Omnifia Meets Allie Shulman

[00:00:00] Ivor Colson: So, hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Omnifia Meeks. In each episode, you'll meet a HR people, ops or future of work leader and learn how they're overcoming challenges and aspiring workplace success through unique insights, stories, and opinions. I'm Iva Colson. I'm co-founder of amia, and today I'm really excited to introduce Allie Shulman from change.org, where she's the director of PeopleOps.

Ivor Colson: Really happy to have you here, Allie. How are you doing? 

Allie Shulman: Happy to be here. I'm doing great Tuesday, Monday, and Tuesday in hr. It is hectic, so Wednesday's a little bit nicer. I'm feeling good today. 

Ivor Colson: Awesome. Let's get straight into it. So before we get started, I like to ask an icebreaker question. So, if you weren't working in people ops, what would you be doing?

Allie Shulman: It's a great question. If I wasn't in [00:01:00] hr, I think I'd be in a job that still requires just as much talking, just as much human interaction, cuz that's just my personality is probably why. The only other jobs I've had are with those qualifications. So I was a tennis coach and I've also dabbled in acting and performing, so I'd probably be doing one of those things.

Allie Shulman: I grew up just playing a lot of tennis. It's what took me to college. And I also like my real loves are choir and theater and singing. So there's a real technical coaching, competitive element to one of those things. And then the other thing is like very creative and you want to entertain people, and maybe that is the exact formula for getting into hr.

Allie Shulman: I don't know, maybe that's how I got here. I'm just kind of adding all of that up now. I 

Ivor Colson: feel like loads of those kind of attributes are definitely relatable to a career in, in hr particularly like competitiveness and also to do with kind of working with team members and this type of thing.

Ivor Colson: So [00:02:00] that's, that's really interesting. So if we get straight into it with so many people kind of suffering from burnout, Indeed, I think reporting 52% of us experienced burnouts in 2021. How do you kind of ensure you're taking care of employee wellbeing@change.org? 

Allie Shulman: I. Yeah, we spend so much time at work.

Allie Shulman: I know. I'm sure you do. I spend all my time thinking about the people at work. That is my job. And more and more folks are entering the workforce, presumably with new and different needs. More than what we're seeing 10, 20, 30 years ago. We're seeing that mental health and wellness is more ingrained in society than ever before.

Allie Shulman: So companies have that potential to attract and retain more staff if there is a good benefits plan, if the culture fits to their lifestyle that they want. So what we've done is [00:03:00] we provide. Healthcare where premiums are 100% covered by the company. Now in the US we've gotta pay for healthcare. So that's a big deal.

Allie Shulman: It's, it's very expensive and it's a big cost. And while we're a global company and we offer private healthcare everywhere else, we, we maintain paying those a hundred percent premiums. It's one of the offerings that our team and new hires are most excited. and what it means is just less stress on that employee, less stress to think about that cost coming out of their own pocket.

Allie Shulman: What am I gonna do if I get sick? What am I gonna do if I need to take time off? And, and they're, they're covered. Then we took that one step further and we said, let's make sure we also provide that, you know, physical healthcare in a mental health space as well. So we offer 10 free mental health sessions through a platform called me Modern Health.

Allie Shulman: There's a ton of platforms out there that you can partner with. I, I like Modern Health because it offers a slew of other wellbeing benefits outside [00:04:00] of just those mental health therapy sessions, like meditation and readings, group therapy, career coaching. So I just really believe that, you know, Putting healthcare, mental health, wellbeing at the forefront is gonna retain and make folks feel like they're taken care of.

Allie Shulman: And then beyond putting budget into this, companies should also just live that lifestyle of work life balance where it makes sense. Of course. I mean, burnout equals people leaving. So if there's a culture of maintaining that balance, people actually actually taking P t o, my manager, who's a. Actually takes p t o and she's off, you know, she is like, do not bother me.

Allie Shulman: I am outta here. That's such a really good example for me, which then I can set example for my team members. So there's a lot of elements that go into this, but ultimately, like the teams have to be taken care of, and that's what people care about right now. 

Ivor Colson: Yeah. [00:05:00] That's actually huge to give employees that kind of benefit and quite literally a lifesaver, right?

Ivor Colson: Mm-hmm. . What's interesting is actually seeing the impact on businesses as well if they kind of understand the importance of wellbeing. So there's kind of some statistics out there and I burnt out. Employees are 2.6 times more likely to look for employment elsewhere.

Ivor Colson: And obviously turnover has huge impacts on businesses. So it's, it's really important as we look to the kind of future. 

Ivor Colson: On a similar theme and thinking about the employee experience still, how are you going about kind of creating an engaged working environment in 2022 and and beyond? 

Allie Shulman: Three things stand out to me when I think of engagement right now.

Allie Shulman: Trust in leadership is one. Understanding and buy-in to the mission, and then having a really strong [00:06:00] performance process and philosophy in place. All those things will help engage employees and wanna start with trust in leadership. I think we've seen this is pretty relevant and I think we've seen recently that.

Allie Shulman: You could be at a really incredible, innovative, well-known company and people will still leave if they feel like their leader is unstable or toxic. Mm-hmm. , I'm trustworthy. Or they lack a clear business director 

Ivor Colson: example that recently, but maybe 

Allie Shulman: names, I think it rhymes with quitter. Relevant or to use.

Allie Shulman: Yeah. I mean, people are not afraid to go. Social media and say, I don't trust this person. I don't trust leadership here. That is employee branding and that you don't have control over. So really starting with leadership and having the right leaders in place to oversee the business, the decisions and the way people feel is, is crucial.

Allie Shulman: Understanding the mission. As I mentioned is the second one I think about. Everyone [00:07:00] wants to know what they're working towards, right? So if you wanna be motivated, you wanna know what you're, what you're there to do, and leadership has the opportunity to make that clear, whether it's through O K R planning company communications, it's important for leadership to be like, Hey, we're making an impact and here's what it is.

Allie Shulman: And I feel like employees really love that and we'll buy in a little bit more. . And then finally, performance reviews. This is what allows people to develop professionally. It's really hard to walk away when you know how to get to the next level where you are. When you know that there's a manager that believes in you, there's a clear path for you.

Allie Shulman: They genuinely care about you. So how do you walk away from a place where your career is laid out in a very exciting way? So I think those three things will help engage team members. 

Ivor Colson: Yeah. And, and perhaps kind of looking at it more deeply, what kind of strategies do you actually have in place to keep those high performing [00:08:00] employees to, to stay and, and stop them from leaving to the competition?

Allie Shulman: Yeah, there's definitely not one answer to this question. Whenever I watch panels or I listen to experts, I'm like, tell me what to do. Tell me the formula. But the answer, from what I've come to realize, it actually lives within your staff. They're the ones who are gonna answer that question for you. It's extremely important, obviously, to have, you know, an equitable, strong comp philosophy.

Allie Shulman: People care about. Get performance reviews, but everyone has different needs. One person wants good work-life balance. Another person wants good bonus incentive or great healthcare. So it's really up to HR to partner with leadership and management and continually pulse, check what's going great, what could we be doing better?

Allie Shulman: What are your thoughts on management? What are your thoughts on leadership? Get those honest opinions from your team members. And then through things like surveying. [00:09:00] Team building activities, you can really say, okay, here are the consistencies and here are the big ticket items that I think we should focus on to better our E N P S.

Allie Shulman: Our employee engagement, our employee. Experience and people are always changing too. So companies need to really evolve with that after something like a pandemic. Companies are learning what their workforce wants, what they need, and you might even have the same employees now that you had pre pandemic, but I guarantee you there wants and needs are totally different and it's really important to continuously talk to them about that.

Ivor Colson: Yeah, and I think each employee is just very different and it's really important to have an all-encompassing strategy that appeals to all different types of employees. For me, when I kind of think about past roles and jobs where I've kind of left and, and wanted to move on for me is, one of them has been burnout.

Ivor Colson: I [00:10:00] burnt out in the middle of the pandemic and. Maybe leave the company and actually set up Omni FIA in itself. And then before that I think it was like a lack of development and, and learning in a role. So other people might kind of leave due to kind of compensation and all different types of reasons.

Ivor Colson: So that's kind of really interesting. And in your kind of role, what are the kind of key things you are looking to focus on? In 2023. 

Allie Shulman: All right, I'm still working on this. I'm literally, after this call. You got some time? Yeah, I'm going actually to project plan for 2023 for the rest of this week and next week.

Allie Shulman: So I'm working on it, but if I look at it at a high level, . Mm-hmm. . I think my, my job is to ensure that my team has really clear goals. They know what our mission is for next year, the timelines and priority level of each project, and they, they know why we're doing it and how we're doing it. So things like, you know, total comp or comp philosophy [00:11:00] and benefits.

Allie Shulman: I mean, there's things that I'm focused on that are really, really important to always be looking at. But other projects include things like automation and integration of some of our systems and. I really wanna reduce manual error and be more efficient as a team. So we have to clean up some of those systems too.

Allie Shulman: That takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of heads, downtime. And now that change.org has been around for a little, you know, more than 10 years, that's, it's a time, time to kind of consolidate and look at. , the paperwork where it is, clean it up, get our systems in order. So there's a lot of work to do. I'm excited to focus a lot on the technology piece and how that plays into the world of people operations as well.

Ivor Colson: Yeah. And I guess on that kind of theme, so how do you actually see technology playing a role in the future of HR and people? 

Allie Shulman: It's a ma, it's gonna play a massive role [00:12:00] in our work, and more and more companies are going hybrid or they're going full remote. So you've no choice but to use technology. I mean, we're using it for onboarding, offboarding, hiring performance reviews, our information system, internal comms.

Allie Shulman: I, I could lit list everything that we do. , all of these systems and more exist now. I mean, there's a new system all the time. I'm getting emails constantly. I'm sure you are too . I love connecting those systems as well. Being able to connect our. Information system with payroll. I mean, years ago I had a pile of paperwork on my desk and now I have none, which is great.

Allie Shulman: We moved even our snail mail to a digital platform that scans it for us, and then we read it on email, which is amazing. So really sky's the limit on technology. . 

Ivor Colson: Yeah. I feel like in other industries as well, and this is something I mentioned on a different episode of [00:13:00] AMIA Meats and. HR hasn't innovated and transformed as fast as other industries.

Ivor Colson: In marketing for example, you have loads of analytics software and digital software to report on, on different aspects. And perhaps HR has kind of been a bit slower in that respect, but I think we're starting to see some movement there. Particularly kind of accelerated by the pandemic.

Allie Shulman: You know what, I think notice some of that is it's, I think we're, at least I'll speak personally. Worried about the compliance piece. I mean, something in the US that we have to do is this paperwork called I nine and mm-hmm . You have to do that. You would have to do that physically. You had to get someone in person.

Allie Shulman: You had to get that filled out. And you know, there's ways now that you don't have to do that. So I think there's just like making sure there that we're being compliant in the way that we do. Very, yeah. Important paperwork, . 

Ivor Colson: Yeah. And I mean that was a big kind of barrier from the [00:14:00] kind of migration to the cloud is like the compliance side of things.

Ivor Colson: And also that security issues in 

Allie Shulman: this type of thing. Gdpr, I mean. Yeah. Yeah. , that's another podcast. 

Ivor Colson: Before we finish, I'd like to finish with a kind of quickfire round. So what's one thing that you would like to be automated in your job or your team's job? 

Allie Shulman: Oh, come on. Everything . Everything.

Ivor Colson: unfortunately. Sit and relax maybe, and put your feet up. 

Allie Shulman: Oh man. Can you imagine? But unfortunately, humans are humans and we're dealing. Human emotion and random questions all the time. Yeah. I think what I'm, what we're working on right now actually is pretty relevant to this. We're, we're integrating some of our payroll and benefit systems.

Allie Shulman: So if someone makes an adjustment in their retirement plan, That feeds automatically to payroll. We don't have to manually go into our payroll system and do the deductions. It'll automatically feed over. I think that's really exciting. I [00:15:00] like the idea of reducing manual error due to that, and it just, it, it frees up more time for all of our team members to then focus on other new projects, more ways to automate and we can then we'll move on to the next thing to automate.

Ivor Colson: And then you can focus on the really interesting stuff as well. No one really wants to be doing the manual kind of data entry and this, this type of thing. So no. So that's all we have time for. Thank you Ali for joining today. 

Allie Shulman: Of course. I had a great time and wish you all the best luck with everything.

Ivor Colson: Tons of great insights. I'm sure our listeners will absolutely lap up. Thanks for tuning in and speak to you all next time.

‍

[00:00:00] Ivor Colson: So, hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Omnifia Meeks. In each episode, you'll meet a HR people, ops or future of work leader and learn how they're overcoming challenges and aspiring workplace success through unique insights, stories, and opinions. I'm Iva Colson. I'm co-founder of amia, and today I'm really excited to introduce Allie Shulman from change.org, where she's the director of PeopleOps.

Ivor Colson: Really happy to have you here, Allie. How are you doing? 

Allie Shulman: Happy to be here. I'm doing great Tuesday, Monday, and Tuesday in hr. It is hectic, so Wednesday's a little bit nicer. I'm feeling good today. 

Ivor Colson: Awesome. Let's get straight into it. So before we get started, I like to ask an icebreaker question. So, if you weren't working in people ops, what would you be doing?

Allie Shulman: It's a great question. If I wasn't in [00:01:00] hr, I think I'd be in a job that still requires just as much talking, just as much human interaction, cuz that's just my personality is probably why. The only other jobs I've had are with those qualifications. So I was a tennis coach and I've also dabbled in acting and performing, so I'd probably be doing one of those things.

Allie Shulman: I grew up just playing a lot of tennis. It's what took me to college. And I also like my real loves are choir and theater and singing. So there's a real technical coaching, competitive element to one of those things. And then the other thing is like very creative and you want to entertain people, and maybe that is the exact formula for getting into hr.

Allie Shulman: I don't know, maybe that's how I got here. I'm just kind of adding all of that up now. I 

Ivor Colson: feel like loads of those kind of attributes are definitely relatable to a career in, in hr particularly like competitiveness and also to do with kind of working with team members and this type of thing.

Ivor Colson: So [00:02:00] that's, that's really interesting. So if we get straight into it with so many people kind of suffering from burnout, Indeed, I think reporting 52% of us experienced burnouts in 2021. How do you kind of ensure you're taking care of employee wellbeing@change.org? 

Allie Shulman: I. Yeah, we spend so much time at work.

Allie Shulman: I know. I'm sure you do. I spend all my time thinking about the people at work. That is my job. And more and more folks are entering the workforce, presumably with new and different needs. More than what we're seeing 10, 20, 30 years ago. We're seeing that mental health and wellness is more ingrained in society than ever before.

Allie Shulman: So companies have that potential to attract and retain more staff if there is a good benefits plan, if the culture fits to their lifestyle that they want. So what we've done is [00:03:00] we provide. Healthcare where premiums are 100% covered by the company. Now in the US we've gotta pay for healthcare. So that's a big deal.

Allie Shulman: It's, it's very expensive and it's a big cost. And while we're a global company and we offer private healthcare everywhere else, we, we maintain paying those a hundred percent premiums. It's one of the offerings that our team and new hires are most excited. and what it means is just less stress on that employee, less stress to think about that cost coming out of their own pocket.

Allie Shulman: What am I gonna do if I get sick? What am I gonna do if I need to take time off? And, and they're, they're covered. Then we took that one step further and we said, let's make sure we also provide that, you know, physical healthcare in a mental health space as well. So we offer 10 free mental health sessions through a platform called me Modern Health.

Allie Shulman: There's a ton of platforms out there that you can partner with. I, I like Modern Health because it offers a slew of other wellbeing benefits outside [00:04:00] of just those mental health therapy sessions, like meditation and readings, group therapy, career coaching. So I just really believe that, you know, Putting healthcare, mental health, wellbeing at the forefront is gonna retain and make folks feel like they're taken care of.

Allie Shulman: And then beyond putting budget into this, companies should also just live that lifestyle of work life balance where it makes sense. Of course. I mean, burnout equals people leaving. So if there's a culture of maintaining that balance, people actually actually taking P t o, my manager, who's a. Actually takes p t o and she's off, you know, she is like, do not bother me.

Allie Shulman: I am outta here. That's such a really good example for me, which then I can set example for my team members. So there's a lot of elements that go into this, but ultimately, like the teams have to be taken care of, and that's what people care about right now. 

Ivor Colson: Yeah. [00:05:00] That's actually huge to give employees that kind of benefit and quite literally a lifesaver, right?

Ivor Colson: Mm-hmm. . What's interesting is actually seeing the impact on businesses as well if they kind of understand the importance of wellbeing. So there's kind of some statistics out there and I burnt out. Employees are 2.6 times more likely to look for employment elsewhere.

Ivor Colson: And obviously turnover has huge impacts on businesses. So it's, it's really important as we look to the kind of future. 

Ivor Colson: On a similar theme and thinking about the employee experience still, how are you going about kind of creating an engaged working environment in 2022 and and beyond? 

Allie Shulman: Three things stand out to me when I think of engagement right now.

Allie Shulman: Trust in leadership is one. Understanding and buy-in to the mission, and then having a really strong [00:06:00] performance process and philosophy in place. All those things will help engage employees and wanna start with trust in leadership. I think we've seen this is pretty relevant and I think we've seen recently that.

Allie Shulman: You could be at a really incredible, innovative, well-known company and people will still leave if they feel like their leader is unstable or toxic. Mm-hmm. , I'm trustworthy. Or they lack a clear business director 

Ivor Colson: example that recently, but maybe 

Allie Shulman: names, I think it rhymes with quitter. Relevant or to use.

Allie Shulman: Yeah. I mean, people are not afraid to go. Social media and say, I don't trust this person. I don't trust leadership here. That is employee branding and that you don't have control over. So really starting with leadership and having the right leaders in place to oversee the business, the decisions and the way people feel is, is crucial.

Allie Shulman: Understanding the mission. As I mentioned is the second one I think about. Everyone [00:07:00] wants to know what they're working towards, right? So if you wanna be motivated, you wanna know what you're, what you're there to do, and leadership has the opportunity to make that clear, whether it's through O K R planning company communications, it's important for leadership to be like, Hey, we're making an impact and here's what it is.

Allie Shulman: And I feel like employees really love that and we'll buy in a little bit more. . And then finally, performance reviews. This is what allows people to develop professionally. It's really hard to walk away when you know how to get to the next level where you are. When you know that there's a manager that believes in you, there's a clear path for you.

Allie Shulman: They genuinely care about you. So how do you walk away from a place where your career is laid out in a very exciting way? So I think those three things will help engage team members. 

Ivor Colson: Yeah. And, and perhaps kind of looking at it more deeply, what kind of strategies do you actually have in place to keep those high performing [00:08:00] employees to, to stay and, and stop them from leaving to the competition?

Allie Shulman: Yeah, there's definitely not one answer to this question. Whenever I watch panels or I listen to experts, I'm like, tell me what to do. Tell me the formula. But the answer, from what I've come to realize, it actually lives within your staff. They're the ones who are gonna answer that question for you. It's extremely important, obviously, to have, you know, an equitable, strong comp philosophy.

Allie Shulman: People care about. Get performance reviews, but everyone has different needs. One person wants good work-life balance. Another person wants good bonus incentive or great healthcare. So it's really up to HR to partner with leadership and management and continually pulse, check what's going great, what could we be doing better?

Allie Shulman: What are your thoughts on management? What are your thoughts on leadership? Get those honest opinions from your team members. And then through things like surveying. [00:09:00] Team building activities, you can really say, okay, here are the consistencies and here are the big ticket items that I think we should focus on to better our E N P S.

Allie Shulman: Our employee engagement, our employee. Experience and people are always changing too. So companies need to really evolve with that after something like a pandemic. Companies are learning what their workforce wants, what they need, and you might even have the same employees now that you had pre pandemic, but I guarantee you there wants and needs are totally different and it's really important to continuously talk to them about that.

Ivor Colson: Yeah, and I think each employee is just very different and it's really important to have an all-encompassing strategy that appeals to all different types of employees. For me, when I kind of think about past roles and jobs where I've kind of left and, and wanted to move on for me is, one of them has been burnout.

Ivor Colson: I [00:10:00] burnt out in the middle of the pandemic and. Maybe leave the company and actually set up Omni FIA in itself. And then before that I think it was like a lack of development and, and learning in a role. So other people might kind of leave due to kind of compensation and all different types of reasons.

Ivor Colson: So that's kind of really interesting. And in your kind of role, what are the kind of key things you are looking to focus on? In 2023. 

Allie Shulman: All right, I'm still working on this. I'm literally, after this call. You got some time? Yeah, I'm going actually to project plan for 2023 for the rest of this week and next week.

Allie Shulman: So I'm working on it, but if I look at it at a high level, . Mm-hmm. . I think my, my job is to ensure that my team has really clear goals. They know what our mission is for next year, the timelines and priority level of each project, and they, they know why we're doing it and how we're doing it. So things like, you know, total comp or comp philosophy [00:11:00] and benefits.

Allie Shulman: I mean, there's things that I'm focused on that are really, really important to always be looking at. But other projects include things like automation and integration of some of our systems and. I really wanna reduce manual error and be more efficient as a team. So we have to clean up some of those systems too.

Allie Shulman: That takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of heads, downtime. And now that change.org has been around for a little, you know, more than 10 years, that's, it's a time, time to kind of consolidate and look at. , the paperwork where it is, clean it up, get our systems in order. So there's a lot of work to do. I'm excited to focus a lot on the technology piece and how that plays into the world of people operations as well.

Ivor Colson: Yeah. And I guess on that kind of theme, so how do you actually see technology playing a role in the future of HR and people? 

Allie Shulman: It's a ma, it's gonna play a massive role [00:12:00] in our work, and more and more companies are going hybrid or they're going full remote. So you've no choice but to use technology. I mean, we're using it for onboarding, offboarding, hiring performance reviews, our information system, internal comms.

Allie Shulman: I, I could lit list everything that we do. , all of these systems and more exist now. I mean, there's a new system all the time. I'm getting emails constantly. I'm sure you are too . I love connecting those systems as well. Being able to connect our. Information system with payroll. I mean, years ago I had a pile of paperwork on my desk and now I have none, which is great.

Allie Shulman: We moved even our snail mail to a digital platform that scans it for us, and then we read it on email, which is amazing. So really sky's the limit on technology. . 

Ivor Colson: Yeah. I feel like in other industries as well, and this is something I mentioned on a different episode of [00:13:00] AMIA Meats and. HR hasn't innovated and transformed as fast as other industries.

Ivor Colson: In marketing for example, you have loads of analytics software and digital software to report on, on different aspects. And perhaps HR has kind of been a bit slower in that respect, but I think we're starting to see some movement there. Particularly kind of accelerated by the pandemic.

Allie Shulman: You know what, I think notice some of that is it's, I think we're, at least I'll speak personally. Worried about the compliance piece. I mean, something in the US that we have to do is this paperwork called I nine and mm-hmm . You have to do that. You would have to do that physically. You had to get someone in person.

Allie Shulman: You had to get that filled out. And you know, there's ways now that you don't have to do that. So I think there's just like making sure there that we're being compliant in the way that we do. Very, yeah. Important paperwork, . 

Ivor Colson: Yeah. And I mean that was a big kind of barrier from the [00:14:00] kind of migration to the cloud is like the compliance side of things.

Ivor Colson: And also that security issues in 

Allie Shulman: this type of thing. Gdpr, I mean. Yeah. Yeah. , that's another podcast. 

Ivor Colson: Before we finish, I'd like to finish with a kind of quickfire round. So what's one thing that you would like to be automated in your job or your team's job? 

Allie Shulman: Oh, come on. Everything . Everything.

Ivor Colson: unfortunately. Sit and relax maybe, and put your feet up. 

Allie Shulman: Oh man. Can you imagine? But unfortunately, humans are humans and we're dealing. Human emotion and random questions all the time. Yeah. I think what I'm, what we're working on right now actually is pretty relevant to this. We're, we're integrating some of our payroll and benefit systems.

Allie Shulman: So if someone makes an adjustment in their retirement plan, That feeds automatically to payroll. We don't have to manually go into our payroll system and do the deductions. It'll automatically feed over. I think that's really exciting. I [00:15:00] like the idea of reducing manual error due to that, and it just, it, it frees up more time for all of our team members to then focus on other new projects, more ways to automate and we can then we'll move on to the next thing to automate.

Ivor Colson: And then you can focus on the really interesting stuff as well. No one really wants to be doing the manual kind of data entry and this, this type of thing. So no. So that's all we have time for. Thank you Ali for joining today. 

Allie Shulman: Of course. I had a great time and wish you all the best luck with everything.

Ivor Colson: Tons of great insights. I'm sure our listeners will absolutely lap up. Thanks for tuning in and speak to you all next time.

‍