Employee Voice at Scale: EDF’s CHRO on Skills-Based Growth, Pay Equity, and AI Hiring Risks

Show Notes

Summary

When politics and technology collide with your mission, how do you keep people engaged and moving forward?

Elizabeth Mattila, SVP and Chief Human Resources Officer at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), shares how a 1,000-person, global NGO sustains morale, builds true employee voice, and modernizes talent practices.

Elizabeth explains EDF’s science-driven, bipartisan approach to advocacy—and how transparent communication, town halls, and a clear legal strategy help teams stay focused even amid policy headwinds.

She details two structural levers for engagement: a new, peer-elected Staff Council that represents employees worldwide and a Culture Council advancing DEI with data from annual engagement surveys. On talent, Elizabeth breaks down EDF’s shift to skills-based career growth and cross-functional mobility—making advancement less about tenure and more about capabilities. She also outlines why annual pay equity snapshots fall short, and how EDF now runs equity analyses on-demand for real transparency.

Finally, Elizabeth flags rising AI threats in hiring—from deepfake candidates to data risks—and why HR must partner with security to protect the org. Expect practical ideas to future-proof HR in mission-driven and global contexts: employee voice at scale, real-time equity, and skills as the new currency.

Timestamps

[00:00] – Welcome and guest introduction

[00:53] – EDF 101: mission pillars, size, and global footprint

[03:05] – Supporting a hybrid, multinational workforce and compliance

[04:30] – Policy headwinds and morale: keeping the mission alive

[05:46] – AI risks in hiring: deepfakes, fake candidates, and data security

[07:58] – Transparency in action: science-led advocacy, legal strategy, town halls

[12:30] – Building employee voice: Staff Council, Culture Council, and engagement insights

[14:58] – Skills-based careers, cross-functional mobility, and real-time pay equity

Takeaways

- Establish formal employee voice mechanisms (e.g., peer-elected Staff Council) to enable two-way communication across regions and levels.

- Use a dedicated Culture/DEI council and engagement data to prioritize actions that matter beyond “topics of the moment.”

- Shift to skills-based talent management—define required capabilities, publish transparent pathways, and support cross-functional moves.

- Move from annual to on-demand pay equity analysis to keep pace with hiring and attrition and to increase trust.

- Sustain morale in mission-driven orgs with radical transparency, bipartisan partnerships, and clear plans of action.

- Protect hiring integrity by collaborating with security to counter AI-driven applicant fraud and safeguard sensitive data.

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Rebecca Taylor (00:17)
Hello and welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host, Rebecca Taylor, and I'm here with Elizabeth Mattila the SVP and Chief Human Resources Officer at the Environmental Defense Fund. Elizabeth, welcome.

Elizabeth Mattila (00:28)
Thank you. Happy to here. Happy Friday.

Rebecca Taylor (00:31)
Happy Friday. I feel like this is a long week and it's Friday the 13th too. So it's extra lucky, I think. So I'm excited to chat with you. You know, there's, think that there's like one of my favorite things about this series is just been able to speak to HR leaders from so many different types of organizations who sometimes have very, very unique challenges based on their industry and what they're working on. But there's also a lot of commonality kind of, you know, regardless of size, regardless of industry, a lot of us are kind of.

working on a lot of the same things. So before we dive in, can you start with us at the beginning? Can you tell us about your role and can you tell us about the Environmental Defense Fund?

Elizabeth Mattila (01:06)
Yeah, I'd be happy to. So I am fortunate to be in this role. I head of human resources for environmental defense fund. We are a ⁓ green NGO who we focus on ⁓ challenges with climate, climate warming, ⁓ clean air, healthy communities and oceans and fisheries. And those are kind of the pillars that we work on. Oceans meaning not.

⁓ getting plastic out of the oceans because there's lots of great organizations who work on that. But we're more focused on sustainable fishing and making sure that communities continue to thrive and grow by teaching them how to fish sustainably and maintaining their villages and things like that. And so ⁓ those are the pillars ⁓ that we work on. We are a global organization. We have about around a thousand employees worldwide.

Rebecca Taylor (01:55)
Very nice. And how big is your HR team with a thousand people?

Elizabeth Mattila (01:59)
There's about

42 of us in HR.

Rebecca Taylor (02:02)
Nice. And are you all kind of remotely all over in different locations or do you kind of work out of one central spot more normally?

Elizabeth Mattila (02:11)
We are primary locations in the US, our New York, DC and San Francisco. And then we've got some other offices as well. But then our European headquarters is in Brussels.

⁓ We have an office in Indonesia, in Jakarta. We have an office in Mexico. And then we've got employees kind of scattered in other places. We've got like a dozen employees in Germany. We've got some in Spain. ⁓ So they're, you know, they're all over. As far as the HR team, I do have ⁓ someone who heads up the European. and then of course we have a large office in China. We have about 50 people in China and Beijing. So we have an, I have an HR person who's located in Beijing.

a couple of people who are in the New York office. And then I've got, and then a lot of them are just are remote. Like, you know, a couple of people work out in New Jersey, there's somebody who's based in San Francisco. But, but yeah, they're kind of, we're kind of scattered everywhere to try to be available for the employees. We come into the office when we can, but we also, but many of us are remote.

Rebecca Taylor (03:16)
Yeah, very cool. And I always ask that because there's a huge difference between fully remote versus hybrid versus on-site. But then you're also navigating a multinational workforce where you're working with so many different folks from different areas. And there's a lot, I imagine there's a lot to keep track of. Just a lot of regulation and even just a lot of different folks to kind of support for different scenarios based on where they are, how they work, and all that other stuff.

Elizabeth Mattila (03:23)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, there's a lot to it. And then, you of course, then there are different state regulations, there's different country regulations. So it's important that we're on top of that we stay on top of that. And then we have HR professionals who are based in those countries or who have expertise with different country regulations and laws.

Rebecca Taylor (04:00)
Yeah, yeah. It makes a lot of sense to kind of have some folks that are more comfortable or more familiar maybe with the local laws because they're usually when it comes to things like different state compliance, different country compliance, you don't want to mess that stuff up. You want to make sure that you're doing it right. Yeah, yeah. So I'm curious. I know that this is sort of a, it's a big and it's a broad question, but I always like to start with this question.

Elizabeth Mattila (04:13)
Yeah. Rebounds. Yes.

Rebecca Taylor (04:24)
as we really kind of start to dive in here, but you know, looking at sort of the landscape of your role or even just HR as a practice right now, what are some of the big challenges that you're seeing that's showing up, you know, for you, for your employees or for your organization?

Elizabeth Mattila (04:40)
don't think that we're unique to ⁓ lots of other organizations, but there's two things that like leap to my mind. One of them is for us specifically and other like environmental NGOs, and this is not a political statement, but the current administration is not particularly friendly toward environment. As we just noticed recently with the demolishment of the endangered act, it's challenging for us as someone who is deeply invested in ⁓

Rebecca Taylor (05:00)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (05:10)
Maintaining a vital earth and maintaining our our the health of the planet It's challenging for us to work with an administration who isn't always favorable to what we want to accomplish and that can be

Rebecca Taylor (05:23)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (05:25)
disheartening on the staff. It kind of takes aim at the morale. And so how do we keep people feeling like we're still charging ahead, we're still gonna do what we're gonna do, even though we don't always have the support that we'd like to see. So that's number one. And then the second thing, the second challenge, and I think is more ⁓ applicable to HR across really the world at this point is AI. ⁓ So I was just here, I was just talking with somebody this morning who was

Rebecca Taylor (05:38)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Mattila (05:52)
saying that, and he works in cybersecurity, who is saying that it's a big thing now where people will pretend to be a candidate. And so like I could, like if you were interviewing me for a job, I could look like I look, but I actually have a cover and this isn't actually me. I'm like a guy who's in another country. And then I get hired and ⁓

Rebecca Taylor (06:10)
⁓ yeah.

Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (06:17)
you know, get hired for one day, steal lots of data and then take off. And that apparently is something that's real and happens a lot. And so we're hiring fake candidates. And I thought, well, okay, so that's another thing we ought to worry about with respect to AI. I mean, AI can be an opportunity as well. But there's some challenges, some real challenges that we have to think about in terms of the health and security of our data and our confidential information. So that's what's on my mind lately.

Rebecca Taylor (06:33)
Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, I'm no small thing, right? Because it can also be, yeah, I mean, especially because, like you mentioned, there's the existential sort of challenge that you're facing with funding for anything environmental right now. And then it is a politicized type of company, right?

Elizabeth Mattila (06:48)
Yeah, it's a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Taylor (07:11)
the risk

of deep fakes or the risks of people coming in to sabotage everything that you're doing are higher. You are, I imagine, more vulnerable to that. so it makes, I think it's so weird that that's where we are. That's just what, know, that the, yeah. But, you know, I want to specifically ask about the morale perspective because, you know,

Elizabeth Mattila (07:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

I agree with you on that.

Rebecca Taylor (07:36)
I imagine, I don't want to make assumptions, but I feel like this is a logical thing to assume is that the people who work in the Environmental Defense Fund are very mission oriented, right? That they care a lot about what you're doing. And so when that mission is kind of being undermined or maybe when there's challenges to that, how do you keep people engaged? How do you keep the morale high? Or can you? Like, I guess, how are you kind of approaching that?

Elizabeth Mattila (08:02)
It's challenging because, you know, people read the same, we all read the same news and we see the demolition of these protective acts and it's kind of like, ⁓ you know, here we are again. And, but what we do,

Rebecca Taylor (08:14)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (08:16)
is we want to strive for as much transparency as possible to how we're ⁓ like how we're counteracting that. So the thing about Environmental Defense Fund which I find incredibly inspiring is that the organization started and is based on a foundation of presenting scientifically backed data like real data. This isn't just like I think something or other is true. It's science-backed data that we then take

Rebecca Taylor (08:41)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (08:45)
to our advocacy groups who then take it to Capitol Hill and try to get legislation passed to support the environment. So it's all, that's the way that the organization is structured. And so we fight to promote.

laws and legislation being passed, and then we also fight to block stuff that's harmful. And so with this decision yesterday from the current administration to disable the protection, the Environmental Protection Engagement Act, immediately it's going to go to the courts. We will fight along with many other great organizations. And we have a very strong track record of winning. Not everything, of course.

Rebecca Taylor (09:02)
Woo!

Elizabeth Mattila (09:29)
But

what we try to do is keep being transparent with the employees like, this was a blow, but here's what we're doing. And when I hear like our general counsel speaking and our president speaking and just the senior leaders in the organization saying, here's what we're going to do. Like we're not just gonna lay down and decide like, darn, that's too bad. We're fighting. And so it's like a scrappy organization that will not just be pushed down and accept it. We keep going.

And we have a really inspirational group of senior leaders who will keep, like we'll have a town hall and we'll talk about it and not pretend like it wasn't a bad thing, but then we'll also counteract it by saying, here's what we're doing about it. So we try, know, we not always successfully, like sometimes you just got to like kind of lick your wounds, but then we keep going.

Rebecca Taylor (10:21)
think that says so much about the value of transparency though and being sort of a mission-driven organization is like, it's not about getting discouraged. It's not about accepting defeat, right? It's truly resilience in the meaning that it's supposed to have. This is what we've always faced. We've always faced obstacles. This is the way that it's manifesting now. We are the people who can take action on it in this specific way. I'm getting pumped. I'm like, yes, let's go.

Elizabeth Mattila (10:27)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's really very inspiring. Like you, you know, you wake up in the morning, you think I'm going to do something really good today. I'm going to do something really important. And every single person who works in environmental defense fund, we're all united by that same mission. And the thing is too, we're a bipartisan organization. We've just had our first Republican member of the board who joined us and gives us another perspective. Like how are they thinking about the environment? What kind of

Rebecca Taylor (10:57)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (11:20)
Concerns do they have that might make them want to push back and in fact the person who heads up our lobbying arm It's a separate. It's a it's a separate arm of environmental defense fund who can engage in lobbying activity Said one of the things that he wants to do is further increase our Republican engagement We will work with whomever is united with us in supporting the mission It doesn't matter what side of the aisle and that's why we specifically remain bipartisan and neutral We just want to we just want to get the work done

Rebecca Taylor (11:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is really inspiring because you're just kind of keeping focused on the mission and the whole purpose, right? We all live in the earth. We all are surrounded by the environment. there's, yeah, there's a common ground here that's worth kind of building from. And I think it's really inspiring to kind of lead something like that and to be able to support that. That's really cool. Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (11:49)
That's inspiring to you. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Me too.

Rebecca Taylor (12:13)
So maybe this kind of goes along with what you're saying, but you know, we talked about the challenges, but let's flip it. Like what's something that you're really excited about? What's something that you're working on that you want to share or something that, you know, is lighting you up right now?

Elizabeth Mattila (12:27)
I think that, I mean, there's a lot of things internally that we're doing, which I think is very inspiring for the staff. One of the things that we have recently formed is our staff council. And so we felt like, you know, we've got these senior leader teams and they will meet about, you know, we'll meet and we'll talk about whatever.

is going on within the organization at a senior level. But our lower level employees want to have a voice and we want them to have a voice and we want to hear from them. So one thing that we have done recently is we formed this staff council. There are 20 employees from all across the organization, all across the globe, and they were elected by their peers to be the voice of the staff council. So then they put together a charter and now we're figuring I just met with the representatives from the staff council yesterday

figure out how we can get them more and more engaged with our staff overall and communicate messages up and down and how we work with the staff council. So that's really inspiring and exciting. And at the same time, we also have a culture council who works more on our DEI initiatives. And so they're very involved. We just had our annual employee engagement survey.

So

we have gotten the results back. We're continuing to make progress in how employees are feeling engaged and figuring out what actions we're going to take to continue to inspire employees, continue to make EDF a place where people want to work, where they will stay working, how we can work on advancing them professionally.

So that's exciting. then lastly, the other thing that I'm working on is this HR strategy, relies upon incorporating and thinking more intelligently and intentionally about skills. not just like, know, Rebecca has been in her role for five years, so we should promote her, but like, what skills have you gained? What skills will you need to get to the next level? And being really transparent about like, this is what you need to do.

Here's how we can help you grow. And I think this is an exciting platform for us because it incorporates things like tenure. You might be in a role for five years and not be ready for advancement, or you might be in it for one year and you should be move up two slots. know, like what skills do you have? And so I want to think more in a smarter way. I think about advancement and how people can grow professionally in their careers. So that's another thing that I'm excited about.

Rebecca Taylor (15:00)
I think that's so cool, especially when you combine that with your first pillar that you spoke about where every employee has a voice because they have to go together, right? Because you could say maybe five years ago, the role that you were supposed to grow into, that you were kind of aiming for looked one way five years ago. There's been a lot of disruption in the last five years. So maybe that growth role can look completely different. And maybe as an employee, maybe I don't.

Elizabeth Mattila (15:10)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Rebecca Taylor (15:26)
want that anymore. Maybe there's something else. What other skills do I have that can translate into other things? You know, what are people and teams that I want to work with where I can see a lot of success that I can contribute to? I think that's, it's really cool when you can kind of build a culture like that where you're investing in the development and the performance and the growth, and you're also factoring in the employees' lived experience and their interests and their passions. think that's, it can be a really hard blend, it can be a really hard blend to scale. ⁓

Elizabeth Mattila (15:54)
When the.

Rebecca Taylor (15:55)
But when you do it right, when you're thinking about it the way that you are and you're leveraging your employees and your ability to kind of develop them, that's just, I'm feeling very inspired for what it's worth. And I'm not just saying that, that's really cool.

Elizabeth Mattila (16:06)
that's good. Yeah.

And you know, I do think it's really I think it's super important for employees to have a voice like I don't like this kind of like, you know, we're just gonna like from on high, we're going to dictate how things are like that. Who wants to work in a place like that? That's no good. I want everybody to feel like they're really invested where they are. And then the other thing on the skills based platform and strategy is that I you know, what about if you're in

Rebecca Taylor (16:19)
Yeah, doesn't work. Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (16:33)
You know, like you're in HR and you feel like you want to grow and grow and you want to stay in HR. But what about if you kind of want to work in marketing or something, you know, some, or you want to do mission based work, the skills.

transparency will say like, look, I really would like to work on sustainable fishing. Here are the skills that one needs to be like a project manager in that mission area. And then know like very clearly like here's what I need to work on. Maybe I can take courses. Maybe I can do some.

you know, interim projects that will help me get there, but at least they know what they need to do in order to move. And so I think that from an HR perspective, I think that helps retention. It helps people. It helps us attract people because there's opportunities. And then it just feels like it's more satisfying and makes for a healthier, happier, I hope, ⁓ employee population. I hope so. Anyway.

Rebecca Taylor (17:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sounds like, I mean, I'm bought onto it. That's kind of what I was, you know, in my HR days, that's how I thought about it too. It's just like, people don't want to be put in boxes. People don't want to be restricted in their growth. And so why do we have to do that? Why is that the default in a lot of organizations to sort of say, well, this is your track and this is the only thing that you can do. And when that track is gone, you're gone too. Like that never ever made sense because most people

Elizabeth Mattila (17:31)
That's good. Great.

No, right.

Rebecca Taylor (17:54)
If people are interviewing for a job, especially now, that is a last ditch effort. That is like, there are so many opportunities that you have to save those people and so many opportunities that you have to turn things around. And sometimes it's about getting that information sooner and creating environments and situations where employees do have a voice. So you can get that information when it's a budding idea and not a tree that's, I don't know, the roots are growing into the plumbing at this point and they just need to leave.

Elizabeth Mattila (18:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

⁓ huh.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca Taylor (18:22)
⁓ And

I think that like that is one thing that I think is sort of interesting about the way that HR information is is changing now that we can, you know, there are more opportunities to get more feedback more often. I love the I love the culture or the the culture council and the, you know, the charters and everything, because it's it is an approach that you're taking feedback from the people who are in the role in the job ⁓ and you're helping them to kind of voice.

Elizabeth Mattila (18:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca Taylor (18:51)
know, voice concerns of the people that they represent, which is in and of itself, like a really, really powerful position for them to be in. Like that's engaging for them. And, you know, it's like, I think what's, what's going to be cool to see, cause I'm going to be nosy. I'm going to be following up with you and asking these questions is like, how did they, how did they find like, what is a, what's a pattern and what's a, like, what's a one-off thing? Cause that was always my challenge. I know it's not an HR role, but that was always my challenge in HR is like,

Elizabeth Mattila (18:58)
Yeah.

I'm sorry.

I'm moving.

Rebecca Taylor (19:18)
what are the things that people are saying that are the things that we need to address and what are the things that are kind of just like the noise. And so that'll be kind of cool to be able to see how that goes.

Elizabeth Mattila (19:24)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, like, I hear, you know, for a while it was like, people were like, we want a four day work week. Like, we want a four day work week. And I'm like, well, yeah, me too. I'm good with that. But then that kind of died down and then like, it moved on to something else. So like, is that to your point, I think that's a really relevant one. Like, is that actually a thing that we should be spending time and seeing how might we make this work? Is it even something that's viable? Or is it just like, we can't do that. I'm sorry. You know.

Rebecca Taylor (19:36)
Same, yeah, I want a three day work week.

Elizabeth Mattila (19:55)
It just doesn't make sense for us or like, should we be really thinking how can we make this realize that EDF it has died down now, but I do think that's important. Like, what is just sort of like the topic of the moment?

Rebecca Taylor (19:55)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (20:11)
and what's a long-term thing that people want. And one long-term thing that people want, which we know, which we are addressing, is related to pay equity. And we used to be able to, or we were furnishing a pay equity study once a year, but it's kind of like a car, a new car. As soon as you drive it off the lot, it starts depreciating your value. That's like the once a year pay equity study, because people leave, people get hired, and then that pay,

Rebecca Taylor (20:32)
It's, yeah, it's redundant. Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (20:40)
it's not relevant anymore. It's only relevant the moment you run it. So now we have a software platform that we've brought in and we can run pay equity studies whenever we want to, which I think makes it a lot more impactful and a lot more transparent for us to be able to say like, here's how we're doing. Here's, you know, here's the equity that we have. We want to be an equitable, fair, you know, exciting organization that people want work at.

Rebecca Taylor (20:43)
Yeah.

That's good.

Yeah, I think it's really cool, especially it's like you're keeping up with the pace of change, or it sounds like you're thinking about keeping up with the pace of change and doing what you have to do to do that in the right way. And that's going to be my biggest takeaway from this conversation, actually, and anybody who's listening to this is that's the key is just like, you know, almost future-proofing your organization, but that sounds like it's like the title of a blog.

Elizabeth Mattila (21:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rebecca Taylor (21:28)
But it's like thinking about how you keep up with the pace of change by looking at the practical things that people need in their job. They need pay, they need equity, they need to enjoy their experience. Yeah, they need a voice. Yeah.

Elizabeth Mattila (21:32)
Yeah.

Yeah. They need a voice. Yeah. Yeah.

And they want to be able to grow. I, you know, I just feel like as, you know, heading up the HR function, I, really feel very strongly these, these are great, great people and they want to have a place that can make them feel appreciated. We all want to feel appreciated and help what we're doing. We'll, we'll help that.

Rebecca Taylor (21:58)
Yeah, I love that. I think it's a good note to close everything on too, is that I think that's like the caption for the episode. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your insights, your perspective. I think that this is like, I just think that there's so many cool things that you're working on and that you're doing and that you're really, you know, facing, you're really leading your team from what it feels like is like a spot of like true, like your true heart. And I think that that's really, really cool and nice to see.

Elizabeth Mattila (22:02)
Thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Taylor (22:26)
And so thank you. Just thank you for being here.

Elizabeth Mattila (22:29)
I

believe very strongly in inspirational leadership and I hope that that that I am inspiring our team and our organization. So we'll keep going. We keep trying and thank you. Thanks for talking with me.

Rebecca Taylor (22:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, and thank you for listening everybody. Have a good rest of your day. Bye.