Episode 3: Next 52 Weeks — Third-Party Intervention, Vulnerability, and Your Union-Free Strategy

The Left of Boom Show

Host:  Phil Wilson

Guest: Evelyn Fragoso

Phil Wilson (00:00)

Evelyn, welcome back to the Left To Boom show. It’s great to see you again.

Evelyn (00:03)

Hi Phil, happy to be here.

Phil Wilson (00:05)

So today, Evelyn, we’re continuing this series around the next 52 weeks. And for today’s episode, we’re going to talk about vulnerability assessment. Your vulnerability assessment is really just about whether you’re going to be proactive or reactive. So assessing vulnerability is all about figuring out like, what issues are there in my workplace? Where are they? And then, proactively responding to those. But the other big thingvabout vulnerability assessment. And this is particularly true for companies that are distributed,that  have like a lot of locations, or there are a lot of other places that they could respond to. What are they doing to figure out where do they deploy resources in a way that is the most judicious? Maybe explain a little bit from your experience as a former organizer and now as a management side consultant. What do you see as kind of the, the, the positives and also what do you see as some of the challenges that companies face when they’re dealing with assessing vulnerability?

Evelyn (01:05)

Well, as most of your listeners know, so as an ex-organizer, when I go into a company and I look at the things that company is doing, I still see a lot of holes where a union can come in and try to, you know, drum up interest. And so I do see that there are a lot of things that ompanies do where they’re not truly focusing on the things that they should be focusing on in vulnerability.

assessments, they may be asking certain questions that do not give them a clear picture of whether things are actually good at a place or how employees really, truly feel about working there. I do see a lot of times where companies may do assessments or vulnerability assessments or employee engagement, and you do have a lot of supervisors, and managers that try to influence that so they don’t look negative or bad. And so when I go into these companies and I’m looking at these things, I’m like, you know, there’s still a lot of holes that a union can use, or there’s a lot of places a union can try to infiltrate and and start organizing using some of those things.

Phil Wilson (01:56)

Mm-hmm.

Right. What are the kinds of things that companies do when they feel like they’re assessing vulnerability, or they feel like they’re assessing engagement? What are some of the things that companies get wrong?

Evelyn (02:21)

So when they get wrong, It’s certain questions that they ask. It’s just very black and white; they’re not getting into the emotional part of it. And a lot of this is emotional, if not all of it. Is that okay with you? Do you think this is okay? Instead of really going in and seeing what the root of the problem is. And they are just kind of over it, they’re like, well, you know, it’s, we’re good. And then they just move on without really kind of digging into it.

Phil Wilson (02:49)

Yeah. I feel like, I mean, a lot of people think, well, look, we do an employee survey every year or every two years. That, you know, that’s how we measure engagement. And then we will respond to any issues that arise from that survey. And the problem with surveys, and even if you’re doing them all the time, like, you know, the problem with the survey is that whatever moment in time you ask the questions, um, that moment is gone. So

Evelyn (02:54)

Mm.

Phil Wilson (03:16)

You’re now responding to the moment that happened in the past. And that moment, if it happened, and a lot of surveys, you do the survey, and it takes months to get the data back. You’re now action planning, and even if you’re in the best case scenario, you know, you’re action planning and working on issues that were issues two or three months ago, but now my issue is this other issue. So there’s a timing component to it.

Evelyn (03:39)

Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (03:41)

You’ve already raised the question of what questions you ask which is  like a really, really important thing. Likesurveys that don’t have a lot of room for, let me explain my answer to your question. There’s a lot of gray area in interpretation, and the thing that you think that I meant is not actually what I meant. And so there has to always be this additional feature of how we are listening to employees in between those.

Phil Wilson (04:08)

those spaces, right? It’s not that surveys are never valuable information or that you shouldn’t do them, but it’s just that you’ve got to get in front of people. Like you have to talk to people and you, yeah.

Evelyn (04:10)

Right.

You have to,because a lot of times, you know, it has to do with the different departments having different experiences. You have generational differences where, you know, something makes sense to one generation because it’s always been done that way. However, you then have another generation that approaches things in a new way. And so you really have to get down and talk to the peoplecone-on-one, if it’s in group settings, if it’s, you know, round tables.

Phil Wilson (04:29)

Mm-hmm.

Evelyn (04:46)

Because a lot of times, too, especially younger generations, everything’s a survey in their life anyway, right? And so, surveys sometimes lose that, I think the term is ‘luster.’ To them, it’s just a survey, check, check, check, and that’s it, right? And really, having that communication with them, if it’s round tables, if it’s whatever, that face-to-face interaction is very important.

Phil Wilson (04:52)

Mm-hmm.

Evelyn (05:08)

And a lot of times people think this generation doesn’t like face-to-face, but they still do. They still like to be listened to. It’s a person, a visible person, and it just gives it that much more credibility in what you’re doing.

Phil Wilson (05:13)

Mm-hmm.

I’m curious if you agree with this. I think in some ways face to face-to-face is actually more important because there’s so much less of it these days. What are your thoughts about that?

Evelyn (05:30)

Yeah.

100 % face-to-face is very important. That hasn’t changed. ⁓ Same thing with, you know, as, as an organizer, now they just send out authorization cards, right? And anyone can sign an authorization card, but you need that face-to-face and organized, or for them to see if  youare  really on board with this? Right? Cause it’s easy to click and just say, yes, I accept, and whatever.because that’s what they’re used to. But that face-to-face interaction goes a really long way.

Phil Wilson (06:00)

So,  face-to-face is important. AlsoI  think another component around vulnerability assessment is so like multiple channels, and also  I really am a super strong believer in is that there should be a good, strong, regular check-in with your immediate boss. How are things going? What can we do better? You know, what’s next for you? Do you have what you need? Like those, those are really important. Like questions, and that’s a great place to start. Then there needs to be a way for supervisors to raise those issues within the organization so that we, as an organization, can start to see if this is a trend. Like, is this something that’s happening across departments? Is this something that’s really just in one particular department? And then the problem that you have, you just rely on those types of conversations, is that if you have a weak supervisor, you are only going to get to hear the things that they think are good news, and you’re not going to hear anything that might relate to their ability to lead. So you have to skip a level. You have to give employees a chance to interact with people who are not their immediate boss. But it’s their boss’s boss and maybe even their boss’s boss’s boss.

Evelyn (07:00)

Yeah.

Right.

Phil Wilson (07:16)

creating those opportunities as well. What are some other things that you’ve seen work around these face-to-face interactions?

Evelyn (07:25)

So going back to what you had said is, especially with these national companies, and I say this when I do roundtables with employees, one of the things we want to see is, are some of these issues that you have, it something that we have wrong in our employee handbook? Is it national or is it location-based? Because that makes all the difference, right? Especially when it comes with when you have limited resources, limited time, you want to see what those hotspots are.

Phil Wilson (07:42)

Mm-hmm.

Evelyn (07:53)

seeing where this location is a hotspot ⁓ because of potentially a supervisor, because potentially the environment, or is this a national thing where employees overall are not happy with this policy or with that? That is definitely key in identifying whether this is national or location-specific. And then what was the other one that you asked about the face-to-face?

Phil Wilson (08:17)

Like skip level, being able to talk to, you know, not just deal with your immediate boss.

Evelyn (08:20)

Talking to them directly. Right. Because a lot of times, you know, especially when you get hit with the union campaign, right? What happens is that supervisors and managers keep everything within a little bubble because they feel it’s a reflection of themselves. And I told employees, you know, sometimes it’s not until that bubble pops when, you know, the corporate board might ask.

But wait, you told me everything was fine. I mean, I’m looking at numbers, and then I called you and you said everything was great. And I thought that matched up with what’s really going on. And so sometimes it gives you that falsehood when you just rely on supervisors, managers, directors of a certain area, because they know, unfortunately, sometimes they do, they don’t want it to reflect negatively on their their leadership. Yeah.

Phil Wilson (09:04)

I mean, that’s human nature, right? And that’s also part of a corporate culture. Like, if you kill the messenger, then the messenger is not going to tell you bad news, right? So, you have to have an environment and a culture where we are going to grow. Whatever bad news we get, we’re going to grow from this is we’re not, we’re not asking to get you in trouble. We’re asking cause we want to be the best that we can be. We want to create a great workplace. So that can be a cultural issue. 

Evelyn (09:09)

Yes.Mm-hmm

Phil Wilson (09:31)

I think this is a good segue into, you talked about when you do focus groups, there’s definitely a time and a place right where it, no leader in the organization is going to get the real truth. You need to have somebody from outside who people will feel safe talking to, maybe bringing up things that they wouldn’t bring up to their boss’s boss. Talk a little bit about what that’s like.

Evelyn (09:39)

Mm-hmm.

Right. And ⁓ that’s one of the reasons I love it, especially when we do roundtables. I mean, a lot of people say it’s old school, but to me it’s an oldie but goodie. It’s really, you know, as a consultant, you create this environment where people are free to talk and express themselves. Right. And so hearing them vent about things, sometimes they bring up stuff that supervisors, managers can’t even think about.

Right, because a lot of times, again, have supervisors, managers, they have a lot on their plate, a lot to deal with, right? And sometimes they may overlook these issues that they initially felt were small, but they’ve grown and festered. And so, by having these round tables and engaging in these conversations, people start bringing up various topics. Sometimes, again, going old school, like I will 

write it  up on a board, put it up on a board. So when people walk in and they see that, ⁓ someone already brought that up. That’s an issue in that department. That’s an issue in my department, too. And so it allows for that conversation to happen, that dialogue. Often, just allowing them to vent goes a very long way. But then again, the most important thing, especially for credibility, is obviously documenting the absolved out and then following up.

Phil Wilson (10:50)

Mm-hmm.

Evelyn (11:06)

and letting them know, ‘Hey, this is what came up, not just in your department, but in this department, that department, these are things that we want to focus on; this is our game plan.’ And that feels, it makes people feel like they have a voice, that they have a say in what happens, in what’s important, and it just empowers them. And that is what you want, ⁓ because it empowers them to make the company better, and everyone benefits from that.

Phil Wilson (11:06)

Right.

I think it’s important to make it now. You know, what you do is, is first of all, that like, if you, if you ask people what they think and then you don’t do anything with that, like you are, you’re worse off than not asking in the first place and not asking in the first place is terrible, but you know, asking and then not doing anything about it is even worse. Then once you do it, though, this is the big mistake employers make. I see it all the time, and it comes from this place of like, well, yeah, I mean, we fixed it. It was an issue. Like that’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re not going to throw a parade every time we fix an issue that someone has complained about. Well, that is the totally wrong way of thinking about it. Right? What you’re trying to do is to make sure that people understand that when an issue or a complaint, or a suggestion is made, we take it seriously. We do something about it, and we want to encourage you to do that again. The next time you have an issue, complaint, or a concern. And so, if you’re not advertising, ‘Hey, this works.’ This is what helps us get better, and doing it on the regular, people aren’t going to, first of all, they’re not going to make suggestions. And then God forbid you’re in a union campaign.

Evelyn (12:43)

Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (12:44)

Where you’re like, Hey, we have a direct relationship. You can tell us what you think and we’re going to fix things. Well, if I haven’t experienced that, then I don’t care about your direct relationship. It has no value to me because I’ve never really seen it work. So advertising it also is, is explaining the value of this privilege that you have to have this direct relationship with your team. And if you’re not advertising that, it just doesn’t have any value.

Evelyn (12:59)

Right. And I always tell companies, you know, especially during a union campaign, a union always likes to spotlight the negative, and companies, we don’t do a good job in highlighting the positive. Um, because that way when the union as a union organizer comes and knocks on your door, it comes and talks to you and says, but your company doesn’t do this, doesn’t do that. I mean, when you’ve been highlighting the positive aspects of what you do, it makes the employee think, ‘ Wait, no, but we do have this. ‘ And.

Phil Wilson (13:22)

Mm-hmm.

Evelyn (13:38)

This did happen, and this was the reaction to it. And so it just puts that wall where the, you know, the union can’t go through because you’re like, well, no, I have this example, and I remember at a time this happened. And so it’s really important to really highlight the positive things a company is doing, the follow-ups, all that kind of stuff, because the union is quick to put a spotlight on all the negative. And then what happens to it, especially when let’s just say something is unit-based or department-based based and we don’t highlight that, right? Then, other units, departments may not even know that something happened and something was done. To them, it was as if they had heard that they had brought this up. I don’t know what ultimately happened. And so it’s really important to just really put that out there. You know, just, yeah, always.

Phil Wilson (14:25)

Yeah, and people assume the worst, right? People assume the worst. It’s like, well, I heard they had that issue, and they didn’t do squat about it. That’s just an example. Even if you did the right thing, if no one knows you did the right thing, then it’s very easy to just assume you didn’t do anything about it. ⁓

Evelyn (14:44)

Let me give a really quick example is it was a hospital with three different locations, and what they wanted was, you know, especially in the ER, more security. And so this particular place, that’s what they wanted. And they brought in more security, and they brought in metal detectors, but they never highlighted or told the whole hospital, like, look, this is what we did. You brought up this issue. This is what we did. And so,

The other two locations, they were like, well, they brought it up, and nothing was done. It was simply because we didn’t say, Look, not only did we get more security, but we got metal detectors. So it’s just really important again, because the union, as an organizer, I’ll go to those other locations and say, they don’t care about your safety. They brought it up, and it wasn’t until we showed up that they started putting stuff. And so I take ownership of that win as a union organizer.It’s really important to highlight that.

Phil Wilson (15:40)

great, great, great example. And yes, it’s entirely correct. If you don’t take credit for it, then you are vulnerable to that. Right. So let’s talk a little bit about inside and outside, so internal vulnerability, and I call this like shoot yourself in the foot vulnerability. So the things that the mistakes that you make besides what we’ve already talked about are focus groups and surveys, and talking to your employees. Are there other signs of internal vulnerability that you like to

Evelyn (16:09)

How approachable are your leaders? Because I have a lot of campaigns as a labor consultant, where you have managers and supervisors that say, I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t know this was happening. And that’s a big red flag because it suggests that you’re not creating an environment where people feel comfortable talking to you and asking you questions. And so looking at that is very, you

Phil Wilson (16:21)

Mm-hmm.

Evelyn (16:33)

Are they coming to you? And it doesn’t have to be serious questions. They’re coming to you and asking you about, you know, a certain team about this, that just having that, that ability to have that communication. That’s one of the things that, or I think one of the most important ones that I look at.

Phil Wilson (16:49)

Mm-hmm.

I would say, and this relates to that, it’s like, words are words. What are the actions? Like what, what behavioral things are happening that tell us either that a leader is doing a good job or a leader’s doing a bad job? And so those are things like, so, so one example related to what you just said is does this leader raise issues above

Evelyn (17:05)

Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (17:15)

…you know, that their department is facing. Like if you have a leader who is raising those issues, first of all, you know, their team is coming to them with the issues, and they are advocating on behalf of their team. Like, those are behavioral things. I don’t care what the issue is. The fact that this is happening here and not over there is a behavioral sign that this leader understands it. And this leader may not. That’s voting with your feet. So if you have turnover,

Evelyn (17:39)

Great.

Phil Wilson (17:43)

and people are leaving the company. Um, particularly if like one department seems to have higher turnover than anywhere else, that’s a red flag signal, and that’s a behavior-based signal. One of the things I like to tell companies when they come to us is that they want to have a heat map or a vulnerability assessment dashboard, or whatever. And look, we help put those together, but the, the, the most important thing is just

Evelyn (17:51)

Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (18:11)

You probably don’t need to measure a bunch of things, right? It’s like, what are some things that you already measure and you already have access to? Don’t create a bunch of new measures. Just find these basic things that are going to show you behaviors that people are not engaged in, which can also relate. You brought up earlier, right? Quality safety, you know, those are, are objectively observable things that are signals that like things are working in this department, but maybe not working as well in this other department, especially again, if there are differences between departments. Like, so that’s, that’s one of the things that I coach people on, you know, surveys have their place, focus groups, and  rounding andyou know, just stand u,ps,  creating a place for input during your daily standup meetings. And those are all different places where you can receive the input. But the key thing to me is just, are you doing with that?

Evelyn (19:08)

You know, what’s interesting is you bring up daily standups, and I always encourage that. You know, you would see that a lot in huddles in nursing, and you’re seeing it more and more. You can tell an effective leader by how their standup is run. Sometimes it’s not even run by the leader. It’stheir manager or supervisor, it’s by someone else. They take turns, bringing things up. It’s, you could tell the interactive ones versus, you know, when I’m walking around, kind of seeing how things are going. Managers who just read things, any questions, nope, that’s it. And they just leave it at that. And so, when I meet with supervisors and managers and we conduct these trainings, what’s very telling is that I always ask the supervisor, ‘ Tell me five things about your employee.  Random has nothing to do with work. And managers, I say, tell me three things, because they tend to have a bigger scope, a bigger group.

And these are things like, what’s their favorite baseball team? Go Dodgers, right? How many kids do they have? Where are they from? What language do they speak? And when a supervisor can tell me at least five things outside of work, I know they’re a good supervisor, and I know there’s communication, and I know that the employee feels comfortable because the supervisor knows me. So if I go to the supervisor and say, Hey, next week, my child, I need a day off because my child has something, some award. And the supervisor says, ‘Which one?’ Or, what award? Or just because they already know. There’s that sense of connection. And when an organizer comes up to them and tries to break that connection and make this person the bad guy, the bad person, it’s hard for an organizer to do that because this person knows me. This person knows I have kids. This person gave me an opportunity to take the next day, you know, whatever off. And it’s just that important to have that kind of relationship. You’re not best friends, but it’s just, you know, something. They’re always wearing a, you know, a Raider jersey. So I know they’re a Raider. Yes. And it’s these little things that go a very long way for employees.

Phil Wilson (20:59)

Great stuff.Right. You care.

Evelyn (21:11)

And it’s key for us to be reminded because a lot of times, supervisors, managers, companies, just, you know, they take it more of an executive level and they think, ⁓ well, like you said, you know, we have this program. If we do this, we do that. And sometimes it’s just that basic human connection that goes a long way. And it goes a long way because then it stops someone like me as an organizer from trying to break that because it’s already been established. The credibility is there and it’s just really important.

Phil Wilson (21:38)

Yeah. Great stuff. So good. All right. So there’s the internal vulnerability, but there’s, there is also  an external component. And you, as an organizer, you know, would sort of size up companies about like, where should I, where should I attack? Like, what are the kinds of things that might indicate? So externally, if a union is kind of looking at companies, what are the things that they’re doing there that a company could also be trying to understand about their own locations?

Evelyn (22:06)

So a lot of times it is, you know, and I always use the example of warehouses because warehouses seem to be clumped in a certain place or, you know,  trucking yards clumped at a certain place, right? And if we have one location that has the union in there, we may start going to, you know, just walking around, seeing the other locations, and kind of picking to see if there are any issues there. I remember as an organizer, we were doing  a take off, and we were going after Ag West, and they would all fuel at a certain place so that we would be there and catch these other companies. Evans was one of them. I forgot the name of the other one. And we would start talking to them there, seeing what those issues are. And sometimes they might’ve been just at that moment, you know, a person might’ve been upset and said, They gave me a really long routeAnd I’m like, okay, mental note, they have long routes, which means long hours, which means are they getting their breaks? Are they not getting their breaks? So we would start looking at other places. ⁓ So that’s in organizing, that’s what you do. You start targeting places within the industry externally, seeing if there’s a vulnerability where I can move in.

Phil Wilson (23:02)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I think that, and then the lesson for employers is, you’ve got to be aware of like what’s going on, you know, in your neighborhood, so to speak. Right. So, there’s a lot of, you know, we collect a lot of data about this but also just paying attention to the news. If you do share a similar location with other employers, such as having them on your Google alert, being aware of what’s going on with those.

Evelyn (23:27)

Mm-hmm. Always be aware.

Phil Wilson (23:50)

organizations, even if they’re not like a direct competitor, you know, if you’re, if you’ve got a distribution center that’s, that’s surrounded by unionized distribution centers, I’ve got news for you. Your distribution center is going to be viewed as a target. You know, you might have a strong internal culture, but you’re not being avoided. You know, they’re going to attempt, and they will continue to kick the tires until the point where, know, you

Evelyn (23:59)

Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (24:17)

take your eye off the ball, and then at that point, you are going to have an organizing campaign. So that like there’s those kinds of, you know, those kinds of things you want to pay attention to. Sometimes it’s industry, right?

Evelyn (24:24)

Yes, and you have to pay attention to those things. And again, a lot of times we don’t think about that stuff just because we’re not, you know, as managers or and  supervisors, people may not be trained to look at that stuff. But there was a company that whenever they were short-staffed, they would, you know, bring people in that were at another location that was unionized and you bring that in, and that might be, it might work well because they’re looking, the company gives you guys all this, or it could be like, ⁓ you guys are missing this, and we have that over here, or we get paid this. So it’s just, you have to be very understanding, like you said, everything that’s going around, who are you bringing in? Who are you right next to? What’s going on within this community?

Do we have a worker center that just popped up, and it’s called Warehouse Workers United, and they’re focusing on warehouse workers? Like these are the things you need to be aware of. Are there salts that are coming in? Are we getting an application for a cookie company and this person has a master’s in political science? Now you might think that would be a red flag.

Phil Wilson (25:27)

Right. Yep. Yeah.

Evelyn (25:44)

You’d be surprised by how many times people are just like, they just want a job. Let’s bring them in without knowing that there’s an alternative motive.

Phil Wilson (25:51)

Yeah. I mean, especially when the job market’s tight. There’s a lot of pressure just higher and not really paid close attention to that. And that can also be a vulnerability. Well, that’s great advice. think we’ll try to land the plane here. I think around vulnerability assessment, I’ll ask you the same question that we had the last episode around, you know, what advice would you give if I’m trying to be less vulnerable a year from now that I am right now, and I don’t really have like a, a good system in place for vulnerability assessment, what would you encourage me to do as a, an employer as just sort of my first, second, third step around doing a better job of this?

Evelyn (26:40)

It all starts with simply opening up those lines of communication. It’s a survey, and again, this is very entry level, if it’s a survey, if it’s going around and talking to the employees, but just kind of getting a feel of what’s out there and then making them feel comfortable and that this is something that you’re starting, that you’re out there and you’re listening and you’re talking. It’s just key, that communication and starting that communication.

Again, if it’s having a survey, it’s showing up; let’s just say the HR person shows up at a standup and talks, making people feel comfortable that this is something they’re going to start. I think that is definitely key. And then, when looking at the vulnerability, you take it to the next level. Excuse me, where is it, like, okay, what departments am I supposed to turn around to?

Retention is low. What areas do I have the most workplace injuries in? Because we forget that. When people are not happy working in a place, they don’t always follow the rules, and they get injured. So where is that happening? Exactly. And start looking at those things, and just building what departments am I seeing as red flags? What are the issues? 

Phil Wilson (27:42)

Yeah. Or get distracted. But yeah.

Evelyn (27:54)

Start really deep diving in and start looking at these things. And then of course, the follow-up when you do fix some of these things. Or just verbalize. Because a lot of times, someone may pose an issue, and it may take HR two weeks. But after one week, the employees like forgot about me, no one cares. And that runs like fire. But just following up. Sometimes if you have a board where, I’ve used red, red light, yellow light, and green light before. Like this is something that we can work on immediately. Yellow will take some time. Red is going to take a lot more because we have to go through, you know, this level, that level. However, following up is key. But I think those are some of the entry-level things is just starting that conversation and making people feel comfortable with expressing themselves and having that voice.

Phil Wilson (28:44)

Yeah, I’ll emphasize that last part. I think most companies have many ways to listen. I mean, you know, and, and if you don’t have ways to listen, obviously they start there. Like, what are the different vehicles and different channels that we’re going to create for people to be able to talk to us? And it can’t just be one; it’s good that there’s an anonymous way to do it, but it shouldn’t always be anonymous. Anyway, we’ll get the channels right.

Evelyn (29:01)

No.

Phil Wilson (29:11)

That’s kind of just table stakes. The most important thing that you can do is to address internal vulnerabilities. The most important thing you can do is keep that running list of issues and then explain how did we fix them. First of all, fix them and then explain to everybody that you fixed them. And ideally, keep it in a place like you just said, keep it in a place where everyone can see it, right? Hold us accountable.

Evelyn (29:27)

Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (29:37)

We say we’re going to resolve your issues; hold us accountable. Did we fix the issue? Is this still an issue? Right? We do this like in our own company, we have a running issues list. That’s what it’s called. It’s part of our, yeah, we run this company on EOS, and a big part of their process is this idea of an issues list. Pretty much any meeting we go into, ⁓ we start by taking a look at the issues list. Is there anything that we need to add to the issues list?

Evelyn (29:58)

Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (30:05)

But it’s just part of our regular dialogue. And it’s great for a culture because everyone feels comfortable adding to the list. An issue isn’t seen as a bad thing. Everybody has issues. Like just what are they? And then, and then we prioritize them, which is just kind of like red, yellow, green. What are the ones that we can knock out right now? What are the ones that we’re going to have to work a little harder on? What are ones that are like a budget decision or that’s going to require some sort of change in our structure or rules. But, having all of that visible, explaining what we’re doing about it. Like that, that culturally transforms how people feel about their company.

Evelyn (30:43)

Yeah.

And another thing, as you were talkin, popped up in my mind is we also have to give managers, supervisors the tools in communication because a lot of supervisors are really good at communicating, some are not. And I say that because I have had a situation where supervisors just say, well, corporate said no. Well, leadership said no. they said no explaining without, sometimes they just blame them, and they never even asked. But then, you know, as an organizer, when I come in, you know, because they’re the big bad corporation, well, the corporation doesn’t let you, and the employees are like, you’re right. My supervisor said they didn’t let. So it’s giving them those communication skills to supervisors and managers, where it’s like, ‘ You know what, guys, here’s the situation. ‘They said this, and this is the reaso,n or they said this, and when we look at it and explain it, to where it affects the department, and it’s just it’s key. It is definitely key.

Phil Wilson (31:44)

Yes, I couldn’t agree more. Just think that yes, that’s a sign of a weak leader, but if you’re not paying attention, that leader actually looks great, right? My employees love me. My employees, if you ask them, will say we think our supervisor does a great job. He or she goes to bat for me. Like they’re going to say all the right things, but that supervisor does not understand that they are actually part of management. And so they will.

Evelyn (31:51)

Mm-hmm.

Phil Wilson (32:11)

throw the company under the bus as a way to still look like they are friends with everyone in their department. That’s not leadership, and too many weak leaders kind of get away with that behavior. And that, but that’s, you have to be on the lookout for that as a company and make sure that those leaders, you know, are trained, that they get to the point where they feel like they can carry the flag for the company. They want to carry the company’s flag. You know that’s as important as getting your first line production people carrying the flag.

Evelyn (32:42)

Yeah. It’s having your supervisor, if they feel they are supported, if they feel that they’re given the tools, which is key, if they feel that they’re giving the given the tools to be able to be effective communicators, to be able to go to bat for their employees, it just it’s very important for them to feel the same way. Because even as a labor consultant,

You do have a lot of union sympathizers within supervisors and managers because they don’t feel they have that support from the company, because they don’t feel that, you know, anyone listens to them. They don’t feel like they have the tools necessary to really, you know, be productive. And so it’s important.

Phil Wilson (33:23)

Yeah, that’s a great spot to end on. Think, you know, just to sum up, so it’s really important for, if, if, if you do want to be less vulnerable a year from now, it’s really critical to think about all the different ways that you can identify issues, that you can resolve issues, that you can communicate, that you’re solving them. Evelyn, I just really appreciate having you and your wisdom on this. And, ⁓ you know, thanks again for joining us on the show.