It’s hard to understate the huge disruptions that the global pandemic and lockdown caused for businesses everywhere. It was 18-plus months of chaos that many organizations are still trying to dig themselves out of.
For some, however, the Covid Crisis presented an opportunity to look closely at their company culture and strategy, and, perhaps, consider how they might use the pandemic period as a time to rethink, reimagine, and restructure key parts of the organization.
That’s the approach that Madison Square Garden (MSG), a 142-year-old company with multiple brands and a long track record of success, decided to take — and with good reason.
“We went from selling out to lights out in the blink of an eye when 2020 happened,” said Carolyn Rooney, MSG’s Senior Director of Leadership and Talent Development. “It challenged every part of our work … and it challenged our employees and the future success of our company as well.”
How Madison Square Garden reimagined their customer experience
Carolyn Rooney and Marina Sideli, Senior Specialist of People Development at MSG, described just what their organization did in a presentation at Fuel50’s FuelX Talent Mobility Conference titled How Madison Square Garden Transformed Their Employee Experience. And what MSG did was something that a lot of businesses could learn from. It is this:
In order to rethink and rebuild their customer experience, they first had to rethink and rebuild Madison Square Garden’s employee experience.
How did they do this? Carolyn Rooney explained:
“We have a phrase at Madison Square Garden — meet people where they are. So, in order for us to meet our employees where they were, we needed to understand where they were. We created a survey to understand that collective mindset on customer-centricity. And this survey helped us better understand how employees orient themselves to our customers and to one another, which was really important to us.
It’s not just how our employees orient themselves to the customer, but how do we support each other to create that valuable customer, fan, and guest experience? And the way that we use this data is to really understand where are we, right, in meeting people where they are? And then next, what are the training and development opportunities that we need now, the skills and the behaviors that we need to build in order to reimagine that customer experience?”
The MSG approach had several elements:
- An employee engagement survey. Rooney says: “Our annual engagement survey — we call it the pulse — it’s very important to who we are and it’s very important to what we do. Our employees look forward to it. They really like participating in it. They really like to hear the feedback and provide us the guidance on the really important things that we need to do for our future.”
- Listening sessions. Rooney says: “With everything that’s happened over this past year, we’ve launched listening sessions which provided a platform for our employees to engage with one another, listen, and learn from one another. This really showed us the importance of providing space for employees and leaders to support one another and show up for one another in a way that we never did (or could) do before. …. And by listening, we were genuinely able to hear what people needed. We were able to provide that support for people to feel like they were heard and quickly respond to the resources they needed at that point in time.”
- Roundtables and project groups. Sideli says: “We want to be more innovative and more efficient than ever before. One way that we did this … is basically our senior leadership team has been hosting roundtable sessions with employees to collect feedback and really help uncover areas of opportunity that exist throughout our company. … one thing we learned during the engagement survey that we’ve put to a test is really having our senior leaders be at the forefront of these conversations and really communicating with our employees, especially during this time with all the uncertainty.”
A strong focus on career development
One important thing that came out of MSG’s employee feedback, and it is what a lot of organizations are seeing in their workforces around the globe, is that employees and workers are more likely to stay with their organization if they have a strong focus on career development.
Marina Sideli described it like this:
“Career development has always been a big focus for us. We saw in our pulse results — our engagement survey for employees — that this is a huge area for them. And this is why we partnered with Fuel50. We knew we needed to meet the needs of what we are hearing our employees say. And we knew it could change overnight. But we needed something that would really help our employees drive their own development and understand how they can move internally in our organization.
So, like with all good things, we are moving in the right direction — and then the pandemic hit. Like everything else, we saw the employee mindset really shift and really shift in the way they were looking at their own career development, but also, how we needed to adapt and help them look at career development. … “
A key tool for career development at Madison Square Garden is one that more and more organizations are starting to turn to — career ladders.
And what exactly is a career ladder? One definition describes it as, “the progression, or development path, for an individual within a company. The presence of a career ladder creates clarity, structure, and direction. It can (also) provide purpose, meaning, and a sense of ownership.”
Marina Sideli details how MSG integrates career ladders into its talent development program:
“It’s been extremely important for us to take a step back and really help our employees better understand what development really means. One way we are continuing to do this is through the creation of career ladders. Our career ladders really give transparency to our employees into the skills and behaviors that are desired at each level. They also allow employees to better understand what is expected of them at each level (because) they might not even know what is needed in a certain job function or at a certain level.
These career ladders are really tied into our career development tool, but also as a standalone to help them really showcase, discuss, and communicate what it is that they (the employees) have.”
The thing that ties all of this together for Madison Square Garden is internal talent mobility.
“We don’t want employees just to see a promotion as (a given),” Marina Sideli said. “You know, ‘I’ve been at the company for X years, therefore I’m eligible,’ … but also as a way to really have them demonstrate and show that they’re ready for advancement.”
“Slow down, listen, and understand” what people need
Sideli added this:
“Internal mobility is a huge key focus for us. And Fuel50, our career development tool, really gives greater transparency into how you can utilize all the tools and resources that we’re providing to really move throughout the organization. One example we always like to give is this: if a cashier in one of our venues aspires to have a career in finance, we want them to understand how to leverage the tools and resources we have to make that possible.
That’s really where the Fuel50 career development tool comes in. Additionally with the career development tool, this year we launched an enterprise talent program for high potential and future leaders. And one way that we’re really utilizing their potential is by having them mentor our student associates.”
Both Carolyn Rooney and Marina Sideli were clear that their transformation story at MSG not only came out of the chaotic atmosphere created by the global pandemic, but also that it would not have been accomplished had they not taken a moment to “slow down, listen, and truly understand what our employees need.”
You should take the time to listen to their half-hour presentation from the FuelX Talent Mobility conference — and you can get the video of it here — because you will get a better feel for all that the Madison Square Garden talent management team has been doing to help their workforce “achieve their full potential and support our company’s mission, our customers, and our mission of lifting the human spirit by gathering communities and around exceptional live experiences on the world’s greatest stages.”
