Episode 73 - The Faithforce Story with Sue Warnke
Subscribe to the Podcast:
When we say, ‘bring your whole authentic self to work,’ what if faith is your number one identifier? Can you still bring your authentic self to work? That’s the question Sue Warnke is asking.
Sue works for Salesforce as the Senior Director of Content Experience, and she was part of the team that started Faithforce San Francisco at Salesforce—an interfaith employee resource group. It’s one of the newest and the fastest growing Equality Groups at Salesforce with over 3200 members in over 20 regional hubs across 5 continents.
In addition to sharing her best practices on her blog Leanership.org, today, Sue will share how Faithforce got started, how her personal faith influenced her involvement, and what it takes to start a successful Employee Resource Group.
Episode Transcript
Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Sue Warkne: I think the reason this has sprung up so much in Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley is such a home of diversity and equity and equality that, you know, when you say things like bring your full, authentic self to work, we are an inclusive company. We care about diversity. You then have to ask the question, well, what if faith is my primary identifier? Can I bring my full, authentic self to work? And you have to answer that our executives, our leaders in Silicon Valley have to have an answer to that.
Henry Kaestner: All right, welcome to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. I'm here with my co-host, William Norvell. William, good morning.
William Norvell: It's a good morning here, moving into the afternoon, but it's still pretty good indeed.
Henry Kaestner: Oh, actually, yes, it is the afternoon. And, you know, our listeners don't care what time of day it is. They really do. But they do care about our host today, Sue Warnke. Sue, welcome.
Sue Warkne: Thank you. Nice to be here.
Henry Kaestner: So this is a big deal for us because we're going to be talking about a topic that's near and dear to my heart. And just to set the stage a little bit. I am well, at least in my mind, a little bit semi famous for going out on the road, leaving my home here in Northern California and talking about faith and entrepreneurship and faith and investing. And and a couple of years ago, back when we could travel, I would go around and be in Atlanta, I'd be in Nashville or in Dallas. And I'd be saying, where do you think is the Center for the Faith and Work Movement in the United States? And if I was in Nashville, they'd say Atlanta. If I was in Atlanta, maybe they'd say Nashville or they'd say Dallas. If I was in Dallas, as you know, they would say Dallas. Right. Because it's all about Dallas and Begbie. But I would say in each case, no, I will submit to you that the Center for the Faith and Work Movement in the United States is actually in Silicon Valley, where there are new or resurgent faith in the work groups at Google and Facebook, at Apple, at Intuit, at Dropbox and at Salesforce. They have something called faith force. And most people's jaws drop. And I think it's really an important development. And here's why I want to tell you why I think this episode is important and then hopefully we'll cover it again at the end. I think that this is important because this is a podcast is focused on Faith Driven Investor. And when we come to understand that corporate America and some of the what would be thought of is the largest secular corporations in America and some of the most secular cities in America have embraced the role that faith plays in their corporate cultures. That has relevance, I think, for every business everywhere. So if your business in Kenosha, Wisconsin, or Albemarle, Virginia, and you think, well, I can't really encourage a bunch of Christians getting together and maybe praying together or folks that are from a Muslim faith getting together and celebrating Ramadan or something like that together, there is some great precedent. And as Christians and this is a podcast is focused on followers of Jesus Christ, there's great precedent for this working well and in a respectful atmosphere, letting truth stand out in the marketplace of ideas. So for those of you who are on boards or investors, there's an opportunity to be able to point to some of these illustrations and maybe ask if it's appropriate the company that you are an investor in or that you sit on the board on. So today we can understand more about that through the life and the career of a really neat woman named Sue Warnke, who has been a leader at Faith for us at Salesforce, one of the most technologically advanced and progressive, at least in terms of the products and services that they provide companies in the world. Sue, thank you for being with us. One of the things we really want to be able to do before we get into this topic is understand a little bit about your background. I know a bit about it. It's very interesting to me. And you were a little bit different than maybe some of the other guests that we've had on. And that is that, like me, you're an adult convert to the Christian faith. What's that all about?
Sue Warkne: So I grew up in Utah in a really religious environment and we were not religious. So I was sort of two things came out of that. And one way I was an outsider and the other way I was the target of evangelism. The whole town, it felt like I wanted to convert my family. So I built a big wall against faith throughout my life. And, you know, I was very anti faith, actually, and pursued other gods, I would say the gods of accomplishment and success. And that works really well, actually. And I got, you know, a great career at Salesforce. And I have a wonderful husband and I have three teenagers right now and sort of had everything. But several years ago, about six years ago, I felt a void. I really did feel that void like, well, what else is there and am I really on the right path? And I felt like I was supposed to do something more meaningful. So I ended up quitting my job and pursued a new role in leadership development, which was very meaningful, but didn't at all fill the void. And then something very important happened, which was that I fell flat on my face in this new job. So I failed. Worse than you can really fail on a job because I had to sell some of the classes that I was teaching and I was terrible at it. I think I hit one percent of my quota, so I just wasn't used to failing. So that was a big deal. And my son has some health problems. So, you know, I faced kind of the end of myself, the end of my ability to fix that. And luckily, obviously a very blessed way things came into my life one by one, whether it was a song or music or somebody randomly praying for me that led me to Jesus to a really surprising conversion. To Christianity about four years ago.
Henry Kaestner: Wow, so tell us a little bit more about what that was like, because you have at that point time, you have a husband, you have kids, and all of a sudden their mom is saying, actually, I think that the whole purpose of life is a bit different than we had thought. How did they receive that? How did your friends and coworkers receive that?
Sue Warkne: Yeah, I mean, it was quite a shock because I wasn't just agnostic. I mean, I was really antireligious most of my life and kind of known for that. I was the person in college that would send articles to my friends arguing against religion. So it was really shocking to my family for sure. I mean, one day their mom becomes a born again Christian after telling them that nobody really knows the truth. It's all good, you know, believe whatever you want. So that was difficult for a few months. You know, we had a lot of interesting conversations in my household, but my husband is wonderful and supportive and they've all kind of watched me go through this process and start talking about it and watched the effect that it's had on other people, including faith force, which we're going to get into, including just a lot of people benefiting from me telling this very surprising story. And so they're very proud of me. They're very supportive and proud and kind of on their own faith journeys.
Henry Kaestner: Gotcha. OK, very cool. OK, so Faith Four starts at about the same time. Yeah. I mean maybe, maybe, maybe not. But I think it from my memory, it starts about the same time that you came to face off four years ago or so. Yeah. Is that related.
Sue Warkne: Definitely. So, you know, I converted to Christianity, I was baptized and, you know, several things improved in my life. I definitely had a purpose. Relationships got healed. And very quickly, I got an offer to come back to Salesforce. And with that offer, I knew that I was coming back for a purpose. It wasn't just to do my job, but it was really to be a person of faith in this environment and just follow whatever God wanted me to do, which was really scary. I mean, not just coming out to my family about this, but my whole work family that knew me for seven years. And so I had to figure out, well, what does it mean to be a person of faith in this environment? Can you be. And so what I did is I started to search other comments internally on our message board. Is there anybody out there talking about faith? And I found two things. One is a couple, other just very few. It started with one other Christian and we found each other and we set up a time to pray, which was just incredible because I realized in that moment I OK, I can have both. I don't exactly know how, but I can have both. Nothing terrible happened. We prayed and it was, you know, a really good moment. And then that group turned into five people and then ten and then two hundred and then five hundred. So definitely Christians had a home at Salesforce. But that felt to me, not the whole story. It felt that God was definitely pulling people out of hiding. But the bigger story was really transforming how this company operates and how faith in general is perceived as an element of identity. So we found other faiths, Muslims and Sikhs and Hindus and a group of people proposed this new group about the same time. So, yes, we can have prayer groups, but that's not everything. Let's actually talk to the leadership and say, you know, is this could this be an employee resource group the same as any other employer resource group?
Henry Kaestner: So it's all fascinating. OK, so as you go ahead and you put this together and you think about making this an employee resource group, do two things. No. One, tell us what an employee resource group is. That's going to be a term that some people aren't going to know what that means, what that stands for. And then also, as you formed that, what's your hope for people that are part of the Force Employee Resource Group?
Sue Warkne: Yeah, so I came in so a couple trailblazers had already started the process, so I came in after them. But an employee resource group, it is what it says. It's to provide resources to employees on different topics. So there's usually most companies have a women's group and a black employee group, an LGBTQ group. So it's a place where you can feel safe and share resources, have community, but a lot more than that. It's to share resources out to the rest of the company about your group. So, for example, right now with, you know, racial tension being so high, we have some of our more racial focused employee resource groups. We have a black employee resource group and a Latino group and Asian-American groups. They're sharing resources with the rest of the company about how this is impacting them, how to talk to them, how to support them. And similarly, faith for us. We share resources out when it's holidays, when we say this is how you can greet your employees this month for, you know, if you have Muslim employees, if you have Sikh employees, when there is a tragic attack on people of faith like Sri Lanka or Christchurch, we come together to mourn and to talk about the impact of this on employees. So it's almost. Chaplain, like in a way that it's a service, a group of people that know how to talk about faith effectively in the workplace and serve both the community and those who are outside of the community within the company.
William Norvell: So thank you so much. So good to see you again. Yeah. Everybody might think we know all of our guests. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't. But I've gotten the chance to get to know, Sue and see her talk on this topic at length. And I mean, I guess I'm just inspired by some of the way, you know, you went really and have to go really deep on this is not a side project or a group you put together, you know, on the edge. Right. I mean, you've flooded it in amazing ways. And the scale is something that I'm just consistently just surprised by. I mean, when we talk about equality groups, Salesforce, as you might know the number, I mean, tens of thousands of employees. Right. How does the equality groups work? How many people are involved in them? And then maybe four specifically just to give our listeners a vantage point.
Sue Warkne: Yeah. So we do have about sixty thousand employees. About half of the employees are involved in at least one employee resource group. Faithfulness to everybody's surprise, once it launched about three and a half years ago, became the fastest growing employee resource group in company history. So it is right now about thirty two hundred employees in 20 different cities all around the world, from Israel to Mexico to Australia, Singapore. So it's become a huge rallying point for Salesforce and it is quite big.
William Norvell: Wow, that's amazing. Over five percent of the workforce, I mean, just in looking for an outlet, looking for people who can understand who they are at a deeper level, that's just fascinating.
Sue Warkne: Yeah, people usually will align with inequality. We call them equality groups that represent their number one or number two identifiers. So to be part of faith us, it probably means that faith in some way is probably the number one way that you would define yourself over gender, over race, over other aspects of your identity. And there is a big population for whom that is a reality.
William Norvell: And I know you've spoken at national conferences and things like that, you know, talking about this, talking about faith force. How come, you know, Henry made the pitch earlier that Silicon Valley is the leader. Is that because we live here and we happen to know people that work at those organizations that tell us about them? Or are these quite common in organizations around the country? Are they growing or are they declining? Tell us a little bit of the landscape of what's happening in the world.
Sue Warkne: Yeah, I think they are quite common. I lean on the research of Brian Graham of the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation. He has the preeminent research there, which shows 20 percent of Fortune 500 companies do have an official faith presence, meaning their public website talks about faith, inclusion and faith diversity. So that could be pretty shocking to folks that 20 percent of Fortune 500. So there is some kind of presence. And of the other 80 percent, there's probably secret groups that are meeting for prayer and Bible study and fellowship. So it is quite common. I think the reason this has sprung up so much in Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley is such a home of diversity and equity and equality that, you know, when you say things like bring your full, authentic self to work, we are an inclusive company. We care about diversity. You then have to ask the question, well, what if faith is my primary identifier? Can I bring my full, authentic self to work? And you have to answer that our executives, our leaders in Silicon Valley have to have an answer to that. And anything other than absolutely is potentially discriminatory. It is marginalizing. So I think these companies have really, you know, built up this value of equality so much that they've really had to say, well, what about this aspect of identity? And luckily, they have stepped to the plate and opened the door to it.
William Norvell: Now, it's really interesting. And, you know, it's funny because. Right. I mean, the old classic saying don't talk about religion and politics at work. Right. But with that, I'm interested. How have you seen it impact the lives of people? You know, we love stories here. Do you have a story or two that you could share with us on the lives of employees and how? You know, I would imagine it makes them better human beings, but also better workers and feel more part of an organization that they work for.
Sue Warkne: Yeah, I'll share a quick one about a Christian man and then another one about a Muslim man. So Christian man. So when we first had the Christian prayer groups and that was just starting, you know, this man joined on Zoome and he just had this look of shock on his face. And I noticed he was tearing up and I said, what's that about? And he said he was an older man. And he said, I have wanted this for twenty years. I have just wanted to pray, you know, and it just meant so much to him. He'd wished for this. He had feared he would never be able to kind of integrate these two lives. So it just. Gave him the sense of belonging, of peace, of kind of reconciliation. The stress lifted off of him. But an even more important example of that is this Muslim man I'll tell you about. And I think it's good for Christians to know to what our brothers and sisters of other faiths are going through as well, not just thinking about what it's like to be a Christian in these environments, but this man, he's an engineer and he was looking tired. And so his manager said, you know, what's going on? And he looked down and the manager, you know, said, it's OK, you can tell me. And he mumbled under his breath, I'm fasting for Ramadan. And the manager said something very important. And he said, Oh, tell me more about that. And the man looked up and he said, well, I'm fasting from sunup to sundown for the purpose of gaining compassion for those in need, which blew the manager away. He didn't know about Ramadan and he said something even more important, which was, how can I support you? That one question changed this man's life. This thing that he thought he had to hide his entire career was something that not only was OK and safe, but something that the manager cared about and even wanted to support. This engineer went back and the manager encouraged him to teach people about Ramadan. He taught his team about Ramadan. Some people fasted with him. We kind of just celebrated with him. They came together to celebrate Eid at the end of it all together, this engineer brags about his manager. He is doing fantastic. He recruits people, says this is the best place to work. I've had employees come up to me in the old days when we were in person and say, faith first is why I'm here. I heard people talk about faith force and I didn't feel safe to pray at my company. So I left and I came here. We have top talent that are not only staying, but they are recruiting their friends because of faith for. So it is a huge business impact. It's a morale impact to feel safe and seen and then it's a business impact to be able to keep top talent and recruit their friends.
William Norvell: OK, you just set up the next question without knowing it. Or maybe, you know, maybe you just sensed it. Maybe that was the spirit working from an investor standpoint. Right. Is this something people should be looking forward to? Would you make an argument that this leads to greater employee retention, therefore more productive workers, therefore a better overall? I'm not saying you have to make that argument, but how would you think about that from an investor standpoint?
Sue Warkne: I definitely think so. I mean, it has had a very big business impact. I mentioned the recruiting and the retention and the productivity of just feeling safe. But there's other things there are. You think of innovation. So I think of Nike. Nike innovated recently with Nike hejab for the Muslim community, which just took off. You know, that came out of realizing that faith identities matter. We at Salesforce support tons of nonprofits, including many, many who are Christian nonprofits, you know, that go out in disaster relief or anti sex trafficking. And they use Salesforce to track fundraising churches, huge churches use Salesforce to track, you know, their messaging out to their congregation. And we learn from that. Salesforce learns from that and improves the way that we service nonprofits because of churches and because of Christian nonprofits. So innovation is another aspect. And then, you know, our customers are Christian. As I mentioned, we have lots of Christian customers and they're expecting that the company that they are paying to service them is faith tolerant. They expect that and they fear when that isn't the case. So it's not only a benefit to the company and the employees and the products that they sell, but it really does build trust with customers when they can see, OK, this is a faith friendly company.
Henry Kaestner: OK, so I'm going to voice something that's probably in the back of a lot of our listeners minds. Again, we have a vast majority Christian audience, as you might imagine. And I think that some number of people are probably thinking, gosh, it seems strange if I'm driven by my faith as an investor or I know that the entrepreneur, the CEO, is driven by their Christian faith to be able to celebrate Ramadan and to be able to lift up different religions makes me feel a little strange. And so, therefore, I think I'm maybe I'm getting the fact that that can lead to employee retention, but the orthodoxy of my faith is in conflict and, you know, what does it look like? And so what I want to ask you is and I've never used this term before, but what does it look like to bring together faiths which have mutually exclusive, exclusive faith claims and worldviews? And part of us there's a dissonance there, which is, gosh, how can you do that? Aren't you going ahead and necessarily injecting conflict in? And then if you're a Christian and you believe that there is the way, the truth and the life, how do you celebrate some? As somebody else who clearly doesn't believe that and would love to convince somebody else to their way of thinking, I think that not being able to overcome that dissonance is what is holding back lots of people. How do you because you've identified yourself as a born again Christian. How do you persevere through that? How do you think through that?
Sue Warkne: Yeah, this is one of my favorite topics because I don't come from a church background. To me, this is no big deal. Like, of course, you can talk to anybody and you know, but but when I talk to people that come from a more church background, they do feel a lot of worry and fear. And I understand it. I totally get it. I mean, I have poured myself through the Bible and through God's word, and it's very clear what we are to do and not do. And we're not to worship other gods and we are not to worship idols. And anything of that nature is serious. And I believe that. So, you know, how could I, for example, go celebrate Eid or celebrate, you know, a pagan holiday or something like Beltane is coming up for me first. So I have really clear guidelines. I just have very super clear policies and guidelines. And same with faith for Sophie, Force does three things we give back. We do tons of volunteering events, helping the homeless. Every faith agrees and helping those in need refugees, et cetera. So we give back. We do celebrate holidays and I'll explain how we do and do not do those. And we educate. So we teach managers about, you know, what holidays mean. Don't say happy Yom Kippur, for example, because that's a somber holiday, you know, in the old days, don't have a big buffet party. When you have team members who are fasting, you know, we educate. But the celebration piece is the part that people are afraid of because they don't want to cross the line and offend God. And so we say within that celebration, in my mind, if I'm not worshiping other gods or praying to other gods in those celebrations, then I think it's a great way to have faith conversations. So going and partaking in a meal for Eid, you know, and learning about their culture, learning about, you know, my Muslim colleagues is a wonderful way, I think, to show them love, to show that maybe their perception of Christianity isn't accurate. And a quick story of that. When I first got my very first budget of faith, it was an official thing. A Muslim man set up time with me and he said very quietly, he said, see, I've been trying to have an Eid celebration for three years and keep getting turned down. Do you think I could have just a little bit of your budget? And I looked at him and this just outpouring of love came out of me and I said, you can have it all. And he looked at me shocked and he said he said, Why? Because he knew as a Christian I was out, you know, and proud. And he said, why would you do that? And I said, Because I love you. Because of my faith. I love you and I want to support you. And we had the biggest celebration ever. It was like hundreds of people came through and it was this coming together. And the comment was, wow, that's not what I thought Christianity was like. So it is an enormous opportunity to destigmatize Christianity and to heal wounds. It's not about worshiping Allah or other gods. It's about loving our neighbor. And what better way than to just talk to them and see them and listen to them? It's not following their text. It's just loving them.
Henry Kaestner: OK, that's fascinating. So I want to get a little bit and I think that you're right, by the way, it's not just fascinating and I personally disagree with you. I think that I think that we're called to love our neighbor. And of course, in the Bible, Jesus mentions the parable, the Good Samaritan, which is somebody from a different nation and different faith tradition, was the one that was ultimately used to illustrate what it looks like to love your neighbor. And so, as your heart is, what does it look like for me to love somebody? Because as I understand it, from what you're seeing, as you're trying to overcome some perceptions about where Christians are thought of, particularly in this environment which you are at in Silicon Valley, in San Francisco, oftentimes from having lived out here, Christians are thought of as being judgmental. And, you know, judge, not lest you be judged. There are some different aspects of let them know you buy your love. Right. And so you're leaning into that in a way that seems to be super winsome and it's very, very compelling. There are different ways, though, to set up employee resource groups. One is the way that you all have done it. And presumably there are also other companies that say, well, we're going to have a Christian employee resource group and we have a Jewish one and a Muslim one. And so there's not going to be as much of an intermingling. And presumably you miss some of that opportunity to have some of the activities you're talking about. So there are probably pros and cons of each. But can you walk us through some of the different models you've seen? And then if you're an investor listening as podcast, how you might coach them or suggest them that they introduce this to the. Company they sit on the board of or invest in.
Sue Warkne: Yeah, there are multiple, though you touched on the main two of like separate groups or an interfaith group with faith force and other companies that are interfaith. They still have siloed groups because in those groups you do specific things that wouldn't be appropriate at the interfaith level. So prayer and Bible study, we still have a Christians at Salesforce group and it's still hundreds of people and they meet for prayer and Bible study. That doesn't happen at Faith Force and Muslims, Muslims at Salesforce go and pray together at certain times of the day. That's not a faith force activity. So prayer, worship, scriptural reading happens in those siloed groups intentionally because that is really where worship is happening. And there's a couple of reasons. I think the interfaith model is more successful and truly most companies are turning toward it. So a lot of companies, they started with the more siloed groups and they are now creating interfaith kind of umbrella's over that. It's much more palatable to HRR to go to them and talk about the term faith, diversity, faith, inclusion. That is something that matches their other language of equality and inclusion. So it's a much easier sell and you avoid a lot of conflict. So with the siloed groups, you can imagine there's a couple of things. One is potential competition like, oh, well, how much budget did the Jewish group get? Did we get the same amount of budget? And what about a very small group? You know, like Shenzhen is a faith group, right. I mean, this might be five people. Do they get budget? What about the 12 other potential religions, world views that might pop up that would have a right to that budget as well, including a satanic group, which does happen, including, you know, an atheist group or all these different groups? It's a lot of pressure for an H.R. organization to have to say yes to siloed groups because it's unknown what's going to come at them in the future. Are there 20 other, you know, the Spaghetti Monster group that's going to expect budget as well. So make it easy on them and suggest this interfaith model and feel peace that you're not advocating other gods. You're not lifting up something you don't find truthful. You're simply opening up a way to have conversation and celebration. And by the way, the fact that we organize these events together is what leads to just the most incredible breakthrough conversations. Right? Because I meet somebody at an event or another event, a SUKA event first and have incredible conversations that lead to more conversations that lead to hopefully them seeing a glimpse of Jesus Amen, amen.
William Norvell: I hate to come to a close, but that's what we have to do. Now, I've got a feeling we're going to get a lot of questions on this one. So we might have to we might have to have you back. I just think this is such a pertinent topic. I think every company can consider can think through whether, you know, this fits them and fits their employee group. And just so grateful for you taking the time to walk through how you've seen it work and some of the different ways to go about it. As we do come to a close, one of the things we love to do is try to figure out a way that God's word and his scripture can transcend our guest and our listeners lives. And so what we always love to ask at the end is, is there anything that God has placed on your heart through his word lately, whether it's in the season, whether it could be this morning, whether it could be something you meditated on your whole life, but just maybe something that you feel the spirit is telling you to share with our audience, we'd be grateful. Mm.
Sue Warkne: Yeah. I've been very meditative the past month about what am I supposed to do now. My faith force is a success. Do they really need me at the helm anymore. I don't feel that they do. I feel like God is redirecting me somewhere else and so I'm just trying to be really attentive to that. So the image I keep getting in my daily reading is about settlements. I have a quote here have twice actually on my way. So this is from Solms. So faithfulness springs forth from the earth and righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord will indeed give what is good and our land will yield its harvest. So I feel like this year is all about building roots and being planted and seeing what fruit comes from that, you know, faith forces and success. Let's be ready for what's next.