Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: We need to continue to focus on the employee experience as a whole and really growing into what those needs are in a different way. So we need to be able to understand who is doing what within our function and how to enable a faster and more efficient product and solution for our employees that meet their needs.
Welcome to a new episode of the what Works podcast series. You just heard from Nick Benaquista, a leader in HR transformation at Mastercard. In this episode, Kathy Andares, senior vice president of research and global industry analyst at the Josh Burson Company, interviews Nick about redefining HR through systemic approaches, cross functional collaboration in HR, and implementing a new HR model with strategic business partnerships. Let's get started.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Nick, thanks so much for joining us on the what works podcast.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: So looking forward to our conversation today about how your HR transformation is going at Mastercard. And this is going to be part two of the journey because we did a big case study last year about the way that you are evolving and transforming the HR function at Mastercard. So I can't wait to hear how it's going. But before we jump in, tell us a little about yourself, about your role, and a little bit about Mastercard as well.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Cathy. So I am one of our people business partners here at Mastercard. I have a portfolio that supports the chief administrative officer of the company, as well as our vice chairman, which leads our strategic growth organization. So I have eight other colleagues. The nine of us together make up our people business partner team to support the business. So I've been with Mastercard for six years now, in October here for the last three years. One of my focuses in the portfolio I shared is being the people business partner for our HR function. And so I've had the joy to help our family is the way I see it, to think about. We are a business people. Business partners are there to help the business do and meet its needs and deliverables for the organization. And it's no different for an HR function. So being able to come in, understand what the needs are from a business perspective and how we move ourselves forward has been a focus area. And when you think about Mastercard as a whole, it's a fascinating story in and of itself because of the sheer growth of our organization. Over the last five years, our employee population grew from just shy of 15,000 up to 33,000 plus. And then certainly the expectation of our employees within the company have increased. It becomes really important for how we can help the organization as a whole. Meet its needs.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Tell us a little bit about a quick recap on what happened in the first part of this journey.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Absolutely. In speaking with our colleagues within the function and understanding the needs of our employees, what we saw was we need to continue to focus on the employee experience as a whole and really growing into what those needs are in a different way. So when you think about that being our true end goal, how we get there is important. And were we, as a function, equipped and ready to keep up with the pace that I just described earlier and then delivering on those experiences. And the concern was, you know, we need to operate at greater scale.
We need to be able to understand who is doing what within our function and how to enable a faster and more efficient product and solution for our employees that meet their needs.
We took a step back and looked across the organization and said, well, we really haven't had significant change in a very long time. And with all that rapid change happening around us, we need to look at ourselves saying, how do we become better? And so the journey began there, saying, are we built for the future?
Are we built for now and the future? And how do we get to more scalable ways of working? So we said in that first year, within each of the areas of the organization, do we understand what our roles and responsibilities are? And have we created something in a way that allows us to scale?
[00:04:32] Speaker B: What are some examples of the products that you created? Give us some examples of HR products.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great question. So we basically, what we've done, we did a service catalog as our starting point to understand what are the products we have? What are the services that we have and what experiences are they a part of? And so from that bottomed up build, we kind of understood that it's more than just products. A series of products could help make up an experience. For example, some have technology behind them. Some are experiences that are interactions, not through necessarily a technology solution as well. But some of those examples is onboarding. Onboarding is an experience.
When you think about onboarding, it touches a whole lot of parts of organizations, even outside of HR. But how do you sit there and say, I still own the end to end thinking of this experience, even if I don't own all the products or elements attached to it?
Talent acquisition is an experience.
Our total rewards team, there are experiences built within there, such as benefits, global mobility. So those are examples when we talk about experiences. And if I could give an example of why recently, it's a new experience that we launched in our company, our employee stock purchase program where employees in our company were able to buy a portion of the company through stock at a discounted rate. The launching of that was done with the new experience model in mind and the group sat down together and said, let's think about the end to end experience of this. That was a great success story for us that we saw by having this team talking together, the technology and the architecture behind it, the operations to execute it, and how employee will go and experience it individually was thought through end to end. And something that we launched new with this new mindset.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Wow, what a great example, because now people can own part of the company, right? So what did you set out to do this year?
[00:06:35] Speaker A: What's been the guiding post and a lot of our thinking on this transformation is what are the problems ahead of us? And then calibrating and making sure that we're moving a direction that helps solve them. So as we ended the first year, there was a concern being built around, well, we've cleared up roles and responsibilities within, but the fear was creating siloed solutions now. So how do we work across each other became that problem statement. And year two of the transformation was how do we focus on that? And in working with yourself, Kathy, and the team, this idea of systemic HR came out of that. I didn't have an original language of what this was. Been spending time with you and the team and the great work that you've all done, I realized, oh, that's what we're trying to do. We need groups to work together to solve that particular need.
So who are the experienced owners? Who are the tech owners? Who are the service leader owners? How do they work together? How often should they meet? What are the conversations around? So we're setting up an infrastructure around that. So you can see that the shift for year two was bringing together the disparate teams of hrtaine to work within systems to solve the needs of what that system is trying to accomplish. And so that's where we've been spending a lot of our time from the transformation perspective, ensuring people understand what I just described, because it's hard.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Wow, what a great way of thinking about it and clarifying what that means, because I think most HR organizations, as we discovered, they're mostly just sitting back and saying, okay, anybody have a question? Okay, how do we do that? And by the way, this system doesn't really work like a system either most of the time. So how did that change the roles of the HR people?
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Everyone was changed in some way, shape or form, going from within a coe to say what an experienced owner is. It's a really challenging thought when you break it down. How much change we're talking about. It's not just about designing this great experience for our employees, but understanding all aspects of it, including operations and technology and the infrastructure to make that work is also a challenge when you're already resource constrained. It does take a lot of effort to be able to help people shift into a new way of operating the interaction. Communication, behavior was the big change. Talking more with one another, helping understand and have empathy for these situations. Right. And I want to be clear. There's so much work to do here.
It's about momentum and building on successes. We still have a lot to do in this space. Those are two examples where I think high degree of changes occurred.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: I think that's so important to set the realistic expectation too. Of course, this is not going to happen overnight. And it's more teaching them how to fish rather than fishing for them. But take some time. For sure. It's a journey. It's a good journey. And I love how you're starting with the vision, of course, as well. What has been easy on this journey, if anything, and what has been maybe hard on this journey, you know, the.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Easy thing is people agree and understand we need to evolve. What makes it hard is how we get there and right the least ways of doing that. Right. But you know, we listen to the pain points and there's far more pain points than we'll ever get to address. We're in a constant state of aspiration. It's words on a paper that we're trying to bring to life.
Will we ever realize it?
I don't think so. But not a reason to. Not to strive to get there, right? So the belief in it, the desire from people within our function, gosh, we have such great talent, great people, and they all want to do their best and want to help. The interdependencies are so significant. To start to change one element means everything else has to change. That's why it's a system proves itself out. We also can't change everything all the time at the same time. So you're thinking about how do I sequence what comes first? Right? The miss would have been arguing over and over until we come to decision. You start to put into play and then you keep track of it. Where are we not making traction? Where are we falling behind? But you know what? We're still moving. It's momentum. But I think it's been hard to try to be like getting it all right. I it's a mental change I have to make where it's not going to be right. Are we focused in prioritizing the right things? What is in front of us that needs to get fixed versus what do we need to be investing in longer term? Because it has to get fixed over time.
That's certainly been a challenge investment. That's a challenge. And it's not just dollars investment, it's time investment. When you want to sit down and think through roles and responsibilities between tier zero, tier one and a location business partner, by country, by experience, I mean, that's people's time. They had to step their day job to articulate and process map and understand, right. The talent acquisition team, the amount of time and energy they put on a big wall. There is a very large flowchart of all the processes that had to take place within the TA experience. Then looking at each and what I want to solve and how do we create efficiencies? A team working on that. It is people and their time investment too. That's hard because you're running the business in exact time, right. And you can't have people working on a transformational understand it. So you always need content owners and people who understand it and can provide their insight. So that's also been a challenge throughout the transformation as well.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: No, I totally see both of them. The first one I maybe characterize as progress over perfection, right? So keeping moving rather than making sure, as you said, disputing all the time, like where do we go first and second? Because as you said, I mean, it's better to just get started on something and make some forward movement and then maybe recalibrate if you said, oh, maybe we should reprioritize because now we're in a different place. So keeping forward rather than just thinking about how do we do this? Right. The second one, I think it's so key to keeping the plane flying while you're fixing it or something like that. That's that analogy, right? Because people have their day jobs to still need to do what they need to do. Obviously when you have your talent acquisition, they still need. The hires don't stop, right? The recruiting efforts don't stop. So they still have constantly more and more people coming in and saying, I need to hire all these people, while the team has to step away and map all their processes at the same time. That balance, like keeping the urgent from the, with the important and all of that is challenging, but you're managing really well. So how do you feel it's going? What are some of the successes that you have and maybe what's next.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Look, you know, I think it's going well. I do. I think that we're seeing great progress in all these areas. We are increasing the, you know, the employee sentiment of some of the experiences that we've been deploying, executing, or evolving or creating for the first time.
That's that real output around is a success. Now, it's far more than just the operating model. Please. The operating model is just a piece of that pie because the actual products themselves, the people doing the work.
So I think from that perspective, it's going great. And then the idea of it has become part of your day to day. Now, it's not that it's just this big transformation that's going on. It's just this is the way of working now. This is just life.
You know that when I come in day in day, I am just part of something that is shifting and constantly changing and that comfort with ambiguity, right? That comfort that the way we're doing is like, I'm going to go over and doing it tomorrow. And my constant thinking about my job in a way that's aligned to how do I make the things, or how do we become part of the evolution of what's happening around the systems as well. Right. So that becomes that newer gauge of success in a lot of this.
It's definitely been a challenge to say, how can I quantify the success of this in full transparency, Kathy, because there's tentacles around this and employee sentiment is a big one. You know, getting feedback from colleagues around asking flat out, how is it going?
And so that shift where we're going, that's a big piece of it. I think the next thing we're looking at, too, this notion of operations, investment of operations, this tier zero, tier one, the tool in the process, it's literally the cornerstone of the entire how this thing, how hR works. And so really double doubting even more on the operation side, how does that work? What becomes next to really unlock all these other pieces? So that's going to be a big focus area for us.
AI, everything that's being described, roles, response, things will shift. And so that's why even what this is and where it started two years ago versus now, it's going to have a new face and lens once you start to put these aspects into it. So how do we adjust to those needs, skills and capability development?
That's a huge undertaking. What are those needs? And I even put AI in that one, too, because how do you leverage AI is going to be a scaling capability in and of itself, but, well, that is where this is going. And it's the stickiness, it's keeping it moving, keep momentum, investment operations, day to day behavior shifts, AI involvement, skills and capabilities.
That's where this is going, I think. And the future here, too.
Wow.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: Now, what a great journey you're on. And I think the journey never stops. Right? I mean, as you said, we're continuing to transform, you're continuing to revise how the roles shape, what new capabilities people need, what new technology capabilities you have, of course, with AI coming in. So it's an ongoing journey. And I think that's one of the big themes that I get from talking with you, too. It's not like, oh, we're working through this big transformation and then afterwards we're through it and now we're finally in the steady state. Well, this is ongoing tweaks, right. Ongoing transformation. So do you see an end to this, do you say, well, now we're done, or are you ever done?
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah, no, never done.
That's become very apparent, I think, is that it's just ever ongoing and just keeps adjusting and different factors come into play. Business factors, external market factors, internal factor. It's just constantly shifting and changing. So it'll always adjust.
I think that the team, the HR leadership team, absolutely feel that as well, and that this is a constant evolution and changing and shifting that we're doing.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: So it's not the old school HR transformation that was a project. Right. It's constant evolution of the HR function of the roles, of the jobs, of the technology, of the operations, of the capabilities and how people interact and communicate with each other.
Fantastic. Fantastic. Any last word of advice or anything else that I should have asked you? I know we covered so much ground.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: No, I think that maybe the last piece I'd say here, because as a voice on behalf of my team here, I'd be remiss if I didn't articulate. This is completely and undertaken by the entire, both leadership team as well as every employee in our function. We are all contributing in some way, shape or form to help and shape this, even in the feedback, which is definitely looking back as part of the challenge, too, Kathy, is how to manage the feedback that's coming in along the way of all this is a challenge because there's more feedback to come than can ever be managed. But you also need to find a way to listen. You can't just ignore because it's too much. I think the engagement from the overarching HR functional has been phenomenal in a lot of this and their comfort to give that feedback, their guys, their ideas and solutions that have been brought forward.
The wonderful experience owners we have across the organization wanting to continue to evolve what they're creating for their employees and that desire. Is there an HR leadership team that's constantly committed to do what we're right and best for the organization. So the people behind all of this work is they're the ones doing all the work are really why I think we've gotten such success to date on this while there's still so much to do to realize these ideas, because they're ideas that are being realized over time.
At least I have personal comfort and confidence in my colleagues and team members that we will continue to get better, we will continue to use, we will continue to help create experiences for the organization that our employees and our leaders are looking for and need from us.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Wow. Fantastic. Well, I think we covered so much growth. Thank you so much, Nick, for joining us on the what Works podcast. It was such a pleasure and I learned so much. Every time I talk with you, I learned so much. Thank you for joining us.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for having me. What a privilege. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: And that's a wrap for our conversation with Nick Bernaquister for Mastercard. Nick illustrated how Mastercard is redefining HR through a systemic HR approach that's built on cross functional collaboration, new roles and responsibilities, a clear, integrated operating model, and full stack HR capabilities.
And although thats the sequel to our previous case study with Mastercard that described year one of their journey, Mastercard is not done. Its not a one time HR transformation, but an ongoing evolution of the HR function. We hope you enjoyed this episode and look forward to bringing you more insights from pioneering HR leaders. Until next time, keep exploring what works in your world. Thanks for joining us.
