Join Lance Blair, Liquid Death’s Senior Global Benefits & Employee Engagement Manager and Rippling’s 2025 Compliance Champion, as he shares how his team buried spreadsheets, banished SaaD systems, and brought HR back from the dead — all with Rippling’s automation and unified platform.
Join Lance Blair, Liquid Death’s Senior Global Benefits & Employee Engagement Manager and Rippling’s 2025 Compliance Champion, as he shares how his team buried spreadsheets, banished SaaD systems, and brought HR back from the dead — all with Rippling’s automation and unified platform.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
Guest Quote
“ A lot of my job has become automated through Rippling… And obviously double, triple checking–crossing our T's, dotting our I's–is very important even within the rippling platform. But I definitely have a lot more bandwidth and time to focus on driving [our] year of connection.”
Time Stamps
[01:32] From Events to HR: Lance’s Unconventional Career Path
[03:16] Joining Liquid Death
[04:37] Early Days at Liquid Death
[06:19] Life Before Automation
[08:34] How Rippling Transformed HR Ops
[20:24] The Next Era: HR’s Role in an AI-Driven Future
[21:38] The Power of Human Touch in HR
[26:08] Leading the Culture Shift: Lance’s Vision for People & Engagement
[29:25] Advice for Aspiring HR Leaders
Sponsor
I’m Telling HR is brought to you by Rippling, the #1 rated HR workforce management system that eliminates the friction from running a business. Visit Rippling.com to learn more.
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[00:00:00] Lance Blair: Instead of being in spreadsheet hell for hours, right. We now get to focus on things like, how do we make our culture better in a super remote work environment? How do we set up a variety of different Slack channels for employer resource groups? That's really gonna drive connection.
[00:00:24] Vanessa Kahkesh: Hello everyone and welcome. Thank you all so much for joining us today. I'm Vanessa. I'm leading HR content here at Rippling and I'm super excited to be with our very special guest. Lance is the Senior Global Benefits and Employee Engagement Manager at Liquid Death. And um, if you don't already know, liquid Death is one of the fastest growing beverage brands and companies in the world with validated over $1.4 billion and beyond their chiller branding.
They've also built an incredible HR operation system, and today we're hoping to unpack that and just learn from Lance's journey and how he auto automates all the manual work and just has grown as an HR leader using our platform, and so specifically five X their workforce from 60 to th 300 employees.
Has cut onboarding time from three weeks to one. So grab your can of liquid death and um, we are gonna dive in.
[00:01:29] Lance Blair: Yay. Thanks so much.
[00:01:32] Vanessa Kahkesh: Let's dive in. I wanna just start from the beginning of your dream. So I know that you, in your career, you started in events and then operations and now leading global benefits and employee engagement at Liquid Death.
How did you kind of arrive here today? Like could you walk us through your journey a little bit?
[00:01:52] Lance Blair: Absolutely. Yeah. I started in events and I was working actually for a limousine company, kind of doing black cars, which is, you know, quite crazy, very much LA lifestyle. Um, but I was working nights and weekends all the time because that's when events happen, you know, and I was like, I really just need a normal job.
So definitely working in people was always really important to me and working with people. Um, and I always wanted to kind of be in support. I'd been, you know, working in entertainment, transportation, and then moved into more of an office manager role working at science, um, which is our, one of our main investors.
And so, yeah, I, as soon as I started managing this 3000 square foot office building in Santa Monica, it was like we had eight to just start up time. It was like so crazy. But I really moved into more of an HR type position in that role, um, in supporting a different startup companies. Um, and Liquid Death was one of those companies, so it was really great.
I actually, yeah, I gave Liquid Death their first office ever, uh, which is really. Kind of nuts. Yeah. I was like an honorary employee, if you will, but I wasn't truly like a liquid death employee. Then Buthuh, I've been around very, very early days.
[00:03:11] Vanessa Kahkesh: Wow. So then how did you like decide to join Liquid Death?
[00:03:15] Lance Blair: Yeah, no, great question. So COVID happened and I actually left Science, that company, and I went to go work in video games for two years. Um, which obviously changing jobs during the pandemic was such a risk, but it worked out really well. And then after working in video games and operations for two years.
I, um, you know, our, our co-founder at the time of Liquid Death reached out to me and was like, Hey, you know, is there any way you, you're looking for work or looking to, to join us? That would be awesome. Like, you know, this is a new role. We don't exactly know what it's gonna do, but we would love to have you just because you were, you know, so such an amazing part of our, our, you know, starting story.
So I decided to kind of take a leap of faith and, and join the team, and I interviewed, uh, with my current boss, Alice. Who you've had on on before as well. Yeah, and I already knew Natalie, who, uh, had been working at, in the science office before too. She's there very early days. She's our HR business partner for marketing and completely crushes it.
So it felt like a full circle moment, just coming, kind of coming back to the team. Um, by, by that point we were already about like 80 or 90 employees, so we were already kind of getting up there and there was a lot of work that needed to be done with, you know, within the HR. Side of things. Um, and a lot of implementations and transitions that needed to happen at the time too.
So I feel like I came on right at the right time.
[00:04:36] Vanessa Kahkesh: Mm-hmm. You mentioned when they asked you to join, there wasn't like a super clear overview of what exactly you were gonna do, I guess, so like what, what were those early days kind of like when you first joined? Like what did your day-to-day kind of workflows look like?
[00:04:53] Lance Blair: Yeah, I mean, they knew that they wanted me to run benefits and open enrollment. That was something that for sure was, you know, benefits was for sure part of the title and employee engagement as well. But employee engagement is kind of this like very open-ended, broad term. Right. You know, usually it involves an engagement survey, managing, you know, people analytics, like that type of thing.
But you know, as with any startup, you're building the plane as you're flying it. So I think they had an idea of what they wanted. To be. But then as soon as I started the role, Alice was like, we really need you to plan this death party, which is like our big And
[00:05:28] Vanessa Kahkesh: you.
[00:05:29] Lance Blair: Yeah. Yeah. It's like our annual summer.
[00:05:31] Vanessa Kahkesh: I'm so jealous that you guys have that. Like, it looks so cool.
[00:05:35] Lance Blair: It's the best time of year. You know, we get to bring everybody together in person, which we love being remote, but honestly working, you know, with each other in person is, is something super special just because it happens so rarely within our organization.
So being able to have a great time, you know, have some drinks, but also do some strategizing about what's to come. Like that's really what death party is all about. But I had about 60 days from my start date to plan this entire event, um, along with a couple other, um, people on the team. But I really hit the ground running when I started and that was kind of like my, my full focus when I, when I got in.
So it was kind of putting back on my events hat from earlier on in my career. Wow. Um, but I kind of set aside, but since I'd done it before, it was kinda like riding a bike, you know?
[00:06:16] Vanessa Kahkesh: Yeah. Wait, that's, that's the super cool first kind of project I wanna talk about, kind of like the before life of rippling or just like, I guess be the manual days of it, like Oh, totally.
That kind of life. And so I'm curious, like before you guys moved to rippling or just in those early days where things are kind of all over the place, what manual work did you find yourself? Being consumed by, or could you talk about those like manual processes? Absolutely.
[00:06:48] Lance Blair: Yeah. Reporting was a, was a huge part of it.
So, um, you know, having to pull reports for the executive team or managers, you know, whether it be, you know, how much time is my team taking off, or, um, yeah, how much, how much PTO are, are people using? Because we had an issue with people not using enough PTO here, which. No surprise there we're all very hardworking, but also, you know, how many people are going out on leave, right?
How many people are, you know, using our, our amazing parental leave policy, um, in order to expand their families, right? Like those were very tedious and manual tasks before we got rippling. Um, we were re previously with TriNet, which, you know, was great for our early, early start, but as we grew into a larger, faster organization, um, it became quite cumbersome to be able to kind of get the, get the reports I needed done as well as just like I was working outta spreadsheets.
And it just was very, very time consuming. Yeah. Um, and like keeping track of. Things like leave of absences, you know, was a, was really hard. You know, we we're a scrappy startup. We're, we're still kind of, you know, growing and evolving. So we don't, we may not have, you know, the, the resources at the moment for the most flashy or, or new tools.
And so it takes really the people behind the work to really make the magic happen. Um, so we're, we're not scared, you know, of doing the work. It's just a matter of working smarter, not harder. And I feel like Rippling has definitely been an incredible partner in helping us be more efficient and working a lot smarter.
[00:08:18] Vanessa Kahkesh: Yeah. Spreadsheets are just not it. I feel like, what was like an, could you give like an ex a specific example of also maybe the time you would have to spend second spreadsheets before, and then what about after? Like what changed when you were on rippling?
[00:08:34] Lance Blair: Yeah. I mean, employee enrollments right, are a big one during open enrollments, right?
It, it seems like a well-oiled machine now, but I think earlier days when we were a bit wary of trusting the technology, and I, it's really important to me to make sure that no employee falls between the cracks, and especially when you, I mean, imagine you have a family and three kids, and you're all on.
Our benefits, right? It becomes incredibly important to ensure that every single person social security numbers are right, and everybody's going to be covered in case of an emergency or just for that annual physical, you know? Um mm-hmm. And so a lot of that became, you know, going from spreadsheets and double triple checking everything to setting up things like integrations within rippling between the carriers and the platform.
So that I knew without a doubt that, you know, there wasn't anybody falling between the cracks. And that I wouldn't have to check everything manually in a spreadsheet highlighting and check boxing. Um, and really it's more of a, a supervisory role or an overview role and less of a manual enrollment type task.
[00:09:35] Vanessa Kahkesh: Yeah. I like how you said that your role kind of evolved to that, like more supervisory role. So I guess now that you're able to automate or, you know, save time, cut, cut all the manual, like spreadsheet inputs, for example. You have more freedom, I guess, to double down on the strategy. So now that you're able to think strategically more like what, have, what has your team done specifically to to move the needle forward?
[00:10:03] Lance Blair: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we're way more focused on, I'd say some of the more fun parts of the business. Yeah. You know, like the more
[00:10:10] Vanessa Kahkesh: the people stuff, right?
[00:10:11] Lance Blair: The people stuff. Exactly. It's like instead of being in spreadsheet hell for hours. Right. We now get to focus on things like, you know, how do we make our culture better in a super remote work environment?
Right. Um, how do we set up a variety of different Slack channels or employer resource groups that's really gonna drive connection? This year we've coined our year of connection, which is really exciting for us because we learned from the engagement survey last year that that was something that people really wanted to focus on.
They didn't want to be, you know, in an office in particular, like no one wanted to return to office. And our, our model's not really built like that anyway, but they did want to have more connection with their teammates, particularly if. You're the only one in Michigan or one of two in Michigan, and the only two people in that state live so far apart from each other.
It's like, how can we set up kind of a regional hang in somewhere like Chicago, right? Um, where we can bring people together, or even in the northeast, like in New York, you know, um, where we have quite a significant amount of employees. But, you know, the day-to-day life is, is challenging getting around the city as you, you know, you're in New York now.
It's kind of a hustle and bustle when it's hard to get the team together, but we're really trying to champion and support cheerleaders in a variety of different. States in a variety of different roles, right? To really kind of bridge those gaps between, um, all of our departments and our teams so that we can break out of our silos ultimately, um, and break those walls down and just build more connected as a, as a workforce.
So that's the fun side of the work that I get to do because a lot of my job has become automated through rippling, and it becomes just more of a supervisory or managerial. Role and obviously double triple checking, crossing our ts, dotting our i's is very important even within the rippling platform. But I definitely have a lot more bandwidth and time to focus on, you know, driving that year of connection along with our, our general listener, our team and HR business partners as well.
[00:11:58] Vanessa Kahkesh: Yeah. Wait, I, I love that, like, liquid jets decided to make it the year of connection. Like that's, I I love that, um, motto. 'cause I feel like it's so important, especially if it's like a remote company like you said. People are still like, they need that ability to connect and that is so important for HR to double down on, I feel like, because I think that at the end of the day, like, isn't that what HR is meant to do?
You know, that kind of connecting work, not the, you know, boring stuff. I think, I mean obviously we have to balance it out, but still, like eventually it's shaping culture and leading that kind of change, so that's really cool.
[00:12:35] Lance Blair: Thank you. Yeah, and I mean we're over 200 employees now, right? So. It's definitely been an evolving science as we're growing and, and making it happen.
But now we have the tools and the capabilities to be able to, I feel, you know, utilize things like Workflow studio, um, so that I can set automations and reminders for things that, um, I very much had to do manually before. Right. Like benefits on onboarding documentation that was like, right. You know.
Getting everybody their, their information. When you start a new job, we call it like drinking from a fire hose, right? Because you're just overloaded with so much information. And now I have tools where, you know, after your first week you'll get a nice slack message with all these links on how to register on Blue Shield with our medical carrier or guardian, how to sign up for pet insurance.
Um, if you need to submit an EOI for wildlife coverage, like all that information is there and it's something that I, I don't even really have to think about anymore. It's just kind of a set it and forget it and that's a huge, hugely in part, uh, due to the RIP platform.
[00:13:34] Vanessa Kahkesh: That's awesome. Thinking of Workflow Studio or just App Studio in general, I guess, and I know that you have built like a ton of different automations and workflows, but I don't know if it's the one that you just mentioned, but do you have like a favorite automation you've built or.
Something that you feel really proud of that has genuinely made an impact that you'd be open to like share, like what was the whole process like to like build something like that? I feel like that's unique to Ripplings platform.
[00:14:02] Lance Blair: It is. And I mean, when we first got in there, I feel like we went a a bit workflow, crazy.
Like we were like making workflows for everything. And if people don't know, it's like workflows is a, is a fancy word for just like reminders, whether it be via email or via Slack, like teams. I'm sure you guys integrate with two, but it really allows us to plug and play. We're a very slack oriented company just because of many people are kind of in their vans on the road all the time going into retail stores.
Convenience stores, and so they, they definitely use Slack on their phone a lot. But in terms of administrative and support, we definitely use a lot of the email reminders, even for ourselves. But I think the upcoming PTO one is huge. I think a lot of times when you submit PTO far in advance. You actually want to cancel it, uh, and you forget about it then like, I, I set up a workflow where two days before your PTO is gonna go live, uh, you get a, a Slack message and an email saying, are you really gonna use this day off?
Like, or cancel it now, or, or, yes, you can just ignore this message if you are gonna use it. And it's just a reminder for people to be like, it's, it's encouraging. They're like, oh my gosh. Like I do have time off in two days. Like I can see the light, like, we're gonna make it, you know. But also time off encouragement was a really big one.
As I mentioned earlier on, we had an a quite a bit issue with people just grinding and working and we love working hard, but we also love playing hard too, right? So, um, encouraging people to take time off if they hadn't take taken time off in about. 60 days, then they would get an email reminder saying, FYI, like you haven't taken time off in X amount of time.
Please, hey, I won't have it. Please take your PT O. And then it would go, there would be another layer to it after about 90 days. And that would go to their manager and them as well, just saying, Hey, FYI, your employee is like not taking their time off. Are you doing your one-on-ones? Like what's happening here?
Right. Because um, as managers we should be encouraging our employees to take time off, especially when, you know, when we're busy and, and stuff like, summers super crazy this festival season, right? Um, but it's like that gap between like, like fall, basically like summer and the holidays before stuff gets crazy again.
Like we should be encouraging people to utilize their PTO, right? Yeah. Um, and that's the culture that we're building here and, and trying to encourage our managers to understand that as well.
[00:16:14] Vanessa Kahkesh: I love that. I think that's actually really underrated too. Like people forget, you need to log off to be able to, you know, take time for yourself and then come back stronger and come back, back like refreshed and, but that's so cool that you were able to like literally automate every single step of it and then have it like 90 days after, like boom.
You don't even have to think about it. And I think that's like, because it's like you don't need time to think, you shouldn't have to waste time thinking about those types of things when it's like a repetitive. Task, but that's still important for people. It follows through with so. I think
[00:16:47] Lance Blair: that people, it's a direct reflection too, like, like because we implemented that workflow, people do take more time off, right?
We have a Flex PTO policy. It's actually having an impact and it's something that I was able to set up, you know, a couple years ago and haven't really had to worry about too much anymore. Like, people understand that this is part of the culture and it does feel good to get that email where you're like, oh, you know, even if it is automated, it's like the company is thinking about me and ensuring that.
And taking the time that I need in order to recharge.
[00:17:18] Vanessa Kahkesh: Yeah. I guess I'm curious, how has being able to take advantage of, you know, building out these workflows or being more efficient within hr, how has that shifted your company or like liquid debts, perception of your function in hr? Like, do do your coworkers or different departments see you?
Kind of differently as a more strategic role?
[00:17:43] Lance Blair: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think overall they saw me as strategic before, but I think I was way more heads down focused on some of the more manual tasks along with doing strategy before. So for our team in particular, like on HR people and culture, like I think we see each other, especially in the world of AI right now and how fast that's growing.
It's like our roles are evolving. I, I, I don't think anybody is. Is pretending like they aren't anymore. You know? And inevitable,
[00:18:12] Vanessa Kahkesh: you can run away from it.
[00:18:14] Lance Blair: You can't run away from it. And you know me, it's like you can't be scared of it either, right? We've gotta face it. And so that's what we've really focused on and I think understanding that, you know, the human part of human resources is irreplaceable, right?
Um, like we are there to ensure that we're, you know, not just following the rules and policies and procedures and all of that, but you know, we're educating our employees around what's going on and in the day-to-day in the workforce and our, our leadership team so that they can make the decisions that they need, um, in order to drive the company forward.
So with that, I definitely think I've been able to automate parts of my role. So that I can have more time doing the strategy, but also kind of in this new age of ai, like understanding what parts of my role are like, can be given to AI in a way that is, that I'm not scared of, right? Like for example, mass communications.
It's like, yes, you should be double, triple checking your communications to the entire company, right? Don't just. Send AI slop, uh, as they call it, like out to, uh, employees. But at the same time, I remember spending quite a significant amount of time crafting, you know, like company-wide emails, right. Just getting started.
That's the hardest part, right. Once you have something going, you kind of get into this flow state and you're able to kind of, um, put it in a liquid death voice or brand voice wherever you work. Mm-hmm. Right? But now it's like we can use, uh, Gemini, right? Which is our company approved AI tool. Um, and so it's like that's the type of stuff that we're learning.
It's like people are already using the technology whether you want them to or not, and the point is not to exactly control your workforce, it's really to aid them in making their jobs more efficient as well. Outside of just what we do on a day-to-day basis, it's around supporting our, our employees and, and what they're doing too.
So yeah, that's, that's been an quite an adjustment I'd say over just the last like maybe two years. I feel like before. AI was, was not as popular, but in the last like 24 months, it's really skyrocketed and become this like thing. And even within the rippling platform too.
[00:20:23] Vanessa Kahkesh: No, totally. I was actually at a conference the other week and it was interesting.
They were saying how. AI is actually not like a tech problem per se. It's really a people problem because at the end of the day, it's like, how are people going to use ai? Not just how amazing is the ai AI is? And then to your point, yeah, it's like already embedded in everything. And I think so many people are already using it, so it's like don't be afraid to lean into it.
We just kind of have to lean into it in a strategic way. And then, but I also, I'm curious like. Even though you're able to automate different stuff, I feel like you also kind of mentioned that there are some things you can't automate. Like when you add that human touch to that voice that you wrote or like the, like the note that you wrote or you know, there are some parts that are meant to be human and that you, HR is meant to double down on and not automate, but giving ourselves the time to focus on that versus, you know.
So I feel like, I don't know, what's your, what's your take on that or what, what do you ultimately wanna really like focus on once all the manual work is automated?
[00:21:37] Lance Blair: Yeah. No, that's a great question. I think, well, I think I'm currently, and have been for the last almost four years that I've been here, I meet with every single new hire that joins our organization and do a benefits onboarding.
And that's separate from their general onboarding. One-on-one. Absolutely. It usually takes with
[00:21:54] Vanessa Kahkesh: every, every new one,
[00:21:56] Lance Blair: every new hire within the organization. I am one of the first people you meet along with now our senior recruiter who's incredible, Emily Alden, as well as jojo, who she was promoted to an HR business partner, but before she was our generalist.
Um, and it takes a team, a collaborative effort. But for my piece in terms of benefits, like I go over our medical policies, our dental and vision policies, our life insurance. Um, all of our supplemental coverages, our FSA program like 401k, like I really get, you get an opportunity to chat with me one-on-one for about 15 to 30 minutes depending on, you know, really what your needs are.
Right? For some people it's like boom, boom, boom, 10 minutes in and out. Um, and other people, you know, I've talked to an hour for employees, but that. Personal touch really makes a difference, right? People not only remember who I am in our very remote environment where Slack is like, you know, there's tons of people, but at the same time have that personal touch, allows me to start building rapport with people in a way that feels different and they know that I truly do care about them and I care about our employee experience.
Here at the company, you know, everybody's benefits. You know, journeys are different. Some people have children who may have special needs, other people may have, you know, life changing conditions. Like we, we just don't know. And it's not my job to get into those nitty gritty details, but it is my job to, you know, arm you with the information so that you can make the best benefits decisions for you and your family.
And I take that very seriously, obviously. But at the same time, we, we still try to keep things super fun and, and open and we have incredible benefits here. And I really just wanna relay that to employees that join. Is that, yes, your salary is great too, but check out all the incredible stuff we have, like class passes a wellness offering, so everyone's popular about Right.
I'm jealous. Yeah.
[00:23:43] Vanessa Kahkesh: No, wait, that's, I I really, that's, that's amazing that you take the time to do that for every employee. They're lucky to have you liquid death because like, that's. I, I think that that truly does like, shape culture at the end of the day. It's like that time is not like you can't replace that and it, it shows that you genuinely care about your people and that's like so important for HR people to do because you are pioneering the connection
[00:24:11] Lance Blair: Absolutely.
In the, and you're not just a cog in the machine, right? No. Like every single one of our employees has. Brings so much value to the table, we get over 500 applications per role that we post. So it is incredibly repetitive to work here. And I start those calls by saying, congratulations. You beat out the competition.
And I know it can feel like a lot in the beginning, but you truly are the right person for the job. And, you know, that can bring tears, that can bring virtual hugs, right? Um, but it does create that personal connection that I am trying to build here.
[00:24:44] Vanessa Kahkesh: Yeah. No, I, uh, that's. It's honestly pretty inspiring too.
'cause I think it's, it's like HR does have this role where you guys are like the behind the scenes, like shapers of everything and there's a lot of hidden work that people don't see. But it's, it's so important that HR has the ability as a function and like it, and a role within a company to, to lead that and lead with connection.
And you can't, you can't lead with connection if you are, you know. Pulled back by all these repetitive tasks. Like I think the more you automate, the more you're able to leverage AI in a strategic way, the more time you get to like do that kind of work and really like move, move the business and move the people forward.
And that's ultimately like, but I feel like the goal, but
[00:25:33] Lance Blair: agreed. 10 outta 10.
[00:25:36] Vanessa Kahkesh: Yeah. I guess that I wanted to ask just a one more question. Right.
As we look into the future, what role do you hope to play in the evolution of people and culture and employee engagement at Liquid Desk? Like what, what do you truly hope to, to play in say, the next like decade for fi? Maybe that's, maybe let's say five years.
[00:26:08] Lance Blair: No, I, I love it
[00:26:10] Vanessa Kahkesh: if you mind that like, AI is gonna get better and like you're gonna have more free time.
Like, yeah.
[00:26:15] Lance Blair: Yeah. I think the biggest thing for me, and I've, I say this quite often, you know, my motto is I'm here to help. Right? Um, it's been that way for my entire career. I am, I'm your support system. Um, very much in hr. I think many people in the chat probably know, it's like we play a variety of different roles, whether it be friend or bartender, um, in the office.
It's like people can really share with us. And my, my biggest thing is leaving people better than we found them. Right. A lot of people, um, come to Liquid Death, um, a bit jaded, you know, in their careers from whether it be people and culture and HR folks, which I totally understand. Some of people may have a very challenging relationship with.
HR in their career. Um, and I'm, I get that not all HR teams are the same. Um, and I definitely have championed that within our organization. Um, I tell people, you know, you may not be here forever. We would love if you were, but at the same time. I really hope that your experience here is one that you can look back on in a really positive way.
Right? Um, and I know that I'm a big part of that, uh, within our team. Uh, I, I feel that employees share that with me quite often and I'm just so grateful and blessed to. Get that feedback on a regular basis, not only just from our people and culture team, but from employees out there. They understand when, you know, their claim doesn't go through with dental for their kids' braces or something.
And I get on with our broker team and I'm like, Hey, you need to dive into this. I dunno what's going on, but we need to figure out what's happening. Right. But going above and beyond for your employees going the extra mile consistently. Um, and equitably is really key here, right? But also not, you know, sugarcoating bad news either.
You know, we're a rapidly growing and evolving company. Some things, a lot of things have changed and will continue to change over time, but at the same time, I think being transparent with people as much as possible, talking to people like real human beings, right? Um, and being fair and equitable goes a long way, especially in the current kind of world that we live in, where.
There's just a lot happening all the time. Yeah. And so as I continue to grow in my own personal career, uh, I really just hope to lead people better than, than they, I found them, you know, and, and continue adding value in a major way. Whether that means bringing on new benefits, programs, new amazing perks, uh, and also, you know, being super competitive with.
What we're, what we're contributing to people's insurance, right? Like I think there's always creative ways and for us as what, like a 6-year-old company or something. I like to say we're not turning around the Titanic here, right? We're, um, we're also selling healthy beverages, right? It's like we're not doing brain surgery, so we get to keep it fun.
We get to keep it interesting, we get to do cutting edge type stuff that other organizations may. Kind of gawk at and be like, oh my gosh, we would never do that. And I'm like, well, you're not liquid death. You won't ever do that. Right. So that's the cool part. And then the fact that I have support from our leadership team and driving the benefits side of our ship is really, really cool as well.
Um, and the support from my boss, Alice, who's by far one of the smartest people I've ever worked for in my career, it, it really means a lot to be able to do the work that I do at the capacity that I do it, um, and continue crushing it for our entire team.
[00:29:25] Vanessa Kahkesh: Wow. That's really inspiring. And what advice would you give to our audience here and to, you know, up and coming HR leaders and people, people leaders who wanna start leading change like you are at a company and start automating?
Like, what, what would you lead them with?
[00:29:43] Lance Blair: Absolutely. I think, you know, recognizing where you sit within your organization. Is really important. You know, I know that I am not the CEO of of liquid death, but I'm there to ensure that our CEO has the tools and resources and knowledge and numbers and reports to be able to make really challenging decisions for our entire organization.
Right? And so building that seat at the table, if you don't already have one, is super key. Creating those, that rapport with senior executives and senior leaders. People at the entry level and everybody in between, particularly on the HR and people and culture side of things, um, is super important. I see myself, myself as a bridge of communication.
Right. Between
[00:30:29] Vanessa Kahkesh: you,
[00:30:30] Lance Blair: between exactly. You know, everybody on our team feels that way. You know, whether an HR business partner or senior recruiter, a VP of people or a senior benefits manager. It's really important for us to have our ear to the ground, particularly in a remote work environment where we're not all in one office together, having water cooler talk on a regular basis.
It's up to each of us to create that water cooler conversation every single month opportunity that we can. Right. Um, and really that's how we've been able to drive change in a meaningful and impactful way. Also, surveying people. The engagement survey is like. Huge. We're not super survey heavy at liquid debt.
We do an engagement survey. We do a diversity inclusion equity, DIE survey, um, at liquid debt, and then we do all hands surveys, you know, every month for, for all hands meetings. But those are really the, the main ones. We get, you know, almost 90% participation in most of the surveys that we do. And for an organization of our size that is incredible, you know that.
But it speaks to the fact that people really care here, right? People want and understand that if you tell us what your needs are, that we will work extremely hard to get there. We may not get there tomorrow or today, but we will get there over time. And I think building that trust within your team. Is kind of the main thing that I would lead people with is that, you know, building the trust and the rapport and having employees know that they can come to you and trust you to have their back is incredibly important.
Um, as a, a growing fast, you know, rollercoaster urban organization.
[00:32:02] Vanessa Kahkesh: Yeah, I, that's How did you, like, how do you think you built that trust? Like, and you said you created water cooler moments too, like, do you think those kind of all. Added up towards building that trust. 'cause 91st percent engagement is incredible.
[00:32:15] Lance Blair: Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with doing things like that one-on-one benefits onboarding, right? Where it's like, oh, and I tell people, even if it has nothing to do with benefits, employee engagement, or nonprofit partnerships, which have taken on over the last couple years, it's like, you can come talk to me about expense reports or.
You're dealing with an issue with your manager, like, let's chat about it, you know, so that we can be able to jump in and help out. Right? So I think people know that just because. It may not be one of those partic my vertical of what I was hired to do. You can still come and chat with me about a variety of different things within what's going on at work, and I'm going to figure out a way to come up with a solution or work with you on creating that opportunity.
But in that moment, which, you know, these things happen, have conversations all day, every day, like that's what we do, right? We love to chat, but. I think it allows for some levity. Like it's not all serious all the time. And in reality it's like, it's mostly fun stuff that we could chat about of like, Hey, I wanna accept this employee resource group.
How can we figure out how to do this? And I was like, hell yeah, I got you. Like let's, let's make this, make this work. You know? Uh, and that's really exciting. But encouraging people's feedback I think is super huge. You know, not cutting people's heads off when they stick their neck out just to say, Hey, I kind of disagree with how this went down.
I think goes a really long way. So, um, receiving the feedback and kind of letting it simmer and coming up with the response is really, really important. Um, especially in a remote work environment where, you know, most of the time it's via Slack or you're being pulled into a, a, a huddle or something. And I think some things can come off differently via typing tone and certain things.
And if you're feeling like, hey, you know, they're like, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm having a really hard time. Something's going on in my life. It's like, I understand like, do you wanna chat about it? Or I'll just pull 'em into a slack huddle. We'll chat for 15, 20 minutes so that I can really start to paint the picture as to what is going on in this person's life that I couldn't really translate over.
A virtual communication, a text, the word affects the words, you know, I'm like, what? What's actually going on? And it speaks volumes to, you know, not just my integrity, but the integrity of the, of the organization. Right. To say, I got 15 minutes, like, what's going on? You know? Yeah. Yeah. In our super fast paced work environment.
So I think those micro communications can go a long way. And letting people know that like you do actually care about them beyond just the nine to five, like. If something's going on at home, like, let us know so that we can support you in that.
[00:34:47] Vanessa Kahkesh: Yes. No, and I, I, I think that's like so key. It's like build those little moments because they add up.
It's not like a one stop, like this is how I, you know, build culture like one event. It's like, no, it's, it's the consistent little things and like the intentional moments that you literally create. And then I love how you're also almost like. I guess like you already mentioned, you're like the in-between kind of function where you paint the picture, you understand the, the diagnosis or whatever, and then you're able to like connect the dots in a way.
And I think that is hrs role, it's this connector function and having the right like tool to be able to do that too is what I feel like allows you to make an even greater impact. So. I think that our audience is definitely gonna take stuff away from this and all your wisdom and advice and uh, yeah, that's kind of all I have, so thank you.
Thank you so much, Lance. This was amazing. I really enjoyed learning more about your journey and appreciate everything that you shared with the community. And I'm sure people are gonna walk away a lot, so. Yeah, absolutely.