After a career of HR leadership positions that have included leading the Victoria’s Secret brand through an organizational transformation, Andre Joyner began a new role as CHRO at JCPenney in 2021. In this episode of People and Strategy, Joyner joins host Tony Lee to discuss how JCPenney is navigating talent shortages, the company’s commitment to hiring and supporting diverse talent, and the nuances of an AI future.
After a career of HR leadership positions that have included leading the Victoria’s Secret brand through an organizational transformation, Andre Joyner began a new role as CHRO at JCPenney in 2021. In this episode of People and Strategy, Joyner joins host Tony Lee to discuss how JCPenney is navigating talent shortages, the company’s commitment to hiring and supporting diverse talent, and the nuances of an AI future.
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Tony Lee:
Welcome to today's People and Strategy podcast. I'm Tony Lee, vice president of content for the Society for Human Resource Management, and the SHRM Executive Network, which is the premier network of executives and thought leaders in the field of human resources. I'm excited to speak today with Andre Joyner, chief human resources officer at JCPenney. Prior to joining JCPenney, Andre served as the SVP and head of human resources at Victoria's Secret, where he led the brand through an organizational transformation. Earlier in his career, he held HR leadership roles at Merck and Pepsi Cola Bottling Group. Andre, welcome to the People and Strategy podcast.
Andre Joyner:
Thank you, Tony. I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Tony Lee:
Yes. Well we're very pleased you're joining us. Let's start right off with a somewhat touchy subject, return to office. A lot of companies are wrestling with this. But in July, JCPenney announced a return to your corporate headquarters in Plano, Texas after three years away. Can you tell us how that came about and how it's been received so far?
Andre Joyner:
Tony, it is a touchy subject, isn't it? It came about from us, we were actually in some ways returning home again. We reestablished roots in a previous office, bringing our associates back to a space that some called home and for some was new. It actually turned out very well for us. It was important for our associates to have a home, and it was important for us to listen to their needs and wants as we thought about reestablishing a location. As you mentioned, this idea is a touchy one.
I think it's under construction for most organizations. I'm not sure anyone has an ideal answer, so we decided to listen to our associate base and we pulled together across a functional group of associates in different areas of the business at different levels or different stages in their careers. We used them as our guide to really understand what was most important in a space and what was most important in how we thought about return to office. That's worked pretty well for us. It's only been a few months, but so far so good. We've had good traction, good receptivity, and good support from our associate base in this space.
Tony Lee:
That's great. Are you hybrid? Are you full-time back?
Andre Joyner:
We're hybrid. We have a mix. We have a smaller group of individuals who, for reasons that are largely tied to the work they do and their own interests and desires, come in on a more regular basis. We have those who come in and out and we are those who are remote. We don't have a hard and fast enterprise-wide requirement policy or set of rules. We have guidelines that really focus on coming together for moments that matter, creating planned and unplanned collisions and connection points. We allow the leaders in the business along with their HR partners to guide that framework based off of the functions they're in and the work that they do. That's been our approach.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. Do you have any sense yet on the impact on employee engagement? Are people reacting well to being together again or not so much?
Andre Joyner:
People are reacting well, I think in large part because we're allowing the needs of the associates and the needs of the business to guide the guide our approach. When teams are coming together for moments that matter, it makes sense to them. That feels a bit more natural. We learn things from surveying the population, that associates earlier in their careers prefer to be together a bit more. For reasons that might seem a bit obvious when you think about it, often you form personal relationships earlier in your career in particular from your professional engagements and professional time together. Those associates value coming together more. I don't know if I would've initially thought that, but that's what we heard when we engaged our workforce.
Tony Lee:
You're in somewhat of a unique situation being a retailer. Obviously you have many, many employees who are customer facing every day. What's the relationship like between those employees who had to work in person long before now and those just returning? Does everybody understand the role everybody plays or how does that go?
Andre Joyner:
It's a good point. The short answer is yes, largely because customer-facing functions and teams really stayed in that operating model. You have stores, you have associates in them, and you have supply chain facilities. We have work that has to get done there. Those individuals have worked largely in the capacity that they've needed to work in customer-facing roles. That feels a bit more natural and doesn't feel at all like a real departure. I think bringing in teams cross-functionally is a little bit trickier because to differing degrees, they engage with one another and engage with their individual teams. Certain functions that may feel a little bit less necessary to be in the office on a regular basis, in other words, feel a little bit more. Those functions have to work across lines, and so that's where we're working through some of the natural touch points there to make sure individuals feel appropriately connected to their cross-functional partners, even if those cross-functional partners may not be in as regularly.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. All of this relates of course to talent. In addition to engaging talent, actually attracting and retaining talent. Talent shortages are widespread everywhere. But as I'm sure you can attest, it's been especially tough for companies that employ a wide range of hourly workers as you do. How has JCPenney tackled the talent shortage? What approaches are you taking?
Andre Joyner:
You're right, Tony. No doubt that we've had our fair share of challenges as other retailers have had. Maybe it's a departure, but I in some ways see it as an opportunity as well for employers who really are focused on and we're anchored to our associate value proposition, which is really focusing on the needs of our associates. We focus on four areas, shared purpose, personal growth and development, wellbeing and empowerment. For employers who I think can differentiate themselves in this moment, you can get market share, if you will, from a talent standpoint. Because when associates have choice, they're going to lean into organizations that provide for them a return on the things that matter most of them. For us, we see it as, yes, a very challenging environment. But we've leaned into our associate value proposition to differentiate ourselves and to create environments that really are sticky for associates, and so in some ways it's an opportunity to get more than our fair share of talent.
Tony Lee:
Does that include looking at talent pools perhaps you didn't look at before? Maybe untapped talent and other areas?
Andre Joyner:
Absolutely. I was touring one of our distribution centers in Atlanta and spending some time with a really talented supervisor. As we were walking the floor, I noticed forklift operators driving around in these forklifts with blue lights. I couldn't quite understand the reason for the lights and what have you. The supervisor shared with me that at one of our recruiting events, we had deaf associates, they prefer to be called deaf, share a concern that they never get an opportunity from employers to show what they can do.
The supervisor said to this deaf individual, "If you help me better understand what you need, I promise you I will give you an opportunity." Those individuals help make us smarter about what we could do to create an environment for them, hence the blue lights and some other things that we did. We have an incredibly talented group of associates that we've tapped into and a community that we've partnered with to fill particularly our forklift operator network. Very skilled, tremendous retention, highly-talented individuals. We learn from that experience that there are groups, maybe you call them personas, maybe you call them communities, that we can tap into to really drive those talent pools.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. I've seen separately JCPenney being lauded for hiring of older workers, of people with criminal histories, people on the spectrum. You guys have really gone of all in there, right?
Andre Joyner:
Absolutely. I think as you really build deep connections with communities, it does a couple of things. It taps into our associated value proposition because part of that is creating shared purpose and connecting with the communities we serve. I think it creates that value in our associates. That's an important part of the work they do, so they feel better about the work and the connection to the organization. We're doing something to commit and support communities that we're a part of and provide those opportunities across... Of course, we benefit. Those communities tend to have deep connections, deep retention, and tremendous performance. They value the opportunity and they take advantage of it at the organization, and we benefit as well.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. It makes perfect sense. To pivot a little bit, JCPenney has been noted for celebrating diversity and equity and inclusion pretty much throughout your business. But as you well know, diversity training, everything about diversity is being reevaluated. Probably because the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year on affirmative action in college admissions has prompted a lot of folks to think about it again. What's your thought on that?
Andre Joyner:
Our thoughts on this is we fall back to our mission. We have a pretty powerful and important mission that matters, and that is we are focused on America's diverse working families. For us, a third of our 50 million loyal customers are BIPOC, half of our workforce identifies as BIPOC, so diversity and inclusion isn't something that we simply talk about or even support on the periphery of our business. It is core to who we are, what we do, and what we stand for. For us, that continuity continues. The work we do, the communities we serve, the investments we make, and the care we show for all of our communities, and particularly communities that fall into these categories, is consistent with who we are and what we do. No change there. We continue on that path and continue to support.
Tony Lee:
One of the areas that continually gets brought up is a company has a commitment to hiring a diverse workforce, but are they equally committed to training their people managers to manage a diverse workforce? What are you guys doing in that regard?
Andre Joyner:
I think that's an important call-out. Sometimes I think the challenge in service is because we want the training in some ways to be separate from the integrated capability building in the business. I think of it as integrated effort. Some of the ways you make sure the training is as prevalent as a commitment to selection is that it's integrated into the talent lifecycle and the work you do. For us, we integrate our training development efforts into our broader talent lifecycle so that if I think about DE&I training, that is leadership development, period. If I am invested in building skills, if I'm invested in closing capability gaps, if I'm invested in developing the next generation of leaders for the business, our DE&I developmental training work is integrated into that work. They aren't separate items. For us, if we're investing in you, I talked about in our associate value proposition personal and professional growth and development, that integration makes sure that that training remains as part of the natural work we do in the business.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. Okay. Sounds great. Again, a whole new area that a lot of people are focusing on is AI, generative AI specifically. Many have said that AI is going to improve productivity and empower people, especially those working in HR. Where is JCPenney in regards to AI and HR at this stage?
Andre Joyner:
I think you have to talk about generative AI if you have a conversation nowadays, I think it's a requirement. Like many employers, retailers, organizations, we see the tremendous potential of AI. We are leaning into those opportunities. Primarily when you think about the balancing act between tasks and roles in an organization. How do you reduce task level work and ways in which allow for that work to be done through AI so that you can get to more impactful higher order activity happening with your associates?
That's one area we're looking into that's helpful in that regard. I will say to you, like anything else, AI has the potential to have great impact. Like most things that human beings touch or develop, it's fallible. You have to be mindful of the balancing act between the power of AI and making sure that you continue to stay true to your values, stay true to your beliefs, and stay true, in our case, to our associate value proposition as we consider the impact of that tool. It's consistent with other advancements that we've seen. You want to take full advantage of it and do it in a mindful way.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. You talk about the potential fallibility. Some people have pointed out AI's potential impact on diversity programs. Do you have any concerns there? AI is based on humans and humans have biases.
Andre Joyner:
You're 100%. I think that's exactly the balancing act. Test the capacity to really help in the DE&I space. It really does. I think whether it is, for example, capturing biases in job postings. There are AI advancements that really help you there. At the same time, a tool with data that's generated by humans in and of itself naturally will have bias. You have to manage that as well and be mindful of that. I actually think it's an opportunity for DE&I to serve as an accelerant to the potential positive impact of AI. Think about it a little bit differently, if you really pull in your DE&I capabilities and utilize those capabilities to make the most of the AI possibilities in your business. We're pulling our capabilities in and saying, "Hey, my DE&I team and leaders, how do we make sure that we are balancing the impact here and accelerating the impact with the filter of DE&I in place?"
Tony Lee:
We've written a lot of articles looking at AI in HR. It feels like it's coming down into two camps. One is the AI is going to allow our HR team to focus more strategically because they're going to take away having to write job descriptions, having to answer questions from employees. AI can handle that stuff so HR can be more productive. Then the other camp that says, "Yeah, we'll use AI for those things. But then we won't need as many HR people." What's your thought there?
Andre Joyner:
I think we always assume that advancements mean fewer people in roles. I have yet to see it quite play out that way. I think it typically plays out that efficiencies that you gain from those advancements help individuals to do what they do maybe better. Maybe allow for them to do more of what they do more effectively. I think that's the case here as well. I think AI will allow... Here's maybe a good example. You could argue do I need as many people sourcing with AI? Why can't AI scan LinkedIn for me and do that heavy lifting?
Therefore, I need fewer individuals sourcing. You might make the case for that. I think though, you'll find that you'll do a better job of sourcing and then filtering from that source group candidates that best meet the criteria. You'll utilize that capability from that population of sourcers and interviewers to better filter candidates to get more interviews done sooner. You'll be able to lean into more efficiency around the interview process. I don't necessarily think that means you'll have fewer recruiters. I just think you'll do a more effective job in sourcing for sourcing [inaudible 00:16:21].
Tony Lee:
Yeah. Of course, the flip side is you have vendors implementing AI to make it even easier. LinkedIn now has an AI component so that they're doing sourcing of their own database.
Andre Joyner:
There you go.
Tony Lee:
Yep. Exactly. Let's talk kind of holistically. With all these different issues swirling, quite a few, what are you thinking most about? It's the old what keeps you up at night? But maybe more importantly, what's keeping your CEO up at night in regards to employees and HR related issues?
Andre Joyner:
You talked a bit earlier about the dynamic at play here. Do we have the talent pools and maybe even more importantly, the capability necessarily to enable our strategic priorities? That's the biggest concern. Most organizations that maybe survived, evolved, thrived through the pandemic evolved. They've had to attack problems differently, modify how they move the organization forward. They're under some form of a transformation. We're no different. One of the biggest challenges and maybe I would say, to answer your question, the most significant challenge is do you have the capability necessary to enable that transformation and those strategic priorities?
That's our biggest concern. I think that's my CEO's biggest concern, and of course my responsibility to ensure. That's where I'm anchored. When you think about organizations right now, do you have the capabilities you need? That might mean retooling. It might mean upskilling. It might mean rotations. It might mean a balance of internal and external hiring and promotions and rotations. But you have to build an organization to be agile, flexible, and malleable enough to meet the needs of today. I think you need that in organizations, and increasingly that's a requirement of HR practitioners to create organizations that have that capability.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. I couldn't have answered it any better. Andre, thank you. This has been a great discussion. I really appreciate it, and we appreciate you sharing your expertise with us today.
Andre Joyner:
Thank you for your time.
Tony Lee:
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