Today I'm lucky to have on the show the Chief People Officer at Wayfair, Kate Gulliver. Informed by her career across many different parts of the company, Kate shares her vision and strategies on consistency and support for the hugely varying needs within the company. From the evergreen people principles at Wayfair, to the importance of collaborative cohesion and always assuming the best of your co-workers integrity, we learn what it means to be part of the network of employees that are touched and supported by the talent division. She also shares with us her strategies for creating umbrella support across the business while providing equity of opportunity for every team member at Wayfair. We then dissect the interviewing process, the intricacies of internal mobility, and developing a system of internal mobility hires within senior and junior levels.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Some background on Kate's journey to becoming the Chief People Officer at Wayfair.
• How Kate's moves through the company have each allowed her access and insight into all the facets of the business.
• Running the IPO process and what that taught her regarding competitive advantages.
• Talent allowing deeper understanding and high expectations of consistent support, all the way from the warehouse to the VP head of Storefront Engineering.
• "People principles" and how individuals show up to that work.
• These people principles being the guiding principles for cohesive planning that serves every member of the Wayfair team.
• Evergreen nature of the people principles, communicated across the board to allow for effective collaboration.
• Kate's favourite people principles including effective collaboration, respect others, assume integrity of your co-workers, build the best team (and the importance of equitable opportunities).
• OKRs include equitable opportunities and representation for underrepresented groups, encompassing internal and external recruitment at all levels.
• The wayfair jungle gym - talent opportunities interweaving career development (internal mobility) and talent acquisition recruiting.
• Different ways this is done according to seniority level.
• Complicated factors to consider regarding communication around changing roles internally.
• The importance of consistency with the people principles across all these processes, right from hiring to performance review to coaching.
• The different components in the Wayfair interviewing process.
• What to do if you aspire to wind up in people leadership at Wayfair.

Tweetables:

"It starts with how we define what it means to be a team member at Wayfair and that's through our people principles, which is how we characterized how we want people to show that work and how we hope and expect the people operate with each other." — [0:05:24]

"Collaboration is core to our success, to work effectively you have to know how to work across multiple teams, get the alignment that you need and be transparent." — [0:07:30]

"We have different hot jobs that we highlight each week so that people know what is out there and then provide examples of people that have been successful in internal mobility." — [0:15:27]

"Helping to build other teams throughout Wayfair benefits Wayfair, and that means that you as a manager are great at developing talent." — [0:18:08]

"You know, all employees, team members really want to know, "How do I perform at my best? What is expected of me?" — [0:22:04]

Links Mentioned in Today's Episode:

Talk Talent to Me

Kate Gulliver on LinkedIn

Wayfair