In this episode, the boys interview Angela Cheng-Cimini, the CHRO at Harvard Business Publishing, about hyper individualization in the workplace. They discuss the importance of meeting employees where they are and providing a personalized employee experience. They also explore the impact of COVID-19 on workplace flexibility and the shift towards remote work. The conversation covers topics such as pay transparency, career progression, and the role of managers in shaping the employee experience. Angela emphasizes the need for organizations to adapt to the changing expectations of employees and create a culture of belonging and growth.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:23.494)
yeah. What's up, everybody? It is your favorite podcast, aka the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Cheeseman joined as always. Chad. So wash is in the house and today we welcome Angela Chang, Simony. She is the CHRO at Harvard Business Publishing. Maybe you've heard of a little thing called the Harvard Business Review. Yeah, same thing. Angela welcome.
Chad Sowash (00:48.377)
Ooh, maybe.
Joel Cheesman (00:52.486)
to the podcast.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (00:53.512)
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, great to be here.
Joel Cheesman (00:56.07)
Good to have you. Good to have you. So a lot of our listeners, if not all of them have no clue who you are. They probably know about your company and who you work for, but give us a little bit about you and then we'll get into the business stuff.
Chad Sowash (00:58.137)
Thanks for being here.
Chad Sowash (01:03.769)
Let's hope so.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (01:09.064)
30 year HR career professional, spanning startups, global 100 companies in decline, but always in HR. Proud mom of two amazing adult children, married my college sweetheart. And we currently have three dogs in the house because we're dog sitting my sons as well. So there's a lot of puppy energy right now. Tumbleweeds of dog hair everywhere. It's kind of crazy. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (01:29.798)
Sounds like we got a Gen Xer on this show.
Chad Sowash (01:34.873)
I love it. I love it. I love it. Hey, that's, that's, that's what happens when you have, when you have dogs. How many dogs do you have? You have two. Okay. So you added, so when, when you add the one into the mix, do they go a little bit nuts for a while or? Good.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (01:43.048)
We have two, we have two, yeah.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (01:50.888)
my God, they're a pack. And it turns out that my son's dog is the litter mate of our girl dog. And it's so cute watching them come together. They're like, my God, we're back in utero. Yeah, it's crazy.
Joel Cheesman (01:52.262)
The zoomies.
Chad Sowash (01:56.505)
nice!
Chad Sowash (02:01.177)
Ha!
Joel Cheesman (02:03.91)
Chad will never be more engaged on this show as he is when you mentioned dogs. Like we should just have a dog podcast for Chad.
Chad Sowash (02:04.441)
That's like Joel and I.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (02:08.744)
we can do that too.
Chad Sowash (02:11.801)
We should do that. We should do that. Beyond that, though, let's talk a little bit about hyper individualization. My God, 10 syllables for this thing, for goodness sakes. What does that even mean? What does hyper individualization even mean?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (02:23.816)
Ha ha.
Joel Cheesman (02:26.246)
My brain hurts.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (02:29.736)
It means meeting the employee where they are. So giving them the experience they want. So Amazon feeds me movies, Spotify gives me a playlist, Netflix, same thing. And organizations have been slow to catch on to deliver the same kind of customer journey and employee experience. And they're sitting on just as much data. And in fact, they probably know even more about employees than Amazon does just for my credit card transactions.
Chad Sowash (02:32.185)
Chad Sowash (02:58.041)
Wow. Well, that's good.
Joel Cheesman (03:00.71)
So you care enough about this to do a study on it. Give us an overview of the genesis of this thing and what it is, who you talk to. Give us a broad overview and set the table.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (03:13.128)
Yeah, so I joined Harvard Business Publishing HBP almost three years ago and needed to sort of reinvent the fundamentals of all the people practices and then realized that the next elevation that was then one click below, which is, OK, what does Chad need? What does Joel need? Right? So I've got sort of the systems in place. But now how do I really take that to the next mile and give people exactly what they're looking for?
Chad Sowash (03:29.721)
That's a good question.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (03:39.848)
And the answer is people want what they want. And now, increasingly, they want it when they want it. They don't want to get promoted when I say they get promoted. They want to get promoted when they want to be promoted. They want learning and development delivered in the modalities that work best for them. So maybe that's asynchronous. Maybe that's in person. Maybe that's a boot camp that's a week. Maybe it's over four months. But people want choice because they have it everywhere else in their life. And so we've got to deliver it.
Chad Sowash (04:07.161)
So we've been talking about meeting people where they are and most people don't even know what the hell that means. It sounds good. I mean, it's great. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. But for years, companies, I mean, there's been the meeting of the company where it wants you to meet them, right? And so was this change really something that was pushed forward much faster because of COVID? What do you think?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (04:24.104)
That's right.
Chad Sowash (04:36.249)
this actually, or was this just a normal progression, I guess.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (04:39.912)
No, I think COVID was definitely a trigger, right? And the great resignation, people suddenly saying, screw this, I've discovered what's really important to me in life, and it ain't working for the man, right? It's finding meaning in the work. I want to work where I want, when I want, with whom I want. And I'm willing to leave if I don't get it. And then I think consumer -grade gen AI then accelerated that even further. So now we can take mountains of data.
Chad Sowash (04:59.161)
Mm -hmm.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (05:07.112)
and build out a plan just for you. There's no reason to say there's too much information, I don't know how to deal with it all. We don't have an excuse because technology can make that easier for us.
Chad Sowash (05:16.473)
It's not hard though, from a compliance standpoint, because if you want to be able to provide everybody their individual type of process, there's risk of somebody saying, wait a minute, my process isn't as easy as Joel's was. It was different. And, you know, I deserve to have the easier process, even though it was more, it was more something that I wanted styled to something that would have been perfect for me.
doesn't this provide some sort of risk with regard to employers and obviously HR is not a big fan of risk.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (05:54.312)
Absolutely, I mean I think that's always been the art and science of developing an equitable experience. What works for you might not work for me and they are going to look different. So how do you make sure that you are containing that experience in a way that people understand why it looks different? In fact, just this morning I had a whole conversation with our people leaders about how compensation works at HVP. There's a level of transparency that you have to practice and I think you treat people like adults and you assume they've got a modicum of common sense, they'll follow the message and this is no different.
Chad Sowash (06:02.841)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (06:23.705)
So talk about that real quick. Pay transparency. Pay transparency really is supposed to be pushing forward toward pay equity. How's that working within Harvard Business Publishing?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (06:33.96)
Yeah.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (06:38.216)
Actually, really, really freaking fantastic. In fact, we had an outside consultant come in and examine our pay practices, and they could find no instance where the pay difference couldn't be explained by skills, competence, or mastery. The other way of saying that is there was no gender bias, no racial bias, no discriminatory dimension that fed into why people are paid differently. Really, really proud of that one.
Joel Cheesman (06:50.406)
Nice.
Chad Sowash (07:01.273)
And you should be, and you really should be. Have you done anything around that to be able to kind of like encapsulate what you're doing as a standard for other companies? Because there are a lot of companies right now that are just going crazy over trying to manage this. It's literally like herding cats for many of them.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (07:23.72)
It is and it isn't. I mean, I think some of it is just will. I mean, it's a black box, so it's easy to just sort of keep it behind the curtain and not have to explain yourself to other people. But I want to hold myself accountable to my employees. I want them to have confidence that they're being paid appropriately. And so we just constantly pressure testing the system. I get a new hire. We're making sure that the people that are currently already in the job aren't suffering because they didn't just come off the market. Managers are...
Joel Cheesman (07:31.91)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (07:32.377)
yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (07:48.505)
Mm -hmm.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (07:49.352)
constantly being vigilant. If they think there's a problem, we take a look at it and we go out and we get the data. So we're just vigilant year round. We're not waiting it for every three years to, you know, to make sure that we're not out of whack.
Joel Cheesman (08:00.294)
Yeah. Going back to the research, I always seem to think that if we say something is universal, that we get into trouble, that everyone wants what they want, when they want, how they want. Did we find that there are some people that just don't know, are looking for direction, are looking for the old adage of lead follower, get the hell out of the way. Like there are some followers that are looking for guidance. Yes. Or is everyone in this bucket of I know what I want and when I want it and how I want it.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (08:30.12)
definitely not. I mean, I have a 25 year old daughter who doesn't always know what she wants, right? She's still figuring it out. And I love that phase of life for her. But that in and of itself is hyper personalization. So that means that person needs a manager to lean in. Maybe they need a mentor. Maybe they need someone more experienced to share with them what might be coming down the pike. And then there are others who absolutely know where they want it.
Joel Cheesman (08:50.502)
Gotcha. So in terms of the survey, who did you talk to? Who is the survey for big employer, small employers, every everything in between? Talk about that.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (08:59.848)
I actually just aggregated existing research and just sort of connected the dots. So one of the really interesting pieces of evidence that I picked up was that, well, I'll ask you, what percentage of the employee experience do you think is determined, the quality of that experience, what do you think, how much of that is determined by the manager?
Joel Cheesman (09:16.486)
Angela, we asked the questions on this show, not you. Yeah. High percentage is what I would say.
Chad Sowash (09:17.017)
Probably a hundred percent a hundred percent.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (09:21.768)
Yeah, it probably feels like that. But yeah, it's like 70%, right? So when we say that employees leave, managers on organizations, it's absolutely true. So there's no other factor that even approaches that vector of magnitude, right? So if you understand that the manager is the locus of where everything happens, and then you give them the power to say, yeah, influence pay, influence how they learn, influence how quickly people move through the ranks, you suddenly unlock how you can deliver a really bespoke employee experience.
Joel Cheesman (09:25.606)
Okay.
Joel Cheesman (09:49.766)
So one of the...
Chad Sowash (09:50.361)
take a look at the remote work real quick. As we're talking about flexibility and wanting to provide them with meeting them where they are, that is one of the hardest things for many old CEOs to wrap their head around because they're used to micromanagement, they're used to looking over somebody's shoulder, knowing that if they're in the office, whether they're at the water cooler or not, it doesn't matter, just as when they're in the office,
Joel Cheesman (09:54.342)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (10:18.073)
They feel like something's getting done. Now that feeling is pretty much bullshit for the most part, but that is what they believe. And that's what we've seen from many of these organizations. How do we, how do we get out of that? Do we just have to wait for these leaders to die off before, before we get there?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (10:34.887)
or they see their business suffer. I was actually talking to someone who was consulting with an organization who was insisting on an RTO mandate. And they were waffling like, I'm not sure, should we, okay, maybe the office people don't have to and the people in the manufacturing line do. It just created all sorts of clutter. Just pick a side and then go with it. It's this in between, you're not taking a point of view on an issue that's really important to a lot of people and then let people decide whether or not it's a place where they wanna stay.
I mean, I think that mandating a return is going to prove in the long run not to be a good business strategy, but we'll see. We'll see.
Joel Cheesman (11:09.638)
That was one of the things that caught my eye on the, on the study is that the biggest divide was between the companies that wanted you that weren't doing remote. It was only like 20 % that were, but 70 plus percent of the workers wanted remote work. So that was the biggest divide in terms of, of one and employers. And do you have anything anecdotally or research wise? Did, did we get closer during the pandemic and then we're going back or like, how was that?
changed over the last few years. If you don't have data, do you have anything anecdotally?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (11:42.472)
No, absolutely. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, companies have been wrestling with that kind of workplace flexibility for a long time. And in the span of a week, the whole country went remote. The whole world went remote. And suddenly figured out how to do it. Technology hadn't quite kept up, but that didn't take too long to catch up either. So I think what's true is that the Pandora's box has been opened. And employees who won't go back will never go back.
Chad Sowash (11:54.009)
Yeah.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (12:08.488)
to going back into the office. And so that has fundamentally shifted that conversation. And whether employers are going to move with it or not remains to be seen and will show up absolutely on their P &L. No question.
We're office optional and I think I love that for us.
Joel Cheesman (12:22.214)
Curious?
Yeah. I always thought that some companies will be remote, some won't, and people will decide what kind of organization they want to work for. But as far as the data says, if you're not going remote, you're losing out on a lot of people that you could be recruiting and retaining, in that process. One of the things that caught my attention as well, you talk about career progression in the study, talk about what that means. And what shocked me was you had 34 % of the people are not interested in.
career progression, which surprised me. So tell us about specifically what you were looking for and did that shock you as well? And if so, why?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (13:02.376)
It did, so it's a third of people don't want to become managers. They don't mind continuing to move through the ranks if it's an individual contributor role, but they look at the job of a manager and they say, that's crap, right? You're taking on the burden of taking care of all these people, right? Making sure they're performing and I got my own plate of stuff I need to get done. There's nothing glamorous about that. There's not enough combat pay in the world to make me take on that role. And the reason that's concerning is, right, like I...
Chad Sowash (13:12.697)
Mm -hmm.
It is.
Joel Cheesman (13:17.414)
You
Angela Cheng-Cimini (13:30.888)
hope to be retired, let's call it 10 years. Who's coming up behind me? It doesn't look so good. So that's a concern for the succession plan and the pipeline. And so we have to find a way to make that work, not just palatable, but actually aspirable, if that's a way.
Chad Sowash (13:47.097)
Yeah, well, in does it all from what we've seen, it seems like most companies aren't thinking about career progression in the first place. They're leaving it to the employee and the employee has no idea what the career path is other than trying to get to manager, which many of them don't. So they have no offshoot to have lateral moves or go into other other departments. So
Did you see what they were interested in? Was it just being an individual contributor, not in this spot, but still progressing in the organization and other departments? Because we're seeing a lot of attrition in organizations, and that's probably a lot has to do with managers, but also because they can't see where they're going to be in the next six months to the next 18 months. So what have you seen in connecting those dots with all that research?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (14:41.128)
Yeah, so it's just making it visible, just putting it out there. I mean, sometimes they don't want to necessarily make the choice, but knowing that they can one day when they want to. So we've got 20 job families, and it's very clear the competencies that are required for each one of those. And people can choose their own adventure. So my favorite story is someone in marketing who wanted to come over to HR because she wanted to do more DEI work. And she was able to see which ones of her skills were transferable and which ones were not. She was a director, came over as a manager.
Chad Sowash (14:49.113)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (15:03.193)
Mm -hmm.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (15:09.416)
because she didn't quite meet the mark as an HR director. And I'm happy to say that she's probably going to be promoted soon because now she's acquired those skills that are required in HR. But that was a choice and path that she charted herself.
Chad Sowash (15:21.945)
Well, was she able to see the like the learning and development side as well and being able to know that, wait a minute here where my gaps are, I need to fill these gaps to be able to get to that director position or VP position. Is that something that you guys have in place? And if you do, what are the formats that you're currently doing any type of learning? Is it digital, E, you know, those types of things, or is it, you know, in class?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (15:30.248)
Yes.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (15:49.096)
It's all of the above and again, I think to our earlier discussion chat, it all depends on how people learn best. Some people learn best OJT, right? OTJ, on the job, right? OJT, on the job training, right? They don't wanna sit in the classroom. They'd actually be, rather be doing it. And so this person's manager really intentionally built out a plan, made sure that she had experiences and opportunities so she could gain the skills she needed so she could get promoted. She's also...
Chad Sowash (15:56.441)
Yeah. On the job. Yeah.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (16:15.368)
extremely ambitious. She took e -certificate classes on her own time. But that was what she wanted to do, right? And her movement is reflective of the journey that she wants for herself.
Chad Sowash (16:27.769)
So have you been able to correlate this, I don't know, change from how you are currently looking at, again, meeting people where they are, and attrition, and then also productivity so that you can focus on the bottom line, creating great content, sales, service, those types of things.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (16:47.496)
That's a great question. I will tell you that we are fortunate not to have an attrition problem. I think we're really blessed with having a really noble mission. We are in the marketplace of the very best leadership ideas. And we work with some of the best authors and contributors. So there's something really, really compelling about the work that we do that keeps people with Harvard Business Publishing. But yes, I like to think that our people practices and that our leadership
within the company helps people to stay because we give them opportunities to grow, we teach them, we're all about lifelong learning. And it's just kind of cool to work on the stuff that we work on.
Joel Cheesman (17:28.518)
So curious about adoption. We have companies that are using spreadsheets. So I'm using actual paper to sort of manage all this stuff about pathways and progression. And then we have companies that are on the forefront and have built their own tools or using tools that they, that they pay for on a regular basis. What did you find in regards to where people are? And if someone is on the X, you know, the Excel spreadsheet end of the spectrum, what advice would you give to them?
to get on this train of finding out where your people are. The marketing person that wanted to get into HR is a great story. How did she find out that she was interested in that? How did she get the skills to eventually go into that place? I assume it was technology, but I'm not sure. Talk about adoption, where companies are and where they should be.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (18:14.824)
I love this question because when I built this career pathing framework the first time around, I was at an automotive technology startup. And I literally did it on an Excel spreadsheet. And that's what I brought over to HVP. And so I think organizations are sometimes intimidated. They think they need to have bells and whistles and need to spend millions of dollars on HCM. You don't. You can do it with chicken wire and spit. You just need time and you need an executive sponsorship to get it done.
And in fact, I still often reference that Excel spreadsheet because that's how simple the program is. Now, all the stuff behind it obviously takes months to build out. But if you're willing to commit the resources, you don't need something really sophisticated in terms of technology to make it happen. And then we just publish it on our intranet. And so that woman was able to look across at all the job families and clearly see the skills she needed. It's not a super sophisticated, but I think it is organizations are intimidated by the time and effort it requires.
Chad Sowash (19:09.177)
I mean, that's just transparency in itself. It's data, it's transparency, and it's just providing the information to the people. Yeah. So good.
Joel Cheesman (19:16.038)
Yeah. And, and we also talk quite a bit on the show of how recruiting has changed because of this, of this strategy of saying, let's grow our own. Let's see who we already have in the organization. We don't have to post a job. We don't have to do the whole process and the, and the costs of doing that. How has that impacted companies ability to cut down on recruiting costs because they are utilizing, their current crop of talent.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (19:16.04)
putting it out there.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (19:45.384)
That's, you know, I think that's a delicate balance. I think if you over -index on anything, it's bad, right? So if all you do is promote internal mobility, then you're never injecting the organization with fresh blood. On the other hand, you don't want people to think that they can't get ahead and all we ever do is go buy the talent. So we have seen an increase in internal mobility since we rolled out the career pathing and that's a really good thing. Well, what I will say is that we're seeing...
that we do need to go outside for some of these new capabilities, particularly in data and digital intelligence, AI stuff, machine learning, data analysts and scientists. We're not big enough. We're not like a Google or a Meta where we can home grow those people. So we have to go out into the marketplace and compete for that. So I think some of it is dependent on the role as well.
Chad Sowash (20:33.529)
So we talked to, I'm just going to say it, we talked to boomers and extras all the time. And the mindset is belonging. I didn't feel like I had to belong. I just came to work. I worked 60 hours a week. I kicked ass, take names, and this is where I got to today. That's exactly right. Yes. A little spit and bailing wire.
Joel Cheesman (20:52.742)
rub some dirt on it if I heard it.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (20:57.488)
Uphill both ways. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (20:58.969)
Exactly, exactly. So how do you get, because this is definitely a culture shift from the standpoint of, again, you're literally living to work versus working to live, right? How do you make that culture shift?
Joel Cheesman (21:07.974)
Yeah, the generations.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (21:16.808)
Well, I mean, I would argue that back in the day, people would have wanted to felt like they belonged. They just didn't think it was appropriate to ask of it. I mean, that's just not how organizations were structured. We just didn't make space for that. And so I think we're trained up for the environment that we grew up in. And this generation of workers has a very different set of expectations around what's appropriate, what's required, what's morally necessary. And they're demanding it.
Chad Sowash (21:28.249)
Like salaries, right?
Chad Sowash (21:44.185)
Mm -hmm.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (21:45.704)
I mean, nobody stays anywhere 30 years because that's what they were expected to do. Now, if you stay somewhere three years, that's enough time to make an impact. I'm looking to jump ship already. So I think some of it is we're just a product of our environment. I would argue that nobody ever didn't want to feel like they belong.
Chad Sowash (22:02.745)
And it's interesting too, because I mean, Joel and I talk about this is that, you know, my kids have more empathy than I have. I mean, I'm still trying to catch up with them for goodness sakes. The, you know, the emotional awareness. I mean, just those types of things. Again, we were told to suck it up and drive on and that wasn't healthy. So now, you know, we're seeing these Z's and who knows the alphas next that are popping up.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (22:29.544)
Right.
Chad Sowash (22:30.393)
Who really embrace that and they don't have to be in management They don't have to you know, they're not trying to again Live to work. So it's really it's interesting for me as I we watch that the kids start to come up How they are developing do you think that's going to hurt?
some of the midline management, maybe we have too much of it already, but the midline management in leaders, or you just think that they're gonna mature into those positions.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (23:03.24)
I think it's all of it, Chad. I mean, I think we also need to probably shift how we're thinking about our midline leaders. I mean, they are in a rock and a hard place, right? They're strategists and executionists. They're player and coach. They've got to make sure they deliver and take care of everybody else's work. I mean, it is not a good job, and they are probably often the most overlooked as well. So I think organizations are going to have to pivot if they're going to fill those ranks, because as far as I'm concerned, that's where the work actually happens.
Chad Sowash (23:09.401)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (23:23.865)
Mm -hmm.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (23:31.912)
and organizations that thin that out, that make that sort of an hourglass shape, are losing out on a lot of potential in their workforce.
Joel Cheesman (23:40.07)
Angela, you've probably heard it's an election year and there's been a lot of, news stories around political leanings. And should you be able to be political at work? Should you not, we're only about making money. Is that part of hyper individualization or not? Where are you on sort of politics in the workplace and does it have a place or not?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (23:43.208)
Angela Cheng-Cimini (24:02.025)
I think, so what we have published is that when an organization chooses to speak about a social issue has everything to do with why do you exist. So if you're in healthcare, you probably should have an opinion about Jackson v. Dops. If you're selling pencils, it doesn't get you anything to come out about the Middle East conflict, right? So pick and choose where your stakeholders would expect you to have an opinion. Can you actually make a difference and do you have a responsibility to take a stand? Otherwise, just stay the hell out of it.
Chad Sowash (24:15.673)
Yes.
Chad Sowash (24:21.093)
-huh. Yeah
Joel Cheesman (24:32.934)
And with that... Huh.
Angela Cheng-Cimini (24:33.096)
Now in terms of workplace conversations, you know, we just try to make sure that, you know, we try to keep it pretty safe. I mean, there are safe spaces. We have ERGs and we have Slack channels where people can find like -minded folks. But I think people understand that organizationally, it's better for us just to kind of focus on being kind to each other and talk about the things that matter while we're here.
Chad Sowash (24:35.769)
Hahaha
Joel Cheesman (24:56.678)
Fair enough, fair enough. Let's end it on that. Angela Ching -Simony everybody. She is CHRO at Harvard Business Publishing. Angela, for anyone that wants to connect with you, maybe access the survey. Where would you send them?
Angela Cheng-Cimini (25:10.824)
I am the only Angela Chang Semonite on LinkedIn, and if you let me know that you heard me on the Chad and Chi show, I'd be happy to connect.
Joel Cheesman (25:17.958)
Love it, love it. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out.
Chad Sowash (25:18.233)
Ooh.
Chad Sowash (25:23.801)
We out.
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