, so, ⁓ that, that’s like the, onboarding bucket. are, we already talked at the beginning about you. I think it’s really important for organizations in this particular spot to make sure you’re clear about, want to earn the privilege of being able to work directly with you. And here’s all the different ways if you’ve got a

a concern or a complaint or a suggestion. Like here’s all the different ways that you can talk to us that will receive all of that. Really emphasizing that over and over during the onboarding process, I think is really valuable. Now let’s talk a little bit about ⁓ pay and benefits. So there’s a common feeling that, well, the solution to the problem of our union campaign is we just need to like give people raises.

Danine Clay (21:42)
Mm-hmm.

I agree.

Phil Wilson (22:02)
and maybe pump up the benefits a little bit and like that’ll solve all of our problems. Comment a little bit about your thoughts on that.

Danine Clay (22:09)
So of course, ⁓ being paid.

Reasonably for your services is very important to every employee. We all want to be compensated justly. But often it’s not the pay and benefit that is the breaking point. It’s more the culture. It’s more the communication. It’s more of the interaction. It’s more of the feeling around working where you’re working as opposed to what you’re actually getting paid. So although pay and benefits are important and I think that fair market rate is something that everyone should be looking at at all times.

Phil Wilson (22:41)
Mm-hmm.

Danine Clay (22:42)
reevaluating and reevaluating to make sure that you are ⁓ paying a fair wage. But I also think that culture is far more important than that. And that’s where the emphasis should be on.

Phil Wilson (22:56)
I refer to this research in the Left of Boon book, but the whole thing about, you know, pay and benefits. First of all, this person just accepted a job knowing what the pay and benefits were. All right. So like you’re, you’ve already proven that your offer is at least attractive enough to get them to take, take the role. Okay. So, so you’re not the Hertzberg’s research was called pay and benefits hygiene factors, right?

Danine Clay (23:08)
Exactly.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (23:23)
So if the pay and benefits are really below market, like you’re talking about, like where I feel like this is a slap in the face. These are way below market wages. Yes, you are going to have a problem, right? And if that is your situation, shame on you and you should fix that. But at the point that you’re a market rate or a little above market rate, you don’t get any extra benefit by paying higher than that or raising benefits more than that. And

Danine Clay (23:34)
Right. Right.

Great.

Phil Wilson (23:53)
The reason is, you know, what you just said, that is not, you’ve already, that’s table stakes. You’ve already accepted the pay and benefits. It’s the other stuff that is way more important in terms of motivators and the Hertzberg research, you know, talks about things like, you know, development and growth and, you know, what, does my career trajectory look like? And do people listen to me or my suggestions considered? Like that’s the stuff that motivates.

Danine Clay (24:05)
Right. Right. Right.

And if an employee is happy, they’re far less likely to ever either complain, leave, or say that they need a greater salary, in all honesty. ⁓

Phil Wilson (24:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

And again, don’t, you know, you don’t, this isn’t the way that you manage, but there are a lot of companies where the, like the pay is in a very competitive marketplace. The, the, pay you, you can’t really compete on paying benefits anyway. And everyone is sort of paying it around the same level. And that if you were to like pay above that, you would have a hard time surviving as a business. There’s lots and lots of people that work in those companies that love

Danine Clay (24:57)
Thank

Phil Wilson (25:01)
their company, right? There’s lots of really hard jobs that people do that people love their company. Yeah, it’s…

Danine Clay (25:03)
Yes.

Yes, yes. And

I think that’s one of the, when I said we have a unique culture here, that’s one of the things that works here. I’m not saying that our pay isn’t great, because our pay is fine, but I’m also saying that we love coming to work every day. And with that, you know, we’re happy to be here. We’re happy to tell others that you should try to work here. It’s a great place to work. And when you have that environment and that culture, then it’s a win for you.

Phil Wilson (25:18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

right. Well, we work hard, you work hard to make sure that that is what our culture is like. But it’s an effort, right? You have to work at it every day. Yeah.

Danine Clay (25:49)
It is. You do. Every day.

And we all have to do it. It’s not just you or me. It’s everybody in the organization has to work on that.

Phil Wilson (25:54)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. So let’s, um, we’re kind of getting towards the end of our time. What are, you know, in, you know, what are some of the things, first things that you would do? So someone has just kind of gone through their union election and they’re, they’re putting together their project map for what they’re going to do over the course of the next year. What would you say in this hiring and onboarding bucket? What is, what are like the top two or three things that should be, uh, on the, on that list?

Danine Clay (26:05)
Sure.

Sure. So one, would say I would take a look at our process. I would see whether or not our process is actually outlined, whether or not, how are we communicating? How are we discussing what’s truly important to us? How are we communicating our culture? Are we doing it at all? How are we making sure that this candidate, this new hire is able to communicate not only with their team, but also their frontline supervisor, as well as other higher ups?

Phil Wilson (26:37)
Mm-hmm.

Danine Clay (26:58)
levels of communication and then is it all spelled out and then are we setting a clear expectation for that individual so when they start they know what they’re getting into they know what to expect there are no surprises we’re setting them up for success.

And so that is where I would start the process because we clearly had some issues which got us into a union campaign in the first place. And we were successful. So now we have to heal with the people that are there as well as make sure we’re creating an environment where others will want to come in and where they can excel.

Phil Wilson (27:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

I’ll just add one other thing. think that like super good advice. I also think take if you do have turnover, take advantage of that. Like you’re you know, first of all, why did that person leave? Right? Try to try to get some sort of exit interview, right? You know, get the data about like, why are people leaving? So that’s like an important part. Another

Danine Clay (27:49)
point.

exit interviews.

Phil Wilson (28:05)
heart is if people are rejecting your offer or they’re like falling out of the hiring process, you can also gather data from them. Right? Why, you if why did you not go through the process? Right. And this is sort of a little bit of customer service research, but like these are these are customers who fired you. Like why why did you fire us? So that I think is another good good place to really kind of learn more about yourself. But yeah, the suggestions you make are

Danine Clay (28:16)
turn us down. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (28:35)
or super valuable. Deneen, thank you so much. This was a great conversation. We will definitely do more of these. I, if you’re watching this and you’re like, wow, they sure talked a whole lot about their culture. This is like what we do and we’re super proud of it. And Deneen has done such an amazing job of creating the extraordinary workplace that we have here.

Danine Clay (28:37)
Thank you, Phil.

Ha ha.

Phil Wilson (29:04)
That’s what we teach our clients to create. know, we, and you know, we, as they say, we drink our own champagne in here. Like we actually do the things that we’re telling you to do.

Danine Clay (29:14)
without a doubt. My family actually teases me. They tell me I drink the Kool-Aid all the time. yes. Thank you.

Phil Wilson (29:18)
All right. Well, Deneen, thank you so much. Thanks a

lot. We’ll talk again soon.

Danine Clay (29:26)
Sounds good, take care.