Matt Bazen
CHRO
Choice Schools Associates
Episode 305
HR's New Mandate: Drive Engagement with Purpose, Not Just Satisfaction
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleFebruary 11, 2025 · 15:12
Thesis
“True employee engagement is driven by purpose and meaningful work, not just satisfaction, and HR leaders must act as strategic partners and 'salespeople' to attract and retain talent while fostering unique subcultures within a unified organizational vision.”
Show notes
Matt Bazen has a simple test for whether an employee is truly engaged: would they do this work even if money weren't a factor? He knows it's a high bar — but he also knows it's the right one. Satisfaction is easy to manufacture with perks and pay. Engagement is something different entirely.
As CHRO at Choice Schools Associates, Matt oversees HR across a network of charter schools — environments where mission-driven work can either be a powerful engagement accelerator or a guilt-based retention trap, depending on how leadership handles it. His thesis: "If I won the lottery tomorrow, I would come right back and do the same job because I like what I'm doing. And that's really the goal." The organizations that achieve that level of buy-in aren't doing it with ping-pong tables. They're doing it by giving people real ownership over meaningful work, making purpose explicit, and treating autonomy as a management tool rather than a risk.
Matt is also a pragmatist about recruitment — specifically about the candidate experience, which he sees as HR's most visible expression of its values. In a competitive talent market, a slow or confusing hiring process doesn't just lose candidates. It sends a signal about what working at the organization will feel like. His approach is built around speed and overcommunication: keep candidates informed even when the news is "we're still deciding," and treat rejected candidates with the same respect as hired ones. His data-driven approach extends to measuring subculture engagement across individual schools, allowing him to identify where belonging is strong and where it needs deliberate investment.
- Satisfaction vs. engagement — why perks move the wrong metric and what actually drives lasting employee commitment
- Purpose and autonomy as the real engagement drivers — giving employees ownership over meaningful work rather than substituting it with surface benefits
- Subculture management across a multi-location organization — using biannual surveys to measure and respond to engagement variation by site
- Candidate experience as employer brand — why your hiring process is one of your most public cultural statements
- Speed and overcommunication in recruitment — keeping all candidates informed, including the ones you're not hiring
- HR as strategic sales function — why attracting and retaining mission-driven talent requires the same intentionality as any pipeline
Built by People is sponsored by Previ, the private pricing network that saves employees an average of $2,200/year on essentials like cell phone and auto insurance — free for companies to launch and maintain.
What you'll take away
- 1Differentiate employee satisfaction (perks) from employee engagement (purpose, impact, meaning) to drive true commitment.
- 2Utilize biannual engagement surveys as a benchmark tool across subcultures, focusing on intentional planning and celebrating positive feedback alongside addressing concerns.
- 3Empower employees with autonomy and ownership over projects to foster genuine investment and engagement beyond transactional incentives.
- 4Prioritize speed and overcommunication in the recruitment process to ensure a positive candidate experience, even for those not hired.
- 5Leverage data to track candidate flow, identify hard-to-fill roles, and explore alternative talent pipelines like 'grow your own' programs to combat talent shortages.
What most organizations get wrong
- •A good recruiter actively prepares candidates for interviews, even sharing insights about the interviewer's preferences, to set them up for success.
- •Allowing candidates to interview the leader's team about the leader's flaws promotes transparency and ensures a better fit for the candidate, rather than a one-sided assessment.
In Matt's words
“if I won the lottery tomorrow, I would come right back and do the same job because I like what I'm doing. And that's really what we are striving to get our employees to feel like every day.”
This quote defines true engagement as finding deep personal fulfillment in work, beyond financial necessity.
“The experience is definitely key in Other Passions. We want to ensure that every candidate that we hire or don't hire, they've had a good experience with us. Think of that, you know, roll out the red carpet every time they come on site.”
He emphasizes treating all candidates with high care, creating a positive experience regardless of hiring outcome.
“Sometimes it's what kind of autonomy can you give to your people? Sometimes you, you think as a leader, right? Especially in HR, you have to do everything for people and you find out that, you know, they want to own certain projects, giving them that ownership and that autonomy.”
This highlights the importance of empowering employees through ownership and autonomy as a key driver of engagement.
“HR has worked so hard to get a seat at the table. We're no longer that backroom function, but with that, you know, comes a lot of responsibility, so you have to be that strategic thought partner.”
This quote encapsulates the modern strategic role of HR beyond administrative tasks.
“if I was to give some recruitment advice, I would probably say it's the sales arm, right, of HR. And typically HR people are not salespeople, so they hear that and they kind of cringe a little bit, but sales is the lifeblood of the organization.”
He reframes recruitment as a critical 'sales' function for organizational vitality, challenging traditional HR perceptions.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Employees' number one concern is covering monthly expenses, highlighting a need for financial well-being benefits (Previ sponsorship).
- •Talent shortages in critical fields like education, with dramatic decreases in college graduates, necessitate alternative talent pipelines.
- •Lengthy or slow interview processes lead to losing desirable candidates to competitors.
- •Overwhelming candidates with too many interviewers can create an intimidating and ineffective experience.
- •Maintaining a consistent organizational culture while celebrating the unique missions and subcultures of multiple, distinct locations (e.g., charter schools).
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
You're the Chief Human Resource Officer at Choice Schools in Michigan
Top HR Executives: Career Journey
Matt Miller: There's a difference between employee satisfaction and employee engagement
Employee Engagement: How to Raise Employee Satisfaction
Matt, you talk about leveraging tools like surveys to assess employee pulse
Employee Engagement Initiative
Other Passions focuses on ensuring a positive candidate experience with interviews
The Experience of Hiring a Candidate
Use data-driven approaches to refine your recruitment strategies and improve hiring outcomes
Hiring Strategy: Data-Driven approaches
How does your company balance managing multiple charter schools while maintaining a consistent organizational culture
How Do You Manage Multiple Charter Schools?
Matt, what parting advice would you like to share with our community about recruitment
In the Elevator With Matt Kearney
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
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