LM Ep 83
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Hello. Hello, Lisa here. Since you're listening to this particular podcast, I imagine you're likely a leader in the area of talent, HR people, culture, l and [00:01:00] d employee experience or od. Are you also a talent leader who is longing for a safe sounding board to bounce ideas off of who's thirsty for some fresh new ideas that will actually work?
Who maybe needs to influence multiple stakeholders who don't always know what they want? Maybe you're somebody who wants to get out of their own way and who's ready for expert, ongoing, and confidential mentoring. If you answered yes to one or more of those statements, then we need to talk In addition to my group programs, I work privately with a select few clients as their talent management thought partner. I will help you over the next 90 days. Finally, create the space, the intention, and the strategy to implement an initiative that's critical to your team's, longer term impact and legacy.
Let's chat and see if there's a fit. Book me [email protected] slash contact.
Dreaming of a three day weekend every week already living the dream. [00:02:00] You'll be intrigued by this episode where my guest pulls back the curtain on how her organization has implemented a four day work week and the learnings along the way. My guest is Ryan May. McEvoy. Ryan May considers herself a non-traditional people person and has worked in the people space from startups to ski areas.
She's well-versed in multi-functional operations for lean people teams. Her strategic focus includes work-life balance, a healthy culture for everyone's mental wellbeing, and creating a company People actually want to work for. In this episode of Talent Management Truce, you'll discover practical insights into ways to support a four day work week, how to define and manage true emergencies and the power of iteration in managing growing pains and joy. Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Truth. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell, and today I'm joined by Ryan May McAvoy. Ryan May is the director of People Operations at Black Thorn. [00:03:00] Welcome to the show, Ryan May. Thanks for having me, Lisa. I'm excited to be here.
So share with us about what you do as the Director of People operations at Black Thorn, and a little bit about your career journey. Yeah, so with the. Blackthorn, I do everything people related from hire to retire. Kind of everything in between. We are global, so there's a lot of pieces of people support regarding that. Also trying to create like a trust culture where people feel free to communicate. Really trying to break the stigma of, Hey, I'm dropping 15 minutes on your calendar and exing, it's impending doom. So really kind of working through that. Me as a professional I consider myself a very non-traditional human resources.
Person. I've worked in multiple industries, veterinary ski area. I've kind of done it all. I love tech. That's been my sweet spot for the last couple years. But I really kind of came through the non-pro channels, or at least what I thought were the non-pro channels. And now I'm hearing like, oh yeah, no, I started as an EA too.
I was an office [00:04:00] manager. So it's really cool to hear how a lot of us got here. Without waking up one day and being like, I just wanna be an HR person. So that's kind of how I got there. I was like, I can't ever remember a point in my life being like, yeah, my dream job is people. But it really worked out that way and I, I enjoy it now and it is very much a, a dream profession for me at this point.
But it wasn't the little kid saying like, I wanna be an astronaut. Yeah. I don't think anybody was like, I wanna be the HR person. That's funny. Well, some people, I mean, do, do become very intentional about it. And I think it's probably, you know, you know, once they get sort of university age or something and they, they decide to do a degree in hr, you know, communications or something that leads to that.
So it's, it's interesting cuz. Somebody had said to me when I invited them on the show, it sounds like everybody's a, an expert in lifetime, you know, talent, HR person. No, I, I, I should actually do the stats, but I, I think it's probably about 50 50, 50% have, you know, started more non-traditional and kind of moved into it mid-career and others.
I don't know. I, I, I think they ki [00:05:00] they kind of, you know, just knew early on at the beginning of their working life, you know, or somehow their first opportunity was in HR and they loved it and stayed. So, yeah, it's fascinating. And that's kind of where I started. I was like, I had a business degree and someone was like, oh, you should work in hr.
And I was like, oh, okay. I don't fully know what that means. Did it? Previous economic times took me away from that path, went back to more admin base. And really in 20 17, 20 18, I was working for consultancy and the head of the people practice, I saw my admin skills could be useful to him, and I did wanna get back into people and I, I kind of shot my shot and was like, Hey, I'll support you on the admin side, but like, train me, develop me. So kudos to Peter for taking a chance on me. And we built a really. Great relationship. And that for me was really where it pivoted, where I was like, this is what I wanna do, this is what I'm passionate about. And I will proclaim. I am not an expert on anything about anything. I know a lot of stuff about, a lot of little things, but I will never [00:06:00] proclaim myself to be an expert on anything because as soon as you do, you meet someone that knows more than you then you continue to learn.
So I think that's great. Yeah. Well, you know, you're a true HR generalist and that's. Sense, I would say, you know, not, not from a role perspective, but you know enough about lots of things, enough to be dangerous and you know how to be resourceful and, you know, reach out to, to tap experts if you need to. I mean, that's, that's, you can't know at all.
That's simply the way it works. Yes, there's a great book on that called Range, which who's considering HR or a people. I think is a really great resource because it talks about why we need people that do know just enough to be dangerous. You don't need to be an expert or the S M E N one thing. And something that took me a really long time to learn is it's okay to ask for help and it's okay to say like, Hey, I know 10% of this, but we need to loop in so and so, or we should look at this resource because 10% might not be enough in this situation. And I think that's what really does make effective.
People in careers. I won't say just hr, like [00:07:00] knowing when to ask for help and knowing that that's not shameful is something that is a huge lesson, both professionally and personally. It's, it's okay to need help and it's okay to reach out for it, and I think that that creates a really good environment of like, oh, you're a person too.
You're not just like this big ominous department. Yeah, it's interesting that you bring that up because I know personally I had trouble asking for help for a long time, personally and professionally, and, and that's something now that I help people do because, you know, it, it, it's kind of lonely, right?
When you think it's all up to you. And a lot of the people that I meet in my work, it's interesting, you know, in the HR talent domain sort of feel like, oh, we're supposed to be the resident expert and we're not supposed to ask for help. Isn't that a sign of weakness? It's really fascinating. Not all, but even if they say they never do that there, there's probably this internal voice.
That just does kind of, say that refrain from time to time. So I appreciate you bringing up that, you know, it is okay to ask for help. And I'm going to list just for listeners, I will list that book range in the show notes so that you can find it there. Cause that's a great [00:08:00] recommendation.
Well, let's kind of, Move to a, a slightly different angle here, and you had shared with me when we first met about how Blackburn Thorn, has implemented a four day work week and you've got some really. I would say smart parameters around it and, and like how to actually make it work functionally on the day-to-day.
And I was hoping you could share with us some of the Yeah. Well, will disclaimer it did not start as functionally we have this great idea and we were like, heck yeah, let's run with that. Um, We. Kind of learned by doing. There was the, the joke, like we built the car while we were driving it down the freeway. And it is now a year and a half in, we still feel the squeeze on some things. It's not a perfect process, but I think that kind of sums up black tho as a whole, like we're imperfect humans. We have feels, we have moments. But we somehow still make it work. Which is, for me, part of why I enjoy being a part of that team.
But we had this idea in early 2022, we were gonna try it.[00:09:00] We had some light framing, some light kind of policies, and we're like, we're just gonna give it three months. And about five weeks in we were like, okay, we need to, like, there's gotta be some structure, there's gotta be some awareness. So we really at the end of that beta, our employee survey.
Loved it. I mean, the idea of a four day work week, just on paper, everyone's like, heck yes. But we knew we had to address like, what about holidays? What about coverage? Our product's not a four day work week product. And I think most companies, that's the concern, is your whatever, your service or your business or your product or what you're doing.
May not cater to a four day work week. So how do you address that? So we really kind of broke it down. Okay. And I'm just gonna just pause for one sec cuz I'm curious cuz you said, you know, you tried it for three months and it was kind of loosely framed, you know, with some light policies. What, what were some of the initial bumps that you then recognized needed to be addressed?
Like specifically, The one that really stuck out for me [00:10:00] was holidays In the US we had President's Day weekend, which President's Day historically follows on a Monday. So we had Monday off. It was a four day weekend. It was great. And then we came back on Tuesday and then it was kind of the realization of, and I'll use myself as example cause I don't wanna speak for anyone else.
Like I have a lot to do the next three days. Cause now we have Blackburn Friday and I was like, Okay. This feels like a lot. And it was kind of, there was, I always joke, there's like a buzz or an energy. There was a lot of heads down work happening that Friday. And it was kind of like, everyone's like, no, I'm, I'm not working.
I, I swear I'm just, I'm just, I'm just online real quick. I'm, I'm just checking something. And so we realized that was the thing and then we didn't. Clearly get buy-in from everyone. So we had managers, we were seeing meetings on Fridays and we're like, what do you, what's going on here? Mm-hmm. So I think that's a mistake I made and I'll take full accountability for, is I didn't talk to these managers and get like, Hey, what are you concerned about?
What are, what are you worried about? I was kinda like, four day work week, [00:11:00] y'all. Let's do it. Yeah, why wouldn't you? It's gonna be amazing. And so I really had to step back on that and then it was like, okay, well, What if month end, which sometimes is quarter end, is on a Friday, we know those sales people are gonna work.
If they're commission based, they're gonna wanna close those deals. A big thing of ours is we preach work-life balance. So how do we address that without being like, thanks for the free hours, everyone. So we had to look at that. We had to get buy-in from everybody across the board, and we had to very much communicate that this is a part of our culture, we support it.
The business still has to function. And we're kind of having a growing pain right now where we have a lot of features, we have a lot of stuff going down that's needing attention. And so how do we look at that and say, okay, it can't maybe be a four day work week. Do you do heads down work? Do you assign, do you own it?
What's the, what's the premise of that? so [00:12:00] basically we had to go through all of those things and look at what the implications were. We had to say like, okay, what does that mean?
So right now we're in a state where we're asking people, be aware if it's something you can handle quickly on Thursday. If you can do all of those things, why are. Why is it getting pushed off till Monday? Why are we looking at challenges with support tickets? Why are our customers not feeling the love?
So we've, and we're very big on communication and I think out of every lesson with four day work week communication is key. You have to communicate. And we have a pretty robust culture, so I think people are willing to speak up and be like, Hey, this isn't working. We also had to address, We're in 14 countries, what holidays do we account for? And how do you do that while being fair, not putting stressors on the people, administering and overseeing that stuff, [00:13:00] and again, acknowledging the customers. So we've really worked out a policy together of, okay, there's five weeks where there's US holidays I think right now about 85 to 90% of us are US based.
We're all over the us but we're predominantly, there's about 800 employees, roughly. I think we're about a hundred right now. Yeah. Just for listeners, just so you know, it's a, it's a, it's small smallish business, but yeah. Small, small SaaS company. But so we determined that those five holidays, all but. To occur on Mondays.
The whole global team will work five days that week, and then the US team works Tuesday through Friday that week, or we have like the 4th of July holiday coming up with the us So I think it, and I think it's on a Wednesday this year. So we'll work Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Um, it's still a four day work week.
And then we did have some questions like, well, I'm in another country and there's this holiday, well, you're off on that holiday and we're not finding Fridays to make it up. And no dissing on the US live here. Love it. But we have less holidays than [00:14:00] everyone. So I really, when you, when people were kinda like, well, I I don't think that's fair.
I was like, okay, well there's 22 bank holidays for your country, so you would be working these weeks. I'm only asking for five. And people were like, I am good. Like, I am happy with that. We always try and be, do right by the employees and we also have had a lot of. People be transparent. I do stuff on Fridays.
I love heads down Friday. If I'm doing a data project, if I'm trying to work on something sensitive, or even if I just need the quiet of no slacks, no constant emails, no meetings. It's really helpful for me to get up, make some coffee. It's quiet. Am I doing, it's a slower pace. It sounds like. It's a slower pace.
Yeah. And nobody's asking me to do it. It's not forced. It's a big rock sinking space. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I think for us, we've translated that four day work week. a presentation for a networking group I'm in, so I, I wanted to get some real life case studies. So I talked to some of our employees and the [00:15:00] number one feedback is it has made me so time aware.
I'm aware, like what needs to be done, how much time it's gonna take, is it gonna carry into Friday? Is it gonna carry into the next week? And so now we're really working on. The communication piece I work with our talent, our head of talent, Matthew Roy, who's my favorite. I've never called him Matthew in my life, so I don't know why I said that.
His name is Matt Roy. But so basically we work together and we'll give each other things. We don't sit there and break it down by hours. That should take you two hours. That should take you one hour. That should take you three hours. We give each other tasks and we know that we're empowered to say like, Hey, that's actually gonna take way longer than expected because of X, Y, Z factors.
Or, I'm blocked, or, I'm waiting on so-and-so. Can you take this? Can we push this? And so that's kind of the growing pain we're in now is having people be realistic. Like, this isn't gonna happen as quick as I assumed, or you assumed. And then figuring out the cause. Mm-hmm. Because from my [00:16:00] opinion, if you get all these tasks and you just don't tell anyone, you can't get 'em done, that's in an inefficient use of the four day work week.
Well, any work week really. Right. Have any, yeah. Yeah. Managing, I mean, when I teach time management and productivity and, you know, with leadership groups, it's, it's very much around how do you manage expectations and how do you get realistic so that you know, you're, there's no big surprises. And, you know, help people understand, Hey, I know this is important to you, this task that you want me to take care of, and.
I've got quite a list already. So when do you absolutely need this buy? And if it's today, then we've gotta negotiate what else comes off the list. Right. So it's, it's, it's that, that time management. So it's interesting though, because what you are describing is in, in this kind of four day work week context, it's, it's amplified that, consciousness around needing to be very astute around how you manage and block your time.
When we have kind of a concept of everyone as sort of their own entrepreneur I always joke that I'm happy being a corporate [00:17:00] entrepreneur. Like I like a consistent corporation. I like study US healthcare. But I also like having the autonomy and the control of this is how I'm running my function.
This is what I'm implementing for my function. And I think when you give people back that kind of power of like, We're not gonna sit here and say, okay. I always think of the, the cartoon, the Flintstones, where he clocked in. He, he, he hit the rock for so many hours, the whistle went and then he was done.
We're not gonna sit here and say, oh, you have to strike the rock 200 times in this period. We're gonna say, here's your high level tasks. Can you own it? And then you have to decide, yes, I can. No, I can't. Here's what I need to finish that and. It's really given us a premise of kind of onus of what we're proud of and onus of our work.
So it's fine. Yeah. And it also translates into a really interesting conversation you and I had. It can't, everything can't be an emergency. Right. And I always joke, when I was in [00:18:00] EA, I had amazing leaders that I supported and stuff, and one. This is top priority. This is top priority. And I always had I, to this day, I mean, we're videoing, so I carry a little notebook and I'm like, okay, I have my little notebook.
He would talk and I'd say, okay, well you said 12 things. Eight of them are the number one priority. So let's go back now, figure out what's one, one. What's one, two, what's They can all be number one, but there's gonna be like a little delineation. I like that technique. That's good. One point. I need that.
Like they're all number one, but which order of number one are they? So we, you have that, and that was part of the thing with the four day work week is we implemented an office wide out of office. We're kind of moving away from that now for other reasons. But mine was like, Hey, here's my number. Text me if it's an emergency, and it gave me a really good training opportunity.
What's an emergency? Someone's hurt. Someone needs access to healthcare. There are employees that cover with our support team that are working. [00:19:00] They may need something, things that might not be an emergency. I can't get into the HR system. Okay. What do you need from the HR system? Oh, I just wanted to update P T O.
We could probably do that Monday. Things like that. So really kind of cross training, what's an emergency and what's not, and learning that on the other side too, because the downside to me of remote work is we're very much about instant gratification. There's slack, there's email, there's teams. Oh yeah.
It's, it's just constant. So if, if you're like, oh my gosh, I have this thought in my head, so I'm gonna pop it into Slack. Well, on the other end, I may not know that you. Don't care about that until Monday. You just needed to get pen to paper. I'm the same way. If I think of something, I gotta kind of word vomit it so I don't forget it.
And we have really tried to stress, if it's a true emergency, there will be a phone call. I joke, we're a very millennial company. Nobody's trying to be on the phone. So that's when you know like, Nope, you gotta pick up the phone. Something's going down. We need you to step in. And [00:20:00] the other side of it is using the tools.
That all have these features, you can schedule, send an email in Google. Now you can schedule, send a Slack. Mm-hmm. There's a great, we use this app called Superhuman and it's like, oh, I wanna, I wanna get back to that email, but I don't want it right now. And I, I don't know how you are, but I, I can't handle the unread notifications so you can swipe it and say, oh, bring this back to top of box tomorrow at 8:00 AM or on Monday.
So really just kind of using the tools to assess what's a right now situation. What's a future me situation? What has to be the priority? Because as much as I want them all to be number one, it's just not the reality of it. The idea of triage, you know, we, we often hear the term, you know, triage or email inbox, and it's, you know, you either I, I, there's like the three things, so I'm gonna read it, delete it read it, file it.
Read it, action it, you know, and then, so that you're just constantly, and I really, really live by that. I, I [00:21:00] feel that it's important, but, but the word triage originally, I believe, came from use in the healthcare system, right? You go into the emergency room and a nurse, you know, there's a triage nurse who's assessing like everybody's sick and injured and needs something.
That's why they're at emergency. So it goes back to your point about 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. She still needs to. Put them in some semblance of, of a reasonable order, right? Because there's only so many, so many doctors and people that can see them. So this is interesting. So I wanna go back to, and just, just underscore, you know, this idea of if there's a true emergency, it's a phone call.
Because I think, you know, it's so funny you mentioned being a millennial company, and I'm not a millennial. However I kind of don't use the phone call very often. I'm looking at my phone like I, you know, I, it's something that's sort of gone by the wayside. It's so easy to, to tax DM Slack. and yet I will tell you that in my last corporate role so this, we're going back six years actually probably almost [00:22:00] 10, when I started there, I had to train my, my senior directors, the rest of the staff, they liked to direct message.
We had a, you know, the, the instant messenger in Google, I was like, That is something I am not gonna have open. If you need me, it's a phone call because I need these big thinking blocks and I'm in so many meetings that I, I, I. I need to be very present, right? I'm very present with the person I'm with or on the task in front of me.
And the messages popping up is, I get that it may be important for you in that moment, but for me it's not so true. Training, HR emergencies, and I wasn't HR proper in that role. I was leading talent management for really large organizations. But it, it was, it was, please phone me and, and at fir And I said, and you can giggle if you think I'm old, but you know what?
You know what I gotta tell you? Ryan May is some of the others followed my lead. They started to go, well, wait a second. That sounds kind of nice. Not having constant ims, [00:23:00] you know, distract me from the task at hand, because you're just taking longer with everything. When you're going from task A to B to the a, B, C, back to a, you can't remember where you were.
You gotta figure out, you know, where you left off to start again. It's almost like technological, a, d, D, like you're, yes, you're bouncing. And that's where I feel like technology hinders us, but is also helping us. Slack. I. I spend more time than possible. I was trying to put something funny, like I'm away from my keyboard, like whatever. But we use little emojis to indicate like, oh, I'm in the car. People will put like, oh, I'm doing kid pickups. It'll be like an emoji of a school bus. I think on that hand, it's great. It's teaching us to kind of be like, Hey, here's where I'm at. Please be aware. And then the flip side of the phone call, I, if my phone rings, there was a meme where it was like, As soon as my phone rings, I'm like, oh no, that's not what it's for.
And that's actually how, I just don't, I'm not a phone person. I love to FaceTime with people that I'm trying to connect with that may not be close. I love [00:24:00] video chat, phone calls. For me, it's like my heart kind of pauses for a minute. I'm like, okay, what's wrong? And then you get the tone of, okay, like, Hey, this is what's happening.
I have a question. My c e o had called me with the Silicon Valley Bank thing, and I was also kind of seeing the news. We were trying to figure it out. It was an amazing lesson for all finance and HR people. Now we all know who our payroll providers use their clearinghouses. Yeah. No one knew that before, I bet.
But it was a matter of like, no, this is, this is important. Is everyone gonna get paid? We had a conversation. It took all of three minutes, and both of us left feeling like, okay. On solid the ground, this and that probably would've been several hundred dms back and forth in Slack because, oh God, you know, you know what you made me think.
So my best friend and I, my best friend Lynn, so she and I probably text in, you know, at least once a day. Generally might, might go two days, but you know, We're very close and, but sometimes we're trying to coordinate, we like to travel together as families and stuff, and sometimes we're, you know, she'll just phone me.
She's like, oh my God, [00:25:00] this is getting too hard because you can go back and waste all this time. And it's just, it just, let's just, just. Figure it out right now and look at our calendars or do the thing, right? Yeah. And we, I have a similar system. My childhood best friend, we've known each other for redacted number of years. But we, she has a family. Her spouse is a military person, so their schedule's a little bit hectic. We have a very busy life out here. We have a standing Sunday coffee date on FaceTime. It doesn't happen every Sunday, but it's there. We know it needs to happen. And so it's like, oh, you know, I, I'm sick, or, oh, the kids have a game, or, oh, we're at a wedding out of town.
It's flexible, but it kind of just is theirs as a block. So, you know, like we gotta connect, we gotta be present. And that's when those things happen. We do the same thing. We love to travel together. We're trying to plan a Disneyland trip for the nephews, just to just lots of spaces and sometimes you just need that face to face.
Yeah, or the, the phone to ear, however you wanna describe it, because it's just [00:26:00] easier. I also am a huge proponent of tone. There is no tone to text. We've all heard it. So easy to misconstrue, you know, what's going on or to, yeah, to misinformation as well. You, you know, what you made me think of there, you know, as far as having these regular time blocks, it's the one-on-one, the leadership, one-on-one, you know, with your team, and it still surprises me. I don't see this so much with HR and talent leaders, but with, in my role as executive coach with, with leaders for many other disciplines, some of them don't have regular 1 0 1 s. And I, I will say that that's something that you need to change. It's such a shame. There needs to be, it's the batching kind of thing.
Like there needs to be a regular place that you are both looking forward to where you can actually dig into stuff that, that, that works better through, you know, work through in a conversation versus, you know, back and forth. And the, the constant delays that asynchronous communication does not work for all things.
And it's, it's the multifacet. I have to give black tho [00:27:00] leadership a huge, I constantly joke, I don't know how I hit such gold with these leaders that believe in things like communication and transparency and employee culture and work life balance. But our c o O, who I report to is amazingly smart.
I've learned a ton from him. He's hyper aware. I was at a conference. He canceled our one-on-one. The day I got back and I was like, Hey, are are you busy? He's like, no, but you, you just got back from three days in Vegas. I'm sure you're unbearing like we can catch up next week. I was like, no, I have stuff to talk to you about.
Within three seconds, the meeting was back on. It was never a thing and I was like, wow. One, he's really aware of where I'm at and what I'm going through with travel. He saw that my flight left at five 30 this morning, but he also wasn't resistant when I was like, I just need to talk to you. He was like, yeah, cause that's cause it's a two-way street.
Yeah. And I love that. It's also very much, there have been after hour situations, questions like that. And it always starts with, [00:28:00] Hey, can we talk now? Hey, I'm putting time on your calendar. And I've made it a habit, especially with employees who haven't been with us very long. If I'm scheduling time for anything, it could be a question like, what's your favorite color?
What is this? To, Hey, I wanna talk to you about your healthcare and stuff. I always send to Slack and just say, Hey, grabbing 15 minutes on your calendar, this is why. Yeah, because there is, when you're in certain positions that kind of like, oh, this is instant bad news. And I've had to retrain my brain. I will never forget my C E o I was maybe six months into Black Thorn and he's like, Hey, do you have five minutes?
And my brain was like, oh, you're getting fired. I had no reason to assume I was getting fired. There was no, there was nothing to, and I just kind of told him about it. I was like, yeah, sorry. It like gave me a mini heart attack. And he's like, why? And I was like, I don't actually know. I have no I, I have no basis for this.
And it was a very pivotal moment for me. So now if he reaches out, [00:29:00] I don't automatically assume it's bad news. I'm like, oh, he needs something for me. We'll dress it. Sometimes it is bad news, sometimes it's something heavy. Sometimes it's something very simple. But I think like reminding ourselves, It doesn't always have to be bad news.
No. And then as leaders translating into like, Hey, I acknowledge that you have that, but why? And if it's, oh, because the last two times you've called me, the sky has fallen and everything is on fire. Okay? There's some bases to it. But if you stop someone in their tracks and they're like, I don't know if it's just because of your title or your department, we need to work on that more than the.
The not popping in really quick and being like, Hey, you have five minutes. So, well, I think that's a whole other pathway we could talk about too, you know, like on another show because it's that idea of The concept that came to mind for me was this is why learning to be truly present and bring that beginner mindset and a spirit of openness to every conversation is so important, right?
Cuz [00:30:00] we do go dark sometimes in the absence of information or you know, if we've had a. Could be you just had feeling pressured one day and then he says, I want five minutes. And you go, oh God, is he gonna pile on? Right. And, and, and we have no reason to believe that. And yet this is how our, our, our complex minds work.
Right. So learning to reframe, wait a second, I'm making assumptions. What if I I'm doing all good. Yeah. Like exactly. Giving me a big raise. No. Anyways, so. Or even just good news, and I think that comes from years of unspoken communication. You and I had touched on that, and this is something I talk about pretty constantly.
The old adage of, oh, well, I'm fine. It's very clear you're not fine. Yeah. And so if you're not gonna emphasize, I'm gonna build this whole narrative of why you're not actually fine. And so I think as leaders, we really have to sit down and say, okay, I'm putting out this communication. How is the worst [00:31:00] reception of this gonna be?
If it's, Hey, great job to so and so that worked a couple extra hours on the weekend to get this task done. Are the other 30 people in the conversation gonna be like, was I supposed to work this weekend? Am I, am I not meeting metrics? So really just taking that second I'm a huge advocate for proofreading.
I my tone and email and Slack sometimes is a lot more abrupt in Kurt than I intended to be. So if I'm sending an email, I might ask someone. Again, shout out to Matt Roy. I'm like, Hey, can you just glance up this, make sure it sounds okay. I don't wanna sound cold, I don't wanna sound ominous. But I do wanna really information and we do, we do that with each other. In personal communications. I'll do it with my husband if I'm sending a message in the family chat, be like, Hey, does this sound right? Like, if we're not going to something or if like, oh, we're opting out. We've been toying with this idea of like not doing Christmas this year. And I'm like, does this sound okay?
But like, I don't wanna be like, We're bailing cuz we don't wanna see you. It's more like we'd love just some quiet time away. [00:32:00] And I think using. Resources to better our communication is a practice that should be constant. It's not just, well, it just comes down to the hallmark of communications, which is always start with know your audience.
In, in the financial industry where I grow up mostly, it, it, we call it K Y C, know your client, right? So, it's think, but sometimes one communication could go out to multiple types of clients or audiences. And so thinking that through and then as you put it, like thinking about, well, what are they gonna be?
Like worst case scenario, what would they worry about? How might they, they construe this message, right? And, and so there's this whole coding and coding we have to think through, right? So if I, if I encode this message and, and volley it through the atmosphere, that other person has to decode it and they're gonna decode it based on what their own situation and context is.
So I, I wanna think about that to the best I can so that I anticipate upfront. And encode my message accordingly. So it's more likely to land with a desired impact. And I think [00:33:00] even speaking of, I have an amazing, she's in my network, she's also a friend now, Melissa Doman. She wrote a book like, yes, it's okay to talk about mental health at work and here's how you do it really well.
And her and I are brains just work very, very fast. So we have these conversations usually over text board was like, and one of us will be like, Hey, that point, can you clarify? I'm not understanding. And it's something that she's taught me. I've seen her do it in multiple forms of communication. I'm like, that's actually a really powerful step.
Like just to be like, Hey, that piece, I'm not interpreting it. Can you clarify or give more context? then something that. I have been coached on by her and my therapist is really just kind of framing out where you're at. Like if I, I've come in, I've learned to come in and be like, Hey, I had an insomnia week where I just was averaging about three, four hours of sleep at night despite my best efforts.
So really just coming up front and saying, Hey, I didn't sleep good. I'm struggling a [00:34:00] little bit. If I'm not grasping something or you don't feel like I'm grasping something, let's. Get on a Zoom, let's pin until tomorrow. Let's find ways to make sure, because what I'm going through in my environment may not translate to you if you don't know.
Right. If I got on this call today and was like, oh, I, I'm hoarse, I didn't sleep and all this, and you didn't have any context on that, you'd be like, wow, she's kind of, she's kind of a du she's kind of dull when it's in the reality. I could just be like, oh yeah, I haven't slept in three days fully and like, or something terrible has happened and I think really that is something that we have to, with the remote world.
Support being like, this is what life happens. And I actually, I had said on LinkedIn a couple months ago, I have a cat that I've had for like 14 years. He's the love of my life. I'm obsessed with him. He was limping and I instantly went into our manager slack. I was like, we gotta go to the vet. I'm having a meltdown.
Totally get, this is not logical or reasonable. Here's my cell phone number. If there's anything urgent, I'll do what I [00:35:00] can. Nobody was like, It's just a cat. Did she do that? What are you doing? Yeah. It was like, oh my gosh, is Bruce okay? Can we help you? How are you feeling? And I think in the remote world you have to really make it okay to say like, Hey, my kid is home today cuz he is sick. I'm working but not fully. I'm putting a block in the afternoon cuz I'm not feeling well. Something our c e o encourages is, he's like, if you're not presenting on a call, Clap your headphones in and take it outside. Go for a walk, move your body. And I think really what gets lost being remote is we're in a hundred different environments.
Yes. And if you don't have an awareness and empathy for that, You're, it's very easy to be like, they're just missing the mark. They're not putting in the time, they're not doing this. Oh, well it's very true for remote and it's true in person, you know, it's, it's wild. I mean, that's a core part of a model that, that, that I'm actually going to, I think I'm gonna protect it trademark wise.
So [00:36:00] I won't, I won't share it just now, but it's, it, it pop secret for later. It includes context because, You know, we forget that other people can't read our minds and can't see what's around us, cuz it's just, we're in our own reality. So I really appreciate that point that you're, that you've shared as to say, like, Here's a little bit of backdrop about what's going on with me or with work and with that said, here's, you know, let's continue kind of thing. It really, really helps people, I don't know, get a little bit of a window in and builds that trust. Something I, I don't wanna lose sight of too. Just, just to point us back to that four day work week, cuz we've been spinning off in a, in a few different directions, which is fine. But something you had mentioned to me before we hit record was around.
How Black Thorn manages the experience with clients, with your customers. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little more about that, knowing that Yeah. Many employees, maybe not customer support. I think they work on a rotation on Fridays. Yeah. But they're working four, nine hour [00:37:00] days, generally speaking.
So your, your customers kind of, I don't know, do you share with them that you've got this, this approach or, so we've been very public on LinkedIn, our C E o I think he was quoted in. It was Sher, maybe Forbes as well, just talking about how we built this. It's always a conversation piece. If I'm bringing on a new vendor, if someone's pitching me for their product, if we're interviewing I always bring it up.
And previously, and I did say we were kind of going through a transition phase on some growing pains on this. We had a standard company out of office with a way to reach someone. So for me it was like, Hey, thanks for your email. We're taking Fridays for work-life balance. If this is an emergency, please text me at also below.
Here's how you can submit a support ticket. Here's how you can give us a product idea. Here's just some info on our company. And then here's my calendarly link. If you wanna grab time with me next week. That served us well for a while. I think we're in a model now [00:38:00] where we're going to be more proactive in engaging with the customers, the vendors, the employees, and so having that.
I never want an employee because like you had mentioned, our support team is on a rotation. They split, they do a four day work week, but half work Monday through Thursday. The other half work Tuesday through Friday. I never want an employee on a Friday to feel like, oh, Ryan May is off, so I can't reach out to her.
So really just kind of communicating like, hey, I, I'll probably glance at Slack or my cell phone is glued to my hand, text me and I can at least say like, Can't it wait till Monday, can not wait till Monday. Where are you at? Because that's really how this is gonna continue to be successful is if on my function, employees are feeling supported because we do have employees working on Friday.
If the whole company was completely shut down, lights out, that would be different. Right? But so my function is, and then on the flip side, One of our apps is events. A lot of events happen on Friday, [00:39:00] Saturday, and Sunday. How do we make sure they're feeling the love? Exactly. Because you don't want them to be like, oh, well they're not there on Friday.
So I, I guess I'll contact on Monday. So really kind of looking at your function and its purpose, how do you keep things supportive? How do you keep the forward momentum? I wouldn't say we've nailed it right now. We're seeing some growing pains. We're addressing it. We're talking about it with the whole company, our C e O, our c o o.
Are very transparent and it is the understanding that everyone has a function, everyone has a support. We're all pieces of this puzzle. And if a whole function, if the people team just decided to shut down on Fridays and was like, we're not taking calls, we're not taking slacks, we are out of office, baby, that's gonna affect the other functions, which is then gonna affect the whole company.
So we're really kind of mitigating this right now. I don't think I have a perfect answer. Because I, and I love our leadership because as supportive and awesome as they are, they will also be like, so [00:40:00] that kinda contradicts what you've always said. Cause I had said, I was like, well, it seems like if it's something easy, like we could just jump on it.
And my coo, OTA one-on-one was like, you've been telling everyone if you're off on Friday, you're off on Friday. Don't engage. I'm like, You got me there. I don't have, I don't have the answer. So how do you Well, I think it's, I think it's very common for, for HR and talent leaders to sort of feel like, well, that's fine for everyone else, but you know, I need to, I need to be there for people because that's what you're, you're about right.
It's very much part of purpose and and mission to provide that support. So I can imagine that would create a little bit of. A little bit of tension in your head around, you know, am I I doing as I say, or, and I don't, and I, I love that our leadership holds me to tasks on that. Yes. Which I think is important.
And I think for a four day work week, if an organization is thinking about this or is trying to implement this, if you do not have full buy-in from your leaders in your management, You're [00:41:00] not, it's not gonna work. Because if one manager's telling a team, well that doesn't apply to us. Right? We still do stuff on Fridays.
That's gonna build a culture you don't want. And if on the flip side your customers come back and say, this is 1000% not working, what do you do? Yeah. So it's a constant communication. It's constant learning. And I think that we are growing and we. I believe that we will make it successful. I don't know what that looks like to this.
Stay in this time. I hope the next time we talk I'm like, we figured it out. We cracked the code. Well, you know what? The not necessary, because I wrote down a couple minutes ago when you were talking about the growing great pains and how you're addressing it with through transparency and so on. You know, I wrote down iteration cuz that's something I talk about a lot in my work. Doing thought partner work with, with, with talent and HR leaders. It's this idea that you, you don't have to get it perfect. There's no such thing as that because just as soon as you develop something, And you put it in place, then things are around [00:42:00] it in the context are changing. And so what what is more important is to build in checkpoints to say, how is this working now?
And what do we need to adjust? How do we need to pivot? What do we need to iterate? So if we just look at everything as an ongoing iteration, Way less stressful. Right. So it's, it's changing our expectations that it's perfection than it's, it's a struggle when, oh, now it's no longer meeting the needs and we have to change a girl.
You know, that's my baby, my program that I gave birth to, you know, that could, people can feel very defensive around that. I've seen that in myself and in so many. Oh yeah. It's like, but what do you mean? But I worked, I slaved over that kind of thing. And so instead just saying, well, no, let's, let's build it and implement it with the expectation that it's going to be an ongoing learning adjustment, iterative process.
And I'm actually learning that right now. I think that's a great point to kind of pin it on is you and I had this appointment I've. Written stuff on LinkedIn. I've done [00:43:00] other talks and when it was kinda like, Hey, there's some, some stuff we need to address with four day work week, I was like, well, then I just need to stop talking about it.
And I, my leadership was like, no. Like I, and again, I give really so much credit to our leaders for molding me into being a leader that I wanna be. And sometimes by doing it, In ways that I'm not, like nobody wants to hear you're, you're wrong or you're overreacting, but sometimes you need to. Yeah, and I think to your point, like framing it as like we're learning, we're growing.
We're not going to boil the ocean in one day. I. But we're doing it together is really how these things are successful. Well, and so that's such a great place to kind of start to wrap up our conversation because that's what this show is all about. It's called Talent Management Truths People for a Reason.
Right. Because literally we're, you know, it's, it's not about trying to, to say, oh, here's, here are all the challenges. And really focus [00:44:00] on the challenge. I mean, there's always gonna be challenge, but it's more about the learning and the growth and that there's no expectations to be perfect. Right? Like, you've shared some extremely pragmatic ideas and examples of how companies listeners might help their organizations implement a four day work week.
You know, either in part or in whole and, you know, to experiment. And I think there's some, some alternatives to that. I have a, a person in my network, they, they can't do a four day work week. It just isn't practical for them. They have a no meeting. It's literally no meetings, no meeting day. They don't book.
Their calendars are completely blocked as if they were out of office. Office. I'm a fan. Yes. Huge. I know. And I was like, that's actually a very like, If for some reason, worst case scenario, we just determined four day work week wasn't gonna work for us anymore, that would be my next, that would be kind of my next step.
I wouldn't be like, okay, let's just open up the floodgates and just be like, and we're back everyone. Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of, we're seeing a lot. I have A really dear friend. She works for an organization I won't mention cause I don't know how [00:45:00] that works with privacy. She's like, yeah, two o'clock on Fridays, it's wind down, everyone's calendar is blocked.
We wrap up for the week. We, I like, oh my gosh, I love this. I know at least two organizations I'm working with right now where they have no meeting Fridays. And it really opens up a bunch of possibility. I probably shared on the show before, like now as an entrepreneur, I, I can write my own hours, but I'm very much about the intentional ideal work week.
So Mondays. People can't book with me. You know, the, it's just, it's not possible. I meet with my accountability partner briefly in the morning, probably every week or two weeks. and sometimes my, my virtual assistant if we need to kind of look at stuff, but it's just a beautiful way to begin my week.
Like goodbye Sunday night dreads. It's, it's changed the game for me, right? And then it's power, power days on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And I think that's really something that people. Need to learn professionally and personally. We have a calendar on our fridge, in our home. Everyone laughs on it. At the beginning of every [00:46:00] month.
I write birthdays, I write, this is when the, the housekeeper's coming. We're outta town these days. I'm outta town these days. You're outta town these days, I promise you. My husband looks at it maybe once or twice a month. He's not as involved in it. Yeah, I'm with you. I should. But it's, it's a tool, but it's a tool that when he's like, okay, Ryan May's recording a podcast with Lisa and I need to see whose birthday it is today.
Or did I forget something? He can glance at it. It's easier than saying, oh, it's in the family calendar on the phone and something that we do with everyone. You will see, Hey, I'm going to the gym. I'm picking up my kids. I have a therapist appointment. My therapist I usually meet on Fridays. He had a thing on Wednesday, so I literally have a block on my calendar that says, therapy appointment.
Do not book over. Yeah. Yeah. Just being I, you have to, having that transparency again, right. Be a person, communication. Yeah. Yeah. So I love this. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's been just such a pleasure. So many so many interesting, tips that you've shared and and I appreciate also the book.
You know, I'll make sure that's initial notes around range and [00:47:00] that sounds like a good one to check out for me as well. It's a, just a great one cuz I think everyone feels like they have to be the sculptor. You're Michelangelo. Maybe you're not, maybe you're the guy who makes the plaster and finds the location and sets up the tall, flatter thing.
The word I can't think is escaping me right now, but like ev being, having multiple skills is. Not a bad thing. And I think that we kind of overlook that as a society and that book's just been really life changing for me. I've read it a couple times now, and I you're the second person. Tell everyone, you're the second person that's recommended.
So I think it's time that I ordered it. Anyway, thank you so much, Ryan. May thank for coming on and, I appreciate you and, and Blackthorn for, for giving us a window into, into Yes. What the great work you're doing. Thank you so much. Appreciate you so much. Have a great one.
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