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Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your Modern mentor.
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I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise,
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where we help leaders activate performance without burning
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out their teams or themselves.
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If your team could use a boost of inspiration
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and action, I'd love to support you with a workshop,
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a keynote, or a manager lab program.
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You can find more about me and my work@leadabovenoise.com.
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So today we're back with the third in our four part summer
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short interview series,
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and today's guest is Brett Underhill.
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Brett heads up talent acquisition and learning
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and development at Taboola.
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And in this quick hit conversation, we talk about some
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of the workplace trends that Brett is seeing,
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and we cover some bits of advice that you won't wanna miss.
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So enjoy my conversation with Brett Underhill.
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Brett Underhill, it is such a pleasure
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to have you on the Modern Mentor Podcast
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today. Thanks for being here.
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Thank you for having me.
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Oh, I've been looking forward to this.
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So Brett, you are over at a company called Tabula
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and you head up both talent acquisition
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and learning and development.
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So you bring the people in and then you help educate them
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and, and build up their skills.
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It's a really nice blend of areas you're playing in,
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and I'm excited to tap into some
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of your wisdom today. Great,
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Thank
You.
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Absolutely. Let's go.
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So as you know, we are experimenting
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with these short form interviews.
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We've got these three key questions that we're focusing on.
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And so the first one that I would love to ask you is
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to tell us about something that you have done or tried
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or implemented in your organization
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that you feel has been successful
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and that has something to teach us.
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Something that we can all, whoever we are,
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whatever altitude we're at in a company, we can kind
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of pick up and take some insight and action on.
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Sure. And what I'm gonna share is something
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that I've brought to or leveraged,
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utilized in almost every company that I've worked at.
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So hopefully people will find the application helpful
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to wherever they're at.
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What I have found really helpful when trying
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to implement a change, a large scale initiative,
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whether you're in HR
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or the business, I have found that a key to my success
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with these initiatives is taking a,
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what I call a pilot approach. So yeah.
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Okay. So I love that I'm a big fan of the pilot.
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I think it makes sense in many contexts
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and in at many altitudes.
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But tell us a little more what's something
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that you've piloted and,
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and how did you go about sort of setting
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that up or structuring it?
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Yeah, you know, um, I think that, um, you know,
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I first started playing around
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with this approach when I worked in highly regulated
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companies where there was a lot of risk,
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a lot of regulation.
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And so, you know, whether it was sort
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of initiating something that was considered really risky
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or non BroadStream,
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but something that we wanted to try out, I would say, well,
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you know what, let's take a pilot approach.
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And really the way I would position it is by making sure
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that, you know, you have sort of a succinct, you know, sort
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of time timeline, uh, a beginning
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and end with project objectives that align
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to a business goal, key performing indicators, things
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that you know, you can make sure that you're measuring
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and showing impact.
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And, um, yeah, I can think of three times off the top
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of my head that I've implemented this approach.
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And it's a great way to get buy-in a great way
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to secure budget
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and a great way to get something over the finish line
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without saying, Hey,
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we're doing this big thing and we're doing it forever.
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We're, you know, it's more of the approach of like,
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let's try it and see how it goes.
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And I think if you, um, build a really solid, uh, tiger team
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as I like to call them, and sort of known in the industry
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where you take sort of a, a discipline project approach
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that's really helpful.
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And I would say obviously, well, maybe not so obviously,
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but having a executive sponsor to kind of help you, um,
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you know, support the initiative and, um,
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and then getting like great employees on board
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and actually doing the work creates a win-win situation
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because, um, in my experience, most
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of these initiatives are successful.
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And if they're not, that's okay too,
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because you're still able to produce tangible results
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and it's great exposure, it's great development.
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So I've always found whether you decide to move forward,
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forward with an initiative or not, there's benefits to both.
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That's awesome. Can you tell us about something
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that you use the approach on and,
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and kind of how you structured it, what you learned,
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and then what was the next step?
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Sure. Let's see.
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So I'll take an example from
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my learning development side of the house job.
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We were in the throes of building an l and d uh, learning
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and development infrastructure for the company.
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And we wanted to instill e-learning or self-led learning.
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And so we approached two very mainstream e-learning
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platforms that many of your listeners are
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probably, uh, familiar with.
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And, um, we decided to approach them
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with a 30 day free trial or a pilot.
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And we enrolled over a hundred employees
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worldwide in every region.
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So apac, Israel, the Americas, amea,
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and we sorta, you know, um, had these kickoff meetings
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with like, this is what we're doing,
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these are the requirements to participate in this pilot.
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And then we, um, you know, were able
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to create learning paths for that
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that would actually help us in the long term.
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So we implemented the 30 day pilot, got some feedback over,
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communicated on what we were doing, um,
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and emphasizing the fact that it was free learning
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and investment on our people.
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And then, um, from the survey results, we were able
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to really hone in
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and select the vendor that we were gonna
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go with in the long term.
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And, you know, what was interesting about this is
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that one key decision I had to make was,
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do we tell the vendors that we're doing this?
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This seems a little, I'm not sure if this
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would be considered ethical.
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And I found that by being transparent with the vendors,
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they were all in and they
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provided the great greatest service ever.
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And you know, they obviously, um, well, again, maybe not
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so obviously, uh, were really interested in
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what the results would be
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because they wanted the feedback from
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employees globally as well.
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So that's, that's one of my more recent examples
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that I've implemented the motto.
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I, I can share a few more if it would be helpful. That's
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Great, Brett, thank you.
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I appreciate that. And,
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and as I, so as I listened to the project
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that you described, which is pretty high level
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and pretty kind of enterprise impacting, if I think about
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what insights can we take from that
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and maybe leverage at a,
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at a lower altitude within an organization, what I heard was
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that you were kind of doing an AB test, right?
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Was it gonna be vendor A or vendor B?
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You had a clear kind of population size,
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you had a short timeline,
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and it sounds like you knew what you were looking to learn
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by the end of it, right?
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And so I think those are some really essential elements
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that we can probably replicate wherever we
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sit in an organization.
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We may not be building out a global learning platform,
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but even if you are in customer service, let's say,
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and you are, you're a frontline representative,
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but you have an idea about how
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to better tackle particular inbound requests
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that you feel like you're getting a lot, right?
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And you maybe wanna, you wanna change the script
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or you wanna change the approach,
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but you feel like you, you don't have the data,
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you don't have the authority to kind
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of overhaul the process.
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But I would imagine you could take a similar approach here
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and say, you know what, I'm gonna, if I take 20 calls today,
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I'm going to, I'm gonna ask my manager if I can try just
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for today for 10 of the calls,
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I'm gonna use our regular approach, 10 of the calls,
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I'm gonna use the alternate approach.
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I'm looking to see, you know,
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if I can resolve the issue faster
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or if I can get a higher survey score at the end of it, um,
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and I'm just gonna do it for a day or a week, right?
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There's almost like a really similar analogy
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that we can take from that, right?
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So I think that piloting is a wonderful way to your point,
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to, to learn how something works to get data to get buy-in.
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Um, and I think we can use it at, at high
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and low altitudes in a company.
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So thank you for sharing that.
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Yeah, definitely.
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And, and I would say that one key thing, in addition to some
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of the things I spoke about in making something successful,
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and it could be tricky to navigate as far as
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where you sit in an organization and
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whenever you had to bring sort of key stakeholders on board
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or regulatory parties, you know, I sort
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of always approached it as, Hey, I want you to review
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what we're doing and give your input, let's align.
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And then once we incorporate your input
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as appropriate, we're going to move forward.
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It's important to kind of not position it
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as giving someone an ultimate decision to,
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to block you if, if you will.
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You know? So it's sort of like letting them feel sort
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of part of the mo the movement.
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Yes. And it's much easier.
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And then when you sort of go live, you know,
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the sky isn't falling, people aren't freaking out.
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So, um, that's another key, like a more
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of a nuancey thing I would say. That's helpful.
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That is helpful. Thank you.
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So Brett, my second question to you is more of a space
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for us to maybe do a little bit
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of live brainstorming together.
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And this is where I would love to hear about something
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that you are kind of challenged with or noodling on
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or curious about, uh,
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where we can just have some live dialogue.
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So hit me with what you've got.
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Yeah. You know, one thing that from a, you know,
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talent perspective, and it doesn't matter whether you sit in
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HR or the business
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because, you know, talent is a competitive advantage
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and everyone is interested in getting the best
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for their organization.
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I would say one thing
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that we're noodling on is we're unpacking the sort
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of long-term effects of the talent landscape when
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many companies were on a hiring binge or in growth mode
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and pairing that with a great resignation, right?
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When everyone was sort of, uh, quitting and moving jobs
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and, you know, leaders were almost panicked to make sure
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that they had the right talent in place.
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And now we're reflecting
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and looking at our, you know, sort of our larger, um,
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company if you will, or talent base.
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And we're asking questions such as, you know, in that time
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of rapid hiring, was there a deterioration
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or an improvement in the quality of talent
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that we brought brought on?
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Did the quality of hires suffer due due
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to the dangerous combination of urgency
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to get the job filled?
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And smaller talent pools at that?
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And if so, who is responsible? Is it talent acquisition?
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Is it hr? Is it what we did for onboarding and training?
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Or is it, you know, the business leader
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that ultimately had the decision in bringing that talent on?
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And how can we in the future, I guess, learn from this
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and to avoid any pitfalls
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or learnings that we've had from sort of
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that in a way it was almost reactionary, right?
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I think everyone was sort of in this like hiring blitz.
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So that's one thing that we're, we're looking at,
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I would say right now
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and preparing for in the future when things pick up again.
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So the question being is your question around we're trying
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to assess where our talent is,
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or is it more we suspect maybe some
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of our talent isn't hitting the mark
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and we're trying to figure out what to do with that?
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Yeah, it's the second one.
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It's the talent isn't quite, I mean,
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we have a larger employment base, so you know,
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that could be part of it, but it is like, yeah, like the,
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our quality, um, deteriorate and if so, why?
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Yeah, I think that that is really interesting.
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And in fairness, the pandemic was a very particular
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moment in time, right?
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Our economy did go a little bit wacky, and so I'm hopeful
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or cautiously optimistic, we won't quite be in
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that exact situation again.
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But that said, I do think it's important to be rigorous in
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not just how we assess our talent as we bring them on,
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but also how we maximize the value that we equip them
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to deliver in the business,
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which is actually something I talk a lot
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about on this show, right?
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So a lot of what I love talking about is this concept
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that I call activation,
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which is really the intersection point
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of performance and employee engagement.
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So the question being, if we have this talent here
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and they're here to stay for now, how do we make sure
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that we get the most out
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of them while also giving them the most of ourselves?
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Um, and so this is where I love
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to talk about my activation framework,
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which is based on the four pillars.
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How can we help our talent that we have better deliver,
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develop, connect, and thrive?
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And in my experience, when we look at our employees
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as the experts on their own work
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and their own experience, there are tremendous volumes
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that we can learn from them about how to help them,
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help us get more out of them.
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So one of the things that I spend a lot of time
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with clients on is just pulling groups
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of employees into a room
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and helping them understand
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that when we get these four things right,
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when we better equip you to deliver, right?
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You've got the tools and the resources and the processes
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and the permissions when we help you to develop
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key critical skills that are engaging to you
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but also valuable to our business.
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We help you to connect so that you feel a sense
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of belonging, but also that you can collaborate effectively
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and we help you to thrive.
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We help you set boundaries
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and manage your wellness so we get your best energy.
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These are some of the ways that we can start to
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move in a positive direction.
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And I always tell people that it is much more
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a dial than a switch.
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So the goal is not to look at our talent pool
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and say, well, it's off and we need to turn the switch on,
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but rather how can we make small increments of progress
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one bit at a time?
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And in my, in my opinion,
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and in my experience, we do it by observing our employees
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and then asking them for their inputs.
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And going back to your first point, piloting solutions.
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Mm-hmm . Right? So we're not looking for massive overhauls,
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but when we hear an interesting idea from an employee,
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we hear about, you know, this process takes me eight hours
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and there's a step in here that is taking up half of
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that time and it's not really adding value.
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Can we test taking that step out? Right?
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Or just finding new
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and creative ways to create connection,
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making sure we're starting each team meeting five minutes,
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a quick round robin, you know,
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what did you binge on Netflix this week?
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Whatever it might be. You know, there are ways to just sort
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of tweak and learn as we go and hopefully over time
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and then, and then monitor, right to your point, watch,
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watch how well the talent is delivering
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and determine what's working
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and what we keep and what we tweak.
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Yeah. So that is not a broad based solution by any stretch,
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but I hope it is a little bit of food for thought for you.
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Yeah, no, I love it. Yeah, no, it's good.
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It resonates, you know,
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and I think another thing when thinking about your four
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pillars, and again,
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a learning I've had from taking the pilot approach,
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once something is successful, how do you maintain it?
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How do you monitor, how do you improve,
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how do you make sure you have the resources
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to continue the momentum as well?
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So that, that in a way, I also see as a key risk
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in sort of implementing any sort of large scale initiative,
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you know, project or model for sure. Yeah,
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I agree.
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And to that point, I think
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by engaging our employees in the designing of the solutions
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and the plans, I think it does help create buy-in
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and sustain momentum, right? Yeah,
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Definitely.
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Awesome, thank you.
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So Brett, one final question,
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and this is the one that is meant to be as tangible
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and as tactical as possible,
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but given all of your experience as an HR leader,
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you are the person
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who is the bouncer at the door of Tabula, right?
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Mm-hmm . Heading up talent acquisition.
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And as you think about, you know, how people can,
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can demonstrate success, how they can grow their careers,
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what is one tip that you would offer based on
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what you've done for yourself
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or what you've seen be successful?
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What is one tip that you wish every listener would kind
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of pick up and experiment with tomorrow?
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You know, this may sound redundant, maybe
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because we're on the topic,
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but I would say to start practicing
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with taking a pilot approach personally, professionally,
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uh, can be really helpful and probably in this day and age
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and, you know, um, we're all inundated by ai, ai, ai, right?
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So it is a perfect time to sort of take a pilot approach
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and try some things out.
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And I would say that that's the, the space
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that I've been most active in with that.
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So I would say whatever initiative
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or new thing is on the landscape, uh, be out there as,
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as a leader or leading and try it.
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And when you do that
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and you sort of talk about the risks, like,
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hey, it might fail, guess what?
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We'll learn from the failings as well. That's
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Great.
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So what I'm hearing is find something
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that maybe scares you a little, but that feels important.
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And just think of a, a first step that you can take.
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Try it, test it, see how it goes, and, and tweak from there.
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Yeah. Amazing.
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Well, Brett, this has been an absolute pleasure.
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Thank you so much for joining me today.
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There was a lot of wisdom in this conversation
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and I'm looking forward to seeing it go live.
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Great. Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity.