#47 Ashley Mayhew
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Ashley: [00:00:00] LinkedIn, what's fascinating about us as a platform is we're 1 billion members now. And I remember in 2019, we were 640 million members.
Ashley: There is a shift mentally around values and wanting to align your values and people learn very quickly that linkedin was the main platform that had healthy professional development opportunities, whether you're going there to learn, going there to connect with other people, going there for volunteer, going there for a role or finding people.
Ashley: And so we don't discriminate against types of jobs that are on there or what value it brings. So we changed the product a lot.
Ashley: And then young people, young people love LinkedIn. And it's something that I don't think we ever expected because for a long time, we were expecting like, You know, this is a platform for, for professionals that are later in their career, but really it's part of career development programs now.
Claire: [00:01:00] Welcome to another episode of the Small Town Entrepreneur podcast. You're here with me, myself, the host, Claire Bouvier, and we are talking about where is the line drawn between entrepreneurship, And employment. Is it blurred into one path? Is it between innovation and learning? And today I really believe, and I think we have someone here that will speak to this, is that the entrepreneurial spirited individual is not just for founders.
Claire: It's a mindset and it's for anyone aiming to excel. To self improve, to innovate, to solve problems no matter where you are, no matter what you do. So everyone, please welcome Ashley Mayhew, LinkedIn's Relationship Manager, and A relentless learner pursuing not only has she gotten her first master's, but she's going for her second master's degree in [00:02:00] education from Harvard university.
Claire: Ashley is someone that is one of those 1 percent people where she is now at the of talent strategy and continuous growth, showing us that really the key to success and progress doesn't have to be just in a bustling city or a quiet small town, but it's a blend of. The two most important things, looking at curiosity and thinking like an entrepreneur, so
Claire: Ashley, I'm so happy you're here. Welcome to the show.
Ashley: Thanks for having me. I'm honored. That introduction is a very special. I appreciate that. I hope I live
Claire: up to it. I think you will and beyond you are special and you are extremely smart and have a lot of insight to share with our listeners, like I said, whether you are an employee working for a bigger company, or you are.
Claire: sitting in a basement, plugging away on a computer by yourself. it's embodying this entrepreneurial spirit. So I'm going to just kick it off and ask you, do you [00:03:00] remember the first time maybe you sensed an entrepreneurial spirited little Ashley at some point where this curiosity, where it all came from?
Ashley: Yeah, I mean, growing up living within a family that has a family business entrepreneurship and acting like an owner was part of the tenants that we all live by as a family. Like my dad building a dealership from scratch, not having much experience in that space, like context. Graduated high school, barely graduated high school.
Ashley: I think got kicked out of three or four before he finally found someone who just said, we're going to pass you just so we don't have to move you around anymore. He was a disc jockey at St. Lawrence. Thank God. Cause I have a ton of his records and he built this dealership, this idea, this concept of, you know, there's not an easy way to buy a boat in a city in Kingston where there's a ton of water, right?
Ashley: Like we live on the lake. And so it's wild for me to think, cause I always remember asking him questions. And I think this is where that entrepreneurial spirit came from was [00:04:00] like the amazement of look at what you've built, but also the curiosity of how. So I remember asking him as a kid, like, how did you decide boats?
Ashley: How did you decide when to start and when he started he actually had like a split between the the warehouse where half of it was furniture to help him buy boat inventory. It's so expensive to buy even the inventory at cost for a boat that he'd sell furniture to grow his cash flow to then be able to be a fully functioning boat.
Ashley: Boat dealership versus like that split. So I remember being a kid being like, so these are our lazy boys. Like we own these lazy boys. And he's like, no, we don't own these lazy boys. We're selling these lazy boys. They're for the store. And I'd have this like complexity as a little child. And there was many lazy boys, which is why I was so obsessed with those specifically.
Ashley: So we don't own these things, but we have to buy them and then we have to sell them so that we can buy boats. Like the whole concept for me was just like, how does one make these decisions? So growing up in that environment made me very curious and just the way that we were [00:05:00] brought up was, you know, we have to work really hard.
Ashley: time is money. You'd have to know the value of a dollar. And you have to make sure that you're constantly thinking about improvement, like self improvement was kind of natural and growth, because in a business, as we know, when you're an entrepreneur, the bottom line counts everywhere you can save is so important.
Ashley: And everywhere you can be creative is really important. So, I mean, I may have been cleaning the toilets at that time and finding my way around in different roles, but just the growing up in that environment, it was very ingrained in you. And even the way that our parents raised us.
Claire: And it's so fascinating because I love talking to people like you, understanding it always stems from something in childhood where it was ignited.
Claire: And what I find really fascinating is that you speaking from your dad, barely finishing high school. And here you are taking on all the entrepreneurial, learnings that you had as a child, but now it's really cool. Yeah. [00:06:00] You're now going in and continuing education and you're going for your second master's.
Claire: what motivates you to keep going back to school while working full time? Like, how do you do that?
Ashley: You have to be part wild. You have to enjoy the rush of being too busy. But I think the reality is, is that my dad actually was so proud when I graduated university, like my first degree undergrad, because I was the first Mayhew to get a university degree with our like last name for our family.
Ashley: So I remember that moment being really special. And my parents both honor, like my mom has always said, the more education you can have, the better your life will be. And always take one free education. So if there's like classes or things being offered, jump on it. I'm very fortunate where my current employer LinkedIn right now is paying for me to take these courses.
Ashley: And for me personally, I learned. Very early on in my career that continuous growth and learning is hard. It can't be at the corner of your desk. You're busy in [00:07:00] your day job, but to be successful. In my opinion, you have to grow and continue to develop your skills. Because as we know, I We used to all say a stat by 2025, you know, 75 percent of skills are going to be obsolete. And now it's 2024 and we're like, oh man, and AI has totally shifted the way we think of things. So this whole concept of like, you're going to have many careers in your lifetime. There's going to be many different skills we're going to need to learn.
Ashley: And the, the rate of change is so rapid. So how do we expect to. Understand this new world, even of AI without formally sitting down and taking time to learn about it. And I just know me, I need that environment. And if I'm going to be working my butt off, I might as well get a piece of paper for it that says I did it.
Claire: I
Ashley: like that.
Claire: You know what I agree. And Hey, the fact that you have your company LinkedIn and that's. incredible. You've been there now five years and they're paying for it. I mean, one, [00:08:00] it shows the value that they know that you bring to the company, but also that you have this opportunity for those people though, that are in a job.
Claire: like, how did that come about? What were you thinking? Like, Oh, I'm going to, you know, I'm at a really good place. I'm doing really well in my career. But to push you further, what was that conversation? Was that something that you had with yourself? Was that something, how did that happen that you're now continuing?
Claire: You already, you know, some people, the stamp approval, I got my master's, move on, get, climb the ladder. You're continuing to, why is that so instrumental for you?
Ashley: So it comes from a few different places. It comes from like, there's vision board, self Ashley around like life, dreams, goals. There's work, Ashley, that, you know, I remember now two holiday seasons ago when Chachi BD blew up and everyone's like, what is this?
Ashley: This is wild. And me being like, Oh man, I don't really get this, but this is important for my clients. It's going to change the way that we work. [00:09:00] It's going to change the skills that we need to develop. And then there was kind of like this, the best I ever felt was whenever I was in school, because that is what I'm truly great at.
Ashley: Like I am great at being a student and I wanted to be a lifelong long student, but. As we know, education is expensive. So it's a combination of those two things. I'll talk about the vision board a little bit. So when I was younger, I wanted to go to Harvard Law really, really bad. And it wasn't just the influence of Elle Woods.
Claire: I can't help it, but I thought of that for a
Ashley: second. I love what you think. So there's a lot of synergies there, but It was not the movie. It was like, I had this profound respect. We have friends that are lawyers. I have profound respect for lawyers and their understanding of being able to read material, make sense of it, translate it into a narrative and convince people of things.
Ashley: And it actually was my leadership style because I'm like, I have an inspiration and storytelling leadership style. That's how I pull people together and make people excited to do work together. So I've always found that so fascinating. Funny enough. [00:10:00] Thinking back to the Holy Cross, English was never my strongest subject actually.
Ashley: So, knowing that I started to play around with like, what else could I be doing? So, long story short, Harvard was always a childhood goal of mine, to get a degree from Harvard. It wasn't the degree that I thought I'm getting now. But nonetheless, it was something that for me from like a professional and educational perspective, it's so forward thinking in what it teaches and how it teaches.
Ashley: And I loved my time at U of T. It was really inspirational, but what I'm learning in Harvard right now, what blows my mind is it is so on topic to what we are having conversations about today, the articles reference it's, it's shifting my thinking about, you know, I hated Excel. Now I'm in this managerial economics course and I'm learning so much.
Ashley: I'm like, this, this is really cool how this can help me. So it's shifting my perspective. And when I have those learning moments, that's what makes me keep coming back for more education. So it was the vision board, but then it was also like, in my day to day, not understanding certain things that I wish I did have formal training on that.
Ashley: Naturally you [00:11:00] don't. Like Excel, it's hard to learn Excel whenever you're not using it for purposes that help you be better in your job, at school, whatever. Because it's an icky program otherwise. You don't want to have to learn it.
Ashley: self discipline by forcing myself to do this kind of learning in a program like this.
Ashley: Because I have someone coaching me, in front of me, and obviously grading me. It's a bit of that like aspiration and the dream around. What makes me feel like full of purpose and life goals. So yeah, it's like, it's all of those things combined that when I saw the opportunity for, again, and my mom always said, if there's an opportunity for free education, I wasn't using this amount towards any courses.
Ashley: And so I was like, Hey, it's time. It's time that I relive that childhood goal. And it's a totally different way. It popped up in life, but it's funny how things like that happen.
Claire: Well, this is really exciting to be part of this journey right now. You are living it out. And. I think what really resonated what you said, it's that it's topical.
Claire: I think that's so exciting and refreshing to hear that there's, you know, sometimes we hear whole, you know, education [00:12:00] institutions are a little behind and they got to catch up, but the fact that it's topical, it's relevant, it's actually giving you value in real time to the job that you're doing is fantastic.
Claire: Now, let's be honest, not everyone has the opportunity to go to Harvard. While they're in their full time job and I think our listeners, you know, whether they're leaders in their own small business or their small business owners themselves with a small team, I want to come back to the storytelling leadership that you talked about.
Claire: But how do we bring that continuous learning mindset and how do we actually apply that? How can we do that without having, you know, let's be realistic, the LinkedIn budgets. If we're a small team, what does that look like for a small business owner or what does it look like for an individual that is trying to navigating?
Claire: What would you suggest to these individuals?
Ashley: So I definitely don't want to make it a sales plug about LinkedIn, but LinkedIn learning does have free trials. And from an individual [00:13:00] perspective, isn't a huge cost with a wealth of soft skills around communications leadership with more technical skills, like if you're learning to code sandbox environments, GitHub, it's a Microsoft partner, so there's certifications built into your subscription.
Ashley: So like, if you're trying to better yourself and grow, I remember there was an engineer saying I wanted to learn cloud, I bought myself a LinkedIn license. Now I'm working on projects and getting paid more because I understand cloud. And I was like, Oh, give me all the tingles because I was like, that's so cool.
Ashley: You took time to focus on your learning, not at a, any kind of like fancy degree or anything like that. This is like on the, you know, Sunday afternoon, they had the discipline, which is why I need a formal program. They had the discipline to work towards and finish those courses. And there's micro learning on it, which.
Ashley: Sound snippets, you can learn Excel. That's the other way that I've been brushing up and figuring out how to use programs I typically didn't in my past career life. But I think there's definitely formal options out there that aren't super, super expensive. So that's one thing and LinkedIn is not the only [00:14:00] one, of course.
Ashley: And then the other option is. Getting into a community of like minded people who are constantly trying to grow and develop. And book clubs are the most underrated thing, but it doesn't have to be book club anymore. It just has to be a topic that we get together and discuss.
Claire: I agree. And so
Ashley: I don't have time to listen to all the podcasts that I want to listen to.
Ashley: I don't have time to read all the McKinsey articles that I want to listen or I want to read. So if you have people kind of sharing that work effort and that workload, Like coming to the table with one or two insights and where they found that insight, it's amazing how much we can learn from just those social gatherings or interactions that we can create amongst ourselves.
Ashley: And the idea comes from a lot of companies right now are bringing managers together who are handling really challenging topics. So we think of COVID 19. You know, nobody could have expected it. Nobody could anticipate it around how it would impact the workforce. Also our mental health and still is impacting our mental health.
Ashley: so managers now are given this like load of, okay, you have people who are burnt the hell out and have been for [00:15:00] years, not months, years. You have really smart people needing to take leave for various reasons. We have aging population in the workforce. People who are dealing with their own parents aging, also having children at the same time.
Ashley: So there's all these like shifts that are happening around different cultural values, as well as like how we show up to work and how we think about work as part of our life versus our whole life. And so a lot of companies, what they're doing for these learnings, they have very light course content, like watching a few videos on having difficult conversations.
Ashley: But then just the storytelling and sharing that's happening amongst managers. Is really helping them to open up reflect and deeply understand where they're missing the mark, maybe, and then applying that in role. And so we should be doing the same thing as humans. We don't need to have, like, a formal degree, but, like, why don't we share information and all go out separately and figure it.
Ashley: Okay. If I don't know much about AI. Let's invite someone who knows a lot about AI, but they might be wanting to learn about leadership [00:16:00] and development. And that's something that I do at my organization. So some of that is just so lost in a highly social world, but like a, not a very connected world. In my opinion,
Claire: I think it's, this is so serendipitous because I was having a conversation and this word of resource flow.
Claire: I was familiar with, but the idea of, you know, there's so many experts in the world and if we're all sharing those things, then we start to elevate together. Right. I'm like this person that I have the expression in my head, but it never comes out, you know, it's the ship one and I'm laughing because this is, we're talking about keeping things raw.
Claire: I don't know what it is, but I don't know if anyone else is listening, but like, you know, what the expression is and you want to just sneak it in, but like you screw it up. Yeah. It's like all the ships rise together. Something.
Claire: If you're listening, put it in the show notes here or the reply to exactly [00:17:00] what that perfect expression should have been right there. Insert. Now what I find really cool actually is about the work that you do is, you know, yes, you're showing up and there's the fancy title and whatnot, but really what you're doing is bringing talented people to the table.
Claire: And this idea of. Storytelling and how you connect with people and get you excited. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think I think one thing that will never go away is this idea of storytelling. That's how humans are connected. And I think it's a fascinating topic, but would you be able to go a little deeper into how you approach storytelling into your leadership management and, talent acquisitions?
Claire: Could you speak to that? Sure. Absolutely.
Ashley: Yeah, absolutely. So basically, for those who I haven't met, like, 3000 foot view of my role is I consult and work with large organizations across Canada to help them with [00:18:00] acquiring talent. So, attracting people, bringing them into the organization, making sure that they're happy and they have career development opportunities.
Ashley: And so that's really the main area of focus and to do that. Well, storytelling is such a big part of it. And not only storytelling, but being data driven about how we tell that story and how we create strategies to attract talent. So when we're thinking about, you know, LinkedIn, what's fascinating about us as a platform is we're 1 billion members now.
Ashley: And I remember in 2019, we were 640 million members. So just the growth over the 1 billion now. One billion globally. Yeah, we had like a huge We
Claire: should stop there just before you continue because this is so fascinating. We're talking about, I think before this call started recording, we're talking about like, how do we 15X our company?
Claire: But what do you think, I mean, what do you know that, why the growth so quickly and at this time? What has shifted?
Ashley: Yeah, I think there's, so there's a few shifts, right? We, we can't attribute it to, to [00:19:00] one, but I'll, I'll speak to my own experience watching what happened when COVID. Was announced and we all thought like, okay, we're going to take 2 weeks off and I'll come back to work a little.
Ashley: Did we know it was 2 years of our lives frontline work and doctors and nurses and healthcare professionals got taxed heavily in terms of like the hours they had to work what they were required to do people were shifting industry because of their own personal feelings around. Like, we had so much time locked in our houses, we reflected like we've never before.
Ashley: What do I want out of life? What do I want my career to look like? How much time do I even want to spend working? Do I actually enjoy being home with my kids and therefore don't want to go back to work? There was all these things happening from like a psychological and behavioral perspective. And then at the same time, We couldn't go shake someone's hand and be like, Hey, I want to talk to you about a job.
Ashley: So we were forced into this digital transformation that we'd been talking about for like 10 years in the workplace. And people had to figure out VPNs and how to sign into their job from places at the same time. There is a shift mentally around [00:20:00] values and wanting to align your values and people learn very quickly that linkedin was the main platform that had healthy professional development opportunities, whether you're going there to learn, going there to connect with other people, going there for volunteer, going there for a role or finding people.
Ashley: And so when you think back to 2019, there were 640 million members. That growth change happened a lot through those two years in COVID and then after the fact. And so that's one reason is kind of this like phenomenon that nobody could have expected. it pushed digital transformation into like accelerated hyperspeed.
Ashley: And then at the same time, LinkedIn, our goal, and I'm not speaking on behalf of the company, I'm speaking on behalf of myself, but the values and the structure of LinkedIn is really to create economic opportunity for everyone in the global workforce. And traditionally, I think it was thought of as like, Oh, you have to have a four year degree.
Ashley: And It's very professional. Everyone's a professional. Everyone's an expert in what they do. And so we don't discriminate against types of jobs that are on there or what value it brings. So we changed the product a lot. To align to frontline employees, where if they [00:21:00] wanted to talk about, like, these are the shifts I want, recruiters could see that on the backend.
Ashley: If they wanted to talk about these are the benefits I require. Recruiters could see that on the backend. So we started to shift the platform for frontline work product offering. That was another piece. And then young people, young people love LinkedIn. And it's something that I don't think we ever expected because for a long time, we were expecting like, You know, this is a platform for, for professionals that are later in their career, but really it's part of career development programs now.
Ashley: It's not just, you're building your resume. You're building your LinkedIn profile. And I do a lot of talks at U of T and mentor people one on one around the campus audience. And their feedback is like, it's a safe space. I don't feel bad about myself on there. Unlike other social platforms.
Ashley: Psychologically, there's no bullying or harassment very strict Policies and guidelines. It's about personal growth and development. It's actually like making me better. The more time I spend on LinkedIn versus other scrolling. And you know, I'm not going to name any other social platforms, but we can, we can think of you that we waste a lot of fricking time on it.
Ashley: It doesn't make us feel good [00:22:00] about ourselves whenever we look at that.
Claire: I can't say I don't do that though. Right. Yeah.
Ashley: Guilty. I love Instagram. I love visual pictures but to the point, those three things, I think, are what helped with that growth. That's how cultural values around COVID LinkedIn's efforts, as well as this Gen Z population is looking at LinkedIn, unlike Any other demographic before
Claire: fascinating.
Claire: I love to hear that. So that's really cool. And then I would say that the pandemic was the biggest story of our generation. so within that, how do you approach the storytelling piece with this entire new audience? That's onboarding so fast onto the platform.
Ashley: Yeah, I mean, Employer branding and personal branding are passions of mine as well as I, was focused in a hyper specialized in employer branding in my time at TD when I was in HR. And what COVID 19 did in terms of the like history of employer branding was [00:23:00] force people to put their money where their mouth was.
Ashley: And of course that's around the time as well where George Floyd was murdered on camera. And so really big. Audiences were taking a moment to reflect on things that people have been feeling for a long time, but companies had not been held accountable for a long time. Companies and I even think of like, you know, just their values and corporate social responsibility.
Ashley: There were lighthearted talks about it, about what we're doing, you know, how are we driving women in leadership or, but this is now where people felt. Empowered to not only stand up for what they have in terms of their values, but then also say, I'm not cool with working for an employer that does not align to those values.
Ashley: And that does not clearly take steps and actions to do the right thing. And I think that was such an interesting moment in history because nothing changed really. It's just, everyone was quiet and at home globally, all going through the exact same experiences [00:24:00] and forced to reflect a little bit.
Claire: other than I would say, like you said, the frontline workers, they just couldn't even, now we're seeing this next wave, right? Like I said, there's some people that were forced, they had to be at home and then there's obviously the people that were so burnt out from working so hard to keep us all healthy.
Ashley: Yeah. Healthy and safe. yeah, the frontline being people in grocery stores and doctors and nurses. Like it was everyone that was keeping us. As a society going really saving lives as well as like access to food. So yeah, it was mind boggling to think about the hours they work. They definitely didn't have time to reflect, but it's interesting because I know a lot of people who've left professions because of the burnout and they wanted something different because they're like, I've done my duty.
Ashley: It's almost like serving in the army. Like. That was totally the war for healthcare professionals. And so they're like, I've done my tour, but storytelling is important and crafting a clear narrative around why come work for somebody is more important than ever. [00:25:00] Because Gen Z are especially those who are putting their money where their mouth is.
Ashley: We talked about millennials. We talked about being environmentally friendly, but how much do we really change our lifestyle to make sure that we're making a better impact on the environment, right? Like studies show that Gen Z are actually the ones that are shifting their lifestyle, spending more to do what they believe aligns with their values and what's right.
Ashley: And that's generalization from data that in research on personas, but It's really cool. It's interesting right that that we're seeing a shift already and ultimately when an employer is looking to hire somebody now it's about proving or showing not telling. So this becomes very nuanced and challenging where a corporate voice, a corporation talking about how great a corporation is.
Ashley: Not as strong as an employee speaking to their experience and how much they value. Like I'll give you an example. There was a woman at TD who got married to her partner and she took a selfie on her wedding day at the branch, which she works at with her wife. And was like, I [00:26:00] actually felt more comfortable coming out at TD with my team before I did at home and before I did with my friends and like goose bumpy all over.
Ashley: It was such a powerful photo and you can't make that up, right? Like, the culture has to be reflected by the people and you have to create a culture that's worth talking about and aligned to the values that people want to. Work for a company that has those things that has that experience. And so that is, what's so interesting about talent acquisition right now in employer branding is it needs to be shown, not told, and to do that, you have to create authenticity from the culture within.
Ashley: So we don't talk a lot about culture anymore of a company. But that is really important. And when we talk about storytelling and crafting the narrative, it really should be about the true experiences and the value proposition we have to offer. And that is also becoming more and more important. And I think there's a lot of big companies right now reflecting inwards on what type of company do we want to be in the future.
Ashley: Because it has to drive success, but it also has to be a place that people want to work. And you can't separate those things [00:27:00] anymore.
Claire: that is so good to hear, because you know, they can't be told. you can create the most beautiful narrative, right?
Claire: Like there's tons of resources out there, but they get one day and they go into that place of work and they're like, Whoa, this doesn't align. This is not what I signed up for. And like you said, people are moving careers, shifting things really quickly. They'll go jump to another career. They'll find the other company.
Claire: They'll find that someone really actually creates the environment that they're looking for. So from an employer perspective, what are those things that you've seen now, if we dig a little deeper? What is it that those nuances, what are those things that are, are being created? How do we get, you know, the people to showcase those moments in TD Bank or going and, you know, openly, you know, the was glass ceiling, you know, the website is it's closed.
Ashley: I feel like we smash every day with everything we do, with all of our [00:28:00] hearts in mind. This is my
Claire: favorite. This is, this couldn't have been perfect how I said I don't get, first of all, that was an expression and also I screwed up the website. Glassdoor. Glassdoor reading. Oh, this is too good. But the customer is ultimately the greatest vehicle for marketing or telling about the company or whatnot.
Claire: So how do we make sure is there, do we have the Ashley Mayhew, you know, check in checklist that you're one of those things, like, how do you go about finding the right talent and I know we're switching, but also making sure that From, the employer perspective, what it is, the branding that they have to do, because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but when we think branding, sometimes we think just, just what it looks like, right?
Claire: But the brand or the touch points, how we feel it, how it makes us feel, that's not as easy, right? So. How do we create that? How do we create those moments that people want to share? How [00:29:00] amazing where they work?
Ashley: We can have like a whole topic on leadership, but let's talk about branding for two seconds because it's important for people to understand what branding is because a lot of the time people associate brand with logo
Claire: and
Ashley: one example that.
Ashley: Is an easy one is, you know, if you ever had like a brown coffee cup where you've had a pre made drip coffee that you pour into it and you're walking around with it and you're like, okay, it's coffee. We'll do. It's going to get my morning started or, you know, your friend treats you to a Starbucks with like the whole whip, the foam, the sprinkles and Starbucks has created the ability to charge 19 per coffee, not because the coffee is that much more superior than the brown drip coffee cup that you get for free in the workroom, it's because of the experience that they create.
Ashley: It's because when you walk in, they ask your name, they don't rush you, they say hi, how are you? They're trained professionals on beans and they understand the The importance of tasting different coffees and getting your order right and it's for free if [00:30:00] they mess it up So it's all these moments that they've created That leave you thinking, I want to do that again.
Ashley: It's not about the coffee. You want to do that again. You want to come back there and experience that again. It has to do with the way they set up their stores. It has to do with how inviting it is that you can work there for hours and no one's ever going to tell you why didn't you buy another coffee?
Ashley: All of those things leave your brain saying, I want to do this in the future. I want to spend 20 on another coffee, which I know our parents listening would be like, what are you talking about? But those brand experiences and touch points are really what makes up a brand. So, or those company experiences and touch points as a customer makeup.
Ashley: A brand same goes for talent branding. So as a candidate, you have a perception of a company. I used to play this game whenever I was doing workshops where I'd have a logo face down and they'd have to flip it up. And I'd be like, would you work for this company? Yes or no. And why? And they'd have to answer right away.
Ashley: That is brand perception. Love
Claire: [00:31:00] that. So they'd flip. I take an Ashley course. Do you do this just for us, us normies out here?
Ashley: 100 I do a lot of workshops on how to build employer brand as well as personal brand and personal brand is no different. It's those interactions and experiences with people that leave you thinking, I want to see that person again.
Ashley: I want to hang out with that person again. But happy to do yeah, we can chat.
Claire: You're like, oh, you're interrupting me again.
Ashley: No, we, definitely can do something like that. That's like what I'm passionate about and helping businesses understand that is so, so important. Because it's your people that makes you successful.
Ashley: And I remember my first master's. I was like, what do I want to do with my life? And I remember a prof said, constant, we will hold technology. Technology will be the same for everyone in the world one day. And therefore what makes an organization successful is the efficiencies they create and how hard and happy their people work.
Ashley: So if their people are happy and they're working hard, they're going to win. [00:32:00] So I was like, wow, that's so fascinating. Like the success of our economy comes down to people being happy. And like, that's, that's really, fundamentally
Claire: so basic, yet such a big ask,
Ashley: right. And it's complex because what makes people happy is different for every individual.
Ashley: So the question around how do you do that as an organization, make people happy? How do you build a brand or brand experiences? It's a lot about the informal things that happen at a company. It's a lot about leadership. And walk in the walk and walk in the talk, because if it's not going to be there, if it doesn't start there and at manager level, then you're going to see people mimic the behaviors.
Ashley: Of leaders and of managers, and you're going to have informal culture being created that you might not want to have created. So what's interesting is to make people happy. It's very leader led around doing the right things, creating the right experiences, the right values. And to do that, it's all about talent acquisition, hiring [00:33:00] the right people in those leadership positions.
Ashley: So it's kind of full circle where it comes back to, how do you do that? It's about creating a structure on this is where we are culturally today, maybe, but this is where we want to be and it comes down to a science. It absolutely does. And then understanding and working with talent acquisition to say, okay, then who are the right people to inspire to lead to drive that change?
Ashley: Who are resilient to the fact that we might need a culture shift. For example, some companies don't already have that ingrained. We need people who have different expertise backgrounds, come from different places in the world, speak different languages. How do we create that diverse team? It has to be super intentional
Claire: because
Ashley: the way that we've done it before didn't work.
Ashley: So if we let that continue and we don't break the rules and we don't smash and rip up everything that we started with to a certain degree, it's going to be really hard to be one of those companies that constantly creates experiences for everyone. That leave them thinking, yeah, this is, this is a very special place and I want to work here and it makes me happy.
Ashley: So it's a long [00:34:00] winded answer, but it is kind of cyclical and it attaches to culture, leadership and talent acquisition altogether to truly be a place where people want to work.
Claire: And I, find it really fascinating. You said, you know, it's those informal moments, but at the same time. Super data driven, right?
Claire: We're looking at, we're intentional. So there's that intentional moments of the data, but then we also, there's that quoi, and there is that, those informalities, how do you balance the two and picking that right person? So if someone is to go out and they are the entrepreneurial minded person, and they want to work at that.
Claire: Dream company, the company that they love, that, you know, I love that Starbucks model. They, they wanna keep coming back. What is the future of work for them? What are the skill sets they should be putting in the time right now? What are the, should be they dedicating to it? Is it a combination of, you know, staying on top of the tech, but also doing the soft skill [00:35:00] training and, and or working in different environments and volunteering?
Claire: what do you recommend? What do you tell people to. Moving up and going into the companies that they're looking to.
Ashley: So I think it was funny cause when we were chatting before we talked about how entrepreneurship to me. Is both a job title and a skill set. And sometimes people forget that. Like they think if I'm an entrepreneur, I have to be starting my own company.
Ashley: And that is so not the case. Same with sales, right? Same with, you know, people think like, Oh, if I'm not in a quota carrying role, I'm not really in sales. I'm like, no, everyone's in sales all the time. If you have an idea, you're in sales. How are you going to convince people? To take your idea, do something with it.
Ashley: Right? Like you're constantly selling concepts. Yeah. So it's human. Yes. Exactly. The cell is human internal organizations. Like when I worked at TD, for example, I was like an internal consultant to all the business lines. It wasn't like. You know, I could sit in my silo and do all the work on my own and it was going to be changing behaviors everywhere and leveraged everywhere in the organization.
Ashley: It was, it took so many people to [00:36:00] influence to sell an idea to for it to come to life and actually like test it. So yeah, first entrepreneurship. Is both a skill set and you can leverage that skill set within an organization. And maybe that's actually where you thrive. Cause it releases some of the pressure of managing your own business, which we all know can be extremely stressful at times.
Ashley: Same with being self and sales and leveraging your sales expertise, consulting expertise. You don't have to go out on your own. You don't have to have a quota carrying role to be very good at that. And I think that kind of goes back to your question around, you know, how do we leverage those things in organizations and what skills do we need to be successful to create a great experience, a great brand if you're a leader yourself, or an entrepreneur owning your own organization.
Ashley: And I think it's leading through change. So we talk about leadership a lot, but it's a different skill to be able to lead through change. And people need different things when they're going through change. Some people are change agents and they're like, let's go. I'm so pumped. Other people are like, holy crap, you're ripping my whole life apart.
Ashley: What are [00:37:00] you doing? So when you have a team, you already have diverse reactions to something as simple as just a change. It can be a, we're moving buildings. And some people will lose their minds about their commute and other people are like, Oh my God, it's updated. It's going to be so pretty. So, leading through change is to me, definitely the most important thing.
Ashley: Yeah, that's me too. I'm just like, Oh, it's new. Sorry. Leading through change is something that I think every leader is going to really have to hone in on because you have a diverse team no matter what the moment is. And to have high EQ to understand where people are coming from, that is another really big one.
Ashley: And we talk about coaching a lot as well. So to create strong and healthy teams, high EQ, being able to coach and ask questions and going back to that curiosity. Asking more than you're telling so that you get a deep understanding of where this person's coming from and their life experiences. That's how you're going to harness a making them happier at work, but their skill [00:38:00] set to be super productive.
Ashley: And so why that's so important to me is like this leadership through change and thinking about, you know, harnessing your people to have a really highly effective team, highly effective teams are happy and they're usually authentic in individual selves. And that is what creates. A happy work environment that creates a healthy culture to if you have a bunch of highly effective teams that are bringing themselves to work and know how to work together really well, you ultimately have an organization that, you know, everywhere you look, you're like, wow, why is everyone so cool here?
Ashley: What is in the water? Why is everyone so friendly? Like, That is literally what it feels like to walk through those organizations. Cause I have clients that have that kind of culture and it amazes me walking through the halls where they're like, Hey, you're new here. What's your name? And they're like introducing yourself.
Ashley: It's not like all heads down in the cubicles. Right. That's like one example of the informal. Nuance of, Oh, I want to come back here. Like I was so welcomed. Whereas in other organizations I can walk through the halls and not one person will look up at me. So it's [00:39:00] just like, that is one of the things that I think we need to be How do we develop skills to be a strong leader and teammate that creates authenticity in that team environment?
Claire: And I, I love what's in the water. Every time I go to Costco, I feel that way. Yeah. I like, if anyone's ever shopped in Costco, I always think like, what's the secret here? What happens at lunchtime around here? Like I want to join in really, really neat topic to, you know, happiness is, is like you said, it's, it's simple.
Claire: The formula is simple, but there's so many complexities that are involved to, to get to that point. Now, this podcast, it's dedicated. I am dedicated to my small towns, the small businesses in small towns. I love talking to Ashley's in the big city, in the big company. And, you know, the reality is, I like to be a messenger [00:40:00] here, sharing, sharing this information, you're sharing this information.
Claire: The reality is, sometimes, you know, we get very complacent. That's natural for human behavior. We're safe you know, discomfort comes with other complications and forces us, and I think it's natural to say that a lot of us, depending on if we're not exposed to The same types of competitions or the same types of movements, especially in smaller communities.
Claire: We're not pushed in the same way. And so I think there's like, obviously there's Positives and there's negatives, but I'm curious where, you know, in the bigger places like LinkedIn, what are some of the emerging trends you're starting to see in the workplace? I know we've talked about in the pandemic, but where.
Claire: Are, you know, smaller communities and where is it moving out? Because like anything, you know, we always joke that, oh, whatever was stylish and, you know, Paris, we'll see it here in Canada. Why in like 5 [00:41:00] years? I, I feel like sometimes same with the bigger cities, like what we're starting to see in the big cities, we're going to see it.
Claire: Soon enough in the smaller towns. Can you be our forecasting? Can you tell us the weather that's coming?
Ashley: Sure. I'll tell you the weather that's coming, but I do believe in this, maybe the entrepreneurial spirit in me, but I do believe that you can be very in the now in applying things in like a minimal viable product, like you can take the big crap happening out there and distill it.
Ashley: Like what I was just talking about with culture shifts and talking about change and leadership. You know what a simple thing to do is create a survey through SurveyMonkey and ask people how they're feeling and then dig deeper and understand. If we have some issues and it can be silly stuff, it's like, I don't have a parking spot in the morning.
Ashley: So I start my day pissed off. And it's like, Oh wow. If we only knew that we just needed to get a couple of spots, downtown Kingston designated parking and that was going to start our employee's day. Like it's sometimes [00:42:00] actually,
Claire: that is awesome.
Ashley: Yeah, learning and why people leave just saying, Hey, instead of this informational interview, which they're not going to tell you shit anyways, not going to tell you crap when you're walking out the door, send a survey, ask them to respond and say, like, it's going to be anonymous.
Ashley: We're going to track it over a year. So we don't know it's you like. There's ways to get the, why didn't you like working here? What do we need to fix to create better brand experiences? So that our people are speaking, you know, over a beer with their family and friends talking about how much they love their job.
Ashley: So there's ways that we can take the macro or the big picture things and make it really simple and implement them fast. But when we think about what the big things are right now. There's definitely the generational shift in Gen Z and thinking about how do we attract young people into roles that one of their number one goals is they want their skills to be used.
Ashley: And I think we all felt it, right? You've been in a job where you're like, I'm not making an impact. Why the heck am I here? I don't feel good. And I don't know why I don't [00:43:00] feel good. It just doesn't feel good. They're very intentional and clear. If you're not going to use my skills. And so speaking of skills, hiring for skills, thinking about skills first makes more diverse teams.
Ashley: So that's a huge benefit and We're less focused on years of experience. what degree did they have? Where did they get it? Which creates blockers for brilliant humans. Like I think of my dad, if he was applying to jobs once upon a time as a disc jockey, who at St. Lawrence college, who barely graduated high school, there's a lot of people that would have passed him off when he's created marketing platforms and built a business that I'm like.
Ashley: I can't even comprehend. So, and even LinkedIn, our CEO now, he was a product person. Didn't go through formal education at first. Like he grew in the organization by being product focused. So it's just so interesting that I think we're just finally feeling like we can like, Let go of some of the structure that we had before around job description.
Ashley: Please need not apply. If you don't have X, Y, Z, and we're becoming much more human about [00:44:00] what skills do you have? How are those transferable? How can we have fluidity of talent and almost a gig economy where you can work on this project in the organization? And then work on this project and not have to be so formalized in this job title stuck over here on this team.
Ashley: So like that talent fluidity is such a fascinating topic to me because it makes people love their job more because their skills are being used. It allows for growth because you're experiencing different teams, different people, different projects. So people obviously are happy with that. And it allows for more diversity in hiring and moving people through the organization to get those experiences.
Ashley: So that's another big one.
Claire: You have dropped. Gems on this episode for anyone, whether you're sitting, like you said, like I said, in, in your basement, you're running a huge company. I think it's so amazing that you said this because I was like hoping you would say it, but the idea of it doesn't have to be this groundbreaking new technology you introduced to the company, or you need to land the next [00:45:00] 1 million grant.
Claire: It can be as simple as just asking the question. Yeah. How can we make this experience better for you? And at the end of the day, You know, okay, I'm going to get this one. Right? We're going to get a third try, happy wife, happy life. You know the joke. Yes. Very outdated expression, but I'm just laughing because I'm like, I nailed one.
Claire: Right. I don't know. We got to come up with something, but like, you know, happy. Yeah. Worker something, something, you know, like
Ashley: worker, more money, more money,
Claire: write that down, write that down. I love it. I think that's what we're striving to every day. Like, how can we find the fulfillment? From an internal perspective, whether you're a team of one or a team of 10 or 100, it's figuring out, it's going back to that question of asking the why.
[00:46:00]
Claire: We're going to end the episode with one more question that you had touched on earlier in the episode. Actually, I have two questions. I lied. Anyone that's listening is like, what did Ashley do? How did she get here? You know, most people would have asked this early on in the episode, but now we've gotten given all these drop these gems.
Claire: But first of all, I'm going to ask, you know, How did you get here? And then the second one is like, you talked [00:47:00] about coaching and mentorship. This is like, I hear it over and over. I just need some accountability. I need a coach. I need a mentor, just something. I just need a touch point. I don't know where to go.
Claire: I don't know where maybe you can shed some, you know, do you have a mentor? How did you find a mentor? And if someone is out there figuring out, I hear this a lot, you touch On it perfectly saying, you know, I'm not feeling that fulfillment or I'm not being challenged or there's no growth for me. Do I stay in the company?
Claire: Do I move? And I think, could you speak to that? Where do you find the mentorship? Where do you get that in this moving world of things are happening so fast? How do you find someone that you can trust that you can talk to that doesn't cost you 20 million a month to have sound advice. Maybe it'll help by you telling us where did Ashley come from.
Claire: Your, your, you know, your nonlinear path into the role that you're in and where we can leave the audience where they can find some, [00:48:00] someone to look up to in the space.
Ashley: A hundred percent. Happy to share. And before we do jump into more about like me, my career background and coaching and mentorship it'd be a miss if we went through this entire chat and did not mention AI.
Ashley: As low hanging fruit, which people can be implementing at any size of the organization. I've been banned from
Claire: talking about AI. That's all I talk about. I was trying to get Okay, thank you.
Ashley: It's like a swear word. It's a swear word. Nobody wants to hear it anymore. But it's one of those things that actually, and sorry, let's rephrase.
Ashley: We can't talk about happiness at work without mentioning AI because AI has a very negative tone to it in a lot of cases, people are feeling it's scary. It's going to take over jobs, but what we're seeing is it's automating 60 to 70 percent of roles right now, but it's not removing jobs. It's taking away the crap that people don't want to do.
Ashley: And it's actually improving employee satisfaction. Like McKinley just put out an article on employee [00:49:00] satisfaction around, I don't want to draft an email for 20 minutes. I want to collaborate and whiteboard on this big strategy, but it takes me so long to write this email because. Writing was not my best subject if I remember in high school, but so
Claire: you're looking at the wrong person.
Ashley: So this is something that I think, again, when we talk about like large orgs and how do we distill that down to implementing it really quickly and really easily. One thing that was so cool that LinkedIn did that's. Like we're pretty scrappy sometimes. Cause we have that startup culture. They gave us a PDF on ideas of how we can implement AI into our jobs today.
Ashley: It was so simple. It was just some ideas around like, here's how you can use chat, UBT to do this. Here's how you can be faster, stronger at that. Here's what co pilot taught us. So if you can have one person champion in your five person business, two person business to say, here's how we can improve our processes to make us work better, have happier, stronger, then that's.
Ashley: Like low hanging fruit, for the lack of a better saying, that I think people should be thinking about. And we won't talk about AI anymore because I [00:50:00] know you mentioned there's a lot of AI chat.
Claire: No, no, no, no. I'm not, it's not a negative. I'm just so. So pleased to hear a positive outcome and that because we live in a world of fear.
Claire: And I love that. And I think if we get to spend the time to create the biggest impact we can and use our skillset and offset that, you know, the, I don't know, data reading, we can get something else, something else being our robotic friends to do it. Fabulous.
Ashley: Learning prompting. Like, once upon a time when we had Google and we were like, what the heck is Google?
Ashley: We had to learn how to search. Like, that was a skill we had to build. Prompting and speaking to an AI chat is helping it to learn from us to be better at what we're trying to get it to do. So, yeah. Yes, there's negatives around any piece of technology in the world. And sometimes we're learning on the fly about those things and social media.
Ashley: And then on the other side, there's a lot of positivity around it. So food for thought around [00:51:00] just something simple. Like, how can we make ourselves better, faster, stronger? In our day to day using something as simple as chat GPT or any of the other AI solutions out there. So that's one thing, but shifting gears away from AI once upon a time, there was no such thing as AI.
Ashley: And I was graduating from U of T. And having a really, really hard time finding a role that spoke to me. And then through a networking opportunity, meeting people, my cousins, friends, husband owned a company, and they were looking for somebody who had expertise in marketing, which I developed by working with my dad on his website, on his social channels and part of the startup company or part of his family run and own company.
Ashley: And so I joined the startup company and I was the. Only person in marketing and the youngest person, and I was a team of one. So got to be really scrappy, roll up my sleeves, define what their brand colors were, it was really interesting [00:52:00] work. Which is where I think my love and passion for branding really started to getting to build a company's visual identity and then understand how brand translates as a part of that.
Ashley: And then I did my master's in industrial relations at the same time, working full time. And I was really passionate about HR and the concept of productivity, engagement, workplace, happiness, how that makes companies stronger. And then I met someone through my master's program, who is the head of talent acquisition at TD at the time.
Ashley: And they reached out and said, you know, I think there's a world where you can use your master's and your marketing experience. And that world was like the birth of employer brand, first role ever at the bank, where we started to talk about employer branding and talent acquisition in that way, marketing on social media brand identity for talent acquisition specifically.
Ashley: And then I moved from the green side to the blue side. I like those colors because they're still both like Jedi colors, but moved to LinkedIn because they were like, we need an expert to help teach a lot of companies at once at scale about employer branding. So I did like this really cool role at LinkedIn at [00:53:00] first where I would be a keynote speaker and I get to travel across Canada and talk to large enterprise, small enterprises, and just talk about the importance of branding and help coach them through like, how do we use data to inform our content strategy?
Ashley: How do we use internal storytelling, which is really the show me not tell me as a company. And so that was really rewarding because he got to hear like live feedback from companies of all sizes and trying to figure this out. So that was fun. And then I got my own book of business because that entrepreneurial spirit wanted to test the waters of sales and having my own quota.
Ashley: And it's been a blast and I get to structure my day just like an entrepreneur would. And I think about my clients just like an entrepreneur would. And so although it's the domain of a company, like still very much using those expertise.
Claire: That is awesome. And talk about growth and not linear and following what you were called to do and that you were excited and not afraid, not afraid.
Ashley: It's calculated risk, but there's some moments where I called my dad and said, dad, do I leave an 85, [00:54:00] 000 person organization with so much career opportunity and growth for this other opportunity? And I just remember his response was like, so flat. He goes, you got to risk it for the biscuit. I was like, that's the advice?
Ashley: I was like, okay. So I guess, but like, so loved my time at TD, loved my time at that marketing role, startup position, but like have never looked back. Love my job. And I highly recommend people to take more career chances calculated, of course. But it's amazing what you don't, you don't know what you don't know.
Ashley: And you don't know what. I did not know it was possible to have some of the job titles I had because those jobs actually weren't even created whenever I was in university. They didn't exist. Like I was the first one ever to be an employer branding at TD. Now there's a team of people that focus on that.
Ashley: Right? So it's like, you just don't know what's possible in your career. And dreaming big is one of the tenants at LinkedIn that I love so much because. Too often we put ourselves in a box. We think everything's so [00:55:00] linear. We look at others to give us validation or to even, like, benchmark where we should be or what we should be doing.
Ashley: And all of that is so, so wrong because you never know what doors are going to open and every opportunity opens a totally different group of doors you didn't know existed. So. Taking some of that risk. I
Claire: agree. And I remember when they released Shopify, the chief officer of happiness, I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
Claire: Like, this is a very exciting world. You know, this, these weren't the jobs that our parents were applying for it. That's for sure. Now to leave this episode, I think I want to talk about, you know, the role of mentorship networking and having that. I think it's important within the. LinkedIn, because you're there, you know, inside and out.
Claire: Are there opportunities for people? Is there networking and mentorship opportunities within LinkedIn?
Ashley: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're big on, like, we obviously have very formal, like [00:56:00] employee resource groups that have obviously there's intersectionality, but different, like we have black inclusion group.
Ashley: We have women at LinkedIn, which that creates a lot of mentorship circles and partners. Across the organization, but it doesn't have to be formal again. We do something called organized by our diversity and inclusion team coffee chats where all they do is create a spreadsheet. They randomize people, and they say this month, you have to pick a date and this person is the 1 who books it.
Ashley: And this person picks where you're going. And you go out for coffee. It's as simple as connecting people face to face again, and just saying, take some time for yourself to meet other colleagues in the office that you might not normally sit down and meet with. And I, that's one of my favorite programs.
Ashley: It's so simple, but it's great. We could be doing that at organizations of 10 organizations of 20, whatever it is, organizations of even two, how do you create the space to sit down face to face and do nothing, but not like talk about work, even just talk to each other. So that's one thing. I find with coaching and mentorship, it's never [00:57:00] just about the career and the job.
Ashley: It's about the holistic person. And if you don't get to know the holistic person, it's going to be impossible to coach and it's going to be impossible to have someone help you get to that dream role or get to that dream place in life, whatever you want to define that as. So being human, getting back to being human is something I think COVID shook a little bit.
Ashley: Like it was hard to do that. So face to face interactions, virtual coffees with no agenda. That's important. And just talking on a human level.
Claire: Love it. I love it. And I, like I said, you have just been so inspiring, sharing all these things that maybe some of us deep down inside, we kind of knew, but to hear it and hear that there's data to back it up and statistics of like, this is a successful organization when I think it really helps to, for the, this new generation of the workplace, it's, it's exciting.
Claire: So Ashley, thanks for being here today. This is awesome.
Ashley: You're awesome. You're awesome. You know, I think that about you. [00:58:00] I hope it helps people, even if like one or two things reinforce what they're doing or they can take away. I think that means it's a success.
Claire: I agree. Cheers girl. Thank you.
Ashley: You soon.
