Patrick McLaughlin is the Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Chief HR Officer for Frito-Lay North America. He earned both his bachelors and masters degrees in organizational communication from the Lamb School. He shares some of his favorite memories and best advice in his interview.
What is your favorite Purdue memory?
The energy and excitement around Grand Prix is always a memory I look back to. The semester is coming to a close, the warm weather has arrived, and everybody is in a mood to celebrate those things.
I also remember being on the field when we beat the #2 Ohio State Buckeyes my freshman year. It was a pretty tremendous memory.
How has your education at the Lamb School impacted your career?
If you take rigorous courses in the Lamb School and challenge yourself along the way to do well, you’ll develop those sort of critical thinking skills you need to be successful in business. There’s not a day that I don’t look back and think fondly of my education at Purdue. It had prepared me incredibly well. It was well-balanced between the qualitative side of things and the quantitative side. That really helps in the world of business. I cannot appreciate the education I got any more. Even at the time, it was a tremendous value for the quality of learning that is available to you.
How have you been able to give back to Purdue?
I am the executive lead for PepsiCo recruiting efforts at Purdue. That brings me back to campus three of four times a year for a lot of different events. We hire a lot of students; we’ll hire more than eighty Purdue students this year between interns and full-time. We try to do a lot of things with students on campus.
A few years ago, I was asked to be on the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Krannert School of Management by Dean Hummels, even though I’m not a Krannert alumni. Dean Hummels is taking it on to expand it to other schools as well with people that have business backgrounds.
I also spent some time as an advisor for the LGBTQ Center on campus.
What is your top piece of advice for current Lamb School students?
Take advantage of the opportunities around you. Make sure that you get more out of school than just grades. Take opportunities to lead, which could be more challenging in this virtual world; we’ll see who emerges as leaders during this difficult time. Get good grades, study hard, show real desire, and start deciding what you want to do early enough so that you give yourself time to prepare ultimately for your graduation.
What has been the most rewarding moment of your career?
It’s harder to be prouder of anything than I am of my HR function at this particular moment. They are at the heart of keeping this business running throughout this COVID-19 crisis. I can honestly say that I don’t think HR has ever been more relied upon to be someone who is keeping the business truly going on a day to day basis. I’m very proud of the team at the moment.
How do you stay up-to-date on the constantly evolving HR practices and issues?
I sit on a board of advisors for the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California. I participate in a variety of different HR boards. I’d also say I have a community of CHROs and we tend to share a lot of information back and forth. There’s plenty of information out there if you want to get it. If you maintain intellectual curiosity there’s tons of information available.
How has staying at the same company for a longer period of time helped in your career?
For me it’s good because I have a very deep understanding of how the business works. If you are going to be an effective HR person, you really need to understand the business very deeply. People can certainly do that coming from the outside, but in certain businesses like this one where you have such a large workforce, it helps if you have some experience. Your business partners tend to rely on you because they know that you understand exactly how the business works, exactly how you make money, exactly how you get challenged.
How have you been able to get your next opportunity within the company?
You do good work. You start with that. That’s why the company hires us is that we do good work. Then you bring with it a point of view. You aren’t just here to do what somebody tells you. You say “hey, here’s what we’ve done and here’s why I think we might be able to do it differently, better, faster, smarter” whatever the case may be. Bringing that critical thinking, bringing that point of view, really understanding the business then making choices that actually impact the business, those are all important.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
You can get a fantastic education in the Lamb School. It is up to each one of us how much we are going to make out of that. I encourage everybody to get as much as they can while they are there.