Most HR leaders want a seat at the table. But what does it take to get there?
As the Chief People Officer at Skillsoft—and a former consultant for brands like Comcast, Johnson & Johnson, and Coca-Cola—Ciara Harrington believes the best CPOs think like business executives first, and HR leaders second.
In this episode, she explains what true transformation looks like, how to overcome resistance when making big changes, and why proving HR’s impact with data is no longer optional.
Ciara also shares:
💼Connect with Ciara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ciarabarry/
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter
Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
[00:00:00] Ciara Harrington: In order to prove your worth at the C-suite, you have to be able to demonstrate that what your function provides to the business drives improved business outcomes. And if it does, then your function gets more funding and you get more money to do what you need to do. If you can't demonstrate it or prove it, you become a function that gets cut when times are tough.
[00:00:22] 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 a top executive at one of the world's leading corporate learning platforms, Skillsoft. Ciara Harrington is the Chief People Officer there helping organizations and their people grow faster and smarter. Before Skillsoft, Ciara sharpened her HR and leadership skills as a consultant for Deloitte, and she's managed big projects inside businesses like Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Comcast, and NBC Universal.
Ciara has built her career on driving transformation, solving tricky problems, and helping teams embrace change, not fear it. Ciara Harrington, welcome to Talent All-Stars.
[00:01:15] Ciara Harrington: Thank you very much. I'm super excited to be here.
[00:01:17] Dave Travers: So excited to have you here and so much to talk about. First, you have taken a journey to get to where you are at Skillsoft, including many famous names of brands along the way. Tell us a little bit about the beginning, like when did you feel like HR could be a place that is a long-term fit for you?
[00:01:40] Ciara Harrington: I think I always start this by saying. Since I was really little, I wanted to be a business executive. I'm now using air quotes. I don't think in the early days I really knew what that meant, but I used to carry my dad's briefcase around the house and pretend that I was a very important business person.
I think that's where it started. In my high school days, I think it became very clear my natural aptitude lay more in the math and logical science-y side of things, but. I personally was super interested in humans, human behavior. I'm a very sociable person, and I found, I think the interaction between the two to be really interesting.
My dad really wanted me to go into engineering, which was the big, around the time of the IT boom. It was the big money maker at the time, is where all the jobs were, and I still remember telling him. I wasn't passionate about it and I wanted to do something I was passionate about. So we compromised on a degree, which I did back in Cork in Ireland, called Business and Information Systems.
So I connected to the business, he connected to the information systems, and we had a compromise. So I did the degree and I came out the other side and, one of the interviews I had at the time was, and I still remember, was with the head of, which would've been compensation and benefits, I think at the time is now total rewards. And I think it was the first time I was like, oh, wait a second. HR has this whole side to it that mathematical right? And all of a sudden I was like. I found my sweet spot. So I came out of that interview. I got offered the rotational program ended up staying in the comp benefits team for two years. I enjoyed it so much.
And then from there, I went on into the consulting world, right where I sort of continued to grow my expertise. I think I was always interested in transformation and change, which I think rings through in my resume, too. And what I found I got from consulting was that ability to problem solve, and you go client to client. When every client is a different problem, and every client you go to, they do things a different way. And every one of these you do, right, you learn, hey, this is a really good way to do that, and if you improve this in this way, it's gonna work better for you. Right? And I worked through that whole thing, and in the end, I decided.
Through consulting. It's a tough job, especially if you wanna have a family and it's a lot of travel, and there's an element to consulting where you go in and you fix the problem, but you never get to live it. You fix it and you move on. You never really see did it work well, what didn't work well, or reap the benefits of your work?
And I made a very conscious decision to go back into corporate. I think from there, continue to grow my total rewards expertise, and two and a half years ago now, I think stepped into the chief people officer role here at Skillsoft. I have the last laugh with my father that the path I took paid off,
[00:04:31] Dave Travers: I would say. So, technology is a key part of being a chief people officer these days. And I think you also check the box on your childhood dream of business executive. So well done. Well done. Everybody's happy. So, one of the things I want to pick up on that you said along the way there is business transformation. You skipped some of the fancy brands, but NBC Universal, Deloitte, Comcast, Coca-Cola, Johnson and Johnson, like you've seen a lot of fancy companies do things a lot of different ways, and I think that there's a certain type of person who loves the next big change.
And there's a certain type of person who's like, Ooh, can I just stick to doing maybe stuff 1% better today rather than a big change? If you are the latter, how do I learn to stop fearing it and start thinking about taking on a big transformational project?
[00:05:18] Ciara Harrington: I would answer that by saying. It's really about pro-like transformation is really about problem solving. I sometimes think the word transformation, it feels scary to people. It feels huge. It feels overwhelming. What does this mean? And it comes with, I think, a lot of negative connotations, like uncertainty and long hours, or difficult challenges or whatever those things might be. But underneath it all, and this is, I think, one of the things you really learn in those early days at a consulting firm is it's about breaking down a problem and solving it.
And I think if you can take transformation at its basic level, you're basically looking at something and saying, this is not working. We could do this better. And it's about breaking down that problem into the different chunks and figuring out where is it going wrong, where do we need to improve it? And how do I then take the steps to take those actions to improve it? It's also about seeing it as part of your day-to-day job. There's a lens through which people get comfortable, and they think, my job is my job. I did it this way last year. I'll do it this way this year, and I'll do it this way next year.
In the world we're in today, that job doesn't exist anymore. All of our jobs are evolving and growing every single year, and every time you fix something, well guess what? Next year you're gonna come back and go, oh, now there's this other new technology or this new thinking on how this should be done. So I think that's the other part of it, is you need to be always. That needs to be part of your normal day-to-day, and you need to build that culture into your organization.
[00:06:54] Dave Travers: You did an incredible job of convincing me that transformation is a good thing. It's gonna be worth it. Things are gonna improve. Here's the thing you didn't cover, though, which is sometimes if I'm taking on a project like this for the first time. I'm going to bump into, and I may have seen others who are championing transformation in previous situations bump into the fact that people are a little risk-averse sometimes, and they're a little more attached to the way things happen now than maybe is rational or whatever. So, how do you get good at selling the way you just sold me and getting the laggard who's a little reticent and a little unsure about switching their current process and bring 'em over the line to be transformational.
[00:07:41] Ciara Harrington: You mentioned the word risk-averse. Okay, so let me start there. People are generally afraid of making a mistake. Making a mistake is bad. If I make a mistake, I will get in trouble with my boss, right? That's the general culture in corporate America can be that way. Leaning in my experience, a massive part of driving transformation is making it so mistakes are okay as long as they're on the journey to a transformation, and it's making it acceptable to change something.
And it not to work exactly the way you maybe thought it would. And I think system implementations, right? Provide a very good example of this. I'm sure many of your listeners have implemented or been part of putting in Workday, putting in SAP. It doesn't matter what it is, right? And you start off the process and you've got this perfect idea in your head of how this system is gonna work on the other side. Inevitably, when you push it out to all your employees and all of a sudden all these people start using it, you realize, oh, I didn't realize that when you did this process, it went through these five steps. I thought it just stopped at these three.
So in my mind, it's making it so you have to get the system in, and you have a certain amount of time to do it. You do your absolute best to get it as good as you can. But then, when you get to the other side, you don't stop. You don't implement a system and then go, okay, we're finished. It's done. That's when the work really starts. Now you have your baseline, and now you're gonna continue to grow and develop that baseline. The term you hear sometimes is fail fast. Like if you try something and it doesn't work, sometimes you can say, well, great, now we know that doesn't work. So now what will work? You can't have an environment of innovation and transformation if there's not.
This ability to make mistakes and fail fast, and for those to be an acceptable part of it. Now, I absolutely need to caveat. I am ahead of HR. There are mistakes and there are mistakes. There are certain things that we have to get right? We have to pay people properly. We have to compliance and risk and all of those things. They're not areas where this is acceptable, right? But if we're talking about an onboarding process where you are looking at, from the minute you start to source a candidate all the way through to their first 90 days in seat, right? There's loads of ways to do that process. There's loads of ways it can be improved and streamlined.
It means something different for every org, even sometimes for every function within every org. So, taking chances and experimenting with pilots and some of this to see that. The other advice I think I give is pilot programs, and one of the things I talk a lot about is every program I roll out at any organization I work at hr, do it first. There's a really good reason why I wanna test it. I wanna find the kinks, and I wanna do that in a safe space. That means when I push it to the rest of the organization, again, there will probably still be things. The org will come back and say, Hey, Ciara, this would be better done this way or that way. But at least I have another layer of review on the program.
[00:10:38] Dave Travers: Speaking of transformation, you've been a Chief People Officer now for four years at Skillsoft, as you mentioned, and the talent market. The labor market has undergone a transformation over the past four years. So, can you give an example of something that is different today and what stays the same as the labor market changes, and the needs of Skillsoft change, and whether it's AI skills or whatever it is, like so much about supply and demand has changed. How do you think about what are we gonna keep the same that is forever us, about our talent strategy, and what is it that we need to really adapt?
[00:11:16] Ciara Harrington: I will start with the internal, right? Because I think when I talk about talent, I've got talent that's at my company already, and I've got talent that's out in the market that I'm gonna hire. And the approaches to those two things are not the same, right? It's a different lens that we have. When you think about your internal talent, what are they bringing to the table? They understand your product. They understand your company. A lot of them have connections with your customers, and they understand the history of where the company came from and are here for the journey. And a lot of times, these are your people that really believe, they really believe in the company. If they're here a long time, they're here for a reason. And a lot of time it's a belief in the company, your value system, and what you offer, and then what someone new brings into the company is fresh perspective, different skills potentially, right?
That I don't already have. A renewed energy sometimes, right? That someone's coming in fresh and someone's excited and can bring new energy to an existing team. So you've got those two lenses. And then you've gotta think about AI. Obviously, we can't talk about talent without talking about AI, but one of the things is when we're bringing in people externally, we're looking for a higher level of AI skill than maybe the people we already have internally.
Every company out there is probably in exactly the same boat. So then internally. We're focusing our upskilling efforts on AI transformation and change. We are a company that's just going through a huge change right now, and those are the skills that I need to develop internally. And those are also the skills that I'm focused on hiring externally, because now that I know what I need my organization to have, I'm gonna make sure anyone I bring in from the outside already has that.
The goal is the comp, bringing in these people from the out. Along with upskilling and reskilling, my current team will allow everybody to grow and learn together, and that's how we're thinking about it internally at my organization. The other thing we're always working on, I mean, we're a learning company. Like when I talk about transformation, right? One of the big things transformation gives people is a really great experience to do something you've never done before, to stretch yourself to solve different kinds of problems. And there's a lot of people that are excited to learn and grow in that space.
And that's another area where we try to help people rotate around into different jobs or help put people on a cross-functional projects, right? So they get an opportunity to work with other people and they get an opportunity to really stretch that skillset. It also gives us an opportunity to understand what other roles they might be suitable for, right within our organization. And it gives us an opportunity to try out some individuals to say, okay, can they stretch into this position? Let's give them a try, and then let's see if we can. If a different org opens up, well, then maybe this person would be suitable. And now we know that because we've seen them in action. That's how we're thinking about it internally. Again, obviously, as a learning company, we're huge on developing our own internal talent, but we are also very aware that it needs to be a combination of both.
[00:14:16] Dave Travers: So good. So I think that thinking about how you build talent both internally and externally. To deal with the challenges, not just of today, but of tomorrow. Where are the skills that we're absolutely gonna need? What type of people who are good at learning things that don't even exist yet is so crucial? And so one thing I think a lot of people, a little earlier on in their career who think, oh wow, I wanna be a chief people officer someday are thinking about is what are the skills I need?
What skills can I be developing to get where Ciara is today? So what's the advice you would give to someone who's 10 years earlier, 15 years earlier in their career, who wants to crest the mountaintop at the, in the C-suite? And what are the sorts of skills they're going to need to be a chief people officer 10 years from now?
[00:15:06] Ciara Harrington: So you're tricking me here with 10 years from now, 'cause at this point the world is changing on a regular basis. So I, with the caveat that, with what I know to be true today, sure. In 10 years time, you know, who knows. But look, I think what I'm seeing at the C-suite level is, is a huge shift in what's required to be a C-Suite executive, at least in these corporate support roles and a different level of focus than before.
And how I'll start describing it is. In this day and age, CEOs are looking for business executives first, right? So first and foremost, my CEO is looking for me to be part of a team that leads and drives a business, with my specialist expertise being in all things people and human resources. So it's a different flip from me sitting on. The direct reports and being the CHRO as opposed to being one of the business executives, leading and driving the business. And more and more we're seeing tech CEOs start to look for more of this type of person in their corporate support roles.
The other thing that I'm seeing that's hugely important is data and analytics. Is in order to prove your worth at the C-suite, so in the C-suite or in the boardroom, you have to be able to demonstrate that what your function provides to the business drives improved business outcomes. And examples I use is that previously, CEOs might say, oh, benchmark data says that we should have four employees to every leader.
And the CEO says, why? Well, that's what the benchmark data says that I have. So we should go and do that, right? These days, my CEO wants to hear, we should have a span of one to six. We should reduce our layers by from six to five. The reason why is communication flows faster. It creates better focus for our managers 'cause they're now managers and their duty is managing the team versus doing a partial role. We can now upskill, reskill those managers in a meaningful way that they can better guide those team members and as a result. We can create greater productivity throughout the organization. And here is a way, CEO, that I can demonstrate to you that things have improved from where we were last year to where we were this year.
And look at your business results that were help driven by this change. I think that is, that's an example, but that lens so important. You're sitting in their room, they want business outcomes, they wanna know every year. I wanna know how that relates to how the company performs and if it does. Then your function gets more funding, and you get more money to do what you need to do.
If you can't demonstrate it or prove it, you become a function that gets caught when times are tough. So it isn't that HR have never been adding value. We have been adding value all along, but we have struggled in our ability to show that in a way that links to business outcomes, and what I say, especially to upcoming HR business partners, is you are a coach of many senior executives and many HR business partners are coaching leaders that could be two, three times their senior, and it's so important that the lens you have on is this lens of business outcomes.
You need to be always sitting with that leader and asking them. What are your business goals and how can HR help you drive those business goals? That's our only point of existence as a function, right? Yes, there are administrative things we need to do. We need to pay people, we need to onboard them. We need to off onboard them. Those things are table sticks, right? To sit at the C-suite and sit in a boardroom. That's where we need to be going. So I think my biggest advice to anybody is step out of your function, understand the business. Understand data and analytics. We don't all need to be experts at it. There are people that are great data scientists that can help with that, but we do need to understand what are analytics that help the business understand how the HR function is performing, how it's helping the business grow, and what are those leading analytics that we're gonna share with the business that maybe say flag risk before the business does.
An example, a business leader comes to me and says, Hey, Ciara. Six people have resigned in engineering last week. Can you and your team go look into this? I want a world where I am going to this manager of engineering and saying, I've just noticed your attrition has spiked in the last two months. I've also noticed your comp-to-ratio has dropped a little. Is there anything else going on in your org? How can we help you? Do you need us to build pipeline? Like that's the world where you really show value. It's to flip the switch and be proactive, not reactive. And I think a lot of HR organizations we're still getting there.
[00:20:03] Dave Travers: Uh, Ciara, I think you could write a whole book on that answer. And I do think that like the framework of starting from the place that I'm a business leader or a business executive first, and it just so happens my current role. Is people in HR and regardless of what your role is, that is like if you walk in the office every day with that attitude, people are gonna love solving problems with you and look to you to help solve the next difficult problem.
I absolutely love that. Okay. We always end our episodes. With a rapid-fire section. So I want you to imagine the scenario. I think you have a fairly new CEO at Skillsoft, as I recall. So imagine you're getting in the elevator and there it's just you and the CEO, and you only have 30 seconds till you're up at the top floor or you're making a cup of coffee and the kitchen and the CEO walks up and says, Hey Ciara, I was thinking the other day, what is the one or two metrics I should track to see? How I think the people team is performing this year. What do you think I should look at?
[00:21:02] Ciara Harrington: I am gonna say the alignment between the HR programs and the company performance, that is your key. If those two things are aligned, then you have set very clear expectations where your company performance is aligned with how your team members all know that they performed.
One of the biggest risks for an organization that I've seen in this role is you have an organization who've rated all of their employees the top rating, but the company hasn't made its numbers. What do you have there? You have a huge disconnect. If you have a company that think everybody's a top performer and your company's missing their numbers, there is something serious wrong there.
It would be much better to miss your numbers and have everyone rate their employees low, 'cause at least then we're all aware. We're not performing to the level we're performing to. So that's my would be my biggest metric, if those two things are in alignment, that is a really good indication that your people, programs, and your company performance are aligned from there. Whether it's higher, whether it's low, or whether it's bang on, you have a really rock-solid place from which to make decisions.
[00:22:08] Dave Travers: Ciara Harrington. So clear, why you're a Talent All-Star. Thank you so much for taking the time to being with us today.
[00:22:14] Ciara Harrington: Thank you. This was great. I really enjoyed it.
[00:22:20] Dave Travers: That's Ciara Harrington. She's the Chief People Officer at Skillsoft. We'll put her LinkedIn profile in the notes below. And 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 at talentallstars@ziprecruiter.com. I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All-Stars. See you next time.