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Jelena Djordjevic has strong business and operations acumen. She joined Thumbtack, a tech company that connects home improvement customers with local service providers, as its chief of staff in 2018. Djordjevic “incubated” many nascent operation processes and administrative functions before moving into the role of VP of people in 2021.
Like many HR pros, the pandemic upended Thumbtack’s approach to office work and forced Djordjevic to reexamine the link between office culture and company culture.
“Our culture is sacred and investing in our culture is sacred,” she said. “Covid introduced us to flexibility in a way that we never had before. To us, it was: What is the end goal? It is a successful business and a thriving culture…The method to get there can totally vary.”
For Thumbtack, it’s a virtual-first, but not virtual-only model, where the company maintains “a real commitment to events and gatherings and local communities” without an RTO mandate.
What’s the best change you’ve made at work?
During my time at Thumbtack, one of my proudest achievements has been transitioning the company to our virtual-first, but not virtual-only model—and continuing to learn, improve, and iterate on our model as we go along. We rolled out a huge change two and a half years ago, but it didn’t stop there. Our culture is constantly evolving based on what’s working and what our employees need to be successful. Based on employee feedback, we’ve adapted our events strategy from large-scale formal events to smaller, more informal and meaningful gatherings.
What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?
People teams can be perceived as being the “police” of [an] organization, or the “fun czars”—enforcing policies or building culture by hosting events. While staying in compliance and building culture are critical parts of the job, my job is much more focused on helping the business win and creating business value. After all, the success of our business is dependent upon the success of our people. The business can thrive only if employees feel a connection to the mission and each other, empowered, motivated, and fulfilled at work. Both the people team and all of our leaders are critical to enabling the success of our organization and employees, which is what leads to the success of our business, pros and customers.
What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?
For me, the most fulfilling part of my job is being able to help drive changes that benefit employees and the business because they are inextricably linked. It comes down to identifying those win-win moments. For example, encouraging employees to take care of themselves and prioritize their mental health means that they’ll be the best and healthiest versions of themselves at home and at work.
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What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? Why?
Something I’m really excited about and hope we continue to see more of is the increasing sophistication of people analytics and metrics in the people realm. We are still very much in the human business, but by deeply understanding the health of the organization through qualitative and quantitative insights we can much better react, anticipate, and respond to problems while informing our future strategy. Ultimately, people analytics and metrics provides increased accountability of people outcomes and goals among business leaders and the people team—just as we would for business and financial metrics.
What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? Why?
Something I really hope we see employers ease up on is this ideal of mandated RTO. Unfortunately, right now, companies are not willing to take a hard look at what actually drives engagement, effectiveness, and results—which comes down to things like clear goals, a compelling strategy, strong operating rhythms, and trustworthy leaders and managers who are their for their teams—that is the secret sauce, not being in the office. Forcing people back into the office or assuming it’s the only way to work is inherently wrong, and what will ultimately happen is that companies will lose really great talent because they couldn’t adapt and evolve. Work looks radically different now compared to before the pandemic, and employees’ priorities have shifted. They’ve realized they need more balance and aren’t going to give up that flexibility without a fight. Ultimately, RTO feels like a big lose-lose.
Tell us one new or old HR tech product or platform that has made your life easier, and why.
Our compensation-planning tool Pave has been really instrumental for our team. Their systems-based compensation planning enables us to have more visibility and transparency, so we can ensure pay equity among our employees and have one cohesive tool. They’ve built a great experience that is easy to use both for employees and people teams. They are a very feedback-oriented company, readily taking our feedback to help improve their product and inform their future roadmap. They have helped us scale a small compensation team through technology and led to a much better planning experience for leaders at the company.