Expert HR Insights: Talent Management & Leadership With Mark Griffin - Podcast S2E9 | JKLAdvisors.ai

Thanks Jeff, I'm equally excited to be here.

You know, no problem. It happens all the time. We gotta adapt and move on, so I'm excited to talk to you this morning.

Sure. And I think it's a variety of things. There's really not one thing you do to prepare for a role like this. And I'm really excited about the experience I have had. I think it's a couple things, Jeff. It's one, it's being able to connect and work with multiple leaders. You get to work with people with different styles, different motives, and you know how they operate, and you'll learn how to effectively influence multiple different styles. Industries are also important, and I think having different industries under your belt and having experience there just makes you a broader thinker and allows you to kind of apply different concepts to other parts of the business. And then I would say acquisitions. I've done a lot of acquisitions at Fleet Bank and of course, as you know, we did a lot at CVS Health. And no acquisition is the same, and you learn so much when you do them. And you also learn how to influence culture, merging two companies together or one acquiring another. There's a big people component of it. And just about every merger I've been involved in or acquisition, the executive team always says that at the end of the day, if we don't get the people equation right, then it's not going to be successful. So I think those are the things in my experience and in my past that really helped around me.

Well, I tell you, yeah, you definitely have had a plethora of opportunities between Fleet and BJ's and obviously CVS. But the fun part about this is that you're a real person. You have real interests outside of work. So what do you do for fun? And to be frank, I hear that you might have a little side hustle going on. So tell us about that.

Oh yeah. So I've been in Corporate America for over 35 years, and a good friend of mine and his brother are opening up a restaurant slash pub in Franklin, Massachusetts, and I'm an investor in that. And I'm really excited about it. It's something completely different. And although I'm just an investor, it's fun to kind of experience a different challenge as a small business owner, if you will. But also, I like doing some active things, Jeff. You know I'm a boater. I like being out on the water, out on the ocean. It kind of soothes the soul, and I think it's something that really gets me relaxed but also rejuvenated. I also like to ride motorcycles, especially off-road. And that's always been something I've done as a kid, and I guess I have never grown up. I tell you, people still talk about to this day the Ohio State Michigan game when you came over to the house on your motorcycle, and everybody goes, 'Who's that just hopped off his motorcycle to come to your house for the big ball game?' And I was like, 'Oh, that's Griffin. You know, that's Mark. It's the best way to travel.'

Jeff, that's a great question because it happens all the time. If you're an HR business partner or if you're a Chief HR Officer, you're going to have multiple times in your career, and I would say probably each week, there's an opportunity to kind of coach or counsel or give some feedback that an executive or a leader does not want to hear. I think it's not only the job of an HR person to deliver that information, but it's really the responsibility frankly, because if the HR person is not willing to have that tough discussion, then you know who is? So I think it's an important role that HR plays. One thing that comes to mind is I worked with a leader that had an average team under them from a talent perspective and was kind of blind to the fact, and was very loyal to his team, which is good, but was a little bit blind to the fact that while they were getting the job done, they weren't the talent that's gonna overachieve or take the company to the next level. And despite a lot of feedback and a lot of discussions, this leader would not budge on his people. So I think that's where you have to get creative a little bit. You're having a tough discussion, the individual doesn't really want to hear it, may not believe it because they think their team is just fine, and others in the organization know that that's not the team that's going to move us ahead. It's a team that may be able to keep the lights on, but not what was ahead. So I think in that case, it's really leveraging other leaders around this individual. One thing I think was really impactful is when you hire top talent in other areas, the message and the accomplishments all rise accordingly, and so it puts pressure on this leader when everyone else started to hire better talent. The organization's starting to grow faster, people are achieving things at a higher rate and hitting metrics that we've never hit before, and his team is not keeping up with that. Again, they're keeping the lights on. So it was kind of a tough example for him to see and hear, but the strategy was, listen, let him, despite all the coaching, let him see what real talent looks like. And then he kind of was able to see that in action, and now we're in a good place from the bench strength standpoint on this team.

Totally. And I think, Jeff, an important thing to think about is not just do you have the right team to get things done today, but you have to think in the future. Is this the right team to flex as the company grows? The company where it needs to be, do you have the individuals that can take the company and hit the long-term growth plans? And sometimes that's a different talent and a different skill set from a steady personnel that is delivering results. Can that person really overachieve and create the results that bring a company from one place to another? And that's really the way to measure talent is not just how are they doing on the role today, but do they have a capability for the future?

Oh, I love food analogies. Boy, do I love those. And coffee, we'll slip one of those in there next.

Sure. Well, I'll start with an obvious one, and then I'll talk about something that's more kind of specific to the business. COVID and the pandemic was something that you have a people plan in place, but I would suggest that most people plans did not have how do you deal with a pandemic as part of their people plan. So I just think that that was an opportunity. Yes, it hurt companies. A lot of people were sick and died because of COVID, and it was a very difficult time period. But I had the experience at BJ's here where we capitalized on an opportunity to really connect with our team members and send a message to them that we care about their health and well-being first and foremost. And we did a variety of things, whether it's changing policies, increasing pay, the type of sanitation we did in our stores and clubs if one person had COVID. So I think it was the type of thing that you could, as a leader and an executive team, step back and kind of try to avoid it, or you can jump in and really show the company how you handle yourself during a crisis. And I think I view some of those unexpected things that you were talking about, Jeff, as frankly opportunities. Opportunities that send a message to your employees about the values of the company. So you had this great opportunity to do that with COVID, and I think the companies that took advantage of that are the ones that are really thriving today. The other example that you really can't avoid frankly is the labor market and hiring and talent. I mean, that's the hottest thing right now across all industries. How do you retain the talent? How do you find talent? And frankly, afford the right talent based on inflation and wage rates and all of that. So I think, being a retailer of course, we're right in the middle of it, especially with lots of hourly retail jobs that are front line that take care of our members every day. And I think the first thing is you gotta get paid in compensation right. And I've never seen it move this fast. You could have a compensation survey and they're using that for market data, and you realize that this survey may only be months old, but it's already out of date because some market is moving so fast. So being able to leverage the leaders and the operators on the ground, your talent acquisition team as they're talking to candidates all the time, and I think in order to get the wage rates correct, you can't just use the typical market data that you get from a survey anymore. You have to use multiple data points because the market's just moving too fast. And then the other thing is you gotta retain people. And the companies that I've been in did a great job with engagement surveys. Taking a survey doesn't really do anything. It's the actions you take after your employees take the survey and making sure they all know that you heard their voice and there are substantial examples of change. So constantly go back and remind folks, listen, we heard your voice, we heard your comments on this topic, and here's what we're doing to address it. In my last two companies, we drove a very high participation rate of employees that take the survey, and I think it's only because they know it's not a waste of time to do it, because the executive team will step up, they'll read it, they'll respond to it, we'll talk about it, and we'll take action. When it comes out next year, people are willing, you know what, I'll invest 10 minutes to take the survey again because some stuff actually got done from the last one. So very important to take action on that. With this market going so fast, I mentioned rate and pay and compensation, but that just gets people in the door, because every company is looking at raising rates and making sure they have the right compensation in place. It's the culture you build that's how you keep people. People usually don't leave for money as their first priority. Certainly some do, but all the exit data we've looked at over the years, leaving for more pay is usually not number one. It's usually the leader or lack of leadership from their direct leader, or it's the culture and the environment of the company. Those are the factors that usually rise to the top when people leave. So very important to train and coach leaders on how to be effective, hold people accountable but in a coaching way. And then I think the other piece is really lead with positive intent, lead with empathy, and in this day and age, lead with flexibility. Flexibility in schedules. People have a lot going on in their lives, whether it's daycare or daycare's closed, or whether it's school, or whether it's medical appointments. Flexibility in schedule sends a message to the employee that the company cares about them, my boss cares about me because they're being flexible and they understand that I have a life outside of work. It actually demonstrates and shows that you care rather than just talking about caring. That's where I think a lot of leaders make that critical mistake. They talk, talk, talk, 'Oh, I care, my people are my most important asset, blah, blah, blah.' We hear that all the time, and the people don't want to hear that. They want you to show them that you care. 'Hey, I just gave you a pay increase of a buck fifty an hour to help keep you whole with what the market's moving, and you never had to ask.' Wow, that's a big deal. 'Oh, by the way, I understand that people's schedules may have changed because of the pandemic and because of other things have shifted, so we're about to create a flex schedule that allows you to pick your own hours maybe better, or to be able to rotate and be able to have time off maybe whenever your child is leaving the bus and they want to get picked up from the bus, or have the time off to be at important events or games.' That's huge. I know you and I are very involved in our children's lives, so when they were younger, we appreciated the flexibility of our employers have always given us. When those things happen, we've worked long hours, it certainly wasn't that we worked less, but they gave us the time that was important to be able to spend it with our children, which is critical. And I think we can reflect the same on our folks. So that's great advice.

That sounds like one of the themes I heard from you, Mark, is that right? Absolutely. I think it's the thing that you've gotta establish the culture at the top of the house, at the top executive level, but you have to test for it as it goes down in the organization. Check and see. I found it's not just the top executive. You get everybody on board and it's like, 'Oh, we have a great culture because we're all driving flexibility, we care about our team members.' Well, you have to check all the way down the line because from an employee perspective, it only matters what their leader, how their leader is treating them, not what the CEO or the Chief HR Officer is talking about. So of course that's extremely important because that kind of sets the stage, but I think from an HR perspective and other business leaders, you need to test for that down in the hierarchy of the organization and make sure everybody is leading with that sense of empathy and flexibility.

Yeah, I mean, two things come to mind, Jeff. One is around merit and compensation time. Most companies do this in the first quarter, that you have a robust calibration process. And to be more specific, this is where, let's say, you bring in all your senior vice presidents and each one of them speaks about their vice presidents, what rating they gave them, why they gave them that rating, and then you get cross-functional feedback. Everybody can say, 'I totally agree with that rating. That person's a rock star. Here's an example of what they've done.' Or it could be, 'You know what, that rating is a little bit of a stretch because I find that this individual is not very proactive.' So you have that kind of dialogue, which gives feedback to the leader that he or she doesn't always hear, plus you end up with a calibrated organization so there's not one department that has higher rated people and they get bigger bonuses and bigger increases, because that just creates concern and resentment across other parts of the organization. The bigger piece of it though is talent reviews. This is a process that I've done in the past, we're currently doing this, where each organization has the leaders get together, the HR business partner runs this, and it's a discussion of the talent. You could pick the level, and it might be all managers, it might be directors and above, but you have a talent review where you're discussing things like not just performance but potential. And that's a difference from the calibration. Now you're talking about potential. Can this person relocate if that's important? What kind of upside do they have from a potential perspective? Is it up one level? Is it up two levels? Are they a candidate for a cross-functional project? If they're high potential, what development opportunities are we going to give them? Do we move them to another part of the business? The output of the talent reviews for each of the organizations roll up, and then what you end up with is the identification of your true high potentials. Not just the best performers because they're new or they might have been put in a stretch role. Of course performance is usually very strong for these individuals, but these are your future leaders. These are the leaders that are going to get promoted up in the organization. So if you're not talking about them at least two or three times a year, then they don't get the right development, they don't get the right experiences and exposure. What has been a nice outcome is we've identified people in all parts of the organization that are the highest potential, and we then will light up a dinner with a CEO, maybe they join an executive staff meeting or a strategy session, and they contribute but also hear and observe what's happening, and frankly they get exposure that they wouldn't get before. So those are the things that I think are really important that make a difference in the organization. And talk about a great retention opportunity for some of your highest potential and highest performing individuals, because getting exposure at those senior levels allows them to feel like, 'Oh, there's a future. There's a value. These people really want to invest in me.' So that's great.

Yeah, I didn't go weekly. I thought that was good.

Hey, I'm not against trying something once.

I think the first part of it is the partnership. You mentioned in that example, it might be a CEO that has gone through their network of talent and people they know out in the industry. Your head of HR is going to know a lot of people as well, or at least most people know people, so they're well connected in terms of talent. But I think a big piece of it is don't settle for okay talent. Good talent, okay talent, is pretty easy to find in the marketplace. There are jobs, and this is a tough time to find people, but really great talent is hard to find. And really great talent are usually the ones that are not actively looking for an opportunity. They're passive candidates. You need to tap them on the shoulder. I think it's leveraging the board, your board of directors, for talent. Who do they know? Who have they experienced? Who do they know that might know something? So I think the whole network piece continues to be extremely strong. Plus, through networking, you already have eyes on that individual. You know somebody who has seen them work, and so there's a bit of a proven entity there. I think by hiring the best talent, what I would really encourage CEOs to focus on is not just the technical talent or the functional talent of an individual, but the leadership and culture impact they're going to make on the organization. In other words, not just a person with really high IQ, they have to have the high EQ as well. A couple things about that. One, when you hire a person who is also a really good leader, a motivator, you enrich your culture. I've seen it before where you hire people who are really good at what they do but they're not good leaders or motivators and don't have the right set of values. Well, what happens is people look and say, 'Okay, well the CEO and the Chief HR Officer, they endorse this person, they hire this person, so culture must not be important to them, or they're willing to look the other way at times where talent don't live the same values.' The other thing you get by hiring somebody who is a really good leader is their talent magnetism. We just talked about networking and talking to the board and talking to HR, but the best recruiting I have seen is hiring great leaders who people want to work for them. And then you know what, you hire them and they come with a Rolodex, and more importantly they come with people that want to work for them. And they're usually the leaders that have brought people with them into multiple organizations. And then it's a lot easier. So the best networking is hiring the best people with the right leadership style of a motivator and value people, and then the talent comes. The talent follows them.

Yeah, listen, I think there's a lot of things that a CEO can do to make them successful and the company successful. With my background and my experiences, I'm obviously going to pull this one back towards people. It's funny, I think though, you think of the Chief People Officer. Some Chief HR Officers are now called the Chief People Officer. I've always viewed the CEO as the Chief People Officer, because they really are. The HR leader needs to partner with a CEO, needs to be working side by side, but the CEO really sets the culture and drives the culture. And I think it's getting out there and communicating. It's having town halls frequently, leveraging technology. It's easy to pull a thousand people together on a town hall a few years ago with Zoom, and you can do it awesome. You can do it every week or every other week, and hearing about the business. I think one thing that we did really well during the pandemic is we started to have town halls like weekly, and then it went bi-weekly, but it was talking about the business, it was reassuring people that things are okay, talking to people about what we're doing to keep them safe and healthy. But having the CEO out there talking to people, and then we were back in the office, moving around, walking around, saying hi to people, being visible. That's the culture starter right there. So from a CEO standpoint, and this is true if you're a president of a large division, you're really the Chief People Officer when it comes to setting that bar, setting the standards, setting the objectives, but also driving the values of the culture. And of course, HR can certainly help with that, can be a big part of that. But I would suggest thinking of yourself that you are the Chief Executive Officer and also the Chief People Officer. That's probably a good framework.

For me, it's a little bit back to leveraging the HR leader and HR team, but make sure you're holding them accountable to do the right things in the business as well. You've probably heard this thing, does HR have a seat at the table? They should have a seat at the table, but you know what, they shouldn't just be in that seat. They should earn that seat. So I would suggest that you make the Chief HR Officer earn that seat at the table. And what I've found clearly, and in my choir like Jess as you would know, is that newer part of my team and clearly the team I have right now is that the Chief HR Officer can't do it alone. They need strong HR business leaders that are below them that are partnering day-to-day with the other business leaders. And I have a fabulous team at BJ's, and they make a big impact every day. So if business leaders are not looking for HR support and guidance in most of the moves or every move that we make, that's an opportunity for your HR team to kind of step up. So that's kind of where I would leave it. And I would also say that everything your HR team does, or the goals or the priorities that are led by the Chief HR Officer, should be directly aligned to the business outcomes and the business goals. HR shouldn't be doing things that make HR feel good. They should be things that are driving business, linked to the business, and creating better outcomes for the business. So my HR business partners and leaders, all their goals are aligned exactly to what the business is, and they need to understand how the human capital piece of it, the talent piece of it, is going to help the business leader drive their outcomes. So having that direct link, I think, is what ends up getting HR that seat at the table.