April 8, 2025 • 30 mins
It's time for another CX Pulse Check to discuss current events and innovations in CX. In this illuminating conversation with Enrique Rubio, Founder at Hacking HR and Head of Global Community at Transform, and our host Jeannie Walters, we uncover how innovative organizations are finally bridging this gap through strategic use of data and technology.
Fresh from their encounters at Qualtrics' X4 conference, Enrique and Jeannie explore how our experiences as consumers now directly shape our expectations as employees. They examine Apple's $500 billion US investment through this lens, discussing not just the business implications but what it means for talent development and organizational design. The conversation turns to Ford's data-driven approach to employee experience, revealing how established companies with strong legacies can use analytics to understand workforce needs around career development and digital readiness. Perhaps most provocatively, they challenge prevailing wisdom about remote work.
Discover how connecting the dots between customer and employee experience can create competitive advantage where expectations are constantly evolving.
About Enrique Rubio:
Enrique is an HR, Tech and Future of Work expert, keynote speaker and founder of global communities. Enrique is currently an advisor to the community he built, Hacking HR, a global learning community operating at the intersection of future of work, technology, business and organizations, with thousands of members of all over the world; and the Head of Global Community at Transform, building a global community of local chapters covering every major city and region in the world.
Enrique is one of the top 100 HR global influencers. He was the founder and CEO at Management Consultants, a firmed specialized in Human Resources in Venezuela. Before Management Consultants, Enrique worked in the telecommunications sector as a Senior Project Engineer for Telefonica and several other companies in the early to mid-2000s. Enrique is a guest author in several blogs about innovation, management and human resources. Most recently Enrique worked as an advisor to the Chief Human Resources Officer at the Inter-American Development Bank.
Enrique frequently speaks about topics ranging from DEIB, future of work, HR strategy, employee experience, technology, among others. Additionally, Enrique designs hundreds of learning programs for the HR community in the form of events and short-term programs.
Enrique is a Fulbright Scholar, and Electronic Engineer with an Executive Master’s in Public Administration from Maxwell School at Syracuse University.
Follow Enrique on...
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubioenrique/
Articles Mentioned:
Apple’s $500 billion U.S. investment: What HR leaders need to know (HR Executive)
Ford's data-driven approach to Employee Experience (Diginomica)
Resources Mentioned:
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com
Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/jeanniewalters/)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeannie Walters (00:09):
Hi everyone, I'm Jeannie Walters and this is
the Experience Action Podcast.
This is the episode of themonth that I get most excited
about.
It's our CX Pulse Check episode, where we go over things that
are happening in real time todayand their impact on customer
experience and other topics.
And, speaking of that, I have aspecial co-host with me today.
(00:31):
I have Enrique Rubio, who isthe founder of Hacking HR and an
expert on HR, employeeexperience and lots of other
things.
So, Enrique, welcome toExperience Action.
I'm so glad that you're here.
Enrique Rubio (00:46):
Hi, Jeannie, thank you.
Thank you so much for invitingme to be part of this awesome
conversation and your phenomenalshow.
Thank you.
Jeannie Walters (00:54):
Thank you.
Well, I would love for you toshare a little bit more about
yourself and the role that youplay.
Enrique Rubio (01:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, my name is Enrique Rubio.
I live in the beautiful town ofFlagstaff in northern Arizona.
I am a technologist, or used tobe a technologist, by trade.
I am an electronic engineer.
I worked for a long time intelecommunications and then I
(01:20):
switched careers to HR, of allplaces that you can go to right
I mean there doesn't seem to bea connection in there, but there
is, and I've been in HR for thepast 12 years of my life, as a
consultant, then as an actualpractitioner.
My last corporate role was as achief of staff for CRO and now
as a community builder, buildingcommunities for HR with
(01:42):
Transform and Hacking HR, whichare the two communities that I
take part of.
So that's a little bit about me.
I am incredibly passionateabout possibilities in this new
era of work and I amparticularly excited about the
very real but difficult but veryreal possibility of HR leaders
(02:05):
and HR practitioners to be theleaders, the business leaders,
leading the way forward forothers to follow.
I always say HR can become thetrailblazer, marking the path
forward for organizations, forpeople, for other business
(02:29):
leaders to follow and be able tosucceed in this new era of work
.
So that's a little bit about me.
Jeannie Walters (02:31):
I love it, and one of the things that I think
you and I have in common is alot of organizations sometimes
don't give these leaders a placeat the table, both with
customer experience and HR, andwhen you really focus on these
things, they become businessdrivers.
They become the things thatmake the business go.
So I'm excited about thisconversation and we saw each
(02:55):
other recently at X4, which isthe big Qualtrics event in Salt
Lake City.
We literally bumped into eachother after not seeing each
other for a few years, and oneof the things I just wanted to
touch on before we jumped intoour hot topics today is a little
bit about that event.
It's a huge, very well-producedevent that they do every year,
(03:19):
and what I always walk away withis there's so much excitement
about the technology that'savailable to us now and some of
the use cases that you can startreally dreaming up when you see
all of these amazing advances.
But I also love hearing from thedifferent leaders that they
bring in and from lots ofdifferent industries, lots of
(03:40):
different types of organizations, and one of the things I walked
away with this year was thatwe're finally getting to the
place where employee feedbackand customer feedback, that
cycle, is being more connectedand operationalized and so,
instead of just doing thatemployment engagement survey
once a year and having yourcustomer surveys over here in a
(04:04):
different part of theorganization, they're connecting
the dots the leaders who aredoing this, the organizations
that are doing this really well,and I just thought that was a
really positive outcome that notonly this technology is
providing, but strategic leadersare providing that vision.
So that's what I saw, that'swhat I walked away with.
(04:24):
What are some of the thingsthat you saw there?
Enrique Rubio (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, the first thing is, youknow it's showing gratitude to
Qualtrics for inviting us to bepart of their event.
Great, great show, greatconversations, and I had the
chance to interview four leadersduring the conference and all
(04:50):
of them obviously in one way oranother taking advantage of
Qualtrics tools to be able tolisten to their employees, to
listen to their customers and,in the back end, connecting the
dots, right, in what kind ofinformation they are receiving
and how they can translate thatthose insights into actions that
(05:13):
allow them to build a betterworkplace and a better business
for their customers.
So the connecting of the dotswas, to me, perhaps one of the
most interesting things thatQualtrics is working on together
with our clients, and you and Iwere offline.
We're talking about the factthat every one of us is, at the
(05:36):
same time, a customer and anemployee, and we sometimes, and
very often, we are spoiled bythe capacity that a business has
to serve us in a way that isincredibly easy, streamlined,
straightforward, and then theycreate an expectation in us and
(06:01):
that expectation becomes theexpectation that we bring to our
employer.
And then we ask ourselves why isit that with one click in my
phone, I can do all these thingsas a customer of a business,
but then when I go to myemployer to do something that is
a lot simpler than the actionthat I am taking with that
business that is serving me, todo something that is a lot
(06:22):
simpler, I have to go throughall these hoops and all these
processes and all these hurdlesto get something done, and
that's frustrating because ourexpectations as an employee but
as a customer, is not anymorejust informed by what my
(06:43):
employer is giving me, but alsoby the awesomeness that I am
receiving from the businessesthat are serving me.
So, connecting information aboutmy behaviors, my expectations
as a customer, and then how thattranslates into what I expect
my employer to do for me andwhat I expect me to do for my
(07:03):
employer, connecting those dots,it's just such a holy grail of
information and data that canguide actions and new ideas for
those companies the ones thatI'm working for but that are
also serving other people.
(07:24):
So that, to me, was the mostinteresting finding from the
conference that connectivitybetween employee and customer
insights from data that we'recollecting, in this case using
Qualtrics.
Jeannie Walters (07:39):
That's right.
That's right.
And Danny Meyer from ShakeShack, the founder of Shake
Shack and he's also just a verywell-known restaurateur, he
talked about how you know wehave to remember that your
employees are your firstcustomer.
Your employees are the ones whoare going to you know, need to
(08:01):
follow these processes, haveless friction, all of these
things and that was a theme Iheard repeated by some of these
leaders as well.
I think it was Delta Airlinesand some other ones who talked
about how you know, when we lookat the friction points in the
customer journey, if we actuallytake the time to talk to those
employees and understand what'shappening, we often will see
(08:24):
it's not just that you know it'sfriction for the customer, but
it's friction for the employee.
There's some process point,there's some policy that is
making it difficult for them toserve the customer in the way
that they want to be served.
So I think this deeperconnection between HR and
employee experience and customerexperience is just going to
(08:47):
benefit everybody.
But it's that real-timeconnection that this technology
is allowing for and that, Ithink, is very, very exciting.
And speaking of technology,that's what we're starting with
a little technology firm you mayhave heard of.
Let me share the headline we'retalking about.
(09:08):
So this is from HR.
Enrique Rubio (09:10):
Just Apple.
Jeannie Walters (09:11):
Yeah, just it's Apple, it's this little
California company.
So this is from HR Executiveand the headline is Apple's $500
billion US investment what HRleaders need to know.
Now, I mean this has made a lotof headlines for a lot of
reasons, but I thought this wasan interesting angle.
(09:33):
When we think about thisinvestment, part of what Apple
is doing is really trying to andthis is how I interpret it put
a stake in the ground for UStalent development and for
developing all theseopportunities for US workers.
So I'm curious on your take onthis.
(09:56):
What did you see in this?
What do you think HR leadersneed to know?
How do you think this willimpact, kind of either current
or future work?
Enrique Rubio (10:05):
Yeah, absolutely Well, when you think about a
$500 billion investment, I thinkany person would immediately
know that this money is going toprocesses, technology, systems,
lines of production and people,right, and people whom you will
(10:25):
need to recruit, whether it isexisting talent in your
pipelines, in your existingpipelines inside your
organization which is unlikely,by the way because an investment
like this immediately tells methat you will have to hire more
people than you currently haveor move them around, and that
(10:47):
entails re-skilling, thatentails creating new designs for
your organizations, new jobdescriptions, new job design,
new policies, right, you know,new hiring strategies, talent
attraction strategies.
So you probably will need tobuild an entire HR function
(11:09):
around just this investment.
And, to me, when this happens, Ithink it's a great opportunity
to not begin from scratch, beginfrom the baseline of what have
we done right and what have wedone wrong in our organization.
So what do we do to not repeatthe same mistakes of the past
(11:34):
and what do we do to leveragethe good things that make our
company such a hallmark oftechnology and brand and all
these positive things, right?
So that's one thing you got totake advantage of what you have
(11:55):
done right, and you have to makesure that you're identifying
what you don't have, what youhave done in the past that may
not have delivered the valuethat you wanted to deliver.
So I would begin from there.
Obviously.
Jeannie Walters (12:07):
You know what I just want to follow up on that,
because I think it's a reallygood point where sometimes we
invest in kind of what isalready happening just because
we want you know.
That's how we think of scalesometimes.
Yeah, well, we're going to justdo more, we're just going to
have more.
Enrique Rubio (12:24):
We're all the same.
Yeah, yes.
Jeannie Walters (12:34):
And I think you're bringing up a really
important point that this is agreat opportunity to reevaluate,
to say, okay, what is happeninghere, what is working, and also
what might not work fortomorrow.
Like it might be working today,but we know that all this
innovation is happening.
We know that customerexpectations are changing.
We know that even the waydifferent generations are
entering the workforce, theyhave different expectations
right.
So, thinking through all ofthat before just saying more, I
(12:57):
think that's a really criticalquestion that any leader should
be asking right now.
Enrique Rubio (13:02):
Well, you know, I got to tell you one of my
favorite quotes and I'm going tocompletely butcher the quote
because I don't remember exactlyhow it goes, but not
coincidentally it was said in aninterview by Steve Jobs.
You know, Steve Jobs left Appleand then he was brought back in
when Apple had lost its way andwas on the brink of bankruptcy,
(13:23):
right, and you know, on thebrink of like you know, like
completely losing what it was.
And when Steve Jobs came back,he was asked I mean, he pretty
much turned around that company,like not overnight, but it took
them, you know, it took them,you know, a quick action right,
to turn it around and to turn itback into this very innovative
company that it was.
(13:43):
When he came back, and he wasasked what happened?
You know, why did you createsuch an amazing company?
You leave, you come back andthe company is almost on the
brink of bankruptcy.
And he said something along thelines of this right, he said
that the company had had manysuccesses, but what it was
(14:04):
trying to do was to repeat thesame process that it had for
some success, to build successesin other areas.
And he said that doesn't work,because what got you there.
What got you here won't get youthere.
You know the process that webuilt to do, you know, the
Macintosh, the process that wedid to build, you know, certain
(14:24):
products won't help us build thesmartphone, the next.
You know the iPod, the allthese new technologies that he
was inventing, right?
So it is exactly the same thingthat you're saying.
Scaling as a company doesn'tmean repeating the processes
that you have in place, but moreof it.
It may mean that you need tocompletely, you know, hack out
(14:47):
all of those processes,completely, cut them out of the
equation and say we got to beginfrom scratch here, because this
process has brought us here butwon't get us there.
That requires, as a businessleader, that requires a lot of
energy around innovation andgrowth and a lot of energy about
(15:10):
being able to let things go.
Because, again, you know likeone of the problems with the
people from Apple before SteveJobs came back was that they
were in love with certainprocesses that were very
successful, but not for the newera of technology, and that's
why they were on the brink ofbankruptcy, right?
(15:30):
So, once again, it is the sameprocess here.
So, Apple, the message for youis if you want to be successful
in your $500 billion investment,do what your founder said Don't
repeat the same processes thatbrought you to this place.
Some of the components of thoseprocesses may still be relevant
(15:51):
, but maybe not the process as awhole, so you just got to
reinvent yourself.
That's the whole point here.
Jeannie Walters (15:58):
I think you and I, as entrepreneurs who have
scaled a little bit, we canrelate to this right.
There are things that you thinkthis is going to work forever.
Enrique Rubio (16:09):
Yeah, correct, yeah.
Jeannie Walters (16:11):
And then the market changes or something
happens, and I think you know wedo something with our clients
called Disruptor Day, where it'sall about innovation, because
if you are not thinking aboutthe customer experience and
really thinking about how todisrupt your industry, then
someone else is going to disruptyou.
(16:31):
And so you have to constantly bein this mode of innovation and
disruption around experiencesand I think the same thing that
you're talking about withemployee experience and HR, like
we have to start being supercritical in a way, using that
critical eye to say is thisworking today and will it work
(16:52):
tomorrow?
And if I don't know what willwork tomorrow, I need to start
thinking about that now.
Because, that's the other thingis that it's very easy to sit
back.
So yeah, I think,
Enrique Rubio (17:02):
and as Apple, as a company, especially with an
investment like this, you got tomake sure that you get it right
.
And because companies like thishave so many resources, you
can't really stop for one dayand think what do we want to
build here?
Right, you know what kind ofcompany, what is the culture
that we want to build for thiscompany?
(17:24):
And that takes me back to likethe simplest kinds of questions
as job design, where people work, from the size of the teams,
the kind of leaders that we wantto bring.
All of those questions have tobe on the table if you are going
to be investing $500 billion ininfrastructure and new products
(17:46):
and all of this and you want tomake it right.
And now you have the data.
I mean, you're a company thathas been around for 50 years now
40, 50 years so you have enoughdata to tell you what kinds of
things don't work and what kindof things may work.
Just stop for a second and puteverything on the table and
begin from a place that willhelp you design the right kind
(18:10):
of organization.
Jeannie Walters (18:11):
That's right.
Well, speaking of data, you setthis up perfectly, thank you.
So our next topic here is fromDiginomica, and the headline is
Ford's Data-Driven Approach toEmployee Experience Balancing
Tradition with Transformation.
And the reason I wanted to talkabout this is because when we
(18:32):
went to, you know, the Qualtricsevent and you start talking to
a lot of these largeorganizations, they have to deal
with legacy.
They have to deal with thelegacy of their brand, they have
to deal with the legacy oftheir systems, of everything
else, and sometimes to the pointwe were just talking about,
that can be really hard tochange.
(18:53):
And so, now that we'reconnecting these dots with data,
we are making sure that we arelistening to employees in more
regular ways, in ways that wecan act on, in ways to make sure
that it's not just.
You know, I remember when Iwould be consulting with a
company and they'd say, oh well,we've got to take a week off
because, like of our project,because we're doing the
(19:15):
employment or the employeeengagement survey.
And I was like well, great, I'msure everybody loves that right,
and now that we can tap intothis in such a more regular way,
and so I think it's interestingto think about a company like
Ford, a company that has beenaround for a long time really
(19:35):
trying to figure out what is itthat we need, like, what is the
data that we need, and they'reusing analytics to understand
and improve employee experience,but especially around career
development and digitalreadiness, and I think that's
the part that's really stood outto me.
So what did you think aboutthis and what can other leaders
(19:57):
take away from this?
Enrique Rubio (20:00):
Very good question and good point about
using the data in the context ofcompanies that are bringing a
lot of legacy right in the waythey operate and in what their
brand means.
But again I'm going to go backto the same point about Steve
Jobs before what brought youhere won't take you there.
So you've got to be flexible asa company to know how much you
(20:22):
pull and how much you push, andwhat I mean by that is how much
you will have to let go.
I mean, you don't have tosacrifice your brand.
You're an automaker, but Fordstarted as an automaker using
gas and now they are creatingall these EV vehicles, right, so
that alone represents a pushinto new markets, new technology
(20:42):
.
Your brand is still anautomaker brand and you want to
create the safest, fastest, moreenergy-efficient vehicles in
the world, and you open a newline of production that is
creating EV, electrical vehicles.
So you just have to listen towhat your customers are asking
(21:04):
for.
You just have to also listen towhat your employees are saying
and you've got to put that inthe context of how do we remain
a competitive, innovativecompany going forward for the
next 100 years.
So that means that you have toput in the context of that
question how do we remain aprofitable, competitive,
sustainable, successful companyover the next 100 years?
(21:27):
What that means is what do Ikeep as the legacy components of
my brand?
With what do I have to let goto build the new that will help
me get to those next 100 years?
As a business leader, you can'tget attached to things you can't
get attached to this is thething that we do.
This is the cash cow.
(21:47):
This is the thing that we'realways going to milk, because
tomorrow is not going to bethere and if you fail to see
that there are other thingshappening in the world, because
you're so focused on the currentcash cow, you're missing out on
opportunities and by the timeyou may realize, oh my gosh, I
should have foreseen this in thepast.
(22:09):
Maybe by that time it's alreadytoo late.
Jeannie Walters (22:11):
So I think, one of the things that, again, we
heard about a lot at X4 and alsojust in general.
We know the importance ofculture in an organization and
how people need to feel likethey belong.
They're part of this biggerculture.
But culture is one of thosethings that people love to kind
of talk about but notnecessarily define.
(22:31):
It's one of those things peoplefeel it when they feel it, but
they don't when they don't.
And I'm curious with all thenew kind of data points and
analytics that we can use to tapinto how employees are really
feeling, how are they reallyengaged.
How can we use that to createand improve cultures within
workplaces?
Do you have any thoughts onthat?
Enrique Rubio (22:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, the first one is thatculture is the way we get the
work done.
Culture is everything and it isthe blood of an organization,
you know.
And if you don't have blood inyour organization, you're dead.
It doesn't matter, you're deadright.
So you can add, you knowsynthetic parts to your body.
(23:14):
Without the blood, it's stilldead right, because we need that
for the entire system tooperate properly.
So, as the blood of anorganization, that means it goes
from how you present yourselfas a brand to the public, the
things you say privately andpublicly, the way your leaders
lead, the way your directmanagers manage their teams and
(23:36):
get the work done in those teams, the way people interact with
each other.
What happens when you areconfronted with difficult
decisions, like, for example,right now in the US?
You know there's a war by theTrump administration on
diversity, equity and inclusion.
So your culture will determine,not Trump.
Your culture will determinewhether DEI is important for you
(23:58):
or not.
But if you, as a company, saywe built this organization by
having diverse practices in ourhiring, by bringing diverse
talent, by being an inclusivecompany where people feel that
they belong and where they canbe themselves, then we're going
to double down on DEI,regardless of what the President
(24:19):
of the United States says.
Right, because that's part ofour core.
That's your culture.
Your culture is all of that.
Your culture is not justactually it's not even the
values that you have on yourwebsite or on a wall that say,
oh, we treat each other withrespect.
And then you see on Glassdoorthat your leaders are being
assessed very poorly becausethey don't treat people with
(24:41):
respect.
So it doesn't really matterthat you say that you're a
company that values respect, ifthat's what you're seeing, but
what you're listening from thedata, or with the data from your
people and what your people aresaying about your leaders.
So that's the entire spectrumof culture.
Everything falls there, right.
So now we are in times wherecompanies are being pushed to
(25:08):
produce more with less resources, where burnout employee burnout
is a real thing.
Where 60% of employees arelooking for another job,
sometimes actively looking foranother job, which is insane,
right.
Where you have multiplegenerations that have different
expectations working side byside in the workforce.
Where maybe the oldergenerations don't want to retire
(25:29):
anymore and the youngergenerations want to be able to
build a family as well.
So all of these factors are inplay, and that means that you
really have to think very, verydeeply and strategically about
what you want your culture to be, what components of your legacy
culture you still want to keepin place and what components are
(25:51):
not working anymore.
One of these questions,obviously, which I can still
believe that we are still todaytalking about it I think it's
just the stupidest thing everthat we're still talking about
whether people come to work froman office or remotely.
That, to me, is the stupidestconversation that can ever
happen, right?
Because if you look at the data, the data is telling you that
(26:11):
there was a period of time wherepeople had enough flexibility
to increase productivity, to bemore engaged, and, yes, there
were some indicators that werenot going properly, like people
didn't feel that they belongedto their teams and to their
organizations when they wereworking remotely.
Well, you fix that.
You don't force people back toan office.
You know to.
(26:32):
You know to solve a problemthat is not going to be solved
by that action.
So, anyway, the point here isyour culture is everything.
Your culture will help you hirethe best talent and retain the
best talent.
Your culture will help you gothrough difficult times.
Your culture will help you havepeople say I belong to this
(26:55):
company and therefore, because Iam so committed and so loyal, I
am going to give 100% of mytalents to finding out solutions
to the most critical challengesthat our company is dealing
with.
All of that is determined byyour culture.
Jeannie Walters (27:11):
And I think the point that you made early on
was there are certain behaviorsand activities and questions we
can ask that really help usunderstand are we really aligned
with that culture?
Are people feeling thatalignment?
Because if they aren't, that'swhat shows up on Glassdoor,
that's what shows up on yourretention and all of those
things.
And I totally agree about thereturn to office conversation,
(27:34):
because people are alwayssurprised.
I started this company 15 yearsago and we've been remote the
entire time and we have, youknow, a team that I think would
tell you they feel veryconnected, they feel very much
like so there are ways to do itwithout necessarily saying show
up in the office.
And sometimes I mean I talk tomy friends who sometimes have to
(27:54):
show up and there's nobody elsethere, so they're still doing
Zoom from an office which isyeah.
Enrique Rubio (27:59):
Be clear about what the foundations of your
culture are.
If you are a company where youwant people to work from an
office, say it.
Say it because there are peoplewho do want to work all the
time from an office, and you maytap into those people right.
Where things get tricky is whenyou operate in a gray area and
(28:21):
it's on the whim of your moodwhen things change.
Right, when you say, oh, todayI want everybody to come back to
the office after you hire themto offer them flexibility or
vice versa.
Right, you say, oh, now we wantto be an all remote or a hybrid
organization.
When you hire people to beworking from certain locations,
just make sure that you as acompany, are also aligned and
(28:45):
clear about what your values areand what your culture is, and
communicate it.
Don't be what you're not.
Be great at what you actuallyare, and I think that's going to
make a difference.
Jeannie Walters (28:55):
Well, Enrique, I just wish you had brought a
little more passion to thisconversation.
This was so fun.
I think it was fate that we saweach other in the hallway there
at the Salt Lake CityConvention Center and I just
really appreciate yourperspective and this
conversation.
So thank you so much forjoining me, and if those out
(29:18):
there listening right now wantto learn more about you or
connect, what's the best way forthem to do that?
Enrique Rubio (29:23):
They can look me up on LinkedIn.
I'm hanging out in there allthe time posting content and all
the good stuff.
So thank you, Jeannie, forinviting me, and I hope your
listeners connect with me and wecan continue to share more
ideas and insights together.
Jeannie Walters (29:37):
Excellent.
Well, thank you so much,Enrique, and thank you for being
here.
We, of course, appreciate allthat you do every day to make
this connection between customerexperience and employee
experience matter even more, sothanks for being here with me.
We can't wait to talk to youagain.
And don't forget, you can askme a question at askjeannievip
(29:59):
and I could answer it for youhere on the Experience Action
Podcast.
Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
Hi everyone, I'm Jeannie Walters and this is
the Experience Action Podcast.
This is the episode of themonth that I get most excited
about.
It's our CX Pulse Check episode, where we go over things that
are happening in real time todayand their impact on customer
experience and other topics.
And, speaking of that, I have aspecial co-host with me today.
(00:31):
I have Enrique Rubio, who isthe founder of Hacking HR and an
expert on HR, employeeexperience and lots of other
things.
So, Enrique, welcome toExperience Action.
I'm so glad that you're here.
Enrique Rubio (00:46):
Hi, Jeannie, thank you.
Thank you so much for invitingme to be part of this awesome
conversation and your phenomenalshow.
Thank you.
Jeannie Walters (00:54):
Thank you.
Well, I would love for you toshare a little bit more about
yourself and the role that youplay.
Enrique Rubio (01:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, my name is Enrique Rubio.
I live in the beautiful town ofFlagstaff in northern Arizona.
I am a technologist, or used tobe a technologist, by trade.
I am an electronic engineer.
I worked for a long time intelecommunications and then I
(01:20):
switched careers to HR, of allplaces that you can go to right
I mean there doesn't seem to bea connection in there, but there
is, and I've been in HR for thepast 12 years of my life, as a
consultant, then as an actualpractitioner.
My last corporate role was as achief of staff for CRO and now
as a community builder, buildingcommunities for HR with
(01:42):
Transform and Hacking HR, whichare the two communities that I
take part of.
So that's a little bit about me.
I am incredibly passionateabout possibilities in this new
era of work and I amparticularly excited about the
very real but difficult but veryreal possibility of HR leaders
(02:05):
and HR practitioners to be theleaders, the business leaders,
leading the way forward forothers to follow.
I always say HR can become thetrailblazer, marking the path
forward for organizations, forpeople, for other business
(02:29):
leaders to follow and be able tosucceed in this new era of work
.
So that's a little bit about me.
Jeannie Walters (02:31):
I love it, and one of the things that I think
you and I have in common is alot of organizations sometimes
don't give these leaders a placeat the table, both with
customer experience and HR, andwhen you really focus on these
things, they become businessdrivers.
They become the things thatmake the business go.
So I'm excited about thisconversation and we saw each
(02:55):
other recently at X4, which isthe big Qualtrics event in Salt
Lake City.
We literally bumped into eachother after not seeing each
other for a few years, and oneof the things I just wanted to
touch on before we jumped intoour hot topics today is a little
bit about that event.
It's a huge, very well-producedevent that they do every year,
(03:19):
and what I always walk away withis there's so much excitement
about the technology that'savailable to us now and some of
the use cases that you can startreally dreaming up when you see
all of these amazing advances.
But I also love hearing from thedifferent leaders that they
bring in and from lots ofdifferent industries, lots of
(03:40):
different types of organizations, and one of the things I walked
away with this year was thatwe're finally getting to the
place where employee feedbackand customer feedback, that
cycle, is being more connectedand operationalized and so,
instead of just doing thatemployment engagement survey
once a year and having yourcustomer surveys over here in a
(04:04):
different part of theorganization, they're connecting
the dots the leaders who aredoing this, the organizations
that are doing this really well,and I just thought that was a
really positive outcome that notonly this technology is
providing, but strategic leadersare providing that vision.
So that's what I saw, that'swhat I walked away with.
(04:24):
What are some of the thingsthat you saw there?
Enrique Rubio (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, the first thing is, youknow it's showing gratitude to
Qualtrics for inviting us to bepart of their event.
Great, great show, greatconversations, and I had the
chance to interview four leadersduring the conference and all
(04:50):
of them obviously in one way oranother taking advantage of
Qualtrics tools to be able tolisten to their employees, to
listen to their customers and,in the back end, connecting the
dots, right, in what kind ofinformation they are receiving
and how they can translate thatthose insights into actions that
(05:13):
allow them to build a betterworkplace and a better business
for their customers.
So the connecting of the dotswas, to me, perhaps one of the
most interesting things thatQualtrics is working on together
with our clients, and you and Iwere offline.
We're talking about the factthat every one of us is, at the
(05:36):
same time, a customer and anemployee, and we sometimes, and
very often, we are spoiled bythe capacity that a business has
to serve us in a way that isincredibly easy, streamlined,
straightforward, and then theycreate an expectation in us and
(06:01):
that expectation becomes theexpectation that we bring to our
employer.
And then we ask ourselves why isit that with one click in my
phone, I can do all these thingsas a customer of a business,
but then when I go to myemployer to do something that is
a lot simpler than the actionthat I am taking with that
business that is serving me, todo something that is a lot
(06:22):
simpler, I have to go throughall these hoops and all these
processes and all these hurdlesto get something done, and
that's frustrating because ourexpectations as an employee but
as a customer, is not anymorejust informed by what my
(06:43):
employer is giving me, but alsoby the awesomeness that I am
receiving from the businessesthat are serving me.
So, connecting information aboutmy behaviors, my expectations
as a customer, and then how thattranslates into what I expect
my employer to do for me andwhat I expect me to do for my
(07:03):
employer, connecting those dots,it's just such a holy grail of
information and data that canguide actions and new ideas for
those companies the ones thatI'm working for but that are
also serving other people.
(07:24):
So that, to me, was the mostinteresting finding from the
conference that connectivitybetween employee and customer
insights from data that we'recollecting, in this case using
Qualtrics.
Jeannie Walters (07:39):
That's right.
That's right.
And Danny Meyer from ShakeShack, the founder of Shake
Shack and he's also just a verywell-known restaurateur, he
talked about how you know wehave to remember that your
employees are your firstcustomer.
Your employees are the ones whoare going to you know, need to
(08:01):
follow these processes, haveless friction, all of these
things and that was a theme Iheard repeated by some of these
leaders as well.
I think it was Delta Airlinesand some other ones who talked
about how you know, when we lookat the friction points in the
customer journey, if we actuallytake the time to talk to those
employees and understand what'shappening, we often will see
(08:24):
it's not just that you know it'sfriction for the customer, but
it's friction for the employee.
There's some process point,there's some policy that is
making it difficult for them toserve the customer in the way
that they want to be served.
So I think this deeperconnection between HR and
employee experience and customerexperience is just going to
(08:47):
benefit everybody.
But it's that real-timeconnection that this technology
is allowing for and that, Ithink, is very, very exciting.
And speaking of technology,that's what we're starting with
a little technology firm you mayhave heard of.
Let me share the headline we'retalking about.
(09:08):
So this is from HR.
Enrique Rubio (09:10):
Just Apple.
Jeannie Walters (09:11):
Yeah, just it's Apple, it's this little
California company.
So this is from HR Executiveand the headline is Apple's $500
billion US investment what HRleaders need to know.
Now, I mean this has made a lotof headlines for a lot of
reasons, but I thought this wasan interesting angle.
(09:33):
When we think about thisinvestment, part of what Apple
is doing is really trying to andthis is how I interpret it put
a stake in the ground for UStalent development and for
developing all theseopportunities for US workers.
So I'm curious on your take onthis.
(09:56):
What did you see in this?
What do you think HR leadersneed to know?
How do you think this willimpact, kind of either current
or future work?
Enrique Rubio (10:05):
Yeah, absolutely Well, when you think about a
$500 billion investment, I thinkany person would immediately
know that this money is going toprocesses, technology, systems,
lines of production and people,right, and people whom you will
(10:25):
need to recruit, whether it isexisting talent in your
pipelines, in your existingpipelines inside your
organization which is unlikely,by the way because an investment
like this immediately tells methat you will have to hire more
people than you currently haveor move them around, and that
(10:47):
entails re-skilling, thatentails creating new designs for
your organizations, new jobdescriptions, new job design,
new policies, right, you know,new hiring strategies, talent
attraction strategies.
So you probably will need tobuild an entire HR function
(11:09):
around just this investment.
And, to me, when this happens, Ithink it's a great opportunity
to not begin from scratch, beginfrom the baseline of what have
we done right and what have wedone wrong in our organization.
So what do we do to not repeatthe same mistakes of the past
(11:34):
and what do we do to leveragethe good things that make our
company such a hallmark oftechnology and brand and all
these positive things, right?
So that's one thing you got totake advantage of what you have
(11:55):
done right, and you have to makesure that you're identifying
what you don't have, what youhave done in the past that may
not have delivered the valuethat you wanted to deliver.
So I would begin from there.
Obviously.
Jeannie Walters (12:07):
You know what I just want to follow up on that,
because I think it's a reallygood point where sometimes we
invest in kind of what isalready happening just because
we want you know.
That's how we think of scalesometimes.
Yeah, well, we're going to justdo more, we're just going to
have more.
Enrique Rubio (12:24):
We're all the same.
Yeah, yes.
Jeannie Walters (12:34):
And I think you're bringing up a really
important point that this is agreat opportunity to reevaluate,
to say, okay, what is happeninghere, what is working, and also
what might not work fortomorrow.
Like it might be working today,but we know that all this
innovation is happening.
We know that customerexpectations are changing.
We know that even the waydifferent generations are
entering the workforce, theyhave different expectations
right.
So, thinking through all ofthat before just saying more, I
(12:57):
think that's a really criticalquestion that any leader should
be asking right now.
Enrique Rubio (13:02):
Well, you know, I got to tell you one of my
favorite quotes and I'm going tocompletely butcher the quote
because I don't remember exactlyhow it goes, but not
coincidentally it was said in aninterview by Steve Jobs.
You know, Steve Jobs left Appleand then he was brought back in
when Apple had lost its way andwas on the brink of bankruptcy,
(13:23):
right, and you know, on thebrink of like you know, like
completely losing what it was.
And when Steve Jobs came back,he was asked I mean, he pretty
much turned around that company,like not overnight, but it took
them, you know, it took them,you know, a quick action right,
to turn it around and to turn itback into this very innovative
company that it was.
(13:43):
When he came back, and he wasasked what happened?
You know, why did you createsuch an amazing company?
You leave, you come back andthe company is almost on the
brink of bankruptcy.
And he said something along thelines of this right, he said
that the company had had manysuccesses, but what it was
(14:04):
trying to do was to repeat thesame process that it had for
some success, to build successesin other areas.
And he said that doesn't work,because what got you there.
What got you here won't get youthere.
You know the process that webuilt to do, you know, the
Macintosh, the process that wedid to build, you know, certain
(14:24):
products won't help us build thesmartphone, the next.
You know the iPod, the allthese new technologies that he
was inventing, right?
So it is exactly the same thingthat you're saying.
Scaling as a company doesn'tmean repeating the processes
that you have in place, but moreof it.
It may mean that you need tocompletely, you know, hack out
(14:47):
all of those processes,completely, cut them out of the
equation and say we got to beginfrom scratch here, because this
process has brought us here butwon't get us there.
That requires, as a businessleader, that requires a lot of
energy around innovation andgrowth and a lot of energy about
(15:10):
being able to let things go.
Because, again, you know likeone of the problems with the
people from Apple before SteveJobs came back was that they
were in love with certainprocesses that were very
successful, but not for the newera of technology, and that's
why they were on the brink ofbankruptcy, right?
(15:30):
So, once again, it is the sameprocess here.
So, Apple, the message for youis if you want to be successful
in your $500 billion investment,do what your founder said Don't
repeat the same processes thatbrought you to this place.
Some of the components of thoseprocesses may still be relevant
(15:51):
, but maybe not the process as awhole, so you just got to
reinvent yourself.
That's the whole point here.
Jeannie Walters (15:58):
I think you and I, as entrepreneurs who have
scaled a little bit, we canrelate to this right.
There are things that you thinkthis is going to work forever.
Enrique Rubio (16:09):
Yeah, correct, yeah.
Jeannie Walters (16:11):
And then the market changes or something
happens, and I think you know wedo something with our clients
called Disruptor Day, where it'sall about innovation, because
if you are not thinking aboutthe customer experience and
really thinking about how todisrupt your industry, then
someone else is going to disruptyou.
(16:31):
And so you have to constantly bein this mode of innovation and
disruption around experiencesand I think the same thing that
you're talking about withemployee experience and HR, like
we have to start being supercritical in a way, using that
critical eye to say is thisworking today and will it work
(16:52):
tomorrow?
And if I don't know what willwork tomorrow, I need to start
thinking about that now.
Because, that's the other thingis that it's very easy to sit
back.
So yeah, I think,
Enrique Rubio (17:02):
and as Apple, as a company, especially with an
investment like this, you got tomake sure that you get it right
.
And because companies like thishave so many resources, you
can't really stop for one dayand think what do we want to
build here?
Right, you know what kind ofcompany, what is the culture
that we want to build for thiscompany?
(17:24):
And that takes me back to likethe simplest kinds of questions
as job design, where people work, from the size of the teams,
the kind of leaders that we wantto bring.
All of those questions have tobe on the table if you are going
to be investing $500 billion ininfrastructure and new products
(17:46):
and all of this and you want tomake it right.
And now you have the data.
I mean, you're a company thathas been around for 50 years now
40, 50 years so you have enoughdata to tell you what kinds of
things don't work and what kindof things may work.
Just stop for a second and puteverything on the table and
begin from a place that willhelp you design the right kind
(18:10):
of organization.
Jeannie Walters (18:11):
That's right.
Well, speaking of data, you setthis up perfectly, thank you.
So our next topic here is fromDiginomica, and the headline is
Ford's Data-Driven Approach toEmployee Experience Balancing
Tradition with Transformation.
And the reason I wanted to talkabout this is because when we
(18:32):
went to, you know, the Qualtricsevent and you start talking to
a lot of these largeorganizations, they have to deal
with legacy.
They have to deal with thelegacy of their brand, they have
to deal with the legacy oftheir systems, of everything
else, and sometimes to the pointwe were just talking about,
that can be really hard tochange.
(18:53):
And so, now that we'reconnecting these dots with data,
we are making sure that we arelistening to employees in more
regular ways, in ways that wecan act on, in ways to make sure
that it's not just.
You know, I remember when Iwould be consulting with a
company and they'd say, oh well,we've got to take a week off
because, like of our project,because we're doing the
(19:15):
employment or the employeeengagement survey.
And I was like well, great, I'msure everybody loves that right,
and now that we can tap intothis in such a more regular way,
and so I think it's interestingto think about a company like
Ford, a company that has beenaround for a long time really
(19:35):
trying to figure out what is itthat we need, like, what is the
data that we need, and they'reusing analytics to understand
and improve employee experience,but especially around career
development and digitalreadiness, and I think that's
the part that's really stood outto me.
So what did you think aboutthis and what can other leaders
(19:57):
take away from this?
Enrique Rubio (20:00):
Very good question and good point about
using the data in the context ofcompanies that are bringing a
lot of legacy right in the waythey operate and in what their
brand means.
But again I'm going to go backto the same point about Steve
Jobs before what brought youhere won't take you there.
So you've got to be flexible asa company to know how much you
(20:22):
pull and how much you push, andwhat I mean by that is how much
you will have to let go.
I mean, you don't have tosacrifice your brand.
You're an automaker, but Fordstarted as an automaker using
gas and now they are creatingall these EV vehicles, right, so
that alone represents a pushinto new markets, new technology
(20:42):
.
Your brand is still anautomaker brand and you want to
create the safest, fastest, moreenergy-efficient vehicles in
the world, and you open a newline of production that is
creating EV, electrical vehicles.
So you just have to listen towhat your customers are asking
(21:04):
for.
You just have to also listen towhat your employees are saying
and you've got to put that inthe context of how do we remain
a competitive, innovativecompany going forward for the
next 100 years.
So that means that you have toput in the context of that
question how do we remain aprofitable, competitive,
sustainable, successful companyover the next 100 years?
(21:27):
What that means is what do Ikeep as the legacy components of
my brand?
With what do I have to let goto build the new that will help
me get to those next 100 years?
As a business leader, you can'tget attached to things you can't
get attached to this is thething that we do.
This is the cash cow.
(21:47):
This is the thing that we'realways going to milk, because
tomorrow is not going to bethere and if you fail to see
that there are other thingshappening in the world, because
you're so focused on the currentcash cow, you're missing out on
opportunities and by the timeyou may realize, oh my gosh, I
should have foreseen this in thepast.
(22:09):
Maybe by that time it's alreadytoo late.
Jeannie Walters (22:11):
So I think, one of the things that, again, we
heard about a lot at X4 and alsojust in general.
We know the importance ofculture in an organization and
how people need to feel likethey belong.
They're part of this biggerculture.
But culture is one of thosethings that people love to kind
of talk about but notnecessarily define.
(22:31):
It's one of those things peoplefeel it when they feel it, but
they don't when they don't.
And I'm curious with all thenew kind of data points and
analytics that we can use to tapinto how employees are really
feeling, how are they reallyengaged.
How can we use that to createand improve cultures within
workplaces?
Do you have any thoughts onthat?
Enrique Rubio (22:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, the first one is thatculture is the way we get the
work done.
Culture is everything and it isthe blood of an organization,
you know.
And if you don't have blood inyour organization, you're dead.
It doesn't matter, you're deadright.
So you can add, you knowsynthetic parts to your body.
(23:14):
Without the blood, it's stilldead right, because we need that
for the entire system tooperate properly.
So, as the blood of anorganization, that means it goes
from how you present yourselfas a brand to the public, the
things you say privately andpublicly, the way your leaders
lead, the way your directmanagers manage their teams and
(23:36):
get the work done in those teams, the way people interact with
each other.
What happens when you areconfronted with difficult
decisions, like, for example,right now in the US?
You know there's a war by theTrump administration on
diversity, equity and inclusion.
So your culture will determine,not Trump.
Your culture will determinewhether DEI is important for you
(23:58):
or not.
But if you, as a company, saywe built this organization by
having diverse practices in ourhiring, by bringing diverse
talent, by being an inclusivecompany where people feel that
they belong and where they canbe themselves, then we're going
to double down on DEI,regardless of what the President
(24:19):
of the United States says.
Right, because that's part ofour core.
That's your culture.
Your culture is all of that.
Your culture is not justactually it's not even the
values that you have on yourwebsite or on a wall that say,
oh, we treat each other withrespect.
And then you see on Glassdoorthat your leaders are being
assessed very poorly becausethey don't treat people with
(24:41):
respect.
So it doesn't really matterthat you say that you're a
company that values respect, ifthat's what you're seeing, but
what you're listening from thedata, or with the data from your
people and what your people aresaying about your leaders.
So that's the entire spectrumof culture.
Everything falls there, right.
So now we are in times wherecompanies are being pushed to
(25:08):
produce more with less resources, where burnout employee burnout
is a real thing.
Where 60% of employees arelooking for another job,
sometimes actively looking foranother job, which is insane,
right.
Where you have multiplegenerations that have different
expectations working side byside in the workforce.
Where maybe the oldergenerations don't want to retire
(25:29):
anymore and the youngergenerations want to be able to
build a family as well.
So all of these factors are inplay, and that means that you
really have to think very, verydeeply and strategically about
what you want your culture to be, what components of your legacy
culture you still want to keepin place and what components are
(25:51):
not working anymore.
One of these questions,obviously, which I can still
believe that we are still todaytalking about it I think it's
just the stupidest thing everthat we're still talking about
whether people come to work froman office or remotely.
That, to me, is the stupidestconversation that can ever
happen, right?
Because if you look at the data, the data is telling you that
(26:11):
there was a period of time wherepeople had enough flexibility
to increase productivity, to bemore engaged, and, yes, there
were some indicators that werenot going properly, like people
didn't feel that they belongedto their teams and to their
organizations when they wereworking remotely.
Well, you fix that.
You don't force people back toan office.
You know to.
(26:32):
You know to solve a problemthat is not going to be solved
by that action.
So, anyway, the point here isyour culture is everything.
Your culture will help you hirethe best talent and retain the
best talent.
Your culture will help you gothrough difficult times.
Your culture will help you havepeople say I belong to this
(26:55):
company and therefore, because Iam so committed and so loyal, I
am going to give 100% of mytalents to finding out solutions
to the most critical challengesthat our company is dealing
with.
All of that is determined byyour culture.
Jeannie Walters (27:11):
And I think the point that you made early on
was there are certain behaviorsand activities and questions we
can ask that really help usunderstand are we really aligned
with that culture?
Are people feeling thatalignment?
Because if they aren't, that'swhat shows up on Glassdoor,
that's what shows up on yourretention and all of those
things.
And I totally agree about thereturn to office conversation,
(27:34):
because people are alwayssurprised.
I started this company 15 yearsago and we've been remote the
entire time and we have, youknow, a team that I think would
tell you they feel veryconnected, they feel very much
like so there are ways to do itwithout necessarily saying show
up in the office.
And sometimes I mean I talk tomy friends who sometimes have to
(27:54):
show up and there's nobody elsethere, so they're still doing
Zoom from an office which isyeah.
Enrique Rubio (27:59):
Be clear about what the foundations of your
culture are.
If you are a company where youwant people to work from an
office, say it.
Say it because there are peoplewho do want to work all the
time from an office, and you maytap into those people right.
Where things get tricky is whenyou operate in a gray area and
(28:21):
it's on the whim of your moodwhen things change.
Right, when you say, oh, todayI want everybody to come back to
the office after you hire themto offer them flexibility or
vice versa.
Right, you say, oh, now we wantto be an all remote or a hybrid
organization.
When you hire people to beworking from certain locations,
just make sure that you as acompany, are also aligned and
(28:45):
clear about what your values areand what your culture is, and
communicate it.
Don't be what you're not.
Be great at what you actuallyare, and I think that's going to
make a difference.
Jeannie Walters (28:55):
Well, Enrique, I just wish you had brought a
little more passion to thisconversation.
This was so fun.
I think it was fate that we saweach other in the hallway there
at the Salt Lake CityConvention Center and I just
really appreciate yourperspective and this
conversation.
So thank you so much forjoining me, and if those out
(29:18):
there listening right now wantto learn more about you or
connect, what's the best way forthem to do that?
Enrique Rubio (29:23):
They can look me up on LinkedIn.
I'm hanging out in there allthe time posting content and all
the good stuff.
So thank you, Jeannie, forinviting me, and I hope your
listeners connect with me and wecan continue to share more
ideas and insights together.
Jeannie Walters (29:37):
Excellent.
Well, thank you so much,Enrique, and thank you for being
here.
We, of course, appreciate allthat you do every day to make
this connection between customerexperience and employee
experience matter even more, sothanks for being here with me.
We can't wait to talk to youagain.
And don't forget, you can askme a question at askjeannievip
(29:59):
and I could answer it for youhere on the Experience Action
Podcast.
Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
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Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com