Rebecca Warren 00:00
I’m super excited. I’ve got Neeta and Pramukh here. They’re joining us, and I will have them introduce themselves. Neeta, we’ll start with you.
Neeta Saggar 01:03
Thank you. Hi everybody. My name is Neeta Saggar. I am so happy to be here with you today. Basically, I’m the head of skills transformation for Jiva Solutions, which is a change boutique consultancy that specializes in skills transformation and talent marketplaces. I think I unofficially hold the record for the most amount of talent marketplaces implemented in a very native way, right? So not as part of a consultancy, but actually working, getting my hands dirty, being a practitioner in all things talent marketplaces. So really happy to be here and have this really great discussion today.
Rebecca Warren 01:47
Amazing Pramukh. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Pramukh Jeyathilak 01:49
Yeah, thank you. Rebecca, good morning, I’m assuming, to most people, or good afternoon. Greetings from Seattle, Washington, where it’s still gray and cold and it’s likely to rain today. I’m a practicing and frontline HR leader. That’s how I describe myself. I’ve been in the domain of HR and talent for many years. I’ve been very fortunate to have worked and learned from the best in companies like Accenture, Microsoft, Amazon, Fidelity, the London Stock Exchange, and I bring a practical and pragmatic view to anything that happens in the HR and business space. I believe that we as HR leaders have a responsibility to showcase what our businesses do, and I think it’s our responsibility also to help them navigate those changes that they’re going through. So I’ve built my entire career around the whole aspect of change transformation, and I love what I do, and it’s so great to be here. It’s nice to meet you as well.
Rebecca Warren 02:53
Amazing. All right. Thanks for those introductions. So before we get to our main topic and questions, I have a tangentially related question to ask my guests. So my question of the month is, when booking a short term rental, such as an Airbnb or a verbose How much are you willing to cough up for cleaning fees before you start Googling hotels or deciding to stay home. I’ll give you three options. So penny pincher up to $75, because you’ll leave it right here where you found it anyway, a wallet windsor up to $150, if it’s a cool property or maybe in the right area and a budget breaker over $150? Nope, I’m not paying more to clean that. I am going to sleep. So I would love to hear from both of you. What do you pay for cleaning fees when thinking about staying at a short term rental? I don’t know who wants to start. Who’s got an opinion on this?
Neeta Saggar 04:04
So here’s the thing. Ever stayed at an Airbnb before? Right? So it’s actually even a surprise to me that there are cleaning costs that you have to cough up for before or after or ever because as far as I’m concerned, if I’m going away and taking my kids with me, you know what? I do not want to be cleaning. I do not want to be cooking. I don’t want to be doing any of that all day, every day. So I don’t think I’d be staying in an Airbnb if that meant that I have to do my own cleaning, or the fact that I have to pay extra, I know that the costs in a hotel are probably included anyway, but that’s where/what my perspective is.
Pramukh Jeyathilak 04:57
Yeah, interesting question. I would say penny pincher, because I think cleanliness is important to me, and that’s a criteria. I look at the reviews and I see, you know, what people have said about past days, and you know, a pleasant host and a clean place is what I look for. And it’s interesting, when I was thinking through this question, I actually went back to the Airbnb site and looked at the reviews that people had on me as a guest, and the word clean actually popped up. He said he was very clean, and he left the place really clean. So hey, Penny Pincher, given a choice, I won’t pay anything. I’ll leave it the way I found it. But if I have to choose, yeah, Penny Pincher, for sure, I’m not paying more than $50.
Rebecca Warren 05:41
No, it always is tough for me when we do because we will use them, especially if we have large groups, right? Like, we’ve got maybe a big team meeting since we’re all remote, or we’ve got, you know, family coming in from different places. But it always seems interesting to me when they’re like, strip the beds and put all the towels in there and take out the trash and do all I’m like, come on now that’s a lot like, I’m not going to leave the place of mass. I’m like, You promote I want to leave it as clean or cleaner than it. I got it, but I’m not going to do all the work for you and make a cleaning fee. That’s just a note. So, okay, so fun little question. I always love throwing them out there. And just like unexpected cleaning fees and how they might derail a perfectly good trip, or your perception about a place, unexpected resistance can stall even the best plans for building a future ready workforce. So today, we’re going to tackle this topic that’s on everyone’s mind, how to get your entire organization on board with the massive shifts that are happening around skills and AI. So I don’t think anybody is going to argue that there are massive shifts that have happened and are continuing to happen. And while we know that a lot of you probably have champions already inside your organization for change, sometimes getting buy-in from everyone can be a real challenge. So this discussion, we’re going to talk about three different areas, reframing skills based talent strategies as business imperatives, eliminating talent hoarding and purple squirrel hiring and ways generative and agentic AI are transforming work for the better. All right, need to promote. Are we ready?
Rebecca Warren 07:29
Yes, we are. Let’s go.
Neeta Saggar 08:27
I mean, for non HR, I think it is about, how do you there’s always transformations that are going on in the business, in any business, right? You know, how can you make it an enabler, right? Rather than, here’s a new thing that HR are doing, right? You know, you know, wrapped up in HR lingo, right? To understand it, you know, it doesn’t understand. What does that actually mean for the business, right? So for me is, how do you look at all of those transformations going on and turn it into an enabler, make sure that there is a real connection between what we’re trying to achieve and how that’s going to drive business growth, right? So you know, what does that actually mean in terms of productivity, in terms of innovation, in terms of access to talent, you know, in terms of being able to be future ready. So all of these different things are about, you know, it being a business problem and not a problem from HR. I think one of the best ways to do that, and in the past, is to engage business leaders to be able to be your champions, right, not just HR being the ones that are, are the ones driving this?
Rebecca Warren 09:47
Totally agree?
Pramukh Jeyathilak 09:49
Yeah, I want HR versus business. I always believe it’s HR and business, but let’s just start with HR versus business. I’ve taken this view, and I’m sure people on this call will sit back and say, “Hmm, that’s an interesting comment he made.” HR doesn’t own resources. It’s the business that owns resources. I’ve taken this view all along, and I’ve stuck to it. We are an enabler in that partnership. And I always say, I still recall years ago, I used to run these management and leadership trainings, and I used to go into a room, and the first thing that I would ask them is, how many of you do not have a manager? And everyone would say, What do you mean? That sounds like a stupid question. We all have managers, but I’m driving home the point that the most critical and the most sacrosanct, if I may use the word relationship and the most fundamental relationship in organizations, is between an employee and a manager. An employee probably does not have a HR partner, a legal partner, or a finance partner, but every employee, in most cases, unless they’re going through transitions, has a manager, if you extrapolate that concept, right? That relationship, when magnified, becomes an organization. And relationships within organizations are a set of smaller relationships that happen. I always ask myself, Am I the third person in that relationship because I call myself that? HR, no, I’m not. I’m an enabler to that relationship. I want to ensure that that relationship works well. We have the right mechanisms for that relationship to work well, we have the right skills on both sides for that relationship to work well, we want to ensure that the outcomes that get driven so that relationships are meaningful. So if I have that mindset, I’ve never had to go and say, This is a HR issue, this is a business issue, because I believe this is an issue that is based on the ownership model that is so simple but sometimes very difficult to understand. I even still recall early days in my career, employee relations, HR always needed to be in the middle of employee relations, manager and employee have a problem. They’ll come to HR, and HR will solve this problem. Think about it, right? We as a function, have put ourselves in the middle of a relationship that I think we have to be beside, not in there. And I jokingly used to say, How many times have I gone to my neighbor to solve the problem that I have in my own house?
Rebecca Warren 12:29
Just feel weird, doesn’t it?
Pramukh Jeyathilak 12:32
But when it comes to the relationship that we have in the workforce, we need a third person anyway. So that’s one thing, right? The second thing that I would say is I’ve been really fortunate Rebecca and the kind of companies that I work for that HR was seen as a business function. So any change that I talk about, you know, Neeta talks about, you know, the transformation journey. She talks about, “how do we enable change?” There’s three key questions that I ask myself before I have the conversation, is what I’m going to say, impacting revenue is what I’m going to say, reduce operational risk. And what I am and anything that I’m going to say optimizes cost. That’s what I think about. How do I impact revenue with what I’m doing? How do I look at risk mitigation with what I’m doing, and how do I ensure that my costs are optimized? If we as HR leaders use that language with the business, it resonates. And to neath point, this HR jargon sometimes gets their head in the spin, and so that’s been my experience, and that’s how I address any change of any nature, big or small.
Rebecca Warren 13:48
Yeah, I think that that totally makes sense. Is connecting, right? We understand we have the relationships in the organization. How do we connect it to the business? Both of you have said that that is critical. I really like what you said, Pramukh, about optimizing cost, because I think a lot of time folks say, Well, we’re going to put an AI strategy or a skills based strategy, and we’re going to reduce cost and reduce headcount. I like how you say we’re going to optimize our costs, right? It may not be a lot of what I’m reading and hearing from Gartner is that moving to a skills based strategy and using AI isn’t necessarily going to reduce head count, but it’s going to optimize the work that’s getting done, which optimizes those costs right so putting people to in the right places, helping them feel fulfilled. Have people understand what employees are doing, what they can do, what that potential is, and then understanding what the need of the business is and connecting those dots.
Pramukh Jeyathilak 14:46
Yeah.
Rebecca Warren 14:48
Okay. So, we’ve talked a little bit about, how do we talk about the business outcomes? I think we still have to put some skin on that. We’ll get to that in a minute or two, but let’s think about this. So if we’ve got a that we know that moving to a skills based strategy, whatever that looks like, it could be, people say it’s skills first. It’s skills forward. It’s, you know, skills based. It’s sometimes really hard to get the buy-in for that. How do we show that ROI, right? How do we get the budget and the buy in? What are some of those practical ways that we can show that return on investment of putting time and energy and money into skills development and artificial intelligence, especially in a way that speaks directly to our CFO and other financial stakeholders. That question might have sounded a little bit gobbledygook, but how do we prove ROI and get money to do the things we want to do? How do we do that?
Neeta Saggar 15:59
It’s a very interesting question, right? In terms of showing that that return of investment, you know, and it all comes down to, what problem are you trying to solve in the business, right? There could be lots of different things. And what lever is it you’re trying to, you know, to prove, is it the fact that you know you haven’t got visibility of all of your talent, right, or access to the talent you have, and you’re having to go to LinkedIn, you know, to re recruit and bring people back in, because actually, you just didn’t know you had that talent in your own backyard, right? You know? Is it the fact that, actually, you know, what you’re finding is that the cost of recruitment is really high, right? And the demand of recruitment, and actually, it’s a war for talent, you’re not being able to find the right people, right? So is that the fact that what you’re now trying to do is, you know, how can you build and develop from within to be able to have a workforce that is future ready, right? So then it’s a combination of build, buy, borrow, bot. So being able to agree is, actually, can we position it? So it’s a bit of a no brainer, right? If we are able to unlock talent, you know, from within the organization, that also helps them to develop themselves, right? But at the same time it’s getting work done, right? And it’s also a win-win situation, right? So, for example, in some companies that I’ve worked for, right? You know, one of the things we were looking at is unlocked hours, right? How many hours were we unlocking with our employees being able to develop themselves and work on gigs? For instance, yeah, sure. And then that working on those gigs means that, you know, they were developing, but at the same time that work was being done, you know, innovate, innovation was being had, right? So we were able to then calculate that, if we were to then replace that with contingent workers or with, you know, full time hires from within the company, how much would that have cost us, right? So we can start to really see savings straight away, right? That by allowing people to be able to work on gigs, you know, with the fact that they’re already developing, you’re building, you know, your workforce for the future, but at the same time, there’s a huge cost saving there, right? So it’s a, it’s a for me, you know, that’s how you position it right, to be able to say, you know, you’re ticking lots of different boxes right by being enabled to open up something like a talent marketplace.
Rebecca Warren 18:49
And I, like you, talked about enabling, and I think on top of that, what you’re also saying is empowering. It’s empowering folks with their career, which gets them more engaged.
Neeta Saggar 18:59
It’s the usual suspects, right, that tend to normally get all of the opportunities by democratizing the way we do this, right? It’s the fact that you are providing, you know, you’re getting access to all of these hidden talents that you might not even know that you had, right? And that’s you know, that can only help you go faster, you know, grow quicker, be able to really showcase, you know, and in the world now as post COVID, where not everybody’s able to get on a plane. Right? You can get work done from somebody sitting in Brazil working on a project that is based in London, right, exchanging their experiences, their skills, learning. Because not everything is about just development. In terms of, I want to build a skill I don’t have. It could also be about how I have this skill. I want the opportunity to be able to practice this skill in a different function, in a different department. I want to be able to go deeper. I want to create mastery, you know, and this type of, you know, flow and you know, from fixed into growth, allows the organizations to be so much more agile, right? And to be able to then, just as I said, break down those silos.
Rebecca Warren 20:32
What are you thinking about that?
Pramukh Jeyathilak 20:34
Yeah, look, I want to again, go back to where you started this question, right? How do we have meaningful conversations with our businesses, and how do we ensure that we talk to them about the journey of skills that most of them want us to or we are enabling in organizations? If you think about what’s been happening in the last many years, Rebecca, I think this whole aspect of skills is just this whole journey of moving from conversations which are very, what I call general and general conversations, or specific conversations. What do I mean by that? To me when I say the title program manager, HR, business partner, some of it ends up being a very generic term that’s understood differently by different people. I was having this conversation with a leader in a fairly leading automobile company. They’ve historically been building cars and trucks based on an internal combustion engine. Right now they’re suddenly saying, Hey, we got to get electric. We’ve got to get a hybrid. The question then becomes, what are the skills and capabilities that are required? This is connecting back to that business outcome that Neeta was mentioning. What is it that you’re trying to solve for they need to move from building ice cars to electric cars. If you have a conversation with the leader to say that’s the outcome and some of the capabilities that you require, in addition to the technical skills, are innovation, looking around corners, ability to work in unstructured environments, to look at innovation among teams, you’re beginning to start having what I call a specific conversation around capabilities, that a generic conversation around here’s a role that we need to have to build an electric car. So I think that conversation and that shift is important. And I think when we as HR leaders and talent leaders have that conversation, it’s actually resonating more with business and they know what we’re talking about. The second kind of, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. No. The second kind of angle to that, that whole thing, right? The whole aspect of then what I think again, you go through the journey. For people who know me, I’m good and using acronyms, I have these three eyes. The first eye is, you know this, how do you break the ignorance around what we are talking about. The first is breaking their ignorance or what is happening around us and not making a job. And the second thing is providing them with a lot of information, data, because there are leaders that we work with for whom data speaks better than just mumbo jumbo. And this is where I think HR can play a critical role, the third eye, where we provide insights into business outcomes. So if you go through that journey of the three eyes with them, I think it makes a lot of sense. I know we got to talk about things around investments, and how we set the stage for you. The last thing I would say is, how do we try and help companies become more contemporary? If you’re the CEO of a company which you think is stuck in the past from a technology perspective, if you can have a conversation with them and say, Hey, AI ml, and all of those is going to move you from the basement away you are in tech innovation to the to the ground level, or the first level, and you as a leader can show up as an innovative leader. I think there’s a business case that kind of indirectly gets created as well.
Pramukh Jeyathilak 25:33
Yeah, look, I mean, I’m going to give you kind of two perspectives. One is the language that CEOs, CFOs and business leaders like to hear, are we growing? Quarter on quarter, are we profitable? Quarter on quarter, are we beating market expectations? Quarter on quarter, if you’re not, hey, giddy up. You’ve got work to do. Just look at the financials so you can sit there and say, Look, I don’t want to do this. I don’t need to do this, but if you’re a company that has other stakeholders, and those stakeholders are critically important for you, you’ve got to be accountable in bringing the organization to the next level. So that’s one way of thinking about the second thing, which is an interesting thing that I learned in a company in my past life is creating what if scenarios. Rebecca, right? And I think we don’t do enough of that creating what if scenarios. It’s a very powerful way of having conversations with a CEO or a CFO. What if we do this? What if we don’t? What if we invest? What if we don’t and play out those scenarios? I think we have a responsibility as HR leaders to be only holding in the mirror to some of these, to these issues. So I think an approach, a practical and pragmatic approach to how do you bring this to the forefront of these decision makers is to create these and look – I’m a big Malcolm Gladwell fan, and the tipping point always comes to my mind. Organizations will hit a tipping point. Why don’t we create artificial tipping points in organizations? Here’s a challenge to all of us as HR leaders. Can we create artificial tipping points and organizations, rather than saying yes, this is the way it’s going to be an accepting reality. Can we help redefine the reality, even if it’s artificial, and that’s going to Yeah, no, I’ve tried this, and I tell you, it’s a very, really, powerful way of enforcing change. But I’ll leave it at that.
Rebecca Warren 27:46
You know, it looks like you got something to add. I love to hear your perspective as well.
Neeta Saggar 27:50
I like what you’re saying. I think it is, you know, that real sort of fear factor around AI, right? And also lack of awareness, right, on what it actually means, you know, and it’s being able to simplify it right in a language that whether it’s a CEO or whether it’s an employee, you know, everybody understands that this isn’t just about, you know, AI is going to come in and it’s going to really blow up my job, and it’s going to blow up your you Know, and to the point where companies go, You know what? I can’t relate to this, or this may never happen, you know, we’ll just let everybody else sort of pioneer this, and we’ll sort of stay at the back and see what happens, you know. And when I’m advising all these companies, and it’s about, well actually, it’s not about, will this happen? The future is already here, right? That revolution has already started. Back in when there was an industrial revolution, or lots of different ways, and that really disrupted the way we work and where we think about work to be done, right? You know, where initially we thought, oh gosh, you know, Google’s not going to really come in and change the way, you know, teams isn’t going to really come and impact, you know, suddenly, now AI is something either people are going, Yeah, I get it right, you know. But how do we connect a human with, with, with AI? Because I also think there are lots of companies that are successful right now, right? But is that enough for you to future proof yourself just because you’re doing really well, because that’s the model that’s working for you today? Yeah, but as jobs change, right? AI is going to automate and revolutionize. You’ve got to be able to turn that fear into positive outcomes for companies, and sometimes it’s just by giving them real life examples, right? Here’s a bunch of jobs that you are doing today. If this is going to be automated. These are the efficiencies you’re going to gain, right? But if you know efficiency, if all of that is going to be done, right, we’re going to potentially look at different skills that we might need. Our employees are going to be around a lot more intelligence and all of that sort of stuff, right? So it is actually how we position it, sort of take that fear out, and also sort of talk about, okay, it started because half that fear is around, well, I don’t know. We’re all scratching our heads around, you know? Well, what does it take to go? And for me, it’s to start somewhere. To get anywhere, you want to be able to really encourage to say, right now in this environment, we can actually fail a lot faster. There’s no issue with that. Let’s do that. Let’s learn. Let’s pivot. Let’s understand, but at least this way, you are prepared for what is to come in the future, rather than the go, oh, we should have done that five years ago, because these changes we’re talking about don’t happen overnight. You are going to have to start somewhere, build, grow, experiment, learn. And that’s where I think you have to be in it for the long haul, but at the same time be able to do things that are going to help them understand the benefits. You’re not going to be able to use an old map, as they say, to navigate a new world. So you know it is, let’s, let’s just embrace, understand what we’re dealing with, and look at actually, what’s the art of the possible? Yes, some things may seem a bit bold, but how can you break it down to say what is a lot more realistic in the next six months compared to next year, next two years, and you can do the planning, but all of that energy needs to happen now, and you have to build the momentum so that you are ready and you’re not left behind, because other organizations are doing it, and they’re doing it really well. You can either become an organization that is now no longer relevant because they’re not competitive enough, or you can use your success now and become even bigger and better.
Rebecca Warren 33:36
Let’s shift to talk about some of those habits that may be ingrained in our organization that hinder some of the forward thinking that we’re talking about. So let’s first talk about internal mobility and talent hoarding. Neeta, you talked a lot about opening up pathways, right? And we’re going to engage, and we’re going to enable, and we’re going to empower. And use that same word, enable. How are we that enabler for those relationships to happen and grow inside of our organization? But it’s really hard for managers sometimes to say, I don’t want to give up my best person, right? It turns into like it’s about me as opposed to about them, and it’s also about them really. You know, I think people want to do a good job, and they want to have the best people on their team. And so it’s really hard to say, let me let this person go. I may get somebody better. So talk to me about if you’ve got any strategies that you have employed, or that you have suggested, to encourage leaders to release that talent for internal mobility in order for the business to grow or become better.
Neeta Saggar 34:54
Sure. First of all, in the last sort of four or five change implementations I’ve done and spoken with a lot of line managers through listening groups, and you know, to understand where, you know, where they’re stuck or blocked, or what their fears are, or what’s stopping them. You know, some really interesting insights have come along, and where my original hypothesis was from that place of I think line managers are going to be talent boarders. I’ve actually gone the other way. I think line managers are, you know, most line managers actually want to help their employees to learn, develop and grow, but because before they were constrained to their own network. So if I’m talking to my team member, right, and they were like, you know, Neeta, can you help me? I want to, you know, here’s my development plan. I want to, but I’m only restricted to my own network, right? It’s really difficult to keep on having those conversations with my team to sort of say, Look, I don’t know anyone. I’ll keep, you know, I’ll keep an eye out. And sometimes about, you know, I’m, I’m giving you this feedback, but is there a way for you to build those skills, to get better at this? I don’t know, you know. And so there’s never a so what, right? So most line managers, actually, when we were, you know, building up those capabilities, you know, within line managers, they would say, actually, this is a breath of fresh air. I can now talk to, you know, my employees and say, Actually, let’s have a look at, you know, potentially different ways that I can help you to learn, develop and grow, right? Because, you know, this will allow you to be a lot more passionate and engaged and and, you know, happiness opportunities, you know. But of course, that’s that mindset work that you have to do with the line managers, right, to let them know how important it is that they are a critical enabler, right? They can make or break this, right, you know. And don’t get me wrong, you do get lots of line managers that will be the blockers, like you, like you say, right? We’ll turn around and say, “No, you’ve got to go and work on this delivery is more important than development,” for instance, right? But so the strategies we’ve used, right is, along with that sort of talent marketplace, what controls can you put into place, right, that will allow these managers to be flagged up where they are creating or showing wrong behaviors, right? So if there are, you know, employees interested, for example, and have the capability and have the time to invest in 20% of their time working on something that’s really important to them, you know, and actually, most of these employees tend to work on top of what they’re doing, because they’re passionate about it, right? They want to do this. They find the time right. But if a line manager is going to block it, you know, we then in part of the process, there has been an opportunity for the employees to come back and say, Actually, my line manager is stopping me doing this right, which then there is a big change issue going on, we really need to work harder on our line managers right on able to really build that right culture of that we want right and to be able to show the line managers the real drivers, the key benefits on why it’s really, really important, because you have top down messages right on why development is important, if line managers don’t, then see that through employees. Just think, what’s the point? Right? The culture doesn’t change. So it’s a big mindset change, right? That we really need to, and our line managers can be the person to really help with that mindset change, long as you know, long as you get it right with them. So that’s Yeah, makes sense, yeah.
Pramukh Jeyathilak 38:58
Yeah, let’s, let’s not forget things. The number two reasons why people leave companies is because of lack of career growth, and manager number two. If you think about both those data points, they’re both interconnected, yep, right. So let’s just start from a point of where we have data and where we have information and insights, and let’s have that conversation right. Number two, you asked about some practical examples and ways in which we can make that happen. I totally agree. I would rather have someone who has my back and I can trust and will do anything for me than someone who’s new. This is the whole aspect of skills based conversation. If you can have someone who’s great and working in ambiguity, which is a project you’re working on is better than name a person, John, Jim, Jack, Mary, whatever or a title is going to be helpful, right? So let’s just park there are companies which have done what is called virtual team and virtual team output based projects. So I work for you. You don’t want to let go of me. Can you send me away for a project for three months, six months, and have someone to do mine. So there’s this concept of short term rotations. It’s not rotations. These are virtual teams where you’re driving a certain critical initiative for a company. When I’m in a position to let go and be open to receiving someone in companies do cross bonding. They move a person from one region to another region just to gain their experiences. This usually happens in product teams. So companies which are product teams, they say, “Hey, and companies which do product localization, I’m such a US centric team. Can I send someone across the pond to see how products land in other parts?” We are going to localize our technologies for that part of the world. We might as well have someone who gets that insights. So cross bonding is another way. So in a way, you’re letting people go for the right reasons, but you’re also helping that person in return. I think those are some very simple and practical ways in which you know you can do this before it gets too late.
Neeta Saggar 41:26
And just to add on there what you can all you know, it’s that sort of give and get. So one of the strategies I’ve used in the past is, okay, fine, this person needs to go and work for three or four hours a week on something, right? But that doesn’t stop you from also getting somebody else from outside of your team, you know, to come into your team and really have that diversity of thought, the skills that you may be missing. You know, if what, what piece of work will they need to stop doing so that you can give them time to go and work and build skills, right? And how can you get work done with others outside of your team, then it is a win-win situation again, right? So in when you present it in that way, and that penny really drops, that actually, I can now really rejig work to be able to get creative and get you know new talent, new work in and plus that other person that’s gone away is going to come back with that knowledge, back to your team, right? You know, if they’re bringing back that knowledge, right? So actually, how can you then get them to leverage that knowledge with the rest of your team? So there’s a lot of layers of how you can help to see the sort of, you know, the win in all this.
Rebecca Warren 42:42
So I think all of those things are great ways to think about it. How do we present the win, win? How are we thinking about helping folks grow, but also helping leaders grow, expanding their reach, their knowledge, and encouraging that mobility? Let’s talk about external? So my background in TA, and I can’t tell you how many hire managers I’ve had that said, No, we need the perfect person. They have to look like this, right? The purple squirrel, unicorn, whatever we’re calling it today, the thought that I don’t have time to train, they have to hit the ground running. They’ve got to be an A player, like all of the cliche things that we say, what kind of things have you seen to help drive that shift of hiring for skill or potential, as opposed to hiring a perfect background? Would love to hear ways that you have been able to help managers think differently about what they need on their team in order to facilitate what y’all are talking about internally. Right? The more flexible we are with bringing in folks who have that potential, the easier it’s going to be to see them participate on other teams, work on those short term gigs. I love that cross bonding. How do you bring the right people in that again, that can do those things? So talk to me a little bit about how you stop the perfect higher purple squirrel hiring with managers.
Pramukh Jeyathilak 44:16
I think I’m going to say two things, and then I’ll let Neeta add more. I think, number one, you’re right. There’s no perfect person. There’s no perfect profile. I always look at this, you know, if you’re, if you’re capable of doing the job with 70% of what you’re looking for, I think the rest can, I think being realistic about it, the the simple way that I’ve actually been able to move the needle is by creating use cases or reference profiles. Because, you know, if you think about it, Rebecca, it’s a leap of faith to go and hire someone that you don’t know right. You can do all of the right assessments. You can do all of that. But imagine if you’re a business leader and I go and talk about the success that John and this company has had, and what John and the journey that John’s gone through the last five years. And in this example, John’s been someone who’s a critical resource in your team. I think sometimes having a pragmatic conversation to say we hired John with these skills. Look at what he or he has done over the last four years and what the organization has done to get into this level of success. So I think one is being pragmatic. What we get, be it 6040, 7030, and not compromise. And number two, having enough success stories within the organization that you can refer to people can relate to it. Oh yes, I remember her. She started in this role, and look where she is right now. And I think that resonates with people. It sounds more emotional as opposed to a data driven, rational conversation. But hey, who said emotionality is not required in the workplace, and so that’s the second thing I would do. The third thing that I would do is I would ensure that there is a strong pool of genderless skills that companies hire and have them grow with time and again. Not all of the organizations have the flexibility to build a graduate program, an early in career program, but I think if you’re really an organization that is future focused, I am a big believer that investing at that level, because that’s very genetical, and then molding them in the way that makes sense To you, that they become a unicorn down the road may not be a bad strategy. And here again, look, I just want to be clear. I’m not talking about hiring 200 people, like some companies do, even if you can hire two and build them up to be the future, special, skilled professional. That’s an investment. That’s worth it.
Rebecca Warren 47:01
I like that idea. That’s super interesting. Neeta, any thoughts on this before we move on to our final kind of bucket?
Neeta Saggar 47:11
Sure. So, you know, I think you know when you are recruiting for skills, right? It opens up so much more because you can actually talk about adjacencies as well, not just, you know this is the job you’re hiring somebody to do, right? It’s actually what good looks like, and especially as we talk about AI and how it’s all going to be automating stuff and all the managers, you know what? What are all of those real potential skills that are going to be imperative for somebody that then can, you know, and it’s going to be somebody who is a self starter, who’s, you know, got good emotional intelligence and critical thinking and all those sort of very much, you know, creative and artistic, to be able to really pivot and move into place. Now, a practical example, I was working with a bank some time ago now that was looking at skills. They were looking to bring in customer service individuals, but always really struggled, right, you know, too, because they were competing with so much. But when we analyzed the job, we realized that even as a customer service, right? The skills that were required for that role were, you know, problem solving, being able to do things like that, were really closely aligned to engineers, right? So what we decided to do was, actually, let’s go and recruit engineers to come into this role. So we did this big campaign called good engineers become great bankers, right? Because we were able to demonstrate that these are the skills that there may be lots of engineers that are really frustrated in their roles and want to change and want to be able to say, actually, these skills I can transfer into these areas. So it’s a really good way of being able to see the benefits that you are not limiting yourself to just what you’re looking for, but thinking outside the box, or, you know, with skills as your backbone,
Rebecca Warren 49:09
interesting. And that’s a whole nother conversation on how you convince engineers to move into customer support. But we’ll Yeah, and that’s, I think that’s the right way to think about it. That’s how I always ran my TA teams. I did an 80/20 rule. So they are very similar, right? I think if you hire at 100% you’re hiring a consultant who isn’t going to be able to get as much, right? You need to leave that learning component. So I think what you both are saying is correct. Let’s hire for potential. Let’s hire for what they can bring to the table. Love the idea. I think it’s really good. Sometimes we get stuck in the thought of, we have to have an early career, you know, plan, and we have to have 15, you know, interns in every department, and then they have to go into full time hires, and there’s no right or wrong. You can have two, and if you can show that they are able then to add that value. You know that could either be a way to build a program, or maybe it’s just two. So I like that you’re saying there’s no formula. Right? We’re going to do what’s right for the business at the time when it’s right for the business. Okay? So I’m watching the clock, and I do want to shift to talk about AI. Weird that, you know, we’re going to talk about AI on this webinar here, but you know, HR is moving so quickly, and we are never going to move more slowly than we are today, right? Like, it’s only going to get better, and we, as you said, Neeta, the future is here. We’ve got AI, whether it’s Gen AI, which helped me plan this trip to Ireland, right? Or we’ve got automation, we’ve got agentic, we’ve got all of these forms that are coming in. Let’s talk a little bit about how leaders can use AI HR leaders, and potentially leaders outside of HR to be empowered to focus on leading change in strategy, rather than getting bogged down in this is how we should do it, or being scared of the rest. So how do we add AI to that skills conversation to say this is going to make us better.
Neeta Saggar 51:28
Well, AI, if we position AI as a friend, right, to be able at the end of the day, right? What does every organization say they need more of is data, right?
Rebecca Warren 51:39
Time, but data too, right?
Neeta Saggar 51:43
But with the data that you know, you don’t have enough information, right? And when I started, maybe, like, a few years ago, and when, when you were talking about the words like Job architecture and stuff like that, you know, it used to be like, give me strength, right? Because this is going to be a long haul, right? You have to do a lot of these things manually, right? But now, with AI to be able to have access and information and data, you know, you know whether it’s data, whether it’s your internal data, analyzed and insights being able to offer so you can then know, where are my skills, right? Who’s got the skills? What skills do people have? What schools do people need? Where are the gaps? Where are you know, what’s the skills for the future? All of these things can help so much in planning, right? For whether it’s strategic workforce planning, whether it’s to do with, you know, your internal mobility, and increasing that, right, whether it’s to do with helping to retain your employees so that they feel valued, right? You know, AI is doing all of that so it can be the back end of the kitchen that is going to be setting up for success and providing all of these great outcomes. You know, that you can really leverage great data. And it’s not just a single source of data either. It’s how you get your hands on multiple sources of data, right, and then be able to tell a story through change management that will help your mindset that is required, because we need to go on a cultural journey first, right? It’s not just a technology change. How do you combine these two things to be able to make a real powerful change? And I think AI is past that.
Pramukh Jeyathilak 53:38
Yeah, look, I’m going to take a very simplistic view, and I’m trying to bring the hume to these conversations, right? I don’t know if you both agree, but there’s a school of thought that AI has been around for a long time. You’re good. It’s a new name. I was having a conversation with my sons about this topic, and one of them said, Dad, we’ve had bananas forever, but today, suddenly they call it organic bananas, and you’ve got the option of organic bananas and non organic. So for him, a 24-year-old aspiring dentist, it’s about the value of organic bananas and how that plays itself out. The second thing he told me was, and I’m gonna quote this conversation, not with him, but someone else. He says, You go into a department store and you see eight varieties of conflicts. What do you do? First, you take the time to know what the hell those are. So when you invest the time to figure out what these things on the shelf do number two, you’re starting to get personal. Gosh, I’m allergic to this. I don’t like rice. It’s whatever it is, right? So that’s the second thing. And then you say, boom, Rice Krispies. That’s my choice out of the six. So here’s what I do when it comes to AI. I, myself, go into this grocery store and look on the shelf at all the AI solutions that are there, and then I say, for my company, in this case, for my organization, for my function, what are the two things that’s got to work for me? And you know what? Go slow to go fast. Try one, because you shortlisted two out of 10. Try one and don’t try it for the entire family. Don’t buy, you know, 20 boxes of that. Buy one. You try it, you test it. Which means that you run pilots, you do things which work for you, and if it goes well, go to Costco and buy 200 boxes of them for the rest of the year.
Rebecca Warren 56:01
Both of you, and I’ve got one last question. I’m watching the time. We’re down to about two minutes here, but both of you have said test, try, learn, ask questions, don’t make assumptions. So I really like that you’re saying small bites. It’s okay to try this, learn fast, fail fast, or move slow to go fast, right? There’s different ways, depending on what your organization looks like. But what I’m hearing from both of you is you don’t need to rip the band aid off and say, we’re going all skills, or we’re going all AI. You can say, hey, we’re going to dip our toe in. We’re going to figure it out and tie it back to the things both you and Pramukh said. And then I’ll get your last take here, figuring out what you’re trying to solve for. And then that list that you gave us, Pramukh, which Neeta you have, has brought those into as well. Break the ignorance. So figure out what you’re trying to solve for. Break that ignorance. Use your data and your info. Nina, you just talked about that. Figure out what that looks like. Do your storytelling, and then drive insights out of that. So all of those pieces that you’re saying, I think, are fabulous. So in the last minute or so that we have. I’m going to ask both of you, when you think about looking ahead, what’s one piece of actionable advice that you would give to HR professionals as a quick win or a first step? What’s your one piece of actionable advice that you want to leave the folks that are listening to this? So Pramukh, I’ll start with you, and then Neeta, I’ll have you wrap us up.
Pramukh Jeyathilak 57:42
You know what? Talk to others, talk to your fellow profession. Talk to business leaders. Please talk. Don’t be alone in this.
Rebecca Warren 57:56
Love that. Neeta, what do you think?
Neeta Saggar 57:59
Mine is don’t underestimate change management, right? You know, at the end of the day, it’s all about driving, you know, changing behaviors, changing mindsets, being able to win hearts and minds. This is all about inspiring people. So you need to take a slightly different approach than you would with, you know, any other technology solution. So I think that is really, really important about how, how change can happen in a stick.
Rebecca Warren 58:28
I love it. Both of you have been fabulous guests, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your insights, your thoughts.
