The Business of People: Malvika Jethmalani On Strategic HR in 2025

[00:00:00] Hello, social media followers, LinkedIn, Facebook, and everyone tuning into our show. Welcome to the beyond the offer podcast. I’m your host, Rosanna Snediker, joined by my cohost and friend Bill Gates. Thanks for tuning in as we tackle the latest trends and challenges in talent acquisition and human resources.

[00:00:17] Today we are meeting with Malvika Jethmalani. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Malvika for almost 10 years and followed her career from talent manager to three times CHRO to now running her own human capital advisory firm at this group. We’re very excited to have you join the podcast Malvika. Welcome to Beyond the Offer.

[00:00:34] Welcome. Thank you. Thrilled to be here. Yeah. Thanks for joining us. And yeah, I was looking back, Malvika. I think you and I first connected in like the fall of 2015, which is crazy that it’s been almost a full decade. That’s right. We’ve grown up a little since then. I know. Things have definitely changed a bit.

[00:00:51] And I know you’ve known Bell as well, so we’re excited to chat with you here. The first question we jump in with all of our guests, we love just to hear about kind of how you got into HR, [00:01:00] how you started your career. So, let’s dive in there. Yeah. Sure. Yes. So, not a lot of people know this, but I started my career in, finance and accounting.

[00:01:09] So I was, an accounting undergrad. And so I always say that I’m not a traditional HR leader because of my background. I kind of look at all of the people related work I do. through a data and analytics lens. So my core skill set is I help organizations pull insights out of data and analytics to inform their people decisions.

[00:01:30] But I started my HR career in recruiting and I think that was a fantastic foundation for me because I think recruiting helps you build rigor and discipline. It’s It’s easier. You both know this. It’s easier to measure outcomes and track progress in your recruiting work. And I think also a lot of people underestimate or underappreciate how much recruiting helps you build your business acumen, right?

[00:01:58] You have to sort of become an [00:02:00] expert. In an industry and a profession pretty much overnight and in my opinion, anyone who wants to be a CHRO at some point should do some recruiting. I think it’s one of the most important roles in the HR world and who you let on to your team can make or break your culture and your ability to attract the right talent can also directly impact your ability to grow and scale your company.

[00:02:25] So I think talent acquisition as a function is absolutely critical and that’s where I started. Absolutely. Yeah. And I feel like TA starting in recruiting for most people in HR. I mean, the fact that you started in finance and accounting is extremely unusual. You usually see the path more to comp and bend in that direction, but by starting out usually in recruiting, it is, it gives you a good landscape and a foundation of like how the business work, where’s HR’s role within it.

[00:02:50] So, you know, I’ve, I’ve heard that from a lot of, CHRO and HR leaders, but, you know, in terms of that too, like, tell us a little bit more about, you know, your company now. At [00:03:00] this group, what, what services do you guys focus in on? And, you know, how did you get connected with them and that type of thing?

[00:03:07] Yeah. So at this group, it was founded by me. So we’re a human capital advisory firm, like Rosanna said, and, our, we’re driven kind of by the core belief that to win in the marketplace, businesses must first win in the workplace. and it sounds so basic, right? But you’d be surprised how many CEOs and founders and executives don’t comprehend, this very basic notion and truth.

[00:03:32] And so what we work on is. It’s pretty much all things people from leadership development to employee experience, and even larger scale kind of change management and transformation initiatives. There are two things that we don’t do. We’re not comp and bend experts so we don’t do total rewards work, and we don’t do talent acquisition work in terms of filling positions.

[00:03:54] So I work with organizations to set their talent acquisition strategy and processes. But I’m not a [00:04:00] recruiter, right? There’s lots of other people who are, better at that, out there that I am. So I mostly work with PE backed organizations, not because I only want to work with PE backed, companies, but all my three CHRO roles were, were in private equity backed companies.

[00:04:14] And so, that’s mostly the type of organization that is interested in, in working with me. And then, mostly tech. Because my last two C. H. R. O. Positions were with tech companies. So we have really three engagement models. The first one being kind of fixed duration projects and deliverables. So I’ll have like I had a founder come to me recently and say, we need you to revamp our performance management process from end to end.

[00:04:41] So that’s a very fixed duration project with fixed deliverables and a timeline. Then we have kind of longer term programmatic things like Okay. Developing a leadership development program mixed with executive coaching and webinars and lunch and learns on. Then the third is kind of [00:05:00] an interim or fractional C. H. R. O. arrangement, which can range from three months to 24 months. So those are kind of the three engagement models. Okay, absolutely. Yeah, no, that’s, that’s great. Is there what’s been kind of, most challenging aspect of what’s, been going on since you founded, the firm and obviously gravitated more to the P side and whatnot.

[00:05:22] But, what’s been the most difficult thing that you’ve encountered since starting it? Yeah. So, I think at this point, what’s been most challenging for me more than I expected is explaining to people what HR is and isn’t. Too many leaders, I think, still think of the HR function as the party planners and the folks who are responsible for your culture.

[00:05:51] And when you ask them to define culture, they think of culture as ping pong tables and happy hours, right? And so you’re [00:06:00] both smiling and nodding. And so I know you, you are in these conversations too. So you know exactly what I’m talking about. You know, I worked with a founder not too long ago and he asked me to sort of assess his HR team.

[00:06:12] And, there was one person on the team. who was doing mostly administrative tasks. And so when I was kind of giving him, you know, my debrief and my recommendations, I said, I’m going to leave this person out of my analysis because, 80 percent of her time is focused on like ordering catering and planning events and managing the office.

[00:06:33] And he looked at me totally serious, not being facetious. And he said, Yeah, but that’s what HR does, right? I thought that’s what HR is, like you guys plan events and order snacks and it’s, it’s incredible to me that still sitting here today in 2025, we have to have these conversations, but that’s probably the most challenging aspect of what I do is explaining to leaders what good strategic HR looks like, because so many of [00:07:00] them have never seen it before.

[00:07:02] Well, and depending on the size of the company, they might have like one person doing all of that, you know, fall into HR, we see that a lot when people are looking for like their first true HR leader to take on the role and we have to really walk them through how that looks different than maybe what they had.

[00:07:17] Five years ago when they started the company. So yeah, tell us a little bit. I mean, we talked briefly in the intro, you know, you’ve been a CHRO three times. What was that turning point where you decided, you know, I’m done with corporate at least for now or maybe forever, who knows? And I want to start my own company.

[00:07:33] How did that happen? And kind of walk us through what that was like for you. Yes. So I’ve always wanted to build what I call a portfolio career. So doing a little bit of advising and consulting, doing some writing and thought leadership work, and then doing some speaking and teaching. And the turning point for me was when I left my last CHRO role at a company called Misplay, I kind of took a step back to figure out what [00:08:00] I wanted to do next.

[00:08:01] And there were really two questions I asked myself. And had discussions with my husband about and they were for the first one is what kind of life do I want to build? And the second one was how can I best use my skill set and my strengths going forward? I’ve developed, you know, a sort of repertoire of skills and expertise from being a CHRO three times.

[00:08:22] And it didn’t necessarily feel right to go right back into my fourth CHRO role. I liked the idea of helping multiple organizations in different industries. I also started to notice post pandemic that a lot of companies, regardless of shape, size, industry, are having the same problems. There’s no playbook for these sort of new to world problems that so many of us are dealing with in this post pandemic hybrid complex world of work.

[00:08:52] And so I felt like this was as good a time as any to start building that portfolio career that I’ve always wanted to build. Yeah. [00:09:00] Are you working with companies all over the states or all over the world even? Or is it mostly Chicago based? Mostly North America. North America. Okay. Yeah. Great. Well, another kind of leading question to that, I mean, you know, when consulting with a lot of these new potential clients, and you mentioned post pandemic, but are there, is there a common theme on HR challenges that most, most of what you’re seeing in 2025 that is kind of a theme across a lot of the clients you’ve helped with, from an HR consulting perspective?

[00:09:33] Yes. So there’s definitely some common themes. I would say there are three main things that I’m observing. So the first one is performance management. I think a lot of companies are starting to focus on performance management now that they want to sort of take costs out of the PNL and they want to do more with less.

[00:09:52] I think, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, who announced not too long ago and some other leaders who announced that [00:10:00] we’re now going to focus on performance, and we’re going to move poor performers out faster and. My opinion is they should have been doing that all along, as part of running a business, and I think a good CEO is always managing the performance of the business, and as an extension of that, managing the performance of the people, of, of course, in partnership with the CHRO and the executive team, and you shouldn’t need a declaration to say, right, that now we’re gonna, this is the year of focusing on performance.

[00:10:30] But I think performance management is top of mind for a lot of people. The other one is manager effectiveness. So leadership development, I think, continues to be a challenge, regardless of size, shape of organization or industry. Too many organizations, I think, are still promoting people who are high performing individual contributors and putting them into these leadership positions without giving them the tools and the training to succeed in these roles.

[00:10:58] And I think the manager [00:11:00] role Has also changed significantly in the last few years, and manager burnout is a big issue, and even a lot of seasoned leaders are finding it hard to adapt to this new world of work. And we’re no longer in a world where, you know, people are sort of checking their problems at the door before they come into the workplace, right?

[00:11:21] People are increasingly looking for whole person management. And a lot of managers who are used to kind of traditional, ways of managing and leading teams are struggling. So, so manager effectiveness is, is huge as well. And the third one is AI transformation and leading AI transformations from a people perspective.

[00:11:43] So getting your people to buy in, creating a culture of experimentation and innovation, creating an environment of psychological safety where people are comfortable experimenting and learning. And, leading transformations with a people centric approach is [00:12:00] something that almost every organization is struggling with.

[00:12:03] And the data confirms that the data show that nearly 70%. Of business transformations fail, and it’s often because of a lack of change management and communication, and I think AI initiatives are no different. So those are kind of the three top themes that I’m observing this year. Yeah, the AI thing is definitely unique.

[00:12:23] Is there a, do you have like a targeted, like actual size of company that you’re, is it like a series A, B in terms, or is it kind of a wide mix of, you know, size, employee, revenue perspective standpoint? Yeah. Or is it just a mixed bag? Yes. So, I, I’ve worked in all sizes of organizations, but the sweet spot for me tends to be somewhere between 50 to 600 employees, mostly because that is typically the stage, or stages where organizations are going through a lot of change.

[00:12:55] Typically, they’re bringing in new leaders. Maybe [00:13:00] they’re exiting the founder or the founder’s role is changing. And so you need a strategic HR leader to say, how are we going to help all of these leaders, on board and work cohesively? As a team, how are we going to help them not only work with each other, but create cohesion among their teams?

[00:13:20] All that trickles all the way down to the front lines of the organization. You’re also if you’re in hyper growth mode, typically going through a lot of hiring in that phase, and so a lot of change. comes with that as well and you’re typically going through all of your processes and and trying to professionalize or streamline them for the first time you’re starting to document things and you’re thinking about how do we scale and drive profitable and sustainable growth and not just sort of growth for growth sake.

[00:13:54] And so the change that’s happening at these various stages requires someone [00:14:00] in a strategic HR leadership position to say, how do we kind of bring all of this together? How do we prepare our people for the next phase and the next phase and the next phase of the organization? While also making sure that we don’t create change fatigue in the organization.

[00:14:17] Yeah, where things are constantly being rolled out and it just feels like it’s a constant change. We hear you there. You touched on a lot of the, these points, actually, and Your comment there, but like, let’s talk about when you were more in house and working for some of these companies as their CHRO, you scaled companies, you worked with PE firms, what are some of the things you learned when you were in that seat that are really making you successful as a consultant when you work with some of these organizations?

[00:14:44] There’s so many lessons I’ve learned, and, and some the hard way, but I’ll give you three. I think the first thing is, as an HR leader, you have to be a business leader first and an HR leader second. And that might [00:15:00] sound cliche because of how much people say it, but I think too many HR leaders don’t understand their company’s P&L their industry, their, who are our clients, what does the competitive landscape look like.

[00:15:12] And as a result, they don’t get that sort of proverbial seat at the table that they so badly crave, right? And so that’s, that’s, I think, the number one thing that I, the number one piece of advice that I give to all senior leaders or aspiring HR leaders. The second lesson that I learned is in helping so many companies scale is growth for growth’s sake is never a good thing.

[00:15:38] I think a lot of companies have now started to realize that in the age of capital efficiency. And I just hope that that lesson sticks because we tend to have short term memories in the business world. And we revert back to old behaviors very easily. But profitable and sustainable growth is the name of the game as far as I’m concerned.

[00:15:58] And that’s, that’s [00:16:00] really what your valuations depend on, too. And so, whenever I see organizations doubling or tripling their headcount and hiring a ton, I always encourage them to take a beat and just ask yourself some very simple questions about, Are you filling the right roles? Have you defined the right capabilities that you need?

[00:16:19] Are you bringing in the right talent? Because so many leaders are stuck in this never ending cycle of fundraising, hiring layoffs, fundraising, hiring layoffs. And so I think focusing on profitable and sustainable growth is important. And then the third thing I’ll say is the lesson that I learned earlier in my career, probably the hard way, is that relationships really matter.

[00:16:46] I used to think as a younger HR professional that my work speaks for itself and that’s, hard work is not enough. It’s necessary, to help you get your [00:17:00] foot in the door, but you have to build social and political capital, you have to know how to influence, you have to know who the real decision makers are, not the decision makers on paper, you have to know who has the CEO’s ear, which board members have more of a say, because they are majority shareholders.

[00:17:19] All of that matters and all of that should inform your approach in your CHRO position. You’re still always doing the things that are right for the company, but you have to be aware of the relationship dynamics. Because if you rely solely on your hard work to help you succeed, then that’s going to be an uphill battle.

[00:17:41] For sure. Yeah, it’s something I feel like a lot of those points you hit in terms of scaling, I’ve met with a lot of heads of HR and going from 50 to 100 is a challenge in itself, going from 100 to like 200 is another big hurdle, of course, right? I mean, there’s just these steps that kind of come along the way.

[00:17:58] And we’ve certainly [00:18:00] experienced a lot of it to where do you ever experience this aspect? Cause we see it a lot. It’s like when companies don’t necessarily, they hire for who they are now, not for who they are tomorrow necessarily. Right.and they, they think they’re going to be doubling in size, but you know, they hire more of a maintenance person versus more of a strategic visionary, not maybe just in HR, but across the board.

[00:18:21] Have you noticed that a lot that they kind of make hires in terms of just where they are today versus the future or vice versa? Maybe they make too big of a hire and they don’t grow and they’re stuck with somebody that isn’t really being done what they were sold, initially at, at firsthand. I noticed that all the time.

[00:18:41] And as you said, it’s not specific to HR. It’s across functions. I have seen over and over where companies will say, you know, for example, we need a really strategic marketing leader. We need. who’s, you know, a visionary and someone who’s thinking big picture and the person arrives and they are [00:19:00] spending all of their time on the minute details of every campaign.

[00:19:03] Or they fail to think about what they’re going to need two or three years from now. If they’re going to have an exit or if they want to prepare for an IPO, they failed to think about what capabilities will we need at that point? Will we need a marketing leader who can join the roadshow with us?

[00:19:20] Will we need someone who’s done this before and has had these reps? And so I see that all of the time. I think it’s a balance, to hire for the needs of today. And the needs of tomorrow. And I think a lot of leaders fail to kind of take a step back and figure out exactly what they need, because so many are just there.

[00:19:43] They’re firefighting and only looking six feet ahead. I also think that a lot of CEOs. Are their compensation is based on short term results, and they’re thinking quarter to quarter, and so many boards are thinking quarter to quarter. [00:20:00] And so I think if you really want to build a sustainable business that’s going to drive profitable growth in the long term, these are important considerations.

[00:20:10] And the other thing, too, is A lot of leaders kind of when they when they grow when their organization grows, they automatically think we need to hire full time heads. They don’t think about do we need what kind of talent do we need? Like, do we just need someone who can come in and do a project for six months or 12 months and then leave?

[00:20:31] And then we don’t need that full time head count anymore. And so I think because they automatically jumped to we need a full time head, they’re stuck in the cycle of hiring and layoffs. Because they’re not being thoughtful about what kind of person they need to bring on board in the first place. Yeah, yeah, the transition period is always really interesting because and that’s where sometimes I would think your firm would, you know, come in right and like be somewhat of an interim person because especially from an HR perspective, there gets a point [00:21:00] to where it does become a maintenance mode if there isn’t a lot of growth necessarily right.

[00:21:04] If you’ve got all the performance and benefits and comp and things like that structured, and you’ve been at the same headcount for a while, I’m sure there’s things that you can tweak here and there, but you know, there’s certain leaders that can kind of get you to that point. But as you said, like the district, there’s a strategic balance and the hands on piece, the amount of times that we’ve heard that from, you know, senior level leaders, we need a strategic person, but also somebody that can be, hands on, I mean, it’s, it’s such a frequent term and we get what they’re saying when they’re talking about that, because.

[00:21:33] You know, it’s not like some of these, you’re coming from a big Pepsi or, where you’re delegating every little task and you’re only thinking about strategy. So it’s, it’s interesting to hear it firsthand on a holistic level from an HR standpoint. Well, you talked about a little bit in a recent LinkedIn post.

[00:21:51] I saw you mentioned that about 28 percent of executives feel their boards have the right skills and experience that align with the company’s, [00:22:00] business strategies and talent strategies. What do you think HR can do to get that percentage up to partner well with the business leaders? So first, I think the important thing for HR leaders is just to build a good relationship with the board.

[00:22:17] I cannot stress enough how important board sponsorship is. Again, not only for the CHRO role, but for every executive role. I’ve worked with some incredibly talented and smart executives. That fit who failed simply because they did not have board sponsorship once you have that strong relationship with the board.

[00:22:39] Then I think the number one thing that you can do to get that percentage up is to educate. So board members often get education on a variety of topics in business, but not enough on people topics. And I think it’s HR’s job. Not only to provide that education, but to help them understand what are the business [00:23:00] implications and the business impact of the HR initiatives and programs that we’re rolling out.

[00:23:06] So just as an example, when I was a CHRO in, in one of my CHRO positions, we were trying to improve the representation of women in the tech organization. This is a common problem across many companies, right? their women, population in their tech org tends to be lower. And so we, at the same time, there was a Lean In report that came out.

[00:23:28] They do this report every year, called the Women in Workplace Report. And so I sent, the report and my key sort of takeaways to the executive team and to certain members of the board, to the HR committee of the board. And I tried to kind of demonstrate to them the connection between the work that we were doing and the business impact of this work by using some of the data and the statistics from this report and the chair of the board called me up and said.

[00:23:57] Thank you for doing that because we’re [00:24:00] not exposed to this kind of thing and without you educating on us on this stuff, we wouldn’t know. And so please keep doing that. And, and I think that the reason that that resonated I didn’t do anything breakthrough, but what I did do is I spoke their language, and I think that, is something that resonated well.

[00:24:21] And the last thing I’ll say is it’s also important to bring competitive intelligence to your board to help them understand. Why you’re shaping your talent strategy the way you are. And so don’t just look at companies that are direct competitors of yours. Look at companies you’re competing with for talent and what are they doing and bring that information back to the board so that they can understand what best in class looks like and what best practices are out there.

[00:24:50] That’s a good point. Those are great points. And I love how you said like speaking their language because I think some of it, especially in the HR world, it just comes natural. You think everyone knows what you’re talking about when you [00:25:00] talk about talent strategy, but you have to really break it down and speak their language, which I love.

[00:25:04] Another topic, which we’ve talked about for years now, it feels like, but is the return to office topic. So, a Chicago based company actually recently just came out cameo and they announced that they’re giving employees a 10K raise and just other additional perks to return to the office. What are your overall thoughts on the return to office and I guess what is kind of the best approach and strategy for companies when they are trying to, you know, make either a hybrid approach work or if they are trying to go fully back, what are your thoughts on all of that?

[00:25:34] This is a topic that we could have a whole conversation about just to this. So, most companies polarizing view, right? It is. Yeah, people either feel very strongly want it’s kind of like politics in some ways, right? You either feel like, you know, and there’s still the hybrid, right? So people there’s have the hybrid model.

[00:25:54] But anyway, go ahead. It is and it has in [00:26:00] some instances, it has become a political topic as well. And it is extremely polarizing. I think most companies that are sort of instituting these draconian top down return to office mandates are doing so because their management and leadership practices and their collaboration practices have not evolved to Meet the moment, right?

[00:26:22] So we used to gather in offices to do work, and now we gather online, right? A few years ago, doing this online would not have been an option. And so now that you’re doing work online, you’re working asynchronously, you need the right tools, you need the right team norms, and you need the three legged stool of the right skill sets and mindsets and tool sets.

[00:26:47] Where so many companies just focus on the tools and the technology and then they wonder why their hybrid or remote strategy is not working. And I spend a lot of time training HR teams and executives on how to [00:27:00] build a high performing team in a remote or hybrid setting. But having said that, if you do determine that you absolutely need your people to be together every single day, five days a week, and you must have that, and there’s a strong business reason for that, then I think that the way that Cameo is approaching it is directionally consistent with what the data shows.

[00:27:22] So if you look at, the latest research from FlexJobs, they found that workers consider remote work as the most important factor when looking for a job. 81 percent of workers said that this was the most important factor for them. And, many of them would be, it says, many of them would be willing to take a pay cut.

[00:27:46] 31 percent of workers are willing to accept a 5 percent pay cut and almost 20 percent willing to accept a 10 percent pay cut for the freedom to work from anywhere. And so there are real [00:28:00] dollars at play here, right? People have to pay more for their commute to work.

[00:28:04] Food is obviously more expensive. I don’t know when the last time was that either of you got lunch in downtown Chicago, but I feel like you get a salad and water and it’s like 30 or something. I mean, you’re going to need new clothes or more clothes. Your daycare costs are probably going to go up because you’re spending more time commuting, etc.

[00:28:24] And those are just the things that have real dollars attached to them. I’m not even talking about. The time that you have to take away from, the opportunity cost of spending time with your family and friends, the opportunity cost of not being able to focus on your, fitness and your health, and those are things that you can’t even put a price tag on.

[00:28:43] So the cost of return to office, I think, is a real consideration for a lot of people, and if you’re going to call people back into the office, then the least you can do as an employer, I think, is acknowledge that cost and try to make people whole. It’s a good point. Yeah, the [00:29:00] balance is the hardest part, you know, because people get stuck set in a way of doing things on a remote as you said, you need, whether it’s paying them more, whether it’s, I mean, you know, changing benefits, there does, there is a cost, obviously, to that and time away from family of our personal time, etc.

[00:29:16] So it, It’s definitely interesting. I do think you, when we work with clients that are specifically say, we need you to be in the office five days a week, the pool of talent is certainly cut. So that 81 percent statistic definitely is not surprising in regard to, people that, that have that being their number one, most important factor for them.

[00:29:35] But it’s, it’s interesting though, because I think that the whole remote versus in office thing, I think it’s really exposing the more junior level people that are just. You know, coming out of college and getting acclimated into the, cause you do learn the most, I think, when you are in the office. And if you have a hundred percent work environment, there are some things that you do miss out.

[00:29:57] Now I know we can put together shadowing and things like [00:30:00] that of, you know, working with people that have also been in the workforce more. But, you know, even personally on our level, it’s been challenging to try to replicate that to continue to train individuals so they can become better and perform better when most of us are in a remote environment.

[00:30:16] So, you know, it’s going to continue to be a polarizing topic and no one’s gonna ever necessarily completely figure it out. But, Anyway, so no good good points there. What about in regard to you know for some if somebody was looking to Leave a corporate role to start their own business like you have You know, what are the three pieces of advice that you would give them when starting out your own business?

[00:30:41] The first thing I would say is sort out the non glamorous, but important stuff, like health insurance is a big one, right? Yeah. Make sure you have health insurance, set aside enough finances to last you 6 to 12 months, because starting your own business can be, you know, feast or famine for [00:31:00] a while.

[00:31:00] Yeah. Get an accountant, get a lawyer, right? All of those kind of not so fun. But important things to make sure you are protected. Your assets are protected. The second thing I would say is network. Be out there, talk to a lot of people. I am constantly going to networking events, constantly trying to talk to people and meet new people.

[00:31:19] You never know who your next project will come through. I’ve had some very interesting serendipitous moments in that sense. And then the third thing is just try to help people. I don’t really sell in the traditional sense of the term. I focus on solving people’s problems. I talk to people about what are your biggest people challenges?

[00:31:40] What are you seeing? What are you experiencing? And I offer some potential solutions and that’s how People engage me and, when you just take a genuine interest in someone’s business and what, what’s on their plate, what’s top of mind for them, what’s keeping them up at night, that’s when you make,a genuine connection [00:32:00] and, and you can end up helping them.

[00:32:02] And at least that’s what works for me. And that’s how I get business. Where’s the most random place that you’ve actually like that’s led to like a project like was it on a plane or at a networking event or was there was there ever one since you’ve started to where, hey, this project started up from I bumped into this, you know, leader on a plane or something like that?

[00:32:24] Was there anywhere that kind of randomly came about to turn into a project HR consulting perspective? On vacation. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I was just on vacation one day and I was talking to someone and we were, you know, getting to know each other and talking about what do you do? And that’s how I got connected to someone who needed, an interim CHRO.

[00:32:47] So that’s why I say, Always be out there networking and talking to people. And if, even if you don’t end up getting an engagement or getting business, it’s always interesting, at least for [00:33:00] me to ask people, how’s business, how, what are, what people challenges are you grappling with? What is going on in your company?

[00:33:08] Because it’s. If nothing else, it’s a learning opportunity for me. And when you run your own business, every learning opportunity that you can get is invaluable. We sell our team the same thing, even for when you’re looking for recruiting projects or jobs, it’s, you know, people want to work with people they like.

[00:33:24] So, you know, you’re selling and you’re getting to know people, but something might come. From it right away. It might be a year. It might be 10 years, but I think the networking piece and just having that mindset, it’ll eventually come full circle and you always have to be looking for connections. So we kind of have the same mindset.

[00:33:41] I know we we preach that to our team on a regular basis as well. So Okay, well that wraps up like our, our business questions that we do like to end the podcast just with what we call kind of our unfiltered random questions. So we have a few questions for you just to kind of get to know you a little bit better.

[00:33:56] The first one’s around travel. If you could pick anywhere in the [00:34:00] world to go, where would it be and why? And maybe you have a trip this year that’s on the bucket list, but we’d love to hear about that. I did do a bucket list trip, earlier this year, last month, actually. I went to the Maldives with my husband and that was absolutely magical.

[00:34:15] But, one place that’s, that’s intriguing to me, especially lately is Namibia. I would love to go to Namibia and see where the desert meets the Atlantic Ocean and see the cheetahs and all the other wildlife. the beautiful sort of orange sand dunes that you see in the pictures and it’s just completely different from anything I’ve ever seen before.

[00:34:37] So Namibia would be top of my list. Okay, great. And we’ve kind of talked about just like the flexibility of, you know, you going into consulting, but since starting your own company, what have been some of the most exciting things that you’ve been able to do with like time, flexibility, just creating your own schedule?

[00:34:53] Can you share some of that with us and how that differs from when you were in a full time corporate HR role? [00:35:00] Yes, so for me, it’s the little things that I love, like going and working out, having a leisurely coffee in the morning, going on walks, being able to run errands in the middle of the day, and just having complete and utter autonomy over my time and being able to organize my day the way that I want.

[00:35:19] And the other thing I would say that I love I don’t work with everyone. And so being able to choose who you work with, being able to choose your clients, to me is fantastic. I’ve turned down engagements, multiple times when I didn’t feel that there was a values alignment. And I think that is a position of privilege and I’m really grateful that I get to do that.

[00:35:42] Yeah, absolutely. One question I wanted to fire in here at the end to maybe think about that is, do you ever have a tough time, or do clients ever have a tough time describing their culture? Almost always. I always find that really hilarious because no one, like, you know, once you work [00:36:00] with a company for a while, like you know it for a while, but I think when you ask it initially, it’s very difficult to articulate it, whether you’ve been there for a year or whether you’ve been there for 15.

[00:36:10] Yeah. Well, that’s one of the questions we get as recruiters. I feel like, and maybe that should be the first question you ask in an interview and maybe it is a bit generic, but it comes up. Oh, like Bill said, all the time. So yeah, go ahead, Malvika. Sorry to jump in there. No, it’s, not at all. It’s something that, that I used to get asked as a recruiter all the time as well.

[00:36:31] And you’re in a precarious position as a recruiter sometimes, right? Because you’re divulging information that your client has shared with you. You’re not in their business. You’re not sitting there in their office every day. So you don’t know the full picture. And, it can be tricky sometimes. And so, when I used to interview candidates, even as a CHRO, I would start the conversation by going into what I call the good, bad, and the ugly of the culture.

[00:36:56] And I would. I would lay it all out, on the [00:37:00] table for them, and I have kind of scared candidates away a little bit sometimes, but I would rather That people decide that it’s not for them, then have someone join and have a negative surprise because that affects not only the company’s employer brand, in a negative way, but it also affects my own brand as a leader, and I never want to misrepresent things, right?

[00:37:23] And so, Bill, to your point, leaders struggle with describing their culture almost always, especially because The people who engage me tend to be the CEO, the CHRO, or someone on the board, right? And usually, barring the CHRO, usually other leaders are not as in touch with what’s happening on the ground. .And so it’s hard for them to really describe what’s going on because most organizations struggle with creating psychological safety.

[00:37:56] Like, most people are not going to give the CEO the real true [00:38:00] picture of what’s going on. And even when they do know, it’s almost always worse when you go in than what they described. So I always prepare myself. If they tell me there’s a problem, of accountability, for example, it’s almost always worse than what they described.

[00:38:16] And it’s not because they want to misrepresent, it’s just that it’s impossible for them to truly know where all the skeletons lie. Yeah, I always say from a recruiting perspective, you know, no matter how great the interview process is and how many people you meet with, how many steps you go through, there’s always like 10 to 15 percent that you don’t know, right?

[00:38:37] Going into a new job and it’s very true, right? I think when describing a culture, I think we always try to most people I think in general stick to the. Like, Oh, we have this policy or that policy, but it’s really like the little things that really people are interested in. Like, is this a company that like needs face time where you have to be in the office and, you know, everyone’s looking at it.

[00:38:57] It’s more of a clock in clock out. Or is it more [00:39:00] of like a, you know, just get the work done type of a place or, is it because like a lot of people use the, it’s a work hard, play hard environment or it’s like they use a lot of the, the sayings or phrases that you’re typically used to, but no one really gets a good feel.

[00:39:16] I don’t think of the culture until you actually start interviewing and, you know, start asking kind of open ended questions. What helped you join here? Yada, yada, yada. So, but the culture, when I had to fire that one off to you, because I thought that it’s just an interesting one to where. Sometimes they’ll go on just complete rants about something that’s not even related to culture.

[00:39:36] But you know as when we are extensions of a lot of places when we’re recruiting for them you’re right because we work with a lot of different organizations. And so do you, you know, it’s such a core important part of the organization and there’s a balance between selling it right and saying, Hey, you’re all the great things about it But you know my recruiting methodology is yes, you want to give them all the great things but you’re doing no [00:40:00] disservice by not telling them the full picture because there it’s gonna come out throughout an interview process no matter what and You know we no one wants to waste their time in an interview process and get to the point to where Oh my God, I didn’t realize this was in the office five days a week or this didn’t pay that much.

[00:40:15] So, yeah, it’s an, always an interesting thing. Culture is one of those factors and work life balance clearly goes into it as well. Yes. And a lot of leaders like we said earlier, right? Think of culture as happy hours and ping pong tables to me culture is, how do you meet and collaborate? How do you work with your clients?

[00:40:38] How do you ship products and updates? How do you manage your product roadmap? How do you communicate with employees and with each other? How do you resolve conflict? How do you give each other feedback? All of that is culture, it’s not the happy hours and, you know, we’re casual on Fridays and I mean, it’s not the [00:41:00] perks.

[00:41:00] So my attempt, I always endeavor to first help leaders define culture and make sure that we have a common definition of culture before we even go into what is your culture. Well, exactly. And that’s, you know, and that’s always a, we’ve done that as an exercise as a leader, leadership group at Hirewell. And you know, it can be a little bit challenging depending on what you do, you know, right?

[00:41:25] Like if you look at some of these places that are nonprofits for example, like maybe their culture is more about the mission and what they’re actually doing in that respect, but that’s going to be different than like a private equity or services organization. That’s so it definitely ranges. But I do think when you ask that question, it gives you a better perspective of like, who’s doing what?

[00:41:45] You know, whether you’re talking to somebody in HR, the leadership of what they value as the most important factor for the culture, and does it align with the other people that you interview with later on? So, yeah. Well, I think back, Bill, where you and I, where you and I [00:42:00] started our recruiting firm, we did like half day interviews and you sat in the office, you saw work, you attended the morning meeting.

[00:42:07] And I know now, you know, a lot of times people are getting hired directly off of Zoom, but I think back when I was 22 and going to that recruiting firm, I mean, you saw exactly what you were walking into. And I mean, for good or bad, but you know, now with remote interviewing, you don’t get to go to the office.

[00:42:23] You don’t. Sometimes do those half day interviews. I do think it’s a bit easier though to do it when you know, because you’re talking about a bit more on the campus or entry level hiring standpoint, like one of the time those folks have more time in the day to do half days and shadow people and get a good feel of the office where, you know, experienced hires.

[00:42:42] You know, I don’t know. That might be a little elementary in some ways to kind of get a feel, but it doesn’t hurt, right? Obviously, it’s only going to give them more data points on figuring out if this is the right match for them, because it is a two way street when you’re interviewing, obviously, so. Yeah.

[00:42:58] Well, that’s all we have time for [00:43:00] today. Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode. Today we met with Malvika and discussed her career of moving from corporate to HR, starting her own company, learning to scale, organizations, HR partnering with the business and board and much more. We will be back again next month with a new special guest.

[00:43:19] A quick reminder how you can support our Beyond the Offer podcast, you can find all our content on Hirewell’s social media platform, which you can find through Hirewell.com. Malvika, thanks for joining and take care everyone. And thanks for tuning in. Yeah. Thanks Malvika. Thanks you both.