Ian Cook – HR Tech 2022 Series – How 2022 Impacted People Analytics and 2023 Predictions

Connect with Ian:

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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:

• Visier Inc.
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 10
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 8

• “We’re advocates for the right data to the right person at the right time.”
• “Hybrid isn’t a policy, it’s a practice. It’s a series of practices, an operating system. Hybrid is here to stay; I think organizations will run some form of hybrid in some aspects of their business [in 2023].”

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. I'm your host, David Turetsky. This week, we've been talking to a lot of brilliant people at the 2022 HR Technology Conference in the beautiful Mandalay Bay conference center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Today, we have a very special guest, one who's been on our program for many, many times Ian Cook from Visier! Ian, how are you today?

 

Ian Cook: 1:06

I am doing really well, David, thank you. It's amazing to be back in person at a conferences just connect with people connect with the energy connect with excitement, the appreciation for people it's, I know kind of forgotten what it was about. But I am reminded every day and it's great.

 

David Turetsky: 1:20

And you guys made a huge splash at this conference, big booth, lots of energy, lots of excitement, lots of great things to talk about. So Visier is really living large at the show.

 

Ian Cook: 1:30

We're living large at this show. And I think we're going to it's a reflection of the nature of how our piece of the HR technology spaces has evolved has developed and people are going to realize, you know, we remembering coming to the show 10 years ago. Now we know where we are. And it's like people like yeah, this is actually an important piece of the overall puzzle.

 

David Turetsky: 1:49

Isn't it great not to have to fight for, you know, name recognition anymore. And now you've already passed that you're the 800 pound gorilla in the space.

 

Ian Cook: 1:58

We're definitely that and it's I mean another thing, I think in terms of you know, what's changing is people aren't asking, oh, people analytics, what's that? When you when we first showed it was like, so it's a what do you do? And they couldn't quite understand either what we did or why it was important.

 

David Turetsky: 2:12

right.

 

Ian Cook: 2:12

Now, people come into this like, yeah, I need what you have. Tell me how we do it.

 

David Turetsky: 2:17

Right, right. Where do I begin? So Ian, as always, we have to ask you, like we asked every guest, what's one fun thing that no one knows about you?

 

Ian Cook: 2:26

There's a fun thing. And it's a fairly recent thing. So Visier has a program where if an employee spent five years in the business, there's a three week sabbatical, you take three weeks off intact. So

 

David Turetsky: 2:36

Wow.

 

Ian Cook: 2:37

We recently did that. In the summertime as first time I've had three weeks off, and I don't even remember how long. And I was just such as such an appreciation of the time. And then we went to an island called the Haida Gwaii, which is far off in the Pacific Ocean, 10 hour boat ride to get out there. So that was actually pretty special, because it's a hard place to get to. And but it was a very special place. So

 

David Turetsky: 3:00

So Ian, how do I join Visier and get that three weeks? I'm kidding, just kidding, Salary.com. But but it's really wonderful. I think we take it for granted that we have vacation time. I also think we take it for granted that we don't know what to do when we're granted those things. So I applaud you for actually having a destination, a thing in mind. And hopefully, you were totally off the grid while you were there.

 

Ian Cook: 3:25

We were very off the grid. The you know, half of the island isn't even covered by cell phone. So no,

 

David Turetsky: 3:31

The fact that you said half is just hysterical. You said it's such a remote place. You know, obviously they have cell service, you know, for emergencies. But wow.

 

Ian Cook: 3:42

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 3:43

So, as you've heard from us in the past, when talking to Ian, there's an obvious topic we're going to talk to Ian about because Ian is one of those brilliant minds in the people analytics space. You've heard him talking, you've definitely seen him publish on LinkedIn, you've seen his thought leadership. We love talking to Ian about people analytics. So Ian, our topics that we talked about during the show are let's look at 2022. What we learned from 2022. What surprised us about 2022? And actually what wasn't so shocking about 2022. And then what happened in 2023? So let's begin. What happened in 2022. And, you know, let's first start with, you know, what did you learn?

 

Ian Cook: 4:34

I think we learned that what we had anticipated around the changes in the labor market and the the essential nation of people data to run your business held true. It didn't recede. I think a lot of people went into 2022 going, oh, you know, it's a blip. It's a bubble. Everybody will be back. It's all going back to normal. It was a large proportion of the business community that was just desperate for all of the increased volatility and challenge was to just go away.

 

David Turetsky: 5:01

They were praying for it actually.

 

Ian Cook: 5:04

And I get it, and I sympathize. But I'm kind of a realist at heart. So I think what we learned from 2022 is it doesn't matter if the economy is going up or down, fundamentally how people work, who they choose to work for, where they choose to work, that is more to the extent where everybody is having to re understand and reinvent how they get work done.

 

David Turetsky: 5:24

Yeah. I don't know if we've ever had part of our lives when there's really been a normal labor market there. I mean, there's always business cycles, right? So it's things going on!

 

Ian Cook: 5:35

Yeah, exactly. I don't know what a normal labor market is, and never again, ever. He's like, Well, what's the one thing that's true about the labor market? One thing that's true is it's it's made up of lots of different segments. And those different segments behave differently. So but I think that, for the longest time, David, we have kind of relied on the fact that there was a lot of people, and there was more people than work, therefore, you always had that flexibility.

 

David Turetsky: 5:58

right.

 

Ian Cook: 5:59

And I think it's that that loss of flexibility that has caught people off guard, because it's happened very fast, and it changes the way you need to behave to play well in the market.

 

David Turetsky: 6:08

But as an economic demographer, I look at the bubble of people and age, we're not, and we've had some conversations about this yesterday, we're not at a place where we're at full replacement, from a terms of births. We're, we're actually in the US constrained on immigration and bringing in workers still, and so the labor market is shrinking, because people are either retiring, or they're dying, or they're choosing to go into different fields that that weren't there other their, you know, kind of training fields. So the labor market is shrinking. Right, right?

 

Ian Cook: 6:43

It's shrinking. Absolutely. And the other thing is, you know, people are moving away from uncertain work. I think Airlines is an example of some of the retail sector where cuts were fast and deep when COVID hit and people like, you know, I don't want to work in a space where I can be out of work and not getting paid tomorrow at a time when it's most important. So many, as I say many levels of challenge in terms of like, so how do I actually then fulfill my business needs? What do I do to bring people to that? And it's not, it's not the way it was!

 

David Turetsky: 7:16

And definitely on the compensation side, what we've seen is that starting rates are going through the roof.

 

Ian Cook: 7:20

Through the roof. And I think that's really another important, very important dynamic is the we, we can't afford to have the number of people we used to have, because the cost basis of our business means we can't, we can't charge our customers that, we can't afford to pay our people that so. So how do we get all the work done with the people we can afford? Very, very, very complex.

 

David Turetsky: 7:41

While maintaining margins.

 

Ian Cook: 7:42

Exactly

 

David Turetsky: 7:43

that that are that are set by expectations by shareholders in the street. And I wish that we would hear a I guess it's a realization from the street. But maybe we should be looking at different margins now and not worrying about rule of 40 or other things. Maybe we should be looking at just realism that we're going to be constrained for a while.

 

Ian Cook: 8:05

Yeah, I think so the thing that we learned through 2022 is go that investment focus on the understanding of the investment community of the primacy of people in the business question. No, the longest time is like, Oh, we're let's focus on the money, the number of conversations we're having with either with investment groups, or, you know, with people looking at that regulation and trying to understand it, again, as massively increased, the amount of content being published around there was a, there was an article in CFO magazine about how the CFO needs to get their head around all their people data, right? Because they're going to be representing that. And my attention to that is like, you know, what, if you're in the chief people officer, you don't want that. You want to be hand in hand, or you're standing side by side with the CFO representing the people, because the people is your piece of the business.

 

David Turetsky: 8:54

Exactly. And maybe it should be that the CPO gets more into the CFOs data. So understanding how the dynamics of the CFOs world can not just affect but how they can work together better.

 

Ian Cook: 9:09

And, again, most of you are sort of talking about what did we learn in 2022? Where are we going for 2023. That would be one of the things that we would feature from from our pioneering clients. They got the basics in place, like they know their headcount daily that they were looking at their resignation trends and comparing them to benchmarks. And, you know, we have clients where the CEO is explaining the resignation and its impact on the business because they're just that deep. Yeah. What they're now doing is bringing in the associated people data, like how much work is being done, how many calls answered? How many

 

David Turetsky: 9:41

business metrics you mean Right, exactly.

 

Ian Cook: 9:42

business metrics, and so they're starting to do what you're talking about, like stitch that business output with the people understanding, you know, sentiment, how we feel, And so again, they're starting to use that data to compensation, what do we cost, right situation, who do I work with, with and what gets done and starting to be able to use that to understand things like hybrid! Because the hybrid answer the where's the best place to work done? And how do questions often be like office, not office, it's like, I don't like that framing of the question like, where's the best place to get work done? we use evidence to do that, not just somebody's perception.

 

David Turetsky: 10:20

And that is the perfect segue to the well, for the for the CPO is to make sure that you're hiring people or that you, yourself, understand the causal versus correlative effects of your people data on the business so that we don't make asinine statements about turnover, or we don't make asinine statements about investment in training or other things. But then the CPA, the CFO or others go and look at and they go, that's not a direct causal relationship. Why are you saying that? It just correlative! And, and they need to have the data as you're saying, to back it up, not just on the HR side, but on the business side. So that make sure that there's that, that that story there.

 

Ian Cook: 11:07

100%. Because I think you're, you're reminding me of something that Josh was saying yesterday in his opening keynote. We we don't have HR or HR technology for HR, we have it to serve the business. And I think, you know, in certain instances, there's been a lot of work on the kind of the back office transactional tech of HR that needed to get in the cloud, there's efficiencies there. But I think in 2022, we realized that tinkering in there isn't actually moving us forward. And we need to, we need to re build that connection to what are my business unit leaders trying to actually get done in the business? What information do they need? How do they how do they want to consume it? Because, again, that would be another other examples from our clients, talking to someone just yesterday, there they're going through, they call it a test and learn cycle where they find a group of stakeholders in the business, they engage with them around how does people data drive decisions and form your work? Right? They provide them with a data products, right? And then they iterate on it.

 

David Turetsky: 12:09

Yeah, that's wonderful.

 

Ian Cook: 12:10

And so they're, they're productizing data and insights into a business leader. And they're co creating it as a product.

 

David Turetsky: 12:19

You mean Ian they're not just going and sending out dashboards to people and saying, Here's your HR dashboard, and then just throwing it at them and asking them to just interpret it on their own?

 

Ian Cook: 12:30

Funnily enough. I mean, I think you make a perfect point, I appreciate you raising that because we we still see. And again, this is the this is the realization for 2023. We're still people's sees like we have this dashboard. We've kind of got it out to people, but we don't really think they're, we're not we're not using it like what do we have to do to them to make them use it? And it's like, well, you make it make it relevant? And they like, no, no, but we've published already. We want them to understand why they're looking at this, it's like, well, if it's not relevant to them, right? We're also busy. So

 

David Turetsky: 13:00

I love how you said it, you know, bring them in, make them a part of it, test it with them, talk to them about what they're seeing, what they need, what they're not getting all that make them a partner in this, you're investing a ton of money, even if you're not building it on, pardon the expression, the 800 pound gorilla, the beautiful product that's Visier, even you're just creating a set of Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoints. If you're just sending it to them, you're not achieving anything. Bring them in, ask them what they need from the business perspective. Tell them this isn't HR data, this is your business data,

 

Ian Cook: 13:33

Business data

 

David Turetsky: 13:34

It's driving your business. So how can we help you interpret and understand this stuff?

 

Ian Cook: 13:39

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

 

David Turetsky: 13:40

Why is that shocking to people? I don't know.

 

Ian Cook: 13:42

I think it's a little I think it's a little shocking, because I think a lot often, you know, it's where people start with analytics is not often where you and I would start with analytics, they often start with the data. We again, a lot of a lot of times analytics is misunderstood or misinterpreted as a request. It's like, oh, it's analytics. Right? I'll go get IT. And then, you know, actually, that's not the best place to start. You may need IT to, you might need IT to do some of the fulfillment, certainly, for some software understanding to do the fulfillment, but you actually need to start with what's the most important thing to answer for the business?

 

David Turetsky: 14:14

Right, making a business case. Well, you know, understanding what your goals are and how you're measuring success or failure. You got to start with the, why are we doing this? What's our return on the investment? Yeah.

 

Ian Cook: 14:25

And again, looking forward to 2023, you know, stitching these threads together, the the world of work has changed. And I think 2022 has proven that because we've had rapid growth, we've had a recessionary fears, we've got some slows down, we've got layoffs in certain sectors, we've got growth in others, we've got lack of people in others, we have, you know, multiple moving pieces. We're not going to guess our way out of any of that. So you know, evidence based and it's, it's not looking at the data after you've done something to work out, did it work? It's using the data to understand the patterns in your business so that you can do the right things, it's actually evidence driving the kind of decisions and the the awareness of the business to go forward. And, you know, as I said, our pioneering customers are doing that. 2023 our view is, people aren't working on it, then they're gonna be way behind me, they're already behind. But the time that time is moving fast forward.

 

David Turetsky: 15:20

2023 is only a couple of months away!

 

Ian Cook: 15:23

I know.

 

Announcer: 15:25

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David Turetsky: 15:36

Talk to me about what surprised you. Was there was there anything that kind of shocked you about 2022 that you just look back and you go never saw that coming?

 

Ian Cook: 15:43

That's a good question. I certainly wouldn't have forecast the war in Ukraine, you know, in December of 2021.

 

David Turetsky: 15:49

Right.

 

Ian Cook: 15:49

That was and, you know, the the elements that have gone with that, just how that's all played out, as been would never have foreseen that. And that's been extremely disruptive. And then technology wise. I think the real again, I think the realization, the broad and quick realization that the kind of technology to focus on, is giving you answers. Again, you know, HR technology is not a process and administration project. It's, I think, the change and understanding and the people are now driving that agenda that people are starting to, you know, engage in working on that agenda, I think that the rate at which that pivot has happened is has been a bit surprising, because we just see a lot more like, Oh, totally, this is what we need to do.

 

David Turetsky: 16:33

I gotta be honest with you, I'm shocked that there hadn't been more, you know, with all of the things that are going on in the world. The realization should have been this is just my perspective, but should have been the one place we could go to see patterns and be able to understand what's happening in our business, in our markets, but on our business, is our data. And extrapolating those insights, it's at our fingertips.

 

Ian Cook: 16:59

It is, and it's a lot more accessible than people think. So I think sometimes many people let their lack of that kind of exposure to how to work with data and kind of just know, it's easy to delay because it's like, well, we're not quite sure if we're doing it right,

 

David Turetsky: 17:13

I actually go back to fear, their fear of econometrics, or statistics, or the correlative of versus the causal thing. I think they're fearful that they're going to do things and say things that are stupid, because they don't understand it as well. They don't have the budget to hire people who do know it. And while this stuff might be in their current HR systems, or it's a short putt, and a very important one to buy something like Visier, they just they don't know how to build the business case, because they don't know how to explain it. And therefore, they just ignore it.

 

Ian Cook: 17:54

I can certainly see that cycle. You know, again, there's there's a good body of evidence out there for people to use. And there are well as you know, there's just a really big group of people, analysts now. I was in London, in London last week, last week. And again, remembering back to five or six years ago, some of the very first London based conferences that were 30 or 40 people in a hotel room, we had 200 people, and all of them were working as analysts, so many of them come from across Europe. So just that growth in practitioners the understanding the scale is there.

 

David Turetsky: 18:31

Okay. But I know that's a big growth, right? But consider the number of corporations in London, much less Europe.

 

Ian Cook: 18:39

Oh, for sure.

 

David Turetsky: 18:40

I would hope that in 2022, and this is my hope for 2023, that we'd be talking about 2000 people or 3000 people, because the world of work is more about measuring and understanding yourself and your market around you. And we've been in comp we've been doing this for decades. How could we not? I mean, I'm sorry, maybe this sounds incredulous. Or maybe we're just talking about the same thing again, but I just don't understand how it's not been bigger.

 

Ian Cook: 19:07

And I think just putting the question back to yourself, like, I would assume that you've seen a high demand for the data that you guys produce, because the rate of, the rate at which salaries are changing is

 

David Turetsky: 19:21

Yeah, yeah, it is. But there is a lot of demand for the data. There's a lot, but compensation has always been an analytical department. And there's compensation people in every single company most, especially large sizes, large companies. There are comp people because it takes certain analytic capabilities in order to be able to do that. Not what I'm not talking about, like large ones, but but some and if they if we could use compensation as an example, where you're using statistics about your company in the market to be able to tell business stories. We've been doing that for decades.

 

Ian Cook: 20:00

That's a great way to frame it. Because I think, again, starts to reduce people's apprehension of the work because like, this isn't anything new. We've been doing it with compensation data, we're just extending it to a broader data set. So maybe maybe some encouragement for people to jump in.

 

David Turetsky: 20:15

Maybe it is, maybe it is, but my hope for the future is that that becomes just a normal part of everyone's job, not just one or two people that are sitting in our department.

 

Ian Cook: 20:26

Well, again, you know, reading, reading the signs, and there was there was small and never move fast enough. But there was a Forbes article, I believe, as a Forbes article recently, which specifically called out that ability to use data as now an essential component to be a CHRO.

 

David Turetsky: 20:45

Absolutely.

 

Ian Cook: 20:46

I mean, you and I know this, but But it's significant when it starts to be mainstream media. And it's the kind of media that a CEO reads and gonna go, Oh, I'm gonna go and check with my chief people officer, like, how is your data sophistication? And again, when they when those things starts to happen, that starts to for me, it really starts to snowball the change, because it's not just oh, I can keep it quiet because nobody's watching, it's actually, you know, the expectation from the business is there of people are doing this with people data? Like, could I have that?

 

David Turetsky: 21:16

I agree. And I have several examples in my mind, like Mark Berry at Indiana Packers, Zoe Switzer from Jenny's Splendid Ice Cream, or Cindy Foxworth from ADP Sunpro Solar. These are people who are conversant in the language of people analytics. And, you know, whether it's talking about competition analytics, or talking about deeper people analytics, they get it. And they're what I like to use as examples of people who should be on that front end and bleeding edge, and not only for themselves, but also understand the importance of their staff, and the community, not just HR, but the business community isn't appreciating those things.

 

Ian Cook: 21:54

Yeah, no, totally. And again, I think that would be one of our forecasts for 2023. We've had early adopter set, they've been pushing the information out to their people management teams for a long time, some three, four, sometimes hundreds, sometimes 1000, people managers getting getting information through Visier, we would see that pathway continuing to grow, where it's not the sort of leading 20% of our clients set it's, you know, 50 60% of our clients set that are actually starting to roll out to the business and building the transparency, building the trust, building the understandings. You don't, you don't can't build it and then give them the data, you only build it by working through the data and with people on the data. So I think that's another another direction for 23.

 

David Turetsky: 22:39

But going back to your early example, the key is not just sending it to them, but bringing them into the process. And the adoption components that are required are change management and hand holding, and even a support desk potentially, Hey, I see this, I don't understand it. Can you help me interpret it? Because the way you described it, when we were going through training isn't exactly what I would expect to see in these numbers. And then that conversation brings the understanding and appreciation for either flaws in the data that underlie it, or myth or misinterpretation, and therefore education and knowledge.

 

Ian Cook: 23:15

Yes, absolutely. You know, going back into the what holds people back, I think a lot of people like they, they fear the misinterpretation. And I think, again, though, will be pulled from the business, there'll be recognition of not having information about these people patterns, or certain aspects of my people is hurting the decisions I'm able to make, we can no longer afford to operate with that gap. I think that because of the labor market we're in because of the change in the way that work is being done. I think business leaders are feeling they don't actually know how that gap is closed, but they're feeling that gap.

 

David Turetsky: 23:51

Absolutely.

 

Ian Cook: 23:52

And for me, that's always going to generate hole for investment for, you know, accountability to do the work for understanding. And then the case studies are all there, you know, you put these two things together as like, business leaders with that sense of, you know, there should be something here. I don't quite know what it is, but I wish I had it. And then they start to see case examples like, oh, that's how it's done at Lego. Oh, that sounds done that. Right. Like, why are we not doing that?

 

David Turetsky: 24:16

Right. Well, and I think one of the other, you know, to come back around full circle on this a little bit. One of the other reasons why I think there might be some apprehension is too much data starts to build the din, and the noise around the manager.

 

Ian Cook: 24:33

Absolutely. I mean, we wouldn't be advocates for huge amounts of data, we would see your point we'd be advocates for the right data to the right person at the right time.

 

David Turetsky: 24:40

Right. Right. Right.

 

Ian Cook: 24:41

And again, that's, you know, that's some of the technology developments that we're doing. So you know, it's beyond the here is your dashboard. If you click here and click here and click here, you'll find the piece that is about your team. Oh, and if you want to slice below that, like you know, good luck, well, we'll put you in the queue to try and make that slice. The technology is way beyond that where the Vizier platform will understand who is your report line, it will detect a change in somebody's score, be it an increasing risk of exit or a, you know, some other event, it will then push an email, information that you want the manager to look at to that person. You may know about this. But if you didn't, here's something you might not think about. And that's that real precise insight to the hands of the decision maker, formulated in a way that's meaningful for them, not just, oh, here's a chart, we hope you like it.

 

David Turetsky: 25:30

Right. Well, I think there are two ways of approaching that. One way, which I think we are going with this and correct me if I'm wrong is you're notifying them, you're pushing the information to them, either through an email or through a text alert or through a notification on your iPhone, and then click here and dive in and see what's there. There's another one, which I've been listening to a lot from companies that are at the HR technology show today. And again, this is kind of somewhat prognosticating of where we're going in the future. But wouldn't it be awesome as well as is that the notification is the Chatbot. And the Chatbot says to Ian, I've seen a pattern in data that lead me to believe there's some interesting things happening with your staff. Do you want to learn more? Yes, that sounds good. What's going on? Well, I've seen that there's been a pattern of resignations in a certain group that you that you work with, some of which are translating to resignations on your team. And then starting to peel back the layer, but not force them into looking at a dashboard, which people can't, can interpret incorrectly. But talking in their language. Talking to him as a human. And being able to provide them with just enough data to either entice them into it, or to them go. Yeah, I know about that. It's okay. You know, yeah, not a notification that's useful to me. So the AI that learns and says, Okay, that didn't work. What do I do next time? Is that coming?

 

Ian Cook: 27:03

I think it's a, I think it's a vision of the future. I think, organizations we need to get get more comfortable with what goes to the manager first, because I don't think we've actually got the feedback loop for the AI that the AI would need to then generate its model for generating the answers, I think you would end up with a a high number of false positives. So I think the chat would be would be quickly annoying. And you only get one chance to try it.

 

David Turetsky: 27:30

Yeah, you could definitely say that. But But, but, and we've seen other applications fail by being too annoying. But the thing that bothers me about notifications are notifications become noisy and get ignored over time.

 

Ian Cook: 27:44

Exactly. So which is which is where you know, you're you make an important point, if people are to follow that path. And then there needs to be a feedback loop, which is like a thumbs up exactly this information, thumbs down this information. don't notify me on this again, like you have to you actually have to build a substantial amount of infrastructure before that notification cycle that comes in the control of the person being notified. Right, because I you know, any, any app that notifies me without giving me control, I will delete. It's not living on my phone.

 

David Turetsky: 28:15

Right. Well, the word stop. The next thing, you know, when you get a text message, and you go, I don't want this anymore, stop. Not really useful for the AI because it doesn't learn. But what it does do is it signals that this this is not a consumer for us. And that's where, you know, as I said before, my hope is, is that we become more conversational around the data. So we can, so the AI can parse the natural language of a question that the manager is really asking.

 

Ian Cook: 28:46

Yeah, and I mean, that is a piece of work that Visier's has done. I mean, we're not we're not full conversational, you know, I'd like to tell you something about your team, blah, blah, blah. But we, as you know, when a chart goes up, it comes with a text that describes what's being seen. No, we are showing you this, because x rate has increased twice as much as it did in the last 12 months. And in text, so people don't have to look at and go, Why is this important?

 

David Turetsky: 29:11

Right. The ability for us to to ask, though, simple questions. Like really simple questions like, and maybe simple is, in my mind, different simple in everybody else's mind. But what what are problem areas in my group? You know, who should I worry about leaving? Again, going back general probability? But but that's what I mean about like a chatbot like conversational conversations that be NLP learns. This might be metrics that we might want to either add or add to the for this person.

 

Ian Cook: 29:48

Yeah. Again, I think that's a I think that is a vision of where we will be. I don't think that's 2023 just given the kind of current state of practice, but I... Yes, we're totally moving towards that.

 

David Turetsky: 30:00

You know, if you've walked the floor, and I'm not talking to Ian, because Ian's definitely walked the floor at HR tech. But if you walk the floor at HR technology, you can't go at least one step or an aisle without seeing an AI or a chatbot or something. And it's fascinating. All the different applications that they're putting forth for HR. And I was speaking to a company yesterday, that's using conversational, what they're basically doing is they're they're taking all data about all the people in an organization with all of the structured and unstructured data. So it's not people analytics, it's no, it's asked, it's basically just answering stupid questions to take administrivia off of HR. And I love that. It doesn't go to the next step, which is what we were talking about, like where are the areas of concern in my organization, but it's a, hey, what's my balance on PTO? And when do I need to take it by?

 

Ian Cook: 30:55

Yeah, I think that's, again, a great application of sort of modern technologies and the AI approach. And I think it is that response to the labor market, I can't afford and I don't need and potentially somebody doesn't want to sit at the end of a phone line and answer PTO questions all day long. So let's automate that work. It is a known problem with a known outcome where the data store we can hit, it is a perfect thing to automate.

 

David Turetsky: 31:21

Right. Right, then getting people to out of the administrivia, as you were talking before, and getting to the more strategic stuff.

 

Ian Cook: 31:27

Absolutely.

 

David Turetsky: 31:30

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. Let me ask you if you had any other 2023 predictions, because I took us off the rails and started talking about AI. So I apologize.

 

Ian Cook: 32:03

Well I think I think I think we've kind of gone through the AI hype back to AI reality. Back to reality. And I think AI is here to stay, we certainly see it as here to stay we we use elements of it in our technology. And we're really clear that it has to be done ethically. And it has to be done with validation and transparency. But you know, I think some people thought AI was going to solve everything. Other people thought AI was gonna go away. And and we're kind of now in that happy middle. I think there's a maturity, you know, there are other things for 23, I think people will will continue to work on solving the hybrid system. So a really nice piece by Dale, they kind of explained how they run hybrid, and they've been doing for a long time. But through the explanation, it became really clear, like hybrid isn't a policy, it's a practice. And it's a series of practices. And it's a it's an operating system. So you know, I think hybrid is here to stay as a given, depending on people's opportunity to do that I think organizations will run some form of hybrid in some aspects of their business. And that 2023 we will have to learn how to do it well. It won't be oh, let's not let's wait and see. Let's get everybody back. Oh, well, we can we can't. It'll be like No, we are operating in a hybrid makeup of work. And I think that's great, because it again, I'm a big fan of talent mobility. I know, job descriptions may just disappear and actually become like, what's your task set for the week?

 

David Turetsky: 33:28

Well, but but you're right on that the task set then gets to skills and skills have a description to it, though.

 

Ian Cook: 33:35

Exactly. Yeah. So so yeah. So you never get away from like, here's your here's your focus on, you know, here's your intent in the business. But instead of it being this very static job description with rigid and rigid boundaries, which, again, anybody you asked, like, how much of your job description do you actually do? It's usually, maybe 20%?

 

David Turetsky: 33:52

Well, that's because they're not recent. That's why nobody keeps them recent, which is very dramatic.

 

Ian Cook: 33:56

Yeah. So I think that whole, the movement to hybrid will increase the movement to task sets, or increase the fluidity of what you're working on, which should help people build skills, help people build teams, and actually get, you know, great performance out of a business and keep it interesting

 

David Turetsky: 34:13

If you look at how kids are making decisions for people. today about school and college, university, versus trade schools or certifications, or taking time off or going into the workforce, we're starting to see shifts away from the I have to go get a four year degree or, I think that's been building but and now they're making more informed decisions because the work is changing, because the nature of work is changing. Don't you see another opportunity? Or maybe potentially, it's a prediction, not for 23 but maybe for 25 and beyond that. The colleges and universities are going to have to change and shift to the New World of work, were just getting an MBA or just getting a BS in something isn't gonna be good enough anymore?

 

Ian Cook: 35:06

Nope. Totally, I think that's going to be one of the significant shifts for sure is that you learn as you work, as opposed to, you know, go do school, find work and then learn. So I can I can see that again, your younger, younger generation are their heads, well switched on, there's there's a substantive difference. Four more years working, gives you four more years of income and gives you the capacity to and start building the life you want.

 

David Turetsky: 35:34

And no debt by the way.

 

Ian Cook: 35:35

And no debt, which I think is a big, I think, again, people have understood that cycle of like, that anchor at the beginning of your career is it's a it's a thing.

 

David Turetsky: 35:44

Well, it's a huge political issue right now as well, with the debt relief that is working through the US, but it's it's fascinating, scary, all the same time. But all these older institutions are blowing up and probably should be. Because the world has evolved. It's not the same way it was in 1940, or 50, or even the earlier 1865 in the US was the explosion of, of land grant use institutions. Right. And it's not to same country, not the same world.

 

Ian Cook: 36:19

Exactly. So yeah, 2023, the we, we had the shock, we kind of had the 2021, no still, the pause and 22 are working out which way it's going and 23. We're just going to be running hard in the future direction and making it up as we go along. Because I don't think there's an answer. It's more a case of, we got to use the data, understand what works, understand how that's affecting the business and affecting the people and find that balance point and just keep iterating on that.

 

David Turetsky: 36:46

What's fascinating right now is that economists are looking at each other saying I've never seen growth in jobs, low unemployment, high inflation, some recessionary pressures, not a lot. What the hell's going on? It's they've never seen anything like this in the business cycle.

 

Ian Cook: 37:04

Nope, all the models are broken. So that just means we got to start learning our way into a different way of operating. So again, that's 2023.

 

David Turetsky: 37:23

Ian, it's always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for your time.

 

Ian Cook: 37:27

Likewise, David has great conversation. I appreciate being able to dig into these questions. It's super fun.

 

David Turetsky: 37:31

It is. Thank you very much. Take care and stay safe.

 

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