How Talent Acquisition Is Being Completely Reinvented in 2026
In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we sit down with Blair Bennett, Senior Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition at PepsiCo, to unpack how talent acquisition is being completely redefined in the age of AI, hyper-personalization, and constant change.
Blair explains why simply adding AI tools into outdated recruitment models doesn’t work, and how PepsiCo redesigned its entire talent acquisition operating model to move faster, stay agile, and deliver better outcomes for both the business and candidates.
She shares how the function is shifting from execution to strategy, enablement, and intelligence, embedding design thinking, talent intelligence, and co-creation with recruiters to build systems that actually scale.
Most importantly, Blair reveals why the future of talent acquisition belongs to leaders who embrace uncertainty, collaboration, and continuous iteration, replacing command-and-control leadership with a model built around problems, not predefined answers.
🎓 In this episode, Blair discusses:
Why talent intelligence and external data are critical for future hiring decisions
How hyper-personalized candidate experiences are becoming the new standard
How leaders must shift from command-and-control to collaborative problem solving
How PepsiCo restructured talent acquisition into strategy, enablement, and execution
Why adding AI to outdated recruitment models fails without redesigning the operating model
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00:00
First of all, as a leader, you have to lead with like, I don't know everything, right? Because nobody does anymore. And so I think just like having that vulnerability, my team makes fun of me all the time because I love a great whiteboard session. I love putting brains in the room and talking about what problem we have to solve because there's no way that I can sit at my desk and like figure these things out and then tell people what to do. So like command and control is not my style. What problem might we have to solve? And then how are we gonna go solve that? And how you solve that will change. And how we solve it's gonna change.
00:56
Hey, Blair, how are you doing? Welcome to the show. Hey, Chris. Great to see you. And this time we're not in a noisy conference center.
01:05
That's right. Our own personal time. How nice. Thank you for the invitation. Where was that? I know it was in Vegas, but was it like HR Tech or Unleash? I can't even remember. Unleash. Yeah. And you still didn't bring me any Pepsi. I can't believe it. No. I actually feel bad about that because I had a Pepsi and then I came to the table and you're like, where's my Pepsi? And I was like, ah, mistake number one with Chris. yeah well next time my goal in life and i told the team is in my 2026 priorities is to get a pepsi sponsorship so like on the show i can just say you're putting this out in the universe are you i like projecting stuff out there that everyone thinks crazy but it's like why the hell do you have a pepsi sponsorship for your hr podcast and then i can send guests you know drinks beforehand you know
02:01
not a bad thought that would be the most random partnership ever but it would be amazing not a bad thought we have we actually have a new pepsi prebiotic soda that's out it's super delicious okay so we can have that as part of our well-being summit yes coming up so that's like a nice little in there but anyway how you been how's the family has everyone everyone good great great great strong start to 2026 ready for the year um couldn't be better how about you Yeah, I'm good. We both said before we hit record, like, where did January go? What happened to that as well? But I mean, it's good. Like, I mean, I think for me, when time flies by like that, I know it's a sign of progress.
02:47
I don't know if that makes sense. Like for me, I get worried when I have time. That sounds weird. Time is standing still. You get a little anxious. Yeah.
02:58
I get really, I'm like, what's wrong? What have we missed? You know, like, like, but then I think also on the other side, I've learned to be self-aware that when we are in sprints and we're not, and if I am to prepare myself. Yeah. Whereas in the past I wasn't and I'm like, what's happening? right now. And then I'm like, and even communicating that with my wife and like, you know, and everyone around me like, Hey, this is what this looks like for the next few weeks. Right. You know, and it needs to balance the workload, but personal life, family life. So I think in January I did a pretty decent job.
03:34
Yeah. I think, I think you do have to do that. Right. I mean, I mean, you can go, go, go, go, go. But I know personally, like I have to have time to, to like do things for me do things for my family like my husband and i started taking ballroom dance lessons last year and so like that's like two times a week where my husband and i know it's like time we get together so i try to treasure that you know and those are easy things where you could say oh i have a work thing but it's like no i have a husband thing
04:10
Yeah. Shouldn't it be the other way around, right? Like it should be the reverse really in reality. Like, you know, like we, we, we, we, we put our personal lives and family second and it's really sad to say it out loud, but that's people do that. I did that without even realizing it.
04:27
And you make the excuse that you're working that hard for the family. That's always our excuse, right? And it's like, well, what's the point if you're not going to enjoy it and actually be present? So in the beginning this year, like even at night time, I'll get home. I normally would like try and jump back online. But now I like block out four hours where I could just spend time with Robin.
04:46
and if you want to grab me again after 8 p.m once i've done bedtime and put her to sleep i'm back online yeah it's fine but setting that you know boundary and blocking it and it's now i can be present and in the room and and um you know go watch her do gymnastics or jujitsu and swimming lessons and like she's so excited that i'm now i'm like i don't know why you're so excited that i'm here but cool uh like she's like swimming and i'm trying to talk to him like it's Because you're like cool dad. She's like, look, my cool dad's here. You don't want to miss those smiles. Exactly. And I think those are the memories and the moments and the things of why we do what we do. That's right. And when it's hard, those are the things that I look at. And that's kind of like my point of, my foundation for everything. Right. And even in, I had a crazy January, but even when it got to like 9, 10 PM, I was saying, even to Shane, my co-founder, he might be saying this.
05:43
I was like, I know we've got all these things, but I promise myself that I'm going to get this much sleep every night.
05:50
And how are you doing with that? I did really well until last week.
05:55
Oh. But now I'm back on again. Okay.
05:58
And he was like, yeah, but we've got to do this contract to do this. And I was like, no. And nothing blew up. The world didn't end. We didn't lose anything, you know, because there's always more. Yeah. There's always more to be able to do. Anyways, I'm glad we agree on that one. And I'm looking forward to seeing the dance videos. So I want to see a LinkedIn post. I did do a dance post because we did a recital at the end of last year. And so you can see us in our costume, but I didn't post like the dancing. Oh, come on. Maybe this year, maybe this year. I have to save something. How long have you been doing it? One year. Okay. So we, okay. Okay. That's fair. Well, so what's top of mind for you? We've spoken so much about so many things. Like, like we've got a lot of bullet points, a lot of shared since we last spoke. What's top of mind for you right now?
06:49
Oh, my goodness. You know, like I think there's a couple of things that are top of mind for me. First of all, our team.
06:58
Right. Because I think this is such an interesting time in our profession. And, you know, leading talent acquisition, I think, you know, gives you such insight. interesting perspective, not only on like what's happening inside the company, but also being able to get first view into like what's happening outside the company. And I think that having the responsibility as a leader of my team to help move them along into where the future's headed is top of mind. Another thing that's top of mind is just like where the future is headed.
07:34
right i mean it's so hard to keep up with like everything that's coming our way but i feel really like blessed to be at a company like pepsico where we actually are a company that truly believes in innovation and we've been going on our company's digital journey and
07:53
how talent plays into that is super important. So I think like where the future is headed and just like our role and my role in helping our company continue to progress there. And then I think like another thing that's top of mind for me is
08:09
just when we think about in our global CHRO in our sort of HR mission and our company missions like people at the heart like how do we really think about you know how we are caring for people and you know in the context of you know what we're what how we're bringing along as I said but also like We have we have a responsibility, I think, to help people, you know, continue to build their skills and to see PepsiCo as a place where you can have a career inside and you can feel really good about your career here. And you also feel like I'm building skills. And if I want to, you know, go experiment with something else, then, you know, Pepsi's prepared me for that, too. So I think those are a few things that just, you know, kind of take my space just a small bit.
09:02
Yeah, just a small bit. Let's start from where you started.
09:07
Well, as we both discussed many times and everyone listening, talent acquisition is evolving faster than I think anyone can expect it, right? Therefore, the skills and capabilities required by yourself and the team, like you said, have to evolve.
09:27
How are you seeing this evolve and what are some of the skills and capabilities that you see that you need to help, you know, to bring your team and the function on the journey?
09:36
Yeah, I mean, I think like, look, I think starting with a foundation that we have extremely capable people, right? And I think I have one of the best recruiting teams, of course, out there.
09:51
So starting with the foundation of just capability, but also knowing that as we are asking our teams to, you know, do more with, technology, as we're asking our teams to be better at talent advisory skills, as we're asking our teams to, you know, pay attention to what's happening around them. Like these are areas where I do believe that they appreciate when we help them continue to build skills. So we think about these things in the context of, first of all, we changed our talent acquisition operating model last year. And that has been really helpful for us to be able to make processes more standard, which means that we can help develop our teams in what the expectations of adopting processes are. We can bring technology faster and help to train them on how they can optimize that technology to get more out of their work.
10:52
And I think that when we've looked at kind of capability building, we've done it in multiple dimensions from being able to think about soft skills like How can you show up in a recruitment strategy meeting, which is what we call our intake meeting, you know, really with great questions, with data and insights that can help the hiring manager and that can help you get the information you need to move faster through the process? So that's a capability build of how you can have the most productive type of conversation to help you. Then we also have brought in like an interview companion tool that is a technology that can assist a recruiter in an interview process to be able to transcribe the interview to help make sure that the interview questions are being served up consistently
11:47
like those things also help a recruiter like move super fast and yet be able to engage with a candidate at a much higher level so we're building the capability on how do you use the tool but how do you have a really engaging conversation so that that candidate experience gets elevated and then how do you take those insights to the hiring manager in a way that helps them get to a decision that they feel really good about maybe in a way that helped to streamline the process so that they didn't feel like they had to like go back and ask the same questions that you asked the candidate, which also creates a better candidate experience. So we try to think about these things in a variety of levels. And what that helps us do is like connect the dots and the recruiters can see how these different components play together to create a higher value experience. Yeah, I love that.
12:39
So much to unpack there. I mean, I could go on, but we only have so much time. Yeah, I mean, why don't I even start? Well, firstly, I think the great thing that you mentioned, which kind of maybe went under the radar of people listening, is you started by completely redesigning the talent acquisition strategy. Yeah. because adding the tools and the way of working now to that an old way of an old traditional talent acquisition model doesn't work. And we're seeing many companies make that mistake, right? You can't just add AI and add the work itself has fundamentally changed and how we use these tools as AI orchestrators. We will become sort of the orchestrators in the way that work gets done requires a new operating model. So yes, I want to emphasize that part.
13:28
And you said foundation, right? To start there.
13:32
I see so many companies buying so many different tools right now and trying to add them onto an existing operating model and wonder why it's not working as well. And then to your point about the role of the recruiter, now the AI is not replacing them. it's allowing them to have way more richer conversations and be present in those rooms. I have the same thing, right? When I'm interviewing people now, I have an AI note taker in the room and I don't have to write the notes. I can truly be present with the individual. And I'm like, oh my God, I used to sit here writing down, not even making eye contact. Also, I'm asking the same questions that the last two managers ask, which is nothing. You love that as a candidate. Three people just ask me the same questions.
14:20
Whereas your tool will know, hey, this is kind of the process. Maybe here's some other questions that you could probably ask, right? And all of that's fed into the system, which creates a better hiring experience for everyone on the journey. But it does require...
14:41
a completely new set of skills and capabilities for your team.
14:46
And the work itself has fundamentally changed. So how do you, that has to start with building trust, let's be honest. So how did you start and bring them on the journey and build that trust? Because if you just turned up one day and said, hey, we call this new hire tools, go for it. It's not going to work so well. yeah no i think like coming back to the operating model piece i do think that this is something that we we sort of recognize like we have to make some changes with our operating model and with our organizational structure for us to be able to
15:23
like move with speed and be able to be agile because one thing we know is like we don't know exactly what is going to be ahead of us right so for us we actually set up our operating model with three different pillars one being strategy one being enablement and one being execution and that way we could ensure that on our strategy that we have a team who is really focused
15:52
on how do we connect to what the business is trying to accomplish so that the real things we're trying to solve are meaningful, right?
16:01
And I think there's another element of this, which is we can, from a strategic viewpoint, help to make better decisions through that entire process because if we really understand where we're trying to go, we can build the programs and design the programs to meet the needs. We can deliver these things by co-designing and creating this like global to local model that ensures that we're not trying to also, while we wanna standardize and while we wanna simplify, We don't want to pretend that everything needs to be activated in exactly the same way in exactly the same place. So we have to be able to like co design and understand what are some of the nuances as we go so we can design the best solution. We also put a lot of emphasis on creating a talent intelligence capability that will allow us to bring external thinking and perceptions and trends into how we're thinking about building for PepsiCo so that we're not just being too insular in how we're trying to think about things, but that we really can be agile and we can
17:15
you know, use data points that help us shift. So I think like design thinking is a philosophy we use to put like the, you know, end user at the thing. So I think some of these like capabilities that we built within the strategic arm were really important for us to be able to move you know, smarter and with speed and agility. The other pieces like enablement is the team that we really work with through our operations team that they help us think about, like, what is the technology we might need to enable this? So we don't start there. We actually start with what we want to design and then they help us bring that to life. And sometimes it's you know a new technology sometimes it's optimizing a technology we have sometimes it's retiring a technology we don't need sometimes we just decide like it's capability building and it's not technology that actually is the thing that's going to enable this and then that can go to our execution teams our recruiters which we specialized across
18:22
early talent recruiters, frontline recruiters, professional recruiters and executive recruiters. And the reason that we did the specialization is because if you think about the experiences that different cohorts want or you may need to provide to them, they're not always exactly the same. And I think one of the things that we're seeing externally is this like hyper personalization and these expectations of experiences that are more honed to you and to your preferences. So we felt like this can allow us to actually meet the candidate where they are and be able to provide that. So I think this operating model is helping us really streamline. And then I think, you know, when we're talking about things that are really important for us. It's like making sure the business can achieve the outcomes they need.
19:16
And that is the starting place. So having, you know, this business acumen within our organization is really important to us. And I think we try to you know, educate our recruiters also on what is happening in the business, what is happening externally, and why are we creating these things that we can then put in your hands that you can then use.
19:39
And the other thing I think on the second part of your question and building trust is like, part of what we're doing is we work with our recruiters to help us design these things. Yeah. Right. I mean, we want them to be involved. So when we were doing the interview companion tool, like we had pilot groups of recruiters who weren't just receiving it and testing it. Like they were they were our groups who were actually designing it with us. And then they were testing it and then they were helping us bring change throughout the organization. And so that's been really helpful in just that, like, I mentioned design thinking, design thinking and using your end users as part of your design and understanding where you want to take them so that they're going to come with you on that journey. And they also gain critical skills in that, right? Like if you're a recruiter and you get to be part of a global project and bring your views and say, put your stamp on it, like that's pretty cool.
20:40
Yeah. I mean, it seems so obvious when you say it out loud, right? But when you don't need to get their buy-in, they built it with you, right? Like they're on the journey. They gave the feedback. Like I said, they're proud of it. They're excited. They become champions of it, right? So when it comes to deployment, you've already got this... It's a good starting place. Yeah, exactly. And as things move quickly, like you mentioned, we need to be agile. Things are moving so quickly and transforming. You have to have that. That needs to be just the way of working.
21:15
Constantly testing, reiterating, things are moving, you know, as well. How do you make sure within those three pillars...
21:23
that you still remain agile? What does the decision-making tree or process look like so that you don't end up getting stuck? Like, hey, we want to be agile.
21:34
And then I've seen it in companies where they do things like that and then things get stuck along the way. Does that make sense?
21:42
Yeah. I mean, one thing that helps us not get stuck is that we actually centralize the entire process. organization so before we had a much more fragmented talent acquisition organization and so you had recruiters in markets reporting into hr people and it was very hard to like move right so by centralizing we have um we have our organization in my organization and then our people experience and operations organization so across our two groups we partner super super well The other thing I would say is we've actually started to build a capability within our team, what we're calling portfolio management.
22:24
And the reason that this is important is because we're looking across all of the activities that we have going on or all the programs that we're designing and we're putting measurements to those so that we can actually build with an understanding of what what we're trying to like move, right? Are we trying to move improvement in candidate experience? Are we trying to move speed in the interview process? Are we trying to move, you know, recruiter capability? Like we have different things. And so we can look across there and as we're measuring, say, are we getting the outcomes we want? If not, how do we go back and quickly assess what may be happening that we can improve or did we just not get it right and we have to kind of take a step back and reevaluate? Or if we are getting what we want, then how do we like,
23:18
scale and go faster because it's working. So we're looking at this as a portfolio and how do we manage that portfolio to help us not get stuck. Also to help us not keep activities in the system that actually may not be giving us the return that we want because we only have so much time, we only have so much brain space, we only have so much energy, like we wanna be using all of that in the places where we see the advancements that we're looking for. And how often are you kind of checking in on stuff like that?
23:52
So we're in the process of like formalizing it. And the idea is that you're using it in your regular like monthly global leadership team meetings where you're, you know, now there's a lot on there. So you're probably going to be trying to figure out like, how do you report out on the things where we're seeing a little bit of? tension or something but the other thing that we're doing right now and i have my leadership team um in next week to continue to work on this because you know we don't have it all we don't have it all figured out yet but as we continue to learn we're even iterating our own ways of working so like when we when we did this operating model we created interaction models we created so we're going to gum one year later and say like what's working
24:42
what do you feel like we're moving on what do you feel like we're stuck on and i think one of the things that i feel like we still have some work to do is like connecting all of the dots to be able to tell the story to our like cpos in the regions and to the hr partners to say like when we're really looking at what you're trying to accomplish here's how our portfolio is helping you do that and using the appropriate data sets to be able to have that conversation versus the anecdotal stuff that always comes into the system, right? So we've created these like strategic scorecards. We need to start implementing
25:25
those conversations and pulling all these pieces together. It's complicated, right? So we're gonna have to practice this, we're gonna have to build the muscle, we're gonna have to train even my leadership team, even myself, like what are some of these things that we wanna keep learning in our own right? Yeah. I love, I love this whole idea because I mean, a lot of times we, we, you could, for example, you went through this whole, you know, the, the operating model, but if you didn't set clear views or, or no, this is what good looks like, right? This is, and, and you can't meet as a team six months later, you have no idea, right? And I see it happen all the time. And in your conversations, it makes everything really easy. Not easy, but a lot easier when you come into a conversation and you have that all there and it's all clearly laid out because this is what we were aiming towards and it's broken down because then the conversation is not blurry.
26:30
It's not vague. We're not relying on fragmented data or opinions actually.
26:37
In some cases, it's like, it's just, no, this is it. It's black and white. But that requires a very different way.
26:46
I mean, that changes the role from just reporting to being strategic, right? And actually working, aligning with the business and moving towards it. That's a very big shift in many organizations. So I get it. So I love that.
27:01
And that also is maybe culturally a big change.
27:06
yes it is it is and i think another another like mindset shift that we want to be able to make is that you know our hr partners and our business leaders like trust that we're experts in our field so that they can rely on us to come up with solutions that are going to help them meet their needs right and so i think like this is why some of that like talent intelligence and that external piece was so important to us because we should be able to anticipate
27:43
what we're going to be being asked about and have some ideas already of what we're going to be doing for that. So we've done a lot of work over this past six months in thinking about like, you know, we did a white paper just on like digital talent, right? Because that's a big area for us. It's a big area for other companies. And we know we have to be super competitive, when we think about attracting that talent. And so we went and we did a significant amount of internal research, external research to come and say, hey, let's look like three years, four years down the road
28:24
and try to anticipate what we're gonna need to be delivering so that we can start building to deliver that now, right? And if there's gonna be shifts in what those talents are trying or motivated by. There will be. Let's acknowledge that now so we can start working toward it, right? So I think the other thing we're gonna have to get comfortable with is we're like working horizon two, horizon three, we're not gonna get everything right.
28:52
But we certainly can be better at anticipating and predicting. And so we're setting up a new capability in my team, too, called Talent Foresights, which is actually to think about the workforce as a whole at an enterprise level and how we can look at like our build, buy, borrow strategies as you know as things are changing around us so i'm really excited about that how um bit of a random question but um how has this changed the way in which you lead oh my gosh well first of all as a leader you have to lead with like i don't know everything
29:34
Right. Cause nobody does anymore. And so I think just like having that vulnerability and truthfully, like I love, like my team makes fun of me all the time. Cause I love a great whiteboard session. Right. Like I love putting brains in the room and talking about what problem we have to solve and working on it together, like collaboration and, All of these things are some of my favorite ways to working because there's no way that I can sit at my desk and like figure these things out and then tell people what to do. So like command and control is not my style. So I think like that's one thing and I don't think that has changed, but I think that it is important to help people understand that like this is going to be a normal way of working. So you can't come and say like, what are we doing?
30:29
Because we may not actually have the answer to that. So why don't we come and say, what problem might we have to solve? And then how are we going to go solve that? And how you solve that will change. And how we solve it's going to change, right? So I think that's one thing. I also think I'm very comfortable with change.
30:51
I love change. I like a good challenge.
30:55
change is like something that excites me i know that isn't everybody so i also as a leader need to like constantly and i i work with my teams on this too is like we have to like step back understand where people are on their own journey bring them along. We can't say things once and expect everybody to just like, you know, get it and go. So we've we have and I have created what I am very proud of, which is a culture within our talent acquisition team of like communication and transparency. And even the year that we were planning all of our operating model changes, we brought the team along. I told the whole TA organization from the very start, we are looking at our organization, we are looking at these things,
31:55
And as we as we find information and as we think about our future direction, we're going to share with you along the way. And we're not always going to have all the answers, but at least you're going to know where we are in the journey. And so I think like keeping that as a like leadership. guideline for me is really important because I want our organization to like see that we're moving and know that we're moving and then figure out how they can be part of that movement yeah so those few things have have worked I think pretty well um and now sometimes we don't have answers as fast as they want them and you know there's some anxiety in there but I think like
32:38
if they at least have a sense that they are gonna be communicated to, then that releases some of the pressure and anxiety. We also have done another thing, which is we used to send out like a lot of information, like, oh, this process changing and this is happening, this is happening, this is happening. And it was like information overload, right? So now we actually created
33:03
one monthly newsletter that has all of the things we want our leaders and our recruiters to know are the most important things at this moment in time. And we do fund in there too, like we share something about, you know, team members and all of that. But what we want is we want our recruiters to read the newsletter. We want our leaders to be using this newsletter in their team meetings and in their one-on-ones and reinforcing what's in there. And we want this to be like the place where people know if it's in here, I got to know it.
33:38
If I need to learn more, I can talk to my leader about it. And I also know what's going on in the organization. And in there, we also always put an external view. What's something you can be reading? What's a podcast you're listening to? You've showed up in there a couple of times, Chris. What are podcasts you should be listening to? So that also gives people a chance to see what as a leadership team we may be paying attention to, what we're listening to, what we're reading. And that can help too. So just some of those little tweaks, I think, to help bring people along again has been important.
34:16
I think one of the most important things you just said there as well is about communicating even more when you don't have the answers. Mm-hmm. So typically what we do as organizations, and you've probably experienced that in the past, is when they don't have an answer, we don't communicate.
34:33
And then that leads to uncertainty and anxiety and what's going to happen. Whereas communicating, saying, hey, we hear you.
34:44
this is what we're doing. We don't know yet maybe what we're going to do with that, but this is maybe just something we're exploring.
34:51
People love that because that's how you really build trust.
34:56
When my team came to me in the pandemic and we lost literally 100% of our revenue overnight because we were an events business and said, what are we doing, Chris? I said, I don't know, but we're going to figure it out together and this is what we're going to do. And I've never seen the team more motivated.
35:14
And I was terrified. I didn't sleep that whole weekend. I was like, I thought I had to come in with this master plan and I literally had nothing. And together we co-created the future of where this business is now together. And then from that moment, I was like, wait a minute, I need to actually share more when I need help and we don't have the answers and communicate that. That's something that I've just been seeing the best, some of the best organizations do really, really well. Especially when you ask for feedback.
35:41
and people give you feedback and you don't respond. You respond to the things that you are doing, but also respond to the things that you can't and just share. Even if they don't like it, at least you communicated it. IBM, Nickel, for example, it's one of the things she said during our recent interview is that we're very clear with the business that these are the skills that they're going to be the most important in the next X many years or months or whatever it may be. probably months now because the changes so fast. All right. And this is going to be directly linked to compensation.
36:17
And it doesn't matter if you've been here for 20 years or for five months.
36:21
We are basically focusing on skills. And there was a lot of controversy. Some people were like, whoa. Whereas for others, they're like, wow, that's amazing. So if I upskill, reskill myself and focus on that, then this is what that means. And that clarity was amazing for people. It was quite bold to say that. to the whole business and we're like hey and by the way if you if you don't fit this there may you may then there may not be a future for you here you know as and at least people know right it's not just surprised out of nowhere that oh wow my job's you know now become redundant or whatever it may be um as well so i love that you and i love the newsletter sometimes it's the simple things It's simple things, you know, really, um, you don't have to, you know, people, people have enough to think about and worry about without you making it more complicated for them.
37:14
Yeah. I just saw something. My good friend, Lindsay Bridges, who's a CHO over, um, DHL, she does, she just started the series and I'm so happy she did it. Cause I remember telling her you should do it on her LinkedIn. She looked drops to like a video, a video sort of interview slash podcast. She does, um, And she, and it's about, it's internal facing, like she'll interview like new hires and talk about what they're doing in HR. And, and she's now made it like a little video series and she just posted it on LinkedIn. And it's like so simple, but it's just so human. And it's like, and it, and she doesn't shy away from like, it's all just like all positive, amazing. This is incredible. It's also like, here are the challenges we're facing. And if you come and work. Real talk. Yeah. If you come and work at DHL, this is going to be what's required of you. And let's, let's chat to Jeff who joined last week and he's going to share like like it's just so like there's something about that and it doesn't cost a lot of money to do and produce as well um but listen i gotta let you go at some point uh as as we look ahead um we're just starting you know you spoke about i mean everything you shared was really exciting but what are you most excited about as you look ahead for the rest of the year
38:20
You know, we are doing a piece of work with frontline staffing at PepsiCo. And I think this is really, really important, exciting work for us because PepsiCo has 320,000 employees around the globe.
38:38
And a majority of those are frontline hourly people who are make moving and selling our products like they are our company.
38:46
And I think that a lot of what we do sometimes is we focus on kind of the corporate population and You know, we get those things easy and all of that, but we're working on this to actually make our frontline hiring processes more streamlined, more simple, you know, more real where we can use real life job previews and all those things in more effective ways to give talent, you know, opportunity to really see what PepsiCo is about. So this is something we will be deploying this year and that's really exciting.
39:23
talent who's coming into the company is going to appreciate the the updates we're making to that process another like really fascinating piece of work that we're doing this year is around early talent so we make over 5 000 hires through like campus recruiting and early talent programs globally a year and it's a really important program for us but if you think about like
39:49
the generations that continue to come in and how their motivations are changing and what they're expecting from a company like pepsico like we need to make sure we're ready to like meet those needs of that talent and also of our business who needs this talent to build future leaders for our company so we're like re-evaluating how we look at that those programs and how we can, you know, evolve those. And then as I mentioned, like building this new talent, foresight's capabilities, super exciting. I know, I'm like, this is- That's where we've always dreamed of being, right? Like that's always been like the sort of the North star of- Yes, like if we can figure this out, like it'll be so amazing, such a huge unlock. And then we're also, we just started, we are adding like,
40:41
some space, what we're calling some space for us to focus on kind of the employee journey and some of those like big career transitions that people make and how do we elevate those experiences across that life cycle. And that could be from joining the company to applying for a new job and kind of onboarding into a new job to, you know, maybe you decide to exit the company, but we want to stay in touch with you through alumni network and program. So there's some different things in there that we're going to really be focused on. And I'm, I'm very pleased and feel, you know, very happy that my me and my team get to work on some of these cool things. Amazing. So you've just named our next three episodes together. All right, let's do it. Give me a little bit of time and then I'll come back and share with you what we're doing.
41:37
We'll check in. But listen, I always enjoy our conversations and I appreciate you taking the time out. And I think anyone listening right now could hear the passion and energy for what you're doing right now. It's super exciting times, right? i feel like i always say that but i generally feel like that now is like i've been doing this for 20 years and i like there's never been a more exciting time to be in yes there's a lot of change and there's a lot of disruption but that's just like now that's just like the world we live in it's that is you have to get used to it um as well but as you said don't forget to bring our people along the journey uh with us um as well but i wish you all the best and looking forward to chatting again soon Thank you. Well, thanks for having me. Always fun to talk to you too, Chris. And thanks for creating this platform for these types of conversations. And yeah, we'll keep our conversation going over the year.
42:34
Yeah. I'm hoping I make one of the newsletters, throwing it out to the universe. See you later. Thanks. All right.
42:42
See you. Bye.
More from the HR Leaders Podcast
Blair Bennett, SVP Global Talent Acquisition at PepsiCo, shares how modern talent acquisition requires a new operating model, stronger business alignment, and a shift toward AI-enabled, personalized, and continuously evolving hiring systems.