HR, We Have a Problem - The reinvention of HR in a post-pandemic world and how to leverage AI to better understand and retain talent.

[00:00:00] And this came about from an article I read where they were giving advice to the new democratic ticket just yesterday in the New York Times saying they have to understand the value of dignity at work and why this company, this country is polarized where people are just struggling to get ahead. It may not just be the price of eggs and milk, but it's because they're just not, it's inflation, but it's more than that. Their self-worth is not being recognized either personally or even at work.

[00:00:27] So a CHRO who understands that they need to listen and lead with empathy and recognize and reward and create a path and a career journey path. And there's very cool software, by the way, the tech stack that's out there that Burson talks about that I talk about, about career journeys, Terry, is unbelievably powerful and interesting.

[00:00:52] 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.

[00:01:06] Hello everyone, welcome back to the HR Huddle. I'm your host, Teri Zipper, the CEO and managing partner at Sapient Insights Group. And I'm back for another exciting episode of HR, We Have a Problem.

[00:01:24] This is the show where we like to break down the big and most relevant HR issues of the day. We help you make sense of what they mean for you. And we talk about what you might do about them.

[00:01:34] Joining me today is Mark Miller. Mark is the founder and president of his own HR tech consulting firm. He's an adjunct professor at NYU Manhattan College and a thought leader on HR and HR tech and all sorts of other things.

[00:01:50] But he's got a very interesting background. Welcome, Mark. I'm so glad to finally have you on the show. We've been planning this for a while.

[00:01:56] Yes, indeed, Terry. It's my pleasure. And it's delightful to see you even over Zoom. So it's always exciting to meet all friends in the industry.

[00:02:05] And I'm happy to be here and to participate in any way, shape or form that this ends up being, which is great.

[00:02:12] Well, I'm excited to get going because we almost like, you know, did all the exciting stuff in the warmup. So I want to get to the good stuff.

[00:02:20] Okay. And I know that you've been doing HR and HR tech for a while. So you've seen a lot in your day. I think I read in your book that you've got, you're the longest continuing sole proprietorship in HR tech history.

[00:02:36] Correct. I think so. It hasn't been proven by anybody who said, Mark, you're wrong.

[00:02:41] But I started in the industry in 80, no, in 73, when I joined a firm called Information Science.

[00:02:52] The founding vendor of the whole concept of HR technology, they had a skills database.

[00:02:59] And they then, for one time, and this led to the founding of what was known as SP, Terry.

[00:03:06] That was the founding organization that led to IRAM because the human resource systems professionals was the name of the society that transitioned to IRAM when the Canadian IRAM and the American IRAM merged to create HRSP many years ago.

[00:03:22] But I was one of the founding members of the New York chapter of HRSP.

[00:03:27] And that was 1980, 1981, believe it or not.

[00:03:31] And I started my life as a chemist.

[00:03:34] And it's interesting.

[00:03:35] As a chemist, it was, I was a pair of hands for a PhD.

[00:03:39] I wasn't excited to be, to do that.

[00:03:41] I answered an ad for something called Personnel Analyst.

[00:03:45] And it turned out to be Information Science in New Jersey, actually in Rockland County, near New York here.

[00:03:52] And the guy who hired me was also a chemist from Dow Chemical.

[00:03:56] So he said, oh, if I could do this work, you could do this work because you've got a chemistry background.

[00:03:59] So you're hired.

[00:04:00] And basically, we worked.

[00:04:02] There was a mainframe in the basement.

[00:04:04] I had key punch cards.

[00:04:05] It's going back.

[00:04:06] I'm dating myself.

[00:04:07] Yeah, I'm an agent.

[00:04:08] And you can tell from my email.

[00:04:11] It's an AOL email, which is everything in my life.

[00:04:14] I don't know how people change emails so easily.

[00:04:17] But anyway.

[00:04:17] I know, right?

[00:04:18] So I ended up working with them.

[00:04:20] And they had this skills database.

[00:04:22] And then they had one key client.

[00:04:24] And the client said, well, if you're tracking employee skills for us, why don't you add job title?

[00:04:30] Why not salary?

[00:04:32] Why not where they work?

[00:04:33] And they ended up building the first HR system database.

[00:04:36] And then they built a package around it called the HRIS-1.

[00:04:41] And they started selling a mainframe driven version of a system tracking employee data.

[00:04:48] That was the first thing.

[00:04:50] It was really interesting.

[00:04:51] And then I started my consultancy after I left them and went to Boeing Computer Services.

[00:04:57] And then I said, well, you know what?

[00:04:59] I want to do this on my own.

[00:05:01] And in 1983, so it's getting up there, with an interruption for three years at PricewaterhouseCoopers and what was then Tower's parent, I started Marques Miller Associates.

[00:05:12] And what did I do?

[00:05:13] I made the decision then not to be anything bigger than myself, not to worry about people and their salaries and making sure I provide them enough work to deal with their families, et cetera.

[00:05:24] I stayed a sole proprietorship, and I made the decision not to be aligned with any vendor, even back then, with all the people that were bottom feeding off PeopleSoft and all the other vendors that started.

[00:05:36] And I said, no, I want to stay independent because I'm doing a lot of needs analysis, vendor evaluation, and selection.

[00:05:42] I can't have anybody say, oh, Mark, you selected PeopleSoft because you want to do their implementation work.

[00:05:48] No, I didn't want to do their implementation work.

[00:05:50] Yeah.

[00:05:50] So that led to me continuing to keep my fingers on the pulse of what's happening in HR technology for almost 40 years, over 40 years, which is fascinating.

[00:06:00] And there were a few people around at the time, but they've since gone on or passed away, actually.

[00:06:05] And I'm still the only sole proprietor, independent consultant in HR tech.

[00:06:10] And what worked out for me well, Terry, was the transitioning to adjunct teaching and to be an adjunct professor.

[00:06:19] It started with NYU, the Tandon School of Engineering, which he started initially at Polytech, and then it went to NYU.

[00:06:26] They merged.

[00:06:27] And also at Manhattan College.

[00:06:29] And I have two diverse different groups of students every semester.

[00:06:32] And I'm teaching HR systems and analytics and also management.

[00:06:38] So, and doing the book.

[00:06:41] Yeah.

[00:06:42] Yeah.

[00:06:42] So I also know you wrote a book, which you so kindly sent me a copy of.

[00:06:47] And what I'm calling is currently part of a trilogy, unless you write another one, right?

[00:06:52] And I was hoping we'd get a chance to talk about HR, HR tech, as well as the life, death, and resurrection of your protagonist, Harriet Rose.

[00:07:05] Harriet Rose job, yes.

[00:07:07] Does that sound like a good plan for this conversation?

[00:07:09] Yes.

[00:07:10] I'll always talk about the death and resurrection of Harriet Rose job.

[00:07:15] And it was interesting to me.

[00:07:17] I wrote The Death of HR, well, 2013, and it was basically a cautionary tale.

[00:07:24] And I was able to act it out in some of the keynotes that you might have seen me do or see on my website, where I came across the body and found her dead.

[00:07:33] And I resurrected her then, back even before COVID happened.

[00:07:38] And we talked about what made her be a target, the fact that this woman was of a certain age, that she was just doing her HR job.

[00:07:48] And part of my talk then was she was walking to work and just being focused on herself.

[00:07:53] And she ended up being an obstacle for companies that in the late, in 2018, 2019, everything was booming.

[00:08:04] And they wanted a nimble workforce and smart, curious people.

[00:08:08] And she had the attributes of having none of that.

[00:08:12] So she was targeted.

[00:08:13] She was deemed an obstacle.

[00:08:14] And in the Death of HR book, she had fatal five, the fatal flaws.

[00:08:21] I called the fatal five eyes.

[00:08:23] She was irrelevant.

[00:08:24] She was indifferent.

[00:08:25] She was indecisive.

[00:08:27] She was incompetent.

[00:08:28] She was inflexible.

[00:08:30] She had no new skills.

[00:08:31] So when I talked about, well, how do you get from that to being alive?

[00:08:35] And that was the death of started then.

[00:08:38] And we resurrected her back then.

[00:08:41] But what happened was a couple of years later, the people at NYU said, Mark, we want you to teach talent management.

[00:08:49] And we want you to talk about the role of HR and HR technology.

[00:08:53] And they said, use this syllabus.

[00:08:55] Well, the syllabus was written before COVID.

[00:08:58] And I said, I can't teach from this.

[00:08:59] I have to create a whole new syllabus.

[00:09:01] And then I, of course, knew that I had to rebuild the life of Harriet Rose Job, who was always in my mind.

[00:09:09] And I said, I have to resurrect her.

[00:09:11] So how do I do that?

[00:09:13] Well, I had to make her immortal.

[00:09:14] How did she become immortal?

[00:09:16] Well, the thing that happened was COVID entered the workforce.

[00:09:21] And we know that HR was at the center of everything involved with the workforce.

[00:09:26] So the book was, the kernel of the book was being asked to write a new syllabus and saying, well, I can't write a new syllabus without mentioning COVID.

[00:09:35] And obviously, HR's role, even at NYU.

[00:09:39] NYU had me teaching on a remote basis and a hybrid basis.

[00:09:45] I had students from China and Pakistan and Iran and India on a wall.

[00:09:51] I call it the Great Wall while I was in the class or I was at home and we were all masked.

[00:09:56] And it was it was.

[00:09:57] But yet they had all these new technologies that I had to have a COVID test every week.

[00:10:03] I had to show my feelings on an app with a smiley emoji, how I felt, all of that.

[00:10:10] I had to pass through the facilities technology to get into the classroom, all of these things that HR had to distribute all of this.

[00:10:18] And I realized HR was in the center of everything, which led to the resurrection, the death and and then the death and resurrection of Miss Harriet Rose Job,

[00:10:27] where it was triggered by COVID basically and how HR was critical in what they had to deliver.

[00:10:34] And to this day, still have to deliver.

[00:10:36] And where people realize, oh, my God, we got to we did away with Harriet because she was a do nothing.

[00:10:43] But the real good Harriet is in the center and owns all the data of our workforce.

[00:10:48] And we have to work for us in order to a survive COVID and to prosper and thrive as we get out of COVID.

[00:10:57] Now, believe it or not, it's been four and a half years since.

[00:11:00] It's hard to believe.

[00:11:01] Yeah.

[00:11:02] And from an HR perspective, I think it was the biggest change management project in history.

[00:11:08] Right.

[00:11:09] I mean, just trying to mobilize all the things that landed in HR sphere.

[00:11:15] Absolutely.

[00:11:16] That time was was unreal.

[00:11:18] Right.

[00:11:19] When I structured the book, I was very lucky with the book to have the whole thread of the concept of her mindset.

[00:11:28] And even today, as we just started talking, there's another mindset, which I would probably want to add that of dignity.

[00:11:34] But let me get to that in a minute.

[00:11:35] But Harriet, in order to deliver what was necessary for the organization, she had to learn to collaborate.

[00:11:43] So the old Harriet was independent and didn't care, was irrelevant, indifferent to others, wasn't a good communicator.

[00:11:51] But the new Harriet had to learn to collaborate with all the people and the characters in the book, which I started in the death of HR.

[00:11:58] That's that second book.

[00:12:00] The first book was called The Roar with HR, which I wrote in 2011 or so.

[00:12:04] So it's a similar theme.

[00:12:07] And the cool thing is I was able to act this out in keynotes and speaking and coming across the crime scene and having my friends be the body of Harriet Rose Job lying with a mouse cord wrapped around her neck.

[00:12:18] It was a lot of fun.

[00:12:19] And I'm still trying to do.

[00:12:21] And in fact, I'll be speaking at the SHRM conference in Atlantic City at the end of September on the immortal HR.

[00:12:29] And I have a good couple of speeches related to immortal HR with Connie Vid entering with the music of Jaws and all of that.

[00:12:38] What happened?

[00:12:39] How could she be alive?

[00:12:40] She's alive.

[00:12:41] She's alive.

[00:12:42] What happened?

[00:12:42] Well, Connie Vid came and the Jaws music came with that.

[00:12:45] And all these people that she learned to collaborate with were critical in helping to deliver, one, what was necessary to get over the initial impact of COVID with these apps and worrying about employee well-being.

[00:13:00] And then, two, to collaborate and learn to use the technology that's in our hands.

[00:13:05] This is even before artificial intelligence.

[00:13:08] But as I was writing, Arturo Intelligente, Arturo Intelligente, meaning artificial intelligence, and Mr. Chet GPT became major collaborators and characters helping her become critical and needed and thus on the path to mortality, which is what the book is all about.

[00:13:29] And there were so many people that used to want to do away with her and did so in that first book that ended up being her biggest advocates and collaborators because she needed to know certain new things and leveraging the technology and learning to collaborate and learning about metrics and data visualization and storytelling.

[00:13:49] And all of that is very critical to us in the world of HR.

[00:13:55] And this whole thing with AI is indeed, it's probably another whole major shift to everything.

[00:14:03] And the influences that influenced me in helping me to write this book were people like Sapient, of course, yourself and Stacey Harris and Josh Burson and Dave Ulrich with his Human Capability and AIHR, the Academy for Innovation and Human Resources.

[00:14:21] These were all friends of mine in the industry who pitched in and helped me utilize their latest research to build the story of what COVID did and how do we get out of it, which is what's in the book, which thank you for the kind words.

[00:14:36] And yeah, it's selling interestingly well and that's being translated into a couple of languages potentially.

[00:14:44] I offer it as part of my syllabus at both Manhattan College and NYU.

[00:14:49] So I assign my students chapters, but they have the opportunity to see it on the learning system.

[00:14:55] But also many of them say, oh, we want the book.

[00:14:57] We want you to sign it.

[00:14:58] And they order it and it's fun to deliver that to them as well.

[00:15:03] Many, many Sherb chapters have had me speak recently.

[00:15:06] They use the book as a raffle and they raffle it off and that's fine.

[00:15:10] And I'll be just happy to do that.

[00:15:13] I'm happy to talk about the role of HR and HR technology at a minute's notice as we're seeing.

[00:15:22] And it's critical.

[00:15:23] I mean, I'm having lunch with the CHRO of all of NYU who started recently, less than a year ago.

[00:15:30] And her first six months, she's doing a listening tour and she's not ready to do anything yet until she understands why at NYU there's 20 different schools.

[00:15:41] There's the Stern School of Business.

[00:15:42] There's the Tandon School of Engineering where I happen to teach.

[00:15:46] I'm kind of an outlier.

[00:15:47] There's the School of Film and Tisch and all that.

[00:15:50] They don't communicate with each other.

[00:15:52] And then there's the School of Professional Studies that has a very big analytics department.

[00:15:57] They don't communicate with each other.

[00:15:59] And it's really, it's just scary that they don't.

[00:16:04] And one of the keys to Harriet Rose's success, meaning the function of HR, period.

[00:16:11] I chose Harriet Rose's job because it sounded good.

[00:16:14] It was a middle-aged woman.

[00:16:16] It was the person you always think of in the personnel department.

[00:16:20] And, you know, over my years, I've used the word personnel despairingly.

[00:16:26] And, in fact, my very first piece of humor was using Clint Eastwood in the movie The Enforcer, where he shoots up a liquor store and gets transferred to, and gets called into his commissioner's office after shooting it up and saving the hostage in San Francisco.

[00:16:46] And I used a film clip.

[00:17:17] He says, he says, okay.

[00:17:19] He says, well, okay.

[00:17:20] He says, you're being transferred.

[00:17:23] Where?

[00:17:24] To personnel.

[00:17:26] Personnel.

[00:17:27] Harry says to Paula, personnel, that's for assholes.

[00:17:33] and the guy stands up behind his desk smoking a cigar 1972 movie the enforcer one of the dirty

[00:17:40] harry movies i was in personnel for 10 years and harry just goes like that yep and walks out

[00:17:48] i've kept that word in the speeches that i've given since then and i've given it to thousands

[00:17:54] of people and i say this is where we've come from the vision of what quote personnel was and i

[00:18:00] tell my students and anybody who will listen don't ever ever work for a company that has a quote

[00:18:07] personnel department yeah i mean it's got to be human resources or chief people officer or chief

[00:18:13] employee experience officer all these great new c-level terms are critical critical critical

[00:18:19] and i tell my students if you're interested in hr make sure that they're not calling it personnel

[00:18:26] yeah and that's where we were back then yeah we i think we can sometimes take ourselves too

[00:18:32] seriously in hr so i i love the spin on the book and the way that you've sort of turned it into this

[00:18:41] almost theater yeah it raises a question that i have about so in the in the most recent book the third

[00:18:47] book immortal hr you highlighted early in the book a whole bunch of articles from oh over the last

[00:18:55] 20 years about how everybody hates hr but he's fed up with hr i don't know if you saw that new york

[00:19:01] times article within the last week or so about how hated we are as hr and you know i i thought i mean

[00:19:10] i thought people felt pretty good about their companies and generally hr during covid at least

[00:19:16] those had a job right and you know they thought the comms were good and the company was paying

[00:19:22] attention to them but i guess has that worn off or is this just another hr great question

[00:19:29] i happen to have the article in front of me it's called so human resources is making you miserable

[00:19:34] and exactly that would a gentleman that knows one of the women that was profiled as a chro but yes i

[00:19:42] again hr it's got to be the the focal point of collaboration and with ai hr shouldn't make

[00:19:52] anybody miserable hr should be focusing on strategy and being a strategic business partner and if anybody

[00:20:00] is being made miserable by hr one it's not the fault of the vendor today i think the better

[00:20:09] vendors the top tier vendors and in listening to your research at sapien insights and burson's work and

[00:20:17] and ai hr's work there's a bunch of them there's four or five that i immediately consider when anybody's

[00:20:22] talking to me about needs analysis and vendor evaluation the workflow is supported very strongly

[00:20:31] by ai there should be less people doing administrivia and more people doing strategic value-added

[00:20:38] business partnership the hr person or anybody in hr should at a minimum know the mission vision of the

[00:20:47] company they're working for in both of my books and i updated it in in the immortal hr book i have a

[00:20:53] clout survey and that was done with some tongue-in-cheek but it's basically asking the readers and anybody

[00:20:59] who listen to me to say how well do you know your organization and what's their mission and can you

[00:21:05] name the vet the competitor the same competitor that your president would name if you're in any hr and

[00:21:12] they should they should understand it and they should understand the concept of key performance

[00:21:16] indices metrics analytics predictive analytics and even prescriptive analytics and the strength of ai as

[00:21:24] you well know with sapiens work is that it's able to build these indices to help hr be at the center

[00:21:34] as a collaborator with the c level of executives and being a strategic not just strategic

[00:21:42] partner but a strategic business partner understanding the business and in my books and talks i talk about

[00:21:49] you need to know the big picture you need to know what your industry is doing you need to know what

[00:21:55] technology you have and if it's working well you need to know what the users think of it you need

[00:22:01] to quote listen like the new chro is doing at nyu for six months now finding out what's driving the

[00:22:08] end user of what it looks like and then just as we talked a minute before this began something new

[00:22:15] has arisen in my mind the dignity of work i think the secret ingredient for any high level the most

[00:22:25] senior person let's not call it harriet rose job let's not even call it to see hro just the most senior

[00:22:31] person in any size company has to understand what dignity is all about and what the workforce is

[00:22:37] feeling and this came about from an article i read where they were giving advice to the new democratic

[00:22:42] ticket just yesterday in the new york times saying they have to understand the value of dignity at work

[00:22:49] and why this company this country is polarized where people are just struggling to get ahead it may not

[00:22:55] just be the price of eggs and milk but it's because they're just not it's inflation but it's more than

[00:23:00] that their self-worth is not being recognized either personally or even at work so a chro who understands

[00:23:09] that they need to listen and and lead with empathy and recognize and reward and create a path and a career

[00:23:17] journey path and there's very cool software by the way the tech stack that's out there that burson talks

[00:23:23] about that i talk about about career journeys terry is unbelievably powerful and interesting

[00:23:29] there's software out there i won't name them there's just a few that you could say i'm the cafeteria cook

[00:23:35] right now but you know what i want to be the chro i've got software now that i could put in where i am

[00:23:42] today where i want to be my title and the software will actually create a roadmap it might take 20 years

[00:23:51] and it'll have 50 steps with each step indicating what you need to do as an individual in terms of

[00:23:57] training and leadership and skills and what you need to attain but they will show you a roadmap that

[00:24:03] for 20 years it might take you could end up being the chro when you're the cafeteria cook it it could

[00:24:08] happen and i think you know one of the things that i i like to say is that you know what what's the

[00:24:14] first thing you need to know in your new job right it's not how to do your job it's how does the business

[00:24:22] make its money number one and number two then how does the work that i do impact how the business

[00:24:30] makes its money exactly right and that's her trajectory i mean if you know that you can go

[00:24:36] anywhere the key word is value how do i add strategic oriented value and and manage that so that my ceo

[00:24:46] doesn't question me about what i'm doing in other words feels i as the most senior hr person as an

[00:24:54] equal business partner maybe at the c level or anywhere adding value to the organizations and that value

[00:25:02] is driven by the workforce and their feeling about their work and their ability to stay in that company

[00:25:09] of course employee retention or talent management is critical so these things are interwoven every day

[00:25:16] in terms of talent acquisition talent development and training and talent retention it's all based on

[00:25:22] hey how's your workforce i would say ultimate software before they became ukg was the first vendor that i

[00:25:29] noticed maybe 10 years now was able to create the strategic nine box model which is performance versus

[00:25:36] potential low medium high so you could just picture either axis doesn't matter and they were actually able to

[00:25:42] track flight risk for key people so they actually would and i have screenshots of this they would generate from

[00:25:51] their software using what's the word unstructured text that people use in emails and track whether you're

[00:25:59] happy or dissatisfied and say oh terry zipper she seems to be using negative adjectives in her memos because

[00:26:06] the company's watching you every day or curse words exactly and maybe she's an unhappy person but yet we've

[00:26:14] got her in the upper right hand corner being high potential high performance she's considered quote a key

[00:26:19] employee and yet we're seeing some there's a word i'm missing but her unstructured language which we have

[00:26:26] access to is indicating she's unhappy so flight risk yeah it's a flight risk and they can make some inter

[00:26:33] they can intercede on that and say okay we understand you're unhappy or we think you are what's going on and try

[00:26:41] to prevent you from leaving and that is sentiment analysis that's what the word is they're able to use

[00:26:47] algorithms back then five ten years ago ukg was one of the first ultimate was actually before ukg to

[00:26:55] create sentiment analysis and that's just the tip of the iceberg of what ai is doing now in hr

[00:27:00] and and the predictive and prescriptive analytics i love discussing that it's like going to adopt them

[00:27:07] get a prescription but prescriptive analytics it says hey you got a good trend what do you do now to

[00:27:12] keep your trend good because the trend is coming up in the predictive side but how do you keep it going

[00:27:18] good or we've got a bad prediction how do we turn it around and what's the prescription for turning it

[00:27:24] around to make it a good prediction so all those analytics the flight risk the length of service when

[00:27:31] people leave the plateauing their sentiment their post surveys everything's on the desk of hr

[00:27:38] yeah everything that we do the listening the empathy the esg the dei the e all of this stuff that's out

[00:27:47] there lbgt plus everything and it's hitting politics as well because there was an article in the times that

[00:27:52] brought me to this was giving advice to say understand dignity do you feel that you're being recognized

[00:28:01] an individual person and at work and the chro is the leader in making sure that the company's

[00:28:08] actions and mindsets treat the workforce the harriet rose jobs of this world all the way up

[00:28:15] with dignity and respect so that they see it and they feel it and if that's the case they see a career

[00:28:21] path there's a path what i called in the book the path to immortality and they'll stay and they'll work

[00:28:27] their asses off for the company and the company they'll know that the company will succeed because

[00:28:33] hopefully the company has profit sharing and other things that make them say this is family this is

[00:28:39] my second family you know and i think moving from the original data management to information

[00:28:47] craftsmanship as i called it in both books taking the data from a database of it used to be an

[00:28:54] integrated database with hr payroll benefits and applicant tracking and onboarding and all that stuff

[00:29:00] which you and i know and i teach through my courses it could be now other databases and other third

[00:29:06] party formulas and dashboards and showing visualization of of trends and tiles and everything on a smartphone

[00:29:16] forget about the desktop everything in the hand of the worker that's all good stuff and it's got to help

[00:29:24] yeah yeah we've talked a lot about strategic hr and i know you talked about this as well in your book i think

[00:29:32] you know one of the key components of that is how do we as hr take all that information and turn it into

[00:29:40] the stories that senior leadership can understand and actually relate to like you know in order for

[00:29:47] something big to happen there typically needs to be some sort of visceral reaction you can't just say

[00:29:52] well our turnovers you know our turnovers way up it's a problem right well what's the problem

[00:29:59] right well we can't keep engineers in our primary you know department that's delivering the goods and

[00:30:06] service like we've we've got to have engineers so you know they've got to turn these things into stories

[00:30:12] and i i loved your analogy in the book like everything everywhere all at once right from the movie i mean

[00:30:19] this feels like hr every day right and now with how do we how do we take it and help us help us i think

[00:30:27] the most effective use of ai and also the most effective most senior leader within the functions

[00:30:34] of hr which encompasses hr payroll benefits i'm leaving out finance but everything from womb to tomb

[00:30:42] has to know how to sell value add and prove value and depending on who their leadership is and how

[00:30:50] much numerically oriented they are that could be a problem but at the same time if you're working for a

[00:30:57] leader of a company that has a sense that the company's on a good path and and and manages with

[00:31:03] their concept of dignity and empathy and leadership qualities that's a good thing but if you're dealing

[00:31:10] with a numbers person who only looks at a number and therefore cuts or increases your budget based

[00:31:18] on last year's sales that might be a problem for a forward-thinking cr to chro person they might say

[00:31:25] i know i need a company that's more visceral that understands the trends and and the mission vision

[00:31:31] and and allows this company to be part of a community not just the community in the industry we're in but

[00:31:37] in the community in which we have factories in which we depend on people to come to work and do their work

[00:31:42] so it's telling the story storytelling i think and data visualization is a critical skill and i would say to

[00:31:51] my friends in leadership you don't have to do it yourself hire these kids coming out of schools now

[00:31:56] the engineering schools or the data scientists and the and the people that are working with chatbots

[00:32:02] and and all these things with artificial intelligence the prompt engineers terry is crazy prompt engineers

[00:32:10] is a new job title they're getting two hundred thousand dollars for it in order to word something

[00:32:15] that will generate something coming out of the artificial intelligence engines in google bard or whatever is

[00:32:22] out there and and you saw in my book i asked when i was writing the book i did a quick one i said give me the

[00:32:28] job description the first hr managers on the moon and what do they have to deal with and within minutes

[00:32:35] they gave it to me and i put it in the book and within minutes i said well what about the the positives

[00:32:39] and negatives of ai let's write the 10 commandments of the use of ai and i put that in the book because

[00:32:46] within seconds i got thou shout not can be you know that ai is not human and consider that as well

[00:32:54] but it was but the power is is since then doubled probably or tripled and and i think a good use of

[00:33:03] hr technology is one know its possibilities but also understand its impact on the end users

[00:33:11] and understand that you might not need to use all the possibilities that are on the table

[00:33:16] because you're just doing too much too quickly all at once to the mindset of a worker who's worried

[00:33:23] about their next paycheck and worried if they'll have a job next year and worried about ai taking

[00:33:29] their jobs and that's another aspect of it so you can't be a hundred percent in on ai and not worry

[00:33:37] about what's the impact on the workforce are they going to lose their jobs and if that's what they're

[00:33:41] feeling that's not a good thing so what are we doing to allay that concern and let them know that

[00:33:47] they'll be in a newer position learning new skills using more value-adding kpis and upskilling and

[00:33:54] have a different career path i think that's the bottom line yeah yeah i think human resources to

[00:34:01] use the term has gotten more human over time and i think ai to me is the catalyst to you know put the

[00:34:10] human back in human resources it gives us the opportunity to just you know have those those moments

[00:34:15] with people to be able to to help them through that journey right versus just focusing on compliance and

[00:34:23] you know all the stuff that we hate to do in hr right i think the nine box model which whoever did it

[00:34:30] hundreds of years ago it's been around had a good idea and i also talk about let's not forget the

[00:34:37] people who have very high performance but are on the bottom level and not high potential but these are

[00:34:43] the sole contributors these are the four people that are in the back office doing the coding or

[00:34:49] working on building a new chat bot or a new algorithm but maybe they don't want to be a leader you can't

[00:34:54] forget about them because they're not in the upper right of a nine box model and i think a good leader

[00:35:00] of any company and good collaboration with everybody in the leadership levels has to recognize we've got all

[00:35:08] kinds of people there are people that will say okay fine you know what i'm gonna do my best i'm gonna

[00:35:13] bust my ass i'm gonna go nine to five and i'm gonna go home and work on my hobbies and play with my kids

[00:35:18] and my dogs and my and and have good familial relations with my outside of work life but yet they're still

[00:35:26] good workers so you can't just focus everything on the top tier you've got to just say we've got a workforce

[00:35:33] is our workforce on the same page and are we treating everyone with dignity and that i think

[00:35:39] is a key new word that i want to focus on in the future and and yeah i'm happy about the visibility

[00:35:46] that harriet rose job and her path to immortality and the speech and the and the crime scene that i

[00:35:54] uncovered and her resurrection and actually covid made the difference and and hr was at the center of it

[00:36:01] because people began to realize when the covid first hit march of 2020 and a few months afterwards

[00:36:08] people were saying holy cow what do we do where's the data how do we handle this what do we mandate

[00:36:14] what's the legality of asking our employees to be vaccinated what do we do about masking how do we deal

[00:36:20] with people sitting in an elevator what do we do about remote work what's this thing called zoom how do

[00:36:25] we deal with the people that are older like me that don't know how to press the right button to show

[00:36:30] their picture or to mute themselves all of this how do we train people i had to go through it as a

[00:36:36] professor at nyu and my students had to go through when they were sitting in a hotel in china because

[00:36:41] they were quarantined or anywhere and we got to remember that hr was in the center of that and then

[00:36:48] it finally progressed well how are you feeling what are you thinking how are we treating you well

[00:36:53] are you happy are you satisfied you know it even ties into cyber securities terry when i used to talk

[00:37:00] about hr's role in cyber security one of the things we talked about is how do you know when a person's a

[00:37:07] disgruntled employee and maybe a disgruntled employee is open to blackmail and maybe it's a

[00:37:12] simple kind of blackmail we say oh miller how would you like ten thousand dollars here's the usb key

[00:37:17] could you stick it in and get the social security numbers for your workforce for ten thousand bucks

[00:37:22] and you know what people will do it and did do it especially during tax season and now with

[00:37:28] official intelligence they could imitate the voice of this chief financial officer you know so yeah

[00:37:35] it's crazy terry yeah it is it's uh but it's all but everybody came to hr saying well what's the law

[00:37:41] how do we deal with this do we mandate how do we force people to return to work it's still being a fight

[00:37:46] even today i think that's a really good point you know i was talking to a chro not too long ago and

[00:37:52] asking her about there's still this debate about return to work and you know she said to me look

[00:37:58] this is not an hr issue this this is an organization this is at the most senior levels like i i'm not

[00:38:06] deciding this and i'm not the driver of it it has to be driven by from the ceo on down if that's going

[00:38:12] to happen if we're going to make that work whatever the decision is whether we work from home work

[00:38:16] remote hybrid come to the office i think hybrid is the answer and i think you should give employees

[00:38:23] the choice and i think it's built in bias though that people say well if i'm not in front of my boss

[00:38:28] he's going to forget about me and maybe i won't get promoted so you got that thought point going

[00:38:32] through people's minds i think there's gonna end up being listen i live in new york area i go into

[00:38:39] manhattan it seemed very crowded when i was in manhattan yet and yet 41 percent of the real estate

[00:38:44] of the office buildings are not occupied the way they were before so the question is well what's

[00:38:51] going on it's funny on the traffic reports they would say well it's a tuesday wednesday thursday

[00:38:56] traffic is bad if it was a monday and friday traffic is less bad driving into manhattan or something

[00:39:02] like that so i i think we're going to end up being two to three four days i would say three days of

[00:39:07] work is probably normal and people there are a lot of people that just love going into work and

[00:39:12] schmoozing with their friends and having that socialness of being part of a workforce it does

[00:39:18] get lost when you're not there a few days a week or at least quarterly meetings and i think that's

[00:39:25] where it's going to end up and i think it's for yeah you know the flexibility you have i have to be

[00:39:30] able to decide when to go on zoom or not to go on zoom and went to work and all that it is i mean

[00:39:36] yeah i think it's really hard for the younger workforce and yeah just think of all the just

[00:39:41] little things that you learned about work being in the office yeah you know you can't necessarily

[00:39:48] learn those things from zoom i mean correct you figure them out but it might take a lot longer

[00:39:54] if you're sitting down you know across the way from somebody you could just you learn the simplest

[00:39:59] things right it doesn't even have to be specific to your job it's just sort of general business knowledge

[00:40:04] knowledge that you miss out on working fully remotely totally the i mean i think it's in your

[00:40:11] head if you're working for a company that you like working yeah and they've been there a number of years

[00:40:17] and they're treating you right in your brain your brain is never going to not think of that company

[00:40:22] even if you're at home on a weekend or you're on vacation i was in venice last two weeks ago and there

[00:40:29] was a statue of four what they called caesars and emperors on the on the corner of the basilica in

[00:40:34] venice and they were i don't bother sharing my screen but you can see these four people and they were

[00:40:40] hugging each other two and two and when i looked up they're called the four petrocs petrocs

[00:40:47] four tetrocs and it's a famous statue dating back to 313 the year 313 and it was built then

[00:40:56] and it was put into the basilica in saint mark square in venice and they were hugging each other

[00:41:03] and yet they had their swords at the ready and i looked at that and i'm with people and i said

[00:41:08] they're collaborating they're hugging each other and i i tied it right back to even today's discussion

[00:41:14] thinking about bringing it up saying you always got to be ready and you got to be willing to collaborate

[00:41:19] with enemies and these these four people depicted the two were caesars one was called augustus and two

[00:41:25] the two senior ones were called augustuses like augustus maximus and the two junior ones were called

[00:41:31] caesars and and that's what they were probably called when this was originally sculptured out of very

[00:41:37] interesting metal and and yet they had their hands around each other's shoulders and yet another hand

[00:41:42] you know kind of this dripping down towards the the hilt of their sword so they were ready for enemies

[00:41:48] and they were the eastern and the western sections of the roman emperorship and i'm saying well they're

[00:41:55] learning to collaborate and that's what we all have to do and we have to recognize the positives and

[00:42:01] negatives of that but i can't see any negatives of collaboration it certainly helped harry rose job

[00:42:07] become immortal and needed because she delivered with collaboration all the things that we talked

[00:42:13] about and mentioned in my book what needed to get through co-ord and now moving forward with artificial

[00:42:18] intelligence and but be what i said in my last page um beware arturo intelligente because it's not

[00:42:27] smooth sailing ahead who knows what ai will end up doing not just to hr but to other functions within

[00:42:34] the world of hr and mr chet gpt and arturo intelligente and sue systems and some of these other characters

[00:42:42] we've we have to deal with them and hr still has to understand hr can never be an island period you

[00:42:51] know so it's it's a lot of fun and i thank you for your kind allowing me to talk about the book and

[00:42:59] it's exciting to me and you know i'm excited to talk about it and to show me finding the body when

[00:43:06] she was originally done away with by the same people that now need her yeah your graphics are your

[00:43:11] graphics are great thank you i really i loved that you know what's interesting the book had such more

[00:43:18] gravitas than i expected because my publisher said you need a proofreader so she introduced me to a

[00:43:25] bunch and i interviewed them and turned out this woman her name was connie which is funny because i'm

[00:43:29] dealing with connie vid her name was in real life connie and she was a developmental editor she put my

[00:43:35] foot to the fire every picture every cartoon every quote had to be cleared even pictures of bill gates

[00:43:42] and other people i had to get permissions or at least go to a free website where and i had to buy

[00:43:48] cartoons and i had to make sure the quotes even even dealing with your folks at sapient they were great

[00:43:54] when i wanted to use your research i had to make sure that i used it properly and got permissions

[00:43:59] from you and stacy to make sure everything had to be in order and the developmental editor had to

[00:44:05] besides doing all the proofreading had to make sure i got permissions it was quite an interesting

[00:44:11] eye-opening thing totally yeah so will you write a sequel i don't know maybe maybe not there's so much

[00:44:19] being written about artificial intelligence every day yeah you get it you get the same linkedin feeds i get

[00:44:25] you could see so much as being written richard rosnow david green josh you and stacy and your team at

[00:44:32] sapien aihr those are the key ones i look at davil rich of course human capability it's just another

[00:44:38] name for the things you and i are talking about today right oh you know they put it into a process

[00:44:44] and they sell it which is fine all i want to do is talk about it and preach about it and have fun

[00:44:50] doing it and that's that's my goal as an aging boomer you know at this point you know at this

[00:44:56] point nobody's going to hire me as a full-time person i don't want it and at this point writing

[00:45:01] is fun speaking to students is fun speaking to chapters at sherm or other entities or user groups

[00:45:08] is fine i have a message that's important to hr and and i'm glad to do it and i'm glad to have friends

[00:45:15] in the industry like you well it's it's a great book i loved it i hope people will read it thank you

[00:45:21] so much for joining the conversation today are you going to be at hr tech stacy's going to be there

[00:45:26] i know i keep conflicting with my teaching and i've talked to my chairman about it and you know i just

[00:45:33] can't rearrange my schedule and and miss a couple of classes and teach zoom wise from there and yeah

[00:45:40] we've gone in a while but it's right they could go to immortalhr.com and all right look at the fun

[00:45:48] stuff and sneak previews of the chapter if they use the code promo code hr folks they'll get 10% off

[00:45:56] i'll get the book here i'll sign it to them and mail it to them directly awesome promo code hr folks

[00:46:03] i didn't build one just for sapient or hr huddle i probably could create one for hr huddle

[00:46:10] we can we can put one in the the caption when we send it out i'm delighted that i'm honored that

[00:46:16] you've asked me to speak with you today i've seen some of your others and they're fabulous and i'm glad

[00:46:21] to be part of your your list of people that you spend time with and i hope to see you in person and

[00:46:28] we'll keep in touch right sounds good yeah we certainly will thank you again mark for joining today

[00:46:33] and thanks to our producers brand method media group our marketing team who's going to get this

[00:46:40] out there to you and thank you for tuning in this is all the time we have for this week's episode of

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[00:47:04] thanks everybody thank you