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For employers, navigating change, transformation, and upskilling without compromising workforce engagement or trust in leadership is a daunting task.
Rebecca Adams, Chief People Officer at Cohesity, is no stranger to the challenge, not only preparing her workforce for the age of AI, but also steering a people and cultural integration following the acquisition of Veritas in 2024 – a deal that transformed the company from a startup into a billion-dollar global business overnight.
Adams joins the HR Grapevine Podcast to offer best practices for developing leader who can build trust throughout change, navigating open feedback, tough decision-making, and accountability in the moments when no-one is watching.
She sets out how Cohesity has nurtured strong employee engagement, while also delivering the development pathways staff need to upskill.
Host: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the HR Grapevine Podcast. I'm your host, Benjamin Broomfield, head of content here at HR Grapevine. And I'm joined today by Rebecca Adams, Chief People Officer at Cohesity, a one point five billion dollar company which help organizations when they've been hit by ransomware gangs. She leads the people strategy, supporting thousands of employees across one hundred and forty countries, and key areas of focus range from upskilling workers for the age of AI to building a culture of trust and belonging where everyone can thrive. And over the last eighteen months, she's been driving a people and cultural integration following Cohesity acquisition of Veritas in 2024 a deal that transformed the company from a startup into a billion dollar global business overnight. Rebecca, a very warm welcome to the podcast and looking forward to the episode today. Thank you for joining us.
Guest: Thanks for having me.
Host: Well, it sounds like it's been a very busy eighteen months with lots of work going on, so maybe you can take us through a little bit about that journey. Over the last couple of years, the work that's been going on and some of the challenges and success stories along the way.
Guest: Sure. So we combined with Veritas in December of 2024 two different sized organizations and companies with very different cultures and a different footprint. And so you can't just do one plus one equals two and expect everyone to agree and like something that they're not used to. So we really had to kind of rebuild together and create a brand new culture, a brand new set of norms, and take everyone along on a journey, which we've been doing since then. And I think it's come out pretty great so far for our employees.
Host: Wonderful. Well, I'm sure it's, it's been a big learning journey as well as something that's been a really exciting challenge as well to, to really work through that unification and build that organization with, with the really shared sense of purpose and a clear mission. So drawing on, on all of that experience, how do you feel like HR leaders, people, leaders, organizational leaders can build trust during change? Because I imagine that that's a really big part of the equation, right? Especially when you're bringing to, to workforces together. So how can you build that trust? And what role do feedback, decision making and navigating team dynamics play?
Guest: Yeah. So change is hard. Whenever there's change, people immediately wonder, what does it mean for me? And we had nearly six thousand employees asking that question with new managers, some new offices, etc.. So really, it's about how we had to take a step back and kind of rebuild trust and make sure that we were communicating and sharing and being transparent with everyone. And you can't just communicate once. People don't, they just don't remember every message you wanted to give them the first time. So it took many conversations, roundtables, uh, team meetings. And we really just wanted to bring the employees through that time and over the last eighteen months, making sure that they didn't have uncertainty, that they understood our mission, what we are trying to do in the market, who is our customer? What does it mean for them? What is their new job mean for them? If they've if they've changed roles? And we really just wanted to be transparent, we like to be as transparent as possible and build trust with our employees. And if we don't have the answer to something, we try to say as much as we can and admit we don't know everything and kind of rebuild a culture together, because you can't just decide what a culture is and tell everyone, expect them to agree and carry on. We have to kind of show everyone through the daily experiences what are behaviors are how we will react, what actions will take. So it's been, um, quite a journey.
Host: Absolutely. Certainly sounds that way. And I suppose when it comes to being able to, to build and nurture this culture, a lot of it is really, you know, the role that leadership play is obviously going to be significant. But also seeing that consistency, I think, for employees as well, in terms of what they see from leadership really matters. And perhaps, yes, there are those sort of big touch points where, you know, everyone can see leadership and they're sort of, you know, very visible to the organization. But there are also those moments where, where maybe no one's watching and it's a little bit quieter as well, but that's when that consistency really matters. So are there some examples that you have of sort of, you know, those kind of leadership signals the way that that your team have been able to really deliver that consistency to help build culture. Um, and any advice that you think you would be able to share there?
Guest: I think the biggest learning that I've had is, I mean, with every company, there's really, there's great things about the way they did business. And then there's things that they can always improve. And I think recognizing and celebrating the things that we should preserve from each company and, and learn is really important. So for instance, Veritas had more process and we Cohesity Pre-close was a smaller company that didn't have as much process. You didn't need to because it was less people. So it was easy to kind of get things done in the hallway. And there's a, it's a beautiful thing to have great process. So we've been trying to take the, you know, the best of and recognize, hey, this was a really great way that Veritas did this thing. Nobody wants to feel like the things and the processes and the way they worked wasn't good enough. And so I think recognizing, hey, this is something that we should do. You did this in a great way. We want that as this new company is It recognizes the impact that they and the work that they made before. It shouldn't be just, we're going to plug you in and you're going to do everything the way that we did it, because there's great things to learn from each other.
Host: Definitely. I think when we speak about all of this over the last couple of years as well, we have to accept the context as well of how AI is, is impacting the workplace. I think that's probably been one of the other really significant challenges for you and pretty much everyone else in our audience listening today is thinking about that impact on workplace culture, what it means for employees day to day. And I think especially when it comes to building that culture, when you don't just have colleagues and teams now, but also potentially colleagues who are engaging with AI agents as well. I know that's an area where you have some thoughts too. So do you think that's something leaders need to consider in terms of how cultures impacted by treating AI agents as colleagues? Is that the right approach, or could that potentially risk devaluing some of the human side of the conversation as well, which we know is really important.
Guest: Oh gosh, that's a tough one. So I think, you know, AI is fantastic and it keeps changing. And it's interesting and it's exciting. I don't think of it as I think of it as almost like a virtual business partner versus a, you know, a person or a team member. It's scary for people because it's new. And so again, like, as I was saying before, when there's change, people wonder, what does it mean for me? Same with AI. I think it is a journey of change management and education so that employees understand what are we using AI for? How should we be using AI? How does the company view AI? Remembering that it's. It is something that helps us scale, but it is not. It doesn't replace people. And there needs to be a human element and critical thinking in order to make sure that it's being used correctly. The information is right. I think it's a huge opportunity. I'm excited about it, but I don't view it as a colleague. But I have heard that there are some organizations that have org charts with bots, and I, I admire that, and I think it's interesting, but it's not a person.
Host: Yeah, definitely. I think it's that careful change management again, is what we certainly keep sort of coming back to. But I think yeah, definitely it's worth keeping that in mind. But having I suppose whatever the stance is from, from the organization, like say, different leaders will think about it in different ways. But having that very clear sort of set of rules, I suppose, for how the organization is thinking about it and making sure that's communicated really clearly is definitely really important. I think when there's perhaps just so much uncertainty as well for staff as well with how this is going to be managed by their employer and by their workplace. I'd love to talk about the development side of it as well. Obviously, it ties to the conversation at the moment as well. But it's a broader issue more broadly, more generally, and really thinking about how Cohesity builds development pathways for different employee groups. How does that help you upskill amid all of this change? How does that ensure you're kind of balancing, obviously, those business needs with the development opportunities that that staff want as well for the sake of their own careers?
Guest: Yeah. So we've been very focused on skills and how do we shift from looking at fixed ideas of, of what a person's resume or what their background is. And we're, we're really trying to, as we recruit and as we upskill our employees, think about what are the adaptable capabilities and the skill sets that employees need to have. So an engineer doesn't need the same thing as someone in HR or in marketing or finance. We all need different things. So we've been focused on things like technical skills. So if you're a builder, AI literacy or data fluency or digital collaboration. If you're someone in marketing or HR, perhaps more about critical thinking and about the prompting and how you should be thinking about what you're asking AI to do. Communication. How can you scale with your data from your role, with your day to day work, and use AI as a partner, problem solving, judgment, those sorts of things. And then also with our leaders, regardless of what organization they're from, how do you lead your team through ambiguity? How do you take your team along on the journey? And there's different personalities and different people. Some people are very excited about using AI. Some people are scared. How do you help your team? How do you coach them through the rapid change? I was thinking about it the other day when I first started using cloud. The capabilities were completely different than what they are now. Like it just keeps changing. So. and then how do you have an open mindset and encourage your team to have an open mindset so they can embrace all these different tools and also not overdo it? I mean, there's, there's things that, you know, the human brain can do quicker and better. And then there's things that you should use AI for. And how do you separate what those are and how do you just be efficient and scale in a smart way? So there's lots of different trainings, lots of sessions we're doing, some are hands on, some are calls, virtual meetings, we're doing roundtables. I don't know that anyone has figured out the exact right way to do all of this, but we're trying to listen to our employees, understand what they want and give it to them in the way that they need it.
Host: Definitely. And I suppose sort of to, to widen out the conversation just a little bit more broadly to, to all of the skills you're going to need as an organization. Because I think that's maybe where the, the big challenge is for a lot of employers at the minute is recognizing that, you know, there are these skills gaps across the organization as there as there are going to be anywhere, but really that there are trying to even define the skills that are needed now, the skills that are maybe going to be needed in the future, even though they're changing more rapidly. And there's a lot of stuff around the half life of skills, you know, sort of changing significantly over the past couple of years as well, really being able to define quite clearly the skills that are going to be needed in the future is also quite difficult to do. So how are you going about really, you know, sort of defining the skills that you needed as an organization right now in the future and really being able to kind of work out a plan to bridge those gaps.
Guest: So it's interesting, someone asked me the other day, what, when we're when we're interviewing and we're thinking about skills, what are the skills now with AI that are important? And they actually haven't changed for us. So having a growth mindset is at the top of the list. Being able to critically think very important. That was important before. It's even more important now being agile, open minded. That also was important to us before because as a small company, you know, you could be working on one thing one day and then something else new comes along the next day, and you need to be able to jump to that and kind of shift your focus and prioritize being flexible. So I think for us, it hasn't changed, but now there's, there's definitely more of a focus. Like it's more critical thinking has become more important than ever.
Host: Mhm. Definitely. Well, lastly, it would be great to sort of wrap up with, I guess, a bit of a think around. There's so much work that's been going on over the last couple of years for you in terms of bringing those two organizations together, unifying that culture, managing all of this change. Amid that backdrop of AI, I'm sure having that consistency of those skills has probably been a good relief in a way, but it would be interesting to hear about the impact you see all of that work having on, on engagement for your workforce and how you go about sort of measure it, measuring the impact of some of the some of this work from, from the perspective of, of the, of the HR team. What are the things that you're measuring and looking at? How do you take that feedback on board and hopefully, how are you seeing sort of some of these results coming through as an organization that show the work you're doing is really having that great impact?
Guest: Yeah. So we have instead of doing a yearly pulse survey, we have a bi weekly pulse check that we do with our employees through. It's a workday product called Peakon. We call it Cohesity listens. So each employee gets a prompt to answer two to three questions every two weeks. It's not mandatory. It's confidential. We don't know who's giving the feedback. We can respond to it. And if an employee wants to say who they are, they can they can speak up and we can address them. We it measures the employee engagement scores of our employees through that tool. And I've just been so proud of our team. And it's not an HR action. It is a is a true collective, I believe, of all of our employees, all of our managers have to participate to make Cohesity a great employer and a great place to work. And so we measure the MPs scores for our teams. We can break it down by the regions. We just went up zero point two points. So and we're above the benchmark in technology. So I'm really pleased with that. And we're able to see when we've kind of missed the mark. And we were able to see where employees want more communication or they're not getting one on ones or they're not understanding something and then we're able to course correct. So I love the tool. I think it's, it's like an always on. And usually people respond when people respond to things when they're unhappy or they're really happy. So I think it's a, it's a great kind of sanity check because sometimes you feel like, oh, we did that, right? And then you realize, oh, we missed the mark. And we're able to quickly address it in some way, whether it's offer a different training, uh, mention it in a town hall or cover the item in our next company meeting. And I think it's really important to have that open channel and dialogue so that employees can speak up in a safe way that truly is confidential, and then we can actually take action on the items.
Host: Lovely. Well, I think that's a great place to, to wrap up. And it's just been wonderful to hear about all of the hard work that's been going on. Well, not just over the last couple of years, but for a long time. Um, but just to hear about that, that approach to culture and how much translating feeding through into all areas of the organization approach to listening, skills development, and of course, managing AI's impact on the workforce has been really useful. So thank you again for taking the time. And joining us on the HR Grapevine podcast. Rebecca, it's been wonderful talking with you.
Guest: Thank you. Have a great one.
