We had the privilege of bringing together a panel of forward thinking leaders in Bozeman, Montana, USA, to reflect on the challenges employers are facing today and explore what it takes to overcome obstacles in hiring, retention and employee experience.

What arose was a thoughtful discussion about human-centered leadership, connection to the people we work with and our ability to unlock potential through creative thinking. Listen in on this powerful discussion in this week’s episode of Reimagining Work From Within.

Learn more about Within People and the work we do here.

​ Kendall Clifton-Short: Hello everyone.

My name's Kendall Clifton Short, and I'm a partner at Within

based in Bozeman, Montana.

Today's episode will be a little different from the others.

Towards the end of last year, we had the privilege of bringing together a

panel of forward thinking leaders in Bozeman to reflect on the challenges

that employers are facing today, and most importantly, explore what it

takes to overcome obstacles in hiring, retention, and employee experience.

What arose was a thoughtful discussion around human-centered leadership,

connection to the people we work with and our ability to unlock

potential through creative thinking.

Thank you again to all of our panelists for contributing inva to

this conversation and to everyone listening, we hope you enjoy.

I really appreciate the commitment that you each have to this conversation

and your willingness to come and be a little bit of a fishbowl for

everyone else who also cares about the conversation in the community

. So just a really quick info about

So I guess I have the privilege of working with bold and courageous leaders

who are committed to redesigning the experience of work and solving the

challenges that today's workplaces offer us and really doing building communities

and cultures where people can thrive.

And they are the driver of business growth.

So it feels like a privilege to do this work, and it feels like a privilege

that all of you would want to come and be part of this conversation, and that

we have some really cool people doing some really cool things at organizations

for locally that are willing to share.

Okay, so enough from me to start with.

So let's maybe start with Stephanie and go left to right if I'm looking at you.

And I'd love you just to share where you work, what you do there,

because we actually have a variety of roles intentionally and one

reason you were energized to participate in today's conversation.

And this is a semi lightning round.

So let's move through the introductions reasonably quickly

so we can get to the discussion.

Okay.

All right.

So,

Hello everyone.

My name is Stephanie Bosen.

I am with x y planning network and I am there director of talent there.

So I'm overseeing the talent acquisition process at x y planning network,

the learning and development, and then the onboarding process as well.

And I am very energized to be here today to collaborate and learn

from other industry leaders here.

Good afternoon.

My name is Renee Storm.

I am the Director of Human Resources and a partner at Profitable Ideas Exchange.

You may have heard of us referred to as pie.

I wear many hats and take on lots of different roles

and responsibilities there.

Everything from talent acquisition to training to benefits and payroll.

So lots of different experiences.

I think similar to Steffy.

I'm excited to be here to share my knowledge and our experience as well

as learn from others here in the group.

My name's Bridget Elle and I work at OnX Maps.

We're right upstairs.

My role is senior learning and development manager, and I touch anything having to

do with keeping someone professionally engaged and growing and learning.

So a lot of things under that bucket.

I'm excited to be here because I think.

We're in a new era of retention and what that means, and it's a big adventure

because none of us know it yet.

Hi all Hayden Wilson from Bridger Brewing.

I have been with Bridger Brewing since the start started as a kitchen manager and

moved into the head brewer here in Bozeman since we have two, two locations now.

And then also brand ambassador since I got kicked outta my brand

manager position since we hired a new marketing director at least.

Also Hype man.

I've worked with Kendall for a while now with Bridger Brewing at least.

So wear many hats like we all do in our companies at least.

And very excited to share different realms of work and different Industries

especially since I don't get to get out of the brewing industry very often.

So it's nice to get out of that.

So very excited to learn from all you.

Last but not least, Neil Harden With Found and Technologies I've

been here with, found it for four months.

Prior to that, I was the head of global talent at Western Digital.

We had 80,000 people worldwide talking about acquisition management.

Everything else I've been, this is the third time I'm the head

of HR for a company of this size.

And for about almost, gosh, I don't wanna say this, 25

years I've been in technology.

So really good understanding coming out of the business into

HR about 20 some years ago.

So, happy to share anything you like,

So I really appreciate the depth of perspective

that we've got here in the group.

So let's hear from each of you.

Maybe Neil, we can start from you and work this way this time.

What, this is a lightning round.

So what's one way that you see today's workplaces being different

to what we've seen perhaps a couple of years ago, pre covid?

Like what, what are the new cha, like, what's different and what

are the new challenges that emerge as a result of those changes?

Definitely remote work, and that's the biggest thing, even

from what I saw in the, in the Bay area to even small smaller places like

a fountain or anywhere else, right?

The biggest thing is solving for that and how can we, how can we meet the

needs of our candidates and our workers now in a more flexible environment?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

Lovely.

So, remote work and how do we help people stay?

How do we solve problems flexibly and help people be connected Absolutely.

When they're not next to each other.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Thanks.

I think biggest change in the last couple years is especially

with the labor shortage, how critical employees can be of their employers.

Just cuz they're more empowered to, to pick which job that they want to have.

They can literally get out in any job that they want, honestly.

So it's hard to make sure that we approach them and really get them involved in

the company and the culture of the company to make sure that they are more

involved beyond just getting a paycheck.

So.

Okay.

I'm gonna zoom out a bit and I think that the pandemic really blew up.

The who, what, when, where, why, and how we work.

I think the workplace, well, not, I think research has shown that the workplace

was really designed for a straight, white male with a caregiver at home.

and the pandemic revealed that through like the care crisis, 16,000 childcare

centers, closing kids on Zoom screens behind the, the meetings and all of that.

And I think the, where we work, it's important for us to remember that.

That's one of only five that was blown up.

So when do we work?

What motivates people?

Why we work?

And I think that's why we're at such a precipice right now, is because

we're, we're reimagining all of this.

So it's not just one thing that we're taking

and trying to do differently.

It's all five all at the same time.

Yeah.

And I think that like, that is why D E I B conversations are so at the

forefront right now is because we are now designing workplaces that

are for belonging and inclusion.

And that can look a lot of different ways.

And everyone has a different meaning for those lids too.

Yes.

A lot on the table.

Yes.

To be turned over.

Yeah.

We need more than an hour.

Renee

yes.

I love what you just said, Bridget, and I think that plays a part

in probably all the answers that we're gonna give here today.

I think from my perspective is taking all those pieces, the warehouse,

why, what and making it equitable.

So I think equity is a big top of mind piece for me is, you

know, a idid work environment.

How do we make that equitable for folks who are in office and remote?

What do those benefits look like?

Are those different for those people?

What do they value?

Because to Hayden's point, that value piece is so much more

important to the employee of today.

Yes.

I think all great points.

All of the above, right?

And I think . What I just would like to highlight is just the new generation

coming into the workforce, generation Z.

Right.

And with that what we really see, especially in talent acquisition, is

just the change of value proposition that an employer needs to give these

days to candidates they want to hire.

And I think there was a research study that said, you know, one in five employees

would not even consider accepting a job offer from a company that they don't share

values with.

Mm-hmm.

. Kendall Clifton-Short: Yeah.

Which raises really great questions about, well, do we even know what our values

are as an organization and how do we live them and how do we make them explicit?

Yeah.

Great.

Okay.

So lots of juicy things there.

Starting with Bridget's who, what, where, why, when, and how.

But really what I heard was, you know, lots of us have moved from in person where

we're sitting next to someone to either a idid workplace where some of us have

the privilege of still seeing each other, or the privilege of working from home,

depending on which side of the fence we.

I think is the privilege.

Some of us now work in organizations where some of us have, like

manufacturing for instance.

Everyone in corporate can do that.

No one in the plant can has that opportunity.

Really our, our new generation and our existing generation, if we're

part of the older crew that are represented here you know, we wanna

do meaningful work and so how can we look to our boyer to provide that?

How can we really, we are seeing people looking to, to employers to be making

statements about political issues that really had no business in the boardroom.

And many of us still think.

Have no business in the boardroom equity.

I think that's a really powerful conversation that we all either want

to be a part of or think that we should want to be a part of, even if

we don't really want to, and we don't really know what to do with that.

So, so we've got clearly some attraction and retention opportunities.

We've got an opportunity to be more if we're an employer and we've got

an opportunity to sort of engage in that conversation productively.

If we're an employee and we've got new sort of expectations

is what I heard around what we, the role we want work to play.

In our life.

Okay.

So just a couple of, couple of small things that we can,

we'll hit in the next hour.

Yeah, exactly.

We can nut out today.

So I guess, how do we even go about having a conversation like this

is a really good place to start.

I think what we're hearing is the experience that we want

from work is different, right?

We either feel like we have more agency and power to shape that

differently, or the people around us are suggesting that we should.

So how do we start to think about our employee experience as a tool for

us as leaders of organizations to.

to solve some of these challenges.

Like yes, there's lots of problems.

Yes, there's lots of swirling on the desk.

How do we start to sort it out and make some sense of it and find the

opportunities that are really most relevant to us is the question

that we all wanna be able to do.

So when I talk about employee experience and employee engagement,

what I'm really talking about, and we've already heard it here, is the

experience of work is multifaceted.

And it's not just who we recruit.

It's not just how we, how we op offer training.

It's not just what we pay people, it's all of those things and, and

a myriad of other things as well.

So how do we as start to navigate, well, what are the things we would want

to offer our employees that both feel reasonable to us as the employer and

reasonable for them as the employee?

And how do we marry those things up?

And how do we start to.

Be able to know that we've committed to these things and

that we're delivering that.

These are some of the questions that we wanna answer.

So the way we think about this at within, and we've heard this already

from the palace, is that there are four things all of us want from work.

We want some level of flexibility.

To your point at the beginning, Neil, we want to feel connected to the people

that we work with and the work that we're doing, which I think Bridget and Hayden

spoke about we want to be rewarded.

And that's not only the paycheck, although it's definitely the paycheck,

but it's also all of the other.

Multifaceted aspects of how we believe that we get to do meaningful work

and we wanna feel that we're growing.

I mean, all the statistics around what people are looking for work

is investment in my future, whether that's with you as, as my current

employer or the next employer.

But if you're not gonna invest in my growth, then I'm not gonna hang

around to wait to not be invested in.

So, how I thought we could organize this conversation so that it doesn't

just feel like a ton of ideas swirling around is we could look at each of

these lenses one by one and hear from you about what you're doing, just as

a way to sort of anchor our thinking around something slightly more tangible.

Would that be helpful?

Mm-hmm.

Great.

Okay.

And then the great thing about this is, you know, each of these lenses

offers us solutions as a, as employers.

Some are relevant to us and some are not relevant to us, but they're,

they're all levers that we can pull in a way that's most meaningful to us.

So if innovation and sort of the new solutions and how we step off what we

know into the new brave new world that feels unfamiliar, is sort of rooted

in this understanding of how do we be very intentional about the experience

we are designing for our people?

What I would love for each of you to sort of paint a picture of is what is

the work that you have all committed to doing already to change shape,

influence your employee's experience?

And, and what does that really take in terms of resourcing?

So it's great to say, Hey, yep, let's commit to this, but what does it require?

Does it require time, money, culture, change, training?

Something else.

More.

More red wine on Friday afternoons, , you know, what is it that Tuesday?

Yeah.

Or Tuesdays.

Yes.

Or Tuesday.

Yeah.

So question again, what, what are some things that you have committed

to doing to shape your employees experience and what has that required

of you from a resourcing perspective?

Just anybody go however you wanna do it.

Yep.

Jump in.

Let's do, I call it popcorn style, but maybe that's Australian

. Well, I'll pop when you're hot.

I'll kick it off and I won't be as brief this time.

Perfect, thank you.

Talent development.

So the things that we're talking about right now is me coming in as a new leader,

hr, and looking at the organization and seeing what's been, what's been done

in the past and what we heard from at least our employee engagement survey.

A lot of development, right?

So as I said before to all our employees, it was nice coming in at this time

because the employee engagement survey is like a barometer for the organization.

And me coming into this seat brand new, it tells me all the

different areas we need to focus on.

Whether it's diversity, whether it is the flexibility, work, right?

Development, goal setting, right?

Voice communication.

Do I have a voice in this?

Right?

And so one of the, the largest things that we heard was

development, and it was goal setting.

And so when you talk about a cost, we have a system albeit a little

not super expensive, but it's able to track your one-on-ones.

It's able to put in goals, but from that standpoint, when you

talk about development and skill sets, do you have the right skills?

Do you have the right competencies to do the job?

Those are the things that we wanna now, okay, I'm glad you have a baseline.

Now, how do we take it to the next level?

The next level being the skills, the competencies that leads into job leveling?

Do you have the right level of employees?

If this person says, Certain types of tracks we use.

We use Radford.

I've used Radford for quite some time, and you have a professional

track, P one through P five, you have a manager track, then you go

director, senior director, vp, blah.

How do you get to that next level?

What competencies or skills do you have to get to get there?

What's the development?

What's the learning that goes behind it?

Right?

That career pathing is the next steps, but those are the things we have to all

put in place, and it has to, you have to have a really strong foundation.

One, goal setting, number two having that communication with with

each employee, with their manager.

It's employee driven.

The manager's helped set it, but my biggest advice to everybody

is you as the employee e have to take control of your career.

Don't forget, Make sure you're putting in the right things.

If that's where you want to go, you work with your manager to get the skills

necessary to move in the next role, move to the next level, et cetera.

Okay, so I'm hearing a couple of things there.

First of all, you've got some way of actually measuring yes.

Where people are and a way of tracking how they would like.

What's impossible.

Pathways for them are.

Then you've got a culture and you've recruited people into the idea of like,

Hey, your career is your responsibility, will help you walk down the path, but

navigate, tell you yeah, where to be.

And then obviously you didn't really speak to it too much, but there's a

huge investment in actually, oh, the

time investment opportunities.

Absolutely.

The time from us to create the program from an HR department, work

with the business leaders to create this work with the employees because

the employees have what the learning side of things they have to learn.

There's, that's that key piece.

So

yeah.

Great.

Okay, thanks.

Other thoughts?

I'll go next.

I guess what we've committed to at Bridger to make, making sure that we

retain that culture of Bridger Brewing to make sure that nobody's alone in

that restaurant, we wanna make sure that when people come into the brewery

that they're having the best experience.

And that involves everyone.

Not just your server, not just your host.

Having your manager come over and say hello and how's your food?

But I think that's something that we've committed to, is making

sure that you're part of a team that you can rely on every day.

Yeah, I love that.

And I think too, what I'm really hearing there is how can we expect in the

hospitality world when we're supposed to be providing entertainment or an

experience, how can we expect our staff to provide that powerful experience

if they're having a crappy one?

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

So really like how do we really invest in their experience so

that they can then invest in our customers patrons experience.

Yeah.

And that involves all of us from the top to the bottom, being

there every step of the way.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Shall we keep going?

, popcorn.

Okay.

I'm gonna talk about a few experiments that we have put some resources behind.

So Kendall mentioned being clear on your core values and then having that tie

into the experience in the workplace.

So our mission at OnX is to awaken the adventure in everyone.

And we have played around with our P T O and what that that might

look like for different employees.

We have get out, get active days and get out, get active funds, and that

looks different for different people.

For some people that's buying a kayak and going on a kayak trip for some

people that's walking around Seattle.

I mean, and that's totally fine.

It's just getting out and exploring and having a sense of adventure.

Another experiment with P T O is a.

We do not, we are open five days a week, year round in respect for our customer

service folks who work on Black Friday.

That has an impact on Thanksgiving.

Potentially different holidays that our federal holidays reflect some religions.

And so we just decided to take the, is it six federal holidays and put

that towards people's PT O bucket.

And so people have a pretty hardy P t O bucket.

I think everything like when it's all added up with get out, get

active, the federal holidays, it's about six weeks per year.

And then you, if you wanna take two weeks at Christmas, go for it.

But I think that the, anytime you can give people choice, it builds trust

and a relationship around, ah, this person values me as an individual and

then I get to be sort of the grownup in the situation and apply some of.

Some of those choices to what works for me and my family.

Another experiment is base camps.

So with hiring strategy you know, remote is the new world, but there is

a tipping point, I guess, for us as a company with trying to still build energy

among people and like tissue connection with like where, where you're working

in the city in which you're working.

So we decided, so for a while it was a bit of a free for all

and it was like, whoa, whoa.

Like we're adding states at a rapid rate, right?

And every time you add a state, I mean folks know all of us

in hr, it adds complexity with taxes and all of that jazz.

So we decided to come up with this base camp strategy where

we have a base camp ambassador.

That is an employee who raises their hand, that they will generate some

like you know, clean up the trail day or holiday party, whatnot.

In their base camp.

Our base camps are Seattle, Denver, salt Lake City, Portland, Austin,

Texas, Bozeman, and Missoula.

I might be missing one.

And then we have like a way in which we are building energy for the employee

experience in each of those base camps.

We have a budget for each of those base camps.

And then a tricky spot was then what do you do when you find that unicorn

3D engineer who is in Virginia, ah, I wanna hire that person.

So we came up with a rubric as to how to go about the decision making process.

Who are the stakeholders in adding a new state?

So tax is, tax laws are going to be a huge input in that process.

And like, you know, how much of a unicorn is this person and do we

really wanna open up a new state?

The answer isn't an absolute yes or an absolute no.

We get all the stakeholders at the table and we decide if they, if

we'll go for And then if you are not in a base camp just to follow our

brand, you are called a free soloist.

And all the free soloists have a Slack channel, and we work to build

connection between those folks.

Okay.

So I've heard lots of investment in building community.

I've heard lots of investment in equity, like how do we really understand how

we design for equity and use equity as a lens in our decision making?

And I heard a lot of like, how do we get the right stakeholders mm-hmm.

in the room to be an input into any decision that we make.

Mm-hmm.

and then, Those are just some illustrations of the

experiments we're running.

Like I would say my entire team has a very this is a new world experiment

mindset and what did we learn?

What's sticking, what's not?

You know, there are no failures.

What did we learn type of Okay.

Right.

So just like Neil was talking about, well we need to have a culture where you

are, we are both partners in your growth.

You have a culture that's like, Hey, let's give it a go.

Yeah.

Let's see what happens mm-hmm.

and make a decision once we have some data.

Mm-hmm.

, which is also what you were talking about, rather than just seems a bit

scary and I don't know if it all works.

Mm-hmm.

. So let's just keep that idea over there.

Yep.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

Sorry.

So what have we committed to?

I think at pi, you're not familiar with our business model.

We one of our bread and butter products is to convene people virtually.

So you can imagine during the pandemic year our.

Business grew exponentially.

So we went from this small, very family oriented, very

all hands on deck community.

to a lot more people in the building or a lot more people working remotely.

And so I think what we've committed to as we sort of settle back

into like this post covid work environment, is adding some structure.

People want to know what the expectations are.

They wanna know how to grow their careers.

So some of the things that we've committed to are transparency in structure,

a little bit more defined training.

Who's owning the trainings?

What is the agenda for this and why are we doing this?

Constantly asking the why.

We've committed to providing our supervisors with leadership

training so that they are asked to make these high touch points with

all of their direct reports, but they have the tools to do that.

They're not just going into a room and saying, how are you?

But like, how can I help you?

How can I help you be successful in your role?

And then we also survey our team a lot.

and then we take that information and we use it to inform decisions.

And what we heard is that career pathing is super important right now.

And so we've built that out.

So sort of holistically trying to add some structure yeah.

To what we're doing, to what we're offering.

And yes, trying to keep that community that, you know, all

hands on deck mentality, but as you grow, that becomes diversified.

And that diversification can happen in the coaching, but there's still

gotta be some clear expectations.

People want to know how to be successful in their role.

Yeah.

Okay.

I love it.

So lots of investment in the structure and making that transparent so people feel

very comfortable with how they can engage.

And then massive investment in people's training.

Do they have the tools to do the job that we want them to do?

Probably in a potentially remote environment, whereas it used to be

in person to, and are we collecting the data that can help us keep.

Making those decisions that are informed with, yeah.

Lovely.

Thank you.

All right.

I guess I'm left right.

So I would say at x y planning network, so when the company was founded in 2014,

it was founded as an all remote company.

And then as, as The years went on.

We established a headquarter here in Bozeman and also an office first strategy.

So the strategy for a long time was to hire in Bozeman support the community.

And especially in the recent years we have found that we have

lots of challenges with that.

We are, we are a finance firm.

We have a, we have a tax solution team, so we are hiring lots of

tax professionals, we're hiring lots of finance professionals.

And the labor market here in the valley is really, really tight, right?

And we have almost no unemployment.

So just this recently in the last couple months, we have decided to embrace our

idid work, our idid work team, which we always had because we started remotely.

There was.

Remote team members and now we are going to preface remote hiring as

well to just hire the best talent into the company and and embrace that.

And with that, of course come a lot of cultural changes that

we're going to cross here in the next year and are excited about.

And yeah.

And one of the things that is, is always has been challenging with the her idid

team is how do you make the team member experience equitable for members that

are in person in the headquarters, have access to the executive team.

Through just a short walk through the hallway and somebody that's

working remotely and gets hired and Right, just gets a laptop shipped

to them opens it up and, and there's the employment experience, right?

Mm-hmm.

. So I would say that cultural onboarding is, is really what we need to solve there.

And so for our, for X Y P N, what we have started to do is we've created

a welcome box for our remote team members so that they get a notebook

and they get, you know, some s swag to just kind of get into the mood.

And, and the SPAC is directly related to our five core values as well.

And then, We are also doing retreats and we are doing four company-wide retreats.

Two will be remote and two will be in person.

So we're flying all team members out for our in-person retreats.

And that's really where a lot of collaboration happens.

A lot of team building happens.

And then we are also have started now to have departmental retreats where just the

department is meeting and is flying people out because, you know, the tax team has a

really busy season and they're not really up to team building when they, in April

when we have our company-wide retreat.

Right.

When they have you know, a hundred tax returns on their table.

Right.

So, yeah.

Okay.

So what I'm really hearing is huge investment in sort of

embracing what we were remote.

Now we were, then we were idid, then now we wanna start thinking about remote more.

So how do we like, get excited about that challenge?

And then how do we.

Choose to bring people together really intentionally, at a time that

works for them rather than at a, just at a time that works for us.

And how, and all of you are kind of talking about and how

do we connect people with who we are, whether they're in person.

Or whether they are remote.

Okay.

So what I'm really hearing from all of us is we're all making commitments to

provide a more flexible experience, to connect people to who we are and to each

other, whether that's in person or in a idid situation or in a remote situation.

We're all trying to drive an equity.

Agenda, which is amazing.

And we're all, I mean, sort of l learning and investment in learning, I

heard that come up a couple of times.

So it feels like if we're looking at this opportunity through these

lenses of flexible, connected, growing, and rewarding, then we

have a pretty good foundation of e e everything that we've heard.

So let's dive into that each area a little more.

So if connection is about how do we build trust and connection, especially

if this person is not sitting next to us and doesn't have the opportunity

just to have coffee and stuff, and like you said, their, their experience

of welcome to our company is, here's your laptop, open it up, get working.

Then, you know, obviously there's an opportunity there.

How do we build trust and connection?

How do we sort of start to make promises that inform, to your

point, Renee, how do we be together?

What is the way that we come together and feel like we belong and feel like we're

connected no matter what we look like and no matter whether we look like everyone

else or whether we look different?

So, Bridget, let me come to you.

This is just gonna be a one-on-one.

So obviously you spoke about adventure hubs and you spoke about free soloists.

Mm-hmm.

. And you, I thought you just had three main locations, but you listed off about eight.

Mm-hmm.

. And so how, talk to us more, can you dive a little bit deeper into how you

build connection between teams in hubs rather than just in the hubs and, and

help this whole big sort of connected network that I'm imagining feel like

they belong to the same organization.

Especially when you've got multiple different products and people sort

of potentially could feel like they belong to different organizations.

Cuz what they're, the, the work that they're delivering is.

Great question.

Very hardy.

So I'm going to give a few, like, sort of two feet off the ground

examples and then zoom out.

We do donut coffee chats.

I'm sure a lot of folks are familiar with those.

It's when Slack links you up weekly with anyone in the company and then

you put the meeting on your calendar.

And so all across the company people are meeting at all different

levels, very casual, and sometimes it, it will go the way of work.

And sometimes it's like, what's your Thanksgiving tradition?

Do you actually get a donut?

No.

It's just the app is called Donut.

But when I do invite someone, I do just put Bridget slash Daniel donut emoji.

Nice.

And then they need to figure it out.

So okay.

So I think that, that, that is, is really powerful.

And in fact, once one week I was paired with the C E O and I said,

Laura, you do donuts every week.

And she said, absolutely.

Like, this is so valuable.

Getting 25 minutes with someone in the company every week.

Okay.

Then I'm going to zoom up into like, we have a multi-product company.

So we have OnX Hunt, OnX, back Country and OnX off-Road, and

then different departments.

Some team members are a shared resource.

So like people success department.

I'm a shared resource across three verticals and some people are

targeted for that certain vertical.

So there's a vertical marketing manager for Hunt, there's a

vertical marketing manager for off-road or maybe more than one.

And about a year ago we were, I wanna say we were maybe at about 250 employees.

Now we're at 330.

And, and the growth in the past three years has been very fast and very

acute with those additional verticals.

And so it was like add another vertical.

Add another vertical marketing manager and these, and kind of these positions

just start getting added really quickly.

We had an offsite last December where a an outside speaker came and

chatted with us all about the nature of working in a matrix organization.

And all of her visuals were a garden trellis of you have the structure

and then you have your vines and this is truly what you have at Onyx.

And then she had everyone in the, it was a manager retreat, so it was

about, I don't know, 60 ish people.

She had us all stand up and then go to where we are a resource and if

we were in multiple verticals, like you leave a shoe anyways, it was

just a very physical representation of like, whoa, there's a lot of

complexity here and this is a great.

Physical representation of why communication is really hard.

Like I've got deliverables to the hunt general managers and I've got deliverables

to the marketing manager and they both want them tomorrow and I don't know,

I don't wanna disappoint someone.

So like it really gave us some good hardy ground to start to

dive into those conversations.

Great.

Yeah, so I think, I think my big picture answer is like naming it

and describing why it's tricky.

And we have this word matrix and garden trellis and like people have an image

when they, they are faced with those

tricky situations.

Okay, great.

So we're building a shared understanding of what we're doing.

Hey.

And it reminds me of that time when we had all the group together and we

were, we were, we built this massive big spider web that represented who

people should be connected to and why.

And all of a sudden everybody was connected to everyone.

And we were not surprised that we were having a lot of trouble

communicating instead of.

Just feeling frustrated initially.

Okay.

Thank you.

Great.

So shared language, shared experience, shared understanding of what the rub

is that we're trying to solve for.

So it doesn't feel so overwhelming.

Isolating.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Let's go to flexibility.

Hayden, I wanna come to you.

So, flexibility is all about workplaces.

That promises promise that everyone's needs can be met no matter who you are.

That we're gonna hear them, we're gonna honor them, we're gonna find

a way to honor them, and we're gonna find, approach that opportunity with

a lot of flexibility and have the people who are impacted by the decision

part of the decision making process.

So Hayden.

, you know, let's hear a little bit more about Bridger.

Like you can't offer the same level of flexibility to your

employees that some of the rest of us have the privilege of doing.

So what do you see some of the challenges in the context of

shift work and flexibility?

All your people still want the flexibility and yet you're open like

often more than everybody else, and you have to be at work to do the job.

So how do you, how are you approaching and how do you see

the hospitality sector approaching that challenge slash opportunity?

Flexibility is the name of the game.

We obviously can't do remote work because we have to serve tables and bring them

beers and bring them pizzas and salads.

So we have managers that diligently give people exactly what they want.

I'd say 90% of the time, 95% of the time, if they need a shift that's covered,

they have the flexibility to call on 60 other employees at the brewery.

So we make sure that everybody has the choice.

I think Bridget said it, it's just like, you know, you give people the

choice and they feel taken care of.

And we have managers that sit at the bar and will sit there and do the

flexibility of the scheduling and making sure that everybody can go to class.

Everybody has their ski weekend off, they, they can go home

for a week, for Christmas.

So I think we spend so much time making sure that everybody has a

flexible schedule, because if you don't give them the choice, then

how are they gonna be happy at work?

And nobody likes an unhappy server.

Mm-hmm.

. So we wanna make sure that everybody has that choice to, you know, there's

obviously times that you have to sacrifice a shift or two every once in a while.

But I can't tell you how on point our manager is in the kitchen

in the front of house that.

Give every single shift that everybody wants or not want in the time off

because it's, it's really impressive because yeah, you can just go to the app.

But n we don't do that.

We, we sit down and make sure that we know everybody's availability, make sure

that they have certain days off that, you know, I know a few of people, it's

like, I need Sundays off for football.

And it's just like, yeah, you got it.

Not a problem.

But you have to be able to pick up other shifts that people might not want

and they game days Bobcat football.

A lot of people don't like 'em, but we will make sure that everything is covered

and we are fully staffed and to make sure that if people have that choice to take it

off or work it because it's really busy.

So yeah, flexibility is the name of the game and I think we hit a home run with

it, especially our scheduling managers.

So, you know, props to those guys

and the recruitment team who recruited them.

Absolutely.

. Yeah.

So what I'm really hearing is like, sure we can't work from home, but

what we're really promising is that we will find ways for you to experience

flexibility in your work and you will be a key partner in getting your

needs met because we all pitch in.

We wanna make sure that everybody is not just

getting stuck with hosting.

And we share that responsibility very well.

Like, you know, we have a few people that have been working there for eight years

and they have a host shift once a week.

And that's not normal.

At a other re.

It's like, I will never host because I've been here for so long

and there's no way that I'm gonna, you know, take that step down.

But taking care of each other that the flexibility that, yeah, you can go behind

the bar because you haven't been back there and I will host tonight to, just

to give you the opportunity to make sure that people have that flexibility.

And some people might not like bartending and they like to sit with tables and we

give them that choice, that flexibility to make sure that they get that choice.

And it's, it's honestly amazing that we can deliver that weekend and week out.

So, so there's another promise there

around like, Hey, we're all gonna pitch in to make this work.

And you will have agency and you'll have choice.

Yeah.

Big family.

Yeah.

Big family.

Can I just

add on Yeah.

Just something that jumped out at me about what you're saying, Hayden, is that you're

really creating an environment where you're scheduling managers know how to hit

a home run that is crystal, crystal clear.

So through that North Star, you know how you now have designed an

experience for everyone to reap those

benefits.

Yeah.

We know what paint does, so, great job, . Okay.

Sophie, another question for you also around flexibility.

So, you know, the, the challenge that sort of being remote and being idid and

sometimes being in person and being back in remote, obviously all the data through

Covid showed us productivity continues to rise when we let our people work from

home in spite of us believing we couldn't trust them to do anything worthwhile when

we weren't looking over their shoulder.

But creativity drops off.

So how, what are you doing at x y to continue to cultivate a culture of

creativity where you really can leverage the opportunity that col collaboration

creates to solve problems in a, in new and innovative ways when you are

idid or when you are fully remote.

Yeah.

And so I think that at XY what, what we're really trying to do is,

is being intentional about what we accomplish in what workspace, right?

So you have a lot of people working across time zones and I'm, I think it's

really important to hone in on, okay, you know, sometimes I'm going to be

asynchronous on when my team is not on because I'm in the Eastern time zone and

I'm, I'm like to start working early.

And so that is really my calm time where I can.

I can get a lot of detailed work done.

And then having synchronous meetings with people where you are apart from each

other, where you can collaborate as well.

But then I would say that the, the most of creativity really happens when you come

together during the retreats and during the during the departmental retreats.

And so I think it's really important to plan the retreats in a way where we're

not trying to accomplish work that we could otherwise accomplish away from each

other and really make this time work for the collaboration and for the creativity.

Okay.

So the promise is you sort of will build containers that you can really do the

work that you need to do, even though that looks like lots of different things and

there will always be an opportunity, you just need to step into the right line.

Yes.

Okay.

Great.

Okay, let's move on to reward.

So reward is about recognizing people for the impact that they're

adding to your organization.

Obviously the culture ad as well as the sort of more tactical opportunities that

they're providing and really unlocking their ability to do work that is rewarding

for them and meaningful for them.

So perks and benefits have been the lu, especially for those of us who

work in tech, come and work for us.

We will provide a pool table and a free lunch and a sleeping pod, maybe

lots of money, obviously and payout like equity in the company, et cetera.

Obviously, tech is going through its own reckoning right now with a recession that

we're not calling a recession looming.

And inflation obviously is hitting everyone's pocket where it

really, where they're feeling it.

So, The whole panel.

Who wants who wants to speak to, like how important do you see pay as

being in your organization in at the moment in the context of all of the

things that is in the reward bucket?

All right,

so I said earlier, we survey our stuff and we use that

information to inform decisions.

So recently we did a survey and we asked them what benefits

are most important to you?

What would you trade for something else?

And across the board, wages are top of mind.

Just some backstory.

98% of our employees are here in Bozeman, and we know that inflation is high.

We know that the cost of living is high.

So we didn't get rid of any benefits but we took that information

and so we budgeted for higher than normal raises because.

, our administrative staff, our, our, you know, entry level folks, they still

need to be able to live full lives to take that time and go do adventures.

And you gotta have a little coin in your pocket to do so.

So we have robust benefits.

I feel really strongly and really proud of how well pie takes care of its employees.

Across the board, tangible and intrinsic Ben benefits.

We talk about flexibility.

We've had sort of that flexible around life events, always.

That's always been a part of the core.

You need to go pick up your children.

So there's lots of that.

But our employees said to us, we need to make enough money

to live here in the valley.

Okay?

So the promise is we will ask what exactly you are looking for

in terms of reward, and we will.

Deliver that need.

Yeah.

So Neil, I know not all of us work in the for-profit sector and some of us are

also involved in non not-for-profits.

So either at found, cuz I know, found does a lot of work with

not-for-profits or in the myriad of 25 years of worth of experience.

You're also bringing to this conversation, I would love to hear what you can offer

in terms of what are you seeing that's innovative in the not-for-profit world

where the narrative around what we can spend on salaries and stuff is, is

very different to the, to what it is in the for-profit world and what might we

take away in terms of how we can think about salary and reward differently in

the non, in the non-for-profit sector.

Yeah, I know that one's a, that's a really toughie and I say that

because what we've seen over the last couple of years, even in non-profits,

I mean, they're small companies.

They're very small companies, right?

And they have very, very, very limited budgets.

A lot of us have very limited budgets as well.

And so before we get into a base bonus, equity, as you were just

alluding to, those don't exist in non-for-profit and they don't exist

in a lot of small companies either.

Where I just left.

Yeah, we had that here, not so much . And so how do we instill that?

You talked about the engagement survey, that was number four on our list, was.

not number 1, 2, 3.

It was number four.

I know I said the same thing.

I thought, okay, smaller company number one for sure is gonna be no.

And I was like, wow.

That being said, what we're seeing in the not-for-profits

is, is around that flexibility.

How do you become more flexible?

How do you give them certain benefits?

Benefits, which we were talking about around the time off, right?

And saying, I'm going to go do this.

I know I have my job to do, but I'm, I'm taking the day to get to the hill

ski season or it's hunting season.

we're gonna go hunt.

But I know my job has to get, has to get done at the end of

the day for non-for-profits.

The same thing goes along with that, that reward type of thing.

So intrinsic rewards, we are just alluding to, right?

Those types of things.

We have something lifestyle wellness award, l w a is what we call it,

and it's, it's tiered a certain amount of dollars up to five.

Probably about another 20% on top of that after five years.

And so, and we let people know they can spend it in anyhow, any way,

shape or form they wanna spend it on.

Right.

Just as a benefit, we also offer unlimited pto non-for-profits are starting to look

at that as well because they're saying we can't compete against these bigger

corporations for talent because of what we've seen in the last couple of years.

The great resignation, now the, it's gonna be a different

title here coming up next year.

That being said, how do we continue and how do they continue because they have

to keep that recruiting funnel coming in.

Yeah.

Right.

And especially on a diversity you know, that's, that's a big initiative for us.

How do we get diversity in our pipeline as we call it?

But those are the two biggest things that I've seen that I've.

In my limited time there, but that's also what I've seen in the market as well.

So I love what you're kind of saying, like, let's stop

trying to compare an apple with an apple and let's reimagine us as an orange

so that people are not, which one do I feel like, as opposed to which one's

gonna be tastier and fresher and crispr

Absolutely.

And the non-for-profit, I mean, it's, it's around passion as well, right?

Their passion projects.

You know, is it my cause?

Do I have, do I, do I feel that, is that something that's important to me?

Whether it's personal, something, experience that happened in

our life or whatnot, right?

How they were raised, whatever.

That's something that's, that's really big with them.

And, and, and I'd, I'd go as far as to say that's with us at found it too.

It's a cause.

Mm-hmm.

. Right.

And yeah, we are for-profit.

We are a technology.

For nonprofits, . And so it's, it's a little tricky there.

Yeah.

Such an interesting dynamic though, to navigate and what a juicy

problem to be in the middle of

Okay, great.

Let's move on to growth.

So growth is really this commitment that, hey, we'll invest in you as a

person and understand that your growth is also our growth as a company.

So we really want a and that maybe growth can be that career

ladder that we spoke about.

Like is it really clear how I move from A to B to C, and what's my op?

Like, what do I need to do to step into that?

And what are you going to o offer me?

But also like, what, what if I don't want to climb that career ladder?

Is it okay for me to invest in other types of growth?

And how do I get to a place where work-life balance is a thing, if

that's again, what I want and really work can be somewhere that offers

me sort of wellbeing as well as the next, the next, the next, the next.

If that's what I want.

So I guess what, what I would love to hear is how is growth and learning part

of the conversation when we are talking about new employees to our company?

And cuz often we see the red carpet rolled out for these people who don't

yet belong to our organization and the rest of us are standing around

going like, but what about me?

I've lived here for a while and there's no red carpet.

So how are we making sure that that conversation and those opportunities

are also being unlocked for our longer term or not new employees?

Anyone?

I'll jump in.

So I'm going to actually bring a thread from the last conversation on total

compensation into the answer here.

So we had an experiment this past June, which was really fun to get behind.

It was myself and our compensation specialist where we did a total

rewards compensation learning cycle and it, they were identical sessions.

For our employees, and we talked, it was an education.

The goal was to educate on what is the Radford like data set, where

is Onyx getting ideas on my pay?

What is the Equal Pay Montana Act?

Who's reviewing all the different pay levels in the company?

So along with that, Radford is a nationwide data set that

informs our pay and our pay bans.

And we have let our, our community know that your pay is not, you know,

Bridget and my manager Jan sitting in a room and being like, ah, it

feels like this person might be this.

We are informed through data that's nationwide and we don't

have a Montana first strategy.

We have a nationwide strategy that's news to a lot of people.

So it's good to like just get that out there and be talking about sort of what

are some of these design principles.

And then this relates to career growth and learning because Radford

also informs what we call the career gps, and that is very similar.

It, it feels like we're in the middle of the exact same work, so we should

circle later . But it's, it is big, messy, ambitious work, getting just the

right amount of sentences, just the right word, choice where you are encompassing

what the work looks like for each of the levels in each of the work family.

So engineering, marketing, people, success, all that stuff.

We are investing in it.

It is a partnership between myself and a new part-time hire.

She will stay squarely focused on the writing.

Of these descriptors, and she will work with executive team members and then

get in, have input from individuals in those work families as well.

So I guess my big picture answer is the education to the

community is so, so, so valuable.

I was blown away with the individual Slack messages I received from so many Gen Zers

on compensation and total rewards package.

It was awesome.

And so, and I mean interns from M S U asking really sophisticated questions

and it's cool to be in the position of delivering that learning and this.

this is learning for their entire career.

Right?

This is like kind of big picture philosophy stuff on compensation and then

that being tied so tightly to whatever you want to call your career ladder.

And my advice would be start somewhere.

Because as you pull back the layers of the onion, it's just, it's going to

get more and more complex and messy.

And that's the good news, right?

Is that you're, we're paying attention and we're really trying to describe

what a home run looks like in Karen.

Lu's words.

. Kendall Clifton-Short: Yeah.

And there's also a, like, we haven't sorted this out yet, but we're committed.

Mm-hmm.

to trying and this is where we are mess and all at the moment.

And our commitment to you is that we're gonna keep going down the

journey to make it more clear mm-hmm.

. And to make it more accessible.

Yeah.

For you.

Yeah.

Precisely.

Yeah.

Great.

Any other thoughts?

One thing I see Bridger do amazingly well is help people unlock vertical, or,

sorry, horizontal growth opportunities.

Like, I'm in the brewery now, I wanna be in the kitchen,

now I wanna be in the server.

And I guess this, you know, we've got people who are solopreneurs

or small business owners.

We've got people who work for big companies who can invest in Radford and

have these sophisticated career ladders and, and invest in the consultant to help

make sure that the salary is equitable, not only in the context of one Montana,

but also the US and then globally.

If you have the privilege, like Emily and I of trying to solve this problem across

the world which is a juicy challenge too.

But I think the, the great, what, what we're really hearing is there's an

opportunity, like there's new different challenges, but great opportunities

where, however, you are big.

But the key takeaway is what is the promise you're making that, that

reflects how you're gonna commit to somebody's growth in the context

of how big your organization is.

Are you clear on that?

And are you doing the things that it takes to actually deliver on that promise?

The thing, what's the big key with that follow up?

So as we see when we do the employee engagement surveys, when we say,

here are the things we're gonna do.

If we're not showing the employees that we're doing this, what

do you think is gonna happen?

Yeah, of course it's scores are gonna tank next year as well.

. But they're gonna leave.

Yeah.

So

there's a, they'll find somebody, there's

a beautiful feedback there.

What is the promise we're making?

How would we measure that we're actually doing it?

And what's the cycle that shows that we're delivering on it?

Cuz, cuz if we think that that promise will keep people, we

then have to deliver on it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what do we think people are looking for more right now?

Rewarding work or the chance to grow since these are two very hot buttons for people.

If we could only invest in one, what would we choose?

I mean,

I know I'm biased because I'm learning and development.

So , learning . Okay.

That I.

My understanding of a lot of research is learning curve is the new earning curve.

And if you make that clear to all the folks, multi-generational, multiple

entrance points, not just like you say, red carpet for new folks I feel

like that's a huge differentiator.

Don't you just love all these little sayings that Bridget has?

learning is the new earning.

I just love all the outdoor metaphors.

Are we selling flashcards after the panel?

? Kendall Clifton-Short: Okay,

development person saying learning.

Any other takers?

Renee?

I, I think I agree with you.

I think that folks want to know where they can be in a year, in two years.

They wanna see compensation adjusted accordingly, of course, but I, I think

they wanna know where they're going.

Titles seem very important right now.

So I think that outward, oh, Exhibit of where they are, where they've been and

where they can be is very important.

I mean,

I think someone said it earlier, we have six generations though,

in our workplace these days, and so that could look different.

Mm-hmm.

. And we definitely have those folks who are very happy doing what they're doing.

And I think as a, a leader in the organization, you've

gotta be okay with that too.

I think sometimes we trend towards, we want everyone to grow and develop mm-hmm.

, and you have to be okay with like, this person is doing an excellent job.

Mm-hmm.

, and they're okay with that.

Mm-hmm.

. And so, yeah.

I think I agree with you that learning and development,

that's a great point.

Renee, radical Candor has a great podcast called Rock Stars and Superstars.

I forget how they, how they name the two, but it's exactly what

Renee just said, like, how do you deliver for the people who are in.

Rockstar mode.

And that is, I want growth kind, that is my north star no matter

what I'm hidden to be the ceo.

Yes.

And how do you still deliver, I mean, growth in a way for people who, I think

it's, I think they name it superstar or like, who really want the same and

really wanna keep nailing those targets.

And the sooner we are clear about that, that like sort of decouple

those two personas and then how we meet that better results For sure.

So thanks

for bringing that up.

Any take is full rewarding work.

I mean, who doesn't love rewarding work?

I think that that is at the more, at the front end, like that is finding a

company that is in line with your values.

So I, I feel like they're hand in hand.

My brain is just very much focused on learning.

In, in the day to day, once you're in the door.

Okay.

So that's

interesting.

Maybe one gets people in the door so it's a better attractor

and one's a better retainer.

Okay.

Interesting nuance.

Okay.

I'm conscious of our time.

I wanna hear from everyone.

Okay.

Great.

Amazing, amazing things that you're doing, amazing perspective that you've provided

everyone and really sort of bringing to life, well what, what are we doing when

we say, how can we create more flexible environments, more place workplaces

that, where people feel more connected even when they're idid or fully remote.

How can we really reimagine what reward looks like and how do we keep learning

at the forefront of our learning?

So, so thank you for painting the picture.

I guess with, with all of that work that you've done.

You're not done right.

This is an ongoing new new world that we are building together.

So I'd love for e for each of you to share.

Okay, great.

What, what are you now thinking about 2023 being about, what do you see as

the opportunity to be investing in, in the context of your organization so

that you can keep finding that amazing new talent and keeping the amazing

new talent, the amazing talent that you already have in your business?

What's 2023 got for you?

We could start.

All right.

So for me specifically, I think what 2023 will will bring or will look like is that

we really want to redefine our learning and development sector at X Y P N because

with the hi idid workforce, we did do a feedback survey or we surveyed our team

members and we really found that there is Not really an equitable experience when it

comes to learning and development, because a lot of our learning and development

right now is presentations that are done in the office and are recorded over Zoom.

But as everybody can imagine, when you sit on Zoom, it's a very different experience.

Mm-hmm.

. And it is when you sit in the room, especially when the

facilitator is in person as well.

And so we are looking into ways to make that a more equitable experience.

Great.

So really Dr.

Bringing equity into the learning and development.

Yeah.

Agenda.

Great, Renee.

Thank you.

So

we have four strategic pillars and, and I think what we're

committing to in the future is making sure that individual goals support one or

many of those sort of strategic pillars.

The one where I think employees.

Land and what's gonna potentially create some additional retention

is this lever for good.

So we've committed to being a lever for good in the lives of our employees, in

the lives of the community and beyond.

So simple things like doing some more pro bono work.

We've dabbled in it.

We've created some process, you know, around it, structure around it, and,

and so letting some of our employees dabble a little bit further out.

Cause we work for large professional services firms of the world.

There's not a lot.

Feel good?

It can

be, but let's be real.

I think, so that's a big push for us is giving our employees that experience.

Additional volunteer opportunities.

We've created a new benefit where we're offering paid volunteer hours.

We've always had volunteer opportunities, but mostly it was on

your own regard, on your own time.

So we have some coordinated high sponsored volunteer opportunities and we're

offering hours for folks to do that.

We're also saying you can use

these hours to give your time to a passion project.

And I think that's gonna help in that sense.

So connecting that value piece, I think that was one of the big

pushes for, for next year for

us really dialing up the meaning.

Yeah.

I love it.

Thank you.

So a

big experiment on the table for 2023 is we are turning

our talent review process upside down.

It has turned into this big hairball that people dread twice a year,

quarter two, and quarter four, I think.

Yeah.

So we are reimagining it and I hope I am sitting here one year

from today and can reflect back on a continuous feedback culture.

We're putting mechanisms in place where that is happening weekly,

where there are question banks to drive powerful one-on-ones.

We have like a whole strategy around this, but the idea is like,

why do we want talent review?

Well, we want it to drive excellent behavior for ambitious goals.

If it's taking one manager like two hours to clear their plate and really focus

on like, ah, let me figure out how this person is doing once every six months.

Yeah, exactly.

It's not.

, it's not creating that result.

So we are scratching the whole design and going with a fresh

approach that I'm very excited

about, which is kind of cool cuz it's a, a different

spin to what we've already talked about in terms of growing, right?

Mm-hmm.

, how do we put that continuous feedback loop mm-hmm.

into someone's world so they can keep growing and delivering their excellent

behavior that delivers the goals.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

stay tuned, we'll stay we'll see you where all how it goes,

Hayden?

Along the lines culture, I think in the next year we just

I'm not sure if you all know, but we just opened a new facility in Three

Forks and we, you know, we're we just increased by two thirds, like we went

from 60, maybe 80 employees to 140.

So to make sure that all these diff different departments are financially

viable because obviously to retain these workers, we, the main one was

to increase wages, which just got us.

Plenty of people through the door, and we could actually start picking and

choosing who starts working for us.

But with that growth, we wanna make sure that the culture sticks with Bridger

Brewing because that's what's made Bridger Brewing such a desirable place

to work brings in a lot of people and we wanna make sure that that culture

doesn't lose with any type of expansion.

If that's becoming the biggest brewery in Montana, we wanna make sure that

our culture stands alone in making sure that people understand that

we're here, not just to make money, but to create wonderful people that

can go out into the world and have adventures and share those adventures

with the, the community around them.

And, and to know that.

A brewery, not just to serve beer and pizza, but we want to provide a little

bit more beyond that and making sure that the culture is known for Bridger

Brewing, which I think is probably, yeah, our biggest goal in the next

year, especially with the expansion.

Yeah.

So a huge investment in how do we connect people to who we are so that

we can keep feeling like a family, even though we're fairly removed

from who are now our third cousins.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Thanks.

This is the thing about being last.

You have everything here, . That's exactly the things, but no, like yours.

Exactly.

I mean I used the phrase culture of talent long time ago, and I've, and I've

said that that's one of the things that, and we'll see from a year from now, the

same thing, the measurement from it.

Listening to our employees, looking at the development, looking at

their needs, their wants, where they want to grow their career.

It's, it's a, it's a herculean effort.

I mean, it's not just one little piece we have to put in place,

but the learning development side of just alone is incredible.

Not to mention the career pass, where, how do we give them opportunities, right?

Yeah.

We're doing goal setting.

Some people they may not perform, so how do we get them to perform better, right?

This, these are concepts they haven't, they haven't practiced consistently

as they've grown and, and the company, and I say we now because I'm part

of it going from 50 80 to now over 250 or almost 250, it's in a very

relatively short amount of time.

Now, it's okay, what are the things we have to do to make sure the,

the business is running right?

But we can't forget, of course, the culture and what made fondant

special, what makes it special that can't, that can't lose sight.

And so it's, it's a question and I've been asked is a question that.

Asked on interview interviews of saying, you know, how do you retain that?

How did Google retain it as they kept growing?

Right?

I mean, Laslow, who was the head when he put it there, he came from ge.

GE was your grandfather's Osmo Bill was a phrase I used to hear all the time.

And he went to Google and everybody was like, no way.

This is gonna work.

And he made it work.

And how he made it work was constant listening, that constant feedback.

And that's what made them really successful to keep in

and retain in that culture.

So that constant feedback loop is, is

critical.

Okay.

So in summary, what I've heard is that we are doing a lot of listening.

We're collecting the data.

We're not just shooting from the hip doing things that we think need to be done.

We are really asking our people what, what they see as the

opportunity, what they need from us.

And then we're shaping where we are choosing to invest our

efforts, both from a process.

Structure, perspective and a culture perspective.

And there's a lot of learning and development, but really like how do we Dr.

Create the culture that's gonna keep people engaged in delivering on our goals.

Okay.

Great.

Enough questions from me.

Some really valuable insight.

Thank you.

Over to you.

Maybe I haven't covered every single burning question

that you've got, but Hannah?

At this point in the conversation, we opened up questions to the attendees

who were sharing the evening with us, but they weren't micd up, so their

questions were quite hard to hear.

So let's unpack each of the questions individually, and then you can hear

how our panel responded to them.

Okay, our first question was from Hannah, an attendee working in the

world of leadership, and she was asking how much responsibility for creating

communities organizations should shoulder.

The general consensus was that we all win when we choose to build community, even

if it's not specifically within our remit.

Midway through the exploration of that question, the conversation

moved to exploring the role businesses have in driving community

within their local communities, and a rich discussion followed.

Definitely.

There's non, a lot of non-profits that we donate to, you know, every Monday we have

a pint night to make sure that we have, and in the marketing sector to bring in

new customers, but to create that bigger community that we can get involved.

It's very easy on our side.

We just give beer and that's , that's your solution.

Every beer, everybody loves it.

Totally.

It's, it's, it's amazing the what it facilitates those who don't have beer.

Yeah.

But yeah, we, there's, there's nothing better than, you know, being

part of that greater community.

But what have we done?

I think just providing that beer to these nonprofits and, you know,

facilitating that realm of things.

It's you build that community making sure that you send out your, your coworkers and

your employers to go support these causes, to make sure that they are involved in it.

Not necessarily to go get paid, but to make sure that if they are

interested or have a passion about it, you send those people and then

all of a sudden you've created just a larger community that people want to

come into your place's establishment and it's more desirable to be there.

Another really cool thing I see you guys doing is

this philosophy of default to Yes.

Like if someone walks in the door at Bridger and says, can I have

this, the answer will always be yes.

It won't necessarily be like, oh yes, you can have 20 free kegs

cuz that's what you're asking.

But let's find a way to make it a yes is kind of a philosophy that

you embody and is the culture.

Like you, you, you, you make an ask, we'll deliver something.

Mm-hmm.

, Hayden Wilson: that's cool.

Yeah.

It's anybody that walks in the door and it's, if they're, if they, even if they're

helped you just keep on asking them.

Have, have you been helped that it goes so far because they feel like

they're taken care of immediately and.

Maybe bombarded with the same question over and over, but it makes 'em feel

home and at, at a place, a safe place that they would love to come back to.

I'm, I'm thinking of just an extension of that

a little bit, is absolutely.

I think the workplace is in the role of creating community and we have

to realize that the folks that we you know, are interacting with our

employees are at a connection deficit due to the pandemic and then a, a

very high hunger due to the pandemic.

So like skills and development, I mean, the amount of weddings that

I went to in the past two years is low, so I haven't worked on those

connections, but yet I'm really tired of seeing my partner and my dog.

Right.

. So you really want the connection, so, I, I think it's a little bit

awe of an odd situation because we have people's appetite.

So high skill development, a little low.

Something OnX did is Camp OnX this August.

It was an experiment.

We tried it and we gathered in Big Sky and it was an open day of no work and

it actually said in the agenda, you are not allowed to make any meetings because

like, people were like, well, can I please make a meeting since I'm here in person?

So I went, I went to breakfast, we had a, a chat by the ceo and then we had a

round table round that was 45 minutes.

And then I went on a trail run with someone from Product Hunt and an engineer

and I got to know them for three hours.

And like that's where we wanna lean into is the, if you wanna go skiing

together, we can pay for that.

And I understand like not every company can do a night and big sky for

everybody and open that up, but just something that gives some white space.

If it's not over-engineered, but leads to connect.

Is such a high return on your investment.

And I've seen x y do some really cool

things from an equity perspective.

Cause not everyone wants to go skiing.

Not everyone's outdoorsy, right?

So how can we make sure that if we're offering skiing, we're also

offering things a trip to the library or a trip to the coffee shop.

Like whatever it is, we can find something that you will enjoy.

Even if you don't, even if we work for an outdoor company, both of you

and you don't like the outdoors, cuz there are some of those people.

So yeah, I mean I think it was before your time, but really driving equity

as a priority in terms of how we create opportunities for connection.

I think you were gonna say something too, I was

just going to add on that I don't know that it's our responsibility

as an employer to create community, but maybe to create opportunity for community.

And I think similar to others, we do lots of different things.

One of the things we've seen as we've grown is that that community

is taking shape in smaller cohort.

and it's actually really interesting.

And it's created some really high engagement mm-hmm.

. We also try to plant seeds for cross pollination of course, and, and mix it up.

But when those folks come into the office and they're, they're talking about what

they did on the weekend and whose house they watched, the football game, they're

much happier to be at work instead of in their office with a door closed.

So I don't know if it's our responsibility to create community,

but to provide opportunity

for a community.

And it sounds like even if it's not our responsibility, we certainly

benefit from the investment we make.

Yeah.

Great question.

Our next question was from Brock, who was asking how we go about

creating the spaces that are needed to solicit genuine, honest, and

human-centric feedback that's critical in moving an organization forward.

I'll, I'll give you years of what we've done in practice as

best practices amongst many companies.

When we do the employee engagement survey, we always say how it,

it is completely anonymous.

I say completely with an asterisk, because if you're one of the types

that give tons of feedback, it's the same feedback over and over you.

Oh yeah.

That was from Neil . Okay.

Got that.

Right.

But as we get into.

We try to build a trust, and Angela just saw this, the company has never done a

never done a focus group like what we just did when we did our engagement survey.

So, and I've always participated in them and I've, I try to ask few questions

just to kind of get the spark going so people will give honest feedback.

This particular was around, you know, managers and if their manager's not

in the room, what are they gonna say?

But also it can only have like eight people.

It can't be like 28 people.

That thing.

I get disruptive.

So keep the, we do keep this focus groups very small.

Keep it quaint, keep it short as much as you can, but I try to get

it to facilitate and I, I, I'm, now, I have ulterior motives because I'm

the head of HR and I'm trying to see how people are doing this stuff.

And I wanna see, oh, are they very inquisitive?

Are they very quiet?

You know, are what type are they right?

So I can better learn how to communicate with them.

That being said, from a community, from a anonymity standpoint,

anonymity goes out the window when you have these focus groups.

But if you, when we say do that feedback loop, when we, when we take all that

data in, our next piece of it is with their managers to talk through the

things that we're doing to improve.

And so we don't want them to be a hundred percent confidential.

We want the trust.

That's the biggest piece because I want 'em to feel like this

is, this is our community.

We can say anything we want without repercussions, as we always say in hr.

Right.

But that's what I want.

I want to hear from them, not just every now and then.

I want them to be where they can call me, Angela, anybody in our

team at any point in given time.

That's the biggest thing that I want to try to help create.

Yeah.

I

think there's a real, what I would add to what Neil

said is, If I need to know that whatever I say will be held right, however

scary or outrageous it's going to be.

So what are we doing to equip to Renee's point our people with the tools to

hear things that can sometimes be quite confronting and be like, you know what?

I'm so glad I know this.

Thank you so much for like, taking the time to be honest with me and

trusting me with this level of like vulnerability and, and honesty, right?

I think there's a piece there and it's like if, if I say, Hey, to

your point data, gimme data, gimme data, like survey, survey, survey.

But then I just do nothing.

Why would I ever invest in giving you the truth?

In the survey, there has to be a like, Hey, this is what we heard

and it's so great that we know this.

Now these are the things that we're gonna take from this and

commit to bringing to life.

Whether that's tomorrow, whether that's next month, or whether that's gonna

take us three years to deliver on, but I bet what you do really well at PI that

you haven't really spoken to is like, Hey, thanks for giving us the data.

Here's what we are doing with it.

Otherwise, people would stop doing it.

And given that you're always collecting it, that's probably not,

they, they see the, the opportunity that you're creating for them.

Okay.

It

is true.

We, I mean, in your first orientation session, we talk about our robust

feedback loop and how we will give you a lot of feedback and we

expect you to give us feedback.

And I always say, if

you walk outta here today and say, Renee, you could improve upon this

orientation meeting by doing X.

I

wanna hear that.

And so from day one, we're articulating to all of our employees that.

, we want your feedback.

And feedback is given as a gift, a gift towards improvement.

We have a literally a training session where we give people

tools to give us feedback.

Here are three methods that we have used across the board.

I can tell you what they are now, easy to remember, you know, use

these methods, give feedback in a kind and clear manner because we

wanna know what your experience are.

And so, I don't know.

I'm hoping that it, it helps create that trust, that psychological

safety where people can then come.

And you definitely have the folks who feel really good

about giving you lots of feedback and you're like, I'm gonna take it all and

I'm going to, I'm gonna do something with this.

And then yes, of course you have to have to communicate back what you're doing.

Or sometimes in my mind, I think why you're choosing to do.

what you're doing is even more important.

Mm-hmm.

. So yes, we heard you we're gonna

we've chosen to implement it.

I think that's almost the harder piece.

Cuz often it washes over people and they don't hear that part.