Flipping the HR Script - Leading With Truth – with Mark Griffin – [Ep. 182]

Linda J. Hansen:  Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101® Breakroom Economics Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host and the author of Prosperity 101®- Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck, and the creator of the Breakroom Economics Online course, the book, the course and the entire podcast library can be found on Prosperity101.Com. I seek to connect boardroom to break room and policy to paycheck by empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful. I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests and be sure to visit Prosperity 101.Com.

Thank you so much for joining with me today. The workplace, employers, employees. Is your workplace woke or awake? What is the difference? Terms like DEI, ESG and CRT have been in the news, but what do they mean to you? And what is an appropriate response for a faith-based workplace leader? With me to discuss these issues and more is Mark A. Griffin. Mark has served in the United States Air Force, on Capitol Hill and in many Fortune 500 companies, especially in the area of human resources. He understands the positive and negative impact of corporate culture and he founded In His name HR to bring a positive, biblically based HR alternative for faith-based companies and organizations. Thank you for joining with me, Mark. Please tell us more about in his name. HR.

Mark Griffin: Sure. Thank you, Linda. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk to you today about our firm and also human resources opportunities. Our firm was launched twelve years ago. God put on my heart to take everything that I learned from corporate America and through my higher education experiences, package it up and offer human resources services primarily for Christian owned for profit businesses. So we saw a need and I had some wonderful executives and other followers of Christ encourage me to start In His Name HR. So we originally started with supporting Christian-owned for profit businesses by providing them with human resources systems.

Linda J. Hansen: That's incredible. And so that was twelve years ago and all these terms that I just mentioned weren't as much in the news, but they were still around percolating in corporate culture. So can you tell us about your efforts to bring a biblically based diversity, equity and inclusion program to the workplace?

Mark Griffin: Sure, absolutely. So having served in human resources for so many years, as you could imagine, I actually instructed Dei back in the back in the 90s, it was a whole different ballgame. It wasn't the current agenda that's being forced upon us. It was actually something that the employees really enjoyed. They weren't embarrassed to go into the training. It was all about human connectedness, breaking down boundaries, and even breaking down boundaries in between different races within the race. Because having five white men in the room doesn't mean they're all the same, doesn't mean they were all raised the same or the same thing with five Hispanic or five black employees. Everybody's experiences are different. And that's what I really enjoyed back in the 90s, is focusing on strengths, looking at how we could leverage those strengths to better the organization and bless the companies with that training. But that's all since changed. So I was approached about six, eight months ago, and I was approached by an attorney that he was in a situation where Di was being forced upon a nonprofit institution. And that nonprofit institution went out to seek Di training for their staff. And it's a Christian nonprofit. And every time they found Di training or an organization to bring it in, it didn't fit within their organization.

The terms that they use and the agenda that's currently out there just isn't appropriate for a Christian nonprofit. So that attorney asked us, hey, could you create something from a biblical perspective? Naturally, I'll be honest with you, I wasn't very interested in the beginning. We're being attacked. There's no other way to say it. It's obvious. And I think the more we go on, the more I don't have a problem sharing that with people that we are being attacked and people are seeing it. I have non-Christian friends that are seeing it as well. So after a few days of thoughtful reflection and prayer, we decided to forge forward and put a biblical dei program in place.

Linda J. Hansen: That sounds just really exciting. And what would be the difference for listeners who maybe have no concept of what would be the difference between a biblical dei program and a non-biblical dei program? Can you explain the main difference?

Mark Griffin: Absolutely. That's such a fabulous you know, when we delivered the dei training, we had some pastors, some senior pastors in the group. And at the conclusion of the training, I had a senior pastor come to me and say that he had no idea what the difference was between the what the biblical aspect is. And it's real simple. The biblical aspect of dei is male and female. God created male and female. It's biblical, and it's the word of God. There is no other selection. The current agenda has chosen to use the word gender, which isn't biblical. So we take the gender out of it and we put male and female in, and it reflects what the Bible says. And we don't allow other aspects to be brought into the training that aren't aligned with God's word. And you know what? The employees love the training.

They embraced it. We have group exercises. They learn so much. We use the Myers Briggs we use the strength finders. We really hone in on human connectedness and setting goals and objectives with employees, breaking down the barriers and getting some decor with the employees. That's one thing. So many workplaces are downtrodden right now and we have to reverse that. We have to bring some good positive energy into it. And I want you to know, and I want the listeners to know don't be fearful of dei. From a biblical perspective, it can actually be a good thing to really motivate and excite your employees. We have one client, we're going to be delivering about 100 leaders in the fall and they are just so excited to listen to our content and then they can use that content to bring it out to other people into the body of Christ. So yes, we're very excited about these times.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, when we think of diversity, if people look at Scripture, there is much diversity in the Bible and people of all races and things. It's just amazing how God cares about every single person and his creativity in making us all different and unique and individual, yet he values every one of us. So you think of the diversity equity, which I've often pointed out that the current word equity is not the same as equality. We don't want to have the same outcome necessarily, we want to have the same opportunity. But when we think of in God's view we are all equal. In God's view we're sinners in need of a savior and when we come to Jesus Christ, we are seen through that lens and it is just amazing.

Mark Griffin: And the word equity comes up quite frankly quite often and a lot of folks like to use the word opportunity instead of equity. And I align with that because as I did this research, studied connected with a lot of di experts all across the United States, what I quickly realized know, I didn't have it that good. After high school I went into the Air Force. I had to get myself through college. I went in debt each month, get myself through college in the Air Force. I lived in a really terrible area of Miami, outside of Miami and Homestead while I was newly married. And it was difficult. But I had the opportunity, I had the opportunity to go to college at night, which I did. And that allowed me to get my degree and prosper and support my family. And that's the other aspect that I'm really learning a lot around the dei processes. I've made a really good friend, Kevin McGarry, he's in San Francisco and he's African American and we've studied together the situation and it really comes down to that. It really comes down to the opportunity in getting people motivated for the dignity of work, to receive work. God wants us to work. And even in the Bible it's clear we're going to have jobs with our strengths in heaven. The rest of our eternity lives, eternal lives. So it's really exciting again, Linda.

Linda J. Hansen: It is. And you mentioned Kevin. I've talked with him about being on the podcast soon, so I'm hoping we can get that scheduled sometime.

Mark Griffin: Kevin is magnificent. I've learned so much from Kevin, and he's become such a really good friend, and I think he's going to bless your listeners.

Linda J. Hansen: I think he will too. He wrote the book. Woke up, I think it's called. And so I met him first at a well versed conference and then at the CEA Conference Christian Employers Alliance, where I met you. But he's got a great message and thinks it's great to know that you guys have partnered together and brought the insights that you've both gleaned from your work experience and your life experience and you're doing things together. But that brings us to the I part, the inclusion part. When I look at God's word, people are diverse.

Mark Griffin: Exactly.

Linda J. Hansen: They are treated equally by God, and he includes everybody. He loves everybody. And so when I think of a workplace that is diverse and of equal opportunity, it doesn't discriminate. It doesn't matter if you're male or female, doesn't matter if you're young or old, doesn't matter if you're black or white. There's different criteria, and it's inclusive. So I think it's great. So explain to the listeners how your dei program would differ a little bit in the eye part.

Mark Griffin: Sure. I mean, when you look at inclusion, God sees everyone the same. Romans 2:11 for God does not show favoritism. And then you look at Proverbs 22 two, the rich and poor have this in common. The Lord made them both. It's the word of God. God loves everyone. He does. But we have a responsibility as well to honor God in all that we do. And he loves us, but he also wants us to act accordingly. And I think people are starting to see that. And I believe there's a lot of Christians out there that are embracing that, and they want to share that with their employees. And there's no shame in sharing that information with your employees.

Linda J. Hansen: Exactly. People are afraid sometimes to speak up in the workplace, and that's what I talk about with my Prosperity 101® materials. It's not difficult. We make it really easy for people to talk about these issues or to bring them up and just raise awareness. And so take us through, say, if a company would contract with you to do some of this training in their workplace, what would be their first steps? What would be the process?

Mark Griffin: Sure. It's actually really easy. They contact us, we do a consultation over the phone. We get a greater understanding of who they are as an organization, and then we literally will customize the training using the legal narratives that we have, build into what their culture is. And then we take their mission, vision, values, and we build that into the training as well. And that's incredibly important. Having mission, vision and values that align with God's Word. And that's something that's important with all our clients that we work with. I authored a book, how to Build a Kingdom Minded Organization, that was about twelve years ago. It's out in Spanish now and it's selling a lot on Kindle in the UK. Believe it or not. And that's talking about how to get Christ into the workplace without being offensive, without it being illegal, and how to be a faithful Christian in business. Because Barna clearly says being outward as a Christian business person is a good idea. It's smart and people gravitate to do work with Christians. I live in Lancaster County. We have people from Connecticut, New Jersey, New York that love to work and purchase from our Christian brothers and sisters here, that have manufacturing companies, building companies, you name it. We have a lot of Christian owned businesses here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, and as a Christian, if we're really walking with the Lord, we want to adhere to the Scriptural mandate to do all things unto the know, work as unto the Lord and not for men. So we want to work with excellence and that comes through in our workplace interactions as well as our production and what we do. And so if we are truly seeking excellence to honor the Lord, it will also honor the people that we work with and the people that we serve.

Mark Griffin: It will.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes. Well, and you mentioned the workplace culture. The last episode that I did. My guest was Mark Whitaker from Coca Cola Consolidated and the T Factor Initiative. And he talked about how their retention rates just have skyrocketed since they've been bringing in this faith based culture and really talking about faith at work more prominently and really living out their Christian values to their employees. Never forcing an employee everything is optional. But truly living out those Christian values and not being afraid to speak about them and share them, and then offering employees an opportunity to grow and learn and actually come to know Christ if they choose to. They certainly can work there if they aren't a Christian, but if they choose to, and they have chaplains on board that can serve the needs of the employees and the families. And this workplace ministry is so important. I know. You and I met at Christian Employers Alliance. And the ministry of Christian Employers alliance is important. And what they bring to the table we're this workplace ministry, there's nothing more local really know our backyards, but then where we go to work every day and the people that we work with, those relationships are so important. And for every believer I say it's not an accident. The people that you work with, those.

Mark Griffin: Are divine, not an accident. God aligns everyone for his purpose.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes.

Mark Griffin: And I think oftentimes we forget about when Christ was on Earth. He went out to the marketplace. He spent a lot of time there's over like 132 appearances that Christ had, and 122 of them, he was in the marketplace.

Linda J. Hansen: It's amazing, and I see all of these interactions. They're divine appointments.

Mark Griffin: They are divine appointments.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes, they're divine appointments. And we can serve people in a unique way. Sometimes it's as simple as letting someone know. You'll pray for them. You'll pray for them. You know they have a need. Maybe their child is sick. There's an elderly family member. They have a financial need, whatever, saying, I'll pray for you sometimes that touches people so much. Other things can go further into more structured things in the workplace, which I'd love you to share a little bit more about things that you offer in the workplace and how a company could introduce one of your programs into the workplace. Maybe they've never had anything like that, and they're kind of afraid to sound perspective.

Mark Griffin: It's sad that people would be afraid because we have religious freedom in this country, and it's not going away. And it's a blessing for Christians, but it's also a blessing to Jews, Hindus, and Muslims as well. They have religious freedom. It's not just Christians, but some Jewish folks are being persecuted. There's a college right now that was being forced an agenda with a club. They wouldn't allow the club to be formed. And the government came back and said, you have to allow that club to be formed at Yeshua College. I believe College and Seminary in New York said that you have to have that club. And they said, no, we're not going to do it. And they eliminated all clubs for the college because of that one club that didn't align with their beliefs. They said, we're not going to have any clubs because we're not going to honor that one group. We're not going to take that group and raise them higher than any other group. So we do have religious freedom in this country.

Linda J. Hansen: We do. And one thing I would say, though, is you said it's not going away. I disagree with that gently, because I see the attacks on our Constitution, and that is part of why I'm so committed and dedicated to what I do with Prosperity 101®, is helping people just get reacquainted with the Constitution, with their basic rights, understanding how to protect those rights. Because you know as well as I do, Christians have been silenced in the marketplace so many times and in the media, and sometimes they've been canceled. I've featured many guests who've been taken off the Internet. They've been canceled. They've had their bank accounts closed, many things. So in reality and legally, we should have religious freedom, because that's what our Constitution, our founding documents, and our laws are supposed to protect for us. But in the reality of experience and what is actually happening in our culture, that is getting farther and farther away from our Judeo Christian values as a nation. Christians aren't always experiencing the benefit of that religious freedom.

And Christians across the world are the most persecuted religion now, and not only in America, but elsewhere. And we're talking about so I personally believe it's a right hand, left hand effort in that we have to, one, get people aware and alert to the biblically sound values that apply across the board. They're not pushing them on anything. But I tell people too, even if you're not a Christian, you can appreciate the Judeo Christian biblical values of do not kill, do not steal. Be honest. I mean, there's just simple things that create for a very great civil society. Right? And so God knows that. But if we don't protect that exactly. Yeah. If we don't protect that in our culture by helping people understand how to look at the policies, the people behind the policies, what that means to their vote, it's all part of it. So we can educate people in the workplace and help them understand some of these biblical values. But if they go to the voting booth and still vote themselves right out of a job or right out of their religious freedom, we still have a problem. So that's where I feel like it's a one two punch in a sense. Yeah, I agree.

Mark Griffin: Now, you talked about what we can do with clients to help them or potential clients to help them as it relates to this. Back to the mission. Vision values. We've always promoted organizations. If it's a Christian owned for profit business and they've been in business for 50 years, they can put in their Mission Vision Values, where a company founded on biblical principles. And that is wonderful to say, and it's so good, because once you memorialize that and your employees have input to that, and you're hanging it on the wall and you're sending it to vendors and you're getting it all over the place when you interview people. And this is where we step in and we train folks to interview we train them to interview candidates against the mission, vision, values that hold the behaviors. Your values are behaviors. And the candidate getting a copy of the Mission Vision Values is automatically apprised of what type of organization you are. Right. Because it says it's a company founded on biblical principles. In my experience, many years ago, I worked for an organization, Conestoga Woods Specialties, and I would talk to candidates about, hey, this is a company founded on biblical principles. We're conservative in nature, so we have to dress accordingly. People were so excited when I interviewed them because they would say, I'm tired of working in a workplace where people are cursing all the time, where pornography is out, where people are high or they're drinking alcohol or there's all these assorted issues.

They don't want to work there. They don't want those issues. And you're not telling the candidate, hey, you have to be a Christian to work here. You're not saying that. You're saying we're creating a work environment that's awesome for people to come in because we want a work environment where I want my wife to work or my daughter to work or my son to work or the people that I love. You want them to work in a wholesome work environment. Most people want that. And that's the environment we need to create for people. And when you create that environment, people grow and they prosper and they give back to their churches and they help their community. And I've witnessed that. I've witnessed that in different companies. And the prosperity that that company is blessed with and the employees is just phenomenal because God's going to bless the efforts of people as we try to motivate and get people going in the right direction.

Linda J. Hansen: Exactly. God will bless that. And as people understand those values, and they appreciate the values, the retention rates, the engagement rates increase. I know you have some information about that on your website that people can look at some of the studies you've cited and things. And I know Mark Whitaker mentioned that in the podcast interview last week that when they started all this, their retention rates just went sky high. And that's what I say with Prosperity 101®. It will increase loyalty, engagement and retention because the employees begin to understand you care about them. You care about the big picture for their life. So if an employee is listening, not an employer, but if an employee is listening and they'd like to bring this type of information to their workplace, what should they do?

Mark Griffin: They can reach out to me, and somebody on our team will help them get them the information they need. We're pray with them. And that's actually happened before, Linda. We've had people call and know I'm working in this organization. It's a terrible place to work. They just need some help. And they are owned by Christians, but they have some issues. And before we know it, we're in there helping them solve issues.

Linda J. Hansen: Perfect. That's great.

Mark Griffin: That's the best referral.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, that is especially and it looks like you have so much opportunity. We all have so much opportunity to do good in the workplace, in the marketplace, marketplace ministry, and serving not only our brothers and sisters in Christ, but serving all the people that we work with or interact with through vendor relationships or whatever, when we can do so in a way that honors Christ. And for me, I always say, let's help promote freedom as well. Because if America falls, we can't do any of this and we can't do it. We all fall. The opportunity to build wealth, to fund organizations, to create benevolence funds, all these things go away if America falls. And we don't have our system of government that protects all these freedoms. So it's so important to help people understand these things at all levels. So if you have a closing thought for employers employees about how to one, talk about the HR issues in the workplace, but also about the policy issues in the workplace that are so important to a prosperous business. What would you say exactly?

Mark Griffin: I would say to them to stay encouraged, to not be upset, but stay encouraged and pray about what God wants you to do. And pray the Holy Spirit helps you, guide you and holds your hand through the process. Because I said earlier in the beginning of this podcast that Jesus loves the workplace. I mean, he was a carpenter until he was age 30 and then he started his ministry and I gave some other statistics about him going out into the workplace. But 52 parables 45 of them had a workplace context. So your listeners that are believers, that are followers of Christ, they're modern day disciples, they really are. They are disciples of Christ and our field is the workplace. And it's not just Mark Griffin, There's so many people that believe this have had prophecy over them about the workplace changes. And I really believe that God's equipping all of us to get ready for a big change in the work environment and in the world.

Linda J. Hansen: I agree as well. And that's why I started Prosperity 101® many years ago and really have a heart for the workplace and want to bring all that information into the workplace to create a healthier culture. So do you have any other closing thoughts?

Mark Griffin: Linda, I just want to thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me in. But thank you for the impact that you're having with your work to continue to do this year after year, waiting for the big revival shows your tenacity and vigor and that means so much to me. And I know the Lord sees you as being faithful and I'm just so excited about what's going to happen with all of us over the next couple of years. So I want to thank you Linda.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, thank you for that. That's encouraging. But thank you for your ministry. As know you've been know ups and downs, thick and thin and it's a great know many hands make like work and we all have a role to play as we serve the Lord and serve our fellow citizens and our fellow workers. So thank you. And if people want to reach you, how should they do so they can.

Mark Griffin: They can Go to our website in his namehr.com.

Linda J. Hansen: Okay, well, so in his namehr.com. So listeners, you have to add the HR part at the end if you want to get to his organization. So in his namehr.com. And thank you Mark Griffin, for joining with us today.

Mark Griffin: Thank you, Linda.

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you again for listening to the Prosperity 101® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share, and leave a great review. Don't forget to visit Prosperity101.com to access the entire podcast library to order my newest book, Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck or to enroll you or your employees in the Breakroom Economics online course. You can also receive the free e-book, 10 Tips for Helping Employees Understand How Public Policy Affects Their Paychecks. Freedom is never free. Understanding the foundations of prosperity and the policies of prosperity will help you to protect prosperity as you become informed, involved, and impactful. Please contact us today at Prosperity101.com to let us know how we can serve you. Thank you.