Shifting Values And Staying Motivated At Work

that's something you don't want from your employees. And we've got a guest here who has an AI platform that helps you deal with employee motivation and retention maybe more important than ever right now as you try and get workers to come back and stay. Casey Wall joins US chief executive officer and co founder of Attuned out of Tokyo. Casey Um, talk to me about what your platform can

offer employers right now. Yeah, I think with everything that's going on in the world, so many changes and like people are looking to change jobs right now, and how do you understand the other people really? And that's what we kind of help with, right and so what we're making is kind of the what usually is invisible able to be seen. So people's intrinsic motivation, you get it through data. So now when you kind of can't go into the offices, you can kind of feel what's going

on in the room. You can't see people, there's no more management. By walking around, you can see what most resonates with people. And then now, because of all the changes, how people's values are in their goals are are shifting, and we get that to kind of all the managers and data so they can have the right communications, the right one on ones and keep people motivated for what is most meaningful to them. Right, And there's all these

different types of motivations, right, casey. It can be altruism, competition, financial status. Is there one that is the prominent driver? And have you seen that kind of change in the pandemic world? I think that's the beauty of it. There's everybody, like everybody's motivation is like a fingerprint. What we found is there's one point seven million different combinations of motivations. And this is why it's so hard to be a manager.

But I think your question is, you know since this pandemic, because what has really changes, you know, some of the motivations across the boards, across the thousands of people you know that have taken the assessment and who's intrinsic motivations we know have changed and the biggest one is rationality.

And I think across the organizations a lot more, you know, team members and employees are looking for a more logical explanation from their organization, from their managers because there's so much uncertainty what's going on, and just had a little bit more kind of understanding what the company is going to do, what are our goals, what's my meaning for this, and just explain logically if anybody's listening, that's probably the

biggest takeaway and what people need right now. For me, if my boss likes me, if I think he or she likes me, that's all I need. They're not to pay me at all. Really, I just want to be liked. Casey Um, talk to me about the differences. You're American, but you're based out of Tokyo, and I know you grew up overseas as well. Why did you pick Japan? H Japan's kind of I think Japan kind of picked me.

I think I went there for an adventure, but like now, you know, with a tuned especially, it's it's kind of a great place to be an entrepreneur, So, Japan is pretty unique. It's almost like kind of Mars on Earth to a certain degree, like it's a weird culture. It's really hard for kind of aggressive startups to come in because of the language barrier and the cultural barrier and all the weird kind of quirks to do. So, you know, we've got very loyal Japanese customers and it takes a

long time to get like a Japanese customer um. But then we have this huge mode so like really kind of well funded aggressive firms get really difficult to go in, so we can get this kind of base of close customers, kind of cash flow. Cash is really cheap in Japan, and then you can grow kind of grow fast in Japan and kind of attack globally from there. Is it's

kind of the perspective I look at it. So you know, if there's anybody looking for a cool place and you can hire really really good people, well I would recommend Toka. I would like to pick up on that point, what is the hiring environment like in Japan? Because here in the U S we're hearing from a lot of businesses that they have positions that they are struggling to fill they just can't find qualified workers. Is it the same in Japan. Yeah, it's the same in Japan. I think

it's really the same everywhere. And and really, you know, how many kind of new technology jobs and like jobs that are being created like now and that aren't so important, right, Like all the cryptocurrency jobs that are being created, they didn't exist five to seven years ago type of thing like that. You know, like a community manager, you know, for a lot of kind of technology companies or even

gaming companies are are kind of new jobs. So there's not these kind of deep pools of talent, and companies are creating new jobs, like tech companies kind of around the world, like we see demands kind of everywhere. So like, I think that struggle for talent is real, which goes back to you've got to hold on and really kind of motivate the people that you have. Very cool, Thanks so much for joining us. Casey Wall there. He's the

CEO and co founder of a Tuned. It's an AI platform that helps employers deal with motivation and retention of workers, and it's used by some of Japan's biggest brands. Denzo Kaplan, we said, also Recutan, which which is huge. I mean, I'm into Japanese leather and denim, and that's a great place to buy that kind of stuff. Casey, thanks so much for joining us well. Shares of Herbal Life are up about eight percent today, best day since July, after

the company's positive first quarter results and outlook. Joining us now is Alex Misqueta, the company's CFO, and Jog John Agunoby, the CEO of Herbal Life. Alex John, it's great to have you both. Alex will start with you. Nineteen percent sales growth really solid in the first quarter, but can you keep that up? How tough are your comps going to be going into the second half of the year. Oh, thank thanks for the question. UM, and growth that we

saw in the first quarter is actually results. We're seeing UM this elevated demand for about two quarters since the middle of two thousand twenty UM. But the growth is not new to us. We have been growing our markets. For example, Europe has been growing for forty four straight quarters. The US has been growing for thirteen straight quarters, so

growth is not new to us. I think the elevated demand that we're seeing is just as consumer trends shift towards UH making more of a focus of what people are putting inside their body, making a connection between health and nutrition and so um, the growth that we see uh this past quarter, in the past couple of quarters is something that we foresee seeing for us to the rest of the year, with growth expected to be in the mid double digits. So, Alex, what was different during

the pandemic? I mean, how did for example, Herbal Life

sales strategy change during lockdowns. Well, we had to do a lot of changing and working with our channel to shift how people were getting their nutritional So, as you could imagine, there's a lot of in person prior to the pandemic, and so the entrepreneurial nature of our channel is really figuring out how do we switch from in person m mechanisms to using technology, doing take out, doing home delivery, just really thinking about how to be creative

outside of the traditional way that we've done the business, which is in person and nutrition clubs and face to face. Well, and John, of course, you began your tenure on March thirtieth last year, right in the thick of the pandemic crisis. How do you see the changes you've made at the HELM lasting in the post pandemic world. You know, Kylee, there are a number of things that I think are

going to hold true well beyond the pandemic. The first would be the acceleration of our digital strategy, so so many of our distributors have now moved the center of their business UM on onto online platforms and social media platforms that I think is going to hold, is going

to hold and continue into the future. The sales force itself has grown dramatically over the course of my my one year in the job UM, and that salesforce has become better able, I think, better connected, and better related, better relates to its customers today as those customers have improved an increased demand for health products. People are much more aware of the importance of health, of the importance of their of their of exercise, and of good nutrition.

And our distributors, who serve as coaches in each of the communities where they work around the world, they're better prepared today than ever before to address those needs. Lastly, I would just add that UM, one of the things that we've really begun to I think do with our strategy as product moving our products so that it's not just about weight management, which was our legacy, and it's

still one of our core businesses. We've now begun to move dramatically into sports nutrition and we've taken our line of sports nutrition is called Urbalized twenty four, and we've now begun to take it into me new countries around the world. We're ninety markets, as you know, and but our sports nutrition product was only in a portion of them, and so we're increasing the march around the world expanding

access to that product life. It's grown actually, as I recall, thirty four um in in just the last the first quarter, so that that that particular space sports nutrition is also gonna be a very big part of our future. I wonder John, you have uh a lot of experience working in government. You started out in Florida. Then you are the Assistant Secretary of Health for the US Department of Health and Human Services. I guess before you went to

to Walmart to run their health and wellness business. Um. Do you think the Biden push, this new administration's push towards nutrition and health because there's a lot of spending in the infrastructure built on that. Do you think Herbal Life is going to be able to take advantage of that? Yeah? I won't. I won't speak to Herbal Life as a Pacific company. And as I said, we're in ninety four countries around the world. The US is a little more than I think twenty four of that UM in terms

of top line sales. But I will say this that UM I do believe that it's an investment in the future of the country. UM investing in healthy nutrition long term should help reduce the accelerated cost of healthcare or at least slow the growth of of of healthcare expenditures.

As a company, we are a very flexible entity. We we've we've evolved over time, and as the nation's demand for nutrition increases, I for good nutrition increases, for healthy nutrition, UM I can assure you that our distributors, our company will pivot and moves and flex and and respond so that if there are needs that we can help with,

will be there to deliver them well. Alex, talking about the different countries in which you operate, you saw revenue gains pretty much across most regions, but not in Nina. What's going on in that market and will we see more growth in China in the back half of the year. So China is going through a transition where we are going through a change to encourage behaviors for that market

to have more stability in the market. So over the past twenty quarters, China has been up ten quarters and it's been down ten quarters, and it's been up and down changing directions nine times out of that time period. We're looking to employ UM a business model there to help with the stability in that market, and to do so that requires some behavioral changes, that require some technology, that requires some some of the learnings that we've had in the US and in some of our other markets

and bring that into China. So as we go through that transition, there is some short term disruption as we make that change, and that's what we've been going through in the fourth quarter and continue to go through in the first quarter. In fact, our first quarter, even though it was down, landed right where we thought it would be. So our expectations for the transition that we are expecting UM is right on target, and we anticipate that transition

to take a few potentially a few quarters. UM The expectation is that we return to growth by the end of this year, but this is going to be a journey. The most important thing that I want to say is that the long term growth opportunity in China is still intact.

Sometimes when we have these changes that we make in the market, it takes a few quarters for that to turn around, but then we reap the rewards for that on the other side of that, And that's what we're looking forward to as we keep going here in China. John and Alex, thanks so much for joining us on the program today. John Aguinobi is the CEO of Herbal Life Nutrition. Alex ms Kite is the chief financial officer.

After earnings and lifting their guidance, this is Bloomberg Matt Let's talk about the big decision out of Facebook today. Donald Trump remains banned from the social network, at least for now. The company's oversight board, which of course operates independently, said that the band can stay in place, but it also recommended Facebook review it within six months. So this

is an ongoing story and we do know. How do now have the reaction from the former president putting out a statement saying Facebook, Twitter and Google have what they have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our country. He goes on to say these corrupt social media companies must pay a political price. So joining us now to discuss is Jim Anderson, Social Flow CEO Full Disclosure. Social Flow is a platform used by Bloomberg for social

media purposes. Jim, great to have your insight here. What is your immediate reaction to this Advisory Board decision? Are you surprised? Yeah, Kelly, I'm a little surprised because they you know, they are staffed with quite a few free speech advocates, so I think a lot of people were expecting, all things being equal, for them to come down on the side of free speech. So I think this is a pretty significant defeat for former President Trump. And you

see that reflected in his statement. Uh, you know, as much as he says he doesn't need Facebook and Twitter, it's it's clear he can't reach the match of those

platforms on his own. And the decision, there was a sentence in the decision that I think is overlooked because there's so much in there, but it said that the board found, in maintaining an unfounded narrative of what of electoral fraud and persistent calls to action, that you know, Trump created an environment where a serious risk of violence

was possible. That that's a pretty strong statement. Of course, they did kick it back to Facebook to say you need to come up with something better than an indefinite Dand so that's a that's a partial victory or a silver lining, as he will. That may be Facebook will revisit that, but it was a pretty clear decision by the overside board. How does this affect you think Facebook's business? I think it has very little impact, honestly, one way

or another. Mark Zuckerberg was quoted in a pretty candid moment at one point, this is six months or a year ago, saying, hey, this is uh, you know, not really having that much of a positive impact on our business. We probably be better off it just went away because the controversy is more than we want to deal with. But honestly, Facebook, we just saw their earnings last week, right, They just continue to meant record earnings. They have such a scale. I think in some ways, you know, longer term,

this is a really smart move. The oversight board is independent from Facebook. You know, there's a question of how independent, but I think they really ace their first big test, and and Facebook honestly is probably gonna benefit by having them become even more independent, even if they issue rulings that Facebook doesn't agree with because every bit of criticism that goes to the oversight board criticism that's not going

directly at Facebook. Of course, Facebook also doesn't necessarily need Donald Trump, right, But as you say, Donald Trump in some ways kind of needs Facebook in order to reach his base. But on that point, Trump has added a new feature to his pack website, a section called from the Desk of Donald J. Trump, and it's essentially working as a Twitter feed. It allows him to pose press releases videos and then his supporters can then repost them on Facebook and Twitter, so we can kind of get

around this. Well, yes, that's true, and I saw that that came up. I think it was yesterday that that went live. But I could stand up a blog site tomorrow. That doesn't mean anybody's gonna come to it, right, And again, I'm not confusing myself with the popularity of the former president, but it's it's illustrative. What Facebook, Twitter and the other social networks have is millions or in many cases billions

of users and a daily habit of usage. So only President Trump's former President Trump's most fervent fans are going to go to his blog site every day to see what he said. You know, it's been fifteen minutes. Did he see something else? Contract that with what he was able to do, specifically with Twitter, and he was able to get his message, usually quite provocative by design, in front of the world's journalists, and and they, you know,

would write about it. And so I've long said that President Trump's former President Trump's superpower, if he had one in social media was not his ability to tweet. It was his ability to get the media to write and cover what he tweeted. And and so that still is not there. He can put whatever he wants on his site. Of course it's his sight, but that doesn't mean anybody's going to notice it other than maybe his most fervent supporters. How is Facebook doing otherwise in fighting against lies and

misinformation that you know, change American lives? Well, I think it's a game of whack a mole, you know, which is a slang analogy, but it seems incredibly apt here. There is no winning against live and misinformation, and I think that would be the wrong way to even try to frame the problem. I think all they can do is hope to contain it and to come up with a set of standards and to have those standards evolve and improve over time as they can front difficult issues.

And I actually think the oversight board is going to play an important role that you know, Mark Zuckerberg compared this to Facebook Supreme Court. In many ways, that's not a good analogy, because the Supreme Court is a you know, part of the Constitution in a judicial branches, separate but equal and all those things. But in other ways it really is quite aptive. Facebook and more broadly, all big tech platforms can benefit from. How thing a quanti independent

at this point. Maybe at some point a fully independent board that can confront these issues absorb the criticism that goes along with them, but some legitimacy that's really not there right now well, and especially in their involvement in the elections of the future. In GYM, we only have about a minute left. But of course President Trump wasn't actively running for president when these bands were put in place. He maybe thought the election wasn't over, but it was.

If he runs again. In our Facebook and Twitter are going to be forced to reconsider. I don't know about force, but they definitely are thinking about that. And he wasn't running, but he was the standing U s president at that point. I mean, so it's tode platform a duly elected US president. So I think that goes back to the same thing. If he declares his candidacy and he's certainly a legitimate candidate for president, you know, you've got a different set

of standards. But I don't think that gives him a blank check. I think what Facebook, in by extension Twitter, need to do is say, Okay, these are the circumstances under which any candidate and including Trump can can you post things? And these are the things that get the account banned or taken down or suspended? All right, Jim, thanks so much for joining us. Jim Anderson there he is the CEO of Social Flow and talking to us about um Facebook's ban of continued ban of Donald Trump.

And I'll remember it's only six months, so we'll probably revisit this, but hopefully doctor to Jim a little bit sooner than that. This is Bloomberg. Let's talk now about climate change and the impact of real estate and construction on global warming. For that, we bring in Jordan Goldstein. He's a global design director at the biggest architecture and design firm in the world, Gensler Um Jordan's. First off, how did you get into this topic? I mean, I know it's kind of u um um the topic de

jure currently. Uh, maybe that's taking it a little lightly, but uh, what what interested you in your industry's impact on climate? Well, first, thanks for having me on. It's

great to be with you. You know, for us, we realized that the global footprint of our work was really an opportunity to not just create great impact through design, but looking at all the materials that we are working with and all the design projects, whether that's new buildings or interior projects, that gives us an opportunity to really think about that impact on the on the climate and how we can really optimize energy use and reduce carbon

impact through our work in the built environment. Well, of course, there is making what you're doing more climate friendly. There is also making what you're doing more resilient climate change, Right, how do you build buildings that are built for extreme weather events and some of these other phenomena. Yeah, it's really interesting if you look at just the last you know, fourteen months that we've been through this pandemic, it's you on top of the pandemic, all the climate issues that

we've seen through extreme weather. You know, it's it's a it's a tremendous opportunity to really rethink how we are building. And one of those is really thinking about how we can look at you know, what's old as being new and really being able to have adaptive reuse on facilities and buildings you know, around certainly around the US and abroad.

Looking at Miami, for instance, we did a study with one of the universities there that looked at the rising sea water issues and how instead of trying to really fight that, you know, through all these preventive measures, we can actually design buildings that start to and work with existing buildings to think about what happens as this occurs

and how the building can adapt. You know, how can we look at, for instance, second floor entry ways, How can we look at connectivity between buildings and campuses that are above ground, And how can we actually look at rooftops and facade materials to be more uh absorbative for to the climate. So how can we actually use rooftops as an example to absorb rainwater, to actually harvest that rainwater and use that as part of the you know, the way we actually treat the building and actually UH,

operate the building. The idea is so cool. I mean, having maybe a waterproof first floor so that on days when the water is too high, you're looking right out into the sea. UM. What what about the uh, the new administration's climate goals and maybe more importantly infrastructure spending. How does that play into both of those things? Building you know, better for the climate and also um, building

better to deal with the inclement weather. Well, sure, the you know, the Biden administration goals are are for equitable all electric UM, you know, uh, lower embodied carbon future. And I think there's a tremendous opportunity you know, from a market st end point, you know, for the funding UM and the opportunities for public private investment in projects

that have these same goals. You know, certainly the greening kind of the renewable look of our electric grid UH and building more resiliency in those grids to avoid events like we saw you know in Texas recently as an example, offer you know, tremendous opportunity. UM. I think that the actions that they've put forward also really empowers more innovation, uh in the industries that are that are creating the

things that use and save power. You know, lighting appliances, elevators, HVAC systems, and even window technologies that are used you know, for the skins of buildings. Yeah, super cool, Jordan. We only have about a minute left, but I want to ask you about rising materials costs. Just today, US lumber futures fresh record high. How is that impacting your work? Are you struggling with sourcing and the pricing of some

of the materials you're using? Yeah, it is, It is really Um, it's hard to it's hard to see all this rising costs and not start to think about how the material palettes for our buildings, buildings have to be different. The rising lumber costs, rising steel costs over the last

you know, a couple of months for example. Uh and frankly, the lead time issues, so there's that supply chain disruption that we've seen with COVID, you know, you know, we've we've actually found that it's been estimated that the harvesting, manufacturer, and transportation of raw materials used in building construction is responsible for eleven eleven of global emissions. So it's caused us to really think about how can we actually reuse materials?

You know, when we think about structures of buildings. Those can last a long time, you know. So how do we actually when we think about buildings, do we always have to build new and we actually use and how for instance lumber. I've actually on a lot of projects recently have been reusing lumber, and there's companies out there now that actually salvage lumber from projects and make that available for use and new buildings. Jordan, thanks so much

for joining us. Jordan Goldstein, Global Design director at Genzler. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three. Put on Fall Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio