Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - Future proofing HR: Navigating vendor acquisitions, skill prioritization, and AI impact on workforce dynamics.

[00:00:00] 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.

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[00:01:14] Welcome to Spilling the Tea on HR Tech where we focus on the hottest HR tech news everyone needs to know to be in the know.

[00:01:21] We break down the news the week and help you make sense of what it means for our industry and how it could impact your organization.

[00:01:28] We're recording today on April 2nd, 2024, so we're past April Fool's Day as everyone, you don't have to worry.

[00:01:35] I have not a lot of cliff to throw in any jokes in this week and we're going to bring you all the news you can use this week.

[00:01:39] I'm Stacy Harris, your chief research officer and managing partner for Sapient Insights Group and your host today.

[00:01:44] And joining me today again is my co-host Cliff Stevenson, director of research and principal analyst for Sapient Insights Group.

[00:01:51] Cliff, welcome to the conversation so much sort of weird tea going on today.

[00:01:56] Like I'm like it's an interesting tea.

[00:01:58] So if there was a prank, it was how many articles that you highlighted that we found together to talk about this time.

[00:02:07] Really deep interesting conversations along with our standard going over some of the new industry news.

[00:02:14] Yeah, lots of updates, lots of new things, but I think because it was a little bit of because the holidays, a lot of people on spring break,

[00:02:19] a lot of people are sort of moving around. Lots of deeper thinking article conversations this week, but a little bit of industry news like you said, right?

[00:02:29] Yeah, yeah, we've got some acquisitions, we've got some expansions and really one sort of, I think we'll find as we talk about this some recurring themes.

[00:02:39] But one thing I noticed is that we're really seeing topics that we've discussed on this podcast that we as an HR community have talked about for a long time coming to the forefront of the public discourse.

[00:02:52] And I'd love to see it. And of course, we're going to be talking AI right?

[00:02:56] It's going to be the conversation before we dive into the conversation about AI and all the other things going on nature takes place.

[00:03:03] We should probably let everybody know where we're going to be at in the next couple of weeks. I know both of you and I are going to be now traveling.

[00:03:10] So you've recently signed up for a couple of events. I know I've been planning to do some events in the upcoming.

[00:03:15] So let's just kind of walk through where everybody can see us, catch us over the next couple of weeks.

[00:03:20] And if there's, you just got done with two webinars that people could sort of go online and find, correct? Right?

[00:03:24] That's right. Irem, we did a recap of your wonderful keynote from HR Tech for those that didn't get a chance to see it.

[00:03:33] And plus with any updates and of course more of a discussion on AI that will be available on the Irem website.

[00:03:39] But there was another one that was public. I still don't know if it's going to be posted.

[00:03:44] And that was from Cornerstone talking about learning content, which we do have a paper available that you can find.

[00:03:53] So if you Google learning content strategy, also put it in the show notes and you can find that.

[00:03:58] But that was a webinar discussing that which was extremely well attended over half the 560 people signed up.

[00:04:05] So clearly some topics in there that people really wanted to talk about.

[00:04:08] And I think you guys were having some conversations that included the Cornerstone's recent acquisition or decision to make an acquisition of a tailspin, which is their augmented reality solution.

[00:04:19] So you guys had some of that conversation on there too, didn't you?

[00:04:22] That's right. In fact, we had someone from that group that was able to talk about how it would be integrated in and it was just a nice synergy of what was happening at the time because this wasn't planned that we would do it this way.

[00:04:35] But when we're talking about learning content and ways to bring in different types of learners, okay, now we've got AR and augmented reality and virtual reality that can be another way that they can use their capabilities and some of their AI to convert existing content into these new formats for those type of learners in the sort of specialized environment.

[00:04:56] That's an area where I'm actually kind of excited to see AI do its work is this augmented reality simulated environments, those kind of things.

[00:05:02] Because I do think anytime you can make it safer and more capable of people sort of doing training in environments that are more like what they're going to be working in the better.

[00:05:11] So that's a piece I'm excited about.

[00:05:13] I was also at the plan source customer advisory board just to explain our last recording we did right after I attended that.

[00:05:20] That was really exciting. We were talking about the future of benefits and where that market is heading.

[00:05:25] The customer advisory board was really powerfully attended with a lot of, I think, CHROs and total rewards professionals who had good questions.

[00:05:32] I mean, you know, there are some topics I think we sometimes because they're analysts and talk a lot about this stuff.

[00:05:37] I feel like it's been put to bed but things like hybrid work environments is still a conversation.

[00:05:41] People are still working on sort of having those conversations with their CEOs and executives about work from home or not work from home.

[00:05:47] The other things that we heard a lot about was the increasing cost of benefits.

[00:05:51] We're going to have a little bit of a conversation about that today and how some organizations are tackling that.

[00:05:54] But also just how do I aggregate this view of sort of direct benefits along with the sort of broader benefits of working in organization like development or international opportunities or, you know, things that are not as traditionally built into a total reward sort of statement but are now becoming really critical to this generation of workers as they have been for years.

[00:06:19] I mean, it's not been for years but I think even more so in the last couple of years.

[00:06:22] So yeah and then going forward, I think you know both you and I will be at events.

[00:06:27] So over the next three weeks I will be going from the Kentucky Derby.

[00:06:32] So I'm going to be at Derby Day for the first time in my life.

[00:06:35] I've never done that.

[00:06:37] I will bring you guys lots of updates in a few weeks.

[00:06:40] That's May 4th going there for a customer event that we're doing and there may or may not be some pictures of hats is what I'm under.

[00:06:46] Yes, there will absolutely be pictures of hats.

[00:06:49] I know.

[00:06:51] And then right after that I'm heading out to Cornerstones doing a customer advisory group as well and a customer event in Chicago so I'll be speaking and attending that event and then I'll be heading out from there to in that's in May sorry in April before that I'll be at the Workday Innovation Summit and at the Oracle Innovation Summit both in the Bay Area.

[00:07:12] So I'm going to be a couple different places throughout the next couple of weeks but how about you Cliff, you said you're also going to be in April traveling right?

[00:07:20] That's right.

[00:07:22] The 15th through the 17th, April 15th through 17th I'll be in Austin so not as far as San Francisco and Bay Area but you know that east coast to Texas.

[00:07:31] I'll be there in Austin for Work Human and then the following Monday through Wednesday I'll be in Miami for Workforce Software's Ignite conference, Vision Ignite.

[00:07:44] So Miami or Austin in the middle and end of April if anyone's around reach me cliff at sapientinsights.com once you meet up.

[00:07:53] Yeah and in the same time there'll be a lot of events that we're going to be missing. I tried really hard not to do FOMO but when you've got two events you got to make decisions but there will be the Unleash US event in Las Vegas.

[00:08:04] There will be the new Epic event that Mark Stelzner is running for HR Executive Magazine coming up.

[00:08:10] There is also an IMFNOM sort of analyst event that we will not be able to attend but I know that they're going to be doing their event and we also know that WalkMe which is an adoption platform tool which is really well known in the learning space in it

[00:08:20] and get quite a few high ratings in our research over the last couple of years. We'll be doing an event up in New York that we're not able to attend because of the conflicts but yeah it's a busy event.

[00:08:30] I know a lot of people just got back from a couple other events earlier in the year so not only we have a lot of news but there's a lot of traveling going on right now right?

[00:08:38] There is, it's that season for those of you that work in the industry I'm sure you know that there's quite a lot of movement happening.

[00:08:47] We've also got you know some movement from companies as well though. One of the big stories is that you have another acquisition, another story from Deal.

[00:08:57] You know newer company been around less than five years and they've showed up on radar a few times now and the stories that they've acquired Zavi at ZAVVY.

[00:09:10] They're out of Munich. I joined people in Navelman there and at the same time Deal announced that while they had previously done a freemium model you know free or certain aspects of HR for up to 200 users per company now it's any size company can join in that freemium model.

[00:09:29] I know that Stacey you did quite a bit of research. You've been really interested in Deal and their history and their story pretty fascinating stuff and pretty relevant to some of the things we're seeing in the job market too right?

[00:09:43] Yeah I mean I think we have said for a while that the payroll for HR space is a little ripe for some new entrants who are going to come in and probably shake things up a little bit.

[00:09:53] We talked last week about Helios. We're talking this week a little bit about Deal. We know we've had quite a few conversations about what's going on with Rippling.

[00:09:59] We've had a few new organizations coming into this market and sort of doing things a little differently. I think Deal is one of those organizations that we're seeing started by two students at MIT who were struggling which I thought was interesting as in the US or in other countries

[00:10:13] sort of they were struggling to get hired by organizations that wanted to hire them because of immigration status. And so they set out to create an HR technology that would make that a bit easier.

[00:10:23] So they start out with some employer record capabilities. They've got contractors capabilities immigration status capabilities. Some of those things that we don't see in a lot of the traditional HR systems and in many cases they are careful about how to separate that from a legal requirement perspective.

[00:10:40] This time that's more of a services conversation but we all know that even with services I need someplace where I can track all the information and that seems to be sort of the approach they've taken.

[00:10:47] And then as you know they had a freemium model. They've added a payroll component. They've added the sort of broader talent now with what they're doing. Zavi they've had the core HRMS.

[00:10:57] And so they say online they've got 20,000 customers. I will say we haven't done a briefing with them yet. They're on our list. We're hoping to get a briefing with them in the next month or so that I'm sure is part of their freemium model.

[00:11:07] So it's something to be aware of. But still a lot of people who have signed up to leverage that technology and I do think we're seeing more and more companies rethink the idea of where their workforce is and can be.

[00:11:20] COVID was definitely a great opportunity to think about where people could work. Now in the next conversation that's coming down the pike is, you know, can I have people who are living in different regions in different countries in different locations as well that are going to be at value to my organization

[00:11:34] and really help me with the skills battle that we have going on. So yeah, I think deals one to watch this is much some of the other ones and I think it's going to be interesting to see where they take this right.

[00:11:45] Absolutely and I love you mentioned their story about you know having trouble getting hired certainly anyone that's hired in the United States and really I've seen this in Europe as well.

[00:11:56] It can be difficult to hire people due to immigration restrictions and things like that. And along that sort of hiring front, we saw that career circle getting hired is now getting hired powered by career circle as you see it on there.

[00:12:12] And that's pretty interesting because they fall under the and I'm assuming this is pronounced a legious group, you know, but anyone from that company feel free to correct my pronunciation on that, which has for a long time been expanding their platform so you may know

[00:12:28] that instead or manpower will or deco a legious is literally the fourth is the fourth of that group right to the next biggest. And what they had done is add on all of these different industry specific arrow attack was one that jumped out to me, but with career circle and with getting hired.

[00:12:46] They now have the ability to focus on underrepresented communities, and that could be anyone like people with disabilities veterans people of color.

[00:12:55] And that's really interesting to me that they're sort of thinking differently about how to expand their portfolio different people to get hired it's not just engineering or aeronautics and now they're saying okay regardless we need to be able to hire people from these communities and that's very interesting to me.

[00:13:15] Yeah, you know this I think is a very targeted approach to the diversity the broader diversity conversation that's happening in the market right now. We also know that kind of a sad note here in the United States that they just closed down for the Department of

[00:13:31] Inclusion belonging in our government and US government that was kind of a sad note. What is nice to see I think is that many of the organizations who support the recruitment and the hiring processes around the world are picking up some of these mantras and really taking this as an opportunity to say look, the best talent is found in places you oftentimes are

[00:13:55] looking right and in many cases are overlooking because of your biases or because of your experiences. And so I'm happy to see this and I think it would be interesting to watch what a legious continues to do is they grow this way, and they expand in their capabilities right.

[00:14:10] Absolutely.

[00:14:11] And then here is a bit of you know if we're talking piping hot tea. This is right off of the whistles blowing out of the cattle right this came in right as we're about to record but a light just announced their latest release of a light work life.

[00:14:26] And so that is adding in more AI capabilities and we're going to be talking more AI, but adding in a more robust AI engine, better integration, you know and you mentioned some of the ability to provide these benefits and expanding that for all different types of companies.

[00:14:49] That's what we're seeing now so really finding better integrations and finding probably better reporting as well for how financial and well being capabilities for instance, could be added in to the portfolio of benefits and how they can be tracked and how you can measure their impact through these AI tools.

[00:15:07] Yeah, definitely. I mean, this is great to see I'm laughing at how positive you're about this because it was quick was like oh my gosh another one came in and ready for getting ready to get started just to be real honest guys let's let's be

[00:15:18] We put together a list of things we're going to talk about and then the minute we say okay we're done something else comes in.

[00:15:24] But I this was a topic I felt was important because again I had just come out of the event over at plan search with their customer advisory board.

[00:15:31] We know that there's been a lot of conversation about the safe application of AI in particularly a space that's very sensitive like benefits and what benefits people are using and how they're using them.

[00:15:45] And so I do think we're seeing in this particular case the AI power and support is they're releasing what they're calling a human AI is what it's got they've got a trademark on it so they're definitely thinking that name is going to stick.

[00:15:55] It's an AI engine as they say that enhances more kind of like the virtual assistant chatbot conversation right with personalized content messaging and targeted models and all that stuff.

[00:16:04] So I think this is good to see. I do think that you know in the benefit space it is a place where you want to make sure your answers are absolutely correct.

[00:16:13] My bet would be again we haven't talked to that team that they have done a lot of work mapping the answers to the questions and this particular case, making sure we're not going to see some of the things that are happening and the other sort of open world chatbots which are hallucinations those kind of things.

[00:16:29] But I do think that you know the one thing that you and I talked about is you really have one chance to get it right with your employees when it comes to something like a Q&A question answer chatbot environment right the minute it tells you the wrong information.

[00:16:44] I want to say Susan Lucas maybe I'm not sure if it was her Evelina Charlie might have been our friend Heather Basing who put out an article on the New York Times chatbot AI assistant that is giving out bad HR responses like truly wrong HR responses and how dangerous that is right.

[00:17:02] It's you know you just gotta really be careful about these things so I'm assuming lights done all of its background check and it's work on this, but I do think I'm watching to see which organizations are kind of slowly rolling into this in a way that we, you know, they're opening up the black box

[00:17:15] they're showing out how these algorithms are working. They're talking about what's real AI versus what's just built on top of things.

[00:17:21] They're also talking about from a light they're adding more financial and well being empowerment inside of their program now which I think is a really important component we don't talk enough about big part for people.

[00:17:32] They're also adding more what they're calling comprehensive benefit management, which means that they're going to be tracking things like the whole life and long term care leave management, expanded healthcare navigation some of that kind of stuff, which seems a little bit more mundane in the face of AI but to me right now it's probably more important to the people who are using the tools.

[00:17:50] Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up the trust thing that is something that I recall from the days of predictive HR analytics when that was sort of the big news you know that was the would have been the substitute for AI now it's like you're always going to need to mention them and

[00:18:06] I, you know that was the same idea that you can't be incorrect in your judgments or in your predictions, or no one's going to listen to you again right.

[00:18:17] It's the old proverb I think I've mentioned on here before that trust arrives on foot and fleas on horseback.

[00:18:24] It takes a really long time to rebuild that so yeah it's important to get it right but it's also why it's important to use that in, as you said in these environments where there's a little less risk, rather than giving bad advice.

[00:18:37] And then, you know as I mentioned before there was a few stories that came out that to me were interesting because they were bringing to a broader audience and just in general bigger audience, things that we talk about here quite a bit.

[00:18:52] The first one was the World Economic Forum, working together with PWC with PricewaterhouseCoopers put out a 46 page report called Putting Skills First.

[00:19:03] So really talking about the important, you know, this idea of they call it a cultural shift to a skills first approach which is interesting because it is something that I think we've seen for quite some time in fact you and I did a webinar together,

[00:19:18] talking about both learning and skills not that long ago when we obviously have it in our much longer report and much better.

[00:19:26] But still, it was really cool to see this sort of thing being brought up in this space as big as the World Economic Forum.

[00:19:33] You know they pointed out some big things you the need for identifying gaps, how to sort of deliver more personalized training, boosting lifelong learning.

[00:19:45] And he was sort of pointed out Stacy that okay that's great but they actually show you how to do it besides just like this is what you need to do.

[00:19:52] Yeah, so and also I want to thank David Green who posted this and was able to provide a nice summary because I'll admit I didn't read all 46 pages.

[00:20:02] And you know David does a great job of I think highlighting if you don't follow David Green, some of the better sort of data sets and content in the analytics and planning space, as well as I think some of the stuff that's really coming across the board when it comes to some of

[00:20:16] the sort of the tangential topics like skills management which is part of how I track and analyze and do workforce planning for my companies.

[00:20:22] I think the thing that I wish to a lot of reports come out on skills. Let's just be really blunt here if you haven't listened to any of my presentations over the last year, I'm just going to be very very open with you.

[00:20:32] It feels like we're doing a lot of layoffs right now it feels like things are like slowing down also like why are skills all sudden so important. Honestly, we don't have enough people to do the work that's coming down the pike just sheer numbers

[00:20:43] I know I've said this before but on average we had five people working for every non working person in the US in just 2001 2002 today we're at like 4.5 within the next five years that's going to be two people working for every person who is not working in the United States.

[00:21:03] So I think that's already that the average is like 2.3 in Europe. So just be aware that we're in an environment where no matter what's happening kind of at the moment from an economics perspective that we just need more people to support all the services and the

[00:21:19] businesses and the work that that needs to be done for all the human beings that are in the world that we're supporting right so that's a challenge that we're going to face and skills as part of that conversation, and there are particularly

[00:21:30] roles and in the market where that's a bigger issue than some others. What I think they've done in this report is they did do a lot of case studies, so it was a couple of front pages on sort of what they were seeing that you should be doing which is fill in the skills gaps those kind of things.

[00:21:45] And then the rest of it was just a series of case studies both in the business side as well as the education government side. I think a studies are great in the space. It's all what we call promising practices.

[00:21:56] We don't know what's going to stick or not stick. We've been talking about skills and competencies for years, but I do think that you know I would caution everyone as they're moving into this space that whatever you do remember skills management can't it's not a once

[00:22:12] in a while project. It has to be maintained, and whatever you do you have to build something that is manageable. And this is where I can help a lot. But I do think that it's a long road I think every organization's going down it that doesn't invest in it with that vision will have

[00:22:30] to be changed from what we're seeing in our data right. Yeah, absolutely and you know you mentioned as well that with all of these people working. Obviously yes we're going to need augment them three I but also you know we start to think more and more about the effect on the people who are

[00:22:47] working at this time which is what kind of brings up something else that popped up this was from Forbes. And this is just not a headline I thought I'd ever see from them which was why human capital metrics could be just as important as financial returns, and

[00:23:01] I think we're making a more philosophical case for do we need to think more about not just how to be more efficient with our people right how to get the most out of that, two people for everyone not working, but also what is work like for them, how does it

[00:23:19] work not just in terms of how can we get the most from them for shareholder returns, but also what is the environment we want to create for our children for future it's a it's a broad conversation that I think, honestly, we started having again during the pandemic

[00:23:36] we started having more visibility to topics you mentioned mental wellness before and these sort of ideas and stress and burnout that we just didn't used to talk about so openly before. And now, looking at these sort of metrics has, where is it you said

[00:23:53] you're talking about the kind of pushback from this sort of broader business community. Now, we're saying no, you know, the forums is going maybe we should be looking at this as just as important as the financial returns. I find that fascinating and welcome change, honestly.

[00:24:08] I don't think I have much to say, I mean, these kind of articles you see and I think part of what's driving this is that the investors themselves are looking for companies that they can trust that they feel comfortable about the brands.

[00:24:21] And so I think this is a bit of the investors themselves doing some changes right because I think the stockholders are saying I want to be you know associated with a business that has more alignment but I think the other part of this is just financially when you just

[00:24:37] look at the metrics long term metrics not short term, long term, the investment in people always pays out better right. The problem is is that a lot of times our businesses are judged off of short term especially if they're public stock prices.

[00:24:53] And so I do think that what we have to see to sort of change this thinking, even more so is a difference between the value of a company and a short term basis and the value of what they could be in the long term basis right.

[00:25:06] Exactly that I do. Yeah, I don't want to point out that Forbes has not turned into some sort of you know leftist location just doing that because they are saying that this is a form of future proofing your business and their financial benefits that but they are saying it's

[00:25:21] a more of a long term approach. And there's certainly nothing wrong with being ethical and profitable. So, yeah and then, you know kind of speaking on that side. This was a pretty interesting article that came in and you had mentioned the rewards before.

[00:25:39] But this was just kind of, and I think this will lead nicely into an AI conversation I'll take why so this was a company called Blueboard. They were talking about how the employee recognition platform has shut down and kind of just telling

[00:25:56] the story of how it really affected everyone and when you see these sort of things happening there, it just can have a bigger effect on people right and so they mentioned that this is the first of those rewards platform in 2024.

[00:26:13] But we may see some of these smaller vendors going and when that happens, right, whatever it is that they provided to your employees is now gone. Right. It's not like you have a backup system in place. And the effect that that can have on employees is often overlooked because

[00:26:32] you know it's sort of just like the metrics we were just talking about there's real tangible effects that these things can have whether it might be anything from recognition which sometimes we forget about the impact that can have, or it could be you know a mental wellness

[00:26:47] backup or something like that is provided by a smaller vendor and then goes away. So, you know some of it is a sort of cautionary tale, but also I think there was some practical advice here on planning ahead and communicating and letting people know about what

[00:27:06] tend to be sort of sudden events when they happen in this world that we live in.

[00:27:11] Yeah, and this is why I think it's a bit scary I mean we've seen payroll companies go through this right we've seen.

[00:27:17] There are times when this kind of thing that a bit of the challenge with the SaaS environments when the big regions and back in the old days that people don't want to move there was that what happens when that if that business doesn't, you know, fails right.

[00:27:30] So I think one of the things every buyer should do is look at the financial wellness of any organization that they are investing larger amounts or even their employees monies into right and editing level right.

[00:27:41] We did see a couple of organizations come out when this announcement came out saying that they were going to offer relief funds. I think assault labs who is another sort of rewards recognition program that Cliff and I had talked to at the

[00:27:52] The Gateway Tech conference run by Jason, I think Jason Lee who used to start out daily pay right and so what they're doing is they basically had allocated $20,000 for companies to give to companies who were sort of left in the lurch by this

[00:28:06] announcement. But I don't know if I mean I think the bigger conversation here is, you know, as an employee and as a business leader how much do you sort of need to prepare people that some of this stuff is this fluid is any other thing that's out on the internet right.

[00:28:26] Yeah, I mean there is that there's, you know it's one of the reasons to as you mentioned that we brought this up but we always include things like roadmap and some of that idea of who's appearing now on an RFPs and just trying to give a better sense of what the future for these companies can be is

[00:28:46] another part of what's going on, another way you can sort of protect as well. But yeah that is the nature to have you know as we mentioned earlier that certain spaces are right for some disruption for some new players to come in but then with disruptions comes well volatility right it's almost it's

[00:29:06] a great opportunity to go into that sort and people can go but always remember the effect that it can have on your employees and consider what would happen in these sorts of scenarios I think a lesson we've learned fairly well in general from the pandemic years but a nice bearing of reminder of you know how

[00:29:25] we're doing economically and effective that can have.

[00:29:29] Yeah, I know we're kind of coming up on our half hour but I really want to get these next two topics. Yes, I know I'm gonna, I was just about to say let me transition because this is an article that both of us just found a couple of these are just amazingly interesting.

[00:29:44] So, and then again I'll have the links you know on the LinkedIn page. When you see this find these because you want to read both of these and watch this video to one from Brian solace called AI insights now that's he's kind of written it all word, you know so I insights, AI will be smarter than humans before 2030 so

[00:30:02] what I and then another one that's called the innovators dilemma that kills companies does Clay Christiansen from Harvard and various other sources kind of brought together.

[00:30:14] But let's talk about the AI one because besides the fact that we talk about AI all the time and in fact in the last podcast right we recorded we saw some news about how often Fortune 500 companies talk about AI so it's not just you listening everyone's hearing

[00:30:29] but this was fascinating because they're talking about how fast and ubiquitous AI's become right with hardly anyone even mentioned chat GPT and now it's I think what the second fastest tech company to reach what 100 million users

[00:30:45] and idea of how is this going to affect us in this whole idea of what does it mean what will the effect of AI being smarter than humans really mean for us.

[00:30:59] Right. So you know as he said when you read a headline like this the gender of AI will be smarter than humans. Okay well then why does that matter and what does it mean and there's some great discussion in there about how,

[00:31:12] you know, already machines can do certain things past certain tests.

[00:31:19] But what are their limitations. What sort of jobs will we lose to them, because I think he tells an anecdote fairly early on about asking how many of you believe AI will take your job.

[00:31:33] And a few years ago, hardly anyone did. And then just recently he did it and every single hand was up saying I think AI is going to take my job so it's really addressing this concern because we talk about it in our survey don't we we say,

[00:31:47] Okay, not that many people are concerned about but there are still concerns around it but those concerns are are I think you know founded but it's also time to have that discussion so let's talk about this.

[00:32:00] Yeah, you and I were talking in the green room beforehand I made the point that coming from a psych background. Yeah, there's this concept of smart.

[00:32:08] You know when you say something like smarter that always flag something for me because you can't just be smarter. That's too broad there's so many different kinds of intelligence, even within IQ test right or any other, you know, theoretically objective measure

[00:32:24] of intelligence. You have to think about things like, is it just who can think the fastest who has the best recall of facts, who has a better spatial recognition and can sort of sort of things out.

[00:32:36] And then a topic that I definitely want to talk about with you because we started talking about is is being the most efficient answer is that always the right answer.

[00:32:47] This is a big topic right so first of all I want to note that the the article that Brian Solis is sort of writing is in response to a video that he watched of Mo Godot.

[00:32:58] I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly his last name but who's the Chief Business Officer for Google X and I've seen a few other presentations that Mo has put on previously.

[00:33:06] He's a very easygoing articulate person when it talks about AI but he was giving a big conversation presentation at the Nordic Business Forum on AI and he was responding to sort of the idea that you know he was saying that you know AI is already smarter than Elon Musk if you look at the intelligence

[00:33:22] that people can take and that within probably five years or so you know they're going to surpass Einstein's intelligence ranking and then another five years they'll be a thousand times smarter and intelligent more intelligent than any human being in existence ever right.

[00:33:36] And that but then he was kind of saying but if they are smarter you know his perspective like those was that then they will see all the things that we are not seeing and they will also be able to talk to each other in a way that we're not talking

[00:33:51] and communicate in a way that we're not like it's like that was the conversation that was happening in this presentation it was reacting to right.

[00:33:58] And I do think that one we need to be aware of what's happening with this technology that's just part of everybody needs to be up and available on this actually there was just a great presentation by if you watch you know the daily show

[00:34:12] and all the community central right he had on the our United States chief economic. I cannot think of what her actual role is but she's personally through overseas all the consumer stuff that's happening and the monopolies and everything inside of our countries

[00:34:27] and she was saying you know even in our country what we're trying to understand is not to control what's happening because that would not be good for businesses but to make sure that we are aware of it and understand it and know where it's all heading so we can put enough guardrails around it right.

[00:34:43] And I think everybody you're talking is saying we it's not to stop it it's not to hide from it it's not to be afraid of it but you've got to know where the guardrails have to be put. And I think your conversation about you know what is smart what is intelligence and what is creativity

[00:34:56] and how do we talk about that one of the things that I've talked about for ages is that yes it may be more efficient to have someone who comes in at one shift another person leaves immediately and the two basically say hi I'm by and it's very efficient to get your work done that way.

[00:35:11] But what used to happen back in the day is that you would have like a half hour overlap and the one person would walk through and explain everything and they were actually educating and teaching, instead of just checking off a checklist and handing it to the next person.

[00:35:24] And that person learned a little bit from that person as they went into their next role. We forget that the human interaction that the time that we have same thing with yes it may be more efficient to have an artificial intelligence, pull data from something, put it right into into the next tool, and then give us sort of the summary of

[00:35:40] everything. But sometimes what you need to do for human beings is have them go through that learning process, have them thinking through that because that's where the creativity comes in. And I'm not exactly sure.

[00:35:55] There's going to be a lot of you know back and forward squibbling on this, but that we have really calculated from an artificial intelligence perspective. The loss of the human ability because no matter how good brains are at being or how good artificial intelligence

[00:36:10] is, and I think that's the piece that we might be losing is basically missing out on some of that neurological stuff that we haven't gotten to the bottom of yet about the creativity in the world that we live in.

[00:36:38] And that's the risk we run right with all of this. Yeah, and I'm, you know, a couple things I think even within that article right he speaks quite a bit about, you know, as you mentioned Elon Musk and even Sam Altman, they said the reason they're successful is not because

[00:36:53] they're smart, but because they have something else some other indefinable characteristics I think resilience is used quite a bit in that article and is that something you know where you learn by by being set back or by being difficult

[00:37:07] to do and could not pick up on. I also loved your example just now of the person going around and talking I always think back an experience I had when I finally started working in offices and I was working with Ron Marcelo wonderful

[00:37:21] I want to give him a shout out his wife Sheila started care.com and so he wisely left the company I was working at to go work for her instead, but he was our manager is two of us and I was trying to figure out how to use some software

[00:37:35] and so was my coworker. And so for me he'd say okay get on and try and get to do what you're doing tell me what's where it's not working right. And she was furious she was like just show me how to do it you know what I mean I don't have time, and she wasn't wrong

[00:37:50] and how she learned and how she, and then she would recall that and be able to do it whereas I needed to do it in order to learn it. And he was a wise enough man to be able to figure out that both of us need different approaches but I couldn't imagine a I doing

[00:38:03] that you know saying okay here's two different answers for two different people but a human can just do it to it that they can just figure out like okay this person not getting. Here's a different way so.

[00:38:13] Yeah, it's you know I do think I was going to do a lot of things for us and I think that they might even be able to do assessments and figure things out because they could do it more quickly but you know some of the things that we as humans aren't doing and can't do.

[00:38:26] But I do think that there is some of the things in the mixture and the space and how stuff gets done that you know human beings are are going to probably realize after the fact that there's something missing right.

[00:38:39] And then we'll come back to it because that's just that we always swing the pendulum the one thing I've learned in my so many years they won't say account how many and the in the workspace is that the pendulum always swings too far, and then it comes back right in almost everything that we're working on

[00:38:55] and everything that we do and that's in in our social issues that's in our personal lives that's in our work lives and I think, you know in this case it's going to swing pretty far and we're going to have to have to bring it back eventually right.

[00:39:07] Exactly and I'll wrap it up with just to mention that that's a perfect segue into this last article which again will link to, which was that innovators dilemma that kills companies which is, I think in response although it's not mentioned explicitly to everything

[00:39:22] that's going on with Boeing, where the pendulum it's one too far to efficiency.

[00:39:30] You know, just trying to do things that are the cheapest or just the quickest way possible, rather than kind of a more of a long term and what's what's best for people.

[00:39:41] And just there is a few other companies to where it's like, oh we made things. We made a cheaper car for you but then in the long term it's not better because it breaks down you end up having to get a new one and other parts fail, although it's cheaper initially and so again like you said that

[00:39:57] pendulum swings and it's important to be aware of it and I think now that I've heard you say that I think maybe that was the theme right as we're talking about looking at what companies are doing and being reactive versus being strategic right and that's how you avoid being part of that pendulum swing and you know you don't want to get into

[00:40:15] the sort of an Edgar Allen post situation. Yeah, getting bold over I will say as we're talking about innovation and sometimes going too far for any of us 70s babies as Gen Xers out there if you remember the you goes had a dear friend who got herself the first you go that was out there paper thin car that was basically like a motorcycle with an engine with a car wrapped around it right.

[00:40:36] Yeah, yeah I think we want more had more horsepower yeah it probably did it got us to school and back or about six months before it finally blew up on her but I think that's an example of all those things right you don't want to be a share block but you don't want to be you go so you get to find somewhere in the middle right.

[00:40:51] All right, this has been a good conversations and hopefully we got people to sort of just think about a little bit more. My recommendation is to go out and read some of these articles I think you know we've only touched just the tip of the iceberg on these conversations and there is no right answer here.

[00:41:07] There's only more conversation I think that's what that was really has to happen as just more conversation right. Exactly and feel free to continue that conversation publicly bring it up to us and linked in and where if you want to make a project

[00:41:20] you can reach out to us as well and of course we have programs as well or people can meet and talk about this right. Yeah, we're getting started actually by the time this goes out it'll be our first week of our cohort program on building an adaptable HR system strategy so if you're interested in doing that our fall registrations will start out I think probably in the next few weeks so let us know if you're interested in that because that's just the kind of things that we're having conversations about in those cohort programs that we're building Cliff I that's

[00:41:50] this kind of stuff that I get excited about we enjoy doing it and as we wrap today we should probably also note that if you are a survey distributor by the time this goes out. If you haven't already gotten your link to do your survey distribution it will be going out in mid April for everyone but let us know email us if you want to become one of the think we're up to maybe 50 60 distributors this year already that we at least got logos for

[00:42:14] generally by the time we get wrapped the year we end up with somewhere around 80 to 100. So we are rapidly adding to our distribution list this year for the annual HR system survey. If you're an association a consulting firm immediate outlets magazine and event or even a vendor and you want to make sure that your organization that you're

[00:42:32] touching have a voice in the HR technology space let us know and then Cliff what's the date that we're going live with the survey this year.

[00:42:39] May 1 so if you are interested in these topics even if you aren't please just take the survey. It's a huge help and it allows us to really give some insight and depth right back to you right back to the community so when we are talking about these things.

[00:42:56] We can say these are the things we know our trends here's what we can tell you about you know expected lifespan of these companies or about what's really happening about the return to work and that sort of thing we get it by asking you so please look for that may first will be the public launch and

[00:43:13] we are very excited every year we get new and more insightful comments and I'm very excited to see what we see this year and we'll report back to you with the big changes but that can only happen if you help us out to

[00:43:26] Yeah, we're over already by like 15 minutes on the on our time zone so please forgive us but as you can see cliff I get really excited because we have been in survey finalization the last two weeks we took a lot of comments off the LinkedIn

[00:43:39] conversation that we were having around it we took a lot of comments from people who have been emailing us about what they'd like to see next year so it's it's a fun time for us it's like kids in a candy shop like how much can we fit into before we break the system and we have broken the system before.

[00:43:54] Yes. Also, if you want to know more about where Cliff and I will be at or how to download the paper or how to access the full white paper we have the full white paper we also have segments if you aren't aware of that so if you just want to talk about payroll or if you just want to know about talent or if you just want to know about the time management

[00:44:09] areas we do have those segmented out in our marketplace so that's something she can do if you don't want the whole paper, but go to our website as well at SAP insights.com and also sign up for a newsletter that's we're going to get all the ongoing updates and research on launches, and where we'll also be putting details on our speaking events and visit where we're going to be visiting, and when you can participate as we know it already be sure to listen also to our sister HR

[00:44:34] and we have a problem hosted by our CEO Terry zipper these huddle programs if they are something that you value and you enjoy listening to the updates that Cliff and I talked about and the interviews that are being done by Terry please be sure to like and support comment on these podcasts wherever you get your podcast at it really helps us out make sure that people continue to come back and listen to the work that we're doing

[00:44:55] so stay on up to date with immediate breaking HR tech news and get all the behind the scenes content you can follow us at sapient insights on linkedin x and Instagram, although Elon may not be real happy with us this week because we did talk about how much the computer is going to be smarter than he is already.

[00:45:10] You might get banned from x, but also be sure to listen to our sister HR title talks about stamp today be sure to follow us at sapient insights comm as I said, and also as we're wrapping up today.

[00:45:24] I just want to say thank you to Cliff who puts together all of our material, all their information for our conversations, as well as brand method media group who helps us produce our podcast run by amazing founder Kelly Kelly and our marketing team Lisa Renko and summer or Lino.

[00:45:38] They make all of this possible and will probably yell at me for running over today. Thanks to our listener community. We couldn't do this without you you really make this valuable time for us.

[00:45:48] And that's it for this episode of spilling the tea on HR tech. We know it's been a busy couple of minutes here that we've been talking, but we just want to say thank you again for listening.

[00:45:59] And we hope it's been just the beginning to start the engines running this week. We will be back in two weeks with another pot of boiling hot HR tech updates and insights.

[00:46:18] Yeah.