Never Lose an Employee Again with Joey Coleman
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“If we want remarkable customer experiences, we have to have remarkable employees to deliver those experiences. And if our customer experience is horrible, chances are good that our employees aren't loving going to work, and maybe their experience isn't that great either.”
— Joey Coleman
Employees And Customers - 2 Sides Of The Same Coin
Improve both employee and customer experiences by treating them as interconnected.
Foster collaboration between customer-focused and employee-focused teams.
Recognize the impact of happy employees on customer satisfaction.
Encourage a holistic approach to people management.
The Eight Phases Of The Employee Journey
Manage the employee journey through 8 phases (Assess, Accept, Affirm, Activate, Acclimate, Accomplish, Adopt, Advocate).
Focus on Phase 3 (Affirm) and Phase 5 (Acclimate) for smooth transitions, loyalty, and advocacy.
Accountability in Problem Solving
Prioritize treating employees well for a long-term commitment.
Maintain ongoing efforts to build a strong team and recruit.
Enhancing Employee Communication: Six Valuable Tools
Use various communication tools: in-person interactions, engaging emails, physical mail, personal phone calls, personalized videos, and thoughtful gifts.
Go beyond routine emails to build stronger relationships.
Fostering Remote Team Engagement and Fun
Prioritize analog interactions and send physical presents.
Organize in-person team gatherings for fun and team-building twice a year.
Overcoming New Employee Remorse: A Strategy Guide
Express excitement and appreciation during the affirm stage with personalized messages and videos.
Provide helpful information before the first day to ease concerns.
The Difference Between Orientation And Onboarding
Distinguish between orientation (admin aspects) and onboarding (holistic, long-term).
Extend onboarding for a comprehensive, sustained experience that integrates new employees into the culture over time.
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Mike Goldman: Joey Coleman helps companies keep their customers and employees. As an award winning speaker, he shares his first 100 days methodology for improving customer and employee retention with organizations around the world. Organizations like Whirlpool, Volkswagen, Zappos, and even the nation of Australia.
His Wall Street Journal number two bestselling book, "Never Lose a Customer Again," shows how to turn any sale into a lifelong customer. And his new book, which is where we're going to focus today, is "Never Lose an Employee Again." That book details a framework companies around the world could use to reduce turnover and increase employee engagement.
Joey welcome.
Joey Coleman: Mike. Thanks so much for having me on the show. And thanks to everybody who's joining us in listening in or watching super excited for our conversation today.
Mike Goldman: Beautiful. And before we start, I have an idea for you and I bought the domain name. So if you like this idea, you got to buy it from me, but you have the whole never lose brand. So I bought, never lose your keys again.
Joey Coleman: Nice. Nice.
Mike Goldman: So if you decide to write that book, it's 50 grand, you can have the domain.
Joey Coleman: I love it, that sounds great. Third book, third book, looking, look for that coming soon. That's going to require a lot of research and analysis though. So maybe a while before that one comes out, Mike.
Mike Goldman: There you go.
Joey Coleman: But I'll be back to you for the URL when it does.
Mike Goldman: I appreciate it. So Joey, this wasn't in your bio, but I know you started off your career as an attorney.
Joey Coleman: Yes.
Mike Goldman: So tell me, how do you move from the law to speaking and consulting and all the rest of the things you do?
Joey Coleman: Yeah, well, as I like to say, Mike, I'm a recovering attorney, right? The first steps is admitting, you have a problem. There's 11 steps after that. It's kind of, you move through a process. My background and my career has been incredibly eclectic. I went straight from undergraduate to law school. After law school, I worked doing business consulting. I worked for the White House.
I worked for the Secret Service. I worked in the CIA. I was a criminal defense lawyer. I taught at the postgraduate level. I ran a division of a promotional products company. I ran an ad agency for almost 15 years. And while some might look at that career path and say, Oh my gosh, this guy can't hold down a job. What I think the reality was, or at least my version of the reality of experiencing it was in each of those jobs I had the way you succeeded was by having a keen understanding of the human condition.
Why is it that human beings do the things they do and what can we do to convince or persuade or encourage them to do the things that we'd like them to do? And that really is what springboarded me into giving speeches and writing books. I realized that a lot of the techniques and the psychologies and the strategies that I was applying throughout my career in these various professions, could be applied to business as well. And that's kind of what got me started on business consulting.
That's got me started on business speaking, eventually led to writing books. It's just kind of all evolved from there.
Mike Goldman: Love it. It also sounds like you've got like 60 years of experience. And for those not watching this on video, I don't think he's anywhere near that, you know, that age.
Joey Coleman: I can out touch 60 from where I'm standing, but it's still a bit off in the distance. So I'm, moving my way towards it.
Mike Goldman: Yeah I've got about a year and a half left.
Joey Coleman: There you go.
Mike Goldman: I can't believe about to hit 60. But so again, I'll ask kind of a transition question before we go into the meet of your latest book. But, you know, we talked about, you know, before I hit record, you know, you were an event I was at back pre covid where
you spent a half a day or a day with us. I don't remember talking about never losing a customer again. So that's in my mind, that's what you are known for. How do you make that? And why did you make that shift? And I'm sure you still do a lot about that, but why the shift from never lose a client again to never lose a customer again?
Joey Coleman: Well, I think transitioning it even to never lose an employee again.
Mike Goldman: I mean, I'm sorry. That's what I meant.
Joey Coleman: Yeah no, which is what my new book is. Yeah. it's interesting, Mike, I don't really see it as a shift and I see where lots of folks would. And to be honest, it's one of the things that I was very conscious of and intentional about when I went into writing this new book, never lose an employee again. I see it as the same side of a coin. Right? It's you've got a coin and you've got two different sides, right?
So on one side is the customer experience, on one side is the employee experience. If we want remarkable customer experiences, we have to have remarkable employees to deliver those experiences. And if our customer experience is horrible, chances are good that our employees aren't loving going to work, and maybe their experience isn't that great either. And so I've always seen them as two sides of the same coin, where I think most organizations have an opportunity.
I want to be clear, this isn't a criticism, but an opportunity is to think differently about the organizational structure as it relates to the people they interact with namely their customers and their employees. In most leadership teams, we've got a customer responsibility that usually falls under the head of sales, the head of marketing, maybe the head of operations. And then we've got an employee responsibility that usually falls under the head of HR.
The challenge I have, Mike, is those siloed organizational hierarchies. Rarely interact with each other and they don't see how happy employees leads to happy customers and they don't see how disgruntled customers leads to disgruntled employees. I think there's an opportunity for more collaboration, more connection, more communication between those alternative approaches to people at the end of the day, people are people, whether they're coming to work to deliver your product or service, or whether they're out in the world consuming or purchasing your product or service.
Mike Goldman: One of the things, Joey, I love about both of your books, but let's talk specifically about Never Lose an Employee Again. One of the things I love about the book is the framework, right? It's, yes, we've all had conversations about how do we do a better job retaining, coaching, developing, all that stuff. But the framework that you put together, I think makes it
so much clearer what we have to do, where we need to do it, when we need to do it. So, and let's start high level and we'll dig in where it makes sense. Talk a little bit about the framework, you know, first kind of those eight phases and then the six different tools that cut across those, give us the brief overview and then, and then we'll start figuring out where we want to dive in.
Joey Coleman: Absolutely. Well, Mike, I so appreciate that your experience was a positive one with the framework, because it really is the foundational piece of both of my books, and especially this employee experience book, because I think when it comes to finding great talent, taking them through our hiring process, deciding to hire them, onboarding them, training them, and hopefully retaining them long term when they're engaged and active and producing great value for our organizations, lots of times, that's a haphazard journey, to say the least. And the reason it's haphazard journey, there there are a plethora of reasons why, but I think often it's because when we're building a business at the outset, we're just trying to fill in the gaps and keep the ship moving forward. And then suddenly we wake up one day and we've got a dozen or two dozen employees and we're like, oh my gosh, we've got a hodgepodge of activities here.
There's no real systems, there's no process. And so what I wanted to do was provide readers and listeners to the book with a framework they could build on, whether they were just starting out and had zero employees or whether they were operating an enterprise that had thousands of employees and they realized they needed more structure and intentionality.
So as you mentioned, the book outlines eight phases of the employee journey. They all start with the letter A and the idea here is not to confuse you, but rather to have folks say, if you get each of these phases, right, it's like getting straight A's on your report card from your employees. They love the experience of working with you.
They're feeling well taken care of. So these are the eight phases. We'll give a quick overview of each one. The first phase is the assess phase. This is when a prospective employee is trying to decide whether or not they want to work with you. They're checking out your job listing, your one ads, they're going on your website to the careers page or the about us page, they might be checking out your social media channels, they're actually going through your application and hiring process, which may mean submitting resumes or videos or going through interviews.
It's all the things leading up to, is this the candidate we want? We then come to phase two, the accept phase. Now, the accept phase has two component parts. Number one, the employer decides this is the candidate we want to make an offer to. And if we're lucky, that candidate accepts our offer and transitions from being a prospective employee to being an actual employee, a new hire.
We then come to phase three, the affirm phase. Now, Mike, I'd be willing to bet that everybody listening or watching has heard of the phrase buyer's remorse. That fear and doubt and uncertainty that we have right after we make a purchase where we begin to doubt the decision we just made, allow me to introduce you.
If you haven't heard of it before to a new phrase, new hire's remorse. It's the same thing as buyer's remorse. Scientifically proven that a newly hired employee begins to doubt the decision they just made to accept your job offer.
When? immediately after making the acceptance, right? Immediately after they accept, whether that's on a phone call or an email, or they send back their acceptance letter, whatever your process is for accepting, they begin to doubt the decision they just made. So what are you going to do to affirm their choice, to counter those feelings of new hire's remorse?
We then come to phase four, the activate phase. This is the only phase, Mike, in the eight phases that last a single day. It's only one day. And what day is it? The first day on the job when you show up for work for the first day.
And in the immortal words of country music legend, Bonnie Raitt, the key in this, activate phase is that we activate the relationship and as Bonnie Raitt would say, give them something to talk about. So what are we doing to make sure that activate phase? That first day on the job is absolutely remarkable.
Mike, we then come to phase five. Now, phase five, to be candid, is where most employers start to fall apart. Phase five begins on day two on the job and lasts for weeks or even months while the new employee acclimates to your way of doing business. In the acclimate phase, we've got to hold their hand.
We've got to get them comfortable with their new role, the responsibilities they have, the requirements of the job, and the other relationships they're going to be interacting with. See, we've brought on new employees maybe dozens of times, hundreds of times, but to this new employee, they don't know how our business is structured. They don't necessarily even know what we do. They don't know email signatures and who should talk to who and which project goes to where. We've got to help them acclimate to this new world.
We then come to phase six, the accomplish phase. In the accomplish phase, the employee achieves the goal they had when they originally decided to accept the job offer. See every employee, Mike, has a vision of what they think this new job is going to be. And it's not just a chance to get a paycheck, although that's important. We're not delivering on the accomplished phase when we give them a paycheck every two weeks.
The accomplish phase is the accomplishment of acquiring new skills, learning a new trade, being responsible for different projects or different people, getting a promotion, all the things that the employee is hoping to do in their professional and personal life. As visa B, if you will, their role within the organization.
We then come to the adopt phase phase seven. This is when the employee becomes loyal to us and only us. They are committed. They're not going to listen to the phone call from the headhunter. They're not going to be searching the classified ads on the weekends.
They are bought in. And if Mike and only if we've navigated them through all seven of these previous phases, do we come to the eighth phase, the Holy Grail nirvana. The advocate phase, when an employee becomes a raving fan of our organization, singing our praises far and wide. How do they do this? While they're writing reviews on glass door and on other sites, they're also singing our praises publicly in conversations.
And whenever there's a new position open in our organization, they are actively recruiting their friends, their colleagues, the smartest people they've ever worked with to come apply and be part of their new team. Those are the eight phases. And if we pay attention, we can take someone from the first phase all the way to the eighth phase by creating remarkable experiences every step of the way.
Mike Goldman: What I love about that before we get to the six tools is where it starts and where it, I love two things about it. What one is the framework itself sparks a heck of a lot more thinking than how could we do a better job keeping our employees, which maybe you come up with five thoughts, but when you look at, you know, eight different stages, you're going to come up with a hundred different thoughts.
So I love that about it. But the other thing is it starts much earlier than you would expect and it ends much later than you would expect.
Joey Coleman: Mike, that's music to my ears that that's your takeaway because it's so true. I think most employers think about, well, the interviews are kind of part of the job, but not really. You haven't gotten the job yet.
So we'll really start the clock on your first day on the job. Well, by my methodology, that's phase four. There's been three entire phases before the first day on the job. Then most employers also do this. If I were to ask the typical, we can do a little exercise. For all of you listening at home, listening while you do the dishes, while you're working out, while you're commuting to work, ask yourself this question.
Who in your organization is responsible for making sure that day one for a new employee is a great day. Think of the person on your team. Now, some of the people are thinking right now, Mike. Oh, well, the CEO is responsible for that. Some are thinking, Oh, the head of HR is responsible for that. You know, maybe a direct manager is responsible for that. But then I'd like to ask you who's responsible for day two and seven and 13 and 28 and 37 and 41. all these additional days. Most people get really quiet when I ask who's responsible for that, because there isn't anyone in the organization. We expect the employee to figure it out. We take our employees and we throw them into the deep end, and we say, just start swimming around. You know how to swim. You've swum before. Swim.
And that is not an effective way to run an organization. I also agree with you that it goes long beyond into that advocate phase, because the other aspect of advocates that we didn't talk about in my overview is the people who used to work for you, who don't work for you anymore.
Are your former employees still having nice things to say about you? Or, as they left the organization, were you so hurt and offended that they quit, that you decided to pour gasoline all over the bridge of the relationship and light it on fire and burn any relationship with them going forward? We have the opportunity as employers to have our former employees out in the marketplace saying, man, you know, I'm over here at my new job, but let me tell you, I used to work over there and that place is amazing. You should totally go work over there. I left for reasons that had nothing to do with how great it was to work.
I moved to a different state. I, you know, my spouse got a job that required us to relocate, you know, whatever it needed to be that had nothing to do with the job. So you should still go there. That's a person who's still an advocate, even though they're not on the payroll anymore.
Mike Goldman: So Joey, let me take, you asked the question, you said, who's responsible for day one, then who's responsible for day 37. I'm going to turn that back around to you. Cause it's one of the things I was thinking about as I read the book is I'm thinking about the CEO and the rest of the executive team and saying, when we think, and we haven't even gotten to the six tools yet, but when we think of that framework of the eight different phases.
Should we think about it as yeah, this is great. We need to sit down as a team and define those eight phases. What are we doing? What are we not doing? And, you know, Linda, you are accountable since you are our VP of talent development. And I say that because by the way, I hate the term human resources, but.
Joey Coleman: You and me both. The only reason I say HR is because people have an understanding of what that is, but honestly, yes, they're humans. But when you start treating them like resources, that's where you get into a problem.
Mike Goldman: I'm with you.
Joey Coleman: Okay? they're humans, your people department, your humans department.
Mike Goldman: Thank you. Thank you. We're on the same team there. But, should a team, should someone reading this think of this as this is wonderful. We need to create this entire program. Someone needs to be accountable, you know, or is this more. You know, grassroots, the managers start doing the right things or is obviously a whole bunch of gray area in the middle.
But how do you define this? How do you manage this? How do you hold people accountable for doing the right thing here?
Joey Coleman: Well, I think Mike, it depends on the organization and it depends on what your goal is. If you're serious about this, if you really want to treat your people in a remarkable way, if you really want engaged employees who stay with you for the long term, you have to make it a priority, and it's got to be a priority that is on par or above any other priority in your business. You know, so often we start caring about the employee issues. Once we figured out, Oh, are we making the sales?
Are we taking care of the clients you to do? It's kind of an afterthought. It's a trailing response to what we're trying to accomplish. I go and have the pleasure of working with organizations around the world and consulting with them.
And it's one of the joys of my professional career. One of the things I often ask when I start working with a client is I want to see your goals for the year. Where are your organization's goals for the year, and they might have goals like we want to roll out this new product. We want to increase our market share by X dollars.
We want to increase our profitability by Y percentage. We want to hit these type of revenue goals. And what's fascinating to me, Mike, is there'll be this whole list of all these things are going to do. And nowhere on that list is an initiative specifically focused on building their team, strengthening the bonds between their existing employees, adding new talent, thinking down the road.
And, you know, to paraphrase on the proverbial phrase from real estate, location, location, location in the business context, it's recruiting, recruiting, recruiting. You should always be recruiting new employees. Even if you don't have an open position, even if you're not going to hire them so that if you do have an open position appear, you're ready with a short list of who you want to go get people you're already in communication with people who you've already done some initial vetting of.
This is how you build a sustainable business long term. Now, to answer your question specifically, you know, who should be responsible? How should we do this? Well, it depends. Do you want to get there and get there quickly and effectively? Or do you want to get there haphazardly? If you want it to be effective, and you want it to be efficient, and if you want it to create lasting change, it needs to be sponsored by the CEO.
Embraced fully by the entire leadership team and implemented throughout the entire organization. It can't just be top down. It needs to be bottom up as well. We need to get frontline managers involved. We need to get our employees involved. We need to get them engaged and be exploring ways to really make them enjoy coming to work.
And what can we do to maximize their experience as a human, not as a resource. In their time that they spend with us. So I think it's kind of a yes and is how I would answer your question that it needs that executive level, sponsorship and commitment and measuring and tracking and intentionality.
But it can't just be an edict from on high that, Oh, starting tomorrow, everyone care about the people you work with. Well, that's great. But what are we practically going to do to live those words?
Mike Goldman: But what is that? That's like the beatings will continue until morale improves, right?
Joey Coleman: Exactly. Exactly. It's like, there's a reason why, you know, as a recovering lawyer, I know there's a lot of lawyer jokes. What I'm realizing is there are almost as many HR jokes as there are lawyer jokes. It's a close second, it feels like.
Mike Goldman: That's why we need to stop calling it HR.
Joey Coleman: I totally agree.
Mike Goldman: It's hard to tell those jokes So we haven't gotten to the tools. So we talked about the eight phases and a little bit about ownership for implementing them. Take us through, because again, I think this is so helpful because it just drives more, better ideas.
Tell us what the six tools are.
Joey Coleman: Well, I believe there are six communication tools you can use with your employees to create the kind of remarkable experiences that'll keep them coming back for more. Let me give you a really quick overview of all six, and then we can dive into whichever ones sound most interesting.
Number one, in person interactions. In this increasingly remote work world, are we really capitalizing on the opportunities we have when we're all in the same room together? Are we using those opportunities to create bonds, to create friendships, to have those type of, you know, interactions that you can only do in person?
You can't do across the screen. Number two, emails. Now let me be clear, under emails, Mike, I also include Slack or whatever electronic communication tool you're using. There is no one I've ever met anywhere in the world, I've spoken on all seven continents, worked with hundreds of companies globally, who has said to me, Joey, I wish I had more email every day when I turned on my computer.
And yet, this is the number one tool most employers use to communicate with their employees. I'm not opposed to email. What I am opposed to is you using this the way you're currently using it. Emails should have more intention behind them. They should have more excitement. They should drive action. They should create an experience.
Not just be a rote way of checking some boxes and CYA ing that, Oh, I copied 78 people on that email, so therefore I'm good. We need to think differently about our emails. Next, mail. Physical mail. Snail mail. Okay, the OG inbox. It's interesting to me, Mike, that in the United States, at least, and I know you've got listeners from around the world, and this fits in every jurisdiction I'm aware of.
There may be some that don't. So if you're in a jurisdiction, this doesn't apply. Please let me know so I can have an exception when I'm explaining this. But in the United States, as an employer, you're legally required to know the mailing address of your employees. This is a requirement and yet the only reason most employers send anything to their people in the mail is to send them tax documents, maybe an offer letter, definitely a severance letter, and that's about it.
There is a huge opportunity to send your people communications in the mail. You probably have a direct mail program for prospecting. You probably have things that you send your customers in the mail. Why don't we send these things to our people, our employees, our team members? Huge opportunity. Next phone, okay?
And I'm not just talking about texting an employee and saying, it's 9 am, where are you? Or texting an employee and saying, hey, guess what? Lashondra couldn't come into work today, I'm gonna need you to take her shift, okay? I'm talking about texting communications that are personal, that are fun, that are engaging, the occasional gif or gif, depending on where you're from, the occasional personalized video, you know, calling an employee and letting them know how much you value them, talking to them on the phone, as opposed to sending an email, especially if you have to have an important conversation.
How are we using the phone? The fifth tool is videos. Most people listening have videos on their website that are outbound marketing videos for customers to see. When was the last time you created videos for your employees? When was the last time you shot a little selfie video to an employee telling them how much they mattered and how much you valued their contribution to your team and texted it to them? Well, the sound you hear, Mike, right now is the quiet of most people saying, the last time would be never, Joey.
I've never done that. Huge opportunity. And last but not least gifts. Okay. And pro tip here. If it's an article of clothing that has your company logo on it, that's not a gift. That's a uniform. I'm not opposed to you having uniforms. I'm not opposed to you having logoed items that you give your people. But by gift, I mean something that lets the recipient know that you were listening when they were talking.
What do I mean by that? They shared their favorite author, their favorite movie, their favorite place to go on vacation, their dog's name, their kid's names, what their kids are in school, where they're hoping to be spending some of their personal time this weekend, whatever they like to do as a hobby. When you give a gift, that speaks to one of those personal loves or personal interests that your employee has. It takes the relationship to an entirely different place.
Mike Goldman: Joey, how is all of this impacted by this world we're now living in some combination of remote work, hybrid work. Yes, some are back full time, but a lot of folks are remote hybrid. And I imagine it'll stay that way. And I guess I want to ask how does it impact from 2 different standpoints? First is how does it impact the importance of all this?
We've all heard the great resignation, all that stuff. So number one, I want you to answer is, how does it impact the importance of all this? And number two, especially as it relates to the six tools, how does it impact how we implement this when we're remote hybrid? So start with, is this more important in a remote hybrid world or has it always been important?
Joey Coleman: Well, I would posit, Mike, that it's always been important, but the significance of the importance or the magnitude of the importance has increased exponentially during COVID and post COVID. And to your point, is never going back to the way it was. I'm sorry folks, you heard it first from Mike and Joey, and I don't know if Mike agrees with this, but I'll just throw myself into this. If you are waiting for things to go back to the way they were in 2019, please don't hold your breath, because you're going to pass out.
Okay? It's not going to happen. The ship has sailed. Those days are over now. Are we getting back to more people being in the office working? Yes. Are we ever going to go back to everyone in the office every day? No, nor should we. Let's stop romanticizing how awesome things were in 2019. Very few people were waking up in the morning in 2019 going, Oh, awesome.
I get to spend the day at work today. No, most people are like, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe it. I'm running late. I got a commute. My commutes an hour and a half each way. I'm going to go to work. I'm not going to be able to get what I done because Bob keeps coming over to my desk and chat me up during work. Then I'm gonna have to deal with Susie and her politics are just ridiculous.
And she's gonna be going on and on about that. It wasn't that awesome before. It's also the case that employees have come to realize that the emperor has no clothes. What do I mean by that? Well, employees have finally woken up to the understanding that nothing from the typical corporation's behavior indicates a long term commitment to that employee. Sorry, hate to be the one that's the bearer of bad news, but when you send an employee an initial contract of employment where you talk about being an at will employer, I understand that legally you have to do that, but that's like saying, Hey, I'd like to get married to you. But by the way, here, along with the engagement ring is the prenup and the prenup basically says, I can decide to end this anytime I want
and you have no recourse. Are we wondering why employees are starting to say, I'm not sure how loyal I want to be to this organization. So the game is over. The game has changed and the game has changed for the top employers, the employers of choice. So if you're not a top employer or employer of choice, that's the new criteria that's being applied to.
Seeking out and recruiting new talent, getting folks on board and giving them the kind of perks and benefits and flexibility and experience that's going to keep somebody engaged and retained. Now, the second part of your question.
Mike Goldman: Well, let me one more thing.
Joey Coleman: Yeah please.
Mike Goldman: One more. Sorry Joey. With the first one
Joey Coleman: No, go ahead.
Mike Goldman: Is that I'd love you to comment on is people have more choice than they've ever had before in a remote world where you could recruit from anywhere. That that certainly gives employers more choice, which is great. But to an employee, they don't just have to work.
Oh, I want to make sure my commutes 30 minutes away or 40 minutes away. So that's another reason why I imagined this is all much more important than maybe it was three years ago, four years ago.
Joey Coleman: Mike, you're spot on. I mean, we started this conversation by talking about how old you and I were, right? Here's the thing. When we were coming up, when we were first entering the workforce, 40 years ago ish. Okay. It is the case that almost everyone we knew worked for an employer who had their headquarters within 30 miles of your house. I don't know about you, that's everybody I knew.
Everybody who I knew coming up, they worked for a company or an organization that they would commute to that office and that office was within, give or take, 30 miles of their house. Granted, there were some folks that worked for more national brands, but even the national brands often had a regional office or something like that.
It's now the case that if you work for an employer who's within 30 miles of your house, it tells me a couple of things about the type of employee you are. Either you work in a very small business. I'm going to define that small business as less than 10 employees. Or you work in a business that's very hands on.
For example, you're a chiropractor. Chiropractors haven't figured out how to do remote adjustments, so you got to be there in person to do the adjustment, right? Or the skill that you are providing to your employer is probably a skill they could get somewhere else. Sorry. I hate to break it to you, but that's the practical reality. To your point, though, employees have also started to realize this. One of the biggest challenges that my consulting clients are facing right now is companies outside of the United States coming into their employee base and hiring their employees away from them and saying, Hey, we'll let you work remotely.
We'll give you all the American holidays. We're a French company. We'll also give you all the French holidays, which now means you have like four months off. I mean, it's amazing, right? And we'll pay you your existing salary or more. And you'll get the flexibility of being able to work from home guaranteed.
We're never going to make you come to the office, or if we are, we'll make you come to the office in Paris. Once a year, this is the competition and the employees have started to realize this. The employers have started to realize this. And to your point, it's not going away anytime soon, Which actually segues us to the second part of your question. How do we use these tools and why are these tools important? And are they as important now as they were then?
I would posit that as our world becomes more digital, the analog interactions become that much more important. If your employees are going to be operating remotely. Sending them presents, sending them things in the mail that show up to their house is more valuable. If everybody's going to be on Zoom all day, every day, or Skype or whatever, you know, video chat tool you're using or video communication tool you're using, getting the team together in person at least twice a year is hugely important.
Oh, and by the way, when you get them together in person, don't have everybody go to the Holiday Inn ballroom and all sit in the same room and do a training all day. Get them out on a miniature golf course. Get them out in an amusement park. Take them to a bar and do axe throwing. I don't care what you do, allow them to interact with their fellow workers. Their co workers, their colleagues, allow them to have those type of personal connections. Sure, bring them in for some brainstorming or something like that, but what are you doing to create in person remarkable experiences for your people to build teams and to build bonds?
Mike Goldman: I love that. And I'll tell you a quick example from one of my clients is they are the company that's been around for about 50 years. And there's a wonderful gentleman that just retired, but worked for them for about 45 of those years. So he was the historian and he had gotten to the age that he slowed down a little bit and his value.
And by the way, this is tremendous value, his value to the organization was he was the historian. He was the one who you would, you know, see in the cafeteria or have that water cooler conversation and talking to him when you just leave and you just know so much more about the company and where you fit in and when they were forced to go remote when COVID happened, his value dwindled
to near nothing because that water cooler quote, unquote, water cooler conversation didn't happen anymore. And I was talking to their VP of talent development, not called HR. They called the VP of talent development, talking to her and she felt she's like, this guy had so much value and man, we're not sure how to keep him keep giving that value.
In this new world, because no one is saying, Oh, let me check in with him for five minutes to ask a question on this. It was more of the run in conversations between meetings. So you miss that. So to use all of these different communication tools to try to get that back is so critical.
Joey Coleman: Absolutely. And Mike, I would posit that. This person that you were telling us about, this historian, his value actually was more important in a digital era.
They just didn't figure out how to capitalize on that. They just didn't figure out how to replicate those in office collisions that occur in a hallway or at a water cooler in a digital world. And that's where thinking, I mean, talk about a thought exercise that would be useful for a leadership team. How can we create collisions with our people so that we're building connection. We're building bonds.
We're building, you know, communication between folks when everybody's working from home. Well, the way you do that is things like zoom happy hours, zoom game nights, getting everybody together in person, sending, you know, pen pals and packages that you can do that
float between different houses so that people feel this physical connection to the other people you're working with. One last example I'll share this is a company that regrettably didn't make the book. We have over 50 case studies in the book from all seven continents. But as I go out and I continue to talk about the book, I'm meeting new companies and talking to them and learning about them.
I was talking with a company the other day that's a property management firm. And they have a lot of remote employees. Now stop and think, if a property management firm can have remote employees, your business probably doesn't have an excuse. Right? Because we're talking about a physical management, a management of a property.
They've got team members, some that are based locally, but some that are based remotely. And when they think about hiring employees remotely, the first thing they do is identify where they have existing employees living, and they pepper those regions with job ads. The idea being that if they can get a cluster of three, four, a half a dozen employees in the same geographic region, then what happens is a manager will come along and they'll send a message and say, Hey, everyone, we're all going to get together for lunch.
Here's how this is going to work. Let's pick a day and a time where we can all meet. We'll find someplace here in town where we can all meet up for lunch. And the company's going to pay for it. And it's a two hour lunch with no agenda. Just hang out. We don't have talking points. You don't have to report back on anything. Just go have lunch. And hang out with each other on a Friday for two hours.
Mike Goldman: But you need a PowerPoint presentation don't you?
Joey Coleman: I mean, yeah, exactly right and I think we often believe as leaders, that building team requires a PowerPoint, an agenda, three worksheets.
A facilitator building team can be, Hey, we're all going to go sit at a restaurant and chat. It can be, we're going to meet in a park. And by the way, if you have kids or pets, bring your kids or pets and let them play and the rest of us will stand here around the edges of the periphery of the playground, letting the kids and play the dogs and whatever play. I mean, it doesn't have to be as complex as we often try to make it.
Mike Goldman: Yeah. So Joey, in the time we've got left, we're certainly not going to be able to drill into all eight phases but that's why you're here. People have got to go read the book for that, but I want to hit a couple of specifics and before we start to wrap up. And one is, and I just want to hit two things that I see people get wrong.
All the people get things wrong in all eight phases, but the first one I want to hit on is that time you mentioned between the job offer. And the first day of work, the job offer and that activate that first day of work. What are some mistakes? More importantly, what are some ideas? You had so many great case studies in the book.
What are some ideas from the time that job offer is accepted to the time people start work? So people don't have new employee remorse. I think you called it. What are some ideas people could grab that may help them there?
Joey Coleman: Mike, I love this question and I agree with you. This is probably the phase that if I look across all businesses globally, there is the most room for improvement in this affirm stage, this new hires remorse stage where they begin to doubt the decision they just made. Number one. acknowledging that you're not doing anything in this phase is the first step to improvement.
Most businesses aren't having any communication, or if they are, it is hyper tactical communication. What do I mean? Oh, Mike, thanks so much for accepting the job offer. We're super excited to have you start with us. Here's a link to fill out a bunch of paperwork, and we'll see you at two seven four Main Street at 9am on Monday the 12th. Like, it's very tactical. It's not warm. It's not exciting.
What can you do? Well, I like to think there are two key things you can do during the affirm stage. Number one, let that new hire know that you are excited that they said yes. Show some emotion. Send them a video of the team cheering that they accepted the job offer. Send them a thoughtful voice memo that just says, you know, I just got back to the office and I saw that you had accepted the offer and I got to tell you, a huge smile came over my face. In the interview, you were clear in a way the best candidate for the job.
We are so excited to have you on the team. Oh my gosh, we're going to get into it when you get here for your first day, but just know, I am going to be waiting. When you arrive on the first day, because I'm so eager that you've decided to join our team. There is not a human being on the planet, Mike, that doesn't want to feel that they matter.
That doesn't want to feel that they're valued. That doesn't want to feel that they're appreciated. There is such low hanging fruit for employers to just let the people know that we're excited that they accepted the offer that alone can often counterbalance any feelings of fear, doubt, or uncertainty they have about the new job.
The second thing is how can we make that first day feel less daunting before they show up for the first day. So maybe sending them the agenda of what the first day is going to be. One thing a lot of employers fail to do is even sending them an example of what the dress code is. The number of employees new hires that stress out about what to wear for the first day at work is astronomical.
Now, some people listening to this are like, Joey, that sounds ridiculous. Folks, look at the research. Go talk to your people and say, Hey, were you wondering what to wear on the first day? And I guarantee you people be like, yeah, I had no idea and then when I showed up, I realized I had overdressed, or I had underdressed, or maybe I got lucky and I threaded the needle perfectly. Sending a little message like that, that says, Hey, by the way, here's the agenda for the day. Here's what we'd like you to wear. Here's some of the things you can expect to happen. Here are the people you're going to meet with a photograph and a little bio. It's kind of like when you you know, you go to a wedding and it's just like, you're the newbie.
And suddenly you're meeting everyone. Everybody knows who you are, but you're meeting everyone for the first time. What can we do to make sure that that new hire is going to be able to feel as much comfort when they show up for work? What can we do in the pre time leading into that to prep them and to educate them on that?
Mike Goldman: Love it. Second thing I want to drill into that I loved is you differentiate two words that are often used interchangeably orientation and onboarding. Tell us the difference between the two and why that, you know, the difference between the two and maybe some ideas there that may help others do a better job.
Joey Coleman: Well, I understand, Mike, and appreciate that some folks use these words interchangeably. However, I think it's a mistake in not recognizing the opportunity to differentiate these words. So orientation is an introduction to an employee's new surroundings and employment activities. This could include things like this is when you need to be here. This is when we open and close. This is where the bathrooms are.
This is where the fire extinguisher is located in case of a fire. Do this, do to do. What's amazing, Mike, is you would get that same type of orientation if you went on a cruise. Like if you go on a cruise, they're like, here's where you get your food. Here's where the bathrooms are. If there's a fire, do this. I'm not saying these aren't important things, but they don't necessarily create a feeling of community and belonging. These are tactical discussions.
Whereas onboarding I define is inviting in new employees. Using a managed, structured series of contacts that are designed to create a warm, welcoming experience. Let's break down those words. Inviting in. Not a forced call. Not a do this or else. It's an invitation to come be part of something bigger than themselves. Inviting in a new employee using a managed, structured series of contacts.
Not a, hey, if you get Juan as your onboarding guide, you're going to be fantastic, he's amazing, he'll take care of you. If you get Jack over on this side, well, good luck, like he's not the best with people, but he's a top performer, so we keep them managing, folks. You know, they need to be structured, they need to be consistent, they need to be intentional.
And these contacts need to be designed, not haphazardly thrown together, designed to create a warm, welcoming experience. Not an orientation experience, but an experience of feeling like you're being embraced, a feeling of you're part of this, we've got you, you're going to be taken care of, you're going to be provided for. If we just shifted our thinking from orientation to onboarding, we see an improvement in retention. And don't just take my word for it.
Okay. Research that has been documented by Glassdoor research that's been documented by the department of labor shows that employees that say they had a strong onboarding experience. We ask them, did you have a strong onboarding experience? It increases retention by 82 percent, productivity by 70 percent and the typical employee will stay for a minimum of three years of employment.
Now we counterbalance that against the fact that 40 percent of new hires. 40 percent of new hires will not make the one year anniversary date of their employment.
Mike Goldman: Wow.
Joey Coleman: 40%. So you can solve all these people running out the back door as quickly as you bring them in the front by just focusing on having a strong onboarding program to get the foundation built.
Mike Goldman: So Joey, this isn't a live show, but somehow magically I could hear the audience saying, this stuff is great. I love it. I'm going to go buy the book, but I'm already too busy. How the hell am I going to find time to do all this other stuff? How do you respond to that?
Joey Coleman: So I absolutely understand that we live in a busy time in a busy era. And as a fellow business leader and business owner, I am not sitting around saying, gosh, what am I going to do tomorrow? I've got four days here where I've got nothing on the agenda, or schedule. Here's what I know to be true. If you do not have employee experience as one of the top three initiatives you are working on right now.
I can start a stopwatch to measure how much longer you're going to be in business. And here's what we know when we look at that. Okay, what we know is that 65 percent, 65 percent of current employees are actively considering another job. So my question to anybody who doesn't have enough time to work on this now is which 65 percent of your employees are gonna have to leave? before you decide this is worthy of your time and attention. It's your choice.
We're living in a fast evolving era. We're living in a time where employers are being asked to pay attention to and consider things that they never even had on the bingo card, let alone have been trained or ready for. My hope is that with this framework, you've got a starting place to say, how can we begin to think more actively and more intentionally about the experiences we're creating for our employees, and then have a roadmap to actually build out those touch points to start to make the experience better.
Mike Goldman: And this is why something you said earlier is so important. Having it sponsored from the top is going to make sure if it's one of those top three priorities. If, you know, the CEO is listening to this. If it's one of your top three priorities, you've got to make sure that you're allowing for the time to do this.
You're holding people accountable for it where if you're trying to do it grassroots, you may not have the time. So I think that ties together. So, Joey, last question before we wrap up is that, you know, there's so many great ideas in the book. So many ideas you've shared with us here. How do we start?
Someone who, who says, you know what, I need to go, and yes, they should start by reading the book. Let's put that aside. They start by reading the book, but someone who says, yeah, I've really got to focus on this. It could seem overwhelming. Where do you start?
Joey Coleman: So let me throw down a little bit of a gauntlet of a challenge, Mike, to the listener, something that they could do as soon as they're done with this episode.
Stop this episode. This is going to take you less than five minutes. And will get the ball rolling on better employee experiences. Here's what you do.
I want you to think everyone who's listening, think of an employee, a member of your team who you couldn't do the work, you know, you need to do without them. They're hugely valuable. They're amazing. They're the employee or the team member you're most excited to work with. They do a great job. You never seem to have an issue with them. They're always bringing the right energy and right attitude to the table.
They're doing a great job. Awesome. Now I want you to pull out your phone. I want you to turn on the camera and flip it to selfie mode. Slide over the selector to video, and I want you to shoot a video that is paraphrasing something along, like, along the lines of this script. And Mike, I'll pretend it's for you, just to set some context, alright? Hey, Mike, I just wanted to send you a quick video.
I was listening to this, you know, crazy speaker on this podcast. I was listening to the other day, you know, the better leadership team podcast. And the speaker was talking about remarkable employees. And he asked all of us to think about who is the one member of your team that your business couldn't function without. And I immediately thought of you. You're amazing. The contributions you make to our team are absolutely incredible. You show up to every meeting with a spring in your step and a smile on your face. Whenever we're looking for volunteers, you're always quick to help. Your numbers are always in the way they're supposed to.
You respond to emails quickly. You're just, not only do you get the job done, but you're a delight to work with. And I just want you to know, I so appreciate and value you. I value everything you bring to our organization. I value everything you bring to me personally. You're amazing. Thank you for everything you do. Know that you're appreciated. Know that you're valued. Know that you're loved. And we couldn't get the work done that we need to get done here without you. Thanks so much. And I look forward to seeing you soon.
Mike Goldman: Wow.
Joey Coleman: And then Mike, here's the secret. Now see all of that. Hopefully people are like, okay, okay, here's the secret. Send. Do not watch the video. Text it and send it. Because here's what's going to happen, because you're human. You're going to go, I want to watch the video, see how I sounded, see how I looked, what the lighting was, do do.
No, no, no. If it was from the heart, if it was unscripted, if you spoke your truth, if you gave specific examples of why this person matters to you, just hit send and text it to them. You will immediately start to shift how you think about your employees and how your employees think about you when you start sending videos like this.
And if you had fun making one, maybe make one tomorrow, and maybe make one the next day. And there is not a leader on the planet. That shouldn't be carving out five minutes a day to send a thanks for being here.
You matter video to a team member. You could do it every day. You can even do it on the weekends. A little five minute habit that will probably do more to move the dial on your employee experience than any other multi month, multi million dollar huge initiative that you might adopt. It's simple, it's straightforward. And, I promise you, it'll change the conversation.
Mike Goldman: Powerful. Powerful stuff. All of this is powerful stuff. Joey, thanks so much for doing this. This was great. If someone wants to find out more about you, your books, your speaking, your consulting, where should they go?
Joey Coleman: Oh, Mike, I so appreciate it. It's been a pleasure being on the show. The book is called Never Lose an Employee Again. It's available wherever you like to get books in whatever format you like to consume them. What do I mean by that? Well, if you like reading the hardcover version, so you can highlight and take notes in the margins, there's a hardcover version. If you're more of a Kindle or Nook user, you want to highlight in your digital reader, we've got the ebook version.
And if you've enjoyed the sound of my voice, I actually narrate the audio book. so you can listen to me read the book to you as well, and you can even jack it up to three X speed, and I'll talk really fast, and you'll still get the point across, okay? If you want more support on this, my website is joeycoleman.com, that's J O E Y, like a baby kangaroo, or a five year old, you know. Coleman, C O L E M A N. Like the camping equipment, but no relation joeycolman.com there you can find all kinds of resources to support your employee experience or your customer experience. And if I can be of any help in either a speaking or consulting capacity, don't hesitate to fill out a form on the website. And we can talk about what that might look like too.
Mike Goldman: Well, Joey, I think we're all glad you are no longer an attorney. And thanks so much.
Joey Coleman: Thanks Mike. I so appreciate it. And thanks to everybody for listening in today.