In an exclusive interview with The HR Digest, Liz Ryan, the driving force behind the Human Workplace revolution, reflects on her transformative journey of empowering the workforce. From shaping the cultures of fast-growing companies to championing Human Workplace methodologies globally, Liz shares her insights on how trust and a human-centric mindset are no longer optional but mandatory for success in the modern workplace. As the founder and CEO of Human Workplace, Liz envisions a future where work is fluid, nimble, and built on trust. Join us in this cover story celebration of Liz Ryan, a change driver of the decade, as she unveils the secrets to creating workplaces where authenticity, trust, and innovation thrive.
The HR Digest: How has your philosophy of empowering the workforce evolved over the years, and what impact do you believe it has had on modern workplaces?
When I started writing, and speaking about making work human, I was passionate about the topic because I had seen human-centric practices fueled by trust have an incredible, positive impact on the companies I worked for.
Both of the companies where I led HR grew fast and were tremendously successful. You could feel the good energy there. Growing those businesses without losing the human feeling in the culture and practices was important to us and I wanted to teach that methodology and mindset to other leaders.
So since I started our business, I have been teaching my Human Workplace methods to HR professionals, business leaders, university students and faculty and working people.
The biggest change since I started spreading the message about the Human Workplace mindset and methodology, the working world has changed dramatically.
It is no longer optional to lead a company through trust and implement human-focused practices. It is mandatory. You cannot attract the talented people you need onto your team or keep them interested if there is too little trust in too much fear in your environment.
You can tell when the good energy that should be flowing in your organization is blocked by fear. When you have reams of unnecessary policies, approvals required for simple things, and an us-versus-them attitude between managers and employees, you need to step back and look at the level of fear vs. trust in your business.
In terms of the impact of our work, it’s been incredibly gratifying to meet and hear from leaders and working people who have changed the way they hire, onboard, lead, assess, mentor, support and communicate with their teammates after working with us directly or reading my books and article. Sometimes one new thought or “aha!” can change your outlook dramatically. That’s what I’m shooting for.
Now that so many large and small employers are leading their teams with Human Workplace practices, the tide is turning and the old, fear-based management model is falling away. That’s incredibly gratifying for me. It is wonderful to have three million HR folks, business leaders, and working people in our community now.
“It is no longer optional to lead a company through trust and implement human-focused practices. It is mandatory. You cannot attract the talented people you need onto your team or keep them interested if there is too little trust in too much fear in your environment.”
The HR Digest: In your podcast “Break the Rules To Get the Job You Deserve,” you discuss unconventional career advice. Can you share a specific instance where breaking traditional rules led to a remarkable success story?
Yes, there are so many. Breaking a traditional rule is a freeing activity. Sometimes we follow rules and we don’t even know where they came from or why they exist. At some point someone simply told us, this is a rule, and we believed them.
At every stage, and in every aspect of hiring new employees, onboarding them, leading teams, and communicating with them, I encourage my readers and followers to break traditional rules and question everything.
That is the only way we will get fresh eyes on familiar situations. Rule breaking and rule questioning are critical skills in the 21st-century working world.
We cannot assume that because someone implemented what was the best practice in the 1940s or 1960s, but it’s still the way we should be operating today.
Two stories about breaking rules:
– I worked with a CEO who was hiring a lot of people quickly.
His firm was competing mainly on price – paying high salaries to attract candidates other companies also wanted to hire. I suggested that he break up the competitive situation by meeting with candidates early in the process, to understand their goals and share his goals with them.
CEOs typically don’t meet with candidates early in the interviewing process, if at all – especially new grads. But this CEO did, and every candidate in that group who got a job offer accepted it. It’s easy to see why. They felt personally invited to join the organization. They had a connection to the CEO before they walked into their first day of work.
– Another organization had a big problem with engagement. Turnover was up and the mood in the workplace was rough. We decided to ask the team what they needed most from their employer that they weren’t getting. It’s a simple question. The top three items turned out to be more information about upcoming product changes, better equipment and more flexibility in terms of working hours. Before we asked employees for their input, the executive team had agreed to address whatever issues were reported as high priorities, and they did.
These are easy fixes – more communication, newer equipment and more flexibility. It just takes a change in mindset.
The HR Digest: As the founder and CEO of Human Workplace, how do you envision the workplace evolving in the next decade, and what role do you see Human Workplace playing in this transformation?
COVID changed everything. The pandemic opened our eyes. Many jobs including most so-called knowledge worker jobs could be performed from anywhere. We can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. We have to embrace work from home or work from anywhere.
We still hire and lead people as though they are going to work in our companies for decades but that world is gone. We have to get better at hiring people in a faster, more fluid way. We have to acknowledge that it makes no sense to interview someone four or five times for a job that could disappear at any moment.
The working world is only going to keep changing. We have to build nimbleness and trust into our processes, from designing a job and writing a job ad (most job ads are horrible!) to managing teams, developing leaders, handling conflict and dealing with very sticky issues like sexual harassment, discrimination and substance abuse or dependency. HR is right at the front of the movement to make people central in any conversation about work.
That means HR people need to rise above administration and compliance – both important but non-strategic areas of focus – to design and implement policies and practices that take away the barriers that keep people from bringing their best to work.
Some of those barriers are role confusion, heavy-handed management, measurement for the sake of measurement, draconian HR policies, internal politics and finger-pointing. They all spring from fear. If there’s too much fear in a workplace, these are the problems we will see.
In addition to me and my teammates teaching and preaching the Human Workplace methodology and mindset, we’ve launched a group of amazing consultants and coaches who are bringing the Human Workplace message out to more and more organizations, academic institutions and individuals. I’m also thrilled that among our LinkedIn followers, CEOs and HR leaders make up the biggest functional groups.
“Rule breaking and rule questioning are critical skills in the 21st-century working world. We cannot assume that because someone implemented what was the best practice in the 1940s or 1960s, but it’s still the way we should be operating today.”
The HR Digest: In your podcast episode “Making the Workplace More Human,” you discuss connecting with employers through a ‘pain letter.’ Can you share examples of how this approach has positively impacted job seekers and employers alike?
It’s long been said and it’s unfortunately, abundantly true that the recruiting process is broken. It doesn’t work well for hiring managers, candidates, agency recruiters or the HR and TA people who administer the recruiting engine. It’s not effective. It’s expensive and slow, and often tosses out incredible candidates while driving other candidates away.
It shouldn’t take months to hire anyone, including a C-level executive. So a Pain LetterTM – is a letter, usually sent physically by a candidate to their hiring manager – their prospective boss, that is – talking a bit about themselves but mostly about the pain or problem they can imagine their hiring manager facing. Pain Letters are a more direct, conversational, relevant way to reach and engage with a hiring manager than submitting a resume through an impersonal recruiting portal – and they work!
The HR Digest: You often emphasize bringing all parts of oneself to work. How can organizations foster an environment that encourages employees to express their authentic selves while maintaining professionalism?
It’s all about trust. When employees know HR has their back, their manager and other managers support them and work is a safe place to share ideas, be innovative, collaborate and have fun they are unstoppable. Here are the first three steps to build trust in your organization:
1) Look at your messaging. The policy handbook is a great place to start. Most handbooks are horrible – they set the tone “It’s our company against your employees.” That outlook kills trust, of course. Get rid of policies you don’t need. An employee handbook shouldn’t be more than 50 pages long. Most of what’s in the handbook is irrelevant to employees.
2) Look at behaviors that happen in the organization that employees get in trouble for but executives and managers don’t. I’m talking about raising your voice, criticizing another person or department, and so on. We can’t talk about corporate values with our teammates unless we adhere to and practice the same values.
3) Deliver what employees want. Approve their time off requests quickly. If they have a personal issue that causes them to miss work, support them. Make your culture a competitive advantage – it’s the only competitive advantage that lasts.
The HR Digest: What advice would you give to HR professionals looking to create a more inclusive and supportive workplace culture, considering your emphasis on making workplaces more human?
Band together with the other managers in your organization to talk about where changes could be helpful. HR is a collaborative endeavor. Find other forward-looking HR and non-HR people to share ideas with. We have a community like that and would love to support you in your journey.
The HR Digest: As a change driver of the decade, how do you navigate and lead through uncertainties and disruptions in the business landscape, and what lessons can others learn from your experiences?
I never think about managing through change because it’s all change, all the time – that’s the water we swim in. You know who never worries about change? The people who are leading the changes. We have to find ways to help other people navigate and feel comfortable with changes, absolutely, but our job is to look out over the horizon and see what’s coming – where the world is going and how we can make the world better by shifting our mindset and methodology to make work a human place. Then we can get people around us excited about that forward motion and the good energy we’re creating together. That’s a mission that inspires people. It takes all of us!
 |
Liz Ryan is a former Fortune 500 SVP of HR and the world’s most widely-read career and leadership authority.
Liz is the CEO and Founder of Human Workplace, a content and consulting firm and a global movement to reinvent work for people. Liz is a beloved advisor to the three-million-plus Human Workplace community members for whom Liz’s books, articles, podcasts, videos and artwork provide equal parts advice and encouragement for thriving in the 21st century working world. |