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It was only three years ago that we last spoke with Samanntha DuBridge at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, but her role and experience have continued to expand since that conversation. The HPE HR expert of almost twenty-five years was recently named SVP of Benefits, Culture, M&A, and People Care, while also taking on new areas of responsibility like labor relations, employee investigations, M&A, and country-level HR generalists.
“This role has expanded in unique ways, and it’s been exciting to bring all of these different pieces together,” the SVP explains. “Although I’d worked with many of these groups before, as a combined team we’re finding new opportunities for partnership and collaboration, which is fantastic.”
In leading so many different parts of HPE, DuBridge says focusing on HPE’s foundational—or core—values is important for her not just to be effective, but for team members to feel valued, supported, and empowered.
Foundational Values
“The concept of civility has become a real theme across a lot of companies lately, and it almost feels like a new idea,” DuBridge says with a smile. “I think HPE, given its long history, has always placed significant focus on viewing things through more than a single lens. Sometimes that’s big topics, and sometimes it’s more personal topics, but there are ways of approaching conversations that make your teammates feel listened to and better understood.”
From a global perspective, that means thinking about how different groups like to engage. For example, when reaching out via Slack to a teammate, some HPE employees across the world might expect to be greeted with small talk before transitioning to more formalized business interactions; teammates in other locations may not. It’s a small example, but an important one when it comes to the internal culture at HPE.
DuBridge says culture, compliance, and values go far beyond a box-checking exercise at HPE. It’s about embedding the values the company prioritizes into its very foundations. That takes the form of a cultural blueprint.
“That blueprint is foundational about how we work together; it’s not just a training or a sign on the wall,” the SVP says. “It’s how we connect with other people, it’s how we develop trust with each other, and it’s how we help each other drive performance and achieve our goals.”
People Care and Big Acquisitions
In striving to create a simplified, one-stop resource for HR information and support, DuBridge created People Care. The SVP says HPE team members don’t have to understand how HR is structured or which team to speak to about a particular issue. In effect, People Care makes HR more accessible and more approachable for those who don’t interact with HR on a daily basis.
“People Care takes a teammate’s request and confidentially gets it to whomever needs to help,” DuBridge explains. “Our goal over time is to make it less about team members understanding what’s happening in various groups within HR, and more about ease of use for them. Payroll just integrated People Care as well, so I’m looking forward to partnering with more parts of the organization to simplify things for people working in a big company.”
That big company may be expanding. HPE is in talks to acquire Juniper Networks in a $14 billion deal that would see HPE’s headcount grow by more than 11,000 employees. DuBridge says she’s gotten to know several people working on the acquisition and is excited to be part of such an important transaction for both HPE and Juniper. Granted, DuBridge has seen numerous acquisitions throughout her years at HPE and its predecessor Hewlett-Packard Company.
“There are ways of approaching conversations that make your teammates feel listened to and better understood.”
Samanntha DuBridge
Despite the size of HPE, DuBridge says the organization makes a concerted effort to connect people together. The company has partnered with Mystery Coffee, a networking company that brings together teammates from different parts of the organization to get to know each other.
“It’s a great opportunity to connect with people that you might not otherwise meet in your day-to-day work, but that have shared interests with you,” the SVP explains. “It might be the start of a friendship, or it might just be a pleasant ten-minute conversation with someone new. It’s just helping our teammates feel like they’re part of a broader community.”
DuBridge says newer generations of teammates have higher expectations for community building, connection, and culture, and that focus is a priority for her own organization. That kind of focus has positive effects on recruitment and retention, but most importantly, it speaks loudly about what HPE values.
Just a month into her newly expanded role, DuBridge continues to seek out ways to evolve her organization. The SVP is leveraging a best-in-class culture with new solutions and technical innovations to make HR as streamlined, as human, and as effective as possible.
Alight Solutions is proud to support Samanntha DuBridge in her ongoing work to enrich the HPE culture and create an unmatched team member experience.
Alight is a leading cloud-based human capital technology and services provider for many of the world’s largest organizations and over 35 million people and dependents. Through the administration of employee benefits, Alight helps clients gain a benefits advantage while building a healthy and financially secure workforce by unifying the benefits ecosystem across health, wealth, wellbeing, absence management and navigation. Our Alight Worklife® platform empowers employers to gain a deeper understanding of their workforce and engage them throughout life’s most important moments with personalized benefits management and data-driven insights, leading to increased employee wellbeing, engagement and productivity. Learn more about the Alight Benefits Advantage™ at alight.com.
