Podcast
In this episode of Get Reworked, Spencer Mains, head of digital workplace experience at Pacific Gas & Electric shares how he and his team pushed tech enablement onto the orientation agenda after witnessing how long it took for some of their colleagues to receive their work computer.
Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List
"A year ago, we had people coming on board, and it could take an average of five days before you are actually connected to the network with your equipment. And that's a bit of a shame and kind of an embarrassment. It's not right for our ratepayers, it's not right for their colleagues. So we quantified that as lost productivity. We showed the numbers, it was in the millions of dollars of lost productivity, we have people who were actually sitting idle. And we changed that," said Spencer.
Highlights of the conversation include:
- Why Spencer cares so much about the onboarding experience.
- Why IT leaders need to take a stand in the workplace.
- Why Spencer uses joy as a key metric.
Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at [email protected].
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Show Notes
- Spencer's full interview on Three Dots
- Spencer on LinkedIn
Episode Transcript
Siobhan Fagan: Imagine starting a new job as a baker and coming to work for a week without being provided an oven or flour. Well that’s pretty much what happened to some new employees at PG&E, who could go a week without a laptop or instructions on how to use their tech apps.
Today’s episode of Get Reworked comes to us through Reworked’s TV Show, Three Dots, where I was joined by PG&E’s head of digital workplace, Spencer Mains. Spencer joined me on the show to talk about the work he was doing to make sure IT was part of the onboarding process and why he views it as so important.
I’m your host Siobhan Fagan, editor in chief of Reworked, and I’m excited to share today’s episode.
Identifying the Gaps in PG&E's Onboarding
Let’s start of by getting a sense of the onboarding process at PG&E:
Spencer Mains: If you're a brand new employee to this organization, whether you work in the field, or if you're what we call an office worker, you are required to come in to a central location and go through a full day orientation around PG&E, or best practices or strategies, we call it True North strategy, you know, what is our mission.
What was absent of that, for the longest time was a technology deliverable, meaning that you could arrive at the central location, and leave that location without any computer equipment or without any orientation on how to even get started. And what we noticed was there's a huge hit in productivity for these brand new people. So they came in, they felt all warm and fuzzy about joining this wonderful company, but they would leave without a laptop. And maybe that would arrive at their house. Maybe it wouldn't, and it could be a couple of weeks, and that's a big problem.
So what we did is we recognized, and we partnered heavily with HR, is let's get the equipment ordered prior to arrival. And let's have that ready and prepped and configured. And we will do our own orientation. You know it during that day and believe it or not, there was no IT orientation, there was a phone number you could call. And you could ask for help. But that was that was the long and short of it. And we felt that was very inappropriate, and a bit of a letdown because I think people actually get excited about receiving their equipment, it's sort of, it puts a thumbprint that I have arrived, I am here, I exist. And you know, I have the tools that I need to carry forward.
So believe it or not a year ago, we had people coming on board, and it could take an average of five days before you are actually connected to the network with your equipment. And that's a bit of a shame and kind of an embarrassment. It's not right for our ratepayers, it's not right for their colleagues. So we quantified that as lost productivity. We showed the numbers, it was in the millions of dollars of lost productivity, we have people who were actually sitting idle. And we changed that. And so the whole goal, the mission became our stand was, no one will leave this organization on the first day without being properly outfitted with technology. And that isn't just a laptop, but that's literally verifying that they have connected in there ready to go. And they have the basic understanding of how to navigate the various applications that they need to do their work.
What Happens When You Don't Have a Laptop
Siobhan: Spencer went on to share a bit about the risks to productivity that are inherent when IT is left out of the onboarding process.
Spencer: One of the ones that I think is very relevant is a lack of engagement, you will question if you made a good decision by entering that company, and and you know, with the lack of, of a holistic approach to, of having you join this organization, and I really have a strong belief that that the technology experience is part of that holistic approach, you're risking engagement with an employee, you've set a seed that maybe there are other problems in this organization. And those those can only be highlighted more as a result of, of having a dissatisfied experience.
And, you know, I think there's some statistics around that, a great onboarding experience, you've raised the potential of someone staying engaged in your company, by 69%, right, they just feel like they've made a very good decision, they feel like they're fully engaged in the organization that is joined. And I think we kind of forget how scary that moment is, when you join a new company. And you don't want to give more reasons for people to second guess a decision that they made. These are, you know, incredibly big decisions that people have made.
In some cases. They, they, they might be getting a big break. Right? Or they may be leaving one company for another. And you know, if it's the technology component, if the digital experience, if we're absent there. I think in today's world, you really question whether or not you've made a good decision here. So that's one of the risks.
The other risk, and it depends on the company. But for us, you know, we're, we're part of public safety. You know, if the power isn't working, if the heat isn't working, there's risk to, to our neighbors in Northern California. And if you have a vital employee who's come on board, and maybe they work in the field, and they're just not connecting, and by a circumstance, let's say we have a storm event, and they're in the field, and they just aren't ready to go. We're putting our public at risk. And we cannot afford to do that.
And that that's pretty extreme. It's never really happened here. But we don't want to be part of that story. You know, the story needs to be that that you didn't think about the technology necessarily. It's just it's just a given that it's there, right? You can't assume that, that that is taken from granted, right? You have to have it taken for granted in a completely different way that it should just be there and it should just work, and that's the last thing you really should be thinking about. So that's our point of view on sort of that risk spectrum.
What's the ROI of Joy?
Siobhan: During the conversation Spencer brought up one of the data points he used to argue for IT’s need to be part of onboarding, and it was an unexpected one.
Spencer: I don't think a year ago that we would have considered the technology component, that deliverable, as as an aspect of joy at work. We very intentionally changed that dialogue, if you will, meaning that it isn't completely going to address joy at work. But it certainly is a component of that. And you can't ignore that. And we shouldn't be ignoring that, because we can be better.
And so I think, for us, it's a matter of when we survey our employees, and we do this twice a year, you know, how's it going here? Making that part of the conversation making that part of a very deliberate question is very important, because that's part of your voice of your coworker. A lot of companies are really good at getting the voice of the customer. Right? There's correlation if you have happy customers, so they'll probably return in purchase more, or they may, you know, continue to work with your professional services, whatever it is.
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But what is the voice of the coworker? And traditionally, you know, you ask about, do you have a good manager? Do you understand our virtues and values, things like that? But, you know, how often are you asking for in a very deliberate sense, how's the technology here? And I know, my instinct is always been this, like, if that's not a good experience that's encroaching on your overall happiness at work, it just has to be because you weren't hired to deal with the tech. You know, some people are, but most people aren't, most people are hired to do a different type of work. And when technology gets in the way of that, you know, that that's encroaching on their happiness. Right? And it's not it's not the full picture, but it's certainly a component.
So all I'm really suggesting is, is what we're doing is making it part of our mindset, you know, don't ignore this as part of, of the full deliverable to your coworker experience. And technology certainly is and make that a top of mine aspect. So if you're a hiring manager, and you bring someone on board, for example, don't just rely on the service desk to deal with somebody's technology issue, you know, you should have a much higher aptitude there as well. And so, you know, we can do that through training as an example. So, some people are more comfortable with technology. So when they bring on a new hire, they they're familiar with that landscape, and some of those problems can be solved immediately, you know, one-on-one with one another, that makes sense, you know, and that becomes part of our mission, because managers are rated on you know, happiness as well. Do you do your so subordinates? Are they happy with you? Right.
And we're just saying, there's also a piece about the technology, which can make a difference, you know, if you're a bit of a Luddite as a manager in an organization, because you just have dismissed technology as a component. And you've heard a millennial or a Gen X. And they find technology is a really critical factor to, to being engaged in organization, if there's a gap there that's on that's on the organization, in terms of just getting everyone in some level of parity around how it works. So that's how we look at it.
IT Leaders Need to Learn Where to Take a Stand
Siobhan: Spencer makes a strong case for IT leaders and digital workplace practitioners to practice breakthrough thinking to advocate for changes that will improve employees’ experience for the better:
Spencer: What we do around here is we have a thing called breakthrough thinking, it's not unique to us, there is an organization that does this is consultancy. And breakthrough thinking is really about learning where you should take a stand.
And so what that means is, is you take a stand because you want to elicit change in an organization. And so we want to take that stand and be appropriately aggressive about integrating and infusing the importance of technology and people's happiness and people's productivity. And really pay strict attention to why this matters. Right. And so it shouldn't be something that is a second thought it should be part of the initial thought. Right. And, and I think that's a bit of a leap for people to make, and not all people are this way. But some people just they see it as a secondary part of of an organization. And we're saying no, it is an immediate part of the organization. Right.
And so, we do see ourselves, weaving ourselves, further and further into the organization. And one way that we're doing this is we're looking at taking data as a service, meaning that we're taking the data based on quantitative and qualitative feedback that we received from our co-workers. And we're feeding it back into the organization by asking the right kinds of questions, like what what was your experience with, with the timecard system, you know, just really basic stuff.
And feeding that back into the only organization saying, This is literally the experience that's happening. And we're looking at from enterprise level. And we provide that as a service back saying, these are literally the numbers behind what people engagement is what that application and environment is. And here are some of the qualitative aspects that we're learning about that. And there's various tools where you can quantify things, you know, AI is actually a really wonderful thing in that sense, where it can take a bunch of quality qualitative data in sort of summarize what the experience is like.
And when we take it from it from a point of view of a service from a technology point of view that this is the story that's, that's been experienced? And how do you want to change that story? And we can assist you because maybe some of this is on IT, but maybe some of it's on you. Right? You're the owning the owner of this application environment, or the owner of this part of the experience like, like a corporate real estate, you know, when people walk into a physical office, what is that experience like in terms of technology? No, are there two monitors there? are they hitting a standard? does it actually work? Does the conference room experience, is it a good one? Right? Do we have an outfitted properly? And is it operational? Those are the kinds of things that that we look at in the most holistic way possible?
And by getting, you know, by getting those results in from the surveys, and I think some companies do this, but but we're being very, very intentional, deliberate, that technology is part of the question. Right, and then we complete that into sort of what I described a little bit earlier. It's like, is it is the full experience being taken into consideration here? That's kind of how we're approaching it.
Until Next Time ...
So there you have it. Spencer Mains wants us all to bring a little more joy into our workplaces and shares some tools to bring it there. I hope you’ll tune in to a future episode of Three Dots … and be sure to join us once again on Get Reworked.
If you have a suggestion or a topic for a future conversation, I'm all ears. Please drop me a line at [email protected]. Additionally, if you liked what you heard, please share Get Reworked with anyone you think might benefit from these types of conversations — word of mouth marketing is the best marketing anyone could ask for. You can find more coverage of related topics on reworked.co. Thank you again for exploring the revolution of work with me, and I'll see you next time.
