Why Diversity Matters in the Workplace: Q&A With HPE’s Alan May

If diversity and inclusion is a priority for the company, it ought to be baked into your performance management program.

Alan May, executive vice president, and chief people officer, HPE, stresses how diversity and inclusion initiativesOpens a new window can strengthen a workforce. He discusses the need for employees to feel comfortable, empowered and included, no matter their background, and why it matters in the workplace today.

In this edition of #HRTalk, May throws light on some of the issues plaguing a traditional workday and shares tips for businesses to scale HR digital transformation to facilitate an inclusive workplaceOpens a new window . May also guides HR managers on ways to build a business case around HR tech to meet the organization’s diversity goals and more.

Key takeaways from our interview on why diversity matters:

• Top tips for talent leaders for a smooth transition to flexible work
• Best practices on how analytics offers actionable insights to talent leaders
• Trends to follow in diversity and inclusionOpens a new window in 2020 and beyond

Highlights of the Q&A With Alan May of Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Here’s the edited transcript from our exclusive interview with HPE’s Alan May:

Alan, tell us about your career path, your role at HPE and how you bring about exceptional results each day.

I have had the good fortune to work in HR across several industries, including industrial, consumer products, aerospace and private equity in addition to my current role in the tech sector at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In doing so, I have tried to develop a balanced career through a series of pivotal experiences, leading others, managing large scale change, driving operational results and setting strategy.

At HPE, I lead all aspects of support for over 60,000 team members globally, from selection and workplace experience through active investments in career development and ongoing rewards and benefits. My role is to ensure each team member can bring their best to HPE every day and realize their long-term professional aspirations. HPE delivers exceptional results to our customers and partners through our highly capable and confident team members who are inspired to improve the way we live and work.

Diversity and inclusivity (D&I) strengthen a workforce in all aspects. What are your top tips for budding talent leaders to ensure employees feel comfortable, empowered and included, no matter their background?

#1 Be explicit: Tell employees about your company’s D&I values and mission. Share your company’s position and value statement around this topic with them. Empower them to share their ideas and input and invite them to contribute if you notice they haven’t yet.

#2 Tie it to performance management: If D&I is a priority for the company, it ought to be baked into your performance management program. For team members generally, there should be a D&I component to goal setting each year. And with respect to people leaders and executives, there should be clear performance objectives with respect to diversity in talent acquisition and retention.

#3 Show an interest in their personal lives: You don’t need to force them to share, but simply acknowledging or inquiring about someone’s family or hobby can help employees know that their whole self is being seen.

Learn More: Why Workplace Wellbeing Initiatives Matter So Much: Q&A with Jewell Parkinson of SAPOpens a new window

In what ways can global companies leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to drive HR digital transformation at scale and at a pace that is in tune with the needs of the 21st century?

HR is fundamentally a service organization. Therefore, we ought to explore AI and ML applications initially to provide accurate, user-friendly and timely data to employees and other constituents within the organization. We’re in the initial stages of adopting these promising new technologies within our HR Operations team. As we do so, we are being very cautious about privacy rights and the appropriate use of employee data.

We’ve also seen a fair amount of experimentation with these technologies in staffing and sourcing of talent, largely by 3^rd party firms. I think it will take a few more years for these applications of AI and ML to mature and provide the types of outcomes and reliability we need to implement them at scale.

With higher demand for flexi-time, remote work and better work-life balance, will 2020 mark the end of the traditional workday? What are the top 3 strategies talent leaders need to put in place for a smooth transition to flexible work?

I think the traditional 9-5 clock-in/clock-out workday has already been changing for a long time. Although the human element of face-to-face interaction can be important, we now have the technological capacity to collaborate well with colleagues, customers, and partners without always having to catch a flight or commute into the office. By being smart about how we organize teams and leverage technology. I believe that organizations can become more efficient and enable their people to deliver better results while improving their quality of life.

We’ve been a flexible work environment at HPE for a while now with good success, and I think it can be attributed to embracing the following strategies:

#1 Trust and Empower: Leaders need to trust their employees to know how to best manage their time and workload and empower them to make choices about how they will best deliver results. I believe that if we hired someone, we inherently respect and trust them, so we need to empower them to work with their managers to define what their workday might look like.

#2 Open and Inclusive Culture: We get more out of our teams in flexible work arrangements when employees feel comfortable having open and honest conversations with their managers and within their teams. As with anything that is flexible, you need to adjust for business needs and circumstances, so it’s a multi-dimensional conversation between manager and team member, team member and other team members, and team members and their internal clients- but openness is key. Having a precedent of inclusive and open dialogues within teams can help to ensure the flexible model is working for everyone.

#3 Clarify Expectations: Flexible does not mean “no rules” or a boundless or chaotic environment. Talent leaders need to be clear with their teams what is expected and define how everyone is expected to interact and operate. For example, you might have specific days or meetings that you need your entire team to physically be in the office. You should likely set up a protocol for when a team member needs to work from home. Maybe you set up scheduled work-from-home days. Or if it’s ad-hoc, you might need to define when and who they need to inform. Setting clear expectations is key to making a flexible work environment in a productive work environment.

Learn More: Can Technology Help Solve the Diversity Conundrum in the Workplace?Opens a new window

How has HPE ensured that the employee rewards program works effectively for talent leaders as well as employees?

Simply put, we ask. We’re obsessively focused on employee engagement and culture, so we do a lot of measurement and surveying of employee sentiment. Our compensation and benefits programs are part of those surveys- both from a general team member standpoint and from a management perspective. Our employee engagement scores are up 18 points over the past two years to a top decile level versus both broad industry and tech industry norms.  These improvements are over a historically strong base and is a testament to the focus that our CEO, Antonio Neri, has placed on culture since taking the role.

We also benchmark our compensation and benefits programs to our industry and talent market peers to ensure we are competitive. For example, last year we extended our paid parental leave policy to a minimum of 24 weeks worldwide, for both parents upon the birth or adoption of a child, specifically because we knew it was among the most generous in the industry. In addition, we enable parents to work up to three years on a part-time basis upon return from parental leave. Aside from the need to attract and retain the best people, this is just the right thing to do to support families.

In what ways can analytics offer actionable insights to talent leaders for increased retention?

To borrow an oft-used adage, you can’t manage what you can’t measure, and that’s where analytics comes in. When an employee leaves, it’s virtually impossible for their direct manager to be able to identify that individual case within a broader trend that the company might be experiencing. Similarly, there are a lot of people who might be disengaged but staying put for personal reasons, and there’s an opportunity cost there about performance. This is where our HR teams and the predictive analytics that we use can help me objectively see what’s working and where we need to improve.

How have you seen HR leadership’s attitude towards HR tech evolve? How can HR managers build a successful business case to invest in more HR tech?

Again, I think it’s about service to employees and other internal stakeholders. I’m seeing HR organizations increasingly employing data science technology for predictive analytics to improve the usability and timeliness of the information we can provide.

Can you give us a sneak-peek into any upcoming projects at HPE on D&I that you are most excited about?

Able is a unique program that we’re incredibly proud of. By streamlining and centralizing the resources that are available to differently-abled team members, first and foremost we’ll be improving their experience and engagement in the workplace. Nobody should have to hunt and peck for the basic accommodations they need to do their jobs.

A big upcoming focus of ours is continuing to build D&I into our performance management and succession planning processes. For example, now compensation for every member of our Executive Council (C-suite) factors in goals around inclusion and diversity. In addition, we are overtly advancing those leaders that are most adept at creating and sustaining an inclusive culture. Leadership starts at the top, and we’re making this space a priority from the top down.

Which are the key trends you are tracking in the D&I space for 2020 and beyond?

There are four that we’re tracking closely at HPE:

1. Women in technology roles is certainly still the top issue: While our industry has made advances and we exceed the tech industry diverse representation in most categories, we need to keep raising the bar.
2. Gen X is now the largest generation in the workforce: So, efforts to bridge generational differences in work style and knowledge transfer is crucial to business’ ability to adapt to this generation’s imminent transition out of the workforce.
3. The baseline expectation from Gen Z coming into the workforce is that organizations are inclusive: This is no longer a nice thing to do, it needs to be a standard operating procedure.
4. Neurodiversity is a space we need to do more: To include and tap into the unique abilities this community brings to tech.

Neha: Thank you, Alan, for sharing your valuable insights on why diversity matters. We hope to talk to you again, soon.

About Alan MayOpens a new window :

Alan May is the Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer for Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

In this role, Alan has worldwide responsibility for the company’s development and organization effectiveness, benefits and compensation, staffing and retention, global inclusion and diversity, and HR processes and information management.

About Hewlett Packard EnterpriseOpens a new window :

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service company that helps organizations accelerate outcomes by unlocking value from all their data, everywhere. Built on decades of reimagining the future and innovating to advance the way we live and work, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions, with a consistent experience across all clouds and edges, to help customers develop new business models, engage in new ways, and increase operational performance.

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