1. Hi, Paul! You have broad experience as an HR Leader in different industries. Was it difficult to adapt to different businesses, and what skills required some or complete change? Which ones of them remained consistent?
One of the advantages of working in HR is that it is a very transversal skillset and competency base. Although I have moved through different industries, for the most part the HR skills have remained the same. What has been more complex is understanding the organisation and how things get done. What was very different was the maturity level of the policies and processes that had been put into place in the organisation and where these companies are within their own lifecycle. I had the pleasure of joining Blizzard very early in its existence in Europe and very much at the start of becoming more than just a game development studio. Therefore, I had the chance to grow with the organisation as it matured. Microsoft was a very different experience that I often describe as a “well-oiled” machine when it comes to HR. There was no real driving innovation or change in HR itself but more execution to support the growth and development of the business strategy. Since joining Believe I am back to a company that is growing rapidly and still finding its way with HR practices. This is why I joined Believe and this is the exciting part!
2. What is special about Believe’s approach to L&D and Talent Acquisition compared to other businesses?
What is special is that we have formed a single team. This provides us with some operational efficiencies as we have a project management team that is cross-functional for all Talent projects, but it also provides some benefits for the employees. We have not solved everything, and having such a fast-growing business does not help us here but we try to ensure a consistent talent management strategy. What I mean is that we ensure that people are hired under the same competencies and criteria as we use to judge their performance throughout the year. These same criteria are also what form the backbone for development plans that then drive internal mobility.
3. As a global company with a presence in more than 50 countries, how does Believe approach talent development and management in different cultural contexts?
The nature of the Believe business model means that we are always going to ensure that we have people inside the market, who know the market, and are the best placed to support the local artists and labels. Large regional hubs exist to allow scale, but we still maintain an in-country presence. Therefore, we have to build our approach to face the challenge of many languages and many cultures.
4. We are witnessing the powerful rise of AI. What role do AI and modern technologies play in general in Believe’s approach to talent development and management?
AI is the future for many tasks and processes. We are engaged in cultural modeling based on an algorithm. This is about as far as we want to go for now. In short, we have defined what our cultural fit looks like and use an assessment to map the fit to this cultural profile. The aim is not to place people in a box but in fact to use this to allow hiring managers to make a better hiring decision. We have seen through our own internal data that fit to culture is more important for job satisfaction and performance than things, such as qualifications and school people attend, etc. So, we use the assessment to promote a more diverse hiring slate through identifying a cultural fit alongside a hard skill fit.
5. How do you balance the needs and interests of employees with those of the organization?
Of course, the short answer is to align them. We are in the process of upgrading our managers’ skillset on the importance of goal setting and how these need to be aligned with the organizational goals. On top of performance goals, we have career goals where we ask managers to have conversations with employees on how the medium and long-term career aspirations can be aligned to and supported by Believe.
6. What’s your approach to staying focused and productive while prioritizing and managing a lot of competing demands on your time as a VP Talent Success?
This is always a tricky one. Every day there is more and more demand and the pace of change in Believe as a company as well as the market itself means that priorities are shifting from quarter to quarter, or even month to month. My personal approach is to ensure my team has access to me when they need it. I have found that if people struggle to get the time they need, then it can result in an issue going unresolved – and a 5-minute call can resolve the issue. So, I focus on short (30 min) touch points but regular ones. Using reports, I adjust the frequency by project and attend the team meetings as needed. The biggest waste of my team’s time is when they lack access to a decision-maker, and it is my job to either make the call or get it from the person who should make the call. This impacts my time because dealing with something that is now “on fire” takes me away from planned calls/projects and, in the end, costs additional time to sort it out.
7. What qualities do you value in people the most? In general, do you think they will stay classical, or is the technological revolution going to change them in the future?
This is very industry/business specific. I can answer this in the current context of working at Believe as I have discovered that qualities such as reliance, change adopter, results and data focus, and agility are key. For sure I see that people need to be technology literate as I have seen people struggle as we have adopted tool changes. However, in most cases, people who remain agile and are open to change are able to make the shift. As a company in scale-up (and with many parts of the organization still in start-up) change is the one constant in the work environment.
8. Share your tips on how you keep working on your personal growth as an HR Leader and a human being. Any day-to-day routine?
Stay curious and stay relevant. I have a long commute to the office and, fortunately, I do not go there every day as we use a hybrid model of working at Believe, but when I do I spend the commute time keeping on top of some areas related to my role. I am passionate about learning and have found that we just need to secure the moments for our personal development and the commute time each week is an easy option. I also ensure that I stay relevant in areas of L&D delivery. I make sure I facilitate at least 1 session per month to keep the skills fresh and connect with employees and managers in the classroom.
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