We are in the midst of the biggest global pandemic for a century, combine that with social unrest, an economic crisis, and at the same time, rapid business transformation, then the role of the HR function has never been so important.

One company where HR has really come to the fore during the crisis is Bayer. My guest on this episode of the podcast is Melissa Harper, Senior Vice President for HR Innovations at Bayer. With more than 30 years of HR experience, Melissa has been at the forefront of Bayer's response to the crises of 2020 and efforts to redefine the workplace around purpose, innovation, and culture. You can listen below or by visiting the podcast website here.

In our conversation, Melissa and I discuss:

• Why Bayer’s people first philosophy, has been critical to the company's response to the crisis and its efforts to redefine the workplace of the future

• How Bayer is incorporating some of the positives that have emerged in 2020 such as faster, more distributed decision making and increased employee listening to enhance its innovative culture

• Bayer's approach to inclusion and diversity and how this is premised on taking action on the talent challenges that arise

• How digital analytics and culture provide the connective tissue around the workforce at the company

• What HR can do to prepare their organisation for an increase in remote and hybrid working

This episode is a must listen for anyone interested or involved in Inclusion and Diversity, Culture, Employee Experience and Innovation. So that's Business Leaders, CHROs and anyone in a People Analytics, Workforce Planning, I&D or HR Business Partner role.

Support for this podcast is brought to you by Panalyt. To learn more, visit https://www.panalyt.com.

Interview Transcript

David Green: Today, I am delighted to welcome Melissa Harper, Senior Vice President for Human Resources Innovations at Bayer, to The Digital HR Leaders podcast. It is great to have you on the show, Melissa, can you provide listeners with a brief introduction to your background and role at Bayer?

Melissa Harper: It is great to be here, David. Thank you.

So, Melissa Harper, I lead a team for HR innovations at Bayer. Bayer is a global company, 150 year old history in life sciences, in the fields of healthcare and agriculture. Our products may be familiar to many around the world, including aspirin, but in each of our businesses, we are advancing our own digital journey.

And that is a digital transformation across how we reach our customers, but also how we operate when we think about, we are in over 90 countries around the world, a hundred thousand employees doing this great work across each of our three divisions, we believe that we can provide value for our customers through the use of digital solutions. So for example, whether that's in our crop science division, we are providing farmers and growers with insights to reduce their inputs, in environmental impact, in our consumer health business, we are using digital tools to help inform customers and aid them in making better self care day to day decisions. Then in our pharmaceutical division, we are exploring how digital tools can better help patients manage certain diseases.

So while we are doing that, also a little bit about our function and how we're partnering with our company. So HR innovations. That evolved as part of our evolving and transforming the business in a digital direction. We took the opportunity to take a look at how can better connect people, and culture, to driving business impact. So this team that we call HR innovations is really about bringing expert perspectives across a wide range of topics from well-being, total reward, to inclusion and diversity, to learning and contract workforce looking at modern ways of accessing skills.

And so this team is always balancing what do we need to do in the here and now, and improve or what we call, fix the basics. We all have that balance of continuous process improvement with also a balance of a look to the future. What are the things out there to drive our business that they don't know yet, that we need to be paying attention to. So I am proud to work with this team.

David Green: And it is an exciting time for HR in many respects. There have been reports published in the last few weeks by Accenture and IBM, talking about HR 3.0, or how HR is really starting to drive better outcomes in the business, but also better outcomes from the workforce as well.

And I know, with that remit that you have got there Melissa, you were at the cutting edge of that, I guess, at Bayer. And in what you are leading there on the innovation side and using data maybe better than HR has traditionally used data in the past and as you say, transforming from a digital perspective as well.

So obviously 2020 has been quite a year, I think it's probably fair to say. Can you tell us a bit about the lessons that you have learned at Bayer this year? You have got a very interesting stance on the opportunities and positive cultural change that has happened and should be carried forward.

Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I know our listeners will enjoy hearing that.

Melissa Harper: Yeah, thank you for that question. Sure, there has been a lot to have learned this year in the moment. we launched a sprint team earlier this year to really capture the many positive lessons that are still evolving, but certainly that we learned as we have worked through what I characterise as a couple of pandemics in this year, both COVID and the social unrest around the world. So we brought this team together to make sure we carry the good lessons forward in our culture. And I think our key lessons learned, or at least for me, centre on a few core things. One is flexibility, this way of working has only accelerated so much of, what many organisations were already striving for, greater digital use in way of working and greater flexibility. So flexibility is for everyone and so at Bayer, we address some of the world's most pressing global challenges and continue to develop new solutions, which require working in a variety of ways.

So enabling that flexibility really means that we are enabling Leaders to talk to and listen to our employees differently in helping to understand at that individual level, what does flexibility really mean?

The second would be, this is a lesson learned about bringing work to talent and not talent to work.

So not just the traditional ways of how we thought about either mobility, relocation or how we access talent internally or externally. So why not think about also bringing work to where the skills are. So I think that is a key learning as well. The third David would really be about trust and empowerment of our employees.

We trust our employees and empower decision-making. We saw a great lesson learned in the way of working this year, that decision making is happening at more of the local community level. When we think about our way of working now and forever more, everything that happens in our communities finds its way to the workplace, even if it is a virtual workplace. So we need to make sure that we take care of, the listening and empowering of our employees to bring voice.

And I think the final thing around some of our key lessons learned is reward and recognise performance. Not presence. That's a huge differentiator and distinction. Our leaders enable employees to work in a much more agile way, much more use of digital tools.

And we also need to be mindful to yes, be ever more visible in how we are modelling our work, but it is about the performance, not presence.

I think one of the great quotes I have heard throughout this year is “zoom often, but not always.”

David Green: Yeah. There has certainly been an increase in the use of zoom and other similar platforms, it is incredible really. They are some great lessons there, we could probably talk a lot around that. I love how you talk about trust and empowerment. I mentioned the Accenture study, that really brings out that importance of trust and gaining that trust, because it is for leaders to gain the trust of the workforce not the other way round. And the actual positive rewards that can actually bring the organisation as well as it being the right thing to do.

So you talked about listening and empowerment. What are some of the things that you are doing around those areas?

Melissa Harper: We are evolving our organisational listening approach and have taken that older traditional way of key triggers of events or times in your cycle that you go out and survey. But really evolving organisational listening is what we are calling that in a much more modern way that we can gain, in the moment feedback and input, from our workforce. And I think that will have a huge differentiating feature of being able to just understand the health and pulse and culture, and be able to, quickly flex and move as we need to versus waiting on the older version of triggered events for an organisation survey.

David Green: And I think, as you said, because of the crisis, and you are right to say the twin crises of 2020, because it has evolved so quickly and so unpredictably, and let's be honest they are still ongoing and will be for the foreseeable future it seems. Things are happening so fast it is important to be listening on a continuous basis to our workers to understand how they are feeling, how that is changing and evolving during the crisis, and then as leaders so that we can respond and communicate to that. It sounds like that is the kind of approach that you have been taking. I also know that you are using analytics, so I would be interested in understanding how you are using analytics and some other HR innovations to understand those shifts that we have been talking about, those four lessons that you spoke about, and carrying those changes forward into whatever the future holds.

Melissa Harper: So, a few things here, I think. The use of digital tools and automation are of course seen as potential areas to offer more flexibility for employees, better insights that we can quickly adapt and adjust.

So some specific examples, our product supply teams are implementing more automation so that employees have the flexibility to work on the other higher impact areas while also being more agile. And when they may complete certain administrative tasks, for example. At a basic level we are accelerating changes to how some employees access information or submit data. that is preparing us for, increase in speed of People  Analytics.Wwe know increased data drives. speed to decisioning. We are connecting the aspects of data, transparency and accountability. Those three really work very well together.

Another example is, we explored more ways to bring work to talent, as I discussed, instead of just talent to work. We are also implementing new solutions in our Talent Attraction and Sourcing teams, the use of AI In order to better and faster, understand, where the skills are. In fact, David that is one of the core reasons that we brought the work around contingent labor or contingent workforce into our HR and talent framework.

So that we can really think about this as, how do we unpack jobs and traditional or older models of job descriptions with really beginning with what are the skills we need and how does data inform the skills we need. Then how do we go reach out to an employee. What may be different? A lot of different types of labels, right?

Not just the traditional Full-Time Employee or Contractor, but what are all those labels in the future of work that we will need to have a process around?

David Green: I like the way you brought that together, because traditionally in many organisations, contingent labour has been managed by procurement and the business. A lot of contingent workers actually stay with organisations for quite a long time, albeit in a different mode of working shall we say. They have got skills that we need and from an HR perspective, we have not had visibility on those skills before. So I think that certainly adds to the flexibility that you spoke about and actually, I love the idea that you are unpacking jobs and, understanding the skills that you need to complete certain tasks. Can you talk a little bit more to that?

Melissa Harper: Yes. So if we think about balancing what is our workforce and the health of our current workforce with where do we need to have really, really focused pipelining to build out, for the future.

And so, as we think about then, what are those ways that we can use that measurement and insight to go get laser focus and targeted. And even now as we are increasing AI capabilities within our sourcing capabilities, that is helping us move with greater speed. It is about the skills, and less about the formal kind of archaic job descriptions. Let’s really help understand what are those critical talent segments that feeds into or gets executed through a process that we call our People Strategy. Which really matches what does the business need with what is our current and future business strategy, with now, what are the critical talent segments that we need to go and do? It is about greater segmentation and no longer a one size fits all approach. Looking at Finance talent versus Marketing talent versus Data Scientists in all of the systems that enable that from pay, to how we brand and all other aspects.

David Green: Yes, it all flows together, doesn't it? These are the skills we need, how can we help the talent we have got acquire some of those skills, if they don't have them? How do we understand the talent that can acquire those skills quicker? And how do we let that talent know of the career opportunities that will give them moving forward within Bayer. And for those who have got those skills already, how can their career path within Bayer go?

So, yeah, it is incredible how data underpins pretty much all of that.

Melissa Harper: It helps it all move faster, when it is working well.

David Green: That leads on quite nicely actually, you talked about Data and Insights being the connective tissue across the company and describe Digital and Culture as kind of wrappers around the company.

I thought that was really interesting actually and again, I think that is something that I know our listeners would love to hear. So I don't know if you can expand upon that a little bit?

Melissa Harper: Yeah sure, thank you. Unleashing for us a more inclusive and diverse workforce, we know is a competitive differentiator. All things being equal, Culture is that differentiator and we define inclusion as both behavioural and structural. So what are those inclusive ways of working and connecting, gaining different insights that you don't normally do? Being intentional to reach out to do that? So inclusion is twofold. Diversity of course, is about the demographics and the mix. And so our strategy is about how do we focus on both and, in order to even more achieve faster results of the diversity dimension. And so we are using data and insights in order to help drive that, we are moving down a model of having a dashboard that we call our inclusion and diversity dashboard. I think as a starting point, lot of organisations are gaining the maturity to start to use Data and Insights to measure diversity, but diversity alone.

And for us, it doesn't begin or stop there. It is Inclusion which gets at our customers, our reach with communities and with our External marketplace as well. So it as really about, for us, a both and strategy

David Green: And obviously this year has really thrown the whole topic of Inclusion and Diversity into a new light with the social crisis that you referred to in the introduction. What has been the response, as a Senior HR Leader at Bayer, how have you personally and also how has the HR function supported some of your employees that are maybe being affected by this a little bit? I know from speaking to friends in the US, the US in particular, it has been a really challenging time.

Melissa Harper: Yeah, for sure. And this shows up for us around the world. And so that is that focus on Inclusion, it's that I as in everybody is in it and I think what a great question. For us it begins with the structure. So if we think about Inclusion and Diversity for us, it is not just a team of one or a small team, it is not just about work that is done in the business of HR. But it really permeates throughout our entire organisation. So how do we upskill and in-skill leaders around what does it mean to lead and be an inclusive leader and match people first, listening to people. We talk about inclusion takes two key things, two key actions, in order to achieve it. Anytime you are engaged in at least with one or another person. The first is understanding what's unique and what are the unique skills about that person. And then secondly, creating a sense of belonging so that we maximise what is unique about each individual.

And so that takes listening. That garners trust and facilitates greater trust. The structure for us, we believe that all leaders and all people have a responsibility, so thankfully the work, even increased work this year that has been unleashed is not just sitting on one or a few people, but all leaders are equipped. We have some formal ways around that. We have what we call Leadership Teams that created I&D or inclusion diversity council. We have business resource groups. So employee led and organised resource groups, in fact three are global, our resource groups around people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ and women are global and we have many others, around the world.

But the collective of this ecosystem that we have created really helps us listen, understand, take care of our people, match the words with actions. So whether that shows up with some of the philanthropic giving, specific to this year's particular unleashing of events, and just really, kind of taking care of each other in both the formal and informal ways, but having a sound strategy already, was very timely that it has helped us, take care of not only our workforce, but our customers. Our customers are in the business of, life science. So, that care and concern has just in a great way, been uplifted this year.

David Green: I like the way you put the I before the D, think, because diversity we can measure in numbers, but I would be interested to understand how you measure inclusion? And you talked about belonging as well, which I think is really taking this whole concept to a much more advanced level.

Melissa Harper: We measure Inclusion, or the I, by a set of core questions that get at things such as trust or voice and we inspect and ask our employees, those questions. Do you feel that you are able to bring your full self and give your voice to innovation or to ideas? So we measure that through a core set of questions and the intention is therefore that we can be transparent with leaders on how are they showing up and more importantly, how is our workforce feeling, around that degree of sense of belonging and being able to give voice to the total of a team.

So it is important to not just start and stop with the easy measures and they are always not so easy either. But in the D category diversity, such as gender, or, some of those obvious ones, but we don't start and stop there and it also helps us prioritise because it is not a one size fit all. At the scale of our company across so many countries, so many different divisions, so this will really help drive that targeted priorities. The dashboard is a key way of really in the moment accessing digital data tools that tell us how are we showing up in the space of inclusion?

David Green: It is interesting that the two crises that we've talked about this year are essentially human crises. They are essentially people crises, do you think this is really raising the focus on HR as a function because it is kind of HR’s moment to shine? I am interested to hear your thoughts as someone that has obviously been in the field for a long time.

Melissa Harper: This is certainly the year to be in HR or in the business of HR, as I often call it the business of it, because it is really about connecting people and culture to drive the business value and business impact. So matching that people agenda with the business agenda has never been more critical for us in HR. And so one of the things that we have done is we have taken a group and we've called this next normal. It is cross-functional not just HR, but we have looked at a few things that certainly as carriers of this work doing the business of HR, we need to pay attention to and differently this year. One is to focus on a more holistic human experience, so we are working differently, we need to pay attention to who is potentially being left behind, this isn’t an easy way of working for a lot of people. And so the second piece that has given rise to us in HR is that need to foster a shared sense of belonging. The social distance, all the aspects of wellbeing has just taken an impact, so we need to pay attention to that. I think another key piece here for us working as HR Leaders this year is really about empowering others faster and more local decision-making. On top of it, you have at any given time, different countries going through different environmental things or presidential elections, such as for us in the US. So we need to really balance that paying attention to being a mindful global corporate citizen with also what you need at the local level.

David Green: Yeah. And I guess that is the nature of this crisis, it is a crisis at different times, in different countries and certainly in the early part of the year, but even now where the figures are rising quite significantly in Europe again.

We talked a little bit about analytics, is there a specific project or initiative that you could tell us about by using People Analytics or people data to either help drive an outcome for the business or for the workforce or for both?

Melissa Harper: One of the things is we are evolving and using AI into learning, we really took a step back to re-imagine and transform learning with the principles of, let's use data and insights to the skills we know we need to re-skill or continuously skill, with also let's use AI insights with creating a program that enables us to see what our employees are going out there and seeking to learn so that we can be more customised and tailored. And then let's make sure that it is driving forward a culture of learning, one that is accessible to everyone and not just the kind of traditional, formal learning programs that you nominate a core few people to attend and that takes six or twelve months. So how do we use those AI insights in our new learning direction to then, push forward a culture of learning and make sure that it is fluid and flexible and in the moment, in the speed of how we need to reskill.

So we will be launching that, very soon. and again, we have taken the opportunity to really step back and transform and use the data and insights to drive our learning culture.

David Green: Important as you said and digital transformation is accelerating even further in 2020 that learning piece is so important  and provides significant benefit both to the workforce, but also to the business as well.

It leads on nicely to the question that we are asking all our guests on the show in this series, Melissa. And it is very much connected a little bit to the crisis and the kind of change in the ways of working and probably the uncertainty around ways of working moving forward. What can HR leaders do to help prepare their organisations for the future where we would likely see a permanent increase in remote and hybrid working?

Melissa Harper: I think there is a few key things in addition to some of the other things that I have already described, like empowering people faster, making use of the digital tools to help embed that speed. But one thing I would say is for HR in this new way of working that we can do is really think about simplicity, differently, and be more intentional around removing the complexity in so many of our HR processes that can sometimes make the business of people and the business of HR, just hard or harder, for our customers, whether that is internal or external. So a much more intentional way of focusing on the simplicity.

And the other is just that carrier of culture, and that is everyone's responsibility across the company of course, not just HR. But I do think that the matching of people and culture to the business puts HR in a certain differentiated responsibility to the culture that we want to be. And I think all things being equal across all of our organisations, no matter what industry we are in that differentiator for the winning ones will be that of culture.

And then I think the final piece is striving to be and helping the business to be a digital industry first. So no matter what our core industry is, we all need to figure out how to be better at getting this digital piece, both in our reach in the market to customers, but also in how we engage within our own organisations.

David Green: And I guess, with the working environments we have got, you will have certain employees where they have to be on site because of the nature of the work they do. You will have other members of your workforce where perhaps it is more hybrid and some of the tasks that they can do, they can do just as well at home. Versus being in the office where maybe people need to be together for the more innovative and creative stuff. And there is so many things to balance. There is employee preference and employee preference will change even by those in the same team. I mean, we are thinking beyond the crisis now, then there are other factors to consider, as I said, around the types of work that can be done more productively on an individual basis remotely versus the types of work that probably needs to be done together.

And it is a maze which hopefully HR will help their organisations navigate their way through. Is that something that you are starting to look at or are thinking about having to look at at Bayer?

Melissa Harper: Yes. We have actually already started. We made a declaration that we will not go back to old ways of working in what was that traditional way. And it will be a hybrid and we have great employees that are in certain locations that certainly have to be and need to be in and are very valued. We have declared that flexibility is not just about those that are in roles, where you can work remote or work from anywhere. But flexibility is and should be accessible for everyone.

What does that mean in the context of what work is being done? So that is another declaration. And so the work we have started to really organise formally, what you described is a team that came together under a sprint exercise that we call next normal. And that work is continuing because we are all still learning. But we are looking at sub chapters, if you will, of that body of work that is looking at everything from wellbeing and wellness. And how does that need to evolve in this way of working to, cross border as we have talked about bringing a balance of work to talent, not just talent to work. On to sustainability and what does that mean for transportation or, internal meetings. So in technology that will support all these varied ways of working. The preference piece comes with what we call flexibility, and that means let's really listen differently and learn from what does that mean based on what work is needed to get done.

David Green: And as you quite rightly highlighted, the culture is so important to that because culture is almost going to evolve. You are part of the next normal, that focus of wellbeing is really important and I love the way that flexibility is for everyone, not just for those that can work remotely, it is really good. Melissa, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. It is really impressive to hear some of the work that you and the team are doing at Bayer. Really, really impressive. Can you let listeners know how they can stay in touch with you and follow you on social media?

Melissa Harper: Thank you and thank you, David, again for having me here today. I would be happy to continue the conversation on LinkedIn, where I do and have been sharing some of my own reflections on the evolution of HR, but also this way of working. Also on Twitter @melyharper.

David Green: Thank you very much.

Melissa Harper: Thank you.

David Green: As I said, it has been great to talk to you and, I will definitely be tuning into LinkedIn to continue the conversation. Thank you.