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Welcome to another enlightening episode of the Speak in Flow podcast. We're joined by Laurice Gonzales, a seasoned project manager at San Francisco Public Works, who shares her unique insights into the communication dynamics of both the public and private sectors. Laurice draws from her experience in private tech and government roles, offering a respectful and insightful comparison that highlights the importance of tailored communication strategies in each environment.
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
Differences in Employee Engagement Strategies
Laurice dives into how communication strategies differ between the public and private sectors. While private companies often include perks like free snacks and games to boost employee engagement, the public sector focuses on alternative ways to connect with staff, particularly when such perks aren't available.
Employee Engagement Without Perks
Laurice discusses the approach of communication in the public sector in maintaining employee engagement, emphasizing the importance of fostering strong manager-employee relationships over occasional incentives.
The Role of Managers
The episode explores how the relationship between supervisors and staff is crucial in building a positive workplace culture. Laurice highlights that, in the absence of flashy incentives, it’s the quality of these relationships that truly impacts employee satisfaction and engagement.
Top-Down Communication
Laurice contrasts the impact of top-down communication in private tech companies and the difference in collaborative approaches between public sector organizations. She discusses how these differences shape the workplace environment and employee morale.
Purpose and Vision
Laurice emphasizes the importance of connecting employees' daily tasks to the larger vision and purpose of the organization. This connection enhances motivation and helps create a more engaged and committed workforce.
Memorable Quotes:
“So the kind of relationship that the supervisor and the staff have plays a big part in a culture in the culture that you know we're trying to form. And I'm lucky because in public works you do have supervisors who really care about the people in their team. They would try to look for ways on how to make the workplace better.”
“Showing to staff that you care goes a long way. And they're not always easy conversations, but having the conversation makes a whole lot of difference.”
“Communications and culture change is not something that happened, or like change overnight. But I think to try and inch our way towards making those improvements, as well, matters extremely.”
Connect with Laurice Gonzales:
About the Guest:
Laurice Gonzales was born and raised in the Philippines before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2013. With a background in Mass Communication, she began her career in advertising. After relocating to the U.S., she initially worked for the Superior Court of California and later spent four years in a private tech company. Despite her success in the private sector, Laurice felt drawn back to the government sector, where she fully embraced project management. Now, she focuses on projects aimed at boosting employee engagement and enhancing the overall workforce experience. Laurice is passionate about finding ways to improve workplace processes and is always eager to learn more about effective communication and efficient project management.
About Melinda:
Melinda Lee is a Presentation Skills Expert, Speaking Coach, and nationally renowned Motivational Speaker. She holds an M.A. in Organizational Psychology, is an Insights Practitioner, and is a Certified Professional in Talent Development as well as Certified in Conflict Resolution. For over a decade, Melinda has researched and studied the state of “flow” and used it as a proven technique to help corporate leaders and business owners amplify their voices, access flow, and present their mission in a more powerful way to achieve results.
She has been the TEDx Berkeley Speaker Coach and has worked with hundreds of executives and teams from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Caltrans, Bay Area Rapid Transit System, and more. Currently, she lives in San Francisco, California, and is breaking the ancestral lineage of silence.
Website: https://speakinflow.com/
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/speakinflow
Instagram: https://instagram.com/speakinflow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpowerall
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Welcome. Dear listeners to the speak and flow podcast, where we share experiences, leadership strategies to help you and your team unleash the power of their voice achieve maximum flow and potential.
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Melinda Lee: Today I have Laurice Gonzalez, Hi, Larise.
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Laurice Gonzales: Hi, Melinda.
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Melinda Lee: I'm glad you're here.
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Melinda Lee: Cool.
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Laurice Gonzales: Thank you for having me.
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Melinda Lee: Cheers.
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Laurice Gonzales: There you go. As I predicted. I'm sorry about that.
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Melinda Lee: No, okay. Her dog knows when she's on an important call. So obviously like he wants to say Hi to.
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Melinda Lee: I put.
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Laurice Gonzales: Happens.
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Laurice Gonzales: he knows when I'm on an important call, and he takes that as a cue.
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Melinda Lee: Oh!
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Laurice Gonzales: Chime, in.
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Melinda Lee: Very cute, very cute. Well, welcome, welcome. Laurie's is a part of the San Francisco public works, so she's a project manager there, and so I am so thrilled to have you come. Speak to us about the communication.
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Melinda Lee: tip strategies from the public side, and you also were at the private side. And so it's going to be a fascinating conversation. I'm so glad you're here, so can you tell the audience a little bit more right now about what you do in the public sector.
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Laurice Gonzales: Right? So currently. Well, thank you for an introduction. Melinda. Currently, I'm project managing what we call the experience, the employee experience survey, and then the process improvement side within San Francisco public works.
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Laurice Gonzales: So what that is? You know, we'll look into the overall experience of our staff within the department, you know their level of engagement. And
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Laurice Gonzales: how do we make sure that they're having A good experience working with San Francisco public works. And prior to my current role, I did work in private.
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Laurice Gonzales: I worked at Yale. It's more on the data side side of things. So data manage. I was with the data management team in there. That was a whole interesting side, too, because I was with an international Operations group.
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Laurice Gonzales: So we do have folks from different countries.
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Laurice Gonzales: born and raised in different countries. And then we formed this
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Laurice Gonzales: one group where we basically look into the international operations of yelp.
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Melinda Lee: Wow! And so what do you see? Are the differences between the public and the private sector with regard to communication.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah, that's very interesting. Because,
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Laurice Gonzales: you know, when I was working in private tech, it was a whole different environment. It was all like, you know, we'll have all that. I don't know. Maybe you or the audience have heard about where we have like free snacks and like some games put in the floor and all the happy things right? It was really good. It was good for
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Laurice Gonzales: you know, keeping employees engaged keeping them happy when they're in the workplace. But I just feel like
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Laurice Gonzales: It's kind of different in terms of communication, because now with government, of course, we don't have that. We don't have all the free meals and all those foosball tables within the lunch, the lunch floor, or things like that.
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Melinda Lee: And I mean.
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Laurice Gonzales: Really.
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Melinda Lee: That you're doing this employee engagement.
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Melinda Lee: the fact that you guys are doing employee engagement, I I mean, you don't have all the foosball and the snacks. But at least you're doing that. The employee engagement.
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Laurice Gonzales: I.
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Melinda Lee: But what you're saying is that the private sector there's a lot more bells and whistles to help keep people build community communication, whereas the public sector is not so much.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yes, yeah. So like, when I was in private tech, it was kind of like it was given.
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Laurice Gonzales: You know, we have the venue for that, you know all the happy hours, and, you know, like it was kind of built in to how we do our daily work.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: And I I love that you highlighted that, you know. Now in in government. We don't have all those things, all those fun stuff.
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Laurice Gonzales: but
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Laurice Gonzales: we do take the effort to still make sure that there are ways to keep staff engaged. You know. There are ways to keep them
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Laurice Gonzales: happy in the workplace. And you know what I've come to realize
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Laurice Gonzales: in the past years in, you know, doing this work.
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Laurice Gonzales: It's not about the the Foosball tables
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Laurice Gonzales: box, or you know it's.
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Melinda Lee: Really.
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Laurice Gonzales: What about that? And it's not always about the the free snack.
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Laurice Gonzales: There are actual things that
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Laurice Gonzales: would make people happy within the workplace
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Laurice Gonzales: that
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Laurice Gonzales: you know those other things
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Laurice Gonzales: would not solve
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Laurice Gonzales: so like in the in the work that I do. Now.
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Laurice Gonzales: what I realized is
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Laurice Gonzales: One thing that impacts people the most
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Laurice Gonzales: is the kind of relationship they have with their supervisors.
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Laurice Gonzales: So maybe you're not always like treating them out for lunches or or all these things.
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Laurice Gonzales: But the way supervisors and the staff interact
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Laurice Gonzales: is a big factor in
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Laurice Gonzales: building a culture
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Laurice Gonzales: or building this workplace where everyone is happy, and you know they don't just clock in and clock out
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Laurice Gonzales: and I guess it also plays into
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Laurice Gonzales: people having more I guess they're more personally invested in what the department achieves.
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Laurice Gonzales: So. You know, it starts with the supervisors because they're the ones who regularly talk to the staff.
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Melinda Lee: So.
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Laurice Gonzales: So the kind of relationship that you guys, you know, the supervisor and the staff have
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Laurice Gonzales: plays a big part in a culture in the culture that you know we're trying to form.
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Laurice Gonzales: And I'm lucky because in public works you do have supervisors who really care about the people in their team.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: They would try to look for ways
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Laurice Gonzales: on how to make the workplace better.
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Melinda Lee: Hmm.
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Laurice Gonzales: No. And the challenge is that with government, there's a lot of regulations that need.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: Adhere to. So we're not we cannot get crazy creative with how you know, with how we handle things. So there are regulations that we need to follow or like.
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Melinda Lee: Streamlining even just.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah.
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Melinda Lee: Is hard we want to do. We want to help the team. But even regulations around streamlining can be
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Melinda Lee: tough tough to break. So I wanna go back to what you're saying about up the the manager and the relationship? Are you finding getting information about what a manager can do to really
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Melinda Lee: bridge the gap or build a relationship, a strong relationship with every employee?
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Melinda Lee: Like, what are some a couple of strategies or tips that you can share as an.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah. So well, the work that I do now we do. An employee survey department wide. So that's really, you know. We have an executive team who's really invested and really want to know?
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Laurice Gonzales: What's going on. You know, department wide. So they do wanna take the time to ask people how they're feeling about things. And of course.
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Laurice Gonzales: you know,
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Laurice Gonzales: they would like we would. Gather that information.
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Laurice Gonzales: Okay? And just like. Look into
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Laurice Gonzales: how like managers can work on things like
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Laurice Gonzales: streamlining daily processes. So public works, we do a whole lot of different things right? Like we have a division that's dedicated to designing construction.
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Laurice Gonzales: and we have people who are dedicated to operations like the the daily schedule of those people are very different.
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Laurice Gonzales: So
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Laurice Gonzales: managers would try to streamline things like efforts that they're trying to do.
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Melinda Lee: Got it. I love having so many silos.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah. And I like using this in as an example. It's like things like, when we onboard new people, you know, when we hire new people? Are they onboarded properly? So are they set up for success? Do they know the role that they would be doing? Do they have the people that they can turn to when they get when they have questions. So it's things like working on proper onboarding.
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Laurice Gonzales: It's things like looking into career pathing and trying to really understand, like, what's people's
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Laurice Gonzales: plans for their careers.
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Melinda Lee: Right, right.
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Laurice Gonzales: And again, we're part of this, the whole civil service. Process
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Laurice Gonzales: but you know.
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Laurice Gonzales: I think.
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Laurice Gonzales: showing to Staff that you care
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Laurice Gonzales: goes a long way.
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Laurice Gonzales: and they're not always easy conversation, but having the conversation makes a whole lot of difference.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: Because it could be just. You know.
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Laurice Gonzales: there's awareness, right like, after you see, the survey results like there's awareness of what's needed.
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Melinda Lee: Right.
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Laurice Gonzales: But to just stop there at getting the results and not really
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Laurice Gonzales: having conversations on what to do with the results, or the feedback is like.
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Laurice Gonzales: you know, it kind of affects the morale of
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Laurice Gonzales: people.
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Laurice Gonzales: So for us
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Laurice Gonzales: say, you know again, just very lucky to be in a department where
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Laurice Gonzales: executive team doesn't just stop at. Okay. We know the feedback.
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Laurice Gonzales: They actually would wanna take it
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Laurice Gonzales: to the next step, where it's like, what do we do about the feedback.
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Laurice Gonzales: And admittedly, you know, communications and culture change is not not something that happened, or like change overnight.
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Laurice Gonzales: but I think to try and inch our way towards making those improvement, as well.
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Melinda Lee: That's yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: Matter, extremely.
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Melinda Lee: Definitely, definitely. That's so insightful. I love that.
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Melinda Lee: even though it's yes, it's it's just it takes a while. But I think that what you're saying. And what I hear is that when the manager really shows that we care, and you care, and just demonstrating that you care, and you're listening and having all these conversations about what little things that we could do to move the mark.
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Melinda Lee: And I think that will go a long way.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah.
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Melinda Lee: And what about that compared to the private sector? Did you see something different
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Melinda Lee: at the private sector?
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah. Well, you know, I'm speaking from my experience.
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Laurice Gonzales: I just I find it very interesting that when I was in private. You know the whole like we're happy here at work is kind of the the whole vibe right.
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Melinda Lee: Yes.
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Laurice Gonzales: But it felt more to me like it was very top down, approach.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: I mean. So like we get
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Laurice Gonzales: information from the heads. The you know.
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Laurice Gonzales: the upper tier positions.
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Melinda Lee: Right.
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Laurice Gonzales: And then we're just like, okay, this is gonna be the company values. Okay, this is gonna be what we're working on.
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Laurice Gonzales: But then it also felt like, where did this come from?
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Laurice Gonzales: It just felt like
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Laurice Gonzales: Maybe it wasn't more about
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Laurice Gonzales: asking from the front line staff, or the people who are hands on with the operations, and how we're going to go about with the change.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: As opposed to.
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Melinda Lee: Feel a lot of change going on at the time.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah, there was a lot of changes going on, but also like it also felt like, well, at least for me, I can't even catch up, you know.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah, like, there was like this one.
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Melinda Lee: Fascinating.
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Laurice Gonzales: It was. It's just like so fascinating.
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Melinda Lee: Because it's like
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Melinda Lee: true, cause it's like tech. You're fast going. And then you're.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah.
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Melinda Lee: Hide. Everything is like so slow.
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Melinda Lee: That is interesting. That is so true.
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Melinda Lee: And then this is to feel like. And that's why it's always top down because there's like there's no time to get feedback. And this is what we're gonna do. And we're gonna go.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: yeah, it's always just like that. And it's like, Oh, man, so you know, it's almost like,
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Laurice Gonzales: you're just you're just witnessing it without really taking part in it.
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Melinda Lee: Hmm.
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Laurice Gonzales: And you're right like, I think I needed to make that adjustment when they moved from private to government. It's like that. Pace was so different. And then I moved to government, and it was like.
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Laurice Gonzales: things change doesn't happen just as fast as that, like in writing. But now, with public works. It just feels like
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Laurice Gonzales: we are more focused on like, really listening to people taking time. And like.
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Laurice Gonzales: what do you guys really think
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Laurice Gonzales: you know versus just like a very top down approach. Where?
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Laurice Gonzales: Where did this come from? You know.
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Melinda Lee: And so.
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Laurice Gonzales: No, it's it's not a bad thing to pause
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Laurice Gonzales: and assess, and really try to take a look at
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Laurice Gonzales: changes that we need to do.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: So that's where I'm coming from. When I say, like, there's
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Laurice Gonzales: very big difference when it comes to how communication happens private and then with government and.
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Melinda Lee: Yes.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah.
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Melinda Lee: What was the impact? So you said when there was a top down approach, you felt like, Tell me more about the impact to you and to the team. Do do you recall at that time, when you felt like everything was constantly changing you mentioned you felt like you were just watching anymore. Like, what? Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: I think what I what I was kind of feeling back then was like I was a little bit more detached.
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Melinda Lee: No, you see.
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Laurice Gonzales: It felt like, Okay, I don't have a say on these things.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: The directives are just gonna huh, like they'll just share it with me.
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Laurice Gonzales: I guess it kind of felt like you didn't really have a voice.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: And you know I'm not saying that it's a horrible thing I'm just saying it's designed very differently.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: So it it just felt like again. You're just watching like you're just seeing it unfold.
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Melinda Lee: Steve.
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Laurice Gonzales: But you're not proactively
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Laurice Gonzales: being a part of it.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: And you like. It's like you're not part of the change. You're just seeing it happen.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah, and having it happen to you.
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Laurice Gonzales: There's.
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Melinda Lee: I'm a part of it, and having like there's No, there's no, and you're not like engaged right? I'm not part of it, and I'm not being so. Then you're like disconnected.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah. And I mean, you know, the the plus side of it is changes that are happening. Improvements are still happening.
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Melinda Lee: Right.
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Laurice Gonzales: But I just I'm just not
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Laurice Gonzales: personally invested like I guess I just struggled trying to find a connection to it.
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Melinda Lee: Thank you. That's so powerful. I've never cause I've never been. I hear what it here. It feels like to be in the public works sector, and I hear that, you know it's so slow. It takes a lot of time, but I'm really happy to hear that there are. There is. There are people. There are managers in the public, in the government sector that that care and are trying to change and really listening to the people. And I think that that because, like you said, there's space.
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Melinda Lee: and things are not moving so fast that that we have time to reflect
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Melinda Lee: and also learn and listen to people and bring people together versus in the private sector where things are happening so fast, I think there's just so much competition. And and it's just moving, and we we don't. As a part of the team. We don't feel like
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Melinda Lee: we have a say, because.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah. And then, therefore, the impact is, you get disconnected. We don't know
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Melinda Lee: like, what like. What do you think that the private sector can do in this situation.
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Laurice Gonzales: Well, you know well, I I'll take it from like my experience now with the government sector.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: Where, you know I'm saying that
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Laurice Gonzales: kind of taking it a little slower is not exactly a bad thing, because then you have. You have that venue and the time and the space to actually have conversations to actually ask people.
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Laurice Gonzales: how they feel about things? How do you feel about the workplace. What is it that we can do, whether it's small or big?
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Laurice Gonzales: To try and keep improving right?
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Laurice Gonzales: And I think it's just a level of engagement. And I think it's just the environment is designed different.
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Laurice Gonzales: I think you know, for I guess it's
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Laurice Gonzales: It's how you approach I guess how you communicate.
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Laurice Gonzales: Why, if it's just an email or a memo, it goes out. And then it's like you're not even asking for feedback.
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Melinda Lee: Thank you.
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Laurice Gonzales: Then I guess that's when people start feeling disconnected right?
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Melinda Lee: But.
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Laurice Gonzales: Maybe if you have other venues where
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Laurice Gonzales: actual connection can be made.
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Laurice Gonzales: Then maybe that'll set the tone a little differently.
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Laurice Gonzales: and maybe there's a bit more understanding.
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Melinda Lee: Yes.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah, cause I
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Laurice Gonzales: I guess. I want to share, too, the reason why like in public works now.
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Laurice Gonzales: we do want to take the time to really connect with
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Laurice Gonzales: employees and
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Laurice Gonzales: ask them
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Laurice Gonzales: what will keep them engaged in the workplace is because, you know, the main drive is always to provide better surveys.
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Melinda Lee: Someone.
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Laurice Gonzales: And that is to provide better service to the city.
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Laurice Gonzales: And
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Laurice Gonzales: How do you do that?
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Laurice Gonzales: It's you try to keep
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Laurice Gonzales: trying to be better.
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Melinda Lee: Right.
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Laurice Gonzales: And where do you start?
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Laurice Gonzales: Of course, with the people who's actually doing the work? So we so we can serve the city better.
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Melinda Lee: So.
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Laurice Gonzales: Taking care of the people.
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Laurice Gonzales: Is key in the department, being able to give better service.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: Does that make sense like that.
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Melinda Lee: I love that right? Right? There's a connection to the bigger vision, like, what is our.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah.
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Melinda Lee: Like we are all. It's not easy, there's difficult. There's challenges, but at the same time, and there's a deep level of connection. My purpose. Here I have a role in supporting the city and supporting the you know, bettering the services to the city. And so there is like so much like, there's there's a purpose and a vision that you're all going toward. Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: I love that you mentioned about the purpose and the vision.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: Because one of the things, too, is you know, when we did the survey, one of the areas that we look into is
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Laurice Gonzales: how much people value their contribution to the work that we do, which is to serve the public and to serve the city, and to provide the services that you know we need to give them right.
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Laurice Gonzales: And so
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Laurice Gonzales: it's good to know, like what they think about that. And it's good to know that
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Laurice Gonzales: you know, people don't just go to work to clock in, clock out. They actually care. Then
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Laurice Gonzales: are we really doing the service that we promised?
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Laurice Gonzales: And so it's not just about them working in their own individual worlds, but trying to see their contribution contributions within the team.
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Laurice Gonzales: How the team contributes to the department like goals, and you know.
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Laurice Gonzales: the department's goals to provide the services that we provide to San Francisco.
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Laurice Gonzales: It's kind of like this.
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Laurice Gonzales: we try to do like a root cost analysis of
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Laurice Gonzales: of issues, right? And you start from the actual people who do the work.
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Laurice Gonzales: And that's why it's so valuable to
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Laurice Gonzales: seek their feedback.
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Laurice Gonzales: Listen, and really try to do something about it.
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Melinda Lee: Yes, yes.
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Melinda Lee: I love. Thank you so much, Laurice, that's so powerful. It's such an important point about really listening and helping people to feel like there's purpose in what they do.
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Laurice Gonzales: Yeah. Yeah. So it's just it's funny, like people say, oh, it's slowing government. It's a whole lot of like bureaucratic process.
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Melinda Lee: Right.
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Laurice Gonzales: You know. I think that's the general perception about it.
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Melinda Lee: Yes.
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Laurice Gonzales: But you know it's it's good to see the reasoning behind it.
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Laurice Gonzales: What's really going on.
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Melinda Lee: Yeah.
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Laurice Gonzales: Not just like that. General impression of like things are not moving. It's cause. No, it's actually moving. And it's just things are unfolding and happening at a pace where it's digestible by everyone.
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Melinda Lee: That's awesome. That's awesome.
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Melinda Lee: That's great. That's great to know. Well, thank you. Laurice, I'd like to ask you like, I asked all of my podcast guests. What is the one leadership takeaway, golden takeaway that you like to the audience to remember.
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Laurice Gonzales: That's a really good question.
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Laurice Gonzales: you know.
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Laurice Gonzales: have the conversation.
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Laurice Gonzales: It might be cause, I guess, from my experience
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Laurice Gonzales: you shy away from difficult conversations.
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Laurice Gonzales: because.
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Laurice Gonzales: you know, sometimes you don't have enough courage for it. Right?
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Laurice Gonzales: But
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Laurice Gonzales: Have that conversation. It goes a long way.
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Laurice Gonzales: and
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Laurice Gonzales: some difficult conversations the longer you sit on it and like try to postpone it.
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Laurice Gonzales: The more difficult it becomes.
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Melinda Lee: Yes, this.
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Laurice Gonzales: Have a calm venue.
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Laurice Gonzales: approach it calmly.
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Laurice Gonzales: Have that conversation just be open about it.
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Laurice Gonzales: I think you know, if
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Laurice Gonzales: it it helps not just you your personal level of anxiety.
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Laurice Gonzales: but you know, to make that connection and really listen to others.
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Laurice Gonzales: I think that's a major key.
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Melinda Lee: Yes, get it out of the way. Have a conversation, step into curve and connection, and you might find some really positive possibilities on the other side.
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Laurice Gonzales: Absolutely, absolutely.
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Melinda Lee: Wonderful, Laurice. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise, your experience. I found I learned a lot, and I I trust that our all our audience also learned a lot. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.
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Laurice Gonzales: Thanks, Melinda.
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Melinda Lee: Thank you. Thank you. Audience, for being here until next time until I see you. I'm your sister in flow. May prosperity flow to you, and through you
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Melinda Lee: I'll see you on the other side. Thank you. See you. Bye, bye.
