Al Adamsen – HR Tech 2022 Series – Lessons Learned From 2022 and How They Will Influence 2023

Connect with Al:

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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:

• PAFOW
• PAFOW Live
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 7
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 5

• “What I fear about American society right now is that we’re not able to [learn at speed, at scale, and in a sustainable way]. . . . It’s not about (as a leader) collecting the data, developing a strategy, and being agile.”
• “We’re talking about skills and human beings still like they’re an infinite resource, but we’re all constrained by time. . . . We have to [better] understand capability.”

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. And like always, we try and find the most brilliant people inside and outside the world of HR to talk to you about what's happening in HR, data analytics, technology and process. Today we have with us Al Adamsen, from the People Analytics Future of Work group. Al, how are you?

 

Al Adamsen: 1:05

I'm doing fantastic. Here we are. Day two of the expo Las Vegas 2022. It's massive, and it's a lot of positive energy, great things are happening. I'm glad I'm here

 

David Turetsky: 1:16

Can you believe the number of vendors and the number of potential clients that showed up? It's just unbelievable, given last year.

 

Al Adamsen: 1:27

Yeah, last year, if you weren't here, it was pretty much a ghost town. We expected or hoped last year would be what in fact, this year is, you know, a big coming out, you know, post pandemic and obviously, we're still in the pandemic. So I don't want to diminish that. At the same time, there's such an appreciation for HR technology and the value it can deliver. And obviously, when we were working remotely during the pandemic, most industries, most organizations and now with hybrid work, return to workplace, you know, we're creating digital footprints from a data perspective, how do we analyze what's ethical? What's appropriate? What are the data privacy, you know, all that stuff is now being talked about in a very mature way. So from an analyst perspective, it's no longer nice to have, it's a non negotiable. We're thinking about it as a lead product, as opposed to something oh, gosh, we're not there yet. And we'll figure it out, you know, downstream, it's now becoming more front and center. So very excited about that.

 

David Turetsky: 2:20

And, and I think one of the fun things about the last few days, after everything you just said, which is absolutely spot on it. Do you think maybe some of the people that attended may be a little confused? Because of all the things they're seeing here? I mean, it's very overwhelming.

 

Al Adamsen: 2:37

It's, you know, you and I are in the space, and I can't speak for you, but even for me, you know, walking around, like looking at the map of, you know, vendors and seeing the new startups and scale ups that are emerging and the size of some of these booths, and like there's some firms that grew up so and their value propositions have expanded. And so what does that mean, from a buying perspective? You know, how do I make meaningful distinctions among these vendors? How then do I make wise decisions? It's, yeah, it is overwhelming. And that's, frankly, one of the things that I'm focusing on. And I know there's a variety of other firms. Now, how do you sift through all this noise and make good decisions? Thinking with the end in mind, and for our profession, you know, what insights do you want to generate? What experiences do you want to create? What data is going to help you understand the employee experience the worker experience? And so I just, again, I'm biased because I'm in these discussions, and I nudge them in certain direction. But at the same time, the literacy around data and analytics has elevated, you know, over the last 5 10 years, and I think the pandemic has certainly been an accelerant towards that. So yeah, so there's a lot here.

 

David Turetsky: 3:47

Okay. But before we actually get started on a topic that we're talking about, I know it sounds like we already covered it, but one fun thing that no one knows about Al. Do you remember we did one last year?

 

Al Adamsen: 3:58

We did. Do you remember my answer last year?

 

David Turetsky: 4:00

Nope. But when you say it, I'll definitely be able to tell you!

 

Al Adamsen: 4:02

Was it beach volleyball?

 

David Turetsky: 4:03

Yes, it was!

 

Al Adamsen: 4:05

I can't do that again.

 

David Turetsky: 4:06

By the way, you and Holger, beach volleyball. Holger did it while he was in Germany.

 

Al Adamsen: 4:10

Good to know!

 

David Turetsky: 4:11

Oh, yeah.

 

Al Adamsen: 4:12

See, I want to be walking around this expo with with a ball because they're super high ceilings and ask people to pepper and

 

David Turetsky: 4:19

The really funny thing is you're so tall and thin. People will be like yeah, he grew up on a beach, he's got a ball! Yeah!

 

Al Adamsen: 4:25

That's what he does. Yeah. How to not make friends. Yeah. So the other thing that I'll say it's somewhat related is I worked with the Positive Coaching Alliance for nearly nine years. Stanford University they leveraged among other thought leaders, Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset. So I conducted workshops for youth and high school coaches, parents of young athletes, as well as young athletes themselves, as well as administrators, so that was a massive learning experience for me and people ask, well, how you speak publicly. And how do you do that? It's like, well, I did 200 plus workshops with Positive Coaching Alliance, you know, in a variety of forums, you know, setting things up here and there. And it helped me be obviously better in front of people. But more importantly, it helped me understand the role of leadership and obviously in a coaching capacity, but as a parent, you know, how do we not only coach the high performing athletes, but the whole team? You know, how do we honor the individual's contribution. So I don't have to draw a long lead to how that applies to talent and people strategy. And so yeah, that's my little tidbit. I worked with Positive Coaching Alliance and honored that I did.

 

David Turetsky: 5:44

So let's talk about what happened in 2022. In the world of people analytics. Obviously, one would hope that people analytics had it's coming out party, we said every year, by the way, but as you say, companies are using people analytics more so. Let's talk about 2022 in terms of, what did you learn? What surprised you? And what did you expect? Let's first start with what did you learn in 2022. About people

 

Al Adamsen: 6:10

I was, I've been thinking about our chat, and I analytics? reflected on what I shared last year around continuous work

 

David Turetsky: 6:14

Compentencies? transformation, I still stand by that, I do want to highlight a

 

Al Adamsen: 6:18

Yeah all that stuff, is where does that live? You couple things that relate to Josh Bersin's conference, a key theme in this event around talent intelligence and skill based planning, and also the fact that there's a lot of vendors that are here that are helping elevate career and personal development. And so how does that happen at scale and in intentional ways. And so this is what I want to say, as concisely as possible, talent intelligence when you're looking at internal talent markets, and external talent markets, and you're understanding supply demand relationships, skill adjacencies appropriate learning experiences to get people capable in certain jobs. And we can talk about worker... know, what's the operating model that's going to help organizations realize the value proposition that's being put forth. And so Josh specifically, put forth a narrative around talent intelligence, and people analytics being a subset. I love Josh, I love their research. And however, being a people analyst practitioner, you know, there's not many people out there with talent intelligence jobs, but there are a hell a lot of people out there with people analytics jobs. And when we talk about data privacy, and all the legislation that's eminent, we have to be thinking about how we're using people data, and in turn, the how we're using it in terms of analysis, distribution, all that stuff. So what I'll bring this home is, is that I am so happy that Stacey Harris' research put HR analytics, depending on the company size, number one priority.

 

David Turetsky: 8:01

Excellent.

 

Al Adamsen: 8:02

And I'm just like, fantastic. You and I have seen that before though, is the actual investment going to go? I believe we are there. Like it's a non negotiable, like I said at the outset that, you know, investment is going to go there. It has to go there because that's where the insights are going to be generated. No longer is it just a transactional system that's going to carry the day is the insight that system visa vie, others is going to shed insight so I can make appropriate decisions at scale at speed in sustainable ways. So I believe talent intelligence is actually a subset of people data and analytics, workforce planning lives in that ecosystem, learning lives in that ecosystem, and diversity, equity inclusion lives in that ecosystem. So that's where, yeah, when I look at these technologies, people, data and analytics leaders need to be in the conversation about what tools are selected, what data is going to be generated from those tools. And in turn, you have boundaries around, you know, that's not appropriate, and some transparency into the algorithm. So you're not perpetuating bias and things like that. So lots of good things. But we need to mature the operating model to actually realize the value proposition.

 

David Turetsky: 9:12

So you're saying that the people analytics leaders also need to think about it. And I know you're saying this, because I know you've espoused in the past, that the ethics of the inputs as well as the result, need to be front and center as being part of not just the development of the analytic, but also of the actual process and of the policy.

 

Al Adamsen: 9:36

Right? Yeah. So let me just draw an example. Your listeners are probably aware, and if not, they will be soon of what's happening in New York City, if you are residing in New York City. So if you're in a hybrid work environment, and you're exploring, hiring somebody from New York City, there are certain data privacy laws that you're going to have to abide by, even if you're not based in New York, and or have. So this is gonna happen more and more as we go in the future. So we need proper data governance, and that's going to inform what we can and cannot do in terms of vendor selection in terms of algorithmic integrity, all this.

 

David Turetsky: 10:14

Absolutely.

 

Al Adamsen: 10:14

So there's that piece. Business still has to get done and employee experience is something that we've heard, you know, time and again, and we're, you know, there's data there's solutions that shed light on, okay, number of meetings, you know, pulse surveys, you know, active listening, passive listening with ONA, you know, all that stuff, at the end of it, for the sake of what? You know, this, like, you know, the number of vendors here, it can get really, really noisy. So if there's a capable people analytics leader, they're going to have to find these boundaries prioritize, and in turn deliver on the promises that they're making. And again, that, for me takes conscious decisions with a governance body. That's not only HR related, but it involves workplace and involves legal involves IT, digital transformation, all that stuff.

 

David Turetsky: 11:07

Did you see that there was actually a law that was being put forth in the assembly in California, that would have made it a rule that you expose to your employees, all the uses of data of their data, and that employees could opt out of the analytics and algorithms you're using their data for. And I've had this conversation a few times on the HR Data Labs, one of the things that we're talking about is that might potentially put an end to a lot of the things that not only we do on people analytics, but have a normal course of business, like benefit planning, or compensation planning or other things. And I know you're not talking about that stuff as draconian. But even if we look at GDPR! GDPR itself from what happened in the European Union, gives employees the rights to control some of that data. And so I think what you're saying is, is that people analytics, and people analytics leaders need to have that competency or at least have borrow that competence from legal or compliance to be able to bring that into those those worlds.

 

Al Adamsen: 12:15

100%. So you ask the question, Am I aware? Absolutely. Yes. And what I would say is going to be essential is that there needs to be elevated governance between people analytics, HR, IT, legal, of course, because I like, just to fast forward in time real quick. And this is imminent, in my view, right now, it's going to be an opt out, as far as I understand. So you can opt out. But is there going to be a day where it's going to be an opt in, and let's just assume that for a second, if it's an opt in, I'm only going to opt in it there's going to be value to me as the individual as the generator of the data. Historically, I joined an organization I sign employment contract, embedded in the fine print is that these are our assets, including the data, therefore, we can do whatever the hell we want.

 

David Turetsky: 13:00

Right.

 

Al Adamsen: 13:01

And there's certain stipulations I don't want to be, but at the same time, that's not going to carry the day any longer. You know, and there's gonna be shifts and moves at the state level, national, international level, and it's gonna be dynamic. So staying up to date, staying current, having a risk mitigation strategy. So if someone gets turned off, are you going to be able to turn it off? You know, the essence of GDPR, as you know, is the right to be forgotten?

 

David Turetsky: 13:24

Yes.

 

Al Adamsen: 13:24

And so yeah, you know, in some cases, if there's not benefit coming back to me, and I feel that the data being collected on me is exacerbating or perpetuating bias, then I'm not going to want that, you know, collected.

 

David Turetsky: 13:37

But then again, that makes self insurance from an employer perspective, impossible. So I can't get health benefits, you won't be we won't be able to cost your compensation plan, so you won't be able to get an increase. And, in fact, in some ways, you're not gonna be able to participate in learning and development, because then we can't put you in learning systems. So there's a lot I know, you're not going there. And I know, I'm being a little bit irascible at this point, and kind of over dramaticizing this, but there are so many things that it brings up in terms of business not being able to conduct business, if those things happen. And I know it's being done for the right reasons, or at least it's being done for the California reasons. But you're right, though. It's not just California. It's New York and

 

Al Adamsen: 14:19

But just a quick comment on that about a month other places, too. ago, it might have been six weeks ago, as you undoubtedly saw the New York Times article that your employer's monitoring you.

 

David Turetsky: 14:29

Yeah.

 

Al Adamsen: 14:30

And it had a very negative take, on what we as people analytics professionals are doing. And I know it pissed me off as well as a lot of other people analytics leaders, including vendors that we're doing our damnedest to advocate for the worker and do what's right. And there's going to be this tension and we want to acknowledge that tension and do what's appropriate to just like take a step back and not take advantage of the benefits and the cost is just too great to your point. You know, we're trying to take care of your health, we're trying to improve your employee experience, we're trying to improve diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging all these things, you know, we don't have the data, we don't have the insights, and we're not going to be able to learn and adjust over time. So we have to acknowledge the tension and celebrate it and get in there and constantly iterate and just be smart about it.

 

David Turetsky: 15:20

by the way, before we leave this topic, I just gotta tell you, the opt out scares the crap out of me, because one employee opting out means the dataset's inappropriate, or the dataset isn't valid anymore, because it's not just the N, its n plus one, and plus two and plus three, one person leaving, all right, maybe you know, it's a blip. But but it's just the start of a rolling ball downhill. And it's, it's gonna gain momentum.

 

Al Adamsen: 15:43

I couldn't agree more. And it could be a cohort, critical cohort, diversity, female, black women in, that's redundant, you get the idea. It's and so who knows!

 

Announcer: 15:56

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David Turetsky: 16:05

And we've had John Sumser talk about AI ethics on. And we've talked about people analytics ethics in the past, we all want to do the right thing. We also don't want to have to get new rules created like FCRA, like the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which then forced our models to go through a governmental organization and us having to pass audits on these things. So we're gonna have to be probably towing a very careful line about how we develop things and how we get it tested. And making sure as you say, we're partnering with the right legal resources, comply resources, compliance resources to make sure that we're doing the right thing for the right reasons. And God forbid it ever gets to governmental oversight.

 

Al Adamsen: 16:47

Well, and that's just a touch on that, too. There's, as you know, human capital reporting requirements that are coming down the pipe at the state level or federal level, if organization is aligned with the B Corp movement, there's still additional measures that would be associated with that. By the way, shout out to Yvon Chouinard and what Patagonia did yesterday. They made earth their only shareholder.

 

David Turetsky: 17:10

Really? Wow!

 

Al Adamsen: 17:11

It's pretty astounding. So they created a whole new ownership structure where in fact, the profits to Patagonia go into a trust that benefits the earth.

 

David Turetsky: 17:21

Wow. Congratulations to them, that's You're actually advertising on your jacket. wonderful.

 

Al Adamsen: 17:24

Yeah, it just, it's the case where and again, I don't want to go off on Patagonia. But historically there have been a public benefit corporation and they've I am advertising my jacket! My college roommate, and longtime friend Jill Dumain, that's her married name that's why hesitated, rose to be the head of sustainability and supply chain there. And then she went on to be a CEO of Blue Line fabrics. I've been a huge fan and, and Chris Mason was there doing people analytics for a long time. And so we were talking about Caitlyn Kavanaugh. So they have unique reporting requirements going back to that theme, and they're for purpose. You know, stakeholder relationship management. It's like, how are you doing right by the employees, the customers, the environment, the communities in which you do business. And I would love to see that become more than norm. And in fact, you go back, guys now 15 years, Firms of Endearment, talks about stakeholder relationship management, how they actually outperform companies that had a solely financial focus or primary financial focus. So going back to what we're doing, and people analytics and HR in general, you know, there's the business cases are out there. Yeah, it's just a matter of getting it right for your organization at this point in time. And that's going to look different organization to organization, we just got to learn and learning. How do you learn? Data!

 

David Turetsky: 18:46

Right, right. Well, I would say and I'd love to see people publish, like, I don't know, if you saw Martha Curioni and Dr. McKinnon published in LinkedIn, an article they had done on creating an AI around employee data quality. Not only published, but also put all of their data and put all of their research on GitHub, so people can download it, and learn from it. To me, it's good if one company does things like this. It's better if they do things for the public good by telling the story, not just the business case, not just the use case, but then publish the results publicly. So we can see, what did they do? What did they mean? And what did they mean to do? Test the hypothesis and then actually show us what they did, so that we could do it, you know. And I know that sounds obviously very data scientist and, you know, going back to my roots and not a reason to publish their intellectual property, obviously. But in order for us to all learn and grow, fail, learn, grow. It'd be really cool to get as a data scientist to get other people to publish their research like that.

 

Al Adamsen: 19:58

Yeah, I've seen that happen, in the peer group that I ran for years, we did that to an extent. But you're right there is. There's some of that, like, with my show PAFOW Live, which I started.

 

David Turetsky: 20:11

We'll actually put links to it as well.

 

Al Adamsen: 20:12

Okay. That's what I try and do is highlight the use cases, both the success stories and challenges in a verbal narrative, which is supported by slides. And if there's a deliverable associated with it, and it's, you know, open to be shared, you know, put that out there. What I really want to highlight, because I love the idea, and it needs to happen at scale across industries, there needs to be an openness. Going back 20 years now, having been in the field for that long, I know, back in the day, so to speak, there was a hesitancy not only to do the work, but to make the work visible because it implicitly made leaders look bad or potentially look bad. In other words, I made decisions. That's a sub optimal decision, according to the data, therefore, I don't want. And it's a very scarcity mentality, I know. But fast forward, there's a new generation of leadership, new open minded, and it's as opposed to an outcome that's, quote unquote, not good. It's like, Whoa, there is actually room to grow here. I can shift and there's opportunity here. And there's no such thing as a perfect answer. You know, human behavior is effectively what we're talking about at scale. So it's always gonna shift and move and bring in the external factors, you know, the disruptions that are happening constantly, you know, everything from digital transformation, pre pandemic, to the pandemic itself to, yeah, what's happening politically? Yeah, you know, black lives matter. It's just like, there's going to be disruptions ongoing. So how can we as leaders, be prepared to deal with those, we don't have the sentiment data, we don't have the core HR data in terms of where people are working, what they're doing them, we're going to be guessing. And that's irresponsible.

 

David Turetsky: 21:48

those things. And you're talking about business cycle stuff. Yeah, things like these things have happened in the history of politics and an economics and social issues. We had Kent State, we've had Watergate, we've had political social issues that have almost brought the United States down. But they didn't because we're resilient. And we learn from those mistakes. We learn from those problems. Yeah, okay. Some things we don't grow and learn by enough. But those failures make us who we are. And I understand what you're saying. And people tend to shift away from that, because they don't want to be seen as a failed leader. But the best leader I've ever worked for, not only not only told us about his failures but celebrated them.

 

Al Adamsen: 22:44

Yeah, thank you for sharing that story. And just a quick anecdote. I wrote an article. I don't know if I say a lot. But I wrote an article in the Memorial Day, I think, like four or five years ago, and it was when, you know, political tensions were starting to elevate. And I reflected on my history at university where I understood that we as United States were like a medium sized country, we weren't a global power pre World War Two, even post World War One we were just kind of muddling along. However, World War Two started, and we did damn near miraculous things, we commanded resources that had never been organized and created outputs at a rate and a level of quality that was unprecedented in human history. In other words, we learned at speed at scale, and in sustainable ways. And what I fear about American society right now is that we're not doing that. We're not doing that governmentally unfortunately. We're not agile, we're kind of this old, crusty thing. You know, and I love this country. But I want it to improve. I need for it to improve for the sake of my kids and our posterity, and frankly, the global community. So not to go further down that road. Organizationally, I reflect on Adam Grant's book, Think Again, and where he was promoting think like a scientist. And that means you're unlearning. You got to be open to unlearning. You gotta be iterative. And so it's not as a leader that I know the answer. It's like, okay, this is what I believe the most appropriate answer is, is at this point in time, this recruiting strategy, this development strategy, but I'm going to collect this data I'm going to analyze, and I'm going to find something new at some point, and I'm going to have to shift to move and I'm going to celebrate it. And I'm going to have a team around me that's also going to be similarly agile. And that's how we're going to win long term. You know, the minute I say, Okay, this is my three year vision. Yeah, I was like, You're, you're done. You're gonna be this old crusty thing. Right? Yeah. So anyway, thank you for allowing me to go on that narrative. I think it's important.

 

David Turetsky: 24:48

That's cool. And I get so excited to talking about things like that, too. 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's shift though and talk about 2023 and where we think people analytics is going to go in 23. I know it's only a few months away. But it's enough of a putt that I think we can be a little bit artistic about it. Where is it going in 2023?

 

Al Adamsen: 25:36

So there's a lot of talk here about skills, capabilities, and skills based workforce planning, I'm all in you know, I support 100%. I'm going to own my bias or structure of interpretation, whatever you want to say. We're talking about skills and human beings still, like they're an infinite resource. We're all constrained by time. Yes. So you look at the burnout rates, quiet quitting, the great resignation, all this stuff, you know, even as the economy is struggling a little bit, there's still mobility in talent market, you still got to compete for that talent, you know, day to day. So we have to Yes, understand capability. And I talked about the four C's of workforce planning, capability, cost, construct, and capacity. Usually I put capability, capacity, cost, construct. Construct being how the organization is designed. But that capacity thing is still a blind spot for most organizations. In other words, how many people do we need to do work, and

 

David Turetsky: 26:44

Scaling up scaling down? By the way, we did it, we didn't say anything about it, we were

 

Al Adamsen: 26:45

Scaling up and scaling down. Yeah, absolutely. But it's not like I grew up, as I've long said, and the suck it up generation you as well. It's like, you're lucky to have a job, you know, you throw work at them, they'll figure it out. And like, young people, particularly high value talent, calling bullshit on that. It's like, No, you given me 40 hours a week pay, and you're giving me 60 hours a week work? You know, we dealt with that. Yeah, you know, and they're saying, nah, I ain't gonna do that. complaining under our breath, but we did it, right? And they're not complaining under their breath, they're voting with their feet. And and they're moving on. So there is a balance there. But we we have no elasticity, we have very little elasticity in most jobs, you know, someone has a stomach ache, or have to go pick up a kid or something like that. It's like, okay, now my performance, you know, has taken a hit because I had to go pick up my kid from school because they weren't feeling well, or something.

 

David Turetsky: 27:37

Which I think is very unfair.

 

Al Adamsen: 27:38

Grossly unfair! So we have to create more elasticity in people's lives organizationally. And sometimes that means contingent labor, automation, but we have to be conscious of the work and how the work gets done, and the very real constraints that we as humans have. So what's happening in 2023, I think that's going to become more front and center. And that, to me is a key component, like I just said, of workforce planning. Okay, not only it's not only about skills, and hey, we're getting the right skills in here, right? Do the people with the right skills have enough time to do the work, particularly if it's creative work? Do they have the capacity to, you know, iterate to and learn and collaborate and do all those things? So I'm doing exploring some projects with Rob Cross, and Greg Pryor and Michael Arena, on this front, there's like, you know, what is collaboration overload? How do you mitigate the risk of that happening? And where it lands for me, it's like, time. Do you have time to actually connect with people, both on a personal level and to develop your career?

 

David Turetsky: 28:39

Yeah, not to sound strange about this. But that's very timely in the world where we're trying to figure out how work gets done from the remote versus hybrid versus in person. And make sure that companies are okay with there being some ambiguity right now. So trying to figure out how there's an I think, what you're here, you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong here, because I might be, flexibility and being able to provide the ability to give people space to be able to be human, while at the same time getting the output that we expect from them.

 

Al Adamsen: 29:14

Correct. Yeah. And it's a tough balance, but like we talked about earlier, it's continuous learning. It could be based on life stage, I'm an empty nester now. Hard for me to say and accept, but I am. So I have more capacity than I did. Even a year ago? You know, is there any data set that understands that? No, but you know, that my, the footprint, the data wake that I create, would highlight that, hey, he's actually having more meetings, and maybe he's more productive than he was? Am I a better person? Am I do I have more skills? No actually have more time.

 

David Turetsky: 29:47

But that's time. Pardon me for saying this. But that's time you might want to think about investing differently in the equation of 24 minus L equals W where we look at the leisure time again, again I'm an Economist. So look at the leader get home as being the thing you control, not the work letting not the work controlling you, which is 24 minus w equals. But, but and that's really an important thing and maybe I'm being stupid about this. Most people at work rule their leisure time.

 

Al Adamsen: 30:17

Correct.

 

David Turetsky: 30:18

When you said that that's what I heard you say. I heard you saying, I'm going to flex because I'm an empty nester now, I can flex my w, is it really flexing your W? Or is it you giving back to the company in order for them to achieve what they need to?

 

Al Adamsen: 30:36

It's both. For me, I want the choice. You know, I might want to stay working, I'm just gonna make it up 40 hours a week and not willing to put in, you know, 50 hours a week, you know, spend five hours on a Saturday, maybe I'm not willing to do that, but maybe I am. But I want it to be my choice. Now, I don't want it forced upon me, you know, particularly at this stage of my career, and life, you know, for younger people too, they feel this pressure to perform and fit in, and all that. And arguably, you know, there's, I'm going to use the word there's systematic bullying going on, say, hey, we have the leverage, you know, this is, we're paying you, just do what you're told. And I think most of the younger generation, they get criticized for not, you know, being resilient enough to like, but their capacity for bullshit is a lot less and what it was and for high value talent, it should be.

 

David Turetsky: 31:29

But you and I have both gone through downsizing, we've both gone through layoffs in our lifetimes, where people around us have been let go. And we've had to pick it up and suck it up, put it into our job. And what I hear you saying is, is that younger people are going to say screw that, I'm not going to let that happen to me. If you take away somebody's work somebody's job who works with me, and you think I'm gonna pick that up, you either better pay me or I'm out of here.

 

Al Adamsen: 31:54

Correct. And we had fewer options than they do. There are more there's more people in the talent market right now their talent market, certain job families are grossly constrained

 

David Turetsky: 32:04

As a fourth person I've talked to this today actually, about the economic demography of our labor market.

 

Al Adamsen: 32:11

Oh, gosh. I mean, we talked about people analytics, you know, that's what I get like this. And going back to what I was saying about, you know, Josh's framework, and again, I'm not picking on I'm just an observation and and having exploratory discussion on it. You know, I'm looking for me, having been a practitioner in people analytics, I was also influencing I didn't own but I influenced workforce planning. So I'm looking at the system the workforce sits in. So in other words, the macro talent market, right. And if I don't look at that, you know, relative to the organization itself, it's overly myopic, you know, particularly given the movement in and out from alumni networks to, you know, talent pipelines coming in, you know, so we have to be looking at that level. I mean, and plus, we have the systems that are on the floor here, yeah, that you provide that data. When I first started in the field, like you, you know, it was about collecting all the data ourselves and putting it into a technology and staging it and testing it and then producing now we just buy the data. You know, and there's plenty of tools that can stage it for us. And we can do the analysis. So again, it's a leader choice, whether or not we get this insight into talent markets, both internally and externally, and understand the career profiles in certain geographies and so forth. So yeah, it's here to stay.

 

David Turetsky: 33:29

Do you think that's going to be able to influence government policy? And again, I'm not trying to get into politics, but governmental policy around the H1s and the immigration? Why aren't we?

 

Al Adamsen: 33:40

Because going back to what we said about the United States before, we're not agile enough, we're not creative enough it's like a political discussion, where it just be a matter of fact. You know, we look at the American system, meaning our talent is grossly constrained, particularly and you know, high, I use this term because because I like it, high value talent. Whether it be engineers or nurses, if we're going to supply that talent, you know, this needs to be done by human beings. And we don't have enough here. We got to do something!

 

David Turetsky: 34:10

Import it!

 

Al Adamsen: 34:10

We got to do something. You know,

 

David Turetsky: 34:12

It's economics.

 

Al Adamsen: 34:13

Yeah. And I was talking to AJ Herman from Cleveland Clinic, who leads workforce planning there. And we were talking about this very fact, you know, they are looking at consciously automating consciously outsourcing, consciously bringing in talent from wherever on the planet, to get this work done. But they understand the work. They understand the systems, you know, both in terms of talent and potential automation opportunities. And it's like, you know, good on you. It's like, as long as we're doing it consciously, there's no such thing as perfect, but we have to learn and improve over time, and that's the best we can do.

 

David Turetsky: 34:51

Well, it's always a pleasure to talk to you.

 

Al Adamsen: 34:53

David. Likewise, man,

 

David Turetsky: 34:54

Thank you so much.

 

Al Adamsen: 34:55

We'll do it again next year.

 

David Turetsky: 34:56

Yeah, well, what we're gonna do is we're going to test our hypotheses about 2023!

 

Al Adamsen: 35:00

Right Yeah, capacity. That's That's my word for 2023. So there you go all right.

 

David Turetsky: 35:05

Al, thank you so much. Take care stay safe.

 

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