As we move through the third anniversary of the first lockdowns, it is a good time to reflect on how the pandemic has changed our attitudes and expectations towards work.
Employers now have to think very differently about culture, employee experience and recruiting. The new generation joining the workforce is also driving some very different thinking around career progression.
My guest this week is Abby Hamilton, Chief People Officer at LiveIntent. Abby has valuable insights about the importance of creating a human-centric approach to work where employees feel seen, heard, and recognized.
In the interview, we discuss:
• Current talent market challenges
• How tech layoffs are creating opportunities
• The legacy of the pandemic
• Culture, Employee Experience and Recruiting
• Wellbeing
• Changing career expectations from changing generations
• Video gaming and careers progression
• The role of technology
• Asynchronous communication
• The future of employee experience
Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Willo (0s):
Support for this podcast is provided by Willo, a video interviewing platform for scaling businesses. As the talent market evolves, you are probably thinking about how to build a more inclusive candidate experience that doesn’t require long days on Zoom, Teams, or Skype. Willo is a virtual interviewing platform where candidates can record responses on their own time using video, audio, or text. And it’s used by some of the fastest-growing businesses like Coinbase, Hotjar, and HelloFresh. Willo’s flexible platform means candidates can truly be themselves and recruiters get a consistent transparent process.
Willo (45s):
It’s also excellent for the candidate experience. 35% of candidates interview with Willo between the hours of 6:00 PM and 6:00 AM. Willo also integrates seamlessly with over 5,000 business applications such as Workday, Workable, Lever, greenhouse, and Team Taylor. There’s a free trial to try everything and if you need more Willo’s tailored plans include features to help you expand your talent pool and streamline recruiting operations. All with 24/7 live support. Request a personalized demo today at willo.video, that’s W-I-L-L-O.video.
Matt Alder (Intro) (1m 47s):
Hi, there this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 506 of the Recruiting Future Podcast As we move through the third anniversary of the first lockdowns, it is a good time to reflect on how the pandemic has changed our attitudes and expectations towards work. Employers now have to think very differently about culture, employee experience, and recruiting. The new generation joining the workforce is also driving some very different thinking around career progression. My guest this week is Abby Hamilton, Chief People Officer at LiveIntent.
Matt Alder (Intro) (2m 31s):
Abby has valuable insights about the importance of creating a human-centric approach to work where employees feel seen, heard, and recognized.
Matt Alder (2m 43s):
Hi Abby and welcome to the podcast.
Abby Hamilton (2m 46s):
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to talk to you today.
Matt Alder (2m 50s):
My absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Please, could you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Abby Hamilton (2m 56s):
Absolutely. I am Abby Hamilton. I am the Chief People Officer at LiveIntent. I’ve been in talent acquisition in the people space since 2004, although, I don’t know if I should admit that out loud at this point. But specifically, I’ve focused in the Adtech and Martech space for the last 10 years. So tech-heavy in most recent part of my career.
Matt Alder (3m 21s):
Fantastic stuff. Tell us a little bit more about LiveIntent and what they do. But also tell us about the current talent challenges that you have in the industry.
Abby Hamilton (3m 31s):
Yeah, we’re a people-based marketing company focused mainly on the email sector in the email space, so helping brands and publishers to monetize inventory, especially in their newsletters along with some other key products. But current talent challenges in our industry is, this is such a great question because there are so many potential answers because it’s constantly changing. So, what I mean by that is early last year, thinking back in 2022, we couldn’t find enough people like there were just so many demands on a recruiting team.
Abby Hamilton (4m 11s):
Talent was scarce, what people were asking for. It was just really hard as a medium-sized business to deliver on that. And then it feels like that shifted drastically in the tech space, especially going into 2023. And we’ve seen layoffs throughout the space and by major players, which is open talent for opportunities that we may not have had access to in the past. So for us, that’s been a big benefit to get to talk to some of those individuals. And now we’re focused on the future of work and what people are looking for in a company.
Abby Hamilton (4m 51s):
And that has also evolved. What people want has evolved. They want to support something that they believe in and work for an organization that they believe they can bring value to. And they also want organizations that can support their unique perspective as a person. And, it’s now about the total package, not just a part of it. And so how we brand, how we have those conversations, and how we navigate this ongoing economic environment those are challenges in our space right now. And we’re all trying to figure it out.
Matt Alder (5m 28s):
Yeah, no, absolutely. And it’s something I wanna really sort of dive into some aspects of that in the conversation. I suppose to start with, a lot of the disruption that we’re experiencing now was driven by the pandemic and the aftermath of the pandemic. How has the pandemic changed the way that we show up for work?
Abby Hamilton (5m 49s):
Oh goodness. I mean, many office-based workers left their offices in March of 2020 and never fully went back. For those workers, they then invited their coworkers into their homes every day virtually. And I know for me that created an environment where parts of me that I didn’t talk about in the office were hurter to avoid. And one of those major things is that I’m a mom. I didn’t avoid that topic or lie about it, but it was also something I wasn’t open about outside of the people I let get close to me. I was often afraid of the bias it would create against me for many others, you know, you’re a mom and that means these things that just were untrue about me.
Abby Hamilton (6m 34s):
And that fear of being judged led me to not talking often about one of the best parts of me. And it’s so much harder to do that when my kids are home with me. They’re interrupting meetings because they need juice, they need a snack, or of course, they need me to referee a fight between them. And of course, all of those things in their world are way bigger priority to them than me doing my job. So they will interrupt any meeting for that. And during the pandemic, very real conversations about race were had and got even deeper, especially in America. Mental health conversations were also being highlighted because none of us were really thriving or doing great.
Abby Hamilton (7m 19s):
And all of these things began being discussed at work in a way that I didn’t experience early in my career. I see it as a very refreshing change and I hope that that continues to be encouraged and that people will continue to talk about bringing your authentic self to work. And hope we don’t ever lose this progress and instead keep progressing. And people that may have wanted to hide things like me, we don’t have to do that anymore.
Matt Alder (7m 46s):
Yeah, I think that’s really interesting. And I think that perhaps we don’t focus on those positives that have come out of the pandemic enough there’s, you know, huge debate about where work happens and all this sort of stuff. But actually, there were some fantastic points there about the positive things that have happened. And yeah, it literally was letting your workmates into your home. You know I have podcast recordings, my seven-year-old interrupts this. It’s crazy. So on an ongoing basis, sort of coming right back to sort of 2023, what are the implications for culture, employee experience, and recruiting?
Abby Hamilton (8m 26s):
The first thing that comes to my mind is stronger relationships with people you work with closely because it’s hard to truly connect with another person when they feel like they’re holding back so much of who they are. And for me personally, I feel like a stronger and more empathetic leader. When I think about the earlier pre-pandemic version of me, I was less open to others, meaning they were less open to me. And I really like this line, Stephen Richards Covey said, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions.” And that really stuck with me because it’s true, right?
Abby Hamilton (9m 6s):
We had just a tiny piece of what we see and we’re judging that versus ourselves. We know our thoughts and we know why we’re doing these things and how many actions are we judging unfairly because we don’t understand where the other person’s coming from. And so, I want to bring that all back to culture and employee experience and recruiting exactly where you started. And it’s that we all want to be seen, heard, and recognized. So when I think about it, it’s do I wanna join a company that doesn’t see me? Or why would I stay or give my all if I don’t feel like those efforts are recognized? How we show up for work, but even more importantly, the environment we create as leaders matters.
Abby Hamilton (9m 49s):
And so there are major implications to continuing this human-centric or human-first approach.
Matt Alder (10m 1s):
And in terms of, you talked about mental health there and various other things. How should employers be contributing to or looking after the well-being of their employees?
Abby Hamilton (10m 16s):
Yeah, there’s a lot of ways, and even talking about recruiting there, recruiting and retention are intertwined. And so not only do programs and mindset to attract talent, like those things really matter, but they also help those same people that you’re attracted with those things to stay. You don’t necessarily need to show signs of burnout or be completely exhausted in order to prioritize self-care and your well-being. And the same is true as a leader, we need to prioritize self-care to allow ourselves to operate at our best. And we have to model that behavior if we want others to do it too. I’ve found that being vulnerable and honest about what those things are for you really is meaningful because well-being means something different to every individual.
Abby Hamilton (10m 59s):
And it doesn’t look the same for all members of a team or even my team. And when you’re a leader, people are always watching you even when you think they’re not. And if they see you being real, being authentic, and doing what you need to do to bring your best self to work, they’re likely to do more of that same thing in whatever way is best for them individually. And more candidates than ever are asking about the culture of a company and the programs that an organization has to support them and their development prior to making decision to join or not. They want to know if this is somewhere they can be for the long term.
Matt Alder (11m 35s):
I think that’s really interesting in terms of leaders sharing vulnerability and really kind of modeling the way in terms of allowing time and space to look after well-being. Because I think that a lot of the times the conversation’s been about very specific tactics. I remember talking to people during the pandemic and one idea was to help employees who were burning out from having too many Zoom meetings by making them all do yoga on Zoom.
Abby Hamilton (12m 5s):
Yeah.
Matt Alder (12m 6s):
And I think just kind of illustrates the kind of lack of thinking and authenticity behind some of these kind of well-being programs.
Abby Hamilton (12m 12s):
Yeah. Do as I say, not as I do.
Matt Alder (12m 16s):
Absolutely. You sort of mentioned that people are now asking about development and well-being when they’re looking to join organizations. Is there a different generation thing going on here? I mean, how are, you know, we have a whole sort of new generation coming into the workforce that they’re coming into the workforce at the moment. We have another one going through the education system. How are career expectations changing with the new generations that come into the workforce?
Abby Hamilton (12m 45s):
Yeah, I’m seeing a lot changing with the way new generations show up at work or expect to show up at work. I think there are multiple reasons for this. First one is they’ve grown up with technology. My four-year-old amazes me with what he can do when he takes my phone or is playing games with his older brother. And then I remember this is his reality. He’s seen these tools and been immersed in technology since birth. I mean, he also thinks anything can be delivered by Amazon on the same day, right? So it’s just very different. The on-demand access to information is greater than ever. And I mean, what did people do when they couldn’t Google their jobs?
Abby Hamilton (13m 26s):
I worked then, I don’t want to try and remember back that far, but there’s a lot there with growing up with technology that’s changed the way they think and work. And then there’s also COVID itself. Some people that have entered the workforce, especially in these last couple of years, have never worked in a five-day-a-week office environment. And that naturally creates expectations and an experience that is changed. I remember commuting to an office five days a week in being in person with all of my coworkers daily. And that was a very different learning experience. I also had a lot more coffee that was made in places other than my home kitchen.
Abby Hamilton (14m 8s):
But like, there’s just so many different things when you think about working from home or even hybrid versus what the other generations mainly had if you were an in-office worker, which is five days a week. And then one other thing pops to my mind in this, and it’s, I was having a conversation with a coworker about how things have changed with new generations coming into the workplace. And he called it the “video game culture”. And that was inspired by his son. And it was really interesting, our conversation went into talking about video games and how in a video game you level up quickly, especially in the early stages. If you play enough or you can look up a cheat online, you advance to that next level.
Abby Hamilton (14m 50s):
And that’s what they expect. And they expect that even now coming into work. If I play, I level up quickly, I advance, I advance, I advance. And we’re also watching our friends and our family on social media and that adds so much extra pressure when you see others that may advance. And we compare ourselves to others, we compete with each other. And so that creates more of the well, I deserve that too. And so there’s just a different mentality there. And I know, oh my goodness, that was a ton. So I’ll end this in the same place with I started. So a lot has changed.
Matt Alder (15m 26s):
Yeah, I love that video game thing. I think that’s so true in terms of just watching the way that gaming from a young age does shape people’s expectations and behavior. And yeah, fascinating to think of it in terms of the workforce like that. I suppose in relation to that, in relation to remote working and everything that’s been going on. What role does technology play in all of this in terms of employee experience, and recruiting, and culture and all the things that we’ve been talking about?
Abby Hamilton (16m 1s):
Technology has made so many advancements and completely evolved how we work. I mean, let’s take asynchronous communication as an example. That’s possible now in a way we hadn’t seen before. We can edit a document or a presentation at the same time or when we’re able and tag each other for later without sending a PowerPoint back and forth. Remember when we had to do that? Like, I’m done now, here’s your part. We can record meetings. That meeting can be dictated for us by tech. We can even use AI to write emails or social posts. Even you and I are here right now recording this podcast from very different physical locations. I’ll hop off this and I’ll go right in my next meeting with people at LiveIntent, right?
Abby Hamilton (16m 46s):
And there’s no downtime in between. So it’s really exciting to see what technology makes possible for us and how it will continue to evolve how people work.
Matt Alder (16m 57s):
As the final question, pulling this all together, the changes that we’ve seen in the last few years, the expectations and behavior of a new generation and all the technology just continuing to advance an evermore rapid pace. What is the future look like or what do you hope the future will be like for the employee experience?
Abby Hamilton (17m 21s):
I hope we continue to advance this workplace. And even more importantly, how we support each other, both in office-based jobs as well as those ones that require people to be there physically. Right? I don’t wan to leave out those individuals that are providing us services, moving items, delivering goods, building infrastructure, providing an education for our children, or the money other things that we need in-person support for. But it all comes back to that we matter as people and we matter as humans. So how do we help each other continue to be seen, heard, and valued with employee experience, but also with technology? None of this is easy though I’m completely looking forward to where it’s going and continue advancements that are going to be made.
Abby Hamilton (18m 7s):
And when you and I look back in 10 years from now and we say, “Wow, I can’t believe we were talking about some of those things in 2023.” Right? It really, really exciting to see.
Matt Alder (18m 20s):
Abby. Thank you very much for talking to me.
Abby Hamilton (18m 22s):
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. This was a fun conversation to have.
Matt Alder (18m 27s):
My thanks to Abby. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow the show on Instagram. You can find us by searching for Recruiting Future. You can search all the past episodes at recruitingfuture.com. On that site, you can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast, and get the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
