Why Your Employee Experience Strategy is Failing
Kalifa Oliver, Director of Employee Experience Analytics at Ford, rethinks employee experience beyond engagement, focusing on setting employees up for success. She advocates for inclusive, people-centered design and challenges the emphasis on employee happiness. Discover how a strategic approach can drive true cultural change in the workplace.
In today's episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we welcome Kalifa Oliver, Director of Employee Experience Analytics at Ford and author of "I Think I Love My Job".
Kalifa explores the broader concept of employee experience beyond just engagement, emphasizing the need for organizations to rethink how they design policies and processes to truly support their workforce.
🎓 In this episode, KALIFA discusses:
The distinction between employee engagement and employee experience, and why engagement is just a small part of the overall experience.
The importance of people-centered design in creating policies and processes that accommodate all employees, including those with different abilities.
How employee experience should focus on setting employees up for success rather than merely making them "happy."
The misconceptions about employee loyalty and the role of organizations in fostering meaningful workplace experiences.
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Kalifa Oliver 0:00
I need people to understand that employee engagement is just a part of employee experience, and we need to decenter the idea of employee engagement from the experience, the experiences in your process, the experiences in your policies, the experiences in how you design, the way people work. It's a bigger, broader thing, and it's part of your operations. And I think people try to back into it, so they've oh, let's create employee experience. And then what I hear is, let's create a person who's the event planner. Let's create a person who is the pizza parties and ice cream parties. And so I tell leaders, now, when I work with them, there is a reason people eat multiple times a day, because I'm gonna eat your pizza and I'm gonna be satiated in that moment and I'm be hungry later, and then I'm gonna Remember that I hate you.
Chris Rainey 0:59
Hello, friend. Hey, Chris Khalifa, finally meet him first.
Kalifa Oliver 1:06
I know. I know, like as I, as I am embarking on this journey as an author, as I'm doing some more thing before I say one more time,
am I embarking on my journey as
I made it happen. I made it happen. I feel like I fell into it and fall into being an author that's a crazy company, like, I never, you know, you know, you never set out to do something. Oh, okay, fair enough. I never thought I'd be here. That's what I'm saying. It's like you have something to do and you have something to see, and it kind of calls you I think that's what happened to me. And I realized I had a story to tell. And you know, one of the first sets of people that came to me was you and Shane, because I don't know if you all know this, but you all were probably the first podcast that I decided to agree to do. And then everyone messages you first
Chris Rainey 2:00
every event. That's what happens, though. I well, I credit you all for helping me find my voice and recognizing that people really had they wanted to hear what I had to say. And so I only type my credit y'all. I'm fans. I'm fans of the HR leaders podcast. Yeah, tell everyone what, because people remember you from the show from before, right? So, but obviously, it's been a while, it's where are you now? Company wise, what you up to? And obviously we'll talk and introduce the books, right there. Grab it and I'll grab it, the book. Okay, okay. So where am I now? I So I work at Ford. I am the director of employee experience analytics. So as you know me, I'm always very focused on employee experience and how we use data to make better decisions. So I've done that in my career. I've also been doing a lot of executive advising, and I call it experience coaching, helping people to really understand work. So I've been working with a lot of companies, startups, Fortune 500 on that. And, you know, while I was, you know, doing some extra stuff. So once you got some extra time outside of
two things. I know how crazy that sounds, extra time. So whilst being a mom of three of three, just my young babies, I wrote this. And so this was a Pro Audio listeners. Oh, I think I love my job. That's the name of the book, and it came out on June 21 which also happened to be my birthday.
Kalifa Oliver 3:28
Thank you so much. Intentional. You know it again. This was something that just happened to happen with the publisher, and then we were thinking of days, and I joked, I'm like, why don't we bring it out in June? She's like, What about June 21 and I was like, yes, that is also my birthday. She's like, Oh, perfect. So it just lined cake that looks that looks like this, right? I probably should order that. I'm having a big celebration, finally in Atlanta, Friday, so I probably should. I never thought of that, but I probably should have a big cake. But I wrote this because throughout the years, especially like when we talked,
people would always come to me more about the employee experience. And one of the things I've worked really hard on is, while I am a data nerd, I recognize everybody else, no one ever if you if I had to, like, guess, right? And I met you for the first time, and I would never say data nerd, you see, and that's why you probably the very last thing, sorry, of the
spectrum, I would say, Yeah, listen, I'm a full on data nerd, like I love data patterns and stuff, but I recognize that it also makes employee experience very inaccessible for a lot of people, because everybody else is not a data nerd, and most people just want to solve the problem, or they want to understand their experience. And so when I wrote this, I tried to write this in my voice in a very practical way, where at the end of the day, you can ask yourself, Do I Do I think I love my job? And so that's where this came from. Yeah, what's the subline? It's.
Says secrets to designing a people centered employer value proposition that you can actually boast about. I heard the way you had that last bit because, you know, everybody's trying to do why I create employee experience? No, you don't. You create terrible employee experiences. I want to help you create things that you can boost. Who's this for then? So it's different groups of people. So I want executives or HR leaders who are focused on trying to understand how to build good employee experiences from the time somebody joins a company to the time somebody leaves the company. In fact, as far as when somebody just applies for the company, maybe even returns, right, even retires. How do you create experiences from the very beginning in the design of your process, so that HR no longer feels like this transaction. It feels like an experience, because the idea is, when people apply for your job, they're buying this product from you, right? And we don't see that they are buying what you are seeing is your employer value proposition. They're buying the product. So the way I put it is, if I go to a store and you advertise to me that this is what I'm getting, and then I buy it, and that's not it. I'm gonna be pissed. We spoke about that before, haven't we? Yeah, like, and they leave just as quickly. And all this time, energy and money, right? And you might like, wait a minute, this is not what I signed what I signed up for. And and we've normalized, unfortunately, in companies doing that, we've normalized just, hey, this is what I'm selling. I go in and that's not what it is. But the problem with employer being an employee is you can't just leave that fast. You can't just switch to another role. You can't say, like, I'm working at this place. I don't like it. I'm a switch, like I'm a switch tomorrow and start working somewhere else. And so we need to understand what we're providing. So it's for people who have to make those decisions, the people who have to invest in those decisions, which will even include your CFO. I love having conversations with CFOs, because they see employee experience as who does four people? Nice to have. Who does four people? Do you say just four people? So it's CFOs, HR leaders, which are HR practitioners, CHROs and the last group of people, of people who are at work trying to understand what's happening at their job, right? So in the book, I talk about primarily, how do you build these experiences for people, but I also help people understand, if you're not having certain experiences,
Is this the place you want to be? Can you answer the question? Do you like your job, right? And so sometimes you have to learn that maybe some of these things are changeable, and some of these things mean that this is not a place for you, and every room is not for you, and that's okay. Yeah. So it's an interesting one, because you're basically saying which people might not want to hear, right? You to own your own experience. Yes, yeah, because work should be able to sit, go complain and constantly be doing like this. Ain't getting the change right, and you may not be able to change it, because there may be variables at work that cannot be changed because you don't have the power to change it, and you're not the person making the decisions to change it. And so you also have to recognize, at what point do you walk away, yeah, right? Or what point do you realize that you need to adjust your inputs, yeah, in order to make that work in in in my theory, the way I discuss employee experience, it's not about happiness, which is a very controversial way everybody like, Oh, are you happy at work? It doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter if you're happy. Like, employee experience is something that's provided by organizations, and that's really hard for people to conceptualize, because we haven't talked about it that way. Employee experience is about, how do you set up people for success? Because that's what people want to do. They want to do their work, and they want to succeed. And organizations provide employee experience. The way people experience work is satisfaction. Are you satisfied? Are you content? Do you feel like you could succeed? And so basically, what I'm asking you, Do you love your job? I'm asking you not if you're happy. I'm asking you, do you think that you can succeed in your job? And that's how it's easier to tie it to a business. Can they do? They have to be mutually exclusive. They don't have happiness and success? No, it's a happy side effect. Happiness is a happy side effect of success, of success or being most people are kind of looking for happiness first, then success, right? And then they're interested, and they're pulling happiness from work, when sometimes they're ignoring happiness from elsewhere. Your happiness could come from work, but it could also come from home. It can also come from you see it with a lot of people that I say. I've seen it with people that retire, where their happiness was fully baked into work and then they don't know what to do.
Chris Rainey 9:54
And wait, yeah, mental health and all sorts like you see it. You see it with like
athletes.
Kalifa Oliver 10:00
I was thinking the same thing athletes, because they because we've we've self worth almost, yes, we've tied our entire Happy Happiness proposition, if you will, into work when your happiness doesn't necessarily have to come from work, and it's okay if it doesn't, is it the responsibility of organizations for people to make people happy? No.
And that's I think, when we phrase it that way, it sounds weird. Organizations do not have the responsibility of thought. I'm glad you said that, but it's interesting, because the new generation, I think, even the current everyone, it feels like there is this responsibility now for the company to go to a responsibility for your happiness. So because I think we're using happiness wrong, I think when, when you get down to the brass tacks of what people are talking about, they want flexibility. That's not happiness. That's, again, the ability to be set up for success. It's the ability to balance their life so that they can be success, so that then that causes them, oh, I'm very happy with this, because I have the flexibility exactly, because I have Expedit, right, right? We're replacing a big burden on on organizations to make people happy, but we're also giving them an out, because we're saying, well, they're not happy, and there's nothing I can do about it, right? Like there's something you can do about you can set them off for success. You could create policies and processes that are people centered in their design, and people then feel like they're set up for success. But instead, we use words like happiness, which is so subjective, that's the reason that, I think part of it is that we use the word have it is like, you're right? Like, we shouldn't be using the word happiness, right? So it's so like subjective, like, what makes you happy and me happy are two different things, and we happiness for one person's decades, like 1020, years ago, and you wouldn't even associate the word happiness in the workplace. So that sounds really like, right? When I started, there was no like responsibility of my manager or company of to my happiness, right? My success, right? And for me developing and growing, etc. But there's some I don't know. When do you think this came? But this sort of shift happened where it's like, everyone's like, your job is to make me happy. I'm your employee. I want all the benefits. I want all of the cherries on top. And where did that come from? You ready for me to say something controversial, good
Chris Rainey 12:25
across the world? It's, it's when companies started asking for loyalty.
Ah. So it's like, Hey, if you want my loyalty,
Kalifa Oliver 12:37
you need to make me. You need to make basically, whatever I say, Yeah, because you're asking for something that is outside the scope of what you provide, right? And you're asking me to be loyal to you, whether or not you choose to be loyal to me, which is a one sided agreement. And so if you're asking me, people will associate. Well, how if I have to be loyal to you, if you think of what loyalty is, why, you know, if I use game of a throw is if I bend the knee to you, then you need to provide me with something that makes me feel good about doing that. And so companies don't have to be loyal to people, and people don't have to be loyal to companies because we're using the wrong word. Do you know what I mean? I think we've started using these words because they're emotive and they're non measurable. I can't truly measure your loyalty to me, and I can't truly measure your happiness, but I can measure if I'm setting up for success. I can measure whether there are development opportunities. I can measure whether your employee experience is good or your candidate experience is good. I can measure these things, and that's success. But we started using words like, oh, I want you to be loyal. And then we started doing what I
Chris Rainey 13:46
consider loyal in a job. Spec, yeah, right. Loyalty, yeah. Like, force is important, but like, you can't. Loyalty is something that is earned over time. That's exactly the way, yeah. And loyalty is supposed to be language. Same with trust, right? Trust and respect? Yeah, right. And it should be mutual. It shouldn't be one sided. And I think we've started using these emotive words to try to get people to feel guilty about not being happy at work. And I'm like, if we take away the idea that people need to be happy at work, and we really start thinking about what we're really talking about, satisfaction, set up for success. Feel like they can grow, feel like this company has their best interests at heart, then people give back in the exact same way, because people's propensity to stay at a job. I think we have this weird notion that people want to leave jobs. Do you know how much work it is to leave a job and find another job? So stressful it is So, trust me, it's I got one and I'm stressed, right? It's so stressful to leave a job and go to rebuild, yeah, trust and credibility all over again. Yes, so much. So you have to understand, sometimes it's not worth the extra money. Man, I thought it was like, we're not gonna take back. Yes.
It's not because that's not going to change. That reason, that extra money gonna change my life. It's not gonna do because, all because my quality of life does not change when I when I change that job. And so I think we think people want to leave, but sometimes it's not worth it. And do you know how aggravates, and you have to be as a company to make somebody say, I want to go through all
Kalifa Oliver 15:19
of that, go through all that pain, you know, aggravate, and you have to be. People's natural propensity is they want things that are
predictable, the relationships that they've built, even the devil they know, they prefer. So when you find people running out the door to find something else, do you understand how aggravating you have to you have to be as a man, shameless to aggregate, I aggravated that we started a company.
Chris Rainey 15:45
We were like, we took the extreme. After 10 years of service in that company. We were like, Fine, if you're not going to listen, we're going to create our own company. I wish I could say there's this beautiful story about how HR leaders was born, but it was really born out of frustration exactly, of like,
you know, us listening to customers and them constantly telling us what they want, and then our leadership and owners just ignoring every single piece of feedback. I believe that the point where we're like, Oh, if money's really good, I really enjoy working with these people. I've built my entire career here.
I think two years we had a conversation, and then we finally just just went for it. Two years we said that those started, it's beautiful. It's like, All right, let's do it. What would say? What would you say is the biggest misconception about employee experience? I think people think that it's about how people feel, as in, we think, how do you feel about the job, right? I think that's the biggest misconception, that it's about the employee and it's on the employee only to experience work a specific way. And that's why people lie on surveys, because you're asking me how I feel, and I know you want a specific answer. I think employee experience is something that is measurable. It's not just about engagement, and it is the responsibility of the organization. It is a product of the organization. Yeah, when you see companies, you know, all of a sudden, you know what?
Five years ago, these roles started being created as kind of a new, you know, a new role, right? Where do you see companies make the biggest mistakes?
Kalifa Oliver 17:26
I think they set up these expecting miracles immediately and again, because it's so centered on feelings, and they're also centered on this idea of engagement. And I need people to understand that engagement, employee engagement, is just a part of employee experience, and we need to decenter the idea of employee engagement from the experience, the experiences in your process, the experiences in your policies, the experiences in how you design, the way people work. It's a bigger, broader thing, and it's part of your operations. And I think people try to back into it, so they've oh, let's create employee experience. And then what I hear is, let's create a person who's the event planner. Let's create a person who is the so there's pizza parties and ice cream parties. And so I tell leaders, now, when I work with them, there is a reason people eat multiple times a day, because I'm going to eat your pizza and I'm going to be satiated in that moment, and I'm be hungry later, and then I'm going to remember that I hate you.
It's a temporary fix. And so you have to understand these pizza parties and these ice cream parties are nonsense, then you do all those things and still go back into a toxic manager, absolutely like, Well, my entire experience is ruined, right? I have to. I will, I will eat your pizza and hate you. I will. I will eat my pizza and glare at you at the same time and be trying to get out. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 18:58
I think, I think we trivia
Chris Rainey 19:00
in the book, a key, a key concept that you talk about is people centered design. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 19:06
So it's asking the question, when you are starting to at the very beginning of your design, or if you're redesigning something, it's asking the question, how will this process, or how will this policy, how will this thing impact a specific segment of people? Right? And you design that into your processes. So let's say you're creating new in general. Let's go with return to Office policies because and you're creating that, you ask yourself, Okay, how does this new policy impact? Let's choose people with disabilities or different abilities. If we make the process this way, how does it negatively or positively affect this group? And you can adjust your policies as you need, which might be, let's look at, how do we do reasonable accommodations? How do we make. Or that there are enough places that if people with different abilities or disabilities came in and they did it, do we have rooms for them to be in? Right if, if this person, for example, is in a wheelchair, and we're telling everybody they have to come to work, and now everybody's hot desking it so there's no assigned seated. Where does this person sit? Is there a table that can go up and down? So should this person be in the office, right and accommodate for right? How do you accommodate so people centered? Design is asking yourself, the different people and segments and personas that you have in your workforce as you design, how does it affect these different people, and is this the right thing? If it's negatively affecting a whole bunch of people, rethink your design, right? It doesn't mean you don't make the policy. It means you rethink how you design your policy, thinking about like pregnant mothers. When you're designing parking, should you have a place where people who are expecting kids should park that's closer, right? So there's just designing work in a way that you think of people. Because, again, if you think of employee experiences, how are you setting up people for success, right? No matter who they are? And that's why one of the things that I talk about SME book when we think about Dei, because we know there's this whole dei pushback, and whatever you
Chris Rainey 21:21
see this stuff on the weekend, I did, I is insane. I did. I wrote it, one of my documents. What did you do? You remember what he said the stands for, it was, it was, like, division, like, oh, it was, oh, I wrote it down somewhere. But, yeah, it's
Speaker 1 21:37
crazy. And literally, the guy from Shirley said, some stuff, vision, something
Chris Rainey 21:41
and in, like, indoctrination or something, like, it was something crazy, and
Speaker 1 21:45
it's silly and so ridiculous, right? And any book, I said, what the, what dei really stands for is designing everything inclusively. That's it. Oh, I like that. That's what it is. It's, it's really just thinking through how you design things. Because if you think about the employee experience, and you're always thinking about how you're designing people with people in mind, dei just becomes a regular part of the job.
Chris Rainey 22:13
Why do you think so? I just found the because I'm writing a video about this, because I really want to share my voice and support, show support. It was that the, what was the convention again? Is it the Sherm? Is it, I know, is that the
Speaker 1 22:28
like the Donald Trump's, oh, Republican National Convention, right?
Chris Rainey 22:31
So Ron DeSantis, who's also Florida guy that did
Unknown Speaker 22:35
call him Florida man, yeah,
Chris Rainey 22:39
he is part of his speech. He said, dei stands for division, exclusion and indoctrination, foolishness,
Speaker 1 22:47
foolishness, because the only way it stands for that is if you want it to stand for that. And the only way that even makes sense is if you think of dei and diversity very narrowly, because you think that you're the same. You think that the key is exclusiveness, when the key should be the opposite, which is inclusiveness. And being inclusive is not that scary when you really think about how you design things, if you are let's think about just a basic thing, a phone. If I am trying to make money off of a phone. Do you know what I do? I sit down and think about my customers, and I go, Well, what if this person is what if this person has this disability or this different ability? Or what if this person is reading from right to left instead of left to right because different languages are like that? What if this person is in the UK versus America? I think about how I create menus that are easy to navigate through to simplify that process for different people. So you cannot tell me you don't think about diversity. You do it in order to make your products for your customers effective. But somehow it becomes an ugly word when you think about it in the education system, or you think about it in employee as an employee, why? Why are they weaponizing dei because it's easy, because I think what's the, what's
Chris Rainey 24:11
the what's the win?
Speaker 1 24:12
I think the stand, I don't get it either. I think hate is just a heck of a motivation, and clearly
Chris Rainey 24:17
they must be doing it. They've got some type of data just telling them that if we keep saying this, we're winning voters, they are so what? But why? Like? Why? Because
Speaker 1 24:24
I think hate is easy. Hate is easy trying to drive fear. I think, I think is the other, right? So one of the example that I remember I talk about all the time is I understand why other is seen as a threat, right? When you think of survival, the other is the threat all the time. And so if we keep othering people, it becomes easier to say us versus them, because the idea that you can do something different or somebody's different from you, it makes you uncomfortable, and humans just don't like to be uncomfortable. So what we're doing is we're leaning. Into people's discomfort, converting it into fear, and othering people in order to blind them to the fact that this is not really that big of a deal then,
Chris Rainey 25:09
but they really like because it was a weapon. I was researching this on the weekend, and is the first time I came across white replacement theory. You know about that? Yeah, the
Speaker 1 25:18
idea that come, if I recall that is correctly, the idea that over time, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to replace the white race. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 25:26
and I never come across that before as a white man. I know, I didn't know there's this huge fear that we're all going to be replaced. But that's what they're leading on, right? That's their level. Tears. I was like, Wow. I was like, so it, the way they describe it is that white people, in their context, we're paying a tax for being white, basically, is there was part of that narrative as well. And I was like, wow. Like, maybe it's an American thing, because I've never heard any of that in the UK, not saying it's not happening, right? It's not something that.
Speaker 1 25:58
It's something I could say from my US perspective, they're leaning into really hard, very in politics, the idea that that people who are underrepresented and marginalized groups are just suddenly going to replace them. Yeah, and I'm like, understand that there's room for everybody. One of the things I always tell people is that we always talk about, you'd come in and you're taking my spot. No, I'm coming and I'm taking a spot. The idea that you believe this spot belongs to you is part of the problem, and it's very telling it's a spot. I'm not taking your job. I'm taking a job, right? And I think that is the distinction. Like we are telling people that you're taking that there's this group of people who have come to take these things away from you. I'm like his story. Historically, one, it's quite the opposite. And second, it's not yours. How did you decide it
Chris Rainey 26:49
was your actually? Yeah? Like, where did that entitlement come from? Yeah, first place, the your, how did you decide it was yours? That's already a part of the problem. That
Speaker 1 26:56
is because that's a weird narrative, and you keep telling your kids that people are taking their spot, and I'm like, hold on, first place, it wasn't
Chris Rainey 27:03
yours such a good point. Sorry. People probably going over their head. They're like, Oh yeah, it's true. Like, yeah, you
Speaker 1 27:09
just decided was your spot? Well, good for you, but I also decided was mine. So how did you decide that I took it from you, right? Because I could say the same thing, that you taking my spot and I'm taking it back, right? And so it's that weird us and them, thing that we're leaning into that's it's scary, especially having young kids, it's scary that you have to constantly teach them that this is not true.
Chris Rainey 27:29
This is not true, right? Flipping back again, going a bit off topic, yes, yeah, but I just wanted to get your thoughts on it, because it's something that we were sitting with me on the weekend, and I was just weighing on me, and I was like,
Speaker 1 27:38
well, here someone else's I mean, it's big. It's big in HR, believe what I was watching. It's big. Like, sure, that's why so much shroom just had a conf friends where they said they're taking out the E and di, and they're often heard about this, yeah, and they're not focused on it anymore. He's the CEO. Was talking about some real interesting stuff. And I'm like, but this is how it starts. Because if you take out, why would you take equity? Oh, on the internet, people were not happy, right? Like, like, what is the thing about taking the EI why? Why is equity so scary? Because it's hard, because it's hard. And so he there's this whole thing. And the problem is, sure, is where a lot of HR people, especially the US, get their certifications. And so once you set that precedent, I don't think it was a surprise. Right after Microsoft completely obliterated the DEI team, right after that read the whole day obliterated, got rid of them, probably.
Chris Rainey 28:33
And you saw the same thing when the legislation was passed. You saw, like meta and loads of big tech I'm not going to get into all of them. You know, seeing Elon Musk has created, like, a a super group of different founders that he's an EDI and Evis sending that, I was like, whoa. Like, it's I'm like,
Speaker 1 28:54
Y'all are putting a lot of energy into that. And I'm like, What is your end goal? Like, y'all are putting so much energy into it. Do you know what's just gonna happen? There are other countries, if you could just go to it's not that big of a deal. Like, y'all are putting a lot of energy into it. So, like, what are you trying to distract people from? Because that's normally
Chris Rainey 29:11
what I look at. I'm like, what's the real? What's the real, what's the real agenda, right? Distraction tactic from something, hi,
Speaker 1 29:18
like, you know, and everybody knows. Like, it's again, that narrow definition of what diversity is. Diversity is geographic diversity, neurological diversity, diversity of thought, the ethnic diversity, racial diversity, like diversity, is not a monolith, and we talk about it as a monolith, as us and them, but then so. So what I tell people is, let me reframe the question that I'm asking you. And I do this a lot because I know that we've politicized the so I won't use those words, but I'm like, let me ask you a different question. Instead of asking a question, how do we get more diversity in this company? Let me ask you a very different question. Ignore that. Get it. We don't have to worry about the AI. Let me ask you this question, how do we get people in this company with different perspectives that will help us be more innovative and get to the business outcomes and goals that we want to now? Everybody's ready to talk about that? Yeah, because I've taken out the thing, the stigma right from it, and then everybody's ready to talk like, I don't know. How do we do that? How do we find these people? How do we source these people? I'm asking you the exact same question, but I've taken away the words from it, fear. Yes, that makes you feel uncomfortable. And now I'm telling you, let's tie these two real business outcomes. It's the same thing. This is with the same process, the same way you got to go look for talent in different places. One thing we
Chris Rainey 30:47
need to talk about is going back to the book, is your personal experiences, because you shared earlier that before we, I think before we hit record, actually, that when you first wrote the book, you didn't include a lot of those crucible moments, hard moments that we all experience, right? The vulnerability, the vulnerable, yeah, and it's hard to be vulnerable. It is hard talk about how share some of those experience experiences your audience, and how that shaped the book and obviously your work that you do,
Speaker 1 31:19
yeah, something that I never had a name for before is what I experienced. So the biggest one for me, and this is an introduction where I was promoted to a VP in I think it was like March, and in July, I got laid off, and it hurt, it hurt. It was the first time in my adult life, I woke up and did not have a job, and I knew it wasn't about me. I knew it was a number. I knew it was financial. I knew that there were things that it wasn't about my work. My work stood for itself, but it hurt, and for a long time, I couldn't even say it. And it was crazy, because I knew better. I knew better. I spent my life. You look at the numbers, right? I know the numbers. I understand it, but it happened, and it like it was, like a knife to myself, my career. And then in that moment, I realized how tied my job was to my identity, and I never realized how tied being an employee had been to my identity, in spite of I in my brain, I knew better, but I couldn't, like, get myself out of bed. I one of these stories I often tell people is I remember laying in bed and my daughter, my older daughter, came up, she was like, anytime, maybe, like, five, maybe, and she put the blanket over me. She saw I was sad. She put a blanket over me. She's like, Mommy, you're sad. Just rest. It'll be okay. And I realized I couldn't, even in that moment, hide it from her that I was sad and I felt lost and I couldn't, I just couldn't. I didn't want to tell my parents I could, because I felt failure, right? And in moments like that, I didn't talk about it, and then slowly, I started to speak to people quietly about what was happening, and I realized there were other people, because at that time, 1000s of people were losing their job. That was back in that period. And I started talking to people and realized that I have a voice and a responsibility. I know better, and I have the opportunity to speak to the experience people were having, and I had the experience and the ability and the expertise to explain what workplace what workplace trauma was, and that's what I was experiencing trauma. And there were 1000s of people experiencing workplace trauma at that time, and I realized this is a part of the experience. I always understood, but never understood. Do you know what I mean, until you're in it? Until I'm in it, I always understood in my head, in theory I could write about it, but then I experienced it, and I realized in that moment I knew better, and this is how I was feeling. So imagine somebody who doesn't know better. Imagine somebody who they have completely destroyed,
Chris Rainey 34:09
calling themselves a failure, right, letting it affect their next job,
Speaker 1 34:13
right? And then taking it from like, taking it from job to job. So we have a bunch of traumatized leaders who are going to other jobs, traumatized and traumatizing those people. And it just carries on like a virus, and we don't talk about it out loud. In the last podcast we did, it was called say me quiet things out loud. And I realized I have to say the quiet thing out loud. And when I was writing a book, I left all that out because I wanted to descend to my experiences from what I know, but then what I realized was and what a publisher quickly realized is my experience and who I am also, not only just gives credibility, but it humanizes me, and it humanizes the story, because I am not alone, and so all of these types of experiences where I had bad management. Like when I had somebody, and I think we talked about it before I had somebody, tell me She's too smart, she needs to, she needs to work on that, because it makes other people feel stupid, like those things are like this,
Chris Rainey 35:10
hearing that again, is a crazy it's
Speaker 1 35:12
like death by 1000 cuts. Wait
Chris Rainey 35:15
a minute, I'm being punished because, because
Speaker 1 35:17
I'm smart, and that's my that's my performance review. Then,
Chris Rainey 35:24
so I'm being punished because other people are uncomfortable that
Speaker 1 35:28
I am smart and I have to and so a lot of what I had to do was learn to be silent. And so over the last few years, and that's what this book is, also I realize I have a voice, and I will speak. I have a voice. If I had to go back and tell my young self something that you have a voice and you should use it. And every single room that you walk into, you deserve to be in that room, and every room is not for you, and you should never apologize for walking out of that room if you don't think that's where you belong. And so those are the type of experiences I had to realize and write down, and that really influenced me, saying, Okay, write this thing. So and here we are. What would
Chris Rainey 36:11
you say is like the uncomfortable conversation around employee experience that everyone's avoiding and no one's talking about, but every should be.
Speaker 1 36:23
I think the most uncomfortable conversation is that we are willfully a lot of organizations are willfully ignoring it. And here's here's an example, during covid was the absolutely opportune time to get rid of people. People don't get like technology doesn't get covid. We threaten people with technology, replacing them all the time. It was the best opportunity for organizations to get rid of people and replace them with technology. It was the biggest social experiment in the people died. So you actually had people who, you know, they were out of work, and there were these positions that needed to be filled, but you could replace it with technology. Do you know what companies did? They double down on employee experience, they doubled down on dei they doubled down on their HR functions. They leaned more on their CHROs to help them through it. And now they want people to forget that they did that, because you want to revert to pre 2020, right? And so the idea that technology is a threat is not real, because if it was, you would have done it when you had the best opportunity to do it. So it's a willful decision not to invest in employee experience. And that's the sad and uncomfortable thing. The money is there. And a lot of times people think that employee experience is about grand gestures. It's not. People want to be seen, heard, valued. Sometimes they just want you to say thanks, you know, and we willfully just don't do it because we don't want to. And that's the sad part, yeah,
Chris Rainey 38:11
like when I've spoke to different experience employee, experience leaders, ones that are successful versus ones that are struggling, as it were, which they don't really want to admit most of times, one of the things I've noticed is that they're really embedded in the business beyond HR, right? So they're like, they have business partners in it, in operations and supply chain everywhere, and they have a big remit. Could you talk a little bit about that? Because I feel like some companies, they're like, operating in like a silo, and they're wondering why, right? They're not having impact, right?
Speaker 1 38:51
Because, again, it's coming down to your processes, your policies, how you design things, and the people centered design and things should be a part of all of these things. It should be a part of your your IT system. Think about your user experience, right? It should be a part of all of these tools. And we don't do it because it's just too much work to take that extra step. And often what you find in a lot of companies you're now trying to untangle a mess that you've created and turning around a ship like when it gets when it gets toxic, it is, it is hard to fix toxicity. You will probably have like, five or six layers of leaders to get rid of in order to really fix a tox. So
Chris Rainey 39:33
do you really so then it comes to the point. It's like, do you really mean it when you say you want to do this? Because that, that it requires, it
Speaker 1 39:39
requires and it requires time, because you're not going to change your culture in six months, right? And a lot of companies operate quarter to quarter, right? Shareholder values back to miracles and expect a miracle. Like, listen, I tell people I am not a magician, I'm not a wizard. So I can tell you I'm an expert, but I. Will tell you, you got to give yourself about 18 months to do it. And we do it for every other part of the business. We give ourselves
Chris Rainey 40:05
in those first 18 months. So this is a good example. You joined Ford, right? What does your first 18 months look like? You are for success,
Speaker 1 40:15
yeah, for me, it's, you know. And one of the things my boss had told me is I really want you to spend some time listening, right? Which is funny, because that's what I came in to do. And so it's really just like listening and understanding the business, right? I think a lot of people come in with all the ideas and don't what
Chris Rainey 40:30
does that? People always say that. But can you break that down for the order listening to practically, what does that look
Speaker 1 40:35
like? So talking to not just leaders, talking to payers and people who work up to payers and really trying to understand the jobs, the roles and the problems from multiple perspectives, right? Because sometimes leaders have blinders on, whether it's willfully or because a lot of people haven't told them the thing, right? A bit oblivious, right? And or they choose to be oblivious to it. And so it's not just talking to them like that, right? It's not just talking to them. Let me talk to like people, 234, layers down, and really just making connections with people and asking Socratic questions and open questions. I'm not going to go in assuming I understand what's going on. I want you to tell me what you think is going on, and then my job is to listen and truly listen. And too many of us go in and talk because we want to show we're experts. But the best experts I've worked with listen a lot. They listen and take notes a lot. And so that's what I do, and that's what it is. And then you start from the foundation. The hard part about being an employee experienced practitioner is a lot of what you're going to do is foundational work. It is not sexy at all. It is the data architecture. It is the contract negotiations. It is really getting out to brass tacks. And it's also having very uncomfortable conversations with people, especially when you're new, and you have to do it right? So one of the things, I laugh a lot, so I can find jokes at almost anything, right? And so it's having the uncomfortable conversations, but also saying, Well, let's talk through solutions in that conversation, not just saying all of this is wrong, right? It's like, Have you thought? Have we thought about doing this or that? Because one of the things I always say about leaders is one, we have created systems where they're not going to tell us they don't know something, and it is hard being a leader too, because you are constantly going to get beat up. You will never do anything right, especially when you're like, 234, layers down from the leader, the actual executive leadership, you will take hits from everywhere, and then when you need middle management, you get hits from above and below. And so I, you know, I try not to beat them up too much, right? We don't train them, we don't prepare them, and we want them to solve every problem, right? And so it's really having those conversations with them and saying, How can I how can I solve it? So one of the things I've done in my job, and when I'm a consultant, when I'm consulting with people, I say, How can I help you? Another thing I always ask people, okay, how do I make your life easier? What do you need? And I think it's going in with a solution. Mind too often we go in and we ask questions like, Okay, what's wrong? And we expect that the person knows what's wrong. They don't, if
Chris Rainey 43:18
they didn't, that they won't be talking to you. That's such a crazy question to ask someone, right? And it's because normally, in those two exploratory, open questions you just mentioned through that you normally uncover,
Speaker 1 43:30
that's when I uncover stuff, the real like, that's when you uncover what they don't even know, right? Because a lot of times they call it something, but what they're describing is not what they're calling it. So you might have a they might be
Chris Rainey 43:41
talking about the symptom, for example, exactly the actual problem. People love
Speaker 1 43:45
to say, like, for example, oh, we just have too much turnover. And then I'm like, Well, talk to me more. Let's
Chris Rainey 43:50
just turn it off. Then, like, it's like, a tap, right? Like, and I'm like, Well,
Speaker 1 43:54
tell me more. What do you think is leading to that turnover? And then I'll ask them things about their culture, and I'll ask them about recognition, and I'll ask them about engagement, and I'll ask them about data. And then I realized turnover is only just a reflection of the thing, and by the time you've seen that, you're already 346, months too late. And so what I one of the things you have to do is be really patient, because it's the expectation that every leader knows the words to describe what's happening, and they don't, and it's okay. I think we need to make it okay for leaders not to know the word for it,
Chris Rainey 44:27
yeah. Well, that's all part of so many of the problems that we face in the workplace, whether we talk about well, being dei loads of topic is actually giving them the language yes to even have a conversation. Yes, that's half the battle, because people are not even willing. Like, how can you expect them to have a conversation around some of these things if they don't even have the language, they don't to even do that. They don't and it's always worried about saying the wrong thing, the wrong thing, so they just say nothing. And I've been the victim of that I've told you before, sort of like, not wanting to post and say certain things. I'm like. Or what if I say it wrong,
Speaker 1 45:01
right, exactly. And we've all, we've all been there. And also we exist too much in our feelings. And I know that sounds terrible, but we exist so
Chris Rainey 45:09
worried about what other people think, yeah, of us and Yeah. And it's really freeing when you kind of just get rid of that yeah
Speaker 1 45:16
and back it up. Take time to build, if you're like, if there is an employee experience, trans, you know, practitioner listening, a chro, take the time to create the room for people to be like, I don't know what you're talking about, right? Like, sometimes in conversations, business conversations, I go, I'll be like, Look, you're gonna have to explain this to me like, I'm a baby, because I do not know what you're talking that's a strength, though, and it's tough, right? Because it's vulnerability, right? And people are not trained to say that, but I like, you're gonna have to explain this to me like a toddler, because I don't understand what you're talking about. And you know, it often gets people off guard when you say that. But I'm like, give people room to say it in different ways. Give people room to be wrong. Give people, give people that room to recognize that if we have to solve this sometimes we have to go slow, to go fast. We can't just go fast, because then we create new problems, right? And so and a
Chris Rainey 46:13
lot of times, the reason there is a problem is because people are afraid to see the thing in the first place, everyone knows there's a problem, right? But no one feels psychologically safe to see that there's a problem. And everybody do a whole nother show about that. Oh my gosh. How this really random question, like, where you the stages you are in your life right now? Like, I'm trying to figure out to frame this. Did you think you be where you are right now? Absolutely
Unknown Speaker 46:42
not. Trying
Chris Rainey 46:45
to find a better way of phrasing that absolutely not to make you feel when you sit back now and like, just take a second to reflect on where you started and where you are. How does it make you feel?
Speaker 1 46:56
I feel there. There's a weird there's a weird combination of healthy fear, anxiety. I feel pride, right? I feel joy, especially when I I realize I'm making a difference, an impact, right? I'll give you an example. There was this, this, I can't remember her name right now, but she read my book, and she sent me an email. She said, I want you to know that I read your book, and it helped me, because I realized I am not crazy and I'm not alone in this. And I sat there because people would always ask me, why are you writing book? Why are you writing a book? And I couldn't articulate what that was, because it is fair putting this out there, right? This is putting a lot of my expertise out there. It has opened myself up for criticism. It is, you know, that kind of thing, because you never know how it's going to be received. And once she said that I remember looking at her email, and I sat there, and I looked at my husband, I said, This is it. This is why I wrote this book. I wrote this book so people do not feel crazy like people do not feel alone, and they understand what they're experiencing. It's not unique, but we have the power to change the thing. And I think that is how I feel. I feel like I'm in a position now where I can have an impact more broadly. And you know, if you asked me five years ago or four years ago when we first met, if you asked me, I would tell you, I'd be heads down working. I might tell you that you know I'm trying to be on a chro path that is not where I am. And life, I mean, life hit me with some one two punches, right? Life will humble you. And then you know, from 2020, to 2022, to 2023, actually up to 2020 you feel like you live it in a fever dream that won't let up, right? I feel like I'm, please get me off of this timeline, right? Um, but now I'm like, You know what? Khalifa, you have a voice. You you can say the thing. You can be an expert. You should never apologize for being smart. You shouldn't use humor, which is what I used to do. You shouldn't use humor to shrink yourself. Now, I use humor to promote the conversation, right? It's really just reframing. I have always been this person I told I was telling my husband last night. I'm like, you know, I probably spent the last three years searching for myself, searching for me, you know, especially with all the changes, all the things that have happened, all the bad experiences I've had with a couple companies, you know, the consultant, trying to find myself. But then I realized I was never lost. I was never lost. I needed to lose things, and I needed to lose some people, but I was never lost. I was always there. I needed to just stop and embrace that and not be so afraid to be Khalifa and put my name on it and be unapologetic about it. And you know, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. You know, if I have a change in opinion on something, I say it because I'm human and so for me at this point in my life, at this point in my career, don't ask me how I get it all done. I don't know. You
Chris Rainey 50:36
just make it happen. When you really want to do something, you make you feel and
Speaker 1 50:39
it's, it's nuts, right? Like I but I think I'm at a place now I'm like, You know what? Khalifa, what's more important to you right now is not necessarily to be an advisor, a consultant, an employee, a leader. It's to be a human who's trying to have an impact on other humans, and doing it the best way you know, how the expertise that you have, yeah, in whatever format you could do it. Well, listen,
Chris Rainey 51:09
I know we have only just met in person for the first time, but we've been friends for like, yes, four or five, Oh, yeah. Like, I'm super proud of you. Like, what you've achieved, you absolutely smashed it like what you've achieved as a parent, as a wife, as a, obviously, as a as an author,
Speaker 1 51:27
like, see, like, now it's trying to make me cry in here. Honestly,
Chris Rainey 51:30
it's like, it's like most people listening probably like it's and you found yourself along the way, like you said to your point, and most importantly, I did as well. Like, you found all your purpose, yes, and you leaned into it. Yes.
Speaker 1 51:44
I found a voice. I was willing to take risks, like, like, and that's what I love about y'all. That's
Chris Rainey 51:49
what's on the other side of fear. Everyone, yes. So a lot of times is like, you think that the scariest things on the other side of that is magic. It doesn't feel that way. It's really scary, and it is so scary being vulnerable and putting yourself out there books a big, big example of doing that, or taking the risks you have of your career. Just all of those moments are very scary this year. But you learn a lot about yourself.
Speaker 1 52:15
You do along what you can take and you you know, and you also see who's around
Chris Rainey 52:21
you, right to the point of you sometimes have to run people. Some people you
Speaker 1 52:25
have to lose some people. I, you know, I was saying the other day that, you know, a lot of people like to talk about haters, and I'm like, you ain't got no haters. And people talk about haters, and I'm like, you know, it's easy to talk about haters and people who are against you, and it's easy to look at people who you think are going to laugh at you when you fail, but I'm like, what a lot of people need to start paying attention to is what happens when you succeed. Then you really, yeah, then you really know who's for you. Because it's easy for people to pretend that they care when you fail, even if they laugh behind your back. They can pretend that they could, they will help you. But for some reason, success makes some people so uncom your success makes other people.
Chris Rainey 53:10
I've lost family and closer uncomfortable. I'm like, I'm and, and I gave up apologizing for that
Speaker 1 53:18
exactly, and it's hard, right? It's not, I'm not. You don't need it in your life. You don't need it because the people who are for you will celebrate with you too and and they will truly have joy in your success. And it's easy to say, well, when you fail, you see who laughs at you? Those aren't people who expose yourself, the people who are mad at you for being successful, or even mad at you for being more successful than them. Those are the people you need to get rid of. Those are the poisons that take away your joy. And I'm at a stage in my life that I like peace
Chris Rainey 53:54
again. To wrap this up as well, that also translates back to the employee experience. If you're in a company that you're feeling the same way that you have, for example, a manager, yeah, that also makes sure that way, like, you can take control back. You can take the control. Believe in yourself that you can do that. Like, yeah, many people just stick it out. And I understand. We've all got mortgages to pay, we've all got child support, but there are options.
Speaker 1 54:17
There are options and there and you could time it out, and you could talk to people, and you could you can get out there. You can build your network, right? Like something will happen, but you have to take control of it. You have to take control be a victim, and you have to take control of your fear, right? Let me tell you, when I send you all the message in, how about I come to London? And Phil, that was fair. I'd never been to London before. I was like, what? But I was like, You know what? I'm gonna do it. Because I said I will, and I want to, and it's a risk, and it's something that I will do. And I'm here, and I'm excited. Listen,
Chris Rainey 54:56
before that, you go, where can people grab the book? And also. Still want to connect with you, follow you, yes,
Speaker 1 55:02
yes, yes, yes. So you could get next with me. Anyway, I'm mostly found on LinkedIn, but I'm on Tiktok. So, you know, I am clearly for oh, so I want to see some I took, like, a long time to get on Tiktok, because I'm old. I'm old, y'all, but I got on there, and I have fun on there. Now I still only do short content. I have YouTube if you want longer resources on there. My website is Khalifa, oliver.com but if any social media you're looking on me, it's a DR Khalifa. Oh, you could pick up the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble anyway, your favorite books are sold on my website, if you want it signed and audiobook, Apple books and and I narrated it, which was also a fun experience. So Apple books or audible.com and I know I sent some you did an audio
Chris Rainey 55:56
book. I did, no way I'm audio like I listen to everything. Audio,
Speaker 1 56:02
I send some promo codes. So I have sent over to y'all five promo codes for the audiobook for free download for you. And so what we'll
Chris Rainey 56:12
do then for the audience, the we're gonna post this on LinkedIn, the first How many do you send five? First five people that repost it on LinkedIn. We're gonna give you the promo code. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 56:24
the promo codes free audiobook, right? I
Chris Rainey 56:26
can see it. It's very simple. Doesn't count for my team, because they're gonna make sure I do that. That's a good caveat, actually, because of my teammate. Well, I reposted it. No, don't count as well. So first five people, yeah, people, but listen, before you go, I appreciate you coming. It's so nice to see you in person. Yes, I'm very happy for you as well, and I'll obviously wish you all the best until we're next.
Speaker 1 56:49
And me happy for me. Hello. I am a fan. I'm a fan, and I only see big things in your future, so when you become like that guy, just so don't forget, don't forget. A lot of people along the way, yeah, we wouldn't
Chris Rainey 57:03
be like, you know, like we wouldn't, you know, this all started with me just sending you a message on LinkedIn. I know that's crazy. Here we are. That's crazy. So don't be afraid everyone just to take that leap of reaching out to someone, you know, for every person that replied, You know, maybe a couple 100 people said, didn't even reply to me, right? But I've built the most amazing friendships and relationships just by taking a second, just to
Speaker 1 57:27
Yeah, just to send a message, send a message, yeah, and I appreciate it. Never
Chris Rainey 57:31
know it.
Speaker 1 57:32
I again. I credit HR leaders with really, truly helping me find my voice. But
Chris Rainey 57:37
you had to say yes. I had to say yes. This is the difference, right? You had to say yes to that first podcast, then you spoke at one of our events, and now and then people's like, reaching out to you, being like, really good cousin our events. And that's how it just takes one moment of saying yes and seeking discomfort led to a ripple effect of, probably, I'm not taking credit for this. You maybe even not even writing the book if you
Speaker 1 57:59
didn't do that, right? I mean, yeah, because I had to believe in my own voice. Yeah, I had to believe in it. We can listen.
Chris Rainey 58:06
We can talk to it ever. So let's wrap it up. Yeah, anything else that we've missed? Do you want to shout out or just talk about? No,
Speaker 1 58:12
I know if you're looking for me, if you're looking for a speaker, if you're looking for an advisor, call me. Don't
Chris Rainey 58:19
blame me for
Speaker 1 58:22
demo. Call me. Call me. I am willing, as you see, I travel so amazing. Yeah, I'm happy to chat and talk and meet cool.
Chris Rainey 58:30
All right. Well, we'll wrap it up there. Thanks so much again.
Unknown Speaker 58:34
Thank you. Thank you. Shane, you.
Casey Bailey, Head of People at Deel.