SuperManager Podcast: Social Consciousness and Community Outreach Programs in the Workplace
Christine: You’re listening to super manager, the podcast for people who manage people and business, with ideas, trends and expert interviews to help you be a SuperManager.
Sam: Welcome to the SuperManager podcast, this week I have my HR collaboration group with me and we’re going to be talking about social consciousness. And I have with me Tara Gregor with Breakwell, Workplace Wellbeing; Rod McCann, McCann Consulting, pharmacy benefit management; Lisa Oxenhandler Recruiting for Growth; Natalie Meyer, Meyer Group, insurance benefits investments; Mary Kutheis, MCK Coaching, business coach and confidante. And I’m Samantha Naes with CN Video Production, we do corporate video.
Sam: All right, so our topic this week is social consciousness and Tara, you’d kind of brought up the topic of how it helps with hiring and employee relations, employee retention…
Tara: Absolutely, I think now with the workforce changing with all of the generations in it and in 2025, 75% of the workforce is supposed to be millennials, we know that millennials want more of a purpose and that’s why they look for employers and companies to work for.
Sam: What about Gen Z? I’m hearing about Gen Z coming into the workforce now. Is it the same social consciousness that the millennials had?
Natalie: I think some of it is the same stuff. A friend of mine actually like specializes in Gen z and I think also because they are the first generation that has never lived without social media, a lot of millennials, they didn’t have that still. They remember when it happened, it was in their life, but there was a time when it wasn’t versus Gen Z. So I think, you know, they see these things in a lot of different, whether it’s app or it’s a company or something, everyone has some sort of a social consciousness tied in. So I think that’s going to be something that’s maybe just kind of understood to them to be maybe more of a normal for Gen Z versus…
Sam: I think anybody can love, I don’t even know what generation… I don’t even know if they had generations when I was born, but you know, it’s something that I’m interested in doing. I mean who doesn’t want to feel good about [absolutely] taking time and doing things for the community.
Mary: What seems fairly new, I couldn’t tell you how many years, maybe it’s been around for 10, I don’t know. It wasn’t really a thing back when I was in corporate America 19 years ago as an employee, but that it’s that companies are giving people time. I mean now we did have a matching program, funds matching. If you gave a donation, that was terrific. Actually giving people time for a sabbatical, or giving them a day every six months to go and volunteer the organization of their choice. That seems like it’s fairly new and a very cool thing to do.
Sam: Actually, one of my clients, and I typically don’t like to mention names, but in this type of situation I will, Scott Credit Union, we do a lot of video work for them and they had us come out on a weekend. They were doing something with the purple heart homes where they go out and it’s retired veterans. They do repairs and paint, kind of help them fix up their homes. They partnered with Home Depot and we were just there to kind of interview people and do a little PR video, a little social media video about what they were doing. But started talking with them about it and apparently they have a whole program in place for their employees where they encourage their employees, they give them time off to get involved. They have somebody who coordinates them and organizes them and they keep track of time that employees spend helping out the community and they actually have awards and prizes based on participation. So it’s a whole program that they offer within their organization, and their employees love it. I’ve spoken with them about it, they say it’s going really well.
Mary: That’s fantastic.
Natalie: I think that things like that are obviously great and bigger companies, you know, I think they have a little bit more funding and things of that sort, but even some of the smaller companies, because everybody knows everyone in a smaller company, sometimes it’s more of how can it help someone that’s part of our own personal community. We have a gal in our office, and her son, he’s part of the armed forces, he’s over there and we keep a box in our office of regularly stuff that she sends care packages over to them and all the troops. And so she’ll give us an updated list of everything that they’re looking for right now and stuff like that. And it’s so- it’s an ongoing thing. And then it’ll be like, they’ll send us back a letter and pictures of them getting them and stuff like that. So, and then we put it up on the refrigerator so everyone, you know, when they see, hey, this made a difference. And even if it’s something you don’t have a ton of time, but it’s nice to know, hey, that’s helping someone who works in this office, their son, people that they’re with. And I think that it gives people a little bit more of a reason to, hey, this is good because it’s helped one of our own.
Tara: And then it also connects that employee to the employer, and it’s part of that social wellbeing of the company as well.
Natalie: Exactly.
Mary: And that kind of proves that. It doesn’t have to be a gigantic program that can be, that’s really something that’s having a big impact by people picking up a few extra things when they go to the grocery store that…
Sam: We had an intern one time that asked us if we would save our aluminum cans here in the studio because there was a cat shelter that collected aluminum cans, and so we would save all of our and in fact other interns and employees would bring them from home. And then you know once a week she’d take all the aluminum cans to the cat shelter, which was kind of fun for everybody.
Rod: Well social consciousness is very strong in the Saint Louis area and has been for years I think stronger than some other areas. Because what you could also do is some of the homes, such as shelters for abused women, things like that, there have been groups that have volunteered and gone and cleaned up their pantries or done yard work or just some other things and that’s one of the ones that when you’re doing it, you’re not supposed to let people know where this facility is anyway. So it is truly anonymous when you go in and do some of this work and people, it provides a bonding situation for those who do it. It’s very good for both the people who receive it and the people who perform the function.
Natalie: And, another thing, Sam you had talked about in a previous podcast of how you are going to ask everyone in your office about how are you, and I think going back to that, if you knew something else was going on, maybe then you could all help to contribute something or hey maybe we could set up, you know, if someone’s maybe dealing with some sort of a critical illness situation, maybe we set up a go fund me account or something that, and back to what you’re saying, it creates a community environment and really makes people know that the people around them care.
Lisa: I work with several companies within the same industry and they all know each other and they’re all vying to get that employee. Yes, Millie, you to..
Sam: The people that are listening to this that can’t see us. Lisa staring right across the table at Mili who’s sitting in my lap, she comes to work with me everyday. So if you ever do hear any strange noises on this podcast, it’s probably the puppy and not one of us.
Lisa: But that’s also kind of given them a reason to be competitive with regard to the things and the programs that they participate in, by giving their employees days off to go do something that is important to them by having a fundraiser for an organization that’s important to their employees. So it’s also kind of a competitive type of thing among themselves, which I thought was a pretty interesting take on things.
Sam: It’s interesting because it feels like a benefit to the employee, but they’re really benefiting the community.
Lisa: Yeah.
Natalie: Absolutely.
Lisa: Everybody benefits really.
Natalie: Mili, the mascot I think wants us to do something for animals here. Well, she’s contributing.
Sam: I mentioned the cat shelter earlier and that really…
Natalie: Yeah, she was like “wait dogs, what about dogs?!”
Mary: Now she wants to talk about dogs.
Natalie: No, I think it’s a great way to just kind of let people know what’s going on in their area and what areas need some help and stuff like that. Because sometimes it doesn’t have to be these… We’re going to go do these big efforts, like you said. I think a lot of companies they want to do stuff, we might not have the funding or, you know, we may not have the ability to, we don’t have someone that we can direct to do all this sort of a thing. But whether it’s big or small, I think there’s always something they can be doing.
Sam: Lisa, you mentioned a client who did Putt Putt for charity?
Lisa: Uh huh. That was one of those that are within that same industry.
Sam: Oh okay.
Lisa: They set up their warehouse so that it was like a miniature golf, and they invited their vendors and their clients to participate and whoever won got a check for whatever charity was important to that person.
Mary: That’s fantastic.
Lisa: So it was a fun event and brought in everybody to participate.
Sam: What a great idea.
Lisa: Yeah. And easy…
Mary: Builds, builds comradery. I mean there’s so many boxes that that checks in a really good way. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah.
Lisa: They’re also one that it’s very important that they minimize their environmental footprint. So, and I think that’s important to a lot of people as well.
Mary: And how many people do you hear when they talk about the work that they want to do? They say, I want to help people. It’s kind of kind of a, almost a trite thing for interviews and things like that, “I- I just want to help people.” Well, I think that so many people have that feeling stated or not and when you give them an opportunity to do that within their work hours, because people are, have a lot of things going on, they have a lot of responsibilities at home and maybe not all the extra time and if you give them a little bit of time to do that when they’re working, I think it makes people more grateful for their workplace. It makes them more likely to put forth extra effort because there’s some solidarity there.
Rod: Greater human touch.
Mary: Yeah.
Natalie: I actually knew a company that they always had vending machines and then at one point they had free snacks at their office and then they went back to vending machines. But they just change it out that all the money from the vending machine was going to go to. And it was, they would change it based on, you know, everyone pick a charity every month or something. And it may not be a ton, but it’s something that now…
Mary: Every little bit counts.
Natalie: I need those Cheetos cause I’m helping! But it’s something that again, small companies could do something of that sort or regardless of whether it’s, you know, especially a lot of manufacturing companies, they tend to have a lot of vending machines and…
Sam: Was anybody disappointed that the free snacks went away?
Natalie: But I think they reduce, cause they had a bunch of vending machines than they had. They still had a few vending machines and some free snacks. And then what they did is they kept it out and they brought back some of the ethics people are like, oh, well, you know, now that they provided free snacks, some of the stuff that they wanted from the vending machines wasn’t there. Again, social conscious all came into it and said, well, let’s try to tie this all together and I don’t think people mind paying for it if they’re… You know, a dollar here and there to a charity. I mean…
Sam: I can’t imagine being the person refusing to pay for the snack and taking the free snack in an office, knowing that the money’s going to charity. You feel kind of like a jerk going back to your desk with the free snack.
Natalie: Right! Well they kind of got rid of most of the free snacks…
Mary: I would say the free snacks should have been things like apples and bananas. See how many people take those as opposed to the Cheetos. You want the Cheetos you have to pay for them, but you could eat a banana or you can eat an apple for free.
Sam: There was a larger company, we did business with that they were very big on dress code. You know, it was not casual dress. you needed to dress professionally. Management leadership felt that that was very important. But they did a casual Friday where employees could pay x amount of money to dress casually on Friday and then that money went to a local charity or organization I thought that was kind of an interesting. And oh boy, nobody minded putting in a couple of bucks to be able to wear jeans on Friday.
Mary: Yeah, that’s a great idea too.
Natalie: Finding small ways… There was this plaza in Nashville I went to and it had parking meters and, how everybody gets like, oh, I don’t have change, whatever. And obviously now that they’re accepting credit cards, and I was like, this is a really upscale area. And it was not a place where they had a ton, you know, street parking. So I thought it was weird, but they all went to charity, all the parking meters and I thought, oh, oh it was the first time I was so happy to pay a parking meter. You know, I was happy to like pay maximum time even if I was only gonna be in there in an hour. I understand if you have city streets, you can’t necessarily do that, but I haven’t seen that anywhere else before. And I thought that was such a unique way to do it.
Sam: It’s not always about money though too, one of the things that I really like about the program that they do over at Scott Credit Union is they actually find a local nonprofit organization and they’ll partner with them and say, you know, how can we volunteer our time to help? So it’s not just, you know, about paying for parking, or paying for snacks. I think that can really even make you feel better. Like what they did, fixing up the veteran’s home saying, okay, here’s where we’re going to be, here’s what we need and then people getting together it’s kind of a team building exercise, you know. And actually getting to do something and you do a Google search for nonprofit organizations in the St. Louis area. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of nonprofit organizations and they always not just need funding, but volunteers as well. So they’re like a lot of different things that you can do.
Mary: It would be such a great thing if there was some kind of a not for profit website done in a day where the not for profit could put here’s what we need done in a day. I mean it could be cleaning out an office or whatever it is. I mean, and then a company can say, Oh, here’s a place where we could go. They need 10 people. Yeah, and we’ll bring 10 people to get that project done in a day. Again, it’s the comradery thing. Right. And you also don’t have everybody leaving for half a day at different times and affecting productivity, if it would do that. That would such a great, would be such a great fit.
Sam: Kind of like choosing a family over the holidays. Yeah, instead of a sponsor, you choose a nonprofit, help them with something.
Mary: Anybody who can think of, in their own organization, if they can think of, if we could just get 20 people in here for one day, here’s what we can accomplish.
Natalie: Right. And then it kind of balance out. Sometimes you have so many volunteers at once and then sometimes you don’t have enough. It’d be great cause it’s like, great, we have all these people for one day, but that doesn’t help us. But sometimes that is what they need, yeah. So I think that’s a great idea..
Rod: Allow for scheduling, prescheduling and allowing for them to put it on their calendar in the future. You can congregate at the right time and appropriately. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: Tara actually brought up a good kind of talking point earlier about whether or not social consciousness within a company can actually create loyalty and better retention.
Tara: Absolutely. I think we kind of touched on… On that earlier about connecting the employees with the cause, right? So if it’s all the employers are rallying around one employee and helping them out, it does connect that employee to the other employees and to the employer. So I think there’s a huge piece to that, because everybody wants to feel a part of something greater than just the company that they work for.
Natalie: Well, I think on the receiving end when people have had that, you know, when you’re going through a rough time, it’s always one of those things when you’re having a rough time, you never know who’s going to be the people that help you out. And if it’s the people that work with, even if you’ve got a better job, you’d be like, but these people got me through this or they helped me out through this, you know, make it a little bit harder just because you know that you’re working with people that really actually care about you and you’d be more likely to say, “Hey, I got this other job or can you work with me? Cause you know these people are… That listen to you, care.
Sam: All right. Any other, any other stories or thoughts on social consciousness? I hate to do this because it’s been such a positive conversation…
Natalie: I know I feel like we should go volunteer right now. I know…
Sam: But it is time for our office horror story of the week. Does anybody have a horror story that they’d like to contribute to the podcast?
Lisa: I don’t have an exact story one that kind of relates to one and since it is New Year’s and a lot of people make the diet resolution, be careful what you eat because we had a small office with a person who insisted on eating broccoli all the time.
All: Oh!
Natalie: Cabbage soup diet? Not awesome this time of year…
Rod: Reheated in the microwave and kind of wafting through the office, yeah…
Lisa: Yeah… Yeah, so just be aware.
Sam: We do- sometimes we’ll do a lunch run. We’ve got the… For anybody who has not seen what our studio looks like downstairs, where the edit bays are, it’s a, it’s one room and all of the edit bays. All the editors sit together and occasionally somebody will go to lunch, they’ll say, does anybody want me to bring anything back? And it’s always interesting when the person who’s doing the lunch run goes to white castle. Oh yeah. Full of people eating white castle cheeseburgers.
Natalie: It takes about a week to air out the office.
Sam: Pretty much.
Christine: Thanks for listening to super manager by CNN video production. Visit our website@cn-video.com for additional episodes and lots of super manager resources, or give us a call at three one four video means.