Allison King

▶0:01HostWelcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. I'd like to welcome Allison King, VP of People Operations from Sound Physicians, to the Built By People podcast. Allison, thank you so much for joining us. I'd love to start out by having you tell us a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:59GuestThank you. Yeah, I'm excited to be on the podcast. So I had a kind of an interesting beginning. I actually have my degree in applied mathematics, a minor in ballet, so I never really thought that I would get into HR when I was in college and didn't honestly know much about it either. And so after college, I realized that being behind a screen, you know, crunching numbers all day sounds great, but I was going to be missing kind of the human interaction. I worked in retail all through high school, through college, and so I tried to kind of find a journey to go after college that was either through retail or I found a company that has just a lot of growth potential. And while I was there, there were actually some bad-acting executives and unfair practices that I felt you know, this is, this isn't how people should be treated. And I wanted to just be able to take that negative connotation out of HR and really find a way to be helpful in that function. And so fast forward, I ended up moving to Tampa, Florida for sunshine and fun vibes, um, outside of Massachusetts. And I was really lucky to find an HR coordinator role actually through a staffing agency for a company that I ended up staying with for 9 years, and there I learned so much and really just kind of dove in and continued my education through HR and found different areas of HR that I really wanted to pursue. And so operations was something that really wasn't, you know, a topic of conversation or considered a function, you know, 10 years ago. And so I really felt like I, I helped that company with understanding what people operations is, which is, you know, in my eyes, the glue of all of the different roles in HR. We're helping building processes and we're helping with kind of that backend HR is what I call it, of things that go on behind the scenes that maybe people don't actually see, but they feel in a way. And so through that company, I was able to to move my way up and really start creating a network for myself, a name for myself. And through that, I found my, my excitement around scaling and streamlining processes for companies' growth. When I started at that company, I think there were 75 employees. When I left, they were acquired, went through IPO, and over 2,000, you know, across multiple countries. And so seeing this small Tampa-based, uh, startup go into this global company, I learned a lot and really started diving into how can we be a more efficient team and how can we streamline more processes to help us with the growth. So after that company, I found that I loved that startup mentality, but what does it look like for a company about 10,000 employees? And so, I went into a larger organization to really see what is that, what does that look like when you're at such a large, you know, enterprise organization? And so, there I was able to build the skills of, you know, what that future could look like beyond the, you know, couple thousand employees. And I think just every opportunity that I've taken was a learning opportunity for me to really see how that employee life cycle should be and kind of get different aspects of the different companies I'd worked at or the different conferences or the people in my network to really start finding ways for companies to scale and ensure that they're growing while maintaining time on people, teams' hands to help with more strategic initiatives and projects. And so, That's kind of how I got to where we are today.

▶5:08HostAwesome. And building on that topic around, you know, like HR processes, you've obviously went from startup to much larger companies. Talk a little bit about where you start in terms of analyzing how to scale HR processes and how you identify which processes offer the most opportunity for optimization?

▶5:32GuestI don't think that you are too small of a team in order to start implementing different technologies or different workflows that have automation behind them. I was, you know, an HR team of one and an HR team of two where I was trying to provide myself time to be able to focus on things that are a little bit more important than entering an employee's name in three different systems or You know, providing benefit enrollment that isn't technology-based, things like that. If it's introduced technology early and with that, and you get the buy-in from your executives, it just continues to grow. So instead of putting people towards problems, you're, you're finding those solutions within the tech that you have. And so For me, I think it's, you know, using the tools that you already have to— when you're smaller, because you don't necessarily need the big, bright, shiny system in order to do something. See what the capabilities are in the systems that you already have in place and leverage those contracts to, you know, increase some automation. A lot of technology and a lot of systems are already providing that. So, for example, I have our HR ticketing system, we used Freshservice. Freshservice is very based on IT ticketing and help desk. However, I've now implemented it at my second company where it's providing workflows and automation behind the scenes that, you know, even though it's meant for help desk support, there is ways to leverage the system to automate emails and automate things. So it's just a more streamlined process. And a better experience for both the HR admin, but also the employees themselves.

▶7:24HostChange management is obviously a topic that comes to mind in terms of getting buy-in from executives, but also frontline workers, and then driving adoption and utilization of some of these new tools and processes. What's your approach around that?

▶7:41GuestI mean, you need buy-in and you need to have employees or even the team members who are on the people operations team or whatever team they're on to get that buy-in and understand not only what the state is today, but what it could be in the future and what that means from a workload standpoint. So, for me, and you get a lot in HR is, well, that's not how we've always done it. We've always done it one way, and it's worked. But, you know, opening that and expanding that to, show people how this actually can improve in getting their buy-in before you even start implementing. And open communication is key. I'm a big believer in transparency and full transparency. So just really having those conversations and, and a good understanding of what this means for the future is, is really important, I think.

▶8:38HostHow do you balance the kind of the need for introducing these tools to drive efficiency with the need to also prioritize a human touch, right? Because a lot of people are trying to, you know, out-automate themselves, if you will. And curious to get your perspective on what that balance looks like for you and your organization.

▶9:02GuestYeah, that's a really great question. I do believe that some roles, yes, you could probably automate them out of the role, but I also think that that is something that not necessarily is going to happen, but you should kind of try to do to, to get those processes better so you can actually, as HR, connect with the people and, and go outside of the system. Systems and automation are great, but they don't provide that human touch that you still do need to have those conversations. And so being able to Streamline, automate, and learn how to use the technology to your advantage and not be scared of it. It's not going to replace everybody. It's only— the only, in my opinion, the only time it's going to replace someone is if it's just a very manual work that they've been doing. It's a little outdated and it truly is something that a technology could take over. But understanding what your role is and how you can actually optimize that experience and use it to your advantage, I think, is is going to progress you in your career a little bit faster. And just being honest with yourself about it as well.

▶10:18HostSo technology obviously plays a pivotal role in, in driving operational efficiency. I'm, I'm curious how you evaluate tools and platforms to implement. What's your process look like in terms of, you know, finding different tools and then figuring which ones to prioritize? Because I'm sure you have a lot of competing technologies out there and a lot to— how do you narrow in on what's right for the right time?

▶10:49GuestRight, exactly. I mean, create a problem statement. What's going wrong? What are you— why are you even seeking another technology or a new technology? And, and also talk to your stakeholders. HR systems, you know, AI, it's not all just used by HR. You have people who are in payroll or IT and, you know, different stakeholders that work so closely with the people team. So talking to them and seeing how they could utilize that as well, what, you know, is a priority would be, I say, I think like something that's going to make the biggest impact but also considering your time management as well. Are we looking to completely transform an HR system or are we looking for a new benefits platform? And so if it's an HRIS transformation, I think that you need a very long period of time and availability from your employees who are participating in that, you know, project to be on board and to move forward where, you know, a new benefits system, yes, that takes time, but it's a little bit easier to pinpoint exactly what you need from a, you know, a specific center of excellence within, you know, the people team.

▶12:09HostElsa, could you share an example of a specific HR process that you successfully optimized or scaled and what impact that had for the organization?

▶12:20GuestYeah, absolutely. So onboarding is a big one, right? So onboarding or preboarding event is what I would consider stressful for the HR team because you're trying to get somebody in the door creating revenue and contributing to the organization quickly. However, you don't want to overwhelm somebody and you don't want to, you know, you want to get their engagement pretty quickly. And so being able to automate emails so they know that what's coming and what to expect as you're joining an organization, by personalizing that as well. I think automating things like that, you're not having to wait on somebody else to send that email out to welcome them. You can still personalize automated emails and leverage that. So specifically a project was we had an onboarding project at a previous company where a lot of things were manual. We were a global organization. We had background checks. Than different background companies in different regulations in all different countries. And so in different timeframes, then also on top of that, we have all of these different policies and different trainings that people have to take based off of whatever their role is, wherever they're located, whatever country they live in. And so being able to create a smooth process and a workflow and leveraging the right people, team members. So we had a generalist in London and we had a generalist in Texas and So all of these different time zones and different people that they have to be keeping track of and communicating with and having an understanding of, you know, what their needs are as they're entering a company. And so using Freshservice, as I talked about before, I was— we were able to create workflows leveraging our HR system, IT, Okta, all of the access. And so once we had a signed offer, we were able to get their information into Freshservice, have IT do whatever they need to do to get that person ready, order their laptops, get the correct access, and then have that simultaneously flow into the HR side of things. So we have checklists and automated emails and actual data that can flow back into the system based off of, you know, questions being answered. It freed up a lot of time. It actually increased or decreased the time spent onboarding and being able to prepare for the employee and have the new employee prepared to start. And so they were able to kind of start at the company, hit the ground running, and have all the information they need fairly quickly because of these workflows that we built behind the scenes in the system.

▶15:15HostIs there a particular story or experience that stands out to you as a major lesson learned during your HR career?

▶15:24GuestI mean, I think change— going back to change management, that's a big lesson learned. If you— I tend to get so excited about a project that I just want to kind of run with it, right? But you have to slow down and really empathize with whoever this change is affecting. And so I think if you start to skip or go too quickly through, uh, you know, optimizing a process, you don't get that buy-in. You're going to get people who reject whatever, you know, process or project that is, and it's not going to be successful. You have to, you know, retract everything and start over, which is, you know, a big waste of time and money. So, I don't know. Yeah, I would say just lessons learned on change management and informing and being transparent with colleagues before you even start the project, I think is important.

▶16:20HostAny parting advice that you'd like to share with the community?

▶16:26GuestYeah, I mean, just continue learning and utilizing technology and AI automation to your advantage. Don't be scared of it and educate yourselves on it. I think that that's really going to get you further in your career because it's not going away, right? As much as you, you don't want AI or there's people who are, who are happy with, you know, manual work and everything. And you have to just continuing to educate yourself, see what other companies are doing, look what's, you know, out in the marketplace and what your network is talking about. I think that's really important.

▶17:01HostAlison, thanks so much for joining the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure having you on.

▶17:07GuestThank you so much.