Full Transcript for The Digital Mindset Shift: Why Future of Work Is Human-Led and AI-Augmented: Larissa Murmann (Digital CHRO, Unilever International)

to the US. It was always my dream to be in Latin America actually. The lineman I had back then said, look, [00:02:30] Lari, you're very German. I think it's gonna be painful for you to be in Latin America and it's gonna be painful for the Latin. So let's move you first to the US so you can adapt a little bit. And then we go there. [00:02:40] When I was in the US, there came up an opportunity for Argentina, in a more, let's say, global function. I was business partnering finance across the region. [00:02:47] Larissa Murmann: From Argentina came up Mexico, and then when I [00:02:50] was in Mexico, they offered me Singapore. So I have been almost across all continents. The last one I'm missing is Africa and Middle East. So let's see what's gonna be next. [00:02:58] Dorothy Yiu: Are you gonna check that off your box, you [00:03:00] think? [00:03:00] Larissa Murmann: I think so, yes. Before I will return back to Europe, I think Middle East. So Africa could be a next stop. Yes. [00:03:06] Dorothy Yiu: So you are the Digital Chief HR Officer at [00:03:10] Unilever International. And the key role that you play is to prepare the workforce for the future. So I'm curious to know what are some of the trends that you're preparing for and any interesting [00:03:20] strategic projects that you're currently working on? [00:03:22] Larissa Murmann: Yeah, so I think this role, and many people ask me this, what is a Digital Chief HR Officer? So one is, the title came along actually as part of [00:03:30] our change management. We have a top 50 leadership team. So we wanted everyone to move into a digital first mindset and really leading for that agenda. [00:03:38] Larissa Murmann: So me and [00:03:40] Aseem Puri, who is the CEO of Unilever International, we were brainstorming on how do we make that happen? Why do people today actually not feel connected to the topic? And how do we do that? And if, for [00:03:50] example atomic habits, right? The guy speaks a lot about you become something or you'd create a habit if it's becoming your identity. [00:03:57] Larissa Murmann: So we said, how can digital become your identity? We said once your [00:04:00] name is digital, then it's part of your identity. So we had actually a meeting with everyone in the top 50. We handed out a letter which basically said: Dear Lari, your job as [00:04:10] a Chief HR Officer is ending with effective date today. [00:04:13] Larissa Murmann: And then we left a big space and we will set your new job as digital CHRO, it's starting today, and these are your [00:04:20] responsibilities. So we built digital actually into the title, but also into the job responsibilities of everyone on the top leadership team. So it was basically, it was a change management trick. [00:04:29] Larissa Murmann: [00:04:30] Since then, I have this title and it's true, right? Once you have the title and you put that on LinkedIn, you get lots of invites to HR conferences, for example, or anything that's around [00:04:40] digital technology. While you cannot just show up and know nothing about a topic, right? You need to upskill yourself. [00:04:45] Larissa Murmann: So since then, now I'm taking a certificate with MIT on how AI, [00:04:50] for example, impacts business strategy. I have started to engage into the digital transformation strategy of UI on how can I help the CTO with that. So my job [00:05:00] has become indeed, much more digital than it was before, which is also for me great, because it's a big passion. [00:05:06] Larissa Murmann: But in general, yes, my role is a people officer role where I [00:05:10] basically overlook the end-to-end function of HR for UI. So that means it's around 500 employees and a more or less, around the same amount of what we [00:05:20] call flex resources like contractors or freelancers, or we also work with Capgemini as a service provider. [00:05:27] Larissa Murmann: And I do the people strategy end to end [00:05:30] together with the board and with the CEO. [00:05:32] Dorothy Yiu: So what are some of the key trends that you see coming or you're preparing the workforce for? [00:05:37] Larissa Murmann: I think this whole trend of digital [00:05:40] upskilling and how do you now become very comfortable with AI and all the AI tools for me is the main agenda for this year. [00:05:47] Larissa Murmann: I see there's many benefits to it. But it also [00:05:50] requires very diligent capability management and change management. So I think we just went through a what we would call a restructuring in Unilever so, [00:06:00] and everyone knows that. So we had to look at our people cost and where do we actually have the resources and where do we invest? [00:06:06] Larissa Murmann: So that means actually for UI businesses, which is growing at a very [00:06:10] fast pace. So they're growing double digit. They are one of the, I would say the fastest growing global business unit Unilever has, and it's a very startup environment, so the structure is [00:06:20] constantly changing. You have constantly new areas entering or new brands you're taking on. [00:06:25] Larissa Murmann: So you need to be very flexible in your resourcing, but at the same time, you're very [00:06:30] restricted in what you can now can actually spend. So for me, AI is actually something that will help me to create workplace productivity. So on a day-to-day basis, so all of our [00:06:40] employees, for example, have copilot. [00:06:41] Larissa Murmann: They are getting upskilled now in copilot how they can do their day-to-day most efficient. But we are now also looking on mapping, for example, a marketing job where you would say a [00:06:50] marketeer without AI and with AI, what's the difference? And what I can already see is that AI is not gonna replace anyone, but you will be replaced by [00:07:00] someone who very well knows how to use AI. [00:07:02] Larissa Murmann: So we mapped out, for example,

for a marketeer, what are the other tools that, for example, can augment their job? What can even differentiate what they're doing today? [00:07:10] Doing things completely different. So for me, the big challenge this year is how do I get my employees really intrigued about it? [00:07:15] Larissa Murmann: Really excited about it, rather than, oh, anxious, what is this? I [00:07:20] shouldn't touch it. This is gonna take my job. I think this is something we need to take out of our minds and get excited about the topic and see, wow, what can I do now with these type of AI [00:07:30] tools? Get them relatively fast upskilled and adapt to what I would call a future fit employee. [00:07:35] Larissa Murmann: So I had, for example, two days ago an interview. The candidate said to me, Hey, can I use [00:07:40] my phone during the interview? I said, yeah, but for what? No, I wanna use an AI to reply to your questions. And I was first thinking, that's a bit weird because I should [00:07:50] test you and not the AI. So I said, no, why? Okay, sure use it, right? [00:07:54] Larissa Murmann: Because I was like, okay, let's see what comes out. Interestingly, it was the person who gave me the best answers because [00:08:00] he then used multiple AI tools. So I asked him at the end, what did you use? And I think for me, the key insight is we now will hire people who know best how to use these type of [00:08:10] tools rather than people who know everything. [00:08:12] Larissa Murmann: Because an AI will always know more, potentially than you, right? You then need to verify the information, but I truly believe we now need [00:08:20] to look for people who have these type of prompting skills, for example. Or what kind of tool should I actually use to enhance my job and be faster, more efficient, [00:08:30] more creative, potentially or have very differentiated capabilities. [00:08:34] Dorothy Yiu: That's super interesting. Instead of ruling him out that, oh, why are you using AI to answer interview [00:08:40] question, that became actually a plus point for him. And I wanna go back to something you said earlier, just now you mentioned that even changing your job title to put a digital in front, it's [00:08:50] about linking that identity to where you want the change to be. [00:08:54] Dorothy Yiu: Is there any other key ingredients in your role you think it's actually very important in the whole change management [00:09:00] process? Because everything that you're talking about sounds very fast paced and it also requires a shift in mindset. So tell us more about how you manage that change. [00:09:08] Larissa Murmann: Interestingly, [00:09:10] what differentiates them the most from Unilever is that they have an unbeatable growth mindset. Any challenge for them is actually an opportunity. But what I saw actually in the area where it's now most [00:09:20] relevant, like digital, somehow not. So most people will say, no, I do sales, I do marketing, I

do legal, I do finance. [00:09:28] Larissa Murmann: And then there's this department, [00:09:30] which is called CTO, the Chief Technology Officer Department. They do digital. I do my thing and it was costing me a long time to say. No. That's not anymore how it is. All of [00:09:40] us will need to do digital. So I had to implement actually a change strategy, which starts on the top with the top 50 leader. [00:09:47] Larissa Murmann: But also then I saw that the [00:09:50] employees below this top 50 leaders are actually much more hungry to learn the skills or they're already using them. So I went to a room and I showed them like an AI clone. So I had one sales manager [00:10:00] interacting with a clone to actually brainstorm on a marketing strategy for Vaseline. [00:10:04] Larissa Murmann: It's a super funny video, how the clone gives him ideas and so on. Then afterwards I said to [00:10:10] employees what do you think? Do you like this? They said, I love it. I just want to have the tool. When can I start? And I said, what AI tools are you already using? They gave me already 15 tools. And when I would ask their [00:10:20] leader, you would get answers like, my secretary is now located in India and I don't know how anymore to do my expenses. [00:10:27] Larissa Murmann: I said, what do you mean? Normally I have my [00:10:30] expense receipts in paper and I hand it over to my assistant. I said, okay. So now what's the problem? No, I have to mail it. I said, why do you mail it? There's something called WhatsApp. [00:10:40] You can send it my picture or even upload it directly to the tool. [00:10:42] Larissa Murmann: But there you can see there's an employee which uses already 15 to 20 AI tools. There's a leader who [00:10:50] still thinks in handing over receipts and papers. So the gap between the two employees you have, and I'm not saying it's always leader and employee can be generational. But I have seen, [00:11:00] for example, some more senior generation, much more fit on tools, than gen Z. [00:11:04] Larissa Murmann: So it's also not constantly with that, but I think you will have people at different stages [00:11:10] in the organization and you need to move all of them along and get all of them excited. So I started now an upskilling program for, actually, first I said let's upskill the top 50. We [00:11:20] give all of them AI certifications, SMU, NTU, NUS, MIT, all of these beautiful universities. [00:11:28] Larissa Murmann: We make it sound really good. [00:11:30] And they take a six weeks certification, for example. Out of the 50. 7 applied.. I'm one of them. So six, right? The others didn't apply. Including the CEO. So [00:11:40] yesterday I said to him, look, you're gonna get an award now for being a digital dinosaur because you're not taking the certification. [00:11:46] Larissa Murmann: He said, why do I have to take the cert? And I said, no, if you don't lead it, [00:11:50] the rest of your 50 people is not

gonna follow. So now I made a deal with him. He said, your business acumen is not good. I said, okay, deal. You get up upskilled on AI. I do the business acumen thing. So [00:12:00] we made that deal. [00:12:01] Larissa Murmann: Then now I said, let's democratize this certification. Everyone in UI can take one, and the cost is around two to $3,000 per person, so it's not [00:12:10] cheap. And I have 500 people, so I now opened it up to everyone. I need to think how I will do this. The Singaporean government, as always very advanced, they support many of these things, right? [00:12:19] Larissa Murmann: [00:12:20] But now I can see. Aha. Now the people who are actually change champions are crystallizing out because they raised their hand and said, I wanna do the certification. I have the passion for it. Then [00:12:30] now we created something called a digital fun ademy. So it's a fun academy. So I said to my team, the digital academy needs to be as fun as going to the Marquee Club on the weekend.[00:12:40] [00:12:40] Larissa Murmann: This is my benchmark, because many of them love going. I have lots of young generation. They love to go to this club. So I said, okay, let's make this a very fun launch. So we had a company [00:12:50] called Fuzzy, they are very famous right now in Singapore. Asked them, can you please create a super fun launch in the Singapore office with an AI photo booth where people can take [00:13:00] pictures of themselves and can completely change how they look and interact with the technology, but in a positive and fun way. And the learning content is actually now created by [00:13:10] one of our interns. So I hired some digital interns, which are in the twenties. So lots of people said. What can an intern do in transformation? Interestingly this is [00:13:20] something I stole from when I was in Latin America. I did apply that already five years ago, so I said, let's do again. So we hired these interns and they created actually the [00:13:30] learning videos with an AI tool. So two days ago I videotaped myself with that intern and he created out of my video, this was like a five minutes [00:13:40] video of where I had to read a text and I had to make different face expressions on, created a clone of me. [00:13:46] Larissa Murmann: Then I just had to send him the script of the video and in 30 seconds [00:13:50] the clone was doing the script. And I sent it to my mother and I said, look, can you look at this? How do you think this video of me looks like? And she came back and she said, it looks great, and so on. I said to her, you [00:14:00] realize it's not me? [00:14:01] Larissa Murmann: You realize it's a clone? And she was like, no. It looks exactly like you. The tone of voice is like you. She said, no, it can't be. This is you. [00:14:10] I said, okay, let me send you another video. I sent her the video in Korean because the clone can speak 30 languages. So now finally I can speak Korean, right? I never was

able to pronounce [00:14:20] the names of my employees in Korea. [00:14:21] Larissa Murmann: I was always like, oh my God, this is so embarrassing. Why can I not pronounce? The clone now can do it. She's perfectly Korean, so it is fascinating what you can [00:14:30] do. So my change management is not, so some people say you must have a very structured playbook and you need to follow step 1, 2, 3. [00:14:38] Larissa Murmann: I think in this journey [00:14:40] you need to learn on the way and you need to find out what is working and you need to be constantly attentive. Who is buying into it? Who is moving forward? Who are your first buyers [00:14:50] of the thing and who is the middle crowd basically? And how do you intrigue people to come along? [00:14:54] Larissa Murmann: So of course I have certain change management techniques, which I use. But in that [00:15:00] transformation right now, I actually followed much more my instinct. And especially, like the digital interns, people said, this is not gonna work. I said, okay, this is what we are gonna try, because [00:15:10] where my leader says this won't work, let's see what actually happens if I bring them. And so then the CTO actually came to me a week ago and he said, Lari, I must apologize. I told you [00:15:20] that the digital intern is not a good idea. But now I met him. It was a really good idea. I was like, okay, good working. But if it wouldn't have worked, we would've changed the strategy. [00:15:28] Dorothy Yiu: Listening to you, I'm [00:15:30] already feeling very excited about the possibilities of AI and how it can augment our productivity and the work that we can create. Even for EngageRocket, we found in our HR Outlook report this [00:15:40] year is that something that you also mentioned, there's a gap, where employees are already adopting different types of AI to increase their productivity at a daily basis, on the ground level. [00:15:50] There's a gap towards organizations adopting AI at a strategic level or at an organizational wide level. And some of the hesitation that has been cited [00:16:00] will be things like ethical concerns, lack of proven use cases, unsure about ROI. Because there's lack of use cases, so we don't know what the ROI is. [00:16:10] How do you overcome this? Do you even see this hesitation within UI and how do you overcome it? [00:16:16] Larissa Murmann: I think also one of the big concerns is security. Because once you [00:16:20] interact with an AI, you don't know where to store the information, what happens to it. [00:16:24] Larissa Murmann: So I think what we found is that in the beginning when Unilever rolling this out, they gave [00:16:30] copilot licenses very restrictively. It's test with a hundred people in whole of Unilever, a hundred people. So then in UI, I'm now finally, I think I have now a [00:16:40] hundred people out of the 550 advanced license. The general license everyone has. [00:16:44] Larissa Murmann: Now I'm fighting for everyone getting the advanced one. It's not expensive. Cost you 300 euros per year, per [00:16:50] person, for example. So the investment is actually low. But I said, look, now we need to ensure that people who actually have it use it. Because not everyone who has access to it uses it. Or some of my employees [00:17:00] said, yeah, but chatGPT is much better. [00:17:01] Larissa Murmann: It's faster, it has better solutions. So they went to use it. And Unilever would say, no, this is not a tool you can use. So, on your computer will pop up a window and will say, this is [00:17:10] not a Unilever AI approved tool, you can't use it. What does the employee do? They do it on their phone. And if they can't do it on their work phone, they're gonna do it on their private phone and they will feed it with the information. [00:17:19] Larissa Murmann: So I said to [00:17:20] my CTO, look, I don't think this is something you can stop. People will use the technology they want to use, but we need to start educating them. How do you use it [00:17:30] responsibly? How do you ensure that we are not all of a sudden have a huge issue because we are gonna give confidential information that goes to a competitor, right? So we need to upskill our people fast [00:17:40] because they already use the tools. It's not something you can control because people. At least this generation, for example, one of the interns I hired, he used some data and he [00:17:50] put it into Python and he coded something and we were like, oh no, no, no. So we educated and then actually was again, back in control. But I think when you hesitate there as a [00:18:00] company, you're gonna lose it because I personally feel I'm 12 months late. 12 months ago, I still remember we had the Change Leaders conference where everyone came together and I said to the CTO, I [00:18:10] think we should do something on AI. [00:18:12] Larissa Murmann: Even he said back then, Lari, I don't know this tool and is it for everyone? Or is it only for specific people and so on. So we didn't do [00:18:20] it. Now when I saw it, I was like, damnit, I should have done it 12 months ago. Getting into it because I feel I'm already late because now there's so many companies already going getting on it. [00:18:29] Larissa Murmann: And I think it [00:18:30] will be a key differentiation factor versus your competition because you can do things much more productive. So I still see certain people today doing minutes. I said, why do you do the [00:18:40] minutes? Just use copilot. You don't need to do it. No, but my leader prefers if. So you need to overcome that. Then ethically, I think when we now go into recruitment, for [00:18:50] example, I can see companies who have fully automated the whole thing. So the AI is not only doing the screening of the CVs, but also does the interviews. Then says to you, you should see [00:19:00] these five people, so it deselects all the others. [00:19:02] Larissa

Murmann: And of course, that is an important area to learn. So in my MIT certification, there's something on how to use an AI [00:19:10] ethically because of course an AI is created by a human being. If the human being has biases, as we all do, the AI tool which selects your people will have a bias. So that is very [00:19:20] dangerous. [00:19:20] Larissa Murmann: But on the other side, when you interview people. You also have a bias. So eliminating that is difficult. But for example, I'm now creating a 360 tool with AI, which [00:19:30] will try to eliminate the bias. So I found out, for example, people feeling the 360 more friendly or more positively because in their culture you wouldn't [00:19:40] give a leader such harsh feedback. [00:19:42] Larissa Murmann: Now when we read the 360, we would celebrate that leader and would say, wow, great results. When you ask the team, they said actually it's not [00:19:50] like this, but now we already celebrated the person. So I'm hoping that with that AI technology, it, for example, will tell you, are your results viable or not? [00:19:58] Larissa Murmann: So I filled it for [00:20:00] myself. So you do a self-assessment. So I filled it in a way as I sought HR would like to hear. So what are the answers and HR person likes to hear, given I'm also my HR, I know it. [00:20:10] Build it. Middle of the tool. The tool said. Sorry. We can see you're filling the the questions in a way as it's socially acceptable, but we need you to fill [00:20:20] it honestly. [00:20:20] Larissa Murmann: Please go back to question 10 and start again. I was like, oh shit. How did it discover this? But it seems to be it's measuring time, how you hesitate, your face experience, whatever, [00:20:30] something. So I had to go back and so the first parts of the test it said it's not viable. The results, you have to redo them to make them viable. [00:20:37] Larissa Murmann: So it's okay, this is great because it actually [00:20:40] helps you to, in my case, it augments my capabilities as HR. [00:20:44] Dorothy Yiu: Amazing. There's something else that you also talked about just now, multi-generational workforce. [00:20:50] What are some of the biggest myths or truths about it, and how have you been managing or bridging the gap between the multi-generations? [00:20:56] Larissa Murmann: So I think multi-generation and seeing older [00:21:00] generations because they're more senior and they learn their knowledge in the past and hence they're not as fit as young generations or the other way around, I think is a bias. So I see [00:21:10] people who like bosses, I had been working before, they are now in their sixties. [00:21:14] Larissa Murmann: And they're super fit, and the things they do are more disruptive than some of my younger HR [00:21:20] colleagues are doing, for example. So it's all about the mindset you apply to the thing. Now, I also, for example, my mother recently said, look, Lari, I think I'm not gonna make it the next 10 [00:21:30] years. And she's in her sixties, she's super healthy. [00:21:32] Larissa Murmann: So I said, oh really? Why is that? No, I think it's just coming to the end and so on. I said, can you please stop that mindset? Let's just say [00:21:40] cancel, cancel, okay? Because I would like to spend more time with you, but she's in that mindset, so most likely it'll become true. So I believe when you switch your mindset, you can [00:21:50] achieve many things. [00:21:51] Larissa Murmann: So last year, for example, I had someone on my team, she said, look. I wanna create my own company. And I said, so what's the company? It is about bringing [00:22:00] Singaporeans who have retired back into the workforce. I said, oh, interesting. Okay. Why? Why would you do that? Don't they want to retire? I want to retire tomorrow and then not return to the corporate. [00:22:09] Larissa Murmann: So she said, no. [00:22:10] There's many of them who want to continue working because they're still very fit. So there's more and more generations now who are at a later age actually still very productive. [00:22:20] They have lots of knowledge they want to share or they simply need the financial means, because Singapore is very expensive to live. [00:22:26] Larissa Murmann: So she said, but these people will not be hired by companies because [00:22:30] there's a bias of ageism. Basically, you wouldn't hire someone because the person is in their sixties and basically life is over for them. So she said she wants to help them to be [00:22:40] super technology fit and also write their CVs and so on. [00:22:43] Larissa Murmann: I said, look, this is an amazing idea. She created a company called the Courage Chapter, and we actually tested [00:22:50] the program. So I said to her, look, I will need three profiles of someone who can be a coach. So ideally as a person who has worked in corporate, who knows how sales, [00:23:00] marketing, the pressure you have as a leader, but now is upskilled as a coach. [00:23:04] Larissa Murmann: And I use that because many Asian leaders have high respect towards the elderly. So [00:23:10] what I found out when the coaches came in, they didn't say so many different things than I would recommend to the leader, but because it was them saying it with their level of experience with their [00:23:20] seniority. All of a sudden it was true. [00:23:23] Larissa Murmann: All of a sudden the leader said, oh yeah, let me try that. So it was much easier to do the change. So I have some leaders which completely [00:23:30] transformed themselves from a very difficult, toxic, very harsh leadership style to a very empathetic, [00:23:40] corporative, engaging, motivating style for the employees. Because the person was a high performer before but on the how there was always a question mark and now I have a high performer, and the how is [00:23:50] also outstanding. That was possible because of that coach who came in

as we called it a retern. So you most likely know the movie, the intern with Robert De Niro. We did the same [00:24:00] program and then we just called it Retern. [00:24:02] Larissa Murmann: So they're coming in and they work two, three days per week whenever they want. They come through the office or they work online. And they actually [00:24:10] coach our leadership team. So we call it like a high performance coaching. Like a coach would coach a football team. So this idea that you as a coach would come in and you coach someone virtually or even [00:24:20] face-to-face, but just the leader, but you never see how the leader interacts with their people. [00:24:23] Larissa Murmann: Yeah. So there's this strange idea that the coach is also not sitting in the locker room, and then waits for the captain to come back and say, Hey, [00:24:30] how did the players play and what happened? It's, no. The coaches with them on the field and is observing how the whole team is working together, how people play together. [00:24:37] Larissa Murmann: Right. But in business somehow, we [00:24:40] don't have this idea. We just coach leaders, but we don't observe them how they actually interact with the team and how does this all together play? So we created this concept of the high [00:24:50] performance coaches where we said we are gonna coach teams towards high performance. [00:24:54] Larissa Murmann: And the coach, yes, is mainly for the top leader, but also we look at the other team members. We'll say, Hey, in meetings, this is what you're [00:25:00] actually doing. So I observe this because you as a leader have many blind spots. It's very difficult for you as a leader to see what you're actually doing, and your team, especially in an Asian context, will never tell you [00:25:10] that's not normal that someone would come. [00:25:12] Larissa Murmann: I mean, even in my team, I tried. I said, look, whenever I do something that's not good or strange, or actually [00:25:20] is not helping you, please come and tell me so I can adjust it. Maybe I have two occasions per year where someone comes and it's always the same person. So you need that coach actually observing you.[00:25:30] [00:25:30] Larissa Murmann: So we found that these reternships were really helpful with that because they would come in, they would observe, and they would also understand. Ah, when I was a sales leader and I had this pressure [00:25:40] and results were not coming, I maybe also had this level of frustration. So you can empathize with a leader who all of a sudden maybe shouts at their people, and say, [00:25:50] why is that actually happening? And how do we do this a little bit better next time so it doesn't demoralize everyone, but you can empathize actually with that person. Instead of saying, my God, as an [00:26:00] HR person, we will always say, what a horrible leader. How can they do that? How can you shout at people? [00:26:05] Larissa Murmann: But it's because

in least me, I have never worked in sales. I don't know how it is when the pressure [00:26:10] comes. So that's why I also felt getting these coaches is actually a huge advantage for me in HR because they come with a completely different background and they're very neutral. They have nothing to do [00:26:20] with the evaluation of the leaders. [00:26:21] Larissa Murmann: So we in HR, like once the HR lady comes, people will say, Ooh means I have done something wrong. Or when I'm now behaving like [00:26:30] this, she will put that in her mind and when I come up for next promotion, this will be a disadvantage. So people will automatically be less open or more reserved versus the coaches, [00:26:40] it's completely neutral, so it also gives you that kind of safe space. [00:26:43] Dorothy Yiu: It reminds me of something you've once written on LinkedIn that high performance doesn't come at the expense of [00:26:50] high care, it comes hand in hand. I would love to learn more from you. How do you operationalize this mindset, because a lot of times I think as leaders we need to normalize, even to [00:27:00] your point, about give me feedback if I'm not doing well. We need to normalize that kind of behavior. So how do you operationalize this where high performance, but then also high care? [00:27:08] Larissa Murmann: So when I came to this [00:27:10] job, they actually sent me for a reason. [00:27:11] Larissa Murmann: I have an somehow a reputation of being a little bit of a spiky HR person. So I have no fear of hierarchy. I will disrupt [00:27:20] things, I will tell people directly, but they also sent me to places where other people have given up, where it was really difficult and other said it's not gonna work. So UI actually, when I came here, [00:27:30] was a function which had very low engagement rates on the, we have a yearly, what we call uni voice, where we measure actually how happy our employees in the company. From a [00:27:40] culture perspective, the values were really low. Lots of people said to me, don't go there. It's a very toxic leadership environment. [00:27:46] Larissa Murmann: They are only focused on results. They don't care about the human being. [00:27:50] They had high attrition rates. I think I had attrition rates in the twenties. So the CHRO back then, Nitin told me. Look, I want you to go there and I need you to find out why [00:28:00] are they performing so well? Almost better than Unilever, but the culture is actually very toxic. [00:28:05] Larissa Murmann: How does this work together? How do they do that performance and then people are constantly [00:28:10] leaving? So when I came, I interviewed actually around 150 people out of the 500, and I asked them, please describe to me. Three words, what is UI [00:28:20] for you? And it came out this very interesting chart of all of us had at some point this toxic boyfriend, which is a really look good looking guy, right? And you somehow are very attached [00:28:30] to him, but you also know he's really bad to you because he constantly goes out with someone else or makes you feel bad or whatever, but you somehow can't leave him. The same happened here because [00:28:40] I said to the employees, okay, some of you have left, but majority of you are staying. [00:28:43] Larissa Murmann: But you don't like it because there was not one good comment about one good leader, I said, there must be one good leader. They couldn't find one, so it was very [00:28:50] interesting. So I went actually back to the leadership team and said, look, this is what your employees are saying about you. And I saw it in that meeting. [00:28:57] Larissa Murmann: Either today I'm gonna be fired because the leadership [00:29:00] team will say, who is this person? She's four weeks in the role. She brings this report of telling all of us that we actually suck at leading people. So either this is gonna happen or we are gonna [00:29:10] come out as a leadership team much stronger and with a much clearer vision of what high performance would mean. [00:29:14] Larissa Murmann: We are gonna prove that you can care for people and at the same time you can have high performance. [00:29:20] So it doesn't mean that you could need to lower your standards. So some of my leaders said, so do we have to now lower our standards and be really nice to people? I said, no. This is caring for people, doesn't mean that you [00:29:30] have to be very nice to them, but you need to look into, is this actually tough performance management or is it already going into a toxic area? And you also need to [00:29:40] realize certain behaviors if you become too frontal with an employee or you embarrass them in front of others, depending on the culture. [00:29:46] Larissa Murmann: In German culture, we are very relaxed [00:29:50] towards many things. Or Argentinians, for example, but in Asian culture, the person might not say anything, but it's gonna hurt them. And then for the next three days, they actually have low performance because they're all the [00:30:00] time thinking about that. [00:30:00] Larissa Murmann: Or they feel very insecure all of a sudden, so you're gonna make more mistakes. So it's actually not raising performance, but it's lowering performance, making people feel that way. So you [00:30:10] gain in that moment as a leader because you can let off your frustration and it feels good. And for me, to me happened many times, because when you're not having a good day, you haven't slept well and then something happens at work and then [00:30:20] you just blast it out. You're like, ah, great, now I could release it. So it gives you a short-term gain, but the long-term, like the bridges you burned on that day, you need to work really [00:30:30] hard to rebuild that. [00:30:31] Larissa Murmann: So your performance actually in a team lowers. So when we did that high performance coaching, actually when I talked with the coaches, I said,

let's build methodologies for the leaders [00:30:40] where they can manage, self-manage better, because all of us have bad days if it happens, because from time to time it happens, you will shout at someone. So what do you do afterwards? How do you go [00:30:50] to that employee and actually find ways of apologizing and repairing that relationship? How can you actually show up most of the time in your best version because you know [00:31:00] that then will drive performance. So we can actually see that over the last 24 months, me and Aseem have been in that role. [00:31:06] Larissa Murmann: Performance has gone up. And we have implemented a lot of things. We have even [00:31:10] fired some of the top performance, but which we're not good on leadership. So we gave them six months, we gave them a 360. We gave them feedback, we gave them a coach. All of the help in the world. [00:31:20] At some point I said, look, I don't see anything changing here because it is not the leader cannot. Most leaders can. [00:31:27] Larissa Murmann: The thing is about, are you willing to [00:31:30] reflect? Are you willing to look at yourself? Because that's sometimes very painful. You need to look back on where's this behavior actually coming from? I can see lots of my leadership behaviors, which are not so good [00:31:40] are coming from my upbringing on how I have been raised. [00:31:43] Larissa Murmann: So if I wanna change that, I actually have to go back to a place where many people don't want to go. You don't want to go to your [00:31:50] childhood and look into how have your parents raised you and so on. But your parent is your first leader in life, so you pick up many things from there. So people [00:32:00] would always describe me as someone who is not very empathetic, not very warm. [00:32:04] Larissa Murmann: When I looked back. My relationship with my mother, as much as I love her, it is not very [00:32:10] empathetic, not very warm. We hug, for example, very little. It's not something we do in my household, so I picked that up. And for me, for example, I don't want to hug people at work. I don't want to even go into the [00:32:20] office and greet everyone. [00:32:20] Larissa Murmann: It's not in my nature, but I learned over time. My team needs that. My team needs me to be around as a leader. My team needs me to look a little bit friendlier when I come in the morning. [00:32:30] But I'm from my language, I don't need it. You need to discover this for you as a leader, you need to have that self-reflection. [00:32:35] Larissa Murmann: Say, why am I actually doing that? And is it helpful towards [00:32:40] what I want to achieve with that team? Or is that actually an amend I can do? In the beginning, it will feel a bit inauthentic. So when I went in the beginning and I was more friendly and I [00:32:50] greeted people, or now I would hug people. [00:32:52] Larissa Murmann: In the beginning it felt a bit like awkward. Ugh, I'm like in a

work environment and I don't want to actually do this. But then over time you train yourself. And at some [00:33:00] point it happened to me that I actually had a really bad experience with a leader, and then I saw it as an employee actually, now it would be nice to have a leader, which would be a bit more warm and empathetic. [00:33:10] So the moment you experience yourself, you also get more empathetic towards others, or you put yourself into the shoes. So we try to do a lot of these interventions with the leaders [00:33:20] around self-reflection, using a 360, getting very comfortable with feedback that might be not so good. [00:33:25] Larissa Murmann: So for example, the CEO would send his feedback to everyone in the company. He normally [00:33:30] gets feedback from, I don't know, two, 300 people with comments. Good comments, not so good comments. He would send it to everyone, so his leadership team feels, actually, it's okay. All of us will have [00:33:40] development areas because we are humans. [00:33:41] Larissa Murmann: It's impossible you will not find one perfect leader. Doesn't exist, right? So we did a lot of work around that to establish with people, you [00:33:50] can care for your people and at the same time, you can have very high expectations and you can achieve high performance and most likely the high care will lead to high performance because people will be much [00:34:00] more connected. [00:34:01] Larissa Murmann: They want to be there. They want to contribute. They want to work for people they actually feel emotionally connected to. [00:34:07] Dorothy Yiu: It's almost creating this whole [00:34:10] environment of psychological safety to build authentic relationship and starting from the top. Modeling it and also normalizing it, that yes, I'll have bad days, [00:34:20] but then as long as I reflect and I show up as my true self, you will appreciate that more than, you can't really guess what I'm thinking all the time. And this topic of psychological safety leads me [00:34:30] to my next question. What is your vision of the ideal workplace of the future? [00:34:35] Larissa Murmann: I went to a very interesting workshop in the Netherlands, actually of Mindvalley. It's a very [00:34:40] good self-development app, so I'm very addicted to it. So most people say she must be working for that company because she's promoting it so much. But I really like the application because it helps [00:34:50] you in a lot of self-development and they have a very interesting company culture. [00:34:54] Larissa Murmann: So they told in that workshop that they actually analyze for themselves what's the employee of the future. What is this person [00:35:00] like and what they would like to do? Because in the end, as a company, if you can't attract employees because you somehow are stuck in the past, you will not have the best talent. [00:35:09] Larissa Murmann: So they [00:35:10] talked about that most likely the employee of

the future will use a lot of AI tools in order to work less hours. They might not work anymore five hours per week. Maybe they will work four [00:35:20] days per week or three days per week, right? So they will work less hours because they're gonna be more productive, more digitally savvy. [00:35:27] Larissa Murmann: They most likely do not want you [00:35:30] to force them to be in a certain location. They wanna be in multiple location, different locations. And be remote and sometimes in an office and sometimes connect. [00:35:40] And they make that decision themselves on what's best for the job. And they might not want to be fixed into a certain career or task for the rest of their lives. [00:35:48] Larissa Murmann: So they wanna be [00:35:50] volatile across and depending on what's happening, upskilled themselves, reskilled themselves. So they implemented that. Yes. Everyone in the company is upskilled on AI. They all have an AI mastery [00:36:00] certification and they allow their employees to work from wherever they want to work in the world. [00:36:05] Larissa Murmann: You will have a local work contract, obviously, but if that person will work a hundred percent from home, [00:36:10] that's okay from them. If the person comes from time to time in the office, it also works. And they do not fix them to a certain task. So they allow people to move across functions and so on. So [00:36:20] for me personally, that would be the perfect model. [00:36:22] Larissa Murmann: I will not go back ever to a company which says, no, you must be in the office from Monday to Friday. This is not how I'm living my life, [00:36:30] and I don't see that I'm most productive in that way. Most of the time when I go to the office, I'm actually not so productive because lots of people come to me and want something. [00:36:37] Larissa Murmann: So I will do this two, three days per week, [00:36:40] and the other days I'm gonna work from home. And I do the same with my team. My team knows when they have to be in the office and when not, so I don't need to monitor that as a line manager. Now, recently I [00:36:50] just discovered I really like all of this around transformation, AI and so on. [00:36:53] Larissa Murmann: So yesterday I actually said to a team, look, I think a lot of my work will be done by AI in the future. Lots of the [00:37:00] things in HR. We'll be able that we can automate it. I can already see this clone, which I created of myself. She can do many things. I was like, wow. She could go to really difficult meetings for me. [00:37:09] Larissa Murmann: She [00:37:10] just listens in and gives me a summary so I don't have to go. So that would be fantastic. But then of course on the other side is then what are you gonna do? So I said to him, I actually would love to [00:37:20] develop myself into a chief transformation officer, or data and analytics or AI, something normally HR wouldn't do. [00:37:27] Larissa Murmann: I also know that the skills I have today, most likely will be [00:37:30] irrelevant by 2030. So you need to move into that area and it's a passion I have. People would say no, you have worked 15 years in HR. So you are predestined to do a [00:37:40] CHRO role and you should stay in HR and that's a safe space and so on. [00:37:45] Larissa Murmann: I feel like, yeah, but I don't think I wanna work the rest of my life in HR. For me, the [00:37:50] future of work is actually a workplace where you allow people to be and to be free. And with this one, actually, you get out the best version of them. [00:37:57] Dorothy Yiu: Very interesting. Which leads me to the rapid fire [00:38:00] question. [00:38:00] Dorothy Yiu: I'm gonna start with what's one mindset you have learned that helps you champion disruption? Because obviously you're someone that loves changing, transforming for the better. [00:38:09] Larissa Murmann: [00:38:10] For me is growth mindset. This is the most important thing you need to have in life because it'll help you in many situations. Shit happens in life. [00:38:17] Larissa Murmann: This is a constant, so life will not always go [00:38:20] linear. There will be difficult phases in your life, but it's all about the mindset. You apply to it, you can see it as a disaster, or you are actually [00:38:30] surrendering or destroyed, or you can see it as an opportunity to learn. So my mother actually put that into my heart very clearly and I'm super thankful to her for [00:38:40] that. [00:38:40] Larissa Murmann: So she told me one time I came back from an interview. I was still very young. I was just applying for my first job. I think I had done, written a hundred applications and I went to [00:38:50] 30 different places and everyone rejected me. So I came home and I was just crying because I was like, it was another rejection. [00:38:56] Larissa Murmann: I was so frustrated. So she said to me, look, in life, it's not [00:39:00] important how many times you fall. You need to focus on how many times you're gonna stand back up. This is what's gonna differentiate you from the rest. So she installed that in my mind, and [00:39:10] that has helped me in so many situations in my life. [00:39:12] Larissa Murmann: So you come to change management, you will fail. There will be people who will say, let's not do it. This is not gonna work. It's impossible. [00:39:20] If you let them keep you down and you're not gonna try again, the change dies there because it's your idea. And if you don't have clear on how to maneuver the scene [00:39:30] and maybe how to influence and convince them, you will let them say to you it won't work. [00:39:34] Larissa Murmann: And in the moment you get into the mindset they are right it won't work. It won't work, obviously. There will be many [00:39:40] situations in life where you're gonna lose a partner. You have a death in your family. You're gonna lose your job. These are situations where society will

tell you well, that's bad. [00:39:48] Larissa Murmann: You should be sad [00:39:50] about it. It's actually, you need months and months to recover from it. But when you look at science and neurology, you will find out it's actually not, there's lots [00:40:00] of people who can recover from these things much faster depending on how they rewire their brain in that moment. So I'm a big believer of, for example, Silva [00:40:10] methodology where you actually rewire your brain, how you're thinking about certain things, how you go into a meeting, how you go into a situation where your own energy you [00:40:20] bring to it can change everything. So when I started in UI day, in the beginning, the CEO said, Hey, it would be fantastic if we would have a model where our people could work from anywhere in the world. And in my mind [00:40:30] was like, oh my God, this will be never possible. There's 10 policies in Unilever which don't allow this. [00:40:35] Larissa Murmann: The tax team will say no, we can't do this, and so on. But because Aseem is this, he's like a [00:40:40] dreamer and is beautiful to work with him, sometimes it's a little bit challenging because he has many ideas. He always has idea where you're like re-asking yourself, is it [00:40:50] really not possible or is it just because I'm thinking it? [00:40:52] Larissa Murmann: So I then went and I investigated and I found that in the policy there was actually an option to do it for four weeks. So I said to him, look, we could do it, but four [00:41:00] weeks, he said, great, let's start with four weeks. It's a start, right? And maybe we can extend. So we implemented this policy of working from anywhere in the world for four weeks. [00:41:08] Larissa Murmann: You wanna work from the beaches of [00:41:10] Bali. That's up to you. As long as you deliver. Your delivery needs to be there. But you can do it. I don't need to force you into this. And with these many ideas got [00:41:20] born because you don't limit yourself anymore by what's possible today. You're thinking what actually could be possible in the future if you change your mindset towards it. [00:41:29] Dorothy Yiu: [00:41:30] Love it. And then, we talked a lot about AI. I must ask, what's one AI tool you recommend? [00:41:35] Larissa Murmann: So there's a lot of fun tools. I'm actually an opera singer, so [00:41:40] I love singing. So I discovered now a tool. It's not a work tool, although you can use it for certain work if you need a commercial jingle in marketing, for example, you can use it. [00:41:49] Larissa Murmann: Or yesterday I [00:41:50] had one of my colleagues, he celebrated his birthday and on the same day, he signed a very important deal so I created actually a customized song for him. So there's a tool called [00:42:00] Suno, where you can record your voice and you can be a fantastic singer or you can just hum a tune and then you can tell it, please use that and [00:42:10] create a song about whatever you want. So yesterday I said, please, Nitin has his birthday and he signed this important deal and the year will be around this and this. So the AI creates [00:42:20] the lyrics. Very nice rhymes. You can amend it if you want. And then you press a button and you tell it, please make it a pop song. [00:42:27] Larissa Murmann: Please make it a hard rock song. Whatever kind of hip hop, [00:42:30] whatever style you want. Within, I think a minute, it creates a song out of it, and it'll have the customized lyrics. It'll actually sing to the person. So it had a [00:42:40] beautiful birthday song for Nitin, which was customized in one minute. It'll not sound exactly the same. It'll use parts of my voice and it'll use the melody, which I put there. [00:42:50] So for me is a fascinating tool. And there's many others out there. Or there's another one which is called Momo. Is about, you can very quickly create professional pictures of yourself. So [00:43:00] recently I needed a picture for a cover shoot. [00:43:02] Larissa Murmann: So I didn't have time to go now and take a cover shoot and so on. So you upload, I think, five selfies of yourself. They don't even need to look good. You can take [00:43:10] a selfie of yourself in the morning when you just wake up from different angles. It created pictures of me, which it looks like me. And so I would send it to a couple of people and say, Hey, you [00:43:20] realize um, that this is kind of artificial? [00:43:22] Larissa Murmann: No, but it was really nicely done. So you can do very quickly LinkedIn pictures, you can do your wedding pictures if you want. They also come out there, [00:43:30] any type of thing you wanna do. And very quick. So I think there's lots of tools. Which can be fun, but also help you to facilitate certain things. [00:43:39] Dorothy Yiu: My [00:43:40] gosh, think about all the jobs it can actually replace can. Even replace a singer songwriter. [00:43:45] Dorothy Yiu: Can you imagine? [00:43:46] Larissa Murmann: Yeah. So you have to say, the AI cannot cope yet with my [00:43:50] opera voice. So I, for example, I wanted it to really use my opera range and to integrate that, that one it can't do. So you will still hear that the song somehow sounds a little bit artificial. So [00:44:00] it's not a top end song. [00:44:02] Larissa Murmann: I have a LinkedIn podcast, which is the GoldCast where I interview people. So I wanted like a jingle for that and I wanted an introduction melody, [00:44:10] which normally would have taken me ages to find someone who can create it and design it and then put the musicians together and so on. [00:44:17] Larissa Murmann: So that one I was able relatively quick [00:44:20] to create there. Now will you create with that a masterpiece that people will enjoy in a concert hall? We are not there yet today, but who knows, right? AI is evolving and of course it's still much [00:44:30] nicer when you're there in person. [00:44:31]

Larissa Murmann: So my boss for example, over the last weeks, because I'm so enjoying AI, I sent him all kinds of things and I sent him my clone and all of this, and his reaction was [00:44:40] always like mm-hmm, okay. And I was like, what the hell? Why are you not excited, sending you all of this stuff, then yesterday he saw me face to face for drinks and he said, Lari. [00:44:47] Larissa Murmann: I'm so happy I'm meeting the real Lari [00:44:50] and not a clone. I missed you so much. So I think this human touch, AI cannot replace that. That connection we have or the human element you can give to something, [00:45:00] but in certain situation it can be super practical and you can fast and quick create something that's actually useful. [00:45:06] Dorothy Yiu: Coming to my last question. What is one thing you wish [00:45:10] employees knew or understood more about HR? [00:45:13] Larissa Murmann: I think HR for many years and still has been the kind of policeman of the company. We make the policies and then we [00:45:20] ensure that you follow the policies. And then best case we hire, worst case we fire you. [00:45:24] Larissa Murmann: So we are somehow having this type of image. People will be always like a little bit careful how [00:45:30] they interact with you. There's a little bit of a distance. So I think there's a job to do for HR, to change that image and actually get out of that corner and really think, how can I become a [00:45:40] growth driver and a transformation driver, and maybe as an experienced creator. Because let's be honest, employees spend a lot of their time with us. Most of their lifetime they spend actually with us. [00:45:50] So we should make this time worthwhile for them. But for employees, I think it's also, you can use HR in very different ways. So once you get out of your mind that this is a policeman. [00:45:59] Larissa Murmann: Maybe a [00:46:00] friendly policeman or can it be actually a doctor or whatever image you wanna put there. And a different identity, you can actually interact very differently with them and HR [00:46:10] can bring many things. So most of the time when I design my benefits, I actually ask my employees, what would you like if you are completely free, what benefit would you want? [00:46:20] Let's say I can't give you salary increases, which is often the case. Okay, what would add value? And so employees actually came up with most of the products I implemented. So for example, someone came and [00:46:30] said, look, I would love to have my own company next to working in UI, but it's not possible because I can either work here or there. [00:46:37] Larissa Murmann: And I said, okay, but why? What do you wanna do? You wanna do [00:46:40] shampoos or something competitive? No, nothing competitive. I said, okay, fine. So we found a way how to create a program. It's called UI Owners, which actually allows you to have your own company next [00:46:50] to working in UI. So I also founded my own company because that's something I always wanted to do, but I was always fearful of I leave my corporate job and then I start this, and this is a little bit scary. [00:46:59] Larissa Murmann: [00:47:00] Now I can do it in parallel and I can do both. But these ideas came from employees. Now I went and I asked them, but I think employees could easily come and say, Hey, look, I have actually a good [00:47:10] idea. Could we think about this? Could we brainstorm? So I think that's the relationship we need to start creating for the future. [00:47:16] Dorothy Yiu: It's been a absolute pleasure having this conversation with you. I'm so [00:47:20] excited about all the different topics that we spoke about and I can't wait for the listeners to listen to this. Thank you very much for your time, Larissa. [00:47:26] Larissa Murmann: Thank you so much for inviting me. It was a pleasure to speak to you. [00:47:29] Dorothy Yiu: [00:47:30] To our listeners, thank you for tuning in to our HR Impact Show. If you have enjoyed the conversation, please like and subscribe on YouTube, Apple, [00:47:40] Spotify, or any of your favorite podcasts. You can also subscribe to our community at engagerocket.co/hrimpact. I'll see you in the next [00:47:50] episode.