Ep 1: Curbing leadership inbreeding with intentional training plans

Meet Juli Weber, Director of Leadership Development @ Conservice‍

Follow Juli on LinkedIn

‍

Juli Weber has been a training and HR professional for over 16 years, training individuals, managers, and leaders in companies big and small, nationwide and across industries. Juli is the Director of Leadership Development at Conservice, a national leader in utility billing management based in Logan, UT.

About Conservice

In 2000, Conservice had only two employees and a single client. Today, the company has become the nation's largest utility management provider. With more than 2,000 team members, Conservice manages utility services for more than 5.2 million properties nationwide, including multifamily communities, commercial properties, single-family homes, student housing, and military housing.

Episode Highlights

Matt: “Juli, you’re an HR leader at Conservice, the nation’s largest utility management company, servicing over five million locations. You’ve welcomed a new CEO and executive team after the employee base doubled from 2,000 to over 4,000. That’s a lot of change. From your perspective, can you tell us how company culture drives greater profits?"

‍

‍The Costs of Employee Turnover

Juli Weber: “I do feel like attrition is something that is heavily impacted. And when we looked at the cost of turnover, for an employee, it's relatively expensive.”

“By the time you factor in all the elements of the leaders' time and the trainers' time, and the recruiters' time. I mean, there's just so many factors – shipping computers, shipping them back...”

“Anytime we can create a connection on a personal level with an employee. Then we have a higher chance of limiting that turnover or limiting the attrition.”

“If we're reducing turnover or increasing attrition because people are staying and they're working through the stressful time, or they're continuing to work through, or they're even in a space where they feel safe that they can address or talk to you about issues that that's a win-win and that that's gonna hit your bottom line. I guarantee it. It's so hard. When an employee can say, Hey boss, I don't feel safe, I don't feel respected, I don't feel heard, How do we fix that? That changes the game, so, Super important.”

‍

The Importance of Being Intentional About Culture

Juli Weber: “You can't just let [culture] do its thing. Every time you bring a new individual into your team, or into your department, or into your organization actually influences the culture. And so you have to be cognizant about what that looks like and when you're choosing who gets to come into your organization from our recruiting standpoint.”

‍

The Impact of A People-First Leader

 Juli Weber: “I had a leader at a company prior to working here.  I recognized really early on when I would text her like, ‘Hey, I'm not feeling good. I'm gonna work from home’ or ‘I'm gonna take the day off.’ Her first response to me was not ‘Okay, you can take the day off’ or ‘Okay, that's fine.” Her first response was, ‘I'm so sorry. I hope you feel better.’”

“I don't even know if she knew she was doing this intentionally, but that subtlety of putting me first over the approval, the policy, the rule, whatever it was the situation. that is something I have incorporated.  Any time someone's like, ‘Hey, I'm not feeling good.’ my first initial response is, ‘I'm sorry that you're not feeling well.’ I always try to put the people first in my responses. I do that in emails when I have an employee whose Mom died or was in an accident. My first response is always, ‘How is everybody?’ 

“I've tried to put people first in all of the situations that I can.”

‍