HR, We Have a Problem - The Impact of economic shifts, the pandemic, and AI advancements on women in the workforce and how bridging the gap in tech can empower future female leaders.

[00:00:00] It's a little bit of a misperception we have that those who work with technology solutions are technologists at heart. Many are, but it's really about problem solving at heart. It's really sort of a product mindset and a problem solving mindset. And you get this

[00:00:20] incredible again toolkit of potential solutions, but it's up to you to design sort of the vision and the outcome that you're trying to achieve. Of course, women are good at that. I know there's no better problem solver than a single working mom. I'm telling you.

[00:00:37] Welcome to the HR Huddle podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource for all things HR. It's time to get in the huddle. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the HR Huddle. I'm your host, Terri Zipper, CEO and managing

[00:01:05] partner at Sapient Insights Group. And I'm back for another episode of HR, We Have a Problem. This is the show where we like to break down big and relevant HR issues of the day. We help you make sense of what they mean for you. And we talk about

[00:01:22] what you might do about them. Joining me today is Jess von Bank. Jess is now part of Mercer, of which I'm also an alum. So I'm excited to be talking to a Mercer alum. She co leads the now work community. She's considered a thought leader, analyst,

[00:01:40] advisor in the areas of HR transformation and digital experience as well as workforce technology. All things we love to talk about on this show. Welcome, Jess, I'm delighted to have you with us today. Oh, thank you, Terri. I love this conversation. And it's such an honor to

[00:01:59] be with you today. I'm already excited about the things we can talk about. When I hear my own intro. It's amazing to me that I can be in this industry for more than 20 years having these conversations and there's still so much

[00:02:11] work to do. I don't think it ever ends. There is and that's some of the things I want to talk about today because when you and I chatted, oh, a couple months ago, I think we talked about

[00:02:22] something that I haven't really discussed that much on this show, or if so, it was a little bit more tangentially. It's changes and challenges in the workforce, the impact, the economy and things like the pandemic

[00:02:37] or other changes like AI have had on the workforce and why some of these changes economically and industrially can seem to have a larger impact on women in the workforce. And I'm also interested in some of the work

[00:02:52] you're doing outside of work to develop future leaders and your views on how we celebrate leaders that happen to be women versus women leaders, right? I know that's a lot to unpack there. But does that sound like a good plan to you for our conversation?

[00:03:10] That sounds like an amazing plan. Then let's get into the huddle. So before we dive too deep, I'm curious how you got into tech and maybe the niche of HR tech in particular, and what excites you most about the tech world?

[00:03:28] So my very first job in this industry was as a recruiter. And I've worked all sides of recruitment from RPO to executive search to in house, high volume corporate recruitment. So on the practitioner side, sort of learning the art and science of recruiting, it was quickly

[00:03:51] apparent to me that candidate experience was completely broken. And that was when social media was still new and novel. We didn't have a lot of online tools. That was at the very moment we were starting to take job advertisements from printed classifieds to online career

[00:04:11] sites and job boards. Like there was a lot of innovation and discussion happening in the recruitment, talent acquisition, employer brand space. Employer brand wasn't even a term then. And I don't think people appreciate we used to have to open the

[00:04:24] newspaper and look for jobs. Oh, yeah, here's a job. Let me let me call this number or you know, send in a resume to this address. Yeah, it was very different world. Like the fax machine was always humming in the printer room. And those were resumes coming

[00:04:40] exactly. And so that was at the you know, sort of the ripe disruption of recruitment and talent when everything was becoming digitized. That's a lot different than digital transformation. digitized is like a step in overall digital transformation. And especially when I was doing in house high

[00:05:01] volume corporate recruitment, I ran the recruitment teams that hired 27,000 individuals in a single calendar year. So talk about figuring out high touch, high volume, multi brand enterprise. It was and so that's when I not only observed sort of candidate experience at scale, but

[00:05:22] recruiter experience, and hiring manager experience and connecting candidates to the business at the moment they were onboarded and became part of then their employee journey had to start. And that employee value proposition had to become true, it was just a promise until then now it had to become

[00:05:40] true and it had to follow their career development through the organization. It was an aha moment for me as an early career professional who kind of rose quickly through through the practitioner ranks. And that's honestly when when I

[00:05:56] became obsessed with the tech because I saw technology as a toolkit like a painter's palette to work with to design journeys and design experiences that got to value quicker, but not just felt better and felt easier for candidates for recruiters for hiring managers participating in the

[00:06:16] overall process. But time to value time to impact and really understanding the journey that candidate become employee was going was about to embark upon in the business. We talked about internal mobility, but I never saw it happen as a practitioner, I saw hiring managers set on their best

[00:06:36] talent, I saw all kinds of like policies that prevented people from applying to other opportunities too soon. So again, so this was like an aha moment for me as an early recruiting leader that we could do better, we could do

[00:06:50] better by people and it came through designing better journeys and experiences and the tech is a big part of that. Now that I moved through the HR tech, I wouldn't even say HR tech yet it was really the talent technology side of our

[00:07:05] ecosystem, a number of startup scale up providers, number of them were acquired. So I also became part of bigger organizations like SAP success factors. And it was all about driving clients to value, I was client facing, I was you

[00:07:21] know, sort of helping with tech adoption and getting them to value. And that's when I sort of became an evangelist more of a you know, an industry evangelist because connecting the dots between solutions and the stories and

[00:07:34] impact is still an art form a lot of solution providers are trying to master and I got pretty good at that. So I joined Jason Avrabook when he founded leap gen to help us do that at scale for enterprises trying to get to a better

[00:07:48] digital workforce experience better digital HR strategies for their function. And that's still pretty much what I do inside of Mercer today. Yeah, that, you know, it sounds very similar to, you know, my getting into tech, I just sort of fell into it,

[00:08:05] right? I, you know, of course, we took COBOL and other, you know, programming languages in college or whatever they required us to take to get our degree. But, you know, you just kind of sometimes you just raise your

[00:08:18] hand for things that nobody else wants to do, right. And once you take that leap, you kind of, I don't know, it's just an exciting place to be like, you can replicate things and you can see things improve. And like you said,

[00:08:34] you see this sort of growth in value versus just sort of this ongoing repetitive process, you start to see where you can do more, and how you can improve the process. And it's, it's, it's pretty interesting. And I know,

[00:08:49] you know, for some women, a path in technology, I don't know that a lot of people start out there thinking that's what they want to do. But do you see a specific path for women in tech? Or, you know, how do you, what

[00:09:04] do you see that looking like? Well, first, it's when I attend industry events as a technology analyst, it's still kind of a pinch me moment, because I never envisioned a career path in workforce technology. Again, starting as a recruiter, sort of obsessing over candidate experience and employee

[00:09:26] journeys, even I didn't envision that that would take me down a technology path. And I think that's a little bit of a misperception we have that that those who work with technology solutions are technologists at heart. Many are, but it's really about

[00:09:43] problem solving. At heart, it's really sort of a product mindset and a problem solving mindset. And you get this incredible again toolkit of potential solutions, but it's up to you to design sort of the vision and the outcome

[00:10:01] that you're trying to achieve. Of course, women are good at that. I know there's no better problem solver than a single working mom, I'm telling you, we figure out how to get from problem to solution 1000 times a day. And so you sort

[00:10:17] of understand that it's more about innovating. And it's about building and creativity and creating alignment and buy in around the vision, the strategy, the outcome that you're shooting for. If you happen to also be a technologist at heart, or a data geek at heart or a

[00:10:35] design wizard, I mean, those are amazing skill sets to add to add to the fact that you're an incredible that you're a visionary and a problem solver. You obsess over the problem and you can envision a solution and you

[00:10:48] can bring people on that journey. That's what we need in HR technology and workforce technology, because it's all about moving organizations forward on a broader transformation journey. And all of these technologies and solutions we're using, it's just a big

[00:11:04] bowl of spaghetti noodles that we got to figure out how to sort of like straighten out and get everybody to outcomes they need across different parts of the business. That's all about change and communication and design and problem

[00:11:18] solving using tech. And so I would I would challenge more people, women, underrepresented, disadvantaged minorities, like everybody who feels like this is a, you know, they're under represented in tech, go for it and do a better job of amplifying the natural inherent skills you

[00:11:39] already have, and understand how you can apply them in this in this way. Yeah, I think that's a great point. And, you know, you don't have to be an engineer, people put too much of a box around being in tech, right? And I think a lot

[00:11:54] of it, you know, your point is as well taken that solving problems, and being curious, because if there's one question that women are always asking it's, well, why do we have to do it that way? What, you know, why do we do it

[00:12:09] that way? This is the kid talking in us, right? Like, you know, I don't understand why we're doing it that way. And, you know, those are the kinds of questions that take you to the next level and get you to start thinking about,

[00:12:23] how can I do this differently? How can we do this differently? You know, how can we make this simpler? Because that's what a lot of this is, is how do we make it easier, not just to, you know, look for people in the

[00:12:37] market, but to have people come into our organizations to go on the journey with us to be, you know, great employees and have the opportunities that they that we want them to have in our organizations. Yeah, I think I think of that as fixed mindset versus

[00:12:56] growth mindset, fixed mind. And think about everything that's happening in AI, a fixed mindset would say what happens if this goes wrong, a growth mindset. And and those people are perfect in the realm of product development and innovation, AI and otherwise, would say what could happen

[00:13:15] if this goes right. And that opportunity is again, designing things to go right. Of course, it's up to us to make sure we're designing for the best outcomes for people first business outcomes will follow. But how do we protect

[00:13:31] and empower people and make sure that we win in this digital era, and in this age of AI innovation that nobody understands, nobody understands what's possible and where all of this could go even people who are deeply embedded in it every single day, I don't think we've ever

[00:13:48] had a piece of technology in our lifetimes, that we don't truly understand and cannot fully fathom that could be terrifying, or it could be the biggest opportunity we'll ever have. Yeah, we talked a little bit about changes in work and how

[00:14:05] some of these changes and AI being a big one that's coming. I mean, we had the pandemic four years ago, which clearly had a bigger impact on, you know, I think women in the workforce, what do you see? How do you see AI as it starts to

[00:14:22] evolve and what the impact might be on different groups within the organization? Yeah, I wrote an article a couple of months ago for HR executive, because I didn't hear anybody talking about it yet. And I, and I felt it was really important. And I

[00:14:40] still do. And that's the gender gap, not just gender, but I wrote about it from the perspective of the gender gap. When there is significant technological innovation, and we're always experiencing those moments from, you know, the fax machine to the internet to email addresses to modems

[00:14:57] to, you know, there's always something, but when you're significant technological innovation, what, what we call a printing press moment, something that really catapults like the trajectory of change is more extreme, it tends to historically proven, it tends to leave those who are already at

[00:15:18] a disadvantage, it tends to leave those disadvantaged even further behind it, it widens gaps that already exist. So if you're already underrepresented, disadvantaged in any way, underprivileged, if you're not at the table designing the future of whatever this innovation is,

[00:15:38] your potential impact and value that you derive from it is far diminished from those who are actually at the helm designing. And when you think about the impact on jobs, most of the immediate jobs that will be displaced that can and will

[00:15:53] be displaced first, are primarily held by women. And you can break that down and even further into other demographics. So women will lose their jobs first, which is not fantastic. And then it you know, we'll sort of go

[00:16:08] from there. But how can we make sure that not just women and disadvantaged members of the global workforce, but people, people need to win. There's this, this phobo thing out there fear of becoming obsolete, people are excited about AI, they see how it can positively benefit their

[00:16:26] lives. A lot of people are already experimenting, self learning, they're they're understanding how they can be using it in their everyday personal and work lives. Employers are not doing a good, good enough job of educating them and bringing them on the journey. But people

[00:16:43] are sort of figuring it out. And so we can see opportunity in silver lining, but there is still this inherent fear that it will come for my job. And so part of the education journey is not just what is AI and how does it work? And

[00:16:58] how will it impact the tasks you perform today? It's not going to displace jobs in my eight, but it will displace tasks, all tasks, some tasks, like that's what people have to understand at an individual level, if I work in

[00:17:12] customer service, if I'm a nurse, if I'm a truck driver, like this story needs to be told and really, you know, sort of personal and relevant ways so that I'm not worried about my job changing in a scary way. I'm, I'm

[00:17:26] excited about my job changing in a positive way. Will I thrive more at work? Well, everyday tasks that I don't enjoy doing get automated and be handled better than they are today. Or will I have an easier time doing the

[00:17:40] stuff that's very manual and repetitive for me today? We're doing a really bad job of this so far, I think we'll get better and better. That's the storytelling I'd love to hear more of because there is going to be disproportionate impact on women there always is COVID had

[00:17:59] disproportionately high impact on women, working moms, women of color, there always is every technological innovation, this is true. So let's change that narrative when it comes to AI and make sure we're telling an overall story that is hopeful that we can trust that we feel a

[00:18:18] part of we feel like we're on this exciting innovation journey instead of sort of being left behind or adversely impacted by it, and then tell that narrative for every group of people who stands to be disproportionately impacted if we don't intervene.

[00:18:37] And does that? Where do you see that sitting in the organization? Is that, you know, something that HR has got responsibility for is that at the executive level and really should be, you know, because I think there's things that the organizations could be doing today to help this

[00:18:55] conversation and to really, you know, put people at ease what this evolution is going to mean for them. I think HR has to be joined at the hip with the C suite because the C suite is most excited about efficiency gains.

[00:19:15] The immediate value is is cost containment, hyper productivity, efficiency gains, which if you keep that, you know, keep that rolling could mean headcount adjustments if we can now do three jobs in one or if we can now save 20

[00:19:34] hours a week here and there and there. Of course, any smart person would translate that into impact on headcount impact on future hiring, what's going to be, you know, hands hearts heads work? How does that translate to our people and talent strategies or workforce planning? That's

[00:19:51] where HR needs to step in and be part of that narrative to say, of course, AI can help drive impact and create business profitability and productivity gains that were harder for us to achieve before and but or and so what

[00:20:10] that means in terms of our people strategies might be a redesign of work or tasks or jobs or rethinking the way teams are structured or workflows are automated or streamlined. We still need humans in our organization and so our talent strategy or our workforce planning strategy

[00:20:31] becomes looks like this. And I think if people understand that fear of becoming obsolete turns into fear of potentially contributing value in different ways. And it tells me what I need to learn or do or understand as an individual to

[00:20:46] make sure I'm more impactful in my own role. And so I think it's, I really do think it's not just an HR responsibility. It's the C suites responsibility to articulate a vision for the business and what that means

[00:21:00] for the workforce into HR and for HR to continue that narrative and translate your talent strategies into what that means now and what that looks like in terms of execution. Now, I think it's something that every organization needs

[00:21:15] to be talking about and not talking at people. But talking with people about what this means. And, you know, it takes me back to the things we were just talking about. It's the the what if like, what if this happens? Then what could we do

[00:21:31] differently? What could we do better? What can we do more of? Not, you know, what can we do less of or how can we you know, take people out of the equation necessarily? I think there's a lot of opportunity for organizations

[00:21:43] and hopefully they're looking at what's the broader scope of capability versus just, you know, how can I increase productivity and reduce my workforce? And it shocks me every day working so closely with technology providers. I see it every day probably more than

[00:22:02] some. How many are out there out front leading the charge even selling and marketing AI stuff, product services, they're making it shipping it boxing it like fast and furious every day, but they're not taking the time. So they're educating the market and they're pushing this with

[00:22:20] customers. But they're not taking the time to make their own employees in their own workforce better AI consumers, better users and consumers of AI. And so and it's not just for your product managers and your engineers. They are not the only people who need upskilling on AI, they're

[00:22:37] going to get there themselves or by the nature of working on what they're working on. Everybody in the organization, everybody stands to gain by becoming a better and savvier and more confident consumer of AI services, not just your own, but everything it's impacting every part of

[00:22:57] our lives and employers who by the way are the most trusted institution in the world more than more than or more than social media more than government institutions more than news outlets. We trust our employers more than we trust

[00:23:11] any other institution in the world. Why would you not be the source of education and confidence and everything about the way AI is impacting not just my job, but the world? Yeah. And I think I imagining soon we're not really going

[00:23:27] to be saying those words much anymore. Right? Because it's going to be so much part of everything that we do that we're not going to call out Hey, this is AI. This is AI

[00:23:37] No, it just is. It's what we do. It's how we do it. And I, you know, I think the more people that can get brought into the to the fold of that, the better the better for the organization, the better for for the workforce and people

[00:23:54] in general. I know a lot of I think a lot of women got out of the workforce after the pandemic, they saw an opportunity to say, Hey, you know, I need to take care of my family, I need to do some things here. And I could see AI

[00:24:09] potentially having a similar impact on people where they're like, I don't think I understand this enough. I'm, you know, maybe it's time for me to get out. But a lot of people are trying to get back into the workforce now,

[00:24:20] just given the way the economy is going and the change is there, I think people want to go back to work, they get value out of work, they get, you know, they feel good about themselves when they do things that they feel like are contributing to business, right?

[00:24:36] And to their everyday lives. So it's going to be interesting. And to the future, I would say, I guess, speaking as a woman with children in the middle of her career, the impact and the purpose that I feel also has to do with

[00:24:53] the future I feel like I'm creating for the next generation. And I don't think that's exclusive to women. It's probably true for everybody who, you know, feels a sense of care about about the world we leave behind. But I

[00:25:06] definitely think about the roles, the type of work, the way my three daughters will perceive the types of opportunities they have available to them, the role they can play in the world, the type of employer they work for how they want that relationship to feel. I think

[00:25:22] a lot about that. And and, and it is true, there's a lot of studies that quote that women are more wary of AI than men, not just in business, but as parents and caregivers, women who are mothers in particular, because we worry

[00:25:37] about trust and authenticity and in a digital world, we worry about deep fakes and what's real and all of that. And women and girls are targeted more in online hoaxes or that type of thing. It's a future that is a little bit

[00:25:56] uncertain. And I and I think some people, women, I guess I'll speak for myself would rather have a hand in that in shaping and having a voice in that future than leaving it to the what ifs and seeing how it evolves. I'd rather be a part of that.

[00:26:12] Yeah, I would as well. I know you do some work outside work with groups for girls and women. Tell us a little bit about that and how important you think those types of groups are to, you know, helping young people and build their skills for the future.

[00:26:32] Well, I'm very, very proud to run a group, a nonprofit here in the Minneapolis area called diverse daisies. And we provide enrichment and empowerment opportunities for girls ages about 11 to 15 or so we sort of target that prime coming of age era that a girl experiences where they

[00:26:57] start to understand more about themselves and the world around them. They think deeply about their friendships and their social circles. They're often exposed to the broader world through social media for the first time, it's, it's just a very tender, you know, set of years where, where

[00:27:12] everything matters just a little bit more how they perceive themselves how they think about the world, whether or not they're bullied or harassed if they have access to mentors, opportunities, if they even see like sort of take the blinders off and see the bigger world as an

[00:27:28] opportunity to them. And so the way we think about programming activities and experiences is to expose them to all of that I often look for women doesn't have to be but I often look for women founders, creatives, entrepreneurs, community civic leaders, so that it's not

[00:27:45] just if you see it, you can be it. It's more than that. It's about actually immersing them in experiences and letting them have conversations and get their hands on things and like literally experience the world as if that was an opportunity.

[00:28:02] So we've done everything from learning about money and finance to hands on STEM workshops at engineering firms to touring broadcast studios. We do fun stuff too, like horse riding and baseball games. We're doing a retreat later this summer to do vision boarding and stuff like that.

[00:28:19] It's really about opening their eyes to anything and everything that could be possible in their future, and giving them confidence to know that there are people and resources and opportunities they can use as stepping stones. Yeah, they're very impressionable at that age. And

[00:28:38] there's so many things now that can detract from the kinds of things they should be out there doing, right? There's just so many things trying to grab their attention. For sure. My three girls are 15, 13 and 11. Right now, I was involved with this organization far before I became

[00:29:01] president and started running it. But I knew I knew as my girls got older, there just wasn't anything like this. There are similar things, but there was nothing really like this to help, you know, sort of, again, not just expose, but

[00:29:16] literally hold the hands of girls, you know, as they they sort of make their way in the world. And I see, I see the impression it makes, I see the impact it makes every single time. Yeah, yeah, I remember growing up, I mean, I was, you know,

[00:29:31] I'm Girl Scouts and things like that. Those were good, good things for girls to grow up in doing. But, you know, in my mind, there were two jobs, it was I could be a teacher or I could be a nurse. Yes. Right? I mean, you just that was

[00:29:48] it like that was the whole universe of things that I could potentially do as a young girl. So it's interesting how much that has changed. And, or at least I think it's changed. I think young girls see more than than

[00:30:05] just those opportunities, not that those are bad opportunities, those are great opportunities, but they're not the only opportunities. And, you know, I think organizations like that really help young people to sort of figure it out and see more than just what's beyond their neighborhood.

[00:30:21] And I think, you know, you mentioned earlier, the the fallout of women during COVID, it was 5.4 million. And you're right, many of them did not return to the workforce, or those that did. And this was a really interesting

[00:30:37] turning point. I'm not sure a lot of people caught those that did learn how to work on their own terms. And I think that was a that was a tipping point for us as a global workforce, people understood COVID to be an opportunity to

[00:30:52] work on their own terms. Sure, work broke for a lot of people, we did not design work for caregivers, and working moms and lots of other types of people. But we learned to make it work on our own terms. And I don't think we've

[00:31:07] lost that. And I think that's also what young people and girls are seeing that they can imagine, oh, as my own kids watch me working in a technology consulting industry, I'm either on the road or I'm at home in in my home office

[00:31:23] picking them up from school, I don't miss an activity. They see this like super flexible agency and personalization around work that I get to design work on my own terms so that I can contribute maximum impact and value in a way that doesn't

[00:31:40] look anything like it did 20 years ago. And so it's like this kind of like store perfect storm of things that happened where we broke work in lots of bad ways. But we broke it in good ways to now we get to to, we have more agency

[00:31:57] around the things we think we can do and what that needs to look like. I think that's a huge silver lining. Yeah, I also think it's one of the reasons why AI got just became such a force suddenly was because of the opportunity to

[00:32:12] really help that that new sort of work remotely work from home approach to things. Yeah. Now, do you see any other big global trends on the horizon that that may impact people differently? Yeah. And we talked with we've been really hopeful and I think

[00:32:34] an opportunistic in some of our our talk track, I still think there's a real issue around burnout, isolation, mental health. I don't think people are okay, all the time. And that trend gets it's the same or worse, the number of

[00:32:52] people who say they're burned out at work or burned out in their life. We've made it more okay to say that perhaps, you know, to have these conversations, even in professional settings, but we're not moving the needle on actually becoming more okay, thriving in our everyday lives

[00:33:10] feeling connected to each other. And I don't know that digital and AI and these, you know, I don't know that those are hurting or helping yet. Again, everything's up to us, we can design everything for our own value. If we're

[00:33:24] intentional about that. And I don't think we've I don't think we fully capitalized on the opportunity to help people feel a sense of belonging, feel more connected to each other, feel more fulfilled at work, feel well and thriving. We're not making enough progress. In fact, it's two,

[00:33:43] you know, one step forward, two steps back in many cases. And that's pretty concerning. Again, with young people raising young people in my household, I see, I see the impact of isolation and, and, you know, sort of getting buried in your phone and social media. And how

[00:33:58] connected are you actually to the world? And to people in a really human sort of way? And what does that look like when you start working? I mean, I think a lot of us feel that in terms of working to work connected. But is there a

[00:34:11] sense of connection? And so it's, it's just always kind of top of mind for me when I think about our overall human health. Are we actually as humans? Are we healthier and better than we have been in previous years? And I don't think the answer is yes yet.

[00:34:28] Well, and I think, you know, people the the work from home culture has probably impacted that in a little bit of a negative way, because it was hard enough to see when people were struggling when you saw them every day in the

[00:34:41] office. Now you don't even necessarily see them on a regular basis, you're you're you may be on conference calls or whatever the case is. And so I don't know that we, we check in with our teams often enough to see, you know, how

[00:34:57] are they doing? Not just Oh, I had a cold this weekend, but, you know, how are you doing in general? And, you know, and how can I help you? Yeah, exactly. It's this sort of zoom culture meeting culture hustle culture, we literally go back to back from

[00:35:14] meeting to meeting, at least we got to walk to a conference room in the old days and bump into somebody in the hallway and freshen or coffee in the break room, we don't even give ourselves that much anymore. And again, everything being

[00:35:29] online and digital and, and tracked trackable. It's, it's just a different sort of culture. Again, the power is in our hands to design technology is just technology. It's just a toolkit with a bunch of screw, you know, screwdrivers and hammers and wrenches. It's up to us to

[00:35:47] build what we want to build. And I think we're, I've seen some of the AI hype and and everything calmed down a little bit in the last year. And I think we're starting to think more reasonably, and hopefully from a more people

[00:36:02] first sort of perspective, like, what can this do? And what do we want it to do for our own good? So hopefully we're on the right path. Yeah, yeah, we're not building it for AI, we're building it for humans. Yeah, I hope so. What's what's

[00:36:20] one thing that you'd like to lead the audience today with that might help them think about, you know, their place in the work world or, you know, something else that we talked about today. I always like to give people a little bit of an

[00:36:36] assignment, like go think about this, or maybe do this and see see what happens, ask some questions. You know, I've, I guess it's the thing I say the most these days. And that's a reminder to bring everybody on

[00:36:50] the journey. It doesn't matter if you're, you know, sort of what your your demographic or your position or authority or whether or not you have direct access to privilege and power or you consider yourself one of the underrepresented or disadvantaged. There's a lot of disruption and change

[00:37:09] happening in organizations and when especially if you're an agent and a leader, and you know, you're a designer and a visionary of these things, I would just encourage everybody to pause and think about everybody who is impacted, affected, who could be part of the journey, like literally

[00:37:32] bring everybody on the journey. There's no peanut butter spread for this. You can't say well, we put a learning course out or we made a corporate announcement we with our leadership team covered this in the town hall, you have to break this stuff down into everybody who's

[00:37:47] impacted in different ways all of our experiences of work are our lived experiences are a lot our lives like how we you know, the lenses we look through are different for everybody and just put on those different lenses and think

[00:38:03] about everything from from all of those points of view and better yet invite them invite them to design sessions invite them to listening sessions get get feedback and report back to them like bring everybody on the journey. That way we

[00:38:19] it reduces sort of the fear, uncertainty and doubt that that some of us might have. But your outcomes are going to be better when you give everybody a voice in the conversation. I promise you the outcomes are going to be

[00:38:33] improved as well. So that's I've been saying that a lot lately, and I probably won't stop anytime soon. I love that mantra. It's great. I think it's it couldn't be more true in today's environment. Well, thank you just so much for joining me today. This has been

[00:38:49] a great conversation. I also want to thank our producers brand method media group and our marketing team and thank you for tuning in. That's all the time we have today for this episode of HR, we have a problem. If you like this

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