HR, We Have a Problem - The pivotal role of HR technologists in navigating technological advancements, building communities, and solving complex problems in HR.

[00:00:00] Welcome to the HR Huddle podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource

[00:00:09] for all things HR. It's time to get in the huddle.

[00:00:20] Hello everyone, welcome back to the HR Huddle. I'm your host, Terry Zipper, CEO and managing

[00:00:25] partner at Sapient Insights Group, and I'm back for another exciting episode of HR We Have

[00:00:31] a Problem. This is the show where we break down the big and most relevant HR issues of the

[00:00:36] day. We like to help you make sense of what they mean for you, and we talk about what

[00:00:40] you might do about them. Joining me today is Dr. Dennis Hill. Dennis is the chairman

[00:00:45] of the board for IROM. He's also a co-founder of the consortium DEHR, focused on the

[00:00:52] core HR in the metaverse, which is interesting. He's got advanced degrees in engineering, business

[00:00:58] law. He's got a lot of different certifications and human resources, technology, manufacturing.

[00:01:04] He writes a lot and presents a lot. So if you haven't heard of him or read him, you

[00:01:09] need to look him up and we'll provide some more details later on in the show. Welcome

[00:01:13] Dennis, great to talk to you.

[00:01:15] Terry, it's great to be here with you. Thanks for inviting me today.

[00:01:19] Yeah, I'm excited about this topic. We work closely with IROM to share our insights and

[00:01:25] research around HR technology and hopefully educate future generations of HR technologists.

[00:01:31] Dennis and I were recently discussing the founding of IROM and just the importance

[00:01:38] of the community and the HR technologist role, which has obviously become pretty pivotal

[00:01:45] in HR. And I wanted to talk about how that's evolved, its growth, its development, community.

[00:01:50] Does that sound like a good plan to you, Dennis?

[00:01:52] That sounds a good place to start, Terry.

[00:01:55] All right then, let's get into the huddle. So I thought what might be good for the

[00:01:59] audience is maybe to talk a little bit about the history and just the backdrop for IROM.

[00:02:05] It's a really interesting story about how it was founded and how this group came

[00:02:09] together. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that and what the original charter

[00:02:13] was and what problems the organization was really trying to solve.

[00:02:18] Sure. Well, IROM goes back now to 1980, but organizations supporting the human resource

[00:02:26] professional date back to the mid-40s or so. The interesting thing is that HR has evolved

[00:02:34] over time even in its nomenclature when we think about the personnel office and moving

[00:02:39] that to the human resource office. And today, most of the officers that are leading the

[00:02:45] charge and their organizations have the title with the word people in it. You're the chief

[00:02:48] people officer as opposed to the chief human resource officer. All of this to direct the focus

[00:02:55] on people. And where IROM stepped in was a group of folks that saw the evolution

[00:03:02] of computing in the early stages as many computers. And in the late 70s, the introduction

[00:03:08] of personal computers were going to revolutionize the way we did transactions, whether it was

[00:03:14] maintaining people's personnel files or handling the payroll. That has become really the cornerstone

[00:03:20] of the organization, what systems, what technologies make sense. And so that was a natural starting

[00:03:28] point for HR folks to get together and form this international association for human resource

[00:03:36] information management. Up until that point, it was really very, it's the word I'm trying to think of,

[00:03:42] it was a nuance in the field because technology was being handled mostly by information technologists

[00:03:49] as opposed to HR technologists. And so IROM came forward with two things, one, the opportunity

[00:03:56] to network and build this community of like-minded individuals, but also to establish some

[00:04:03] parameters, some guidelines on what an HR IT professional should know, what those knowledge

[00:04:09] domains should include. And so the second component of our mission that's continued to this day is

[00:04:16] certifying people in this field. So we are the oldest and the longest serving organization

[00:04:22] in the world that evaluates and assesses the knowledge base of HR professionals to function

[00:04:27] primarily in the data management, information management space. Yeah, that's very interesting

[00:04:33] and that's global, right? So you've got people around the world getting those types of

[00:04:39] certifications. And I think the other thing about this group is the community, right? It's the

[00:04:46] other like-minded individuals, people are doing the same kinds of things and really trying to

[00:04:52] find people who are running into the same problems that they have, right? Oftentimes

[00:04:57] when you're in an HR technology role, depending on the size of the organization,

[00:05:02] sometimes you're kind of an island, right? Oh, absolutely. And what really brought this to

[00:05:08] the forefront of people's attention both in small and medium-sized businesses as well as enterprise,

[00:05:15] national and international companies was COVID. The pandemic caused every business,

[00:05:21] every governmental agency to rethink its people strategy. And we've never seen as rapid an adoption

[00:05:28] of new technologies as we have over the last half a dozen years, even though thousands of

[00:05:33] companies have come and gone in the space and some of them have been acquired, others have been

[00:05:38] replaced with better practices and better technologies. The reality is that the adoption

[00:05:43] of these technologies have to align with the business practices and the processes that

[00:05:48] are there. And without that alignment from knowledgeable people who understand the human

[00:05:53] resource aspect and the jurisdictions, see that's where the international comes in.

[00:05:58] Things are very, very different in other countries than in the United States. And so

[00:06:03] from the very beginning, IRMS had an international multi-jurisdictional perspective

[00:06:09] on the practices and the processes we use. And that really came out in a lot of the

[00:06:15] Zoom conferences that took place since March of 2020. That has really stimulated that growth

[00:06:23] in the like-minded community. And so today we have about 14,000 people in our community globally.

[00:06:30] The vast majority is still based here in the United States and Canada. But we work with,

[00:06:35] for example, the folks in Australia and Singapore, South Africa and so forth all around the world

[00:06:41] and have conducted a lot of seminars and webinars in conjunction with the HR

[00:06:46] associations in those countries. And that also was a natural stepping point because for our DEHR

[00:06:53] consortium, which John Macy out of Australia and I established a couple of years before COVID,

[00:07:01] just looking at the emerging technology such as AI and blockchain and those sorts of things

[00:07:05] and how they would impact HR technology. And then COVID, hey, everybody was joining the

[00:07:10] conversation. And that's where it's at today. Some have accused the HR field to adopt technology

[00:07:18] at an evolutionary pace, so-called pejoratively right at an evolutionary page, but COVID has

[00:07:24] really stimulated the revolutionary adoption of this technology in it. And so HR,

[00:07:31] traditional HR departments are no longer traditional, just like work. We're not going

[00:07:36] to go back to what work was in 2019. We've actually accelerated the pace, something as far as 40 years

[00:07:44] ahead. Had we continued at the rate of adoption of technologies, we would have seen a lot of the

[00:07:51] things who are adopted like what we're doing today Zoom, Zoom is just a routine process.

[00:07:56] But broad adoption of it on the trajectory it was on, 2050 was full adoption level.

[00:08:03] And when we look at other technologies that have been adopted much faster, like 5G. Everybody

[00:08:08] was expecting 5G to have about a five to six year adoption period and it was adopted in two years.

[00:08:14] As some of that stimulated again more readily through COVID because people wanted more powerful

[00:08:20] phones, more secure technologies and the ability to do more than just audio communication

[00:08:25] and texting. So all of these conversion technologies that are enabling us as people

[00:08:32] are having dramatic effects on workforces all around the world. And Irem in a solitary manner

[00:08:38] sits there really discussing things like data governance and people driven analytics

[00:08:46] and corporate strategies, that sort of thing involving technology. It's no longer an after

[00:08:51] thought it really isn't really thought into the HR strategic planning process and corporations

[00:08:56] of all sizes. Yeah, and we've also seen the role of the HR technologist really evolve right when

[00:09:03] back in the day when most of the implementation was on premise and things were a lot more

[00:09:10] challenging. A lot of that was IT right and the HR quote unquote technologist was really

[00:09:16] just somebody who was helping them understand what the requirements were for what they needed

[00:09:21] from an HR perspective. And then you sort of switch to this cloud based solutions where now the HR

[00:09:28] technologists and their teams can do a lot of that work themselves, right? But we're starting to see

[00:09:35] a little bit more of that shift back to IT in some regard just because of all the like you said

[00:09:42] the blockchain and the 5G and AI and all of these other things that are like okay these are

[00:09:47] outside of my realm how do I bring them now into HR and really seeing some of that start to involve

[00:09:56] a broader community again? Well HR practices have always incorporated some form of development

[00:10:02] and most people wouldn't think that computer science and computer systems development would

[00:10:08] occur in an HR department yet probably the most innovative applications of databases

[00:10:13] and spreadsheets were pioneered by people out of the need established in HR. We are the department

[00:10:20] and organizations that are responsible for the majority of governance so those things that come

[00:10:25] out of a board of directors is translated through the HR department because you have to determine

[00:10:31] what the impact is on your workforce, what the impact is on your overall business strategy

[00:10:36] and nobody operates like you said earlier these days like an island there are no islands

[00:10:43] there are tides that rise and drop and they expose different vulnerabilities of companies for

[00:10:49] example ransomware. You cannot afford to have your payroll system and your benefit system

[00:10:54] captured under ransomware and so what are the possible solutions there and how can we benefit

[00:11:01] from those immediately so that we minimize the risk the jeopardy to our business in such a way as

[00:11:08] makes sense. IT people focus on the technology aspect of this whereas HR IT people HR technologists

[00:11:17] understand the impact overall on the complexion of the company and a strategic planning

[00:11:23] its tactical implementation and the impact of that on their workforce doesn't mean we operate

[00:11:28] in a bubble because many of the things that we do too will affect the folks over in sales

[00:11:33] and marketing the people who are in purchasing and responsible for vendor administration nothing

[00:11:39] today compliments of the cloud largely and compliments of modern communication technology

[00:11:45] operates on at least an interface basis if not a totally integrated basis and so a vulnerability

[00:11:51] anywhere in the supply chain whether that's a supply chain of product or supply chain of people

[00:11:56] is a vulnerability that can impact all sorts of organizations that might only have a buyer

[00:12:03] customer relationship and that's where things get viral that's where things get very interesting.

[00:12:09] Now who is the typical member of IROMD is there a typical portrait or does it span the

[00:12:17] gamut of types of resources? People get nervous when I refer to our members as peculiar

[00:12:22] because that's not meant to be a negative term at all. They are problem solvers often times problem

[00:12:30] solvers where and we've seen that biggest transition over the last probably 20 years in the HR employee

[00:12:38] complexion where it was primarily transactional and record keeping highly administrative function

[00:12:45] a lot of that has become so automated at this point and augmented not only through technology

[00:12:51] but through artificial intelligence that almost all of that work is going to be gone by 2030 it is

[00:12:57] really in the people analytics side understanding what makes people more productive what kind of

[00:13:03] commitments an organization a business or government agency needs to make in order to

[00:13:08] stimulate lifelong learning among their workforce because we're at a knowledge pace today that

[00:13:12] we've never seen in the history of humankind. We're at a pace that requires everybody who

[00:13:19] wants to remain in the workforce to a reasonable retirement age needs to continue their education

[00:13:24] and professional development those are two separate things so the typical HR technologist is somebody

[00:13:31] who loves the people and loves the technology and that bipolarity has never really mapped itself

[00:13:39] into the typical HR employee they refer people oriented but again transactional and today

[00:13:47] there are people or at least the HR technologists are the people who can leverage technology and

[00:13:53] things like collaborative robotics and artificial intelligence and then be keeping in mind the

[00:13:59] security aspects of this especially in jurisdictions like the United States where we don't have any

[00:14:04] data ownership laws for example we in HR technology need to protect that information

[00:14:10] and we need to do so at our business level so the problems to be solved are infinite and the people

[00:14:17] to solve them are in great demand and that's where IROM and its HR IP certification kind of establishes

[00:14:24] that floor that minimum threshold at least to get people into that career path and then

[00:14:30] through continuing education programs and partnerships like we have with safety and insights

[00:14:35] that help help our people maintain that that leading edge yeah it's one of the things I like

[00:14:42] about the community because I mean you can google all you want to try to learn new things you

[00:14:48] can take some online youtube courses but there's nothing like having somebody who's done it

[00:14:53] who's been through it or is having similar experiences and sort of knowing

[00:14:58] people that you can just pick up the phone and call and have a conversation about

[00:15:03] some of these issues or challenges that you're facing and I think they get a lot of that from

[00:15:08] being part of a community and participating in some of the events that you guys do throughout the year

[00:15:13] well that brings us to the peculiar people remark too because the shortest distance between

[00:15:19] identifying the problem and solving it is working with people who've been through it

[00:15:24] and to do so with a familiarity and a trust that transcends what we would consider to be

[00:15:29] a typical vendor relationship right vendors are promoting they've they've got a conflict of interest

[00:15:35] they're there to promote their products so that vendor neutrality has always been a hallmark of

[00:15:42] irum's position in terms of our relationship both with the vendors and researchers at the

[00:15:47] universities and so forth so that that independence is there and that's where we get into the

[00:15:53] value of birds of a feather special interest group type organizations within our organization

[00:15:58] some communities within the community itself you know things like time and attendance or UKG

[00:16:04] product or SAP or Oracle they can explore that with the other users of those products and get to

[00:16:11] the answer quicker than had they not had that those mentors and peers by their sides now Dennis

[00:16:18] what do you see as some of the key problems HR technologists are trying to solve today and

[00:16:25] you know what are some of the things that get in their way

[00:16:29] well again COVID stimulated new discussions and took us off into different trajectories today

[00:16:35] wellness has been a topic of discussion maybe since the late 1990s and an avid area of research

[00:16:44] but today given the episodes of pandemic and the transference of these diseases in very rapid

[00:16:52] form and it really is a challenge for businesses to have a very clear wellness and wellness response

[00:16:59] program in their organizations changing technology has caused a great deal of stress in the workforces

[00:17:08] psychologically and the pressure that's been born there and then of course remote working

[00:17:13] not everybody agrees that remote work is ideal for them they like being in an office right

[00:17:20] and the statistics kind of bear that out that they'd like to be in the office at least a few days a week

[00:17:26] if not all days of the week but there are people who are embracing the remote working model too so

[00:17:32] HR is facing challenges on the accommodation side that we're not driven by the extremes

[00:17:40] that we see in disabled persons right disabled persons we have to put in certain ramps and

[00:17:45] certain works cubicles and things like that the ergonomic side of that again is that an HR

[00:17:50] function and ultimately it but it's not treated that way it's a facilities issue or a plant

[00:17:55] operations person or an office manager does those things but an HR person who's engaged in technology

[00:18:02] would have a command of things like ergonomics and remote sensing and wellness programs that

[00:18:08] support for example a fuller richer engagement of that work or within the organization

[00:18:14] and with the number of hours we spend regardless of the discussions in recent days

[00:18:18] on the value of a four day 32 hour work week that is not necessarily the same thing right and

[00:18:24] the studies are out there that show mixed results it's whatever a company chooses to adopt and I'm

[00:18:29] not going to take a position on this I'll simply say I've worked in organizations that have 40

[00:18:33] hour work weeks in four days and other days are acceptable people enjoy that they like their

[00:18:38] time off they like their longer weekends they'll take that over a scheduled pto any day

[00:18:42] but see these are the discussions that HR needs to lead not just facilitate and leave it up to

[00:18:49] people who don't have the training don't understand the impact and and worse all may not even have

[00:18:53] the research to go and discuss this with other people so the problems they're numerous and then

[00:18:58] we get into the where automation is coming into the picture right collaborative robotics where

[00:19:04] you see people working next to robots in a work cell doing these things as manufacturing

[00:19:10] comes back to the United States more and more for various reasons or as we're working with

[00:19:15] international jurisdictions and locations of companies collaborative robotics are not going

[00:19:20] to go away and this is a language that again HR people can either take a backseat to because

[00:19:25] they're just not interested in it or it doesn't apply in our organization look the fast food

[00:19:30] restaurants are working with all sorts of new modalities that way and HR is deeply involved

[00:19:36] in that because the impact on the entire workforce morale hours bonuses all of this changes in light

[00:19:45] of the injection of new technologies into our common practices that we've had literally for

[00:19:52] decades if not a century or more yeah and you mentioned earlier just the sheer pace of

[00:19:59] technology and yeah technology is moving fast anyway but at the same time the pandemic I think

[00:20:06] really accelerated things and its impact on HR has been pretty significant especially now with

[00:20:12] the organizations especially HR saying what are we going to do with this and how are we going to use

[00:20:17] it and what's the ethical implications of it and how do we get the most out of it and I think

[00:20:23] they're taking a little bit more time getting there on that topic but I think it's going to

[00:20:30] be a place where HR can have a lot of benefit but just imagine that it took humankind two and a

[00:20:36] half million years through our ancestors to get to the point where we could control fire to cook

[00:20:42] and it took 66 years to go from the Wright brothers flight to landing on them yeah I that's pretty

[00:20:47] amazing I know and it used to be a doubling of knowledge up until the 20th century was almost

[00:20:52] on a century by century basis so the knowledge would double over 100 years and that was pretty

[00:20:57] much the way it was for the last millennia and a half what's interesting today is that the amount

[00:21:02] of knowledge that will be produced by AI even without AI it was projected that we'd have enough

[00:21:10] processes among human beings to double our knowledge almost daily AI can double knowledge

[00:21:16] in a matter of minutes at its full strength and when we introduce for example into commercial

[00:21:23] marketplaces things like quantum computers we'll find that the thought processes the things that we just

[00:21:31] modestly experience today with generative AI which I call the Model T's Model T's and the knowledge

[00:21:37] era will just go away and yield to much faster faster processing and at a level that

[00:21:44] really humankind cannot even conceive and that's that may be in our lifetime young people

[00:21:50] like yourself would probably see that I'm just I'm just glad to see jets landing instead of propeller

[00:21:56] planes so yeah I'm old enough to know that it used to take like many many computer rooms

[00:22:04] for this right I'm holding my cell phone in my hand that entire probably multiple rooms of big

[00:22:11] stack computers are now inside my little you know rectangle box that I used to tell my students

[00:22:18] that that the Apollo process of putting people on the moon landing the lunar lander taking the

[00:22:25] Saturn V largest rocket ever made by people in the space was done with eight PDP eight many

[00:22:33] computers now I had one of these in my high school as a kid and I really was attracted to it and

[00:22:38] this is in the 70s so this I didn't intend to go into computer engineering and computer science

[00:22:43] I certainly didn't intend to be a professor or anything like that you get pulled in these

[00:22:47] directions based on the accidents we lead right to speak in philosophical terms but eight of these

[00:22:53] computers that had 4k of memory and magnetic tapes that you could see go back and forth and model 33

[00:23:01] teletypes of boom boom boom boom boom at most 120 characters per second at most put people

[00:23:08] into space and on the moon and this has at least five magnitudes of power well beyond that in the

[00:23:17] power of our in our hands and so to say that not knowing technology not embracing technology is

[00:23:25] somehow an acceptable way of living in the 21st century it cannot be avoided we can't evade it

[00:23:33] and so the great thing is workforces are always going to be here right at least always in

[00:23:37] terms of maybe the next century but you know what's going to happen this year people being born

[00:23:42] potentially at the early stages of this century may see the 22nd century in much greater numbers than

[00:23:48] people born in the early 1900s living to today and that's because of again AI AI adoption I have

[00:23:55] to mention that AI's least accepted adoption so far against all the industries least 15%

[00:24:02] healthcare and we hear a lot about it because it's so innovative but it's highly regulated

[00:24:05] too yeah and so when we talk about where the law comes down on AI and we talk about where ethics

[00:24:12] should be and we talk about where leadership and HR needs to be in the future all of this is going

[00:24:17] to come to roost at a point right there on HR's desk and if you're not aware of the technology

[00:24:24] and the impact it really won't matter what regulatory does you just have to respond

[00:24:29] to it or react to it ethics is critical what makes an AI application an ethical application and again

[00:24:36] these are things that some HR associations and I don't mind mentioning HRCI requires as part of

[00:24:42] your certification renewal an ethics course we don't compete with charm in HRCI in the

[00:24:48] certification space the IROM approach is to extend your knowledge from what would be considered

[00:24:54] traditional HR into the tech space and then to build your career along that way we could all

[00:24:58] sit around the the dining room table and agree that you cannot escape technology and as far as

[00:25:06] regulatory goes the law has always lagged technology so it's going to be those people with the vision

[00:25:12] the problem-solving skills the people who can foresee the strategic impact of certain technologies

[00:25:18] and practices that are going to lead that charge and that's traditionally not come out of

[00:25:23] the technical side of the business we have CIOs and CTOs but they apart from some analytics

[00:25:29] components that are out there very few of them rise to the office of say a CEO but many CHRs do go on

[00:25:37] to become CEOs of companies and or spin off their businesses for themselves the people matter

[00:25:43] the people are always going to matter now you talked about the community being having

[00:25:49] some peculiarities people being curious I think those are like some of the I guess not really criteria

[00:25:57] but some of the things you'd expect to see from somebody who wants to be an HR technologist

[00:26:02] is there some other from a career development perspective if somebody's listening to this

[00:26:06] and say this is interesting I'd like to get more involved in being an HR technologist

[00:26:12] what would you say to them oh I would challenge them with a homework assignment

[00:26:17] okay don't go get a free login on open AI chat gpt and type in what are the characteristics of

[00:26:25] a person pursuing a career in HR technology I know that sounds a bit flippant but it's actually

[00:26:31] an interesting exercise because it would expose you to interactive AI generative AI in a very

[00:26:37] in a free way and answer your question however it still comes down to fundamentally

[00:26:43] people in this field need to like people there's no room for being the nerd in the corner that just

[00:26:48] doesn't exist in fact almost without exception I can't think of an exception to the rule the people

[00:26:53] I have met at the HR IT space unlike the people I've met in the computer engineering space over

[00:26:57] my lifetime or other fields that are highly technical and STEM oriented and I believe HR

[00:27:03] particularly with the IT specialty the technology orientation is a STEM field

[00:27:07] they are people persons first and foremost so you have to have the soft skills you have to be

[00:27:12] able to get along with people and yet embrace with that natural curiosity that you talked about earlier

[00:27:19] technology you know omni is no longer printed but you're the kind of person who would pick up

[00:27:24] an omni magazine or cruise the web and check out the reddit discussions or watch youtube videos

[00:27:30] on how can I improve the performance of my laptop little things like that matter now do people do

[00:27:36] that eternally of course not they have their priorities but to try to improve the productivity

[00:27:42] and the wellness of a workforce that takes somebody who's a polymath somebody who can

[00:27:48] see the bigger picture through a number of different angles and HR people especially HR IT people

[00:27:54] need to be concerned with everything you know people say well what about your education

[00:27:59] I look in the background you know I have law degree and I have an engineering degree

[00:28:03] and I have a business degree and I have technology degrees and certifications

[00:28:08] and not just in the HR space but also manufacturing engineering engineering education

[00:28:13] these are all different places you're going to go and as a committed person to lifelong

[00:28:18] learning I can tell you that the greatest force for progress is education and training

[00:28:24] that's personal that's professional that's societal that's business the greatest force

[00:28:29] for progress is through that process of gaining new knowledge unskilling things upskilling things

[00:28:37] and then tying that all together through this thread of natural curiosity and the pursuit of

[00:28:42] solving problems because every day we have problems HR IT people are exactly the kind

[00:28:46] of people you want to have on a problem-solving team sometimes even if it has nothing to do with

[00:28:50] HR but they don't really have the time to do that but it'd be really great because most of

[00:28:54] them will sit there and tell you that no problem is unsolvable I love talking about that absolutely

[00:29:00] no problem presented to humankind is unsolvable with the with the mental capacity the problem

[00:29:07] solving insights we have as people we just have to put the team together and work towards that end

[00:29:12] yeah yeah you do tend to see people in these roles have a lot of different

[00:29:19] activities throughout their career kind of have an interesting understanding of the human condition

[00:29:25] in general and they're people watchers right so they kind of see what's happening and they can

[00:29:32] start to think about how to kind of put that into to motion if you will through technology

[00:29:39] but I definitely like like your background see people that just have done a lot of different

[00:29:45] things and sort of somehow navigate or migrate to HR and HR technology and it's always the basics

[00:29:53] right my publisher and editor a couple of my books she would say so why are you doing what

[00:29:59] you're doing I mean she knew I was going to write these books for small business people and so

[00:30:03] forth and I said I really don't know why I just feel like sharing the experience that I've had

[00:30:08] with working with students working with companies working with professionals working

[00:30:12] with associations there's a lot of common thread there and the problem solving process not

[00:30:17] necessarily in the end result or the technology or the specific path to get there but the process

[00:30:23] itself as she said well you know writing books is a really simple matter of recognizing that you

[00:30:29] are a writer well that was never in my business card I was never hired to be a writer you know

[00:30:33] what I'm saying it's just like I never thought of that and so in HR you might be the problem

[00:30:39] solver you might be the parapsychologist that day or the parasocial worker you know you might be

[00:30:45] the counselor you might be the disciplinarian the procedure enforcer and all those things

[00:30:51] come together in that person who will all and this is what makes it a peculiar group I'm

[00:30:55] going to go back to probably title this peculiar people right this will all come back

[00:31:00] to understanding that really only a few people possess the innate abilities

[00:31:08] the innate abilities they're born to this it's a natural flow for them they feel comfortable

[00:31:15] in the soul where other people avoid conflict and therefore conflict resolution is unimportant

[00:31:22] to them they'll deal with it in a very terse way if they must that sort of thing is what I'm

[00:31:26] talking about Terry yeah you'll drawn into this because of a natural thing and we see that too I

[00:31:32] mean many people who worked in old personnel current HR future people offices are people who may not

[00:31:39] have even graded well in a college in a college environment or even got a degree

[00:31:45] and today even organizations and publishers like us news and world report agree that sometimes

[00:31:50] the return on investment is not a college degree but found in a series of very well

[00:31:54] defined certifications and the military does that for example they have something called the

[00:32:00] cool program which transitions military to civilian service and to get there they want to take their

[00:32:05] real life experiences in the military no college degrees just a lot of great experience

[00:32:11] and get them recognized in the private sector through certifications it's a wonderful program

[00:32:16] and we're proud to be a part of that along with organizations like charm and so forth

[00:32:21] so experience matters yeah definitely they're a bit of a unicorn I think I'm wondering what do you

[00:32:27] think CHROs and HR leaders need to know or understand about technology and the people

[00:32:35] that are kind of guiding that within their organization is they're thinking that you know

[00:32:40] they need to have to make sure that those people are nurtured and deliver on the kind of work

[00:32:45] that they need from a people perspective that's a great question Terry it's one that begs a long

[00:32:52] answer because it's got to be part of the strategic focus of the organization itself not

[00:32:57] just in how it builds its HR teams but even how they interact there are many multinational

[00:33:03] organizations that have decentralized HR throughout and then they're located everywhere they have very

[00:33:09] little reason or rhyme so to speak to bring them all together and yet there's great power in that

[00:33:16] collaboration even within the enterprise itself so CHROs need I think some of the skills that

[00:33:23] that would qualify you for that position that would not have qualified you in the past are

[00:33:28] things like ethical AI it's not a production manufacturing engineering sort of thing where

[00:33:33] we're talking about it impacting the workforce and everything should and will when it comes to

[00:33:40] technology whether you're including AI by itself or you're embedding things like collaborative

[00:33:44] robotics or even the security issues so ethics is important data governance and data ownership

[00:33:52] again every decision by a corporation extends you into an area of liability and legal jeopardy

[00:33:59] that you might not have been familiar with in the past so it's important to keep those things in mind

[00:34:04] and organizational CHROs and I'm talking enterprise class small businesses let's say a small business

[00:34:12] in Texas looking to expand itself and might want to set up a shop across the border of Mexico

[00:34:17] for manufacturing and cost reduction purposes have multi-jurisdictional issues so this is

[00:34:23] not something that an SMB a small to mid-sized business shouldn't be concerned about either

[00:34:28] in fact if they have any goals as entrepreneurs and founders of the organization or family holders

[00:34:35] which a lot of businesses are in this country to grow that scalability factor is going to

[00:34:41] critically depend on the HR component of the business so your lucky cousin that's sitting there

[00:34:46] filling out the forms and maintaining the files and running payroll every other week

[00:34:51] is going to have to grow as that company scales and scalability is key and of course

[00:34:55] that HR component is critical to that probably more so now than ever before because

[00:34:59] workforce talent acquisition for example undergoing great deals of change talent development

[00:35:05] within the organization has shown now this digression or this bifurcation of roles you know

[00:35:11] I'm more of a traditional HR core HR but you know what your human capital management system

[00:35:16] has to be concerned with HR development so you have HR people in the core area and they

[00:35:21] have the HR development people which are looking at training and continuing education issues the

[00:35:27] wellness program and stuff like that and they're all the same they're on the same boat they're on

[00:35:31] the same boat and so the CHR needs to recognize that and invest and invest in the continuing

[00:35:38] education and professional development of their staff yeah completely agree I think that's the

[00:35:44] critical element of anybody in HR at this point and the CHRO's responsibility is is pretty heavy

[00:35:52] there well I think this has been a great conversation I am really excited about the

[00:35:58] community and I think if people are listening to this and thinking about being in HR technology

[00:36:03] or they're in HR technology and they don't have a community this is definitely something that

[00:36:08] they should look into and look at the opportunity of being a part of it one of the questions I

[00:36:14] usually ask is the last question is one thing we might leave the audience with and I know you've

[00:36:19] already given them a homework assignment which I totally love but is there anything else that

[00:36:24] you might leave the audience with some insight around the HR technologist or their future career

[00:36:30] in HR technology or just something that they need to be thinking about if they're in that space

[00:36:36] it's like anything that's a struggle Terry all good things are a struggle and when you look at

[00:36:42] the technology it's not funneling into something it's expanding like this and that whole knowledge

[00:36:52] increasing augmentation that's inevitable it's already happening the HR technologist could be

[00:36:59] that technology major it could be that computer science or computer engineering person that just

[00:37:05] feels this passion for people and working with people that has traditionally it's

[00:37:11] syncretic you typically don't have people persons and technology persons right yeah they were

[00:37:17] but if you're in that middle if you're in that Venn diagram center I would encourage you to go for it

[00:37:23] wholeheartedly and learn as much as you can and stay abreast of what you can so that you can

[00:37:30] be that problem solver for life and I mean of all the characters in Lord of the Rings who

[00:37:36] wouldn't like to be the wizard right course everybody wants to be the wizard the HR technology

[00:37:42] people whether you like it or not you're the wizards so I would leave you with that encouragement

[00:37:47] that if you're going to be a wizard be the best wizard you can possibly be yeah yeah and even if

[00:37:54] you're not in HR today I'd say you know one of the things I've been talking about on some of my

[00:37:59] previous episodes is different staff functions really starting to integrate more whether

[00:38:04] you're integrating with your finance team or your marketing team and learning about what's happening

[00:38:09] in other parts of the business you bring that back to or you bring that into HR for a better

[00:38:16] understanding of how the business makes its money and how it sells products or solutions and

[00:38:23] you know all of those things matter when you start thinking about people and the way that they

[00:38:27] work and how they get their jobs done but also how they're nurtured by the organization

[00:38:34] nurturing is key absolutely I totally agree with you Terry yeah love it well thank you Dennis for

[00:38:41] joining today it's been a great conversation where can people find you online because I know

[00:38:45] you've got a lot of stuff out there people ought to check out and do some reading and listen to

[00:38:50] some of your your other webinars and things well a good place to go is everybody's

[00:38:56] memorizing things on LinkedIn these days I tell you to go to oldsheldon.com but that's not up and

[00:39:02] launched yet make a mental note then it is yeah it'll be there a lot of things in common with that

[00:39:08] character to the point where I thought you know what if they've done a prequel they'll probably

[00:39:11] do a sequel so why not grab the domain early right small medium-sized businesses might find

[00:39:17] the books that I've co-authored and edited on on amazon.com LinkedIn like I said is a good

[00:39:23] place to start and then of course iROM I have to I would not be here today if it was not because of

[00:39:29] my affiliation with iROM I've been on the board since 19 2019 we've taken it through a lot of stages

[00:39:35] and changes and our partnerships with your organization and others have just blossomed

[00:39:40] wonderfully and exactly where we feel we need to position ourselves for the next 43 years

[00:39:45] so thank you very much check us out at iROM.org awesome well thank you again Dennis and

[00:39:51] thanks to our producers brand method media group our marketing team who's going to get this out there

[00:39:57] for you guys to hear and thank you for tuning in that's all the time we have for this week's

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