Turning Employee Engagement Data into Action with Karina Young, 15Five

When was the last time your organization conducted an employee engagement survey? If it was more than a few months ago, you're likely making decisions based on outdated information. As Karina Young, VP People at 15Five, points out in this episode, "Think about who you were a year ago. You might have had a whole different set of needs, wants, desires, hopes than you do right now."

This conversation with host, Bill Banham dives into the limitations of traditional annual engagement measurements and offers a refreshing alternative: the "diagnose, plan, act" framework. Rather than the old cycle of "measure, guess, hope," this approach creates a continuous improvement loop that delivers real-time insights when they're most needed. Karina shares practical strategies for making engagement data actionable, from identifying targeted opportunities in specific population segments to implementing seamless accountability systems that don't overburden HR teams or managers.

The discussion highlights a remarkable case study from Trust Radius, where implementing strategic people analytics reduced attrition from 40% to 8% and significantly increased employee sentiment scores. We explore how AI-assisted coaching tools are revolutionizing manager effectiveness by providing personalized guidance in the flow of work, helping leaders address potential issues before high-performers become flight risks. Throughout the conversation, Karina emphasizes how data-driven approaches elevate HR's position within organizations, transforming the function from administrative support to strategic business partner.

Ready to revolutionize your approach to employee engagement? Subscribe to the HR Chat Show for more insights from innovative people leaders, and connect with Karina Young on LinkedIn or through the HR Superstars podcast to continue the conversation about strategic people analytics.

Transcript

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Introduction to Actionable Engagement Insights

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 .

Speaker 2 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show . Hello listeners , this is your host today , bill Bannam . Do you know which of your high performance are disengaged and why ? Do you know if your most critical teams are at risk of attrition ? Do you know how to stop it ? In this HR Chat episode , we're going to explore how to make engagement insights more actionable , empower managers to respond better and position HR as an important strategic resource within the org . And joining me on the pod this time is the amazing , wonderful , fantastic , multilingual Karina Young VP People over at 15.5 . An expert in workforce strategy and employee experience , karina believes it's time to move beyond the old cycle of measure , guess , hope and instead embrace the approach of diagnose , plan , act . And we're going to get into that today . Hey , karina , how are you ? Welcome to the show .

Speaker 3 1:22

Hey , guten Morgen , buenos dias , bonjour , everyone . Happy to be here , bill , thanks for having me .

Speaker 2 1:28

Muy bien , muy bien . Okay . So , beyond my reintroduction just now , Karina , why don't you start by taking a minute or two , introducing yourself to our audience and , as part of the answer , telling them a little bit about what you're passionate about ?

Speaker 3 1:42

Yeah , definitely so , as'm karina , young vp of people for 15.5 . I'm a long time strategic hr leader who has really specialized my career in scaling different tech organizations . So what I love and what I've been doing over the last 12 plus years is building people functions from the ground up , taking teams through the most critical milestones , whether it's growth , shrinkage , acquisitionsitions , going public , making changes , everything in between . I think what's really been the guiding light for me and what gives me a lot of passion is this idea of change . It's getting through change . It's one of those inevitable things . Right , it's death .

Speaker 3 2:17

Taxes and change are the three things I think we all are going to go through . But it's so painful for so many organizations and I find a lot of joy in creating better systems , better cultures that can navigate change well , even the really hard parts , the parts that hurt us on the inside , that might feel like are we ever going to get through . So that's a lot of what drives me . What I love and I think the other parts that make me really passionate about this work and the people function is all things people , data , which is a huge part of change , and also storytelling . I see those as kind of like my personal trifecta that I specialize in and try to take into each organization I work with excellent and , can I just add , I love your energy .

Speaker 2 2:57

You , you exude positive energy and that's fantastic , and if you're taking that to the workplace every day , then you are doing wonderful things . Um say , we're going to unpack this in more detail shortly , but just at a at a high level , what ? What advice would you give to an hr leader trying to move from reactive to strategic when it comes to people data ?

Speaker 3 3:21

yeah , my top level advice is never stop measuring Performance engagement retention . You need a consistent , orchestrated flow of data to really give you a reliable story of not just what has happened , which the past is fine , good to learn from , but really about what is going to happen that you need to plan for . This once a year measurement just doesn't cut it right . I did a performance review a year ago . I had an . This once a year measurement just doesn't cut it right . I did a performance review a year ago . I had an engagement survey a year ago . Think about who you were a year ago , bill . You might have had a whole different set of needs , wants , desires , hopes than you do right now . So we have to move away from this . I'll measure once and I'll use that for the rest of my year . We need real time in the moment information to actually be strategic and proactive . We need real time in the moment information to actually be strategic and proactive .

Speaker 2 4:06

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 .

Moving Beyond Annual Measurements

Speaker 2 4:24

And now back to the show . Oh gosh , a year ago I had more hair and weighed a few pounds less . Sigh listeners , sigh . Okay , karina , in your experience , what stops companies from acting on engagement data ? Is it cultural ? Is it structural ? Maybe it's both of those things , plus maybe a lack of capability . Give us your thoughts .

Speaker 3 4:45

Yes , yes and yes to all of them . But what I see as kind of the root of what stops people from acting is really a lack of capability . Right , in order to hold people accountable , you need a way to do that that is reliable , that flows on its own , that doesn't take you , as the HR leader , 20 hours of work leading up to it and another 20 hours on the back end to actually make it happen , right . So we need to make sure that we have internally the structures , the tools , the bandwidth to actually put people in action , hold them accountable to it and figure out what happened when we did that . Even in really great organizations where our cultures are thriving and people want to do the right thing , it's just hard .

Speaker 3 5:30

We have really complex workplaces . We have tons of things that we're trying to manage at once . We're also people outside of work who are worried about our hair and our families and all of these other things . We have to make accountability so easy and effortless . So I think the way to really get through that piece of friction that is so common for HR leaders is just investing in the tools that make accountability seamless and flawless . Do you have a tool that tells you where you need to take action . What should you do ? How are you going to measure the outcome and then just make that a flywheel that you repeat over and , over and over again ? In a really simple way .

Speaker 2 6:02

Which is a fantastic lead into my next question , which goes back to the intro . You said it's time to move from measure guess hope to diagnose plan act . Can you briefly unpack each step in that new model for us and what it looks like in practice ?

Speaker 3 6:21

Of course

Diagnose, Plan, Act Approach

Speaker 3 6:22

, you know I think about diagnose plan act . That's really just that . That's the mantra we all need , right , so that we can keep measurements going . It keeps us in motion on all people changes in a way that , again , is just simple , effective and really strategic . So let's start with diagnose . Diagnose is all about can you identify areas of opportunity with the data you have , Create a shared understanding of what is happening in the most important pockets of my population , pockets that are related to my strategic goals as a people function and , ultimately , the strategic goals as a business , right ?

Speaker 3 6:54

So , as an example of that , do I know that if I have a company goal that we're going to increase our engineering team by 15% this year , can I figure out ? How are my engineering managers doing ? How's that population doing ? What does that group need ? Not just saying what does my whole company need , but different groups within your organization who really need you , and then we move on to plan . So this is all about building accountable , measurable strategies that align back to your business goals . So how are you going to make things better ? I know I need better engineering managers , but what does better look like ?

Speaker 3 7:28

Oh , I can see in my senior engineering leaders that they're not very good at giving feedback . They give feedback once every three months , and now look what that's doing to their team engagement . So now I have a plan for it . That's what I need to tackle . Here's how I'm going to do it in a really simple way . And then that leads us to what we were just talking about , Bill , the most important thing act away . And then that leads us to what we were just talking about , Bill , the most important thing act . Can I scale really impactful action ? Can I actually get the actions out there ? Can I give people something that's in their flow of work , easy to do , and then quickly measure the outcome on the other side ? Did that make a difference ? Am I actually on the track to something right here ?

Speaker 2 8:02

Okay , love it . Can you think of a use case a company that's been able to successfully make that shift to Diagnose Plan Act ? If so , what were some of the outcomes ?

Speaker 3 8:14

Yeah , for sure , I think . One that I'm really excited about sharing is actually a case study that 15.5 just recently released , with 360 Insights about an organization called Trust Radius . Their head of people , jamie Conrad , is an amazing woman and her story is really all about coming into an organization where 15.5 was relatively new but was not strategically rolled out . She came in as a new leader with a relatively new tool and nothing was happening with it . There weren't any insights , there were no actions .

Speaker 3 8:41

So prior to really getting into 15.5 and re-rolling it out ,

Trust Radius Success Story

Speaker 3 8:45

their attrition was at 40% . They had no reliable engagement measurement . They were using all different kinds of ad hoc surveys but no singular one that they could track and really rely on , and they didn't know what was happening with their employees across their sites in general for sentiment or attrition . It was just all a big mess . It was all a big black box , and so when Jamie really re-rolled 15.5 out to the organization , she was able to utilize what we call our HR outcomes dashboard and that's where all those diagnostics live . So things like manager effectiveness , engagement , performance reviews , and that really helped her work with the leaders to become more in tune with what their teams needed see the trends that mattered and actually start to target them in different pockets .

Speaker 3 9:30

So over a course of a couple years they took that attrition down from 40% to 8% , which is awesome . They increased their employee sentiment from a three to a four on a five-point scale and their managers started seeing engagement increase in their teams because they were constantly in tune with them , they really understood what they needed and they had accountability to actually take the action and feel like it mattered for them . So it was really that personalized approach through Diagnose Plan Act that made that big difference across those people metrics that matter to us . They're ultimately the things we report to for our board , for the rest of our C suite and back out to the organization . So it's a really , really cool experience and Jamie is just one of those really special , exceptional leaders and I love telling people about her story and pointing them to her example of just doing it really well and keeping it going .

Speaker 2 10:20

Wonderful Jamie . If you're listening , you are a rock star , or should I say an HR superstar ?

Speaker 2 10:27

Okay , or both , both , as I like to do on this show . From time to time , I like to switch things up , and I'm going to do that right now and I'm going to challenge you to answer the next question in 60 seconds or less . What , bill ? Don't do this to me . I've got prepared answers . Come on , okay . And the question is as follows paid answers come on , um , okay . And the question is as follows in 60 seconds or less , karina , how does this diagnostic approach help elevate the role of hr within the business ?

Speaker 3 10:55

it does that by putting us in the same seat as all other functions that are being data driven . Right , being data driven is the strategy your whole organization is doing . So if if you're not doing that , then you're separating yourself , you're siloing yourself from other leaders . When we use data to drive what we're doing , we're bonded with the organization . We're bonded with our other C-suite leaders . We become invaluable , irreplaceable and , ultimately , that's really how we need to see ourselves .

Elevating HR Through Data-Driven Strategy

Speaker 4 11:24

Once in a while , an event series is born that shakes things up , it makes you think differently and it leaves you inspired . That event is Disrupt HR . The format is 14 speakers , 5 minutes each and slides rotate every 15 seconds . If you're an HR professional , a CEO , a technologist or a community leader and you've got something to say about talent , culture or technology , disrupt is the place . It's coming soon to a city near you .

Speaker 2 12:00

Oh , you're good . You're good . You had many seconds to spare , Karina .

Speaker 3 12:05

Look , you know , I thank my new Nespresso machine for that .

Speaker 2 12:11

Okay , next question for you and feel free to take a little bit longer . What role does real-time analytics and or AI ? We can't have an episode of the HR chat show these days without talking about AI . What role does real-time analytics or AI play in enabling more targeted , timely action on engagement ?

Speaker 3 12:30

Such an important role and I think , especially now and where the workplace is going again with the added complexities , not just of what we're facing all as employees , but of what managers are facing . I mean , they're managing teams that are navigating all these different challenges

AI's Role in Employee Engagement

Speaker 3 12:43

internally . Externally , they're thinking about AI . Again , we have to make things so seamless and effortless for our leaders to drive those actions within their teams , and when we do that , they really have to know what matters Like , again , what matters to you , Bill , versus what matters to me . What a high-performing HRVP on my team needs is not what a high performing sales leader needs . Those are two totally different things , and so real-time analytics and AI that combination allows you to get an in-the-moment pulse on what is actually happening for your people what do they need , what are they feeling and how can I then , as their leader , adapt and get that real-time coaching . And what that looks like very specifically for something like 15.5 is we have a tool that we recently launched called Kona , which is our AI assisted coach . Right , and it's all about personalized in the flow of work , coaching to grow managers and service of driving performance and engagement . So Kona , being an AI assisted coach , joins you in a meeting and gives you feedback afterward that says , bill , you did this so well with Karina . You recognized her recent work . Thanks for doing that .

Speaker 3 13:48

But what you haven't done is followed up on that career conversation from three weeks ago that she told you was really important . Here's a tip of what you should do next that , with all the other things that you're doing in your world , that surfaces to you what's most important . So you don't leave that meeting going . Oh yeah , this is what I'm going to do for Karina next . You actually know , hey , this is what matters to her . And don't forget , based on her engagement survey , she's a high performer who's slightly disengaged . Really , put in a little bit of extra time there . Make sure that you don't lose her . That's a more modern approach where I'm not looking back four months from now going what did I do wrong ? How did I lose that person ? I'm 10 steps ahead of it .

Speaker 2 14:25

I'm trying to stay as close to those things as possible and actually making a real difference that matters to the person I'm working with so , um , quite a few years ago we had your colleague on the HR chat show and as part of that we did a bit of a swap , uh , with the hr superstars podcast and I I had a lovely time being a guest on that show , along with my co-host , christopher buehling . Um , fantastic show . You're heavily involved with it . I've seen on linkedin you're always sharing content and whatnot and talking about all the wonderful guests . My goodness me , you've got a lot of wonderful guests . Uh , good work . Can you just take a minute or so now and tell our listeners a bit about the

HR Superstars Podcast Discussion

Speaker 2 15:06

hr superstars podcast ? What makes it different ? Why is it enjoyable ? Tell us more of course .

Speaker 3 15:11

Well , um , I hope at this point you think it's enjoyable because you've heard me talk and you maybe want to hear more , but mostly because we do have these incredible guests who come on that are real practitioners in hr .

Speaker 3 15:22

It's . It's not about all these different kind of philosophies or ideas that you hear and you wonder how am I ever going to make this work in my company . It's , these are people doing the work . They're on the ground , they're actually seeing how this is and you get to walk away from superstars with tangible actions , tangible ideas , a new way of thinking to really challenge all of us to be much more strategic and , I think , step into the world that HR is going into right . We have to move away from this . We're just administrators , we're just helpers , we're just support , we are business leaders like every other leader who is in the organization at the table , and my hope is that through HR superstars , people leave feeling empowered and excited to get into that . Even if it's a little bit scary or a little bit new , you've got a whole community rallying behind you okay , so quick follow-up to that one .

Speaker 2 16:09

Uh , can you offer a couple of guests that have been on the show that have left you engaged and excited ? By the way , I hate this question . When people ask me this question what are your favorite guests ? Bill the show , who's left an impact , I always try and sit on the fence . Uh , just to preface any answer you're about to give uh , love it .

Speaker 3 16:26

Well , I'll say , you know , my future favorite guest will be you , bill , when you return back on . So I'm excited for that . Um , you know , honestly , I will say , one of the guests who's really just got me so lit up recently was david hawthorne we did just release this episode but he's chief people officer at Anger Point , this consulting group that runs all kinds of different chain organizations in the US , and he just was such a down to earth , regular person who I think you would imagine like man , you're part of a big organization , you're this huge chief people officer . You must be , I don't know just like sometimes so disconnected we feel like .

Speaker 3 17:04

And he was one of just the coolest people that had great advice . I mean , I think you know a few of the things he said have always be important , like always make sure that you are invaluable to your organization . He had a ton of great examples of real leadership on the ground , like with people doing hard jobs . I mean we think tech organizations are hard and tough jobs but at the end of the day , that's not like serving food at a fast food restaurant to 50 guests who are yelling at you or angry , or their kids are crying . I mean , that's a different level of stress and how he builds people support and leadership there . I just thought it was really really cool and really special to hear his perspective .

Speaker 2 17:42

I like that a lot , lot and , yes , I would love to come on the show again soon . Um , and also , just you know , while we're recording here , I'd love to invite you onto the people and performance podcast with christopher bjorn and I , uh , which is a another show which is quite fun , and I think you'd be a great guest . So if you're interested in that , let's exchange deets after

Closing and Contact Information

Speaker 2 18:00

this let's keep it going all right , all right , we'll spread the love .

Speaker 2 18:03

Um , okay , uh , because I batch my life listeners . I've got another recording in three minutes . So , karina , just to wrap things up for today , how can our listeners connect with you is that linkedin , email , tiktok , instagram , all those things ? And how can they learn more about 15 five ?

Speaker 3 18:20

I am at the end of a one year social media break , so don't find me on Instagram right now , but maybe in a couple of weeks you will Come to LinkedIn . Find me there . Find me on HR Superstars . If anyone here is going to Shermer , we'll be there . I'll be there with the rest of the 15.5 team . But yeah , seek me out , I'm there .

Speaker 2 18:41

I love connecting with the community . I am very close to booking my tickets to show . I've got the media pass sorted . I just got a flight past my wonderful other half , but if I do go , I'm going to look you up , karina . For today , though , thank you very much for being my guest .

Speaker 3 18:54

My pleasure , bill . Thank you so much for having me , and I'll see you in San Diego or on my podcast sometime soon .

Speaker 2 19:00

Done . And listeners , as always , until next time . Happy working done . And listeners , as always , until next time , happy working thanks for listening to the hr chat show .

Speaker 1 19:10

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