The Culture Office with Jessica Bacher

“Culture is not owned by HR, it’s owned by every single leader.”
-Jessica Bacher

What is your organizational culture like? Who drives it?  Who sees themselves as driving it?  In some companies, people look to HR to take the lead - or the blame - on company culture.  In this episode, my guest and I explore how HR can support culture with an innovative structure and respect for people’s time.

My guest is Jessica Bacher who is the Chief People Officer at Prolink. Jessica is a proven Human Resources leader with global, multi-discipline experience in operational and executive talent acquisition, talent management, C-Suite succession building/placement, organizational design leadership, and process excellence. She has 20 years of cumulative and progressive leadership in leading complex organizations through talent branding, pipeline building, internal movement best practices, and hiring strategies using data to drive decisions and build workforce strategy. 

Jessica is an influencer in building strategy and programs that drive inclusive hiring practices and build succession plans with a priority lens for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). She holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix and earned a master’s degree in Human Resources from the University of Cincinnati; Jessica is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. She and her husband are Cincinnati natives and currently live on the west side of the city with their four children.

In this episode of Talent Management Truths, you’ll discover:

• The difference between a virtual first model and a remote only one
• How empowerment and autonomy drive culture ownership
• How HR can integrate themselves into the work their clients are already doing

Links

• Jessica Bacher on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-bacher-084b10b/

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Transcript

LM Ep 117

 [00:00:00] What is your organizational culture like and who drives it? Who sees themselves as driving it. In some companies, people look to HR to take the lead or the blame around company culture. In this episode, my guest and I explore how [00:01:00] HR can support culture with an innovative structure and respect for people's time.

My guest is Jessica Bocker, who is the Chief People Officer at ProLink. Jessica's a proven HR leader with global multidisciplinary experience in both the operational and executive talent acquisition, talent management succession planning. process excellence. She has over 20 years cumulative and progressive leadership experience.

Jessica is an influencer in building strategy and programs. She holds an M by MBA from the University of Phoenix, and she's a master's in HR from Cincinnati. She's also a certified Lean six Sigma master black belt. In this episode of Talent Management Truths, you'll discover the difference between a virtual first model and a remote only one.

Also how empowerment and autonomy drive culture ownership, and how HR can integrate themselves into the work their clients are already doing. Enjoy the discussion.

 [00:02:00] 

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Truth. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell, and today I am joined by Jessica Bocker. Jessica is the Chief People Officer at ProLink. Welcome to the show, Jessica.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Thank you, Lisa. to be here.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Yes. It's great to have you here. So would you start off by just telling us a little bit about what you do at ProLink and, and actually let's start with your, your career journey.

How did you get here?

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Certainly, thinking about how I started from the beginning My career started in talent acquisition as I think many people who begin early on in, in hr, start off in recruiting moving through talent acquisition and really mastering at some point in, in my career, I. What it feels like to bring folks into the organization. Got inspired and intrigued to figure out what happens on the other side.

So really beginning with talent acquisition, but moving more so into areas of performance management, talent management, how does all of [00:03:00] that work together? So we bring people into an organization and oftentimes inside of talent acquisition, you hear, hire more faster, better quality, continuous learner, a lifetime learner.

As I like to describe myself, it's very intrigued in figuring out what is happening on the other side of that door. Over time explored opportunities and just career, career laddering that made sense and getting my feet wet in other areas of, of hr. Fast forward to where I am today. I lead a very capable people strategy and operations team, as we call it a ProLink.

ProLink is an organization that supports healthcare entities Mostly integrated healthcare systems across the nation. And our work is to provide a full solution of workforce offerings, mainly that has been through. The form of nurse travelers and other clinicians to staff inside of hospitals.

However, we have an exhaustive menu of services that provide consulting, provide data, analytics, [00:04:00] and a variety of other type of healthcare services to, to our clients.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Okay, so, so just for listeners, just to break it down, so you operate across. The United States in all, all of the states.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Correct.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Okay. Anywhere out outside of that country. A lot of listeners are from Canada 'cause that's where I'm being

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: no,

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: No, no. So you're not in Canada. Okay. And so, and your, so your employee base is working with hospitals, healthcare institutions, and providing services into them.

Correct.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: That's right.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Okay. And then how many, how many employees does ProLink have doing this work?

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: We have around 1100 internal employees. We have approximately four to 5,000 travelers at any given point in time. The travelers of a are of a variety of clinical expertise and specialties. So everything from respiratory therapists, physical therapy, ot, all the way to the bedside [00:05:00] nurse and or any type of nursing support that it takes to takes to run the universe and the ecosystem inside of a hospital.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: So these are, these are people that are, that are going into, not pinch hit, but to provide contracting, sort of like that flexible, up and down staffing model.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: right.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: okay. Okay. Interesting. And something you had said to me in the green room before we hit record, was that you know, you are servicing an industry that is always on.

And so how has that always on mentality impacted how you've set up supports for your staff?

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Well, I think an always on culture is, is usually something that can be described as high energy, high performance, right? There's expectations that are set up front for all of the folks in terms of. What we deliver, how we deliver it, and what it feels and looks like to the consumer of our services, namely[00:06:00] hospitals and, and other type of organizations who have clinical staff.

few years ago, we implemented our first employee engagement survey, and what we found in that employee engagement survey was the realization that that always on culture and mentality was being deeply felt by our organization through other few findings. Many for the positives, a few other opportunities for improvement.

So what we decided to do with that, always on mentality rather than attempt to culturally shift and or cloak that that's who we are. We decided you know, it's really important we embrace the why behind that. Why are we always on? Well, because our consumer of our services, the clients that we support, live and operate in that mentality.

Hospitals are always open. EDS are always open. You may need immediate or critical care in the moment in which in, in a moment in which most businesses are not open. We all understand that model. So in order to reflect that service model, we were really [00:07:00] finding that an always on mentality. We needed to provide some additional resources and support for our, for our folks.

We've done quite a few things over the course of the, the last few years. If I, if I may just share

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Yeah, let's hear.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: We've implemented a flexible scheduling, a workforce solution for our internal team. We've provided some in territory team building opportunities, so all of our teams, while they may naturally fall to, let's call it hr, or you may work under the sales umbrella, or you may work under our finance and payroll umbrella, You may live inside of a geography that is not necessarily next door to your most natural team member inside of HR or inside of payroll. And so we've institutionalized bringing territory teams together, people who live within the same geography so that they can share and learn from one another.

We're really intentional about providing workshops to those groups so that they can come together as a, coalition and really start to build and, and inform connections.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: And [00:08:00] so these territory teams, they're, from what I understood, they're, they're, they're different functions. They're not all in the same department necessarily. Early, but you, so you're, so it's based on the geography that they

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: That's correct. That's

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: person. I, I'm assuming, is it in person, in real

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: It is in person. It is in person should someone choose to show up in person. So we have 15 major brick and mortars across the us. All of them are open. Our organization is a virtual first organization, and that's what I meant by we've institutionalized flexibility.

We want. You know, we want parents, we want folks who work for us who who may be parents, folks who are not parents, but have other obligations, folks who wanna work night shift or day shift, where we pair them with clients and talent, which is what we call our traveler population that makes the most sense in how they support them across the time zone.

Being virtual for first then allows us the flexibility, allows our employees the flexibility. To work when they are most needed to support that talent [00:09:00] or that client so they don't feel like they're working the nine five Monday through Friday plus the evening shift because they support a Pacific Time zone client and maybe work inside of the Eastern standard time zone.

So there are lots of flexibility in terms of how we support both the talent and the client on the internal staffing side.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Got it. Okay. So, so it's interesting because, you know, you, you had just finished saying you have 15 major brick and mortar, you know, spots and, and then you're virtual first. So there is a real blend here going on. Do your employees work in a, in a hybrid way or, I, I assume the travelers are all physically located, but is there some stuff that they need to do virtually?

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: For, for a traveler population, absolutely. They show up at a client site and work alongside the clinicians who may be part of the more the client's permanent staff. For our internal population, the folks that we have maybe [00:10:00] not located within these 15 geographies. So certainly we support them in a truly 100% remote model.

We call it ful first rather than remote model. 'cause we don't want people to feel isolated. It's not being, it's not about being remote. It's. Virtual connectivity, virtual collaboration. So you remain part of a team, you remain part of the organization. You are not meant to be on a remote island.

You're meant to be able to work in a flexible work environment. Oftentimes that that is someone's home or a coffee shop down the street. 

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Well, I just, I'm sorry, I just wanted to celebrate that for a minute because listeners who have been with me for the two years I've been doing this show. So, off and on or throughout, we'll know that I'm this language geek, right? I mean, I did my degree in, in French linguistic linguistics and literature for God's sakes.

But anyways, and I taught French, but I am fascinated with, with the power of language because language precedes behavior and I've seen it done well really help create [00:11:00] a, you know, cultural, coalescence around important stuff like purpose and values and so on. So language really matters. So you were just talking about how you choose not to talk about remote only because it infers this isolation, this remote island kind of thing.

And I think that's really an important point that I haven't really thought about much. And now this is gonna just, I know that everybody I talked to this week, we're recording on a Tuesday. I know everybody's, I'm gonna be hearing remote all over the place. Place and I'm gonna be getting shiver saying, well, what if we called it virtual first?

I really think it's an interesting distinction.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: I agree, Lisa, and we were very intentional about that going into this virtual first model, I think as we talked about it. As a, a leadership group, when people heard remote, they were, felt very distant and, and lack of connectivity and how will I interact with my team? So I, I agree. I think language matters.

It was really intentional, the way in which we designed and thought about how do we. Position [00:12:00] our flexible work environment, what does that mean? What are the pros and cons of each? Certainly there are no doubt have been some setbacks. Other things we've learned through our annual surveying is that people are, you know, are missing portions of collaboration that naturally happen through human physical interaction.

And so we've worked really hard as a as a leadership team. And investing in what we call the culture office. And this culture office is a very intentional way of putting people in place that are meant to focus on what is happening with our culture so that we can preserve and protect it.

But also equally important, how do we enable. People who traditionally have been in work environments that may be more physical. What pools resources do they need and also how do we stand up the leadership team in a virtual first environment? It could be the first time you're not only experiencing virtual for yourself so you're figuring all of that out, but it could also be the first time you're [00:13:00] trying to lead a team.

So you've gotta figure some things out for yourself before you're good to others. And we have this very, specific team that is dedicated to paying attention and solving those issues as they surface.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Ooh. So I wanna dig into this idea of the culture office. 'cause I think it's really, really an interesting idea. And you had told me previously that I think it's just under two years old and it's, it's not a perfect model, but it was, you know, set up in response to what you were hearing from employees and what you saw as being the needs.

Of the workforce to service this always on environment where they operate. So, so this idea of how do we stand up the leaders and supporting, you know, people first, so lead the leaders themselves in terms of how are they responding to this, you know, virtual first kind of scenario. What, what are the ways that your team there in the culture office?

Like how, how does the, the work come into them? What's that workflow look like? If you don't mind pulling back.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Yeah, it can have in a variety of ways. So I would certainly say I, I would like to, to [00:14:00] believe as, as. Anyone would that it's synchronous, but that's not always the situation, right? It comes in a variety of ways. The most obvious way is, is usually someone coming forward and saying, I, I, I need help.

Something's occurring in which I believe either connectivity, collaboration, and or just enabling my team to be higher performing or Or two be in a position where we're leading high performing teams, so someone may come in individually, ask for help. The other way in which we design what work will we pay, be paying attention to is through exit surveys, new hire surveys, and then action planning.

That is a result of our annual engagement survey. So the, the lion's share of work, the critical work that we identify and prioritize comes through you know, focused feedback that is, is designed to provide us insights into what is happening during the hiring process and onboarding. Course into, in some ways, into assimilation exit surveys.

What do you feel like when you're leaving? What was your experience [00:15:00] like? What do you wanna tell us that maybe you felt like you couldn't share prior? And then, of course, our annual survey, like I've mentioned. So we compile all of these results. We share them very transparently and truthfully with our organization, starting with the leaders.

And we ask our leaders, this is all of our culture is not owned by hr. It is owned by every single leader. And so thinking about how we all own this, we all have accountability and responsibility, but we also all have the ability to be empowered to think about how we want to move this through. So with that, hey, we all own it, right? 

The burden of ownership is also the empowerment and the autonomy to do something about it. So we work through annual planning sessions, and of course monthly we calibrate exit surveys. And you hire hire surveys to see if something is moving positive or, or not, so positive. And what do we need to address as we create custom or unique plans to deal with individual or team situations and or organizational issues?

That is the work that we're using to [00:16:00] prioritize. How do we move forward and support our people?

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: So interesting. And it is true that culture's not owned by hr. It's owned by every single leader. And I think it's important to be constantly helping people understand that. Right. And, and, and, you know, it's not a say at once and think that they get it. It's really baking it in to how you operate in the services that you offer.

It sounds like that's what you're doing. Here. Very much so. So, so something else too that you had mentioned to me when we first met was that part of what this culture office and the team there and how they, how they, how they support the leaders of the organization. That there's this intentional augmentation of building relationships.

And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what, what that means. Boil it down for us.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: I think in a virtual environment what we tend to gravitate. Towards mostly is you know, the work that we have on our plate during that day, whatever role you play in the organization, what do I need to do today? How do I get through this pile of, [00:17:00] of, of, of things I need to work through, be email, meetings whatever it may be.

And so we. O oftentimes naturally narrow in on what is the work in front of me. It is the responsibility of all of us to carry on a level of awareness to say, beyond, beyond this work in front of me, who do I need to be connecting with? How am I building those relationships, whether it's professional building around growth and or accountability or just talking to someone about their results and what that means or how how they're delivering.

Or more personal checking in with people, understanding how, how they're feeling, what type of resources or connectivity is important to them. So we do certainly make sure, and I think it's important for leaders to make sure that we're not just intentional about checking in on people, but how we provide how do we augment what it is that they need.

So we provide a menu of services, if you will, from our people strategy and operations team that help people understand if this situation is [00:18:00] occurring, let's map it to this solution. If this situation is occurring and you hear these things, let's map it to this other solution. So the solutions are have universal impact.

The solutions are tried and true. We're not making everything up as we go along. So there's a lot of trialing and airing here, but we don't wanna be guessing at it. So we do have some evidence back programs that can help people more naturally build either relationships or connectivity and, and collaboration across what may feel like a broadened team who is not maybe someone they directly report into, or that maybe that they lead.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Okay, so this is really interesting. So this idea of mapping solutions to scenarios, sort of like a bit of a. A, a knowledge base really about, you know, if this is the kind of thing you're encountering here, some tools and ways to approach it. So how do you, how do you teach this or onboard people into the culture so that they're, like, I, I'm assuming this is your HR business partners, that kind of thing, that are, that are doing this.

How, how do [00:19:00] they learn all this stuff the way, the way ProLink does it?

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Yeah, well we are certainly figuring out many, in many of our own ways how to master that. So I would not certainly I would not say that we've mastered all of that entirely. the portion we are committed to is remaining intentional and thoughtful around how do we design appropriate solutions and then measure each of those things and as it relates to impact and value.

The way in which we have maybe pivoted our organization from the traditional HR business partner model is very thinking more so around how do we integrate our HR business partners into becoming a liaison between that culture for office and or our talent management team back to the leaders who are either asking for help or maybe not asking, but we can certainly see may have an opportunity to, to, to get some support.

So as we've thought about how do we map these services and how do we, let's call it retrain HR hrps, we've not set up a program and said, here's the [00:20:00] training curriculum and go off and be well. what we have done is continue to hold very important topic discussions around feedback and around how can we support you better through a variety of ways that we already have institutionalized in our organization.

So what I mean by that is this is not a new focus group and this is not a new survey to say how can we operate differently, but we're taking advantage of, advantage of meetings that already exist and coming and listening in. We're taking advantage of ERGs that we've stood up about 18 months. Ago in regards to how we could better support and drive DEI initiatives.

And we're asking questions intentionally there around how can we continue to embed people strategy and operations support in the way in which employees and leaders are delivering work every day.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Yes. So, you know, the thing that that, that really jumped out in what you said there for me was this taking advantage of existing meetings and forums. We're not adding in net new [00:21:00] stuff to the meeting madness. That is, that is rampant in our organizations. Right? Every organization struggles with, with having you know, truly.

Purposeful meeting culture that's really boiled down to the essential, right? Like, 'cause it, it can get very easy, like, agendas get old. Oh, it's be, it used to be very valuable at the beginning of a project. Now it's just an update that we could have read by email and we're not discussing or collaborating.

Yeah. So here, you know, I love that you're taking the important work and just, and just. Folding it in. Oh my God, I'm, I'm thinking of Schitt's Creek, if you've ever seen that show and, and Mo, Moira and David, and you've gotta fold it in. But anyways, but you're, it is one of the funniest scenes ever, but you're folding in this focus around, you know, how to support the HR bps supporting everybody else in the organization into their existing forums, so it's not feeling like this big, heavy weight around their neck.

Such a value piece.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Absolutely Lisa, and, and, and I'll share with you and others who are listening in, we did not you know, that was not a brainchild, [00:22:00] an immediate brainchild of, of this evolution. What we found out very quickly is as HR business partners and others inside of our organization were throwing meetings on people's calendars they weren't really, you know.

Prioritizing that work. So our intention was to go out and just provide this meeting network in which you can come, you know, there's this full feedback loop. And quickly needed to pivot because we found, you know, folks are saying I'll let HR know when I need hrs help. That's fine too.

And, and we do get outreach in such that way. But usually what's happening is people are waiting for problems to occur before they're reaching out. So we needed to be we needed to think differently to your point about folding in, how can we be a part of the work they're already doing rather than creating new work so that we can help them prevent.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Oh, how can we be part of the work they are already doing? Yes. That is the definition of partnering. Right. Versus trying to sort of insert

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: That's right.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Yeah. It's, [00:23:00] yeah, it's, it's wonderful. It's, it's a really good reminder. I appreciate that, you know, coming up here in this conversation. So maybe, okay, so let's back this up.

'cause I didn't ask you to sort of walk us through your team structure at the beginning, and I think it might be useful to do that. So we've been really focused on this culture office and now talking about the HRBP function which is so critical. But you've got a big team, about 45 people, I think. And tell us about how you've, how you've set it up in the different kind of functions.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: I would certainly say we have some very deep experience and expertise inside of, inside of our function, which is a, a credit to that team as to why we're capable en enabling the culture so positively as I've, as I've mentioned. I really wanna give credit to the team itself. So the team is structured in a way in which we have identified leaders and or teams to be part of a specific specific shared service type of model.

And so we are a centralized group of HR professionals [00:24:00] or people professionals, however people like to describe themselves. And we have a group of talent management individuals. And, and that group owns everything from talent acquisition to pipelining and sourcing all the way through onboarding and assimilation.

That talent management group also oversees. True professional development and learning for the organization. So they're thinking about how do we bring people into the organization, how do we support them as part of their employee journey through assimilation and tying their needs to that of the organization's ability to deliver.

All the way through how we professionally develop them. Professional development is around growth and oftentimes that's unique to the individual. So in those areas, we're coming up with unique solutions that work for, for those folks. But we are really smart and intentional about we can't have 3000 unique custom journey.

So, we talked to people very early on around career pathing so that we can help guide them in a way of which they're [00:25:00] taking advantage of things that already exist inside of the organization. The other areas in which we have organized work is in our culture office, as I mentioned, and so uniquely to the culture office.

This team also has not just culture and paying attention to what I would call the pulse and the, the emotional needs and or the, the personality in some ways of the organization. I would certainly say they're also responsible for employee engagement and they also oversee our HR business partner model.

And that was very intentional. That's a new move for us. Had we been having this conversation, let's say six or so months ago, our HR BP model would've actually been part of our HR shared service team where they were dealing with employee relation type of escalations. We've pivoted that model.

The need is so prevalent in the organization to actually partner differently and get ahead of some of the work that I I was talking to you about. The other area that our culture team oversees on behalf of the organization is our [00:26:00] de and i strategy. So enabling our organization as advocates for de and I to be able to understand what are, what is our strategy, what are our goals, how are we performing, and who is going to take accountability across the organization for what?

So in our de and I strategy, we do expect and has been greatly adopted that leaders across the organization own de and i, rather than HR again. Pushing out DI initiatives and noting them completely. I mentioned already the HR shared service side. We call it my hr, and this is your typical servicing center.

So we do too. So we also do traditional HR stuff beyond culture and beyond talent performance. You know, it's the. It's the engine of, of really keeping ourselves compliant preventing escalations or issues on the employee side as well as the claim side. So we also have a group of individuals who stay steadfast in protecting and enabling the organization through regulatory and [00:27:00] policy components.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Got it. And then I know that it's in transition right now. But you, you know, up until, I think today you still got it for the moment. You've got the legal group reporting up to you.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: is correct.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: what's that been like? I mean, you know. I've, worked very closely with legal in my past when, when I was working in the HR business partnering function.

Of course, you know, there's, there's things where you need to collaborate. So ju I'm just curious, what's, what's been valuable about having legal as part of your portfolio for this period? I.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Well, a few things, as you mentioned it is in transition. So we're you know, thinking about how do we stand up a independent legal department that is self-sufficient in many ways and is not necessarily hoarded. And in many ways, I think folks would say either by HR. Or hoarded in some way by our risk office who, whoever relies on the variety of legal services across many organizations.

It's been a really interesting learning opportunity. Like you, it's traditionally been something I've partnered [00:28:00] with, but maybe not. Had direct oversight for the resource resources and how it performed as a function of the business. So lots of learning. I will share the few things that I think, you know, just nuggets of, of, of learning and, nuggets of learning and, and I guess truths. We, we find ourselves, I think in the, the legal framework our, our organization, the reason it was organized in that way is our legal framework has continued to experience hypergrowth or organization has con. Continue to experience hypergrowth. And so hypergrowth means expanding and tentacle out into areas of, of business that are new and or evolving for the organization.

They're the natural next evolutions of diversification. So maybe it's working with new entering into new states. Maybe it's working with joint ventures. Or other organizations where maybe they service federal contracts and will become a subprime for them and eventually a prime. So it made sense in a hyper-growth organization that we [00:29:00] really tethered legal to our people side of the organization.

We see the trajectory of the strategy and how it is impacting how we grow and what our footprint or market share looks like in the coming season. So it, it made sense for the moment in time based upon where we were in our growth and, and operating model as we as an organization have grown and created a structure to stabilize and maintain.

The maintenance component of it is really allowing the legal department to become this know, this independent shared service model that allows many folks across the organization to really utilize those resources and services.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Yeah, it's really that evolution right along the maturity continuum and so on. But it, but it's, it's very interesting, you know, how that hypergrowth, you mentioned that it kind of seemed to make sense to, to put legal and, and HR together and, and leverage it during that period, that partnership, and now you've got the benefit of having that.[00:30:00] 

Well established relationship as they become more autonomous. Right.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Very, very true.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Yeah. Really fascinating. Okay, well we're, we're nearing the end of our time together, but one of the thing that I wanted to ask you about was the fact that you've got a master black belt in Six Sigma, and I was just wondering how that came to be and how that shows up for you today.

If, if not in your day-to-Day, how does it affect how you, how you view your work?

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: So, six Sigma was always of interest to me. I worked in large organizations many years ago, and. Part of the management and or performance philosophy was that of Six Sigma. So it was very much a, if I want to continue to grow and learn in this organization, let me figure out the philosophy.

Let me figure out the details and mechanics behind these philosophies. So it was just very much the forever learner in me in terms of desiring to, you know, just get in there and know it and understand it. I've never been a practitioner, if you will, of, of. [00:31:00] Of Six Sigma, meaning I've not performed that as a primary job function as part of a strategy and or improvement office.

That being said, what I would certainly say is I, you know, I, I take advantage of, of that skill and learned experience each and every day and, and how I apply You know, time and how I think about going about work, I guess is what I should be saying. And of that going about work, it's really helped me to think about how to, how do consumers, whatever your consumer is, your internal consumer, your external consumer, your team itself, how to receive information.

So it's really a, an efficiency and value add philosophy. And as I. Think about the role that I have for the organization. If you think about building high performing teams, it's really identifying how can we become more efficient and proficient, which certainly requires your traditional HR and talent development teams to partner with leaders.

It is also around value add work. So [00:32:00] focusing on what is value add, what requires human intervention, what can be automated? Really thinking about tinkering with processes and being open to pivoting and tinkering with processes until you find the right mix of human and physical interaction to that of what can be automated and technology solution based.

So I would say I absolutely incorporate that level of thinking each and every day. The other really important but I think interesting piece of the Six Sigma work is that it gives. Me an opportunity to take very complex work situations and or personal situations or whatever the situation may be, and break it down into consumable bite-sized pieces so that people can advocate and see progress.

Not perfection. As we think about moving work forward, sometimes people can be paralyzed by very large, complex situations. And six Sigma's absolutely afforded me the opportunity to think about how do we break down [00:33:00] problems so that they feel much more consumable.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Yes, and, and I really hear this. This focus, this passion that you have for communication and this idea of, you know, of breaking things down that is bite-sized, that is manageable, not perfect, but you know, in French we see like, so we're break like morsels, like, that's where the word morsel comes from in English, but you know, it's breaking it down bite-size pieces.

The other thing that came up for me, as you were talking about how Six Sigma kind of. Affects how you view the world And view work is, my son is in grade 12 right now. And so we've been looking at universities, right? 'cause he's gotta do his applications. Oh my God. Next month. It's crazy. I don't know how we got here.

But anyway, so Patrick, he's not a, he's not a STEM kid. He is very much liberal arts. Student, he is very interested in history cultural studies, media studies, this kind of thing. So we were just did an open house on the weekend in, in Peterborough, Ontario and at Trent University, which is top of his list.

And, and it was interesting 'cause we were talking to faculty and students. [00:34:00] In these, those different major areas. And you know, one of the things Patrick's a little worried about is, oh my goodness, like if I, if I take sort of a liberal arts degree, you know, what's that gonna get me from a career perspective?

Whereas, 'cause it's just so broad, it's not like, okay, I'm gonna do this and now I'm gonna be a doctor, like my goddaughter. Right? Like, you know, it's a very straight path, very clear. So, you know, they were really emphasizing this, this. The, the view that it, it's all about critical thinking and analysis and learning to take a lot of information, break it down, figure out the essential, and I really appreciate that.

I mean, I did a, a French degree certainly, and then a Bachelor of education and, you know, ha, but that, you know, even though I left teaching after only two years, you, you'd think, well, what are you gonna do with a French degree? All kinds of things. I had a really successful, very successful career and I really value that critical thinking.

So it sort of sounds like with the Six Sigma, you know, and it's very refined structure process, but you're really using that to this day, that [00:35:00] critical thinking, that ability to make things palatable. Right. Understandable. It's really fascinating to me that it's still something that you're using even, even now, day to day.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: Yeah. I can certainly share an appreciation for the, the liberal liberal arts student. And, and what I would certainly say is that it's really about just getting started and understanding how you drive work forward, and sometimes distilling down to what are. What are the things we inside of our control?

What are the things that we can own? What are the things that make sense to move forward? Can help really prime, if you will, prime the team and or prime the project in a way of which they can see some immediate results to take advantage of that traction and empower and inspire them to do more so. In many ways.

think Six Sigma, though it is a very mechanical, if you will management philosophy is also around invention and innovation, right? Thinking differently to your point around exercising critical high [00:36:00] levels of critical thinking.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating. I, I I really it's just got me thinking about how it. Connects and the different things that I've done and how they still come into play, you know, all, all these years later. It's all of that learning. That's why continuous learning is so important and, and that's probably why I do this show of course, is to try to give little glimmers of, of insight and, and practical ideas that people, that lead people thinking right, kind of gets the juices flowing, so to speak, so that they can figure out what does this mean for me and my reality?

But you've been so generous. Thank you so much, Jessica, for sharing what you do, what your team does, and a little bit about the structure and, and how that, how that helps you support your, your clients in the end. Thank you very much.

Jessica Bacher GMT20231114-151841_Recording_separate2: You, Lisa. [00:37:00]