Episode 1

Episode 1: Edweena Stratton

Cia: Welcome to Employee Activation, the HR podcast that takes you into the minds of some of the world's brightest workforce strategists to find out how they make both their employees, and their organisations thrive. I'm Cia Kouparitsas, and today we're talking about creating culture, the kind of culture that dominates best place to work award lists year after year, the kind of culture that attracts the very best talent into your organisation, and the culture holy grail that helps ensure your workplace's people are in it for the long haul.

And who better than to explore that topic with me than Edweena Stratton, a career Chief People Officer who has held some incredible roles with the likes of Starbucks, Oracle, Krispy Kreme, Salesforce and Culture Amp, where she's introduced revolutionary benefits programs, built company culture from the ground up, and kept her people engaged and thriving through digital transformation and rapid global expansion. Welcome, Edweena.

Edweena: Thank you, Cia. What an introduction.

Cia: Edweena, you have had an inspiring 25 year plus career in HR that many of us could only dream of. And you've worked with some of those incredible brands, some of the biggest in the world in retail and tech. So, before we jump into how your mind works and how you build your HR strategy, I'm really keen for everyone to just hear a little bit about how you got to where you did today.

Edweena: Sure, and so I always you know start with a level of gratitude, because I'm incredibly grateful for all of the experiences that I’ve amassed over a number of years. And you know often people will say to me, you know you're so lucky. I 100% agree, there's an element of luck, but I think there's a really good definition of luck for me, and that is where preparation meets opportunity. And so, I 100% agree, you know it's a little bit of luck. It's a little bit about being in the right place at the right time. It's a little bit about working with people and leaders who believe in you, working with teams who amplify the work that you do or the thinking that you have.

It certainly started from some pretty humble beginnings. So, you know, I left school, went to university studying personnel management and industrial relations. It wasn't even called HR when I started. So, there you go. We've come a long way, baby. And I started working during the university holidays and I was working as a receptionist. I had a, you know, an awesome opportunity that the one-woman HR team said, “oh, wow, if you're studying you know personnel, then would you like to come and work with me?” And so, I think that working for her was there for five years. It was a great foundation for me.

Early in my career, I did do a lot of stand-alone HR roles where either I was the second of a two-person team or leading a small team. Through to moving into leading and setting up companies like Starbucks and Krispy Kreme when they came to Australia.

I had opportunities to do some work in large organisations. And I initially took a role with Oracle because one of my mentors had said to me, “Hey, Ed, you probably need to work out what it's like to work in a bigger HR team that is, you know, supported by centers of excellence and where there is that specialisation”. And I didn't know if I was going to love it. And so, it was a huge risk for me at the time.

And then, because of the work that I had done at both Oracle and Salesforce implementing a tool called Culture Amp when Didier was looking for a Chief People Officer, we started some conversations, and was really drawn, because of my experience as a customer, and really drawn to the mission of Culture Amp. So, I worked there as a CPO for 18 months.

And then I've actually had the last 12 months as a period of, I think we call it, reflective in action. And so, it's been a wonderful opportunity for me to take breath, to take some time for myself and I've actually spent the year doing some study, which has been a wonderful experience for me.

So, very early on in my career as I said I was at university and I'd done two years of my undergraduate I started working in this HR team with the intent of finishing it on a part-time basis and it was something that I never completed and so I always felt a little bit I think a little bit guilty that I never actually completed it. But what it did mean for me early in my career was not having that piece of paper meant that I had to work a lot harder. I'm 30 years late, but I graduate with my master's at the end of the year.

Cia: Oh, that’s great

Edweena: Where 30 years ago, I probably graduated with my, you know, personnel management and industrial relations specialisation in commerce.

But, you know, look, life takes you on funny paths. And I think you end up being in the place you're supposed to be.

Cia: Indeed, I think that's a great story, Edweena. And it's the lifelong learning thing I think is really important. So having that sort of commitment and vision as to what you wanted to achieve, but I think what's great with your personal story in the workplace is all of the varied skills that you've garnered this rich tapestry of HR experience that comes from working with small and large organisations because I think these large organisations that you work for are some of the most iconic in the world. And I know I'm very interested to delve into them a little deeper, but what's really interesting is to hear that some of the most valuable experience you got was the skills that you built in those smaller organisations where you were the one person band, so to speak, and you kind of had to learn everything from the ground up.

So yeah, it's a great, great journey. I'm really eager to delve into the cultural side of the piece because I know that through your career, a key passion and focus for you has been building culture and creating an environment that allows people to do their best work. I'd love to hear a little bit about some of the things you've achieved that you're most proud of or the programs where you've seen really tangible impact.

Edweena: Yeah, look, I'm going to take you back a little while ago in my career. So, you know, if I think back to the year 2000 working at Starbucks and putting in place enterprise bargaining agreements, workplace agreements, you know, at that time, being able to put in place a six week paid parental leave period for retail workers was, you know, it doesn't sound that exciting today. I mean, most organisations, including, you know, I guess there's benefits from the government. But back in 2000, that was revolutionary.

And so, you know really proud that many years ago you know could do some things that were completely trailblazing and made a difference for a number of people.

Cia: Was that difficult, Edweena, to get that over the line with your executive leadership team at the time?

Edweena: Look I think that's one of the other things that I've been incredibly lucky with in my career is I've worked with some incredible leaders and one of the things that's really important for me when I am thinking about my role or opportunities that I've taken on. The leader that I work for and the relationship I have with that leader is hugely important. So, I want to work with leaders who also believe that people are the key for success in organisations and that if you have the right culture, then that is the path for performance.

And I guess it's an easy sell when you're working with leaders who also see the benefit in you know treating people in a way where you're going to get the very best out of them.

Cia: No, I think, look, listening to that example of how you introduced something that at the time was so revolutionary is a really inspiring one to hear. And I'm curious, that's obviously an example of something that you've done where everything has gone right, everyone was on board and the impact that you delivered to your workforce is just you know incredible. Obviously, we don't get it right all the time.

What are some of the challenges that maybe you faced over the years? Is there a particular scenario that you sort of reflect on and cringe or is there something that you particularly learned that you wanna share?

Edweena: Look, there's plenty I could pull upon, but one of the biggest lessons or learnings for me probably comes from my experience at Krispy Kreme. And, we've got to sort of rewind to the period when they were opening in Australia. It was completely, again, revolutionary. You know, you're selling donuts by the dozen in drive through. Openings were creating traffic jams. There was a black market established. You know, people would buy donuts at the window and then on-sell them to the back of the for the queue for a huge profit.

It was amazing to be part of the hype around the brand and the product. And the culture was something that was really important. And so, there was a lot of intentionality around the culture that we wanted to create in the Australian market. And there was some great work and thinking and you know pulling ideas and experiences from some of the brightest minds around that kind of executive table.

And, one of the first things I actually did when I started working at Krispy Kreme was, I spent time out in the Penrith store, not working day shift, but working night shift. And it was really insightful for me in helping me to understand what were on the minds of the people who we were employing. What was important to them? Why were they working at our company? And it so it was a really insightful experience for me, but you know it also helped open the door to understand from people that you know some of the values and the culture that we had sort of decided in that that ivory tower, it just wasn't landing.

So, that early experience of, you know, creating that connection and relationships, one, it helped people feel comfortable to surface, “hey, you know this is not landing.” And two, it gave me some really great perspectives around you know the employees that we had in our organisation and what might be important to them. And also highlighted for me the opportunity and the importance of co-creation. So, how do you surface ideas from all parts of the organisation around what culture means and what culture looks like?

Cia: That's great. And once you'd spent that time at the coalface, so to speak, what were some of the changes that you made with the HR team?

Edweena: So, I think it was you know really making sure that we were putting in place some really specific behaviours. So, what does it mean? Does this make sense? Does this resonate? And does this connect people you know to the purpose of the organisation?

Cia: With something like company culture that incorporates things like values and benefits, but also trickles down to the day-to-day interactions, you know, with leadership, how meetings are run, how managers approach feedback, all of these things that maybe aren't as tangible as something like paid parental leave or monthly social events.

How do you measure success in building culture? So, what are some of the metrics that you've looked at to your career to say yes, we've achieved our goal, perhaps especially at that C-suite level.

Edweena: Yeah, I actually heard a really great definition of success the other day, which I love and it's “you know you're successful when people are imitating you.” And I think that's really, really true. I think one of the things about all of the organisations that I've worked for, there is a real spirit of generosity and sharing. And so, there is no secret when it comes to company culture. And I think that sharing what's worked, you know what the lessons are, what the learnings are is a great way to help others who perhaps aren't as, you know, as resourced or experienced in figuring out what might work or what might not work in their organisations.

But you know, from a C-suite perspective, what is really important for me is engagement levels. So, I think, you know, you want some metrics and some data in terms of how people are feeling about the organisation. You want to look at your ability to be able to get an unfair share of talent in the market, so your ability to hire and to retain key talent within your business.

But also, what is your success in terms of accelerating people's career and providing growth and opportunity for them? What are those stories that you've got in your organisation about people who have been able to do something different or try something new? I think for me, when it comes to culture, some of those things are measures of success.

Cia: Edweena, you were VP of Employee Success at Salesforce for, I think, six years. And during that time, when you were talking to me about it earlier, you were saying they were growing this massive period of change and a disruption in the company where they experienced something like 10 times the employee growth of previous years. But somehow the company managed to remain on the best places to work list time and time again. And this fascinates me because I think typically huge growth like that unfortunately occurs at the cost of culture and employee experience. And I'm really interested to hear how you navigated all of those challenges and kept on track during a time of such extraordinary growth.

Edweena: Yeah, great question. So, it was an incredible, incredible period. And I think you mentioned my role as a leader and one of the things we did was invest in leader capabilities. So, you know, I think that thinking always about, how do you amplify culture and values? Unless you have a ton of resource where you can build out enormous HR teams, you have to think about clever ways around, how do you amplify it?

And it's an investment in leaders. So, I think there's some incredible data around the outsized impact that leaders have on an employee's engagement and performance. And so, you know, how do you make sure that leaders are delivering on that, you know, cultural value promise of an organisation?

Salesforce was really interesting because one of the incredible I guess ways in which you know the organisation thought about employee success or HR was taking the customer journey and how you turn that sort of inside the house and apply the tools, the thinking to employees.

At Salesforce, it was really at a time where the formula for success was customer success is just as important as employee success. So, our employees are every bit as important as our customers. And so how do we invest in both to drive and deliver performance? So, I think that that, you know, mindset of thinking about employees like customers and applying some of those, you know, customer journey mapping principles to employee success was a huge driver for us in terms of engagement culture and creating value.

And I recall, you know, in one of my early years at Salesforce, we had the opportunity to do what we call VTOs, so volunteer time off and there was an ability to be able to do, it was five days of VTO. And, you know, as a leader, in my first year, I managed to do three days. I was a netball coach, I was doing reading groups at schools and, you know, some Bunnings barbecues and things like that. And so, I'd done three days of volunteer time off and I was in a conversation with my boss at the time, Cindy Robbins, who was the CPO. And I was so proud of myself. I was like, wow. And I've, you know, I've done all this volunteering.

And she said, hey, Ed, like, that's great. But, you know, as a leader and as a role model in the organisation, if you're not doing five days, then how do you think that your team is going to feel? And are you giving them permission to do what they need to do? And so, it was a great lesson for me in leadership and the importance of being a role model when you are a leader. And just that as a leader, you have the opportunity to really set the tone in an organisation. So, yeah, always grateful for that feedback, lesson and learning.

Cia: Yeah, so many great lessons there, Edweena. I particularly love the idea that you really honed, which is that the employee experience is just as important as that customer experience. And I think it's a really great segue to the final question. And it's one that we ask all of our guests. And that is what is your top tip for activating employees? And when we say employee activation, it's all about motivating individuals and the organisational goals to come together so that both can really thrive and succeed in unison. So, what are your top tips for activating employees?

Edweena: So, one, care deeply. And so, I think that having a conversation, understanding what their aspirations are and investing time to find that out and surfacing it is really, really important. Or, you know, in larger organisations, how do you have frameworks so that your leaders are providing for everyone in the organisation, a sense of belief and belonging, you know a sense that they've got their back and that there's a path forward.

And I think at an organisational level, keep it simple. And I think that there was some other great conversations I was involved in recently. And one of the comments was around, you know, flow follows focus. So, I talk a lot about with my team or at an organisational level, you know, how do you eat an elephant? And it's, the answer is one bite at a time.

So, I think that, think of the one or two things that you are gonna focus on and you know execute the heck out of them. And then you know pick the next. So, I think that sometimes you know as leaders, you know you need to paint a vision that is inspiring, but you know take people on the journey along the way. And so that would be my things, you know care deeply and keep it simple but make it inspiring for people.

Cia: Love it. Look, Edweena, thank you so much for sharing a little bit about you and what makes you tick as a leader, as well as some of those incredible examples from throughout your career. I think there's a lot that everyone can take away from that. I encourage anyone who wants to learn more, connect with you to head to our website withyouwithme.com and we're going to have a lot of resources that we've spoken about today. Thank you so much, Edweena, and we will see you next time.

Edweena: Thanks, Cia.