Bert Somsin

▶0:00HostWelcome 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'm excited to welcome Bert to the Built By People Podcast. Bert, thank you so much for joining us today. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:52GuestYeah, so, you know, my career started out as something that probably wasn't planned to be a career. I was actually a package handler at UPS, hired to be seasonal. So it was only meant to last about 6 to 8 weeks, and then from there turned into an HR opportunity, you know, at a time when I didn't really know what HR was besides the people that interviewed me and asked me some questions to see if I was a fit. But yeah, that's how the journey started and then developed over, you know, now 19 years in the field. And various responsibilities all the way from being an HR rep to to HR director and now the chief HR officer at Onsemi.

▶1:34HostThis is a big company, Bert. Can you tell me a little bit more about Onsemi and what you're doing there?

▶1:39GuestYeah, so Onsemi is right now 23,000 team members. We operate in 33 countries, so mostly are in automotive and industrial chips, semiconductors. And so, yeah, I've been here for 2 years now. We have a wide portfolio. We also do sensors. Many people are familiar with, you know, the cameras in their vehicle, things like that. Everything from that to chips that are in hearing aids or various other products associated with ear pods and things like that.

▶2:13HostAwesome. Burke, can you share a specific instance when you were at Tesla or UPS where you faced a big problem and explain why it was so critical to address and describe the initial steps you took to tackle it?

▶2:28GuestYeah, one of the most critical times at UPS is the Christmas rush. You know, it's the highest volume. We hire the largest number of employees during that time. And when I was leading the district of 14,000— or supporting 14,000 team members at that time, leading for HR, the problem was hiring enough peak drivers to support the Christmas rush. And, you know, you're constrained with trainers, classrooms, equipment, computers, and then also the requirement of having it be 5 days, right? That was a requirement. And no matter how I did the math, it was never going to allow me to hire enough peak drivers. And so that was the problem. And UPS was a company deep-rooted in tradition and history, over a 100-year-old company. I'm not sure what it is now, 117-year-plus company. And they had been training drivers for many decades the same exact way with the same requirements and pretty much the same material with slight alterations. So when I looked at the training, and you know, of course I did an in-depth analysis of what is the training, why is it 5 days, what does it include? And it's really repetitive on safety techniques, safety habits, trying to instill the safety rules and habits that you should abide by when you are a driver, of course. And so, what I did was say, you know, how can I meet the staffing needs and still make sure that people are safe? So, I actually looked at data that was within my district. At that time, it was Northern California and Northern Nevada, at the most common injuries and incidents. I, of course, looked at OSHA requirements, federal requirements of what we have to train our employees on. And try to merge the two. And I came up with a 3-day training criteria. And what that does is allows you to overlap, so you can have 2 trainings in 1 week. Great. And then that changes the math completely in terms of being allowed to train the number of drivers. And this wasn't something that just my district was facing. You know, at that time, the US was carved up into 17 districts. So I had 16 other peers that were facing the same problems and not being able to ramp up in time to meet the hiring needs for Christmas. And so the solution, I feel, was easy, coming up with the agenda for a new training requirement. What's much harder, the challenge was overcoming the cultural norms. This is the way we've done things. It's proven. We don't compromise in safety, et cetera. So I had to present to the most senior levels to convince them that it's not about compromising on safety or going against tradition. It's about solving the problem for what it is today, right? If you think about a staffed operation is also going to be a better running operation, right? Because if you don't have enough people, you're going to stretch the people that you do have, right? Also, the repetitive nature of safety training in general your training becomes generalized, not specific. So of course, we had a generalized, broad-based part of the training, but then it became very specialized in that it was specific to the area, right? San Francisco, for example, is going to face different challenges with drivers, different accidents and injuries than an area that may be more suburban in the Bay Area, for example, maybe San Ramon. And so it wasn't about less safety training, it was about focused safety training. And so it took a lot of meetings, a lot of convincing, and they only allowed my district to do it. They didn't want to allow the 16 other districts throughout the US. I was going to be the pilot. But after that year, it became an adopted training throughout all of UPS. So the entire UPS fleet in the US. Changing the way that training was done for probably over 30 years. It's the first time somebody actually questioned it and pushed the boundaries. So yeah, that was a major problem, but again, less about the solution. And although it sounds— the problem may sound rudimentary, it was overcoming all the cultural norms and customs, I would say, that we're used to at that time within the leadership team.

▶7:01HostBurt, you, you talked about the importance of change management and influencing executives to get on board with this new initiative. What were some of the other key challenges or setbacks that you encountered during the implementation of that training, and how did you overcome them to achieve success?

▶7:23GuestYeah, I think it's the reluctance, right? It wasn't just executives. Now you have to convince the people actually training. That it's the right thing. And many of our trainers were given extensive preparation and certifications and time to vet the right people out to do it. And there was always the possible point that are we shortchanging safety, et cetera, some of the things I said earlier. But again, it comes back to the conviction that you have to have in the points that you're making.. And then also, you know, there's some science behind it. It's a lot of data-backed analysis that I did. I gave a very high overview, but a lot of percentages localizing the data to certain metropolitan areas, non-metropolitan areas, and a hyperfocus on certain habits that prevent injuries. And it also on certain driving techniques that prevent accidents, those types of things. So I tried to ground everyone on the common goal, which is to keep everyone safe. That is the goal. But you also have to understand all the factors that lead to it. It's not just training on the information we have for 30 years. It's doing what makes sense today. And also the other piece of it is not just about training, it's about staffing levels. Staffing levels also impact the ability to be safe. So a lot of that, and I think also just being relentless in your pursuit of things, because initially I don't, I think I'm not the first person to have thought of that. There's no way that that's possible. I don't think, but I believe that I pursued it without letting up. Like I was not going to back down from saying this is the right way and I will be a district of staff and. Keep all our team members safe. And so, kind of, you know, that the conviction, being relentless, and also grounding on the right principles of safety, but also having data to back it. And I think all those things, bringing all those things together, helped to overcome a lot of the resistance.

▶9:34HostBert, why was solving this particular problem so important for the organization? And what were the most valuable lessons you learned from the experience?

▶9:45GuestYeah, so this problem was critical because it was a challenge that everybody faced. So all 250,000, you know, team members within UPS were facing this issue. And it's critical because if you're not properly staffed for the Christmas rush, you won't hit the service commits that we gave to our customers.. You know, and at that time it could be a Christmas present, but it could also be medication that someone really needs. And so it was important for many reasons, some of which I explained earlier, which is safety, the safety of team members, but also the ability to meet our customers' expectations. And it was a problem that we were facing throughout the entire country, not just specific to the, the area that I oversaw. And I think the lesson is, and this is one that I didn't understand at the time I was UPS, but after joining Tesla, you know, it's about first principles, which is breaking everything down to the most simple and fundamental form and then working your way back up from, from that standpoint. And so if I looked at the problem with the confinement that it was initially proposed, which is within 5 days, I would've never solved it. I questioned why it was 5 days in the first place, and the original intention is to keep people safe. So, so that's the fundamental reason of the training. And then I started there and then I built up, well, what does it have to be? What should it include and why? And so on to get to 3 days. And then presenting, of course, overcoming and getting everyone onboard and getting the buy-in. So I think all those things is to say, you know, approach each problem and look at it for its own merit and take the first principles approach to it.

▶11:43HostReflecting on that experience, if you were to do it over again, what are the actions that you would repeat and what might you avoid or advise other people to avoid should they decide to take a similar path?

▶12:01GuestYeah, I'll start with what I would avoid first. I think is I would've given it more time earlier on and predicted, or I would've assumed a worse outcome in the beginning. So what led to me doing this, like I, I would say while I was very close to the, the peak rush is we had forecasted lighter volume. Which meant, you know, easier to meet staffing plan. So if I went back now, this was like many years ago, I think 2014, so almost 11 years ago now, but I would have planned for a worse scenario even if all the forecasts coming in said otherwise. You know, plan for the worst, hope for the best kind of thing. You know, some of these adages make sense and I think it pertains to business too.. And so I would've done that differently. I probably would've engaged my peers too. I was so focused working with my team and solving my district's problems. But I mean, I know that every, you know, my 16 peers that I had were facing the same exact problems. And I know they could have used it. And maybe if I was more vocal earlier on, it could have benefited and helped them too, in turn helping more customers and so on, having more support throughout the country versus just my isolated region. What I would repeat again is, again, being relentless about doing it because there was a, like, even my own boss at that time was like, hey, this is not going to, like, you're not going to be able to do this. You're asking to reduce safety training when we always start out every meeting with a safety tip, which means nothing's more important. And then you're arguing for a 2-day reduction. Like it's never going to happen. This is something we've done for 30+ years. It's never changed. And so, but I still said, you know, well, but this is not less training, it's better training, right? It's more effective. It's more focused training. It's backed by data and so on. And so I would, like, like I suggested earlier, suggest just being relentless about it, especially if you have conviction. You know, I, I personally worked all the data. I dug into all the files. I talked to trainers. I spoke to drivers and so on. So, but I think that pertains to any problem. This just happens to be a staffing problem that I encountered.

▶14:21HostBert, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

▶14:26GuestWell, you know, I get asked a lot being in human resources, working with a lot of executives that do different things from sales to operations to engineering. You know, I would say sometimes it's not about being special. It's just about being consistent, respectful, and responsible. In other words, being someone with character. And sometimes, you know, can be the normal guy or normal gal and win by just having some of those simple things, being consistent, again, respectful. Some of the things that you've learned— my daughter's 11 years old, and I feel like she has all the tools to be successful in terms of knowing what it takes for people to appreciate you and respect you and and so on. And those are the same things it takes, I think, to be successful. Yeah, being a responsible person with integrity and consistently being that person, I think, can get you to where you want to be.

▶15:23HostBert, thanks so much for joining us today on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

▶15:28GuestThank you so much, Dave. Appreciate it.