Building Collaboration and Trust in the Workplace with Dan Schawbel

In this episode, I am joined by Dan Schawbel. He’s a New York Times bestselling author and the managing partner of Workplace Intelligence, a research and advisory firm helping HR adapt to trends, drive performance and prepare for the future.

Dan and I discuss workplace trust and how we can better build it within organizations. Listening to employees and building connections encourages employees and helps them get behind a company’s vision of success.

Listen to this episode to understand the foundations of collaboration and trust in the workplace.

Punk Rock HR is proudly sponsored by UKG. They are an award-winning all-in-one HR platform. If you’re curious and want to fix work and do HR better, check out our sponsors at UKG.com.

Download my white paper “The Way Forward: A Look at Post-Crisis Work Life,” created in partnership with UKG.

Building Workplace Trust by Listening to Employees

While trust looks different in every organization, the foundations of trust are built on three things: integrity, values and communication.

We live in a time when organizations are able to engage with their employees in more ways than ever before. Slack, video conferencing, surveys, one-on-one meetings and other daily interactions all provide organizations with an opportunity to learn more about how their employees define, value and evaluate trustworthiness — and act on it.

Despite the many opportunities for leaders to establish trust with their employees, it’s still possible to lose it all in a single moment.  Dan highlights the relationship between trust and branding. “You could spend decades building a brand and then make one mistake, and your reputation is destroyed. And I think it’s the same with building trust as a leader.”

As part of a study on employee trust with UKG, Dan interviewed the CEOs of Netflix, Whole Foods, and other companies early on during COVID-19. Dan wanted to know their feelings on trust because the employee’s voice is just as important as the voice of the customer.

Key questions included: What do my employees need right now? What do they expect today? And how will I respond and take action based on those needs, demands and requirements?

Building Trust in the Workplace

I wanted to hear about some of the great organizations finding a way to attract and retain talent. So many companies simply whine that they can’t.

Today might be “the best job market in our lifetime,” Dan says. “Over 15 million Americans have quit their jobs this year so far. Match that with about 11 million unfilled jobs in America, which is the highest in my career. Since I’ve even been paying attention to this. It’s astronomically high. And so that’s why they call it the Great Resignation.”

Companies are paying attention, too. Dan gave a clear example by discussing Walmart’s behavior. Walmart announced that two-thirds of their hourly workers are going to become full-time workers with benefits. “To me, that is like a symbol of change. It’s a symbol of a completely different economy that we’re in this year versus last year. Minimum wages have gone up. You have a lot of people over the past year who are burned out.”

Walmart isn’t the only company reimagining how they support their employees. Another example of listening and implementing is Citigroup. The financial services firm is allowing remote work two days a week and has added a Zoom-free day. If a 100,000-person organization can do it, anyone can. According to Dan, this is a topic every company should be considering for the future of their organization. “We really need to support our employees now because it’s not just talent that is their greatest asset. It’s more than that. It’s the cost of replacing this talent. We can’t afford not to do something about it.”

Building a Sense of Community

I ask Dan about the future of work. What are some of the trends that business leaders and HR professionals should look out for?

Dan explains that the first thing an organization needs to do to establish trust. “They have to encourage people to continue to work there and get behind their vision to succeed.” One of the primary ways Dan sees leaders building trust is their openness to flexibility for their workforce. Giving workers opportunities to control aspects of their workflows allows them to prioritize their needs and feel more secure, and this trend is here to stay, says Dan.

However, people tend to have short memories, and it is crucial not to forget what we’ve learned during the pandemic. “I think the thing that I most fear is that when we get into this new normalcy fully, and it becomes safer to go back to the office and people feel more secure … that people will forget about what we experienced.”

At the same time, we have to keep the mental health of our employees at the forefront. Technology is both good and bad, as Dan puts it. Isolation and loneliness can happen to anyone, and remote workers experience it at a higher rate. Companies must get in front of what could turn into a “burnout epidemic.”

How do we ensure that we carry trust and connection with us into the future? Dan puts it nicely: “It’s overemphasizing being human in a digital world.”

[bctt tweet=”‘You could spend decades building a brand and then make one mistake and your reputation is destroyed. And I think it’s the same with building trust as a leader.’ ~ @DanSchawbel. Hear more about building employee trust on @PunkRockHR!” via=”no”]

Watch This Episode

People in This Episode

Full Transcript

Laurie Ruettimann:

Punk Rock HR is proudly sponsored by UKG. Are you interested in fixing work? Are you a leader or a human resources professional? Well, UKG offers an award-winning all-in-one HR platform that will definitely make your life easier. Head on over to ukg.com for more information.

Hey everybody. I’m Laurie Ruettimann. Welcome to Punk Rock HR. My guest today is Dan Schawbel. He’s a New York Times bestselling author and the managing partner of Workplace Intelligence, a research and advisory firm helping HR adapt to trends, drive performance and prepare for the future. He’s got a great newsletter, as well, called the Workplace Intelligence Insider Newsletter. So check that out.

On today’s show, Dan and I are talking about the latest research about the new world of work, and we’re busting myths, talking about COVID and having an interesting conversation about the future of work that you won’t find any place else. So if you’re like me and you want to know what’s up with the world of work, where is it going, and what do I need to do in human resources to prepare, we’ll sit back and enjoy this conversation with Dan Schawbel.

Hey Dan, welcome to the podcast.

Dan Schawbel:

Happy to be here with you, Laurie.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Oh, I’m pleased that you’re here and we’re going to get into all the reasons why I absolutely think you’re the bomb, but before we do that, why don’t you tell everybody who you are and what you’re all about?

Dan Schawbel:

I’m the managing partner of Workplace Intelligence, an HR research and advisory firm. We do big thought leadership campaigns involving the latest research reports for Oracle, WeWork and various other companies. And I also authored three books including “Me 2.0” back in the day in 2009, and then “Promote Yourself” in 2013, and then “Back to Human” in 2018, right before COVID that we’ve experienced over the past year and a half.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Yeah. Well you’re also a LinkedIn Learning instructor. Is that correct?

Dan Schawbel:

Yeah. I just released my second course, which is “Managing Your Wellbeing as a Leader” because, of course, a lot of people have been suffering from mental health and overall just being burned out over the past year. So I thought it was good timing to help them as people start to transition to a hybrid workplace.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Yeah, that’s great. And that’s a great segue into what I want to talk about today, which is the world of work, where we are, where we’re going. But before we get started, you and I started out many, many years ago, as buddies talking about the world of work, and it feels like while work has changed, a lot of things are the same. So before we get to that, tell me what your work experience has been like over the past year and a half, because you’ve had some significant changes. It’s not like you’re just an analyst. You’re living in the world of work as well.

Dan Schawbel:

Yeah. I’m pretty much obsessed with this space like you. So it’s been over 10 years, you’ve been doing it for longer. It’s been 60 research studies in nine years. So I’m really obsessed with data and learning about how to improve work environments. A lot of the things that I’ve experienced have stayed the same. It’s been working remote for over 10 years. So a fourth of people who’d never worked remote ever in their lifetime did for the first time at the beginning of COVID, whereas me, I was like, “oh, this is just another Monday.”

And so I actually got to help a lot of my friends adjust to this new norm for them, at least because they didn’t have the right office set up. They didn’t have the right technology in place. They didn’t want to look bad on camera. And so there was this big adjustment period, but then towards May to September, I think people were well-adjusted and a good percentage of people enjoyed working remote.

So the number of people working remote, who said they worked remote, at least sometimes in a Gallup poll was upwards of 73% at the height of COVID. So I think that remote work is here to stay, but also the hybrid work arrangement is going to be preferred by over 50% of the workforce. And we’ve done multiple studies on this that confirm it, as well as additional Gallup data has also said this. So I think that people liked the best of both worlds. The office is a great way to gather with people and harness creativity and brainstorm and build deeper trusting relationships.

One of the findings we found in a study with UKG was that people who were in the office are more trusted than those who work remote. And there’s a ton of research over time that has concluded this because of course, if you’re in person with someone, you get to know them at a much deeper level, but also what’s really been fascinating and you’ve seen over the past year, I believe you still have cats.

Laurie Ruettimann:

I do. I’ve got four.

Dan Schawbel:

Yeah. So like people get a better sense of who you are because they’re now seeing the cat and you probably wouldn’t normally bring the cat into the office. I mean, some companies allow you to do that, but people are getting a gateway into your personal life in a way they didn’t before. And that has also fascinated me.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, I love that we’re talking about that because at UKG, there’s this constant theme of work-life negotiation, trying to figure it out. It’s not work-life balance. It’s not like work-life integration. It’s more of a negotiation. And you’ve had to negotiate your way over the past year. I mean, you moved in the middle of a pandemic, which I find to be fascinating. Tell me what that was like to actually physically move when the world is on lockdown.

Dan Schawbel:

Yeah. A lot of people made this decision. So, I mean, for me, I was living with my parents for seven months. I was in New York, signed a brand-new lease and visited my parents. And then I started to see the death toll, the COVID case count, and I kept delaying and delaying my train, canceling all my speaking gigs. And it got to a point where I’m like, OK, I’m just going to relocate because the future is uncertain. I want to be closer to family and friends. And a lot of people in New York had bail. They had left to go to Colorado, or California, or Jersey, or Long Island, or the Hamptons. And I was like, I don’t want to be left here alone in a small apartment to kind of fend for myself and be in isolation, especially after I wrote a book about work and isolation and loneliness.

So it was a huge change. And then I just decided to relocate back last September. And so I’ve been here ever since. And it’s quieter, less stressful. If anything happens, I feel like I’m a little bit more detached from the uncertainty that a lot of people are going to experience. In terms of overall analysis, I think that there have been some silver linings for people, but there’s been also a lot of destruction. The way I look at it as, there is a two-tiered economy, at least in America, but mostly globally, it’s hourly workers versus knowledge workers. So if you want to describe the economy, if you’re an hourly worker, your life experience over the past two years is vastly different in terms of pay. And I know UKG serves a lot of the hourly worker communities through all their clients and all those retail chains, as well, versus a knowledge worker who had the privilege to work remote.

Dan Schawbel:

If you’re an hourly worker, you’re much less likely to work remote. And I’ve seen a lot of data on this. It’s about a 50-50 split in terms of hourly workers versus knowledge workers. So, totally different experiences. One has had it much harder than the other. And so I think that when we enter these organizations, when we think about going to a restaurant, or supermarket or pharmacy, we need a different level of empathy and care than ever before. I mean, they’re essential workers, they kept us alive during the past two years. But it is also realizing that there is a vast difference between how we experienced it, you and I, and many of the people listening versus someone who’s going to a pharmacy or a supermarket every day.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Yeah. Believe me, my heart is out there for individuals who have to deal with my family members and the general public. If you’re an hourly worker and you’re dealing with people I’m related to, you’ve got my full and total appreciation. And that’s what I really want to talk about today. Like this dichotomy of the workforce and what’s happening in the hourly sector and what’s happening in the professional sector. And I know you’ve got a ton of research out there. So just let’s level-set. Where are we in the world of work in late 2021?

Dan Schawbel:

Great division, but also great opportunity. We did a recent study with UKG. It was a global study of thousands of workers. And what was really interesting is we started employee voice. And we looked at the “heards” and the “heards not.” I didn’t come up with that, but it’s a really good idea because if people are so divided and so spread out and decentralized, we can’t forget about people. Everyone is equal in a sense where we should care about all employees, not just a subset. And what we found is that non-caregivers, their voices are heard more than caregivers, and essential workers’ voices are heard less than non-essential workers. And younger workers are heard less than older workers, younger workers being Gen Z and millennials. So there is a very unequal playing field. And aside from being the two-tiered system we talked about, if there is a hybrid work environment and people are in the office getting closer to senior leadership, they have a competitive advantage when it comes to their career versus people who work remote still, even though the stigma isn’t as bad as it used to be.

It is still again, building trust in-person matters. So I think that you’re seeing the two-tiered system, you’re seeing this tension between remote and people who work in an office, as well as hourly workers versus knowledge workers. And I think that when leaders have to create their new agenda and think about the new normalcy, I don’t call it post-pandemic. It’s the new normalcy, because we’re potentially in this for years, like who knows? It’s weird to even say that.

So in this new normalcy it’s about how do we bring people closer together, promote diversity, inclusion, equity, belonging. How do we make sure that the employee’s voice is being heard loudly and clearly? And I talked to a lot of leaders actually over the past week about this — like, CEOs of pretty decent-sized companies. And it’s really about using technology to collect as much data as possible to make decisions and not just have it be like, “oh, like our competitor’s doing this, let’s just do it.” Because every company is different.

I was reading this great article where they interviewed 20 of the biggest CEOs, including the CEO of Verizon, and all the CEOs shared something in common. They said, there’s no one-size-fits-all plan or program. And I think it makes sense because there’s so many variables. What type of position is this? What industry are you in? Do you have hourly workers versus knowledge workers? What country are you doing business in? Who is the leader? And then preference, employees might want to go back or not go back. Safety protocols. There’s all these different variables that need to be considered. And thus, my overall conclusion is that every company is going to be different, and every team is going to be different. And how employees face this and their preferences are probably going to be different because, from an employee perspective, it’s even more complicated.

So it’s like, where are you living in terms of what your finances look like? That’s going to matter. Do you have one child, two children? Are you living alone? Everyone’s felt this a little bit different. And so I think it’s so much harder for a leader to make the right decisions. And then there’s another added thing that’s really interesting. So in February, I was looking at, are companies going to require a mandate, the vaccine to go back into the office place? And it was like 4%. And now more recently it’s upwards of like 14% to 20% are mandating it. And I think it’s going to happen more and more and more. And so I think that the safest organizations now, truthfully are the ones that are fully remote, because if you have a full remote policy, you’re not going to get sued. If you are mandating the vaccine, there is a probability that you will get sued because people will scream discrimination.

So I think that that’s actually the safest thing that can happen. And here’s another layer that people aren’t thinking about. People are going to be getting their booster shots at various times. So how’s everyone going to be able to keep track of all this? And I think that if you’re a leader right now in a hybrid work environment, or you are going to bring workers back full time in the office, like a Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, that’s going to be quite difficult for you to manage. And that’s why I think it is the hardest time to be a leader. And there’s multiple studies that came out, including our study with Oracle last year, that proved that this is the toughest challenge a leader has ever faced. But I think it’s actually going to get even more complicated because again, it’s uncharted territory. There’s no compass that’s being handed out to help people get through this. It’s experimentation over the next year, seeing what’s working, being able to adjust.

So it is this daily, monthly, annual adjustment period that people are having to get used to. So back in the day, let’s say six, seven years ago, I did a study and I looked at, “Hey, what are the most important qualities when hiring and promoting workers?” And adaptability was not that high. I think it was like No. 6 or so. Communication was up there, being able to delegate work, prioritize work, et cetera. Adaptability is way up there now, because this is not just adaptability — “Hey, like every year your business might go through a transformation and we’re releasing new products, services. We’re going to adopt new collaborative tools.” This is like every day. Things are constantly changing and we need to adapt. And I always have thought this, even since when I was like 22 and focusing on personal branding. It’s the biggest challenge for a professional today is to stay relevant. And part of that right now is to be adaptable.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, as you were talking about the changing nature of work and the CEO studies and they’re feeling that there’s no one-size-fits-all. You did say something earlier in the conversation that I really love. And that is that there’s this element of trust that’s emerging that’s so incredibly important. And while trust looks different in every organization, the foundations of trust are really built in integrity, values, communication. I think there’s this cool opportunity with technology where you can create an intersection where you’re constantly listening and communicating, whether people are in real life or virtual and really having an ongoing dialogue within your organization to understand what trust means and how you fulfill those expectations. So talk to me a little bit about the role of trust and what some of your research says.

Dan Schawbel:

I’m a student of branding. I’ve always loved the word “branding.” Back in the day, it was personal branding. And you could spend decades building a brand and then make one mistake and your reputation is destroyed. And I think it’s the same with building trust as a leader. It’s every single day, you being honest with people, is it constant communication? Are you making people feel safe and secure? Are you making the right decisions, for instance, in the office place? Is there hand sanitizer? Are you going to use technology so people know how many people are in each office room so you don’t have 10 people crowded next to each other? Are you going to have a mask policy? It’s all of those safety precautions, and it’s also about letting people know and being in constant communication because you’re not seeing them physically, for the most part. And so that means you have to communicate way more often.

And you know this, like if you’re working remote, people have to constantly be in communication because otherwise you’re like, “oh, is this person even listening to me? Do they know what they need to do? Are they hearing me? Is my voice being taken seriously?” So you start to question things when you don’t hear from someone. And so I think that means organization and leaders all the way up to the C-suite needs to focus on trust. Part of the inspiration for doing the study on trust with UKG was I interviewed the CEO of Netflix, the CEO of Whole Foods, like, all these top CEOs early on during COVID. And I was like, “OK, tell me about your feelings on trust.” And it’s really trust is the output of doing all the things I just said right.

You are in constant communication. You’re honest, you’re polling them, right? Voice of the customer, just like the voice of the employee. It’s, “what do people need right now?” And then responding and taking action based on those needs and demands and requirements. And I think that that’s ongoing again, because it’s not like you send a survey out once a year now. You have to do way more than you ever had to because people expect more from companies. And I think that’s a big running theme too. They expect them to care about their health and well-being. They expect them to invest in diversity programs and have a more equitable workplace. They expect flexibility.

You go to a job interview now for the most part, you’re going to say, “OK, do you allow for flexibility/remote work?” And if they say no, they’re less likely to be able to recruit top talent because the past year and a half proved that the experiment of remote work was successful. So it’s hard for a company not to offer some degree of flexibility. Even for hourly workers, we did another study with MyWorkChoice this past January and found that even employers think that hourly workers should get the same or some of the same benefits as full-time workers, including flexible schedules. So while a knowledge worker should get or could get the ability to work remote, for an hourly worker who has to be on-site, it’s more about flexible scheduling, is what they see as possible and needed.

Laurie Ruettimann:

That’s really good stuff. And so that’s where I want to go next. I want to talk about what some of the best organizations are doing out there in the marketplace. I know you do the research. I know you have examples and we’ve talked about trust. We’ve talked about communication. We’ve talked about listening and flexibility. Tell us about some of the great organizations out there that are finding a way to attract and retain talent while so many companies are whining that they can’t.

Dan Schawbel:

I like to compare and contrast last year with this year. First off last year, if I were to say, what was the company of the year? It’s either going to be Starbucks or Darden Restaurants. It’s a close tie. Why? Top of mind, Starbucks was not just giving out free coffee for early responders, which I think is great, but they also gave 23 hours of virtual therapy for employees. I think that’s a really big deal. And then Darden Restaurants was very early to help pay employees and making sure that they were safe and secure. When their competitors were just laying off people left and right, Darden was trying to rehire people when possible. Those are the top two from last year. And I see that right now, compare and contrast last year, we were in a recession, and now it’s the complete opposite. Now it’s perhaps the best job market in our lifetime.

Over 15 million Americans have quit their jobs this year so far. Match that with about 11 million unfilled jobs in America, which is the highest in my career, since I’ve even been paying attention to this. It’s astronomically high. And so that’s why they call it the Great Resignation. And what’s fascinating to me about this is I always look at, “OK, I see these numbers, how are companies reacting to this?” And you can tell that companies are, they don’t want to lose staff right now. It’s a bigger war for talent because you have a Walmart that says, “Hey, two-thirds of our hourly workers are going to become full-time workers with benefits.” To me, that is like a symbol of change. It’s a symbol of a completely different economy that we’re in this year versus last year.

Minimum wages have gone up. You have a lot of people over the past year are burned out. They had time to rethink their careers and jobs. Something I’ve been studying. We have some coming out soon about that, which is really fascinating. And so you have a PwC that says, “Hey, we don’t want high attrition rates. We know a lot of people might quit because they were burned out and couldn’t take a vacation.” That’s why you had this summer, like everyone’s taking vacations. There’s so many “out of offices,” right? They’re paying them money to take a vacation at PwC. So that’s just another thing, too. And more and more companies are thinking about this. We really need to support our employees now because it’s not just talent that is their greatest asset. It’s more than that. It’s the cost of replacing this talent. The stall and growth if we lose this talent is so great. We can’t afford not to do something about it.

So you are seeing examples, like every single day of companies having to step up, because there really is no other choice. And it’s a focus on maternal, paternal leave, more sick days, financially compensating people who take vacations, like I just said. And I said, like child care, more flexibility. Who would’ve ever thought that a company like Citigroup would say, “Hey, you can work remote two days a week.” I mean, for the financial industry, to me that just shows you where we are. Citigroup also, they have Zoom-free days. I believe it’s every Friday. So it’s recognizing what the issues or potential future issues are and getting ahead of them and changing the organization as result. And it is enormously hard, especially the larger the company you are, to make those types of decisions. So I am very thankful that I don’t have a 100,000-person organization right now.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Yeah. You and me both. I mean, the complexity is just unparalleled. At any other time, you’re right in our work history and maybe ever. And that’s where I want to go with the conversation as we start to wrap up. I want to talk about the future of work. What are some of the trends that business leaders and HR professionals should look out for beyond the umbrella of mental health, which is important and we can talk about that, but we tend to just say, well, mental health is hot. Okay. So are you optimistic? Pessimistic? And what should we be looking out for?

Dan Schawbel:

I’m both. I don’t think it’s one or the other. It’s just examining data, talking to people and assessing. Everyone I talk to is optimistic, but part of their job as a CEO is to be optimistic, right? Because they have to,

Laurie Ruettimann:

Chief sales officers. Yeah.

Dan Schawbel:

Yeah. They have to encourage people to continue to work there and get behind their vision to succeed. So I would say I’m very optimistic because I think flexibility, not even saying remote work, flexibility is a permanent stay. I’ve been studying flexibility for many, many, many, since the beginning, I think like, at least seven, eight years of doing research reports. I had a study called work flexibility. And so now it’s very hard to say, “Hey, flexibility doesn’t matter.” Or it’s not a top priority, or you can’t be successful at this company if you don’t work five days a week. You can’t succeed here unless it’s face time, like a lot of things got wiped away.

So the removal of that stigma’s gone. And then going back to what you said about mental health. Yeah. I mean that stigma is being wiped out, as well. So I think those are two very positive things, because the old view of remote work is a visual of Homer Simpson drinking a beer, watching TV. And the old stigma around mental health is, “Hey, this person has problems. We should maybe lay them off.” So now it’s completely transformed. So I would say those are really positive silver linings that have come with this. I think the thing that I most fear is that when we get into this new normalcy fully, and it becomes safer to go back to the office and people feel more secure, and it feels like somewhat a fraction of what we remember two years ago, that people will forget about what we experienced.

They’ll stop thinking about essential workers as essential workers. A lot of the things that were really important were highlighted over the past two years, they won’t think about anymore. So that is my fear. The other positive thing is I think that in two ways, technology is good and bad, right? I think the technology that is being used and promoted now because COVID was the green flag, the accelerator of technology is that a lot of the things that we didn’t want to do, we won’t have to do moving forward because more and more companies will invest in all this technology. The fear is, of course, the more you use technology, the more isolated and lonely you can become, especially if you’re working remote and you’re single and you aren’t living with your family or spouse or children. So I think that we could run in this danger of the loneliness and burnout epidemic being worse if we don’t get behind it, right?

So like work and life, everything’s very blended and people sometimes forget what time it is because you’re kind of always working or not working. And it is less barriers. I’ve noticed a lot of CEOs trying to take advantage of workers that way, intentionally or unintentionally. Because as a CEO, you’re always kind of working. You’re not thinking, oh, maybe I shouldn’t send this email at six o’clock. So I think that a lot of that behavior, it still exists. And the smart company, is a smart CEO, is the smart managers and HR professionals are the ones who kind of see that this problem is coming, understand that these behaviors still exist.

I was reading an article the other day. A lot of people started drinking more and or drugs and everything because they were at home and not at work. And that could be an issue moving forward as well. So again, mental health, supporting people’s health, checking up on them. Hey, how are you doing? So it’s overemphasizing being human in a digital world.

Laurie Ruettimann:

I love it. Well, as we wrap up the conversation, I want to know one thing, what does the world look like for you in the next 12 months? Because you have a life that many in human resources and in the business world want. You’re a consultant and advisor, but more importantly a speaker, and you share your insights globally. How does that happen for you in the next year?

Dan Schawbel:

Yeah. I think the biggest challenge is also the biggest opportunity. So 60 studies, all these interviews, it’s been over 2,700 one-on-one interviews. So it’s like all this stuff, like how do I continue to connect the dots? And so therefore that is a big challenge because there’s so many different data points, but it’s also a cool opportunity where I have this very specific, yet very overall, view and perspective on this whole space. So that’s kind of how I’ve always fit in is, “Hey, can I get the trend? Can I get the right people who are experiencing the trend?” And then can I get some data points to back up the trend to better tell a story, to explain what people are going through or will be going through and how to prepare for it?

Laurie Ruettimann:

I’m excited to see what’s next. You’re always on the cutting edge of the world of work. So for me, you’re someone I’ve admired for well over a decade. And I’m so honored that you came on the podcast today. Thanks for being a guest.

Dan Schawbel:

Thank you so much, Laurie.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Hey everybody. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Dan Schawbel. Now, if you’re interested in learning more about Dan, subscribing to his newsletter, or just getting the best insights into the world of work, head on over to laurieruettimann.com/podcast and search for this episode. Now don’t forget Punk Rock HR is probably sponsored by UKG. And if you are definitely interested in fixing work, and I know you are because you’re here, head on over to UKG.com or go on over to laurieruettimann.com/podcast. And look for the amazing white paper that I wrote with them. Now that’s all for today. And I hope you enjoyed the show. We’ll see you next time on Punk Rock HR.