In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, David is joined by Lauren Guthrie, Vice President of Global Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Action (IDEA) and Talent Development at VF Corporation. 

Responsible for the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Action of multiple brands under the VF Corporation umbrella, Lauren brings a unique perspective to the conversation as she works with various brands, set with their own cultures, consumer bases and values.

This conversation will cover:

• The "Action" pillar in VF Corporation’s IDEA strategy and how the company embeds equity within its culture and brands

• How Lauren and her team leverages data to identify areas for improvement and addresses the challenges of tailoring solutions to each brand's unique operating agenda and consumer base

• How recent black swan events such as the pandemic has changed the way VF Corporation approaches Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Action

• How VF Corporation measures the effectiveness and impact of their IDEA initiatives, including the impact on consumer and talent retention

• Advice on how to create a leader-led strategy where IDEA is not just owned by a team, but the whole organisation.

Support from this podcast comes from Orgvue. You can learn more by visiting: https://www.orgvue.com/

David Green: Being responsible for diversity, equity and inclusion for just one company and one brand can be a challenge on its own.  Now, imagine looking after multiple international brands, all with their own sets of cultures, data and customers.  This is the reality for our guest on this week's episode, Lauren Guthrie, Vice President of Global Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Action and Talent Development at VF Corporation.

Given her wide range of responsibilities, Lauren has a unique perspective towards DEI, which is why I'm thrilled to be speaking to her about how she manages successful DEI programmes across brands such as Timberland, Vans and North Face.  We'll cover topics such as how she uses data to inform decisions, and how Lauren puts the Action into VF's IDEA strategies; that's I for Inclusion, D for Diversity, E for Equity and A for Action; IDEA.  Let's start by welcoming Lauren to the show.

Lauren, it's great to have you on the show.  To start, can you give listeners a brief introduction to yourself and your role at VF Corporation?

Lauren Guthrie: Absolutely.  Thanks, David, super-excited to be here.  So, as you mention, my name is Lauren Guthrie and I have the absolute pleasure of shepherding our Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Action, or as we call it as VF, IDEA strategy.  I've been with the company for just over five years actually.  Most of my career has been in merchandising, so being a key advocate for consumers, and also heavily engaged in employee resource groups in several prior organisations that I've worked for, so had that opportunity to step into DEI work full time in the midst of the pandemic, and as I also like to reference, multiple pandemics happening at the same time, especially in the US, a social and regional justice pandemic as well, which gave me the opportunity to pursue this passion and integrate my past experiences from an advocacy perspective with one that's more intentionally focused on our associates in the communities that we support around the globe.

VF is a Fortune 500 company.  We are also the home of several global brands in the outdoor and active apparel lifestyle space in footwear.  Some of our biggest brands hopefully many of your listeners have heard of: The North Face, Vans, Timberland, Dickies and several rapidly growing brands, like Icebreaker and Smartwool, Altra, etc.  So, we're really proud of the consumers that we get to touch across our portfolio, and certainly through the lens of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity through our IDEA platform.

David Green: Well, that's great, Lauren, and actually I think VF Corporation in total has got over 25,000 employees; I think that's correct, isn't it?

Lauren Guthrie: Yeah, we're closer to 35,000 globally across a number of countries.  We have three global headquarters as well, in Stabio, Switzerland, in Denver, and also actually multiple headquarters in Asia as well in Shanghai, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, so a huge global presence and footprint as well.

David Green: Lauren, I love the acronym, IDEA, I think that's fantastic, and before we really get into the conversation, I want to talk a little bit about that, more specifically about the Action element to your title, which I've not heard before associated with Inclusion, Diversity and Equity, but it really should be, shouldn't it?  What prompted this additional pillar to IDE?

Lauren Guthrie: Yeah, it's a great question and we're not alone with the acronym, but we are proud of it and what it represents.  Each letter really stands alone and drives an aspect of our strategy.  And I think when I came into this role a couple of years ago, VF had had a really strong commitment to inclusion as a cultural tenet within the organisation, and had a really strong commitment to diversity.  The equity component was new, and I want to address that first, because I think it leads us to the action and recognising that we'd had an opportunity to think about where there were disproportionate and systemic impacts, again to our consumers, our associates, our communities where we live and work around the world, and we wanted to take a more proactive role in addressing those systemic barriers.

In doing so, we recognised that it wasn't just about education, it wasn't just about engagement, but it really was about a broader commitment to action across all of our platforms: where and how we use our voice; where and how we encourage our associates and our brands to use their voices, from an advocacy perspective; where we were spending our time; and certainly where we were thinking about our philanthropic spend as well.  And also, in the midst of multiple pandemics, we really wanted to signal to our associates that we are not only committed to saying the right things, but we're committed to building long-term strategies that will guide our efforts, that ultimately result in impact and action.

So, that "A" is a really important signal to our long-term commitment in this space.  We hope that we meet and exceed many of our goals, but the beauty of this work is that there is so much opportunity, and once those goals are completed, we're committed to new goals and seeking out new opportunities to create impact.  So, that "A" is really important internally and externally as the signal of our long-term commitment in this space.

David Green: And what's really interesting, you mentioned obviously all the brands that are part of VF, and it's quite interesting because if I compare you to some of your peers I've spoken to in other organisations, you're essentially supporting over a dozen different brands.  Can you share a little bit more with listeners about this?  I can imagine that each brand has its own operating agenda and distinct consumer base; how does that impact on your role?

Lauren Guthrie: So, I would say in this work, we don't believe in a one-size-fits-all approach.  I would say that's certainly relevant across our portfolio of brands, but I think that's also relevant at an associate base as well.  Everybody is coming to this work with different social, political, economic context with different understanding and knowledge, with different passion and commitment; and certainly for our brands, to your point, with very different consumer bases, different DNA, different historical footprints as well.  So, our team works really closely to be a guide and a sounding board to support our brands in translating our VF enterprise commitments into meaningful commitments for themselves.

So, at an associate level, a lot of the work that we do and we drive as an IDEA team is lined up against our representation commitments, our support for education and learning.  Those platforms can be scaled across the enterprise.  However, we may diagnose different entry points for different teams, for different brands in terms of that work.  We'll I'm sure talk a little bit about some of our externally-facing commitments, but for example we have a global goal for gender parity around the world.  That doesn't mean that every single brand is striving towards the same percentage.  We have some brands who've already exceeded gender parity, who may be looking at tactics to take them back to centre in other ways.  The point being, there are some enterprise pieces that we cascade and we find the right entry point. 

There are also places where we're really supporting our brands to drive individualised agendas.  I think The North Face is a great example of this, who has recognised that they have an incredible giving body that has an opportunity for impact in the Explore Fund.  It's a philanthropic fund, it's over a decade old at this point in time, that's driven their giving priorities around the globe.  In the past two years, they've actually repurposed that fund to lead their equity efforts and created a council of community members from marginalised communities across the US to provide perspective, input and ultimately to guide their giving priorities. 

So, that's something they've been able to stand up and lead on their own, tapping into this tenet of equity that we want to drive deeper penetration in across our organisation, but have done so in a way that makes sense for them, based upon their key issues of public land access and outdoor participation and climate justice inequity.  Dickies, for example, is a workwear brand who may have very different priorities that resonate differently with their consumer base, particularly around bringing respect back to work, manual labour.  And, as a workwear brand, have a very different way of engaging, particularly through skate culture.  So, their philanthropic platforms and their volunteer engagements may look quite different.

Our team leverages all of those entry points, particularly leveraging data to help us understand what those consumer profiles look like and how they may or may not have synergy with our employee footprint.  So, Dickies is another example of that, where their average consumer and their trending in growth consumer is quite young, has very different priorities around how they want to see organisation show up in a social advocacy space.  But Dickies as an organisation has some of the oldest average age of associates in our organisation.  So, that gives us a really great platform to marry where we're investing in insights, how we're helping to support that team, and really how that team is seeking to support itself, to have really deep consumer insight strategies to bridge gaps.

So, a lot of really bespoke work supporting our brands, really across three pillars, which is associate experience, consumer experience and social advocacy, but really leaning in to understand, does that brand have a history of social justice and advocacy?  Timberland's a great example of a brand that has a really, really long-term history from a sustainability perspective, so how can we marry that concept of equity with our sustainability efforts?  Vans has an incredible history supporting youth culture, and so how can we support from the lens of creativity and self-expression?

I think that's a really fun part of our job, is we get to reinterpret our strategies and determine different focus areas, depending upon what's highly relevant and compelling for our brands.  So, it's super-fun to work across the portfolio.

David Green: Yeah, it sounds like it, because you've got that advantage of where it makes sense, but also recognising that each of those brands is a brand on its own and different priorities, different consumer base and different history and recognising that, which gives you and your team, I'm guessing, a huge variety of opportunities to work across the portfolio?

Lauren Guthrie: Absolutely.  We're always seeking authentic entry points and authentic movements to attach this work to.  I think there's a lot of thought that DEI is an area of subject-matter expertise, but actually I think that DEI or IDEA is a filter that can be applied to everything that we do, so we're always looking for those authentic chassis to ride that drive relevance to our stakeholders, but also relevant to our end consumer, whether that be associates or consumers of our brands themselves.

David Green: You mentioned data, a bit of a passion of mine and a lot of listeners to the podcast.  What type of data do you and your team look at to inform your priorities and decisions?

Lauren Guthrie: So, I'll maybe section that in a couple of ways, since our strategy is quite wide-reaching.  From an associate base perspective, which I would say, speaking of authenticity, if we don't get it right for our people, then we're not going to be able to get it right externally; but we're looking at both quantitative and qualitative data.

On the quantitative side, as reference to our diversity agenda, our representation data, so what's the makeup of our internal associate base and where do we see opportunities to continuously diversify that?  So, looking certainly at gender identity, at race ethnicity where relevant, and where I say "where relevant", it's really where we're legally allowed to look at that around the globe.  But we're looking at not only what percentage of those populations represent, we're also looking at how they're trending.  So, our new-hire rates, our promotion rates, our job-change rates and our attrition.

Within that, we're able to see where there's momentum within the organisation, maybe where there's opportunity that requires unique support.  So, for example, within our digital technology space, and we know we're not alone here, there's opportunity for diversification, particularly from a gender identity perspective.  So, we're looking in our pipeline at development efforts, our volunteer efforts, our partnerships externally, but also looking at where we can build programming internally to accelerate development of certain populations. 

We're also continuously marrying that with qualitative data.  So, we have a culture survey that we've sent out biannually within our organisation, that allows us to get a sense of our associate sentiment across geographies, across office types; so, we have retail associates, distribution centre associates, our office populations, and we're looking always at our eNPS scores and how those are trending.  But the ability to break that down by demographics as well allows us to see where there may be sentiments that are proliferating with subsets of our population that we can address through our programming efforts as well.

We also do a lot of listening from a focus group perspective.  We really want to ensure that associate voice is guiding our strategy.  So, whether those are small group platforms, we also over the past couple of years have had some extraordinarily large group platforms, which have provided really meaningful leadership engagement opportunities as well with 1,500 to 2,000 associates on calls, and it's amazing the advocacy and passion that exists in this space to give feedback, to ask questions, to challenge our direction, and we take those listening platforms very seriously because again, my team does not own this strategy, our organisation owns this strategy.  So, we want to ensure that we have feedback loops that allow our associates to get engaged.

Then I would say lastly on the associate experience side, really lean heavily into our employee resource groups.  We have more than 20 chapters that align to 4 different employee resource groups within the company in support of our women's population, through WOVEN; our multicultural population through ACE Diversity; our Pride community with our Pride and allies' ERG; and in the US, we also have a veterans' ERG as well.  And they're incredibly active and really rich enablers of our strategy in terms of authenticity, to promote engagement in a very grassroots way.  We leverage those employee resource group platforms as focus groups as well, recognising they're some of our most passionate advocates, but also they really challenge our thinking to get a broader base of qualitative insights as well.

We publish a lot of this data on a quarterly basis to the executives at the organisation, to keep all of us aligned in our progress against our key priorities.  Also, I can't talk about data without the importance of external benchmarking as well.  So, we want to have an internal scorecard on how we're performing against our objectives, but we also participate in surveys and indices globally, to get a sense of how we're stacking up against our peers, how progressive our strategies are, and certainly to challenge our thinking around how we futureproof our strategies as well.  So, a lot of time is spent seeing what's working across different industries.

I would say, as someone who's come from the business, one of the most fun parts about this job is working hand-in-hand with some of our competitors for the greater good.  This is a place where the DEI community globally is extraordinarily tight-knit, and everybody is seeking to improve outcomes, not only for themselves, but across industry.  So, it's been really fun to leverage insights from some of our peers in the space as well.

David Green: You mentioned that there's not just been one pandemic over the last few years, at the start, and actually there have been a number of black swan events, whether they're on a global perspective like the pandemic, or like the war in Ukraine, or the cost-of-living crisis that's affecting so many different countries at the moment, the social and racial inequality crisis that didn't just appear in 2020, it was already there, but more attention was devoted to it, I guess, which I guess has been good because we've seen progress.

I'm curious; how would you say that these events, such as the pandemic, or the social and racial inequality crisis in the States, has changed the way that we approach Inclusion, Diversity and Equity?

Lauren Guthrie: I think it's a great and really important question and I think it's changed everything, to be honest.  I think the history of this work has been more compliance-based.  It's been about hitting numbers, particularly around diversity of workforces.  And I think what sits at the core of our IDEA strategy is that we want all of our stakeholders, internally and externally, whether they be associates or consumers or communities, to feel an authentic sense of belonging; and in doing so, we really need to anchor at our cultural centre the skills and capability and passion to develop as allies and advocates.

When we talk about the end result of IDEA, that's what we're seeking, and I think the past few years truly have put more pressure on that.  It's not a nice-to-have, but an absolute necessity.  We have seen increasing conversations around mental health and wellbeing, and we truly believe that at the core of IDEA is a way to create connection that supports mental health and wellbeing.  Those people have been isolated around the world whether, to your point, that's physically through quarantine or ideologically, we feel it critical to be able to build bridges that support connection and empathy through this work.

So, at VF, I would say we celebrate a lot the power of and the recognition that this work is hugely impactful for our ability to authentically live our purpose as an organisation, but also authentically necessary to drive sustained growth in our business, and so we approach it from both angles.  But I would say the biggest shift for me has been seeing the change in investment for these programmes, the search for really scientifically- and thoughtfully-based change management.  I think the days of DEI in the past were unconscious bias for everyone.  But now, it's really thinking through, what is the right way to educate people in a way that they're going to retain the information; and how do we support them into committing it to action?

So, I think the framework that we've put around DEI has been rapidly expanded to be more thoughtful.  I think about the core definitions of those terms, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity, not just some of the historical platforms that have supported diversification namely in two dimensions within workforces, to be more cultural tenets embedded in how organisations work, a true celebration of the behaviours that drive inclusion, recognising that those behaviours are absolutely necessary in this new way of working that many of us have never encountered before, but also in a world where people are being asked to manage a lot, whether to your point that's more political insurrection, social justice movements or just the impact of climate change.

There's so much I think that we're all navigating.  We really believe that this is a fundamental platform that supports our culture and the health of our associates.

David Green: What I'd be interested in, you talked about equity being a relatively new element that you're looking at at VF.  Obviously, a greater focus is being placed on equity by many organisations now.  How is VF embedding equity within its culture and brands?

Lauren Guthrie: It's a great question.  I mean, I think first and foremost, around education and awareness of inequities.  We've spent quite a bit of time talking about that over the past couple of years and educating our leaders and our associates.  I think there's been need for education to understand where there are systemic inequities, using data to understand where there are inequities within our processes and ways of working, through our council to advance racial equity.  We actually raised a priority area around pay equity, which is certainly a trending topic in dialogue, and so have committed to ongoing pay equity studies.

I think what sits at the heart of equity is the notion that it's not a static concept, it is a relational concept.  So, even as we look at pay equity, it's not doing one study, it's looking at it biannually into perpetuity to ensure that as we go through multiple merit cycles, pay cycles, etc, that we're maintaining equity.  And so, this has required some education for our organisation, but it also allows us to leverage it as a filter in the work that we're doing.

So for example, with the VF Foundation has been a long-standing giving body, or VF, that drives our philanthropic agenda, and so in the past year, we've actually decided -- excuse me, if I take a step back.  In the past two years, we've decided that we wanted to leverage 10% of our spending in the US to go towards our racial equity efforts.  So for us, that was real double-click to stay outside of our giving priorities of worthy work and free to be around expression and outdoor matters around outside advocacy.  Through all of those pillars, we wanted to ensure that there was a filter on equity.

The result of that is, just by setting a goal, we actually saw 56% of our spend go towards our Inclusion, Diversity and Equity efforts, so far exceeding.  And that gave the VF Foundation board the confidence to say that we actually want to use equity as a filter for all of our giving priorities moving forward.  We want to be looking at disproportionate impact to the most marginalised communities, recognising that oftentimes, with that level of specificity, you can raise the tide for all.  And so, I would say that's a great example of how equity is driving a different way of thinking, certainly a different way of working and a different way  of prioritising our impact.  It also then informs how we're engaging, who we're developing partnerships with, we're listening to in communities, and who we're inviting to have a seat at the table as we're brainstorming thoughtful solutions. 

I would say for our brands as well, Timberland's a great example of an old, incredible brand, really authentic history, closely connected to craft, huge priority around sustainability and environmental issues, and also a brand that recognises that it hasn't spoken directly to a consumer segment who has driven disproportionate revenue for them through those priorities.  And so, they've really doubled-down on a strategy that supports their racial equity efforts in the US, really focusing in on opportunities to support entrepreneurship in black and brown communities, to support design as a discipline and a mechanism for creative expression within communities who haven't necessarily been spoken to directly about career paths and lucrative careers paths, and so have done a lot of work in communities around design education and engagement; have really looked at who they're activating and inviting into the brand as collaborators and influencers, as ways to directly provide homage to the communities who've really been the backbone of the brand.

So, in this work, it's not easy.  It's taking an honest look at yourself, at your history, at where there's an opportunity perhaps to drive a different way of thinking.

David Green: I'd be interested how you, and you touched on it a little bit there, but how you measure the effectiveness and impact of these initiatives?

Lauren Guthrie: Great question, and I think for us it really depends upon what we're seeking to do.  So, every time we put forth a strategy, there's a commitment tied to it.  We call them SMART goals, Specific, Measurable, etc, that allows us to define impact.  And so, leveraging our council to advance racial equity, for example, through standing up that council and inviting leaders across the business to help us articulate our racial justice strategy in the US, we ultimately came up with eight key commitments that we were going to measure progress against, kind of stemming from 2024 to 2030, so all timebound.

So, whether pay equity is part of that, the Foundation spend is part of that, but also establishing a supplier diversity programme, and so establishing really clear goals on an annualised basis that we can hold up and mirror to ourselves in saying, "Are we seeing the progress?"   And even continuously question, "Is this KPI a really accurate measure of impact?"

David Green: As a progressive organisation like VF is, I'm sure you're already looking at the next step, so what is next on the horizon for the IDEA function at VF Corporation?

Lauren Guthrie: My goal is to work myself out of a job!  Quite honestly, I think today we have a centralised body who is responsible for driving the strategic creation, for validating it and for driving the programmes that bring this work to life.  As we look at where we are on our maturity journey, the next step for us is to really become leader-led, with the goal of this work being fully integrated within the business, both as a cultural tenet of VF, but also within our business practices.

As we look at our strategic priorities for the next year, it is less about the programmes that the COE is driving.  We feel like we have a good foundation of learning and coaching and investment, but it is more about how we support the enablement of our leaders carrying the torch in this work.  So for example, many of our leaders, if not all of our leaders, have regular leadership touchpoints.  How are we creating toolkits for them to drive curriculums with associates on their own?  How are we providing them with the coaching and the continued accountability to demonstrate progress in certain ways, whether that's through improvement at eNPS scores, whether that's specific training around working in a hybrid work environment?

So, our team is more thinking about leadership enablement, with the goal of full integration and ownership of this strategy sitting within the business.  I think we have tremendous examples of where this is already happening at VF.  I'll name a couple of names, but our President of Smartwool, Jenn McLaren, is an incredible advocate for this work, is already leveraging every town hall that she has to drive education and awareness and strategy.  Smartwool has externally-facing commitments as well in the IDEA and sustainability space, and is publishing their own reporting around how they're doing against those goals.  So, it's really thinking end to end from an associate engagement perspective, as well as thinking about the way that Smartwool itself as a brand can be more thoughtful in business strategies and can really anchor IDEA within their growth agenda.

Icebreaker is another great example, Jan Van Mossevelde is our Brand President for that brand and has recently completely overhauled the way that they approach hiring for external talent for photoshoots, with the goal of ensuring that Icebreaker shows up visibly as an inclusive brand.  He also drives similar employee engagement and is actually one of our global employee resource groups' executive sponsors for our Pride community, and so is not only walking the walk for his brand, but walking the walk from an enterprise role for VF.

So, for us moving forward, it's truly about integration, it's continuing to use IDEA as a filter in everything that we do, and our team's role will be less to drive and more to support and anchor.  And to your question before, I think that requires us to continue to invest in bespoke and custom support and programmes for the needs of the organisation as they arise.  So, certainly be planful, but also to be poised to be reactive and supportive to the priorities that are coming up through each individual business.  So, we expect that way of working not only to continue, but quite honestly to increase in the way that we're engaging as a function.

David Green: Wow, some really outstanding work that's already happened and more that's happening by the sounds of it, Lauren, and I know that many of our listeners are going to be inspired by what they're hearing.  And for those listeners who are working towards integrating Inclusion, Diversity and Equity into their business strategy initiative and their people strategy, and hopefully with the "A" part, the Action part as well, how can they go about that; what should they be doing; what guidance would you give to listeners that are looking to implement some of the initiatives that you've mentioned in their own organisations?

Lauren Guthrie: Yeah, absolutely.  A couple of things.  I'd say, one, articulating that commitment is really important, the why, why does it matter to your organisation, why does it matter to your leaders in creating a call to action to your organisation is critically important.  I referenced our corporate purpose at VF, but we have a very clear purpose statement that guides our work and our guiding principles that guide our actions, and embedded within that is the concept of IDEA, it's having something that you can point to around this topic that has clear leadership buy-in and engagement is really important.

The second piece, I would say, is let the data guide you; it exposes a lot of sins.  And for organisations that have people analytics teams asking the right questions, it's diving deeply into the data with the right filters and then really coupling that with the right qualitative insights to bring it to life.  Talking to your people, asking them the hard questions and not being afraid of the answers I think is super-critical in driving a strategy.  You have to understand not only the fact that there may be a discrepancy, but why that discrepancy exists, and be able to break apart your people processes.  It's the fun of being a detective, to understand where the breakdowns are occurring so that you can be surgical in your initial actions, because I truly think getting some quick wins and building credibility in this work is essential to its long-term success.

If the narrative comes, that leadership commitment comes, but there's no action behind it, then you risk losing the buy-in, and truly the grassroots momentum from your associate base.  So, I think those two things have to work together, and the data can give you some quick areas to lean in and drive action, even if that is simply starting from a diversity perspective, looking at representation, composition, or from an attitudinal perspective, looking at some core questions around sense of belonging and inclusion within your organisation.

David Green: And, you have a people analytics team at VF; how closely do you and your team work with them?

Lauren Guthrie: Exceptionally.  So, I think there's a lot of work that our team drives around our own survey creation, the questions that we want to ask, our own listening efforts.  But we are really curious for any question that we ask to our associates to understand if there's a disproportionate sentiment, based upon certain demographics within the organisation.  So, we're always triangulating data, even if surveys are anonymous in the sense that there's no name attached to it; they're not confidential oftentimes in the sense that we can still track demographic data and trends, and we find that to be critically important.  So, a very close relationship.  Every source of associate listening is relevant to our team, particularly as we start to piece it apart and see if there's disproportionate impact in places.

David Green: You mentioned in the conversation employee resource groups as well.  There's a lot of research that's been published about the important role that employee resource groups play, particularly around inclusion and culture topics.  Again, to a company that's maybe looking at accelerating its work around employee resource groups, what advice would you give around that?

Lauren Guthrie: Yeah, I think employee resource groups can be an incredible grassroots effort to extend the reach of a DEI team or a DEI leader.  They are a source of community for new employees, can be a really safe place with which to find some of those initial relationships.  They're really fertile ground to develop and grow allyship, and certainly at a time when we've been working in various ways, but particularly we're about a really strong sense of community and associate engagement.

What I would say is there's many different levels of formality around ERGs.  We are still working actively on ensuring that our ERGs are not only supportive of those three things I mentioned around associate experience, but also they're able to provide business impact, and that we're able to leverage their insight in a way that doesn't relieve the business from doing its own work, but can also be a really important mirror and reflection for the business as well, particularly more stepping into new spaces, a really fertile ground for innovation, so that's where we're focused, is building some innovation challenges with our ERGs over the next year to embed their voices in our business strategic planning process.

Then also, I think they're a really incredible way to grow the next generation of leadership within the organisation.  We are so grateful for the time and energy that our ERG leaders spend out of the goodness of their heart, in many cases, to move this work forward.  As a result, we want to make sure they are growing in their leadership capability, that they're supported in doing so, that they have the right exposure and visibility to our executive teams; and that these ERG roles play a large role as catalysts in their broader career journey.

So, I'd say use them as a great way to encourage people to develop leadership skills in a safe and supported way, and also as a way to grow some of your talent internally as well.

David Green: Yeah, some great advice there, Lauren.  I can't believe we're already towards the end of our conversation!  This is the question that we're asking everyone on this series of the podcast, so maybe think a bit broader in terms of looking at HR, or you can focus on DEI as well in this answer.  What do you think HR leaders need to be thinking about most in the next 12 to 24 months; and what is your biggest concern, and what do you see is the biggest opportunity in this area?

Lauren Guthrie: To be honest, for me this is an easy answer, which is resilience and associate wellbeing.  Our leaders are being asked to lead in a way that they never have before, to be certainly shepherds of the business, but to really be shepherds of teams and to a certain extent, to be individualised support networks and lifelines for their people.  And I expect the world to continue to be challenging at a macro and a micro level, and I think really supporting this concept of resilience within organisations, but not assuming that that's about hardening or toughening people up, but that it is about supporting them and ensuring that within the workplace, they are able to step into the level of ambiguity that's ahead of us, with courage, with confidence in knowing that they are supported within their organisation.

With that, I think, comes continued mental health support, whether that's through benefits, or whether that's again through coaching leaders on the role that they play in recognising challenges.  But for me, I think we all know that there will continue to be a host of challenges in front of us, and ensuring that the organisation not only has the skills and capability, but the mental fortitude to step into those challenges is paramount.

David Green: Yeah, I think that's a really good point, because being a leader, being a manager now is arguably much more difficult than it was even five years ago.  We've got the whole hybrid mix, obviously I appreciate that many of the people that work at VF are working in retail or in warehouses as well, but yeah, much harder to be a manager I think, and we need to support managers because it's not just about employees burning out, it's about managers potentially burning out as well, isn't it?

Lauren Guthrie: Absolutely, I think at a higher rate and with higher risk, and so definitely leadership continues to be a huge priority area for us, but not just, to your point, in the hard skills or even the soft skills, but be able to take pressure off where we can and celebrate a culture of empathy, particularly for our managers who are growing in new ways and being expected to do so very quickly.

David Green: Well, Lauren, I've really enjoyed our conversation.  It's super-impressive, outstanding, the work that you and the team are leading at VF and some really powerful examples throughout the discussion.  So, I congratulate you on the work you are doing and I'm sure you'll be doing even more successful work in the future.  Thanks so much for being a guest on the Digital HR Leaders podcast.  How can listeners keep in touch with you, follow you on social media, find out more about the work that you're doing at VF?

Lauren Guthrie: Absolutely, so I would say we're very active on LinkedIn across our VF platforms, and also the VF Foundation platforms as well.  You'll also find all of our brands celebrating examples through their Instagram handles as well.  And then, we do publish an annual profile that details our progress and our opportunities from an idea perspective, which you can find on vfc.com.

David Green: Lauren, it's been an absolute pleasure.  Thank you very much for being a guest on the show.

Lauren Guthrie: David, thanks so much for the opportunity to celebrate some of our successes and some of our opportunities as well, thank you very much.