Robyn Rodriguez - Empowering Women Leaders in HR

[00:00:02] Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology

[00:00:07] Invite cross-industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today

[00:00:15] Give them the technology to connect, hit record, pour their discussions into a beaker

[00:00:21] mix thoroughly and

[00:00:23] Voila! You get the HR Data Labs podcast where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business

[00:00:31] We may get passionate and even irreverent that count on each episode

[00:00:35] Challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real-world problems

[00:00:41] Now here's your host David Turetsky

[00:00:46] Hello and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast

[00:00:48] I'm your host David Turetsky alongside my trusted friend co-host and partner at salary.com

[00:00:54] Dwight Brown, how are you Dwight Brown? Good David. How you doing? I'm okay, but today I'm outstanding

[00:01:00] Do you know why? Why?

[00:01:02] Because we're talking to my friend Robin Rodriguez from her HR help desk who is one of the most brilliant people

[00:01:10] I've met in a really long time. Robin, how are you? Oh, I was gonna respond and say oh my god. Thanks so much

[00:01:21] No, no we're gonna toot that for you

[00:01:24] I'm great I we David we've been meaning to do this for a long long time

[00:01:29] So I'm very excited to be here today and of course

[00:01:32] Love this topic. I love it, too

[00:01:35] But before we get to the topic tell everybody a little bit about yourself and a little bit about her HR help desk

[00:01:40] Yeah, definitely. So I'm Robin Rodriguez

[00:01:43] I am the founder and chief people officer of her HR help desk

[00:01:47] Which is an HR consulting firm for women by women

[00:01:52] What does that mean is that we focus on supporting women-owned businesses career women female founders and then women in the C-suite

[00:02:00] We really want to come in be an extension of their team and help them shine in their leadership role

[00:02:05] And we are very blessed to actually work with Robin on a few different projects and hopefully more at some point soon

[00:02:11] But Robin also before we go into our topic, what's one fun thing that no one knows about you? Oh

[00:02:19] My god, I feel like I'm an open book on LinkedIn. So everybody knows everything

[00:02:24] I'm a dog mom. I rescue senior dogs and I love wine

[00:02:28] So I think those would be my two hobbies and if you're in HR and you don't drink wine

[00:02:32] Like what are you doing? Anyways on the weekends? Oh, yeah

[00:02:37] I have the dog part actually we should probably look at founding a dog winery. How about that? That would be really cool

[00:02:43] I think I think one already exists actually but yeah

[00:02:49] That idea

[00:02:54] So that wasn't my road caster that was me

[00:02:56] All right. Let's talk about our topic today because it's really kind of cool

[00:03:00] The topic for today is keys to success empowering women leaders in HR

[00:03:13] So Robin the first question is what are the unique contributions women bring to HR?

[00:03:19] Well, I think a lot of the unique contributions women bring to HR is really just that

[00:03:26] I want to say that feminine energy and not in a bad way

[00:03:29] I know we're talking about this a lot, but I think it really matters

[00:03:32] Especially with the younger generations of workers and really having that compassion and empathy

[00:03:38] You know

[00:03:39] I think that is really the strongest skill set because women lead differently and when you're leading people you have to remember

[00:03:46] That people are people and not machines. And so I think that's really

[00:03:51] The strongest thing a woman brings to the world today when they're working in HR

[00:03:55] but I mean beyond that there's a lot of other things like

[00:03:59] It's and it's probably it's not overstating it to say that some of the advancements we've seen

[00:04:06] Not just in the world of HR, but obviously elsewhere

[00:04:10] You know we can point back to some of the pioneers and a lot of times we can point back to

[00:04:14] Female pioneers in this space. Is there anybody that as you were kind of growing up

[00:04:19] in the HR space kind of led you to be in that as a pioneer and

[00:04:24] Kind of showed you the pathway forward, you know, that's an interesting question

[00:04:29] I'm kind of a rebel. So I've always done a learned a lot of things

[00:04:33] I saw that I didn't like and that's really how I created her HR help desk

[00:04:38] And the reason for that was I had to go out and create a space where I felt comfortable that I could be

[00:04:43] Authentic and use my own voice and do these things before this kind of became a trend, right?

[00:04:47] So I do think it is a lot of those soft skills and I do think that women leaders do a lot of great things

[00:04:54] I do think

[00:04:56] When women leaders cannot show up as their full self, I guess at work or leader self, you know

[00:05:03] They kind of then decide what sacrifices they're personally gonna make to survive and work in an environment out of self-preservation

[00:05:12] So there's a lot of peeling back to that onion

[00:05:15] I think that needs to happen so that we can just do what we do best and it is bring those soft skills

[00:05:21] emotional intelligence communication

[00:05:23] You know being able to stand up and really motivate people in a different way than maybe you know

[00:05:29] A male CEO would do and seeing how can we do that in tandem?

[00:05:34] versus

[00:05:35] You know having it be so masculine

[00:05:38] Directive cut and dry as it was in the past

[00:05:42] I look at some of the female leaders that i've seen in my past and um maria black who now heads up adp

[00:05:49] She's a ceo of adp. You know, those are strong

[00:05:53] Leaders just saying the word strong leader. You don't have to qualify what gender they are

[00:05:59] But it's wonderful to see that they're being

[00:06:02] recognized and elevated to

[00:06:04] The place that they should be which is you know, obviously this person was the right person for the job in that seat

[00:06:10] And I is there is there typically that that kind of thought process of of course that she's the right person

[00:06:18] Um, or do people go well, you know

[00:06:20] She was promoted because she was a woman. I don't know about all that

[00:06:24] I mean, I think you'd be you're groomed in such a big org like that and I mean I worked at adp

[00:06:29] So I have to like trend light or like

[00:06:31] Well, this is a positive thing this is a positive no no no, I know but I mean are we grooming women into that role?

[00:06:37] And then is she you know authentic to herself?

[00:06:40] So that's the thing where I think it's like if we look at you know

[00:06:44] Claude silver does a really good job of this of saying i'm a heart led, you know chief people officer

[00:06:50] She's with gary varner chuck. I really have a lot of admiration for her

[00:06:54] And she has a job that she's been doing for a long time

[00:06:57] I really have a lot of admiration for her and she has a job

[00:07:02] That is like a dream job in hr

[00:07:04] Do 95 percent of companies give their chro the ability to be that person they don't

[00:07:11] So yes, I think they're strong leaders. I love so many female leaders in c suites

[00:07:17] But we do have to acknowledge that they're female because there aren't just enough and so right now

[00:07:23] If we have to shamelessly plug she's a female that's why she got the job

[00:07:27] I don't know that that's the right way to say it

[00:07:29] But she's a female and she deserves that job and she's worked for that job

[00:07:33] And I think we do need to qualify the gender because the numbers are still so small even in hr. We see women all over

[00:07:42] But our women the true decision makers in hr and that's where I think there's a still a big gap that we need to address

[00:07:50] It's calling out the inequity that is just there and

[00:07:55] Not necessarily saying she got it because she's a woman

[00:07:59] But what I hear you saying is let's call out what what the situation currently is so that we're all maintaining awareness going forward

[00:08:09] Yeah, exactly. A lot of female hr leaders get stuck at a glass ceiling, right?

[00:08:14] And and that's really hard to break through I myself have been stuck in that glass ceiling in a vp role and I don't have

[00:08:21] Leadership opportunities to develop me further. So in an organization as large as adp

[00:08:27] It's great that we can build leaders, but you have to be intentional about doing that, right?

[00:08:34] I'm often caught in

[00:08:37] You know

[00:08:38] A big controversy here about ergs and yeah, we have women employee resource groups. That's amazing

[00:08:45] And that's how we support our women but how many women are being plucked out of those groups or out of their roles and really being

[00:08:53] developed to be

[00:08:55] executive leaders in an organization you don't need to have

[00:09:00] 250 and thousand employees to do that. That's true. That is very true

[00:09:06] But then again, dwight and I were talking about ergs and how wonderful they are the problem

[00:09:10] I think with that is that isn't that supposed to be really a safe space where people can be themselves?

[00:09:17] They can be expressive. They can ask for help on things

[00:09:20] But it really not leave that space. It's kind of like what goes in what what's said in erg stays in erg

[00:09:27] Well, you know, it's interesting as I just did a

[00:09:30] presentation to younger women about advocating for themselves

[00:09:34] We addressed that in the workplace outside of the workplace

[00:09:38] And then I had two ergs called to ask me to speak to them

[00:09:42] One erg I thought was so i'm so excited. I haven't done this chat yet

[00:09:47] But the woman told me like we live our company values

[00:09:50] So they already have permission and they have a safe space at a company level

[00:09:55] And so they don't need to go to this room

[00:09:58] Like right virtual room of an erg to have a safe space

[00:10:02] Not exactly the circumstance that a lot of people face though. That's right. That's right

[00:10:07] And I have one that's a little bit different, you know, the other one i'm talking to it's a very male led industry

[00:10:12] And so we're approaching these two conversations even though, you know

[00:10:16] The foundation is still advocating for themselves the tips tricks techniques what they need to do are different

[00:10:22] Right. So it's a lot to do with organizational culture as well

[00:10:26] Absolutely

[00:10:28] Like what you hear so far make sure you never miss a show by clicking subscribe

[00:10:33] This podcast is made possible by salary.com

[00:10:36] Now back to the show

[00:10:39] That leads me to ask the second question so as you talk to your peers and your clients

[00:10:45] What are the challenges beyond that?

[00:10:47] Breaking through that culture that we just talked about that you consistently hear

[00:10:51] Yeah, I mean

[00:10:53] my own challenges

[00:10:56] The fight i'm fighting currently today

[00:10:59] Is i'm so sick of 98 percent of hr people are burnt out in their jobs

[00:11:05] Period there's no action plan to remediate or fix that

[00:11:11] That's problematic when our leaders aren't coming in to support us and that's not gender again gender specific

[00:11:19] When we go into what we can do to set our female hr leaders up for success

[00:11:24] Some of the things i'm consistently hearing is that we're just being set up for failure

[00:11:30] Like I can't do everything. I am potentially a mom. I'm a dog mom. I have other competing priorities

[00:11:37] And so I really want to see

[00:11:40] Leaders of companies acknowledge the other things we have going on and set us up for success

[00:11:46] I think we know once we get up the chain

[00:11:48] We know we're going to have to make some sacrifices to be in a leadership role because it's a big job. It's a hard job

[00:11:56] But are those sacrifices fair? Are they realistic or do we need to have stronger conversations and interview processes up front?

[00:12:05] As to what the expectation of that leader is in that role

[00:12:09] I think that goes without to saying of of any job that you get promoted into is that you have to have

[00:12:14] That expectation as to how does this change what I do and who I am

[00:12:19] Because we often don't have that we often ignore that because it's kind of the suck it up. You're getting promoted

[00:12:25] And here's a bunch more money. So we're paying for you, right?

[00:12:28] It's not it's not a hey, we recognize you have kids and you know male or female

[00:12:33] You got kids you want to go home and take care of them or your are home and you have to get them off

[00:12:37] The bus and whatnot. It's the you know, suck it up and and just deal with it prioritize us over your kids and exactly

[00:12:44] What the hell is that? Thanks. All right

[00:12:47] Well, yeah, you shouldn't have to but in today's world you kind of have to you know

[00:12:51] And it's just like oh the kid that you know

[00:12:54] The kids and the husband come after you know, all of the employees and I said this during cobit

[00:12:59] I was talking to another hr person

[00:13:02] Where I was working and I said i'm taking care of 14,999 people

[00:13:08] But there's 15 000 people at this company and the one i'm not taking care of is me

[00:13:13] And probably the most important person there to you. Well, I mean if you want me to get things done

[00:13:19] Exactly, right. I gotta refuel my tank like i've got it to show up like this

[00:13:24] I've got it. I've got to recharge the batteries, right?

[00:13:28] And so I think that there, you know needs to be some focus on that

[00:13:33] So the question

[00:13:34] That i've got is do females

[00:13:38] Feel like they have to sacrifice more to be in those leadership positions do they

[00:13:44] Do you think there's a difference in the way that females feel about that versus males?

[00:13:49] Yeah, I do

[00:13:50] I do because I feel like what I was gonna what we can layer into this is imposter syndrome

[00:13:58] I just think you know a lot of females

[00:14:02] Sadly and

[00:14:03] This is something we have to change. I really hate imposter syndrome to me. That's a self-worth issue

[00:14:10] There's so much imposter syndrome as you move up the ladder into these leadership roles, especially like for myself being so young

[00:14:19] I just had the benefit that I was born with a big voice and didn't care

[00:14:23] You know, and so I kind of just would plow through those barriers

[00:14:28] I don't necessarily know that in today's world that would I be able to achieve what I did back then by using my you know

[00:14:35] aggressive voice and force

[00:14:39] You don't think I don't think not in today's world

[00:14:42] But I thought I think it's because it's not me and and now like I get this

[00:14:48] permission to

[00:14:50] Be more of who I am instead of wearing all of this armor to come into work every day

[00:14:56] And that is exhausting

[00:14:58] So i'm just not going to give into that anymore. I'm just going to be that sometimes robin is

[00:15:03] You know, I say I run her hr help desk or two values or empathy and precision

[00:15:08] I want to be empathetic. That is who I am as a human

[00:15:12] Precision is compliance getting things done and going into execution mode and making sure things are done

[00:15:19] right from an hr operations perspective

[00:15:22] And that we're not dropping the ball and forgetting reporting because we care about culture, you know

[00:15:28] Both are equally important in my world. So I want to show up as that person and take the armor off

[00:15:35] Just so I think that can make me a big leader

[00:15:39] Again to our point how many spaces allow you to do that, right?

[00:15:43] If you're having to do that and you're having to be that forceful

[00:15:47] hr leader

[00:15:49] And then you know, you're coming home and you're probably just exhalved and that's why 98 percent of hr professionals are burnt out

[00:15:58] And now we know the more you know

[00:16:02] But so let's say it this way

[00:16:05] You're you're saying they're on a treadmill

[00:16:07] They're running really fast

[00:16:09] They have to have that layer of armor around them to protect themselves because they feel like if they don't

[00:16:16] they're going to be

[00:16:18] Well, first of all, they're going to be overwhelmed

[00:16:20] For all the work that that's necessary and also, you know, you know, they just they feel like they have to protect themselves

[00:16:27] Is there a solution to that? Is there something that can be done about that?

[00:16:31] Yeah, I that's a tough one because you know, are we going to change our entire c-suite and leadership teams?

[00:16:37] No, are we going to change companies maybe

[00:16:39] You know, but how do we drive that and that's where I think

[00:16:43] We really I would like to see more mentorship and more sponsors

[00:16:48] Within or either inside your organization or outside of it, you know

[00:16:53] I want to see more chros stepping up to really develop these

[00:16:57] Next leaders and make sure they're prepared for the job

[00:17:02] And I think that would help alleviate imposter syndrome

[00:17:07] I was very fortunate that I had sponsors that were men in the organization that did that for me

[00:17:14] And and i'm forever grateful for those men for having my back

[00:17:19] But I got those sponsors because I worked my ass off

[00:17:22] And it was because I showed up looking one way and being fun and loud and all these things and then

[00:17:28] you know a pwc partner walked in one day and

[00:17:32] Asked me something about taxes and I turned back and I said here's where all of our taxes are

[00:17:38] Here's where we're falling short. Here's what we need to do and we had this deep conversation and he said

[00:17:43] God, I just gained so much respect for you that day and as an external partner

[00:17:47] He really helped propel

[00:17:49] My career really backed me up in that organization and together we got a lot done

[00:17:56] Is part of it?

[00:17:57] um, and please excuse this is part of it luck

[00:18:01] finding that person or is it being able to

[00:18:06] Or or being good enough to find that person either inside or outside the organization

[00:18:12] That can help you

[00:18:13] Be that mentor to tell you

[00:18:16] What you're not doing well or how to see the light or how to see something differently inside yourself

[00:18:22] Yeah, but to see the light your eyes have to be open

[00:18:25] And what i'm learning is a lot of this has to do with being an inside job

[00:18:30] I have to be able to take constructive criticism

[00:18:33] I also have to have enough confidence to show up in that room and say what i'm thinking

[00:18:39] You know, I also need to have

[00:18:42] Compelling data to tell a story. I need to know my people

[00:18:46] I need to know what we're working on. I need to know their challenges

[00:18:50] You know, so I need to be sure that I am fully researched up to date

[00:18:55] as knowledgeable as possible, you know in

[00:18:59] HR and those fields so I can like talk a good game when I show up so

[00:19:04] As we talk about advocating for yourself and looking for sponsors and mentors

[00:19:08] I gained a lot of that because I was knowledgeable

[00:19:11] You know, I gained a lot of that credibility because I was on the board of the los angeles american payroll association

[00:19:19] When I was 25 years old that was definitely probably the most boring thing

[00:19:24] I did when I was 25, but it got me

[00:19:27] It got me a lot of credibility

[00:19:29] Yeah, it got me a lot of credibility and it was fun because the part I enjoyed was teaching other payroll professionals

[00:19:36] preparing them for their test and

[00:19:38] And you know kind of being that example. So

[00:19:42] For me, it's like yes, you have to do that. But then also you have to have the confidence to ask

[00:19:47] Like I asked that partner. Hey, will you put in a good word with ceo next time you see him?

[00:19:52] Because I just saved our company a million dollars like can you throw robin a bone?

[00:19:57] They you know, I mean and you have to be fearless, but that's not nothing right people that don't

[00:20:05] Advocate for themselves after having saved the company a million dollars

[00:20:09] They should kind of stand up and go

[00:20:12] Yeah, that was me. I did that, you know because

[00:20:15] If you leave that on the cutting room floor

[00:20:18] There's no one that's going to come by and sweep it up and go

[00:20:21] Wow, who did this? No one knows it's kind of like does a bear poop in the woods?

[00:20:26] Yeah, of course. We've seen it, you know, somebody videotaped it, but no one cares

[00:20:31] But this is big. I mean, this is huge and people have to be able to understand that that's got to be something that they

[00:20:38] Trumpet from the from the top of rooftops

[00:20:40] Yeah, absolutely

[00:20:42] And I also think like we said shoot your own horn and it would be shocking to you

[00:20:47] Even here working at her hr help desk when I talk to ceos

[00:20:52] Female ceos and how much they don't sell themselves

[00:20:56] Like at their company as a leader to their employees to their customers, you know

[00:21:02] And so to your point I ask women all the time

[00:21:06] Do you have a list of your biggest accomplishments and they say no?

[00:21:10] We don't even keep a list because we're on the treadmill. We're stuck in the day-to-day. We're never unplugging

[00:21:16] We're never going back. We're never giving ourselves that our own credibility like how we're showing up for these

[00:21:24] Everybody else but ourselves like at least make a list about that

[00:21:28] And talk about it when it comes to your performance review or talk about those 10 things in the next executive meeting

[00:21:34] Right whenever you have the space, I want you to shamelessly plug yourself and your accomplishments

[00:21:41] I'm sure at the board meeting that stuff has to come up. I mean, you know

[00:21:45] She that person

[00:21:48] Being on the treadmill

[00:21:50] They have to be able to toot that horn at that level or they're going to lose their job

[00:21:55] Probably the results come up. Yeah, who would they center around?

[00:22:01] Probably a little different conversation

[00:22:03] But at the ceo level though dwight, you know, maybe i'm wrong

[00:22:06] I'd love to hear your thoughts on this both of you

[00:22:09] But the ceo level anything that happens in the company is either your fault or your success, right? So

[00:22:14] If if things are going okay and nothing's you know, nothing's falling off the the truck. That's good

[00:22:20] If if results are being met, that's good

[00:22:24] If they're not that's your fault and let's face it though. It's

[00:22:28] It is not necessarily a matter of it's either a failure or a success

[00:22:34] It's usually who failed and then we gloss over the successes. Well, I don't know

[00:22:40] I think I got two things here. I've seen a lot of

[00:22:44] females and hr roles be

[00:22:48] the scapegoat

[00:22:49] For failures beyond their capacity

[00:22:53] Of what they can do within an organization, right? Yes like okay, so that's one thing, right?

[00:23:01] So

[00:23:02] That's one thing and then to your point dwight successes and failures. We're in this like time

[00:23:09] Where we're being forced

[00:23:11] Out of the dinosaur age to redefine what's a success and what's a failure as an hr consultant

[00:23:18] You know will always tell you oh, this is an opportunity

[00:23:21] right

[00:23:22] opportunities

[00:23:24] Oh god, if I dream one more night about hr opportunities

[00:23:29] But you know

[00:23:31] I think that we can redefine that and you know

[00:23:34] One thing I had on my list as I prepared for this was trusting our decisions, right?

[00:23:40] And to your point dwight we're talking about the end results

[00:23:43] But are we talking about the work that's being put in in between?

[00:23:47] You know and when I tell leaders that advocate it's not about advocating for yourself

[00:23:52] If you have a team you better be advocating for your team, right?

[00:23:56] And then that makes you shine and in essence they advocate for you. But if we're not talking about those

[00:24:04] Accomplishments and we're just saying we save the company a million bucks

[00:24:09] We're not doing a good job of telling a compelling story as to why

[00:24:14] It was better for robin to be involved in the million dollar savings than anybody else

[00:24:20] storytelling is a

[00:24:22] skill

[00:24:24] Not a lot of people have it you do

[00:24:27] But a lot of people don't

[00:24:28] Because a lot of people don't feel comfortable that they can organize their thoughts in a way that makes sense

[00:24:33] In the story

[00:24:35] Get your ass off the treadmill and go to toast masters. That is literally going to be

[00:24:41] The strongest skill as ai comes into play

[00:24:46] As we use data and metrics you have to be a storyteller. Absolutely 100

[00:24:53] As you transition from being an administrator pushing forms

[00:24:56] To telling the story of why your company is has turnover or why your company?

[00:25:02] Can't hire the right people

[00:25:04] storytelling is key

[00:25:06] Correct, and that's where I think leaders fall short

[00:25:09] That's what I think those stories aren't being told in the boardroom that way

[00:25:12] I think we're going through a slide deck but we're not telling the stories

[00:25:16] We might not have the opportunity but that is where the world is going

[00:25:21] Well slide decks are invariably just boring as hell

[00:25:24] Because people rely on words and they rely on people to watch the words and go

[00:25:28] Oh, i'm reading that as this person's talking. I'm not really listening to them. I'm just looking at that

[00:25:33] instead of it being like a ted talk where

[00:25:36] You know, there's a word on the slide

[00:25:38] And the person is just telling the story about it

[00:25:40] Yeah

[00:25:40] The other thing that happens a lot with hr in boards in board meetings and rooms behind those rooms is we're just talking

[00:25:46] About the comp committee stuff

[00:25:48] Hey are we promoting these people? Are we giving them this money?

[00:25:51] Are we doing this and we're running through that and then we've lost the attention, right? So again, it's strategy

[00:25:57] Strategy is what's going to set you apart like you said from just the the basic hr

[00:26:04] manager

[00:26:05] boss

[00:26:06] To a leader the strategy is the difference thinking

[00:26:11] Getting off the treadmill and thinking from the top, you know

[00:26:14] I was out with my girlfriend recently or this past weekend drinking wine. No surprise there

[00:26:21] She was visiting from town and she just recently got promoted and she's a leader

[00:26:25] She's managing teams now and she said I had to redefine what success looked like because i'm no longer a consultant delivering the work

[00:26:33] Success looks like for me building strong relationships

[00:26:36] So having a great conversation where i'm building rapport internally or externally with clients

[00:26:42] Or other leaders in the business is success, but I really had to change my mindset to get there

[00:26:49] And that's again strategy right that's from going like writing everything in the deck

[00:26:54] To delivering value out of that deck. It's so hard to change from tactical

[00:27:01] To strategic your minds you it's basically an orthogonal thought, you know, I don't have to worry about how the the

[00:27:09] Payroll change form gets done. I just have to worry about how many payroll change forms have we done and what does it mean to the company?

[00:27:16] Yeah, you're literally using another hemisphere of your brain, but only through the strategy

[00:27:20] Can you actually guide the conversation exactly exactly?

[00:27:24] But also if you're on a treadmill that strategy

[00:27:28] That's a very different treadmill than a treadmill on tactics

[00:27:32] Right, right. Yeah, I mean because then those I call those, you know

[00:27:35] 200 000 slide decks i've made a lot of those you get you present change

[00:27:41] Right. Yeah, truly my background is hr transformation and change in like post pre covid that was a commodity

[00:27:48] Yeah post covid it's a necessity right hr transformation and change and being able to think and think bigger

[00:27:56] You know, so you're right when you're on a strategy treadmill and you can't execute or get anything past the line

[00:28:01] You're also probably likely to lose your job like the person on the treadmill getting the personnel action forms done, right?

[00:28:09] Like you know 100 forms getting it done getting everybody, you know, everybody's taking care of and

[00:28:15] And not being strategic

[00:28:17] It's equally a fault on the opposite side of being so high in the sky that you don't understand where you can

[00:28:23] Make swift changes in the business that have an impact so you could build data and tell that story

[00:28:29] And that's the mindset differential right there. That's it if we could nail it down in a nutshell

[00:28:35] Robin, you just nailed it and when hr people

[00:28:39] Think about getting promoted or they think about changing their level or they think about how their career goes

[00:28:45] That exact change in mindset

[00:28:48] Has to be at the cornerstone of making that change because if they can't do that

[00:28:53] Don't bother

[00:28:54] Don't do it you're going to be a fish out of water. You've got to learn how to get there

[00:28:59] And once you get there

[00:29:01] And once you understand it then you're going to be swimming with all the other fishes and you're going to be happy

[00:29:06] And you're going to be in nice warm water

[00:29:08] I don't think I can nail that analogy anymore

[00:29:13] I mean as long as that warm water is on the beach in chile

[00:29:19] With wine but

[00:29:21] The challenges the challenges with all of that there's no hr school

[00:29:27] How are we learning this?

[00:29:28] Where are we learning it from people are coming to the hr data labs podcast to learn this obviously talking to robin rodriguez

[00:29:35] Yeah, so I think that what's great with social media with linkedin

[00:29:39] You know david you and I often talk on linkedin because I spend a lot of time there just educating myself

[00:29:44] reading people's opinions joining groups expanding your knowledge finding

[00:29:49] HR people that have that growth mindset

[00:29:52] And a continuous learning and doing that reading books that are not hr. And how can we apply those principles?

[00:30:00] You know back into hr some, you know recently I saw a lot of

[00:30:05] Hey, let's treat hr

[00:30:06] Like we treat if the customer success team or a product team or things like that, right and make those changes

[00:30:12] but there are skills that we can leverage out of

[00:30:16] You know other areas in the business to help build

[00:30:19] The hr function and if you don't know then you can go ask up here and say hey

[00:30:24] How do you guys do this or hey? I like that. I like the way you told that story

[00:30:28] Or how are you pulling this data out of the system? What can I?

[00:30:31] Leverage so that I can be stronger in what i'm providing as an roi right to the company, right?

[00:30:39] I think hr has learned a lot of lessons from marketing. I think hr has learned a lot of lessons from finance

[00:30:45] About how to operate better how to operate more efficiently how to tell stories better

[00:30:50] And how to be more thoughtful of the analytical?

[00:30:54] Nature of business today as far as the transformation goes, but I want to see people backing it up

[00:31:00] I don't want to see marketing teams telling hr stories and then you get you sign a deal with this company and nobody's answering the phone

[00:31:08] Right, and you're not getting any support on the back end

[00:31:12] I talked about that you guys can go back in my feed

[00:31:14] I'm not going to say who it is here

[00:31:16] But they had like these two women with leather jackets on and they're like we do

[00:31:22] Hr and payroll. Well, we're so amazing. We're a great brand

[00:31:26] And then when you log into their system on the back end

[00:31:29] like it's

[00:31:31] Archaic you're saying they're not collecting any data

[00:31:34] I can use to tell a story other than names addresses phone numbers like that's

[00:31:38] That's selling data that's not big data I can utilize and build back into my business, right?

[00:31:45] So what you're saying is is that it's okay to emulate

[00:31:49] But you have to learn how it impacts your business. Don't just take it lock stock and barrel

[00:31:54] Yeah, yeah, I know get in and really know your business and and then do that

[00:31:59] I mean and and hr people also were getting better about learning the business that we're operating it

[00:32:07] Right. We think we're in the business of people

[00:32:10] But if we're working at a tech company or fintech or whatever like how are we developing our people to build the best?

[00:32:18] fintech technology

[00:32:20] In the ecosystem, how are we delivering there? Like you have to again think way bigger

[00:32:27] You have to know what the company is working on. What are the initiatives?

[00:32:30] What are what are the ceo's initiatives and how can we?

[00:32:35] Connect the dots to our people initiatives to get us where we need to go as an organization

[00:32:42] And hr alignment to the overall business plan, you know

[00:32:46] I know that sounds foreign but shouldn't be it should always be the case that the hr business plan is aligned

[00:32:53] To the organizational business plan top level bottom level everything it needs to be able to follow it and be able to focus on

[00:32:59] It and support it

[00:33:01] Yeah, yeah, you're kind of living on that line of operations right like you know being

[00:33:07] Lock and step with the coo or understanding the operational needs of the business are huge

[00:33:13] Um, you know and and hr operations are huge

[00:33:18] You know, I love right now we're a lot into that culture. I get you but hr operations what happens on the back end?

[00:33:24] Efficiencies user technology adoption

[00:33:27] Right again the numbers as we build out as I work with you in your teams to build out comp plans

[00:33:34] like

[00:33:35] That's huge. That's hr operations. Those are things where that precision is required

[00:33:41] You can't fake it till you make it there

[00:33:44] Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself? Man? I wish I could talk to david about this

[00:33:49] Well, you're in luck we have a special offer for listeners of the hr data labs podcast

[00:33:55] A free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast or whatever is on your mind

[00:34:01] Go to salary.com forward slash hr dl consulting to schedule your free 30 minute call today

[00:34:10] Let's go back to the original purpose though. Is there anything in specific?

[00:34:16] That is the challenge for females working in that environment that you would say

[00:34:21] This is where I would tell you to invest your time

[00:34:24] Yeah, I think investing your time

[00:34:28] in

[00:34:29] What you can bring to the table is going to be the best

[00:34:34] Kind of skill that you can work on right now

[00:34:38] And I know it sounds dumb again, but soft skills can really set you apart here as we get into leadership

[00:34:44] But yeah, I mean I think that

[00:34:47] Female leaders need to really understand their own value

[00:34:51] And I think that that really starts with being an inside job. Like what are you good at?

[00:34:57] Where are your deficiencies who can help you with those deficiencies?

[00:35:01] Where can I find these things and where can I go and look I see a lot of people in hr groups

[00:35:08] Facebook groups and stuff asking questions, but they're not asking to learn

[00:35:12] You know who can help me learn this? Hey, can I have a call with you? Can we talk through this, you know and using those resources?

[00:35:21] But there's a lot of perfection paralysis and that's not us

[00:35:25] Our companies have set hr people. This is not gender specific

[00:35:31] Up that everything has to be executed flawlessly. You can't make a mistake or you're going to lose your job

[00:35:37] So what do you do you get back on that treadmill?

[00:35:39] You don't have any space and you worry about perfection, right?

[00:35:43] And you worry about perfection and you don't have any space to shine because you're constantly

[00:35:48] Under getting grind grinded, you know by like in the meat grinder

[00:35:54] Exactly

[00:35:55] And so like can you just be like hey?

[00:35:58] I'm gonna do this and not that we're gonna fail

[00:36:01] I mean this is the thing and these are the opportunities and the lessons learned. That's something that i've we've leveraged

[00:36:07] I've leveraged a lot with product through project management, right? Which is you know a good tool to have in hr

[00:36:13] And program management what were the lessons learned?

[00:36:17] What could we have done better or sitting around the table again and just saying hey today?

[00:36:22] It's just a session of what could go wrong

[00:36:25] Let's all talk it out and then think of every scenario and how we can combat that

[00:36:32] And then when you think of those things, it's like who's really answering the phones now

[00:36:36] Because now we've got an h somebody working in hr inbox. That's the hr coordinator

[00:36:41] We've got shared services people answering the phones like are we equipping them at that low level with the tools?

[00:36:48] They need to be successful because if not, then we're not going to be successful, right?

[00:36:54] Exactly, you can't focus 100 on the strategic and ignore the tactical

[00:36:58] You still have to support the tactical

[00:37:00] Yep

[00:37:01] Definitely so look at it seems like there's a lot of things we need to do

[00:37:06] Which is part of the reason why?

[00:37:09] 98 percent of hr people are burned out

[00:37:13] I totally agree

[00:37:15] And that leads us to to ask the question of

[00:37:19] Is there really ever a solution? The answer is probably no. It's probably

[00:37:25] Try do your best

[00:37:27] Perfection is never going to happen

[00:37:30] Right well, this is the good old adage of you know in self development here. It's like what do we control?

[00:37:37] You know, right and what don't we control and you know, I feel

[00:37:42] I feel like the pressure dwight going back to your early question for female leaders is we own so many things

[00:37:49] As far as like being a mom, what if you're a single mom and an hr leader

[00:37:53] You probably can't speak up and be yourself because you need your job

[00:37:57] You know, and so you don't want to be a contrarian because you got to keep your job to feed your kids

[00:38:03] You know, there's a lot of different things on the line here

[00:38:07] To your point. How do we solve for that?

[00:38:09] How do we solve for that when we can't control that right?

[00:38:13] We can't control that there are leaders that are working out of self-preservation

[00:38:18] That are basically

[00:38:20] Then making all of us modern hr leaders that really want to take these annex

[00:38:25] Initiatives to the next level they make our work harder for us

[00:38:29] It's so it seems impossible

[00:38:33] But it it does seem impossible, but there is hope and there are hope in the fact that companies are changing

[00:38:39] There's hope in the fact that instead of all of us older

[00:38:43] You know hr leaders talking about the younger generations as oh my god

[00:38:47] They don't want to come to work

[00:38:49] Like what can we leverage that they're bringing in and and challenging us to do better that we can benefit off of

[00:38:56] You know

[00:38:56] And I joke with somebody because this this older woman and I were talking about something and I say older i'm 45

[00:39:02] But like people coming in the workforce are I know i'm not that old but you know

[00:39:07] In the workforce or 20 whatever. I know you know

[00:39:11] And so i'm thinking like they think i'm old. I don't think i'm old but they do

[00:39:14] You

[00:39:16] They're only as old as you think you are yeah, they think we're ancient

[00:39:19] Yeah

[00:39:20] When I mentor, you know here in austin I forget that these you know

[00:39:23] I'm mentoring these younger women and i'm like almost the age of their parents

[00:39:28] Yeah, right and then i'm like, oh then that makes me feel

[00:39:31] Yeah, I guess you're not at least you're not old enough to be their grandparent like me

[00:39:36] Yeah

[00:39:37] Yeah, that's about the point that i'm at too. We'll be the cool the cool parents

[00:39:42] There yeah, exactly there you go

[00:39:44] But the point of all that is really that you know

[00:39:48] What can we leverage from that and then that conversation with that woman I told her, you know

[00:39:53] You just said you like to do yoga

[00:39:56] but

[00:39:56] You're now

[00:39:58] Like the younger generation is helping us get to the point where it's socially acceptable for us to clock out

[00:40:04] At five or five thirty to be able to go to yoga

[00:40:07] You know there's value in that. I don't think a lot of people see value in that

[00:40:11] I see a lot of value in that. I see a lot of that

[00:40:15] Generation pushing corporations to change and now what's so interesting is we're in a big fight, right?

[00:40:20] We've got the return to office stuff. Yeah, i'm just here watching from the sidelines

[00:40:25] I'm really enjoying all the ads and stuff

[00:40:27] But we're seeing all of that happen and and does that return to office initiatives put us

[00:40:34] back a few years in

[00:40:37] supporting women and a work life balance

[00:40:41] Totally, that's that's the bigger question

[00:40:43] And that's a question we can answer in the next time we have you on the hrdlx podcast robin

[00:40:49] Because that in and of itself is an entirely different chapter of this conversation. Oh, yeah, absolutely

[00:41:04] I want to thank you

[00:41:06] First off. Thank dwight. Thank you for being here my friend. Yeah, thank you

[00:41:10] And then we'll thank robin. Thank you. Appreciate you being with us robin now. This is awesome

[00:41:15] It is our honor and as I said, we're gonna have to have you back again because there's just so much more to talk about

[00:41:21] Yeah, and thanks you guys both for being open. I know david you and I talk about this all the time

[00:41:26] You know, how can you do better?

[00:41:28] But you know being open being an ally supporting women in the workplace

[00:41:33] Which as I know you do and you're recently promoted into that big role and big title so on the treadmill. Yeah

[00:41:41] As a as a troll I call him the troll. Yeah

[00:41:46] Yeah, but um, yeah, but yeah, I always appreciate you creating space for us as

[00:41:51] Us women coming up in the game and um, you know

[00:41:56] it's something where i've made mistakes in my past and i'm learning every day and

[00:42:01] Knowing that i'm a fallible idiot man that um, i've got to do better. I really got to do better

[00:42:06] Um, yeah can't use my privilege. I gotta be able to be

[00:42:11] To see things differently to walk a mile in other people's shoes or at least an inch

[00:42:15] And and figure out what I can do to be better and be different. Yeah, I love that

[00:42:20] Well robin again. Thank you very much. You're awesome. Take care and everybody take care and stay safe

[00:42:26] That was the hr data labs podcast if you liked the episode, please subscribe

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