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Insights from Kelly McDonald, VP of People Experience at Ferrero North America
There's a difference between a company that talks about people being its greatest asset and one that actually lives it.
Kelly McDonald, VP of People Experience at Ferrero North America, represents the latter.
Kelly recently sat down with Electives Co-Founder and CEO Jason Lavender to talk about what people experience work actually looks like at Ferrero. They covered the workplace as a "third place," why leadership behavior beats an email every time, and why HR has to tie its work to the business to avoid feeling like a “nice to have.”
In this article:
- Why the workplace is becoming a stand-in for the social connection people used to find elsewhere
- How leadership behavior amplifies internal communications
- Why business clarity is the foundation of belonging
- How "Freedom Within a Frame" lets Ferrero scale engagement across a geographically dispersed, deskless workforce
- Why small, quiet moments often land better than the big planned ones
- How to prevent important people & culture work from getting dismissed as nice to have but not business critical
The workplace is becoming people's third place
Remote work, hybrid schedules and AI tools have quietly removed a lot of the small daily contact people used to have with coworkers. Kelly has watched that gap show up directly in what employees expect from work itself.
"I've seen the workplace evolve into becoming more and more of that third place for a lot of people."
Kelly is not talking about ping pong tables or water coolers. She's talking about a real shift in what people are asking work to provide.
"I see employees craving that. And what they're looking for from a workplace – whether it's sponsoring runs that they can participate in, or volunteer days, or even just simply networking activities – is to meet people outside of the people they work with every day."
That's a bigger responsibility now than the compensation and benefits version of HR most people still picture.
Leadership walking the talk amplifies our work
Kelly didn't hedge when asked what actually moves a culture. Communications get you partway. Leadership behavior is the critical foundation.
"I'm a really firm believer in leadership and the importance of leadership. We can send out hundreds of emails every day and they get you to a certain point, but hearing your leaders say certain things and also walk the talk I think is 100 times more impactful. And I am fortunate to have leaders that understand this at Ferrero."
She described that signal as something the whole company feels, top to bottom.
"You can tell everyone is rowing in the same direction, and believes strongly in Ferrero and what we've built, and feels fortunate to be here. I think that is what gets transmitted through our leadership and the big moments. You really see that."
That's also the limit of what a People Experience Team can do on its own. Without leaders setting the direction, there's nothing for HR to amplify.
"If we don't have their clear direction, you don't know what to amplify."
Feeling part of something bigger is the foundation
Asked what would make her job easier, Kelly didn't point to budget or headcount. She pointed to clarity.
"I think it would be easier, or it is easier, when you have clearly defined business goals that you can help people get behind, right? Because I think a lot of it comes back to feeling like you have a purpose in your job, and you're part of something bigger, and you're part of a team."
In her framing, programs and events sit on top of something more basic: a clear direction from the business. Without that direction, there's nothing for those programs to reinforce.
“Freedom Within a Frame” scales belonging across a spread-out workforce
Ferrero has a lot of employees who don't sit at a desk, including field and plant teams. Reaching them with the same physical events used at headquarters isn't realistic. Kelly’s team has been testing a different approach: give passionate employees a loose structure and let them drive engagement in their own location.
"You know, one of the things we talk about a lot lately here at Ferrero is ‘Freedom Within a Frame.’ And I think what we've established is this influencer population of employees who are given a framework of whatever it is we're trying to create at that moment, and bringing them in."
The framework matters less than who delivers the message.
"I can share stuff over and over, and it has some impact. But if our Canadian employees see a Canadian voice sharing something, or one of our plant employees sees another hourly employee sharing something, it just has a different impact."
People respond to seeing themselves reflected in who's delivering it.
Small moments often land better than big ones
Kelly pointed to books like The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker and The Invisibles by David Zweig as influences on how she thinks about human connection. The lesson she keeps coming back to: the planned, splashy event is exciting, but it isn’t always what people remember.
"We talk about creating these big events, but sometimes people just want a coffee together. So how do you create that small moment that is actually just as impactful a lot of times than some of the bigger things?"
A town hall and a shared cup of coffee aren't competing for the same job. Sometimes the small one does more work.
Connect the work to the business is a must do
Kelly’s closing advice was direct. People Experience work gets dismissed as a “soft” or a nice to have, unless someone connects it to what the business actually cares about.
"Find something you really enjoy doing and follow that, but also never underestimate the value of what you're doing. And make sure you can articulate it and explain it in a way so that people really see the value in it. Because a lot of what we do sometimes is like, okay, this is nice, but it's not business. But it is driving the business, so you need to connect those dots for people."
She also pointed to coalition-building as the way around a closed door: find a partner who'll pressure-test the idea, improve it and back it when it goes up the chain.
Build the foundation before you build the program
Kelly’s conversation keeps returning to the same idea from different angles.
Programs, events and influencer campaigns only work when something more foundational is already in place: a clear business direction, leaders who live it out loud and a connection between what HR does and what the company is actually trying to achieve.
Get that foundation right, and the rest, even something as small as a shared coffee, starts to land in powerful ways.
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