Transforming HR From Transactional to Strategic

CheeTung Leong: [: 00:00:00

And the idea is really how do you achieve a consistent HR approach that is focused around internal customer service. And in the studio today to talk with us about that is Ilda Andaluz. Ilda is the EVP of Global Human Resources at Varel. And they're a company that's based in Houston, Texas, and they are a global organization which operates across 20 different countries.

Welcome to the show, Ilda.

ilda Andaluz: Hello. Thank you for having me.

CheeTung Leong: Could you tell us a little bit more about Varel and your role in that company.

f Houston, Texas. And as you [: 00:01:00

So globally we're close to 2, 000 employees. And my responsibility is to support HR globally into all of our main locations, and making sure that we have a consistent approach, which I define it as delivering great customer service and being a great business partner to our internal clients.

CheeTung Leong: You've been in this role a little bit. What would you say is an achievement that you're most proud of so far?

I've been in this role since: 2019

And together [00:02:00] we have not only transformed the credibility of the department, but also the way in which we deliver HR That's what I'm most proud of.

CheeTung Leong: What is a moonshot goal that you have for next year, 12 months?

ilda Andaluz: That's a good question. There's so much that I want to do, but if I were to pick one right now, it would be how to integrate AI even more in our day to day HR functions that we do, especially the admin function, so that we can be even more efficient and be quicker in our decision making to support our clients.

CheeTung Leong: I love that. Yeah, that must be top of mind for many listeners today. And what is the leadership or HR myth that you wish would just go away?

on human productivity. And HR[: 00:03:00

And I think if you think of it that way, then people understand HR a lot more. And HR is tough. You're dealing with people. People are complicated. They're not easy.

CheeTung Leong: I think you hit the nail on the head with that one because it's I, it's on both sides, both the business and within HR, having that understanding of just how profound. That connective tissue of people is in business and it's so easy for us to forget because we have all these numbers on spreadsheets and powerpoint decks and It's so easy to forget how what the kind of people behind all of those numbers, their dreams, their aspirations, their personal lives.

iness forgets this. And then [: 00:04:00

ilda Andaluz: I think for me, I am naturally a servant leader, mindset leader, like I'm naturally that ways how I like to lead. And I've learned that I've learned that throughout my years of experience in working in HR and having some great mentors in my life that have, We're great teachers and coaches in teaching me that HR is both business and people, and it's this fine dance between them.

lots of words of what HR can [: 00:05:00

It's the way in which you lead in the way in which you make decisions. It's a way in which you have conversations. Coming into this organization. One of the first things that I looked at is looking at the HR department and What were people saying about the HR department when I first started, and that was a trigger for me saying, ah, okay, so this is an HR group, they're not working together, what do we need to do to bring the team to work together, and The first thing that I did was asking our stakeholders, some people call them stakeholders, I call them internal customers, what is it that they want from HR? What are their challenges in the businesses? And what are their goals that they'd want to try to achieve as well too? And I would gather that information to understand what does HR have to do to support that to be a good, not only business partner, but to be able to provide service [00:06:00] to help them with that.

So one of the things that came up, for instance, when I spoke to clients were we need a good reporting system. We don't know, how many headcounts we have globally. Or it takes too long to get a headcount report or, any type of demographic information, or if we wanted quick information on people's compensation and so forth, just basic data was not there.

So as a team, we looked at what's a good HRS system that we can use globally, within our means, we are a small company. So within a budget that I can afford to do something. So we focus on that first. Then clients were saying. Recruitment is different in different countries, it's not the same, they're not getting the same speed, the same information, or it's one process in one country, a different process in another country, and it gets confusing to some clients, because we have some clients that span across all the different cities that we support in.

ed at what's our recruitment [: 00:07:00

What are those customizations that you need to do? Succession planning was another thing that came up as well, too. How do we focus on succession planning globally and not just locally?

Because it was very US focused at the time. Now, how do we do span it so that we can have more internal mobility, promoting internally? So we decided on using the nine box consistently across the board. I trained my team on how to use nine box in different languages as well, too, so that they can deliver it to their internal clients on this is their new way of doing succession planning.

her big thing that came up a [: 00:08:00

So we noticed that middle management was weak. Middle management was not getting the training that they need. People get promoted into roles, but they don't get the training for it. Like, how do you lead teams? And I'm a big believer in, to be a good leader, you need to know yourself first. And to understand on how you like to lead so then you can determine what type of training you need as that type of leader. As I mentioned to you, I know that I'm a servant leader. So what type of training do I need to be a servant leader? But what are my gaps as well too, that I don't see because that's my mindset.

ning, but then I also had my [: 00:09:00

And that was our basis for training and from there we added different type of training and always relating it back to DISC so that people can understand how it all relates. So it's not just a one and done training and it was a consistent approach. Now how does this relate back to DISC on what you're learning? I'll give you an example. We partnered with Franklin Covey because Franklin Covey has training in different languages. We decided that we were going to do the same training across the board. It's called six critical practices for leading a team. So just very basic. So what do leaders need to know? What are those six practices need to know on how to lead a team? People really enjoyed it. We had a really great response from that. And it was all done online.

and then moving on a little [: 00:10:00

I was curious, when you first enter an HR organization that is very transactional, very I would say tactical and operational. This is just a theory I have right now based on what you're saying. That the first things that your client are going to say is fix the plumbing before we get into the poetry. And then once you fix that, then they started to demand more of you. Is that the experience that you've had?

Did you find any differences in the client conversations you had when you first entered the organization versus, a year or two years down the line?

her thing that we had done is[: 00:11:00

And then they didn't know what else we could deliver. They have an idea, but like most people think HR is very transactional. We're just there to take attendance or to just fire people. Or they know we do recruitment, but they never, they're not really sure there's actually a strategy to recruit, but it's not, you don't just post a job and then.

Suddenly just people just drop by your door and that's it, so yeah, it was interesting because it was small conversations at a time building that trust over time and building a team that understood that as well too.

nt relationship. You have to [: 00:12:00

How did you think about this approach and evolving the organization and the clients that you're serving along this journey to realize greater value in HR.

ilda Andaluz: I Think it's it was in demonstrating to them, on what we can deliver and what's possible for the business and always linking it to the business goals. So everything that we are doing in HR, it's not just ad hoc. It has to link back to the strategy of the business and adding the value to that strategy.

So the goal of our business has been to grow our business and to make it more attractive to other investors. How do you make it more attractive from an HR perspective? It's through the people making sure that you've got high caliber people, that it's, a good team that are resilient.

ou have to work with them on [: 00:13:00

ilda Andaluz: So I took my first year to really evaluate the department and really understand every member of my team and really understand what their strengths in their areas of opportunity is going to be. I didn't come in and, change the HR team. This is the team that I inherited in

so I needed to understand what their strengths were, first of all, and how did I buy into them and understand. Their background at what is their mentality about HR because everybody gets taught HR differently or falls into HR differently. Like I myself, I did not choose HR. It was by happy accident that I fell into HR and everybody's experience in HR is different.

So I needed to understand do they have a more transactional approach to HR? Do they have a more leadership approach to HR? Do they have, a more traditional

Mentality of the team? But also what are the strength that they bring to the table?

we focus on you. The finding [: 00:14:00

And I explained to them. How do we get HR to the next level in this organization? And what's our mission and vision? But to get there, we talked a lot about customer service. What does customer service mean to them? What is their definition about customer service? Because again, most people think that customer service is a department.

And. Or it's just for hospitality or it's for retail. And I talk a lot about customer service as a way of being a mindset, a way of delivering service internally. we focus on a book called customer rules. They're essential rules for delivering. Great customer service and it's written by Lee Cockrell.

Now it's a really US focus because customer service is a very North American style and way of thinking. Why it was important for me to bring it to all of the locations is precisely that because customer service is not seen the same way in Mexico as it is in Saudi as it is in India.

is understood, but it looks [: 00:15:00

But there's some basic things that look the same. Everybody wants a quick response. Everybody don't want to hear no, they want to hear solutions. So we focus on that book. And as I mentioned, we also focus on what it's going to be our mission and our vision. And I had the team come together and we spent a full day working on that. And I wanted the team to come up themselves with what that mission and vision was going to be.

Not me fitting into them, feeding it to them. Them really, pulling it out of them and what does it look like for them? And they came up with, and I'll go to read it to you. They came up with that our mission and vision is to be a trusted HR business partner, buying powering employees to achieve exceptional performance.

eview it every year. Usually [: 00:16:00

And that's how we kick off the year by that. I've also bring up customer service and every, in every meeting that we have as a team, I bring it up and how does it relate to customers? How are your customers doing? How are you having conversations with your customers? So I always bring it up so that it's not just a one and done session or one and done language.

So we use that language constantly. We also did a workshop on business partner and how it relates to customer service. So I speak about if you go to a McDonald's, people love the experience of McDonald's or Starbucks whatever retail experience you want to talk about that are global.

again, the experience is the [: 00:17:00

Is that, that, that experience, that customer service experience should be the same, but you localize it, a little bit more.

CheeTung Leong: I want to dig into a little bit of the challenges because I'd imagine that not only are you introducing a new approach to HR, this also introduces new demands. On every single HR professional, because now to be that client focused, one of the critical things that they need to do from what I'm hearing is they need to truly understand the business goals and truly understand why those goals are important.

And then to, pull from that, where can HR contribute. Was that a challenge because it's a whole new domain that this, the team suddenly has to grapple with. Now I need to understand. And, I'm just about trying to understand HR and all of a sudden I've got to now understand the whole business.

Did you find any any challenges working with that?

how's my team doing? If they [: 00:18:00

So one, but also I always evaluate the team on what is it that they need to do better. So one of the things that we decided on is a specific training for the, our own HR department because our team has changed. I realized that the way that I look at this, it's not for everybody.

I've had some people leave, I've had some new joiners. We've had to structure the department differently so that it aligns with giving good customer service. So that has changed as well too. And so it takes time and spending time with the HR department and training and coaching internally.

So you really have to invest within your team. It's not, as I keep saying, a one and done. You can't just have a meeting at the beginning of the year and expect that everything's going to fall together for the rest of the year. So one of the decisions that we made as a team is deciding to train everybody with, for instance an HR Academy, it's called

eralist that they all had to [: 00:19:00

So regardless in the country that we're in, I'm like, this is the level of HR that we need to be at. This is the training that will determine to you of how you should be delivering HR. And then I challenged him and asked him, not only have you taken the training, How are your conversations different with your customers? And I keep challenging my directors, like, how are you making sure that your team is consistently delivering good customer service, that they're following what we've learned and so forth? So it's up to me to keep pushing on and keep asking those questions.

make sure that your team is [: 00:20:00

CheeTung Leong: it's a journey that sounds critical that you have to take in HR unless you're content with the function being seen as administrative process driven and very transactional. So I think elevating HR in the way that you have takes a lot of effort and it's really quite the journey and, in the course of this conversation alone, I think our listeners would be able to pick out exactly how deep you need to go to, to effect this kind of transformation.

I'm sure it's still a work in progress, but congratulations to you and your team for pulling together so effectively over the last few years, if you could summarize almost everything that you've seen. and done into some kind of framework or a checklist for any HR leader that is thinking about embarking on such a journey, how would you do.

derstand your HR team first. [: 00:21:00

And Always making sure that you're uplifting your team, even when they're not in the room with you. When I go into meetings with my executives or anything else, I'm always uplifting my team and always staying, praising my team of all the great things that they're doing and all the great things that they can do and deliver, even if we haven't delivered it yet.

at a time. But you lose them: 1000

If you lose your credibility, you'll lose them always, so it's like that small wins are important. But you make one mistake and you can lose 1000 customers. So it's okay if you make that mistake. Now, how quickly do you turn around? And what do you do? As a leader, when someone in your member has made a mistake, so it was always uplifting them as well, too.

So I always [: 00:22:00

CheeTung Leong: It's very obvious how much of a servant leader you are because the whole strategy that you've put together and are executing is it's so team focused, knowing your team investing in them, being that role model for them and uplifting them when they're not in the room with you. I think those are very important takeaways I would say, not just for HR, but for any leader. I'm hoping to drive any kind of change. So thank you so much, Ilda. If if people wanted to find you to continue this conversation, what's the best way for them to do?

ilda Andaluz: They can find me on LinkedIn. I'll answer any email or any contact to LinkedIn. They can tell me that they saw me here, on your podcast and I'd be more than happy to speak with them.

tips, please head on over to [: 00:23:00

You'll get updates on new conversations that are coming through and all the frameworks that we've talked about we'll be included into the show notes. So thank you so much all of you once again for listening. I've been CT and it's been a great pleasure.