Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. If you happen
Speaker 1: to work at the private equity from Carlisle Group, you
Speaker 1: are getting an extra week off next week. That's on
Speaker 1: top of a seven well being stipended. So for more
Speaker 1: on that and how the company is thinking about the
Speaker 1: wellness of its employees, let's find out from Bruce Lawson.
Speaker 1: He is chief human resources officer over at Carlisle Group.
Speaker 1: He's on the phone with us on this Tuesday. Hey, Bruce,
Speaker 1: nice to have you here. How are you hi, Carol great,
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Well, it's great to have
Speaker 1: you here. First of all, I want to get into
Speaker 1: what you guys are doing your world. Tell us how
Speaker 1: things have progressed over the past year and a half
Speaker 1: as you've dealt with the pandemic, you know, getting through it,
Speaker 1: starting to reopening. Kind of where where are you right
Speaker 1: now in terms of your individual firm? So we're um,
Speaker 1: we're doing a great job of managing through things. Our
Speaker 1: firm has been having record level performances. Are people are
Speaker 1: working incredibly hard and they're completely engaged. Um. But like
Speaker 1: everybody who's been going through this has been a journey.
Speaker 1: We've had UM challenges and things that have come up
Speaker 1: that we've tried to deal with, and some of those
Speaker 1: are around our new well being strategy that we have
Speaker 1: implemented a number of months ago. UM. But we're we're
Speaker 1: hanging in there. We'll talk to us about this well
Speaker 1: being strategy because it's really been very interesting, at least
Speaker 1: for me as a journalist and for many others to
Speaker 1: see how companies have opened up in terms of thinking
Speaker 1: about their employees different like how how is that relationship
Speaker 1: between Carlisle the employee or change with Carlyle and its employees. Sure, so, look,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of this started UM a little
Speaker 1: bit before the pandemic, where um, you know, with new
Speaker 1: leadership at Carlisle and our new CEO, Cuson Lee, trying
Speaker 1: to focus on how do we enhance UM an already
Speaker 1: very strong culture in the firm UM and really make
Speaker 1: our human capital strategies in line with all of our
Speaker 1: other strategies to deliver the right kind of commercial results.
Speaker 1: And so we were beginning to talk about a number
Speaker 1: of things, and then, of course, in March of last year,
Speaker 1: the world began to change, and we all went out
Speaker 1: on on a lockdown for what everybody thought would be
Speaker 1: two weeks in life could get back to normal UM,
Speaker 1: but of course that didn't happen UM, and so we
Speaker 1: began navigating our way through that and one of the
Speaker 1: key pillars of our human capital strategy that we wanted
Speaker 1: to put in place. But what this all happened was
Speaker 1: sort of a very clear and transparent communication from leadership
Speaker 1: about what was going on in the world, and the
Speaker 1: pandemic kind of gave us no choice but to really
Speaker 1: accelerate that, and so we spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: just very openly and candidly and honestly communicating with our
Speaker 1: people about what was going on, even at times when
Speaker 1: we didn't really know what was going on, so that
Speaker 1: the new management was watching things and being concerned about things.
Speaker 1: And as the pandemic progressed, UM, well all individually got
Speaker 1: a sense for the increased stress levels that we're going
Speaker 1: on UM because of your inability to separate from work
Speaker 1: and just no stop button, and it felt like people
Speaker 1: were living at work more than they were working from home.
Speaker 1: And so we started to focus on a bunch of
Speaker 1: things around UM focusing on the well being of our people,
Speaker 1: because we have a strong belief that if our people
Speaker 1: are feeling better about themselves both physically, mentally emotionally, they'll
Speaker 1: be able to perform better individuals and their teams will
Speaker 1: function better, and ultimately that will deliver better commercial results
Speaker 1: for the firm. And so we started to put together
Speaker 1: kind of a brief well being approach, which has evolved
Speaker 1: into a much more formal strategy UM where we're trying
Speaker 1: to cover essentially the five pillars of well being as
Speaker 1: as we see them, which are physical, emotional, social, environmental,
Speaker 1: and financial. And our initial thrust has really been on
Speaker 1: the physical and emotional well being of our people. And
Speaker 1: so we started kind of small by having um, you know,
Speaker 1: very early on in the pandemic zoom yoga classes and
Speaker 1: meditation classes and some some things to just give people
Speaker 1: a break, and started to do some other things, and
Speaker 1: then we thought, we've got to get more serious about this,
Speaker 1: because this is this is going to be part of
Speaker 1: our world going forward and it's just smart business on
Speaker 1: our part. And so we established well Being Advisory Committee
Speaker 1: across the firm that consists of employees from all different
Speaker 1: levels across all of our businesses and all geographies to
Speaker 1: help advise us on the kinds of things that we
Speaker 1: think would be most impactful for our people, and one
Speaker 1: of those was, you know, this inability to separate and
Speaker 1: have any kind of disconnection from work. And so we started.
Speaker 1: We started last year by giving people a day off
Speaker 1: before the fourth of July and before Labor Day, before
Speaker 1: other holidays, just to extend the break a little bit
Speaker 1: where everybody was off at the same time, because it
Speaker 1: seemed to us like that was the only time you
Speaker 1: could really as connected if everybody was was off, and
Speaker 1: we got such positive feedback from that that that evolved
Speaker 1: UM into us discussing as a leadership team earlier this year,
Speaker 1: you know, we should just close the place down for
Speaker 1: a week globally and give everybody a week off where
Speaker 1: they can really disconnect. And we discussed amongst our leaders
Speaker 1: globally about the right time to do that and when
Speaker 1: made the most sense, and we ended up UM with
Speaker 1: next week in August being the right week to do that.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to Bruce Lawson, chief human
Speaker 1: resources officer over at Carlisle Group, still with us on
Speaker 1: the phone. Next week their workers are getting an extra
Speaker 1: week off next week. They've also provided a seven well
Speaker 1: being stipend for UH Carlisle workers and Bruce, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things I was thinking about is and
Speaker 1: I think I do wonder how much of this stays
Speaker 1: with us in terms of permanent, you know, planning for
Speaker 1: our workers at companies. UM, And I do wonder if
Speaker 1: there's a you know, commercial aspect to why you're doing it,
Speaker 1: that it that it works, that it makes workers feel better,
Speaker 1: that it ultimately makes them feel more productive. What kind
Speaker 1: of researcher science did you guys maybe tap into before
Speaker 1: setting your sights on some of these programs. Sure, UM, Look,
Speaker 1: we've we've looked at a bunch of different studies that
Speaker 1: indicate that if people are physically and emotionally healthier, UM
Speaker 1: and well that are off, they are engaged more in
Speaker 1: their life generally, that's not not just in work, but
Speaker 1: in their personal lives. And if your people are more
Speaker 1: energized and have the ability of focus, are feeling better
Speaker 1: about themselves, they're going to perform better. And when you've
Speaker 1: got a collection of better performing individuals, you're going to
Speaker 1: have better performing teams. UM. One of the measures that
Speaker 1: we look at to see how people are feeling about
Speaker 1: some of our efforts. Is in our recent employee engagement
Speaker 1: survey that closed in March of this year, and our
Speaker 1: people said that they were proud to work at Carlisle
Speaker 1: and would recommend it to a friend, And that to
Speaker 1: me says a lot about how they feel about their job.
Speaker 1: And when they're feeling great about their job, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a competitive, intense business. They're going to be
Speaker 1: moments where they've really got to push themselves and they're
Speaker 1: going to be more willing to do that if they're
Speaker 1: feeling good about how the company is thinking about them
Speaker 1: as a person, not just a cog in a will
Speaker 1: that's that's trying to crank out commerce. But what's changed
Speaker 1: in terms of the conversations that you think are are
Speaker 1: are happening between senior management, because I think it's safe
Speaker 1: to say that they're probably been studies out there for
Speaker 1: years about people saying that if people have time off
Speaker 1: and breaks and really you know, get away from their work,
Speaker 1: that they ultimately come back and they are more productive.
Speaker 1: That it isn't just about more hours worked, right, it's
Speaker 1: better hours work or smarter hours work. So what's happened
Speaker 1: in terms of the conversations that we're having among senior
Speaker 1: management that people are saying, we'll wait a minute, the
Speaker 1: pandemic really opened our eyes to something, and we gotta
Speaker 1: do we gotta do things differently. Well, look, I think
Speaker 1: historically human top departments and HR functions have been trying
Speaker 1: to have those conversations, but a lot of times people
Speaker 1: didn't take it all that seriously. I think one of
Speaker 1: the things the pandemic has done is made senior leaders
Speaker 1: of organizations realize, because they're experiencing the same things in
Speaker 1: a very similar way that their employees are, that this
Speaker 1: is real, and this will make us better and our
Speaker 1: people were performed better, will have lower turnover, and people
Speaker 1: will be generally happier if we focus on these things.
Speaker 1: And so part of it, I think has really just
Speaker 1: been how the pandemic as stone everybody into the same boat,
Speaker 1: and senior leaders, at least at Carlisle have chosen respond
Speaker 1: to that by engaging in the conversation. Very practically, a
Speaker 1: lot of these things we're doing aren't my ideas. Some
Speaker 1: of them have come from our CFO, some have come
Speaker 1: from the CEO. It's literally a contribution from a lot
Speaker 1: of senior folks. Well, I love that you took me
Speaker 1: there because I was thinking and I've had a lot
Speaker 1: of discussions about like, after the financial crisis, the CFO
Speaker 1: was no longer just on the earnings call and you know,
Speaker 1: making sure all the statements went out. They became so
Speaker 1: crucial in helping companies get through that crisis. And I
Speaker 1: do feel like human resources officers, chief human resources officers
Speaker 1: like yourself now have a much more senior spot within
Speaker 1: the c suite. Is that fair to say? Well, it's
Speaker 1: certainly fair to say at Carlisle, and I think it's
Speaker 1: true across industry generally. Um, you know, I'm part of
Speaker 1: a small group of people who I think are are
Speaker 1: in the executive suite advising on a whole host of issues.
Speaker 1: And our CEO and our CFO and our CEO, etcetera
Speaker 1: take people issues so seriously they want me at the table,
Speaker 1: and I'm there for all the meaningful discussions. When we
Speaker 1: came up with the stipend, the seven fifty dollar stipend,
Speaker 1: it was our CFO who actually gave us some of
Speaker 1: the best input, which was, let's just make this simple.
Speaker 1: Let's not make people submit receipts and have something approved,
Speaker 1: let's just give it to them and let them decide
Speaker 1: the best way to spend that seven fifty dollars for
Speaker 1: their own personal well being. And that kind of input
Speaker 1: historically would have been you know, miles and miles of
Speaker 1: conversations and meetings to get that kind of approval. Hey,
Speaker 1: just got about thirty seconds. What do you hope that
Speaker 1: employees do next? Tweak or spend their money on the stipend?
Speaker 1: What do you hope they do? And just quickly if
Speaker 1: you could. It's really just whatever's gonna make them feel better.
Speaker 1: It's been fund at Carlisle leading up to this. Literally
Speaker 1: at the end of every meeting, somebody says, hey, Carol,
Speaker 1: what are you going to do next week? And you know,
Speaker 1: the conversations about what people are doing in the way
Speaker 1: they're spending are vast as people's individual well being is.
Speaker 1: And I just hope people get a get a good
Speaker 1: rest and a good break from it all. Well, great
Speaker 1: to check in with you and hear what you guys
Speaker 1: are doing. Uh. I find it that the human resource
Speaker 1: space has really evolved a lot across the world over
Speaker 1: the last year and a half. Bruce Laarson, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Chief human resources officer at Carlisle Group joining
Speaker 1: us on the phone here