Crocs’ CPO: ‘To get business buy-in, HR needs to spend time on the front line’

The CPO of the almost $4 billion revenue shoe retail giant Crocs is clear: “It’s imperative for HR to have a seat at the table”, but not just to influence fellow C-suite leaders.

“I think a lot about the frontline,” Shannon Sisler tells UNLEASH.

“I spend a lot of time thinking about the products we create, how we go to market, what the marketing messages are, and how our employees are experiencing it on the front lines.

“And I think when you truly understand the business, which was important as I didn’t come from the industry I’m in today, you can be a much more meaningful business partner.”

I really would love to see HR people take that concept and implement it.”

Crocs’ CPO was one of a star line-up of HR leaders at UNLEASH America in Las Vegas this month.

In a sit-down interview away from the EXPO floor, Sisler shared the thought process behind her strategy as a people leader, and what learnings she wants to share with her CHRO/CPO peers.

Gen AI: Pick a place to start, and start now

The Editorial team has found that generative AI continues to dominate the HR tech discussion.

But how has the story moved along from the frenzied hype of last year?

For Sisler, now is the time to get stuck in, and start experimenting with enterprise use cases.

“We’re still pretty early on in our journey. But it’s important to get started now…and begin to report on that for the business.”

“My advice is you just have to pick a place to start with AI: There might not be a perfect place. I know for us, we started in the recruiting process, because we hire so many people across the world.

“We have people in almost 30 countries, and we’re thinking about the candidate experience and how we can optimize that using things like chat bots to really engage with our candidates: Even potentially, in their native languages in a way that feels familiar to them. Then we can also get some economies of scale using this technology.”

A mindset she uses when she is leading her team is ‘try, and try again’.

“I just want to encourage the team to keep trying, right? And we’re going to figure this out as we go. Just like all the tools that you use in your day-to-day life, we’re going to find that some of them work great. Some of them don’t. It’s going to be the same way in HR. And so I do think this is the year for making AI more tangible. And yet, we’re very early in the journey: It’s OK, just get started.

“I would be mindful that the younger, upcoming generation that we have in the workplace expect us to do this. I think we should feel pressure to meet their requirements.”

The Crocs business, has a headcount of almost 7,000, and is in the midst of integrating a 2021 acquisition of fellow US shoe brand HEYDUDE.

With a workforce shared across both so many US states, and so many countries, UNLEASH asked:

What should CPOs look for in HR tech vendors today?

In a nutshell: a long-term architecture, and an AI ethics framework, says Sisler.

“I’ve been at this for a long time now, and I’m trying to think about what is the macro, technological footprint that you need to put in place? I think back 20-plus years ago, when we had all these best of breed systems that we tried to put together and they were not connected. And then we spent years trying to connect them all, now we’re replacing them.

“I think about all the vendors that we have coming to us right now with artificial intelligence, and how that’s going to tie to our human capital systems. And I think we need to try to think about how do we begin with the end in mind?

“What is the architecture truly going to look like? And how are we going to incorporate these tools, so that we can have a good overall comprehensive employee experience, versus you’re talking to all different chat bots for every situation that you’re facing?”

However, she concedes that this is easier said than done – especially with the rapid pace of change in technology in the world of work today.

“Beginning with the end in mind, when you don’t even know what the tools are that you can use [in the future] is pretty hard.

“But I think really thinking about that experience that the workforce has, and that candidates have, is going to lead us to the right answer.”

Sisler pointed to having a smaller coterie of key vendors to share strategy aims with helps her to shape a longer-term view. She re-emphasized her interest in seeing ethical guidelines for AI implementation.

Her stance is echoed by an increasingly vocal set of HR Leaders who are seeking more clarity on AI guidelines.

In another content session at UNLEASH America, HPE’s VP, People Systems and Automation, Sadie Bell said if technology companies come to HR “and they’re not thinking about ethics and compliance, I’m telling you today, don’t bring them into your HR stack.”

“I’ve been very interested in SAP’s journey. I think they’ve really started from a principled place, and that they know they’re going to work with multiple partners to achieve some of these wider technology goals,” Sisler says.

“We are also a Microsoft shop, so we’re on Teams all day and night. And SAP are also partnering with Microsoft. We can then think about how is the experience you have in a Team’s platform potentially going to come together with the SAP SuccessFactors platform: How those come together is going to be pretty important.

“Those are those are just two vendors that I would say I’m definitely watching. They’re the big ones. I’m also looking at some smaller ones and how they might integrate in.”

HR: ‘Be globally consistent and locally relevant’

When it comes to wider business aims that she sees her department enabling, one of Sisler’s top priorities is talent acquisition and enablement.

Particularly because of the high growth trajectory of the Fortune 500 company.

“I started at the organization almost seven years ago, when we were about $1 billion in revenue. And last year we closed at about $4 billion.

“My background is that I have an undergraduate degree in finance and an MBA. So, I’m more of a business person that happens to do HR than maybe the other way around. I’m fortunate that especially right now in our organization, our number one strategic priority is talent.”

In terms of talent acquisition, like many companies with a large global footprint, compliance remains a challenge.

“I will tell you that we don’t implement anything without talking to our legal team about what we can do. And it could even just be within the US, in US states, for example, the state laws differ quite a bit. But then there are variances from country to country.

“And yet, on top of that we are trying to navigate how we can leverage mobile devices, which are in most of our workforces’ hands and is actually pretty important, and how to do that in a legally appropriate way. It is a course that you have to navigate through carefully.”

Part of finding that path, she says, comes back to her earlier maxim that a modern HR leader needs to spend time with the front line functions of the business.

“I spend a lot of time around the world visiting, whether it’s stores or manufacturing sites. This morning I was at one of our distribution centers here in Las Vegas, walking the warehouse floor with our staff understanding what are the things that are going well for them? Where do they have opportunities? How are we in HR supporting them? Just hearing them on the ground talking, I think that’s the best way to learn it [the business].

And once you have those connections, and you spend the time getting to know the business, I think they begin to invite you to the table. And then when you’re at the table, you have to really deliver good, meaningful advice. And really help them navigate the business and not just ‘do HR to do HR’, but instead do HR to serve the business goals.”

She adds: “I always say we have to focus on being globally consistent and locally relevant.

“And that is a mantra that we use both in HR but also in the broader organization.”