Name: GM is in the middle of a ‘deep listening’ for all of its employees
Uploaded: 2020-09-29
Duration: 3 min 22 s
Description: CEO Mary Barra shares what steps the company is taking to make it a better place to work.

 ELLEN MCGIRL: The last time we spoke, it was shortly after you had written a really strongly worded letter, which you said that you were impatient and disgusted. That after George Floyds murder, and that so many of these things were still happening. We were still experiencing them. At that time, you had decided to form the Inclusion Advisory Board and were in the process of a deep listening to what's happening to your employees. And I imagine expanded to your whole ecosystem maybe suppliers and and salesforce as well. Can you give us an update on that work, please? MARY BARRA: So very much the work continues. And we're still in I would say in listening mode, but we also are taking action. One of the things that we did is we created a position, which we called our chief diversity, inclusion, and equity officer. I'm very happy to share we appointed. A woman who's been at General Motors for many years. [INAUDIBLE] McGruder. And she is really looking-- and we're looking holistically across the whole system at General Motors from our hiring practices to development to training to our policies to what we do with our suppliers our dealers. So we're taking a very broad look stepping back and identifying areas where we think we can improve. And we're also-- we're trying to be very transparent with the workforce is that-- yes, we're going to continue to make progress. But this is a journey that we're beginning. So we want to have realistic expectations, and we want to keep everyone engaged. Just about two weeks ago, we had the top 230 leaders in the company participate in a session. And it was all about many of the leaders including myself and our president sharing stories of what we're learning and what we've had to understand about ourselves, and what's been hard. Because I think part of this is being vulnerable and sharing that we don't have all the answers. I heard the other day somebody said we're all learning real time. And I was so encouraged by and-- So we were on a Microsoft Teams meeting. And as you watch the chat function, the leaders have this second degree conversation going on where they were sharing resources and articles and ideas. And the feedback I got after this session was so powerful. And so I really feel our leadership team is committed. And that's very important. But we're also working to gauge across all levels. And so one of the other things we did is we added-- behaviors are very important to General Motors because how we behave everyday forms the culture. We added in behavior called be inclusive. And so it's tied to how we-- The behaviors have really become a language of how we talk and make sure we let people say, hey by the way, I'm going to be bold now. We're being inclusive. I'm going to make this comment. So it really is almost gives people permission to highlight the areas in the behaviors we're trying to reinforce. And so it also ties where our recognition system, and ultimately, it will a little tie to how we evaluate people and overall performance. So we have a long way to go. But I'm encouraged by the engagement and the commitment I'm seeing across the entire company globally. 

GM is in the middle of a ‘deep listening’ for all of its employees

CEO Mary Barra on the steps the company is taking. 

GM is trying to listen to its employees better

CEO Mary Barra shares what steps the company is taking to make it a better place to work.