Perception is reality - Denise Jackson

Guest Denise Jackson, Head of People Operations at Quibi talks about bite sized messaging, the power of perception, and thinking beyond generations in a multigenerational workforce.

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​Nate Randall:       
Cool, so yeah, thanks for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Denise Jackson:     
Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me.

Nate Randall:       
You bet. So, Denise, you've worked at a couple of my favorite companies. One, Hulu, from a personal consumption perspective, where we're big fans here. We've been sort of cutting the cord for a while now, and recently got into Hulu, and are loving it. And then, of course, Active is a really great company if people aren't familiar with it.

Nate Randall:       
So, currently, you're at Quibi. Did I get that right?

Denise Jackson:     
Yeah, Quibi.

Nate Randall:       
Quibi. There's not a lot of information out there if I'm trying to find out what it is, so I signed up for the super secret keep me in the loop email. But maybe tell me what you can about the company, and your role there, and what exciting things are going on.

Denise Jackson:     
Yeah. We're founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman is our CEO.

Nate Randall:       
Wow!

Denise Jackson:     
I know. When I was approached with this opportunity, I was like, "How can I not go and work for two powerhouses like that?"

Nate Randall:       
Right.

Denise Jackson:     
What we are doing at Quibi is ... Jeffrey, over the time that he's been researching this area of short-form television, he's found that people are watching and consuming a lot of their content on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and most of that content is in short-form. And so, people are watching cat videos, and videos about pranks, and all of those type of things, but no one is really putting the capital behind the content that they're viewing.

Denise Jackson:     
What he's decided to do is, make a platform that purely mobile based. We are only doing short-form so most of the shows will be less than 10 minutes, so that no matter where someone is, they have the ability to watch our content. So, if you're on a subway, if you're on a bus, if you're in the back of an Uber or a Lyft, if you're at school and you have a few minutes in between classes, you can just pull out your phone.

Denise Jackson:     
Meg a lot of times says, "We walk around with these little televisions in our pockets all the time, why not capitalize on that and make those mobile moments meaningful and giving people an opportunity to digest content wherever they are? Everything from regular television to news and everything in between."

Nate Randall:       
Yeah. That's great. Maybe we can segue a little bit in the storytelling because I think that's a lot of what you guys are doing as a business. And obviously, there's a great synergy there when we talk about telling stories in HR to our employees.

Nate Randall:       
I'd love to talk about the importance of storytelling, the importance of employees perception, and even if it's not necessarily directly related to reality.

Nate Randall:       
So, talk to me a little bit about how important it is in telling a good story, guiding employee perceptions, how does that tie in the culture? Just the whole sort of issue there.

Denise Jackson:     
Yeah, I mean I think that a lot of times we put out our benefit programs and we ... At least in my history in the past, when I was earlier in my career, wasn't doing a good job telling a story behind it or the reason or purpose behind some of the benefits that I was putting out.

Denise Jackson:     
I feel like there is an opportunity for us now to package our benefits in a different way because we have multiple generations working together.

Denise Jackson:     
What I've started to try and do is, package our benefits in a way so that I am telling a broader story around it. I can put out a communication and say, "These are ... " Regardless of the generation that you're in, if family planning is something that is front of mind right now, it's I know it's happening or I have no idea if I ever want to have children, these are the types of benefits that we can put in place so that we can then grab somebody's attention, regardless of where they are in their thought process.

Denise Jackson:     
Just last year, when I was at Hulu, when we rolled out the student loan repayment benefit, and we had a ton of people that were reaching out, just because of how we packaged it, that didn't even have student loans that were proud of the benefit that we put in place.

Denise Jackson:     
So, telling that story, and the story behind it, and the reasons why we're doing it, it's because ... We're putting this benefit out because this is the crisis that we're dealing with. People throughout all generations are being affected by this, and putting out that backstory, and giving the background behind it, allows employees to feel proud of where they work. It helps with the culture. It helps with retention. All of those things, knowing that their employer is invested in not just their well-being, but the well-being of others who may have needs that are different from theirs.

Nate Randall:       
Yeah. It's sort of that glow around doing good things, you know? It really transcends. You brought up millennial's and generations. I think it's funny that you are guaranteed at every HR conference you go to, there's going to be at least one panel about how millennial's are different, how you need to treat millennials different, how they want this, they want that.

Nate Randall:       
I think, aren't we sort of missing something when we talk like that about generations? I know you kind of hit on this, but are we missing something when we loop people in like that? Shouldn't it have more to do with your life-stage, your lifestyle, your consumption preferences?

Denise Jackson:     
Yeah. It's funny. I was actually just talking to someone about that recently. I am at an age where I'm on that cusp of, "Am I a millennial? Am I Gen X?" I'm constantly jumping back-and-forth between a line. If someone saw my age, they would be like, "Well, this person, she probably has several children by now. She's married." Because I feel like we, more often than not, bucket people based on their generational. "She's this age so she should have this going on, and so these are the types of benefits we should offer her." I'm probably going to be paying student loans when my children one day are in college. You know?

Denise Jackson:     
We should be thinking about, "Okay what life-stage could our employees be in?" And going back to storytelling and packaging them in a certain way, so that everyone feels like their needs are being met. Because the worst thing is to put out a benefits program, and someone feels like, "All these boxes, I can't chalk off any of them. None of these benefits are for me."

Denise Jackson:     
So, how can we think about, "Okay, these are the life-stages that if we have new parents, what type of benefits would they need?" If you think about that, there are also opportunities for you to check off multiple boxes because new parents may also be thinking about paying down their debts, so let's put a student loan re-payment benefit in place because they're growing their families, they're trying to get their debt down, they're having kids, they need help with their finances or financial wellness, or childcare related benefits, can span different generations and lifestyles, just how you spin it.

Nate Randall:       
Following on to the thread of what we've been talking about, all of these various options, employee choice, perceived choice, the number of permutations of types of people and where they're at in their life-stage. I know that we're both at least somewhat passionate about what I might call choose your own adventure benefits, where you would be able to go in and in really craft yourself a somewhat personalize benefits package, which theoretically would meet the needs of a wider birth of the population.

Nate Randall:       
Talk to me a little bit about why it's so important to you to pursue giving employees choice?

Denise Jackson:     
Well, it goes back to that life-stages thing, but there's nothing that's one-size fits all. Right? We have all of these. We have recent grads, we have people who are just getting married, there are people who are having babies, retiring all working together in the same organization.

Denise Jackson:     
And so, there's no way for me to be able to put together a benefits package that's going to make everybody happy. Right? I could say, "I'm paying 100% for everyone's benefits, even your families." To an employee, they might say, "Well, how is that fair? Because I don't have a family the company is putting more money towards what? How do I benefit from that? That's a couple of thousand dollars a year that I'm losing out on."

Denise Jackson:     
I actually really like this, choose your own adventure, build your own plan. I know it's complicated, from a cafeteria plan standpoint, to put together health plans, and add medical, dental, vision, all of those and ancillary benefits all into them.

Denise Jackson:     
But, I think that there is a way for us to say, for these extra benefits, "How do we put student loan repayment, parental benefits like childcare?" I know that there's a company out there that helps with lactation support, and financial wellness, and college planning, and retirement.

Denise Jackson:     
All of those things, how do we package those together and say, "You're not a benefits professional, let me help put together the medical plans. The medical, dental vision, those type of things. But for the things that will be impacting your life outside of that, why don't you decide what you want. So, if you get this bucket of money, why don't you then say, "I want to put $1,000 towards this a year. I want to put $500 towards this benefit." You, as an individual, are able to create what your benefits package looks like. As your life-stages change, as you go from being maybe a recent grad to having a family, or getting closer to retirement, and your needs change, you can start pivoting and making changes and adjustments to the benefits that are offered to you, rather than me as the benefits professional dictating, "Okay, well this is our package and you get what you get. If you don't need any of this, then well at least you get to work here."

Nate Randall:       
Yeah, exactly. You're right. That's, that crutch of, "Why is this difficult?" People go back to the regulations, and there's a lot of excuses you hear when you bring this to your consultant or whatever service provider, name one.

Nate Randall:       
But I feel like we've solved way more difficult information and technology problems than this.

Denise Jackson:     
Yeah.

Nate Randall:       
So, I do feel like for a reasonable investment, somebody could create a way to do this, that's administratively much more easy than I think we make it out to be.

Denise Jackson:     
Yeah, I know. I mean, I know that there are companies out there that are doing something similar, and they're building these platforms in-house, and this technology in-house, and there has to be a way for somebody to say, "Okay, we give employees this amount of money," and let them choose. And they get down to zero, or as close to zero as possible. Then they help manage the enrollments and the administration of that. There has to be a way.

Nate Randall:       
Yeah. The other thing I've thought about this is that we have a world now where people don't stay at jobs for their entire career. You're constantly trying to compare and contrast your current job, your current package, your current salary, benefits, bonuses, whatever, to whatever your next step is going to be. How easy would it be if it was like, "Here's your salary. Here's how much you get for benefits." "Well, what benefits can I get?" "You can get anything, you buy them." Right? Then you'd be able to compare really easily between companies, just from a financial perspective because you would have that comfort to know, "I have the freedom to choose whatever benefits I want. It's just a matter of how much money they're going to give me towards them."

Denise Jackson:     
Well, and what's funny is, this conversation started with HSA's, right? And we're consumers of everything in our lives, why shouldn't we be consumers of our healthcare? I think that's probably a whole other debate, of how that conversation has gone, but people are consumers of everything in their lives. You try and tell someone, "I have this product." They're going to go online, search, and do a ton of research. So, I'm sure someone would appreciate if you give them the right tools, to be able to make those educated decisions, and knowing, "Okay, this is what comes with this benefit." And making sure that we're constantly doing education, so that when it does come time for open enrollment, they're like, "Okay, I know exactly what's available to me. I know what is included in everything." They're putting value on what is important to them.

Denise Jackson:     
And then for me as a benefits professional, that only helps me with my analysis of the benefit plans I'm putting out. I'm saying, "Okay, everyone's putting a ton of money in this, so maybe we enhance this benefit a little bit more." It just helps me with my reporting, and in looking at, as I'm being strategic over the years, what types of other ... If people are putting a lot of money towards wellness and gym memberships, then maybe I need to add more things like that into my package.

Nate Randall:       
Yeah. I think you touched on something important there that is, we've spent a lot of time in benefits and HR trying to educate people. The way we're doing it is by putting information in front of them. But I would say that going out and ... We've also done a great job at discounting our employees' intelligence when it comes to some of these things. I think that everybody is perfectly capable of understanding and making good decisions for themselves.

Nate Randall:       
The way we let people choose their benefits plans doesn't facilitate them actually learning. It doesn't feel like you're making a choice when you're choosing option one or two.

Denise Jackson:     
One of the things that I try to do is, not only do communications during open enrollment. You get thrown so much information at the end of the year. I'm like, "Okay, here is medical plan one, two and three. Choose one." We talk about that in an hour, maybe an hour and a half session, and you just gloss over everything, and you're like, "Okay, great. Now go choose your benefits."

Denise Jackson:     
I think we have so much access at our fingertips on a regular basis, there is a bit of an expectation that you are going to start providing more information. Like you said, I'm actually surprised over the past several years, how educated people are in their benefits and they want to know more. Or when I do provide them more, they're so appreciative of, "That was the most detailed but beneficial benefits presentation I've ever been to."

Denise Jackson:     
Because no one's taking the time to actually explain, "Hey, this is how a medical plan works." And as a refresher because maybe I was in my 20's, went to the doctor a couple of times, maybe a few more times in my 30's, now I need to start using my benefits, educating them and understanding, "Yes, you're choosing between medical plan A, B, and C. But this one has an out-of-pocket maximum of this, another one has an out-of-pocket maximum of this." They don't understand what that means.

Denise Jackson:     
And so, we need to a better job of educating our employees on what actually those features are or what each of those components are. And since we're offering the benefit, I think that it's kind of on us to do it.

Nate Randall:       
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. This conversation has been awesome. I really appreciate you spending the time with me here.

Denise Jackson:     
​Yeah, no problem. Thanks again. I think it just got my juices flowing a little bit too on some more things that I need to start doing.