design thinking story
Nicole Dessain
Why Talent Tales?
Why Talent Tales?

Crafting HR Strategy – A Conversation with Centro’s Elles Skony

Crafting HR Strategy – A Conversation with Centro’s Elles Skony

In this Talent Tales episode, talent.imperative Founder Nicole Dessain had the honor to interview Elles Skony, Vice President of Talent Management at Centro.

Elles’ creative superpower is “communication”. She believes that HR can come up with the best programs or initiatives but if they are not articulated in an engaging and humorous way then they are not going to be embraced by employees.

Elles is passionate about enabling every HR professional to become excited about the employee experience. One of the ways she fosters this is by networking with other HR professionals of mid-sized start-ups in Chicago. While there is competition for talent, this collaboration encourages taking a systems perspective towards making people’s work lives better by sharing best practices and lessons learned.

Elles leverages design thinking as a framework to prioritize HR initiatives at the beginning of each year and to define the employee experience at Centro.

Designing Your Career – A Conversation with BASF’s Jennifer Dewey

Designing Your Career – A Conversation with BASF’s Jennifer Dewey

In this Talent Tales episode I had the honor to interview Jennifer Dewey , Global Talent Management Lead at BASF Colors & Effects.

Jennifer’s creative superpower is “flexibility”. She has always been very flexible in her approach and mindset which certainly is evident in her impressive career trajectory.Jennifer graduated with a degree in social work and was a case worker where she ran a very lean team and learned how to problem solve on a daily basis. After a while, Jennifer was looking for more development opportunities. So she decided to interview her friends to learn about related fields where she still could work with people. That’s how she discovered Human Resources. Her first job was as a Recruiting Coordinator. From there, she worked her way up by keeping an open mind about new opportunities which included working in different geographies including in Asia.

For the last eleven years, Jennifer has worked at BASF.

Jennifer discovered design thinking as part of her late night Google searches where she was looking for inspiration for career development in a turbulent time when her business unit BASF Colors & Effects was undergoing a divestiture.

Working Out Loud - A Conversation with Bosch's Katharina Krentz

Working Out Loud - A Conversation with Bosch's Katharina Krentz

In this Talent Tales episode I had the honor to interview Katharina Krentz , Sr. Consultant New Work & Digital Collaboration at Robert Bosch GmbH.

Katharina’s creative superpower is being “chancen-intelligent”. It’s one of those German words that does not really translate into English, but it means something to the effect that she has a talent to uncover opportunities and bringing them to life by connecting the right people.

Katharina is also widely credited with popularizing the Working Out Loud (#WOL) method in Germany. [You can read more about Katharina’s personal #WOL story here.] In a nutshell, Working Out Loud is a peer-supported method that helps people to share their work with others which fosters a culture of open communication and collaboration.

Co-Creating Employee Experience – A Conversation with cleverbridge’s Laura Winegardner

Co-Creating Employee Experience – A Conversation with cleverbridge’s Laura Winegardner

In this Talent Tales episode I had the honor to interview Laura Winegardner, Employee Experience Manager at cleverbridge. Laura’s creative superpower is “infusing the big picture with nitty-gritty details”. She has the ability to dream really big but is also able to think through every little detail that goes into making that big picture a reality.

Laura’s background in interior design is what continues to keep her interested in human-centered design methods. In her current job, she applies the method to the employee experience.

Early on in her career at cleverbridge as an Office Manager, Laura realized the importance of bringing together Facilities, Marketing, IT, and HR to create a seamless employee experience and space that fits the needs of employees. In her next role in Marketing, she took those learnings and applied them to bringing the cleverbridge brand to life for the company’s clients and prospects. That is also where she learned the art of storytelling which she is now able to leverage in her current role as Employee Experience Manager. The impetus for creating this new role was that employees provided a lot of feedback but there was no place to analyze what really would make an impact on engagement.

It quickly became clear, that collaborating across functions in the growing organization was key to providing a seamless employee experience. Initially, collaboration was organic but as the organization grew to 350 employees, a more structured collaboration effort was needed.

Elevating Employee Experience – A Conversation with Kaiser Permanente’s Angela Howard

Elevating Employee Experience – A Conversation with Kaiser Permanente’s Angela Howard

In this Talent Tales episode I had the honor to interview Angela Howard, Director or Talent Management & Culture at Kaiser Permanente. Angela’s creative superpower is “connecting the dots”. She likes to collaborate across functions to deliver an awesome employee experience.

During our conversation Angela shared how Kaiser Permanente is looking at the employee experience not from a traditional programmatic approach but by focusing on what the journey looks like from the employee perspective. The company has a dedicated employee experience team that ensures all HR programs connect to provide a seamless employee experience, from the minute someone learns about Kaiser Permanente to the time they leave the company.