We love energetic people – that’s no secret. This episode features the high energy and enthusiasm of Joelle Monaco and her philosophy of people first! Listen in as we dive into building people up as an investment into the business. She references trends going on locally and across the country that are changing the landscape of balance in the workplace (mental health, focused work time, and disconnecting at the end of the day). Jump in the car for this week’s episode! 

More about Joelle

Joelle Monaco, MBA, President of Joelle Monaco Consulting, is passionate about educating others from a People First Principle; an organization's employees are their most valuable asset — each with their own experiences, assets, and purpose. Joelle's expertise expands over thirteen years in organizational development with over eight years in the mental health field. 

Joelle has extensive experience in assessment, planning, directing, and training enhancements for people and organizational success, working with more than 1,500 individuals annually through creative sessions, training and development, and consulting. These experiences provide Joelle with professional opportunities to build the skills and abilities required to lead teams and empower individuals to achieve professional and organizational goals while fostering a people-first approach. 

Joelle is a current lecturer for SUNY Albany's Professional Adult & Continuing Knowledge department and has been a trainer for the National Council for Mental Wellbeing for over six years. Joelle currently sits on the board of directors for the New York State Public Health Association. 

Contact Info:

Joelle Monaco, MBA

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President of Joelle Monaco Consulting

LinkedIn Profile / Instagram

Information & Links

Adam Grant Podcast Taken for Granted  

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves  

Institute of Nonprofit Leadership and Community Development at University at Albany

Tech Valley Shuttle

Voiceover: Welcome to HR in the car with Miriam Dushane and Tom Schin of Alaant workforce solutions, where exciting HR Professionals and business leaders share laughter, insider stories and maybe even a few tears about HR in today's world. Buckle up for the best half-hour of your week.

Miriam: So, Tom, who are we talking to today?

Tom: We are talking with one of the most energetic people that I met, I think pre-pandemic, but still relatively recent. Joelle Monaco has her own consultancy called Joelle Monaco Consulting.

Miriam: Easy to remember.

Tom: Yeah, but she has so much energy. I can't wait to let our listeners hear all the things she talks about in terms of workforce development. And she had some really interesting takes on how this nonprofit starvation cycle can impact things and what businesses are doing today. The trends that she brought out, it was like Johnny on the spot.

Miriam: Absolutely. I met her during the pandemic through one of our networking virtual networking groups, and I've just always liked her and her philosophies are very similar to ours and not that we don't want people with different philosophies to join us because we do. But is so get everything that she's talking about. So she's she's a real delight. So let's listen in.

Tom: Welcome. Joelle Monaco, to HR in the car. We appreciate you joining us today. For those that you that don't know Joelle, she runs Joelle Monaco Consulting and her three primary focus points are people, process and performance. So as we introduce you, Joelle, tell us what that means.

Joelle Monaco: It's kind of a loaded question, Tom. Thank you first for having me here. Really, what I do through consulting is I work with organizations to really look at putting a person first approach in their business. So if we start with the people, then it impacts the processes what ultimately impact and influence the organization's performance? So instead of starting with the end goal, we start with the people.

Miriam: Excellent. So when you're at a cocktail party, what do you usually tell people you do?

Joelle Monaco: Definitely not that I usually say, I work with businesses to empower them to bring their HR or their human capital and their operations together. So really bringing the people into the business, because so often, you know, when we look at organizations and their annual planning or their business line people or human capital aren't integrated into that. So really, you know, working on those pieces to bring it all together.

Miriam: I mean, it seems like a no brainer to me that you have to put the people first. I mean, come on. Right. If you don't have the people, you don't have performance to run your business. So what's the point exactly?

Joelle Monaco: I say. Go ahead. Sorry.

Miriam: That's okay. But it's just it's fascinates me that this is a concept that makes complete sense to me. But there's a lot of organizations where I'm sure you're going in and they have that like light bulb moment or that aha moment.

Tom: Or none at all.

Joelle Monaco: Yeah. Which is even scarier. Right.

Tom: They just think, I know I'm going to build this business. I'm going to have ten people, so I'll just hire them because that magically happens like a snap. Right. And I can find them.

Miriam: No problem. Don't forget, there is a people closet.

Joelle Monaco: And they're just going to fit into this role exactly how I've imagined them.

Tom: You know, it reminds me of there's that video where you have the woman sitting there watching the blocks go into the holes and it's like the square peg goes into the round hole, the rectangular peg goes into the round hole, and she's just going nuts because everything's going into the round hole and she's like, No!

Joelle Monaco: Yeah. And you know, when we look at the workforce, I always say, you know, your organization has a mission, but if you don't have your people, you can't achieve it. And so often when we plan projects or operations, we start with what is the end result? Or What's the product or widget never thinking about like, well, what strengths do we have? What additional skills or resources can our people bring and then build the product model that we kind of work it backwards?

Miriam: Yeah. Talk to us a little bit about what's the trend that you see regardless of the type of business, big or smaller or industry that is like a common trend or a common thread.

Joelle Monaco: So if we're looking at right now, it's definitely the stressor of labor shortage. Right? Everyone's talking about it. And I feel like this people first approach really has been brought to the surface. Much more many more businesses and organizations are interested. And when organizations are looking at a labor shortage, they're looking at retention. And I always say, okay, well, retention is holding people still, right? We're just going to hold on to them and it's more of a reactive approach. So what I'm working with a lot of organizations is to say, flip that. How do we make it person first we focus on succession. How do we build people up and make them want to be here as opposed to holding on to them? And that model really aligns with that person first approach and really saying, okay, who do we have? How do we build them up? Because we know it's cheaper to build someone up and have a line of succession to senior leadership or whatever their role may be than to lose them and try to fill that position. But you know how the business world goes sometimes we're only inclined to be proactive when it's reactive. Right. We're always fixing a problem and it's hard to find the budget to be proactive or there's more barriers to say, hey, we want to invest 1,500 every year into every member of our team to make sure they feel empowered, educated and invested in as opposed to spending. Heck, a lot more of that to replace them.

Miriam: I think that's the biggest key is that if you actually would put into writing the the the logistics and the just the revenue loss and the money spent and really what it costs to keep people and develop them and put them on a path for success as opposed to doing the opposite and recruiting new people all the time. I mean, hello.

Joelle Monaco: Not that i'm trying to put you guys out of business or anything, but.

Miriam: Come on now.

Miriam: Sometimes it's crunches, I scratch my head because one of the first questions I always ask a client is, Have you looked at your internal team? Who on your internal team could potentially do this job? And nine times out of ten, they say, Yeah, there's no one.

Joelle Monaco: Yeah.

Miriam: But they're not a company of two people. So it's fascinating to me because that that happens so often and the dollars and cents just don't make sense.

Joelle Monaco: Well, then when you look at it, then, you know, from my perspective, I really say, okay, well, how are people valued in that organization?

Joelle Monaco: Mm hmm.

Tom: Are they getting trained? Are they getting developed?

Joelle Monaco: Yeah. And what is their leadership style? Right. Because we know there's a difference between managers and leaders.

Miriam: Mm hmm. Absolutely.

Joelle Monaco: And then you can, like, you can almost look at and that's really where, you know, I geek out is what is the story? Where is the story? And how do we course correct and make sustainable changes?

Tom: I think that's one of the differences today versus five or ten years ago is everything's about a story now. And the folks that are struggling to connect that story versus just giving, here's your marching orders. Go complete this, go finish this, get this done by whatever deadline you figure it out. They don't they don't care about the context. Whereas our audience today is so used to, you know, whether it's from an entertainment perspective or just having a reason why you're Simon Sinek, what.

Miriam: I was just going to say, what's the why? They want to know the why. Right.

Tom: But, you know, I mean, we're seeing more and more of it come out. We're seeing more and more people talk about it, which is great. I was in a discussion earlier and we were talking about what what's the drawback? Well, people buy into it, but they're not acting on it.

Joelle Monaco: Nope.

Miriam: It's because it's too hard. It's work. Everything is work.

Tom: But they don't equate. This is the odd part. It's they don't equate the loss of somebody as work.

Joelle Monaco: No and nd they don't include that in their finances and their losses. Right. That's just the cost of doing business. But it's I mean, hand over and more expensive. It's a reactive model because you go into any business and you say and this is a calculation we do is bring it back to what you were kind of talking about. We asked them, okay, calculate what was your turnover cost? And then we say, okay, what happens if you invested 1,500 into every team member? You're saving 50% easily and most companies. But to get finance department executive level the board to sign off on that, it's painstaking.

Tom: They haven't written in it as a line item.

Joelle Monaco: Correct. Because the human capital is not in their business plan.

Miriam: Even though it's human capital.

Miriam: Yeah. All right.

Joelle Monaco: You need people. Oh, my gosh.

Miriam: Say you have a company that comes to you and they say, oh, help, what is a make it or break it for you to even be willing to work with them? What are things that you would be like? I can't help you because of whatever. What do you see out there?

Joelle Monaco: Well, I think it's also, you know, really taking assessment of what is the culture look like, what is the buy in, who's bought in? Is it just the HR Team saying we really need help or is it senior leadership HR team and the team saying like, we're doing this as a collaborative. We have devised a committee and here are things we found, here are opportunities and here's what we're willing to invest in this. And that's when I really know. Okay? It's not just about saving face and tying it to their mission and vision and value because it's on their website and they have to do that. But it's something that, you know, they're willing to put the money where it counts. And I think a lot of times, you know, we have leaderships for all the organizations come to me and say we want to do a training. And I would say, well, that's really transactional. While it's a great first step, a training isn't going to get to the root of the cause, the impact or really frankly tell us much. So, you know, when I'm looking for we're looking at organizations making sustainable change. It has to include every level of the organization being committed to it.

Tom: That's kind of the guest speaker for that adjunct professor who just needs to fill one hour of time during the semester versus an entire certificate or diploma or whatever credential program you want it, however you want to phrase it. But that's what I'm imagining. You just you're you're filling seats.

Joelle Monaco: Yeah. And for a long time, we've pieced together things because we didn't have the budget or, you know, working with a lot of small, medium and nonprofits. It's pieced together. But we also look at, you know, what is a priority in the budget? How do we make this a priority? You know, I talk about the nonprofit starvation cycle, and I use this with businesses, too, because we are our own worst enemy. We create budgets to cut cost and then we pitch them knowing that it's not sustainable. So then we're always working below the budget, and then that's when leadership doesn't. It's no longer an overhead cost. It becomes part of a program or, you know, a department cost. And then you lose the whole focus on people, leadership. What does that mean? Because we're just starving ourselves and in this continuous cycle, always cutting budget, but increasing numbers. Right. And a lot of businesses I see this at the end of the year when we missed our annual goal, but we only missed by this much. So we're going to increase it anyways, right? So now you've decreased how much you're going to invest in people and you increase the expectations.

Miriam: Yeah, that doesn't equal out. Not at all.

Joelle Monaco: Right. And so it's like what is? And then the whole piece I look at and really challenge and ask leaders to say, what does that people experience? How do your people feel when they hear that, when they.

Tom: I think they're afraid to ask that question.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: And then, you know, in our space, yes, for human resources. But there's always that fear of knowing too much information. It's ironic for sure.

Miriam: Well, and I like what you said about I think it's really important for people to understand that the C-suite, the business owner, whoever that might be, has to be 100% being behind it and champion it.

Miriam: Yes.

Miriam: Now, the HR team or whoever is involved might be helping rule things out and being that conduit, but it's not all on them. And I know a lot of times I think business leaders think, well, HR, I'll just take care of that. Yeah. And HR can't just take care of everything. HR can help lead the process but if you are not acting and showing that is important at that top level, it's not going to be successful.

Joelle Monaco: We model what we see.

Miriam: Absolutely. Absolutely. So we always talk about questions of. The week. We always like to have our guests give their take on the questions. And we talked about a couple of different ones, and we didn't really settle on the one that we were going to talk about before we started recording. So you looked at them. What one surprised you the most or what one do you want to talk about the most? And then I could go into it.

Joelle Monaco: Man, it's a tough draw here, but given our conversation so far, I'm going to sway towards the engagement one.

Miriam: I had a feeling that that was where we were going to go. So we recently polled our readership, I guess we'll call it an engagement in an organization. And the question was, how engaged are your company's employees? Our choices were fully engaged. Most are engaged. It could be better or not at all. And I mean, we had about 22% that said, yep, our people are fully engaged. We had 33% say mostly we think they're mostly engaged, but we had a combination of 63%, 62 , 63% that said it could be better or not at all. Yep. So ouch.

Tom: Yes. Scary.

Miriam: That's that's those are impressive numbers. Like everybody will have a person or two maybe. But when you're talking about the people who respond to this and it's like 60%. Tell us what you think about that. Were you surprised in that number?

Joelle Monaco: Nope, not at all. That's actually the average. That's actually below average because traditionally when we look at engagement studies, about 33% of your workforce is actually engaged, the highest percentage is not engaged. And then around like 16 to 20 is actively disengaged, which means they've got a foot out the door. So, you know, when I'm working with organizations, we're really focusing on that 50%, that middle. But a lot of times, you know, were this survey, a lot of times I asked to, who's taking it? Because your perception is your reality. When we look at senior leadership and they say, well, how engaged. Oh, everybody loves to come to work. Yeah.

Miriam: Absolutely. Yeah.

Joelle Monaco: Yeah. Versus the people. Like, what is their actual experience? How do they feel? And we see this in across all industries. You know, a lot of times we look at it from employee engagement. You know, we tell employees what we're giving them, we tell them how they should feel versus asking about people experience and really saying, what do you need to be successful to feel empowered and to feel like you're part of this organization? So it's almost two different conversations, and while they don't compete, they're actually compatible. But that's also, you know, when I look at this data, I don't think it's it's pretty typical, I would say, for, you know, the grand scheme of things, it's actually higher, more positive than what we traditionally see.

Miriam: Interesting. Interesting. It was funny. I was listening to something the other day on the radio and they were talking about the four day workweek.

Joelle Monaco: Yes.

Miriam: And how that's been getting such traction. And then there's this woman who was representing a company. And this is a national conversation I was listening to. And the woman said, well, you know, 40 workweek is nice. I said, but she said, if you are mandating that your employees work four days a week and they always have Fridays off or Mondays off or whatever it might be, what happened to the flexibility? Employees still want more flexibility then they want something mandated. And so unless you talk to your employees and figure that out, you're never going to know.

Joelle Monaco: But we always we think we know what they want, right? Nobody wants to ask because you kind of said it before time. You were like, well, we don't ask them because sometimes we're afraid of what they're going to say, but you're not always going to please everybody. Right? That's, you know, be all be transparent. You're not going to please everybody. But if we're shooting for the stars and hoping for the dreams of what we want, that's going to be really different, especially if your C-suite is making those dreams and hopes versus your hourly employees or maybe your consultants or your temp agencies. Right? Because they may have very different needs.   And I think that's also a gap that, you know, a lot of times organizations don't recognize as well. They think their benefits are fantastic and their flexibility is amazing because they have a four day workweek. It doesn't meet their whole workforce's needs. It's actually interesting. Out in California, they're looking their legislation is looking to reduce the workweek hours to 32.

Miriam: Yeah. And so you'd have to pay overtime if it was over 32 hours. That was part of this conversation I was listening to.

Joelle Monaco: And it's really you know, it's interesting to see the dynamics because you see a lot of businesses talking about the four day workweek. And yes, there's different things that work for different industries, different, you know, performance types, even different people. Right. You meet all these different personalities and life experiences. But one of the things they found was when people actually had concentrated work time to do what they needed to do and they actually had adequate time to disconnect. They performed higher. They were able to solve problems better, they were more creative. And, you know, I say, Yeah, you can do it for hours, you can do it 35 hours. But how are we empowering to people to really work when they're at work and disconnect and enjoy life? And I was listening to a podcast that was asking the question of and challenging, you know, wherever we meet somebody, we say, well, what do you do? And it's like there's a lot more to your why than your occupation.

Miriam: Absolutely. Mm hmm.

Tom: Is funny. One of our earlier guests talked about a book called Deep Work that John Bagy was mentioned that. And so I listened to that and I was exactly that point. You have concentrated time to work on really thought provoking stuff, your knowledge, work type of activities where if you go uninterrupted, you're 10, 20, 30% more productive during that time, you can still have transactional time, what they call shallow work to do the easy stuff, quick responses to email and you kind of chunk that out.

Miriam: That's what I do in front of the TV at night to show my work.

Tom: Yeah. So it was really fascinating when John made those couple of book recommendations. I'm like, Oh, I'm going to add this to my list. Joelle and I have this a couple of years ago, we just started swapping books back and forth. You got to read that.

Joelle Monaco: Yeah. And if you think about it, so the listeners, you know, really step back and look at your time, your workplace time. What do you spend the majority of your time doing? And probably it's that transactional stuff.

Miriam: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Joelle Monaco: And I've tried a lot of things. I'm like, okay, blocking out this time I'm doing X, Y, Z, now I'm doing x, y, z later. I try it. It's yeah. It's really hard. Yeah.

Tom: That seven habits kind of argument. You've got to get into a routine. You've got to practice it. You've got to almost turn your phone on airplane mode.

Tom: Yep. You know.

Miriam: Turn off your email. That's the other one. Email is such a distractor these days because people just think they have to answer every email soon as it comes in. It's like it's not instant message or texting, it's an email. So we have to start, you know. Yeah, the mindset of that.

Joelle Monaco: And that's the tough part. Like, you know, doing consulting independently. I'm very transparent. I say you'll get a response within three business hours. Right? Because I have to give myself that time to be able to fully process maybe what somebody's asking me, because sometimes it is a complex question. And you know, in our fast paced environment, we now expect everything to happen instantaneously.

Tom: Well, and you got to wonder from you as a vendor for different businesses, if event if a client's asking you to respond, that minute, that moment, how much of their how much of your time do they value? Right? Is it that earth shattering that has to be decided on that very minor within five days?

Tom: Yeah.

Joelle Monaco: The whole thing's going to fall apart. The ship's going to sink.

Tom: Yeah, in our house, we call it World Colliding of the World's Ending. You know, I'm the Queen of England. Yes. I played the REM song Is It The End the World As You Know It, right? So my family has great fun with that. So since we're talking about what books and reading material, is there some latest book's latest article, some latest trend that you've read about that you wanted to bring up and share with our listeners?

Joelle Monaco: So being that, I'm going to take a unique perspective. We're talking about organizational development. I'm just going to plug it out there for people that maybe new to understanding what our organizational development topics or areas. Adam Grant, if you haven't listened to and he has a bunch of books, but he also has some really great podcasts and one that I really enjoyed is "Taken for Granted". And I started really listening to it excuse me not reading it recently and it challenges the things that we take for granted in the good old saying of what? We've always done it that way.

Joelle Monaco: Mm hmm. Really?

Joelle Monaco: And he brings people on the podcast to challenge, like, well, why have we always done it that way? How can we rethink it? And how can we restructure, you know, and really challenge ourselves? And for me, even going in and challenging organizations, a lot of times his guests will come in and I'll think, Huh? Yeah. Why do we do that? I don't know. And it just gives you food for thought. And then it's practical where you can really go back to your organization and say, okay, how do we do it? How can we challenge the status quo to really elevate? And then, of course, I'm always rereading books. I'm actually one I recommended to you Emotional Intelligence to point out it's a fan favorite. I love it. Just rereading it. You know, there's a lot of conversation around emotional intelligence now. A lot of businesses are looking for different ways. And it's been, you know, an up and coming topic of, you know, it's a leadership model. Really emotional intelligence is really high up there. So, you know, I'm always crafting up new, new things. So there's something in the hopper.

Tom: That's awesome. Yeah, I just ordered that book. Did or I have it at home. I ordered it for somebody that I'm working, doing some coaching for just because it's so insightful. My wife went through it and I can't say too much about that because I'll get in trouble when I get home. But she left her score sheet out and we'll just leave it at that. So yeah, I have a lot of fun with that conversation, but really great book. Travis Bradberry did a great job on that one, so I love that you mention podcasting because here we are podcasting greatly. So you're the first one to mention that from our guests that we've had.

Miriam: I much prefer listening than reading.

Joelle Monaco: So I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I always have different things going on and it really depends on my mood. I'm like, Do I need some quick inspiration? I turn on a podcast like, Do I want to get deep in something? Let me actually physically read a book? Or am I just looking for like passive distractional listen?

Miriam: I'll listen before we close. We also like to I usually talk about, you know, something outside of our occupation and the things that, you know, define us, so to speak, using air quotes outside of your work in your occupation, is there any organizations, any community based groups, nonprofits that you're involved in that maybe people might not know about and we should take a look at.

Joelle Monaco: Yeah. So I'm going to do the terrible thing of saying, like a lot of the organizations I support are workforce driven because so many people don't look at workforce driven organizations. Right? They donate to nonprofits that we're aware of. And there's really great causes, but there's so many people in the workforce or trying to get in the workforce that don't have their needs met, are looking for additional support. And I think it's a huge market that, you know, a lot of organizations and employers aren't looking to. There's so many unique populations with unique experiences that serve the workforce so well and are looking for jobs and looking for meaningful careers. So if you, I'll just talk about meeting basic needs. Give a plug to the Institute for Nonprofit Leadership and Community Development. I help with and, you know, I've done some courses for the University of Albany, but this is a great way to build up our nonprofits in the local community here. If you're not in the capital region, find a nonprofit university near you. Because I think, you know, we always assume nonprofits. Oh, they've got it all together. They employ the largest percentage of our workforce, but they have little to no funding for human capital development. Yeah, things like that. The other ones I really like are like transportation. Okay, organizations I'm a big fan of here locally. Tech, Tech Valley .

Miriam: Heck yeah, with Trent?

Miriam: Yeah.

Joelle Monaco: We got to talk to Trent.

Miriam: Yeah, that's a great idea.

Joelle Monaco: But you know, they do transportation for workforces and, you know, yes, the C-suite doesn't see that as an obstacle. But for a lot of people.

Miriam: It's a huge obstacle. I have, and Tom can feel this too, because we grew up air quotes again. We grew up in the temp staffing business and part of our business was across the board office, you know, industrial factory, whatever it might be. And a lot of individuals, you know, the first thing you would have to say is, is it on the bus line or not? And even if it was on the bus line, it still wasn't a convenient on the back. It was a line type of situation in York. And and I talked to Trent specifically and I said, got it. You know, when we were in the real true temp staffing business back 20 years ago, I wish you were around because we would have completely used your services. And I'm constantly reminding my team about, you know, if you hear someone who has transportation issues, don't rule them out, come talk to me. Well, figure we can try to figure it out with Trent. So, hey, Trent, you're getting a great plug right now. Yeah.

Tom: Well, that's the story of trying to do more and be more authentic, be more human understanding of what people's plight is. Yeah. Or plights are as the plural or singular. But anyway, it's it's one of those things that you take for granted when you're talking to candidates about just the ability to get to someplace, going from downtown Albany to get over to Schenectady.

Miriam: Oh, it's a nightmare.

Tom: Yeah, I remember I had one temporary employee going from East Greenbush , taking the bus through downtown Albany all the way up to Schenectady. All the way up to Saratoga.

Tom: What?

Tom: And then would get a cab when he got there to get to where he was going.

Miriam: That's like an hour and a half.

Tom: Commute, plus the taxi.

Miriam: The cost and the cost on that as well. Absolutely .

Joelle Monaco: Everyday.

Joelle Monaco: And that's the biggest thing like we have. I was in retail for a very long time and I had a lot of those obstacles and sometimes I would run like a retail bus. I would go and pick up my team because they would take an hour long bus or they would spend $50 on a cab fee. And I'm like, You're spending half of your paycheck to get here like this. Defeating the purpose.

Miriam: Exactly. It's funny, we're totally getting off topic, but when it comes to transportation, my husband works in retail and he works with some younger people and he will oftentimes come home later and he'll be like, Oh, I dropped this person off or because he goes and they don't even understand the math. Sometimes he goes, I literally sat down with one person he knows, a woman he works with. She takes Uber every day, every single day.

Tom: That's going to be 20 bucks a day ,twice a day.

Miriam: And so he was showing some of the younger people that work on his team that were, you know, they're in college. And he was like, you realize, you know, you spent this on that's like 2 hours of your pay that you just spent on this and it's, you know, stuff related. So he's doing like little financial literacy courses at the store because he's like your Starbucks that you spend this much money on every single day. That's how much of your paycheck is going to that this Uber when you do this, this is how much of your paycheck is going to it. But the Uber thing is a little bit more of a necessity sometimes, right?

Tom: You got to work to eat.

Miriam: And exactly.

Tom: So managing your home return on investment, your your home profit margin.

Joelle Monaco: If you will, and this is something I talk to a lot with businesses is saying what are your I use Maslow's hierarchy of needs what are your team's basic needs? Are they being met? Do they have access to food, sleep, transportation? Right. Because food is also a big barrier. A lot of times we have a lot. In the capital region. Across the US we have food deserts. So how as an employer, can you alleviate some of those barriers and how can you show that you truly care about them not only as an employee but as a person? At the end of the day, these are people. They're not robots, they're not widgets. They have feelings, they have families. Like, how do we make our community better at the end of the day?

Miriam: Absolutely. Well, I think that is a perfect way to end our segment with you. What a great wrap up. We didn't even have to do it. She did it for us, Tom.

Tom: That's fantastic. Thanks for joining us, Joelle.

Joelle Monaco: Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

Miriam: So to wrap up, thank you so much again for being with us. We will have all of your contact information on our website along with this podcast, along with links to Tag Valley Shuttle and the what was it called again? I want to get it right.

Joelle Monaco: Nonprofit university, I'll call it. It will be. I said its whole name is actually the Institute for Nonprofit Leadership and Community Development.

Miriam: Yeah, send us the link for that one too so we can get that up there. I'm going to try to copy what you just said because I'm my retention is not there today. So again, thank you so much for joining us and we wish you all the success.

Joelle Monaco: Wonderful. Thank you.

Joelle Monaco: Thanks.

Tom: Wow. That was fantastic. Can you imagine that we were going to get that many business plugs in this conversation with Joelle?

Miriam: I think we need to start charging people because we just like laid out a bunch of free advertising for a couple of businesses. But that's okay. I love that's why we're here. This is why we're doing this. This is to talk about our experiences. This is to bring in our community and get the word out about great community partners. But also, again, it's for me why we do this podcast is to bring our community closer together so that we can partner more and work together. So I loved how she talked about the nonprofit organizations that she was supporting, that were supporting workforce development, things like Tech Valley shuttle, with the transportation for people who need to get to work and don't have other methods to do that. So I loved that. And again, we could talk to her for 3 hours. In my opinion, she had so much to talk about.

Tom: Oh absolutely. I think we had two or three more questions that we just didn't have time to get to.

Miriam: Couldn't have gotten to them.

Tom: So for those of you that were taking notes, we apologize. All of the details for the links and the organizations that Joelle mentioned are going to be in the show notes. So come back to Alaant.com and subscribe for more episodes of HR in the car.