David Alsop, CHRO at Ultradent

Show Notes

How do you keep a global, mostly non-desk workforce informed, aligned, and proud to belong?

David Alsop, Chief Human Resources Officer at Ultradent Products, a global manufacturer of dental and oral health products, explains how his team connects a multilingual frontline through clarity, short-form video, and practical AI.

He shares why HR must act like content creators, how mobile-first comms outperform text for factory teams, and how translation tech now removes costly barriers across 20+ languages.

David also details Ultradent’s onsite-first philosophy, how to define flexibility by role without dividing office and line workers, and why recruiting with radical clarity prevents mis-hires. He breaks down “culture charters” that turn values into daily behaviors, job-level guides that set expectations, and a leadership frame—360 care that balances employees, customers, and company results.

Expect actionable examples, from filming on an iPhone with a gimbal to using Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and Viva Engage to scale clear, inclusive communication.

Key Timestamps

• - [00:45] – Guest intro: Ultradent’s global footprint and the “apex” of individualism and unity
• - [01:51] – What’s unique about HR in manufacturing vs. tech: keeping non-desk workers connected
• - [04:01] – HR as content creators: short-form video, mobile-first comms, filming on the floor
• - [05:57] – Practical AI: Copilot/ChatGPT to refine tone, translation at scale, Viva Engage
• - [08:52] – 2026 people challenges: engagement vs. “apex connection” and recruiting with clarity
• - [11:15] – Onsite-first culture: collaboration, trust, and defining flexibility by role
• - [14:29] – From values to behaviors: culture guides, job-level expectations, and team charters
• - [16:36] – 360 care: balancing employees, customers, and company performance

Takeaways

• - Make HR a content studio: use short, mobile-first video to reach frontline teams; film, interview, and ship usable clips.
• - Leverage AI to sharpen communications and translate instantly; judge messages by outcomes, not authorship.
• - Recruit with radical clarity about culture (e.g., onsite-first) to attract right-fit talent and avoid misalignment.
• - Define flexibility by role: shifts and schedules for manufacturing; location flexibility where it truly fits.
• - Turn values into operating norms via culture charters and job-level guides; practice peer accountability.
• - Lead with 360 care—balance employees, customers, and company results for sustainable performance.

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Emily Fenech (00:35)
Welcome to HR Voices. I'm Emily Finick, your host, and today I get to chat with David Alsop, the Chief Human Resources Officer at UltraDent Products. Welcome, David.

David Alsop (00:45)
Hi Emily, it's good to be here with you.

Emily Fenech (00:47)
Yeah, we're so glad you're here. So David, you are actually the first HR Voices guest that we've had from the manufacturing industry. And UltraDent manufactures dental and oral health products. And from what I've read has a very strong reputation in quality and ethics. And I just happened to bring along my favorite product of UltraDent. I'm a big fan of your Opalescence Go. I've been using it for years. It's like the best whitener on the market. My dentist recommended it. So.

Turns out I'm actually using the products that you manufacture, which I was so pleased to see that connection. can you tell us a little bit more about your role, what it's like setting people's strategy in manufacturing?

David Alsop (01:25)
Yeah, I'm the Chief HR Officer here at Ultra Dent. We're a global manufacturer with majority of our manufacturing located in South Jordan, Utah. But we have different operations in Brazil and different warehouses throughout the world. And so we just have a very unified culture that we call it local culture to be able to be global and local wherever we are. And that comes with its own challenges on how do you keep people united?

How do you keep people having great leadership and how do you have people have great collaboration to deliver the best results we can possibly have for oral health? And so my role is helping to maintain the apex is what we call it between our individualism and our unity towards business success.

Emily Fenech (02:10)
Yeah. So what's, can you help me understand maybe some of the unique challenges of HR leadership in a manufacturing setting?

David Alsop (02:16)
Yeah, I think the biggest challenge that exists in a manufacturing space, different from say tech space and other spaces that are dealing with mainly computerized workforces, is we're dealing with individuals that have such diverse backgrounds away from technology. And we're trying our best to help those people stay connected in some way, or form to technology, even though their jobs

don't bring them to it. if you think about a manufacturing worker, they come to work every day to clock in, go to a manufacturing line, and do something with their hands and their abilities, which they're very talented with. But how do we keep them connected in a world that's so technologically changing? And so what is truly, to me, different when I work with my corporate environments versus my manufacturing environments is

keeping manufacturing united with the culture versus working against it is the true battle that at UltraDent we're very successful in helping educate our employees on their phones, helping them stay connected with the information in the organization and using AI and technology to translate for our multilingual environment in ways that keep them feeling valued and connected. And so I think that's the biggest thing that stands out to me is

It's easy for a tech company to keep people connected because they're all on their computers. In manufacturing, we have to keep people united through various means outside of the technologies that are evolving.

Emily Fenech (03:49)
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I think comms is a challenge already no matter where you work But if you're not sitting in front of a laptop all day, you're not checking your email all day Really probably 10x is that challenge if not more? Yes, besides just being mobile friendly right like Do you what do you do as an HR leader? What is your comms team? Like how do they rise to that challenge to make sure that people are you know at a baseline informed but

David Alsop (04:02)
Yeah, it is.

Emily Fenech (04:15)
Above that, like engaged.

David Alsop (04:17)
Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting how it becomes so similar to the social media environments that we face. We're doing more videos than ever and HR, we're creating in our function more skills that can be content creators, not just policy creators. It's a really important part of what we do to be able to get on and do a 30 second video for people to understand what's going on.

Emily Fenech (04:36)
Yeah.

David Alsop (04:44)
versus just text out and send out information on text that a lot of people don't learn that way. And more and more, the societies that we're in are looking at the TikToks, the social media, the YouTube videos, and they want and crave that way of operating. And so we're doing a lot of videos right now. We're marketing to our organization on the mindsets that we need for the future. We'll teach with videos. I've got tools. As the CHRO, people would think I'm just in my office.

trying to lead from the office, but I've had to evolve my role to be able to have a gimbal with my iPhone, with microphones to put on people's lapels and their shirts. And I'll just sit there and interview people and get content from people to talk about how do we live our values? How do we have the mindset for our future? And we use that to create these short videos that send out to people that we're getting high engagement with.

and we're using the AI tools and the Microsoft tools that we use, our environment, to be able to just connect it people in more of social way that's working across different environments.

Emily Fenech (05:50)
And it sounds like you said earlier that AI is helping you localize, translate some of this content into different languages. What other ways are you using technology to keep people engaged? know AI is everywhere. Has there been any sort of experiments or anything that you're excited about?

David Alsop (06:05)
Yeah, I think the biggest thing with AI right now is we are trying to push ourselves to get to the agent I levels where we've got bots and tools, but we don't believe we are a company that's going to be the cutting edge of AI right now. We're going to let a lot of other people make the mistakes at the cutting edge and we're going to be just behind them doing the things the right way that we believe are going to work for the future. And so

One of the main examples for us is AI is we call it maximizing our human potential with the AI. And so as we can use our copilot partnerships and our chat CBT partnerships, I just tell people, if you have had any differences in communication, if you get feedback on your communication skills, the day's over where you can't get help for that. And so we can be able to take what our messages are and refine them and partner with AI to perfect them.

And we've taught our culture to understand, look for the outcome of a communication and don't get caught up in the question of who wrote it. Really understand what the content of that message is to deliver the message. And if it delivers it effectively, that's what we want. And so that's how we're using AI to communicate, to get our messages right, to transform how people are receiving it. The other parts of AI that are really exciting for us

is the translation. We're a global company. On our manufacturing lines we have over 20 languages and the AI makes it so simple to post a video now on our Viva Engage platform that we use and just click a button and it translates for everybody. And to think about where we were 10 years ago versus now with that, you have to get, you have to choose two languages and translate and spend money on the translation.

And the world is open now to speak from your language and then communicate it to a global audience, which is awesome. It's amazing. And that's just not even the cutting edge, right? That's just where we need to be in moving forward. I think the only other example in that translation space that is awesome is now we can get on our Microsoft tools on a video with someone in Brazil and click one button and they will listen to me and my voice in their language and I in their voice in my language now.

real time. It's just a different world and if people aren't paying attention to these, using these, they're not communicating, they're not connecting and they won't stay unified in the right ways and we're really seeing success with that.

Emily Fenech (08:32)
I love that. I love how you're staying engaged with sort of like your frontline, the people in the, you know, speaking different languages. When it comes to more of like your people team, the people team that you lead, what are some of the biggest challenges we're going into 2026? We're planning, we're thinking ahead. What are some of the biggest challenges that your people teams are facing in this moment?

David Alsop (08:50)
Yeah, I think people teams, the critical challenges that we face is we face the environments that are put upon us by our governments, by our societies. And at UltraDent, for example, we have worked really hard to build a culture where our whole purpose in HR is to help people understand the difference between engagement and full apex connection to the organization.

And what that means is we're always trying to work with leaders and employees to work together to find what the lines of expectations are for the company, for someone to have maximum success, and be able to listen to someone to understand to do that maximum success, how did the employees stay as satisfied as they can be? And when employees and managers partner on that, on what that means, they draw the right lines together and find the right connections and hire the right employees to stay.

at the maximum engagement possible for the company and for the individual. And so for an HR person to help people find that balance every day in this environment where we're in, where especially in Western society in the United States, we see a more entitled workforce coming in where there are certain limits that they don't want to do, but we expect them to do to be successful. And that's putting a lot of pressure on the recruiting teams to be very specific.

very honest and very transparent about the culture we are, the lines that we draw, and what we stand for so that we can attract people that want to be a part of that versus what happens oftentimes if you're not clear about your culture, what your lines are, what it means to work on site versus off site. If you don't clarify who you are, you're attracting people that in the end won't want to be there after they find out who you really are. And so being transparent about that, helping people understand that,

and then helping onboard people to that successfully is one of the biggest challenges. And I'll just give you one example of that. On-site and remote work is such a controversial topic over the last few years. And we are an on-site culture. That's what we believe. It's not that we don't believe there's jobs that can do work and work that can be done in a remote ways. It's just that we collaborate so well together when we're in person whenever possible.

We view that as the first choice and remote as the second choice. And so how we help leaders navigate that in a world that too often believes there's no way you should bring me to the office in some cases when we interview people. We have to help leaders help people understand the vision for collaboration and connection in person and what that brings to a career and a success in a collaboration and then help them understand, do you know how flexible we can be?

when you honor our values and our system. If you have to leave for a doctor's appointment, a kid's game, if you're going through a life change, if you honor us, we will honor you in an amazing way. But we find when people come in and don't honor the lines of the company, they don't respect the company, they only demand from the company, it's really hard for a leader to be flexible with them and trust them.

Emily Fenech (11:38)
Mm.

David Alsop (12:01)
And so for us, we really are working with leaders in the people aspect to help leaders really understand, be clear about what we stand for so that we can be clear on how we help be flexible for the employees engagement. Because if you don't draw your line, there will be no line to be honored and worked on and successfully delivered together.

Emily Fenech (12:21)
Yeah, the phrase that comes to mind as I'm listening to you is that clear is kind, right? Like, start off clear and everyone will be better for it. The remote work, I also think of in a manufacturing context, right? In terms of trying to build unity, you know, it seems like it would be an odd choice to have. Manufacturing can't be done. You know, for the majority of your employees, it can't be done remotely, right? So,

David Alsop (12:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily Fenech (12:44)
you know, having one part of your workforce having, you know, more flexibility than the folks in the front line seems like it might work against, you know, unity. That would be my assumption.

David Alsop (12:57)
It does. It draws, it can draw a divide in the manufacturing culture because half your workforce is flexible with computers and has more flexibility because of that. And the other half of the workforce is on the lines that doesn't have that. And there is a balance to that because you can give that more flexibility. But what you have to do in manufacturing is help educate the manufacturing employees on the flexibility and what it means in their world. Because it's not that they don't have flexibility.

They have different schedules that are more flexible to come and go. It's just, it may not be you can do your work from another location. It means that your schedule can be a little bit more defined in a different way, like a, you know, 312s, 410s, different schedules. And so we have different shifts. And so it is hard, but you have to make sure everybody understands flexibility means different things for different people.

Emily Fenech (13:39)
Great.

David Alsop (13:48)
And as long as we're honoring the lines and expectations for maximum performance, we'll find what flexibility means in your job for you.

Emily Fenech (13:56)
Mm-hmm. I'm curious, how do you define those lines? Like, tangibly, how do those show up? I know you can speak those words, right? But how is it sort of cemented and communicated?

David Alsop (14:01)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it starts with our core values. It starts with our mission as a company. And it starts with the principles that we've established when it comes to what we call our culture guide. We've established and we use in many teams, we call it culture charters. Every team has to define for their team what the charter for Unity they are. So for example, in our HR team, we all follow the core values. We all follow the core principles. We all follow what we call the distinctions of high performing teams.

And so the principles are just very clear. We have a job level guide on what it means to be successful at every level. And we define that for our people, for our leaders, and for our levels and careers. But then we try to take that and every team being different in their function, we call it a charter where you establish how do we communicate? How do we work together? How do we stay professional together? What does it mean to connect in the right ways and how we interact together?

Emily Fenech (14:42)
Mm-hmm.

David Alsop (15:03)
And so we take those core values, we take the things that are universal and global in nature, and then we localize them to every team to help leaders figure out the charter with their team on what it means to be on the same page. And so our HR team has this, it's a three page document and we just call it, this is our bus in the good to great book, Jim Collins talked about a bus, be clear about who you are and then hold each other accountable to that. And that's how we talk about it is this is our guide, this is our culture.

Emily Fenech (15:24)
you

David Alsop (15:33)
if we're not living this, any one of us, let's hold each other accountable and call it out because careers go downhill when we don't stay aligned to that. And so that's really how we do it. We just are very transparent and we work on the clarity and we localize that to where we need to on each team.

Emily Fenech (15:49)
Yeah, yeah, I feel like the takeaway for me is clarity, consistency and accountability seems kind of how you run your business. With that in mind, do you have any sort of parting words of advice for our audience who's listening? Like what could they sort of take away from our conversation today? If there's one thing you want them to go home with, what would it be?

David Alsop (16:08)
Yeah, I love how you summarized it and I just add one more word to it, 360 care. And that's something we've been talking about more than ever in our company is 360 care. One of our core values is care. And sometimes employees view care as a one way street that you care for me. And when you talk about care, we want people to know that we care for our business, we care for our people, we care for our customers in a 360 way.

Emily Fenech (16:13)
Mm-hmm.

David Alsop (16:37)
And we are balancing all of those stakeholders to find the right care for the health of everybody. And so I just encourage people in their people responsibilities and HR responsibilities and leadership responsibilities, we should be caring for the 360 model of the company. And that involves employees, customers, and the company results. And we have to care for all of it and balance all of it together. And when you do that, you find a great balance for success.

Emily Fenech (17:06)
Absolutely. I happen to think that it sort of starts with if you care for your employees, your employees are going to care for your customers and your customers are going to drive a great business. I think of it as almost like a direct relationship. So yeah.

David Alsop (17:17)
Yeah.

I totally

agree. I just found Emily the watch out is sometimes we take that so far that we forget about the company and we forget about the lines. And so I totally agree when people feel cared for, they deliver results, but care does take candidness to get them to understand what the limits of care are. And so sometimes we go off a cliff of engagement and we have to draw a line of how far we can go.

and balance that with the care for our people. So I don't want that to confuse anybody that we don't care about people. We do to the nth degree. We just got to remember we have to guide them to the care for the company at the same time.

Emily Fenech (18:02)
But that's where that clarity part comes in though, right? People understand, if you understand where those lines are, there's a kindness in that.

David Alsop (18:05)
Yep, totally.

Totally, I totally agree.

Emily Fenech (18:12)
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, David. I really enjoyed our conversation and I hope you have a good rest of your day.

David Alsop (18:21)
You too, thanks Emily.

Emily Fenech (18:22)
Thanks.