TESLA’S HR RECRUITMENT PITCH Make the impossible possible. Be a leader throughout Tesla – speak up, exert influence to create positive change and manage your boss, when needed. We are all human, except those who are robots. Be a trusted business partner and coach to our leaders. Have some popcorn with them on Wednesday afternoons every now and then. Understand our business and how what you do helps it accelerate at rocket speeds. Please remember to wear a seatbelt when you do this. When you think you are done, make it better. Prove your value every day. Work that doesn’t add value is not valuable. Be you! Being someone else all day is just plain exhausting. Love change; it happens here at the speed of light … maybe faster, but we have been unable to measure it because it is going too damn fast. Be proactive; we move too fast to be reactive. Plus, people that are always reacting have a funny look on their face. Love to be challenged … no, REALLY CHALLENGED. Recognise others and they will recognise you. Most of us like chocolate. Know, learn and keep up to date on the HR stuff. Learn something new every day. Not doing so is just dumb. But how could it possibly be any other way? This is a company that is changing the world and expects its HR team to do the same. World-changing HR: I like the sound of that. This certainly looks and feels more like HR as a true business leader.
A shift to employee experience? We continue to see demand climbing for the new type of HR professional in both operational and higher-level HR roles. This, coupled with the strategic plays to bring together services under the employee experience umbrella on a global or organisation-wide basis, presents a
compelling and potentially extremely successful combination to drive HR forward with confidence. It is different this time round as we transition from engagement to experience thinking. When practitioners talk of engagement it traditionally has felt like something was missing from the discussion. Experience brings the whole of HR and much more into play. It appears somehow more complete, with massive potential to clearly demonstrate value and impact on
growing number of HR practitioners trying on this new (or at the very least evolved) hat and liking its comfortable fit. In saying that, some HR practitioners and business leaders will comment that it’s very easy to create a nice new title and brand for HR, but the proof, as always, is in the pudding. That’s why it’s so revealing to take a look at the accompanying job descriptions for these roles. Companies are lining up behind the titles and setting out the much broader mandate required for success, which
World-changing HR: I like the sound of that. This certainly looks and feels more like HR as a true business leader business performance. We may be seeing shifts in the recruitment of HR folk to keep up with this thinking, but there is no doubt the focus on employee experience exploded around the world in 2015 across sectors. Gina O’Reilly, COO of Nitro and dedicated ‘Nitronaut’, has already experienced the benefits of moving to a strategic employee experience focus. Nitro is a software company that is “changing the way the world works with documents” and a company that has grasped the potential of pressing reset on their HR function. At Nitro, “Employee Experience (Ex) is first and foremost about protecting and supporting employees,” which incorporates Maslow’s work on the hierarchy of needs. For Nitro, what this means is a company focused on creating job satisfaction, happiness and success for its staff. This, according to a company that has grown its revenue “35–40% year-on-year” over the past five years, is crucial to business success. The flood of adverts now seeking a ‘director of employee experience’ provides further evidence and assurance that this is not simply a shiny new concept, thing or HR fad but something that businesses are really taking very seriously in terms of how they develop and connect their business performance. So, a flash in the pan it isn’t, and I note the
generally includes all the key services and functions that affect the employee experience across the business, as seen in companies like Airbnb. Yet, in reality, the models will continue to differ as businesses build their own versions of the new HR. The overwhelmingly positive response from businesses and HR practitioners to this shift to employee experience for HR is very exciting, however, and has the potential to finally position HR in a true business leadership role. What’s the key to keeping this employee experience movement going? Well, that’s the easy bit. To summarise Tesla’s ethos: make the impossible happen, love change, prove value, and be proactive … because nobody within our incredibly meaningful profession would like to see that ‘funny look’ on our faces if we ever realise that the ship (or model S 70D) has sailed (driven off ) without us. Ben Whitter leads the organisation and people development function at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), which was the first Sino-foreign university to open its doors in China. In the top 1% of universities worldwide, UNNC is an award-winning university with a truly global perspective. This article first appeared on Ben’s LinkedIn page.
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