B (4:56)

But here's what the HR director started to notice. Despite having all this data, all these systems, all this technology, their people problems were actually getting better. Turnover was still high, around 22% annually. Employee engagement survey scores were mediocre at best. They were constantly hiring, constantly training, and constantly replacing people who left. The HR director found herself spending most of her time on reactive stuff. Processing terminations, recruiting replacements, investigating complaints, and managing performance issues. She'd become really good at administration, but she wasn't making a dent in the underlying problems.

B (5:53)

The CEO who founded the company, he was frustrated. He'd say things like, we invest in our people, we pay competitively, we offer good benefits. Why do they keep leaving? And the HR director didn't have a good answer. The exit interviews were mostly generic. Better opportunity elsewhere. Career growth, personal reasons, nothing she could really act on. Then one of their senior consultants, someone they really didn't want to lose, put in his notice. He was going to a competitor, taking three major client relationships with him. The CEO was furious. Asked the HR director, this could have happened. Why didn't we see it coming? What could we have done differently?

B (6:52)

It was at this point she realized she had no idea. Looking at this file in the HRIS system, everything looked fine. Good performance reviews, one time certifications, no disciplinary issues, solid attendance. According to the data in their HR system, he was a completely content employee. Until he wasn't. That's when the CEO started asking questions about employee development, engagement, retention strategies beyond just compensation. He'd been reading about companies that were doing innovative things with employee experience.

B (7:38)

And he asked the HR director, what are we doing beyond the basics? And honestly, they weren't doing much. They had all the standard stuff. Annual performance reviews, occasional trainings, the usual benefits package. But nothing focused on genuine human development. Nothing that treated employees as whole people with lives and dreams and aspirations beyond their job descriptions.

B (8:11)

The CEO came across dream managers. Somehow, I think he heard about it at a conference and he brought the idea to the HR director. What do you think about implementing this? Her initial reaction was skeptical at best. She'd seen plenty of employee engagement programs over the years. Wellness initiatives, culture committees, team building exercises. They'd generate some initial excitement, maybe a brief uptick in morale, then fade away.

B (8:47)

And there were always.

B (8:50)

More work for HR to administrate. But the CEO was interested, so she did her due diligence. She researched the Dream Manager, read Matthew Kelly's book, talked to a few companies that implemented it, and what she kept hearing was that it required a fundamental shift in how you think about hr. It wasn't just another program to run alongside everything else. It was a different philosophy about what HR should be doing. She wasn't sure she wanted to make that shift. She spent eight years building systems and processes. She'd professionalized their HR function. She'd gotten good at what she did, and this felt like it would completely disrupt all of that. But the CEO was persistent and they were losing too many good people. So she agreed to try it. They'd bring in a certified Dream Manager, run it as a pilot program for a year, and see what happened. The Dream Manager they hired was completely different from what the HR Director expected. She thought it would be someone from an HR background, someone who understood employment law and benefits and all that. Instead, it was someone who'd been a counselor, a life coach, someone focused on human development and personal transformation. From day one, the Dream Manager operated differently than anyone else in the organization. She didn't care about the HRIS platform, didn't want access to performance reviews, and wasn't interested in the employee files. What she wanted was to sit down with people and talk about their lives, their dreams, their fears, their hopes, and what they wanted for their future.

B (10:57)

The HR Director watched this happen, and honestly, it made her uncomfortable. These conversations felt too personal and too intimate. What if someone shares something inappropriate? What if they talk about leaving the company? What if they ask for things we can't give them? The Dream Manager would just smile and say, that's the point. We need to know what people actually want, so. So we can help them get it.

B (11:30)

The first few months were awkward. The HR Director and the Dream Manager had very different approaches. The HR Director was all about documentation, policies, consistency, and treating everyone the same. The Dream Manager was about individualization, flexibility, and meeting people where they were.

B (11:58)

The HR Director would say, we need to document these conversations, put notes in the HRIS system. The Dream Manager would say, absolutely not. These conversations are confidential. People need to trust they won't end up in their employee file.

B (12:20)

The HR director would say, we need structured criteria for who gets help with their dreams. We can't just make it up as we go. And the dream manager would say, every person is different. Every dream is different. We'll figure it out case by case. The HR director would say, we need clear ROI metrics. How do we know this is working? And the dream manager would say, you'll know it's working when people stop leaving. It was tense at times. Two completely different worldviews operating in the same HR function. But then something started to happen.

B (13:05)

People who'd been working with the dream manager started changing. Not in dramatic ways at first, just subtle shifts. They seemed more engaged in meetings, more energized, and more positive. The HR director noticed it, but couldn't quite put her finger on what was different.

B (13:27)

Then one of the employees came to her office with a request. This was someone from the accounting team. Had been with the company about five years. Good employee, reliable, but not someone that HR director would flag as high potential.

B (13:47)

She said she'd been working with the dream manager on her dreams and that one of her dreams was to become a cpa. She had her bachelor's degree in accounting, but had never pursued the certification. Too expensive, too time consuming, and never seemed like the right moment. But the dream manager had helped her see a path. She could take the CPA exam prep course online, study in the evenings and weekends, and take the exam over the next year. The course cost about $3,000. She was asking if the company had any tuition assistance or professional development budget that could help. But then she stopped herself because she'd been tracking the turnover in accounting. They'd lost two staff accountants in the past 18 months.

B (14:46)

Both times they'd hired replacements externally, spent money on recruiting, training, the whole cycle. And here was someone already on the team, already knew their systems and clients, wanting to get more qualified, wanting to be better at her job.

B (15:06)

The $3,000 investment to keep her and develop her seemed like a pretty obvious choice compared to the cost of replacing her if she left.

B (15:18)

So the HR director approved it, put it through as a professional development expense, and that employee got her CPA certification about 14 months later, still with the company, got promoted to senior accountant, then to accounting manager, and now still there five years later. But what really got the HR director's attention was the conversation she had with that employee after she approved the funding. The employee said, I've worked here for five years, and this is the first time I felt like the company cares about me as a person, not just as an employee. The first time anyone has asked what I want for my life and actually tried to help me get it. That stuck with the HR director. Because she'd always thought she'd cared about employees. That's why she'd professionalized the HR function, created good systems, made sure everything was fair and documented. But none of that was actually helping people grow as humans. It was just administering their employment.

B (16:36)

She started paying more attention to what the dream manager was doing. Sitting in on some dream manager meetings with permission, just listening to the conversations.

B (16:49)

And what she noticed was that the dream manager was gathering information that would never show up in the HRIS systems. Information that was actually useful for retention and development.

B (17:03)

She'd learned that someone's spouse was being transferred for work and that they were trying to decide to move, move or find a remote arrangement.

B (17:14)

Critical information if you want to keep that person. But it would never show up in a performance review and employee survey. Or she learned that someone was stressed because they were caring for an aging parent and trying to manage it around their work schedule. Something that could easily be solved with flag, flexible hours or remote work options. But they'd never mentioned it to their manager because they didn't want to seem unreliable.

B (17:47)

Or she'd learned that someone had always wanted to move into project management, but didn't think they were qualified and didn't know how to make the transition. Someone with potential, who just needed a path and some support. But from their employee file, they just look like an adequate performer in their current role. The dream manager was uncovering the human context that explained everything the HR director had been trying to solve with systems and policies. What if instead of tracking what people had done, we tracked what they were wanted to become? What if instead of measuring performance against job descriptions, we measured progress toward their dreams? She started having regular meetings with the dream manager. Not to oversee or manage, but to understand.

B (18:46)

What are you learning about our people? What patterns are you seeing? What do our employees actually want? And the dream manager started sharing insights that completely changed how the HR director thought about her role. She learned that almost 40% of their employees had dreams related to education. Finishing degrees, getting certifications, learning new skills. But the company had no formal education assistance program. They were losing people to companies that would pay for their education. She learned that about 30% of employees had dreams related to financial stability, Buying homes, paying off debt, saving for their kids college. But the company's financial education was limited to enrollment meetings for the 401k. They weren't helping people understand budgeting, debt management or financial planning. She learned that at least 20% of employees had dreams related to health, health and wellness. Losing weight, managing stress, improving fitness. But the company's wellness program was basically a gym membership discount that hardly anyone used. The Dream Manager was collecting data, real data about what their people wanted and needed. But it wasn't quantified, it wasn't in a system, and it wasn't analyzed.

B (20:18)

It was just conversations and handwritten notes. The HR director realized that that's what needed to change. Not that they needed to put the Dream Manager conversations in the HRIS system. That would violate confidentiality and trust, but they needed to integrate the Dream Manager data with HR strategy.

B (20:43)

So she started asking, how do we build HR programs around what we're learning from Dream Manager? They've created an education assistance program. $5,000 per year per employee for any education related to their career development. Didn't matter if it was directly related to their current job, as long as it was advancing their professional. Professional growth. They documented it in the HRIS system as a benefit. But the Dream Manager helped people figure out how to use it. They brought in a financial advisor to do workshops on budgeting, debt payoff, home buying and retirement planning. Not just enrollment meetings, actual education. They made it available quarterly, recorded the sessions, made them accessible in the HRIS system. But the Dream Manager helped people identify which workshops would help them with their specific dreams.

B (21:48)

The company expanded their wellness program. Not just gym memberships, but nutrition coaching, mental health counseling, and stress management resources.

B (22:00)

They tracked utilization in the HRIS system, but the Dream Manager helped people connect wellness goals to their bigger life dreams. The HR director started to see how this could work. The HRIS system tracked what the programs and the benefits and the utilization. The Dream Manager understood the why. The human motivations and aspirations driving everything. Together, they created something neither could create alone. But there was still a disconnect.

B (22:39)

The data in the HRAS system didn't reflect the data the Dream Manager was gathering. Performance reviews still focused on job competencies and goal achievement. Development plans still focused on skills needed for the current role or next role. And succession planning still focused on who was ready for promotion based on performance ratings alone. None of it captured potential, none of it captured aspirations. And none of it captured the human growth that the Dream Manager was facilitating.

B (23:17)

The HR director started experimenting with how to bridge that gap, not by putting confidential Dream Manager information in employee files, but by changing what the HR systems tracked and measured. She redesigned their performance review process, added a section where employees could share their personal development goals. Not just professional development, personal development what do you want to learn this year? What do you want to achieve in your life? How can your work here support those goals?

B (23:56)

Managers were trained to have conversations about this, not to evaluate or judge, but to understand and support. The data stayed in the HRIS system, but it was framed differently. Not as performance metrics, but as development opportunities. She redesigned their succession planning process. Instead of just identifying who was ready for the next level based on current performance, they started identifying who had the potential and aspiration for growth, who was working on developing themselves and who had dreams that aligned with leadership roles. Who was investing in in their own growth.

B (24:44)

The Dream Manager would flag people who were working on leadership related dreams without naming the specific dreams. She'd say this person is developing themselves in ways that suggest they might be interested in management. Have their manager have a conversation about it. She redesigned the recruiting process. Instead of just selling the job and the benefits, they started talking about growth and development. In interviews, they asked candidates about their dreams, their aspirations and what they wanted for their life. Not just what they wanted for their career, but their life. And they were upfront about Dream Manager. We're a company that invests in your whole life, not just your work life. If you come here, you'll work with the dream Manager who will help you achieve your personal dreams. That started attracting different candidates. People who were looking for more than just a paycheck. People who wanted to grow, who had ambitions, who valued personal development. The quality of their hires improved dramatically. She redesigned their exit interview process. Instead of waiting until people had already decided to leave, they started having stay conversations. Regular check ins asking what would make you stay or what would make you leave?

B (26:18)

What do you need that you're not getting? And they log that in the HRIS system and as retention risk indicators. Not to punish people for being honest, but to identify where they needed to Invest. Within about 18 months of integrating the Dream Manager with their HR systems, the changes were dramatic. Turnover dropped from 22% to 9%. And a professional services firm where people are your product, that's huge. They saved probably a million and a half dollars in turnover costs.

B (27:01)

But more importantly, the whole culture around HR changed. Managers stopped seeing HR as the compliance police. They started seeing HR as partners in developing their teams. Because the HR director was bringing insights about what people wanted and needed, not just policies about what they couldn't do. Employees stopped seeing HR as the place you went when you had a problem and started seeing HR as a resource for growth. Because the HR director had redesigned everything around development. Instead of just administration and The HR director herself. Her job became completely different. She was still doing the compliance stuff, the benefits, administration, and all the necessary pieces. But that wasn't her focus anymore. Her focus was on creating systems and programs that helped people grow. She had told a colleague about a year into the transformation that she'd spent the first eight years of her career trying to protect the company from employees fees. Making sure they couldn't sue us, couldn't take advantage of us, and couldn't create liability. And she'd gotten good at that. But it had made her cynical about people. Dream Manager reminded her why she'd gotten into HR in the first place. Because she actually cared about people. She wanted to help them, and she wanted to create environments where they could thrive. She just hadn't known how to do that in a way that also served the business. And the Dream Manager program showed her how. Let me give you some specific examples of how they integrated Dream Manager with their HRIS platform. They created a field in their system for development focus, not performance ratings. Development focus, focus. What is this person actively working on for their growth? The Dream Manager would provide general categories without specifics. Education, Financial, Wellness, health and fitness, Leadership, development, Work, life balance, Creative pursuits. Managers could see these categories and have conversations about how work assignments or schedules or opportunities could support that focus. They created tracking for internal mobility conversations. Anytime a manager talked with an employee about potential career paths, it got logged. Not documented, like a performance review, just noted. So if someone was having multiple conversations about moving into a different role, it created visibility. HR could facilitate that. Instead of being surprised when the person left because they felt stuck, they created a dashboard for retention indicators. Not just turnover rates after people left, but leading indicators while they were still there. Things like time since last development conversation, time since last Dream Manager meeting, participation in development programs. If someone hadn't engaged in growth opportunities in six months, that is what got flagged. Not for discipline, but for intervention. So let's check in. Let's see what they need. They created budget tracking for dream investments. Every time they invested in someone's dream, whether it was education funding or personal loan or flexible scheduling to pursue something, it got tracked. They could see the total investment per employee, the type of investments, the outcomes. It let them analyze ROI on different types of support.

B (31:13)

They created outcome tracking for internal development. When someone achieved a dream that the company had supported, it got noted, finished their degree, bought their first house, achieved their health goal. Whatever. They tracked it, celebrated it, and connected it to retention and performance data. They could prove that employees who achieved dreams stayed longer and performed better.

B (31:43)

All of this was now in their HRIS platform, but none of it violated confidentiality. None of it put personal information in employee files. It was aggregate data, categorical data, outcome data. It let them manage HR strategically based on human development, instead of just administering employment tactically.

B (32:09)

The HR director presented this data to the leadership team quarterly. She'd show them things like we invested $68,000 in Employees Dreams. This quarter, 11 people achieved significant milestones towards their goals. Zero of those 11 people left the company. Historical data shows that 92% of employees who achieve a dream with company support stay at least three more years. The leadership team could see the roi, but more than that, they could see that HR was driving business outcome, not just managing compliance. Now I know what some of you might be thinking. This sounds like a lot of work. Our HR team is already stretched thin just keeping up with the basics. And yeah, it's work. But here's what the HR director learned. When you focus HR on human development instead of just administration, some things actually got easier. Recruiting gets easier because you're attracting better candidates. Onboarding gets easier because people are engaged from day one. Performance management gets easier because people are motivated to grow. And lastly, retention gets easier because people do not want to leave anymore. You are spending less time on reactive firefighting.

B (33:45)

And more time on proactive development. And that's actually more energizing or less draining.

B (33:54)

The HR director said she used to go home exhausted every day, dealing with problems, managing crises and processing terminations. Now she goes home energized most days because she's helping people grow, celebrating achievements and creating opportunities. It's a completely different job. Let me talk about some specific tips. Technical integrations they made Their HRIS platform had an API, an application program interface. Most modern platforms do. They worked with the developer to create a simple integration between Dream Manager tracking and their HRIs. The Dream Manager had their own system for tracking dreams progress, meetings and outcomes. Nothing that included confidential conversation. Just the structure.

B (34:52)

Who she met with, when, what categories they're working on, and what milestones they've hit. That system would send summary data to the hris. Again, no personal details, just flags. This employee is actively working with Dream Manager. Last meeting was two weeks ago. Currently focused on financial, wellness and education. That let managers see at a glance that their team members were engaged in development. And if someone hadn't met with the Dream Manager in a while, the manager could encourage them. Hey, have you scheduled your next Dream Manager meeting or what are you working on these days?

B (35:38)

They also integrated Dream Manager Milestone achievements with their recognition system. When someone achieved a dream, it could be celebrated company wide. If the employee wanted it showed up in the HRIS news feed, people could congratulate them. It reinforced that personal achievement mattered as much as professional achievement. The integrated Dream Manager with their learning management system.

B (36:08)

When the Dream Manager identified that multiple people had similar education goals, they could suggest courses or programs. The company could bring in resources, workshops and speakers. It created economies of scale around development. They integrated Dream Manager with their benefits platform. When someone was working on a health related dream, they'd get targeted information about wellness benefits. When someone was working on a financial dream, they'd get information about financial planning resources. The benefits became more relevant because they were personalized to what people actually wanted.

B (36:54)

All of this integration made the H R I S platform more useful. Not just a repository of employment data, but a tool for human development. The HR director worked with their HRIS vendor to actually advocate for Dream Manager integration as a feature. She told them, you're missing a huge opportunity. Everyone's talking about employee experience, engagement, but your platform is still designed around around compliance and administration. If you integrated Dream Manager principles into your core functionality, you differentiate yourself completely. I don't know if they'll do it. Most HR technology vendors are slow to innovate. But the fact that an HR director was asking for it, that's significant. It means the market is starting to demand platforms built around human potential, not just employment administration.

B (37:59)

Let me now give you the outcomes at this. Five years into the Dream Manager integration, turnover stabilized at around 8% annually. In their industry, that's exceptional. Most firms run 15 to 25%. The retention advantage gave them the competitive edge and winning clients business because they could promise continuity. Their recruiting cost dropped by 60%. Not because they were recruiting less, they were actually growing. But they were filling more roles internally and getting more referrals. They rarely had to use recruiters anymore. Their time to productivity for new hires dropped by 40%. Because they were attracting people aligned with their culture from the jump and because their employees were actively helping onboard new people as part of their own leadership development. Their employee engagement scores went from the 50th percentile to the 95th percentile compared to industry benchmarks. That translated directly into client satisfaction scores which went up significantly. But here's the metric the HR director was most proud of. The percentage of leadership positions filled internally went from 30% to 87%. They were developing their own leaders instead of hiring them externally. That saved money, but more importantly, it created career paths People could see they had a future there. And the HR director's role in the company changed. She got promoted to Chief People Officer, not just managing HR administration, but leading the entire people strategy. She joined the executive team, became part of strategic planning because she'd proven that investing in human development drove business results. So what does this mean for you as an HR leader or business owner? First, you need to understand that most HR technology is built for the wrong purpose. It's built to administrate employment, not develop humans. And if you just use it as designed, you'll get efficient administration but not engaged employees. You need to think about how to use these platforms differently. How to track potential instead of just performance, how to measure development instead of just compliance, and how to support growth instead of just managing process.

B (41:00)

Second, Dream Manager data and HR data needed to be integrated, but carefully. You can't put confidential dream conversations in employees files. That violates trust and completely defeats the purpose. But you can track categorical data, milestone achievements, engagement levels and investment amounts. You can create visibility into development without violating privacy. Third, change what you measure. Stop measuring only backward looking things like performance against job description and start measuring forward looking things like progress toward personal goals, engagement and development, and achievement of dreams. The metrics you track determine what you optimize for.

B (41:56)

Fourth, redesign your HR processes around potential. Recruiting should identify people who want to grow, not just people who can do the job. Onboarding should include Dream Manager introduction, not just policy acknowledgement. Performance management should include personal development, not just professional performance. And succession planning should identify aspiration, not just capability. Fifth, integrate Dream Manager with everything HR does. It's not a separate program. It's the lens through which you do. All of HR benefits are chosen based on what dreams employees are pursuing. Learning is designed around what people want to become. Recognition celebrates personal achievements, not just work achievements and retention strategies are built on knowing what people need to stay.

B (43:00)

And sixth, use technology to scale human connection, not replace it. The HRIS platform can track and measure and report, but the Dream Manager provides the human relationship, the trust, the understanding. And guess what? You need both. Technology without humanity is just administration. It's Humanity without technology is chaos.

B (43:33)

Make HR a strategic function, not just an administrative one. When HR can show how human development drives business outcomes, when you can prove ROI on investing in dreams, when you can demonstrate that engagement creates competitive advantage, HR becomes strategic. You're not just the compliance police or the benefits administrator. You're driving growth through people development. And here's what I want you to understand. The gap between HR technology and and human development is Real, most platforms are designed to manage employees, not grow people. But you can use them differently. You can integrate Dream Manager principles and create systems that track what actually matters. When you do that, when you build HR platforms on potential instead of just performance, everything changes. Your people grow faster, they stay longer, they contribute more, and your business becomes more successful because you're developing the asset that matters most. Your people.

B (44:52)

The professional services firm I told you about, they're still going strong. The HR director, now Chief People Officer, she speaks at conferences about this integration. She shows other HR leaders how to make the shift from compliance cop to Dream Enabler. And the most common response she gets is, I became an HR professional because I wanted to help people. But somewhere along the way, it became all about policies and paperwork.

B (45:27)

This reminds me of why I got into this field. That's what Dream Manager does for hr.

B (45:37)

It reminds us that human resources are actually humans. Not resources to be managed, but people to be developed. And when you build your HR systems around that truth, when you integrate Dream Manager with your HRIS platform, you create something powerful. Not just better administration, better humans. And better humans build better businesses.

B (46:07)

Next episode, we're talking about operations, how Dream Manager transforms production, scheduling, workflow management, and operational excellence. You're going to hear about a manufacturing company that integrated Dream Manager with their operation systems and saw productivity gains they never thought possible. Because engaged people don't just show up differently, they work differently. But for now, if you're an HR leader listening to this, if you're tired of being seen as just the compliance person, if you want to transform your HR function into something that actually develops people, I want to help. We work with HR leaders all the time to integrate Dream Manager with their existing systems. We can show you how to redesign your processes, what to track, how to prove roi, and how to make the business case. And if you're looking for technology that supports this integration, the Dream Compass is being built specifically for this purpose. It's designed to work alongside your existing hris. It tracks dreams, progress, engagement and outcomes. And it integrates with your HR systems to give you the visibility you need without violating confidentiality. We're still accepting companies for our early access program, and you can learn more at the Dream Dividend.

B (47:45)

Thank you so much for listening. If this episode resonated with you, if you're an HR professional who wants to be more than just an administrator, share this with your HR network. Let's change how HR technology serves human development. We'll see you next time. This is placeholder media that you'll see, if you add a layout to an empty scene, you can go ahead and delete it.