ADP’s Guide to Employee Retention and Trust Building in 2025

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Ashley Avanzato: Leaders that build strong teams, that can build trust, that have a success track of actually like cultivating engagement and grooming their people to move on to bigger and better things are the people that you want in your organization.

David Rice: Welcome to the People Managing People podcast. We're on a mission to build a better world of work and to help you create happy, healthy, and productive workplaces. I'm your host, David Rice.

My guest today is Ashley Avanzato. She is Vice President of Human Resources for ADP's global enterprise functions. We're going to be chatting about what the data from ADP's recent pay insights report tells us about the state of the job market and what it means for retention. 

Ashley, welcome!

Ashley Avanzato: Hi, David. Thanks for having me. 

David Rice: No problem. 

So first I've got to ask this as a fellow former sports journalist, what led you out of journalism and into HR? And also, who was your favorite athlete that you ever interviewed? 

Ashley Avanzato: Well, I had the great pleasure of university. I actually got my internship with WPRI FOX Providence. And they put me in the newsroom, sitting down listening to police scanners. You can imagine how much fun that was. And one day the director of sports Came by the desk and he introduced himself and said, what are you doing here?

I'm like, Oh I'm the intern. And he's I never get an intern. I go, what department do you work in? And he goes, sports. And I go, Oh, I love sports. He goes, you want to come help me? And I said, sure. So thankfully he adopted me. I never went back to the news desk, didn't have to listen to police scanners and was with him for the remainder of the year, have always loved sports with a competitive cheerleader.

So I was always used to being out on the field. And pretty much just fell in love with being in front of the camera, behind the camera, was cutting the reels for the nightly news and really just adopted the love of everything sports reporting and writing scripts. That's where I got my first kind of intro, if you will, into interviewing my most favorite person to interview while he was petrifying while I was in college was Rodney Harrison of the New England Patriots.

I used to stand there with the mic with my photographer and he would just look down at me and go, you got any questions? And I would just shake my head. Not today. And I did that for about two and a half months until finally one day I mustered up the courage and thought about a really good question.

Don't ask me what that was now because it was well over 20 years ago. But I finally asked him a question and after I asked it and he answered it, he said, thanks for the question. He's I thought it was only about a matter of time. So it went well. He wasn't as scary as I thought, but definitely Rodney Harrison was my most favorite professional athlete to ever interview.

There was only one question, but I feel like I saved the best for last. On that journey, it was really hard to get into sports reporting. It's like becoming an actor in some way. People are like, Oh, you should go get an agent and, put your video out to everybody. And so after sending out a million tapes, I got a few callbacks.

That had already fell into executive recruiting transferable skill set. Instead of interviewing athletes, I was interviewing candidates. And before I knew it led to my first corporate job in HR and I never looked back. So, here I am. 

David Rice: Awesome. That's a cool story. I always love to hear about people's transitions.

So we got jumping right into it. I was looking at the most recent pay insights report, the ADP puts out, and this one was from November. And I thought it was interesting. We've heard a lot about raises being down, but according to this data, pay gains have gone up for people who are remaining in jobs.

And are we maybe seeing a trend of valuing people who are sticking around more highly, do you think? 

Ashley Avanzato: I don't know if it's going to be a trend in terms of what we're going to see moving forward. I don't want to speculate on the data. One thing that I think I can share and just what we've seen since as the report suggests even from 2020, where you had a bunch of people leave, but very uncertain times, is that with more people staying, what you typically see when more people stay is more productivity. And I don't think that is lost upon anybody where, I have a very senior client that I support who jokes that, your first year, you're trying to find the cafeteria in the bathrooms.

The second year, you really learn what you're doing in the third year, you're starting to actually add value and show better productivity. So I think that all of that goes to say that if people are staying in their jobs longer, right, they're being more productive and that's going to aid more towards than either getting promotions, potentially moving laterally into roles and getting an increase, some type of an adjustment in terms of their pay.

So I think that the data is probably supporting the fact that because people are saying they're getting opportunities within companies for the job stayers to be able to get a little bit more increase, but again, I can't speculate on any future trends of what that means not to go forward. 

David Rice: The last four to five years, I'd say, job changing. It's been pretty frequent, generally speaking, the average tenure in most roles. It's been around like two years and now we're seeing a little bit less movement, more people stay in put. This seems like a really good opportunity, obviously, for retention, so I'm curious, how are you seeing companies shift their focus on retention and how they're rewarding people who are investing in longer periods with the company as a result?

Ashley Avanzato: Yeah, I think it goes back to one of the things that I just mentioned, which is if people are staying longer, we certainly hope to be getting more productivity out of them because they're staying with those companies, they're staying in their jobs, they should be able to figure out how things take and move more efficiently.

So I think just the core value of staying longer in your role should mean that you're becoming more productive. Outside of that, in terms of an engagement perspective, I think the thing that employers and companies need to focus on is to make sure that people are becoming stagnant in those roles and ensuring that while attrition is obviously down and there isn't as much movement happening in the system, there are things that companies should be focused on if they're not already to ensure that people are still staying hungry and challenged Especially in today's workforce where change is inevitable.

And so some of the things that I have seen and that I read about and that employers should be focused on is really knowledge sharing. And that comes in different forms. That can come in your HR department helping with some institutional knowledge share across business lines. It can come from opportunities for you to swap jobs.

You find two people equally qualified and maybe they've just been in the role for a long time and we think that it's a good opportunity to say, Hey, you belong over here and you belong over here for you to do like thoughtful swaps of your talent because you just think that it's going to give them a fresh look in the business and be able to give them a new perspective in terms of what they're doing.

I also think mentor programs are great. There's a lot of people that want to hear from either more senior people or other individuals that have moved around a company in terms of how they're thinking about their careers. What should I be thinking about? I've been in my role for X number of years. I've been focused on this.

How did you move? What was important to you? What am I not thinking about? And so those types of programs become, I think, really important to organizations if they want to keep their talent and if they want to keep their talent fresh. Some of the other things that I think companies should also think about doing.

If the resource constraint or if people are not necessarily moving potentially out of fear, right, maybe they're not ready to move into a new role out of fear that maybe I won't be good at it or now is not the right time for me to take on a new role. It's some structure signs or projects. Let's face it.

There's no shortage of work in any organization. I don't know any organization that says right now I'm good. We have no projects like we're fine. And so I think you can give people a flavor of what they could potentially be interested in by giving them search assignments or creating project work that gives them a little bit of taste into what they could potentially do next.

First, it gives them the experience. Two, you can start working with different stakeholders. You create more ambassadors, more people that get to know your body of work that way. And before you know it, they might say, Hey, you know what? That was really interesting. I want to go play over there. Now I am actually ready to move my role because that work was really interesting.

So I think it provides growth opportunities by even just giving people a flavor of different work. The other big thing is, the, instead of buying skills, upskilling. I think companies need to be really thoughtful around what their focus is. Thinking about their own strategic priorities. And as long as you have a strategic vision, are you going to have the skills for that strategic vision?

Because a lot of times we put strategy on paper, but we don't always align the skills needed for that strategy for the future. So I think HR departments and your strategists and the leaders of a company need to be able to sit down and say, Hey, this is a really good strategy. We feel very good about our mission in terms of where we want to go.

But do we actually have the skills to get us there? And the only way to do that is to then upskill the talent that you have. And so I think that also creates that fresh perspective of keeping people in their roles in this particular environment. Because again, technology is changing every day, and a lot of time we can't predict what it's going to do.

There is no shortage of companies that need really strong people that are interested in doing new things. 

David Rice: Absolutely. There's a risk here of employers not getting this next phase right, right? It's people don't necessarily leave, but what if we see people this quiet quitting trend become more of the norm.

So I'm curious, what are some of the key engagement targets companies need to be looking at this year? And how do they need to change their thinking around engagement? Because I think there's a sense sometimes it's more of a, I've heard from some folks, it's a fluffy term.

The CEOs tend to look at it with squinted eyes a little bit, sort of about coddling people into them or focusing on things that aren't high impact for the business. So what are those like targets that HR needs to be really focused on? 

Ashley Avanzato: I've heard the same. I've had leaders myself tell me things like, the pizza party is not going to solve my engagement issues, actually, like things like that.

But I try to remind them that it's more than just the pizza party when you start to think about engagement. And so, I will share with you two things. I think that you can read about these. In fact, our own ADP research group put out an article about the correlation between trust and highly motivated and committed workforce.

We've actually done our own research on this. And so I will say the two areas that companies do not focus enough in by their leaders is our leaders that provide empathy and that leaders that build trust. And so my message to companies would be stop recruiting leaders because of their skills on the resume and start recruiting leaders that know how to lead. Leaders that build strong teams, that can build trust, that have a success track of actually like cultivating engagement and grooming their people to move on to bigger and better things are the people that you want in your organization. 

Anybody can do a task. We can teach people to do a task, but it's a lot harder to train somebody to be an empathetic leader and for them to build and cultivate trust. One of the statistics in this ADP research article that was put out was that trust in teammates. Workers who trust their teammates are 16 times more likely to be highly motivated and committed compared to those who don't. Workers who trust their managers or supervisors are 26 times more likely to be motivated.

And trust in senior leaders was up 41 more times, which just goes to show that if you are transparent, if you're empathetic, if you're sharing the mission and values and strategies of your organization, if you're getting down to the level of your frontline associates, If you're caring for them and you're creating a sense of feeling valued, seen, heard, and a sense of belonging. Workers are going to feel like they have a place that they can go to. And so I think between these two things, between the empathy and the building really strong trust around an organization and sharing with people what they need to know was, I think we hire adults.

I don't know anybody that is not hiring an adult to do a great job. I think that organizations need to treat people as such, and they need to continue to cultivate the message of responsible transparency around their strategy and making sure that they're checking in with their people to build that trust.

And I think ultimately that's where engagement comes from. It's not the pizza parties, although sometimes that will help, but it's really around how you feel about being part of your team, how you feel about your leaders, how you feel about your teammates, how you feel about your senior management, feeling that sense of belonging because you know that you're valued, you know that you're seen, you know that you're heard.

David Rice: For those who are sticking around and sort of investing in long haul phase now, Yeah, the current environment, the workforce can be, I guess, a little bit exhausting, I would say. You've got layoff across industries, people are stressed about the economy, their retirement, their investments, right?

Skills are needing to change. Roles are changing. It feels like a recipe for burnout, right? So I'm curious, what are some of the big keys to maintaining productivity over the next year for orgs and industries that are particularly those that are volatile, where you mentioned before change is constant, right?

What do you think is the most important thing for those folks? 

Ashley Avanzato: One, I have a lot of respect for those organizations. I've been in some of those organizations and let's just say it's not easy. And by the way, it takes a lot of resiliency, both on the employer side, the employee side, and then on the human side, right?

Because we all go home at night. We're all humans at the end of the day. So I think it takes a lot of resiliency to be part of an organization that's going through that. But ultimately, change is inevitable. One minute you could be in a really good situation at a really good company. And something changes.

So I would say, and obviously we're wearing my HR hat, I'd be remiss if I didn't. You have to have a good change management plan. Companies need to be transparent with their strategic vision and where the company is headed. And I just said this, like in the last part, like that builds the trust.

And so I think people can get behind a mission and get behind a change as long as the company has been fairly transparent about what is happening. Because again, you're building that trust. I would also say you have to look for ways to pull people into the mission. There might be change and it might not work out for everybody.

I think if you pull people into the mission versus making them fearful of becoming a casualty of it, that will also help. People tend to get fearful and burnt out and just apprehensive of the unknown because they don't know what they don't know. So that transparency and that communication becomes super, super important when a company is going through volatility or the market or economics or cult, whatever you want, whenever there's a lot of change.

I think it comes back to good change management communication. I also mentioned earlier, where can they play a role in terms of keeping people motivated, like thinking through the stress assignments. Change comes with a lot of work. So where can you pull people into this mission? Like, where can you stand up some stretch assignments or projects where you're actually asking the people to come along for the journey?

Help us, right? It will keep them motivated and also providing the flexibility for them to grow and be part of the meaningfulness of whatever change they're going through. And it helps them become part of the mission. So some simple ways to get people involved. I don't think it's, earth shattering, but it's funny at times.

I think, when you go through that, we tend to recoil. We tend not to give information. We're actually think sometimes, we're hurting ourselves by doing that. I actually think giving more information and letting people do what they want with that information is probably the best bet that companies can do.

An HR organizations, to be completely honest, like humans will make the right decisions for themselves as long as they have the information at the fingertips. 

David Rice: I mean, I love that you brought up the whole trust piece because it's something that we keep hearing, especially over the last year, I mean, all these layoffs and AI has some people scared, right?

You've got all these different things eroding when leaders aren't. Basically saying how what their plan is, it just leaves a lot to the imagination and it does a road trust. And it's something we keep getting asked about within our events and stuff is about that trust piece and sort of rebuilding it after big events. And so I, this definitely resonates a lot with what we've been hearing. 

Yeah, as we've mentioned, a lot of this comes back to growth, helping people find those opportunities and resources to develop. One of the best resources you can have is, like you said before, knowledge sharing amongst your people.

Where do you feel organizations fall short when it comes to creating mechanisms and systems that facilitate knowledge sharing? And what should maybe be standard in 2025 that isn't standard across workplaces today? 

Ashley Avanzato: I don't know if I have the silver bullet or one size fits all answer for every company, because as they're all different sizes.

I'm sure they have their own approach, but I'm a go back to the basics type of gal, if you will. I don't know. I guess I could talk through things that I've seen work and they're easy, simple things. First of all, if leaders aren't cascading messages when your CEO or your, of your executive committee or your HR business partners say, please cascade.

That's the first thing just let's follow directions, cascade the message. It helps. But in all seriousness, like things that I have seen work are like really great town halls. It's not crazy to think that pulling people together and talking about strategic messages, new advancements, changes in priorities, like share information.

I think that people want to hear more, right? We need to disseminate information. And I think a very broad way to do so are things just like global town halls. It seems simple, but. You'd be surprised how many organizations, and then even a layer down, right? If you think of a macro level, like a macro level is a global town hall.

Then you have all these different business units and functions within an organization, and then they necessarily might not do their own. Right. How are they disseminating information across the group? So I think town halls are a great way to get strategic messages out, talk about areas of the business, both internal to that business and external to the business, but within a company.

I think also, as I mentioned before, mentor programs where employees can seek guidance from the institutional experts in their company on how they grew their careers and where they can go to network is key. And a lot of time that's because networking helps everybody think about where they can get to and also where they've been.

Somebody's journey of where they were 10 years ago might be somebody's next path. So I think again, like connecting people and creating opportunities for people to connect is a great way again to just share from a pure mechanism standpoint of how to get more information out to organizations. And then, honestly, this is a big one for me as an HR partner.

When we think about knowledge sharing, we need leaders to get out of their own way. And I'm going to tell you what I mean by that. Leaders need to sometimes realize that it's not their talent. It's not their talent in their department, in their org. It's the company's talent, and so the goal of any leader should be to retain that talent internally and to not let the competition get it.

So with that in mind, they should foster it, they should grow it, they should take care of it, they should develop it, and then they should share it out to the rest of the org. And that's the best way for knowledge sharing, right? When you actually as a leader can say, I hired this person, I cultivated the talent, I developed the talent.

And then I was able to get that person to where they wanted to go in their career. And now they're sharing all their experience to it, to a new area. You think about, a plant can only grow with the right amount of light and nutrients and soil and water. And then sometimes you actually need to move that plant.

You need to physically pick it up and move it to a different location so that it can flourish in a new environment. And so I would say that one of the best things organizations can do is figure out a way to actually grow your talent, accelerate it, and then export it to other areas of your business for the knowledge share.

Don't hold on to it. Make sure that it goes on to bigger and better things. That would be my biggest ask of any company in 2025 is to continue to rotate and grow your talent. 

David Rice: Excellent. Well, this has been very helpful chat. I always like talking about this stuff. I appreciate you coming on the show. 

Before we go, there's a couple of things we need to do. The first is I want to give you a chance to tell people more about where they can connect with you, find out about what more about what you all at ADP have going on. 

Ashley Avanzato: So I am on LinkedIn. So Ashley Avanzato on LinkedIn, if you need to find me. But actually, one thing that I did want to call out, if anybody is interested, ADP just released its HR Trends for 2025 report, and it's actually a great report that helps employers navigate shifting priorities across the business landscape.

All things that how to implement or consider getting high in the workplace, building employee skills. So I would, ask that, that we plug that in and for people to check that out. 

David Rice: Excellent. And the second thing is we have a little tradition that we started here on the podcast where you get to ask me a question. So I want to turn it over to you. You can ask me anything. It can be about the topic or it can be about anything you want. It doesn't have to be. 

Ashley Avanzato: David, in the spirit of holidays, do you have a favorite holiday cocktail? 

David Rice: Oh, I just made one for Thanksgiving. It was called an autumn apple spritz and it was delicious.

It was two ounces of apple cider, one ounce of Aperol, two ounces of Prosecco, some cinnamon, some apple slice, and a dash of soda. It was delicious. But yeah, I gave them out at Thanksgiving. It was very good. 

Ashley Avanzato: I'm going to have to try that on Christmas Eve. That might have to be my new one that I have as we host Christmas Eve at my house this year. Sounds delicious. 

David Rice: Yeah. It was very good. I got it off of one of those blogs, but it came out really well and I was happy with it. 

All right. Well, thanks for coming on the show today. I really appreciate you giving us a little bit of your time. 

Ashley Avanzato: Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun and happy to come back anytime.

David Rice: Excellent. 

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