CHRO Quicktalks: Kristen Robinson

The 18th Edition of Equilar's CHRO Navigator Newsletter features highlights from the fourth episode of the CHRO Quick Talks series. In this episode, Equilar's Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Communications Belen Gomez sat down with Kristen Robinson , board member for?Verint, former Chief People Officer for?Splunk?and?former Chief Human Resources Officer at Pandora. Kristen provided insights into the changes in HR, the Employee Choice program at Splunk, and the transition from Chief HR to board member.

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Belen Gomez: You joined Splunk as a Chief People Officer in January of 2020, which was close to the onset of the pandemic. The pandemic forged a path for HR at this organization amid an environment of uncertainty that you couldn't have expected much earlier than that. What are some of the changes that you have seen in HR at organizations like Splunk and others from then to now??

Kristen Robinson: The last couple of years, as we all know, have been very, very interesting, to say the least. They have felt really reactive. It seems like we've gone from one crisis moment to another. I have come to realize though, it's really important to look at the underlying drivers of the changes that are happening to the HR function and, actually, the role of senior leadership, and to look at trends that are causing that.?

We, as HR leaders and senior executives in the organization, had to really struggle through these things that had no playbook whatsoever. I don't want to give anybody any heart palpitations, but as a reminder, we had a global pandemic, no playbook. We had racial justice issues. We had climate events that actually displaced employees around the world. There was political upheaval with a divisive election process and the aftermath, the Great Resignation, the prominence of mental illness. Ukraine in [2022], access to healthcare, figuring out the new world of the workplace. All those on top of the business operational issues that are just hard enough.

Even though we have been very much in this reactive mode responding to these stochastic shocks to the system, there are some underlying trends. I think if we can think about those and get more strategic versus reactive, then we have a chance to think more for the long term, think more future-oriented and create some underlying and enduring programs and initiatives in our organizations.

Let me just talk briefly about the trends I see. One is the expectation that societal leadership is now a core business function. That's been documented by the Edelman Trust Barometer, which was a longitudinal study that's been done over decades. In recent years, it's shown that employees around the world expect their employers, and specifically CEOs, to take a lead in solving social issues. In the old days we said, we're going to keep an arm's length from those social issues, we're just going to run our business. You can't have that same arm's length anymore.?

In the old days we said, we're going to keep an arm's length from those social issues, we're just going to run our business. You can't have that same arm's length anymore.?

The other thing is the definition of corporate purpose. In 2019, the Business Roundtable came out with a redefined purpose of the organization. It wasn't just shareholders that the business had the purpose to provide benefits for but the corporations needed to deliver benefits to other sets of stakeholders. That's become more of a symbolic gesture as we see the growing prominence of ESG initiatives and expectations. So that's trend number two.

Third is just the growing body of research and science that helps us understand what drives leadership capability, high performance, employee engagement, and we know that it's human-centered environments and inclusive leadership. There's a trend of mental health going mainstream. The world is finally talking about it and it's less taboo. It's in our headlines, it's on our magazine covers, it's on our commercials. That's something that I believe is related to integrated health for us as human beings, and we as companies need to address that for our people.

There's a trend of mental health going mainstream. The world is finally talking about it and it's less taboo.

Finally, I'll just say, this is a trend that's been going since the late '90s, the increasing power of the voice of the employee. We don't have enough talent in the world to do all the things that employers need. It's not the Great Resignation, that's a big deal, but it's the long-term demographic trends. How we collaborate with people across the organization to run our businesses and invent our work practices will be really important.

Gomez: Can you take us through the Employee Choice Program that was implemented at Splunk in 2021???

Robinson: We recognized the diversity of our employees' personal situations, their health profiles, their living situations, and we said you know what? We're going to give you a choice. We're going to allow it to be voluntary to come into the office because we've proven that you can work productively and effectively virtually, and we'll keep our offices open. We did that pretty early on.

What's also interesting and part of this puzzle is in the fall of 2020 we were still in full-on isolation. Vaccines were just coming out. We still had no idea what this thing was going to turn out like. I presented a long-term workforce strategy to our Board of Directors at Splunk. At that time, despite the uncertainty, we put a stake in the sand. We said you know what? We're going to think about, again, longer-term issues, not the immediate situation.

We said you know what? We're going to think about, again, longer-term issues, not the immediate situation.

How do we get access to diverse talent? They may not always be where we had a physical office. How do we consider the cost of talent? It may not be competitive if our workforce is saturated in a higher-cost, very competitive location. How do we look at the cost of facility spaces? We looked at it like that, and I still think those are very relevant for leaders, business leaders, and HR leaders to be thinking about in terms of your workplace and your workforce strategy.

What's also interesting is when we do employee engagement surveys and when you slice and dice the data, inevitably, our remote employees had higher engagement levels. You would not expect that, but that was the data. To think that, oh, employees can't be engaged if they're not coming to the office, that's false. That's false, and some of the data that I've seen have proven that.

To think that, oh, employees can't be engaged if they're not coming to the office, that's false.

If I think of lessons learned over the last couple of years, one is you really can build deep, trusting, one-on-one, and team relationships virtually. You have to be intentional about it and you have to put effort into it. It takes time, but you can do that. The other thing is access to leadership can actually be greater. It's really interesting that so many senior leaders want to snap back to the way it used to be and have everybody in the office, but our employees actually felt that they had better access to those leaders by having a front-row seat on an all-employee company meeting virtually where they could see the CEO right in front of their eyes on their screen.

The last thing I'll say is building community is important and many people have not stepped foot in an office in two years. That is not the new norm or the expected norm. If teams come together once a month or once a week or once a quarter, that interaction in person can be very meaningful. Let's do only those things in person that are best to do in person. Let's not have everyone come into the office and just sit with their headphones on, on Zoom, but doing strategy sessions, doing team building, having performance development or career conversations as a manager. Those are all things that are really ideal when you're in person and close up. Those are some of the learnings that I've seen over the years.?

Gomez: I would love to hear about your journey making the transition from sitting executive, CHRO, Chief People Officer, to sitting board member on a public board. Could you take us through the highlights??

Robinson: I've always enjoyed supporting comp committees and boards from the management side, and I've done that at five public companies. I thought it would be interesting, and I thought I would have something to give as I served on a board of a public company. I use the term “serve” on the board really specifically because I do believe personally that it is about giving back and adding, in my experience, the people, the organization, the culture, the human capital elements to the business.

A few years back, I let some folks in my executive search network know that I was open to serving on a board. I didn't really pursue it aggressively, though. Mostly because I was full up working in dynamic fast-paced businesses, so I didn't have a lot of time, but it was out there. I had some conversations for prospective board seats. I always did my due diligence, but there wasn't anything that really came up that was a good match at the right time. I also did put together, though, a short board profile. Rather than my LinkedIn resume, which was really oriented towards the CHRO roles, I put together something that really was targeted to a board search versus a CHRO search.

I reflected back on all of my experience in the CHRO roles and in other business roles, and I thought about what's going to be relevant for a board. It wasn't necessarily the same things about hiring people during growth phases, or employee engagement, leadership development. It was those things but oriented more towards business and org transformations, leadership transformations, executive succession, corporate governance, and shareholder relations.

I really highlighted those and my support of comp committees in boards as relevant experience. I also tried to highlight my own high professional ethics because that's really, really important on boards. We are liable for some decisions that we are making and so you need the utmost professional ethics, and that I would commit sufficient time to what could be demanding board responsibilities.

We are liable for some decisions that we are making and so you need the utmost professional ethics

I got a call late last year by an executive search colleague who had placed me in one of my previous CHRO roles. He thought I had the capability and I would be ready for a board position, and I went through the process. I mentioned due diligence. I think that's really important. Researching the company, the industry, SEC filings, financials, listening to earnings calls, I did all that. I did due diligence on the leadership team and other board members. What are their backgrounds? Are these people that I want to be affiliated with? I met all the board members, most of the management team, and decided that this was a good match. It was a good process. That's part of my own story.

Though, I will mention a couple of things. It's been a short seven months or so, but some of my learnings, my initial insights, it takes time to ramp up as a board member. You're dropping in once a quarter plus a bit for committee meetings if you're on a committee. It takes time to learn the business, learn the management team, get to know your board colleagues and the dynamics of the board. I am still learning and I'm eager to deepen my contribution there.

Context is also everything. I've done so many things in comp committees, built so many executive comp programs and did succession planning, but those really need to be in the context of the current business and the current company and people. You can't just think absolutely of those kinds of topics, it needs to be integrated within the context and the historical context of those companies. You must dedicate sufficient time. I will tell you, there were moments where it was really difficult for me to balance the board work and my schedule as an internal executive operator.

You need to make sure that you have that dedicated and sufficient time. I'm learning how to walk the line between board roles, which are oversight and advising, and line management, which is operational. The first time I was in a day-and-a-half board meeting, I had to laugh because I didn't leave with a long list of deliverables and action items. You're really there not to do but to advise,? think strategically and to make sure that the company is being run really well.

Gomez: How do you see things differently through the lens as a board member with agenda items, versus as a chief people officer with the topics or data that you need to provide to the board?

Robinson: I mentioned onboarding on a board. It takes a while, and as a CEO, as a CHRO inside the company, you want your board members to accelerate their learning and be as effective as possible. I hadn't appreciated how important that was. I think the CHRO role can play an important role in the onboarding and orientation of new board members. You can work with your CEO, your chair, your lead director to devise a pretty robust onboarding plan for your new board members.

Then there's board effectiveness. Boards are teams too and they need to be effective. Over all my decades of experience partnering with boards, I've seen some that are more effective than others, and because the CHRO is naturally thinking about leadership effectiveness, they can extend that to thinking about the effectiveness of the board. Assuming you're at the meetings, you can observe the dynamics, what conversations are being had, which ones are not, and again, partner with the CEO and chair on the board evaluation process or on things that you can do collectively to make that board more effective.

I think it's important for CHROs to drive a strategic talent agenda and I know that some of your other guests on Quick Talks mention this, like, don't wait to be asked to present on a particular topic. Assess what is important for them to know, put yourself in their seat and you can do it very readily from the talent and comp committee meetings that you have.

Culture. Having a really tuned understanding of your culture based on data is really important for the board and it's important for risk assessment, which is a key part of board responsibility.

Culture. Having a really tuned understanding of your culture based on data is really important for the board and it's important for risk assessment, which is a key part of board responsibility. Finally, ESG is another area that continues to grow and get more defined, and that's another area that you can work on with the board. Those are three areas you can always be an individual resource for board members. I've developed some nice relationships with a few board members on each of the boards that I supported and I think that's always a nice way to have some give and take as individuals. That's another neat way that you can participate on the board.

Gomez: Any final piece of advice that you would share with CHROs??

Robinson: I would say to just be confident of our expertise in our profession, how we can help leaders, teams, whole organizations, the cultures of organizations. That is so critical to success, and we have that role to play. It's a unique role. It's a lot of responsibility, but if we can think of how it's an honor to do that and how important it is, we'll be really successful.

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