The Impact of AI on Talent Acquisition, Employee Growth, and Internal Mobility with Melanie Lougee, ServiceNow

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my goodness, bad touching, harassment, sex, violence, fraud, threats, all things that could

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_01]: have been avoided. If you had Fama, stop hiring dangerous people. Fama.io.

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_00]: AI and how AI can help you find hidden talent. Sure. Before we jump into that juicy topic, would you do us a favor and introduce yourself?

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely. So Melanie Lougee, I've been working in HR and HR technology for 25 years, mostly in product management, but I've also been a customer running

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_03]: global HR systems for Logitech at one point. And then I was also a research vice president at Gartner for about four years, running the HCM

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_03]: suites Magic Quadrant and some other stuff like that. I left Gartner to come to ServiceNow to try to build something new and different and fix some mistakes of the past.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Right now I'm heading a future HR product from a group within ServiceNow called NowX. So we are the incubators that work on the future stuff before it becomes generally available.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a great job.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to get this straight. Practitioner, so you've actually worked the desk, been an analyst, so you helped practitioners avoid some of the pitfalls and things like that.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_00]: You're now working with one of the best vendors in the space. And now within that, you're working on future products, things that we won't see. It's like the DARPA of products.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_00]: You're working at flying cars and stuff like that for ServiceNow, building out those technologies. Two questions about the incubator before we get into the topic. Do you incubate other people like other startups?

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_03]: No.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And do that it's all internal.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_03]: No, we do partner quite a bit. Some with partners who are building apps on our store. So we will definitely collaborate where we see partners innovating in certain areas.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_03]: But mostly we get ideas from our customers or from product or from sales or just market trends. And we spin up a small group and we build the proof of concept and scale, you know, see how it's going to do and move things ahead very quickly.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00]: In the defense contracting world, they call it skunk corks. So that's the term is somebody has an idea and they throw four or five engineers at it. And yeah, it either comes out as something or it dies on the vine and no big deal.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly. It's a fun group. It's actually led by a guy named Eric Schroeder who is employee number 18 at ServiceNow. So the team is definitely kind of maintained.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_03]: It's startup culture, if you will. And it's definitely a cool team to be a part of.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_01]: How many employees at ServiceNow have?

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Keep me honest. I think it were about 24,000.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, employee number 18.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's that's impressive. Yeah. Well, there was a there was a there was a connection at one point between success factors in ServiceNow if I if I remember some of it, I might not remember it correctly, but there were people that kind of came over some executives

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_00]: early on that had had some type of track record at success factors.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if that's still the case or if I have that wrong.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_03]: The only person that I can think of is Bill McDermott, our CEO, right? So he was a past president at success factors.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And he also used to be a president at Gartner too. So, you know, he's been some interesting places.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Wow.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Gartner does great work in their HR conference. I've heard, I haven't been to it yet, or HR reimagined, I think is what it's called.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I've heard so many good things about what they're doing, like crazy, crazy good stuff. So great, great, absolute great background.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's jump into the topic AI and hidden talent. What are you what are you seeing right now in the marketplace?

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Sure. So we're seeing a lot of different market drivers kind of converging right now. So, you know, some of the things that we're seeing is just a skill shortage that is keeping on growing.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's being driven by a few things. It's being driven by new technologies that need to be adopted.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_03]: It's driven by geopolitical shifts from, you know, where things are being built, where things are being used. It's being driven by an aging workforce, if you will, where, you know, a greater percentage of the workforce over 55 is growing.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_03]: So there's a massive skill shortage that we're already starting to feel the impact of today. And we're going to feel more of those impacts in the future as some of these trends start developing over time.

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And we're also at the same time seeing this evolution of technology and not just generative AI, we can talk about generative AI too. And I'm sure we will, but it started long before Gen AI. It started with machine learning.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_03]: It started with intelligence search. It started with a lot of other aspects of skills intelligence. So, you know, the problem has been that around that for a long time where, you know, a company needs skills and organization needs skills, they're changing product lines, they're evolving.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And it's been very difficult to get the right people in the right positions at the right time. And there's been a lot of attempts to do this in the past, but I think we're finally at a point where the technology is now there to be able to do those kinds of things effectively, because it doesn't all need to be manual anymore.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I just did a demo before my vanity moment.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I did a demo of this for all your headshots.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Headshot collection. That's what I'll give my sons when I die.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, and the guy that was doing the demo, he pulls up and it's hourly worker. So it's a little bit different person applied.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_00]: They did a language test. They did another kind of a behavioral assessment and offer was made offers was accepted and start date was was enabled all in one shot and all within 51 minutes.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: 51 minutes. And it's an hour worker. So it's a little bit different.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And so within 51 minutes, can it went through that process?

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_00]: A virtual recruiter then did what they needed to do all the way to offer letter and schedule.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I mean, I worked in retail 100 years ago. I can't even imagine that world. Let's so foreign to what I know.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So like, what are you like? I'm sure you're seeing that. But do you see anything different with salary talent or corporate talent and hourly or high volume?

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's a huge difference between those two different groups.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, what you're talking about with the example that you gave about the hourly worker.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_03]: First of all, that's a really impressive example.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, to me, like that, that has nothing to do with AI at that point. I mean, it can. I'm sure it was applied at some point, but that's just exceptional, you know, that's just exceptional process mapping and exceptional workflow.

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, like somebody really did a great job of tightening up what this process needs to be and automating it. Right? Maybe there's intelligence in that automation, but, you know, definitely being able to default, move things along, conditionally approve things behind the scenes,

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, figure out what the risk is that you might get something you don't want.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_00]: You're using the, it's like you're in on the demo.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00]: You're using words that they were using. Yeah, that's funny about that as you're talking about it. I'm like, hell, she's using the exact same, the same words.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, augment augmentation versus automation and all that other stuff like we don't have humans involved. Humans involved in this transaction.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly. And you can do that with my volume, right? Because they tend to be high turnover. You need to do maybe volume over the qualitative assessment at an individual level.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, so it's kind of like speed over perfection. Whereas when you're doing hiring for more of a salaried kind of a role, it's more perfection and hopefully as much speed as you can get.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_03]: But the balance of, you know, the risk of getting a poor hire or a poor fit is much higher when you're talking about a salaried employee that you're going to be investing a lot more time and resources.

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_03]: You're going to want to vet this person. You're still going to want to have an efficient process as efficient as possible and you're going to want to start things as early as you can in the process and tighten it up at wherever you can.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_03]: But it still needs to be a much more thorough process. You know, people need to be involved. You need to have conversations. You need to do more checking more carefully.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, so there's definitely added diligence, you know, both up front and on the back end with that. And that's an area where intelligence can help a lot.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_03]: You still need to have a really good underlying process and workflows and connectivity and all of those kinds of things before you can then effectively add AI on top of it. But yes.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_01]: So Melanie, I've got a question for you. Where's the disconnect between corporate or the process in recruiting and hiring or finding that specific talent that they're looking for?

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Is there, and I guess my mind goes to the human, the recruiter still wants to be part of that? The company's reluctant to use the technology. Where are we at today? And you know, I guess we can do a spoiler alert. Where do we end up?

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to take a break real quick just to let you know about a new show. We've just added to the network up next at work hosted by Jean and Kate A'Keele of the Devin Group.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Fantastic show. If you're looking for something that pushes the norm, pushes the boundaries, has some really spirited conversations. Google up next at work. Jean and Kate A'Keele from the Devin Group.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll say by the end of this year, where do we end up with the work that you're looking at and the things that you're doing?

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Sure. You know, so a lot of it kind of depends on the corporate culture, if you will. So, you know, some corporate cultures, particularly in certain, we'll call it more traditional industries.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, they really want the recruiters to control the process. Right? Other organizations that tend to move a little bit faster, you know, they want a hiring manager to be much more involved in that process and maybe do some of the

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_03]: some of the vetting themselves in there. So, there's definitely different schools of thought in how to effectively recruit for different kinds of roles. And I think I kind of lost the thread of where the rest of your question was going.

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Where are we going to end up? So, I mean, we know we kind of, we feel like we know personally, like we know where it's going to go. But where do we really end up?

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're really just going to rely on technology to be William and your example of virtual recruiter. Are we really going to get there and eliminate this role and move our current recruiter into just a relationship manager? Where do you see us going?

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I think it will move in that direction. You know, but I do think that there will always need to be humans in the middle of this process. You know, there's a lot of things that can be automated. There's a lot of things that can be generated by AI.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of, you know, automation that can happen. But at the end of the day, I don't think you can have a process where you are wanting to attract in a human that has opinions and ideals and their own life situation and expect to hire them without creating a human connection.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. Because I'm a, sorry, Melanie.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: No, go ahead.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm a visual person.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I use it as a slide scale where do you want your humanity?

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So when we came from, you know, your connexa days and IBM days, the humanity was pushed way up front.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I think the humanity...

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_00]: This is going to slide back.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I think, again, I don't think you're going to get humanity out of recruiting. In fact, I think to do so is not a good idea.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's sliding that humanity to where it's appropriate for that particular company or maybe that job.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, Melanie...

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_03]: It's also about...

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Go ahead.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Sorry, I interrupted.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_00]: You're good.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I was also going to say, you know, where it makes the most sense to apply the automation is on the pieces that aren't necessarily touching the employee unless they're touching the employee or the candidate or the applicant or, you know, whoever it might be.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, that is it's helping them and is providing value to them. Right.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_03]: So if we think about, you know, augmenting a human connection with I'm just trying to get through this application workflow, you know, give me an intelligent way to do this where I'm not stuck right, you know, help me through this.

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, that might be something that could help with a, you know, with a process. Right.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_03]: But it's not going to replace a conversation when I then need to get through the qualitative part of this experience.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_03]: But the administrative part I think is, you know, very ripe for improvement and being able to automate a lot of the things that are happening behind the scenes or being able to automate a lot of the things at the front end of the process before that person arrives.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_03]: So being able to use it on board. Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, yes, or just trying to find like maybe I can use all of the employee data that we have already and mine that and figure out where are going to be the best target locations or universities or whatever that I might want to go looking for somebody or you know, how can I create a really good interview panel for example.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. You know, that maybe I'm not burning out the same five people and maybe those five people aren't very diverse to begin with and maybe they're not, you know, like they're not all interviewing for different things so you know how

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Interesting. Yeah, like that. Exactly. So how can I use a technology to make that experience better for that person so that when people get in the room and have that conversation. They're asking intelligent questions they're not all asking the same questions they don't all look the same.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, so how can I use technology to be able to deliver the best in humanity. I think would be a really good way to approach it.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we've when I think we get stuck in the recruiting portion of this version of AI sometimes maybe not so much but I think recently that's where my mind's been is how do we make the recruiters lives better but I really Melanie what you said about the interview panels.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't really put much thought into that and I really do like that because you're if you're going to have an interview. Well, your list of interviewers right your panel of interviewers.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_01]: There needs there does need to be a good makeup right they need to be there needs to be a good mix they need to be intelligent they need to be prepared they need to be ready to go diverse the whole thing. Yeah, and if I'm picking the interview because I like these four managers and they're interviewing 30 times a month.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly. And yeah so I really like looking at it that way as opposed to just how do we automate for example the recruiting process. Yeah, we often forget about that part of the process which really

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: will be a determination right Melanie you're probably getting the same stuff we get hit with low value tasks versus high value tasks. Yeah, so let's automate or as much of the low value like scheduling and stuff like that let's get all though that stuff out of the way.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Question because you've a been a practitioner. And you understand the importance of process you said process six times does do you think AI has a responsibility and making our process more efficient.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_00]: If not now in the future do you see AI actually saying because like any example that we were talking about you like someone has streamlined this and gotten all the waste out.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_00]: The, you know, we've both, well we've all dealt with convoluted stuff. Yeah, like it's just stripped all that stuff out. Now that was manual, because they told me how they did it.

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_03]: But do you see AI helping in that and identifying the blocks or the bottlenecks or the weak points and inefficiencies and things like that. Absolutely. You know, service now actually has process mining capabilities right so cool we can actually take an end to end

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_03]: just, you know, having a workflow that you can see. Right so like I know that William still hasn't approved this thing I can see it on my screen right and, you know, like, Janet's onboarding process.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly. So, you know, and being able to maybe intelligently skip some of those processes those steps because this is within a certain range and why do I need to spend my time on this right.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, so there's definitely stuff that can be done, you know, there as well. Yeah, and I also think that, you know, another area where we've come a long way is, you know, we've been talking about skills intelligence forever.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_03]: But it's, it's been something that you just you set it up and it's immediately stale because it's manually maintained but now that skills can be delivered on an AI platform and it can infer skills from a resume it

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_03]: can infer skills from an assignment that somebody has been on internally, it can make recommendations and say hey maybe you didn't think about this job before but you actually wouldn't be, you know, such a bad fit.

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, I know that there's there's kind of a lot of talk about that that's happening right now but I think that the promise is actually beyond where it's being talked about right now I think the real promise of being able to do something like that especially in the area of like internal mobility is,

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, if we can get skills into like a corporate level, you know, into the UX level and do a platform level. The real promise of those kinds of things is being able to have skills, you know, in customer service, being able to have those skills integrated with

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_03]: scheduling, being able to integrate those skills with supply chain, you know, so that you can actually say not just, you know, hey, Ryan, you know here's some jobs you might want to think about or Ryan thinking like what do I want to be when I grow up and how do I get there, but

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, we need to start developing these skills and be able to identify people early. So I think where that's really going is beyond the walls of HR, you know, I think it needs to go further.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, even the example Melanie just gave which I really like is where we need to identify these skills we're going to need in the future. But also here that here are the subset of people in the company that potentially would be good to move forward in

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_01]: the future.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so question to I guess everybody here, have you ever thought about it? I think about this more recently than not. And it's somewhat depressing. How many if you think back in your career just five years ago, all the things that you were doing that you

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_01]: thought were genius that now is done literally with a click of a button. And I'm thinking of what you just said around skills, you do a whole skills taxonomy and it's still manual. And there's so many things that I've done.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually it's actually worse than that. So skills, the fever, most of hype cycle that you go through right now with skills, and then we're going through a skills is the same hype cycle that we went through with competency models 15 years ago.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And the right and wrong part of competency models is if you apply it to all everything you do, we'll just stay in HR, but it's actually broader than HR just like skills. If you do it in hiring and you do it in intermobility and promotions, and you do it in firing.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And you apply competencies across the entire journey of candidate employee, alumnus, etc. Then competence models work can work and the ability to work where people and I believe where people are going to make the exact same mistake with skills is they're only going to apply them in selective spaces.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And it's going to be and Melody, not to your brilliant point of being outside of HR and touching other facets of the business. We're not even getting the HR part right or the recruiting part right. So it's, it's a lot of talk.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And when we go to HR Tech in, you know, a couple months, they'll be everybody will be talking about skills and me being jaded.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my goodness. Bad touching, harassment, sex, violence, fraud threats, all things that could have been avoided. If you had Fama stop hiring dangerous people. Fama.io

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I think a lot of it is just talk because companies are going to be selective and where they apply skills tax op. So there's not a way they stale check. It's worse than that.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_00]: From my opinion now Melody as an analyst you can easily crush that but we would do the same hype cycle in my opinion with conflicts. Yeah, I absolutely agree. You know, I think goals is kind of right there too.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, you know, one of those things where people don't really know like what is a goal versus what is a PPI versus what is this right? Okay.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And meanwhile, like unless they're actually usable and deliver value to the employee or deliver value to the manager and their day to day.

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Like at that point it's just kind of, you know, pardon me for saying this but it's HR rolling out stuff that HR thinks is cool.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_03]: But unless it's delivering value, you know, to the business unless it's delivering value to me that it becomes something that I have to do once a quarter and you know, you never get the adoption.

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, so I think there are ways that with skills or with internal mobility I think that it can be done better. Right. So, you know, kind of getting to your point about are these things all the same or you know is there something different about this.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I think there can be because I think one, you know, the technology is there.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think, you know, one of the things that could make or break one of these implementations is maybe an intentional starting slow right because it can be really daunting for a company to think I've got to do all this business process reengineering before I can even adopt this.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, but if you can start it with we have, you know, this group of people or we need to hire for this kind of a job, you know, and take sort of these discrete use cases, get some proof points show that it's got some value, you know, and then think about expanding on it.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_03]: So I think some companies are daunted because they've been through, you know, they've been through competencies and they've been through goals and, you know, maybe a gradual approach might work better.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you eat an elephant?

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. One bite at a time.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think, I think you're, I think you're absolutely right is the daunting part of an implementation and being overwhelmed with not having the capabilities to then be able to handle it.

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_00]: But also worried about and rightfully so worried about the adoption and how we're going to train people and get people to actually use the technology.

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so you know at one point we're going to have to talk about your topic, you know, because if we don't, we're going to have a whole host of people that are going to be mad at us.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So we did grow some edits in and move this to the front and smash it around.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to take a sip of water now.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So hidden town in A.I. there's a relationship and that's one of the things that was really attractive to us about the topic with you.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Where are you seeing that apply?

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Like what's the top of that?

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_03]: We're seeing that apply in, you know, all kinds of different industries, you know, particularly industries that are moving really fast right now.

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_03]: So technology is always moving really fast and there's going to be a huge shortage of workers in tech.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_03]: We just did a bunch of research recently and even ourselves, like even service now, we're working to skill hundreds of thousands of people just to meet our own demands.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_03]: And we're looking at doing that in short order.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_03]: So some of it is just, you know, the demands change.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_03]: The skills change really quickly.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_03]: If we look at some of the other areas where skills are changing really quickly, you know, think about manufacturing.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_03]: It's just not done the way that it was, you know, 20 years ago at all.

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_03]: The factories are different.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_03]: The technologies are different.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_03]: The geolocations of where manufacturing is happening is being different and that means you've got to build buildings and you need new technologies as you build those buildings and all of those.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_03]: So there's major shifts happening across a lot of different industries.

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_03]: So how do you figure out who the best people are to be able to move into these new roles or to be able to position to grow because it is so much more effective if you can take somebody that's already at your company and move them along.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And most employees would rather find an internal job, you know, doing internal mobility and being able to grow with their company than have to start over again with another company.

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I think it was Gartner that said that, you know, they think that 30% of companies will have adopted, you know, some sort of an internal marketplace, you know, within the next, I think it was 10 years something along those lines.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that that's true.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I think we're definitely seeing a big push to make the most out of out of the talent, you know, that organizations already have.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, what we mean by hidden right is that sometimes it's not always the usual suspects that might be good for those roles.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_03]: So how do you find right?

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, how do you, you know, realize that, you know, that the person that is the unsung hero or the person that's in marketing might actually be really good, you know, at some sort of a product role like how do you figure those things out, unless you can start looking at the individual people differently.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_03]: So I think that there's a lot of promise in being able to say, you know, William, you know, we understand that you are this industry, you know, guru and you're well respected and you lead a great podcast and whatever else.

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_03]: But dang, look at that artwork behind you.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Also, by the way, you're clearly by polar.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_03]: He's also a great artist. Maybe he would be great at marketing creativity or, you know, something like that. But you can't know those things unless you, you know, can sort of understand what your whole skill set is and then be able to, you know, intelligently say, well, it might be called 12 different things too,

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_03]: like somebody that's a marketing assistant could be doing five different jobs. So how do I kind of know the difference between that? And then how can I make some intelligence suggestions or even beyond, right? Like, how can I look out there at the publicly available information and see what kinds of things are my competitors hiring for, right?

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, what are the some of the new skills that are showing up on LinkedIn? You know, like, like, what is out there that I should be thinking about that I might be wanting to add into my internal searches or my external searches.

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_03]: So being able to again sort of extend beyond the immediate and look at, you know, how can I start creating more of a funnel, like more of a, you know, more of a line of sight into, you know, what are my competitors looking at what should I be looking at?

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I'm thinking about, you know, how can I do something here?

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Ryan, do you have a question?

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm curious. So this is all very fascinating to me. No, this is like the world I grew up in and the, and I've seen it done mostly because I was out before all of this. It was all manual.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. So all of it. I'm thinking IBM days we had blue pages where we threw our goals into where we threw our skill what we thought we were good at right and the manager never looked at it other than review time, right?

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, the employee never looked at it ever. Right. So, so we were never able to make that work. Yeah. Right. Never ever to make that work. But I'm curious where what is your thoughts? Where do you kind of fall?

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_01]: On a company that's leveraging technology to not just identify the individual but actually guide the employee and say, okay, we know you want to go here, but we're going to put you here because we want you to be over here.

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And for those that are listening, I'm actually drawing in the air. So, so I want to be, for example, I want to go to an operations manager into that role. But I know I would make a better ops manager if I did these three things first based on my skill.

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_01]: How do we get to that? How are there any use cases now our companies doing this and if not, how do we get there? Choose your own adventure.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_03]: We actually call them growth plans. So we actually have these in our talent development capabilities. We have customers, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to announce who they are.

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no, don't tell us.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_03]: What we built was built on the premise of exactly what you just talked about, right?

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_03]: That if somebody wants to get somewhere there are many steps to go there. And right now, especially because of proliferation of point solutions over the years, an organization can have five different learning systems.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_03]: They've got a goal system. They might have some sort of mentorship program.

[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure what's frustrating. I hate it.

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. And so worse than that, because it was for folks, I'll just say women and minorities just keep it simple. It was hidden knowledge.

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_00]: That path for men was not hidden.

[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_00]: It was explained. But for everyone else, you know, white men in particular, it was not explained.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it was kind of voodoo-iss. Right? So like how do I get from being a manager to a VP?

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_00]: There is many paths to that place.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_00]: There's an intentional path though.

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. Men would know the paths and then take the assignments and do whatever.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think everyone else just had to kind of figure it out on their own.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the wonderful, my opinion, the wonderful part about technology is it levels that.

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_00]: It takes all that institutional knowledge and, you know, mail network shit out of this.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And then says, okay, here's the paths. Choose your own adventure.

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. And that's kind of one of the, one of the other benefits of, you know, skills, right?

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. If we can look at that instead of what somebody looks like or, you know, what they've done before.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, then, then I think that there can be an equalization there as well.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, as mentioning kind of how we've addressed this is, you know, before as somebody has been bouncing around on that path,

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_03]: it's like maybe they take a couple of classes, but nobody really sees that they've taken those classes.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Like maybe they get a little bit of coaching at some point, but that's not really woven in.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, maybe they've done some sort of, you know, internal assignments to try to, you know, be able to develop something,

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_03]: but none of it's connected. So we kind of came at it with an approach of, you know, being able to say,

[00:34:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I want to become that operations manager and then being able to have a system that's intelligent enough to say,

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_03]: well, today you're here and if you want to be there, you know, here is the path that you would need to have to go there

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_03]: and it can be worked on between an employee or manager or an employee can do it on their own.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And it will say, you know, here's some courses, here's people in the company that are really good at doing this right now.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Here's kind of where the demand is for this.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And it can actually create a plan across multiple underlying systems, right?

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Right. Yeah.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_03]: So that it's not just kind of like hoping that somehow you just happen to get lucky in the right place.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_03]: There's actually, you know, visibility and intentionality.

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like Google map, good and visual.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like Google Maps and Google Maps giving you from point to point, there's five different ways.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And here's the hours or whatever time it takes to get there.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_00]: That's none of that stuff was visual. None of that stuff was things that were passed on and the technology,

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I think is now we're just now at the place.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember working with people that were doing video in the early aughts and we didn't have enough bandwidth.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's not a problem. We got bandwidth.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And so video, however you want to do it is easy.

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_00]: So my last question is in the 60s, General Dynamics, Lockheed, NASA, pretty much all the defense contractors,

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_00]: they hired smart people that basically went through whatever universities and they do it just we don't care.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you smart?

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have job descriptions.

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have roles.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_00]: They just hired smart people and then threw them in a box and said, figure it out.

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of aptitude, maybe some attitude in there.

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And so what I get your take on is like, okay, it's great to have the skills.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_00]: But should we also be looking at elasticity or how people deal with ambiguity?

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_00]: How they deal and can consume those things because they can have the skills.

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But if the skills change and they're rigid and they don't elastic enough to then take on the new skills, who cares if we've, in my opinion, we've inventoryed their skills.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_00]: We've given them a path.

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_00]: But if they don't have the personality to then take that path, we've wasted time in my opinion.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_00]: We've wasted time, money and energy hiring this person.

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So is it just for you?

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Is it just a game or is it a game of skills and collecting skills both tangential and maybe even skills as it relates to data have the ability to develop the skill.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_00]: They have the aptitude, attitude, etc.

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Or the interest or the interest, passion like those all that soft stuff that assessment stuff.

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_00]: It seems like we probably should be leaning more on that to find out more about the individual and then find the more like how are they going to, how are they going to deal with the future?

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Is it going to crush them?

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I use the 60s just because they just hired smart people.

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was all white man.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_00]: So we'll just say it as it is.

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_00]: They hired white man out of you Ivy League schools.

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And either went through the FBI or they went for defense contractors.

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_00]: One way or another.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And they just threw them, I remember talking to people that worked at GD at the time and they didn't have jobs.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_00]: They went in at seven.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_00]: They left at six.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_00]: That was the job.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And then they would work on three M was one of these companies too.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_00]: They would just figure it out.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if we're getting closer to that or far away from that, or if we're trying to figure out skills and like, do they have the ability to even comprehend the pathways that they have the opportunity.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_00]: If we can make it visual.

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Great.

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll give them all the pathways.

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Choose your own adventure.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Do they have the gumption?

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_00]: The interest to then choose your own adventure.

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think in some ways this brings us back full circle to, you know, where is technology appropriate and where is technology supporting humanity.

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So you can identify opportunities.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_03]: You can provide training.

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_03]: You can do all of these kinds of things.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, it's going to take probably a different kind of manager in the future to be able to nurture a team in a different way.

[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, if I'm managing a team and, you know, they've been brought in and some of them are going to show that they like the elasticity.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_03]: They want any challenge they're willing to adapt.

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And some aren't, you know, how can I, you know, as a human either bring this person along or, you know, make a difficult decision or find a different kind of role for them or something along those lines.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Because I do think that, you know, as work gets automated kind of behind the scenes and as, you know, frankly, as employees have much more access to being able to grow their own careers, right?

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Like they can reskill and they can decide that.

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_03]: They want to go do something else and they can figure out their coursework using JNAI and they're aware of their opportunities and how to get there in a way that they never have been before.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Like I better be a really good human manager if I want to be able to keep my team and be able to retain that talent and grow them, right?

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, so I think once again it's like you've got the technology that can make a lot of things better and clearer and more transparent.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_03]: But then you need that human side to evolve as well.

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Amen. That's all we got.

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Chops, Mike walks off stage. We're going to talk to you for like another two hours.

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is fine. I can't believe an hour went by already.