HR, We Have a Problem - From resistance to results: Building a change-ready organization.

[00:00:00] We Take the next step, Let's Make Sure That We Got It Right. Once you start embarking on some significant change, there's going to be significant cost. You don't want to go down that path and have to undo that work.

[00:00:13] That's right. I think just like with any organization, feedback that I would provide anybody wanting to walk a mile, quite frankly, in any role, is when you transition from one organization to the next, don't keep referring back to your previous ones when you're there.

[00:00:29] Right? Like, well, we did it this way at insert company. I mean, maybe you can do that once or twice. Right? But if you become that broken record, they're like, well, you're not at that company, you're here. So what are we going to do?

[00:00:42] Right.

[00:00:44] Welcome to the HR Huddle Podcast, presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource for all things HR. It's time to get in the huddle.

[00:01:03] Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the HR Huddle. I'm your host, Terry Zipper, CEO and managing partner at Sapient Insights Group. And I'm back for another exciting episode of HR, We Have a Problem.

[00:01:17] This is the show where we like to break down the big and most relevant HR issues of the day. We help you make sense of what they mean. And we talk about what you might do about them.

[00:01:27] Joining me today is Jen Congdon. Jen has over 20 years of global experience in senior level HR roles. She's founded her own consulting firm, specializing in coaching and strategy and change and continuous improvement and all sorts of HR related topics.

[00:01:46] She serves on some boards and she is currently the CHRO at M Financial Group.

[00:01:52] Woo! It's a lot. Welcome, Jen. Excited to chat with you today.

[00:01:57] Hey, Terry. Happy to be here.

[00:01:59] You've got quite an impressive resume and I noticed spent time in some big industries like tech and aerospace and manufacturing and even some smaller ones in renewables and financials.

[00:02:12] I was hoping that we would talk today about your journey in HR for people that have similar ambitions and also talk about some of the things that you're passionate about, like what you learned and took from industry to industry and reapplied some of the learnings and improvements that you took from place to place.

[00:02:33] Does that sound like a good plan to you?

[00:02:34] Yeah, no, that sounds great. That sounds terrific.

[00:02:37] Awesome. Then let's get into the huddle.

[00:02:40] So, first things first, I did a little bit of a flyby on your background.

[00:02:45] You've done a lot.

[00:02:46] So maybe you could add a little more color to your 20 plus year journey and kind of what brought you here where you are today.

[00:02:54] Yeah, I'm absolutely happy to do that.

[00:02:56] You know, I've been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work for some really interesting companies over my entire career.

[00:03:03] And quite frankly, when I graduated college, I didn't know what I wanted to do.

[00:03:07] I knew when I was five, I wanted to play basketball in college.

[00:03:10] Check. Did that.

[00:03:12] So got that accomplished.

[00:03:14] But then I ended up being a communications major and mass communications, telecom, and really was thinking about, hey, let's go into the let's go into TV.

[00:03:22] Let's do all the behind the scenes productions.

[00:03:24] And then you realize how much that pays and you're like, maybe not.

[00:03:27] Let's not do that.

[00:03:29] And so, you know, I've lived all over the US.

[00:03:33] And I would say kind of I stepped into HR in through a temp agency early in my career, not knowing anything about it and kind of in a bit of an office manager role and had a recruiting director that took me under their wing and taught me all things recruiting.

[00:03:49] And I saw really quickly that there's this really interesting parallel between communications and recruiting because doing a lot of journalism classes, right?

[00:03:57] You're asking questions to get to the point of truth.

[00:03:59] And that has carried with me throughout my entire career because everything we do in HR, really, if you think about it, it kind of boils down to asking questions to get to the point of truth, be it investigations, be it recruitment, strategy, you know, all the all the different facets of it.

[00:04:16] And so I found while I didn't know what I wanted to be when I was young, I found that, man, I made a good choice.

[00:04:23] Right.

[00:04:24] Yeah.

[00:04:26] Perspective.

[00:04:26] That's interesting.

[00:04:27] Communications and marketing.

[00:04:29] I've had a few marketing leaders on the call over the last year and talking about the connection with HR and just how integrated they need to be because there's a lot of opportunity there and a lot of synergies between those two groups to make both of these areas really powerful.

[00:04:50] Right.

[00:04:50] Absolutely.

[00:04:51] Yeah.

[00:04:52] That's awesome.

[00:04:53] Yeah.

[00:04:54] And so, you know, fast forward a little bit and talking about some of the bigger companies that I had a chance to work for.

[00:05:00] And a lot of, you know, throughout my career, people have taken risks and opportunities and thrown some things my way and just said, all right, let's just see.

[00:05:08] Let's see if she can do this.

[00:05:09] Right.

[00:05:09] And so being hungry and wanting to learn and absorb, I think really helped me a lot.

[00:05:14] But, you know, I worked at Cisco Systems in early 2000 where the big boom was happening.

[00:05:21] And that was also when Cisco was really kind of cutting edge on centers of excellence and really kind of framing what that looked like in HR.

[00:05:29] And so, you know, I was fortunate to be there at that point in time where, you know, from an HR perspective, they were very creative out of the box thinking.

[00:05:39] And couple that with after I left Cisco, I went to Honeywell and Honeywell Aerospace, which was all about process excellence.

[00:05:46] So, you know, I had this creative out of the box process excellence.

[00:05:50] I'm like, man, imagine what you can do in HR if you can think outside the box and, you know, make it into a sustainable process that adds value to the organization.

[00:06:00] And so I've really been able to kind of marry the two of those together throughout the rest of my career, even after I left Honeywell.

[00:06:07] Yeah.

[00:06:07] Cisco was one of those interesting companies back in the day.

[00:06:10] I remember they were one of my first ever like stock purchases.

[00:06:14] Like I just owned some Cisco stock and I was like, wow, this is really cool.

[00:06:19] You know, that's changed a lot over the over the years.

[00:06:22] But, you know, there are some differences between organizations.

[00:06:26] And I think, you know, you can you can take experiences from one place to the next, but they end up getting, you know, tweaked to match the industry.

[00:06:36] As somebody who's been in some very large organizations, what was different walking into this?

[00:06:45] Because now you're in a much smaller organization.

[00:06:48] Right.

[00:06:48] Different industry.

[00:06:49] Right.

[00:06:50] Right.

[00:06:50] Yeah.

[00:06:50] What's what's been kind of interesting, most of my background has been global industrial manufacturing.

[00:06:55] Right.

[00:06:55] With the exception of my stint at Cisco, my four year stint at Cisco.

[00:06:59] The rest of it has been very global, very heavy industrial manufacturing, even on the aerospace side.

[00:07:04] Right.

[00:07:04] It was still trying to, you know, a lot of it was aftermarket aftermarket services.

[00:07:09] Part of it was down with the guidance and electrical systems and all these different pieces.

[00:07:13] But then fast forward to pure play water with xylem and with watts, you know, all of these massive pieces of equipment and machinery that we're using.

[00:07:23] And I was looking for another global industrial manufacturing type of role.

[00:07:29] I wasn't even I wasn't even entertaining the financial services space.

[00:07:33] I'm like, what is this?

[00:07:35] A friend reached out to me.

[00:07:36] They're like, hey, you should you should talk to the CEO at M.

[00:07:39] I think you'll really like him.

[00:07:40] I'm like, what's the industry?

[00:07:41] I'm like, do you know me?

[00:07:42] Right.

[00:07:42] Didn't we talk about a little industrial?

[00:07:44] Sounds like something, you know, in the James Bond movie or something.

[00:07:48] Talk to him.

[00:07:49] Oh, right.

[00:07:50] But I did.

[00:07:51] So I'm like, absolutely.

[00:07:52] I'll have a conversation with him.

[00:07:54] And we hit it off.

[00:07:55] I mean, he's a great CEO.

[00:07:57] I really enjoy working with him.

[00:07:58] And one of the things that he was looking for was bringing someone in that did have different experiences coming from outside of professional services.

[00:08:07] Because we, you know, having a background that has more kind of process orientation and continuous improvement and lean can apply to any industry.

[00:08:18] Right.

[00:08:18] Yeah.

[00:08:19] So he was looking.

[00:08:20] He was definitely looking for some of that.

[00:08:23] And I just kind of I liked the people.

[00:08:26] I'm like, it took me a minute to figure out, OK, so what's the product that we're doing?

[00:08:31] And I'm still learning a lot of the language and because it's insurance, reinsurance, wealth management.

[00:08:36] And so it's a completely different space.

[00:08:38] But I was finally able to quantify it with like, it's not a widget.

[00:08:42] Right.

[00:08:43] Like this.

[00:08:44] It's more like this piece of paper.

[00:08:45] But you still start with the order.

[00:08:47] Right.

[00:08:47] It comes through.

[00:08:48] It does all the things that need to do.

[00:08:50] And you deliver the other product.

[00:08:51] Right.

[00:08:51] It just isn't in the form of a widget.

[00:08:54] Yeah.

[00:08:54] It's very it's very different.

[00:08:56] I've almost mostly, except for some of my early days, been in careers where the product is somewhat intangible.

[00:09:05] Right.

[00:09:05] It's consulting or, you know, advisory.

[00:09:09] We do have a product now with our survey, which is very different.

[00:09:13] It's like, OK, how do how do we package that?

[00:09:15] Because that's not how I'm usually talking about things.

[00:09:18] But H.R. can be.

[00:09:19] And you said this in your early discussion, like how do you get outside the box?

[00:09:24] Like so much of H.R. for many years had been kind of in a box.

[00:09:30] Right.

[00:09:30] Like, well, we do compliance and, you know, we do recruiting and these are the things we do within our box.

[00:09:36] And, you know, that's changed dramatically over the last 20 years.

[00:09:40] And a lot of smaller companies now are saying, let's not get too far down the path of just managing H.R.

[00:09:48] before we decide that we're going to focus on people rather than just doing the H.R. stuff.

[00:09:56] Right.

[00:09:56] So that, you know, that's interesting.

[00:09:59] I don't know how many employees you guys have.

[00:10:01] So M is, I mean, we're not we're not we're not huge as far as internal number of employees.

[00:10:06] We've got around 300 people that are internal to M.

[00:10:09] But then we have all of our member firms that we support.

[00:10:11] Right.

[00:10:12] And they, you know, they have like another 2000 or so across all in probably in total across all of them.

[00:10:20] And you would hear our CEO even say we're in the people business as part of what we're doing.

[00:10:26] And so, you know, if we think about our vision and values that we bring to play for for our member firms.

[00:10:33] Right.

[00:10:33] How do we help them succeed and thrive?

[00:10:35] Right.

[00:10:35] The same thing applies to our employees.

[00:10:38] What are we doing to help them do the same thing so they can provide that elite type of service?

[00:10:42] Yeah.

[00:10:43] So what did your first 90 days look like sort of coming out of the honeymoon phase?

[00:10:47] And, you know, I'm sure you like set some goals for yourself, but also like there were some objectives that, you know, your your CEO had in mind.

[00:10:56] And was there an HR strategy or was that something that was part of what you needed to?

[00:11:02] It was part of what I needed to build.

[00:11:03] It definitely was part of what I needed to build.

[00:11:05] And HR at M is a little bit it's a little different because not only do I have HR, I have facilities.

[00:11:11] And then marketing events also rolls up into HR at M.

[00:11:15] And these are large industry wide events.

[00:11:18] But I've got a fabulous leader that's over that business.

[00:11:22] I got a great leader that's over our facilities part.

[00:11:24] So being able to kind of help coordinate and tie all that together for what we call people experience.

[00:11:30] Yeah.

[00:11:31] Has been a lot of fun.

[00:11:33] But, you know, my first 90 days, you know, I went on my listening tour.

[00:11:37] Right.

[00:11:37] Talked to all the different leaders, really kind of understanding.

[00:11:39] And even more so because I, you know, I know a lot of acronyms, but I knew none in this space.

[00:11:48] And there's a lot of them.

[00:11:50] There's a lot of them.

[00:11:51] There's a lot of acronyms.

[00:11:53] And so, you know, you make quick relationships with your peers on the leadership team.

[00:11:58] And I'll sit next to a couple.

[00:12:00] I'm like writing down on a piece of paper, like the acronym.

[00:12:03] I'm like, what is this?

[00:12:03] And they're like, this is and they're still really great about that because I still don't know all of them.

[00:12:10] But everybody's been really receptive of.

[00:12:12] All right.

[00:12:13] Let's let's think about what we can do, what we can do different.

[00:12:15] And how do we onboard someone more quickly?

[00:12:18] Within my first 30 days, we had our first board meeting.

[00:12:21] So I was working board content and things for the compensation committee and kind of sharing my initial impressions over the first 30 days.

[00:12:31] And, you know, then met with the HR team.

[00:12:34] We did a strategy session coming off of our leadership strategy session of, OK, so this is what we're trying to do from an organization.

[00:12:41] So how are we going to best support that?

[00:12:44] Because doing things in isolation, you know, it's nice to do what you like to do.

[00:12:49] But is it adding any value?

[00:12:51] Right.

[00:12:51] Yeah.

[00:12:53] And you have a little bit of an advantage in a smaller company to get people, you know, on the train before they get too far down the path.

[00:13:02] But absolutely.

[00:13:03] Well, I'm really I'm fortunate with the HR team here, too, that they're really hungry to learn new tools and to learn new things.

[00:13:10] So that was a huge, huge advantage for me.

[00:13:13] Yeah.

[00:13:14] Yeah.

[00:13:14] And you guys are back in the office, right?

[00:13:16] Do you have people that work remotely or work in other schools?

[00:13:19] We do.

[00:13:20] We've got, you know, we're probably maybe 20, 25 percent that are in the field.

[00:13:29] But they're also those employees.

[00:13:30] Most of those employees are actually supporting our member form member firm in those spaces.

[00:13:36] Right.

[00:13:37] But we're we have two main locations.

[00:13:39] One is in Dallas and the other is in Portland, Oregon.

[00:13:41] And so, you know, we are in the office in Dallas four days a week.

[00:13:47] We're in the office in Portland three days a week.

[00:13:48] And we're navigating navigating that that sticky wicket.

[00:13:54] Yeah.

[00:13:54] Yeah.

[00:13:55] That's still a big, big topic for it is HROs and HR leaders and CEOs as well.

[00:14:01] I mean, I think sometimes that gets placed at the feet of HR.

[00:14:07] But the reality is it's it's a company wide challenge that needs to be dealt with at the C level.

[00:14:14] Right.

[00:14:15] And we really want to create this.

[00:14:16] We really want to create an in-office culture.

[00:14:19] Yeah.

[00:14:20] Right.

[00:14:20] And and I mean, we we've got a beautiful brand new facility in the quad in in Dallas.

[00:14:26] Our Portland office is absolutely stunning as well.

[00:14:30] And so, I mean, it's a nice it's a really nice environment to be able to come come into the office.

[00:14:35] And, you know, we continue to to look at that and.

[00:14:39] Yeah.

[00:14:41] Well, I miss figure it out with the rest of them.

[00:14:43] Right.

[00:14:44] Yeah.

[00:14:45] My home office is fine.

[00:14:47] But, you know, some it's the camaraderie.

[00:14:50] There's, you know, just the opportunity, especially if you're younger in your career.

[00:14:55] There's so much more to be learned by sitting next to people that are doing other jobs or the same job.

[00:15:02] Right.

[00:15:03] And there's so many little things that I found when we got into the pandemic that I realized people, you know, that were kind of new in business.

[00:15:13] We had hired a few interns and some some people just coming out of college.

[00:15:17] And there were just basic things that they didn't learn because they weren't sitting in an office.

[00:15:24] So it's very different.

[00:15:25] I think it's so important.

[00:15:26] My nephew is and he's in his third year right now at UVA and finished up an internship that was in person.

[00:15:34] He's got a couple more lined up for this coming this coming summer.

[00:15:38] He actually has one in the summer and one in the fall.

[00:15:40] And he really loves being in the office with with the people that he's working with.

[00:15:46] And he's learning a lot more because of it.

[00:15:48] Yeah.

[00:15:50] Were there any particular technology challenges that you encountered coming in?

[00:15:55] I mean, was there already an HR system in place or was it just payroll just kind of managing?

[00:16:01] Yeah, it's kind of it.

[00:16:02] I mean, we have UKG, so it's it's OK.

[00:16:07] Yeah, I think we have.

[00:16:08] I think I mean, definitely payroll.

[00:16:10] We've got that buttoned up.

[00:16:11] Right.

[00:16:12] And that's and that's fine.

[00:16:13] I don't know that we're necessarily leveraging all of the technology as well as we can.

[00:16:17] And so part of that is we continue to dig in.

[00:16:20] It's like, OK, what modules do we have?

[00:16:22] What don't we have?

[00:16:23] How do we want to work it?

[00:16:24] And, you know, some of it's clunky and some of it being the size organization that we are, too.

[00:16:30] We don't have to do everything in a system, although there's definite benefits to being able to do that.

[00:16:36] Yeah, we're consolidating.

[00:16:37] The advisory side of me is saying figure out what you have.

[00:16:41] Yeah, no, 100 percent.

[00:16:42] And that's the way that's what we're doing.

[00:16:44] We're going to optimize.

[00:16:45] We're going to optimize what we have before we do something else.

[00:16:48] And really, you know, and it's junk.

[00:16:50] It just like continues to prove it.

[00:16:51] Right.

[00:16:51] It's junk in, junk out.

[00:16:52] So let's clean up what we have.

[00:16:55] Yeah.

[00:16:57] I'm trying to coin a new word, but it's not a very good one at this point.

[00:17:01] So I'll figure out what it should be.

[00:17:02] But people are over teched at this point.

[00:17:04] I mean, there's just they've got so much technology.

[00:17:07] They don't even know what they have.

[00:17:10] Right.

[00:17:10] And so, you know, I've walked into some organizations where they're like, well, you know, we really need to have a more dynamic way to support our onboarding.

[00:17:20] And it's like, well, OK, you have this technology.

[00:17:24] It does onboarding.

[00:17:25] Right.

[00:17:26] You need to implement it.

[00:17:28] You like you need to think about what you need it to do.

[00:17:30] It's more about the process and the outcome than it is about the tech.

[00:17:34] You know, that's right.

[00:17:35] That's a good chance the tech is going to support it if you know what you want to get out of it.

[00:17:40] And if not, maybe you do need to look at something else.

[00:17:43] Right.

[00:17:43] Yeah.

[00:17:44] And more of that onboarding.

[00:17:45] Right.

[00:17:45] The best part of that onboarding is face to face interaction.

[00:17:49] Yeah.

[00:17:50] Right.

[00:17:50] I mean, you could certainly use it.

[00:17:52] And I use tools.

[00:17:53] I mean, I certainly do.

[00:17:54] I leverage technology, you know, as well as I think most of my peers do.

[00:18:00] And, you know, it's not I don't I don't want to I don't want to throw things at a problem.

[00:18:05] Plus, technology is expensive, too.

[00:18:07] And so if you're not.

[00:18:08] Yeah.

[00:18:10] On us.

[00:18:10] Right.

[00:18:10] Well, and it's easy to think that tech will fix the problem.

[00:18:14] Right.

[00:18:15] Well, if we get this software, we'll fix this problem.

[00:18:18] But yeah, it's it's you need to really step back from the problem and talk about what what you need the outcomes to be.

[00:18:26] Absolutely.

[00:18:27] Well, and that's where you leverage partners.

[00:18:28] Right.

[00:18:29] So, you know, companies like Sabretooth or that that does really niche technical recruitment and really kind of some cutting edge.

[00:18:39] They have some cutting edge tools that they use on their end that were the risk of the output of that.

[00:18:45] And so that's great that they've got that tech and we just get really great candidates.

[00:18:49] Yeah.

[00:18:50] Yeah.

[00:18:51] So I know you you're only what six months or so into the into the new role.

[00:18:56] But I know one of the things you're passionate about is sort of this idea of continuous improvement.

[00:19:02] Was there continuous improvement going on?

[00:19:04] Or is that something you sort of brought in and started to operationalize in the business?

[00:19:09] There's there is a combination.

[00:19:11] So, I mean, we have like project management.

[00:19:14] Right.

[00:19:14] A PMO office that does does some.

[00:19:17] But I definitely have brought some in as well.

[00:19:20] So, I introduced the HR team to potion planning and the X matrix that a lot of manufacturing companies are very, very aware of where you've got your three to five year strategy.

[00:19:30] What are you doing in year one?

[00:19:32] And what are the key actions that you're going to take that will help you hit year one that gets you to three to five?

[00:19:37] And then the KPIs associated with that and building out project A3.

[00:19:42] So what's our project plan?

[00:19:44] And putting more rigor around that and doing that up front so that you can see where, you know, if we're red, that's OK.

[00:19:52] What are we going to do to solve for that so that we can keep the project on track?

[00:19:55] Yeah.

[00:19:56] So that's actually been kind of I mean, for me, it's been a lot of fun to see my team kind of look at some of these things first a little bit, a little bit with the deer in the headlights.

[00:20:05] And then they're like, oh, OK.

[00:20:07] Right.

[00:20:07] This makes a lot of sense because it really ties you back to what the strategy is and what strategy business is.

[00:20:13] Yeah.

[00:20:13] You can limp along a little bit more in in organizations that, you know, manufacturing and engineering and without those kind of controls and planning.

[00:20:24] Things break down really quickly in other organizations.

[00:20:27] It's a little easier to to get by without it.

[00:20:30] But when you have it, you're like, how did I live without this?

[00:20:34] Right.

[00:20:35] Exactly.

[00:20:36] Exactly.

[00:20:37] And it's just and it's just I mean, I think that I think our organization is hungry for some process, too.

[00:20:42] Right.

[00:20:42] Because we've done things and they've done, you know, they've done a great job to be, you know, to be where we are today.

[00:20:48] And it's a great company.

[00:20:49] But there's like any organization, there's always opportunity to improve.

[00:20:54] And I think that, you know, most people feel that every day they're wanting to come in and they want to leave things better today than they did yesterday.

[00:21:01] Yeah.

[00:21:02] What about change management?

[00:21:03] Is that something that was kind of already part of the culture or did you find yourself?

[00:21:08] Because I know that's an area that you that you focused on.

[00:21:11] Did you find yourself sort of figuring out, OK, how do I how do I embed this this concept of, you know, ongoing agile change management?

[00:21:20] Right.

[00:21:21] You know, it's interesting.

[00:21:22] And not just not just at M, but other companies that I've worked with.

[00:21:26] People like to use the word change management a lot.

[00:21:28] Hey, we need change management.

[00:21:30] And I'm like, OK, so let's talk about that.

[00:21:33] What does that mean to you?

[00:21:35] And so it's no it's no different here.

[00:21:37] People use the vernacular around, hey, we need we need to do change management.

[00:21:42] And I'm like, well, you're not just doing change management.

[00:21:45] It is.

[00:21:47] And it's a process.

[00:21:48] But, you know, you really need to take people through that.

[00:21:51] And what's the vision for what you're what you're trying to accomplish?

[00:21:54] Do you have the right team on board?

[00:21:56] What are you doing to communicate for buy?

[00:21:58] I mean, Cotter is spinning in my head.

[00:22:00] I love Cotter and Cohen in the heart of change and really try to to embed that.

[00:22:06] And it's it's something that we're definitely building into the processes here.

[00:22:10] It's not it's not as robust yet.

[00:22:12] But again, like the PMO office and I were working really well together and they're excited for some of the tools that we're bringing.

[00:22:20] I actually even had one of my business leaders that asked me if I could train him on kind of the change management tools because he wants to use that in his business.

[00:22:27] So it's nice.

[00:22:28] It's it's really nice when you have the pull.

[00:22:31] Yeah, no, totally.

[00:22:32] You know, one of the things that is most critical to me from a change management perspective is understanding and knowing your stakeholders and and also building the right relationships in the organization.

[00:22:45] I mean, the the people across the organization at your level, but even, you know, down some some levels are critical to making sure that you get the support you need and can help the product.

[00:23:00] Like you just can't you're not the the driver of change.

[00:23:04] You can be the driver, but you're not without the tentacles.

[00:23:08] Right.

[00:23:09] And the people in the business, it's not going to go anywhere.

[00:23:12] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:23:14] You know, and our L&D team does a nice job of that as they're building out, you know, training and development.

[00:23:19] They've got what they would call kind of committees throughout the organization for different purposes, what they use.

[00:23:26] But it is getting voice of employees at all different levels within the organization to ensure that we're going to get that right buy in.

[00:23:33] But building those relationships is really important.

[00:23:37] And I also think like any time you do do any type of change initiative, bring someone in from a completely different group that knows nothing about that process so they can poke holes in it and ask questions.

[00:23:48] Right.

[00:23:48] Be really Socratic throughout it, because, you know, part of that is is how you learn and make sure that you're that right outcome.

[00:23:57] Yeah.

[00:23:58] Yeah.

[00:23:58] You know, we have a tendency to just ask the people in our sphere and then it's just an echo chamber.

[00:24:04] Right.

[00:24:04] Like, oh, yeah, that sounds great.

[00:24:06] That that that'll work really well.

[00:24:08] And then you get it in front of people and they're like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

[00:24:13] Exactly.

[00:24:13] Why do you think we want to do that?

[00:24:15] Yeah.

[00:24:16] Yeah.

[00:24:17] I do think it's really important to play.

[00:24:18] I like I like to call it playing catch.

[00:24:20] Maybe that comes from being an athlete.

[00:24:22] Right.

[00:24:22] It's like, all right, let's go play catch with someone.

[00:24:23] So if there's something I want to kind of help deploy in our organization, you know, I'll go to different members of the leadership team that have the largest stakeholder groups.

[00:24:33] I'm like, all right, I'm thinking about this.

[00:24:36] How do you think this would come over?

[00:24:38] Right.

[00:24:38] Or if we're going to put it implement a new policy, if we're going to do something like what's the feedback that we're going to get?

[00:24:43] How will your team receive it?

[00:24:45] Yeah.

[00:24:45] You know, I should that we should be thinking about differently on this or should we just, you know, park it or he shouldn't do it at all.

[00:24:51] I found really good, good relationships with that.

[00:24:54] And especially so you're not you're not surprising people.

[00:24:57] Yeah.

[00:24:58] What kind of are there any, you know, challenges you've run up against so far and whether it's industry or size based that kind of surprised you or, you know, anything new that you that you've learned over the last six months since you've been in a new industry from an HR perspective?

[00:25:17] No, I think the biggest thing is just being and I don't know if it's something new that I've learned, but it's reinforced the importance of being nimble.

[00:25:23] Right.

[00:25:24] And really, really being flexible and listen.

[00:25:27] And, you know, it's kind of it's a little bit it's a little refreshing in some regards because I don't know the industry that well that I can ask any question that I want to ask.

[00:25:38] And people are really willing to share that knowledge with me and they're proud of the work that they've done.

[00:25:44] And so, you know, I'm kind of just being a massive sponge right now.

[00:25:48] Right. But you listen, talk, engage with all of the different employees.

[00:25:55] And yeah, I don't know that it's significantly different here than some of the other places.

[00:26:00] But I remember when I worked at Xylem, the CEO had asked me a couple of weeks.

[00:26:06] She had also worked at Honeywell at one point and she had asked me, hey, what's your what do you think about about Xylem?

[00:26:11] And what you know, what was your biggest surprise? And I'm like, my biggest surprise going there was the fact that what everybody told me during the interview is actually what I what I found when I got there.

[00:26:23] So complete transparency. And I love that. I love that type of surprise.

[00:26:28] That is that is a good surprise. I mean, it's kind of one of those things when you do as from a consulting perspective, they ask you to validate their strategy.

[00:26:38] And you almost feel like you didn't do the job at the end because, well, yeah, you you hit it.

[00:26:44] You hit the nail on the head. Right. Like everything we learned was, you know, exactly what you said.

[00:26:50] And I think that sometimes that's just all they need is did we get it right before we before we take the next step?

[00:26:57] Let's make sure that we got it right. Because, you know, once you start embarking on some significant change,

[00:27:03] there's going to be significant cost and, you know, you don't want to go down that path and have to undo that work.

[00:27:10] That's right. And, you know, and I think just like with any organization and I guess feedback that I would provide anybody,

[00:27:15] you know, wanting to walk a mile in any quite frankly, in any role is when you transition from one organization to the next.

[00:27:22] And don't keep referring back to your previous ones when you're there. Right.

[00:27:26] Like, well, we did it this way at insert company.

[00:27:30] I mean, maybe you can do that once or twice. Right.

[00:27:33] But if you become that broken record, they're like, well, you're not at that company.

[00:27:36] You're here. So what are we going to do? Right.

[00:27:39] What are we going to do here? That's great.

[00:27:41] Love the idea. But how do we adapt it or, you know, or is it even valid here?

[00:27:47] Right. No, exactly right. Exactly.

[00:27:50] Are there some things that you saw over the years that you felt like weren't transferable from an HR perspective?

[00:28:00] And that's kind of a deep question.

[00:28:02] Yeah, I know.

[00:28:03] I'm thinking about that a little bit.

[00:28:07] No, I think I think that most of the things were transferable.

[00:28:11] I think the amount of complexity you would bring or would not bring would be the differentiator.

[00:28:19] I think that I think most things do work.

[00:28:21] I really do. But, you know, again, you've got to know you've got to know your organization.

[00:28:25] You have to know how receptive are they going to be.

[00:28:28] And, you know, some smaller organizations don't need it, don't need as much.

[00:28:33] Right. Because you have more flexibility to implement change pretty quickly.

[00:28:37] Whereas larger organizations that are that are a lot more complex might require a deeper dive in certain areas.

[00:28:44] Right. Where you where you don't have to go quite as deep.

[00:28:46] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:49] I have a tendency to be very, you know, pushy when it comes to, you know, I don't care what your role is in HR.

[00:28:56] You need to go out and learn some other things in the business.

[00:29:01] Like for starters, know where the business makes its money.

[00:29:05] How does the business make its money? Right.

[00:29:06] And how do you impact that? Right.

[00:29:10] You know, because I think a lot of times people get, you know, into a role.

[00:29:13] And if there's not if they don't have a mentor, so to speak, somebody who's kind of shepherding them through their, you know, life at work.

[00:29:23] It takes you a little longer to figure it out on your own sometimes.

[00:29:28] Absolutely. You know, I think one of the best, best experiences that I have, well, there are there are I mean, there are a lot that helped shape who I was.

[00:29:35] But one of the best ones was when I was at Honeywell was, you know, being in our Honeywell operating system for a year of that where I straddling the line between HR and the business and help build out their change management.

[00:29:47] And around some of the continuous improvement initiatives that we're doing and that operating system and being able to do that.

[00:29:54] And I think really being able to talk the language.

[00:29:56] I mean, that was feedback I would get all the time.

[00:29:58] They're like, Jen's in HR. Why is she asking me about this this process of manufacturing this widget?

[00:30:05] I'm like, well, because I see it in front of me and I really think you could probably do this easier and more safely.

[00:30:12] So let me just ask you some questions and see if that's see if that's right.

[00:30:16] You know, but spending a lot of time out on the shop floor, spending a lot of time, you know, sitting side by side with with all the employees and really just kind of to your point.

[00:30:25] Right. Understanding what is it that they do.

[00:30:28] And I think anytime you can do that, that's that's a win.

[00:30:32] It's an eye opener. You know, it really is.

[00:30:35] Or even just, you know, something as simple as, you know, if you're in benefits, obviously you do your annual enrollment as well.

[00:30:44] But going out and watching people go through this process, it's literally eye opening.

[00:30:52] And then you're like, OK, why did we make this so complex?

[00:30:55] Yeah. Or TA, right? Recruiting.

[00:30:57] Like, oh, my God, this is what somebody has to go through to apply for a job in our organization.

[00:31:02] Like, this is just terrible. Like, how do we fix this?

[00:31:07] Right. Well, it's funny that you use that as an example, because we literally just did a value stream map of our current state process recruitment process.

[00:31:15] Right. From I have a need through through day one onboarding.

[00:31:19] And then the follow up of that will be day one through year one of that continual onboarding of, all right, what are we what are we doing?

[00:31:27] Right. A great employee experience.

[00:31:30] Yeah. How are you seeing, you know, all the rage right now is around AI.

[00:31:37] I just came back from the HR technology conference.

[00:31:39] And, you know, once again, that was the big topic, although interestingly enough, HR is really not heavily investing there right now.

[00:31:50] Right. They're kind of in this wait and see mode.

[00:31:53] Like, you know, how is it going to impact me?

[00:31:56] I think those that are getting ahead of it are going to have, you know, a bigger impact.

[00:32:00] But just curious, what are you starting to see?

[00:32:04] And is it, you know, how are you seeing it in your organization?

[00:32:07] Because you're probably seeing it in the HR function, but also like in the business.

[00:32:11] How do we use AI to to make us make us better?

[00:32:15] Well, one being in the space that we're in, in a highly regulated space, we've got to be careful with it.

[00:32:19] And so we actually built out Copilot internal for our business using our, you know, all of our own information.

[00:32:27] So perspective. But but you're still using it.

[00:32:30] Right. You're still I mean, I use AI all the time, even if it's a jump starter of a communication where I can be like,

[00:32:37] all right, I want to communicate X, Y and Z.

[00:32:40] It needs to have kind of this feel to it.

[00:32:43] Right. Not taking all not not having to do all the work for me, but just give me some ideas.

[00:32:47] Right. And or or put something in like if I write a communication, I'll put in there.

[00:32:53] I'm like, please streamline.

[00:32:54] Right. Yeah.

[00:32:55] Right. Don't take this out.

[00:32:56] Add this back.

[00:32:57] Do this.

[00:32:58] And the time save on that is huge.

[00:33:02] You get a pretty good end product, but you have to actually like you have to coach it.

[00:33:06] Right. You've got to ask all the right questions.

[00:33:09] And it's really important to make sure that you don't lose the intent of what your message was,

[00:33:14] because that can happen very easily.

[00:33:16] Something out is like, oh, here, it's this.

[00:33:18] And it's like, yeah, no, that's not what I wanted.

[00:33:21] Right.

[00:33:21] And I think the other really helpful way, and I would highly encourage anyone to do this also,

[00:33:27] you know, if you're using perplexity, chat GPT, any clawed AI, I mean, all of us, there's so many

[00:33:33] great tools that are out there.

[00:33:35] You know, sanitize information.

[00:33:38] Don't put anything proprietary in it.

[00:33:40] But if you're if you're doing a presentation on pick whatever topic and pick your audience,

[00:33:46] ask AI to what are the unintended consequences of this present of this presentation?

[00:33:51] What are the pros and cons?

[00:33:52] What type of questions might I get from board of directors that have this type of background?

[00:33:59] What type of questions might I get from, you know, X, Y and Z type of person?

[00:34:03] So it just helps you be prepared when you go in to give your pitch.

[00:34:08] And right.

[00:34:08] And you might tweak something based off of some of the information that you get to say, oh,

[00:34:12] hey, you know, I should kind of actually actually that's that's a great con.

[00:34:17] Yeah, I should really think about this.

[00:34:20] And is there a different way to position it?

[00:34:22] And, you know, it's it's been amazing.

[00:34:25] I actually even talked to our strategy leader about that before before a board meeting.

[00:34:29] And I'm like, just ask it some questions.

[00:34:30] And he put it in and he's like, oh, my God, this is so helpful.

[00:34:35] Yeah, it's different ways to use some of those tools to your benefit to your benefit.

[00:34:38] But I think the biggest my biggest concern with that is people using losing critical thinking

[00:34:44] skills.

[00:34:46] Right.

[00:34:46] You know, I think I'll use my I'll use my nephew again as an example.

[00:34:50] I'm sure he would love this.

[00:34:51] You know, he was starting to use a lot of different AI tools.

[00:34:57] And he's like, oh, this is a quick response.

[00:34:59] Blah, blah, blah.

[00:35:00] And he's a super smart kid.

[00:35:02] He's put that aside now.

[00:35:03] He's like, you know what?

[00:35:04] I'm actually I can write better than what AI is doing for me.

[00:35:08] I can I can think through different complex problems better than what it is doing for

[00:35:12] me.

[00:35:13] And so he started to play with it.

[00:35:14] And now he's just like, no, I'd rather do it myself, which I'm like, good for you.

[00:35:20] Yeah.

[00:35:21] Well, I you know, it it can help jumpstart the thinking sometimes if you're not the best

[00:35:28] writer or you have you struggle with the words.

[00:35:31] But the reality is, I mean, it does start to take away some of that critical thought process.

[00:35:39] And then do you remember what you wrote?

[00:35:41] Because you didn't write it.

[00:35:42] You didn't write it.

[00:35:43] Or did you remember when you had it do your resume for you and you went in for an interview

[00:35:46] and person that I did that person that showed up?

[00:35:52] Yeah.

[00:35:52] I didn't know I did that.

[00:35:54] Hey, I'm amazing.

[00:35:56] Yeah, I am amazing.

[00:35:58] Yeah.

[00:35:59] So did you guys did you train it on your like an internal cloud that did you train it on

[00:36:04] some of your proprietary?

[00:36:06] That was all our internal using our internal data.

[00:36:09] Our IT team did a great job of really kind of building building that out.

[00:36:13] And it's and it's secure.

[00:36:15] And it's, you know, kind of proprietary to our to our business.

[00:36:18] But I've heard from a lot of my peers that are in, you know, either medical, other financial

[00:36:25] services, benefits, things where they're I mean, they'll tell you themselves, right, that

[00:36:30] they're they're not leading the pack on that they are definitely wait and see.

[00:36:35] And it has more to do with the regulatory environment that they're in.

[00:36:39] And yeah, a lot of people out there that would love to have your your internal information,

[00:36:46] right?

[00:36:47] Unfortunately, this is true.

[00:36:48] Yeah.

[00:36:49] And there's, you know, there's a lot of things from an HR perspective that, you know, we

[00:36:54] don't need a human to to necessarily do right to give you, you know, tell you something that's

[00:37:00] in your your benefits options or to tell you, you know, read something from the employee

[00:37:06] handbook or explain something from the employee handbook.

[00:37:09] I mean, I'd rather free them.

[00:37:11] I'd rather free them up to to be more strategic, to add a different type of value to the organization.

[00:37:15] So if there's some, if there is some repeatable tasks that you could have a chat bot be able

[00:37:22] to answer for for someone, you know, using all those examples that you just gave on benefits,

[00:37:27] it's a great example of, hey, have them answer those questions.

[00:37:30] And then if it's something that's more complex than that, yeah, absolutely reach out and let's

[00:37:34] let's help you.

[00:37:35] But I would, you know, if you think about value add and non value add, right, you've got non

[00:37:41] value add required sometimes.

[00:37:42] So anything that's non value add required, how can you use, you know, technology or a tool

[00:37:48] to solve for that?

[00:37:50] Exactly.

[00:37:51] All your time on that value add.

[00:37:54] Yeah.

[00:37:56] What advice would you give a new CHRO kind of walking into a similar situation or, you know,

[00:38:03] just a new, new industry, new organization in general?

[00:38:10] Just take a breath and start with breathing.

[00:38:14] And just, you know, I would just say be curious, right?

[00:38:18] It would be one of one of the most important things that you can do when you go into a new job.

[00:38:23] Be curious.

[00:38:24] Don't make assumptions that something doesn't exist.

[00:38:27] You know, ask if it is there.

[00:38:29] Right.

[00:38:30] I mean, I think we all might be a little bit guilty of that.

[00:38:32] I know I am where I'm like, I can't believe we don't have a process for that.

[00:38:36] And they're like, well, we do.

[00:38:37] I'm like, okay, I guess we have a process for that.

[00:38:40] I can't believe we don't follow this process.

[00:38:46] But seriously, it's really about, you know, be curious, ask questions, listen.

[00:38:52] I mean, listening is probably the most important thing you can do right out of the shoot, but

[00:38:56] then act, right?

[00:38:57] You can't, you can't let too much time go without not performing or acting.

[00:39:01] But, you know, find the people in the organization that you trust and that you know are going

[00:39:06] to be open and candid.

[00:39:08] And, you know, I'm a big fan of feedback.

[00:39:11] You know, my mantra is feedback's a gift.

[00:39:13] You can't do anything with it if you don't have it.

[00:39:16] And then it's a personal choice.

[00:39:17] Yeah.

[00:39:18] Right.

[00:39:18] Yeah.

[00:39:19] No, great, great advice.

[00:39:20] That's one of my favorites is just curiosity.

[00:39:22] If you're not curious about what's happening in the organization, it's going to be very

[00:39:27] hard for you to think through and turn over the problems in the organization and help people

[00:39:34] solve them.

[00:39:34] And you can't solve them all.

[00:39:36] Like you need, you know, the people in your organization to, that's why you hire smart people,

[00:39:41] right?

[00:39:42] Right.

[00:39:43] That's right.

[00:39:43] Well, and I think, you know, to an earlier question that you had asked just around smaller,

[00:39:47] going into a smaller organization, having come from larger organizations, you know, sometimes

[00:39:53] you're working with people that have been in the same company their entire career.

[00:39:56] And then you come in and questions and they're like, why are you asking me all these questions?

[00:39:59] Right.

[00:40:00] Who are you?

[00:40:01] Who are you?

[00:40:03] Right.

[00:40:03] To ask me these questions.

[00:40:05] And I'm like, because they've never, they've never had coaching or they've never had someone

[00:40:09] come in with a, with a different perspective and trying to help everyone, regardless of

[00:40:16] the organization, understanding that what you're doing is coming from a good place.

[00:40:21] Right.

[00:40:22] There's no malicious intent whenever you get feedback, right.

[00:40:24] It's really coming from a good place.

[00:40:26] And when you're asking questions, it's out of curiosity.

[00:40:28] It's out of really wanting to understand so that, you know, as we deploy things where we're

[00:40:34] doing it through the right lens.

[00:40:36] Yeah.

[00:40:38] Yeah.

[00:40:38] No, that's fantastic.

[00:40:40] Well, Jen, before we go, I want to say hi to Fredo.

[00:40:45] Oh, he's sleeping.

[00:40:49] Hi, Fredo.

[00:40:52] We love pets.

[00:40:56] Hello, Fredo.

[00:40:57] He's like, meh, this, this conversation is not for me.

[00:41:01] He's like, I'm so tired.

[00:41:04] No, Fredo is my, my bicolor.

[00:41:06] There you go.

[00:41:07] You can see him a little better.

[00:41:08] There we go.

[00:41:08] Now we can see him better.

[00:41:10] Bicolor German Shepherd.

[00:41:11] He came over from Slovakia.

[00:41:13] So he's, he's a mobility dog.

[00:41:15] I have a lot of metal after playing all my sports.

[00:41:18] Yeah, I bet.

[00:41:19] He's beautiful.

[00:41:21] So you were, you were a basketball player?

[00:41:23] Is that what you said?

[00:41:24] Yeah.

[00:41:25] I was.

[00:41:25] Yeah.

[00:41:25] I played basketball and then high school and then I played field hockey and softball to

[00:41:30] offset seasons when I was in basketball.

[00:41:32] So, yeah, I loved sports.

[00:41:34] Sports is a great way to learn.

[00:41:37] I think leadership skills and, and things like that.

[00:41:40] I didn't play in college, but, you know, play intramural sports in college and things

[00:41:45] like that.

[00:41:46] But I played all through grade school and high school.

[00:41:48] I just, just being on a team was just, I don't know.

[00:41:51] There's just something about it.

[00:41:53] Learning from the coach, you know, having other players, like wanting to get things done

[00:41:58] as a group, not just an individual.

[00:42:01] Absolutely.

[00:42:02] I mean, I, I, I think, you know, that that's been my biggest life lesson and that's probably

[00:42:06] been one of the reasons I've been as successful as I have been is having played competitive

[00:42:12] sports, my pretty much entire life.

[00:42:14] And, you know, it's not, it's not about you.

[00:42:17] It's about everybody else that's on that team.

[00:42:19] It's looking for that open pass or, you know, because they got, they got, they're in a better

[00:42:23] position to make, to make the basket or, you know, whatever, whatever the sport

[00:42:28] might be, but it's really around how do you, how do you bring up the entire team, right?

[00:42:32] To, to compete in a really healthy way.

[00:42:35] And I coach, I coach seventh, eighth grade boys for nine years also.

[00:42:39] And that was a way I could give back when I couldn't play anymore after all my, all my

[00:42:44] surgeries over the years.

[00:42:45] But yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty incredible.

[00:42:48] It's a, it's a nice gift to be able to give back as well.

[00:42:51] It really is.

[00:42:52] Well, thank you for joining me today.

[00:42:55] This has been a great conversation and I hope we can do it again.

[00:42:59] I want to thank our producers, Brand Method Media Group.

[00:43:02] I want to thank our marketing team who will get this out to you guys.

[00:43:07] And I want to thank you for tuning in.

[00:43:09] That's all the time we have for this episode of HR.

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[00:43:27] And then we will be back in two weeks with another episode of HR.

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[00:43:33] Thanks everybody.