Stryker v Zeigler Step Challenge Kicks off with Aaron Zeigler and Dylan Crotty| EP109

We converted it to marathons. For Zeigler, it was 381 and a half marathon completed.

Welcome everyone to the driving vision podcast Podcast brought to you by the Zeigler Auto Group. And here with me, Auto Group Director of Talent Development, Mike Van Ryn. Welcome, Mike.

Hey. Thanks, Sam.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Like it if you do, and leave a comment. Kalamazoo based Stryker Instruments was established in 1941 and has more than 33,000 employees globally, and it's among the leading medical technology companies in the world. If you spend time in a hospital, a medical facility anywhere in the globe, you've certainly benefited from a device bearing that iconic Stryker name. Kalamazoo based Zeigler Auto Group was established in 1975, has 27 100 employees based in 4 states, and is one of the largest auto groups in the world.

If you've driven the roads of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, or Wisconsin, you've probably seen and maybe driving a vehicle sold or maintained by the auto group. Well, Kalamazoo roots aside, what do these two organizations share? Well, to answer that, joining me today is Dylan Crotty, president, Stryker Instruments, and Aaron Ziegler, president and CEO of Ziegler Auto Group. Welcome, Dylan and Aaron. Thanks, Sam.

To meet

you with you. So, hey, it's great to have both of you here, 2 companies that are Kalamazoo based. Stryker Instruments, Dylan, in November, you celebrated 7th year in a row recognition as a great place to work. And Dylan Fortune recognized you for creating globally exceptional workplaces that are fair and equal for all. And on the Ziegler side, 2nd year this year as a Glassdoor best places to work and the highest ranked auto dealership in the work life balance category.

So Dylan, first off, how does your commitment to employee health and vitality play into the recognition you've received 7 years in a row as a great place to work?

Yeah. I mean, I think we make it a big priority that people manage their energy, focus on their well-being. And I think we feel strongly that if people aren't taking care of themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally, they're not gonna show up as their best at work. So we make sure they're making it a priority. We make time in their day to make it a priority and partner with our friends from athletic mentors to, make sure they're doing that.

So it's a big deal at Stryker.

Aaron, same question. Glassdoor. That's a big recognition.

Yeah. You know, and I think there's 2 things in this world that you need. You need your health and your freedom. If you don't have that, then you're in troubles. You know, we all got great lives going, and we want to, and great results over the last couple of years.

So how does that partnership with athletic mentors help you achieve this, work life balance and creating a an employee base that's more healthy?

You know, a lot of people don't know where to start to start on a healthier journey, and athletic mentors can do that. You know, they take the person that's day 1 that's never worked out a day in their life and doesn't know anything all the way up to a lot of pro athletes. So they kinda kinda run the gamut. They've got great technology. They've got great coaches.

They just kinda, you know, walk you through it and make it really easy for any follow their program. We've had amazing results. We've had people lose 80, 90, a £100. I mean, that's that's life changing for people.

Dylan, thoughts about the, athletic mentors partnership?

Yeah. I would say the same. I mean, they make it very comfortable and natural to go and exercise to find things that work for your lifestyle and for your needs. They set up our gym in our 1941 office in, in Portage. They not only set it up, but they run classes.

We have yoga classes. We have spin classes. We have personal training. They really meet you where you are, and that, I think, has been really, really impactful.

You have yoga. Just how have we not had yoga yet, Aaron? Where where's our yoga class? I've just got

so many locations. I don't know how we'd make that work.

That is fair.

Actually, about twice a year have goat yoga. So that's when you might need

to Wait. What's goat yoga?

I I might

I might even bring this. I might I might just go up for a goat yoga class.

We'd love to have you. The goats literally do yoga with you. It's something else. So Oh

my gosh. That is awesome. That is awesome. Well, Dylan and Aaron, welcome, to Jess and to Bridget. You're our athletic mentors contacts within both organizations.

And, Jess and Bridget, you come to us as we kick off the 2nd annual Stryker versus Ziegler AM Wellness step challenge. Now last year, striker took the win. 20,600,000 steps taken by Ziggler versus strikers 25 point 5. And, Jess, you calculated what the distance is. What what is that distance?

Yeah. So we did do some math for those who wanted to actually visualize what it actually looks like to take that many steps. So we converted it to marathons, to Miles. And for Ziegler, it was 381 and a half marathons completed

It's almost once around the globe between the two companies. Stryker, a global company. Right?

Yes. Almost one one time around the globe.

Wow. Which, Erin, that's significant. That's a lot of movement.

Yeah. It sure is. And, you know, Stryker's got 33,000 employees. We have 27100. So we're gonna have to really step it up and overachieve this year.

It's kinda like David versus Goliath there. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. By so by the way, Dylan, 33,000 employees versus 27100. I we almost need, like, some sort of a multiplier or something.

You know, we thought about that. But, you know, we're we're up for the challenge. It's a big challenge in and of itself, but, we're gonna we're gonna go after it. It'll be a

lot of fun. So, Dylan, what do these steps represent to you and Stryker in terms of employee health and vitality, this movement, this connection, and this motion? Yeah. I mean, I think,

first of all, just setting personal goals and having some discipline around getting after those goals, that's great for everybody. I think when we're focusing on fitness and, you know, really getting outside, I think, is a big deal as well. We're gonna have a beautiful march. We've got great trails around the facility. Just getting out outside, getting some air, seeing the sunshine, it's good for everybody.

And then when we come back into work, your mind's in a great place. You're very much engaged. So it's, look, I love the competition, and I think this is one of those competitions where there's no losers. The harder we push each other, everybody wins and, should be a lot of fun.

Now, Dylan, something you may or may not know, but behind the, desk here, Aaron is sporting a leg brace. So you had an injury earlier this year. Actually, Jess, you would remember it was during our lunge challenge, which happened earlier. Right?

Tell us about the one not doing a lunge.

Right, Aaron? He was not doing a lunge. What was the lunge challenge, Jess? And then, Aaron, tell us a little bit about that and how this may impact your step challenge.

Well, with the lunge challenge that we did, lunges per day. Had an injury happen, obviously, that took him out of the challenge, but he still didn't have many people beat him.

Yeah. I had the lead going halfway through this thing, but, so it's kinda interesting. I had surgery a couple weeks ago, and the and the surgeon said the best form of medicine for your your knee surgery is movement. Oh, it's It's walking. Okay.

It's it's lubrication for the body. Right? So you

need to take steps. You move.

So I got I gotta be, heavily involved in this step challenge going forward. It's good for everybody.

Did striker do a lunch challenge, Jess, and Bridgette? Did striker have something going on at the same time? Okay. Alright. Mhmm.

But but I didn't I didn't have

to leave the way there. I didn't get the opportunity to, but 500 lunges, my body could use that. You should we should It

got a little out of control at the end because we had people doing 2,000 lunges a day. It was, like, 2 hours worth of lunges. It was insane. We have some we have some pretty competitive individuals on our team.

That's impressive. So, Aaron,

will your leg brace impact the results, or will it only spur on more competition?

We'll keep moving forward. It'll be great.

So, Dylan, both Jess and Bridget said that the competition between Ziegler and Stryker is gonna be a lot of fun because these are 2 highly competitive companies. Talk to us a little bit about competition and its role in employee health, engagement, and culture. How do you view this?

Well, we think if the competition is healthy, it drives all of our people. We rank Gallup strengths within Stryker, and competition is usually right at the top. It's it's number 2 for me. We try to drive healthy competition where, like I said, there's no losers in some of these things. We are all, very competitive people that love to have fun.

I think we compete in everything we do from ping pong to walking. So we'll push each other hard and have a lot of fun doing it.

So as you think about these 2 companies, Stryker in the medical device industry, Ziegler in the automotive industry, these are 2 companies and industries that have had massive growth and massive change over a short period of time. Dylan, how do you continue to prioritize employee health and wellness in massive growth? I mean, growth has challenges. Creating that culture and maintaining the culture has challenges. How do you continue to prioritize employee health and wellness, Dylan, and then Aaron?

Yeah.

We have, various programs that we drive it through. We have something called the Strive program at Stryker where employees sign up. They can earn points throughout the year for a variety of different activities and completing challenges. And actually, they can get money back. We give gift cards back that they can go and go and use on Christmas gifts and other things.

So we drive engagement through that. We make time for it in the day. So we, we're very comfortable if somebody is down in the gym at 10 o'clock in the morning taking a class. So we don't force them to, you know, be in their office at all. And in fact, we ask them to schedule it into their schedules every day.

And we've seen that, you know, focusing on your sleep, focusing on just general physical and emotional health really, really drives results. We've actually set a cultural priority this year called harness your energy. And that basically means focus on things that you can do to make sure you're coming to work every day with a positive energetic mindset, and that's gonna help you drive your results and help Stryker win.

That's awesome, Aaron.

Yeah. You know, like Stryker, we're a very competitive group of individuals as well. And when you think about this from a, a wellness standpoint, they took about the time between wellness and and mental health. And, it's a great form of of medicine to keep your your mind in the right frame. It makes you more effective at, work.

It makes you more effective in your your personal life as as well. And each month, we do a different challenge between our dealerships where the individual dealerships are competing against each other. And then just once a year, we get to go externally and compete against another company. So that'll be a lot of lot of fun here in March.

So another way that the two companies, Ziegler and Stryker, intersect in the community in Kalamazoo in giving back is the Kalamazoo Marathon. It's an annual once a year event. It's an opportunity for the community, for employees to gather and move together and exercise together and be healthy together. That event this year is May 5th. Dylan, how does this step challenge kinda prepare employees moving into the, Kalamazoo marathon coming up?

Well, I don't think I don't think people will be ready to participate in the marathon this year if they're just starting. Said that, the

it's a

great what's it? Yeah.

5 cave, 10th or whichever. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I think it's a great volunteer opportunity for our employees. I think the concept of moving and focusing on your health and well-being will roll into something like the Kalamazoo marathon, which is a terrific event and, you know, super happy and excited with what Zigler has done to sponsor this and take it to the next level.

So I think it's just engaging people and well-being in general, and hopefully, this moves on to bigger and better things.

Yeah. You know, Sam, so they call it the Kalamazoo marathon, but most people run the five k or the 10 k race. There's also a half marathon. There's a a 1 mile kids fun run. That's the 1st Sunday in May on, May 5th, and we've got a lot of people signed up, and it's it's it's a lot of fun.

You don't even have to run it. You can walk the 5 ks, but just getting out there and being part of the the community, it brings people from all different walks of life in Kalamazoo, not only in Kalamazoo, but externally as well. Thousands of people come from outside of Kalamazoo for the, the weekend. And just when you get down there, the energy is so much fun. And when you get to the finish line, it's a great sense of accomplishment.

And if you don't wanna run, the other part of this is is volunteering. We need a lot of volunteers there, and you really get involved that way, too and still feel the energy and the excitement of that race weekend.

So this will prepare us for that 2 companies coming together to run the race, to exercise, to move together. Alright. Bridget and Jess.

Hey, Sam. That's another competition we can throw out there, by the way, perhaps.

Oh, okay.

I I like that. Most number of employees out there that, get involved.

11. I like it. And then somewhere in there, we do need to throw in goat yoga because I'm both fascinated and interested to understand this. I've been doing yoga vitality or, intentional yoga here in Kalamazoo for a couple of few months, and it's a heck of a lot of fun. Goat yoga blows my mind.

So goat yoga, Kalamazoo marathon. But, Bridget and Jess, will you walk us through this contest? Set this up for us. It starts March 1st. It runs through the end of March.

Tell us a little bit about what to expect this month.

Yeah. So the first step would probably be to get on the app if you're not already the Amcoached app for Zigler. I know the invite ID would be Zigler for Striker. Invite ID is Striker. Kept it easy for you guys.

But once you're on the app, you're directly connected to a coach, and you can start tracking. You'll sync up your wearables, whether it's your Garmin or your Apple Watch, and you'll sync that. And then you'll start tracking your steps for the month. If it doesn't sync, you can always manually input them. I think the best part about this, if if you do have any questions, a coach is on the other end.

It's actually us. It's not a computer. So it's not an auto response. You will actually be connected to a coach. So I think that that's a little bit fun too.

And Jess and I are also competitive, so we're gonna have fun with this

as well. Yep. Bridget's on team Striker and I will be on team Ziegler. We will battle ourselves.

So are there stakes, Aaron, Dylan?

You know, I think, both companies are very goal driven. So maybe we put out there, like, the the goal is to hit 30,000,000 steps.

Oh, wow.

This year. That'd be a big goal.

That would be a big goal. That'd be huge.

I love that. And I thinks we have this 20% growth gold standard at Stryker, and I think 30,000,000 steps would be about 20% growth for us. So it'll nail that number as well.

I love it. And then, we've talked about a trophy at the very end. Maybe, the company that comes in 2nd place presents it to the 1st place company in a meeting or something. Yes?

That sounds good to me. Fair enough.

Maybe the, the loser gets to host a great dinner or we can bring the leadership teams together or something fun. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's do it. That'd be fun.

I like it. Well, Dylan Crotty, Aaron Ziegler, we appreciate both of you. This is gonna be an exciting contest. Jess and Bridget, any closing comments before we go to Aaron and, Dylan for theirs?

Nope. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah. Starts today.

Alright. Dylan, closing thoughts? No.

Thanks a lot for having me. This is a lot of fun and great thing for both organizations. And, it actually looks like a beautiful afternoon to get out there and start walking. So let's do it.

Awesome. Yeah. Get involved. The more people we get involved, the more successful this thing's gonna be. We're gonna have a lot of fun.

So, thanks so much, Dylan, for doing this with us.

You bet. Thanks, Aaron. Thanks, Sam. Thank you, ladies.

A special thanks to Stryker president Dylan Crotty, Zac president Aaron Ziegler, as well as AM wellness mentors coach Jess and Bridget for contributing to this week's podcast. Just until next week, how are you driving vision

today?