Mike Kohn on Building a People First Culture at Kevel

A tech company's first engagement survey looked strong until Mike Kohn broke it down by gender and found a wide gap between how men and women rated their experience at Kevel. Mike Kohn is Chief People Officer at Kevel, where he has spent more than three years scaling a global team across 17 to 18 countries. He talks with Kim Steppe and Marilyn Nagel about the infrastructure he built to close that gap, why he trades survey fatigue for a mix of quantitative and qualitative check-ins, and how he supported an employee coming out as transgender.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to Leading Beyond the Org Chart

01:03 Mike's path to a people first career

02:42 The engagement survey and a gender gap in the data

07:58 Cross-group differences and function-level analysis

11:15 Survey cadence, pulse fatigue and quarterly reviews

12:39 Why belonging outweighs compensation

17:07 Supporting an employee coming out as transgender

24:13 The identity button idea and leadership storytelling

28:20 Operating across 17 countries and local traditions

33:16 Balancing rapid growth with a people first focus

37:56 Change management feedback from the survey

40:14 DEI committee, resource groups and a calendar of celebrations

43:00 Advice to his younger self

45:18 What gives Mike hope

You can follow Mike Kohn here:

LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/mikejkohn

Learn more about Kevel:

Website - https://kevel.com