Jason Averbook – HR Tech 2022 Series – How HR Processes Are Changing

Connect with Jason:

• 

Connect with Dwight:

• 
• dwight.brown@salary.com

Connect with David:

• 
• 
• david.turetsky@salary.com

 

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• Leapgen
• HR from Now to Next
• The Ultimate Guide to a Digital Workforce Experience
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 9
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 7

• “Employees need to understand the value [that HR solutions] bring to them.”
• “Changes to HR processes must be presented as business cases, not HR cases. . . . And your measure of success isn’t going live, it’s a more diverse workforce that meets the customers’ needs and improves those relationships.”

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. Like always, we try and find you the most brilliant people to talk about HR technology, HR data, HR analytics and HR process. At the 2022 HR Technology Conference in beautiful Mandalay Bay Conference Center. We're here talking to my friend Jason Averbook from Leapgen. Jason. It's a pleasure as always.

 

Jason Averbook: 1:07

Hey, great to be here. Thanks for having me, man. I'm not sure about the brilliant part. But other than that, great to be here.

 

David Turetsky: 1:12

I think people have chosen to use that word about you in other contexts, so I'm going to let it go, cause I feel that way. So Jason, we all know about you. But as we always do an HR Data Labs podcast, what's one thing that no one knows about you? It's got to be different than the last couple of times you were on the program too!

 

Jason Averbook: 1:34

Wow, great question. One thing that no one knows about me.

 

David Turetsky: 1:38

Something that happened recently? Something you're thrilled about, something you're not so thrilled about.

 

Jason Averbook: 1:42

So it's gonna be a personal story, but I'm gonna maybe cry. So I can't believe I'm picking it. My son was in a terrible football accident this past weekend.

 

David Turetsky: 1:51

No way.

 

Jason Averbook: 1:52

Yes.

 

David Turetsky: 1:53

Is he okay?

 

Jason Averbook: 1:54

He got hit high and got hit low at the same time. He has a broken fibula, and tibia, had surgery in the hospital all weekend. Thank goodness, there's nothing else more than that. So senior year, Captain senior year is over. But you know, it's one of the things that puts everything into perspective.

 

David Turetsky: 2:15

Wow, I'm so sorry.

 

Jason Averbook: 2:16

No, so for me, I'm, I'd like to talk about it just because, for me, it's how do you bring humanity into everything we do. And we realize that people are humans outside of work, and humans are inside of work. It's the same human. Yeah. And like, for me, that's something that I think we have to get better at in HR. So I'll tie those two together that way.

 

David Turetsky: 2:35

So everybody, I'm gonna go give Jason a hug right now. So hug has been delivered. Thank you for sharing that. My son actually went through surgery today. He had to have his tendons in his leg changed as he went through surgery. So a little while ago, the big scuttlebutt in my household was, which color cast was he going to get?

 

Jason Averbook: 2:59

So what did you get?

 

David Turetsky: 3:01

Purple.

 

Jason Averbook: 3:01

Oh, nice.

 

David Turetsky: 3:02

That's my son.

 

Jason Averbook: 3:03

Go Vikings.

 

David Turetsky: 3:05

You guys should be very happy this week.

 

Jason Averbook: 3:07

Yes. Yes.

 

David Turetsky: 3:08

Very, very surprising, but a great victory, nonetheless. And for those of you who are Packers fans, it was packers, right.

 

Jason Averbook: 3:15

Yes exactly.

 

David Turetsky: 3:16

I'm sorry. But

 

Jason Averbook: 3:18

Aaron Rodgers sad face. It's fun to watch.

 

David Turetsky: 3:22

Yes, well, he'll be on Ayahuasca today, and everything will be fine. Yes, exactly. So it's wonderful to talk to Jason. And we get to talk to Jason often, but it's always a pleasure. And today, what we're going to try and talk about is the differences that we've seen from 2022 to 2023. What we are expecting for 2023. And what did we see in the world of HR process, and how it's going to and how it has impacted HR technology. And Jason shares this little space in the thought leadership world where he can certainly talk about both of those things. So Jason, let's talk about 2022. What surprised you in 2022, from an HR process or technology perspective,

 

Jason Averbook: 4:11

I think the biggest thing that surprised me, and it's still surprising me, you know, present tense, is post 2020 and everything that happened in 2020. The combination that we had a public health pandemic, we have social justice pandemic, we had a massive breakdown in trust at all levels of the government. We had. We've had geopolitical issues. We've got people entering the workforce that have never not been digital. We have just massive, massive platonic shifts in the world. The fact that it's still moving and shifting right now at the end of 2022 is surprising to me. And it shows me that it's not a blip on the radar screen. You know, we've seen blips before like 9/11. We've seen blips before like y2k, we've seen blips before, like the housing crisis in 2008. But we're moving at a pace that every day, I mean, I know that we're recording this, and it's gonna be played at another time. But the stock market dropped 1250 points yesterday, you know, to the biggest drop since June of 2020, when people said that COVID was going to be airborne. And that makes people fear what's next. And I think that, you know, so I know, you're asked a question about HR, but you can't talk about HR without talking, or you shouldn't, excuse me,

 

David Turetsky: 5:47

It's context!

 

Jason Averbook: 5:48

to talk about HR without the perspective of what's going on at a macro level.

 

David Turetsky: 5:52

Absolutely.

 

Jason Averbook: 5:53

So if I then take that to HR, HR has had to be very agile, be very ready to respond. And HR has changed the way it's had to think about what its priorities are to deal with the fact that I've got this traversing landscape of human challenges. And if my job in HR is to deliver empathy, and to make sure I understand how workers can be their best selves? Anything that's an HR process built before 2020, truly probably makes no sense.

 

David Turetsky: 6:29

Well also, I think we've talked about this in the past, where HR has had to be the connective tissue, for all process gaps. And so when the pandemic hit, we had to be that glue that did all the reporting, the governmental reporting, as well as the internal reporting on how are we making sure our employees are still productive? How are they safe? And where are they? Just where the hell are they.

 

Jason Averbook: 6:52

Correct.

 

David Turetsky: 6:53

And you're talking about the seismic shifts? It's almost like we're getting punch drunk to them, where you know what, what else can happen? You know? So there's gonna be you know, so we're having the monkey pox. It's almost gone over with a yawn, that the first death just happened. I think it was yesterday in California, the first reported deaths from monkey pox in the US. Yawn. But there are impacts, there are impacts to every employer, probably. But we've almost kind of reacted to them as a shrug.

 

Jason Averbook: 7:24

And I think that the thing we didn't hear it talked about another massive pandemic, which is shootings. And school shootings. That's another pandemic, right. So I mean, all of these things that we're talking about are all human in nature. And I think what it's what it requires HR to just be very, very good at is to check in with people and to think about, as I check in with people, how do I use that data to actually do something with it? It has to be, and I am so passionate about this, it has to be within the day. It can't be within a week, it can't be scrubbed by a data analytics team. And we'll get back to you in six months, anonymized. Because by then, I mean, we talked about all these things that are happening,

 

David Turetsky: 8:13

Other things will happen.

 

Jason Averbook: 8:14

Yeah, it doesn't make sense. So we just have to speed up our cycles and speed up are our behaviors.

 

Announcer: 8:22

Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss a show by clicking subscribe. This podcast is made possible by Salary.com. Now back to the show.

 

David Turetsky: 8:33

And maybe that's a good transition. Because if we have to be faster and react in HR more to these things, have we seen any shift currently, that surprises you in the HR technology to enable us to do this or not? And that's a problem.

 

Jason Averbook: 8:48

So technology is a is the fuel that enables these strategies, human strategies to happen. And I see massive shifts in HR technology, quote, unquote, you know, I think I've probably said before, I don't know if on this podcast, but you've probably heard me say it. I hate the term HR technology. You know, I think it's basically technology and its work technology, if anything, but the fact that there are solutions that can pulse how I'm feeling on a day to day basis, there's solutions that check in with me that nudge me, there are solutions that listen to my chatter, quote, unquote, these are all solutions. There are solutions that drive experience that don't actually just care about capturing data, but actually improve the way you can make an employee feel. But while I've seen these, it hasn't been surprising, I'll tell you what's really surprising is the thud that a lot of them have hit with, when all of a sudden I as an HR function, roll out a tool, thinking that I'm doing something good for the employees, and the employees smack me in the face by not using it

 

David Turetsky: 9:58

Or the manager smack you by saying yet another thing you're thrusting upon my people.

 

Jason Averbook: 10:01

And I think the thing that we have to realize, and I said this yesterday on a panel is these can't be HR things. And a general employee who doesn't speak HR, who doesn't know how to spell HR, doesn't want to get an email from HR just don't.

 

David Turetsky: 10:17

No. They probably fear it actually.

 

Jason Averbook: 10:18

Yeah. That same son, I talked about earlier, when he you know, he did camp counseling. HR sends him an email saying, Your I-9 was filled out wrong. He's like, Mom, you filled out my I-9 wrong. By the way, what's an I-9?

 

David Turetsky: 10:33

Exactly! Why do I care?

 

Jason Averbook: 10:35

Right, exactly. And like, so I mean, to get an email from HR to do something without what's the value to me. Like, what's it going to mean to me? Like, it just it falls on less than deaf ears.

 

David Turetsky: 10:53

And then I guess the question is, by not talking about these things as business processes, because paying people is a business process! Someone does some work, they're rewarded for that work by actually getting a check. By not considering it to be a business process and considering it to be HR, it then gets relegated to the back of our minds, unless it does impact like my bank account, my health insurance, or something really, catastrophically important.

 

Jason Averbook: 11:18

These are really capabilities that are made up of processes and journeys. So you know, like, sometimes we all too caught up in the process, process, process process process. And what we're really doing is we're deploying capabilities to get someone paid, to get someone a benefit, to get someone taken care of. And underneath that, there's processes that we have to go through as a function. And then there's journeys that the employees, managers and leaders go on to actually take advantage of that capability. So I think that, does that make sense? I think, I get concerned, we talk too much about process automation and process automation. And let's go one step above that and say what we're really doing is trying to deploy capability that might be made up of some processes.

 

David Turetsky: 12:03

But I think where it has always come from, and I go back to this, because my experience was when I first started out at work in the 1980s is that we're really just automating those paper processes we always had, as a background, and as a thing we always had to do. Like when you were on boarded in your first job, you filled out the paper forms for your W4, your, your, your, your I-9, your benefits information, all that other stuff, you filled it out on paper, all we've done is basically webify those forms! We haven't made it any easier.

 

Jason Averbook: 12:32

Yeah, and what's really important to think about there, and the language that we use all the time and working with customers is the difference between a technology transition and a digital transformation. So trans means change. So the question is, am I changing my technology from paper to web form? Or am I truly transform it, which is changing the way work happened? And I, you know, my keynote on Friday, here, I'm going to talk about the value and the importance of not doing digital but being digital. And every person at this conference is digital, like, not it, they need to be digital. That's the

 

David Turetsky: 13:11

In their consumer life, yes. But have you speed at which have you ever seen HR really take on I mean, maybe there are some here that have done it, really skip the generations and go from 1950 all the way to 2022 and say, You know what, I know all this stuff was done in the past a certain way, let's do something completely different. Let's not worry about our old our heritage!

 

Jason Averbook: 13:34

I'm seeing positive trends. I'm seeing positive trend lines, you know, without naming clients, you know, how do we make sure that we pay people every day, because now they want to get paid every day? That's transformative. That's not a transition. That's transformative. And that's adjusting to the fact that this is how this new population wants to work. You know, I, I apply, you know, once again, I use my kids as a case study all the time. My 14 year old, I'll say, Dude, go online, and try to apply for a job. I say, you want a job at this place. And he gets to the front page. And he said, I don't know what to do. And I was like, it says careers right there. He

 

David Turetsky: 14:18

Exactly! was like, I don't want a career. I want a job. You know. So I mean, there are companies that have now taken and made that process frictionless for a 14 year old to do on their device. It doesn't look like a web form where I'm scrolling things all over the place. So we have made progress in these areas and true transforming the way I apply for a job, the way I'm on boarded, the way that I actually get help if I need it through a voice and say, you know, I'm having a baby. What benefits does the company offer? But but let's talk about that transformative process for a second or let's talk about going and leaping, leaping over where we were. Sorry, I'm gonna borrow your words. But let's talk about the fact that he can download, given he has access, he can download a game and start playing immediately, probably doesn't even need to have a registration, because they're probably going to use the apple, the Android right? Already already have done on the phone. So immediately they're able to actually do something. In the world of jobs it's not the case. You can't go to McDonald's and right away, put on an apron. You can't even go into McDonald's, get a job and get into the training program right away. There's process and process. And it's not the same as a consumer experience. That's great.

 

Jason Averbook: 15:40

You know, because that's what the why our Right. It's not the same, but the the work is kids would download an app and keep using it, is because it's being done to get better. And it's all you know, it's all about the D word design. Those experiences, quote, unquote, column for my for the kid have been designed for him. Unfortunately, where the world of work is, is that we still have designed most of our things for the HR function. And then we've just turned them around and push them on the employee and the employee, like, what do I do? Where do I go? This wasn't designed for me. So I abandon and then I call when we keep that crazy craziness going and going going generation after generation. So but I will tell you, I mean, I, I mean, I'm, I guess I'm an optimistic person. But there is movement in the right direction, I think organizations, I mean, it's why we're in business, I mean, but organizations struggle to think about the sequence in which they do things. And, you know, we have to switch from thinking about minimum viable products to minimum lovable products. lovable to them right away. If they said, Hey, keep just keep playing with it for the next three months, and maybe it'll get better, they're not gonna do it!

 

David Turetsky: 17:00

No, 10 minutes in, they're not gonna do it!

 

Jason Averbook: 17:02

Right. And that's why most employee facing tools fail, is because I roll it out in a minimalistic way that because it's speed, instead of the quality that I need to actually drive some sort of an adopt adoption to addiction mentality.

 

David Turetsky: 17:17

And if the employee doesn't like it, they don't have the option of not doing it, because the compliance effort there is they have to do it. And if you're forcing them to do it, even if they hate it, what are you doing, but raising resentment in the mind of the employee?

 

Jason Averbook: 17:31

The other thing is, that's happening, though, around those lines. And if you look at any Glassdoor data, people are leaving, based on the fact that it's too hard to work in this company. So if I can't figure out how to do it, and the experience isn't such that's frictionless enough for me to do the job I was hired to do instead of someone else's job. There's too many jobs. Like it's so easy to find a job now. And that's not going to change.

 

David Turetsky: 18:03

No. Well, what might change though, is the work that's being offered. Right? So right now we're seeing a lot of knowledge workers, or a lot of knowledge work, jobs being unfilled. We see a lot of unskilled jobs being unfilled because a lot of the knowledge workers are saying, hey, I can I can get the same rate of pay and not be stressed out. I'm a nurse. I'm, you know, I'm stressed out of my brains, I can go take an non stressful job for basically the same pay right now. Those go unfilled. Or those are striking in terms of some very close to home areas for you.

 

Jason Averbook: 18:37

And but that's gonna continue. Yeah. I mean, the employees have won, like, period.

 

David Turetsky: 18:43

They can drop the mic and go home.

 

Jason Averbook: 18:44

Yeah, I mean, it's. There are four people retiring every day. And every day, there's one person entering. So there's not going to be 20 million people dropped out of the sky that are 20 years old.

 

David Turetsky: 18:56

And unemployment is at all time lows, and jobs are going unfilled, there are tons of jobs being added going unfilled.

 

Jason Averbook: 19:02

So if I don't like my job, I can easily find another job. That's for those people that can't find a job. I apologize. That's a very generalized statement. But overall the market is such that it favors the employer right now, more than it favors the employer.

 

David Turetsky: 19:19

But But I would say to that person who's looking for a job right now, jobs that say that they have to be co located with the headquarters. I would apply anyways, if you're not in that location. Because they may have relaxed their work from the office policy. And they may not have updated yet in their terminology on the web.

 

Jason Averbook: 19:39

But this and this goes back to your question around, you know, what am I surprised about in 2022? Is and I mean, surprise isn't the right word. But we're still watching this whole new work model be formed and building capabilities around it have to be agile because it's changing still, it's still changing. You know, hybrid is not like what it means. You can't say, Hey, here's the hybrid tool, because hybrid means something different to every single person that you talk to. And there are still COOs saying, We're gonna mandate people to go back to the office,

 

David Turetsky: 20:20

Jamie Dimon just said this at JP Morgan, right?

 

Jason Averbook: 20:23

Once this COVID thing is over. I'm like, Okay, I'm not sure what you're reading, but the COVID things not going to be over? You know, and the reason that people are not going back to the office is not because of COVID. Like, that's not why!

 

David Turetsky: 20:37

Well, some of it goes back to something that Chris Havrilla and I talked about yesterday, which is the command and control structure that's built into their brains. It's still there.

 

Jason Averbook: 20:46

Yes, yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 20:47

And they're still hoping for the day they can get it back. And not evolving to what you're calling this new, this new work model.

 

Jason Averbook: 20:55

But you don't need to be with a person to command and control. And, I mean, excuse me, that's probably too dumb of a statement. But it until people get that mindset changed. You know, they're going to constantly struggle, because there is not one right answer to this. No, there's not. There's not, no, I'm not gonna write a book. No one's gonna write a book that's gonna say, here's the right answer to the work. No, the we are all working together to create what our next now of work looks like. And that's gonna keep going for a while. Forever!

 

David Turetsky: 21:35

Well, the balance had been for at least 60 70 years, that I can tell from everything I've read, and from everything I've ever experienced in 30 years I've been in the workforce, that that balance of power definitely shifted from the employer to the employee, as far as the what do I want? Or how do I want to work?

 

Jason Averbook: 21:54

And it took an event, a public health pandemic, to actually make people realize. But I mean, someone says, you know, only in 2022 can you run a remote company. Like, I ran a remote company from 2004 to 2012 when we sold it, it was completely remote! Now, did I use different tech? Did I use Zoom? No. Did we do conference calls? Yes. But we've been running remote companies for a long time.

 

David Turetsky: 22:25

Yes. Successfully, by the way, Oh, my hair looks terrible.

 

Jason Averbook: 22:27

Right. Yeah. So I mean, all of this stuff is the The thing that's changed is that all of a sudden, I got forced into, I got forced into trying something. Some people don't even remember this, which is fascinating to me that before 2020, most people wouldn't turn on their cameras. That's right. They were conference calls. Like, oh, here's the conference call, got a conference call, got a conference call. Now, if you don't turn on your camera, like, what's wrong? Something going on? new formulaic kind of modeling of work.

 

David Turetsky: 23:01

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 take that one step further and say, What's your prediction for 2023 then? Where do you think 2023 is gonna go from an HR and HR technology perspective? Or sorry, I apologize. Business Technology perspective.

 

Jason Averbook: 23:41

So David, I think, whether anyone wants to say it or not, but 2023 is going to be a recessionary year. I firmly believe that what we do in HR will be driven by what we're allowed to do by finances in our company. More than ever before. I think that in HR on a sunny day, you can play with tools, you can play with trying things, et cetera, et cetera, on a cloudy day, you know, you have to be much more focused on outcomes. And, you know, I've been talking a lot about what makes sense with an S shifting to what makes cents with a C. And I truly believe that there's going to be more scrutiny on show me the impact of this because we're closing offices because people aren't going back to work. We're cutting expenses. You know, airfare costs are crazy, you know, like, do we we've proven that we don't need to travel for those meetings. Like every organization's trying to figure out as with a lighter consumer demand, how do I stay profitable and keep my earnings numbers good? The way to do that is to cut.

 

David Turetsky: 25:01

But we actually haven't seen consumer demand shrink at all, which has been what's crazy about this recession! Job growth? Unemployment low. Yes. Inflation high. Yes. GDP, decreasing growth over a couple of periods. But this has been by a lot of economists perspective, the weirdest recession in the history of the world.

 

Jason Averbook: 25:23

Which is why, which is why they've I didn't want to even call it that, a recession. It's a it's a period of uncertainty. From an economic standpoint, more than what we've been living through. When your kids or when your employees say, my 401k balance went down. Like, yeah, like some people forget that anyone that's under 35 has never had their 401 K balance go down. So that no matter what you call it,

 

David Turetsky: 25:53

That's right. recession, uncertainty. There is a correction. We were we were pretty frothy for 14 years. You know, and you and I a little older, we've been through downturns. But just like, you know, when people say this doesn't feel like other recessions. What feels like anything? No, this doesn't feel like the last pandemic, because the rest of the world changed around it! You're right, you're absolutely right. That period of uncertainty will certainly drive different behaviors, from finance, from HR. But my hope is, is that changes the perspective that shareholders and boards have on what's expected. And they don't start doing the crazy baloney of letting people go, because they're driving to numbers that are not realistic in that period.

 

Jason Averbook: 26:51

Right. So question, question for you. Would you rather waste your money on another generation of HR technology? Or would you rather keep your people?

 

David Turetsky: 27:02

For me? If you had the answer, I say keep the people!

 

Jason Averbook: 27:06

Right. And I'm the same way. So we maybe maybe we use this opportunity to stop this Habitrail of buying? I have to go from Workday to SuccessFactors. For what? No, you don't! Oh, I have to go from SAP to blah, blah, blah. No, you don't.

 

David Turetsky: 27:25

But the only caveat I'll give you on that particular point is, if you've gone and outgrown what you currently have, you're on a mid market product when you've now grown through organic or M&A. And you're now in the up market, or, or vice versa, you've divested and now you're too big for your technology, go back down. To me those inflection points are more important, because you're not capturing the nature of the work being done. And you're not enabling your business. And you're probably leaving dollars on the table. Because your technology doesn't support your organization.

 

Jason Averbook: 28:00

Completely agree. As long as you commit to yourself and your measure of success for whatever you do is what you just said. If your measure of success is no one's using x, so we're gonna go to y.

 

David Turetsky: 28:11

Or cut costs, right? Let's find a way to, no.

 

Jason Averbook: 28:14

That's right. I mean, so I really think that people are going to be a little more careful about where they spend. And I believe that boards are going to be a little more, give more scrutiny to people just spending money on technology. I actually think that that golden goose of guys, maybe the reason people are not adopting technology, is because we actually don't do a good job of changing our processes and journeys to meet them where they are, instead of blaming the tech,

 

David Turetsky: 28:46

Right, exactly. Well, we implement tech thinking tech will solve the problem without changing right the underlying ways in which we work, and therefore, it can't possibly do it.

 

Jason Averbook: 28:57

We've had in the last six months, we've probably had 10 CHRO's say, we can't get budget approval to replace our core HR system. Can you help us? And I'm like, What are you trying to do? Like, what's going to be the savings? And like, if you're doing it for savings, you're not gonna do it! It's costing you less. These are huge companies. It's costing you $100,000 a year to maintain this. Like you're about to spend $5 million a year, and you're gonna have the same thing! Same data. So like, business case? No. Is the technology about to fail? Do you have a security issue? Maybe. And that's, those are valid. But just to say, hey, what's the business case to go from one to the other that people might use it? It doesn't work.

 

David Turetsky: 29:48

But that's the lens that they're getting from finance. That's the lens they're getting from the IT organization. What's the burning platform? Are we going to say be saving money by going and doing it right? And that's where to me before they go and do those technology changes or even going to get the business case, they should do the business case to changing the business process, not the HR process, the business process underlying whatever they're going to change anyways!

 

Jason Averbook: 30:11

And you use the word business case, the business case has to be a business case, not an HR case. And that's a key thing. Because, you know, I can, hey I'm going to cut three heads from HR, and I'm going to be able to hire people, and reduce time to fill by three days, cool. Take it one step further, and say, Hey, I'm actually saving $500,000 on my heads, and I'm generating $1.8 million in revenue, use those terms to express it, not three days, and three heads.

 

David Turetsky: 30:42

Let me push it one step further. And we're going to be a more diverse organization that values the way in which our customers feel and look about us. And they say they represent us, and therefore I want to work with this company going forward. And we're going to use this opportunity to change how we do what we do source differently, feel differently and respect differently.

 

Jason Averbook: 31:06

Right. And that what you just said, is my measure of success. Okay, so unfortunately, in the HR technology space, we say our measure of success is go live.

 

David Turetsky: 31:19

Yeah, successful go live.

 

Jason Averbook: 31:20

And what you just said, is truly impactful. But that's, you see what I'm saying, like your measure of success isn't getting the technology live. Your measure of success is what you just said, we're going to be a more diverse workforce that's going to meet the meet our customers where they are, which is going to mean the customers are gonna buy more, we're gonna have better relationships. That's how we have to express these.

 

David Turetsky: 31:44

And I think the reason I said it is because my hope is that boards are forced, or do it on their own, to start recognizing the fact that organizations need to represent the customers that they're working for, and look like them.

 

Jason Averbook: 31:59

I completely agree. But if you spend the money on a data tool, or an analytics tool to be able to measure what you're talking about, and all you do is go live, and you say, Okay, now managers, now board, you've got your data, you should be fired. Because that's not the that's not enough.

 

David Turetsky: 32:18

No, it isn't. And the state of Illinois has actually said, it's not enough to do a pay equity audit, you need to be certified that you've done a pay equity audit. And what are the steps coming out of that. California is putting in place very good, very open regulations about pay equity. And that's going to force these organizations to change what they do and who they are.

 

Jason Averbook: 32:39

Yeah, and, and that requires HR to transform that requires HR to be digital. And I truly believe because you're what you just said, our government mandates. If HR doesn't do it, the CFO and the CIO and the COO will do it.

 

David Turetsky: 32:56

And the business will have to do it and it'd become a business process, not the HR process. To your original point.

 

Jason Averbook: 33:04

And the HR process goes where? Away?

 

David Turetsky: 33:09

Well, somebody's got to push the paper.

 

Jason Averbook: 33:11

It's a good way to end.

 

David Turetsky: 33:21

Jason, as always, it's a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much. And hopefully we get to do this again soon.

 

Jason Averbook: 33:27

Yes, for sure. Thanks for having me.

 

David Turetsky: 33:29

Take care.

 

Jason Averbook: 33:29

Take care.

 

David Turetsky: 33:30

Stay safe.

 

Announcer: 33:31

That was the HR Data Labs podcast. If you liked the episode, please subscribe. And if you know anyone that might like to hear it, please send it their way. Thank you for joining us this week, and stay tuned for our next episode. Stay safe.