PwC's Kim Jones on Improving Workplace Trust

Roula Amire
2024-10-11T12:55:17-04:00
Podcast
Great Place To Work

"Leaders forget that you can't just tell people what they should do, you also have to model it yourself. There's a little bit of, 'Do as I say, and not what I do.' It's so important to model that behavior, and show that you believe in it."

Kim Jones, managing director of talent strategy and people experience at PwC, shares insights on the importance of trust in the workplace, the role of middle managers in building a positive culture, and how PwC is using AI to create an equitable workplace on this episode of the Better podcast.

She also opens up about her personal journey to better well-being — a powerful reminder of the importance of self-care, especially in high-pressure environments.

On why leaders often overestimate the trust their employees have in them:

Sometimes leaders forget that you can't just tell people what they should do. You have to model it yourself, so there's a little bit of, "Do as I say and not what I do." It's so important to model that behavior, and show that you believe in it.

Another thing I've seen is there's lots of good listening going on across organizations — at PwC, we have a listening program and platform. But sometimes we fall into a trap of getting a lot of feedback from our employees, but then not acting on it, not showing them what we're doing with what they're telling us, and how we're using that feedback to make things better.

On mistakes leaders make when building workplace trust:

One might be that you say you want your team to come up with a recommendation, a solution for something. But yet, all along that process of them coming to that recommendation, you're micromanaging. You're inserting your own opinion when it might be best to let them do their thing.

Micromanaging can be a bad habit that undermines feeling trusted. You need to trust people to do their work, and to do good work. Not just say that you do, but show that you do.

On how middle managers can build trust with their teams:

One of the things that we try to do at PwC is help our managers see that they are part of driving the strategy. This is not, "Sit back and let's see what the leaders do for us." You are a leader, too, and it's part of your role to create the environment that we want.

On how My Marketplace, PwC’s internal AI platform, works:

One of the first big AI technologies that we built and rolled out is called My Marketplace, and it's similar to a talent marketplace. It matches individuals who have a profile that describes their skills with job opportunities. The platform uses AI to more efficiently and effectively do those match-ups and in a more fun, consumer oriented way,

We've had some successes already, in terms of it being easier for people to understand other things they could do within PwC. They can go into My Marketplace and see the different opportunities that are available, and express interest in those opportunities. And the system can match them up with the skills that they already possess and what a particular opportunity needs, and offer it up to them.

Learn how the best workplaces are using AI to build stronger companies and healthier workers at the For All Summit? in Las Vegas April 8-10.

On how AI technology makes PwC more equitable:

We have 75,000 people, and what tends to happen is, you know who you've worked with in the past and you tend to want to go back to those people bcause that's who you know. But there might be 74,500 other people that you don't know who might also be really great to work with.

And so you're using technology that is not based on who you know, but on skills needed for an opportunity. You are served up new names, new people that maybe you didn't know existed in the firm before that moment. In that way, opportunity feels very democratized, and we're thrilled about that.

On why leaders should prioritize AI:

When you say, "My current system works just fine, I don't have anything like a My Marketplace." Perhaps, but for how long will it work just fine? Next year, will you still be saying that? Five years from now, will you still be saying that? And on the day when you stop saying that, how far behind are you in now getting yourself ready for whatever the current environment is?

I would also challenge, "It feels like it's working fine," because it's all you know. What if it could work 10 times better? Just, what if? Go through the mental exercise of reimagining the way that you do things to see if you could perhaps do it much, much better. I think there's almost always an opportunity to do something better.

On the importance of work-life balance:

I learned that your body keeps the score, and your body will tell you. Even if your brain thinks you are doing fine, there can come a point where it'll be a huge surprise, but it will happen — you will stop. That happened with me and it was scary.

And after that, I thought that was very important to be in tune with my body, and to practice self-care, well-being, much more intentionally and much more deliberately.