Summary:

Yasmeen Duncan shares her secret tool for building a transparent and open culture in teams: the work style guide. This guide serves as a social contract between managers and employees, outlining expectations, communication preferences, and work styles. By providing clarity and setting boundaries from day one, the work style guide helps new hires and managers build strong relationships and work more efficiently together. Yasmeen emphasizes the importance of incorporating this tool into the onboarding process to ensure that employees are set up for success in their roles.

Key Takeaways:

• Implement a work style guide as part of the onboarding process to set clear expectations and communication preferences.
• The work style guide serves as a social contract between managers and employees, promoting open communication and understanding.
• Sharing work style guides among team members fosters a deeper understanding of each other's preferences and work styles, leading to more efficient collaboration.
• Regularly review and update work style guides to accommodate changes in preferences and work dynamics.

Timestamp

00:00:00 Introduction to the episode and guest, Yasmeen Duncan

00:01:00 Yasmeen's background and role as Chief People Officer at Magnolia Bakery

00:02:00 Importance of hiring a Chief People Officer and the evolution of the role

00:04:00 Game-changing realization for building high-performance teams

00:06:00 Implementation of the work style guide for onboarding

00:08:00 Benefits of the work style guide for both managers and employees

00:10:00 Training and implementation process for the work style guide

00:13:00 Sharing the work style guide with the team for better collaboration

00:16:00 Importance of strategic onboarding and setting expectations upfront

00:18:00 Steps to implement the work style guide in an organization

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And she's an HR leader for the new world of work. She's savvy. She blends people, process, and strategy together to be able to maximize the effectiveness of the organizations she works with. And here to tell us more is Yasmin. Welcome to the show.

Yasmeen Duncan: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

CheeTung Leong: Thanks for being here. Would you be able to tell us maybe a little bit more about your role and what you do? So that we can help our listeners understand better.

Yasmeen Duncan: I'll just give you a high level overview of my background. I've been in human resources now for goodness.

I'm the chief people officer at Magnolia Bakery. I'm the first CPO that the company's had, and I was brought on to scale the company forward, but on the people side and bringing in strategy creating initiatives that can drive us forward as we're expanding our brand on the CPG consumer product goods end.

And I'm excited to be here.

CheeTung Leong: It's so cool that you're the first chief people officer at Magnolia Bakery. What do you think? Think about hiring a for that role in the first place. And do you feel like that has evolved since you've taken on that role?

The department was set up and prior to me, there was a VP of people but with us growing the company and expanding on the CPG ends and just wanting to have a another higher level at the C suite stage that can expand the company forward on the people side. By bringing in different strategies, you know, I think what sets me apart as far as why I was a candidate of choice working in so many different industries, I think absolutely was a benefit to me again, working in beauty hospitality.

I've been successful in doing so and having secession really live fully for the full employee life cycle from junior roles to senior roles. And it's really nice in the time span that I have spent in the companies that I have worked in to see people started like a really. position, and now they're in senior positions at the director level.

And that happens as far as having a healthy life cycle. When you set processes and procedures in place, when you are an HR leader, that is accessible and visible and personable, right? When you come up with initiatives that build relationship, community, and expand on communication.

And I think Magnolia Bakery is very lucky to have you as the first Chief People Officer. In all your experience in HR, what would you say is... One of the game changing realizations helped you to craft that skill of building a high performance team.

Yasmeen Duncan: I think that we need to change as HR leaders how we are managing our teams, right? When an employee gets hired, they go to orientation, they have their one to two weeks of onboarding, they have their 30, 60, 90. They could be coasting along just fine, performing just fine. There may have some performance issues.

What if we gave them the accountabilities up front and in advance? Like, what if we went that route? So something that I implemented is something called a work style guide, which serves as a social contract for. The manager to the employee and from the employee to the manager, how it works is once an employee starts and finishes orientation, I have them sit with their manager to fully go through their role to make sure that they understand their role through and through.

And here's some meet and greets, you know, go and be successful. But that has nothing to do with actually setting them up for the actual role that they're working in. So after we have orientation, That new hire has an hour with their manager, but the manager lays out what's expected, how the team functions, what the current challenges are for the team, the challenges that they're going to face.

In their role. I. E. Y. The role is open, right? And what that partnership is going to look like between their manager and then with each member on their team. That's a full plan that they go through. The manager then also gives the new hire something called a work style guide, which is the social contract and the work style guide literally outlines how the manager communicates with the manager.

And it's so important. How often do you start a job and you are trying to assess, feel out your manager that you report to? Some managers are more layered than others. So it's a lot of like nuances you're trying to pin down so that you can build that relationship. Oh, and or you can just work with them in a way that you have ease and you're not in anxiety.

They also, in turn, will be given that work style guide that they have to complete and give to their manager at the end of the week. So now that manager knows how to effectively communicate, give feedback in a way that it'll land, and they understand how their new hire is wired so that they can come up with appropriate development plans and coachings.

So they are developing them strategically, right? Because they have someone to work with. Which is this work style guide. This social contract. There's also quirky stuff. It's not all serious. So it's the fun stuff of, you know, what's your astrology sign? What's your favorite color? What do you like to do for fun?

CheeTung Leong: What I really like about what you've said is. You know, a lot of times, you know, for companies, they go through the typical orientation process, they go through that 30, 60, 90, and, you know, for HR, they just tell their, their managers, here you go, you go, you go have this conversation with your new hire.

And go figure it out. And very often I don't think the manager is equipped well enough to have that conversation. And also the new hire may not know what is appropriate to share or not share. And what I really like about that work style guide is. It actually provides that conversation template with the manager, but also provide some attention.

Yasmeen Duncan: Well, when I came on to Magnolia, once we. Anytime we have a new hire, I hired a recruiter because we didn't have a recruiter when I started, but the recruiter sits with the hiring manager to have what we call an intake interview. And in that meeting, they are reviewing what the manager is looking for, what the manager foresees is missing in the team from a personality perspective, temperament perspective, skill perspective.

Once we get all of that information. Then, okay, let's go through the job, right? There's a lot of focus on a job description as far as this is all the things that a person needs to do. This is who I want, but you want to make sure that it's, it's a right fit for the team. You know, I think of recruiting as.

That they need to complete for that role and the deck will include their expectations, you know, what the team is focusing on, what the goals are for that quarter. Yes, we have company, of course, there's company objectives, but there should be team objectives, right? Of things that we're trying to achieve.

And then it's a full detailed breakdown of what's in the job description, but really going into depth with the role. And of course, they're scheduled for the next 2 weeks. The hiring managers charged to complete that deck. And then they're also charged and I send them this all in one email with the work style guide for them to complete.

None of the hiring managers that I've worked with, whether here or previous employers have seen this guide before. Or seeing this tool, but they were excited to complete it when it is one more thing, you know, you have to do to get ready for onboarding, but onboarding is something that shouldn't be rust rushed.

You should completely prepare for it.

CheeTung Leong: What I love about the work style guide is it goes into the how. Are we going to accomplish this together as a team and here's it's almost like an operating manual for for working with me and likewise working with you and everyone else on the team. I can imagine. It's such a powerful tool. If everyone on the team had visibility into this, we could then know what are our hot button.

Yasmeen Duncan: Yes, the work style guide. serves for the manager and the new hire. But I also informed that new hire and the hiring managers do also inform the new hires when they complete it.

They're clear on each other's work style to work even more efficiently together. The feedback that I received from new hires that have filled this out has been great. They're like, I'm really enjoying this because it takes the edge off the guessing game. And they also have the opportunity to advocate for themselves of how they prefer to work, how they prefer to be coached.

So that they can be successful. I have to say it's weird to me. Like there, there's a book brave new world by Aaron Dignan that completely changed my outlook and view of how I do work. But even more importantly, how I do HR and employees are hired. They work with a company and what that said, you know, it comes out the work style guide, right?

And what's interesting to me and all the companies that I work to it in is that I have my or the orientation and the onboarding. Is the high level overview of the history of the company, how it works. And FYI, this is payday. This is what we do for culture. This is benefits. This is our policies, but nothing in onboarding has to specifically do with their role and helping them be successful for their role.

My challenge is why are we giving the PIP when there's a problem? Give it up front. How we do orientation coupled with this work style guide completely. Clears all that up because not only does the manager set expectations, but that employee also gives their expectations. They're given that work style guide gives agency to the hiring manager to the employee for those who already work here.

You know, when I came on board, they want a new hire. I still gave them the work styles guide to complete. Because I want them to know me by me giving them a guide that's asking them what they don't have patience for. What do they put? How do they want to work? What do they prefer? How do they plan their week?

It's powerful.

CheeTung Leong: Let's talk implementation a little bit. I went through the work style guide. It's 3, 4 pages. It's not too heavy and I'm imagining that you probably needed to spend some time training hiring managers on how to use this in onboarding, how to use this with the team, and then kind of build a culture around that.

It's, it's so powerful because I can imagine if you, if you move teams, like if you go from one team to another, you can just move along with you and instantly your team gets to know you and you instantly get to know everyone else in your team. Did you have to go through any training to get managers and Their hires to be able to use this effectively.

That's one, two. I'm the first C. P. O. So there's not a footprint that I'm filling, and no one also knows what, how, what is my lens, right? How I'm going to lead this thing. How am I like what my objective is, or my plan is to be the north star on the people side of the company. I could have had like a group meeting with all the one to ones, but I mean, not all the ones, the ones, all the hiring managers, I didn't want a group meeting, you know, I want those to be like actual sessions in case there are questions that they had.

And then also telling them this is the step by step process of how I think it would go. Here is how it should go. Here's the onboarding deck that you need to fill out specifically for their role, your expectations. And then here's the work style guide. The work style guide was new, as I said. So it's like, wait, do I have to do this?

Is this optional? It's not optional. You got to do it. And here's, here's why it's important. You know, the questions are pretty straightforward. So I let them know they need to reflect on it. So it didn't have to be like a full training. What I did do was Give them my work style guide and also strategy and all things got to have strategy and all things.

I'm a new leader. I'm the new CPO. They've never had this. This role before, right? So I wanted them just directly to know how I operate. So it's also an example to them of this is how like real you can be, how direct you can speak, let it be in your tone and your speech, but be honest, be candid, you know, and what you're sharing.

CheeTung Leong: So we're going to put this guide in the show notes, say, if I'm another Chief People Officer and I download this guide, what are, you know, a few steps that you would immediately advise me to take to be able to implement this successfully?

In my organization

Yasmeen Duncan: yes,

completing yourself. And I would say I like to try things with my team before I pitch it. Up to like senior and roll it out to the organization. So fill it out yourself, be thoughtful, assign it to your direct reports to complete also, and encourage them to be thoughtful while also sending them your completed work style guide.

You know, go through the questions and send it back to me. So try it with your team first and then from there just so you could get the feel and understand like the feedback and the thoughts that come forward And if there were any questions or any concerning things on them I would then meet with my team members to say tell me about this I want to know more about this once you work it through with your team.

I would say Speak with presented to your senior leadership team so that they're aware of this is like a new initiative that you want to add to onboarding and the why behind it so that everybody's on the same page on board. And when they see it, they're not like, alarmed of what is this and why you're filling this out from there.

And that's when they can review the work style guide. That would be like the process.

CheeTung Leong: That's

a very sensible rollout plan. Thanks for that. Yasmeen, if people want to find you. What is the best way for them

to do so?

Yasmeen Duncan: LinkedIn. I love to network. I love to talk strategies. I love meeting other human resources, professionals, or whoever just to engage with, we all have tools and resources.

So anything that could be a shared best practice on here for, so just reach out and send me a DM on LinkedIn.

CheeTung Leong: Thank you so much for hanging with us today, Yasmin. And for those of you who are listening, I hope that you have enjoyed the show. Yeah, definitely a lot of good takeaways this episode make sure to download that work style guide and, you know, Yasmin has been kind enough to give you a full implementation plan.