How L’Oréal is Empowering People Managers to Lead in Today’s Workplace

Welcome to the Edge of Work podcast. I'm your host Al D. This is a podcast for leaders who want to make sense of workplace trends and are looking for new ideas about how to lead people and grow their business in a changing world of work. During each episode I'll bring you the latest experts, researchers, founders, and leaders to share new and unique ideas as well as actionable advice around attracting the retaining talent, developing people, and building healthy and sustainable organizations. My name is Al D. And I am the host of the Edge of Work podcast. Today's guest is Stephanie Kramer, who is the C.H.R.O. of L'Oreal North America, and also the author of Carey Strong in an empowered approach to navigating pregnancy and work. It's always wonderful to have executives who are able to come on the Edge of Work podcast, but even better when they are not just executives, but also authors as well. It's so wonderful to have you here as Stephanie. So Stephanie, thanks for making time to chat today. I just shared a little bit about your background in title, but I would love to give you a chance to introduce yourself. So would you mind sharing a little bit more about yourself and then a little bit about your role in responsibilities? Sure, thanks so much for having me out. It's such a pleasure to be here and it's nice to see you again, because last time we saw each other around California. So I'm Stephanie Kramer, as you shared, I'm the C.H.R.O of L'Oreal North America. I've been in this role for a little over three years previously was the general manager of one of our businesses. So that is a little bit of my unique path to HR. And today I oversee all of human resources for the for the zone, which includes our C.O.E's, our talent, our people experience, our awards programs, as well as our HRBPs across the org and our shared services. Thank you for sharing that background. I think that gives good context for the listeners out there. So I think maybe to start, I'd love to have you talk a little bit about the business context for L'Oreal. And for me, at least the way that I know L'Oreal is that I know that there is a number of kind of iconic brands that L'Oreal has and it's portfolio. And my assumption is that these brands are unique and they'd probably have their own unique cultures. And so I would just maybe love to know from you as a C.H.R.O who's maybe looking more expansively. How does, you know, being a C.H.R.O. in that kind of business context? How does that come up for you or how does it inform how you operate? Yeah, it's a great question. And actually in reflecting on it, what's maybe listeners wouldn't know is that we have four different divisions of different types of products. But we are a leader within beauty. That is our expertise and our specialty for more than 116 years at this point. But what's amazing is that we have all of our brands. We have consumer brands like brands you might know like Maybelline or L'Oreal Paris. We have professional brands, professional hair care brands like Redkin or Matrix or Karastas. We also have professional brands that are within the skin care space. So Sarah V. La Roche Posaix, Skin Suiticles, which I was a pleasure to be part of that team. And then also we have our luxury division that has big iconic brands like Len Colme, but also brands like our mommy and YSL and fragrance brands like Ralph Lauren. So it's a very cool and beautiful mix always focused on beauty. But what's really powerful is that for our employees, for my teammates, you have this sense of a layered pride. So you may be one of our scientists that's in working on skin care for Lam Colme, but you have that sense of your pride for Lux. You're pride for being within our RNI facilities, but also for being part of L'Oreal USA, part of L'Oreal North America, and part of the L'Oreal Group. And that's how I always approach it when I think about culture. Personally, I worked at Keels for a very long time and I had such a powerful brand affinity to this amazing brand with this huge historic heritage. But also, I think it's so powerful to be part of a corporate big corporate environment at the same time as being part of a brand. And you find this almost magic between both. And that's, I think, what makes it really really special at our company and also something that I really find resonates with a lot of our teammates. Speaking of teammates, one of the things that I know that I've heard you talk about a number of times is this idea of people first leadership. And I know it's something that I think in today's day and age in 2025. And it's being talked about a lot more perhaps than maybe a decade ago or two decades ago. But sometimes I think it isn't as defined as it could be or maybe there's multiple definitions, but because I know you've thought a lot about this and you it's embedded into some of the things you do. I'd love to just have you maybe talk for a little bit about how do you think about people first leadership and how does that come to life L'Oreal? So people first leadership, the most important word there, that's a unique difference between what I have heard. I think every organization I hope you are people first. But for us is that people first leadership culture has a leader within our industry. And as as a company, we have really powerful values. So the values are passion, innovation, the entrepreneurial spirit, open-mindedness, quest for excellence and responsibility. And all six of those values and you feel in the company as part of leadership. And for us, I really don't want our company to just be a company of great products. It is fantastic products, technologies, different ways to connect with consumers. But it's a company of fantastic leaders. So with those values, with that ambition, it's really been a key strategic focus on how to develop leadership skills for the business, but ultimately that ripple into our communities. And I think that has been very resonant with teammates, but also it maintains a North Star for us to continue to focus from a development standpoint, from a career mobility and agility standpoint, from a rewards and compensation standpoint, but also just in terms of the learning and the skills that you're going to gain while you're Eloriel. I think that's a really good definition. And I think probably where this might come to life the most really are in some of those people managers that you have Eloriel in terms of kind of their responsibilities in their role. Again, like I've heard you talk a number of times about just the importance of those people managers. Could you talk a little bit more about why you see they're important in particularly in terms of the success of your business? Yeah, so it's such an important role. I think that there's always the statistics about the impact that your boss can have or people managers can have within your every day just as much as it can drive your business. But we see a direct correlation between the engagement and enablement of our teams and the engagement and enablement of their leaders. So you can measure it. You want it to happen from a leadership perspective, but also there's this really unique relationship that I think HR plays a big role. And I know one thing that we want to talk about is this magic triangle, but you have the role of employees themselves. How do you want to manage your career? What skills do you want to gain? What is your job and function? How are you relating with others and building your own network? But that's okay. That's you. Then you have the role of HR. Then you have the role of the people manager and the powerful opportunity is for HR to empower the people manager. And I'll talk about a couple of the things that we've done that it that really has I think made a big difference. But also HR powers the employee. But the amount of time and effort and success comes when HR is not there. It's the relationship between the people manager employees directly. And by the way, I believe it's my team's responsibility also for themselves as people leaders to play their role as a people manager and of course as an employee in that very powerful reciprocal feedback. One of the things that's so important about the people first leadership culture is that cultivating the space to grow, lead, thrive, to have skills, to have a baseline of trust and empowerment. But it's also about prioritizing it. What's about making sure that the role of the people manager is elevated. So in the past in the past three years, we've created mega moments that are often hybrid, both in major in-person components in our sites across the US where we're elevating the role of the people manager consistently through our leadership teams, through external speakers, through educational programs. But then we have these touch points throughout the entire year. They're called people manager salons where it's not HR only. There are skills developed and our teams are facilitating them, especially my amazing learning and development team. But you have leaders that are sharing with each other on how they're navigating specific topics or opportunities based off of the year and where we are in our cycle. And I think that those two kind of tangible actions have actually made it a consistent top of mind approach. But it has to be paired with what we call our connect conversation. So instead of having a every day or having this feedback, which is great. But you also have your year-end review. These quarterly connects allow you to recalibrate with your goals. So if it's at the beginning of the year, it's setting the goals ahead. If it's in maybe the second time, the Q2 that you're doing it, you're calibrating against how are you doing? Also feedback for that manager in a really powerful way. Q3, are you on track or are you going to hit those goals? Do we need to reset what they are? How can your manager be more empowering and helping you to achieve them for what you want for both yourself and the business? And then in Q4, you have that moment of reflection. But you should really have an understanding of where you're going before you even get to that point. So I think it's the these big mega moments, making it important, engaging in the triangle, but also having both informal and formal touch points that created as ongoing. It can't be just this one time and one size fits all. I appreciate that. There's a lot in there down pack. And I think maybe a way to frame some of that is maybe to talk a little bit more explicitly about the magic triangle, right? And you've alluded to a little bit in terms of the different players in the space. But could you share a little bit more about this concept and maybe how you have been able to scale it or operationalize it at L'Oreal? Yeah, it's funny because when we started, I think it became an obsession, by the way. So thank you to my teams for supporting the division. But it's so important, especially from an HR perspective, if you really want to create sustained impact and you want to be able to create value that you are not just relying on yourself to have have that direct relationship and help to create that coordination between, for example, the people manager and employee. And I think that was part of the fundamental approach was how to better have that enablement happening from HR direct proximity. I still very much believe in proximity with HR with the business and as that coach and as that leader is the thought partner and often, by the way, with benefits and rewards and clarity in terms of what what the company offers, but also supporting the people managers so that the best actions the output is happening every day and happening with that relationship with the people manager and in partnership with HR for kind of the co elevation that can happen within that magic triangle. So it's a bit of a fundamental shift, but in essence, it's about elevating the role of HR while you're also having that employee ownership and creating the role of the people manager as paramount as well. So it did something that is you're talking about it struck me. There's maybe two things about if any of the either of these resonators run with them. So the first things around that what you talked about in terms of sustained impact in terms of thinking about HR and something that strikes me as a little bit of a complexity with this is that in order to have an impact, you need to be engaged to involve and in order to scale that impact and have it sustained, it cannot be about you. And so there's almost like this dual tension between that. And then the other thing I was going to say is that on the people manager side, it's one thing to make and tell someone that they are important, but it's another thing to make sure that they actually have the resources in order to do it. And so there's this model sometimes of being like high investment, high accountability, right? We're going to hold you to the high standards and like, we're going to put something in place to make sure that you actually have a shot at doing that. And so those are two observations I made. If either of those resonated, I'll feel free to run with either of those. Yeah, Ali, we are heading at spot on. And that's why we're putting this magic triangle as a lens on everything we do. So we'll give you a tangible example, something like onboarding. We recognize the importance of onboarding. But in the past, you could imagine a fantastic people manager is going to make that an amazing process for that employee. They're going to partner with HR. They're going to make sure that first day is great. You're going to have clear accountabilities and goals. You'll have to check in after a couple of weeks and months. And it's fantastic. But if it's not, then that becomes really difficult for even the best HR manager to have that proximity to giving that right level of development for that new hire and making sure even within HR that you have the right handoffs between making sure that they're set up for success with what they need. Their laptop is there on the first day that they have that they have clear accountabilities and goals. And it's putting a lot of pressure on what I think sometimes can push people into process. And exactly what you said is so important. One, as HR, I think we need to really have that clear process and rigor and tools and technology has allowed us to so much go faster on consistency and onboarding processes. But that proximity that HR can empower really comes from that manager in the day to day of what that person's doing. So how do you create a consistent approach while also allowing for that proximity, the combination between the two with accountability of what is the role of the people manager in onboarding? What is the role of HR in onboarding? And what is the role of employee themselves in onboarding? And all the sudden you have a very consistent approach, but it is also very high touch at the same time. And I've really seen the evolution of that to making sure that it's not a great experience or a horrible one. It's a good experience and can be fantastic. And that baseline elevation comes from the combination of kind of all three points of that magic triangle. Hi, everyone. Al D here. Thank you so much for listening to the Edgework podcast. I hope you're enjoying this episode. I'm grateful for your support. In addition to this podcast, I enjoy working with organizations as a strategic advisor, consultant facilitator, solving business challenges related to the many topics and themes that we cover on the show. In case you're interested in working together, here are a few ways in which I work with organizations and leaders to solve some of their talent and leadership development challenges. First, I work with talent leaders and provide advisory services for these talent leaders to help them think about how they can become a strategic business partner. Whether you're looking to build a new talent strategy, select a new vendor or relaunch a new leadership development program, I can partner with you to achieve these goals. Second, I also work with providers and vendors in the talent leadership development and learning and development space by providing advisory services and supporting vendors and providers that serve the leadership and talent market. We'll work together to improve your reach relevance and revenue. And finally, as a keynote speaker, I provide inspiring and energizing keynotes at internal leadership development or professional development experiences, external conferences and anything else you might have in between. If any of these are things that you're looking at or are on your priority list for the year, I'd love to hear more from you about what you're working on and how I might be able to partner with you to achieve your goals. For more information, feel free to find my contact information in the show notes. Thank you for listening and now let's get back to the show. So to your point in the metric triangle, I think you alluded to earlier a couple of different things that you have been doing throughout the course of the year to bring this to life. I want to give you a chance to maybe talk about one or two in the middle of a more detail. And so the first one, maybe I'll offer up, is this people manager, the people manage your town halls. Could you share a little bit more? What was the framing around that? And how does that actually look at a look and play out throughout the course of the year? Yeah, so we have this mega moment that I was mentioning, which is once a year. And instead of having a HR moment, which I shout out to how much I love my HR teammates, and I could not be more happy, proud, or still completely humbled by what you all do every day. But I don't know how many employees would be super pumped to come to a HR all hands to learn about the new tools that we have for you to do your year-end process. However, if someone tells me we are elevating the role of the people manager, you are all three thousand people managers across the company. We're bringing you together and you're going to hear from our strategic committee from their seats as to how that role is critical to the success of our organization. By the way, fueled by HR and by the tools and what we're bringing to life, I'm going to show up. So there's a little bit of messaging to it. But in essence, it's also the investment. The investment in that time, the investment in this is a critical position. But also the investment in the leaders are most senior leaders and throughout the organization to create that ripple of leadership that drives that people first leadership culture. So it's a way to connect the dots, but it's a way to draw a line in the sand and reiterate those key messages that frankly just to have a moment of inspiration. Because I think the one thing that's really important to recognize, it's like it's great that we're elevating this role, but people managers have a lot on their plate. Okay, so I'm just to drive the business results, create a clear frame. I'm supposed to be empathetic, I'm supposed to listen, but also to be clear. Like I said in one of our people manager town halls that it reminds me of the Barbie movie where you have this like push pull in constantly being in different directions. And so I think it's a kind of cool moment to level set that expectation, recognize that, and also create momentum for growth together. So speaking of growth together, that kind of segues nicer to the next thing I wanted to talk about a little bit more and further, which was the connect and what that kind of looks like. And I guess again, the framing of this, I think most organizations have conversations between employees and their managers could be related to performance development et cetera. So maybe perhaps again, what was the framing behind this and how does this kind of look and operate in real time? So it's so important for everyone listening, but it's so important that you have those moments based also on different types of employees and different ways we communicate. I think many people often are saying I want more feedback and you have it in those quick moments or you have it in these formal moments, but how do you create that culture where you actually have that deliberate time where it's not just even about you, but it's also that space that you can give that feedback to your manager. So I think the reason why it's a connect and not for quarterly reviews is because it's actually about making sure that there's alignment and that often I think is the positive unique position of having to be these conversations that allows it to be consistent. So that's one. The second thing that's really important is it's measurable. We actually make it something that we measure within either our employee engagement service. I have had a connect conversation within the last quarter with my manager and making sure that was a key metric that was very public in prioritizing it and what it is and how it works and why it's different and also to the point of onboarding when you join how do you immediately get into that flow of it allows that to happen and then again it doesn't have to just be those for key touch points, but at the minimum you have them and at the minimum you're having that opportunity to prepare and reflect in a way that also aligns with goals, your development and an opportunity for feedback for your manager which is so key to all of our success. Sure, sure. I appreciate you to the point in the call out to data because again with a baseline that's there that also allows you to use that as a way to communicate and anchor folks around kind of things that are important or critical and also for you as a team I'm sure it's also a good way to understand or even if you wanted to try to draw kind of connections or correlations in terms of what you've been able to see or spot and then also for that matter of champion and celebrate. And permission there's the two things about one it's okay if you have these connect conversations there's a very high chance that you are going to be more engaged and more enabled and you're going to have a clear point of view which connects to that holistically but on the other hand it's that permission that if it's not happening it's an expectation. Often people are like oh I'm not sure where I stand or personally to say am I still on track for what we're trying to accomplish and you're like oh that's right I have this touch point that purposefully is there so that we can have that moment together which sometimes takes some pressure off. For sure. So Stephanie I know you and your team are hard at work but we're recording this in kind of the fall of 2025. We left out what's top of mind or what's on the road map in terms of what you and your team are focused on to carry out the rest of 2025. We mentioned it just even in your last question but I think one of the amazing evolutions that I have seen in the function of HR and through a lot of the work that we've had done is that you hear this very common theme of culture and leadership and people and that's baseline. That is what we need to be doing as HR every day. We have to in order to provide that value creation for the business and for each other and have a clear EVP that we're able to bring as an employer of choice. All of those things I think we continuously tried to be focused on but at the end of the day it's about talent and it's about innovation. So if we holistically are approaching these things and a big for us, loyal approach, how are we also still making sure that we have the right talent in this moment both through all levels of the organization, both to ensure our success now but projecting into the future. So we have a sustained focus on on our management trainee program on our leadership development throughout the entire organization and then data because with that you need the measurement but it cannot be just dashboards. It needs to be data. I want to see insights, tangible ways that we can then communicate back on why it matters or what we don't have the solution for and that ultimately will help to drive that culture but it also will help us to create what the future is of HR to drive that enablement to go faster to utilize technology that I really believe in that I always tell the team from an HR perspective, data and not dashboards. We don't want to be the police, we don't want to have to have that, we want to have that partnership role. So how do you use it to have these insights that can fuel the future success of the organization? Stephanie, last may be a question before we wrap. So I alluded to this in the beginning when I introduced you but in addition to being a full-time CHRO, you are also an author and I mentioned your book "Carry Strong" and "A Powered Approach to Navigating Pregnancy and Work." For folks at there who maybe are not as familiar, I would just love to know from you. There's a lot of things you could spend your time on. In the women who run a time on you have outside of your full-time day job as a CHRO. What really is prompted you to want to write this book and yeah just could you share a little bit more just about the inspiration for it? It's interesting because actually when you introduce me I always start with the fact that I'm a proud mother of two sons and then I go into and the CHRO Gloria USA and an author and I have taught and all of these other then many dimensions and titles we give ourselves but it's also a lot of things that give me a tremendous amount of energy and for me this project and this book was a way both to give back to the many people who supported me through something that was very important in a work-life intersection which was my desire to have a family and my desire to have a career and until I had my own kind of point of inflection I didn't realize how that would be challenging and so ultimately I wanted to create a resource that was complete around one critical intersection and that was pregnancy and work and it's not just the moment but it helps with talk about it in five principles and five phases but before you're even thinking about it so the BTTC to try and be conceived one point for listeners to hear that I am very passionate about is that one out of two women said that trying to get pregnant not yet being pregnant they work had an impact on their career and no one talks about that and you can't see it and so that is a really important moment then you have the pivotal the pivotal moment when you are pregnant it worked then you're anticipating your leave or what that looks like including for entrepreneurs and then you have I call it the anticipating the great return but how do you think about that integration afterwards and for me what's amazing is that I wrote this book when I was not in HR but now through those insights and the research and the stories and being able to connect with people on this topic I feel incredibly proud of what we already offer Loreal but also how we've been able to evolve it over time to be best in class with regards to parents including those who are on their journey to having children so it's a really important topic I very much believe in it but just because I do all these things doesn't mean that any of you have to it just gives me a lot of joy and energy and I think it's important Stephanie thank you so much for coming on the edge of work podcast and for spending some time on those talking a little bit about yourself a little bit about what you're up to Loreal some of the things you've got going on right now in the HR and people team and then talking about your passion project with Carey Strong and the work that you care so deeply about it's been a pleasure speaking with you and just thanks for making time thanks so much y'all it's a pleasure to talk to you thank you all for listening hi everyone Al D here thank you so much for listening to the edge of work podcast if you like what you heard encourage you to share the episode with a friend as well as to head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and let us know what you think I would be forever grateful if you did that I would also love to hear directly from you about what episodes you're listening to or any suggestions you have for how it can make it better you can find me on LinkedIn