Rebel HR Podcast: Life and Work on Your Terms

From MySpace to TikTok: Digital Influence in HR

Kyle Roed, The HR Guy Season 5 Episode 225

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Grace Bowling joins us on the Rebel HR Podcast to challenge stereotypes and share her insights on how Gen Z is redefining the workplace landscape. Discover how this energetic generation is prioritizing flexibility, remote work, and mental health, debunking the myth that they lack a strong work ethic. Grace shares her journey from inside sales to becoming an HR specialist at IFP, highlighting the contrasts between Gen Z and millennials in embracing their generational identity and influencing modern workplace dynamics.

Prepare to be inspired by creative HR innovations that enhance work-life balance, such as the "speakeasy" styled lounge, humorously referred to as "the cave," designed for post-work relaxation. Grace encourages HR professionals to break away from traditional corporate routines and infuse fresh strategies for employee engagement and retention. We wrap up with a lighthearted exploration of social media trends, particularly TikTok, reminiscing about digital communication relics like MySpace and AIM. Join us for a fun and insightful conversation with Grace Bolling that promises laughter, learning, and a fresh perspective on HR practices.

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Speaker 1:

This is the Rebel HR Podcast.

Speaker 2:

The podcast about all things innovation in the people's space.

Speaker 1:

I'm Kyle Rode. Let's start the show. Welcome back HR Rebels. We are continuing our podcasting here at the Iowa State SHRM Conference. With us we have Grace Bolling, maybe the coolest last name at the conference. I'm not sure, but I have a feeling it is. She is a HR specialist for IFP and we are going to be talking about some exciting stuff today related to work-life balance and generational differences. Welcome to the podcast, grace.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

Well, we are excited to have you and we are going to start this podcast by wishing you a happy HR professional. Thank you so much Because evidently that's what it is today. All you HR professionals, you go get them, Go get them. Hr professionals we're killing it out there, killing it out there it's also like National Cupcake Day and National, you know, like like pet a pet, a leprechaun day.

Speaker 3:

I mean, who knows? Yeah, so if you're having a really bad day as an HR professional, go get a cupcake.

Speaker 1:

Go get a cupcake. Yeah, Well Grace, thank you for gracing us with your presence here on the podcast. You like that? Yeah, dab, joke going on there.

Speaker 4:

How often you get that.

Speaker 3:

I don't. I get like you're very graceful sometimes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, okay, sounds good, yeah, well, grace was really excited to join us today and I'm excited about this topic. She wanted to talk about work-life balance and kind of the generational difference related to the approach to work-life balance. But before we jump into that, I would like to understand a little bit more about your path. So what motivated you to get into human resources?

Speaker 3:

That's a really good question. I kind of fell into it. So I started an inside sales for IFP, which is a manufacturing company out of Cedar Rapids. We're half a distributor, half a manufacturer. We focus on hydraulics, electronics, pneumatics, automation, all that fun stuff. And so I started in inside sales because I knew somebody who had worked there and I talk way too much to sit at a computer screen because that is what inside sales does and so there was an opening for a recruiting coordinator under my boss currently and so I decided to apply. And we love internal hires because you know they know the culture, they know everybody that works there. And so I applied for a position and got it, and I've been in the HR role for the past year and a half. I just passed my SHRM certified professional test.

Speaker 2:

So that's good, just got that under my belt.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm happy to never study for the rest of my life. So, that'll be, fun, yeah. And so now I'm an HR specialist, so kind of getting into the insurance side of things, but I've been working mainly under the recruiting umbrella for the last year and a half Nice, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So with us listeners we have a real live, Gen Zer.

Speaker 1:

That you do, and the reality is there's a lot of them in the workplace now, and so one of the things that we wanted to talk about here is that experience, that employee experience, and I think that, certainly from my standpoint, we make a lot about generational differences in the workplace. We talk about it a lot. It's definitely like a hot topic. It sells, you know, it kind of sells airtime. But I'm curious from your perspective as you look at kind of the different generations working together in the workplace do you?

Speaker 1:

notice a big difference between generations of folks.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think there's this, you know stigma that you know Gen Z people don't want to work, which you know. You come across Gen Zers that don't want to work. They just kind of want to have stuff handed to them. But you know, there is that portion of Gen Z that do want to work and they want to climb the corporate ladder.

Speaker 3:

And I think a lot of people overblow that when they think of Gen Z that do want to work and they want to climb the corporate ladder.

Speaker 3:

And I think a lot of people overlook that when they think of Gen Z, and so you're kind of just bundled into this category of Gen Z when you go into the workforce.

Speaker 3:

And it's actually going to be 30% of the workforce is going to be Gen Z by 2025, which is a huge number, and so the baby boomers are kind of retiring and Gen Z is coming in and with Gen Z, it's just so many new ideas and new approaches and ways to do things through the workforce and I think that they should be heard, Because I think a lot of companies are like oh, we've done it this way, we're going to continue to do it this way, it's going to be like this for the next 20 years, and I don't think that Gen Z likes to take, you know, no for an answer. So yeah, Gen Z is completely different than baby boomers or maybe even millennials. I think a lot of stuff is more flexible. I think remote work is becoming more and more, you know, common throughout workplaces just because of Gen Z, and I think mental health is a huge thing with Gen Z as well.

Speaker 3:

And I like that it's coming to the front. Mental health is such a huge thing and we're not really afraid to address it, so that's a huge thing.

Speaker 4:

Do you see Gen Zers in a place where they're trying to battle the stereotype of they don't want to be labeled Gen Z, just like we all kind of have a label on millennials Millennials being promoted too fast, they want something for no effort. You know things of that nature. Do you see Gen Z not wanting to be a stereotype like that?

Speaker 3:

Not necessarily. I think you know where Gen Z differs from millennials. Millennials kind of want to get away from that title, but I think Gen Z is like I'm a Gen Z and I'm loud and proud, you know, like this is how I am and this is how it's going to be, and I have all these ideas and I want to come work and all that.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, Are you a millennial Patrick?

Speaker 4:

I'm still X, you're still X, you're still X. You're the last year of X.

Speaker 1:

So technically I'm an elder millennial. That's what you would call me.

Speaker 4:

You're a junkie, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Good for you.

Speaker 1:

Or an exennial, or whatever I'm in the middle. That's a good one.

Speaker 3:

Are you like an avocado toast millennial?

Speaker 1:

I like avocado toast.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 4:

What does avocado toast millennial? I like avocado toast okay what does that mean?

Speaker 3:

what does that mean?

Speaker 1:

what's an avocado toast millennial like we, just like avocado toast like millennials are like obsessed with avocado toast.

Speaker 3:

Like what's going on with that? I don't know. I mean, just eat like guac and be done with that. Why do you have to put it on?

Speaker 1:

but then you put an egg on top of it, it's better. I don't know, it tastes good.

Speaker 3:

I thought you said you like avocado toast. I do like avocado toast. That just blew my point right there. That's good.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so what's the Gen Z version of avocado toast?

Speaker 3:

I don't know, I don't know, I'll think about it.

Speaker 1:

I don't get it. Tiktok, tiktok yeah.

Speaker 4:

Is Snapchat millennial too? Maybe it's good, I don't know. You're gonna, you'd laugh twitter is millennial.

Speaker 1:

Twitter is millennial, yeah now that it's like x now it's x, that's a millennial yeah, okay, get to know that's so for everybody out there that enjoys avocado toast, just know you are being stereotyped and reviled by gen z. I just want everybody to be aware of me. So now that we've got that out of the way, so how does that relate to work Like? Don't try to turn this into like a hard hitting podcast. Now I'm like personally objectified because of my love of avocado.

Speaker 3:

Avocado toast in MySpace. It's just MySpace.

Speaker 1:

I know you had a MySpace factory.

Speaker 3:

I might still do.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure I do, but I haven't used it.

Speaker 3:

Do you have your like top three songs and whatnot? Oh yeah, yeah, tom was my friend.

Speaker 1:

Tom was everybody's friend.

Speaker 4:

Right now I'm thinking of avocado on pizza and on hot dogs, and on like everything, yeah, so like my mind just went that way. Okay, sounds good.

Speaker 1:

All right. So now that we're completely off topic, a great place to have avocado toast is on vacation, so let's talk a little bit about work life balance. Do you like that lead in? I did my best.

Speaker 2:

I don't know, it was all I could do.

Speaker 1:

It was all I could do Better than me, I'll get inside. So you know, one of the things that I struggled with early in my career as a millennial in my workplace, in a in in my workplace, was primarily, uh, gen X and baby rumors. They were the, they were the people in power. You know my approach was to essentially like, try not to be a millennial. Like you know, I grew a beard, I tried to not act my age and you know I did that for about 10 years until I was in a point of like positional power that I didn't have to act that way. I don't think that's the most mentally healthy way to approach it. So I'm curious on your approach. You know, as you're working with different generations that are in power, what's your approach in kind of embracing your Gen Z-ness in the workplace?

Speaker 3:

What's your approach in kind of embracing your Gen Z-ness in the workplace? Yeah, so mental health, like I was talking about, is a really big thing for me, and so being in a position where, you know, I kind of am in a leadership position at 23 years old, which is really really weird because everybody else is, you know, older than 30. Um, and so a lot of those people you know they work, work, work and I love that. They love to work. I really do, um, but I am a person who puts myself first, um, when it comes to work. Uh, not that I don't love my coworkers and I love my employees and I love my job, but I love the beach and I love drinks on the beach, right? So I think, you know, talking with some of my coworkers that are, you know, baby boomers or Gen X, or even, you know, those older millennials, they don't like to take vacation, and I understand, because when you take vacation, you're off and people are emailing you and you come back to 10,000 emails.

Speaker 3:

I personally love that. I take my vacation. I only think about vacation and my personal life, I don't think about work, and I think it's just a really good reset. I come back, I'm refreshed, I don't feel burnt out. You know, I have a better positive attitude and I spread that to others. I go through the shop every single morning. I'm like good morning, good morning. And if that's something that I can do for myself, then why not take those days?

Speaker 3:

So you know the older generation when they are like, oh no, I can't take a day off, I can't take my lunch because I have to work through my lunch. Like, go, take your hour lunch, right, it's just one hour, they don't need you for that one hour. Somebody can cover you. But it's just hard to get through. You know, because that generation was kind of brought up that way, that work is the most important thing and that they need to do it for the rest of their lives, until they retire.

Speaker 3:

And so I actually had an older coworker tell me well, no, you need to save up in your 401k and retire with a lot of money and then you can go travel. But I think a lot of Gen Zers think well, I want to go travel now, when I'm young and I can go climb mountains and I can go sit on the beach and have fun and, you know, go to the clubs or go to parties and whatnot. Um and so you know benefits with retaining and retracting Gen Z employees and younger generation, they're not really looking for you know benefits at the moment they're looking for flexibility, they're looking for. You know what's your PTO? A lot of people are going to unlimited PTO, which is crazy to think about, and then just like the values of the company.

Speaker 4:

So that's a question that I had for you regarding your organization. You have more and more people coming into the workforce. They have more flexibility, they have more PTO. When you're in manufacturing with some of these organizations that just don't have that ability to allow flex schedules and come and go as your day pleases, like how is your organization kind of adjusting to that generation coming in that wants those different things, because that's more important than just for a week? Yeah?

Speaker 3:

absolutely so. We have um our president actually added an extra week of pto for everybody to use um and then a lot of different things. You know we like to say if people are struggling to get their work done, well, let's hire more people. You know, I want somebody to be able to cover your shift if you can't be there. I don't want you to have to stress and come back and be like, oh, I got to do, you know this and this and this that I didn't get done.

Speaker 3:

As long as the older generation you know is willing to train, I think that is the best thing that a company can do, because you know a lot of not a lot of but some baby boomers and some Gen X are like, you know, I just want to do my thing. I don't want to train people. Well, who's going to take over? Right, we have to train the next generation and get them to up to speed to be where we want them to be. And so, yeah, I think flexibility is a huge thing with us.

Speaker 3:

You know, we make it very known we're a family owned company. We've been in business for 52 years. We make it very known that you know, we care about our employees and we care about them and their mental health, and so you know we take a lot of opinions from our employees. What can we do better? What can we do for you? And so, being a Gen Z and recruiting Gen Z, it's so nice to have that say in HR of like, what can help us recruit the younger generation Like we talked about earlier. We actually added a speakeasy. Not a speakeasy, we call it the cave in our um building.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, hey yeah, I think cave sounds creepier than speakeasy. Well, it has a full-size night like a bat caver.

Speaker 3:

It's like it's like, uh, almost like a speakeasy, but you you have to have, uh, your badge um scans into to get a drink, but you can't get a drink until you're off work. So it's locked until after work and everybody has this badge. You can get a badge. Yeah, everybody has a badge for the speakeasy.

Speaker 4:

Are there certain positions that don't have the badge no Unless you're? What about under 21? Do they have the badge no unless you're? What about under 21? Do they have?

Speaker 3:

the badge.

Speaker 1:

No, they cannot drink if you're under so there you go for all your hr benefits packages. Just add a speakeasy in the basement called the cave, and that's gonna get all your gins here about this. All, yeah, patrick's like I'm gonna go work there, yeah, yeah, this guy's like pac-man buck hunter as a shuffleboard.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we really really, really like that work-life balance here ifp there you go, there you go, sounds good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it's, it's. It's really interesting, you know, I think, um, so, and I am certainly one that, like I don't necessarily like take vacation in the true sense of the word, like I'll, you know, I still got my cell phone, I I'm still checking email, I'm still kind of available and when I'm not working I'm still doing like some other type of work or side hustle or something like that. And I think that's very kind of common in the in the millennial, uh, generation, at least certainly in my age bracket. So what you're saying is you know, it's like let's shut it off completely Right, which is very, very different. So help me understand that kind of the benefits of taking that approach. Like, what do you find when you actually truly shut off, for yourself and for others? What are the benefits of doing that?

Speaker 3:

for yourself and for others. What are the benefits of doing that? Yeah, I just think it's a really good way to, you know, reset, um and rebalance yourself. Uh, through vacation, even if it's, you know you're taking a couple days off, you don't have to go anywhere, you know you don't have to go to the beach or the mountains, or you know you don't have to go out of town. Just lay on the couch for a couple days, watch tv, whatever you want to do, whatever makes you feel good, where you're not consistently thinking about work and you know the things that are stressors in your life. Sometimes, as us HR professionals, we're consistently thinking about one thing all week like, oh, I dread this meeting I have to go to on Monday, I dread this thing or this review I have coming up right. So just a break away from that helps your mental health so much.

Speaker 3:

And I think that a lot of people don't realize that, and I think mental health is just a huge hush-hush word for the older generations. No, they don't want to talk about it. I'm a Gen Z-er and I think a lot of Gen Z go to therapy and I think that's the best thing for you. Honestly, it's not for everyone. I completely understand that. But I go to therapy and it's just someone to talk to and help you through your problems and it doesn't even like you don't even have to have a problem, you just can go talk to somebody.

Speaker 1:

Oh, we all got problems. I will say you do have emotional intelligence, because instead of calling us all old, you use the term older than 30. So thank you for being emotionally intelligent.

Speaker 3:

No, problem.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure that speaks to the years of therapy, so that you don't offend all of us.

Speaker 3:

I feel so wise now that I've been to like some therapy sessions because I like will pull quotes that she said and I'm like did you like that one? Yeah, that was that's all me.

Speaker 1:

That's all me. All right, we've got time for one more question and I'm curious to hear your response. Where do you think HR professionals need to rebel?

Speaker 3:

Ooh, rebel? That's a good question. I think that they need to get out of their comfort zone. I think you know I hate the word corporate. That's my least favorite word Corporate America. I hate it. Yeah, but we're here to help. You know I'm on TikTok, obviously as a Gen Zer, so there's always those corporate TikToks and I just die in them Like I laugh so hard because they're so stereotypical. I hate it. Big old corporate media. Yeah, exactly the hierarchy. You know I want HR professionals to you know kind of get out of that corporate routine. I want them to try something new. You know whether that's think of some new ideas for employee retention or employee engagement or onboarding, or you know insurance or health and fitness, and just kind of get out of their comfort zone and think of new ideas without, well, with changing you know, their everyday routine for their employees. So yeah, bring some ideas to your boss.

Speaker 1:

I love it. That's what we're all about here, so I'm glad we could have you on the podcast.

Speaker 4:

Grace, where can people?

Speaker 1:

connect with you and follow what you're doing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so IFP. We have a website, it's ifpusacom. I am on LinkedIn, Grace Bowling. Yeah, so just message me on there and reach out whenever you want to.

Speaker 1:

And TikTok right and TikTok yeah.

Speaker 3:

G Bowling on.

Speaker 1:

TikTok G, bowling on TikTok. There you go For all you Gen Z listeners. There you go G.

Speaker 4:

Bowling on TikTok powered on Twitter, probably, we actually have a TikTok oh my gosh, there you go yeah, I'm trying to get one.

Speaker 2:

I haven't locked in in three years. You can find me on MySpace and AOL there you go.

Speaker 1:

AIM there you go. Khk95, aim find me Hook it up, all right, thank you, grace, thank you.

Speaker 2:

All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast. Big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at Rebel HR Podcast, twitter at Rebel HR Guy, or see our website at rebelhumanresourcescom. The views and opinions expressed by Rebel HR Podcast are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast.

Speaker 4:

Baby.

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