Dimitri Boylan
Welcome to another episode of the Talent Transformation Podcast. Today we have Neha Sharma, the Senior Vice President of HR at Unifi. Unifi is North America’s largest aviation services company. Neha, pleasure to have you here.
Neha Sharma
It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. It’s interesting because Unifi is not a company where the brand name sort of rolls off your tongue. When I think of the aviation industry, like everyone, I think we just think of airlines, and we assume that they just do everything that needs to be done. And, I know that’s not true. So why don’t you give us a little bit of background on Unifi?
Neha Sharma
Sure. And I think that’s important as well, because, as you rightly said, ground handling as an industry it’s not truly known. And the common belief is that all aviation is airlines. But if you look around the world, even in Europe, you have enough players that are actually operating in ground handling, they are in aviation services, but they’re not the airlines. Right? And the whole lot of work that gets done behind the scenes to make sure that the planes, passengers and cargo are moving efficiently and safely is actually managed by ground handling companies like Unifi.
So we are in around 220 stations, and I say stations, airports, but pretty much in all large airports as well as many field locations, small locations, Unifi is there.
So, Unifi has undergone a journey. Unifi was earlier Delta’s wholly owned subsidiary. It was Delta Global Services. So, it has also been for us, a branding transformation as well. When it became Unifi, it’s only in the last two years that our employees are wearing our uniforms now and therefore they are more visible at the airport.
In the past, maybe they were not even visible because they were either wearing airlines’ uniforms or, let’s say, DGS like that. Delta again.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. As you were talking, I was thinking, “Well, you do those things, but I have a customer, Delta, that does it all themselves.” And now I realize that you are them.
Neha Sharma
So, we have a huge responsibility, right? Huge, huge responsibility in making sure that we match the level of service based on the airlines. And I think that even, you know, that’s where I was explaining earlier that it is the challenge for a ground handling company like us is very different because you are talking about a whole range of airlines. Right? From premium to even low cost. And the way you manage your client, how you manage their bag to wheelchair assistance, could look different.
Dimitri Boylan
So, when you talk about recruiting in this particular industry, when you go out to hire new people, do you find people who have been in this industry for a long time?
You know, in the banking industry mostly hire people… They have entry-level people and then the rest of the people that are hiring have been in the banking industry for five years or ten years. Is this similar in your industry?
Neha Sharma
It is, in the sense that there is a preference that you would see from some candidates who’ve been in aviation in one way or the other, and they want to be in aviation and specifically at the airport.
When you search for jobs, you actually search for airport jobs. There are a whole lot of candidates out there who are looking for airport jobs.
Dimitri Boylan
I get that because, you know, airports have a certain energy.
Neha Sharma
Energy, yes. But it’s all in the I would say, you know, maybe a 60-mile radius, right? Because the commute can truly, because when you’re talking about frontline employees, every hour matters, right? If you’re traveling, not earning, that’s a dent in your daily wages. Right? So again, they would want to be productive for most of all, they really truly want to work and therefore accessibility matters. It is hyperlocal. You know you are going hyper local in terms of recruiting.
Dimitri Boylan
So is your internal mobility mostly then moving people through different jobs at the airport as opposed to moving people to different airports?
Neha Sharma
You know, one of the things that I would say that Unifi is actively trying to solve for, is actually coming up with what we call career paths, right? I say that you’re starting here, which seems to be the logical place to start, and it doesn’t require too much from you to get started, apart from the training that people provide you. But once you’re here, can you move up in terms of the wage level from, say, $15 to $30, and what would it take for you to get there?
So today, as we do move a lot of people internally, we do also have employees who are actually moving across stations, which is, you know, “I want to move from Detroit to Atlanta.” So that also we are solving for, to organize it within the company.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah, but the training burden when moving somebody from something very customer-facing. Well, let’s go the other way from, you know, warehouse logistics into a highly customer-facing type job can be pretty substantial. And not everybody who even does it necessarily makes it over to that.
Neha Sharma
And that’s where our selection process comes into picture. For customer service role we are again very particular as to who we hire. Right? But it’s just that we don’t necessarily close it for our internal employees. But, yeah, I mean I think no matter whether you come internally or externally, you have to go through that selection process to make it
Dimitri Boylan
And do you back it up with performance management that then says, “Well, we took a chance.” You’re in this contained idea of an airport, right? So you’ve got this contained community and you’re moving into these different jobs, and some of them are taking the training, doing a different job and succeeding at it. And, you know, others are not. Right? So are you doing sort of a performance assessment at the mobility that says, okay, they tried but they didn’t make it?
Neha Sharma
Yeah. So I think performance in our context looks very different as well. It is unconventional in the sense that typically when, if I look at it from my previous experience, which was not in aviation and working with front line workforce, it looks a lot more organized in the sense that our goals that you have, you are being tracked and you’re being reviewed you you’re getting continuous feedback. You know, you’re moving upwards or right.
It’s very different for a frontline, because if you really see performance indicators are what you would otherwise typically think are maybe hygiene factors. I one of the most important things. Did you show up? Are you able to show up every single day you know on time if you know, again and again. So that is one of the key performance indicators. If you’re somebody who can do that reliably, you’re wonderful.
Then safety is huge. Safety is a value for us, and it’s not a priority, right? You have to live it. You have to keep yourself safe. You have to keep passengers safe. You have to make sure because that’s very critical for us.
Dimitri Boylan
Well, let’s take another example of that. I mean, obviously, safety is important because you’re walking around jet planes and propeller planes and things like that. But also security.
So, you’re working in environments that are relatively secure environments. How does that affect the recruiting process and how does that affect the operating model that you have?
Neha Sharma
So there are very clear requirements in terms of who can work in what we call, SIDA and non-SIDA. SIDA is the security… you’ve gone through the entire airport badging and fingerprinting and badging process. So every all of our employees have to clear that. Right? Which is over and above the background checks that we run. It is the, you know, airport running the background check on you.
And, so that it comes with and then there are some other requirements if you’re on the international side of the airport versus on the domestic, it comes with additional certification or licenses. So you have to cross that as well. It’s a cost for the company. It’s definitely some work or time investment from employers as well. But it helps if you have that because then that opens up opportunities for you. Right?
Dimitri Boylan
How much are you using technology? In the HR organization
Neha Sharma
In a big way. So I think the fact that even today, I would say, not all organizations have something called HR technology as a function. It’s there, it’s growing, which is wonderful to see it. But then, if you look at maybe, you know, seven years ago, it was hard to find people who would say, you know, I’m part of a HR technology team at an organization. It was all…
Dimitri Boylan
… the IT organization. And they had a client who was in HR. Maybe it was their favorite client. Maybe it wasn’t their favorite client.
Neha Sharma
You will hear that.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. And so, I mean a lot of companies now understand it. HR tech is evolving so much that you have to have people who are really focused on it.
Neha Sharma
Yeah. So the why for us, the way we look at it is I call my team the product team. So we do have our IT team that is our engineering team. They do most of the work and when it comes to development. Right? But when it comes to what needs to be developed and what problem it needs to solve, it’s something that my team would do.
Because, and that comes from the fact that we are a business that is highly people-oriented, right? I mean, we are here because of the people. So it is highly dependent on being able to truly understand what they need and what is the best way to solve for it is critical.
Dimitri Boylan
Well, I think the IT organizations in the past were struggling with the complexity of HR. You know, the finance system seemed so reasonable. Everybody, you know, the data got into the box and it got added up and the CFO was happy. And then you went over to the HR organization, and people’s behavior doesn’t fit in a box. And, you know, people’s history doesn’t fit into a
Neha Sharma
And there are so many nuances. The fact that you’re talking about people, there will be like hundreds of nuances that you have to bake in.
Dimitri Boylan
I think that we’ve definitely pushed the idea that, whether you are an HR professional or an IT professional, no matter how your organization is structured, somebody has to be designing the products.
Neha Sharma
Exactly.
Dimitri Boylan
And we feel that the product, the systems, if the systems don’t add up to be a product, then there’s probably a problem.
Neha Sharma
It’s definitely a problem, right?
Dimitri Boylan
As people start feeling like they are in these various systems. And that’s the beginning of the death of a user experience. Like I know that I’m in a system. Products don’t make you feel that way. They just feel like you’re getting everything you want. And products are hard to design.
Neha Sharma
Very, very hard. And that’s where for us, if you look at it now from a frontline employee and I feel really sorry at times when I see how much burden we are putting right on them. You know, they are coming here, you know, for a job that is straining at multiple levels, right?
Dimitri Boylan
It’s actually a tough job.
Neha Sharma
Yeah, it’s a very, very tough job emotionally, physically, you’re working in all elements. Anyway, so I think on top of it, I feel it’s important as an organization, especially if you are in people function, no matter you know, where you sit. Even if you’re an operational leader who is nothing but managing people, it’s important for you to be mindful of the burden that you’re putting on them on top of everything else that they have to do in order to earn that hourly rate that they are here for. And if you’re just putting too much of a cognitive load just because you have to remember, “I have to go off to do this here, to go there to do something else.” That’s just not fair.
And the same thing goes even for… As we’re looking at for our station leaders, do you really need them to be making a decision on which background check package I run for this candidate. That’s just a waste of time. Why do they have to worry about that? It’s something somebody else should be doing or the system should be doing. So I think we take a very thoughtful approach in terms of when we’re looking at designing a solution, that from an employee perspective, it has to be simple and very easy to use. And we are solving for the things that they are looking for.
For some of the designing of our solutions, we’ve actually gotten our frontline employees to help design it.
Dimitri Boylan
Oh, that’s interesting
Neha Sharma
How do you understand it? How do you interact with it? Because it’s different for me, right? The way I interact with the apps on my phone is different from how they interact with it. And having that perspective is super critical. So, for some of our applications, which are truly meant for our frontline employees, they are the ones who are designing it.
Dimitri Boylan
How would you describe your workforce? Is it very diverse? Is it very different in different regions, obviously, because you’re very city-specific? You are even neighborhood-specific, I would say, right?
Neha Sharma
I would say in some places, yes. We are highly diverse in the sense that we tap into local communities a lot. So yes, and we see that flavor coming into our workforce as well then. It could be very different ethnic makeup in different locations. Minneapolis versus Seattle. So, yes, we have a whole vast variety of diversity that lives within the Unifi ecosystem and they all are co-located. I think that’s the one piece.
And then I think that’s one of the things that we try to solve for as well. It means you’re dealing with employees who speak different languages. Clearly, their understanding of English may be limited, and then not all jobs truly require them to have a certain level of proficiency in English as well. Like if you’re in Commissary, it doesn’t really require, but you do need to be able to read and write sufficiently to be able to follow these safety instructions.
This is a very different requirement from being able to have a conversation fluently. So that does kind of make us, in order to then see how we truly solve for culture and getting everybody together and create the sense of belonging when you have so many different people in the company and every station, or every airport, we call them stations, but anyways, every station is kind of an entity in itself.
Dimitri Boylan
A micro culture that has to work within this bigger framework. But I could see how you could easily have a group in a particular airport who’s been there for ten years saying, “Well, this is how we do it over here, because we’ve all agreed on this. And then you go across the country and you have another group that says, well, we do it differently over here.”
Neha Sharma
So I think we’ve been very careful as an organization to say, there’s a way for you to put it in context, right? There are things that you should continue to do differently. And that’s the nature of the people that you’re managing and even some of the local nuances that come because of the work that you’re doing for the client or for the airlines, which is fair.
But then there are certain things when it comes to, it is important for an employee somewhere in Tampa to know that they are part of a very large organization. And that will help them in one way or the other in their careers as well. And I just feel it’s fair that everybody gets a taste of the Unifi way. As to who we are? Why we do what we do and how we do things?
So, I think we’ve taken a very intentional approach in terms of where we would do standardization. Where we will allow for that flexibility and customization, or even, for that matter, even that culture, which is slightly different and that purely based on the group of people that are together there, and it is heavily dependent on the station leader so they can truly make and break right for us. So we invest heavily in our station leaders,
Dimitri Boylan
What’s your background? Did you come out of the tech side, or did you come from the HR side?
Neha Sharma
It’s all over the place. But yeah, in terms of my education, I did my undergrad in science, you know, with physics.
Dimitri Boylan
Oh, so did I.
Neha Sharma
Okay. Wonderful. So maybe I should ask you, how did you land? I really feel…
Dimitri Boylan
It’s all over the place for me, actually.
Neha Sharma
So, you know, I thought HR was interesting. So in my first job, I had the opportunity to pick up. I mean, I was one of the fortunate ones; I was not put in a box to say this is where you come. I had a few options, so I went straight from my, without any experience, into a very large company in India, which was in tech on the business process management side.
And there I think I spent time with a lot of functions initially for the first two weeks. And I think HR got my interest. I mean, I got interested in HR, But, in the sense that initially, for me, it was like, “We can look at these problems differently.” Right. It could be a more scientific approach in some cases. Similar problems exist in physics at your atomic level. I mean, you see that all the time those interactions happen.
And I think I was coming from that world. So I was looking at, okay, like one of the simple things I remember I was asking, “Do you think people are leaving? You’re focusing too much on people are leaving. You should ask about what you did to make them leave. As simple as what… There is inertia that people have. You broke that inertia. And what did you do to break that inertia? Because they were continuing with us until you did something.”
So, I think the way I was asking questions, I just thought that I could add value because just because of my background from science, and the fact that in HR, I feel it’s a very powerful role from a business standpoint. If you understand it, you can influence a lot of positive change in an organization.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah, that’s very interesting. So obviously, you are thinking about artificial intelligence.
Neha Sharma
Yes. And that’s from you know, I’ll tell you where, that comes in. I did my undergrad. I never chose to do my Masters without experience because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And ten years into my career in HR, I could just see how technology’s becoming bigger and bigger. And I was questioning my own role many times. I don’t have to spend time on this.
And maybe because of my background, I would’ve been questioning why do I have to spend on that? There is a better way to do this, right? So that prompted me to really look at what I should do next in terms of my education, my Masters. So I applied to MIT. I was fortunate enough to get in. So I did my MBA from MIT to their Sloan Fellows program.
Dimitri Boylan
Sloan. Yes.
Neha Sharma
Yeah. And in Sloan, you have an option to do a thesis. So I chose the topic of my thesis as “AI: changing the face of HR.”
Dimitri Boylan
Oh. You did? Yeah. So. Okay,
Neha Sharma
I was halfway, you know, into it. But then something happened, and I think I shared it earlier that MIT has a very strong entrepreneurship ecosystem. And I think midway, there was an idea that I had, which was had nothing to do with HR, nothing to do with technology, nothing. It was a different problem that I had as a mother. And I chose to do a startup on that.
Dimitri Boylan
Oh!
Neha Sharma
And I graduated from MIT through their incubator Delta v, which is they host startups that are graduating from MIT. So I was one of these startups that came out of MIT in 2019. I did that for two years. Covid was not too kind. So I decided to come back.
Dimitri Boylan
It was a tough time, you know, it’s a tough time.
Neha Sharma
Yes. And I think I was running out of my personal runway. I would say as well. So I think I wanted to, I mean, I chose to wind down and come back to doing what I knew the best to do.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Neha Sharma
So I think in tech again, I mean, yeah, I think I’m interested in a lot of things. So I specifically for that reason that, you know, I know it is going to truly change how we talk. It is bound to happen.
Dimitri Boylan
Yes. And it’s incredible what’s going on in the scientific community.
Dimitri Boylan
But, that’s an interesting journey. Yes. So, you know, the entrepreneurial thing, it’s a great experience.
Neha Sharma
It is. I think I’ve learned a lot in terms of it has taught me to look at problem very differently now, I think so. I always try to…
Dimitri Boylan
When I talk to people running HR operations, I always try to impress upon them the value of thinking it from an entrepreneurial perspective, so really feel like they are.
And I say, I say, “You really are an entrepreneur.” But I’ve thought about like, because I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life and I and I say to myself when I listen to some of the challenges that my customers have, I think to myself, “Well, if you were an entrepreneur, you would you wouldn’t even have that challenge, you know?” So I think it’s actually harder. It’s more lonely to be doing the entrepreneurial thing. But if you just want to solve problems, it’s a lot of times easier in an entrepreneurial space because there are no real constraints on you.
Whereas I feel like a lot of my corporate customers are… Well, one constraint they have is they’re having to prove their ideas before their ideas have the time to generate the results.
Neha Sharma
So true.
Dimitri Boylan
So that you use to prove the idea.
Neha Sharma
Wow. That’s like spot on.
Dimitri Boylan
And this is so difficult for them.
Neha Sharma
And that’s the reason why people don’t have the courage to do it as well within the organizations we kill that entrepreneur nature. Right? Just because you’re putting that condition, tell us what is it going to do?
Dimitri Boylan
Yes. Calculate the ROI. Yeah. It’s like, well, I, I can’t calculate the ROI for this. I, I got a feeling, it seems like a good thing to do. And then yes, they back off of it and they avoid making changes. And I think that, when you go to do something like develop a product, which is what you have to do now to be successful, to be successful in HR, and to digitally transform today, you must be designing a product. And a lot of the time, you’re designing the product without the approval of the organization.
And so you have to have a lot of small goalposts where you validate as you go along. Whereas I felt like, as an entrepreneur people kind of leave you alone. They assume you’re going to fail and they leave you alone and you muck around for a while and then suddenly, you know, you get it right and then boom, you know, somebody pays attention to you.
Neha Sharma
So I’ll tell you what I have learned because I think I have gotten those entrepreneurship behaviors or habits into the organization now. Right? Because, I mean, otherwise I can survive, right? It’s as simple as that. So for me, it’s about the way I put it. It’s long-term thinking and short-term action.
Dimitri Boylan
Action.
Neha Sharma
That’s what you that is the only way for you to be successful. That’s at least for me. That is what has worked. So when I’m talking about a change, I know that change is going to take two years, right? But then I should be able to clearly articulate to anybody in the organization that needs that for various type of, you know, whether it is, you know, influencing others to adopt that right, or even getting approvals like getting the budget, right.
So, you need to be able to really, you know, show that incremental plan, right? That will get you there. And then what does it really mean in three months, in six months, in a year from now and then, you know, over two years to fully get to the value that you are trying, hoping to get for.
Dimitri Boylan
And so when you look at that artificial intelligence, it’s a period of hyper change and it’s hard to know exactly how it’s going to play out.
Neha Sharma
Yes.
Dimitri Boylan
So you’re your vision is going to have to be a bit fuzzy. While things change, and you still have to project a vision with confidence in order for people to accept it, but you have to leave enough room in there for the flexibility. And when you make these plans and you want to put these points on the board, you have to understand that a lot of things are going to be changing around you at the same time.
And I think more so than any time in the last ten years. How excited is your organization about artificial intelligence and how rooted in that, how rooted is that excitement in the reality of it?
Neha Sharma
Yes, I think, the two answer the first one is super excited. Right. Well extend that, I mean, we’ve had conversation with all our partners to say, you know, how are we bringing it in today? And I know many of our partners are not ready. But then we are ready as an organization. Right. And just because be I mean, it’s very simple thing, right?
We use Copilot, which is Microsoft. We use it heavily. We’ve gotten comfortable. I’m not saying our frontline employees. And that’s where I would draw a distinction. These are truly our corporate employees and leaders and station managers using it, it would look very different when you if you have to take that to a frontline employees. And I don’t think I found a product as of yet that’s ready to deliver that value to our frontline employees. In that sense, but anyway, I’m hoping that we get there now.
To your second point in terms of looking at the reality, see, quite honestly, I don’t think… We internally haven’t really fully discussed it, right? Amongst the leaders. Because I think everybody has a different understanding as well as expectations, right? So I think there’s some work needed to be first kept to the same level of understanding and the expectations to know what is real reality for us. So there’s some work that is happening today for us on that.
But I think I’ll share my perspective on how I think… How I see it, right? So, you have this top layer of who I call the creators of AI. There are a lot of products already out which are dealing with your day-to-day, so to speak, and changing how the end user, people at large, interact with a variety of things using AI, which is AI all over the place, right? If you really see it from that perspective, that is fine.
Then the second layer is truly building business products, right? Using AI. I think that’s the toughest.
Dimitri Boylan
That’s going to be tough.
Neha Sharma
That is going to be the toughest, right? Yeah. And then the last one is really you’re the consumer of AI. You really don’t care who created it, how it come to your company. You just need to learn, have the basic skills to be able to use it right and consume it right. So the the second layer is that I think all of us operate truly, right?
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. Well, I mean, Google is in that second layer. They’re creating it.
Neha Sharma
They have figured out a way to commercialize.
Dimitri Boylan
But they still haven’t figured out how to commercialize AI.
Neha Sharma
I really feel it will take companies… I mean, everybody’s in a race, but I think you have to be able to see a function in a very different light as to how it is going to operate 10 to 15 years down the line and do the work today. So the that horizon is now ten years. Like what I was talking about two years internally in the company, I would say is ten years. But you have to start start painting the picture of what is going to look like ten years later.
Dimitri Boylan
Well, yeah. When you get when you get I mean, AI is a disrupter. And when you get a disruptor that’s of this magnitude, possibly of higher magnitude than the internet, and the internet was a big disruptor, you know that some companies end up on one side of that disruption, right? Other companies end up on the other side.
And, I think that the disruption caused to the internet was a learning experience for many big companies because they didn’t respond quickly enough or, in other cases, responded just in time, barely. And I think for AI, at least at the executive level, the mandate is we do not want to be behind the curve on this one. Yeah, but being in front of the curve is pretty challenging.
Neha Sharma
It’s daunting, yeah.
Dimitri Boylan
What I’m saying to people is, first of all, “Stay calm. Don’t get overly anxious about the fact that you don’t know exactly how this should be used. But if you’re building a product, you know, you’re going to find some ways to start shaping your product a little bit with a little bit of AI.
But then you’re going to have to start again because you’re in the big corporation, you’re going to have to start projecting where you’re going to be in two years, three years, four years, in five years.” That could be difficult. It’s gonna be a difficult thing to do.
Neha Sharma
Yeah. I think for me, the biggest unknown there is, any AI is working on training, right? There’s something in between. Yes. And although you have some basis like you were explaining, it is already fed. But organizations change, and every day new data is being generated. And that needs to be consumed and then understood. Right?
And then you’re hoping that they are going to give you the results that you’re better than you know how you look at it. Right?
Dimitri Boylan
Exactly.
Neha Sharma
So, I think that is the truly challenging part in terms of commercializing the project products. Right?
Dimitri Boylan
Well, I think that the point to that, and that’s a great point because that’s where it gets differentiated.
Neha Sharma
Yes, and that’s where the opportunity lies.
Dimitri Boylan
Opportunities lie in that area of differentiation because everybody’s going to turn on ChatGPT. Exactly.
Neha Sharma
Not everyone is going to be able to truly make a difference.
Dimitri Boylan
Something that’s specific to the company and is evolving as the company evolves is going to require the type of AI that we haven’t really seen in practice yet, because what we’re looking at is the large language model. And that’s great. Yes. Okay.
Neha Sharma
I mean, every company has its own lingo.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. So I think it’s going to be very, very interesting. It sounds like you are, it sounds like you’ve got the right background for it, which is good. And I learned a lot more about you today. I didn’t know all those things.
I’d love to talk to you sometime about your entrepreneurial adventure. Okay, I think the people I work with in corporations can still pick up a lot of tips from those types of experiences, even though they can’t have them themselves. And I’d love to just have you on again anyway, just to talk about how things are going.
Neha Sharma
That would be wonderful.
Dimitri Boylan
You know, it’s really been a pleasure having you here.
Neha Sharma
Same here. Thank you. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.
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