Interview with Josh Flagner on Teams and Becoming a Greener Company

Hi, my name is Ian Peterman. I'm host of the Conscious Design Podcast, and I'm here with Josh Wagner. He's planning manager of Cleveland Tank and Supply, and want to talk about sustainability in the workforce. And we talk about product sustainability all the time and environment, but people Sustainability is a huge factor, and I think you've mentioned it's kind of a precursor, so I'll let you, I'll let you go take it from there.

I mean, sustainable design is hugely important to what we are trying to accomplish as a green culture. You know, we want to make sure that we are as efficient as we can be, that we're taking care of our environment, that we're doing all of the physical things that we need to be doing correctly. But as a company, as a culture, it's great to have those plans and talk about those things. As a company, if you're the head of a company, it is really, really hard to have a plan for sustainable design. It's really difficult to have a green plan that, you know, we're going to be a green company, we're going to make all of these conscious decisions to do things the right way. Unless you have the buy-in from your workforce. And how do you get the buy-in from your workforce to change your sustainable design? How do you get— how do you get your entire company to turn over to be a culture that isn't going to print things out, that's going to do things digital first? You have to have engaged employees for that. You have to have a workforce that's going to be agile enough that no matter Their age, no matter their technological training, no matter their generational predispositions, are going to say, you know what, we, we can switch over to doing e-signatures. We can switch over all of our ERP systems. If you're a manufacturer— I'm a manufacturing company, that's what I represent in this discussion— how are we going to change everything over to be barcodes and computer screens? From having, you know, yesterday we had physical pieces of paper and drawings and packets in our hands. We liked that. We're used to that. We're tactile people. You know, we build things. Give me the piece of paper. How do we switch that over? It takes a lot of change management. And this probably isn't, you know, the right discussion to be way in the weeds about how you're going to manage that change.

Right.

But you can't get there unless you have a happy, engaged workforce. You can't even start that discussion unless you have a shop full or a factory full or an office full of people who are ready to do that with you. And, you know, you can't get there unless you're listening to them and doing right by them and, and giving them the opportunity To help own that project.

I agree.

And it, it's something that's— I've actually noticed there's, um, up in, up in Washington where I'm from, there's, there's certain pockets of the really— the people that want to have green products and don't want to pay for them. They don't want to pay for the living wage that's required to have artisan organic food or, you know, fair wage in the United States. And so that plays into this whole like, well, you have to take care of the people you want. If we want sustainable products, then we have to pay for people to have a sustainable job. They have to be taken care of well enough so that they can put their creative energy into that instead of, you know, You know, how am I going to put food on the table this week? That's not the creative solution where we're trying to drive people to. And so that's, that's something that I've seen is kind of an interesting dichotomy there with the way people, what they want and what they're— where the value, where we're actually focusing on, we're kind of like hyper-focusing on one small piece.

Well, absolutely. You know, if you're a company and you want to put a bunch of money into whatever your sustainable idea is, whatever your plan is, if you're going to spend money to get there, but you don't spend money on the people who are going to do the work to get you there, You may as well not even start the project. Now, a new study from the IBM Institute for Business Value, it just came out, I think, on February 26th. So it's actually still relatively new. It studied 14,000 adults of the IBM consumers globally, and it showed that 1 in 4 are going to plan— are going to make planned Work switches. Think about that. In coming off of 2020, coming off of the pandemic response, we're still going through pandemic response. We still have a weird, tough, uncertain job market. I think anyone who has— whose business is hiring, you know, in this job market can attest to the fact that this is a really difficult job market right now to go out and find people. You know, you have people who can't get jobs, employers that can't hire people. 1 in 4 people in this market right now are going to voluntarily switch jobs in 2021. If you're a business and you're, you're investing money, you're investing capital in infrastructure, in equipment, in computer systems, in whatever it is that fits your plan and your design to make your business better and more eco-friendly and, and more green for 2021. And you don't have a bunch of that money earmarked for your employees to give them raises, to pay more of their benefits, to, to make sure that, you know, you've got a good sustainability plan that development plan for your employees, if your best employees are interested in developing and promoting and making more money, we're all interested in making more money, right? If you don't have money in that capital budget earmarked somehow to keep your best employees and the people who you really, really need to focus their attention and make that work, if you don't have money for them, I don't understand how you think you can succeed in this environment.

Yeah, well, I think usually when market, a normal job market, it increases in unemployment, it then becomes an employer's— it's like a housing market, buyer's advantage or seller's advantage. It becomes employer's advantage because the work pool is larger. But I think there's multiple factors playing playing in because 2020 pandemic, we also had Black Lives Movement make a huge wave. Diversity and equity is now top of mind for everyone. Things like social first is now becoming a buzzword for companies that are actually going to put people first. And it seems that there's been a shift, and you can tell me if you've seen this, but people's idea of what a, you know, what a perk or what their compensation is, isn't just even in cash. Obviously, that's a great thing, but if 25% of your workforce is willing to leave, then it can't— it might not be just about money. So I guess, what have you— you know, you have a team. Have you seen increase in different kinds of compensation or caring about the mission of the company? What other factors have you seen that are driving possibly this move? Because it's a pretty uncertain job market, so being willing to jump is a pretty— usually it's not the time people are willing to jump. Usually they're, I'll stay on no matter what until the economy recovers or until we hit the green space where unemployment's low and it's the employees Well, and I think that that's—

it's a really interesting time because in some job markets, in some specific segments, in some skill sets, I think right now it can still be an employee's market because there are so many companies that are focusing on remote work, that are focusing on flexible work schedules. If you want to compete, You know, I'm a— represent a small company and we want to stay competitive with the people who we have. You know, anyone could swoop in at this. Any recruiter could call and say, hey, we have this position open. It's for some other— you know, it's for another company, but it's in your skill set and we're going to let you work from home. I mean, that, that's a no-brainer, right?

Right.

I mean, well, I mean, it's not a no-brainer because that's kind of an— I always find that's an offensive phrase, and I don't know why I just used it because it bothers me. Everything's a brainer, you know what I mean? You have to think about it all. But I think as someone who hires, you know, someone who's responsible for employees, anyone who has a team has to remember That any decision that we make when we wear our, you know, I'm the company hat is a business decision. Any decision that you make as an employee is a life decision, and I think it is really important for me, for you, for anyone to remember that. When I'm gonna sit down across from someone and and talk about why I want them to stay on my team or to be on my team if I'm hiring, or you know, I want to move you on my team, or I want to we you know we're talking about salaries or we're talking about benefits. Anything that I say is a life decision for that person because I'm an employee too, right? I mean, I I can sit here and. And talk about, you know, my ideas are important and, you know, I have my employees. I'm an employee too. You know what I mean? Like I sit down with people who are gonna talk about what I'm earning and they're gonna talk about the opportunities that I have. And I'm in a position where those decisions that I make are my entire life. You know, I have a family, I've got 2 daughters and a wife and a couple of cats and a house. You know, I mean, This isn't this is important stuff to me, and it is my responsibility when I think about how I'm going to handle my team to remember to to put myself in that in those shoes when we're having those conversations. And I think everyone should. When you have a team, it is incumbent on us. It's our responsibility to to look at. Our team members and find out the things that they would leave for before they leave for them. So have those discussions with your people. And, you know, it's easy for me to talk about, you know, specifically what I see in my organization and what those people want. It's easy for me to read a study from the IBM Business Value Institute and, you know, talk about 1 in 4 people are going to lose are going to voluntarily leave their jobs. 28% of those people talk about flexible work schedule and location. 33% were Gen Z, the 18 to 24. That's a huge, huge portion of those people surveyed. But 25% of them are millennials. I'm a millennial. I'm an old millennial. We need to get rid of The stereotype of you know what people are going to provide what type of value, who's going to be good at what, and you need to look at your team individually and find out what they're going to leave for because your team might not match the percentages that are on all these studies. Your team might not match you know what my team needs. My team needs different things than every everybody else. So as a manager. And as someone who's implementing a sustainable design plan for your company, find out what your people need, find out what they would leave for, and address that with them and provide those things for them. So when they get a phone call from a recruiter, and they're gonna, I mean, we're, we're all Here's a secret I'm going to tell you that everyone is going to nod along with, but no one talks out loud about. We're all getting phone calls from recruiters.

All of us.

That's— they're literally paid to call everybody who they can. Right?

So make it— when you make it so when your team gets those phone calls from recruiters, And even if one of them goes, you know what, I think I'm going to talk to this recruiter, and they sneak off at lunch and they go out in the parking lot, if you're in the— if they're in the office, or, you know, they put on the busy signal, I'm unavailable for 20 minutes on a Friday afternoon, and they have that phone call with the recruiter, make it so that there's nothing the recruiter can give them that you aren't already providing. Yeah, I mean, that, that's, that's your responsibility. That's how you build your sustainable workforce. That is how you take care of your environment, is, is by making sure that the people on your team, when it— when they get those phone calls from the recruiters, that they're not tempted to go.

Right.

Well, and that's a— and I think that's a really valid point you brought up of just Yeah, you can look at studies, right? We all look at studies. We all, you know, we're on LinkedIn or whatever social media. We all see this stuff, you know, like we just talked about, 25%, they're looking for— and it doesn't— it is so true that it doesn't actually— those are all generalizations about probably not the people you work with, right? Right. So I mean, it's that— it's like there's like a double level. And yeah, they could do, you know, whatever, a global survey, but Does that really help you in the end if you're a little company, you know, in Florida or Germany? Probably not. You are not the global— those averages doesn't really help. And so it's something that I feel like we don't focus on as much, and we should, is we'll just have a conversation with your team. Don't worry about the studies. Maybe you should give your team A questionnaire. I send your— like, survey your own company, right? You mean big company, you probably need to do that, or individually talk to people, figure out what is the individual level that you're at. And maybe you're, you know, maybe you're doing great. Maybe everybody's so happy, they're like, we'll never leave. You should probably figure out why.

In that case, yeah, figure out why and then sell that.

Yeah, sell that and don't lose it.

Make sure you keep giving it.

But I think that's a huge part, is that individual component of check on your own team.

Absolutely. Yeah, even if you're, even if you're part of a gigantic company, even if you are IBM, right, you're not responsible for all of IBM. You have 30 people, and, and maybe there's people under them depending on where you are in the organization, but Find the people to whom you're most directly responsible, and keep and keep them, and move them up. I mean, look, if if if you've got twenty people, and every every one of those twenty people you talk to them, and they say, "You know, I want your job." That's what I want. I want to move forward. Then you find a way. To get all of those people your job, you find a way to make the best of them your boss, you know, whatever that is. If, if you are comfortable enough to do that, then those 20 people are going to fill in every spot that they leave for you with the best possible replacements that they will help you find. because you did that for them. And they're gonna look back at that and say, you know, that guy there or that girl there who, even if they end up above you in the organization, they will always appreciate the fact that you found a way to provide for them what they needed for their career and their life. And they're gonna help you back. Every step. So there's there's really no way that you're going to lose out of that proposition if you're talking to your team, if you know what they want, you know what they need, and you work as hard as you can to provide it for them. And you know you're you're not gonna you're gonna fail sometimes. You know there there are gonna be people that you want to give more to, and sometimes you're not able. There you know there's gonna be things that people want that you want to give them, and for whatever reason maybe you're not able. But if you're, if you, if you're trying and you're transparent about it and you're honest about it, you're, you're never gonna lose that proposition. You are always gonna have people who know that you did absolutely everything you could. And wherever they end up, they're not gonna leave because you did a bad job. They're always gonna be there and they're always gonna help you maintain a sustainable workforce, even if they don't happen to be in that chair anymore.

Yeah, well, that's a great point as well, that you help— if you want people to move up, they're going to help you replace them, which means you're— it will probably make your hiring process better if you have it, because you'll be recruiting all of— all the people you help raise up through the company, they're just going to help Bring in, have you waste less time on candidates that aren't a good fit or having to, you know, they probably won't leave their position in a mess. And when they leave, they're not going to leave in a mess that you then have to clean up while you're trying to hire somebody else to do that, which I know is a huge— can be a huge time, time waste in cleaning up in order to bring someone on or even just retraining, just figuring out. Well, we don't know what this person did because nothing, nothing is documented and they can't, right? They've lost the herd knowledge, has left.

Yeah.

And we're, we're stuck figuring out what's going on. And even if they do leave somewhere else, if you have done that, I would imagine it, the events like that would decrease quite a bit. And that's, I mean, from a selfish level, save yourself some time and And be nice to your team.

It'll—

Well, you know, and, and that's, that's kind of the dirty secret to all of this, right? I mean, that is—

It is.

As a, as a manager, you know, as, as someone who is looking to make sure that your department or your group or whatever it is functions as smoothly as possible, all of these things that you do for your team really kind of help you in the end, right? I mean, I'm, I am also going to look as, as good as I possibly can to, you know, to everyone I report to if everyone who reports to me loves what they're doing. I mean, that's— and it really, if you say it like that, you know, right, it sounds like the seedy underbelly of the human resources world. But I mean, it's also true, right? I mean, if you're keeping everyone happy and engaged and sustainable that reports to you, and they're keeping everyone happy and engaged and sustainable that reports to them, and all along down the line, you know, everybody looks good from that each step of the way.

Yeah, I think, I think we, we, we do talk about like the underbelly, the bad side of it, but the real, the real result is, is it really that bad? Because everybody seems to win. And in the end, even if you're doing it for selfish reasons, right, the most mean version of that is you're being really nice to everyone because you want them to be nice to you. And that's— I feel like it's not actually bad.

We don't, you know, people kind of shy away from it, but it's not—

I don't think it's actually bad. I think we all create a win-win with that in creating—

As long as at no point, you know, there's always the very last person in line at like the whole It's like that pay it forward thing that somehow ends up having the, you know, he paid for a gigantic, you know, 34 Egg McMuffins or something for the car behind him. And then the car behind him is just like, thanks, and drives off. And then there's always like that last person who's like, oh, you know what, come on. Like, I don't—

Yeah.

As long as you don't, as long as you're never that last person and you keep moving, uh, you, you keep moving all of the goodwill and the engagement and the happiness, you keep all of that and, and keep giving that to other people. Yeah, there, I mean, there, there's no loser in that. The problem is, is, you know, sometimes you get in an organization where, you know, that does stop. And how do you combat that? You know what I mean? And again, we could be in the weeds about that for days and days and days. You mentioned documentation and, you know, making sure that you don't lose tribal knowledge. We could talk about that for days and days and days and days.

Oh, that's, that's That's weeks of conversation easily.

Oh my God. Yeah, absolutely. So, but I think, you know, like you said, there's no loser in that. If you're taking care of your team and you're, you're keeping everyone happy and sustainable, then you're, you're never, you're never going to be in a bad spot, you know, even if someone does leave, because there's always a godfather offer out there somehow. Somewhere, right? There's always somebody that might come along and, and your, your very best, your very most conscientious person, the, the person that you did everything you— they talked about, you know, you sat down and you had your meeting and they, they gave you the, the 4 most important things to them and, and you did everything you possibly could. You gave them everything. And they might still leave. And I think as an employer, as a manager, it's important that you don't take that personally because—

Yeah.

You know, for me, it's a business decision when I'm wearing that hat. But on the other hand, if I'm in that other chair, it's a life decision. And if somebody comes to me and gives me that Godfather offer, Or everything is great, but I, I get to be with my daughters 10% more. You know what I mean? Like, you, you take that deal because it's your life at that point. And when you're the manager and you see somebody make that life decision for them, you can't take that personally because you, you would have done the same thing.

You— Right.

But if you've taken care of that person, You know that you have someone. You you know that there'll always be someone there who appreciated the work that you did for them, and could be there for a phone call if you need it, or you know could be there to to maybe give you a little bit more notice, or stay a little bit longer, or help with training, or go above and beyond maybe with some documentation or something. You know you're there's. always going to be something that you will get back from that investment. And it isn't necessarily always something that's going to go to the bottom line of the company. It isn't always something that's going to make you look better as a manager or make the department run more smoothly. But there's always going to be something there that you will get back from doing everything you can for the, for the people on your teams.

Right.

Yeah, I think, I think that's important to point out. It's not always, you know, there's not always a dollar amount. You can't put a dollar amount on every single exchange. Sometimes it's just not possible. And but we need to count them. Like, we still, we should still should look at that and say, well, there is value, there's still going to be, you know, a return. No, it won't. I won't, I won't get $20 in my pocket for it. But that's, that can't be the only, only metric. So I think expanding our metrics on what a good exchange is and what value and where value is. And I think people have brought up like the triple bottom line and things like that to like try to help expand people's idea of what is value and where do we get it from. And I think that just goes right in hand with that of not everything's cash. Look at the value overall.

Yeah, I think it goes— it all kind of ties back to what you said earlier in the conversation, to what we kind of talked about earlier in the conversation. You mentioned the triple bottom line and people have all these studies and they figure out what's value. There are a lot of really, really brilliant people who figure a lot of that stuff out. And I appreciate it and I read it and I try to take as much from all of that as I possibly can. But if you really want to find out what value is to your people, you just have to go ask them and then write down their answers. And there's your study. Honestly. No, I agree.

I completely agree.

And I don't say that— yeah, I don't say that to denigrate anyone else's work. I don't say that to imagine that somebody who put a year into all this data and research came up with this paper and they outline all these things. All of that stuff is really important, and it is a great basis point for the things that you're trying to accomplish. But it, you know, what is happening in your organization is ultimately the most important thing, and that is going to be how, you know, you can build a foundation for the, the rest of your plans.

Right.

Well, I, I think it's I think that those things, those studies, and, you know, even things like Black Lives Matter and those movements, they're all great starting off, but they really are as a conversation starter. Like, okay, well, this is, this is somebody else actually voicing something and sharing it, and then you see it. And then the next step, which I feel like we, we don't always do a great job at, is then taking that and actually applying it. Specifically to our own environment, our own network, our own employees, our own team. We kind of just go, oh, that's cool. Let's get on the bandwagon. 25% of all people are looking to change their— right? We just kind of extrapolate, go, well, that must apply to us instead of going, okay, well, that's great. That group of people, somebody took a year to do a study. Some, you know, this movement has started and it's called to attention. these things, how does that apply to me? How can I take that idea and check it against my actual group that I'm a part of? How does, how does that actually apply? And then using that knowledge to then create policies or behavior changes in myself, or, you know, all those things. How do I apply that to really make it so that my life and the life of the people I actually interact with Because I don't, I don't work at IBM. I'm, I'm not, I'm not interacting with those people at all. Um, so, you know, that doesn't really— does it really apply it? But how do I take that and apply it to my employees, my team members, you know, on a more personal— and I, I think it's the common agreement we have is actually talk to your own people, like figure out what they need, figure out how they feel, and then Take all these other ideas. There's thousands of, you know, examples that companies have put out and people have put out and then apply it.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned talking to people and making policies and finding out what's important to your individual people. I mean, as a factory or any, you know, I guess anyone with on-premise employees, at this point in 2021 who had any on-premise employees at any point in 2020. Forming your policies around public health is— was a humongous example of some places were really good at doing that, some places were bad at doing that. Some places have employees that don't necessarily think that you should take extra steps, you know, to worry about public health. Some places have employees that are full of people who think that you should do everything, wear all the masks and all the things. And, and then, but most places are a gigantic conglomeration of in the middle.

Right.

So, you know, and I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna debate the specific points, but as you sit down and you know what your employees are, you know what your talent is, you've talked to all those people, you've had conversations, you've got CDC guidelines, you've got sometimes specific state guidelines, sometimes you've got county guidelines. And city guidelines. And then you've got all these people that come from all these different places and have all these different opinions. And you have to figure out a way to make a policy and make a set of rules by which everyone will abide. And then you have to figure out a way to enforce it. And how do you do your soft enforcements and your kind of gentle reminders and what's the, you know, and man, I feel like if you've been through that, Almost anything that we do in, in 2021 and beyond is going to be a whole lot easier than, than trying to enforce public safety guidelines at a workplace, I gotta say.

Yeah, I would, I would definitely agree with that. It's, it's been a, we'll call it a crash course in policy implementation for, because most places don't do huge policy Upgrades or overhauls ever.

Right.

It's really just, it's very gradual. I, I have never worked at any place. They're like, well, let's just for fun redo all of our policies, delete that. We're starting from blank. Ignore everything that you knew before. And welcome to the new world. On March 1st, we're going to be doing this. You're welcome.

Right.

Nobody does that. So this has been, to my understanding, a once time in the world at all, at any time, where mass companies had to overhaul in a huge— it wasn't just like one part. And it's a huge, like the health portion, that's literally Anything and everything to do about people. And since people work at companies, that's a really big task. That's a really— that's a long list of things to figure out.

So, so the companies and the teams within the companies and everything who, who had a leg up in making those policy changes weren't the companies with the best and biggest compliance departments. They They weren't the companies with the best and biggest HR departments. Now, maybe so, but you know, every square is a rectangle. Not all rectangles are squares, right?

Correct.

They, they were the companies and the teams who had a leader who could sit down and say, this is hard. I'm not perfect. There are mistakes that are being made right now. But I'll tell you that I care about you, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that you are safe and comfortable, and everyone can do their work however is best for them to do their work depending on their job duties and their job placements and everything. And, and let me know when you think I've done something wrong, and away we go. See you tomorrow. Those are the organizations and the businesses and the companies and the teams and the departments who succeeded at all of this. And it doesn't have anything to do with how good the policy happened to be. What controlled the success was the fact that there was a group of people that trusted the leadership enough to know that they were being honest with them. And that— and leadership like that is the type of leadership that's doing all the stuff that we're talking about in the first place.

Right.

They're already talking to their people. They already have those conversations and they know their own team. And that's happening.

Yeah.

So I guess to kind of wrap up, I know we've talked quite a bit about things. So what would be, in your experience, like the number one thing to look at In creating a sustainable workforce, what would be— I know, probably hard to pick. You can do 3 if you want, but what would your top— like, what's the top thing that you would focus on? Absolutely.

Honest communication. I, I don't know if that's— I don't know if that's 1 or 2 things, right? But just honest communication.

I feel like we could make it 3.

That's right. Yeah, I mean, find out Find out what your people need, and each person is going to need a different thing. So just communicate with each different person and be honest about the things that you can do. Be honest about your mistakes. Be honest about the things that you that that you as a manager, like hey, I tried to do this and failed. Or hey, you know, the reason that you can't do a good job today is because. I did a bad job yesterday and I'm going to try to fix that. So it's honest communication is really the most important thing. You know, you just, you just have to know, you have to know what's important to your team.

Well, I agree. I completely agree. That was great. So thanks for, thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate it. It's been great. I think this is a Yeah, we filled this time with a lot, a lot of conversation, which has been great. And, uh, yeah, I— how— if people want to get a hold of you, talk to you, what would be the best way for them to do that?

Well, I'm— look, I'm, I'm ready to plug everything shamelessly, but the easiest, the easiest way to find me is Josh Flagner. You can find me on Twitter @JoshFlagner, Instagram, Facebook, JoshFlagner@gmail.com. I, I do other podcasts. I talk about sports pretty extensively in some other podcasts. So if anyone is, is looking for an escape, you can go to Three Guys Three Cities, the number 3, Three Guys Three Cities on all the social media. We talk about sports and cigars. You know, we've been able to interview legendary broadcaster Dave Sims, Lofa Titupu, the Cleveland Browns sports psychologist Sam Minyar. We have some really cool discussions. And I talk on Sports Hacks, is another podcast I do. I like to do this and hang out. So I appreciate you having me. I appreciate you giving me an opportunity to talk about something other than, you know, what's going on with Russell Wilson and Tiger Woods. This is— this has been great fun.