Jennifer Nash on Why Valuing Employees is the Key to Business Success

Explore the connection between human behavior, collaboration, and business success in our latest episode with leadership consultant Jennifer Nash. Learn why putting employees first is the key to a thriving, supportive work culture that drives sustainable growth. Show Notes | Transcript "The only way that we will succeed going forward is if we work together. And to work together, we have to share and we have to collaborate and we have to communicate." - Jennifer Nash How can leaders create a thriving business environment? Join us as we sit down with Jennifer Nash, the award-winning author of "Be Human, Lead Human: How to Connect People and Performance" to uncover the secrets behind putting employees first. Jennifer shares invaluable insights on how employers need to view their employees, crafting a supportive work culture, and the pivotal role of defining and holding employees accountable for desirable behaviors. Together, we break down actionable strategies to cultivate an environment that boosts engagement and retention, highlighting why some leaders hesitate to adopt these essential practices. Jennifer also shares her first-hand experience as an employee of a failing company whose CEO instilled a culture shift rooted in “working together.” You’ll hear the undeniable benefits of prioritizing people, and the practical steps you can implement in your own organization. In this episode, you will learn: The concept of putting employees first for business success Why it's important to view employees as whole human beings The challenge of creating environments where employees thrive The significant benefits of prioritizing employees Actionable steps for leaders to gather qualitative data from employees and customers Importance of self-leadership and managing emotional intelligence Role modeling desired behaviors and maintaining consistency The shift in employee autonomy post-COVID and the AI-driven job market Connect with Jennifer: Website: drjennifernash.com Take the Human Leader Assessment: drjennifernash.com/hli Connect with Live Love Engage: Join the Soulful Women's Network Send Gloria Grace a message ☕ Support the podcast ❤ Love this episode? Leave us a review and rating LinkedIn: Gloria Grace Rand Facebook: Gloria Grace Rand YouTube: Gloria Grace Rand TRANSCRIPT Gloria "Grace" Rand Namaste. Do you think putting customers first is a no brainer? That's likely because you don't have any employees in your business yet. But if hiring plans are in your future or you already have a team, stick around because you're going to want to hear from today's guest. She is a leadership consultant who transforms workplaces by putting people first. But before I bring her on, I want to welcome any of you who are new to the podcast. I am Gloria Grace, and I help female entrepreneurs release negative thought patterns like self doubt and poor self worth so you can attract more clients with calm, clarity, and confidence. And joining us today is Jennifer Nash. She is the founder and CEO of a global leadership advisory and consulting firm that connects people and performance to deliver exceptional results. Gloria "Grace" Rand And she is also the author of the 2023 award winning book Be Human lead Human, how to connect people and performance. And I'm going to bring her right on now without any further ado. And let's welcome you, Jennifer, to live. Love, engage. Jennifer Nash : Thank you. Gloria Grace. I'm excited to be here today. Gloria "Grace" Rand Well, I'm looking forward to this because I want to learn more about being a good leader. I don't have any employees in my business at the moment. I have had some in the past, and I know eventually I will again. So I thought we'd actually start just kind of dive right in and talk about why is it important for employers to, I guess, put employees first as opposed to the customers. Jennifer Nash Well, you know, a couple years ago, the business roundtable signed an agreement with 181 companies that essentially said, you know, all stakeholders are important. And so when we put all of our stakeholders first, we can actually do what's right by them and what's right for the world as a whole. So when we think about putting employees first in the equation, it's about what can we do to create an environment that allows them to flourish and grow, and then in turn, our businesses flourish and grow and the world is a better place. Gloria "Grace" Rand Well, that makes sense. And I think it seems to be a challenge, though, yet for a lot of companies out there. I know we've definitely heard a lot about that the last... Jennifer Nash I can understand, Gloria Grace. Gloria "Grace" Rand Yeah. So let's say that you are an employer out there, or again, if you're maybe a solopreneur and you're looking to start expanding your team, you're at that place where you're ready to start hiring. So how can you actually create an environment that is going to be one that employees are going to want to stay, be they're they're going to want to show up every day for work. Let's put it that way. So how can companies go about doing that? Jennifer Nash Yeah, so I think first and foremost, there's the element of seeing the employee as not just an employee, but seeing them as a whole human being. Right. So, for example, I live in a state where they currently passed legislation to deny people who are working outside building things water breaks. That makes no sense to me. So when you start off from that perspective and you're not giving people what they need from a human rights perspective, you know, you're not in a good place to create an environment where not only people don't want to stay, but the people that are there aren't going to be engaged and really want to give their all to the company. Gloria "Grace" Rand Yeah, I heard about that. And it's just, really just boggles the mind because, you know, it's kind of like, you know, you know, if Mama ain't happy, nobody else is happy. I would, I would think that if your employees aren't happy, then how can your customers then be happy, you know? Right. Because I've been in situations where you could clearly tell that somebody was really not happy to be there, and it shows in how they treat you as a customer. Yeah. So is there anything, I guess, you know, what can be done besides, you know, giving people their basic, you know, needs, you know, fulfilling their needs, like, you know, food and water to really start, I guess, creating this environment. And it's, and it's really actually add attitude. That's the word I'm looking for, really, this attitude that's got to start from, from the top down. Gloria "Grace" Rand So what can be done, I guess, to do that? And is there anything even that employees can do themselves to be able to stick up for themselves, short of going on strike or something like that? We've also experienced a lot of that over the last few years as well. Jennifer Nash Yes, exactly. Well, I think one of the first things that employers can do is to understand what kind of culture do they want to have in their organization. For example, I was just working with a client last week, and they were telling me how there were people in the organization who didn't want to work together, and they refused to work together, actually. But because of the jobs that they were doing, they needed to work together to deliver this product that they were working on. We talked about how this leader can create behaviors that are expected in the organization. What does that look like? And then holding people accountable to abide by those behaviors. And if they choose not to that's okay. We still love you, but we think you're going to be happier elsewhere. Jennifer Nash So first and foremost, I think, is understanding what kind of culture you want to create in the organization and then designing the desired behaviors around that culture. Gloria "Grace" Rand And, yeah, so that makes perfect sense to be able to do that. What would actually maybe. Let me ask it this way. Why do you think some companies, some leaders are so reluctant to be able to put this emphasis, to really be able to focus? Is it? And I'm thinking, not even necessarily. I know public companies get in all into having to be able to please the shareholders and things like that, but I'm sure this happens a lot in private companies as well. Why do you think there is a reluctance to focus their attention on their employees? Jennifer Nash So I think this goes back to Taylor. Taylor was a mechanical engineer. He's known as the father of scientific management. He was one of the first management consultants. And Taylor was someone who wanted to design processes to be optimized. And so he ran time in motion studies to help people figure out what was the fastest way to do their job. And prior to Taylor coming on the scene, workers had figured out the processes that worked best for them, the tools that worked best for them, the timing of their work that worked well to get the work done. So they had employee essentially voice and choice and autonomy. Jennifer Nash And then Taylor came on the scene, redesigned everything, optimized all the processes, and all of a sudden, he's telling people, okay, at this time, you pick up this amount of pig iron, you take x number of steps, and then you set it down, and then you take a break for 20 seconds, and then you get up and you did it all over again. And he's walking around with a stopwatch, you know, sort of micromanaging this person as they go through, you know, this, this time in motion study. And I think as an outcome of that, we got into this space where, you know, managers and leaders became more micro managers and telling people what to do, rather than trusting their employees to do the work in the way that worked best for them so they could optimize their eff