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Brandon Wheeless, ALUX Properties

October 26, 2021 by John Ray

Brandon Wheeless, ALUX Properties

Brandon Wheeless, ALUX Properties (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 403)

Blending healthcare with lifestyle and fitness is the unique concept behind The Bailey, a first-of-its-kind mixed use development coming to Alpharetta. ALUX Properties is the company behind The Bailey, and ALUX Chairman & CEO Brandon Wheeless joined host John Ray to share details of this exciting new development, his entrepreneurial journey, other ALUX projects, and much more. North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

The Bailey

A beautiful, tech-centric wellness center.

A jaw-dropping medical rehab facility.

Exquisite hospitality suites. The Bailey will exhibit elite aesthetics, capture human physiology, incorporate current environmental principles, and tie it all within the context of luxury.

The Bailey will redefine the look, feel, and meaning of “country clubs” everywhere.

Website

ALUX Properties

ALUX is a development company that designs residential and commercial spaces that utilize innovative technological solutions to enhance their client’s experience.

They are solidifying our brand to become a leading name in the residential and commercial real estate development industry – trusted for innovative design, superior quality, and unmatched reliability. Through continued collaboration of industry experts from conception to completion, they deliver quality and dynamic projects that will undoubtedly meet and exceed the needs of their clients.

They offer a comprehensive range of development and management services that include Residential and Commercial Development, Construction Management, Consulting, and Property Management.
Company website

Brandon Wheeless, CEO and Chairman, ALUX Properties

Brandon Wheeless, CEO and Chairman, ALUX Properties

The mastermind and driving force behind The Bailey development is Brandon Wheeless, a U.S. Armed Forces Veteran who is the founder, CEO and Chairman of Atlanta-based ALUX Properties, a global luxury design, building and management firm. Leveraging innovative technological solutions, the company is committed to enhancing quality of life – one project at a time – and serving as a trusted source for cutting-edge design, superior quality and unmatched reliability in the real estate sector.

Over the past decade, Wheeless has honed his expertise in commercial real estate and construction developing an array of industrial, office, retail, institutional and mixed-use structures. He began his career in project management while serving in the U.S. Navy, and later the U.S. Army, from 2006 to 2017, piloting ambitious logistical operations for personnel and equipment movement to stations and bases around the world – including managing a fleet of 750 vehicles.

Following his PMP accreditation and acquisition certifications, the Army appointed him to execute several infrastructure building projects for local and international bases. These ground-up, large-scale developments ranged in budget size from $2 million to over $2.7 billion. Wheeless takes projects from conception to ribbon-cutting, incorporating forward-thinking energy efficiency and environmental remediation initiatives along the way. He founded ALUX Properties in 2017.

In addition to his professional accomplishments, Wheeless is a former NCAA Division I basketball player who graduated magna cum laude from Norfolk State University, where he played an integral role on the 2012 championship basketball team.

With his impressive background and achievements in sports, military, and business ventures – all of which demand the utmost in discipline and skill – Wheeless is uniquely positioned to bring his latest dream to life with The Bailey, a first-of-its-kind, multi-use regional development with a tech-centric focus on lifestyle-meets-health features. As the son of an award-winning chef, his passion for creating a world-class hospitality destination like The Bailey comes naturally.

LinkedIn | Instagram

Questions and Topics Discussed in this Episode

  • Share with us your plans for The Bailey, the first-of-its-kind wellness development coming to Alpharetta
  • What are some of your goals for The Bailey and ALUX Properties?
  • Tell us about your experience as a developer
  • What have been some of the challenges and most rewarding aspects of taking on a project of this magnitude?
  • ALUX Properties also opened Aria Spirits – what can you tell us about this recent development and what makes it unique?
  • Is there any advice you could give to business leaders in the area or perhaps something you wish you had known while starting out?
  • Where can we find out more information on The Bailey?

North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray, and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

RenasantBank

 

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

 

Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.

Bryan Clayton, GreenPal

October 25, 2021 by John Ray

GreenPalBryan Clayton, GreenPal (Nashville Business Radio, Episode 35)

Bryan Clayton enjoyed an accomplished entrepreneurial journey in landscaping, which included a successful exit. What he learned from that experience led to his founding GreenPal, and he joined host John Ray to share the company’s beginnings, how growth has been entirely bootstrapped, the problems the app solves for both lawn care providers and customers, the company’s expansion nationally, what lies ahead, and more. Nashville Business Radio is produced virtually from the Nashville studio of Business RadioX®.

GreenPal

How can you save time and money on your lawn care? Why is it so far hard to find a reliable lawn care service? GreenPal

The good news is GreenPal has you covered. How does it work? GreenPal saves you time and money on your lawn maintenance and grass cutting needs by auditioning the best lawn care companies nearby so you don’t have to.

GreenPal is super easy to use to get your grass cut. Just enter a few details about where your lawn is located and what day you want your grass cut, and the app sends the word out to reviewed affordable grass cutting services and lawn maintenance companies nearby you. Then you can compare your free grass cutting quotes and yard maintenance reviews and hire a lawn care service for next-day yard mowing in a snap.

Stop wasting time calling around for free lawn maintenance estimates and use GreenPal to get your yard mowed or grass cut at an affordable lawn maintenance price. You’ll get the best lawn care service quotes near you and a great-looking yard without making a phone call. Technology is awesome!

Company website | Facebook

Bryan Clayton, Co-founder and CEO, GreenPal

Bryan Clayton, Co-founder and CEO, GreenPal

Bryan Clayton is CEO and co-founder of GreenPal, an online marketplace that connects homeowners with local lawn care professionals. GreenPal has been called the “Uber for lawn care” by Entrepreneur magazine and has over 200,000 active users completing thousands of transactions per day.

Before starting this company, Bryan Clayton founded and built Peachtree Inc. one of the largest landscaping companies in the state of Tennessee. Peachtree grew to over $10 million a year in annual revenue before it was acquired by Lusa holdings in 2013.

Bryan‘s interest and expertise are related to entrepreneurialism, small business growth, marketing, and bootstrapping businesses from zero revenue to profitability and exit.

LinkedIn

Nashville Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and produced virtually from the Nashville studio of Business RadioX®.  You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

Tom Limoli, Limoli & Associates

October 25, 2021 by John Ray

Tom Limoli, Limoli & Associates

Tom Limoli, Limoli & Associates (Dental Business Radio, Episode 26)

If you’re a dental practice which accepts dental insurance, then, like it or not, you have financial partners in your business:  the insurance companies. Tom Limoli joined host Patrick O’Rourke on this episode to detail the mistakes he sees practices making in handling dental insurance, mistakes which result in administrative burdens and costs which undermine the entire practice. Dental Business Radio is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient: PPO Negotiations & Analysis and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Limoli & Associates

For almost half a century, Limoli and Associates / Atlanta Dental Consultants has served all facets of the dental benefits industry by streamlining and simplifying the global reimbursement process. The overall mission being to make the delivery of dentistry more affordable through information, education, consultation and service.

Their time proven, simplified, no-nonsense approach to the execution, management delivery of third-party reimbursement benefits has been implemented in thousands of both clinical and administrative operations across the country.

Website | Facebook

Tom Limoli, Limoli & Associates

Tom Limoli, Limoli & Associates
Tom Limoli, Limoli & Associates

Tom Limoli, Jr. is the prevailing expert on proper coding and administration of dental insurance benefit claims. He serves as president of Limoli and Associates/Atlanta Dental Consultants, Inc., a company that over the past quarter century has assisted dental offices in streamlining the insurance reimbursement process. Mr. Limoli’s no-nonsense approach to the management of third-party reimbursement has been implemented in thousands of dental practices across the country.

Mr. Limoli received his Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from Valdosta State University. Following his work with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Mr. Limoli has actively investigated fraudulent claims for the insurance industry, as well as numerous other third-party fiduciaries. He is a licensed private investigator and a member of the American Association of Dental Consultants, the National Association of Dental Plans, the National Speakers Association, the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, and is a past president of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants.

Mr. Limoli is the editor of Dental Insurance Today, a monthly publication that addresses third-party reimbursement in the dental office. He is the author of Dental Insurance and Reimbursement Coding and Claim Submission, and co-author of Fee-for-Service Dentistry with a Managed-Care Component.

LinkedIn

About Dental Business Radio

Patrick O'Rourke
Patrick O’Rourke, Host of “Dental Business Radio”

Dental Business Radio covers the business side of dentistry. Host Patrick O’Rourke and his guests cover industry trends, insights, success stories, and more in this wide-ranging show. The show’s guests include successful doctors across the spectrum of dental practice providers, as well as trusted advisors and noted industry participants. Dental Business Radio is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®. The show can be found on all the major podcast apps and a complete show archive is here.

 

Practice Quotient

Dental Business Radio is sponsored by Practice Quotient. Practice Quotient, Inc. serves as a bridge between the payor and provider communities. Their clients include general dentist and dental specialty practices across the nation of all sizes, from completely fee-for-service-only to active network participation with every dental plan possible. They work with independent practices, emerging multi-practice entities, and various large ownership entities in the dental space. Their PPO negotiations and analysis projects evaluate the merits of the various in-network participation contract options specific to your Practice’s patient acquisition strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Connect with Practice Quotient

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

Peter Rosen, HR Strategies & Solutions

October 22, 2021 by John Ray

HR Strategies & Solutions

Peter Rosen, HR Strategies & Solutions (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 402)

With experience as both an employment attorney and a senior human resources officer for multiple companies, Peter Rosen brings a seasoned perspective to his HR consulting advisory for business and non-profit clients. Peter joined host John Ray to discuss his work at HR Strategies & Solutions, which includes HR advisory, organizational design and effectiveness reviews, investigation of employee complaints, and more.  North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

HR Strategies & Solutions

HR Strategies & Solutions (HRSAS) is a boutique consultancy firm addressing the unmet HR and organizational needs of start-ups to large organizations. Let’s work together to revolutionize the way your business handles HR.

HRSAS provides HR leadership and expertise. They enable growth, improve efficiency, and prevent problems. From HR strategy development to HR recruitment, they do it all.

Their clients recognize the importance of having a strong culture resulting in an aligned, motivated, and engaged workforce. They are committed from the very top to “Doing the Right Thing” and to “Doing Things Right”.

Website | LinkedIn

Peter Rosen, President, HR Strategies & Solutions

Known for his ability to quickly build trust and credibility with his clients and colleagues, Peter Rosen, a thoughtful and practical human resources executive and consultant, has a unique capacity to understand and assimilate into a variety of corporate cultures at different stages of the corporate lifecycle.

With over 25 years of experience in both domestic and international companies, he is able to tailor his approach to specific HR situations and translate his larger corporate experience into start-up and growing environments. His contagious enthusiasm and optimism make working with him a pleasurable experience. Peter’s easy-going manner and hands-on approach help him connect with people, understand their needs, and gain buy-in for strategies that strengthen both organizations and individuals. Peter uses a practical, business-focused approach to HR issues based on both theory and experience.

He has built human resources capability and the infrastructure to support it in a variety of environments, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies in the financial services, consumer products, technology, healthcare, and staffing industries.

He has held strategic roles in established companies like The Coca-Cola Company, SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories, Norrell Corporation, Alexander and Alexander, Capital One Financial Services and TeamStaff.

As the founder and owner of a boutique human resources consulting firm, he now focuses on helping growing companies establish and implement HR infrastructure and works with their senior executives on strategic HR issues. An expert in strategic planning, employee relations, independent investigations of employee complaints, executive coaching, business development, culture building, and team building, Peter has made significant contributions to companies throughout his career and has enhanced both individual and team effectiveness.

He has developed and executed strategic human resources action plans, improved executive teams’ communication and performance, led the successful integration of acquisitions, worked collaboratively with dozens of labor unions, designed and gained acceptance for new departmental organizational structures, created and implemented new benefits programs, and successfully led change initiatives.

Peter’s reputation is one of integrity, trust, innovation, and common sense, backed up by solid experience, a strong educational background, sound business judgment, and self-awareness. He possesses a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a J.D. from St. John’s University School of Law with an emphasis on employment law.

Peter is a member of the New York and Georgia Bars and is certified in the Marshall Goldsmith Executive Coaching Process, the Prosci Change Management Process and Tools, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

LinkedIn

Questions and Topics Discussed in this Episode

  • Benefits of retaining an experienced HR advisor for small to mid-size companies.
  • Benefits of conducting an organizational design and effectiveness review for small and mid-size organizations.
  • Benefits of bringing in an independent and experienced HR professional to investigate internal employee complaints.
  • The role of a well-crafted company handbook.

North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray, and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

RenasantBank

 

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

 

Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.

Chris Smith, CB Smith & Associates

October 22, 2021 by John Ray

CB Smith & Associates

Chris Smith, CB Smith & Associates (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 401)

Chris Smith joined host John Ray to discuss his career journey, why he started CB Smith & Associates, and how his people-first, team-oriented approach has led to both superior results for clients and an ability to attract and retain top-notch professionals to the firm. Chris also addressed why it’s vital that business owners have a CPA who can help them with year-round issues beyond the tax return, including business process automation and succession planning. North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Chris Smith, CPA, CGMA, Founder and Partner, CB Smith & Associates

Chris Smith, CPA, CGMA, Founder and Partner, CB Smith & Associates

With 30 years of financial experience, Chris Smith is passionate about his work. Since founding CB Smith & Associates in 2003, he has led the accounting firm’s growth from one to three office locations in Georgia. It now has nearly 35 employees, including a solid team of certified public accountants and other tax professionals.

CB Smith & Associates is a business advisory and full-service accounting firm that works in tandem with its sister company, Reliance Payroll LLC, a full-service payroll, and human resources outsourcing firm.

Prior to starting his own firm, Chris was a corporate controller. He earned a degree in accounting from Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, and is active in local community groups such as the Rotary Club and numerous CPA groups.

LinkedIn | Company Website | Company LinkedIn | Company Facebook

Questions and Topics Discussed in this Episode

  • Tell us about what you do for businesses at CB Smith & Associates
  • Accounting is more than just doing taxes, what types of special business packages do you offer businesses?
  • Succession Planning is an important part of business. How do you advise on this?
  • Your team loves to help with Business Process Automation. Explain what this is and why important.
  • Pending tax law changes

North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray, and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

RenasantBank

 

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

 

Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.

Dental Associate Contracts

October 22, 2021 by John Ray

DentalAssociateContractsDLREpisode22Album

Dental Associate Contracts (Dental Law Radio, Episode 22)

What are some of the key provisions in effective dental associate contracts? What form of non-compete is permissible and defendable? If you’re fresh out of dental school or even a seasoned dentist working for a practice, what are some vital stipulations you should have in any contract to protect yourself in case you leave that practice? Stuart Oberman answers these questions and much more in this episode. Dental Law Radio is underwritten and presented by Oberman Law Firm and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, it’s time for Dental Law Radio. Dental Law Radio is brought to you by Oberman Law Firm, a leading dental-centric law firm serving dental clients on a local, regional, and national basis. Now, here’s your host, Stuart Oberman.

Stuart Oberman: [00:00:25] Hello everyone and welcome to Dental Law Radio. We’re going to talk about something so near and dear to our hearts if you own a dental practice or if you are a general dentist working for a practice, dental associate contracts. I think what we’re going to discuss today can really apply whether you are a student in dental school – which I personally have the great honor of speaking at, and it’s amazing what the process is in dental school to get to that finish line – and whether you’re a small practice, large practice, whether you’re scaling, whether you have ten practices, 20 practices, one practice. Conceptually, it’s going to be all the same.

Stuart Oberman: [00:01:12] There’s a couple of points that, really, we could spend a whole day on this, but we only have a little bit of time. So, I’m going to touch on some highlights, especially some new regulatory matters regarding independent contractor status. So, the first thing we want to take a look at, you know, when you’re coming into a practice, what is your status, you’re hiring or you’re going into a practice as an employee or even a contractor, or you an associate dentist. One thing you got to consider is the Internal Revenue Service. Are you an independent contractor or are you an employee?

Stuart Oberman: [00:01:44] Now, I believe on some previous podcast, we talked about some regulatory matters regarding independent contractors and how everyone, State and Federal, is cracking down on that. So, again, it’s a key because, if you’re coming in as an employee, your contract will be totally different than if you’re an associate – I mean – excuse me – if you are independent contractor. We’re getting into tax issues. We’re getting into 1099 issues. So, I think we need to take a strong look at data as to what the relationship is. We see contracts that are actually geared towards independent contractor, but yet the wording is all of the contracts as employee, which is a disaster if you are a practice owner.

Stuart Oberman: [00:02:25] So, now, I think, number two – we want to look at a couple of things. Again, I could talk probably an hour on each topic here, but we want to drill this down to very specifics. So, you’ve got to look at your schedule locations. What are the number of days are you going to work? What dental office are you going to work at? If you work for a large group or if you own some practices, where are your associates going to work at? And then, what’s the work schedule? Is it weekdays, weekends, emergency calls? Who’s going to handle, you know, after hours? Who’s going to work on Fridays? Where are those Saturday and Sunday appointments coming in?

Stuart Oberman: [00:03:01] I think all these things are critical because if it’s not explained fully what the expectation is, as far as date, time, and locations, then you run into some issues regarding non-competes.

Stuart Oberman: [00:03:16] Now, we’re going to get into the benefit issues a little bit as to malpractice insurance. One, are you covered under your employer’s coverage? Two, if you are an independent contractor, do you have your own coverage? And then, if you have your own coverage, is it going to cover the practice that you are working in? So, I would never touch a patient with less than a million dollars in coverage. Never.

Stuart Oberman: [00:03:43] What are your deductibles? One thing that comes into play is that, on the risk management side, we will have to put out patient fires. And the first thing I’ll ask our doctors is, what is your deductible? So, if you turn in a malpractice claim – which is a whole another topic – and your deductible is 5,000 but you can resolve a case for 3,000, get it resolved. Do not turn in a malpractice claim. And if you do get it resolved – for goodness sakes – get a release signed before you issue a check.

Stuart Oberman: [00:04:22] So, now, we will look at item number four, duties of an owner and associate, what are their responsibilities? It should be specifically lined out what your responsibility is, what the owner’s responsibility is, staff, billing, collections. Let me say this as far as billing goes, I don’t care whether you work for yourself, own a practice, or you work for a group, or you work for a doctor that owns one practice, you are responsible for your own billing. If billing is fraudulent, if billing is incorrect, if billing is grossly overstated, you have bought that problem. You cannot delegate that problem to a staff member that you work with.

Stuart Oberman: [00:05:08] Next, number five, I would say, would be compensation, which is all over the map. If you’re going to work for a group, you’re going to be around 30, 31 percent. If you’re going to work for an owner, depending on what it is, relationship, you’re going to be around 35 to 40 percent collections. There’s a growing trend to do away with production. We haven’t seen that number in a while.

Stuart Oberman: [00:05:33] Are you working at a flat fee? Do you have a basis? Do you have an upside? Are you looking at 35 percent or the greater of that base pay? So, on a reconciliation, we run into a lot of problems on the associates side, where the doctors who own the practice or group are not reconciling on a monthly basis. If your last days at the end of the month, that should be reconciled, probably within five days, I would say. Sometimes, it’s going 30, 60 days on a reconciliation and that is never good because you don’t know where your numbers are at. So, again, compensation is a huge issue. That’s a whole another day topic.

Stuart Oberman: [00:06:18] But going up to number six, these are items that we see a lot that are excluded. And these are essentially what are the business related expenses. Who’s paying for your license fees? Who’s paying for your associate memberships? Automobile expenses? Are you a 1099? Are you an employee? What’s the entertainment? You’re going to be expected to bring in business.

Stuart Oberman: [00:06:46] Even on the dental side, marketing never stops. I would say that entertainment can be, you know, events. It could be fundraisers, promotional expenses, continuing education. I will tell you that a simple seminar for a general practitioner is a lot different than it is for an oral surgeon who’s doing implants. I think you need to have a defined number as to who is going to pay for the expenses and for how much. Malpractice insurance, are you going to pay that? Health insurance, who is going to be responsible for that? Disability and life insurance?

Stuart Oberman: [00:07:30] These are all basic things that should be absolutely listed in your expense portion of your contract. Again, the more you put in your contract, the less speculation, and the less you will have to call me down the road.

Stuart Oberman: [00:07:48] Charts, a question we get was, “Well, you know, I was with Dr. Smith for ten years and I have an established patient base. I look forward to taking those with me when I leave.” You’re absolutely wrong. Your patients do not go with you when you leave. Your patients will stay with the practice. That is a practice ownership.

Stuart Oberman: [00:08:07] Now, the question is, what do you advertise when you leave? How much do you advertise when you leave? Are you able to advertise when you leave? And if so, does that affect your non-compete? Those are all valid questions. It depends on your agreement.

Stuart Oberman: [00:08:20] We’re going to jump into another section, but one area you want to make sure you have access to is, if a malpractice claim is filed or a board complaint is filed when you leave that practice, you must have stipulated in your contract that you have access to those records to defend the lawsuit and to defend the board complaint. Rule of thumb is you take no charts with you, take no information with you. You take nothing with you except your instruments.

Stuart Oberman: [00:08:53] Number eight, noncompete. I get this question all the time, is my noncompete enforceable as a general rule? Yes. General rule, yes. Now, there are some states where that is not true. You’ve got to look at your specifics on each state. So, the question is, well, what’s fair and reasonable? It’s got to be geographically non- restrictive. It’s got to be fair, reasonable. I will tell you there’s some locations where a 60 mile noncompete is extremely reasonable, where a five mile noncompete is not.

Stuart Oberman: [00:09:31] I know on our contracts that we draft as a firm, we try to push the limit, honestly. I want a noncompete this 10 or 15 miles from my doctor, my owners. Now, when I’m on the other side of the fence and I get an associate, I want a three to five mile radius. So then, you get a question of is it air miles or is it as the crow flies, as we say? Or is it by Google Maps? That is a huge difference because sometimes a practice that you’re looking to buy or you’re looking to move to is within two blocks of your restriction. So, you’ve got to specify, is it air miles as the crow flies or is it a Google Drive Maps. Critical.

Stuart Oberman: [00:10:17] So, again, you want to look at the specific time period. What’s your time period on the noncompete? What’s your geographic area? Is it fair and reasonable? Again, depending on your location, two years, ten miles, maybe unreasonable. Depending on the practice that you’re at, three years, 30 miles, 50 miles, 60 miles may very well be reasonable. We have some clients that, for a variety of reasons, their patient base is 60 miles. So, if they have associates come in, we’re going to draft a 60 mile noncompete radius. Critical, critical, critical.

Stuart Oberman: [00:10:52] Again, going forward, number nine, confidentiality and trade secrets. All information in a practice is deemed confidential. For those practice owners, I would urge you to have every employee that you employ, including all independent contractors, including staff members, including associates, including hygienists, everyone signs a nondisclosure agreement. Everyone signs a nondisclosure agreement.

Stuart Oberman: [00:11:27] Trade secrets, I will tell you the first thing that will leave will be your patient base data. That is all ownership interest in the practice. That information belongs to the practice owner. Work for hire. That’s a whole different world as far as trade secrets go.

Stuart Oberman: [00:11:50] So, let’s take a look at retreatment, number ten. There are some dentists that are better than others. There are some that are a disaster. If you hire a disaster, what are you going to do when that doctor leaves and you have retreatment, redo, after retreatment, after redo for years to follow? Who is responsible for that? For the most part, you’re going to take care of that patient and you’re going to absorb that cost. But that can be thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars later. This is one of the reasons in our Asset Purchase Agreements on the buyer side, we put down the owners responsible for what they do prior to the sale.

Stuart Oberman: [00:12:43] So, let’s take a look at number 11 – and we get this question a lot – associates right to buy in. It’s amazing to me that when we talk to our dental students that are getting their first job, they have not even discussed this matter with the owner. They’ve not even met the team members, the staff members, they have absolutely no idea what the culture is in that practice and they already want to be an owner. They already want to be a buy in partner within a year.

Stuart Oberman: [00:13:19] My strong recommendation is that there is absolutely no discussion whatsoever upfront regarding a buy in. Unless that is a relationship that you’ve known that doctor for years, you have filled in every now and then. But there is nothing worse that will kill a good rollover relationship before you even step one foot into the practice or before you have one hand in someone’s mouth is ownership. If it is a good fit, it will take its course naturally. A lot of our associates are misled, “Well, you know, we’ll have you buy in for a couple of years.” That never happens, unfortunately.

Stuart Oberman: [00:14:06] So, I think you’ve got to gauge the relationship. Now, there’s nothing wrong in there of putting in a contract that you have the first right refusal should the doctor sell the practice. But I think is it a gross mistake to get in there and say, “I want in my contract valuations, buy in options. I want to know what your EBITDA is. I want to know what your numbers are. And I want to buy it within a year and here is the price.” I would throw that out the window and not worry about that.

Stuart Oberman: [00:14:35] So, you know, again, this is a very, very short segment on associate contracts. There are times, you know, we could speak on this for hours at a time. But I think if you look at what we’ve discussed in, you know, these 11 topics, I feel certain that you will take a look at your contract.

Stuart Oberman: [00:14:53] And let me say this about a contract, so do not get contracts off the internet. Do not use what your buddy did. Do not use what your brother-in-law did with his associates. It is ever evolving. Employment laws change. Circumstances change. An interesting part on our side, as a firm, we had dental clients probably in about 30 states or so. And we happen to see different trends, different things coming east, coming west, going north, going south. So, things change, wording changes, relationships change, laws change.

Stuart Oberman: [00:15:32] So, we see contracts that are used over and over and over for five to ten years. And those are absolutely a recipe for disaster, as I often say. So, do not go on the internet, do not download one, do not cut and paste one, because it is so different for each practice.

Stuart Oberman: [00:15:53] That is going to conclude our segment on dental associate contracts. And if you have any questions, any concerns, please feel free to give us a call, 770-886-2400, Oberman Law Firm. And if you want to email me, please feel free to email me, stuart, S-T-U-A-R-T, @obermanlaw.com. Thank you for joining our segment. And we’ll have much more to follow in future podcasts. Have a great day.

 

About Dental Law Radio

Hosted by Stuart Oberman, a nationally recognized authority in dental law, Dental Law Radio covers legal, business, and other operating issues and topics of vital concern to dentists and dental practice owners. The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

Stuart Oberman, Oberman Law Firm

Oberman Law Firm
Stuart Oberman, host of “Dental Law Radio”

Stuart Oberman is the founder and President of Oberman Law Firm. Mr. Oberman graduated from Urbana University and received his law degree from John Marshall Law School. Mr. Oberman has been practicing law for over 25 years, and before going into private practice, Mr. Oberman was in-house counsel for a Fortune 500 Company. Mr. Oberman is widely regarded as the go-to attorney in the area of Dental Law, which includes DSO formation, corporate business structures, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory compliance, advertising regulations, HIPAA, Compliance, and employment law regulations that affect dental practices.

In addition, Mr. Oberman’s expertise in the health care industry includes advising clients in the complex regulatory landscape as it relates to telehealth and telemedicine, including compliance of corporate structures, third-party reimbursement, contract negotiations, technology, health care fraud and abuse law (Anti-Kickback Statute and the State Law), professional liability risk management, federal and state regulations.

As the long-term care industry evolves, Mr. Oberman has the knowledge and experience to guide clients in the long-term care sector with respect to corporate and regulatory matters, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs). In addition, Mr. Oberman’s practice also focuses on health care facility acquisitions and other changes of ownership, as well as related licensure and Medicare/Medicaid certification matters, CCRC registrations, long-term care/skilled nursing facility management, operating agreements, assisted living licensure matters, and health care joint ventures.

In addition to his expertise in the health care industry, Mr. Oberman has a nationwide practice that focuses on all facets of contractual disputes, including corporate governance, fiduciary duty, trade secrets, unfair competition, covenants not to compete, trademark and copyright infringement, fraud, and deceptive trade practices, and other business-related matters. Mr. Oberman also represents clients throughout the United States in a wide range of practice areas, including mergers & acquisitions, partnership agreements, commercial real estate, entity formation, employment law, commercial leasing, intellectual property, and HIPAA/OSHA compliance.

Mr. Oberman is a national lecturer and has published articles in the U.S. and Canada.

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Oberman Law Firm

Oberman Law Firm has a long history of civic service, noted national, regional, and local clients, and stands among the Southeast’s eminent and fast-growing full-service law firms. Oberman Law Firm’s areas of practice include Business Planning, Commercial & Technology Transactions, Corporate, Employment & Labor, Estate Planning, Health Care, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Privacy & Data Security, and Real Estate.

By meeting their client’s goals and becoming a trusted partner and advocate for our clients, their attorneys are recognized as legal go-getters who provide value-added service. Their attorneys understand that in a rapidly changing legal market, clients have new expectations, constantly evolving choices, and operate in an environment of heightened reputational and commercial risk.

Oberman Law Firm’s strength is its ability to solve complex legal problems by collaborating across borders and practice areas.

Connect with Oberman Law Firm:

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GNFCC is Moving! – An Interview with CEO Kali Boatright, Chair Lindsey Petrini and Treasurer Jim Teel, Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce

October 21, 2021 by John Ray

GNFCC

GNFCC is Moving! – An Interview with CEO Kali Boatright, Chair Lindsey Petrini and Treasurer Jim Teel, Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 400)

The Greater North Fulton Chamber (GNFCC) just announced an early 2022 move to the 10000 Building at Avalon. Lindsey Petrini, GNFCC’s 2021 Chair, Jim Teel, 2021 Treasurer, and GNFCC CEO Kali Boatright joined host John Ray to discuss the move, how it positions the Chamber to continue its record growth, the valued association with the North Fulton CID, and much more. North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce

The mission of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce is to be the recognized leader in its region for business growth, talent development and regional prosperity.

The Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce is a private, nonprofit, member-driven organization comprised of over 1,200 business enterprises, civic organizations, educational institutions and individuals.  Its service area includes Alpharetta, Johns Creek, Milton, Mountain Park, Roswell and Sandy Springs. GNFCC is the leading voice on economic development, business growth and quality of life issues in North Fulton County.

Website  | LinkedIn

Kali Boatright, President and CEO, GNFCC

Kali Boatright, President and CEO, GNFCC

Kali Boatright joined the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce as President and CEO in 2018. As an expert in nonprofit management and a proven leader in organizational growth and strategy execution, she is most proud of her history of growing individuals on her team and collaboration with similar mission-driven organizations. Prior to taking the helm at GNFCC, she served as the CEO of the Douglas County Chamber of Commerce from 2004-2018 and before that as Chief Operating Officer of the Golden Key International Honour Society.

Boatright is a graduate of the US Chamber’s Institute for Organizational Management and is a Georgia Certified Chamber Executive. In addition, she serves as chair of the Georgia Chamber Federation on the Georgia Chamber Board of Directors, as an executive board member of the Regional Business Coalition, as a board member of Tech Alpharetta and as past Chair of the Georgia Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives.

In 2017, Boatright was honored by the chamber industry when she received the Georgia Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives Legacy Award. As the association’s most prestigious award, it recognizes long-term executives who have excelled over a period of years in leading and innovatively building their Chamber. The award is based on the demonstration of excellence in areas of chamber leadership, organizational management, service to the profession, community reputation/involvement, and personal attributes.

Kali is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She and her high school sweetheart David have recently become empty nesters with their oldest adulting ITP and only their youngest, a sophomore at Georgia Tech, remaining on payroll. David is a Chemistry Teacher at Cambridge HS in Alpharetta, Georgia.

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Lindsey Petrini, 2021 GNFCC Chair and Chief Operating Officer, Wellstar North Fulton Hospital

Lindsey Petrini, Chairman, GNFCC and Chief Operating Officer, Wellstar North Fulton Hospital

Lindsey Petrini is the Chief Operating Officer of WellStar North Fulton Hospital. WellStar North Fulton Hospital is a 202-bed facility located in Roswell, Georgia.

The hospital is recognized for its accredited cancer program, trauma and primary stroke center designations, and for providing a continuum of services through its centers and programs, including neurosciences, pain management, cardiology, women’s services, rehabilitation, surgical services, and oncology. For more information click here.​

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Jim Teel, 2021 GNFCC Treasurer and Regional VP, Georgia, Goodwyn Mills Cawood

Jim Teel, Treasurer, GNFCC and Regional VP, Georgia, Goodwyn Mills Cawood

Jim spent the early years of his career on the construction side of the industry, managing more than $120 million worth of construction projects and $150 million worth of pre-construction services. He shifted from construction to the design sector of the industry upon joining GMC as part of the business development team. His ability to develop relationships and fully grasp clients’ needs enables him to utilize GMC’s broad range of services to find the best possible solution to achieve their vision.

Jim is also well versed in community planning and economic development and has been involved with numerous utility improvement, downtown redevelopment, commercial district development, new/renovated schools and planned industrial park projects.

He is involved in a number of professional and civic organizations, including the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia, Georgia Municipal Association, Economic Development Association of Georgia, Georgia Rural Water Association, Georgia Association of Water Professionals, Southern Economic Development Council, Association for Learning Environments (formerly CEFPI), Economic Development Partners of Alabama, American Planning Association, Auburn University Building Science Graduate School Advisory Committee and others. In addition, he has served on the Lee County Young Leaders Board; Auburn Chamber of Commerce, diplomat; Opelika Chamber of Commerce; Opelika Rotary Club; Alabama Golf Association Board of Directors and First Baptist Church, Royal Ambassador Leader.

LinkedIn

North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray, and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

RenasantBank

 

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

 

Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.

Decision Vision Episode 139: Should I Incorporate Virtual Reality into My Corporate Training? – An Interview with David Beck, Foundry 45

October 21, 2021 by John Ray

Foundry 45

Decision Vision Episode 139:  Should I Incorporate Virtual Reality into My Corporate Training? – An Interview with David Beck, Foundry 45

David Beck, Founder of Foundry 45, and host Mike Blake discuss virtual and augmented reality and its potential for corporate training. They describe the technology, cover the difference between augmented and virtual reality, its use case for training, frontiers and limitations of the technology, the impact of the pandemic on the industry, and much more. Decision Vision is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Foundry 45

Foundry 45 is passionate about using leading-edge technologies to create better process training outcomes for enterprise clients. We are a team of strategists, technologists, engineers, creatives, computer programmers, and project managers who are all driven to create powerful, immersive VR experiences.

By leveraging new, interactive content, we help organizations break the monotony of their current business training routines while providing safer, more efficient, and engaging employee training solutions.

We have deep expertise creating scalable, effective procedural training solutions that focus on the learning objectives and the needs of the trainees. Our innovative process and approach is rooted in the importance of integrating VR solutions into a holistic, manageable training initiative.

We embrace collaboration within our team and with our client partners. Being accessible, transparent, and honest is the approach that allows us to deliver great work through a nimble and iterative process.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

David Beck, Founder and Managing Partner, Foundry 45

David Beck, Founder and Managing Partner, Foundry 45

Dave Beck is a Founder and Managing Partner at Foundry 45, an immersive technology company that develops enterprise-level virtual reality training experiences. His company has built over 250 experiences for notable clients such as AT&T, Coca-Cola, Delta, and UPS.

A passionate advocate of his industry, Dave is a frequent speaker on topics related to technology and the future of learning.

Before starting Foundry 45, he held leadership positions in both training and technology. Dave also serves as a board member at Georgia Tech, where he earned his MBA, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and the MAK Historic District.

LinkedIn

Mike Blake, Brady Ware & Company

Mike Blake, Host of the “Decision Vision” podcast series

Michael Blake is the host of the Decision Vision podcast series and a Director of Brady Ware & Company. Mike specializes in the valuation of intellectual property-driven firms, such as software firms, aerospace firms, and professional services firms, most frequently in the capacity as a transaction advisor, helping clients obtain great outcomes from complex transaction opportunities. He is also a specialist in the appraisal of intellectual properties as stand-alone assets, such as software, trade secrets, and patents.

Mike has been a full-time business appraiser for 13 years with public accounting firms, boutique business appraisal firms, and an owner of his own firm. Prior to that, he spent 8 years in venture capital and investment banking, including transactions in the U.S., Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Brady Ware & Company

Brady Ware & Company is a regional full-service accounting and advisory firm which helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality. Brady Ware services clients nationally from its offices in Alpharetta, GA; Columbus and Dayton, OH; and Richmond, IN. The firm is growth-minded, committed to the regions in which they operate, and most importantly, they make significant investments in their people and service offerings to meet the changing financial needs of those they are privileged to serve. The firm is dedicated to providing results that make a difference for its clients.

Decision Vision Podcast Series

Decision Vision is a podcast covering topics and issues facing small business owners and connecting them with solutions from leading experts. This series is presented by Brady Ware & Company. If you are a decision-maker for a small business, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at decisionvision@bradyware.com and make sure to listen to every Thursday to the Decision Vision podcast.

Past episodes of Decision Vision can be found at decisionvisionpodcast.com. Decision Vision is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Connect with Brady Ware & Company:

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Intro: [00:00:01] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast series focusing on critical business decisions. Brought to you by Brady Ware & Company. Brady Ware is a regional, full-service, accounting and advisory firm that helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality.Mike Blake: [00:00:21] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast giving you, the listener, clear vision to make great decisions. In each episode, we discuss the process of decision making on a different topic from the business owners’ or executives’ perspective. We aren’t necessarily telling you what to do, but we can put you in a position to make an informed decision on your own and understand where you might need help along the way.

Mike Blake: [00:00:42] My name is Mike Blake, and I’m your host for today’s program. I’m a director at Brady Ware & Company, a full-service accounting firm based in Dayton, Ohio, with offices in Dayton; Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Indiana; and Alpharetta, Georgia. My practice specializes in providing fact-based strategic and risk management advice to clients that are buying, selling, or growing the value of companies and their intellectual property. Brady Ware is sponsoring this podcast, which is being recorded in Atlanta per social distancing protocols.

Mike Blake: [00:01:12] If you would like to engage with me on social media with my Chart of the Day and other content, I’m on LinkedIn as myself and @unblakeable on Facebook, Twitter, Clubhouse, and Instagram. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast aggregator and please consider leaving a review of the podcast as well.

Mike Blake: [00:01:31] Our topic today is, Should I incorporate virtual reality into my corporate training? According to Statista, global shipments of virtual and augmented reality headset shipments in 2020 amounted to five-and-a-half million units and was projected to reach 11 million in 2021 and forty-three-and-a-half million by 2025.

Mike Blake: [00:01:51] As it turns out, I actually own two of those things. One is connected to my PlayStation 4 and another that is on Oculus Rift, which I’ve only recently got that, I’ve not tried it out yet. And, you know, I became really aware of augmented reality when we had the Pokemon GO craze, if you guys might remember. I remember I was on vacation up in Boston, actually, we had a Vrbo in the north end. And I didn’t realize what was going on, then all of a sudden you just saw people these days they’re walking along the streets looking into their phones because they’re trying to find these virtual Pokemon to battle. And it was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen.

Mike Blake: [00:02:35] But I think for many people, that was probably their first exposure to augmented reality. And I think one of the best examples of virtual reality, of course, we’re not there yet in terms of technology, but Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced the Holodeck, which is basically a big virtual reality simulator. And like so many things in technology that we have today, they appeared in some form of Star Trek first. So, it’s kind of interesting to see how we’re seeing that reach full circle.

Mike Blake: [00:03:08] And I became enamored of virtual reality in a training context when somebody came to one of my office hours years and years ago, and they showed me a demo of a VR platform that helps mechanics repair airplanes. And as most of you can appreciate, a passenger jet is an incredibly complex piece of equipment. There’s hundreds of miles of wire, heaven knows how many moving parts. And it’s amazing that the people who work on those aircraft, especially the engines, are able to keep things straight.

Mike Blake: [00:03:44] And I saw this fascinating demo of a platform where there’d be augmented reality, where the technician would wear a headset, they’d see into the jet. And then, for maintenance, it would show them step by step in real time what part they had to address, they had to remove, lubricate, replace, whatever it is that they had to do. I saw that and I said, “Man, this has got to be the future of training.”

Mike Blake: [00:04:12] And so, I think it’s a really neat topic. It’s one that I’ve wanted to do for a while because I suspect our guest will tell us if this is true or not. But I suspect that given where we are from a work relationship and a work paradigm in the current economy here as we’re in Q4 of 2021, I suspect that technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality are taking on maybe a more important role more quickly than we might have imagined.

Mike Blake: [00:04:43] So, joining us today is Dave Beck. Dave is Founder and Managing Partner of Foundry 45, an Atlanta based company that helps brands train their teams and tell their stories through virtual and augmented reality. His company has built over 200 experiences for notable clients such as AT&T, Coca-Cola, IBM ,and Delta.

Mike Blake: [00:05:04] Before starting Foundry 45, Dave served as a chief operating officer at EquipCodes, a mobile SAS and augmented reality company. Dave also serves on the boards for Georgia Tech, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and the MAK Historic District. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from Wake Forest University and his MBA in Technology Commercialization from Georgia Tech.

Mike Blake: [00:05:27] Foundry 45’s team works with global brands, as I said, like Delta UPS, IBM, and they also frequently partner with manufacturing companies and government entities. Dave, welcome to the program.

Dave Beck: [00:05:39] Hey, Mike. Thanks a lot for having me. You mentioned, you know, going to grad school at Georgia Tech. I think that’s actually when you and I met way, way back in the mid-2000s.

Mike Blake: [00:05:51] It might have been. Were you in TI:GER program at that time?

Dave Beck: [00:05:56] I was.

Mike Blake: [00:05:57] [Inaudible].

Dave Beck: [00:05:57] I was one of the first students that went through there. And I’m still pretty actively involved with the group there as well. It’s a really interesting program that combines PhD students and MBA students at Tech with law students from Emory. And I know you’ve been a big part of that group for a while too.

Mike Blake: [00:06:13] Yeah. I’ve been an adjunct or visiting instructor or special instructor in that group for a while. And you’re right, it’s a fascinating program that has actually produced some really interesting companies. You know, they are making an economic impact and not just an educational one.

Dave Beck: [00:06:32] Yeah. They were actually kind enough to let me start my first company from the fourth floor of the management building way back in 2005. So, yeah, I owe them a lot.

Mike Blake: [00:06:44] And I saw that company. I think, wasn’t it on Piedmont or Ponce de León that decrepit single floor building that could not have been more than 500 square feet? And it looked like something that the big bad wolf tried to blow down and failed. But the building itself must have been 100 years old, right? You remember that building?

Dave Beck: [00:07:05] Yeah. We were right next door to Eats on Ponce, basically, across the street from Ponce City Market. That was a great place. I think it’s actually a recording studio now.

Mike Blake: [00:07:19] That makes sense. I know there’s a lot of music that’s moved into that area. And, actually, I could see that being a very good recording studio spot.

Dave Beck: [00:07:27] Yeah. I mean, it’s in a pretty busy area. But it’s kind of off the beaten path.

Mike Blake: [00:07:32] Well, look, I think because the thing is made of solid brick, too, you don’t need that much soundproofing to make sure that you have a quiet spot too.

Dave Beck: [00:07:40] So, and the bones were great because they told us at one point it was actually a tortilla factory.

Mike Blake: [00:07:47] Oh, is that right? I didn’t know that. I mean, look, that building was run down. And no disrespect to you or anybody else, you may do with the resources you had. But that building is not going anywhere. I mean, you and I are going to be long gone and that building is still going to be there.

Dave Beck: [00:08:02] Yeah. Well, you know, the real estate there is probably worth a ridiculous amount of money right now, too.

Mike Blake: [00:08:08] Yeah. I suppose if anything’s going to get rid of that building, it’s going to be a developer, right? I think it’s not going to be time.

Dave Beck: [00:08:15] I think the Eats is the one that’s keeping developers out because I don’t know if they’ll ever move.

Mike Blake: [00:08:21] Yeah. Probably not willingly.

Dave Beck: [00:08:24] I hope they don’t move. I love that place.

Mike Blake: [00:08:26] So, Dave, tell our audience, because some of our audience may not have really experienced this, even with my background, they may not have a good handle. What is virtual reality?

Dave Beck: [00:08:39] So, virtual reality is a technology where you put on a headset and you’re basically transported to a new kind of completely digital world. You mentioned the Holodeck, I mean, it can be almost like teleportation device or a time machine. It could take you anywhere, any place. And the main thing that we use it for is training. I think that’s the killer application for VR today on the business side. And so, we do things like help UPS train their teams out sort packages or load trucks. And you mentioned Delta, we help them train people to work on the runways. You know, challenging environments to train in.

Mike Blake: [00:09:19] And I think about virtual reality, and you tell me this, one of my favorite games growing up was playing Microsoft Flight Simulator because my dad was a pilot, so I was kind of into that. And, to me, I think that was actually sort of the first widely commercially produced – I’ll call it – kind of Neanderthal virtual reality. It wasn’t an immersive environment, but it was a simulation of a flight environment that, actually even back in the ’90s, was sufficiently detailed that you could actually use that as flight training time as you prepared to kind of go solo.

Mike Blake: [00:10:00] And you know, it’s just fascinating to see where it’s come from that point now into this virtual reality now where the environments are just so detailed and the impact almost every sense as well.

Dave Beck: [00:10:16] Yeah. It’s really interesting. I’ve actually had a chance to try the $5 or $10 million flight sims at Delta. And the difference between doing that and doing something in a VR headset, they’re huge pieces of equipment with all kinds of hydraulics underneath them, big screens around you. So, it really does look like – I mean, the graphics might be a little bit Microsoft Flight Simulator from a few years back, but it’s pretty immersive.

Dave Beck: [00:10:48] And the thing there is that you get the actual feel and touch of everything that’s in the cockpit. And that’s pretty interesting from a VR standpoint, you can get a lot of the value out of that on a $1,000 headset as opposed to a $5 million sim. But what you’re not going to get is the same kind of tactile feel, at least not today.

Mike Blake: [00:11:12] And that’s where I’m kind of headed in a way. I mean, virtual reality, I think, is on the modern consciousness because you don’t have to have a $10 million dedicated flight simulator. But I would argue that those flight simulators, which have been around for 30 years, are effectively against sort of Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon virtual reality. They’re designed to create a virtual environment so that when you’re a pilot at 20,000 feet, if there’s a crisis or whatever situation, you’ve already been in that same exact environment. So, when the real thing happens, you know exactly what to do.

Dave Beck: [00:11:49] Yeah. Interestingly, the military is actually leading the way on using virtual reality in flight sim because they’re not actually beholden to quite the same regulations as the commercial airlines are through the FAA. That’s not to say that they don’t have really strong regulations.

Mike Blake: [00:12:11] But it’s different tolerances.

Dave Beck: [00:12:12] It’s different. And they’re able to be a little bit more agile with that. And the issue they have is twofold. One is that, you can’t get actual pilots on real jets nearly enough. And, two, the sims are backed up as well. And so, what they’re using VR for is to just give reps and reps and reps and reps. You know, you can have an entire room of people just sitting in a chair doing the same thing. And you’re probably getting 80 or 90 percent of the benefit that you would out of the much, much, much more expensive sim. But you can use it a hundred times more. And so, the hours rack up very quickly.

Mike Blake: [00:12:58] Yeah. I mean, for example, if I’m going to play Call of Duty with their zombie apocalypse scenario, who has the time to get, like, a whole bunch of real zombies and bullets to shoot them over and over again? It’s so much easier and cheaper if you’re doing it on a PS4 headset.

Dave Beck: [00:13:14] I mean, it’s funny you say that. But, yeah, that’s exactly right. The same thing kind of applies for things, like think about a hazard emergency response preparedness. We did an experience for the Centers for Disease Control a while back that was helping train first responders how they would deal with a crisis in a foreign country. You’ve never dealt with an Ebola outbreak in Sudan, how do you actually prepare somebody for doing that?

Dave Beck: [00:13:44] And for a lot of the disaster preparedness stuff they actually do, they really have real actors and they do a full reenactment. And that’s crazy expensive. It’s not repeatable. So, being able to do that in a virtual environment is a great use case.

Mike Blake: [00:14:04] You know, you just said something, remind me at the end of this podcast as an introduction, I need to make to you. I think if they’re using VR already, they may not. I think I may actually have a customer for you. Perfect.

Dave Beck: [00:14:16] All right. The podcast is over, let’s talk business.

Mike Blake: [00:14:20] So, now people are hearing the term augmented reality. And I describe sort of my first widespread encounter with Pokemon Go. And we’re seeing more and more of it now. Can you define for our audience what is the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality? Where do they overlap? Do they work together? Are they separate or parallel things? What’s the relationship between those two?

Dave Beck: [00:14:44] Yeah. It gets complicated. And it’s funny, there’s also the term XR, which is extended reality, which kind of covers everything. We actually have a – I don’t know – like a glossary or alphabet soup blogpost on our website, if anyone wants to really nerd out on what all the terms are.

Dave Beck: [00:15:05] But the thing is, augmented reality is augmenting your actual reality. So, it’s placing digital assets over top of the real world as opposed to, in VR, you’re completely immersed in a headset to be in a different place. Between you and me, I think it’s not binary or it’s one or the other, it’s a spectrum from if you completely include your vision, that’s VR. If you’re not included at all and there’s things out there, that’s AR. Pokemon Go is a great example, that was like the gateway drug for most people.

Dave Beck: [00:15:42] We started working in AR back in 2011, I think, and actually kind of went through a trough of disillusionment with it because there were all these just kind of cheesy marketing, gimmicky things that came out there. And then, all of a sudden, when Pokemon Go came out, it was just boom. Part of it was because, typically, you’re going to view augmented reality. Your example of Pokemon Go is you’re looking at your phone. Actually, really, what you’re doing is you’re looking at camera feed of your phone and seeing stuff superimposed there.

Dave Beck: [00:16:13] But there’s now a better hardware that are the HoloLens or Magic Leap. HoloLens is from Microsoft. People may have heard of Magic Leap. But they’re kind of goggles that actually allow you to see the real world, but superimposed things on top of it. For my money, those technologies are years behind where VR is. Because if you think of a VR headset, it’s a souped up phone, it’s a souped up smartphone. And so, all the screen, all the processor, all that stuff is actually very much just standing on the shoulders. The VR is standing on the shoulders of the whole mobile phone ecosystem.

Dave Beck: [00:16:57] It’s harder for augmented reality because if you want to make that seem real, you really need to sense depth. So, if you played Pokémon Go and if you’re standing there in your house and you look at it and Pikachu – well not that you’re ever going to find Pikachu – you’re in there, and –

Mike Blake: [00:17:15] Charizard. Call it a Charizard.

Dave Beck: [00:17:15] Charizard is actually in the table or in the sofa. It doesn’t register to actually set it on top of it. That’s why it gets to be a really hard problem. And when it’s not in the right place, you get that – have you ever heard the term uncanny valley?

Mike Blake: [00:17:32] No, I haven’t.

Dave Beck: [00:17:33] That’s when I think about a movie that has bad special effects. And you’re believing and you’re believing, but then something weird happens or glitches or Pikachu is in the middle of the floor or something, like actually under the floorboard, and it takes you out of it. So, you don’t want that uncanny valley because it totally kills the sense of immersion.

Mike Blake: [00:17:59] So, we’ve talked a little bit in a qualitative sense about the benefits of virtual reality training. Is there any data to support that it actually is more effective? It does enhance effectiveness of training?

Dave Beck: [00:18:14] Yeah. I mean, that’s actually one of the reasons why it’s such a great use case for training is because it’s a digital environment. And, therefore, you can pretty much measure anything you do. You can measure how long it took somebody. You can measure whether they did it correctly or not. And it’s not like you can’t measure those things on an e-learning, on a 2D screen, or whatever. But can you measure if you’re doing a chemistry experiment and you’re not supposed to take compound A over top of compound B. We can actually tell whether you did that or not.

Dave Beck: [00:18:48] And there’s a lot of research out there that says, you know, everything up to 80 percent more effective for things like retention. Partially, retention is so much more powerful because it really does feel like you’re actually doing it. So, basically, it’s experiential. So, you’re actually doing the thing you’re learning about. And people say do you learn more from reading a book about something or do you learn more from actually doing it? And for most people, it’s the latter.

Mike Blake: [00:19:16] It’s like Montessori School for grownups.

Dave Beck: [00:19:20] Yes. Maybe that’s all we need is like Montessori branded VR training.

Mike Blake: [00:19:25] So, what you said that I think is really interesting – and I had never thought of it, but when you say it, it makes perfect sense – is that because VR is a digital experience, which means that everything can be measured and recorded if you want to, it does lend itself to being a much more effective tool in terms of measuring performance and measuring the effectiveness of the training. And not just measuring the effectiveness but identifying, let’s say, you’re in a 20 step process.

Mike Blake: [00:19:55] I go back to the jet engine because this is the thing I have in my mind. And the person does great, except for step 16. With VR, it’s much more obvious I would imagine, because you can even play back the whole thing. It’s much more obvious to the trainer that step 16 then requires special attention and focus to get where you need to be from the entire training perspective.

Dave Beck: [00:20:21] Yeah. That’s interesting. I think you could actually think about it almost on three different levels. Actually, yeah, you can record it, and definitely a lot of people do that to be able to play it back for an instructor. Or you can even have an instructor be involved in it, kind of as the puppet master behind the scenes, controlling it on an iPad or on a laptop.

Dave Beck: [00:20:41] But then, second, you could have aggregate information where you don’t have to have personally identifiable info. But you could say, at an aggregate level, there’s 20 steps, everybody seems to be missing step 16. So, that’s the feedback that the trainers need to know, “Okay. What’s missing here?” You could drill down more and maybe find out everybody’s missing this one piece of it, or it’s not clear, or whatever. Or you can maybe test it and try two different 16s?

Dave Beck: [00:21:10] But then, if you want to get super granular – this is nerding out a little bit on training – real quick, there’s actually something called a learning management system, which is just like a content management system. And that’s where, if you go to work for IBM, Mike Blake signs in and they give you your laptop. And when you get online, it says, “Hey. Welcome, Mike. Take our sexual harassment training or diversity inclusion training. Oh, and you’re the airport -” I should have said Delta, “You’re the plane mechanic. The first thing you’re supposed to do is this.”

Dave Beck: [00:21:45] Well, you can actually have the VR training experiences live within that environment as well, so that anything you do gets put into that place. Because nobody at an enterprise level wants to actually keep the information separate. They don’t want a Foundry 45 system or a file cabinet in the corner or something that has the info on it.

Mike Blake: [00:22:06] So, I’m going to diverge because I think this is going to such a fascinating place, at least for me. It’s all old hat, too, but I’m learning as we go along. This is becoming my LMS now. VR brings in data analytics now to training that probably was not available before, doesn’t it?

Dave Beck: [00:22:24] Yeah. There’s all sorts of really cool stuff that you can do there. I was mentioning it before where, oftentimes, if you want to measure how someone does on a task, you have to have an observer, they would just sit there. And that’s kind of twofold. There’s a lot of times it’s just kind of tribal knowledge. And if Mike trains somebody versus Jim training somebody versus Sally training somebody, you know, it’s all a little bit different. So, the repeatability is there. But then, also, the repeatability on being able to tell whether they did it the way you want them to do it is also there as well.

Dave Beck: [00:23:02] I mean, there’s all sorts of biometrics stuff that’s coming out now. I mean, there’s eye tracking to see where you look. You can hook it up to a heart rate monitor. There’s actually a bunch of really interesting research that’s been done about kind of the optimal state of learning, where you don’t want it to be too easy and you don’t want it to be too hard. And if you try and keep somebody kind of in that band, if it’s getting too hard, you back off. If it’s getting too easy, you make it a little harder. It’s almost like an SAT or something that is adaptive.

Mike Blake: [00:23:40] So, what are the limitations? Let me ask this differently, what are the frontiers of VR learning and training? Where are the boundaries now that are being pushed in that area?

Dave Beck: [00:23:52] I mean, at the very highest level, everyone’s always working on better, smaller, cheaper, faster. And that sets have gone insane. I can talk more about that in a minute if you’d like. But the frontier is more on, like, haptic feedback, so bodysuits that actually you can feel the bullet hit you or they change temperature. Basically, if anyone saw Ready Player One, an omni track treadmill that allows you to actually run in any direction. And there are ones of those, and some of them work well, and most of them are a little cloudy right now.

Dave Beck: [00:24:34] But then, maybe the kind of furthest along, but is still a little ways out for me is haptic gloves. Because you’re first starting to ask is thinking, what’s one of the limitations? Well, getting forced feedback. Like, it’s hard to teach somebody – if you’re talking about that mechanic, it’s hard to teach them how to actually feel. You can’t feel the torque on the wrench. You can have a scale in the scene that shows, “You start at zero and now you’re at 70.” It stopped. Muscle memory.

Dave Beck: [00:25:04] We get to train people how to drive trains. We got some light rail training. A bunch of stuff for a bunch of different lines out in Portland recently. I mean, they have a throttle, it’s a feedback. You can feel it’s almost like you’re shifting gears in the car or something. You can feel when you get to the next one. And we spent a ton of time going back and forth about how they really wanted a physical throttle as part of the experience.

Dave Beck: [00:25:42] We could do that, but that adds additional cost upfront, just getting it to work. But more so, it’s like one more point of failure. These headsets now are super inexpensive. You can spend a $1,000 on a headset and do 20 different experiences, 100 different experiences on that same headset. Whereas, if you build a specialized thing with a throttle, you can only do that one thing.

Mike Blake: [00:26:10] So, in your experience, are there industries that lend themselves better to VR training than others? Are there industries where there’s a more natural fit?

Dave Beck: [00:26:21] You know, I think anything that’s procedural. We like to say when there’s one right way to do things. You know, if it’s A, B, C, D, E, F, G, that’s the most straightforward and it’s very easy for me to help somebody to rely on that. Because you can say, “This is exactly what you need to do.”

Dave Beck: [00:26:46] But it gets a little more interesting, maybe, even on kind of the branching narrative stuff. Think about Choose Your Own Adventure. You can do anything. If you make decision A, B, or C, it changes the way the experience ends up. That can get pretty complicated. But there’s a platform called Tailspin, for example, out there that’s doing a lot of work in that space that’s really interesting. But, basically, you can set it up and you can do anything.

Dave Beck: [00:27:18] So, softer skills type opportunities, they weren’t as easy to do. It was back to the Uncanny Valley, it was a little bit hard to have that interaction more with that person than with a piece of equipment. But that’s changed really fast. And everyday, it gets more and more immersive. There’s another one – real quick – called Varjo, V-A-R-J-O, that’s out of Europe that has a really high end one that’s super immersive.

Mike Blake: [00:27:49] Oh, yeah. That’s a Finnish company, I think.

Dave Beck: [00:27:51] Yeah. Yeah. Swedish. They have it set up so you can do pass through – I’ll try and explain this on podcast. Imagine that you’re in that digital environment, but you can actually see your hands that are in the digital environment. Because what it’s really doing is taking a video of your hands and just superimposing them over the digital. So, if you’re looking at the plane, you can actually touch the little dials in the plane and whatnot. It’s very cool.

Mike Blake: [00:28:25] So, how broad are the offerings for VR training off the shelf? And what I mean by that is – correct me if I’m wrong – my sense is that we’re at the point now where buying the headset is the easiest part. That’s sort of the easy entry point. But it doesn’t do any good unless you have software to kind of run it with. So, when we’re discussing VR based training programs, is there a wide range of off the shelf training that is available? Or do a lot of companies have to budget in, in effect, having a custom training program written for them?

Dave Beck: [00:29:07] It’s a little of column A and a little of column B. So, for things that are actually pretty common and available in 2D video format, for example, like diversity and inclusion, you know, your company doesn’t necessarily need a specialized one of those versus a different company. A lot of things that are happening in, you know, clean room manufacturing that have very similar kind of formats. Those are actually being productized a lot more now.

Dave Beck: [00:29:48] For things like the Delta aircraft engine, the question is, is Delta different enough or Boeing needs to be the one that’s actually providing that? And in the market, it’s interesting to see, whether the vendor or the actual purchaser is the one who has the need. Today, some of that’s getting pulled through from the vendor to the purchaser.

Dave Beck: [00:30:19] Oftentimes, we don’t even work with the training personnel at Fortune 500. So, oftentimes, we work with ops people because the ops people have a specific problem that’s costing them money. And they can say, “If I spend X on this virtual reality training thing, I’ll save Y. And that’s a net positive in six months.”

Mike Blake: [00:30:40] So, I’m curious as to your view on the following, in my view, my experience, I think the entry point for most people into virtual reality is some sort of entertainment function, some sort of entertainment activity. And in preparing for today’s conversation, that still seems to be the case. It seems like more people are still using VR sets for some sort of entertainment activity than they are for a work activity.

Mike Blake: [00:31:14] But my question is this, has the pandemic either forced or motivated a reckoning or reconciliation of the value of VR and AR because it’s made sort of old school analog kinds of training sort of taking them off the table? Or at least sharply reduced their availability? Does that make any sense to you?

Dave Beck: [00:31:37] Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting, I think like a lot of industries, when the pandemic first hit, the virtual reality training industry just kind of went on pause. People that were already doing work and we’re already getting value out of it, it was easy to say keep going. We do a lot of work in supply chain and transportation. Transportation, especially on the passenger side, not the cargo side, took a huge hit. So, those people all just kind of went into hibernation for a little bit. But on the other hand, supply chain went bonkers. I mean, that was pretty busy. So, it just kind of depended on the industry.

Dave Beck: [00:32:26] But I think what you’re also probably getting to is, you know, did the pandemic change how people want to actually consume technology and training? And I’d say, yes. I think everybody freaked out and said, “How do I put my normal training on Zoom?” That was kind of the first six months. And then, everybody said, “Oh, okay. Well, wait a minute.”

Dave Beck: [00:32:51] One of the cool things that we do is – you don’t have to be on the job to do on-the-job-training – we can bring the job to you. You don’t have to be on the tarmac to learn how to work on a plane. You don’t even have to be at Delta or United or JetBlue, you just have to have a headset. So, one of the challenges is getting people the headsets. Getting the headsets on their face. Because if it’s a mobile app, if it’s Pokémon Go, there’s billions of smartphones out there. So, distribution isn’t an issue.

Dave Beck: [00:33:23] The biggest friction point for a lot of folks is content distribution, because you can’t just put it on an app store and say download it. I mean, it’s getting further but I don’t think we’re anywhere close to that today. So, the companies have to manage it. And, oftentimes, that’s going to involve either you’re there in person doing it or they’re shipping them to you, which is super easy now because the vast majority of all VR that’s taking place now is on these all-in-one mobile headsets, like an Oculus Quest or HTC Vive Focus 3 or Pico. And those headsets weigh a pound, it take up a 6 by 12 box or something. I mean, it’s nothing.

Mike Blake: [00:34:07] Now, we talked about the need to customize software, potentially. What about the hardware part? I mean, you discussed the case study and train operators, for example, that trying to solve the problem of creating a realistic throttle assembly for that experience might have been prohibitively expensive and complicated. How often do you run into that? Do you find that most of the time you can just kind of use off the shelf hardware? Or should companies that are considering VR training also brace themselves to the fact that they may need purpose-built hardware as well?

Dave Beck: [00:34:48] So, we actively work to convince our partners not to use specialized hardware, just because, in my opinion, they get a lot more value by having a wide breadth. However, there are certain use cases where it does make a lot of sense. There’s a a company that we know pretty well called Serious Labs. I like their name. Serious Labs makes simulators, and a lot of what they do are for kind of bucket trucks and/or forklifts. And the forklift is pretty straightforward. But for bucket truck, that’s actually useful for scissor lifts and bucket trucks and all sorts of different excavators, whatever.

Dave Beck: [00:35:34] So, they have this purpose-built thing that you actually stand in and it’s got some hydraulics underneath it that move you around. And you have physical levers. It’s super immersive. But that same thing that you would use on a construction site is actually used on the back of a plane. You’ll see the next time you’re at the airport, you’ll get on the tarmac, a lot of times they’re back working on the planes with them. So, there are use cases for that.

Dave Beck: [00:36:05] The concern that you were bringing up, I think, is that there’s a huge cost associated with that. Well, they’re actually offering hardware service. So, you have a subscription, you might have to kind of cover the cost of the hardware, but basically it’s a hardware as a service model, HaaS.

Mike Blake: [00:36:31] Yeah. It’s not surprising it’s gone that way. We don’t know anything anymore. We’re always renting it now.

Dave Beck: [00:36:36] Just rent everything, man.

Mike Blake: [00:36:40] So, how far along do you think virtual reality is in terms of it being accepted as a serious business tool as opposed to a gaming technology?

Dave Beck: [00:36:54] I think we’re just scratching the surface right now. I mean, I don’t want to get all metaverse cheesy on you here.

Mike Blake: [00:37:02] Go metaverse.

Dave Beck: [00:37:03] But it’s interesting, when Zuckerberg came out and said that Facebook is going to be a metaverse company, and they’re actually talking about changing games now and whatnot, there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on there. I really do believe that there’s a lot to that.

Dave Beck: [00:37:23] You mentioned your Chart of the Day on LinkedIn, which I love and always check out. I do a vlog series every Tuesday at 2:00 on LinkedIn. You know, feel free to connect with me. I’m very promiscuous on there. But, basically, it’s called Foundry 45, and it’s 45 seconds-ish of quick soundbites about new technology, virtual reality, training, whatnot.

Dave Beck: [00:37:53] And my most recent one, that was yesterday, was actually with Elizabeth Strickler, who is a brilliant professor down at GSU. And she’s kind of an expert on all things metaverse. And it’s very interesting to hear what she has to say. And there’s a few other interviews we have coming up with her as well. So, I definitely encourage you to check that out. And I’m a believer, you know, I’m drinking the metaverse Kool-Aid.

Mike Blake: [00:38:21] In your experience, do people with a background of having been video game players have a greater affinity or greater ability to kind of absorb VR? And the reason I say that is because I read somewhere that, for example, in the U.S. Military, they find that video gamers tend to become very good drone operators. It makes sense, like joystick kind of environment.

Mike Blake: [00:38:47] Not that I’m trying to encourage people to let their kids become professional gamers to do VR. But I am kind of curious, does that skillset or that affinity for being in, let’s call them, light simulated environments, as a lot of games are now because they’re so immersive, do people with that kind of background have an easier time transitioning into VR?

Dave Beck: [00:39:13] I mean, anecdotally, I would say, yes. I haven’t actually seen any data around that. Maybe a slightly higher level is people that have an affinity for technology. It’s interesting because you have some folks that just don’t like new things. And I get it, we’re very conservative – I don’t mean that politically. I’m just saying in general – change is hard.

Mike Blake: [00:39:41] That’s why we have adoption curves.

Dave Beck: [00:39:43] Well, yeah. And we often find that the biggest challenge with implementing a VR training program isn’t creating the software or getting it set up. It’s change management. It’s getting people used to actually training in a different way, and realizing that it’s not scary. It’s actually fun. I mean, people like it so much sometimes.

Dave Beck: [00:40:07] Delta, the first experience we built for them out of Atlanta, they went up to the hub in Madison or the station in Madison. And the trainers just gave it to the people up in Madison to run. And they were just kind of blind to everyone else. And they were sitting in the break room at one point, and a bunch of people came in and were like, “When are we going to do that VR game? When are we going to do that game?” And they’re like, “No one has ever called training a game. No one’s ever asked to do training.” So, you know, I mean, I think that’s just an interesting kind of side effect.

Mike Blake: [00:40:39] And sort of to that point, I think one of the areas of resistance to VR, to be blunt, I think a lot of people feel silly putting one. They look awkward, right? They’re not quite at the point yet where they look like Terminator sunglasses. You got to wear sort of this helmet that looks like Luke Skywalker learning how to use a lightsaber. And it’s awkward. It’s gawky. You don’t necessarily want to have that be in your wedding photo. Are people starting to get over that? Or is part of what you do starting to condition people to realize, “Hey, this is a tool. You may look goofy.” How do you address that?

Dave Beck: [00:41:27] I mean, that’s been an issue. I can’t believe I’m giving Facebook props again here, but they own Oculus Quest and they have spent so much money on marketing. They’ve driven the all-in-one mobile headset market, which has been amazing because the other groups that are a lot easier to work with, actually, had to keep up. And so, it’s really driven innovation. It’s driven the prices down. It’s been a pretty exciting time, actually, for the last couple of years and on that front.

Dave Beck: [00:42:09] And so, when you see a bunch of commercials about it, that helps. Typically, if I’m in a corporate sales pitch or something, oftentimes, you don’t necessarily want to ask the senior most person in the room to put the headset on first because they don’t want to get all in, and not be able to see other people, and whether or not they’re laughing at him or making fun of him, or whatever. But if that person says they want to go first, you know you’re in a good place because they actually appreciate technology.

Dave Beck: [00:42:42] You know, you mentioned gaming. I mean, there’s so many cool, fun things. I don’t know, there’s something called Beat Saber, which is the most popular game ever.

Mike Blake: [00:42:51] I’ve played it. It’s a great workout.

Dave Beck: [00:42:54] You’re holding light sabers and you hit the shapes that come towards you to the beat of popular songs. And it is a great workout and it’s super fun. And so, more and more people are doing that and getting into it.

Dave Beck: [00:43:07] And back to your point before, I mean, obviously, if you’re a gamer, you’re going to be more predisposed to it. As far as getting any sort of motion sickness goes, the numbers are very similar. If you get motion sickness in a car, there’s a good chance you’re going to get motion sickness in a headset. It’s just if you have some sort of vertigo or vestibular condition, then that just might be a thing.

Dave Beck: [00:43:31] But part of the reason why it was such a talking point, there was a big disservice done to the VR movement a few years ago, when people were using smartphones and putting them in cardboard and letting people try and do these really crappy rollercoaster experiences. I mean, that stuff makes me nauseated, and I’m in it a lot.

Mike Blake: [00:43:56] I’m glad you brought that up because I was going to ask about that. And, candidly, there are parts of video games that I play, particularly ones that have you like dropping off a cliff and stuff, that they’re real enough but my body is expecting the movement, but it’s not moving. I have to close my eyes or I can’t sort of continue off of that. I think part of that is just age, where you get the thickening of the fluid in your inner ear and that’s part of the [inaudible].

Dave Beck: [00:44:26] Well, let me give a plug out, if anybody does own a Quest at home or something, there’s a game called Richie’s Plank Experience. There’s a few other things to it but, literally, the game is you’re in an elevator, you hit the top floor button, and when the doors open up, you’re looking out, like, 75th floor and there’s a two by four or two by eight or whatever out. From there, you have to walk out.

Mike Blake: [00:44:53] I couldn’t handle that.

Dave Beck: [00:44:54] And you know what? We have people that will do it barefoot so you could feel the carpet underneath your feet. And you walk out there, walk out there, walk out there, and then say “Okay. Step off,” and just will not do it. It’s like you can hear me talking, you know you’re in the living room, you feel the carpet on your feet. They will not do it.

Mike Blake: [00:45:18] I would probably be one of them.

Dave Beck: [00:45:20] That’s powerful.

Mike Blake: [00:45:20] Candidly, I do not do well with heights. If a third party doesn’t clean our gutter, the gutters doesn’t get cleaned, that’s just all there is to it.

Dave Beck: [00:45:28] You mentioned Star Trek earlier, there’s a Star Wars game that has two amazing pieces to it. One, you’re standing face to face or looking up at Darth Vader. That’s a pretty visceral reaction. And then, another one is, you’re on a cliff and it’s just –

Mike Blake: [00:45:48] Yeah. I mean, that’s some really cool stuff.

Dave Beck: [00:45:51] You might not want to do that one.

Mike Blake: [00:45:53] Yeah. That one, I’m not going to do. The one I’m really into is Star Trek: Bridge Crew, where you’re in a virtual Star Trek bridge simulator, that I really enjoyed.

Dave Beck: [00:46:03] And you don’t even have to be in a headset for that, right? You can have somebody on a headset, somebody on a computer, or whatever.

Mike Blake: [00:46:08] Yeah, you don’t. But it’s way better with the headset, in my opinion.

Dave Beck: [00:46:13] All right. All right.

Mike Blake: [00:46:14] We’re talking with David Beck of Foundry 45. And the topic is, Should I incorporate virtual reality into my corporate training? What’s the obsolescence cycle for VR? And to put it another way, let’s say somebody retains you to help them put in place a VR training system. What’s the shelf life for that? Does that have to get upgraded or replaced every three years, five years in your opinion? Can you even tell just because the state of the art is changing so quickly isn’t even a relevant question to ask?

Dave Beck: [00:46:53] I mean, it’s a great question. I think it’s actually pretty similar to a mobile app. Your mobile app has to be updated. You get downloads automatically from Apple or Google Play Store on the regular. Because any time they make a change in their operating system or when there’s a new phone or whatever, there’s new capabilities that are always better, you might want to update it for that.

Dave Beck: [00:47:23] But the good news is, for VR experience, typically, it’s going to be built on a software engine. And the main one that we use is called Unity. It’s a publicly traded company that just went public a year or two ago. And from building on that, we can deploy to any platform. And so, if HTC Vive comes out with a new platform next year, if you want to upgrade like you would upgrade to the latest greatest iPhone or whatever, then you can do that.

Dave Beck: [00:47:59] And the main thing that we would have to change, potentially, is the controllers look different and have different buttons or whatever. Then, we would have to remap to anything that was on those and/or change out pictures of those controllers. But that’s pretty much it. I mean, usually that’s like a day or two worth of work for us.

Mike Blake: [00:48:16] Okay. So, it is fairly scalable from that perspective, it sounds like.

Dave Beck: [00:48:20] Yeah. And I mean, a ton of work we’ve done over the last couple of years has been porting from these tethered, bigger, heavier headsets that are tethered to computers to these all-in-ones. And the all-in-ones don’t have nearly as much processing capability. But it’s gotten to the point where it’s a pretty easy process, that’s a week or two, probably, if you decide that you want to use a different platform completely from tethered to untethered. But going from one untethered to another is really pretty simple.

Mike Blake: [00:48:53] So, I’m going to ask you to step into your futurist hat here for a second, like that guy they always have in the History Channel, which doesn’t cover history anymore. But then, that’s a separate discussion.

Dave Beck: [00:49:04] UFOs, man.

Mike Blake: [00:49:06] UFO, I know. That’s a separate podcast. But I’m curious, how do you think VR technology is going to be different, better, more advanced in the next five to ten years?

Dave Beck: [00:49:24] You know, I really do think it’s going to get better, smaller, cheaper, faster. And overall, it will be a lot more immersive. The headsets right now, like you said, they’re pretty bulky. They can get hot. When you wear them for a long period of time, they get heavy.

Dave Beck: [00:49:41] So, there’s actually one that just came out that is called a Vive Flow, and it’s a much lighter, smaller, it’s more for watching movies, things like that in a virtual environment are really light gaming or something. And I think things like that are going to get a lot more easy, cheap, whatever.

Dave Beck: [00:50:08] And the thing that I’m really excited about – I don’t know, it’s been five years out for the last 10 or 15 years, so I don’t know if it’s really five years out now or ten or whatever – is Apple is about to put out their augmented reality glasses in 2023, I think. And you mentioned, when you have the Terminator glasses, that’s going to be a game changer, especially if they can go from completely opaque, which it would be more VR, to somewhat translucent, to being able to put cool stuff.

Dave Beck: [00:50:42] I mean, you don’t want to go too far and have too much of it, or whatever. There’s going to be a happy medium for it. Maybe it’ll be like a heads up display in a car or something. But there’s just a lot of excitement that’s happening on there, and some of that is just based on improvements in hardware, chipsets, and whatnot.

Mike Blake: [00:51:00] Dave, we’ve covered a lot of ground today. We could easily cover a lot more, but I know you’ve got to get to an Atlanta United game.

Dave Beck: [00:51:10] Vamos.

Mike Blake: [00:51:11] In case either we haven’t gone into as much depth in one particular question that a listener would like or maybe we didn’t cover something at all if they would have liked me to ask, can somebody reach out to contact you for more information about VR training? And if so, what’s the best way to do that?

Dave Beck: [00:51:28] Yeah. That’d be great. We’re always excited to talk to people that are interested in this technology. You can reach me at foundry45.com. dave@foundry45.com is my email. I am very active on LinkedIn, so please reach out to me, Dave Beck, Founder 45, LinkedIn. Every Tuesday at 2:00, we do the Foundry 45’s blog. And then, every Thursday at 10:00 a.m., we do Thursday things where we ask a question out there, is such and such a thing. And, actually, I get some great response and would love for people to join in with their thoughts as well.

Mike Blake: [00:52:11] That’s going to wrap it up for today’s program. I’d like to thank Dave Beck so much for sharing his expertise with us.

Mike Blake: [00:52:17] We’ll be exploring a new topic each week, so please tune so that when you’re faced with your next business decision, you have clear vision on making it. If you enjoy these podcasts, please consider leaving a review with your favorite podcast aggregator. It helps people find us that we can help them. If you’d like to engage with me on social media with my Chart of the Day and other content, I’m on LinkedIn as myself and @unblakeable on Facebook, Twitter, Clubhouse, and Instagram. Once again, this is Mike Blake. Our sponsor is Brady Ware and Company. And this has been the Decision Vision podcast.

TRANSCRIPT

 

Workplace MVP: Cynthia Milota, Ware Malcomb, and Kate Lister, Global Workplace Analytics

October 21, 2021 by John Ray

Ware MalcombWorkplace MVP:  Cynthia Milota, Ware Malcomb, and Kate Lister, Global Workplace Analytics

While many companies adapted to a fully remote work model last year, shifting to a hybrid, in-person/remote workplace this year raises many questions. Creating equitable arrangements among employees and bottom-line implications are just two of the considerations. Cynthia Milota, Ware Malcomb, and Kate Lister, Global Workplace Analytics, joined host Jamie Gassmann to outline issues employers must address, potential solutions, the responsibility of leaders, and much more. Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

Ware Malcomb

Established in 1972, Ware Malcomb is a contemporary and expanding full-service design firm providing professional architecture, planning, interior design, civil engineering, branding, and building measurement services to corporate, commercial/residential developers and public/institutional clients throughout the world. With office locations throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, the firm specializes in the design of commercial office, corporate, industrial, science & technology, healthcare, retail, auto, public/institutional facilities and renovation projects. Ware Malcomb is recognized as an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private company and a Hot Firm by Zweig Group. The firm is also ranked among the top 15 architecture/engineering firms in Engineering News-Record’s Top 500 Design Firms and the top 25 interior design firms in Interior Design magazine’s Top 100 Giants.

Company website

Cynthia Milota, Director of Workplace Strategy & Change Management, Ware Malcomb

Cynthia Milota, Director of Workplace Strategy & Change Management, Ware Malcomb

Cynthia is the Director of Workplace Strategy & Change Management for the architecture firm, Ware Malcomb. Her practice focuses on employees and experience-based work environments.  She partners with clients to formulate their unique objectives: mindful of wellness, culture, talent strategy and success measures. She has held roles as the consultant and as the workplace strategist for a Fortune 500 financial services firm. She has published and presented her research at academic and professional conferences, held adjunct faculty positions, served on juries and editorial review teams.

LinkedIn

Global Workplace Analytics

Global Workplace Analytics (GWA) is a research-based consulting organization that helps employers and communities create and communicate the people, planet, and profit business case for strategies that involve workplace flexibility, mobile work, telecommuting, activity-based working, hoteling, well-being, and more.

In partnership with a handful of global product and service organizations, GWA provides on-call research and develops custom ROI calculators, white papers, e-books, and other authoritative content.

GWA’s specialties include: Workplace Strategy, ROI Analyses, Consulting, Writing, Stakeholder Engagement, Speaking, Research, Advocacy, Remote Work, Telework, Telecommuting, Activity-Based Working, Hoteling, Well-Being, Infographics, Marketing, Publicity, and more.

Company website

Kate Lister, President, Global Workplace Analytics

 Kate Lister, President, Global Workplace Analytics

Kate Lister is a recognized thought leader on trends that are changing the who, what, when, where, and how of work. She is president of Global Workplace Analytics, a research-based consulting firm that has been helping communities and organizations optimize the employer, employee, and environmental outcomes of flexible and distributed workplace strategies for nearly two decades.

Kate has written or co-authored five business books including, the U.S. chapter of “Telework in the 21st Century” (Edward Elgar, 2019), a multi-country peer-reviewed study on remote work. She is a trusted source of insights about the future of work for news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and dozens of others.

As a recognized thought leader, Kate was one of only three witnesses invited to testify before a U.S. Senate committee regarding the potential for remote work in government once the pandemic ends.

LinkedIn

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Workplace MVP is brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. Now, here’s your host, Jamie Gassmann.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:24] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassmann, here, and welcome to this episode of Workplace MVP.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:30] Making decisions on how flexible and accommodating a workplace is willing to be with remote or hybrid work is not a new decision that is exclusive to the COVID-19 pandemic. What the pandemic has done is made that decision even easier or more complex for organizations. Easier in that they discovered over the last year that their workforce can remain productive and thrive in a remote work environment, which is something that may have been an underlying concern pre-COVID. And, for others, they may be looking at organizationally leadership wanting something different than what their employees are wanting. And, how do you strike the balance? How can you approach this decision strategically with the best interests of everyone involved? Is there really a balance here and how can you obtain that?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:23] And, with us today to share their expertise and educated thoughts on the return-to-office opportunities and challenges, our SHRM 2021 presenters and Workplace MVP’s Cynthia Milota, Director of Workplace Strategy of Ware Malcomb, and Kate Lister, President of Global Workplace Analytics. Welcome to the show, Cynthia and Kate.

Cynthia Milota: [00:01:45] Great to be here.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:48] So, we’re going to go ahead and get started with our first Workplace MVP, Cynthia Milota, Director of Workplace Strategy of Ware Malcomb. Hi, Cynthia.

Cynthia Milota: [00:01:58] Hey, Jamie. Thanks for having me.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:00] So, let’s start out with you walking us through your career journey.

Cynthia Milota: [00:02:06] Well, I studied undergraduate in interior design in Cincinnati, and really the first half of my career I spent in corporate office planning and design. But after graduate school, my focus really shifted to strategy and change. I worked as a global strategy for a strategist for a financial services firm. And, now at Ware Malcomb, I lead the strategy and change practice where we’re really helping our clients navigate what’s best for their people and for the business. And, luckily, those two things generally align.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:34] Great. And so, can you share a little bit with our listeners about Ware Malcomb and what they’re known for?

Cynthia Milota: [00:02:41] Well, Ware Malcomb is an architecture and design firm with 800 people, and we have some 20 offices around North America. Our interiors practice specializes in workplace, which is the arena I’m in, as well as health care, science and tech, and retail. And, our architecture team is known for their industrial and their cold storage building types.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:59] Great. And so, in your opinion, looking at this last year with the COVID-19 pandemic and how it’s impacted workplaces, why is it an important time now for workplaces to be exploring new ways of working?

Cynthia Milota: [00:03:14] Well, I’m not the first to say that COVID has accelerated what was really already underway for the past decade. Many, many pre-COVID studies indicated that people wanted the choice and flexibility to work from home, even if only on occasion.

Cynthia Milota: [00:03:27] The fact that business really carried on without much disruption during this global lockdown was really the litmus test that executive leadership needed. COVID primed that pump for change and really an acknowledgement that many knowledge workers and many knowledge work jobs could be really accomplished, you know, outside of the office. So, we’re really encouraging our clients to keep this momentum of change going and really explore what’s next specific to their organization.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:55] And, you know, so in looking at your clients and kind of the recommendations, what should they be considering as they explore these new ways of working?

Cynthia Milota: [00:04:05] Well, let’s start by saying, let’s not underestimate the power of choice, not only for where to work, but when to work. More and more, we’re seeing our clients are setting up something called the core hours of operation, where you have to be available between certain times of the day but then they allow flexibility outside of those core hours.

Cynthia Milota: [00:04:24] We’re really working also on the equitability of the experience in and out of the office, fighting things like presence bias or gender inequality. Women want to work from home 50% more than men. No surprise. Yet, we know that out of sight can be damaging to career advancement. So, we’re asking and working with our clients to examine their culture to not penalize or stigmatize remote workers.

Cynthia Milota: [00:04:48] We’re also looking at planning for teams to be in the office, not just individuals, thinking about what’s the setting for people to do their best work. It might not always be in the office, but when it is in the office, we want to make sure that the workplace is really a destination. It’s memorable. Because right now the office is competing with all those amenities and conveniences of home and in your home neighborhood.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:10] Well, and a lot of workers are almost demanding that opportunity to have that choice. So, it really is putting, kind of, employers under a little bit of pressure to make a decision and really almost make a decision in favor of those employees to some degree.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:26] So, you know, when you talk about the employee experience, you mentioned that it’s important. Can you talk us through what makes that so important? What is it and what should employers really be thinking about when they’re looking at that employee experience?

Cynthia Milota: [00:05:44] Well, we would like to take the broad view of employee experience, and really, it’s essentially how people think and feel about their work journey, their interaction with their organization. It’s no surprise people cost ten times more than real estate. So, how can companies provide the best employee experience for, really, their most important asset?

Cynthia Milota: [00:05:44] In many studies, Gallup has made the notion of engagement famous but other aspects of employee experience include authenticity, optimism, purpose, and meaning. We know the younger generations are super interested in that, social connections and belonging. Employee experience is going to be especially important because of this phrase they’re calling the great resignation.

Cynthia Milota: [00:06:27] You know, Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index indicated that about 40% of the global workforce is considering leaving their employees. So, employers need to look at employees as individuals with different likes, different needs, preferences and really gather insights and turn that into action. It’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:48] So, what are some approaches that they can do to gain those insights? I mean, I know obviously that they can take a survey. Aut are there other ways that they can engage that employee in, you know, establishing transparency so they feel comfortable sharing with their employer their preferences?

Cynthia Milota: [00:07:05] Right. And, of course, there’s lots of ambiguity and uncertainty going on right now. So, the [inaudible] of employee sentiment are continuing to shift. But if we fall back on that old adage, you know, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Let’s just go out and collect some data and just start building a database.

Cynthia Milota: [00:07:20] So, you’re right, it’s everything from employee surveys to badge data who are really coming into the office, all manners of interviews and focus groups. It’s really been a bit more challenging gathering some of that data from the home workforce. But mobile tools are one way that we’re using. People might answer questions using their phones, or they may take some photographs.

Cynthia Milota: [00:07:45] But in any of these data gathering techniques, we’re really careful to set expectations with the stakeholders, right? You kind of ask the right questions. You don’t ask what you want but you ask what you need to do your job. And, I guess the most important thing is to be sure that you’re reporting back. There’s nothing more damaging to a change initiative than taking a survey and then never hearing anything about the results.

Cynthia Milota: [00:08:06] And, the last thing I’d like to say is that we’re doing lots of pilot plans to help them road test what some of these recommendations are. And, this level of transparency has really helped answer that question. How is this going to impact me, an employee, in these pilots? Employees have a firsthand ability to have some skin in the game by proactively commenting. And so, that’s been a super positive way.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:30] Yeah. If you want to influence the change, you got to speak up, right?

Cynthia Milota: [00:08:34] Exactly, exactly.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:36] So, in looking at new ways of working, you know, you mentioned this on a previous call that there’s been some environmental impacts as a result of more people staying at home, you know. What are some of the things that you’re seeing good or bad from that?

Cynthia Milota: [00:08:54] Sure. Well, the obvious positive environmental impact is that we’re driving less. You don’t need a study to understand that. And, obviously, we’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the consumption of fossil fuels. In 2020, the offsets for the reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions translated into planting 91 million trees just for that year. So, it’s pretty formidable. But we’re also printing less to the tune of 247 trillion sheets of paper, less paper printed in 2020. Or, you could just look at your procurement records for all the paper plates and the napkins and the plastic silverware that didn’t get purchased during COVID, right, and all that stuff never found its way to a landfill. So, that’s all good.

Cynthia Milota: [00:09:35] As for energy consumption, right, when you’re at home, you automatically turn off the bathroom light. But when you’re at the office, most of the time, right, you can’t do that. There’s been a really nice study done by Sun Microsystems found that the energy consumption was nearly twice as high at the office as compared to at home.

Cynthia Milota: [00:09:52] So, you know, not surprisingly, buildings account for 40% of CO2 emissions, and so, the fewer buildings that we have, the less emissions that we have and certainly the fewer buildings that we’re building and occupying. So, from an environmental standpoint, hybrid work is all good.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:10:09] Yeah. So, it sounds like, you know, from comparing the environmental to looking at the workplace experience to looking at just that great resignation, how do you find ways to keep the employees, you know, engaged in at your worksite, employers need to be looking at more than just productivity levels and getting things done. They need to be looking at a bigger picture, correct?

Cynthia Milota: [00:10:35] Absolutely. I mean, all of those are just pieces to a larger puzzle. And, you really have to look at what makes sense for your organization, what makes sense for your employees. You know, don’t get roped into the benchmarking [inaudible], you know, other companies and organizations are doing this or that but what makes sense for you, not what makes sense for someone else.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:10:57] Yeah, absolutely. Great feedback and advice there. So, now, we’re going to just shift gears to our next Workplace MVP, Kate Lister, President of Global Workplace Analytics. Welcome, Kate.

Kate Lister: [00:11:11] It’s great to be here. And, boy, Cynthia, great job. You said everything I would have said.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:17] Great minds think alike, right?

Cynthia Milota: [00:11:22] Great, right.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:23] Yeah. So, Kate, talk us through your background and your career journey.

Kate Lister: [00:11:28] Sure. Well, I started out as a banker, and I think that that really shaped how I look at the world, or maybe that’s why I became a banker, to begin with, you know, nature and nurture. But it also gave me the language of the C-suite, the language of talking to executives in terms.

Kate Lister: [00:11:46] I’ve run a number of businesses. I wrote three boring business books and kind of stumbled into this business almost two decades ago. After writing the last book, it was a consumer title on remote work, and when I’d first gone to John Wiley & Sons and proposed a title on remote work, I wanted it to be a business title. And, they said, “No, we don’t think that’ll be of any interest to anybody.”

Kate Lister: [00:12:12] But it was in doing the research for that book that I realized that nobody had made the business case to the C-suite for remote work. And, the more I looked at it, it wasn’t just about remote work that really H.R. and corporate real estate weren’t talking to the C-suite in terms that they understood. They needed a way to quantify what the expenditures on things like remote work or flexibility or health and wellness. What did that – what would that really do for the company and what would it do for the bottom line? You know, what’s in it for me?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:49] Great. And, Global Workplace Analytics, what type of services do you provide to them?

Kate Lister: [00:12:57] Well, things have shifted a bit in the last two years. As I said, I’ve been working in pushing that remote work rock uphill for about 20 years and it really has been a lot of that. And then, in the last two years, it’s kind of been chasing me down the other side.

Kate Lister: [00:13:15] So, working with large companies, 3000 employees, and over to, well, from the beginning of the pandemic, you know, just surviving, figuring out what technologies we need, figuring out how are we going to do this kind of triage almost through the last year of just making work work. And then, in 2021, hear more about, okay, now that we’ve done this, now that we’ve learned some lessons, what are we going to take forward? How are we going to operate going forward? What have we learned? What’s worked? What hasn’t worked? How do we get the best of both and then bring them into the office or not? You know, who do we want to return to the office? When are we going to do it? And, that’s kind of, like, the very right now question.

Kate Lister: [00:14:08] Last week it was vaccinations, but then the president answered that one. So, this week it’s return-to-office. Most of my clients had set a return-to-office date of January, and then that got moved out to September, then that got moved out to July and then that got moved out to September and then October. And, now most of them are really in the throes of deciding whether or not that’s going to move to beginning of next year.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:14:35] Wow. Yeah. Constant changes over this last year for sure in navigating that. So, you know, in talking about your clients, what, from your perspective, is keeping them up at night these days, if you will?

Kate Lister: [00:14:50] Yeah. As I said, it’s kind of a moving target. But really a lot of them, as Cynthia said, have now gotten over the question of will my people be working? You know, can they be productive? Can we continue to be profitable? And, this has been historically the way it’s worked. Once a manager has had the opportunity to work remotely themselves, then they’re much more accepting to it.

Kate Lister: [00:15:19] So, we’ve gotten over one really big hurdle for the most part. It’s still out there. We’re still making the business case, but it’s become a whole lot easier. And, you know, I guess what’s keeping them up at night, they’re thinking about all that empty real estate. They’re thinking about those big buildings that they’ve been paying for the last year and a half, almost two years, and practically nobody’s in them. So, what are we going to do about that going forward?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:15:52] Yeah, I suppose. Have any of your clients made decisions on that? I’ve been thinking the same question with, you know, thinking of some of the skyscrapers in my area and going, “Oh my goodness, they’ve got to be sitting empty.”

Kate Lister: [00:16:03] Yeah, yeah. All have decided that they’re going to go to some form of hybrid, that it’s going to be much more extensive use of remote work going forward. But they’re taking their time on the decision about getting rid of real estate, I mean, unless there’s, you know, a lease coming up this year that they have to make a decision on.

Kate Lister: [00:16:25] They understand that what people say and what they do is often very different. What people say they want and what they actually do is often very different. So, while 80% of the workforce now says they want to work from home at least one day a week, are they going to really? The ones that say they are going to come into the office. The 20% that say they want to be all in the office or at least largely in the office, are they going to come in the office? How are teams going to collaborate? How are we going to deal with some of the hybrid issues that Cynthia talked about?

Kate Lister: [00:17:05] So, really, taking kind of a wait-and-see attitude about, do we need to? Can we get rid of – excuse me. Can we get rid of real estate? Should we get rid of real estate? Do we need to restructure our real estate? Most are realizing that, you know, home is going to be the place for focus work and office is going to be the place for collaborative work and for community and for socializing.

Kate Lister: [00:17:31] But that’s not the way offices were built. Offices were built with primarily, you know, I’d say, probably in the 70-30, 80-20, the high number for heads-down work and then the other for social so that pendulum may swing and that may mean that we need to reconstruct those office spaces. A lot of my clients also are looking at the potential to go to hoteling where employees don’t have an assigned seat at the office. They reserve a space on their iPhone or on their desktop when they come in, or there are drop-in spaces when they come in. As Cynthia said, these were all trends that were happening before the pandemic. But now there’s this acceleration. Some of my companies even sent all of their employees’ stuff home last year. They just cleared out the offices, got rid of it, with the intent of perhaps moving to this hoteling approach.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:18:33] Interesting. So, in terms of, like, how they would prepare for that, you know, and thinking, I mean, obviously, they keep, you know, a number of your clients, you mentioned, are extending their return-to-office date. You know, what are some of the things that might be happening in the background in terms of preparing for that date? Because I know it’s probably feeling like a moving target, but eventually it’s going to stick and it’s going to be one that now it’s implementing that return to office. So, how do they get ready for that?

Kate Lister: [00:19:02] It’s kind of been just – it’s been a bit of a breather for me thinking that we might actually get to wait until the beginning of next year because we have just been rushing through the change process when companies, I mean, I’ve got one client that accelerated a program that probably we would have done prior to the pandemic but what probably would have rolled out over six months to a year, maybe even more, and we had to accelerate it into eight weeks. So, you know, it was a bit of a crunch and everybody’s kind of in that bit of a panic to meet that next deadline.

Kate Lister: [00:19:38] One of the things that I think has really been maybe a silver lining is that it has lofted this whole conversation about people and place to the C-suite. Before the pandemic, companies were either allowing remote work, kind of on an ad hoc basis. You know, we’ll let Jamie do it. We’ll let Cynthia do it. But not really in any formal way. And, either that or they were deploying it tactically kind of as a solution to the problem du jour.

Kate Lister: [00:20:09] So, if the problem was trying to reduce your costs, then real estate handled it and then they were running the show. If it was about attracting and retaining talent, then that went through H.R. and they were running the show, but they didn’t really talk to each other.

Kate Lister: [00:20:24] And, now that we’ve got the C-suite involved and they’re saying, no, we see this not tactically. We see this as a new way, a new strategy for working in the future. All of those functional areas are coming together. So, one of the things that you know we do as soon as we get into an organization is to form that cross-functional team that includes H.R., I.T., real estate, but also marketing, sustainability, risk management, finance. They all have to be at the table. Everybody has a stake in this, and it’s only when they’re talking together are we going to get the sort of optimal solutions.

Kate Lister: [00:21:02] So, as Cynthia said, you know, we’re looking at the across cross-functional teams at leadership readiness. So, we’re doing interviews with the leaders and seeing where they sit. You know, how open are they? How ready are they? Because, if the leaders don’t buy in, and we’ve known this for decades, it’s just not going to happen. I mean, they can’t just talk the talk even. They’ve got to walk the walk. They’ve got to live the vision.

Kate Lister: [00:21:36] For the employees, we are typically deploying a company-wide survey and getting higher participation than companies have ever seen in their employee surveys because this is something that they are really passionate about. I mean, we’ve been getting as high as 90% participation in surveys. In one company, they actually did a contest to see which group would get the highest and they were going to get an extra day off, which was cool.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:22:02] A great incentive.

Kate Lister: [00:22:04] Yeah, exactly if this group won. And, they came in with 100%. They got 100% of their people to participate. Then, we go in and we actually get talking to the people. We sit them down in focus groups. We ask them, what’s working? What isn’t working? What training do you need? What training does your manager need? Do you want to come back? How often do you want to come back? So, that we have a kind of a read on the whole organization, and with that we recommend a strategy and put together policies and put together change management and communications to keep employees informed and involve them in decisions, to be part of the decisions. And, you know, going forward than looking at how will they actually use the space. And, you know, that’ll be the next step.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:22:56] Interesting. Yeah, I’ve spoken to other business leaders and there is definitely power in involving those employees into some of that decision-making. You know you get it almost like instant buy-in if you will.

Kate Lister: [00:23:12] It’s being done with you and not at you. And, unfortunately, most organizations don’t share the findings of their surveys with the employees, and that’s terribly frustrating.

Kate Lister: [00:23:25] Another thing that I’m seeing companies do that is just a huge mistake is failure to communicate. At first, for the first six months, they were doing town halls. They were doing, you know, weekly conversations with the CEO. They were really on it. But that’s kind of gone by the wayside in 2021 for the most part, and it’s really showing. You just can’t leave that ambiguity out there of, am I going to come back? When am I going to come back? Are you going to force me into the office?

Kate Lister: [00:23:55] And, It’s not until the CEOs start seeing the people leave, you know, because they don’t. If they can jump to something where they know they’re going to have the flexibility they want when they have an answer, then they’re going to do that. I mean, even if CEOs don’t have the answer, it’s just critical that they say, “Hey, look, we don’t have the answer, but these are the things that we’re looking at. And, here’s, you know, here’s what, here’s how we’re trying to make those decisions. You know, bear with us.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:24:26] Yeah, interesting. So, in looking at, you know, hybrid versus remote, you had indicated previously in a conversation we had earlier that hybrid is harder than remote. Can you talk me through what makes it that much more harder?

Kate Lister: [00:24:45] Sure. I guess. Let’s take meetings as an example. We’re all these same squares on the screen. You know, it’s become very egalitarian. It’s even become more empathetic because you’re seeing the CEO in kind of their home setting with their dog on their lap or their kids running through the background or whatever. And, it’s kind of brought us together on an even playing field.

Kate Lister: [00:25:13] Now, we go to hybrid and we’ve got 10 people sitting in a conference room and 10 people or three people that are not there. I’ll actually give you an example. I was just wrapping up an engagement with a 65,000-person manufacturing company and we’d gone all through those things that I talked to you about the change management, training, and all that. And, I was presenting to the board of directors what our findings were, you know, kind of closing out the engagement. And, 12 of them were in the conference room and I was not. And, at the end of the meeting, I said, okay, I think we should rate this meeting. Everybody gets to rate this meeting, but I go first. I’m going to give it a three. And, here’s why. You were all in the room. You all could all see each other, but none of you had your laptops open so I couldn’t see you. I couldn’t see your faces. I couldn’t see how you were responding to what I was saying. I mean, I was talking for 40 minutes. You only had one screen in the conference room and all you could see were my slides, so you couldn’t see my face, you know. You couldn’t see me gesticulating. You couldn’t see when I wanted to say something.

Kate Lister: [00:26:26] In fact, there was a question that was asked that I had an answer to. And, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I wound up texting the CEO or the chairman and say, “Hey, you know, I’d like to answer that question.” And then, he brought me into the conversation. You all took a break for five minutes and you turned off the sound. I got excluded there.

Kate Lister: [00:26:52] And, you know, it was just an altogether bad experience for me. The room went a little silent for a minute, and then one of the directors said, “You know what? Didn’t we just go through a consulting engagement that told us how to have better hybrid meetings? And, I think we talked about all these things.” And, we all had a good laugh about it.

Kate Lister: [00:27:13] But, I mean, it just demonstrates how intentional it has to be. This is not something that comes naturally. Inclusiveness, including the people that are not in the room, and that’s just in meetings. The bigger issue goes to, am I going to be passed over for promotion if I’m a remote worker or if I’m a possible remote worker? And, am I going to get the same salary or compensation? Am I going to get the same projects if I don’t walk down the hall and see Jamie, and say, “Jamie, oh, you’re just the person I need to see.”

Kate Lister: [00:27:47] So, all of those things make it very difficult to be hybrid. You know, we were doing it before. Sure. I mean, people were working outside the office. We’re global organizations. We’re talking across the world, but not to this extent. And so, we just have to be very, very intentional when we go back of keeping that in mind that we all are, you know, one organization and we need to treat one another as such.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:28:16] Yeah, interesting. And, some of those things that you described, did that meeting happen pre-COVID? But it wasn’t unlike, to your point, the scale of the number of individuals that we would be working through that. Now, it’s you’re on mute, unmute your –

Kate Lister: [00:28:29] Exactly.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:28:30] And, it happens at least two or three people in a call, you know, every day, right?

Kate Lister: [00:28:34] You know, doughnuts. We don’t get any doughnuts here at home. You’ve got that wonderful plate of doughnuts in the middle of the table. I want a doughnut.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:28:43] That’s the truth. You’re like, really? Oh, I’ll go heat up my, you know, my lunch meal while you guys eat, you know, the nice, fresh stuff that just came in.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:28:52] And, if you had, so, speaking of like, you know, talking to that C-suite and some of the CEOs and chairmen, I’ve seen in some articles where there’s some that are just really, you know, hard-set on, their people are going to come back into the office. This is going to be the model. But then we’ve got this, you know, the people that are speaking and saying, that’s not what we want. How do you talk to that CEO? How do you convince them to have more of this open mindset into either a hybrid or a remote working environment?

Kate Lister: [00:29:31] Well, my natural instinct is to just slap him or her. But I can’t do that because I wouldn’t get very good reviews. So, I go back to the business case. It’s got to be, you know, what’s in it for them.

Kate Lister: [00:29:46] Typically, there are two things that that person’s worried about. It’s a control thing. You know, they want to feel like they have some control over the organization. I picture the supervisor standing on the balcony, looking down over his minions, all working on the factory floor, and we still sort of have that mindset even after almost two years of doing that. So, it’s kind of getting to those fears. What is it that this person is afraid of?

Kate Lister: [00:30:17] Another thing that I’ve seen and there have been some very public cases of this, CEO just lives in their own world. They in fact believe that everybody wants to come back. They believe that everybody is like them, and it’s not until you show them the numbers.

Kate Lister: [00:30:36] I won’t mention the name, but a very large company of CEO came out and said, “No, we’re all going back to work. This is just the worst thing, this remote work thing. We’re all going back to work.” I happen to have the person, head of H.R., on a podcast that I was doing the next day. And, before we got on, I said, “Am I allowed to ask you about this? Because, you know, here you are talking about workplace flexibility, but your CEO just said no way.” And, she said, “Yeah, well, we had a bit of a conversation about that.” And, truly, he did not realize. He thought everybody was like him and wanted to be back in the office. And, when they showed him the surveys, you know, he was just blown away. He had no idea.

Kate Lister: [00:31:22] So, sometimes it’s really just, you know, bringing them back to reality. And, you know, if they don’t, and showing them what’s there is to lose and what there is to lose is good people and what that means is a real hit to their bottom line. And, that’s the language of the C-suite.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:31:45] Yeah, interesting. Yeah. And, a lot of them probably don’t because they may be not as in the thick of the day-to-day as much or kind of in the details to see what some of the people in their organization are actually feeling and thinking at that time, you know.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:32:01] And, looking at, you know, we talk a lot about the productivity and the inclusiveness and engagement. Let’s talk a little bit about innovation and the remote work environment. Do you feel from your opinion that being in a remote or hybrid setting will impact or hurt innovation?

Kate Lister: [00:32:23] I try not to speak from opinion. I speak from research, and the research just does not prove that face-to-face improves innovation, has any impact on innovation. The New York Times, just maybe two or three weeks ago, had a large article that says there is no proof, and I’ve been saying that for years. But now the New York Times said it. So, that’s great.

Kate Lister: [00:32:52] There are two parts to innovation. First is creativity and the second is innovation. So, creative concept. People are most creative when they’re in private. You know, think about when you’re at your most creative, in the shower, in the car, when you’re walking in the woods. And so, even in all of the surveys that we’re doing, people are saying that they’re more creative working at home. Innovation often, you know, that means taking that creative thought [inaudible].

Kate Lister: [00:33:27] It’s often done in groups. So, there are two parts to it, but not necessarily. There are a lot of lone inventors, and it doesn’t necessarily mean face-to-face interaction with groups. Innovation is really founded on trust. It’s do you trust the people that you’re working with enough to throw out a crazy idea and not feel like you’re going to be told that’s a crazy idea. That’s what’s really fundamentally needed with a team. And, once they’ve got that trust, once they have that trust bond, they can do it remotely, just as easy as they can in person.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:34:08] Great. So, we’re going to take a word from our sponsor. Workplace MVP is sponsored by R3 Continuum. R3 Continuum is a global leader in providing expert, reliable, responsive, and tailored behavioral health, crisis, and security solutions to promote workplace well-being and performance in the face of an ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Learn more about how our R3 Continuum can tailor a solution for your organization’s unique challenges by visiting www.r3c.com today.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:34:41] So, now, I’m going to bring Cynthia back into the conversation, and I have some questions for the two of you. Starting out with as workplaces move to making decisions on their new work approach, how can they make the business case from a financial perspective that supports their decision? And so, let’s start with you, Cynthia. Can you talk us through kind of your thoughts on that?

Cynthia Milota: [00:35:05] Well, I’m going to start with a couple no-brainers that are really easy to start, and then we’ll let Kate talk about some of the great financial measurement tools that she offers. But I’m sure you’ve been a part of many conversations about work-from-home stipends. And, as employees are really sort of settling in for the long run on this home-office gig, they’re looking to upgrade. No one wants to be sitting at the dining room table anymore, and there’s been lots of, lots of studies about all the success that people are having, depending on where they’re working. So, clearly, we need to upgrade where we’re sitting at home.

Cynthia Milota: [00:35:40] So, we like to talk about the idea of monitors and a good ergonomic chair at home. That’s sort of the low-hanging fruit that a lot of these work-from-home stipends talk about. So, if you just take a break-even approach regarding providing dual monitors, assuming each one costs a hundred bucks, they have a three-year lifespan. If the monitor saves someone 95 minutes a year, which translates into 23 seconds a day, it’s worth the investment. So, we really are advising our clients. And, I know at the beginning of the pandemic, many people brought their monitors home from the office, and now some of those monitors are being recalled. Folks are asking them to bring them back, but we’re advising our clients just to allow folks to have monitors at home.

Cynthia Milota: [00:36:27] The second thing is the idea of a chair. So, if you look at, put it in the context of a workman’s comp. That an average workman’s comp claim is $28,000. So, if you assume a chair is $500, it has a five-year life, you could purchase 1400 chairs if you avoided one workman’s comp claim. Like, the math is definitely there. So, when we also – I think there’s also sort of a sustainable circularity thing, right? We don’t want people buying chairs, you know 100-dollar chairs from the office supply store, which are just going to break and go into the landfill. But we want to get higher quality, good products so that it withstands the test of time.

Cynthia Milota: [00:37:15] So, employers that do provide some significant or/and significant work-from-home stipends I think really are going to help the planet as well as their workforce. But Kate, I’m going to let you talk about some of the financial tools, measurement tools that you guys are doing with clients.

Kate Lister: [00:37:32] Yeah. This is where we really got started emerging. The banker in me came out, trying to figure out what the bottom-line impact of remote work is. About 12 years ago, maybe more, we came up with a remote work savings calculator. We called it the Telework Savings Calculator at the time that shows a typical employer can save about $11,000 per halftime remote worker per year. And, that is a combination of increased productivity, reduced turnover, reduced absenteeism, and reduced real estate costs, also the continuity of operations being able to operate in the event of a disaster. And, in our standard model, it included one day a year, like one snow day a year, that people would be able to work other if they weren’t able to get to the office. Never did we consider putting in 700 whatever days.

Kate Lister: [00:38:35] Just imagine what dent on global productivity if we hadn’t been able to make this transition. And, that calculator, about six years ago, the federal government came to me and they were responding to an inquiry from Congress who wanted to justify the amount of money that the government was saving in their telework program. And, they were asked to find tools that could help them do that. So, they asked and I gave them a peek behind the curtain of what’s behind the calculator. We’ve got 125 variables and 600 calculations, and they went back to Congress and said that it was comprehensive and thoroughly researched.

Kate Lister: [00:39:20] So, that was a very good endorsement for us. It’s available free on our website. It has been for, as I say, more than a decade. So, companies can quantify their own impact, not just on the employer but on the employee who typically saves 11 days a year when half-time remote work, the time they would have otherwise spent commuting and typically saves between three and $5000. And, it also calculates the environmental impact, as we talked about earlier.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:39:54] Interesting. And, you know, when you think of the ergonomics, I can give a personal testament. I was sitting at my kitchen table and I’m a runner and I started to have really weird leg cramps and I switched to my ergonomically, you know, I brought my chair from my office, actually rolled it out the elevator and took it home, and the leg cramp stopped. So, there is definitely something behind having an appropriate chair when you’re sitting for the amount of time that we sit for work.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:40:26] So, it’s really interesting to hear some of the financial savings that these organizations can have just by simply these easy modifications that can help those employees at home, especially now that it’s become a lot more of a long term solution as opposed to the short term solution that it was probably back in March of last year for a lot of these organizations. And, I know, we’ll put that link to Kate’s financial tool on our page, on the Business RadioX page, as well as on the Workplace MVP page, so our listeners can access that.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:41:04] So, looking at the benefits to hybrid remote work and back office, you know, what are your thoughts around the benefits of each of those that employers should be considering?

Kate Lister: [00:41:19] It’s funny. For years, the conversation has been polar. People, particularly in the media, it’s you know, “Oh, remote work, it’s going to ruin the world,” and, “Oh, nobody likes the office.” It’s both. One’s good for one thing, one’s good for another thing. So, the best of both is to allow people the flexibility to work at home some of the time if they want to and there’s about 15-20% of the population that typically does not want to and to come to the office for the kinds of things that are better done in person.

Kate Lister: [00:41:58] One of the things we learned from a number of the surveys during the pandemic was that people felt they could collaborate just as easily, just the same remotely as they did in the office. But they preferred doing it in the office so, you know, we can get it done. We can have our meetings, but we would really prefer to be in person. So, it’s really just taking the best of both.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:42:23] Great. How about from your perspective, Cynthia?

Cynthia Milota: [00:42:30] I think our clients are understanding this is a unique opportunity to embrace hybrid. You’re right, we’ll talk a little bit more. We have talked about the difference between the C-suites perspective and the average employee’s perspective, but we are encouraging and I would say, by and large, they understand that they’re at a unique time right now and they’re moving forward.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:42:55] Interesting. So, as an organization, you know, if they have differences to what you just kind of alluded to, Cynthia, you know that work environment preference between senior leadership, you know, and what they’re looking for versus what the employers are looking for, how can they approach it and find a balance between both sides that really benefits the entire organization? So, we’ll start with you, Cynthia.

Cynthia Milota: [00:43:23] Yeah. Well, I guess I’d like to pick up on something that Kate said. Let’s go back to the data, right? Perhaps some executives have a command and control thing going on. Perhaps they’re in their walnut row and they don’t see it, but we’ve done a few executive listening sessions, which are a really great start, right. It’s almost – and that has sort of opened the eyes, as we’ve said before. And, I think every H.R. person on the planet now is telling their C-suite, 40% of the workforce is considering changing jobs added at the cost of between one and three times your salary to replace every position, depending on the nature of the job. Employees are really emboldened. They have the upper hand to have their voice being heard. And, I think most of the C-suite is getting it. So, I don’t know, Kate, if you want to add anything to my perspective.

Kate Lister: [00:44:20] Yeah. I mean, it also opens the opportunity for a whole new talent pool, you know. I’ve got a law firm that I’m working with right now and finding top law talent is really difficult. The law firms are poaching one another like crazy.

Kate Lister: [00:44:38] But, now, they don’t have to limit themselves to somebody that’s near their San Francisco office or their Philadelphia office, or whatever it is. They can hire somebody from all over the world. They can also hire a better opportunity to hire disabled military spouses, people living in rural areas that, you know, didn’t always have the opportunity for these kinds of jobs. So, it really does, not only stop people from leaving but opens up the talent pool so much more.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:45:15] Yeah. Did you ever [inaudible] you wanted to add to that?

Cynthia Milota: [00:45:18] No, I’m good.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:45:18] Oh, okay. Yeah. No, I would agree. I mean, that’s kind of – in a previous episode, we were talking about that, you know, how, really, there are no boundaries anymore to where you can obtain your employees when you have that remote work environment. So, it really does open up the prospects of different candidates that they could have across, you know, not just the U.S. but really the globe. And, you know, and I love the point you made about military spouses and others that maybe wouldn’t have had that flexibility before and now being able to give that opportunity to have a career themselves where previously they maybe wouldn’t have been able to. So, that’s a great point to make on that.

Kate Lister: [00:46:01] I also typically show them a spreadsheet of what their competitors are doing. A little peer pressure never hurts and not just their direct competitors, you know, so that if I’m talking to an insurance company, I’m not just showing them what other insurance companies are doing but what tech companies are doing, because the people that they’re trying to hire these days are getting, you know, have to be more and more tech-savvy and jobs are getting more and more tech-oriented. So, they’re not just competing with the guy across the street. They’re competing with Silicon Valley and some of those other places, too.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:46:41] Yeah. Very interesting. I bet that’s a very effective approach to show kind of that kind of data. So, looking at our listeners, what can they do today? What are some simple approaches that can make a difference with their workforce and with the organization?

Kate Lister: [00:47:00] For me, the word sludge comes to mind. Get rid of the sludge. There are so many things that we do that keep us from doing our best work, not the least of which is doing stuff that we’re not good at or that we don’t like. You know, I’m waiting for the day when I’m doing a PowerPoint presentation and my keyboard starts to jiggle and it says, you know, you’re not very good at this. Did you know we have 10 contractors that are already vetted that are better at doing this than you are? And, by the way, do you know that Joe, you know over in the other department, just did a presentation on this? Maybe you should talk to Joe.

Kate Lister: [00:47:33] That’s not something they can do immediately, but it is something that’s coming, kind of the disaggregation of work so that we can all work on what we’re best at. But just the little things, the meetings, and how stressful meetings are, and how much of the day they occupy. Start to think about. Does everybody really need to be here at this meeting? Does it have to be a meeting at all? I’ve got one executive who said, “If there’s more than nine people in a meeting, it shouldn’t be a meeting. It should be something that I record and they can listen to.”

Kate Lister: [00:48:06] One of the things that all remote companies, you know, companies that are all remote get right is using asynchronous versus synchronous behaviors. And, this is something that the companies that Cynthia and I are working with are just learning.

Kate Lister: [00:48:22] So, you don’t always have to have a meeting. Maybe you just need to send a memo. Maybe you only need a few people in that meeting and you can record it and other people can listen at another time. Maybe they’re in a different time zone. They don’t have to get up at 4:00 in the morning to be a part of this meeting. When to use chat, when to use email, when to use Slack, and when, you know how to use those tools so that we’re more efficient in how we work.

Kate Lister: [00:48:51] I’m looking at – and this is also a time for looking at every process and every practice. I think one of the stressors out there right now is that we’re trying to work in new ways, using old processes, practices, and technologies. And, it just drives me batty when I hear somebody say we need to replicate the water cooler. It’s like, who said the water cooler was that great to begin with? First of all, it excludes everybody who’s not at the water cooler. So, you know, we need to use technologies to do things better, not to replicate things that were broken to begin with. Like, people always talk about, “Oh, it’s been really hard onboarding during the pandemic.” Excuse me, 60% of people quit in the first two years, and half of them quit in the first six months. So, let’s not say that onboarding was working that great before the pandemic. Let’s find out, let’s figure out a better way to do things.

Kate Lister: [00:49:46] And, you know, even for just some very, very simple tips. When you’re having a hybrid meeting, everybody has to have their cameras on. Assign somebody in the room to somebody that’s out of the room, kind of a buddy system, so that they can chat back and forth if one person feels like they aren’t being heard. Call on every person. Use polls instead of, you know, hands up and that kind of thing.

Kate Lister: [00:50:17] One of the things that we’ve learned during the pandemic is that introverts are performing better. I’m an introvert and, you know, I don’t think as quickly as extroverts. You know, when I’m in a meeting, you know, people are blurting out their thoughts and their answers to questions. I take time. I think about it after we get off the meeting. And, that means that we’re not hearing a lot of voices and I think there are opportunities that we can exploit in what we’ve learned over the last couple of years that can really bring more equality to the voices in the room and make sure that everybody’s heard.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:50:58] Great. That’s great feedback. I love that. Cynthia, how about you?

Cynthia Milota: [00:51:03] I guess I would go back to the employee experience and I would go at it from two perspectives. One is the stakeholders. I know many of our clients are engaging their stakeholders, but it seems like many that you [inaudible] are not. Leadership has made some plan and they’re going to send a bunch of memos and say, this is how we’re going to do it.

Cynthia Milota: [00:51:25] So, for sure, it’s more complicated. For sure, it’s fraught with more complexities. But the more we have stakeholders involved, the better that’s going to help, the bigger change, whatever it ends up being. So, that’s the first thing.

Cynthia Milota: [00:51:25] And then, I guess the second thing is don’t stop collecting data, right? Don’t stop, you know, even once. You know, in my world, we do something called the post-occupancy evaluation, which is like, you did it like three months after people moved in and then you close that off, and then you’re done with it. Really, we’re seeing continuously collected data whether it be pulse study, pulse surveys. Now, technologically, there’s a tremendous amount of data, everything from badge data to utilization data and I know we’re not doing that much because we’re not in the office much. But once we’re back, I think data informing decisions is going to be the future of what’s happening, and I think we can’t, again, have that data without communicating to our stakeholders what it is that we’re learning and how that’s going to potentially impact and let them have a seat at the table. So, that’s where I’d like to leave it.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:52:37] Fantastic. Great advice and thoughts to leave our audience with. So, if any of our listeners wanted to get a hold of you. And, I’ll start with Cynthia, how can they do that?

Cynthia Milota: [00:52:49] Well, I’m on LinkedIn, so search me on LinkedIn. My email’s on there and my company is Ware Malcomb. If you go to the Ware Malcomb website, you can get my phone number and my email that way too.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:53:01] Great. And, how about you, Kate?

Kate Lister: [00:53:03] I’m there on LinkedIn, as well. I’d be happy to link in with anyone. You can message me. You can also email me at kate@globalworkplaceanalytics.com. And, we have probably a dozen white papers on our website that say things more elegantly than I do in person, so you could just download them there.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:53:27] They’re fantastic. Well, thank you both so much for letting us celebrate you. I’m sure your presentation at SHRM went really well and was well-received, and thank you for sharing your stories and your great advice with our listeners. And, we appreciate you and we’re sure that your organization and your staff do as well. So, thank you so much for being a part of our show. We also – yeah, thank you.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:53:52] We also want to thank our show sponsor, R3 Continuum, for supporting the Workplace MVP podcast. And, to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. If you’ve not already done so, make sure to subscribe so that you get our most recent episodes and other resources. You can also follow our show on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter at Workplace MVP. And, if you are Workplace MVP or know someone who is, please let us know. Email us at info@workplace- mvp.com. Thank you all for joining us and have a great rest of your day.

 

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