Learning at Work Week 2024: CHRO Spotlight

What is your philosophy on the role of continuous learning in the workplace and how it contributes to a company’s success, especially in a dynamic industry like AdTech?

I firmly believe that talent is a key driver of business success. At DV, we have been successful in attracting top talent, but more importantly, we focus on transforming these highly talented individuals into skilled and high-performing teams. We prioritize and invest in creating a culture of continuous learning and training, high performance, and increasing learner engagement to ensure we are at the forefront of the industry in the products and solutions we deliver to our customers. Keeping our team’s skills contemporary is essential.

Can you talk about some learning initiatives that you’ve been particularly proud of implementing at DoubleVerify or in previous roles? What made them successful?

It’s difficult to select one or two examples from the wide range of work and training we invest in our teams because I am so proud of every initiative, program and accomplishment we have made to enable and resource our teams. Having said that, I will spotlight three programs we launched this year that are generating a lot of excitement at DV. We’ve just rolled out our “DV First” initiative, which makes career mobility at DoubleVerify easier. This initiative allows employees to apply for open roles and receive feedback from DV hiring teams, providing valuable insight to applicants, regardless of the outcome of the application process. Another initiative is a pilot of DV’s first internal mentoring program, which gives DVers access to leadership insight, support, and role modeling. We plan to launch this program to all DVers in early 2025. Lastly, we launched a program for over 100 leaders last year, focusing on strengthening management skills and setting expectations for people leaders at DV.

Diversity and inclusion are key elements of modern HR. How do you ensure that learning opportunities are tailored to meet the needs of a diverse workforce?

Collaboration is key in a global workforce.  We partner with subject matter experts and business leaders across DV to ensure we understand the learning themes across our diverse workforce. Recognizing that not everyone learns the same way, we work with subject matter experts and cross-functional teams to build the framework.  We’re also focusing more on plans to identify key development areas to help facilitate growth discussions with employees. It’s not enough to attract top talent from diverse backgrounds and with diverse experiences and skills. We also need to retain, develop and advance our talent to help them reach their potential. We’ve started measuring our progress to identify and fill any learning and training gaps.

Leadership’s involvement is crucial in fostering a learning culture. Could you share how you engage senior leaders at DoubleVerify to champion and participate in learning initiatives?

Learning at DV isn’t limited to our formal learning and development programs. To truly cultivate a culture of learning in the workplace, we infuse learning and education into team meetings, company-wide all-hands meetings and speaker events, and employee resource group (ERG) activations. Our senior leaders sponsor these programs and events to demonstrate and champion their commitment to learning and to affirm their investment in our people. 

DV is no stranger to mergers & acquisitions. How do you leverage learning and development during these transitional periods to ensure a smooth integration of teams?

We have a phenomenal Mergers and Acquisitions team that works closely with the HR organization to assess the teams’ learning and development needs. We then gather employee feedback to curate an onboarding, learning and development process that is responsive to their needs. Once onboarding and initial learning and training are complete, we assess the success of those initial processes and adjust as necessary. We are intentional during these transitions to ensure a smooth and pleasant transition of teams. 

Looking ahead, what emerging trends or technologies do you see playing a significant role in learning and development at work?

As the saying goes, the only thing constant is change. For quite some time, automation has been a major focus of technological trends in the HR space. Conversations about generative AI and the potential (and pitfalls) of this technology are just as frequent and rich in HR as they are in business. AI will undoubtedly change the way we work. However, I am most interested in what will be required of our workforce to equip talent to leverage AI successfully. The answer to that question begins with the focus of this conversation: learning. We have a lot to learn about navigating AI, and as HR professionals, using AI so we can train the technology to enable success equitably and inclusively for all of our teams. 

Finally, what advice would you give to other HR leaders trying to cultivate a stronger learning environment within their organizations? What are some practical first steps they can take?

Remember, talent is a key enabler of business success.  Ensure your learning agenda aligns with your business strategy and priorities.  In addition, strong metrics are essential for success. How are you measuring the success of your learning programs? Further, you don’t know what you don’t know. Start by assessing your learning environment and establishing a baseline for how your programs are making an impact. When learning starts with listening, you can ensure that you are leveraging your development to yield the biggest impact and success for your teams. Develop a listening strategy to receive feedback from your teams, and then close the gaps with the feedback you receive, key metrics you are tracking and external market best practices.