Trust and Safety in a Manager-Centered Culture

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of Culture Club X, powered by CultureMonkey. I'm your host, Diana Blass. CultureMonkey is a complete employee engagement platform that helps people leaders listen to their employees and enhance workplace cultures. In the seventh episode of the latest season of Culture Club X, we have with us Melissa DiMuro, Chief People and Culture Officer at Limbach. Welcome, Melissa, it's great to have you.

Thank you for having me.

Well, first we'll just discuss a little bit about your background with our viewers. As Chief People and Culture Officer at Limbach Holdings, Melissa is responsible for leading the human capital strategy for over 1600 employees across the US. This includes talent management, recruitment, succession, leadership development, workforce planning, total rewards and culture. Melissa has 20 years of progressive leadership experience in HR, 15 of which were spent at GE Aviation, a leading global provider of aircraft engines and aviation systems. She also spent three years in the printing industry at Quebecor World. She sits on the board of the Spring of Tampa Bay and is a graduate of the Human Resources Leadership Program at GE. An alumna of the University of Cincinnati, she is a business leader with a passion for organizational transformation, culture evolution and talent strategies.

Melissa, what an honor to have you with us today. Welcome again to Culture Club X's video cast on the value of establishing a manager-centered company culture. Before we begin, please tell us more about your current organization and what you're doing today.

Absolutely. So I joined Limbach about two years ago, and this is my first foray into a CHRO role and my third industry. We are a leading construction provider. So within Limbach Holdings, I joined about two years ago, new to the industry and really trying to transform what is a 121 year old company into an ever evolving contemporary company today. And from a talent management perspective, in construction there are over 1 million jobs that go unfilled right now over the next couple of years due to changes in talent dynamics, retirements that are coming up and frankly the growth in the industry. And so a lot of what I'm focused on is how do we really pivot the company's strategy and our talent strategies to really be an employer of choice for that type of environment?

Great, well, I can't wait to have this discussion with you today. So without further ado, let's get started.

The first idea centers around building trust and being valued as a bedrock of a good culture. What steps can managers take to make employees feel more valued and improve trust within their teams?

I think it's a great question, and absolutely trust is the underlying fundamental of everything. It's the currency of relationships, and that is especially important as a manager in your employee population. I think the first thing comes down to respect. You've got to demonstrate a fundamental level of respect to your team members, and you've got to show that the work they do matters to you personally, to the company, and everything big and small. You need to know what it's like to walk a day in their shoes.

And I remember being brand new in my first HR role, and I had a leader that I worked for that actually recommended, this is back in the printing company, that before I started recruiting for these roles and really surfacing these roles that were in the manufacturing shop, I needed to go out and spend time and actually do the role and see what it was like to actually live a day in their shoes. And I think that message has stuck with me. So you can't skip over that, and any new leader in a role has to reestablish that level of respect with their team.

Secondly, I think it's really about communication. People have to believe that they're getting real time, transparent and authentic communication from their leader in order to really have trust with them. If they feel like their leader is holding back or has some other agenda, again, that begins to break down.

And then the third piece that I would highlight is the genuine care for the human outside of the work relationship. The best leaders that I've worked with and worked for have really cared about me, what I want to do outside of my day job, my family. They know me as a human being. And I think we have to make sure, especially coming out of this post COVID pandemic time, that we're taking time to relate to the human aspect. And I think that really goes a long way for trust.

Yeah, interesting. I think trust when it comes to communication, authenticity, as you mentioned, those are things I suppose you can look for in the hiring process. But when it comes down to how you can have that better management with your team, and the ongoing feedback sessions where you're seeing how they're doing, those mental health checks, are there things that you do to encourage that kind of environment, that you train your managers to carry out, to ensure that that part of the company culture is present?

I think it's a good question, because sometimes we think of culture and we think of the big things that we're doing, the big strategies, the new ways that we're establishing to listen to our employees or the policies that we're making. But I think culture really happens in micro bits and small chunks and the manager is the one that drives the majority of that day-to-day.

So again, to build on what we spoke about on the trust side, I think it's really staying close to your people and looking for what are any changes in behavior that might be occurring. What are the things that they're focusing on? And really making sure that you're supporting them on a day-to-day basis. I think also having regular touch points. We recommend, at a minimum, weekly touch points with every single person that works for you. But in reality, when I think of my team, I'm having almost daily touch points with them. Little micro bits, it might be texts, it might be emails, it might be a quick phone call, but staying in more real-time connection I think is what more and more people are looking for these days.

And then of course, making sure that you have the milestone conversations throughout the year, conversations about career and development and things of those natures become important. But the micro engagement is really where people see are you walking the talk as it relates to the core values of that company.

Yeah, definitely. Well, we'll get further into the idea of microcultures later, so we can dig further into that topic.

What signs can managers look for to gauge the emotional and mental health of their team members? How can they become first responders to employees dealing with these issues?

I think this has always been a role for leaders, but it is more and more pronounced today. I think, luckily for society, we're bringing mental health more into a safe space. As a company that's very committed to safety and the health and welfare of our people, we can't overlook the fact that physical safety is just as important as our mental safety, and we need to have those conversations.

So one, I think it's normalizing the discussions and making it something that we talk about. Within my current company, we do something called Hearts and Minds, which is really our safety program, trying to capture not just the compliance aspect of things, but really caring for the entire individual. So I think weaving some of those conversations in to make it not so taboo to bring up an issue related to that.

Additionally, I know a lot of people who have struggled with mental health, and frankly, I've been through situations where it's been a struggle for me. And so I think it's incumbent on the leader to be a bit vulnerable and say that not every day is a great day, and it's okay to have certain types of feelings. It's okay to need help, and lead that by example.

As I mentioned before, I think watching for changes in behavior is key. As a leader, you're the one that sees them every day, day in and day out. So you, aside from their family, are probably the one that's going to be able to pick up on changes. And I would just encourage, if there's changes, know your resources. You don't have to be the expert. It is okay to connect them to an expert. And I think sometimes leaders get a little worried in this space because they're not trained therapists or mental health providers. You don't have to be. You can just make the connection and show demonstration of care for that individual.

Definitely. Do you think these are issues that have become more prevalent in light of the new working style we have today in the post-pandemic world? Or do you think they've always just been there, and we just don't talk about it or we don't realize the signs?

I think they've always been there. I think a lot of people have suffered in silence for a long time, but I do think our new reality exacerbates some of the issues that were underlying. So as an example, in a remote work environment, or even in a hybrid work environment, creating relationships where you can have a little bit of a buffer to these challenges, insulate yourself from them, have healthy habits that help ward off some of these challenges, I think it's made it a little more challenging. And as a leader, if you're leading a team that you don't see physically all of the time, it can be maybe a little harder to pick up on those cues.

So I think it's gotten a little more challenging, but frankly, I think it's all coming out because we're making it a safer environment to talk about these things. In my current industry in construction, we're one of the leading industries, unfortunately, for things like suicides. And we're trying to do a lot as an industry to have conversations about how it's okay to need help. It's just as important as your physical safety.

Yeah, interesting. You think about the effects the pandemic had on the workplace, and while we can certainly talk about the negatives of remote work, at least I think it brought a lot of stuff to the surface where you have to deal with it. I've heard about large companies bringing therapists in and having that monthly touch point. And so those are all good changes that I think maybe wouldn't have happened otherwise. So interesting to dig in there.

Do you agree that managers are overburdened with expectations beyond scope of work? What can organizations do to reduce manager burnout and potential fallouts like attrition?

It's difficult to be a manager. I think a frontline leader in an organization is by far the toughest role that exists. You have to deal with the pressures that maybe are coming down on you from higher in the hierarchy. You also are dealing with the employee challenges. You're dealing with what you're trying to deliver on as a customer. So I want to first acknowledge that I think it's probably the most challenging. I see the leadership role, when you take it on, it's a huge responsibility, but also a huge privilege. So I think that leaders put a lot on their shoulders, the great leaders put a lot on their shoulders, for trying to do it all. The reality is, as a leader, you can't do it all.

And so I think one thing is making sure that we really invest in our leaders' mental health. So making sure that they're getting time off to truly disconnect. Leaders of leaders need to create opportunities for them to truly have that opportunity and have coverage plans in place. Sometimes we'll say, oh, take time off, but nothing ever comes in to help alleviate some of those concerns. So I do think we have to be more intentional about that, checking in, adjusting workload, making it an okay conversation to talk about the fact that workload might be too much. And what can we stop or push out or make simpler in order to alleviate it? So that's the leader of leader requirements.

I also think we need to be more clear on priorities. Because everything funnels through that frontline leader, it can be a little confusing as to what the true priorities are. Because in reality, you need to do everything and convey every message and make sure everybody's feeling connected. So I think the executives of the company need to continue to do a better job at really saying this is what's most essential. These other things are important, but if we drop this piece, then that's a bigger impact on the business.

And then I guess my final thought is, we have to make sure that managers are skilled to achieve what we're asking them to do. I've observed so many times managers getting put into roles that they're promoted because they did a great job in the prior role, especially first-time managers. So you're a great individual contributor, so we promote you, and then maybe don't provide you with the actual training and resources and understanding of how to do that job. And I think that continues to occur even as you get promoted. So one of the things we're thinking really hard on is, how do we make sure that every manager has the skills and resources needed to make this huge responsibility more reasonable? Because I think a lot of time can be lost in efficiency, leading to the feeling of being overwhelmed, by just not having the skills and capabilities. And that's the organization's responsibility to provide that to their team members.

Yeah, right. No, I can totally see that. I think there's been a real idea of just learning on a job, or perhaps if you've been in a company for so long, you think that you don't need to train anymore. And I actually saw on LinkedIn that your company recently won an award when it came to its training and development. What do you think stuck out about what you're doing that caught the attention of this award?

Yeah, thanks. So I'm so proud of the team. They've been working really hard, and in February we'll see where we fall on the list. But really we've tried to look at holistic learning. So we have a very structured leadership development series in three stages, one for emerging leaders, one for leaders that are in frontline leadership roles, and then one for more experienced leaders that hope to be executives one day, or already are executives. So one, I think, is the structured approach.

Second is we take a really structured process now to onboarding, where literally we start people once a month. You come in as a cohort. You have a curated experience with your peers for that first week. You receive a 30, 60, 90 day plan for the new hires, customized to your role and your leader. You get a buddy, we have you meet with the C-suite. We really focus on trying to get people up to speed. And that's a newer process for us. We didn't used to do that, and we've seen such great benefits.

And now we're starting to really focus on manager readiness in that same way. Because the longer a manager is trying to figure their way through this, which is the traditional way, well, they've done it so well before, we can put them in this new role. It's part of how we all learn, and we have a sense of that's how it has to be done, but it's not. And so what we're learning through effective onboarding is really that can be applied to leaders, new people going into new roles. And it's really about how do you accelerate their learning in order to be most effective. So I think those are probably some of the things that stuck out, but we'll see. We'll get the full report in February.

Well, either way, just being in the ranking is an amazing achievement. And it's true, people want to see that there's that trajectory there, that there's this path towards success, not being set up to fail, and constantly also provided with challenges to work towards. So it's all very great, interesting tips there.

Next question, actually we're digging further into the theme of trust, and now dealing further with mental health issues. What can managers do to develop two-way trust within teams, and how important is psychological safety in this?

Psychological safety to me is a prerequisite. I don't think you can have real trust without that. And when this was discussed, I guess I've been in the field about 20 years, but on the earlier side, people reacted to the concept of psychological safety as this warm and fuzzy topic and nice to have. It was sort of dismissed. And I'm really happy that it's coming back and being more widely accepted. Because at the end of the day, if you don't feel safe where you are, and I will expand safe to not just the fear of being harmed, but the ability to be yourself and your whole self, then you're going to hold back part, because we're humans, that's just how it works.

So I think it has to be there. And if it's not, you start to get all sorts of ineffectiveness in the organization. You start to see things like politics taking precedent over actual great work. You start getting people who aren't going to raise issues to you because they're afraid. Maybe team dynamics aren't as healthy, and people are more worried about posturing versus solving the issues. And so all sorts of things happen, and those are symptomatic, but I think the root of that is do people feel like it's a fair place to work, where recognition will occur if you deliver it, and some of those foundational items. And really those come down to the manager to create. Again, all things lead to the manager.

But I think, number one, those leaders have to make sure to create an open environment where their way is not the only way, where people can be engaged in part of decisions, that it can be what the team needs it to be, and not just the manager's preference. And then I think also two-way trust. You can't micromanage. Managers who try to control too much signal to their team that they don't trust them, whether they mean to or not. Actions are bigger than words. And so you can say, oh, I trust you, but can I review that three more times before it goes out? Those small things add up to big things. And so I think all of those micro actions are what creates an opening for there to be two-way trust.

Definitely, yeah. That has been one of the biggest pain points for me as I've worked at different companies. It's just the idea that you have a leadership role, but at the end of the day, you're still having so much oversight of your work and tips on how to do it that it doesn't feel like you're actually in that role. And then you end up looking for other jobs or positions to feel like you've gotten to that point in your career.

Now, it's interesting with your company, right? Because you have people who work traditional corporate jobs within, or out in the field in construction positions, right? So would you say one's harder to cultivate or grow that two-way trust in than others? I guess they're both remote in a sense, but just an interesting thing about that dynamic as you look to create that great culture.

Yeah, so it is interesting, because we are fully dispersed. So even when we were fully in the office pre-COVID, we're out on job sites everywhere. So people are dispersed. So I do think there are certain challenges of creating trust when you are not next to people every day. So I think that challenge is probably shared across. I would say sometimes the currency of trust might be a little bit different. People want the same fundamental things. They want you to care about what they do, take time out of your day to make sure that you're recognizing them for the value that they bring. But the way you show it might be different.

When you're on a job site, that's going to occur by walking around, asking about people's weekends, asking them about ways that we can make the job easier for them, coming to them and asking them for ideas and insights to make the company better. Oftentimes you're going to have to be boots on the ground and walking around and engaging with people that way. Likewise, that could occur in an office setting, but we're all kind of virtual. So I think other platforms, and there's some great technology out there, of surveys and roundtables, and making it intentional that you're doing one-on-ones with people and things of that nature. It's just different tools, but it's the same desire that people have to frankly be important to their leader in the company.

Yeah, yeah. And it brings us back to the idea of authenticity and communication and creating that open environment.

How important are frequent pulse checks and manager-driven microcultures within teams? Do you think they guide a larger company culture, or vice versa?

Yes and yes. So I think they're really, really important. As I said in the beginning, or rather at the end of the day, when your employees go home and they have dinner with their family, they're not typically talking about the CEO. Yes, it's an important role, and yes, it's important for business strategy and things like that. But you're talking about your manager and you're talking about your colleagues. So that manager and team experience is the company. It is the culture. Now, sometimes there's a disconnect, and the goal of the executive team is to try to minimize that disconnect as much as possible and create an alignment in the culture. And the executives have to make sure that they're setting the expectation for culture and creating systems and structures that reinforce the behaviors we want to be there, hiring the right people, promoting them, developing them in the right way, all of those types of things. But I think, at the end of the day, the manager is setting that day-to-day culture and experience for the person.

So I do think the touch points are essential. I mentioned how we operate today, and I don't think there's a way around small touches throughout the week. And especially as we start to see changes in the demographics of our workforce, the current newer generation coming into the workforce want more and more real-time touches, rather than a big event, a big annual review or something like that. They want to know more real-time, is what I'm doing the right thing. So I think it's really critical.

I guess the only other point I would make is managers have to set the tone by their leadership behavior. So touch points are important, but they're watching you all the time. So as a leader, you're on stage, whether you wanted to be or not. Now that you took the role, you are. And you have to understand that they're watching every single day. Are you living the behaviors? And are you living to the highest standard of the behaviors? Because it's not fair to expect your team to live to a higher standard than you're willing to put yourself to. And so it's not just what you're saying in the meetings that you're holding, but how you conduct yourself. And even when you think nobody's watching, they still are.

Definitely. It's funny, I never thought about all that goes into the title of manager. As many times as you get promoted, it's just the next step, but there's so much that goes into that role. It's fascinating. And I think it's interesting with your company, 1600 employees you oversee and guide the culture for. Do you ever feel like these microcultures almost fight against the larger company culture? And how do you keep both on track?

Yeah, it's tough. And the bigger you get, the more microcultures do creep in. It's just part of it. And especially when you're doing things like acquiring companies. You're essentially acquiring new cultures and then trying to integrate that. And there's a certain aspect of wanting them to maintain their identity. Because if you're buying a company, or frankly, you have a great operating business unit, there's a reason they're operating well. And it's not because they don't have things figured out from a culture perspective, typically.

So I think there's got to be the unifying principles and the non-negotiables that go across the company. And for us, we have our core values that we hold very close. Those are non-negotiables. We won't acquire a company that doesn't hold them. We make it very clear coming in, any person joining, anyone getting promoted, these are the non-negotiables. And then sometimes it's okay to have a little freedom in the culture for people to feel unique and teams to feel unique. And as long as they're within a certain range and it's not against any of those non-negotiables, then I think we need to let teams be who they need to be to get the best out of their team.

Yeah, interesting.

Well, the next question, and our last one, digs further into some of the technology solutions you're investing in and your thoughts on them. So how do you think technology can enable managers and people leaders to deliver on culture initiatives and improve retention?

Yes. So I think it absolutely can help. I am seeing more and more great technology options coming out, and actually this year I'm going through an implementation of a whole new human capital management system here at the company. So we are going to be leveraging a lot of new technology in order to take our retention to the next level. So I do think there is a time and place for that. And it's very helpful at the macro level, at the high level, when you're leading a company, to have a lot of the predictive analytics and things like that that are available, because you can't have one-on-one relationships with your entire population. So it can help you see themes and trends and insights that maybe you witness.

The only caveat I would say is, for the average leader, look at that as supplementation to all this stuff we already talked about today. I always want to make sure that managers don't think, well, the new system will tell me if I have a retention challenge. You don't want to defer any of that responsibility. I look at it as a way to see things that I couldn't see as a human already. It's a supplementation, not a replacement for what we need to be doing as great leaders. But there's some amazing technology out there, and it's getting better and better at being able to connect the dots in places we typically live.

Interesting. Yeah, a completely different industry and different reasons, but we saw with Southwest recently, right? That whole debacle with all the canceled flights, and it really came down to outdated technology and not being able to predict in the way they needed to for the scale. So I can imagine a company like yours, as large as it is, you do need technology. But how do you go about properly implementing it as you test different solutions and try to get them to work together, at the same time balancing those physical interactions as well? There are some examples you could use, as your day-to-day monthly process when it comes to surveys, but at the same time having those in-person conversations and then recording all that data. How do you properly manage it?

Yeah, and I think it's a challenge, I will say, for anyone, because the world's changing so quickly, right? So I look at technology as a way to handle all of the complexity that's coming at us. And I think Southwest is a really great example of, you can't let the business evolve to a certain level of complexity that you don't have the ability to manage. You have to make sure those things are evolving at the same time. Much like you can't lose focus of your capabilities from a people side and let the business outpace them. So they have to be done at the same time.

I think, for me, it's about engaging the end users in the technology solution, so that it's not technology for technology's sake. It is going to help answer the questions that the leaders need answered. And so when I think about great surveys and things of that nature, are we measuring the right things that will drive the behaviors and the insights that the leaders need? Are we doing that frequently enough to see the changes and reactions to an action we took? Are we sure that the outcome is actually being effective? Are we able to give leading indicators of things, that, hey, something's going on in the retention data here, you may want to pay attention to this subset of employees to go have follow-up conversations. So I really think of it as providing the leader with even more resources and tools to go get what they need to get done. But you have to make sure that the end users see it as value, or else they won't engage, or you won't get the return on it. So whether that end user is a manager or employee or whomever in the organization.

I see. Yeah, it's interesting. So would you not necessarily put a survey out and then take immediate action on that? You instead kind of have that as the initial step, followed by the in-person interaction.

Yeah, I think that's sort of the thing, because you'll have the survey come out, and we're actually right now in the process of just wrapping up ours in the next week or two. We have one out now. We'll take that, and then we'll digest the data, but then we'll go back out to the organization, in our branches and our different populations, and say, here are the things that we heard that were themes. We want to take some action in this. Here's some of the things we're thinking about, but does this really solve the challenge? So entering into more of an iterative dialogue, so that employees feel like they're building the culture with you, versus this exchange of information. So just keeping the human aspect to it and utilizing the technology to help you unlock things that maybe you wouldn't typically have seen. And then that way it feels more authentic, like a partnership between that leader and their teams.

Definitely, yeah. There's one recurring theme I've heard so far in these interviews, is having that, taking action on those surveys.

Absolutely.

So that people feel like their voices matter. But interesting to dive into that process there, of when you take that action and how.

Yeah, and then I think what people sometimes lose sight of is they'll go take the action, and then that's it. They won't talk about it. And the reality is, especially when you're leading a large organization, people are always coming and going, and they might not have been the ones that gave you that feedback. Somebody else might have. So you have to continue to tell the story about here's what you said, here's what we chose to do, here was the impact it had. Now I'm going to offer you another opportunity to tell us something else, and kind of keeping that flow. But it's not enough just to take the action. You have to explain to people that it was based on their feedback, that you're trying to make it a different place based on what they've said, and that you're committed to continuing that iterative learning and action process. And I think sometimes leaders think, well, I did what they asked, but nobody knows about it. And if they don't know about it, then you lose the impact of that action.

Definitely, definitely. Well, great, I'm so happy that we were able to chat today and to gain some tips on how to improve these culture issues that we're all facing today. So with that, this concludes our conversation. Really fabulous conversation, Melissa. Your insights on manager-centered cultures were extremely compelling. In today's day and age, creating manager-centered cultures is the key to organizational success. And with CultureMonkey, leaders can effectively analyze employee sentiments with data and enable managers to take action. So visit culturemonkey.io to see how you can improve your workplace culture today.

And with that, we finish off this episode of Culture Club X. Thank you again for your time today, Melissa. And if you can, let our viewers know how they can get in touch with you if they want to share some thoughts on the episode or just have a quick chat.

Yes, absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn, or you can reach out to me at the company, melissa.dimuro@limbachinc.com.

Great, I love that. We haven't got an email yet, it's always LinkedIn. And I love email as well.

Yeah, direct email is just fine. You can find me.

Yeah, great. Okay, well, that's all we have for you in this episode of Culture Club X, powered by CultureMonkey. Until next time, this is your host, Diana Blass, signing off.