NASCAR’s CHRO talks about the DEI reckoning and navigating the aftermath of a merger

Good morning!

This weekend will be big for racing fans, as Formula 1, the Indy 500, and NASCAR all have major events on Sunday.

In anticipation of the big day, I sat down with NASCAR’s chief human resources officer John Ferguson to hear about his tenure at the organization, and how he’s approached steering its people strategy through some turbulent years.

Ferguson joined in September 2021, about two years after the company completed a merger with the International Speedway Corporation (ISC), its sister company that operated the racing tracks. He also began at an important time historically—the company, whose fan base leans white and is often associated with conservative viewership, had a DEI reckoning after the murder of George Floyd. It banned waving the confederate flag at races in 2020, and set goals to diversify its audiences and workforce.

Ferguson discusses how he helped the company navigate the aftermath of its merger and the unique challenges of leading HR at a sports company.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Fortune: You joined NASCAR in September 2021, about two years after NASCAR closed its merger with the ISC. What was the company culture like when you first joined?

John Ferguson: What I noticed immediately was that people were still anchored into their legacy culture. So one was, say, legacy NASCAR, and one was legacy ISC. They were situated closely to each other—in the same building, in fact—but two separate companies. My first day or two of being here, you walk up, ‘Hey, my name is John, I'm new to the team,’ [and people respond] ‘Hi, my name is Joe, and I'm legacy NASCAR.’ Or ‘Hi, my name is Susan and I'm legacy ISC.’

That was a great opportunity to look forward and recognize the clean sheet of paper we have in front of us today, to bring something rich from both cultures to navigate something new.

And then they had different ways of doing things. Not that one way was better than the other, but just different ways. A merger is kind of like love at first sight. You get married, you're like, ‘Oh, I didn't realize that you liked the toilet paper under versus over.’ It's one of those situations.

What were some surprising side-effects from the merger that came across your desk?

Relationships are key for any HR leader. What I decided to do was if there's one me and thousands of employees I'm trying to build synergy and rapport with, how can I do that? So I did a bit of a roadshow, and I established a “get to know me in a minute” document. It was a PowerPoint slide that was like: who I am personally, and then who I am professionally. If I'm speaking to a room of 100 people, it's hard to get one-on-one with each of them. By sharing and lowering the waterline on who I am, they could establish a connection point with me. For example, I love watching the show Big Brother. When I share that, I get tons of people sending me messages, or stopping me to talk in the hallway. It opened the door for people to see a connecting point.

NASCAR is known for having predominantly white viewership, and confederate flags were allowed at racetracks until just a few years ago. What specific steps have you taken to diversify NASCAR’s workforce? 

We are focused on the future of the sport and making sure that it's one that everyone can see representation of themselves. There are so many exciting initiatives and ways in which the sport is growing. We talk about our new media rights deal [and] our new media partners [including Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery]. We just now announced an NCAA tournament for next season, that's going to be phenomenal. We've changed up our racing schedule we did for the past three years. We kicked off our season with the Busch Light Clash, which was hosted at the L.A. Coliseum, and then we had our Chicago street race, we're going into year two of that.

We're going into new markets, we're trying to make sure that we expand where we're racing and how we're racing, and where that content is delivered so that people who weren't checking us out previously, now see something new in their network or in their community, and they're curious, and want to see what it's all about.

What has been the biggest struggle for you at NASCAR?

The biggest struggle has been related to just managing the workforce of today, in the sense of hybrid, remote, and office. Those are new nuances that, pre-2020, weren't a factor because everyone was in the office five days a week. We were sort of ahead of the curve in many ways, because we travel so much. But understanding and recognizing that could continue to shift, and just making sure that we could drive employee engagement for that employee who may be 100% remote over that employee who isn't, but 70% of their work week is traveling.

We had a big moment where we had an early morning meeting, and it was very much East Coast focused. Finally, someone was like, ‘I'm on the Pacific Time Zone, it’s 6 a.m. for us, could we possibly shift this?’ And it's like, ‘You know what? Yes we can! Thank you for flagging that.’ It brings greater awareness to recognize this is not one size fits all.

You’ve been in the HR sports space for a long time. What do you think the CHRO of a sports company needs to bring to the table that may be different from CHROs in other industries? 

There's a level of commitment and passion from our employees that transcends work. For so many people, this has been the dream job since they were a kid. Whether you wanted to be a NASCAR driver, or you just always were a huge fan of the sport, to get a full-time job here is a big moment. Recognizing that passion, harnessing that passion and nurturing it to make the organization continue to grow. People are here for reasons beyond your average employer. This is something that they've had a lifelong goal of, wanting to be a part of the sport in any way they can figure out a pathway to do it.

Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion

CHRO Daily will not publish on Monday, May 27, in observance of Memorial Day. Have a lovely weekend, and see you Tuesday. Today's edition was curated by Emma Burleigh.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com