Transcript
Mark:
Welcome to PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. I’m Mark Feffer.
Mark:
Today, we’re talking to Laura Lee Gentry, the chief people officer at Enboarder. They provide what they call a people activation platform, which creates talent solutions that match the employee’s journey. We’ll explore the importance of connection, communication, and how businesses succeed in the age of COVID, all on this edition of PeopleTech.
Mark:
Laura Lee Gentry, thanks for being here. Can you first tell me about Enboarder? What does it do?
Laura Lee:
So Enboarder is a software platform that is the first ever people activation platform. It’s designed to allow organizations to create and deliver human-centric experiences throughout the entire employee life cycle. So the way we think about it is, we’re living in an experience era, and employee expectations are higher than ever. So at each stage in the employee journey, companies have an opportunity to develop highly engaged, long term, passionate employees, but in order to achieve this, human connection can’t be left to occur naturally in an organization. So we actually architect those experiences, and allow companies, in a very easy user interface, to kind of almost create a drag and drop, below the line and above the line experience for their people. And that can be applied to any employee experience while they’re at the company. Onboarding is our first example, but we use it for learning and development, offboarding, diversity and inclusion, performance management, et cetera. Does that make sense?
Mark:
Yeah, it does, but I wonder if you could give me a little bit more detail on how it works. I mean, you talked about architecting experience, I think you called it. You’re talking about drag and drop. Can you just sort of tell me what the whole experience is?
Laura Lee:
So let me think if I can give you an explicit example. Let’s use onboarding. I’m onboarding three people over the next two weeks. I’m in this up to my neck.
Laura Lee:
So we have template libraries, and ours is already templated, right, but I can go into that library and I can say, “Okay, wow, the day that they sign their offer letter, I want them to get a text from me saying how excited we are about them coming to the company.” And then they’re going to start to get a series of prompts that I have, again, dragged and dropped into my experience to say, “Wow, Mark, what’s your go-to cocktail of choice? At 3:00 PM when you need a munchy, what is it?” And we start to have dialogue with them, and we start to… Or let’s take a video and answer these three or four questions that can tell us more about yourself.
Laura Lee:
And that information starts coming in, and we’ll use that to share that with their teammates. So their teammates can be like, “Wow, that’s my favorite television show, too.” Or, “I like a Diet Coke and fresh nuts at 3:00 in the afternoon, let’s do that together.”
Laura Lee:
So those are little examples, but we would also pull in learning experiences, learning paths for their role, any compliance training that has to be handled from a security standpoint. So essentially, I’m creating, for their first two weeks, for their first 30 days, for their first 90 days, lots of human-centric experiences and interactions, as well as check-ins on how the process is going, did they get their IT equipment on time, all that sort of stuff. And all that has prompts behind the scenes, so that no balls, nothing gets dropped.
Mark:
Now, do you use this in-house?
Laura Lee:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Very much so.
Mark:
It seems like it’s an interesting time for a company like yours, given all that’s going on out in the labor market right now. What are the particular challenges that you’ve got your eye on right now, as the chief people officer?
Laura Lee:
So there are a few. And again, I joined in October of last year, and so I spent my first four or five weeks kind of doing a listening tour to figure out where I thought the biggest needs of the company were, and I’m standing up that team and that strategy right now. But obviously, biggest challenge is recruiting and retaining our people. So from a recruiting standpoint, we’ve got a great story at Enboarder. We have a fantastic culture that is steeped in our values, and that’s super compelling out in the marketplace. But we need more avenues and more channels for people to understand what it would be like to work at Enboarder, as an example. So I’m standing up the employer branding and internal communications small function to really get our message out and really help us connect with more people. We’re investing in our talent acquisition team, not only with people, but also with tools, and improved processes, and kind of operational back office.
Laura Lee:
But retention, I think, is really… Attraction is important right now, but retention is even more important than ever. So I’m really focused on putting our values into action, creating a leadership competency model that can really help people understand what it’s like day to day, how we expect them to show up and the behaviors we expect them to exhibit as leaders at Enboarder, because I want our teams to be led by the best people leaders on the planet, as an example. We’re investing in a lot of our culture work, really articulating our culture and helping people understand, so we can attract the people who, as Simon Sinek says, “believe what we believe.” So investing a lot in culture, and in reinforcing that culture through our values in action, and really telling our story in a more compelling and articulate way.
Mark:
Now, the last two years or so have obviously been kind of wacky from a business perspective and an HR perspective. How has it changed your approach to dealing with people issues? But also, is it driving any kind of change within Enboarder and other companies in your space to handle their workforce differently?
Laura Lee:
So if I understand your question right, Mark, so I think businesses have a job, have a responsibility to create an environment that makes it easier for employees to do their best work. But the way many businesses have historically, in most cases, currently, engaged with their employees is fundamentally misaligned with how humans are wired to work, and it fails to cultivate their full potential.
Laura Lee:
So if I go back to my onboarding example, think about, if you could onboard people in a way that would make them fully productive and fully engaged in two months versus six. How could that impact your business? And what I see our customers partnering with us to do is to build those engaging journeys that really orchestrate all the appropriate stakeholders at the right time, get the right buy-ins and action from people leaders and employees. And HR hasn’t had the infrastructure to do that in the past. So that’s why we’re trying to change that, because we really feel like with this, whatever you call it, the Great Resignation, you’ve got to do more to engage with people at a human level, because people want to be a part of a mission. They want to be a part of a company that has objectives that count and can make a difference in the world. And I think you’ve got to lead with that, more than ever.
Mark:
Do you think this whole weird landscape that we’re walking over right now is working to Enboarder’s advantage?
Laura Lee:
100%. It’s as if every day the headlines are our best marketing, honestly. And you know, we started this journey five and a half years ago because my CEO read some really compelling research about the impact of good onboarding versus poor or mediocre onboarding. And this has been his personal passion, right, to make this company happen. So it feels like he was prescient, almost, right, in anticipating that people want to work at a place that cares about them, where they feel like they’re a part of something.
Laura Lee:
And I think, look, that’s why I came into this field, is because I was a consultant for 10 years, and I saw leaders that got it and leaders that didn’t. And I, frankly, was just sort of shocked by the leaders that didn’t, like, “Why do you think your talent shouldn’t be front and center, in terms of your priorities?” And I came into this field because I’m passionate about creating those environments for people and employees. And I only… Sorry, let me back up. I really seek out fantastic leaders that want to partner with me to make those things happen. So, yes, it’s a beautiful time for Enboarder to serve. And we do think of it as serve, serving our customers.
Mark:
So you’re overseeing the workforce at this dynamic company at an exciting time, both in terms of the HR business and business in general. How would you describe your job right now? Is it exciting? Is it frustrating? Is it scary? Is it all three?
Laura Lee:
Oh, no, it’s exciting. It’s exciting. Look, I’ve never met a problem that didn’t have a solution and I’ve never met a challenge that didn’t get me excited. And I came here for that purpose, right? To be a part of this. And I love the fact that I’m working at a company whose very product reflects my values and my passions.
Mark:
Thanks very much. I appreciate your time today. It was nice to meet you.
Laura Lee:
It was lovely to meet you, too, Mark. Thank you so much.
Mark:
My guest today has been Laura Lee Gentry, the chief people officer at Enboarder. And this has been PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. We’re a publication of RecruitingDaily. We’re also a part of Evergreen Podcasts. To see all of their programs, visit www.evergreenpodcasts.com. And to keep up with HR technology, visit the HCM Technology Report every day. We’re the most trusted source of news in the HR tech industry. Find us at www.hcmtechnologyreport.com. I’m Mark Feffer.
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