The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

134 - How CHROs can align themselves closer to revenue: Jessica Zwaan (Author, Built for People) & Ryan Bonnici (CMO, Gympass)

Oct 6, 2023

01:01:52

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Episode guests

Jessica Zwaan

Ryan Bonnici

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

HR leaders should align themselves closer to revenue to increase their influence and demonstrate their value.

HR leaders should adopt an iterative and agile approach, focusing on delivering value in smaller increments and embracing continuous improvement.

Challenges in aligning HR with revenue include resistance to change, conflicting expectations, and biases towards the value of HR.

Deep dives

HR leaders should prioritize understanding the revenue model

HR leaders should aim to understand the revenue model and how their role contributes to it. They should align themselves with revenue by recognizing that the closer they are to revenue, the more influence they have. It's important for HR leaders to understand how their impact on the business is measured by their CEO and the board. By understanding the expectations around revenue and aligning their goals with those expectations, HR leaders can demonstrate their value and contribute to the overall success of the company.

Introduction

2min

Celebrating Achievements and Prioritizing Wellness

5min

Origin Story and Friendship

6min

Selling Gympass to Companies and the Benefits of Employee Well-being

5min

Running a People Team Like a Product Team

31min

Traits of a Modern People Leader: Flexibility and Empowerment

2min

Balancing Results and Relationships in Leadership

9min

Jessica Zwaan (Author, Built for People) and Ryan Bonnici (CMO, Gympass), joined us on The Modern People Leader.

We talked about why HR should be considered a revenue generating function, how to align yourself closer to revenue as an HR leader, and why you don’t need to get the metrics perfect for every single people program.

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(2:17) Good news stories

(7:14) How Ryan and Jessica became Aussie besties

(10:15) Ryan’s career journey: flight attendant —> Salesforce —> HubSpot —> CMO at G2 —> CMO at Gympass

(15:40) Built for People is out

(22:05) How HR leaders can align themselves closer to revenue

(29:06) The CHRO role is the hardest role in the C-Suite

(31:15) HR is a revenue generating function

(32:32) Looking at things like the CAC to LTV ratio for employees

(37:06) You don’t need to get the ROI or the metrics perfect

(41:26) The waterfall style that HR has traditionally operated within

(47:40) Crawl, walk, run approach to marketing HR programs