Get Reworked Podcast: Taking a Design Thinking Approach to Digital Employee Experience
In this episode of Get Reworked, Tope Sadiku, global head of digital employee experience at The Kraft Heinz Company discusses how she takes a human-centric approach to delivering personalized digital experiences to the multinational food company's employees.
Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List
"Really, for me, it's less of a tools focus .... I don't want to have a conversation really, when I'm trying to scope something out, about tools and capabilities so specifically, where someone's saying, 'OK, I like the visual of this. I'm used to this, I've used this in a previous team, a previous company.' It's less about that. It's more about, what are we actually trying to achieve? And then we can say, OK, what's the best way to achieve that goal?" said Tope.
Highlights of the conversation include:
- What a delightful digital employee experience looks like.
- Striking the balance between offering employees technology options and decision fatigue.
- How Kraft Heinz ties ESG into the digital employee experience.
- How regular tool audits fit into tool acquisition discussions.
- How Tope moved from a career in finance to leading digital employee experience.
Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Tope about how to reduce friction in workplace technology, how pizza toppings relate to digital personalization, and whether hot dog flavored popsicles are a good or bad idea. Listen in for more.
Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to [email protected].
Tune-in Here
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Show Notes
- Tope on LinkedIn
- Tope's panel during Reworked's Digital Workplace Experience event, fall 2022 (registration required)
- The Kraft Heinz Company website
- Oscar Mayer's "Cold Dog" Popsicle Press Release
Episode Transcript
Note: This transcript has been edited for space and clarity
Tope Sadiku: When I think about creativity, at least what works well for me, it's kind of being outside of my comfort zone, being in an environment that's not standard for me so I can kind of see new things in new and novel ways, and having the silence and space and time to think. Then I come up with my best ideas.
I like the idea of tech being device and location agnostic, but it's just there, giving people the tools they need to do what they need to do when they get there. That's how I think tech can really enable creativity.
Siobhan Fagan: You just heard from Tope Sadiku. Tope is the Global Head of Digital Employee Experience at Kraft Heinz, which is a multinational corporation with over 38,000 employees. In her role Tope increases employee productivity and creativity with the use of technology.
But we brought her on today because she actually takes a technology agnostic approach to her role. Tape is a board member for the Institute of Work and Economy, the YWCA and Illinois Science and Technology Coalition. She's also a thought leader on the topic of future of work and she actively contributes towards research and experimentation in the area. I can't wait to bring her in.
So let's Get Reworked.
Siobhan: Welcome to the podcast Tope.
Tope: Thank you for having me Siobhan, I'm so excited to be here.
What Does a Delightful Employee Experience Look Like?
Siobhan: You and I have had a chance to speak once before, you took part in one of our events over on Reworked earlier, and I just wanted to continue the conversation. So I'm so glad that you're here today to talk about digital experience at Kraft Heinz.
And I just want to talk a little bit about your role there. And what motivates you in your role. So to give the audience a little background, you are the global head of digital employee experience. What is the big motivating factor behind that job?
Tope: And you know what, people tell me your job sounds so cool. It sounds so fun. And I think, kind of it is, you know, if I was to ask my CIO before I moved to the U.S., and I'm sure your listeners can hear I am actually English, I moved to Chicago specifically for this job with Kraft Heinz. I worked with them before.
And when I moved, I asked my CIO: what is my shining star? If someone asked me, what do I represent? What should I be going for? What do I say? What does it mean to you? And actually, he said, we are here to create delightful experiences for our employees. And really, that's like my North Star. That's like my moonshot goal, if you want to call it.
Really, I look at the spaces in which our employees work, the tools they have to do their jobs and the way they interact with one another. And I kind of care about the holistic human being, I know, my role is digital. But really, I care about this human-centric point of view, and how we design experiences in spaces, both physically and virtually, to create delightful experiences for our employees.
Siobhan: So what does a delightful experience feel like? Or what does it look like at Kraft Heinz?
Tope: I think it can be a multitude of different things. Some are conscious, and some are unconscious. And what I mean by that, if you pick up your phone, maybe someone has an iPhone, a delightful experience with your iPhone is that if you pick it up to make a call, you can make the call, if you pick it up to make the text, it's able to do that. You pick it up to make a picture, it can do that, and it's less about the device, you kind of trust the device, it's not going to fall apart in your hands. And that is the delightful experience.
And for me, that's an unconscious delightful experience that the tool I use can do what it is supposed to do. It's less about the tool and more about what I'm trying to achieve.
And even sometimes I think about how do we increase flow and remove friction, so employees can actually achieve the objectives and achieve the premise of work achieve their aspirations and their goals within the workspace. And really, for me, that is what a delightful experience looks like.
In fact, it's less about the technology. Technology doesn't actually direct — it's the means by which we achieve a goal. And success looks like this unconscious use of tech to achieve whatever it was that you came here to do. That is how I define a delightful experience.
Siobhan: So, it's interesting, because you've already mentioned that you were speaking to your CIO when talking about this job. And you're saying that it is about the technology, but the technology is mainly just the means to get to a certain aim.
So where exactly does your role fit in Kraft Heinz? Are you in the IT section? Or are you working with HR?
Tope: Both. So my role sits within technology, I report directly into our CTO, I partnered very closely with HR and actually also work very closely with facilities. Because we look at how people work. We look at the tools and the spaces that we have to help people work effectively. And somewhere between the trifecta of three different functions, we're able to achieve our goals.
So, yes, it reports into tech, technically. But I partner very closely with HR and with facilities, in fact, most of my calls and we call them my team.
Designing Personalized Employee Experiences (aka How Many Toppings for Your Pizza)
Siobhan: No, that makes sense. It's common, what we hear other people, I love that the facilities are now being involved as well as we're all returning to the office a little bit more so that you have to think of this sort of holistic experience that you're creating for the employees.
So in one of our previous conversations, you were talking about how organizations should know their environments, and that is both the digital the physical, when they're thinking about new tech buys, so what do you do to understand the environment that the Kraft Heinz employees are working in?
Tope: I spend a lot of time speaking with people and just being kind of quite curious. For me, it's, it's so unique, it's almost like if I had an Italian cookbook, and say, Italian cookbooks, I love Italy, I love Italian food, how you kind of cook that for your family? Maybe you know, you've seen a recipe for a lasagna, but how you actually decide to cook that for your family is based on what your family likes, what your preferences are. And maybe how much you eat when you eat. Do you like onions? Are you meat free? Do you like cheese? Do you like alternatives? Do you like hot food? Do you like cold food, and you can really adjust a recipe to fit your family.
And when I talk about understanding your environment or respecting your environment, really, that's what I'm talking about. What are the nuances of your specific family that make you who you are, make you unique? Now, again, when I talk about understanding your environment, maybe you have an electric cooker, or maybe you have an induction cooker, you don't have gas. So you know, there's different things, there's different tools, you have to be able to actually cook your meal. And maybe the recipe doesn't explicitly call that out. But if it says you need a fire oven, you wanted to make a pizza, you actually don't have one of those. So really, are you going to make that pizza in that way? Or do you have to adjust the recipe again? Now we're not just talking about what your family like in their food, but really what is the environment. And just because I want to make this flame-grilled pizza, let's say, I'm not just going to get rid of my entire kitchen and build a new one. That does not work.
So for me understanding and respecting your environment means all of that and spending time with your people in an objective way and in a number of different mechanisms. Right? So you've got ethnographical research where you can watch how people work. Maybe you want to run some surveys, you want to have some qualitative groups. So just that regular dialect and regular feedback, that's probably how I would go about really understanding your environment, or at least is what I do at Kraft Heinz.
Siobhan: I love this idea of helping people with the tools they need to make the lasagna that they want or the flame-grilled pizza that they want. I'm curious though, if we run with this pizza metaphor, how many toppings can we offer people? How many kinds of pizza can we offer people? I know that you want people to work with the tools that they are most comfortable with, but is there a limit to how much variety you can offer?
Tope: Yeah, and I would say yes, any decent restaurant you go to, you know, some of the best meals you can have. And I was not expecting this to go really down this whole culinary experience. But I like it.
You know, you go to some of the best experiences at a restaurant, maybe a coursed meal where there's actually not a lot of choice. And the chef has really curated that experience for you. But if you did want to order something a la carte, it doesn't take it off the menu.
And for me, I think that can be the same when we look at how many options and offerings we have for people. So I look after our applications, I like collaboration applications. I'm the collaboration application owner within Kraft Heinz, and really, you know, there's a multitude of different collaboration applications, we can offer an employee, I don't even need to listen, I'm sure the listeners themselves can think of different things they use at different times. And there are overlaps.
And really, it's about creating this curated list that doesn't offer everything because you know, we can have decision fatigue as well, you can kind of get a bit overwhelmed, and there's too many choices and too many options. But really curating a list that's good for the masses, it's really good for the majority of your audience. There's the responsibility of those who are really focused and spending a lot of their time thinking about what we offer our employees to what, understand what people want. And then make sure what we offer is this more refined, curated list.
Balancing Tool Choice With Pragmatism
Siobhan: Now that makes sense. And I love that you brought up the decision fatigue, because I think that that's something that has been coming up very frequently. We hear a lot about the number of apps that are in use at any organization at any particular time. I think that Okta had a survey not too long ago that found the average employee works with 88 different apps to do their work.
And so I'm wondering, do you audit the technology that's available? How do you curate that kind of list and how do you keep it to that sort of manageable list that people won't get fatigue?
Tope: Yeah, that's a really good question. We have a software asset management group who really own there's different groupings of our applications. And then there's a team that is specifically dedicated to the management of all of our licenses, and understanding what's in our environment, what's coming up for renewal, the whole gamut, the whole spectrum.
And then actually, we have monthly software asset review boards, where we kind of say: this is the new demand. Is there anything else like this in our environment? Is there a reason why we should or we shouldn't go ahead with this? Are there any additional things that we need to be considerate of, we kind of work closely with legal with security with our architecture team, to really make sure that any new demand? Is there something like it? Is this better than the alternative? And really applying that more, longer-term strategic view to any of our applications that come in?
Siobhan: OK, so I think you're setting me up for this next question, because I remember you advocating in the previous conversation that we had for organizations to take a more design thinking approach to selecting their tools for their company. And that requires deliberation. It requires time. And yet at the same time, you're admitting that you have this pressure to have this new tool, to meet this new demand.
How do you do that? And how do you suggest others who potentially are feeling the pressure to bring in the new shiny tool, to kind of be able to buy themselves a little time?
Tope: As I mentioned, we have this software asset review board where we will say this is the new demand. Each application owner is almost like a gatekeeper, right? So it's got to go through the application owner to say, is this something that we can do with anything else we have today? And it might just be that this solution is so bespoke that actually, there is actually a need for something very, very tailored to this particular use case. It doesn't happen often, but it's possible, right?
And then it's the responsibility of the application owner to bring it to the review board and kind of have that conversation with the wider group. But really, for me, it's less of a tools focus. It's like, what are we trying to achieve? What is the business objective I'm trying to achieve? I don't want to have a conversation really, when I'm trying to scope something out about tools and capabilities so specifically, where, OK, I like the visual of this. I'm used to this, I've used this in a previous team, a previous company, it's less about that. It's more about, what are we actually trying to achieve? And then we can say, OK, what's the best way to achieve that goal?
And that's, for me the human-centered point of view. It's really what I love about design thinking, because you spend a lot of time making sure we really understand our problem. We're really, really clear on who are we designing for? And actually, you know, it's not necessarily do we need to design a new chair, but it's maybe even asking the question of, is the chair actually the right thing is it that we're trying to create a new way for people to be able to relax.
So really being very intentional and clear on what that problem is, and then the technology kind of just falls in. And I know, it sounds too simplistic, but it's the experience that I've had that it really just, it makes sense then, if everything else can make sense. And actually, you can maybe also recognize one of my non-negotiables here, because it might just be that the tool or the solution, or the objective you're trying to achieve, it has all of these requirements, but there are some things that they request that they may not be able to or may not be willing to negotiate on. And then there can be other things that they can say this is less important to me.
So being very clear on what are my non-negotiables? And what can I be a bit fluid and flexible on because then designing all this solutioning kind of feels a little bit easier.
Siobhan: I'm curious if you use personas or employee journey mapping to help with any of this, because I know that you're using a lot of different listening methods with the Kraft Heinz employees, but it has over, is it around 38,000 employees? Am I right?
Tope: That's right. That's right. And actually in personas and architects, that is a way that we go about thinking of things I would say that the employee personas and archetypes really is is an effort that's been driven out of HR and partnered with our HR systems team within tech. So it's not necessarily my space. What I do know that they spend a lot of time doing is interviewing employees and really refining these different personas.
When it comes to applications, we don't necessarily today use personas in that way. I think it's going to be part of our evolution. But I do think on a personal level personas archetypes are very, very important. Creating those characters in those different classes and groups beyond functional teams. I actually strongly believe that that's a good way to apply, or decide, what kind of applications people need.
Siobhan: It is interesting because we are continually borrowing it seems like a lot of these different ideas from the marketing world where customer experience first came over and then it became employee experience. And then we have these employee personas, which are basically the equivalent of what marketers do and I'm just giving this background for our audience in case they're unaware where you are creating these archetypes of people and what their needs would be. So I love seeing these ideas making this cross promotion across the marketing and the employee experience world.
A Single Portal Into the Workplace
Siobhan: So Tope, I know that one of your tasks in your role is to deliver personalized digital experience. Can you describe what that looks like? Is there like a single pane of truth that employees go to in the morning where they can then enter their workday? Or what does that look like?
Tope: Yeah, that's a good question. Because there is actually a project right now where we're looking at what is that experience portal, that experience center, that project is actually coming out of the HR spaces and are actually being led by my group. But there is an effort to kind of bring in this kind of central view or portal, where employees work through to get their work done. I think that's actually kind of intuitive, right?
It's kind of also the way that we work, I use the iPhone analogy, but I can go to my phone, and I have everything I need in my phone. In fact, it actually will suggest tools or applications that I should use, based on what I've frequently used. And that's the vision for this employee experience center. So we'll even be able to move closer to this idea of personalization for our employees.
We did have an ad campaign, around the Edge browser, and how we can really educate our employees to think of that Eedge browser as almost like the virtual desktop. And you can change not just the physical things, like your colors and your sizes, you know, not just the increases in accessibility, but also how do you layer in access to things that are important to you, and that you care about at any one point in time.
So I think empowering people to kind of know how and where they want to work and and create a space that works for them is, is super important. And I know this employee experience center will be able to do that.
Where ESG and Digital Employee Experience Intersect
Siobhan: You've been sharing a lot of interesting different areas that your company as a whole is working on. Is there one specific area that you are working on for the digital employee experience that is forthcoming, that you're excited about, that you can talk about?
Tope: Probably actually focusing on ESG? And really, what does that mean, for our company and for our employees.
So we have, like most companies, really ambitious goals around ESG that I'm really proud of and my group have been focusing on like, what does that mean, from a technology point of view? And how do we empower our employees to think more holistically about their ESG impact within the realms of tech?
Now, that's a really new space. But it's incredibly exciting for me, because it feels like it's the next layer up from employee experience.
Learning Opportunities
Siobhan: No, it definitely is, Tope, can you define ESG for our audience?
Tope: Of course, yes, Environmental, Social and Governance, and really, what does that mean for an organization.
Siobhan: That's really interesting. And to think about it at the technical level, is an area that I've never really thought about before. So I'm going to have to follow up and see where you land with that.
Underrated | Overrated With Tope Sadiku
Siobhan: So at this point, I would like to potentially play a game with you if you're up for it. It's something that we call underrated, overrated. And with this, I will throw out a couple of topics to you, and you can say if you think they are underrated, or overrated and give a brief explanation, why. Are you up for it?
Tope: Oh, let's do it.
Siobhan: So your first one is, productivity as a key goal of the workplace? Is that underrated or overrated?
Tope: Hmm. Can I say both? I think it's overrated in the sense of like, it's a word that people throw around. But I think it's underrated in the sense of, you know, productivity isn't always output focussed, sometimes, we're very much focused on, what comes out, and less about, the different types of inputs and actually just the different stages of something feeling productive, and what that means for the individual.
I really love the idea of giving people access to data about how they work and where they work, and how often they're working and who are they interacting with, and maybe even understanding the rhythm of your body on a personal level and understanding when is the best time for like focus deep work, or collaborative work or creative work on an individual basis and how do you kind of build your day around that? I feel like that is what keeps me feeling like in my flow, which is also a proxy for productivity.
So I would say it's overrated in the sense that sometimes it's outcomes focused, but it's underrated in the sense of like, just making people feel good, and helping people stay in flow.
Siobhan: That's super interesting. Is that something that you currently do with the employees at Kraft Heinz? Do you provide them with that kind of insight into how they're working?
Tope: Not yet, to be honest? No, I would say I kind of think about that on a more personal level, is necessarily how I like to work and structure my day. But it's not something that we actively do right now. Or at least it's not something that my group actively does.
Siobhan: No, that absolutely makes sense. I was actually wondering how you would make that scale. So that's why I asked the follow up.
So our next topic, using technology to increase creativity.
Tope: You can't necessarily make someone creative. But I do think you can create an environment where people feel more creative, if you know what I mean. Like, I really think it's about like a mindset and an environmental thing.
So when I think about creativity, at least what works well, for me, it's kind of being outside of my comfort zone. Being in an environment that's not standard for me. So I can kind of see new things in new and novel ways. And having the silence and space and time to think, then I come up with my best ideas.
But no one can necessarily make me creative. No one can really say, hey, Tope, look, here's the time — be creative now. But I think there's something here like creating the space for people to feel more creative.
Siobhan: And so how does technology fit into that?
Tope: Yeah, so if I give the example about the idea of being out of my comfort zone, and maybe being in a novel and new space, I love it when tech can kind of be agnostic, and it can be like device agnostic. So I have Teams on my device, my computer, I can also have on my tablet, or my mobiles. So imagine a world where I want to go on a bike ride, if that's what I want to do, or go for like a walk, the fact that that can have it there on my phone, if I am so inspired, or if I need to kind of jot an idea down.
So I like the idea of tech being device and location agnostic, but it's just there giving people the tools they need to do what they need to do when they get there. That's how I think tech can really enable creativity.
Siobhan: No, it makes sense. And it brings it back to what you said earlier about increasing the flow and trying to use technology to sort of reduce that friction so that people can be able to create without having to think about what it is that they're working on. So absolutely makes sense.
So this last one might be a little controversial, and I'm gonna have to give some background information for our audience. It's called the cold dog. And it is a hot dog flavored popsicle, which Oscar Mayer came out with last August. Do you think that is underrated, or overrated, or you can just use a different word altogether for it?
Tope: I think it's exciting because it keeps me alert. It keeps me focused, it really attracts your attention. And anything that can do that, for me, is exciting. I wouldn't say under or overrated. It's exciting.
Siobhan: I have to say that anything that makes me laugh, when I saw that this actually existed, and it wasn't an April Fool's joke. I just thought it was hilarious. And I think I'm gonna have to track one down one of these days.
Tope: Awesome, please let me know when you do.
Siobhan: I will, I'll send over a report.
Career Path: From Finance to Employee Experience
Siobhan: So Tope, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your career path, because in my research for this podcast, I noticed that you have kind of an unusual background to get into the digital employee experience, or at least it struck me as unusual. Your background is in finance and accounting.
So how did you get from there to digital employee experience?
Tope: That's a fair question, you know, even sometimes I ask myself the same thing.
But what I can say is that I am and I have just been a curious person kind of like interest in solving problems. There's something about curiosity that, I don't think you can necessarily teach someone almost like creativity. But if it's there, and you really lean into it, you don't know where you can go.
And I think curiosity, combined with sponsorship, and people who kind of want to give you a chance and believe in you, there's absolutely nothing you can't do.
When I first came to Kraft Heinz, I was within finance, I used to look after operational expenditure and capital expenditure within technology, specifically within the EMEA region. And I had an awesome boss, he's still in the company, actually, and there was nothing that he didn't think I could do. That's a lot of negatives. But he really believed in me, he really, really did believe in me, he gave me an opportunity to be the head of technology for central northern and eastern Europe, because he was like, look, you don't need to be an engineer, you need to be a problem solver. You need to be a critical thinker and Tope, I believe you can do this, and he was based in Germany. And then he kind of just gave me so many different opportunities. And actually, he was very instrumental in me kind of getting this position as well, within Chicago.
So I think curiosity combined without sponsorship, and people who believe in you, there's probably nothing that you can't do, and God knows what I'll do next. But it's really kind of inspired me and opened my eyes to these possibilities out there.
Siobhan: I love that throughout this and clearly throughout your career that you are approaching it as a problem solver rather than the technology first. So you're looking at the problem that the employee is trying to solve or that the broader business is trying to solve and then trying to work out the solution from there.
It's truly inspiring and so I'm wondering if somebody else who has an untraditional background, let's say, is interested in moving into digital employee experience and potentially say they do not have the advocate that you had for you — do you have any steps that you would recommend for them?
Tope: I guess if you can look at anything that looks like workspace and organizational design, organizational behavior, I probably never realized that that was something that's so interesting to me. I mean, that doesn't actually exist as a specific, bespoke role. But what Kraft Heinz is very good at is having a lot of projects that you can get involved in, if you are curious, and you are confident to go and speak to different groups, and find out what's going on.
So if your company has different objectives, right now, I know, I can imagine that a lot of companies are really focused on the future of work, and what are the new workplace practices? And how do we manage hybrid? But if there are things you can bring to that if you listen to different podcasts, I spend a lot of time reading research, academic research, listening to podcasts, and just speaking with different groups. And if you can kind of educate yourself like that, and then bring those practices and learnings into your organization, I'm quite sure that they will be very open and welcome. And there may just be like an opportunity to at least be part of a project team, if not, like take on more leadership roles within the project team.
Siobhan: No, I love that. I love the curiosity and also just the educating yourself. I mean, the organizational design is something that I didn't realize I found fascinating before I started in this role too. And it really truly is. So that is great advice for our audience.
Tope, if people want to learn a little bit more about you and your work, where is the best place for them to find you online?
Tope: Me, it would be LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my news source. I love it. I go there every morning just to see like what is going on in like the business world. And I do respond to all messages I get on LinkedIn. I respond to everything because I kind of love connecting with people.
And I've met some of the most incredible people that I know through LinkedIn. So yeah, definitely anybody wants me. Actually, my full name is Temitope Sadiku, but you can find me, Temitope Sadiku, on LinkedIn. I think I'm probably like the only one certainly at Kraft Heinz anyway.
Siobhan: I suspect that you will be getting quite a few contacts now through LinkedIn. But thank you so much Tope. Thank you for sharing your work and your expertise with our audience.
Tope: My pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Siobhan.
Siobhan: If you have a suggestion or a topic for a future conversation, I'm all ears. Please drop me a line at [email protected]. Additionally, if you liked what you heard, post a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you may be listening. Please share Get Reworked with anyone you think might benefit from these types of conversations. Find us at reworked.co. And finally, follow us at Get Reworked on Twitter as well. Thank you again for exploring the revolution of work with me, and I'll see you next time.
About the Author
Siobhan is the editor in chief of Reworked, the premier publication covering the r/evolution of work published by Simpler Media Group, Inc. Siobhan leads the site's content strategy, with a focus on the transformation of the workplace.
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