Breaking Down Silos to Build a More Agile Workforce
Rachelle Snook, the Global Talent Director from WD-40 — yes, that ubiquitous garage staple that can seemingly do everything — is a fan and proponent of breaking down silos and building people up to create a more agile workforce.
WD-40 has been all hands on deck for a while now, tapping into employee insights from around the world, especially in critical times like handling supply chains during the pandemic. Snook says it’s their unique perspective on working cross-functionally on a project basis that makes it all come together.
5 key quotes from this episode:
- "By decentralizing those decisions and inviting those peer groups together, we created great outcomes, wonderful solutions, and we could respond really quickly to the business needs.” - Rachelle Snook [08:34]
- “Our leaders are more focused on what needs to get done rather than the where or the how, and our work from anywhere philosophy is enabling them to do that." - Rachelle Snook [12:08]
- "We have a philosophy at WD-40. We don't go where we're not invited. So HR is not going to be banging down the door saying, ‘Hey, we want to talk with you about being a more agile organization.’ No, we are creating and asking the questions. What can we do?” - Rachelle Snook [16:58]
- “By allowing our people to work on projects, either in their functional area or outside their traditional geographies, they're creating opportunities for themselves, so they're now on the radar for that next role or lateral move within our organization." - Rachelle Snook [19:39]
- "The first thing to do is for each coach to ask their tribe member, 'What can you stop doing to create time for this?' The other thing is to provide a place where we can post these project positions so that we can be equitable and everybody has visibility to them." - Rachelle Snook [31:09]
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