HR, We Have a Problem - Why CFOs are now making HR technology decisions and how this collaboration drives productivity, reduces costs, and prevents costly implementation mistakes.

[00:00:00] a company CEO that records 100% of the meetings that happen in the company. Every meeting, it goes into a small language model and that's being used as a research basis for a lot of things. So it's a lot of clarity in that. We have to be a little more careful on our meetings for what we say. The other one I thought was really interesting, just we do a lot of events and there's a lot of logistics and management of those events and there's a lot of technology involved now in that. Like even you go to an event, you have a conference app. I was reading a newsletter today of someone who follows the event technology space.

[00:00:28] And he had just gone to HubSpot's Inbound and he asked them, what are you using for event technologies? And said, none. We actually went into Claude and told it what we needed. We have no programming experience and we created our tools that are running this event. And I was like, wow, that's a wake up call. Welcome to the HR Huddle Podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource for all things HR.

[00:00:59] It's time to get in the huddle. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the HR Huddle. I'm your host, Terri Zipper. I'm the CEO and managing partner at Sapient Insights Group. And I'm back for another exciting episode of HR, We Have a Problem. This is the show where we like to break down the big and most relevant HR issues of the day.

[00:01:26] We help you make sense of what they mean for you. And we talk about what you might do about them. So I've got an exciting show today. Joining me is Artie Whitney. Artie is the COO at the CFO Leadership Council. And I've also got my partner, Stacey Harris. She's the chief research officer here at Sapient and also host of my sister podcast, Spilling the Tea on HR Tech. Very saucy show. Welcome, Artie and Stacey.

[00:01:54] I'm really excited about this show today because you guys know I love all things. My background is in finance. So I love all things finance, HR that go together. Great. Happy to be here. It's an excited topic and we'll be talking a lot about it this year, I think. So it is a lot to get into because the two worlds need to work better together, I think, right? They do. Either that or they're going to collide. And we don't want that. We'd rather have integration.

[00:02:22] So we recently announced that we are working together with the FATE event that's coming up this fall. And we're really excited to share some more information about that with our audience and what our plans are to try to bring HR and finance more closely together. So I was hoping we could talk about what's important, what we see as important to bring these two areas together, what we think the two areas need from each other.

[00:02:50] Because I think that's a critical component. And, you know, we need to really think about what we're presenting versus what we're receiving. So I was hoping that's what we could talk about today. Does that sound like a good plan to you guys? Sounds great. Yep. All right. Then let's get into the huddle. So, R.D., let's start with you because I want to tell the audience, first of all, a little bit more about you and also about the big event in November and what that's all about.

[00:03:17] Because we may have some people listening that would like to attend that event and be part of it and learn more. Great. Let me give a little bit of background just so you can see why the event made sense to launch and how it met demand. And so I'm R.D. Whitney. I'm the chief operating officer at the CFO Leadership Council. That's part of something called a group called the Chief Executive Group, which started almost two decades ago with the purchase of Chief Executive Magazine, which had Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and lots of CEOs on the cover.

[00:03:47] And two brothers that I've been working with now for almost 30 years acquired that and very much professionalized and invested in it. So lots of events for CEOs, lots of tools and resources for CEOs, a bit lonely at the top. In order to get really unbiased information, it's not going to get that from solution providers or from your staff. The best place you're going to get that kind of information is from your peers. So much like YPO or Vistage, they had access to this great readership of CEOs.

[00:04:16] So they launched peer-to-peer networks for CEOs all across the country. And that's really the foundation of our organization. But then along came the New York Stock Exchange was selling corporate board member magazine. And, you know, we probably wouldn't go launching a magazine today. It's a totally different world than it was 20 years ago. But as a basis for a community of trust, it has readers and people that want to reach the readers, events, oftentimes, research. So we acquired that.

[00:04:43] And we have lots of events for public company corporate board members in the United States. We have a membership for them. We have a training program for being on a board. So it fit really nicely with CEOs. The third piece, the third leg of the stool was CFOs. And we launched a magazine called CFO Leadership, which today reaches about 150,000 senior finance professionals across the country.

[00:05:05] And within that, we were able to acquire the CFO Leadership Council, which is the largest association of CFOs in the United States. Within that, we have a listserv where it's a trusted communication member to member asking questions. And about three years ago, I posted a question on there, much like we do with other issues, and said, if you share your tech stack, we'll help connect you with others that are, you know, going down a similar path. Maybe you can learn from their successes or avoid their mistakes.

[00:05:34] And it was hugely popular. And we were really overwhelmed by the amount of technology being pitched to the CFO's office. And it wasn't just the stuff you would think about, like finance and accounting technology, but it was also HR tech and other issues that are going through the CFO office. So in order to address that, last October, we rented one of the largest convention centers in the United States, the Jacob Javits Center in New York City, and ran an event called FATE, the Finance Accounting Technology Expo.

[00:06:04] And we had over 1,000 attendees and 70 technologies with lots of learning theaters and great keynote speakers and what have you. We're practically doubling that this year. We're on track to have about 110 technologies, five learning theaters. We have some amazing keynotes, famous keynotes that will be opening up and bookending the conference.

[00:06:26] And just lots of learning, networking all around finance accounting technology, which just inevitably now encompasses things like HR tech, project management technology, or analytics. So it's all going through the CFO office, and we were surprised at how much it actually is.

[00:06:47] Yeah, I think that's why this is particularly attractive to us to be a partner with you guys this year on this is because we've gotten from the HR side, people saying, how can we get more information about finance, right? And the finance tech. And from your side, how do we learn more about the HR side of it without getting into the nuts and bolts?

[00:07:11] Like, you know, CFOs don't want to get into the nuts and bolts of HR technology, but they want to understand the real results that these things are going to provide. What's the innovation? I know that, you know, my view of CFOs, and I think this bears out in some of the research that you guys did, was they're very focused on cost control and risk, right?

[00:07:36] But at the same time, in order to be a successful CFO, you have to be exploring innovation and long-term value creation, and you can't do that without people, right? So I'm curious, you know, what your thinking is about the CFOs and that sort of people focus.

[00:07:55] How do we help them get more focused on the people equation versus, you know, just being so focused on the one ROI number, which is what a lot of people, you know, think the CFO is thinking about? Yeah, no, I think there is a sort of stereotype on the CFO, which I think has changed a lot the past couple decades. The CFO now often is in the spot of succession to the CEO. They are so much more involved in strategy and people and issues related to that.

[00:08:25] Now, oftentimes, depending on the size of the company, HR is reporting into the CFO office. And, you know, we mostly focus on that mid-market, which is where, like, if this was a pyramid where the fattest part of this opportunity is and need is. So I think this is within the umbrella of the CFO office and their teams. I think they're keenly, I think, you know, things like people, like one of the biggest issues with people is you can't recruit enough.

[00:08:54] Not only you can't recruit them in the finance and accounting function, there's not, there's just not enough talent out there for all the opportunities that exist. But certainly companies are struggling to recruit across their companies. One of the solutions of that is technology. And we're particularly hearing a lot about this now with AI.

[00:09:11] But a lot of these technological implementations of these solutions can help your company scale through the use of technology as opposed to through trying to recruit unrecruitable talent. But it also can be used to train talent to get them where you need them to be. So I think it is all interrelated leadership, strategy, people, technology.

[00:09:35] And the CFO is, you know, is steering the ship a lot of ways in that. Yeah. And Stacey, we're seeing more vendors from an HR perspective. Look, how do we integrate with the financial side of this? How do we make these two things work better from a technology perspective so that they work better from a business and outcomes perspective, right? Yeah.

[00:10:03] You know, it's interesting because I think buying cycle, buying models go in cycles, right? For the last 10 years, we've been in very much what we would consider a functional buying model, right? Where the functional role within the organization, whether that is HR, sales, marketing, or any other operational areas, sort of owns and manages their own sort of tech. And part of that was because a lot of that technology was evolving to better meet the processes and the best practices of those industries and those markets and the places they were serving.

[00:10:32] What's happened is that we commoditized a lot of that technology. Now, process-wise, they all tend to be very similar. There's maybe about 20% that's different in them. And at that point, then it becomes much more of a conversation about value, cost, risk, relationships, enterprise tech. And so I think what we're seeing is this uptick as we move into AI and as we move into sort of just rethinking the idea of enterprise-wide data,

[00:10:59] that the CEOs and the CFOs are getting much more involved in all the technology buying, but particularly in HR technology buying, because it touches 80% to 70% of our total cost if we're an organization that's running highly with people-based services or any kind of solution that requires people-based investment, right? So you're right, Terry. We're seeing, I think, an uptick in it. I think it's an uptick we would have expected. We were kind of watching where the market was heading.

[00:11:24] I know you and I have been talking about trying to find a way to better connect finance and HR for the last probably three years, really, since we first started having conversations. So when Artie and the team kind of came to us, we were like, this is perfect timing for this conversation. I think the other thing that we're finding is because there's been a lot of functional silos across businesses is the relationship between the CFO, the CHRO, the CIO, and the COO is not as strong as it needs to be.

[00:11:52] And that's the one that I know that we're really wanting to try and get to is not just what do you need to know, how do you need to be educated, but how do you fix that relationship? Because the CEO is looking to all of them to work together to figure out what the future looks like with this new world we're in, right? Yeah. I mean, that's a great point. And Artie and I, just right before you joined, Stacey, in the pre-show, we were talking about AI and just the impact that that's having on things.

[00:12:20] And even more so now with, you know, bringing these groups together, because AI is not a technology play. It's not a resource play. It's all of these things. And, you know, there's got to be some strong translation strategies between these functional, I won't call them silos because many of them do work very closely together.

[00:12:47] But we're all sort of, on the AI front, we're all sort of reaching for, like, what's the thing we should do? Where should we focus? What should we spend our money on? What should we, you know, organize our resources around? And Artie, what are you, you know, what are your thoughts on that? I mean, are you starting to see these groups talk about and come together more around this topic? Yeah.

[00:13:12] So our, you know, our parent company focuses on those three groups, corporate board members, chief executive officers, and CEOs. And we do hundreds of events around the country throughout the year. So we have lots of conversations with them. And this is no longer just like, let's try a pilot project. There are substantial reinventions of the company because of this. And I think you're exactly right. It's not really necessarily technology. It's more of a cultural change.

[00:13:40] Just as being head of operations in my group, one of the things I do with our operations team, we just had our call this morning, is I've been challenging them to reach out to colleagues and associations and kind of understand, like, how, what, what are exact examples of the technology being deployed? In your area of focus. And so the one that came up today was, well, there were a few.

[00:14:05] One had gone out and heard about a company CEO that records 100% of the meetings that happen in the company. Every meeting. It goes into a small language model. And that's being used as a research basis for a lot of things. So it's a lot of clarity in that. We have to be a little more careful on our meetings for what we say. The other one I thought was really interesting, just we do a lot of events and there's a lot of logistics and management of those events. And there's a lot of technology involved now in that. Like even you go to an event, you have a conference app.

[00:14:33] So I was reading a newsletter today of someone who follows the event technology space and he had just gone to HubSpot's inbound and he asked them, what are you using for event technologies? And said, none. And we actually went into Claude and told it what we needed. We have no programming experience and we created our tools that are running this event. And I was like, wow, that's a wake up call, right? Like everything is changing and we don't know which way it's going to go.

[00:15:01] Like search itself could be changing. And I don't think Google knows where it's going to go. Go investing in both sides, right? It's just, it's such an interesting time. So we run our functions the way we do on lots of solution providers that are adapting very quickly to take advantage of this. And I do think that's probably going to be part of the answer is that they're integrated inside of things that we use. But we're also drowning in everybody bringing in their own tool and using their own tool.

[00:15:30] How do we manage that across the company? And at what point does it get simplified more? Because it's becoming a point of exhaustion, I think. Hey, this is William Tincup. And I'd like to talk to you a little bit about Practitioner Corner Podcast. It's a wonderful podcast about the journey, the paths of how practitioners, both HR and TA, kind of go from high school, college, all the way to where they are right now. Some of the things that they've learned, how they've been successful, people that thrive around them, et cetera. It's a fun podcast. You'll love it.

[00:15:59] You'll learn from it. Subscribe to it. Thanks. Yeah, the bring your own AI conversation, I think, is being subsumed right now a little bit between the sort of enterprise conversation and what we can do with the data. But our data this year is definitely going to prove out that bring your own AI is probably a bigger reality than most organizations. I think they all know it. You know what you're bringing yourself to it.

[00:16:26] But then what they have really sort of thought through and how they're going to manage that at the enterprise level. So it's interesting to hear, RD, that you guys are seeing some of that same conversation just at a different perspective, right? Yeah. And if we don't get our arms around it, there's a lot of intellectual capital leakage, right? That could be walking out the door by using tools that are not, you know, internal LLMs, right? Yeah.

[00:16:53] And I think this is, I mean, being in the seat of the CFO and their team, like this is very stressful because they're being bombarded with messaging. Everybody's got the right solution. And I sometimes just think of my own wife was a controller at a really interesting company. And she had to make some decisions. And the first thing she focused on was expense management and put in a tool that really, it really got them right up to date financials because of the fact that there was just so much, you know, spending happening in so many different parts of the country.

[00:17:23] And they needed to kind of get their arms around that in real time. And so that was great. And then they looked at HRS as a second thing because it's lots of team that they manage and you get some self-serve in there and things like that. Sometimes the best customer service is no customer service like Amazon taught us, like just make it really intuitive. And what she picked didn't do what they said it would do. And, you know, and I know they're struggling with that. Like that's what we want to help people avoid. Like there is the right solution isn't the same solution for everyone out there.

[00:17:51] The 2,000 people that will be at our show in November, like they all have different needs and custom needs. And as much as the solutions want to say like this fits everything, it doesn't. And then a lot of times it's industry focused, size focused, specialty focus and picking the right team and how the picking the right tools and how those tools work with each other. I think it's so critical and it just it needs education. It needs it. How could you have done this before?

[00:18:19] You could have you could have done web searches like you could have gone to Capteria and made yourself a list or G2 or you could go to a group like Gartner and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with an analyst. So we want to just, you know, I remember not to get off tangent, but I remember there was this great advertiser in in from New Hampshire. So it was from the Boston area and it would always it was Sims clothing. And they're saying was an educated consumer is our best customer. And like in the in the in the software industry, I mean, that that really plays itself out.

[00:18:49] It's like the more educated you can be, the better customer you can be because you're going to be a better fit for the solution that you provide. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the you have to be very careful with the bright, shiny demos and you really have to know what it is you want out of it and make sure that you get those questions answered. I'm curious, RD, where do you typically see? And I know this differs by size of org and it differs by just the company culture, probably.

[00:19:17] But in general, where do you typically see the CFO sitting in the HR tech buying process? They're fully involved. We when we were kind of starting this, we hired an independent research group just so we didn't have our own bias in it. And and and we clearly saw that particularly in the mid market, they are highly involved in this decision. They are at the table.

[00:19:40] They are probably the ultimate decision maker, but their team is highly involved, depending if HR is part of that, you know, together with that function or not. But yeah, they're they're they're definitely highly involved in the decision. And that's what we see. Right, Stacey, from the data even. Yeah. Our data basically shows kind of a pretty even split depending on the application area in the in the space. Right. Payroll without a doubt. Right. There's no doubt that payroll and core HR.

[00:20:08] We're definitely seeing benefits even that the the CFO is highly involved or or someone in the accounting space or someone who's in that role or an IT conduit between the two. Right. Particularly as organizations get larger, those roles kind of shift around a little bit. But the CFO or the accounting department is somehow involved in the work that's being done.

[00:20:27] And what what what interests me is that, you know, when we first started having our conversations already to Terry's point, you know, there there was this natural sort of interest on both sides to sort of understand better what the each group was doing. But I also thought, you know, once we started talking about sort of crossover topics like the roundtables that we're going to be doing this year at your guys's event was there's also sort of areas like planning where it isn't just crossover. We need to work with each other, but where our data needs to sort of tightly sync up to get a better answer for the company.

[00:20:55] Right. And, you know, I think those are some of the things that are also intriguing to this is that it's not just the tech decision, but it's also the the process that underflows that technology and how those two worlds work together and understanding how you need to sort of share that data picture across the two of them. That's just as important as the features and functions of any specific software.

[00:21:15] Right. Yeah. And one of the things sneak peek here for the data, I mean, we were definitely for the second year in a row seeing business outcomes are down slightly from what they've been in the past.

[00:21:31] Yeah, which is a big challenge, I think, for for where I mean, CFOs and CEOs right now are really driving for the top thing we're definitely seeing is that they're driving for either company growth from a revenue perspective or a market share perspective. But they're also looking for operational efficiencies. Right. So the kind of we're seeing this dynamic growing out, like if we ask them what their top three initiatives for the next 12 months and corporate revenue growth and operational efficiency were sort of one one and two in that conversation.

[00:22:01] Arnie, I'd be really interested in knowing as you're talking to your audience and you're getting ready for this event, how are they balancing the fact that they're being asked to sort of grow and be more efficient at the same time? It's it's a it's a it's an interesting thing that we're seeing in our data on how they're managing that. But I think the finance office is very involved in that right now. Right. Absolutely. I mean, I mean, there's never been a year of so much change and uncertainty, tariffs and just so many things facing companies.

[00:22:28] So I think they've been getting all that thrown at them at the same time, you know, worrying about inflationary forces and things like that. But I mean, even in just it's just interesting to see some of the reporting coming out where the inflation doesn't seem to be coming through. You wonder how much that is with the technology part, like AI coming in and company like this stuff comes out after how companies are really implementing the technology to find productivity.

[00:22:55] Productivity is like the magic thing that happens in companies that deliver bottom line results. So, you know, sometimes you don't need to put so much focus on the top line. If you can focus on the productivity, you're going to get, you know, earnings. I think they're trying to balance it all. Like I think, you know, they're trying and also sort of, you know, where they are in their stages or recapitalization at some point is or, you know, you know, are you, you know, are you acquiring?

[00:23:24] Are you going to be acquired? So they have all these things to deal with. But, but the thing that it's pretty hard to argue is like bring productivity into your company and make your operations more efficient. That's better for your customers. That's better for your bottom line. That's better for your company. That helps deal with the talent shortage that is not going to go away. So I think, I think we're just living in the early ages of, you know, automation and innovation that. Yeah. We're trying to find the benefits.

[00:23:53] Yeah. I mean, clearly the, the, the leaders at the C-suite level, the CFO, the CHRO, the CIO, the COO, I mean, they all have their remits, right? We, we know what their focus should be and those things normally should work together to get to success. But I think there's, I really think the AI component has created a lot of confusion and, you know, people are not sure where it sits.

[00:24:23] Right. And I think even at the CEO level, they're like, it depends on the CEO, right? They might be saying to the CFO, make sure we don't go over budget on this. Another one might be saying to the CHRO, you need to figure this out because this is all about people and how we're going to organize this business and how many people we need and all this kind of stuff. And then another one that's like the CIO, this is a technical play, you know, you need to get in there and lead this and figure this out.

[00:24:51] And so I think there's a lot of like confusion and sort of people trying to figure out who's going to take the lead, who's not afraid to take the lead for starters. Because I think, you know, there's always those things that you don't feel like you know enough about to take the lead, but sometimes you just have to step up and say, I'm going to take the lead and I know where I need to be. But I'm seeing that as sort of a challenge right now for organizations is who's on first.

[00:25:21] Yeah. And it's also the existential threat that wasn't there before. Like, is my business even going to be relative, you know, relevant in five years? Like, because so many things are, you know, we're at the sort of we're hearing about so many things potentially being reinvented. Like, is our value proposition still solid? Like, so you're having to think of that while you're trying to have to think about top line and bottom line and people and efficiency and all these things. So it's definitely a challenge.

[00:25:51] Yeah. RD, I mean, if you had to sort of have one word of recommendation or a couple words of recommendation for the vendors who are servicing this industry, and particularly who are in the HR space, but trying to speak to the CFO because it's a newer audience for them. What would what would you say they need to really focus on in those conversations? Because I think we get that question a lot and we have some perspective based off of our data. But I'd be interested because you're talking to the CFO office all the time and even to the CEO office. What do you think they have to really focus on?

[00:26:21] Get to know your customer, you know, and and that's why we do so many in-person live events is that's the best way. So at a place like the like our attendees, the senior finance professionals are coming because the best way for them to learn is to peer to peer interaction and lots of opportunity for that to happen and to learn from your peers and to hear what's happening. But another great way to learn is from the solution providers, because they're in the trenches every day working with all different types of customers.

[00:26:50] So we give them the stage to be able to share some of that experience. But then what's really important for vendors is to get to know the details of that customer so that they can really make sure that it's a match, not just on the marketing flyer. But like, does this work in, you know, a small manufacturing company, you know, in this geography with this many people with this as it's, you know, driving revenue source? Does this does this work? Does this make sense?

[00:27:16] And am I heading down a good path that the plugins will work with it, the things we're already kind of addicted to? Like, do we have to back out of stuff in order to be able to go in this direction? So I think getting to know your customers key. Yeah. Would that what would that guidance be to so that that's more of a to the vendors and a very good point. I mean, if you're a good salesperson, you know, the C-suite and you know who to be talking to about and how to be persuading them.

[00:27:43] But when you're talking to C-H-R-O's, C-F-O to C-H-R-O's, do you have some some thoughts or some some ideas of ways to bridge? What those two groups care about, because they do care about very different things and they're often oftentimes talking in cross purposes.

[00:28:04] Right. How do we how do we bring them to that same sort of data point that's going to going to excite the C-F-O and solve the C-H-R-O's challenge? Yeah. I, you know, it's just the magic bullet. Yeah. Doing things that help them align, which you think about like sort of.

[00:28:27] I mean, I remember somebody telling me I had founded a business and was at the end stage of the business selling it and said, you know, it's really all about the people that make you want to sell your business. And that was the continuation of it. And and I it's a joke, but but, you know, H-R deals with people and and why do people get frustrated? It was because processes are messed up or things are unclear.

[00:28:51] But if you can give people great processes, great technology, great clarity, job satisfaction goes way up. Productivity goes way up. Those are isn't that all mad music to the CFO's ears. Right. Like so, you know, I think they just have to find their common points of alignment, which is is that productivity. And. Yeah, I like that a lot. You know, we we often oftentimes talk about what metrics are shown at the executive level from the H-R side.

[00:29:21] Productivity is not one of the top metrics, which we're right. That is exactly where H-R should be having that conversation. And so I think that's a very good call out that that's where the conversation should be heading for the CFO. You know, one of the things I think that's really interesting about this event, one of the things we're sort of excited about is that you are talking about not just being a C. It is definitely a finance event for finance professionals, but you are interested in bringing the H-R to that audience as well to have those joint conversations.

[00:29:48] And I think that's the other thing that we're seeing is that the more you talk, the more you hear from each other, the more you do understand you have a lot of the same issues. You're just looking at it from the opposite side of the point. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So bringing that together, I think, helps solve some of that bridging that we just discussed. There are H-R technology, lots of H-R technology events. You don't see a lot of finance professionals at those. So but this is an opportunity, I think, to create that bridge. So, you know, we're thrilled with our partnership with Sapient.

[00:30:18] And I think the roundtables will be a really good opportunity for that discussion to start and grow over the years. Yeah, I do know. And this is true at that level with anyone like they they learn from their peers. And oftentimes if you're just sitting in a room with your direct peers, you're missing the the ideas from other other parts of the business.

[00:30:44] Right. Like other CFOs are great to a point. Right. You learn from them. But then you've got to sit next to the CHRO and the CIO and and really understand their business. And the same with the CHRO. I mean, you can't walk in there and say, I need I need more people because our people are stressed out. Like you need the data. You need hard data. Right. And it's there. The data is there.

[00:31:09] It's really just about how do I how do I get access to it and how do I make the how do I make the right case to whoever it is that's holding the purse strings? But we know it's it's oftentimes at the CFO level. Yeah. Yeah. So I know we've talked a lot about AI.

[00:31:26] Are there any other trends, Arnie, that you see that are going to, you know, sort of bring CFOs and HR more closely together, you know, in the next two to three years? Things that you see that are tied to automation or analytics and other other forms of decision making that have got to be in place in order to make the business successful. I don't think there's a new trend. I think there's probably been going on a long time.

[00:31:55] But, you know, the cost of a mistake in this area is huge. And and that oftentimes gets overlooked, like, you know, what if this goes wrong? And that makes everybody's life more difficult and can really hurt the company, can shut down the company if it's done if it's done poorly. So I think, you know, that that only strengthens the need to bring the groups together more to really make sure they're making the right decision for their company. They used to remember the old saying, you can't get fired by bringing in IBM.

[00:32:24] I think it was or something like that. Yeah. But, you know, you really, you know, it's so impactful. The decisions that you may be making to bring into company, but really have to do it. You have to go in this direction if you can't really find the find or train the talented people to to to do it with humans.

[00:32:44] And, you know, if some of that stress that's on the jobs and causing bad retention marks is because the systems and operations are are less clear and efficient than they can be, then you can really, you know. Get a couple of goals with one one one shot here, you can you can you can help into retention, you can help employee morale, you can help the efficiency of the company, you can help productivity.

[00:33:07] So, yeah, that's the trend I don't it's not a trend, but I just think it's becoming even more surfaced is cost of making a bad decision and what you can do to make sure you don't. And I think it comes down to talking with peers and learning from the solution providers. They have so much to share, but hearing through the marketing and really getting to know them and learn from them. Yeah, that's a huge point.

[00:33:30] And I think what that comes down to is who's willing to it's almost like that can freeze people. And I think in some ways in the AI conversation right now, people are somewhat frozen in like, I'm afraid to make a bad decision. Right. So there has to be accountability. Right. For those decisions.

[00:33:55] And so all the more reason to, you know, make sure that when you're having these conversations, you've got the right information and good information. And, you know, you can justify the decision that you made. Yeah. And Terry, I might also add where we're seeing crossover, at least in the data on this side from a topical perspective that I think everybody thinks payroll, right?

[00:34:20] Like the first thing that we're HR or we're financing HR sort of do crossover and where the big trend is. But we're seeing a lot of interest in total rewards, compensation and reward tools. Finance are getting a lot more involved in that. We're seeing finance a lot more involved in the benefits conversation because that's really important to a lot of board members. And so I think thinking about sort of who wants to speak to that finance audience is important because it is not just payroll.

[00:34:48] It's not just, you know, the traditional ones you would think about, right? Like we're definitely seeing benefits and compensation. And we're also seeing, I think, which was sort of interesting because you had mentioned it, R.D., was that idea of engagement, right? Like finance is very interesting engagement because it tends to lead to productivity. We've been saying this for years, right? But we haven't always sort of put sort of an investment in making sure that finance is part of that conversation because they're very invested in productivity.

[00:35:14] So those are the ones that we're seeing sort of show up where finances is we're seeing them, their interest and their involvement in the financial decision for that solution growing in the data set this year, which I think is sort of intriguing because it lends to a lot of things you talked about already. And we're seeing a lot of surprising interest in the CFO leaning into healthcare. Like, so it's one of the most expensive line items. And I think, you know, up until pretty recently, it was like, oh, well, that's just going to keep going up. There's not much you can do about it. But don't touch the healthcare plan because people might quit.

[00:35:44] But, you know, and keep companies of size. You know, they have self-insurance and they're in groups and they've got that. They've got the, you know, the right deals in place and things like that. But the midsize, they don't know about a lot of these options. And a lot of these options involve tech benefit tech. And it's tie into the system. And, you know, you could spend all you want on a benefit like that. And if you're not delivering it to your customers, your employees, well, they're not taking advantage of it and they're frustrated and they might leave and other things.

[00:36:14] So it all does tie together. I think total rewards and sort of the benefits area is very much in focus on the CFO's office and another area where HR and finance need to work together. Yeah. Yeah. I think that one's critical, right? Because that's not what the money is not in payroll. Like payroll just happens. The money is what are the decisions you're making around how much you're going to pay and what benefits you're going to bring into the organization.

[00:36:44] I mean, that's really where the decisions can impact, you know, impact the bottom line. So, yeah, that comp is an important place to be. One of Terry's favorites, if you hadn't guessed. Yeah. I know I said I started in finance, but I really cut my teeth in comp. So I got a long history there. Well, we're really excited about the event, RD.

[00:37:10] You know, we've got some great vendors who are going to partner with us at the event. And we really plan to bring some great information to the CFO level and sort of help them as much as we can understand this space and how they can, you know, best interact within it and be a part of it and understand it. Yeah, absolutely. And then we're going to have some fun there, too.

[00:37:36] So first of all, the whole thing is getting kicked off by Marcus Limonis, who, if you ever saw the show The Profit, he was famous for that. He's been sort of reinventing businesses and CEO himself. We have a finance and accounting focused comedian. And he sent me his video. That'll be fun. I heard one of the first things was he's asking the question if it's appropriate to bring up EBITDA at a first date.

[00:38:01] So we're going to have a themed cocktail reception in the late afternoon and early evening of day one, which will be a lot of fun. Food, tchotchkes, themes. I can't give it away yet, but it's going to be a blast. We've got a great, very sought after speaker keynoting as well that had protected many of the presidents of the United States. And we have the former coach of Michael Jordan at UNC as well talking about leadership and teamwork.

[00:38:28] So, you know, all around this finance, accounting, HR tech discussion is a real chance to get out of the office and kind of, you know, reset and think about how this, all this can lie to the challenges you're facing. Yeah. And we should probably make sure we let everybody know the dates that the event is. It's November 13th and 14th, correct? That's right. Like you said in New York, right? Yeah. At the Jacob Javits Center in New York. Yeah. If you want tickets, get in touch. Yeah.

[00:38:58] We'll get you there. We'd love to have you there. I think it'll be a great opportunity to see how, you know, we start talking about these things on more common ground and it'll be a very interesting perspective all the way around. I can't wait. One other element that I forgot to mention is there's just so much new happening every day. Probably just since we've been on this podcast is probably a new company invented. We started last year with this, but the fellow who runs South by Southwest Pitch Stage is a friend of mine.

[00:39:28] And his company helped us launch and manages our pitch stage at Faith. So we have four categories and you can sit there and hear the pitches to the investors of these companies that will make a difference in the future. One last year got some funding from Google, but I think that's really interesting too. Like what's coming and how soon is it coming? So that's another element that you'll see at the show. And I think just in general, it's worth following about what's happening. Yeah. That's a great point, RD.

[00:39:56] You are someone listening out there and you have a product that you would like to pitch. Also get in touch because we have an application process for that. And there's a lot, like you said, RD, there's a lot of new startups. It's, it's, I feel like it's 1999 all over again. It really does. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is awesome. Appreciate you being on the show today, RD. Where can people find you online and on social? Great. Then RD Whitney.

[00:40:26] So, and then, and my email address is RD at CFOLC.com. That's RD at CFOLC.com, CFO Leadership Council. Awesome. Hopefully people will see some people at the show and they'll mention that they heard this podcast. Well, that's all the time we have for this week's episode. I want to thank Stacey. Thank you for joining us and adding to this conversation. I want to thank our producers, the Brand Method Media Group. That's Kelly Kelly's team.

[00:40:54] They do a great job of getting our podcast out there to you guys. Our marketing team, a whole group of people that are making this great. And thank you for tuning in. We appreciate it. We'd love to hear more from you about the topics that you want to hear about. So if you have a topic, let us know, drop us a line on the website, leave us a review, subscribe so that you get notified when these episodes come out.

[00:41:19] And also don't forget to listen to next week's episode where Stacey and Cliff spill the tea on HR tech. We will be back in two weeks with another episode of this podcast, HR, We Have a Problem. Thanks everybody. Thanks.