Why Employee Retention Techniques Are So Important: Q&A With Salesforce’s Ana Recio

“Technology plays a powerful role in finding, training and retaining a quality workforce. Employees, especially the next generation of employees, want to work for companies that are values-based, and that provide them with rewarding work experience.”

A maestro in managing and developing global recruiting strategies, Salesforce’s EVP of global recruiting, Ana Recio, shares her expert advice on how technology can help hire and retainOpens a new window a quality workforce as the war for talent continues. She also explains how recruiters and hiring managers can harness immersive and interactive technologies to recruit Gen Z.

In an exclusive with HR Technologist, Ana shares her thoughts on the tangible steps hiring managers can take to focus on talent attraction and cultivation at scale. The HR doyen delves in-depth into Salesforce’s employee retention techniquesOpens a new window , its values-based benefits for its global employee-base, and AI-led hiring for employee engagement.

Key takeaways from this interview on employee retention techniques:

• Top tips for companies to create a world-class workplace culture
• Insights into the core components of Salesforce’s HR Stack
• Trends to follow for employee retentionOpens a new window and hiring techniques in 2020 and beyond

Highlights of the Interview With Ana Recio of Salesforce

Here’s the edited transcript from our exclusive interview with Salesforce’s EVP of global recruiting, Ana Recio:

Can you tell us about your career path so far and what your role at Salesforce entails?

Over the last 20 years, I’ve led talent acquisition teams at pioneering tech companies including Yahoo!, MobiTV, EMC, Documentum, Sybase, and now Salesforce. At every company, I’ve built and optimized high-performing recruiting teams that consistently exceed global hiring targets, efficiently and predictably, with equality as the guiding light.

As the EVP of Global Recruiting for Salesforce, I oversee the incredible team responsible for hiring 10,000+ people annually. Our formula for talent attraction and cultivation is simple: culture + technology + data. With our strong set of core values (trust, equality, customer success, and innovation) that formula works magic.

With a tenacious focus on results and diversity, my team has developed tools and programs that measure the quality of hire, mitigate bias in the interview selection process, and standardize the interview process around key competencies, not pedigree. We’ve also established a robust internal careers program, which has resulted in higher retention rates and increased promotion of women and underrepresented minorities throughout the company. When companies give their employees the right opportunities and resources to expand their skill sets, everyone benefits. 

In 2018 we launched the Pathfinder Training Program to give all individuals, regardless of background, demographics, or socioeconomic status, access to the technical training and resources necessary to transform their lives and careers in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We partner with a diverse network of institutions and employers to help Pathfinders land their next job in the Salesforce ecosystem. 

Creating a workforce that reflects our communities takes each one of us. Currently, I serve as the executive sponsor of Latino force, our employee resource group for the Latinx community. Partnering with equality groups and attending diversity events are just a couple of ways to help shape the future workforce.

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How can technology help to find, train and retain a quality workforce as the war for talent continues to accelerate?

Technology plays a powerful role in finding, training and retaining a quality workforce.

One way we deploy technology to find talent is through our Internal Careers program, which is the cornerstone to our recruiting strategy. We’ve created tools that allow us to evaluate internal candidates and proactively reach out about roles they may not have considered. Through this program, we are filling positions with diverse talent at a significantly higher rate than hiring externally. And, we’ve seen a 30% decrease in career-related attrition since launching the Internal Careers program 1.5 years ago.

Technology is a core part of an employee’s experience. We use our own technology to create a more consumer-like experience that deeply engages our employees throughout their journey at the company from attraction and onboarding to ongoing employee success. For example, instead of help tickets to nowhere, we have an employee service app called Concierge to help employees find what they need quickly. Using Concierge, 95% of the time employees find the answer and can get on with their day.

Technology helps us deliver a fair and consistent candidate experience around the world. Trailhead, our free online learning platform, enables us to train and align employees around the globe on how to Hire the Salesforce Way. After taking the trail our employees understand and implement our 5 Inclusive Hiring Principles and best practices for building diverse and innovative teams. We also developed the Salesforce Interview Feedback Tool (SIFT), built on Peopleforce to standardize interview questions based on the key competencies that have proven successful in each role. By evaluating talent based on skills rather than pedigree, we’ve expanded and diversified our pool of qualified talent. 

Finally, we know that giving employees the right opportunities and resources to expand their skill sets benefits everyone. One way we do this at Salesforce is through Trailhead, which gives all employees access to endless opportunities to develop new soft and hard skills. We’ve seen employees make inspiring career changes within Salesforce using Trailhead. The best part is, anyone, anywhere can use Trailhead. 

There’s no doubt that technology is a powerful tool, but the human touch will remain vital for success. And it’s certainly not replacing jobs, in fact, its increasing job opportunities. According to IDC, the Salesforce Economy alone will add 3.3M new jobs by 2022, impacting our GDP by over $850B dollars. 

In what ways can recruiters and hiring managers harness immersive and interactive technologies to recruit Gen Z? 

To attract and retain this ultra-connected, always-on generation, we focus on key differentiators that Salesforce has to offer that align with what they’re looking for in their jobs. That means avoiding traditional engagement campaigns and platforms in favor of non-traditional approaches. For example:

• We use Virtual Reality (VR) to transport students inside our offices. When visiting college campuses, we give students the chance to visit our offices via VR.
• Custom Instagram stickers give employees a fun way to express brand pride with their networks – authentic marketing at its best.
• We crowdsource campus videos from our micro-influencers to share their experience at Salesforce.
• We also leverage live Q&A’s on social media to connect candidates with recruiters across the globe, removing geographical barriers.
• Our Salesforce Insiders Program gives candidates the chance to connect with an employee, outside of the transitional interview panel, that they relate to on a personal level whether that’s a working mom, a member of an Employee Resource Group, or a first-time college graduate just to name a few. These initiatives help candidates get a real taste of life at Salesforce.

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What are your top 3 tips for HR managers who wish to deploy values-based benefits for its global employee base?

Employees, especially the next generation of employees, want to work for companies that are values-based, and that provide them with rewarding work experience. They want meaningful work and a sense of purpose and belonging. Since our founding in 1999, Salesforce has been grounded in our core values of trust, equality, customer success, and innovation. 

Those values come to life through our 1-1-1 philanthropic model and equality initiatives, including:

• Offering employees 56 hours of paid time to volunteer in their local communities and a generous matching policy (up to $5,000) every year to spend giving back to causes that are meaningful to them
• Opportunities to join our Equality Groups; employee-led groups centered on common backgrounds or identities
• Emphasizing causes our company has taken a stand on such as Equal Pay and workforce development

 

Salesforce took the top spot in the World’s Best Workplace 2018Opens a new window  list. What are your top 3 tips for companies to create a world-class workplace culture?

We’re very proud that Salesforce has been named top workplace by Fortune, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, and other organizations, and that’s the result of a deliberate focus on culture. We certainly don’t have it all figured out, but we have a working formula that has been successful for us: culture + technology + data = employee engagement. The three key tenets are:

• Culture: When our founders started Salesforce, they were as intentional about the company culture they wanted to create as they were about the products they wanted to build and how they would go to market. We believe culture is our greatest differentiator and competitive advantage. We are highly intentional about our culture strategy, we write it down, we prioritize it, we build programs around it, we measure it, and we are constantly innovating on it. It’s something everyone must own.
   
• Technology: A great culture alone is not enough for today’s employees. They also want social, mobile, smart, and connected technologies (like the ones they use every day outside work) to help them work more efficiently and effectively. Technology helps us bring culture to life and accelerate engagement. It’s no longer just about writing a mission statement on a wall, but rather creating an employee experience that brings that mission and values to life.
   
• Data: Data is the language of our business, and that must translate to HR. We leverage a wide variety of data to create a more employee-centered experience and make faster and smarter talent decisions. If you think about it, we analyze customer data every day to maximize those relationships, we’re simply applying that same principle to our employee data, which allows us to continually optimize and enhance the employee experience.

In your opinion, can AI-led hiring help facilitate long term performance and engagement?

AI will create a more robust and efficient candidate experience. One way we’re looking to leverage AI is with our internal careers program. Using data to identify the time period when employees might start to consider their next role, we’ll be able to serve up internal opportunities that match their skillset. We’re dedicated to attracting the best talent in the world and we want to keep them with us, which means providing incredible career opportunities. AI will help us get there, but we never want to lose the human touch. Career transitions should be taken seriously and we always want to ensure candidates are getting all the information they need to ensure they are making the right long term decision.

What should be the core components of an HR Stack for an organization that wishes to focus on AI-led hiring? 

To deliver an inclusive and fair interview process, AI will never lead hiring, rather it will be human and AI together leading. We can use data to synthesize the core competencies for staying relevant in the future workforce.

Every job in the future will require the ability to read, understand, and analyze data. Every job will require the ability to be a compelling communicator. The Fourth Industrial Revolution continually demands new skills. We are constantly evaluating our top performers to identify the key competencies.

Can you give us a sneak-peek into a few upcoming projects at Salesforce for hiring and retention that you are most excited about?

We treat our candidates like kings and queens. It’s just really a matter of timing for most candidates. It may be that we don’t have the right role for them right at that very moment. When you deliver an experience that fosters meaningful connections and expands skill sets with personalized content, then that candidate feels invested in and remembers you long past the interview process. Our Salesforce Insiders program connects candidates with employees and get the true inside track on what’s it like to thrive here. 

Candidate experience is at the heart of everything we do from a recruiting standpoint. We continually look to technology to help us deliver a more personalized, content-rich, and inclusive experience for both internal and external candidates. As the Salesforce Platform evolves, we continue to implement new technologies into our process and experience.

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As we head towards 2020, which are the key trends you are keen on tracking in this space?

There are three key trends in talent acquisition that we’re seeing for the coming year.

• Social Responsibility: What will differentiate our ability to attract luminaries will be our commitment to empowering employees to be a force for change. Social responsibility doesn’t just impact the bottom line for businesses, it affects the talent you’re able to attract. Gen Z, the largest growing consumer population, is making decisions about what they buy and where they work based on a company’s values. We know that giving our employees the time and resources to invest in their communities enables them to be better people, and really do the best work of their lives.
   
• We’re all Diversity Recruiters: Diversity is not the job of a few, it is all our job. We know that truly diverse teams have the power to positively shape our future, they are the heart of game-changing innovation. You can expect to see fewer diversity recruiters in 2019 as companies fully realize that equality is not a nice-to-have, but rather a business imperative. It will no longer be the job of dedicated recruiters to hire diverse talent – it will be built into hiring processes. Business leaders are looking to create workforces that reflect the communities in which they live and work.
   
• Recruiting Internally: There will be an increase in internal recruitment. We find that oftentimes the best candidate for a position is a current employee and they are already well-versed on the company’s values and processes. Developing internal programs that ensure that the most qualified person is considered for new roles is the cornerstone of our recruiting strategy. We’ve even created tools that allow us to evaluate internal candidates and proactively reach out to them with opportunities that they may not have considered. Through this program, we are filling positions with diverse talent at a significantly higher rate than hiring externally.

 

Neha: Thank you, Ana, for sharing your valuable insights on why employee retention is important. We hope to talk to you again soon.

About Ana RecioOpens a new window : 

Ana Recio is EVP of Global Recruiting at Salesforce, where she oversees a global team responsible for hiring 8,000+ people annually. Ana has developed a global recruiting strategy focused on talent attraction and cultivation at scale, helping her team exceed aggressive targets while attracting the best talent in the industry. She has been instrumental in developing programs that have resulted in higher retention rates and increased promotion of women and underrepresented minorities throughout the company. Ana also leads Salesforce’s newest workforce development program, Pathfinder, and serves as executive sponsor of Latinoforce, Salesforce’s employee resource group for the Latinx community. 

About SalesforceOpens a new window :

Salesforce is the global leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), bringing companies closer to their customers in the digital age. Founded in 1999, Salesforce enables companies of every size and industry to take advantage of powerful technologies such as; cloud, mobile, social, internet of things, artificial intelligence, voice, and blockchain to create a 360-degree view of their customers.

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