The Way Forward: Tech & L&D – Pillars for Deskless Workers Success – Tracie Sponenberg

[00:00:10] Nena Dimovska:Welcome back to People Pulse. Today, we are excited to speak with Tracie Sponenberg. Tracie has been in the HR world for over 30 years. Her story goes beyond fancy titles. It all started with those early jobs in bakeries and grocery stores, then onto UPS after college. That hands on experience gives her a real understanding of the daily grind. 

[00:00:39] She still has a deep passion for helping deskless workers who keep the world running, but often get overlooked. As a top HR advisor and a fractional CPO, she focuses on transforming workplaces and ensuring everyone, especially those who aren’t sitting at a desk all day, have a great experience. 

[00:01:01] She’s a big believer in using technology and AI to bridge the gap between people and business goals. In a previous interview, Tracie offered a simple message for young listeners. Embrace risk. Often the most exciting opportunities lie just outside your comfort zone. Today, we want to level up the conversation around deskless workers. 

[00:01:27] A staggering 80% of workers worldwide fall into this category. From warehouse technicians to hospitality staff who keep our world running smoothly, yet often receive less than 1% of software venture capital funding. Despite their role, deskless workers feel disconnected and undervalued compared to their desk bound counterparts. 

[00:01:52] In fact, 78% report feeling left out of communications and opportunities. Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workforce report revealed overall engagement rate of just 23%, which has a significant impact on productivity overall. Today, we will explore their challenges and the necessity innovation to empower and improve the employee experience for this vital segment of the workforce.​ Tracie, welcome.  

[00:02:28] Tracie Sponenberg: Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here.  

[00:02:29] Nena Dimovska: Great. Thank you. Now, AI, we know that it’s rapidly transforming the workplace. Can you share from your perspective, how can companies leverage AI to empower and support the deskless employees? If you have any specific examples of some AI power tools that you’ve seen that have made positive impact on their work? 

[00:02:52] Tracie Sponenberg: Yeah, I think this is an area that’s still very much developing, but we’re just, we’re almost there. Right? So we’re almost there. So there’s a tool that I’ve been playing around with, that I absolutely love called HR Harriet. And the reason I say this, and particularly for the deskless workforce, because we’ve had talks over time… it was originally embedded within Slack, and it would allow your people to chat with somebody and get questions answered, HR questions and could go beyond there. 

[00:03:21] So, the reason I bring this up is now they’re integrating that into text, into teams, into other areas where deskless workers might be. Right? And so, if you can think of that, that’s great. That’s great in and of itself but if you can think of somebody who’s off on a job site. That truck driver who’s, you know, not coming into the location, the warehouse… who rarely see somebody from HR. If they can have an app that’s free, that they just log in and answer a question and 95% of the time, log in and ask a question. 95% of the time, get it answered and answered correctly, because that doesn’t always happen – depending on who they talk to. So, I think that that’s really powerful and really, really transformative you know. And we’re starting to see AI come into, literally all facets, right? And one great example is if, know, my previous company had thousands and thousands of products those folks that had worked there for decades, just naturally had that product knowledge. But as we move forward and started hiring people you know, without, with outside the industry and who didn’t have that product knowledge, you know, they had to get that quickly. So there are AI tools that can bridge that knowledge gap and make somebody have the ability to look up information very quickly or input. 

[00:04:48] And, you know, within a second or two, get information back that, you know, it’s just a second or two longer than somebody would take to recall. 

[00:04:57] So, I think those tools for dekless workers are really important. And that translates into everything.  

[00:05:04] Nena Dimovska: Great. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. It was quite useful advice. And I agree that we’re just beginning to see the benefits that AI can bring for this segment of the workforce. Important facts here something that we have to take into account, especially when we’re talking about large enterprises is that we’re talking diverse global workforce, right? 

[00:05:27] Which has different needs. And we mentioned on a few occasions, how important it is to, is to customize, right? Whichever tactics or approach that we have. So can you maybe share, how would you approach you know, being successful into meeting the needs of people who are on different locations, have different backgrounds, different culture, how would you approach that? 

[00:05:52] Tracie Sponenberg: You know, learn and understand the culture and how people communicate wherever they may be. You know, my last company had a team in India and understanding the social norms and the customs and how they worked rather than expecting them to fit into the social norms and the customs of the US is really important. And then simple things like time. You know, are you respecting the time when they work and when they want to work? And, you know, are you scheduling a call in the middle of their night when they normally would be sleeping? And, you know, my son works for a global company and talks to folks in the Philippines regularly, and he’s regularly doing that at 8 or 9 o’clock at night. And so… you know, it’s getting a little bit outside of what we’re used to and meeting people where they’re at. And there’s a lot that goes into, you know, working with a global team. But those are some very simple places to start.  

[00:06:49] Nena Dimovska: Yeah, true. And adding on, are there any specific KPIs that can demonstrate the positive impact that the company would have if we invest into, you know, having these practices that are appealing to a diverse workforce? 

[00:07:09] Tracie Sponenberg: Yeah, you can measure NPS, the net promoter score. Or have engagement metrics, or do pulse surveys. And then you can look at you know across different demographics, who you’re promoting, who are you mentoring, who are you hiring? So, and then you can go beyond that and do focus groups and just, you know, I’ve talked about, I’ve talked more about actually talking to people because I think data is important and not everything that you know, can be measured should be measured. 

[00:07:39] And this isn’t me saying this. This is someone else who said this is not everything that should be measured is measured. Right? And so we need to be really careful that we’re not overindexing on that, and we need to kind of balance that qualitative and the quantitative.  

[00:07:55] Nena Dimovska: Great. Great. Thank you. So I guess it’s safe to say that having the right data, so having the right culture intelligence about what happens within these groups is key into making informed decisions. So just you know, knowing what to measure. Okay, great. Now another point is that, and something that you also mentioned is that there are many opportunities where we can find the next leaders from the deskless employees. 

[00:08:27] And I think that we can agree that including the deskless workers in the innovation process too, can lead to valuable insights. Like you’ve mentioned the success story before. Is there anything, any other example that you would like to share that or some specific story when, you know, giving them a voice and autonomy led to some kind of a breakthrough? 

[00:08:50] Tracie Sponenberg: Yeah, I think number one, when you’re doing that, and you want to include them in the process, but you need to make sure you include them in a process in a way that makes… that they know that they can be included in the process. So, you know, you can’t just communicate one way for maybe people who are sitting at their desk and expect everybody to understand that you know, and sometimes with people who aren’t at their computers all of the time. Posters in the bathroom are really effective going very, very old school. 

[00:09:20] Mailing something to homes are very, very effective. But something that we did within the HR team was whenever we rolled out a new technology, like our learning management system, performance system. We had some of our frontline folks involved from day one in that process. Because, you want to make sure that you have an example of a… when you’re looking at HR technology, somebody across different platforms, somebody who’s at their desk all the time, a manager, who’s going to be signing off on things. You know, a frontline person who it needs to be fast and straightforward to use, and in our case, require very little training because they had so much already that they needed to be trained on. So that’s been enormously successful for my team over the years.  

[00:10:08] Nena Dimovska: Great. So this is just one more example that the traditional top down communication just slowly giving away to a more collaborative approach, right? So any specific advice that you would like to give to HR peers to foster a culture that promotes psychological safety to share their voice and, you know, this feeling of being heard? 

[00:10:34] I think the number one question I get asked is: How do I convince my CEO, my leader, my whatever? So, so the problem is: maybe sometimes, but rarely HR, knowing what to do. It’s usually people in HR know what to do know what needs to happen. The problem is making that happen. And so I always encourage HR leaders to be bolder and braver and to have really straightforward conversations with their C suite leaders, particularly with the CEO. And again, that’s several levels down if it’s an extremely large organization. But, the reality is there needs to be able to be willingness to have that movement. There needs to be willingness to move things forward. So sometimes you can enlist, uh, you know, a friend within the company, a CFO, or somebody who, you know, you can certainly learn to speak the language, but you can enlist some help to make sure that things move forward. That is it’s got to start there. It’s, you’ve got to have support from the very top or in my last case, the very bottom of the organization. 

[00:11:45] True. Indeed.. I was listening to one of your previous podcasts where you shared a very powerful message. You said something like: Getting a sincere “thank you” from your boss or peer it’s much more rewarding than the pressure and anxiety of a public spotlight during a monthly all hands event. 

[00:12:08] You know, this emphasis on gratitude resonated deeply. And I think that a sincere “thank you”, especially coming from, like you say, a respected leader or a C level manager can truly be the fuel that propels this culture forward. I think we can say that recognition is an effective way to impact motivation for anyone, you know, including the deskless employees. How would you say that we can ensure that recognition programs truly resonate with the deskless workers? 

[00:12:42] Tracie Sponenberg: I love when recognition programs and thank you, I remember talking about that. So I love when recognition programs sit at the intersection of gratitude and personalization. Because, you know, there… it’s rare that you can have a one size fits all program. Because somebody is going to feel excluded if it’s… you know, recognition is by sitting in a room and physically raising your hand to talk about something that’s going to be uncomfortable for some folks. If it’s a quieter way, some people might want some lot of recognition. So I think it’s really a balance and deeply understanding your people and what their needs are for sure. 

[00:13:22] I’m a big fan of peer to peer recognition, even something like a system that have a simple hi 5, or a simple way to say: hey, great job on that. That project. I think that that can go a very, very long way, but don’t ever forget the power of a “thank you”. And as leaders, we forget often to say that.  

[00:13:45] True. True. Indeed. And thank you very much for that. And thank you for recognizing the value that a simple appreciation has in every HR strategy that we implement, including raising a culture of high performance recognition and innovation. You know, these are all great and actionable points that we can use. 

[00:14:06] So given that a large portion of the total workforce is deskless, managing their learning and development programs is quite crucial part of the overall HR strategy. What skills would you say they are most eager to develop? Additionally, what strategies work best when fostering a culture of continuous learning to keep their skill set sharp?  

[00:14:31] Yeah, I think it’s a mix of the technical skills and the skills or soft skills, or as I call them skills. Right? So, so technology and digital literacy and you know, just functional tasks. Like how to operate equipment, how to, if you know, as we get more and more, machine driven, how to operate some of these new machines, right? 

[00:14:56] So it’s a mix of some of those things, which are really, really important. And also communication skills, critical thinking, adaptability, organizational skills, change management. I think those are all things that everyone can use. It’s not exclusive to just as workers. I think just sometimes some companies maybe tend to about that a little bit. But those are all important and I think, you know, showcasing, getting them to understand, getting deskless workers to understand what the KPIs are for your particular organization. And not only that, but to use it to build a little healthy competition is helpful. 

[00:15:40] We did that my past organization. I had a client that actually had a dynamic screen that would change constantly and show somebody is picking stats and where they were and ranked them. And I, at first, I had mixed feelings about that, but it was remarkably effective to motivate people to you know, to want to be a top performer.  

[00:16:02] Nena Dimovska: Something like a leaderboard, you know, who, right?  

[00:16:07] Tracie Sponenberg: Exactly. So on the leaderboard, if you’re at the, you know, the top of the leaderboard, it may motivate you to move a little bit further. So some light gamification, I think, can be really, really helpful in motivating deskless workers.  

[00:16:22] Nena Dimovska: Of course, it just goes for anyone, you know, empowering this positive behaviors by, you know, having something like leaderboard badges, even, you know, when we’re talking about tech tools here, we can speak about social wall in interactions, boost, likes, comments. Great, great, great. And what would you say would be major, let’s say three benefits of investing in upskilling or cross training, like you said, but even soft skills for the deskless workers?  

[00:16:53] Tracie Sponenberg: I think, you know, you’re going to have a more engaged workforce, you know. You’re going to have a workforce that’s, I think, readier to take on new challenges and new promotions and they’re going to feel more connected to the organization.  

[00:17:10] Nena Dimovska: Great. And have you ever experienced resistance from employees? Because, you know, research and especially experience shows that sometimes there can be resistance, especially from long tenured employees who might be overconfident in their existing skill set. And, you know, how can we overcome this? 

[00:17:33] Tracie Sponenberg: I think you meet people where you’re at. And so if you are, for example rolling out a new training program that… and we did this at my past company, we rolled out learning paths. And we wanted everyone to complete them for their job or the job that they wanted next. And so it was an app based thing where you, there’s a little bit of gamification, you move on through a quick micro learning sessions and so forth. 

[00:17:58] And it was great wonderful and people loved it, but we learned pretty quickly the people who were in the roles for 20/30 years they had zero use for that. Right? And so I think this doesn’t apply to every scenario, but you pick your battles. And maybe do you need to force that person through that training for something that they already know how to do? If it’s a new computer system and it’s a new inventory system and they have to use it for their job. They’ve got to do it. But if it’s something that they don’t absolutely have to know for their job… you decide what battles you want to fight. Are you doing it just to do it? Are you doing it because it’s really required to move forward? 

[00:18:42] Nena Dimovska: I guess it’s about having relevant and engaging training programs. Can you maybe share some tactics that you’ve used so you can ensure that these upscaling opportunities are relevant, important, and how did you measure the effectiveness of these training efforts? 

[00:19:04] I’ll give an example of a a new inventory system, which was very complicated, completely different from the one prior and something that almost everybody had to use. And so the training was done in different ways. There was classroom training. There were modules that people could take. There was, reinforcement and that’s a critical part of that knowledge  

[00:19:28] Nena Dimovska: retention is reinforcement. There’s reinforcement throughout and there were quizzes to measure learning and then there were quizzes to measure learning retention. Right? And so the metrics beyond that you know, we didn’t measure, but you could with mistakes or, you know, the quality of the work, or the time it would take to do that. 

[00:19:54] So you could have done it. We chose not to do that, but we took a real multifaceted approach.  

[00:20:01] So I would say if we’re looking at the general Kirkpatrick model for training. You were going through the first three levels of, you know: reaction, learning, behavior, but measuring the results afterwards is the most challenging part. And yeah, I would agree that most companies struggle, you know, measuring the impact in the long run. But still, that doesn’t mean that companies still shouldn’t considering the, you know, designing and having relevant engaging upscaling opportunities, especially for this part of the global workforce. 

[00:20:35] Thank you very much. That was very, very useful. 

[00:20:38] Every company is different. Every company is different and has different needs. This was a very unique company with a very unique culture. And so we measured a lot, but probably didn’t measure as much as a lot of other companies.  

[00:20:53] Indeed. Thank you very much. Now, on a personal note would you like to share a bit more with the audience about the Hacking HR community? You’re a big part of that, and maybe you can share a bit more about what’s your purpose and you know, what’s the story behind? 

[00:21:11] Tracie Sponenberg: Yeah, and I can share a link with you later about about joining the community, which if your listeners don’t know about it, it’s wonderful. So the Hacking HR was founded by Enrique Rubio and it was, gosh, probably back in 2017 or so. And I remember connecting with him on LinkedIn, and I wasn’t doing a whole lot in LinkedIn at the time. 

[00:21:32] I was just following people and I really liked that, first of all, that he called it Hacking HR, which means just kind of taking it apart and looking at it and examining it and what needs to be fixed. Right? I loved that. I loved his approach and his enthusiasm. So we connected pretty early and I got to watch him build and grow and change what that looked like. 

[00:21:57] And I get to participate in the very 1st global summit in march of 2020, which was virtual, which turned out to be a very good thing that was virtual. And participated in countless other panels and sessions and I taught part 1 of the courses over the years. And it’s a, first and foremost, a global community. 

[00:22:19] So every time I speak, there are people from dozens and dozens of countries across the world, which is just so different.  

[00:22:28] It’s a very inclusive community and the content that you can tap into and the knowledge that you can tap into is really not found anywhere else. And much of it is free. It’s very inexpensive. If you want to tap into the larger paid portion it’s a wonderful community that has enriched my life and I’ve learned so much from.  

[00:22:56] Nena Dimovska: Amazing. That’s a great story. I guess, you know, sharing best practices, networking, like you said, in a large global inclusive community, it’s… you know, also helps you know, being aware about the major challenges that happen everywhere and you realize that the problems that people are facing are at the end of the day, people problems. And you just see different ways on how they can be solved. And it’s wonderful that we have technology at hand to help us solve all of these challenges. Thank you. Thank you very much for the insightful conversation, Tracie. It was a real pleasure having you here.  

[00:23:35] Tracie Sponenberg: It was wonderful.  

[00:23:36] Nena Dimovska: The perspective that you shared was indeed, valuable you know especially about the important role that the deskless workers play in our global workforce. 

[00:23:47] While we can agree that the challenges that they have are concerning, I guess that what we discussed about today highlights some of the exciting opportunities that companies have to innovate. And to our listeners thank you for tuning in. We have just unlocked another workplace heartbeat together. 

[00:24:07] Remember to use these practical takeaways, stay inspired and keep your workplace heartbeat strong. Don’t miss out on future insights, subscribe and get ready to power up your HR strategy. Thank you.