{"id":32348,"date":"2022-01-24T14:55:41","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T19:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/?post_type=bu-article&p=32348"},"modified":"2022-02-10T16:38:40","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T21:38:40","slug":"the-people-person","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/articles\/the-people-person\/","title":{"rendered":"The People Person"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Midway through the final season of the HBO comedy Silicon Valley<\/em>, tensions mount between management and human resources. The show, which depicts the successes and stumbles of fictional start-up Pied Piper, takes the workplace humor of The Office<\/em> and Office Space <\/em>and drops it in California\u2019s ultracompetitive tech hub. When Tracy, the HR director, tells managers Guilfoyle and Monica that their interpersonal skills score poorly in her performance-rating algorithm, they race to befriend their employees and skew the data\u2014or crash the system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an absurd scene that plays off familiar workplace anxieties. \u201cThat\u2019s good comedy\u2014it\u2019s the real world stretched a little bit so you don\u2019t think it\u2019s real,\u201d says Colleen McCreary, the chief people, places and publicity officer at personal finance company Credit Karma. \u201cThe reality is, all those stories [on the show] are legit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She should know: McCreary (\u201995) is<\/em> Tracy. Or, rather, Tracy is based on McCreary, who consulted with writers and producers for the show\u2019s sixth season. As technical advisor, she drew on 20-plus years of HR and start-up expertise to help them add a sheen of authenticity to their storylines\u2014and punchlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCreary has worked for a software giant (Microsoft) and an online gaming start-up (Zynga); she has helped new companies expand and established companies merge. In that time, she\u2019s gained an appreciation for the ways that human resources can help each of a company\u2019s elements operate harmoniously\u2014and, increasingly, how a link between internal and external communications helps that happen. In February 2020, when she assumed responsibility for the company\u2019s PR and social media\u2014just as COVID-19 began to spread in the US and Credit Karma prepared to announce its acquisition by Intuit\u2014she was prepared to help the company weather an unprecedented confluence of events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ins and Outs of Corporate Communication<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

When McCreary joined Credit Karma in 2018 as the company\u2019s chief people officer, her first challenges were familiar ones to someone with tech industry HR experience: helping guide the company\u2019s growth\u2014they now have 1,300 employees in three countries\u2014and overhauling compensation to remove inconsistencies and bias. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2020, though, McCreary\u2019s primary challenge has become communication: specifically, keeping all those employees\u2014many concerned for their jobs and their health\u2014informed of fast-changing events. Plus, McCreary says, the employee experience is increasingly a media story\u2014a trend accelerated by the pandemic, with attention focused on how companies have adapted. Think of stories about successful pivots to remote work or, at the opposite extreme, of COVID outbreaks at crowded meatpacking plants. The workers, not the products, became the focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour internal narrative really has to match your external narrative,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you don\u2019t do that well, you\u2019re going to have a lot of issues with your employees.\u201d For Credit Karma, founded by CEO Kenneth Lin (CAS\u201998) with the mission of helping millions of people with free financial services, that means making sure that corporate ideal of building equality reflects inward as well. To ensure that was happening, McCreary, who studied PR at COM, doubled down on her communication background early in the pandemic. \u201cCOM does a great job teaching writing and communication skills that you\u2019re going to use for the rest of your life, no matter what path you end up tripping down,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCreary began writing a company-wide email every Sunday to check in and provide staff with some certainty during an unusually ambiguous time. That message remains a weekly routine and has evolved into her channel for providing transparency through a series of challenging management decisions, including potential layoffs, the sale to Intuit and vaccine mandates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COM does a great job teaching writing and communication skills that you\u2019re going to use for the rest of your life, no matter what path you end up tripping down.<\/p>Colleen McCreary<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When revenues from lenders and other credit companies were cut in half early in the pandemic, areas like recruiting were paused, leaving many employees without work to do. McCreary helped keep everyone busy by moving people around, trying to capitalize on interests and skills while waiting for the global economy to begin churning again. \u201cI needed to give people something to do,\u201d she says. \u201cContrary to a lot of discussions around unemployment, people like working\u2014they need work and structure.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCreary helped Credit Karma launch a series of new projects. One, a COVID recovery road map, drew on Credit Karma\u2019s financial expertise and directed members to stimulus programs, credit-deferral options and other personal economic resources needed to weather the pandemic. A voting road map encouraged civic engagement and attempted to cut through misinformation and make voter registration easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paths Not Followed<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

When McCreary arrived at BU, she was certain she knew her career goal: politics. \u201cI was going to work on campaigns and I was going to change the world,\u201d she says. An internship on Senator Ted Kennedy\u2019s (D-Mass.) (Hon.\u201970) 1994 campaign was the perfect opportunity. And McCreary hated it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got to do a lot of really cool things, but it was miserable. People were unhappy,\u201d she says. \u201cAll anybody could think about was, \u2018What\u2019s the next job?\u2019\u201d So McCreary tried other internships, one with a political consultant, another in a PR agency. She also joined student government, gave campus tours and worked as a resident assistant. And she realized that she liked helping people on a more micro level. \u201cI loved connecting with people and helping them make their decisions,\u201d she says. After graduation, she headed to Columbia University for a master\u2019s in higher education and researched graduate school retention of women in engineering and computer science programs for her thesis. A friend noticed her research and said, \u201cYou\u2019re good with technology people,\u201d and encouraged McCreary to pursue a corporate rather than academic career. \u201cThe next thing you know, I had a job at Microsoft doing college recruiting\u2014that was the beginning.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From there, she continued with college recruiting at video game publisher Electronic Arts until she was promoted to director of corporate human resources and diversity. Then she joined Zynga as its chief people officer and helped it grow from 130 to 4,000 employees. Her Silicon Valley career path was set. \u201cI fell in love with not just the products we were making but how they were being made and who was making them,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silicon Valley is a long way from the Washington, D.C., life that McCreary once envisioned. She\u2019s grateful for the internships that helped her decide which career to pursue\u2014and which to avoid\u2014and realizes how lucky she was to find paid positions. So, when she established the McCreary Family Fund in 2018, she designed it to help future COM students get those same experiences. That fund, which reached maturity this year, supports students in unpaid internships. \u201cPeople give to the things that really impacted them,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I hadn\u2019t had those internships, I probably would\u2019ve made a lot more career missteps.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People First<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

McCreary knows her profession has a sometimes unflattering reputation\u2014due in part to Hollywood depictions like Tracy. \u201cPeople think the HR lady is either Snow White or Darth Vader,\u201d she says. But her version of the real-life role has a little less dramatic flair. \u201cI am like the product manager of the systems and tools that run the company,\u201d she told First Round Review<\/em>, an online business-to-business publication, in June 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That might sound like a dry job description, but it\u2019s also hard to imagine a more important role in the two years since the pandemic began. After the financial crunch of early 2020, Credit Karma rebounded. Its acquisition by Intuit was finalized in December and, in early 2021, the company had its most profitable quarter ever. And Comparably, which analyzes company culture and compensation, gave Credit Karma an A+ for its workplace culture after 86 percent of polled employees said they were proud to work there.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To McCreary, keeping the company\u2019s internal and external communications in sync is critical to past and future success because it keeps everyone happy. \u201cIt really is about the people\u2014the people you\u2019re going to work with and who you spend your time with,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s why people stay at companies and it certainly is why people end up leaving companies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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