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New Cornell certificate emphasizes dialogue in DEI

Photo of group dialogue with one young woman facing camera.

In 2020, hiring for diversity, equity and inclusion roles surged. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, three years later – amid recession fears – companies are cutting DEI leadership positions at a rapid and disproportionate rate, leaving practitioners to seek new ways of continuing efforts to create welcoming work environments.

Dialogue for Change, a new online certificate program from Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Intergroup Dialogue Project (IDP) delivered through eCornell, provides a fresh approach to DEI for team managers and supervisors, executives and all employees interested in building equitable cultures.

“The certificate focuses on four key development areas: human connection, social identity, intergroup communication and strategic change,” said Adi Grabiner-Keinan, executive director for academic DEI education and director of the IDP. “Our goals are to develop participants’ awareness around the four development areas and to strengthen their capacity to make meaningful change at personal, interpersonal and institutional levels.”

Together with Lisa Nishii, vice provost for undergraduate education and professor in the Cornell ILR School, Grabiner-Keinan is co-author of the Dialogue for Change certificate. The duo intends for the program to help professionals promote sustainable institutional change no matter their position on the organizational chart.

In three courses – Counteracting Unconscious Bias, Dialogue Across Difference and Strategic Influence – participants learn and practice skills for intentional connection and communication, and examine ways to impact change in different spheres of influence, including within their teams and organizations. These skills, according to Grabiner-Keinan, are crucial well beyond the field of DEI.

“Skills such as active and generative listening, strategic questioning, purposeful sharing, perspective-taking, withholding judgment and questioning assumptions allow us to lead, communicate and collaborate effectively,” Grabiner-Keinan said. “They enable us to broaden our perspective, learn from a variety of people and situations, bring people together, think creatively and create meaning and vision. Unfortunately, such skills are seldom taught in schools or colleges.”

Dialogue for Change engages students in weekly live sessions. Trained IDP facilitators guide participants through practice conversations within small groups of experts and peers. Each dialogue builds on earlier coursework, enabling the cohort to use new knowledge in real time. Students who complete the program earn professional development credit hours toward human resources and project management certifications.

Each student who earns the Dialogue for Change certificate, Grabiner-Keinan says, will recognize their power to foster inclusion, connection and equity in any role. “An integral part of this program is to identify the agency and responsibility that each of us has. It’s true that leaders and supervisors have more power in institutions, but this program helps people understand that they all have power to make change interpersonally and institutionally within their workplaces.”

The Dialogue for Change certificate program is now enrolling students. Visit the program website to learn more.

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Crypto Regulation: Can Securities Laws Keep Pace with Innovation?

Nearly everyone agrees that the crypto asset market needs more robust regulation, but there is much disagreement about what the laws should look like as well as who should be legislating and enforcing them.

One key concern is whether crypto assets are commodities or securities, which raises crucial issues about which governing organization should be responsible for oversight and enforcement. Additionally, laws are struggling to keep pace with technological innovation, thereby increasing the potential for scams, fraud and poor practice.

Charles Whitehead, Myron C. Taylor Alumni Professor of Business Law at Cornell Law School and author of Cornell’s Securities Law certificate, discussed the shifting regulatory environment around crypto and what’s next for the revolutionary technology in a recent webcast, “Crypto Regulation: Can Securities Laws Keep Pace with Innovation?”

In the U.S., there are several regulatory bodies overseeing crypto assets. Does this make sense, and if not, why?

It’s referred to as the regulatory alphabet here in the United States: SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission), CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission), OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency), CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau). It’s a reflection of the way in which we think historically about how to regulate the industry. The problem is that over time the historical distinctions have fallen away. What may or may not be a banking practice can now pop up in the securities industry. The way we think about regulation and the industry has changed over time, largely reflecting the innovation in the industry itself. Crypto is highlighting a fundamental flaw with the U.S approach to financial regulation, which is that we don’t have a central regulator.

There needs to be a focus on anti-fraud. There needs to be a focus on protecting consumers. The real debate is who is going to do this. I would suggest it’s the SEC.

Why is the SEC uniquely positioned to oversee this?

The SEC is a consumer financial regulator. Their fundamental goal is to protect consumers. They were set up with a view toward protecting retail investors. The regulations that the SEC has for broker dealers, exchanges and people that take custody of these assets were intended to protect investors against the things that you see with FTX: people losing money and the scams that are out there right now. The SEC already has a toolkit, and it makes sense for the SEC to pick this up.

Is crypto more like a currency than a security? It seems like that is how it’s being used or advertised. Why not categorize it that way?

If I were taking crypto and buying a sandwich with it, that would look much more like a currency. That is something that really doesn’t need the protections of the securities laws. To the extent that it’s being used as a way to promote investment, it begins to look a lot more like a security.

Crypto assets are used primarily as speculative investments, which is not in line with the stated vision of most projects out there. How should regulators navigate this?

The whole rationale behind crypto assets was decentralization — a way to create a non-centralized, non-government-controlled medium of exchange across multiple parties. The vision was that it would provide banking attributes without necessarily having a bank, that you’d be able to use crypto assets as a means to support parts of the community that otherwise were not being properly supported by the financial industry. That’s largely not been the case. You can argue that in some cases people pursuing crypto deals are taking advantage of the folks that crypto initially was intended to support.

There will come a time when crypto will begin to look more like a commodity or more like a currency. In that case, the need for regulation drops away. We’re just not there yet. There should be a regulator focused on consumer protection precisely because of the scams.

One of the throughlines here is technological innovation. Law is unable to keep pace, and that creates an environment with increasing potential for fraud like what we saw with Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

FTX is a huge blow to the integrity of the industry just because FTX was viewed as the safe place in which you could do trading activity. The other part is it was done offshore in the Bahamas, so it was being done away from the direct regulatory oversight that you might otherwise see. A large part of what was happening there would have been either prohibited or regulated were we to treat these underlying instruments as securities.

You can’t trust the markets to police themselves. This is a common view that the market will police itself, and that if there had been a problem with FTX, it would have been uncovered much earlier because the market or participants in the market would have seen this. In an enthusiastic market like crypto, you don’t see that type of oversight.

As of August 2022, whitehouse.gov. tells us that the estimates of the total global electricity usage for crypto assets are between 120 and 240 billion kilowatt hours per year. Is there any push to regulate this side of things?

There already are rules in place and government groups like the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency that have the ability to step in, look at the issues and potentially regulate the usage of electricity, consistent with their mandate for environmental protection and energy conservation.

I would ask not whether we should look at this but whether we’re being broad enough. If electricity is an issue and energy is an issue for crypto, let’s look at the New York Stock Exchange and stocks and bonds that are trading. I believe there are huge amounts of energy being expended there as well.

Want more? Explore Charles Whitehead’s Securities Law certificate program delivered by eCornell.

This post has been edited for length and clarity.

Hear more from Whitehead in the webcast “Crypto Regulation: Can Securities Laws Keep Pace with Innovation?”

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Five Trends HR Leaders Need to Leverage in 2023

The rapid pace of workforce transformation is pushing human resources leaders to adapt for employment trends that have earned catchy monikers — the Great Resignation, quiet quitting and stay interviews. Yet, other underestimated developments are already impacting the dynamics of work.

Expert faculty in Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR School) identified five HR trends that will drive change for companies in 2023.

Read the full story on the ILR website.

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Post-Zoom: shifts in the work space

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As of July 11, 2021, more than 89 percent of Cornell’s Ithaca, Geneva, and Cornell Tech campus populations is vaccinated, including more than 10,100 faculty and staff. Only a single case of COVID-19 infection was identified via surveillance testing in the month of June—an encouraging sign as the university looks forward to resuming operations in the fall.

The pandemic reminded us that, in an instant, anything can change. The exact timing differed for each of us, but we can all remember the moment in 2020 when we felt the world shift. Many in-person classes and jobs transitioned to remote status, as we sought to limit the spread of the virus by staying home. Everything from spring break plans to the Summer Olympics was cancelled or postponed. As career and personal plans were put on hold, our sense of control over the future wavered.

Eighteen months later, as many of us plan for a return to in-person work, Cornell has offered its employees a wealth of resources to help with this next big transition. On June 24 and 25, the university hosted a webinar called “Managing the Anxiety of Returning to Onsite Work.” Dr. Gabriel Tornusciolo, assistant director of the Cornell Faculty and Staff Assistance Program (FSAP), shared strategies and tips for coping with anxiety around returning to the workplace.

Whether or not you’re experiencing anxiety about returning to the office, I highly recommend taking an hour to watch. This gave me deeper, valuable insights into the diversity of concerns and sparked some reflection on my own situation. I hope you find it useful too.
—Chris Kelly, graphic designer at Cornell
“Some truths” slide from FSAP webinar
“Some truths” slide from FSAP webinar

On June 24, eCornell hosted Transforming Our Lives Through COVID-19’s Lessons, a keynote focusing on the larger societal shifts which occurred as a result of the pandemic. Four thought leaders from the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures (CIHF) highlighted some of the lessons we’ve learned and how these lessons might inform the future. The speakers shared key takeaways from their research on how the pandemic has changed the way we think about work, health, equity, and working and living spaces.

As you envision your own return to in-person life, we hope you find value in these tips and insights from Cornell experts.

Making matters more certain

Screenshot of Gabriel Tornusciolo, assistant director of FSAP
Screenshot of Gabriel Tornusciolo, assistant director of FSAP

Dr. Gabriel Tornusciolo began his talk by reminding the audience about the fears many of us had at the start of the pandemic: Would our families be safe? Would we have enough PPE? Would we lose our jobs? Gabriel pointed out that concerns about our survival and security are near the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Only when these basic needs are met can we move on to addressing needs around self-fulfillment, such as making a career pivot or finding new opportunities for self-growth.

Gabriel asked viewers to think about the big challenges they faced in March 2020 and compare them to the current challenges of returning to work. “If you think about your safety then and now and the demands on you then and now, which is more challenging,” he asked, “leaving or coming back?”

People may want to avoid the workplace, but avoidance over time increases anxiety.
—Gabriel Tornusciolo, assistant director of the Cornell Faculty and Staff Assistance Program
“The power of avoidance” slide from FSAP webinar
“The power of avoidance” slide from FSAP webinar

Gabriel explained that over the past year and a half, many of us have become accustomed to working from home, and that has become our new normal. “The office is a place that was once ordinary but is now challenging,” he said. “We’re being asked to change again. People may want to avoid the workplace, but avoidance over time increases anxiety,” he added.

To counter our tendency to avoid risk (and the workplace), Gabriel suggested a technique known as habituation, or prolonged exposure to that which makes us anxious. “It’s better to start off and decide not to avoid,” he said.

Taking five steps forward

Gabriel shared five strategies to help employees manage their anxiety and ease back into in-person work. The five steps are:

1. Define what is making you anxious

“We got used to it” slide from FSAP webinar
“We got used to it” slide from FSAP webinar

Gabriel said it sometimes take a bit of digging to figure out what the underlying issue is. Possibilities include fear of losing your job, fears for your safety, fears around loss of freedom, or fears around the meaningfulness of your work. “As you worked from home, you had to consider your values,” he said. “What do you truly want from life? I suggest that you ponder this a bit,” he suggested.

 

 

 

 

2. Define the landscape of your workplace

Landscape slide from FSAP webinar
“Landscape” slide from FSAP webinar

This includes your work hours, the layout of the physical space, measures to ensure worker safety, and employer policies about medical leaves and working from home. Gabriel encouraged viewers to access reliable information to help manage your anxiety, from sources like employer websites and supervisors. Gabriel suggested that employees write an email to their supervisors to share their concerns and potential solutions. He advised employees to “be prepared with concrete suggestions,” and supervisors to “create real two-way communication,” involving candid conversations and active listening.

 

 

 

3. Define a roadmap for your return to work

“A good plan” slide from FSAP presentation
“A good plan” slide from FSAP presentation

Gabriel encouraged viewers to be like Spock on Star Trek, and “lean into your curious, cognitive, intellectual side as you examine whether there’s any proof to back up your fear.” He suggested making a plan that includes exposure to the various components of a typical workday. “Begin to experience your onsite workday now,” he said. “Take the bus or drive to the parking lot, dress in work attire, visit the office to see the space. Identify points of anxiety and you may come up with some simple solutions,” he added. For example, if you’re worried about making lunch without having access to your home kitchen, Gabriel suggested thinking through how to bring foods you enjoy to work.

 

 

 

3. Find the good in returning to onsite work

Analysis of collaboration activity across Microsoft 365 tools from February 2020 to February 2021, from Microsoft’s report, “The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work—Are We Ready?”
Analysis of collaboration activity across Microsoft 365 tools from February 2020 to February 2021, from Microsoft’s report, “The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work—Are We Ready?”

Gabriel shared several positive outcomes associated with returning to onsite workplaces. These include easier communication and collaboration among team members, more positive social interactions, an increase in alone time (time away from family), and a reduction in work hours. “About 70 percent of remote workers work on weekends,” Gabriel said, and 45 percent of them work more hours. “It’s clear we’re working more hours, and in the long-term that can be negative,” he added. In a 2021 report, Microsoft found that time devoted to meetings each week has more than doubled for Teams users since February 2020, and 41% of the entire global workforce could be considering handing in their resignation.

4. Engage in stress-reducing activities

“Examples of stress reducers” slide from FSAP webinar
“Examples of stress reducers” slide

Gabriel also recommended that everyone incorporate what he called “healthy distractors,” such as a favorite Netflix show, talking with friends, and exercise into each day. “It’s really important to exercise,” Gabriel said. “It blunts your stress response. If you can work out in the morning, you have a better chance of managing your anxiety throughout the day.” He also suggested trying one of the many meditation and relaxation apps, and, last but not least, he reminded everyone to “show kindness to one another, and we’ll get through this much better.”

Watch Managing the Anxiety of Returning to Onsite Work on demand now.

 

 

Solving big problems

Screenshot of presenters from eCornell June 24 keynote
Screenshot of presenters from eCornell June 24 keynote

Late in 2020, a few faculty members at the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures began reflecting on life in the aftermath of the pandemic. Working independently, each of them recognized that the difficult realities of COVID-19 and social justice issues in the U.S. have deeply impacted us as individuals, as families, as communities, and as workers. These experts examined their own sectors and began writing about emerging trends. As they shared their notes with CIHF colleagues and board members, they saw broad areas of overlap.

“We were doing exactly what we founded the institute to do,” said Mardelle Shepley, executive director of CIHF and Janet and Gordon Lankton Professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis in the College of Human Ecology (CHE), “(which is) using these disciplines simultaneously to solve big problems in the world.” The CIHF faculty joined forces to draft two papers summarizing their findings, which they hope to publish soon. Here are a few takeaways from their research.

Better built environments: Mardelle Shepley

Screenshot of Mardelle Shepley
Screenshot of Mardelle Shepley

Mardelle Shepley’s research focuses on the impact of the physical environment in healthcare, hospitality, and senior living settings. Mardelle said that the pandemic quickly highlighted shortcomings within healthcare settings, like the need to increase space available for storage of PPE and delivery of vaccines, and to increase access to outdoor areas for both testing and destressing.

“The concern is that we’ve become so tech focused, we’re losing our humanity,” she said. One way to counter this is “giving people the opportunity to interact with or view nature, by stepping outside for 15 minutes,” she explained.

We were doing exactly what we founded the institute to do, (which is) using these disciplines simultaneously to solve big problems in the world.
—Mardelle Shepley, executive director of CIHF

Emerging needs in hospitality settings include how to incorporate robots, better accomplish cleaning, provide safe wellness opportunities, find alternative uses for hotel spaces, isolate family members as needed, and provide contactless food services.

Mardelle said that senior living facilities are “the ultimate platform for bringing hospitality and healthcare together.” She cited the need to reimagine these spaces in the post-pandemic era to provide visiting rooms that allow families to maintain relationships without endangering one another, common spaces that reduce clustering among residents, and circulation routes that reduce the number of people passing back and forth.

She advocated for integrating end users into the design process so that the facility reflects their perspectives and needs. “We need to get the right information to begin with, to make sure we do it right in the end,” she said.

Better working conditions: Nicolas Ziebarth

Screenshot of Nicolas Ziebarth
Screenshot of Nicolas Ziebarth

Nicolas Ziebarth, associate professor of Policy Analysis and Management in CHE, is a labor economist and leading expert on paid sick leave. Nicolas said that many employers don’t offer this benefit, but he anticipates that in the aftermath of the pandemic, “employees will demand this to care for their children. Other countries are doing this,” he added, “and the U.S. needs to, too.”

He noted that people who are not satisfied with their workplace flexibility and fringe benefits are now more likely to quit. “They have the bargaining power to ensure they are happy at work,” he said. Nicolas also forecasts that we will travel less and do more from home. “It’s cheaper, environmentally friendly, and convenient,” he said. He views this moment as a great opportunity to increase equity and improve everyday working conditions.

Nicolas pointed out that virus variants will continue to emerge, and that “COVID-19 will not go away.” He noted that we have learned a lot about how diseases spread, and he believes that this knowledge will result in more interventions to stop the spread. Nicolas predicts lasting changes in workplaces, including growing unwillingness to allow employees to come to work sick.

“There will be a change of behaviors and norms that will require more distancing in labor and healthcare, and more mask wearing,” he said. He also said that “the time is ripe for productive discussions around vaccine hesitancy,” among employers, employees, and clients, as they try to find solutions together. “The pandemic proved that telemedicine works,” he added, and he thinks that, moving forward, a significant share of medical appointments will be done via telemedicine.

Better food systems: Heather Kolakowski ’00

Screenshot of Heather Kolakowski '00
Screenshot of Heather Kolakowski ’00

Heather Kolakowski ’00 is an alumna and lecturer in Food and Beverage Management at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. During the pandemic, Heather turned her expertise in the food and beverage sector to focus on increasing access to healthy food. “Many families need support,” she said, citing data showing that one in eight Americans accessed SNAP benefits in February 2021. “I anticipate levels will stay high,” she said.

“What can we do policy wise?” she asked. She noted that the federal government extended free school lunches through this summer, and that conversations are ongoing about making school lunches free year-round. She also noted the rise of mutual aid societies, where neighbors help neighbors by stocking food cabinets in their communities.

To pay workers a fair wage and offer better benefits to the humans who work for and with us, there is a cost involved.
—Heather Kolakowski ’00, lecturer in Food and Beverage Management at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration

Due to concerns about personal safety, low wages, and long hours, Heather said that many food industry workers are reluctant to return and are instead choosing other types of work. “To pay workers a fair wage and offer better benefits to the humans who work for and with us, there is a cost involved,” she said. “This is an opportunity to disrupt the industry and make changes, like abolishing tipping and creating a fair wage across the board,” she added.

Heather sees potential for the ex-offender population to transition into the hospitality sector. “We need to give populations that have significant barriers to employment the tools they need, and create pipelines for individuals who want to change their lives. It’s kind of like dating,” she explained. “What are the unspoken rules of engaging with mainstream employers? You need to get to know their expectations. In the past, organizations didn’t want to invest the time in this transition process,” she said, “but now we have to.”

Better things to come at Cornell: Brooke Hollis MBA ’78

Screenshot of Brooke Hollis MBA '78
Screenshot of Brooke Hollis MBA ’78

Brooke Hollis MBA ’78 is co-founder and executive director emeritus of CIHF and has worked in both the public and private sectors, serving in senior management positions in health and financial advisory consulting. Brooke moderated the panel and called attention to the new Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, which will investigate many of the issues discussed in the keynote. He noted that Cornell students have access to the data produced by the institute’s multidisciplinary experts and invited viewers to keep abreast of the latest CIFH news on Twitter (@Cornell_ihf).

Watch Transforming Our Lives Through COVID-19’s Lessons on demand now.

More tips and resources

Screenshot of Michelle Artibee, director of workforce wellbeing at Cornell
Screenshot of Michelle Artibee, director of workforce wellbeing at Cornell

Michelle Artibee, director of workforce wellbeing at Cornell, says to expect that it will take time to adjust to working in-person. “The amount of time needed will vary,” she says. “Before returning to the routines of February 2020, consider the newer habits you’ve developed and what good things you will carry forward,” she suggests.

These two articles from Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) provide some additional tips to support your physical and mental health during this time of transition.

Give Yourself Time to Ease Back into Fitness

Going back to working out—no matter how fit you were—should happen slowly, says Asad Siddiqi, DO, sports medicine physician and assistant professor of Clinical Rehabilitation Medicine at WCM.

Life Is Returning to Normal, So Why Do You Feel Anxious?

You’re fully vaccinated, New York is reopening, and life is getting back to normal. Instead of joy, you feel overwhelmed, stressed, and can’t stop asking yourself: How should I behave around others? Get tips to manage your anxiety from Dr. Susan Evans, professor of Psychology in Clinical Psychiatry at WCM.

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Certificate program provides road map for innovation

Top companies recognize that a well-executed innovation strategy is vital to a successful product launch. Developing a strategy that aligns with company goals allows for measurable success and maximum return on investment.

To equip professionals with the tools needed to craft an effective innovation strategy, Cornell launched the Innovation Strategy certificate program, which will empower participants to develop a plan and allow them to properly deploy and measure its success.

“A successful innovation strategy allows for the creation of winning products to solve unmet needs for customers tied to an organization’s goals,” says faculty author Andrea Ippolito, executive director of the Engineering Management Program at Cornell Engineering. “A sound innovation strategy does not happen by accident. It’s the result of planning for both financial success and cultural change.”

From aspiring entrepreneurs and entry-level scientists to MBAs and executive leaders, a wide range of professionals will find value in this certificate program, which is available online through eCornell.

The Innovation Strategy certificate program consists of five two-week courses, which provide participants with the road map needed to design, deploy and track the progress of their plan. Courses include:

  • Developing Innovation Strategy
  • Building Innovation Complexities
  • Innovation Tools
  • Implementing Innovation
  • Evaluating and Scaling Innovation

After completing the courses, participants will receive a certificate from Cornell Engineering and 50 professional development hours. Visit the eCornell website to learn more about the program.

– Kristi Gaylord

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Understanding fear and courage

Courage is less of an innate character strength than it is a skill; an individual can intentionally develop courage when the right skills are in place. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”

Erica Dawson, Professor of Practice at the Cornell College of Business, recently gave a Cornell Keynote examining courage and fear, and how to put both into perspective.

Courage is defined as having four components, Dawson explains. First, an action needs an uncertain outcome; if we knew how something was going to work out, it wouldn’t require courage. Second, the person must be fearful, which relates to the third component, the presence of a perceived or real risk. The fourth and final component is that the individual perceiving a risk and feeling fear where the outcome is uncertain, then takes action. This, Dawson says, is courage.

However, she cautions, courage does not mean leaping blindly. Taking calculated risks, gathering information to use in decision-making, and monitoring the downside are all important steps. If a person takes these steps and still cannot fully manage or control the outcome, the element of courage is required. Having courage is taking action when the stakes are high and the result uncertain.

Courage can further be categorized into three different forms: physical, psychological, and moral. Physical courage includes a physical act, such as rescuing someone from a fire or entering a situation perceived as dangerous. Psychological courage is an act that includes a psychological risk, wherein one admits to a mistake or risks making others comfortable. Moral courage is the ability to do the right thing and stand up for personal values, even if it comes at a cost. Most often, Dawson finds that individuals need to draw on psychological and moral courage.

One way she advises us to conquer fear and further develop courage is to identify the fear, which can enable an individual to recognize the irrational aspects and manage the rational ones. The act of stopping to take a deeper look at an immediate emotion, in order to get to the root causes of it, can help.

Dawson gives the example of learning to skydive: “I attended classes, and I did a progression of jumps to get my license. Debilitating fear then set in. I created my own failure through fear.”

Dawson explains she identified the rational fear associated with the risks of skydiving, and took time to consider the fact that she trusted herself, her equipment and her teachers. “And then, this thing I had feared switched to a joy.”

For more information on the topics of courage and fear, watch the full-length keynote with eCornell or learn more about the Engineering Leadership Certificate program, developed by Dawson.

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Everyone’s in the hospitality business, every day

In today’s competitive market, the customer experience is everything — and not just in the hospitality industry. From the very first impression until the customer walks out the door, there are countless opportunities for making their experience memorable.  As part of eCornell’s Keynote webcast series, customer service expert Elizabeth Martyn from Cornell Hotel School joined eCornell’s Chris Wofford for an interactive discussion on understanding the customer mindset, how to exceed expectations — and even when offering guests a warm cookie might backfire.

What follows is an abridged version of that conversation. Watch the full keynote here.

Martyn: I feel like I always have to tell people that I’ve never actually worked in a hotel, which throws people off a little bit when we start talking about hospitality. But I take a broader view and believe that hospitality is really everywhere. If you have clients, or customers, or patients, or anyone who buys anything from you, you’re really in the business of providing a service and therefore you’re in the business of hospitality.

Wofford: The two of us were talking a little bit about the modern tech-savvy consumer and their expectations.

Martyn: I think whenever I start to talk about these things, I ask people to think about themselves. Because I know I’m one of these people. I’ve got my phone attached, I’ve got my computer ready. And whether you’ve thought about it or not, we’re all becoming really highly trained by our devices and by technology to have information at our fingertips. You expect that you’re going to be able to get everything done on your phone. Now, not everyone prefers to do it on their phone, don’t get me wrong. Some people are more traditional. They want that phone call or they want to do it on their computer.

But that’s where we’re moving to, because we’ve been trained that we’re always going to get exactly what we want, and there’s so much on our phones that we can use to make it exactly how we want it. But it’s not like we’re all issued the same phone with the same apps or the same email provider. Everybody can pick and choose what’s going to work for them and to create a digital experience that reflects who they are as a person. But now that we’re so used to having this thing that’s like attached to our bodies all day, every day, these ideas, preferences and expectations start to come out of the digital experience and into everything else that we participate in.

The second that your organization or your business doesn’t have a digital experience that allows people to get at those commonly asked questions with key information, or your digital information is out of date, that starts creating some conflict really quickly because now people feel disappointed. Because if other companies can do it, why can’t yours?

Wofford: As service providers, the next question that comes up is: well, what can we do about that? How do we manage these expectations?

Martyn: Start by paying attention to the questions people are asking. If you’re hearing the same question over and over, you should be thinking, “Whoa, this is a trend. We have an opportunity here.”

Wofford: If something comes up time and time again, it should really be searchable information on your website, right?

Martyn: Exactly. You should be thinking about how to make it more present on our homepage, whether that’s in the FAQs or the About section. You want to have that information available. I think a lot of service organizations tend to make the mistake of thinking that high-quality service is high-touch service. The second that you make the mistake of thinking that the only way to provide high-quality service is to force me to interact with someone on your team, you’re missing the mark because that might not be my preference.

You want to offer a choice by putting things online for the people who are going to go to your website and navigate there. It should also be easy to get ahold of someone who’s going to talk to me and engage with me maybe over the phone or in person, if that’s my preference. But you don’t want to choose for your consumers what’s going to be best for them. No one likes being told what they like.

Wofford: I really relate to that. Sometimes when you’re out to dinner and the server has come to you twenty times unnecessarily, it gets to be a little bit much. I understand that it comes from a genuine place of wanting to help, but it can be a little much. Now, let’s take on the idea of establishing operational systems. When you come to an organization and start working with a hospitality group, how do you get everybody up to speed and on the same page?

Martyn: You cannot climb the mountain the first time you ever go on a hike. It’s really important to identify your core problems and tackle those first. What can you put in place right away that will impact at least some guests?

Oftentimes, it’s an issue of bandwidth. You can’t see really great solutions if you’re behind the curve all the time. So start with a triage approach and identify the fast and easy things that will impact some folks and give you a little more space to start to then tackle the next, maybe more sophisticated, version of this solution. Don’t feel like you have to solve everything perfectly right away.

Wofford: What are the greatest opportunities that you can see with technology being able to help?

Martyn: I think it’s so easy to think that technology is going to solve it. That’s really not the right viewpoint. The viewpoint should be about how it supports us and supports anyone who’s interacting with our clients, our customers or our guests.
We talked about getting information up on your website, making your FAQs more available. What are those common questions that you’re hearing several times a day on the phone or over email? You need to get that information more quickly into the hands of your consumer so they can find it and move on with their day. That way, your frontline teams have more time and space to provide really meaningful interactions to the guests who really need it rather than anxiously trying to rush them through the conversation because there are ten people in line or the email inbox is filling up. You want your workers to feel like it’s acceptable and appropriate to take more time to work through those more complicated solutions. So it’s not only solving problems, but also making those investments to grow the relationship between your organization and your consumers.

Wofford: How do you see big data and analytics helping face-to-face interactions?

Martyn: You have to understand who the person is you are interacting with. Can you get a jump on some of that through the use of profile information? Does this person have a family? Are they a single business person? Where are they based? The faster I can get at that, the more sophisticated my engagement with them is going to be.

But there’s one thing I want to caution everyone against – and I feel very strongly about this – and that is that I’m a different person every time I interact with your brand. I am not the same person from my first purchase to my last. Travel’s a really great way to illustrate this. I’m a very different person with different needs and different expectations when I’m traveling alone for business than when I’m traveling with my husband for a getaway. It’s still me, so my profile’s going to say all the same things, but what I’m looking to get out of the service interaction really shifts depending on the context of my trip.

Wofford: What’s the takeaway on that?

Martyn: I think that’s one of the values of human interaction. The thing that’s emerging out of all the technology advancements is that there is still a very, very important place in the world for the human-to-human component of service delivery. And that’s true regardless of what industry you’re in. So, how do you take out all the perfunctory pieces?

Checking in or checking out of a hotel is a classic example. The process can be very perfunctory, focused only on the room number, the key, getting the customer to sign the waiver. But what if that interaction could be about something else entirely, and the room key and the waiver signature and the credit card are more like afterthoughts? What would be most helpful for the guest to have a wonderful stay? If there’s one thing the property could do for them over the next two days, what would it be? In my case, when I’m a business traveler, I might say that it’s providing bottled water. When I’m with my husband, I might say it’s letting us decide when housekeeping should come.

Wofford: Let’s say you’ve inherited staff who have worked for twenty plus years under one brand and they now find it difficult to follow a new training plan under a rebranded hotel. What do you do?

Martyn: Change is so hard for everyone. I think with all things, everybody wants to be a little bit in control. As an employee that means they want to know what their job is, how to do it well and how to do it in a way that is well respected. What’s really hard about what you’re going through is you have new expectations that maybe haven’t been completely explained to your team. And you’re probably sitting there going, “But I’ve said it ten times.” But that doesn’t mean that they’ve understood it or that they’ve bought in.

Companies have things like mission, vision, and values that help explain why they are doing the things that they are. In your re-flag situation, the answer can’t just be because the new brand says: “This is what we do.” If that’s the answer, or if that’s how it’s presented, there’s no incentive for employees to make an emotional investment into that adjustment.

Hypothetically, let’s say you re-flagged because the hotel wasn’t performing financially under the old brand. It’s important to explain that you were at risk of closing and ended up moving brands to better align with where you’re located, what your amenities are or whatever, so that you can keep the hotel financially viable and keep everyone employed. That’s a level of trust and transparency that also helps people understand why are they being subjected to this change. But how do you gain an emotional buy-in? And how do you work toward understanding what’s important to people in terms of what they’re really looking to get out of their job? Those are really two critical components in driving any change.

Wofford: What do you feel is more important, recruiting new employees or continuing to train existing ones?

Martyn: People say that you can’t train attitude. I actually don’t believe that. I believe training is incredibly valuable. I think that so often folks get written off as not caring or having a bad attitude, but I feel like you cannot say that that’s the case if you haven’t talked to them about the issue. I like to say “No one’s trying to be the worst.” It’s a bit sarcastic, but it means that until you feel 100 percent confident that you’ve sat this person down and explained what they’re doing, how it impacts other people, or how it’s being perceived, you can’t know that they are aware the problem exists. Until you’ve told them what they’re doing is wrong, you can’t assume that they know it.

My experience with a lot of training is that there are some people who are terrific with guests. I’m sure you have your rock stars and your people are amazing and everyone feels the love when they work with them. But if you ask them, “What did you do with Mr and Mrs So-and-So to make them so happy?” They’re going to give you a really bland answer because they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just being themselves and fortunately for them it is perceived really well by the people to whom they’re providing service. But for people who don’t have that innate ability and want to do their job well, someone has to tell them. And some of the things that I think often go untrained are the things that don’t fall into the book of standards.

I’m sure at your property you have standards or guidelines about how you do certain things, what the rules are, how often you reach out to guests, how you communicate with them, or how many rings are allowed before you pick up the phone. All of that stuff oftentimes is documented. That’s like the ‘what’, the technical aspects of delivering your service. But the part that’s a lot harder is the ‘how’, which is actually what service excellence training is all about.

Wofford: What are your thoughts on maintaining an appropriate level of guest service when much of your staff is provided by third-party employment agencies? There are conflicting loyalties in terms of employment and focus.

Martyn: A lot of people have this, and if you have any kind of third-party contracts, or you have a management group interacting with an ownership group, it can be very, very complicated. But it goes back to what we were talking about before: getting people to understand the ‘why’.

Now, there could be a situation in which you are giving one set of directions and then the other manager that the employees technically report to is directly contradicting you, and that’s tricky. But that’s a technical piece that you have to work out between the two managers to make sure that the messaging is really consistent.

What is helpful is to make it less subjective and not about one person’s opinion versus another’s, because there’s not one person on this planet who isn’t going to say that their opinion is better. That’s just human nature. So you need to make it more objective by creating a rather vanilla, opinion-free approach to the decision-making process.

So with your different stakeholder groups, I would encourage you to go back and figure out those things that everyone is in alignment on. Maybe it’s financial incentives, maybe it is about guest experience. Once you figure out what the common point of departure is, you start to look at every situation and scenario through that common lens.

Wofford: How do you communicate metrics to frontline staff and turn it into something actionable?

Martyn: First off, hopefully everyone out there is measuring their guest experience. If you’re not, make sure you’re collecting those post-experience surveys. Consumers around the world are well trained, so there are pretty reasonably high response rates. So if you’re not yet doing a post experience survey, that’s a huge opportunity for you.

So, how do you take that information and make it into something real? Something I’ve seen done really effectively is figuring out a way to provide accolades to the people who are your stars. You might have to write questions into your survey like, “Was there any member of our staff who was particularly helpful to you?” Once you start getting that information, make a point of celebrating that Anna got three comments this last month or Sean was mentioned five times. So first off, make it personal. The scores themselves are hard to connect with and quite frankly, they’re really arbitrary benchmarks. We can’t even be sure they’re interpreting our questions correctly. But if you start to look at your qualitative data, your open-ended questions, then you have this opportunity to really raise up employees that are doing well.

Wofford: Do you have an example of a recent service interaction that really blew you away, that we could sort of look to as an example to follow?

Martyn: You know, I really see a lot of examples of great customer service, but for me I’m not really looking for some sort of special gesture. I don’t want anything comped. I don’t want a complimentary dessert. I really don’t want any of those things because so often they are a sign that the basics were not well executed. The best experience for me is when everything just happens. I don’t need anything special. I just want to pay for the thing or service that I wanted, and it all just happens smoothly so that I can pay my bill and leave. That is truly the best experience. As soon as you get into talking about ‘surprise and delight’, which is a common industry term, or these ‘above and beyond’ gestures, they actually don’t hold a lot of value for me.

So often, these gestures are nice and thoughtful, but they’re not really what I want. As an example, let’s say I’m unexpectedly delivered a cheese tray. Well, okay, that’s nice, but I’m not hungry now and I’m checking out at six am tomorrow, so I’m not going to eat it. I think it’s so hard to get gestures right in a way that’s actually very meaningful and relevant to the individual because what they need at any given time is constantly shifting. For me, I’d really rather have that energy and time invested in just doing what I originally asked for extremely well.

Wofford: Do you have any thoughts and strategies on first impressions?

Martyn: Picture this. You’ve just driven eight hours with your children and they were crying for the last hour of the journey. How do you feel when you get to that hotel? Do you feel great? No, you feel exhausted and at the end of your rope. The same could be said after a day of air travel or even a long day of work. So you’ve got a guest who is coming into what’s supposed to be this restful thing or happy thing. But so often we as guests are carrying our own baggage, or maybe we really need to use the restroom because we haven’t stopped for hours. Whatever. Then you arrive and you’re given the check-in information, the Wi-Fi password, and all that. So the guest is already feeling tired and overwhelmed and the warm cookie just isn’t going to be as effective as it would be when the guest is relaxed, isn’t lugging around their 50-pound bags and so on. Then all of a sudden the cookie would create a much larger impression because the guest has more bandwidth to absorb it.

So I would say that it’s important to really think about those first impressions. There is so much already going on during that arrival experience, so how can you take the non-necessary things out of the experience so it feels less overwhelming?

Wofford: Has your research revealed any meaningful generational differences when it comes to employees delivering amazing guest experiences?

Martyn: The research I’ve done hasn’t focused on that directly, but I can offer some of my impressions. I think generationally, what is different, goes back to the beginning of our conversation, when we talked about identifying ‘the why’. Why should I care? What’s in it for me? That’s what’s really different generationally.

Your oldest group and cohort in the workforce might not be super comfortable with tech but they have a ton of experience. They used to think customer service just meant smiling, and now you’re trying to tell them it’s all these other more sophisticated things. You have to be able to really help them understand how the changes that you’re recommending are actually going to impact the guests. Oftentimes that group in particular is so emotionally invested in the guests. They just want them to have the best time. They are so committed to that, so you have to be able to connect the dots for why that’s important.

The younger employees are going to find the tech part so easy. They’re really flexible and nimble and they want to learn. They have a different ‘what’s in it for me’ reason to adjust what they’ve already been told. On the other hand, the younger employees might need help making better connections with the guest base, who might not be just like them. Trying to better communicate with 40, 50 or 60-year-olds can be a struggle because those people aren’t like them. So although I don’t have formal research on this, what I would recommend is kind of stepping back and thinking about the different groups in your workforce and what’s important to them in terms of feeling satisfied with their job and like they’re doing the right thing and then helping to connect the dots between what you’re asking of them and the values that they hold, because they could be very different based on generation.

Wofford: Beautiful advice. A big thanks to Elizabeth for joining us today.

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eCornell student leads change at the United Nations

Dr. Adam Simpson, a recent alumni of eCornell’s Change Leadership certificate program, is the Manager of Global Programmes for UN Women in New York 

I recently completed the Change Leadership certificate program, developed by faculty at Cornell University, delivered through the SC Johnson College of Business. The program consists of four core courses and two leadership electives that have enabled me to address specific development goals within my organization.

As a leader and manager in United Nations Women, my organization always needs to be prepared for change. UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. As a global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established in 2010 to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide. Whether we are working on planned initiatives, or addressing the impacts of global volatility and unexpected situations, change is constant and inevitable in our field of work. In this program, I was able to identify and clarify my position in the power hierarchy of both my organization as well as across the broader United Nations system. Through this, I was able to better understand how the fluctuating power dynamics play into my role in the organization and how this affects organizational and system-wide decision making. Ultimately, this knowledge will help UN Women continue supporting Member States of the UN as they set global standards for achieving gender equality, and strengthen our work with governments and civil society to design the laws, policies, programs and services required to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide.

In addressing the changes I am involved with in my organization both corporately and on behalf of our global offices, the program has equipped me to better understand where and how large-scale change management initiatives are moving, and how I must implement the changes needed to sustain the momentum of these initiatives to advance our organizational mandate and maximize impacts. Specifically, the program helped me to analyze my organization and its tendencies toward change, to build approaches for identifying and influencing key stakeholders and overcome resistance, and explore critical decisions around negotiations and power dynamics.

I highly recommend this program for leaders, managers, and practitioners involved in addressing or leading large-scale, high-impact change management initiatives.

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Certificate program aims to empower female professionals

Women comprise 44% of the overall labor force among S&P 500 companies, but hold just 25% of executive and senior-level positions and represent only 6% of CEOs. Even the most experienced, capable women can struggle to rise to leadership positions.

To empower accomplished professional women to reach their full potentials, Cornell has launched the Executive Women in Leadership certificate program. Available online through eCornell, this certificate program equips participants with the tools to identify and reduce the gender bias and power dynamics in their own organizations, and to bring greater parity to workplace culture.

“Research shows that when both women and men think of a leader, they think of a man,” said faculty co-author Deborah Streeter, the Bruce F. Failing Sr. Professor of Personal Enterprise at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business. “This certificate program allows learners to create a personalized action plan using recommended strategies to understand the gendered environments in which they are operating and then navigate the most effective path to leadership, status, and power in their organization.”

Women leaders in mid- to senior-level positions, women who hold or are interested in seeking board positions, women entrepreneurs and founders, and male leaders seeking to better understand gender dynamics in their organizations will find value in this program. Participants will refine their executive presence to improve interactions with people at higher levels, improve their approach to negotiations, explore the strategies needed to develop a strong professional network, and assess the core competencies needed for board membership.

“In order to become a senior leader, an individual must first be perceived as one,” said Susan S. Fleming, faculty co-author, executive educator and former senior lecturer at Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration and the Johnson Graduate School of Management. “This requires demonstrating myriad skills such as being an effective negotiator, a visionary, and an excellent networker, as well as personal characteristics such as gravitas, authenticity and the right mix of authority and warmth.”

Once participants complete the program, they will be better-positioned to navigate institutional dynamics and achieve higher levels of leadership. Courses include: Power and Gender Dynamics; Developing Executive Presence for Women Leaders; Gender Bias and Negotiation Strategies; The Network Effect; and Decoding the Gender Gap in Board Membership.

Upon successful completion of all five courses, learners earn an Executive Women in Leadership Certificate from Cornell SC Johnson, 40 professional development hours and four Continuing Education Units.

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eCornell program will help leaders navigate change

Great leaders are always looking ahead, embracing change instead of resisting it and recognizing that the world has changed dramatically in the 21st century.

To prepare managers to lead effectively through “VUCA” (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity), Cornell has launched the VUCA Leadership certificate program. Available online through eCornell, this certificate program will help leaders develop internal strengths and strategic skills, and improve their ability to influence people both within their organization and outside of it to accomplish their vision.

“When organizational leaders are able to identify and reduce the impact of VUCA in the workplace, their teams and organizations thrive,” says Gen. George W. Casey Jr., faculty author of the certificate program and distinguished senior lecturer at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. Casey is a retired four-star general who served as the 36th chief of staff of the United States Army.

The certificate program was developed for leaders and executives at all levels. Learners will match their strengths and weaknesses with the leadership characteristics that are vital for success in today’s fluid world, and they will be able to formulate action plans to increase their opportunities for success.

Courses include:

  • Leading in a VUCA World;
  • Developing and Communicating Vision and Strategy;
  • Building Great Teams;
  • Setting Internal and External Conditions for Success; and
  • Preparing for the Future.

Courses normally start every two weeks. Upon successful completion of all five courses, learners earn a VUCA Leadership Certificate from Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.