The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

Joanna Kmiec, Vice President of People & Culture at Elastic Path, joined us on The Modern People Leader.   We talked about using metrics to drive your people strategy, understanding the pain points of other execs, and creating an employee experience that allows for flexibility and scale.   ---- This episode was brought to you by CandorIQ. Learn more here. ---- (3:03) Good news stories (8:00) The two things important to her in her career: thinking strategically & HR being viewed as a partner (13:38) What Elastic Path does (15:01) Why we should be jealous she gets to work there (16:48) State of the union for talent in Canada (20:25) Rebuilding trust and doing more with less (22:00) You can’t wait to put emphasis on your Employee Experience (24:30) Ways people teams can save money and do more with less (28:13) Using metrics to drive your people strategy gives you credibility (31:43) Asking the “odd question”: Figuring out the pain points of other execs (35:00) Having a leadership team first approach (37:30) The rest of the C-Suite need to understand the strategic nature of HR (42:23) “Full elastic approach”: Remote-first, their asynchronous charter, and having a flexible approach to all of their programs (47:55) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Joanna Kmiec on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn

Helen Russell, Chief People Officer at Rivian, discusses scaling culture, changing the face of manufacturing employees, and improving decision-making. Topics include her career journey, onboarding process, capturing essence of Rivian's early days, involving frontline employees in IPO, and spotting leaders for growth.

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.  ---- (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 (49:31) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Jessica Zwaan on LinkedIn 🛎 Follow Ryan Bonnici on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn ---- We're gifting free copies of Jessica's book, Built for People. The first 5 people to shoot me (⁠Daniel⁠) a LinkedIn DM get one.

Dr. Vivienne Ming (Professional Mad Scientist), joined us on The Modern People Leader.   We talked about letting AI replace the routine work, the qualities of the smartest teams, and how to foster collective intelligence.  ---- (2:00) Good news stories (6:00) Digging under the surface to get to the root of problems (20:45) Her career journey as an entrepreneur and scientist (33:00) History of AI over the last 25 years (41:56) Three definitions of AI (48:39) The non routine is what’s left of our jobs after AI (56:30) Building AI to augment people (58:12) Teaching future generations how to learn (1:01:06) What separates the most elite performers from everyone else (1:09:54) The 3 qualities of the “smartest teams” (1:17:10) Psychological safety isn’t just a squishy idea about not hurting people’s feelings (1:23:20) How to foster collective intelligence at your company (1:34:45) Identifying pockets of low psychological safety (1:43:30) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Dr. Vivienne Ming on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn

Alex Seiler (Former GHJ Chief People Officer, ex WeWork & NBC, and Advisor), joined us on The Modern People Leader.   We talked about navigating major life and career changes, the impact of indecisive leadership on Chief People Officers, and the 3 intangibles he’s looking for in his next CPO role. ---- (2:51) Good news stories (9:23) Alex’s career journey (12:58) Navigating major life and career changes (17:40) Seeking out help for whatever is on the horizon (21:40) The indecisiveness amongst leadership teams & the impact that’s having on CPOs (24:33) It’s not about winning every battle as a people leader (26:18) What’s keeping Alex up at night: AI and DEI  (29:08) The ‘AI Operations Engineer’ role (34:01) Alex’s biggest accomplishments at GHJ (35:25) The ‘Team within a Team” concept (36:53) What he would have done differently at GHJ (38:11) Plotting out his next career move & his career vision board (43:18) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Alex Seiler on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn

Kerry-Ann Stimpson, host of The Internal Marketing Podcast, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about the key pillars of internal marketing, why her company started an internal podcast, and how to use employee surveys to do internal marketing research. ---- (1:23) Good news stories (4:27) Kerry-Ann’s career in marketing and how that led to her passion in the people space (7:05) Why she started The Internal Marketing Podcast (8:40) What JMMB does (10:50) The types of guests she’s had on her podcast (12:30) What good internal marketing looks like (15:05) Why internal marketing still isn’t getting the attention it deserves (19:20) The different between internal communications and internal marketing (20:58) The key pillars of internal marketing (23:02) Giving employees the tools and skills to build their personal brands (28:18) Starting your own internal podcast for your company (29:40) You don’t need a fancy set up for your internal podcast (30:50) Using employee surveys to test the affinity for your brand (36:17) Auditing your recruitment process to identify people who are aligned with your mission, vision, and purpose of your brand (40:40) The CMO <> CPO partnership (45:15) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Kerry-Ann on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn

L. David Kingsley, Chief People Leader at Illumio, discusses how boards are looking at HR and the evolution from HR 1.0 to 3.0. They touch on the numeracy required for the CHRO role and the reinvigoration of HR in profit-driven companies. The importance of having the CEO, Chief People Officer, Chief Legal Officer, and CFO in balance is emphasized.

Andrew Bartlow, Co-Founder of the People Leader Accelerator, discusses why this is the year of productivity, the data points to consider for remote vs. in-office decisions, and the importance of being brilliant at the basics of HR. He also talks about the challenges faced by people leaders, the expectations on them today, and the risk of chasing shiny new things instead of focusing on the basics. Subscribe to the newsletter and follow Andrew Bartlow and The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn.

Roshan Kindred, Chief Diversity Officer at PagerDuty, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about why now is the time to double down on DEI, holding leaders accountable for diverse representation, and why PagerDuty leads with inclusion. ---- (2:40) Good news stories (6:48) Her career journey (13:40) What PagerDuty does (14:08) Why we should be jealous Roshan gets to work at PagerDuty (16:53) The first DEIB program she helped create (24:51) Are we making real progress on DEIB (31:53) Why now is the time to double down on DEIB (36:45) Holding leaders accountable for diverse representation (41:50) Wellbeing of employees (42:40) Establishing a point of view (49:39) Why they refer to DEI as IDE (51:50) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Roshan Kindred on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn

Roz Francuz Harris, VP of Talent Acquisition at Zillow, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about Zillow’s ‘CloudHQ’, the massive impact that CloudHQ has had on DEIB metrics, and why Talent leaders should embrace AI. ---- (2:45) Good news stories (7:50) Her career: Preparation meets opportunity  (11:33) What Zillow does (12:56) Why we should be jealous she gets to work at Zillow (14:37) CloudHQ at Zillow (17:00) There are brilliant people EVERYWHERE  (20:20) Giving access to the same opportunities to everyone (22:30) Zillow’s commitment to distributed work (25:03) The 3 core values that CloudHQ is rooted in (27:50) The most challenging aspect of making the transition to CloudHQ (31:34) The stats: CloudHQ’s huge impact on Zillow’s DEIB metrics (38:30) How the TA team is using AI (40:50) Message to other TA leaders: embrace AI (46:20) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Roz Francuz-Harris on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn