The Role of Managers in Redefining the Employee Experience

CheeTung Leong: How do you build a culture of feedback and grow elite teams? I'm CT at Engage Rocket and to help us answer the question today is Sandy Ortiz. Sandy is the head of people and talent at Lunchbox, and it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today.

Sandy Ortez: Yes, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk about this. It's something I'm pretty passionate about.

CheeTung Leong: Wonderful. For those of the listeners who don't know what, is it that Lunchbox. io does?

Sandy Ortez: Lunchbox is an all in one enterprise online ordering platform for restaurants. So if you can imagine anytime you want to go to one of your favorite restaurants and place an order, You would use our technology to do so. we're focused in that mid-market and enterprise space. It's growing, it's scaling.

We're doing some pretty amazing things. And so our company also with being an all in one ordering platform, it's not just about that, but it's also about the restaurants being able to utilize their data. So understanding your customer base, being able to take control of the marketing.

customers to do. And there's [: 00:01:00

CheeTung Leong: Perfect. And you're the head of people and talent. What is the scope of your responsibilities within this organization?

Sandy Ortez: So it's a little bit of everything. I am in the startup space. And if you said, Hey, Sandy, what are you in charge of? What? What is your department doing for the company? It is all about ensuring people understand what their roles are. They understand what we're working and driving toward together.

It's just making sure that we create the space where everybody's excited and we're all working toward the same goal. So it's everything HR, but it's a little bit more personal for me because we are also putting focus on the employee journey. So what is their journey from start to however long that they're here how do they grow within the company and how do we make it fun?

CheeTung Leong: Yeah, startup environment, fully remote and how to make it fun. You've got a tough job.

Sandy Ortez: That's the fun part, CT. It's the fun part.

ith the macro environment as [: 00:02:00

How are they performing? Do, we actually have an elite team? That whole topic of performance management and feedback. This really is, forefront on, the minds of, many leaders today. I understand that within lunchbox. io, you guys have been working towards transcending out of that once, twice yearly kind of performance reviews into something a little bit different.

Sandy Ortez: Yes. When I bring up performance reviews, it oftentimes gives people a lot of anxiety. There are some past ideas about it where it's like, Oh, I'm going to find out all the bad things, . Instead here. Yes, we do it twice a year at this point in the summertime. And then in the winter we take a little bit of a different approach.

new things. We're not saying [: 00:03:00

This really should be a conversation of what has gone really well and what should I be working on from here going forward, . It should be a reset period. The way that we have integrated additional touch points are my team and I, we are checking in with employees once a quarter.

I have a team of three. It's one person in people ops and another in talent. We have different touches. In talent. We're going to start from the get go. That person understands what they're responsible for and how to be successful from the beginning. Second is we're doing the 30, 60, 90 check ins at 30 days.

e as a surprise, and we just [: 00:04:00

Because when we go through this and we're tracking the employee journey, we want to make sure that we never come back to this moment of performance reviews where people are saying to themselves, I never knew that I was responsible for doing that.

It's all about how they onboard. It's about setting expectations in that first 30, 60, 90 days. It's the high touch. So managers have a cadence with them. People operations has a cadence with them. And so when we get to that performance review season, there should not be a question as to What the responsibilities are and why goals are not being achieved. it's a different process that we're taking. We're finding out more data earlier on to help tweak their pathway so that they can continue to be successful.

you land up on a pip. These [: 00:05:00

Sandy Ortez: So we do a check in with the employee, but we also do it with the manager as well, because we might be hearing one story from the employee and something very different than the manager. And that allows us space. Let's say I have feedback from the employee that would be valuable for the manager.

Maybe they missed something during the onboarding process, and I need to let them know that. Maybe they're not discovering quickly enough how to best communicate with each other. Maybe that was a new manager and doesn't understand the communication differences with employees. So we're discovering this much sooner so that we can take feedback live and give it to them. The goal really is to create this seamless onboarding.

successful and they're never [: 00:06:00

CheeTung Leong: Oh, there's so much to unpack there because there's this trio of feedback that needs to happen between managers, the employees, and the people team. And if you keep that communication tight, actually, you get pretty good results. How do you organize this effort? And that's the first hurdle I can think of for organizations thinking of how do we implement something like this? How do you even stay on top of all these conversations?

, it's time to check in with [: 00:07:00

We keep it in a Google sheet. I know that this is crazy. I know not many people want to be in sheets all day every day, but you know what? We can do a quick control find if we're, we remember that somebody has said something it's all in one place. It is protected within our environment, within HR.

But we do also add this to the employee notes section of BambooHR as well. So it's double work. We are able to manage it because our team is at a head count. That's under 150. So really grateful that we have the space to be able to do this. . It's not feasible for many other companies that maybe have more.

So it's just maximizing the talent on my team and maximizing our time, making sure that we prioritize this time with the managers and the employees.

ing and cross reference them [: 00:08:00

Is there a particular structure or like set of questions that you use or like a way of having these conversations?

Sandy Ortez: They are structured questions and many of them are the same questions. Oftentimes they end up being organic conversations for us. So sometimes it's as simple as how are you doing? You're now 60 days into the organization. What's working well? Where do you need more assistance? And how can we help bring something over the line for you?

So oftentimes when you start with really basic questions, you're you allow this open space for that employee to share anything and everything that would be important. So it's one creating that safe space,. So through these check ins, we're already building on a relationship together. And so over time, you start to learn to trust each other and open up.

you're not going to get the [: 00:09:00

CheeTung Leong: That's great. How do you find that employees take to this because they may really depends on the level of trust they have with HR and for some reason, there's this lack of trust with HR. It's if I'm going to say this, I'm new to the organization, I'm saying this to HR. What if they, tell my boss.

Sandy Ortez: Yes, trust takes time. It does. And being authentic in your conversations means everything. So if you are a very rigid person asking very specific questions, and it's just more about let me get data out of you, you're not going to get the quality of information back. For us, I did. we take a different approach on our team.

Yes, we care. Yes, we still protect the company, but the goal is to create a path together. So if they can't be open with us, we can't help change anything. And so typically that conversation is, Hey, I may not be able to answer or give you the best direction. But if I can't answer or help you, I will find somebody that can help me.

. Being in HR, not everybody [: 00:10:00

And either way, I'm here to guide you . Of course, they know that there's something that actually impacts the company. To some extent, I may have to dive into an issue much deeper and do some investigation. But what I do is I give them examples. Hey, you know what? I've had employees complain about their managers.

So what I can do is tell me what needs to change and I can provide that feedback as open feedback to that person to allow them that space to move forward. Think that through and make the changes that they need. And sometimes it's behavioral. Maybe it's a manager that's cut off their employees a lot during meetings.

I just want to give you that [: 00:11:00

CheeTung Leong: That's such a powerful positioning for HR. You're coming in as HR and you're providing that that openness, that, that transparency that they might not have got it sometimes for whatever reason. Obviously if they have, and their teams are great, then that's fantastic. How, about the managers? How do they respond to this?

Sandy Ortez: I've had a variety of reactions. So if we're talking about how do they respond to feedback, I've had some who go, huh I didn't realize I was doing that. Or, oh, I didn't realize they didn't have access to this tool. I'll make sure I add this to my checklist. I've had others who I've had employees say, I don't get enough one to one time with my manager.

e able to schedule that. But [: 00:12:00

And then I can sit there and remind them, you don't need to do this every single day or every single week, but try it once a week for now, see how that cadence works for you I've had the opposite too. I won't lie where I've given feedback and it's taken very personal and I think a strength of mine is delivering tough feedback in a way that's empathetic.

So I oftentimes I'll just remind them. Hey, I know this feedback can be hard, but I'm only letting this because there's room for growth there and you can take it however way you want. But this is something that I think you should probably focus on and work on.

CheeTung Leong: And do you find this easier, harder, or actually the same working on all of this in a remote setting?

Sandy Ortez: It really depends on what type of feedback I'm giving being in person is always a little bit more nerve wracking. I've had to do that in the past because it's so live and real and you're in person. That's a different it is a different feeling and it's received very differently.

[: 00:13:00

I think it's just understanding the person you're delivering it to knowing how to communicate with them, hopefully having a relationship with them so that it's. the impact is positive. You never want a situation where there's retaliation. Maybe they can zero in on who gave that feedback. So I always try to do my best to, prevent that if possible.

the value of this process to [: 00:14:00

Sandy Ortez: It is mixed because there are some people that just hear performance management and they shut down,. Oh, I don't want to deal with this. This is paperwork, but what I'm able to do is give data. So my check ins. What I do is I can break that down by departments and say, over the last two quarters, these are things that have been brought to my attention.

This is what's working really well. So you should address that with your team and with your individual contributors. This is where I'm being told it's not going very well. And this is what's going to impact the success of your department. And so if somebody is open and willing to listen to that from me, it's better.

But this is an ongoing conversation. It will never stop. I don't know if I will ever get people excited for performance management. I will tell you up until the last day of this last performance review season, I had to ping people on a daily basis, Hey, we've got to complete this. And it's because they don't understand the impact.

u've done wrong. It truly is [: 00:15:00

So it just gives us that extra space and required space to really think on that.

CheeTung Leong: Yeah, that makes sense because I, it's so much easier for leaders and managers to focus on mistakes. How, do you find the impact on the actual performance review? What's the impact on the performance review process?

s to say I really would like [: 00:16:00

Maybe it's a leader. So the leaders this year, I pushed it a bit more. Did we get a hundred percent participation? No, but we came much further than we did the last time around. I think it's about progress. And as long as we're focusing on that and we're doing things in the right way, there's actual impact.

You can't really come back and say that this is, there's, there isn't any good happening right now.

CheeTung Leong: Yeah, and it's really not about perfection, many of these things, right? It's about having the right approach. So Sandy we've spoken a lot about the performance feedback process, and almost like group coaching, the way that this is set up.

And I can't believe that we're at time already. I feel like we've just gotten started in this conversation how do you break everything that we've said down? Because it is quite a lot. And how would you recommend people leaders when they hear this episode and say, Hey, I really want to do what Sandy does, but do I get started?

ind a cadence that works for [: 00:17:00

If you feel like you didn't get much out of it that first round, try something new. So the first time I did this we did in a very different way. It's really hard to go back on, on what happened there, but I didn't feel like we got much of what we needed to truly make an impact with the data.

're going to meet with them. [: 00:18:00

And then we drive that forward. And then we started building on it. Now it's the 30, 60 and 90 day check ins. We integrate that into our data so that when we, when it comes time to performance, I can look back and say, here are the people on your team. Here is the feedback from the last, let's say, two quarters, because we do it twice a year.

You may want to touch base, make sure that they're aligned, make sure this isn't a problem anymore. Are you still doing this that's been mentioned in this data? Start, give it a try. You may have to try new things, but you'll find what works for you through the feedback that you get.

CheeTung Leong: That's awesome, Sandy. And I think there's so much more that the listeners are gonna have popping through their minds right now. If they wanted to find out or engage you in a conversation about that, what's the best way for them to do?

me a message. And I love to [: 00:19:00

CheeTung Leong: Wonderful. Sandy, thanks so much for hanging with us today.

Sandy Ortez: I enjoy this conversation. This has been wonderful. Hopefully we can find some other topics to touch on in the near future.

CheeTung Leong: Absolutely. And, for those of you who are listening, I hope you enjoyed the show and have learned a lot from it. Head over to www.engagerocket.co/hrimpact to sign up for more updates on this community and more content. Thanks so much for listening. My name is CT and see you next time.