[00:00:00] LIGIA: Welcome to the New Talent Code, a podcast with practical insights dedicated to empowering change agents in HR to push the envelope in their talent functions. We’re your hosts. I’m Ligia Zamora.

[00:00:19] JASON: And I’m Jason Cerrato. We’re bringing you the best thought leaders in the talent space to share stories about how they are designing the workforce of the future, transforming processes, rethinking old constructs, and leveraging cutting-edge technology to solve today’s pressing talent issues.
[00:00:34] It’s what we call the New Talent Code.

[00:00:38] LIGIA: So if you’re looking for practical, actionable advice to prepare your workforce for the future, You’ve come to the right place.

[00:00:49] This week, we’re talking about talent intelligence on a global scale. Eva Edelmueller, the head of Group Talent Attraction and Talent Management with MM Group, and her HR team recently adopted an AI platform—no small feat. In our insightful conversation, Ava shares how starting with the minimum needs and building as they went was the recipe for success.

[00:01:10] As a result, MM Group rolled out AI to more than 20 sites in 11 countries for 3,500 new colleagues. They cut the time to hire by 20 days and now are finding and hiring more women in roles. Our episode with Ava starts right now. So tune in.

[00:01:28] Thank you so much, Ava, for joining us on this episode of the new talent code. We’re always fascinated here with nonlinear career paths. We firmly believe that people can and should try new things in their careers and be hired for their potential, not their credentials. So tell us a little bit about your career path. Was it always your dream to be head of talent acquisition and talent management?

[00:01:54] EVA: Well, actually, I would say my career path was more an accident than a plan to be honest, because when I studied, I was sure that I will be in HR one day because my father was in sales and he had quiet, frequent contact to customers as well as to the organization. And especially when he was on vacation and he was at home and we have been together, of course, there have been frequent calls to him.

[00:02:21] about some things that went wrong with the supplies and the products. But in the end, he tried to ensure that everything was running smoothly and the customers got what they wanted in the end. But this needed a lot of communication. And I thought, well, actually, sometimes he was quiet, direct and harsh.

[00:02:40] And I would say, this is also not always a bad thing, but I thought there might be also a better way to do. And this is why I thought, I will do this when I’m grown up, I will help people to make organizations a bit better every day. And this is why I was sure that the HR field was the right one for me.

[00:03:02] And actually, when I graduated at university, I had a job interview at one of the big four consulting firms. Because I thought, well, you just apply. It was not my dream to go to a consulting firm. I was just, you know, more neutral about it, but then it was so much fun interviewing those colleagues there that I thought, well, I need to join there because they have fun at work.

[00:03:25] And this is actually what you would like to do. And I stayed in there for almost eight years in different roles and I learned a lot and also there the switches which I had in my development, it was not that we have. Plant that right at the beginning and you sit down together and see, okay, what can you do in one year, in two year, two years from now on?

[00:03:45] And what should you do actually in five years and what is your strength and what should you learn? So this was of course, part of the conversation because you need to learn, you need to grow, but more really on a short term basis. And then what I figured out is I would like to use the potential of the situation.

[00:04:03] which is presented to me. And this is for me, not so much possible if you have already a fixed plan in your head. And I ended up almost eight years in being a consulting firm, which I actually was not intended to do. And then I thought, well, the consulting business is quite nice. I liked it. And then I was offered another position in a big company as well, where they had an acquisition and a merger.

[00:04:28] And I thought, okay, this could be interesting, but internal HR, Hmm, do not know if this is the right thing for me, but I tried it as well because I knew the people there and when you trust that you can figure out everything, then you just jump in into a new challenge. And this was the game changer for me.

[00:04:44] And it was the same with my other companies, I joined them, then they somehow found me and I thought, well, I like the people there and I can tackle every issue together with them, then it’s fine, you know, doesn’t matter what the challenge is, if you have an environment where you think, well, with these colleagues there, I can steal horses, as you would say in Austria, everything

[00:05:05] LIGIA: is possible.

[00:05:05] Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely a foundation of trust. Exactly.

[00:05:09] JASON: I love those themes. You know, making work better for people solving big challenges, having fun. We have fun here on the new talent code, and it’s because we get to talk to leaders like yourself that are on this talent intelligence journey. And one of the questions that comes up often, and one of the things that we’re often trying to help people learn is how I think that’s really important.

[00:05:31] so much for joining us. As people are trying to understand how talent intelligence potentially brings them somewhere different or transforms how they’re operating, often a question is, well, where do I start? And for MM packaging, I know you had a unique start for how you implemented talent intelligence because of a specific business case.

[00:05:52] Can you tell us a little bit about that, Eva?

[00:05:54] EVA: This was a really specific business case because when we planned to implement the new HR SuccessFactors and Eightfold in recruiting. We haven’t not yet known that we will acquire a new part of a company. And so the setup, the objectives have been actually different than it then turned out in the end.

[00:06:19] So out of a sudden, when the deal was closed, we needed to integrate around 3, 500 known colleagues, which we did not know, above 20 sites, more languages than we intended to do. Because of course, with the transitional service agreements you have, you need to give them systems after they have been acquired.

[00:06:39] after a couple of months. So we had a fixed deadline for the implementation of the systems and we needed to get to know new colleagues and see how do they work, what do they need, what is their environment regarding employer branding, candidate experience, processes, knowledge, and so on and so forth. So this was quite a big challenge.

[00:06:58] JASON: How have you expanded on that from the initial business case to then potentially introducing this to the rest of the organization? Were there some key learnings along the way that may have maybe enlightened your approach as you scaled this? Walk us through that learning process. I know you mentioned earlier kind of what you plan for and then what you don’t expect.

[00:07:19] So I’m sure there were some learnings along the way.

[00:07:23] EVA: Oh, definitely they are. So I would say there are three big learnings in the end. The first one is people are key without people. You can have the best systems, but the system is worth nothing if you do not have people who operate the systems and the systems need to work for the people.

[00:07:40] So for the needs of them and therefore having people on board and understanding what they need in their daily business. This was one thing I really tried to do and to try to understand and to understand the reality that we can design a system and a process together, which is useful in the end, just as simple.

[00:08:00] And I always say, you know, I’m a lazy person. I want that the system supports me. I do not want to have more work. Because I have a system. This does not make sense for me. However, of course I want to have also a nice candidate experience and a nice candidate journey. And I want to support our hiring managers best in the case for recruitment.

[00:08:18] And. If this means I need to take one more step as a recruiter, I’m willing to do so because I know I add value to somebody else, to my customers, like the candidates, the applicants or the hiring manager. This was one thing I would focus on. So really understanding the needs and the reality of the different countries and people we work with.

[00:08:41] And the other thing is, as we had a quite strict deadline with roughly Five months to implement, I think it was 11 languages, 22 sites. Done is better than perfect. This is also something we learned because, you know, the systems provide so many options, so many possibilities. There you see, wow, this is cool.

[00:09:03] This is also cool. I want to do this. We can offer the candidates this and this and this. But you need to focus on the basics in the end. If the recruitment process, the core recruitment process is not working, if the colleagues cannot operate and use the system in a proper way, in the end, everything is not good.

[00:09:21] Or you have all and nothing. So we needed to prioritize the functionalities we wanted to have, and also the things we wanted people to know and to train. So this was also something I think where we have been too motivated at the beginning. If the new functionalities and possibilities we have now with a, with a very good system.

[00:09:41] And I think the third one is related to that. I think it’s called. MVP, minimum value proposition. So what does the current process or the current situation, what does it make one step better? And then focus on that and implement that. But do not intend to have the 100 percent version. Intend to have just the version which makes it one step better.

[00:10:05] So the minimum which makes it better and then implement this. Because you know, you can always add. And it’s also a matter of having the maturity of the people, the maturity of the organization and also the candidates. You need to take them along with you. So implementing a system in an environment which is production, which is where some countries didn’t have a system at all before.

[00:10:28] And then having one of the best systems I can imagine and implementing everything at once is a bit too overwhelming. So take it step by step. It doesn’t need to save the world or save the recruitment in your company in one day.

[00:10:43] LIGIA: So that process you describe getting 11 countries, 22 sites up in five months is quite aggressive.

[00:10:50] I assume required quite a bit of alignment up front as well as expectation setting, as well as some change management. What are some key steps that you took to make sure everyone was aligned, that everyone knew when the system was turned on, what they should expect, and I assume drive some of that consistency in the recruitment process across, like you said, all these different sites.

[00:11:12] EVA: So for me. Which still is important is the target picture and the target picture. I mean, not what the system should look like. I mean more how our role as talent advisor, as we call ourselves also in our job ads should look like. So who do we want to be? We want to be talent advisors to the candidates, to the hiring manager, meaning we operate on an eye level, we give feedback, we provide a service.

[00:11:40] And if you have that understanding, if you are aligned on that picture, on that role, and if you have the people on board on that role, the process follows by itself. And then you also do not need to have, you know, a 100 percent perfect process described in every detailed step because in some countries, it might mean just 70%.

[00:12:03] In others, it might mean 120 percent of your global standard process. So we have one global template. We have one process for every country, but how this process is then performed in the end, this can vary. And it depends also whom are you looking for? Do you recruit mainly blue collar workers, um, graduates?

[00:12:23] or apprentices or experienced hires, white collar positions, headcoffs whatsoever, needs to look different in the end. Having, I do not know, five interview rounds with a blue color worker, I do not know if this makes really sense, you know, so for me, it was important that the people understand why we do that, what is their role, how should they act as a recruiter, as a talent advisor, And then they are able, you know, that the behavior, the show will follow.

[00:12:54] And then the understand, okay, if I’m now a service partner, if I’m somebody who is working on an eye level of the hiring manager, if somebody tells me, Hey, this is your expertise, you know, how the labor market looks like, you know, what the candidates expect, you can advise on that. You need to speak up. You allowed to speak up.

[00:13:12] It’s actually your job to do so. And to bring the people in this role and to safeguard them and back them up and tell them if you have any problem with acceptance or whatsoever, I’m there. Tell me what you need. If it’s a standard, if it’s something which we should say as the headquarters, then we do so because we are there to have your back.

[00:13:34] In the end, you are the person who is standing in front of the candidates and the hiring managers. You need to deal with them and whatever you need to perform your role one step better. We are there for you to do, to support you. This was something we did quite good to draw that picture and to define it together because we, as a man, we have a history, how things have been done, how processes have been set up, and it was acquired. Traditional history and it was a good one. You know, the company was, it was successful, but could you operate on this model for the next three, five, 10 years? Maybe not. Maybe there should be a change. Depends also on whom you would like to attract. And it was the same for the company we acquired. So we needed to align and we defined together the role of HR.

[00:14:22] And then when you’re sharing the same picture, how should it look like the behavior will follow. And then the process is not so much important anymore because. What you do with a process is you give some kind of a tool set, but if the mindset is there and also you enable the people to have the right skill set to show the behavior you want to see, then you might use the process. But in the end, to do what you what would like to achieve if the process anyway.

[00:14:48] JASON: So Eva, I’ve heard you say, you know, as part of this journey, your organization has been able to bring their HR work to the next level. And I think that’s what you’re referring to when you’re talking about becoming an advisor and standing eye to eye and being more consultative.

[00:15:03] But a lot of people, when they enter into these use cases in the application of technology, you know, it’s through this skills based discussion, it sounds like this is changing kind of the skills of your HR team as well.

[00:15:16] EVA: Yes, it is. The question is, do you address it like this? Do you say, well, you know, having a new role does require us to have new skills, or does this come along the way?

[00:15:28] So of course, if I define a role, and I see I’m currently and I just make it a bit more black and white, I’m currently perceived on my role is actually an admin HR person. And now somebody tells you, well, if you would like to, you can be. a business partner, you can be a talent advisor, you can be somebody who works on eye level with the manager, if you would like to do so, because this is the role understanding we have, you should not just perform admin tasks, because for that we have also a system which supports you on that.

[00:16:00] So you can concentrate on the quality work, the things the system cannot on engaging the people, on sharing your observations and your knowledge. And I have the assumption people are not stupid. They have experience. They want to share their experience as well. So if you want, you can. And this is just an offer we can make.

[00:16:20] If the people take this offer, it’s up to them. And maybe some say, well, I’m totally fine with doing also some admin work, but maybe I have a colleague who wants to do that, or maybe, maybe I trade this role with a hiring manager because I have a passionate hiring manager who’s really eager to go into these conversations with the candidates, then it’s also fine.

[00:16:40] Because we trained the hiring managers as well on how we would like to have the candidates handled and we shared our employer value proposition and our standards and so on and so forth. The question is, how can we shape the environment of the organization together? that we enable the people to show the behavior we want to see.

[00:17:01] And then also they can come up with creative solutions. And in some countries I have received the feedback that the hiring manager is doing a couple of tasks of the recruiter because they just traded the roles like this. Then why not? I do not say this is the to do list and tasks the recruiter is doing or needs to do.

[00:17:19] And this is the things the hiring manager needs to do. In the end, if it serves our objectives, if it serves the candidate or the hiring manager and as well as the recruiter, then it’s totally fine.

[00:17:31] LIGIA: What business need were you looking to solve? And was it difficult for you to sell this project to bring talent intelligence in?

[00:17:38] Was it difficult for you to sell it and get funding?

[00:17:43] EVA: I think the project itself was, um, yeah, as I would say, every system project getting the funding has its challenges getting especially eight fold on top. I think this was quiet quickly understood by the relevant stakeholders. What is the added value?

[00:18:03] And this was something I personally really appreciate also in this company that whenever you do something which creates value and the people see that they support you. I love that. I have not experienced this, that strong in former companies like here. So our slogan is as well, we get things done. And then, you know, you are then also in charge to get things done if you get the possibility.

[00:18:26] So you, if you get the funding, then you should make something out of it. And we are currently in the process to roll, we are rolling out the system even further. And currently another wave is going on. So we target to have every site and every people we have. At the end in the system with one global template

[00:18:46] JASON: as you’ve gotten that support and you’ve won that buy in.

[00:18:49] Has this created any new or additional maybe cross functional teams or have you built out any new functions around the capability? I know there’s a lot of organizations that have built out AI specific teams or AI councils. Have you guys done that?

[00:19:07] EVA: Hmm. Yeah, so I would say the topic AI itself increased the collaboration between legal, IT, which is called IM, in information management in our case, HR, and to some extent also internal audit.

[00:19:23] So this is a topic where we are in ongoing conversations about and how we handle this and what is our standard and what we define without having called it an ethical council or something like this, we define standards. So we said right from the beginning that we do not want that the system, doesn’t matter which one, is taking decisions on people.

[00:19:48] So whenever there is a person involved, a human should take a decision, either forward a candidate to the hiring manager, call him, her to get further information or reject the candidate. We do not rely on the system to make this decision. We say it’s our responsibility and this is our promise to the candidate and also which we give us internally that people decisions always done by, by human in the end and such things or such topics we discuss together and then also get the different perspectives from different people.

[00:20:22] And I think this is enriching because everyone again wants to have the systems because we see the value in them. We see that. This will be the future. But we are also aware of some risks. We are also aware that there might be the one or other bias, and we have an eye on that. I’m in regular contact with our Chief Data Privacy Officer to see what we can improve also regarding the candidate journey in terms of risk management and transparency.

[00:20:47] So this is very important to him as well to me. And then only when you try some things out, when you discuss how is the process, he’s doing the processes by himself to learn how the systems work. And if you have the details and the insights, then you can make the best out of it, what is required for that.

[00:21:03] And this is why I also like to work at a mem. You deal with people who are passionate about what they do. And they know what they are doing. And then you can discuss really on a very profound level, what can be done better and what is okay. And what is again, important for me is we can do everything in the end, of course, what is legally and ethically okay, but we need to live with the consequences.

[00:21:28] Even when we say, okay, there is a decision done by the system. concerning whatsoever. We need to think it through first, and we need to know what are the consequences and the implications and the impressions we leave on different stakeholders. And do we want to live with those consequences? And this is what we are doing.

[00:21:47] And if we say, okay, this is our way forward because of this and this and this argument, then we just take it. And also we write it down in our HR guidelines and policies that it’s transparent again.

[00:21:57] JASON: As a result of this council or as a result of having this data, has this changed the way you look at your policies or the way you address your policies?

[00:22:07] I think Leah had a similar question. How does that get published? How does that get handled and managed?

[00:22:12] EVA: It’s published in a more extensive version. Internally and we update our HR community on a regular basis. I think also our data privacy statement is updated on a regular basis, depending on new regulations and so on and so forth.

[00:22:28] And the updates and the documentation and making the things available are one thing, but the other thing is that you need to talk about it. If you just update and make the materials available once a year, okay, fine. Yeah. You fulfill some requirements, but people might not know. The people who joined the company, they do not know because you just talk about it once a year, this is not enough.

[00:22:48] So what we have in addition is we have a talent attraction call bi weekly, so every second week. And here we have also one part of this call dedicated to our HR systems. We answer the questions from the recruiters, just this week, we have done a refresher training on our system, answering all the questions they have or challenges they faced.

[00:23:12] And. Then if you make it something ongoing, a topic which is actually everywhere, this is something you should do. You should talk about the candidates also, how was the application process for you, get feedback from them, talk with the HR colleagues about it, onboard the hiring managers who do it the first time.

[00:23:33] For me, this is much more important than having it documented. Of course, you need that for other purpose. But to achieve, you know, the conversation and that it’s in the mind of the people that you know what we are doing, that the system is AI based, you need to talk about it and not just document it somewhere.

[00:23:48] LIGIA: Do you see a need also to disclose the use of AI with your candidates?
[00:23:51] EVA: We have, it’s in the data privacy statement included. So there it states that we use AI for supporting our selection process. And I think it’s also stated there that no decision is taken by AI. So we try to be as transparent as possible.

[00:24:09] And currently we are working on a new website, which will be launched end of September. And there as well, we have a section. About the job opportunities and we try to be really transparent. So we say we work with AI in recruitment, but we also say that people decisions are always taken by human.

[00:24:24] LIGIA: That is some great practical advice.

[00:24:28] What other success stories do you have around hiring with regards to using talent intelligence to find the right candidates?

[00:24:35] EVA: The biggest difference for the candidates is, and this is of course better if you use the system a longer time, that they can upload their CV and see how they match to different vacancies.

[00:24:49] So we are now in a century or in a society where individualization is a big part of our daily life. So we individualize a lot of things. And why not the career? And why not bringing the vacancy to the candidate? Why does a candidate need to look for a vacancy? So this is the first turning point which we experienced already.

[00:25:12] So also LinkedIn, also the other platforms, they are pushing out the vacancies to the candidates. They are matching this, not having it the other way around as it was the last couple of years where the candidate needs to be active to find a vacancy which is suitable. And this can only be done skill based in the best way.

[00:25:31] And this is why skill based hiring and skill based organizations are important. The question is, do you tell everybody we are doing skill based hiring or we, we try to be a skill based organization because people mostly do not understand. And I think it’s not needed. It’s some kind also for each art term.

[00:25:49] And if I talk to a hiring manager, they have difficulties in finding the a suitable candidate. Then you try also to see And best example is my team currently. So we struggle also in finding the right people in HR and then we sit together and see how can we shift tasks or split tasks or combine them again so that the job for the existing employees interesting is even more interesting.

[00:26:14] So they have also challenges and development fields and things that we like to do and want to learn. And then what is left, we try to find a suitable candidate as well for that. And we tweak around with that. And then you can say, well, you know, I’m looking at the skills of people and trying to give them the things they can do, but in the end, if they like what they do, if they know, ah, I’m now I want to do actually some employer branding, or I want to do, I want to try recruitment and just try it.

[00:26:44] And of course it’s a skill you learn, but do you address it like that? I think it’s not necessary. Just do it. Let’s just see where the passion lies in people. and then the rest will follow. And do not stick to the normal job descriptions we had in the past. Mix and match and see what’s coming out of that.

[00:27:06] And also if you have candidates which say, as you said at the beginning, unusual career paths. So if they combine different competencies together, Yeah, well, perfect. And let’s see how, what you can do with that, what skills and competencies are transferable from one job to the other. What is important is that the service orientation, the solution orientation, and of course it always needs to fit to the context and the context cannot be provided by the system, in my opinion, putting the skills and also, you know, the interest and the passion of people needs to put in context and this needs to be done by human.

[00:27:39] And this is then via say. The system needs to work for me or for the people. And then I can use all the data the system provides me because this is really valuable. I wouldn’t notice if the system doesn’t tell me certain things, but I can put it into context and then I can have qualified discussions with candidates as well as with hiring managers.

[00:27:59] LIGIA: That concept of not looking at traditional roles, but mixing skills or to redefine and try to find another candidate should be igniting quite a bit of internal mobility. I imagine. I think you guys rolled out talent intelligence to employees as well around the world, correct? Not yet. Okay. Not yet. Okay.

[00:28:16] EVA: Yeah. Just for candidates currently.

[00:28:17] LIGIA: Okay.

[00:28:19] JASON: Now, Eva, as you’ve talked about the incremental nature of this and 1 percent improvement and 1 percent improvement and done over perfect and kind of celebrating achievement to make things better, we’ve had other leaders on the podcast say that that’s a big part of how this technology is a little different in the dynamic nature of it, in the adoption of it, in the transformative learning of it, But as a result of the data that you now have at your fingertips, or as a result of some of these incremental improvements or, or new measures of success, are there any new ways that you’re thinking about kind of what success looks like or what those improvements are or how you’re measuring success for your organization?

[00:29:06] EVA: So what unfortunately we haven’t done yet to a good quality standard is the whole reporting piece with the recruitment system. But what we focus on is do the people use the system in the end, independently of how many recruitments they have. And is the system supporting and also do the hiring manager use the system?

[00:29:28] And what I see currently, especially here in the headquarters, is that we, we had struggles with some of the hiring managers as well. They need to log into the system and they need to give feedback on candidates in the system. So this was not, if you can do it by phone, if you can do it by email, why should you log into a new system and try that out?

[00:29:47] But in the end, we convinced everybody. It was not always an easy journey, but in the end, the result is that everybody’s working in the system. And this is one criteria I would say is currently in the stage we are in, the more important one than any time to hire. Because also for the time to hire, to have that correct.

[00:30:10] And of course it improved. This is what I can say for the headquarters. It improved by 20 days in the first year. Yes, this was quite incredible. And also we have been able to hire and attract more female candidates. And I think this is due to the information you have also on the job ads, where you see how you compare to other candidates.

[00:30:31] However, having the right KPI set requires to use the system in a proper way and in the same way, having no delays, moving candidates from one stage to the other. And if you are not proper on the usage, The KPI will not be correct. And if you do not use or put in the good quality in the system, also the reporting has no good quality.

[00:30:53] And we are currently fine tuning the data fields and also, you know, some labels and tweak around some other details and some things where we say we would like to improve the quality of usage and the easiness of usage, and then we can talk about reporting. Because if this is not guaranteed first. I will not have a proper reporting, so I can do one, but what does it tell me then in the end?

[00:31:19] What targets did you set for usage? Currently we have not the KPIs target set. What we say is, and what we ask is, do you use the system for recruiting? How do you use it? And we see that also on the responses and questions we get and do the hiring manager use the system. And what we see as well is that the hiring managers who have been there right from the beginning when we implemented it, this was more easy because there was, you know, a bulk training for them and there was more communication and so on and so forth.

[00:31:48] And we need to improve on that a bit that we get the others on board as well, which joined during the year. So this is something I think we just received that feedback this week. We need to target in the next couple of weeks when we roll out the system further that we do not roll it out just for the hiring managers who are targeted in this new wave, but also maybe include the others as well.

[00:32:12] So this could be also an option, including them in the communication, providing also some refresher trainings for them, talking to them, giving also the task to the local HR colleagues there to see what they need further for the support. And in addition, I think it’s always twofold. So it needs to come from the headquarters, but it needs also to be supported by the local HR colleagues.

[00:32:33] And if they are not convinced by the system, they will not convince the hiring managers. So you can see it’s a circle again. So this is why focusing on the usage of the system, it should be simple. It should be easy to use. It should create value. Then you will have also proper KPIs. And if it’s, if you have not set up a system, which is seen as valuable, then You can have the best KPI targets, you can have the best reporting, but what will it say?

[00:32:58] JASON: Eva, you’ve been giving tons of advice along the way as you’ve been telling your story, but as we look to wrap up the conversation with you today and we think about the other HR professionals that are listening in the audience, if you were to think back to where you were before you started on this journey, if you were tuning into this podcast and listening along, what advice would you give?

[00:33:20] To people kind of at that phase that are just thinking about this or just getting started. Any words of advice or any thoughts maybe on what’s next or key things to think about?

[00:33:31] EVA: I would say get started with AI as soon as possible. Integrate it in your daily business. What we are currently doing is and be starting that this week.

[00:33:42] We have an own company chat GPT. And we would like to use this chat GPT also to answer some questions regarding onboarding, for example. So it needs to have an kind of an internal business case, how I can work with such things as AI on a daily basis, not knowing how to prompt. Just writing, telling the system or the AI, write me an email or write me an invitation or birthday wishes.

[00:34:10] So it should be integrated in the daily problems we have. And then it’s also useful because then I know the questions which I will ask the system because I have a problem. I do not know who I need to contact for the performance cycle. So who can explain that to me? Then the system should be able to answer that.

[00:34:28] Yeah. Or do we find the documents regarding onboarding or performance appraisal whatsoever? And I think this is the way forward to integrate The things again, which are offered to us and this is a huge advantage and it will make a huge difference in the future and it will come fast to integrate this and to address with that the real life problems of the people, not telling them, Oh, you need to learn AI and you need to learn how to prompt, you will learn how to prompt, you just need to try it three times and then the message is just try it.

[00:35:03] And then, you know, it will not work right from the beginning for everybody, but it will work for this person and that person. And then with the word of mouth and a bit of support, they will just try it and learn it. And of course, this is, you know, again, the MVP, the minimum value proposition, because ideally in an ideal world, of course, we have a lot of courses and trainings on AI and everybody explains us how this will influence our life.

[00:35:30] But I, I assume this is. Not the case for a lot of companies as you need also to perform your work. You need to get your daily business done. So then if I think, well, should I now take a training on AI or should I do my emails and go to a cocktail with colleagues?

[00:35:50] LIGIA: Yeah. Not a hard choice.

[00:35:52] JASON: As I hear you give advice and kind of walk through this, it brings our conversation full circle because if you think about it, the way our conversation started and the way your advice just rolled out, you talked about helping people at work, solving big problems.

[00:36:07] And if you listen closely, maybe having a little bit of fun along the way, right? You can see how this inspires you and motivates your work, but we appreciate you joining us and sharing a little bit of your journey with our audience.

[00:36:19] LIGIA: Sure. It was a pleasure. Thanks so much, Eva. Thanks for listening to The New Talent Code.

[00:36:26] This is a podcast produced by Eightfold AI. If you’d like to learn more about us, please visit us at eightfold.ai and you can find us on all your favorite social media sites. We’d love to connect and continue the conversation.