Redesigning Work: What Gen Z Wants (and Needs) from Leadership with Hannah Dannecker

Speaker A: What happens when the next generation challenges the workplace status quo and dares to ask for more joy, autonomy, and meaning? In today's episode, we meet an entrepreneur and author who's on a mission to decode generational shifts shaping today's workforce. From navigating a pandemic era career launch to redefining leadership in a family business, our guest brings raw honesty, bold ideas, and a refreshing perspective on how Gen Z is changing the way we work. Whether you're leading them or learning from them, this conversation is a must listen for anyone ready to Grow up and show at Work hold up, hold up, hold up. Before we roll the intro, I have to tell you all, uh, something. Since 2016, the happiness at Work podcast has been a space for connection, curiosity and meaningful conversation. Over 368 episodes, we've explored the many ways happiness, leadership and purpose intersect across cultures, companies and lives. We've learned from some of the world's most inspiring thinkers and have been so, so honored to sit behind the mic as your host. But the world has changed. We've changed. God, I've changed. And now the podcast needs to evolve to While we don't yet know what the next format will be or what this actually looks like, we're taking this moment to pause, reflect and reimagine what comes next. This isn't a goodbye, it's a thank you. Thank you for listening, for sharing, and for believing in the power of happier, more human workplaces. There is so much more work to be done in this area. If you'd like to stay in touch, please do. I would love to. Please find me on LinkedIn. Find me under Elisa Ah Tander. I will link this in the show notes because I know I don't have the easiest of last names or you can sign up for updates at my website, underwaterentelope.com Management 3.0 is also evolving. They are evolving into M3K. You can follow their exciting journey on LinkedIn under M3K or go to their website and sign up for their newsletter, which is M M3K AI. I want to thank you again from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you for willing to think of more human workplaces and more happier workplaces. Here's to whatever comes next. For now, let's just roll on with the last episode in this format before we dive in. You are listening to the Happiness at work podcast by MA management 3.0 where we are getting serious about happiness. I'm your host, Elisa Sander. Happiness enthusiast and management 3.0 team member. In this podcast we share insights from industry experts, influencers and thought leaders about what it takes to be happy, motivated and productive at work so that loving your job becomes the norm and not the exception. We will be publishing every four fortnite on Friday, so be sure to tune in and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Today we are thrilled to welcome Hannah Daniker to the podcast. Hannah is a dynamic entrepreneur, managing partner, and author of the book well Shit, Time to Grow Up. With a wealth of experience, Hannah has made it her mission to decode the workplace challenges of the Gen G generation. Whoa, that was a hard one to say. Hann leaders to bridge generational gaps had a. Welcome to the show. Sorry for that tongue twister there.

Speaker B: Oh my goodness. No, it, it was beautiful to hear in your accent. I really enjoyed that. I absolutely love it. I've actually never heard someone with an accent say Gen Z before. That was funny. I liked it.

Speaker A: It's funny how I fall over certain words and totally not over other ones. Um, it's the, the mix of languages and mix of places I've lived and worked. So. Hey, I'm really excited to talk to you about the Gen Z generation, which is still hard for me to say right now. Um, but we cannot really start our show without asking our signature question. And that is, what does happiness mean to you, Hannah?

Speaker B: Yeah, happiness to me. So I think there is a happiness, which is, um, something that is temporary pleasure that happens in front of you every day. Uh, and then there's joy, which is long term pleasure and that kind of like emanates through you all of the time. And happiness is phenomenal. I'm always going for joy because happiness is temporary. But um, specifically at work it looks. Mhm. Oh, I come from a family business, so it looks like family at work happiness for sure. Yeah.

Speaker A: Oh, nice. I love how you say. Because a lot of the times I've been in family business as well before and you know, most of the times it has this connotation that it's actually difficult or extra difficult, but there is a lot of joy to be found in it and a lot of happiness to be found in it as well.

Speaker B: Oh my gosh. I think that some of the best things in the world are challenging. I think that, um, anything worth having is worth working for. So there's. I'm not. Yeah, I'm not here to say that it's so easy. It's not. But it is, oh my gosh, like the most phenomenal blessing I could have asked for a career ever, but yeah, great.

Speaker A: Hey, your, um, career has already quite, have been dynamic. Uh, could you share a little bit about. Or dynamic in the best sense of word. Um, but could you share a bit about your journey, sort of the pivotal moments, uh, that shaped that career and shaped that drive and the passion that you have at the moment? We like to learn a little bit about the person that we have in front of us.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I'll give you a little bird's eye perspective and you can ask me some questions based on whatever you're interested in. Also, that mug is phenomenal. I love that. That's very cool. But yeah, so I started my career. I, uh, was a high, uh, school graduate, ready to go to university. I was like, what am I going to do? I want to go to school for marketing. Because marketing is flashy and so cool and I was ready for it. And one of my cousins said to me, and I was so mad about it in the moment, but thankful for it now. Shout out Matt. He said, hannah, if you go to school for marketing right now, the stuff that you're going to be learning that is in the books is already outdated from what is currently going on in society. And I was like, oh, uh, shot to the heart. Okay, that makes sense. That absolutely makes sense. We're progressing at such a fast rate that, that, that checks out. So I went to school for hr and I graduated from university in the middle of the pandemic. And as the pandemic was going on, the border was getting shut down. I was, uh, point in time, I was living in Florida and my family was in Canada. And I was like, well, I'm graduating. I'm looking at getting my first job. I was hoping to be a teacher at the time, which didn't allow for a ton of travel back because anytime that you went back to Canada, you had to do 14 days of isolation.

Speaker A: M m. Yeah, I remember those days.

Speaker B: Oh my gosh. Yeah, right. So I was like, I guess I'm going to move back to Canada. So I moved back to Canada and went to work for the family's business. You know, pandemic. Best thing you could do is just dive right into family. And I, to be very honest with you, hated it at first. It was so bad. I was not bought in to anything. I was upset that I was there and I made all of these decisions on my own fruition, but was really upset about what was just going on around me and couldn't get over this hurdle of sitting in an Office space that had no windows for eight hours a day, going into the office when it was dark, leaving the office when it was dark, going to sit in my basement apartment by myself. I was depressed. It was bad. And I said to my dad, I was like, I love you. I want to continue to do this, but I can't do this the way that we're doing it right now. Like, my brain, I will physically not be able to continue. And so he said, okay, well, what do you need? And I said, I, uh, want to work from home once a week so that I can sit in a room that has a window so that if it's rainy over the weekend, I don't go 14 days without seeing the sun. And he was like, okay, that's reasonable. I can give you that. And I said, and I want the opportunity to go back to Florida for a month in X amount of days, and I will do X to prove that I am ready to go, and I will set myself up for success so that while I'm there, I'm super ready. But he had never let anybody work from home. And even in the midst of the pandemic, he had pushed against the whole flexibility. He's like, we are essential business. We'd go to the office. So I said, I was like, I. I need this because I'm looking at a year of no vacation and borrowing. One week into my first year, I've got two weeks. I'm gonna have one week this year, one week next year means I don't go back to visit the rest of my friends that I just spent so much time making and investing in. I was competing in wakeboarding at the time. That was a major part of it because I was really dying to get back into this thing and just try and compete again. And so all of this was going on. I was like, this is why I need it. This is my plan. And he was like, okay, so we did this. And as that started, I can. I can really vividly see this is a very pivotal moment for me when he said, based on those things, I can see me sitting in his office and just, like, begging him with the plan. And he said, yes. And I was like, okay, phenomenal. And that moment started to change and had a rippling effect that completely shifted our culture and our entire organization and has allowed us to do so many phenomenal things. Like, I've now moved back to the US Permanently. I've opened up a division here, started speaking, talking to people about how to hire Gen Zs. After we started making Some of those changes, we did internal interns and we did rounds and rounds and rounds of them and have found some of the most phenomenal employees because our culture is completely different and bringing in a whole new group of humans. It's, it's so funny that that was definitely that pivotal moment.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so important. You probably also became 10 times the employee that you, you know, that you were then before. Right. Because you had all this freedom and you were in an environment that you were comfortable with and you were trusted and, you know, you saw the sun. Huh. You were able to be so much better for the company as well than. Than sitting in the office.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker A: I wanted to ask you when you were talking, and I don't know if you know the answer, but what was your, your dad's initial drive to sort of hold on to this? I am not letting, I, we. Everybody's coming to the office. Is this a, uh, control mechanism and we can go into this a little bit later, or is this just like, it's just the way it's done and that's just. I don't want to think about it otherwise. Is it a mixture of all of these things? Do you know a little bit about his intentions there or his motives?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I can speak to what I assume, but assume, assuming anything is not the most fun. So take this with a grain of salt, but I think that he struggles to focus from home. He really struggles to focus from home. And so in his own perception, originally, that just didn't make sense to him. He was like, I need to be in an office, I need to be at a desk. If I'm home, I'm distracted. I'm with my kids, I'm with my spouse, I'm with my hobbies, whatever that is. Let's go snowmobiling. Let's go. Like, you don't need to. He loves to play. And so in his brain, the concept I think of staying home and working from home just didn't like, it didn't compute. But when I said I was like, look, like, I was an online student, I was an online student before online students even started. Like, I, uh, did it, I did it in high school, I did it in university. I did it way pre pandemic, uh, loved it. I am very self motivated and self driven. And I said, look, like, I. Here's the Wednesdays, here's the productivity we got while I was gone. Like now picture that but for a month, gone. And I just kind of showed him what it could look like. But Then I had to live up to those things. Right. Like, I had pressure, go and do it and perform well and make sure that it was good. But just like what you said, the second that he started to lean into it and give me just a little bit, I was mentally so much stronger and so much more capable to take on so many more things. And so it just, it continued to build on top of one another and has, like, been a beautiful thing since.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So that's why, you know, diversity and not just. And, you know, all these, uh, kind of normally the tick boxes, but in so many different things is so important in the workplace. And Gen Z is one of them. Right? Gen, uh, Z is definitely one of them. And that's why you've been writing about, that's what you've been talking about on your own podcast. But before we go, dive in a little bit deeper into that. I kind of want to know, what do you sort of see as the main key differences with Gen Z in the terms of hiring, firing, workplace culture, the whole Shabam. Basically, what defines them as a culture, not necessarily outside of the workplace, but let's try and keep it inside of that box. Sort of. What do you think are sort of the key markers for that?

Speaker B: Yeah, so there's a couple differences. And, and when I, when I talk to people about this, I do go back a little bit more to a bird's eye perspective, because I think that when you're trying to understand somebody, it's good to try to understand the generation based on what made them who they are. Right. So all of these things. Maybe he's talked to anybody who's been to therapy. They're like, when I was a kid, what happens, what happens when we're children really affects us a lot. So. So there is, uh, technology, there's human cooperation and globalization, and then there's COVID 19. And these three things are kind of the three major things that help shape a Gen Z. On average, every human is different, but on average they're kind of helping them. And so when you look at COVID 19, we'll talk about that. That's the easiest one. It's most recent. You see a kid, let's say between the ages, and I should know how old they were, ranging to and from coming out of COVID But I don't. Let's just, let's guesstimate it. Let's say they were 14, 16 to 23. I believe it was, um, as Covid was happening. So they are graduating high school. They're coming into high school, they are in university, they're graduating university and they're in their first couple years of their careers.

Speaker A: If it almost.

Speaker B: So you take m. Absolutely. You take all of these humans in these massive minds molding moments and you send them home and you say you can do anything from your bedroom. And they're like, oh, I can do anything from my bed. How cool. I can attend classes, I can do all of my work, I can do all of my assignments, I can write tests, I can uh, whatever. All from their bedroom. And they were told this from the most high of authority. And so this has completely shifted their brain about what it means to go anywhere and be anywhere. They can be anywhere in their bed, they can be at work in their bed, they can be with their friends in their bed because they were told that they can be and they experienced that from their government. And so that's going to be.

Speaker A: And the whole world was doing it.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so that's going to really shape the way that they feel about coming into work and hanging out with their friends. And I mean my husband and I, when we started dating, we started dating remotely and I was able to be on my very first date with my husband in my bedroom. And so it's like. And well, he wasn't there to make that separate, very important distinction. Yeah, sorry. But like it was so funny to see this difference. And so that's going to make your Gen Zs really flexible. That's going to make them really motivated internally. That's going to make them really driven. They're going to be so organizationally uh, independent. They uh, are going to be really good at coming up with problem solving just themselves. They're going to be completely different to

Speaker A: manage because the world is literally a uh, clusterfuck of problems that they constantly have to navigate.

Speaker B: So yeah, it's so different. It's so different. So that's going to really change the way that they're, they're showing up at work. But then also technology, technology is a huge, huge one. That advanced at such a rate that is insane. And I, I tell people that Gen Z's see technology and it's funny. I'll just show you Gen Z see technology like a body part. Okay. Like I wear tech on my body all of the time. I wake up, I put it on, I go to sleep, I take it off, that's it. But I am always getting notifications and always in tune with something and always able to use it, uh, for whatever reason I want to, whether it's to take pictures or to schedule a call or to send an email or whatever it is to optimize. Absolutely. So most generations have seen technology as a tool that can be used to do the things that they have to do. But Gen Zs kind of see technology as a body part that is just an additional function that is so much more capable than anything else. Right. But we use it that way. Like I use it like my brain. I tell people if I could, if I could remember all of the contacts in my phone, I'd be the best salesperson in the world. I can't do that. I can hardly remember anybody's name. I'm so bad at it. It's impossible.

Speaker A: We don't need to. Right? Like I mean we don't have uh, it on.

Speaker B: Mhm. Absolutely. And so it's just so funny to see the difference between ways that people are looking at this. And so when Gen Z's get into work and they get into the office, um, technology is really important to them. And so look at the computer that you're giving them, the, the, the phone that you're giving them. Are they ancient? Are they 10 years old? Are they taking five minutes to turn on? Are they dying the second they get unplugged from the wall? That's going to piss a Gen Z off because that's a body part of theirs that you have given them that is struggling to function properly. And so when you think about it as this like body part piece, it really helps employers be like, oh, I've been handicapping my employees, I've been tying both of their hands behind their back because I don't let them use ChatGPT or I don't let them use AI that helps them recap their meetings or whatever it is. But they're so used to these tools that optimize every piece of their life that when you don't give it to them or it's unavailable to them, they're like at uh, a very significant loss and struggling to function at the best of their capabilities. And so that's kind of one of the other pieces. And then to cap it all off, globalization through technology and through Covid have again really shaped a human's mind. So my mom told me this story the other day. She said when your grandma went on vacation, I was like, where'd she go? She was like, oh, it's the only vacation she ever took. And she was telling me this. I was like, only vacation she ever took. I was like, I, that, that was a little Bit sad for me to hear. I was like, that's. I would love, I would have loved for my grandmother to have more than one vacation in her life. And she was like, no, but that, uh, it was, it was the time she was my great grandmother. She was, you don't take vacations. That was insane. That was beautiful. For her to actually have the opportunity to even do one. And I was sitting here thinking, wow, how blessed I am to be a public speaker, to get on a plane for my job, to fly across the country to different countries, and for it to be this average part of my life. Mhm. And so there's this difference between the way that we see what travel looks like. It is so much more about my average life than it has been in other generations. Absolutely. And so that's, that's going to come out really differently at work too. That's going to look like, uh, truck drivers. I work with transportation all of the time. I think Gen Z's are really going to like transportation and truck driving and that our driver shortage is really going to pivot and change a little bit. You know, fingers crossed. Knock on wood.

Speaker A: Yeah. If you pay, if you add the perks to it. It's very funny that you say that because I've had this discussion with somebody who is like talking about, oh, I'm gonna have to close my, uh, trucking business because, you know, I can't find any drivers. I'm like, you can't find any drivers? Or are you giving them the wrong perks? Or are you giving long wages? And it wasn't even about wages. I was like, hey, have you thought about sort of making sure that if they are driving there, that they can stay there for a little while? Why do they have to stay back, Come back straight away? Like, that was just like this mind blowing. Like. Yeah, no, you just do this and that and then you have your free time, like m. But maybe, you know, I get. You have to optimize it and like. But if you're really struggling that much to find any drivers, think about what you're offering. Think about what you're offering. Be creative about it and you will find people.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So. So that, yeah, just. They're. They're going to want to travel, they're going to want to go. So finding a salesperson to go on the road is going to be easier with Gen Z than it was with millennials. Millennials were like a family generation. They really wanted to be home every single night. And that's phenomenal for them. That Made it hard for employers. And so again, it's just going to change a little bit and shift a little bit as the next gen comes in. But those are kind of the major things that change them at work.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for being so comprehensive about it. That's really helped. I think it's helped a lot for our listeners as well. Does your workplace feel stuck in a rut? Are silos and outdated leadership styles stifling creativity and collaboration? At management 3.0 we understand these frustrations. That's why we offer tailor made training programs designed not just to enhance skills but but to transform entire organizational mindsets with our expert guidance. Envision a workplace where barriers are broken down and everyone is empowered to contribute their best. And leadership not only manages but motivates and inspires. Ready to create a thriving workplace culture. Then visit our website@management30.com and see how we can help your organization build a happier, more productive workplace. One thing before we sort of look into what, what sort of solutions are and how to attract them. What are sort of these common misconceptions? Because you hear a lot. Eileen. I'm a millennial. I'm definitely not one of the homebodies, by the way. I was luckily enough. Uh, but I get it. I understand where to come from and I totally see that in some of my friends and people uh, I've worked with. But sort of what our misconception is sort of, oh, as long as they stopped, you know, eating avocado toast, tends to save up a little bit. You know, all these kind of misconceptions that are out there and what are sort of the misconceptions around Gen Zs in the workplace and, and, and how do you think managers at least should address these? I'd love to have your take on that one.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So he stopped eating avocado toast.

Speaker A: Oh no.

Speaker B: It's just so funny. Um, so Gen Z are often described as lazy.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Uh, for sure. And I think that that goes back to they know how to work in their beds and they know how to work from their phones and they just

Speaker A: try to optimize everything constantly.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Very differently. M very differently than other generations. And so other generations have looked at that and gone lazy and it's like no, no, no, no. Just different, just harder.

Speaker A: Not harder, different ways.

Speaker B: Yeah, so, so there's that for sure. I think that's like the main, most insane one. And then m the next one is people ask me all the time, they're like, Gen Z is like, I Just, I don't get it. They have like a bigger wall up than other generations who have come before them. And, and they struggle to speak to this because I am a Gen Z myself and I don't, I don't have experience from, uh, a different generation coming in and having another generation come up underneath me. And so it's hard for me to say that, yes, this is a bigger wall than others have had before, but from what I understand, I think that it is an absolutely reasonable thing to say because Gen Zs have come into a world where the concept of like, influencing has completely shifted and changed. An influencer has become, um, a human in their everyday life. And everybody around them is trying to influence them at every single moment of their day. They wake up, they have notifications, they open their phone, they have notifications, they go on TikTok, they go on Instagram, they go on YouTube, they go on Spotify, they go on any podcast, they go on any. Anything is influencing them for some way, shape or form. And they have built this massive guard around them to protect themselves from that. And so other generations are trying to connect with Gen Z and they're really struggling because this wall is so big. And they're like, I don't know how to have an effect with this generation. I don't know how to connect with them in a way where they can accept what I'm giving them. And you really just gotta stand there and take those bricks down one by one. But people all the time are like, I just, like, they're just not listening. It's not that they're not listening. They're. They're programmed to turn it off.

Speaker A: The noise. Yeah. To turn the term, the volume down. Is that also, you think? And for, for good reason. Right. Is it also because they're extremely. Or we're talking cliches a little bit as well, but that they tend to be very opinionated and have strong, uh, strong opinions about certain things and won't be sort of swayed as easily towards one way or the other and therefore also can come across as having disrespecting authority or anything like that, which I think all has happened because of very good reason and we should all be listening way more telling, way less, uh, as employers and leaders. But, um, do you think that has something to do with it as well?

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that you said that we have to be listening more. That's one of the things that I give in my presentation. I say listen to learn, learn to understand. And then once you understand is when you can speak. And it's so hard to miss that middle step.

Speaker A: Exactly. Like your dad, right. You know, once he understood like, and he understood that it wasn't even, it wasn't a malicious thing, was like, okay, yeah, these people are actually really good at working like this. I don't get it because I, I have this separation and then all of a sudden, you know, you can grow from that. Mhm. Absolutely.

Speaker B: And the funny thing is, is once I did it, you know, other people wanted to, we ran the program. It took probably a couple of years, but we've transitioned into a very remote environment. And he saw lots of people start to do it and he was like, well that looks kind of nice.

Speaker A: Maybe I could, maybe I want to do this.

Speaker B: And he learned that he can. And so it's so funny to see the difference between the two. And you can really, um, not only have a different shift of opinion, but you can literally change your own ways. Um, but I'm so sorry, I actually forget the original question that you asked me. I got too excited. The listening part?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I don't remember. I think what I was heading towards is basically, you know, how do we bridge these generational gaps? Uh, effectively. Oh no, the original question was around, um, is it because they're very opinionated and sort of don't take authority or uh, uh, have this perception or people have this perception that they're not taking authority very well or respect their elders or something like that?

Speaker B: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So this kind of gets back to like the technology piece. They've had this piece of information in their pocket since as long as they can remember. And they've been able to Google research anything as long as they can remember. And so while they appreciate the authority that stands next to them, it's not as, it's not the same as it has always been.

Speaker A: It's not as gatekeeping. Right. They've had.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly, uh, more information available to them. Exactly. So it is a. I will have a respect for you. I can appreciate you are as a human, I can appreciate all that you have been through to get to the spot that you are being. But I will not immediately take everything that you say for face value because then they just go back and they fact check everything. And so it really does have to be very copacetic if you can say, hey, this is what I. And this is my piece of what do you do here? Like how do you work with these Gen Z? Like if all of this is true, like what the heck are we Doing as employers. And, and what do we do about it? If you can work with this, um, hand in hand, mentor over, manage, don't manage them. Um, it's, we're, it's 20, 24. We're moving through this. Like, yes, at some point you do need to be standing there, you do need to be telling them what to do and you are their manager. But the way that we are doing that is through mentorship. Now, it is not a dictatorship at this point in time. Like, it just doesn't work very well. And so you stand there hand in hand and you help explain their why. Why are you doing what you're doing every day? Why am I asking you to do what you're doing? What's the effect on the other side of this? And help them get those pieces of information so they can accept that and happily do it, because they know why they're doing what they're doing. It makes it so much easier. And then I also say, give them something yummy. I understand. People are like, my Gen Z is like, they have to do these files. I'm like, yes, they have to file. My Gen Z is they have to make these phone calls. Yes, yes. They have to set my appointments. Yes. I don't doubt that. But if you gave them two hours of work every week, that got them excited. Maybe they wanted to be an event planner and they just didn't have the opportunity. So you let them plan the holiday parties for the office every single week or for the warehouse or for whatever. Maybe they really, uh, wanted to go into marketing. This is what my dad did with me. He was like, go, take our marketing. Do it two hours a week. Just make something happen. I was like, okay. And we've completely shifted our entire brand. Like, it looks so different today and it's gone completely different directions. And it's full phenomenal. And we love it. But it wouldn't have happened if he didn't give me the opportunity and didn't see some of the value from it. So just give them something tiny that they can get so excited about and it keeps them coming back for more. Um, there's so many things that you can do, but I feel like those are two of the very, very effective. The why and the something yummy. Like a little piece of steak at the end of the week.

Speaker A: Yeah. I used to do this sneakily. I remember one of the first and only. No, that's not the altar. But one of the ones that I was a horrible office job. And it was like such a repetitive job. And I used to like sneakily sort of like try to find ways to make it more, you know, optimize it. And then kind of wrote for everyone like sort of guidelines on how to do it, to do it. But I kind of, I didn't have a mandate to it, but I was so bored, which is like the man, like just with the, with the like day to day mundane stuff that I was just trying to find ways to make it more exciting. Uh, I guess. Yeah, I didn't last very long there. Not in the sense that they fired me. They were very happy with the thing that I made. But I was like, I cannot, I cannot. No, I need a mandate basically to go, hey, do your thing. Uh, do more than just this basically data entry kind of sort of thing.

Speaker B: Uh, and I was like, ah, ah, that's. But that's. And that's exactly it. Like, if you give somebody, Imagine if you give somebody like you who has drive and has vision and has like critical thinking skills, just two hours a week, just like whatever you see, just whatever you think needs to be done, whatever you're interested in, just do it. And then the crap you would get that would just make you so much better. Because if you listen to the people on the ground floor, you're getting gold. It just is, it's so interesting. I love when people do that. Just take a little bit of. Oh my gosh, Sometimes we see this in applications. Um, when people apply, they'll be like, so we love your application and here's my letter. But also, you could have done this and you could have done this and you could have done this. Just saying in your job ad, I'm like, oh, bring that person in right now. I want to see them immediately. It's funny what the industry does.

Speaker A: It's really funny because in this place, what happened is, uh, I got a different job, but I actually quite liked working there. In a bizarre kind of way, I really like the people. So I went to them with this offer and I went like, hey, do you want a counter? Like, uh, I can sort of start taking more responsibility. They're like, we really love you, you're doing amazing work, but you're basically too good to work here. We basically just want people who follow just sit here and do their thing, so just take that job. And I was like, I think that was one of the first things that really led me to this point of working in happiness at work and workplace culture because I was like, so mind blown that. That was like, um, that, that was like sort of the. The. Yeah. The ethos of this place and how that could. Could continue. And I think they still work like this, and there's still pieces that. That do this, but how we could be so different. And I think that's one of those sort of pivotal moments that led me to this.

Speaker B: That's so interesting. And. And what they're doing is not wrong. And what you did is phenomenal because

Speaker A: there is also hiring for fits.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Employers have all types of needs, and you have so many different types of humans in the world. Like, we as a human race are just so interesting. There's lots of us, you know, and so there are jobs for everybody. There are roles for everybody, and there is somebody who has absolutely zero desire to do any sort of optimization. And they just want to show up and they just want to move the pen from this side of, um, from this side of the line to this side of the line where that person puts the cap on it. Like, they. They don't need anything crazy. And that's phenomenal. And honestly, thank goodness for that employer to say, hey, you know what? This isn't going to be for you. Bless your heart. You're phenomenal. Go find something else. Like, that's. That's great, but what a, uh, what a phenomenal pivot to get you into where you are today. How cool.

Speaker A: Yeah, but because I. And I guess what I have learned over the time, indeed, there is like, you know, hiring for cultural fit, all of these kind of things. If you are a person like me who is like, let's go and optimize everything and let's go and do this, and maybe we can do that and start this new thing, then I shouldn't be working at that place. And that is, uh. And if they want to sort of stay in this sort of quadrant or that kind of workplace culture, that's fine. But we also have to sort of make that clear and intentional and speak out loud that that's what we want, um, from our employees. And that's a really important piece of. As well. It is how you go.

Speaker B: Yeah. Sounds like you should be running that place to me. Like, you can come in for a couple of minutes, and that's good and dandy, but you climb that ladder so fast, you running the whole joint. Let's go, people.

Speaker A: Yeah. Hannah, you also speak about the three eyes in your hiring processes, which you've typified of intentionality, intensity, and integrity. Uh, is sort of that kind of thing. What we were talking about in the sense, like, you know, Hiring for Cultural fit or, you know, making sure that it's clear what kind of you are. Is that what you mean by that? Or do you want to kind of elaborate a little bit on what your three eyes stand for?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So the three eyes, they, they originated out of, um, and you'll like this, uh, what short forms is wtf. Uh, work hard, tell the truth, and finish the job. And those were three mottos that my dad had kind of set for himself as a, ah, young employee. As he was kind of growing up, he, he struggled to finish the job. And he just saw it time after time and he's like, okay, I really need to do this. And so he, he told it to himself. He started working on it, became a motto in our house.

Speaker A: Wtf. I love it. Yeah.

Speaker B: And then he was like, tell the truth. He was a salesperson. He worked for a lot of different companies, and sometimes they asked him to do stuff that he was not comfortable with. And so he's like, I need to always just tell the truth. And so that became the next thing. And then, um, work hard. He was like, he struggles to work hard. He loves to play. And so he had to remind himself, work hard. So the WTF kind of came out, was a joke in our family for a long time. And it's actually on the back of my shirt. I could show you. We have a bunch of logos around it now with her, with Revolution Staffing, the staffing agency for drivers, because drivers love it. But, uh, so out of this WTF came the three eyes, because we also have this other more culturally appropriate for a office place, uh, side that is just intentionality, integrity and intensity. So all of those, one of those three kind of falls into each of the eyes. And so we've got integrity. Like, what are you behind the closed door? What are you doing when nobody is watching? Are you still the same human? And so we kind of want to have that piece of integrity. Everything we're doing, we're showing up with like, our fullest of self. And that self is the same everywhere we go, right? And then we've got intensity. The staffing is hard. Hiring is hard. You have to be intense. You have to show up every single day. Sometimes you're getting calls at 2am in the morning because someone didn't show up for their shift. Or sometimes there's an accident at 4am and you're like, okay, this is intense. I'm up.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: There's the intensity and then there's the intentionality. Um, everything goes through seasons. We're going through a season right now where there's not that many jobs and there's so many candidates out there looking for work. But a couple years ago, we were in a completely different season. There was so, so many, so many jobs, and no one was looking for work. And so we go through these phases, and we have to be really intentional about what we're doing every single day when we show up so that we're prepping for what is to come. Because it's always the opposite of what you're experiencing right now.

Speaker A: So we have these three things.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. We have these three things that come in, and we just. We talk about them as a company all the time. We were using them originally as internal hiring. We were like, we. We try to bring these. These people into our team that have the three eyes. We talk about them all the time in our. In our interviews. We talk about them all across our website. We talk about them in all of our. Not all of our podcasts. Lots of our podcasts.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So many of our morning meetings, like these three things are just regularly chatted about. Um, but then we wrote a book about it, so this was one of the first ones that I did, and I did it with my dad. And it is very small, very brief. We're actually looking at expanding it right now. Version two, which I'd be really excited about. But it just kind of explains you

Speaker A: back on the podcast then.

Speaker B: Yes, very much.

Speaker A: What we love this. These values and living by your values and.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So, uh, yeah, it explains the three. It kind of walks through that whole story of origin and how we got to why those things were so important. And then it is really just a book that allows somebody who is an employer to keep notes. It gives you some questions that you can ask to understand if a person has these characteristics and kind of helps. Helps guide that interview for you. And then it just gives you space to keep note for all of it so that it's in a nice, easy. I wish I had one on my desk. I'd pull it out and show you. But it's, uh. Yeah, just a very, very, very simple way to keep track of all of your interviews. And if you're doing a lot of interviews, you know, you do a lot of them, so it's the spot to keep them all together.

Speaker A: Yeah. Amazing. I really love that. And really keeping. It's so good to keep. To make the process not less arbitrary as well, and making sure that it continuously connects to what you're looking for. And it's Also very clear for the candidate, like sort of if they've done their research, they know what you're looking for and they know sort of what kind of, um, what kind of values they have to do to bring and what kind of traits that they have to bring. Um, uh, I really want to keep talking, but we're going to have to start getting to the end. But you just talked about the book that you wrote with your dad. But you wrote another really cool book and that we've already mentioned very briefly in the introduction titled, well, shit, Time to Grow Up. And I feel like I still think that regularly, although I'm mid-30s now. Do you want to let us uh, talk a little bit about what it's about and then sort of give the little plug about why you wrote it and what it's really about?

Speaker B: Absolutely. I feel like now I should go back and put the time to grow up in quotes because it's like, is it time to grow up or are we just all just like little adults walking around with no idea what's going on? But the whole concept was, was uh, doing this travel, dating somebody in the US going back, doing so, so many 14 day quarantines. I think I did 5ish of them, um, in one year. So lots of, lots of social isolation, socialized isolation, whatever that right word is. I was by myself a lot and um, had lots of reflecting and I was experiencing a lot of large emotions through that time, was kind of struggling to come into my own, to know how to deal with some of those things. And I was getting some amazing advice from, from my mom and some wonderful people around me. But I always kind of took it unfortunately with a grain of salt because I was like, love my mom, but she is much older than I am and so she hasn't experienced these things in a really long time. And so I loved the TV show growing up, uh, Good Luck Charlie, and loved the concept of giving a piece to the next person to pass to you. And so I started a diary and I was just writing it for my kids one day and I was like, I want to give it to my children to just be like, this is what I was experiencing when I was your age. You're not alone and I love you and if there's anything I can do to help you, like, let me know. And so that's kind of the way that it started. And as I was going through it. Thank you. As I was going through it, I was using all of these different stories from all of these different people in my life that I loved so much and all of the things that they had taught me. And I was like, uh, how selfish to keep these to myself. Like, I really want to share these with these people. They've made a huge impact on my life. I would like them to know it. And so I typed them out. And after I typed them out I was like, well, now, I mean, I guess I just have to publish this. It's a book. Like it's basically there. And so I started putting it together and somehow I finished it, you know, finished strong. She reigns in my blood pretty pretty deeply. And so I finished it out and yeah, that's kind of how the whole thing came together. But it is a, it's a, uh, it's a nod to my one day kids and I think that it could be really helpful to anyone. But it's just, it's, it's full of little nuggets of wisdom that different people had left with me from, from different experiences.

Speaker A: Oh, I love that. I really, I really like the way it started and evolved and I see that a lot with people I have on the podcast. They're just like, yeah, I did all this research for myself and I did all of these things and I left them. And then I thought, thought I can't just keep this to myself. I need to pay it forward. And then they find a way to do it somewhere or the other. And I really love to get, I love that people are, uh, that I get to meet so many people who feel the need to do that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: All right. Hey, so we are gonna have to wrap up now so as we uh, uh, stagger to the heart again. But we always like to leave our listeners with some tangible advice, actionable tips, something that they can start practicing as soon as possible and don't need the buy in of all senior leadership, etc. Is there anything that you can leave us with for around Gen Z? Around happiness, around. The combination of Gen Z and happiness, uh, would be even more fantastic.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think I would, I would go back to the, to the. Feed them something yummy, mentor over, manage them and give them their why. And if you can give them those three things in the workplace, uh, you're gonna have some very happy Gen Zs. It's not about the ping pong table.

Speaker A: No, not a pizza party or it's

Speaker B: not about the pizza party. They like those things. That's fine and dandy and that's so fun to do, but that is not doing the same job that you wanted to. Oh, they're definitely not a payment.

Speaker A: They're not a payment, they're not remuneration.

Speaker B: No, no. And honestly, and, and payment isn't respect. Right. Like I, I show up to work every day because I get paid. Yes. But if I showed up and my employer was disrespectful to me, I'm, um, out find another job. Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's, it's funny. They're, they're a whole new, a whole new crew of people. But by 2025 there's going to be 27% of them in the workforce.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or, sorry, the workforce will be 27%. Sorry, that's the, uh, that's the proper way. 27%. Gen Z. So there's, there's enough of them here to learn how to work with them.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, in combination with the millennials who are sort of in that in between stage where some of them are more leaning towards what you're describing and some of them still sort of have that idealism around, you know, come home and everything is nine to five and everything's perfect. But the combination of them. The workplace is very much populated with people with idealism, the people who want to drive things forward and with people who demand respect in, in, in from, from their employees and don't just sit there and take everything obediently. The, definitely the, the times of command and control leadership should be well over and, and should never come back as well, in my opinion.

Speaker B: Mhm. I would agree. I'd second that you're here.

Speaker A: All right, Hannah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. If anybody would like to follow your podcast, which I just forgotten the name about, it's work. Workish work.

Speaker B: Yes, workish. You. I, I've got, I've got way too much stuff going on, unfortunately. I actually have three other books. You can find everything though on the website. X2Z. So X, T, O Z, uh, dot, O, R G. And if you say it really fast, you'll make yourself giggle and you'll never forget it. But that's where you can find everything for me.

Speaker A: Okay, perfect. We'll also make sure that we link that in the show notes so that people can find everything that you're up to and all the exciting stuff, uh, that is going on in your life. So thank you again, Hannah, for coming on the show. You've been listening to the Happiness at Work podcast by Management 3.0 where we are getting serious about happiness. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoy our shows, don't be shy. Write us a review. Share the happiness with your colleagues, family or friends. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Under management three zero.