How to Build Confidence as a Leader in 2026 and Beyond
In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we speak with Cathy Peterman, Chief People Officer for Tech, Product & Design at Wayfair, about navigating transformation, leading through change, and preparing the workforce for the AI era.
Cathy shares her unusual path from studying international conflict resolution to leading HR at global brands, and how curiosity, resilience, and embracing discomfort have fueled her career. She discusses imposter syndrome, why transferable skills matter more than titles, and how generative AI is reshaping recruitment, performance, and learning at Wayfair.
🎓 In this episode, Cathy discusses:
Why imposter syndrome can actually signal growth
Building careers around transferable skills, not rigid paths
Preparing engineers and employees for critical thinking in the AI future
How Wayfair uses GenAI in performance, promotions, and talent acquisition
Why leaders must balance vulnerability with confidence during transformation
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Chris Rainey 0:00
Kathy, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm well, thank you. How about yourself? I'm good. Like you've got one of your biggest fans on the show. I mean, here, right here. You know, I love it as well. I got my new rug today for listeners. That makes no context, but we'll make it make sense in a minute. When you speak to people, that I just tell you all the things that they bought from way there
Cathy Peterman 0:23
is the thing, yeah, the things they bought, or the things that went wrong with their order, or been a lot of like, customer dealing with customer issues. As a HR executive,
Chris Rainey 0:37
they like, oh, you can help me out. Yeah, to be fair, that makes sense.
Cathy Peterman 0:43
They don't have context. Yes, true for my job, right?
Chris Rainey 0:47
They think you can do this. That's fine, right? Well, just right, that's so interesting. I'll just reach out to you thinking, sure you can help me. Definitely, to be fair, I've done that a few times myself. I must admit, like I had an issue in my LinkedIn profile got taken down because someone falsely reported it, because I don't know why it has been malicious, and I called the CHRO of LinkedIn, and it was up the next day.
Cathy Peterman 1:10
Sometimes it works,
Chris Rainey 1:11
sometimes you got to pull in the famous but let's, let's go back for everyone, because I love your journey. Tell everyone a bit about your background and the really interesting journey that you've had to where you are now?
Cathy Peterman 1:27
Yeah, so let's see. I'm at Wayfair right now. I lead HR for the technology organization, a couple of the centers of excellence that also report up for me. But if I go all the way back to to gosh, I went to undergraduate outside of Philadelphia. I grew up outside of Philadelphia. Went to Villanova University, and had a great experience, but was ready to get out of there. And I went to the University of Denver, and I actually studied conflict resolution. I was super interested in international conflict, particularly the Israeli Iranian conflict. And I was like, oh, man, I'm really going to solve this.
Chris Rainey 2:14
Ambitious at that age,
Cathy Peterman 2:15
I was ambitious that will stay true that theme.
Cathy Peterman 2:21
But, yeah, I was, I was interested in, you know, why do cultures clash? What goes on? How can we get people to talk to each other and find common ground? And I was looking at it from a lens of international relations, and that's what I got my degree in. But in the meantime, I was, I had to work. I didn't have any money. I was in graduate school, and so I actually worked at a target in Colorado, and got really interested. I was like, this is super interesting. I like business. I like how this works. I was interested in the logistics. I was interested in the challenges that we were facing as our little store. And I started to get like, Oh, what is this business stuff? And talk to the head of HR of that store, and she took me under her wing, and I, like, develop, developed a leadership program for the Target store, and then somehow I was like, well, maybe I shouldn't do international relations as my career. Maybe I should do something else. And actually wrote my thesis. As a result, I totally changed paths in the middle of my graduate degree, and I wrote on how do people in the workplace solve conflict informally. What do you do when you have a conflict with someone at work? What do you do? How do you handle it? How does it work? And wrote my my research paper on that and that kind of launched my career into the HR space. Ish. From there, sometimes I wonder,
Chris Rainey 4:12
my first question is, where do you think this curiosity stems from?
Cathy Peterman 4:18
I think at the core of it, there's this interest in humanity, how we relate to each other. What this, you know, where we really we spend so much time at work. I spend the majority of my time at work. So do you. And so if there's things that get in the way of us having a great experience, which often comes from conflict. I don't like how I'm feeling, I don't like what I'm getting done. I disagree with my boss. I don't like my peer. That's a really a study of humanity and how it is that we exist in the world, and how it is we relate to each other, and how. Is we have the best lives that we have and that we could and that's really, I don't know. I guess that's what I became really interested in. I'm not answering your question, which
Chris Rainey 5:11
you are, but I mean, where did it come from? Yeah, just wondering if it was something that you had as a kid. Was you one of those cure? Because I was always the kid my mom. I drove my mom crazy. But, but why? All the question? Yeah, sometimes I'm like, I just don't know why. I'm just wondering if that's something you look back on as you reflect it was that something was always part of your personality, maybe, as it
Cathy Peterman 5:35
were, yeah, I wasn't, but why? But I was an observer, like I actually my mom passed when I was young, when I was 18, and I just recently, my dad sent a bunch of my like books. My mom kept a journal about each of us, which is really incredible. I don't know how she did, I don't know how she had the time, but she when I was young, like, 2345, she always wrote, Kathy's observing. She's watching. She's like, really, I, from a very young age, was a observer of interested in, how is it that people are relating to each other? What's going on here, kind of thing.
Chris Rainey 6:15
So you already had that curious mindset from very I think so, which is quite rare. It's raw rare than you think. The people don't just accept what's happening to them around them, but they question it. Yeah, they observe. They observe it, like you said, as well. And it's interesting how that led you down the route of kind of workplace conflict. But I get it like I now I get it now you've explained it. What would you say is like, a common misconception when people think about workplace conflict,
Cathy Peterman 6:47
that they have to go to HR,
Chris Rainey 6:51
yes, yes, yes, everyone watching and listening right now is going to hit a thumbs up on that one, right? And we're like, and normally it's the managers coming to you with that, rather than dealing themselves like, no, no, this doesn't live right as well, right? It's like, no, that's part of your role as a
Cathy Peterman 7:14
leader, right? Exactly. But I find
Cathy Peterman 7:16
it really interesting, interesting now to know that's fine with I'm seeing some of the younger generation come into the workforce, and I'm finding it interesting that they are coming to HR more than I would say, some of their older the previous generations, myself included, which is a very interesting trend. I don't know if others are seeing it, very anecdotal, but yeah,
Chris Rainey 7:40
no, it makes sense. How do you say that? That? How that? How has that shaped you as a HR leader?
Cathy Peterman 7:48
I have zero idea, but let's try. Let's play it out. And I'm
Chris Rainey 7:51
just throwing questions. I mean in terms of shaping how you approach problems, right? You're looking at it from a quite a unique lens, yeah, and I'm just
Cathy Peterman 8:03
wondering, yeah, it's really, I, you know, my training, my my, my graduate degree, was really about how, how do you find relatability, common ground, Where, where can you spend time? Particularly in the beginning, creating the relatability. And I do firmly believe that what has us all connected is that we have an experience as humans on this earth. And there's going to be something that connects me to you, Chris, there always is we, you know, loved this person or not a particular person, but we were, we had love in our lives, or we had challenge in our life, or whatever it is, there's usually some common ground. And so that's often the starting point of how I approach difficult conversations, or how I approach two people who are in conflict and having them to come together, I know you're both really committed to doing a great job at at work, so let's talk start there, and then we can figure out what, what the challenge is along the way and getting people grounded in that. I i as a HR leader, it's it has me be more connected to the human experience, what, what my employees are going through, what my leaders are going through, and really thinking about it from that perspective, not just the the numbers in the business, and although I care a lot about that, it's it's really coming from that approach of where we have this common human experience that we're all in together?
Chris Rainey 9:43
Yeah, I try to encourage that in my team a lot, because one of the things that we talk about in our meetings, or when we're giving feedback, when we're handling conflict, is start with firstly assuming positive intent. Yeah, right, because you can very quickly put your wall up and your guard Right, right. And. But try and put yourself in the other person's shoes, and start with assuming positive intent, right? And, and that's something me and Shane as best friends, that's tough, right? To give each other hard feedback when you've been friends as kids. So when I, when I when Shane gives me feedback on something, maybe I don't want to hear, right? And I always think from two things, I know that Shane saying this because he wants the best for me and he wants the best for the best for the organization. He's not going out of his way to try and make me feel bad to be able to do that. And that's that's kind of like a muscle, because you have like, this knee jerk reaction right to be able to do that. And then I love that, and I love what you just said, is setting the foundation of saying, This is why we're having this conversation and setting up that beforehand, and like, this is, this is why we're having a meeting. This is the purpose. And I do that for every meeting I have. Now, it's like a rule that if I'm having a meeting with one on one or the team, or saying, this is the purpose of this meeting, and in a meeting, everyone knows exactly why it is. No one's assuming, is it this? Is it about is it about that? And you kind of skip that process, right? You just skipped it, yeah, and then it just become part of our business. Now, anyone at any level in this company can come and tell me, or anyone what they think in front of the whole team. And I'm not gonna say, Hey, I'm the CEO. How dare you talk to me? Do you think that's also what led you down the route? I know at QVC and Amazon and gap, but you've dealt with a lot of transformation and business change. This seems like a natural
Cathy Peterman 11:28
segue, supernatural. Yeah, I think the other thing that's like, I am a we talked about, I ambitious. That is true, like, I am one of those people that I drive for change. I want to see what's next. I want to help us advance in some way. And so that's where I get my energy. And so I'm attracted to situations, roles, companies, where there's something really big that needs to get done and we have to figure out not only our path forward to some sort of end state, but also bringing people along the way and having them have a great experience of whatever it is we're doing. And as I think about like all of my all of my jobs and consulting with GAP international at QVC, no responsible for figuring out, how do we go from a geographically siloed company to a globally matrix organization? That was a really big transformation for the company. Was super fun. I googled my they gave me the role, and I was like googling org design.
Chris Rainey 12:39
Well, that's what I didn't know. What that's the days where you wish you had chatgpt. I wish I had chatgpt. I mean, you didn't know of it then, but this is now where people don't take for granted. That's right, how hard. Oh, man,
Cathy Peterman 12:53
I would have been so great with chatgpt, yeah. But really, like, I there is, there is this, like, oh, there's this big thing we need to get done. I'll figure it out. I will figure
Chris Rainey 13:04
it out. That's a mindset though, right? Like, that's, that's, that's a mindset. Like, people always say, I mean, this sounds really arrogant, but they say, Chris, you're good at everything you do. I'm like, No, I'm not. It's just that I look at it through the lens of not rather than, I can't do that. I don't have the skills to, how can I and then I have the curiosity to go down the rabbit hole and willingness to fail forward. And for me, that's where the excitement comes. That's where my sweet spot is in the middle of chaos, my test and my coach always says, like, Chris, your superpower is resilience. He always says that to me all the time. He's like because you kind of run towards the headwind. And I was like, yeah, that's fun. That's why the biggest growth happens. That's where, like, I mean, that's going wrong. It doesn't feel good sometimes when you are when you're in the storm, but being able to recognize that you're in the storm, that's right. Some people don't
Cathy Peterman 13:58
know, and that there will be another side. The storm doesn't last forever, right? We always get to the other side. Yeah. Of could you
Chris Rainey 14:06
think of a moment like during those, those those roles like that, really, what was the biggest challenge you had to overcome that really helped shape you?
Cathy Peterman 14:17
I talked to my team about this a lot, actually. I think one of the biggest challenges for me was imposter syndrome. I wasn't trained in HR, exchange, international conflict, right? And wasn't trained in business. Didn't get my MBA. And as I said, I Googled org design when
Chris Rainey 14:39
I was, I love it honestly. By the way, I absolutely love it. And this is, and this is just the truth of everyone to be honest.
Cathy Peterman 14:46
Yeah. I was like, I was working with the CA CHRO, the CEO, the executive team, and they were like, Okay, we got to do this big thing. We want to purchase HSN in the long term. How do we redesign the. QVC, and I was like, we're designing Googling, and so the imposter syndrome was real. You show up to work and you have to lead something that you've never I've never led before. I've never done before, and maybe other people around me have, but they're trusting me to do the work. And so how do I confront in all of those scenarios, not being the expert or not actually having any of the answers, but still having the confidence to say, I'll lead us through this, and I can do it in a way that's going to set us up to be successful, even if it's a mess along the way, hopefully it's not a mess. I even feel that right now, right though, in this whole generative AI transformation, I am leading the team with a ton of confidence. Well, here's what we're going to do. We're going to redesign roles, and we're going to refigure out levels, and we're going to figure out our job architecture in the midst of this. But I don't actually,
Chris Rainey 16:02
but that's the honest but the fact, the fact that you can acknowledge that is part of the reason why you've been able to push forward. Because you either you ever let it handcuff you, right? And you say no to opportunities, you turn them down because you feel like you're not fully ready. But the reality is, you're never ready, and and the world is moving so fast that you continuously not be ready. We just knew, for example, AI is a frosted upon all of us, and it's completely new. There is no case study. There's no playbook to be able to do that. How did you I was gonna say, how do you overcome that? But, like, I don't think you've ever overcome that. I think you just acknowledge that, and I agree. I'm saying, but how do you use that as fuel, as opposed to hold you back?
Cathy Peterman 16:46
Yeah, I think a belief in the future, that I can figure it out, right? But I also that's where I start to go, seek others out, right? Because I don't know anything really, or I have assumptions, or I have a hypothesis, or think I could go this way, and that's where I really want to surround myself with other thoughtful people who care about similar things and say, Hey, I have this idea, or I think we're going to go this way. Or, hey, you've done this before. When I was doing the work at QVC with the org design, we brought in a consulting company that man they made, I learned so much from them, and it was incredible to put myself in a position where I was not only leader, but also learner and learning from the people around Me and the people that could really support and enable success of whatever outcome we were driving. And so I think those two things, confidence in the future, but also surrounding myself with people that could ensure the outcome was was going to get delivered.
Chris Rainey 17:55
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's quite a big misconception, right? When you when you look at some of the most successful leaders and, you know, entrepreneurs, etc, out there, you assume that they are the the source of knowledge, but what you find is they actually are just their superpower is getting the right people and hiring the right people and making them work well, right? They're not the knowledge, you know. They are basically experts at being able to get the right people and creating the right environment for them to thrive. And that's something that blew my mind. When I started interviewing a lot of entrepreneurs, I was like, wow, so it's not even you. I always assumed it as the, you know, the founder or the CEO. And I was like, no, they're just actually incredible. And loads of CPOs that I know that if their first time is in a CPO role and they have no background whatsoever, when I asked them, How do you like, how you doing and like, why just surround myself with amazing people, and you have to leave your vulnerability. Take your ego out of the room. Be vulnerable, be curious, ask questions, yeah, and that unlocks a level of trust within your team through that humility that empowers them to do their best work, but you just get out the way. HR leaders are struggling. It's normally because I'm the bottleneck. And I took me a long time to realize that sometimes I'm like, complaining and this is not happening, and I'm like, Scott's me most, yeah, yeah. What would you say to those people that that perhaps feel they're not ready to take that next step and there are opportunities ahead of them? What words would you give to them?
Cathy Peterman 19:37
Do it anyways? Actually, just talked to a team member of mine. He was. He has been an individual contributor on my team for three years. He has this opportunity to lead a central function in was a center of excellence in the HR organization. And he's, he's like Kathy. I've never led a team. I don't know what I'm doing. And. I trust you. What do you think I'm like, absolutely take it. I will let you fail. Go call me up anytime. We'll talk about what you're struggling with, what's going on. But this is the opportunity for you to push yourself to experiment. Is this something you love? Is this something that excites you? Is this something that you could be, you know, really propelling your career forward in the way that you want? And so I'm always just a go for it, pick. I'm always a pick up the phone. I'm always a take a bet on yourself.
Chris Rainey 20:38
Yeah, one of the things I think I learned quite young, is like no one. I don't know where I got this from, but I mean, was a podcast I listened to, but I remember someone talking around the cost of not doing it. So people always look at the cost of, what if I fail? What are people going to think? Sure you know, whereas if you just completely flip that, and whenever you have that wrote the moment in life, you know, or is, what is the cost of me not saying, yes, yeah, yeah, you know. And that that for me, changed everything. So whenever I see a new opportunity, I'm like, Just go for it, because the very worst thing is you're going to learn a lot.
Cathy Peterman 21:18
That's right. And I always say to my team, look, it's a two way door. If you hate it, or you're you think this is the worst thing you've ever done, ever decision, you just make a different decision. Yeah, then we can say, like, Okay, this wasn't the right thing. You tried it. You hate it. Let's move on and find what the next thing is for you. Then, yeah, it's you're not stuck. You're not You're not stuck there
Chris Rainey 21:38
forever. That's true, yeah. And it's most of these I spoke to that been, for example, in the same company for a long time. They just had multiple careers in the same business. That's right, you know, yeah. And so you can do that. I mean, I think that's coming. That's going to become less and less as we work shifts to more skills based and we remove silos between functions, etc, it's going to become a lot more project based. So that's going to be really interesting to see how that evolves. I feel that's going to open up even more opportunities, because we're looking at people, yeah, I think it's even going to be even better. Because the reason I quit my last job, I was there for 10 years from the age of 17 in a sales role, and I remember going to my leadership team and saying, I want more opportunity. Like, and they're like, No, your sales, stick to sales. And I was like, Yeah, but I've been doing this for 10 years. Like, I enjoyed a company, I enjoyed a team, and unfortunately, they refused, and I left. I didn't want to leave. I was just looking for other opportunities. Like, you don't know anything about marketing or you don't know anything about operation. I was like, Yeah, but I have the skills that are transferable, and clearly I have the dedication and growth mindset, because I've been here for 10 years. And they were like, Nah, we have this structure, and this is how it works your sales. And now I look back 10 years later, and by what a shame that that I mean not a shame. I mean, for me, it worked out great, but what a shame for them to lose, for lose, to lose talent, right? And I look at that with my own team. Most of the team have been with us for five years plus, and they've been in multiple roles in the organization. And I always have conversations with them around, is there any other areas that are really interesting for you that you're excited about? And they're like, yeah, like, you know, we've had, like, sales people go into marketing. We've had someone in marketing go into live stream production, because they did it in their spare time, and they're really excited about it. I've had people go all over the business, and that's, that's where they really unlock themselves. And, yeah, don't need to ask for discretionary effort. They can't wait to do it
Cathy Peterman 23:40
now. I think too you talked about the future, and I think that's I imagine that as we move to more generative AI really becomes our assistance. It becomes taking over some of our automated, rote work that we don't need to spend our time on, and it will free us up to try other things, and the nature of those things will be using those transferable skills. How do you relate to people? What's your strategic thinking, your critical thinking? How are you thinking about the business and the customer, and applying those things in different contexts? And I think the work is shifting to there's this project we need to get done, this initiative we need to drive, and it's going to enable our talent, our people, to say, Oh, I think I could try that, because I have those skills that I just talked about. And that's what's needed, because chat GPT is going to have the expertise around marketing, or whatever it is. They can say, prop you up. They can prop people up with the expertise. And I think that's really exciting about the future.
Chris Rainey 24:46
Is such an incredible shift, right? Because, like, you went from a skills, sorry, from a from technical base, focus on technical capabilities. Reality, which was really the focus of education, and you know what people are looking at on CVS to actually, we can acquire that very relatively easy through AI and other elements. So now what becomes more important is those power skills, right, right? You know, like you said, critical thinking. I'm worried about that, quite honestly, the fact that people just can just throw something into chatgpt, and not after you actually have to really think and process. And know what it feels like to start with a blank piece of paper, which is really hard, but then forces you to really explore, you know. Now you just ask the question, you get an answer, but you don't even really analyzing what does that mean, you know, and the process that it was created as well. So we're gonna have to be a little bit careful about how we leverage that. So I am excited about it, and I agree like, you know, I actually just embedded a tool this week that listens into all of my calls, and when I get off a call, it already has written the email in my inbox to reply to the person I just spoke to the entire context. I just have to press send. And it spent two weeks training itself on my tone of 1000s of my previous emails, you know, and that saved me probably a day a week. I'm not even exaggerating, yeah, of just and it has them all teed up. And any email that comes in box, it writes a response for me, and then I just have to approve it, so I go through what take me hours now I just, I'm just tweaking approve, approve, approve, approve. Sounds like a small thing is an absolute game changer. Yeah, for me, for like, $20 a month to be able to be able to do that, but I'm excited for that to be able to free up our leaders and our managers and our employees to really focus on on that human element. Is that gone? Sorry, no, you go ask your question. I was just gonna mention that you did you say within your current role you have a leadership academy? Or did, maybe I got that wrong earlier? We don't we?
Cathy Peterman 26:59
Yeah, we don't at Wayfair. We have a bunch of leadership like development programs, particularly as you're moving into first time management. We have a program that people can go through, and then there's coursework that people can take as they become more senior and need to create advanced skills are dealing with more challenging situations, that sort of thing, but it's not an academy per se.
Chris Rainey 27:22
Yeah, I was just wondering, based on what we just discussed, how you think that that will evolve?
Cathy Peterman 27:26
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. The you know, I'm working with our senior tech leaders right now to rethink, what does an engineer of the future look like? What does a product manager of a future of the future look like? How, how do we architect our work, and then, therefore, architect our jobs, our people are the infrastructure around it. And one of the big challenges that we're thinking through right now is, and I'm sure others are as well, is, you know, what we really need are the critical thinkers, the more senior engineers who are going to say, understand our architecture and be able to deploy coding agents in a way that is really writing code to solve the customer problem, they're going to become more senior technical writers. But I need to grow the future of those engineers. I need to say, Okay, I don't need an engineer, engineer right out of school to be writing code, because the agents going to do that. But what I do need is to grow someone right out of school into that more senior person who understands the architecture, brings critical thinking, understood looks around corner, is going to think about reusability, and so that's where we're really thinking, Okay, what does the academy I don't know that we're going to use those words, but the Academy of growth look like, and moving it more towards early careers versus management, because I need to grow those skills, develop those skills for employees as they're leaving college, leaving university, and entering the workforce and and developing those critical thinking skills that we talked about in within the context of Wayfair,
Chris Rainey 29:11
yeah, it's gonna be very interesting, because although we create, created these incredible llms and technical tools, now, creativity is now something that was undervalued in the past, which is now we don't need the technical capability. It's actually the creativity, the curiosity, the critical thinking, which is going to be the currency of the future, because we have that our fingertips, and that's something we have, like in education, in our workplace, education that we've just massively under indexed on that was not something I've not seen that in any training program. No whatsoever we see with they now call it STEAM rather than stem, because they've added in the art part of it as well. But it's not I see, even in my own daughter's education, it's just not something just like valued in the same way as English, maths and science, etc, yeah. What about that curiosity? How are we exploring that as much as, yeah, as much as possible.
Cathy Peterman 30:16
And I think in at least in the business corporate world, being really curious about your customer, yeah, AI, the human on the other side is going to be probably the one of the most critical things that we can, that we can do, because that's what's going to drive the innovation. How, what do they need? How are they thinking and and really, coming from that space, is that's not what we train engineers on. We train engineers on how to develop really great code that's developing a slick application, right? But now it's really going to be focused on, be curious about the human on the other side. What can, what can you do for
Chris Rainey 30:54
them? My, um, my head of engineering, and AI, and AI Marvin is kind of like a I've even got very lucky with him. He, he's one of the few engineers that I speak to that has a very much he has, kind of both sides. He has the technical ability to code and build and but he has this curiosity and this creativity combined, which I've never, I've not seen often, and it makes him approach different problems in a for a very different view, yeah. And I'll ask him questions around, can we do X, Y and Z? And he's always his response is, he's like, yes, the answer is yes to everything you're about to ask me before I even ask. And he's like, but he's always like, why? Right? You know what? I love that he challenged. What? But what is the why is it we just jumping on the trend, on the bandwagon? And he's like, people have already all done this. It's like, all the pieces of the puzzle in the airspace, many of them are already there, and it's now just how companies are assembling that puzzle to solve a specific problem. You know, all the ingredients are already there, and it's the creativity of thinking differently about, how can I reimagine these different challenges in a new way and approach that when people, I mean, even when I first connected you and I saw, obviously the technology side, people probably don't think of the organization that you're working for from a for A technology lens, yeah, so what does that mean when you think, when you talk about technology and Wayfair? Could you give some examples like, of what that means?
Cathy Peterman 32:28
Yeah? Well, first, like Wayfair is E commerce first, right? So you think about the home decor industry, and most of the time, people go to a store to sit on the couch and decide whether or not they want to buy it. And Wayfair said, let's change, let's flip the script and say we're going to provide a much larger catalog of high quality products, and you're going to be able to order it from your home and have confidence that it's great. And so technology is really the backbone of our customer being able to have confidence in the product that they're buying. And if you think about as we're moving into the future, we actually are doing some really cool things, where our technology team said, Hey, we think we can use generative AI to imagine a new living room for you. So let's say you want to do I know that this probably isn't your style, Chris, but a bohemian mountain living room style. And you can go into Wayfair and say, this is the kind of style want. Can you imagine what that room design, what that room looks like for me, and offer up products that work together so that I can, I can really purchase the things and create a room or a home that I love. And so technology, our tech team, has to figure out, how do we take a customer out of the store and put the have that same experience through your computer screen. And the team has done an incredible job of really thinking innovatively. And you know, we were one of the first in the in the industry to provide some of those experiences, particularly with generative AI, to to the customer, to a customer facing so that they could really, uh, build a home that they love through through our interface and through our app and through our website. Yeah?
Chris Rainey 34:29
Sorry to interrupt you, by the way, like these people keep knocking at the door, there's loads of packages. Sorry, yeah, the packages, yeah, so I hope they're from last five minutes. You've been speaking to me. I've been trying to avoid phone calls, and the doors been banging, and I was trying to, like, signal, so we'll cut this out. I'm so sorry. I was like, trying to Morse code the team, like, just say it, I know, but you're on a roll. And I was like, How do I do like, I've never been in that position before. I was like, I don't know what to do right now. And now they're going to come in. Then tell me they need a code for the package. I'm so sorry as well. We'll jump back in in a second. Shane, I feel like I need an intercom, like I need, like they're in the studio upstairs. I need, like, a little Hello guys. I'm the only one downstairs, and the delivery drivers are literally yesterday, they were like, looking at me across the room, yeah, and they don't know. They don't know what's happening right now with the conversation, 74 that my Uber, the Uber drivers calling me. It's the code 74 and can I just give you my phone, please? I was mess. I sent two emails. I was Morse code in across the room go. Is that I did tell Shane smoke signals? Yeah, I didn't know. Sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't know what to do. I was like, panicking. I was like, How do I I can't just leave all right, let's start back in. No problem. So one of the challenges, I assume, must be, though, that you're, you're all also fighting for that same talent. So how do you make a compelling offering from an employee brand perspective, you know, I suppose the most I'm assuming most people know the brand, when,
Cathy Peterman 36:14
yeah, most people know the brand, particularly in the US, you know, we've had to build a brand recognition as we've moved into India, and, you know, we don't sell our products in India. So how do we create a great brand for attracting top tech talent, particularly in India? But you know, it comes down to, are you working on engineers love to work on really interesting things, and are you working on cool things? Do you get to make a difference for the customer? That's ultimately what we all want to do. Do I Do I feel like I'm bringing value. And if people feel like they're bringing value, feel like they're supported within their environment. That's really what we're trying to create at Wayfair. And it helps that, you know, Fiona tan, our CTO, is really ahead on and out there in the world, around how we are leading the charge from technology advancements and in the E commerce space, and so that also helps, having a great brand, from it, from a tech town perspective,
Chris Rainey 37:11
no, I love that. I think there's a lot of trust and credibility with the brand. So the team have done whatever they're doing. They've done a great job. I have to ask you this last question before I let you go, what are some of the ways that you're leveraging Gen AI in HR, yeah, it's a bit of a minefield right now. So much it
Cathy Peterman 37:33
is. Yeah, I'm so in my team. We last winter, during our performance cycle, we actually put out guides for our managers and employees about how to use generative AI for performance reviews. I think we were pretty early in that train, and we got some really great results from that. So we're continuing to build on that, supporting our promotion processes as well. How do you use generative AI to build your promotion packet for your employee, evaluate that ensure it meets other requirements. And then, obviously, humans are in the loop to make decisions and evaluate those. We're using it pretty heavily in our TA process. We have actually implemented now for engineering code assist tools, what code assist tool are using? And then now we're assessing because we know they're using it.
Chris Rainey 38:26
And that's a good point, by the way, if you will think, then they're not using these tools outside of the business. They're using them anyway. So you bet what, you might as well work with them on it.
Cathy Peterman 38:36
Yeah, yeah. So we asked them, Which one are they using, and then we ask them questions about their code, that they actually that the that they are presenting to us so that we're assessing now critical thinking, rather than the code quality themselves. And so that's a that's a big shift in our interview process, even obviously, it's helping us find talent and source and all those things. And from a TA perspective, schedule interviews, take notes during interviews, all that sort of stuff. And then when we're in the process of implementing an AI tap bot for our employee work, our employee base, that says, How can you get all your tier one questions answered? Please generate my verification employment verification letter. How many PTO days do I have left? All that sort of stuff. We're in that space as well. And then the other piece that I'm responsible for is our onboarding and learning programs. And so we've started to use Gen AI technology to build our training programs, to build our onboarding to support leaders and having customized onboard, personalized onboarding, appropriate to the person, the candidate, based on their interview, based on the feedback, and then based on their role, which is really awesome,
Chris Rainey 39:49
super exciting times ahead as well. I mean, we could do a whole another show about how you decided to choose all of that and what tools, because there's like a million out. There as well, right? There's a million, but maybe we'll do a part two, maybe a year from now. You can tell me how they all went.
Cathy Peterman 40:06
Yeah, that's right. It's all experimentation, yeah.
Chris Rainey 40:09
But I think part of that, though, is you have to create that, that that the environment for experimentation, and have the sandbox for people to play in, because otherwise, like anyone who says they're going to choose the right solution the first time and get it right, it's just not reality. So you also have to be comfortable that we're going to make some bets. We're going to learn. Let's be transparent about that with people as well. Yeah, and be clear on what we are going to do and what we're not going to do as well. But it sounds like you're I think what you're describing also to quite honestly, is really setting the foundations when, what's our infrastructure? Yeah. Like, you got to set that part first before you start going off into some more complex tasks. Like, sometimes I'm seeing a skipping that step, and I think that's going to kind of just be a house of cards. At some point, you need to really intentional about that first, about the impression, yeah, yeah. I gotta let you go. At some point I just really we're way over time, but I just forgot and enjoyed the conversation way too much, which is a good thing as well, but I appreciate you coming on. The last thing I asked you is, like, for those HR leaders of the future, you know, the ones that are going to be sitting in your seat one day, what will be your parting piece of advice? And then we'll say goodbye,
Cathy Peterman 41:22
just take the job. Go for it. Yeah, try it. Do it. You know, there's, I don't know, continue to be curious. Believe in yourself, even if you go imposter syndrome, because you'll, you'll figure it out. None of us really know what we're doing, and we're all figuring it out together. And so go for the job. Take a bet on yourself.
Chris Rainey 41:41
No, I love that. I would say, like I if you, if you feel imposter syndrome, it means you're doing the right thing. It's a good scared, yeah, it means you, it means you're pushing, pushing in the right direction. Anything worth doing and just is, you're going to feel that. So just reframe that as actually, this just means I'm challenging myself to do better, be better as well as rather than, like, what if I fail as well? And I really appreciate during this episode, like the conversation, your vulnerability of sharing that too, because we always see these people at the top and assume they've all got it all figured out, and they know everything, and it's just not true. Sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll give yourself permission. So then not wait for that tap on the shoulder. Give yourself a tap
Cathy Peterman 42:31
on the shoulder. Give yourself the tap, yeah, get on yourself.
Chris Rainey 42:34
Bet on yourself, right? Who better to bet on than you? That's right? Well, listen, I appreciate you. Enjoy the holidays and speak at 10 soon. I really appreciate it.
Cathy Peterman 42:46
Thank you. Chris.
More from the HR Leaders Podcast
Cathy Peterman, CPO for Tech, Product & Design at Wayfair.