The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

Dena Upton, Chief People Officer at Drift, joined us on The Modern People Leader the other day. Drift is a hyper-growth startup (440 employees) that has been named to Deloitte's Fast 500 List, Forbes' AI 50 List, and Inc.'s of the Best Workplaces of 2020. Dena shared the details around Drift's recent decision to go Digital First: Defining Digital First, how it’s different than a hybrid approach, and why it’s a mindset shift (10:33), why the hybrid approach will start to deteriorate post-pandemic (13:38), doubling down on what’s working for your culture in a digital work environment (16:16), Monday Metrics and Friday Show & Tell (18:52), giving employees permission to make big life decisions and picking an edge (21:04), focusing on impact and outcomes over facetime (28:56), putting the finishing touches to their culture deck (30:24), the importance of storytelling and showing your work (34:39), the Drift leadership team’s commitment to their people agenda (37:01) relocation and market-based compensation (39:12), and the metrics that Dena is constantly looking at (46:00). If you have any feedback for the MPL podcast or would like to connect, don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn: Daniel Huerta and Stephen Huerta

Our guest today was Lyndsay Lord, CHRO at Team Car Care, dba Jiffy Lube, the largest Jiffy Lube franchisee in the US. For all of the HR practitioners that work in multi-unit businesses, this episode is for you! And for everyone else, listen to Lyndsay on why working in HR for a blue-collar company is so rewarding. What we covered: focusing on their 5,000 teammates to deliver an amazing guest experience (7:32), how role clarity can drive high engagement (9:43), building a strong data foundation on the HR side (11:51), 2021 will be the year of anticipation with their analytics (12:13), managing data for a multi-unit business (13:58), laying out a clear career path for employees (16:32), identifying high-potential teammates to promote (20:34), working in HR for white-collar vs. blue-collar companies (21:39), listening to employees to make their experience better (29:29), trainings to develop inclusive leaders (36:20), International Women’s Day shoutouts (39:49), qualities of the great leaders she’s worked with (43:30), navigating motherhood while focusing on your career (45:00), and more. If you have any feedback for the MPL podcast or would like to connect, don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn: Daniel Huerta and Stephen Huerta

Our guest today was Jennifer Paxton, VP of People + Talent at Privy.  We covered quite a bit: the craziest thing she's experienced in her career (0:49), why she loves her job (3:30), the monthly HR/Talent breakfast that she hosts (8:26), the employee preference for a quarterly performance review vs. the manager pushback for a less frequent cadence (13:48), how she built Privy's performance review process from scratch (18:16), how she built a competency bank & tailored competencies for different teams (19:49), the debate on whether or not to include self-assessments (31:24), how to enable managers to have professional growth conversations with their direct reports (37:21), and more. If you have any feedback for the MPL podcast or would like to connect, don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn: Daniel Huerta and Stephen Huerta

Today we talked about the importance of anonymous feedback and the new “gray area” that has emerged: challenges companies are having taking action on employee feedback (1:32), skepticism from employees on survey anonymity (5:35), “confidential” surveys that aren’t truly anonymous (10:48), the argument for pseudo-anonymous feedback (12:56), what a world of fully-attributed surveys would look like (20:01), and how people might be able to one-day “opt-in” to attributed feedback channels (23:33). If you have any feedback for the MPL podcast or would like to connect, don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn: Daniel Huerta and Stephen Huerta

Our guest today was Chris Walker, CEO of Refine Labs. Chris has grown his business from 1 person to 20 in the past 16-18 months, and he plans on being at 100 by the end of 2022. 100% of their growth (on both the customer and people side) has come from the employer brand that they've been able to build on LinkedIn. He gives a full breakdown of how they do it. We then talk about how he vets 900+ candidates for roles (16:10), how they've built an army of employee advocates on social media (23:38), why they are a 100% remote-based company (40:17), and more.  If you have any feedback for the MPL podcast, don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn: Daniel Huerta and Stephen Huerta

Our guest today was Al Polizzi, Chief People Officer at VetCor. We talk about her love for dogs (0:48), how she transitioned from an English professor to HR (3:27), how VetCor is finding ways for employees to connect (16:42), their virtual onboarding “buddy system” (20:51), how they implemented their first-ever virtual career fair (25:36), why companies should stop selling an inauthentic version of themselves to candidates (26:56), her definition of employee engagement (30:02), how they’re connecting employees to teach one another (36:05), the “Tech Life” Facebook group for Vet Techs at VetCor (39:33), creating change champions for mental wellness programs (42:40), and finding “reverse mentors” across your front-line workers. If you have any feedback or suggestions on future topics/speakers, please reach out to us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenhuerta/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-huerta-74661390/

For our first expert session, we spoke with Gloria Chan Packer, the Principal Advisor at Recalibrate. She shares her personal mental wellness journey (2:26), her thoughts on being in the midst of a mental health crisis (12:33), the obligation from organizations to support mental wellness in the workplace (18:25), what a modern mental wellness program looks like (35:23), why giant corporate subscriptions to Headspace might not be the answer (40:33), and how to measure the effectiveness of your wellness programs (42:37). If you have any follow up questions for Gloria, here's a link to her LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriachanpacker/ And if you have any feedback or suggestions on future topics/speakers, please reach out to us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenhuerta/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-huerta-74661390/

Today we discuss what a "quarterly pulse engagement survey" is and how much time in HR is being spent on manual work. For more content, subscribe to The Modern People Leader on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

In this episode, we talk with Dilshan Ratnayake, EVP & Chief People Officer at Securonix. This was a fun one. The topics covered range from: How his daughter thinks of his job as “superhero” like, Seeking his mom’s counsel when making career changes, Meeting your organization where they’re at as a new CPO & not coming in and making immediate changes, Discipline & execution beat bells and whistles any day in HR, Why every HR practitioner should try a role in operations, and His strong belief in Leadership Accelerator Programs For more content, subscribe to The Modern People Leader on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Today we discuss 3 hard truths in HR: 1) HR as a whole needs to collaborate better, 2) The underutilization of HR Tech, and 3) HR's inability to take advantage of the data that they have.  For more content, subscribe to The Modern People Leader on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.