What are your employees really thinking when it comes to their workplace? Are they ready to jump ship or are they bought in? In the latest episode of the Transform Your Workplace podcast, we hear from Clint Pulver, aka “The Undercover Millennial.” He talks about his new book and offers practical advice for managers who want to create a work environment that no employee will want to leave.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Clint Pulver, also known as The Undercover Millennial, is all about exposing the gap in perception between executives and their employees. His five years of undercover experience in 181 organizations resulted in his new book, I Love It Here: How Great Leaders Create Organizations That People Never Want to Leave.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, Sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
AN UNDERCOVER ENCOUNTER
The Gap Between Executive and Employee Perception
“I was a part of a mastermind group,” Clint began. “We were out in New York City meeting with other CEOs and executives, and there was this one gentleman that owned the store who was ranting and raving about all the success they had.” When Clint asked him about the company’s employees, the executive could only talk about how they had changed and adapted their business model to meet the demands of the market. “But when it came to people,” Clint explained, “his response was that there was no need to adapt.”
But just like the ever-evolving market, employee needs are always changing. The world has changed exponentially over the last twenty years, and “that influences how people think and behave.” After his talk with this executive, Clint had some time to kill, so he approached one of the employees — dressed like a regular customer — and asked him what it was like to work there. The employee’s response? “I can’t stand it here. I’m just a cog in the wheel, and I don’t think my manager even knows I’m here right now.”
Clint learned that the employee was just biding his time until he could secure another job. “And it just struck me that the perception of the management versus the reality of the employee experience was so far off,” Clint explained. It’s been five years since that moment in New York, and Clint has worked with 181 organizations and interviewed over 10,000 employees undercover.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
A Glimpse Inside
“Companies were realizing that they needed and wanted to listen to their employees, but they just didn’t know how to do that effectively. In bringing me in, the goal was not to figure out who needed to be fired. The goal was not to figure out who needed to be promoted. The goal was to protect employee privacy. And it was to bring to light, in a unique way, the challenges that employees were experiencing. They got real, authentic, interesting insight that they had never received on a survey or that they never really understood to the full extent.”
Through the Employees’ Eyes
“I wanted the book not to be another leadership book written by a leadership expert. I wanted it to be a leadership book written through the lens of what an employee thought when their leaders were getting it right. So that’s why the title of the book is I Love It Here: How Great Leaders Create Organizations That People Never Want to Leave. I wanted it to be solution-based.”
It’s a Management Issue
“If employees hated their jobs, they talked about the managers, but when employees loved their jobs, they talked about the mentors. But it always came back to management. Yes, there were pay differences, scheduling issues, recognition issues, but the overarching theme was always ‘my boss.’ Management was key in the high attrition that we saw.”
Traits of a Mentor Manager
“If somebody has earned the right to be a mentor in the eyes of their employees, that manager has five characteristics. The five C’s, as I call it, are Confidence, Credibility, Competence, Candor, and Caring. Confidence is a mindset. They were confident in who they were and their ability to help people get to where they wanted to go. Credibility was their background. Did you grow up in the ranks? Do you have a sense of what we do and why we do it? And what’s your history that establishes you as a mentor? Competence is the ability to be a practitioner, not just a theorist. Stronger mentorship was always created by managers who understood how to get into the trenches and work alongside them. Candor is the ability to create relationships so strong that honesty could exist. Great mentors have the ability to have honest conversations. […] Caring is about truly looking out for others but to also become an advocate, not just a developer.”
A Place To Be Heard
“Most employers aren’t doing this the way that it should be done. And it’s about just checking the status of the employee. Far too often, so many employers feel like they know what their employees think and feel, and it’s so off. They’ve never taken the time to individually ask people and create an environment where people could be heard. So we recommend the ‘status interview.’ If you’re listening to this right now, look at the people in your organization and determine who you could not lose — like if they left tomorrow, your company would be in a hard spot. And I would recommend that you create a moment with that individual. Take a moment to praise them and then ask them one of these three questions: What can I do as your manager to keep you here? What’s preventing you from being successful? What can I do as your manager to help you get there? Creating a moment like that with your employee is very simple, but incredibly powerful.”
Three Pieces: Passion, Purpose, and Provision
“When employees talked about places that they loved to work — when they would honestly and genuinely tell me that they loved it and they had no plans of leaving — I narrowed it down to passion, purpose, and the ability to provide. […] If you can do that, you create a workplace where people have a higher ability to say, ‘I love it here’ and to say, ‘I love who I am when I’m here.’ And when you create that, you create stronger influence retention, loyalty productivity, and an empowered workforce. And that always creates greater productivity.”
LEARN MORE
Get a copy of Clint Pulver’s new book, I Love It Here: How Great Leaders Create Organizations That People Never Want to Leave, on Amazon or learn more at his website, clintpulver.com.
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