Bonus Episode: Arianna Huffington and Donna Morris on How Walmart is Helping its Associates Achieve Healthier Habits
The pandemic has thrust the human resources function centre stage, the pivotal role of the Chief People Officer in this crisis has been likened to that played by the Chief Financial Officer, during the global financial crisis.
HR has thrived during this difficult time in organisations where the function is well led, has strong senior stakeholder equity, has prioritised employee wellbeing and has robust capability in people analytics. If anything, this has raised expectations of Chief People Officers even further, can they and the functions they lead evolve at the pace necessary to deliver on the expectations of Leaders and the workforce?
I can't think of two better people to debate this topic than my guests on this special bonus episode. Arianna Huffington is the Founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the Founder of the Huffington Post and the Author of 15 books, including most recently “Thrive” and “The Sleep Revolution.” In 2016, Arianna launched Thrive Global, a leading behaviour change tech company, with the mission of changing the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success.
Arianna is joined by Donna Morris, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer for Walmart. As a member of The Executive Committee, Donna is responsible for attracting, retaining and developing talent for one of the world's largest private employers. Donna joined Walmart just before the start of the pandemic from Adobe, where she served as Chief Human Resources Officer and Executive Vice President of Employee Experience.
You can listen to this week’s episode below, or by using your podcast app of choice, just click the corresponding image to get access via the podcast website here.
In our conversation, Arianna, Donna and I discuss:
How the role of the Chief People Officer has changed since the beginning of the pandemic
What the impact of these increased expectations have had on Chief People Officers themselves
The lessons in workforce agility Walmart has learned from hiring over 500,000 associates so far in the crisis and how they will carry these learnings forward
How to adopt the mindset to find opportunity in ambiguity and why it is important that Leaders set the tone
What HR can do in 2021 and beyond, to capture more value for the business
This episode is a must listen for anyone interested or involved in HR and how it can create value for the organisation and protect the health of its workforce. So that is Business Leaders, Chief People Officers and anyone in an Organisational Health, Employee Experience, People Analytics or HR Business Partner role.
Support for this podcast is brought to you by gloat. To learn more, visit https://www.gloat.com/.
Interview Transcript
David Green: So today I am delighted to welcome Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO of Thrive Global and Donna Morris, the CHRO of Walmart, to The Digital HR Leaders podcast. Thank you both for sharing your time and expertise with our listeners. First of all, if you can provide our listeners with a brief introduction to your background and current role?
So Arianna, if you would like to go first?
Arianna Huffington: Thank you, David. It is great to be here with you and Donna. So I am Arianna Huffington and I founded Thrive four years ago after I saw the incredible toll the stress and burnout epidemic, was taking on hundreds of millions of people around the world. I wanted a product and a company that would help people, communities and companies improve their physical, their emotional wellbeing, but do it in a way that was data-driven and rigorous. My goal was really to redefine the wellbeing category from being warm and fuzzy, to being data driven and having a real impact on business metrics because otherwise, as we know, it was seen as a nice to have rather than an essential element in a business.
David Green: And of course the timing, wellbeing is really at the forefront of thinking at the moment and over the last year. Donna, I know it is at the forefront of your thinking and your role at Walmart, if you would like to introduce yourself as well please?
Donna Morris: Absolutely. Well, it is wonderful to be here, thank you so much David and I always feel like it is an honour to be with Arianna, so thanks for having me. I feel very fortunate, I am the Chief People Officer at Walmart. We are a company that is focused on serving our customers so that they can save money and live better. We have more than 2.2 million associates that are really giving their service back to our customers on a daily basis. So the entire topic of wellbeing, I don't think there is anything more important, particularly when we reflect upon the year that we have had with the pandemic, which continues, the civil unrest.
And really when we think about wellbeing and when I think about it in terms of one of our strategic priorities, there is three core elements. There is the physical wellbeing of our people, there is the emotional wellbeing and there is the financial wellbeing and so all of those have key interplays. Wellbeing is one of four core priorities that we have for our people, we are focused on digital, growth, inclusion and wellbeing. And so delighted once again to be here.
David Green: Well it is wonderful and of course, I know that you took on the role at Walmart just before the pandemic broke last year. So I guess it was a bit of a baptism of fire in many respects.
Donna Morris: It was, my timing was impeccable. I had spent 18 years with Adobe, fantastic software company and prior to that in technology and other sectors. I was at that point in time in my life where I really wanted to get into an industry that was driving digital transformation, which Walmart is doing, and where people were really front and centre. That is what I found in Walmart. I was not prepared, however, to relocate and make so many life changes in what would end up being such an unprecedented year, but you know what, any crisis provides an opportunity for change and that is clearly what we have been navigating in this last year.
David Green: Yes, of course. Well, we are going to start by looking actually at the Chief People Officer. Even more so I think in the last 12/15 months, the Chief People Officer has been right in the spotlight both externally, but also within the organisation as well and at the same time being at the centre of many organisational responses to the pandemic and the other crises that have been happening around the world. So Donna, I will start with you. Certainly, as we said, it has been elevated during the pandemic. I think the Economist likened the role of the Chief People Officer in this crisis, to the role that the CFO played in the financial crisis in 2008-2010. Donna, if we can start with you telling us about how the role has evolved since the pandemic began, what are some of the biggest challenges or opportunities that you have noticed?
Donna Morris: I think for most Chief People Officers, it has been about business continuity. That has meant different things to different companies and based on sector, but here at Walmart, what really it has been about is this whole topic of wellbeing. How do we continue to serve our customers while keeping our associates well and physically safe? Whether they are coming into a facility or they are working remotely. We are in a unique situation or scenario because the majority of our people have continued to go to their physical location throughout this entire pandemic. They have been in our distribution centres, fulfilment centres, our stores and our clubs. So we have really had to, from the very first case of Covid that we had as an organisation, we had to think about their physical safety, their emotional wellbeing and then their financial wellbeing. So if I look at my own role that has really pivoted to be front and centre, how are we going to continue to operate when we have different demands. It has meant standing up 24 hour hiring, we hired more than 500,000 people through a 24 hour mechanism, so that we could actually continue to serve our customers and our communities. It has meant ensuring safeguards were in place for the physical wellness checks in all of our facilities. We worked very closely with Thrive, the vulnerabilities of both the physical wellbeing, but the emotional and the mental wellbeing. I know Arianna can share more, but we have really started a movement here at Walmart in terms of all of our associates taking time for their own personal wellbeing and that catalyst might not have happened if we didn't have this crisis. So I would say if I was to describe the role of the Chief People Officer in the last year, it has been architect for the organisational design, the wellbeing of your people and then the functioning of your business to continue to serve your customers and/or your constituents.
David Green: And let's hope that the focus on wellbeing continues as we emerge out of the crisis, hopefully at some point during this year. So Arianna, from your perspective, working with Chief People Officers in many organisations, as I know you do at Thrive. How have the expectations shifted since the pandemic began and what has been the impact on the Chief People Officers that you have been working with?
Arianna Huffington: Well, first of all, David, you are absolutely right. The Chief People Officer has become the most important Executive next to the CEO because the wellbeing of employees is paramount for the functioning of the business. Some CHROs have really risen to the occasion, to rethink work generally and Donna is one of them. It has been really inspiring working with her and her team across the world, both servicing those who are working from home and those on the front lines. That is so unique really about Walmart, that you see here the importance of having wellbeing practices available for all populations. Wellbeing has tended to be focused much more on knowledge workers and we have seen, during the pandemic, that those who have been defined as essential workers like those who are serving communities as they do at Walmart in terms of essential needs, are actually at the forefront of this crisis and their wellbeing needs need to be addressed. So we have been able to really frankly, use Walmart as a case study of what works and how you can bring together science backed micro steps, as we call them at Thrive, small daily better choices that have a transformative impact on people's wellbeing. That is so important, David, because traditionally we think of health and wellbeing in terms of new year resolutions, big commitments we make to go to the gym an hour a day or cut out sugar entirely and of course within two or three weeks, we drop them and then feel ashamed. Then it is harder to get back on the horse. Our principle is based on the small incremental changes and we have reached hundreds of thousands of associates at Walmart and their results are truly moving and inspiring. To see how people can reverse diabetes and reduce hypertension and improve their relationship with their family and save money because what is really unique in the way we approach our work is to approach the whole human not a point solution, not like a meditation app or a sleep app or a food app because we are all interconnected. So when we don't sleep, we crave bad carbs and sugars. When we don't move, we are more likely to be depressed, so everything is connected. The silver lining of this terrible year of grief and so many losses for millions of people, is that we are having this once in a generation opportunity to rethink work and to rethink the way we live so that we avoid the stress and burnout epidemic and the mental health crisis, that frankly pre-date the pandemic. They became worse during the pandemic, but they were there beforehand and now we have an opportunity to address them and use this crisis as a catalyst for fundamental change.
David Green: Yes and I guess as you said, rather than big new year resolutions, it is small, incremental changes, behavioural changes that create good habits and actually have a big benefit. Even if it is a small change, it can have a big benefit in the long run and you are more likely to stick to it, which I think is the key thing.
So Arianna you have written previously that “companies need to do more than just put in place organisational strategies and efficiencies that collaborating remotely, that companies need to pay as much attention to the human element as they do to advanced technologies” Can you expand a little bit on that? How has the organisational responsibility for the employee changed? And what does HR, Chief People Officers and their team need to do in order to support people in a way that is fit for the emerging environment?
Arianna Huffington: Well David, they need to not only put the strategies in place, but to model them. I was thrilled when Donna wrote about the micro steps that she has introduced in her life, replacing some of her diet cokes with water, doing 30 minutes of some kind of movement a day. These things are transformational in a culture when people are looking up to the CHRO for cultural permission.
Companies may say, we want you to take care of yourself so we want you to put your own oxygen mask on first, but people are looking to see if they mean it. So we have now worked with over 11,000 Managers, Store Leaders and those who are working from home generally at Walmart, and it has all started from the top.
From Donna's leadership, modelling these new practices and then writing or telling their own stories. So storytelling has been a big part of transformational change and we are encouraging CHROs everywhere, to tell their stories. At Accenture for example, Ellyn Shook wrote about how she started walking every day and the difference that made, not just to her own wellbeing, but to her clarity of thinking and to her ability to be empathetic. Because as Donna knows, right now CHROs are not just doing maintenance, they have to navigate constant change and help their teams build the resilience needed to navigate constant change. They have to create inclusive cultures and create cultures of belonging. Inclusivity, belonging and creativity are the first things that go when we are running on empty.
David Green: As you said, it is setting that example as well. So if the Leaders in companies aren't taking holiday or time, for example, then the people that work for them feel pressurised so that they can't do it as well. So, as you said, Leaders set the culture and I think it is really important.
So Donna, let's talk a little bit about the workforce agility over the last year. As you say, Walmart has hired over half a million new associates, which is quite a phenomenal figure, since the pandemic began. And people have redeployed their skill-sets from heavy hit industries, like tourism, travel and hospitality into areas where workforce demand has increased.
What lessons in workforce agility have you learnt over the last year and how will you carry these learnings forward, post pandemic?
Donna Morris: I think one of the biggest is that work can be done differently, in different places. That even is in our stores, so let me use the frontline as an example, given the pandemic all of a sudden there were needs for a curbside pickup, there was needs for delivery and our frontline associates went from doing their customary jobs to doing entirely new jobs. We re-architected our Walmart US front line, 485,000 associates have new roles, they have new pay. Those roles, speaking of wellbeing, actually have them traversing the store on a much regular basis because all of a sudden the demands for personal shoppers really increased because many of our customers were no longer wanting to go to the store, but they were very comfortable getting curbside pickup or delivery. None of that David, that existed in our minds that we were going to go in that direction but in the last year, we have demonstrated the ability to increase speed, productivity and innovation. I think it requires you to be bold, I would say that some of the things we have learnt is 80 20, is it 80% correct and 20% not, then let's try it because that can actually lead us to a better solution. 24 hour hiring is a perfect example. It was driven by technology, the team had been looking at it and it was going through all of these owners reviews and it was like, we have got to start hiring people really quickly to support our customers. Lo and behold, we were able to roll it out and you know what, it was 80% right and we were able to tweak it.
So I guess I use those examples to illustrate that things don't need to be perfect to try them. If you believe that it is a good solution for the constituent, whether that be an employee or a customer, you should try it.
So that is one, two is I think we had old notions on where work got done or how work got done. In the store, the old notion was customers are going to come in, they are going to get their items and they are going to leave and what we learnt was, no, customers can be just as likely to use their mobile device to select their goods and have them delivered or shipped, so that changes the way of work. For those associates that worked in campus offices, we have demonstrated that they can also get work done online at home and they don't need to be coming into the office. What all of this demonstrates is the ways of working are, I think, permanently changed.
We have got to reconstitute how we think we are going to work, regardless of industry, there will be new expectations. So that's one. Two to the point on wellbeing, it is not going away. It is going to be an imperative. People are going to say that a competitive advantage as an employer will be do you care about your people enough to have programs that really allow them to integrate work and life, so they can be their best version of themselves? And if you do, you are going to be able to attract, retain and hopefully optimise the performance of your company more effectively to do that. So I think that is something that has changed. What underbeds that is technology. We have more data, more insights, more ability to actually leverage technology, like never before, but let's use technology to really enable humans to do their human work and technology to do work that is repeatable, that is frankly work that could be redundant by virtue of the fact that technology can do that and we can automate it.
David Green: Yeah and I know from seeing some of the stuff that you have done, particularly in recruiting and developing associates at Walmart, I saw some presentation using VR to develop staff, at the Wharton People Analytics Conference, it was amazing. I know you have got a large, very successful people analytics function at Walmart and we are going to talk a little bit about how you have used technology at Walmart now in the second part of this discussion, also about your partnership with Arianna and Thrive as well.
So Arianna, I will start with you. The increasing adaptability required of workers today can seem pretty daunting, I think, to the individual. What can we all do to adopt a fresh mindset, to help find opportunity in ambiguity?
Arianna Huffington: Well David, you mentioned the right word, mindset. What we are finding in all our work and all the leadership journeys we have launched at Walmart, the first thing we work on is shifting mindsets. Because all of us were brought up on the mindset that in order to be super successful and amazing at our jobs, we need to power through exhaustion, be always on, sacrifice ourselves and our own health. That is how we were all brought up. I can tell my own story of collapsing, I am sure Donna has her own stories. There is truly no Leader who has not been through some manifestation of the price we pay for this delusion. Well now we have an enormous amount of new science that shows unequivocally that for the human operating system, unlike machines and software, downtime is a feature not a bug. We also see that with athletes, we admire athletes and we see that for athletes recovery is part of peak performance. Tom Brady would not have won a Superbowl in his forties, if he had not been taking care of his body and his emotional health, the way he has been doing and writing and speaking about it.
So we are at this amazing moment where we can have a science-based, data-driven transformation and what makes me most optimistic is some of the new neuroscience that shows that while stress is unavoidable, there is nobody who can look to their employees and say “Hey, I promise you a stress free existence here.” But cumulative stress is avoidable and it is cumulative stress, that is the killer. So we have created these interventions called reset. It is on our app, it is 60 second interventions during the day, when you are feeling stressed to breathe, to stretch, to remember what you are grateful for, or in the app you can create your own reset based on the things that give you joy. For Donna it could be her son Kyle, or her dog Holly, or all the flowers she posts on Instagram, they are definitely a joy trigger for me. For you, David, it could be your kids, other things you love in your life and in 60 seconds you can play that with your favourite quotes, your favourite music and suddenly you literally, scientifically, move from the sympathetic fight or flight mode to your parasympathetic nervous system in 60 seconds. So we have turned that into what we call Thrive Calls, which are interventions in call centres, we have tried that at Walmart and the data is amazing. Walmart chose to have these interventions if a call was longer than 20 minutes, which meant it was particularly stressful and that intervention basically says thank you for the work you are doing for Walmart, now take 60 seconds for yourself to stretch, to be grateful, to breathe. The small interventions during the day, remind us of our humanity and help us to course correct. That is really, I feel, one of the big changes that is going to outlast the pandemic.
David Green: Yes, I think you are right. I certainly know exhaustion, I have just been co-authoring a book and we have just submitted the manuscript, let’s just say the last two weeks were quite difficult. Arianna before I come to you, Donna, because I really want to hear about some of the work that you have been doing together at Walmart.
We have talked a little bit about this Arianna, but how important is it that Leaders demonstrate these behaviours to the workforce for the benefit, not just of themselves, but of the organisation?
Arianna Huffington: Critical. If you go to our app as a Walmart Associate, you are going to see amazing stories from other Associates, both their peers and Leaders in the organisation. If you go to the app at Verizon or Levi's or any of the other companies we are working with, you are going to see stories from their peers and their Leaders, because nothing moves the needle more than hearing from the people you are working with, the people you look up to. We are finding the small stories of what people are doing, like “I have started turning off my phone at night and charging it outside my bedroom.” I stopped doing that four days later, basically also recognising that we are all imperfect. We are working with one of Donna's Leaders, Nabeela Ixtabalan, who runs HR in Canada and she is a truly amazing Leader. She talks all the time “I am a work in progress. I am a lifelong learner.” So you encourage these qualities in your organisations. The last thing I want to say here, that has been very much part of our work together is, defining up-skilling to go beyond specific skills, to include skills of resilience, empathy, inclusivity, the softer skills are now more important than ever.
David Green: Donna I am going to turn the conversation to you, I am conscious we have got about six minutes talking. So on the work that you have been doing with Arianna and Thrive Global, why don't you tell us more about the work from your perspective? How many employees is it being rolled out to? Are there any specific outcomes or results that you can share?
Donna Morris: Well, the exciting thing with Walmart is we are so sizeable that when you start an, I will call it a movement, when you start a movement, you directly and indirectly touch hundreds of thousands. And that is what we have experienced. I will use the Global People Team, I was very fortunate to have Arianna join us, 4,000 people in global people across geographies. We start every Global Town Hall, which is every second week now, with a wellness moment. Someone getting up, sharing what they are doing specific to their wellbeing, it could be something physically, emotionally, it could be financially. That wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Thrive. So you are probably saying, well, what does that mean? I can tell you the retention rate of talent across Walmart is right now, extremely strong. Why? Because people know we care. They know that it is not just what they are doing, it is how they are doing it. And they know that the organisation is focused on the associate experience. I believe that one of the biggest, I will call it returns on investment, is reinforcing the importance of people to your organisation. I will use my own direct report team as an example, we meet every Friday morning. It is 15 minutes, we call it the breathe session. One of Arianna's team members really reinforced for us the importance of sharing so that we could be accountability coaches to each other, but also the importance of breathing. Some of my team members frankly shared that sometimes they couldn't even really catch their breath, now that wasn't necessarily my challenge, maybe it is because I talk so much I am breathing at the same time. But for myself, it was all about activity. Was I doing something other than working all the time, was I actually getting out and taking a walk or jumping on my Peloton etc. So those Friday mornings it is basically round robin, everybody shares and if somebody is falling off and they are not doing, we basically reinforce, let's hope this weekend you sleep better. We do it Friday deliberately so that the weekend you can almost do a reboot, a reset. To Arianna's great point, then you can use Thrive. I tend to share socially across a few different forums because if not everybody is onto the Thrive app yet, I want to make sure that they also know whether it be on LinkedIn or whether it be on Instagram etc.
An aspect of it as well is about trust, humility and authenticity. Those are all aspects of our culture and so people can see that I am keeping it real, then they can be real too and so David, I believe it is a big part of culture and you measure your culture by the outcomes that you are trying to drive. We had a very demanding year at Walmart last year, but we also had one of our stronger years of performance to deliver to our customers.
And I believe that is because we have exceptional people and that we are continuing to focus on how we support them.
David Green: Great. Well, we are coming sadly to the end of our conversation. I think we could probably all talk for a bit longer and really get into some detail here. So we are going to finish with a quick fire round before I then ask how people can keep in touch with you.
So Arianna first, what is the one thing the Chief People Officer can do in 2021, and let's go beyond 2021, to really capture value for the business?
Arianna Huffington: First of all, we are all beginning to realise now that 2021 and beyond, the people experience, which is what CHROs are in charge of, is going to be the key driver of business performance. Now the C-suite and Boards are recognising that. So all the issues that Donna and her counterparts in other companies have been dealing with are now on the CEO's desk. They are discussed by Boards and that is a huge shift. The SEC has for the first time in years, asked companies to report on what they are doing for their human capital beyond reporting, how many they have. That is another huge difference. The most important thing CHROs can do is prioritise this culture of physical and emotional wellbeing and modelling. That is going to be key because cultural transformations don't happen without modelling and storytelling and basically external marketing.
So it is no longer a question of, here is another benefit for you, we pay based on utilisation, here it is. No. Now to have a real cultural transformation, it requires internal marketing and then external marketing, because as Donna said, write everywhere, on LinkedIn, on social media, what you are doing. First of all, the people who work for you feel inspired and proud and the people who don't work for you may want to work for you, so it is a great recruitment tool and a great opportunity to establish the company and the Leader as a thought Leader.
David Green: Donna, what can you and your peers as Chief People Officers, what would you add to what Arianna said around how you can capture that value for the business and the workforce as well?
Donna Morris: So I think ultimately our roles in HR, the people function, are to enable business success through people. You can't have business success if you are not able to really accomplish your talent priorities. Underlying them, in my mind at this point in time, what has changed is the pandemic made us all vulnerable and wellbeing is going to be at the forefront. So, I would reinforce exactly what Arianna said. If you are in the people function, you need to be authentic, you need to be accessible and frankly, you need to be the champion for the wellbeing of your people.
David Green: What a perfect way to end it. So thank you so much, both of you, for being on the show. Arianna, how can people stay in touch with you?
Arianna Huffington: They can stay in touch with me by coming to Thriveglobal.com. Going on LinkedIn or Instagram, like Donna, I like to share everything I am thinking and doing on my people platforms to reach people where they are.
David Green: Same Donna?
Donna Morris: Absolutely. I am on LinkedIn, so please follow me and I am also on Instagram and share many of the passions that Arianna has in terms of wellbeing.
Thank you so much for having us.
David Green: Well thank you and thank you both for what you do for the community, sharing your work and what you do as well. Wellbeing seems to me that the top topic in business and certainly in people at the moment and I think with people like you driving it, it will stay that way.
So thank you very much for being on The Digital HR Leaders podcast. Thank you.
Arianna Huffington: Thank you so much David. Thank you, Donna.
Donna Morris: Thank you. It was great seeing you both.