Building Teams & Retaining Skills - How To Empower, Tame and Grow Talent

Lowell Goss, Fonz Morris, Mamuna Oladipo, Jennifer Wong at UXDX USA. Video: https://youtu.be/IhVKGFD3vjI

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Opening: what made you smile today

[00:00:00] Lowell: We're going to talk about building teams. We've got a bunch of different questions to go through here. I'll try to take notes as we go and dig deeper on some of the issues as they come up. But I want to start with something that is only somewhat related, and we'll just talk with everybody here right now. Mamuna, tell me about something that happened today that brought a smile to your face.

[00:00:22] Mamuna: Oh wow. I would say my son. When I was cooking breakfast this morning, he came running around the corner with a mask on. That scared me halfway to being awake this morning, and then I had to laugh. That was a good way to start the morning.

[00:00:45] Lowell: Very good. That's a charming story, for sure. How about you, Jennifer? Smile of the morning?

[00:00:54] Jennifer: I think your question did make me smile immediately, but before that, in the morning, it was my kids waking up and doing what they promised: they made their beds. It was a satisfying smile, for sure.

[00:01:08] Lowell: Very good. And how would that compare to what you discovered when you went to work? Did those folks also make their beds and do all the things that they were supposed to do?

[00:01:18] Jennifer: I think meeting all the expectations always brings a smile.

[00:01:22] Lowell: Awesome. And Fonz, how about you?

[00:01:26] Fonz: Well, we just got a new puppy, so this morning I took the puppy to my daughter's bed and put her on the bed, and she licked her, and my daughter was startled, but then she had the biggest smile, and then I had the biggest smile. So that's a great question.

How much time goes into hiring

[00:01:40] Lowell: Very cool. I'm going to direct the first question to Fonz in terms of our session today. How much time do you spend hiring? How important is it, in terms of relative priority, to everything else you do?

[00:01:54] Fonz: To me it's important. I've been on a lot of the interview panels, but I wouldn't say it's the most important thing that I'm focused on. I would say I spend about four to eight hours a week interviewing and reviewing candidates and writing up my notes after the interview. So I wouldn't say too much of my time, but definitely a couple of hours a week.

[00:02:18] Lowell: Same question to you, Jennifer. When you think about the priority of hiring, maybe it's not about the hours, but how important is that, and the relative piece of team building?

[00:02:30] Jennifer: When I think about team building, my responsibilities are in people, product and process, and I would say people definitely occupies 30 percent, if not more, of that bucket. Within that, I do put a high priority on hiring, just to make sure. It's a long-term investment for the team, to make sure we have good longevity of people and talent on the team to bring us to success in the other buckets, product and process.

[00:03:00] Lowell: Very cool. Mamuna, a little twist on that, in terms of the balance between product and process and people. Jennifer's added a couple more dimensions to this in terms of team building. How do you think about the process piece? How important is that? Is Kickstarter a particularly process-oriented place?

[00:03:22] Mamuna: I would say that traditionally, no. But more and more, as we look to become more efficient and deliver impact and value, process is a natural part of that, at least at Kickstarter. More and more we're understanding where not to add process for the sake of having process, but where it makes sense: where maybe things are falling down, or we're doing the same thing multiple times, slowly codifying that for people, so they understand what they can expect when they're coming on board. We've found a lot of times that when people start, they have those basic questions, and everyone articulates things in a different way. So giving people a standard way of understanding how we may do a certain thing has been helpful, especially as we look at bringing more people onto the team.

[00:04:10] Lowell: It's always tricky. As the host here, I don't want to put my finger on the scale too much. At Reddit I spend a huge amount of my time on recruiting, and to some degree I will admit it's a form of laziness. I know that if I bring in really wonderful, talented people, my job just gets easier and easier, and our capacity to do greater and greater things goes up. In my estimation, I think it's more so than what happens by focusing on process and other things. So I really think that talent is at the cornerstone of what I think about when we build teams.

Tenure: short stints and long stays

[00:04:50] When we talk about talent, and just for everybody here, a little bit of behind the scenes: the four of us met before this, so we've had an opportunity to have a pre-discussion and questions on this stuff before. I'm going to reference some of those questions as we go through this. One of the questions that came up was about how long people are spending at companies. We compared and contrasted people who are at companies for a super short period of time, all the way up to, I think we had an example of someone who had been at a company for eight years, and how we as hiring managers thought about them differently or comparatively.

[00:05:24] Jumping to Jennifer now: how do you look at candidates and their tenure as a part of building the team? And then as a follow-up question to that, how do you think about that for the team that you've got?

[00:05:38] Jennifer: Sure. I would say when I do hiring, I'm cautious of the tenure they had, especially for those with shorter times, like one year, two years, and hopping over to multiple companies. I would question more on what they are doing for the company. Is it a contribution to long-term success, or are they striving for more short-term success so that they can build up their resumes? Those would be things that would call out to me.

[00:06:06] For people with longer tenure, well, first, kudos to the company, if this is a strong talent, for being able to keep this person in the company for so long. But I would also ask them what is the next challenge they're looking forward to, to make sure that when they come to my team or to this company, we have found and identified work along with those next-level challenges for them to expand their roles.

[00:06:34] To your second question, for my team: I think this goes back to how well those companies can keep talent in their team and company for so long. I think it is important to make sure we retain people as long as we can, but also be able to acknowledge that there are probably only so many senior or principal product managers I can have on my team. We can't make everyone into high-level individual contributors. So there is going to be a point where we need to recognize it's probably time. We need to hopefully do more internal transfers within the company, or just have those coaching conversations to see what's the next best step for this person.

[00:07:17] Lowell: My recollection, Fonz, is that you had a slightly different take on this issue. What are your thoughts about tenure, both within your team but also in terms of folks that you might be bringing in or hiring new?

[00:07:32] Fonz: I think people moving from company to company is actually a good thing if they're moving because they're getting more opportunities. I do think when somebody's not at a company for a long time and they can't explain why they're shifting companies, that's not really that exciting. Someone who's been at a company for a long, long time, I would want to understand: has the company constantly been challenging enough to allow them to stay that long, or was that more contentment? Because it just seems like now there are so many opportunities.

[00:08:06] Not that I wouldn't want an employee to be loyal to a company, but there are so many opportunities for people in this space right now that to not have decided to take another opportunity would just make me want to understand: is that company that good? And if so, why are you leaving now, if you've been there for eight years? Me, as someone who has not stayed at a company for five or eight years, I understand why someone would maybe stay at a company for a shorter time frame, if they were able to move on to get some kind of a promotion, or if the current company stopped offering what they were trying to do.

Keeping people when the jump is elsewhere

[00:08:41] Lowell: I think it's super interesting. I want to dig in on that question, but I want to bounce it over to Mamuna. One of the things that I hear from folks is that career opportunity really only happens when you move from company to company. Once you're in a company you're looking at two percent, two percent; you're on some kind of career ladder, the opportunities come more slowly. How do you think about that for Kickstarter? Is that something that you worry about? How do you keep up with the competitive aspect of it? Someone may love to stay or want to stay at Kickstarter, but they look over at Netflix and they go, "Oh man, if I bounce to Netflix I'm going to get an eight percent jump, and there's a title increase, and that's an opportunity."

[00:09:24] Mamuna: Speaking for myself personally, I can definitely say that I have done that. I've moved for opportunity. At Kickstarter, being that I'm in a leadership position, my goal is to get ahead of people: building relationships and understanding what people are trying to achieve, creating a path for them that is challenging, that's engaging, and then also giving them the opportunity to actually get there is important.

[00:09:52] I think also, understanding that people are making jumps, they're trying to go to other companies to find those jumps and pay increases, it's important to understand that up front and plan for that, and have those conversations to understand what the expectations of people on your team are. I definitely can't sit here and say that I've always been able to hit that mark and provide everyone what they asked for. But I think in having that understanding of where a person is trying to go and what they're trying to achieve, they may not feel that they have to abruptly leave for an opportunity. There may be an opportunity to have a conversation about what it is that they're trying to achieve, what they're expecting, and then potentially how you can help them get there. It may not be that you have to do it immediately; maybe you can work together on a plan to get there, depending on the type of relationship you have.

[00:10:44] From my personal experience I have definitely done that, and understanding how I've done it, I try to approach that just openly with people, asking them earlier on: what do you want to do after Kickstarter? What does that look like for you? And how do I create opportunities to keep you engaged while you're here, keep you learning, keep you interested? I think that's what helps to hopefully retain some people.

[00:11:10] Lowell: I think the idea of asking people what they want to do after Kickstarter is a great one. I do that oftentimes with people who have just joined: how is this a step on to the next thing you want to do? I think sometimes they're shocked by that a little bit, like, "Wait, are you trying to get rid of me?" And no, no, no, but I want to acknowledge from the outset this is going to be one step in a path. You're not going to be at Reddit forever. We want you to be a superstar during the period that you are at Reddit, but if I can help you to grow to the next step, and the next piece is for you to go to Workday, or the next piece is for you to go to Kickstarter, that might be a wonderful opportunity for you.

Retention versus new voices

[00:11:47] Jennifer, you said something about how we want to retain people as long as we can. I want to stretch that out into a question for Mamuna. How do you balance retaining people as long as you can with, I'll assert a value, and maybe you'll disagree with the value: new voices on the team seem like such an important part of maintaining a connection to consumers and some semblance of reality, and getting away from groupthink. So how do you balance long-term retention versus the value of new voices?

[00:12:21] Mamuna: Both are important. There is a weird, delicate balance that you have to approach. I think it's important, as you bring any person onto your team, to think about what it is that they bring to your team. What kind of voice, what type of perspective, what do they offer your team that maybe someone else is not offering? So you have a diversity in perspective. And then long term, that person hopefully continues to offer that voice, that perspective, and you all continue to find value in that.

[00:12:49] I do think that after some time, let's say your company is pivoting in a direction, or you need new, fresh perspective, you do want to still have that perspective, but you may also now want to bring in new perspective. So I think it's finding that balance. And also reminding people: I like to have conversations with individuals on my team, talking about where I see them bringing value and asking them where they think they're bringing value, and then reminding them to continue to bring that to the table as we're having discussions, as we're thinking through problems. Helping them mature their perspectives, helping them broaden their horizons. I think having those perspectives, fresh and existing, is important to whatever it is that you're building, because the existing ones can also help contextually inform a person who is coming in with some amount of fresh eyes, so they can understand how to place a perspective with the team.

[00:13:44] Lowell: Jennifer, I want to have you respond to that, since I started out with part of one of your quotes there. You talked about retaining people for as long as possible. How do you think about that, especially in light of some of the things that Mamuna has shared?

[00:13:57] Jennifer: I do agree with what Mamuna is sharing. I will add a bit more of the dimensions. Especially when the product or the project is in a high-growth state or an early stage, I would say new voices are most important. But when the conversation is more about maintenance or re-architecture, you probably want to make sure you have the people who know it very well, so that they can continue to build on it and not lose sight of what we need to support for historic purposes.

[00:14:32] That said, if there's not enough headcount to add more people, when you have been successfully retaining a good team of folks, I would try to stretch them to bring in new perspectives. It doesn't have to be a new person; it's more stretching these individual contributors through connections. Can you invite them to meet more people outside of their common circles? That could be through UXDX, meeting all these fabulous folks who are listening to this, or other conferences out there, or even within the company, talking to newer people and having them make those connections to bring perspectives in. So I try to do that if there's no more headcount for new voices. But I do definitely treasure the people from outside coming in and bringing their own perspectives.

Making the case to hire as a solo designer

[00:15:26] Lowell: I want to bounce to some of the questions that we are getting in chat here real quick. There's one from Stephanie, and she says, "I am the only UX designer for my product. What advice for making a case to hire more talent?" So going from one to some greater number. How would you advise Stephanie, Fonz?

[00:15:48] Fonz: That's a great question, and I've been in that position before, as the founding designer, where you end up doing so many different things that I don't think you're as productive as you would like. You do get things done, so you check the boxes off, but if you're constantly putting out fires, it's hard for you to work on the bigger projects. I think this is a perfect time for Stephanie to start to talk to her product manager, if she has a product manager, her design manager, her design director, leadership in the company, to understand what the roadmap, the next six, 12 months, would look like, and explain that it's going to be hard to get all of that done just by herself. If she brings in help, then everybody wins that way.

[00:16:36] Right now it's a form of communication, of saying: I'm doing the best I can and we are making progress, but I know the company always wants to move faster. Everybody wants to move faster. Having this other resource would allow me to either continue doing what I'm doing, or we can have this person think about new ideas that we have. For the growth and for the sake of the team, hiring is always good. So I would say focus on communicating with leadership, but explain that this is more about you wanting to be even more productive than that you just need help because you can't get the stuff done.

[00:17:14] Lowell: I'll say, I know we're hiring at Reddit, and I'm betting these folks are too. So if you're getting stuck as the only designer there, and it's a big pile of work and you're not getting any collaboration or help, we certainly have opportunities.

Finding top talent and patience in hiring

[00:17:28] Going to another question here from the chat. Mamuna, how do you target best-in-class people? How do you find the really top talent?

[00:17:41] Mamuna: Honestly, I feel like that's subjective. I think it really comes down to what it is that you're trying to build. I believe that while a person may not have the exact experience you are looking for, they may bring something to the table. There's best-in-class talent, but there are also gems in people who maybe have a lot of potential but just haven't been given the opportunity. So I try to create a balance in what I look for, because oftentimes when you do find a person who's looking for that right opportunity, they just knock it out of the park, and I think those folks go on to really thrive.

[00:18:34] So I think it's a balance. You have to look at your team and understand where the organization is and what it can support. If you're bringing in a person who maybe hasn't done it before, you want to make sure you have those stronger individuals on the team to be able to help support them through the process and ensure that they are successful in the work that they're doing. So it is a balance, in my opinion, what you want to attract to your team.

[00:19:01] Lowell: Jennifer, what's your take on that one?

[00:19:07] Jennifer: I would say being patient during hiring is probably important. As much as you want to hire as soon as possible, so you can shed all those added responsibilities, there could be times where you do need to go back, after round three, when all the candidates can't make it, and go back to square one and start all over again. So having that patience to go through all that is important.

[00:19:38] I also look highly at referrals. This is where you have people who you trust, who can refer you to people who they think would be successful in these roles. Those I do give additional attention to when it comes to hiring.

Knowing it's the right candidate

[00:19:57] Lowell: Looking at that same question, Fonz, I think there's something that cropped up here. How do you figure out who is the right candidate? We talked about talent, we talked about where you go to find them. When you get to the end of that process and it's like, this is the right candidate, what's that moment? How do you figure that out?

[00:20:24] Fonz: That's a tricky question, because you really won't know that it's the right person until they get into the position and they start working. But a preliminary signal, to me, would be if the candidate has gone through the whole team, and the team panel is diverse: you have your design team, you have your product manager, you have your engineers, you have your data scientists. Because we all think differently, and we all ask different kinds of questions, and we're all responsible for different things. When you have a candidate that was able, in a short time frame, to explain themselves and build that kind of connection with that many different people in this space, who are all intelligent and passionate about the company, I think that's a really good sign.

[00:21:06] And then second, I'm just really big on somebody being a good person in general. I think that comes from being able to have conversations that might not just be super technical about design. It may be just trying to learn about that person and understand who they are and what they do, their hobbies, things they like. By having a balance of both of those together, with the right questions, you can get a good inkling. And then a little bit of the experience, like you said. I know you're more of a talent-versus-experience type of person, but the experience is the icing on the cake to all of those things for me, to really be able to feel like this is the right person.

[00:21:50] Lowell: Well, it's funny you bring that up. I was going to plus-one, and you guys are on opposite sides, Mamuna and Fonz, on my screen. I was going to plus-one on what Mamuna was saying, where we really do try to believe that people can pick up that experience, and that the exact relevant experience is weirdly the hardest thing to look for. It screens out a number of really talented folks who maybe don't make a contribution the way you would like the first week, but if we're realistic, within a month, within a quarter, within half a year, they may outstrip, because there's more opportunity for them to grow than other candidates that come in with the perfect amount of experience.

[00:22:31] I was talking to a number of candidates recently who said, "I've been interviewing at places and they say if you haven't been working on a CMS for financial services, then we're not interested in hiring you." I think those companies are losing out on people who can learn the specifics of that area of business and may bring great talent in the ability to design. We certainly have a long history of multi-talented designers who did architecture and furniture and all different kinds of things that weren't just their narrow area of training or expertise.

[00:23:06] So I love to see people who are talented. We focus first and foremost on the portfolio, and we proactively try to go out and look at people's portfolios. Whether we are receiving inbound interest from people, we look at the portfolio before we look at the resume, and certainly before we look at a name or a photograph or anything like that. We really think about it as a blind audition, an opportunity to look at their work and let the work stand for itself. And we try to do the same thing outbound as well: let's go look at people's portfolios and let that be the most important thing. It's been a really great way of unlocking talent that might not have thought to apply, or that recruiters might not have thought to go look for, because they didn't work at the right company or have the right keyword in their resume. It's been a great source of talent for us. I think it's a competitive advantage; I probably shouldn't tell you.

Teams as offices reopen

[00:24:00] So moving on a little bit. There are lots of questions I'm getting from candidates these days about moving from physical to virtual, and now back to something. I'd love to start with Jennifer here. What are you doing with teams and team building as more people get vaccinated and as circumstances change?

[00:24:24] Jennifer: That's definitely on my radar too, as we are now opening up more. I am planning some outdoor activities for my team. For over a year we haven't really met in person, so that's something we're planning to do, but that's it for real work. Outside of team bonding, I think we are also redefining, given all the learnings we had in the past year. We all learned how to do Zoom more efficiently and effectively, and not to drain each other and all that. How do we find balance between those who really prefer to work more from home versus those in offices, and yet still be able to have that team building and foster collaboration virtually, when there are going to be some people who are remote? We're still ironing it out and learning on the fly. But I don't think it's going to be helpful if we enforce something top-down and say, "This is the approach." It's something where we need to be more open on how we want to do it.

[00:25:27] Lowell: How about Kickstarter? What's going to be the approach there?

[00:25:32] Mamuna: We're still discussing internally what we want to do. We have no plans to go back into the office until January 2022. But the thing that we've heard a lot is that a lot of folks moved to different areas during this time, and so our goal is not to be disruptive. I think in whatever we do, we likely would be remote first, and just be more mindful of our team members, wherever they are. I think that we've learned a lot over the past year, as I'm sure everyone has, in how to conduct ourselves virtually. So just putting in some best practices to ensure that we're creating that standard of work, to ensure that everyone feels supported in a meaningful way.

[00:26:16] When it comes to engaging with the team, I remember earlier on in the pandemic it was awkward, because you're trying to quickly figure out: how do I keep my team engaged? Are they engaged? Are they working? What's going on? And you get these messages from people like, "Hey, how's it going? Hey, good morning," people trying to find a way to create presence on Slack. And after some time you're like, "Oh, I'm working, I'm just going to do what I'm doing," and you start to understand that you have flexibility in your approach and rhythm. As a manager you're learning to say, "Okay, I trust that my team is doing X, Y and Z, and I don't have to tell them good morning every day." But as we approach things reopening and finding ways to bring people together, we're trying to figure out the level of comfort for people, trying to make it so that we don't exclude people unintentionally, while we still create spaces for people to come together.

What you'll miss about remote, and the hybrid worry

[00:27:15] Lowell: Yeah. Rather than just ask the same question again to everybody: Fonz, when you think about going back to the office, what's going to be the biggest thing you're going to miss from remote, and how do you then try to replicate that?

[00:27:32] Fonz: That's going to be tricky, because the answer that I'm going to give is pretty selfish. I'm going to miss having access to my family the way that I do. I'm fortunate enough to work from home comfortably, where I have an office separate from the rest of the house, but every time my daughter comes in from school she can run into my office and say, "Hey Dad," whether I'm in a meeting or not. Being able to see my wife. So the family side, I think, is what I'm going to miss, selfishly.

[00:28:02] From the work side, I don't really feel I'm missing that much. I really feel my team has done a great job of working over video conferencing. I do understand now, because before I was completely not understanding why people would want to come back into the office. There is something special about getting in the same room with people, and it's not always just to do work stuff. I was even talking to someone about it: to me it made more sense for people to go into the office to do one-on-ones, so you can get that bond, and all our big 20, 50, 60-person meetings, keep doing those remotely. Because there is something in the power of the physical connection.

[00:28:43] So I'm going to miss my family, working from home, and then the flexibility. Being a designer, being able to work whenever I want, whether it's two in the morning, five in the afternoon, whether it's Saturday, whenever. I think I can handle that freedom and that responsibility. So I'm going to miss that, if I have to start worrying about commuting and who's picking up my daughter from school and things like that.

[00:29:08] Lowell: I will admit to being a little bit terrified about the hybrid model that I think a lot of companies are thinking about. When everybody was in the office, we all collaborated, people sat in the same space. Just the ability to work together was really exciting for people, and really creative and really collaborative. With everybody being online, we've worked out how to do that, and the team has been really fantastic, just a really great set of people. The coordination of some people being hybrid, some people being remote: I'm concerned about how team cohesion and collaboration actually diminish in that hybrid environment. I think if I had a choice, I'd continue working from home and just go to an all-virtual setup.

[00:29:57] I do think there's also an interesting twist on that about the open office plan. Like you said, I have a space that I can go to and work, which is not a privilege that I get when I am at the office, or that any of the designers get. And I suspect that the productivity and type of work will actually decline because of that loss of quiet space. Anybody want to jump in on that one?

[00:30:27] Jennifer: I would say there's definitely quiet time and quiet space that I agree is definitely valuable. But I feel, as part of the product team, that we do need to talk to people a lot, and the work is also being powered through the connections and relationships and bonding that happen underneath all of that. If we are going to be doing hybrid, I think we are still going to focus on keeping those.

[00:31:00] One thing I do remember, even before COVID, when we had remote workers who were in Europe and everywhere else: one thing to avoid is to neglect those who are remote, and have those side chats after the meeting, or continue the meeting after Zoom is done. I think those are deliberate things we need to make sure of to support an effective hybrid. But going 100 percent virtual for the quiet space, I think we will still need to figure out, maybe find some opportunities where you can really be in person to make up for those bonding activities.

Changing the people in a zero-sum team

[00:31:42] Lowell: Very good. I think we want to come back to this one, but so far we've talked a little bit about hiring, how you think about identifying talent, and we've talked a little bit about the workspace and what's going to be the future there. Returning to team building, I want to key off of something that Jennifer said probably about 15 or 20 minutes ago. You talked about, if you don't have the headcount to bring in new voices, how do you bring new perspectives into the team? I think it's a really great insight. But what about actually changing the people? If you've got a zero-sum game, is there ever a circumstance where you might have someone who's an okay performer, but it's still the right thing for the team to shake things up a little bit?

[00:32:34] Jennifer: This is going to be interesting. I think it will be trickier than hiring, I would say. If you want to swap people around, you need to find two interested people in separate teams who are interested in growing into different areas, and I think that would be far more tricky in that way. But I wouldn't dismiss it; I think it's a great idea.

[00:33:00] Another thing we do here at Workday: at the end of last year we started supporting this new function called Gig, where all employees at Workday are allowed to carve out a percentage of their time, depending on their conversation with their manager, to join another project. I can put up a gig and say, "We need three designers and two PMs," and anyone in Workday could apply for those roles. So it's something where we could also do it that way, and maybe through those connections and learnings and experiences of working together, hopefully that will open the door for swapping positions permanently.

[00:33:43] Lowell: Mamuna, same kind of question. I think we're talking about a zero-sum circumstance here. A lot of the tech industry is growing all the time, but in that zero-sum, tight headcount situation, how do you either up-level the team or bring new perspectives to the team?

[00:34:05] Mamuna: I think it starts with an understanding of what it is that you're missing on the team. From there, I would communicate that transparently with the team. I would say, "Here's where we're trying to go, here's what we're trying to accomplish and achieve." I would then work with each person to understand, or create a plan to understand, what they can bring to that gap that we are missing. In those conversations, a lot of times you can align with the person, and they say, "This is something I'm interested in," or maybe it's something they're not interested in.

[00:34:44] But when you think about a fair approach, I never want to make the assumption that someone's not capable of filling that gap or being able to do the thing that we're trying to accomplish. They just may not know that is what we're trying to do. So I think the first thing is really articulating what it is that we're trying to accomplish that the team maybe is not accomplishing today, or an individual's not accomplishing today, and giving the team or that individual an opportunity to accomplish it, if they're interested in doing so. And from there you take it depending on whatever you work out with that person. But as a person that's been laid off, I try not to take the extreme unnecessarily. I like to try to bring clarity to what it is that I'm asking, and hope that a person can work together with me.

Intentional turnover and hiring brand

[00:35:39] Lowell: I think that's a really good lead-in to a question from Rory in the chat earlier, and I'll send it to Fonz. There have been lots of reports lately about Amazon, and how managers are gaming the Amazon system by hiring people that they intend to essentially manage out later, simply as a way of hitting their manage-out quota. How do you think about intentional turnover? Is there such a thing as intentional turnover, and is there a commentary on that Amazon approach that you would care to share?

[00:36:16] Fonz: Intentional turnover, no. I've never heard of that, honestly. We don't practice that at Netflix; we would prefer to have people stay as long as possible. To hire someone knowing that you're going to lay them off, I feel like that is an awful culture, so this is new to hear. If that's a practice that Amazon is participating in, I would rethink that, especially if you're trying to hire new people, because if that gets out, which it obviously is, because we're talking about it, that's not something you want floating around in the recruiting circle.

[00:36:54] At Netflix we practice freedom and responsibility, and that works for us. We're a very culture-centric company, and we try to stay away from practices like that. So what I would say is that it's an awful practice, because you're setting this person up. This person may think their life is about to change because they're getting this job, where you already are counting them out in the future. So that would be my commentary: don't practice that, and we don't practice that at Netflix.

[00:37:27] Lowell: I couldn't agree more. I think it brings up an interesting question of just your brand in regards to hiring. Jennifer, how do you think about intentionally managing your hiring brand and making people excited about wanting to come to Workday? We've talked about how people might not be excited about going to Amazon because of a perceived hiring practice, or at least rumors of a hiring practice. What do you do at Workday to build up your hiring brand?

[00:37:55] Jennifer: That's a great question. One thing I would put first is the culture, and not just to talk about it, but to present it, even if it's a short 30 or 45-minute interview, living as an example to show what the culture is. It goes back to some of the things that Fonz mentioned: what you do when you're hiring, what questions you ask, not just focused on professional skill sets and capabilities, but also sharing things about yourself, the fun side, the personal side. I also share stories I have with Workday, like going through two pregnancies with Workday and still being able to get promoted after I came back from maternity leave. Stories like this just live by the culture, to make people understand that it's not just about work. Workday cares for you as a person. Those are things I would use to share what it means to be working at Workday.

Advice to people starting out

[00:38:56] Lowell: That's great. I've got the two-minute warning here in the chat from Jovi, thank you for that, and for keeping us on time. For the last question, I actually want to turn to you about asking each other a question. Mamuna, do you have a question you would like to ask any of the rest of us?

[00:39:19] Mamuna: I don't know. Oh, this is a challenging one, I did not expect this. It's okay. I think oftentimes, when we get into the roles that we're in, after we've had a bit of time, we're more seasoned in our roles. I guess I'm curious for the group: thinking of a person who's new in their career and starting out, what is it that you would say to yourself that would maybe resonate with folks who are starting out in their career?

[00:39:59] Fonz: I can go. Great question. What I've been telling some of my mentees and other people that are transitioning into design is, I think you should be less focused on the company you want to land at, and spend more time understanding the industry and the other companies in that space. Most people want to come into the space and say, "I want to work at Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google," and there are tens of thousands of other companies out there that are just as innovative and amazing. So I would tell my old self to focus less on the company and focus more on the industry, and a problem that needs to be solved in that industry.

[00:40:40] Lowell: I hate to have the last word, but as the moderator I'll take the answer there too, and we'll wrap things up. I'm going to build on top of what Fonz said. I actually think about this framework as a quadrant diagram. Think about a two-by-two: on one axis you have immature to mature, and on the other axis you have small to large. You can map all the companies in the world onto those quadrants, and it does a pretty good job of describing for you, as a designer, what your role is going to be like and how that's going to work. We've seen some of that in the chat today.

[00:41:18] If the company is small and immature, it's probably a startup. It probably means that you're one of only a couple of designers there, and from a portfolio perspective it's really exciting: you've got the hat and the t-shirt and the mobile website and everything in between. But you're probably not going to have a brand that's going to open doors for you in your career, you're probably not getting mentorship, and you're probably not getting comped in a way that is necessarily in relationship to your talent.

[00:41:48] If I look at companies that are small and mature, I think those are tough, because that's maybe a family business or a boutique brand. It's not necessarily growing, it's been around for a long time. They make great clients, but it's a tough place, I think, to be as a designer and really grow over a period of time.

[00:42:04] If I think of companies that are large and mature, I sometimes think that's like entering a kind of machine. I spoke with someone recently who works for a very large e-commerce company, and along with four designers, their job is just working on one portion of the checkout page, and this person has spent three years doing that. Those companies, I think, can be a place that your portfolio goes to die, and the scope of the projects you work on is really small. But you certainly get comp, you get mentorship, and there are brands that open doors for you subsequently in your career.

[00:42:39] Selfishly, the advice that I give everyone is go somewhere that is large but immature, where you're a part of writing the story of that company. There's still a diversity of work, and it's probably going to be a brand that might open some doors for you in your career. What's interesting is that most of the companies here, and the folks we're talking to today, do fall into that quadrant. Maybe Netflix is a little bit on the big side, but for the rest of us, I think that's where the exciting design jobs are. So that's my final pitch. Thank you, everybody, for taking time today to spend with us. It's been a lot of fun talking to you.