Dr. Jessica Kriegel talks with Aron Ain, former CEO of Kronos and UKG, to discuss his journey as a leader who has inspired countless individuals through his approach to trust, respect, and people-centric leadership. Aron shares insights on the evolution of his purpose, the importance of over-communicating, and how trust can be the magic glue in both personal and professional relationships. Tune in to learn about the impactful strategies Aron used to foster a culture where people love to work and his thoughts on the future of work in the age of AI.
Notable quotes
“My purpose is definitely to create jobs for artists. I have the luxury of offering jobs to more than 2,000 artists, and I’m so proud of it.” – Daniel Lamarre
“You cannot come while there is a rehearsal and dictate… Your job is much more to mobilize people.” – Daniel Lamarre
“We like to say at Cirque du Soleil that the star is the show, which means we should all keep our ego at the door… and convince everybody else that you are there to serve the ultimate artistic content, which is the show.” – Daniel Lamarre
“If you’re not able to be agile as an organization and if you’re not able to be cohesive as an organization, you will just not survive.” – Daniel Lamarre
- What Is Your Why:
Aron Ain discusses how his purpose has evolved over the years, focusing on making a difference in his community, family, and friends. - Leadership and Inspiration:
Dr. Jessica Kriegel highlights Aron Ain’s reputation as an inspiring CEO, referencing his book Work Inspired and his genuine approach to people-first leadership. - Origins of Leadership:
Aron shares his belief in treating people with respect and dignity, and how his leadership style developed from observing the impact of his actions. - Trust as the Foundation:
Aron elaborates on the significance of trust in leadership, how he starts relationships with trust, and the benefits of over-communicating. - Strategies for a Positive Work Culture:
Aron outlines practical strategies to create a great workplace, including open communication, walking the halls, and recognizing the privilege of managing people. - Impactful Policies:
The implementation and success of an open vacation policy at Kronos, demonstrating trust and flexibility in the workplace. - Challenges and Successes in Mergers:
Aron reflects on the merger between Kronos and Ultimate, the cultural differences, and lessons learned from integrating two great organizations during COVID-19. - Future of Work and AI:
Aron and Jessica discuss the evolving nature of work, the impact of AI, and the uncertainty surrounding future workforce dynamics. - Personal Reflections and Legacy:
Aron shares personal stories about his leadership journey, the importance of gratitude, and how he wants to be remembered not just as a CEO but as a great dad, husband, and friend.
Notable Quotes:
- “I believe trust is the magic glue that holds together personal and professional relationships.”
- “Great organizations are powered by great people. Great people produce better products, deliver better services, and lead to better outcomes.”
- “I always tell my employees, the most important thing in their life should be their family. If it’s working for Kronos or UKG, they have their priorities mixed up.”
Aron Ain is the former CEO of Kronos and UKG, known for his people-centric leadership approach. Under his guidance, Kronos and Ultimate Software merged to form UKG, one of the most successful mergers in software history. Aron is also the author of Work Inspired: How to Build an Organization Where Everyone Loves to Work.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aronain
Jessica Kriegel:
Website: https://www.jessicakriegel.com/
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicakriegel
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jess_kriegel/
Culture Partners:
Website: https://culturepartners.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/culturepartners/
TRANSCRIPT
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
So Aron, what is your purpose?
**Aron Ain:**
Hi Jessica, how are you?
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Good. Nice to see you too.
**Aron Ain:**
Nice to see you. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation, so I’m a little bit in awe getting to do this with you. So thank you for this opportunity. My purpose, my purpose, goodness, it evolves for me. I don’t have one purpose per se. It was different when I was in my 20s and my 40s and now in my 60s as my life has gone on. It was different when I was working full time than it is when I’m generally retired now. So today, I want to continue to make a difference in my community, my family, my friends, and the people who I’m around. It’s less about creating a great company or creating a place that is the most inspiring place in the world. It’s moved from motivating lots of people to being focused on fewer people. But I don’t have a specific purpose per se, other than being a good person and making a difference.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Well, that’s beautiful. So you’re one of these unicorns, I think, a leader who I mean, I have had many conversations with people who worked for you or with you or around and about you. And every single person I talk to says that you are the most inspiring CEO that they’ve ever known or had the privilege to work with. They say that you walk the walk. I mean, your book, *Work Inspired,* is, you know, talking about how to build an organization where everyone loves to work and putting people first. And there’s a lot of folks out there talking about that, but it seems that you’ve actually done it. And so I want to dig in in so many different directions. The first is, was this something that you’ve always felt passionate about? Was there a moment where you realized there was this better way to lead? Did it just come naturally to you? I mean, where is the beginnings of this kind of leadership that you write about and that you actually led at Kronos and UKG?
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah, so look, it’s a good question. People have asked me that before. It has to be inside my soul. It’s something that I’ve always believed in, treating people with respect and dignity and kindness, and the world does not revolve around me. So that focus, did I always know early on that there was an opportunity to be a leader who could make a difference in terms of being a great place to work or inspiring people? I don’t think so. But as I watched how my practices and my actions went and had an influence on people and I watched what it did, it inspired me to keep doing it. And then I developed that practice and ways of doing it and seeing what happened and watching what I did that worked, watching what I did that didn’t work. And then I learned how it was connected to our mission as an organization. And I said, wow, this is something I believe in and it makes us a better company and it makes us more successful. So let’s keep doing just more of it. And then I developed my trade around that. But in my soul, yeah, probably, probably.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Yeah, probably right. I mean, that’s the unfortunate news out there. So there are so many leaders that I go to help that I want to give them tools and I have frameworks and I have case studies and I have research and I have activities that they can engage in. And the reality is there has to be something in you that wants it, that has to be a little bit selfless, maybe a lot of bit selfless because it takes a lot of effort to get outside of your own motivations and needs and wants in order to be that kind of leader. But for those of us who are still holding out hope that we can transform anyone, can you tell us what were some of those most important or impactful strategies or things that you did to foster a culture where people love to work and that you saw was working?
**Aron Ain:**
Look, I do think that people can learn to be better at it, whether they’ll be as effective or as wonderful as people who it comes naturally to. Probably not. I think you’re right. But can they get better and can they improve? Yeah, I’ve seen people do it. I’ve seen people adjust. And so it’s made up of a whole set of various components for me. Let me just try to tick some of those off with you if I can. I think that we don’t understand the value of over-communicating. I think we all want to feel like we know what’s going on, that we actually do know what’s going on. And I don’t think there’s any value in keeping secrets. And I don’t understand why people do that. And I encourage individuals and leaders to let it go and don’t hold things so close to ourselves. I would tell people when I would give talks in front of 10 or thousands that if they ask me a question, I’ll give them one of three answers. One of the answers will be, here’s what it is. One of them will be, I don’t know. And the third will be, I know, but I can’t tell you. But I would never fib. I would never try to beat around the bush. If I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to, or I couldn’t tell them, I would tell them, I can’t tell you the answer to that. Or I don’t want to tell you the answer to that. And gosh, I would watch people say, that’s so refreshing that he has an approach like that from that point of view. I would share things with people. They were surprised that I shared with them. And so if you let people into your world, your professional world, your personal world, I think it can be magical in terms of how they respond to that. I think trust is this magic thing for me. I believe trust is the magic glue that holds together personal and professional relationships. People have talked about trust and I don’t think I’m an originator of this idea, but I believe in it deeply. I start all of my relationships with people, Jessica, by trusting them. People have to unearn my trust. And so I liberate myself and I liberate them. I ask people sometimes when I’ve spoken in front of groups as big as five or 6,000, I ask them to close their eyes and I say, imagine you were with someone, professional in this case, who you know didn’t trust you. Did any of you have an experience like that or are you experiencing something like that? Almost everyone in the room raises their hand. And I say, you can open your eyes, put your hands down. I go, how did that make you feel? And you can see people go, not good. And so I think trust is really important. And I talked to people about trust and I practiced it for a long time. And people come up and say to me, hey, I have this, I don’t know, I’ll make it up. A situation with a customer or an employee and they explain it to me, they go, what do you think I should do? I go, well, I don’t know. I didn’t see the customer or the person you’re dealing with. What do you think we should do? And they tell me and I go, okay, well, let’s do that. And they’d say, really? I go, yeah, yeah, I trust you. And I’d watch them get really uncomfortable. my goodness. And I’d say, no, no, I trust you, go do it. And they get even more uncomfortable. And sometimes I’d take a step towards them, not so close that I was in their personal space and I’d say, no, I really trust you. And now they would just be like silly putty. They were so uncomfortable. They’re not used to it. And so, but when we trust each other, I believe anything is possible. Anything is possible. I believe people who have the privilege, the honor to manage other people don’t always practice it with the understanding that it’s a privilege and an honor. And people join organizations because of the organizations they leave because of who they work for. They join because of the organization they leave because of who they work for. It could take a good manager years to build a great team. It could take a bad manager months to go ruin it. And so how do we go teach managers that understanding and tell them that they need to treat that, you know, being a manager as truly a privilege and treat your people accordingly, the impact you have on the people on your team is, is dramatic. And, and you know, just also sprinkling all of this with kindness and gratitude and understanding and saying, thank you, the power of thank you and the power of just tuning into people. For me, when I would walk around the halls, cell phone in my pocket, head up, chatting with everyone, how you doing? How’s your family? What’s going on? Wasn’t in my own world. Tried to understand when I was doing, when I go visit our offices, first thing I would do if I hadn’t been there for a while, I’d go around and I’d say, I’d introduce myself to every single person. Some offices it would take 20 minutes, some big offices it would take four hours before I did anything during my visit. And the impact that has is dramatic because you care because I do care. Yeah, I could talk more about it if you want.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
I mean, why don’t more leaders do that? Walk the halls, walk the grounds, talk to employees at all levels.
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah, I don’t think that some aren’t comfortable. Some don’t think it’s important
. Some have never, you know, seen it by example. Some just don’t want to do it. Look, there’s companies that are really successful with leaders who focus deeply on the financial results or others that are really successful by focusing on the products. And there’s others that are really successful by focusing on their people. And so there’s not one way to solve the problem. I just chose to solve it through the people. I believe great organizations are powered by great people. Great people produce better products, deliver a better service, better product, better service, better outcomes. It’s not that hard. What’s hard is making sure that you, you know, create an inspired organization where great people want to come work for you and then want to stay.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Yeah. So your time at Kronos and Ultimate UKG eventually, I mean, you spend a long time there and you were in very different phases of the evolution of that business’s makeup, right? Can you tell us about what skills you felt you needed to lean into more heavily in the beginning versus in the end?
**Aron Ain:**
You know, so long ago, gosh, I don’t remember specifically 45 years ago when I started working. I wish I did, but I, and I have a good memory, but it’s a long time ago. Look, I always was centered on the people I worked with directly and indirectly as I look back in retrospect. And once I learned how to do that and I understood the power of that, I just kept doing it more and more and, and, and directly might be our employees who I work with every day indirectly might be our customers who I interacted with, you know, now and then, or our partners who I interacted with now and then. And, so I think I developed that, and this whole idea that the world does not revolve around me. It doesn’t revolve around me. I had great parents who I’m one of five children who taught me this value of, you know, looking out for people around us as much, if not more than we look out for ourselves. And so I was privileged and came from a middle-class family and weren’t wealthy, weren’t poor. I was five kids, you know, my parents would go to baseball games and they’d say, professional baseball game said, look, we can go, but you can’t have one hot dog each. You can’t like go crazy here, you know? So it was fine. I never noticed anything other than we just had a great childhood and that, but they taught us by example. And then I don’t know, I grasp that and it made sense to me. It spoke to my soul.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Well, I think leaders, no matter what kind of an organization they’re leading, are in a battle between fear and faith. That’s what I hear you talking about, maybe not in that language, but being selfless like that, being willing to trust and have your trust get unearned takes a certain level of faith that they are trustworthy, one, but two, if they’re not, that whatever you get burned with isn’t gonna be all that bad or you’re gonna be able to get through it, right? as opposed to fear-based leadership, which is on guard, worried about possible threats and how you can mitigate risk by getting ahead of that. And the system isn’t necessarily, I mean, when I say the system, capitalism, isn’t necessarily created in a way to nurture faith. It’s very much a system that can nurture fear if you’re not conscious about it.
**Aron Ain:**
Well, you know, I lived in a capitalist world all those years. Maybe when I joined Kronos, I was employee number 10. So long ago, I don’t remember exactly what number, but there weren’t a lot of people. When I retired, there were over 16,000 people. And I practiced my practice as a leader in those roles, not in a fearful way, but as you would describe a faith-based way that I believed in the power of the people around me and what they can do and what they do do. And it worked out for me. And so, and then I tried to lead by example. I think this idea of gratitude, Jessica, is undervalued, is undervalued. And so I say thank you to people all the time and kindness is undervalued. I watch my kids now who are in their thirties with their own families and I heard my daughter describing me to someone the other day. She goes, when we go out to eat in a restaurant, first thing he does is he asks the waiter or waitresses their name. And then for the rest of the meal, when they come by, he says, thank you, Jessica. I appreciate that. And that’s a function of gratitude. I’m grateful that they’re serving us and it’s a function of kindness. And I go back to it’s just not that hard. It’s just not that hard. And so I try to teach it in the way I live my life. And even if it wasn’t a teaching moment for me, it works for me personally. And so, yeah.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
So what do you think is next for the future of work? I mean, AI workforce management generally is going to have to adjust. What do you see? Are you worried about anything?
**Aron Ain:**
I’m not worried, but I don’t think we actually know. I think we’re in an evolution revolution somewhere in between and this balance between people wanting more freedom as what, I mean, it’s not in vogue as much anymore being a gig worker and those who want to work for a defined organization and, and, so I think we’re trying to figure that out. And I just think things like AI and other technology enables what’s being done, but it’s still people have to do the work. And I think there’s a shift taking place right now in the definition of work. And we’re trying to figure out where it is and we’re right in the middle of it, right in the middle of it. And people, when I go listen to people talk about with certainty about what it is, I think, first of all, I say, how do they know that? And second of all, I say they actually don’t. They have a thesis. They have a point of view. But it’s evolving right now. And people make AI go. AI doesn’t make people go. And so there’s going to be lots of work around the world of AI to be defined. But it’s bigger than just that. That’s just what’s going on today. 1995, I remember when the World Wide Web came out, people talked about that back then, like they’re talking about AI now, and how it was gonna just change everything in a way that there were the people who presented it in a fearful way and people who presented it in an optimistic way. And it ended up being okay, and maybe somewhere in the middle of where people were across that spectrum. But we’re at a point right now where we’re trying to figure it out. There’s always going to need to be tools and innovation and practices that support the workforce and whatever it’s doing. There’s no going back on that. But I’m not sure what the answer is. People ask me that and I don’t know what the answer is exactly. It’s not that I don’t want to know what the answer is, but I’m not smart enough to figure that out. We just got to be flexible though, right?
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Someone asked me that last week and I said, anyone who tells you that they know what AI is going to do to the future of work is selling you something because we just can’t know. I mean, imagine the things that we couldn’t predict in 1995. Even as simple as influencer culture, there was no way that we could have predicted entire industries would be built around Instagram models. It’s insane.
**Aron Ain:**
Yep, and who knows what it’s going to be 10, 20, 30 years from now. When I first started working, the PC just came out from these mini computers and one of the largest makers of mini computers in the world, the CEO, I remember, went and said, why would anyone want to have a computer on their desk? Second biggest computer company in the world. The CEO founder said that and you would think he built this great company, but he was so wrong about that. And there’s other examples of that, but there you go in the eighties and in the nineties, it was the internet. And now we’re into AI and tools around that and it’ll keep evolving. It’s the magic of the power of people.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Yeah. And when some things stay the same, one of the questions I want to ask you, I mean, the ultimate and Kronos merger was one of the most successful mergers, I think, in software history. And you were leading that effort. Can you tell us what set you apart? I mean, how did you focus on people when you’re merging two totally different cultures? And what was the secret to success there?
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah, well, to remember, we announced the merger on February 20th, 2020. The world was a little bit out of balance. And we closed on April 1st and the world was a mess. It’s when COVID really took a leap forward. We hadn’t even closed yet, but I had to make a decision for what was this combined company on Friday, March 13th, that everyone was going to work from home. So funny, I remember those dates so well. But I’d say I learned the following. Both companies were great places to work. Both companies were award-winning companies in terms of being a great place to work. However, they did it completely differently. And one of the things I learned from that is there’s not one way to be a great place to work. Kronos was very organized,
centralized, predictable. Ultimate was decentralized. Functions really drove a lot of their own activities and very, very different, but both fantastic places to work. So a challenge trying to figure out how to bring those two cultures together, which both were amazing and make it even better or at least as good as those two. And then trying to do it during COVID when none of us could meet with each other. So you can tell I’m like a people person, trust-driven person. Hard for people to trust me when they never get a chance to meet me. So I was doing videos every week in my backyard with my wife on my iPhone. 10 minutes stream of consciousness, no script. What I was thinking about as a way to get people to know me and trust me. But very difficult to do, but we did it. We did it. And we brought these two remarkable organizations together. We’re still bringing those two remarkable organizations together as UKG. We would have been ahead of the game if we didn’t have COVID there to slow us down. And we still have more work to do in that way, you know, taking the best of both and making them into something that was even better. There’s some things I would have done differently, quite frankly, in retrospect, but that’s okay. We moved forward and figured out how to do it and the company was about 12,000 people. Under 12,000 will be merged. Now between 15 and 16,000 people and almost doubled in size and add lots of new customers and lots more to still do.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Can you share what you would have done differently? Some examples.
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah, I wouldn’t have called it a merger. I would have basically said to all the people who work for Kronos, you love Kronos, you adore Kronos, but Kronos doesn’t exist anymore. And all the people who work for Ultimate, you love Ultimate, you adore Ultimate, but Ultimate doesn’t exist anymore. There’s a new company, we’ll come up with the name, but we’re going to go create a new company and let’s all rally around this new company and get people to understand that it had to be different, it would be different. Because when we focus so much on a merger and anytime someone didn’t like what we did, they’d say, this isn’t a merger, this is an acquisition. And I think that there was a lack of clarity. And I got advice to do that from other CEOs who had been through it. And I didn’t listen to that advice. I got advice from other people said, no, these are two great companies. Call it a merger. I listened to that advice, but in retrospect, in this particular case, I wish I had ripped the bandaid off and just not tried to take the best of both, but tried to create a new, a new model around what is UKG and what UKG was and move forward like that from day one. Now, by the way, what I just said is not a regret. It’s an observation.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Important distinction.
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah, for me it is, yeah. No apologies for that. I just would have done it differently. And people call me up now and they say, hey, you did this, what would you do differently? And I tell them that.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
You seem very Zen. I mean, everything just seems very selfless, very easy going. And you kind of attributed that to your childhood being with nurturing parents and middle-class and just enough resiliency that you had to push through and just enough abundance that you didn’t have to have fear. I mean, that’s probably really reassuring for people who report into you and people who see you at the helm knowing he’s cool as a cucumber, which means I can maybe relax a little bit, right? Is it contagious you think?
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah, of course, of course. And so, by the way, I have four siblings and we’re all different. I’m like me, they’re like them. And I have one brother who’s wound like a top and brought us same parents, same upbringing. Yeah, so I don’t know if you believe in birth orders. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, but people tell me I’m a typical number four. My mom used to call me up with my three older brothers and say two of them were fighting about something and she’d say tell them to cut it out. I said, mama, I had nothing to do with it. She said, that’s not what I asked you. You go tell them to cut it out. So I’d get them on the phone and say, cut it out. I’m not going to be in the middle of this. Like stop the crap. What are you doing? And so, so I don’t know how that made a difference. So it wasn’t just my parents, how their model though impacted me. You know, I used to tell people, Jessica, if we made a decision to do something, say you came to me and you convinced me, let’s make a big investment and I don’t know, a hundred million dollar investment, a big investment. And six months later, and we approved it and six months later, it wasn’t working. I would go say to the people, like, if it’s not working and we don’t think it’s going to work, can we just stop doing it? I’m not going to keep score. I’m not going to put you in the penalty box. Let’s stop throwing good money at a bad idea. We thought it was a good idea, but like, stop. You have my permission to stop doing it if that’s what you think. And let’s move on to something else. And people would react to that in a positive way. Where otherwise they were fearful that I was going to keep score about everything. And they had to spend another six months absolutely positively proving it was a bad idea. When they could have ripped the bandaid off earlier and moved on to this new form, whatever it was sooner. Not everything’s perfect. Not everything’s perfect. And so I never got excited when things didn’t work out perfectly. I got excited when we treated our people with a lack of dignity and respect or when people didn’t tell the truth. Like people would say to me, they would say, I told so and so when they come to see you, whatever you do, tell them the truth. Like, don’t fib, he’ll figure it out really quickly. And I just always wanted people to be honest and straightforward and that builds trust and that makes it easier and that liberates them. I really want to emphasize this. When we trust each other, it doesn’t just liberate me, because I don’t have to look over their shoulder all the time. It liberates the person who I extend my trust to. Does that make sense? I think so. And so that’s why I start those relationships off by trusting people.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
It does. Yeah. Well, I mean. It’s hard though for people who had a rough childhood that came from a scarcity mindset. I mean, we all have these backgrounds and for those people to trust and to have faith rather than be fearful, it’s conscious, active daily work that needs to be done because the go-to is not that for a lot of people.
**Aron Ain:**
Are you ready? Yeah, I agree. That’s why I talk about it so much. You know, people said to me about the book, they come up to me and go, I loved your book. And I go, really? No kidding. So I’m just testing them to see if they really read it. I go, what part do you like? And they go, I love that chapter on trust. It’s like nine times out of 10, that’s what they say. And I say, tell me more. And they really read it. Now I think it’s chapter three. So I say to myself, that I didn’t get past chapter three. But at least they got that far to read that. But I know it has an impact on people because people tell me it has an impact on them. And I exhibit it and I talk about it all the time. And I give you so many examples, Jessica, of how trust in each other made our company better. So many examples.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Can you give us one?
**Aron Ain:**
Okay, so 2000, let me think, 2015, at the time we were a smaller company, we had like 300 open positions and leaders were coming to say to me, Aaron, we can’t fill these positions. And I said, well, what’s the problem? They said, we’re just having trouble. So I went to the recruiting department. I said, what’s the deal? And they said, well, we’re having a lot of trouble. I said, well, can you come up with ideas so we can differentiate ourselves, that we can do better with that? We need to fill these positions. They came back and they said to me, would you ever consider open vacation policy? And I said, I never heard of that. What is that? They said, well, people can take as much time off as they want. And they explained it to me. And the first thing I said to myself was, I’m going to be here all by myself if we do that. All by myself. But they convinced me we should give it a try. They said things to me like, when we try to recruit people who really experience, I’ve been at the company they’ve been at for a while and they’ve worked their way up to three weeks, four weeks. We start everybody off with two weeks and each year they get another day. So by five years, they’re at three weeks and by 10 years, they’re at four weeks and they don’t want to start over again. I said, well, tell the
managers to give those people three weeks, four weeks. And they said the managers won’t do it. I said, well, tell them they have your permission. They said they don’t want to treat people differently within their whole group. I said, OK. So they convinced me and the other leaders we’re going to go to this open vacation policy where people can take as much time off as they want. We started in January 2016. A year later, we had the best year we ever had. We had the lowest turnover we ever had, and we had the highest employee engagement we ever had. Now, something happened. I can’t say it was directly attributed to that per se. We could not have done that, Jessica, if we didn’t trust each other. Impossible. I told people when we did the video and we kicked it off, I trust you to get your work done. I trust you. I trust you, that’s why we’re doing this. I believe in you. Couldn’t have done it if we didn’t trust each other. At the time, there were only three or 4% of companies doing it.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
And that was before it was popular. Right. Yeah, exactly. That you were leading the charge, so to speak, in that at that time.
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah, we were, we were. And a lot of people said, you’re crazy. I said, okay, well, we changed our, why’d we do it again? We did it because we wanted to change our recruiting profile. Two years later, we went from, as I recall, like 16,000 applications a year to 70,000 a year. Wow. Like holy macaroni, wow.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Wow. Well, I mean, wow. Haha!
**Aron Ain:**
We wanna hire great people. Now, if you go back to this thing I said earlier, great organizations powered by great people, great people, great products, great service, that’s great outcomes that if you have more great people to choose from, you’re gonna have more great people working for you. By the way, the magic of that whole great thing is if you’re gonna hire great people, you better be a great place to work. Because if you’re on a great place to work, what are great people gonna do?
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
They’ll leave. Why? Because they can, because they’re great. If you don’t want to have the problem, I tell people go hire mediocre people. They won’t have as many choices. We chose not to do that, but that means you got to be a great place to work. So we’re all knits together.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Totally. So what was it like to leave the CEO role?
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah, liberating. 17 years as CEO is a long time. I loved it. But when I stopped working, I realized that I never figured out how not to work seven days a week.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
10 years before I stepped down, I stopped checking emails when I would get home Friday night for dinner and I wouldn’t check them until Sunday. So I convinced myself I wasn’t working seven days a week. But I realized I was thinking about it seven days a week. I’d lay in bed, I’d think about it. I’d be at a concert, I’d think about it. I’d be lying in bed thinking about it. I’d be at the dinner table thinking about it. All the things that were going on. So within a matter of weeks, my mind became so uncluttered, magical. my goodness. And it created this opportunity to be more spontaneous and be more flexible as I got rid of what I describe as the tyranny of my calendar.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Hmm. Totally. I can relate. Yeah.
**Aron Ain:**
Really? I went for a walk. I have a summer house near the beach where it’s where I am now. And when we first went down here after I retired, I said to my wife like 90, I’m gonna go for a walk. I’ll be back in like 40 minutes and like 10 minutes out of the house, a car pulls up next to me, a window goes down and this guy who was a neighbor who I just recently met says, Aaron, how you doing? I go, good. He goes, you want to go fishing? I go, when? He goes, now. I go, where? He goes in the ocean. I go with who? He goes with me. I go, you got a boat? He goes, yeah. I go, where is it? He goes, my son’s bringing it into the dock. I look at my watch, I go, yeah, let’s go. You know, before I would do that, I’d look at my watch and what do you think I’d say? I have a call at 10 o’clock. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. So I tried to call my wife, by the way, and tell her where I was, but she was in the garden, so she didn’t pick up. And so I got home at two o’clock and she said, where were you? And I said, Tom came by and we went fishing. She goes, Tom, who? And I tell him, she goes, where? Now we have a reverse conversation in the ocean. He has a boat? Yeah, he has a boat. But the point is, that’s an example of liberation and being more spontaneous. my goodness, being more spontaneous, amazing. I never knew what that was like.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Never? Did you have bouts of that? Little nuggets of that when in your work life actually?
**Aron Ain:**
I always had to be planful. My family always was number one for me, by the way. I used to tell all the employees that the most important thing in their life should be their family. And if the most important thing in their life is working for Kronos or UKG, they have their priorities mixed up. I would tell them just like that. So for me, though, I always had a plan that my kids played three sports in high school. I had to go plan so I could be at those games. Everything was planned. Everything was organized. Everything far in advance. So yeah, it was very, very hard to be spontaneous.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Well, the impact that you’ve made is probably way beyond what you can imagine because having this conversation with you, you remind me a lot of Joe Terry, my boss. And he has said those things to me exactly, almost verbatim. And he said that you were his greatest mentor and inspiration. So I would imagine that there are a lot of leaders that have followed in your footsteps and made a profound impact in their workplaces, even though you don’t have anything to do with those organizations.
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah, look, it’s a joy that I’ve worked with amazing people like Joe Terry. I mean, he’s a top 10 for me. And I probably have a top 100, but I call it a top 10. And they’ve inspired me while I hopefully have inspired them a little bit. It’s worked both ways. So I love Joe like he’s a brother and a remarkable man, as well as so many other people I’ve met around the world.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
It’s beautiful. So my last question is also my favorite. What is one question that no one really asks you on these kind of interviews that you wish more people would?
**Aron Ain:**
Yeah. At an employee town hall once, somebody asked me this, and it’s like my favorite question of all time, but nobody’s ever asked it to me in an interview like this. And the question they asked me, I remember where I was, I was in Montreal with our team of 300 people. It was near the end of it, one hour town hall where I talked for 20 minutes and then questioned. Someone said, Aron, 80 years from now, how do you want to be remembered?
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Hmm.
**Aron Ain:**
And I thought about that and I reflected and I said, well, the one thing I don’t want to be remembered as is a CEO. And the one thing I don’t want to be remembered as is CEO of Kronos at the time. I said, I want to be remembered as a great dad, a great husband, a great friend, someone who made a difference in the lives of other people inside work, outside of work. And if that’s a legacy that I can have, then I will have just said, I had a great life and I made a difference. And so. Yeah, that’s how I feel. I appreciate you asking me that. It gives me a chance to reflect on it and think about it again. Yeah.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Well, what a beautiful sentiment. Thank you so much for meeting with me and having this conversation and letting me record it and put it out into the world. I’ve learned a lot and it’s been a total honor.
**Aron Ain:**
Thanks, Jessica. And again, thank you and congratulations on everything you’ve achieved. And so you’re right on this journey through your own career and you’re making a difference for the people who have this joyful opportunity to listen to you when you speak and when you write and when you share. And so I encourage you to keep doing that. And please don’t underestimate how you are inspiring and influencing other people. Keep doing it as you go on your own journey.
**Dr. Jessica Kriegel:**
Thank you so much.