LIVE EPISODE live-02 · 3 April 2026 · 1:12:47

LIVE! Employee engagement in times of crisis (why bother?), with Jeffrey Fermin and Kristien Turner

Featuring Jeffrey Fermin, Kristien Turner

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Intro and welcome to Truth, Lies & Work LIVE
intro#podcast #intro #live
Introducing Kristien Turner & Jeffrey Fermin
intro#guest #introduction #interview
The 'job hugging' phenomenon — fear vs. loyalty
panel interview#job-hugging #fear #loyalty #psychology
Why disengaged employees give high survey scores
panel interview#engagement #survey #disengagement
Engagement levels in the current climate
panel interview#engagement #current-climate #trends
Redefining engagement metrics — the acid tests
panel interview#engagement #metrics #acid-test
The sneaky side of engagement data
panel interview#engagement-data #marketing #data
Why are people job hugging? Confusion, fear, uncertainty
panel interview#job-hugging #confusion #fear #uncertainty
The manager side of engagement — and AI
panel interview#manager #engagement #ai
The commercial case for culture
panel interview#culture #business-case #ai #middle-manager
Knowing your worth in the new world of work
panel interview#worth #work #career
Employee advocacy — 90% of companies over 50,000 people lack a program
panel interview#employee-advocacy #program #large-companies
Audience Q&A — can you job hug for a year?
panel interview#qa #job-hugging #duration
Job hugging vs. actively disengaging
panel interview#job-hugging #disengagement #comparison
Audience Q&A — doom and gloom vs. positive
panel interview#qa #outlook #positivity
Being razor sharp and honest about your super skills
panel interview#skills #self-awareness #honesty
Human skills in the age of AI
panel interview#human-skills #ai #future-of-work

Show notes

LIVE! Employee Engagement in Times of Crisis (Why Bother?) — with Jeffrey Fermin & Kristien Turner

Guests: Jeffrey Fermin — employee engagement expert, founding member of Officevibe, and current lead at All Voices · Kristien Turner — CEO of TK Talent Group, HR veteran with over 100,000 hires under his belt, and Harvard-educated organizational psychologist.

The global workforce is in a "doom and gloom" moment. So why should leaders bother investing in engagement when everyone's just trying to survive?

In this special live panel edition, Al and Leanne are joined by Jeffrey Fermin and Kristien Turner to tackle the elephant in the room: what engagement actually means in a crisis — and why it matters more than ever. They unpack the "job hugging" phenomenon (low turnover that masks quiet exits), why your employee survey might be lying to you, and the two "acid test" metrics that reveal the truth about your culture.

Plus: why HR is really marketing, how AI should amplify human skills rather than replace them, and the one habit that's quietly triggering quiet quitting across organizations everywhere.

🔥 Topics Covered

1. The "Job Hugging" Phenomenon

Low turnover doesn't always equal high engagement. Employees are "hugging" their current roles out of fear rather than loyalty — and disengaged employees might give high survey scores just to "not rock the boat" while secretly planning their exit.

2. Redefining Engagement Metrics

Is your expensive employee survey actually telling you anything? The panel discusses why leaders should focus on two "acid test" metrics:

Hiring Metrics: If you can't attract talent easily, your organization may no longer be attractive.
Glassdoor: Why ignoring your "TripAdvisor for work" is a fatal mistake for HR teams.

3. The Commercial Case for Culture

Investing in people is a commercial necessity. Research shows organizations in the top 25% of engagement scores enjoy 22% higher profitability and 21% higher productivity during economic recoveries compared to those at the bottom.

4. AI: Amplifier or Replacer?

We tackle AI anxiety head-on. Jeffrey argues that AI should be a tool to automate manual tasks so humans can get back to "human skills" like empathy and critical thinking. Kristien warns that in a world of "AI gobbledygook," your "super skill" is what keeps you relevant.

🧠 Key Takeaways for Leaders

The "Canceller" Habit: One of the fastest ways to trigger "quiet quitting" is for managers to consistently cancel weekly one-on-ones. Kristien's team knows the rule: cancel at your peril.
HR is Marketing: Your employees are an extension of your consumer brand. If your internal culture is toxic, your external product will eventually suffer.
Open the Gates: 90% of companies over 50,000 people lack an employee advocacy program. Trusting your people to use their own voice on LinkedIn pays dividends.
Job Hugging Isn't Loyalty: Low turnover in uncertain times often masks fear, not commitment. Disengaged employees may score your survey highly while planning their exit.
Train Your Managers: 82% of new managers who'd been in the role for a couple of years regretted their promotion — largely because they were promoted without the appropriate resources to succeed.

💬 Audience Q&A Highlights

"Can you job hug for a year?" — Kristien thinks you can, but the cost is high. Jeffrey warns that "actively disengaged" employees are a different beast entirely.
"What are the indicators people have already decided to leave?" — The panel points to the 40-hour week: when people stop engaging, stop clearing tickets, stop showing up — the signs are there.
"What tools do you use?" — Jeffrey shares his love for AI-native platforms, including one he uses on his own podcast. Kristien goes back to basics: "Can we just speak? Can we just talk?"

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

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AHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work. What you're about to hear is from one of our recent LinkedIn Lives, a live panel discussion where we dig into the big questions shaping modern work. If you'd like to join us for the next one, just search for Leanne Elliott—

Bthat's me—

Aon LinkedIn and hit follow. We announce them there first, and we obviously launch them there first. Right, let's go into it after a quick message from our lovely sponsor.

CThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.

AWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform. Every team Can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.

DNice.

CCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Okay, okay, okay. All right, all right, all right.

AWelcome everybody. We're gonna leave it just a minute or so to make sure As many people can join us from the beginning as possible. But yeah, nice to have you here if you're already with us. If you're watching the recording, you missed it, but luckily we recorded it. So you are right.

CWhat was more important than this? Well, while we wait for everyone to come in, should we just all shout out where we all are in the world? So Jeffrey, do you want to start off and tell us where you are in the world and what the weather's like? Because we're British.

EI am in warm and sunny Tampa, Florida, where it's around 68 degrees Fahrenheit. It's a nice little breeze out. And as I was bragging, I felt like, you know, when I went out for a stretch earlier, I could have sworn I heard squirrels singing and I felt like Snow White kind of getting up this morning. I was like, wow, I can't wait to join this podcast. Then I came in here and heard about your weather situation and kind of felt bad bragging. So, Kristien, how are you?

FYeah, so I'm in Mexico City. Beautiful sunny weather today, but we've had awful storms the last couple of days. So definitely hasn't been living up to the the Mexican stereotype, but beautiful to be here with you all. Really excited about this podcast today. We're gonna get into it with some really timely topics, and yeah, can't wait to get started.

CFabulous. And Georgia, whereabouts are you in the world?

BHi, I'm in the UK, in all places, Leicester. I'll be supporting on the tech side today.

CFabulous. And regular listeners know where we are, Leanne, don't they?

AYeah, we're in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It's really windy today. We were just saying to the guys before we came on, we've had 2 power cuts today. So there's a chance that we both might just disappear at any moment. But if that happens, Georgia, Jeffrey, and Kristien have said they're fine to just crack on with ours. So, uh, yeah, well, someone will be here.

CAnd if anyone's from Restream watching us, then just tell us what happens when the host's computer just shuts down. Does that mean that the whole room implodes? We'll find out. Yeah, definitely nodding. Yeah, so we may all be taken offline. Uh, Georgia, have you got any news on whether we are live or not?

BWe are, we are live, and we went live just halfway through Jeffrey's, uh, weather announcement.

CWe're not gonna ask.

AIt was sunny, okay?

CYeah, we get it.

EOkay, Leigh.

AOh, well, welcome everybody. Welcome to another episode of Truth, Lies and Work Live. If you haven't heard of us, we are the award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture, and we are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.

CMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.

AAnd together, we help you simplify the science of work and create amazing workplace cultures. Today, we are talking about employee engagement in times of crisis. The world is in a bit of a strange moment right now. I don't want to say that we're all doomed, but there's a sense of that, I think. Wars are escalating and economies are under pressure and layoffs keep making the headlines, and a lot of employees are doing what we call job-hugging. staying where they are, and it's not necessarily out of loyalty, it's more out of fear, which raises a slightly uncomfortable question for leaders. Does employee engagement even matter right now? Because when businesses are focused on survival, things like culture and trust can quickly slip down the priority list. But how organisations behave during difficult periods tends to stick, for better or for worse. So, in this episode, we'll be unpacking what uncertainty actually does to trust, motivation, and retention. And what really matters if you want to keep people engaged when things feel unstable. Because let's be honest, the research is pretty clear on this. Organisations that continue to invest in their people during downturns come out stronger. And it's not in like a feel-good way, it's in a real commercial way. It's productivity, retention, and how quickly they recover. To help us dive into this today, we are joined by 2 phenomenal guests. We have Kristien Turner. He is the CEO and founder of TK Talent Group. He has spent around 2 decades working in HR globally, including leader employer brand at HSBC, and has been involved in over 100,000 hires. He also has a master's in organizational psychology from Harvard.

BNice.

AAnd he's got a perspective on this that I think is really going to challenge how a lot of leaders think about employee engagement right now. We are also joined by Jeffrey Fermin. Regular listeners will know we've had Jeffrey on Very recently, actually. Jeffrey has spent over a decade working at the intersection of HR and technology. He was part of the founding team at Officevibe and has worked across a number of HR tech companies. He now leads demand generation at All Voices. It's a platform built around the idea that employees need a real voice at work, not just a selection— a suggestion box. Selection box, like it's Christmas. I wouldn't mind that. We're also joined by our associate producer, Georgia. She'll be moderating the comments section and will be sharing your thoughts and questions with us throughout the panel. So do pop anything that is on your mind in the comments section. Everybody, welcome.

BWelcome.

EHello.

FYou set that up very nicely.

EFantastic intro. 10 out of 10.

AThank you. Thank you very much. I want to dive straight in because we've got a lot, a lot we can talk about on this. And Kristien, I want to come to you first. You've said that engagement isn't the same as commitment, and actually that the people planning to leave can often look more engaged than the ones who stay. Can you talk us through that?

FYeah, I think that's really basic psychology. That's that moment where people just go, and I'm not going to start swearing on LinkedIn Live, but they just kind of give up. They just go, we don't care anymore. We know what's going on. We've seen this happen before. We've seen this blueprint. We're seeing our colleagues getting fired with a moment's notice. We're reading the news headlines. We are disengaged. But you know what? That employment survey comes around once a year, and I've gotta give my scores out of 100, and I'm gonna just put 95, 'cause why rock the boat? Because I think a lot of people assume, and rightly so, that certainly in small teams, that's identifiable information. So, I think, you know, when companies talk about the confidential employee engagement survey, we've gotta make sure that it really is confidential if you wanna surface what's really going on in your org. Because I've seen a lot of times, certainly in midsize and smaller, you know, organizations where that supposed confidentiality does not exist. You put on your scores there and guess what? 2 weeks later, you're out of a job. So I think people are starting just to kind of cocoon. I think they're starting to shut down. They're not really saying what's happening behind the scenes. And that becomes a pretty complex situation to manage through because your employees are kind of lying to you, but they're saying, well, hey, what? Management's lying to us as well. So why do we need to be the ones speaking up here? There's this kind of real disconnect. And I think as we go through the conversation today, we're going to talk about, from the candidate's viewpoint, I'm coaching, I've coached hundreds of people through these situations, but at the moment, I've got kind of 15 incredible coachees in senior positions that are all thinking, what's next? Many of whom are looking to kind of ditch out on corporate life. They're saying, there's got to be more to life than this. We want to go into the gig economy. We want to go into You know, doing fractional. We wanna open our own business. The candidates feeling this, they're being ghosted. They're applying to 1,000 jobs and getting no responses on any of these kind of AI-infused ATS platforms. That's the candidate. And then the companies are saying to me, Kristien, we can't find talent. Where's the talent? There's a war for talent, but we can't find them. Where are the technologists? Where are the data scientists? So both sides kind of have their, their very strong viewpoints on what's happening in the job market right now. They're not meeting. We're not meeting in the middle. Everyone's going in kind of a separate direction. Um, it's a tough old time out there. Doesn't matter if you're in Mexico City, if you're in Miami, Florida, you're in London, this is happening everywhere. This is not a localized problem. This is not a— this is not an Americas or a European thing. This is global. Everyone is feeling the pinch in the job market at the moment, the employers and the employee. Jeff.

EI want to just add by saying, in my experience, when I, you know, We saw these large datasets at Officevibe, found that like high engagement scores didn't really necessarily mean that you had a healthy culture. And when it's a fear-based economy and employer's market, uh, you know, people might mark that they're satisfied because, you know, the alternative is really unemployment. And that's not really engagement. That's really a matter of just like living in fear and saying like, I'm gonna stay as long as possible. I'm gonna hug this job for, you know, as long as I can and ride this thing out. And hopefully that next opportunity comes.

CYeah.

EThe other thing I'd like to add, and God, I'm going to be the one to drop a morbid analogy here, and I can't believe I'm the one to do it, but it's almost like that whole notion of like, before someone feels like they're about to pass, they kind of have like all this energy in the world. So as you're kind of ready to leave an organization, you're like, hey, I'm pretty much done. Yeah, I'm going to do all these things. I'm going to knock them all out. And employees just kind of navigating under that same kind of psyche where they're like, my time here is done. I'm pretending to be engaged and care about the organization and do all these things. But the reality is they're probably on their way out. And I could assume right now that folks, given all the uncertainty in the world and the doom and gloom that we get from the news, the 24-hour news cycle is just constantly pushing all this negativity towards us. I'd say that, yeah, like right now we're in a not-giving-F kind of mood as employers kind of navigating the market. And we're just kind of saying like, oh, what's the worst that could happen? Let me go out, let me do my job hunting stuff. Let me work with folks like Kristien and help get me out there. And, uh, when the time comes, I'm just gonna like, you know, bring my positive attitude elsewhere. So, uh, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, that's all I got on that one.

AI need to call out the elephant in the room because obviously we're on LinkedIn. I know people would have seen some of the posts I've written on LinkedIn, and Jeffrey and I met initially because of a post I put on calling out Officevibe for not doing what it, it said it was meant to be doing. To be fair though, my experience with Officevibe was, was post-Jeffrey Fermin. So there is that. But we then had you on the podcast and we talked very openly about this. If anyone hasn't heard that, go and listen to Jeffrey's episode. We addressed the kind of Officevibe story head on. So I don't want to repeat that here. But what I do want to ask you, Jeffrey, is, as you say, if people are kind of in that— I think it's called the surge, isn't it, in medical terms, when you have that surge of energy before, um, before the end— if people are kind of having that that energy boost, knowing that they've, you know, that when the time's right, they're gonna move on. What should leaders be measuring at this point to understand what, what is going on and how people are thinking and feeling in the workforce?

EYeah, might be getting ahead of ourselves with this one, but right now, engagement levels are at, um, you know, a COVID-level, uh, rate when it comes to engagement rates. And I always like to say the foundations of employee engagement really comes down to You know, listening to your employees. Truly, that's it. Like, we try and overcomplicate these things. Even at OfficeFive, we had 10 different drivers for employee engagement, and we tried to put a lot of science in there. I'm going to leave that up to what I call the big brains, you, you know, Kristien, all the org psych folks that really understand the science behind it. At the, I guess, the most foundational or fundamental level, it's really about listening. And I I think managers and HR folks alike should just, you know, not have notes, not have documentation, just go out there, talk to their employees, and really listen to concerns. Let's go human to human, right? What's the main word over in human resources, right? Like the human component of it needs to be really maximized within these turbulent times. And we need to start having conversations and really understand. You want to have a productized version of that, that's fine, but just make sure everything is kind of written down and you're understanding what's going on on a day-to-day in your workforce. And, you know, really, like, I can't stress it enough, really sit down and talk with folks and understand what are some of the things that are bothering you? You know, what are some of the things that we might not be offering you as an organization to help you, you know, do your job effectively? Um, to, you know, are we providing a psychologically safe environment for you to thrive in? Are we meeting all your needs, your expectations? I'm sure we're going to get into it in a little bit, but are we doubling down during this turbulent time to make sure that you are engaged, you're satisfied with your job, and can we keep you beyond what's now become commonplace, a 3 to 4 year job period or job cycle, right? Like, I feel like there's ways that we can really extend that average life cycle at a job from 3 to 4 years and get back to that point where you're a career person at an organization.

DYeah.

EAnd I do think the foundation at a very base level, we just need to get back to listening and talking and communicating. With that said, you know, I don't want to sound too kumbaya-ish and sound like we're in a fireside. I want to open it up to you organizational psychologists out here and see what you all have to say.

FLook, I've been involved. I think there's some great points there. I've been involved in these dashboards where you've got like 100 different elements and data's flying around and there's 150,000 people and I want heat maps and I want pulse checks and I wanna measure, you know, every single indicator that's known under the sun. And I think there's really now 2 things we should be looking at. You know, you can make it super complex. You can bring in every single HR consultant from around the world, every Big 4 accountancy firm to put kind of a, a really sophisticated system. There's 2 things that any small, medium, or large business should be doing. I think the first thing is, are we attractive? And I think the best pulse check, the best acid check for, are we an attractive organization? Do people want to join us? Look at your hiring metrics. Like, can I convince people to come and work here in the first place? That for me is just such a great way of looking at, you know, is this a great workplace? Have we built the right culture? Is this somewhere that people want to come and participate? Look at your hiring metrics. If you're struggling to find people, Now, you know, I'm gonna be honest here, if you're looking for 1,000 full-stack engineers at the moment, and you're looking for 500 data scientists, I'm not sure, you know, if you're, if you're finding it hard to find those particular characters, that might not be a reflection of your company organization, it might just be around supply and demand, you know, there's certain job families that are unbelievably hot, that have these opportunities to work remotely from one corner of the world with another earning huge dollarized salaries. But generally, you look at those hiring metrics and you're seeing that you're getting a 68% offer decline, or you're seeing that it's taking you 80 days to get, you know, applications for these 50 jobs you're trying to fill. You know, you can look at any of those hiring metrics, and I think that gives you a great idea as to whether or not your organization today is attractive or not. And we're gonna get into that a little bit later, 'cause I'm really passionate about employer brand. I'm passionate, Liana, around You know, HR need to think a little bit more like a marketing and a communications person, cuz we're selling. You're selling, you're selling a product. You're selling, you're actually selling the most important product in somebody's life, probably after their family, because this is where they're gonna spend the lion's share of their existence. So you've gotta think about what you're selling externally. And so we'll get into that a little bit later. But look at those hiring metrics. If you're a, a company founder, if you're a head of sales, if you're a commercial director, if you're a head of HR and you're struggling to find people, Something's, something's going wrong. Something's going wrong. And that second metric, and I love this, this is so much better than a retention metric. I'm gonna say go on Glassdoor. Go on Glassdoor. It's your TripAdvisor for the job market, right? So, um, I love it. You go on there, you're gonna get a rating. It's out of 5 stars, bit like a hotel. If you see that that company's at 2.7 stars and they've got, you know, 4,500 comments and everyone's talking about horrible work-life balance, everyone's talking about awful leadership. Everyone's talking about a horrendous benefit package being exploited. Well, yeah, don't go. Don't sign up for it. And as a company, you've got to then get some real talk going on in your organization. And you've got to say, hang on a minute. We're sitting here in the kumbaya kind of meetings in-house saying that everything's great, that our retention's at an all-time low at 9%. But externally, on the equivalent of TripAdvisor, on Glassdoor, we're at a 2.3 or a 2.4. Something's wrong. And so what I love to do as a, as an HR professional, and I'm sure there's lots of HR professionals watching us now live on LinkedIn, go on Glassdoor, look at your company, start to go down into the team that you work with or represent that part of the business. Take some of the comments out, and next time that you go to an exco or a meeting, bring them out. Talk about John Smith. Talk about Susan. Let's talk about Susan. Hang on, Susan. By the way, there's 5 comments that have gone up over the last 3 months about you and your leadership style. Now, I know that some people don't feel psychologically safe enough to do that, but I've done that in the past. It's good to be provocative. It's good. This is the employee voice. Problem is they're not employees anymore because they've ditched, they've left, and now they feel like they can really say what it is they're feeling. So I think, I think today, you know, you can overcomplicate this. We've got so many different data points. We know that AI will, you know, measure all of those hundreds of data points. I think, look at 2 things. Can you hire easily and in a decent period of time and decent quality talent as an organization? And over here, go and look at what they're saying about you after they've left the premises. Best place to do that at the moment, I still think, is on Glassdoor.

CKristien, I think that's such, such— and when you said it's like marketing, man, I could have just jumped over there and given you a hug. I just, I am so 100% behind that. Now, one thing I think which is really important to think about with Glassdoor is if you have got a negative score, a 1-star, Someone cares enough to go on there and write a review about you. So potentially, they care enough about your organization, they want it to be better and are disappointed, bitterly disappointed. So, I mean, they sound to me like the 1-star, sound to me like the ones that really, really are like the most important thing. But school me, is that right?

FWell, kind of, right? I mean, they're obviously the most upset. They're the ones that are going, my goodness, this was a disaster. I signed up for something and I got something totally different. Um, you know, if this was a Trustpilot review, yeah, you're, you're— it's awful. You know, they're going on there and manifesting that they've had a horrendous experience. But you're kind of right, I guess, the lower the score as well, and, and the scores get broken down. So you get to see what's sitting behind some of those scores. You'll see the emotion behind it. And I do think there's an element of people that go on there and do this. They're doing it because they genuinely want the experience to be better for the colleagues they left behind, and maybe for those friends or graduates in the future that are going to join. So I do think people are doing it. I don't think it's out of spite. I don't think many people go on there and decide to talk about a 3, 4, 5-year career with malice or malintent. I genuinely think they're doing it because they're like, hey, we try to speak up, we try to be honest, we try to manifest in those different scores and those different forums whilst we were employed with you guys. Now, the only way that we can share that is taking this to Glassdoor. So you're right. I think there's a lot to unpack there. But do you know what? A little secret. Most companies don't look at Glassdoor. They don't care. No, Al, like 95% of HR teams, I don't think, have looked at their Glassdoor scores the last year. They're not looking at those inputs because we're gonna use the employee survey that we spent half a million dollars putting in place. We're gonna use what we did, but we're not gonna look external, or we're gonna find ways to say, oh, there's only 3,500 data points there. So there's a little bit of a— you know, a shutdown and a bit of a denial going on. My invitation is go and look. Feedback's a gift. Go and see what they're saying about your organization and take it to your leadership team. Take it to the CEO. God, take it to a founder. As a founder, if I was to see comments like that and somebody talking about my organization that I built with so much, you know, passion and emotion, I would be gutted. I'd cry. I'd literally have a breakdown and go, how do I improve this? How do I turn this around? And I kind of want companies to do the same. I want them to go and read what's on there and get real about it.

ADid you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?

CWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.

AAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.

DAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking.

CAnd you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—

Athe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

ESeamless, seamless.

CTell us about your latest episode, Phil.

DUh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about themselves. how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.

AIt is, it's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that will be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste It can. And are we all just status-seeking monkeys?

CI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

ABut come back.

CYeah, come back.

DDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back.

CI'll cut that out.

EKeep that in.

CNow, there is a kind of an opposite side of that, a bit of a sneaky side that if, if you are, if this is one of your competitors who's got a bad score, you were saying, yeah, you're, you're already there. You were saying That, that you wanna create the place where someone wants to live. You've now got a checklist of all the things that you can be great at, and then you are gonna be somewhere they wanna go and, uh, that, that they wanna go and work at. Jeffrey, you look like you had something to say.

EOh my goodness. I just wanted to say, Kristien, you absolutely nailed it. At one point we were even considering, uh, back in the office vibe days, finding ways to kind of show like how improving certain scores and certain metrics would tie into Glassdoor's, uh, uh, Glassdoor scores improvement or decrease, right? Like, Uh, I, I really have nothing else to add. I thought that was fantastic. And I think more HR practitioners should be looking at their Glassdoor scores to find issues that might've not been surfaced within either engagement surveys or in their employee relations platform. Um, all these things could really benefit an organization. And like, yeah, if you're able to like solve those issues, uh, granted you're getting it from an exit interview or a review system, it's a big win right there. So massive unlock. I recommend it. 2 thumbs up.

CThere you go. You've all got your money's worth so far. Leanne, should we get, uh, should we get some comments and see what we're up to?

AGeorgia?

BUh, they're all rolling in for now. Uh, perhaps we'll come back to it later.

CNo worries. No worries. I can see some up here and they're all, I think everyone's getting a lot of love. People talking a lot of, they're saying that you're talking a lot of sense there. Lee, what are your thoughts on everything?

AI, I also love those, those data points. I think, um, yeah, it's getting an honest view of people that have exited the business because nobody's ever honest in an exit interview.

EIt's for the same reason.

AThey're Moving on. So, I think that's really smart, and I think you're absolutely right as well in terms of attracting people into our business. There is, of course, the people in our business that we need to think about as well, and especially in times of crisis. And I want to go back to this idea of job hugging, and it's being talked about more and more. You know, people are staying put not because they're engaged, so that, you know, that low turnover isn't reflecting high engagement. People are staying because now is not the time to move on, they feel they have to. I think we all agree that that's a real thing. And what I'm wondering is, as a leader, how might I be able to spot the people who are job-hugging to try and intervene before that resignation letter comes in?

FAnd you're right, I think—

Aoh, sorry, Kristien, go.

FJeff, go for it.

EI was actually gonna say, Kristien, uh, you nailed it in this last one. I wanna piggyback off of you.

FLook, let's just start like, why are they job hugging? Well, because people are confused. Some are upset, some are angry, some are nervous. I think there's all those kinds of emotions linked to job hugging. We're trying to look to the market to see what's happening. We're looking to world wars. We're looking to, um, volatile exchange rate fluctuations, which are affecting people certainly here in Latin America. You know, there's so many factors where you go, I don't know what I want to do, where I want to do it, under what format, you know, because people are saying, you know, under format, they're saying, I want to be part of the gig economy, but I also want health insurance and I also want paid vacation. So is that gig economy the right place for me? I want to start a business. Do I have the capital? Do I have the means to start my own business? So people are kind of just confused, upset, angry. And I definitely have seen over the last year and a half, over the last year and a half, really, ever since we've been kind of talking about AI in every single news article and every single business meeting and every single, you know, every year, the AI domination, people are confused and they're nervous. And so they're just kind of like sitting back going, God, what do I, what do I do? Where do I move? What do I do next? How can you spot one? I think as an, as a leader, You start to see maybe one telltale sign is they start to get involved in too many extracurricular activities. And so definitely, I think a sign is if your top performer on your team is suddenly really involved in some incredible charity work or has suddenly decided that they're going to go and do a master's in org psychology, for example, or they've suddenly decided— I think you can take that as a sign of, not always, but you could take that as a sign of We're not giving them, we're not stimulating them enough here. They're getting bored, they're getting anxious, and so they're upskilling. They're going to study something different. They're getting involved in community stuff because that's actually something that happens when you start to feel like you don't belong anymore in the workplace. You're going to look to build your community elsewhere. And so back to that example of charity work or volunteering, or you're suddenly the one that's going out and doing a bunch of financial education masterclasses with children in underprivileged schools. As a leader, you've got to look and go, what are they searching for? Why are they doing that? Why is my top performer, why is my top team suddenly half the time on the job and the other half of the time studying something in preparation for the future, building community elsewhere outside of this team? Or frankly, maybe they just aren't showing up to the office, right? Like, you know, we might have a hybrid policy and they might be kind of doing 2 or 3 days at home and a couple of days in the office. And I've certainly seen a trend again where people are going, you force me back into the office, but I've got a little flexibility here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay at home. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay out of this environment. So I think as a leader, if you look around, you've got a team of 50 and you go, 5 or 6 of these people feel like they're building something outside of work. 5 or 6 people here are studying something totally different. 5 people over here are volunteering. Suddenly, you've got to go, oh, wow, half my team are doing other things, and they're not engaged. They're not here and present. And I think that's how you go, oh, God, these people are kind of just plodding along. These colleagues of mine are plodding along, plotting for their next move. I think in real life, they're some of the telltale signs. Because I I don't think the people that are job hugging are getting angry. I don't think they're getting restless, Leanne. I don't think they're getting provocative. I don't think they're the ones sitting in a meeting being the contrarian with their boss going, I don't agree with this. That's a horrible annual plan. I'm not going to deliver $100 million towards your plan. That's not how it works in that corporate business setting. That's not how people react. I think you've got to look for some of those more subtle signs of they're going in different directions, and that direction is away from us and is away from me as a leader. Not towards me. What do you think, Jeff?

ESo amazing points there. Uncertainty plays a massive role right now, but I want to speak on the manager side and the leader side of things, right? In the last employee engagement report, we saw that manager engagement actually dipped from 30% to 27%. Now, I'm going to land the plane here, I promise. But let's go to that famous quote, right? People don't quit their jobs, they quit their bosses. So a lot of the stress could be coming from the fact that leaders, managers, just like employees feel uncertain about the future. There's a lot of negativity in the news. And I felt like last year was an insane year when it came to some of these CEO memos that were dropped. They were practically openly saying like, hey, 996 workforce is the new norm. Everyone needs to be so— you need to be so a part of our workforce that you need to sleep under your desk and do all these things. And if not, you know, we're going to have AI come in and replace you. Essentially, that was kind of the big theme. theme last year, and that's what kind of swung the, you know, the pendulum of employee-to-employer markets kind of like all the way to the employer side. You had leaders openly advocating or C-level leadership saying like, hey, we want to make sure that we get every ounce of productivity from our employees. Now, granted that, that also falls on the managers as well, and they're probably undergoing the same levels of stress as the employees and their engagements are— engagement levels are suffering because of it. So, Uh, I will say if an employee is stressed, it's likely because their manager is also stressed. And it is, uh, you know, stress doesn't— more stress, like we're just adding stress on top of stress without kind of having a plan for it. And I feel like that could be leading to a lot of job dissatisfaction. You know, I, I myself have seen stressed out managers kind of taking out on employees and what that means for the workforce. I don't need a metric to define that. I've seen people's faces and, and how they react to getting yelled at, getting screamed at, being told that if they don't hit You know, certain goals, their jobs are on the line. And when you have that message permeating from senior leadership and, you know, C-level employees of some of the largest organizations in the world saying like, hey, your employees are dispensable and we could get rid of them and replace them with AI, which, by the way, Kristien, amazing job. We went 28 minutes. That has to be a record, right? But for mentioning AI, we did not mention AI for a full 28 minutes. So kudos to us. But yes, I do feel like a lot of the issues are stemming from, you know, C-level folks and they're kind of gung-ho on ensuring that we have to start looking at AI as an employee replacer, which it shouldn't be. It should be an amplifier and we should be empowering people to use all these new tools similar to like when our, I guess, grandparents got calculators for the first time. But that's a whole different subject. I want to stay on point with this one. And yes, a lot of great points.

FI think that's a really interesting point though, Jeff, when you mentioned kind of the managers don't have it figured out either. You're right. Like the leaders of leaders, that leader that I mentioned of the 100-person team, they're also potentially job hugging. They don't know what their next step looks like. They're getting the pressure from the top to meet the numbers. They're getting the pressure from the top to cut heads. And then they're the ones that actually are putting the face to the wider team of 100, 1,000 people. They don't have it figured out either, which is why I think the best companies out there at the moment are investing in— and this is a little bit of a plug here, Liane, for profiles like yourselves or my organizational psychologists— but they're actually bringing in proper coaches, real coaches, not life coaches, but not necessarily executive coaches either, but kind of the Wendy from Billions kind of character, right? We're bringing in here the coach that can help those leaders in both directions, manage that team and the message that's flowing down. And also manage the messaging and the relationship with the leaders above them because they're in that crunch position as well at the moment. If you're a leader of a team of 100 people, it's not a fun— it's not a fun time. It's not like a— it's not a fun moment. And so I think companies that are investing in like really awesome human coaching programs with those kinds of leaders are going to see— are going to see the benefits. They're going to see those leaders stay, those leaders be more productive, fabulous Glassdoor scores, because we talk about investing in our people externally. Um, but coaching has never been more important for that population that just needs someone to talk to. That leader, that leader of 100 can be really, really lonely because you know that you've gotta cut 30 heads in 3 months' time. You know, you've gotta meet your numbers or your head will be cut. Who do you go and talk to? Who do you get vulnerable with? Um, and unfortunately, in today's corporate world, we don't allow for those vulnerabilities to necessarily be surfaced. In those exchanges, in those team meetings. And so you need a coach. You need a little bit like— I call it professional therapy, but you need to go and just kind of decompress and let it out because those guys are struggling as well. And so I always feel, you know, we always like to beat up the leader or the middle manager. They've kind of got a tough job as well at the moment in corporate life, right? Because they're in the middle of this sandwich and it's not pleasant.

EYeah. And it's a media narrative that's being pushed too. Can AI get rid of the middle manager? Like that is one of, there's, if you Google that right now, there are dozens, if not hundreds of articles trying to push managers out of the equation entirely. So I don't know, there's a lot of negativity towards managers, that stress. I'm sure it's permeating. It's going downwards. It's trickling down to employees and it is just, uh, adding on to this employee engagement crisis that's kind of going on right now.

FSo, yeah.

AI could not agree. More. I think I've said more than once on this platform, if you do one thing, train your managers and support your managers. I agree, coaching is such a wonderful way of supporting our leaders and our managers. And I also think there's so much more we can do. And as you said, Kristien, feed into that, you know, we're investing in our people's personal development. I was reading some data from the Chartered Institute of Management the other day, and they were talking about accidental managers. And I've never seen a statistic this bad before. I've seen data on accidental managers, but never this high.

FYeah.

AIn this survey of around 3,000 people, 82% of new managers who'd been in the role for a couple of years had received no formal training or support in that role. And it went on, you know, it may have dropped to maybe like 52% for people who had been in management for 10 years plus. And even our senior leaders, we were looking at about, I think it's around 30, 35%. Don't quote me on these numbers. I can't remember all of them off the top of my head, but it was a significant amount that still hadn't received any training. We're asking so much of them.

BYeah.

AWithout giving them the appropriate resources to do it. What I want to move on to is why businesses should care, because like you say, there's so much going on, there's so much to think about, there's so much pressure. When a business is under this type of pressure and turnover is low, engagement, is it feeling like a nice to have? And if it is, how do we, as HR leaders and practitioners, make a case for continuing to invest in employee development in a time like this?

FLook, I'll take that one. And I've got a really strong viewpoint on this. And back to the marketing analogy earlier, your team and your employees are an extension of your consumer brand. So, gone are the days where you could invest, you know, $50 million in a new product launch and have an underinvested, horrible team sitting behind it representing customer service, after-sales, whatever. You've got to, you've got to think about your employees as an extension of your consumer brand. It's what we talk about all the time when we talk about the Magnetic 8 and employer brand and the different lenses through which you see if your business is showing up externally with power, with might, and is resonating with your target audience. So for me, do it, you know, if you're sitting there as a business owner, as a CEO, and you're going, I've got to cut costs, I've got to, you know, I'm worried about the economic, the macros. You know, just do it selfishly because by investing in your employees, you're also investing in how your product and your services are showing up externally. I don't think there's any examples out there anymore of, you know, an incredible product and a horrible team and a horrible kind of set of HR policies. And I'm going to use an example. Let's name one, Lego. What a resurgence Lego has had the last 15 years. And I'd invite some HR practitioners here today that might not be so familiar with The new— I think the new head of people at LEGO was announced yesterday. But look at the LEGO People team. Look at the initiatives they have. Look at the onboarding with new hires. Look at their benefits, their paternity leave. I mean, it's just incredible, like the way they create a stickiness and an engagement in their employee base. And then you then go, wow, but all these new products, all these new associations with the World Cup, with Formula 1, and You know, is it— since when did a 50-year-old or a 60-year-old want a Lego set for Christmas? When I grew up, it was like something you had as a 7 or 8-year-old. Like, kudos to Lego. I think they've tripled, quadrupled their sales the last few years. But look at companies where you go, great product, innovating, great quality, great values, um, and then look at the team that sits behind them. And I think that's when you start to go, I don't think you can have one without the other. And that's a physical product. But if we went to any of the airlines, any of the hotel chains, any of those real service-orientated brands, I think that just gets even stronger. That message of just do the employee engagement piece, maybe not because you wanna be a fantastic leader or the best place to work or win lots of awards. Just do it because you want your product and service to be number one. You wanna sell more. So I just think there's such a commercial crossover there, Liane. I just don't think you can disconnect them. Final idea here, and it kind of links back to that point before. Read an incredible article a couple of weeks ago, how in Scandinavia, and it's always the Scandies that are always ahead of the game here, are spending 6% of their payroll, their total payroll costs, on performance management, performance development, on coaching, on learning and development, on developing their people. 6%. In the US, in the Americas, it's less than 1%. And then you say, of that 1%, how much of that is being spent on AI upskilling academies, techie stuff? So you go, hang on a minute. Like, if we're investing less than 1%, if we're spending $1 million on payroll, but we're spending less than $1,000 a month on learning and development, something's gotta give. That's pretty bad. So maybe we should look to our friends in Sweden and in Copenhagen, in Denmark, and say they're doing something, right? They're investing 6% of that monthly total cost of your employee base, and they're investing it back in them. And they're saying, and again, that links back to our Lego example, right? Back to Denmark, back to Copenhagen. You're saying, invest in your people, you'll get better product, better sales, and be a more successful company.

AI actually was looking into some data on this. Sorry, Jeffrey, we'll come to you because it will feed in nicely. Some actual research around, and I thought it was really quite powerful actually. And there was research that looked at over 8,000 businesses before the financial crisis, during, and afterwards to see how they invested and what happened in kind of recovery years. And the organisations with high employee engagement during the economic crisis grew earnings per share faster in the rebound than by a huge margin. Organizations with the top 25% of engagement scores enjoyed a 22% higher profitability and 21% higher productivity in recovery compared to the bottom 25% of organizations. So, as you say, Kristien, even if you wanna be really cold and commercial about this, employee engagement is really good for business.

FReally good for business.

BTotally.

EI just wanted to give you all the praise in the world. You absolutely nailed it. One of the big things that we would pitch early on at Officevibe was, uh, employee advocacy. What is the downstream effect when you have high engagement rates? Can your organization do well enough and have your employees become advocates for you on social, on all these different platforms? So much so that there is that kind of commercial crossover where it's like, oh, wow, these people love their organization so much that they're willing to go above and beyond to kind of market it for free. And it's organic. And you are constantly seeing photos of teams at an office, teams at an offsite. Whatever the case may be, that some folks might even skip going to Glassdoor. They're like, wow, I want to work there. And it's happened at my organization, at All Voices. We have several employees that have come in because they established relationships and we just kind of like talked up and truly mean that we like love it over there. So with that said, I want to say you nailed it. Employee advocacy, please invest in some of these engagement platforms. I also want to just tie it back to a data point, right? When you are investing in employee listening, whether it's an employee engagement tool, an employee relations platform, whatever the case may be, you tend to see a nice little uptick on those engagement scores, right? Companies that collect employee feedback see around, I want to say, 8 to 10% engagement gains. So if you do want to actually start getting more advocacy online and really, aside from understanding your needs, getting that promotion online, start investing in feedback, start collecting it, really start getting energetic about listening to employees and doing the best you can to address them. And you're gonna start seeing, you know, those engagement numbers creep up and hopefully it leads to that nice effect of employee advocacy online. I also wanna highlight that, you know, my organization, it's only 40 people, but people tend to, a 40-person headcount, but it does appear to be a lot larger 'cause we're actively We love working there and we're actively talking about everything that we're doing. So we'll say if we're doing that as a 40-person organization, I can't even imagine what a company the size of Lego, you know, with probably tens of thousands of employees are benefiting from having all their employees kind of just like post about them and kind of say, wow, this is truly one of the best places to work. And also want to highlight that, yes, Lego's sales are probably up because Man, the demand for them, it's intense. I think I saw like one of these Death Star ones go for $500. So if anyone out there, yeah, if anyone out there wants to gift one, please feel free to send it.

FPR packages are welcome.

EYes, gladly.

FBut it's so interesting, Jeff, that you mentioned, you mentioned that LEGO actually do do a really good job about showing up and showing off externally and using the power of their real engagement internally Externally, but actually of the big companies, that's another huge gap and miss. They don't have employee advocacy programs because for the last 10 years, we were so worried about what our employees would say about us on social media. We had everyone sign disclaimers in their contract saying, if you say something that's out of line, we will fire you the same day. Now, companies are kind of easing, easing back on those social media guidelines, principles, rules, and saying, actually, wouldn't it be great We've got 350,000 people working for us around the world, of which 260,000 are on LinkedIn. And if they posted like once a week, wow, what would we have to spend on paid media to get the eyeballs on that content, both for our product, but also for our workplace vibes, engagement, come and work here message? And so, again, 90% of companies over 50,000 people worldwide do not have an employee advocacy program on LinkedIn. And I know there's other platforms available, and the moment we move to China, there's different platforms over there, but they just don't have a clear sense of content pillars. What are we encouraging people to post? How are we, frankly, how are we asking our leaders to set the example? Right? Because if you're the leader of a team of 1,000, 10,000 people, I want to see you visible on LinkedIn, and I don't want selfies. I want to see your team. I don't want to see selfies of you at Cannes Lions or at CES in Vegas, kind of having the free work trip, staying at a 5-star hotel, because that's going to switch me off. You're talking about tough economic times. There's no, there's no, there's no bonus this year. There's no pay rise this year. But then I see my leader flying first class around the world at all of the conferences. Not the best look. What do you do? You start to develop content where you recognize the top performers on your team, where you focus on you know, individuals that have gone above and beyond. It's not rocket science. It's about putting the spotlight as a leader on your team members that are just doing cool shit. And if you can get that right and that sticky sauce right, um, I think you're onto something, you know. And again, other leaders out there doing this really well, but I think using one of our, one of our great British, um, you know, entrepreneurs, Richard Branson did this, started this 20 years ago.

ARight.

FAnd Richard Branson with Virgin Group is always putting the focus on what an incredible team he has across the portfolio of companies. For me, he's like the OG kind of leader influencer on LinkedIn. There's others, but I just think Richard does such a great job because it's not about him. It's about him on the flight, but he's going to talk about Shelley, who's the head flight attendant who gave the best service on the Vegas to London flight, or he's going to be in the hotel in Chicago talking about the new opening, but talking about the general manager that went above and beyond. Or on the cruise ship talking about the entertainment team. But the focus is on your people. It's on your company culture. It's on how we live the day-to-day. It's not about you as the leader, and it's not beautiful selfies with professional makeup and lots of professional lighting. And so those employee advocacy programs can be so powerful. They can be so cheap to stand up as well, because you don't really need infrastructure to do this. You just need a leader that says, hey, I trust my people. I trust them with our customers. So I'm gonna trust them with their own voice on LinkedIn, and we're gonna encourage them to post and post frequently and post authentically, but we're gonna give them some ideas and we're gonna give them a little content to work with. It's not rocket science, but so many companies today are missing that opportunity. And so then when they go, oh no, I need to hire 10,000 people, um, in Miami over the next 3 months, and they go, where do we start? You go, well, you've had a team there for 25 years, but They're just silent. They're gagged. So, you know, I think today what we spoke about the first kind of 40, 45 minutes was how do you build a real culture, a real engagement in your organization? But once you've built it, let's communicate it. Let's like lift the lid, open access. It doesn't need to be behind closed doors anymore. You don't have to lock it up. You need to open it up, share it with the world, and it can really pay dividends. Can really pay dividends. Why has it not happened in the past? Because HR didn't really get on with marketing. Marketing doesn't get on with comms. External comms want to own all the channels. And we all kind of in the past used to kind of ruffle each other's feathers. We're in 2026, for goodness sake. Let's all just get in a room and make this work, make this happen. And let's leave the egos, let's leave the ex-co-egos out of the door and go, we've got an incredible employee base here. Let's use it.

CNo? Fabulous. Fabulous. I'm so sorry. I just want to quickly, first of all, we need Georgie. We just need to check on our questions. We've just got carried away. That is absolutely fabulous. For those people who want to know more, obviously go and follow these amazing people because they'll tell you more and more stuff like that. Little plug for our little show. In about 4 weeks' time, we've got someone called Rachel Harris who's coming on, much smaller than Lego, only about 50 or 60 employees, but she talks about employee-generated content, EGC, not UGC. Basically, exactly, exactly what these guys are talking about there. So, Georgia, have we got anything that, any burning questions that people want answered?

BWe have indeed. We've got about 4. So, first one, and it's playing a devil's advocate to the previous conversation about job hugging. When is employee, when is an employee at the point of job hugging too late?

AIn terms of, is it, is it too late to change their mind?

BOr I think what they're asking is, is it too late once they're at that point? Um, too late to reengage, to kind of pull them back in?

EI think, I think not. I, I, to answer that one, I, it's as simple as just having a conversation and, uh, My boss over there, Emily, left a very nice comment saying, like, leave it to Jeffrey to have the empath type of response. But it's really just a matter of having an open and honest conversation. There it is. Yeah, it's really a matter of having a conversation. Even though I come from a tech background and I've built feedback systems up, I truly believe that I just have that all these systems there are almost like a safeguard. The reality is you just need to hop on a Google Meet chat or a face-to-face. time for a coffee and really have that heart-to-heart. The same way that Kristien was kind of mentioning that managers need mentorship, employees need that mentorship. And what better person to do it than their managers, right? Uh, that, that are actively working with them, having meetings with them once a week. So you have to have a— pardon my French here— a no-bullshit conversation and say like, hey, this is how I'm feeling. Why are you like this? What can we do to really like understand? How can we meet your needs here and make sure that you could get back on that high horse and And really be a productive member over here. Yes, right now times are tough. Job hugging is a little— it's becoming the norm because of all these external things going on. But, you know, a real great manager is really going to know when— they'll know how to spot, like, when their employees stress and have that one-on-one conversation and really drill down to whatever it is that's truly bothering an employee. Also want to say I have a psychology background, so maybe I'm biased. I always like to see where I could help people. I know that might not be the case for every manager, but I think at the end of the day, it really just boils down to communication.

FAnd I'm gonna answer the question slightly differently, which is, I think you can job hug for a year. I'm gonna put a time limit on it. I'm gonna say, do it for a year, because after that year, it's gonna be detrimental to you, your career. It's going to be detrimental to your mental health if you kind of stay in that job longer than a year and you're just not enjoying it, not having a good time. Sometimes you're going to have to extend that a little bit. It's not binary, right? It could be longer than a year because frankly, you need the benefits. You need the paycheck until you've lined up the next job. But I think sitting comfortably for a year is fine. Any longer than that is just not good for either side. So like, if you're sitting there going, oh my goodness, I've been in a job for like 5 years that I've been hugging and I want to get out of. Probably it's time to make things happen.

BYeah.

EAnd just to add on to that, like I brought up the phrase actively disengage, right? Around 2011, when I first started my employee engagement software, that phrase was kind of a new phrase. And I want to say back then it was like 12% of people were actively disengaged, meaning that they would go out of their way to sabotage their company. They would be willing to like, you know, push out data and stuff. I feel like once you go past a year of job hugging and you start start getting to a point where you go from disengaged to actively disengaged, you're just going to want to freaking— yeah, it becomes dangerous for the organization and for your own mental health.

FGood point.

AAbsolutely. All I know is we know from the research of certain types of leadership transformational, for example, can weaken the link between intention to quit and somebody actually handing in their notice. So it's not too late if somebody, you're noticing somebody is job hogging if you approach it in the right way. And I totally agree with what Jeffrey is saying as well in terms of having those conversations. And those conversations really need to focus around how do we make this work meaningful? How do we improve the resources you've got to do your job? That includes training and development. Is this role stretching you in a way that is purposeful to you? And do we fit long-term into the broader goals that you have in terms of outside your life? And if If you can't do any of that within your power as a manager, then there's probably nothing you can do, but it's not too late to can. So, have those conversations and focus on those things.

CGeorgia, there's a question here from Jennifer Martinez. Do you think we've covered that, or should we put this to the panel? I know we've touched on it. It says, I'll put it up on the screen, but basically, it's saying, being in such trying times, having the threat of AI taking over the workforce. How does one keep employee engagement high at work? Now, I know we've talked around this, and to be fair, we did go 26 minutes, as you said, Jeffrey, without talking about it. But have you guys got any thoughts on this particular question? Can you both see it, by the way, the question?

FYeah.

EI have a doom and gloom one, so maybe you want to start with the positive one.

FNo, you go. Start with the doom and gloom.

EOkay, perfect. Yeah. Spin it up and do something positive. I'm very positive as an individual. My team will tell you this. I do. I don't like where certain things are heading. And I was doing a little bit of research leading up to this, and I was like finding out about what these AI enthusiasts are now calling like this, the next kind of big jump where we're going to have this underclass that serves people that are working those 996, learning everything about AI, becoming prompt engineers. And I just want to start by saying like, I don't think that's the way where we're going to head as a society. And I know a lot of these C-level folks that brought up all these memos last year and all these nonsense that's being pushed on by the media is kind of saying like, AI is going to take over everything. You have to work 996 hours. You have to do everything you can to become this next like superstar. And the underclass are going to work all these trade-level jobs. Wanted to bring all this stuff up to say like, I don't think, I do think that people, hopefully like everyone on this call, are going to step in and ask for more governance, more rules, more more regulations. I know that the UK is already having like AI regulations, if I remember correctly. I do think the United States will hopefully catch up and get to a point where we're starting to say like, okay, enough is enough when it comes to what AI can do and how it should impact workers. We saw Oracle lay off 30,000 people today or some absurd number, and they cited AI as one of the main reasons. I think they're— sorry if anyone hears from Oracle, but I do think that's going to have a little bit of backlash. And let me land the plane here and say, we're seeing something that I believe is very temporary. And I do think that society will heal and it will eventually— that pendulum will swing back towards the employers and we'll start seeing AI more as a tool, an amplifier, not a replacer of employees. And eventually there will be leaders that step up and say, hey, The future isn't going to be folks that are buying and selling things with AI agents. We need employees, we need workers, we need people that are going to benefit the economy and actually provide value and provide meaning for why we work. So like, you know, there has to be some kind of limitations on the growth and expansion of AI. All that to say is right now it does appear to be a threat and there is a doom and gloom scenario where there is this AI overclass and the underclass of tradesmen. I know a lot of folks in the tech community want to believe that that is the future. But the reality is we're going to go back to being some, uh, to somewhat of a normal state. And I do think that, um, going, answering that employee engagement part, once we kind of put those regulations in place and once there are certain laws and restrictions on what AI can do and what it can replace, um, it's going to help benefit the employer marketing job. So yeah, I hope that made a little bit of sense.

ANo, it's brilliant. I just want to jump in and ask you, Kristien, because I think that's a really good angle. I'm not sure if we'd have time otherwise, but in terms of this whole, as Jeffrey said, with AI and the layoffs and how there is some backlash to that, how does this play in with employer brand? Is what organizations do now going to be telling of their employer brand in the future? What are your thoughts?

FYeah, thoughts there, strong thoughts. You've got to be razor You've got to be super sharp and honest about what's happening internally and what you're selling externally, because if not, candidates smell a rat. And so, there are examples of brands out there that have had beautiful consumer brands and have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in their employer brand over the last couple of years, and they're promising incredible career paths and graduate programs, et cetera. And then you hear they've just laid off 10,000 grads, and you go, oh, well, what about this career path? I'm a year in, and you've just sacked me. You just fired me at a critical point. So I think as a candidate, the candidates are getting far more educated and far smarter, uh, distinguishing between what is marketing BS and what is a true representation of what it's like to work there. And they're, they're getting smarter. They're going out to more sources than ever before. Um, they're looking at the leaders on LinkedIn, they're going to Glassdoor, they're Googling, they're, you know, going to careers fairs, they're talking to ex-employees, they're talking to family members that know somebody that, like, everyone's doing their research to really uncover what it's really like to work there. So you're right, it's all about congruence. You've gotta, you can sell it externally if you've got the goods to back it up. And I think that's where we're headed. And the companies that are frankly lying externally about a promise that they can't deliver on are gonna struggle in the future. Back to that question. I, that question left me thinking. I loved everything Jeff said, but 2 other kind of quick points there. I work closely with Udemy and Udemy are, I guess, the world's largest now upskiller on all things AI. And I had a great conversation with them last week out of San Francisco. And they said, yeah, number 1 is our whole AI suite of academy, and we've got 800 different courses. Number 2, 3, and 4 on the list of most in-demand courses and upskilling is public speaking, creativity, but creativity along with kind of like graphic design and thinking about actual like designers, It's all of those kind of actual human skills. And so I think there's now going to be a little bit of a change again. The wind is going to swing and going to go, it's great that you've done your prompt engineering kind of 101, and you've kind of delved into the tech and the future focus. But actually, companies are now going, oh my goodness, but those leaders can't speak in front of a room of 100 leaders. And oh my goodness, that presentation we saw was awful because they had Claude do it, and it just It looks like AI gobbledygook. So, I think we are going back to actually saying we've got to invest in some of those kind of, we used to call them soft skills. I don't think we, I don't know what we call them anymore, but it's just, yeah, some of those basics that we all should have in the workplace. So, that reassures me because it shows me that we're still giving a little kudos and putting a little weight on those skills, which are so important in life in general. And then I think back to Jennifer's kind of comment there, my only other little nugget would be rather than worrying about what the companies are doing and what society are doing, take your own control of the situation. So I would say, Jennifer, what are you studying? What are you interested in? If you're an incredible creative graphic designer, like, let's focus on the artistic side. Like, let's continue to develop that flair. Like, focus on what you can do in this situation where The world seems bleak. We mentioned doom and gloom. We mentioned world wars. We mentioned tens of thousands of layoffs today. But like, as an individual, as a candidate, what can I do to stay alive, to stay relevant, to stay active? And it normally comes back to linking where you're good at something with where you're passionate about something. And that's kind of my advice, really, to any candidate that's sitting there going, oh my goodness, am I going to be irrelevant in 10 years? And I go, But what are you great at? No, but you're great at this today. Focus on what we're good at and develop that and make that a super skill. Um, because if not, you're going to spend the next 10 years looking at Instagram and looking at, you know, the news cycle and you're not going to sleep and you're going to worry about it. And then we probably are going to be irrelevant in the job market in 10 years' time. So focus on what we can do today to stay ahead. Human skills. That's right. Human skills. That's it. Yeah, it's human skills. Totally is.

CI love this. I love this. I mean, Leigh, have we run out of time?

AWell, we're good. I think we have hit our hour mark, but I did check in with Geoffrey and Kristien before we started. They said they've got an extra 10 minutes or so. So, if we've got any more questions, Georgia?

BYeah. So, I think the one by Jacqueline Durrett has probably been answered. We say that AI should be an amplifier, not a replacement, but when companies use it as a replacement, How can we encourage employees to see it as a collaborative tool?

COh, I've got to find this. Who was this by?

BUm, it is, you got it.

CIs that right?

BThat's the one.

CThere we go, guys. So who wants to start off with that one?

EI'll lead off with this.

BYeah, go.

EUm, I feel very fortunate to work within You know, an AI-native platform, an employee relations platform. And we're, you know, they, they taught me, I think, what's the adoption rate? Like, it's 100% AI adoption at this point, obviously. But like, we find ways and we articulate them in meetings to kind of make sure that everything that can be automated is automated by AI. We got several different service providers to do that. I feel like the best way to tell employees and even employers alike is just to let them know, like, this is saving time. This is really here not to replace me, but to save time doing X amount of manual tasks. You know, if it takes 20, 30 minutes a day, it's going to do it in a couple of seconds. So that's always the number one use case for AI. It costs $20 a month to have something that's going to save upwards of, I don't know, 20, 30 hours a week. By all means, it's a smart choice to make. And I feel like that message of time saving, what's the number one product pitch line that's always used, right? You get back to doing what you actually care about. You get back time in using certain systems, whether it is AI, an automation tool. If you're knowledgeable with Excel and you can make all these calculations and don't have to write them down on paper, it saves you time so you can get back to what you're good at and hopefully make time to attend Uh, podcasts like this, right? So I was like, that's really the number one thing I would, I would encourage, you know, when you're communicating with either employees or employers, let them know that these systems are really there to save time, to hopefully work on those human skills and to connect with other people and maybe other organizations internally and establish those relationships that are going to benefit your organizations and the individual long-term. So, uh, yeah, that's how I would go about it. And also love to see that phrase, uh, AI should be an amplifier, not a replacement, picking up steam. I used it on our podcast, and I drop it on LinkedIn, I think once a week now. So I love it.

CAmazing.

FThen I just add there, I'd go back to that prior point I made, knowing your worth, knowing what you're fantastic at, what you're incredible at. You can't be gray anymore in the office, you can't be kind of like just plodding along, you've got to have a super skill, a superpower. So are you the best presenter in your team? Do you create the best presentations? Are you the leader of other leaders? Do you bring together employee resource groups? So are you the person who is leading the committee and have a following? Like, you've got to have a position. And by position, I don't just mean, you know, the corporate job position. I mean, you've got to have a place in that workplace that makes you stand out for the right reasons. And AI is not replacing that at the moment, right? And just know your super skill, hone it, Continue to invest in yourself, but know that increasingly, you know, that average performance that we might start to see with kind of the job-hugging phenomenon that we've mentioned today as well, um, will only last so long. You've got to stand out, stand out for the right reasons, know your worth, and do stuff that the AI can't currently do. And I think that's how you retain a little bit of confidence, a little bit of swag, um, in the workplace, because, you know, you're not replaceable.

AAnd I'd just like to build a little bit more hope on that, because I too sometimes find myself questioning my relevance at times. One of the things I always think about is the Future Job Report that came out by the World Economic Forum, and it talked about skills that are going to be more and more important over the next 5 years. And there was a whole quadrant in those results that was pro-social skills that are are innately human. So it's things like critical thinking, empathy, all those things that AI can't do. So go and have a look at that as well. And yeah, make a little list of other ways you can invest in yourself because that's, as Kristien said, is going to make the difference.

CAbsolutely. Georgia, have we missed it? I mean, I know there's been a few questions, but a lot of them have been answered already. Is there anything you feel that hasn't answered already?

BLet's leave it on this one then. Sarah Belendane said, those are all indicators that people have already decided to step away. What are some indicators where leaders can have earlier notice? What earlier indicators have we got?

CJust pop that on the screen if anyone wants to read it.

FYeah, I think we touched on that a little bit earlier. We kind of said where you realize that in that 40-hour work week, they're finding ways to go and do volunteering, go and do new studies, Go in different directions, explore new avenues. I think as a leader, you've got to read the writing on the wall. I think we touched on that earlier. Are we missing anything else, guys?

AThe thing I might add is this, you know, this can also come into, I think Kristien mentioned, it's a mental health aspect to this as well, particularly if somebody has been job-hugging for a little while. You know, it is these symptoms of burnout that are going to come. We're going to become detached from our work. We're going to get a bit a bit cynical, and that masking is going to become exhausting, you know, showing up as if everything's fine and it's not. So it's looking at any changes in behaviour can be useful, any changes in appearance, how somebody shows up to work, you know, if it's subtle, can be signs as well that somebody is dropping or more really disengaging. So looking for those signs as well could be. Could be useful.

EI have to think from an engineer standpoint, like if they're not like clearing out tickets or if they're not like the productivity component to it, right? If they're not being able to complete tasks mostly because they feel glum, for lack of a better phrase there, and they don't just feel like working because they feel so disengaged that they're wearing this mask and the quality and quantity of their work, they're not like as productive as usual. That's always kind of like an early giveaway, but I I feel like that one's pretty, dare I say, obvious.

FAnd just a final thought here, guys. Can we just go back to basics? Can we just, can we just speak? Can we just communicate? Can we just see our manager? Like, when I started out in work, I had a one-to-one every week with my manager, an hour, just, just let's communicate. And then what happened is, they all went virtual during the pandemic. And then it went from once a week to maybe this is biweekly, but maybe it's monthly. But no, we've got the summer holidays, but we've got these holidays. And so people, you know, I've got friends that say to me, They speak to their manager 6 times a year. And I'm going, 6 times a year, but you work 60 hours a week. That the math doesn't math. So if we just went back to having a little bit more communication, a little bit more contact, I think we'd be able to, we'd be able to, on both sides, figure out what's going on a little bit quicker. We wouldn't need to wait to the annual engagement survey to figure out that, that our team's disengaged, 'cause you're speaking to your team once a week. And so I think we've gotta go back to some of the basics, guys. I think that's where we're, you know.

EKristien, now I have a question for you. Do you think like the more time you spend like doing heads-down work and not communicating with your managers, could that create a little bit of disengagement because you're kind of operating in a silo for, let's say, 50?

FYeah, yeah, 100%. 100%. That weekly touch-in manager-colleague kind of session is just so important. And the cadence of that is important. And actually, one of the worst things I've also seen is a manager that will put that in weekly. And then we'll just cancel them. The worst thing is the canceller, because actually now we go back to the earlier piece about being, if you're going to promise something, you better deliver it. So if you're going to promise me a weekly one-to-one, even if it's 20 minutes or 30 minutes, don't cancel it on me 10 minutes before the session every single time, because my goodness, that's a surefire way to get that person wanting to leave or resigning or quiet quitting, whatever we're calling it. Yeah, let's just go back to communicating. Let's just sit down. Let's have a weekly one-to-one. Let's go through objectives. Let's talk about what we've achieved. Let's talk about where we're headed. And when that doesn't exist, and when then that goes a month or 2 months between each occurrence, that's when you're gonna get people leaving.

DYeah.

EFantastic. I see Emily and Rebecca on the comments. If you all— those are my teammates. If you ever cancel a meeting, I'm gonna be very upset and I might cry. So please don't ever cancel on me.

AYou've been warned. Oh, wow. I mean, we could, I think we could keep going for another hour easily on this, but I think we covered some really important areas of topic. And I think we also gave some, I think you both gave brilliant advice in terms of practical things we can do to support employee engagement and advocacy on a budget. It's just having these conversations, it's using the resources and how to spot people who may be job hugging and how we can help them. So thank you both so much, Jeffrey and Kristien. You are absolute rock stars. Thank you.

CYeah, you really have. Go and follow, go and follow. Jeffrey, I've got in my head People First, your podcast, but I think you've just changed the name, haven't you?

ENo, no, People First. We're going to have Kristien on here this quarter. Kristien, I got to get back to you. And yeah, tell Steven I say hi, by the way. I will. I'm excited to have you on and it should be a blast.

FCan't wait.

EIt's an early promo, right?

CAnd for those people who want to learn more about you, where is the best place for them to go, Kristien?

FLinkedIn. Yeah. Come follow me on LinkedIn. Yeah. Very active on there.

CFabulous. And Jeffrey, I'm guessing All Voices on LinkedIn as well for you.

EAll Voices on LinkedIn. We'll be posting clips of our People First podcast. Check us out. We're doing some amazing stuff in the realm of employee relations. So fun stuff going on.

CAnd if you want to hear more about Jeffrey, then flip back about 2 weeks here. We've got an hour of him on our podcast. Um, and, uh, we— Kristien, we definitely having you on. I can't remember if we've booked you in yet or not, but you are 100% coming in whether you want to or not. You are 100% coming on. Um, anything else to add before we, uh, before we wrap up, Leigh?

AOnly to say we will keep this video up, so if anybody came halfway through, it will be up to go back to the beginning, and the audio will actually be on Truth, Lies and Work podcast feed from tomorrow afternoon, so you can check it out there as well. Thank you very much to Associate Producer George as well for helping us with the comments and the tech side of it. Thank you all for joining us, and we will see you very soon.

CYeah, see you all soon. Bye, guys.

ABye.

FTake care. Thank you.

AThat's it for this one. Thank you so much for listening. If you would like to connect with any of our panelists, you'll find all of their details in the show notes. If you'd like to be a future guest on one of our LinkedIn Lives, we would love to hear from you. Drop us an email at podcast@truthliesandwork.com. And if you enjoyed this, please do leave us a review. It genuinely helps more people find the show. See you soon.

DBye.