Robert Sheen and Anuj Mongia – HR Tech 2022 Series – Improving DEI with Innovative Data Analytics

Connect with Robert:

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Connect with Anuj:

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Connect with Dwight:

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• dwight.brown@salary.com

Connect with David:

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• david.turetsky@salary.com

 

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• Trusaic
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 13
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 11

• “[Hiring remote and overseas employees] opens up a bigger pool of people that could help make your organization more diverse.”
• “We’re seeing that HR teams are hiring data specialists to analyze HR data in order to learn about and solve business problems.”

Announcer: 0:02

Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology. Invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record, pour their discussions into a beaker, mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.

 

David Turetsky: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast from the HR Technology Conference in beautiful Mandalay Bay conference center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Today, we have with us friends of ours from Trusaic, the CEO, Robert Sheen, and the VP of alliances and product from Trusaic, Anuj Mongia. Welcome, gentlemen!

 

Robert Sheen: 1:07

Thanks, David.

 

Anuj Mangia: 1:08

Thanks a lot.

 

Robert Sheen: 1:09

Thank you for having us.

 

David Turetsky: 1:10

It is absolutely my pleasure. And let me say that, what I'm going to ask you to do is talk a little bit about who Trusaic is, and what you both do for Trusaic. I know we talked about your titles, but what do you do?

 

Robert Sheen: 1:21

Yeah, so Trusaic is a data analytics company. And we provide the data analytics in the workforce data. So we aggregate and consolidate and wrangle workforce data that could be structured and unstructured, data that stays in the applicant tracking, HCM, payroll, leave of absence, time and attendance, and benefits and things like handwritten, like performance data, or resumes and we wrangle and prep that. And the whole purpose of the company is to bring about having a DNA that has a purpose and social goodness about it. So we provide tax credits that help companies to

 

David Turetsky: 2:00

Excellent. be diversified by helping companies hire people that are disadvantaged; veterans, that live in a certain impovareas, we make sure that the companies are providing health care, which is a fundamental right. And, of course, we want to make sure that we are achieving pay equity within our organization. All really good things to do. So thank you for doing them. So what do you do, Robert?

 

Robert Sheen: 2:28

So I'm the CEO of the company, and so as CEO, you are much

 

David Turetsky: 2:32

You're the boss, you're the boss.

 

Robert Sheen: 2:35

I don't I don't view it that way. I just have a different job. My job is very broad. It's a very generalist, it's it's more like mile wide and about two inches deep all over the place. Sometimes I do have to, to wear different, I wear a lot of different hats. And sometimes I have to plug in holes, where things are being missed, or focus on things that are non business as usual as also with you know, departmental dependency projects.

 

David Turetsky: 3:02

So you basically can play any position, and you typically have to fill in where there are gaps.

 

Robert Sheen: 3:08

No. I'm good at certain things that I could plug in and do things like in the finance, I think I'm very proficient. Sure. I think I'm proficient in the sales side. I think I'm proficient in certain processes. But definitely not. Not all of them. No, not at all.

 

David Turetsky: 3:26

And that's why you have Anuj, because you can fill in those other areas. Right. So Anuj, what do you do?

 

Anuj Mangia: 3:31

Well, I work in product development and, and sales. As Robert mentioned, I, you know, we have ACA compliance tax credits and pay equity software's. So I was principally involved in developing those products that we have, and then just really helping sell the products.

 

David Turetsky: 3:47

Excellent. So let's talk a little bit about the one thing that no one knows about both of you. We do this for everybody. It's a humanizing factor. Just something personal about you that no one knows.

 

Robert Sheen: 3:59

Oh, gosh.

 

David Turetsky: 4:02

It's a way of linking everyday experiences. And we found some fascinating things. Analysts, CEOs, CIOs, CHROs they've given us some really cool stuff.

 

Robert Sheen: 4:14

Gosh, I, I guess me I mean, I'm an atheist. I'm not a very religious person, but I don't think that by means doesn't mean that person doesn't have morals and right. You know, a compass.

 

David Turetsky: 4:28

Well, look at the company you run. It's a wonderful, wonderful company that does good things. So you're doing good stuff.

 

Robert Sheen: 4:35

Oh, thank you, David. Yeah,

 

David Turetsky: 4:36

You're welcome.

 

Robert Sheen: 4:37

Yeah, I don't think you have to have a certain moral religious belief to be have a right, you know, compass. And

 

David Turetsky: 4:44

I agree. I don't think our faith necessarily drives our moral compass. I think it's our internal faith, our internal being who we are that does so I I agree with you. Yeah.

 

Robert Sheen: 4:55

Thank you.

 

David Turetsky: 4:55

Anuj, how about you? What's one thing that no one knows about Anuj?

 

Anuj Mangia: 4:59

Well, you're gonna you know, what's funny is they're gonna put me on the spot there. But I think, at heart, I'm really lazy. You know, and I think that is

 

David Turetsky: 5:07

That is very mature thing to say.

 

Anuj Mangia: 5:09

Ya know, that is that is who I am. And you know,

 

David Turetsky: 5:10

I'm going to ask my son to listen to this podcast no one knows that about me because I don't, I try everyday not to be that. specifically. So he can see that it's okay to admit that you're lazy. Because you're a very successful person.

 

Anuj Mangia: 5:23

Yeah, well, I don't know. So.

 

David Turetsky: 5:29

So let's get down to the topic, this is gonna be a lot of fun. Let's talk about what has happened in the world of work in 2022. And what we think is going to happen in 2023, with the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion.

 

Announcer: 5:46

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David Turetsky: 5:57

So let's start with, from your perspective, what happened in 2022? What did we learn? What did we experience? What happened?

 

Robert Sheen: 6:05

In 2022, I think we finally are seeing the importance of HR, and that HR was always viewed as this Expense Center. But with the rise of legislation, not just in the US, but in the EU, and also with ESG, I think what we're going to see is that the HR will come to the table, in the decision making process, the importance is too great, the great resignation, we'll be dealing with quiet quitting. And now we now add on top of that, the complications and complexity of that job, the ESG reporting, the SEC may be requiring that means that the workforce data and the what they need to report is very valuable. And so I think in the future, what I think I will see like to see is that the HR do come to that decision making table with the other C level decision makers.

 

David Turetsky: 7:01

We already actually saw in 2021, where regulation SK said that companies need to report any type of HR metric that actually proved to be at all interesting, or that had some material nature, in the running of the business. So we already saw some of the regulation on a federal level, being brought in that incentivizes companies to bring HR to the table, because HR is now reporting the SEC.

 

Robert Sheen: 7:27

That's right

 

David Turetsky: 7:28

and reporting to the street. So I agree with you, Robert. And I think it's fascinating that the data that they're going to use, and the ways in which they're going to be able to use that data will help push the organization to design a better workforce and design better work for the workforce. But let's also talk about other things you've seen in 2022 that primarily focus on DEI.

 

Robert Sheen: 7:50

Yeah, so in you know, what we're seeing on the in the European Union side is that there's a parliamentary recommendation, which is going to push for diversity, equity, inclusion, and pay the reporting. And the sentiment is that the fundamental right of equal pay, which has been fundamental right for over 60 years now. And I'm always a little appalled that we have to literally had to legislate that women and men should be paid equally. I don't know why. Anyway, so that's been a fundamental right in the US and 63, I believe in the EU around the same time. And so now what the EU is saying is that we're going to force this, right, it's 60 years later, nothing's happening. So we're going to legislate this. And you see that happening in states like California, Illinois, New York, Washington,

 

David Turetsky: 8:41

Colorado,

 

Robert Sheen: 8:42

and Colorado. Yeah, yeah. And then you see that the investors are also wanting that right, that the investor on the ESG, ESG. Investment, there's about what 2.6, don't quote me on this. I know, there's about several trillion dollars, that's earmarked for ESG investing. So they see that the benefit of being diversified the company have done better, you do a lot of studies that have shown that, that when the companies diversify, they're much more sustainable, and they do perform better. And so there is this change and shift.

 

David Turetsky: 9:20

How else can we put this other than doing the right thing for your employees, does the right thing for your customers, and we've seen it happen so many times. We're gonna you talked about quitting quitting and the great resignation. Well, we used to talk about employee experience, and we used to talk about employee engagement. And we may be using different terms, still some of the same outcomes. If you're not treating your employees with respect, they're not going to treat their customers with respect or the the outcomes that they got at the customer level won't be as good. So what you're saying is that we have to go to legislation to make companies treat their employees with respect is that is that what you're saying?

 

Robert Sheen: 10:03

I think it's also understanding your customer, you know, and there's, you know, the study, let's say if we were to analyze, let's say, a policeman that lives in a suburb that's patrolling the inner city, they have no inner connection with the people that live in the city. And

 

David Turetsky: 10:20

unless they lived next to them.

 

Robert Sheen: 10:22

That's right. And I think that diversity brings that into the workforce dealing with a customer, if you're diverse, you understand your customer? Because your customers are diverse.

 

David Turetsky: 10:33

Exactly, yes. And if your company doesn't look like your customer base, what kind of message does that send?

 

Robert Sheen: 10:41

And I think, Well, I think, then the you are not, you're not going to be able to get the right feedback, you're not going to be able to pivot, you're not going to be able to see what's coming in the future for you, I think your company's gonna be very rigid, in one point of view, rather than having a point of view that looks like your customer.

 

David Turetsky: 11:02

There was somebody who wrote on, I think it was Hallee, I forget her last name, but I'll remember it hopefully soon. But somebody wrote on LinkedIn, what's the best metric for diversity in an organization? And I said, my answer back was take a picture of the boards of directors, and the top layer, and post that on LinkedIn, or post that wherever posted in your 10k. That's your diversity right there. Because if your diversity doesn't start at the top, then your diversity will not be what it should be throughout your organization. Because people look at the top as being their leaders. And if they see, pardon the expression, but they see a bunch of old white men as the board of directors or as their leadership in the C level. That's what diversity is gonna look like in your organization? I mean, I don't know, do you disagree?

 

Robert Sheen: 12:01

I think that diversity is very complex. There's a lot of social economic issue as to, you know, what type of people and a certain type of industry and certain type of profession. And I think it seems to me, there's a lot of work to be done in this area. Like, for example, why do more men go into software compared to women or in the education side, what we see is why there are more women in the education than there are men. And I think that the issue is so complex socio economics of how do you get this company diverse? How do you incentivize or get these younger people to go into different fields that's not so stereotype, and whatnot. And I think it'll take us a long time to get there, because I think is so ingrained in us so for so many years. But I do agree with you that the people do look up to the top, but they're the role models. And if there are not diverse, perhaps people that are coming in, they'll never feel like they could be included into that top level seat.

 

David Turetsky: 13:02

Yep. Well, let me ask you, Anuj. So you hire developers, when you look at a slate of developers you're getting from your recruiting team. Do you feel like you're getting, and I'm not trying to put Trusaic on the spot in terms of your diversity, but do you feel like you're getting an appropriate level of female male representation? Maybe differences in mental abilities? Do you feel like you're getting a diverse slate of candidates?

 

Anuj Mangia: 13:27

I think yes and no. I think it's on a certain level, definitely we're getting a lot of diverse candidates. It's, as Robert mentioned, it's really about, especially on the developer side, it's like less women, you know, we don't get a lot of women that that apply. Right. And again, that's a very, it's a long term issue that's always been there. Like Robert asked that question as to why is it that that women are not going into software engineering? Is it something that's wrong with our school systems? Or what's what's the underlying root cause? Right, that's what we got to got to look into for that. That to change.

 

Robert Sheen: 14:08

And David, to the to the, to our, you know, so company like us, which we are small 150 worldwide, you know, we're competing with companies like apples and Google's. So now, when we are dealing with companies that are that large, they're our applicant pool even become smaller so that now we're dealing with even a very small small applicant pool that will qualify for the work, so that as another challenge to who we could hire, and how fast we could hire and what talent pools available for us.

 

David Turetsky: 14:40

But I think this goes to the heart of the matter with diversity, equity inclusion in 2022. We're seeing an ability or we actually enabled to hire people from other parts of the world. So the traditional thing of I have to hire somebody in our location, they have to be co located with the rest of the teams. We've actually seen a lot of companies who hire overseas, wherever those seas are, whether it's in North America, South America, Asia, Africa, anywhere, enable them to find the talent or the skill needed at that moment in time and fill the role. So that's much more of a 2022 than it ever has been in the past, especially given the fact that with the pandemic, a lot of us were working from home anyways. Right?

 

Robert Sheen: 15:26

Yeah, I think that's been a good thing. It did open up people got used to working remote or, or hybrid. And I think people have learned in last two years how to work that way. I think there are a lot of positives and negatives to that. But it definitely does open up a geographic hiring. And absolutely, it opens up a bigger pool of people that you could attract, that you want to attract that's going to be diverse, so that your organization becomes diverse.

 

David Turetsky: 15:53

Excellent. Yeah. Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this? Well, you're in luck, we have a special offer for listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast, or whatever is on your mind. Go to Salary.com/HRDLconsulting, to schedule your FREE 30 minute call today. So let's talk about what your prognostication is, what is on the cards for 2023? Where do you think it's gonna go? I mean, obviously, there's a lot of really cool technologies here. And you guys are bringing a lot of cool technologies as well. But where do you think DEI is gonna go for HR in 2023, and the business.

 

Robert Sheen: 16:40

Well, you know, there's legislation in California, and we're just anticipating to be signed by end of this month, which will go into effect in January of 2023,

 

David Turetsky: 16:50

which is only a few months away!

 

Robert Sheen: 16:52

That's right. And you also have legislation where you have to certify that you're, you're compliant. Now, with that in mind, what the company really needs in order to have a confidence that they are achieving pay equity, or they are in compliance with pay equity, you need a real lifetime analytics, you know, the old fashioned way of doing an analytics every once a year or every two years, it's just not going to be good enough. Or let's say, if you even if you took a snapshot of your pay analytics six months ago, because you're a large organization, let's say have a 10,000. And it takes you six months, and six months later, you may have about 3000 people that you newly hired, get promoted or left. So yeah, so even that's very outdated. So in order to keep up with the legislations, in especially in California, Illinois, you're going to need a software that keeps up with you as as the company is, is hiring and promoting and, and people are leaving.

 

David Turetsky: 17:54

Well, it's not just about the software, too, though, the software informs you or could inform you have areas of concern to take care of. But don't you need to also change the processes, and train the right people underlying all those processes to make sure that they're making the right hires, decisions around pay. And at each point in the Pay Process, or in the employee lifecycle, whether it's promotion, whether it's job training, whether it's side gigs, that they're being given, they always need to make sure that they're doing the right thing.

 

Robert Sheen: 18:29

That's right. So there's a, you know, there's a conscious and unconscious bias that people have, and so the people need to be coached as to how to deal with your unconscious and, and conscious bias. However, also to when you have a right tool, that's, that's a software driven, that's a lifetime, you could pinpoint where those problem areas are, you could pinpoint which division is constantly causing this pay gap or pay inequity. And you could pinpoint which person that needs to be coached, because it can be it could be that not everybody is unconsciously biased that way. So data analytics is very powerful. If you have the right tool, then you can really look into what is the root cause that's causing that pay inequity in your company.

 

David Turetsky: 19:18

But before you even get there, though, I know you're talking about prognostication, you're giving a bet as to what you predict for next year. But won't they have to make a journey on making sure their data is all clean, or at least as clean as it can get? And that all the different attributes of not just the person but the hierarchy, their skills, all the things that can be used as compensable factors? All those things need to be cleaned up, right?

 

Robert Sheen: 19:46

Oh, absolutely. You know, and the workforce data, this is a mess.

 

David Turetsky: 19:50

Yeah.

 

Robert Sheen: 19:50

So you know in 2006, Intuit asked me to come in, and they asked me to help them build out a platform that consolidated and aggregated their 1.4 million quick data, QuickBooks data user with 21 million employee payroll data.

 

David Turetsky: 20:07

Wow.

 

Robert Sheen: 20:08

And when you're dealing with this type of data, you're dealing with people that are human, you know, data that's human entered. So there's all these missed typos and misspellings that go on and all these different data platforms. And the people will also think that the payroll data is clean, but it's not. Let's say, for example,

 

David Turetsky: 20:26

it's much cleaner than others, because it drives pay!

 

Robert Sheen: 20:29

Oh, yeah, well, actually, it's actually much more to us, it's actually very, very difficult, because you don't know whether a person was given a bonus or overtime, you don't know that say a person is there's a void of three months, you don't know whether that person left and came back, or whether that person was in a paternity leave. So all those data doesn't belong in the payroll. So you have to bring all the information from all your workforce data to understand what happened.

 

David Turetsky: 20:59

Right, but, but out of the datasets that you get from HR, because there's a real cost associated with it, payroll's usually kept the cleanest, because that outcome is money gets deposited in someone's account, or it doesn't.

 

Robert Sheen: 21:14

That's right.

 

David Turetsky: 21:15

And someone complains about it. And there's, there's laws about being able to pay people or paying people the right way.

 

Robert Sheen: 21:21

That's right.

 

David Turetsky: 21:22

So no one wants to go to jail for this. So that's why I think payroll. In my background, I've seen the payroll is usually the cleaner of the employee.

 

Robert Sheen: 21:30

Yeah, I think there's a lot of risk in not paying people right. But when you're dealing with the same pay equity issue, you have to think about the who's getting more overtime, let's say,

 

David Turetsky: 21:43

absolutely,

 

Robert Sheen: 21:44

you know, you find all white men are getting twice the more overtime, where are the bonuses? So all that data needs to be broken down even further than what's available in the payroll.

 

David Turetsky: 21:56

But do you think 2023 and beyond has a better way of doing it? Or are you just saying that software is going to solve everything?

 

Robert Sheen: 22:06

You know, our software does solve that, you know, we do bring, the way we solve all those issues is by bringing the applicant tracking, the HCM, leave of absence, time and attendance, and, and benefits and payroll data and job performance. And when you bring all that in, you could actually reconcile and validate a lot of this information that's missing in the payroll.

 

David Turetsky: 22:27

So what you're saying is, is that if somebody uses different signals from different systems, and they bring them together, they use those signals to try and true up to whatever should be the right set of data.

 

Robert Sheen: 22:41

That's right. Let's say for example, or I gave you a data set, there's a person with three months of void in payroll. But if you bring the leave of absence data, you'll see that oh, that person may have you know, was on a paternity leave, right, as opposed to, then you're speculating that that person to leave and come back? So you do need more data that you bring in from different data source, the better picture that you're going to have.

 

David Turetsky: 23:06

Okay. Well, that's actionable, because especially in 2023, hopefully, all these things will talk together, because either API's will happen or other things. And they'll be able to basically bring all that data together with less friction, and be able to have a truer picture of what is going on in the organization by leveraging all that data together.

 

Robert Sheen: 23:26

Yeah, that is going to be important. Yeah. And then what we're seeing in the HR is that the HR is starting to hire data specialists that can bring in all this data for them.

 

David Turetsky: 23:38

Yes, and they're using technologies that others have used before, like snowflake, and other good data structuring, good data governance technologies, that enable them to bring it together in better ways. So that they're not just all dumping it into a data lake. And, you know, using whatever technology they believe will get them to it. But they're actually doing it in a much more structured way.

 

Robert Sheen: 23:59

Yeah. And but also, you know, this is different than the say, inventory data or financial data. So somebody has to really understand what is this HR data. So you need an HR data specialist, not financial data specialists coming in and looking at the payroll, you know, Workforce data.

 

David Turetsky: 24:21

What's fascinating about that is we've seen and talked to a lot of data science people who talk about the fact that they ask HR to bring their best people in, to learn about the business problem, to be able to ask about the specific business problem, and to ask them how to try and find the patterns in the data. Because as we know, data scientists try and solve for everything. But what the best thing about them is they're naturally inquisitive. They asked the right questions to try and give the right answer, given the data they're given. So I like what you're saying, which is to have people in HR who can understand the data and get to the answer, without actually having to be a data scientist right? They don't need to be a data scientists,

 

Robert Sheen: 25:07

I think it helps to be a data scientist, because you have to understand the quality of the data that's coming in. But you really have to understand HR, you know, what is that data? You know, I wouldn't put a financial data person into an HR because this whole different way of looking at information,

 

David Turetsky: 25:26

Maybe some cool skills there, but you're right, they don't understand or wouldn't be able to bring the data together in the right way. Or they'll also get very frustrated about the quality of the crap and data in HR and go, Why do you guys run the systems these badly this poorly? So anything else that you wanted to talk about as prognosis for 2023?

 

Robert Sheen: 25:45

You know, we've, we've always been a proponent of building a better workforce. And I think that the what we're seeing, you know, coming out of the pandemic, the great resignation, and then the extreme acceleration of ESG. We hope that the HR, and we are in this era of managing people that our knowledge based, you know, we're not in a factory anymore. We're hiring knowledge people, right, that means that HR will become even more important, how do you manage knowledge rather than managing a machine? So I think all these all these things are heading towards the importance of HR.

 

David Turetsky: 26:25

Anuj, anything from you?

 

Anuj Mangia: 26:27

Well, I think yeah, I mean, Robert, pretty much summed it up. But I think like one of the things that we've seen in 2022, when it comes to DEI and specifically the equity component in there is that companies were very reactive to, you know, performing audits and, and, you know, even if they were doing it, they were doing it once a year, maybe once every two years. I think what's going to change moving forward and 2023 is companies are going to start doing these audits more frequently. And if possible, even just avoid by changing processes or putting in technologies, in place. Just avoid creating any kind of pay equity issue.

 

David Turetsky: 27:10

I pray that you're right. Well, I hope that you're right.

 

Anuj Mangia: 27:14

Well, yeah, we all hope so. Right?

 

David Turetsky: 27:17

Robert, Anuj, thank you so much for being on the program.

 

Robert Sheen: 27:20

Well, thank you so much, David.

 

David Turetsky: 27:22

We appreciate your thoughts. And thank you for listening, take care and stay safe.

 

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