Jill Wrobel
EVP & Chief HR Officer
Brunswick Corporation
Episode 37
Beyond Buzzwords: Embedding Continuous Improvement into Your Company's DNA
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleSeptember 30, 2025 · 14:54
Thesis
“Sustainable continuous improvement is critical for organizational success, especially in dynamic sectors, and must be intentionally embedded into a company's unique culture, values, business systems, and leadership behaviors, all communicated with authenticity and care.”
Show notes
Summary
In this conversation, Jill Wrobel shares her career journey from being an actuary to becoming the CHRO of Brunswick Corporation. Jill discusses the challenges faced in fostering a culture of continuous improvement within the organization, especially during rapid growth periods. She outlines concrete steps taken to address these challenges, the impactful outcomes of their efforts, and offers recommendations for others looking to implement similar strategies in their organizations.
Takeaways
- Continuous improvement is critical for our internal workforce.
- Storytelling drives a culture of continuous improvement.
- Walk the walk, model the behaviors.
- Celebrate the wins and near misses.
- Lead with the heart in HR.
- It's an obligation to lead with authenticity.
Chapters
00:00 Jill's Career Journey in HR
03:11 Fostering a Culture of Continuous Improvement
05:59 Concrete Steps for Continuous Improvement
08:36 Impactful Outcomes of Continuous Improvement
11:18 Strategies for Driving Continuous Improvement
14:18 Closing Thoughts and Reflections
What you'll take away
- 1Align continuous improvement initiatives and culture directly with customer success and organizational purpose, using a clear tagline and explicitly defined values.
- 2Be intentional with language by precisely defining terms like 'innovation' or 'improvement' to ensure a shared understanding across all organizational levels and stakeholders.
- 3Implement a strategic, common business system (e.g., the 'Brunswick Blueprint') to standardize processes across divisions, ensuring consistent execution and cultural reinforcement.
- 4Utilize simple but strategic change management: collaborate, listen, commit, communicate relentlessly, and embed new definitions into all HR processes like hiring, promotion, recognition, and exits.
- 5Lead by example, ensuring senior leaders visibly demonstrate commitment to continuous personal and professional development (e.g., through courses or role rotations) and share those stories internally.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Workplace safety is not the most exciting topic, but it is foundational and critical to organizational resilience and the ability to tackle external challenges, pushing back on the notion that impact only comes from 'exciting' initiatives.
In Jill's words
“Did you Did you find HR or did HR find you? And I was definitely in the latter camp.”
This quote highlights a common, often unplanned, path many professionals take into HR, emphasizing that aptitude can be discovered rather than solely pre-determined.
“At the core is connecting your initiatives and your culture to what wins with your customer.”
This statement grounds HR and cultural development efforts in tangible business outcomes, underscoring that internal improvements must ultimately serve external market success.
“Define what you mean and don't assume because it's an obvious word like innovation or improvement that it means the same to all the constituents that you're managing.”
This emphasizes the critical need for precise communication and shared understanding when establishing core organizational values and strategic directions to avoid misalignment.
“Workplace safety records are exceptional, and anything it feels like the external or internal environments throw at us, we've been able to tackle successfully together as a team.”
This quote directly links a strong safety culture and foundational HR practices to an organization's overall resilience and its capacity to effectively navigate crises.
“I cannot underestimate the power of storytelling as it relates to driving a culture of continuous improvement.”
This highlights a human-centric approach to cultural reinforcement, suggesting that narratives and shared experiences are more impactful than mere directives in fostering change.
“The pitfall is just don't lose the heart. If you can get the head and the feet right, our role in HR leaders and our role in not only in our companies, but in the markets in the world in which we operate is to recognize that change is hard.”
This stresses the crucial role of emotional intelligence and empathy in HR leadership, reminding that human resistance to change is natural and must be addressed with genuine care.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Rapid scaling challenges: The difficulty of acquiring sufficient talent and parts to meet surging demand in fast-growing sectors (e.g., leisure/manufacturing during COVID).
- •Supply chain and inflation impacts: Navigating external economic pressures that complicate manufacturing and operational costs.
- •Geopolitical/regulatory tariffs: The ongoing challenge of managing tariffs that significantly affect global operations and profitability.
- •Cross-divisional complexity: Ensuring consistent operations and removing barriers for work completion across diverse brands and multiple organizational divisions.
- •Lack of shared language/understanding: Misinterpretations of key strategic terms (like 'innovation' or 'improvement') leading to internal misalignment and inefficient execution.
- •Workplace safety culture: Establishing and maintaining exceptional safety protocols in advanced manufacturing environments to protect employees and meet regulatory standards.
- •Talent acquisition and retention competition: The struggle to attract and retain top talent amidst competitive markets and evolving employee expectations.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
David Miller shares a little bit about his career journey and Brunswick Corporation
Starting Out: How Did HR Find You?
Continuous improvement is super critical for manufacturing companies, particularly those in the leisure sector
Brunswick's culture of continuous improvement
Brunswick recently refreshed its brand to emphasize continuous improvement
Brunswick's continuous improvement culture refresh
Brunswick focused on workplace safety and fostering a culture of continuous improvement
Brunswick's culture transformation
Jill: What pitfalls should CHROs avoid when driving continuous improvement
Joe DiCarlo on Continuous Improvement and Talent Mobility
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
Expand transcript (0 words)
Transcript is not available yet.