212° every day. “Dr. P.” began his career as a free-agent linebacker for the Denver Broncos and uses his wins as an athlete to make a difference for Athletes, Executives, and all performers in leadership and business. As a Performance Psychologist and in a business leadership role, Dr. P. was impactful to the Denver Broncos in their 2016 World Superbowl Championship win. He has supported the Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos, Cleveland Browns, Colorado Rockies, and Denver Nuggets, and, also inspired world class organizations such as Google, Apple, and Ultimate Software. His innovative, energetic, and passionate approach changes the lives he encounters and helps shape champions for life. Learn more at www.THINKONE4YOU.ORG Order Decision Point TODAY on Kindle for 99cents! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089VT791D/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=rick+perea&qid=1591734443&sr=8-1 Order Decision Point on Paperback TODAY! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089TWPV3B/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=rick+perea&qid=1591734443&sr=8-4

World-Class Motivational Speaker, Author, Leadership Expert, Life and Performance Coach, Dr. Rick Perea practices cutting-edge Psychotherapy to mold champion athletes who, like him, have faced trauma and loss, into peak performers and World-Class Champion Athletes, both on and off the field. He practices at his world class performance facility, Think One, in Denver, Co. and shapes Champions from Athletes to Astronauts and everyday leaders like you and me. A World Champion (NFL), National Champion (NCAA), and Batting Champion (MLB) Psychologist, C.P.C., C.E.P., and S.I.P., his life reflects his philosophy to live at 212° every day. “Dr. P.” began his career as a free-agent linebacker for the Denver Broncos and uses his wins as an athlete to make a difference for Athletes, Executives, and all performers in leadership and business. As a Performance Psychologist and in a business leadership role, Dr. P. was impactful to the Denver Broncos in their 2016 World Superbowl Championship win. He has supported the Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos, Cleveland Browns, Colorado Rockies, and Denver Nuggets, and, also inspired world class organizations such as Google, Apple, and Ultimate Software. His innovative, energetic, and passionate approach changes the lives he encounters and helps shape champions for life. Learn more at www.THINKONE4YOU.ORG Order Decision Point TODAY on Kindle for 99cents! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089VT791D/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=rick+perea&qid=1591734443&sr=8-1 Order Decision Point on Paperback TODAY! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089TWPV3B/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=rick+perea&qid=1591734443&sr=8-4

World-Class Motivational Speaker, Author, Leadership Expert, Life and Performance Coach, Dr. Rick Perea practices cutting-edge Psychotherapy to mold champion athletes who, like him, have faced trauma and loss, into peak performers and World-Class Champion Athletes, both on and off the field. He practices at his world class performance facility, Think One, in Denver, Co. and shapes Champions from Athletes to Astronauts and everyday leaders like you and me. A World Champion (NFL), National Champion (NCAA), and Batting Champion (MLB) Psychologist, C.P.C., C.E.P., and S.I.P., his life reflects his philosophy to live at 212° every day. “Dr. P.” began his career as a free-agent linebacker for the Denver Broncos and uses his wins as an athlete to make a difference for Athletes, Executives, and all performers in leadership and business. As a Performance Psychologist and in a business leadership role, Dr. P. was impactful to the Denver Broncos in their 2016 World Superbowl Championship win. He has supported the Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos, Cleveland Browns, Colorado Rockies, and Denver Nuggets, and, also inspired world class organizations such as Google, Apple, and Ultimate Software. His innovative, energetic, and passionate approach changes the lives he encounters and helps shape champions for life. Learn more at www.THINKONE4YOU.ORG Order Decision Point TODAY on Kindle for 99cents! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089VT791D/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=rick+perea&qid=1591734443&sr=8-1 Order Decision Point on Paperback TODAY! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089TWPV3B/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=rick+perea&qid=1591734443&sr=8-4

World-Class Motivational Speaker, Author, Leadership Expert, Life and Performance Coach, Dr. Rick Perea practices cutting-edge Psychotherapy to mold champion athletes who, like him, have faced trauma and loss, into peak performers and World-Class Champion Athletes, both on and off the field. He practices at his world class performance facility, Think One, in Denver, Co. and shapes Champions from Athletes to Astronauts and everyday leaders like you and me. A World Champion (NFL), National Champion (NCAA), and Batting Champion (MLB) Psychologist, C.P.C., C.E.P., and S.I.P., his life reflects his philosophy to live at 212° every day. “Dr. P.” began his career as a free-agent linebacker for the Denver Broncos and uses his wins as an athlete to make a difference for Athletes, Executives, and all performers in leadership and business. As a Performance Psychologist and in a business leadership role, Dr. P. was impactful to the Denver Broncos in their 2016 World Superbowl Championship win. He has supported the Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos, Cleveland Browns, Colorado Rockies, and Denver Nuggets, and, also inspired world class organizations such as Google, Apple, and Ultimate Software. His innovative, energetic, and passionate approach changes the lives he encounters and helps shape champions for life. Learn more at www.THINKONE4YOU.ORG Order Decision Point TODAY on Kindle for 99cents! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089VT791D/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=rick+perea&qid=1591734443&sr=8-1 Order Decision Point on Paperback TODAY! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089TWPV3B/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=rick+perea&qid=1591734443&sr=8-4

Cara Pelletier is the Director of Diversity, Equity and Belonging at Ultimate Software. She holds a Master's degree in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University and a Certificate in Public Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School. A highlight of Cara's Ultimate Software career has been building our in-house leadership development and diversity programs from the ground up. She's passionate about helping leaders connect their heads with their hearts, creating welcoming and inclusive teams, and leading their teams to greater levels of success. Cara never says no to karaoke. Her house in Maine is a revolving door for animals. Currently, she and her wife have 2 dogs and 3 cats.

Dr. Chip R. Bell has helped many Fortune 100 companies dramatically enhance their bottom lines and marketplace reputations through innovative customer-centric strategies that address the needs of today's picky, fickle, vocal customers. Dr. Bell's keynotes reveal the best practices from the organizations leading the customer loyalty charge, giving audiences powerful, cutting-edge ideas and unique strategies they can immediately put into practice. Always customer-centered, Dr. Bell customizes all his presentations to meet unique organizational needs through a background study, pre-event conference call, and phone interviews to better understand specific audience challenges. He is considered a world-renowned authority on customer loyalty and service innovation. In fact, Global Gurus ranked him in 2018 as the #2 keynote speaker in the world on customer service and #1 in North America. Leadership Excellence Magazine also listed him among the top 30 thought leaders in North America. He also has written more than 700 columns for many business journals, magazines, and top blogs. He has appeared live on CNN, CNBC, CBS, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV, ABC, and NPR Radio, and his work has been featured in Fortune, Businessweek, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CEO Magazine, Money Magazine, and Entrepreneur. Dr. Bell has authored numerous national best-selling books including The 9½ Principles of Innovative Service; Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do about It; Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service; Customers as Partners; Magnetic Service; Take Their Breath Away: How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers;Sprinkles: Creating Awesome Experiences Through Innovative Service. His newest book is the best-selling Kaleidoscope: Delivering Innovative Service That Sparkles. His books have won major book awards including the 2017 Best Book Award in the business category. His books have been endorsed by the CEOs or presidents of such service greats as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Zappos, Starbucks, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Wolfgang Puck, Build-A-Bear Workshops, JetBlue, Marriott, Chick-fil-A, Ultimate Software, WestRock, Morgan Stanley, La Quinta Hotels, Kimpton Hotels, and Southwest Airlines. In addition, his training programs have won numerous awards. These include “Delivering Innovative Service” with a 2016 Best Classroom program awarded by HR.com, and “Service Unleashed,” developed for Forrest Performance Group, a prestigious 2018 Stevie award winner.

Laura Lee Gentry: Continually Curious Reading this via email? Click here to LISTEN NOW! Laura Lee Gentry is a global expert on driving business performance and competitive advantage through strategic Talent Management, and she has driven the design, launch and follow through for the first-ever Talent Management function for Ultimate Software, and before that for… Read More » The post Laura Lee Gentry: Continually Curious appeared first on Gareth J Young.