<p>This week on <em>Honest HR</em>, Callie we have a bonus conversation with HR pros Jon Thurmond and Wendy Dailey, from The HR Social Hour Podcast, on networking and communication. <br /><br />If you enjoyed their recent episode, <a href="http://www.buzzsprout.com/173315/1422415-finding-your-comic-book-defining-yourself-as-a-professional-feat-jon-and-wendy-from-the-hr-social-hour-podcast"><em>Finding Your Comic Book: Defining Yourself as a Professional</em></a>, you'll definitely want to hear more! <br /><br /><br />---<br /><b>EARN SHRM RECERTIFICATION PDCs FOR LISTENING</b><br />Honest HR podcast episodes will help you build your competencies while you earn professional development credits (PDCs) toward your SHRM-CP/SHRM-SCP recertification! All you have to do is listen to a full mini-series to earn PDCs! All relevant details, including the Activity IDs, are provided during the podcast recording itself.<br /><br />The Honest HR podcast is only one of SHRM's podcast offerings. And currently, it is the only one approved for recertification PDCs.<br />---<br /><b>This episode NOT apart of a series and is NOT eligible for SHRM recertification PDCs.</b></p>
This week on Honest HR, Callie we have a bonus conversation with HR pros Jon Thurmond and Wendy Dailey, from The HR Social Hour Podcast, on networking and communication.
If you enjoyed their recent episode, Finding Your Comic Book: Defining Yourself as a Professional, you'll definitely want to hear more!
---
EARN SHRM RECERTIFICATION PDCs FOR LISTENING
Honest HR podcast episodes will help you build your competencies while you earn professional development credits (PDCs) toward your SHRM-CP/SHRM-SCP recertification! All you have to do is listen to a full mini-series to earn PDCs! All relevant details, including the Activity IDs, are provided during the podcast recording itself.
The Honest HR podcast is only one of SHRM's podcast offerings. And currently, it is the only one approved for recertification PDCs.
---
This episode NOT apart of a series and is NOT eligible for SHRM recertification PDCs.
Callie Zipple:
Good morning from SHRM 19 and in the SHRM Studio this morning. My name is Callie Zipple, I'm the Field Service Director with SHRM, but I'm also the podcast host of Honest HR. And I have had an amazing time here this year, networking, connecting with some pretty great HR professionals. And I'm excited to have two of them here with me this morning to talk about finding your voice and why that's important for not only us as people and professionals, but more importantly to HR and the space that we are in today. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce and welcome Wendy and Jon from the HR Social Hour, Half Hour Podcast. So thank you so much for being here with me today. If you don't mind sharing with our listeners a little bit about who you are and just bring us into your world a little bit.
Wendy Daley:
Awesome. Well thank you for having us Callie. This is fantastic. We've had a great time at SHRM. So I am Wendy Daley. I'm a Talent Advisor for Sanford Health out of South and North Dakota. And I have been doing human resources for about 20 years. Jon and I started the HR Social Hour Twitter chat two years ago when we missed SHRMs 17. As we were missing out on the fantastic stuff going on. And so, we decided to start a Twitter chat and it has blossomed and grown, changed into a podcast. So yeah, we also have blogged for SHRM and share information that way as well. But yeah, I've 20 years of HR experience to bring to the table as well. I'm excited.
Callie Zipple:
Yeah, Jon.
Jon Thurmond:
Sure. Jon Thurman, I'm a Mid-Atlantic Human Resources Manager for Team Fishel. We're a utility engineering and construction company. I've also been in the industry about 20 years. Podcasting for many more than when we launched the HR Social Hour, Half Hour Podcast. But been absolutely amazed at the growth and the opportunities that have come from it. For the record, I've never put on makeup for anything much less for a video shoot, but no, just really excited that we've been able to take part in so many opportunities here at SHRM 19 and looking forward to even more.
Callie Zipple:
Yeah. Great. And so, what we're going to be talking about today, as I mentioned, is really why it's important to know who we are and bringing our whole selves to conversations. You can't connect with people without doing those two things, right? So my first question for you is how important is it to define who we are as individuals and as professionals as we come to big events like this and network with other individuals, as we meet them.
Wendy Daley:
You need to know who you are to make those connections, like you just said. And bringing your authentic self in brings that meaning to the connection. The superficial high level stuff is not going to get you deep into getting to know people and being knowing who you can contact, knowing who you can trust and being able to go to that next level, providing information. there's so many different ways to connect with people now. And we've talked about it in the past to how exhausting would it be to have to have a different person on every social media? So it's so great that we've been doing our podcast and people say it all the time that when you see us here or anywhere, you know who you're getting. And that's what I want to be. I want to encourage everybody. We want to know who you are so that we know when we meet you, who we're meeting.
Callie Zipple:
Yeah. And Jon you've said this in the past, bringing your personality and bringing who you are as a person to this conversations is so important to really defining who you are and being that authentic self. So tell us a little bit about how you've been able to create some relationships by bringing your whole person to the conversation.
Jon Thurmond:
Absolutely. Been in the industry for many years and unfortunately I got laid off about six years ago from my last job. And really was floundering, trying to find myself in terms of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go next. And I got very active in the social community, primarily on Twitter, but got to know a lot of practitioners and was following more to keep educating myself and learning. But wasn't really part of the conversation. And what I found was that when I started contributing and putting out, hey, I know this, or I've done this, and this has worked for me that it resonated with someone maybe more than one someone, but it resonated. And then as I found that the more we talked about other stuff, you started making these other connections. And so, I always use the example of the band Rush. The second greatest thing to come out of Canada, other than our friend Melanie Peacock. But there are multiple people that are HR practitioners that are really into the band Rush. And so we trade Rush videos every Saturday. Rush Saturday on Twitter.
And it's one of those things where, again, six, seven years ago, if you told me that's one of the things I would be doing, much less, again, being on stage in makeup with you, wouldn't have expected it. But I think it's you find that. And again, like Wendy said, we are who we are, who we are, and we're passionate about our work. We're passionate about our podcast, and helping boost the community and build the community. And I know it shows and we've seen some tremendous opportunity come out of it. But I think you are more than just your work. And while that may not resonate with everybody, it probably resonates with at least one someone. And helping them get better is a wonderful thing to be able to do.
Callie Zipple:
Great. And I like what you said about passion, because we're all passionate about what we do for pay, right? But there are some things that we do that we're passionate about just because we're passionate about the content. So for you it's Rush and comics. Comic-Cons, right?
Jon Thurmond:
Comic books. Absolutely.
Callie Zipple:
Comic books. Yeah. And for me, it's crime novels and crime podcasts, and things like that. And if I didn't feel comfortable enough to bring that to a conversation, it could be that the person I'm working with or talking to is missing out on that part of me. And it's a big part of me. And so, finding what you're passionate about and really being able to dig into that and bring that to the conversation, I think is another big part of defining who we are as people and professionals.
Jon Thurmond:
[inaudible 00:06:20].
Wendy Daley:
And it just adds that extra element of knowing that person. And once you've made that connection, once you know that person, being able to go to them and talk to them about other things, you have a long conversation about Rush or about Girl Scouts and you bond over those things. And then it just kind can flow the conversation into, oh, well, we've talked about this, we're both passionate about this, but I also have this question about this. Do you know anything about ATS implementation that you can help me with?
Callie Zipple:
Yeah. It makes the ask easier.
Wendy Daley:
Yes, exactly. And I mean really, what Jon and I have learned, if you just ask, nine times out of 10, you're probably going to get a yes. Because people haven't been asked, so as long as you ask, it's going to come in and it makes it so much easier when you have that connection to get to the ask.
Callie Zipple:
And I think the most important part about defining who we are, because I know that's tough for a lot of people. I've had a lot of young professionals come to me and say, I wanted to find who I am and I want to know who I am, but I don't know how to bring that to my job or bring that to work. But more importantly, and before we get to that topic, defining who we are is a long road, right? It doesn't happen overnight. It's not something that we can do, wake up one morning and say, this is going to be who I am, because we've been somebody different for the last X amount of time.
Wendy Daley:
Right.
Jon Thurmond:
Sure.
Callie Zipple:
So as you give advice to others and as people ask you, how can I define my voice or how can I really impact my own brand? What would be some advice you could give to them as it relates to the time it takes to defining who we are, and defining our brand as people and human beings and professionals?
Jon Thurmond:
Well, I think you as an individual are always evolving. And so, again, if I look back and six years ago when I've got involved, especially like with Nextchat, for example, I know, and we have talked about this. I think we talked about it on the podcast we did previously. I know as an individual, as a human being, I believe I have improved and changed in many ways that I didn't necessarily expect by being involved in the community. And I guess opening myself up to listening to other voices, to other perspectives that it wasn't necessarily that I wasn't open to them. I just didn't know them. It's all about you know what you know what you know.
Wendy talks about being from a very small town. I talk a lot about I had a path, I was going to be a music teacher and I was focused on that. And then all of a sudden, all these other things came to pass. So I think you're always evolving, but you find that one place, if it's social media, if it's speaking in front of a group, if it's volunteering somewhere, whatever it may be to start sharing your story and sharing your voice and it's going to build. And again, when you find that group that it resonates with, it just is going to grow exponentially.
And that's what we found is that we're incredibly fortunate to find a group. And we talked about, we started two years ago with the not at SHRM 17 chat. 65 people from nine countries showed up that night because we all had a case of FOMO. We didn't call it that two years ago necessarily. But it was all of a sudden, these people all came together to talk about what they were missing out on and what they wanted to see. And all of a sudden we're getting publicity about, hey, you're on the social media board. You're not here. What are you guys doing? Again, I think it's an ever evolving thing. And you find that thing you're comfortable with first. And then maybe you start to try something new or different and you might find out you're comfortable doing that as well.
Wendy Daley:
Yeah. And it takes time because we didn't just show up on Twitter two years ago.
Jon Thurmond:
Exactly.
Wendy Daley:
And able to get 65 people to join us in a Twitter chat because we missed SHRM. We're missing SHRM. It took time for, you know, we've both been active on the Nextchat Twitter chat for many years before that, because that was how we got a chance to know each other before we even met in person at SHRM 16, where we knew each other was going to be there and just happened to run into each other on the expo floor. That doesn't happen.
Callie Zipple:
Right.
Wendy Daley:
You just don't run into people and then develop a relationship and be able to put something together like we have with the HR Social Hour. It took time and it took time before that because we both brought things to the table that we've learned in our careers. And one of the things that, you know, obviously Twitter's new to, and it didn't exist when we first started in this industry. But having these opportunities, it allows people to start that journey earlier and being able to make those connections and share what you know, and even if it's just lurking. Lurking is a real, and it's a good thing, on those Twitter chats, on those Facebook conversations to start learning and start finding where do you fit in? What are you passionate about? Because, again, like you said, you don't just wake up and oh, here's who I am today.
Callie Zipple:
Right. And I don't know if I'm guilty of it, but I was guilty of being a lurker for quite some time.
Wendy Daley:
Yeah.
Callie Zipple:
And it took me a while to recognize they're doing this thing. I can do this thing, but I had to build enough confidence in myself.
Wendy Daley:
Right.
Callie Zipple:
In order to jump into the conversation. And I think there's a little element of being vulnerable.
Jon Thurmond:
Absolutely.
Wendy Daley:
Exactly. Exactly. And being able to say, and it's being able to step outside of yourself and not worry about, oh, this is my title or I only have so many years of experience. It doesn't matter, because you have something to contribute to the conversation. Even if it's just a question of, tell me more about that. I've never heard of this thing. Tell me more. And how can I learn more about it?
Callie Zipple:
Yeah. And I got to tell you, the first time somebody says to you, what you said resonated with me, is a game changer.
Wendy Daley:
Yes.
Callie Zipple:
And I can still remember the first time I had somebody reach out and say, your podcast is pretty cool.
Wendy Daley:
Yep.
Callie Zipple:
And I thought it was cool, because it was me and I was doing the podcast, but to have somebody else reach out and say, hey, Honest HR, this episode that you did really resonated with me, I was like, geez, people are actually listening.
Wendy Daley:
Right. Right.
Callie Zipple:
And that was a very empowering thing. And it helped me build my confidence. It helped me know that what I was doing was on the right track. So look for that feedback too.
Wendy Daley:
Right.
Callie Zipple:
Be ready for the feedback, be ready for the good and the bad feedback. Because every time you put yourself into the spotlight or into a place that allows for feedback, you're going to get it.
Wendy Daley:
Exactly.
Callie Zipple:
So then my next question, and we'll shift it to being in a professional setting. A lot of times people find it easy to define themselves as humans and as people, right? Because they know what they're passionate about. They know what they want to talk about and what vibe they want to bring to the world. Bringing that to work is a little bit different. And sometimes that's a little bit difficult depending on the sort of cultures and things that you have that you're working in. So how can we help those looking to be more authentic at work, understand how to do that.
Jon Thurmond:
I think you have to be able to gauge the room to some extent. You're not going to come in day one at a new job and just lay it all out. If you're doing that, it's probably not going to go well. The whole idea that with crucial conversations, difficult conversations, especially when you don't know someone at all, I'm not going to jump right in Callie and start asking you about your life history. I'm going to get to know you a little bit over time and a little bit over time. And we build enough that we can have more in depth or personal or intense conversation as it were. So I think you have to go from the perspective of you need to be open and certainly you have those perspectives, but you're not going to just tell everybody everything from the outset.
Callie Zipple:
Right.
Jon Thurmond:
And sometimes somebody may disagree with you, and hopefully you've built a rapport enough that you can have a civil conversation about it. And if you can't, sometimes you just kind of have to walk away or find different ways to work through things. I mean, when I was promoted into my first leadership role, I was the youngest person on the team. And unfortunately I kind of blocked myself out and said, oh, everybody is going to work like I do. That was the worst thing I could have done. A tremendous growth opportunity and I learned a lot in the big picture. However, I'm disappointed, I could have learned a lot from some of those more senior folks that I didn't necessarily, I didn't think about their perspective or didn't understand it.
And again, some people wanted to talk about their families. I had a team, I had a really large team that worked for me. Many of us talked about our families and what we did outside of work. Other ones, nothing. It was, come in work, go away. You're a coworker, but you're never going to be close and I have to be okay with that. And I have to understand that and know that not everybody comes to work for the same reasons that I do. And so, that was, again, that's a learning thing that took a lot longer than maybe it should have.
Callie Zipple:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Thurmond:
But it took time.
Wendy Daley:
Well, and I think with bringing your authentic self to work, you need to know others are bringing theirs too. It's not just you, it's the whole team and finding that balance between what is your authentic self at work? Because we've gone full circle from you leave yourself at the door, leave home at the door, but as work has gone past that door and gone into your home life, more of your home life and more of who you are personally is starting to come into the office. And there needs to be a good balance of that because we can't be on 24/7, we can't be working 24/7. We shouldn't be working 24/7. We need that break. And we need to be able to get that downtime from work.
And it's not easy to find that balance and it's going to take some fits and starts just like you're going to have to figure out where your comfort level is in sharing, and where other people's comfort level is in hearing that, and being able to balance so that you can have a strong work life balance that allows you to thrive in both areas.
Callie Zipple:
And I think the other thing too, is understanding culture, truly each. Company and each organization has a different culture. And sometimes the culture allows for your whole and authentic self to be brought to work. And other times you do have to leave some of it at the door, because that's the culture. You have, as an HR professional, the ability to shift that culture. And if the organization is ready for that, shift it so that you can bring your whole authentic self to work, but understanding that culture and knowing your role in impacting that culture, I think is a big part of bringing your true and authentic self to work.
Wendy Daley:
And I think it's along those lines, finding where you can be at that right comfort level for you.
Callie Zipple:
Yes. Agreed. Anything else you want to add to the conversation for our listeners today?
Wendy Daley:
I think for me, I would just encourage everyone to start experimenting with where you want to share your voice. And if that's online via social media, if it's the interactive part of it, if it's just sharing a blog, sharing articles, or that one-on-one and in person, because you're learning something and you have something to say, and you need to share what you're learning in a way that's comfortable for you. And so, I would encourage everyone to just start experimenting with that, even if it is lurking on social media, lurking on those conversations.
Callie Zipple:
Guilty. Yeah.
Wendy Daley:
Hey, guilty here too.
Jon Thurmond:
Absolutely. [inaudible 00:17:48].
Wendy Daley:
Yeah. And it's important. I've joked with people. I've stalked people. You stalk people online and, we probably shouldn't use that phrase because of the connotations and words matter, but I've followed people and have really enjoyed getting a chance to expand those relationships for people that four or five years ago, they were an avatar on Twitter. And now they're people that I'm sitting here with you having a conversation. Sitting the other night, having a glass of wine with people like Lori Ruderman or Jennifer McClure. And it's just, you can get there, but you can't start there overnight. You have to start out finding where you're comfortable.
Callie Zipple:
You got to put yourself out there.
Wendy Daley:
Put yourself out there, but find what works for you.
Callie Zipple:
Jon, anything you want to add?
Jon Thurmond:
I think certainly as you're finding yourself, you need to be consistent. Obviously again, your message is going to change over time. But if you come out one day and say one thing and suddenly the next it's an entire, like you're running an entirely different direction, people can tell if it's not genuine pretty quickly. And sometimes you see folks that they have a persona. We talked about comic books earlier. I've been around a lot of creators and met many of them at conventions where you have in your mind they're going to be this amazing person. And sometimes they're not. And it could be a bad day, but when you'd hear it from a lot of other people that person's not so nice, that's unfortunate because what if they were at a different perspective or had thought about how could I be better to people? It could be an entirely different experience.
But I think as you're finding that, be consistent in that. And again, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be social. It can be literally, again, speaking in groups and mentoring somebody. Finding those opportunities that can better yourself. Because again, you sound like you should be ashamed of being a lurker. You shouldn't.
Callie Zipple:
No.
Jon Thurmond:
We all started there, and I can remember six years ago, lurking and starting to follow people. And then all of a sudden, I would say, hey, I really appreciate that article you wrote or sharing other people's content. You don't have to be a content creator immediately, share stuff, make comments on it, take part in the conversation that way and build a bit of an audience or build a comfort level to where then you can suddenly say, well, gee, I want to share what I've got to say. Or I really like what this person's saying and this is my experience with that. Because again, no matter if you've been practicing 20 years, five years, six months, you do have a perspective and be willing to share it, because again, it is going to resonate with at least one someone and maybe more. That's what we've learned very quickly.
Wendy Daley:
And I think the other thing to jump on that too, is when someone [inaudible 00:20:29], when something does resonate with you, say something to the person that shared it.
Jon Thurmond:
Yeah, absolutely.
Wendy Daley:
That is so meaningful to us when we hear that. You mentioned it's meaningful to you, and that it's such a small thing. Like we heard from Blake McClowsky, those small little things make such a big difference. And just starting starting to tell people, hey, I like what you shared beyond just liking it and retweeting it, or sharing it. Saying, hey, that means a lot.
Callie Zipple:
And the only other thing I'll add too, is try not to use your authenticity as armor.
Wendy Daley:
Yes.
Callie Zipple:
Allow for a conversation to continue to happen. Because sometimes when we say we're bringing our true and authentic selves to work, we let everything else sort of go away. And I think by bringing our true and authentic selves to work, we have to remember to listen to others, even if their authentic self doesn't jive with or vibe with our own authentic selves as well. So that's the only other thing I'll add.
But before I let you go, if some of our listeners want to connect, can you give us some avenues to do that?
Wendy Daley:
Sure. So best way to find me is on Twitter. I am Wendell93 or on my blog, mydailyjourney.com and the fourth Sunday of each month, please join us for the HR Social Hour Twitter Chat. We have a lot of fun. We have something light to kick off the week.
Callie Zipple:
Great.
Jon Thurmond:
You can find the podcast at hrsocialhourpodcast.podbean.com. You can find me directly on Twitter at Jon, J-O-N underscore Thurmond, T-H-U-R-M-O-N-D. You can also find me on LinkedIn. And I always ask, if you find me there, if you can personalize the note, that kind of helps as you're building your voice and to let me know, hey, I heard you on this, or I saw you here. That's always appreciated. But again, we're really appreciative, Callie, of all the opportunities you we've had.
Wendy Daley:
Thank you Callie.
Jon Thurmond:
And appreciate being able to share about your voice.
Callie Zipple:
Yeah. Yeah. It's been a pretty crazy SHRM 19.
Jon Thurmond:
It has indeed. A wonderful thing.
Callie Zipple:
Yeah. The only thing I'll add for our listeners is if you want to follow Honest HR, please go out to shrm.org/honesthr. You can interact with the podcast out there. If you want to connect with me directly, you can find me on LinkedIn at Callie Zipple. I'm also on Twitter and Instagram at SHRMCallieZ. And please join us in San Diego next year for SHRM 20. We'd love to see you there. We're doing some great stuff this year, but next year's going to be next level. So we hope to see you there.