Meet Bryce Hackman, HR consultant for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Thomson Reuters and recipient of the esteemed 10KC Program Innovator award. This award recognizes and celebrates visionary leaders dedicated to designing exceptional employee development experiences, catalyzing improvements across areas such as employee engagement, retention, inclusion, and company culture. 

In this exclusive Q&A, we’ll explore how Bryce has played a pivotal role in amplifying the impact of Office Hours and Introductions at Thomson Reuters by: 

• Inspiring more engaged leadership: Uncover how the team’s innovative approach to scaling leadership engagement not only fosters more engaged leaders but also profoundly boosts overall employee engagement.

• Building a sense of belonging: Explore how 10KC has helped Bryce generate a greater sense of belonging among Thomson Reuters employees, connecting them with leaders and colleagues they might not have met otherwise.

• Measuring impact: Discover how Bryce collects feedback on initiatives and sentiment outcomes, including employee engagement, career goal achievement, professional network expansion, and a heightened sense of support and inclusion.

10KC’s Office Hours, a cornerstone of Bryce’s forward-thinking approach at Thomson Reuters to scale leadership engagement, facilitates interactive roundtable discussions, fostering leadership initiatives through dynamic Q&A sessions, culture-building events, collaborative working sessions, and more. Introductions automatically match employees based on shared goals and interests to broaden networks and workplace connections. 

Without further ado, it’s time to hear from 10KC Program Innovator awardee, Bryce Hackman! 

Tell us about yourself. How did you get invested in enhancing leadership and employee engagement with a mentorship and networking platform?  

Bryce: I am an HR consultant in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion space here at Thomson Reuters, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Elizabeth Betzler, our Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Thomson Reuters, connected me to 10KC and I was told “Hey, this platform is yours. Here's what we've done. But we’re looking forward to you taking your own spin on it.” So that's how I got connected and how I'm still participating and driving the program today.

We use 10KC like a virtual door to meet people in-person for hybrid employees and office-based employees – or virtually for remote employees – encouraging leadership and employee engagement. Now that people are in the office a lot less and working with globally distributed teams during the week, your odds of just bumping into somebody is pretty low. And so, I consider how we can leverage 10KC to facilitate networking connections, whether that's through in-person or virtual Office Hours or Introductions. 

What feedback have you heard from Thomson Reuters employees about Office Hours sessions? 

Bryce: It’s been overwhelmingly positive, and people are asking for more and more. They just want to see even more leadership and employees engaged, because everything has been really positive so far. 

I also hear that folks like being able to connect with people across different locations and hear different perspectives on a range of topics that are not immediately available to them. I sometimes think the “networking” word has negative connotations, but connecting and building relationships is really positive, and something that we've been leaning into with Office Hours. 

Some of the stories that I hear that stick with me and inspire me to keep doing this work is that colleagues feel there is high value in being able to learn more about leaders as human beings, right? Getting to see their more personal sides, hearing about their journeys – which also includes their struggles, their challenges and their learnings along the way. It brings that human touch to networking. 

3 stories I will call out that have stuck:

• There was an employee who met somebody who was actually working on the same product at Thomson Reuters for over 30 years, and they never met. The only reason they met was because of 10KC. That kind of blows my mind! 

• We've heard people say “this leader inspired me to take the first step in my journey to feel like I can really make an impact.” 10KC is allowing people access to information, insights, and inspiration that they don't typically get on an everyday basis.

• And then, people feel this greater sense of belonging to the organization and their colleagues because of what's happening. There's no way they could have met this leader or met this colleague if that “Career Coffee Chat” didn't take place.

How have fellow leaders supported your efforts in championing leadership engagement in Office Hours? 

Bryce: Our Business Resource Group leaders – or Employee Resource Group leaders — have been on the ground champions of leveraging Office Hours and Introductions in ways that are meaningful.

We've had Women at TR, Pride At Work, Asian Affinity Network, deliver some great connections through Office Hours, focused on intersectional identity-based connection and development, which has been really great. 

Other influential leaders I’d like to shout out are: Carissa Schmitz, SPHR, Kit Spielberger, MBA, Haley Krypel, Laura Miller, Kelly Mattos, Elizabeth Betzler, Glenda Crisp, Mary Alice Vuicic, Pragashini Fox, Jessica Rich, Miranda Chesson, and Sandy Robinson. 

Ajit Phadke is a huge proponent of 10KC and has led so many sessions for remote workers as well as Sweta Patel. 

What outcomes do you track, and how do these results support employee and leadership engagement goals? 

Bryce: There's a lot of data at our fingertips with the 10KC platform, which is fantastic. We've been able to customize it to focus on those things that are really important to us as a business. Specifically for our people and culture. 

We track a lot of sentiment outcomes for those who have connected either through Introductions or attended an Office Hour. The four big ones that I look at are: 

1. Did the attendee learn something new that helped them achieve their career goals? 

2. Do they see the Introduction as a valuable addition to their professional network?

3. Do they believe that Thomson Reuters is a company where they can have a successful career?

4. Did they have the opportunity to share their perspective and insights with a colleague and feel more supportive and included as a result? 

We typically see anywhere from 90% to 100% agree across the board, which is awesome. And that's important to us as a company, because we are constantly striving to create this inclusive culture of world-class talent and make Thomson Reuters the best place for people to grow their careers. And so, everything that we're doing with 10KC is truly in direct alignment with that.

Do you have advice for others looking to implement similar programs for leadership and employee engagement? 

Bryce: Number 1, make sure you understand the problem you're trying to solve. What I mean by that is, you have to really listen to your people and truly understand what the barriers are that they're facing. Then, you can make sure that you're implementing a program that can help them overcome those barriers.

10KC helps us overcome barriers at Thomson Reuters that get in the way of career development and meaningful connections. A lot of people only connect with people who are similar to them, or in their immediate vicinity, be it the same team or location. They connect with people only for quick transactional things. And so how can we leverage data and insights with 10KC to get around our biases and open the doors to networking and true authentic connection? 

Number 2, make sure you integrate your program into the very fibers of your organization. And a lot of this requires just building relationships yourself and partnering across all parts of the organization. 

And then number 3, I would say choose a program that's simple to administer that allows for flexibility. And you can pivot, adapt, when things change, right? We were fortunate with 10KC that it was very flexible, we've been able to customize it to our needs, and adapt so that we can meet all of our goals. 

What are your favorite tech features that enable you to build the top-tier employee and leadership engagement programs at Thomson Reuters? 

Bryce: My favorite feature has been the ability now for anybody who's a member on our  10KC platform at Thomson Reuters to request an Office Hour. It has made scheduling so much easier. So then all I have to do is quickly review and approve. 

And then for those who I consider “super users”, I can make them admins of Office Hours so that they can just schedule them and act as local champions in Minneapolis or Toronto. I've made some of our BRG leaders super user admins. 

So everything that we've done has been self-sustaining, which at the end of the day, makes me really happy to see very consistent results even though it's been a much more hands off administrative investment from my side.

If you could have coffee with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be? 

Bryce: I have a lot of relatives that came over on the Mayflower and I think it would just be fascinating to understand what their experience was embarking on this wooden ship across an ocean, having no idea if they're going to make it. It would just be cool to kind of get that insight. 

Other than that, I would pick Beyoncé. Beyoncé is one of my idols, and I think she's fantastic.  

Congratulations, Bryce Hackman, on your incredible work to scale leadership engagement! 

Bryce Hackman’s commendable work to scale leadership engagement with Office Hours, or group learning sessions, demonstrates the positive effects of innovative approaches to build connectivity and engagement within an organization. This not only resulted in more engaged leadership, but also amplified employee engagement and sentiment overall. 

Bryce, congratulations on your well-earned recognition as a 10KC Program Innovator at Thomson Reuters! Your dedication provides a valuable model for those aspiring to scale innovative approaches that strengthen leadership and employee engagement in their workforce.

Discover more about 10KC Program Innovators 

Get the details about this honorary award, showcasing 10KC customers’ exceptional leadership, and submit nominees here.