How to Hire 55,000 People in 6 Years (And Not Break Your Company)
In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we speak with Elle Lebourg, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Hilti Group, about transforming TA to hire 55,000 people in six years while protecting culture and experience.
Elle explains why classic change models fall short, how authentic communication sustains engagement, and why TA must adopt a product mindset. She shares how Hilti maps candidate journeys, balances global standards with local nuance, and keeps people, not tools, at the center of transformation.
🎓 In this episode, Elle discusses:
Using raw, authentic communication to build trust in transformation
Balancing global standards with local cultural nuance in every market
Running TA like a product team with journey mapping and key moments
Why focusing on how people feel sustains change better than old models
Hiring 55,000 people in six years and what it takes to scale TA responsibly
Greenhouse is the only hiring software you’ll ever need.
From outreach to offer, Greenhouse helps companies get measurably better at hiring with smarter, more efficient solutions – powered by built-in AI.
With Greenhouse AI, you can generate stronger candidate pools faster and source high quality talent with more precision, streamline the interview process with automation tools, and make faster, more confident hiring decisions with AI-powered reporting.
Greenhouse has helped over 7,500 customers across diverse industry verticals, from early-stage to enterprise, become great at hiring, including companies like HubSpot, Lyft, Trivago, Crowdstreet and Gymshark.
Elle Lebourg 0:00
Whenever we would engage with an external expert on change management, it was like a pattern. They would treat change like the grieving process. You know, where you have to go through this valley and then accept it, and then finally, kind of learn to love it. And it was this curve that always went down, back up, and then, like, stabilized. And I'm like, well, there's just has to be a different way. Change isn't always portrayed badly, you know. So we were going for more of a slow progression up in engagement, but then a sustained engagement in the way that we were changing things. Because the other pattern we saw is like, you know, there'd be a big boost, a big launch, and then people would revert to their old ways. Eventually, you know, those habits would kick back in, and then you'd have to do another boost. And so here we really tried to change our programming to have that sustained change curve. And the way that we did it was like 100% just focusing on how people felt,
Chris Rainey 1:17
Hey, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. I know that. Wake you up there. You're like, Hey, where are you joining us from in the world? Dallas, Texas. Nice. Yeah, is it, like, super hot? I can't think of Texas about just not thinking of really, like, just crazy heat. Yeah.
Elle Lebourg 1:37
I mean, it's, it's walking on the sun light at the moment, it's, it's been worse, we'll say, So,
Chris Rainey 1:43
what do you do to say, walking on the sun, like,
Elle Lebourg 1:47
Yes, I mean, it's like, you know, and we live in just this concrete wasteland, right? So everything is just extra hot.
Chris Rainey 1:54
See, you can't walk barefoot on the pavement, then on anything, or on anything.
Elle Lebourg 1:58
Basically, yeah, just your grass. Grass is still okay if it's not fried.
Chris Rainey 2:02
I made that mistake in Vegas one year, like, I went to a conference and I went to like, one of the pools, and I walked out with barefoot, no flip flops, and immediately had to sprint, sprint back in. And everyone was staring at me, like, yeah, the new guy, he doesn't get I was like, Oh, we've never had that type of heat in the UK where you can't walk on the floor as well? Yeah. How was your summer?
Elle Lebourg 2:27
Oh, it was good. We, um, we took some time off, um, we visited Honduras for the first time. So we were beautiful South America. Really, really pretty island. They have the second biggest barrier reef in the world, wow. Yes, we did a lot of great snorkeling, and night snorkeling, which was a first night for me, terrifying.
Chris Rainey 2:51
How about I say, I mean, yeah, what was, is it? Because you see different types, you see the coral glow and, like, the different types of creatures. I mean, yeah,
Elle Lebourg 2:59
you see all the, all the critters that don't come out during the day, in octopus, you know, they the squids, eels, those kinds of dudes that hide during the day. But it was terrifying. I mean, yeah, you're in the dark. It's warm water. You can't have, like, you have all these like, pictures of sharks, you know. But, yeah, really, it was just counting all of My children, making sure
Chris Rainey 3:23
with your children. I mean, I mean your wrist, okay, your risk tolerance is higher than, like, it
Elle Lebourg 3:30
was storming, so it's raining side,
Chris Rainey 3:35
yeah, that's like, you could be like, how to lose a child? And it's like, yeah, was it worth it? Was it worth it? Yeah, no, it was super cool. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, yeah, I remember when I first went to the Caribbean and, like, just jumped in and decided snorkeling, just being like, this is insane. How clear the water is. It doesn't seem it doesn't seem real. You're like, this is just unbelievable. Like, I can just see and swim around and like, yeah, it's like, it's so cool. Like, when you come from a country, like in the UK, you can't see anything in any war, obviously. So when you first go there, it kind of like, takes you back for a second to be like, Wow. Like, this is unbelievable, especially if you see a reef like that, that's kind of enormous. That's like, one of my bucket lists to go and see, like, a reef, like, that's just, especially, yeah, really cool, especially as like, so many have been, like, destroyed. It's not even getting
Elle Lebourg 4:27
like, certain parts of it wasn't as healthy, you know, yeah, but it's still really pretty and vibrant in most areas,
Chris Rainey 4:33
nice. That was an incredible experience and memory for the kids to remember as well. Yeah, for sure. Look, tell everyone a little bit more. And obviously we spoke about the family stuff, but about your background and your journey to where we are now. Did you, did you choose this kind of career, or did it kind of choose you along the way?
Elle Lebourg 4:52
Well, I think I still am defining my career honestly, but no. HR, definitely chose me. I went to school. For supply chain management. Oh, wow. A little bit removed from, you know, human resources topics. But what was funny is, like all these moments in my career, there was always a mentor, like a key person in my life at that time at work, who would you know unrelated? Ask me, have you ever considered HR? Have you ever considered going to HR? Maybe you should try HR. And then 10 years into the career, I was like, Okay,
Chris Rainey 5:27
why do you think they kept saying that? Why do you think that kept
Elle Lebourg 5:32
coming up? I think it was. I had a knack for like, connecting operational or financial topics to a language that people understood. And then, like, you know, the aligning people to move towards action. So I think that was where it was coming from. But even, like in my internship, I interned with a company for three years. I was all set to sign, you know, with them, to go full time after college. It was a logistics position, and then last second, they were like, Oh, we really want to put you in HR. To me, I was like, No, the only thing I knew about
Chris Rainey 6:07
HR, what was your perception of HR? That's a good question.
Elle Lebourg 6:10
Yeah, Toby from the office. Was my perception from HR, so from US office, you know, whatever the UK equivalent is, we know. But yeah, yeah, it was Toby, and that was like, that's not me. I didn't go to school for this, you know. And, but what do you know when you're 20 years old? Yeah, but eventually I found my way through, through finance and total rewards. And then, did you know business partnering, and I really loved just the dynamic nature of HR and how every day was different, and there wasn't like, a routine, necessarily.
Chris Rainey 6:45
Yeah, they won. They finally won you over.
Elle Lebourg 6:48
I did, but I did have to take a break from it, you know? I mean, it's, it's an emotionally exhausting function to be in, depending on the company and the climate. So I did step away for a little bit, but eventually found my way back.
Chris Rainey 7:00
Yeah, why do you think? Because I hear that a lot in private. Why do you think that we don't talk about that? You don't hear much about that on social media or in HR publications or any, actually, in fact, on many podcasts. We all know it's happening, and we all you know you have networks. I have networks. We see it, but we don't talk about this topic. It's like, why is that?
Elle Lebourg 7:22
I think it's, you know, the there's a little bit of, like, trying to protect others. I think that people who naturally gravitate towards this work don't want to impose their feelings about, you know, something negative on others. So I think, you know, keeping it within, like the HR family. Privately, you vent to each other, yeah. And then I think a lot of is just, you know that saying about the cobblers kids not having shoes like you just never take care of yourself because you're constantly worrying about others. And then you get to that point of burnout where now it's too late.
Chris Rainey 7:59
I had, like, one of our virtual, like, live streams we do every other week. And we had like a 800 global well being leaders, like, like, heads of global well being, they're the worst. How ironic. Like, literally, we're on the call talking about some of the biggest challenges. And what we nailed down is the challenge of them taking care of themselves, like you're literally the global well being. So how can you be seen to be, you know, you kind of always kind of what be a shining example, right? So you can't be, you know, off sick or having struggles of your mental health or, you know, it's like it puts, like an unintended consequence of the role is putting so much pressure on yourself to be seen as absolutely, you know, this example as well. So that was interesting.
Elle Lebourg 8:48
But if you're smart, you know, if you're like, job searching or understanding companies, you know, looking at that HR turnover, I think, is your indicator of, like, the health of the culture.
Chris Rainey 8:58
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. What just, I mean, if
Elle Lebourg 9:02
HR tolerates a lot, right? Yeah, they then you they take and take and take.
Chris Rainey 9:07
If you see that as a good indicator, then you know it's something inch. I never even thought about you. And you could see that on LinkedIn, pretty much in you can put mostly on licks on there. I never thought about that as an indicator, like in any regardless of what all you're going for. Looking at the hrs tolerance and turnover is a very clear like, are you actually living your values? You know? Are these just tick the box exercises? You will see that right, very click clearly, right? If you see the turnover, that's a new one. That's a good that's a really good insight, actually, for everyone. Tell everyone about your current role that you do now?
Elle Lebourg 9:41
Yeah, so I get to serve as the global head of talent acquisition for Hilti group. So I'm in charge of an organization that is spread out all over the world. We're about 250 people, and we have a big challenge ahead of us, with our company strategy evolving. We. We need to hire 55,000 people in six years. And for a company of 34,000 currently, it's, it's quite the challenge.
Chris Rainey 10:07
And how many did you say again that you have to hire 55,000 of skilled like, like, yeah, and that's, and that's a shrinking talent pool for my understanding,
Elle Lebourg 10:21
right? So, well, you know we are. We don't just recruit from construction, you know, because we support the construction industry, we don't necessarily do the construction ourselves. So, you know we are, we're taking from all sorts of other industries, you know, pharma, consulting, etc. But it's not like the talent pool is gigantic for anyone at the moment, all going after the same talent, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it makes it harder for us because we don't have the same brand recognition, you know, employer brand wise, even though we were number three in the world by great place to work, just saying,
Chris Rainey 10:56
our bikes a very well known brand like in the UK, yeah, in Europe, for sure, we have better brand okay. I mean,
Elle Lebourg 11:04
in Americas, it's still okay, pretty, pretty. You know, people think I work for Hilton Hotels, but
Chris Rainey 11:11
if I you made a spelling mistake on your LinkedIn, yes, yeah, yeah, they're like, Oh. It's like, oh, it's like a slang word for Hilton hilly, yeah, I'm sorry, carry on.
Elle Lebourg 11:24
No, I was just gonna say just the challenge ahead of us and a little bit of what we're working on. But yeah, we have this big volume hiring play, but with that, we are also changing the profile of who we hire based on the business strategy changing, and that for the last three years has kicked off this whole ta transformation, which there isn't anything in TA that we're not lifting and tooling and changing for Hilti. So it's been an extremely busy time to be in ta at Hilti, but a really phenomenal time because you have the attention of, you know, senior leaders who understand the value of TA and so getting the resourcing to do the transformation has been an easier road, I think, than most have.
Chris Rainey 12:13
We should do like easier. Like this,
Elle Lebourg 12:14
yeah, it's easy in quotes.
Chris Rainey 12:18
Want to be clear on that for anyone listening. No, yeah, but I know, listen, saw that other sorry, I did, like, air quotes. Yeah, transformation, easy. What I mean? One of the things I wanted to talk you about, because was just super interesting, is you mentioned before, like, how can leaders reframe change management, which is what you're going through right now, with courage, candor and a real plan, without falling into the trap of like, oh, this is just, you know, feel good, vibes, strategies, it's soft. And I think that's something we haven't really spoken a lot about on the show. And I wanted to get your
Elle Lebourg 12:58
thoughts on. Yeah, I have learned so much about people going through change in the last couple of years. And the first thing I noticed was, you know, whenever we would engage with an external expert on change management, it was like a pattern. They would treat change like the grieving process. You know, where you have to go through this valley and then accept it, and then finally, kind of learn to love it. And it was this curve that always went down, back up, and then, like, stabilized. And I'm like, well, there's just has to be a different way, like, you know, change isn't always portrayed badly, you know. So we were going for more of a, like, slow progression up in engagement, but then a sustained engagement in the way that we were changing things. Because the other pattern we saw is like, you know, there'd be a big boost, a big launch, and then people would revert to their old ways. Eventually, you know, those habits would kick back in, and then you'd have to do another boost. And so here we really tried to change our programming to have that sustained change curve. And the way that we did it was like 100% just focusing on how people felt. And that was hard to push, I will say, or to sell,
Chris Rainey 14:21
I can imagine, yeah,
Elle Lebourg 14:23
it's, you know, there's not a KPI that I can put on that but, but I think everybody can come along with like, you know, if you feel good about what you're doing, if you're engaged and if you're happy, the results take care of themselves. Like, you don't have to steer hard at that point. And if you're hiring the right people to begin with, you know that you trust with the change and you trust, you know, to bring themselves to work, then you know, we don't need this, like top down SOP, way of handling change management, yeah, so you know, the way that we started doing it was, I mean, it's so silly, but I was, I with my team. I. Was creating these, like, maybe 62nd videos where, like, something you'd see on Tiktok, it was raw, like, really rough. We made a rule where, like, you can't spend more than 20 minutes filming and editing, and that's it. And so they were just very, like, very casual. We all looked like idiots in them, you know, we were having fun. We were demonstrating, like, things that were changing, and bite sized pieces, just to get them, like, to come along with it. And then eventually we move into something a little bit more formal, you know, like, Okay, how you actually now will do your job, but just incorporating elements of fun and then understanding, like, what's sticky for people? So it was tapping more into like, psychology of people and like, again, how do you keep them happy through this? So it's not just a big launch, and then we all revert back
Speaker 1 15:51
to, yeah, what
Elle Lebourg 15:53
we were doing before. I love that. So we put our limited ta budget, I would say, 80% of it, into people like people development events, these things called readiness labs that we created, and we just gave it, gave it a go, because it was, it was untraditional and, like untested, especially at our organization, but it seems to be working for us.
Chris Rainey 16:18
The thing is, right, firstly, I love that you did that, but it is tested, because that's how normal human beings talk to each other and interact outside the office, 100% right? You don't,
Elle Lebourg 16:28
I don't know why we believe, like we move into corporate world and all of a sudden all these things don't apply.
Chris Rainey 16:33
Yeah, if you send the voice note or a video to your friend, you're not editing it. You're not getting, oh, I've got, even got perfect lighting, right? Like you like it's the same way I always try. When guests try and over prepare for this podcast, I say, hey, when you call your friend, do you have a list of bullet points and questions? Like, let's have a conversation, right? And that's what you're doing. You're being authentic. It's not pre I mean, yes, you have some sort of script, but it's unlike it could be a selfie on a mobile right, and they feel more that feels more engaging and more natural for them, because that's how they consume every day, right, with their friends and family and the and the influences they watch on YouTube and tick tock, right? Absolutely. So they're going to connect, and there's no BS, it's just well, and by the way, you can still have hard conversations and share announcements that are not, you know, good that's not great news, but it's still going to come across in an authentic way. And it also is not going to break the budget and break the bank, right by, oh, like people doing these overly produced content and spending tons of money where it just doesn't connect, right? So I love that you did that first and foremost. How did you What did that look like, in terms of, like, was that like, through, like, like, Slack or teams channels? Like, was it email? Like, how did you make sure that that messaging reached people and showed up where they work?
Elle Lebourg 17:52
Yeah, a couple of channels. So the one other thing we learned is, like, we can't rely on a single channel, you know. And some people like to listen, some people like to watch, and some people like to read. And so we had to make offerings for all of those personas one way or another, you know, of the same quality too. So we were reaching them, you know, in email, where we would basically be, you know, having an engaging but short text for people, of like, your needs to know. And then the video, if you wanted to click on it, it became like this tradition, though, like, every Friday we dripped a video. And so, you know, people were like, anticipating the next thing. And then we started featuring people from different corners of the world. People volunteered to do them for us, which was like a giant relief. So, yeah, that email, and then we would put things on teams, also, because, yeah, again, we had this 5050, split of where people spent their time, but they were all digital, because the team is spread throughout the globe.
Chris Rainey 18:53
Yeah, have you continued that? Is that now just become, because we kind of that shapes your culture, right? And the trust,
Elle Lebourg 18:59
yeah, absolutely, we have continued it the, you know, the silly drip videos have have ramped down, and now we're more into, well, let me just back up. We're replacing our ATS. So it's like, Okay, now we need to tell you things you know, how to actually do your job. So before we were just releasing, like, you know, here are some cool features that we're putting in, and things that you can get excited about in the 13 weeks where we're, like, really designing things, and not everybody's a part of that conversation. It made them feel like they were part of it. Then now it's okay. We're moving to a cadence of every two weeks. It's, you know, there's a video, but it's more informative and less entertaining, we'll say, Yeah, but it's still authentic. Like, I don't want shiny, especially if it's like a one time use, you know, just, like, just get it out there. Put yourself on it, you know, I put myself with, like, crazy hair, no. Make. Up and just get out there, you know, with my chickens, yeah, using my kids toys, you know, it's, yeah, they made it more real for everybody. But we do, we do still continue it. And now the cadence is just, it's on Tuesdays instead of Fridays.
Chris Rainey 20:13
Nice. I know you're still on the journey, right? This is, there's no destination to this is ongoing work. But what are some of the key lessons that you've learned that you could show everyone listening, especially around sort of mind mindset shifts. And because that the technology really is easy part, it's the mindset, mindset shift and the culture transformation from me doing a one and a half 1000 episodes of this podcast that seems to be the real challenge along the way.
Elle Lebourg 20:41
Yeah, I think, you know, the first thing we had to admit and get on the same page was like, the tech is not going to change anything for us, because we can pollute this new system with bad data as easily as we did the first. You know, that made the reason now for the second. So we kept it very behavior based, and this was something, again, that we ramped up through other transformation initiatives, like for the last three years. So we knew we were headed towards this, like technology upgrade, but if we didn't have certain behaviors in place and like running and habits two years before that, then this would just become another, like dumping ground, right? Like we would lose the value of the initiative. So, like, lessons learned, I would say is the biggest one, for me is the people have to be at the center of the change. And keeping that you can't keep people over informed. You know, there are so many questions and spending time answering every single one, no matter how detailed, creates that trust creates the openness, you know, of culture, and there are some things like we just simply didn't know how to answer. And I heard this feedback many times that saying we didn't know was actually a trust builder. Because, yeah, it wasn't like we were hiding or we were saying we had everything figured out. It was
Chris Rainey 22:09
also but people make stuff up in their head, right? If you don't say that, they will make their own rationale exactly of what that might be.
Elle Lebourg 22:15
Yeah, yeah. So the answer was, like, you know, it's, it's too soon to make a decision on that. And would you like to be part of that solution, you know, and bringing people into little decisions that actually are going to affect them. Because, you know, I'm not working in our system. I'm not recruiting day to day, they are. So at the end of the day, it's their experience that really matters, yeah, above everything else. So we kept it fun, you know? We we made everything. I think it's my astrological sign that like makes me want things to be esthetically pleasing, but so everything had to just be like, beautiful and pleasant to look at.
Chris Rainey 22:53
How did you how did you You said you like, want to prepare and shift the few years before, what did that look like? Was that like, workshops, training, like, what practically did that look like?
Elle Lebourg 23:03
Yeah, so we broke things up into three phases, we'll say, and each are about a year. And it's not like we finished the year and it's done like, there's continuous improvement efforts each one, but the first one, the first thing we did, was working on our structure, which is like, I guess the most boring part of it, right? But it's like the foundation that if you don't have, you can't do the rest. So centralizing our TA teams, because we were all over the place, and people were also doing HRBP duties, they were employee relations. So now, okay, we have a centralized ta team. We segmented them, we added sourcing as a capability that really wasn't there before. And then we started working on our processes, and that's where you you uncover so much. You know, we say we are a global organization, but it's like you have 12 mini companies in silos. Everybody has preferences, and the hardest piece was agreeing on a global standard and not one that was going to be so deluded with people's preferences that it became a huge mess. But like, we started from scratch, and we're like, if you were building this, like, doesn't matter what you're doing right now or what you're used to, if you were building right this with your like, logical brain and the candidate experience as your first thing that you're thinking about, like, how would you build these processes and getting people involved from different corners of the world? I learned a lot about compliance law number one, but also just the different like markets and the candidate expectations. And it's really hard to maintain a global standard for talent acquisition because you have so many little local nuances that that's what makes like the candidate experience special. Yeah, so you don't want to take away that stuff, you know, but you need some degree of standardization to set people free to be able to do that kind of stuff otherwise, just like band aid on Band Aid, one
Chris Rainey 24:57
of interesting things that that you that we spoke about for is. That the mindset shifts of your also, your team needs to change, right to more of a product team. And I just want to interested understand, like, how that's sort of changed your approach as operating as more of it with a product lens. For a product lens, if that makes
Elle Lebourg 25:19
sense. It does, yeah. I mean, so when I the first thing I did when I took the job, because, I'll be honest, I had no ta experience, none, you know, I've never worked in TA.
Chris Rainey 25:29
Well, you and you came straight into this transformation, yeah, like, I've never worked in ta
Elle Lebourg 25:33
outside of hiring people. Oh, my God, which I know that most hiring managers think they're an expert in ta because they've hired people, you know, I did not feel like that coming into the job. So first thing I asked for was, like, Hey, can I see, you know, like, our candidate journey maps, or some kind of candidate experience flow. And they're like, We don't have that interesting, tell me more, you know, like, so, just digging into how the candidate, you know, and it's not nothing like on purpose, you know, it just always fell off of the watch list, and it was more about setting up the processes internally for us and our experience. So the way a product team works is, you know, they go through design thinking workshops to think about and put themselves in the shoes of their customers. So we did the same thing. So we did a lot of empathy mapping of our different personas. We went through and we mapped like the experience and how long we wanted it to take, and what do we want it to actually feel like? So it's not just about speed, but what would set us apart? And we landed on this mantra of, we want the candidates to benefit from being in a Hilty process whether or not they get the job. So I think you know, when you have that kind of North Star, you start to put on a more customer focused approach, a lens on things, and then your experience falls a bit secondary, you know, which is maybe why HR is burnt out. Yeah, back to our conversation the beginning, but it was something that we needed to do and better balance at least
Chris Rainey 27:17
Yeah. And also, I'm sure, identifying those moments no matter.
Elle Lebourg 27:22
Yes, that's exactly what we did, yeah. So in those like, what are those moments? We had to get right, no matter what, you know, where you put the resource, you put the energy, maybe boost it with some kind of, you know, tech help. But yeah, we had to identify all those things. And, you know, again, depending on culture, they're different? Yeah, they're different, you know, like in the US, for instance. I don't know this was mind blowing to me. I had never considered it like in the US, you know, when you don't get the job, you want to know why you want to get the feedback. And so we set up our processes to have really strong feedback loops for people. But then when I talk to colleagues in Japan, they're like, no, no, no, no. Like, we, we don't work this way. Like, you know, if you want to reject somebody like, you know, it would be really disrespectful to also give them all of this feedback at the same time, some people prefer a WhatsApp message. They don't even want a phone call. So it was like, okay, clearly, you know, we can't have a standard experience for everybody, because you have these cultural nuances that are really hard to take into account.
Chris Rainey 28:27
Yeah, and those are the things that you just don't know, right? Unless you do the exploration and be really intentional about totally as well. Because what you may think will be great for one person could be insulting for the other. And I love the idea of looking it through the customer lens. Did that also, then that whole going through that product map, then inform the partner of choice that you're going to invest in, because then you hey, we're going to need an ATS that allows us to do the experience like you mentioned, whether they get a role or not. We're investing in them so that maybe another, another point, they may come back around right as well, and you continue to nurture that was, that was that was this before that choice,
Elle Lebourg 29:09
the the choice of tech came after we made that. Yeah, we did. We went through the whole design thinking, you know, work streams. So yes, we absolutely needed a partner who was going to be customer centric, and also allowed us, you know, the flexibility within like a CRM to talk to candidates the way that they needed to be talked to. And then, you know, one customer that I didn't mention is our hiring managers. So candidates are important, but that's true. Hiring managers, at the end of the day, sell the job to the candidate. And, you know, if you've got a bad experience set up for them, then, I mean, nobody wants to be part of it. You know, it's really hard to be a strategic partner if half of the partnership is disengaged. So you have to, I mean, we had to, really again, to. Speak our processes. Think about, how do we use technology to make their experience better? Because currently, they weren't in that loop at all. Everything was done via teams, calls, emails, you know. So how can we create more transparency for them, which is something they really wanted, you know? How do we create a way for them to communicate that isn't necessarily, you know, weird messages in the middle of the night. So they're just as important when it comes to the hiring process. Because, I mean, they're half the equation,
Chris Rainey 30:29
yeah, how did you big challenge for our audiences? And is, how do you then go about navigating legacy systems? Because you're gonna also maybe have different systems of different regions. It's a bit of a spider web, right?
Elle Lebourg 30:47
It's a total spider web. And I don't know that I would take my advice on this now, being in it again, but I was like, I'm like, Just do it all. Rip it all off.
Chris Rainey 30:55
Let's go. There's no easy way, right? People like, try and systematically do AI just kind of just go, like,
Elle Lebourg 31:00
yeah, there's so, you know, there's, like, so many interdependencies. And then you do this, but it impacts this process over here for someone so and then when you get to integrations with, like, your HCM software, just like, Oh my God. Like, it's very complex. So our approach was like, let's do it all at once. Let's just literally the rip the band aid approach, but you're, like, still bleeding, you know? So I don't know again, that I would recommend it. It's very hard, and it's stressful on the, like, core project team to do this kind of stuff, but at least you start with a clean slate. And I cannot tell you, Oh,
Chris Rainey 31:37
so there's, like, less fatigue, right? Like, it's like, you know, I get that long term fatigue of like, slowly, yeah,
Elle Lebourg 31:44
and our transformation is already a five year one. So it's
Chris Rainey 31:47
just like, it's already long enough. It's true, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Elle Lebourg 31:52
But we are less than 90 days from go live now.
Chris Rainey 31:54
Oh, wow. So I caught you right. I think, Okay. How you feeling?
Elle Lebourg 32:00
I am exhausted, but I'm very optimistic. And you know, we also took the approach of like, this is going to be the minimum lovable product.
Chris Rainey 32:14
Oh, and then lovable product. I love that.
Elle Lebourg 32:17
And then we will do the fancy stuff in Wave Two, when we have room to breathe, and then also, so we could live with the consequences of our choices, because things look one way on paper, you know, and then you have your vendor build it, and then you're like, well, that's not what I wanted, yeah. And even though they built exactly to your specifications, you know, once you start to play, and you're put yourself in the candidates shoes or the hiring manager shoes. You're like, I wish we had done that differently. Yeah. So now, you know, design decisions are locked in, obviously, with such a tight timeline, and then we make adjustments as we go. So just accepting it's not going to be perfect,
Chris Rainey 32:57
that's just a reality, isn't it? And as long as you have offended us a good partner. And I mean that in a true sense, as opposed, you know, I think you know what. By now, everyone's asking, Who are you working with? I could already hear myself listening to this episode being like, great guys. Who are you working with? Can you tell us who you're at? Yeah, because that issue, we've been like, holding off the entire
Elle Lebourg 33:17
time. They are, they are truly wonderful, and they have put up with a lot of like, change requests and just questions everywhere, and the team is just so wonderful. So we're working with aperture, nice, our ATS and our CRM, yeah, and you know, the beauty of it is that it's so customizable, but that is a double edged sword, because it's so customizable, and you have to choose everything, and you almost have, like, too much freedom.
Chris Rainey 33:48
That's where the intentionality comes in, right? Of mapping it out. Otherwise, you just kind of have, like, kid in a candy shop, like, what do we do? That's exactly
Elle Lebourg 33:55
it. You're just filling a bag, and then you're like, I don't want all this at the end of the day.
Chris Rainey 33:59
What are the what are the main core areas you're launching with. You mentioned, you add in the rest later. What's the main feature?
Elle Lebourg 34:06
Yeah, so we are, you know, we started thinking about, do we want different application workflows based on profile or internal applicants versus external applicants? So we start with, like, one core way of how we bring somebody in from application to hire, I know that we will need different ways for different parts of our population, like people who work in our warehouses or our plants, or even like the new software roles. You know where that experience needs to be different than your traditional sales job. So you know that piece, we also replace our CRM at the same time. So it'll be nice to have this
Chris Rainey 34:46
into your strategy earlier, getting doing, ripping around, band aid off and doing
Elle Lebourg 34:51
replace video interview at the same time. We replace our multi poster programmatic. I mean, we, we do it all. You. And then Wave Two is more, um, using enhancements, using AI, you know, making the experience now custom to the person. And, yeah, and I'm, I'm certain it will be undoing some of the things we put into wave one, because we just didn't know any better.
Chris Rainey 35:19
Yeah, but I mean, things move so quickly that you wouldn't, and it's only until you test it that you really know it's like any company product I've ever launched. You ship it your MVP, like you just said, Oh, what did you call it? Minimum lovable product? Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna start using that from now on. I'll quote you in there.
Elle Lebourg 35:38
Don't worry. It's not mine. It's our head of HRIS. I think that came up with,
Chris Rainey 35:43
what's the name? What's the name, Stephanie. Stephanie. Shout out to Stephanie. That is, yeah. Shout out, yeah, Stephanie. Stephanie's gonna be like, I stole that from someone else. Yeah, as well, yeah. I mean, that's part of it. Put it out there, get feedback, and, improve it along the way. We had
Elle Lebourg 36:03
seven months to do it. So it's like, you know, you you can't spend time debating and choosing and like window shopping. It's like you have to make decisions, because the people that are going to build it for you, they need that stuff to build it for you.
Chris Rainey 36:18
I mean, quick question. One of the challenges for our audience is that they're inundated with different products and solutions. When it came down to, you know, the moment to make a decision, what you made you choose Avature over all the other platforms who claim to do the same thing.
Elle Lebourg 36:37
Yeah, it was tough. I mean, we had two in the running that I would have been happy either way. I think what made the difference for us was, well, a couple of things the customer calls that we did with their it was people within our own networks in TA that we reached out to to make sure, you know, there's no bias. And so having those calls, there was a little bit of a preference for the way that Avature works and the way that you can then, you know, change things if you're not happy with your original build and the responsiveness of the staff too, and the people that we worked with and the whole RFP process. I mean, they were phenomenal, and they continue to be phenomenal. So, you know, I think we've seen, I saw this a couple times, a few vendors of really great sales teams, great business development people, and then it kind of falls flat when you start to work with their own consultants. And that was not the case with aperture, it was consistent experience overall.
Chris Rainey 37:37
How are you going to measure what KPIs Have you put in place now to measure what good looks like once you launch?
Elle Lebourg 37:45
Oh, gosh, we are. So I just came back from Liechtenstein last week because we had a workshop with our TA heads about this topic, this now custom reporting and how we want to define success. We were pretty limited with our current solution, and so, like, we were measuring the basics, like, time to hire, time to fill, you know, okay, cool, that's one aspect of TA. But now, you know, we have the possibility of a candidate survey, hiring manager survey, and I'm thinking of doing something where, like Uber style, they rate each other, the TA partner and hiring manager, you know, so we start to again build that bridge of partnership. So we're in the thick of defining what that means, yeah, we've decided there's basically three buckets, like, we want to have, like, recruiter performance insights, because we don't have that. And then we want to have insights on the requisitions and the jobs, and then insights on the candidates themselves. And so we've kind of formed, again, that very MVP view of what those KPIs are for us to be able to do our jobs and enhance the way we do our jobs better than last year. But it's really like, you know, the world is our oyster here with the reporting, and so we're still, we're still nailing that down. It's not a option not to use the system. So optionality is kind of like, I'm not going to even measure it, but you know, for data, quality is going to be the thing that I think really determines the adoption. So 100% Yeah. Like, right now we have 1000s of jobs sitting in our ATS that we're no longer doing anything with, you know. And if we're starting with a clean slate, let's keep it clean. What so much easier.
Chris Rainey 39:34
What does that hand over look like? How does like? I mean, how long does that take? I noticed like, you like, Chris, how long is a bit of string? But like, is there? That's what my mom always say to me, yeah. How long is that?
Elle Lebourg 39:47
We've been working on data migration topics for a month, and will continue to until November. Okay, part of our plan, and you know, the first choice is, like, what do you want to migrate do? Yeah, and when you talk to, you know, your recruiters or your sourcers, it's everything you're like, that's the millions of data points guys, how, how, you know, what's the this is where I put my pragmatic hat on, of like, what are you actually going to use, you know, or when are you actually going to use that information? Like, at the end of the day, I feel like we need your name, your contact info, and have you been in a process with Hilti before? A CV would be great, you know. And beyond that, I don't need recruiters notes from five years ago or whatever the you know, data retention
Chris Rainey 40:36
period is, because you're just because, also you're just putting garbage into a new system, exactly.
Elle Lebourg 40:40
And I am so fearful of just starting day one already with garbage. And so we're being really militant about, like, No, we're not doing that, no. And we've been very flexible in other things. But this, I'm like, no, like, if data quality starts on a bad foot, there is no recovering.
Chris Rainey 40:57
Somewhat impossible, yeah, as we look ahead, what you besides celebrate, have you already got a plan to celebrate the launch?
Elle Lebourg 41:06
I know. No, I have not. Personally, I I am sending like these boxes to each of the regions with fun stuff like so when they make their first hire, it's like they
Chris Rainey 41:19
break, you know, the box, great. So you are, so you have thought about that nice, yeah, but
Elle Lebourg 41:24
not the core team. The core team. I'm like, Well, you should,
Chris Rainey 41:27
but I'm the worst person at this. My team will tell you, like, I'm like, we'll do like, we'll achieve an incredible milestone. And I'm like, what's next? Like, the next day, yeah, like, and I know don't take time to celebrate wins as much as I should. So you should definitely let it launch first, and if it doesn't crash and burn, I'm playing. I'm sorry. I'll take it back. I'll take it back from the universe. I'll take it back.
Elle Lebourg 41:50
Also, we know we're doing. We're launching in our most busy hiring period.
Chris Rainey 41:55
Oh, good, good. I mean that clearly could, that should, surely, that wasn't intentional. It was really, oh, you. So when you said you're going all in, like, you and you said, like, like, wrapping the band aid, you there was no band aid, didn't there's nothing to rip. Oh, wow. Okay, yeah, we knew what we
Elle Lebourg 42:10
were doing, so we're
Chris Rainey 42:11
gonna smash it. You're gonna pile the pain, you know, get over and done with. You're gonna smash it. And then what? As you look ahead, though, what you before we wrap up? What are you most excited about as you look ahead?
Elle Lebourg 42:24
Oh, I mean, personally, me, you know, I'm excited about just lifting my head out of this hole that I'm in right now, of the technology part of TA, you know, because it's such an intense project, you have to be very like one track, you know, at this moment, and we can do so much with our employer brand, because in 2024 we also refreshed our EVP. We have a lot of great stuff we want to share with the world with Hilti. And so that's the thing I'm most excited about, and also, the same as a product team would do to come full circle is, you know, using marketing in a way that you know, product teams use marketing. And ta teams, at least at Hilti, haven't really, you know, taken advantage of yet, and we have just, like nothing but open road here for us. And I think we can do some really, really cool things with, yeah, recruitment, marketing. So that's the thing I'm looking forward, you know, being able to shift from Nice, the weekly deadlines and design decisions, to something a bit more creative. We'll say,
Chris Rainey 43:32
Yeah, I should have asked this, and I'll be quick about it. But like, what? What did you do to make sure that you, you know, took care of yourself through this? Because we started with this, and I want to end with this, because it's not easy, right? Any piece of advice or tips you could give to anyone in terms of how you sustain this, because it's challenging.
Elle Lebourg 43:51
It is challenging. And I again, I'm not the best example, I think, and I do think that that trend, it trickles down to the team definitely, you know? And I, my preference is to always have something to do, right? So downtime is not I don't want it. And so I think again, that exhausts the people below me, yeah, and I'm conscious of that. And we had ambitions that I really wanted to accomplish in a short amount of time, and it was like I had to find people who were along for this ride. But I do always prioritize sleep and exercise and so going to bed, you know, at a reasonable time, because my wake ups are 4am you know, start working on this stuff, talking to people across the world. Wow, yeah, so and the times where I didn't take care of my sleep and my exercise, I mean, it's like, then I'm like, crying on teams because something went wrong and I can't control myself.
Chris Rainey 44:57
Yeah, I've been there. I mean, for me. It's like, like, exercise, sleep and, like, even a half decent diet, if you've got those three pillars dialed in, you're good, right? Yeah. But if you don't, even if you miss one, it's kind of, then it kind of like, you don't eat well, then you don't sleep well, then you don't exercise because you're too tired, and then it kind of just becomes a vicious cycle, and then I'm in that cycle right now. Actually, you kind of caught me in that, which is kind of just like I'm thinking about it right now. I need to get back, because I'm just exhausting myself by going for it all of them, unfortunately. Yeah, I mean, we're launching a new, our new AI product, which has been a year and a half in the making. I had a couple of 5am 4am not even early, as in as I'm still awake, like, with a good, yeah, yeah, yeah, literally, yeah. So, like, we're, you know, they're coding, I'm testing and breaking, and we're really excited, by the way, like, this is not, like, I'm not awake stressed. I'm awake, like, excited. But then the next day, obviously, I'm like my seven year old daughter runs in, two hours later, says, Daddy, ready for school?
Chris Rainey 46:13
No, you can't be anything you want to be so and I realized, you know, I need to take in order for me to be the best for everyone else around money, to prioritize me first, whereas I used to think by prioritizing everyone, that was the thing, no, you need to take care of you first in order to show up as the best husband, you're right, as the best dad, as the best employer that can be. And it's yeah, it's nice.
Elle Lebourg 46:36
The transition happened for me too, about like, five years ago, and it was, there was a lot of guilt. Yeah, I think to work through a couple years worth of guilt.
Chris Rainey 46:45
But yeah, like, people always ask me, like, Oh, you'll never have a kid. I got one seven year old, right? And I'm like, not until I know I can be present. Because I just, you know, I was like, not as present as I wanted to be. And it's like that. That kind of hurt a little bit. I was like, Ah, I missed some of those moments that I really shouldn't have for things that I at the time thought were important, that were not important.
Elle Lebourg 47:11
Oh, Chris, I get it. I don't remember the first year of my daughter's life, and it's something I live with forever.
Chris Rainey 47:17
Yeah, you know. So now I'm kind of setting a bit more clearer boundaries about what that looks like. Like, those times where I wouldn't even eat lunch, like, I had to schedule. I have lunch scheduled every day in my calendar, like, because otherwise I just want, I'll just, I'll just add another zoom call, like, yeah,
Elle Lebourg 47:36
exercise, yeah.
Chris Rainey 47:37
I have it in the morning and then have it at lunch. So I have a schedule, and people know if I'm going to pick up from school or, like, take it to Jiu Jitsu or tennis. Like, it's a non negotiable now, like, it's not like, Oh, there's one more sales pitch we can squeeze in. No, no, it is. It's not important as well. But listen, I appreciate you. Man, this is gonna be so interesting for everyone, like, so. So thank you so much for sharing the whole journey. I know it hasn't ended. So what we gotta do? We're gonna schedule in six months from now, part two, I will see if you're still smiling, we'll see. Obviously, got some energy there. But thank you. Thank you for being very open and honest and sharing the journey. And it was like super there's so much great advice to you, shares. I appreciate
Elle Lebourg 48:18
you taking the time. Come on. Thank you. I had a lot of fun. It's my favorite thing to talk about
Chris Rainey 48:22
all the best. So by the time this is released, you'll be live. So good luck in advance. Congratulations in advance. Go celebrate in advance, and I'll chat to you soon. All right, thanks so much. Thank you. Bye.
More from the HR Leaders Podcast
Elle Lebourg, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Hilti Group.