Callie and Deanna talk finding your passion and your "why" with Sam Sanders, SHRM-CP, Director of People and Culture at Metronome LLC.
Callie and Deanna talk finding your passion and your "why" with Sam Sanders, SHRM-CP, Director of People and Culture at Metronome LLC.
Callie:
Hi everyone. Welcome back. I'm Callie.
Diane :
I'm Diane, and this is Honest HR, a podcast from SHRM, where we get real with HR professionals.
Callie:
We want to create a safe space for people to passionately share their HR stories and insights.
Diane :
Because this is a safe space and because we are passionate, we understand our approach, our topics and stories aren't for everyone.
Callie:
Come, if you're interested. Stay if you like what we're throwing down, and we like you and appreciate you either way.
Diane :
All right. Let's jump into this episode's topic. We have Sam Sanders here today. He's an SHRM-certified member. He is the director of people and culture at Metronome, a government contracting company based in Northern Virginia. Like many contracting shops, Metronome employees are scattered across the US. As director of people and culture, Sam is tasked with building employee engagement, despite the steep challenge of a geographically dispersed workforce. Sam, thanks for joining us.
Sam Sanders:
It's my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
Callie:
Hey Sam.
Sam Sanders:
Hey, good morning.
Diane :
Before we get into this week's topic, we want to hear a little bit about you and how you have gotten to where you are today.
Sam Sanders:
Sure. My beginning, I'm going to go back a little further to my childhood. I think that's where my why began. I grew up in Detroit, and most people, there's struggles and challenges that you have. One of the first challenges was we found ourselves in a situation where we were homeless and during that time, what I recognized was that there was some things that remained consistent. For me, academics was important, and so even though we were homeless, I remained committed to school. That was the birthing of perseverance and grit. As I went on, while that was a small issue or challenge in my childhood, for me, it was the fuel. I had decided that I would never be in that position again. I would never be homeless again.
Went on and had a desire to pursue human resources at a very young age. Didn't really understand what that meant, but I'm just this is the gate to get into any opportunity, and so this was something that I was really interested in. Started at Michigan State, and I had some really, really awesome professors who didn't just show me the glamorous side of HR. Talked about all of the terrible employee relations conversations, and since we're being honest, they talked about terminations and all those things. I really had an opportunity to see for myself what HR was all about, at that time. They pushed me not to specialize in terms of choosing a particular silo. That's when my story began.
When I finished my undergrad at Michigan State, I went on. My first opportunity, I was a support clerk, and so I was working for a firm that was contracted out by the state of Michigan. I remember some of the beginning mentoring that I had by my HR director at the time. One of the things that she talked about was finding your passion, finding the thing that is your guiding principles. That was another, again, another building block in terms of my beginning.
I left that firm and I went on to work with International Alliance of Hope in a different capacity. Really, again, got some additional experience we dealt with on the nonprofit side of HR, completely different landscape. Gained some additional experience with employee relations and moved from there and worked for the State of Michigan. Spent some time recruiting and developing my team there. I was looking to move for greater growth career advancement, and so an opportunity opened up here in the DMV area. I moved, and it was one of the best decisions of my life. It landed me smack dab in the middle of all the things that are happening in the DC area. That's my story.
Diane :
We're all from the Midwest. I can say we connect.
Callie:
Let's go Packers. Anyway, Sam, I have a question for you based off something you said. You said that you were pushed to find your passion. Tell us a little bit more about that. What are you passionate about now? How do you find that passion in your everyday work? Is it people, is it HR? What really is that passion for you today?
Sam Sanders:
Sure, sure. Great question. One of the exercises currently that we are required, I require my teams to do at Metronome now, and it's a core values assessment, and this essentially walks any person through why you make some of the decisions you make. Why do you join the clubs you join, and it really does identify your why. It identifies the thing that you're passionate about. For me, I'm passionate about unlocking untapped potential. I think every person has untapped potential, and it's really a matter of engaging the individual at their level. I think some of the misnomers within our traditional HR framework is we think that there's a one size fits all, and so we start with the core values assessment. When the employee first joins our firm, that's where it starts. For me identifying my passion was first going through that core values assessment. I believe that every person has untapped potential, and I believe that I have the tools and the resources to unlock that.
Diane :
That's great. It's amazing.
Callie:
Diane, what's your why?
Diane :
I was thinking about this for the last few days, just really, why do I do what I do every day? I think a lot of it has to do with, because of my role, I get to experience with the employee their entire life or not life employee life cycle. Truly from the first day they start, they meet with me, I get to know them, and I get to watch them grow and progress. I also, in a way, experience the good and the bad that happens in their personal lives when they have to leave work for the birth of a child, or maybe someone in their family's gotten sick and I, in a way, become a part of that story with them. I think I've grown a lot because of that, and I see it as having many versions of a relationship with all of our employees and really getting to know them to their core. I think that's what I've cherished in this role, and I continue to love doing it every day.
Sam Sanders:
I like what you just said, Diane, you recognize that you watch people through different phase of their lives and recognizing that are understanding when you deal with a person, you're dealing with a whole person. You're not just dealing with the HR generalist that shows up to work everyday. You're dealing with the whole person, so recognizing they have things that they may require them to be out of extended times. As I think about my why and listening to what you shared, it's understanding that you have to identify with the whole person that shows up every single day.
Diane :
Exactly. Exactly. What about you, Callie? What's your why?
Callie:
Oh, I have to say that SHRM is not paying me to say this. Well, they are, but honestly, my why right now, in my role is SHRM. I get to travel and meet with our volunteers and our members on a regular basis and talk about their passion for HR and their passion for this huge organization that brings all of those HR practitioners together. For me, it's very cheesy and frankly still honest because, again, we're in an honest space, but for me, really, this job and SHRM came at a time when I was struggling with HR practitioner things that HR practitioners struggle with. I was at an organization that was going through massive layoffs, and then I was at an organization that was a private equity purchased firm pretty recently, so there was a lot of change. When you're in HR, you can struggle with that.
I'll fully admit that I was struggling, and so given this opportunity with SHRM to take a step back and find that passion for HR, again, through to people that I network with and meet with and get to talk to on a regular basis has just been such a blessing. For me, honestly, it's the opportunity that I've been given at SHRM being my why. It's super cheesy, but it's honest and true.
Diane :
Well, and that has to be so energizing and make you re-fall in love with HR all the time, when you're talking to our members who are so passionate about what we do. I think that's got to be probably the really fun part of what you're doing.
Callie:
It is, and I get to talk about all sorts of HR topics, and actually, Sam, I want to bring this back to you because I was just listening to a speaker talk about energizing their teams, being a better team player. I know one of the things that you do on your team is to really help your team understand their passion and their why. Can you help us understand the different things that you do for your team, specifically to help them find that passion and that why?
Sam Sanders:
Absolutely. We believe in engaging individuals. It's going through the core values assessment. That's really just the beginning. You're just scratching the surface. What you identified during that core values assessment is what motivates people. I think that they're, in terms of total rewards and incentivizing employees for performance, it can't be this one size fits all. It's really about the individual. One of the things that we do is identify during the onboarding process what motivates you. Hey, if there is an opportunity for us to acknowledge some great success that you've achieved, what's the way to recognize you? It's really, again, looking at the whole person and being able to speak individually to them. In terms of what we do, again, right at the onset of us, that initial relationship, it's understanding what their passion is and then making certain that when we look to reward or incentivize them for great success, that we're doing it based on their wants, needs, and desires. That's how you keep people engaged.
If I hand a skydiving coupon for just meeting a milestone, you don't skydive that seems a bit just weird or strange. It's recognizing, hey, you don't really know me. Maybe you don't really care. Maybe there's things I shared with you that would maybe have queued you in on things that I'd be interested in, but that wasn't something you paid attention to. I think it's really, the onus is on the employer, on the people side of the house to ensure that you understand what makes people tick, what gets them engaged, what keeps them motivated.
Callie:
Let me ask you another question, Sam. This is another part of the conversation I was just recently having. How do you create an environment that's honest and trustworthy, where if you're talking to an employee and you say this is the vision that I have for you, and this is where I see you going in your career? What if that employee just really is having some concerns over whether or not they can take on that additional work or they can do what you envision them doing? How do you create that honest and trustworthy environment that allows for passions and why's to come through?
Sam Sanders:
Sure. Let me take a step back to that question. It is really starting with understanding that there is a role that the people or the... Again to be honest, we don't use the word HR. I'm struggling with using that term.
Callie:
Oh, really? What do you say?
Sam Sanders:
We talk in terms of people. It's people in culture at Metronome. For us, it's people.
Callie:
That's good.
Sam Sanders:
I think that it's being sensitive to, we're not treating people as money resources. People and culture is what we say. It's starting with recognizing the role of the people side of the house, and you have two hats that you wear. It's you're a strategic business partner but you're also an employee advocate, and so in terms of being a strategic business partner, or a gatekeeper, I make it a point to not let people in the organization that aren't passionate. I want people that join our organization to be passionate. That's where to start.
Second to that. Once we pull the person in, I have a direct report that recently there's been some reorging, and she identified specifically and said I do want to grow, but I'm nervous. I don't know if I can handle the additional responsibilities. In terms of helping them see the bigger picture, one it's creating an environment of trust to say, hey, I'm going to give you a set of tasks. I'm going to walk you through them, and I trust that you have the ability, the tools, the resources to get this done. Give them the space, the autonomy to get it done, and what you do is you're building that person's confidence. I think, often, when a person says, I don't feel like I can handle this. It's because they've not been given an opportunity to flex their muscle in that area.
You think about going to the gym, and I love going to the gym, but the part of that is when you first start getting going, when you're working your biceps, they're sore after that first... I don't know if I could really lift this amount of weight, but the more you do it, the more confident you become, your posture becomes better. It's the same way within the people space that you focus on identifying what's the problem. When you say you don't feel like you can handle this. What are we dealing with? Then again, giving the person space and opportunity to flex in that area.
Callie:
Awesome. Well, this has been such an awesome conversation. I, for one, am taking away, I think specifically is not only to allow my managers to build up my confidence but find my confidence myself too. Because you're right, if you are confident in what you're doing, it just speaks volumes, and it propels you forward. Diane, what's your takeaway from Sam's conversation?
Diane :
I mean, I like his take on really, and I think we are similar in this getting the whole person, not forgetting that there's other size than just work and having the empathy to realize that I think that's really important. I'm so thankful for learning about your why's. That was great. Thanks for sharing both of you guys.
Sam Sanders:
It's an absolute pleasure. I just want to say you both have identified with something that I often say in both of your why's. You talked about passion, and I think that is the key to any success. You don't chase money, you chase passion, and the money will follow.
Diane :
Definitely.
Callie:
For all of you out there listening, find your passion. That's your takeaway from Sam today? Sam, thank you for joining us. Diane and I will be back with Honest HR in a couple of weeks, and we invite you again to join us. Thank you again. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Diane. We will see you again soon.
Diane :
See you.