Erin Longin, General Manager of the Run/Train Business Unit at Puma, joins ChedHER to discuss how Puma is approaching a hybrid work model, and ways to empower women in the workplace.

chedHER

How Sportswear Leader Puma is Approaching Hybrid Work

joining us now is Aaron Long in general manager of the run trained business unit at puma. Aaron glad to have you on this morning. You have been at puma for quite some time now, 14 years I imagine you've kind of gone through several roles, but what is your current role consist of? Hi, thank you so much for having me. Um Yeah, as you mentioned, I've been at puma for quite a while um so I've had many different roles over my time here in my current role. Um I am the general manager of our running and training business unit. So that means that we create, you know, I oversee the team that creates all of the running and training product. It's uh, footwear, it's apparel. Um and it's a product that you see from puma, whether it's direct to consumer business through our full price stores or are dot com networks or if you go to any wholesaler around the world, it's the running and training product that you can buy there during covid over the last part, better part of the last two years, you actually relaunched one of puma's ki kind of business sectors and did this while being a parent kind of juggling um that along the way and then the pandemic and all that came with that. What was this experience like? Um I mean it was completely crazy. I think everybody probably has, you know, their own stories of craziness over the last couple of years. So it's certainly not unique to me, but as you mentioned, um there were so many things to juggle. So we made the decision as a brand to relaunch our entire performance running cat product category. Um a few years back, we targeted it to come out and In 2021, never knowing we would be dealing with a global pandemic. So, you know, when the pandemic hit in 20, we were really in that last stage of finalizing everything for our big relaunch. So, you know, we had to do a couple of things. I mean first and foremost we had to care for our employees. I mean, people were scared, people were worried about their families, people were worried about getting sick. Um and we had to keep everybody connected and motivated. So, you know, that was absolutely the first priority. Um but we had to get this thing over the finish line as well. So really working on completely new ways of working coming together to keep everybody safe. Um you know, was was the first challenge, I'd say the second challenge was We had to reshape all of our plans for the launch. You know, 2021, it was clear the pandemic would still be with us. Um so all of the great ideas of coming together to connect with the consumer for races and events and try on events with our products, you know, we had to really rethink new ways to connect with our consumer for the launch of our performance running category. You know, like so many other companies right right now and I guess kind of in light of you know, your own experience and the experience that many employees and other executives that puma kind of felt along with the rest of the world. We know that puma has now kind of this hybrid working model if you can just break down, you know what this looks like and how you know, you are prioritizing that work life balance that we've all grown to realize is just so important. Had that similar 2, 3 years ago. Yeah, I do think, you know, I think of it as probably one of you know, the very few good things to come out of the pandemic. I think that one thing that you know, I certainly learned is is having that flexibility to manage your your home life. You know, I'm a mom of three little boys. Um my you know house all of a sudden became my office, it became a school for my Children. Um so you know during the pandemic it was really a lot of change for us, but it did give us more time together and it gave me the chance to be more present for them. So coming out of the pandemic, you know, puma as you said, is going to a hybrid model of working um where we offer up to two days remote working every week. So it really does allow working moms and parents and our employees that flexibility to be a bit more present at home for your family and also, you know, come to the office. Um and and enjoy that environment as well. You know, as a mother who obviously juggled so much during the pandemic. Like so many other mothers out there. I wonder, you know, when it comes to supporting women in the workplace, maybe women dealing with that similar kind of juggle, what do you do to support kind of those other employees and other women, you know, at puma and maybe beyond. Yeah, I mean it's a great question. Our team right now on a running a training team, it is primarily females and we have a lot of, of women that are having, you know, maybe their first baby or their second baby and really started to learn to juggle that often. They come to me for advice and, and to be honest, it's a daily challenge for all of us. And I think that what's important is having that connection to leaders in the company that understand that and really understand that it's not easy being a working parent. Um and you know, this new flexible work model I think is in place now to allow people more flexibility to be able to juggle things a little bit better. But to be completely honest, you know, it is a struggle I think still for for women in the workplace to juggle it all and not be overcome with kind of guilt, you know, of failing on one side or the other. So it's something I certainly connect with my female employees about quite often and they're always like, tell me how you do it. And I I don't have I struggled today and make it happen one way or another, and I'm glad you kind of say that because sometimes that kind of honest take is what other women need to hear. So they don't feel like they're failing. It's a constant kind of struggle and juggle and somehow you get through and you get better at it. I imagine each day, you know, at a time before I have to let you go here really quickly, want to know kind of what is in store for puma this year. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'd love to talk about that. So last year we did pull off a relaunch of running even with the pandemic, um we put out an entirely new line of running uh footwear products with brand new technologies and did manage to reach our consumers more through a digital way, of course. Um This year in 2022 we are continuing to expand our product line. We have a lot of exciting propositions coming this year when it comes to new products as we're talking about women, we'll be launching our first ever women's specific running shoe, really engineered for the female runner, we saw during the pandemic and even prior that more women are running than ever before. So we really wanted to look at that female consumer. In addition, we'll look at solutions for race day and evolutions of some of our core product, Aaron, I'm so glad to have you on, really appreciate your insight. Aaron Langen, general manager of the run trained business unit at Puma.