Speaker 1: Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your Modern mentor.
I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise,
where we help leaders activate performance without burning
out their teams or themselves.
If your team could use a boost of inspiration
and action, I'd love to support you with a workshop,
a keynote, or a manager lab program.
You can find more about me and my work@leadabovenoise.com.
So today we're back with the third in our four part summer
short interview series,
and today's guest is Brett Underhill.
Brett heads up talent acquisition and learning
and development at Taboola.
And in this quick hit conversation, we talk about some
of the workplace trends that Brett is seeing,
and we cover some bits of advice that you won't wanna miss.
So enjoy my conversation with Brett Underhill.
Brett Underhill, it is such a pleasure
to have you on the Modern Mentor Podcast
today. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've been looking forward to this.
So Brett, you are over at a company called Tabula
and you head up both talent acquisition
and learning and development.
So you bring the people in and then you help educate them
and, and build up their skills.
It's a really nice blend of areas you're playing in,
and I'm excited to tap into some
of your wisdom today. Great,
Speaker 2: Thank Speaker 1: You.
Absolutely. Let's go.
So as you know, we are experimenting
with these short form interviews.
We've got these three key questions that we're focusing on.
And so the first one that I would love to ask you is
to tell us about something that you have done or tried
or implemented in your organization
that you feel has been successful
and that has something to teach us.
Something that we can all, whoever we are,
whatever altitude we're at in a company, we can kind
of pick up and take some insight and action on.
Speaker 2: Sure. And what I'm gonna share is something
that I've brought to or leveraged,
utilized in almost every company that I've worked at.
So hopefully people will find the application helpful
to wherever they're at.
What I have found really helpful when trying
to implement a change, a large scale initiative,
whether you're in HR
or the business, I have found that a key to my success
with these initiatives is taking a,
what I call a pilot approach. So yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay. So I love that I'm a big fan of the pilot.
I think it makes sense in many contexts
and in at many altitudes.
But tell us a little more what's something
that you've piloted and,
and how did you go about sort of setting
that up or structuring it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, um, I think that, um, you know,
I first started playing around
with this approach when I worked in highly regulated
companies where there was a lot of risk,
a lot of regulation.
And so, you know, whether it was sort
of initiating something that was considered really risky
or non BroadStream,
but something that we wanted to try out, I would say, well,
you know what, let's take a pilot approach.
And really the way I would position it is by making sure
that, you know, you have sort of a succinct, you know, sort
of time timeline, uh, a beginning
and end with project objectives that align
to a business goal, key performing indicators, things
that you know, you can make sure that you're measuring
and showing impact.
And, um, yeah, I can think of three times off the top
of my head that I've implemented this approach.
And it's a great way to get buy-in a great way
to secure budget
and a great way to get something over the finish line
without saying, Hey,
we're doing this big thing and we're doing it forever.
We're, you know, it's more of the approach of like,
let's try it and see how it goes.
And I think if you, um, build a really solid, uh, tiger team
as I like to call them, and sort of known in the industry
where you take sort of a, a discipline project approach
that's really helpful.
And I would say obviously, well, maybe not so obviously,
but having a executive sponsor to kind of help you, um,
you know, support the initiative and, um,
and then getting like great employees on board
and actually doing the work creates a win-win situation
because, um, in my experience, most
of these initiatives are successful.
And if they're not, that's okay too,
because you're still able to produce tangible results
and it's great exposure, it's great development.
So I've always found whether you decide to move forward,
forward with an initiative or not, there's benefits to both.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Can you tell us about something
that you use the approach on and,
and kind of how you structured it, what you learned,
and then what was the next step?
Speaker 2: Sure. Let's see.
So I'll take an example from
my learning development side of the house job.
We were in the throes of building an l and d uh, learning
and development infrastructure for the company.
And we wanted to instill e-learning or self-led learning.
And so we approached two very mainstream e-learning
platforms that many of your listeners are
probably, uh, familiar with.
And, um, we decided to approach them
with a 30 day free trial or a pilot.
And we enrolled over a hundred employees
worldwide in every region.
So apac, Israel, the Americas, amea,
and we sorta, you know, um, had these kickoff meetings
with like, this is what we're doing,
these are the requirements to participate in this pilot.
And then we, um, you know, were able
to create learning paths for that
that would actually help us in the long term.
So we implemented the 30 day pilot, got some feedback over,
communicated on what we were doing, um,
and emphasizing the fact that it was free learning
and investment on our people.
And then, um, from the survey results, we were able
to really hone in
and select the vendor that we were gonna
go with in the long term.
And, you know, what was interesting about this is
that one key decision I had to make was,
do we tell the vendors that we're doing this?
This seems a little, I'm not sure if this
would be considered ethical.
And I found that by being transparent with the vendors,
they were all in and they
provided the great greatest service ever.
And you know, they obviously, um, well, again, maybe not
so obviously, uh, were really interested in
what the results would be
because they wanted the feedback from
employees globally as well.
So that's, that's one of my more recent examples
that I've implemented the motto.
I, I can share a few more if it would be helpful. That's
Speaker 1: Great, Brett, thank you.
I appreciate that. And,
and as I, so as I listened to the project
that you described, which is pretty high level
and pretty kind of enterprise impacting, if I think about
what insights can we take from that
and maybe leverage at a,
at a lower altitude within an organization, what I heard was
that you were kind of doing an AB test, right?
Was it gonna be vendor A or vendor B?
You had a clear kind of population size,
you had a short timeline,
and it sounds like you knew what you were looking to learn
by the end of it, right?
And so I think those are some really essential elements
that we can probably replicate wherever we
sit in an organization.
We may not be building out a global learning platform,
but even if you are in customer service, let's say,
and you are, you're a frontline representative,
but you have an idea about how
to better tackle particular inbound requests
that you feel like you're getting a lot, right?
And you maybe wanna, you wanna change the script
or you wanna change the approach,
but you feel like you, you don't have the data,
you don't have the authority to kind
of overhaul the process.
But I would imagine you could take a similar approach here
and say, you know what, I'm gonna, if I take 20 calls today,
I'm going to, I'm gonna ask my manager if I can try just
for today for 10 of the calls,
I'm gonna use our regular approach, 10 of the calls,
I'm gonna use the alternate approach.
I'm looking to see, you know,
if I can resolve the issue faster
or if I can get a higher survey score at the end of it, um,
and I'm just gonna do it for a day or a week, right?
There's almost like a really similar analogy
that we can take from that, right?
So I think that piloting is a wonderful way to your point,
to, to learn how something works to get data to get buy-in.
Um, and I think we can use it at, at high
and low altitudes in a company.
So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
And, and I would say that one key thing, in addition to some
of the things I spoke about in making something successful,
and it could be tricky to navigate as far as
where you sit in an organization and
whenever you had to bring sort of key stakeholders on board
or regulatory parties, you know, I sort
of always approached it as, Hey, I want you to review
what we're doing and give your input, let's align.
And then once we incorporate your input
as appropriate, we're going to move forward.
It's important to kind of not position it
as giving someone an ultimate decision to,
to block you if, if you will.
You know? So it's sort of like letting them feel sort
of part of the mo the movement.
Yes. And it's much easier.
And then when you sort of go live, you know,
the sky isn't falling, people aren't freaking out.
So, um, that's another key, like a more
of a nuancey thing I would say. That's helpful.
Speaker 1: That is helpful. Thank you.
So Brett, my second question to you is more of a space
for us to maybe do a little bit
of live brainstorming together.
And this is where I would love to hear about something
that you are kind of challenged with or noodling on
or curious about, uh,
where we can just have some live dialogue.
So hit me with what you've got.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, one thing that from a, you know,
talent perspective, and it doesn't matter whether you sit in
HR or the business
because, you know, talent is a competitive advantage
and everyone is interested in getting the best
for their organization.
I would say one thing
that we're noodling on is we're unpacking the sort
of long-term effects of the talent landscape when
many companies were on a hiring binge or in growth mode
and pairing that with a great resignation, right?
When everyone was sort of, uh, quitting and moving jobs
and, you know, leaders were almost panicked to make sure
that they had the right talent in place.
And now we're reflecting
and looking at our, you know, sort of our larger, um,
company if you will, or talent base.
And we're asking questions such as, you know, in that time
of rapid hiring, was there a deterioration
or an improvement in the quality of talent
that we brought brought on?
Did the quality of hires suffer due due
to the dangerous combination of urgency
to get the job filled?
And smaller talent pools at that?
And if so, who is responsible? Is it talent acquisition?
Is it hr? Is it what we did for onboarding and training?
Or is it, you know, the business leader
that ultimately had the decision in bringing that talent on?
And how can we in the future, I guess, learn from this
and to avoid any pitfalls
or learnings that we've had from sort of
that in a way it was almost reactionary, right?
I think everyone was sort of in this like hiring blitz.
So that's one thing that we're, we're looking at,
I would say right now
and preparing for in the future when things pick up again.
Speaker 1: So the question being is your question around we're trying
to assess where our talent is,
or is it more we suspect maybe some
of our talent isn't hitting the mark
and we're trying to figure out what to do with that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the second one.
It's the talent isn't quite, I mean,
we have a larger employment base, so you know,
that could be part of it, but it is like, yeah, like the,
our quality, um, deteriorate and if so, why?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that is really interesting.
And in fairness, the pandemic was a very particular
moment in time, right?
Our economy did go a little bit wacky, and so I'm hopeful
or cautiously optimistic, we won't quite be in
that exact situation again.
But that said, I do think it's important to be rigorous in
not just how we assess our talent as we bring them on,
but also how we maximize the value that we equip them
to deliver in the business,
which is actually something I talk a lot
about on this show, right?
So a lot of what I love talking about is this concept
that I call activation,
which is really the intersection point
of performance and employee engagement.
So the question being, if we have this talent here
and they're here to stay for now, how do we make sure
that we get the most out
of them while also giving them the most of ourselves?
Um, and so this is where I love
to talk about my activation framework,
which is based on the four pillars.
How can we help our talent that we have better deliver,
develop, connect, and thrive?
And in my experience, when we look at our employees
as the experts on their own work
and their own experience, there are tremendous volumes
that we can learn from them about how to help them,
help us get more out of them.
So one of the things that I spend a lot of time
with clients on is just pulling groups
of employees into a room
and helping them understand
that when we get these four things right,
when we better equip you to deliver, right?
You've got the tools and the resources and the processes
and the permissions when we help you to develop
key critical skills that are engaging to you
but also valuable to our business.
We help you to connect so that you feel a sense
of belonging, but also that you can collaborate effectively
and we help you to thrive.
We help you set boundaries
and manage your wellness so we get your best energy.
These are some of the ways that we can start to
move in a positive direction.
And I always tell people that it is much more
a dial than a switch.
So the goal is not to look at our talent pool
and say, well, it's off and we need to turn the switch on,
but rather how can we make small increments of progress
one bit at a time?
And in my, in my opinion,
and in my experience, we do it by observing our employees
and then asking them for their inputs.
And going back to your first point, piloting solutions.
Mm-hmm . Right? So we're not looking for massive overhauls,
but when we hear an interesting idea from an employee,
we hear about, you know, this process takes me eight hours
and there's a step in here that is taking up half of
that time and it's not really adding value.
Can we test taking that step out? Right?
Or just finding new
and creative ways to create connection,
making sure we're starting each team meeting five minutes,
a quick round robin, you know,
what did you binge on Netflix this week?
Whatever it might be. You know, there are ways to just sort
of tweak and learn as we go and hopefully over time
and then, and then monitor, right to your point, watch,
watch how well the talent is delivering
and determine what's working
and what we keep and what we tweak.
Yeah. So that is not a broad based solution by any stretch,
but I hope it is a little bit of food for thought for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I love it. Yeah, no, it's good.
It resonates, you know,
and I think another thing when thinking about your four
pillars, and again,
a learning I've had from taking the pilot approach,
once something is successful, how do you maintain it?
How do you monitor, how do you improve,
how do you make sure you have the resources
to continue the momentum as well?
So that, that in a way, I also see as a key risk
in sort of implementing any sort of large scale initiative,
you know, project or model for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree.
And to that point, I think
by engaging our employees in the designing of the solutions
and the plans, I think it does help create buy-in
and sustain momentum, right? Yeah,
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 1: Awesome, thank you.
So Brett, one final question,
and this is the one that is meant to be as tangible
and as tactical as possible,
but given all of your experience as an HR leader,
you are the person
who is the bouncer at the door of Tabula, right?
Mm-hmm . Heading up talent acquisition.
And as you think about, you know, how people can,
can demonstrate success, how they can grow their careers,
what is one tip that you would offer based on
what you've done for yourself
or what you've seen be successful?
What is one tip that you wish every listener would kind
of pick up and experiment with tomorrow?
Speaker 2: You know, this may sound redundant, maybe
because we're on the topic,
but I would say to start practicing
with taking a pilot approach personally, professionally,
uh, can be really helpful and probably in this day and age
and, you know, um, we're all inundated by ai, ai, ai, right?
So it is a perfect time to sort of take a pilot approach
and try some things out.
And I would say that that's the, the space
that I've been most active in with that.
So I would say whatever initiative
or new thing is on the landscape, uh, be out there as,
as a leader or leading and try it.
And when you do that
and you sort of talk about the risks, like,
hey, it might fail, guess what?
We'll learn from the failings as well. That's
Speaker 1: Great.
So what I'm hearing is find something
that maybe scares you a little, but that feels important.
And just think of a, a first step that you can take.
Try it, test it, see how it goes, and, and tweak from there.
Yeah. Amazing.
Well, Brett, this has been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
There was a lot of wisdom in this conversation
and I'm looking forward to seeing it go live.
Speaker 2: Great. Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity.