111 | Creating A Culture of Care | Paul Ter Wal

Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast, where I talk to leaders about how internal communications, engagement, and leadership all play a key role in creating amazing and successful cultures.

We need to change our perspective from the short term of gaining a lot of money to a longer period of time and invest in trust and in engagement, and then see the productivity will go up.

Hello there and welcome to this episode of Building Better Cultures with me, Scott McInnes. Lovely to have you back again. If I forget to say it later on, which I will, so I'll just say it now. If you're enjoying this podcast and you are on Apple, please do give us a 5-star rating and a wee comment because it does really, really help to get the word out there. Also, as I always say at the top of these episodes, thank you and my heart goes out to Workvivo. Our friend and partner for their ongoing support of the podcast. I think they've now sponsored about 20 or 30 episodes, and their support is very, very much appreciated. You will hear a little bit more from them later on. So my guest today, we've had quite a few guests in recent times from over the pond, and my, my guest today is from a little bit closer to home. He's based in the Netherlands. And when, when we got talking, he said something that kind of really made me stop and think, and that was happiness makes money. And I think that whole idea probably stems, and it's the same idea that Richard Branson had back years ago, I guess, when he talked about look after your employees and let them look after your customers, rather than this whole idea, this fad that you've heard me talk about many times before of organizations having customer first as a value. Actually, how's about we have people first, employees first as a value? Does that not make much, much more sense? So, my guest today is Paul Terwal. As I said, he is based in the Netherlands. He's the managing partner of Andaré Consulting, but he's also an international speaker on corporate culture and engagement. And if you go onto his website and have a look at a few of the videos that he has up there, you will also see that he has some of the best shoes. I've got— I literally, I watched the video the first time and I had shoe envy. That's— Paul, it's the only reason you're here really, because I want to find out where you buy your shoes. Hello, how are you getting on?

I'm doing very well. And at this moment, I'm staying in Germany, but I live in the Netherlands most of the time. But this is my weekend off in Germany in a small village. But I'm happy to be on your show.

Brilliant. Well, listen, thanks a million for being here. Why don't we kick off with the usual simple answer? Because look, I can do an intro of you, but I will only do you half the justice that you will do yourself. So why don't you just tell listeners a little bit about you, your experience, and what you do.

Yeah, well, I started more than 40 years ago as a lawyer. I studied labor law, social security law, and as normal, you are fighting for people who have big problems. And over the years, I found out that the most sensitive thing to do is to take care of people who are, if you look at the traffic light, are still green. Before they become orange or red, which is in trouble. So I changed from the backend to what we call the frontend. And with that, I discovered that a lot of sick leave has to do with culture, with unhappiness, with problems at home, with colleagues you can't get on. So I moved from sick leave to engagement. And started looking at how can we get people more engaged. And then my research showed that they become more profitable and less sick and make less mistakes. And I thought, whoa, why aren't we doing this all to our employees? And so that's how I got on. And about 25 years ago, I started my own company to help big organizations worldwide to get to that level.

Brilliant, brilliant. I guess it's interesting. I was having a chat with a healthcare client yesterday and we were talking about preventative healthcare. So rather than treating obesity or treating diabetes, actually, how's about we do more preventative education so that, as you say, we get them at the front end and that doesn't become a problem? I guess it's a very similar idea.

It is. And it is so strange that we spend so much time, effort, and money on when it goes was wrong. And that we have in the Netherlands, we have prevention in one of the law. So it's, it's important to do prevention. And out of 40 articles in that law, only 2 are about sick leave. 90% of our time we focus on those 2 articles and not on prevention. So it's everywhere the same.

Yeah, it's very interesting. So we spoke there about this whole idea of happiness makes money. I talked about at the beginning, you that, you then spoke about it in your intro. And I think that Lots of organizations, lots of marketing departments spend a huge amount of time and money focusing on customer experience. How do we make the customer experience better? How do we improve our systems and processes to make it easier for the customer? What do customer journeys look like? And there's a huge amount of money being spent on consultancies bringing organizations on that journey. But my question to you, I guess, is what's the role of brilliant employee experience in building amazing customer experience? What role do employees play?

No, I think they are the most important part because it's a fantasy that organizations will bring products and services to the market. It's those individuals, those employees, those human beings who bring those products, those quality, those services into the market. So I always say organization don't exist, only a group of human beings who have the same target. And if you have the same target and you love doing what you do, then the customer will be happy as well. So customer experience is very important, but it's the response on how employee engagement is going. So I see a lot of CX experts suddenly change into EX experts as well because they follow the money and the money is going from customer experience into employee experience. But we needed both. So it's not that something is wrong, but the focus was too much, like you said, on customer experience, the outside. But the front end of the company is those employees who serve and deliver, like nurses, teachers, whatever. They are doing the real business, not the marketing department, not finance, not the CEO. It's those people who stand in the front line really doing their work.

Yeah. So if that's the case, what do organizations need to be doing in order to drive really strong employee experience? Where should their laser focus be?

I think they should start with acknowledging that the people that are working within their organizations are no longer human resources. They are human beings. We have that whole item of human resource management, and we are managing human resources. And in the time that if one you had 10 people waiting at the door to come in. Now it's different. Now the employees say, for you, there are 9 other employers who want me to work for them. So we need to be aware that times has changed. And I think Corona made it much more clear to employers that we need to focus on human beings. So first step, stop using the word human resources because language does matter. If you tell me, Paul, you are a human resource, I think I will go to a company where I can be a human being with all my mistakes. But I'm not a resource that you can change and fabricate a little bit. No, I'm a human being. That's me. And then the next step, if we know the language, It is what do you want from us as employers? And we thought for a long time it's money. And now we want to be aligned with a purpose. Generation Y and Z, of course they love to get money, but they want to feel purpose in their life as well. So they have their core values and I love to call them non-negotiables because you can't change a core value when he's non-negotiable. For me, it's fun is my fundament. That's one of the four of five. That means that if I do a job like this, if I talk with you and I like it, I'm more energetic than when I think, oh, when will this end? So if I fit in my purpose in my core values, then I will get more energy out of what I'm doing. I will be more engaged, more productive. So we need to be aware what the core values are and the purpose. And you don't need to talk about it the whole day. It's make clear to new employees who come in, hey, guy or girl, these are our core values, our non-negotiables, and they fit in our purpose. And that's why we do the things we do. Can you align with our purpose? And that should be acknowledged with a yes, yes, I can. And I love to work here and love to be part of this group. And we call it onboarding program. And it's part of that period of 6 to 8 weeks. And I should say the 3 months before that you start talking with human beings about their core values, how you fit in, why do we do what we do, can we walk our talk, can we be true to what we say. If so, people will love to come and work for your organization. So that's my first step.

And I guess that thought about being more purposeful is so powerful because if you can do that, I mean, there's no point I don't think there's any point in exploring and introducing those core values and that purpose on day one of somebody having joined. Because you explain your purpose and you say, this is our purpose, can you align with that? And they say, no, actually, no, I couldn't, no. And then I leave pretty quickly, or you're not going to get the whole of me coming to work. So, that whole idea that if we can start to use language and use stories and use those values and bring that purpose to life through things like the the recruitment cycle through things like how you do your adverts, through things like how you do interviewing and the experience that somebody gets when they turn up at your door. How are they treated when they walk in the front door of the organization? What happens when— I saw a poll on LinkedIn the other day that said, should you, you know, what does a, sorry, you're not gonna get the job letter look like? And some of them were appalling. So what does that experience look like to people as well? Because that tells a lot about the culture in your organization. And it means that people may not even come that far on the journey, which is great because they've basically counted themselves out. They've said, that doesn't sound like a company for me. And that's okay.

Yeah, I know a construction company in the Netherlands, and they started 2 or 3 years ago with 50 people. And on their website, they have the 3 core values of their organization. A building, a construction company have core values on page number 1. And they say, if you think you will fit in, please connect with us. Doesn't matter what your job will be. We like to talk with you. Now they have more than 100 employees. They can send them to others to work for them because they have more people than they really need. But people want to work for that family. It becomes a family. It's about belonging. So we call it the ABC of engagement. That's about autonomy. You need to know that you work within a purpose, that you can add something. You belong to a team, to a group. And of course, you have the right competencies. And then we say, and you need to have the right purpose. So it's ABC plus the P, which is most important after all.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit, because that's really interesting. In your experience of the past, I guess since March 2020, I think that whole area of belonging has— my take on it has really suffered the connection between people and organizations has really suffered. And that's really costing organizations. And I think from a purpose perspective, it's cost people as well. Because if you don't feel as though you're actually making a difference anymore, that's hard. So what impact do you think that COVID has had on people's sense of belonging? And what have you seen that organizations are doing to get back on an even keel?

I must say that we need to make a difference between two groups of employees. 60% of the employees were working still in a building, in hospitals, in schools, on the streets, that kind of people. And we had the people who could work from home. That's about 40%. I think the people working from home suffered the most of not belonging anymore to a real group because of course we were connected on Zoom and Teams and whatever, and it's gone wild in expectations. But the real connection that, that not the touching because that's difficult nowadays, but feeling that you really belong in a group that was gone. For the others, they had to work on a distance from the other person. And so they were suffering in some sort the same way because they couldn't meet with their colleagues when they changed shifts. And a lot of them worked alone in an area and they could call and do the same that we do. But this connection is, I think, the biggest suffering. And I think a lot of sick leave post-COVID is still going on. On that area. So what we didn't do was with the reconnection in offices and buildings that we didn't pay enough time and effort to start the belonging question over and over again. That's not happy that you're here, let's celebrate and now move on and start working. No, that takes time. What you destroy in 2, 2.5 years needs I think 6 months to 8 months to restore. So I see that happening. I work a lot with healthcare and education. They are suffering. And of course, we can blame the individual that they don't have enough resilience, that they are not engaged enough, but it is the group that is still suffering. And we need to pay attention to it. Hi, I'm Cliona from Workvivo. When working away from the office, it's easy for your people to feel isolated and disconnected from your culture and each other. That's where we come in with our quick-to-deploy employee communications platform. It's all about ensuring that your people feel informed, engaged, and connected to your company culture, values, goals, and each other wherever they work from. For more, see workvivo.com.

I think it's interesting that you touch on resilience there. I was chatting to a client last week, and they were saying they were kind of holding up resilience as a real, as a real star in their organization about how resilient their people were. And I said, well, that's great. But, you know, I see resilience as being like an elastic band. You can stretch it and stretch it and stretch it and stretch it and stretch it. And at some point, it's going to break, right? You just don't know when. And when it does break, all hell breaks loose. And I think that's the trouble when you're relying on the resilience of people so much, not knowing when it might break is a challenge.

Oh, absolutely. And that's why we have so many people who are called burnt out, which is a accepted as a disease yet, but it's something typical in the work environment when we see that the elastic is going that tough, including what happens in their private life with taking care of elderly people, of sick people, financial issues that you have nowadays with all the financial problem, the war that is taking a lot of energy of people as well. So yeah, we need to ask people the question, what do you need to stay on board? And I think a lot of leaders, I don't call them managers because they don't do that kind of stuff, but a lot of leaders should have only one question and then start listening. What do you need to stay on board and how can I support you with this? And we don't ask that question because they have their GPs, they have their coaches, whatever. And it's not my role as employer to serve them with coaches. Yes, it is your role because times are changing and times are tough.

So that leads on really nicely to that whole idea of manager versus leader. And I think that, you know, leaders are the ones that will stand up and say, you know, what is it that you need? And a manager won't because a manager is more focused on getting the work done. How do companies get over that? What is it they have to be doing to turn those managers into leaders, do you think?

Well, I did a lot of research the last 2 years or 3 years on writing my book, which is in Dutch, and it's about the Rhineland system versus the Anglo-Saxon business, the top-down, the Taylor approach. You have a CEO, they tell to the managers in different stadium what to do, and then the lowest manager tells you. As human resource what you should do. So we're checking productivity and checking working hours. In the more European, continental European approach, it's far more the first line which ask the leaders behind them, hey, this is what we need to do our job in a good way. So they are more facilitating instead of telling, which is top-down. This is from East to West, supporting people, pushing them into better way. So it's not about the hours you work, it's about the productivity you can achieve. And we talked about it already because is it 4 days work or 5 days work? Well, if you go to Gallup on their website and you type in engagement, you can see for your own country how engagement is within your country and what productivity is higher when you have more engaged people. And that's about 20%. So it's about how much energy. I always say engagement is quite easy. You go to your work with a lot of energy and you go home with even more. That's engagement. And then I have enough energy to have a good life at home with my children, with my partner, with my social activities. And I get energy out of that again. And then I have a good night's sleep and I go with enough energy to work. So it's that cycle that we need to influence. And I hear managers say, well, I'm responsible for you for 8 hours. That's your production timeframe, and the rest is none of my business. And now we know that the rest is part of their business as well to be successful and to be purposeful.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that point about productivity versus hours is something that some organizations are really struggling with as we kind of head further and further into this whole idea of hybrid working or blended working or call it whatever you want to call it. That there are still— I heard a stat this morning, somebody threw out, they said, you know, well, 50% of leaders in our organization still want to see everybody in the office because there's very low trust. And that's a huge challenge for organizations now in terms of if that's what leaders are measuring as a success gauge, how many hours you're sitting at your computer, that's a problem.

Well, you said the word, it's about trust. And what they're saying, I don't trust you. And if there is no trust, there is no engagement, there is no alignment on the core values. So I think, and I'm not blaming those managers who say that kind of stuff because most of the time they aren't trained the way we are on this topic. I often say you were the best employee, you were the most productive, the quickest, and you became manager because then you could earn more money. So that was the logical next step. Well, we lost the best employee and we had the worst manager. And that's what's happening because when we see the payroll, it's to the highest is you're the top employee and then the youngest manager starts on the same level and goes up. So if you want more money, you want a bigger house or you want to pay your bill, You need to become a manager. And that's so strange because management leadership is something you need to study to take it as a role, not like an MBA. You need to be a psychologist to be a leader. And that's transformation that you see in a lot of companies. And that will take time, but the demographics will tell us that we need to do it because the youngest generations are coming when you're a leader and no longer a manager.

Yeah, I've said many times in work groups and probably on this podcast as well that, you know, you wouldn't take Usain Bolt and put him in a pool beside Ian Thorpe and expect him to win because Usain Bolt is a runner and not a swimmer. Yet, we will take a very senior production manager or a very senior lawyer or a very senior IT person and we'll make them a people leader, give them a team with zero training, and it's not their gig, and it's not what they enjoy, and they're not going to be engaged. And actually, everybody loses out. And actually, I love that idea of, you know, you're losing your best employee and you're gaining a poor manager. And you're right, it's not their fault. And I don't think ever when we talk about this on this podcast, which is often, I don't think it's ever pointing a finger at those individuals. It's the fault of the organization as opposed to the individual, as far as I'm concerned.

Well, and then you need to look at senior management because they are the ones who are giving orders to the others. And it's always about the EBITDA, it's about profit, it's about finances, it's about shareholders. It's not about stakeholders. So we need to change our perspective from the short term of gaining a lot of money during COVID or post-COVID to a longer period of time and invest in trust and in engagement and then see the productivity will go up. But it takes more time because gaining trust needs much more time than losing it. So we need to be aware that trust will lead to engagement. So yeah, we need to train the managers, but we start at the top. And that's what we do. If I come in a big organization, most of the time, human being organization, they ask us, HR, they get us in and they will say, can we have a meeting with the board of directors? Because if they don't believe what I'm saying, it's not going to work. So HR need the support of, or they need to be part of the board. That's the best when you have a chief HR officer in the board. But it's the whole board who needs to believe this feeling, needs to believe that, okay, we think this could work, let's start doing it. And even Mintzberg is saying it, we're not human beings, we're not human resources, we are a group of human beings. Let's work together. And that means that the board of directors needs to start and the shareholders, of course.

But I guess they've got to be willing to take, if you're going from a shareholder value model to a stakeholder value model, then you've got to be willing as the shareholders have to take a bit of a hit for a while. And there aren't many shareholders that I know that are willing to take a bit of a hit for a while.

Well, you, you see them coming, but they are not the wild US-based, um, providers of money. Uh, but I see in Europe more and more shareholders who say, well, we need the employees, uh, without them there is no profit, so maybe we should be careful in saying, no, it must be 20% profit or 24, whatever. We need to see how you invest in people to get better results. And of course, there are companies who are doing it.

Yeah, for sure. I think the rise of the B Corp is definitely a signal that that's the case. At Inspiring Change, we help our clients to implement sustainable change and drive business performance by putting their people first. We do that through a focus on strategic internal communications, employee engagement, and leadership consultancy. If you're struggling with change or getting your people aligned behind your purpose, vision, or strategy, then get in touch. Simply visit our website at www.inspiringchange.ie for more. Let's think a little bit actually in the, in the realm of, of the B Corp. Sustainability. And I think that sustainability is something that's obviously very high now on board agendas. It's very high on senior leader agendas, the whole idea of ESG when it comes to investment decisions. I think that people in organization— I don't think organizations fully understand sustainability, but I definitely don't think that individuals within organizations understand sustainability. So, I wonder what part can employees play in creating more sustainable workplaces?

Well, I think that we need to come up with ideas. And sustainability is for me also diversity, inclusion. It's about the world. So I saw a nice line by Jen Lim from Delivering Happiness. She said, we were in a me era. We are growing into a we era. And it will be a community era.. And if we follow that line, then sustainability fits in. So it needs to be a result instead of only being a topic for the short moment. We need to focus on it was me and shareholders are most of the time me. I want to profit. Me, me, me, me, me. I want more. And then we grow into, but hey, we are an organization and as organization, we are part of a community. And when the community is doing well, we are doing well. So I think it's something that we need to add in our purpose and in our strategy. So core values, purpose, mission, vision, strategy. And we say, hey, we are there for the world as well. So let's see how it fits in, in our strategy to to spend more time and money and effort in sustainability in the broad sense. And that means diversity, inclusion. Because if I see that my leader is doing it, I'm willing to follow. So if I'm talking about friends instead of colleagues, then I have a different attitude to my friends than to my colleagues. So harassment is not that often to happen between friends. So maybe we can work slowly in changing our organization into a more sustainable. But saying, hey, it's now '23, by '25 we must be 100% sustainable. I doubt whether that's going to work. On the other hand, you need to believe in it. So it must be connected to your core values. You need to believe in it. So it starts again with the board to practice what they preach. Because when I see you do it, I'm willing to follow because you are doing it. You ask me to do the same and I think, okay, maybe I should. And then I'm willing to be more sustainable in all the steps I make in my life. Life.

And I think that idea of being sustainable in all the steps that I make in my life, to me, is a signpost that something like sustainability is nearly less of value and more a theme that cuts through all of your values and your purpose and your mission, vision, and strategy.

I hope that it's somehow already included but it's never taken out as an item because again, in the '40s, '50s, '60s of last century, we were just surviving and we didn't have a clue what sustainability meant. We were just moving ahead. And in the '90s and start of 2000, suddenly we saw that, whoa, a lot of us have a good life, but still 70% of the world isn't having a good life, maybe we should take more care of them as well. So of course you can't make sustainability a core value. It should come out of your core values into your mission, vision, strategy, because I think it has always been there, but we didn't give it any notice.

Yeah, for sure. I completely agree. We're running out of time, but before we finish up, one very last question, because I think you and I both know, and as you said earlier, we're trained in this stuff and we help organizations with their employee engagement strategies, with their organizational culture strategies. But for people out there listening, if they want to think about focusing more on employee experience, what's the first thing they should do? So, someone's listening to this, they've got the time, the resources, the money, the budget, the whatever to to do one thing, what number do they put their chips on? What's the one thing that they do, do you think? What's the most important thing?

Start talking and listening to your employees. Don't tell them in the weekly or monthly meeting what your expectations are from them, but ask what they expect from you. Because We are in the great resignation era. In the Netherlands, more than 25% of the employees are leaving their company. That was 7-8% normally. It will cost you a year's salary if somebody goes that you don't want to see going and you have a new one in the same level. It costs a lot of money. And so we need to start listening and just sitting back and say, hey, What do you expect from me? What can I do for you that you want to stay here and work better and be the top employee you want to be? Because I think employees want to be the best employee, but they aren't given the chance because we don't fulfill their needs. Well, start asking. It won't cost you that much money. It's just sitting. And I always say, do it one-on-one. Go for a walk. 30 minutes. I'm a Camino walker. I love long-distance walking. But what I noticed, if you walk, you walk side by side. You don't look into the eyes, which can be a confrontation. Just take a walk, go somewhere for a cup of coffee or a cup of tea and ask, hey, what do you need, Scott, to keep working for us, to be happy? How can I and then stop and listen to what they're saying. Invest your time in listening to your employees. I think that's step number 1 because then something will come out that you think, okay, but I can work on that. I can help you out with that point. And they will say, well, if you are going to support me that way, Man, I would love it. But if we don't ask, we can't support. So I say it's always 3 levels of listening. First, listen to the words, listen to the meaning of the words. And the third is the level below. What do they really want you to hear? And most of the time we spend our time on number 1. Yeah, yeah, I heard what you said. But I'm not feeling what you said. So yeah, that's leadership. And that's for me, step number 1. Absolutely.

Get the listening ears on, as I say to my children when they were younger. Paul, I've really enjoyed our chat. Before we go, where can people get in touch with you if they want to get in touch with you? What's the best way to find you?

The easiest way is always LinkedIn. Paul Terwal. Paul is known T-E-R-W-A-L. You will find me. I have all my contact information on LinkedIn. I want to be easy found so people can watch it, go to YouTube, type in my name, and the videos you mentioned already are there. Yeah, and the green shoes, man, the green shoes are amazing. Yeah, and, and I have blue ones for my blue tie with golden fronts. They're all handmade. I have a friend who is doing that kind of stuff. So, but the videos are on YouTube and I have a video there on sick leave, on happiness makes money, and people can connect with me and I love to discuss with them.

Brilliant. Paul, you've been an amazing guest. I've really enjoyed our chat. You enjoy the rest of your weekend in Germany. I will.

In Germany. Thank you. You too.

Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders in our podcasts, to read our blogs, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.