Rebecca Warren 00:00
I am going to flip this to Dylan to introduce himself, tell a little bit about who he is, and then I have a starting question. You know me, I like to start with a little bit of a polarizing question here. So Dylan, go ahead and introduce yourself, and then I will throw the question out for us to discuss before we get started.
Dylan Teggart 00:33
Cool. Thanks, Rebecca, and thank you for having me. So my name is Dylan Taggart, the principal analyst at 360 Insights. I look at a wide variety of things in HR, but broadly workforce management, kind of achieving optimal workforce optimal, you know, optimal workforce situations, empowering leadership through better decisions, and also really enhancing the quality of life and work for employees. So you have a nice complete circuit of people feeling good at work, managers being enabled to help them, leadership, making good decisions, and the world goes on.
Rebecca Warren 01:12
Ah, I love it. Okay? And you’re based in New York, correct?
Dylan Teggart 01:16
Based in Brooklyn, New York?
Rebecca Warren 01:19
Okay, all right. So Rebecca Warren, I live outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Grew up outside of Chicago. My question today is about pizza. Who is excited? Whoo, okay, so my question for you is not even going to be a question today; it’s going to be a statement. My statement that you’ll get a chance to react to Chicago deep dish pizza is the best pizza on the planet. What say you? You can just say yes, and we can just move on to the rest of the webinar here,
01:56
politely, but yeah, I do like Chicago pizza; I can’t say I dislike it. It’s great for throwing through a car windshield because it weighs so much. But Brooklyn pizza, you know, you got a pizza, has to be utilitarian. It has to goes back to the original, goes back to the way they eat it, everywhere else, where they’ve been eating it, you know, for hundreds, if not hundreds of 1000s of years. You know, nice and thin, foldable, so you can still talk with the other
Rebecca Warren 02:33
hand, it’s because everything slides so greasy. That’s why you have to fold it, because everything just falls off. They are foldable so you can stack them if needed. You know, drawn to both the style so you’re making your own dish, is what you’re saying.
Rebecca Warren 02:39
Listen, I don’t want to, I don’t want to say things I can’t think back, but, but no, let’s not go. That’s not be crazy. It’s funny. I was in Sicily in October, and they actually had a very Chicago style pizza there at one point. It was a bit of a, you know, a white elephant type of thing. But, yeah, I saw it like I saw it in the wild and its natural habitat. And it was, it was still pretty good. But listen, you can’t beat the classic. And as someone who lives in Brooklyn, I can’t, I just can’t allow that statement to go on fair.
Rebecca Warren 03:24
I understand. I understand, and I am a pizza not aficionado. I’m a pizza fan. Chicago deep dish is my favorite, but I do like other pizzas. And when I was in New York the last time, I did have a fantastic pizza, can’t remember the name of the place we went to, but it was amazing. So pizza in general, I think is a winner, but I’m still going to vote for my Chicago deep dish. But I appreciate your thoughts. We could probably spend another 10 minutes on this. Okay, fair All right. Well, if y’all have pizza thoughts, go ahead and throw them in the chat there. We won’t be able to read them live, but I would love to be able to see what y’all think about pizza as we dive into a topic that has nothing to do with pizza, but everything to do with connecting HR and business strategy. So we are going to talk today about misalignment between the C suite and HR, and what effects it has on the people and the business. So we partnered with Dylan and 360 Insights to do a survey in August of this year of 2024 and we’ve got some really interesting data that came back that I think will help drive some of our conversation about how many respondents believe their talent strategies are aligned with overall business goals, what’s going well, what’s not going well, we’ll talk about the impact that the disconnect is having, and then how we may be able to come up with some strategies and ideas and How to make that a little better. All right, Dylan, you ready for us to dive in?
05:07
Fired up after your initial question.
Rebecca Warren 05:10
So when we looked at the survey, and there’s so much gold and there are so many great things for us to look at and learn from, but one of the things that really stood out was only 53% of HR departments, or people departments, claim to be fully involved in the development and execution of their organization’s overall business strategy. So what is that? Why do we think that, looking at the so let me just let you answer that one. Why do we think this is the case? Well,
06:56
there’s a lot of there’s a lot of reasons why it happens, but I think fundamentally, it’s kind of just a communication issue. You know, business leaders are moving quickly. They’re not always able to run with all, you know, keep all the strings that they have in their hand with them at the same length at all time as they’re running through a business, making decisions or just operating at a business at, you know, with pedal to the ground so often, it’s just a failure. It comes down to a bit of a failure of business leaders to understand how HR, HR fulfills a strategic role within the business, especially as it relates to skills and talent. You know, people always want business leaders always want the best people to want the best outcomes from those people. But if you’re not translating or relaying that information to HR in an actionable way, a lot falls through the cracks, and you have a lot of misinformation. You have a lot of miscommunication, whether or not it’s intentional or not. And then you come down to the issue, issues that HR may have in terms of being able to communicate effectively with the C suite about the value they bring to the table, and them not be in HR necessarily being reactive or receptive and adaptive to the labor market, the economy, and what people are telling them they end up. And then that kind of leaves that HR is just the middleman doing administrative work, kind of taking less of a strategic role than they should in business. Because if, if business leaders want to have specific outcomes, you need to find specific people to the to achieve those.
Rebecca Warren 08:43
So when we think about that, okay, so when we see there’s a there’s a lot already in that. So it’s the does HR have a seat at the table? Are they taking their seat at the table? Do they have that space to weigh in? And I think overall, though, what I’m hearing from you is there needs to be transparent and constant communication between the people department and executives, and that has to be seen as a value driver, right? HR isn’t just an administrative function that the people in the organization are what drive the business success. So there needs to be stronger communication. Would you would you say, am I simplifying it too much by saying that it really communication?
09:34
I think it’s really just as simple as that. I think I think it’s really just the two, two parties aren’t really communicating to each other effectively. One wants one thing, and one thinks the other wants one thing. You know how it kind of is like when you’re in a, you know, working relationship, or just in a friendship, or, like, a casual friendship, with someone who seems like they’re not getting what they want, and you have, you’re just assuming. There’s a lot of assumptions being made, and then each party can be assuming about each other. And if you’re not just communicating effectively, getting it all out there, because you ultimately all have the same goal, you want, the success of the the organization or the business. And not always; everyone knows what they want, what role they play in that. And I think, you know, being explicit and getting it down and collaborating when need be is going to help kind of get rid of that gray, as much gray area as you can,
Rebecca Warren 10:34
okay, okay, and in those things, which we’ll talk about in a bit, we haven’t really even talked about employees, right? We’ve talked about misalignment between the leadership and the departments. We haven’t talked about what that does for the organization. So we think about that like, what’s the impact when we think about the broader organization? What’s the impact of that misalignment? Like, I’ve got a couple of thoughts that came to mind when I started thinking about this question, you know, the impact is not just on one department. It’s not just on one piece of the organization, right? It, it it affects a lot of different things, such as business productivity. It affects, you know, revenue. It affects efficiencies, it affects engagement. And I think it also when there isn’t that strong communication, what happens is that we end up hiring the wrong people, bringing in the wrong tech, solving the wrong problems, because there isn’t that communication. So we think we’re solving for x and we should be solving for y, right? There’s low morale and engagement inside of the workforce. It can lead to a toxic culture, reduce sales, brand erosion from a employee and a candidate perspective, as well as a weakened competitor advantage. So not just talking about it from a theoretical standpoint, but there’s real physical impacts that happen when there is that disconnect and what it does to the organization. So I’ve thrown out some ideas on what I think that impact is. But what else have you seen or heard of, when we think about that, that disconnect and what it does,
12:27
yeah, I think all the things you said are very true. And there’s a, you know, you have to think of the concept of kind of blowback. And this so HR and C suite misaligning, yeah, that’s bad at all, but it’s really the consequences of their, of their of their next actions, of the decisions they make, to have the micro and macro effects within a business. So you know, if, like you said, if you’re looking to hire the best people and hire high performing employees, but you’re doing so based off an incomplete picture, well, then now you’re assigning it. You’re assigning a job to someone who doesn’t where that is not fully fleshed out. And listen, it’s never going to be 100% flushed out, most likely, in most cases, but you have to get as close to that as possible. And one thing we kind of kept seeing in this was that HR leaders say they have little or no insight into skilled makeup for their workforce, and then they have staffing challenges on top of that, and so it kind of all ties into that. And if you’re just kind of operating in a situation where the gears are grinding, you’re going to have bigger effects. And one of the bigger effects we saw was in a related report, not in one we we ran, but just in the fact that I think in 10% roughly nine or 10% of the global economy suffers, you know, there’s a loss of almost $9 trillion to the global economy annually because of this. And then I kind of broke it down into two ways recently, outside of a report, just in my own looking way of looking at this. So if you assume, there’s a few things that are assumed here, so lower engagement equal lower productivity. If you’re more miserable at work, you’re gonna be less productive. Uh, happier workers, based on a couple studies, are usually 10 to 13% more productive. So if you assume that as a constant, and if you that means about one in 20 people are not showing up for work every day in terms of productivity. So, and that’s about a four or 5% loss of productivity over, you know, every year, if you kind of apply that those numbers to a population of people. So if you have a company of 1000 people, it’s the equivalent of about 50 people not showing up to work every single day. Or no, this is the this would be, yeah. So for you, average that out of everyone, everyone’s not bringing their best. But if, but if you take it in terms of like, okay, well, assume everyone’s working at 100% even if, if that was the case, you’d still have 50 people just not even there. That’s, that’s the, I guess the productivity lost, the way you look at it, and just leads to people that are just less happy at work. So, you know, one of the things we also came across was that 61% of of the people we surveyed, they were satisfied at work. But that mean, you know, that’s one almost. You know, we’re looking at two out of five people are not happy at work. And then bigger than that was that 82% we’ve been looking for a job in the last 12 to 18 months.
Rebecca Warren 15:38
Okay, that blew me away as we were thinking about that 82% that’s like, over three-quarters of an organization at any one given time is looking for something new, like, and you don’t know, we don’t know if it’s like, let’s just dip our toe in the water and see what’s out there, or like, I actually hate myself. I have to get out there. But that number, to me, is staggering because it’s not only and it’s not only like if they’re looking for a job because they’re unhappy over this or that, but when you’ve got those disengaged people in your workforce, there’s no growing, right? You’re guaranteed attrition because you’re going to lose people not only are not happy in their current job, they’re not going to stay and take another job. So you’ve got that wheel of cost that’s happening from continually replacing those folks when you don’t change those things that are wrong.
16:32
Yeah, absolutely. It just, like you said, it just, it’s just, you’re kind of constantly missing the point, not like as an employer, you’re you know, you’re trying to set up someone for success, but you’re not and you’re not paying them enough. The management may not be effective. Maybe the workload you’re asking of them is not right. So people are going to go look elsewhere, people based on the information we saw just in this report, even though a million other reports have said this, and people kind of just feel it. People don’t feel any loyalty to where they work for most, most of the time, because they feel like they’re disposable. Because there’s been this culture of, well, if that person doesn’t work, we’re just going to get someone else. And if and if you can’t bring to the table what we’re looking for? Well, we’re going to do something. We’re going to get someone else to do it, because there’s a million people out there willing to take this job. And when you have that mentality that people are disposable, people are replaceable, well that’s the culture you get, and that has a trickle down effect, where people are getting a new job, and within six months, they’re looking for another one, or within 12 months, they’re looking for another one. Because if they don’t feel like there’s any opportunity there, you know what’s stopping them? Because they have to assume that no one’s they. I guess there’s an assumption that your your employer, is not going to work with you to try to make it work. Everyone would rather just move on to the next thing.
Rebecca Warren 18:03
Yeah, and I think you know what we talked about initially, when it’s about transparency and communication. And I think you said it well, when you said there’s a lot of assumption, people assume right? Because I haven’t heard from the senior leaders on our goals. I’m assuming that we’re not important enough, because, you know, we haven’t had a training on x, we assume that people don’t care about it, right? There’s a lot of assumptions that happen from the workforce, from the leadership and and that disconnect when it said that most C suite. Most leaders feel like they’ve got the right things in place, but then most employees feel like you don’t write that. So it feels like there’s there’s got to be. Is it just as simple as better communication, or is it different tools and processes? And we’ll talk about this a little bit, but I just, I struggle with thinking like, if it was as easy as just saying we need to communicate better, that it would actually work right? Like, would employees feel more engaged if they said, Hey, we understand that we’re going to have a work slow down for the next six months, and then it’s going to come back. I mean, we’ve talked about that in other, you know, organizations where they let people know, like, we’re going to reduce the price of of this, and then it’s going to go back up, or we’re going to not hire as many people for a while, and then, you know, we’re asking you to take a pay cut, but it’ll go back up like some of that, maybe as part of it is that transparency, but I think there’s, there’s influence that needs to happen from all different levels to make sure that folks feel engaged and cared about from a managerial level, from the C suite, from HR. I think there’s, there’s a lot of different components that have to come together for folks to get it right, don’t you think?
19:54
Yeah, absolutely. If you with such a big organizations at play here, you need to have everyone deep working off the same information, even if it’s not the best information possible, at least you’re consistent. Because at each you know, you have to consider that at each phase or step in the process, the goal is changing slightly. You know you’re always going to have that broke broken telephone effect just when you’re dealing with people, but if you can start with a good foundation, with removing as many assumptions as possible, generally you’re going to have better outcomes or more consistent outcomes, because you’re more consistent in your approach, more unified in your strategy.
Rebecca Warren 20:37
Okay, okay, so when we talk about those strategies, we talk about what that looks like. So in the survey results, just 44% of the survey respondents believe that their talent strategies are aligned with overall business goals. So what can HR do to align decision making. This is a big, a big thing, right? Decision making, hiring, workforce planning, long term talent training, all the things like, what needs to happen for us to think about that stronger alignment.
21:16
I think, yeah, in this, in this kind of comes into the other aspect of the communication process. So now it’s the communication between what the employee wants and what our HR is giving them, and what HR wants and what the employee is giving them, and it’s really easy for HR to get left behind in this process. I think business leaders may be assuming that they know what’s what the employee what? But they know what kind of employer they want. They know what the employee wants. I guess, when it comes to that as well, because they’re assuming too much of what, of what the talent market could give them, perhaps, and that’s where HR comes into play. So that’s where HR can be enabled to understand the talent marketplace, skilled marketplace, kind of what’s on the market in terms that’s what they do, that’s, that’s, that’s why you have recruiters in HR under them, is to focus on that aspect of the business. A business leader can’t possibly do that simultaneously while operating the business. So it just comes down to fundamental misunderstandings about what employees want, and which is why only 40% are fully aligned. When it comes to talent strategy, you have two different powerful groups of people in a business assuming that they know best about what kind of employees they want, how they’re going to get them, and what that’s going to look like when they do and then when they finally have them, they’re like, I don’t know what to do with these people. Yeah, to
Rebecca Warren 22:50
solve the wrong problem,
22:52
that too, for sure. And it kind of just leads to a cycle where, okay, well, HR has hired the wrong people, so I’m gonna, I can’t trust HR, so I’m undervaluing, undervaluing them as this is, you know, me as a business leader speaking. And then, so yeah, and then what happens next? Well, they’re going to underperform, which means they’re going to, I’m going to sideline them, or they just get sidelined because no one trusts them, which leads that they’re not going to have a seat at the table when it comes time to business strategy, which leads to them being undervalued in the cycle that kind of continues until eventually the two groups aren’t speaking to each other, or just are not aligned as much as they could be. Of course, there’s they’re always here to be communicating. It’s just not making it sound more dramatic than it is, but it but it just leads to under investment in that, and then they become just an investment. Just an administrative arm hiring kind of gets placed in the hands of other people, and other people that are maybe not qualified to do that, and also probably have other stuff to do in the first place, like managers and, you know, people that actually maybe deal with the employee on a day to day basis, but you need to have a focus team on this absolutely
Rebecca Warren 24:06
well. And so, as we’ve talked about, there’s misalignment in communication or in expectations. One of the ways, and we’ve seen a lot of organizations, move towards more of a so a lot, one of the ways is moving towards a data driven decision making process, right? Instead of us making assumptions. This is what I think our employees want. This is what I think HR is doing. This is what I think you know, the direction of the organization is, is using that data that the organization has now, maybe it’s in different pockets, or maybe not as consolidated, but I think one of the first ways to make a change is to use the data to tell the story, to understand what’s happening. Right? If you think that you’ve got a communication issue, is it that you’re doing a strategy session between HR and the business leaders. Is it doing an employee engagement survey and finding out what’s happening, like using the data then to understand the problems and tell the story? Feels like the one of the first ways that organizations can think about making some changes, because some of these cyclical processes, I mean, like you had said, they’re devastating not only to the organization, and sometimes organizations don’t survive, or it is detrimental to the brand and to the global economy. So thinking about that data, decision making. Any thoughts on that, on where somebody you know makes the start, or what’s the first thing that you should pay attention to if you’re thinking about making that shift to using data to understand the problems? I
25:56
think the first thing would just be making sure that the data you have coming in is good, good data, reliable data, being funneled in by people that are experts at kind of being custodians of it. Because a lot of the time, you know, in the data we saw, in the data of the survey, we saw that a lot of these companies are looking at recruitment marketing platforms, especially amongst advanced AI users, and they all want to speed up the recruiting process by analyzing workforce data and kind of better understanding skills. But the issue was that those, while those were their top priorities, the bottom priorities were all things that would have helped them enabled to do that in the first place. So kind of the insight into skills that they wanted, they were not really investing in, and they weren’t using the right systems to get it done. And then that just resulted in one in five HR leaders saying they have, you know, little to no insights into the skills make up for their workforce, and then having issues kind of just managing they would they, you know, the number of people admitted they were challenged by using Gen I, Jen AI, and understanding the employee experience all through the data that they’re getting through their platforms. Maybe they had too many platforms to even understand the data in the first place. So streamlining is important, but again, making sure that the data that into the system is good and accurate and actually what you need, so spitting out results that you want. But also it’s doing it away that’s understandable, that’s intelligible to the average person who’s actually going to use it, just so it’s not so scattered. And again, it kind of comes to that harmonization of not just thought, but also process.
Rebecca Warren 27:50
Yeah, and I think it probably feels overwhelming if I would think, and at least organizations I’ve been involved in, people know when something’s not right, but it’s hard to figure out what to do to fix it, and different pockets have different ways of doing that, and sometimes it doesn’t all come together. So I would think that sometimes we get into either analysis paralysis or folks just say, such a hot mess. There’s nothing I can do. And I think, you know, when we start thinking about going back to basics, what? What are those? You know, when you said the bottom three looking at notes here, the bottom three organizational priorities were speeding up the recruiting process, analyzing workforce data and better understanding the skills makeup. Those are the bottom priorities, but those are like, that’s where you should be starting, right? So sometimes, maybe we make it more complicated than it needs to be, and we take it back down to what’s the foundation? What do we need to get right on the foundation in order for us to build our organizational house? What kind of things are table stakes. What kind of things do we absolutely need in order to make sure that this house is going to stay standing and then build upon those things? So maybe it’s not. I mean, we found a little doom and gloom here, right? Like it’s all falling down and nobody’s happy and, you know? And I don’t think that’s the case. I think in these respondents, the information we’re getting is saying we can do better. And I think sometimes it’s just as simple as saying what’s most critical in order for this organization to run. And we know it’s people right. It’s people, whether it is your leaders, whether it’s your your managers, your departments, your employees, its people. So how do we make sure that we’re taking care of of the people? I think, is the the number one goal, and making sure that folks have the right tools at the right time?
29:59
Absolutely, and I think it’s one of those things where both groups are kind of responsible, so like, kind of going back, like people are the focus, but HR often is just not often, but in well, in the in the confines of the survey, we’re being undervalued and kind of underutilized in terms of budget, in terms of buy in. So they’re maybe just operating in kind of a skeleton force where they’re just kind of dealing with payroll, dealing with the basic admin stuff, and they don’t really have time to go into the more strategic versions. They’re dealing with the concrete kind of just, let’s keep the lights on, let’s keep it paid, because that’s what they only have the budget to do, or only have the resources to do. But of course, yeah, if they, if they do have, there’s been a bit of a breakdown in that, and like, what, what’s possible for them, and simplifying it and kind of getting back to the basics. Getting the basics done always is the most important thing. And then, but obviously using tools that help free up some of the more mundane work, so you have time to deal with the employees more. You have time to listen to them, more you have time to communicate with your leadership a bit more, because that’s one of the things we saw more in the employee data, was kind of this breakdown between employees and the business, and obviously HR played into that a little bit, and that’s kind of what kept the what’s kind of keeping these organized organizations down a little bit. You can add all the technology you want, but there has to be a re a rekindling of trust between the employer and the organization. Sorry, the employee organization?
Rebecca Warren 31:41
Yeah, well, and I think that’s such a good call out the idea of trust, building trust you had mentioned earlier, like in a friendship, in a relationship, right? Trust is that foundation, if we don’t build our organizations on trust, whether it’s trusting people to do the work that they’re assigned to do, or trusting that our leaders have our best interests in mind, or trusting that the work that we’re doing is valuable. If you don’t have that trust that you’re part of something bigger, and that you have an understanding of where you all are going. It’s really hard to get excited to come to work every day. It’s hard to feel like you’re part of something that is in your best interest to connect to. So I think that trust piece is really important. And I think, well, let me, let me ask you it this way, where, where do you think that needs to come from? Does that trust building? Does that start with HR? Does that start with the C suite? Does that start with honest answers from employees on their frustrations? Where do you think that trust needs to start? And maybe I’m asking a question they’ve already answered, but I’ll throw it out there.
33:03
I think, I think it’s a, it’s a very big question, just because it kind of goes into societal issue, issues, which I’m happy to talk about. But I definitely think I view it as a social contract between the two groups is kind of broken down so and I think one one group is more at fault than the other. I think employees have been kind of screaming at the top of their lungs for decades, what they want from a business, what they expect out of their relationship to the economy, which is, you know, Fair Work, fair wages, something we all can kind of agree on, but consistently over time, people are, you know, and when you ask people, people feel like they’re not being compensated properly most of the time. And that stagnant wages and cost of living and inflation affect that. And I think employers are responsible to be reactionary to that as well. And of course, there, while they’re simultaneously interacting with the bigger economy, it’s, it’s a two way street, this kind of social contract. You know, we’re in a period of change where we need to employers really need to start paying attention, or they’re going to start falling behind people. And I don’t think it’s kind of a thing, is, though automation is going to replace people, it’s really that people just don’t trust who they work for. Because people don’t, people aren’t feeling invested in because they’re, you know, they’re underpaid, so from the get go, they feel like they’re not invested in because no one’s willing to pay them a fair wage relative to the cost of living, or, you know, other factors that are involved consistently. People feel overworked and burnt out. I did a, I did a piece earlier this year that showed that 2 million years of vacation time go unused in the United States every year. Yeah, because people and we actually get, we get, we get a week less of vacation than we did in 2010 as as people in general in the United States, or people are just not using it as much. So people just feel squeezed more and more. I’m not sure, really sure how else to put it, and I don’t think any technology is going to solve that, because it’s about it’s a mindset change, because this concept of year over year growth in the economy that business leaders are being forced to operate under, where shareholders in the market is demanding that every year you need to have this much return. Well, that gets all put down. Trickles down to the person working and, yeah, they’re not going to bring their best because they have a bad taste in their mouth.
35:39
Why should they?
35:42
That’s a bit of a bigger issue, though, but, but it does, for me, it helps frame the overall issue, because those are the people. That’s the message you’re trying to communicate to people, and that’s where I think the honesty comes into it.
Rebecca Warren 35:56
So let’s make the assumption we’re just spitballing here, right? This isn’t in our notes. We haven’t talked about this so, but let’s make the assumption that people are fine with their compensation, like they feel like, okay, I’m good. I get paid enough to pay my bills, and, you know, go out to dinner every now and then. So if we take comp off the table, if we assume that that’s right, what do you is, is, what’s that next level that causes that angst. Is it relevant work? Is it that engagement? Is it an understanding of the bigger picture? Is it a toxic culture like, what are you seeing in the data that is, if comp is okay, what’s that next? What’s that next level that we got to solve for
36:44
good question. I think it really varies quite a lot, depending on where you work. But just using the data from the survey, you know, lack of opportunity to grow was a big one. Meaning was a very big one with younger demographics, even they said that actually, that was more important than pay for, I think the under 30 demographic in the report, yeah, but I think even if you’re being paid well, I think there, I think there’s a distrust, and I think that comes down to miscommunication, or just an air of lack of investment. So even if you are being paid well and that’s all taken care of, you know, is your manager giving you the time of day, or is your manager hoarding resources, you being one of them and not allowing you to grow? Do you see kind of where you could be? I think in bringing back that concept of this is somewhere you can work for 510, years and that, and that’s not a bad thing, and that, and you’re not a loser because of that. Because I do, I do think even within the employment market, it’s viewed stagnation is viewed as bad. But no, stagnation is not bad if it’s if it leads to product, if it’s positive. Stagnation, staying in one place is not always a bad thing. It’s the economy. The economy of the West were built on people staying at places and working places for a long time, especially in the last you know, the generations of, you know, a couple generations, maybe the generations of our parents and grandparents. You know, they were happy to work somewhere for a long time, not just because they were boring, but because they actually brought something to their life. And it brought, I think people want that, yeah,
Rebecca Warren 38:30
well, I think that’s, that’s such a good call out. I think of my grandpa. I talked about growing up outside of Chicago. My grandparents lived in Chicago when my grandpa got back from the war, he worked for a pottery company in Chicago for his whole entire career, and he was happy with it. You know, he had a set schedule. I never heard him say it was, it was, I think he was working to live, not living to work. So it was like, yep, that’s great. I can do that. My my grandma worked in a cookie factory, which I absolutely loved, Maurice lanell cookies, if anybody’s a Chicago fan on here, yeah, I miss them. The factory is closed now, but we always used to get great cookies from Graham but they were happy in their job. Like, it never once occurred to me to say, oh, what does grandpa do for a living? Like, Oh, he works for ringer pottery. Like, I know what he does, and he just does that. And it was work here, you know, 40 years, and get the watch and get the pension, and then you’re done. And the way that we do work here is so different now, right? It’s not, as you said, sometimes it’s looked at is, if you’re at a company for more than you know five years well, your career is over. You’re dead, right? Like thinking about work differently, and it’s changed a lot in perceptions, not just from employees, but also from employers, right? When we look at employers pre pandemic, more so was, Oh, if you’ve got this gap on your resume, you’re not hireable, or if there was a layoff at the company, it was something having to do with you. And now folks are saying, I’ve got to move organizations in order to grow, because I don’t know what’s happening in my company. I don’t feel like I understand what I need to do to get to that next level. We talked about lack of opportunity, and I think that ties into a lot of things, but if it’s not clear what that next step is, people aren’t going to beg for it, they’re just going to peace out and and move along. So I think so I said a lot, but there’s two things that I want to pull out of that. One is that we need to understand what skills our folks have. We need to spend time investing in employees saying, hey, what do you want to do? What can you do? What what skills you have that we’re not taking advantage of? So some back to that communication, understanding those skills, and then also transparency on what that next role looks like, stronger communication between managers and leaders. But I also think there is still that perception from a hiring manager that the perfect person is out there, right? And so sometimes they they’re not, you know, they’re they’re either talent hoarding or they’re saying, Oh, well, I’m going to find the perfect person to do the things. Instead of saying, I’ve got somebody right here that I could develop and grow. So I’ve said a lot of things, I’m going to stop reactions to anything that I’ve just said out of all of that, sorry, it was monologuing.
41:36
No, no, I think, I think it was really well said, and especially the part about how your grandparents, you know, work to live and didn’t live to work. And I think whether or not it was, it’s intentional, we’re becoming a society that works, that lives to work, because we have no choice, because it’s becoming a bit harder to just live. And, I know we live in the West I live in New York City. It’s like, listen, boo hoo. Like people are living way harder, of course, but obviously it’s relative, and paying your bills the reality. But I think there’s that stability of Listen, this is a great place to work because, not because I love it, but because it lets me live the rest of my life the way I want to live. It lets me have a family that’s me. You know, I get free cookies at the end of the month, or whatever it is, and it’s, and I feel valued because I’m bringing something to the table. I’m getting something out of it, you know, because at the end of the day, that’s, that’s the life I’m living. Is the life after 5pm let’s say, and I heard an interesting talk at the workforce software conference I went to, but, and it was a bit of a I heard people in the audience be a bit like unsettled by it, and it was, I can’t remember who spoke, but she had a great talk about how, because of people are not as religious, work is becoming the religion, and workplace is becoming the is becoming the church. And whether, or at least, like, it’s replacing, like the Rotary Club, or, you know, something else, the people are putting too much in the basket. Yeah, exactly. And, but if you’re putting too much into the basket of work for them, and so when they’re laid off, it’s devastating, and they feel and they feel more taken aback by it, because you’re like, This is my identity. You know, for your grandfather, maybe, maybe being at the pottery factory was part of his identity, but maybe not as much, or not the same way. And of course, there’s tons of people who still live like that right now. But in terms of how, how you kind of deal with that from as an employer, I think if you want to keep people around long term, you got to look at the skill set they have, not necessarily just the individual skill they have, because you want them to be adaptable. Maybe, you know, using, using the example of a factory, maybe you start on machine a, but with a little bit of training, you could do machine B, and with a little bit more in three years, you’re going to have the skills that make you be the manager of all the people that work on machine a and b, and not just siloing people into the single, single role that you hired them for, but understanding that it’s a long term investment, kind of the you know, if you look at the music industry, the way the music industry used to work was that the band’s fifth album was usually their best album, like rumors the Fleetwood Mac or something. It was not their first album, they were quite into their career at that point, but that’s the way the industry used to work. It was long term or medium term investments. You could say, once you’ve given them a shot, let them go if it’s not working, but give people a chance. And I think understanding the full menu of items you have on in someone’s toolbox that you hire is important because, A, it means you have a better understanding of them, and B, that makes them a lot more valuable, and they feel more and I think in return, obviously, nothing is guaranteed, but they’re going to feel more valued in that because they see, listen, This person sees them, not just a single flat identity I have. I’m a person made up of multitudes,
Rebecca Warren 45:27
right? Well, so, and as we think about that, and I’m watching time here, so we’re coming to our last little chunk of discussion when we think about So, let’s talk about, what do we need to do, right? How can organizations get there and we we’ve hit pockets of it. I think that engagement is important. I think it’s how do we take what we have in our organizations? How do we drive that forward? How do we use data? How do we use insights? How do we use results of reports like the ones that that we did? How do we align those talent initiatives? How do we align the people with the business going forward, right? Like, what kind of things need to happen? If someone says, Today, I’m going to shake the whole thing up. Like, weird. Where do you think folks need to start? Is it? Is it going down to building trust? Is it doing skills inventory? Is it, you know, a full on global meeting saying, Hey, here’s what our initiatives are for 2025 so putting you a bit on the spot here to tell me what you think is the right place to start. We’ve got other information to go underneath that, but where, where would you say, just in what you know, where’s the right place to start? And I guess it could be anywhere along the wheel, depending on who the organization is. But
46:52
I think, you know, I think the best place to start, if you’re a business leader, is probably just to be honest with people. Be honest with what your goals are. You know, as much as you can be, the people that work for you are the most expensive item on your balance sheet, and you need to do the due diligence from the start and surround yourself with a team of people that can help you with this that make sure you’re hiring the right people from the start. Filling and refilling roles is expensive, and it also creates a culture like we just spoke about, that it feels like you’re disposable. So if you are honest with what you need, you know in terms of the skills you need to bring to an organization, and you’re not promising the moon, you’re not promising that, oh yeah, we’re hiring the best talent, and we’re going to disrupt the universe. And like, it’s like you sell pencils or whatever you do, be honest with people about their role in the company, and frankly, your role as a company within society. I think, if I think there’s over promising of what, what a job is going to mean to your life, and for me personally, when I look at job descriptions like that are like, you’re gonna find that, say you’re gonna find the best culture ever. Like we’re gonna We’re disrupting. As soon as I see disrupt in a drop description, I just, I would, I would, it makes me cry, well, just because I associated with a certain mentality that I don’t want to be a part of, or I wouldn’t like, back when I was looking for a job, you know, a couple years ago, but that’s just me. Personally. I for some people, they probably love it, but I think being honest, and then laying out a frame, and then on the back end, laying knowing the framework for exactly what you need. Because even if you hire someone who isn’t right, you want to be able to say, Okay, we need to make the best out of our investment, just like you just would for you bought a business, you wouldn’t just be like, Oh, we spent $100 million buying this business. We’re just gonna get we’re gonna sell it. Because what’s the point? And that’s the way. It’s not the employees being dealt with.
Rebecca Warren 48:55
Yeah, it’s not the employees fault that you made assumptions on what this was, this role was going to look like, right? So how do you use the skills that someone has? Right? Is it almost? So maybe it is, maybe it is that first thing is doing workforce analytics, skills mapping, understand who’s in your organization, so that you can utilize those folks more, completely engage with them, and then start building up other points of data, looking at employee growth and adding those pieces in there. Just it almost kind of feels like, to me, like table stakes is understanding who you have your workforce and what do they want to do, and that will drive engagement, that will drive growth, and that will then allow you to use your data more effectively when you understand who’s in your organization, what do they want to do? What are they good at? And sometimes it’s like, hey, let’s just be transparent. And this is a mismatch. We screwed up. We hired the wrong person, right? Like, sometimes it’s, it’s being transparent, but understanding what people want and where they want to go. Maybe that’s the maybe that’s the first place starts. Yeah, I
50:02
think it’s kind of a going back to the basics and treating people as reasonable people. You know, everyone has different desires in the job market. Everyone wants something else out of a job, but it’s all I think, as long as you’re reasonable with people, which is just doing the basics, people accept. People are a bit more receptive, because then they can make work what they want it to be, not telling them what work is going to be. And that’s where someone can flourish.
Rebecca Warren 50:33
Yeah, enable them, as opposed to putting them in boxes on an org chart. Enable them to drive their own career. We say that in a lot of organizations, up to you to drive your career, but then it’s really hard to do that because we don’t give them the skills or the opportunity to do that. So you’re right that building that trust and then enabling folks to be able to drive their career in whatever way they want to. Maybe they do. Just want a job like my grandpa, right? I just want to go to work at eight o’clock. I want to come home at 430 and that’s great. There’s nothing wrong with that. And for those folks that want to continue to grow, whether it’s a lateral move helping them get, you know, around, or more rounded experience, or it’s those folks that want to continue to climb, giving those opportunities to them. So I think that enablement and empowerment, to me, are kind of key words that come out of a lot of the things that we’ve talked about
51:22
Absolutely and you know, organizations that really focus on what they’re going to need now and in the future are going to help set up a set of processes that are going to enable them to do that and be written, having that reasoned approach, which sometimes you know you don’t want to hamper ambition. Obviously, ambition is essential, but in that you don’t want to be, I guess, essentially offending people along the way, and those being people that work for you, if they feel burned you know, everyone you know, look at the company like Tesla or something, you know, people, conceptionally, like somewhere that’s moving fast, that’s doing things. But the concept of moving fast and breaking things, when it means that you’re breaking people’s lives or breaking people’s careers is not just not not sustainable. And I think that kind of arrogant mindset to work into progress is we’re seeing the results of it right now, where people are like, You know what? I just don’t you want, you want to go, move fast and break things well, I’m not even going to enter, I’m not entering this conversation. I refuse to be a part of this. And that’s why you’re seeing these low and get, you know, people not liking where they work, and people just feeling like they can find something else elsewhere. Because I think the fact that 82% are searching for a job just that concept could should be the proof is, right there it’s everyone’s still searching for something new. Four out of five people are searching for something because they haven’t found it yet, because no one’s even offering it. Yeah, and maybe it just come and the pendulum will swing, of course. And I think it’s swinging back, because eventually it just toppled over so many people. And now people are kind of saying, Listen, we have, we have a say in this conversation. We we are the labor market. We have a map. We have a bit way more power than you, and we’re going to start demanding things. And I know the pandemic kind of did that, and obviously it swing the pension swing way to one direction, and we’re kind of going to swing back a little bit again and see how that and see how everyone reacts to it, is going to be interesting. And I think that’s why things like skills intelligence and talent intelligence are really becoming essential, because people need to. It’s all, it’s all methods to understand the labor market. So now they’re like, Okay, now we need to communicate with people. So that’s a good sign. It’s a sign of progress, I think.
Rebecca Warren 54:03
Right. Okay, so last question for you, and it’s not about pizza. So we’re good. We don’t have to fight about pizza anymore, although maybe we should fight on camera about pizza. I just think it’s a fascinating conversation, but we’re never, no, nobody should ever fight about pizza. We should all agree that pizza is great, but if the audience remembers one thing from our conversation, which isn’t about pizza, but if the audience only remembers one thing from our conversation, what do you want them to remember? What’s the key bullet that you want folks to take away from our conversation?
54:35
I think the main thing is just going to be getting on the same page, communicating with the people you work with. And if you’re an HR leader, maybe having that hard conversation with your boss in the effort to better the business. And I think that’s that should always be the the main goal if you’re to be Listen, I know I’m an analyst, but I’m no expert on leading an HR organization, but just from a perspective of I guess putting yourself in the shoes of the person you’re about to talk to, and the business leader is going to be looking out for the business leader, but understanding that if We work together, we actually might have a better outcome for everyone. I’m going to feel more involved. The business is going to do better. People on the people we’re hiring are going to feel better. Getting that communication down. There’s no harm in unifying a strategy, and if there is harm in that, then you have bigger problems that you need to address first. So communication is key, getting to the fundamentals. And I think being reasonable with people that you’re hiring, and also seeing people as not disposable, I think would be a big important and those are really, just really basic things.
Rebecca Warren 55:56
Yeah, I think what, what I’ve taken away from our conversation centers around that transparency, building trust, not being afraid to speak up, and really looking at a holistic way to look at the business, not just in pockets, right, but building that that transparency and that trust is key, and it can come from the top, it can come from the side, it can come from the bottom. As an employee, as you mentioned, be transparent with your manager about what you’re looking for and see what you know reaction you get there if, if it’s not positive, maybe you know that’s not the right organization for you. As a senior leader, transparency on what you’re trying to achieve. And it’s okay to say that, you know, we’re we’re not there yet. We’re striving towards that. We want to get there. HR, continuing to have those conversations, taking that seat at the table, fighting for for your people, getting out of that administrative rut and becoming that strategic arm that’s driving growth, that’s that’s pushing things forward. focusing on that inclusion of folks wherever they’re at and. However, they come to work. Let’s embrace them and then let’s continue to help them grow. So Dylan, thank you so much for your time this was fabulous, super engaging and insightful, lots of things for us to take away.
