Simple Ways to BOOST Your Human Capital ROI

It's funny. Well, sometimes. In our world of business, the line between cost and investment can often blur, especially when it comes to our greatest asset, our people. But what if there's a better way? A better way to view the dollars that we spend on our team.

What if?

Instead of seeing labor costs as just another line item on our financial statements, we could see them as investments in the future of our businesses. And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs develop new skills to help them create the jaw-dropping, show-stopping experience that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. I am so happy that you are here for me for this episode. My guest today is the co-founder of Healing Healthcare Systems, Dr. Susan Mazur. And today, we will dive deep into a paradigm shift that promises not just to change how we think about our work Of course. But how we can absolutely transform the expenses into engines of profitability and sustainability. So, stay with us. My one ask is that if you know somebody who could use this information, please go ahead and share a link to the episode. Knowledge is power but only if we share it. All right. So, let's delve into a little Business 101. Every business leader out there knows that keeping an eye on the bottom line is absolutely crucial. I mean, there's no doubt. If there's no margin, there is no mission. But in the middle of this high-stakes juggling act that we call budgeting, have we forgotten about something really super important? Yeah, I'm talking about our people. In today's ultra-competitive marketplaces, how we view and manage labor costs isn't just a mundane task. It is the secret ingredient to our company's successes. We're not just talking pennies and dimes here either. We're talking about recognizing real MVPs that make a difference on our business each and every day. And that is our employees. Are we just chalking them up to line items or are we investing in them like the business rock stars that they are? Making the right choice here isn't just a nice-to-have. It's what separates the industry leaders from, well, the industry leavers. And that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, Think about the last financial quarter. Did you view your employee-related expenses purely as a cost that needs to be minimized or as a strategic investment aimed at enhancing your company's overall performance and its profitability? How is that perception shaping the future of your business? As I mentioned, I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. Why don't you go ahead and share this episode on your favorite social media platform? Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership. Put down your comments. I'd love to go back and forth and get your ideas about this as well. As I mentioned, I am really excited to be joined today by the incredible Dr. Susan Maeser.

Thank you.

As the co-founder of Healing Healthcare Systems, Susan Maeser earned her PhD in Human Organizational Development from Fielding Graduate University where she also holds a Master of Arts degree. Prior to her work in healthcare, she had a full-time career. Get this, as a jazz harpist performing with the likes of Dallas Smith, Ahmad Jamal, Frank Sinatra, Natalie Cole, and Julio Iglesias.

It's like, what?

In the healthcare sector, Susan has been a game changer leading initiatives to reduce hospital noise through innovative educational programs, and speaking at numerous global conferences including her recent keynote on the use of music to create healing environments at the 12th Annual Conference on Medication Safety in Abu Dhabi. She's a respected authority on patient privacy and HIPAA. Susan's extensive writings have influenced major healthcare journals and policies. She's appeared on national television like Good Morning America discussing her insights on hospital noise and patient care. Recognized for her leadership with the 2023 Caring Science Visionary Leadership Award, Susan also recently joined the Board of Directors at the Watson Caring Science Institute. Under her leadership, the Care Channel, which she launched with Dallas Smith, has revolutionized patient care across over 1,000 healthcare facilities with its 24-hour relaxation programming. Dr. Maeser, I am so honored. Welcome to the show!

Thank you so much, Marc. I'm so happy to be here.

I am so blown away. I'm always tickled when I see people who have accomplished so much in their lives. And you're just one of those magical people that have been put on this planet.

Well, we just follow our noses, right?

So, how do you go from Music, patient care, to coming on the show to discuss things like labor costs?

Well, you have to kind of go back in my history that as a musician, I worked in several settings, many, many years playing as a soloist, also as part of a duo, also with orchestras. And That paradigm of being a musician in an organization really transfers well into our business community because musicians make several assumptions about what their job is. First of all, they have to know how to play their instrument, and that's their job, not their employer's job. Then they're the ones who have to practice.

Yes.

Before a performance. So, having the knowledge, honing the tools, making sure that they're up to date and what's in front of them, playing in tune, being able to play with other musicians and blend into an organizational sound, that's a musician's life. So, in our business community, we tend to be so individual. We don't realize. So, what is the job of the employee and what is the job of the employer? And I think that's where things kind of get messy.

I can see that. I can absolutely see that. And I kicked off talking about budgeting. Standard bookkeeping practices, I think, taints our view of labor cost as an expense.

Can you explain why this Well, let's look at what's the difference between an expense and an investment. An expense, the money goes out one way and it's gone. An investment is something where it grows. You put out the money, but it comes back in in many, many different ways.

Right.

And when you invest in your staff and you know every employee there knows that they're there because they're extraordinary, because what they think matters, how they feel matters, their insights matter, that comes back as loyalty.

Right.

So, we in our company, unless we let someone go, which generally happened in the first 90 days, it wasn't that hard to figure out someone, it wasn't going to work.

Right.

5, 10, 15 years people are with us. So, the stability of the organization matched with the continual growth within the organization, knowledge building, knowledge sharing, making sure everyone is very flexible. If you think about, we started the Care Channel in 1992.

Mm-hmm.

VHS tape. That was the technology. And hospitals had analog, some of them 13-channel TVs. I know it's antiquated, but that's where we were. Mm-hmm. And now, 30 years later, everything is digital. And every— all the content which we produce went from analog, from Hi8, To— let me see how we did it. Super VHS, to the first one-chip digital cameras, to the 3-chip, and now to Blackmagic, to 4K. All those changes, the staff had to continually learn new software. Hospitals had to buy new equipment.

Yes.

It was a continual dance because the technology changed so fast. But hospitals are about, I'd say, 5 to 10 years behind the rest of the country because they can't— they're too— they're behemoths. So they can't just change every television in the hospital.

Right.

So what we found was that as we went through that, That it was very exciting. Our employees felt very excited that they were engaged in the world they lived in on time and current. That we weren't just sticking to old formats because it was convenient, it was cost-effective. And we pressed our hospitals to upgrade their equipment.

I get a sense how your business evolved. Your investment in your staff helped your employees evolve as well.

That's right. And also, I used the model coming from Peter Senge of the learning organization where mastery involves self-reflection of the individual, continual self-mastery, and knowledge is continually shared. Across employees, across departments, that it's a very fluid lake that we're all swimming in. So, I think that the idea that people should stay in their own lane, like accounting should stay where accounting is and sales should stay— where sales is, I think it's out of date.

Mm-hmm.

Because accounting knows a whole lot about how your customers respond to your pricing, to your product. I mean, they have an abundance of information that only comes to them, and sales needs that information, and sales can then inform accounting as to billing practices. We had to change our billing practices once we realized that no matter when we billed, hospitals took 60 to 90 days to pay. So, we changed everything. So, that's what we expect— 60 to 90 days.

Well, I know that in my realm, like obviously, understanding what expenses are and what cash flow is is one thing. But I know that in my realm, when I talk to people about investing in their employees, the big questions I'm always getting is, well, if I do this, what happens if they leave? Why is this such a huge misconception?

Okay, so that's a really good question. My husband and I, and Dallas Smith and I are married, still married. 40 years, always felt that the energy, the mission of our company went with an employee to their next gig. It just— they carried it on. So the reputation, the skills, that's why our company is so strong, because you can't Employees leave but they don't necessarily leave their experience.

Well, they will never leave their experience. That experience becomes who they are, right?

So, even when we— so, let me tell you about our office. So, we don't have any customers coming to our office. Our hospitals, We have many in Nevada, and they're all over the country, some out of the country. But what's very interesting is we invested in an office that when people come in, they feel success, they feel prosperity. We allow every employee to decorate their own office. We have no cubicles. They are real offices. We have a big conference room. We eat lunch together. We have a big patio. We've got barbecues. So, when people come in, they have a sense of their own unique identity and pride in walking into an office that reflects the success that they have and they want to have. So for most companies, an expensive office is definitely an expense.

Sure.

And in media companies where no one really sits in person, you know, everything is remote, sometimes they're really pathetic. We were not going to do that. We were not going to do it. We have really our production studios right in our office, the edit bays, Every member of our production team has their own edit bay, their own studio, and they own it. I mean, they make it feel that that's their space. And it definitely turns around reflected in the quality of the product they put out.

So, it seems to me that your investment in your employees is more than just training, you're investing in kind of their culture that they're working in. And you're investing in their well-being by allowing them to kind of cater their environment to what they feel the most comfortable with.

I think that, well, for one thing, I also was an employee. My husband and I also worked for the company.

Mm-hmm.

So as I came into work every day and I had questions and I'd walk around the office, I had to have a sense of parity with everyone I was working with because if they didn't do their job, I couldn't do my job. And we also made sure that every single member of our team felt connected to the end user who's not the hospital. The end user is the patient.

Mm-hmm.

So, we would get tons of feedback from patients and families and always spread it out to the staff so they knew their work really mattered.

And so, what did you do to include them in that feedback loop?

Okay, one is if we got emails, we sent it out to everybody. If we had a voicemail message, we sent it out to everybody. We'd celebrate. We'd have a Team Wednesday and everyone would share the feedback they've gotten. And remember that our company is located in Reno, Nevada, and we have— every hospital in the area has the Care Channel. So neighbors, families, friends who wind up in the hospital or are visitors for other people in the hospital wind up seeing the Care Channel.

Yeah.

We get feedback all the time. So that means we're all living We're a living, breathing part of making this community healthy.

Yes, yeah. And so, I get a sense then that your employees really kind of have onus into that as well.

Yeah, they do have. And also, I think we do a lot of celebrations. We really celebrate. We get a new healthcare system. We contract with a new hospital. We— they did a big Christmas push for a children's suite, the Ronald McDonald House here, and they videoed it and created a video that was posted online. We're also pet-friendly. So, employees can bring their dogs. To the office. And, um, oh yeah, it's really— it feels very homey.

So—

But I will tell you that our office hours are not long. Our office hours are 8 to 3:30 Monday through Thursday and 8 to 1 on Fridays. And everyone knows if someone If you don't finish and a contract has to get out, or production, or something has to happen, they'll stay and do it because it's their work.

Right. Exactly to how you opened this, that as a musician, your work was to learn your instrument, practice your instrument, be ready for showtime. Their perception is that their work is, I have to make sure I deliver on my promises.

Exactly.

And perform the way I need to. Yeah, I think this idea of investing in employees or looking at employee and labor cost as an investment rather than an expense, I think there needs to be a big shift in that. And I'd like to talk about how leaders can shift that thinking. And we'll get to that right after this.

Okay.

When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star Welcome back. I am speaking with the fabulous Dr. Susan Maeser. Susan, I'd like to kind of take a step backwards. How did you fall into this magical sphere where your corporate culture is kind of focused on the success of your team members? How did that all come to be? Because when you first started your business, you had no business experience.

None. I've never had an office job in my life.

So, how did it all start? Like, how did you fall into this? Because most people would be looking as a new entrepreneur, you'd be looking at your revenues. Oh my goodness! Our revenues is X amount and all our expenses are this amount. And oh my goodness! We have to run to the bank and we got to get more cash. Right? And you run this kind of cycle until you start making lots of money. And then, you get to the point where it's like, oh well, we're doing fine so I don't have to worry so much about my cash flow. And then, you get to a point hopefully where you don't have to worry so much about the expense. How did that work for you? How did— take us back to when you first started. How did you fall into this concept that you needed to look at employees more as an investment rather than as the expense line?

Okay, so I'm going to take you back to the very beginning that I had a Harp student. Who was a psychiatric social worker. And she brought me into an organization of nurses who wound up asking me to develop workshops for nurses on the use of music as therapy. And I dove into that question. And it took— it was over several years I developed workshops and was teaching workshops. Until we finally got a request to provide music for a psych facility in Georgia. And I had to come up with overnight the name of the company, the format in which we were going to provide it. And this was music 24/7 forever. So what I did was I had to think about how much to charge. I had to think about what kind of contract I'd give them, what kind of promises I'd make, and then come up with a product. And what I found was that the real capital was our talent because we had no money. There wasn't a bank who'd loan us one thing because everything we were doing was not tangible. I wasn't buying a building. I wasn't manufacturing. There was nothing existing that looked the way we wanted for what we were going to be doing. And that story is probably still the same today, except that there were— when we set our pricing, we There were 2 factors. One was we didn't want patients charged for this channel, and we didn't want one hospital to tell us they couldn't afford it. So, we began charging for the Care Channel $100 a month for the entire hospital, every television connected to their cable. And now, 30 years later, we're about $300 a month. So, we haven't really— Moved on with inflation. But what I found was that employees— when an employee looks at what do they get out of their gig, how are they paid? Well, one is salary, but that's only one.

Mm-hmm.

Then there's the pride in their work. There's the promise of satisfaction. There's the community in which they serve. There's a whole bunch of intangibles. It took us a while before we established a 401 and retirement, but we did it. And all of that to me was an investment. Because if I look at someone staying with us 10, 15 years— That's the best kernel of energy in their life they're giving to our work.

That's such a wonderful way of looking at it. My goodness.

Yeah, it's like the best hours of the day, the best— they're at their peak intellectual curiosity and energy.

How do you ever Would it be fair to say that when you first started off, that you were hiring people in realms or in competencies that you yourself knew nothing about?

I would say that's true because remember, I'm a musician. I have 2 degrees in music, which qualified me to do nothing. So, it's like I had to find accounting people. I had to find someone to help me with administration. I didn't even know how to buy computer paper.

So, would you say that that's probably the catalyst for you thinking the way you do about your employee contributions is that you were hiring people who you had to rely on to have the expertise to be able to move your businesses forward? You couldn't sit over their shoulder and micromanage them.

Not at all.

Yeah, interesting.

I didn't want to sit over their shoulder. What I wanted was for them to come in and do what they needed to do, and I didn't want to have to worry about it.

Right.

And I'll give you another example. So my husband and I— my husband plays saxophone, I play jazz harp— we work with drummers. Well, when we hire a drummer percussionist, I don't want to have to tell them which drum to play, which groove to sit in, which— I don't want to have to do any of that because that's their job.

And so, they come to you with their competencies. They prove to you that they're able to do those competencies. And you're either happy or you're not happy.

Well, and I also think, I remember when we hired Our first professional videographer. My husband did it for 18 years. Then we hired a young man who came from the NBC affiliate here. And he comes in and he— the first thing he says is, well, we need to catalog where everything is. And he said, I need this software. I said, okay, let's get that software. Because I had to catalog Every minute of content with every piece of music used. And then he said, well, I'm really good at doing marketing videos because I did for this NBC affiliate all their promos. So he's— I said, go for it. So he produced so many videos. You can go to our website and see how many videos we have that are just expertly produced. I didn't have to tell him to do that. I don't have the expertise to know what we need.

Well, what recommendation would you make to a business owner who has kind of taken that step but because they didn't know the competency, they didn't know what was required to do things, they kind of entered into the relationship kind of blinded by the promise. But then, at the end of it, they walk around and they go, I have to learn this stuff because They're just screwing me over and I am just paying out of the nose and these people are just no bloody good. How did you avoid that trap?

Well, you have to be an informed employer. Yeah. You know, I mean, I even look at when Dallas and I first got together, signing contracts with managers and record companies. So, Go to an attorney, totally surrender to the knowledge of the attorney.

Mm-hmm.

Except that the first contract we signed had no way to get out of the contract.

Hmm.

Which I didn't know till we wanted out of the contract. Well, I thought, how stupid was I? So I took business law and contract law. Which I recommend to everyone who owns a company. Don't count on your attorneys if you can't evaluate whether your attorney is doing their job.

I love that. Again, you just mentioned something about becoming an educated employer.

Informed employee.

So, you are an informed employer. You don't necessarily need to practice law. But to have an understanding of the law. So, it's basically arming yourself with the ammunition of being able to ask really good questions. So for instance, the first time that you hired a videographer because Dallas did it for so long, you knew the questions to be able to ask this person.

That's right. And we also, I think that when this guy came in and immediately told us what we needed, We didn't get defensive, right?

You didn't feel stupid?

Right. We didn't get defensive about it. We said, you tell us what we need and we will get that. Gotcha. Yeah.

So, let's talk a little bit about what you think constitutes employee investment. You mentioned a whole bunch of things as we got started, right? If you were to put If you were to put that into a packaging of 3 to 5 things that constitutes employee investment, what would you think that is?

Okay. First of all, knowledge sharing. That they're given the time and inclination to really dive into the expertise where they are sitting. Our videographers are continually looking at new equipment. We send them to NAB, which is the National Association— NAB, National Association of Broadcasters, every year to look at new equipment, where the technology is going. Also, we've brought in consultants to do workshops on stress relief, you know, to bring down their stress levels, to raise their productivity, even interrelational communications, not coming from a crisis. A crisis didn't have to show up to do that. What we said is, this is a good thing to talk about.

Mm-hmm.

Because we didn't want to wait until something broke down. And something always breaks down. So, the other thing we did is make sure that lunch was a community event.

Hmm.

So, everyone in the company had time to talk to each other, share their excitement about what was going on, ask questions. People could give each other feedback and ideas across departments. And that, I mean, people give 20-minute lunches. And if you just give them 40 minutes, that extra 20 minutes really allows them to dive deeper into who they are in relationship to everyone else they're working with. And the payback is huge for that.

Is there a way that you can quantify? Have you been able to quantify an ROI like we do for other investments in this? Or you just know Because of the output, you just know that this is the right thing to do.

I never even thought of doing that, actually. I don't think everything could be quantified. But I do know that there's a high expense for big turnover. So, if you want your employees to stay with you, you have to give them a reason to not move on to the next shiny object.

So, what advice would you give to a business, an entrepreneur, a business owner, a business manager who is hesitant to shift their perspective due to budget constraints or even the pressure from their CFO? What would you tell them to get out of this expense mindset?

That's a really good question. I mean, remember, I'm a musician.

Yes.

So, as a musician, so I have 3 harps. The 3 harps each cost $50,000. So, if I look at an ROI, I mean, these harps have taken me all around the world. They've supported me for decades.

But they're also an expense. Right? They need to be maintained. When you're playing all over the world, they need to be shipped.

But I will tell you, if I don't do that, nothing comes back.

Right.

Right? So, if I look at it—

And that's the metaphor. That's the metaphor, right? If you don't do it, nothing comes back to you. If you don't take a chance and invest, it won't come back to you.

So we went through a kind of disaster many, many years ago where I had designed a sound system for a clinic in Oregon.

Mm-hmm.

In which I designed the installation manual to install 90 volume controls. This is for a music system In the hallway so the nurses could control the volume depending on the time of day.

Sure.

Well, we get all the volume controls and they're all wired backward. All of them. The installer calls, he's livid. He installed them all, didn't test one of them until they were all installed. And, you know, we had to deal with that. And the customer never even knew it happened.

And that's again, that is the end result I think of what you do as a musician, right? You know after a performance. Like I do acting. And so, I know after a performance, I could pinpoint all the areas where we messed up. But the audience doesn't have a clue.

That's right. Well, and that's— I think about how many times we had train wrecks.

Yes.

You know, just train wrecks. The hospitals never knew.

Yes, never.

And the employees take such pride in that end experience. And the person you really don't even want to have to think about it is the patient.

Right, right. Because they got other things to think about.

Oh my goodness!

So, if you were to kind of justify this line of thinking with people who have to report to boards or stakeholders, how would you recommend that they talk about this narrative?

Okay. Garbage in, garbage out. You know, that's a computer thing.

It is. Yep.

That's a recording. It's also recording. You record something, you play a wrong note, that's what you're going to get back.

Yes.

So you can't get out of a business what you haven't put into it. You can't get out of your employees the skill, the excellence, the consistency, The loyalty if you don't put out for them.

Yes, brilliant.

That's just— that's—

and it's so common sense, isn't it? It's so common sense. And again, people have got to shake this idea that if they invest in their employees, if they invest in things like training and sending them to trade shows and giving them, equipping them with the knowledge and the growth potential of the individual, we have to get out of this mindset that I'm going to invest in them to do this and they're going to leave. And I'm not going to be able to benefit from it. And I think that if— I think there's plenty of stats out there. In fact, Gallup has polls all over the place of the ROI on investing in our employees. Like every time you invest $1 of training for an employee, it comes back to you 3 times.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, I'm thinking about meaningful training, meaningful exchanges, meaningful work within the culture of the company that isn't about anything but the health of the work. Yeah.

And to your point, your culture is around the relationship part of it. This is why for you, Having lunch with everybody is an important component because it creates the ability to have relationships at work, not just for people to come and punch the clock like Wile E. Coyote and the sheepdog, right? Go off and do their jobs and then come back and punch out again.

Well, and also remember, if you have employees for a long time, years, You have death. You have illness. Remember, we went through the pandemic.

Yeah.

I mean, we've had employees losing parents, having kids that wound up in the hospital. And we all jumped in to help them because that's what families do.

Yeah. But to me, it's more than being a family because— and this is one of the things that kind of turns my crank a little bit is when people say, oh no, we're a family. And I would challenge that and say, no, you are a community.

That's right. You're correct.

Right? And so, because we're a community, we're all in this community together. And it might be for the 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, or whatever the business model is. But the bottom line is, and I think this is what the pandemic showed us when people started working from home, is that even though somebody is working from home, they're still part of our community. It doesn't distance us.

That's right.

Yeah, this has just been an absolute amazing conversation, Susan. Do you have any last thoughts about what we talked about today? Anything, any bridge we didn't cross?

I really encourage owners of companies, consider yourself an employee.

First and foremost.

Look at yourself As an employee, and the way you get paid is because the people you hire invest in you and your vision. So, that exchange of you investing in them and they're delivering the real meaningful golden goods. Yep.

Love it.

It is. Yeah. I mean, that's really why businesses thrive.

Yes.

I mean, I still think Dallas and I look at each other. It's now 33 years and nobody thought we could do this. I can't tell you how many people thought you can't do it. Oh, you should charge per bed.

All sorts of business models, right? All sorts. But you found a business model that you were keen on and that worked for you. So, That's been brilliant. Dr. Maeser, how can people get in touch with you if they want to touch base with you to pick your brain and figure out how this could work for them?

So, you can find me on LinkedIn. Yeah, Susan E. Maeser. You can find me on Facebook. And on Facebook, you'll find some of our concerts too.

Very good concert, by the way. I was just saying, I was watching one of your house— was that a house concert? The one that you just linked to?

House concert.

It was a house concert and I'm listening to it as I was writing the notes for this episode.

Yeah. And also, we have 2 websites. You can go to the Healing Healthcare Systems website. That's www.healinghealth.com.

Perfect.

And our personal website, which is where our music is and kind of our personal bios, www.maserandsmith.com.

Lovely! And we will have the link in the show notes. Susan, thank you so much for sharing your passion expertise with us today. It has really been insightful and brilliant.

Thank you so much, Marc. And I so appreciate the conversation. And you are very brilliant yourself.

Why, thank you very much, ma'am. I appreciate that. But I want to make sure that you shine more. More brightly now than ever before.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine. MarcHaine.com. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and leave a review about this episode? I'd love to get your feedback. Was this of value to you? Again, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you got tons of value. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.