(gentle music)
- Now I'm pleased to be joined
by an amazing group of leaders
with a depth of knowledge and involvement
in shaping the employee experience
inside their own world-renowned organizations.
I'm here with Josh Bersin, who is widely recognized
as one of the foremost industry experts
on employee experience,
Neeraj Tolmare, CIO of the Coca-Cola Company,
Steve McCrystal, CTO of Unilever,
and Microsoft's own Chief People Officer, Kathleen Hogan.
Thank you all so much for joining me.
We're gonna start off, Josh,
with a question for you.
What are some of the challenges organizations are facing
with employee experience today,
and what do you see as the opportunity
before us to help them solve those challenges?
- It's a hugely-complicated, multi-product market,
and there really isn't a platform yet
that can integrate it all together.
And so a couple of years ago as an analyst,
I wrote a big piece on something which I called
"The Employee Experience Platform,"
and it was really more of an idea than a reality.
And I think Microsoft,
because of the nature of your products,
and of course the size and scale of what you do,
you have the opportunity to be that integrating platform.
- Thanks, Josh, really appreciate your insights
and your vision.
Neeraj, what's been your experience,
both prior and amid the current pandemic,
especially in terms of engaging and supporting
Coca-Cola's diverse global employee base?
- Yeah thanks, Jared, for the question.
Scale is not only a critical component of what we do,
but it's also a key leverage point for us,
given that we operate in almost every part of the world.
So having connected technology platforms,
make it easier for success to travel
from one part of the world to another.
We're looking at how can all these solutions
be connected in a seamless way
that ultimately makes it easier
for our employees to do their jobs?
Whether we work remote or in the offices doesn't matter.
And I think that's what COVID has taught us,
is regardless of where we are,
we can actually make the work environment simpler.
And that underlying platforms play a major role in it.
- Thank you.
Steve, Unilever I know, has invested for a long time
in employee experience.
How would you characterize the impact
that the work you're doing here on employee experiences
had overall to date,
and what do you expect in the future?
- So when we kind of moved towards,
towards a lockdown mode and having to move our whole,
the whole operation to work remotely,
we were quite well-prepared for that.
The other thing Jared, that we've really experienced
is the importance of wellbeing.
Of course, there's a physical wellbeing,
and so we have, you know,
techniques and tools we've been applying
to figure out, are people safe and healthy.
That also links to the,
their wellbeing and their emotional wellness, right?
And that has become really hot for us right now.
How do we understand how people are coping
during these times?
We really worry about that.
We feel we have a responsibility
to help people on that front.
We use some of the workplace analytics, I think,
which is really interesting I have to say,
because we had workplace analytics in place
for some time.
And it was kind of interesting.
You know, we'd look at it a little bit,
sort of see kind of what the trends were, et cetera.
You know, now it is,
it's become a little bit of the lifeblood for us.
Because now we can easily see,
if we look at it in aggregate,
we can see which teams are stretched, you know.
Are there leaders that we need to work with
to help them do something different
to enable their employees to get a little bit of,
a little bit of support?
- I really appreciate your insight on that.
Thank you, Steve.
Kathleen, very excited to have you here with us.
I really appreciate the partnership that we have had.
Your team has just been integral as you well know,
to all of the work we've been doing on Viva
and this entire space.
I wanna talk a little bit
about your work inside of Microsoft.
You've been a big advocate of putting people first
from the very beginning.
How's the partnership between HR, IT
and other leaders in the companies
changed in the recent months,
as we have gone through the pandemic together,
still in the middle of it,
and as we think about the employee experience?
- You know, I think as CHROs, we've been focused forever
about attracting, developing, retaining exceptional talent
and really using, you know, great experiences
to change the trajectory of the business.
But I think the last year we've been focusing,
and I think it's been said,
taking care of our employees
and really focusing on just not physical wellbeing,
but also mental health,
and really thinking about our employees
from that dimension.
Huge focus on our managers,
just given this unprecedented time.
How do we help our managers model coaching care
for our employees?
How do we help our managers with the insights to do that?
Really having that pulse on employee sentiment,
really help our managers make good decisions.
How do you onboard folks
who've never met their manager?
How do you have team meetings that are all digital,
but you still have that emotion?
How do you train and help folks
in terms of continuing to build their skills?
And I think that partnership with IT
has been absolutely essential.
- You know, another really important aspect
of this introduction to me is that many companies
don't have massive IT departments
that can stitch together all of these employee applications.
So they want a platform that's an integration
easy-to-use destination for employees to do their work
and improve their employee experience
and interact with HR and learning and wellbeing
and all the other things they need to do.
And I think that's what Viva is all about,
is being that platform,
you know, for all size of companies.
- I would just say, as I talk with my peers,
similar to Microsoft,
they have disparate systems
that they're looking to integrate
so they can deliver those insights to managers,
so they can deliver that simplified,
great experience to employees.
And they're asking for help,
because they want to deliver that for their employees,
for their managers.
But they need that integration.
And as they look at what we're doing at Microsoft,
often they say, "Can you just give that to us?"
- Well, that's the perfect note to finish on.
Thank you all so much for your time today,
and we wish you the best.
Viva's the first step in a journey
as we work to help our customers
foster wellbeing, belonging and growth
for every person in their organization.
Be sure to learn more at our new Viva Product Hub.
And thank you for joining today. Goodbye.