Getting Started with AI in HR Operations with Special Guest Kenny Santo

[00:00:09] I'm Petalio Acus and I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome Julie. Thanks, Pete. I'm happy to be here and I'd like to tell you about our special guests today. Yes, we have company again.

[00:00:23] We have company again and today we're going to be talking to Kenny Santo, who's the Senior Manager of the HR Shared Services Centre at Cox Auto. And Cox Auto, that group serves more than 26,000 employees. So welcome Kenny. Yeah, welcome. Thank you very much. Yeah, good to have you.

[00:00:40] So Kenny, you know, one of the things we ask all of our guests here is how in the world you got into the HR or Payroll world and why you stick around. Yes, so that's a great question. I've got to love it.

[00:00:54] And, you know, it's interesting because my background actually started out in IT. I work for a BPO for a long time and ended doing enterprise service report for Dell.

[00:01:07] And when I left there at the request of, you know, a referral into HR, it was one of the biggest changes of my life because the cultures are so different.

[00:01:16] And, but I really enjoyed working with the people and the team and the variation in scope, you know, the variety that HR can bring was really really a drive for me. And just, you know, kept wanting to kind of be in that space.

[00:01:34] I actually left HR for a little while and went into more like business operations and went back to HR because I kind of missed it. And I was like, you know what? This is, I think, the place for me to stay. And yeah, that's pretty much it.

[00:01:48] Yeah, not it's a great, that's a great pathway. I think for the modern, for the modern shared services to have that, that lens of technology. So much of it is tech driven. So yeah, congrats, man. Welcome.

[00:01:58] Yeah, and heavy, heavy, been in HR now longer than all the combined other stuff because that's really your home base where your heart is. I think so. I did, you know, I think between everything they might almost be the same.

[00:02:14] I, T, is definitely less, but if I combine it with business operations, they're probably almost at the same. I'm pushing about 10 years. I think total in HR.

[00:02:24] You know, and I got my start in HR with Pricewaterhouse Cooper's PWC and I did a good five to six years there.

[00:02:32] And that was a really eye opening experience in HR just with the size of that company and really set me on that path forward where I really enjoyed it.

[00:02:41] That's awesome. You know, I think P that some point of time we might have to consider like hotel California as a little ditty though he's sticking here and you can check in but you could never leave.

[00:02:53] Yeah, it's like that soprano's episode, you know, or guy, you know, the guy on soprano's always like every time I try to get out they pull me back in.

[00:03:02] It's exactly what it is, right? It's the same thing. But my body, I'm glad you stick around a stay Kenny. I mean these are the, I mean I think there's a very rewarding.

[00:03:10] You know, career you can have an HR that is always exciting. It's always changing. There's always opportunity.

[00:03:16] And I've seen a lot of people pivot around from different parts of the organization and land in HR and stay and that's really really exciting because I think it's nice to have those other lenses.

[00:03:27] Yeah, so I know what do we do a little bit of news, Pete and then we'll get to talking about AI and HR. It's obviously one of the top, you know, things that folks want to talk about and listen to but we haven't did a little bit of news for sure.

[00:03:40] Yeah, absolutely. There's been a bunch of news this week. We've had a couple of different big things but I thought we could first talk about the work day and in sparety go to market.

[00:03:48] I know a lot about that. You stay close to it. So I've got some opinions but love to hear what your thoughts are on that one.

[00:03:53] Yeah, sure. So I think for folks who didn't see last week was kind of a big news announcement maybe a little bit out of the blue. So folks may say A little quapet too, maybe even. It might have sort of slipped onto the right yard.

[00:04:06] Yeah, you're right. It is a little bit quiet and so in sparety as a peo and in sparety and work day announced joint strategic go to market. And I think the most important thing to think about here is just recognizing the potential of putting these two players together

[00:04:27] To really bring work day down market is something that has some folks excited. Other folks, you know, like what what, you know, a little bit abashed like what just happened.

[00:04:39] And, you know, obviously this is newly announced and said it'll take a little bit of time not only for folks to hear it and think about what it could, you know, what it could bring but also, you know, to sort it out and put things in place to

[00:04:53] To actually make it happen and start to bring folks into a really new sort of new sort of model down market that is otherwise difficult to tap into.

[00:05:03] Yeah, yeah, look this is a win win for both of these these firms. I mean, look in sparety isn't just any peo either right there one of the top. I want to say five now or are they've always been top five? They might even be top three or four in terms of work side employees.

[00:05:16] You know, and the size of their organization and the depth and experience they have with a small market and if you know worked day you know they're unapologetically expensive.

[00:05:25] They're premium solution very powerful. And, but they haven't been able to really crack the small business section sector or target market because of the cost prohibitive nature of it.

[00:05:35] And I think that's what's the beautiful thing here is now work day software is going to be pushed down below that sort of blow 500 employer and made more affordable right and that's where in sparety has the man of task of transforming their organization around work day as their service enabling technology and really

[00:05:53] becoming a co-seller, you know, deployer operator of the platform. So this is really going to put I think all of the down market solutions kind of on notice right now you've got the 500 pound crew HCM gorilla in the room playing in this SMB space and in sparety is going to be the gateway to that happening. So a lot of excitement here I think for both for both organizations.

[00:06:17] It's going to take a little while to get this entirely to market right work day has to ready their platform for PEO it's not exactly the same construct as a regular HR operation.

[00:06:27] But there's a lot of excitement here and I think this is going to be really cool and I think it's really going to put a lot of pressure down market for some of these HCM solutions to have to now catch up to work day where they were already trying to do so, but I think you're going to see I think it might trigger some some interesting

[00:06:43] maybe an acquisitions who knows it might even trigger some partnerships at least so yeah I'm definitely excited to keep our eye on this one.

[00:06:49] Yeah, so just remember everybody you heard it here first. Yeah, yeah and are you writing something up on this? Do you know we are just curious if you are.

[00:06:57] Yes, good, good. Yeah, we'll be sure sure to share those perspectives and I'm sure we'll learn more as we go along. I'll be at the work day innovation summit in April so I'm hoping we're going to hear a bit more clarity on how this is going to work. So exciting stuff.

[00:07:10] Awesome. Now you had a couple others here that you wanted to highlight where you go next.

[00:07:14] Well look payroll has been in the news a lot I mean, I think that's kind of like cliche but at this point, but yeah two big announcements here this last week that I think are very, very keen that you should check out.

[00:07:25] Number one again in the HCM space high bob has finally finally and I've given them this feedback again really happy to see they are finally giving in and adding payroll to their solution so

[00:07:36] if you know the high bob platform it's it's really well adopted it's a highly it's a highly visual highly culture oriented HCM capability but fundamentally they strategically left a payroll out of that right in the beginning of design of their of their platform.

[00:07:53] They certainly had a hub where you could orchestrate payroll globally through a number of their partners in the same way that many of the HCM's are taking it but now what they've done is they've acquired Pento their partner I believe don't quote me here.

[00:08:07] I want to say they're in either Denmark or somewhere in Europe, but basically buying one of their integrated partners and now going to take payroll forward natively in their platform so I have a briefing coming up with them soon I'm going to get more info on this but

[00:08:21] this is really exciting I think for the high bob platform who's already doing very well and now they've added a piece that I would imagine might have cut off a segment of buyers that would have said hey I would love this the solution but it doesn't have payroll integrated and so now this is here so I'm excited to see this a great as it is an advisor I would say it definitely does broaden their potential in the market because.

[00:08:43] It's hard to do HR without payroll and payroll. Yeah, especially in the mid-market small market it's hard to imagine buying a solution for HCM that can handle the majority of your work but not payroll that's such a central part especially to a younger

[00:08:59] more operationally oriented firm so yeah I would imagine this opens their tam up quite a bit and gives them a bit more competitiveness when it comes to playing some of their peers or competitive peers and so.

[00:09:09] Yeah, I love it. I'm a little overdue but I'm really excited for them and I'm happy to see they brought that together. All right, I think you're happy to another another continent now.

[00:09:18] Yeah, so our friends were over at Ramco have once again innovated very very secretly you saw probably a lot of marketing buzz I was in a video to helping tease.

[00:09:29] You know just some of the innovation that's coming and I'll be honest with you. I haven't entirely seen this yet, so I'm still looking forward to a briefing very soon but Ramco has launched what they call pace PACEE or PAYCE is how it's spelled pace.

[00:09:43] And essentially they're calling it a you know air quotes a revolutionizing payroll management through the Ramco pace and what it really is is it's all the things you would want in a modern payroll solution right it's a low code,

[00:09:55] no code, no code design which means you know building on to your condition-based rules set for payroll is very easy, very drag and drop.

[00:10:05] It's tightly integrated with all of leading HCM products by way of Ramco's existing partnerships with workday and success factors and all the other solutions out there. You know certainly has very visualized on demand reporting and analytics capability.

[00:10:20] And most importantly here, you know certainly uses AI to drive compliance in real time insights and all the things you would want from AI.

[00:10:28] But what I think is super exciting is again with that no code, low code sort of approach that we're seeing with all the platforms and the extensibility that we see.

[00:10:37] And the speeding implementation down from months to weeks and so if you look at the the value proposition of any of the major global solutions out there they're all talking speed to market.

[00:10:49] Speed to insights speed to having a single view of payroll globally and I think this is just another. Another you know way of Ramco bringing together all of their innovation into a single solution that is going to be very very.

[00:11:03] So I'm excited to get more info here, but yeah good stuff coming from Ramco once again. There we go. There's a birthday in the house right? Yes. In the state of heat. Yes. 75.

[00:11:15] 75 that just sounds like my grandparents are something but and I've got to write up on the ADP re-thinks event from from London and I've got a little bit of my perspective on ADP at 75.

[00:11:27] The way I like to look at it to be honest with you is it's not your parents ADP anymore. I would think you would you would agree with that Julie.

[00:11:35] I know we talked about that it's it's not the ADP that you and I grew up on but they also have ready themselves to be your kids ADP.

[00:11:43] It's kind of the quote I used in my in my article and the point there is is that you know you look at the way they have really just doubled down on innovation in the last I'd say 10 12 years.

[00:11:53] You know they're HCM products are are fundamentally competing out there with the most prominent HCM labels. You know, they're bringing you know what I love is they've got the former CHRO Shreeni Kutam now leading product which is super differentiated.

[00:12:08] I think Maria Black that you see EO is doing a tremendous job that was a very shrewd move of moving Shreeni over and she's really committed to bringing out the full power of ADP engaging partners and they're just on a very innovative path.

[00:12:21] Yeah, congratulations ADP 75 years old really pioneered the industry for a payroll outsourcing maybe even HR outsourcing some extent.

[00:12:28] And have really really transitioned themselves away from that service bureau heritage certainly somewhere they still dominate but absolutely become an incredibly innovative organization that just continues to pump out great stuff so. Well folks will be looking I'm sure for your POE or your blog on that and.

[00:12:47] And then lastly, before we jump over into AI I'm excited to talk about this is of course the payroll confidence survey is out there if you haven't taken it why not.

[00:12:55] No but really take it share it let's get in the hands of everybody love for you engage that and get that going so. Thank you thank you. Thank you say enough about it so.

[00:13:04] Yes, I'm going to get out there and spend your 15 minutes it's really yeah it's really not a huge time suck and the full idea of engaging sentiment is we need to put a lot of feelers out.

[00:13:14] Yes, yes absolutely let's get it in the hands of every payroll practitioner and help them help them show their voice.

[00:13:19] All right so what do you think should we start to sorry Kenny you've been a little bit quiet over there but now we want to turn a little bit of the focus into some conversation with you.

[00:13:28] Yeah and and really dig in to some of the AI noise that's happening out there in the market. Yeah the realities too I'm going to hear the I want to hear what the reality on the front lines is.

[00:13:39] I think that was good. I was just I was absorbing all the news because like well it's a lot of news it is right this stuff happens fast this stuff happens fast that's right is sure does well look what are the one of the things that I know about you can need from my time knowing you and interacting with you is that you have an awful lot of context that are experience in the HR world and when you think about automation.

[00:14:03] AI and other types of automation context and there's been one of the first places where we start to see you know chat bots and call routing it's all kinds of cool things. And so I just wanted to see if that as a mirrored kind of your experience like.

[00:14:18] Did have you seen and worked with you know a number of things as a revolving how are they seem or different from the noise that we're seeing now and the excitement about AI what is your background tell us.

[00:14:31] Yeah so I definitely think that's one of the areas that gets looked at first is because you get a lot of information coming out of context centers from the front line.

[00:14:42] You get a lot of trending in data issues that are potentially coming up so it's a great point of reference to start. Additionally like call routing you think about IVRs and what you can now do in IVRs which couldn't necessarily do 10 or 15 years ago.

[00:14:58] With the automated support you know I think about some of the things that I have seen with.

[00:15:05] Even if you were to just call you know your bank you could process payments and do that stuff directly from the phone menu which you could necessarily do before chat bots that sit in front of live agents.

[00:15:18] That can try to help answer your questions these are things that has been evolving over time and becoming better as we continue to evolve the AI model and how strong it is. Even the automated support through call routing right like you know there's I've used in the past.

[00:15:40] ID verification you know called validating the identity of the caller before they even get to a person and not just reminding the experience of whoever's calling but also streamline the experience of who's supporting.

[00:15:55] Yeah, calling up the record for example right has been around for quite some time and those sorts of things so I often I always wonder as we start you know picking up on the AI on the AI excitement.

[00:16:09] How much context on our folks are you know sitting back in their chair is going okay like you know next flavor next flavor for us of you know trying to.

[00:16:19] I think that's a very important thing to me is that you know you know what is going on in our in our activities and so what is the big excitement. Yeah, or is it going to replace us right is it an augment or a place yeah.

[00:16:30] And and that's a great call out because you know that's if there's a lot of comfort there's a lot of understanding and I think it needs to be built as we look at AI because the common reference is.

[00:16:42] And that's not really what drive is it's it's how do we add more value to the work we do and that's what I've always tried to.

[00:16:53] And so we're going to relate to that conversation whenever it comes up because when we look at the work we look at what's going on it's kind of like if you're doing the same thing over and over again. Why like what can we improve from that.

[00:17:08] So you can do something that's more value added that engages you more in what you're doing day to day so.

[00:17:16] And I think that's what it comes at and and I look at some of the augmentation possibilities of AI to the point where you know what I've seen recently is agent assist right so it's it's AI automated that.

[00:17:35] Assess the representatives in finding the information based on the conversation with the customer so instead of me trying to search through a knowledge base by agent my AI assist is searching for me while I'm continuing that conversation which provides a better experience overall to the customer.

[00:17:54] Yeah, awesome. Totally awesome. So is that what kind of got you into the, you know, the newer forms or what has led you into all the things that have been happening in Colson's and particular for a while into kind of these new areas.

[00:18:12] Is it management right? Is it leadership that's saying hey, you need to give this a look or do you find that it's more internally driven and

[00:18:21] you know, just to experience and the things that you're seeing and peers are doing. I mean, like how does it come up? How do you start to go? Oh wait, there's a new flavor of something that we have to look at.

[00:18:32] Yes, so that's it's interesting because I think for me personally having an IT background has helped that conversation in HR because

[00:18:43] like I said, it kind of previously the IT and HR cultures are different. And merging them together can create a different thought process for how we go through things in HR.

[00:18:56] And I've had a couple individuals that have followed the same track as myself where they started out in IT and worked in HR.

[00:19:02] And when we look at problems, we start to ask different types of questions and bring that technology experience. I think that internally we say like hey, so why couldn't we use HR or automation?

[00:19:18] And typically when we find that question pop up the answer from what is well, we don't know how it would work.

[00:19:29] So there's a lot of internal, I would say barriers to kind of break down to say let's start small let's have a conversation of could this be something that we look at.

[00:19:39] And unless there's a legal requirement to not use AI, why can't we and really try to push past the initial why don't know how it would work. So what would we do?

[00:19:52] Do you guys use can you do you use it on the front end of your products safe customer facing versus just back office and does that has that given you guys some learnings maybe to help you with HR or did that help you?

[00:20:03] So I have used I have used it a little bit more back office less front facing. I would say that chat bots are becoming more front facing.

[00:20:13] Yeah, and that experience is very it's varied and I think one of the reasons why it's varied is mainly because you have to make sure you understand your population before going into the automation route of front facing.

[00:20:30] So our population is very diverse in terms of age group type of role, you know being at a desk versus being not at a desk to have access to that automation. So really having that understanding across the board of what our population looks like.

[00:20:48] Drives the conversation about what we might do front facing from back office standpoint. I would say that anything could be put on the table at that point.

[00:20:58] Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I've seen many organizations that I've seen to have talked to it find a lot of the folks that are doing really well with it in the HR space or in the back office actually leverage it in their product or their front end customer facing stuff first.

[00:21:12] And I think that's what we learned and now they're able to kind of bring it to their workforce, but yeah, no, I think there's I mean how you have arrived at it probably doesn't matter. It's all about just what you can effectively use it for in your use cases right.

[00:21:24] I'd be curious to know too, so another way that I think HR organizations find themselves getting into the AI space is because of product that they use already or software that they use already isn't betting and fusing those making noise about those right and I just be curious to know if you have.

[00:21:43] You have some experience with certain of those where it's like, no, we're already using our CRM tool and now they're presenting to us these new features or we have access to something that maybe we're not using the newest features and a lot of those newest features are starting to be AI types of things.

[00:22:00] Yes, 100% and that's you know it's a great conversation that is kind of unfolding with me.

[00:22:08] And just our organization and how we're moving forward is the we do our applications they all have road maps that are starting to include AI and in those road maps I think for us it's coming back and trying to understand okay how does this impact our service delivery and

[00:22:30] the I would say gap between our service delivery and HRIT is in what we're bridging and really building a focus on is the collaboration and understanding the road map because you know when I when I first started in HR.

[00:22:49] One of those things was that conversation around so what can our applications even do and there there were times where nobody really knew.

[00:22:59] And we had to really explore that and now the same thing I think is kind of unfolding with AI is that it's being part of all these applications and we have to understand what can we even do to then apply that to our delivery model.

[00:23:14] And our HRIT team is doing a great job in helping us understand what we can and can't do from the road map perspective so we can look to evolve our delivery model.

[00:23:25] Yeah, it's competing and overlapping right I think that's some of the challenges as everyone raises to you know to think about how they can help with embedded automation.

[00:23:36] And then you end up with these gaps but you also end up with areas that are overlapping or there's a really strategic element of figuring out how am I going to put these things together.

[00:23:46] To get the best of whatever you know my world of road maps right available to me.

[00:23:52] You know what I've always kind of wondered I mean are have been wondering recently more you know really to both of you like how do you localize AI right because because you know you mentioned kind of what you can and can't do.

[00:24:03] But that could be different in every state by the time I mean like we know New York has some rules but maybe other states don't we know the you have some rules but other countries don't yet.

[00:24:12] I'm sure they'll follow along but like is there going to be this need for for for folks and maybe even software providers to almost have localizations at the of their AI you know I don't I don't know if that's the right terminology, but you know how do you manage all that right.

[00:24:29] That's a really it's a really interesting call out to because I think you know you start to because they're absolutely all right there's different states with different laws especially if you were to try to move.

[00:24:42] AI into leave of absence space like there's a lot of information that exists in that area that would make it hard to have a generalized AI model you would have to be very specific and methodical around that approach even into the point of where you start to.

[00:24:57] really leverage PII data and then what are the risks with leveraging PII data because yeah that's that's a very challenging experience as a whole and I mean we saw it going through the pandemic with.

[00:25:12] Just processes in general not even talking about AI and all the variations that we're hitting through the state so it became a very difficult process to manage.

[00:25:23] I think that's a very difficult process for me to do that from a compliance perspective. I'm excited to kind of ask these questions this year on on the road with with vendors. I think you know Julia you are probably maybe poke on this too is like.

[00:25:33] What happens if some state or country start saying that you have to opt in or out of AI? I mean I think that could happen and it and I hope it doesn't because I think you'll suppress innovation but.

[00:25:43] I think that's a very interesting area that we're going to have to figure out because to Julie's point anything being built now it's just infused right it's kind of on all the time like netflix or Spotify uses AI right or algorithm so.

[00:25:56] Yeah it's going to be interesting see where this goes. I think there's another related dimension to that we can talk about like can you mention the front facing and knowing the audience and just the wide gamut of of.

[00:26:09] Ages or backgrounds that you might be interacting with and we've just talked about you know now the localization but what about engagement and experience and figuring out what the balance is between.

[00:26:23] I want to automate and I want to make things more efficient and wait a minute I want a personal touch here because whether it's leaves or something else you know benefits related stuff where there's a human element.

[00:26:36] You know maybe you could but should you yeah that's that's very good very good perspective because. The customer experience is the biggest thing and you know thinking about HR's customers your your customers are your employees and your business thrives on your employees so.

[00:26:58] You want to make sure that experience is as positive as possible and balance the weight between self service and AI versus making sure you're taking care of the employees you know I think about. What I've always driven in terms of my.

[00:27:15] Context center service desk is average time and I've always disregarded that as like a core performance metric because I want to make sure they're.

[00:27:24] Supporting the customer and taking care of the customer because the customers are employees think that starts to apply to the AI conversation of how much do you want in that front facing of a chatbot.

[00:27:37] To really try to drive self service before you say okay we don't want you to be frustrated with this experience so we're going to get you to somebody else.

[00:27:44] Yeah yeah all right so I we talked a lot about some of the audiences in the front facing and the you know the cool HR type stuff I want to appeal a little bit more to that your your back off this background and your IT background Kenny and ask you about data quality and there you know there's a lot of.

[00:28:02] Realizations I think happening in a ha moments as folks start to think about what would I even do what how would I automate what what do I need to have.

[00:28:11] That really puts their data and their data quality under a microscope I think have you run into some of those things as you've been. You know working around this area. Yes yeah absolutely and.

[00:28:29] And you know leading with data is a is a key function when you're going through automation because you got you have to understand what's in front of you and some in the air doesn't really work in this perspective because if you want to target what you're working on to get the most value you got to know it's there.

[00:28:47] And I always go back to the front of the old adage right shit and shit out that's really what it happens with data so when you put that perspective you have to go and look at.

[00:28:59] What are you even putting in to the data and I look at you know categorization of support cases. You know you have your categories and sub categories if those aren't accurate you may not be able to get a good perspective from AI process money.

[00:29:14] To point out opportunities for you to improve your delivery and that's where you know we've had to take some steps back to say okay we really need to improve our data structure and quality going in to be able to fully leverage.

[00:29:33] And I think even if you look at like generative AI and where that's pulling from that's all pulling from content of potentially created by another person or another AI.

[00:29:49] And that starts to create you know an element of concern because who wrote that what did it come from where did it come from and if you're doing things internally completely proprietary then not could be a different conversation but if you're pulling from externally facing information.

[00:30:10] You might not be what you really need. Yeah and and at least this right into something that we've talked about a little bit here and there over the month over recent months and that is.

[00:30:20] What about on HR's mind always is the security controls and the risk of exposing PII or company specific information because you're trying to.

[00:30:31] You know you're trying to enhance your processes with AI like what sort of learning stuff you had there I think you've been in the thick of it a few times. Yeah definitely and and you know the proprietary information is definitely part of it I think as.

[00:30:47] And the chat GPT as an example is really started to gain traction gain popularity. There there was definitely a communication as I talk to employees that were like hey we could probably use this as like yeah we might be able to use something like this but.

[00:31:04] Take a take a minute and understand what the tool is from a security standpoint right it's very open you should not be using proprietary information in it because we don't control that at all and I think that's has shifted the conversation to you know where is this.

[00:31:23] Generally of AI platform house who has control over the data going into it and do you do. AI that's cloud based or an on premises solution and that's the type of controls that I think are starting to really.

[00:31:41] Working businesses to say like do we on prem can be very. There's definitely a sort of. Can we talk to them and also just because it is a very well said I'm going to be called.

[00:31:53] But for a security standpoint it might be the best option to maintain any information you have also in terms of P.I. data do you just avoid it completely. Do you not connect it into a realm where you're using anything with P.I.

[00:32:10] pushed into a direction that's just generalized where you can't necessarily get a specific and but then you might not have the realization you want. Yeah, and then how behaviorally do you even make sure that your organization is kind of following the protocols

[00:32:27] that you set up versus just going to any open browser and you know, heading chat to PC themselves or part or anything that they might want to use and just doing it in the spirit of, you know, trying to breathe more efficiently or be more insightful.

[00:32:43] There's a change management element that's just crazy to think about there. Yeah, it really is and I also think that, you know, I think we all go through annual cybersecurity training that AI and generative AI that exists in the world

[00:33:01] probably needs to be a part of that training every year to make sure everybody understands what they can and can't do or shouldn't do when it comes to AI as it really unfolds because just talking about gener, there's so many AI's now

[00:33:15] that are out there that can be used for so many things that probably need to have fully valuations on before you before you use it. Yeah, I think we're going to see a lot of the wild west right before we before we get to civilization in this space.

[00:33:31] And I'm sure there are some folks that will make some tragic missteps and others that will find their way, you know, a lot more cautiously. Does the stakeholders that, you know, you're kind of leading us right into some great conversation around who

[00:33:47] who owns this and what kind of governments happens and it reminds me of the things that we saw when a few years back when robotic process automation kind of became a big thing and every functional area was starting, you know, to try to dip their toe into it.

[00:34:03] And IT was trying to lead some things and operations folks would try some things. Are you seeing similar wild west, you know, governance type things happening? Is folks dive into the AI waters or what have you seen or experience there that you could share?

[00:34:22] So I'm definitely starting to see more even in other conversations I had more centralized teams around governance and automation in general regardless of AI, machine learning, RPA. And that's where I think of the structure really needs to come into play. Is that centralized model a little bit because

[00:34:47] the wild west creates the most risk? If everybody is off trying to do their own thing, we are better together than we are individually. And thinking about different things is it needs to be a a broader approach.

[00:35:03] I know when I have conversations with AI and our team members that really support AI, legal gets involved, IT risk gets involved. Like we really try to make sure the right people are involved before having those conversations. And it's not an HR only conversation.

[00:35:25] It's always going to be an HR plus conversation, especially because I can't have a full conversation on IT risk. I can't have a full conversation on legal. So everybody really needs to be involved in the conversation.

[00:35:38] It can start internally but as you actually go to development and employment, it becomes a broader conversation. And I think you mentioned this earlier, like change management is huge and when it comes to AI because of so many fears that are currently

[00:35:56] that currently exist around AI that you really want to make sure you're as transparent as you can be because everybody needs to understand what's happening even those that are going to be using it. Like if you get into front facing, making sure everybody understands

[00:36:12] what it is because that fear of just dropping it in can worry your employees. Yeah, are you seeing more fear? And initially this is pretty nearly buzz more fear or more excitement. If you had to put it on a scale which one's winning right now.

[00:36:30] I'm not sure either is winning. I think there's definitely a good amount of excitement but I definitely have seen some fear as well or at least excitement with a little bit of doubt in the background that I want to see it before when it happens.

[00:36:47] I'm hopeful for the best that I want to see it when it happens because of that whole aspect as well if you're simplifying my role what happens to me. And that's where really having that transparency in place of how you operate with AI, what's the past forward?

[00:37:08] What does it look like versus we're just adding AI? Like that full picture kind of needs to come into play for everyone so they don't have that fear you can work through that fear. Yeah, there's an education element to this in addition to the change right? Totally.

[00:37:26] For sure. I think Kenny that the one thing that you will find folks just jumping at the bit to ask you, any time you're talking about AI with peers and other practitioners what's the list of the low hanging fruit stuff?

[00:37:42] Like what could I hope to do and do maybe quickly or first and like where do we start and where should I look first? Have you gotten that kind of your own low hanging fruits that you could share with folks out there?

[00:38:00] Yeah, I have some that I can point out that definitely should be that should have a look when you're looking at low hanging fruit. One, I'll start in general eyes and I'll give maybe a couple of specific examples but

[00:38:16] when I look at automation opportunities I look at volume first. Like if we're doing the same things over and over and over and over again I really want to understand why.

[00:38:29] Because if we have to do something over and over and over again then the volume is high enough. The work is repetitive enough that AI might be or automation in general might be a very good

[00:38:43] approach so taking that leading with data approach of saying okay where is my scope of support what in that scope has high volume transactions has that is not very variable and can be worked through in a process map pretty quickly.

[00:39:03] That's where I would probably start to target first and say let's take a look at that because that can create capacity for our teams to do something else and potentially even improve an AI like you know if I could free up my frontline employees

[00:39:19] to improve tier zero self service content that might be a good opportunity because then I'm improving let's say a chatbot or that content to then create even more capacity for my team to do something else

[00:39:34] and I'll take it to you know here's at least one specific example when I look at leave of absence in the complexity that exists in leave of absence where I have seen some fairly common standardization could be in return to work processing.

[00:39:51] I think a lot of companies that I've talked to have had very structured ways that they do their return to work processing and they're looking for very key items in those letters

[00:40:04] and if they're all the same then why couldn't AI read the letter confirm that it's a certain structure or yes it is and then process why does a person need to do that now if it's let's say

[00:40:17] return with restrictions the AI can pass it to somebody else to understand what those restrictions are but it could eliminate a large portion of that work and really focus on what we need to focus

[00:40:29] on which is those restrictions and not aspect and that's just one example really of a potential opportunity of volume transactions and have some structure that AI could potentially clear through. I love that you've hooked at leave of absence because we just talked with Keith Christiansen

[00:40:48] on all over the messy, messy business of leave sorry Pete what were you going to say? Well I was going to say yeah that's a great point Julie the the leave orchestration pain that we've talked about I think there's a great opportunity, great opportunity for AI here to

[00:41:00] connect the dots on all the pieces and parts that have to happen when you take a leave but but can you just as a maybe a side shoot here do you have to have do you have like a governance team

[00:41:08] over kind of governing AI I mean how do you how do you set up internally to sort of decide these things and figure out what's a chase next and how we roll it out and how we you know is there

[00:41:17] something like that established do you need that? I definitely think you need that. I think you absolutely need a governance a governance team that can monitor where yeah what's value add what you know what's the process design because I think it goes back to some of

[00:41:37] that conversation where there's resistance to using AI simply because they don't know how it would work yeah like I can't build that process behind it so a governance team that really understands

[00:41:48] it and can drive the education but also demonstrate this is how we could do it with AI helps to bridge that gap between teams that would want to use automation but they're just not

[00:41:59] sure how to get it started. Yeah and someone's I guess has to decide you know where the money gets the resources to get put towards these things right you can't chase everything so yeah that's

[00:42:08] interesting. Yeah for sure well I know we could talk about this probably forever can he is there anything we should have asked you that we didn't other than you know we will ask you how people

[00:42:20] can get a hold of you or where to reach you or what's next video but did we miss anything really key has even been through the the AI rarest there? No I think the only thing that I would say

[00:42:31] that I think we kind of talked about is when you think about automation try not to to frame it up in your mind about how it would work open just leave it open and if you look at a

[00:42:45] process and it's and you're like I wonder if we could do that with AI I have that conversation because my belief has been in what I have seen right we are some of our experiences and people

[00:42:58] that are doing this more routinely could have a very different approach to how to do something than somebody who isn't doing it and that's where I've tried to kind of take team members back

[00:43:11] and say take a step back and just is there a reason why we can't do it not how does it work but is there something specific that would cause us to not be able to do this because if there

[00:43:24] isn't what's have a conversation yeah that's great congrats can this is awesome and I'm excited I'd love to you to come back maybe in the future and tell us how it's all going

[00:43:34] be awesome yeah now this is great stuff i mean i think this is what you have to do right you have to start exploring and figuring out how to engage these things and elevate your you know what

[00:43:44] augment and elevate right but you know really enhance what you're doing so as a team so congrats really good stuff yeah i know you'll collect some information you're pretty good at sharing information on

[00:43:55] the guests and we're to find them or we're to reach out to them so we'll make sure we get that for a man can he yeah can you I assume we could get you on LinkedIn right yep absolutely yeah you think

[00:44:05] coming up we want to you want to promote here or mostly just just keep and keep in the light time in the operations keeping the lights on yeah don't you got an important task don't let that

[00:44:16] slip for sure man you know well thank you for coming on and look for the payroll confidence payroll profession confidence survey it's out there floating around that's right i think that's wrap right thanks everybody awesome yeah great episode good talking to you guys get to meet you Kenny

[00:44:29] good to meet you thank you right take care guys