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Podcast: Fireside chat with Don Weinstein, CVP, Global Product & Development on his career and the latest tech happenings at ADP
Career Path, Fireside Chat, Latest Tech
ADP Technologist, Nik Palmer, hosts an engaging chat with our Global Product & Techology leader, Don Weinstein, and the executive sponsor for our Generations Business Resource Group. Don chats about his career path and gives some advice. He also shares the latest tech happenings at ADP, machine learning, and our evolving products. The Generations BRG focuses on creating connections between emerging and established professionals.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
[LOGO] ADP, Always Designing for People
[NICK PALMER] Howdy and welcome to the GENcast podcast. My name is Nick Palmer and I will be your host for this episode with Don Weinstein, Chief Product and Technology Officer here. Don is also the Executive Sponsor of Generations.
His role is somewhat unique as most companies separate product and technology. And what’s also interesting is that Don has a background in aerospace engineering and consulting prior to coming to ADP to work in corporate strategy and technology. Don, welcome, and thanks for sitting down with us.
[DON WEINSTEIN] Thanks, Nick. It’s great to be here.
[NICK PALMER] So to get started, let’s find out a little bit about you and tell us a little bit about what generation you identify with most closely and what are your standout roles.
[DON WEINSTEIN] Great question. I’m Generation X through and through. I do like from time to time looking at those different examples about the– or the differences in the different generations. And the one that always stuck out to me with Generation X being kind of a sandwich generation.
Stuck in between the boomers and the millennials is just kind of being the pragmatists in the room and figuring out how we help move things forward and make progress and maybe less about it was stuck between the me generation and the we generation before and after us.
[NICK PALMER] Building bridges versus building walls.
[DON WEINSTEIN] I like that. I hadn’t heard that, but I’ll quote you on that going forward. It’s really about just again, not trying that overly call attention to ourselves as a generation as much as just moving things forward. I was going to say, my top two stand out roles are advisor provider, which I was told was a somewhat unusual combination, but that’s all I know.
[NICK PALMER] Right on. Yeah, I don’t think I’ve met one of those yet. So that’s interesting. So tell us a little bit about some technology happenings here at ADP. If our listeners haven’t had a chance to listen to your recent HRExaminer executive podcast with John Sumser, we’ll make sure that we put a link up there and encourage them to take a listen.
In that podcast, you cover some excellent material there about how ADP is addressing diversity and inclusion via our products and our client services, most of which is just given away for free. Can you share a little bit about the GTP diversity and inclusion strategy and its intended impact for both clients and associates?
[DON WEINSTEIN] Yeah, I’d be glad to. And I think the first thing to peel back on is this isn’t some new idea that just came to us because of obviously what’s been happening, the increased focus we’ve seen based in large part on the recent tragic incidents with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, which I think have created a renewed focus on the problems and the challenges that diversity has and that we have with diversity as a country and in particular in the workplace.
So I am glad for that renewed focus. But this is something we’ve been thinking about for and working on for a while. I’d point you back to, it was 2016 when we launched our Pay Equity Explorer and actually was recognized as an awesome new technology for 2016 by HR Executive Magazine the HR Tech Conference.
And in particular, what made the Pay Equity Explorer great or an awesome new technology is it took this long founded challenge that we know about, disparities and discrimination and pay practices in the workplace, and took a new angle to it where we could leverage ADP’s vast treasure trove of data so we could understand industry benchmarks, both outside an organization, as well as inside an organization, and in addition to which we can apply machine learning algorithms to help identify not just– you see the classic studies that say, OK, in this context, women get paid 82 cents on the dollar.
It’s a constantly moving benchmark so I don’t remember what the latest is. But that was a relatively recent one. And it’s important. And it’s important to know. But it’s not actionable. OK. So what do I do about it? More importantly, where do I get started?
And so the Pay Equity Explorer was able to break that down using machine learning to crawl through a client’s data and identify very specific, this individual in this job relative to this internal and external market benchmark is being underpaid by this exact amount and here’s how you can take care of that.
And I think that was a real breakthrough in terms of attacking that problem. And we looked at that across all dimensions. We looked at it by gender, we looked at it by race, we looked at it by ethnicity, because trying to get multi-dimensional on the problem.
And that was really just the first such example. We followed that up with a couple of more products, one of which we focused on including a little about diversity and inclusion and inclusiveness. We’ve been very focused on accessibility in our products.
And I’m talking about making content more accessible in particular for folks who may be visually impaired or other types of impairments that would prevent them from being able to access their normal workplace tools.
So our core application, My ADP, that’s used by employees and managers, as well as our ADP mobile application, we’ve been embedded enhanced usability and accessibility controls. We’ve been doing that for years. I’m actually trying to remember when we started. It’s been so long that we’ve been at that I couldn’t I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head, but it’s been a while.
[NICK PALMER] I know I’ve supported AudioEye for a while now.
[DON WEINSTEIN] Exactly. AudioEye as a partner, we’ve worked with on both to consult with us on how to design our products to make them more accessible, and then they have plug-ins that handle all different types of impairments and get us beyond level two on the web content accessibility guidelines.
And those are just a couple of examples. I could drone on forever. You probably don’t want me to. We’re continuing to push the ball forward. We had a couple of things in the works. We’re working on some new diversity inclusiveness dashboards with our data cloud team to give clients better analytics about what they’re doing, multiple different metrics around– you’ll get the entire talent lifecycle.
Are we recruiting diverse talent pools? How are we rewarding? How are we retaining? How are we promoting? And taking all of that through a D and I lens. We’ve kind of already started working on that next iteration when obviously the external environment kicked it up a notch in terms of our priority level.
And you had asked the question not only from an external angle but also from an internal angle. So I’m super excited that we’ve been able to partner with our internal ADP D and I team, in particular Aisha who is our Chief Diversity Officer, to have ADP be client number one for any and all new products that we want to push in this area.
And actually have been having great success with Sreeni Kutam about making ADP client number one for any of our enterprise HR products. And diversity inclusiveness is just the latest example that we’re putting a lot of energy into right now.
[NICK PALMER] As we move from a service company to a technology company, it’s interesting to see that dynamic come into play and adoption of that agile startup mentality of using what we build internally. That’s awesome. So, tell us a little bit about your path towards executive leadership and how that shaped your approach towards management of people and product.
[DON WEINSTEIN] Yeah, I’ve had somewhat of a circuitous path. You pointed out in the intro that I was an aerospace engineer by training. I started my career at General Electric. And I was working in the satellite telecommunications side of the house.
So I worked on such projects as the Dish Network and GPS. So if you’re using Waze on your way home at some point or the next time you’re in the car, you’re welcome. And truthfully, a lot of people worked on that project. You can imagine I was just one of many really brilliant and talented folks who did that.
But it was fun. It was an exciting place to start a career. But how I got from there to the payroll and HCM industry, it was not a linear trajectory whatsoever. I was bought, sold, merged, acquired six different times in my first several years. GE at some point decided to get out of that business.
They sold it to Martin Marietta. Martin Marietta merged with the Lockheed Company, became Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin shut down the facility I was working at. There were 5,000 people there when I started. And I was the 10th to last to walk out the door and shut the place down.
And now it’s just an industrial brownfield site that’s been sitting there unoccupied for 20 plus years, which is kind of sad. What I learned in some of that– first thing, so, coming out of that, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
So what do you do when you’re a 20-something engineer and you don’t know what to do with the rest of your life? I went back to school and got an MBA. And then when I finished up my MBA, I still don’t know what I wanted to do with myself?
So what do you do when you’re an overeducated 20-something who doesn’t know what to do? You go into consulting and tell other people what to do. I don’t know what to do with my life, but let me tell you what to do with yours.
Consulting was a good experience for me in that up until that point, I had only known one industry, one business, and one functional area. So it really helped me broaden myself out. And I think if there’s one or two takeaways I could take away from that experience, it’s I had the opportunity to work in a lot of different industries on a lot of different problems, and having that cross-functional type of experience I think was useful.
Even starting my career at GE, they really encourage some rotational type assignments. I have noticed within ADP, we probably don’t do that as much as other organizations. Also I made a stop at IBM for several years. And we used to joke at IBM, it stood for I’ve Been Moved.
But at ADP, I think we have folks who tend to spend more time in one area. And it’s great for developing deep expertise in that area. And some of the stuff that we do, you have to be pretty deep and expert to do it.
But I think also we can benefit and folks can benefit from taking that kind of side step rotational assignment to learn about the business through another lens and then come back. It’s something I’ve been encouraging within my technology organization now. Really, two things.
One is getting more rotations within technology, including on my leadership team. So the simple way we think about it is I’ve got the applications side of the house, as you said, the product side. And then the traditional infrastructure, the technology side.
So we’ve been rotating people within products, moving from one product, maybe moving from a shared product like our identity management or reporting solution into a market facing product like RUN or Workforce Now or something like that.
Gives people a different perspective. Moving between the application side and the infrastructure side of the house. So we’ve done a handful of rotations there. And I think we’ll do some more. And also encouraging bi-directional folks from the technology organization to roll out into business type roles and vise versa.
Folks who are in the different sides of the business who have interests or an aptitude for technology to come do a tour of duty in the technology world and then go back to their functional areas with a greater appreciation for what we’re doing here.
It’s something, like I said, I was able to benefit and take advantage of early on in my career. And I think that’s something that I’m trying to encourage others at least within my scope of influence in GPT to take advantage of as well. Does that make sense?
[NICK PALMER] Yes, it does. That’s great. I think that I’m going to quote you on the merged, bought, sold, and acquired. Yeah. One of the things that you said in there that was particularly interesting was about that tour of duty in rotation.
And that’s something that I’d like to make sure that we’ve heard is covered again and mentioned again because that’s something that we’ve heard from our membership, saying how should I approach the career path and moving forward?
Should I jump around and try lots of different things? Or should I stick and go deep expertise? And I’ve obviously stuck and done the deep expertise side of things. But I tell people all the time, jumping around and gaining a broad perspective, that’s also equally valid.
They are opposite sides of the same coin. And as long as you’re holding that coin and paying attention to it, either one can afford you great insight and knowledge and career path opportunity. So thanks for sharing the opposite side of the coin from what I typically do.
[DON WEINSTEIN] Yeah, and if I could just put a nuance on that, I like to think about it as a major and a minor. Because I wouldn’t want to create the false expectation. I think too much jumping around, also a bad thing, right? I think you need to stay long enough in an area to develop a certain level of depth and expertise.
And that’s it. That’s your major. And then when you have that depth of expertise in a certain area, then when you go out into another area, you may be a novice in that new found area, but you can be valuable to the folks there because you bring the expertise about something else that they don’t know about.
So for instance, do a typical one again in my area, is if I’ve got somebody who’s super knowledgeable about infrastructure and then they go do a rotational assignment on the app side of the house, they may not know everything there is to know about app development, but they can bring to that team their richness and depth of experience on infrastructure that is going to be beneficial to the team.
And then potentially, like I said, not then move on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. But do that as sort of like a side step and then come back to infrastructure and be a better infrastructure engineer because you understand more now how the application that your infrastructure is supporting.
So a little different than saying jump around as much as you do a sidestep, come back. Maybe apply what you learned. Maybe do another one, come back. So I think it’s useful for somebody to have a major. I’ll tell you, my life experience, as I said, I started out as an engineer. Spent several years in engineering.
Coming out of engineering, I went into consulting and I got to apply that in a bunch of different areas. Then I did some work in strategy. Came back to product. Then I came to ADP. Well, did a long tenure in project management.
Went out to strategy. So I was a Chief Strategy Officer for a couple of years. Came back to GPT. So not floating all over the place, but sidestep, come back, sidestep, come back, learn a new skill, come back and apply it kind of model, if that makes sense.
[NICK PALMER] Right, and I think how I would encapsulate that nuance that you’re talking about is you have to do the tour of duty. You have to learn something, not be a tourist and jump around. So there is a difference in terms of your depth and understanding that you gain in a tour of duty versus just being a tourist to a new location.
[DON WEINSTEIN] Very well said, yes.
[NICK PALMER] So let’s get into the big elephant in the room. One of the biggest hurdles we had in late FY 20 was the rapid change to remote work modality. The business continuity team recently discussed this undertaking in their internal webinar.
And you talk about the international effort in depth on the HRExaminer podcast. The company saw some wonderful productivity engagement through the process. And as associates continue to work remotely and some areas slowly begin the process of returning to the office, what kinds of productivity and technology challenges do you see arising?
[DON WEINSTEIN] Yeah, it’s a good question. And something we’re thinking a lot about these days, of course. The first thing I observed is as we moved everybody remote, there was this certainly surge of connectivity going on that causes a lot of technical challenges. And now we’re keen thinking already ahead to like, what the year end is going to look like and is that going to be another surge.
But the productivity question is I think the one that’s even more interesting because you see different views out there and different scenarios about, well, are we more productive in a remote setting or are we less productive? That’s a question that comes up from time to time. And I’ll share just a couple of dynamics.
And these are anecdotes that I’m observing. I don’t claim to have the full settled science on is work from home more or less productive yet. But the one thing I noticed is in the past where we had most folks working in an office and then a minority working from home, I thought it was hard to be in that subset minority of folks who weren’t in the office, versus when everybody is remote, it seems like, if you’re having a meeting and there’s 12 people in the meeting and nine of them are in the room and then three are on the phone or the video, you’d see that the folks who were on the phone or the video, every once in a while somebody was like, oh, stop, wait.
Folks on the phone, do you have anything to add? Because it almost becomes an afterthought. Whereas when everybody’s remote, I actually think it makes that aspect of it work a little bit better. But now that we’re talking about reopening, and by the way, just for full disclosure, I’m in sitting in Roseland right now because part of the very first wave of US pilots, Roseland was the first office and I was in the first cohort of folks who raised my hand and said, sure, I’ll come back into the office.
So I’m in Roseland right now. But some of our offices around outside the US have already started to open up. Shanghai was the first and a handful in Europe as well. But I think it’s a challenge when you’re in this partial hybrid state, right? So if everybody’s remote, I think the collaboration works better.
And in particular getting more voices heard. But when some folks are remote and some folks are in the office and you have this partial stasus going, I’m not sure that that works as well. And that’s something that we have to be very mindful of as we hopefully at some point start to transition back.
And the second thing I’d point out is where we have mature teams of people, I’ve got a mature team of folks, they’ve been working together for a while, they know each other, they’ve been working on their products for a while, they know the products. I think those teams going remote were capable of doing so.
And it was almost a seamless transition. Now we’re at the point, it’s July, and this is the time of year when we have our new college grads start showing up. So I’ve got close to 100, I’ve got 150 total who will be showing up here over the next several months. And so the ability to onboard and assimilate those new hires into the company– so first they have to learn about the company, about the products, about the other team members.
For most of them, it’s going to be their first real work experience. And the ability to manage through that in a remote setting I think is a little bit trickier. And it’s one that I don’t know that we’ve cracked the code on, but we’re mindful of now that we’re going through a virtual onboard process.
So I think those are some real challenges that we need to be really taking seriously here the longer that this stretches out. I don’t know what that would be like to onboard as a brand new, fresh out of college graduate, my first real job, my first company, and I’m remote for six months. Nobody knows. I mean, I saw Google came out and announced they’re going to be remote at least till next summer. Not saying that they’re right, but it just shows you where things are moving.
[NICK PALMER] Yeah, the vision is definitely down the road as opposed to next week or next month.
[DON WEINSTEIN] That’s right. Definitely doesn’t feel like it’s around the corner.
[NICK PALMER] And I think the key thing, though, that you bring up is that we’re mindful of it. We’re aware that this is a potential issue. And unless we are aware of it, we can’t really do anything about it. So it’s good to hear that we’re paying attention and monitoring, even if we don’t have all the answers right now. We’re closely watching and observing to see what those answers might become and reveal.
[DON WEINSTEIN] Exactly.
[NICK PALMER] So in terms of that, how do you see the business resource groups and Generations playing a role in this remote and hybrid environment?
[DON WEINSTEIN] It’s a great question. It’s an important one. And I’ll go back to the beginning of my career and tie that into why I always felt so passionate about Generations and the work you all are doing here. And that is that I felt like I did have a good onboarding experience when I first started my career back at GE.
Again, I came in as a brand new, fresh faced engineer right out of college and got to work on some pretty complex stuff. But I was lucky to really have– and this gets the spirit of Generations. We brought people in together as a class. So we had a cohort of people I came with, that I bonded with, and some of whom are still my closest friends to this day. So I had a lot of peer interaction and learning through it together.
And then we had senior level mentoring. And I remember a couple of mentors in particular who really took me under their wing and showed me the ropes a little bit and helped me really accelerate my career by being able to learn from the wisdom of some of the folks who had been there together and enjoy the camaraderie aspect of being part of a group of people and not feeling like I was at it alone.
It’s one of the things we’ve tried to bring to, as I mentioned, and we called our GPT Development Program when we onboard the new college graduates. We bring them in as a class and try and create that spirit. And we assign them mentors from within the broader organization. And as I look at where we are as an organization right now in terms of moving folks out of the office remote, I think it’s been about 20 or so weeks here in the US since we went to remote work.
And again, I know there was this initial surge of productivity because people were certainly, we had a lot of work to do as we were responding to various aspects of the COVID crisis from a regulatory or compliance aspect. And there was just the change element there, I’d say, almost like a mini little euphoria.
I’m speaking for myself now. I’ve been coming into an office for 30 years and I never really had an opportunity to work from home for any kind of extended period. So it was just different. You get a little bit of an, I’ll call it an adrenaline rush.
But I’ve seen and I’ve also read some interesting articles by others about how that phenomenon played out in a number of different organizations. But after that initial adrenaline rush, now we’re settling in for the long haul. And how do we keep folks engaged?
How do we avoid burnout in a world where if you’re like me, the whole work life balance, whatever it was went away because I wake up and get my first cup of coffee and, boom, I’m right at it. And then I just keep going all day, all night. That’s not a recommendation or a lifestyle tip, but it makes it harder.
And so there is some notion that the longer this drags on, the current scenario, you’re worried about either, you’re worried about burnout, you’re worried about fatigue factors, you’re worried about people losing engagement, losing connectivity to their team or to their organization.
And so I think the work that business resource groups do is probably more critical now in this type of environment than ever before in terms of creating a sense of affinity and shared purpose with people who have common interests and common objectives that span organization or function or job, but rather say, we have connectivity at a purpose level here.
And so I’m thankful that our ADP, that our HR organization had the foresight to start us down this path several years ago. And we’ve got this kind of infrastructure in place now today. Because I believe it’s critical to helping folks navigate the current crisis from a personal work life relationship aspect.
[NICK PALMER] Right on. Thank you very much, Don. We appreciate your time here today. And I wanted to thank you personally for your guidance and suggestions for the Generations Group. I know that we are looking forward to an amazing FY 21.
One of the things when we connect and we talk about is books and self-improvement that we’re undertaking currently. So would you like to leave the Generations members any suggestions on what you’ve been reading or studying lately?
[DON WEINSTEIN] Yeah, I’d be happy to. I’ll just share with you what I’ve been reading. I don’t know how helpful it is. But I’ve become quite a big fan of this– is an academic, a historian at Oxford, Yuval Noah Harari.
He’s written a few books. Sapiens was a history of humankind. Homo Deus was a kind of a forward looking one. And the current book that he’s got out there is called 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. And it couldn’t, in my opinion, couldn’t be more timely.
It was sort of a little dark, if I would offer, and maybe it’s in keeping with the times. It’s funny, he published it before the pandemic or some of the unrest that we’re seeing happen. But seems to have a little bit of– seemed a little prescient in that.
But I can skip you through some of it because there are like 20 chapters like, yep, that’s where we’re at. That’s not working, that’s not working, that’s not working. And I get to the end, I’m like what’s the answer? So what do we do? And his only answer is meditate.
[NICK PALMER] I’m a big fan of those books. I would recommend them to all of our Generations members. I know we’ve shared a couple of those in previous quarterly book roundups. So thanks for the plug on those.
[DON WEINSTEIN] Absolutely. This is the generation that’s going to carry us forward. So meditating and being a little contemplate, not the worst idea right now.
[NICK PALMER] Thank you very much, Don. We appreciate your time today. And we will look forward to having you back sometime in the future.
[DON WEINSTEIN] Thank you. My pleasure.
[MUSIC PLAYING] [LOGO] ADP, Always Designing for People.
[TEXT] ADP and the ADP logo are registered trademarks of ADP, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Copyright © 2020 ADP, Inc.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Meet Anshuman: ADP’s Inventor of the Year
Inventor of the Year, Voice of our People, Career Path
Through ADP’s patent program, Anshuman’s name appears as an inventor on ten patent applications filed within the last five years, seven of which have registered.
Anshuman Gaur was named ADP’s Inventor of the Year. Through ADP’s patent program, his name appears as an inventor on ten patent applications filed within the last five years, seven of which have registered.
Since joining ADP 11 years ago in Hyderabad, India as a Test Analyst, he’s been an amazing contributor to our organization. We recently caught up with Anshuman to ask him about the patent process, his advice for other inventors, his cricket experience, and more!
What different roles you’ve had during your time at ADP?
I started as a Test Analyst in the Next Gen PayExpert team. From there, I moved to a business analyst role, and then a Sr. Business Analyst role within the same group. By this time, PayExpert had transformed into a single database Workforce Now (WFN) solution with HR, Payroll, Time & Benefits all running on the same platform.
In 2014, I moved to Alpharetta, Georgia, as a Product Manager for WFN shared products such as reporting, analytics, PaaS, etc. In this role, I had the opportunity to work on the launch of DataCloud, an HCM analytics product targeted at mid-market clients. After a short stint with the DataCloud product team, where I had the opportunity to pilot ADP’s compensation benchmarking and predictive analytics features, I went back to the WFN team as a Director of Product Management in Parsippany, New Jersey.
Video call with the team
In early 2018, life came full circle when I received the opportunity to lead the WFN Next-Generation product. We work on the future of work and pay every day, including some cool features like on-demand pay, punch to pay real-time calculations, etc. We have an awesome opportunity to challenge the status quo and lead in the market with a competitive next-gen offering.
In a nutshell, I’ve had so many roles and so much fun! 🙂
What did you think when you first learned you were ADP’s Inventor of the Year?
It was quite surprising, to be honest! Many great products and features are being built across the organization, so it’s an honor to be recognized with this award. Also, being on the same list as Frank Villavicencio, VP, Product Management, is an absolute privilege.
What’s your process for coming up with ideas that would be great for a patent?
That’s a great question, and something we focus on quite a bit in our day-to-day work. It’s a combination of client need awareness, market and competitive awareness, and problem-solving skills. I am lucky to have a great team of developers, UX designers, and product owners who bring these skills to the table. We look at how we can solve problems that give the customer a delightful solution and, at the same time, gives us a competitive advantage.
We recently filed a patent for a solution that not only eliminates some key challenges and pain points but also exceeds the competition. It’s worth securing those features with a patent.
What is the patent process at ADP?
It’s quite straight forward. Once you have identified a feature or an idea for a patent, you can submit an invention brief on our internal associate portal under the ADP Patent Program. In this document, you provide a brief summary of the invention, the problems it solves that couldn’t be solved before, and how the solution is unique.
Once this is submitted, IP lawyers make the magic happen coming up with claims, preparing the filing documentation, etc. You need to participate in reviewing these documents during the process. Once the application is submitted, you can easily track progress on the portal.
What advice do you have for other inventors?
We solve many large-scale problems here at ADP. Our inventions are unique to our size and our business, and so I encourage everyone to take a moment to ask a couple of questions as they discover new ways to solve problems:
“Am I creating an intellectual property?” If the answer is yes, “Does the solution solve a problem in a unique way that can be secured by a patent?”
These questions are a simple way to guide inventors through the decision-making process of securing IPs. There is no doubt that inventions are happening here. We need to take the additional and essential step in securing it.
What do you like best about working at ADP?
There are many things, from passionate people to amazing culture to great opportunities. But if I were to pick one, I would say it’s the large-scale problems that I love to solve working with various cross-functional teams.
What advice would you give to your 16-year-old self?
Don’t ever stop playing cricket no matter how hard and busy life gets! For the cricket fans out there, I used to bowl right arm, medium-fast.
What is your must-have app? Yelp & YouTube
Anshuman Gaur is a Senior Director, Product Management at ADP based in New Jersey.
Forging an unconventional career path
The career path for a mechanical engineer doesn’t typically lead to becoming a vice-president of HR. Here’s how Caron Cone boldly created her own path.
As a Human Resources leader, Caron Cone strongly believes that your career journey doesn’t necessarily have to look like anyone else’s. This advice – says Caron – isn’t taken from an HR manual. It’s the real-life story of her own unconventional career path.
Caron, who leads HR for ADP’s National Account Services division, started out as a mechanical engineer. She’s the perfect example of coupling courage and unconventional career choices, ironically an engineering term, to discover the power inside each of us.
“Solving complex business problems and being a champion of new ideas feels right at home,” Caron says. “By tapping my engineering, operations and project management skills every day, the STEM field forever stays with me. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
While Caron jokingly says engineers sometimes get a bad rap for not having the best communication skills, so she’s very intentional about going beyond data points and digging deeper to tell stories that simulate conversation, engagement and action amongst ADP leaders and associates alike.
My life’s purpose is to help surface greatness in other people; I love connecting people with their aspirations and goals.
– Caron Cone, DVP of HR, ADP National Account Services
The Power of Mentorship
The youngest of four, Caron grew up in Tennessee where her mom stressed strength, toughness and resilience, and her dad, an electrical engineer, instilled hard work. The combination of her parents’ focus on education is what ultimately led Caron to study mechanical engineering at the University of Tennessee.
Right out of college, Caron landed an engineering job a petroleum pipeline company in Atlanta. At the time, she was one of a few women and the only African American woman working on pipeline maintenance and construction projects. It was at this very point that she realized the importance of advocacy and mentorship.
The COO for the company had four daughters and was committed to ensuring that women could be successful in the workplace. “He taught me about being impactful, knowing the business, and having presence,” Caron recalls. Little did Caron know, mentorship would also make way for her next career path.
The pipeline company started a formal mentoring program allowing employees to select mentors. Caron watched as a senior HR executive worked with and influenced the executive team and her decision was made. “I chose her as my mentor. Her presence was amazing. People gravitated toward her,” Caron says.
Eventually, Caron decided to return to school, juggling computer models by day as an engineer and classes at night as she pursued a master’s in HR. She also earned an MBA to have a competitive advantage in the marketplace. It wasn’t long before Caron received a call offering her a role on an HR team – working for the same mentor who inspired her journey to HR.
Caron also had the opportunity to participate in the Pathbuilders program, an external, formal mentoring program where she was paired with another HR executive. That mentor and program have had a tremendous influence on her, both professionally and personally.
“I would not be where I am today without the influence of my mentors,” Caron says. “Two of them are now Chief HR Officers. I remain in touch and trust their input and advice.”
Caron Cone
Caron Cone, Division Vice President of HR, ADP National Account Services
HR Matters
The opportunity to positively impact people and the overall business is what still gets Caron excited about HR today. It’s a unique perspective that allows insight into people, their capabilities and needs.
“My life’s purpose is to help surface greatness in other people,” Caron says. “I love connecting people with their aspirations and goals.”
Her engineering and business background allow for a greater appreciation of how things work and the value of analytics. “Data can help us figure out a number of key things about talent, the business and how to predict success for both,” Caron says. “Reports give you data; insights come from people.”
Caron firmly believes that the human aspect of HR will always be important: the big picture, culture and developing strong leaders.
Coming to ADP
Caron’s HR expertise spans multiple leading industries, including media, but now she calls ADP home. “I love learning how different businesses work,” she says. “People tend to have similar HR and talent needs no matter the industry or the organization.”
The opportunity to work for National Accounts at ADP was a perfect combination of Caron’s love for how things and people work and for helping people find their own path to greatness. This is further demonstrated through Caron’s close partnership with the President of ADP National Account Services, Debbie Dyson.
“I get to partner with an amazing executive who is leading this journey,” Caron says. “Debbie is extraordinary at figuring out how to move things forward and give people what they need to be successful. Every decision has our associates at the core.”
“My experience at ADP is that in every conversation and decision, people talk about the impact on associates,” Caron says. “And it’s not just the decision, but also how to help people understand and make sense of change. When people at ADP say, ‘Every person counts,’ they mean it.”
While Caron’s HR role is mostly internally focused, ADP’s position as a marketplace leader in the HR industry frequently affords her opportunities to share internal best practices with ADP clients who are experiencing change and transformation.
Find Your Voice and Help Others
Transparency and honesty are two HR must-haves that Caron can’t live without.
“Be clear about what’s ahead and why,” Caron says. “Share the journey. Every person plays a role in driving success no matter the title. Help people understand that they are needed and why they matter.”
Best advice she’s received? “Find your voice. Figure out what you can contribute to a situation and share it. Ask questions, learn and contribute with confidence. You belong.”
And – never forgetting where you started. Her unorthodox career path may have seemed like a long shot to some. But with strong parental guidance and caring mentors, Caron is now doing her part to pass it on.
“My husband and I have a wonderful partnership … and just as my parents did, we’re preparing our daughter to be a positive force in this world,” Caron says. “The most important thing we can do is help her believe in herself and her capabilities.”
Tech & Innovation Blog
When things go South, you go North, East or West!
Career Advice, Culture, Women in STEM
Sometimes, it is obvious. Sometimes, it is subtle. Yet, in all cases, there are early warning signs. If only we could pause to take it in!
Where is that time anyway? When we are pursuing a Ph.D., juggling life as a student or mid-career professional, so often, we only catch ourselves off course a bit later than we would have liked.
The world of work, as we have known it has been changing for a long time now. If you are in the United States, the change has been visible…
- The highways we paid tolls on used to have people manning booths and giving out change. Now, we have EZPass and exact change lanes!
- The supermarket and grocery store checkout lines had cashiers and more lanes open. Now, we have self-checkouts!
- The number of supervisory (aka people management) roles are decreasing. A great example, next time you go shopping, look out for the robots (yup, I am serious) that now perform repeatable tasks of checking “status” and reporting up.
- And so many more…if only we paused to take it in.
Thanks to much-needed automation and business process improvements, essential for the evolution and optimization of business, the current workforce (yes, that is us!) are directly or indirectly in the path of changing work models that offer significant growth opportunities and yes, challenges.
The way I like to think about it is this: a challenge is an opportunity to rethink and reimagine the possibilities previously undiscovered.
As individuals, we spend a tremendous amount of time at work and put our hearts and souls into doing our very best to deliver stellar results, and look to grow with and within the organization. Passion, purpose, and growth are essential contributors to happiness. Happy employees find intrinsic motivation to explore, experiment and excel in their work through moments of Flow. That work happiness is abundantly positive and contagious in a way that radiates through every interaction with every person.
In the landscape of robots, robotic process automation, and AI that look to optimize work environments, there are naturally fewer vertical job opportunities as organizations realign to provide abundant lateral growth opportunities and training for their employees.
In the fast-changing world of work, it is natural to feel disappointed and frustrated when conversations with the manager on career-growth prospects either do not exist or are bland and uni-directional. We are human. It’s natural to want recognition and additional responsibilities that offer growth to learn something new.
When things go South, there are early warning signs in conversations such as “why you are not qualified” rather than “how you can acquire skills needed.” Then, out of the blue, that position you aspired to have and worked very hard to get goes to someone else.
Yes, it happened. You just got passed over for a promotion, and the only thought that fills your mind is that you must quit and find a new job on the internet!
How about we change the situation to our advantage? It is in moments of utter despair that we are closest to finding our success. But that can only happen if we can recover fast and find our inner strength to ReEmerge stronger and more resilient than we have ever been before.
- Easier said than done, yes, but why not consider this event as a welcome sign for us to get out of our comfort zone and try something new in another part of our organization?
- Start by identifying your passion and your purpose. Find alternative applications in emerging fields and cool new projects. The human mind has unlimited potential, so believe in yourself. You will be amazed at the strengths you discover within yourself.
We are amazing Individual Centers of Excellence (I.C.O.E.), and we own and drive our career to define our success.
We can grow in any direction we want and go as far as we choose to and do so at the pace that works for us.
Yes, take that vacation time off or mental health day to relax, recharge, and reactivate the inner core strengths that propel you forward. Identify new areas of growth within yourself and the organization.
You can leverage your tenure, experience, and expertise to your advantage and help support your organization’s business goals. Cross-pollination provides an excellent opportunity to add your uniquely human perspective.
Continuous learning is critical to personal and professional growth and helps to future proof your career, so keep learning! There are so many free and low-cost online options including Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, and also check for learning options within your organization.
Yes, there is hope, and there are new areas of growth…just not where you expected to find them.
- Go North! Yes, get out of your comfort zone and explore opportunities in other areas of the business operations using your translatable and scalable skills.
- Go East! Look at job opportunities posted on your organization’s career portal. Set up a quick 15-min conversation with that hiring manager to discuss their expectations of skills, responsibilities, and business outcomes to see if the opportunity is for you. Is that not cool?
- Go West! Quickly learn a brand-new skill that is in demand and explore lateral movement in your group by asking your manager to expand your role to increase your responsibility.
Please, invest in your career success. Build on your tenure and grow with and within your organization.
So, have you identified any early warning signs? If so, have you looked at your career portal to initiate a conversation with another hiring manager?
Oh, the places you can go, if only you keep driving. Best of Luck!
(Originally published on LinkedIn November 4, 2019. Republished with permission.)
Tech & Innovation Blog
On Elephant Graveyards
Career Mobility, Career Advice, Voice of our People
Some years ago, I heard someone sarcastically say, “This is where elephants come to die” in response to me asking them why such intelligent people as themselves were still at that company.
Since then, I have been referring to “elephant graveyards” when describing companies and teams that don’t have headroom for intelligent people to rise the ranks and grow as engineers.
An elephant graveyard, when applied to a corporate setting, is a team, company, or some other set of conditions, in which otherwise bright engineers take positions or assignments where there is no hope for future career growth. In this post, I hope to define the conditions that must be present for an elephant graveyard to form, how to detect them, and how to navigate them.
Defining career growth
An engineer’s career growth has three dimensions: skills, recognition, and compensation.
Skill growth is a function engineer learning new skills and becoming an expert through practicing newly acquired abilities on real-world projects.
Recognition is a function of showing initiative, applying new skills, and being recognized by supportive leadership.
Compensation is a function of recognition and skill growth.
Conditions required for an elephant graveyard to form
An elephant graveyard forms when the three dimensions of career growth become stagnant.
Skill growth stagnates when the project reaches a certain level of maturity and is either no longer growing or is in a terminal decline. Projects reach maturity when they reach a critical mass in production and are no longer rapidly evolving. When the active development phase is over, the projects are often scaled back. When projects don’t rapidly evolve, there is no room for the acquisition of new skills.
Another reason for skill growth stagnation is the presence of the Smartest Person In The Room. The Smartest Person In The Room is either the developer themselves (which means they’ve outgrown the project and are now a toxic influence on it) or someone else (who created the conditions in which only his ideas are good).
The emergence of the Smartest Person In The Room is toxic to the team, and good leaders should discourage it. Since only their ideas count, the rest of the engineers can’t grow and earn recognition.
Recognition stagnates when skills stagnate, or the engineer loses leadership support, including management incompetence. When leadership is unsupportive, new skills don’t often earn any recognition.
When both skill growth and recognition stagnate, compensation stagnates as well. Chances are higher if you work for a well-run company, the reward system is in line with skill growth and recognition. Poorly run companies, not so much. Companies that create artificial limitations barriers, like title hierarchies, run the risk of losing technologists for compensation reasons.
What to do if you find yourself in an elephant graveyard
First of all, try and detect an elephant graveyard before you join the company. Ask questions about team dynamics and the project maturity cycle. Don’t join a company or a team where elephants come to die.
If you find yourself in an elephant graveyard, however, it’s not all over. Evaluate your overall situation. Is work-life balance important to you at this phase of your life? Are you fairly compensated at this moment in time? Are there opportunities within your company on other projects? Is there an opportunity to shake things up on your existing project?
As long as there is room to grow, there is no reason to be restless. You are not an elephant, and you are not in a graveyard. Not yet, at least.
Published by Oleg Dulin
I am a software engineer and technology architect in New York City / New Jersey area. All opinions expressed here are mine and do not represent the opinions of my employers and customers, nor should my opinions be construed as opinions about my employers and customers.
Reprinted/Edited with permission. Read the original post.
I’ve Been Promoted 6 Times at the Same Company — Here’s My Secret for Advancing
Yasminay Molina has been promoted not once, not twice, but a whopping six times throughout her time with ADP.
Having first joined the management services company in 2008, Molina says the company “lives up to its values, has an amazing culture and is continuously willing to invest in my growth and development.”
Now, she’s the Director of Implementation for the southern region, having climbed the proverbial ladder thanks to her relentless curiosity, her participation in the company’s emerging leader program, and her use of performance and strategy conversations to expand her expertise.
“At ADP, there are countless opportunities available,” Molina said. “I also have leaders that support and believe in me. In addition, and probably most important, is the ability to reinvent myself. Every company is looking to grow in a world that is fast-changing. We have to be willing and able to change with it and bring new, fresh ideas to the table.”
We recently spoke to Molina about how she’s advanced at the same company without job hopping, as well as the most exciting part of her role. Here’s what she had to say.
How long have you been with your company? What about it made you first want to join?
I have been with ADP for a little over 11 years. I joined shortly out of college, just looking for a 9-5 job. I stayed because I found a career with a company that lives up to its values, has an amazing culture, and is continuously willing to invest in my growth and development.
Tell me about the roles that you’ve held at your company, as well as your current one. What about this role most excites you?
I started at ADP as a Client Services Representative assisting small businesses with payroll and tax questions. After three years in this role, I wanted to learn more about the lifecycle of our clients, so I became an Implementation Specialist. In this role, I helped onboard our new small business clients. I trained them on their products and services, making sure they were set up for future success. During this time and due to my performance, I was selected to participate in our emerging leader program. This gave me exposure to different aspects of the business and helped prepare me for my next role as an Implementation Team Lead.
As a Team Lead, I worked directly with my leaders learning how to motivate my associates in a positive way to drive results. I was able to participate in many conversations involving performance and strategy. In less than a year, I was promoted to Implementation Manager for the same team and then Implementation Manager II two years later. During my tenure in these roles, I was responsible for leading a team of implementation specialists, managing a relationship with our sales partners for six out of the 11 regions, as well as taking a leader under my wing.
I am now the Director of Implementation for the southern region. In this role, as well as in my previous roles, I am responsible for the development of my leaders and for our overall results. The most exciting part in my current role is that I get to directly impact and develop my leaders and, through them, our associates.
What’s something you’re especially good at, at work?
Connecting with people and building relationships.
What’s the first (and/or last) thing you do at work every day?
The first thing I do when I get to the office is say “good morning” to all of my associates and colleagues. As a leader, I recognized early on that it is the people that make me successful and I’m lucky enough to work with the best.
I do my best to remain present for my people during business hours, so the last thing I do is take care of any pending items before I leave to make a fresh start the next day!
A lot of people believe that developing your career means changing companies, and not infrequently. What has enabled you to develop/advance your career without job hopping?
The company I work for plays a major role in this. At ADP, there are countless opportunities available. I also have leaders that support and believe in me. In addition, and probably most important, is the ability to reinvent myself. Every company is looking to grow in a world that is fast-changing. We have to be willing and able to change with it, and bring new and fresh ideas to the table.
What’s something you think most people don’t know about your company that you think they should?
ADP truly does care about and invest in their people. My voice and the voice of the people matter.
What was the best quality of the best boss you’ve ever had?
Trustworthiness.
What’s the most memorable piece of career advice you’ve received?
I can’t choose just one, but I’ll leave you with two that have stuck out and resonated with me the most:
“People first. The rest will come.”
“Never be the smartest person in the room.”
