[00:00:00] Producer 1: Want to know the secret to building a stronger, smarter workforce? It’s all about upskilling your people, creating personalized employee experiences, and tapping into the power of diverse perspectives. Today’s guest, Sally Massey, joins us to share how Colgate-Palmolive is staying ahead of the curve in a fast changing world of work.
[00:00:22] Sally Massey: I like to get my team together so that we can talk through, brainstorm, challenge each other, and I really think that you get to a better place when you bring in a lot of different perspectives. Perspectives from different backgrounds, different geographies. I think you get to a better answer. And so for me it’s about bringing people together with different perspectives so that we can get to a better outcome.
[00:00:46] Producer 1: Sally has served as Colgate’s Chief Human Resources Officer since 2020, leading all aspects of their global human resources strategy and capabilities. Previously, she guided a major HR transformation leading global people and organization development, learning, talent acquisition, HR, operations, and total rewards.
[00:01:05] Producer 1: In this episode, Sally and host Nicole Alvino explore strategies for retaining top talent, driving business outcomes at a global company and adapting to changing employee expectations. On cruising altitude, we talk about employee experience lessons from leaders at companies with over 30,000 employees. A lot like reaching, cruising, altitude at 30,000 feet.
[00:01:27] Producer 1: Things look a little different when you’re managing 30,000 people. On this podcast, we bring you insights from the leaders who inhabit that rarefied air. Today’s episode features an interview with Sally Massey. But first, let’s hear a word from our sponsor.
[00:01:41] Producer 3: Thank you for listening to this episode of Cruising Altitude.
[00:01:44] Producer 3: This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that’s redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup, has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, Ford, and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming.
[00:02:05] Producer 3: Learn more@firstup.io.
[00:02:08] Producer 1: And now your host, Nicole Alvino, CEO and co-founder of Firstup.
[00:02:12] Nicole Alvino: Hello everyone and thanks for joining us on Cruising Altitude. I’m Nicole Alvino, Founder and CEO of Firstup, super passionate about ensuring that every worker feels connected and engaged with their employer. Firstup is a SaaS platform used by 40 of the Fortune 100 to provide an exceptional employee.
[00:02:31] Nicole Alvino: Experience for every employee. When we do this, we retain and grow our people and increase efficiency and adoption of organizational initiatives, all part of driving a high performance culture. So our mission today is to help you learn about how we can retain top talent, improve organizational culture, and drive your business outcomes.
[00:02:57] Nicole Alvino: Welcome to this episode of Cruising Altitude. So excited to have Sally Massey, who is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Colgate. So welcome, Sally.
[00:03:10] Sally Massey: Thank you, Nicole. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to, to join you on this session.
[00:03:15] Nicole Alvino: Good. So when we have people join, Firstup, we have them share three fun facts as a way to get to know them.
[00:03:22] Nicole Alvino: So can you please share three fun facts about you?
[00:03:26] Sally Massey: Sure. Let’s see. I think the first one is, it’s where I find most of my joy, which is in my three children. So I have three children, ages 15, 14, and 11. I’m also, I’m from Maine, and so we try to get back to Maine as much as we can and love to spend the summers there.
[00:03:45] Sally Massey: You know, I like to stay active and I’m an a, I’m an avid skier, so one of my goals was to make sure that my entire family could ski so that we can take vacations together and be active. And so skiing is one of, one of the fun facts.
[00:04:01] Nicole Alvino: I love those. I share two of the three, so I also have three children. My boys are 10, just turned 12 and 13.
[00:04:08] Nicole Alvino: So, and we’re also a big skiing family, so. Well, can you tell us a little bit about your current role and the scope of it, as well as what opportunities can arise just given the scope that you have?
[00:04:24] Sally Massey: Yeah, so I am the Chief HR Officer at Colgate-Palmolive. We are a 200 and 19-year-old company. With around 34,000 employees that work in a hundred countries around the world, and you can find our products in 200 countries and territories.
[00:04:43] Sally Massey: So. My main focus is that I am the keeper of culture and people across the globe. And because we’re such a global company, lots of things can arise at any day, at any time. So it’s always an exciting morning and an afternoon to see what’s happening around the world. But you know, I also have a wonderful team that I rely on to make sure that.
[00:05:06] Sally Massey: We have the right programs, policies in place, and that we have the right eye on making sure that our people stay safe, healthy, have wonderful careers, and it’s a privilege to have this role at Colgate-Palmolive.
[00:05:19] Nicole Alvino: Yes, definitely. And with all of those people in those different countries, can you describe a little bit about the different personas that you have?
[00:05:29] Nicole Alvino: I imagine that different types of role and, and different cultures that can arise, and a little bit of the unique opportunities as well as challenges having such a diverse workforce.
[00:05:40] Sally Massey: So we like most global companies or domestic companies, I mean, we have four generations that work under our roof together.
[00:05:48] Sally Massey: They all have different expectations. We also have a very large manufacturing organization, so we’re 34,000 people globally. Half of our people work in offices and the other half are frontline workers with so many people in different countries. You know, I would say that. The Colgate culture is very strong, and so while we’re in a hundred countries where you can find our employees, the Colgate culture is really consistent around the world.
[00:06:17] Sally Massey: So when you walk into a Colgate office or a manufacturing site, people. Find the consistent thread that holds us together, and that is really around our values, which we just relaunched a couple of years ago around. We are caring, we are inclusive, and we are courageous. So. Uh, we call it our culture, DNA, which is really made up of our purpose, our values, and our leadership principles.
[00:06:43] Sally Massey: And that is one constant that runs around the globe. We have a very strong listening culture to understand the different needs and perspectives of all the different generations of around the world within our offices, and also the different needs depending on what geography you’re in. So I think making sure that we are listening and understanding.
[00:07:04] Sally Massey: What the different groups are asking for. And then my job is really to figure out how do you make that into a global program? That you can’t be everything to everyone, but there are things that are important to everybody that they can tap into.
[00:07:22] Nicole Alvino: Definitely. How do you do that? Kind of provide those personalized experiences across four generations to maintain that culture?
[00:07:30] Nicole Alvino: Are you things that you do with your team, analog, digital, and a blend to, to make sure that you’re continuing to deliver on that promise?
[00:07:40] Sally Massey: So. We, like many companies, have a very strong engagement survey. It’s been going now since 2016. We learn about it. We learn more and more every year when we launch it.
[00:07:52] Sally Massey: And what we do is we make sure that we are action planning around the world. And so every manager who has a certain number of direct reports needs to have an action plan. Pick one thing, do two things about it, and communicate it three times. So we have a very, we try to be simple and clear and something that will have an impact on the ground, which is what we call in the countries.
[00:08:15] Sally Massey: So I think the listening that we do, then we also have, again, my team is very strong. They’re embedded in all the countries. In all of the geographies and all the functions, and one of their main roles is to make sure that they have an ear to the ground to understand what people are dealing with on a regular basis.
[00:08:36] Sally Massey: Outside of our four walls, but also inside. And then we meet on a regular basis to understand what those themes are so that then we can think about how can we address it, whether that is. Through communication, whether that is through their managers, whether that is through the programs that we roll out, the policies we have, but it really starts with understanding what the needs on the ground are from our employees, and we try to be very people centric and provide a really great employee experience.
[00:09:10] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, well you’ve been at Colgate for 24 years, so something must have worked well. With all that listening and ear to the ground. You must have seen some shifts in employee expectations. Can you share a little bit about what you’ve seen in those 24 years?
[00:09:26] Sally Massey: Yeah, you know, a lot of employee dynamics have changed a lot in the past 24 years.
[00:09:30] Sally Massey: It’ll be 25 in June, so I’m rolling up on 25. Very quickly. Let me just take an example of our talent development strategy, because we are such a global company and we have people that are in, like I said, the hundred countries and you can find our products in the 200 countries and territories. Our development strategy has been to promote from within, and that has always been a very strong piece of being at Colgate-Palmolive.
[00:10:00] Sally Massey: As the dynamics have changed with people in terms of having dual careers, maybe not wanting to move all the time for their career, we’ve had to adjust how we get work done and how we develop talent. I. Also, the other thing is, is that there’s, you know, the environment, we’re always at the mercy of the environment that we’re working in as well.
[00:10:23] Sally Massey: And so, you know, we’ve tried to become more, have some more remote working where it makes sense. You know, we’ve had a really big push on data and analytics and making sure that we’re upskilling the organization and so that is one of the main focuses that we have been focusing on in the past. I would say five years with our 2025 strategy that was launched in 2020.
[00:10:45] Sally Massey: So we’ve really done a, a fantastic job of upskilling the organization and digital and data and analytics and AI. And I think that the constant opportunity to upskill and to learn is one reason why people stay with us and tend to have a longer tenure at Colgate-Palmolives. One thing that I’m proud of was that we rolled out several years ago.
[00:11:09] Sally Massey: Trying to become a learning culture, and it has been a several year journey. We’re not there yet, but we’re always looking to see how we can take learnings and share them across geographies, across functions. Not so much focus on what went wrong, but turn the learnings into something positive that we can use in, in the future so that we are making better decisions and having a, a better outcome.
[00:11:36] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, definitely. And if you think about with your four generations, there’s an opportunity for someone like you to have a very, very long career. And so thinking about helping guide those individuals from moment of hire to retire and offering their personalized journeys in upskilling along the way.
[00:11:55] Sally Massey: Yeah.
[00:11:55] Sally Massey: You know, we just rolled out our 2030 strategy and people and culture is one of the enablers. And one of the, we were looking externally at the trends to see what was gonna shape the strategy, and in 2024, the Edelman Trust Index had its lowest score on the question of, I trust that my employer will make the right decision.
[00:12:19] Sally Massey: And so a lot of that is then driven transparency to make sure that, mm-hmm. People understand why we make certain decisions, why we create certain programs, why we do what we do, because we feel that the more you can communicate, that people then can understand and connect the dots. Hopefully people understand that we have their best interests at heart and that we are cultivating trust, which is one of our leadership principles.
[00:12:47] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, trust is so important, especially now with so much uncertainty and the ability to communicate in a way that is also received in the way that you want every employee to receive something. That’s such an important opportunity, and I know that because you listen so well and you do provide really personalized experiences that you can really meet your people where they are, and that is a great foundation to build trust.
[00:13:13] Sally Massey: That’s right. And when you have the different generations. There’s a lot to think about in terms of what’s in it for me and how do you make sure that people see the benefit and the value.
[00:13:23] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned AI obviously as a, a way to upskill. It’s transforming all of our companies and also I have a firm belief that the use of AI can actually unlock more human connection when we can have AI do some of the work that doesn’t actually need to be done by the humans and then we free up some more time.
[00:13:44] Nicole Alvino: So I’m just curious in how you are embracing ai just specific. Ways to help different employee groups and your point of view too on the AI and human connection.
[00:13:58] Sally Massey: You know, so we’ve been on this journey for a little while and, and we really took a, um, people first approach to implementing AI across the organization so that.
[00:14:08] Sally Massey: People could understand the benefits to learning more about AI and to putting it into their daily habits. We started by investing in upskilling all of our employees around the globe, so everybody was required to take a training in AI in order to get into our own AI hub. So we created a very safe place for people to be able to go in and use ai.
[00:14:35] Sally Massey: So I think the first thing was that we upskilled everyone so that everybody understood the positives to using ai and also the what they needed to watch out for in terms of ai. And then we gave them access to a hub where they could. Start practicing and using it for their daily work. We’re finding that there is a community within Colgate that people are sharing ideas, they’re learning from one another.
[00:15:00] Sally Massey: They’re sharing best practices. They’re getting efficiency in their work. And so those are some of the things that we’ve done. I won’t go into a lot of detail. We have Kli Pappas who is really leads AI for us at Colgate, and he can give more information, but we have really focused on upskilling the organization.
[00:15:19] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, and that’s gonna keep people there longer as well. As you continue to provide that, that upskilling, which is a core part of providing an incredible employee experience, and it’s moving so quickly, right?
[00:15:29] Sally Massey: Yes. So it’s exciting to be part of the community and hear what people are learning, because what was exciting yesterday and there’s something more exciting happening today.
[00:15:42] Nicole Alvino: Exactly. That’s a good segue. I was gonna ask you, what is the biggest employee experience lesson that you’ve learned over the past 12 months?
[00:15:52] Sally Massey: It’s actually quite simple because I think that there is such power and communication. And when you have people that sit globally, the power of communication, just when you think about how we’ve rolled out our 2030 strategy, you’ve gotta be very clear in terms of what the goal is, how we’re going to do it.
[00:16:12] Sally Massey: And sometimes people forget the power of the communication because it’s such an easy thing. But, you’ve gotta make sure, again, four generations. So how are you communicating so that people are hearing what the message is, how are they internalizing it? How are they thinking about it in terms of how it’s going to impact their role and their work and what they’re going to do?
[00:16:34] Sally Massey: How do they understand what our goals are and our ambitions and why we’re rolling out certain things and resourcing certain projects. So that we can achieve our ambitions. So for me, it’s really around communication, being simple, being clear and repeating it. You can’t communicate enough.
[00:16:54] Nicole Alvino: Right. Obviously that is music to my ears.
[00:16:57] Nicole Alvino: And I would even say that the opportunity just to provide ev uh, those hyper personalized communications, right? Someone who’s on your manufacturing floor in one part of the world needs to hear something different than someone who’s in headquarters, who is maybe in a management training program early in their career, or someone who’s been there two decades plus.
[00:17:17] Nicole Alvino: And so having that opportunity to really personalize and tailor things just like we get in our consumer lives.
[00:17:26] Sally Massey: Yeah, I think that’s right. It’s the messaging, but it’s also then the vehicle. We try to really use lots of different ways to communicate, whether that’s through digital, whether that’s through workshops, whether that’s through written communication, whether that’s through webcasts.
[00:17:41] Sally Massey: Because people absorb it in different ways, and so it is personalizing the message, but also personalizing the vehicle so that they can get the information.
[00:17:52] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, that’s exactly right. So you talked about the big 2030 plan, which is exciting. We’ve talked about upskilling and specifically around ai. Is there anything else, just as far as learning initiatives and things that you’re really focused on for your people?
[00:18:07] Sally Massey: Yeah, we continue to upskill in digital. We continue to upskill in data and analytics. We also continue. To upskill, obviously in AI as we just discussed, but also on the softer pieces. And at Colgate, we have a lot of longstanding leadership development programs, and so we are constantly looking to see what are the trends, how can we make those better?
[00:18:32] Sally Massey: How can we bring people together to work on real projects and apply their leadership skills? When you bring people together. That are all leaders and you give them a project to work on where they’ve never worked together as a group before. They’re coming together to work maybe on a project that they’ve never known anything about.
[00:18:51] Sally Massey: It’s all new to them. It’s really amazing to see what people can produce and within just a very short amount of time, the learnings that they have and how they’re able to then apply that when they go back on their job.
[00:19:05] Nicole Alvino: Definitely. It’s that power of human connection.
[00:19:08] Sally Massey: That’s right. That’s right. You know, we’re focusing a lot on coaching and making sure that we are building coaching skills.
[00:19:16] Sally Massey: Health and and wellness is one of our big focuses. While we’re very strongly focused on the technical aspects, we’re also focused as much on the leadership pieces.
[00:19:26] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, and especially now as with times of change and uncertainty, I’d love to understand a little more how you personally lead during times of change.
[00:19:36] Sally Massey: You know, when I think back to, I was promoted into the CHR role in July of 2020, right in the heart of COVID and getting through that was a lot of collaboration and bringing people together, because I really think at a company like Colgate, you can achieve. Anything that you wanna achieve when you bring the power of people together.
[00:20:00] Sally Massey: And so for myself, leading in times of change, I like to get my team together so that we can talk through brainstorm, challenge each other. I. I really think that you get to a better place when you bring in a lot of different perspectives. Perspectives from different backgrounds, different geographies. I think you get to a better answer.
[00:20:21] Sally Massey: And so for me it’s about bringing people together with different perspectives so that we can get to a better outcome.
[00:20:27] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, exactly. And that diversity of thought is so, so important. And I think right, right now, at this moment in time too large global corporations have a really important role to play as as far as doing that.
[00:20:41] Nicole Alvino: Which circles back to what you were talking about with trust and employees trusting Colgate and all the leaders.
[00:20:48] Sally Massey: You know, one of our values is also we are inclusive. And being a 200 and 19-year-old company with such a global footprint, we. Are only as strong as our people. And so in order for us to be, you know, a 300 year old company, we really need the diversity of thought.
[00:21:08] Sally Massey: And in order to do that, it’s being inclusive of all people around the world and their personal experiences. I think it just, it leads to better ideas, better innovation, and ultimately growth when you’re inclusive of a lot of different backgrounds.
[00:21:25] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, definitely could not agree more with that. We call this podcast Cruising Altitude.
[00:21:31] Nicole Alvino: We fly at 30,000 feet. For me, that’s a sense of clarity and and perspective. So what is your place of extreme clarity or heightened perspective?
[00:21:44] Sally Massey: I do best when I’m under pressure to tell you the truth. I find that when. You’ve got a lot of time to think. It’s great to get a lot of information and ask for a lot of opinions, get external, but when you’re under pressure, maybe flying at that 30,000 feet, I think that’s when the best stuff happens because it’s when you know the pressure is on and you need to be thinking clearly.
[00:22:11] Sally Massey: You need to get results, you need to execute. So for me, I work best when I’m under pressure.
[00:22:18] Nicole Alvino: I love that. I’m the same way. Um, can you think of a time where you had that clarity or perspective that helped you achieve something you previously thought wasn’t possible or maybe stuck on something?
[00:22:31] Sally Massey: Yeah, I mean, I’ll just take the recent one when just thinking through as we’re putting together our 2030 strategic plan and people and culture is one of the enablers, and so I.
[00:22:44] Sally Massey: We needed to create a, a strategy that was gonna be for 2030. And it, you know, I knew where we had come from and I knew something needed to be different. And it, you start to think about, okay, 2030 is, it’s five years away. But 2030 is gonna look so different than 2025. And how am I gonna get the clarity to make sure that what we’re putting in place in 2025 for 2030 is gonna still be relevant.
[00:23:12] Sally Massey: It’s gonna still be the right focus, and it’s a lot of weight to think that you have to do it yourself. But I think, again, going back to what we talked about, Nicole, when you bring a team together to start. Thinking about, okay, what is 2030? What are the skills that we’re gonna have to have? What’s the peer leading capabilities that we’re gonna have to build?
[00:23:35] Sally Massey: What is our strategic ambition and how are we gonna help our employees get there? But also, how is our culture going to evolve to support it? You start thinking about what are the right behaviors that we need to start? Talking about now and making sure that we are embedding in our daily decision making.
[00:23:52] Sally Massey: How does that tie to our values? How does that tie to our purpose? How does that tie to our leadership principles? How are we making sure that we are focusing on our people that work in our offices, but also in our manufacturing facilities. When there’s a shortage of talent, how are we making sure that technology is being implemented correctly?
[00:24:14] Sally Massey: How are we making sure that we are upskilling both types of talent enough so that we find ourselves in the right place in 2030?
[00:24:23] Nicole Alvino: And we’ll be managing not only people, but AI agents. So making sure that our people are equipped to to handle that too.
[00:24:31] Sally Massey: Absolutely, and all, when you think about the robotics that are gonna be used in our plants and how we’re upskilling our organization on that as well, 2030 is gonna look very different than 2025.
[00:24:43] Sally Massey: So getting a team together to help think that through and getting a lot of feedback and input to then finally come to a recommendation. I think is right for now and the beauty of of a strategy is that you’re able to pivot when you need to as the environment changes, but you’re making the right choices for today.
[00:25:03] Nicole Alvino: Yeah, well, when you have the right people who are focused on finding the solution with that diversity of perspective and built on trust as a foundation, then you have the core tenets of what you need, continue to deliver exceptional employee experiences and drive all of the wonderful products that, that we as consumers enjoy too.
[00:25:24] Sally Massey: Yeah, and I also think the important part is you don’t just tap into your HR team, you tap into leaders. In other functions because they also bring different perspectives that are very important to helping shape the strategy.
[00:25:39] Nicole Alvino: Definitely. Well, this has been so great. So I always like to end these podcasts with one thing you never do and one thing you always do, so our listeners can take some of your wisdom with them.
[00:25:53] Sally Massey: Okay. Let’s start with what’s one thing that I always do, I always try to exercise because I think it is great for. For clarity, and I think it is good for mental strength and wellbeing, so that’s one thing that I always try to do. One thing that I don’t do is I don’t eat late at night. I’ve gotta get a good night’s sleep, and so that helps me with sleep.
[00:26:17] Nicole Alvino: Love it. Love it. Putting your wellbeing first, which absolutely has to be the foundation. Well, Sally, thank you so much for joining us. This has been really informative to me and our listeners. Can you share with everyone how they can find you if they wanna continue the conversation?
[00:26:34] Sally Massey: Yeah, absolutely. And you can find me on LinkedIn.
[00:26:37] Sally Massey: I am happy to respond to any, any messages that you leave me there. And it’s been really wonderful to join you, Nicole.
[00:26:44] Nicole Alvino: Thank you.
[00:26:47] Producer 2: Thank you for listening to this episode of Cruising Altitude. This episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up
[00:26:58] Producer 2: by connecting every worker everywhere with the information that helps ’em do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford, and Pfizer. Stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more@firstup.io.
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