About the Episode

Today we’re going to talk about organizational culture and employee experience or EX. Fast growing companies have to be careful not to lose the culture that makes them unique in the first place.

Maintaining this can be a competitive advantage that is worth the investment. To help me discuss this topic, I am joined by Traci Schweikert, VP Human Resources at POLITICO.

About Our Guest

Traci Schweikert serves as the Vice President for Human Resources for POLITICO. She has been building best-in-class teams and organizations across a variety of industries for 25 years. Traci has a proven record of optimizing organizational development for industry-leading companies such as NPR, LexisNexis and McKesson Corporation. She is particularly passionate about leveraging communication and culture to create opportunities where talent is a strategic advantage, employees are valued, and people truly make a difference.

Traci received her undergraduate degree in Journalism from University of North Carolina, and holds several certifications including GPHR, SHRM-SCP, KFLA and Voices360. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Freedom Forum Institute’s Power Shift Project.

Transcript

Please note: This transcript was created with the help of automated transcription. Please forgive any errors or inaccuracies in the transcription.

Greg Kihlström:

My name is Greg Kihlstrom and I'm the host of the agile world podcast where we talk about branding, customer and employee experience in an agile age. Today we're going to talk about organizational culture and employee experience or EX. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Tracy Schweiker, VP of HR at POLITICO. First, why don't you tell me a little bit about what you do at POLITICO?

Traci Schweikert:

Great. Well, thanks for having me on. My role is a VP of HR. And so what that includes is all of the talent and culture related activities for POLITICO. I also happen to have accountability for facilities, which fits nicely into the employee experience.

Greg Kihlström:

So let's start by talking about what makes a good employee experience. How about if you define what you think a good employee experiences and how do you measure it?

Traci Schweikert:

For me, employee experience is so important, right? Folks come to work to make sure that they are adding impact with whatever they do. And obviously at POLITICO we are very much focused on  informing the public. So good employee experience to me is having an employee's needs met at all levels of their work experience. So things as simple as making sure we've got great amenities to make their time at work comfortable, and accessible all the way through. Being able to achieve their career aspirations and having great opportunities for further career development.

Greg Kihlström:

Why do you think a lot of companies struggle to provide great employee experience?

Traci Schweikert:

Yeah, I think employee experience is really interesting and I think a lot of times folks are focused on the latest and the greatest. And what you really need to remember is it's that baseline of understanding and that baseline of need. If you're not making sure that somebody has a comfortable place to work, that you don't have the basic amenities or technology to do their job. focusing on creating the next innovative product or the next great story, is that much harder to achieve. We make sure that we get the basics absolutely spot on and then we build off of that in terms of career development, collaboration and culture.

Greg Kihlström:

What we've seen at Cravety is a much bigger focus on employee experience that we do both customer and employee experience work. But there seems to be such a bigger focus with our enterprise clients in particular on employee experience. What do you think brought this about? Is this the new normal? There's potential economic changes happening, all of those kinds of things. I mean are we in kind of a new normal or is this because of a certain set of circumstances?

Traci Schweikert:

Yeah, I think it is absolutely a factor of the times and I also think we're creating a new normal as we go. I think we are at a moment where the talent marketplace is the best it's ever been for a candidate or for an employee. And so as employers we need to make sure that we are looking for every way to differentiate ourselves to get that talent into our organization. I do think millennials coming into the workforce and challenging, the way that we work, the way that we collaborate, what work life balance really looks like, what flexibility for work looks like has certainly sparked a new normal. I also think that that's not going to go away anytime soon. I spend a lot of time talking to Gen X managers or occasionally, you know, we don't have baby boomer managers, but as I've talked to them in other organizations and often the, the response I get from them is when I was early in my career, this is what I got. And what I remind them is, you know, listen, just because that's what we might've had early in our career doesn't necessarily make it right. And it's certainly in today's environment doesn't allow us to be competitive and doesn't allow for the best talent to come into the organization. If we're not pushing ourselves from an employee experience standpoint, how can we expect to have employees come in and really push the boundaries and disrupt the media marketplace?

Greg Kihlström:

Are you seeing, any impacts with Gen Z yet, or how has that, you know, differences between Millennials, Gen Z?

Traci Schweikert:

We are not quite yet. I think we'll start to see those in, in the coming years. Right now POLITICO is 80% millennial, so we are definitely very millennial focused. It really is like even even some of our executive leaders are, millennials themselves. So that definitely drives what we're doing. Everything that I've read says that Gen Z is going to look and act a little bit more like a gen exer. So, I think we'll just need to continue to balance that instead of it being more, Gen Xers with the leadership level. If Gen Z does tend to act in the workplace the way more, more like Gen X did, then I think we'll just manage to that. Yeah.

Greg Kihlström:

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about technology then. what do you see as the relationship between technology and employee experience and, you know, what are you either currently doing or thinking about doing?

Traci Schweikert:

I mean, technology is a huge part of the employee experience, right? Because I, I do think that so much of the new employee experiences about flexibility, I think we get the best work out of folks regardless of the generation that they are. If we give them the flexibility to do that. I myself am a gen X or I have a family. I'm able to schedule the work that I need to do by using, email and apps and other technology. I do a lot of email late at night and I use the send later feature. just so that I'm not pinging my folks late at night. but that, because that works for me, we're constantly looking to how we can use technology to make life easier. We're still a mid-sized company, so we're not looking at doing a lot of automation. but we are looking at, okay, if we're going to use a software package, do they have a good app that allows folks to do things on the go. We also are an open work environment, so a lot of our folks sit in open workstations, so they tend to use the whole space. So a lot of folks are sitting at the cafe or they're sitting in other places in the building. And so being able to do that with the use of technology makes life right.

Greg Kihlström:

Yeah, that's an interesting, because you mentioned you also oversee facilities and, and things like that. It's interesting how, physical and virtual environments interact. So was thatt something that you were always, sort of overseeing or is that something that you kind of grew into your role or,

Traci Schweikert:

The interesting thing is about my role. I came to POLITICO three and a half years ago and I was actually POLITICO's first VP of HR. because they were still, they were still very much in startup mode. Robert Alberton, our, our publisher really said we need to bring someone in to really focus on both talent and culture. and so I started with that. But again, for me it's all about the entire employee experience. And the piece that I didn't have was the facilities piece. And that can be the part that folks just don't pay enough attention to. we have a beautiful cafe that has healthy eating options and we put a lot of money in that because we want that to be a benefit for our employees who are working flexible hours for journalists who might be crashing on deadline. But we need to make sure that we're constantly looking at what should we be adding to the cafe, what's important to folks. Since I've been there, we've added things like nitro coffee and oat milk. Now that oat milk has seems to be a very healthy alternative for folks. again, it seems like a very small thing, but if you're going to offer that kind of a benefit, if you're want that to be part of the employee experience, you've got to make sure you're paying just as much attention to that. Yeah.

Greg Kihlström:

Sometimes, as a company is growing, it sees a shift from a very innovative, creative, driven and team oriented culture to a more numbers focused and process and hierarchy and all of those kinds of things. All are valid and all are needed, but the challenge is finding the right balance. So how did you work with, with the team to really maintain that right balance where with growth comes certain needs but you still want to maintain what the culture really is.

Traci Schweikert:

Yeah, with any startup organization, we were very focused on disrupting the media market. And I think as POLITICO came into, the media space, they definitely did that. And as we grew, one of the things that I talk to executives about when I interviewed with them, with us, you know, they said, listen, we can find really great people, but we're having a hard time getting them to stay. Right. and because we're finding great people and we're doing great work, there are a lot of competitors out there who like to come and shop, at our talent store. And so what do we do there? And that is then the work of talent and culture. How do we take what's really good, but really focus it. And so what we did was we went back to what's important.

We put values in place. I think those values were something that we were talking about on a day to day basis, but we sat down with a group of high potential employees and said, listen, let's really define what it means to be at POLITICO. you know, as I walked in the door, people would talk about, you know, we're a lot of really passionate folks who are really focused and we work really hard. and what we settled on for our value is that we're relentless contributors. We're disruptors, we're collaborators and we're talent cultivators. And so those are our four values. And I think what we do is try to use those to center ourselves. I do think you're right. As you become more, as we're growing into a mid sized company, we do have to think about equity across different teams, right?

It's no longer a situation where a manager can do whatever he or she feels like we've got to look at how are we creating some balance and equity. But I think leaning on collaboration, leaning on talent cultivation and saying, okay, again, what are we trying to accomplish? How do we do that? and we're able to get there. We've absolutely added process. We've added also what I'm very proud of is a lot of data collection. We do new hire surveys at 90 days. We do an annual engagement survey, we do exit surveys. My team spends a lot of time interacting with different employees and managers across the organization. Just collecting a lot of data so that we can constantly refine. So if we find out, you know what, we've had a policy that's been in place for a while and it's not quite being used the way that we originally thought, let's tweak it, let's make it, let's make it different. Let's evolve it. And so that's what we try to do. We try to constantly make sure that we are talking about what works for us now, and evolve as we go.

Greg Kihlström:

That's great. Yeah. I think the, that's, that's great that you're measuring too. And, I think the, you know, one common complaint, among employees is, you know, the, my employer keeps asking me all these questions and doesn't really do anything about it. How do you, how do you mitigate against that and you know, without sharing too much or are all of those types of things, like how do you, how do you make sure the employees feel like they're being heard and valued and valuable?

Traci Schweikert:

Yeah, we are very fortunate. I have been doing, human resources, talent and culture for 20 plus years. And at POLITICO, our annual engagement survey for example, we have 96% participation, which is unheard of. and you know, the very first statement I make to an executive team or a management team when we present results is, listen, the great news is, is with 96%. We know this is absolutely representative of an employee population. the challenge is 96% of our employees told us what they want, what they need, how to stay engaged. We now have the responsibility to do something with it. And if we don't, we won't continue to get that level of participation. so, you know, with great power comes great responsibility, right? you know, we've got to make sure that we make good on that. And so we do put action plans in place. We do share the results with employees. We do regularly speak to members of the leadership team to say, how are you doing on your action plans? And we try to also weave that feedback into other things that we do at allow larger talent and culture, standpoint. Yeah.

Greg Kihlström:

That's great. So what role does diversity play in the success, not only of POLITICOs culture, but you know, how do you feel it plays a role in company culture in general?

Traci Schweikert:

Well, I mean, diversity is wildly important and I, and I think everybody understands that great ideas only come when you're bringing a lot of ideas to the table. A lot of experiences and a lot of ideas. because we're a media organization, we are not going to do our job of representing America if we don't look like America does. and so in our newsroom in particular, we are constantly looking at how do we make sure that we have diverse voices associated with all different stories that we do. you know, from a business standpoint, it's also really important. what we are trying to do at POLITICO is figure out how to take a bite out of diversity each year. So in this coming year, in 2020, we are focused on allyship, you know, how can you be an ally? because, you know, while we are increasing our levels of diversity, we're not where we want to be. so we want to make sure that those folks with, the privilege and the power are also actively working to make a change. And so throughout the entire year, we'll have values day. For example, we do that every year. Our values day this year will be aligned with allyship and, and how can we bridge some gaps there? The different trainings that we'll do will be focused on that as well.

Greg Kihlström:

So what are some of the other teams, that you work with regularly to really, you know, enable this great, this culture, this, you know, what, what you need to accomplish, since it employee experience really takes a company-wide commitment to do that? Who are your allies in the organization as far as you know, teams and stuff like that?

Traci Schweikert:

So we, you know, we are trying to make sure that we address it at all levels of the organization. So we have several grassroots employee committees. We've got a diversity and inclusion committee. We've got an employee activity committee that we call POLITICO activity committee because we thought the pack concept would be a nice little turn on, on what we do there. We've also got a group called POLITICO gives, which does our community involvement. and so that's a great way to get folks involved. we also have a lot of involvement at the executive team level. again, Robert Albertans, our publisher, Patrick Steele, our CEO, Matt Kamensky, our editor in chief carried boot off, Brown, our editor, all of them are very involved and are regularly pushing us to make sure that we are looking at new programs and that our programs are competitive and where can we be leading the charge instead of, just following from behind. So I'm very fortunate in that all of my peers, at the executive leadership level are very much committed and very open to the ideas that I bring to them. And often we're able with just a, a handful of conversations able to really make some impactful change, which makes my job a lot of fun.

Greg Kihlström:

That's great to hear. So how do you see the relationship between customer experience and employee experience? So I always say happy employees make happy customers. They buy more, buy more often and, and recommend others. Your customer isn't necessarily buying a product off the shelf, but how do you see that relationship in what you do to the eventual customer experience?

Traci Schweikert:

One of the things that I am very proud of is if we go back to our annual engagement survey, the category that always comes out at the top across our employees is pride in the organization. and I think when you have folks who are very proud of the things that you do and the things that you're involved in and the impact that you're making, on the world, that comes through in everything they do. I think that comes through in terms of them. being even more relentless contributors there. They're very bought into what we're doing. they are very much collaborating with each other, right? If you've got a good employee experience, you've got employees who are pleased and happy to work with each other. we do not have what I've seen at other organizations in terms of regular tension between teams working together. I mean, don't get me wrong, we don't always get it right. but what I like to say at POLITICO is when it comes to the big things, we always get those right. That's great.

Greg Kihlström:

Well, one last question before we wrap up. In talking about employee experience, how would you recommend that someone keeps up with the latest thinking research?

Traci Schweikert:

From the time that I was little, I am a huge book nerd and if I walk into any bookstore and there's a new leadership book, I'm jumping right on it. I have members of my team that do the same, that read. I also have a lot of folks who are a lot more into podcasts that fits their life a lot. so I always encourage folks to make sure that you're constantly out there, you know, reading short articles on Twitter or LinkedIn, reading a book, listen to a podcast because so often the good ideas are already out there. just hearing what somebody else does and then saying, okay, how could I apply that to my team or my organization? That's always the best way to do it. I think the danger in that is if somebody takes something completely off the shelf and tries to insert it without customizing it for their team, that doesn't always work.

But if you, if you take the general concept and say, okay, what could we do here? you wind up with something really fun and exciting. We, for example, borrowed Motley fool, does something called random acts of coffee where they connect folks across the organization and the company pays for coffee on them. and we figured out how to do that for us. We weren't able to do it exactly the way that Motley fool did it. We actually make it a diversity and inclusion initiative where we try to connect folks who wouldn't normally interact with each other. and it's been a lot of fun. And again, it wasn't our idea that was one that we borrowed and that was because somebody saw it in an article. That's great. That's great.

Greg Kihlström:

Well, thanks again for joining the show. for those listening, what's the best way for them to keep up with what you're doing?

Traci Schweikert:

I'm on Twitter and Instagram and it's @TracySchweikert. Also I would encourage folks to follow on Twitter and Instagram POLITICO careers so they can see a little bit more about our culture and action.

Greg Kihlström:

Wonderful. Well, again, I'd like to thank Tracy Schweiker at VP human resources at POLITICO for joining the show. To learn more about both customer and employee experience, I recommend you go to my website@gregkihlstrom.com and make sure to check out my latest book, the center of experience. More information is available on my website or wherever the book is available, like Amazon. Thanks for listening to the agile world with Greg Kihlstrom. See you next week. Thanks again for listening to the agile world