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Alan Mellish has spent the past 14 years serving the HCM community as an industry analyst and marketing strategist. Alan has run industry conferences, built original research, and worked in agencies to build HR Tech brands as a principal analyst for the Brandon Hall group. Alan draws on his experience to raise the bar for HCM expertise and build market share for top-tier HR solution providers. Thank you to today’s webinar sponsor, Eightfold. Eightfold AI’s marketing, leading talent intelligence platform helps organizations retain top performance, upscale and reskill their workforce, recruit talent, efficiency and reach diversity goals, eight folds, clear deep learning, artificial intelligence platforms is available in more than 155 countries and 24 languages, enabling cutting edge enterprises to transform their talent into a competitive advantage. For more information, visit www.eightfold.ai.
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We want to remind everyone that the annual Britain Hall Group Excellence Conference is being held in Florida, January, 28, through 30th, registration is open, and we can’t wait to see you there. As always, we invite you to participate in our research surveys. We have three that are active now. Links will be available in your handout, or you can always visit Brennan hall.com Once the results are analyzed, all participants receive a piece of complimentary research and other exclusive benefits. We currently have our excellence in action program open for application. For more information, please check out Excellence Awards. Dot Brennan Hall group.com, our institute represents the culmination of three decades of excellence in HCM and includes evidence based solutions for most pressing challenges, professional development for your entire team, access to the collective wisdom of global HCM leaders and networking with peers who share your commitment to excellence. Now we are excited to share that at the end of today’s webinar, we will be selecting our two raffle winners. You could be a winner of 50% off the HCM excellence conference, or you could win a free excellence in Action Program submission. Stay tuned to the end to see if you are a lucky winner, you must be present to win. Now, just a few quick things to note. If you have any questions, please use the questions panel on your control bar. We will answer questions throughout the webinar, and at the end, we’re recording the webinar, and we’ll email you a link in a PDF of the slides. Within 24 hours, the chat box is open, so please feel free to share your thoughts as we go along. Your input makes this more valuable. Now I would like to pass things on to Alan.
Alan Mellish 03:02
Thank you so much, Ivy, as always, for a great introduction. So as she mentioned, I’m Alan Mellish, and I’m going to give you a quick snapshot of how we’ll spend our time together today. First, we’re going to be talking about HR, strategic alignment gap and the and how that’s showing up in our research and what we see in the marketplace. And then we’re going to look at how organizations are bridging that gap and turning and turning what they’re doing into a source of business growth. And then, and we’ll also be talking about a few case studies there as well that might be of interest. And then finally, we’ll wrap things up with a quick do’s and don’ts section for HR. Also, as Ivy mentioned, we are going to have a few poll questions sprinkled throughout, so make sure that you’re paying attention there, because we do want to get some engagement on those and just hear what you have to say on each of these topics. So without further ado, we’ll dive right into our first section here, and if you move on to the next slide there, what I really want to cover here is that, you know, this is from our one of our most recent studies, as you can see, and the tech spending in the future focused on the for organizations, what they’re focused on spending in the future, in HR and HCM practices, we’re seeing a lot of investment in technology. There’s cutting of outside services, but and staffing, it’s kind of an even some are some are planning on staffing up. Some are planning on staffing down in HR, but across the board, everybody’s investing in new technology to to make things happen. Now that’s, in one sense, a good thing, and if you can move to the next slide, we’ll talk about that. In one sense, that’s a great thing, but we want to but it all depends on what technology you’re buying it, what you have in mind for it to do, and how clear your vision is for it. So we’re going to start with our first poll, and we want you to finish this sentence with the statement you most agree with. My tech stack is sleek and seamless, like a sports car on an open road, a little clunky, like an old fax machine, constantly under construction, or mysterious a it won’t tell us what’s in it. So I’ll give everybody a few minutes to to respond to that. But you know, if you’re like that, 73% spending a lot planning on spending a lot of money on technology, or making some big moves in that space, getting rid of something old, bringing in something new, maybe integrating something we want to know, kind of how you’re feeling about your current tech stack and what we’re and what you’re Seeing. Okay, great. So Rebecca, I see here we’ve got, like most people are feeling either B or D here, mysterious, clunky and mysterious, that would be an interesting to put in your online dating profile or something like that. But, yeah, so, so great. So yeah, folks are definitely feeling the need to for an upgrade, or at least to find out what better they’re working with. Okay, move on to the next one. So we know that people are investing a lot part of the now we’re want to now we’re going to look at some of the reasons why everybody’s investing in greater digitization, or or what have you. And as you can see here, there’s a lot of reasons listed here. One is a greater need for analytics, increased globalization of the workforce, so maybe some technology to support that. Or maybe we’re looking at just integrating systems so that we can have a global view, and then also changing business conditions. That’s obviously lines up with our topic today, where there’s that, you know, the business’s needs are changing, and so our HR and, by extension, the technology it’s using has to, has to change. And so there’s, there’s some interesting stuff there, you know, but overall, we’re looking at trying to adjust, adapt to the business and just maybe adapt to the broader marketplace, and also what, what can we do for better people outcomes? So next slide there, Ivy, so So, right now. So those previous two data slides there, I would say, are demonstrating that hrs heart is very much in the right place in terms of we’re trying to do, you know, invest in better technology. We’re trying to build a better, you know, a better, more high-functioning People Operations system to support the business. However, there’s also, this is where we come to the gap. The number three, biggest priority and Talent Management listed in our one of our in that same research study was improving alignment between talent strategy and business goals, and then also on that right hand side, you’ll see that roughly, a little under roughly half of organizations say that their HR metrics are not in alignment with business outcomes. And so I feel like those two, those two points there, and there’s probably some other stuff you could find in our data, if you went even deeper, but basically that’s saying that HR and the business are no HR understands that there’s some work to be done there in getting really aligned with the business and that is cause for concern. Where, if we’re all hopped up and excited to spend a bunch of money on new technologies and really revamp the whole function, but we’re not already aligned and tightly focused on what the business needs from us, there’s going to be some problems. And Rebecca, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this kind of thing happen before, where there’s a lot of momentum, but not so much the strategic alignment that needs to happen for that momentum to turn into success.
Rebecca Warren 09:54
Well, yeah, and I think when folks are not aligned with the overall business outcomes, they end up making decisions that feel good in a silo, but don’t necessarily work for the business right. They hire the wrong people, or they pull in the wrong tech, or they’re solving the wrong problem. So that alignment is critical for the business to be able to drive the results that it’s responsible for, and you want to make sure that you’ve got the right pieces driving that. So there’s, there’s absolutely, some big misses that come when the business is not aligned with HR and the people.
Alan Mellish 10:30
So this is this I threw in because I thought it was interesting. This is how HR is looking at itself, and what skills the HR function needs to get better in the next 12 months and and so some of these, you’ll notice, are really kind of or I, I’ve been thinking about them. And Rebecca and I talked about this when we were getting ready to do this one do this webinar, that it’s sort of like some of these are inward focused, like, how do we make our HR function better as an HR department? So some of those are like, you know, thinking about inclusiveness, maybe learning, agility, collaboration. But then some of these also work in terms of becoming a better partner to the business. So that might be strategic planning and execution, business acumen, consulting and an ideation, data science often tends to go hand in hand with better partnership with the business, because you can provide them with better more accurate numbers and much more accurate predictions about what’s going to happen where. So I think that this is at least a semi positive indicator that there’s many of these HR departments out there recognize that some of these business-friendly skills need work in 2025, so yeah, and I think it’s good too, that there’s no there’s no one way to do it right.
Rebecca Warren 12:08
Organizations can do it in a way that makes sense for them, customize it according to what they’re looking for and what they need to accomplish. So if they wanted to look at organizational capabilities first, right, those power skills, building that organizational agility, enhancing collaboration, and, you know, really future proofing the workforce across the the horizontal level, or doing it more in a targeted stream based on position or departments, right? So you get some faster piloted results. You get maybe some easier buy in from stakeholders, and maybe less change fatigue. So when we look at the slide to it maybe looks overwhelming, but there’s no one perfect way to do it. You have to do it on what makes sense for your business, which then will, as we will continue to talk about, will align with your business priorities that will allow you to be more successful, because the things that you’re working on, skill wise are going to drive those business outcomes.
Alan Mellish 13:14
Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And also, it’s like, you know, this is a long list, but probably not everybody’s, you know, not everybody’s hard charging on all of these at once, all at once. It’s more like a three or four at a time kind of thing, I think, agreed, or the reality, okay, let’s move to the next slide here, and we’ve got our second poll of the day. And so this one is, what’s your go to strategy for ultimate HR in business collaboration? And so we’ve got a couple of you can, you can just choose one, but obviously, some of the you know, you might want to do many of these.
Rebecca Warren 14:03
But what if you could only choose one? What would what would you choose for me take the snacks and the and the coffee, or, what is yours?
Alan Mellish 14:17
Mine is definitely going to be the the coffee and the snacks?
Rebecca Warren 14:24
Yeah, I think that that collaboration piece is interesting, because people collaborate in different ways, right? I’m a verbal processor, so I want to get in a room with people. I want to jump on a call. I want to, you know, have a meeting where I can see people and we can brainstorm together. But that doesn’t always work for other folks. It may be more of an email back and forth or a different way to exchange information. Why? Nobody wants telepathy. Nobody wants coffee chats. What’s up? Oh, I suppose we could just call those like the water cooler chats, though, right? I think that happens a lot. I’m remote, so Mine just happens with the cat, you know, or my husband as he’s coming out of his office for 12 seconds. But I do sort of miss those spontaneous conversations that happen when you’re wandering the building or taking a break or heading to the to the restroom.
Alan Mellish 15:16
Absolutely. So, yeah, great stuff there, if we can move to the next slide, yeah. And we already sort of dipped into this, already. You did a great job of teeing this up, Rebecca, but the potential consequences of this HR Alignment Gap with the business, wrong technology solutions, hiring the wrong people, and then, you know, your workforce skill gaps grow, because if you’re if you’re hiring in one direction with one set of priorities, but that part of the business really needed you to be, you know, that’s like where the business was 24 months ago, and now it’s pivoted, and you’re not aligned to that, then your skills Grab some skills gaps only grow. You know, the strategically important talent segments. You know, in every industry, there’s, there’s always change and shifts in skills, but there’s always, I feel like there’s always those, like core strategic areas that don’t change as much over time. You know, whether it’s oil and gas or retail or or it, there’s always those, like, parts of the workforce where you’re kind of always interested in trying to attract those kinds of people, those kinds of always on jobs where it’s like, you know, I don’t care how fully staffed we are, I want to see, I want to at least know we could get a couple of great candidates on that. And if you’re not aligned with where the business is on those kinds of roles, then your recruiting team isn’t going to be optimized to attract those people. And then, similarly, on the talent management side, if you’re not continuously trying to make sure that those core roles have what they need to thrive in your organization, then they’re not going to stick around as long as they might. And then, you know, and then finally, the fractured view of your workforce, this gets partially into the technology side of things, again, is like you need that, you know, in order to this is partially sort of a chicken and egg thing, but you need a unified, or at least fairly comprehensive look at who your workforce is, what you have, where your gaps are, in order to be able to support that, that business strategy. And then finally, if you’re not bringing in the wrong people, or you’re not bringing in, you’re not firing on all cylinders, then you’re getting less of the productivity innovation and more headaches for the business, because you’re, you’re, yeah, you’re working at cross purposes, essentially, well, and I think that feeds, unfortunately, like more of a toxic culture inside the organization.
Rebecca Warren 18:05
When there is those fractures in the workforce, when people are not all working together, there’s some toxicity that happens. The culture gets weak, and I think externally too, right? We think about a lot of this happening inside the organization, and there are challenges, and maybe the culture gets weakened. But you also think about it externally. Folks don’t want to come to work for a company that has a reputation of having a toxic culture or not those ConnectED initiative, right? Your employer brand gets eroded because you get a reputation for not being a great place to work, which also then weakens your advantage with competitors, people like, oh, maybe I’ll go work someplace else, or maybe I’ll go use somebody else’s products because of how that company functions. So there’s a lot of pieces that happen inside an organization, but also effects externally. Like, when I think about folks, when they go to apply for a position, they look to see like, well, if you’re in HR, you look to see what ATS they use, and you maybe make a choice on that, but they’re looking to see what is, what reputation does it have in the market? Am I going to hurt my own personal brand, but going to work here because of what’s going to happen? Or am I going to hate my job from day one because the people that I work with aren’t aligned? So there’s so many things that happen when there is that Alignment Gap that affects internal and external forces.
Alan Mellish 19:36
Absolutely, lots of downstream effects there. So if we move on to the next segment here, we got another poll. So this one is a fun one, I think. What’s your secret sauce for aligning talent strategies with business goals? So we’ve got a couple of operations or options here. My favorite is asking Gen AI to handle, because I feel like, if it can handle, you know, writing a letter to the to the IRS, or, you know, all the other things that you might want to do, you can, it should certainly be able to handle aligning business strategy with talent strategy, and for those rose colored glasses folks, that gut instinct and hope might be, it’s all gonna work out. It’s all fine.
Rebecca Warren 20:20
That’s a great business strategy, but nobody picked those two. Probably smart. Yeah, right.
Alan Mellish 20:42
So, yeah, clear road map and KPIs and then regular check ins and adjustments just a point in favor of the regular check ins and adjust. I mean, those are both obviously important things to do, but regular check ins and adjustments are definitely important in an era where it’s, you know, it’s almost a cliche that things are always changing so quickly, and so that can be really, you know, it’s, it’s almost, in some ways, it’s almost more important to get it, get things slightly wrong, but then continually adjust and check in over time with the business, and get closer and closer to right then To get it right the first time, but then never check in again, because things are going to change.
Rebecca Warren 21:25
Right kind of that? Fail, fail, fast, learn fast, I think is what we say.
Alan Mellish 21:29
Yeah, exactly. So we can move on to the next one here. Great. So turning HR, now we’re going to talk about how, basically, how we try and close those gaps and turn HR into it into a source of business growth. So another poll that kick this part off, and this one’s a little more particular, it’s about workforce planning. If you could have any superpower for workforce planning, what would it be? And I, me and workforce planning go way back. I used to run a conference that was 50% workforce planning content. So I’m glad to see we’re we’re bringing it back here. I think that the you know, especially when things are a little chaotic and everything, people have to make the mistake of thinking workforce planning is just something you can do when you can afford to plan plan, like three or five years ahead. I personally don’t think that’s true. I think you need there’s, you know, doing the shorter term stuff is just as valuable, if not more valuable, than those longer term plans that that seem a little harder to make and commit to, so I’m glad we’re talking about it here.
Rebecca Warren 22:46
Yeah, and I will say I am a huge fan of Outlander. I’m outing myself in front of everyone. So time travel, to me, is hot on my list, and not a single person big time travel. So nobody wants to go through the stones to make any choices. I don’t know what’s happening. The dashboard that kind of that, that’s pretty So out of all of these choices, right? That’s the one that’s the most doable, right? The one that is actually the most realistic, so interesting that folks said, Hey, we just want a real tool right now that’s actually going to work instead of I just want to see what I got.
Alan Mellish 23:25
Yeah. So now we’re going to look at what some of your peers are doing. So I’m going to kind of turn things over to Rebecca to to give us a picture of what folks that Eightfold works with are doing in a way, to take on some of these challenges.
Rebecca Warren 23:50
So take it away, all right. So we have a lot of different clients that we work with. My role at Eightfold, previous to coming into Talent-center Transformation was in customer success. So spent a lot of time understanding what challenges folks were trying to solve for what kind of solutions worked the best. And so I pulled out just two that I think tell the story now. Both of these are coming from the idea of moving to a skills based organization I think we have seen through all of the research and the reports and the meetings and the webinars and research that we’ve been looking at is that moving to a skills based organization is the best way to democratize your talent. And so Adrian here talks about that giving recruiters and manages more managers more access. It gives talent more visibility to roles. So really focusing on what skills folks have and their interests and the things that they’re passionate about, really helps to connect those dots and break down some of that misalignment that happens inside organizations. You certainly never want to feel like the only way for you to advance in your career is to leave the company that you’re with. So we had partnered very closely with Vodafone. And so what they were really trying to solve for they wanted to go through an HR transformation process, and so they were looking at a global, multi year process to prioritize skills intelligence so that they could drive better business outcomes and their workforce agility. And so there were some challenges, right? That’s one of the things that they had to figure out, is what’s wrong. We got to figure out what’s broken before we can figure out how to fix it. And so they realized that they lacked the visibility into employee skills, so it was really hard to know where to up, skill, re, skill or redeploy, and then they also struggled to provide that engaging, personalized digital experience, and they didn’t have The tools to be able to support their recruiting, developing and retention of diverse talent. So they were had these three kind of big challenges that were in the way. And so what they chose to do using Eightfold to move to that skills-based approach, moving from a job-centered focus to skills focus and then understanding what those connective pieces were, what do folks internally want to do? What are they good at? What are the managers looking for? Is it realistic? And then connecting those dots right, putting those pieces together to really develop a strong partnership between employees and the outcomes that the C suite was expecting, so they did a phased roll out, which I think in most cases works best change fatigue is a real thing, and so a lot of people are like, Oh my gosh, it feels overwhelming. So how do you make it into smaller, bite sized chunks, right? And so they focused on and improved in four main areas, and so looking at moving to talent planning by focusing on skills intelligence. So as I said, they’re leading now by skills rather than jobs. They also improved in their talent attraction and acquisition. So in terms of efficiency, they reduce their time to hire and cost by cost per hire by 50% which is crazy, and we have more information on that if you want to find out. Like we didn’t just make up that number, there actually is data behind that. But the recruiters then also moved from reactive to proactive, and moved into strategic talent advisors, as opposed to order takers or box checkers, they improved in terms of talent development and learning. So they increased learning or this, this number is crazy to me, so they increased their learning hours per employee by 67% enhancing their internal mobility and employee retention, and had over 500 employees transition to new roles after re skilling. So once they understood where we might need to upgrade somebody’s skills or move them into a different role, they had over 500 folks internally move into new roles. And the other area that we tend not to with it’s a little dicey in today’s day and age right now talking about diversity and inclusion, but that was an important factor for them, and they were able, through the democratizing of skills, they were able to increase the number of women hired overall in their organization and in leadership roles as well, and they were able to deliver a more equitable access to opportunities and to people. I think that’s such an interesting one. When we talk about access to people, I don’t know about you, Ellen, but there’s times when I just feel like I know my lane. I’m going to talk to the people that I know, I’m going to do the things that I know, and I don’t realize, whether I’m in an office or not, how many other people in the organization I could learn from, or that I should be connected to, or that I could maybe help them in their day to day rework and things that we don’t realize maybe other people are working on when we’re more in a silo, so democratizing those opportunities to network with other people as Well and understanding where they are in the organization, developing that mentoring and coaching as well. So that’s Vodafone. Feel really excited about what they’re doing and where they’re going. And then the other one that I’ll talk about quickly is Ericsson, and so if we go to that next slide there. So this Erickson, I actually had a chance to chat with Kevin Blair a couple of months ago on a talent table webinar that I lead here at eight fold. So it’s a monthly series, and we bring in either current clients or interesting folks. Externally, we don’t talk about eight fold, but we talk about skills and the business and all the things that are happening. And so in a conversation with Kevin, we spent some time talking about what the advantages are of a skills based talent, intelligence based workforce, right? So being able to adapt to market changes, being able to find the best people in the market quickly, but then also employ, empowering your employees to have that dynamic experience. They can build their career paths in a way that either is traditional or non traditional. You know, in some cases we think about a career path means that you go from a associate to a junior analyst to an analyst to a senior analyst to, I don’t know what’s next, whatever’s next, to a manager, but we are learning, especially with the way that the market is continuing to change and grow, and the shelf life of skills is much shorter than it was in the past. People don’t always say, hey, I want to move along a linear career path. I’ll take myself as an example. I have my undergrad and youth and family ministry. I worked in nonprofits. I moved then into recruiting at Cargill for campus. Moved into a bunch of different roles, moved into tech with eight fold working in customer success. Didn’t know my head from hole in the ground, but figured it out, and eight fold was great at teaching me and helping me learn. And now I’ve moved it to marketing in talents that are in transformation, right? So my career path is certainly not linear. And so as we talk about that democratization of skills, how do we get the right people in the door. How do we train them and keep them so a couple of things that Kevin had called out that we talked about on our talent table webinar was, again, exactly Ellen. What we’re saying here tying HR activities to business outcomes and revenue generation is we start to focus on not just a goal, but how do we move from a cost center to an actual revenue generating space, prioritizing those high value roles that directly impact the company? We think about a lot of times on TAS plate, we say, Oh, well, all jobs are important, but there are some that we need to focus on. So how do we start putting a structure in place to say, here are the high value ones we need the most people, the most personalization. What are those middle of the road positions that maybe we have to fill all the time that still needs some skill, so we need to have some energy there and then? What are those lower level positions that we can automate move folks through really fast, maybe not spend as much time, but really use the tech that we have to help drive those key positions getting hired, and focused on more quickly, driving behaviors and outcomes rather than just reporting data. I feel like maybe I’m acting like a broken record, because I keep talking about outcomes, but I think that’s really the key, is making sure that there’s alignment inside the organization. And that’s one thing that Kevin talked a lot about, and then just one more here. So focusing on that learning agility, that cognitive intelligence and adaptability over traditional competencies or ways of working. So all of these things are saying, using tools and tech, especially that has AI embedded to make that a more leveling process and focus on the things that we want to do to keep employees in organizations longer. So I could keep talking. I’m going to stop. Ellen, what do you think about all those things that I just said? I never even gave you a chance to weigh in. I just kept talking,
Alan Mellish 33:45
not a worry. I loved it. So, I mean, I think it’s the the whole the whole prospect of becoming skills based is obviously, I think it’s a great one. It’s just great. It’s a really important thing to consider on in its own right, in terms of a way to make things fairer, make things also like more more efficient for your organization and and also it’s a great pathway to becoming more aligned with your business, because it’s a great way to start that conversation of, like, Okay, we’re going to go to, you know, we’re going to become a skills based organization, you know, hey, business leaders, like, let’s have a really in depth conversation and kind of a level set on like, what do we what do we need? What drives performance? Now, what does that look like in two or three years? What’s the stuff we need to be building towards? So it’s a great way to kind of start, jump start that conversation and then also add
Rebecca Warren 34:51
something on that really quick. Like, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard a CEO said we need a job title that looks like this. What they say is, here’s what we need to have done, right? Let’s figure it out. So when we when we stop focusing on job titles and focus on the the work that needs to get done, the tasks and the skills that are needed, it’s a whole different conversation. Your CEO is going to say, find me a director of blahdy blah right? They’re not going to do that. They’re going to say, here’s what we need to accomplish. So go ahead with your next point. Sorry about
Alan Mellish 35:19
that. Yeah, exactly. And then really, just like the last thing I was going to say, but is a is it’s also, it’s also going to change the way, you know, for those organizations out there that are already serious about their workforce planning, it is also like skills based approach to all of this is going to change the way that they do workforce planning. Or there, at least, there’s a very good chance that it will, where, instead of looking just for those roles, it’s also, you know, how many people do we have with these skills, instead of just like I need, you know, technician level two. You know, I need three more of those by the end of the year than I had last year. So it’s a different way of looking at things, and it is a big transformation. But it’s obviously, we’re at a moment where there’s technology and some advancements out there that are poised to make it a little easier for you all. So I think we can move to the next section here, as we’re kind of coming towards the we still got a fair amount of time. So this other point, and I really want you to jump in on this, Rebecca, we kind of touched on it with in those two case studies. But this whole idea of dei Dei, or dei be going away or being less emphasized in a lot of large corporations in general. You know, in in one sense, there’s sort of, like, there’s a lot of external reasons for why that’s being de emphasized. But one of the one of the reasons is, is that organizations approaching it as it being its own team, its own department, has been, I think, you know, Miss has been kind of a miss for for organizations to treat it like that. Because when it’s its own little isolated silo that’s coming in, sometimes it can be perceived as coming in and trying to, like, tell everybody, like, Okay, here’s how you do recruiting now, here’s how you know, like coming in and taking over, whereas really what it should be, instead of an isolated program, it should become embedded practices and principles across the talent management life cycle that are, you know, applied to the way that we attract and recruit people, or the way that we onboard and train people, or the way that we handle performance management, etc. And so becoming a skills based organization, like we talked about it as a way to kind of set the conversation, set the conversation tone with your business leaders. Becoming a skills based organization is also a way to as you’re embedding that skills based mindset. It’s also a way to embed these dei be practices that we’ve been talking about over the past several years into the talent life cycle as well, and also, as Rebecca alluded to, skills based hiring, skills based development is much more of a democratized like, fair talent focused, rather than, like, What school did this person go to, or what’s their background? It’s a much, a much more colorblind, or, you know, talent focused way of doing it, rather than background or pedigree. So Rebecca, what your thoughts on that?
Rebecca Warren 39:03
Yeah, I think, you know, I think that we had to start somewhere. So when dei V, when we first started calling it just diversity, right, we had to start at a place where we were creating safe workplaces. So we needed to do the trainings right? The awareness, the education, I think we had to start there, because otherwise it was not happening. How many movies and shows and stories have we read about? You know, workplace, workplaces not feeling safe for folks who didn’t look or act the same as the folks that hired them. So I think that was the right place to start. And I think having initiatives and areas of focus that continue to say this is a priority was absolutely the next step. Right? How do we take that from compliance to proactive opportunities for folks to participate. So whether it was employee resource groups or whether it was, you know, moving into asking different questions about the way things were getting done, I think that’s the that was the next step and and now, because it doesn’t go away. I mean, you can eliminate a program, but the focus on inclusivity and belonging and allowing people to bring their whole selves to work still needs to be there. So exactly what you’re saying. How do we take that down to embed it into the foundation of an organization where every single step that’s taken that’s automatically factored in, right? We’re looking at pre hiring. How are we making sure that we’ve got the right, you know, are we reaching the right audiences to get that diversity of background, of thought, of education, of, you know, neuro diversity of you know, disabilities, veterans, all of the other flavors that make up, you know, who we are. How do we make sure that we’re opening the door that everybody who belongs into a non traditional category, however you want to talk about that feels comfortable to apply, so all the way from pre hiring through orientation, making sure folks know what resources are there for them depending on what’s important to them, or through then their daily tasks and their development reviews. Leaders need to keep asking what’s important to you. Here’s what I need. What do you need? And then do we have the right people in this meeting, do we have the right people at the table? Are the right people giving feedback, weighing in, asking the right questions, and then on that flip side, saying what perspective is missing? That will help to embed dei into the fabric of an organization, and it moves then that moves employee engagement, right? Which is where the skills come in. That’s part of it as well. When people feel comfortable to have a conversation with their manager, because they know that they trust them and they’ve got their backs, it’s not about hoarding talent. It’s not about I’m afraid to talk to my manager, because if I tell them I want to do something else, and I’m going to get you know, let go, they’re going to look for my replacement. You have proactive conversations rather than reactive, because it is a safe place to work. Folks do feel like they can be themselves when they show up at the door, whatever that looks like, right? So that takes skills and belonging and inclusivity and equity and puts it at the foundation of the organization, which allows it to grow in a healthy manner, as we talked about, then potentially, hopefully eliminating those toxic cultures that we see because we’re talking about the right things at the foundation, as opposed to looking at that as an extra program or something that’s added kind of over here. Absolutely, I don’t have any thoughts on this Alan. I have no perspective at all for another couple of days. So tell me to stop talking.
Alan Mellish 43:09
Not a problem. So, so yeah, so that’s, that’s a great perspective there. So I if we move to the next slide here. And so this, this stuff right here, is really, I’m really happy with how this came together in terms of, like, these three areas. These are not meant to be exhaustive, but when we were talking about putting this together, they, I mean these, these things are so important to build better alignment with your business, whether you’re becoming a skills based organization, or you’re just trying to, like, you know, get some of this stuff off the ground, understanding the business, participating in those quarterly meetings, trying to get a better understanding of what their goals and Challenges are like, educating yourself, building your own business acumen with like, what you know, what’s the company, including in their in their reports, what’s on the horizon for strategy, speaking their language. So we talk a lot, you know, and this is, I feel like HR has been early. Certain segments of the HR world have been talking about this for a long time, but it really does matter if you are using the latest HR jargon or versus using terms and concepts that the business leaders are going to care about more. So like, let’s say, instead of talking about this will impact, because you can’t always assume that your leaders are going to be the most talent for focused people. And that doesn’t mean that they’re bad leaders. It just means that they’re, you know, that’s not where they come from and so, but you can count on them caring about what the bottom line is and like, if you can say convincingly, if we can increase engagement by X percent, we’ve got a pretty good sense that our performance is going to go up by X percent, and you’re not going to be spending so much money rehire, refilling The positions that those disengaged, formerly disengaged people were going to leave. And so if you can kind of make it in that kind of dollar and cents kind of language, you’re going to get a lot more people listening to you than you were before, living HR metrics directly to revenue goals. That’s just sort of part and parcel of the same thing. And then also, because we’re, you know, soft skills, HR, people here, building relationships also matters a huge amount. You know, look at some of the other support functions, like finance or or it. Look at how you can build, build, you know, build Alliance and consensus around movements that you want to make. And then also, you know, we mentioned workforce planning earlier. Finance is an excellent partner for workforce planning, because they, aside from the workforce part, all they do is planning. They’re, you know, they’re saying, like, if we keep going in this direction, we’re gonna, you know, you know, we’re going to have this amount of profit if we continue in this direction. You know, all they do is kind of, they’re kind of set up to be your workforce planning buddy in some ways. So that’s a great partner to have there as well. Any comments here? Rebecca, before we move on?
Rebecca Warren 46:35
Well, it was funny, because when we just had this slide that said, Building Better, building business alignment. And you went off and put your list together, and I went off and put my list together, and when we came back together, we’re like, oh my gosh, these are almost the exact same thing. We have the same thing. One of the pieces that I think, just to tack on that everything that you said is spot on, right? You have to speak their language. You have to make sure you know the business right? As a recruiter in the past, that was also that was such a compliment to me, when someone says, Oh, do you work in that department? And I’m like, No, but I know enough to be dangerous, right? Because I took the time to understand what the business really looked for outside of the job description. But I think the one other thing to really focus on, too, especially where HR can add value. There are so many things that we know we spend all this time looking at what’s happening in the landscape, talking to people, understanding what’s happening, but we don’t always give that knowledge to the people who might need it. So how do you continue to collaborate and position HR is that proactive partner? Right Understanding the organization’s top challenges, whether it’s market expansion or innovation or maybe it’s digital transformation. What kind of information can we share once we understand those pain points from the C suite that says, hey, here’s what’s coming. And I think we actually have this maybe on one of our next slides, so I might be dipping my toe into the what’s coming here for us to talk about, but what kind of insights can we offer workforce trends, emerging skills, where talent is located? What does the labor market look like? Really? That helps to influence those strategic decisions, and by being HR, being involved in those key planning sessions makes such a big difference when we’re thinking about who should we hire? Maybe the maybe the hire manager says we want to hire this. But you can say, hey, when I was in that meeting and we talked about strat planning, I actually think we need to expand and look this way or this way. You can offer those insights based on what you know and who you’re working with to foster, again, that that tie to the business outcome. So that collaboration piece and the things that HR knows that maybe we don’t even think about sharing, is really important to become that proactive partner in the business.
Alan Mellish 48:55
Yeah, 100% instead of like we did. You don’t know, there’s a whole wealth of knowledge that you as HR folks have that the business just doesn’t and that, if it’s, you know, brought up, but you know, if you can bring it up in the right way and in the right situation, it can be incredibly valuable. Okay, next slide, I will,
Rebecca Warren 49:17
right, if we don’t tell them who will, that’s
Alan Mellish 49:20
right, yeah, yeah. Nobody’s
Rebecca Warren 49:22
got time to go out and figure all that stuff out on their own. That’s our job.
Alan Mellish 49:25
That’s right, yeah. So the this part here is just sort of, like, as we’re, you know, trying to drive results in this area, wherever, whatever direction you’re going, like getting buy in. You know, we already talked about partnership with with business leaders, trying to get them to understand what we’re doing. Run those pilot programs as you know, as always, that’s the best practice to be able to say, like, hey, you know, we tried this new, you know, we tried this new way of managing, recruiting for this type of job. We think it has some promise. We want to try and expand it, expand it out from there, cross functional working groups. Again, that’s, you know, kind of getting on with Rebecca’s point about like, the power of having the right people from different departments and areas to be able to to really make something special and more impactful happen because of the different you know, information and perspectives that you can get out of that right delivering value. I mean, there’s always focus on solving urgent business problems, because, like the bit you know, the best way to ingratiate yourself with a business leader is like, try and find that thing that they’re like, you know, just is always assaulting them with stress in the back of their mind. And then if you can make it 15% better, like they’re you’re gonna have a friend for life kind of thing, you know, focus, identify, and then accelerate the hiring for those critical roles, reduce that costly turnover wherever you can. That’s all examples of ways you can say, like, you know, okay, here’s an area where we’re just getting slaughtered. Like, you know, we’re just like, not you know, it’s a and it’s not just, and it’s not even like, you know, and it’s an and it’s an and it’s something that’s important, where we don’t have the luxury of just ignoring it. That’s a great way to to prioritize where you’re going to make your impact. And then also, I love this. This is mostly Rebecca’s, but like the quick wins and long term vision, I think that’s a very powerful pairing, where it’s like, you know, fixing something that you see that’s, you know, visibly broken fast, is always a great strategy, but then also combining it with, you know, if you like that, here’s my vision for the next two or three years, how we could be transforming this whole department, or whatever it is. So
Rebecca Warren 51:59
built that credibility, yeah, 100%
Alan Mellish 52:04
because you can’t get to the long term. You can’t get buy in for the long term stuff without, you know, demonstrating something in public early on. Yeah,
Rebecca Warren 52:12
trust me, only go so far without information and when to back it up.
Alan Mellish 52:21
So if we move on here, I want to keep conscious of time, so we’ve got, I think this is our last poll. Yeah, so the last poll is when it comes to change management. You are a Jedi Master of smooth transitions, or, well, I can’t think of how to phrase that for Yodo speak, but the hold my coffee, I got this type thriving,
Rebecca Warren 52:50
like, how we change that? It’s not hold my beer, right? We changed it to hold my coffee. That’s
Alan Mellish 52:54
right. That’s right. Yes, during working hours, we have to, that’s right. Um, and just hoping for the best and running with it. Rebecca, which one are you?
Rebecca Warren 53:11
You’ll be really honest, like I honestly am a person who thrives in chaos like that is one of my superpowers is seeing patterns and bringing calm to the chaos. So while I my number one is activator my strength and my number two is strategic, so I want to get it started, and then I know where I’m going, and I’ll figure out the middle. So I actually don’t mind chaos, because I can add value, right? Doing those quick wins. There’s a reason why I put that one on there, right? But then also being able to bring that calm, and it doesn’t stress me out, it makes me it actually puts me into action mode. So I actually thrive in chaos mode. But I would say controlled chaos, planned chaos, right? Like we understand what the chaos is, so that we can solve it, as opposed to coming into something that’s completely out of control. Does that make sense? I don’t even know if that makes that makes sense to people in the audience, because that’s right.
Rebecca Warren 54:06
Hey, people thriving with me, let’s connect. After find me on LinkedIn, we’ll talk about how. What about you? Where you land Alan.
Alan Mellish 54:17
I think I’m probably like on my best days, I’m more of a like, thriving chaos mode type person. Sometimes I dip into hoping for the best of just running with it. That’s fair. That is a part of it, because it’s like, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between those two types of those two behaviors. But yeah, but yeah, it’s definitely a like, yeah, I wouldn’t say, I can’t say, prefer it. It’s just like, I don’t know how to do it different. I don’t know how to do it differently.
Rebecca Warren 54:50
We’ve been in this long enough that’s just how it’s going to be.
Alan Mellish 54:53
That’s right, right. Okay, Ivy, so next one, we’re almost done, and we can have a little time for the do’s and don’ts. So this is sort of our review of everything here, you’ll it’s hopefully none of these sound like a surprise, but, you know, do use the language of business. Do use their outcomes, not HR outcomes, seek partners who can give you a complete view of the workforce. So we asked some of those questions about your tech stack, and talked about technology at the beginning, and then we also talked with the case studies and other things, just like, how, once you start hitting you know, if you’re going to be that great partner for the business, you do have to understand where the business is going, what they need from you as an HR leader, but then also you’re going to need the tools, or at least some of the workarounds and the tools that you need to be able to give that 360 view of the workforce and say, Okay, here’s where We are, current state. I know we’re shooting for this, but this is where we are right now. Here’s our gaps. Let’s start prioritizing those gaps and make improvements, but you can’t do that without a realistic picture of where everything’s at, making sure you have the right people at the table.
Rebecca Warren 56:26
That’s self explanatory, bringing data that always, you know, tell the trust me and yeah, trust me and I have the receipts.
Alan Mellish 56:32
Yeah, I like that. And so focus on those quick, quick wins, but have a long term vision, vision for it, and stay hydrated. Stay hydrated. That’s right, that’s right. Yeah, exactly, yeah. And Rebecca is in Arizona and I’m in Texas, so you know that goes double for us. And don’t go out in the don’t go out in the summer between the hours of 10am and 3pm you’re exactly right.
Rebecca Warren 57:10
You got to be off the mountain. You got to be in your house. You got to be done with whatever you’re doing. Ask us for more tips on hydration.
Alan Mellish 57:20
Yeah. And so then we come to the don’ts, and then we’re going to get into Q and A so just before I go into the don’ts, please remember to use the webinar chat or the Q and A button to ask us questions, and we’ll answer as many as we have time for. But so don’t buy tech for tech sake, that’s, you know, really, what I you know, what I’ve seen as an analyst and just somebody who spends too much time on LinkedIn is like the amount, like the amount of organizations in the solution provider space who have maybe tacked on some new, shiny, shiny bells and whistles onto their stuff, especially with AI and that, you know, it is easy if you’re not willing to dig deeper into those conversations to to get convinced that, you know, somebody’s the Latest hit thing, but then they’re actually selling you a bunch of features or that don’t work or aren’t right for you. So it’s not even just that, like there’s a bunch of snake oil, snake oil merchants out there. I don’t, I don’t think that, but it’s just sort of like that whole concept of going back to, what do we actually need? What is, yeah, what are we trying to solve for? And then that’s the that’s the starting point to have an educated conversation about what partner is right for. You don’t, don’t, don’t boil that ocean. Don’t rely on HR jargon. You know, boiling the ocean.
Rebecca Warren 59:02
I try to boil the ocean and eat the elephant. And I think in our conversation, we tried to boil the elephant, but don’t try to do everything all at once. You eat an elephant one bite at a time. So again, those quick wins, but don’t bite off more that you can chew. It’s okay to do a little bit at a time. Those will build upon each other, so that that one is mine. I stick by that. I can’t tell you how many people have told me that I can’t boil the oceans. I know I’m sharing that with you.
Alan Mellish 59:29
Yeah, and don’t wait for business leaders to come to you. I mean, sometimes they sometimes they will, and that’s great. But you again, with that whole active piece, being proactive, going out there and looking for, you know, going and it doesn’t have to, like, going out there and having a conversation with the business leader and saying, like, what can I do for you? What’s giving you that heart what’s giving you heart bar burn right now that maybe I could do something about it. And don’t defend your choices based solely on this is best practice. That’s that comes back to, like, you know, of course, yeah, exactly like, it’s like, because PepsiCo did one thing, then we all have to do it now, like, you know, no, your the chances are most of you aren’t PepsiCo, and could never, you know, like you’re just a different business. But what works for PepsiCo probably wouldn’t even work for Coca Cola. It’s like, like, even your top competitor who has 10 of the same 12 services you offer, probably you still can’t just copy everything that they’re doing and then say, Okay, we’re done. Yeah. And then, closely related to this, don’t compare your journey to others.
Rebecca Warren 1:00:50
You may be in a completely different place with your skills journey with where you’re going. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re like, Oh, we’re not as far ahead as Pepsi or as Coca Cola or as our competitor down the street, don’t compare your journey. Just live your journey and do it as best as you can to get to that end result, focusing on those business outcomes. But comparison, what is a comparison is a thief of joy. I don’t know if that’s right, or maybe I just made that up, but it’s something like that. You don’t get anywhere. I mean, you want to be better, but you don’t need to sit there and beat yourself up because you’re not as far along or you’re on a different path.
Alan Mellish 1:01:23
Exactly, exactly.
Rebecca Warren 1:01:27
We are out of time for questions, sir.
Alan Mellish 1:01:28
I believe we are.
