Wedding Business Solutions

Cara Silletto - Employee Retention/Culture

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Cara Silletto - Reducing Turnover by Rethinking Retention

Is your team turnover causing disruption to your business? Are you thinking about why your staff might be leaving voluntarily? In this episode, Cara Silletto and I explore the myths around employee retention and share insights on reducing turnover by bridging generational gaps and enhancing communication. Discover how viewing your workforce through a fresh lens can change the way you retain talent and make your workplace more attractive.

Listen to this new episode for strategies to make your organizational culture stickier and your leadership more responsive to upcoming trends in workforce management.

About Cara: 
Workforce thought leader and keynote speaker Cara Silletto, MBA, CSP, works with organizations to reduce unnecessary employee turnover. Workforce Magazine in Chicago named Cara a “Game Changer” and Recruiter.com listed her in their “Top 10 Company Culture Experts to Watch.” She is also the author of the book, "Staying Power: Why Your Employees Leave & How to Keep Them Longer."

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Do you have problems with turnover and staff leaving? I know that's a rhetorical question. Listen to this episode and find out what you can do about it. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so happy to have my friend Cara Silletto on to talk about voluntary turnover. And she's the author of the book Staying power, why your employees leave and how to keep them longer. Cara, thanks for coming on with me.

Hey, Alan, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for the invite.

I love having my speaker friends on. And you and I have the dubious distinction of having shared a stage at National Speakers association where we each got a whole two minutes to talk the most nerve wracking talks probably in our lives there. So that's how we first met. But then I find out what you actually do. We were just at a speaker conference in Minnesota and I heard the word, you know, voluntary turnover, voluntary turnover and retention. And I was like, what? We need to talk on the podcast about that. So tell everybody, you know, tell everybody quickly. What do you do?

Sure. So I like to start by reminding people that we were doing retention before retention was cool, since everybody's on the bandwagon now. But 12 years ago, I started an organization that focuses on reducing unnecessary employee turnover by bridging generational gaps and equipping, equipping leaders to become retention champions for their team. Because we all know that supervisors, managers, that direct leader that people typically report to have the most influence on whether people stay or go. So now I'm a keynote speaker and I have a team of trainers that go mostly within the US around to different organizations and associations to help them think differently about the workforce and ways to keep their talent longer.

Okay, so let's get into this. So what are it's like thinking differently? You just mentioned that. What's some of the incorrect thinking that is happening that's maybe influencing or causing the turnover? Yes.

Oh, I love myth busting. So let's start with that. Because the big one that I hear, Alan, you might have heard this recently, is nobody wants to work. And that is a big phrase that is happening, you know, in every conversation out there right now with business owners and managers. And so I like to give this unique analogy. I feel like in the past the workforce was more like trees. They were deep rooted in the forest and mother Nature treated them with a one size fits all approach. Hey trees, it's going to rain today.

Hey trees, here's some sunshine for you. Oh, we're going to have a bit of a drought deal with it, you know, whatever it was, they were kind of all in it together. They all got that same attention and care. And over time, for lots of different reasons, but over the last, I would say 30 or 40 years, we now have shifted to a workforce that I would equate to house plants. And one of the reasons is that today's new workforce primarily cares about mobility more than they care about stability, which the trees being deep rooted, they wanted stability and make sure that they could weather that storm and still make it. Where today the workforce is more looking for opportunities to grow, opportunities to change and move. So if you think about houseplants, also, one size doesn't fit all. One size pot doesn't fit all the different types of houseplants.

One care plan does not work. Can you just water every one of your houseplants one time a week and they'll all thrive? Nope. You know, some of them are more high maintenance orchids that need care and attention every day. Some of them are cacti or succulents that want very little attention from you. Just leave me alone. And our team likes to joke they can also be a little prickly. So that's cool. But now we're trying to teach organizational leaders to think more about their employees as all different types of house plants that we have to get to know them individually to understand that individualized care plan that each one needs in order to create a place where people want to work.

So it isn't that they don't want to work, it's that they don't want to work for a boss who doesn't understand them. They don't want to work for a company that doesn't appreciate them. They don't want to work where they don't feel the compensation matches the sacrifices that they have to have to take. Right. If they're working nights and weekends at weddings, that's a sacrifice. In fact, second shift now is the hardest shift for my clients to fill. It used to be third shift, you know, we pay extra in hospitals and things for third shift workers. But now second shift is really hard.

And when do most weddings happen? Nights and weekends, you know, during that second shift. So we have to acknowledge the sacrifice that our employees or even team members, you know, contractors, whatnot. We have to acknowledge that sacrifice, that they're missing dinner with their family, their kids to work here. So we have to compensate in some way for that sacrifice. So those are just a few of the issues and kind of myth busting a Little bit right out the gate there.

So other myth, myth busts along those same lines. All Gen Z are lazy. All Gen Y are lazy. I mean, and I've been trying to bust that as well because I know some really just entrepreneurial Gen Ys and Gen Z's. So it's like, we shouldn't put anybody into big buckets like that. But could it also be that they appear lazy because they're not motivated, because they're not compensated, because they're not appreciated? Because.

Right, absolutely. It can be all of those things. And also we created a workaholic era. But, you know, from boomers to Gen Xers to the, you know, into the older millennials, even. Even to that group, which I happen to be one of the oldest millennials. I was born in 1981. So that's why I really jumped into the generational conversation over a dec. Because we got to this point in our society where we're working late hours.

It equated for some people to that's a hard worker. They said silly things like, you stay till the job gets done. And that was a way to get people to work overtime or to work on salary extra hours and not get paid for it instead of the company hiring another person because we have too much work to do. And so we normalized silly things like 50 to 60 hour work weeks, which never should have been normalized, especially not on salary. Right. Hourly workers, at least they get compensated for that, but not salary workers. We also normalized the 3% pay increase as if that's okay, but that's just a cost of living adjustment. That is not a raise.

People say, oh, I'm giving you a 3% raise. Baloney. You're giving me a cost of living adjustment. And guess what? My rent just went up a hundred dollars a month, so I can't even buy the same bread, milk and eggs that I bought last year because your quote unquote raise didn't keep up with my housing costs. You know, that type of thing. So sometimes the job hopping is because the employers really just don't understand their front line and, and what their priorities are and their financials are. Unfortunately, I see a lot of leaders who've been in the work world a long time or maybe are twice the age of some of their employees. You know, there's this unintended disconnect that happens because they're not from my generation.

They talk differently, they dress differently. They don't have the experience that I have. And also, you know, hopefully once you're 40, 50, 60 years old, you probably have a little bit more financial independence and stability and things like that. And so you don't maybe care about the price of gas or groceries when your staff absolutely care when grass goes up a dollar more an hour or not an hour, a dollar more a gallon. Right, right. You know, that type of thing. So there's, there's kind of an unwanted disconnect there that some people don't realize the blind spots that they have.

And, and not everybody's motivated by money. Right. Because there's, there's a, there's a need.

Right?

There's a need. Right. Because you have to pay the rent, you have to, you know, pay for the gas and all those type of things. But above that, some people are motivated because they have a goal. I need to make X because I'm going to buy or I'm going to travel or whatever. And other people, that's not the motivator. So what are some of the other ways to motivate people besides money? Because I. Not every company can afford to just pay people a lot more than they're paying now because they don't have it in their profits.

What are, what are some other motivation ideas?

Yeah, absolutely. So I try to stay away from that general term of motivation because motivation is internal for folks and it's hard to motivate someone. You can figure out what their motivator is or try to tap into that, but it's, it's hard for us to truly motivate another person, if that makes sense. And it's subjective. I understand, but that's kind of how I see it, because when we get to know our people, then some folks on my team, for example, they would much rather have some extra time off and more cash. Right. Because they just wanted like a Friday afternoon off to take their kids to the park on a sunny day or whatever it is. Some people, it's about the appreciation.

They just want to work for someone who recognizes that they are there and who gives a crap about their people. And so it's more about how do you create a place to work and be a boss who is more sticky. Right. It isn't like motivating people to work. It's like, how do I get them to want to come back to me tomorrow? You know, and so you got to figure out what would make them sticky, whether that is, you know, appreciating folks. Certainly for some of them, it's going to be the pay or certain benefits. Flexibility is a big one, which in, in our Industry, we, we do have some flexibility that we're not typically working Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, but when there's a or event, that's where we've got to be. So people are tethered to that time and place.

That's where they have to cater or take pictures or whatever the services they're providing. Right. So. So also just giving people flexibility, like do they have to be there at a certain time to set up? Could they come earlier in the day if they have a family engagement in between, you know, that they could squeeze in between setup and delivery. In fact, fun fact for me, I grew up in a family band like the Partridge Family, and we did a lot of weddings. So I remember sometimes we would just come right before and set up, you know, if the reception was in a different area. But other times they would say, no, you have to be set up by 4:00 and come back at 7:00 to perform because we're using the same room. Right.

So even just understanding that might not seem like a big deal because your client said, well, I need setup done by four and then come back at seven and you're going, okay? Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Like we can do that. Well, think about the impact on your team because some of them might like that split shift and others might say, are you kidding? So I'm not going to get paid from 4 to 7 o'clock, but I have to come early and break up my whole day and it's not enough time to go back home or, you know, different things like that. So just listening to your people, recognizing, hey, I know this is a split shift and it might be a little bit of trouble. Is there something you can do to ease that sacrifice? Right? Just just listening to them, let them be heard and then appreciate explicitly show that appreciation for them showing up early and getting the job done.

And I think appreciation is something. This is not generational. Everybody likes to know that they're appreciated, but some people need it said. Some people just need to feel it. I don't know if you've ever read the book why Work Sucks. Did you ever read that book?

No.

So it's by two people that were in the Best Buy corporate offices in the early 2000s, I want to say 2004, 2005. And they were tasked with trying to find out why there was so much voluntary turnover in corporate and what they came up with very, you know, condensing it here was R O W E a results only work environment which is, I don't own your time, I own your results. Now, like you said with the wedding, if the wedding is from X time to X time, I do need you to be there at that time. But like you said, also with setup, if setup needs to be done by, well, that could be an hour before that, two hours before, three hours. As long as everything else falls into place. What are the results? Now it's easier in sales because there's numbers, right. To say what are the results I expect you to do in other roles, administrative roles and things. It's harder to say that, but I try to do that.

I switch from, with my assistance, I went from here's, you know, by the hour or two, here's what I need you to do, right. Like I need you to do to get this done. Oh, and also, by the way, with compensation, when I asked what they were looking for and they told me and it was ridiculously low, I said, no, that's too low. I'm paying for the results that I need from you. Not by that ridiculous hour thing, but I'll pay you this for the month. And I overestimated. So and then the first month or second month, they had to do more. And I said, okay, add another $50 on.

Because you did more. Right? Because I'm recognizing that I didn't have to do it. That was the benefit to me and that was worth it. So that idea of a results only work environment is. Isn't that what we're hiring people to do is to do a job and not do it this way on this time, but get this done by X. Right. Because there's usually a deadline of something.

Yes, absolutely. It's, it's really tough in a lot of positions to identify what the final result looks like. That's not hourly. Right. So bartenders, the bar is going to be open from this time to this time. Yes. I can define what your pre work and post work is as far as setup and cleanup and tracking and counting the till and you know, whatever else is needed. But, but we can't say, well, I want you to bartend for six hours and only pay for four hours.

Because we say how many drinks, you know, like we estimate how many drinks they're going to pour or something. We, we don't know that. So I do think it's much harder to shift to a results oriented. In fact, I, I see the, I see the value of doing results oriented with some contractors and some project work or very easily defined work. But what's interesting is with my team, I swung the Other direction. And I said, I want everybody to clock their hours. If their salary, I want them to clock their hours because we have a core value at Magnet Culture that is excellence without overtime. I will not let my staff go over 40 hours.

So even if they are salary and we set, you know, we have scorecards and dashboards and goals every quarter and you know, we're very operationalized on all of that. But if their plate becomes too full, we will reprioritize and move goals and timelines out so that I'm not pushing people over and over because I believe another way to make my organization sticky and I have very little turnover partially because of this is I am hyper focused on capacity for my team. So I hire ahead of my needs. I do not wait until, you know, a person quits and then we have this gap and we have no cushion for it. If I can hire ahead of my needs, I will do that. In fact, I tell my team that the more notice they can give me, I appreciate it and I'm just very upfront with them of hey, we are a small team and one person leaving is very disruptive. So please, if you, if you're looking for another job, just tell me so I can have a heads up and I can start looking for, you know, looking for other candidates or whatnot. I, I encourage that transparency and even asking people if you can give me three or four weeks notice, that's better than two.

And I even have some managers who say, oh, must be nice to get a two week notice because my people don't even give me that. You know, they just don't show. Or they say today's my last day. Right. And I did some research on that. I mean more anecdotal, just asking around and figuring out why especially Gen Z doesn't feel a sense of obligation to give a two week notice. And for many of them they just said, well, the company wouldn't give me a two week notice if they're going to cut my job. So they think of the employer employee relationship as more equal of if you were going to treat me that way, then I'm not going to treat you, you know, any different than that.

And with a mother who, Alan, my mom was laid off as a corporate accountant five times, okay, three times before I graduated high school. So that was pretty mindset shifting. So growing up in the 90s when mass, you know, mass corporate layoffs were happening because of globalization, the Internet, all that happening, that gave me a different mindset coming into the work world that nobody has My best interest, except me. You got to, you got to watch out for yourself because if the company has hard times, they're going to let you go, you know, so we have to kind of think about that relationship with folks. That two week notice, for example. I communicate my expectation instead of assuming, well, everybody knows to give a two week notice. No, they don't. Because a lot of the younger workers think, well, that's silly.

They wouldn't do that for me. In fact, one of my babysitters, her boyfriend, it was 28, this was a few years ago, he was 28 years old. She brought her boyfriend over for us to meet because she's kind of like a little sister to me, you know, said. I said, oh, what do you do? And he said, I was an autistic behavioral therapist, but I just quit my job. And he literally quit his job to sell Pokemon cards full time. Like that's what he does. He has all these shops online and shops in vendor markets and he, he switched over to that. So one other issue is this gig economy and that people can kind of, if they're creative, piecemeal their own jobs together.

And then I said, oh, why did you quit that other job? And he said, look, Kara, I had a stable team and every single day on my team, somebody would get pulled to another team and it would make me short staffed, even though my guys were showing up every day. And so he went to his boss and said, hey, you either need to quit taking my people or you need to pay me more money because I'm doing two jobs every day trying to fill in for these missing people. The boss said, okay, let me go see what I can do. Literally two weeks later, the boss comes back and goes, josh, sorry I asked, there's nothing we can do. There's no more money and we need your people. It is what it is. And so Josh said, then today is my last day. And they said, well, you need to give two weeks notice.

And he said, I did two weeks ago. I told you that if you don't quit stealing my people or give me more money out of here. Right. So he kind of took it as literal, like I did tell you.

Right, Right. Not official. I didn't go to HR and I didn't. Right, dude, yeah.

Yes. So it's all perspective. Right. You gotta look at it from different lens.

Yeah. You know, my first, I was gonna say my first job out of college, but that was installing burglar alarms because I couldn't get a job. But I was, I got a job with the largest ad agency in the country, Young and Rubicam. And I found out that if you want to get promoted in advertising at the big agencies, you leave, you lie about what you're making, go to another company. And then you. You don't go straight up. You kind of bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce. Now, my dad worked 17 years for one accounting firm, 10 years for another one, and then he went out in partnership with other people.

And I said, so there's nobody that's going to be here 10 years? And they said, no, no, you might come back. Like, you might. You'll end up back here after you get that promotion somewhere else. And I was there 10 months. I got promoted ahead of people. And I was just like, no, no. Why? I'm working all this hard so I can leave. And I applied for a job as an assistant manager at a retail store, and I've never worked retail.

And the woman looks at my resume and goes, wait a minute, Magda. Cum laude, accounting and marketing degree, Young. And why do you want this job? Job? And I looked at her and I said, honestly, because you pay 50% more than I'm making now. You know, it's like him, Pokemon cards, right? I went from. From the. The dream job, right? The largest ad agency in the country, to assistant manager of a store. And then six weeks later, I was managing the store and whatever. But then why did I leave? Because my director left.

Another director came in, my director, who I told, honestly, I'm here because you're paying me more. And then she promoted me to a manager. I remember I never worked at a retail store. Six weeks later, I'm managing the store well, she gets moved and another guy comes in, and he didn't like that. I asked, why do we do it this way? Why does it have to be that way? He didn't like that. And I need to know how things work. My brain is that way. As a kid, I would take my toys apart to see how they worked, right? So he said, the word that you should never say is, you do it that way because we've always done it that way.

And I told you to do it that way. And that's it.

Because I said so.

Because I said so. And I said, because I'm leaving in two weeks. And that was it. But that's why I left. Because, yeah, it's. Again, that was not. This needs to get done. This is the way we've done.

I always tell people, listen, try it the way we've always done it, because it might be the Best way. And if you then think you have a better way, speak up.

Yeah.

And. And I've done that with my assistant, my son. I had told a story about my son who ended up getting a bonus at Chase because something that took three weeks, he figured out a way for it to take six hours. Right. Because he spoke up, but that required his boss listening. Right. That required a bunch of other steps there. But this because I told you so.

How often do you hear that at your clients?

Oh, my goodness. Well, it. It's about that mindset of the leader, because there are still a lot of traditional mindsets, which I would say is the one that says, because I'm the boss. That's why. And I shouldn't have to answer that, versus a newer approach to leadership is. Let me explain why. You know, that is part of the communicating your expectations. You know, at my first job, nobody told me I had to keep my shoes on all day.

And so I worked in an office, and I'd walk to the copier barefoot. Who cares? We didn't have visitors in or anything. And so it was several months into the job that someone else came and said, hey, Kara, you're doing great work. And I think that would get more attention, the great work you're doing if you kept your shoes on all day, because that was distracting people, they called me unprofessional and inappropriate and whatnot. And it was just because nobody told me that expectation fast enough. They should have just nipped it in the bud and addressed it of, hey, I saw you walk to the copier barefoot. Yeah, yeah, let's not do that here. You know, but giving the why of that is deemed kind of unprofessional by our team or maybe our clients.

Right. You don't want folks at weddings, we see them walk around barefoot all the time. But your team, your staff, you do not want them barefoot, especially if there could be broken glass around or anything, you know, anything else.

Yeah.

And so sometimes it comes down to safety. You know, we want you to keep your shoes on because that is safer. Sometimes it's perception. This is a. This is a perceived professionalism from our clients that we want to uphold. And sometimes there's other rules and regulations behind things. You know, whether it's compliance or different countries and different states and different industries have different rules and regulations. They have to follow that somebody new coming into the business doesn't know.

I know when I worked in restaurants, the whole separation of sanitizing water versus, you know, cleaning water and hand washing water and different Things like that, you know, with food safety and everything, right? You got to explain the. Why. You can't just say, oh, because the food safety people say so. But there's a reason the food safety rules exist is so we don't get sick or hurt anybody else.

But what about legacy stuff where. I don't know why. Because I was taught to do it this way, and they were taught to do it that way, and they were taught. Do you know the story about the. The soldier guarding the. The bench?

No.

So there's a soldier standing guard next to a bench, and he. And a officer comes by and says, soldier, why are you there? And he said, well, sir, because my superior told me to do so. So he goes to the superior, why? He said, well, because my superior, when I came in, he told me to do that. And they go back, and they finally go back to this retired general, and they said, so why is there a soldier guarding the bench? And this is like, you know, 30 years later, he goes, is the paint still wet?

Oh, yes, exactly.

And they did it because they were told to do it. Nobody questioned why. And he had him guarding the bench so nobody would sit down 30 years ago on the wet paint. And 30 years, there's been somebody standing there. So how often do you see that? It's like, yeah, we've always done it that way. I'm not sure why, but that we just have.

Yeah. Well, I would say great leaders are not going to accept. Well, I don't know why. Just because. And I encourage my team when they come in, even with fresh eyes. Kind of like you said, hey, I'm going to teach you how we do this or a way to do this. But especially with your fresh eyes, that's valuable to me to see a new perspective. So, hey, you have fresh eyes.

And I'd love for you to ask, why do we do that? Is there a better way? Can we automate that? Or why are we not using the app that's available or those types of things? Because I can't stay on top of everything new and some new idea. And of course, we each come into the world with our lens of the way we see things, and you don't see other perspectives because that's not the way you were raised or the experience that you have had. So. So, yeah, it's actually really important. If. If the answer to why is I don't know, then maybe it's time for a bigger conversation about that. In fact, I just had my team. There was a process that we've done For a long time, it was somewhat helpful tracking some metrics.

But then when we got to, well, what insights does this actually give us? Like, it's nice to know these numbers. We've just always tracked them. But it was, why? Why? Oh, are we tracking it?

Right?

And when none of us could answer that, we get, great, well, let's stop tracking that crap because.

Right. I do that with Google. Yeah, with Google Analytics. In my new. My new book, one of the chapters is about that. That there's really only a few things that I care about because I can't act on the other things. They're interesting.

That's it.

Interest. But interesting is fireworks. I always say the interesting stuff's like, ooh, and then just go back to what you were doing as opposed to, I can now do something with this. So I want to know how much of my traffic is mobile. I want to know which pages they're looking at. I want to know where the traffic's coming from. But, you know, you know, yes, I could get into time on page and all kinds of stuff like that. But realistically, you can act on a few of those things now if you can figure out, I could act if I knew that other thing, great.

But otherwise it's just wasting time. I mean, it's just a waste of time there. But let's get back to communication, because you keep talking about conversation. I think that's the important part, is that it has to be two way, that you have to be as a leader, open to hearing, hey, why do we do it this way? Or hey, I might have a different idea. Or, hey, I thought of an idea for a product or a service or whatever. And you know, some people are very open. I was always open to that. I actually had, when I had about 100 people under me, I had in their calendar every month, on the first of the month it came up and it would pop up and say, ideas come first.

It'll play on the first of the month. And that. That was their reminder to tell me an idea that they or a client had. Because that's a hundred pair of ears and eyes versus mine. And I don't hear what you hear and I can't do anything about it. But then I would complete the circle and say, hey, great. Kara said to do this, we did it. Julie said to do it, we did it.

Chris said to do. And they were like, oh, they're actually listening. Right. The communication. But. But the idea of I want to hear what the front line says as opposed to the front line is just being measured on efficiency or you know, something like that. That.

Yeah, yeah, it's really important to schedule check ins with people. And I love that you were specifically asking for idea Day. You know, like this is the day I want you to think about what can you share with us that would improve things? But one fundamental, very basic 101 thing that we teach in most of our classes for leaders is to genuinely check in with your people. And that needs to be one on one. And it needs to be regularly and regularly is relative, you know, whether that's weekly, monthly, quarterly. But it needs to be kind of set and people want predictable access to you. So you can't just pop in and be like, oh hey Alan, I'm free right now. What thoughts do you have? Wanted to get your opinion.

And Alan is like, I didn't know you were coming. Okay. You know, that type of thing. So having a set monthly check in, for example with your team members one on one and saying, you know, have on the schedule or saying hey the two every Tuesday I'm going to check in with you or whatever that is. I ask my team to actually keep a list for Cara all the time. I don't care if it's a post it note or digital or an app, whatever, but they should keep a post it or a post of ideas for Kara. Not just ideas, but any questions they have problems, issues they want to talk about. Anything that's not time sensitive.

Because of course if it's time sensitive, they've already reached out to me, email or call or you know, whatever. But if it's just ideas, suggestions, some professional development or things they want to talk through, then I just say keep it on your list. And that way when I come in with my check ins and by the way, I'm not multitasking while I'm checking in with them. I'm not typing an email and I'm not doing other things. I'm genuinely 100% with that person to listen and, and hear them. And so during that time we go their list. I also keep a list for each of my team members if I want information to go the other direction. Updates and ideas and professional development and anything else that I want to put on that list.

So just genuinely checking in and setting a regular schedule for that, that can also help you reduce turnover because they're likely to bring up the issue if you give them the true space and say how is it going? You know, really, I like to add that word at the end. How's it going? Really? That Shows your, your genuineness. I think that you really want to hear whether things are working or not. And what would they change if they had their druthers?

And then really listen. Really?

Really. And then shut your trap.

Right? Yep. Oh, so, so many things. We're running out of time here, actually, probably over time already. But how much we know what happens outside of work affects people. Yes. And I know there's also HR concerns. Like, you know, how much can you ask, should you ask, do you know about what's happening? Because what's happening with their family, pet, school bills, whatever affects them. So what's the short answer with that? What, what can you do or what have you seen or what do you suggest? Just to know the person, not the job.

Right. To know the person. Because then you know more of what is important to them.

Yeah. So because we have a big generational spin and lens on a lot of our work, it's no secret that Gen Z in particular is bringing their whole self to the workplace. So managers need to strengthen their empathy of understanding that folks are going through tough times. I have recently learned that lower wage hourly workers, if you're hiring, you know, maybe it's a catering company or something like that that has some of those hourly workers that are part time or more gig workers, even the lower wage hourly workers are exponentially more likely to come from trauma. So whether that's domestic violence and abuse at home, childhood neglect, poverty that they grew up in, or are currently living on the line of poverty on or below the line. And so just acknowledging that, not that you have to have to be their therapist, but acknowledging that employees are not able to separate their drama and their personal struggles and leave those at home. And so one of the courses that we've been developing actually for this summer is called Leading the Whole Person how to Coach with Care. And so it's a balance of understanding this concept about trauma informed leadership, which is coming out of the therapy world of trauma informed therapy.

So being a trauma informed leader and understanding how that shows up in the workplace of, of how they show up and the words and the emotions and the actions that your employees might be taking that impact their work. But we're also balancing that acknowledgement and support that we give our folks with accountability and how do we still get the job done? Because I understand that your dog is sick or your mom is toxic, or your boyfriend broke up with you and I want to be there for you and support you in this difficult time. But we still have a wedding this evening to deliver. Right? So finding a middle ground of support and balancing that with the accountability ability instead of too many people were told things like, suck it up, buttercup. And that is not going to fly. That type of mentality and, and language today will cause someone to literally just walk off the job and say, you don't get me. And, and I'm not going to work for somebody like this.

Right. You don't see me, you don't understand me. Whereas the opposite is when they feel seen, they feel understood. They will walk through the fires with you.

So absolutely. They'll stay late till the job gets done.

Absolutely. We, we could keep going on, but I want to, I want to try to keep this to the time. Kara, thank you so much. Where can people find out more about you? It'll be in the show notes, but tell people how they can find out more about you.

So I'm the only Carouseletto on the planet. You can find me on LinkedIn or at carouseletto.com and our work reducing turnover.

Is at magnetculture.com magnetculture.com and that's Silletto. S I L L E T T O There you go. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with everybody. And we will have your associate on. I forget if it's the week before or the week after we're talking here, but we're going to be talking about Gen Z over there. So thank you so much and thanks everybody for listening.

Thank you.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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