Lead Smarter Podcast

David Kent (00:01.292)
Hey, Jamie, thank you for joining us on the lead smarter podcast. It's great to have a chance to get a chat with you again. I've enjoyed learning about what you've been doing in HR, infractional remote work. And it's been really exciting specifically with people, in my own audience, people, the clients that I work with that have remote teams, they're trying to figure out how to navigate this themselves. So excited to hear more about that from you. And again, thank you for joining us.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (00:25.64)
Thank you for having me, David. I've been looking forward to this conversation.

David Kent (00:29.078)
Yes, and I know that I've had a chance to learn a little bit from our previous conversations, but I would love for you to kind of share a bit about your experience going into fractional work, what that's been like, and maybe you can help us understand how that's being done successfully in the work you're doing and with clients that you work with.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (00:39.88)
Sure.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (00:47.464)
Sure, so this is our 19th year. We launched back in 07. I wish that other folks were doing it back then. I would have worked with them, but it wasn't existing. that's what I very much needed in my life to juggle things on the home front. So I started it from the corner of our living room. And essentially it has really been interesting just to see both the supply and demand really increase. So organizations, whether it's Fortune 100s down to PE-backed small firms, they are...

really having more and more of an openness to bringing in seasoned, no ego, lovely humans who can parachute in and take on all sorts of things. People on a leave of absence, filling in that position that's long, taking a long time to fill, very much getting that work done. And then on this, and I always say it's like companies get to rent the Airbnb in Malibu rather than buying the mansion in Malibu and just have someone in for a short period of time. And then on the,

supply side, there are so many fabulous HR practitioners in the areas that we work in, HR business partner, talent management, total rewards, talent acquisition, who are thrilled to do this work so that they can just live their big juicy lives. I always say fractional work makes us whole. It makes us whole as a human. So whether you're raising kids, helping aging parents, just looking for really interesting work across many industries, it tends to be a match for lots of folks as we fund ourselves here in 2025.

David Kent (02:16.942)
That's fantastic. Some of the size of the companies that you work with, mean, I would say everybody's paying attention to the, I guess, evolving landscape of remote work that's being, definitely was embraced during the time of COVID and then kind of got shaky depending on which company was raking it back, bringing people back to the office. From your experience.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (02:38.001)
Yeah.

David Kent (02:40.702)
What are some examples of what that was navigating that was like? And do you have that experience with, is there any difference between big companies, smaller companies that are trying to navigate that?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (02:52.858)
It's interesting, know, we've, so just want to call it out. So many organizations really had full on allergic reaction to the notion of people working from home prior to March of 20. And then in a minute there we all were, it was the greatest business case ever. And so many organizations that we all saw decided to be, know, one four, one day in, four days remote, cetera. Boy has the pendulum swung. And I just finished up with a client of ours who said that they are now

four days back in the office. And it really is, you I think that when Bellwether organizations, whether it's Goldman or Amazon or JP Morgan Chase started talking about more of that for five days a week back in the office in early 25, it really kind of set the tone. So we're seeing many organizations, large and small. What we have seen though is that the idea of being intentional about what days are in the office is really here to stay.

David Kent (03:24.92)
Bye.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (03:50.866)
because there's nothing like sitting down with folks and breaking bread, grabbing lunch, getting the quick answers. And we all know a lot happens between the moment that the conference call ends or the Zoom ends and kind of going back to your desk and people are really hungry for more and more of that. But we are very much seeing the trend in organizations wanting people back in the office. So I think that's here to stay for a bit.

David Kent (04:11.948)
What did you, if from a, obviously you do lots in HR, your company does lots in HR, you help, from talent acquisition to leadership. I I'm really interested in the space where you've been working with companies who have remote teams. Did you yourself work on, trying to help guide them through managing and leading these remote teams? And what was that experience like?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (04:30.522)
sure. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. So we've been remote first since 07. So this is kind of how we've always been set up. So while the pandemic brought about lots of other changes, that was not one thing we needed to adjust to. So a lot of companies asked us to be a sounding board. What we saw truly, David, is that in the beginning, organizations were not really, their leaders were not equipped to...

give feedback, create a sense of belonging, make sure that the team felt the glue, make sure that they could be that inspirational leader. And then over time, I think like anything with practice, leaders have gotten stronger and stronger at leading in that way. The reality is that a lot of organizations for overhead purposes wanted to really reduce the number of floors that they had in a big building or get rid of their lease altogether. And then they had everyone remote. And what we're seeing now is that folks are taking...

David Kent (05:14.062)
Sure.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (05:18.788)
over massive conference rooms and we work spaces, remote spaces. I've even seen some remote work spaces start to pop up in strip malls. So you know how it is, whether you're in Salt Lake City or Atlanta, every town has a strip mall where there's like the super cuts and the juice shop. So I was in Salt Lake City earlier this month and there in a strip mall was a coworking space. And I thought, well, someone was brilliant because there was probably a store here that no one could carry the lease on.

David Kent (05:32.428)
Yeah.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (05:46.342)
And I think that is really the way to go because there is the notion of, as far as we've come as humans, there is just still a certain experience that folks get when they are together. And I think at the beginning there was a lot more resistance, but now that we've been post-pandemic for a while, I think that there's an endorphin squirt that the brain is giving when they feel that in-person connection that folks

David Kent (05:46.488)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (06:15.44)
especially the leadership level are starting to crave more. They want more of that dopamine, the endorphins that they get from it. What I also see happening though is that there's a lot of inefficiencies with working in person, right? So I don't know about you, I'm back to back, Zoom calls 30 minutes back to back from like eight to six, right? And you know, we kind of like stick to the 30 minutes and everybody understands, well, you have a 30 minute meeting set up for someone in person. By the time you kind of cover how was the weekend, did you see that thing on SNL?

David Kent (06:34.36)
Same. Yeah.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (06:45.264)
you're kind of at minute 10 and then you need those couple of minutes at the end, like leave the time for the elevator bank. So you're really one left with like 18 minutes in the middle to kind of get it all done. So what we've also seen is that in this post-post pandemic world where people are looking to have that glue, but also get down to business and be more efficient that agendas are kind of in vogue again, that there was kind of more of a time blocking on agenda you don't think is really important.

David Kent (07:10.4)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (07:12.626)
And the other thing goes about saying we've all been in those meetings where you're in a conference room setting, some folks are virtual, some folks are in the room, and there's that awkwardness because I think there's a power differential, right? I think the folks that are in the room can pick up on the body language, all the non-verbals. It's also hard if you're not making eye contact because you're looking at the screen. So I think there are still tech solutions that are getting sorted out with those. But I found myself in Midtown Manhattan last week and I was in an elevator, it was like,

David Kent (07:31.821)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (07:41.15)
18 people of us in the elevator. It was wild and everyone started laughing like, we're back, baby, we're back, you know, it's really, it's, and so yeah, I think that, you know, it took us, you know, many, many, many decades to kind of develop the tempo and the norms of the way that we work through the industrial age. So we have to be gentle on ourselves that we're kind of navigating this kind of post pandemic setup. It's kind of new. we're, and I'm also here to tell you.

No one has it figured out. I speak to every company, every zip code, every size. No one's nailed it. No one's figured out all the tech, all the equity issues of who's got the desk. Everyone's on their journey. I think as leaders, we should just be straight up honest about it.

David Kent (08:24.48)
I love hearing your perspective of it, especially from your kind of, as you mentioned, you're a sounding board with companies that are in all stages of the evolution of being able to do remote work or not. And it's a very different position that you have to take than I tend to take with my own because I tend to be leaning towards the idea that remote work can be done. I've done it for decades myself. I've built a team that's done it for decades.

So I know that it's possible and I, but you know, there are environments and I've actually spoken to people who understand the values of remote work, but they also say like, well, I run a different kind of team that has a different kind of energy and has a different, reset of requirements. so I have, I have a client that has, literally does door to door has a company that does door to door sales and running a sales team. yes, you can do some things all remote, but the, the kind of energy you have to manage and the kind of like.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (08:57.598)
for.

David Kent (09:19.128)
consistent engagement and trying to keep the morale up. That's very, very hard to reproduce fully remote. And so where I can just try to say, like, if you don't think you can do this remote, that that sounds like I could just go through your excuses and cut them down one at a time. That's not actually an environment I can say. I mean, that actually sounds like it's a, there's a good case for local work. And I tend to try to have a rash about that, but I completely hear you. You're definitely right. There are different, there's different fits for everybody from what I can tell.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (09:20.638)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (09:48.574)
Yeah, and just from an HR perspective, what I would say is we've seen a spike in employer relations issues though, as folks have come back in. Why? Because I think that there are certain just interactions that humans have where humans perceive feeling left out, feeling slighted, feeling that someone spoke over them, where there were tools that folks got used to during the pandemic where you could, you know,

Well, one, everyone was in the same Brady Bunch Hollywood square size box. Everyone could share their screen. Everyone could mute or not mute. There was less power differential, if you will. And I think there's always going to be office politics and office dynamics and misunderstandings. And just as humans, that's how it works. It doesn't matter the size of the organization. So we saw when people started getting back together, just more misunderstandings started happening. Less kind of benefited the doubt ended up happening because

David Kent (10:19.022)
That's right.

David Kent (10:26.754)
Right?

David Kent (10:36.535)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (10:43.912)
font was not all the same size, just things kind of felt different. I'm just always also calling that out. I think we're still probably working on some of the kinks and it will level off like everything does in life.

David Kent (10:49.837)
Yes.

David Kent (10:54.746)
I like that you mentioned benefit of the doubt. I often am navigating these conversations and how to structure something that's going to be effective. One of the first things I identify is like, you've got to give one of the benefit of the doubt. Like you can't be managing by line of sight. That's not really an effective management strategy. You should be managing by the whole trust, but verify, like we should be reviewing output. Output should be what matters, not.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (11:18.766)
huh. huh. huh.

David Kent (11:22.222)
hours behind a computer screen or inside a building, because that's not really an effective management style. But that's always been consistently a difficult conversation to navigate with somebody who doesn't know how to manage by output and who's just used to managing a team that they can see.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (11:35.133)
Yes.

Yes.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (11:41.266)
Yes. And I'll give you another quick example. think about those times that we've had to receive difficult feedback or give negative feedback. always say, you know, most leaders would rather get a tooth pulled without Novocaine than give someone difficult feedback. Once they do it, they're like, why didn't I do this last month? But that's how, that's how it rolls. So what I saw during what I see with remote work is that it feels a little bit less scary because there's something very kind of contained in boundary.

David Kent (11:49.411)
Right.

David Kent (11:53.742)
Sure.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (12:09.832)
you have a certain amount of time on the Zoom, you could be wearing whatever you need to from the shoulders up and below the line, below the screen, you could have a squeeze ball on your hand to manage stress. You could be twitching your knee, however your body kind of processes stress is easier where when you are in person, there's a whole awkwardness of walking down the conference hall, like walking towards the conference room to to sit.

David Kent (12:20.269)
Right.

David Kent (12:25.196)
Right?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (12:35.666)
Do I make the chit chat or not make the chit chat? Do I comment about the weather or the outfit that they're wearing? There's always comment on the outfit they're wearing, of course, in the most appropriate way. You know, just like, I like, you know, that color you're wearing, nothing inappropriate. the point is that there are those awkward human moments when we first sit down to give someone negative feedback that I think in, that I think leaders put off these conversations more now that we're back together. I think it's harder to do.

David Kent (12:47.278)
Sure.

David Kent (13:05.878)
Yeah, that's actually a really good point. It's basically the whole like safety and anonymity where I can say anything online because people don't know who I am. And the farther you distance them from a human being, the easier it is to have more difficult conversations because, but that's interesting because I wouldn't, I didn't think about it that way. I see that both as that's actually both like a liability and a benefit almost of working remote or sorry, working in person.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (13:11.528)
Sure. Exactly.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (13:18.96)
Yes.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (13:28.04)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there really is as well as a lot of organizations in this volatile economy, had to make the tough choice and do reductions in force. So same thing, the picture, you bring someone to the conference room, you give them this heartbreaking news, and then they have to walk back to their desk. Do they make small talk with the folks around them? As if nothing happened, do they announce it? Do they stay in the office if they want to leave the building and call their loved one to speak their truth of how

David Kent (13:50.797)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (13:57.63)
that they're feeling all these feelings, it's harder to do. You have to go in the elevator, get outside. Where you're on Zoom, you get off and you can quickly kind of, you can be texting your loved one during the meeting where you're getting, finding out that your job is eliminated. It's like, just to, know, when we think about how to coach organizations on having difficult conversations or orchestrating reductions in force, we're always taking these things into account because it is a different human experience if it's remote versus in person. So.

Yeah.

David Kent (14:27.256)
So I know you're supposed to be unbiased, do you personally have an opinion about the effectiveness of, and I feel like I could say you probably do because your own company works remote, but do you have an opinion on the effectiveness of remote work, whether it should be considered for most organizations that are looking to grow their own talent pool and be able to manage people? Is that something that you see as something you would advocate for?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (14:54.142)
I'm a huge fan of hybrid. I love the, just think that for folks to live their big juicy lives and also manage exercise commitments at home, I think it is helpful to have a day, a week or two where you don't have the long commute. You can kind of get in the exercise that you need to come online and get the innovative idea. You can make sure that you're eating healthy throughout the day because it isn't as expensive to buy the $18 salad right in your town. That said, I think with

David Kent (15:18.115)
Yep.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (15:21.978)
working in the office, in office days. So, and I'm a big fan of hybrid. I think also we cannot unsee what we saw. Like once you've had dinner with your family for 340 nights, it's hard to unsee what it is to be home when those moments happen, right? So I think we can't deny what people saw in terms of having the ability to work from home. But I think when we're in the, for the end days, I'm a huge fan of being very intentional and making sure that teens are in on the same day. I know there was a lot of...

David Kent (15:26.03)
Sure.

David Kent (15:37.964)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (15:51.134)
If you say to everyone, have to be in Tuesday through Thursday, people might say, but Monday was the day that I had whatever it is, childcare, whatever. The point is that I think at this point, we do need to be intentional and say, these are the days that intact teams can be in so they can ideate, make decisions faster, build relationship with each other as humans. And all of those things I think is most effective when you're in on specific days. So the free flow.

David Kent (16:16.908)
Now, now here's the really hard question. I'm sorry. Hard question. if that is like, I would say that could probably be like the ideal setup, but you know, that given the time that occurred and people were getting hired, some companies that were going remote, entirely forever. And then they changed and said, Nope, I'm sorry. We changed our mind. People were hired or they moved so far away. That's impossible for them to have a hybrid schedule. what would your advice be in a situation like that?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (16:32.509)
Yes. Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (16:43.858)
Yeah, I think that it's important. So for larger organizations, let's say where they have multiple offices, I think it's important that folks have some continuity of going into a office, right? So for example, outside of Manhattan, Manhattan's office I would go to, but there might be folks who are way out in the burbs of upstate New York or Connecticut, way out. Well, maybe those are satellite office in those areas that at least someone can kind of get in and have some time.

I, so many of our clients, David, went through that situation where, you know, they were a company based in Annapolis and suddenly they had folks in six states. And it was really tricky because as an employer, you also have overhead to people in different states. Tax season is much more complicated in terms of withdrawals, withholding, et cetera, for various states. But I do think what I'm seeing is a movement for less tolerance for folks to

David Kent (17:12.172)
Right.

David Kent (17:25.848)
Bright.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (17:37.646)
stay with those remote jobs. just to keep it real, everyone and their brother, they were looking for the of talent. I loved it because I thought we had also just great diversity in hires, right? Because sometimes you could find someone in the exact zip code that you were in and who had the experience that you needed. So I loved that. But I do think that in this movement, we're seeing more and more organizations saying as of Jan 26, 2026,

David Kent (17:42.744)
Sure.

David Kent (17:49.73)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (18:05.458)
we're no longer going to be able to support roles that are not able to come into a office at least a couple days a week. And then people have to make those really difficult decisions. And I think the why behind that is because it's become expensive to keep that overhead and the complication of not having people in person for those more more critical in-person days. So that's just a trend that we're seeing.

David Kent (18:10.616)
Great.

David Kent (18:31.97)
Sure, sure. And I'm curious if you think that that trend is related to an industry, to a size of a business. And I'll give you an example as to why I would be curious about that. For myself, the business I work with on bottleneck, we place remote team members, but they're not in the US. So it's a contractor relationship. There's not gonna be a situation where they're gonna have the overhead of Nexus tax in a different state, which I...

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (18:51.614)
Mm-hmm.

David Kent (18:55.042)
totally understand how complicated that is. I, it's literally the part of the reason we would try to avoid that because that's complicated. It's expensive. but in those situations, do you see, whether the companies that are making those changes and that is going back, does that seem to be related to industry types, size of business or across the board? You're seeing that trend.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (19:16.604)
I see it across the board and as always, I think the tone is set at the top. And I think it's truly the leader at the top of the house who really sets the trend. Because many leaders just generationally were at the time of the pandemic hitting, most folks were kind of Gen X or Boomer where they learned to learn, they learned to work, they learned to rise through the ranks at a time where being in person was all that we knew.

So I found organizations who had more tenured generational leadership were the ones that very much wanted folks back sooner across industry, across zip code. I see it pretty consistent. Yeah.

David Kent (19:46.509)
Right.

David Kent (19:56.75)
Sure.

David Kent (20:01.986)
Wow, okay, so that's actually a trend. mean, I can totally see what you're saying, but I wouldn't that wasn't the separation of category I was expecting. So what you're saying is, yes, there's a trend, it sends seems to be across the board. But that seems to be kind of related to the experience of the leader who has that expectation.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (20:17.33)
Yes, yes. And just furthermore, I can think of countless organizations who hired talent in different areas than their headquarter. And there was a conversation at the time of hiring in 2021. And when we, you know, like we're based in Houston, you live in Santa Fe, we really wanted someone in Houston, you're sensational, you're in Santa Fe, we're absolutely gonna hire you. But if we ever back in the office,

David Kent (20:36.397)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (20:45.788)
you'll need to cover the T and E to commute back and forth. So we will have you, yeah, yeah. So, okay.

David Kent (20:49.72)
I've seen that as well. Yeah. My wife is the same thing. So that's very interesting. Do you see from your perspective that there's you said that if somebody is exceptional that they can still work remote. I've always looked at this almost as a at the perspective of almost like proximity bias like how that person if they're not in the office is treated. You mentioned power dynamics and that experience. Does that seem like it almost leans into

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (21:08.69)
Mm-hmm.

David Kent (21:19.914)
a DEI like how they're treated based on proximity as an element of DEI. you see that as a factor?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (21:28.21)
Hmm, I have so much I want to say at the same time. So I think the way that, think that human bias is to surround themselves with people that remind them of their fabulous self. It doesn't matter if you live in Dubai or Denver. I think it's just how humans are made. And I think that they've actually done MRIs showing that there's a searching for safety that the brain is looking for. And in situations,

David Kent (21:48.344)
Sure.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (21:56.254)
So the moral of story is with that said, I think that if you have folks from different regions of the country, for example, here in the US, I think you just get different lived experiences. And so I do think that you might not, I'm making huge generalizations, click with them as much. Let's say that you're from Boston, they're from Boston, it's all about the socks and the pats, right? So I think that there's just kind of these regional differences that happen where I do think that when you are with someone and you're with them more,

David Kent (22:05.997)
Right.

David Kent (22:15.597)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (22:25.19)
and more and more. think that you find more commonality. I think that you work through conflict easier. And so, you know, if you're based in Houston and you hire the person in Santa Fe, I think over time you will be more hungry to see them in person because you want it to work. You want to break down those barriers. want them to, you're seeking to find more sameness with them. So anyway, I could talk about that at length, but I do think that there is a

David Kent (22:52.12)
Sure.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (22:55.038)
proximity bias that happens when someone is around you. It's easier to think, gosh, that'd be great as a successor for David if he ever decided to retire and move to Thailand. You know what? I should give them that quick opportunity to spearhead that big volunteer day that we're gonna do, and then they could get lots of opportunity to network with people in the company. Right? So there is that thing that the human brain does where when you are the voice on the phone or someone that folks haven't seen,

David Kent (23:14.242)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (23:24.242)
There is a laziness that I think the brain does lean towards. It's more effort to get to know them fully as a human. If you have other people right in front of you that you're chit chatting with. And then you also see an action, making the presentation, coming up with the innovative idea, et cetera.

David Kent (23:34.562)
Right.

David Kent (23:43.032)
That's, this is, I would say this is actually helpful for me, hearing you navigate these conversations. I know that I have a bias myself from my own experience, but, I know that all of the team members that I place are facing similar, like trying to figure out how to be part of a culture when you do have a disadvantage. And that's, think what everybody's trying to do, like I'm slightly different. How do I become more of this culture and, more a part of the team? And, I think, I think what you've mentioned is that.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (24:05.97)
Yeah. Yeah.

David Kent (24:11.838)
One, setting the tone at the top is going to enable or disable people from being able to be part of this culture. So I think the onus is on the leader to set the tone. But you can't fully rule out the reality of human nature and how to either be closer with the people you're working with or farther apart literally or hypothetically.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (24:15.518)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (24:22.354)
Yes.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (24:33.714)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the best leaders I know, and many of our clients, they'll be very intentional. So they'll do things like, let's say that people are across time zone. If the time zone situation is such that that person in their local time zone will have to take the call after 7 p.m. their time, they'll say, just please don't join the call. Enjoy the night evening. Don't worry about it. I've even seen a leader once have someone come in at what was 11 o'clock their time.

David Kent (24:46.403)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (25:03.454)
because that employee, one they cared, and there might've been a little part of them that was trying to show their work ethic, and I heard the leader say, Sarah, I am so grateful that I appreciate you joining. I'm gonna ask that you sign off. It's 11 o'clock now, down under, just, know, and he didn't purposely try to shame her, but he was just more being that deliberate. And guess what? No one ever came on again when they were told that their time zone didn't need to join the call. Other things I've seen leaders do to be deliberate is that they,

take turns in what time zone. it's like, know, nine Eastern, the first Monday of the week, and then, right, so that everyone has a turn at having the call, the meeting at the more convenient part of their day. So another thing is always letting the folks who are virtual contribute first. So, you know, if you're leading a meeting and there's people in the room plus people online, let the people online speak first.

David Kent (25:38.05)
Don't

David Kent (25:58.38)
Are these tips that you've seen or tips that you advise or both?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (26:03.998)
Things that I've advised and our leaders have done it. I've just seen, so there are things that when we start working with the organization, we always try to weave these things into conversation and we've seen clients do it and be effective at it. Yeah. Yeah. And then we'll, yeah.

David Kent (26:12.364)
Right?

David Kent (26:20.078)
That's fantastic. I was going to ask, do you create programs? Do you create programs for like educating leaders on how to manage their teams, both remotely, but in addition to everything else that you teach?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (26:28.944)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. And the other thing I would just say is making sure that there are certain, there's certain informalities that happen when teams are in person, right? Again, you're walking in the room, those are really cool socks, whatever it is, or, I brought donuts, where are the donuts from? It's this really cool new pop-up donut shop, right? There's always ways to build rapport. Making sure that at the top of the meeting, you do some quick coming together.

minute that makes everyone in the room feel that they're on equal footing. for example, everyone, you know, we're to go around the room real quick. What's your favorite movie? Everyone go around the room real quick. What's the big thing you're looking forward to this summer? Just something so everyone's voice can be heard and you can all see each other more as human. We've just found that the most effective work happens after that.

David Kent (27:15.704)
That's a really good tip that you had mentioned earlier also that there's this orientation that people are starting to have to navigate in the beginning of meetings and that 10 minutes that may carry over. Is that kind of where you see that space being utilized? Let's use that as the human space of the meeting.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (27:27.876)
Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Because then the people in the room got to talk about the great glazed doughnut. There's extra glue. And you know what? When they have moments where they disagree, they might not spar as much because they just chatted about the doughnut. Right? There's kind of a, there's a, you give each other, I think, more grace when you have these.

these moments of human connection. And if that person who's virtual didn't get to comment on the thing that was a tangible object or food item in the room, then they just might not have as much of a voice and a power dynamic.

David Kent (28:04.884)
I like this method that you're describing. I've been in meetings with leaders that have brought together a very large group. And I've actually watched and talked to leaders where they're like, I'm actually doing the math on how much this meeting is costing me. And so they become hyper-focused on anything that didn't feel like it was specifically productive as not only a waste of time, but like in a very inexpensive waste of time. But what you've just described to me sounds like it's actually one, it's protecting from what could be distractions later on.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (28:26.28)
Mm-hmm, sure.

David Kent (28:34.392)
But it's also in the beginning, investing in helping everybody get on the same page in a focused way. I think that's a really good tip for people. And I'm interested in taking it on myself, my own team, being intentional.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (28:40.882)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (28:48.646)
great. And I'm an efficiency junkie, so trust me, this is a one minute exercise where everyone in the speed round just kind of says what the thing is that they hope to, if they're looking forward to over the summer. But guess what? If two different people mentioned that they want to hit a water slide park, you know it's going to give them something to chat about so that in a month when they're working through something that's thorny, they're just going to bring in some humor and more. There's like a social lubrication that happens when there's more of a relationship in place.

People get back to you faster, or you don't have to email them three times for the thing that you're waiting for. Yeah.

David Kent (29:22.894)
That's such an, love the efficiency view of socializing. It almost seems like it conflicts, but it actually, you've really highlighted how that can really be a benefit into building relationships and making the team more efficient overall. Thanks for the insights. I was also.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (29:27.518)
and

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (29:35.998)
Yeah, yeah, if we speak in a month, you'll let me know how it goes if you try it out.

David Kent (29:42.442)
yeah, I am gonna tell you. Actually, I'm curious. Can you give an example of how you do this with your own team? You mentioned your entire team's remote. So how do you do these?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (29:47.614)
Sure. Yeah. So we have, for example, leadership team meetings every Monday at 10. And I have a one minute meditation top of the agenda because one, I want them to all experience a moment where their nervous system is calm. So we can really dive right in and have an effective conversation for our power hour together.

It also guarantees that I'll meditate at least once that day. So I always put that. And then we have a question of the day where there's a question asked, for example, what's the laugh out loud movie? What book do you recommend? And each person gets to kind of share their one thing. And then we share an article. Everyone takes a turn, share an article, typically around AI. And it helps us on our kind of continuous learning journey. So we probably spend of the 60 minutes, probably five of doing that. And then...

And then we just dive right into it. Yeah. So that's just how I set it up, but there's a thousand ideas out there.

David Kent (30:47.822)
That's great. I'm glad that you've already got an example and a structure that's been working for you really well. You actually brought up something in that that I'm curious about. We don't have to go deeply into it, but obviously you're navigating the human elements of work and efficiency. You mentioned that you guys also touch base on AI here and there. Can you tell me a little bit about how AI specifically has affected the work that you do with your clients, your team, some examples of how AI has impacted things from your perspective?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (31:15.518)
Sure. So I actually just did a keynote on this last month about how AI is kind of impacting the whole HR experience. So the top things that I'm seeing, so you and I are speaking, it's kind of summer. A lot of organizations are doing their mid-year performance appraisals right now. So the reality is, in case you didn't know, ChatGPT is really effective at giving you a running start or a first draft. So many clients,

David Kent (31:36.46)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (31:45.27)
are accepting that their employees, whether they have a policy around it or not, are going to very much say, hey, chat GPT, here's a job description. Here are the key points that I want to make to Veronica. And can you give me a rough draft? So many organizations are now having a, I approved a policy on that where leaders can go ahead and do that. And I say that because many times organizations had disparities.

leaders were using ChatGPT to get the running start and others weren't. And I just am a believer that AI can help you get rid of a lot of the joyless work. And I think the most important thing in a performance appraisal is actually the sitting down with the person and the explaining and giving them very specific examples so they can visualize what's going well and what needs to be edited in terms of their performance. So a quick example is just leaders very much using ChatGPT, Claude, whatever Gemini, whatever the tool is to do a first draft.

of performance appraisal. Also seen organizations use it to create job descriptions. We've seen countless clients say, you know what, we have a Slack channel with a hundred questions that have been asked by employees over time. We're going to have that turned into a bot and we're going to very much have questions that can be answered by the bot. know, do we have offer Juneteenth? How do you handle vacation days that you haven't, can you roll them over? We've also seen

David Kent (33:08.983)
Right

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (33:12.798)
talent acquisition. the recruiting departments create bots so that the questions that many times candidates have, what are the benefits? Does it include pet care? Whatever it might be, the bot can answer those things. Other examples, taking the employee survey data and quickly streamlining the verbatim. So many times when you take an employee survey, there's a chance where you can write in just general comments and looking so you can

load that in, you can very much create thematic summaries of what those things are. And then the leaders can spend the time more implementing the change against those themes. And if anything is egregious, red flag about harassment, discrimination, whatever it might be, they can use disgruntled employee, employee relations issues that are on fire. They can use their energy towards those. could go on and on, at each point of the employee experience from

David Kent (34:07.507)
Jaime Klein (she, Her) (34:12.1)
on, you know, from recruiting all the way to what I call the elegant off-boarding, the whole employee experience in between. There's lots of examples where we're seeing it pop up more and more.

David Kent (34:21.76)
I I love that you mentioned that AI is great for taking away the joyless work. That's a really, that's a great way of positioning it. And I also love the examples you've given, which I would say is probably relevant to lots of leaders that are managing teams and trying to figure out how to be both efficient at it, but also be able to deliver a good experience for the employee while still also providing the feedback that they should be providing. Do you?

Does your agency help guide any companies using AI internally for these kinds of things?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (34:51.678)
Sure, sure. I want to call it in terms of the example with the performance appraisals AI is not perfect. It can have hallucinations, right? Meaning that it will spit out things that are completely extraneous to that question. might pertain to a question you asked six days ago. So it's a just, it is a running start. It is a draft. Someone that I respect so much said that AI isn't like an Ivy league intern. It's just a very ambitious intern that will keep on turning out work.

David Kent (34:58.414)
Sure.

David Kent (35:06.337)
Okay.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (35:19.71)
and deliverables, but I the most important thing with with Chat GPT is that you get strong at the prompts. So we're all going to be able to eventually have the answer because this information will be accessible. But the way that we prompt, the way that we ask the questions will be a skill that is more and more important so that we get the level of specificity that we need faster. We also over time train it. if AI in Chat GPT knows you want your information in bulleted form or always in a chart where the most expensive option is

David Kent (35:40.109)
Right.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (35:50.014)
categorized at the top and least expensive to the bottom, it will then start to over time present data to you in that way. Again, just creating those efficiencies.

David Kent (35:58.444)
Well, I am very interested in AI. It hits our whole industry, all of our clients. Obviously, it's a huge topic across the world right now, and it's going to only get more and more advanced. So while I think we could probably just go into nuances and nuances, I do want to just shift a little bit and talk to you about if you give advice to clients, you give advice all day, every day. That's what you do. If you were able to go back in time and you had 30 seconds to give yourself a piece of advice back in your early 20s.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (36:26.696)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

David Kent (36:28.46)
and you could only give yourself one piece of advice, what would that be?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (36:32.414)
Have fun for fun's sake more often. I've been kind of a heat seeking missile attached to me since I was 21. And I've worked really long hours and probably was not as intentional about just doing something that was silly. For example, it was just maybe two years ago I started reading just books that were silly, not books that were more business related. But I'm trying to be more intentional about this. I saw Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

Sunday night and I took myself to see Shakira in May and a girlfriend, a bunch of friends in town decided to go see the opera. We got like nosebleed seats way at the top and expensive opera tickets back in January. So every month I'm trying to do something that's just downright just fun. So I wish that I had done that more through the years, but here I am, I'm 53 and now that I've started having fun for fun sake, it's a little bit addictive. yeah, but that's what I would say.

David Kent (37:25.774)
That might be the best advice I've ever heard. So that was really, thank you for sharing that. And I definitely can resonate with being chased by a heat seeking missile and just trying to get to the next thing as quickly as possible and then just not spending any time in the moment. So.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (37:32.318)
Yeah.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (37:42.822)
Yes, well, that's a journey, but yeah, yeah.

David Kent (37:46.498)
That's fantastic. As far as reading, so I was gonna have two questions for you before we wrap up the episode. What book would you recommend to anybody professionally that either you've read recently or you just really loved?

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (37:55.678)
you

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (37:59.198)
So if I may, I'm myself cast by Isabel Wilkerson. Just is the origins of our discontent really just opened my aperture to what it is to be human and to inherently have bias, every human does, but to realize how insidious and wrong hierarchy and kind of caste systems

David Kent (38:01.42)
Yeah. Wow.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (38:29.022)
can be in society and it talks about, yeah, just caste systems that, in my lifetime, or in recent history, they've shown up in Nazi Germany, where the lower caste was Jews, caste, upper caste was non-Jews. In India, the Dalits are kind of lower caste, and it talked about how,

in 1939, the Nazis brought a delegation to the US, 1933, I think, and they said, how is it that the US has so elegantly created this caste system where people of color have less opportunity? And they determined upon a lot of analysis that the US was too strict, that we had too much woven into the way that people get loans are determined what school districts they go to, ability for jobs. And they said, you know, when we set up our

laws, we're just only going to go back like two or three generations. We're not going to go back as far as the US laws have codified so that people of color have less opportunity. And just saying that summary out loud makes me want to cry, but that is a book that really changed my view of just what it is to be a US citizen. And just to be real, I think it was in 1999, Alabama was the last state to get rid of the law.

that made it illegal for someone who was black and white to get married. Like I remember 1999, I remember where was and I just can't believe that that was happening even during my, those things have been on the books during my lifetime. So I could go on about that and I am forever just trying to learn more and more about that just to, just widen my aperture and just understand that everyone has different lived experiences. But this book helped me understand just how we're swimming in it. We're just swimming in it here in the U.S. cause it's part of our.

how our country was constructed. So that might have been a little bit more than you wanted to hear. That book, and if there were other DEI, if there were colleagues around me who were experts at DEI, they might even describe the book differently. But while we're just talking real quick on the podcast, that's my quickest overview. I can't even attempt to do it justice. And so, okay, so that's my work one, because I'm always just trying to bring that inclusive lens into the work.

David Kent (40:28.442)
no, that was great.

David Kent (40:43.768)
Sure.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (40:53.458)
that we do with Inspire and that was really informative and probably, and sorry, were you looking for other book pages?

David Kent (40:58.764)
Yo, yeah, I was gonna my second one was gonna be the personal one that would be just for fun that you would read hopefully something much lighter

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (41:03.11)
Okay. I mean, Bossy Pans by Tina Fey was just downright hysterical. And I read that several years ago and just couldn't get enough. I'm a huge fan of when I was little, I would say to my kids, when the phone would ring during dinner, would say, unless it's Michelle Obama or Tina Fey, do not get that phone. We're having family dinner. So I finally got to be in the same building as Tina Fey Sunday night. I've yet to meet, be in the same building as Michelle, but hopefully someday that'll happen.

David Kent (41:30.786)
Well, I am I'm very, jealous that you've been able to see Tina Fey. My wife would be insanely jealous. So we wanted to do we've been in New York several times and that was something that we've always wanted to do. So honestly, thank you for the recommendations and for the book suggestions. It's very deep information. And I'm glad that you had a lighter book to lighten the mood at the end. Thank you for your time on the podcast. It's been great to get a chat with you. And we'll be talking to you again soon. But thank you.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (41:54.595)
my gosh.

Jaime Klein (she, Her) (41:58.899)
my God, David, cannot thank you enough. We covered so much and I always look forward to when we can catch up. Thank you and enjoy this hot summer day.

David Kent (42:06.424)
Thanks, you too.