Communicating HR’s Value Through Data

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[00:00:32] Mo Fathelbab: Welcome to today's episode of People and Strategy. I'm your host, Mo Fathelbab, president of International Facilitators Organization. We are here at SHRM 25, the largest HR conference in the world. People and Strategy is a podcast from the SHRM Executive Network, the premier network of executives in the field of human resources.

Each week we bring you in-depth conversations with the country's top HR executives and thought leaders. For today's conversation, I'm excited to be joined by Thanh Giddarie, director of HR at MIT Health, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For today's episode, we'll be discussing using data to showcase the value of HR partnership and advancing women in leadership roles.

Welcome Thanh.

[00:01:18] Thanh Giddarie: Thank you Mo.

[00:01:19] Mo Fathelbab: How are you today?

[00:01:20] Thanh Giddarie: Good, how are you?

[00:01:21] Mo Fathelbab: I'm good. So Thanh, let's start with how you got in the field of HR in the first place.

[00:01:25] Thanh Giddarie: Oh, about 25 years ago, I went to college and I was like, know what? I wanna be an HR professional. No, that was not how that worked. Nope. I went to school for a degree in marketing and I was gonna be a great advertising person.

Well, my first job I was doing campus recruiting. They asked help for that, and I got into that and I never looked back. I like HR, like all as, aspects of HR. I got into higher education about 15 years ago working at North Shore Community College, doing all facets of HR professional work. and now currently, I've been at MIT Health for about three years.

[00:02:00] Mo Fathelbab: Wonderful. And as you're looking for such a, an imporThanht role. How do you know that you will fit with the culture of the organization? How do you know it's the right organization for you?

[00:02:13] Thanh Giddarie: When I interview with the organization, I ask a lot of questions. I ask about how they view HR. Well, how is HR viewed by the organization, the partnership?

What is the involvement with HR? If it's just really about, hiring. Processing paperwork. I told them thanks, but no thanks. but if HR is gonna be a value partner, HR is gonna be the first person you call when something comes up or there's initiative and different things that needs to get hrs thought as a thought partner in that we will take a look at that.

so that's how I decided what organization best fits me is because how do they look at HR as a partner?

[00:02:49] Mo Fathelbab: Yeah. So we're gonna dig into. the metrics and how to measure the value of HR. Before we do that, how do you perceive the role of HR is seen today?

[00:03:01] Thanh Giddarie: I will say it's probably changed over the past 5, 10, 5 to 10 years.

HR was not viewed as an equal partner, but through my experience, I've noticed that HR has been viewed as more of a partner at the table. HR has been consulted on things. organization that wants to advance and grow will take HR as a partner because the organization, the biggest asset there is your people.

So HR has to do with people. You touch people in every walk of life, every position. So. if organization wants that, that's how the C-suites have to view HR as an equal partner at the table. And it's a value thought partner. We think through people, we think through strategies. And then how do you implement that and make that work for your employees.

[00:03:43] Mo Fathelbab: And when it comes to using data to demonstrate the value of HR initiatives, how have you gone about that?

[00:03:51] Thanh Giddarie: HR is one of those positions where we deal with so many confidential things, right? We don't go, I, tell folks all the time, I don't get on the top of the loud speaker and say, look, how many people we hire.

Look how many, performance management, we've done, look how many man, trends we've seen. So how does HR, look at itself and say, what value do we bring to an organization? What better to do than data? We have metrics out there, just like some of the speakers have said, early in, in the session today.

There's a lot of different systems. How do you pull them all together? We love to have one system that spits out information, but we don't. We keep it in a lot of different places. How do we go about showcasing that? So what I did, years ago was I did an annual HR report. Looking at all the things, I've done in multiple versions.

One for my president, one for my, leadership team. One for the management team.

[00:04:42] Mo Fathelbab: Okay. We have to dig into that. Each required a different version.

[00:04:45] Thanh Giddarie: Yes, they did. Because of the confidentiality piece of it. You do not need to know people's name, but you wanna know what area, what functionality, yield the best result.

how do you, measure your progress year over year? It's one thing to say, here's a snapshot of this year, but what. If you have a three year trending analysis, you can see how the workforce has shifted, time to fill, right? Turnover, employee relations, leave of absence. What are some training and development?

How have you continuously grow and change? And one of the biggest thing with HR is that we do not demonstrate that really well. I think, one of, the podcast you had up for the hundred episode with, Johnny on there, you mentioned the three Cs. Yeah. I look back and I say, the three Cs, how do you, how does HR incorporate that courage?

Do you have the courage enough to talk about what you do without breaking confidentiality? Can you talk about data and statistics of your accomplishment? Then the confidant, right? And the competency that comes about with the data. If you have the information to show your C-suites your president, that this is the value that HR brought, this is a partnership that can grow over time.

That brings value and confidence to the position. And then, so that the managers, your leaders can see that HR is a confident department and we're just not here to process certain things. We're not just not here to be able to look at how many we hire zoo, we make. Oh wait, a, I need to terminate somebody.

Do I need to call you? No, it's more than that. How do we showcase that? I've done that over the years and have done a three year trending analysis and then a five year trending analysis for my president. Here's how the workforce has shifted. Here's our people have shifted. One year might be, training development.

Next year might be leadership development. How do you develop your leaders? If you develop your managers already, let's solve a leadership development. How do you get to the next phase of that? But looking at data really showcases how HR contribute and can partner and be a value partner to the managers and the leadership

[00:06:48] Mo Fathelbab: HR report. I love that. I think that's, just brilliant. So picking up on that, how, is there an example you could share with us of how data has shaped leadership? Strategy.

[00:07:01] Thanh Giddarie: a couple things. Like I said, when you look at the trending, you will see where things are, right? So I started keeping track of, performance management and outcome.

You can't, there's nowhere to keep track of that. How do you track that? How do you showcase that? what is the outcome? So using that and talking to managers about where are some of your shortcoming? Is it the management training? Is it the soft skill training of your leader? Are your leaders well-rounded enough?

And then from there you can stem the conversation and succession planning. How do you use that performance management? Discussion, conversation, activity that you've done to look at succession planning. Who are your skill manager that you're gonna be investing for? Leadership management, executive coaching, training development where they're, gonna go with their next step.

That's one of the example of using like a key metrics of performance management to view and see who your strong leaders are.

[00:07:53] Mo Fathelbab: What are other KPIs that HR leaders should highlight when talking to the C-suite?

[00:07:59] Thanh Giddarie: Value, right? Value HR as a value partner, how do you show your value, right?

[00:08:05] Mo Fathelbab: How do you show your value,

[00:08:07] Thanh Giddarie: a number of different things, right?

You look at, some of the actions that I've done. You look at some of the things you can't, HR just can't come out there and say, I work in HR. I have 20 years of experience. I know what I'm doing. Show it. How do you show it? How do you use the information to showcase that? And the funny thing is that, numbers are great.

HR can't, it's not, like a finance, right? You can't do the balance sheet. You can't do a return on investment sheet. You have to be able to show how that is through quantitative data. how do you do that? We do surveys, we do feedback. Right. How do you use that and say, let's shape what HR is gonna be?

The workforce is changing. There's six generations in the workforce. You're not gonna have a one size fit. All right? So how do you utilize that data to say, you know what? Here are some of the things we need to do for some of our top tier manager. Here's the minimum middle tier manager. Here's our frontline manager, here's our skilled labor force.

What do we need to do to develop those and be able to, utilize our people strategy in that? So one of the things I talk to my leadership about is about people. People matters. They're all very different. Not everybody has the same skills. How do you play to those strengths? How do you look at the weaknesses and create opportunities for them?

So those are some of the things that we, talk about in our leadership team meeting, and HR as a whole. What are the success stories? How do we measure success? How do we look and say, yes, this program worked. It might have worked for a few, not a lot, but do you revamp it? Do you retweak it? Do you give up on it?

so those are some of the things that we've looked at in terms of like people measurement tools.

[00:09:54] Mo Fathelbab: Yeah. So I undersThanhd you're also passionate about developing women leaders. what is the MIT community doing to advance female leaders,

[00:10:05] Thanh Giddarie: As probably know that our Soul School of Business has a woman leadership program.

folks can participate in that internally, within MIT and internally within MIT Health, we do a lot, a few things. We do leadership development programs, we do training development programs, in-house to MIT with different other schools. at MIT, we also look at doing, Outside development. Right?

It's, so, it's, great to do internal development, but what is going outside in other field, in other industry, for insThanhce, like HR, right? SHRM is great for, that reason because you're in the field of HR. But what are some of the other things out there that makes you a well-rounded leader? So for us, it's a lot of, in terms of growth and development, is how do you look at your employee and figure out what is the best process for them, because not everybody has the same, Track, not everybody has wants the same outcome. How do you look at leadership development for each person, but also look and how do you make it a mix of things? It is just not all internal. It's gotta be a combination of internal, external, and external market.

[00:11:13] Mo Fathelbab: Do you have any stories, examples of how you've seen leadership development make a difference?

[00:11:19] Thanh Giddarie: there's probably plenty of that because if you look at, if you've, again, back to the my HR annual report. If you look at how do you track promotion, do you track promotion to people? Did those promotion come from training development? Are they in-house training development that got them to where they are?

And then do you look at external development to get to the next level? senior leadership positions doesn't come about because you have a lot of internal training. It comes about because of external markets. Do you learn about it? Did you have the exposure and the experience needed or do you have the network?

The support needed to do to be able to grow in those roles. So for me, looking at that in terms of like, how do we grow our people? How do we grow our people internally? How do we grow them externally? Success stories are for those who, go on to do bigger and better things. You don't have to be with us all the time.

You don't have to be at the same organization for 20, 30 years, go and explore other organizations.

[00:12:18] Mo Fathelbab: I think that's just a beautiful attitude. I want your success, whether it's here or not. Yes. Yeah. And just on that note, I wanna undersThanhd a little bit better. What gave you this passion to really advocate for women leaders in the first place?

[00:12:36] Thanh Giddarie: so. Interestingly enough, I've been through a number of different presidents in my previous role and looking at that and looking at the candidacy, the women candidacy in there, and looking at how many of 'em actually become president, how many actually become provost? that's one of the things that piqued my interest for my doctorate program is to be able to study women leaders.

How is there a roadmap? Is there a mentorship? Is it intentional? Do you do it from the get go? Starting my career 20 some odd years ago. Everybody, folks said, do you wanna be college president? Probably not, but who knows, right? If you have the right mentorship and the right guidance, that could be the key.

looking at women leader, does women leader have that guidance and mentorship and network? Early on in the career to be successful. You do not see the career path for you in front of you 20 years out, but are you surrounded with enough resources, that can help you overcome some of your own personal and professional challenges and obstacle?

There's no roadmap for a leader, right? You look and say, you know what? I wanna become a manager. I wanna become a director. I wanna become the vice president. I wanna become a CFO. Is there a roadmap for that? sometime it happens. Sometimes accidental, sometimes purposeful. But through my studies I found that, a lot of times, what makes a male leader more successful is mentorship.

They get that mentorship, they get that network building. Sometimes the female leaders do not have the same opportunity or not have not been exposed to the same opportunity. How do we reshape that conversation? How do we make it more intentional? Not everybody's gonna be college president. Not everybody's, gonna be a provost, but how do you look at making just a little bit more intentional to help the women leader overcome and be able to see a pathway to that?

[00:14:34] Mo Fathelbab: What advice do you have for women as they build their pathway and as they look at their future in leadership?

[00:14:42] Thanh Giddarie: Be inquisitive. Surround yourself with folks that are, that's gonna support you. Mental support is really imporThanht. as as women in the business world, in any world, you have a lot of different obligations.

I'm a mother of two, so I tell folks, you have a family, obligation. You have a professional obligation. You always think, I can't do both, or I can't do this. Or there are certain times when you can't get to things. Make the time to do it. You will get to the end. I tell folks all the time that you know it, it could take somebody five years, but it can take you 10 years, but you'll get there.

UndersThanhd what challenges are in front of you, and also building a support system around you so that you can have mentors, you can have advisors, you can have, champions, folks that are gonna push you along. and you need that female women leadership needs that you need to see the example that's ahead of you.

How do you continue to grow and develop, but also you wanna keep learning? One, the, one of the things that is, is great now with all the technology and with the changing the, with the workforce now, is that the opportunity is there, take it, go learn it, learn different things, expose yourself to different things.

That's why networking is imporThanht, but also beyond networking is also undersThanhding your own leadership style and then how do you can grow and develop the, number of programs out there. It can help you do internal reflection on yourself, but also look and say there are women out there that have done it, so why can't I do the same thing?

[00:16:19] Mo Fathelbab: I love that. Who were a couple of your mentors that really helped you along the way?

[00:16:24] Thanh Giddarie: I will say, my, my previous boss for 10 years, she was always a supporter. She was always an advocate and undersThanhding what you wanna do. one of the, one of the other one is my previous president, we had the first female president of the college.

and I saw her, the struggles that she went through. The challenging aspect, just, some of the changes that happened wouldn't happen for her, but also she had to be a strong person to get herself through that. she had to have a strong team to get her through that too. So under see, seeing that, seeing the fact is that when you surround yourself with a good network of support.

You can make things happen.

[00:17:08] Mo Fathelbab: I love it. And so you mentioned you're doing your PhD. what inspired you to do that in the first place?

[00:17:15] Thanh Giddarie: so it's my ed, my, it's my EDD and I am a lifelong learner. I like learning. I like the fact that there's always something to learn, so why not continue? I got my MBA years ago and, over 20 years ago I was like, do I stop there being in higher education?

Why not? Right? Yeah, why not? When it's there. But also the value that education brings, right? It's not what you learn, it's how you learn, how you take the information and how you apply that information because you don't know everything. Yeah. You have to continue that. You will have to want to learn and have that eagerness to grow.

So my next step for me logically, is to go ahead and go forward and get my, my EDD. then it came about like, how do you, where do you wanna go? How do you wanna study it? Higher education. I love higher education for all the craziness that it is. So I looked and I was like, how do we look at leadership in higher education?

What does that look like? Is there a journey? Is there a roadmap? Is there things that institution could do intentionally to groom for internal growth? Or groom for external growth to be able to build a bigger network of folks that will support each other.

[00:18:29] Mo Fathelbab: And how do you think your EDD will impact? The HR work that you're doing or is it already impacting it?

[00:18:36] Thanh Giddarie: It has. I will say it's, been very interesting because, for an EDD program, we do action research. So I always look at HR, this is even going back 10, 15 years ago. I look at HR from a more, quantitative study, right. Numbers. Your, your, time to fill, your turnover rate. All those are quantitative.

Then I start doing action research. I was like, what about the qualitative side? What about the human piece that you cannot measure with numbers? You can fill all the numbers, the one to five Likert scale all you want. But what are some of the open-ended comment that people share about the organization, about the culture that you wanna capture?

So, qualitative data. Has really driven me to that and looking at more of a research base, behavioral base for employees.

[00:19:30] Mo Fathelbab: So as part of your doctorate, you're doing research on, the gender gap in candidates for presidency at universities. can you tell us about that?

[00:19:39] Thanh Giddarie: Yes. that has been very, interesting because looking at the number of qualified higher ed, first of all, step back is higher education.

Majority is female. and then looking at from that sThanhdpoint, why are there not more female candidacy for president? Is the job too difficult? Do they not know what is in front of 'em? So that's what caused me to look at how, why is there such a big gene gap? There's a ton of studies out there over the past 10, 20 years as to why the barriers that women, have over men, the difference in economy, the difference in, likeability, viewability, credit, credentials, the ability to look at.

The university as a business, like what are some of the different facets? Do you have to come through the academic side and go through the, faculty, provost, Frank to become the president? You, a lot of folks do. You still do, but most of them still do. They still, they, it's a preferred route, but also there's some schools out there that have tried the unconventional route of having CFOs or other folks from outside.

Would no higher education become president. If you run, can run a business, can you be college president? It's almost the same, right? So how do you utilize that information and try to close the gap for, a female candidacy, if it's gonna be, the fact is that the lack of training, the lack of training programs, what can we do to provide that?

What are some of the things that are missing? if it's mentorship, how do we get a network of women leaders together to be able to support folks that have an interest in becoming president or leaders at the institutions?

[00:21:21] Mo Fathelbab: I love how you started with the number of candidates instead of the actual number of presidents.

'cause it seems like that's going to the source.

[00:21:28] Thanh Giddarie: Yes. Yeah. Through that you have to start with how many are out there, right? How many folks really want to go for that position? Not everybody do folks. Some folks are happy being the provost. That's fine too. But why? What is the challenge? Why? Why are we seeing more men president than female president?

Yeah.

[00:21:50] Mo Fathelbab: All right. Well I look forward to finding that out. so how do you hope the future of the workplace evolves in the next few years?

[00:21:57] Thanh Giddarie: It's gonna be a challenging one because with the multiple different generations in the workforce, how do we look at, having a solution for everybody? You might not have a solution for everybody, but if you look in the future of the workforce, what are some of the HR challenges that we're having in front of us?

People, right? People, talent. Skills, ai, what do we do with all that? Those are some of the big things that we need to tackle in the near future. I don't know if there's an answer for that, but we need to start looking at that. Need to start recognizing that and then figuring out from there, how do you work with your people?

Where's your root cause? Is it the lack of talent, the lack of skill? How do you feed that? How do you feed the population? And I tell folks, going back to the workforce, it doesn't start when you enter the workforce, right? It starts, college starts sometimes in high school. how, are we partnering as educator, and education with some of the, K to 12 colleges, they're producing our workforce.

How, are we helping them prepare the workforce for today?

[00:23:13] Mo Fathelbab: I think that's great. Last question, Thanh. What is one piece of advice that has shaped your work or personal life the most?

[00:23:22] Thanh Giddarie: It's, probably the, ability to, keep asking question, you have to keep asking question, but you also have to bring something to the table.

You can ask question, you can learn all you need to learn, but at the end of the day, you have to bring solutions. You have to bring something to the table. It might not be the right solution, but give it a try. Try it. If it fails, go back, adjust. Tweak, modify, and go back at it.

[00:23:49] Mo Fathelbab: And try something else.

[00:23:50] Thanh Giddarie: Yes, that is correct.

[00:23:52] Mo Fathelbab: Lovely, and that's where we'll end it for this episode of People and Strategy. Thanks for tuning in. You could follow the People and Strategy podcast wherever you get your podcast. Also podcast reviews have a real impact on podcast visibility. So if you enjoyed today's episode, leave a review to help others find the show.

Finally, you could find all our episodes on our website at SHRM dot org slash podcasts. And while you're there, sign up for our weekly newsletter. Thanks for joining us, and have a great day.

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