Aligning People and Business Strategies with Cindy Thomas

 "I think that business strategy is important, but the people strategy is equally important to support the business strategy. So when the business strategy evolves, you have to evolve the people strategy." - Cindy Thomas

How well does your people strategy align with the overall business strategy for your organization?   Are you part of the process up front, or catching up in reaction mode after the business strategy is locked down?   In today’s episode, my guest makes the case for why the PEOPLE strategy must be a critical component of an organization’s overall goals and strategy.

My guest is Cindy Thomas. Cindy is an Executive HR professional, business leader, coach, facilitator, and speaker. Her work draws on 20 years of organizational leadership experience, Business transformation and  Executive Coaching in multiple global locations. 

She started her career in the financial services industry in 2004 at PwC. Before joining KONE Canada as the Director of People & Communications in 2023 she was the Head of People & Performance (CANAC & R&D) at Kraft Heinz, and prior to that the VP of People &  Culture at Quark Expeditions (a Global Polar Expeditions company part of the Travelopia (KKR) group) in hospitality, travel, and tourism industry. 

She has worked in several executive management positions with PwC, Nokia, Hilton Worldwide, and  Pizza Hut International (Yum! Brands) on four continents, namely: Africa, Asia, North & South America. 

Based in Canada, in her current position, Cindy Thomas leads the People & Communications (HR) for KONE, Canada.

Cindy Thomas is a graduate of the University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town, with specialization in Business:  Industrial Psychology and Logistics Management with a further specialization in Labor Relations &  Organizational Development. She is married and is a mother to a daughter. As an avid traveler and eternal explorer, Cindy speaks English and Afrikaans fluently and has learned German, French and  Spanish as part of her many travels and work experiences. The only continent she has yet to land on is Australia.

In this episode of Talent Management Truths, you’ll discover:

• A fascinating and truly global career journey
• Thoughts on the synergy between business strategy and people strategy
• An example of a hybrid work model that drives collaboration, and tips on how to create it

Links

• Cindy Thomas on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cindybthomas

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Transcript

LM Ep 128

 [00:00:00] How well does your people strategy align with the overall business strategy for your organization? Are you part of the process upfront or catching up in reaction mode after the business strategy is locked down? In today's episode, my guest makes the case for why [00:01:00] people strategy must be a critical component of an organization's overall goals and strategy.

My guest is Cindy Thomas. Cindy is Director of People and Communication at Kne, a manufacturer of elevators, escalators, and automatic doors. Her work draws on 20 years of organizational leadership experience, hr, business transformation, and executive coaching. She's worked as a leader with companies ranging from PWC, to Nokia, to Hilton, to Pizza Hut on four different continents, Africa, Asia, north America, and South America.

She jokes that she still needs to get to Australia. In this episode of Talent Management Truce, you'll discover a fascinating and truly global career journey. Thoughts on the synergy between business strategy and people strategy, and an example of a hybrid work model that drives collaboration and tips on how to create it.

Thank you for listening. 

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Truth. I'm your [00:02:00] host, Lisa Mitchell, and today I'm joined by Cindy Thomas. Cindy is currently Director of People and Communication at Kne. Welcome to the show. Cindy. Good to have you.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Thank you, Lisa. It's great to be here with you. Thanks for the invitation to your table.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: My pleasure. Well, it's taken us a few months to finally get this booked and going, so I'm really excited to have you here. Let's kick off by having you share with listeners a little about your career background.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Yeah, so I started out my career. Cape Town with p wc. That was straight out of university. I was at Stellenbosch University where I studied industrial psychology and logistics management, and then went on to do a labor relations, honors in labor relations, and then a master's in org psychology.

And I love. About pc 'cause it gave me the opportunity to explore new organizations through consulting, new projects, different [00:03:00] ways of working and being with different teams, et cetera. And then I. From PWCI moved to Nokia and which is again, a completely different environment. And I was with Nokia in Sub-Sahara Africa, and I was responsible for South Africa, then West Africa, then East Africa.

And then after doing that for about two years, I was like, okay, I need something different. So I went to my manager and I said, Gary, can you please, they meet to Asia. Asia is the future. And Gary said, there is no way that you're gonna get to Asia. You don't speak the language, you don't know anything about manufacturing.

Like, what are you talking about, Cindy? And then. I landed up in Singapore, which was an amazing experience. I got to experience a completely different culture and got to do amazing work with the team there. And I was responsible for some [00:04:00] transformational projects. And after doing that for about, I think it was about 18 months or so.

The team asked me to move to Hong Kong and I was like, Hmm, I'm not sure about Hong Kong. And then instead I moved back to South Africa with Hilton Hotels and at Hilton Hotels I was responsible for African Indian Ocean, which again, was a completely different world of hospitality. And you know, we had. 

And it was great and I helped Hilton Hotel set up the office in Johannesburg for African Indian Ocean, set it, setting it up for growth. And after two and a half years of doing that, I was approached for an opportunity at Yam Brands, which is Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and KFC. And I landed up in Toronto Canada.

With Pizza Hut, which [00:05:00] was again, a completely new world of, of being, of work, of franchising. And that was a great experience. And after doing about two years with Yum Brands in Canada, they asked me to move to Dallas to take care of Latin America, Caribbean, and Iberia. So again, a completely new world opened up for me and I took the opportunity to move with them to, to Dallas.

With my family. after doing that, I moved back to Toronto. And so I always say to people, I've, I've moved lots of spaces and places in the last 10 years and it's been great. Every opportunity has been quite a blessing. And. After leaving young brands, I moved to Expeditions, which is a polar expeditions company.

Very different again, and then Covid hits, which was rather unfortunate. But even with Covid hitting we managed to. Stabilize the business and be, [00:06:00] we were able to still reach our goals as a business and even with our people goals as well. And then I did a little bit of consulting after Covid and after doing some consulting, I moved to CRT Heinz and after Kraft Heinz, I was there for about two and a half years.

Again, I've now finally landed at Kne. And I joined Kne in November of last year. So, which

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: And for listeners, we're, we're recording this sort of near the end of January, so it's, it's astounding. Like that's a lot of moves. I mean, Cape Town, Africa, Singapore, back to Africa. Toronto, Dallas, back to Dallas. It's interesting and I just wanna point out a couple of things 'cause I was like, oh I remember years ago when I was at Franklin Templeton and I was helping with it was a global mobility move and I was in the role of HR business partner director, and.

One of our senior executives was moving to Singapore for three years with his young family, and he had a terrific experience, but I just, that just, he always spoke so highly of, of his experience there. He loved it. [00:07:00] And then the other neat thing is, I don't know if I'd mentioned this to you. My sister-in-law is South African.

And she and my brother lived there for years. Yeah, yeah. So, always wanted to go there.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Yes, it is.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: never made it there.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: well never say never. On the

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: list. there is still time. So I always say to people, you know, I'm the eternal explorer. And you know, when a mission opens up, I take the opportunity and I go for the mission. And once the mission is completed. The next mission appears. And I've always lived my life like that and I, I always try to go into an organization and leave an organization better than what I founded both the organization and the people.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: And I'm really passionate about that.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Well, I like, I'm just gonna write that down and just repeat it for listeners. One submission is completed. We're on the next, the next mission opens up. And the reason that that resonates for me is because that is something I learned [00:08:00] the hard way and that I now embrace openly. 'cause I used to think you had to kind of marry whatever job you were in or career you were in.

And then I went through tremendous grief and anxiety when choosing to leave or, or. You know, real when I realized that something wasn't working, like when I left, I was a teacher and I left after two years and I thought, what have I done all that investment and time, but I was so unhappy, right? But I still beat myself up for it.

So it's this idea, but my mission there was complete two years was all I needed, right? Like in terms of the gift I had to give and then to move into more adult education. So, so interesting. So thank you for, for offering that, that view on, on things, right? I think there's something to be said for recognizing when we are complete and, and being at peace moving into the next adventure.

So let's talk a little bit about, so you've just left Kraft Heinz after a couple years there in October, and you started at Kne in November, [00:09:00] and they what do they do? Tell us a little bit about what they're all about.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Yeah, absolutely. So globally kne does elevate and escalate a maintenance. The base is about 1.5 million units. That was in 2022. There is about 550,000 customers worldwide. And we work with our customers to build and ensure that we are. Elevators and escalators into the building. So we work mostly with building owners, facility managers.

We are. Plus countries 60,000 employees, and it's a business that's a hundred years old. So it was founded in Finland in 1910. And this business is a really amazing business. It's focused mostly on customer collaboration care. It is about ensuring that we call it the five [00:10:00] C or the four C. It's also about courage. And I think that really resonates with me, the courage piece. 'cause I never thought about escalators and elevators so much before coming to Kne, to be honest. and the safety aspect of it, Lisa, like our, our mission every day is to ensure that our employees and our people that use our, elevators and escalators get home to their families safely. that for me was really amazing to see. And we are in the people flow business, so you might think, okay, yes we are in elevators and escalators, but actually it's about the people flow and how people flow through cities and, you know, buildings and, and think about it, when an escalator elevator is not working, you're like, and you know, it's, it's painful.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Yeah, and I've been stuck in an elevator and rescued by the fire department, and that was the funny thing. That was that it [00:11:00] was downtown Toronto and the elevator had a window in it so I could look out and see the fire truck arriving. So this really old building, I think about that. But you're right. I mean, it's not, it's part of the, sort of the backdrop, right?

It's the infrastructure and so we're not thinking about it until it's not working for us. So, you know, I appreciate that, that value of, you know, providing flow and do you do move, like at the airport,

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Do we? Yes, yes, yes. The move. Yeah. Yeah. We do those two.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: You do

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: We do those

two. Yes.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: I love it. so. You've had some interesting experience at Kraft Heinz, and then I understand at Kne they've, they've been through some of this, but, you know, experience with evolution and restructuring of, of a company and of, of HR or, you know, people in communication to support it. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience and, and your view on, on this?

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Yeah, absolutely. I think that business [00:12:00] strategy is important, but the people strategy is equally important to support the business strategy. So when the business strategy evolves, you have to evolve the people strategy. And with the people strategy also comes the structure and the culture. And when we talk about structure, I would say when I joined Kraft Heinz my team that I had was for people and performance, and it was the whole gambit of HR from A to Z.

And then we had to evolve our structure. To meet the business strategy. And that meant that the Canadian team then became more of a business partner team, and the other CO like the other teams became part of a North America Center of Excellence. people that were responsible for compensation and benefits and [00:13:00] for talent acquisition and talent development and like, you know, so, so that team members, they formed part of the bigger North America team structure and myself and another HR business partner and a HR specialist, we became part of like the HR business partner team partnering specifically with the business in Canada.

And we had a, so, so business partnering became separate to the centers of excellence, so we evolved the structure that way. And similarly at kne, we are also structured that way where we have unit people and communications which is the business partner piece. And then we work very closely and collab, collaborate very closely with our centers of excellence in performance and rewards, in talent acquisition, in learning and development, et cetera.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: So what's the benefit of the. These cases, like, it sounds like the, the restructure was around having dedicated business partners, collaborating with COEs, I think is what I'm getting in both [00:14:00] cases. What's the like, that's a structure I've worked in both on the COE side and on the business partner side, so I appreciate it.

What, what do you see as being the benefit to the business, to the internal customers you're serving?

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: I would say consistency. as a, as a global. Local, you know, business, making sure that there is consistency is important when it comes to our people processes. And then it also provides the local business with some opportunity to flex and tap into resources that they may wouldn't have been able to tap into previously.

So you can lift and shift. Great ideas, ideas, all the way from Australia to Canada. You can lift and shift amazing ideas that are happening all the way in Finland to Canada. It really provides this sort of political experience for employees and then for team members when they're moving, [00:15:00] for instance, like I did from South Africa to Singapore to, you know, they feel like they are still part of this.

Family, this global family or global company that is really providing them with great opportunities for learning and development and for growth. And I think that is really powerful when you talk about structuring in this way when it comes to the people strategy.

LISA - RIFF - Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Right. And I remember one of the things that, that, you know, 'cause we had tried a couple different structures in the, in the one place where I was a business partner and I think about. The thing that, that the, our clients really wanted was a single point of contact because for, for, for a few years we've had like a, an OD learning and development business partner and an HR business partner.

And so obviously the l and d person is, is focused on performance. Enhancement development, agility, potential. But the conversations are about performance. And sometimes with clients it would turn into, this is really sounding more like a case for progressive [00:16:00] discipline, or we need some additional supports here.

And so there had to be a, a good understanding of when is that handoff, you know, when is the HR business partner need to be brought in? And also, what are they talking about if they're having regular touchpoints too? So it, it got a little bit, I think it felt a little bit, you know, I think we did a good job with operating within the model, but I think for clients it was just, it, it, it, it was a little more complex or time consuming than it needed to be.

So we had gone to single point of contact where we had what we called super business partners that had deep knowledge in OD and l and d that could do the whole piece. Right. So, so it's just, it's kind of fascinating to reflect on that.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Yeah, and I would say it's, it's great that you and I can have this conversation about that because I think it is important for HR business partners. The business knowhow because we can say to our great friends in the COE, [00:17:00] this is a great idea. The timing might be a bit off. Can we tweak it like this?

Can we message it so that it lands and resonates with our people locally? Can we, you know, evolve the structure? Can have you thought about doing this? I think it's that collaboration that makes it even more successful. When a program roll rolls out, when new like benefits come out or new learning opportunities come out, we can say.

Have we thought about this and this and this because the business is actually experiencing this with our customers. And so I think it's that that is so important to remember to do all the time.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Yeah. And then, then there's the shadow side too of this model, which you know, I see with the, some of the clients that, that I, that I work with or have worked with as a consultant, right? Where the HR VPs are, are doing all the things to support their clients, but almost like they're part of that same management team.

And I remember there's, there's a sense of [00:18:00] pride to be really, you know, to earn that seat at the table. It's like. Wow. I'm okay. I'm there. I'm this trusted partner. And then COEs feeling like they're relegated to the sidelines and don't have actual access to hear from the horse's mouth, the client, you know about what their needs are.

And it feels like there's a dilution that can happen. And sometimes this creates distrust within HR itself. So then there has to be, you know, real intentional work around that. And so I don't know, have you, have you seen anything like that in your years?

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: I am so sensitive to that. That I, I almost err on the side of bringing people along with me on the journey versus leaving anybody out. So I am very inclusive. But finding that right balance between when to bring in a COE to leadership team meeting versus when to, you know, [00:19:00] leverage processes and systems to do that.

I would say it's an art in science and quite recently. I've actually brought in our performance and rewards team to our leadership team to say, let's have a conversation about this process. Let's talk about what's different, how is it gonna impact Canada, and how can we do things differently from what people are saying?

And I think it's always been this bridge, almost like a connector between the business and the coe. And I really see my role as that. So that we can get the best of both worlds. So yes, this shared aside, but I do think that if you are intentional and you are inclusive which I love to think that I am we, we, we can do that very, very powerfully and ensure that, you know, the business is getting the best of the best and our people are getting the best of the best.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Right. And that, yeah. That, that people feel included enough that they, they're able to do [00:20:00] their jobs well in an elevated way, but the business isn't feeling dragged down by demands. Right. You know, to, to explain again, to another party what what they're looking for. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a fascinating area.

Actually, we could probably go on and on for this, but I did wanna, I did wanna keep moving as long. We're gonna take a sort of. Slight left turn here just because I wanted to tap into the experience you had shared with, with me when we first met about the big office move that you were a huge part of at Kraft Heinz.

And, it was kind of interesting 'cause I think you'd been in North York, so for people not in the greater Toronto area like we are, this is sort of like north of the downtown core of Toronto. And in my past we'd moved from downtown Toronto, one company up to North York. And now for you guys, you went the other way and it had some surprising impacts in a positive way.

So would, would you walk us through that a little bit?

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Yeah. This was an office move that was in the making for [00:21:00] many years. So prior to me even coming along, there were talks about moving. The team had been in North York for 40 ish years, so you can imagine very entrenched in that space and place. And as an HR business partner to the team, I had to work between the team members.

Our engagement team members. So we had like engagement task force for that. And we also had to work between the facilities team and the leadership team and our partner externally, like just being sort of the, the glue and trying to make sure that everybody was working together to make sure that we are overheating our milestones.

And so. It was a great experience for me. It was painful. I won't lie at certain times people were asking questions over and over and over, but I knew where it was coming from. It was really coming from a place of trying to understand how is this gonna impact me? And I always

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: was an [00:22:00] example of? Of like a question that would get asked over and over.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: so, parking. Because parking in the downtown core is a challenge. So the question was really about parking. Where am I gonna park? How am I going to park, et cetera, et cetera. Who's gonna pay for my parking? You know, and everybody is tight on costs at the moment. Everybody's trying to manage their budgets, you know, personally and business wise.

So it was a really, really sensitive topic for many, many people. And having to answer those questions. We, we did it in smaller groups, we did it in big town halls. I did conversations one-on-one you know, just in general trying to take people along with us on the journey. And initially we were preparing ourselves for.

Quite a bit of attrition with the move, but we had given people notice like a year and a bit in advance. So people had a whole year to sort of think about what's next, how do they make [00:23:00] things happen? And, and along the way we were providing people with, you know, here's how we are going. This is what you can look forward to.

We involve people in the, the development of the new office space. And we said we are moving to this new office space because the world of work has changed. We are no longer coming to the office just to sit behind a desk and like work away. We are here to collaborate and. Connecting with each other and driving the business forward together.

So the space needs to reflect that, and it also needs to be a safe space, an inclusive space. So we, we brought people along with us on the journey. And I would say at the, at the end of moving there, lots of people said to me, Cindy, we never ever thought we would be on time. We know how construction goes.

Like construction is never on time. So when we communicated a date, they were like, oh, we were expecting this not to happen. And, and it happened. And I think, you know, making sure that what we say and what we do is [00:24:00] linked and making sure that we are building that trust as, as we went, really resulted in an increase in engagement scores. I think it was like by five points we had an increase in retention. I think it was like the lowest retention. The lowest turnover we've ever seen in our history. And then I think just before as I was making the trans transition from Kraft Heinz to Kne, we actually got recognized as a top employer, top 100 employer for within the GTA.

So I think it was really, for me, it was a project of love. But it was also great to see how people were embracing the change, how people were, you know, really embracing the collaboration space and the amount of energy that that office, when it was buzzing, managed to get was phenomenal.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: It's very cool. And, and so, and was this a, a hybrid model by this

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Hybrid, hybrid model, so three days in the [00:25:00] office and two days work from home.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: and was there an anchor day?

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: We had anchor days of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays, and we tried to brand those anchor days as well. So I think like Tuesdays were together. Tuesdays and Wednesdays were winning Wednesdays or Waffle Wednesdays, depending on what, you know, what was happening. So we tried to, we try different ways to, to encourage people to collaborate and build connection.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Make use of the collaborative collaboration space. But it sounds like too, it's, it's about helping people see the, like, the possibility, like this is, you're coming into this, it's a destination for collaboration. It's, it's, you know, not like the daily grind of just sitting behind the desk. Like there's a new purpose to the space and how we want you to interact in it.

I mean, easier said than done. Right? Because, you know, there's, there's other companies that, you know, they've had a rougher ride. With the hybrid model and making it work, whether they're in a new space or not you know, [00:26:00] is

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: And, and I mean, yeah, and it was great because before we were on four or five different floors. This was one floor and we created neighborhoods and we made the neighborhoods interchangeable and like we just like tried to create people flow. And, and, and I think that was also appreciated, you know?

Into people in, in spaces that they didn't think they would bump into, like, you know, so it was

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Yeah. The one floor approach is neat, right? 'cause so many of us have worked in, you know, multi-floor organizations and, and, and it does create, you know, barriers to some degree, right? Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Well, we're nearing the end of our time together, so, you know, one more question for you that, that I'd like to pose is what's, what's coming up for you this year?

What's the project you're leading or, or involved with that you're most excited, excited about?

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: I say at K, we are fully focused on our leadership, building, our leadership capability, [00:27:00] which. This year we'll be focused on GMs, general managers and supervisors, and we are developing different programs around that. Specifically for GMs, it's about engagement and retention and development, as well as providing GMs with the tools to run their business more effectively and having like a one-stop shop.

For them to do that. And my role will really be, again, this bridge connector between COEs and the, and the various population groups, GMs and supervisors specifically in this case. And making sure that the needs are met and that we are maybe not even met, but exceeding expectations on the, on the business side from a business result as well as for the people.

So I'm excited about that. yeah. I feel it.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Yeah. Oh yeah. Anytime you get to focus on helping people step into their potential, right, and really set 'em up for success, that is a beautiful thing. So I wish you much success [00:28:00] with that.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate2: Thank you, Lisa.

Cindy Thomas GMT20240123-162608_Recording_separate1: Thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate it.