Empathy With Action with Special Guest Kamal Pradhan

[00:00:09] Welcome everyone to another episode of HR Amperell 2.0. I'm Pete Tiliakis and as always, I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome, Julie. Julie Fernandez Thanks, Pete. And I'm super excited to get a chance to talk to Kamal. Let's welcome Kamal as well. Yes, yes. I'm really excited to have you, Kamal. Kamal Pradhan, VP at HR Technology and Operations for Signify Health. Super to have you on the show. Welcome. Thank you, Pete and Julie. Happy New Year to both of you. I'm really excited to be here. Let me know if the sound's clear.

[00:00:38] Yeah, yeah. No, you're good. You're good. It's all we need, man. We just actually have our fun questions, which you used to test your sound and make sure it's coming across okay. Yeah, yeah. Let's do it. We have yet to find folks who tried to be in HR and payroll, but we're super interested to know, how did you get into this space? It was my lifelong dream. That's what I want to say, but it's not. Fake news. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:01:03] No, you know, so I have to go back a little bit if you don't mind. So I grew up in a country named Nepal, Mount Everest, and all the cool things with nature, right? That was a lot of my upbringing. And one of the key things was just around water resources, right?

[00:01:24] Both of my folks were in power company. And so my goal was to really be an electrical engineer and really focus on hydropower. That's what I wanted to be.

[00:01:35] And I did do my academics here in the States in engineering and in Alabama, long time ago. I won't say the time exact time, but, but, you know, as the recession hit, we all know how it turned out. And luckily I had credits on the technology side. And one, it was just that first project, Julie, you know, where it had to be a HR project.

[00:02:03] And technology. And I was like, okay, I like this. And over the years, I got to do different, you know, HR related technology pieces and operation pieces from implementation to support, ranging from, you know, industries like oil and gas to entertainment, companies like AMC theaters, Hallmark.

[00:02:26] And I got to see this view, you know, from every vantage point. And I fell in love with HR. And I think we all went through that revolution, you know, outside of HR from a technology side, going from on-prem applications to cloud, right?

[00:02:42] Everything was like, you know, moving over from a digital situation. And that's really how it started my HR journey. And, you know, the more I fell in love, I kind of thought like technology is important, but the most important thing is actually the people and how does HR really help the businesses. So that's how it started, Julie, Pete.

[00:03:06] Yeah. So is it falling in love? Like, I think by the time this airs, it'll be coming up on Valentine's Day. Is it falling in love with HR that keeps you here or something else or some other dimensions or what makes you stay? The love of the game.

[00:03:23] I would say the love of the game. But I think, I won't say it's falling in love with HR to be, you know, realistic. I think, you know, I really love the people that we work with across the board, right? Within, you know, like, I think that HR is one of many functions within the organizations. And, you know, let's look at corporate shared service SG&A. Like, I see that as one family, right?

[00:03:49] And we're all there to serve two different areas. One is the business. And the other side is the people that run everything, our colleagues. And so I think my, you know, motivation is helping them, right? So it is falling in love with those two areas. Yes. Yeah.

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[00:05:17] I love it. We have a love story. This is great. Yeah. Yeah. You found your calling. You know, what's interesting is like when you listen, when we listen to folks talk about this, it's, it's, especially when they talk about their youth in their career, it's always fascinating how there's this misconception for what HR actually is.

[00:05:36] And what, what it could be to them that I think if we had more people could find out, Hey, it's really not what you think it is technology and it, you know, it is, you know, people and, and growing people and many other things. Uh, and it's not just moving paper and, and, uh, Toby on the office, right. Being the fun police. Um, I think, I think we can attract more talent that way. I mean, there's probably a hundred things we could say like that to say why we would attract more folks.

[00:06:02] But, um, yeah, it's, uh, expectations and conceptions I think are, are misaligned. Absolutely. And, and Pete, I think this makes me think about like, you know, how do you really see HR, right? There's the external facing view and there's an internal facing. Um, I see HR as being a little corny here, right? A family. Like if you look at any organization, any company, HR is your first family that brings you in.

[00:06:33] That, that just makes it, it's also, it's like not adopting a kid, but it's kind of like that, right? Where you say, Hey, this is our home. You're going to kind of, we're going to bring you in. We're going to kind of show you how to operate. And, and, and, and let's be honest. There are good parents and there are ones who need, uh, you know, a lot of improvement, right? And how do you do parenting, right?

[00:06:54] So I think HR is that right to say, we're going to help you build a career, build a life, and we're going to kind of show you the way. But at the same time, as they're doing that, they're also working with the business leaders and saying, Hey, we're in this together. We're going to bring the right talent in, but we need to have a good handshake and we got to listen to each other. Right.

[00:07:18] And wherever those gaps are there, that's where things fall apart. So it's, it's almost like, you know, I kind of see like, it's more than just a business. There's a second home to it. I think family can be a little dangerous depending upon how it goes, but you're right. I think it is a home, right? It, it should be a safe space. It should be a trusting space. It's going to help you grow, uh, and give you the value, you know, as much value as you're giving them.

[00:07:44] Um, and, and yeah, HR has such a big part of that. So I love that. I love that. Uh, look, we had a great conversation. I don't know if anyone's ever, if anyone had a chance to listen to it, but you and I talked for maybe 10, 15, 20 minutes, uh, in, at HR tech on the source, uh, with daily pay. And I'll, I'll post that in the, um, the link to that. We had a great conversation. And one of the things that came up that I wanted to drill in with you was, uh, a comment you made about empathy with action.

[00:08:09] And we talked very lightly about empathy today, um, and how important it is. And I, I thought that'd be a great topic to dive into, you know, kind of, uh, in, in some of these leadership subjects, I feel like we've been dipping our toes into. And in 2025, I think this is great. But one of the things that was interesting to me, Kamal, you know, in this subject is, is like, I, like, I feel like, yeah, like I knew that, right. Like I've come from the military. I learned leadership at 18 from the Marines, servant leadership, leaders eat last.

[00:08:37] All of that was incredibly ingrained in us about taking care of the, of the unit, right. Taking care of the troops, so to speak. Um, but I don't know that, that, that, what's hard about that, I think.

[00:08:49] And, and, and maybe I realized this more after I got out of the military is that like, I feel like there's sometimes this sort of barrier that happens between empathy and weakness or empathy and vulnerability, you know, vulnerability and weakness. I've been reading, um, I've got it right here. I've been leading a reading, leading with vulnerability with, uh, by Jacob Morgan. And in here, he talks about, uh, you know, about weak being perceived as weak.

[00:09:13] And I'm wondering if there's been this historical viewpoint by leaders that if you're empathetic, if you're vulnerable, then you somehow you're a weak leader. And I just wanted to start there because I think, I think that is a possible trap for folks. Um, but then I also think there's folks who don't know what empathy is as a leader and maybe just haven't been, haven't been taught that. So just want to talk about that concept. I mean, what are your thoughts on it? And is my, is my theory, uh, valid?

[00:09:39] Yeah, absolutely. I think that there's different ways to look at it. Right. Um, especially us being in a corporate world, you know, we have a job to do, you know, like you, you kind of shared and thank you for your service. Thank you. Um, you know, you know, it's, it's, it's almost like we're running a business, you know, we have to make it sustainable while taking care of our employees.

[00:10:02] So how do you really function in a corporate environment where, you know, you, you're asked to do, make tough decisions, have tough conversations, but also now we're saying, let's throw empathy in there. And then the first thing, you know, when there's a change or a thought that, um, that they have to now be empathetic is, are you asking them to be open, to be vulnerable where they may be taken advantage of, or they may be seen as weak leaders?

[00:10:31] I think that is, there's, there's, there, there are always bad seeds around, right? There's bad experiences, but, but the reality is like, just being empathetic doesn't mean that, uh, you're not goal oriented. You're not, um, you know, very blunt when you have to be right. So it's one of many facets, but it is an important one that we're just shining a light on is that people really care about how they're treated.

[00:10:59] So I think the way I want to kind of say this, like you walk into a restaurant, you fly, um, you know, in an airport, you know, and then your experience, right.

[00:11:14] From the service that you get as a customer, um, as a human being really guides your entire, um, you know, um, thought process and how you perceive that the business, that entire company.

[00:11:32] And I think that's where we're really, uh, highlighting is that being empathy, empathetic is going to really elevate your leadership instead of making you, you know, a weak. Right. I think that's, that's the call out. Yeah. The way I recall, um, uh, sorry, I'm forgetting his name again, Jacob Morgan.

[00:11:52] He talked about, uh, vulnerability sort of enabling, um, your ability to be empathetic, right? Like in other words, if you are able to be vulnerable as a leader, right, you can open up and understand the emotions, challenges, and point of views of your, of your people. Therefore making it easier naturally, uh, to be more empathetic. But I still kind of contend, contend that there's a lot of folks that haven't been taught empathy, right? Maybe that's not what, how they're raised or how they were taught as leaders.

[00:12:19] And I think there are some who have resisted it as maybe for weakness purposes, maybe because they just don't know how to be empathetic. Um, do you think it's something we ought to be teaching leaders or can't, I mean, how do you do it? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that it's, it's the one thing to just kind of send out guides and emails on this is what we want you to do. And, and have a lot of these leadership courses, right?

[00:12:47] But, um, the reality is like, let's ask this question. Have we been teaching our leaders how to become good leaders in the first place, right? When someone gets promoted, that's their first time probably being a manager, being a people leader, right? So now apart from delegating the job they were doing to now also being able to relate to that fellow colleague, right? In the right way. And how do we expand?

[00:13:17] So I think that is probably one of the, you know, most fundamental skill we should be teaching our leaders. And, but not just teach them, but also really educate them on what, what's in it for them, right? In terms of the long-term sustainability of their career. And if I can't relate to you, Pete, why would I be on a podcast with you? You know what I mean? Like it's as simple as that.

[00:13:44] Why would I want to work with you, work for you for the next 10, 15 years? And I think that, oh, you know, Pete's a great manager. He knows exactly every single payroll activity that I do. He's been a payroll expert, you know, in his past life. And, but that doesn't make, you know, that's probably one of other things that makes Pete great. But what makes Pete great is like, oh, you know what? I have a vacation coming up. I have a family emergency coming up.

[00:14:14] He empathizes with me, but then he takes action. And he says, I hear you, Kamal. I hear you, Julie. Let's do this. Why don't you carve out some time so you can address those issues? So now I'm not just empathizing. I'm actually taking action. And then for Julie, the highlight of that year will be Pete actually went out of his way and really gave me time, gave me attention, not just being pathetic.

[00:14:44] That sticks with them forever. Right? So I think that's what we ought to be teaching. Yeah. You know, what's interesting. I think I've seen, you know, I was very fortunate to work for some great companies, right? Right at my very early age, right? Out of the military, you know, went to work for in a PEO. So I learned HR at scale for about five, six years. What good looked like, right? For HR. And then eventually went to work for the Walt Disney Company. And I think one of the things I figured out pretty quickly was like, and I'm going to

[00:15:12] say it this way, is I feel like there was like the groups of folks that were more proactively empathetic versus reactively empathetic, sort of putting out fires versus sort of like setting people up to succeed, if that's the way to say it. Far better, right? Far better cultures, far better output, far better engagement by their people. Just anecdotally, I don't have data. But I think there is something to that. I mean, would you agree? Is that a word? Is that a thing?

[00:15:39] Proactive, sort of proactive empathy or, you know, empathy in a proactive way? I love it. I love it. I think, you know, we need to make sure the IPs are well taken care of, you know, as we come up with new combinations here. But let's be honest, right? It's like, it's one thing to say leaders and, you know, be as empathetic as you can. And then while I want you to execute X, Y, and Z, and those could be the exact opposite

[00:16:07] to say, all right, you know, Julie, I'm just making this up, right? Like Julie has to go on a leave or myself, if I have to go on a leave and I only have two weeks of PTO and there's no policy that really lets me do that. Will the leader be empathetic and be able to take the action? Absolutely no. I think the proactive empathy that Pete, you know, good examples. I see a lot of companies like Deloitte doing that, right?

[00:16:34] They're extending their paternity leave, you know, from the standard, right? Whatever, 16 weeks to further. Like those are the examples of proactive empathy. It's just like they reflect in your policies. And now when you tell your leaders to say, hey, you know what? You can practice these things. And here are the policies that actually help you proactively to be ready, you know, so you can make sure.

[00:17:02] So I think that's where, you know, there's a lot of fluff on one side and there's actual substance that we need to give people. And the substance is the policies and the proactive empathy. Yeah. I mean, I think we've talked on the show about sort of the angst between the C-suite and the frontline workers, right? I mean, we see it every day. There's unions flaring up. I think Amazon's going through it now. I listened to a podcast yesterday about all that turmoil around them unionizing.

[00:17:30] And there's a lot of unions that are certainly flaring up and having, you know, strikes and whatever. Last year was hot with that. And definitely there's a lot of that sort of frontline disparity when you think about wages and just communication and other things. And I think that's where these CEOs could really benefit is, look, you're going to have to make decisions that are right for the shareholder. That's your job. You're supposed to grow the company and protect the brand. But at the end of the day, like you can proactively, even at scale, especially at scale, prepare

[00:18:00] people for that change to ease them into it. And that's what I think I was fortunate to witness is how Disney would make big decisions, right? Very fast. But they would always make sure that it was a smooth landing for their people. It generally wasn't a shock to anything, right? We often got very, and I saw that from firms that like them, that were very good at it. And I think that proactive element is what, I mean, in addition to just the practice of empathy by some of our leaders, which we need to hopefully return to, is the fact that

[00:18:30] they're not proactively kind of thinking about the people as they're making decisions for the shareholder. Yeah, that's great. That's something I was definitely honed into. Long before you get to the empathetic policy or practice or action of maybe a bigger event, just a part of an empathetic DNA is not having people in the dark. Whether you're a manager and that's your employees thereof, of course, the higher you get in leadership,

[00:18:59] there are different filters of things that you can share or not share. But it doesn't mean that you can't prepare your teams, prepare skills, open up conversations and just expand the thinking about what sorts of things could happen in the future so that there isn't such a,

[00:19:20] you know, I hit a date and now I have to, you know, fire people or make an ultimate call on a leave, you know, like your suggestion, Kamal. And that is an empathetic characteristic. You can build into your day-to-day relationships at every level with your peers. It builds trust big time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing, you know, that as you talk about the proactive approach, right,

[00:19:47] as these policies don't come out in a vacuum, right, to say, we're just going to do this. And that's where there's a discipline on the operation side, the shared services side, right, as payroll is a good area, benefits is a good area, where when you see people wanting to negotiate more time off than pay,

[00:20:13] or when you look at the exit survey and you see a trend that people are leaving just because there are issues with the policies of time off or, like, that means that's your data. So everything should be backed by facts, right? So I think that every company is different in their own way in the industry that they belong to.

[00:20:36] So if you can get that data, that will guide you to take those big decisions, as you mentioned, Pete and Julie, you know, now you're really headed towards you have the human side, you have the data side, and now put all of them together and create such an environment, right? I'm not talking about a panacea, but at least a realistic one. You know, what we talked about daily pay is like, people want to get paid early. So you're not going to change the pay frequency.

[00:21:07] You bring a tool like daily pay, you know, and really exercise earnways access. And I think the data should guide a lot of these. And I think that's where HR professionals from analytics, from technology, from operations come together and provide C-suite with this information and then take relevant action. So I think we're heading to empathy with action, but these are the back end. These are the background work that we need to do.

[00:21:33] Yeah, I think all of that, you know, it's going to create that high performance culture, right? Just wrap it all in a bucket. I mean, a bow. So, yeah, I mean, it does, right? And that's the thing, though. But how do you measure the ROI of empathy? You know what I mean? I think it's built up in drops, right? Lost in buckets, built in drops. I have a suggestion for that. Yeah. You know, just measuring empathy.

[00:21:58] So we know, you know, from numerous different data sources that a lot of times turnover is attributed to a man, you know, directly to managers and the manager style, right? And so increasingly, we're seeing leaders like even, so Stephen Covey has a new book out called Trust and Inspire.

[00:22:19] And it's talking about the type of leader that you need to be today to help seal some of those bonds of loyalty, of, you know, trust and integrity in the workplace with teams. And, you know, of course, a family or whoever else, but specifically in the workplace. And so I can't help but think that there's a measure there. There's something to measure there. It's probably empathy and a number of other different, you know, capabilities.

[00:22:47] It's probably not just purely empathy. But if you're looking at turnover due to poor manager style or managers who need to develop, I have to believe that empathy is one of those attributes that creates solid work relationships and loyalty and, you know, and drives people to stay in place with their teams because they love their teams. It's almost like you're going to have to prove the byproducts of empathy in a downstream way.

[00:23:16] You know, sorry, I want to let you respond to that. Come on, I want to share something along those lines. Oh, no, sure. I was just kind of, as Julie was kind of sharing that, I think, I don't know, Pete, if we talked about it, but I kind of, the thought came to mind about this tool called HAPPI, right? How they were measuring that at restaurants where every shift clocking in, they would ask the colleagues, you know, how are you feeling today? And then it would lead to another question.

[00:23:45] So you're not waiting for a QBR. You're not waiting for an annual survey. You really have a feel of an employee listening and engagement and all the different metrics that Julie mentioned is, you know how your colleagues are feeling altogether, right? So I think that's one. And the other piece is the emotional intelligence is one of the highest sought out skill and competency that we look for leaders, right?

[00:24:12] So it's something that we can help build, but I think that we're kind of headed to the direction. It's like just being able to do a job and then being able to delegate that to somebody does not make you a people leader. And now we're going to figure out a way to measure those and also develop people leaders who are empathetic as you have been, right? So I think that's a skill as we talk about skills, you know, I would say that's a big buzzword. We can pause there.

[00:24:41] So, so Julie, you want to say something? Well, I was just cracking up because while you're talking about happy Kamala, I'm like thinking, are those the smiley faces that you push in the bathroom? No. Like red, yellow and green body face. But truthfully, I mean, in all the, you know, experience portals and experience technologies and even rewards and recognition types of tools that HR is deploying, there's that happy element, right?

[00:25:09] Where you're just trying to get point in time, you know, take a pulse and figure out what's going on and where people's heads are heads are at. That should be helping us, right? To try to quantify some of these things. I think it's tough, too. One of the things I want to point you to, and I'm going to, I'll share this link. I shared this on my Twitter, I think yesterday or the day, excuse me, the day before. It's a new article based on research from Chicago Booth. I think that's the business school, right? University of Chicago.

[00:25:38] And basically it's titled, this article is titled that CEOs soft and interpersonal skills have not increased over time. And basically what it's saying is, is that there's other research and certainly media that is pointing to the fact that, you know, with a larger swap of millennials and younger generations in the workforce, that interpersonal skills and softer skills are going to become much more important for the CEO in the future, as we just said.

[00:26:01] But what's interesting is they looked at 5,000 executives over like a 30 characteristic framework pre and post 2008, 9 market crash and ultimately came away with the fact that basically this is not what's really happening. And what I got away from, came away from that with is boards are still incentivizing the sort of old style of management that is still producing results.

[00:26:30] But, but how do you, again, how do you put the ROI to show, and I'm sure you can show result. Obviously the results are the results in the proof, but how do you dial that back and go, peel that back and go, look, it's because partly because of the empathetic culture that, you know, or whatever the empathy within our culture that has created trust and created collaboration and created the opportunity for us to be a high performance organization. So I just think it's interesting because I think you still have the old guard and the old way of thinking that is rewarding the non-interpersonal sort of CEO.

[00:27:00] And yet what they're being told and what, you know, maybe the new generations are, I guess that's, you know, presumptive, are expecting is this more empathetic leader, right? So it's just an interesting conundrum that I think is there. You know, I love that, you know, statement, Pete. And so here I did a keynote back in October last year, and it was about HR transformation through empathy, wellness and AI, right?

[00:27:28] So what a weird combination if you think about it, you know, but that's where we are. And the way I led that, you know, let me share some facts with you. So 2023, 1.64 million people were laid off just in the U.S. alone, right? And 2024 numbers, you know, probably are close range too.

[00:27:55] But if we think about the emotional and psychological well-being, like these are some of the numbers that, and I can quote you the sources, but 92% of the employees, they really value the emotional and psychological well-being, right? 48% of the employees reported that there was a decline in their mental health. You know, you can think about, you know, the layoffs, the burnout and everything.

[00:28:24] So when you ask the question, Pete, is what's the ROI with this whole conversation we're having is that benefits, the turnover. You know, when I talk about benefits, like if your insurance rockets, right, you're actually paying for that in a different way, the claims. If you have a higher turnover, you know, you're paying for additional payroll runs.

[00:28:50] The cost of hiring is at least 1.5 to two times the compensation, depending on the range of the employee, right? The higher you go, it actually increases. So HR really, you know, it's hard to say. HR does not generate revenue. It's not directly proportional, but there's every single element that actually can be linked to, you know, the cost.

[00:29:16] And so I think that employee well-being should be the number one focus of any organization. Having a healthy workforce will help you reach your goals faster, you know. And how do you measure that? I think we've kind of talked about some of the, you know, employee engagement surveys and other things. But the ROI can be shown, Pete. And, you know, I've done that in multiple places that I've worked.

[00:29:43] And I think that that's the education we need to show that end of the day, I get it. The board wants to see it. The CEOs want to see it. But HR has to step up and show those numbers, you know. Yeah, agree. The typical challenge with that is if it's not a part of an operational budget, the numbers are there. But it's difficult to show that they materialize as they're projected, right? I mean, they're still very real dollars.

[00:30:12] But the CFO can't take them out of somebody's operations budget. Yeah. Yeah. But the outcomes are material. The outcomes are material, yeah. And so there needs to be a little bit more of a balance between the material and the immaterial outcome and some, you know, sense of faith in the fact that, yes, it's common sense. It costs to bring in new people instead of have the people that, you know, like there is something real there. It's just you can't cut a budget or slash a budget. Yeah. Put your finger on it, basically.

[00:30:41] In order to fund whatever it is you want to do. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No, agree. And I think that there is, you know, some of the things that I see there is historically the old school, right? As HR kind of owns that entire problem, right? And kind of has to really come up with every solution. I get it.

[00:31:02] But the new school of thought in my mind, Julie, right, is that if you're working with multiple business units within the company and they all have that operational budget, and HR is helping them materialize it, get the right talent through the door, that means it's a shared ownership across the board. It's not just an HR problem. It's a company-wide problem, right? The CEO has to address to the board.

[00:31:29] So I think that's where we probably need to, we have opportunities to join hands. And one of the things that I've been part of in the previous roles that I've been is that when we bring this data, even it doesn't just become HR data. It becomes data for that particular business unit, for that leader. So I don't want HR to do the voiceover, right? But I know it's easily said than done.

[00:31:58] But it has to be done in the new school of thought. So, come on, when you say empathy with action, what does that look like? I'll share a personal example. I don't know if I shared that the last time too, but I'm going to do it here again. And that stuck with me, you know, is we're working our way throughout the year. I'm in this meeting.

[00:32:23] One of my direct reports, like usually you don't hear from this person. You know, they're so well self-sufficient, let's just say. You know, they don't need me, basically. But this one fine afternoon, they just knock on the door as I'm in the meeting. And I'm like, I'm sure there's something important that came up. And their pet was about to have a litter, you know.

[00:32:52] And it was a situation. And I could have laughed. I could have said, you know, you got to wait till your end of the shift. But my instinct, and I'm not saying that I have a very high, you know, EQ. That day, yeah. But, you know, you could argue. I had a really good breakfast. It started out well. Yes.

[00:33:19] But it was just like, you know what, I could relate. Because I have two beautiful boys. And I was like, yeah, you should go take care of them. And then, as long as I trust you with the work. And it was a simple thing, Pete and Julie, right, that I'm mentioning. But, you know, it meant a lot for that colleague. And, you know, we do performance reviews throughout the year.

[00:33:49] Who cares about an annual performance review on how many tasks you do? You move on to the next year, right? But they do care about how they felt in that moment. And they were able to spend their time. And they were able to take care of their emotions. So I wasn't just like, oh, you know what, that's so cute. And I think, you know, you should really wait till the end of the day. No, I actually had to take an action, not just be empathetic. So I feel like, you know, Pete, we talked about it's not just talk the dog. You got to walk the walk, you know, right?

[00:34:19] And that's what I truly mean. And there could be plenty of examples. But I feel like it could be small. It could be big. But you got to be there, you know? Or else, you know. It's these little dividends of equity. I think you're building with people, right? Where you're, you know, trust, I guess. Not equity, really, I suppose, is the word. But yeah, where you're really sort of like, because how productive would that employee be if they're on their shift and they're stressed out and concerned about, you know, about their family or their home? Not very, right? So what are you getting out of them?

[00:34:49] So maybe you're playing a longer game, more infinite-minded game, I think, here, saying, look, take care of what you need to take care of. We can handle, you know, the widgets for today and come back when everything's all right, you know? And I think that you're right. That's going to go a long way with someone when they're thinking about, do I stay or do I go? From this employer they care about. Those personal exceptions and, you know, oftentimes some of the things that we're citing are, you know, bending a rule, right?

[00:35:16] Or bending a policy or doing something that is very important to that person. But I do believe that there are plenty of opportunities for empathy and action just in the course of how you're managing your projects or your project work or how the team pulls together. You know, if somebody's, you know, trying to take a long weekend and there's some deliverable, I mean, like you can, you can do, you can, you can begin to exercise some of that empathy

[00:35:42] and build that culture and that teamwork outside of having to be the manager bending, you know, bending policy. Though those are probably the most memorable and the most appreciated ones, but still. But all of that is rooted in knowing your people too, right? I mean, like it goes back to like when you're, you know, when you're engaging them about what motivates them, right? It's going to be different. And maybe, you know, what from one to the next, it's some other, some other driver for why they're there. And, and I think you have to meet them with that.

[00:36:12] Yep. And then I want to go back, Julie, you know, about the Franklin Covey. I've attended those webinars and I have some of the books like Speed of Trust. And frankly, what we're saying is that we, we want to build that trust with organic actions. And no matter what the situation is, I trust you to do the job and I trust you that you should definitely take that time. Whatever that situation is.

[00:36:40] So I think that any organization that wants to progress and hit that, you know, those milestones together, their colleagues have to be trusting their leaders. Their leaders have to be trusting their CEO and the, you know, the board has to trust. So I think that level of trust comes with these, you know, small actions day to day that actually, you know, compound.

[00:37:07] And I feel like fundamentally we kind of miss that because we're so black and white with our policies, you know, so I'm not saying that you should bend the rule, but create that environment where you can make that judgment, right? Or else why would we have people leaders? Let's just wait for the AI thing to come over and take over, right? I think that's, yeah, I think that's, that's probably the next revolution that we need to look at, you know, industry-wise.

[00:37:35] And, and the fact, right, that I want to bring here is we, we're kind of stepping like in the next 10 to 15 years, we're going to have a significant workforce retire. You know, we're, we're welcoming Zenji's, right? There's a new one now. There's a new one. Did you guys know that? Kind of. 2025, I think they start, I think it's beta, right? What's a new one? Like that? Yeah.

[00:38:05] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 2025, exactly. Right. So, so how are we going to create this workforce, you know, or work environment where we can function with multiple cultures, but with so much technology in between. And there's so much, I want to say the world is, the word is VUCA, right? Right. Of the VUCA world. That's what they talk about.

[00:38:30] And I think that policies are great, but if we can build that kind of culture, if we can build that kind of leaders, then we're setting up ourselves for success. And I speak for the entire industries, right? And not just for one particular company. But how in all of this, Kamal, do you think we, like, I feel like at the same time technology is connecting us more, right? With folks we probably never would maybe get to interact with, you know, otherwise.

[00:39:00] It seems like we're also a little bit more walled off, right? In our own worlds, in our own silos. And if AI keeps proliferating, are we going to get less empathetic, right? Less, more, more just sort of dehumanized in some way because we're so augmented? Or do you think the augmentation is going to be helpful? Like, what's your point of view just on tech and AI as far as helping with things like empathy and other soft skills? I think that there's always, you know, the good and bad on both sides, right?

[00:39:26] But I like to look at, like, let's talk about, we just finished the year. We did annual reviews and all of that. And we know that our managers dread doing that. Yeah. Right? Because that's additional time. Our employees dread doing that. It's like, how can we use tech to make it more easier for them? So if we can use tech in such a way where their conversations are more organic,

[00:39:55] but the tech has enabled them to finish the review in a matter of minutes than hours, right? So that's one example. So I feel like the revolution of AI and technology is only going to help us be better in terms of time savings. Then that will create an environment where, you know, people can have organic conversations between their teams. So I feel that's one way.

[00:40:25] More time for connection, I think is what you're alluded to there. Yeah. No, I agree. I think leaders are going to have, should, should have a lot more opportunity and capacity to lead. And this is where I think they can be spending time. You're right. Understanding their people, working on their development, moving obstacles. All the things managers should be doing today, but are probably tied down with whatever minutia in their world is going on. So a lot of opportunity. You know, we kind of let an acronym slide without calling out what it is, just in case

[00:40:54] folks, you know, aren't following VUCA. I think Kamal that you called out is usually related to volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, which totally describes not only the world we're in, you know, increasingly in, but also some of the AI and other tools are designed to fit those, you know, those characteristics.

[00:41:19] So I know it was thrown in a little bit earlier, but I just thought it might be worth calling out. What the hell is that? Thank you, Julie. Appreciate the play by play. Yeah. My apologies. Yeah. I should have kind of explained it a little bit, but I think Pete, going back to your point about, you know, this empathy with action for HR, I think there's never been a, you

[00:41:47] know, good time to really shine because pandemic definitely gave HR the seat at the table. Right. But how do you really show up from there? How do you really make it count? And I think the piece that if you look at marketing, if you look at finance, they have leveraged tech the right way. They have. HR is behind. Let's be honest.

[00:42:16] Every implementation, you have to really kind of show the ROI for, you know, products like Workday and Oracle. It's like, what am I getting out of it? All I'm going to get is paid. Yeah. All the things you're doing is performance reviews. You're only going to do all the things you did before. Exactly. So why should I pay three times? And if you add more, you know, the cloud computing costs and now you're going to add AI, they're going to ask the same question.

[00:42:44] But if you flip that to a different way to say, hey, you know what? We're going to make this operation so smooth that every HR business partner conversation is not about the to-dos, but it's about the strategic ones because the AI has really automated a lot of those minutiae that you talked about, you know, to say if our Gen Z and the beta,

[00:43:12] right, group, like they want answers within the click of a button. You know, I'm not saying they don't have the patience, but we've kind of all been in that way. It's like, we want one click answer. We want to be able to see that. The face IDs, right? You know, it's like, I can't wait for a week. Like if you talk about a paycheck, a paper check, and Pete, I know this is like, you probably talked about multiple times. They're like, what is this? Right? Right. Yeah. It's like my son, I've said this before.

[00:43:42] My son, if you asked him to apply to a job and you didn't have an app, he wouldn't even think you exist. Exactly. So I feel that this is where we need to appreciate AI. But before we jump on the AI bandwagon, you know, let's make sure, have very honest and open conversation about our technology spend. How are we really using it? And what's the potential that we should be, you know, looking at and how much spend that we should go forward towards AI? Is it going to automate 40%?

[00:44:11] That way you still have people, but you have more real time data. You have from 10 touch points to maybe two for our colleagues. And I think all of those combined together now, HR is really in the business, right? With the business, having those strategic conversations rather than keeping the lights on. I think that's the opportunity that I want to highlight. Yeah. I love that. I think it's about time, right? I mean, it's long overdue, so it's very much appreciated.

[00:44:40] Julie, you were going to say something? No, I usually chime in along the way. It's just comic relief or something else. Yeah. It's like I was sitting here thinking the gen beta, they're going to come to work with their own AI assistants. We're going to have to hire them and their AI assistant. That's all I think about when I hear them say it's a new generation. It makes me think of Lattice's, you know, that whole fiasco we had in 2024, right? And I know, I'm not founding them for that.

[00:45:11] Obviously, you know, like things get blown out of proportion, but yeah, we are headed there. You know what it makes me think of, Pete, is our, you know, what, by the time this comes out, our last podcast release will have been on just kind of AI and everything you do with Amy. Yeah. So, you know, and she gave us some real insights on how it feels to go from an organization

[00:45:35] and just a general way of working that included that to making a shift somewhere where that's not at all the norm and you have to kind of start from zero again. And those types of shifts will be just supremely important to your gen alphas and gen betas, right? Yeah. By the time we get there here, it's an annoyance maybe for the, you know, those who are on the forefront of adopting something within a matter of a generation. Was that right?

[00:46:02] Folks who don't want to go work for, you know, the legacy non-AI enabled workforce. Yeah. Was I right? Is it, is it beta? The new one? I didn't look it up, but I think you're right. I mean, they went to alpha, so why not beta? Double check me on that. Isn't that, isn't that the new one for 2025? I think it's beta. I may be wrong. We may be saying, we may be calling it all wrong. We're already, we're already stereotyping them and they're not even, they're not. You know what it is? I did a quick look up while we're here. It is generation beta starting this year to 2039. All right, here we go.

[00:46:33] We're safe. Yeah. We haven't said something ridiculously ludicrous that we can laugh at. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good. Good. Kamal, this has been really fantastic. I could, I could go on and on. I say that to a lot of our guests, but I really mean that. I could go on asking you all kinds of questions and I'd love for you to come back at some point as well, man. But where can folks connect with you? What, you know, how, where you're going to be here in the coming months? Thank you, Pete and Julie. It's, it's been really fun.

[00:46:57] It's, it's not one of those, um, you know, just very, uh, I want to say topic focus. Like I really love the energy and you know, we, we don't have to be right. We could be wrong. Right. And we, we, we want to be right, but it's okay. Like sometimes we are kind of, yeah, sometimes we are. Once in a while, once a year. We're wrong. No, I'm kidding. Absolutely. And, uh, so yeah, I'm very, um, I want to say active on LinkedIn. That's the best way, uh, people reach me.

[00:47:26] Just look for my name, Kamal Prada. And there's a lot of folks with that name, but there's only one based out of, in Dallas. Um, and I'm, I'm, I'm always looking forward to connect with folks who want to learn more about the HR, uh, world of ops, tech transformation, all of the different things. And, you know, um, the other thing I also want to share is that, um, there are very few

[00:47:52] of folks who are promoting the importance, importance of, um, payroll, HR, how it impacts our workforce, right? Not just from a finance perspective today, we touched on empathy. I heard about the AI pieces of it. So you guys are doing a tremendous job and I love the fact that you guys decided to continue this in 2025.

[00:48:21] I just had to throw it out there. You know, we're not going anywhere. We've been here since 2022. We're not, we're not going anywhere. We're, uh, we're, we're doing, we're, we're going to keep it running. So appreciate you. I love it. I love it. I love it. Yeah. You know, I think meeting you in Vegas was, was amazing. And Pete, like, you know, we've got some mutual connections, a shout out to Steve Goldberg, you know, and Julie, you know, knowing you has been great, but, but I feel that we need more of us really willing to be wrong, but highlighting what the future looks like and

[00:48:51] bringing the key issues, uh, and awareness in the world of HR, in the world of workplace to make it better. So thank you for having me. It's been, it's been a great, um, podcast so far. And, um, I just want to do a quick hashtag of empathy with action. Let's practice in our daily lives, not just at work in our personal and with ourselves too, right? It's, it's, you got to be empathetic yourself. And, you know, I think that's where you start and self-care is, is number one.

[00:49:21] If you're an individual contributor, for sure, if you're a leader, you need it actually more. Um, so that's my spill, Pete. I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Julie, anything to, uh, anything you've got going on? Uh, you know, listen, well, thanks Kamal for mentioning that we're continuing on. We do, we don't plan to send anytime soon. And, uh, no, you had gave us some stats on our listenership that was increased, that's

[00:49:47] been increasing in our, what to look for in 2025, um, which is one of our popular topics. So listen for the stats there and we'd love to have folks just, you know, subscribe wherever it is you listen, you know, give us some feedback. Tell us what else you want to hear about. Um, that's one of the things that, you know, Peter and I are really excited for is just being able to get more feedback outside. We always get great feedback when we're having conversations like with you. Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Yeah.

[00:50:16] We have a few folks that interact with us, email us, reach out to us on LinkedIn. So yeah, keep those comments. Let us know what you want to hear, what you want more of, uh, tell us your feedback. And like us, you know, like we said, like review, share all those things help us out. And, uh, yeah, be sure and check out all the shows in the work to find network. Thank you so much to them for having us. We're it's our, it's going to be our first full year in 2025 work to find. We're very happy with it. Uh, it's been great. A lot of exposure has been coming to the podcast, um, and look for the payroll profession confidence index. It's out there.

[00:50:45] Don't miss the opportunity to get your voice in on that. Um, it's going to be a key. So we're just getting started. All right, everyone. Happy 2025 again. And, uh, we will talk to you very soon. Take care. Happy new year. Thank you.