Jessica Mitory
SVP, Total Rewards and Team Member Experience
Advance Auto Parts
Episode 191
HR as a Profit Center: Building High-Performance Teams for Shareholder Gain
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleMay 14, 2025 · 17:01
Thesis
“HR's strategic role is to create value for shareholders by building high-performance organizations, achieved by prioritizing and investing in employees who serve the customer, especially during periods of transformation, while continuously learning and adapting.”
Show notes
Jessica Mitory grew up in a blue-collar family where people went to work every day not because they loved it, but because they had to. That background left a mark — and a conviction: that work should be meaningful, not just transactional, even for the people furthest from the top of the org chart.
Now SVP of Total Rewards and Team Member Experience at Advance Auto Parts, Jessica has led some of the most consequential total rewards transformations in the retail sector — redesigning bonus plans from scratch, making a major investment in frontline wages, and driving change at an organization with thousands of store team members whose daily experience determines everything about the customer relationship. Her insight on change management cuts through the theory: "Change is just as much about communication as it is about process and implementation." That means telling people the why, the what, the "what's in it for me," and exactly how they'll know if it's working — and doing it repeatedly, for months, not once at launch. The frontline wage investment at Advance Auto Parts took a full year to fully implement. The results were reduced turnover and measurable financial improvement.
Her mental model for navigating transformation is the "inverted pyramid": flip the org chart so the people serving the customer are at the top, and every people decision flows from the question of how it helps them do their job better. Her advice for HR professionals is equally direct — understand the P&L, learn how your company makes money, and bring that fluency to every conversation. The function that can speak finance gets a seat in the room where decisions are made.
- The inverted pyramid model — prioritizing frontline investment as the primary driver of customer outcomes and shareholder value
- Communication as change management infrastructure — why, what, what's in it for me, and how to measure it — repeatedly, not once
- Redesigning bonus structures and frontline wages — how a multi-quarter transformation program drove turnover reduction at scale
- Anchoring to unchanging core pillars — how to keep organizations stable during high-volatility periods by returning to mission fundamentals
- HR fluency in P&L — why financial literacy is the most direct path to earning an influential role in business decisions
- Building diverse experience early — Jessica's advice on taking on challenging, cross-functional roles before you feel ready for them
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What you'll take away
- 1HR leaders must understand business financials and P&L impact to gain an influential seat at the table and drive organizational value.
- 2Effective change management relies as much on comprehensive, transparent communication (why, what, for me, how to measure success) as it does on process and implementation.
- 3During periods of high volatility and transformation, HR should anchor the organization to unchanging core pillars (e.g., serving customers, inspiring the team, growing the business) to maintain stability and focus.
- 4Adopting an 'inverted pyramid' approach, where those serving the customer (frontline) are prioritized and invested in, directly leads to improved customer service and shareholder value.
- 5Cultivate continuous learning and diverse, challenging experiences, both within and outside HR, to build connections, gain multiple perspectives, and develop confidence for solving complex future problems.
What most organizations get wrong
In Jessica's words
“From that point, I decided to pursue a career where I can make a difference in someone's day. Really making sure that I can create meaningful experiences for employees while also creating value for the business.”
This encapsulates her career motivation and the dual focus of HR on employee well-being and business value.
“Essentially, change is just as much about communication as it is about process and implementation.”
This highlights a critical aspect of successful change management, emphasizing the often-overlooked communication element.
“Overall, it took us about a year to facilitate the change and lead the change based on all the feedback. But to make it successful, it was really necessary to solve all the problems together.”
Emphasizes the collaborative and iterative nature of complex organizational change, stressing problem-solving through feedback.
“When you're going through transformation, it's critical to invest in your team members. So when you do see those moments of stress in team members, you're reaching out to demonstrate that care and really looking out for each other when times are hard or difficult.”
Stresses the importance of employee care and investment as foundational elements during stressful periods of organizational change.
“Ultimately, our role in HR is to create values for shareholders by building a high-performance organization. So essentially create values— value for your employees, to serve the customer, and ultimately create value for shareholders.”
This clearly articulates HR's ultimate strategic purpose and the interconnectedness of employee, customer, and shareholder value.
“My advice would be to be fearless in the pursuit of continuous learning. My career philosophy overall is to collect as many diverse experiences as possible. The harder they are and the scarier they are, the better.”
This offers powerful personal career advice, advocating for challenging and diverse experiences to build resilience and confidence.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Employees' primary concern is covering monthly expenses, impacting financial well-being.
- •Major organizational transformations create stress and require strong leadership to maintain stability and performance.
- •Redesigning compensation plans (like bonus structures) is challenging and requires significant change management to gain buy-in across all organizational levels.
- •Ensuring transparency and simplicity in bonus calculations is critical for employee understanding and engagement.
- •High frontline turnover directly impacts customer service quality and overall business performance.
- •Ensuring team members possess the necessary capabilities and confidence to navigate and lead through evolving transformation initiatives.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
You started your career in consulting and now work as an HR executive
Describing Your Career Journey
My last rotation at PepsiCo was once again stepping outside of my comfort zone
In the Elevator With PepsiCo HR Executives
HR played a pivotal role in leading change at Advance Auto Parts
How HR Helped Advance Auto Parts Lead Change
Advance is going through its own transformation and has three pillars of stability
Employment HR's Three Pillars of Stability
Jessica says her role in HR is to balance shareholders, customers and employees
How HR Meets Three Profits
Jessica, what parting advice would you like to share with our community
A Moment of Fearless Learning
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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