Our guest today is a human resources leader in a travel company who helped her organization through the stress and anxiety of the pandemic. Hello, I'm Chester Elton and this is my dear friend and co-author, Adrian Gostick. Well, thanks, Ches. Yeah, today we're going to learn how this one organization kept its people feeling mentally strong during a time of great turmoil and maybe more importantly what lessons it's learned that's kept this organization moving forward today. As always we hope the time you spend with us will help reduce the stigma of anxiety at work and in your personal life. And with us is our new friend Diana Valer. CHRO at travel brands. And now Diana boasted an impressive track record as a vice president of human resources for multiple firms operating in diverse sectors such as franchising, consulting, and software. Diana also holds a pivotal role in the HIS Canada Holdings Board, spearheading human resources shared services operations across all of North America. Welcome to the show, Diana. We are just delighted that you found the time and will share your expertise with us today. So thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me. Such a pleasure. Thanks again, Tessa and Adrian. Oh, we're delighted to have you, Diana. So give us a little information first on your business and then maybe help us understand what just introduced there with the mental health impacts of the pandemic on a travel company, which, you know, as we all know, the pandemic brought the travel industry to a screeching halt. So give us a little information, who you are, the organization, and how you worked your way through this and to come back even stronger on the other side. Of course, and thanks for the intro. So as I was mentioning, you know, Travel Brands, of course, is one of the Canadian organizations in the travel industry, which we have been purchased back in 2019 by an amazing organization, HIS Japan. So you can just imagine the cultural changes that have appeared, of course, because of that acquisition. And we actually have two big brands, so to speak. We have the wholesale, regular vacations, you know, and travel brands. So that means it's also B2B and B2C. So as people might not know necessarily travel brands, which is in our B2B side, I'm sure people will be familiar with names like Red Tag, iTravel 2000, Slides.ca, Cruises.ca, which are more, of course, familiar as for the vacation packages that all the Canadians are using. And you know, fun fact, yes, we have the competitors of Expedia. So people might know that brand, but we obviously, of course, we want to ensure that we have that Canadian presence. And you know, you mentioned about the impact of pandemic, Andrea, I mean, what can I say? We used to be among the organizations of travel close to 1,200 employees. And you know, the clock stopped for us in March 2020, when we heard that we have to send the people home. So what can you do, right? We have to definitely do what is needed in times of change when nobody had the recipe for success. So we literally had to think how we can actually group while keeping the people's culture, you know, to where it's supposed to be. I started the journey as a CHRO in 2019 with the organization I'm very proud to say that I had been headhunted for the role because of the margin acquisition experience I was going to have. So as of 2019, I was extremely happy to start this organization and this amazing culture, calling it One Company, One Vision, One Experience. So it was exciting times, 2019, we are going to be launching new implementation, new processes, having an amazing environment for our valuable people, when of course COVID started. So what we did, luckily we had individuals that were working from home already, like some travel consultants that were selling travel, so we knew about the concept. However, the majority were still in the office. So we had to be extremely strategic in our planning and literally think, what can we do to send the people home while of course, keeping in touch with them? So I can tell you, we did that, and of course we had to put unfortunately, lots of people on temporary layoffs. I mentioned to you the number of 1,200 people, at this very moment, they are coming close to 800. So you can imagine, unfortunately, those layoffs became termination, not because we wanted to, but because we had to. However, we literally took care of our amazing people through multiple channels of communication. We actually opened a Facebook page for the people that were on temporary layoff, and we made sure that the entire leadership team spoke to them individually via videos and communications. And even if we didn't have the answers, when are we coming back? We told them, we don't know yet, but we are here for you. And I think through the empathy that was basically being cascading down from the top to the bottom, the people felt that they were heard. We heard their voices and we want to make sure they are still part of the team, although we have been working on very, very minimal skeleton stuff from the people perspective, right? So we kept the lights on. However, most of the people were at home or temporarily being laid off. Unfortunately, we had to proceed some terminations because of the situation of the COVID that had been lingering for three years. Excellent. So this massive change, acquired by a Japanese company, you've got a cultural change, the pandemic, working from home, trying to keep the culture and everything. Talk to us about how you got people to embrace that change, right? How do you help people who may be really anxious about the future to embrace something so new? Yeah, that's a key point. And I think change management is not as easy as it seems, right? Right. You think about, right, about the changes. But it has been done for the awareness. So we know that we have an organization. And it's very important to openly, openly communicate and create a supporting culture for everybody. So for us, success meant, and I'll give my personal example, when I started the organization, it meant having a town hall on my day two in the organization and literally introducing yourself, then meeting with the people and literally asking the right questions. My questions had been, please tell me, what do you think is truly working right now? What is not working? And how can we best support you? And then once you identify that, then once you implement change, they will be more open to the change management because you are communicating effectively with them. So literally the way we change the things, we communicate it, we basically hold hands and we are extremely, extremely open with them and ensure that the leadership have been really, really involved and we offer them the right resources to be available for them. So what is truly HLJ Japan, we made sure they are immersed in the culture, and make sure they truly understand who the company is, and give them the sense of pride. And then also, held that hand in the cultural perspective, because whenever we implemented change, I'll give another example, we also changed the HR system. It wasn't done just because somebody said so, but it was done as a result of what the people spoke. So we surveyed the people a lot, and we made sure they are the pioneers in this change process. Also, when we actually implemented a new system, rather than me presenting, I actually had all the managers with us as the cultural pioneers of change. So this way, we made sure that they are aligned, and they know what really what the change means, and more importantly, when the change is important for them. Because if you just like do it only one person rather than a unity, and rather than co-creating together the success, it wouldn't be that outcome that you like. But you involve the people, you engage them, and you speak with them. And to really measure the impact together is going to be an amazing, amazing change success. So the change management process for us is always a unity. It's always done as a unified, collective exercise. And we only speak about the pros of that particular change, but also let the people speak their mind. So in case it's hard for them, tell us why it's hard, and how can we get you through that particular hardship? Yeah, you know, it's interesting, we met at that wonderful CHRO dinner in Toronto. Yes. And MBS, you know, the coaching habit, was presenting, and so it was interesting when you said, ask the right questions. You know, that's his whole work is, are you asking the right questions? And then the important part, of course, is you're asking the right questions. What's working? What isn't working? How can we support you? And then, of course, to listen. So your town halls and your Facebook pages, like you say, implementing because we're asking the right questions and because we're listening. Did I get that right? Yes, you got it amazingly right. And I can actually add to that one important point. Also, during pandemic, and even to today's date, we always survey the people, and we do it confidently. So they feel their voice is being heard. And truly, during pandemic, we ask them, how are you? How is your family doing? How can we best support you? And we did a lot, a lot of mental health presentations for them, and apart from that, multiple programs to ensure that they are coping well. And to today's date, I can probably share we just got certified as a great place to work. And it is done through a survey which is done neutral. So we just know the questions. But basically, no great place to work is sending them to the staff, and they have to respond. And I can tell you, when we got this, we were thinking, are we ready for this? I knew the moment that we knew that the engagement surveys had an amazing NPS score for us. So it's again, by listening to the people, by promoting to them, and even for the great place to work, we communicated. I did personally multiple hubbles with all the managers to ensure they know what's this about. And again, to tell them, please speak your mind. Without your voice, we cannot change the culture to the better. Perfect. I love that idea. It's multiple, like you say, it's multiple ways, multiple, you know, we're hitting people from different avenues. I love the idea, just the visual of the manager standing beside you as you're introducing the change. So give me kind of a, you know, a lot of HR people are gonna be listening to this, looking, you know, with their pens out, looking for ideas. Give us some maybe pitfalls that HR can fall into when they're thinking about the wellness of the people or change management, et cetera. What are some things we should be looking out for? These are the things to avoid. Right, I would say, of course, as HR, we always, of course, have to get approval from above. So budgetary and financial restrictions are one of the pitfalls that you know, everybody thinking like, oh my goodness, do we have the budget? Do we have the money to implement this? How much did it cost? You don't know until you're up there. So I think avoid that people are thinking that it might be expensive or it might be costly or it might be timely, but think about the bigger impact for your people. Because if you're there for them, they will be there for you. If you treat your people like your customers, they will be treating you the same. And I think having the empathy and caring approach, it's going to be going miles away. The people need to know you have that open culture. And I think it's another stigma is like saying, yes, we do have an open environment. But is it really? An open environment truly means they can come to you irrespective of your title with an open mind, share their perspective, share their concerns, if there are any. And of course, try to solve the problems together. So that's one of the pitfalls. Like people are thinking, oh my goodness, it's going to be timely. And what if it's not successful? Yes, of course, not everything goes perfect, but think about the concept of co-creation and co-design and that will be the key to your success because by implementing change or by working in projects together with your teams, they are going to be amazingly, because they get the buy-in from the beginning and they will want to do the change with you. So this will be some pitfalls. It's really financial and I would say timely and also be afraid of not being successful. Yeah, you know, when you talk about uncertainty and you talk about pitfalls and all the change you're going through, you know, everybody's really worried right now about AI, right, and how it impacts their jobs and affects their businesses. Help us understand how you're working through AI issues at Travel Brands. What resources are you making available so that your people are getting ready for jobs in the future? Yeah, we know it's a hot topic nowadays, right? All the artificial intelligence had been existing for years, but you know, lately, I think, due to all the technologies made more available, right? Everybody knows CGBT, then what? How do you ensure, right? It's done properly. So I would say from our perspective, we didn't embrace AI, of course, it's like, I think HR should be hand-in-hand with all the departments and of course with IT from the technology perspective. What we do from the AI perspective in our organization, we work collectively with the IT department and we create the policies together. So yes, there are of course the HR policies but we also have IT policy, specifically about the use of AI. So can you use CGBT? Of course. AI is here and it's here to stay. You have to make sure you are going to be embracing it and using it as a partner rather than an enemy, right towards your future growth and towards the future of the organization. So what we did, we put policy in place. How can we actually use AI? How can you use CGBT? How can you use all this bot meaningfully, you know, strategically, utilize their speed and their intelligence, but also safeguard the company's information, right? Because you cannot put names in there or company information. Of course, we all know about all the other cyber attacks that you might be privy to in case you do that. So you have to be very, very careful. And then also on our website, several brands for a tag and all the others, we do have bots and we basically use them to be a customer service support to the people. So you're looking for a travel, okay, how does it work? And this information pooling basically, right? So that bot can play that business analyst role, if you will, or the customer rep for the beginning of the conversation, but then a human is going to be taking the conversation over. So it's truly through communication, policy, safeguarding the company best interests, and also ensuring the people are also aware, and making sure you don't make it as a fear of AI, but on the contrary, I think as a partnership and making sure that they're truly understanding the market. Yeah, it's a good point, because you've got such a high touch business. People come to you because they want help, they want advice, and you want to be a partner, and you still want to use this and prepare for the future. It's an interesting balancing act, but I'm so glad you're thinking about it. Hey, how do people learn more about travel brands and connect with you, Diana? Yeah, obviously, of course, via LinkedIn. If you, even if you Google my name, Diana Valer, you'll find me directly on LinkedIn as well. And of course, our website's travelbrands.com, a red tag, that's yay, available on vacations. We all find lots of names, and of course, including my email address, it's dianavaler, spelled with double L, at travelbrands.com. So give us, as we're getting nearer the end here, let's cover maybe some ideas, some things that you've done that travel brands that you think is helping with the wellness and especially the mental health of your people. What have you put in place that, that others could learn from? Yeah, definitely. So during the pandemic, what we did, we used, you know, the letters of the alphabet, so to speak, and also the days of the week to kind of invite the people to be aware about that. So again, I'm speaking about the same topic again, the importance of mental health awareness. So just like having that significant raising of the awareness, that can of course help us, acknowledging mental health is important as well as physical health, and truly gives people the tools, right? Create a supportive culture. So to go tactical of the day, during the pandemic we created a mindful Mondays, offering people, you know, tips for mindfulness, tips for thinking ahead, why mindfulness is important, why meditation is important. We did the wellness Wednesdays, so tips for the wellness, tips of keeping yourself fit, tips of making sure that you are eating healthy, we had lots of nutrition posts and whatnot, and we had fun Fridays, because why not, right? The Fridays were good fun, everybody's coming close to the weekend, and we made sure we give them like tips, fun ideas, jokes, posts. And to be honest, it created the amazing engagement, even to get the people to post pictures. So now they were in a Mindful Monday, in a Wellness Wednesday, and a Fun Friday, right? So that's how it started. And of course, we started afterwards, we actually had a couple of guest speakers speaking about mental health and truly breaking that stigma, right? Making sure they share personal stories, testimonials, how they actually got there. And unfortunately, it did happen, but how they actually got the support and they recovered. So offering this type of training, tools, and accessibility was really, really impactful for us. And promoting life work balance. We tell people, of course, I know the work from home and all of that. It's important to work smart, not necessarily long hours, but work intelligently and have that balance if you need. Right, so I can share with you right now another initiative that we are doing. Right this very moment, actually, send the email yesterday, summer hours. So we offer people the capability to be working one additional hour during the Monday to Thursday cycle, so to speak, and they can leave earlier. On a Friday, they can leave at 12, or at one. On Monday, they want to have the Monday to be leaving earlier and it's a nice balance to enjoy the beauty of the summer and to spend, of course, time with their loved ones. We also partnered with Lightspeak. As you probably might know, it's one of the companies that are having lots of videos, repositories, amazing videos regarding mental health, parenting, financial support, diversity and inclusion, like multiple, multiple things, because some people might be extroverts, like me. I'm sure you see, I mean, you don't see me now, but I speak with hands a lot. Right? And some people might be introverts, and maybe they're gonna take their time to look at the video and really understand what mental health really means, right? You know, you don't meet a lot of HR people who are introverts, Diana. I really don't like people, but I got into HR. Yeah, I see that a lot. It's true, right? Yeah, and I think last but not least, the leadership role, how important it is to make sure, of course, it's from top down, and we make sure we are working with the people, so they are truly prioritizing the wellbeing, and they actively listen to the people needs, yeah. I like in particular Fun Fridays. You know, isn't it interesting that you can have these tools and so on? If you can make it fun, you know, something that people look forward to, you're much more likely to get engagement. So, good for you, Mindful Mondays, Wellness Wednesdays, and Fun Fridays. I have to admit, right out of the gate, Fun Fridays is my favorite. That's it. I would have guessed that. Yeah. No surprise. Hey, quick, just, you know, in the work we did in our book, Anxiety at Work, and as we've done more and more of these conversations, we noticed there are generational differences, you know? What are you seeing with younger generations coming to the workplace with regards to mental health? Yeah, I would say, you know, they are definitely much more aware than the, you know, the other generation had been about the mental health. They care most about it and they do ask about it. So, which I love to see, right? It's so important to have that balance. So, they are more aware, so we have to make sure, you know, we're providing the tools. And what we do right now within our onboarding, so we revamp the entire onboarding for the company. We are actually creating a boarding pass. This, of course, is a travel theme, right? And the people know what they are coming into, how their very first look would look like. But within the onboarding program, we basically make sure they're touching based on the EAP program that we have. So not only what medical benefits we offer, but also what is the employee assistance program that we have, and also what will be the benefits, and also the mental health, also the intranet that offers a lot of wellness and mental health resources. So we are making a conscious effort to inform our new hires and the new generations that are coming on board about these efforts the company is doing. One, and two, we ask for their feedback. I always love to ask, you know you are coming from company X, feel free, share your ideas, because we can borrow, right? R&D, yes, is research and development, but can be also rob and duplicate, right? Right, right, right. So we can actually learn from them as well. So I see it as an amazing benefit. What about yourself, Diana? How do you keep your mental health, you're such a positive person, how do you keep yourself mentally healthy every day? What are some of your routines? Yeah, so my routine is I work out every morning. I love it, except the weekend, but I work out every morning. I do it through love. You know, I love Pilates. I love lifting some weight and, you know, doing it if I don't have time to go to the gym, I do it in my basement. And I love walking outside. I enjoy reading, so to your point, Chester, we are all impressed, of course, with the books and even, you know, the wellness tips and everything, which is amazing. So reading is also one of my passions. And I love swimming, of course. And just like, you know, speaking with the people and understanding where they are coming from and understanding different cultures and traveling, of course. Yeah, of course. You know how we keep ourselves fit. And just like, you know, embracing, embracing schedule is an optimistic mind. I tell everyone, you know, your attitudes will offer your attitudes. So just keep that. Just really quick, because you travel so much, I'm always curious, do you have a favorite place in the world that you like to go? Now, obvious, of course, my home is Romania, so I love to always go to Europe, but I love place I had an amazing opportunity to visit Japan in 2019, and it's an impressive culture, and still on my bucket list will be French Polynesia, if I wanna go. French Polynesia. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Wonderful. Well, this has been a great conversation, and thank you so much for taking the time. Travel brands, make sure you look them up and book a trip to French Polynesia. Why wouldn't you? So thank you so much for your time, Diana. It's been really a pleasure for you to share with us how you got through difficult times, how you deal with change, and I love your personal practices as well. You know, we all need to have some kind of a go-to routine to keep ourselves healthy. So thanks again for finding the time. It's been a delight to be with you today. Thanks, Daniel. Thank you kindly. Such a pleasure being here, Anonar. Thanks so much. Thank you. Adrian, another delightful guest. I'm curious, what were some of your key takeaways? Well, you know, it's so important to have on people who've gone through hard things because so many of us do. Well, this is a company that was in the travel industry in 2020. You know, they sent over everybody. There's no work. There was no travel going on in March of 2020. And so how did they keep their people and keep them engaged and bring everybody back eventually? Well, it was multiple channels of communication. It's empathy, it's people feeling heard. You know, we've said, look, if there's one leadership characteristic you've got to have today, it's empathy. Yeah, and asking the right questions and listening. You know, what's working, what's not working? Ask your frontline people. You know, we can think, oh, we're the managers, we're the leaders, we've got to have all the answers. I like that they were very intentional about instituting some rituals for mental health. You know, mindful Mondays and wellness Wednesdays and of course fun Fridays, who wouldn't like that? As long, as well as summer hours, you know, that was the thing I remember way back when I was working in New York. In the summer, you got every other Friday off and it didn't count against your vacation time. That little perk was amazing and everybody pitched in to fill in. You know, you'd arrange with your team, okay, I'm gonna take this Friday, you take that Friday. So not just saying, hey, we want you to have work-life balance, or hey, we want you to take care of yourself. We're gonna put these little rituals in place, and we're gonna make it fun, and we're gonna make sure that you do it. I thought that was really brilliant. Yeah, I mean, you ask, though, who wouldn't love fun Fridays? You actually worked with a guy who didn't like fun, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you guys had that different motivator. Yeah, I just don't work with him anymore. Is it any mystery? So, a couple of other great things. I mean, I love that too. Yeah, those rituals that create, you know, people like rituals, especially positive ones. I love how, too, they attack change, not by, look, here's the change, like it or lump it. No, it's, look, you know, we're gonna survey people. We're gonna help them feel like they're the pioneers of change, so they're part of it. They don't just tell you this is happening, they have all the managers up there with HR, with the senior leadership team, so it's a unified front. Because if you don't buy in as a leader, when the change comes, people smell it on you. Yeah, and I like the way they started right from day one, you know, onboarding, so you've got a boarding pass. I thought that was very clever, right? And we're going to walk you through, here's our EAP program and here's our wellness programs and here are our rituals and traditions. So right from day one, being very intentional about this is our culture, here's how we do it, and we're delighted to have you here. I always like listening to people's personal rituals. Isn't it interesting that her workout in the morning, if I can't get to the gym, I do it in the basement. She's very intentional about that. And then reading, you know, making sure that she's reading and walking. And it's interesting, we're all a little different, but find what works for you and then be very intentional about it, right? If only we could recommend a book, Jess. I mean, what book would that be? What book would that be? Maybe Anxiety at Work. I've heard a lot of good things about it. It's a heck of a book. And yes, it was a bestseller. Yeah, the title's a little on the nose for me, but yeah, I've heard it's a good book. The Audible book, apparently, is genius. We did mention our lit video book as well, if you haven't got a lot of time, 29 minutes watching a short movie on anxiety at work. It won't make you more anxious. It'll make you actually more calm. Who else could we thank today? We're big on gratitude. I would really like to thank our producer, Brent Klein, Christy Lawrence, who helps us find amazing guests, and all of you who have listened in, we want to give you a big thanks. If you like the podcast, share it, let others know about it. We'd also love you to visit thecultureworks.com for some free resources to help you and your team thrive. Right. And we love speaking to audiences all over the world, whether it's in person or virtual. We talk about teamwork, culture, resilience. We talk about gratitude. Give us a call. We'd love to talk to you about participating in your event. And again, Anxiety at Work, it's available everywhere, on lit video books, on Audible, fine bookstores everywhere. And by the way, our eighth strategy is a gratitude ritual. And we have a lovely journal called the Gratitude Habit. So lots of fun resources. Adrian, it's always great being with you. I will, as always, give you the last word. Hey, thanks. Yeah, no, it's been a fun ride again, learning from Diana. And so thanks, Chess. Thanks everybody for joining us today. Until next time, we wish you the best of mental health. ♪♪