Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Anything is needed. Okay, I’ll go ahead with the intro and then we’ll welcome everyone. Today we have a special guest from one of the most innovative comfort technology companies in America. That’s right, the bedding and mattress company, home of the one and only Purple Grid. I actually have one of their pillows and I can tell you from personal experience. This isn’t a paid plug. I’m just going to tell you the disclosure there, but it’s awesome. I love that pillow.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Joining us today is Courtney Hernandez from the HR team as we explore.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Yeah, thank you so much for me.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay, let me do that sentence again. Give You’re gonna have to give a full second before you start. Okay. I told you I’m the one that messes up. So, joining us today is Courtney Hernandez from the HR team, and we’ll be exploring the impact of engaging employee events and how to level up your own team building activities.  So Courtney, thank you for joining us. We’re super excited to hear more about Courtney. She now leads employee experience initiatives at A skilled events and communication specialist. She’s made her mark at Purple by planning celebrations for over 2100 attendees, launching the company’s largest corporate values event, and designing recognition platforms that elevate employee engagement.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Courtney is also a proud mom of two kids, one angel baby, sorry about that, and a very old cat. Married to her best friend, Estabbon, since 2016, she’s grateful for a partner who supports her personal and professional goals.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): 

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Thank you for that genuine bio And sorry about your baby that you lost earlier this year. It’s so hard. I’m so sorry for you and your family. Thank you.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Thank you so much.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): I appreciate

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But we are excited to have you and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): we haven’t had any topics about events and I think this is something that every company does in some form or another. Maybe not 2100 employees but in some way or…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): 

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): most companies have events and it’s a crucial part of a business and I’m excited to hear more about how you’ve made those successful at. But first off, we want to hear a little bit about you and your background. So, where did you go to high school?

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Yeah. …

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): I went to two different high schools. I started high school at Zama American High School, which actually is located in Tokyo, Japan. And I finished high school in Huntsville, Alabama at Gryon High School. So, that’s kind of all over the world a little bit.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, definitely. and so you mentioned earlier that you are a military brat, right? I love that term.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Yes. Yeah,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It sort of sounds like a little So that’s…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): That kind of explains that Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): why you’ve been all over the place.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): 

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): My dad served in the military for about 30 years and so I was on long for the ride for all of that.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): We kind of moved about every two years of my life. So yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): What branch of the military?

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Yeah, he was in the army and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay. …

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): So yeah, we really enjoyed that as a family and it definitely opened my eyes up to lots of different cultures and people and I don’t regret it at all. I loved it.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): thank you to your dad and your whole family for your service because I know that’s a team effort and sacrifice and very important. So, we really appreciate that and thanks for being here today.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Thank you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’re excited to dive more into the events. I mean, we’re not just talking about a cheap pizza party kind of as an afterthought type of a thing. So let’s start off with this question. How do employee events contribute to company culture and profitability at Purple? Because there always has to be an ROI.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): 

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’re not doing this just for the feel-good. There has to be a business component there as well. So, yeah, tell us how they contribute.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Yeah, absolutely.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): And I actually really love that you brought up the pizza party thing because I feel like that is what people think of initially when they’re ” company events, like you’re not going to lure me or keep me here with pizza parties.” And I’m like, “I have never thrown a pizza party.” That’s the last thing that would come to my mind. And so I love that actually so yeah company events are one of the best retention efforts I think that a company can have and I think it’s pretty common knowledge these days that it’s a lot less expensive for a company to retain an employee than to hire and onboard someone new.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): And so the things that we do and host annually and have become part of our calendar every year are traditions now. We have these annual summer events that our employees have come to expect and love and their families expect and they know, Purple always does something for us in the summer and that’s something that they anticipate and love and that really brings this sense of community and I think more than just events, it’s community that we’re trying to build and I love that it’s become like instead

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): of, party planners is maybe what it used to be called. Culture and experience is kind of what the titles have shifted to because that’s really what it is. It’s the workplace experience because you’re not there just for a few hours. You’re there for the bulk of your day. And so, what is your experience at work?  And how can we make your day experience feel enjoyable and not just like I’m giving you a piece of cold Domino’s pizza and saying don’t leave for that better salary, No, it’s building that community that really matters and retains employees.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And those titles really are. I think the reason we’ve shifted to that is because it shows why behind those roles, right? It’s to have a greater experience for the employees.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Yeah, definitely.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, it totally makes sense that they would head that direction with the titles.  And I would think to be more purposeful, too. Instead of just talking about, hey, I’m in charge of planning an event. The focus isn’t on just doing this thing, but it’s about doing this thing for a purpose to help people feel connected and help them feel more tied to the company as well in a positive way. I really like that you mentioned anticipation of how both the employees and their families look forward to things.  Christa and I have talked about this with our own family of planning a vacation or an activity or something and it gives you something to look forward to both for us and for the kids and I think that definitely applies to the workspace where having something really exciting to look forward to is just this positive thing that you anticipate.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): 

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): The anticipation is part of the experience. I think it is like its own event and…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): 100%.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): and for our kids it’s almost the most exciting part of the whole experience is just anticipating it And actually …

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Go.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): go ahead. No, Right.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): I think that anticipation is the first step of planning an event, too. I would like to ask what it is that you guys want to do? Because I don’t pretend to know what everyone’s thinking. I can get feedback at the end of an event and say, ” What would you like to do next year?” But they may have a different idea. And so, getting that feedback at the end of the event and saying, “Okay, what is it you guys want to do next year?” It is preparing me for next year. And that’s all, adding up to that anticipation for next year and getting them ready even before they’re even thinking about it.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): 

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): So, Yeah,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, definitely. And one of my favorite self-help books, it’s called The Happiness Advantage. And one of the main takeaways I got is the importance of having something to look forward to. And that’s just with happiness in general. But when you want employees to be happy in your having something within the workplace setting that they can look forward to, it not only keeps them there, it retains them and saves the company money, but it keeps them happier to be there, which means they’re more productive employees. People have too.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): 100%. Yes.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We have a caring side and we have a money side, but they need to both be there. And we know that not all events are created equal. You’ve got smaller scale events that are more teambased. You’ve got larger companywide events. You’ve got different types of budgets that are allocated to different events throughout the year.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Tell us how you’ve used employee feedback to shape better events at Purple.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Yeah. …

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): I love feedback. It’s my favorite. because I said, I don’t pretend to be the perfect planner and know exactly how everyone feels. I have definitely learned over this year. So, I’ve planned four large summer events over my time at Purple. And I want to say every year we get a couple similar feedback and the primary one is there. Okay, backtrack. We used to take everyone to Lagoon every year.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): So that’s like the local amusement park, And everyone still really wants to go there.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): So that’s always the first feedback that we get, which we always kind of laugh about is we’re like, I want to go to Lagoon and then that’s just not going to happen anymore because we’re just too big of a company to take everyone there. But we used to be a buncher so it made more sense. So that’s the first amount of feedback we get. So, we’re kind of like, “Okay, throw that out.” And then we kind of keep going. But it’s interesting to kind of like you find the other trends in feedback. So, you find things like people typically complaining about a couple different things. You’re like, “Okay, it’s temperature, lines, and you kind of have to weed through the things that you’re like, I didn’t have any control of these things, like the weather.”

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): and then you find other themes and you’re like, ” that is actually something I could have controlled. I could have foreseen these things such as communication lines, timing of when they were informed. One really cool piece of feedback that actually changed the cadence of types of events we do was someone was like, “I really like that we have family events in the summer, but I didn’t really like as a person that doesn’t have kids, I wanted to hang out with my co-workers and I didn’t really get to because they were really focused on their kids and I was like, ” that’s really interesting.”

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): because I hadn’t considered that cuz I’m also a person with kids so I’m like kids it’s fun families and so now we changed the cadence of summer is our family event and winter holiday is our employees only event and so we’re kind of catering to that but that piece of feedback really stuck out and we listen to that I really do care about what our employees are saying and so you kind of have to find those gems within those little things  that people were saying you’re like I’m so sorry it was really hot it’s the state fair like we can do about it and so I think those things can really shape a lot of what you do as an engagement person at your work is just finding those trends and then seeing okay step back what is the root of what’s here they want to connect more with the people they work

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): how can we accommodate this without taking away that people do want to bring their families. So, we’re accommodating the family aspect, but we’re also finding a way that people can still connect with their co-workers outside of work. So, that was something that I took away from so yeah, that was one thing I really loved about that feedback. But, yeah, there’s another thing I wanted to mention and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Interesting.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): I brought this up in my bio was this huge values week event that we just did and something that’s really interesting about this is this long values week event and it was this huge hit at our company.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): and a lot of people don’t know we actually did values week last year too. And I can tell you probably 20 people know that we did that and all those people are in because it did not go over for a couple of reasons. We did not have executive buyin. We did not have a budget.  And I also think we just didn’t have the right communication lines for it. So I had an event planned for every day going over different things. And we had maybe five to 10 people show up for each event. And I just like to call that our soft launch. But I took that and I was like, “Okay, that’s not how I wanted that to go.”

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): and this year I was like, “Okay, I’ve got to learn.” And so I took that and I got some more anecdotal data from it. And I think I mentioned to this to you guys before. I went up and I asked people, “Hey, why do you never come to my events?” and I talked to someone and he was like, “Well,” and he’s a really nice person. He’s in analytics and they typically don’t come to events because they’re very busy  And he’s like, if they’re over an hour, we’re definitely not coming.” He’s speaking for his department, they’re definitely not coming. and what was the other thing he said? we’re not super social, so if it requires too much interaction with other people, that’s going to be hardressed. I’m like, “Okay, that’s good to know.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): And he’s like and we have a lot of tickets we’ve got a lot going on. And so from that I took it timely. It needs to feel relevant to them to feel like they actually want to get up from their computer and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): What’s up?

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): go do whatever it is. And so I think that for this second go round at values week, I took that critique and I was like, “All right, all of our events are less than an hour, they’re going to be something that everybody wants to get out of their seat and go do.” We got executive buyin. I had a significantly larger budget because I asked for it this year in our annual budget.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): And the one piece that I would do for this following year is I’m going to choose a different month…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): because it was at the end of the quarter. So there were some groups who were just slammed with finances and other things and that was my one thing that I was to participate in and they were like we can’t. So that timeliness was a little bit tricky for them. So it’s all about that feedback.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That makes sense.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, I love how you talked about some pieces of feedback that you didn’t have control over, some that you did. You took direct action on the things that you could control and you had that personal touch to be able to go talk to people in addition to, more larger scale feedback of looking at surveys, post events, all of that takes a lot of effort and commitment to do that. One thing that I learned that I think was kind of interesting at a previous company, I helped contribute to some events, surveys and feedback as well. And one of the interesting learning points was we had everyone rank about 10 different events from most favorite to least favorite.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And that one was incredibly insightful because we knew the cost of the different events and they were not equal. Some of them were a lot more Yeah.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): That’s so interesting.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): That would be very insightful.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Some of them were a lot more expensive than the others. And there was one event that took very little planning and it was exceptionally cheap and it was in the upper rankings of favorites. And so we’re like, “Holy cow.” I mean, we could do that same event multiple times. It doesn’t have to be a once a year thing.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Thank you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Love it that much. And then you start thinking about okay so there’s happiness per dollar abstract concept of if this is at the top and we’re spending x number of dollars and this one’s at the bottom and we’re spending x number of dollars you can kind of count each person as one unit and calculate happiness units as a percentage on the dollars you’ve spent.  So, as much as it can be quantified, obviously you were able to see you got a lot more people there. you could try to go back and calculate dollars spent by number of attendees and satisfaction score, dollars spent, number of attendees, satisfaction score, and create some type of a ranking system of performance on events.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And then I think that that helps get that executive buy in when you want to try something new too.  Yeah.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): I think there’s so many variables there because there was that executive buy-in and there was a visual aspect. The first time around it was probably hard to tell that it was. The second time around decorated the entire office. You could not walk in without realizing there was something going on.  I was like, I don’t want anyone to be able to walk in and be able to just go straight to their desk without bumping into a balloon arch or something.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): And so yeah,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I loved what you were saying about last year’s values week, what things you didn’t have and then now what you had this year what made it successful and that was having executive buyin, having a budget and what was the third let’s see it was communication having better communication awareness of it and…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): I’m patient. Yeah. And even…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): and so I think those are very Hey,…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Then there’s improvement in those things. We did feedback forms on them. People were like, I wish I would have known a week before so I could have blocked out more time on my calendar to spend more time on the events.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): there is Yeah,…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): because we kind of were “Surprise, it’s value week.” and so there’s improvement and I want to improve that even more so there’s more participation. And like I said, I just want to soak in all the feedback. I love it.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): back is huge. So, how do you strive to maintain equity of time and budget when events need to be different for different groups? For example, you are a hybrid employee. So, you’re sometimes at home, sometimes in the office, and you have some variance with employees that way. So, how do you manage that?

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): And Purple is interesting in that we do have a manufacturing wing as well and a retail wing. And so there’s a lot of different pieces. And so it’s just planning. I think I do have separate budgets for different groups and…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.  Yeah. Yeah.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): We created something called an engagement committee that we meet and we plan and I’m saying this is how we’re going to do it here in Lehi.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): how are you guys going to implement something similar that achieves the same goals but it’s going to make it work for manufacturing because we want them to have a similar experience.  It doesn’t have to look the same because they can’t throw this huge week-long thing where everybody just stops making the product because it’ll make the business stop. But they can do similar things. And so, it just takes a lot of planning, in advance, but we do separate the budget out.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): And so thankfully I have a lot of visibility into my budget in advance which I love. it didn’t always look that way but this past year was actually the first year I could see my entire budget which I love. And so I can say okay this is how much is allocated towards your group and we have the engagement committee out in Georgia and they’re like okay and I pretty much give them free range as long as they understand the goals and objectives and they make it work for them.  And then same thing with our retail arm. I said, “Hey,” I gave them kind of an outline. This is what I would like Values Week to look like for retail. How do you want it to look? And we kind of came up with a game plan. And same thing, I allotted money to them. And so I don’t think it’s a great idea to just dictate every little detail because it just can’t look the same.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): But I do think it’s important to not just hoard all of the money for each HQ because every employee wants to have that same experience of feeling like they matter and feeling like they belong. And actually one of our corporate values is community. And we have one of those little fun blurbs and…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): taglines and it says we believe that when people feel like they belong somewhere, their best ideas emerge. And I really believe that. And so as we keep building that community, we’re going to keep getting better work and productivity from people.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s amazing.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I think allowing there to be some equitable differences makes a lot of sense. because you have to be mindful and be a realist of the different realities of business and every business is a little bit different and where you’ve got manufacturing and retail and corporate offices those are distinctly different environments. So maybe as we’re kind of getting to the end here, if you have any more advice specifically for how you’ve leveled up involvements of remote team members or…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): how you’ve catered specifically to some of the retail or manufacturing just give us some of your advice of things that you’ve seen specifically make a big difference.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Yeah, for sure.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): One of the things this time around, for remote, that I was really trying to focus on was finding some of those virtual experiences that could bring those hybrid teams together.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): So, for this value week, I keep referring back to this, but it was a really cool event that we did do a virtual escape room that was available for remote and immersion teams.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s cool.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): Anybody could hop on and it was a really cool company that basically hosted a web app and you could hop on and you had to do puzzles and clues together and escape a Zoom room. It was really neat and people really liked it. It was really hard. I didn’t have to do it. I just had fun and everybody and I was just kind of running. But people really enjoyed that event and I think that was a great way to connect groups that are hybrid with a little competition and thrown in there. And so that was a really cool thing.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): and just like finding things outside of the box. There’s so many tools and resources out there just waiting to be utilized. And I think that’s one good thing that came out of co is way more resources for remote people and…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): teams. We do have probably two to 300 remote employees. So it’s not a small group. It’s and they matter just as much as everyone else. And so I’m probably going to challenge myself more next year to find even more ways to incorporate them. But another way we do reach out to 

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): So, we have a big one in Georgia. We have another big one here. But we actually send out a stipend to all of our remote employees for x amount of dollars plus a certain amount of money for all of their dependents so that they can go out and…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): do something in the summer with their families so they don’t feel like, just cuz I don’t live in Utah or Georgia, I don’t get to go do anything fun on the company’s money. so that’s something cool that we do at Purple that I’ve never actually really heard of any other place doing. So, we send it out in a gift card basically and they say, ” we’re gonna go to Mount Rushmore. We’re gonna go wherever.” and that people really appreciate that we do that. So, yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Welcome. Yeah,…

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I think that’s awesome. And I think the general theme I’m getting is that you don’t use the differences in a company to give excuses or justifications for why you might not cater to everybody,…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): That’s cute.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): you’re just doing your absolute best to cater to everybody in the ways that you can and in ways that keep the business moving forward. And I have loved hearing about how purposeful that doesn’t work very well. That’s good at Park’s full with your feedback and just keeping that effort moving forward and trying to keep as much community and engagement with all the employees that you can. And I think everything you shared with us is very actionable for our listeners and…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): 

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I’m excited for them to hear it. definitely. Thank you for your time today and sorry I cut you off. Any final words before we wrap it up, Courtney? We appreciate you as well,…

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): No, I’m just really excited.

 

Kourtney Hernandez (Guest): This was awesome and I really appreciate you reaching out to me and I’m just so happy. Thank you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Courtney, and everything you shared. And to everyone listening, make sure to follow the culture profit and leave a review. We appreciate it. You guys. Thanks, Courtney.