2025 Highlights: The Best Insights on Building a Thriving Company Culture

Kate Volman: Hey there. This is a very special episode of Lead with Culture because it's our end of year episode, so it's gonna look a little bit different than our other episodes where you are used to hearing an interview from, whether it's a CEO, or a leader, or a dream manager, or one of our Floyd coaches sharing insights and inspiration on. Kate Volman: Company culture, building a great culture, leadership development, or how to help you become the best version of yourself.

And so we are so grateful that you are part of our community. We hope that this year you have learned some new things or just gotten some inspiration from listening to this podcast. Kate Volman: We've had some really wonderful guests on, and we're just so grateful for the opportunity to talk to leaders who care about their people, who want to make an impact in the world, who want. To help other people grow.

And so whether you are a leader that is building a great culture, or maybe you are just in a place of life where you're, you're trying to grow your own skills and build better relationships with your family wherever you are, we try to make sure that we are sharing what it is that you need to help you grow personally and professionally. Kate Volman: So we hope you love these episodes. Today, you are going to hear. Some clips, some of the highlights from the episodes that we've had.

You might hear from someone that you listened to the full episode and you remembered it, and maybe it was your favorite episode, and there might be some clips that you hear that inspire you to go back and check out a past episode that you didn't get a chance to listen to. Kate Volman: And so this is your opportunity to just get some, some good clips. It'll be a fun episode to hear a little bit about each of these topics on culture. And leadership and personal and professional growth.

So you get to take what you need, leave the rest, and hopefully pass this along to someone else who you think would find value in it. Brian Hess: For the business owners or entrepreneurs, it means a lot to people to know that the company has the inspiration and commitment to investing in people and making people's dreams come true is the lifeblood of every company. I've worked at places that. Said the right things, but didn't always have the action behind it.

Brian Hess: And I think people pick up on that. And when you're willing to invest in those things, you're gonna acquire and retain the best people. And when they feel like their dreams can come true under this umbrella of the organization or organizations that you've created, then there's a much higher commitment and also a much higher retention of people within the company. Brian Hess: You've gotta find time and the resources and the capital to invest in those types of things.

Because it means something to people and then people discover things about themselves that they didn't even know existed, or maybe nobody in their career ever asked about. You know, I think when you become the company that does ask those questions and does have the commitment, you create a platform that allows people to be their best. Brian Hess: And so if you can create one of those and become. That influence in people's lives.

Why would anybody ever wanna leave there? You invest in the things that are gonna make people better and make people wanna stick around. You know, we don't want to just build businesses that give people jobs that keep them stuck. Brian Hess: We want to create companies that have massive amounts of upward mobility.

And so for me it's always been a vision of you build a structure where the bottom of the org chart is always lifting or pushing the company up, and it just creates. A massive amount of momentum and it's easier to lead that company than it is to lead, um, an organization where there isn't a lot of opportunity. Brian Hess: It's a good thing to be able to create that opportunity for people and then continue to create more and more opportunities where whatever it is that they want to do in their life, they can accomplish being in the walls of these businesses.

Jessica Pfau: We talk about. How hard. We're working a lot. It's hard to work at our company because we are helping those that are experiencing mental illness and addiction, and our clients need us.

Jessica Pfau: They need us to be strong, they need us to be full. We need to be very comfortable in our own lives to be able to help someone else go through their tough time. As we have grown, we really worked hard to make sure that our salaries were competitive, so that was one of the first things. We were not, admittedly, several years ago, not paying our staff very well, and the answer was, well, you're just nonprofit and you're mental health, and so nobody expects you to get paid very well.

Jessica Pfau: No, we are gonna pay our staff. They work hard just like everybody else in the world, so we're gonna pay them what they're owed and what they're due. And very competitively. That was a huge mission or a huge priority for us a few years ago.

So we're now up to market rate. So that would be one thing. We have a pretty robust vacation and sick leave, so that's a newer thing for us, but we found that we needed to do that to be competitive. Jessica Pfau: But then past those kind of standard and the benefits you passed all of that.

What we have really focused on is our culture. And we see over time our turnover has lowered amazingly. People refer their friends and we have just continued to do good work out in the community. And that, I think, more than anything, has drawn those to us because when you see some company doing good work, like you guys, like Floyd Consulting, it inspires you to want to do that too.

Jessica Pfau: So all of those things together, I don't wanna say we haven't had trouble hiring, but we have made it easier. We have applicants coming to us, and I'm proud of that. Bree Groff: It's actually quite dangerous if we start to equate our value with our work. It's the same as, you know, having your life savings invested in one stock.

Bree Groff: It's just very, very risky. 'cause a bad day at work is now a bad day of life, and so I do firmly believe work is a source of joy, but it should just be one of many in our lives as well. I do think there's a lot of people who overwork. The problem with overworking, even if you enjoy it and want to, is that there's an opportunity cost.

Bree Groff: Like you only have so many hours in a day. So if you are spending 12 hours a day at work, tell me when did you exercise? When did you make like a decent lunch for yourself? When are you sleeping?

When are you doing something so stupid and pleasurable, like a crossword puzzle or you know, anything else that brings you joy? Bree Groff: So the opportunity cost is. Real, get good at life, not just work. And also, you are the defender of date nights.

Crossword puzzles in your health. 'cause sometimes it feels that way. 'cause work is greedy. It's like an invasive species.

It will just spread over your calendar wherever you don't stop it. And so sometimes it really does feel like you have to defend the rest of your life from overworking. Bree Groff: So that means. Putting date nights on the calendar, you don't have to make this public to the rest of your company.

Putting exercise on your calendar, making sure that you have some sort of hobby, we have to find other joys in our life. Beyond work Nick Lombardino: now, multiple generations in the workforce. One of the big determining factors on whether or not they choose to work for a company or stay at a company is wanting to know whether or not they're making some sort of altruistic difference in the world, whether that's on a societal level or an environmental level, or, or both. Nick Lombardino: So companies are literally having to.

Reevaluate how they do business to ensure that they are making the world better in some way because they know that that is what's going to help acquire and retain the best talent. The way this is really taking root is how companies are adopting social entrepreneurship. Nick Lombardino: So essentially carving out dedicated time and creating the processes for their own employees to ideate around. How can we.

Help this company not only make profit, but simultaneously do something that's better for society or the environment. And what all the data is showing is that these are the highest performing organizations. Nick Lombardino: So there's a huge business imperative. And companies wanting to shift more towards this purpose-driven work and doing it in a way that has to be felt authentic and genuine.

Not just trying to like greenwash and just put out messaging that says, look at how virtuous of a company we are with no substantial meat behind it. Patty Croom: When you look at a company and, and how their culture is going, can people show up as their true authentic selves? Are they engaged in the programs that we have? We have philanthropy programs, you know, we have the dream manager program.

How are they able to show up? Are they showing up? And we see continued engagement and that's increasing over the years. Patty Croom: And certainly since we've put Dream Manager in place, one of our early dreamers wanted to buy and slip a house and she achieved it.

She worked towards it. She was able to go through and, and she was one of the first people to complete the program with the company and still talks about it. And I think the great thing is as soon as you start dreaming and you complete. Patty Croom: A dream that's a win, and you can build off of that and you can start seeking out more dreams that you want to achieve, and you just start building that momentum.

And so it becomes almost impossible to not dream. They're not always huge dreams, right? They're not like, I've traveled around the world or done this thing, but they're all amazing in their own right because they move somebody forward, they give them permission to dream and. Patty Croom: With their energy, they're telling other people like, Hey, I did this thing.

I didn't think I could, but I've done this thing. And then it becomes contagious, right? The Dream Manager program is an act of kindness because as one person dreams, they share that with others, and then other people start considering what they can dream about, and even if they're not part of the program, it creates those new thoughts. Dr.

Allen Hunt: It's fascinating how much people gravitate toward that topic of regrets. You know, the one that always gets me is, I wish I'd had the courage just to be myself. You know, how much time that we spend placating other people or pretending to be somebody that we're not or pretending to be invisible? We're not having that courage.

Dr. Allen Hunt: But I tell you says there's essentially three things that you can do with your regrets is, you know, one is to learn from them. Learning moment. Two is to redeem them.

And what I really focus on is the rest of what we're going to do together in our fourth quarter. Visioning, dreaming. Mapping is you can create a plan to avoid having those regrets. Dr.

Allen Hunt: So you can, you can only redeem regrets and learn from regrets that you already have. You can also map out a plan that's gonna reduce the likelihood that you're gonna have these 15 or 20 regrets, because if you don't, you probably are gonna have 'em. So how do we create. Those positive dreams and and expectations and a plan so that you say, I actually did have the courage to be myself.

Dr. Allen Hunt: I actually did love the people that mattered most to me. I actually did use my gifts. Laura Furner: One of the executives at our companies, I just had noticed a really positive change in him.

And so I said, Hey, what's going on? You know, I don't, not in a rude way, but you're more talkative, you're more outgoing. You just seem more confident. Laura Furner: And he said, oh, I got a coach.

Let me connect you to her. He sent me her information and I had a really great intro call with her, and after thinking it through, you know, I was weighing at that point in time the coaching or a week long leadership bootcamp, you know, which would it be? I knew I had some personal things I wanted to tackle before I actually got into the. Laura Furner: Professional coaching side, which I still think was a great decision for me personally.

But if there are people out there who think I need to wait four years to be perfect and then jump into coaching, that's not the case. And the more I spoke with Michelle, she is the coach that I was blessed to get connected with. Laura Furner: 'cause we spoke frequently over the year that I was not even doing coaching, just so I could get comfortable with her and really almost. Build myself a case to say, let's go forward with this, and I've got a big job.

I have a lot of work to do. I've got a beautiful family. It was a lot to think about, but honestly it was so worth it, all the things that I got out of it. Michele Marquis: So you have a.

A really good culture, right? But you have people that, again, you don't wanna lose them. You wanna keep them inspired, motivated, engaged, all of that. Again, replacing an employee can cost up to 150% of their salary.

So we don't want to do that. They don't, but you maybe, again, you have a good culture, so you have poured into these people, probably to retain them up until this time. Michele Marquis: So. Giving them this unique employee benefit of having a coach that can hold them accountable to the dreams that they keep pushing down their list because they're busy with life.

And having somebody really care about those dreams and keep them focused on it, is invaluable to those types of people. Michele Marquis: 'cause you don't wanna lose one of your top performers because they, they had a slightly better offer somewhere else. You want people to stay because they're like, wow, this company really cares about me and I even have a coach. I mean, can you imagine being able to say that and, oh, I, my company even gave me a coach, a life coach.

Michele Marquis: Through the Dream Manager Program. In fact, was it one of our companies actually did a, was it a stay interview and asked people why they were staying with the company and this was a high turnover industry and 55% of them cited the Dream manager as a reason why they're staying. That's significant. That's significant.

Michele Marquis: And again, it's just these one, one little things that you can offer to. Retain those great people and something called emotional loyalty. This whole Dream Manager program really feeds into that emotional loyalty. So it's not just a job, it's not just to make money.

You care about me and they're in turn going to care about you. Zach Blumenfeld: If I signed up to work at a company that was remote or hybrid during the pandemic. And that's kind of what I signed up for, thinking I'm gonna be able to do this and then they demand that I'm back in the office. Like employees aren't gonna like that for the most part.

And I think it's because so much of culture is built on a connection, and connection is built between. Zach Blumenfeld: Whether it's employee to employee or employee to manager to leadership level, it's built on trust. And so you're changing what the employees signed up for at the company and not really creating trust because at any time it's like, oh, they can just change what I I'm doing and how I work. So I think like giving employees autonomy to create their own decisions for what works best for them creates that trust, which creates connection, which is ultimately gonna create that culture that people as humans want and need to succeed.

Zach Blumenfeld: We need to care. Like, I Steve Sargent: can't coach you to care if you just don't care about people. Like I, I just don't think I can help you. It starts there and, and, and, and they'll know like whether or not you truly care.

Right? And so, you know, it starts with that, but then it's like, are you willing to count the cost? Steve Sargent: And that's time. It's money.

Right. And maybe other things like, so you know, again, there's a cost to that. But on the other side of that, and this isn't the reason we do it, but on the other side of that, when people are thriving and they're flourishing at work, which was our mission in, in, in our business, was like that every single person and their families would flourish it. Steve Sargent: There would be this ripple effect from our culture into their lives that would impact their families and beyond.

Come in, put your head down, do the work. Right. It is pretty common in the corporate world. Well.

You could do it that way. That's one way to do it, but. I would bet their turnover's higher culture probably isn't all that healthy or at least not sustainable for very long. Steve Sargent: And, and so, you know, I would mind for conflict, I would, I, you know, I'd be coaching our, our team coaching, our leaders on our organization, how to navigate conflict real time with real drama.

I was like, bring the drama, bring it, bring it, bring it to work. 'cause it's not going away. It's just gonna come out sideways anyway, so let's just deal with it. Steve Sargent: Let's talk about it.

Let's deal with it. We have that opportunity as leaders to jump into the pit with people and walk with them. Say, you know what? Like, let's figure out a way out of this pit.

Like, you're not gonna be here alone. Let's figure it out. I mean, gosh, talk about like building loyalty, right? Steve Sargent: Like these companies and leaders, you know, they want loyalty, they want loyal people.

Like, you know, you want loyalty, like. That's the way to do it. That's the way to build loyalty, right? Just like customer loyalty.

How do you build customer loyalty? Do right by your, by your customers, right? Treat 'em well. Steve Sargent: Build advocates.

And it's the same with our employees. In fact, it starts with our employees. Kate Volman: Thank you so much for being part of our lead with culture community. We are so looking forward to continuing to provide you with valuable content, really great resources, and hopefully interesting conversations to help you grow personally and professionally.

Kate Volman: So thank you so much for being here and as always, Lead with Culture.