Hasbro is the toy, gaming, and entertainment company behind Monopoly, Nerf, Transformers, and Magic: The Gathering, and running people strategy for a brand that big takes someone who has done a little bit of everything.
Holly Barbacovi is the EVP & Chief People Officer at Hasbro. Her path started in the Peace Corps in China, wound through Microsoft's early recruiting days, and eventually landed her at the helm of talent for one of the most recognized brands on earth.
In this episode, she talks about using AI to make sense of thousands of employee survey comments, why hiring the biggest fans of a brand can backfire, and how Hasbro is aging up its products for the generation that grew up with them.
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Connect with Holly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollybarbacovi/
Learn more about Hasbro: https://corporate.hasbro.com/en-us
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Holly Barbacovi: We are up against a shrinking global birth rate. We have Gen X collecting well into their 50s. You have to be thoughtful about the demand that you see out there and the type of products that you are building to be able to meet those demands.
Dave Travers: So what does it really take for your business to attract world-class talent today? I'm Dave Travers, President of ZipRecruiter. And on Talent All-Stars, we shine a light on the people and the day-to-day processes behind recruitment and retention at some of the world's most influential businesses
Today's talent all-star is Holly Barbacovi, the Chief People Officer at Hasbro, the global toy, gaming, and entertainment company behind brands like Monopoly, Nerf, Transformers, and Magic: The Gathering.
Today, she'll share what it takes to turn brand love into a talent advantage, why she sees AI as a tool for productivity rather than a replacement for creative talent, and her unique path in HR, which started with a decision to serve in the Peace Corps in China. Holly Barbicovi, welcome to Talent All-Stars.
Holly Barbacovi: Thank you so much for having me.
Dave Travers: So excited to have you here. Okay, you have such a cool background. I want to start there. You didn't start in HR. You s- You, you were in the Peace Corps; you did cool stuff. How did it all begin, and when was the moment when you were like, "Wow, this, like, people thing and operations with, with helping people at companies could be the right thing for me"?
Holly Barbacovi: It's the rare person that backs into a career in HR from an area study, but that's exactly what happened. I opted into the Peace Corps right out of college because I was up for an adventure, and I was assigned to China, and this is the late '90s, at which point you could tell that China was exploding. And after spending two years teaching English there, I was pretty convinced that I could send that right into a career in international relations of some sort.
So I came back to the United States, and I went to the University of Washington for a master's degree in Chinese studies. And it, by some very strange coincidence, I ended up working for Microsoft. They offered me a job six weeks before I defended my master's thesis, and the job was to recruit software engineers out of China to come work in the United States.
This was back when H-1Bs were quite free-flowing, and it was a good talent strategy because it was right in the middle of the dot-com boom, and talent was at a premium, so we were going abroad to bring folks in. That lasted for about a year, and it all kind of came crashing down, and we had plentiful talent locally, and H-1Bs started to be harder to come by.
So I turned into a domestic recruiter, but I always really wanted to get back to that adventurous international play, and that happened in about 2004. And I would say that was probably about the time where it really solidified that, oh, I am an HR professional. Because all of that time, it was really just kind of a job.
But when it turned into I'm gonna go do an international assignment, and I spent a couple of years recruiting software engineers in China to stay in China as we built out a development center, I then kind of expanded my remit because I was a one-stop shop, and I started doing HR management work. So I became a more fulsome HR professional then. So it's an unusual way to back into an HR career.
Dave Travers: I think so many people who listen to this and watch this are starting their careers, are in that recruiter seat that you started your career in, and look at someone who's like, wow, chief people officer at a company everybody in the world has heard of.
That's an amazing ride. Like, as you rose through the ranks, like, what were the one or two key pieces of advice you'd give someone who's early in their career but has their eyes on the prize and really wants to move up in the world?
Holly Barbacovi: You know, HR is such a broad discipline. We touch so many different disciplines that it's important to try a lot of things.
I would not say that I am an expert in most of what I lead. I have deep experience in recruiting, deep experience in being an HR business partner and doing organization design and development, but I have to have a really strong benefits and compensation team to augment my capabilities, because it's hard to get experience in all of it.
But I think getting a rotation through multiple disciplines sets you up really, really well.
Dave Travers: Yeah, for sure. When someone comes knocking with a new experience opportunity, you know, think hard about that 'cause that breadth really could be powerful. One of the things that's interesting about that is now you're in this position where you have people working for you, that some of our listeners might be in the position of working for someone, where I, as, you know, having this new boss and this big position, I know way more about this topic.
They don't know as much as I do about this topic. How do I manage up in that situation to somebody like you if it's not your area of expertise you came up through, but you obviously need to be in the know, need to be responsible? Like, what's the right way to manage up to somebody like you really effectively?
Holly Barbacovi: I think it's bringing that confidence to the table and knowing that they need you more than you need them, to be honest. There's a power dynamic that's actually quite healthy, I think, in that I really rely on and value the expertise of the people who have disciplines that I haven't experienced. And hopefully, you are managing up to a leader who also acknowledges that and recognizes that, because I think that's a pretty important part of this job, is being self-aware of your limitations and leaning in and crafting your team to have those deep area experts.
Dave Travers: Yeah. I think that's totally right. When I started at ZipRecruiter as CFO, I'd never been a CFO before. I came from the investor side of the world, and I don't even remember this, but it's actually been told back to me by members of the team that apparently I said, like, "I don't know how to do any of your jobs.
So, like, I'm gonna need your help." And it's funny, like, to me, that was a throwaway line that came to me in the moment that was sort of accidental. And it's, like, the number one thing that people were in that room recite back to me about getting to know me is the sense that it was not some great strategy I had walking in.
It was just, you know, letting my guard down and telling the truth, like, "I don't know how to do all your jobs." Um, and if you're managing up to somebody like that, recognizing that they need your help is really, really powerful.
Holly Barbacovi: Yeah. I think being a vulnerable leader and willing to say that in front of your employees actually unlocks a lot of their empowerment.
Dave Travers: Yeah. I think it was... It's funny. It, it certainly sent the message right away I was not gonna micromanage people when I didn't know, um, how to do it. Okay. So now fast-forward in your career. Here you are; you're the chief people officer at this iconic global brand that everyone knows, that is an umbrella over a bunch of other iconic global brands, some of which are over your shoulder, and we can see for those watching on video right now.
Talk to me about, you know, how you view coming into a new role at a company like this, that is, there's so much amazing about Hasbro that already exists. When you come into a situation like that, how do you approach it? What is day one like?
Holly Barbacovi: Yeah. It... I mean, it's definitely a lot of listening and understanding where the organization is.
I had a preexisting relationship with the CEO in that we had been business partners in Wizards of the Coast, which is our West Coast subsidiary. So we were able to kind of fast-forward through some of those early times of building trust and, like, sussing each other out, which was super helpful coming into this job.
And so I think a lot of my work was understanding his vision for where he was taking the company, and then spending time with my peers to really understand: are they aligned and what is the role that they are playing in that, and then what is the role they need me to play. Because we're all in this as a team, and we need to be rowing in the same direction for the company to be able to come along with this transformation that we are underway with.
Dave Travers: I mean, it's, it's fa- fascinating to hear you talk about that because I think for somebody with working in so many different cool companies and roles like you have, there's a natural instinct I think for some leaders to come in and say, "Okay, I know how best practice looks. I've come in, I've already gotten a little sense of the organization.
I know where we need to change things." That's not what I just heard from you. What I heard was, "I need to come in and align myself and really understand. Even though I've already been at this company before, I need to come in and make sure I know where the other leaders are at, what's going on, and settle myself into business context," rather than come in and say, "Let me tell you how we do it at Microsoft," which does not win friends right away.
I found in most circumstances. I love that approach. You mentioned, though, the word transformation, and all of us, and I'm sure this is true for you too, all of us now are in this world where AI, technology, transformation are, like, swirling around in some combination around all of us now, and you're at this iconic brand, as we've talked about, an iconic company.
How do you balance between deciding where we're going to transform, completely tear up the rule book and think from first principles, and where we're gonna hold on to the very best of what has gotten us here and this incredible asset we have and growing all the, the parts of that business? How do you juggle between those two seemingly in conflict things?
Holly Barbacovi: Yeah, yeah. Boy, that's such a good question, and I'm not sure there's a very easy answer to it because it is, uh, it's on a continuum. But I think the brands themselves are where the power lies. How we express those brands and then how we build those brands has to evolve and change as you have new plucky competitors that enter the market or as the demand of consumers changes.
You know, we are up against a shrinking global birth rate. We have Gen X collecting, uh, well into their fifties. You have to be thoughtful about the demand that you see out there and the type of products that you are building to be able to meet those demands. So you know, one of the strategic points that you'll see in how we talk about our strategy in the proxy is aging up, and we are building many more collector pieces because we are finding that people who grew up with Transformers, they grew up with My Little Pony, or my favorite, Jem and the Holograms, they have discretionary money at this point.
Like maybe they've already actually sent their kids through college, and now they have, um, some money to spend, and they're willing to spend it on high-end toys. And I have a whole group of people who are getting back into Dungeons and Dragons now, and it's such an amazing way for us to connect and have fun and be silly when so much of our day is quite heavy in these big jobs that we have now.
So I think it is about protecting what is special about that brand, but continually finding new ways to express it.
Dave Travers: It's fascinating to think about the demographics of kids going in one direction, but the psychographics of kids at heart going in a totally different direction and how that impacts a business like yours.
I think, like, as all of us, we're all feeling this pressure from when we look in the news or when we talk to our bosses or go to a board meeting about how we're in this world as things change around us. How are we using AI? Why aren't we using it more? How are we doing it thoughtfully and providing reassurance where we need, to people who are wondering or have questions?
How do you think about AI in particular as a people leader who's in charge of, you know, setting a culture, but also being a business executive who's part of the team and part of the transformation?
Holly Barbacovi: Yeah. Our entry point is using AI as an assistive device very much to improve productivity, and I think We're finding many ways that it's creating shortcuts for us.
I'll use an example of my own, which is I took the 4,500 comments from our most recent engagement survey, and I threw them into Claude. And now at any given time, especially because we're in the middle of transformation and I'm constantly like checking on, well, what do these people think of this? I can go and I can ask it questions anytime instead of having to pore through and try to remember 4,500 comments.
That's just impossible to do. So it's become a shortcut for, for really important work. What I don't think it is, is a replacement for the artists and inventors who have gotten us here, and you'll see that in our commitment. We very much believe that creativity is a forward-looking process, whereas I think so much of AI is looking at what has been.
And so I just don't buy into the idea that it is going to take away all of our jobs or that it is going to take away all of the creative jobs, because worlds like Lord of the Rings or the Game of Thrones, those come from Who know, like these brilliant minds, and I really find it hard to believe that we create something that is that beloved using AI.
Dave Travers: Yeah, I love that. The, the, the creative inspiration is something that all of us seek out and yearn for more of, and it is an incredibly human skill and, and capability, and it's exciting to be in a world where a lot of the mundane stuff that distracts us from that can get done for us and free us up to be creative actually even more.
I think that's really exciting. So how do you then, you know, like for somebody on your team who's like leading a project that needs to help a company, you know, one of the brands or one of the projects, or subsidiaries of Hasbro trying to grow their team, how do you think about what is a talent strategy in this world?
How do you think about what are the skills that we don't have enough of today that we either need to develop or we need to go out and get? What does this new world we're entering require more of?
Holly Barbacovi: I mean, I think it requires a lot of curiosity and openness to where we're headed. As we think about crafting roles, I think we now have the opportunity to think about what do we value in unique career experiences versus what are we valuing in the capability of having incredible prompts.
And I think your job is going to the combination of those factors is the ratio of those factors is really going to shift over time. I evolved from an Apple IIc to an iPhone 17, and I've, you know, been on this journey, and I don't fear where we're headed outside of, of possibly the environmental impact of, of AI.
But I think that it is a powerful tool that you should harness and make your job more productive and easier to do in some ways, and unlock more discretionary time for creativity.
Dave Travers: I think that is so wise. Like, the capability of AI to take the least favorite part of our jobs and reduce that portion to free us up for the part we, we love more is really exciting.
How do you think, in this constantly changing world, how do you think about leading a brand like an employment and a talent brand like Hasbro that is so iconic, as we talked about before? How do you utilize that to its maximum when you're recruiting the best talent? So there are lots of people out there who wish they had this global brand that everyone knew, and all these, you know, games and toys and everything that everyone knows. When you have that, how do you get the most of it to recruit the best people and keep them?
Holly Barbacovi: The recruiting part, you know, is absolutely an art. Like, you need to have really good assessment skills, evidence-based interviewing to cut through the fans and get to the real top talent. Hiring fans isn't always the solution.
Sometimes you need to move outside of that. What I've found is sometimes fans are more interested in keeping the brand what it has been as opposed to kind of moving the brand forward. That's definitely not always the case. It's a huge advantage to have these beloved brands and that that brings a broader swath of candidates.
But it definitely doesn't mean that you're getting higher quality candidates. And of course, once you have this fantastic talent in the door, you don't keep it with the brand. You keep it with the opportunities that people have to continue to grow their careers, the culture of creativity. You know, I think you only get the best work out of people if you have, especially creatives, if you have an environment where they can be vulnerable, where there's psychological safety, and that people are willing to bring you their best ideas.
Because right now, the barrier to entry to take a new toy or a new game to market is so low. And some of these young and scrappy companies that are more willing to use AI, or they're finding very clever ways to find shortcuts that we've been precious about, they're gonna eat our lunch. So we have to be really mindful of the tools that we're empowering our employees with and the culture that we create to allow them to do their best work.
Dave Travers: Holly, we always end these episodes with a lightning round. So I want you to envision yourself at Hasbro headquarters. The CEO happens to walk up to you as you're making a cup of coffee or something in the kitchen, and you'd have, you know, thirty or sixty seconds, and the CEO turns to you and says, "You know, Holly, I've always...I, I, I... There's something I've been meaning to ask you. Like, how do we think about, when we're thinking about the talent team in particular and bringing in all these great people we need, how should we measure the talent team over the next year or two? Like, what's the right way for me to think about that?" What's your answer?
Holly Barbacovi: There's a couple of really strong metrics that you would use. First would be your quality of hire. Are we bringing in the right people, and are they sticking? What is the assessment after ninety days or six months, or what is the performance review after a twelve-month time period?
We need to be looking at that on a regular basis, and we do. And then of our top talent, that upper elbow in the nine box, what is our retention rate? So we are trying to hold to a 97% retention rate of our upper elbow.
Dave Travers: Wow.
Holly Barbacovi: Yeah. We hold ourselves to a really high bar, and some years are better than others, but you always wanna have a goal that is representative of good or, or of great.
Dave Travers: Yeah. T- so for those, uh, un- uninitiated, what, what is the upper elbow in a nine box? Like, if, if this is a new term for you, what does that mean?
Holly Barbacovi: Yeah. So these would be the people who are rated either high on performance and high on potential, or solid performance and high potential. It's that upper quadrant where your strongest talent sit when you're doing an assessment, and we wanna hang on to those people because they do drive a tremendous amount of value to the company.
Dave Travers: Yeah, those are your 10X'ers who are providing incredible... And the incredible thing about people like that is they're raising the bar for everyone around them. They're the ones inspiring people. And so I think it's so smart to say, "Hey, rather than for the median performer, let's bring up the median retention rate.
Let's focus on those who truly move the needle and are exceptional." And when people think about what makes this place great, those are the people we all jointly envision, like, let's keep those people. So 97% is an incredible accomplishment, but it's also, if you think about it, those people are superstars.
Part of that equation is they love it. Like, they wouldn't be performing like that unless they loved it. So it's crazy and ambitious, but it's also not insane.
Holly Barbacovi: Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
Dave Travers: I love that framework. Okay, one more. Um, since you came up through recruiting, and you mentioned a little bit about interview techniques, uh, briefly before, same situation, CEO walks up to you and is like, "Hey, Holly, I've always been meaning to ask you.
You came up through recruiting. You're the people person. I interview people all the time. Give me your one best tip to be a better interviewer."
Holly Barbacovi: It's an oldie but a goodie, but it's evidence-based interviewing, or also known as behavioral interviewing. I just think it's evergreen. It is how I was trained as a recruiter, and 26 years later, it is still how I hire.
I wanna hear the stories. I wanna dig into the part that someone has played. I wanna know what the outcome was, and I wanna know what the legacy is and what they learned. Lastly, you know, you wanna always show that learning mindset. What went well? What didn't?
Dave Travers: So when you are, you know, talking to a, an executive or a hiring manager and selling them on this idea, when they're like, "Ah, I know how to interview," you know, like how do you, to, to a newbie who's not thought about behavioral interviewing before, how do you explain it to them and sell it to them when they're not a pro?
Holly Barbacovi: It's that past performance is really the best predictor of future performance, and being able to explain the impact you've had is really, really important. And you can sense as you look at a resume, those who have, have had some sticking power in jobs, and if they've had that sticking power, they should have really good evidence of the impact they had during that time.
And that is true at any level in the organization, because every level makes an impact.
Dave Travers: Holly Barbacovi, you are clearly a talent all-star. Thanks so much for taking the time with us today.
Holly Barbacovi: Thank you. This was fun.
Dave Travers: That's Holly Barbacovi. She's the chief people officer at Hasbro. We'll put her LinkedIn profile in the episode description. Just a reminder, we put the video versions of these conversations on YouTube, also on the official ZipRecruiter channel. If you have feedback for us or ideas for future episodes, send us an email to talentallstars@ziprecruiter.com.
I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All-Stars, and we'll see you right back here next time