HR’s Role as the Organization’s Storyteller

Speaker A: Hey everyone, it's me, your host, Cindy Ketzel. It always means so much to us that you're joining us for this episode of nine to Thrive hr. We're stepping into this year with such a powerful lineup of conversations in hr, talent management and business strategy, all brought to you through our amazing partnerships with organizations who are investing in meaningful dialogue around the future of work. These partnered episodes are designed to give you the best in class information aligned with HCI's research priorities. These conversations, of course, are just the tip of the iceberg. We had an amazing conference this spring. We're looking forward to our fall Spark conference and we'd love to have you join us there to hear from our world class speakers on, um, topics that matter to you. If your organization has insights to share or wants to be part of this year's conversations, we'd love to connect with you@podcastshci.org I am always excited and I always feel so honored to have conversations with some really amazing people out there doing the hard work. You all know we spoke with Tom McCarty a couple of times from Org Chart and we're inviting in Kimberly, uh, Henry. Kimberly is the chief marketing officer for Org Chart and we're really excited to talk about. We actually talked a little before we joined, but we're so excited to talk about, as I say, it takes a village when we think about the collaboration between marketing and the human resource function. So first and foremost, welcome to you, Kimberly.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker A: We're excited to have you. And you know, I read about your history and I know you've got an extensive one in this field. But I also know the topic that we're going to head into today is an important one to you. So tell us a little bit about yourself and why storytelling is such a big part of what we're looking to as we think about future of work.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I'll give a little more on my background. So I have been in the marketing space for over 20 years, not to date myself, but from various different stage companies, larger ones like KPMG and Pfizer, to you know, smaller growth stages like org chart and so 20 plus years of storytelling if you will. Right. That is my trade and also my personal life. I live outside New York City with my two little ones, a five year old and a, uh, two and a half year old. So I feel like even personally I'm storytelling a lot just to convince them to maybe eat their dinner. But anyway, all that to say is I'M super excited to have this conversation. Org chart actually hosted a webinar on a very similar topic back in January where we had over 400 HR leaders register and attend. And it was just fantastic. People were so engaged, asking a ton of questions around it. And the reason why I think it's more important than ever is because so much has shifted and so much has changed. And, you know, when you think about just even planning for the future, that function of HR in particular continues to evolve so rapidly with things like AI, et cetera. Uh, and they can't just use spreadsheets. They have to be able to convey a better story around the changes that they're making or things that are going to need to continue to evolve and adapt because of that. And so I honestly have conversations with customers quite often, which I love as a part of my job. And a lot of that is asking for guidance in terms of, you know, how do you share this up and what's the best way to visually share this with a board and things of that nature. And so I couldn't be more thrilled to be here today.

Speaker A: That's great. And you are absolutely right. One of the things, and I've been teaching people analytics for, I think, my whole time with hci, so about eight years. And I will tell you that in early stages, we were already talking, so almost a decade ago, how do we turn that data into a story? And so Kimberly and I were talking about, and she just echoed it here, the skills of our HR partners. Right. We're strategic, but also we need to become storytellers. There's hard things happening, and it's not, as you just said, it's not just about reading that data set. It's also being able to turn that into an engagement, engaging in authentic story that not only our stakeholders are going to listen to, but our quote, unquote audience will listen to as well, I. E. Our workforce members or 100.

Speaker B: That's exactly.

Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Anything else to add? Uh, from that perspective, as we think about HR's role as a storyteller?

Speaker B: No, I think you really nailed it and I think it's more important than ever. Again, I think the past several years, a lot of the conversations has been around the strategic nature that HR has, and then it just continues to evolve and level up. And they think, especially in the light of AI, they really are those that are going to be communicating, to your point, stakeholders to employees. Right. To leadership and to guiding them along what is a very continuous life cycle right now.

Speaker A: And, you know, key word Here is communication. And I guess what I want to make sure maybe it's a level set with our audience. When we do think about storytelling and we think about telling that, if you will, organizational story, Give us a little bit more of what that means to you all. Because are, uh, we talking about the mission statement? Are we talking about exploring or using storytelling to talk about our culture? Is it the employee experience? Is it all of those things? Is it none of those things? Is it bigger than those things? So when you think about what we need to build our craft on around this idea of telling that organizational story, what does that mean to you?

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's a great question. And I think it's all of that really. Right. So we really believe that it encompasses all of those things. And I think it depends on the audience. So you mentioned before whether it's your stakeholders or employees. So, you know, I think for example, if you're presenting changes to your board, I think the story needs to be about, you know, how your workforce now, for example, is set up to succeed this year, to succeed in five years. What are they doing from an AI perspective? What's skill sets does the team have from an AI perspective? But if you're, you know, on the broader scale telling the organization's story, you know, from a hiring perspective on the mission statement, you know, I think that it also encompasses the mission statement. Right. Company culture. Do your employees embody your company's mission statement? As you continue to grow and scale, does your growth plans and your, you know, workforce or new scenario plans you put forward, does that align to your company mission? So, you know, again, to sum it up, it depends. It depends on the audience and what kind of data layers, if you will, you're going to bring in, the story evolves. But organizational story, if you will, it really encompasses everything.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of that bird's eye view of what's happening. And it probably, with exception of, I suspect even, you know, maybe at Org chart, we have this overall vision we're working towards that probably doesn't change too much for, you know, Org chart or any other organization. But day to day, some of that story changes.

Speaker B: Yes. Daytoday. And I would actually say whether it's Org Chart or other organizations, we actually find having one plan, one workforce plan for the next five years doesn't exist. Our customers are regularly more than one time a year putting together workforce plans and plans because it just changing so rapidly. So even from the Org chart perspective, we really don't have one necessary plan for the Next several years. We have seen several that we think will likely pan out, that we pressure test, but it continues to evolve and we're finding the same from our customers. We actually just did a survey earlier this year and I forget the stat off the top of my head, but we asked how many plans do you have are you planning? And again, I think if we looked five years ago, most organizations had one plan for the next five years. This is how we're going to grow over the next five years. Now I think the common was like two to three over the next five years. Right. Because I think it's just there's so much unknown with AI and just everything from a market perspective continues to evolve and we're finding that people are doing this much more regularly in terms of that. So it's day to day, but it's also the longer term plans too.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for saying that too. I think that is one thing that Tom and I found joint passion around is the value of what you all offer to strategic workforce planning. You know, I don't know that there's always been a plethora of tools for, for organizations to start futuring, to start coming up with those varied scenarios. As you look forward. I want to dial back just for a quick second because SWP is also such an important topic for us as HR business partners. But kind of diving back into what can our HR partners, what are they doing to tell its story and are there tools that they need to have available to them in order to tell their story, whether it be around workforce planning or otherwise.

Speaker B: So I think it starts with the data. HR sits on top of so much people data from their HRIS system, but then across multiple different platforms. Right. And I think from a tool perspective, what we find mostly is that, you know, in a lot of organizations the data sits to the point I just made and multiple different situations. So having a very clear view of all of the data is a first step. And that's a conversation that I have with customers, we have with customers all the time is about really understanding that. And from like a tools perspective, you know, I think obviously with my marketing hat on, but then at org chart, as uh, you tell a story or as you're sharing story from a data perspective, the visual component of that and how important that is. So I'm just off a board meeting last week and if I pulled up a spreadsheet, if you will, and kind of tried to point to different cell numbers, I would not be able to convey my story to them. Right. In terms of what I was looking to share. And so the visual nature of different things in slides is what we think really can compound what you're looking to accomplish, the point you're looking to get across. So for example, of course, at Org chart, we think the tool is the org chart, but it's what we find, our customers just find so valuable and critical. It pulls data from so many different places into one place. And you can have, depending on the audience, depending on the story you're looking to convey, you can talk to different points. So for example, you know, if I'm looking to share with my CEO and, or my board or functional leaders, if I'm, you know, the head of hr, I can not even just pull in people data. I can pull in years of experience, their salary diversity metrics. Right. And be able to have a conversation and, or tell a story, if you will. In terms of. This is where my organization is at to date. This is where it needs to grow to. This is where the gaps are. Here are the ways in which I'm going to solve for this. Right. So that's just one very specific example, but short answer, it starts from the data. And again, HR sits on a, uh, wealth of people data. And it's about digesting that in ways that they can understand more of the layers across that to be able to convey the story, the points, et cetera, that they're looking to.

Speaker A: So, uh, when I was asking the question about the tools, of course I was like, the Org chart, what you all offer is an amazing tool. You know, obviously I've learned more about it since having those conversations with Tom. Um, so thank you for making sure that you brought that up because that's so key. I do want to ask you a quick question because you said really the pinnacle of this is the data because you have customers that you're having conversations with. Are you finding a gap in being able to get, I'm going to call it good enough data? Are you still hearing organizations are still working on, um, filling that gap to be able to mine for that data 100%? Okay, it's still happening. Okay.

Speaker B: So for example, right. Not to say to get tactical from a tool perspective, but HR leaders and organizations have their HRAS system. However, their payroll sometimes sits in a different system or their performance management sits in a different system. So we actually had, on the webinar that I mentioned in January, we highlighted one of our customer stories on it, and they actually highlighted that before they go into any meeting with the functional leader, with an executive, they actually do walk in with a visual representation. It happened to be an org chart because they're our customer, but with a visual representation where they pulled in information in terms of performance metrics. They pulled in salary. They pull in salary bands. But you can only do this if all your different systems are, uh, interconnected. And a lot of companies and HR departments still don't have that necessarily. We also see, and I was just having a conversation the other day with several customers, and they noted that they're planning in spreadsheets. Right. I've done that before. Right. In my career. And I think we all probably have.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You're working with finance or HR and you're planning in a spreadsheet, and you can imagine the lack of data that you're pulling in to that to be able to have these strategic conversations.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I will often say, and I'm sure you've got either this phrase or another phrase that you share with customers. We are flying and building the plane at the same time.

Speaker B: Feels very real.

Speaker A: Right. That's what we're doing. So I think it. Not that I want to normalize normalizing, but. Right. Like it does normalize for people. Hey, there are still a lot of organizations that are doing the heavy lifting to gather the data in order to build the insight. So I'm glad to hear that people are still struggling, organizations not struggling, working through those gaps. You mentioned as we started this conversation off, you were talking about that organizational story. You briefly talked about how it's, you know, typically used for hiring. We do typically use it for talking about the culture, you know, kind of saying, you know, hey, it's the story for all of it. I also would love to hear your perspective on, um, storytelling in those tough moments during those layoffs in the reorganizations. How are we doing that? What does that sound like for us? Or what does HR need to do to prepare for that?

Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, we all see the news. Right. And so the past several years, like those tougher moments from a company, uh, perspective, you know, have been more prominent than before. And so, you know, what I would say is, again, I nodded to this before, but I'll mention a survey we did last year. I think we had over 400 HR leaders respond to it. And 97 or 98 said that they were doing planning, if you will, but also around reorg, so. Or the future of the work or layoffs, for example, in a spreadsheet. So I think if we think about, you know, how you storytell with respect to that, what we're finding Customers and the conversation that we're having with them is again, it kind of starts with this visual representation, right. To see, here's where the organization is now visually conveying that versus in a spreadsheet or that really, that story or the point you're trying to make does not come across. Right. And so pulling in other things in terms of, again, if I'm the head of marketing and I want to talk about the changes I'm making to my current or chart, whether it's tougher moments and or continuous evolvement, if you will, I'm likely going to pull in tenure of my team. I'm likely going to pull in years of experience with my team. I may even pull in notes like, you know, who's more advanced from an AI perspective versus not, or what are the things we're doing from an AI perspective versus not. And then look at it more holistically. Right. To be able to convey, this is where I am today, this is where I need to be. These are the things I need to do. If it is a tougher moment, and you know, I hate to kind of talk about those, but if it is a tougher moment, this is why I need to do the different things and point to things like that, whether it's someone that is underperformance or things of that nature, so you can truly see the team or entire organization that will change and it's just so much more compelling, so much more valuable. And I personally think bringing all that forward is critical. To be able to make those hard decisions if you have to, and also to back them up when you have to. Right. And so whether you're talking to your leadership team, your executive team, your board, or even communicating certain things down, to be able to have all that information in one place and to visually be able to show that in parallel with words, if you will, we think is critical.

Speaker A: Yeah. Amazing. And then just understanding, as an HR professional, walking into, as you mentioned, an executive meeting or stakeholders or board meeting, knowing our audience is going to definitely help us to understand and obviously what the challenge might be or the conversation we're about to get into that's going to help us pull those data points. But now I've got a tool that's pulling them all into one place. It's cutting down so many hours of work to just prepare. Is that a fair statement?

Speaker B: I think it's totally fair. And tool brand name aside, if you will, I couldn't do my job without being able to have the data that I need. Right. In a digestible visual way to be able to have one, to make decisions, to be able to have those conversations, to tell the stories that I need to, to whatever said audience. And so again, it's for HR and HR leaders is about they sit on a wealth of information in their HRIs, plus in many cases other platforms. And like how do you pull it all together to be able to have the complete picture to then, you know, tell a story to this audience or make those tougher conversations and decisions and things like that?

Speaker A: Yeah, perfect. Well, let's uh, get a little bit more granular here. You were mentioning, you know, these tools are allowing us to be prepared to be able to tell our story. So talk to me about getting buy in. Right. We know, I'm sure that data, data, data is a big part of that. But there's the human side with that story. And then tell us about for example cross departmental collaboration as we tell these stories. What does that look like?

Speaker B: Yeah. And again, I'll kind of go back to my example of last week of I had a board meeting, right. So my visual representation was different, right. Than an org chart and there were some views in slides. But I actually collaborated directly with my head of sales because I think versus being in silo. I see that as being like the first step and so important. And I can speak to how I work with HR with that as well. But uh, in order to get buy in on several different things that I needed to in that conversation, I was able to visually show these are the gaps, these are where we're growing. This is what I need, this is where the numbers are again, going back to data. But of course for a board that's very important to be able to then get their buy in. If I were to pull up a spreadsheet or to not really have that, my job would be a lot harder in terms of buy in. Right. Whether it's from my CEO or a leadership person, et cetera. So if I can visually walk someone through leveraging the data that I have, X, Y and Z and then again buy in, this is what we need to do. This is where we need to grow. This is where the gaps are. Without that, I wouldn't be able to be successful in getting that buy in. And then from a cross collaboration perspective, I just think that's foundational. Right. Again, my marketing hat on. But I'm always working with my peers from customer success or sales to be able to collectively have that so story. Right. To be able to visualize, pull the data together, visualize it, have a conversation and then we collectively tell that story. And that's how I've found in my career. But I know in conversations that we have with hr how they can be more successful, right? About getting certain buy ins and things of that nature. And I think they should be leading those conversations as well, right? Putting those visuals in front of their functional leaders, their CEO and being the strategic one to kind of push those conversations forward and improve partnership across the company, make those collective decisions.

Speaker A: So yes, I think I've already mentioned this word during conversation, but it really is taking a holistic approach to tell that story. When we think about cross departmental collaboration, you know, I feel like when we as owners of the story along with that data, if we have that full picture, we're more connected to it. Right. There's an engagement to not just the data we're looking at, but also the story that goes along with that, if that makes sense.

Speaker B: It does make sense.

Speaker A: Really taking that holistic approach. Here's where I wanted to move to with that concept of this holistic approach. Kimberly, you're coming to us as a marketing leader, right? You're coming to us, as you said, with years of experience. So what advice are we giving or how can, can we partner with marketing to better tell that organization and brand story what's working for you? What are some of those tips for our audience?

Speaker B: Yeah, I would recommend that it's a complete partnership. I think marketing can really help, especially for HR leaders that maybe they don't feel as strong. Right. With pulling together the strategic narrative, if you will. That is actually how I have personally practiced this, not just at org chart but at other organizations as well. So for example, our current HR leader and also reference my former HR leader. I would sit down with them. We would actually look at the visual, the data, et cetera together and he and or she have said like, you know, this is what I'm seeing, you know, what is the best way we can convey this message. And so again, marketing are uh, storytellers by trade. And I would lean into that, I would tap into that. We are responsible for having the knowledge to vocalize the company's brand and mission, but also obviously from a selling perspective. And again, I would strongly recommend them to lean on their marketing peers and or leaders to help especially if they're feeling like this is not my strong suit from a storytelling perspective. At the beginning of our conversation we talked about, you know, the last five years or plus we talked about HR really being the strategic leader. Right. In terms of having these conversations or facilitating These conversations for their organization and this is no different. And in places where it's newer or they need to bring in a partner, I think whether it's marketing, whether it's someone else, like bring the functional leaders together. But marketing can certainly help HR leaders, HR teams to craft the story and or message they're looking to convey.

Speaker A: Absolutely. There has to be collaboration, as you said, you know, your natural or a marketing professional's characteristics. Their skill set is around storytelling. Why not lean into that Right. From an HR perspective if that's not in our wheelhouse just yet? You know, just like you work with finance, around finance, like we work with business analytics, if we're trying to understand people, uh, analytics. Yeah. Let's work with our marketing folks to better understand how to tell that story. So you absolutely, you know, suggest aligning with our marketing folks to help us become better organizational storytellers as we kind of round out our conversation today. Any other concrete steps that you can think of to share that really will give us the leg up to become those better storytellers?

Speaker B: I briefly mentioned this, but I think like the critical first step is do you have a good grip on all your HRS data? Is it all in one place? Do you have a clear picture of your organization? I know for some organizations, you know, for example contractors and, or you know, they may be a multi million dollar company that, you know, they have several different hrs. Does HR leaders, does the HR function have one clear view of their organization? And that I think is the first step, hands down. And then from there I think that then allows you to be able to build whatever story, to be able to visualize in whatever scenario that you need. But the first step is really just to make sure you have all the data in one place and you feel really confident about that. And I think you asked the question before, does everyone have that? Yes, it was like they don't. It's not easy to get sometimes.

Speaker A: And I feel like what I'm about to say has probably come up in other conversations. But having this conversation with you, Kimberly, and our audience hearing it and understanding the importance of storytelling, I think it's conversations like these that I think give organizations or that HR business partner that edge to say, hey CEO, hey leaders, we need to come up with a plan to improve our data, uh, access.

Speaker B: Yeah, we really encourage HR leaders to be the individuals that take that first step when needed, to be able to say this is what we need or this is what we have and to facilitate those conversations. And it's almost like Our conversation today, I almost think is more like thought provoking. Right. Because if I'm an HR leader and some of them that I speak to all the time, they're like, is that my role storytelling? But then start to talk about it, they're like, that makes so much sense. And I do need to do more of that. And I want to be, you know, enabled to be able to do that, to be that person from our organization. And so I hope that folks, you know, get that away from today and just take a pause and think about how do I do that and am I doing that today, et cetera.

Speaker A: Well, thank you. Because this conversation not only, I think, builds the urgency for why it's so important to prioritize what our organizations are doing around data. And I know there's an ROI to it. That could be a whole other conversation. You know, I think what you're doing is providing like, hey, there are tools that are out there for you, holistic tools at that, that can allow us to have those visualizations and see the people across our organization and be able to match that to where we're going in our organization. But it's going to be really tough to do without that. Good enough data across the board.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: You're giving people the steps and the language to be able to take this forward. So thank you for that.

Speaker B: Yeah. And again, I hope, if anything, you know, tools aside, it just. If I was an HR leader, I would take a step back and think, are we doing that today? Am I facilitating that? Uh, can I do that in an effective manner? If not, what are the steps we need to take? Should be able to do that.

Speaker A: Yep. Awesome. Um, well, I knew this was going to be a awesome conversation as it was, again, such a relative, very, uh, relative information for our audience. And I know we brought in some AI into this, but I also know we really focused on, you know, what is it that our HR partners need to do in order to build that next step to be an organizational storyteller. Well, thank you, Kimberly. We so appreciate having you. Thanks for taking your time.

Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much. And I really enjoyed the conversation. We love the partnership, partnership with hci. And I mentioned the beautiful charts guide. Again, it just shares different visuals, but it also is a guide for HR leaders in terms of, like, how do I leverage this and what story do I tell based on this? So if you're interested, please do go to our website and you can simply just type in www.theorgchart.com thrive. Super easy and simple. And you can find that there. And so again, it was a pleasure.

Speaker A: Yes, we're so glad to have you, Kimberly. All right, well, another great conversation in the books, everyone. And as you know, this year's conversations are brought to you in partnership with wonderful organizations like Org Chart, who are investing in the future of HR and talent through Human Capital Institute. If your organization is interested in being a part of this dialogue, we'd love to connect. Reach out to us at Podcastscare. Also, if you haven't already, take a minute to subscribe and drop us a review. Those ratings and reviews truly help other talent minded professionals discover our podcast for nine to Thrive. And all of us here at hci, we love having you tune in. Make it a great day, everyone.