Julie Billingsley is the Vice President of Human Resources at ZS Associates, a global professional services and consulting firm with 10,000 employees and contractors spanning 13 countries. Julie has been with ZS for 26+ years, helping them grow double digits year-over-year while purposely building and expanding their workforce and corporate culture. She has been integral to establishing their coaching practices, which now touch every employee around the world, as well as their workforce modeling tools that keep them appropriately staffed through periods of uncertainty and growth.

Time Stamps:

(2:39) – Can you pitch ZS Associates?
(5:26) – What do your US and Global footprints look like? 
(6:41) – Are your people location-based or do they move around all the time?
(9:35) – Was it a conscious decision to make sure associates were based in the same area as their clients instead of relying on heavy travel? 
(10:19) – What are the biggest challenges in leading people with a model of a lot of small offices spread out? 
(11:57) – What is your role as a human resources leader? 
(12:50) – What does surveying the landscape of the employees look like to you? 
(13:53) – The  coaching side of the business 
(17:47) – The line between coaching young people to act professional and expecting them to be professional 
20:18) – What were you looking for as far as an ROI in bringing on these coaches?
(21:33) – What happens after they’ve had a coach for 4-5 years?
(22:51) – Where did that belief in the value of coaching come from?
(25:02) – What are the challenges to building out coaching in other countries?
(27:00) – Are all of the coaches coordinating their work globally? 
(28:06) – How do you maintain a consistent culture with a global workforce?
(29:20) – How do you give credence to the cultural differences in global offices while keeping the performance standard the same? 
(35:22) – Teaching people how to interact with other people & facilitating meetings 
(37:22) – How the English language differentiates globally
(38:26) – Is everyone expected at a seniority level to be able to coach someone below them or are coaches selected based on abilities?
(41:11) – How have you evolved your practices to manage growth? 
(45:41) – Does your agile framework allow you to expand during “hot” months?
(46:56) – How are you aggregating all of your data? 
(50:27) – What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned from leading the people function of business throughout your career? 
(51:09) – Is there anything you believe about business or leadership that you think is contrary to what most people are doing in the market? 
(52:26) – Did you know that human resources would be something you would love to do?
(54:58) – What is the purpose of Business?