Transforming the Workplace: Inclusivity and Accessibility with Lila Nazef

Curious how inclusivity can reshape your workplace? Join us for an insightful conversation with Lila Nazef, the accomplished Vice President of Sales and Marketing North America at Neocase.

With nearly two decades of expertise in HR tech, Lila offers a wealth of knowledge on transforming HR service delivery into a more inclusive experience for employees.

Tune in and discover how Neocase demystifies complex HR jargon, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their level of tech-savviness, can easily access crucial resources.

As social movements continue to shape our understanding of inclusivity, Bill Banham and Lila examine how tools like Neocase are instrumental in crafting environments where inclusivity and efficiency go hand in hand.

We also highlight the importance of designing mobile applications that meet advanced accessibility standards, ensuring that users can navigate HR processes seamlessly. From AI integration to real-world feedback, this episode is packed with insights on how technology is revolutionizing the employee experience, making it as pivotal now as it was during the height of the COVID era.

Questions For Lila Include:

• Managing inclusivity is a key priority for HR decision-makers; can you outline the characteristics of this challenge?
• You mentioned that there’s a balancing act between inclusivity and efficiency. In times of conflict should efficiency always win out?
• SHRM last year removed the E from DEI and instead now focuses more on inclusivity and civility. What does civility in the workplace mean to you and is SHRM right to place an emphasis on it?  
• What are the recent innovations introduced by Neocase to promote inclusivity?
• How do you measure the effectiveness of your solutions?

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.

Chapters

• 0:03 Inclusivity in the Workplace
• 5:13 Advancing Inclusivity in the Workplace
• 15:28 Enhancing Workplace Inclusivity and Accessibility

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

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. And visit hrgazettecom.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and in this episode we're going to focus on inclusivity in the workplace. My amazing, awesome, fabulous, wonderful returning guest today is Lila Nazef, vice President of Sales and Marketing North America at Neocase, a pioneering SaaS platform for automating HR service delivery. Lila has been on the show two or three times before. She's one of my favorite humans in the world of workspace and, lila, it's my pleasure to welcome you back to the HR Chat Show.

Speaker 3: 1:03

Hi Bill, Very, very excited to be back. I believe this is our fourth time together and many more to come.

Speaker 2: 1:10

Well, I am delighted to have you on the show again, and I always enjoy our chats, and I think our listeners do too. But for those listeners who perhaps haven't listened to our episodes together yet, or perhaps they've forgotten about it because it's been a little while since we've had you on the show, why don't you take a couple of minutes to reintroduce yourself and the unique challenge here? Because we have had a few chats. Lila, maybe you can share one passion or a hobby that I and our listeners just don't know about you.

Speaker 3: 1:41

Great. Well, I am Lila Nazef. I'm the VP of Sales and Marketing at Neocase for the North American region. My passion is the human being, so I've been in the HR tech world for, oh my God, almost 20 years now. Time flies. And one thing you don't know about me, bill I'm also a jeweler, so I started recently making jewelry, in case you're interested.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Oh, okay, very good. Any particular types of jewelry that you like to focus on Rings, bracelets, anything like that.

Speaker 3: 2:19

Bracelets, necklaces, anything you name it. It just makes us feel good. We know, when we look good, when we feel good, we're just happier people. So I do fancy, uh, fancy jewelry.

Speaker 2: 2:34

I would question that. However, mr T from the A-Team was always grumpy and he had loads of jewelry. There we go. Okay, anyway, continuing on. Uh, let's talk about Neocase. Uh, what does Neocase do, lila? Who is Neocase and why should people be interested in what Neocase?

Speaker 3: 2:51

offers platform, faster effectiveness and all that. So, but I like to call it with my own words what we do is imagine that friend who always knows everything, the one stop shop. You know, when you're looking for benefits question, you're looking for inclusivity questions, you just hurt yourself and you went to ski and you need some accommodation at the workplace. Well, you go and ask that friend and your friend is nail case. So it's one single place where the employees can find the information that they need and also it connects them to the different places to start conversations, to start inquiries based on what they're looking for.

Speaker 3: 3:53

That's in one hand, and the other hand, it's also the place, or the bridge between the company and the employees. You know, the employee has its own language. They don't really understand, like the HR jargon, the way we call it in French. Well, we need that bridge. So that bridge is in a case where we connect the HR professional service and the employees, but with their own language, and then we translate it back in the other way. That's what we do in Simple Words.

Speaker 4: 4:30

The HR Chat Podcast is one of the world's most popular shows, offering insights and tips from HR pros, business leaders, industry influencers and tech experts World of Work. Topics covered include HR tech, AI, leadership, talent, recruitment, employee engagement, wellness, DEI and company culture. The show, produced by the award-winning HR Gazette, has released over 700 episodes so far, each offering fresh perspectives and tips to help you better understand the changing future of work. Check out the latest HR chat episodes on your podcast platform of choice and read the latest articles at hrgazettecom.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Let's talk about the main focus of today's conversation now. Managing inclusivity is one of the priorities for HR decision makers, of course. Can you maybe take a couple of minutes and outline the characteristics of this challenge?

Speaker 3: 5:27

couple of minutes and outline the characteristics of this challenge, absolutely so. Inclusivity always existed, but we didn't really hear much about it until like the things that happened the last few years with the George Floyd incident and many others, and we started having DEI and DI. So what is it? What do we do? Well, at NeoCase, by being that friend. Well, we are friends to everybody. So it's a place where everyone feels welcome, no matter like your language, your abilities, your age, your age. You just go and ask if you're looking for something fancy or if you're looking for, like basic things. There is no. I'm shy. I have a stupid question, like I think, or I don't know how to do that. I don't see how I could be perceived by others.

Speaker 3: 6:18

It's really that friend where you can go and get anything and everything you need from it, as long as it's still like within the HR space, because if you're asking him for like a coffee place, maybe he doesn't know, but let's see. So how do we address that? By giving the tools that service everybody. You can be an IT savvy person and then you have your portal, you everything, you know how to go and search for information, find it and all that Great. Or you can be just a blue collar walker, you can be the guy who distributes the mail, but even the guy who distributes the mail has a phone. Guy who distributes email has a phone and then with his phone he can chat with the system and find whatever they need using their own simple language, without being as techie-savvy as the person at the bank who is in front of their computer. So it's really giving the tools that, no matter your background, your language limitations, how tech savvy you are, you are always finding the information that you need in a seamless way.

Speaker 2: 7:31

Okay, let's continue through. Oh and, by the way, listeners, neocase have been very gracious sponsors of some of our AI summits in the last year, so thank you very much for that, Lila and team. Okay, so follow follow up. You mentioned that there's the balancing act between inclusivity and efficiency. Lila, in times of conflict, do you think that efficiency should always win out? Ie is the bottom line, the most important metric for a business.

Speaker 3: 8:04

I'm going to give you a long answer on that one, bill, because there's no easy way to really answer. In ideal world we will be balancing both and then I'm also an idealistic person I will say, oh, the humans first, the inclusivity first. But let's be realistic. If a company has to pick which one takes priority, I think making money let's just call it that way will go slightly before the inclusivity, because the money is what will pay for the salaries of the people, that's what keeps the business up, and with no business, with no employees, there is no way to implement any inclusivity. It's like there is no people.

Speaker 3: 8:56

So yeah, in ideal world I will go for inclusivity, but being realistic. The company profitability will be precedent, will take first. But you know what? There is no reason why a company could be harsh in the way they do things. There are systems like ours that can allow you to be profitable, to achieve your goal without hurting. On the inclusive, easy part, maybe you won't be reaching at 100%, but you know what? You won't be at zero, you'll be maybe at 50, maybe at 60, maybe at 80. It's always a path to progress and it's not a zero. Always a path to progress.

Speaker 5: 9:45

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Speaker 2: 10:24

Okay, that's a pragmatic answer coming from a place of love. That's how I'd summarise that. So very good, very good. So something that made the HR news big time in 2024 was the fact that SHRM removed the E standing of course for equity as opposed to our UK listeners, where they have that standing for equality, the equity from DEI and instead they now focus more on inclusivity and the concept of civility. We live in a quite scary world at the moment and an ever more polarized society within the West. Certainly, what does civility in the workplace mean to you, lila, and do you think that SHRM is right to place an emphasis on it?

Speaker 3: 11:15

That's a difficult question, that's a controversial question, but I'm going to answer in the most honest way that I know. I think they were right to drop it. Why? Because it is very ambitious to say let's go DEI, let's all go in, let's make it all happen. Well, the truth is, most of corporates where you have hundreds of thousands of employees, it sounds quite impossible. It's like you take someone who hasn't been working out and then you say let's go for the Everest. Well, I'm like I've never seen a gym in my life and you're taking me to the Everest. I don't know how to do that.

Speaker 3: 12:01

So people are realizing after three years, four years, that we are asking something that most of the people cannot do. If the company had already that culture of DEI, it's super easy. It's like that athlete that you take to the Everest, they would be oh exciting, everest, it was on my list, let's go. But if you're taking people that never went to the gym and you're taking them to the Everest, oh man, it's almost a lose-lose situation. So going back and then dropping the E and saying, all right, let's start with something more realistic, because addressing the roots of the equity goes 100 years back with things that society hasn't addressed yet. So how do you expect the company or the corporates to be successful in addressing the question about the equity that the society where we live in is still debating?

Speaker 3: 13:04

So let's start with the I, let's start with that which is more achievable. So, instead of taking you to the Everest, maybe we would take you for a 5K. 5k a lot of people can do it, 90% of people can do it. And then from the 5K we can train and get to the Everest, which is to the DEI and back to the civility. Well, while we're doing it, let's do it by being civil.

Speaker 3: 13:35

We are all different, we have different opinions, but we can still have an open dialogue, express opinions and agree to disagree at some point, but stay in civil with one another, because once you drop the civility, you won't be able to work with people, you won't be able to live with someone or interact with someone, even less work with someone when there is no civility. So I think it is the backbone to it. So let's be civil, let's address the issues and sometimes let's agree to disagree. Let's start with that 5K and then let's hope we get to the Everest someday soon. But we cannot go faster than the society we live in. We can be part of it, we can help it. But let's start with achievable goals and then with achievable goals, or from achievable goals, we can get to the dream.

Speaker 2: 14:38

Lila, I feel like you reached new heights with that answer. Well done, very good. Okay. So what are the recent innovations introduced by NeoCase to promote inclusivity? Can you give us some insights there?

Speaker 3: 14:53

Yes, one thing that I'm very excited is our mobile app and everything AI in it. The ChatGPT, chatgpt technology or ChatGPT has become everyone's best friend, because it is that friend who knows everything and you can converse with it and they can help you. If you're looking for things they can bridge, they can really be that bridge between you and the things that you don't understand. Well, it's the same thing that we are incorporating in the workspace. First, with the mobile app, and everything that we develop, we develop with the advanced accessibility standards. So if you are having hearing problems or you're blind or whatever because when we talk about inclusivity, it's also people with disabilities talk about inclusivity, it's also people with disabilities. So everything that we develop is always with the accessibility standard, highest accessibility standards, in mind. That's first. Second, giving people the access to their HR, to their information, to the knowledge within their fingertips on their phone. That's very powerful. So you don't need to be sitting in front of a computer to get what you need. You don't need to go back to an office or to be home to get what you need.

Speaker 3: 16:21

So I just witnessed something. Imagine I'm in a workspace and I witnessed someone being harassed. It's a strong word, but I'm like, what do I do about that? Do I'm in a workspace and I witnessed someone being harassed? It's a strong word. But I'm like, what do I do about that? Do I close my eyes? I haven't seen it? Or do I report it? Well, you have your mobile phone, you can report it. You can report it your name, or you can report it anonymously and saying well, I'm in that workplace today and I've seen this. These are witnesses. That's the incident that happened and the company should act on it. So, really giving the power to people not just to find information, but also to act from wherever they are, these are really the most exciting things that we've done. These are really the most exciting things that we've done the mobile app, access to anything and everything from your phone, from your fingertip, from wherever you are, and, last but not least, something that we've done with AI that I'm also very excited about.

Speaker 3: 17:28

I remember in past, when you hire someone, when you have to send the documents because you just left the doctor's office and he's stopping you for a week. You cannot work, you needed to go home, or you needed to stop by a place like FedEx to make a copy or to scan it and then send it via email and then to send it to your HR. Well, it takes time. The information doesn't go that fast between the time where you receive the documents and you need to send it. Now, with our new technology, you can take a picture of that document, the system will recognize it, will extract whatever needs to be extracted from that document and then you kick off a process directly from that document and then it goes to your manager, to your HR business partner, to the service center, and then it kicks, start the process on your behalf from wherever you are. I think that sums up most of the things that we've done this year.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Okay, very good, thank you very much. The next couple of questions I'm going to ask of you are fairly technical questions and this is an HR audience, so I am going to challenge you for the next couple of questions to try and answer in 90 seconds or less. You've been on the show before. You know that sometimes I like to switch up the tempo because I'm mean like that um, first one, how do you guys work to design these new features, nila, and maybe as part of your answer, you can point to ways that you guys are inclusive within the design of the new features? So, for example, uh, do you have a process where you go out and work with clients or ask your clients about their needs to ensure that the features are meeting those?

Speaker 3: 19:15

Amazing. I take the challenge. So we do it in two ways two parts of our products, effectiveness or like roadmap. We get everything from our customers say we sit with our customers, we have a team of customer success managers customer happiness and they go and they ask the clients so what are the challenges that you are facing, what are things that we can do better? And then new things that you need but we are not doing. So we collect all of that and then we see which one have the highest benefits and then we include them into our roadmap. That's first. Second, it will be from the market. If the market is moving to one direction, like we see, hey, people are in need of document management systems or automations this way, so we also get things from the market. I would say it's quite 50-50 in terms of where do we get the design or how do we think about the design for new features. I hope I kept it in the 90 seconds, bill.

Speaker 2: 20:24

Oh, you've got several seconds to spare there Good work, well done. Oh, you've got several seconds to spare there Good work, well done. Okay. So the second of the two more technical questions is and again I'm going to challenge you to run through this one in about 90 seconds how do you measure the effectiveness of your solutions? Is that through feedback? What metrics have you got there?

Speaker 3: 20:46

The best metrics that we have is our customer feedback. So before releasing any major feature, we have co-innovation with elected customers, so we test it and we do it with them, so we have a chance to do all these little adjustments. So before releasing it to others, we've already gotten the feedback, we made it better and it's ready for them to go. So this is how we do our first measure and the second measure is with time Does the feature do what it's supposed to do and any long benefits out of it. So what can we do now better to add things to that feature? So the measure is the customer feedback at different stages.

Speaker 2: 21:33

Dedicated listeners of this show will know from past conversations that you and I have had that you talk a lot about employee experience, and a lot of things that we've spoken about so far very much touch upon that. In your opinion, lila, is employee experience still as important as it was when we perhaps last addressed this, which was a couple of years ago now, or have other priorities emerged?

Speaker 3: 21:59

When we discussed that, I remember it was during COVID or right after, and it was the big subject. The employee experience yes, it is still a priority. It is still important because the world changed employee experience first and then we add the other priorities that come right after, but we never drop one to get the other one.

Speaker 2: 22:33

Okay, very good, thank you today. And then, um, listeners can hear kind of a part two in a way, uh, with you and I uh on the hr reviews hr in review pod, which I co-host as well, coming up uh, very, very soon on your podcast platform of choice listeners. Uh, but for today, the last two questions are well, firstly, what are some lessons that businesses can take from a system that ensures a positive customer experience in order to improve the employee experience?

Speaker 3: 23:15

Great question, bill, so I'm going to take my 90 seconds for that. The first thing that we all can agree on that it is hard, it is difficult. It's not an easy thing to go and say, hey, let's improve the employee experience or let's implement DEI or let's do this and that. But we can also learn that all the companies that have been through that experience that challenge, they all grow from it to have happier employees, but also employees who stay longer, work better, they're more loyal to the company, so at the end it becomes a more successful companies. It's not just me saying that. You have a lot of studies from Harvard University and many others highlighting that. So the lesson don't be discouraged by the fact that it is hard, but learn from others how not to fall through the same cracks and let's just do it better wonderful and just finally for today uh, how can folks connect with you?

Speaker 2: 24:36

perhaps they want to learn how they can get your jewelry, or maybe they want to learn about all the cool things we do at neocase. So how can folks connect with you? Uh, maybe that's linkedin, instagram, tiktok. I bet you want all these cool places and, of course, can you direct them as well to the relevant urls and other socials to learn more about neocase amazing.

Speaker 3: 24:59

I am everywhere. You can connect with me from any platform. The main one will be um, linkedin, um, so my link should be accessible right after um this. So you go, you find me on linkedin, more than happy to start the conversation or just say hi, um. And then for neocase, you have our website, neocasesoftwarecom. There is also a nice spot there with my picture. Happy to start the conversation from there. Book some time with me and let's talk about life. Let's talk about the employee experience, the DEI, and how we can make the workplace better. And how we can make the workplace better.

Speaker 2: 25:43

And if I could just add to Lila's answer there, listeners, as we've mentioned already, this is the fourth time that we've done one of these interviews together. I have recorded for the HR chat show alone. I've been involved with other podcasts, but for this one alone I think we're touching 800 episodes, something like that, so maybe for far too long. So, as you can imagine, I've had lots of conversations with lots of people. Some of those have been easier than others. Lila's awesome. She's a good person. She's great to know. I would strongly recommend that you reach out to her. You'll have a good conversation. And can I just add to that as well that the NeoCase team love what they do and they're genuine, authentic people. So a shout out to, for example, noah, who's up in BC, who does a fantastic job. Love working with you guys. Thank you very much, lila. Thank you very much for your time today.

Speaker 3: 26:40

Anytime. Thank you for having me and talk to you soon.

Speaker 2: 26:44

Listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1: 26:51

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 hrgazettecom.