 theCUBE presents HPE Discover 2022 brought to you by HPE. Welcome back to theCUBE, Lisa Martin and Dave Vellante here covering day one of HPE Discover 22 live from Las Vegas. We've been having some great conversations today so far. We've got three full days coming at you. This is close to the end of day one. We're going to have an interesting conversation next with Alan May, the executive vice president and chief people officer at HPE. Alan, welcome to theCUBE. Thanks, Lisa. Great to be here. Thanks, Dave. It's great to be back in person. The keynote this morning, standing room only. People are ready. People are ready to be back to hear what HPE has been doing the last couple of years since the last conference. But I've heard you and Antonio talk about the human side of change. It's challenging. Humans are uncomfortable with change, right? Unfortunately we are. But it is a big challenge. How, what are some of the things that you're seeing as organizations are really looking and have to transform digitally? They've got to bring the humans along. Well, you know, our folks as anybody is just bombarded with data these days, bombarded with issues. And it's really down to share of mind when it comes down to it. If you're asking someone to change, first you've got to break through the clutter. There's so many things going on in their world and in their life as individuals. But to me, the foundation is you really have to define what is the mission and purpose of the organization and then make sure that individual feels safe and comfortable participating at work. I know those sound like soft things, but at the end of the day you're not going to have the gumption or the desire to change unless you care about something bigger than yourself and that you feel safe bringing your authentic self to work. So you have to be kind of, you have to be good at sales I guess because you have to sell the mission. But what do you do if somebody's not comfortable of the, how do you get them to align? I mean, it's always a challenge and that's I think what makes the people side of the equation so hard. What's your sort of secret sauce there? Well, I wouldn't say it's secret sauce, but we define our mission as improving the way people work and live. Now, that sounds so general, but the good thing about that is I think about every one of our 60,000 associates around the world can write themselves into that mission statement. Sign up for that, yeah. It's not so specific that you think, am I opting in, I am opting out. The other piece is you've gotta give employee voice. You have to give your team members an opportunity not just to follow blindly whatever you're saying. You don't want that. You actually want them to challenge it. You want them to say, hey, what does that really mean, Alan? What does that mean, Antonio? When you say we're improving the way people work and live, what does it mean when we say commit and go or force for good? These are not just pithy phrases, they're ways to engage dialogue. That's how you get people to think and to create and to innovate and to change. And creating that employee experience and changing that and transforming that as obviously the world changes, especially the last couple of years, but the employee experience and what they think and are we part of the vision, are we part of the mission is directly relates to the customer experience. Those two things to me are inextricably linked. Well, in our company, it's all about innovation, but not innovation just for the sake of designing things but to meet customer needs. So you've actually got to inculcate in your workforce a couple of things. One obviously is that freedom to be creative, but the other piece is actually actively listening to our customers and recognizing and understanding what they need and how we can satisfy those needs. When you can bring both of those things together, I tell you, you can do all kinds of things with your workforce. I mean, I'm hearing you obviously look for common ground, but sometimes there's a dissonance, right? Creating that great human condition might not necessarily be advantageous for short-term profits, you're a public company, so what's that discussion like? And I presume there's got to be a long-term vision, but still, how do you handle those types of things? Well, that's what I call dynamic tension. Good, great organizations encourage dynamic tension. They don't simply ask people to blindly adhere to whatever they're saying, they actually ask their employees to think and to create and to debate and to argue, respectfully, of course, that's how you really get to that virtuous circle of innovation and people moving forward. Now look, I'm not naive, we don't have 60,000 team members totally aligned on every point every day, but I think we've got the vast majority knowing ultimately where we're going and frankly, some of the fun is figuring out how to get there and that means that you've got to have those open discussions to get there. Well, you talk about dynamic tension and at the first sort of thought of it, it sounds like it can be a challenging thing, but it also sounds like it can really be an accelerant to the culture and the ability for the company to move forward and obviously meet those customer demands. Well, if you're defining what's new in the world, that's the only way you get there because nobody has basically a lock on innovation or what's the best next thing. When you have the power of bringing a diverse set of individuals together and really create forms for them to explore, debate, argue, as I mentioned, that's where you really move forward. How do you think about it? How was your thinking changed and the company's thinking changed post pandemic with regard to hybrid work? You have something, Elon Musk says you got to come to work at least 40 hours or you're gone, we heard someone on Wall Street have similar things, say similar things and others have said, hey, we have no headquarters anymore. We're moving to some place remote. What's HPE's point of view on that? Well, thanks for that question in particular and Dave, what you outlined is we seem to have a world of two extremes out there where either companies say it's back to the old days pre-COVID and you're not working unless I see the sweat on your brow and you're there at eight o'clock on Monday morning. And then we have other companies say, hey, it doesn't matter, mail it in wherever you are around the world. We're in between that. We think it's important that people do get together face to face. And in fact, we've asked our team members to come back a couple of three days a week in the office but to do it in a purposeful, thoughtful way. It doesn't mean just coming in, swiping your badge saying that you were there. It means coming in to collaborate, to meet with customers, to celebrate, to innovate, to work with groups. So what we're trying to do now is orchestrate those moments that matter for our team members for reason for them to be together. Now, there's no reason for them to come in the office if they're on Zoom or team meetings all day. We know that, but the fact is we believe that our culture thrives when people get together at least a bit during the week. So we're looking for that happy medium. I can't say we've got it all figured out but I can tell you right now we're not on those two extremes. We're absolutely centered at the plate. So you encouraged that, that was a great description. If somebody says, yeah, but I really wanna go move to Bozeman and hang out there. And I'll work remote and I'll be productive. You enable that as well or would you discourage that? Yeah, we've hired people all over the world and we actually have people based upon their job classified if they're so-called hybrid employees that the situation I mentioned, which is you're not required to come to the office but we encourage it. In some cases we do have telecommuters. If they have the kind of job where they can work from Bozeman or from Bangalore or from any place else we're open to that as well because we don't wanna rule out that talent but the vast majority are folks, we'd like to be pretty close to one of our centers of excellence to one of our offices to one of our locations because that fuels our customers, our culture and really it creates community. Now, I can't predict the future but frankly a lot of the issues that we've seen through the pandemic around mental health, around isolation, around increased stress. Those are not all gonna go away because people are getting back together but I do think that the pandemic accelerated and exacerbated some of those conditions. People do wanna be together and we're gonna make that happen. I can't predict the future but I often try and I predict that I think the hybrid model it will be the dominant model going forward and I think that smart organizations will put incentives in place to get people together. Not, oh you won't get promoted, no but you're gonna actually enjoy getting together periodically with your teammates and we're gonna support you wherever you wanna live. What are some of the key skill sets these days that HPE is looking forward to attract these folks in an increasingly digital world? What are some of those things you say ABC gotta have it? Well, interesting you asked that. I get asked that question a lot and people expect me to say they gotta know C++. They've gotta know all the latest on AI. They gotta be a mathematical wizard to do all kinds of things that we do in algorithms. It's not those factors, it's the behavioral factors. We're looking for people, first of all that have intellectual curiosity. They thrive to learn, they thrive to innovate. They don't wanna just do a job, they wanna come in and they wanna create something big. So I think that's first and foremost. The second one is we look for people that have some resiliency. Have they had in their experience broadly in life ever had to deal with stress, with resistance, with uncomfortable situations? Not because that's our work environment because that's the world. The world is an actively changing one and we need people who have got that resilience and that intellectual curiosity to kind of move forward. And then last but not least, and this goes back to our founder DNA. I talk about this a lot. Our founders, Bill and Dave, talked a lot about basic things, respect for one another, collaboration, teamwork. That's our culture. Now, that's not the culture that a lot of other firms have out there and in some companies, they have maybe a harder edge but those are the things that really propel our organization. Those are the things our customers appreciate the most. What's your point of view on the so-called great resignation? Is it a sort of a media created dynamic? Is it something that is maybe a somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction in the post-isolation economy? How do you think about that? You know, it's real obviously and we've seen some uptick in our turnover, although I'm happy to say our turnover is a half to a third of what our competitors are. So we seem to have been able to retain our folks pretty well but I do think that coming out of the pandemic was an inflection point for many people. It was such a searing experience in so many ways. It caused people to really reflect and say, do I want to do something different? Now, that's great but I'd like to have them do something different in HPE if they're one of our employees. So what we're focusing on is gigs. What's your next opportunity to learn something new? Do something new? Move to a different area. You know, we used to call it career development. Those days are gone of just job ladders and wait for the next job and wait for the next promotion. It's all about how can you give someone a new opportunity and challenge them? And when you're able to do that, I think you can create a real positive dynamic that results in greater retention. But I do think the great resignation, it's real. It's going to persist. One other data point, well before COVID, supply and demand. I'm an economist, not a psychologist. And at the end of the day, we have fewer and fewer people available to do the kinds of work that we're trying to hire. So those two factors together do create some turn up. You know, what's interesting is certainly pre-pandemic, the prediction was that machines were going to replace humans, which has always happened, but for the first time ever it's in cognitive functions. And there's a lot of concern in the press about the impact on jobs and employment. Seems like the reverse has happened, which is often the way. But longer term, what's your point of view on that piece of the equation? People are talking about digital transformation, AI. We see robotic process automation. Initially a lot of employees are really concerned, whoa, they're going to replace my job. We've certainly seen that. And if you were, you see kiosks at the airport. People used to actually put up, you know, billboards with glue and paper. And, you know, those jobs are gone. But now other jobs are at risk. How do you think about that? What should companies like HPE and society do to help people get to the point where they can thrive in that environment? Yeah, look, it's an observation that I could say based upon my career I've seen for many, many years. I can remember back in the manufacturing, when at least from a U.S. perspective, many of those manufacturing firms were shedding jobs because of automation. And there are short-term disruptions. And those are real, those are human, and we do have to help people through those. Now, I think one obligation an employer has is let's start with our own folks. Let's make sure we retrain them. Let's make sure we expose them to the latest skills. Let's give them an opportunity to grow and develop. So I think if we do those things, we can help people through those transitions. Over the long haul, I'm actually very optimistic. I believe that over time, people self-select. These things don't happen overnight. I'll give you one tiny little anecdote. Before the pandemic, all of this world about autonomous vehicles can eliminate truck drivers. Well, you know, back in the day, I actually drove a truck. And it's not just driving. You've got to interact with somebody in a doctor. You've got to do all kinds of other tasks that can't be automated. And so things will happen over time, but I don't think we're going to see this massive social disruption people were worried about. There is an incumbent responsibility on firms to train their own people and to keep them up to speed. And that's something we're deeply committed to at HPE. Is information technology employment a parallel? I mean, everybody thought the cloud was going to destroy the IT worker. That didn't happen. They just sort of changed their skill sets. They became cloud experts or cloud architects. Is there a parallel there? Yeah, I think there's absolutely a parallel. And while probably the rate of change is quicker in some tech industries than perhaps others, all we're doing is creating new markets and new opportunities. And ultimately, the lack of skill that we have, the lack of talent in the external marketplace, is going to mean that it's still very much an opportunity for people to learn, grow, develop, and be employed. Do you think it's a matter of awareness and people not really understanding that? Whether it's still fear? Well, I think there may be some of that. But again, I do think from a broader social perspective, there's probably some things that in the public policy we can do to improve education and training, particularly for new entrants and make sure they're learning the skills for tomorrow's jobs and not just today's. I'm optimistic. And I actually think most responsible companies get this. And if you talk to their CEOs, the top two or three issues that they have include access to talent. So why don't we recycle, repurpose, and reuse to use the sustainability phrase instead of throwing people out of work that have all kinds of intellectual property and capability to be very productive. And that's what we do at HPE. And that curiosity, that's something that you can't teach, right? Exactly. So last question. In terms of looking at culture, corporate culture as an accelerant, as a catalyst of digital transformation, how do you advise leadership teams? Well, we've done a fair amount of work in the last five years defining the culture in very small, frankly, sound bites. And the way you make that come to life is back what I mentioned before. You have to engage people and ask them to debate it. What does it mean to say, commit and go? What does it mean to say, force for good? Those kind of conversations help your culture evolve, help your culture become real, and not just a bunch of words on some piece of paper or a poster someplace. I will say, from my experience and particularly with a new entrance to the workforce, if you can't define your culture quickly for this next generation coming in, there's no way you're going to attract that talent. And so put me on the spot. HPE is here to help people live and grow and work better. And we try to be a force for good. We focus on that and we create work that fits your life, not the other way around. That's my elevator speech. It sounds pithy, but it's an invitation to have a deeper discussion. I love it. And I think this is only day one for us here, but I think that we're seeing and we're feeling that culture. There's 8,000 or so HP folks, executives, partners, customers ready to come back and innovate with each other. I think that culture is palpable that you've created. Great, it's exciting. And thank you so much for being part of it. Our pleasure. Thanks, Alan. We appreciate your insights. Okay. For our guests, I'm Dave Vellante. I'm Lisa Martin. Stick around, you're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage, and we're going to be back after a short break.