By Jennifer Boyd, Director of Talent

Welcome to HappyFactors! I’m the Director of Talent–what we call “Human Resources” at SuccessFactors–and lead the Talent Business Partnering group. I recall the day when I was the first HR person hired at SuccessFactors (waaay back in 2005) and built the HR team from zero. We now have 16 team members! The growth is energizing and truly phenomenal—an experience that can never be replicated.

Of my many experiences while here, one that I vividly recall is speaking about our company at a seminar for a local University. Carnegie Mellon University West (yes—they have a campus in Mountain View, CA…a little way from home base in Pittsburgh, PA) offers a class on managing software professionals as part of their Masters program in Software Management. They asked me to speak to a seminar class about terminations—not the most popular topic, but one that is a rich area of understanding for new and prospective managers. And a little scary, too.

The class had read Robert Sutton’s book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, for a segment on managing people. They loved the fact that SuccessFactors had incorporated so much of the “no asshole” concept into our daily work and culture and were eager to learn more about how we do this. We covered all kinds of topics—SuccessFactors’ Rules of Engagement, how to handle performance issues, cultural concerns in employee exits, analytics, and more. They were truly floored by how much of an impact a simple concept like well-articulated and well-executed company values can have on every part of the employee life cycle, and how we are able to use our own products to accomplish this! They were thrilled to see that SuccessFactors is able to weave our company values into our talent processes like performance, on boarding, and termination—the total blending of people, process, and technology. Stepping away from my desk at SuccessFactors for a bit allowed me to see the value in what we do through other people’s eyes, and this was truly valuable.

What a great gig for an HR person—working for a company that sells products that you WANT to use every day!