Eric Hunn
Chief People Officer
Premier Protein
Episode 261
Regenerative Culture: The New Playbook for Employee Engagement, Not Old HR
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleMarch 25, 2025 · 19:31
Thesis
“Eric Hunn argues that fostering a "regenerative culture" built on purpose, connection, and growth, while challenging conventional HR practices and prioritizing compelling experiences over mandated controls, is key to sustained organizational success and employee fulfillment.”
Show notes
Creating a Regenerative Work Culture with Eric Hunn, Chief People Officer at Premier Protein
This episode is in partnership with Transform, we are very grateful and excited to be working with this wonderful community. Go check them out here
In this episode of the Built by People Podcast, host Dave welcomes Eric, Chief People Officer at Premier Protein. Eric shares his career journey from law enforcement to HR, highlighting his focus on creating a flexible and fulfilling work environment.
Despite being a public company with regulatory requirements, Premier Protein has preserved a sense of freedom and startup culture.
Eric discusses the strategies used to make hybrid work compelling, such as role modeling by leaders and creating engaging office events. He emphasizes the importance of balancing work and personal life through a regenerative culture and eliminating traditional HR practices that stifle innovation.
Eric's parting advice focuses on integrating work skills into personal life for a more enriching experience.
00:00 Introduction and Career Journey
03:28 Maintaining Startup Culture in a Public Company
06:31 Creating a Compelling Office Environment
09:38 Return to Office Strategy
14:44 Eliminating Traditional HR Practices
17:14 Parting Advice on Work-Life Balance
19:24 Conclusion
Previ Sponsor Info:
Previ is a private pricing network that is free for companies to launch and maintain. It saves employees $2,200/year on essential services like their cell phone and auto insurance bill. Visit here to learn more.
What you'll take away
- 1Instead of mandating return-to-office, create a compelling office experience through leadership role-modeling, anchored meetings, and shared amenities that make employees *want* to be there.
- 2Critically evaluate traditional HR practices like performance reviews, ratings, and extensive employee handbooks, as they can inadvertently stifle innovation, growth mindsets, and employee agency.
- 3Cultivate a 'regenerative culture' that focuses on purpose, connection/belonging, and continuous growth, leading to higher engagement, better retention rates, and stronger market performance.
- 4As organizations grow, resist the inclination to exert excessive control through new rules and bureaucracy; instead, be choiceful to preserve a startup-like sense of ownership and accountability.
- 5Approach significant changes (e.g., return-to-office) with transparency about criteria and reasoning, building trust and avoiding the 'loss aversion' employees feel when mandates constantly shift.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Eliminating traditional performance reviews and ratings, arguing they are biased towards the rater and hinder a growth mindset.
- •Advocating for making hybrid work 'compelling' rather than mandatory, contrasting with many companies that struggled with return-to-office mandates.
- •Discarding extensive employee handbooks in favor of fostering an accountable mindset and trusting employee agency.
- •Suggesting that the common 'work-life balance' metaphor is unhelpful, proposing a 'regenerative' model where work and life mutually enrich each other.
In Eric's words
“I was actually more interested in how did I make a work environment that was really fulfilling and stimulating, in particular that just had a lot of freedom to it.”
Reveals his core motivation for moving into HR and a foundational belief for his leadership style.
“And paradoxically, the more control you try to exert, the more folks who don't have that power are going to exert back, which is often termed reactance in psychology.”
Explains the counterproductive nature of excessive control in large organizations and provides a psychological basis.
“We didn't make it mandatory. We made it compelling and interesting.”
Summarizes their highly successful and unconventional approach to hybrid work.
“We talk about an idea of a regenerative culture. And so this is an idea borrowed from agriculture where folks are trying to have an environment where you're not depleting the soil, but you're actually putting things like mulch and cover crops there so that you're getting more diversity and making the soil better than when you started.”
Introduces a powerful and novel metaphor for building a sustainable and enriching company culture.
“Performance reviews, I would say that overall they look like they are much more biased toward the rater than the people being rated.”
Directly challenges the efficacy and fairness of a widely adopted HR practice.
“Work-life balance is an unhelpful metaphor for most of us because it implies that I am essentially on some sort of tightrope and that if I can just get this equilibrium of making my family happy and my work demands that I can rest there and be comfortable.”
Offers a fresh perspective on a common personal and professional challenge, advocating for integration over balance.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Bureaucracy and excessive rules in large organizations leading to reduced flexibility and freedom.
- •Lack of connection and constructive challenges in fully remote work environments, leading to multitasking struggles.
- •Employee disengagement and lack of belonging, making work feel like 'going through the motions'.
- •Traditional performance reviews being biased, cumbersome, and stifling a growth mindset and innovation.
- •Overly detailed employee handbooks that paradoxically reduce clarity and employee accountability.
- •The unhelpful 'work-life balance' metaphor, leading to constant struggle and dissatisfaction rather than peace.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
I always love to ask about your career journey on the podcast
Your Career Paths
Your company has achieved remarkable success while maintaining a startup culture
Eric Schmidt on Restoring a Startup Culture
Eric, you've implemented strategies to make the office a place where people want
The Office Reboot: Making the Office More Compelling
Your company waited until 2020 to return to office after treating Ebola
Employee Return to the Office
Many companies have talked about the promise of hybrid work as best of both worlds
How We Made Hybrid Work Fun for Our Employees
Eric has eliminated traditional HR practices like performance reviews and employee handbooks
In the Elevator: Eliminating HR Practices
Eric Miller shares his thoughts on work-life balance on Built by People podcast
Eric Wolff on Work-Life Balance
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
Expand transcript (0 words)
Transcript is not available yet.