Nora Burns - Podcast Guest
Workplace Culture Wit & Wisdom
Nora’s primary proprietary research as The Undercover Candidate™ and The Undercover Employee™ is foundational in her work guiding organizations in re-imagining the candidate and employee experiences and reconnecting the broken relationship between the boardroom and the break room.
As The Undercover Candidate™ Nora participated in over 250+ job interviews (incognito), across the country for a wide variety of positions including manufacturing, forklift operator, surgical scheduler, payroll clerk, underwriter, crew lead, director of operations, director of accounting, housekeeping staff, and many more.
As The Undercover Employee™ Nora worked for fifteen months on the front lines of five Fortune 500 organizations in customer-facing roles. These organizations did not know her as a former Fortune 200 leader, but rather, knew her as one of many polyester-uniform-wearing front-line employees.
A keynote speaker, researcher, and consultant, Nora is leading the way in reinvigorating workplace culture by re- connecting the boardroom and the breakroom.
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What motivated you to go on over 250 job interviews? What was the initial inspiration for this research?
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How did you protect your anonymity while you conducted this research?
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Did you observe variations in candidate response and evaluation based on demographic variables?
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What were you most surprised by over the course of this research?
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What are your plans for sharing the results of your research to a broader audience?
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What advice would you give to <hiring managers, job candidates, organizational leaders> to help them with the hiring
process based on your extensive research and experience?
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Have you considered continuing this research or exploring other aspects of the employee experience in the future?
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What motivated you to work undercover on the front lines of organizations?
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What rules and parameters did you give yourself for this research project?
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What were you most shocked or surprised by when working front-line jobs after being in a leadership role for so long?
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What intrigued you the most about onboarding processes at the organizations you worked with?
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As a former Fortune 200 leader, what differences did you observe between how those on executive row are treated by
comparison to the uniform-wearing front-line employees?
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What one element could most employers implement this week to enhance the new employee experience?
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What impact has this research had on your perspectives related to leadership and corporate culture?
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Based on your extensive experience, what advice would you give to front line managers to help them [reduce turnover,
develop employee loyalty, build a stronger team]?