Momentum Episode 28:
Human Resources with Matt Romond

On this podcast we love taking a closer look at parts of a business that might fly under the radar public perception but are nonetheless integral to making it all work.

Few company departments embody this quite as much as human resources responsible for everything from payroll talent management employee benefits training compliance workplace safety and much more.

So today we're peeling back the curtain to talk with Jotform's own HR business partner Matt Remond to see what goes into running an HR department at a global tech company.

Welcome to Momentum a podcast by Jotform where we talk about the technology productivity tips insights and best practices that help us move forward in business and in life.

Welcome to the show my name is Elliot your host and I am here today with Matt who is Jotform's HR business partner.

Welcome to the show Matt thank you so much for having me I'm excited to be here.

Yeah it's great to have you so today obviously I want to talk to you about what you do HR it's one of the potentially most important things at any company and one of the things that people probably talk about the least especially if they're looking at a company or anything like that.

But HR is really one of the backbones of any organization so I think it'd be great to get your perspective as an HR professional just in general and specifically at a global tech company like Jotform.

But before we dive into the nitty-gritty I'd love just to learn a little bit more about you your background and how you got to where you are today.

Yeah definitely so I've been in Jotform for about a year now it's been such a great experience.

Prior to Jotform I was with the same company for my entire career started with and my former company was not tech based so it was an interesting transition going to tech.

I started in a very frontline role and then worked up to a business operations and strategy role and got really into the operations of the company.

Typically what we talk about in business operations and strategy for strategy there's three parts of it there's the strategic analysis formulation implementation and I felt that going through that process at my old company what tended to happen is that the analysis and the formulation was there but ultimately the implementation is where things sort of fell apart a lot of times.

So I realized that's really a people thing for the HR processes for just business operations in general which actually got me really interested in implementation of strategic initiatives and business operations really revolves around people and making sure that people have a say in what's happening and they can contribute their knowledge for their different functions and that sort of opened the doors to HR for me.

Okay so you weren't in HR at all I don't think I caught that that was just so completely side.

Interestingly I transitioned to my old company from business operations to HR specifically for this sort of strategy reason and got more involved in the HR and getting buy-in for larger group decisions and that really opened the doors to my HR experience in general and then took on more HR related projects at my former company and then ended up running HR for the company.

Yeah really cool experience and transitioning to Jotform was really fun and exciting I've gotten to take a lot of the knowledge that I learned there and apply it over here as well.

That's great and your realization that it is about the people ultimately I mean Human Resources has human in the title right.

Yeah what exactly drew you to that because I think that's I expected you to have like gone to college for human resources which is a common major and then kind of came at it from the beginning from that angle but you transitioned sort of mid-career almost like what you mentioned the people angle but what really drew you to that if you could expand more on why you turned to HR.

Yeah I think that one of the things that I was seeing in general business in general was group decision making and getting buy-in for really important initiatives and organizations and understanding that the momentum that comes from getting people really excited about decisions and the trajectory of an organization's future is a lot of positive energy that can help people individually and ultimately help the organization.

That was sort of an aha moment and I started to look at HR as an opportunity to carry that out a little bit more and the more I got into HR the more I really liked the nuance of it and the fact that in some respects it's really granular and very detail-oriented.

Yes anyone who's filled out HR documents and property yes and then on the flip side there's also a really global component that allows people in an HR position to interact with people in all different areas of the organization which I found really really exciting.

Absolutely you probably get to talk or interact with more people at a company at least on some level than almost anyone else I imagine you know implementing and collecting documents and everything like that so you probably have a pretty unique perspective in that role.

I imagine if you're attracted to that human resources obviously it's a broad term it encompasses a lot you may mention a couple of these things already but I mean everything from you know well I don't want to take words for your mouth what does human resources encompass like what do you do.

Yeah in broad strokes it's really helping individuals in the organization do their best work okay that's at least from my perspective and that takes a lot of forms that's everything from understanding the compliance framework and like very basic HR frameworks to helping people grow in and unleash their potential in terms of their management capabilities their communication their learning and development so it really has a broad spectrum of touch points.

I think this is a role where HR a lot of departments at a company or you know take engineering for example I think of them sometimes as net positive net neutral net negative based on how they can actually impact an employee's time or users time the company for instance for support I think in general people who use support at a company if they have a good experience with support sure that boosts their perceived value of the company but if they have a perceived negative experience with support that really really downgrades and similar with engineering for instance if you have a well-designed product people just assume that status quo you don't really realize that bad engineering it really really downgrades.

I was inclined initially to put human resources in that same category as engineering where if human resources functions well you don't really notice it but if it functions poorly you really notice it but what I'm getting to say is that I think there's a lot of net positive there where if HR is functioning well there's actually huge net positive for people like you mentioned it can actually energize them give them resources it's not just this thing that you turn to if you know you have to fill out a form or if you have some kind of action that needs to be taken within the company you can actually really help people.

So it's not invisible like I kind of initially thought it was even hearing you talk about it preliminarily.

All I have to say is what are some of some of your primary responsibilities that can sort of enact that change like sort of what do you do on a daily basis and how do you approach a day at Jotform.

Yeah sort of going to your point before I actually think that that's sort of been an evolution of HR over the past two decades is before it was very much procedural very much operational where you kind of don't notice it until something breaks correct but in the past two decades especially the past 10 years what's been happening is it's been very much more of a proactive approach to people teams and really helping individuals in the organization maximize their potential right.

So there is that underlying thing of overall making sure that payroll is done consistently working with the finance team making sure that there's the clients documents and then once that framework is in place we start sort of looking at the employee experience and understanding the employee life cycle everything from recruiting to initial onboarding somebody's first three months how's their experience there making sure that they feel welcome making sure that they have the training that they need to do their job well once they get past that period and they're really working on understanding the organization and their role and increasing their performance in their role and feeling good about the work that they're doing generating relationships in the organization.

Helping people understand what performance looks like and what their career next steps will be is really really important and I think that's all to say that that doesn't necessarily have to be directly from HR I think HR has a role in working with managers to help facilitate that growth so to some extent it is sort of behind the scenes still but that's not to say that it's not actively working with managers with team leads to generate that positive momentum for the team members themselves.

Yeah you're still taking that proactive step to you don't just get the talent on board the company but you're still invested in actually fostering that talent which wasn't something that I really realized until like I sort of became a manager myself and had interactions with you about that and everything and I think that's really helpful it's partly behind the scenes but you're out there in some ways in the trenches and the front lines making sure that people are happy and that they have that momentum like you mentioned so I think that's been awesome.

What's something you do just out of curiosity that out of all the responsibilities that you have that would surprise people to know that you do.

I think this is kind of the same for every role at Jotform like I think that all team members really step up in and do like all sorts of various tasks when needed when needs to be filled like for example one of the things that I did last week was research particular type of screws that go in our conference table because we needed them so probably wasn't in the original job description.

Exactly that that was one that was not in the original job description but you know like that stuff that comes up that needs to be done and you know I'm in the right place in the right time for it so that type of stuff happens so and I don't think that's specific to me or an HR role you know I really see that is everybody in the company sort of stepping in to fill those individual needs as they come up even if it includes researching screws.

Did you find the right type yeah excellent yeah excellent what kind was it.

They were cam pins actually you know the ones that go in Ikea furniture yeah we need a specific type of cam pin for our particular conference room desk that's similar to that sort of wedge edges everything together but we found them we got them conference table ascent assembled so we're all right.

We won't dive too much into that you know I'm somewhat interested in that we'll keep it on HR yeah but yeah that's an example of you know kind of the things that you step in to do.

Given all the roles and responsibilities that your job kind of encompasses you know from payroll talent management employee benefits development compliance training all that sort of stuff how do you balance it all because that's kind of a lot that's a big checklist that HR is responsible for like how do you approach managing that breadth of content that you're responsible for.

Yeah I think so first and foremost I think just from a personal perspective having everything documented having everything in the calendar having checklists and automated reminders is so so important but ultimately even if we have our plan for the day things are going to come up and we're going to have to shift so it's really about understanding what's the priority on each initiative and allocating specific time for it and if time gets eaten up by something else being conscious of being able to shift and establish new priorities based on what's happening in a given day week or month.

Yeah just kind of having prioritization and adaptability in that regard.

How big is the for perspective how big is the team at Jotform you know we're a few hundred people the company as a whole how big is the Jotform HR team.

Yeah so we have between the HR and recruitment team actually just on the HR side we're about one HR person per 100 employees approximately.

Is that pretty standard for the industry okay yeah um you know and that fluctuates a little bit but you know as the organization grows I think that the head count grows and then HR sort of comes in and fills in because our role can flex a little bit which is nice.

Yeah that makes sense.

What would you say are some of the unique aspects or challenges of specifically being in an HR role at a global tech company like Jotform compared to potentially other industries.

Yeah I think the fast-moving nature of the work always presents challenges but also opportunities as well you know having a truly global team that's working when we're asleep and vice versa is one of the interesting things that I had to get used to but ultimately there's a cadence to it that actually can be harnessed to benefit everybody in the organization.

For instance in the morning I'll come in and I'll check my correspondence from the team overseas and they'll be sort of at the end of the day when we're at the beginning of our day and sort of check in on them see what needs to be done to continue the momentum of stuff that they're working on over there and then once that's done they sort of log off there's time for interactions with us team members and team members sort of in the Western Hemisphere and then the afternoon can kind of be put on projects so it's interesting that one of the things that initially can seem like a disadvantage actually can help structure our time to something that is advantageous.

Yeah the fact that it's asynchronous for most of the day with just a little bit of overlap can actually help because you get some quiet time where you can just kind of focus on your own projects.

I've felt that as well because obviously we have colleagues all over the world how would you say you touched on a little bit in the way that HR takes a more proactive steps these days in fostering momentum and talent and everything else but to elaborate on that how would you say HR has just in general in that or other ways most significantly evolved over the years what's been some of the bigger transitions.

Yeah I think that HR and let me back up and say I think that employees expectations of what a company will give them has sort of changed over the years so I think it used to be where you would stay with the same organization for a long number of years and if you were there you put in your time there would be promotions and there would be a sense of stability and a sense of security for the long run and that was like 40 years ago.

I think that has shifted a lot of ways in that team members and employees in every organization are not looking for the security that they were for necessarily what they're looking for is personal growth opportunities and that doesn't come necessarily from being in the same role throughout your entire career that comes from experimenting trying new things and I think that companies that can offer that sort of flexibility in terms of we know that you may not be here forever we want you here forever but if you're not going to be here forever what we want to do is give you the best experience that allows you to get the most skills as possible in this time that you're with us.

So it almost takes on more of a mentorship and growth idea and I think that has been taken up by a lot of managers as well where managers really understand now hey it's my job as your manager not just to tell you what to do I want to work with you on the growth of you as a professional and understand what your career goals are long term and how I in my role as your manager can help facilitate that while also accomplishing what the organization needs to get done.

So it's kind of a shifting really unique relationship that's happened and I think that the companies that attract the best talent and ultimately generate the best results have that mentality of growth and development in mind.

That's really interesting I didn't expect that answer kind of the shift from security to growth and advancement has been one of the biggest things that's actually impacted HR just to rephrase what you said and how you have to adapt to that mentality.

Out of curiosity why do you think that is what societally has changed where people used to crave security now they crave growth.

I think that it comes and this trend I think was started a long time ago with larger organizations not being able to offer the security that they traditionally had so for instance in terms of pensions and lifetime advancements things like that and ultimately said well if that's not a benefit that these large organizations around the world can give what are some ways that I can make sure that I'm a viable candidate for other opportunities that come up and I think it really pushed people to upskill and continue to look for how they can professionally develop themselves over the course of their career rather than saying this is my spot this is where I want to be and I'm going to be in this role for my entire career.

I think that was also driven by the shift from manufacturing to technology to say that the tech boom must have had a play I think it to some extent it did now I also think that Jotform is really unique in that we look for people with tenure that are not job hopping that actually have that really cultivated sense of organizational awareness and have been able to navigate one organization for a long time so that's actually an interesting thing where we differ is that we're not necessarily looking for people that are shifting every year we want somebody that has established tenure and shown that they've grown in one organization for a while.

Sure and you phrase that well I think to see a prospective candidate who has three to five year tenures on the resume as opposed to hopping around every year so maybe other employers wouldn't be deterred by that because that means they're ambitious or they have a drive for growth but yeah Jotform is very much I can attest to that as a hiring manager myself that we especially executive leadership very much like to see the long tenures and it makes sense because there's something about the loyalty aspect but also just being invested in the company just in general.

I think it's nice to know that your employees are in it for the long haul so retention is important and it's probably a little bit scarcer in today's world where there are so many tech startups and different options and there's less impetus there's less reason to maybe stick around if you feel like you're stagnating so that's a very interesting perspective thank you for sharing and kind of diving into the tech aspect of that a little bit.

How has technology impacted just your functions at your job like how much of it is automated these days how much are you actually like stamping things on papers shifting from one pile to the other you know people have this stereotypical view of what an HR person does but how much of that is accurate nowadays in the digital era.

I think this is probably true for not just HR but most roles that are happening nowadays especially in tech forward companies the goal is really to automate as much as possible we want to take the things that are repeated processes and automate them so that we can free ourselves up for the deep thinking and the work that is truly human and I think that that is always the goal of especially HR where we do have a lot of repeated processes building those processes so we don't have to necessarily focus on them and then reserving a lot of thinking power and a lot of time for the nuanced cases that come up where we can actually exercise judgment and take appropriate action.

I'm putting you on the spot here what would you say is an example of a nuanced case it doesn't have to be a real life one but what is a nuance to you.

So for instance hypothetically we would have an employee who has a very specific need for extended leave that's not covered by the Family Medical Act or something like that that we want to provide something that may be fair to other employees but also flexible for this employee and understanding what are the boundaries that we can do to make sure that everybody's satisfied without somebody saying oh this team member is actually getting unfair treatment why don't I get that you know like right so it's a fine line.

To the extent possible we always want to balance that flexibility and that fairness so that individual team members can get their needs met but also we're not creating an expectation that that's something that can happen for everybody.

Sure it's like understanding the larger the organization the more bureaucracy is involved in that because it sets a bigger example more people can potentially see that and are affected so I'd assume that Jotform size you know we're not tiny but we're not huge we're kind of right in that border where there's some room for flexibility but we can't do everything so it's probably an interesting space to be in.

Yeah it's actually quite a fun space because also with an organization that's growing so fast there are these policies that we have to continue to refine and grow because we're not a ten thousand person organization it's not really set in stone and coming up with what is the right thing to do in these specific circumstances what makes individual employees feel like their needs are met but also is fair to the organization and really the ecosystem that's not just Jotform the company but Jotform the employees and the team members and even the customers in the company like thinking about what's fair to everybody.

Right and that can't be more important like I said that's where you don't want HR to be the negative that's the wrong example but again you're kind of molding it in a way because we're at that stage of growth so that's got to be a cool position to be in.

How do you think the field of HR will continue to evolve in the future if we've talked about technology automation but where do you think it's headed.

I think this may be framed by my previous education experience coming from business operations and strategy I think that this ops and strategy is becoming less centralized it's going more to the people in the specific roles who are leading the specific roles to understand what the market is telling them.

I think what happens from a strategy perspective is that HR team members are a little bit more involved in the decision making about how we facilitate communication among those different team members so that they can have that cross-functional knowledge of what's happening with marketing what's happening with product what's happening with the organization structure as a whole.

I think that that is something that you're going to continue to see from HR is sort of helping a facilitator of communication among the different parts of the organization.

That's really interesting because normally you'd think that would fall to a certain executive or anything like that but HR is already sort of doing that in a on a smaller scale by helping managers how can you talk to your direct reports and stuff like that so it makes sense helping teams how do you talk to other teams and facilitate that conversation so more of that proactivity which is really great to see.

Especially in organizations that aren't super hierarchical you know executives have so much on their plate right granted communication is definitely a key priority for them but to the extent that HR can help facilitate those communications and those communication channels we want to do that absolutely.

Yeah I mean it's been really revealing I think having this conversation with you even for myself and getting here about all these different perspectives that you bring to the table and I was just thinking about that it's like HR it does sometimes have that almost negative association situation or stereotype where people are scared to be called into the HR office they're scared to go up to the HR person you know every time you get an email from HR it's like damn it like another one.

How do you go about breaking down that barrier where you know no HR is in your corner here for good we can't help to the average layman in a company who isn't a manager like how do you get over that sort of hump of HR sometimes having a negative connotation when in reality it's the exact opposite.

I think it actually comes down to the percentage of communications that are positive versus negative like any relationship if the only time you hear from HR it's something negative then that's going to be the connotation that's driving absolutely but if you know the HR person you have conversations with them on an ongoing basis they help you out with different communications and problems that you're trying to solve then I think that the relationship is one of trust and ultimately this function can't really be effective without that trust.

So I think it's really important that HR is involved in a lot of these things not from a perspective of well this is what's in the best interest of the organization but really how can I help you as an individual contributor as a manager do your work better or give you ideas or help facilitate communication so the more positive interactions we can have with team members the better off it's going to be.

That's excellent advice excellent perspective thank you for sharing.

I think I might know the answer but I'd like to hear it sort of in your words like what is it that you find most rewarding about what you do.

Yeah I actually think the individual communications with team members have been really rewarding and then seeing how those sort of level up on a system-wide perspective has been really cool as well you know so having different talks with managers about communications and how they can help their team members grow and develop and get to the next place in their careers and then seeing that fulfilled months and years down the line is always really really exciting.

I imagine it must be I mean like I mentioned in the beginning you probably have more interactions with more people in a company than I'd say almost anyone again on some level so to be able to see that sort of evolve has to be rewarding.

How do you define success in HR like yes maybe there's metrics so you make sure everyone signed their I9 or whatever but you know for you personally like what does success look like in HR when do you know you've done a good job.

I think it comes back to that trust factor that you're talking about in terms of metrics I think that changes depending on the stage of the company obviously a very new startup is going to have metrics around recruitment and an applicant pool and getting people in to do the work and very mature companies are going to have more success based on longevity based on performance but my personal metric is really just making sure that people feel comfortable with HR and CHR as an actual resource rather than hindrance to their work resource rather than agents.

That's all in framing it's all in marketing as they say marketing HR.

I mean this has been really insightful I know a lot about this topic I think you live and breathe these principles that you were talking about just having worked with you for a year what advice would you give to let's say other aspiring HR professionals who are looking to enter the industry or people looking to maybe take their career to the next level or thinking about transitioning to HR like you did what would be your advice to them.

Find a good mentor okay I think just like any career field I think that the people that you surround yourself early in your career will shape not only how well you do at it and your technique in your craft but also your outlook on it and I think that is just as important having a positive outlook on your career and what you contribute as an individual and what you bring to the table personally and professionally is really really important so find people that you respect that you know do a good job and ultimately are willing to help you grow.

Conversely from the other angle if you're an organization who is looking to maybe establish an HR department or revamp it what advice would you give them to start getting that in place.

Find somebody who's really good with the details in the beginning okay somebody who's detail-oriented who understands the concepts understands the compliance frameworks understands the policy and policy creation I feel like it's harder to build that expectation in later on you know it's nice to start with this sort of framework and say okay here are the rules and regulations that as a company we have to follow and sort of set that level ground and then sort of build in a little bit more of the nuance into it as it grows.

But I think that having somebody who's really knowledgeable about the specifics right off the bat is helpful and obviously people who are personable too find somebody who has underrated but important you gotta have some the sun the soft skills too.

Yeah definitely and I think that combination I think sometimes when people are hiring they look for just the skills in terms of the technical capability or they look for just the skills in terms of people capabilities especially in this role I think it's really important to balance both.

Excellent yeah no great advice great advice.

Thank you so much for lending your perspective today this has been really really nice to hear peeling back the layers of what you do how you think and how HR really operates at a business.

Before we believe is there anything you kind of want to mention that we didn't cover today or leave on.

No I think we covered a lot I'm really happy to be here and I appreciate you having me on this was great it was awesome to have you Matt really appreciate it thanks everybody we will catch you on the next episode.