May 25, 2022
Back to the Talent Tide Podcast
Description
Join Chris as he discusses the issues surrounding Staffing in the Auto Industry with a panel of individuals from diverse backgrounds:
Molly Cantalini
Recruiting Manager, Manufacturing and Sourcing, General Motors
Brian Wilson
VP Midwest, US Automotive leader, Microsoft
Tuyen Tran
Head of Recruiting, Product and Engineering Operations, Waymo
David Stanislaw
Founder and Principal of Stanislaw Consulting, LLC
Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
company, people, organizations, employees, microsoft, talent, question, molly, candidates, work, job description, gm, general motors, brian, hear, automotive industry, workforce, job, hiring, david
SPEAKERS
Brian, Tuyen, Molly, Chris Nichols, Abby
Abby
Today’s lunch and learn event would not be possible if it wasn’t for the outstanding team at job.com. Job.com is one of our newest corporate partners. And are a welcome addition to the group of thought leaders whose services and products are available to our members, I encourage you all to get to know them and to find out how they can help your business when it comes to staffing, hiring or anything else that you hear today. I would like to sincerely thank our panelists for joining us today and sharing their insights on this critical issue. Please welcome from General Motors, Molly Cantalini, recruiting manager, manufacturing and sourcing. Let’s also welcome Tuyen Tran Waymo’s Head of recruiting, product and engineering operations. And for Microsoft, we have Brian Wilson VP Midwest US automotive feeder. And last, but certainly not least, let’s welcome David Stanislaw founder and principal at his namesake Stanislaw Consulting. Next slide, please. And it’s it’s a pleasure right now to turn over today’s session to Chris Nichols, the Vice President of Strategy and Implementation at Job.com. Chris has done a fantastic job of assembling this great panel of experts. Thank you for being here with us today, Chris, and the floor is yours.
Chris Nichols
Thank you, Abby, I used to give the elder statesman and my companies a hard time because they always use pictures that were really old. And I have now realized that I’m using a picture that’s really old. And I think I’m gonna keep doing it. There’s less gray hairs in that photo. I’m excited to be on here today. Abby, that was a great introduction. Thank you so much for that. I’m very excited to have Molly, Tuyen, and Brian and David today. David, if you’re there, please go ahead and turn on your video. So we can get everybody going. There we go. So as Abby mentioned, this was a funny realization that we came to in the in the pre meeting, but COVID wrecked our worlds. And in fact, so much. Molly works for GM in Seattle. And Brian works for Microsoft in Detroit. So we’ve just turned the entire world upside down. We’re designing cars in in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. I mean, who knows what’s going to happen next. But I am so excited for the shifts that we’ve seen in recruiting and talent management across the business base. Yes, the pandemic has been a significant hurdle. But I also believe wholeheartedly that businesses became more efficient in the way that they communicate with each other, and the way that they attract talent. And some of these things were out of necessity. But sometimes in in times of necessity, it breeds the greatest innovation, and techniques. So I hope this panel today will enlighten all of the guests around what’s happening. One thing that I always find as a consultant myself working with organizations doing talent, solutions, designs and and things of that nature is that most most people in this space, always wonder if what they’re doing is right. And I will tell you that if you’re working hard, you are doing it right. And it’s important that you join these panels to understand that what you’re doing probably isn’t that much different than the things that are happening at at global players like Microsoft, and General Motors, it might be on a smaller scale, but have faith and keep grinding. Because we’re all we’re all working together. And I encourage you all to ask questions today. Take the most of the next 52 minutes that we have together. Please use the q&a, the chat etc. I will be reviewing that throughout. I will tell you that if if your question at the time is timely, and I can insert it there. I will otherwise I’ll save some of the questions for the end of the conversation today. So without further ado, welcome panelist. So Tuyen from Waymo, Molly with General Motors, David with Stanislaw Consulting, and Brian with Microsoft. I’ll get started with some questions if you guys don’t mind. So thumbs up and everybody can hear me. Okay. And I’ve been talking to myself for the last five minutes. Awesome. Okay. So, you know, we’re gonna start with Molly up in Seattle. When when we talked pre meeting, you were shared, you shared a lot of information with me about the major hiring initiatives that are going on at General Motors. And I’m sure that whenever those were announced to you, you’re like, Oh, cool. We’re gonna be hiring lots of people in what might be the most competitive market we’ve ever seen. So I’d love for you to share how you have planned for your team to do the kind of hiring at volume that you’ve done here in North America and how you you’ve worked through this this incredibly challenging time.
Molly
Yeah, so it’s definitely not an easy market today. It’s not the market that we’ve seen historically, a couple of things that we’ve looked at doing is really leaning into the technology that we can control within the talent acquisition space to streamline that process, both for my employees, but also for our candidates. What can we do to remove as many barriers as possible on both ends? And a big part of that is investing in new technology? And looking at how can candidates self schedule? How can we build that in on our side so that the recruiters have a streamlined process on that front end? And the candidates are moving through as quickly as possible?
Tuyen
You’re on mute
Chris Nichols
Can you all hear me now? Oops. My computer froze up for a second. I apologize. I had such a great follow up question. Molly. You mentioned technology. What’s your favorite piece of technology that you’ve added in the last six months, year 18 months.
I am a huge fan of two that we’ve implemented recently. One is paradox. And so we use paradox for candidates to self schedule. And we’re looking at building that out for a candidate care module as well. So that people can go into our site and ask like, what are your benefits and EV who is our paradox helper, she will answer that for you. Or she will prompt you to the right spot on our page. And the other piece is hired score. And what hired score does is a couple of things. One, it helps my recruiters understand who the best applicants are. But it also helps us to see if our job descriptions are too long or not getting the right people into the space. So it does a couple of different things both for the candidates and telling us that, hey, your job descriptions are looking a little dusty. But it also helps recruiters to say, Hey, Chris is the best applicant here, like start with him.
Chris Nichols
Got it. Love it. Technology is probably one of the fastest game changers in the industry today. Helping organizations move more effectively through the process, I love the way that you described, making it easier on both sides, because that’s the key to true efficiency, you can make it great for the candidate. But if it’s if it’s difficult for the recruiter, they’re going to be unhappy, which will then in turn create a terrible experience for the candidate at some point in the process. So balance, balance is key. So let’s take the transformation route. I’m going to head over to Brian. So Brian, I’d love to hear we talked about the change management that’s occurred over the last couple of years. But tell me how Microsoft is approaching the digital transformation in the automotive industry. And and how it fits. Because I don’t think most of us look at Microsoft. And we’re like, oh, yeah, Microsoft and GM should be like hanging out together in the same like parties.
Brian
Right? Yeah. Yeah, I’ll take that. And thank you for having me. I think Molly teed up the conversation really well with talking about how digital is, is more and more a part of, you know, the core processes of what a company like GM does. And yeah, for sure, Microsoft, it we’re not in the automotive industry. We’re not an automotive company. Our approach is to be a trusted partner, to OEM suppliers, really the entire ecosystem. And I mean, we all know that the acceleration of the automotive industry is accelerating. And the core part of that is digital, right. And you can just hear, you know, various automakers and their public announcements around how they’re transforming not only to EVs and autonomous capabilities, but also even the pure digital capabilities. And so that’s changing the profile of the workforce that they’re hiring for. And going after core software engineers and everybody around building digital assets and digital products, but also just scaling within every worker and their need to interact with these digital tools. Like one simple example is some of the cool work. Toyota North America is doing around getting students from out of school to productive in their production processes within two weeks and using tools from Microsoft around mixed reality. And in our HoloLens project, our product, which allows them to sort of speed up their training, right and so it’s allowed some flexibility in terms of where and how people recruit and to bring in talent because every automakers struggle with struggles with having the right expertise in the right spot at the right moment. And so experimenting with these digital tools and digital capabilities for everybody in the workforce is, is is helping companies compete. And so you know, our role the people know us as productivity tools and platforms for everybody developer tools, cloud computing, some of the advanced capabilities, for sure, and that is the role that we provide as a platform. And then lastly, I’ll come back to scaling has been a growing a growing topic and something we’re investing in heavily around the world, and that is, when you look at the talent market. In and automakers under under these transformations, you have that choice point, how much do we go out to market and then get talent? And how much do we develop the talent from within. And so the skilling programs that we provide around technology from foundational to advanced, sort of allows all companies to be able to take a look at their needs of their workforce and invest in their development to enable them for this digital world.
Chris Nichols
You make a few good points there. As far as productivity tools, I gotta say, I really am a big fan of Microsoft Teams these days. I know we’re on a zoom call right now. But I do want to say that I am an evangelist for Microsoft Teams. So anybody that says it’s not a good tool, I’m like no way. And I’ll saycall Brian, if you have any questions. But you made a couple of good points there around. It’s the transformation that we’ve we’ve gone through is actually quite interesting. I mean, shoot, my wife and I have been through the process of purchasing and purchasing a new family car. And the thing that she was most concerned about was how big was the screen going to be in the dashboard like she wanted, you know, a big screen high definition, I’m like, I need you focused on the windshield, if you don’t mind, while you’re driving the kids around. But there’s just so much technology that’s being driven into into vehicles these days that when you think about a gear head type automotive individual that might have existed in the 70s, or 80s. And like super focused on the technical capabilities of speed and torque and things of that nature, the consumer is different now. And the type type of talent that you need to invest in is also different. So I would kind of, I guess, leave this for the group and anybody that wants to jump in, in my first segue of the day, that’s not totally included in the question. So I apologize. But how? How are you all recruiting and finding ways to connect a different group of people to your, your particular companies that might have looked down their nose at the automotive industry, right, or they come from? Maybe they went to Stanford for an engineering degree thinking they were going to be at a social startup or social media company, and yet here you are, GM? Or, or Waymo? So leaning towards you guys, how are you recruiting them towards what is has primarily been kind of a static looking industry?
Molly
Yeah, um, I actually connect with this incredibly, personally, I come from Amazon, right. So I was with Amazon for seven years before I went to General Motors. And one of the challenges in this industry is you have the people that we want, that we want to retain, right, we want the people whose grandpa had a Chevy, and, you know, their dad only drove, you know, a Buick, and all of that. But we also need the people who are heavily interested in changing an industry and propelling it forward in the way that I am passionate about. And so it’s, it’s making sure that we are doing both things, right. Hey, look at our Lyric, these are all of the things that are sustainable on it. These are all of the ways that we’re doing it. Hey, look at our truck it has the new car has, I think 42 inches of screen in the dash, right? Like, I’m familiar now. I’m a truck person now, I guess. But also, you know, it’s it’s combining those things. Hey, we’re a tech company now. Because everybody’s a tech company. We’re also still GM.
Chris Nichols
Love that. Tuyen. How do you How does Waymo present themselves in the market to say, hey, like, come talk to us? Why should you be here?
Tuyen
Yeah, I mean, they always just add on to what Molly just mentioned. Right? And making sure that we’re able to essentially tie in the work that we’re doing. I mean, it first of all, we’re a technology company. So we’re not, you know, and so I think in a way, we’ve already been able to attract those candidates, right. But, you know, for example, when I’m looking for individuals, specifically the vehicle space, really talking to candidates about how we are transforming the vehicle space, right and just really taking it in a different direction, but essentially it’s completely steering away from it. So
Chris Nichols
got it. Love it, David, I’m gonna get you involved now. So Brian made a comment whenever he was speaking about growing your own, and, and finding the right mix of talent to also bring in. And we’ve had conversations in the past as well about retention. So we’re all focused on hiring right now some of that was because of COVID layoff. But I think that we’re we’re past that we I think we’ve gotten back to where we think we were supposed to be pre COVID. But we also are dealing with massive amounts of turnover in different organizations, so that those individuals, there’s there’s been different phases, right? of turnover, you had the people that that were able to keep their job during the pandemic, who took advantage of the market, and were able to go get massive pay raises, etc. But David, your expertise, you’ve, you’ve really taught me a lot about creating a great workplace. And that’s one of the things that I’ve enjoyed talking to you about, how can organizations flip the switch to become a more productive, more employee first environment.
While flipping a switch isn’t quite the way it happens, the quickest, I’ve seen a significant change in culture, it’s been about three years, what happens is that when you have a culture that’s not healthy, it’s rather toxic. It takes an energized leader to bring usually somebody and to look at changing things. I’ve been working with a manufacturing company for a while pre COVID. And as we eliminated a toxic partner, we now have a culture that’s developing in this organization that is extremely healthy, from the standpoint of really being sensitive to its employees. Since retaining has become much, much more important. This company has developed several unique initiatives. One is an understanding that company’s capacities for developing real quality workers having pride in their work, that’s been their number one focus, since we began about a year and a half ago, shortly after COVID began. Secondly, we helped develop a series of process meetings, where actually men from the plant came in and participated in refining developing processes, ironing out the bugs, so that now this company is being prepared to scale. And finally, they’re taking on the challenge in their industry, which nobody handles well, on time deliveries, they’re going to be the leading industry company in this area, for on time deliveries, satisfying a need that their customers complain about, not only themselves, of course, they’re their competitors.
Chris Nichols
Got it love it, was this is kind of a nice segue into hybrid work. And we’ve all been through this massive change in the way we work. Look, I think everybody is sitting at, at home or in hotel rooms or something today. And if we were having this conversation, and in 2019, we probably would all be in our little office cubicles. And in working in that way. And I gotta think that when we look at the automotive industry, we have talked a little bit about how it progresses into becoming a technology company like Waymo, or how General Motors is, is trying to become the most inclusive company in the world. And we look at these types of things. And we say like, how, how do you mix traditional automotive environment? Which Look, we’re not going to make cars at home? Right? How do we how do we fit hybrid work into the automotive industry? So Brian, I know that you had some comments about how Microsoft is doing it, but I do want this to be a discussion point for the group. So Brian, if you want to start, yeah,
Brian
maybe I’ll maybe less about how Microsoft is doing it and some more about some of the research we do because which may be more relevant to this audience. For that case, you know, we are in, in the empowerment business. So we think deeply about employee productivity, organizational productivity, employee experience. So we do a bunch of research around around this topic. And, and it’s included as part of some of the hybrid work studies that that we have. And so what we found is pretty consistent. We do it across industries, it’s pretty consistent with the automotive sector. There’s a couple of things happening right now that it’s coming out of the research is is one, you know, employees are are having a new quote unquote, worth that equation. Right. And that’s translating into you know, making it more of a priority on their mental health and well being as as a factor in whether or not they’re going to stay and be connected to, to accompany so that’s emerged, you know, certainly from the from the research You know, I think the second piece is, is as companies put their policies out for their their hybrid work stance, either on you can work from home freely for as long as you want, if you’re able to, if you’re in a role that supports that, or, you know, you need to be in the office five days a week, right and everywhere in along that spectrum. You know, one of the biggest challenges is, is like, what, what, why, and when should you come into the office? Because I think as workers are coming back, and if they’re having an experience, where they say, Gosh, for the last two years, I could have done all this at home, just like I did before, or they’re starting to think through, like, why do we really come to the office? And why do we really need to be there. And so that’s a big topic. And I think managers are in this position right now where they feel sort of wedged between the middle of their leadership’s you know, policies and, and an approach, and then the needs of their people. And so, you know, they’ve got this, they’ve got this, you know, approach and suggestion that kind of worth thinking through at Microsoft here, as well put in a little bit of our experience leading through this, you know, there’s there’s a first step of just understanding that your company’s guidelines, right, as a manager at Microsoft, for instance, you know, I know what what our stances on on hybrid work and flexibility, and we focus on flexibility for our employees. So it takes an understanding the company position, and I think, second, it’s the individual conversation, individual preferences with every employee, that each manager needs to be empowered to have to understand what situation is that employee and what type of work gets done what’s needed for the business, and having that connection and conversation. And then the third piece, which which may be undervalued at the beginning of the pandemic, but I’m certainly glad they’ve seen the power of this, which is teaming agreements. So as teams come together, it’s sort of reconciling all those individual preferences with the needs of the team, and then getting to agreement with intention about how you work together. And I think that model has helped us, you know, make our way through this notion of flexible work and hybrid work. And, and it’s something that we’re seeing a need for more broadly, as all companies struggle with this.
Chris Nichols
It’s funny, you mentioned the work that equation, as I mentioned, this, this car search that we’re going through, which by the way, is a difficult thing to do, but we did find one, but I had, so I live in Nashville, and I live in the suburbs, right. But I had to drive to Nashville to go pick it up the other day at like 530. And we got in traffic, and I told my wife, I was like, I don’t think you could possibly pay me enough to have to do this every single day. This is awful. And like, I just don’t, I don’t think that I could you could double my salary. And I’d be like, I don’t think it’s worth it to do this. And there’s a lot of people that feel that way. And yet leadership and organizations are saying, we need you here. And I think that I mean, personally, I just I have a particular feeling about it. I’ve worked at home since pre COVID. Since 2018. And I believe that you you can manage people effectively. In this environment, I do believe in face to face contact, I think this is communicating with people on with video on is is part of it. And there are some some people don’t like to get on video and things of that nature. But I do think there’s value in face to face contact and getting together in person on a regular basis. But I think that organizations that choose to walk down the path of saying we need everyone back in the office are going to be the organizations that struggle the most with finding talent. Molly, any thoughts about how you, you know, you’re, you’re looking at at this transformation as well from from a General Motors perspective?
Molly
Yes. So General Motors has its work appropriately is our policy. So whether that is you can do your role fully remote, work appropriately? If that’s what you want to do. That’s what we do. Obviously, in manufacturing, you can’t go cars at home. And this is not this isn’t a singular issue, right? This isn’t just General Motors in manufacturing, this is alright, come from Amazon. This is an Amazon issue. This is anybody that has a plant or a fulfillment center or what have you. So one thing that we’ve been doing specifically is pushing on our hiring managers to say, Okay, if this is a job where you would only actually need to be on site three days a week, are we open to having that person travel? Right, especially when you look at the research around? Who was more willing to go back into the office? I was remote pre COVID After I had my daughter, right? Okay. So if we want to truly be the world’s most inclusive company, what can we do to push those boundaries for what does it actually look like in manufacturing? Can you travel to be on site three days a week? And then do your admin work at home two days a week or, you know, how do we balanced this? And then how do we make sure that those who are on site are having a great time, the best time that we can provide right, so that’s what we’ve been doing?
Chris Nichols
I love that you brought it up. The word inclusivity there because I think it’s a great we get so stuck on DE&I being like, how we look like how we present ourselves being the the main driver of DE&I? And, and it’s not right, there’s so many things that go into being an inclusive organization, and you know, your your story of motherhood and what that looks like, I think, is a great analogy for that to you. What is your perspective from from Waymo? In a hybrid work environment and how you all are managing?
Tuyen
Yeah, I mean, I think we’re taking a very thought, I mean, we put so much thought into this, I never realized how much work you’d take to just even think about this concept. But, you know, we’re taking a really thoughtful approach here at Waymo. You know, we really want folks to be able to safely come back to the office, while really still achieving right and mission velocity, as we continue to build, deploy and commercialize the resume driver. So we’ve created specific approaches, you know, similar to some of the things that I’m hearing for various roles that Waymo with some of the roles being in office, full time I do there is a week or other roles, being in office two or three times a week, and then some are just you know flex. I mean, I think like myself, as a recruiter, I, you know, I get to be remote now, moving forward. So you know, we’re really hopeful that our hybrid approach will empower our fast growing teams to be productive, as we continue to build a strong culture and continue to give Waymo access to great talent throughout, you know, just across the different locations, Bay Area and beyond.
Chris Nichols
For sure. So, David, you, as a consultant of the group have a perspective that you get to see different organizations, right, and you get to see companies that have maybe embraced hybrid work and those that haven’t and seen how their retention or their ability to attract talent has has potentially been swayed by that. Do you mind talking a bit about the impact that you’ve seen on organizations? And how, how organizations can can navigate this, this, this conversation?
Yeah, I’ve certainly had a variety of experiences since COVID, came on the scene. And the reality is that COVID really disrupted, a fairly calm, you work in the workplace environment overall, the experience varies a lot between companies. One company that I’ve been working with for quite a while, there really developed a war between those who wanted to be in the workplace and those who wanted to stay at home. And the consequence of that was they lost probably 15 to 20% of their employees who insisted that they wanted to work at home exclusively, despite there being a huge argument of the value of having interaction in the, in the office between everybody. So they lost a significant number of their employees. But the good news is that they’ve been the recipient of a large number of quality people brought about by a terrific recruiter, who are very, very happy to work in the office. You know, there are many people that love the interaction, you know, the watercooler talk, the exchange, you know, how’s your son doing, and so on? I think that, you know, it’s really disrupted things. But the smart leaders, I think, and the companies that I’m working with, have been able to figure out how to do it well, and maximize the interest and the happiness of their employees.
Chris Nichols
Thank you, David. So I do have one question from the group that before we transition I’d like to throw to everyone. It’s kind of an opinion, laced question, but it basically was do you do you all see working from home being productive? And I think that what I’ve heard from all of you, is that the answer is that yes. Does anybody disagree with productivity issues? Or have you seen productivity issues, or maybe can provide any insight, Brian, any research as well?
Brian
Yeah, you know, it’s funny when David was talking to reminded me of one of the early insights we had where it was, and don’t quote me on the specific numbers, but it was, like 68% of employees want to be at work so they can focus and get work done. And it was like 67% of employees want to be at home so they can focus and get work done. It was like this paradox that was emerging, which means no matter how we personally feel about it there, everybody has their own needs and styles and everything that which is one of the things I love about GMs inclusivity push in their and their aspirations around that. I would say, you know, regardless of my opinion, I’ve lived like a hybrid workstyle being in the field at Microsoft for 20 plus years, I’m just used to this. So working from home or working at a customer site, working in a hotel, working wherever is just natural to me and the type of work I do, it’s fine. I will say, when we started reopening our offices, one of the things that that did take a hit was this notion of like strong ties versus weak ties, right. And so I feel like the core team that would work together in these environments through the pandemic, because we got really efficient to try to be respectful of everybody’s time, and strengthen the bonds of the teams that work closely together, it also weaken the ties of the broader network, just because those casual interactions you might have when you’re traveling or in an office didn’t happen as often and didn’t happen as organically. And so that’s something we’re we’re thinking about, it’s one of those things that feed into why come back into the office, what type of work is appropriate when you do get together in the office. And there’s certain types of work that just seem to work better, we just did a session that was a lot of ideation brainstorming, and just talking through a bunch of problems, which, if it were over teams or some other environment, we might have struggled and took longer. But being together, we were able to just get in, everybody’s excited. We just knocked out a bunch of things. And, and so I’m thinking through personally like that, that’s going to be a it’s not going to be an and or question. It’s just going to be this continuum and more of a sophistication and evolution in the way we work.
Chris Nichols
Agree at the risk of beating that horse, because I’m sure we all talk about it, I think the case by case basis here is is is having real discussions with your organization, talking to your employees, and understanding what can be accomplished in person and what can’t. I love the ideation thing, because I know that anytime that we’re on Zoom calls, if somebody turns your video off, it’s like, they’re probably working on something else. Right? Like if we’re supposed to be in this mode together. You know, it’s hard, right? Because there’s so many distractions as well, if you’re in a meeting room, you all are focused on achieving that same objective. Whenever you have my three screens up in front of me, even here, I’ve got slack messages going off, and I thought I turned them off before we ever hopped on here, so I could focus. So I’ve had to remove that. And there’s so many distractions at home, that can often block that out. But when I go to an office, there’s a lot of distractions in an office too, right? When we think about productivity, the people the watercooler talk is a distraction that you may not get at home. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know that there’s an answer. I think that we’re all humans, and that we crave interaction of some sort, and we all like it differently. So we got to figure it out. And we got to talk about it. That’s the most important part talk about it. So let’s, let’s move we’re getting a lot of good questions coming in. So I want to save time there. But I do want to transition to diversity, equity and inclusion. The talent tide podcast is sponsored by endevis is a full service recruiting firm, offering a broad range of solutions from professional contracting to retained and contingency search, to recruitment outsourcing. endevis prides itself on its core values of being bold, accountable, help first, passionate, and results driven to ensure the talent we bring to our partners matches their core values and overall mission. For more information, please visit endevis.com. That is e n d e v i s.com. And one of the things that Waymo is doing is employee resource groups. And I’m sure that Microsoft and GM have them as well. Lots of organizations have something similar, but it came up in the conversation with Tuyen as well, whenever we were prepping for this, and I really liked the thought process behind it. So Can Can you Tuyen talk about kind of can you give an overview of what these employee resource groups look like? And the impact that you believe it has on the cultural evolution of Waymo as an organization?
Tuyen
Yeah, I love this question. You know, I think so again, you know, at Waymo we have ambitious, you know, we have an ambitious mission, which really requires people from all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of perspectives. So we’re really committed to building an equitable, inclusive and diverse environment. Now, this includes prioritizing our recruiting efforts accordingly, but not only do we need to bring in, you know, these diverse population of employees, we then need to foster inclusion and belonging at way mo to retain them. Right. So one way that we are doing this is through our employee resource groups. Now, these are groups. These groups serve to raise awareness to our underrepresented community. They provide space for employees to meet others with similar experiences, really allowing them to amplify, amplify their voice when there are issues harming inclusivity. And it creates empathy. So, you know, the our diverse employees need people who will hear them who can make them feel safe, who can create a sense of belonging. And when it comes to, you know, just aligning our ERGs with company missions and values, this, the company will be able to then recruit from a more diverse talent pool and then retain them as well, which impacts overall culture, if you if you think about it that way. So ERG’s don’t just benefit their members, but they also benefit the whole company. So right now Waymo, we have seven ERGs and I’m actually the lead for Hyphen, which is our Asian American and Pacific Islander ERG. And so for example, hyphens mission is to really build a connected AAPI community across Waymo, that that nurtures, you know, a culture of empowerment and inclusion, for all and, and as some may know, out, there may is AAPI Heritage Month, so we took the opportunity, again, another opportunity to, to just really educate, celebrate, and recognize the wide range of voices within the community. So I do think it’s really, really important and crucial for companies to embrace ERGs and really utilize and leverage that, to continue to build an inclusive environment.
Chris Nichols
How do you think an organization can can display their active listening in that in those scenarios Tuyen? And so I think it’s, it’s easy to say, hey, we heard you, but how do we ensure that organizations are displaying those same values back that show that they’re truly committed to a cultural evolution and ensuring that there’s an inclusive environment?
Tuyen
I mean, I would say simple is action, right? So it’s not just, Hey, we hear you, thanks. Right for the feedback. It’s, it’s really taking action towards that. So you know, along with employee resource group, we’ve created a Leadership Council and an advisory group for EID. Their purpose is to really support our, you know, our near and far term aspirational vision regarding equity, diversity and inclusion. We’ve also recently hired a head of EID, who’s working closely with our colleagues across the different disciplines to advance our EID efforts internally and externally. So I mean, easily said, action. But it’s as simple as that, right, really making sure that you follow through with some of the I guess the promises that we make, is it’s going to be key.
Chris Nichols
I always joke that the key to success in business is as easy as just following up with people. There’s so much value in and listening and then doing what you say that you are going to do, and letting people know that you are doing it. So thank you for for that simple explanation Tuyen. We’ve got two more questions. So I’m going to transition to Molly because she mentioned the GM. Is it the mission or vision to become the most inclusive company in the world? I don’t know which one it was. But can you talk about what that has meant? That that that mindset has meant to shift at GM and how it’s maybe affected recruitment?
Molly
Yeah, so it’s, it’s not a secret, right? Mary Barra has talked about 4040 by 30. So that’s 40% diversity, 40%, female by 2030. And that, is everything right? So it’s not just looking at it like, Okay, we need to just like shuffle some people in. But for me, when I look at the company, one of the things that shows the action is that it’s at every level, right? So we’re not just like, Okay, we need like 40% Throw some people in the hourly bucket, right? That means that we really need to look at this organization wide, we need to work with our ERG’s, we need to make sure that our DE&I group is really heavily invested in they’re looking at everything, right? So I’m partnering with our DE&I group right now, to review our job descriptions, to review our interview guides to make sure that we’re doing this at every level with intention, and so that it’s reflected at every level with that same intention.
Chris Nichols
Thank you. Brian, What is Microsoft’s approach to hiring for culture and D&I which actually is a nice segue into one of the questions that came in to you. So I’m gonna I’m gonna second part that with do does the group so Brian, you answer the first question about Microsoft. And then the second question we can segue to is is it possible that employee employers are hurting themselves when it comes to finding the best possible candidate with the emphasis on diversity and inclusion?
Brian
So we’ll we’ll save that one,
maybe I’ll pick one I know.
Brian
And I’ve got to clear, no, there’s no sacrifice, you hire the best person for the job period. And, but we can talk about that more later. So the Yeah, I mean, we talk about our approach to hiring for culture and D&I, you’ll, you’ll find some similarities, Molly and Tuyen and I in this, like, we have a clear mission at Microsoft, and ours is around empowerment or empower every person, every organization on the planet to achieve more, and we have it in ambition and a mission that big, you also need to reflect and represent that population that you’re trying to serve, which for us is, is everyone on the planet. And so it is packed within that mission, our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we publish a annual report to hold ourselves accountable, very public about our progress and our goals and our challenges and the investments we’re making, that anybody could read that that’s interested in the progress. So So that’s important. You know, when it comes to when it comes to culture, and when I think of hiring we’ve we’re grounded in, in the growth mindset, right? And, and we tend to look for learn it alls to simplify what that’s about, versus know it alls. And you know, we’ve got undergone a long transformation, I’d say eight plus years. Within our company, that’s, that’s well documented. And David talked about the time it takes to to truly make a company cultural transformation. And I was nodding my head in agreement, because it does take time, and I’ve been here, I’ve been here a long time. And so, you know, foundationally, we look for growth mindset, which means are people learning and growing? Even if they’ve had a same job with the same company for a long time, and they’re they’re applying to Microsoft? What are they doing along the way to learn and grow? Have they moved around different experience and try different things? Are we seeing evidence in that, and that they’re always pushing themselves to grow and adapt? That’s, that’s like the core no matter what role no matter what part of Microsoft? You know, we look for that. And it shows up on the resume. I think a second concept that we started doing about five years ago or so is this this notion of screening in, and I think what we were finding is that, you know, our job descriptions or job requirements, were starting to limit, you know, screening out candidates, that was impacting the type of talent that we would reach, just because we were, perhaps, you know, requiring a college degree when that role didn’t really require a college degree, or we required X amount of years of experience, when did it really require that many years of experience. And so all that work, Molly mentioned, some of that work GM’s doing as well. And and on the process, is really where it starts to make real, make things real, because you can have a concept and an idea and a notion to go do this. But if your processes and structures don’t support it, all the way through from the moment a candidate demonstrates interest and, and gets selected to that entire experience all the way through to what is the makeup of the interview panel to what is the experience when they’re brought in and onboarded etc. So we’ve taken a look at it and and it’s a multi year journey, we still have a lot of work to do. But we’re making good progress.
Chris Nichols
I like what you said about the job requirements. And that piece, because there’s a there’s a well known statistic and my mind is blanking a little bit on it. But I believe that it goes something like 70% of men will apply to a job that they have less than 100% qualifications for but only 30% of women will apply for a job that they are fully at Molly and Dean are shaking their head, they know.
Molly
They’re really close. It’s I can’t remember the exact number, but it’s like the majority, the resounding majority of men will apply if they need 40% of like, the basic qualifications. And the resounding majority of women won’t apply unless they need every single basic qualification. And then usually some of the preferred
Chris Nichols
is dang arrogant man, I tell you what, I’ve seen it in real life. My wife has tremendous anxiety herself about applying for a job potentially that she doesn’t have. She’s like, I don’t have this bullet point. I’m like, who cares? And that’s just a difference in our in the way that we view it right and I I don’t know how we that’s an interesting big picture problem. Maybe it’s cultural cultural here in America, I don’t know. But if Tuyen or Molly want to chime in on any of that I’d love to have that conversation if you if you’d like to talk about it and how we can improve our our job descriptions, etc. Or maybe what you’re doing at GM or or a two Waymo to be more inclusive to everyone
Molly
Tuyen do you want to start, and I can I can add on or you want me to go
Tuyen
Yeah, I mean I will say It goes beyond the job description. That’s the starting point. But I think even in the way that we upskill, our our front end source sources or recruiters, that initial engagement, how they’re interacting with them using appropriate pronouns, right, et cetera, some of that, so it starts there. But I think what really needs to happen is, and we did this specifically with product, where, you know, myself and of course, a group group of folks and an EID Expert, really sat down and looked at the different stages of the hiring process, and really breaking it down and understanding where are the opportunities and really analyzing what, what we can do to make it more equitable or inclusive. So I think it goes beyond the job description. But when it comes to the job description, those are some of the things you want to do is essentially having the requirements, the preferred as well, so that it’s very clear for groups, as we mentioned, with women who understand that it’s not necessarily right, you don’t have to be all these things, because usually it’s lumped in the job description, but you really want to specify what’s required. And then with some some of the preferred language, making sure that you’re advertising, perhaps, the benefits and and some of the, yeah, I mean, benefits and perks for our underrepresented groups within the job description, or, you know, your website is going to be really important as well to attract talent.
Molly
Yeah, I’ll Yes. And that and kind of go back to what Brian was saying about, you know, does the job really need a degree? Right? If you look holistically at where we are, we know that getting that degree is a barrier to certain groups more than others. So by even just requiring that, who are you? Who are you screening out? So how can we make sure that our basic qualifications are truly the basic qualifications for a job? Good communication, not a basic qualification? That doesn’t even mean the same thing for you that it does for me? Right? What does that I talk a lot, a lot of people think that that is not good communication. I disagree. I’m over communicative. But how can we make sure that we are bringing the right people in and not screening people out for things that they are reading between the lines, right? How can we make sure if a job description says that we’re looking for an athlete, we know that women are less likely to apply to that, right? We don’t maybe know why. But we know that that’s a word that turns a lot of people off. Okay, so let’s scrap that. So it’s really just making sure that it’s intentional, and that you’re looking at that across the board, right. So even when they start at your company, what does that look like for everybody? What are the barriers to that? Right? How are we removing obstacles so that everybody has equity in joining?
Chris Nichols
I like a lot of what you guys are saying is, is really good stuff. I wish we had like two hours, because there’s a lot of good questions here. And I feel like we could just keep going and expanding on these topics. There’s a couple of similar questions that I’m looking at. And so, David, I’m gonna come to you. And I’d like to hear how you feel that legacy jobs are being filled with with new talent. So there’s two questions, one, one kind of around, machinist, right, skilled trades, I think we can all agree are very difficult to fill role probably for all of our organizations, and they are their needs, even in tech companies, and what those skilled trades are. So David, maybe you could talk about how we can do a better job of filling these legacy roles, and how do we attract that type of talent to our organizations?
Well, one of the resources that many companies overlook are their own employees. I’m working with two different companies at this moment that one of whom is such a wonderful place to work, that family and friends are recommended and often get hired by this company. Another organization I’m working with, which is fairly toxic, and difficult to work in, people are holding back. They know people, they know investors, they know good introductions exist, but because the company is so toxic, currently, they are withholding those names and introductions from the ownership and the management of that company. So it comes down to me as a form of the culture of the organization, how we do things around here, that has to have the kind of feel that your employees are volunteering to do their job. They’re entered wholeheartedly. That’s the difference between a culture that is healthy in an organization that really wants to have people fully participating, and one in which perhaps, you’re going to understand that if they cultivate the goodwill, the engagement of their employees, they’ve got a tremendous asset asset for for recruitment?
Chris Nichols
Absolutely, I think we can all agree that referrals are a fantastic source for for hires. Right. I mean, what, what better person to say that you should come work here than somebody that’s working there? So that question leads to another question that is comprable. And I’m actually interested in I want this to be I want everybody to get involved here. So the question reads, how are your organization’s flexing your hiring and retention plans for a younger workforce that prioritizes different items compared to an older workforce? So Gen Y, Gen Z, versus Baby Boomers, Gen X? Yeah, without alienating the older workforce. So how are you? How are you merging? Gen Z and millennials with Baby Boomers and Gen Xers in the workplace? Who wants to take that one on? Brian came off mute. That was Brian came off mute when I was looking at him. So that’s kind of like raising your hand in class. So yeah, hit me with it again, I gave How are your organization’s flexing? The prioritization of what Gen Z and millennials want versus what that a Baby Boomers and Gen X ers, how are they? How are they being merged? Or how are you managing that?
Brian
I think while while you definitely see trends across generations, we try to stay really disciplined around people as individuals, and making sure that we’re we’re providing the flexibility and resources for everybody. And in, you know, we have that conversation, you had that conversation all the time, where like, I’m a Gen X er, and like, there’s probably there’s stereotypical Gen X. Things that about me that are probably true, and then there’s a bunch of that are false, right. And so it’s, it’s hard to do that at scale. I think there’s, there’s a belief that, hey, certain things appeal to different people. But when you have a workforce as large as Microsoft, going up to 180,000, globally, in every market, you really have to stay out of some of the traps of generational requirements or other things that can contribute. That’s, that’s my opinion.
Chris Nichols
I like what you said about managing each person. But how does that happen with 180,000 Employees? Like how do you manage those needs? Brian?
Brian
Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s about the culture, it’s about the the the approaches, like our initiative around around like hybrid, a hybrid work concept is flexibility. And we’re putting power and empowerment in the hands of the managers to do what’s best for the people in the business. And so you continue enabling that as much as possible, certainly, the company policies and different things here, there, but you put as much empowerment of the hands of the managers in and they’ll do the right thing.
Chris Nichols
Thank you. So we’re three minutes out, Kim made a comment here in the comments about there’s five different generations in the workforce, or in the workplace for the first time. And she said she would not want to be an HR right now, in my mind, I actually think it’s probably the coolest time in history to be in the workforce, and to be able to see how all of this works together. Because in my, my personal belief is that at our core, we all do want some very similar things as well out of work and out of our lives. And so I think that’s a nice place to put a bow on this today. I’m very thankful for all of you as panelists. Great questions have come through. It just it just been an incredible session, we may have to navigate a part two to this entire conversation at some point in the future. So Abby, would you like to welcome yourself back to the to the group? There you are?
Abby
Absolutely. Chris I Well, we’ve done it again, we’re at the top of the hour, we’ve got maybe a minute and a half left or so we might be able to give everybody just a few more minutes to take that last night and get back into the work mode again. But on behalf of the SAA, I can’t thank you all enough for spending your lunch hour with us. And to Chris and our incredibly talented panelists. Thank you for investing your time and the essay and sharing your insights with all of us as we navigate through not only attracting the right talent, but working through retaining the talent that we have today. It was fascinating to hear that although we’re all working towards agility, or the new phrase that we learned today, Mission velocity, that implementing culturally effective strategies takes deliberate steps and takes time, we heard that software and technology solutions have made the overall process easier for both the employer and the candidate and how people make the difference with either a degree or without a degree or skills. And ultimately, although we all need to fill open positions the human touch, the human difference is extremely important. Add an employee’s ability to collaboratively meet those candidates needs from working entirely remote, or 100% of the office is the differentiator. So thanks again until next time, I hope everybody has a great afternoon the rest of the week. Take care. Thank you all.