Maureen Cawley

▶0:00HostWelcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. I'm excited to welcome Maureen to the Built by People podcast. Maureen, thank you so much for joining us today. And as a starting question, I always like to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:51GuestOh, thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to share about my career journey. And what excites me most is where my career journey is going. So I joined Satva in 2021 as a VP of HR, and the mission that I have in this role is to make good on our brand commitment to help our employees find total life success. I started out in retail at Target. If you're familiar with their executive leadership program, it gives you a well-rounded managerial foundation. Then I moved to corporate as a part of a very strong HR team at Ross Stores. And then moved into my first head of HR job for a small data-driven marketing firm, which was ultimately acquired by a larger company based out of Minneapolis.

▶1:34HostMaureen, can you share a specific example where Sattva's commitment to authenticity in its brand promise created a positive impact both internally for employees and externally for customers?

▶1:46GuestAbsolutely. Every year we produce a social impact report So we actually hold ourselves accountable to making good on that brand promise. The big headline is Sattva is sponsoring the Olympics for Milano-Cortina this coming winter, and then also for LA '28 because we really believe in the restorative power of sleep. And there's really no better platform in the world than the Olympics where these athletes, they train for their whole life, they have this one opportunity to perform at their best. And you need a great night's sleep to perform at your best. And we're the right partner to help those athletes achieve those dreams.

▶2:28HostMaureen, what challenges have you faced when implementing your total life success approach for employees, and how did you overcome resistance or skepticism?

▶2:38GuestOne of the main challenges is that total life success doesn't look the same for everybody, right? So we have to respect that people have different needs depending on where they live, their family circumstances, their skill set, their career goals. And when you think about total life success and employees, there's an individuality component to it. It means that when we evaluate what initiatives to bring to the team, we have to look at them from a real lens of whether we're delivering authentic impact. So do we have the capability to make an impact? Do we have conviction in this space and is there an opportunity there? And I think what our team responds really nicely to is the intention to deliver an authentic impact and that if you measure our company based on our performance against our brand promise, you would find that we deliver. One of, one of the main, like my, to me, the foundation of how we deliver is with a solid product. And customer-friendly policies. So if you work for a company where a customer receives the product, they're delighted by that experience. Your mom orders a mattress and then she wants to call you and tell you how nice the delivery people were, or somebody has an experience and they got something that wasn't quite what they expected. The policies are in place to make good for that consumer. When you have that foundation at the core of the business, creates an environment where both employees and customers expect and trust us to deliver on what we said we would.

▶4:18HostMaureen, how have you structured your employee benefits and policies to align with Sattva's non-commissioned sales approach? What measurable outcomes have you seen from this alignment?

▶4:29GuestOne of the best measurable outcomes are our Better Business Bureau rating. So we have a top Better Business Bureau rating. Our reviews of our products are fantastic. On the benefits side, very similar story that our employees rate us very highly. We received a 90% score on the Great Place to Work survey. So 90% of our employees rate us as a great place to work versus a benchmark 88% of top 100 companies would say the same. So Again, when we think about our policies and we talk about total life success as the— maybe our topic here, consistent scheduling, right? So if you're working in a retail environment and your day off is constantly changing, it makes it very hard to plan for your own interests and priorities and needs. So consistent scheduling, fair and consistent pay practices, benefits that are competitive, reviewed annually, and we're consistently trying to deliver more value to our team. So for example, last year we were able to offer Kaiser in a few markets for the first time. That was very well received. And so it's that continuous review of is what we're offering internally matching the level of experience we're offering externally. And I think that the accolades that we get in terms of our engagement from our team and then our ratings from our customers, those really serve as strong guides for the company.

▶5:56HostIn your experience building an authentic company culture, What was the most unexpected lesson you learned about connecting internal practices with external brand promises?

▶6:07GuestI learned this from my internal comms director. She at one point said, all communication is internal communication. And our corporate comms team is teaching me is that no matter what you say externally, you have to believe that your team is going to hear it. To. So if you start to make a strategy around communication that's focused on externals over here and then internals over here, you're really doing yourself and your company a disservice. One example where we found that breaking down the silo between internal and external comms and messaging has been particularly helpful is with our employee advocacy program. So we offer cohort-based training programs on LinkedIn employee advocacy, you might know this: posts that are shared by your employees receive 8 times better engagement than posts that your company will share. And so again, when you're thinking about authenticity, who is a better advocate for your company? Of course they're going to believe your employees. And so what we're able to create is this flywheel where we're delivering real value with our product. Our employees are having an experience that measures up to what we promised them. They're then advocating for the company and we're teaching them and giving them the tools to do that effectively. And our consumers are seeing this material out there from our team, and it helps to further validate that our brand promise is real.

▶7:40HostMaureen, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

▶7:44GuestI think that the parting advice that I would share with the community in terms of building an authentic culture is to step back and take a good look at all of the touchpoints that your team has with your brand, whether your team is functioning also as a consumer when they purchase something from you or they work with your brand, what your handbook is saying, and then aligning the policies and practice to whatever it is that you're communicating about your brand. And that exercise seems simple, But it can have a very powerful and transformative impact on the business.

▶8:21HostMaureen, thanks so much for joining us today on the Built by People podcast.

▶8:24GuestThank you so much for the opportunity.