EP 104: HR Excellence with Laura Giangiuli: Fostering a people-first culture. Diversity and mental health.

Join us in this captivating episode as our host James Mackey and guest Laura Giangiuli, SVP & CHRO at CALIBRE Systems, dive deeper into the intricate world of talent acquisition, HR strategy, and employee well-being. The conversation provides a holistic perspective on the importance of aligning business objectives with human resources and the pivotal role played by leaders in driving organizational success.

Discover the key factors that contribute to successful recruitment, including the importance of branding, positioning, and high-level metrics.

From talent acquisition to HR, the focus lies on recognizing the value of every individual and understanding that their commitment to the company renews each day. By fostering consistent, fair treatment, providing tailored benefits, and engaging with employees, the organization ensures that each team member actively chooses to return to work daily. 

They explore how companies can better support their employees' well-being by providing access to mental health first aid and establishing employee resource groups dedicated to mental health support.


   0:38  Laura Giangiuli's background
   3:15 Transition from HR to all-encompassing talent acquisition
   8:41 Optimizing talent acquisition and recruiting
17:50 People-first culture and employee engagement
26:16 Diversity and mental health strategies
39:40 Exciting news and future plans

Thank you to our sponsor, SecureVision, for making this show possible!

Our host James Mackey

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Transcript

James Mackey: 0:28

Hello, welcome to the Breakthrough Hiring Show. I'm your host, james Mackie, really excited for today's episode. We are joined by Laura Janjuli. Laura, thank you for joining me today on the show.

Laura Giangiuli: 0:40

Hi James, Thanks for having me.

James Mackey: 0:42

Yeah, we're pumped to have you here. We have a lot of great topics outlined for our audience today. I would love to go into your background before we jump into it. I want folks to understand your perspective. If you could share a little bit about the company that you work for, your role within the company, maybe how large the organization is, just so folks can understand your point of impact when you speak to the topics, they know where you're coming from.

Laura Giangiuli: 1:09

Yeah, absolutely. As you said, Laura Janjuli, I am currently the Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Caliverse Systems Incorporated, where a mid-sized government contractor located in Alexandria, virginia, specializing in IT and data management, consulting primarily in Department of Defense, but also have clients throughout the government. I've been at Caliverse for almost 20 years. I joined Caliverse as a benefit specialist, actually, and worked my way up over the years. In fact, at several points in my career, caliverse created a position for me because they knew that I wanted more. I could do more. Quite honestly, I joined the company right at that growth period. As the company grew, I grew with it. In some cases I was the first HR manager that they had. I'm the first CHRO that they've had. It's been an incredible ride.

Laura Giangiuli: 2:10

When I joined the company almost 20 years ago, we only had about 300 employees. We're now sitting at about 750 employees worldwide. We have employees in the US and in Canada. We have them in Korea, in Germany, in South Korea, quasalina Tull, kuwait and Afghanistan. We also had employees at one point supporting our troops during the war on terror. We've worked in and out of war zones. It's been an incredible ride. As I said, really started off in benefits, worked my way up through benefits and HR management and now oversee all of HR at Umbrella at Calibur, which not only includes all the verticals you would think of for HR, but also includes talent acquisition, corporate security and payroll.

James Mackey: 2:59

It's quite a lot. It's really impressive. I was looking at your LinkedIn profile and the progression over the years. I know there's a ton of value that you'll be able to share with our executive audience. I hope everybody's taken notes because I think a lot of what we're going to be talking about can help guide talent strategy holistically for growth stage, mid-sized organizations, international organizations all really really cool stuff I think let's dive in. We wanted to really talk about from an executive perspective. I would love to learn from you. Your background is coming up through HR, taking on C-level position overseeing talent acquisition as well. I don't know if that's when you started overseeing talent acquisition. If it was earlier on. I would love to learn from you what that initial transition was to expanding your scope from overseeing people in HR to all-encompassing the talent acquisition, so essentially the full lifecycle of candidate to employee journey. Can you tell us a little bit about what that journey was like for you?

Laura Giangiuli: 4:00

Yeah, as soon as I moved into HR management at Calibur I began overseeing talent acquisition. That was really just a byproduct of the size of the company. We weren't large enough to break off recruiting at the time, so it just fell under HR. In fact, it wasn't even its own code, but it was a part of human resources. We had at the time one full-time recruiter and one HR assistant. Really have grown the organization. Now we have a director of talent acquisition. We have four full-time recruiters.

Laura Giangiuli: 4:38

It's been really interesting to grow the talent acquisition as the company has grown. In the very beginning it was really transactional. I described it as order takers the hiring managers or the operations side of the house would tell our recruiter what they needed and he or she would just go out and fill that. There was no real proactive recruiting happening. This was back in the good old days where we put ads in the newspaper. Our largest media outlet was the Washington Post at the time. It's been fun to watch that evolution as well. Nothing's in print Now. Everything is online.

Laura Giangiuli: 5:18

It's about who do you know? Who are you reaching out to? What pipeline are you creating? How are you proactively marketing your company? What's that ROI for candidates and employees. I've been real active with our recruiting team about how do you build that, what is our brand strategy? What is our reputation in the market? How do we create one, how do we maintain it? How do we protect it? Then, frankly, how do we shamelessly advertise it so that when our recruiters reach out to candidates, they've overcome, perhaps that first obstacle of they don't even know who we are when they get that phone call from our recruiter, or so? All of that has been done, but having absolutely no zero zip zilch recruiting background.

James Mackey: 6:03

Yeah, that's incredible. So it's really it seems like at the high level, a lot of what you're doing is almost branding and positioning. How do we make sure that? Of course, how are we getting in front of the right people? But how are we positioning ourselves like the employee value proposition and making sure that your reputation is in good standing in relation to, maybe, competitors on the market to provide that compelling value prop so that you have great talent funneling through? Is that? That was kind of like my takeaway. Is that, would you say, your primary kind of point of impact from a TA, or did I miss that?

Laura Giangiuli: 6:41

Yeah, no, you nailed it. I mean I would say you're right. I've tried to really instill in our recruiters that, even if that candidate isn't going to become our employee, let's make them a brand ambassador, right? Because you don't know who they're talking to, you don't know who they know. You don't know, especially in the Gulfcon world. It's smaller than you think, right? Maybe you may win a contract that they're on in a year or two, or they may lose the work that they're on and might come back to revisit us. Like I said, even if they're not going to join us today, have them be a brand ambassador to help spread the word and maybe join us down the line.

James Mackey: 7:15

Yeah, for sure. So from a data flow kind of reporting perspective, what's the flow like? How often are you meeting with town acquisition? What data points are they presenting to you? How do you go about executing on your point of impact to make sure you have the visibility that you need to make sure things are on track?

Laura Giangiuli: 7:40

Yeah, so a couple of years ago, our data team created a dashboard, right? So at any point in time I can go on to the executive dashboard and I can look and see where are we with open positions, time to fill, how many resumes have been routed, how many interviews have been scheduled right, so I can look at all of those kind of high level metrics. But, to your point, really to kind of dig in and find out, okay, if something's been open for a while, why, what are we doing? So I meet with my director of town and acquisition on a weekly basis obviously more so if we need to, but there's a standing weekly meeting where we go over all of that. What are you doing? Do you have any pain points? Anything I can help you with? Is there anything from executive level? I need to go talk to someone else in the company. Right From the recruiting standpoint, I interact with the recruiters as they needed or as my director of town and acquisition wants me to come in Now, that being said, I'm speaking from a very formal basis.

Laura Giangiuli: 8:35

On an informal basis, I'm speaking with just about everybody on my team every couple of weeks. Hey, how you doing? What's going on? Anything I can help you with that kind of stuff. But really looking at, like I said, how many open positions do we have? How long have they been open?

Laura Giangiuli: 8:51

As a government contractor, we have fully funded positions and what we call unfunded positions. Fully funded positions are what you think of, right, we want a contract and we're going to fill so many seats and we're getting revenue from those seats right, so we're keeping track of how much revenue are we losing on a daily basis by having this position. Open versus unfunded is if we found a candidate and the client liked them, they would then add that position to our contract. So maybe we may be budgeted to grow on the contract but at the same time, if we don't fill the position, there isn't a direct impact to the corporate budget, right? And so there's been a lot of education with recruiting along those lines, right Of you know, my big pep talk, if you will, to recruiting a couple of years ago was you know, if caliber isn't going to make its numbers, then let's not lay that at recruiting speed.

Laura Giangiuli: 9:46

Right, let's fill all the positions that we can fill, and if that means bringing in outside sources, then let's not be, you know, so stubborn to not ask for help. When we need it, let's do it thoughtfully so that we can control the OPEX budget, but when required, let's bring in a headhunter, let's bring in outside resources. If you need a subscription to a different database or something, raise your hand right. You know, I don't know what you need until you tell me.

James Mackey: 10:12

Yeah, I think it's like one of the critical things there is, as you talked about billable roles and the alignment between, essentially, revenue with HR and headcount planning. And when we think about budget for town acquisition, you really need to understand essentially the opportunity costs or how much revenue that you're losing. And I think too, it's like for folks out there that don't necessarily have billable roles there's still very tight parallel between sales hires, for instance, and understanding the opportunity costs of keeping sales positions open and also understanding the cost of the ramp time that's created and finding ways to minimize ramp and accelerate that so you can essentially get a better return on investment for sales talent. So you know, if you're a people leader, make sure to have that alignment with revenue. If you're a CEO, make sure that revenue, teams and HR are aligned. And of course, if you have billable roles, there's almost like even a higher incentive. But I think there's an opportunity cost and usually a way to measure for other roles in the organization too that are not billable. And I think sometimes folks get caught up in thinking, well, is there an exact science? And maybe in some cases it can be a little bit more challenging, but you can still to the extent that you understand the strategic direction of the organization, some of the North Star metrics, whether it's revenue growth or whatever else, and then if you're able to tie it back to on a department level the value that that team's bringing to the table.

James Mackey: 11:44

I think like a big part of a challenge can be sometimes for HR talent folks is getting appropriate budget and resources and I think that, like what you're mentioning, is a critical part of being able to get, you know, the right funding.

James Mackey: 11:59

I mean we had Daniel Chait I was telling you before the show CEO of Greenhouse, and one of the things that he talked about was in the earlier days he presented a quote to a customer gonna charge him like $15,000 a year for his applicant tracking system and like the HR leader, people leader was just like $15,000, like we're paying three grand, and Daniel was like he was like all right, so you know, you said a company has XYZ goals, right, and so he was. He was basically like here is the value creation of getting the right people and your organization and here is the potential opportunity cost of keeping these rules open or not being able to do so. It's like you don't have like, in this case, like the HR leader was thinking like well, this is, like you know, a 10K difference or 12K difference. And Daniel's like, you don't have a $12,000 problem, you have a $100 million problem.

Laura Giangiuli: 12:58

And so and she probably, he or she probably didn't even know that right, because if you have a $3,000 system, you're getting $3,000 data. Right, you don't even know what you don't know.

James Mackey: 13:07

Right and it's like. That's why having the right tool, the right people, the right process, the right technology and HR and talent acquisition is really critical. And I think often it's kind of seen as this call center. But I think executives out there, you have to make sure are you really identifying how much value creation is created by making your critical hires and the opportunity cost of things like bad hires or keeping rules open and putting together a formula Like you're not going to get it down to the dollar? But companies seem to significantly underestimate what can go wrong by not making the right investments and how much that's actually going to cost them in growth.

Laura Giangiuli: 13:46

Oh, absolutely Absolutely. And I think they also undervalue the role that the recruiter plays in that process, right? So we had that challenge at Calibre for a while that you know a little bit like the $3,000 platform gets you $3,000 results, right, and then you have a real pushback on really paying a premium for recruiters, and so I had to make that same business case that you just described. Okay, you know, there's nothing wrong with the recruiters that we have, but if you want a recruiter that's going to fill a position and X number of days and understands the strategic impact to having open positions and they've got you know, I'm going to date myself a Rolodex, right, you know of candidates and they know who to go talk to that person isn't getting paid $55,000 a year, right, and so that's also a resource that you have to be willing to spend and invest in and bring the right kind of recruiter into your roles, right.

James Mackey: 14:43

Yeah, well, I think one of the advantages, like from my point of impact at SecureVision, we do talent solutions, so it's like contract recruiting, a better recruiting, an RPO, and we've partnered with over 150 companies over the past eight years. So we've been doing this a minute and I will say that one of the biggest game changers for my company, when we really started to grow and scale, was when we changed up our pricing model for how we onboard recruiters and we like, as you said, right, the best folks out there I don't care like what specialization they're going to be making more than 50 grand, like 55 grand and, like you know, it's also a lot. I think in a lot of recruiter roles there was like this, like concept of like a lower base and a higher bonus or commission plan, and so we flipped the model on the head and we would reach out to like top recruiters and say, hey, look, we trust, we think you're the best at your company, we trust you to deliver results, we're going to give you all of your comp and guaranteed income and we're going to like, basically, come work for us, we'll dub your base and we, as a result, we're able to recruit the best folks in our industry and it was almost to the point where, like literally almost surprised me at the time, where it was like the caliber of people that we attracted, like our team is literally stacked with eight players. It's unlike any organization I'd worked for before in terms of the recruiting talent it was just nuts how much. And then those people deliver incredible experiences for customers internally across the board. So I mean you get what you pay for it.

James Mackey: 16:15

Now, that's to not say that, like you can pay a lot of money for someone and they're not, that doesn't mean that they're going to be good. You, of course, need a structured hiring process, but yeah, I mean people that are going to be top of their field, are going to be, they're going to make more money, like you and you. The value of having somebody that is really good creates so much leverage in your business.

Laura Giangiuli: 16:34

Yeah, yeah, it's worth it and, like you just said, I don't think people really truly understand the ripple effect it has throughout the organization. Right, so, like you said, it has an impact on on how quickly someone can hire. It has an impact on how quickly that person can either get in front of the client or the customer really start to have an impact. Right, so it has a difference in how the how the candidate now new employee comes into the organization. Do they do so in a very positive manner or are they already kind of soured because the whole recruiting onboarding process was just, you know, just a mess? Right so it really it really sets the foundation for how the entire employee experience is going to go.

James Mackey: 17:12

Okay, so I have a question for you, right. So like, obviously the quality of the cruise is really important when you were hiring that director I don't know if you promoted internally or hired externally what makes a great director or head of TA or VP of TA? What skill set are you looking for for the person that's reporting into you, that is leading that town? Acquisition function, like what is good, look like?

Laura Giangiuli: 17:37

Yeah, so I think it's a lot of what I already described. I need someone who understands that connection between recruiting and revenue, right. I need someone who's at that intersection of understanding that that you know what they and their team does or doesn't do has a direct impact to another piece of the business being able to meet their goals and their metrics, right. And so then, once you start with that baseline, then how do we achieve that? Right? Is that through top notch recruiters? Is that through, you know, high flying platforms? Is that through brand management? Right. And then, under underpinned all of that with for us at least, we don't make anything Right? I don't sell a widget. I sell the knowledge and skills of our employees, right.

Laura Giangiuli: 18:25

So then again, this goes back to I have to have recruiters and a director of talent that understands they've got to find the right person. They've got to, they've got to hire for fit as well as competencies, right. And then, as I said, how do we set the stage and the foundation for that employee experience? And then, quite frankly I know I'm giving you a really long answer how do we also hold hiring managers accountable? Right, and this is a, this is a relationship. It's not all on the recruiter Right, I think the recruiter probably shoulders a lot of that burden, but they don't shoulder all of it, and so that talent director, vp of talent, is going to be able to manage all of that Right? And you know, and I have taught my director, the answer is not no, the answer is yes and right. So, yes, and I'm going to need two more people. Or yes, and I'm going to need $50,000 to get that done. So that people understand yeah, we can do, we can do all of that. I just can't do it at status quo, right.

James Mackey: 19:27

Yeah, I think you're right. I I do think that another disconnect at maybe a CEO level or just a C level for folks that aren't in HR or a talent acquisition or don't have a background really being too involved, is that it's really, really truly is like hiring employee experience, candidate experience, getting results in both sides it is. It requires a people first culture and buying from the entire organization and alignment from the entire organization. I think a lot of the times when people hear people first culture, they're like it's like this loose, like employee experience that doesn't have this direct path to achieving north star metrics, but it's. It's. There are actual like. There are so many things that have to be executed and they start with the understanding of being people first. Like.

James Mackey: 20:14

Literally nothing is created. Everything in the history of humanity has ever been created without recruiting a great team of people to accomplish a goal. It's fundamental to everything. It starts with the founder of the company. It's the very first thing a founder needs to do. People build products, services, everything. It's the core of everything and it has to be a core part of the culture, even when companies start to scale. And I think so one of the biggest advice I give I'm curious to get your thoughts on this. I think executive leaders hiring managers. It should be part of their performance. Achieving their headcount targets is actually part of how their performance is measured, because we need buy-in from them too. A recruiter can be doing, you can have a great recruiter, but if you don't have the buy-in from a hiring manager or they're not following best practices, then you're not going to necessarily get great results. Yeah.

Laura Giangiuli: 21:08

No, I couldn't agree more. I mean, we have that on our balance scorecard, right. So, to your point, all leaders have a headcount metric and so, admittedly, that's a little bit more of a revenue number, right? Because, to your point earlier, right, a position is open and it's billable. What does that mean to them and the impact it has? But there is still an HR component to that. And then, also on the BSC, is how do you work with your teammates? Right? And so teammates can mean is that HR, is that recruiting, is that contracts and procurement? Right. So it's not just about can you go out and sell it's, can you also work with those that either have to implement and live with the deal that you struck with someone, right? And then, how are you working with everyone in the company? It's not just about being forward-facing, it's also how are you working with the team that's left back at headquarters?

James Mackey: 22:01

Yeah, I think that this is like the point that I could drive home if there's just like one point and I loved it how you would you were talking about, like hiring a TA leader.

James Mackey: 22:12

It's like, do they truly understand the impact that they have on the organization's no star metrics and tying it back to revenue and these things. And I think in some cases we I've seen a level of sophistication on the revenue side that is not necessarily parallel to what I've seen on the on the people side, and not always. But I just think that like and I think some of it has to do with like budgets and like maybe folks not understanding truly the value that are not on the HR people side, where they're just like oh, this is just like. You know we have to focus on filling these roles, but really, you know, sales is where you know all of our attention needs to be. But again, it's like people are the core, like nothing great is ever been accomplished without a great team of people doing it, and we need to increase the budget that we have for our, the headcount to build up better process and technology to be able to execute on any other part of the business that we need to.

Laura Giangiuli: 23:05

Yeah, absolutely, you know, and not only from talent acquisition but also, you know, bleeding over into HR. Now, when I meet with my whole team, I tell them over and over again, right, that we can't forget. The value of caliber goes down to zero every single night and it only returns the next day when every single employee chooses to come back to work.

James Mackey: 23:25

And I love that.

Laura Giangiuli: 23:26

Right, and they make that choice every day. And they make that choice every day by how we interact with them, how we engage with them, and so, as you were saying earlier to me, that's the basis of the people first culture, right? If we, everything that we're doing is about how do I get the employee to come back to work tomorrow, and that doesn't mean that, to your, to your point, it doesn't mean that it's there's no rules and that everyone gets what they want and everyone is happy, right, you know. But it does mean that we're treating people consistently fairly, that we have benefits that meet people where they are, that we're providing for them, right, and that we're doing everything we can every day to have them make that choice tomorrow to come back to work.

James Mackey: 24:06

I really love that. You've said some really, really impactful things. I really do hope that leaders tuning in or dropping this in their slack channels and because there's a lot of stuff here that can guide talent strategy, I think let's, so let's. This is a good time to transition more into the HR side employee engagement and one of the challenges can be how do you pick, like, benefits and things that are going to be most impactful, keeping a pulse on what people want in the marketplace. What's that from your point of impact? How do you ensure you're getting the right feedback loop, making sure that your billable employees, as well as back office, are getting the benefits that are going to be compelling to keep them checking kind of employee engagement, like, I guess. Like, just like, what are the different things you're monitoring on the employee side and then how do you monitor it?

Laura Giangiuli: 25:03

Yeah, yeah. So we have a lot of communication channels that caliber and we always have, and so we are employees to begin with are not shy about telling us what they like and what they don't like, right? I mean, I know you've done your homework, we're an employee owned company and so I think there's a little bit of freedom, if you will that employee owned company right. So there's a there's a freedom to speak your mind because you are an owner of the company. So, as I said, we have a lot of communication and feedback loops and mechanisms, and always have. So we do intentionally reach out to our employees and focus groups and say hey, you know where do we have gaps? You know where are we meeting your employees on a more individual basis?

Laura Giangiuli: 25:46

The HR director and I meet with every new employee within their first 90 days of joining caliber and and that's one of the questions I asked them hey, how was onboarding for your benefits? Was it what you expected? Was it what was described to you in your recruiting process? Right, how easy was it to enroll in your benefits? Did you get your card on time? Do you have any questions about the network or the providers? And then we have feedback from new employees. Same thing about exiting employees. We asked the same questions right, did benefits play a role in your decision? Did you have any, you know, gaps in care, that kind of thing. And then, of course, we do an annual survey every year for all of our employees where we ask very similar questions about benefits. And then, as I said, we have employees who just aren't shy to tell us what they want and where they need things. And then, of course, we have outside tools and then we have a benefit broker that we've had for many years that comes back and tells us what's happening in the market.

Laura Giangiuli: 26:39

My HR director and I are both, you know, members of, of, you know the local sherm and the national sherm and gov con. You know committees and networks and all of that where we're getting constant feedback about what other people are doing or the challenges that they're seeing. And then we honestly just sort of mash all of that up together, right? In fact, I just had a call with my HR director earlier today to talk about that. That it's only July, but let's start looking at what the open enrollment look like this year. Have there been any, you know, any data points that through the last six months that we really need to think about, as we're moving into negotiating, what 2024 benefits look like. Right, you know, especially from the DE islands. Right, do we have?

Laura Giangiuli: 27:17

any gaps in care for certain groups of our population and let's start looking at that now so that we can not necessarily you know, we can't provide everything to everyone but let's start looking, let's start talking and having those conversations and at least acknowledge where we might have an opportunity to do better.

James Mackey: 27:36

Yeah, I would love to sit down the dean eyepiece and you know, one of the things we talked about is how can people organizations, help folks make career transitions from underserved communities. I would love to get into how you can really execute on that goal and maybe companies that feel like they want to do more but they're not really sure how to make the investment in such a way that they're gonna really be able to get a return and making sure, at the same time, too, that they're getting folks in the seat that can deliver on the expectations of the role right In a career transition capacity, because there's, I think, maybe additional resources that need to be made from process onboarding. So I'm just like, how do you think about that? How do you structure that initiative to actually be able to, one, accomplish the mission of getting more career transitioners in place from underserved communities and, two, how do you ensure that they're in a position to execute on the roles that you're onboarding for?

Laura Giangiuli: 28:44

Yeah, so I tell my talent acquisition team all the time that equal access, equal opportunity only begins with equal access, right? And so how do we ensure that everyone has an opportunity to apply and be considered for the position? And so a lot of that is outreach, right? So we're not gonna have a diverse candidate if we don't have a diverse candidate pool. And so how do we widen the net? How do we increase the opportunity to attract diverse candidates? Right, we also need to be mindful of what does the recruiting panel look like?

Laura Giangiuli: 29:15

Right, we know that representation matters. We know that if a candidate looks at the interviewers and doesn't see themselves reflected back, that there's an opportunity there for us to do better. We know that there are some inherent or unconscious biases within certain populations right, and so how do we remove all those barriers where we can? And that starts with how do we reach out and network with diverse hiring companies? Right, with different candidate pools, with different industry networks.

Laura Giangiuli: 29:46

And then, as I said, how do we then ensure that, when we have the diverse candidates that come in, that they're getting an equal opportunity? And then, to your point, once they're in, how do we ensure that they feel a sense of inclusion, a sense of belonging. How do we make sure that it is a continual evolutionary process, that you know we're not just doing this one and done that. We're committed to really having a diverse employee population, and diverse and not just from a race and ethnicity standpoint, from a neurodiversity standpoint, from a lifestyle orientation standpoint. Right, that we know that everyone in the room makes it better and that that's also something I picked up on many, many years ago. That you know, instead of looking around and asking who is in the room, ask who's not.

James Mackey: 30:35

Yeah.

Laura Giangiuli: 30:36

Who's not represented in this conversation, and then that's what we need to go out and do. Did I answer your?

James Mackey: 30:41

question. Yeah, it's a very practical way to think about it. Who's not? I mean, I don't know why this. I thought of the like a parallel on a revenue side. Like one of my revenue advisors says, you don't have to worry about the objections in the room, you have to worry about the objections that aren't in the room, that aren't being brought up. Right, I know that's a totally different topic, but it's just like the parallel, like I think that there's probably a lot of parallels in different applications of that thought process, which I find really interesting. That's a really good point. Yeah, you know.

James Mackey: 31:08

So we mental health, I think, is kind of a good transition from what we just discussed.

James Mackey: 31:17

Of course, like COVID, craziness past few years has put mental health kind of at the forefront.

James Mackey: 31:25

I think that a lot of organizations are trying to do more here. I think that sometimes there's a little bit of a tug of war between what people, teams want to do or what employees want to see and kind of proving like if it's financially sustainable, there's concerns from C-level executives of doing too much. I think that there's still a lag when it comes to insurance companies and benefits and what they're willing to kind of provide if anything. I think it's a really tough it could be a really tough topic to execute on, get the right buy-in, and I've seen actually a fair amount of companies do so somewhat successfully and implement some pretty great programs. But I would love to just hear from you philosophically, like how you think about this, like what your kind of worldview is on this topic and then how you've kind of gone about executing the change and getting the buy-in in order to and what you actually did right, Like to kind of help on this front, like what are you seeing out there?

Laura Giangiuli: 32:30

Yeah, no, I would just echo everything you said. Right, I think COVID brought it really to the forefront. I think that some companies are excelling at this. I think some companies are not. I think some companies are missing an opportunity to really help their employees and create that people-first culture.

Laura Giangiuli: 32:47

You know, throughout the entire pandemic I kind of had the same mantra over and over again that, you know, while we were all in the same storm, we were in very different boats and I tried to explain to my team and to the other C-level executives that what that meant is, you know, I might be able to take on more, right? You know, having my then fourth grader do virtual school in the dining room wasn't that big of a stressor for me. I had a door that closed to my own private home office. I had, you know, high-speed broadband internet, right, you know, I had a spouse at home that could answer her when she was yelling that she couldn't get online if I was in a meeting, right. But someone else's boat may not have had all of those resources in it, right? And so having a child in the other room trying to learn school while they were trying to, you know, be on a meeting and a supervisor is upset because their camera isn't on right, and their camera is not on because they spent the first 45 minutes trying to get their kid logged into school, right, you know, they didn't get a chance to take a shower, right? So how do we meet employees in the moment, right, where they are? That doesn't mean that we don't hold them to expectations. It doesn't mean that they're not required to fulfill, you know, their roles, right, but understand that we have an opportunity here, like never before, to be flexible with our employees right, to really identify and embrace their whole self, and so part of their whole self is mental health, right, and so, you're right, benefits traditionally have had a big gap in care when it comes to this.

Laura Giangiuli: 34:18

They, you know, only provide usually what's required by state. You know, usually there's a number of visits that they're allowed to see, and sometimes that doesn't, you know, address the issue. And so we're working really hard with our, with our benefits, about how do we remove those barriers. And if we can't remove the barriers because of the relationship that we're in with our health care provider, then what are the services that we can lay over them? And one of the things that me and my HR director and our benefit specialists and one other HR generalist did was. We took a mental health first aid course, and it's not designed for us to go in and save people, but it is designed for us to understand and recognize where the stressors, how do people present? How do people from different socio, economic and gender and race backgrounds present with different type of stressors and symptoms? What are the things that we can do? And then also, quite frankly, what are the you know, the tools and resources available in the community to get people to the right professional help and when do we need to intervene immediately and when do we need to back off and that and that also gave us all a little bit of comfort of just that right.

Laura Giangiuli: 35:28

I think we all worry where's the line that we're overstepping, especially in HR. We get phone calls from supervisors, employees, coworkers. They're worried about so and so you know, or maybe so and so hasn't come to work for a day or two, and everyone's a little bit nervous about. Well, I don't know. Do I call them, do I not? You know this team some tools about when do you step in, how do you step in, and then, how do you bring in the right professional services If that's required. And then we're also launching employee resource groups right. We know that peer to peer communication is important, you know, really stressing that this isn't a replacement for professional help or professional services, but it is perhaps a safe space for someone to at least first acknowledge that they need help or to ask for help, and it's also a place for people to come together and feel a sense of community that we know was lost during COVID.

James Mackey: 36:25

So question and we're coming up on time here but I ERG right employee resource groups. Executing on that is harder than I think a lot of organizations realize and you need structure and oversight and to put in like just the right structure to where it's really beneficial and it's something that works for the employees and also works for the company. But honestly, and so from an HR perspective, it can actually be somewhat complex and a heavier lift than I think a lot of people anticipate. So how do you go about executing on a ERG group that is within the parameters of what's helpful for the employees and something that works for the company? Do you have any advice on that?

Laura Giangiuli: 37:12

Yeah, I would say that we're still in the middle of that. Right, we've launched several ERGs, and I think that you nailed it spot on. It is so much more complicated than people think. It isn't just a social club. Yes, there's a social aspect to it, right. But if you launch ERGs just so that certain clubs can hold certain cultural events throughout the year, you're really missing an opportunity, right. And so we're in the middle of launching those and figuring out what that means.

Laura Giangiuli: 37:41

What it means at Calibre is we've asked for a lead of every ERG. We've asked for an executive sponsor for every ERG. You know, we've asked to have an outline of at least how many times are you going to meet throughout the year. Right, hr is really heavily involved to help with resources, whether that's leveraging our vendors or leveraging our survey tools to find out what the participants want, right? We're now kind of taking that next evolutionary step of what does it really mean, right? So how do we address me? Perhaps?

Laura Giangiuli: 38:12

Barriers to progression, barriers to career development within this population of employees, right? What matters to them? And then how are they going to form? What this looks like and what are the norms within this group, because they're very different for each group, right. What might work for the veterans ERG might not work for the women's ERG and vice versa. Right and so. And also, when is it appropriate to have allies in the meeting and when is it not appropriate to have allies in the meeting? And so I wish I had a better answer for you. I would say stay tuned and, you know, call me in a year and I'll tell you if we, if we've solved that puzzle or not. But yeah, I mean we're working through it because you're right, it's very complicated and if done incorrectly, I think it has a pretty negative effect. It can.

James Mackey: 39:01

It can add the opposite effect and I've seen that. So it's a. It's a complex topic and I think a lot of folks are working through that right now. I have seen in some cases, larger organizations actually hire an experienced ERG leader that is basically only doing that so that to make sure that it's beneficial to employees from a compliance standpoint, everything's kind of in place Because it's it's a, I think it's ultimately it's a. It's a full type job and, again, like a lot of companies are figuring out. So I appreciate your insight there. I loved this conversation there's there's been so much value to the community. I wanted to say thank you, laura, for joining us. This has been a lot of fun. I forgot we're recording. Those are always my favorite episodes, or we're just having a cool conversation, but you're welcome back anytime. We'd love to have you on for around two sometime.

Laura Giangiuli: 39:50

Yeah, no, absolutely. This has been a blast. I agree with you. I can't believe it's already been an hour.

James Mackey: 39:55

I know right time flies and for everybody tuning in, thank you so much for joining us. We have some really exciting news coming up with, some really interesting partnerships that are going to be hosting, on a recurring episode basis, ceos from category leading companies that are somehow tied to like hiring or people, so that's going to be really fun and we're continuing to elevate the show. Our guest list is continue to. It's stacked with with a lot of people that you're going to want to hear from, so make sure to tune in every Tuesday and Thursday with the release of a new episode. Thank you everybody. Everyone thanks for joining us and we'll we'll see you next time. Take care.