Sep 19 2023 37 mins 1
Human resources — and the role of the chief HR officer with it — has been seeking a proverbial "seat at the table" for years now. The difference now is, more of them are not only gaining that seat, they are "helping design the table."
In this episode of Get Reworked, we speak with Don Robertson, EVP and CHRO of Northwestern Mutual about his approach to employee experience and how his previous experience on the business side informs how he operates — namely, with a business-first mindset.
"Many of the things that we have to do require you to put together business cases to look at the financials, to look at budgets, all these things and if you don't have strong financial skills, if you don't have strong ability to really put together business cases, just like you would if you're the investments team, and you're putting together a business case, to go do an investment to buy a building or do something, you have to have those kinds of skill sets. I can't just go in there and say, hey, we should invest $10 million in a new HR system, because our people will like it better and will have better engagement," said Don.
"No, I have to be able to show: if we do this, we'll get more adoption. If we get more adoption, then people leaders will do what we need them to do. And they'll ultimately develop their people better. And therefore you'll have the talent you need. And these are the kinds of investments you need to make so that you know our engagement goes up or attrition goes down or we get better adoption. And you just start talking about the actual attribution things that you benefit from by doing these things. And I can tell you in a zero sum game and the world we live in with budgets and everything else, you have to be able to make those cases."
Highlights of the conversation include:
- Why data is a modern CHRO's best friend.
- How Northwestern went from employee engagement in the low 40s to over 80%.
- The role HR business partners play in Don's work.
- How Northwestern approaches the employee expectation-business need balancing act.
- The role he sees HR playing with AI adoption.
Plus, hosts Nidhi Madhavan and Siobhan Fagan talk with Don about why he thinks rolling back on EX efforts is a mistake, how he's consciously developing the skills of his potential successor and why he thinks anyone working in HR would benefit by spending time on the business side. Listen in for more.
Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to [email protected].
