Leading the Human Side of Rapid Digital Transformation

BY Matthew Koehler | November 22, 2023

Jeannine Tait walked into a “turbulent” industry in educational publishing in 2022 when she took over the role of chief HR and communications officer at McGraw Hill. Higher ed, and education in general, was experiencing more upheaval than it had in years, and arguably still is. On top of that, the pandemic was persisting and at least in the U.S., many were still fighting about how to reopen the economy, and when. But that uncertainty and chaos wasn’t the case at McGraw Hill, Tait says.

“For me walking in, the one thing that I noticed right away was the culture for McGraw Hill. Employees were just starting to come back.. But during that time, the pandemic had really accelerated our digital transformation. So as part of that, our employees rallied, they came together to really help teachers in a time of need,” said Tait.

During From Day One’s conference in Philadelphia last month, Tait spoke about digital transformations in HR at McGraw Hill in a fireside chat moderated by Ariella Cohen, assistant managing editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Coming into the organization as a new leader, Tait says her job was to look at the state of HR and enable digital transformation. “Taking that assessment, How do we transform HR to meet the stage where we were in business transformation with digital transformation? And then keep up with it?”

Returning to the idea of what digital transformation means in the world of HR, Tait pointed out that McGraw Hill used to be known for their print materials–the “textbooks” company, as Cohen phrased it–but the world of publishing has changed, and McGraw Hill with it. “So how do we stay closely connected, whether it’s talking to a K-12 teacher or talking to professors and colleges about how they are doing their job? What tools will make their jobs easier–where they can really focus on the learning of the student? And each student’s needs are very different, so how do we make sure our products are keeping up with that?”

Jeannine Tait, chief HR and communications officer at McGraw Hill, speaking at From Day One’s Philadelphia conference (Photos by From Day One)

The role of HR in a changing world is to facilitate a business model that can evolve. McGraw Hill looks at the skills needed in the company, as well as worker profiles to fill that skillset. The other aspect to staying dynamic, Tait says, is making sure the company is there to support their employees and the company’s journey.

“I feel like in my imagination,” Cohen said, “HR was more of a back-office kind of function, more transactional. And what you’re talking about is really being in the executive suite, really talking about business strategy.”

Responded Tait: “In our case, it shows up as changing to a high impact HR operating model. So you think about a sports team, right? Everybody on the team has a position to play, vs. trying to play every position.” Every discipline gets broken down for sharper focus, she said. The company has a Center of Excellence that focuses in several key areas: talent management, DEI strategies, culture, compensation, benefits, HR, technology, and analytics. That team explores and brings information back to the company so they can act on it. “And making sure that we’re operationally excellent in the ways that we do things so that we can be scalable over time,” she added.

Looking at that dynamic shift in fine detail, Tait goes back to the pandemic and says McGraw Hill had to look at how managers were connecting with their employees, or not connecting. They had to ask themselves how they could give leaders the tools and guidance they needed to better connect with their employees and help give structure in a way that performance goals and expectations were clearly understood. In the remote and hybrid world going forward, they’re focused on how they strengthen those connections. 

Asked Cohen: “When you’re kind of refining the model for performance management, is there one golden rule that you have really ascribed to?”

“One of the things I say is there should be no surprises, right?” Tait said. She elaborated that the role employees play, performance expectations, and whether they’re veering off the mark, should all be information a workforce can readily access, not something that comes up in a performance review at the end of the year. She boils this down to a coaching, mentoring relationship between workers and managers, not simply a transactional one. 

“I’m giving feedback to my boss on how things are going. It’s this symbiotic relationship, where it’s constantly focused, not just on the performance, but also [on] authentic relationships,” Tait said. “Do you have a relationship? Do you understand your employees? What motivates them?”

Zeroing in on a few products that really embody the shift towards digital transformation, Tait touched on Sharpen and McGraw Hill’s customer-success team. Launched in 2022, Sharpen is a college-study app students can pull up on their phone. It allows them to go through curated content and take quizzes; it’ interactive and akin to social media. “It’s what we’ve heard from the students who helped inform the product bill. They said it’s like their textbook and TikTok had a baby,” Tait said. It’s basically education in small, bite-sized pieces that can be tapped anywhere, any time, she said.

The other element that exemplifies their digital transformation is their customer-success team, which is “responsible for making sure they’re meeting with instructors and students to make sure the products are sound. And customer centric–It all comes back to the customer and the needs of the customer to make things easier for them,” Tait said.

Ariella Cohen, assistant managing editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer 

How does McGraw Hill disseminate that consumer-centric focus to their teams so that it informs the hiring process? Tait says that from the top of the organization to the bottom, their mission is clear: to help the teachers and students they serve. Furthermore, there’s transparency with their senior leadership. 

“And then it comes down to the leader, ultimately. Every manager is responsible for making sure we get back to performance management: What do I need to do to make sure that I’m making that connection right back to the customer?” Tait said.

To sum up not just her role in HR, but HR in general, Tait described the universality of what HR does, bringing strategy into business, and relationships to customers. 

“HR has the unique ability to jump industry. You can go across and transverse a lot of different industries. And coming to the business to really understand what is it we do. How do we do it? How do we need to do it better?” Being in a leadership role, Tait says, puts her in a unique position at the table with senior leadership to discuss the direction of the company and how HR can support those goals. 

Lastly, it’s about relationships, she said. “Our customers in HR, our employees, the business, the business leadership, our owners, the executive team, of course. And so we pretty much have everybody as our customer. And so it’s important that the business coupled with what we deliver for HR is highly connected.”

Matt Koehler is a freelance journalist and licensed real-estate agent based in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in Greater Washington, the Washington Post, the Southwester, and Walking Cinema, among others. (Featured photo by AzmanL/iStock by Getty Images)

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