How Top HR Leaders Operationalize Wellness by Humanizing Leadership: Jolene Huang (Chief Talent Officer, SG & SEA at Publicis Groupe)

Jolene Huang: One of the things that we've done is to really humanize our leaders, because they're humans too, so we do want them to be seen also humans and not just leaders up there, high up on a pedestal. So there's quite a bit of work, we've done around there. Recently, we actually did a panel as part of our learning day, we have this annual learning day where I brought together a panel of the most senior leaders in the different agencies. We talked about obviously their successes, their failures, as a manager, what do they think they've done well in, what are the areas they think they wanna improve, what is their greatest trauma?

A lot of these very, very personal questions. Jolene Huang: And the turnout was actually quite good. In fact, I think it was one of the largest turnout entire day of all the conferences that we had. It was a very engaging session because the leaders talked and also at the same time, questions were posed to leaders.

So in a way, we are humanizing them to the people that they manage and the people who probably they are people manage. Dorothy Yiu: Welcome to the HR Impact Show, where we have honest conversations with global people leaders about building great workplaces. I'm your host, Dorothy Yiu, CEO, and co-founder of EngageRocket. EngageRocket is a HR technology and advisory company that helps organizations improve employee experience from hire to retire.

Dorothy Yiu: Today our guest is Jolene Huang. She's the Chief Talent Officer for Singapore and Southeast Asia at the Publicis Groupe. With over 20 years of experience, we look forward to diving into her insights on topics such as employee wellness and employee engagement. Hi Jolene, it's a pleasure to have you here.

For our audience who may not be familiar with your background, tell us more about your journey in HR. Jolene Huang: Funny enough, HR was not my first option when it comes down to career. My parents are both HR people. My godmothers were HR.

So every time they come home with stories to tell, I'm like, no, this is not the profession I wanna be in. So straight after graduation, I joined the Esplanade. Then it was not open to public yet, and the role they had there was a fixed, some contract marketing person. Jolene Huang: So I was like, okay.

This is the place for me. So I joined them, but six months into the role they say, no, we're not looking at converting this to perm. The only perm role they had then was HR administrator, so they say, are you keen? I was like, sure, why not?

Jolene Huang: 'cause I think by then I really wanted to be in the arts industry. So I said, okay, I'll join. I never looked back since. So fast forward 20 odd years into the profession, it has been a journey.

I've been to so many different industries. Jolene Huang: I'm, I think, fortunate enough to join many different industries and where I'm now in Publicis, where I lead talent for Singapore and Southeast Asia. Dorothy Yiu: Your journey is very interesting because from our research, you went from the arts industry, you touch on tourism, insurance, and then now obviously Publicis is in a comms and media industry. Dorothy Yiu: You've been in HR throughout, so is there one constant that you have carried through all the industries, and then also on the flip side, what would you say you know, is the most striking difference?

Jolene Huang: One thing that I've always believed in is and it might sound very simplistic, but I believe if you look after your people well, they will also look after you and the business. Dorothy Yiu: Mm-hmm. I love that. Jolene Huang: Yeah.

And that has grounded my belief that, you treat people the way that you also wanna be treated. And along the way, I've been burned, I've been disappointed or let down, but I've never waver from that 'cause I truly believe that that's the right way. Especially when you're in the people business, the way you treat people and the way you interact with them, or you engage and manage them. I think that speaks a lot of you as a person.

How about differences? Being in so many different industries, to be honest, I don't see a stark difference. People are people, wherever they go. It's really how you adapt your strategies or you adapt the way you manage them.

Dorothy Yiu: Would you say that, maybe your time in tourism industry or even now in Publicis where there's a lot more consumer facing or public facing roles, all the more the people-centric focus is important versus say, maybe, manufacturing industry. What are your thoughts on that? Jolene Huang: I've never been in the manufacturing industry, so I can't comment on that. Probably the closest is when I was with a petrol chemical company, way back when I was so much younger.

But even then, I deal with people and yes, they deal a lot with machinery and all that, but end of it, my role is to make sure that, the people are well looked after, they are engaged, they are motivated. Jolene Huang: So I would say regardless of whether is a client fixing roles or even backend roles, operational roles. It's about humans and working with people. Dorothy Yiu: You've once said that employee wellbeing, it's a collective responsibility.

Do you wanna elaborate on what this means? What collective responsibility means? Jolene Huang: When it comes to wellness, I think a lot of people think, oh, it's a HR job, right? HR needs to do this, they need do this and do this.

But there are only so many of us in the company. It's not often that, let's say for example in Publicis, the 20 odd of us, we can move mountains to make sure that our people are looked after. Jolene Huang: So a lot of it also lies on the shoulders of managers, line managers, leaders. So it's about making sure that they too understand the importance of that and they too also walk the talk together with what we wanna do.

Dorothy Yiu: I cannot agree more, right? My background, I used to come from Gallup and then we had this research that everybody knows. Dorothy Yiu: That 70% of employee engagement variance is attributed to your direct manager. So that role is certainly very important, but tactically speaking, how do you operationalize that?

How do you make sure that the managers within Publicis Groupe are well equipped, to look out for signs of distress or to manage employee wellbeing or even engagement on the ground? Jolene Huang: I think the focus in wellbeing really, really came about, and people looked at it more importantly is during a pandemic and after the pandemic. So I was very lucky to join Publicis a little after the pandemic. We were still somewhere there, not out of it completely yet, but I think it was also then where everybody had that realization that, hey, because they've experienced it through, they've lived through COVID, they went through the whole pandemic.

Jolene Huang: They also were able to better appreciate what employee wellness can do for them and also for their people. So it wasn't too difficult, to be honest, to get them on board. We did a lot of formal workshops, which was totally necessary 'cause you had to teach them the key principles and concepts. But we also tried different ways.

Jolene Huang: We gamify the experience. We had board games, card games to bring the whole entire exercise and all to life. And we even had podcasts like this. So we actually speak to our employees.

We have this monthly. We call it All Hands Connect across Southeast Asia, where selected leaders and obviously I'll do the interview like you are in your position today, and we'll talk about, what does wellbeing mean to them? Jolene Huang: How can they better manage themselves. So we do quite a fair bit of those.

Dorothy Yiu: Hmm. Why is this such a particularly strong focus on employee wellness within Publicis Groupe? Jolene Huang: If your people are not well, they also cannot deliver. So I think at end of it, we also wanna make sure that they know that they need to look after themselves first.

Jolene Huang: It's like, you know, you need to put on your oxygen mask before you can put on yours. It's the same concept. Dorothy Yiu: Publicis Groupe is obviously huge. Dorothy Yiu: You do hire over a hundred thousand employees, right?

Globally? Jolene Huang: Worldwide, yes. Globally. Dorothy Yiu: So coming back to the manager role, and obviously you oversee Singapore and Southeast Asian markets, how do you cater to the different cultural nuances?

The employee level itself, the wellness required or the demands will be quite different, I would assume. Jolene Huang: So you're right. Southeast Asia is a relatively big region. We have six markets.

And six markets, different culture, different nuances, but we listen to our people. We do it quite regularly, four times a year. So we have our surveys, we have lipstick surveys, we have more in-depth surveys, and through these surveys we can actually hear what our employees are saying. Jolene Huang: And not just that.

Sometimes on the side, we also have focus groups sessions that we organize. So, all these in place, listening to employees, knowing what they want and then doing things that are meaningful to them. I think that's what's important. So we may say, look, as a region, we are driving this initiative in terms of wellness, but how it's brought alive in each and every market.

Jolene Huang: It really depends on what the people there want and what they're saying. Dorothy Yiu: So it's very interesting that you run, basically it's quarterly pulse. Jolene Huang: Yes. Yes, correct.

Dorothy Yiu: Is it on different topics or is always the same few topics? Jolene Huang: It always are similar questions. So that's where you can build the trend. Jolene Huang: It's a whole variety of questions.

So from wellness to things like, are they happy with their jobs? Are managers meeting the expectations? There's a really quite a number of questions we ask. Dorothy Yiu: So what's some of the key latest insights that you've gotten from the survey and also specifically you mentioned, there's also a same few set of questions that you asked.

So what are some of the metrics that you trend over time? Jolene Huang: Questions if relating to employee wellness, employee engagement, it'll always be the same few. We measure, are you stressed at your job? Is your workload manageable?

Jolene Huang: Are you happy in your role? Can you manage in your role? Your managers managing you properly? So all these contribute to how engaged they are, how motivated they are, and also how, in a way also contributes to their wellness level of wellbeing.

Over time, we have studied all this data and obviously we are seeing things that are on repeat mode. Jolene Huang: So which means people are constantly worried about or they constantly do care about. And I think because we listen so often and frequent to them, we are able to put a lot of things to action. So like I said, I think there are so many markets in Southeast Asia, so every single market will have their own action plan in terms of how they want to tackle certain issues they're seeing happen all the time, or maybe new issues that come up on a day-to-day basis.

So it depends. Dorothy Yiu: Have you seen investing in this area driving actual, tangible business outcome? Jolene Huang: I think If you look at the usual metrics when it comes to HR, you look at attrition, you look at retention. You look at, whether people are feeling fulfilled in their roles, whether or not they wanna stay with you long enough.

Jolene Huang: I think I'm proud to say over the last couple of years, our attrition has actually gone down by quite a fair bit. So, which means people are staying with us a bit longer. Even in terms of the tenure, people are actually staying with us longer. Jolene Huang: I wouldn't say, much, much longer, but to me, even that little movement is good enough.

It's a good indication that whatever we are doing is actually right, or at least getting better in what we do. Dorothy Yiu: So many companies also initiate a lot of wellness initiatives, just like Publicis Groupe, but translating it to actual cultural change, driving meaningful change on the ground is a different story. So what is it like within Publicis Groupe itself? Jolene Huang: Frankly, our wellness budgets are huge.

That's one thing to start with. 'cause like you say, everything links back to returns on investment. What we do is we make every cent count, and perks to be honest, to me, they are necessary, but it's only a small part of the strategy or the equation. Jolene Huang: So we do that because it's a low lying fruit, and over time you try and weave in the fact that a lot of things that we do are really for the benefit of the employees.

For example, we hear from our surveys, people feel very stretched. They feel that, they have not much time to rest. Jolene Huang: So downtime for them, it's not much. So what we do, and we do it really consistently across the years is we try and build in extended closures for the agency.

So, for Singapore market, what we do is we typically try and bundle an extended closure with public holidays. So like your major festivals, Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali, Christmas, so people actually get more downtime. And we take it a step further by ensuring that our clients are also informed that, hey, we are closed for the day, let our people get some rest. We've also built in a rhythm where we take their words seriously.

So if they come to us with something and they wanna share something with us, we do make sure that we look into it. Jolene Huang: So every single feedback, every single conversation actually matters to us. So over time, I think people do see the sincerity that we do indeed care for them. And I think that has built in a way, culture of wellness for us.

Dorothy Yiu: I like what you're suggesting because yes, giving extra day off costs money, but it's not like, oh, I have to justify to my C-Suite. Dorothy Yiu: I need you to sign off a $10,000, $20,000 check 'cause I want to treat the staff to something. Jolene Huang: So I think one thing that we have done right is to invest in a workplace experience and wellness team. They are part of a team that reports in to me and they do quite a fair bit of all these activation and events that happens in the workspace.

So to give an example, because of our focus on wellness, we have at least two activities a month that centers on wellness or corporate social responsibility or, environmental friendly stuff. Jolene Huang: After pandemic people are slowly coming back into the office and to entice people to come back into the office, we do events like that. Jolene Huang: Yet there's a meaning or there's a deeper purpose behind it. I think it is quite interesting to see some of the things that have worked and some of the things that have not worked.

Our employees are very forthcoming in giving their feedback. Jolene Huang: And we have seen many little successes along the way where there are things that we do that are repeatedly asked by employees to bring it back. One of the things that has been really hugely popular is the thrifting event that we did. Jolene Huang: Besides planting trees that we do on a regular basis as an organization, we also wanna make sure that we are sustainable.

So we have this annual thrifting event that we invite our employees themselves to come forward and to be part of. And I think from last year to this year, we have seen the participation go up. This year just happened a couple of days ago, and I myself was very drawn into the event because all the booths were manned by our people. And that kind of interaction that they have with each other, to me that's priceless.

'cause we are about 8,000 people in Singapore. And you imagine a thousand people, that means, the number of times I speak to a person may not even be one or two times a year. But it's only when events like that, we bring everybody together and somehow that sparks instant connection, instant engagement with one another. That's when you know, oh, actually I have a colleague in another department that's doing this.

Maybe I can leverage on her, one of my projects and vice versa. So there a lot of these kind of things are natural conversations that happen on the ground. Dorothy Yiu: I also know that Publicis Groupe is quite a purpose driven organization. You launched a global Working With Cancer pledge.

Could you tell us more about that? Jolene Huang: This came about because of our global CEO Arthur, he himself is a cancer survivor. So a couple of years back, he was diagnosed with cancer. In his journey, he realized that the support that he gets from his company is very important.

And he, being a senior person in the company, he feels well supported. Jolene Huang: But I think in his mind he was thinking about, okay, how can I make other employees also feel the same way too. So that's why Working With Cancer was launched. It was a program really to help support our employees through, probably one of the most challenging times of their lives by giving them job security so that they've the peace of mind to actually go and get treatment, recover, and come back stronger into the workforce.

Jolene Huang: So that has worked actually very well for us. Cancer is always gonna be a subject where people don't talk about. But I think with this program, people have realized that if they need help, they can actually come forward and the company will support in this journey. Dorothy Yiu: Because this cancer one came from the top, what if it's a HR professional who wants to get a buy-in with C-Suite?

What advice do you have for them to convince C-Suite to give the blessing to a wellness initiative? Jolene Huang: I think if they don't invest the resources into it, it's gonna be very hard for them to see the results. Jolene Huang: For us, working with cancer, thank God, is a global initiative, so it doesn't take much convincing to do this. But obviously if you're talking about other initiatives, it takes a lot of you as a HR person building the credibility.

So as a business partner, you need to understand what the business needs, and I think if you have a good track record, to be honest, I don't see why your leaders wouldn't give you the trust to allow you to do something or to try something. So really, it's a lot of that. Dorothy Yiu: I must ask, if you have a specialized team that just really dedicated to look into wellness. What is the most popular one that you would recommend other organizations to consider?

Jolene Huang: Well, it's very hard to choose, but if I were to probably pick a more impactful one, I think earlier this year we actually had this event, which to be honest I wasn't that positive about. Jolene Huang: But the response and the participation really took me by surprise. It was appreciation day, something which I didn't think that our employees would wanna be part of, but I was wrong. I'm happy to be wrong.

It was very simple. It was little cards and it really didn't cost a lot of money, but little cards where we had it printed and we put it at the pantry. Things were like, you are 10/10 to work with or you make meetings more bearable. So all these are very little nice quirky phrases that we printed on cards and we left it at the pantry and we said, look, anytime, pick up a card, write a message, a note to a person that you wanna thank or you wanna appreciate.

Jolene Huang: And that's it. My pantry was crowded. It was really packed to the brim. Everybody came, they took cards, they wrote and they gave people, and my CEO even went around giving flowers to everyone 'cause it's employee appreciation day.

So she went around giving flowers to every single employee that she met, to say, thank you for being you. Jolene Huang: Thank you for the job that you do. So it was one of those days where I think our social media was actually exploding with a lot posting themselves about how they really like this event and they hope, obviously with that kind of success we will bring it back again next year. Dorothy Yiu: So oftentimes, HR often complain no budget or budget's really low and this doesn't cost much.

Jolene Huang: Doesn't cost much. It's just cards. And how much can cards cost, right? It's just a little gesture of handwritten note that you receive from somebody.

Jolene Huang: I mean, I was actually very happy to receive. I didn't force anybody, I swear to give me any cards, but I actually had cards on my table where my team members were saying thank you to me. My peers, my CEO wrote me a card. The regional CFO wrote me a card.

My own CFO wrote me a card. I just feel happy that, people actually appreciate the things that I do for them or the things I do for the company. It was really a nice moment and feeling that day. Dorothy Yiu: Obviously, recognition, as an employee engagement experience company, we know it's core pillar to really an employee's engagement and motivation at work.

Is this a once a year initiative or do you always leave cards in the pantry? Jolene Huang: This is the year that we tried that. And I really leave it to the team. 'cause one of the things that I've asked them to do on a yearly basis is obviously to track the feedback, to track the participation and the response rates we have for the events that we do and the more popular ones, what we'll do is replicate it for the next year and for the ones that are not so popular is rethink what we do in that space or area.

Dorothy Yiu: So, knowing the influence that leaders have, or people managers have in our employee wellness, employee engagement, how do you build that capability within Publicis Groupe, among your leaders or hold them accountable that they're truly a big influencer of engagement on the ground? Jolene Huang: One of the things that we've done is to really humanize our leaders, because they're humans too, so we do want them to be seen also humans and not just leaders up there, high up on a pedestal and all that.

So there's quite a bit of work, we've done around there. Recently, we actually did a panel as part of our learning day, we have this annual learning day where I brought together a panel of the most senior leaders in the different agencies. We talked about obviously their successes, their failures, as a manager, what do they think they've done well in, what are the areas they think they wanna improve, what is their greatest trauma? A lot of these very, very personal questions.

Jolene Huang: And the turnout was actually quite good. In fact, I think it was one of the largest turnout entire day of all the conferences that we had. It was a very engaging session because the leaders talked and also at the same time, questions were posed to leaders. So in a way, we are humanizing them to the people that they manage and the people who probably they are people manage.

And there was also one other thing that we did a couple of years ago was also to create that kind of psychological safety, 'cause again, in line with a workplace, people need to feel safe. Creating that is important for our people. Having the avenue or they know that they are able to speak up without any repercussions. I did something like that where we did a podcast with our leaders and we talked about workplace harassment.

We deep dive into really sensitive topics like power play, workplace sexual harassment, politics and stuff. So it was very intimate, where all the Cs, basically all the C levels in the region had a chance to speak about a topic relating to that. Jolene Huang: In a way, it's also making sure that they are accountable to what they say, what they communicate to the people. It was actually very well received.

All these are prerecorded and it's put up on our intranet. So at any one point in time, employees can actually revisit what's been said and what has been communicated to them. Jolene Huang: These are the two examples that I would say we're able to build that capability or accountability. Dorothy Yiu: That is so interesting because having C-Suite leaders talk about all this somewhat taboo topics.

Jolene Huang: Initially, when I approached the idea, they were like, okay, why not? Let's give it a try. And everybody when they did it, they actually warmed up to it. So it wasn't actually very difficult to get them to do it.

Dorothy Yiu: Yeah. So not only are they setting the tone on what's acceptable and what's not, on all this topics, but it also demonstrate a commitment, right? Dorothy Yiu: And accountability, as we talked about that leaders need to walk the talk and this is what I'm gonna commit to. And given that it's recorded, they have also little choice but to commit to it.

Jolene Huang: Yes. Dorothy Yiu: That's amazing. Dorothy Yiu: So let's switch gear and talk about the talent war. Would you agree the talent war is actually cooling down now?

What do you think? Jolene Huang: I think it'll never cool down. Organizations will always be on the lookout for good talent because people meant to be the biggest assets of any organization. Jolene Huang: It will never be at a place where everything is just quieten down.

They'll always be that hunt for good people. But likewise, I think it's also how organizations retain good talent. So it's a little bit of both. Dorothy Yiu: So have you seen how Publicis Groupe's approach to employee experience or employee development evolve over time?

Jolene Huang: Yes. In the last couple of years we have tried to move towards an area where we wanna put the ownership in our employees' hands. So how you wanna progress in your career, how you wanna move within the company, which we actually do encourage 'cause we'd rather lose talent internally to other agencies, other regions than externally to our competitors. Or when they do their training, how they work, where they wanna work.

I think all these, I'm seeing that we are actually putting the autonomy in their hands because as much as we are accountable for them, employees are also accountable for their own careers and their own progression. Dorothy Yiu: Could you give us an example of how that is effected within Publicis Groupe? Jolene Huang: I think I mentioned earlier that if let's just say, you've been with us for couple of years and you say, Hey, maybe I wanna do something else. And when you put your hand up and if there's an opportunity out there, in the same market or in other markets, and if you're able to provide that, we're very happy to facilitate that.

So it's always about giving the priority to internal people first before we go externally to look for other people. So, we have a platform, basically it's like an intranet where all our jobs are stored there globally. Jolene Huang: So anyone has access to it and they know exactly which officers are hiring, what roles. So they can easily just apply for the role they want to, obviously with the blessings of their team and their manager.

And then we'll see where that takes them. So that's that. Jolene Huang: When it comes down to development. Jolene Huang: It used to be, okay, this is a workshop, please come for it.

We'll send invites out. But I think we've also taken a slightly different approach this time round, at least this year, we're trying a different approach in some of our markets where we have this workshop, it's on you to see whether or not you wanna actually sign up for it. Jolene Huang: And we actually find that, if you don't impose, people actually have the natural curiosity to want to know exactly what it is. So participation rates are actually higher than if I say, please come for this.

We have a lot of online learning courses too. Jolene Huang: So it's not about, pre designated times where you go in and you do your learning. It's really own time, own pace. Dorothy Yiu: Hmm.

That's very interesting because instead of prescribing courses for you, you curate a list of courses and it's a sign up if you're interested. Dorothy Yiu: So how do you actually curate the right type of training that you think is relevant for your employees? Jolene Huang: So I have a team that does that. But I think they don't have the answers for everything.

So they work very closely with the line businesses and the line people to identify the right kind of courses. Jolene Huang: Some of them actually do go in and take the course to see whether or not, it's irrelevant. So a lot of time is spent on that also. Dorothy Yiu: And I know that Publicis Groupe also has this Work Your World initiative.

So it's very aligned with this autonomy and flexibility that you talked about where, if I'm not wrong, employees get to choose all around the world where they work from. Jolene Huang: Any part of the world for up to six weeks in a year. Dorothy Yiu: Wow. So take us behind the scene, like how does this idea came about?

I'm imagining it's a very popular initiative among employees. Jolene Huang: Oh, yes, yes. It's very popular. I've seen, even my team, some have been to Spain, some have been to Australia.

So it really depends, where they choose they wanna work. Before COVID, I'm sure, we all worked in the office five days a week, and there were no two ways about it. Jolene Huang: But when COVID hit. Actually we all realized that, hey, you can work anywhere, right?

You can work from your home, so as long as you have laptop, you can work. So this really came over from there. We wanted to provide a more unique employee experience to them. So not just professionally, but also personally.

Jolene Huang: So that's why Work Your World was something that was introduced back in 2021. Dorothy Yiu: 2021. So it's been four years. What would you say are some of the top benefits that came out from it?

Obviously beyond that flexibility that employees enjoy, do you see any, again, back to my favorite question of tangible business outcome, did you see any impact on that area? Jolene Huang: So obviously, when they do Work Your World, they have the opportunity to work in another Publicis's office, or they have the opportunity to work or meet people there. So the interaction is priceless because you begin to build your networks. You begin to build your connections, not just within your own office, own market or own region, but outside of the region, outside of your office.

Jolene Huang: And that has really helped in terms of us understanding what we do. Availing business opportunities across borders, across agencies. So that has really helped in terms of tangible business results. Dorothy Yiu: I think to your earlier point of seeking out opportunities in other offices, that's also one way where they can find opportunities.

Dorothy Yiu: So let me ask, and we ask this, of all podcast guests, if you would imagine ideal workplace of the future, what would that look like? Jolene Huang: When you think about ideal workplace, usually people think about a physical workplace, but I think that's more than that. To me, an ideal workplace is where the organization is able to meet its objectives in an agile, sustainable manner, meeting the needs of the clients or the partners they work with, keeping up with technology, with AI advancements that is coming about, yet also meeting the needs of the people.

Jolene Huang: So, like I mentioned earlier, it's about ensuring that, say for example there's the flexibility to choose where they wanna work, it's about ensuring that, we have really robust structures that will help the organization manages through peaks and valleys in terms of their business. So all these are things that I feel will be considered the workplace of the future. Jolene Huang: So there's no one element that defines it. There's really a couple of elements that put together that really defines what maybe the workplace will look like next time.

Dorothy Yiu: What steps do you think organizations can take to build towards this? Jolene Huang: I don't think it's a one step or two step approach. Jolene Huang: I think it's about listening to the people that you work with. So it's not just people that you work with internally, but also who your clients or your partners are, people you work with externally.

'cause you need to understand what they need to be able to provide the solution or the services to them. Jolene Huang: Also at the same time, you need to also understand what's going on in your environment in the industry. So you can actually keep up with a lot of these shifts that's happening out there. Whether, is it because of what's happening in the political, economical front, but also in the industry.

Jolene Huang: For our industry, a lot of it's moving towards AI and automation. So understanding what goes on in that piece. As an HR leader, we are no different from a business leader. I think we need to be in touch with all these different touch points, for you to be able to design a workplace that meets everybody's needs.

Dorothy Yiu: I agree. I think it is a multifaceted and multi area approach, but what about AI that everyone is talking about? Dorothy Yiu: How does that look like in terms of preparation for the ideal workplace or the future within Publicis Groupe? Jolene Huang: Let me answer it from a people function point of view.

We have been early adopters of AI and automation at Publicis. So one of the things that I've asked my team to do as a talent function, people function is to make sure that we don't lag behind the business. Jolene Huang: So last year, I commissioned a little competition from market to market. Say, look, this year your focus is to pick up AI tool or automate some of your processes so that, at the end of the year everybody needs to come together and share.

So that was a huge success because everybody had a KPI in their heads. Jolene Huang: They had to then make it work. When it came together, there were many surprises in terms of the solutions that were thought up by the different teams, and it made it even more meaty because I had the senior leaders in the region attend this so-called presentation. Jolene Huang: A couple of the more tangible solutions that were put on the table was my talent development team.

They run a lot of leadership workshops. As part of a leadership journey, you need to be able to have difficult conversations with your employees. So it cannot always be whenever you need to have this kind of difficult conversations, you have somebody that you can spar with. Jolene Huang: What my TD team did was they actually taught the people how to use chat-GPT with prom engineering to actually have this kind of practice conversations before actually going into the actual one so they can actually do it at own time own pace.

That's one. A lot of also other teams in the region have used AI to sharpen their communication. Some of it are Publicis own tools. And for those that are less confidential, we also use some of the tools out there to sharpen messaging, to craft graphics presentations for our people.

That was actually quite interesting. Dorothy Yiu: So what are some of the ways that you, yourself, as HR leaders stay highly relevant to what the business needs are? Jolene Huang: I spend a lot time with the business leaders. To be honest, that's what I do.

My whole day is really built around conversations. Jolene Huang: I speak to employees. I speak to my own team, I speak to the business leaders and I also speak to people like yourself, external stakeholders to get a point of view, ' cause to me, everybody has a point of view and there's always something to learn from everyone. It's about keeping relevant.

That's one thing that I do a lot as a part of my job. Dorothy Yiu: Okay, so now we're gonna switch to a fun part of the podcast where I'm gonna ask you a couple of rapid fire question. My first one is pretty similar to a question I already asked, but what's one workplace perk you think is underrated? Jolene Huang: I think people think that your medical insurance or your medical benefit is something that it's just there, and it is important because when you don't need it, obviously you don't even think about it.

But when you do need it, it really comes in really very handy. It pays your medical bills. Jolene Huang: That's one. And the other one I feel is also underrated is the fact that we provide employee assistance program, which is like counseling.

At Publicis, we have an app. To be honest, it's not like a pick up a phone and call someone kind of thing 'cause we realize that that's something that not everybody might like. Jolene Huang: We actually took it step further, we partnered with one of the companies called Intellect in Singapore, where is an app base where you are able to get access to resources or even speak to somebody that you need to speak to when you need to. Jolene Huang: People don't naturally think of this as a perk because you don't really use it until you need it.

But to me that's really very underrated. Dorothy Yiu: What's one thing every new HR leader should start or stop doing? Jolene Huang: Personally, if you ask me, one thing I started doing in the last couple of years is to be closer to the business and it's not just about being part of meetings or just being there and listening to what they have to say, but actively wanting to be part of their process. So for example, business negotiations or business pitches, or even talking to clients, something that I had actively asked for.

Because I feel there's so much you can understand and learn from hearing from others but to experience it yourself, it's a different thing altogether. So I've actively asked for that. I'll ask that if the leaders are not doing it, maybe this is something that they can explore to start being really actively involved with the business, for you to truly understand and appreciate what the business is going through. Jolene Huang: Stop, I think stop thinking that HR is just HR.

It's not just solely about rolling out systems. Or, ensuring that people do their performance reviews. I think we are giving ourself their little credit for the things that we can actually do and can actually impact the business. Dorothy Yiu: So related to that, what's one thing you wish employees understood more about HR?

Jolene Huang: We are humans too. We have always been very busy running around, looking after them and sometimes people don't see us as someone that they can be actually friends with, or they instinctively want to get to know better. But I would say, look, get to know us on a personal level, maybe you also understand the things that we do professionally. Dorothy Yiu: I agree with that because recently I had a conversation and someone said, oh, you're talking to HR must because you're in trouble.

Sometimes people have that misconception, Jolene Huang: Not just, not just them. Jolene Huang: Even when my children also, so it's very easy to explain what their father does because their father is doing something that is being aspirational. Everybody knows what it is, but when it comes down to mommy's work, which is my work, they have like mommy just hires people. If not, she then terminates people.

Jolene Huang: I'm like, no, that's not what we do. That's not all we do. We do a lot more than that. So the two of them, this holiday, they are gonna do a workplace experience program with me.

Dorothy Yiu: That's amazing. Jolene Huang: The school actually wants them to do it. Jolene Huang: So I said, look. Come and understand what I do, then maybe you will stop seeing what you see.

Dorothy Yiu: That maybe then will become another initiative that Publicis Groupe has. Jolene Huang: So yes, one of the things that I've been wanting to do is go into even earlier careers with the schools so as not just, looking at polys, looking at unis, but I really wanna go into the secondary schools and also the junior colleges because that's when, to be honest, kids nowadays, they start forming their ideas of what they want to be very early on. Jolene Huang: Unlike the times when I was growing up.

So I think to start from there and to influence them, to seek a career in media advertising, I think would be maybe something that I can explore with the schools. Dorothy Yiu: As a fellow mother, I think that definitely sounds interesting. Dorothy Yiu: Well, I guess related to that also then is if you weren't in HR, what completely different career do you think you'll be in? Jolene Huang: Early childhood.

I love children. You hear me talk about it earlier. It's always one of the areas where I felt that if my parents had pointed me towards the area. Jolene Huang: 'cause I think from very young, I actually love interacting with children, I love playing with kids.

If I had recognized my passion, then I'd probably be doing early childhood rather than what I'm doing today. Dorothy Yiu: Well, I guess you can take comfort in drawing similarities where instead of developing young children, you're now developing the thousands of employees under your charge. Dorothy Yiu: Thank you very much, Jolene. It's been a pleasure just getting to know you and also all the wellness initiative and all the things that you do at Publicis Groupe.

Thank you for taking the time to join our podcast. Jolene Huang: Thank you for having me today. Thank you. Dorothy Yiu: To our listeners, thank you for tuning in to our HR Impact Show.

If you have enjoyed the conversation, please like and subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any of your favorite podcasts. You can also subscribe to our community at engagerocket.co/hrimpact. I'll see you in the next episode.