How Does AT&T Link Business Transformation, Culture and Performance Management?
Digital HR Leaders Podcast - EP69 Melissa Corwin, Vice-President, Employee Experience at AT&T

How Does AT&T Link Business Transformation, Culture and Performance Management?

David Green 🇺🇦 David Green 🇺🇦

David Green 🇺🇦

Co-Author of Excellence in People Analytics | People Analytics leader | Director, Insight222 & myHRfuture.com | Conference speaker | Host, Digital HR Leaders Podcast

Published Jun 15, 2021
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Psychological safety is really important to changing the culture

AT&T is the world’s largest telecommunications company and is in the midst of a major business and organisational transformation. As part of this, AT&T is evolving its performance culture towards a more agile approach based on the notion of kind candour.

My guest on this week’s episode, Melissa Corwin is the Vice President for Employee Experience, where she oversees Talent Acquisition, Organisational Development, Performance and Assessment, Culture, Employee Value Proposition and Employee Experience.

Melissa is also overseeing the development of the new performance culture at AT&T, which is based on four pillars: "Serve customers first, move faster, act boldly and win as one." As you’ll hear, this is an impressive, well-coordinated strategy that is supported across the organisation and tied closely to improving outcomes for the business, employees and AT&T’s customers.  

The number one thing that you can do to ensure that employees feel that they are heard is act on what they tell you

You can listen by clicking on the image below or by visiting the podcast website here.  

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In our conversation Melissa and I discuss:

  • The impact of AT&T’s business transformation on culture and behaviours: "To be successful in transforming the business, being competitive in the market and growing customer relationships, we knew that we needed to change how we worked together internally."
  • How AT&T worked with employees to identify the four pillars ("Serve customers first, move faster, act boldly and win as one") and sixteen behaviours that drive the cultural transformation: "We have maintained that focus and so how do we break down silos, barriers, hierarchy and bureaucracy so that we can truly enable and empower those that are closest to our customers to serve our customers first."
  • The key components of the new performance culture: "We now keep two separate ratings, one for results, one for behaviours, both individually informed compensation and talent development practices"
  • The importance of measuring performance ("If you are not measuring performance development, unless you have a really robust, deeply steeped culture of candour and feedback, you are likely missing the mark") and its impact on culture (" It is very important that as supervisors are getting that feedback and we are equipping them to respond constructively so that we can train the workforce that this is a safe space and that psychological safety is really important to changing the culture")
  • The expected outcomes of the new performance culture: "What we hope to achieve is a more candid feedback driven organisation that enables us to move faster. That is the primary pillar that we are trying to impact. Annual review cycles that only provides feedback once a year, do not enable people to course correct and be agile and move at the speed in which we need to move to be competitive in the marketplace."
  • The most important part of employee listening: "The number one thing that you can do to ensure that employees feel that they are heard is act on what they tell you and don't over analyse it. I don't think that people get fatigued on surveying I do think they get fatigue on inaction."

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested or involved in the role of performance culture in business transformation. So that’s business leaders, CHROs and anyone in a strategy, People Analytics, Culture, Employee Experience or HR Business Partner role.

We have got to shift the mindset that to give constructive feedback is the kind thing to do


LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

To listen to the Podcast and read the transcript of my discussion with Melissa, head over to myHRfuture by clicking on this link: How Does AT&T Link Business Transformation, Culture and Performance Management?


WATCH THE VIDEOS

As well as the podcast, there will be a couple of videos available on the myHRfuture YouTube channel highlighting two of the topics Melissa and I cover in our conversation. In the clip below, Melissa outlines how AT&T is changing the way it looks at performance management:


GET INVOLVED

If you enjoyed listening to this week's podcast episode, I'd be grateful if you could take the following steps:

  1. Please subscribe to the Digital HR Leaders podcast and weekly newsletter to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
  2. Please take the time to rate the show on iTunes. We rely on your feedback and support to make the podcast, so this is very helpful!
  3. Who would you like to see me interview in future episodes? Let me know in the comments below.
  4. Lastly, don’t forget to share on social media with your friends and colleagues, your support is always greatly appreciated!


THANK YOU

A huge thank you to Melissa for sharing her time, expertise and transformative work she is leading at AT&T. You can follow Melissa on LinkedIn.

Thanks to Luke Stritt, Natalie Wickham, Kristin Ryba and the team at Quantum Workplace for sponsoring Series 14 of the podcast, and also Ian Bailie, Manpreet Randhawa, Caroline Styr and the myHRfuture team for creating the Digital HR Leaders podcast and video series. 

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CATCH UP ON THE DIGITAL HR LEADERS PODCAST

If you haven't listened to all of the episodes of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, you can catch up now by clicking on the links below.


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David is a globally respected author, speaker, conference chair, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. As Managing Partner and Executive Director at Insight222, he has overall responsibility for the delivery of the Insight222 People Analytics Program, which supports the advancement of people analytics in over 70 global organisations. Prior to co-founding Insight222 and taking up a board advisor role at TrustSphere, David accumulated over 20 years experience in the human resources and people analytics fields, including as Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations increase value, impact and focus from the wise and ethical use of people analytics. David also hosts the Digital HR Leaders Podcast and is an instructor for Insight222's myHRfuture Academy. His book, co-authored with Jonathan Ferrar, Excellence in People Analytics: How to use Workforce Data to Create Business Value will be published in the summer of 2021.

Kathleen Kruse

Digital Content + Marketing Strategist - focused on learning, innovation, social business, future of work

3y

Excellent - thanks David!

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Anneliese Britz

Senior Manager HR Transformation @ Deloitte | Talent Group Lead

3y

Thanks David Green !

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Aravind Warrier

HR Leader | Lead - People & Culture at VOLVO India

3y

Thanks as always David

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Riina Hellström

Agile Enterprise Coach & #AgileHR pioneer | AI in HR #AIinHR | Agile HR author | Strategy, Transformations & Change | Founder of Agile HR Community | HR Keynote Speaker | Helsinki & London

3y

I could not agree more with the statement that you started this post with. It is so disrespectful to ask employees to spend time on a pulse or employee survey and then not act on the findings. Another thing is to really focus the continuous listening and ongoing digital dialogue with the organisation on the actual strategic initiatives and direction - and ask for co-creation in that space. Versus the contrary, I heard of a global company that started their "strategic change journey" with asking everyone simultaneously about what they would like. (not really directing their questions according to strategy). They ended up with a mix of request (and thus expectations) with everything between "We want new chairs" and "Redefining and exchanging the leaders in a business area". Now the whole company expected them to act on the requests. Horribly inefficient approach with unwanted negative side-effects and consequences.

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Jerry Hu

Talent Acquisition Leader | Yoga Therapist l Lecturer | Author

3y

Thx David Green

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