Talent All-Stars

Inside James Hardie's Playbook for Hiring Through a Major Acquisition

Episode Notes

James Hardie is the company behind Hardie, TimberTech, and AZEK Exteriors, a global leader in exterior home and building solutions. Running talent acquisition for a company that size, especially one growing through acquisition, takes someone who has learned to lead through other people instead of fixing everything herself.

Doris Smart is the Head of Global Talent Acquisition at James Hardie. Her path started in contract recruiting for healthcare, taken almost by accident after college, and grew into a career built on listening, developing others, and bringing new companies into the fold without losing what makes them work.

In this episode, she talks about what changed when she stopped being the person who solved every problem and started developing the people around her, why integrating people is the hardest part of any acquisition, and how AI is reshaping the administrative side of recruiting without touching the part of the job that requires a real conversation.

You'll also hear:

Connect with Doris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doriszavala/

Learn more about James Hardie: www.jameshardie.com

Connect with us:

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💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/

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🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter  

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Episode Transcription

[00:00:00] Doris Smart: There is a voice, there is a person, and there are questions, and it's that journey that is personalized when you're talking to a recruiter that you can't replicate with AI. 

[00:00:10] 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 Doris Smart, the head of global talent acquisition at James Hardie, a global leader in exterior home and building solutions, the company behind brands such as Hardie, TimberTech, and AZEK Exteriors.

Today she'll share what she changed in her approach when moving from being the person who fixed everything to leading the development of others, why integrating people is the hardest and most important part of major acquisitions, and how a job she took to cover costs after college unexpectedly turned into a recruiting career. Doris Smart, welcome to Talent All-Stars. 

[00:01:03] Doris Smart: Thank you. Excited to be here. 

[00:01:06] Dave Travers: So much to talk about. I wanna dive right in because your background, your education, you were pointed straight at HR and talent acquisition from day one. How did that path lead you to this place where, where recruiting and talent acquisition, you know, ended up being a career for you?

[00:01:24] Doris Smart: Yeah. No, Dave, it's funny because most people don't go to school and say, "I'm gonna be in HR." I've seen that a, like, a handful of times with people. But no, for me, it was international business, so I went to school and got my undergrad in international business. My parents are from Nicaragua, so I'm a first-generation immigrant, and so global learning about cultures was always something that I knew I was passionate about.

And so it was interesting. After graduation, like any other college student, it's let's pay the rent. Let's move out of mom and dad's house and see what we can find. And one of my friends that I'd known from high school called and said, "Hey, I'm working at this agency. It's a great job. It's commission.

Sky's the limit." And I interviewed, and I ended up in recruiting. So I was doing contract recruiting, hiring contractors, essentially, for healthcare, and so it was very much by accident. 

[00:02:18] Dave Travers: Yeah. And so what, what was it about that that, the being the recruiter and, and finding people that felt like a fit for you, and what drew you to it as being something you wanted to keep pursuing rather than pivot into something else?

[00:02:31] Doris Smart: For me, it was interesting because I had a chance to learn about all types of careers. So if you talk to a recruiter, they can talk to anyone. We are exposed to all different positions at different levels in different locations, and when I started talking to people and understanding their journeys, in that moment, I thought, "Oh my God, this is kind of cool."

And I'm a, a, a, yeah, I talk a lot. That's, eh, it's part of the gig. But for me, it was nice to connect, and I always saw it as, you know, it's this fun part of HR where you're bringing people, and you're part of this huge decision that impacts their lives and their families. It's not a small decision, and so, um, I've stuck around.

[00:03:14] Dave Travers: So along the way, at some point, you stop being just the individual recruiter, but more, you know, obviously, as you've been promoted multiple times, more and more leadership responsibilities came along. How did that come about, and how did you know, "Hey, this, this leading thing is for me"? 

[00:03:29] Doris Smart: So for me, I loved being an individual contributor, so I'm a get-it-done type of person.

If you've ever done the DISC assessment, Dave, I'm a solid D, 10 o'clock. Like, I don't even go a little bit to the, you know, left or the right. I'm 10 o'clock. And so one of the great things with a D is you're very much, you wanna get things done. You have a sense of urgency. You have attention to detail, but you're also impatient.

And so there are things about folks with that style that, you know, you learn a lot as you go through that journey. And so as an individual contributor, I enjoyed getting things done. I wanted to own it, and I wanted to deliver it to the best quality possible. I had great leaders along the way that had high expectations, but that's how I learned.

And usually, they go back to, you know, who trained you, right? You hear that a lot, "Okay, who trained you? Where did you learn this? How did you get molded into who you are?" And it's a journey, 'cause I think back at the folks I've learned from, and as an individual contributor, loved running and doing things and having somebody say, "Doris will go take care of it."

Now, as that evolved, you saw in my background, you know, I grew into leading people, bigger teams. You learn that you can't do it all yourself, and that's the biggest piece. What I would say to people is you end up having to take a back seat and lead through your people, and that, for me, was the hardest piece because I'm one that's, if we have to fix it, I wanna go fix it right away.

And sometimes you have to take a step back, and even with your own teams, let them do it. And they might not do it as fast as you think you could do it yourself. They might make mistakes, or they might do it completely different than how you think you would do it, and that's part of that journey. And so for me, I would say to you that that leadership piece, I smile thinking about it 'cause I, I have some team members today that I, I, you know, as they're growing in their careers, I say to them, "Look, you don't have to respond to every question right away."

And I say, "I know that I don't respond to your questions all the time, like, within the minute." And he laughed, and I go, "And I do that intentionally, not just 'cause my calendar is messy, but because I want you to think through it. And the more you're sitting on it, the more you're forced to problem solve."

And then you end up, nine times out of 10, you'll come back and say, "Hey, I got it already." Do that with your teams, because at the end of the day, you need to let them come to some level of a decision and understand what it means to, hey, you might not have that crutch of a person that's gonna answer and give you the response, but rather you need to make a decision and own it, and if it's the right one, awesome. If it's not, it's okay. We fix it, and we move on. 

[00:06:12] Dave Travers: I think that is so insightful because I think so often, going back to your, your disc, uh, you know, sort of rubric and framework to think about yourself and others, one of the things I see over and over again is that for new leaders and first-time managers, often the ones who struggle the most were, sounds like maybe just like you, the ones who were the best at the individual contributor job, and they're so good.

They don't let anything to chance. They control everything. It's always done at an A+ level, and now watching someone else do it at an A- level and let them develop into an A+ is very hard to do. So, like, take me back to that if, if that, if that sounds right, 'cause I see lots of people struggle with that. If you're a superstar individual performer, what are the tools and tricks to be able to allow someone to develop rather than manage them as aggressively as perhaps your first instinct is to do?

[00:07:10] Doris Smart: So the first thing I would say to you is, remember they're not you. Do you understand your team, and do you understand what and where they are in their career, their journey, and their maturity and how they deliver? And that takes time, and it takes so much patience because if you are that person that's speed, go get it done, and you move up in a role because you become an expert, so of course you know the answer.

But acknowledging that they don't know the answer, and that is okay, that is something that takes a while to get used to because you want to move fast, and in the back of your mind, that's what's made you successful. And in some ways it has. But you can't expect somebody to be doing the same level of work that you're doing; otherwise they would be in your seat.

And so for most people, I would say, one, take a step back. Remind yourself what is their pace? Have that genuine curiosity on that individual's pace. What's working? What's not working? We forget to ask the question first, so a lot of times it's easy to jump in and solve it for them. And so stopping for a second and saying, "Well, what do you think?" And that sounds very much, um, like textbook. 

[00:08:24] Dave Travers: That's so hard, 'cause you already know the answer. 

[00:08:26] Doris Smart: Correct. Correct. And, and then I have the world's worst poker face too, Dave. So when people... I, I go, "So what do you think?" And they're probably not saying what I'm thinking. My eyes get small, and I'm, "Mm." And, and so remind yourself that maybe they will come up with something better than what you're thinking.

And I've had it where I was like, "Oh, man, I hadn't thought of it like that. That's interesting." But be the last one to speak. At least try. 

[00:08:51] Dave Travers: Yeah. Create space for others to learn and grow. That's awesome. I love that. Okay, speaking of learning and growing, one amazing experience I think you've had since you've been at James Hardie, and James Hardie, fascinating company, we'll come back to it.

One of the interesting experiences you've had that a lot of people haven't had is being part of a major M&A event, a major coming together of two companies where different cultures, and this isn't, in your case, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's just a, you know, huge company swallowing up a tiny company where it's clear, you know, like this was a, a very large merger where you're trying to take the best of both worlds in some cases and be clear about which way you're gonna do things.

How do you think about that? You're trying to merge cultures. You're trying to merge the way that things are done and also keep the best of what both companies have to offer. What has that been like, and what have you learned for those of us who haven't been through it? 

[00:09:44] Doris Smart: So in my career, I've been at the very large companies where, to your point, it's the small fish getting absorbed into the big pond.

I've also been in a startup where we acquired portfolio companies, and they were all different sizes. And so you would see folks that were coming in from an acquisition with PE that you can imagine people have fears. There's the, "What's gonna happen to my role, and how does this impact things?" And there's high turnover at times.

And then in the most recent one, Dave, that you're referring to, almost similar-sized companies. And both great companies, right? Like the cultures, the people, the talent, just the business, incredible businesses. And so what I've learned, I would say, in this journey is, one, processes. I would say processes, but the people side is the most challenging, and it's the most important.

When it comes to M&A, this people integration is the most critical and most challenging that you need to lean in it in the most because it impacts the culture, and it impacts everything else. Systems, processes, even branding, all of that can come together, and it takes time, and all of that, you'll have a roadmap for it.

But you can't have a roadmap for people. You really can't. How do you integrate a culture, and how do you actually build and take the best of both organizations to move forward with what we really want our company to be? And that has been an approach that we've taken at James Hardie. We're not saying, "Oh, we're going the James Hardie way."

We're taking the best of ASEC, we're taking the best of Hardie, and we're gonna be building a new James Hardie as an organization, and that takes time. Dave, I would be lying to you if I said, "Oh, we're good. It's a year in. We just had our one-year anniversary." And there's still, obviously, there's growing pains when you're going through an integration.

But as a priority for our company is, is culture, and the way to do that is you have to listen. You have to lean in and understand what are people thinking, right? It's a very emotional thing when you're going through an integration. And I can speak maybe more around my team, right? I had team members come and join my team, and we have some incredible talent that came from Azek in the talent acquisition team.

Amazing. And we did do a DISC assessment, uh, almost a new leader, uh, assimilation with the team, and we learned so much because in the beginning, you assume, okay, here's our process, here's how we're gonna do it, and you wanna run. I'm thinking the best way we've done it. There's no... Why create a better mousetrap?

I remember an old boss used to say that, right? There's no need to make a better mousetrap. And you assume that your process is right, and it's not always right. And so for us in talent acquisition, I found it very valuable. We did, uh, the DISC assessment for the whole team. We mapped it out. We spent a whole day in Chicago.

We brought everyone that was remote. We came and spent some time together, and it was eye-opening because, yes, they all laughed. They were like, "Of course, Doris is that ten o'clock solid D," and most of my team was a C. And that was eye-opening for me as the leader because then I realized I need to adjust my style and how I communicate with some of the folks that are new to my team and how we interact and how I even set expectations.

And even with others that were Ds and where you're thinking, "Ooh, we clash," I see why, and that's okay because it's actually made us stronger. And I would say to you that I appreciate how the team dynamics work a lot more than I would have if we hadn't done that. 

[00:13:37] Dave Travers: Yeah. So you've mentioned DISC obviously a couple of times.

There are many different assessments and rubrics, but that's obviously a major one. And so talk a little bit, if somebody's listening to this and thinking, "Wow, that would be... Like, we have conflict, we have different personality types on my team, but I've never done... used a formal rubric like that where everybody takes a test and talks it out," how would you start that if you were a first-timer and didn't already have a framework or an experience with doing that?

Like, if you're thinking about this for the first time, how would you get the ball rolling? 

[00:14:11] Doris Smart: Yeah. And a couple things. I'm not being sponsored by DiSC; I promise everyone. It just, it so happens to be something that our ASIC folks used, and we used at James Hardie, and it worked really well. I've actually done this with other assessments as well.

So I can share with all of you, in my prior company, we used PI, which is a very short assessment. It takes six minutes to complete, but it gave you a sense of people's personalities, and also... and they called them neighborhoods, right? 'Cause you could still be the same thing, but you knew that you could be a little bit more leaning towards X or Y, et cetera.

The way that I would recommend starting it is understanding the purpose and sharing it with the team transparently. This isn't a pass or fail, and most people, when they think of assessments, and especially during an integration, they're thinking they're being assessed, and it is a pass, fail, and this was not.

And it's understanding that it is fully to create this camaraderie and understanding ways of working. And the way I would explain it to most people is, I usually use the phrase, you know, "People don't want you to move their cheese, so don't move their cheese." And so I don't know that, for example, Dave might be somebody that doesn't like somebody coming in and asking for something last minute, and he needs time to adjust because he likes things to be in order.

But if I don't know that, my dominant side is gonna come in and say, "Hey, I need this. Can you get it done in 20 minutes?" And his cheese just got destroyed by me, and I'm thinking, "That's okay, right?" And so for most people, when you're doing this with the teams, it's a vulnerable moment. It has to be a safe space.

I partnered closely with our head of learning and development is amazing here at James Hardie, and he came in, and he did it himself. He facilitated the whole day w- the whole morning with my team, and it's a neutral party. All of us are equals. It's not a you're a manager, or you're not a manager, and we're all sitting in the same space because then we took that information and said, "Okay.

How does this impact how we recruit? How does this impact how we interview candidates?" And then, more importantly is how does this impact how we partner with hiring managers? 'Cause our hiring managers also have their own personalities, and for, uh, you know, we, we spent a little bit of time on the Ds versus the Cs and the Ss.

We didn't have a lot of Is on the team. Um, but understanding just that we're all different, so it doesn't have to be the DISC assessment. It could be any assessment, but if you're understanding people's ways of working, at a minimum, you can still create a better dynamic with the team so that you know how to manage each other. 

[00:17:00] Dave Travers: Yeah. I lo- I think that's super smart, and it'll, it gives people a framework. What I've seen from doing DISC and others is that it gives people a framework to, in a non-judgmental way, say, "Oh, th- I annoy you when I do that," or you, in a way that's not, "You're bad, I'm right," now I have a, we have a framework to say, "This is why we have conflict every time you do this thing, and I see it in this way, and now I understand a little bit more."

And so you can get at the heart of the conflict in a way that's much less judgmental, and everybody's doing it at the same time. 

[00:17:34] Doris Smart: Correct, or it's not a, "Dave, you're a jerk." Yeah. You're just direct. 

[00:17:38] Dave Travers: Yeah. 

[00:17:39] Doris Smart: That's my communication style. 

[00:17:39] Dave Travers: I may also be a jerk, but I may also... Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that is a super smart tool to use, and I love how you talk about it.

You're so self-aware about what, what being a D means, both the positives and the parts that other types can have challenges with, which is true of everybody and every type. I love that. Okay. I wanna also talk about James Hardie a little bit here, and what's interesting about James Hardie is it is an incredible brand within building and construction.

People who have built a house or been in the industry or do handy work or whatever, everybody knows James Hardie. And if you're from outside that industry, there's a good chance you don't know James Hardie. When it comes to recruiting and talent acquisition, how do you think about that, where you have a very powerful brand within a particular vertical if you're hiring people from within industry, or if you're hiring from outside industry where people don't necessarily know it?

[00:18:35] Doris Smart: And admittedly, Dave, when I first was approached for the job at James Hardie, if you look at my background, I'm heavy healthcare. Uh, I started in healthcare, and when I moved into financial services, that was a new space for me. And so when I was approached for this role, I remember thinking, "Hardie, like the trucker hats?"

"Like the fashion brand?" And it was funny in the moment, and then, oh, I was like, "Oh, the construction materials." And look, the more I learned about James Hardie, what you said is right on point. I love our brand and what we do and what it stands for. And I'll never forget, one of the HR leaders, um, that I work with, and when she was interviewing me for the role, uh, she goes, "It's where we live.

This is what keeps my family safe." And we're used to the big brands, the CPG brands that are on the shelves that we see every day, and that's great. And for me, having been so accustomed to that, this was such a big change because it is much larger than just something on the shelf. It is truly an investment, and it is truly where your loved ones are sleeping all day, right?

Like every day. So for us as a company, it's been interesting because having come from other industries, I challenge my team to look beyond just across the way in our same industry, because there's great talent everywhere. But to your point, not everybody's familiar with James Hardie, right? They're wondering, what is it?

We make a concerted effort in recruiting to educate folks and also bring them through the journey of what it has meant to be part of James Hardie. One of the things I talk about with folks is I came from healthcare where people never left the company. You know, and Abbott Labs is a known entity just in itself, and you have lifers there.

When I came to James Hardie, I remember meeting folks that had been with James Hardie for twenty-five, thirty-five years plus, and I was shocked. And I thought, "Oh, really?" And oh, okay, this is interesting because you become so siloed in your own company, and you're just, I usually say to people, "We drink the Kool-Aid," right?

And so you have blinders to your own industry and your own companies. But with James Hardie, once you educate and you talk about not just the products, but you look at the financials, you look at the global footprint, you look at the intentional investments that we're making, you look at the talent that you're working with, our leadership.

[00:21:07] Dave Travers: The bleeding-edge material science to make the products possible and better. 

[00:21:11] Doris Smart: Hundred percent when you think of innovation, and we have some amazing talent. And so if you look at our leadership and you look at the folks, you have a little bit of everything. You have the folks that have been here for a very long time.

You have folks that have joined similar to myself in the last five years, and you see the wealth of experience that they're bringing to really transform what we're doing to drive us for what the future is gonna be. 

[00:21:35] Dave Travers: If I'm an emerging leader at a company where within my town or within my industry or whatever, you know, people know me, but we also have to break through and find talent pools outside of that captive audience where we're such a known brand.

How do you tell a story like that where you have so much to tell, but you're talking to somebody who's, like, initially coming in thinking this is a no-name company, and you have this big story to tell? How do you do that? 

[00:22:02] Doris Smart: So the first thing I would say is go make marketing your best friend. So don't silo yourself into thinking HR stays within HR.

Educating your recruiters to be able to articulate the business like a salesperson would or like somebody in marketing or R&D, you need to equip your team to fully understand the business through and through, and more importantly, just be just as excited as those frontline leaders that are in those functions.

So one thing, think of the brand and what you do on the sales side that is outward-facing. We're partnering closely with marketing to build new materials that really showcase where we're going, but more importantly, who we're transforming and becoming as a new James Hardie. So for companies that are kind of dipping their toe a little bit more and wanting to educate others on their brand is think about what would bring you to the table.

Think about what brought you to the table, actually, more importantly, and how are you telling that story to other individuals that would feel just as excited as you did to join the company? 

[00:23:13] Dave Travers: Love that. So smart. Okay, the other big topic that everyone's always thinking about, and I know that you've been thinking about it as well, having been at Hardie for a couple of years now, I want to say, is technology.

Like, the buzzwords are all out there. It's AI, it's automation. We need to be more efficient. We got to tell our story about how we're embracing rather than running away from technology. At the same time, some employees have different attitudes. Some love and can't wait to hear about the next new piece of technology.

Some are like, "Hey, don't move my cheese," as you said. Um, and so how do you, how do you take all that into account and decide what to do next? All of us are in this position where the technology's changing, its capabilities are increasing. We have to do new stuff. How do you decide [00:24:00] what to take on? How do you prioritize? What's the next thing to do? 

[00:24:04] Doris Smart: So the first thing is, what will help my team be better, and how can we get rid of the things that are administrative? So there's the whole AI is gonna take away jobs, or it's impacting HR, or it can review resumes much more faster, and let's throw it in AI and maybe we'll get our shortlist.

There are actual laws and regulations, especially in our space, that really regulate how we use AI. So one of the things, Dave, the easy one, is the laws hold us back in what we can and cannot do. So one is that compliance piece, because at the end of the day, we're not gonna create an unnecessary risk because we're trying to pilot or do things outside of what's, uh, we can do But the big piece for me is, how can my team take the tools and make their lives easier?

And so some examples, right? So our company right now, it's all things AI. We're investing and have a roadmap with enterprise-wide training of AI to folks. We have licenses that we're investing in so that we can leverage and use it. I have an amazing CISO who has helped me at least get more creative, not just with my agents, but even with my inbox, so that it helps you at least clean up and prioritize your emails and flag them so that you know the ones that are an inform versus a reaction versus somebody's mad, you should respond and prioritize this one.

And the things that more on the back end will help me be more efficient. So what I would say to most people is, think through what are the pain points and where's your team spending the most time. Right now, we're looking at, for example, how can we be more efficient in, uh, our interview notes to share with our leaders?

How can we be more efficient in better job descriptions? Being more efficient also in creating better questions, but not just for the recruiters, for our leaders. People forget, you might have this job once a year. We assume people know how to interview, but the market has changed, and they don't. And so please lean into your recruiters, uh, hiring managers, and remember that it's okay not to know what the market looks like.

That's why we're there, to educate you. But AI will help with so much when you think about efficiencies and administrative, a lot of the paper pushing that it has to be done, and that's just not in TA; that's just across the board. While still being very thoughtful about the fact that it isn't black and white.

Recruiting and hiring, if somebody was going to make a life-changing decision of moving jobs, they're not doing it because an AI bot called them, and they're not doing it because an AI bot said, "Here's why you need to join James Hardie." There is a voice, there is a person, and there are questions, and it's that journey that is personalized when you're talking to a recruiter that you can't replicate with AI.

[00:27:10] Dave Travers: I love your framework of look at where you, your [00:27:15] team is spending time, and how do you free them up from time? Because I think if you're an employee base who's thinking about, uh, you know, "Is AI th- there to, to help me or to hurt me or to get in the way?" Like, the value proposition of saying, "Where do [00:27:30] you have a bunch of time sucked up so that we can free it up for you to drive more and better outcomes?"

Is so much more appealing than saying, "Hey, I need you to use AI all the time. Are you using AI enough?" Because that's so prescriptive, back to your management, uh, 101 tutorial you gave us earlier. Whereas saying, "I'm gonna take the toil out of your job and free you up to do more of the higher value and drive more outcomes," that is so appealing to all of us, so I think that is such a smart framework for thinking about this.

Okay, we always end these episodes with the rapid fire section. So, so I want you to imagine the CEO of James Hardie is at headquarters, happens to be making a cup of coffee next to you in the kitchen, and says, "Hey, Doris, you know, I've been thinking, you're the expert on talent acquisition. I interview people all the time, but you're the pro at this.

Give me your one best tip for being a better interviewer." What would you say? 

[00:28:28] Doris Smart: My one tip would be, okay, make sure you're listening. A lot of our leaders like to multitask, and our brains go a million miles an hour. Be an active listener. 

[00:28:40] Dave Travers: Yeah. 

[00:28:40] Doris Smart: And I wouldn't say that to him like that, right? He's my superior, so I would be much di- more diplomatic.

But I would say being present. In a world today, especially if you're doing interviews via, like, Webex or Teams or whatnot, being present is critical because you have Teams distracting, you have text messages distracting, you have emails distracting, and it sounds basic, but I would say to you that we are right now so accustomed to thinking that we can get away with it, that you lose sight of the individual in front of you that is making a life-changing decision.

And also remembering that that person that's in front of you is also assessing you And so I, I can go on about, like, being present because I, I think in this world that we're in right now, I have little ones at home, you know, and the quickly moving from one thing to another is just part of the current culture that we're growing in.

But we need to think through of really spending the time with the individual, but then also remembering that that individual is assessing you and your reaction. So your lack of listening and lack of interest and lack of follow-up questions is also informing them. 

[00:29:59] Dave Travers: You're showing rather than telling how, how important they are by setting aside all the distractions and locking into that particular moment with them.

I love that. I think that's great. Okay, one more lightning round. Same scenario. CEO comes up next to you and is like, "Hey, Doris, you know, I was thinking about how I measure all the teams. I don't have a good sense. Like, what are the KPIs, or what are the metrics we should be using to measure the talent acquisition team?

Not this week, but, like, in 2026 or over the next 18 months. What's the right way to measure?" 

[00:30:29] Doris Smart: My go-to will always be quality of hire, and that is a tricky one, Dave, because quality of hire isn't something that you just pluck off a report, or AI can tell you right away. Maybe if we feed it all the reports, it will.

Maybe that is a future state, something that we can do more with. But quality of hire informs not just that we're doing a good job selecting the right person, but also are we onboarding them in a way that makes them successful. Are they growing? Are they delivering on the goals that that job is requiring?

And that's very telling, not just on the person that we hired, but then also on the leadership, right? Because the person is successful, only as successful as their boss allows them to be in the sense of guidance, support, et cetera, um, and how they move up within the organization. So quality of hire is always gonna be number one.

[00:31:27] Dave Travers: Yeah. As you say, it's hard to measure, but no one can argue that that is, uh, the foundational element. Doris, that is so clear listening to you over these past few minutes why you're such a talent all-star. Thanks so much for taking the time with us today. 

[00:31:43] Doris Smart: Thank you, Dave. It was a pleasure. Really enjoyed talking to you.

[00:31:50] Dave Travers: That's Doris Smart. She's the Head of Global Talent Acquisition at James Hardie. We'll put her LinkedIn profile in the notes below. And as 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 at talentallstars@ziprecruiter.com.

I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All-Stars, and we'll see you right back here next time