How Feeling Seen drives Engagement with Meisha-ann Martin Ph.D.
Welcome back to the We Are Human Leaders podcast. Today's conversation with Meisha-ann Martin Ph.D. is centered around the power of feeling seen in the workplace.
When is a time when you’ve felt truly appreciated for who you are and your unique contribution at work? These moments tend to stand out - because they tend to be rare. Today we are talking to people analytics, engagement and recognition expert Dr Meisha-ann Martin about why research shows we need to build better skills and habits around how we show recognition. And how we as human leaders can make this happen.
Dr. Meisha-ann Martin is the Senior Director of People Analytics and Research at Workhuman. Dr. Martin has a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology based on her research on diversity attitudes in the workplace and has fifteen years of experience in People Analytics across industries. She’s also a really delightful human being.
Dr. Martin has a personal passion for diversity, equity and inclusion and loves using data and analytics to identify and remedy inclusion gaps in the employee experience. She is considered a People Analytics/Employee Experience expert as she has led these efforts in companies like Flex, JetBlue and Raymond James Financial and is the former Head of Talent Experience at Servicemaster. Dr. Martin regularly speaks at conferences, on webinars and on podcasts; her thought leadership has been featured in Forbes, HR Dive and Benefits Pro.
For accessible access, view the podcast with closed captions below and access the full conversation transcript.
Episode Transcript:
Spk0 Sally Clarke Spk1 Meisha-ann Martin Ph.D. Spk2 Alexis Zahner
[00:00:10] spk_0: Welcome to the We are Human Leaders podcast. When is the time when you felt truly appreciated for who you are and your unique contribution at work? These moments tend to stand out because they tend to be rare. I'm Sally Clarke and today Alexis Zahner and I are talking to people analytics, engagement and recognition expert, Dr Meisha-ann Martin Ph.D. about why research shows we need to build better skills and habits around how we show recognition and how we as human leaders can make this happen. Dr. Meisha-ann Martin is the senior director of people analytics and research at work. Human Dr. Martin has a PhD in industrial and organizational psychology based on her research on diversity attitudes in the workplace. She also has 15 years of experience in people analytics across industries and she's a delightful human being. Let's delve into today's episode. Thank you so much for being with us, Meisha-ann we're delighted to have you with us on the We are Human Leaders podcast and we'd love to start by hearing a little bit about your personal journey and how you've come to the important work that you're doing now. Thanks for
[00:01:22] spk_1: Asking that question. I think it's so important to know where people are coming from. And so often we start with, Well, what's your professional history? You know, and you can get all of that on linkedin. So here's the part that you won't really get on linkedin. But I think it's really important. So I think the most important thing to know about me is that I'm an immigrant. I came to the United States at 16 without my family to start college in the United States. And I came from Jamaica, as I said before, and Jamaica is primarily black. So I had no experience with being a racial minority at all. And I started to kind of seek my new identity in this new place. And that led me to a place where I was doing research on racism starting all the way in undergrad, carrying through to graduate school. Because frankly, when I first came to the United States, I thought this country is super rich. What's the problem? And then with just a little bit of research, I started to understand that not everybody was participating equally in that wealth. And so by the time I finished grad school, I knew that my career charter was to try to give more people, more opportunities in a more equitable way through objective processes and data and, and politics for accountability. But also to shed light on where people were experiencing work less positively. I had this idea that the way people experience work influences the rest of their lives. And I thought that that was my best way to make a difference,
[00:03:03] spk_2: so powerful me to end. And I think I'm so glad that we got to start with your story because I think you're very right in that those personal experience, we have really do shape our career and shape the professional life that we go into. And I couldn't imagine as a 16 year old coming from my country of birth and living in a totally different country and culture, I had such a comfortable small town upbringing. So my experience just feels like it would have been radically different from your own. Yeah, the
[00:03:32] spk_1: interesting thing about that, I think fear is a very adult thing. And so I think that it was to my benefit that I wasn't adult enough to overthink all the ways that this could go wrong. And yeah, I tried to take that into my later life, right. And think about the fearless person. I was as a 16 year old to do such
[00:03:55] spk_0: A thing. Amazing Misha. And I have to say I resonate having lived for a year as an exchange student when I was 16, I went to the Netherlands To live for a year. But I think, you know, to some extent, a significantly different experience and that I knew that it was a year and while the Dutch were kind of different in cute ways there were tall and, but it was obviously not, you know, being suddenly in a minority in terms of race that I experienced. And I can imagine that at 16, that must have been quite a profound experience for you.
[00:04:25] spk_1: It was, but it wasn't as tough as it could have been. And that's because, because my school of choice was an HBCU historically black colleges and universities is what that stands for. So I had this safe space, safer space in which to lend the people around me were different than I was used to, but they were still black. And so I got a little bit of a buffer to begin with before I was thrust into being fully into being a racial minority. And I think that help me immensely and I'm super, super grateful
[00:05:01] spk_2: for that incredible Misha. And I guess my next question is really geared around your work now, but perhaps it's a good place for us to start to give some context to folks listening. Can you tell us a little bit about the professional side of the work that you're doing now?
[00:05:16] spk_1: Yeah. So, absolutely. There's a story to that too. So what I just told you was my origin story, but there was a point in my career that she changed how I approached my career and that deeply influences what I do today and how I do today. And so just to be really brief about that right before the pandemic. I had significant health issues. Thought I was gonna tie, I had lost vision due to something also immune. They thought I had lupus. I had a breast cancer scare in there. Everything is fine. But when you get to a point in your life where, you know, you're contemplating your mortality, it makes you take a step back and wonder if you are doing enough. And that was where I found myself. And as I found myself there, George Floyd was murdered shortly after that. And we were in the midst of a global pandemic. So I had a lot of thinking about okay. So I know that I want to make the world of work better for people and do that through people analytics and it will make their lives better. But how do I want to approach this work? And I got really clear that I wanted to be doing more previously in my career, I was very clinical about how I approach things. I was showing differ engagement numbers for different types of people and how that affected how they feel about the company. I was showing differences in hiring ratios and breaking down processes to find where the biases are. All of that is super important. But I had played down my identity as part of it. I didn't want to be part of the story. And so at this second point in my life, I was like, no, I've seen a few things by this point, I'm kind of ticked off about all this inequity that I'm constantly confronting at work and in our society, I want to do more and I want to use my voice. And so now I consider myself as more of an evangelist, right? So I'm still using data and analytics to make a difference in the workplace and to draw awareness to areas where experience and opportunities are not the same. But now I'm talking about it a lot more outside of single organizations. And so that's where my work at work. Human comes in work human as a company, it's all about making work more human for people through things like recognition and continuous conversations about performance and development. And so my role at work, human is to work with a team that uses all that data to show that when you treat people well at work and when you make the effort to make them feel connected, it actually works, they feel more engaged, it changes their lives and guess what your business does better. And then I get to talk about things like that with people like
[00:08:19] spk_2: you brilliant and it's that interconnectedness often that we miss so much. And we, we want to dive into this concept of recognition at work. But before we really get into the crux of the practicality of that and how we do that, I'd love to hear from an expert, Misha an what do you see that senior leaders consistently get so wrong about employee engagement in the workplace.
[00:08:41] spk_1: So I think one of the biggest things that I've seen right now is that we think that the path to engagement is the same for every single person. So right now, what we're doing at work human, in terms of research, we're looking at life stages. And if you think about this conceptually what you want and what you need when you first enter your career is very different than what you need as you're winding your career down. Or if you're a space in your life where you're what we call a sandwich caretaker where you're taking care of both kids and parents, the needs of all those different personas are different. And so one of the mistakes I see people make is they go oh yeah, we need to do the same things for everybody and it's gonna work. I see this right now happening a lot as we think about ways of working people need different things. Now that being said, there are some universals like recognition, recognition works for everybody. But I think we need to understand what works for everybody and then where we need to tailor our approach. And in order to tailor our approach, we've got to get to know people, we got to get to know people. And then the other mistake that I'd like to mention is that, you know, as we went through this pandemic and things got topsy turvy. I hear a lot of leaders say, well, what does the business need? It is the wrong question. It's the absolute wrong question. The right question is what do our people need? Because once you figure that out, the business will get what it needs because they will be motivated to give the business what it needs.
[00:10:18] spk_2: So important to ask that question. And Misha an interestingly, I love this concept of the life stages because Sally and I had a conversation just recently with an incredible woman, Ashton act around ageism. And her work is really to debunk generational stereotypes. And I love that because again, I sit pretty neatly into the millennial generation. And I'm saying that with quotation marks, however, some of my friends have Children, I don't have Children. So my needs are very different at this stage of my life. So I really appreciate this acknowledgment that regardless of our age, regardless of our generation, which we've used. There's a stereotype and a sort of subconscious prejudice almost for so long understanding the individual's needs rather than grouping them in with this mass of people around the same age goes so much further in understanding why they show up to work every day and what keeps them there and what are the needs, they might have to meet that stage of their life. So I'm so excited to hear that it's been flipped on its head in terms of the generations and we're starting to dive into these life stages. That's really fascinate.
[00:11:25] spk_1: Thank you. Yeah. At work, human, we strive to always be changing the conversation, improve the conversation if you will around how people experience work and what we should be thinking about as we try to help people experience working the best possible way so that businesses in turn can
[00:11:43] spk_0: thrive. I'm really, really excited for that work that you're doing mission and in that space. And I think I'd love to just sort of highlight also what you mentioned earlier that there is a real power. I think that we have in using work almost as a conduit for the kind of broader social change that we want to see, you know, to some extent, we could even view as kind of a microcosm of the society in which we live. And if we view it in that way, these changes that we can make really, you know, up leveling human interconnectedness, creating conversations of empathy and insight and understanding, you know, work is a really powerful place for that to happen. I think there's a really potent flow on effect that we can potentially see when that kind of change manifests.
[00:12:21] spk_1: I think that is such an important point. Work, I think is the most universal social network that we have. Most people go to work, right? Not everybody has a family, not everybody goes to church, not everybody lives near their families. There are some people that are really socially isolated. In a survey we did about two years ago, about our third of our population, you know, reported that they felt lonely, we could use work to appropriately address some of those things. Not only does the individual's life improve, but now people feel like they're part of a community, people don't easily leave their communities. So now you've got a positive retention, the impact of that. So the person benefits and the business benefits.
[00:13:15] spk_0: It's an incredible point. And I know that the surgeon general Dr Vivek Murthy has also done quite a lot of work, you know, exposing the kind of, you know, epidemic of loneliness that we're experiencing right now. And I think it's another thing that I see sort of in the burnout research that I do as well. When I have these conversations about eradicating burnout from the workplace, I think it really does to a large extent come down to helping people feel more connected and whether that's through helping them feel safer to open up or simply feel more seen through the way that we behave, the way that we are listening and interacting with each other. I know that you mentioned that, you know, the engagement question is really something that, you know, there's a lot of different answers to and it depends very much on individuals, whether it's life phase or perhaps even personality characteristics. But I'm curious based on your data, what you see as the key drivers of engagement at work right now.
[00:14:08] spk_1: Yeah. So there are a couple of things that I would highlight. One is a lot more emergent in terms of the strength of its impact on engagement. So Gallup has their survey tool, the Q 12 and one of their consistent drivers of engagement is that item, I have a best friend at work. That is still true. That idea of connection is still important. But what they're finding most recently is that it's having a bigger impact on engagement than it used to. Now, when you think about different types of people in the workforce, this becomes even more important. So think about people like women or people of color or the L G B T Q I A to S plus community who may experience microaggressions that may become even more important because you want the social support to be able to talk that out. And one of our recent surveys, 18% which is almost 20% right? One out of five, you can think about it that way, said that they didn't feel comfortable talking to anybody at work about bias that you know, they suffered from at work. That is an incredibly lonely, lonely place. So I think that idea of having a P person or even having people is super important right now and related to what we were talking about where loneliness is concerned. But also recognition is a big universal one. That has stood the test of time and is potentially even more important during crises or stress situations. So at work, human, we have lots of clients, we have lots of prospects. And on the client side, we consistently here, our clients tell us that recognition is a big driver of engagement from their own research. And then on the prospect side, that's how a lot of people find us. They say, hey, we did an engagement survey. It was low. We find that it's a significant driver of engagement. Can you help us? And then also in relation to your point about burnout, we've done research on that as well and what we find consistently, we saw this before the pandemic and during the pandemic is that when times are stressful, there's something about recognition that reinforces that individual's value to their organizational community and takes the stress down. So if you're in a place where you know, you're doing layoffs or people are afraid that layoffs are coming for the people that you want to stay instead of getting nervous and looking somewhere else, you really want to double down on recognition during that critical
[00:16:46] spk_2: time. Yeah, that's fascinating, Misha. And, and I want to ask, we also know that there's this, I guess understanding now that purpose and meaning in our work is really important for individuals is recognition sort of a way where we can acknowledge one's contribution, especially in those tough times. Is that a good way of us to sort of let people know what they do has meaning at work.
[00:17:10] spk_1: I think so. But the first part of that is what people are actually chew, choosing to do and how the person and the organization is matching people to roles. I think that's a really critical decision point. So for me, for example, I had my charter, I knew what I wanted to do with my career. I think that that individual intention setting is important. But then recognition is the other side of that. If I know that that's what I want to do. And I sought out to do that in this role in the organization, then it bumps my engagement when you're acknowledging me for that thing that I know has meaning and purpose to me. So it's kind of like the organization saying, yes, you're doing the thing, you are accomplishing it, right? And so it's a magnifier to that purpose and meaning
[00:18:03] spk_2: fascinating when you phrase it that way because I think that's a really powerful way of tying together the individuals, purpose and perhaps intentions in life and how we can actually acknowledge this through work. Because I think often when we speak to organizations and we talk about things like vision and values, there feels to be like businesses want folks to get on board with what they're doing and basically kind of meld into that. And certainly we like to see employees that, you know, can enact in a line with values at a personal level. But what I'm hearing is that there's almost this space for the individuals, meaning and journey to filter into the bigger picture for the organization as well. Have I interpreted that
[00:18:44] spk_1: correctly? I think that's correct. So at that second pivotal point in my career where I reevaluated what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it because we're human. So clear about what their purpose is and what their vision is working human. It was easy for me to go. Okay, what I'm trying to do and what they're trying to do is very aligned. And so I think if organizations are really clear, we exist to help people in the world. And that way, you know, if that's your thing go to that place, right? And then you go in and you're helping people and the organization says, yeah, you're making a difference in helping people. That is the whole enchilada right there.
[00:19:25] spk_2: Mm Yeah, I love that and just to talk a little bit more about work human. I know the mission of the company is lead the movement to celebrate the power of humanity in the workplace through gratitude and peer to peer recognition. Now, I'd love to just get a little more granular for a moment here, Misha and to understand these concepts a little bit more. And firstly, you know, how can leaders implement a culture of gratitude and peer to peer recognition.
[00:19:53] spk_1: So that's an awesome question. I'm glad you asked it. We recently did research with gallop on, you know, what is the impact of recognition? I think we all pretty much know that at this point when people feel recognized, they feel connected, they're more engaged or less likely to leave, the organization starts to feel like a community. But then the other part of that research is, well, how do you get there and how do you do it well, and we found some pretty clear things. So number one recognition between people has to be authentic and what that means is a simple atta boy. Thank you. That's not it. That's not how you do it, right? Like that doesn't come across as authentic. You have to be specific. What did the person do that had an impact on you? And why did that have an impact on you or the organization or on the team? Think about it in terms of behavioral coaching, make sure you emphasize the specifics of the behavior that you want that person to repeat because to the extent that you do that, well, the person will repeat it. It's basic human psychology, it has to be fulfilling, which means that, you know, when people do good things, you don't want that to be invisible or unacknowledged. When people feel like they are well recognized in relation to what they're doing, then their recognition bucket is full. You want people's recognition buckets to be full. Right. And that's not necessarily all, Always a set number for each person, even though we do have guidelines. So at least once a month or 1-2 times a quarter seems to do it for people. But if you have an individual that's really participating, you know, on an important project and doing innovative things constantly, then you definitely don't want to do just what you would do under normal circumstances, right? Like you want it to be appropriate to what the person is doing. You want it to be equitable, you don't want people to feel like, hey, I'm doing all this stuff and that person over there is getting recognized, but I'm not getting recognized. So you have to make sure it's equitable. So you still have to maintain that discipline of looking at. Is it equitable by gender? Is it equitable by role? Is it equitable by race or ethnicity? And then the last thing is you want it to be embedded in your culture, which is a really important thing. So there is the impact of feeling, recognize yourself and feeling like it's equitable. There's a whole additive impact of feeling like you work somewhere where this kind of thing happens. So this is where a recognition program can be really helpful because then people can see that peers are recognizing and they can join the party. They're like, oh, this is something that happens here. Imagine if you're a new person coming into an organization and you see your recognition feed for the both the first time and you see everybody on there from the CEO to the person you work with and people are recognizing each other. That's a signal that this is something that happens here. And you can pile on the good feelings by, you know, writing a little note, congratulating your peers, the embedded in the culture part is super, super important. And what we find in our research is that it amplifies the impact of individual recognition. So it means it has an even bigger impact on things like burnout and stress and engagement when you feel like this is something that happens around you. And in this culture, I
[00:23:32] spk_0: think that's fantastically clearly explains me to an intern of the impact of recognition and also the sort of various components to it that are really important for leaders to be focusing on. And it makes me think of some recent work we've done with a large law firm and how the, you know, the legal profession is one where there's a lot of criticism, it's really important to get things right? And so helping them bring in a culture of recognition is something that's quite a profound shift. I remember myself as a lawyer years ago, you know, a huge project we've been working on for months and all we got was a great work team email at the end and like a voucher gift card for a restaurant. No one ever went to, like, there was this kind of almost like anti recognition because it was so impersonal and so unfelt. And what I'm hearing you say is that it really is, is about taking the time to have conversations with people and creating that sense of connection and then even feeling those, you know, basic psychological needs to be seen and heard, like I recognize it almost makes me think of, you know, Namaste yoga, like the light in me sees the light in you in that sense of I see the personal effort that you put in here and we really appreciate that and then sort of building that out deeper into the culture. So,
[00:24:48] spk_1: you know what's interesting in partnership with Gallup, we actually came up with five pillars and I thought, well, let me just stop at four because, you know, I don't want to slam them with five, right? And so I gave you four, I gave you authentic equitable fulfilling embedded in culture. But what just happened is that you mentioned the fifth that I didn't really x explicitly mentioned, which is personalized, it has to be personalized, right? And so you said nobody ever went to that restaurant. So it does have to be personalized to the person. And this is another way that, you know, a good recognition program helps you because people have a difference in whether they like to be publicly or privately acknowledged. And in our system, for example, people can select that as part of their profile. And so if you never wanted to show up on the social feed and it never does. But the other thing is the redemption part. So instead of having to remember as a manager, okay, this person likes this restaurant, this person like this and this person like that or redemption catalog is wonderfully huge and people can choose for themselves what they want to redeem. They can also choose to rid right away or save up for something big like I did, which is my espresso machine. And so folks, the good memories every time I have my morning espresso, I say thank you work human. So yes, that is the fifth pillar, making sure it's personalized.
[00:26:16] spk_2: And interestingly, I just wanted to go back to something Sally said, Misha and because she said the word unfelt and to me that sort of landed immediately around your experience, sell around whether or not that recognition actual landed for you or not. And to me that feels like the pivotal outcome, right? If people aren't actually on a personal level, feeling, the appreciation come through to me kind of goes back to that human need of. Am I even valued here? Am I even appreciated here? And I think often, you know, we may be experienced that in, in our personal lives in different ways. I'm sure parents are always doing so many things that their Children don't even know they're doing for them and they feel very unappreciated. And I just wanted to pause and sort of bring that word out because I felt like that was a really important outcome, is the recognition actually felt on an individual level or
[00:27:08] spk_1: not. And that's where specificity really matters, right? So instead of thank you, team, it becomes, here was your specific contribution to the team that I see and appreciate. That's the difference between Felton on felt. And I think it's especially important in these contexts that have a natural and probably unfairly so superstar, right? Like where the superstar is the lawyer or the doctor or the pilot, but the supporting cast often gets no love or not enough love. It's so important, especially I think in context like those to recognize each person on the team and their unique and particular contribution to the outcome. I think
[00:27:52] spk_0: that's absolutely essential as you're noting me too. And you know, we have this kind of hero narratives around a lot of sort of titles in the workplace. And it's so important that we acknowledge that there are so many other pieces to the puzzle and so many incredibly important contributions which are essential to the outcome that the success of the team. And so I think really shedding light on all of the components, all of the steps through the journey to a team success is really, really key. So thank you for highlighting that I would love to sort of zoom in and get if you're okay with it, to get a little bit personal. Now, in terms of sharing a moment in your career where you have felt unrecognized and the impact this has had on you. And if you can also maybe share a moment where you did feel deeply recognized at work and what the impact was like in that instance.
[00:28:45] spk_1: Yeah. So the first one, the unrecognized part that was a few years ago, another organization, another role and I had taken on this huge project for visualizing hr metrics and having them updated in real time and providing dashboards to human resources, business partners. And it was a huge undertaking. It was very personally challenging for me, I was working on things like integrations between systems. I had no idea. And so the learning curve was really steep. It ended up being really successful in terms of the dashboard actually worked and was updating data in real time, which is unheard of in the hr space. And I started to notice this really interesting discrepancy when I presented about this work externally, people were really, really excited and complimentary, but internally, I wasn't getting that same recognition. And so it really highlighted to me the feeling of being under appreciated by that particular organization and eventually parted ways. It was not, you know, I found myself getting really bitter and cynical. It was not a version of myself that I liked to be, to be honest, so fast forward to a more positive example. It was after my reckoning with myself when I said I wanted to do more and I decided I wanted to use my voice and be more vulnerable and you know, participate more in a change to the world in terms of social justice and equity. And I had just joined work human and I had made this promise to myself, but my muscles in this area were really, really weak. I was used to being so clinical about all of it. And so here I go. And one of my first things I'm working with work human on is this article on how to create a sustainable diversity strategy. And I felt really strongly about it because I was worried that all these companies that were asserting, you know, that diversity was important to them after the George Floyd Murder, that they would just fizzle out. Unfortunately, I was right. And so I wrote this article about how not to be one of those people, like how to turn it from a moment into a movement. And so I submitted this article to Work Human. And the idea was that they were going to propose it to certain news outlets. And so I sent in the first draft and they said, yeah, this is great, but there's no you in that article, like it doesn't say anything about you or your perspective. And it was an interesting moment because even though it was constructive feedback, it was a signal that that organization wanted to see me. I wanted to see the real me, not just the clinical step, one, step, two, step three, step four, but Misha and we want to know what you think about that. And so it was scary, but I took a step back and I was like, all right, I'm gonna rewrite this article and I came in screaming hot England and they recognized me for that. So what they did was they said we wanted to see you. And then when I put myself in it, they said we like it. We like you. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm home.
[00:32:25] spk_2: Oh Wow, what a powerful moment, Misha. And, and you realize that I'm relating it to an experience that I had as well. And sort of interestingly the power of recognition in my young career. My initial career was in the marketing space and I really felt like that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to support companies and brands to find their vision and connect with their audience. And this felt really important to me. But my first graduate experience was one where I felt underappreciated, under supported unseen and almost existentially, it made me question my entire existence. Like I've spent my year my life, my adult life studying this thing and I hate it. And to me what you kind of just highlighted between those two examples is how again, going back to this concept that work can actually have this flow on effect into the rest of our lives. And a Sally mentioned almost societies that recognition in the workplace can actually be the make or break on someone's life journey. That's kind of what I'm hearing from that. And it sounds to me, Misha and that, that was probably your experience as well. And do you see in the work and are people leaving their careers because they're being under recognized? And are we losing people in perhaps, you know, critical care workforces where we really need nurses and doctors and things like that? And we're losing these critical workers because they're not being recognized by their workplaces. I can't help think that might be the flow on
[00:33:56] spk_1: effect recognition, done really, really well is soul affirming. So ideally, you know, you want an organization to see and appreciate your special sauce, you should feel like, okay, this is the uniqueness of me and not only does the organization see that, but they really, really value it and it's not just about the work you do because you don't want to feel like, oh, they only care about what I produced for them. So what we find in our research is that when organizations acknowledge and celebrate people's personal accomplishments, that makes a difference to like when somebody's had a baby or gotten married or got a new puppy or bought a house, we find that that has additive effects as well. And then in terms of how recognition and acknowledging personal events, what effect that has on your life. Our research with Gallup finds that it does people who are recognized well at work and have a great experience at work are more likely to be thriving and the rest of their lives. And this relationship is particularly strong for people of color.
[00:35:13] spk_0: Well, and that's incredibly powerful research to back. I think what a lot of us sort of intuitively sense as being, you know, quite a natural, you know, almost a common sense situation. So it's so awesome that we have this data to show that as well. I just want to take a minute and also I'm thinking sort of almost devil's advocate that I can imagine. And I know that, you know, sometimes we see in organizations there'll be someone who sort of here's this and thinks all these snowflakes that I have to look after this is to why do I have to look after everyone's personal needs? They should just show up, get a salary and get over it. And I think like my personal feeling is a lot of things, one of them is this is actually a win, win, win outcome when we treat each other with dignity, with respect, with empathy. When we truly connect, it is a win for the leader as an individual for the person with whom they're connecting for the organization's business outcomes. And I think that's something that, you know, we spend a lot of time as at human leaders as well, kind of, you know, bringing home to people that this is about human interconnectedness and everyone benefits from this, including the organization itself. I'm curious if that's your experience or if there's anything you would add to that.
[00:36:24] spk_1: Yeah, that is my experience. and usually, you know, Alexis to your point. I'm not usually a fan of generational research either. I do think that, you know, the way that it's been done in the past has promoted stereotypes. However, then the following example is one instance where I think we did it very well. So in partnership with Gallup, we looked at generational differences in terms of the expectation for recognition and what we found was that the younger generation, they do expect more recognition and they're looking for that from their employer. It could be, you know, the situation they grew up in where, you know, Facebook likes Instagram likes, they're used to instant feedback and acknowledgement. The older generation really indicated that they expected and needed it a lot less. However, when we looked at the impact of recognition across generations, there was no difference. So whether or not you feel like you need it or you expect it, it still works. And so different arguments for different people, either you could change somebody's life for somebody that this lands with or you could change the trajectory of the business because that is true too. That's
[00:37:41] spk_2: fascinating. The point that you're seeing sort of generational differences around the, I guess, perceived need for recognition or, versus if we just recognize everyone for their contributions, even though I didn't feel like I needed it. I'm actually feeling more connected, more engaged and probably thriving in my life in my work for getting recognition, whether I felt that I needed it or not. How fascinating.
[00:38:05] spk_1: Exactly. We've done this research on different roles, different compensation bands. It doesn't even matter how much money you make. Okay if I recognize you well, and I give you the $25 gift card in addition to that or $25 worth of points, The gravitas of that $25 worth of points, it still works for you even though you're pretty well compensated and you really didn't need that $25, right? It is the impact of taking a moment to say, Hey, that behavior, I saw it and it made a difference. So
[00:38:41] spk_0: it sounds like younger people are just more accurately, self reporting, whether they need recognition or not.
[00:38:47] spk_1: Yes. When I want to be sassy. That is exactly what I say. The younger people know best
[00:38:53] spk_2: and interestingly for organizations, it poses the opportunity to look below the line in terms of how we keep people at work because I think the longest time we've assumed that salary and pay rises is what motivates human beings. And it's simply not the case. At least not the only opportunity we have to attract retain and engage wonderful human beings. Now, workplaces.
[00:39:16] spk_1: That's right. It's the entrance to the dance hall because you have to make sure that people are competitively, you know, compensated because people have base needs, right? But compensation is not gonna make anybody dance, right? So how often have you heard people say I'm not paid enough for this. Do you ever hear anybody say I am paid so much? I will do whatever you want me to do. Never in life.
[00:39:41] spk_0: I love the dance metaphor. I'm gonna run with that. That is that I feel that is really a
[00:39:47] spk_1: great dance. So it works for
[00:39:49] spk_2: me. I'm Misha and thank you so much. We've got so much to take away and unpack from this conversation. But what I'd love to do is take it to sort of like a practical final step if we can. And that's looking at what is perhaps one behavior or one change or one practical step that an individual leader can implement right now to help their people feel more recognized at
[00:40:16] spk_1: work. So I'm going to cheat and give you two. The first one is the, is the one on one how you check in with your direct reports and you want to start with this foundation of you are important to me as a person. And so I advocate for what I call the generous check in where you check in, not just on what the person is doing, but how they're feeling and what's going on in their lives. And you start by being emotive yourself, not in a scary way and like dumping your emotions. But if you're stressed, maybe say baby, say that, you know, if something didn't go well for you at work, if you made a mistake, maybe say that. And then you set the foundation for really strong conversations where you let people know, hey, you're important to me and then recognition can build on that, right? And then the other part that I would recommend is making recognition a habit. I suggest that people either start their week with recognition on a Monday or end it on a Friday by doing the following. Just put up a blank calendar, invite for yourself, whether it's Monday morning or Friday evening. And as you go through the week, maybe just enter in, you know, what people have done to make a difference for you that week as it happens. And that way you can start your week or end your week reflecting on that and then using that time to send out those recognition events and make sure that individual knows exactly how they impact
[00:41:48] spk_0: amazing mission. That's such a beautiful practical couple of tips that we can action. And I think they're both overlap to some extent that it's a sense of generosity, connecting one on one and they're really building it into our schedule so that it does become a natural part of our week to week of our day to day. I just want to thank you so much for being with us today, Misha and has been such a delightful conversation. Been really thrilled to have you with us here on. We are human leaders.
[00:42:12] spk_1: Thank you so much. It really has been my pleasure. I've had such a good time. Thank you.
[00:42:24] spk_0: Thanks for joining us for another episode of the We are Human Leaders podcast. Join our movement at www dot We are human leaders dot com and we look forward to seeing you next time.