Cruising Altitude

This episode features an interview with Francesca Luthi, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer at Assurant, a global business services company that supports, protects, and connects major consumer purchases. It’s a Fortune 500 company that spans 21 countries, and partners with leading brands to create an enhanced customer experience. At Assurant, Francesca oversees business functions to help execute the company’s overall strategy. This includes global human resources, brand and marketing, communications, corporate social responsibility, and more. She focuses on building up the company’s global brand and reputation among customers, employees and shareholders. And in this episode, she’ll share how to effectively manage employee feedback, deliver a consumer-grade digital employee experience, and market your EX to top talent.

Quotes

*”Our employees make a decision to come to work at Assurant. It's a lot about what they do and the role that they're in, but also the connection to the company and vision, mission and values. So it requires us to not just assume a cookie cutter approach. But to be willing to change and adapt to our growing and diverse workforce.”

*”I think about our employees as our single most important customer. Because they are the key to delivering for our customers each and every day. I think about the basic marketing principles around attracting a customer and sharing that value proposition. And really explaining what does the company do, what does it stand for?”

*”Very similar to the principles that apply to customer experience, you want human-centered design. And in this case, it's employee-centered. It starts with the employee and what do they need to achieve? And really thinking about that journey. How can we eliminate friction and continue to make it a generally positive, ideally delightful experience along the way?”

*”Empathetic leadership is critical. Transparency and humility in terms of what we're all feeling, what we know, what we don't know. I think that's one of the golden rules in terms of leadership. Because the reality is for as much as we may be in leadership positions, it doesn't mean that we are somehow all-knowing. We are taking feedback and input and trying to make the best decisions we can.”

Time Stamps

*[5:04] The Flight Plan: Get to know Assurant

*[6:45] First Class: Best EX practices at Assurant

*[30:11] Turbulence: EX lessons learned

*[34:50] How does Francesca lead in stressful situations?

Links

Connect with Francesca on Linkedin

Learn more about Assurant

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io

This episode features an interview with Michael Trout, VP and CHRO at State Farm, leaders in mutual insurance and the largest property, casualty, and auto insurance provider in the U.S., with over 60,000 employees. Michael has been with State Farm for more than 30 years, having served in different leadership positions including VP of Operations in Human Resources. And on this episode, Michael is discussing how to improve employee value proposition, why you should accept a lateral position change, and using AI to customize the digital employee experience.

Quotes

*”My director wanted somebody who understood the business but could also communicate with the employees, create followership, connect with employees and build relationships. That's the skill that's probably helped me throughout my whole career is you have to be able to speak business. If you can't speak business, you lose credibility in the boardroom.”

*”I wouldn't give up the lateral moves for anything, because they gave me the foundation across multiple areas, but gave me the flexibility, the agility, and the foundation so that when I did move up, I didn't have to learn as much because I had that foundation across multiple channels.”

*”It's always about promotion, promotion, promotion. My argument is, ‘Learn as much as you can so that when you're promoted, you have a leg up and you have an advantage over the people who don't have all of those experiences across the organization.’”

*”Once someone feels like they belong in the organization, that's when the magic starts happening. They then understand the mission and the purpose. The job becomes a lot more fun because they feel like they fit there. They have great relationships.They have a mission that they can get behind. That's when they start their career and can build out a career in the organization.”

Time Stamps

*[8:01] The Flight Plan: Get to know State Farm

*[10:49] First Class: Best EX practices at State Farm

*[30:17] Turbulence: EX lessons learned

*[33:33] Smooth Landing: Michael’s advice for other EX leaders

Links

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn

Check out State Farm

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io

This episode features an interview with Bill Taylor, Managing Director at MSCI, a global leader in investment services and solutions. Bill has over 20 years of experience dedicated to managing the digital infrastructure at companies like JPMorgan Chase. He brings with him an “engineering mindset” of solving problems instead of just fixing them. And on this episode, Bill is discussing the benefits of shifting employee communications to video, why it’s important to offer accessibility options by default, and how MSCI leverages data to be proactive instead of reactive.

Quotes

*”We've changed the mindset of the team to be proactive instead of reactive. When we think about traditional workplace technology or IT types of support, it's often responding to problems that people are having, fixing it and moving on to the next problem. My team has evolved and invested in tools to be proactive. We use the tools to help us get in front of certain issues and at a minimum inform people about what those might be. But ideally actually fix them before they impact a large portion of our organization.”

*”We built a customer success team that is interacting more with our employees so we can understand better about what their needs are and get ahead of them. It has created an environment where our employees feel comfortable, they know who to go to in order to help them get what they need.

*”We have all these potential [accessibility] solutions that we can offer to people to help them. Just because I'm not hearing about them or physically seeing someone who may have a specific disability doesn't mean that they don't need them. So that's when it struck me. I needed to get the information out there, let people know that these solutions or features or functions within applications exist.”

Time Stamps

*[3:07] The Flight Plan: Get to know MSCI

*[6:02] First Class: Best EX practices at MSCI

*[6:31] How can you be proactive to predict and prevent issues with the digital employee experience? 

*[27:05] Turbulence: EX lessons learned

*[30:11] How does Bill lead in stressful situations?

Links

Connect with Bill on LinkedIn

Learn more about MSCI

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io

2022 was a year of exploring new heights on Cruising Altitude. So we wanted to share some highlights with you. In this episode, we’re looking back on our conversations with leaders at companies like Sony, Lockheed Martin, Sam’s Club, and more. And celebrating what we’ve learned from them about supporting a world class employee experience. 

Quotes

*“I don't think experience is something that can be worked on. I think it's a fluid living, breathing entity. And I like to ask a question from our core team in HR and marketing, ‘What will bring more life to the employee experience?’” - Marija Zivanovic-Smith, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at NCR

*”When you are implementing improvement in your employee experience, the process never ends. So employees keep on raising the bar, and you are always working to do better.  So you are doing something, you are doing better, but then you need to keep on doing better is something that never finishes.” - Quique Huerta, Global Employee Experience Officer at Liberty Mutual Insurance

*”When we operate in so many countries, there are multiple language barriers, which you need to go through. So how do you ensure that what you communicate lands appropriately so that everyone can act on the communication that is being said? One of the big challenges we have as an organization is thinking as one global organization. The headquarters is all about coming up with a framework on how you approach things in a way in which every country in which we operate can take the framework and apply the framework that suits the needs of the respective country's operations.” - Bala Sathyanarayanan, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Greif, Incorporated

Links

Connect with:

Marija Zivanovic-Smith

Quique Huerta

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Paulo Pisano

Alan Winters

Christopher Shryock

Alexander Senn

Theresa Alesso

Angie Grossman

John Jordan

Melissa Marshall

Joe LaMarca

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io

This episode features an interview with Christopher Shryock, SVP and Chief People Officer at Sam’s Club, a chain of membership-only retail warehouses. They have 600 clubs nationwide and another 200 internationally. Christopher heads all things HR-related for the over 100,000 Sam’s Club Employees. Before Sam’s Club, he spent about 14 years at PepsiCo serving in global HR leadership roles. And on this episode, Christopher talks about why you should rethink hiring based on interviews, how to simplify employee processes, and the real reason why it pays to have a diverse workforce.

Quotes

*”Having one system is not sufficient to create a great employee experience, but it is a necessity. Because if you don't even know where your associates are, if you can't even have and track basic detail and information about them, how are you ever going to provide them with something that's going to be personalized and relevant?”

*”I want to make sure that my team is interacting with the business on areas that matter. And that's about identifying and developing talent, building organizational capability, and holistically solving associate problems. So it's not about automating away communication between HR and the business. But we want to make that much simpler, more relevant, and that we are communicating on things that really matter.”

*”We're trying to understand who's likely to stay with us and who's likely to perform better. So understanding and assessing simple, basic cognitive ability, what preferences and experiences people have, and a little bit of situational judgment… And part of why we do that is because we hire people that perform better and stay longer. But the other reason we really do that is trying to remove as much bias from the system as early as we possibly can.”

*”When you have a diverse associate population that feels included, they collaborate more, they come up with better ideas, and they have more ownership, not only for their work, but for the outcomes of the company.”

Time Stamps

*[4:54] The Flight Plan: Get to know Sam’s Club

*[7:58] First Class: Best EX practices at Sam’s Club

*[24:19] Turbulence: EX lessons learned

*[33:17] The keys to a first class employee experience 

Links

Connect with Christopher on LinkedIn

Learn more about Sam’s Club

Check out Live Better U

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io

This episode features an interview with Nadine Huggins, Chief Human Resources Officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s national police service. Nadine spent 20 years in public service before joining the RCMP in March of 2020 as Executive Director of Policies, Strategies and Programs. On this episode, Nadine shares with us how she enables employees even in the most remote regions of Canada, how she addresses the mental health risks of policing, and she even dispels myths about the iconic mountie.

Quotes

*”The very nature of policing as an occupation impacts an individual's overall health and wellbeing. So we can buy the proper shoes, we can ensure that the members have access to physical activity, and we can encourage them to eat well. They're still going out every day and having these interactions that, while 90% of them are not necessarily violent altercations, the other 10% can get more cantankerous. There are experiences, even when they're not aggressive, that wear on an individual.”

*”How do you lead from behind? In a time of crisis, sometimes that's exactly what you need to do. The folks who work with me saw right from the beginning [of the pandemic] that I validated what they knew, that I relied on them, that I asked questions, and I had the humility to know that they were the trusted source of information for their employees.”

*"If you want a positive employee experience, you really want to make sure that there's good leadership, good communication, and good feedback.“

Time Stamps

*[6:19] The Flight Plan: Get to know the RCMP

*[11:56] Dispelling myths about the RCMP

*[14:29] First Class: Best EX practices at the RCMP

*[22:23] About the RCMP's Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy

*[33:49] Turbulence: EX lessons learned

Links

Connect with Nadine on LinkedIn

Learn more about the RCMP

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io

This episode features an interview with Kristin Chapman, Managing Director of People and Culture at AAA, the leader and advocate for safe mobility. Kristin brings to her role a background in cultural anthropology, which she is using to bring a unique perspective on how AAA has developed an internal brand as strong as its external legacy. On this episode, Kristin talks about developing new traditions, supporting employees through important transitions in their careers, and staying relevant over more than a century of business.

Quotes

*”Business partners are connectors, thought partners, advisors and solution finders. And really in today's world of an organization and the important role that employees play in the organization's success and the business' success, I think all HR folks should consider themselves business partners.”

*”To start traditions, you just have to try things out and see what sticks. And then you'll find that you iterate [and] people will gravitate to things that they like to do. People will start to ask about, ‘Oh, remember how fun that was? Let's do that again.’ And really, nothing has to be perfect the first time. Traditions and rituals, they really evolve over time. But even stories, stories that you have a part of the folklore of an organization, these are things that really connect people to the past and make them proud to be part of the future.”

*”When you can take those moments of time to reflect… and you give that moment of reflection and honor and recognition to someone's service, for example, that really has an important role to play in helping people feel proud, feel connected to the mission of AAA. And those moments of reflection play a very important role.”

*”Culture has to evolve. There are good elements of every culture and there are important elements of every culture. There's also elements that if you don't evolve them and they stay status quo, that they can actually be your downfall. And so an organization like AAA who is 120 years in the making obviously has so many good elements that have created that success. At the same time, you don't know that you need to change if your view is always standing inside your own building and looking out the window at others. And I think legacy organizations fall into that challenge.“

Time Stamps

*[7:20] The Flight Plan: Get to know AAA

*[10:04] First Class: Best EX practices at AAA

*[25:23] How to start your own traditions at your company

*[40:03] Turbulence: EX lessons learned

Links

Connect with Kristin on LinkedIn

Check out AAA

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io

This episode features an interview with Dan Weber, CHRO at Marsh McLennan Agency, Southwest. Marsh McLennan Agency is a global professional services firm that provides business insurance, employee health & benefits, retirement, and private client insurance solutions to organizations and individual clients. There, Dan leads the HR team and oversees compensation, benefits, onboarding, and more. On this episode, Dan talks with us about becoming a pied piper for talent, finding the sweet spot between responsibilities and compensation, and balancing professionalism and authenticity.

Quotes

*”We spend so much time in the business world focusing on our development areas, our weaknesses. But we sometimes forget that we bring natural talents and strengths and we can gain a lot by capitalizing on those while also looking at our blind spots. But if all we do is spend time on our blind spots, then we forget about some of the natural gifts and strengths that we have.”

*”One of the things we always emphasize with our supervisors - and that's [an] old term, but it's the best one I can use. I often like to say people managers that we're managers of people - and letting those people managers realize that they are often the most important conversation at their employees' dinner tables every night.”

*”Employees don't stay or leave an organization. They leave a boss. They leave that people manager. Or they stay because of that relationship.”

*”We do try to show folks that you can be a part of something that is bigger than yourself. That you are there during small business owners’ worst day, their absolute worst day. And you're there to let them know that they're covered. And that they are gonna be okay. That they're going to be able to recover because MMA was there for them. But it didn't start on that worst day. It started in the very beginning when our very technical professionals are able to look at that risk management spend and determine what is the right mix for them… And so when we sell the vision that you can be a part of something, a cause, you could be a part of giving organizations a peace of mind, that's one step. The next step is that your whole job is to make sure that important decision makers in the C-suite, from the CFO, the COO, the CEO, you're knee to knee with them, making sure that they are taking care of their most important line items, the most important spend, insuring their physical assets, but also insuring their employees. You can't get more important than that.”

*"I'm convinced 90% of employee relations situations are where an employee just needs to feel permission to take control of the situation, whether it's providing difficult feedback to someone who's In the interaction with them or to take themselves out of the equation and even leave the organization if they need to. But allowing them to regain a sense of control."

*"Communicate what you can control and communicate what you don't know. It is absolutely okay to say, ‘Here are the things that we know. Here are the things that we don't know.’ And the type of trust you get from that honesty and transparency is amazing. I can't tell you how many times through the pandemic I had to say, ‘I don't know, but as soon as I do, I'll let you know.’ And then giving folks something to count on.”

Time Stamps

*[4:56] The Flight Plan: Get to know Marsh McLennan Agency

*[12:50] First Class: Best EX practices at Marsh McLennan Agency

*[36:03] Turbulence: EX lessons learned

*[39:55] Smooth Landing: Advice for other EX leaders

Links

Connect with Dan on LinkedIn

Check out Marsh McLennan Agency

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io

This episode features an interview with John Jordan, Head of The Academy at Bank of America. He has been with Bank of America for nearly 20 years. Under his leadership, The Academy has received over 100 awards including becoming the first JD Power Certified Career Development organization. In his current role, John is responsible for serving Bank of America’s over 200,000 employees. He oversees employee onboarding, global learning and skill development for the company. And in this episode, he’s sharing with us how journey mapping the employee experience sets candidates up for success, how to identify candidates who may have otherwise fallen through the cracks, and how they create a lifelong learning experience.

Quotes

*”A best practice is thinking about every process that you have as a company with real granularity, spending time journey mapping experiences that you want to have. That means onboarding through your training experience. If you're not spending the time journey mapping everything from the email that they get when they get there day one, to that coaching session, then it's probably not happening the way that you expect it to happen.”

*”We really show that we prioritize people's skills and that we are invested in a lifelong learning experience. We really want people to be here to feel like it's not just about where I got my degree or where I graduated from high school. That can be decades ago for some. We want them to feel like they're currently being invested in and learning new skills… So as an academy, we try to make sure that we're building world class programs, not just to check a box, but things that really are tangible and that matter, and that are making an impact… They feel like the company is actually making it possible and investing real, tangible assets to make their jobs better and to make their careers more successful.”

*”We've continued to invest more and more into our people because we see the return on that investment. And the long term impact that it makes on the flexibility of our company and on the careers that our people have.”

*”When people just aren't able to do this function and we've tried training them, we've tried a bunch of different things and it's just not working, sometimes taking a step back and looking at a different way of training that skill, using a different technology or using a different approach is how we solve that.”

*”The thing that's helped me to be successful in this job and in a lot of jobs is [to] create a vision. To really understand that if you want something to happen, it's not going to start with just little incremental steps… without a vision, you're going to stay the same. So I think that you have to challenge yourself and have the courage to not let your fears get in the way of that vision. Not let doubts get in the way of that vision, but really take aggressive steps to accomplish it.”

*”You think about great leaders, great coaches, or great teachers. Sometimes they're the ones who you really don't like at all in the moment, but they're the most honest with you. And so, as a leader, I've found it tremendously important to be very honest with people. And whether or not they like what I'm saying, I tell them the truth with dignity to make sure that they understand exactly what the expectation is, what it is that they're missing, so that they can get better. And I think that if you take the approach where you're going to treat people with dignity and you're going to invest in them with truth, but also to push them to be better at what they do.”

*”In today's world, it'd be easy for us to just look in the traditional sources for talent. And those are still great sources. But I would say that if you really build programs like The academy has that creates a skills-based learning plan and onboarding for anybody, then it opens doors to a lot of people who might have fallen through the cracks… And that gives us the ability to hire so much more broadly, and opens talent doors that we may never [have] found before.”

Time Stamps

*[4:04] The Flight Plan: Get to know The Academy at Bank of America

*[12:57] First Class: Best EX practices at The Academy at Bank of America

*[26:47] Turbulence: EX lessons learned

*[37:16] Advice for other EX leaders

Links

Connect with John on LinkedIn

Check out The Academy at Bank of America

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io

This episode features an interview with Bala Sathyanarayanan, EVP & CHRO at Greif, Inc., a world-class global industrial packaging products and services provider. Grief is a legacy company, having been founded in 1877. It is also the 7th oldest publicly traded company in the United States with the same stock symbol. Prior to Greif, Bala served as EVP of Business Transformation and Human Resources at Xerox, and VP of Human Resources at Hewlett Packard. On this episode, Bala discusses how to develop an employee experience framework based on your business’ core values, how HR leaders are strategic partners to the business, and how to build a lasting legacy through servant leadership.

Quotes

*”When we operate in so many countries, there are multiple language barriers, which you need to go through. So how do you ensure that what you communicate lands appropriately so that everyone can act on the communication that is being said? One of the big challenges we have as an organization is thinking as one global organization. The headquarters is all about coming up with a framework on how you approach things in a way in which every country in which we operate can take the framework and apply the framework that suits the needs of the respective country operations.”

*”Every colleague in the company can be a leader, should be a leader, must be a leader, has the opportunity to be a leader. We believe as leaders, our job is to empower our colleagues to do the right thing for our customers. And we do not believe in a hierarchical organization. In fact, the style of leadership we practice at Greif, we call it servant leadership, which is I'm here to serve my colleagues in a way in which my colleagues could do the right thing to serve our customers.”

*”If a colleague feels safe, welcomed, celebrated, and cherished in the organization, they feel that they belong here. When they belong here, they could bring their whole selves to work. If you are supported by your manager in the organization, if you're provided a platform to learn, grow, and succeed, and if you could bring your whole self to work where you could feel safe, welcome, celebrated, and cherished, it can help drive organizations engagement up, and that could lead to better customer outcomes.” 

*”It feeds both ways. Just as they are helping the organization grow, the organization has an obligation to help our colleagues grow. So we meet them where they are and help them grow for colleagues who have demonstrated the desire and the ambition and have the attitude to grow.”

*”The purpose of the organization needs to be absolutely clear so that every colleague who makes a choice to come and work in the organization can see their personal purpose connected to the larger purpose.”

*”Perfection can be a big stumbling block in terms of getting stuff done for our colleagues. Our colleagues are absolutely fine with getting something 85, 90%, right. And then they'll help us get the bridge to the last 5% or 10%. And they also feel proud that they were part of the design process rather than shoving something down their throats saying, ‘I know what you need. Take this.’ That never works and that's been a big learning.”

*”Our job as leaders is to enable an ecosystem where our managers can have these conversations and build these IDPs, the individual development plans, on an individual basis. Personalize it to suit the needs of every colleague so that every colleague feels connected to their organization through the manager, because the manager is helping enable their career growth inside the organization.”

Time Stamps

*[4:08] The Flight Plan: Get to know Greif, Inc.

*[11:01] First Class: Best EX practices at Greif, Inc.

*[30:02] Turbulence: EX lessons learned

*[35:24] Advice for other EX leaders

Links

Connect with Bala on LinkedIn

Check out Greif, Inc.

Thanks to our friends

This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io