Where HR & Payroll Leaders Should Focus in 2025

[00:00:09] Welcome everyone to another episode of HR and Payroll 2.0. I'm Pete Teliakas and as always, I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome Julie.

[00:00:17] Julie Fernandez Thanks Pete. Closing out the year. I'm excited.

[00:00:20] Pete Teliakas Yes, yes. This will, yeah, you're right. We're closing out 2024. A lot to be happy and excited about, a lot to be proud of. And yeah, we're gonna, this is really gonna be our first episode of 2025. As you know, or probably recall me telling you, or maybe I've mentioned it on here, one of our most popular episodes every year.

[00:00:37] Actually, the most popular episode every year is our Where to Focus episode, where we give HR leaders the five things that we think that are gonna be really relevant for 2025 or the coming year in this case, 25. And we sort of opine on those and share a little bit. But before we jump into that, I thought we could just maybe recap 24 a little bit.

[00:00:54] Yeah, I'm excited to hear, you know, you do a great job of pulling together show stats and some figures to see what all has been happening with us and with our listeners and give it a roll. What do you got?

[00:01:06] Yeah. Well, look, we had a pretty big year, I thought, right? We, a couple of big things for us. We, we, we got on the Workday Forever Forward bus. That was amazing. Thank you so much to Team Workday for having us. We got to do that at HR Tech.

[00:01:19] Julie, did you know we recorded, I looked this up this morning, I think we recorded about 38, 39, something like that episodes this year. So, wow, what a busy year, right? Three of them, like I said, came from the Workday bus. What else did we get to do this year? Oh, we joined the WorkDefine Network.

[00:01:33] Yes, we moved over. Yes. Yeah, that was awesome. Joined a great cohort of, of, of thought leaders that are creating some amazing episodes and amazing content on there. So we got to be a part of that. That's awesome. And yeah, we're chugging along, right? So a couple of things I wanted to tell you, though. I was looking at some of the stats, you know, how you get the Spotify wrapped. You probably get that in your personal, whatever. Maybe you listened to too much. I don't know, Taylor Swift, whatever this year. It lets you know that.

[00:02:00] I think I had a lot of Fleetwood Mac and some other stuff in there, but, but anyway. So I was looking at our wrapped, if you will, for, for this year. Just incredible numbers, right? I think, I think our listenership went up about 140% on new listeners, something like that.

[00:02:42] Thank you.

[00:02:44] Some other countries that are pretty interesting. So all that's really, really positive and very happy about that. But yeah, I mean, I'm excited, right? We were gaining listeners and hopefully what we're doing is resonating. It seems like it is. We're getting a lot of great feedback, a lot of outreach to be on the show.

[00:02:57] So yeah, just stick and stay with us. We got a lot, we got a lot planned. I'd love to talk about our roadmap too, if you want, Julie.

[00:03:01] Yeah, yeah, for sure. But before that, let's just make sure, because some folks might not have been along with us for the journey from the very beginning. You know, people should know this is commercial free, you know, that there's no monetization, commercialization of what we're doing here.

[00:03:17] And so I hope that listeners find it's a really good way, a really good place to go for solid, you know, thought leadership that you don't have to subscribe to or, and it's just the best of what we can put out there. And that is our whole goal and intent. And that is truly a differentiator to other platforms that are out there.

[00:03:38] So yeah, we hope we bring in whatever it is people want to know and hear. And that's, that's kind of like our personal joint mission here.

[00:03:46] Yeah, no, I think, I think it is. And, or I know it is, but I think that's, it is why I think we're having a lot of folks resonate with it is the fact that we are, we're really just trying to learn.

[00:03:55] And we're sharing the access we have to these amazing leaders and practitioners and stories to hopefully make it, make it usable for someone else. So hopefully we've, we've done that.

[00:04:05] Yeah. But yeah. So look, what do we have on tap? I'd love to talk about that.

[00:04:09] So yeah, we've got a lot coming, right? Guests, we have guests lined up, a tremendous set of folks that are knocking on the door, wanting to be a part of the show, folks that we want to reach out to and get it, get on the show.

[00:04:19] Again, we try to do it very organically. We try to center these conversations around conversations that we've actually had touching on some of these subjects or posts of social media posts that folks have on a point of view or various different thought leadership articles or whatever that they put in.

[00:04:35] out there. We try to bring it from that point of view and then certainly opine off of that or spring off of that and ask questions. So more of that to come. So just hang in there with us. We've got a lot of cool, trying to bring as many of my friends as I can and share what I, what I get the experience.

[00:04:48] And I know you'll do the same, Julie. The other thing you should look out for, we have, it's not new. We've had a YouTube channel secured out there for a while, but we're going to be standing it up. We're going to be bringing more video episodes like this and others. In the past, it's kind of been a special thing. We've done mostly audio, as you know, I personally prefer the audio. I think it's just quicker to digest, but the social media world loves videos. So we're trying to bring more videos. So you'll start to see more of a YouTube channel that's going to incorporate these episodes as well as thought leadership from Julie and I both.

[00:05:17] Hey, as if just getting into podcasting wasn't terrifying enough, right? I mean, it's gotten very comfortable, but now you got to flip on the video screen.

[00:05:24] Yes.

[00:05:25] Not my favorite either, but a lot of people like to listen and watch.

[00:05:30] Yeah. Just be yourself. Just have fun. That's what we do here. So yeah, you'll see us doing more video, more stuff. And hopefully you'll see us doing more episodes from the road. I want to try to record some of my more candid conversations that are out there. I know you're doing the same, Julie. I'm hoping you're going to bring more of your Gen Z insights. Those are always fun with you.

[00:05:47] You and Nico and your family. Those are good. I love it. And maybe I need to do the same. I've got some 20 somethings in the workforce, a couple of frontline workers, one that's off the college soon, one that's a realtor. So I've got a little bit of everything we could talk about in my world.

[00:06:01] Yeah.

[00:06:01] But yeah, more episodes coming. YouTube channel is coming. And yeah, look for us on the road. I think you're going to see us do more episodes out there. I know I want to do that. And yeah, just stick and stay with us. We're growing every day and we're trying to do the best we can. So hopefully you will get more value out of it.

[00:06:17] You know, I feel like something we really haven't nailed. Well, we have a LinkedIn page. That's an easy page for people to go and leave us some feedback or share some ideas of what you might want to hear about or something, a use case of yours. Right. Like I would love to see a little bit more feedback, you know, that, that can help us.

[00:06:36] Yeah.

[00:06:37] And find the right stuff.

[00:06:38] Yeah, no, we do get some good feedback. So those of you who've reached out, those of you who've been with us since day one, thank you. And those that just pop in and out, we're happy to have you as well. You know, share it, share, like, and rate us, right? I understand we get some better rankings that way and more, more surfacing to in the algorithm, if you will, if we've got some rankings. So yeah, give us, give us a thought, give us your feedback, give us a, give us a like, a share, maybe give us some stars if you can. That'd be great.

[00:07:04] All right. So Julie, I wish we had a drum roll. I think we do have a drum roll here. I should find it somewhere on here. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Drum roll. There it is.

[00:07:16] There's our first ever corny, corny sound.

[00:07:20] Sorry, we'll get better with that. But anyway, no, drum roll, right? We've got our 2025, where should HR and payroll leaders be focusing? And yeah, I thought we could do that, right? And normally what we've done, we've kind of gone back and forth and then I had a shared one.

[00:07:33] But this year I think we're going to do my two, we'll do your two, and then we're going to talk a shared one as well. Hopefully these are helpful. Hopefully you agree. We'd love to get your feedback on them if you disagree or you've got others.

[00:07:44] But yeah, let's see what we think here and jump right into them if you want.

[00:07:49] Okay. Yeah. I knew that first. I think we agreed. So what you got?

[00:07:52] Yeah. Well, look, I did a lot of thinking after our chat with John Lee over at Work From Anywhere. And we talked a lot about return to work and a lot about flexible working.

[00:08:04] Look, I think everyone knows there's a lack of talent to go around. There's a lack of skills, more importantly, to go around. We're all trying to develop those skills, try to find those skills, hopefully retain them.

[00:08:14] But I think it's kind of the year of what I like to call stop fighting it, right? Like I think there's just so much angst around work from home, the four-day work week. We're starting to hear more of that.

[00:08:25] I know in Europe, there's even talks of it here in some places in the US.

[00:08:30] I'm sure you, Julie, as a leader have been around plenty of organizations that have been very successful with flexible scheduling.

[00:08:36] I know a lot of folks that love that in their careers have done that for years.

[00:08:39] But I think you've got to realize that now more than ever, opening up channels of talent to more diverse sets of pools of talent, looking for talent in ways that you maybe didn't find it before, is also going to mean meeting them with the enablers, the flexibility enablers, to let them shape and help them shape a very meaningful and fitting work environment to the extent that you can.

[00:09:02] And I understand there's going to be nuances. And I think that's part of this, right? Is there's not going to be a one-size-fits-all. There shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all.

[00:09:10] But I think you really got to stop fighting this. And I think you got to start mixing and matching the very long game, infinite-minded ways that you can engage talent.

[00:09:20] And that might be working from home or working from anywhere. Now, that might be an extreme to some industries in some sectors, but I think there are other ways, right?

[00:09:29] Again, the four-day work weeks, the flexible scheduling, or just coming up with creative ways to engage people to where the work can still get done.

[00:09:36] The customer can still be put first. But the employee's needs and desires and goals and all that can be considered so that they can return value back.

[00:09:45] So my message here is stop fighting it. It's time to get agile. It's time to get lean in terms of how you're thinking and really start to lean into – excuse me, don't get lean.

[00:09:57] What did I say? Lean into these agile methods to get you on a path to kind of thinking out of the box, if you will.

[00:10:04] Because I think fighting this stuff is just – it's not working out, right?

[00:10:08] Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:09] It's not working out.

[00:10:09] Like anything else, there's no one great way. I kind of feel like this is becoming part of the threads of a company's culture.

[00:10:18] Your industry drives whether you have folks that are in manufacturing plants. There's so many things.

[00:10:24] And yet, we've had a number of discussions with guests talking about how this can also be a differentiator.

[00:10:30] That same conversation with John Lee talking about how that becomes a benefit of sorts that attracts talent in its own right.

[00:10:38] Talking about – with various guests on upskilling and giving folks a chance to try different roles and different hats on in an organization.

[00:10:47] I mean, all those things are coming together.

[00:10:49] And they really support in just different lenses and different ways what you're talking about here.

[00:10:55] Yeah, yeah. And think about this too.

[00:10:56] Like think about like a flex schedule or a four-day work week.

[00:10:59] Now, I know a four-day work week is a little bit different, but a flex schedule can lead to a four-day work week for someone if they're working in a four by – I guess a 10 by four.

[00:11:08] But those things don't necessarily cost you anything, right?

[00:11:11] I mean, certainly you have to have a process and a policy and you have to manage that just like you would any schedule.

[00:11:15] But I think these are other creative ways where if money is an issue, right, if you don't have extra funding to do maybe raises or bonuses, these are flexibility enablers that you can put in place that won't necessarily take an investment or massive capital outlay, right?

[00:11:32] It fundamentally won't.

[00:11:33] And I think you can still raise a lot of morale in these ways.

[00:11:36] Yeah. Hey, and listen to the Gen Z interview at the end with Nico just recently.

[00:11:40] I've got a couple more of his colleagues and friends reach out and I might do another couple of snippets for different things that they – like there's value in the younger generations that they place and this sort of stuff.

[00:11:53] Oh, yeah. Flexibility is huge.

[00:11:54] I was talking to a young lady the other day.

[00:11:56] She's an Uber driver.

[00:11:57] She was graduating this fall, this December, I guess would really be it.

[00:12:01] And she was really excited.

[00:12:02] And I asked her what she was going to do.

[00:12:05] Was she going to stop being an Uber driver, student Uber driver?

[00:12:08] And she said, you know, I really like the flexibility of this and I have a couple of other things that I do.

[00:12:13] And she's like, I want to try to juggle all of those things.

[00:12:15] And I thought it was kind of interesting that, you know, where you would think like, oh, this is my sort of job during school.

[00:12:20] She's like, no, I'm going to carry this on.

[00:12:22] This is – you know, and she likes that autonomy.

[00:12:24] So I think this generation does expect that flexibility, right?

[00:12:28] And so, yeah, you've got to meet them for sure.

[00:12:29] And we've seen others where, you know, people will just bug out, you know, like, okay, I'm doing a job.

[00:12:34] I'm just going to stop working.

[00:12:36] Yeah.

[00:12:36] Because I'm going to do something for three months or, you know, have some other experience and then they're back.

[00:12:41] Or they want to flow back and forth, right?

[00:12:43] Yeah.

[00:12:43] Why not, right?

[00:12:44] If they're talented and they're skilled and you need them at the right time, I mean, I think having that engagement,

[00:12:48] keeping that pool of warm, if you will, and available is – there's never anything wrong with that, right?

[00:12:55] You've got to cultivate talent wherever you can.

[00:12:57] Yeah.

[00:12:57] Yeah.

[00:12:57] Yeah, sure.

[00:12:58] Get creative.

[00:12:58] Well, lots of downstream HR things, right?

[00:13:01] Yes.

[00:13:01] To solve for and even just trying to wrap your arms around that one.

[00:13:05] So that's got all kinds of dimensions, Pete.

[00:13:07] Yeah.

[00:13:08] Yeah.

[00:13:08] Absolutely.

[00:13:09] Absolutely.

[00:13:10] All right.

[00:13:10] What's your number two?

[00:13:11] Yeah.

[00:13:11] So my next one really kind of inspired me a bit from just all that we've heard all year.

[00:13:16] As you know, I spend a lot of time in the fintech world, so financial wellness is a big part of what I listen to and talk about and get involved in.

[00:13:24] But one of the things that came out of my webinar with the team at Chime with Jason Lee was just this need for a holistic wellness strategy.

[00:13:33] I think that there's – and this is probably the case with a lot of solutions out there, right?

[00:13:37] There's so many little point solutions now, right?

[00:13:39] It solves this or that.

[00:13:40] We've got plenty of financial wellness tools.

[00:13:42] There's a lot of mental wellness tools.

[00:13:44] We've got a lot of health tools, obviously.

[00:13:47] But wellness is all of those things and more, right?

[00:13:49] And that's specific – just like everything, it's specific to generations and specific to each person, right?

[00:13:55] Everyone's got a different sort of journey and path and where they started and where they're headed and the challenges that maybe they have or don't have in their world.

[00:14:03] So I think that what we've got to also be thinking about is just more of a holistic approach to wellness, right?

[00:14:09] It's not just financial wellness.

[00:14:10] It's not just mental health.

[00:14:12] It's not just benefits.

[00:14:14] It's all those things.

[00:14:15] And how can all those things work together in a way that's going to also provide that flexibility that we talked about, right?

[00:14:21] Not being the one-size-fits-all, but being able to play agile in a way to be able to give people the autonomy to shape what's going to fit their needs.

[00:14:30] And so I think that's really key.

[00:14:32] We talk about the five or six generations in the workforce.

[00:14:35] I think it's five.

[00:14:36] All have different lenses.

[00:14:38] All have various different scopes of where they are in wellness, right?

[00:14:42] And what's important.

[00:14:44] So I think this is something that if you're not already thinking about a holistic approach, you've got to start doing that.

[00:14:50] And I think you have to start looking at solutions that can solve for more than just one use case or more than just one population.

[00:14:56] And that's something that we talked about a bit on there is how the financial wellness solutions are really becoming geared towards platform-based solutions that can meet multiple use cases.

[00:15:04] And I think that's where wellness needs to go as well.

[00:15:07] So yeah, it kind of goes together with that flexibility theme I had in terms of agile enablers.

[00:15:13] You know, I think there's a real taxonomy thing going on with the idea of wellness because as you said, there's benefits.

[00:15:19] That's been its own thing.

[00:15:21] And then you start adding voluntary and some other flavors and shapes and forms and navigation.

[00:15:25] Retirement, yeah.

[00:15:26] Okay, that's a thing.

[00:15:27] Then in years past, we've seen benefits kind of cede to total rewards, right?

[00:15:32] And you get the compensation angle.

[00:15:34] And now when people, I think, generally talk wellness, they can have all sorts of lenses when you apply that.

[00:15:42] It could be overarching.

[00:15:43] Maybe wellness is something bigger than benefits and bigger than total reward.

[00:15:48] Some of it's sector-specific.

[00:15:49] And other times people are talking about a specific genre of wellness, right?

[00:15:54] And so I think we trip all over ourselves sometimes with some of these taxonomies because everybody's defying things a little bit differently.

[00:16:01] And so figuring out whether that's a bigger world than, you know, benefits and rewards or whether it's a specific financial wellness or specific thing.

[00:16:11] Yeah.

[00:16:11] That's just going to be a little bit of taxonomy pains probably.

[00:16:17] Yeah, yeah.

[00:16:18] I think it also means, too, you've got to know your workforce, right?

[00:16:22] I mean, this is where your engagement and surveying and pulse checks and performance management, all these things should be coming, surfacing data to you that you can collectively use to understand what your workforce wants, needs, and desires.

[00:16:35] And so, yeah.

[00:16:37] No, I agree.

[00:16:37] I agree.

[00:16:38] There's a lot to think about here.

[00:16:39] It's a lot.

[00:16:39] It's a lot for the business, for the HR, for the frontline manager, and hopefully the tech and all of the new insights are coming along to help people out.

[00:16:50] But, yeah.

[00:16:51] No, I would agree.

[00:16:52] There's a lot to do here, and I think you've got to think about it big picture but then have micro solutions, right, that can solve all that.

[00:16:59] So what do you got, Julie?

[00:17:00] All right.

[00:17:00] Well, so for my first one here, I wanted to put forward the return, just a return to the end-to-end mindset.

[00:17:08] Nice.

[00:17:08] Yeah.

[00:17:09] You know, that means something different to everyone depending on what role they're in.

[00:17:13] So, you know, if you're a payroll person, a payroll practitioner, you might think of payroll end-to-end or, you know, functionally, you're thinking about your area.

[00:17:22] If you're shared services, that might mean shared services end-to-end.

[00:17:25] Yeah.

[00:17:25] But, you know, a little bit less your COE buddies or your HR business partners.

[00:17:30] And, in fact, you know, the end-to-end mindset is something that I think needs to be the next lever to HR, payroll talent, all of us HR domain people, figuring out how do we do more with less.

[00:17:45] Yeah.

[00:17:45] That is always the job or the mission.

[00:17:49] And do it better, right?

[00:17:50] Right.

[00:17:50] And so that's the most frequent request of all.

[00:17:54] And we're now seeing more tendency to bore into the really messy functional areas like leave administration or hourly workforce timekeeping, scheduling, right?

[00:18:05] Like everybody wanted to do talent, you know, like talent leadership type stuff in years past.

[00:18:11] Now we're getting down to the nitty-gritty and that's cool.

[00:18:15] And we start to realize that getting into end-to-end process means sorting out the service catalog and identifying gaps or eliminating overlaps where, you know, you have unclear roles or coverage where skills are being redefined, you know, by the way that we do work as we talk about it, you know, and as technology advances.

[00:18:37] And you can't just talk it from a technology standpoint or, you know, people, process, technology, they're all intertwined.

[00:18:45] And looking at it from end-to-end is, you know, is critical.

[00:18:51] I have a great call out on leave administration, right?

[00:18:55] Yeah.

[00:18:56] That's arguably one of the biggest pain points.

[00:18:58] Even in our payroll survey, they pointed out leave administration.

[00:19:01] It's the one process I think we pick on the most here.

[00:19:03] It is.

[00:19:04] It is.

[00:19:04] And in the leave administration, you know, literally 60 or 70% of leave activities end-to-end are done by your leave team, whoever that is, and done by the carrier, the third-party administration.

[00:19:16] But that leaves a third of everything that happens in the leave processes end-to-end to other stakeholders.

[00:19:25] And so more and more, we're finding folks that have been diving into their own functional area of responsibility, realizing, wait a minute, there's technologies and systems that aren't my leave system that are really crucial to how this is happening.

[00:19:38] And there's payroll and there's, you know, business partners and managers.

[00:19:42] And if you don't kind of broaden your lens, you limit your ability to really make things more efficient and effective and, you know, and a better experience, right?

[00:19:54] Yeah.

[00:19:54] Yeah, you're right.

[00:19:55] I think sometimes we all can get caught in silos, right?

[00:19:58] And I think you're right.

[00:19:58] You have to start looking at these things in a very, you know, I hate to use the word synergy, but synergistic way, right?

[00:20:04] How is all this going to work together?

[00:20:05] And I love the idea of what agentic AI can provide for those, connecting those systems together that don't necessarily, yeah, they may be talked together, but they're not in the same worlds, right?

[00:20:16] Again, leaves, you've got some folks, mostly it's an HR thing, but a lot of what goes on in the leave experience has nothing to do with HR.

[00:20:22] It's facilities and access and all these other things.

[00:20:25] And so, yeah, I think there's a lot of hope for that, but you're right.

[00:20:28] I think in your design, right, in your process design, hopefully we're leaning into the technology and letting it drive us towards the best practice that, you know, I guess best is, you know, subjective.

[00:20:39] But the best fit practice for you based on where, you know, the things are heading in terms of trends and the right way to behave with these tools.

[00:20:48] But you're right.

[00:20:49] You have to break down these silos and start thinking in a broader space and start thinking more long term, I think, and less right now, right?

[00:20:56] Where am I heading?

[00:20:56] And I do think, you know, following the trends and themes we've been talking about all year, I think some of those hairy hourly areas, whether it's leaves, timekeeping and scheduling, compensation and how that all intertwines with performance and finding and upskilling talent, like those are top candidates, guys.

[00:21:17] That's what, you know, and payroll.

[00:21:19] We have to throw in payroll just because we love payroll.

[00:21:20] Yeah, there's so many steps.

[00:21:22] But yeah, I think those are the areas where we're going to see it the most.

[00:21:25] Yeah, no, I love it.

[00:21:27] I mean, it's exciting.

[00:21:28] It's exciting, right?

[00:21:29] It's just a matter of whether or not people are really leaning in and doing these things, right?

[00:21:32] It's all there.

[00:21:34] It's just, you know, we got to do the hard work, I suppose, sometimes that we don't want to do.

[00:21:38] Right, right.

[00:21:39] All right.

[00:21:40] What else you got?

[00:21:40] Next one.

[00:21:41] You know, I had to take dibs on the AI one from a particular lens for me.

[00:21:47] Okay.

[00:21:47] Going into 2025.

[00:21:49] Going into 2025, really, my mind is around AI in action and AI readiness.

[00:21:56] Yeah.

[00:21:56] So, you know, the providers develop things and the market starts coming out with a lot of stuff long before people really are using it and know what to do about it, you know, know how to leverage it.

[00:22:07] And so I really want to focus and see focus this year on AI in action.

[00:22:12] And I have a few, you know, thoughts about that.

[00:22:16] First of all, for leaders and practitioners, we did a study mid-year at Heron Palmer that showed that over half of leaders in our space pursue AI as a center of interest, right?

[00:22:30] Which means, you know, it's just somebody that is just lends on to something they want to try, they want to do.

[00:22:36] And so it's not maybe as formalized as you might think.

[00:22:40] It's not always that, you know, there's some mandate.

[00:22:43] I think we'll see more mandates, but it takes kind of a champion, right?

[00:22:48] To stand up and to think, I'm going to try to make something happen.

[00:22:52] I also think when you're thinking about how to put that into our HR environment today, you know, you've heard me say before, look first to see what's already a part of your environment or your roadmap.

[00:23:03] Because, you know, that is a, that is an easier path to tap into something that is a strategic part of your world already.

[00:23:12] Yeah.

[00:23:13] Than to go out and find, you know, some standalone something.

[00:23:16] Sometimes you need to stand alone, but, but look to see what you've got.

[00:23:20] Yeah.

[00:23:20] And then, you know, figure out what your, you know, are you to prioritize with a framework or do you have a use case that you're particularly passionate about?

[00:23:30] And, and once you have some idea, what am I even trying to do?

[00:23:34] Then you can start thinking about, well, what's the tool or the features and how do I make a tactical plan?

[00:23:39] And, you know, and, and what do I do to actually give it some legs?

[00:23:43] And it's something that we're being asked to do increasingly with HR leaders.

[00:23:48] And, you know, those things can take super different paths depending on what they're trying to do with AI, what tools they have.

[00:23:55] I mean, like everything, it's a very unique journey and it's, it's got a lot of potential, but it's also a little bit frightening for folks.

[00:24:03] Hey everybody, I'm Lori Rudiman.

[00:24:05] What are you doing?

[00:24:06] Working?

[00:24:06] Nah.

[00:24:07] You're listening to a podcast about work and that barely counts.

[00:24:11] So while you're at it, check out my show, Punk Rock HR, now on the Work Defined Network.

[00:24:16] We chat with smart people about work, power, politics, and money.

[00:24:20] Are we succeeding?

[00:24:21] Are we fixing work?

[00:24:23] Probably not.

[00:24:23] Work still sucks, but tune in for some fun, a little nonsense, and a fresh take on how to fix work once and for all.

[00:24:31] Yeah.

[00:24:31] And how does it enable their roadmap, right?

[00:24:33] I mean, I think some people forget the vision sometimes in the roadmap and they just say,

[00:24:36] Oh, I want to do this, right?

[00:24:38] I want to do AI.

[00:24:38] I want to do RPA.

[00:24:39] It felt like that's what that was for a while.

[00:24:41] But I think you have to say, like, how are these things enabling whatever strategic outcome you're trying to achieve is important too, versus just sort of storming out.

[00:24:50] Yeah.

[00:24:50] And, you know, the more I've thought about and kind of leaned into what sorts of things HR leaders near here are really looking for, the more I recognize for myself that I, I myself, have to make it personal, right?

[00:25:07] I have to be looking at AI as some, you know, a tool that I need to gain proficiency in because it's a tool.

[00:25:14] We're saying it's a tool.

[00:25:15] It's not a solution.

[00:25:15] It's a tool.

[00:25:16] Prompting is a skill.

[00:25:17] Yep.

[00:25:17] And so that means you pick an area of, you know, need where you're like, wow, well, this could really help me with something.

[00:25:23] What do I even want to do with it?

[00:25:24] And if I want to try to do something, where's my sandbox or my safe space where I can do it?

[00:25:29] And what tool do I use?

[00:25:31] And, you know, just becoming, you know, proficient in our own right.

[00:25:36] It could be as something as simple as I know, you know, we're going to have a few guests on.

[00:25:40] Yeah.

[00:25:41] We have coming up in January, our first like AI making it real or AI in action conversation with Amy Travis, who I was inspired by.

[00:25:51] And she actually started messing around with AI to do some meal planning for her family.

[00:25:57] Yeah.

[00:25:58] You know, and I'm like, this is so cool.

[00:26:01] Like, I don't have to start trying to make a chat bot that answers everybody's questions out there in the environment.

[00:26:06] I need to figure out what the heck this stuff does.

[00:26:08] That's what's wonderful about it, right?

[00:26:10] I mean, it's very experimental at this stage.

[00:26:12] I mean, obviously getting sharper and much more common, but yeah, I love it.

[00:26:17] I love that practitioner perspective.

[00:26:18] There's a lot of folks when they start, you know, there's this innate fear about will AI, you know, replace humans.

[00:26:25] And I think, I think, you know, the popular opinion or the guiding light for me is it's unlikely to replace humans.

[00:26:32] They won't replace humans, but humans with AI will eventually replace humans without AI.

[00:26:38] Yeah.

[00:26:39] And the younger generations are just naturally going to have it, right?

[00:26:43] And there's no avoiding it.

[00:26:44] It's like other things.

[00:26:45] And so they're going to replace us anyways.

[00:26:47] We don't want to work that long.

[00:26:48] Yeah.

[00:26:49] But there is a part of those five generations you talked about where you have to figure out how to deal with this.

[00:26:56] Yeah.

[00:26:57] Yeah.

[00:26:57] How do we get it to do the monotonous work so I can be more creative and emotionally intelligent?

[00:27:01] Yeah.

[00:27:01] And springboard that.

[00:27:02] That's what this should be about.

[00:27:03] And you're right.

[00:27:04] It can't be just about replacing.

[00:27:06] It's got to be about augmentation and lifting us up, right?

[00:27:09] Making it easier to do things.

[00:27:10] So.

[00:27:10] Absolutely.

[00:27:11] Yeah.

[00:27:11] I love innovation.

[00:27:12] I love all of it.

[00:27:14] I know.

[00:27:14] I know.

[00:27:15] And so that's enough on that.

[00:27:17] I know we'll have plenty of additional things going on in the coming year around that.

[00:27:21] Why don't we move to the one that we both, you know, kind of felt some love around that we wanted to save for the end here?

[00:27:27] Go ahead.

[00:27:27] Yeah.

[00:27:28] Well, like anything, I think you have to have, you know, we've said this, right?

[00:27:31] You have to have a roadmap.

[00:27:32] You have to have a plan.

[00:27:33] You've got to know where you're heading.

[00:27:34] You know, what does, how is AI getting you there?

[00:27:36] That sort of thing.

[00:27:37] But one of the things I think is very important, regardless of what you're transforming, and especially if you're talking about AI, you have to have readiness, right?

[00:27:46] You've got to be, what we were calling it, fitness, I think, when we were offline.

[00:27:49] But are you ready?

[00:27:50] Are you fit for it?

[00:27:51] Are you ready to do it?

[00:27:53] And is the organization ready?

[00:27:54] And I think, and I know, one of the biggest key areas that you've got to be thinking about in that readiness is integrations and ultimately data, data health, data cleanliness, data readiness, right?

[00:28:05] To be able to, the quality of that, to be able to go into and execute on these AI projects and more advanced transformation projects.

[00:28:13] So I think it's a key, you know, it's one of those things, don't put the cart before the horse, so to speak.

[00:28:17] But I think you've got to be looking at your data quality, your data governance, how well and how ready your organization is to actually go and activate that data in a large language model or in an AI environment.

[00:28:28] And I think, you know, it's just one of those things, like don't overlook it, right, is what I think we're saying here.

[00:28:33] Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[00:28:34] You know, I had a, just even over the weekend, I had kind of a like, wow, I remember the day, right, when building out knowledge bases, you know, especially outsource providers and different providers.

[00:28:46] I mean, like that was a discrete effort and a huge one, right?

[00:28:51] And a big part of that effort was organization and then drafting different flavors of policies.

[00:28:58] And I mean, it was massive and very few, but the largest organizations really got to something useful.

[00:29:04] And so it kind of went silent for a while.

[00:29:07] And now just the new tools allow us to deal with data, data cleansing, data variations and content without having to slug through it in the same old way.

[00:29:20] Right.

[00:29:20] Yeah.

[00:29:20] And so I'm looking forward to seeing, like, do we see a little bit of rejuvenation of the idea that with content generation, I don't have to, you know, store it all in the same place and create 50 flavors and label and tag them and stick them in different, you know, places.

[00:29:36] Like, you know, do we see, you know, do we see that bubbling back up again because it's now become very practical?

[00:29:43] I think it has to.

[00:29:45] And I think data governance and data ethics and quality are going to be really, I think they're going to be really, really key.

[00:29:51] And you're going to see investments in that.

[00:29:53] You're going to have to because people are going to, I mean, are you going to be able to use data with your customer that you can't say you can trust?

[00:29:58] I mean, are you going to do that with your employees?

[00:30:00] Hopefully not.

[00:30:01] But I think that that's going to be a major and data protection, right?

[00:30:05] We've had some conversations about that as well.

[00:30:08] Data is key.

[00:30:09] Data is the new gold, right?

[00:30:10] And you've got to, you know, the richer, the cleaner, the better quality of the data, the more, you know, less bias orient, you know, tainted, I guess you could say, are going to be the folks that can win with it and maybe even productize it in some ways.

[00:30:24] So I think you've really got to be looking at your data in a different way than you have ever before.

[00:30:28] And it's foundational to anything that you're going to do.

[00:30:30] I think for me, that just leads us to, you know, the piece where you kind of slipped it in earlier around integrations.

[00:30:36] Yeah.

[00:30:37] And we know APIs are already big buzz, right?

[00:30:40] Just a different way of connecting data.

[00:30:43] Bidirectional.

[00:30:43] In real time.

[00:30:44] But just rethinking connectivity while you're looking at data is such a lever to optimizing everything.

[00:30:54] And so figuring out what data is owned by who, where is it, you know, where is it passed off readily?

[00:31:01] Where is it just doesn't even recognize it's the same kind of data?

[00:31:04] And we've done some episodes like with Jerome around, you know, around AI being able to figure out how to connect data in different ways, right?

[00:31:13] Self-healing data.

[00:31:14] Yeah.

[00:31:14] So everything about looking at data and systems, which some HR leaders are like, yeah, okay, that's tech guys.

[00:31:20] I don't want to deal with that.

[00:31:21] Right.

[00:31:22] But everything about looking at that data and systems through that functional lens as a whole and figuring out how it connects and how it moves and who owns what.

[00:31:32] And the API buzzword and a number of other buzzwords out there, I think, are all connected to this number five, right?

[00:31:39] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:31:40] I think, yeah, we've probably hammered it home here.

[00:31:43] But, yeah, quality data is going to be key.

[00:31:45] So tighten up your data.

[00:31:47] Get ready.

[00:31:47] Get ready for the revolution.

[00:31:49] All right.

[00:31:50] Data fitness.

[00:31:50] I've got a better chance at a resolution with that than I have about, you know, like any kind of aerobics or, you know, other thing that usually goes on your New Year's list.

[00:31:58] I'm sticking with data fitness.

[00:32:00] All right.

[00:32:01] Yeah, everybody can do data fitness, right?

[00:32:04] No excuses.

[00:32:05] No excuses.

[00:32:06] Well, very cool, Julie.

[00:32:07] Well, that kind of wraps up our where to focus.

[00:32:09] I hope this has been helpful.

[00:32:10] I know I always enjoy these conversations, Julie.

[00:32:12] But, look, it's been a great year.

[00:32:14] We're excited for 2025.

[00:32:16] And, yeah, Julie, anything else to add?

[00:32:18] No.

[00:32:19] I mean, we just keep going at a pace that sometimes amazes me.

[00:32:24] It's an awful lot to keep this much stuff moving and flowing.

[00:32:27] And thank you for all of the, you know, the things that you do and bringing teams together to keep us moving.

[00:32:33] And, you know, we really just want to want to help create a community out there and excited for whatever that means in 2025.

[00:32:41] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:32:42] Absolutely.

[00:32:42] We'll look for more HR Impairial 2.0.

[00:32:44] And Happy New Year, everyone.

[00:32:46] Take care.