Unpacking the 3 Pillars of Strategic Change Management: Pauline Tay (VP of HR, APAC at Griffith Foods)

Pauline Tay: With every leading change effort, you have to be very intentional. Pauline Tay: You've got to be able to address the head, the heart, and the hands. So with communication, it's really about addressing the head. So the head knowledge, how do we help them understand what this change is about?

So that when they understand it's easier for them to jump in the bus and go on this journey with us. Pauline Tay: On the heart, that's really about helping them to connect to what is it that we're trying to do. So in front of us, we have got our three big aspirations for Griffith Foods by 2030. So how do we bring people along this journey and feel connected?

Pauline Tay: So in order to do that, we have been organizing a lot of employee engagement activities to bring our aspirations to life. Pauline Tay: Because once you have the heart, naturally, they will come along. And of course the last thing is how do we activate the change? So yes to activate the change means having to drive behavioral change.

So it's also helping people to also start thinking about, what do I need to do differently, to enable the change? Or how does the work that I do connect back to the aspirations? 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 leverages on data to improve employee experience from hire to retire. Dorothy Yiu: Our guest for today is Pauline Tay. She's the VP of HR for APAC at Griffith Foods. Griffith Foods is a global food production and innovation company, and we're excited to dive into her over three decades of experience within HR.

Dorothy Yiu: Hi Pauline. Very nice to have you with us today. And you obviously have three decades of experience, actually all over the world. So tell us more about your journey.

Pauline Tay: Actually I started in HR 30 over years ago. Pauline Tay: Back then, there was no internet, so everything was in the newspaper. So you flip open the paper. Okay, so I'm just leaving school, so what do I wanna do?

And I saw something interesting on training. I was like, okay, let's just give that a try. Don't know what that is, but give that a try. So I ended up with a publication company that's like the really first job after school.

Pauline Tay: Stayed in there for a little bit, and then I said it's getting boring. I was really fortunate. A friend came along and said, Hey, actually my company is looking for a HR assistant, would you be keen? And that was a foreign multinational.

I was like, why not? Pauline Tay: From there, that's how I grew. In every HR job that I've been in, I've been lucky to work with good bosses who gave me opportunities to learn. Pauline Tay: Until I joined a company called Johnson Controls.

I think that was really the place which gave me a lot of opportunities and exposure. It was also the company that gave me the opportunity to get expatriated to the US and became HR director there for the west region. Pauline Tay: And since then I've not looked back. I've enjoyed every part of it.

I've been in local, regional, global HR roles, and it's been very fulfilling. Dorothy Yiu: Just out of curiosity, among all the different parts of HR, which one did you enjoy the most? Pauline Tay: Yeah, HR has got a wide spectrum to it. I do actually enjoy every different aspects of it, right?

Pauline Tay: Of course you have the comp and ben, talent acquisition, people development and all of that. But I would say that leadership, people development, change management, these are areas that I have a lot of passion for. Because I feel that in HR, a lot of times the things that we do, it has an impact on people's lives. Pauline Tay: And it's always very good to see people coming in, learning, growing, developing with the company.

Dorothy Yiu: Just because you have such a, almost like a HR purist type of career, right? If say company is just starting to get to that scale where they need to put in a proper HR team, how can they start building a HR team? What's the first role they should hire, for example? Pauline Tay: I think, of course the first one should be the head of the people function.

The person that they bring into that role is gonna be very crucial because that will be the person that will help them to build the function, bringing the right people into the team, and really build credible value adding business partnering function for the business. Pauline Tay: I think I've had the fortune of being in a situation like that where I actually first joined the first dot com bank years ago, when they were trying to really build everything from scratch. I was the first person they brought into the team.

The first HR person, the first employee, employee 0 0 1. And then with that, you have opportunity to really build the team. Not only just build the HR team, I also had opportunity to help to build the organization because it was a joint venture between two financial institutions trying to build the dot com bank, there was a lot to do. Pauline Tay: It starts with the head first and then from there, really going out there to look for good talent that you can bring into the team.

Dorothy Yiu: Now, you've always said that, HR needs to be in the business, and not just supporting it. What does that look like? Tactically speaking in action for you today. Pauline Tay: So, I think for me, every time when I join a business, it's about spending time, first of all to understand the business.

For example, when I went into hospitality, I actually spent the first few days, during the onboarding in the hotel, to really understand what is hotel operations, how do you run a hotel from behind the scene? Pauline Tay: Or even when I went into the shipping business, right? I climb up a vessel six story high and spend a day at sea with an all male crew. Just really also trying to understand what is it like being a crew?

What is shipping business all about. Pauline Tay: And also talking to the crew, trying to understand what is life like for them. A typical day, what are their challenges going out at sea three months or six months, sometimes in a row. And so therefore, I think that's why it's so important to really just be out there.

You cannot be in the business if you're sitting in the office all the time. Pauline Tay: Even when I've already settled down, I would still, from time to time, go out to the manufacturing sites. I would still go out to the business unit. Because we are part of the regional team, there's a tendency to just stay in the office.

Pauline Tay: I have a cadence to say, okay, maybe two or three times a year I'm gonna get out to the plant, every plant that we have, I will be out there in the business. But of course on a daily basis, I don't just only look at the work that I do, I would also spend time engaged with my peers, who represent the different functions and talk to them about what the challenges are. Pauline Tay: Or I've even gone out to our sales people and say, Hey, take me to a sales meeting with you.

So I think this is what I mean when I say that HR's got to be in the business. Dorothy Yiu: How do you break that barrier or convince the commercial side to allow you to join their meetings? Dorothy Yiu: Because they're like, why would I bring my HR person to my business meetings? Pauline Tay: That's a good question because I remember the look on the salesperson face when I said to her, Hey, take me to one of the sales meeting.

So I got to explain to them and I say that, Hey, look, I think, your customer will probably look at us differently. They do see one of HR person coming with you, to really get a better sense of how business is done or even, for them to see you've got your HR person here, trying to get to know us. Pauline Tay: I think from a customer point of view, I've seen customer being very bewildered when they see me appear in a sales meeting. But they take it in a very positive way to say, yeah, it's really interesting to have your HR VP here and that she's here to learn more about the business.

Pauline Tay: That also shows that this is a company that really encourages people to go out there, to learn to participate in the business, and they're given that leeway, that opportunity to be curious, to engage. Dorothy Yiu: And in a way, I almost feel like it's reinforcing, because if you go for these business meetings, it again deepens your knowledge about the business, then builds up your credibility that allows you then better serve the commercial team. Then all the more you build up the confidence in you to then bring you to more meetings.

So it's like a reinforcing loop. Pauline Tay: Yes. And oftentimes, when we sit in a leadership meeting, and then you talk about people issue. Pauline Tay: You could be discussing an account manager having a challenge with a customer, but you may not really fully appreciate.

Maybe until you are there one day and you really get to understand and see them in action, then you can fully say okay, I really know what you're saying when you talk about this account managers struggling with the customer on this. Because a lot of times when we talk about issues and challenges, it tends to be people oriented. Therefore, I think it gives more credence to us when we are really out there, to see our people in action, to meet our customers, interact with them, know what the customers is like.

Dorothy Yiu: Was there any specific examples where you contributed or directly influenced a business outcome? Pauline Tay: I think looking back at my time in one of the companies that I worked in, I remember one morning an account director came into my office looking very frazzled. And I was like, what's up? She was like, oh, we're gonna be losing that account, this account we've been having for a long time, more than 10 years.

And I was like, whoa, okay, that's interesting. Why don't I come with you? Can I go with you to see the customers? Just to understand why is it that, they're come to a certain decision.

And she was really surprised. She was like, okay, all right. Giving me that look, but I was like, okay, I'll set it up. Pauline Tay: So we went and I spent time with the customer to really try to understand what were the pain points.

And of course a part of it was people related. So he was glad that, your VP of HR came to see me, and he said this is the first time I have a VP HR come to see me, from the supplier side. Pauline Tay: A few days later, the same account director came into my office, very happy to say, Hey, Pauline, I got good news for you. I just want you to know that they just renew our contract for another 10 years, and with an increase to the contract value because they said that you went to see them.

Pauline Tay: I was, wow. I was really encouraged, right? Because I didn't go with that intent of trying to sell more, but I really wanted to go there just to understand what the issues are and how I can help coming from the head of the people function perspective. Dorothy Yiu: What do you think made the difference there?

Is it like a fresh pair of lense? What do you think is the magic potion here that actually got them to change their mind about the contract renewal? Pauline Tay: I think one of the reason why at that time, there was some challenges with the contract renewal was because it's got to do with some people element. And for the fact that I'm the head of the function I went out to see them, really with the intent of wanting to understand, so what are the pain points you have and how can we, as a supply to you, help to address these issues.

And I think maybe There was something that sort of moved them and maybe convince them to say, they are really serious about wanting to fix the problem. It's a longstanding relationship that, both parties have for a long time. Dorothy Yiu: How do you go about building trust then with business leads? Pauline Tay: I think, first of all, you need to build relationship first, the connection, the relationship, makes them feel that, hey, when I have an issue, I can go talk to Pauline.

I think that's one. Two, it's doing what you say you do, following up, following through. That's something I'm a big believer of, not just to say, Hey, I'll do it, but I make sure it's done. Also being, very actively involved in the business.

So again, because of the nature of the work that we do. Pauline Tay: So even from very early on in that sales process, when they're working on the bids, putting in the pricing and all that, I'm already involved in that process. So there's a lot of very active engagement throughout. And I think that also helps to build trust because then they know that, a part of the work that they do also need your input and that, you know what you are doing and what you do actually has an impact as well.

Because they got to depend on us to work out the people calls and things like that. And how do we assign resources to the project. Dorothy Yiu: So Pauline, I'm very impressed that you managed to establish that credibility, with all this business leads. Especially someone coming from pure HR background.

I often hear, HR leaders getting involved but they may have mid-career switch from leading a commercial department then, ended up in HR and so they know how to speak the language. Dorothy Yiu: So what advice would you give, or how would you coach a HR professional to speak the language of the business as someone who spend your entire career in HR, but yet contributing so actively in commercial conversations? Pauline Tay: I would say that it's still back to learning the business.

Pauline Tay: If I'm an HR VP and all I'm doing is just focusing on the work that I do, or it's just recruitment or it's just comp and ben and I'm not tuned into the business. Then it's gonna be very difficult to speak the language of the business. Pauline Tay: If you're actively tuned in, you have the curiosity to learn about the business, you talk to the different internal stakeholders. Talk to the different functional heads that you're supporting or the different departments that you are supporting.

Sit down, spend time with them. Pauline Tay: I think somehow, naturally you'll pick up the business language. In my own experience a lot of times people in my team, they tend to be so focused, but I would always challenge the team to have that curiosity, you can even ask the next time, if the business is having a meeting and your HR leader going to a meeting, you can actually even ask for permission to say, Hey, it's part of my learning. Pauline Tay: Can I just sit in this session?

I don't have to be there all the time. If it's a long meeting but you say, Hey, I just wanna sit here maybe for the next one hour, just to listen in to understand what you guys are saying. That helps in the learning as well, right? So that's what I also always encourage my team to do.

Pauline Tay: And also, sometimes I would spend time with the team just giving them an overview of where we are with the business. So every time if I attend a leadership meeting, I may come back to brief the team. Or we have town halls where we talk about business performance, what's happening in the business and the HR team in all of this kind of town halls. We even have global town halls where sometimes we invite the head of the sales function to come in and give a talk, an update on where we are or to talk about a new initiative that the sales function is working on so that, the team really gets up to speed, to really understand what's happening around the business.

Not just, in our world of HR, but what's happening in the other people's world. Dorothy Yiu: What you're advocating here is stay curious, especially as HR, we essentially service the whole of the organization. Being genuinely interested in what's sales talking about, what is marketing talking about, and when you don't know, ask questions. I love that.

You are also leading major transformation across APAC. Could you tell us more about what some of these transformation projects are? And, one of our favorite topics here in EngageRocket is change management. So how are you managing change as well?

Pauline Tay: Yeah, that's one of my favorite topic too. It's an area of work that I spend a lot of my time in throughout my career. Where I'm working at, we're going through a major transformation because we're trying to get to our 2030 aspirations. So that means the way we go to business or the way we go to customers may have to change, so that we can really work towards realizing our 2030 aspiration goals.

How do we bring our people along this journey? In every change management process is very important that the people understand why are we doing this. And so how we are doing it today in the business across the region, we've put up a framework based on three pillars. Pauline Tay: And the three pillars are communication, activation, behavioral change.

So these are the three pillars that underpins everything that we do. We start off with communication, and when we do that, it's trying to address the head. With every leading change effort, you have to be very intentional. Pauline Tay: You've got to be able to address the head, the heart, and the hands.

So with communication, it's really about addressing the head part. So the head knowledge, how do we help them understand what this change is about? So that when they understand it's easier for them to jump in the bus and go on this journey with us. Pauline Tay: On the heart part, that's really about helping them to connect to what is it that we're trying to do.

So in front of us, we have got our three big aspirations for Griffith Foods by 2030. So how do we bring people along this journey and feel connected? Pauline Tay: So in order to do that, we have been organizing a lot of employee engagement activities to bring our aspirations to life. So it's not just a top down, okay, here is your 2030 goals, just go get it done.

But it's really about helping people to buy in, to really feel connected to the aspiration. Pauline Tay: Because once you have the heart, naturally, they will come along. And the last thing is how do we activate the change? So yes to activate the change means having to drive behavioral change.

So it's also helping people to also start thinking about, what do I need to do differently, to enable the change? Or how does the work that I do connect back to the aspirations? So therefore it's also us. So for example, we have run functional mobilization.

It started at the leadership level. So we ran workshops so that all the leadership team members are aware. They can already start to think about from a functional perspective, how do I bring my team on this journey with us? Pauline Tay: How do I start to coach them to look at things differently and to think about how they can do things differently?

And we've then taken that across all the business units across the region, and did functional mobilization. So that means every functional head. Pauline Tay: So if I'm the head of HR, I actually brought the entire HR team in the whole APAC together into the workshop at Town Hall. And I explain to them, first of all what the aspirations are, and then I help them understand how we in HR are supporting, and in fact, we are leading change efforts and the role that they all play in this and what do they, as HR people in the team need to start thinking and doing differently to support this change.

Pauline Tay: And so therefore, it's a very structured approach we put together. In fact, we also have put in place a four pillar of what we call the change huddles. So that's really more to encourage a bottom up. It's a platform for a bottom up feedback for people to feel that, hey, this is not just top down, this is not what Global is telling us what we need to do.

Pauline Tay: But it also gives them that platform to share about how they're feeling, what they're thinking. So it's a session that we run every quarterly where we bring in about 10 to 12 people max. They sit around the table and we do have our change champions. We have also put in place what we call a change activation network across all the business units.

So every business unit has a change activation network, which is then led by a change champion. Then they have the HR there as the advisor. We also have what we call the aspiration leads because we're working towards our three aspirations. So in every BUs we have also aspiration leads, that represent the different areas that the aspiration is connected to.

And so they form what we call the change activation network. They then run the change huddles. So the employee feel that there are people who could be peers, who are part of this change activation network who are engaging us. Pauline Tay: So they sit down, they have a very casual conversation.

We want it to be a platform where people feel very comfortable and they can just voice about how they're thinking and feeling, and they can tell us where they think we are doing well, where we can improve on, or give us suggestions for new ideas. So we provided that platform as well. Dorothy Yiu: This is probably one of the most nuanced change management answer I've ever received. It's great.

I love the framework. And I think what's beautiful about this as I'm listening to you is the pillars is sequential in a way, but also continuous. Pauline Tay: Totally. In a change, you can never over communicate.

You gotta keep being there in their face because it will take some time before it will really register. That's why we also run town halls. Quarterly town halls. We also run what we call education or deep dive sessions into our aspirations so that the employee can get a better understanding of what the aspirations are.

And we need to break it down also into simpler format for people to understand, especially for those at the manufacturing plant level. Pauline Tay: So we really have to make sure that we are not only just communicating, but breaking it down, making it simpler for them to understand. And we are doing it on a regular basis. And then with new hires coming in, the same thing.

We have now planned for coffee convos for new hires. Pauline Tay: So that they can also be brought into what's happening because the journey's already started, they also need to get caught up on what's been happening. So we put in place many different initiatives and platforms to support all of these initiatives. Pauline Tay: In fact, we've also been running what we call the root learning map Cascade Sessions as well.

So that was something we worked together with the root learning map consultants. Dorothy Yiu: Is HR leading this change effort? I guess you also have your change champions, that's supporting HR. The root of my question is because you are also overseeing a very diverse group of employees, with different job types.

You have your manufacturing plant employees, but you also have your corporate staff. You also have different regions all over the world and also different generations. Dorothy Yiu: So how do you cater to those nuances and those diversity that you see? Pauline Tay: That's a good question.

We just cannot assume that, when you do a town hall, everybody's gonna understand, we also got to take into consideration who is in the audience. So what we do is before every town hall, we would always have the slides ready and then the slides will be sent to the BU for translation. Pauline Tay: So during the town hall, when the town halls are ongoing, the employees only see the slides in a local language, so if you're running, say, like blue collar town hall, you'll be translated into the local language and somebody will be talking to them in their local language.

Pauline Tay: But when we do town halls for the white collar, of course it's run in English, but we may still have pockets of employees whose English is not the first language. So even then, during that town hall, we have translation. So for example, as I speak in English, you would translate into Thai or Japanese or Chinese or whatever that local language is. Pauline Tay: We don't leave anyone behind.

And I would say to your question about, so who is leading the change effort? It's a joint effort. So yes, HR, I'm the program manager, but then, we do have regional aspiration leads who are my peers in the leadership team. We have three big aspirations that centers around sustainability, centers around nutrition and also serving the underserved.

Pauline Tay: So we've got, three regional leads that actually lead this from a leadership point of view. And then beneath them there is the business unit aspiration lead as well. These are the people that form the ecosystem that support all of this work that we are doing. Dorothy Yiu: I'm also curious about the heart part.

Dorothy Yiu: You talk about engagement activity to really connect with employees. How does that look like? Pauline Tay: So for example, when we talk about sustainability, one of the things that we are looking at is regenerative agriculture. That's a big word.

What's regenerative agriculture? And so what we have done is we've organized visits to the farms where employees can go and really get better understanding of how farmers are planting the crops in a regenerative way. Or we have organized activities, lunch and learn. So across all is synchronized across the region on a certain day, during lunchtime, everybody is doing the same thing.

So we are playing a video on what regenerative agriculture is, for example. Or we run quizzes. Pauline Tay: Or for example, when we talk about nutrition. We had a nutrition dice developed, which is really interesting.

So it's a dice, you roll it if it lands on the red, then on that day you're supposed to eat something that is red, right? A fruit or a vegetable that's red in color. So these are things that we have started to organize and employee has a lot of fun with it. We even ran a contest and some of them have now adopted that back home.

They bring the dice and they get the children to roll it and say, okay, if you land on a green today, you need to have a fruit or vegetable. Pauline Tay: And the other, say for example, serving the underserved. So here in Singapore, we have gone out, in recent months to work with Canossaville. It's an afterschool care facility where we taught children there how to eat in a healthy way.

Pauline Tay: And then we were there to prepare some meals together with them. We have also gone to Willing Hearts, the soup kitchen to also help out. So with all the employee engagement activities that we do, we link them back to the aspirations. That's one way to bring aspirations to life, right?

Pauline Tay: You don't just say, okay, these are three aspirations, and then go figure out. This is how we try to address the heart part and employees find very meaningful because they're like, wow, this is really fun. It's also interesting. We are doing good.

We are giving back to the communities, and that's one of our aspiration. Pauline Tay: So I think that's what also makes it very meaningful for all of us here in Griffith Foods. Dorothy Yiu: I think I need to copy your dice idea for my kids and make it all green. I'm curious to know these are great ideas, right?

Who comes up with it? HR comes up with it, or do you solicit it from ground? Dorothy Yiu: I would imagine that again, with a different diversity, what would work? So how do you collect all these ideas?

Pauline Tay: Yeah. So we do solicit for ideas from the change activation network who will be interacting with people during the change huddle session. Pauline Tay: And that's the platform, where people can give suggestions, where people can give ideas to say, Hey, what about this? Hey, what about that?

And we also run surveys. So we have ran two surveys so far. Where one of the survey question is also to ask them to provide us with suggestions and feedback. We then look for the common themes and say, okay, what is the majority telling us that they want?

And we look into that and we try to make it happen. Dorothy Yiu: So what about the change agents? How do you find them? Do they get arrowed or, Pauline Tay: That's a good question.

Dorothy Yiu: Yeah. How do you find these change agents? Pauline Tay: When we look for the change champion, of course, initially we do open it up to people as well, because there are some people who are really passionate, they may wanna put up their hand and say, yes, call me in. Pauline Tay: We also have a panel discussion where we take the input from the different functional leads, HR, the MDs, and also the regional aspiration leads.

We also look at certain criteria. Have they been with a company for at least two years? Pauline Tay: Did they have a certain performance rating in the last two years? Most importantly, are they positive role model, for them to be the change ambassadors, for people to feel that positive energy and vibe and belief and passion in them.

Dorothy Yiu: And this change agent can be from any role? Pauline Tay: Yes. Dorothy Yiu: Any rank. Pauline Tay: Yes.

Dorothy Yiu: You don't have to be a leader per se. Pauline Tay: Yeah. Dorothy Yiu: Pauline, I have to ask right? How did you get your knowledge in change management?

I do speak to a lot of HR leaders who are considering change management courses. Did you do any courses? Pauline Tay: No, to be honest, I think that comes from my many years of experience, especially when I was working with Johnson Controls, one of the early companies that I was with. Over there, we, we've gone through changes all the time.

Change is almost a constant, and I learned a lot from there. Pauline Tay: I think it is also from there that, gave me the opportunity to get expatriated to the US because we were doing some really good work out here in APAC. Pauline Tay: And that was recognized by the CHRO in the US and he then decided that he wanted what we do to get replicated in the US as well. So I would say, yeah a lot of it has come from experience of having gone through that many times.

And also I think the nature of the business of the company that I was in as well. Pauline Tay: Whenever we acquire a new customer, we have to do integration because we are acquiring the employees just because of the nature of the work, the business. So when we integrate the people into our organization, that's change. So it's really thinking through how do you integrate them successfully?

Pauline Tay: How do you help them to really fit into a brand new culture, new ways of doing things. Also always read up on what are the latest thought leadership on change and things like that. Dorothy Yiu: So looking back with almost 30 plus years of HR experience, what are some of the biggest lessons you've carried with you and some of the things that you do today that's very different from how you used to approach it? Pauline Tay: Yeah, that's a good question.

I would say after all this many years of having gone through such experiences, one of the learning is to be very intentional. You have to be very intentional about how you want to do change. You gotta have a game plan, and then be very consistent to follow that through, which is why here, we have put a framework together that we can now, with any change that we want to introduce, we can use that framework and still apply that to any change initiative that we want to put in place.

Pauline Tay: And the other thing I would say is listen. I think it's very important to listen, because sometimes I feel like many organizations, just take a very top down approach. This is how we wanna do it, so just get it done. But I think also today we are dealing with a different generation of workforce, right?

You also need to make them feel that they're being heard, that there's opportunity for them to contribute, for them to also participate. Therefore, having that ability to listen during a change so we know where we are doing well, where we need to adjust and, what are some of the learnings that we can take and do things better. Dorothy Yiu: How about looking forward, what would be your ideal version of the future workplace? Pauline Tay: I think it would be a place where it's purpose driven.

When you give people purpose, there's more connection, and they feel a lot more motivated to do the things that they wanna do. Also I think a place where encourages curiosity, learning. Because the world is constantly changing and I think it's very important to really provide a culture workplace that encourages people to get curious, allow them to try and fail. Pauline Tay: I think also provide flexibility.

A lot of the younger people, they like flexibility. And of course inclusion, diversity and all that is also very important, because again, the workforce coming in today, they want to contribute. They want to be able to lend a voice to the things that we do. Dorothy Yiu: How do you cultivate that?

Do you actively look for employees that you bring in, and for employees who are already in, how do you build up that innate curiosity? Pauline Tay: Yeah. I think for people that I bring in, during the first few initial conversations when I have with them, I'll be asking them questions about, if you don't know about certain things, what do you do? That's one way to get a sense of are there people who are curious?

Pauline Tay: Do they go out and take the initiative, go find out and learn? And for those in my team who are already in there, it's the same mantra. I'm always giving to them like. Hey guys, you've got to really learn to have curiosity.

You got to be curious. If you don't know, find out. Pauline Tay: Read. It's like where people who ask, during the change process, how can I connect the work that I do to the aspirations?

Sometimes, the answer could be as simple as, first of all, be curious. Go find out if there's something about sustainability that you don't understand. Once you do that, you'll find that it's so much easier to connect the things that you do back to our aspirations. And I do that myself as well.

When we first embark on this journey and I hear different terminology, like when people talk about sustainability, what scope one, scope two, and scope three. Pauline Tay: Immediately I went to read it up myself and try to understand what that means. So I think it's important to curiosity and back to your earlier question, how do you gain credibility. If you don't know, you go find out.

You ask. And when people talk and you can contribute, I think that helps to build credibility as well. Dorothy Yiu: Okay, so now I'm gonna move to a bit of a fun part of this podcast and ask you a couple of rapid fire questions. The first one being, what's your go-to principle when guiding teams through change?

Pauline Tay: It would also be first of all to engage the people. Go out there. Listen, when you guide people through the change, you really gotta understand Hey, how are you feeling about it? Do you really understand it?

If not, how can I help you to better understand that? So I think that's important because sometimes we take it for granted to say, okay, we've already done the town halls. Pauline Tay: We assume that they've understood it. But sometimes after that, when you talk to them again you feel like, oh, actually they didn't quite catch that, and so maybe we need to go back and do a refresh.

I feel that the important thing is to stay tuned in, talk to people, be there to engage, have the ear on the ground, just to get a sense of how people are feeling and thinking, and not just take for granted that everything is going smoothly. Dorothy Yiu: So not just a checkbox exercise. Pauline Tay: Yes. Dorothy Yiu: But making sure you always have a pulse on the ground.

Pauline Tay: Correct. Dorothy Yiu: If you could have coffee with anyone past or present, who would it be? Pauline Tay: There are quite a few people I wanna have coffee with. But I think one of them would be Leena, the CEO of Chanel.

I have a lot of admiration for her because she was the previous CHRO of Unilever and she's now the CEO of Chanel, so she moved from HR into business. Pauline Tay: So I really love to have a cup of coffee with her and say, Hey, Leena, can you share with me your own personal journey? Because that's also something that I'm passionate about. Because for me it's not only just about HR, but it's also about the business.

I'd love to have a cup of coffee with her. Dorothy Yiu: Next one is, what's one thing you wish employees understood more about HR? Pauline Tay: I think that's back to earlier question, that HR is just more than just recruitment, comp and ben and training and all of that, right? That it, there's actually a lot more value that HR can add to the business.

I've been fortunate enough to work in a place where, we, HR has really given that opportunity to really partner the business. Dorothy Yiu: Final question is very interesting because you're somewhat of a HR lifer, but if you weren't in HR, what career would you be in? Pauline Tay: I think most probably sales. Pauline Tay: At one stage of my career, one of my ex bosses actually challenged me and said, Hey, how about moving into sales?

But back then I was still young and still really wanting to grow in my HR career and glued onto that. Yeah, maybe if I was not in HR, I probably would move into sales. Dorothy Yiu: You do strike me as someone with a lot of commercial acumen. Thank you very much for having this conversation with me.

I've learned so much from you, particularly enjoyed our conversation around change, and I can't wait for our listeners to learn from you as well. Pauline Tay: It's a pleasure. 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.