318 - The #1 Place To Work in The World: Laura Fuentes (CHRO, Hilton)

0:00I think the chief host officer mode as far as attributed to leadership, right? I mean, it's a little bit of taking this concept of servant leadership, but modernizing it, I think, for the current times, right? Because people come to work and they want to feel seen, heard, welcomed, taken care of so they can reach their full potential. So when I think of a host, a great host, curates a great guest list, creates an environment that is going to be welcoming, hospitable, and stimulating, and then delivers on that experience, right? By paying attention to the guests' needs, letting them flourish, by being not the most interesting person at the party, but the most interested, right?

0:46And really allowing other people to thrive in the setting that you've created. You know, I think great leadership is also about great energy management, not only about time management. And so what is the energy that you're leaving people with? You know, so when they leave an event, when they leave, you know, a stay, you know, are they leaving feeling, wow, I really filled my tank? You're listening to the Modern People Leader podcast, where we go behind the scenes with today's top HR leaders and work experts. We talk to them about how they've gotten to where they're at, what they do every day, and what they see coming next for the future of work.

1:23Hope you enjoy.

1:28All right, the recording drought is officially at an end. This is our first episode that we've done in like, what, three or four weeks, Stephen? Feels like a month, yeah. It's been a while. And like, what better guest to have than Laura? I'm happy to have you here. How you doing? What an honor. I get to dust off the cobwebs together. I'm great. Thank you for having me. Really nice to be here with you guys.

1:52Laura Fuentes: You have been on our dream guest list for years. Oh my gosh, you guys need bigger dreams. That's all I can say. No, get out of here. Get out of here. So I just wanted to take a moment and celebrate wins because Daniel, I know, you know, very early on, we had you on our radar. We needed to grow a little bit ourselves. And so it's one of those pinch me kind of moments when we have it's like, oh, I'm off to record a podcast with the CHRO at Hilton Hotel. Well, you guys have built something really cool. I love the content, the way that you engage on a real human level. And the guests you have have been amazing.

2:28So I feel honored to be in their company. Thanks for having me. It's rare that I get nervous for these anymore. But before we hit record, I was like, oh, I feel the butterflies a little bit. So it's going to be a good one. Well, we start every episode the exact same way. And that's with something called Good News Stories. so all of us you know share something from the last week or two could be personal could be work related some people do one of each and we like to start with our guests so laura if you if you've got something please go i do you know i was reflecting back the last week i've had some really nice opportunities to break bread with people and i had a great lunch with the interns on my team last week i had a great dinner with my grown kids this saturday which is not easy to schedule given their busy lives and today I'm hosting book club at my house so I feel like I've had a really nice like set of events with people love that what about you guys I'll go next

3:22Laura Fuentes: so we Daniel and I live in Austin Daniel is like a unicorn he's actually born and raised and lives in Austin that those are rare are you keeping I grew up in Dallas I try I try I lived in Austin for two years. So, you know, I did my best too, but sorry, keep going. Well, yeah, no, I, and so I'm from Dallas. Don't hold that against me. I'm, you know, you either love or hate Dallas. I feel like one of the reasons we love it. And I have two teenage daughters and a six month old son. And so I've got a whole range of family right now, a whole lot of family. And we all went to Dallas last weekend and went to Six Flags.

4:02Laura Fuentes: And I'm a big, like my inner child, like loves theme parks. One of our, and I'm not a Disney person, but one of my favorite family trips was Disneyland in LA. And I just absolutely loved it. And Six Flags, not Disneyland, but we rode like one of the most insane roller coasters I've ever ridden. And yeah, I'll keep it at that. That's my good news. I love that. It's been good vibes. So over the last two weeks, I've been doing a lot of traveling. A couple weeks ago, I did family vacation with my wife's family. And then this past weekend was one of my best friend's bachelor parties. We went to Fort Myers Beach, which I had never been, kind of like a quiet little beach town.

4:50And I got to hang out with some of my best friends that I rarely get to see, maybe like three or four times a year, if that. It was a blast. I can feel myself getting older. I'll just leave it at that. You got to hang out to my mom and to friends, the people who've known you, and yeah, having some fun together. I love it. Yeah. And so this coming weekend, my wife is going on a bachelorette party for my friend's fiance, the one that I went to the bachelor party for last weekend. And so I'm going to have my 14-month-old daughter for the entire weekend. So for three nights. All right. And I've already got like an agenda.

5:27I have like, you know, reservations for us. We're going to go do some activities. And so I'm excited. As Steven likes to say, I'll be in super dad mode.

5:36Laura Fuentes: Real talk, though. How much of that did Tori get organized before I did it? Did you do the whole thing? Yes. I remember the first time I left my kids with my in-laws. Well, my oldest when he was a baby. And I kid you not, I created a whole PowerPoint instructions for how to handle the baby. And looking back on it now, I'm surprised my mother-in-law didn't just like you know slap me silly but um but I took those things very seriously before going away from my baby so to be honest we did the same we did the same thing not to the same extent as some people we know but we had like a two or three page google doc with instructions like for nap time and meals and all the things and looking back months later we're like they would have been fine without any of that they raised us like yeah exactly i mean this being my roller coaster like steven i know well i tried and my wife was like i don't i don't know like safety yeah we're gonna draw the line there yeah yeah yeah well enough about us i want to hear your origin story and i it's one of my favorite questions of the podcast that we asked and i saw I mentioned the dossier earlier, and I saw that you have a civil engineering background.

6:54Laura Fuentes: And that's not the typical starting point for senior HR leaders with brands like Hilton. And so give us a story. How did you end up in the seat? What was that journey like? Give us the story. How much compensation risk do you think is hiding in your spreadsheets right now? For a lot of people teams, comp has gotten way more complex than the system supporting it. You got merit cycles, bonuses, incentive plans, approvals, benchmarking, pay equity, transparency requirements. And somehow a lot of it is still being managed through Excel, manual uploads, or HRIS modules that weren't really built for this level of complexity.

7:33And, you know, that's all fine and dandy until there are three versions of the same comp file. Or one person becomes the single source of truth. or leadership asks why a pay decision was made and the answer is harder and harder to explain. That's where BCom comes in. BCom is a purpose-built compensation platform for organizations managing complex pay programs, especially those teams that I was just referring to that have outgrown what spreadsheets can comfortably handle. It helps people in total rewards leaders run complex comp cycles at the speed of business, connect compensation, performance, and pay equity in one place, create clear governance with clear audit trails, and use AI responsibly with humans still in control of the decisions.

8:21If your comp strategy is getting harder and harder to manage, Be Calm is worth checking out. You can learn more at be calm.com slash MPL. That's B-E-Q-O-M dot com slash MPL. Yeah, no, I'd love to share that. So yeah, I didn't grow up in hospitality or in HR, but I feel like all my early life experiences were kind of pointing in that direction. So I grew up moving around quite a bit. My parents worked in the Spanish foreign service. So I was born in Switzerland. We lived in Europe and Africa and the States. And I ended up in the States for college. I had grown up in the French educational system, which puts a lot of emphasis on science and math.

9:01And so I sort of just blindly check the box on engineering when applying to school. And that's what I did. I liked sort of the real tangible aspect of engineering. So civil engineering, it was I went to UVA undergrad, graduated, you know, packed my un-air conditioned Ford Escort and drove to Austin and spent two years at UT Austin going to grad school for structural engineering. Yep, go horns. And then, you know, met my boyfriend and I started dating there. He's now my husband. And we decided we wanted to get back to the East Coast, closer to family, both on his side and my side. So we moved to New York.

9:36I worked in engineering for a couple of years and then realized, you know what, I don't really want to spend the rest of my career in steel-toed boots and a hollered hat. Like, I love the learnings that came from engineering and thinking big and breaking down problems into component parts, but I really wanted to broaden my business perspective. So I went to grad school again for my MBA, went to Columbia, and did what a lot of people do once they graduate from business school and they still don't know what they want to be when they grow up and got into consulting. And that really helped me hone my communication skills, my analytics skills.

10:07I accidentally ended up doing a lot of financial services because we were working in New York and at the time had a baby and so wanted to stay local-ish. That got me meeting a lot of people in the financial services practice at McKinsey. I ended up following one of them into Capital One. And it was while at Capital One where I spent six years in the strategy group and then in the business that I actually got into HR. The strategy group at the time was really like a talent, you know, magnet and push people out into the business. And so it was a bit of an unconventional ask, like most people would get into like the commercial line of business.

10:43But I had always been attracted by how to scale culture through data, I'd raised my hand for, you know, recruiting efforts for, you know, diversity and inclusion work. So that felt kind of like a natural place for me to go. And I loved it.

10:58So I Hilton moved its headquarters from Beverly Hills to the DC area. The headquarters were literally across the street from Capital One. So I would look across the street and think to myself, now that is an iconic consumer facing brand that I want to be a part of. And again, growing up, every time my family, you know, my dad switched posts, we would start or end the post living at a hotel. So I got to see firsthand the real magic of hotels and general managers bringing cultures together, playing a role in diplomacy, playing a role in the world. And that really appealed to me. So 13 years ago, I made the leap.

11:33A couple of our senior execs left Capital One to come to Hilton. I sort of stayed in touch, followed suit and joined to lead our workforce analytics and leadership development. And in 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, stepped into the CHR role. So really fortunate. We had a great CHR leader. He had created a ton of opportunity for me. Our CEO was a mentor. And so that was six years ago. And in the last six years, I have really been so fortunate to do the work that I get to do, which we'll get into in a minute. I've also picked up in the last couple of years, I run our supply chain work as well.

12:11And we've announced just a few months ago that later in the year, I'll actually be stepping into a new role as chief brands officer for Hilton. So it'll be a different career pivot. But yeah, I consider myself a bit of a generalist and just trying to do good work with people that are doing amazing things and brands I believe in. And that's been Hilton for the last 13 years, and I hope for many more to come. I also saw that you're on the board of Chipotle. Yes. And one of the schools at UVA. Is that right? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I've really, you know, over the last few years, enjoyed my board work.

12:45So I started by doing some nonprofit work, both on the Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic chapter, the Arlington Free Clinic. I currently chair the board of the Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic chapter, which just is super fulfilling, and then do incredible work, as I'm sure you know. And then joined a corporate board, Chipotle, a few years ago as well. And that's been amazing. It's been just a great growth vector, a great board, great management team, a brand I would consider myself a power user of, and my kids as well. I hope you both enjoy your Chipotle bowls of burritos. But yeah, I really love that work. And honestly, I feel like as I have grown my career, sort of expanding into a wider aperture has made me a better executive and better leader at Hilton and a better people leader.

13:27As I think about the other companies, other management teams, and I'm able to learn from them and bring my expertise to those businesses as well. I think Stephen has a tradition with his girls where on Father's Day, am I getting this right, Stephen? You go pick up Chipotle and then you go to Zilker and do a little picnic.

13:51Laura Fuentes: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we like literally this clip is going to be when I tell my all my daughter will know about my day to day is I talk to someone who's on the board of directors at Chipotle. She is a fanatic Cora. He loves Chipotle. I have to say, you know, I mean, of all the things I've done, but like my kids, I have two boys, 20 and 23. And a lot of their friends, you know, like they could care less about, you know, all the things I do for work. But like the Chipotle board. And honestly, they're my best focus groups. So any feedback come my way. But yeah, I love the food, love the tea. She's actually a shareholder.

14:25Laura Fuentes: She, for one of the years, we bought both. We let both. And this is my my my wife. They're stepmoms like influence. But one of the things we got them for the holidays was shares of any stock they wanted to have. And my oldest daughter, she's 16. She chose Target. That's been doing okay. Chipotle was Cora's. And we got right after the stock split. And you know, hold it for the long term. It's a hold. It's a hold. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a good tradition. Super smart. I feel like we could just keep talking about Chipotle. But back to Hilton. Help our audience understand the scale of Hilton. How do you describe what Hilton does to somebody who only thinks of it as a hotel company?

15:09Yeah. Love anchoring on our business. So first of all, we've been around for over 100 years. And our founder, I love to talk about the origin story. Our founder, Conrad Hilton, founded the company on the belief that travel could be a force for good in the world and contribute to world peace. And literally, our vision is to fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality. He firmly believed, and we all do, I drank the Kool-Aid when I joined 13 years ago, right, that if people traveled, if they broke bread together, if they had a cup of tea across the world, face to face with one another, they would see that the things that connect us as humans are far greater than those things that differentiate us.

15:48And by putting hotels and communities all around the world that you create centers of commerce, community, all good things, right? So that's sort of the underlying foundational premise. today, you know, and his first hotel was actually in Texas, the Mobley. Fast forward a century plus later, we have over 9 ,200 properties around the world. We operate in over 120 countries and territories, 500 ,000 plus team members. Now, some of those are franchised, some of those are managed or corporate estate, but we consider them all part of our Hilton family. And we operate 28 brands, right, ranging from luxury, full service, our all suites categories and extended stay and our lifestyle brands.

16:29So everything from the Waldorf Astoria, the greatest of them all, we just reopened in New York City, to the Hampton Inn, the Doubletree, Graduate, we just launched our undergraduate brand. So a portfolio of brands that we want to make sure are beloved, thriving, relevant all around the world. Empowering all of that, of course, our team members and our culture. So, you know, I'd say we're in the business of creating exceptional hospitality experiences. We want to be the best place to stay and the best place to work. And we want to be the best part of people's lives, right? If you have that incredible work trip, that family reunion, the soccer tournament that you're taking your kids on, the once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon, we want to be there for those experiences.

17:12And of course, to do that and empower that, we want our team members to consider work the best part of their day. And our ambition has long been to create the most human experience at work. So anyway, we'll get into all of that. But that in a nutshell is our business model and our scale and reach. And we're really proud of it.

17:31Laura Fuentes: I mean, kudos to you and the team. Like there's been brand reinventions. It's been, you know, this is a massive global organization with a portfolio of companies and thousands, tens of thousands of employees worldwide. and you know it's so interesting because Daniel you know we do this for a living like we are HR podcasters and we've had the privilege and honor of to use your words of having some really amazing guests on this show and it's interesting times you know we are in feels difficult things feel heavy things like engagement and culture that we used to talk about like in really light positive terms, it doesn't seem like that's where we're at in the world today.

18:21Laura Fuentes: Everything seems there's this obsession with technology and uncertainty about the future. And when I read the dossier, which is just like the homework prep bot that Daniel built for me to quickly have these conversations, what jumped out at me is this notion of the hospitality mindset. And that's what I'm going to relabel this. And so you recently, and the reason for that is because I believe human experience is having its moment. Like this is the time, if you are in the business of human experience, this is our time to shine. Like this is, it is, um, we aren't having enough of these, you know, you mentioned like you should go out with your friends and you're, and have fun and, you know, join these parties, et cetera, et cetera.

19:08Laura Fuentes: And it feels like we've never been more disconnected. And having like this hospitality mindset, I think is genius. And so I want to spend the first chunk of our time like understanding really what this is about. And I know you realize you released, excuse me, the hospitality mindset report. That's taking Hilton's lens, I believe on hospitality, applying it to workplace culture. And so why don't you walk us through like behind the scenes executive conversations on how that even came about? Like when was the moment that you were like, you know what, we need to get back to our roots and like take this different look at the business?

19:46No, so much to unpack there and we'll gladly take you behind the scenes. So I will say for the last like 10 plus years, I've been here for 13 years. And so for at least that long, we've been really focused on building a great experience for our team members. And our CEO, Chris Nsada, who's extraordinary, really challenged us from the moment he arrived at Hilton to build the best culture in the world. And so that started by listening to our team members and partnering with the Great Place to Work Institute to have external benchmarks. And so for many years, we would survey them. We would ask them questions.

20:20Great Place to Work would come back to us with what I called our annual root canal and tell us, you guys are good, but you're not great. Like, here are the gaps. And so year after year, we kind of were chipping away at it, getting that experience better and better and better based on feedback. Eventually, we cracked the code and we made their list. And I could dissect the reasons why, but we steadily climbed. We slid back. We pushed harder. We got to number one, the top of their list. And so as we sort of, you know, arrived to that ranking, we felt, listen, the journey's never done, right? Like we are constantly evolving, always need to be listening.

20:53But we have learned so much in the years leading up to that ranking. And I've always felt like this is while we compete with other businesses for talent, for guests, for consumers, we all want to build great cultures and be great contributors from the business world to society. Right. So I feel like the learning should be shared on the journey. That was sort of one premise. On the other hand, as a company, we had built Culture Trends Report, really firmly placing Hilton sort of at the epicenter of the travel zeitgeist. And we thought, why couldn't we do that for culture and workplace? And lastly, you know, we were living in an era of like workplace cynicism, right?

21:34There's a lot of like headlines, you know, sort of making fun of work, like people are disengaged, the quiet quitting, the bare minimum Mondays, like all the things, right? quiet firing. It feels like this tug of war between employers and employees. And our point of view has always been, we want to co-create the future of work with our team members. We've learned a lot in this moment. And frankly, we want to reintroduce a more positive and optimistic narrative about work because it's our firm belief that through work, you create agency, learning, growth, friendship, community, purpose. You can change the world for the better.

22:10So those were sort of the genesis and the why create the report. Now, we were also very curious and we wanted to get specific data around in this moment, how do consumers feel about culture? Is this important in their buying decisions? Will they differentially favor a brand who takes care of their team members and has a great culture? And to what extent does that matter in hospitality specifically? So we commissioned some research that in fact proved that, yep, people care about culture. And yes, they're willing to recommend people, you know, more for cultures and companies that take care of their people.

22:44And by the way, that's especially true in hospitality because people feel that if you take care of people well, they're going to take care of their guests better. So all of that and the lessons that we had learned over years of trying to become the best workplace in the world really helped frame this hospitality mindset. And we found not only metaphors and ideas, but real workplace rituals and behaviors that we think could scale. Right. And it's been really fun to have the conversation with my peers in other industries, with media platforms like you guys, and really sort of reintroduce some energy into the conversation about work and frankly, continue learning.

23:23And it's also been really fun to release the report and see how our own team members are so proud of the fact that we are taking a page from the playbook of our general managers, of what they're doing at hotels. And we're saying, you know what, this is actually stuff that we think the world is going to care about. And we want to elevate you as role models for what extraordinary leadership looks like today, given all the things we've talked about. I have so many questions, but the one I'm going to start with is around workplace rituals and behaviors. You said that's something, part of the learnings from the last 10, 15 years on the journey to becoming number one on the great place to work list.

24:05What are some of those workplace rituals and behaviors at Hilton? Yeah, I mean, look, we have been super intentional about a couple of things. One, building a strategy that could resonate globally and building that around really human needs. Right. So our four pillars are inclusion, wellness, growth and purpose. And beneath the strategic pillars, like what are specific activations that are actually going to change the daily experiences of our team members? Because, you know, the longer I work, the more I realize that culture is the accumulation of small moments. Leadership is the accumulation of small moments that you deliver consistently, that you deliver, you know, with authenticity, that you deliver with delight.

24:48So we've built rituals around all of that. And if I bring us back for a minute to the hospitality mindset and the report we just put out, I'll give you some examples in each of the trends, if you'd like. So we kind of uncovered and really named five trends. The first is mutual mentorship, which for us really means like, look, mentorship has typically been seen as this top down gift. But we really view it as a 360 experience where people learn from one another. Right. Like the seasoned executive can share accumulated wisdom and the intern can share a beginner's mindset. And the hack and the ritual that we have around that is this concept of task forces.

25:29When we have a big hotel opening, a special project, we build essentially a tiger team of people from around different regions, different properties, bring them together to work on a specific project. And that brings people together, different tenures, different backgrounds, different geographies to learn from one another and get something big done together. So that's one. I'd say, you know, another one of our trends is around what we call return to opportunity instead of the dreaded RTO. Right. And that for us is really, you know, yes, we believe in in-person connection and learning and the magic that comes when people are together IRL.

26:08And to do that well, right, we'll suggest things like daily huddles. We pay a lot of attention to what we call the heart of house. It's not just the locker room and the, you know, team member kitchen. It's a team member restaurant. We want you to feel welcomed in the space. So truly, like how we decorate and bring their physical spaces to life really matter. We've paid a lot of attention to that around the world and have a lot of standards around that. I could talk about our rituals for recognition. One of our trends is, you know, the new leadership vibe is host mode and considering leaders as chief host officers.

26:44And so for us, you know, this really means just like a great host does, leaders need to set the tone and deliver both on the environment and the experience. And so doing that through moments of recognition, like ICU, our recognition programs range from, you know, our CEO Light and Warmth Award to our Hospitality Heroes, which are just smaller denomination awards where people nominate one another on extraordinary acts of service. And then two more trends, and I'll stop. The AI trend, of course, we can't have a podcast on the workplace environment without talking about this AI era. And really, we wanted to take this from AI anxiety, which is what we really had been seeing in the first year of this sort of popping up, to AI agency.

27:32And pun intended, right? Because we want people to lean in. We want them to learn together. We call this the LOL era, learn out loud. and really leaders in particular to showcase like, hey, here's how I'm using the latest tool. Here's what I'm learning. Here's where I stumbled, like really showing both that vulnerability and action when it comes to AI. And finally, the meaning multiplier. So this is where really we're creating that virtuous flywheel of purpose and performance by amplifying the stories really around, you know, what our leaders do. And so the hack there is really straightforward, board, but it is about storytelling.

28:10And, you know, whether that's activating on LinkedIn, at our town halls, you know, really through our recognition, through our global platforms, like making sure that the stories, whether small or large, are being amplified and really used as a model. So that's a lot. I'm going to shut up. You know, let's yeah. What questions, reactions? How's that resonating?

28:32Laura Fuentes: It's great. I mean, yeah. And don't shut up like this. We want to pack in as much as we possibly can. It's funny, Daniel and I have an internal outline that we, just the two of us, that we use asynchronously to just keep in check with the flow of the conversation. And one of the comments that I just made to him that he reminded me, I was, is great HR leaders seem to also be great. And I'm talking about like top of the heap, like the 99th percentile HR leaders always seem to be great at branding. Like you just rattled like, LOL. I love that. Like all, all of the, and that was like first thing that came to mind.

29:11Laura Fuentes: And Daniel reminded me that you're now taking on, you know, the chief brand officer responsibility. So, so it all makes sense. Well, to that point, I mean, I think especially in a culture like ours, and we set the stage by talking about our scale. One of my colleagues told me early on, like, look, you know, nuance doesn't scale easily across geographies, languages, cultures. So you do have to have simple frameworks that then will be brought to life differently in Dubai and Singapore and China. But it really does have to scale in a simple and global way. So when we first started this work years ago, you know, we called our team member value proposition Thrive at Hilton.

29:48We want all of our team members to thrive in body, mind and spirit, like simple frameworks that will resonate. And I spoke about the heart of house. We literally put up posters in the heart of house for our team members to see our values. to see our recognition programs, to see their stories on their own walls. And it gives me so much joy when I travel the world and I love to spend time in our markets, heading to India for the first time later this summer. I'll be going to China later as well in the fall. But when I walk the hotels and I walk the heart of house and I see the posters that we've cooked up at HQ, you know, localized for language, but with the same concepts, the same promise, the same stories.

30:29Right. And it is really important. The branding is really important for our team members to feel connected to something larger themselves and to be excited and proud and see their own voice, you know, played back to them that we're listening, we're sharing and we're amplifying.

30:41Laura Fuentes: Well, it's so interesting. You just said nuance doesn't scale easily. And one of my last jobs in the corporate world, so I spent 12 years as a practitioner. Five of that was at Ernst & Young as a consultant right out of college. and I then jumped ship to my last account, which was Goldman Sachs. And I worked at Goldman for like seven and a half years. And the last job I had at Goldman was head of HR technology and diversity, weird combination, but they, I loved it. Yeah, I loved it. But it was now looking back, it was like, what a bizarre like combination of things. And for a group, which now is Goldman Saks at Dallas.

31:26Laura Fuentes: But at the time, it was called Archon Group. And Archon was a real estate asset management company. It was a fully owned subsidiary of Goldman. And I would say there were 10 ,000 employees in this company. And of that, like 6 ,000, 7 ,000 were hotel employees. So they actually had a property management arm. And I, being head of HR technology, was tasked with my quarterly OKR was rolling out manager self-service in the HR system. And I literally was like, had to go to a roadway in and get them to implement. And I probably got three or four properties in and I was like, holy shit, excuse my language.

32:12Laura Fuentes: We're going to have to do this different because this is not what I had been used to with kind of corporate based employees. And so that really hit hard for me that nuance doesn't scale easily. And the other thing that I love that I want to jump on next is having a host mentality. And we had someone on the show, Amy Schwartz. She is a chief people officer at a company called Wiz, W-I-Z. They were acquired by Google, Google's biggest acquisition ever. It's an AI company. and she came from the casino world and told us a story about how at the company she worked for, they had this notion of taking out the trash.

32:57Laura Fuentes: And you always knew what an employee was kind of made of. This is my interpretation of her story by, you know, whether or not they're willing to take out the trash. And she was like, every pit boss, no matter what property I was in, always took out the trash. And because they did, I started taking out the trash. And I'm a big believer in this mindset. I think this concept is like so powerful. And so, you know, to me, as soon as I heard like the, the hospitality mindset and having, you know, this host, host mentality, like, tell us more about that. And, you know, how do you translate that in something tangible that like, you know, means something to employees that are doing a whole host of different things at the company.

33:43When I think about our recent humans times machines conversations that we're having with CHROs, there's one theme that keeps coming up. The vision is clear, the pressure is real, but the roadmap is a little bit less clear. It's one thing to talk about the future of work. It's another to sit down with your CEO and say, here's how work, the workforce and our organization really need to change. But I get it. There are a lot of difficult questions that you need to answer. Like, what work should we redesign? How will AI reshape roles and careers? What kind of organization do we need to move faster?

34:21And these are exactly the questions explored in Deloitte's latest Human Capital Trends report. There's some interesting findings in there. The report shows that we're no longer balancing tensions. We're at a tipping point. The report brings together insights from thousands of leaders and explores how organizations can build a human edge. It's about moving beyond simply having humans and machines to creating a system where their capabilities multiply. It looks at how companies are redesigning work for this new future, how to shift from a mindset of cost efficiency to want to value creation, and how to move from static plans to dynamic orchestration of talent and technology.

34:59In other words, it helps turn big future of work conversations into practical leadership questions for a world that won't sit still. If you're thinking about how your organization evolves in the age of AI, go check it out. It's a great read. I read it a couple of times. So if you want to learn more, you can find the link in the show notes. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that. Take the trash out concept. So I'll definitely be borrowing that and quoting her. So look, I think the chief host officer mode as far as attributed to leadership, right? I mean, it's a little bit of taking this concept of servant leadership, but modernizing it, I think, for the current times, right?

35:34Because people come to work and they want to feel seen, heard, welcomed, taken care of so they can reach their full potential. So when I think of a host, a great host, curates a great guest list, creates an environment that is going to be welcoming, hospitable, and stimulating, and then delivers on that experience, right? By paying attention to the guests' needs, letting them flourish, by being not the most interesting person at the party, but the most interested, right? And really allowing other people to thrive in the setting that you've created. You know, I think great leadership is also about great energy management, not only about time management.

36:21And so what is the energy that you're leaving people with? You know, so when they leave an event, when they leave, you know, a stay, you know, are they leaving feeling, wow, I really filled my tank. And I feel like, again, all of those metaphors and similarities apply to leadership in today's world, right? Great leaders are able to attract the very best talent, build high-performing teams, set and build a high-trust, high-engagement, high-joy environment that people feel is really helping them grow and live their best lives and achieve something stronger together than they can individually. And so, again, it's the same aptitudes, the same competencies and the same capabilities that we would attribute to great hosting, right?

37:08It's do you see people? Are you paying attention to how things are unfolding? Are you anticipating needs? Are you helping people fill their own needs in self-serve? And are you giving the right nudges along the way? And so it is very much, you know, sort of that metaphor of hosting hospitality, what we do for our guests, making sure that we are extending that service, that mindset and that leadership to our team members and our teams. And ultimately, you know, we measure those results, too, over time. And as we look at both great place to work results, our own internal survey results, like great leaders do this consistently.

37:43And they're able to drive both the reliability, but also the wow factors, right? Like they know how to build those moments that are unforgettable when they matter most to our team members, whether it's the promotion, the big personal milestone, someone maybe going through loss or grief and like really paying attention individually to needs so that collectively the team, the group like can do their best work. And, you know, I have to say, like, as I travel around the world and I talk to our teams, whether it's the 20-person team at a Hampton Inn or, you know, the 500-plus team, you know, at a Waldorf Astoria, the stories I hear consistently are, you know, the GM, this is a family.

38:24The GM sees us. They take care of us. They allow us to do our best work. We trust them. They've created an environment where we can thrive. It's less about building culture and more about building the environment where culture will thrive and people will thrive and our business thrives. So that really was like what brought it all together. And it's really fun to see how it's resonated as we've launched the report. I think this chief host officer and leading as hosting has really, really resonated. And again, I think one of the core skills, too, is listening in this moment. And I talk a lot to our HR team and our leaders about being chief listening officers.

39:01So if there was going to be like a subtext to the hosting mindset, it's listening and not, you know, not making assumptions around your guests, your team members, right? We've talked a lot about this meme era we live in, right? Like the quiet quitting symptom. And I think leaders who rely on the labels are sort of truncating the conversation because it's easy to say, oh, yep, look, people have lost their motivation and stop there. But to me, the behavior is giving you data. It's not really the diagnosis in and of itself, right? So you have to ask the further question. It's not that people wake up one day and decide, you know what, I'm going to stop giving my best effort.

39:41But the conditions to do your best work may have changed. And maybe something has broken along the way, like trust or, you know, something in the system or the workload. And so how do you really ask the next question? Like what has changed? you know, have the conditions evolved. Motivation isn't a fixed asset. It's actually influenced by leadership. And so once again, like a great hosting leader is going to pay attention to those signals and be able to correct and build the workforce that outperforms and, you know, beats the competition. So if we're using this hosting analogy, you know, let's say you're hosting a big party and, or, you know, we'll simplify it.

40:21Let's say you're hosting a company event. You can send out that survey, right, where you're asking everybody how their experience was, you'll get some initial data. A lot of people will just stop with the data and say like, oh, maybe we shouldn't do events anymore. Like we got a low NPS, we had a low NPS. What I hear you saying is there's a lot more work that goes in after that. And so as the, you know, chief human resources officer, you have your survey data that's coming in from great place to work. And you mentioned it several times. It's something that you're looking and you're tracking and you're trying to get better at year after year.

40:57Now you're at the top of the list, but it doesn't stop there. And so I feel like we used to talk about engagement surveys a lot. How are we going to look at the data and how do you move forward from that? I feel like the action planning piece is where people get stuck because not only do you have to have the plan, but then you have to figure out how to cascade that down to every level. And so for a company like Hilton, what does that look like? And I know this is off script, but how do you go from like survey data to then I'm guessing like focus? Well, I won't even put words in your mouth. What does it look like?

41:34Well, look, I mean, I think at the highest level, we need to listen both broadly and deeply. so we need to scale the systems and part of that are the listening mechanisms the surveys and you know the focus groups like the things that allow us to capture vast amounts of data and really identify trends and patterns and i'll come back to in a second so we need to scale our systems but we also need to scale the soul of the company and so we have to play at different altitudes right and we have done we're very intentional with the data that we capture because survey fatigue is a real thing too. And so I would say our principles for listening are a few, right?

42:16Like one, figure out how to do it at scale, both internally. So we have our internal systems and surveys and externally. The reason the Great Place to Work partnership has been really valuable for us is because it benchmarks us not only, you know, within hospitality, but across all the great companies of the world. And that is our aspiration, right? We are industry agnostic. We want to be great period full stop and get the great best talent regardless of, you know, other industries they may be interested in. So surveys, super intentional, internal and external. We supplement that with real stories on the ground.

42:49We're a very open door company. Our CEO travels the world, you know, 10 times over on any given year. We all, you know, spend time, obviously, you know, today I'm in the corporate office, but I like to spend a lot of time at our hotels, at our properties with our team members. And we really are looking to keep our finger on the pulse of their signals, but also validate some of the trends in the field, right? That is where, honestly, we're seeing, you know, our guest experiences come to life where we're seeing, you know, what's getting in the way of our team members doing their best work. What is the friction that we need to remove from the system?

43:20And usually all of those things put together are what help us, you know, figure out, all right, what are the strategic moves? What are the investments? And I'll give you an example, frankly, you know, that validates both approaches, right? So for years, we had been getting feedback about our as a travel company, you know, you can imagine that, you know, discounted travel perks are some of the, you know, preferred and most beloved benefits for our team members. But for many years, the system was kind of clunky, wasn't easy to get discounted rooms. And we were hearing this year after year in our survey.

43:53And it was a consistent theme around the world. Team members are giving is very specific pain points. And we were able to work across tech, commercial services, HR, to really build a system that would work. And we spent a couple of years, you know, in the lab, like sausage making, we released this to team members, extraordinary at scale, massive results that are now a win for our owners, because we're selling unused inventory for our team members, they get massive discounts for our communities, we're using it as a fundraising tool, amazing, and at scale. A couple of years ago, I was traveling with our CEO and we were in Portugal and we were just coming off a town hall where we're sharing some of our latest, you know, business updates.

44:35We're getting some questions from the crowd. I come off stage, one team member asks to speak with me. So this is one person out of, you know, our, at the time, maybe we were 450 ,000 team members in the world. And he proceeds to tell me how much he loves working at Hilton, how he had suffered in the last year a devastating personal loss, and how we had supported him in so many ways, but how we had fallen short in others. And it was a super emotional conversation. Both of us were in tears. And from that conversation, as I thought about the feedback he gave me, I came back to the States, talked to my benefits team.

45:14He continued advising us and giving us more specific feedback. And we were able to launch a program called the Crisis Concierge that really helps people when they're going and navigating the most traumatic circumstances of their lives to be able to navigate benefits, you know, EAP, like other resources that we have available. So one conversation, one team member, right? And scales a program that I hope, you know, is there in the moments that matter for our team members versus the survey scales for hundreds of thousands of people around the world. And that is how we use the inputs, right? We're always listening.

45:49We always need to be picking up the clues, figuring out the trends, what are the signals and building things that will ultimately create a better workplace and drive business results. So it's a very intentional strategy, listening at its core, global in nature, but really figuring out the right altitude and always listening, like always picking up the clues.

46:12Laura Fuentes: and i've got now you have a an army of chief chief host officers throughout the company and you also have these you know great sources of ideas and feedback with general managers and just like all the the various layers of management that you have and you know one of my so before going all in on the podcast with Daniel, I ran an engagement survey company and we, we had a lot of local Austin, um, brands, many in kind of the, many with distributed workforces and, you know, I will never forget building, you know, special tools for, you know, we had, um, Alamo draft house or a cinema chain big in Texas and all over the nation and the nugget.

47:06Laura Fuentes: So we built kind of some really specific processes for them to tap into the GMs who seem to have like, they're like a really important position within the company, given the nature of their business. And I've got to imagine that you can uncover not just from GMs, but people in similar type positions from these individuals. And I'm just like, curious, do you have any kind of stories or like lessons that you can share with us that you think more corporate people leaders could benefit from or learn from. I'm just curious if you have any stories of like leveraging, you know, your people to get these insights and, you know, in addition to like the data, the survey data and everything else that you're gathering.

47:52You know, we hear all kinds of stories in the podcast and I'll never forget the story that was told about a Mexico Beach FMLA backfire. One of their employees was out on approved medical leave and then somebody spots them on Instagram. Feet up on the beach looking a little too okay for someone supposedly recovering. So cue the call from the CEO wanting to pull their leave and all of the panic that followed. But here's the thing, there's actual legal precedent that says a photo isn't proof of anything. You can't just yank somebody's protected leave because of how a vacation pic looks. You need real evidence.

48:31And that's a trap a lot of HR teams fall into, making a compliance call based on gut instinct instead of actually knowing the law. And that's exactly the gap 650 has built to close. 650 helps teams manage compliance across the full lifecycle, from handbooks and policies to agreements, legal updates, and research. and their AI-powered research center gives you a way to ask employment law questions in plain English so you can better understand what applies and where. Because compliance calls shouldn't be made on gut instinct. They should be grounded in real legal clarity. For those of you that want to learn more about 650, go to the link in the show notes and let them know we sent you.

49:08Yeah, I mean, so many. Honestly, I mean, I feel like our GMs are the global leaders the world needs now. I mean, think about the job of a GM, right? They're running a small city. I mean, in some cases, like it's a, you know, it's a big city, actually. You know, if you think of some of our big urban, you know, full service hotels, but they have to pay attention to the guest experience. They're running, you know, large teams of team members, the operations, the commercial performance, you know, having the cultural sensitivity to be able to welcome our guests. You know, you said and I often, you know, call our leaders chief listening officers, but they're also chief de-escalation officers, you know, having to make sure that they stay calm under pressure in moments of crisis.

49:48We welcome people of all walks of life. Right. So making sure that at any given moment they are acting with, you know, steadfastness, calm, resolve, you know, and keeping the business moving and people safe. So truly, there's so many examples. I mean, you know, right now, and I've been in communication over the last few years with our, we have a property in Ukraine in Kiev. And we've had, you know, one general manager there for many years of the conflict. And we just switched over into with a new leader over the last 18 months. And these are extraordinary human beings who are paying attention to global affairs, who are keeping their team members safe, who are paying attention to very specific, tangible needs for the team members.

50:36Just a few months ago, we were able to mobilize our supply chain team, our operations team, because the general manager had shared the story of like, hey, there's energy cuts in Kiev. Some of our team members literally don't have the right generators to warm their homes. How can we help them, right, in mobilizing everything that we could across our EMEA supply chain to deliver hundreds of generators for our team members? That's because one of our general managers has the courage to let us know how people are doing, to keep the lights on, to continue to welcome the delegations of journalists, diplomats that are working for peace, but also paying attention to the very specific needs that the team has.

51:13So those are the conversations that we're having, you know, on any given Tuesday, right? Making sure that the big needs and the small needs are taken care of for our teams. And I could have dozens of stories like that around the world, right? I mean, in the Middle East now, our team members, again, showing up and our general managers, heroically taking care of the team members on the ground, keeping them safe, keeping them focused, and also making sure that, you know, they're showing up in the communities in the ways that we want them to. So, again, like truly hospitality, I think at its core attracts people who want to take care of others, right, who want to bring that humanity into the world.

51:54We always say we're in the business of people serving people, but the general managers are really those diplomats, those ambassadors for peace, those evangelists for a better world, bringing cultures together. It's an extraordinary role, and I'm so proud to say that we truly have extraordinary humans in those positions across the world. Earlier you said that not only do the systems of the company need to scale, but the soul of the company needs to scale. I know I'm putting you on the spot here, but if you had to describe the soul of Hilton, what would it be? I would say it is purposeful. It is hospitable.

52:37It is gritty. It is competitive. And it is extraordinary. I mean, we have, speaking of earlier, we said, you know, nuance doesn't scale easily. Our values spell out H-I-L-T-O-N. Hospitality, integrity, leadership, teamwork, ownership, and now. And that actually describes us, right? Hospitality, as we've talked about, and this is what a hospitality mindset. But each of those words is very intentionally chosen. And that's why the ones that I've used, it's like, we're always talking about the bigger purpose. we like to get stuff done. We want to win. We're going to take care of the world and our people as we do that.

53:19And that is the soul of our company. We hire people for those values. We'll teach you the rest. We want to make sure that people are in it through thick and thin. COVID was devastating for our industry. We came out stronger. We actually made the world's best workplace after COVID because our engagement results and our survey results were stronger coming out of that and in the middle of the crisis than they were coming into it and preceding it. And I think that that tells you like how we're going to take over people. I'll give you an example, actually, during COVID, when obviously like revenues went down to zero, right?

53:53Overnight. I mean, that would be a catastrophe for any company. And I remember being on a call. We had a crisis team daily and we were working. This was in the early days and we were still remote. So I I remember having this call on a weekend for my kitchen and our CEO was like, listen, our hotel rooms may be empty, but we are still going to be a part of the solution. Because, of course, we were all seeing doctors, nurses who were serving people in hospitals and then not going home because they were afraid to contaminate their families. At the same time, our hotel rooms are sitting empty. So our CEO challenged us to give away a million room nights and to do it in like three days to figure out how we were going to give this inventory to the medical professionals.

54:34And in partnership with Amex, who have been long term, like I would say spiritual partners of those, not just commercial, we got it done. So those are the examples that really bring our soul to life, our business to life and our purpose to life. During COVID also, we had to make really difficult decisions about furloughing people and even laying off some of our team members. And we could have easily just said, you know what? So sorry, our business is on its knees. Like these are the actions we have to take. In fact, what we chose to do is actually retain some of our recruiting team to help them get placed in other places.

55:09So we actually propped up a website. We partnered with other industries who were hiring. And my recruiting team was basically doing reverse recruitment, like helping our team members find other jobs during these moments and months of uncertainty. So that's the kind of purpose in action where we don't abandon our team members when things get hard. We want to be there for every hospitality need that the world experiences. And it's the filter through which we make decisions, right? I always love that quote that says, like, crisis doesn't build character. it reveals it. And that's, you know, how we've sort of lived our purpose through good times and more challenging ones.

55:49Laura Fuentes: Oh, my goodness. I was planning to ask one more question. Laura, that's the mic drop moment. Daniel, I've told Daniel frequently and stated on the show, our listeners know this, that I often will rate just like my personal like vibe rating of an episode ties back to how bad I want to work for the company that our guests is represents. And when you were walking me through careers at Hilton, when you were walking us through that, like H I L T O N, I was like, yeah, sign me up. Like where, where's the role? Yes. Careers are long. You never know what twists and turns you guys are want to take. Oh my goodness.

56:33Laura Fuentes: Oh my goodness. So we have a couple more traditions. We're going to, because that was such a great way to end the conversation. We're going to keep them, you know, short and sweet. We'll get through them as quickly as we can. The next is called rapid fire questions. Same set of questions we ask every guest. First question, what's one piece of advice you'd give to someone in HR who's just starting their career? All right. I think you got to figure out how to be good at four things. They all start with S because I like a good framework, strategy, systems, storytelling, and the soul of the work. I love all these frameworks.

57:11Once a consultant, I'll be the consultant. That's true. That's true. If your team gave you a superpower nickname, would it be? I mean, honestly, I'm going to say the superpower nickname I would give my team is Culture Catalyst. I don't know what they would call me. I mean, you know, I do love to tell stories. So maybe storyteller, gatherer, extraordinaire. I love bringing people together and telling stories. But my team is a real superhero and I would call them culture catalysts.

57:41Laura Fuentes: Love that. What's a strategy or practice from another company you'd love to steal? You know, I've been really inspired by what Walmart has done on the tech side for team members. And they've built this productivity, communication, engagement app. I've talked to Donna Morris, their extraordinary CHRO, and I really want to emulate that and build that here. All right, last rapid fire question. Who should we have on the show next? I'll give you a couple names. I think you should have Donna Morris from Walmart if you haven't. You should have Ariana Huffington, Alexei Robichaud from BetterUp. I feel like those are all pretty awesome.

58:14And Courtney Delacava, who just left Blackstone and looked after talent for their portfolio company. Super interesting, great leader.

58:22Laura Fuentes: All new names. We'd be honored for any and all of them to be on. to thank you in advance. That leaves us with one final tradition on the show. We call it one word or phrase close, a word or few, just as we reflect on the last hour, you know, a way of wrapping things up. And we prefer for our guests to go first. Okay. Look, I'd say for leadership, be the leader you wish you had growing up. I'm going to say fired up. Yeah. I found myself just like transfixed by the conversation and immediately went to the careers website. Oh my God, I love this. This is recruiting a real time. Yeah. So I'm going to say fired up.

58:59Laura Fuentes: Love it. I'm going to go with chief host officer because I love that concept. So cool. And so with that, Laura, it is a wrap. Great. This is like best part of my week. Yes, you're an absolute rock star. Hopefully you'll come do this again sometime. A lot of our guests come back and ring and join us again. But for now, thank you so much. So fun. This was awesome. Thank you guys. Great questions. Great conversation. We could keep going. Best part of my week too so far. But thanks so much for having me. Thank you. Bye. Bye guys. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Modern People Leader.

59:36We really, really appreciate it. And if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five-star rating. It would mean the world to us. And connect with us on LinkedIn. We want to know what you think about the show. And you can find links to both of our profiles in the show notes. Thanks again for listening and see you on the next episode.