In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, we talk about employee engagement and why employer branding matters more than ever.
Bill Banham's awesome guest is Tara Furiani, host of the awesome Not the HR Lady podcast. Combining a razor-sharp wit with over two decades of expertise in the people business, Tara fuses scholarly depth with battle-tested experience, making her a tour de force in HR, executive team-building, DEI, and corporate culture.
Her dual Master's degrees in Psychology and Organizational Leadership, coupled with a Bachelor's in Marketing, form a strong academic backdrop. Throw in advanced certifications in Predictive Index and DiSC behavioral analytics, and you get an intellectual maven attuned to the multi-layered challenges of businesses.
Outside the professional sphere, Tara doesn’t just talk work-life balance; she lives it. A loving parent to five kids, Tara also hosts the popular podcast "Not the HR Lady," - offering fresh perspectives on the stale ideologies plaguing businesses today.
We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.
Feature Your Brand on the HRchat Podcast
The HRchat show has had 100,000s of downloads and is frequently listed as one of the most popular global podcasts for HR pros, Talent execs and leaders. It is ranked in the top ten in the world based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. The podcast is also ranked as the Best Canadian HR Podcast by FeedSpot and one of the top 10% most popular shows by Listen Score.
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In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, we talk about employee engagement and why employer branding matters more than ever.
Bill Banham's awesome guest is Tara Furiani, host of the awesome Not the HR Lady podcast. Combining a razor-sharp wit with over two decades of expertise in the people business, Tara fuses scholarly depth with battle-tested experience, making her a tour de force in HR, executive team-building, DEI, and corporate culture.
Her dual Master's degrees in Psychology and Organizational Leadership, coupled with a Bachelor's in Marketing, form a strong academic backdrop. Throw in advanced certifications in Predictive Index and DiSC behavioral analytics, and you get an intellectual maven attuned to the multi-layered challenges of businesses.
Outside the professional sphere, Tara doesn’t just talk work-life balance; she lives it. A loving parent to five kids, Tara also hosts the popular podcast "Not the HR Lady," - offering fresh perspectives on the stale ideologies plaguing businesses today.
We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.
Feature Your Brand on the HRchat Podcast
The HRchat show has had 100,000s of downloads and is frequently listed as one of the most popular global podcasts for HR pros, Talent execs and leaders. It is ranked in the top ten in the world based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. The podcast is also ranked as the Best Canadian HR Podcast by FeedSpot and one of the top 10% most popular shows by Listen Score.
Want to share the story of how your business is helping to shape the world of work? We offer sponsored episodes, audio adverts, email campaigns, and a host of other options. Check out packages here.
Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit HRGazettecom.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. I'm your host today, bill Bannum, and in this episode we're going to talk about employee engagement and why employer branding matters more than ever. My awesome guest today is Tara Furiani, host of the amazing show. Not the HR Lady. Combining a razor sharp wit with over two decades of experience in people, businesses, tara refuses scholarly depth with battle tested experience, making her a tour de force in HR executive, team building, dei and corporate culture. Tara, it's a privilege and an honor to have you on as my guest on this episode of the HR Chat Show. Welcome, thank you.
Speaker 3:Bill, thank you. I'm so happy to be here. You know I'm a fan of yours and I can't wait to jump into our conversation.
Speaker 2:I'm a bigger fan of yours and we're going to talk about your podcast in a minute. But before we get there, why don't you start by taking a minute or two and just telling our listeners all about yourself and what you get up to?
Speaker 3:I would love to. I am Tara Furiani. You might know me as Not the HR Lady. I am a 13 year chief people officer, 10 years with the Dale Carnegie training organization. I'm an idea board member for NASA, so I do work that's both rooted in Earth but also even bigger places, which I think is just so great that our you know, our governments and our space programs are even as concerned about DEI as I am. So that's something I love to mention. I host a show called Not the HR Lady.
Speaker 3:I am the mom to five awesome kids. I have done all the things. I have worked in every industry, in every position, but my favorite, my favorite role as mom. That's what I think I do best. So that's a little bit about me. You know I've been doing the HR leadership thing for oh my gosh, 20 years almost now, and the world of work has just shifted so much and I'm really excited to be on the forefront of helping that shift. You know, happen through dialogue, through, you know, pushing the status quo, through, you know, upending outdated norms. That's kind of me in a nutshell somebody who wants to challenge and do better and have things that are important and impactful for all people in the world of work.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. So you were doing this about 20 years. So you started your career when you were five years old. What?
Speaker 3:about that I did. I did Real early on, Bill, Absolutely. You know right in kindergarten.
Speaker 2:That's a heck of a work ethic. So, Tara, I'm a big fan of you and your podcast, not the HR lady. Can you tell our listeners all about it now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my show is a little bit different than most other HR podcasts. You know we talk about all things, people, and absolutely no BS. We cut through the crop, cut through the noise and really dig into issues that are affecting our workplaces, and both how organizations and individuals can do better, whether that's shifting your you know, your policies and your processes. Whether that's, you know, changing your leadership style and really engaging in a different way with your work. That is what the show is all about. It's about pushing the boundaries, talking about the things that people just don't talk about, and eliminating all the crap and really getting into how workplaces can do better for people and why they should.
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Speaker 2:And if you haven't listened to it yet or watched it on the YouTube, why not? What are you doing? Come on, yeah, you gotta do it.
Speaker 3:Well, and watch it on YouTube too. We have a real visual show. It's a three camera. We use pop culture references, we use movies and we help tell the story and break down some of the things that plague the world of work, like misogyny, racism, sexism, bigotry, hate, bullying, all of those different things. We try to put them in an entertaining, digestible format so you can see the absurdity of all of it and why we should want to do better, all of us.
Speaker 2:And there will, of course, be links in the show notes so you can learn more listeners. Okay, let's keep talking about the podcast for a minute. Kara, you and I both had the honor of having lots and lots and lots of guests on our shows. A part of our jobs is that we get to listen and learn. Can you maybe mention two or three guests on your pod that have made you think about the world of work in new and different ways?
Speaker 3:Definitely One of my favorite guests and honestly one of my favorite people of all time, let alone CEOs, is Wing Lam. He's the CEO and founder, along with his family, his brothers, of Wahoo's Fish Tacos, which is an international you know taco chain. Basically it's California surf food. And I have known Wing and Wahoo since oh my gosh, since I was in high school, so 25 plus years. And I had the very, very, very great pleasure of having him on several episodes of Not the HR Lady in Season 2. And he's just such an effervescent person who really solves to do good work for good people. And he started when COVID began California Love Drop, which is this amazing kind of you know frontline worker, frontline people organization, charitable, nonprofit organization that delivers goods and food and stuff and just spreads a little bit of cheer, especially, you know, for those frontline folks teachers and folks at hospitals and things like that. And he took Wahoo's and, you know, morphed it in with a you know a couple of other folks into California Love Drop and it's still going strong today, even though you know most of COVID, as we know it is over and Wing is just such a light, he is just such a good human being doing good work and it's an epitome of what CEOs can really be like and how they can really make an impact both within their organization and within their communities. Wing is amazing at that.
Speaker 3:And the other person I want to mention is Catherine McCord, who does a show on LinkedIn Live and it's called oh my gosh, it's called Talent Launch Live.
Speaker 3:And Catherine, I've been on her show a couple of times, she's been on mine. She is a neurodiverse, you know, champion of all things people, hr leader who is the CEO of Titan ATS, which is a neurodiverse forward and DEI forward applicant tracking system, and I just absolutely adore her. She challenges me to think differently. She opens my eyes up to ways in which I never considered, when it comes from a disability or from an accessibility standpoint. You know she really helps keep me understanding and focused on, you know, the ways in which we can also improve those experiences. You know, dei oftentimes talks about race, of course, lgbtq community, of course, gender, of course, and I think what often gets left by the wayside is, you know, the accessibility piece of all of it and folks who are neurodivergent and who have other you know just other things going on that we're not necessarily focused on. She keeps me focused on that as well, so that all people truly are represented. Those are two of my absolute favorite guests, and one of them also has their own show.
Speaker 2:Okay, very good, very good. So, as a fellow podcaster, you've got to be down with the World of Work lingo. Of course, you mentioned DEI a moment ago. What about the B? What about the belonging? Where do you stand on DEI B versus DEI? I, personally, I keep going with DEI, but I have lots of guests who insist on saying DEI B. It's a small question, but it's perhaps an important one. What's your take?
Speaker 3:Bill, absolutely. I think when you get to the B, you know it's because you've gotten the DEI part right. But I like to do the idea acronym, which is inclusion, diversity, equity and access. And the access is a part that I don't think gets enough attention. I did this challenge here in Austin a couple of years ago when I was the Chief People Officer for the Alamo Draft House and I had to spend the day navigating all my normal workplaces in a wheelchair and that is a really eye-opening exercise and I was. You know you get sponsors and donations and all the money goes to charity, but it really informed what we're doing wrong from an access perspective.
Speaker 3:Just in buildings alone. I mean, forget about other ways, but in our building itself. You know, if I have a mobility disability, my access is completely limited in certain spaces. Where we were at in downtown Austin, you know we didn't have an elevator in the building we were in. It's a two-story, it's a walkup and you know, pre-ada, I mean, this is really old Austin and I couldn't get to my office. So it's some really interesting things. I think that when you're talking about DEI, you have to go beyond just the basics. There's so much else that has to be focused on and certainly you know we have so much room for growth, you know, from a racial perspective, from a gender perspective, certainly in the LGBTQ space. But I'd be remiss not to say that the access piece and idea instead of DEI is really kind of the way in which I like to focus, because it just there is a piece that I think so many of us are missing when we're thinking about these initiatives in meaningful ways.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at HRGazettecom. And now back to the show.
Speaker 2:I love it. Agree with everything you just said. Okay, let's switch focus. I want you now to tell me about your book. I am a stuffy British Canadian and always wear words on my show. Generally, I know that you guys are more about the expletives. Your book is called F, your Office Snacks, it is.
Speaker 3:It is called F your Office Snacks. You know I'm pretty flippant with my language and that comes from a place of my mom when I was younger, you know, told me. You know if I'm angry and I want to say, you know, oh, cracker jacks. You know it really doesn't mean anything different than like oh F word, because the intent is the same.
Speaker 5:So it's what you know, what you're saying the word itself.
Speaker 3:Don't give it that much power, because it's just a word, and so that in and of itself, I think, is a fun way to push the envelope. Having been in a number of boardrooms throughout my career and in the C suite for 13 years, I can tell you that swearing at work is 100% a thing, and it happens. And it's, you know, something that you talk about in closed spaces, and sometimes it's it's ugly. I mean, I've been called terrible names to you know all these different things, and that's kind of the premise of the book F your Office Snacks. It's.
Speaker 3:It's about, you know, creating a different narrative and demanding more from yourself and others in the world of work. We don't want pizza parties. We want pay equity. We don't want, you know, casual or Jean Friday. You know, we want to be treated like human beings. We want time to bond with our children. We want time to decompress from work. We don't want wild emails at three in the morning from a boss who expects us to answer them at that time.
Speaker 3:And so the book is tongue in cheek, of course, but it is a data driven, so it's all rooted in how we got here in each of the different chapters, whether it's 401k or pay or or whatever, or DEI it's rooted in. Here's how we got here. Here's the history of what this is in the workplace. You know some anecdotal stories from my own experience, and then you know some movie references. It wouldn't be not the HR lady without some movie references or quotes and then some real actionable advice for organizations and for leaders to look at and go okay, maybe we're getting it wrong.
Speaker 3:Maybe espresso in the break room, since everybody works remote now isn't the best use of our money. Maybe we should allocate mental health resources. And then why? So the book is a real look at. We don't want these ancillary things. If you're going to spend money, spend money in ways that are meaningful to us, and while those are nice, they can't be at the expense of other things. I don't want your granola bars or your kombucha in exchange of pay. I want to be paid my market worth. There's no amount of kombucha that can replace that, and that's the premise of the book. So it's facts, it's stories, it's how to do better and it's really rooted in what we do next and how we get to the modern workplaces that we're all supposed to have been in by now.
Speaker 5:Fadello Inc is a consulting firm specializing in improving human performance and we're proud to support the HR chat podcast. We help identify strategic competencies and behaviors that drive results. Our team offers an HR web software to manage systems, reports and data for HR people that need the best insights to make the right decisions and achieve better results. Learn more at Fadellocom.
Speaker 2:Love it, love it. Thank you very much. So ahead of this conversation I should have your note. I said, hey, are there any topics that you'd like to cover? You mentioned employee travel perks for mental wellness and you shared an art school that you recently wrote for American Express about employee travel perks for mental wellness Full disclosure. The link didn't work so I have no idea what it's about. Can you share some highlights?
Speaker 3:Oh, no, Well, I'll have to make sure that I can fix that. Yes, I would love to. So I'm a big proponent. I have done work travel, as I'm sure many of us have At one point or another in our career. Maybe we do it now, but I really encourage organizations to think about travel as a benefit. When you're traveling for work, do you offer your team members maybe an extra day to explore a new city, an extra hotel stay, or encourage them to bring a partner along or a kiddo along, if it's maybe the summertime and they're old enough? There's so much that organizations can leverage in different ways that are meaningful from a benefit perspective that go beyond health and dental and pet insurance. You know when I go and I have to be in New York City from Austin for three days, well, maybe it would be so great if I could just finish out my week in New York City, maybe get some recommendations on what I could go, see, how I could spend my time, how I could continue to develop myself, my culture, my appreciation, you know, my leadership by being in these new and unique places. Who can I link up with who's on LinkedIn? You know who's based in New York City? Like taking advantage of work travel, but companies really encouraging employees to and seeing the mental health behind it.
Speaker 3:I think for me and I won't speak for anybody else, but I know a lot of people like me who you know you go for a work trip and you never leave the confines, you know, of your Marriott. You never leave the Hilton. You stay right there. You eat your food there, you get your coffee at the. You know Starbucks. It's not a Starbucks, but they sell Starbucks coffee.
Speaker 3:Like, if you never leave the minibar, you never leave the hotel and there's so much world out there to explore and what it does for you from a rejuvenation perspective, from self-care perspective, can really impact your work Instead of just going and staying and then coming right back to your normal environment. Explore, you know, see what is out there, try new things, get a bigger breath of what you know. The world is like whether it's New York City from Austin, or whether it's going to Dallas from Austin, you know, or you're going to London from Austin. There's so much to experience and to do and that was the crux of the article with American Express is to really rethink our employee wellness benefits. It's not just massages and, you know, a stipend for a calm membership or whatever.
Speaker 3:There's some really unique ways that you can encourage people to have wellness, self-care and build that loyalty within your organization. That's one of the ways. I'm a big proponent of that and I have a blog called Workations where I talk more about various cities and what you can find, and I focus on women or Black or brown owned or LGBTQ businesses to patronize, whether it's a store or a restaurant or a bar or even a hotel or an Airbnb. I try to focus intentionally to ensure that I am supporting locally owned women or minority businesses and I encourage all companies to do that too but also to build a strategy around it, cause it can absolutely help you win talent where maybe there isn't a lot of room for cash compensation. This is something that's cool and fun, and when you have it all strategized out with a plan that's gonna make sense, I find it to be incredibly effective from a total rewards perspective.
Speaker 2:Okay, wonderful, oh, my goodness me. We've only got a couple of minutes left of this particular conversation. I am looking forward to being your guest on your show in the near future. I'm looking forward to being your guest Likewise, but for today, I wanna ask two more questions of you before we do wrap up, and, given the time constraints, I'm gonna challenge you to answer the next one in 60 seconds or less. What, bill? Don't do it to me.
Speaker 3:Have we met? Well, come on, I thought we were friends.
Speaker 2:We absolutely are. Okay, 60 seconds or less, we're gonna give it a go. Let's discuss internal communications. You've got some powerful and intoxicating views around internal communications. Give me your take on the ROI of transparency in one minute or less go.
Speaker 3:Well, here's what it is right. People want to know what they're doing and why. You know, this notion of secrecy, this notion of like not explaining to your teammates what we're solving for, why we're struggling, how we're failing as an organization, will not allow for them to do the work that's needed to get us there. When you're clear, when you're struggling, when finances are down, when finances are up, when there's a shift that's gonna happen, when big changes are gonna have to take place, I'm not saying share everything all the time, but let the people who are making the business work understand what we're trying to solve for. Because when you do that, when you give people that trust, that autonomy, that flexibility, that availability of information to know how they can inform how it goes better for the company, you win period. How'd I do?
Speaker 2:Pretty fantastic. You had, I don't know, 12 seconds to spare Tara. Good work, fantastic you book. And that's finally for today. How can all listeners connect with you? Check out the Not the HR Lady pod and, of course, get a copy of your amazing book.
Speaker 3:Bill, thank you so much. You are so sweet. I've really enjoyed this. First of all, I could chat with you, as I've told you before, all day long, so thank you for having me. You can find me at notthehrladycom. From there, you can find anything you want about me my LinkedIn, my Instagram, my Facebook, where to buy a copy of my book, which is on Amazon, called F your Office Snacks, and you have to write it. It's so funny how their algorithm is, but you have to write F, star CK, and then the rest of it your Office Snacks. So do that, find that on Amazon, or just head to my website at notthehrladycom and then also watch the show on YouTube or wherever you like to stream your favorite podcast.
Speaker 2:Man, I love your energy. Tara, you are awesome. Thank you so much for being my guest today.
Speaker 3:Oh, bill, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. I can't wait to have you on Woohoo.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to it, but for now, listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit HR Gazettecom.