InnerCircle 2022: Phillips 66’s CEO and CHRO discuss delivering success together

Employers 07.15.2022 2 MIN

From June 8–10, HR leaders from across Corporate America gathered at Goldman Sachs Ayco’s 2022 InnerCircle conference to discuss key strategies for maximizing potential at their companies. In a panel discussion, Tucker York, Co-Head of Goldman Sachs Consumer & Wealth Management, hosted Phillips 66’s Chairman and CEO Greg Garland, and Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Corporate Communications, Sonya Reed to discuss how their collaborative management has rallied employees to support the company’s vision for change, maximize their potential and deliver high performance.

For modern businesses today, a "people" strategy focused on culture is a critical driver of success and industry leadership. As the leaders of energy and logistics giant Phillips 66 pushed forward their vision to navigate the transitioning energy industry, they viewed their people as their greatest resource and competitive advantage.

By implementing key initiatives, Greg and Sonya shaped the company’s unique culture, built depth and breadth in capabilities, and rallied a diverse employee base behind their vision for the company. Their application of employee feedback has helped drive 96% retention of high performers.

Key Takeaways

The panel reviewed Phillips 66’s 2021 Human Capital Management Report— which identifies key principles that shape the company’s human capital management strategy and culture. The principles include commitment to inclusion and diversity, listening to employees and responding; developing workers’ skills, celebrating achievements, and more. The report has created a deep sense of pride among employees and is a fantastic recruiting tool, in addition to offering value to investors.
The company’s leaders found employees worked better together in person. While employees got their job done remotely, when they worked off site their exchange of ideas through meetings wasn’t occurring as much, and mentoring and development wasn’t as effective.
Culture is important to transforming a business. Employers "ignore culture at their own peril" and “generally there is a broken culture in those companies” that suffer huge problems, according to Greg.
The company expects these four behaviors from every employee: They need to work for the greater good, create an environment of trust, seek different perspectives and achieve excellence.
To shape company culture, leadership made a change to hold people accountable by building half of their performance-review rating around meeting cultural standards. The company took an entire year to discuss these behaviors with workers.

“Competition for talent is fierce. Absolutely fierce. The Great Resignation is pretty darn real.”

—Sonya Reed

Read more insights on transforming company culture and maximize workforce performance in Phillips 66's 2021 Human Capital Management Report.

For more insights from InnerCircle, visit the InnerCircle website. Have questions or interested in learning more about how Goldman Sachs Ayco can help promote your company culture? Contact us.