Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Welcome to GenShift, the podcast where we explore how generations see, think, and work differently, and what happens when we start learning from each other instead of labeling each other.

I'm your host, Dr. Katherine Jeffery, a generational strategist and leadership consultant. I created GenShift to bring understanding to the places where frustration often lives at work in families and in leadership. Each episode features voices from different generations sharing how they experience change, purpose and connection.

Today we're turning our attention to my own generation. Generation X. This generation was born between 1965 and 1980. Sometimes were called the bridge generation or the Quiet Backbone. Gen X has lived through more transitions than any group before them, from rotary phones, to smartphones, from paper memos to Slack messages.

Joining me are two amazing Gen X leaders, each with their own story of adaptation, resilience, and perspective. We'll talk about what defines Gen X, what it's like to lead from the middle, and how this generation continues to shape the workplace, often quietly, but very powerfully. Before we hear their stories, let's set the stage for who Generation X really is.

 Gen X grew up after the baby boom. During years of social change, economic uncertainty, and cultural shifts. We are the latchkey kids, independent, adaptable, and often self-taught. We witnessed the birth of MTV, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the internet in the workplace.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Generation X became the bridge, translating the hierarchy and structure of boomers into the collaboration and flexibility that millennials have now demanded. We value authenticity, self-reliance, and results over recognition. Most of us don't chase the spotlight, but we get the work done.

And yet, for all our contribution, Gen X is often the most overlooked, sandwiched between two louder and larger generations. We've learned to adapt in both directions. So today we're asking what does it mean to be Gen X in today's workplace? How have these mid-career professionals learned to lead change and stay grounded in a world that's always shifting?

 So let's start with some introductions of our two amazing guests today. So why don't you each tell us a little about who you are, what kind of work you do, and where you fall in the Gen X timeline.

Topher Margolin: I'll jump in. My name's Topher Margolin. I'm the CEO of Health Designs. I'm an older Gen Xer. And the fact that you just identified us as Mid-career made me absolutely exhausted. But thanks. And we are a workplace wellness company that work sort of mid-market space companies with between 505,000 employees and provide services to create healthier, happier workplaces and employees.

This is a company that I acquired in 2019 and we just celebrated our 30th year in business. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Excellent. Great time to start that business, huh? 

Topher Margolin: Oh yeah. Under my deft leadership and strategic approach, I was able to reduce revenue by 65% in the first six months of acquiring the company as a first time CEO in an industry I knew nothing about because we were largely organized to provide onsite services to large groups of employees at their place of employment.

And I had just figured out where in our building the bathroom was and the world shut down. And our entire structural approach to what we do was flipped on its head. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So you'll have a lot of wisdom in transition to share with us on over, perhaps. All right. Tracy, how about you? 

Tracy Lampert: Awesome, thank you, number one for having me, Katherine.

And looking forward to talking with Topher. I am Tracy Lampert. I have been working for Zurich Insurance, which is a global insurance company across North America. We have about 10,000 employees and I serve as our head of employee experience and culture and have done just a whole lot of different roles.

Since I've started my career. Never in a million years did I ever think that I would have a role called employee experience, which, we talk about, there's so many roles that jobs keep evolving. And so this is one that, I started my career in the traditional insurance space around underwriting and have just always had a real passion about people and creating really strong and positive work environments because I know that makes a huge difference in terms of our business outcomes.

So the role that I play is around helping employees thrive, grow, contribute, and ensuring that we have a consistent experience so that again, our business really thrives. I am too and older or as I'd like to say, a more seasoned Gen Xer. And again, really looking forward to this conversation.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Excellent. So excited to have you both here. So you each came of age during a time of huge transition technology, culture, and even leadership styles. When you think back, what moments or experiences do you believe have most shaped our generation's outlook? 

Tracy Lampert: It's an interesting question 'cause I think there's just so many moments. When you started talking a bit about Gen X being latchkey kids, and I don't ever think that I thought about myself that way.

But that resonates actually quite a bit with me and growing up. I have one brother. Both of my parents were working and the way the economy was at the time, my mom actually had a more stable role and job. And we, as children, when we got to be of an age that we could be home by ourselves, we had the key and the first thing we did was call mom and just say, Hey, we're home, did our homework, and we're contributing around the house.

I remember one time in particular getting a call when I was at school and I had to call my mom from the payphone. Yeah. Which, I talk to my kids about that now, and they're like, what? It was just a need to help contribute at home. And as a result of that, I was just always very independent and I played a lot of sports as very engaged in different activities at school, but then I had a desire to work and to be able to contribute more because that was the role in my family.

I realized how important that was. When I think about, my contributions at work, I am a problem solver and I'm resilient and I'm able to do a lot of those things as a result of a lot of those attributes and strengths that I developed. If it was different, I probably wouldn't have had those skills, at least certainly not coming into the workforce.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yep. 

Tracy Lampert: It also and influenced my parenting with, I have three sons and certainly was different, lots of other things coming into the equation in terms of technology and all kinds of things like that. But it was always important for me and for my husband to try and make sure that they had the ability to solve problems.

I think it was more challenging, honestly, in some cases. But those are some of the important, I think, early life experiences that shaped me and I see some of, my friends and others that I grew up with too. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. And so you've tried to pass that down to your children, to the Gen Zs?

Tracy Lampert: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Talking about the payphone. I was thinking about, I used to have basketball practice and I would put a quarter in I'd call, let it ring once and hang up. And that meant I need to be picked up. Oh, yeah. 

Tracy Lampert: Yeah. I'll tell a really quick story. We have a family Christmas party that we've hosted for years and it's extended family and we rent a hall.

And when my kids were little, we were at a VA hall. There was a payphone, and the kids were, and I clearly did not have my eyes on them. I was socializing with everyone. But the fire department showed up and my son, who was probably five at the time, kept calling. He kept dialing the numbers, and when he found 9 1 1, he realized somebody answered the phone and he'd hang up and then he'd call them back.

Oh, no. 'cause none of them knew anything about the payphone. Fortunately the fire department, certainly wasn't a serious call, but they were really kind. And, it was a good lesson for me as a parent in terms of keeping my eyes on the kids at all times.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: That's a great story. They have no idea that's what happens. 

Tracy Lampert: They had no idea. They learned. Yes. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. Yeah. Real fast.

All right, Topher, how about you? 

Topher Margolin: Yeah, it's interesting. I was thinking about this before our time together about what are the sort of hallmark of regeneration and what were the societal events and norms and everything, and I've never been able to parse out what was going on externally in the world or internally in my life?

Because I think I have all the characteristics of a Gen Xer and extreme resilience, but not for good reasons. I came from, a middle class family in a Manhattan suburb, but I was basically on my own from when I was 15 years old on my parents divorced when I was 13, right in the middle of puberty.

That was a mess. It was a sticky divorce and I was just ungrounded and I think what's interesting, and I can look back with clarity now in real time, I never knew it, but I didn't play team sports. I skied, I skateboarded. I have this fierce independence that's carried through my whole life.

And I joke even with my current team who are wonderful, I say, listen, I'm a lousy teammate. I'm a pretty darn good leader and I'm a great leader in crisis because I think that's just how I've been honed accidentally and showed up there. But I, again, I look back and I have wonderful friends and wonderful relationships.

But even in the sort of larger friend groups and college and whatnot, it's not that I wasn't close with them, but I was always still a little bit outside. And again so I think it was almost a magnified experience of some of the other things that shaped. I wanna go back to this payphone thing for a second.

I was trying to explain to my son, who just turned 16 last week. He's an only, and it was funny the expectation of immediate communication and responses, and I was trying to explain to him what it was like, particularly in the summer times if you were out of school to arrange to see a friend. And that would take days because at least in school, you had the pass the note network and you had some reasonable expectation that between the start of school and end of school, there would be a two-way communication. But in the summertime you'd call and the phone would be busy. And of course you said, what does that mean?

And I said, it's a noise. It goes ba. And it means that person is talking to someone else. And I said, later in life there was called waiting, which is what you would know now that when your phone does. And I said, and then you just try again at some point. And inevitably some other family member, and God forbid it was a sibling, answered the phone because now your success rate of a message being successfully delivered to your friend who you're trying to reach goes to zero.

It would take. 2, 3, 4, 5 days. And sometimes he would just abandon the mission just to talk to them. And now if he calls someone, which he doesn't do right, he snaps them on Snapchat, but if they don't respond, within a minute there's something wrong. And he, can go down that rabbit hole of what are the possible reasons that this has happened?

And it's fascinating. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: It really is such a shift. I haven't thought about the busy signal forever. I forgot that was actually a thing. You're right. You call and you'd have to call back and call back.

Topher Margolin: All those little things that, that we tolerated, the busy signal thing.

I was listening to some hip hop song came on the radio the other day and there was a noise looped in the track that the three of us would identify immediately as someone ejecting and flipping the cassette over in the boombox and closing the cassette. It's a very recognized. No earthly idea.

I don't know when that would've stopped, but clearly nobody beyond probably 2000 would know what that noise is. It just some clicking thing, right? 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. It's some annoying thing in the background or for us it was like, oh, this is a great sound. That's right.

Okay. So Gen X is sometimes called the middle child of generations, always in between Boomers and Millennials, which are both very large generations. How do you balance expectations from people who are older than you or they might be above you, and then younger employees who see the world a little bit differently?

Tracy Lampert: Definitely. And I think early in my career too, there were, coming into a corporate environment, if you will, a lot of structure and you learn how to operate in that structure and work ethic matters. FaceTime matters, and actually my first job, this is really interesting. I remember I interviewed on campus, the role that I got, it was for a development program.

And it was a very competitive program. And I was so excited when I got it. And when I eventually got through the training program, they're like the work hours are eight 10 to four 10. And I was like that's unusual. Eight 10 to four 10. There was some thought given to avoiding traffic.

And it's hysterical now to think about that. Oftentimes, I'll take a look at the clock at four 10 and I'm like, I've got another meeting and literally people would be racing out the door, but there was structure and I can remember talking to people that were older than I was at the time, and they were talking about workplaces that they had where there was a bell, about when to take a break.

And those are just tiny little examples of structure. Then, contrast that to generations that are coming in, Millennials and Gen Z and they're like I've got an idea. There's all this structure. How do I get that? So the role that I've played is just really, trying to create space.

This is really one of the things that energizes me so much about my role is I have the opportunity to take some time and be like, all right, let's slow down. What's working well? What's not working well? What ideas do you have? And helping people have a voice and try to start to think about things in another way.

Because really that's when we have better business outcomes when we can, bring in some of those fresh ideas and also have people feel like, I've got my fingerprints on that. I'm excited about doing this. And they're engaged. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yep. 

Tracy Lampert: Those are just a couple of thoughts, or examples of things that, I've tried to do in terms of bridging different generations.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. That's really good. Thank you. Topher, what about you? 

Topher Margolin: I had a non-traditional career path that includes the fact that I've never really worked for anyone. So in four decades I've avoided having to learn some of those lessons, which would be very valuable 'cause it's a blind spot for me.

What I can share is I no longer have the luxury in my current role of not being sensitive to my lens. And I have a lot of Millennials and Gen Zs, a couple of Gen Xers. And I think my greatest learning and man, it took a long time to recover from this. I acquired this company. I'm a business guy.

I was an executive coach for a dozen years before acquiring the company. But I was an executive coach, not a life coach. I was an executive coach. So my brain is very business wired. It's what I studied in school. And I got here and I thought everyone would be so excited to grow the revenue and the profits of this company, and it's gonna be fantastic.

And the blank stares. It was this, why do we care? And me on the other side trying to figure out why you don't care. And so I think that's very telling about the generational differences, particularly between Millennials and Gen Zs, and then the expectations and the workforce about what a quote unquote job or employment means to me.

And the expectation of, again, it is much more than just, I come to work, I turn big rocks into little rocks. You gimme a check at the end of the week and I go home. So I really had to reframe my own thinking and messaging and finding out. This is where I see the differences in generation most. The Gen Xers on my team really just want to be pointed in a direction and they're gonna go, and I don't have to think about it much, which is great 'cause that's how I'm wired. And it's not that anyone on my team wants to be micromanaged, but there's a different interaction and a different connecting people to their objectives in a manner that is grounded in whatever their motivators are.

So for instance, let me decrypt what I just said. I shifted from we're driving towards financial and business metrics and rather had to come up with what is the thing we measure. And most of my people are health educators, health screeners, coaches, and really have incredibly large hearts of service and contribution.

So we measure points of enrichment POEs, and that's how many participants on an annual basis that we have a positive impact on, whether it's through a coaching session, a biometric screening event, whether they're engaging our technology products. And, that tends to run somewhere in the number of between 65 and 90,000 a year.

And that is a much more fulfilling metric for them. It is for me too, but I have to consciously remind myself that is also an important metric. 'Cause again, I just, that's not my fallback position. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. So in essence, you shifted your metrics from financial to purpose. 

Topher Margolin: Accommodated other metrics also. I wouldn't say I shifted them. 'cause in my brain I'm still very focused. You've supplemented them, right? 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yes. That's a better way to say that. Yeah. You did not lose your financial metrics. No. Yes. However you created more space for other metrics perhaps to rise up a little higher.

Topher Margolin: Yeah. And I also find that, and again, I don't know if this is certainly a fer trait. I think it's a Gen X trait, but I don't know, maybe I haven't been smart enough to assess risk properly that I am very likely to get to a point of forward motion in many things in life. But particularly in work and in business decisions that I just fundamentally feel like it's gonna work out.

And we're gonna go ahead. They happen to be younger, but generationally, different teammates need more to follow me into the desert. Katherine, maybe you could speak to that. I don't know if that's a generational issue. But I think it is, a reflection of how I don't need that confidence.

I'm going into the desert. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yes. I think you're hitting on the gut, right? Like following the gut. And I think older generations, Xers and Boomers, there was a limited amount of information that we could access. You had to go to the library, you had to listen to a speaker, there, there were just certain ways to get information.

Now information is at our fingertips. Younger generations tend to want more data and they tend to have like analysis paralysis, right? And they don't know how often to follow that gut where you give an X or a Boomer like this amount of information. They're like, yep, that sounds good. They're calculating all their experience and taking that onto account and they move forward.

And that's a hard skill to teach if you didn't grow up using that gut and trusting that gut. And so you're exactly right. I hear this all the time. Younger generations will say to their Boomer, Xer boss, I trust you, but I want a little more. And what they're asking for is more data.

And they're not being disrespectful, which it can feel disrespectful to that person in charge because they're like, yeah, I'm trusting my gut. I've done this for years. It's been successful. But those younger people are saying, no, we need a little more. 'cause we don't have that same sense that you do.

Tracy, do you have any thoughts on that? 

Tracy Lampert: Yeah, it's good to hear you talk about that. I experienced that too. I think with some of the older generations, Gen X in particular, that we're talking about now, I see that people taking things on and they're just gonna move and they have some confidence.

Some of that is your library of experiences are a whole lot more too. So being able to do that. Yep. 

Topher Margolin: That's fascinating, Katherine, what you just said and makes a lot of sense to me that yeah, we by definition we're going to constantly be forced to make decisions with incomplete knowledge and so you had to fill in that gap with either just blind faith or hope or whatever it was, or you would be paralyzed because you would never get there.

Interesting. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. You'd never make decisions 'cause there wasn't complete information. 

Topher Margolin: Yeah. ChatGPT could not scour the entire, bank of human knowledge and give me all of it, in a nanosecond. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. Think about that change alone. You might have had to go to the library, look through the card catalog, find a book, and now you got ChatGPT that in a nanosecond can scan or scour the world's information. 

Topher Margolin: Yeah. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So our generation tends to value independence and stability. When you think of the word loyalty, what does that mean to you? And has that definition changed at all over the years?

Tracy Lampert: I think loyalty to employment, people, being at companies for decades and I've been with my organization for 30 years now. I've done a whole host of different things. I haven't done the same job. But when I say that to people, they're like, whoa. Especially people that are newer joining the organization and certainly, Gen Z employees are like, that is nuts I didn't join the organization thinking I was gonna be here for this many years, if I was doing the same job I wouldn't have been. 

However, I do feel that, there's been relationships that I've developed over time.

There's been work that I care deeply about. When times were tough, I was like, I'm loyal to this organization. I'm loyal to this person. And so I do think in talking with different generations, I think that's different. People are much more about, I need to acquire this skill.

I already got that. Let me move on. I understand that, the world is changing. So it's just something that I think if I was growing up in a different generation, would things have been a little bit different? Probably. Yep. So I do think that, again, thinking about with the work that I'm responsible for, it's a matter of really there's a give and a get from an organization about, what are we providing to employees and what are they able to give, and how do we just really make the most of that so that the time together is the best outcome for both the employee and for the business.

Regardless of what generation you're in, you have unique things that matter to you personally. It's a conversation that, when I first started working, I can't in a million years remember ever having any of these conversations about, what can we do to help you be your best at work?

So I think it's a really positive thing, but the loyalty part of it's just, evolved. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Most definitely. I always explain it as, we used to be in a world where it's come work for us and you're gonna have this amazing career, and now we're in a world where it's come work for us and we're gonna help you get where you want to go.

How can you be your best self? How can we support you?

Tracy Lampert: We have certain career tools, if you will and one that I'm just thinking about is, think about your skills as you're developing your passport. What are the skills that you have in your passport?

What is it that you would like to develop? How can we help you do that? Even if you think about the context of the passport, it's if you're gonna move on to another role, certainly we'd like you to stay with the organization, but those skills should be able to help take you where you wanna go to.

Yeah. You're the CEO of your career. Getting people to think about that versus, the company's gonna tell me where to go. No. It's up to us as individuals to figure out where it is that we wanna go. At Zurich, that's something that we're really trying to equip our employees with and help them be successful.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yep. So is the passport you earn badges when you earn different skills. Is that kind of how you think of that passport? 

Tracy Lampert: Yeah. You can certainly earn, but we talk about, for a specific role, there's a set of skills and how do you develop those skills?

But of course, you're coming into the role depending on what your experience is with other skills. It's a way to help illuminate those as well. Yep. And help with the manager to make sure that they're clear and they're really, leveraging that too. As people are developing skills, whether it be on the job or maybe another assignment or something else that they're doing, whether they're engaged with a resource group or something like that, other leadership skills, they have the ability and a structure to actually talk about it too.

Yes. And for that to be recognized and the recognition piece is really crucial, and certainly, some people it, it matters more, but we know some of the younger generations that matter is a whole lot more.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yes, so important. And they've also been saying too they don't necessarily wanna plot their own course by themselves.

They want their manager to help them plot that course and help hold them accountable. And that says hey, you actually do care about where I'm headed. It's not just all on my shoulders. You're helping me get there.

Tracy Lampert: Yep. And if you know that I've got these other skills, it's not necessarily a straight line because of the job that I'm in, but if I've got other skills, it opens up, multiple courses that I could consider.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: And I would say it also resonates with that. See what I, as an individual and bringing into your company and into your culture, like I'm not just this, don't just put me in a box. You're actually showing them really their whole resume in some ways of, these are all the unique abilities and skills that I'm bringing, and I want you to see that and be aware of that and honor that.

Yep, All right. Topher loyalty. What do you think? 

Topher Margolin: Yeah, it's interesting. So I think in many ways society shifted too, right? We abandoned defined benefit plans and started to defined contribution plans and stopped I think rewarding loyalty the way we had for decades before. So I think that started to shift already. Or maybe that was the first domino in this line of fun.

And then we started rewarding people. Like really there's, there is a linear path and you can't progress quickly enough in this organization, but if you take a job elsewhere and come back next year, you could leapfrog over those four positions. And so I think we did a lot of this to ourselves, but that wasn't your question.

Your question was around loyalty and perhaps my shifting thoughts there. I find the organizational dynamics between Health Designs and Zurich or dramatically different. You have 10,000 headcount. We have 20 FTEs and about 150 part-time field employees scattered around the Southeast and the rest of the country.

We work very hard and seek a lot of external validation that we get culture right. And we do, and we're recognized repeatedly for that. Whether it's, best places to work in Jacksonville, best places to work in Florida, best and brightest in the nation, blah, blah. So we get all that right?

So culturally we're very solid and I find that our millennials have a different sense of loyalty, that they really are very loyal. They want to grow, they want to develop, but they don't necessarily want to go to different organizations. And I struggle here because I really want to provide paths for everyone and we're just not a huge company.

So there's not that many different pathways one can follow. With that said, we lost a couple of very talented Gen Zers in Q3. As a small company, you feel it. Any turnover is felt and particularly unplanned turnover, right? Because then these are the right people in the right seats that have, vacated those seats.

And what was interesting to me is a young man and a young woman, and they left within about a month of one another. She was so torn. She was in absolute tears. We worked very hard to retain her and gathered a lot of intel on her exit interview to understand. And a lot of it was having that visibility about how are you going to help me get to, she didn't even know where it was, but identify where that is and then how will you help me get there?

And I think she didn't report to me directly, but we had a very great working relationship. And I had shared with her frequently that she really had shown all of the characteristics that we would identify as future leadership in the company and what that would be like.

What came out was she didn't believe it and lessons learned by me. But what was interesting, she left at a very critical time, and I don't know if it was cognitive dissonance or just really what her perception was, but it was like she was leaving the company, but she wasn't leaving us. She adores the person she reported to.

She adores me. We were at her wedding and her teammates here outnumbered. Her friends. We were all very close but again, she saw this as. This company, not the people in it. And the very, very sort of tight spot she put us in because of the timing of her departure, midstream in our busiest period of the year.

So that was pretty fascinating to me that somehow she didn't see that it was, no, you're leaving these people who care about you work with and have full knowledge of what a predicament will be in. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So it was more about her own growth, development, and her path forward than her loyalty to the people or the company.

 Is what you experienced. 

Topher Margolin: And her expectation that we should have no expectation of loyalty because that is not what her generation does. And she even said we're job hoppers. That's what we do, like sorry. Peace out and I'm gone.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So interesting that she owned that label.

Because a lot of Zers there was research done on Gen Z college grads from 20 20, 20 21 and 2022 and over 70% of them said they wanna work long term for a company. And the biggest thing they want is stability. Interesting. Because they're in college, the world was just canceled. They feel like the goalpost is being moved on them, they're trying to reach it, but then it jumps over here and they're like, just give me some stability. So that's interesting that she associated with the more job hopper, millennial mindset too.

Topher Margolin: And again, she did offer that label.

I don't think it was entirely consistent. We tend to think there were some other pressures there, whether it was spouse or social group. That sure led her to believe that, yes, I am a job hopper, even if I don't feel like one, I should be one, but. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: mm-hmm. Yeah. That's interesting. 

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Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. That's interesting. So how have both of you seen your approach to leadership evolve since you've started your careers?

Tracy Lampert: I'll say that in starting my career, leadership was a role, it was a person, it was people. It was very top down. Absolutely over the years, that's evolved for me. I really believe that, we have senior leadership that's in a specific role, but there's an opportunity for people, and I'll say everyone, to demonstrate leadership. I think it starts with people being really clear about the role that they're playing, feeling like they have the support from their manager, and we can't tell you exactly, but there's opportunities for you to step in and to lead.

And so it's a conversation that I have often with, whether it be my team or other employees that I'm working with. It's a really important skill to continue to develop. But there's leadership in all of us and we all have moments or a moment you may be playing that in your role or you may just need to step into something.

And I think it's interesting 'cause it comes back to a little bit of what you were saying, Katherine, about perhaps with the Generation X is having the gut feeling and, taking some kind of amount of information and some people and whether it be an earlier generation, if they're like I've gotta get more information it's at some point, no, you gotta step into this. You can do this. I'm confident in you. You actually can do this. Leadership has just evolved, incredibly for me personally. And I think just thinking about, what role we all can play, it's a really powerful one too.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: And so it sounds like leadership is spread out much more.

Tracy Lampert: Yeah. I certainly think that, if you're working within the construct of a team and you're an individual contributor and you're not making the call for the team, but your day to day, that's part of the job is you've gotta step in and lead on certain things. Make a decision and, have the courage from time to just say, oh, I don't know exactly the right thing to do, but I'm gonna step into this and provide some guidance to whoever it is that you're working with. Or, whether it be you're making a contact with a customer, whatever it might be, you've gotta make a call.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: That's really good. 

Topher, how about you? 

Topher Margolin: Personally from a leadership perspective I like when you said spread out. I think of, we try to get rid of hierarchal management. There's some efficiencies, right? There's gotta be some reporting and some communication efficiencies.

But I wanna provide absolute clarity on what has to be done, where we have to go. And intentional ambiguity on how to get there, because I want everyone to work and perform in ways that are natural to them. So I'm less concerned about the how and really encourage people that, there's certainly guardrails there, right?

And we need to measure the right things. But I won't tell you how to get there because then I'd be depriving you of your best efforts and depriving this organization of the potential contributions you could make. I'm probably inclusive to a fault but certainly think that an org chart won't tell you where the best guidance and ideas and creativity will come from.

So every single person in our company is involved in an offsite strategy session each quarter for a full day. We have had entire company initiatives come from what an org chart would seem very atypical sources. And I think trying to get people aligned and rowing in the same cadence and the same direction happens because of their choice, not because of my effort.

So that's where I try to stay rooted. 

Tracy Lampert: Building on what you're saying, Topher, I think that leadership too setting the course and helping people understand the strategy and, what's the role that you're playing? A lot of times what I'm talking about is, hey, you should see yourself in the strategy.

And if you don't like, raise your hand, if you're working on something that isn't gonna get us here, then let's talk about it. 'Cause maybe you're not working on the right thing, but how you get there and you know how you go about it, there's some flexibility to do it. It's not all these rules and I think that's a little bit of what you were saying too, Topher, you're not giving out, here's the exact roadmap.

If I have to really think about it. It's just, there's much more collaboration. And I think the, one of the other things that has really evolved is this concept of empathy. And I will tell you that, we at Zurich have done quite a bit with our managers and really trying to support them to be the best that they can be.

And, working with teams that are very different. Whether it be generations or whatever, it might be. But one thing we started talking about prior to COVID was being empathetic and how empathy is just so important in terms of helping to understand where your team or your employees are and meeting them where they're at to get the best outcome for the business and for the person.

And I have to tell you that there was a lot of people, a lot of managers at the time that were like, why are we talking about this? And then COVID happened and it was like, holy cow, I need some help. So now it's, reflecting on that this is one of the silver linings I think of COVID, is people have been much more in tune to what people have going on.

And, during COVID it was, someone might have been sick or the, parents were teaching their kids. They just had so much on their plate. And it's interesting, this is when, wellbeing became much more important in the workplace and a lot of the work Topher that you and your organization are doing.

We were talking about that, when I started, my career was like, what wellbeing this is not any place in the conversation. Your benefits, your health benefits, that kind of stuff, but nothing about wellbeing or counseling or other support. This whole concept of leadership, and again, this goes back to it's not just the leader.

If you're working with a colleague, and they're struggling in some way, there's a little space, Hey, how you doing Topher? Are you having an okay day? Let's talk about that a little bit. That makes a big difference to somebody's ability then to contribute if they feel like they're cared for.

Topher Margolin: And isn't it interesting generationally? I don't think that and I think the reason Katherine invited me on the show, we had a funny moment and she was presenting and asked a series of questions to different demographic generational groups.

And one of the ones she posed to the Gen Xers was, what is your expectation of being cared for by your employer? And my answer, I like zero expectation. I said, the irony of the fact that I run a workplace wellness company, hinged on the fact that people do expect that.

'cause I don't think that's the go-to place for Gen Xers. And I think that, really opening up the aperture and I think empathy is a very important talent. I work hard to be empathetic 'cause it does not come naturally to me because I don't think I was brought up in an environment that sort of suggested that one should have any expectation of that.

Tracy Lampert: And certainly not in the workplace. I think a lot of people are like, why are we talking about this in the workplace. 

Topher Margolin: 'Cause we absolutely have to. 

Absolutely. 

Tracy Lampert: Yeah. It's interesting. One other thing that you mentioned we had done some work with some of our Gen Z colleagues and we, like many organizations do an employee survey annually and we had very low participation from Gen Z and, hypothesized about why was that the case?

And maybe they wanted to be able to do it with a text and maybe it was a technology thing or, long story short, sat down and talked to some employees and learned that it was, we just got here, like in the workplace, you don't wanna hear from us.

And it's oh no, we really do. So we've been really pleased that, for a lot of conversations, a lot of messaging just started to get Hey, what's important to you? And it's different. And some of what we've heard and this, it spills into the millennial population as well, is around wellbeing and around the need for the organization or desire to get from the organization about financial wellbeing.

Topher Margolin: I'm 

Tracy Lampert: looking at purchasing my first home and I just had a pause like, wow, I understand it, it's just very different from when I was it that age or point in my career, I would've never thought about coming to the organization for advice about purchasing home or some of the other financial pieces.

So it's really just required us to, to take another look and, what can we offer to meet again employees where they're at. 

Topher Margolin: I think being able to hold that space for employees an observation of mine has been, there was this sort of, maybe outcry is not the right word, but certainly feedback.

In workforces about the need for mental health resources. And I think that caught a lot of employers on their heels and we're not prepared to step into that role. So what we heard as employers was people need counseling and therapists and access. And really you'd ask the employees what they were asking for.

No, I just wanna be able to manage stress. I'm like, sleep better. So there's this big gap in the spectrum of I think what employers are hearing and employees are asking for mental being is very important and, the practice of mindfulness and again, stress management and navigating the complexities of life is different than someone who needs to be in a mental health formal relationship.

Yeah. 

Tracy Lampert: But the normalization of the conversation about, the needs absolute, were. Wellbeing resources and whether it be, financial, emotional or mental health, needing to connect socially with people or what, is there something else that you can do to help support my physical health too?

And that being part of a value proposition for an organization to be able to provide is a differentiator for sure. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So I know a lot of Gen Xers are listening to this and they're like yeah health and wellness wellbeing. That doesn't come into our workplace.

What are you two talking about? So my first question about this is like, how did you transition? Tracy, it sounds like maybe COVID helped you come through that to say, oh, we need to have empathy for people. Like we're all experiencing this differently. And then Topher, you end up with this health company, right?

So talk about that to help other Gen Xers actually process through this and get to the other side to where we actually are today and what seems to really matter to many of our younger employees. 

Topher Margolin: So I think as a capitalist Gen Xer, this will resonate for the rest of the Gen Xers. Workplace wellbeing in this approach did not begin from an altruistic perspective, right?

This was born out of organizations' wishes to reduce healthcare costs, full stop. But I think what they started to realize is that was limited and they didn't have the luxury of making it about the organization because people had the notion it was for the organization, not for themselves. And so participation was limited and motive was questioned.

Then, we still see, what we call a check the box, right? Oh, we know we have to do something that will provide this benefit. But what we're seeing this shift is from a organizationally, the leaders that get it right, realize. At the end of the day, their employees cannot contribute and perform if they are not physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially well, just can't.

Therefore I'm ambivalent to how we get there. I'm glad we get there. Even if the motivation still is for the organization's good, not the employees, they again, have had to shift in how they do that and the ones that get it right, really get it right. Yeah, and I'll just say one other thing.

I think life is really complicated. The information age has further complicated it. And we know this. How present can we be in whatever task we're engaged in? If the backtrack playing on our brains is worried about the credit card debt. My kid who, you know is in detention for something over here.

My mother is sick. I've got, rising cost of living to worry about. How much mental white space is left to devote to work. None. That's why 60 plus percent of employees aren't engaged. Yeah. And what does that, what does Gallup say that 30% are actively disengaged? 

Tracy Lampert: Yep. 

I think the other thing, and it goes back to, I mentioned earlier the hours eight 10 to four 10, and, when I first started working and it was like, this is the part of your day that's work.

And there's FaceTime and I can remember being stressed about it. For some reason I thought I was gonna be at work and then something came up, one of my kids was sick or something like that. And, again, the world has changed. Just prior to COVID, I. At Zurich, we had started to do some work around what we called flex work because people were asking for flexibility. And so we were really well positioned prior to the pandemic because we had the ability, people were working flexibly. We had, much more structure around it. And ironically, just before COVID, there was some conversation about had we gone a little bit too far, and this is probably a month or two months before COVID and the world shut down.

As I mentioned, we were really well positioned because everyone had a laptop and we had, people were utilizing technology and we're able to ramp up quickly with teams and all of that. But at the end of the day, I think the flexibility is a net positive for people to manage all of the various aspects of their life.

There's this notion about, work life balance and, I don't know if I like the word balance. I know people have different words and say, oh, it's just, you have these different moments where you know you're not gonna always be in balance. And I, and that really resonates with me.

I think having the flexibility of how and when you work, as long as you're clear about here's the role that I'm playing, here's the goals. If I'm getting the outcomes and I'm having the right conversations and I'm available to contribute, then that's all positive. So I think for me, just the ability to have flexibility is really great.

I will tell you that I was working on some of this flex work prior to the pandemic, and it was like uncomfortable for me. I'm like, I could remember, the inside track for me, what was going on in my head was like I know we're talking about this, but I'm gonna be in the office.

'cause that's what I was comfortable with. Yeah. So it is taking me some time, but I think, holy cow I wouldn't wanna go back to the way it used to be.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So does Zurich have a hybrid approach?

Tracy Lampert: We do. Yes, we do. It's not perfect.

We're continuing to work through, we'd like to have people more in person, and some of it is like a little bit of tell me the why. Huh. I can't tell you exactly every reason why, but we know that when we are collaborating more in person, we have generally better outcomes, yeah. And of course, for our customers and for our business, it just makes, we need to be more physically present. That's a little bit more of like, how do we bring people back? And I know that's a conversation for many organizations right now too.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, absolutely.

Topher Margolin: About the flexibility there, and I think two things. One. I hate the notion of work life balance.

'Cause it inherently puts professional personal life at odds and I think of a much more integrated approach. And I think that flexibility allows that to happen. A more fluid transition between just life, right? And these are all just different things that I've been forced or decided to or important to me and to navigate at all.

And I think the other thing that happened, I dunno if it's germane to this conversation, but the notion of hybrid and remote work forced a lot of companies to do a lot of hard work to figure out how are we quantifying and measuring the performance of our teammates. Because, oh, for a lot of 'em it was they were at the desk and they were there all day and they looked busy and therefore they probably were, and they were probably busy with something that was good and we needed, and that was enough.

So suddenly, we started right in COVID was like, oh, we're gonna measure keystrokes and laptop camera monitoring. And it's ugh. That's a failure on the leadership of the company to not know what needs to get measured to reach your objectives. And I do think that part is good 'cause it does let us focus on that and uncouples I have to see you sitting at the desk for at least eight hours a day to prove your worth here.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: That's a really good point. Okay. To wrap up this part 'cause I feel like if I was listening to this, I'd be like, okay, what are the benefits? What are the things that you're actually doing that your younger employees are like, yes, thank you. What are those big hits? Your companies are such different sizes.

I think you can have really different perspectives on what's working for you.

Tracy Lampert: I think there's a host of things at Zurich that we're doing. One is around and it really gets to inclusion and belonging.

This goes back a few years, but we had interviewed some employees.

It's if you had a magic wand, what would you like? And someone's let me think about this. I would like whoever the senior leader was that came into our office to say hello. I'm like, oh gosh. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Wow. 

Tracy Lampert: It's it like, yeah. And at the time we had just gone to the shared workspace. There was no names on the cubes, so people were just feeling like I am a human. And then, oh, by the way, you keep walking by and don't say hello. So I had shared that with at the time it was like our senior leadership team, one of the guys that I worked with, brainiac, super smart guy. We had it all up on a wall. I had the quote and he's like pointing to it.

Somebody said this and I said, yeah. I go, that's literally what they said. And he's they shouldn't feel that way. I'm like, but they do. Exactly. And it's not that hard for you to say hello, is it? Yes. Like we're not rolling out a project around this. Say hello, for goodness sake. It matters. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, that's really good. Yeah. And it's so simple, right? But I think we come from this whole different world and how we interacted in the workplace and what we expected.

We all would've liked that. It doesn't matter what age you are, you still wanna be recognized. 

Tracy Lampert: Totally. Yeah. I matter.

We know that creating a culture that's inclusive and we have a sense of belonging is really important. We know that, wellbeing helps to foster inclusion and belonging too. And that those are just words. So specifically what are we doing? We have 10 employee resource groups across the organization and so those are really meaningful.

And thriving communities where people come together and they can find their people, but you can also learn and be an ally for an organization. It's really helping to celebrate, it could be a cultural holiday just some other shared experiences. But, one of the other huge things that we do is around community.

And so our resource groups may contribute to the community, but we have a very huge culture of volunteerism, activism, and giving. One of the things we're really thrilled about we've had that as part of our, I'll say DNA at Zurich and part of our culture for many years. Oftentimes with volunteering, you end up feeling like you've got more than what you were able to even give.

It allows you to slow down and just take stock of being grateful for certain things. And, if you had do that with the team, that's really fantastic too. Prior to COVID we were always doing all kinds of things around volunteerism. COVID really obviously hampered that really hard to do things remotely. This year we had a goal that we would contribute 50,000 volunteer hours, which really translates every volunteer hours positively impacts about three lives. It's about 150,000 lives that we're impacting positively. And that, again, really good for wellbeing, great for inclusion, belonging, and that's not why we do it. It's really because we wanna do good. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. And your people wanna do good, right?

Absolutely. Everybody wants to be part of something that's making the world better in today's world.

Tracy Lampert: Absolutely. We need to find things to do that are good. Yes.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. That's great. Topher, you wanna add anything? 

Topher Margolin: Yeah. So one of the things that shifted during COVID was we're headquartered in Northeast Florida and suddenly we were competing against employers globally.

And the economics of this geography are not the same as Silicon Valley. So suddenly we're competing with Microsoft right in our backyard. That never happened before. And we can't compete on a purely financial basis with those companies. I think the question, the way I heard is, what are the young people responding to the younger generations most?

And so we had to get good at that. 'cause we were gonna, we wound up in losing people to the highest bidder. And I think that happened a lot, but it was of concern to us. So we have a good benefits package, but I think really we started to articulate all the different things.

When we do stay interviews not just exit interviews, stay interviews, one of the things we hear a lot about is they very much value the hybrid work environment. And so we've maintained post COVID that it's three days in office two days remote. They have some flexibility with that. But everyone is here on Mondays, so we try to replicate the collaborative spirit.

And everyone here likes one another. So that's easy to do. And they look forward to Mondays. I walk for 30 minutes with every single employee once a quarter, and no agenda on the conversation, except we end with a start, stop, keep. What are I or the company doing that I shouldn't be? What am I not doing?

You wish I was, and what am I doing that you gotta make sure I keep doing? And those walks are valued by our teammates. They really enjoy that because they have some direct access to leadership. And yes. We have paid volunteer time off. We have a very robust wellness program and our culture and engagement team puts together quarterly things.

We do beach cleanups. We've been on kayaking expeditions, we've gone bowling, we've done escape rooms. And it does create this sense of internal community beyond the quote unquote work portion of what we do that does allow it to be a place that is fun and offers more than just compensation.

And we continue to do that. We're doing a couple things as a response from stay interviews this year. Starting next year, I'm gonna do some direct career counseling and coaching and on executive presence and leadership with whomever wants we have really scaled up and out our professional development opportunities.

And that's been very well received. Starting in the new year on Mondays is a bring your pet to work day. 'cause we're all animal lovers and we just have to figure out how not to make that a chaotic event. So it's gonna be one pet at a time, and then if we identify likely pets, that will get along well on Mondays.

You could bring those two or three at a time. And again it's the goodwill in those kind of things is pretty significant. We find. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Excellent. So good. That was so rich from both of you. So many really brilliant ideas about, regardless of the size of your business, there are things you can do to help engage your younger employees.

And maybe even older employees in today's world. To your point, Tracy, right? COVID kind of shifted all of us and I think we're more aware of that. So just a couple final questions. What's one piece of advice you'd give to the generation who are coming after you?

Tracy Lampert: I would say to listen and to learn. I just think that there's so much value in, understanding who you're working with and what experiences they bring to the table. Oftentimes everything is immediate, and there's an image, I've seen it on social media a number of times, and it's like a little tiny dot.

It's what? You know of me? And it's just you don't really know. And so I think just allowing some space to get to know people and understand what they bring to the table is just crucial. And another one that for a variety of reasons, it resonates a lot with people when we talk about it at Zurich, is keeping a meaningful perspective.

We oftentimes, there's so much going on and it's like you log in and you see something, it's oh, there's a shooting and there's the, it is holy cow. The world has just changed. The ability to consume the news during your workday, it can, take you off what you're doing for a really good reason.

So keeping a meaningful perspective. And I'll just say, really quickly on that one nine 11, we had four employees at Zurich that perished. And our top leadership award is called CAMP, and it's an acronym for their last name, John Kahane, Peggy Ario, Kathy Moran, and La Carro, KAMP.

And that also is keep a meaningful perspective.

So really it's an important one. And it's been one that we've going back to, generations that are just joining the workplace. Some of them were not born in nine 11. But it's important for us to share those stories and to listen and to learn.

And again, we all bring something very different. I didn't experience school shootings. Being in the Midwest, we would do practice drills for tornadoes. Yeah. Totally different. Yeah. So really important for us to slow down and to listen and learn from one another.

So well said. 

Topher Margolin: Similarly to listening and meeting people where they are, to maintain the perspective that if we celebrate the differences in people. In their perspectives, in their ethnicities, in their beliefs and their cultures that we have a greater set of potential outcomes.

And embracing that and seeking that, knowing that we have, similar to this generational conversation, right? A bunch of Gen Xers in room together are gonna have a limited set of potential outcomes to a problem and solutions that if they include some of this again, broader generational perspective.

And I think that's been a shift for me and that's one I would certainly encourage younger generations to do again, is to really celebrate the differences and seek them out rather than the yeah, that person's just like me. ' I think we can all be guilty of that. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So good. Okay. I've gotta ask this question.

When you think about our generation's legacy, so the Gen X legacy, what do you hope it will be?

Topher Margolin: We already lost acid washed jeans. So what I've really worked hard on with my son who's 16, is to make sure that he carries the torch forward, particularly for the Beastie Boys and Jane's Addiction. So I think the music is our legacy. But joking aside, I do think the resilience. We shouldn't be proud of how we got there, right? We're all sort of the product of this somewhat benign negligence. But we are gritty as a result. And I think some of that sticktoitiveness and ability to produce results even in very adverse conditions I think you can get there and have it not be painful and people can be gritty and resilient and not have to get dragged through the trenches to get there.

That's what I hope the legacy is. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I like that that's a good thing to hope for. I like that. Yeah. 

Tracy Lampert: I think the ability to, just with what you're saying, Topher, is the resilience. Things are coming, a multitude of ways. We don't have all the information. The confidence and I hadn't thought about it as grit, but I think it really is grit to be like, you know what I got this.

I can get it done. That is something that's very unique of this generation for a lot of the things that we talked about. I would hope that's something that we're able to carry forward, with some of the younger generations.

And I think the resilience, now, it just more than ever, we all need that, we need that to be successful in our lives. We need that to be successful in our business. It's really important and it requires intention. When I look in the rear view mirror, I think, oh, it's a quality that I've had.

It was like automatic pilot. I find as I've gotten older and the world has change even, the pace is quickened. I need to be more intentional.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Good word. Good word. So I love having this conversation with other Gen Xers because there's such a balance of grit and grace in how we show up.

We'll figure it out, and we will adapt when we need to. We've weathered constant change. We've adapted again and again. And again, and we still manage to keep things moving forward. It's that sense of resilience that's in us, however that came to be, right? It's in us and it's driving us. And I think many of us have found that this is actually really valuable in our world today.

And obviously we hope that other generations can join us in this, right? Because we tended to learn it the hard way. But as Topher said, we hope that other generations can learn it in a way that's maybe not as difficult.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So if you enjoyed this conversation, check out our other GenShift episodes, featuring voices from every generation, from Traditionalists to Gen Z, each with their own insights on work purpose and connection.

Thanks for joining us on GenShift. Keep listening, keep learning, and keep leading with empathy