🛻 Hillary U: Sr. Director of Employee Communications & Experience, Rivian Automotive
Reflections on Resilience, Notetaking and Bucket Lists
Hello. It’s Julia Levy. Welcome back to my weekly newsletter exploring the ways we communicate and connect at work and beyond.
Top Takeaways
Protect employee time: Ensure communications are clear, concise, and relevant. This helps minimize unnecessary meetings, emails, or distractions.
Send "meeting recaps": Sending detailed summaries with action items, dates, and goals helps ensure everyone is aligned, avoids misunderstandings, and saves time in the long run.
Create a "yearly bucket list" for personal growth: Consider a habit of writing a yearly bucket list to stay focused on goals and priorities.
About Hillary
At Rivian Automotive, Hillary is the global head of employee communications & experience, focusing on aligning communication strategies with organizational goals on a global scale and providing strategic direction for employee experience, activation of key initiatives, employee engagement and channel strategies.
With over a decade of experience at high-growth and Fortune 100 companies, including Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, Deloitte Consulting, and Alaska Airlines, she is an expert in driving complex transformations, counseling C-suite executives, and nurturing high-performing teams. When she isn’t building comms plans or connecting with employees, Hillary enjoys reading, baking and spending time with her family.
What inspires you to work in internal communications?
I really enjoy being a connection between company strategy, executives and employees — helping all levels of the organization understand what the company is trying to do and how we will get there together, providing inspiration and excitement along the way. One of the roles I take most seriously is protecting employee time. One way to do that is to make sure that communications are well-structured, consistent and they make sense for where employees are going to digest it (i.e. at a desk, in the field or in a factory setting). Attention to details like these help employees do their best work and I love being a part of that.
Lastly, I want to work for companies that hold communications to their employees as their top priority ahead of other audiences. This is such a simple thing that shows how much a company values their employees - they should always hear everything first and should never discover company initiatives or programs via the news or outside sources.
As you look back, is there a pivotal project that's shaped your career or inspired you?
At a previous company, we were going through a tough contract negotiation with a subset of our employees. I was working with an executive who felt frustrated with the communication between them and the negotiating party. They invited me to come to the table to provide communications consultation and ultimately support a path forward.
I learned so much from this project about how to have respectful, difficult conversations, how to make sure that we were all being clear, organized and goal-focused. Even when things can be really heated, there is a way to find a common ground that makes it well worth it for everybody. This experience solidified the importance of patience and tact in communications and I had so much respect for both sides of the table. These are skills that can be used in almost every communication interaction.
What are the skills needed for great communicators?
Extreme clarity, whether it’s in an email or a meeting — it is very important to understand our goals and where we’re going next. A lot of times, we agree on something in a meeting and then we go to do it, and nobody has clarity on what the actual goals were. I can frequently be found sending detailed meeting recaps with assigned action items/dates and encourage my team to do the same. Having those receipts is priceless to ensure we remain aligned as the project progresses and that we’re not wasting precious time. I always tell my team: “Don’t hesitate to say ‘let's be extra clear: What are the deliverables? What is the timeline? And why are we doing this?’” - it will save everyone a lot of headaches down the line!
I also think it's important to emphasize the ability to pivot quickly in communications, because things change rapidly and we have to be ready — one day we might be going one direction and the next day we start over and go another. Having that quick agility will help provide stability within yourself during the most challenging times.
What is a value that drives you?
I’m all about having a positive attitude. Internal communications can be tough at times as not everything we’re communicating is good news. When you bring a positive attitude to challenging situations, it can help create trust quickly (which is essential inside and outside of work) and allows you to drive ahead no matter what the obstacle. I’ve had to climb many personal mountains and if I’d taken a more negative approach, I don't think that I’d still be standing here today. Trying to find joy in all the things and ensuring you’re taking time to laugh will make the time spent even better.
What's a hack or habit that grounds you?
I’ve written a yearly bucket list for the past 15 years. It ranges from what I want to read to a conference I may want to attend. Life is so busy that having this road map helps me make sure I’m making incremental progress towards my goals. I’ve never finished every single thing on the list, but I can see progress and that’s what’s most important. Growth doesn’t happen overnight. The list helps me see that it's okay to not do all the things and I will just add those things to my list the next year, or realize something wasn't really important to me and remove it. I love looking back 3, 7, 10 years and seeing what my priorities were that ultimately set me up where I am today. It’s a fun exercise!
If you could give a TED talk, what would the topic be?
I would go through all of the things that allow you to have the right attitude to get through any hurdle or challenge. In the middle of a rough patch in life or your career, it can be really difficult to see where you're supposed to go.
Six years ago, I had a pair of medically rare MoMo twins (the science is quite fascinating for those who want to Google!). When I was diagnosed, I was told I would never get to meet them or that there was the possibility of losing my own life. At 24 weeks, I moved into the hospital and the doctors watched me around the clock. When I delivered them at 30 weeks due to medical complications, the surgery gallery was filled with medical professionals wanting to get a glimpse of the rare twins. It was truly a miracle.
If I even take a minute to think back to that experience, I can't believe I made it here and it would have been very easy to be extremely negative about it since everyone around me certainly was. Instead, I went with the approach that every day matters and I now ask myself how we can make this day the best day possible for ourselves and for the people in our lives - and that includes the employees I communicate with every day. It’s really easy to get sucked into a challenge and it's super hard to find a way out. Taking a pause, remembering why we do what we do, and what truly matters are great reminders and ultimately help us move ahead in work and in life.
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Great interview/article, Julia! Like Hillary, I prioritize positivity and respect for team members and I am also kind of obsessed with making sure communications are clear. Seeing that Hillary does these things is validating and helpful—thank you to both of you!
I love Hillary's bucket list idea and was inspired by her mention of protecting employee time. I try my best to do that, but sometimes, my messages seem lengthy. I am working on condensing them, and this article has motivated me to get feedback from my team to see if/how I can make communications more concise or digestible.