Peraton's Leap Towards an AI-Assisted Talent Marketplace
In this episode, I'm joined by Cari Bohley, VP Talent Management at Peraton.
During the episode Cari shares how Peraton are using a human centric, AI-Assisted talent marketplace to upskill and reskilling their 17,000 employees, build diverse talent pipelines and source hard-to-find talent.
Episode Highlights
How Peraton use an AI-assisted talent marketplace to upskill their 17,000 employees
The Role of Inclusivity in Talent Acquisition
How to secure leadership buy-In for HR tech implementation
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Cari 0:00
It's really important for us, you know, to make sure that we are tracking these critical skills, which is why we're going to continue to manage them in HR is because these are the things that when we're looking at, where do we need to make an investment? Where do we need to do some upscaling based on our future pipeline of work? Those are the skills that we really need to keep. Keep tabs on.
Chris Rainey 0:31
Hi, everyone, welcome back to the HR leaders podcast. On today's episode, I'm joined by Carrie Boley, who's the vice president of talent management at Paragon. During episode Carrie shares how person are using a human centric AI assisted talent marketplace, to upskill and rescale their 17,000 employees, or build a diverse talent, pipeline, and source hard to find talent. As always, before we jump into the video, make sure you hit the subscribe button, turn on notification bell and follow on your favourite podcast platform. With that being said, let's jump in. Welcome to the show. Kara how are you?
Cari 1:04
I'm well thanks. How are you? Chris?
Chris Rainey 1:06
I'm good. I'm good. i It's funny when we first spoke. I mean, a guy was like, Haven't we already done a podcast? Because our last conversation was so fun and so long that I thought we had I know. We should just hit record next time. But anyway, how
Cari 1:24
you been? Always record our conversations.
Chris Rainey 1:26
should? We should you should yeah, we could do a whole series of podcasts us how you been anyway, how things
Cari 1:34
things are going really well. I mean, it's a busy time here. And the work that we're doing is really exciting. So so things are things are moving right along.
Chris Rainey 1:45
Nice. Before jumping in. Tell everyone a little bit more about you personally, and also a little bit about peloton if they're not aware of the company.
Cari 1:53
Sure, yeah, yeah, so peloton is we're a government services contractor headquartered in Reston, Virginia. And so basically what that means is that almost all of the work we do is exclusively for the US Federal Government, helping them with systems integration and identifying new technology and basically working with our government customers to help them solve some of their biggest challenges. And I've been with proton for about a year and a half now. And I've spent the bulk of my career working in HR and learning and development, talent development. In this industry, I had a brief stint outside of the industry in the financial industry. But for the most part I've been working on the government services side for for many years,
Chris Rainey 2:40
that in itself presents some unique challenges.
Cari 2:46
There's a lot of unique challenges. But I think if if any of my my peers are listening in from other companies like ours, they'll recognise that there's a lot of unique challenges working in this industry, because all of our employees, except for those of us that are in some of the functional areas, all of our employees are directly billable to a customer. So if they're not billing to a customer, then we're not earning revenue. And so we have to be really thoughtful about how we plan when we pull people away from their customer sites to help them with their career development with training, you know, anything that's going to have an impact on their bill ability, and their utilisation? So it is something that we all have to really think about, you know, how are we going to not just build this programme and execute a programme? But how are we going to make it so that our employees can take advantage of it?
Chris Rainey 3:43
So when you say available, it is available to the government? When you say customers?
Cari 3:48
Ultimately it's yeah, it's it's what we charge the government for their for the work that we do. So it's kind of like if you think about it, from a law firm standpoint, it's similar to a law firm, where, you know, the lawyers are billing their clients for you know, every hour, maybe very much every hour worked, every minute worked, you know, so we have to make sure that you know, that we're balancing the needs with our of our customer with the needs of our employees,
Chris Rainey 4:13
how does that kind of shape your culture in the organisation? Well, it
Cari 4:17
drives a lot of micro cultures, which is interesting in and of itself, because depending and I can go into a very long description. But there's different types of contracts that have different pros and cons. And that that shapes the culture, but from an overall standpoint, I mean, it again, it requires us to be really thoughtful, intentional about the messaging that we send, and and how we encourage our employees to to use their time.
Chris Rainey 4:47
What's top of mind for you right now? What are some of the things that you and the team are really focused on?
Cari 4:52
Yeah, I would say career development is probably the biggest programme that we're working on right now. We did a an engagement survey last summer? There were two, it's really funny because there were two things. From my standpoint, anyway, that really stood out for me. One was the need for career development and the expectation, you know that the company was going to be helping our employees, plan their careers, execute those plans, provide them with development resources, you know, everything that falls into that area. But the other thing was that, you know, our employees questioned if we were going to do anything with the survey data. So there's a high degree of scepticism
Chris Rainey 5:39
translate, you know, how did it was that a question? Like, how did the How did you?
Cari 5:42
Question was, it was it and it's a, you know, it's an agree ability scale. And it was, I expect to, I can't remember the exact words, but something to the effect of, you know, I expect, you know, the company to do something with these. Okay, you know, my responses. And so we've been very purposeful, and making sure that we are communicating and telling our folks everything that we're doing, as it ties back to our survey. So, so one of the biggest things that came out of it was around career development. And so we're looking at some new technology and implementing some new technology that'll help us with that. And we're doing that concurrent with, you know, what I think a lot of folks do in this space. And that is, how are we upskilling our employees? What about leader and manager development. So we've got multiple programmes that we're moving forward with right now building, and we've got a big fall plan, we've got several programmes that we'll be launching this fall. And just to give some additional context, peloton is a relatively young company. So we've been around for about five years. But in 21, and 22, the company grew significantly through acquisition from like, 3500 to 17,000 employees
Chris Rainey 7:00
in five years. Wow. Crazy.
Cari 7:03
Yeah, huge growth, huge growth through some pretty large acquisitions. As a result of that, you know, we're now putting some of those things in where people might be saying, hey, well, why wouldn't you have leadership development in place already? Well, it's because we're just a very word Young.
Chris Rainey 7:19
Was that something that attracted you to the business, this opportunity to grow and build this out? Yeah, just have interesting, silly.
Cari 7:25
Yeah, cuz I was working in another company. And, you know, at the time that this opportunity came available, and I was just cruising LinkedIn one day, you know, like many of us do, and, and the reason why, again, is because I wasn't happy with where I currently was, it's not that it was a bad place, it's just that the job was a lot smaller than what I was used to. And I came across this opportunity. And it just so happened that I knew a couple of folks that worked for proton. So, you know, I reached out and asked them questions about the company, you know, what's it like? What's the culture? Like, what are they trying to accomplish? And once I started talking about this position, specifically, I mean, it was like a white space, there really wasn't anything there, again, because of the acquisitions that they've gone through. And, you know, what you would have done for a 3500 person company is not what you do for a 70,000 person company. So it really just presented an opportunity to build from the bottom up. And, and, you know, have fun doing it.
Chris Rainey 8:27
So you realise, obviously, from the survey, you need to focus on career development. You also I'm sure came to the conclusion of we have to do this on scale. So this needs to be tech enabled. manually.
Cari 8:39
No, no, Excel spreadsheets, you know, with, you know, go from job a to job B to Job C, we have to really figure out how do we, how do we do this in a way that's going to be meaningful to our employees. And it's going to be contextual for them, that we can do it at scale. So we did some research on some different technology that was out there. And, and we selected one that's really built on AI and machine learning, which I mean, if you don't, if you're not looking into that these days in our HR space, then you are completely missing the boat. I mean, I know, artificial intelligence has been around for a few years, we've used it in a couple of different ways. But I think this is really what allows us to make some strides exponentially, because we're able to do things at scale now. And we are able to aggregate information and, you know, scrape the internet from outside of, you know, our own, you know, internal systems to bring in data about our employees. So, it's really, I mean, it's just fascinating what we're able to do,
Chris Rainey 9:47
what were the other requirements you needed to this needs to start all the way from the candidate experience all the way to the end? You know, what, what was the requirements you're looking for?
Cari 9:57
Yeah, so when you can start before you get to the candidate experience. So, you know, so I'm partnered with our head of talent acquisition, talent acquisition. And so we were looking at how do we find those candidates that don't know that they need a new job? So really looking at passive candidates, and being able to identify passive candidates? And then looking at, you know, what about people who have perhaps applied to the company applied for a position, but they weren't selected, but they were still really good? How do we reconnect with those individuals? So there's a lot of it on the talent acquisition side. And so, you know, if you look at it, from a lifecycle standpoint, it starts with those passive candidates, then we start looking at, you know, people who we already know that we want to go back to Yeah, then it's bringing our internal talent acquisition system together with this AI platform. Looking at internal talent, you know, how do we help with mobility and redeployment? You know, when people have opportunities that are coming to an end? Or, you know, a contract that's coming to an end? How do we redeploy them so that we don't lose them? And we can keep them in, you know, in the company? To them looking more at how do we proactively help individuals plan their career? So it is really that whole continuum? If you will, yeah, from an employee, you know, employee lifecycle standpoint, you really need
Chris Rainey 11:25
something, you need a platform that can really deliver the end to end. Exactly. All the way through. And then I'm assuming then create a talent marketplace of sorts.
Cari 11:35
Exactly. Yep. So there's a talent marketplace. And you know, and like, you know, there's a number of different platforms that are out in this space, but it's, it's on top of your H RAs, it's, it's on top of your talent acquisition system, your learning management system, LinkedIn, you know, in in, get hub, other other tools like that. An external together collects them all. Yep. Yeah. So then we have much more information about our employees than what they've told us themselves. Very exciting
Chris Rainey 12:04
when you went out to the marketplace and looked at the different vendors. Because the reason I'm asked this question for our audience is a minefield, I'm sure you realise there's so many products, solutions, they're popping up every day, they all kind of solved everything for you. What, what, what, what, what, what advice would you give to people listening? And what type of questions you are asking.
Cari 12:22
So I needed to look at it from two different perspectives, because, you know, there are tools that lead from a talent acquisition standpoint, like the ones that we're working with, and then there's tools that lead from an existing employee standpoint. And so what I found is that, you know, I needed to understand what that company's position was, where was their initial focus? And how, you know, how did that focus come to life. And what I mean by that is, you know, because we're a company where talent acquisition is a key part of our business engine, I needed to make sure that that was part of the equation. And it just so happened, that we had an existing real as an existing relationship with a vendor in this space. And that's what we ended up partnering with. But when I talked to other vendors, they lead from the talent marketplace and the career development standpoint. And so that was the strength in their tool. And that's great, but I needed more than that. So I really wanted to say one thing, you know, my advice is, you really have to be clear on what your company's what's important to your company. You know, if, if you've got the type of organisation where, you know, you're trying to enable career mobility and career development, and that's all you're concerned about. From your perspective, then, you know, there's a suite of tools out there that does that, if you are looking at it like I am, from a more broad standpoint, you know, then you've got to really start to figure out, you know, which vendors can play in both spaces?
Chris Rainey 13:59
And then from there, is it also I'm sure, do you use your experience element? I'm sure it's massive.
Cari 14:05
Well, yeah, the user interface, the employee experience, right. And so that's one of the things that we're trying to work through now. Because, you know, we have our HRIS, which is our source of truth about our employees, because that's the information that they gave us. And so how, you know, how do we create an experience where well do they update it in the hrs career development platform? And what does that feel like? So we're doing a pilot this summer, and that'll help us learn if the way that we've built it is gonna work? Or do we need to go back and maybe tweak some
Chris Rainey 14:41
things? I'm assuming you're asking them to do it in the new platform. Right. So you have one source of one place?
Cari 14:48
Yeah, so there's different it's interesting because we have critical skills we store in our skills that are critical to us, we store in our hrs, and we need them to be there for a couple of different reasons. And, you know, in terms of how some of our follow on business processes, okay, but because we've got artificial intelligence in place, we've got the ability for employees to self select other skills. So the platform surfaces, you know, a variety of skills for them that they can say, oh, yeah, I can do that I can do that. I can do
Chris Rainey 15:19
that. And legit, kind of nudges. Not Yes, it does.
Cari 15:23
Yeah, it says, you know, if you have this skill, if you have, you know, if you are a data scientist, then you probably have, you know, Python. Yeah. And, you know, analytics or something like that. Yeah. So it does help employees further build out their profile. The other thing that I would say is, it's really important for us, you know, to make sure that we are tracking these critical skills, which is why we're going to continue to manage them and HR is, because these are the things that when we're looking at, where do we need to make an investment, where do we need to do some upscaling based on our future pipeline of work, those are the skills that we really need to keep, keep tabs on. So, so they'll there will be some interplay between the two systems, but but I think for the most part, it's, you know, it's something that will help us help our employees. And the other thing it takes away, it takes away the the burden, if you will, of an employee having to go in and manually update all of their information, in terms of what their career experiences have been. And in terms of what their skill sets are, and what their aspirations are, because now you've got this platform pulling all of this together, it's a matter of going in and just clicking on things, as opposed to having to start from scratch and, you know, writing, writing an employee profile for themselves,
Chris Rainey 16:51
just kind of creating that LinkedIn experience, when you build your profile, it makes it a lot easier, right kind of pops up, you see some different skills, you select those kind of shows some more skills that are relevant to you. And it's very easy, which is why everyone doesn't mind creating a LinkedIn profile, right? You feel empowered. You're empowering your employees to take charge of their own career in that sense.
Cari 17:12
And that's part of the scalability piece, too, because now they've got some self service, because it's going to bring in things like, oh, you know, if you're an analyst level one, here are what other here's how other analysts level ones have moved through the organisation? Oh, and here's some open positions that we have. So that if you are ready to move, you know, here's some things that you might be well suited for, based on what their background and experience is then
Chris Rainey 17:39
particular population, the pilot or for everyone, you know, how does it work?
Cari 17:44
Yeah, no, we're gonna do a six week pilot, and we need about 200 people in the pilot relative to the size of that company. It's, it's pretty small. But it's, it's pretty large to manage. So we've got a couple of our business units that have been asking us, when is it going to be ready? When is it going to be ready? So they've self nominated to be our pilot audience? Oh, nice. Okay, um, because they've expressed a desire to be early adopters. So, you know, I'm not going to try to force people into it, we're gonna, we've got a couple of a couple of leaders who've said, Yeah, you know, I'd love for my team to be part of this. So we're going to work with them, and use them to help us, you know, figure out, you know, is this is this working the way that we expected it to? And what's your experience? Like? Yeah, because we can only put ourselves in somebody's shoes for so long before we're too close to it.
Chris Rainey 18:38
I know, it's obviously going to be completely fleshed out during the pilot, but what are your particular elements of the of the pilot that you're testing? I'm sure you have some specific.
Cari 18:46
So I mean, that. So that's a really interesting point, because we've been talking about that a lot lately, a lot lately, as we were getting ready for the pilot, you know, not everybody's going to be on a journey, where they're ready to make. Exactly, yeah, especially in six weeks.
Chris Rainey 19:03
So how do you test this, so
Cari 19:04
we have a couple of different things that we're looking at. So first of all, we've got a redeployment programme for employees whose contracts are ending, so we're gonna fold them into the pilot, because those are the ones that are looking for near term opportunities for the other, you know, couple 100 people that will be involved in the pilot, it's more around usability, meeting expectations, you know, so you said that you want to career development, and we know that people are coming into the organisation are coming into this with different biases based on what they've experienced with other companies and how other companies have done career development. You know, this is this is very different. You know, a lot of people are looking at it from this standpoint, like, well, at my old company, we had this chart that showed us, you know, every role with every skill with, you know, every experience and all of these different requirements, and that's not how modern technology works. So, so we want to hear back on you know, so We know you want to career development, and we're training you how to use this platform. How does this does this reshape what your expectations are? Now that you've seen that there's a different way to do career development than what you're used to? So that's going to be a lot of it? And are you finding the information that you're looking for? Does the information that's being surfaced to you make sense? Or does it not seem like you're not sure how you would have been identified for, you know, a position that's, that's been surface to you. So it's really looking at it from an experience standpoint, and then, you know, ROI is really going to be looking at, you know, long term, when we go with a broader enterprise wide launch is really going to be looking at retention, it's going to be looking at retention, it's going to be looking at career movement within the organisation. And do we see an uptick in that, you know, what our survey responses when we do our, our engagement survey again in January? So you know, so it's really looking at all of those things from a, you know, is this investment actually helping the organisation?
Chris Rainey 21:08
Amazing, really exciting? What does this mean for you in the team? And the way the end of what do you do? You do, because I'm sure there's a lot of manual work happening right now. But because you don't, like there's
Cari 21:19
no, I mean, there's a lot of pay, there's not a lot of manual work, because we're just not doing it, or it's happening in pockets when people come to us, you know, we'll work with them. But you know, we have a team, I have a very small team, I've got myself and three other people, there's no way that we can provide, even if we just worked with our HR business partners, that we could provide that type of information at this platform, these types of platforms can provide for people when they're ready for it, you know, I think it's going to, it's going to make our lives easier, in the sense that we now can direct people where to go, we can help, you know, we can help move them along with it. But they're going to, I think it's we have to be careful because it could be overwhelming for a lot of people. So we're doing functionality releases in a phased approach. So phase one, is going to be really looking at what jobs we're pulling in from our TA tool, the profile that's created for the employee, and the integration with our learning management system. And phase two, there's a lot more that we can turn on, we can turn on, you know, gigs, for example, we can turn on matching, like people together, you know, based on their employee experiences, or based on their affinity groups, or based on, you know, a number of different dimensions, but it's like, we can't, we can't do that. Yeah. We can't take that on
Chris Rainey 22:48
your poor team. Yeah, exactly. The funny thing is, though, I mean, not funny, it's not funny at all. But you know, a lot of times you only find out about the wound, we're only brought into the conversation when these people were already leaving, where it was, the amount of times I've had to leave interviews with people that I'm like, Oh, wow, if we only spoke a few months ago, we actually have this opportunity over here, or we could have done that or, you know, and it's like, Ah, it's such a, it's such a shame.
Cari 23:16
That's where the real win is going to be. Because right now, we're doing a lot of that, you know, through informal networking, where we've got, you know, our programme managers are like, Hey, does anyone know anybody that can do XYZ, and they're sending it out through emails, you know, so now, we'll be able to create talent pools within the system. So that if we're looking for people that have, you know, a specific set of skills, because sometimes we see common combinations of certifications and experiences and we can, we can really start to use the system to help us manage all of that information better.
Chris Rainey 23:52
I definitely think our audience are thinking right now listening is what is the process? How did you get the buy in from the leadership team for this? What advice would you give to our audience about how you present that how you get the buy in?
Cari 24:04
That was a process, you took a deep breath that took months to do this, because because we had to create a narrative that was going to resonate with our leadership team. Like we all knew in our gut that this was the right thing to do. We knew that we can prove a return on investment, we knew that it would impact our retention, it would help our time to fill it would help us fill more roles internally. And so we started capturing all of those metrics like okay, at the end of the day, what could we say that we have accomplished by implementing this platform by making this investment? And so when you started putting, you know, numbers, and we were really conservative in the estimates of savings, and you know, retention and things like that, because, you know, it's it's easy to, you know, apply a formula to everything and then it just sounds you know, too good to be true, and it probably is. So we were really conservative, and how we put together the return on investment model. So that we could, you know, talk about things like, you know, for example, reducing severance, because now we'll be able to redeploy, we know, we won't be able to do that 100% of the time, but we think we'll be able to do it, you know, at least half the time. So, you know, so looking at, you know, what we're spending, they're looking at the reduction of turnover, again, being really conservative, and what we think the reduction would be, and what that amounts to, from a revenue standpoint. So we really had to get very analytical, because that's the language that our leadership team speaks. If your organisation if that's not their language, then you know, you have to know what their language is, so that you can present it to them in those, you know, in those cases in that way, but I would also say, you know, we, we did a phased approach, we already had pieces of the platform implemented. And so, over the, when we were talking about what the implementation would look like, you know, phased it so that we didn't, you know, shell shock, the organisation with too much change happening at one time. And so those, that's really the approach we took. And the other thing is, is that our senior HR leaders were all on board with this, they saw the value, they knew it could be a game changer for us. And so, you know, we had strong support at that level. So that when we went into the executive team, you know, we already had, you know, some of that by and in place,
Chris Rainey 26:31
you just kind of present it to the whole team at once in person. What did that look like? Just?
Cari 26:37
So, yeah, so our, yeah, our CHR O is key in this and that he spoke to, you know, there are certain people that would have more influence, but where this would probably be a more important tool to them than others on the leadership team, you know, just like with any time you're trying to persuade a, you know, a group of senior leaders, you know, some coalition building, and talking to other, you know, of his peer group that he felt was important to, you know, to have some understanding and buy in before going into the broader team.
Chris Rainey 27:12
You mentioned a really important important point. And because I've asked this question many times over the years on the show, and it's about building relationships with those different senior stakeholders, and understanding what are their needs, right to your point, and what's going to add value to them, and then leveraging that. And that takes time. Because you could be speaking to that senior stakeholder, and it's like, if they don't understand what this means for Chris, then they're not going to be okay.
Cari 27:38
No, kidding. This was like, a six or eight month process. Yeah. So it definitely, I mean, because it these tools are not cheap, you know, they are a significant investment. And so you really have to make sure that the organisation is ready. And, you know, and when I say that, that's like the cradle to grave of, you know, when we started talking with a vendor to when we actually signed the contract.
Chris Rainey 27:59
So you want to Johnny, is you already in the six weeks right now that we're talking about? Are you in?
Cari 28:05
No, no, not yet. We're finalising the configuration for the, for the career development piece of the platform. So we've already worked on like things like internal mobility and, and a lot of the talent acquisition pieces. So we're now finalising the configuration for the career side of the platform. So we expect to launch the pilot in August. I made
Chris Rainey 28:27
you mentioned earlier in the future, what ROI looks like, right, which makes sense retention, all the other things that you mentioned, at the end of those six weeks? What does good look like to you? What do you hope that it ended up six weeks shows you that you're like, Okay, we're in full steam ahead.
Cari 28:45
So, if I were to wave my magic wand, we will have been able to help our folks that are on redeployment, find new opportunities. And you know, right now we're doing that through spreadsheets and emails, now we'll be able to actually match individuals with likely positions. So if we can get a couple of success stories from there, that'll be one huge piece of it, because redeployment is an important process for us. The other would be that the feedback on is this clunky, or is it smooth? Or somewhere in between, you know that it's more to Oh, no, this was seamless. In terms of, you know, you know, where information is coming from and how people are able to navigate through the system? And do they have to go back to the hrs or do they have to correct information that's wrong, I would really want that to be on the side of everything, you know, the feedback we're getting makes sense to the individuals that are seeing it, and that they find the system easy to use without a lot of training because just like no one taught us how to use Amazon. You know, this should be something that's a consumerized experience. And there shouldn't need a lot of training. I mean, we're really we, the only thing that I want to do from a training standpoint is telling them what the system does, and giving them a demo. I mean, this is not
Chris Rainey 30:10
something Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Cari 30:14
And so it's not something that it can provide them for a way to provide feedback. You know, we'll we'll certainly, that's going to be incredibly important. But this shouldn't be a heavy lift, you know, when you go into the platform? I mean, it doesn't look very different than you know, it's more robust than LinkedIn. But it's not. It's not super different. I mean, it has the same sections, the same information, same type of information, you know, is in there. So my hope is that people feel like it's a it's easy to get started.
Chris Rainey 30:45
Yeah, I love it. You mentioned something unique there, because a lot of challenges that some of the other companies I work with, they have blue collar workers workers, as well that aren't in the office, that the mobile experience where they wherever they are, you know, they can check in is that? Yeah, okay.
Cari 31:00
Yes. Yeah. And we have we have pockets of population, you know, that are also, you know, I don't know if I would call it blue collar, but they're, they're not standing at a computer all day like I am. So yeah. But yes, it's a it's a mobile experience. They access it, it's all secured through our, you know, through single sign on. So even through their mobile device, they can access single sign on and, you know, get put into the platform,
Chris Rainey 31:29
how's this shaped your own personal development? And your own? Good, this is a whole new a whole new, you know, I have yet to do, how have you, how have you? What have you been doing to upskill? yourself?
Cari 31:42
I attend a lot of your events. To learn about upskilling and, and learning about the technology, but it has, it has really, it's certainly changed the way I think, you know, I always, and some people will, you know, who are in the HR space may think I'm crazy for saying this, but I'm not a huge fan of competency models, I'm not a huge fan of having to build out large taxonomies because I never have the staff to do it. I just don't. And that's a lot harder to prove ROI on to get a consultant to come in and pay, you know, a couple $100,000 to somebody to build out, you know, a skills taxonomy. What I'm able to do with a platform like this is, is bypass a lot of that it's not the same as having a competency model. It's different, but it's forcing us to look at how do we, how do we measure competency and proficiently differently than what we've done before? And we haven't solved for that yet. Right now, we're trying to answer the mail on how do we help our employees achieve what, you know what success looks like for them in their career, but you know, this, I have to go back and look at, you know, what do we do, because we don't have, you know, some of these things in place, and I don't have the capacity to build it out. And I it'll be a hard sell to get that type of investment, you know, for something like models and taxonomies. So we're, we're, it's reshaping what I think we need to do for the organisation to account for, you know, how do we know who is really strong in certain areas? And I think what it means is that we do it on a much with a smaller population on more specific types of skill sets, like leadership, for example.
Chris Rainey 33:32
Yeah. One other thing that's thinking about while you're saying that, is it also men you tell me whether you feel like you agree, it's more inclusive. It is more, it's not just that I know, so and so they get the job.
Cari 33:48
Yeah, so like many companies, you know, we've got people that are all over the place now. I mean, they're there. Most of them were within the continental US. But we've got a lot of people who are, you know, in a location where they're the only one there. And so their, their opportunity to network is sometimes limited. And so absolutely on the inclusivity piece is now they don't have to know somebody, somebody's back at headquarters in order to get ahead. They have the same information presented to them, that somebody who sits next to me in our headquarters office has
Chris Rainey 34:20
so important. Yeah, it's such an important thing, right, that kind of probably is overlooked. In many in many cases. Yeah. as well. Because as much as as much as companies say, Oh, we have, we're inclusively Her show is still a lot of the Oh, it's easier for that leaders to hire someone they know. They've worked with before. They're in the network, right? It's just easy action to make that happen. Yeah,
Cari 34:42
exactly. We have and I'm sure other companies have this problem too is that we keep going back to the same people and and you know, they're they're going to be tapped out
Chris Rainey 34:54
excited for you honestly, that you're on this journey as well. Like I can see like how even you just share it with But now how energised you are, by talking about the possibilities, and I think this is also going to have a fundamental shift on your culture moving
Cari 35:10
moving forward. So, yeah, you know, and, you know, in our engagement survey, we got people that were really hot, really cold on, you know, on the company and on the culture, I mean, you can't make everybody happy. But I think what this is really going to do is it's going to show our employees that we are committed to them, we're committed to their success, because their success is our success. I mean, we can't do it without our employees. So. So this is really an opportunity for a true partnership, when it comes to career development. And in really helping our employees, you know, plan out how they want to stay with us, you know, for whatever the whatever their journey, it's not going to ensure it doesn't have to end, you know, as soon as their contract changes, and they can, and they can look for that, you know, that fulfilment that they want,
Chris Rainey 36:03
I think years from now, you could look back on this and see the retention is going to be unbelievable, you know, you look at companies that I speak to where people have been there for, you know, 10 years, plus, they've had multiple careers in those organisations, because they've created a culture and also systematically created a marketplace where people have opportunities that they don't have to leave, they can go and take those skills, which are completely transferable to a completely different function. And MPs do an area and succeed, you know, and and write anything, but you need the technology in order to be able to do that, or a massive team, which you don't have so.
Cari 36:43
Right, none of us. Yeah, one of the things that I'll say is that, you know, are one of our leaders that I work with talks about, you know, we've got to re recruit our employees every day. Yeah. And this is going to help us re recruit our employees every day. It's not the only thing. It's not a silver bullet. I know that there's other things that we have to be doing as well. But this will definitely allow us the opportunity to re recruit and our managers to re recruit their their employees, our employees every day.
Chris Rainey 37:12
Love that. I feel that we should end there. That's such a beautiful, elegant way of ending it. You got to promise me we got to do part two, like like, yes, a year from now on. I want to come back for part two, you can update the audience. And like actually don't do that. I did that really badly.
Cari 37:29
Let me tell you what not to do.
Chris Rainey 37:31
Everything I want to do but Oh, then we wish you all the best. Appreciate you come on the show and we'll stay in touch. Thanks a lot. Sure.
Cari 37:37
Absolutely. Thank you.
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Tony Buffum, VP of HR Client Strategy at Upwork.