David Turetsky & Dwight Brown – One Season Closes and Another Opens

Connect with Dwight:

• 
• dwight.brown@salary.com 

Connect with David:

• 
• 
• david.turetsky@salary.com

Resources:

• Salary.com
• HR Data Labs Season 3 Episode 1
• HR Data Labs Season 2 Episode 24

• “We talked about a lot of different things with a lot of different people—it wasn’t the same thing over and over again.”
• “[In Season 3], we’re going to explore certain areas of HR and HR analytics that we haven’t really talked a lot about in the past.”

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, but 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 am your host, David Turetsky. Like always, we bring some of the most fascinating people to talk to you about the world of HR technology, HR data and HR analytics. Today, you’ve got Dwight Brown, from salary.com. Hey, Dwight,

Dwight Brown: 1:03

Hey David! Good to be here with you.

David Turetsky: 1:05

And our guests today is David Turetsky and Dwight Brown from salary.com. What we’re going to do today is we’re going to give a little bit of retrospective on season two, and talk about what we can expect out of the next 25 episodes for season three. Because season two, we learned a lot of things. And season three has a lot ahead of it. And so we wanted to try and do, and this is kind of unique for us, is to look back and talk about what we learned. But as it is tradition on the HR data labs podcast, we have to share with you something uniquely unknown about the guests. So Dwight, what does no one know about you?

Dwight Brown: 1:49

You know, I hate to even put this out there because it really, it really underscores my dorkiness but you know, I am what I am. Yes, we are. So when I was a kid, my parents bought me a rock polisher. And I used to polish all kinds of rocks. And it was a long process that usually takes about six weeks of the thing going continuously. But noisy is held noisy as hell but we put it in the basement so that it wouldn’t keep everyone awake. And I came out with some really nice rocks and so I actually would sometimes put those in jewelry and sometimes just on their own and there was a little flea market down by our house and so my dad would take me down to the flea market and I’d sell my polished rocks every week at the at the flea market. So that is cool. That’s how I started in the work world making money. Dorky as it is and I’m still as dorky as I was then.

David Turetsky: 2:51

And what’s funny is is that I think I shared that passion. And I used to go to a pond or stream down the down the street from me. And I used to pick up polished rocks from that straw. Yeah, yeah, I didn’t sell them. But you know, I used to throw them on my brother. And that’s the reason why he is who he is. So I have one two that I’ll share. I think people know that I’m a geek anyways, but we love comic cons. And of course with the pandemic, we weren’t really that able to take and participate in Comic Cons. But earlier this year, we went to the Boston Comic Con, and I went full dress as a colonial soldier. And this time though, it was a little too cold outside for the Rhode Island Comic Con, which was in Providence, Rhode Island. And I did not go dressed up. And that was the first time I had not gone dressed to a Comic Con in a very, very long time. Probably the first time I ever did not go dressed up to a

Dwight Brown: 3:48

So did you feel really weird for the rest of comic con Comic Con because you weren’t dressed up?

David Turetsky: 3:54

Totally weird. Totally outside myself.

Dwight Brown: 3:58

Hey, it’s good to branch out every once in a while.

David Turetsky: 4:01

It is, it is to explore new avenues. Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. Or as as William Shatner, who is at the Comic Con would say, to boldly go where no one has gone before?

Dwight Brown: 4:12

Well, you know, I think what we’ve established here is both you and I are geeks. Totally and and we love that about ourselves.

David Turetsky: 4:21

Absolutely. And I appreciate that about you that we’re both we both geek very well.

Dwight Brown: 4:25

Exactly. That’s why we get along so well.

David Turetsky: 4:28

We do we do. So let’s talk about the topic that we’ve chosen to talk about today, which as I said before, was the retrospective on season two and talking about season three, and then maybe sharing some other thoughts after that. So season two, we had actually had some interesting guests. I know I say that they’re all fascinating and they all bring something new but but they actually did. I mean, if we go back to the beginning, the first episode was you and I talking about the role of data governance and analytics. And we got a lot of good feedback about that one. Yeah. And then we went out and talked about benefits and the foundation of employee benefits being data. We talked about lessons learned from 100 People Analytics, this deployments, which was still one of the most popular elements we’ve had so far. biggest one yet. Yeah, that was from John Burton from Visier. Thank you, John. And then John tardy came by and we talked about the big value in people analytics is not necessarily big data. Thank you to John. And then we talked a little bit about how to get started and people analytics. And we went through and had some other interesting discussions about profit. And how do you link up HR with the business from my friend Pat Acheampong, we talked about as the organization’s bottom line. And then Steve McDonnell, our old friend and CIO came by and talked about people wanting people analytics, but I have no idea how to get it or what it is.

Dwight Brown: 6:07

That was a great episode. I love that episode. I mean, they’re all great but I love that episode.

David Turetsky: 6:13

They’re all our baby. Oh, yeah. Completely. Mark Stelzner came by to talk about people analytics and dynamic teams. That was a good one. And then we had a unique one where we had Dino had hosted Dhruv Dang, and talked about. And by the way, he’s from real folk. And we talked about the build versus buy in analytics applications. And then Siri Chilazi came by to talk about the he and I and diversity, equity inclusion and people analytics and HR analytics. That was phenomenal.

Dwight Brown: 6:40

I loved that too I mean, yeah, really dynamic fun. She’s so energetic.

David Turetsky: 6:47

She really brought it out of all of us to write was that was really fun.

Dwight Brown: 6:50

It opened my eyes to a lot of things that had my eyes hadn’t been open to before.

David Turetsky: 6:56

Yeah, and spoiler alert, we’ll be talking a lot more about DE&I in season three. Nigel Stoodley came by and we had a discussion with him and Dino about what is people intelligence 2.0. And that was actually a lot of fun, too. Oh, yeah. And then the next episode was literally another Visier leader, Dave Weisbeck talking about the people challenges and what was he seeing in 2021 that organizations were facing,

Dwight Brown: 7:24

We love Visier here,

David Turetsky: 7:26

Yes we do

Dwight Brown: 7:27

Our guestlist shows it.

David Turetsky: 7:28

The next one was an interesting one where we went a little different. And we went a little sideways and started talking about cybersecurity and HR analytics with your friend, Evan.

Dwight Brown: 7:37

Yeah. Yeah, about securing our stuff. And who’s, whose job is that anyway to do cybersecurity? And Evan really challenged our thinking on that one.

David Turetsky: 7:47

And the answer is everyone.

Dwight Brown: 7:48

Exactly.

David Turetsky: 7:51

Next, we brought Zoe Switzer from Jenny’s Splendid Ice Cream. And she really opened up our eyes to a new way of thinking from the the Chief People Officer role, and really kind of gave us a fascinating look behind the curtain to what CHRO is dealing with today. And how she faces it and how she deals with feedback from her employees, which was just wonderful. Then we had Caitlin MacGregor come in, and we started talking about using assessments to build an organization and the data behind it and some of the science behind assessments. That was fun. That kind of brought me back to when we had talked to Chris from Chris Kunze, from Kunze Analytics, and his discussion about using using assessments to understand how to get the most out of your people. Really wonderful.

Dwight Brown: 8:39

That one was fascinating, because, you know, the the world of assessments in HR is it seems to be a little bit of controversy around that. You kind of there is two different camps in terms of do you use them and how to use them? And yeah, so it was an interesting, deep dive into into that piece of things. And an interesting to see how her company is applied those and the adoption that they’ve gotten through it.

David Turetsky: 9:09

Absolutely. And I think what she brought to the table that was a little different is talking about, you know, not only her approach, but the way the way they use data and the way they use the technology. Next we talked to the Turetsky Consulting gang, and we had an all-company round table. And this was right before our acquisition by salary.com. And so it had some unique perspectives that the Turetsky consulting team had gathered prior to the acquisition.

Dwight Brown: 9:39

Yeah, and that wasn’t was a lot of fun, because, you know, we, we get to talk in meetings, but we’re always talking about the business of the day at that point. And that’s the first time that we ever got together just to just to kind of shoot the bull about what we see going on with HR and it was interesting getting different people’s perspectives on that,

David Turetsky: 9:59

Especially the people who didn’t think they had a perspective on it? They actually did. And that was very insightful to

Dwight Brown: 10:03

Exactly. Coming into the meeting saying, “I don’t know what I would do with that. You want to hear from me?” Yeah, we want to hear from you.

David Turetsky: 10:11

Yeah. Yeah, it’s still one of the most popular episodes in season two. The next one was actually hosted by you. I didn’t join this one. But it was a really good one. I actually listened to it. And it was Ryan Allen from United Healthcare group, and talked about bringing people alive through machine learning. And that was actually a fun. Oh, what did you think about that?

Dwight Brown: 10:30

I thought it was great. I had a lot of fun with it. We ended up having to do it in two takes it was we went back and listened to the first one said, Yeah, we got a little more to offer in there. And so you know, Ryan and I work together in my previous life, and he was a good friend of mine. And matter of fact, he was the one who introduced me to a lot of the data science and machine learning things. And I, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to have him on was that he always taught me something he was, you know, and he was, uh, he was good about doing it through humor. And so I thought, what better application we’re talking people analytics, the the stuff that we dealt with was all about people that was in the healthcare around dealing with patients. And so I thought there’s applicability here with people analytics.

David Turetsky: 11:17

It was a really great episode. Yeah, it was a great episode. Yeah. Yeah, if I might say so because I wasn’t part of it. I was an audience member, that one. And then we started with Al Adamsen some of he HR tech interviews that we ad done, we had done about 10. nd we still have a bunch left o publish. But this was Al’s first opportunity on the HR data labs podcast, and he did a really great job. Obviously, he’s a veteran of other podcasts. But it was great to have him on and we had a really enlightening and fun

Dwight Brown: 11:48

We did you know, HR tech, and the way that we did conversation. that was so that was another sort of getting out of our comfort zone thing, because we had to take the studio mobile, you deal with all the technical issues that go with that. But and then, you know, just the broad spectrum and rapid fire recording with some of the greatest minds in in HR. It was I rolled out of there was so many things running through my head, so much new knowledge and so many ideas and everything like that.

David Turetsky: 12:25

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to say it was overwhelming, but it was, it was obviously HR Tech was just a lot to consume. It was like drinking from the firehose a little bit. Yeah. And you know, the good news about the Al conversation, and I think listeners listen to it, though they might pick this up is that when you get a bunch of passionate people talking about something, sometimes we get over passionate, and you kind of prattle on about things. But I think in this case, Al was really on target with past present and future people analytics.

Dwight Brown: 12:54

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And he’s so level-headed, you know, yes. Yeah. I love the way you presented those things.

David Turetsky: 13:01

And talking about level-headed then we had Ian Cook in Episode 20. From Visier we’ve had on the podcast more than any other single guest. And he’s phenomenal when we were talking with him about the evolution and people analytics. And you know, every time you talk to, to Ian, you learn something new. You talked about insight. You know, every time we talk to Ian, it’s something brand new.

Dwight Brown: 13:25

Yeah, and that’s an episode I wasn’t on. So I’m gonna give you my “Yup” answer. Yep. Yep. That’s okay. But I did. I listened to it when I’m doing the editing and everything. So it, ya know, fascinating.

David Turetsky: 13:37

The next one, episode 21 with Mark Hanson was interesting. Again, another HR tech series, and we were talking a little bit about jobs and taxonomies or job taxonomies and skill taxonomies and the applicability of those inside of organizations today. And you know, obviously, Mark works for Emsi

Dwight Brown: 13:58

Now Emsi Burning Glass

David Turetsky: 14:02

And so we’ve we’ve talked to Mark in the past, and I think this is the first time that we really had a good conversation with them since they’ve been there their acquisition, but also there publishing or publication of the skill taxonomies. And I think we learned a little bit there, too, about how those taxonomies are really important inside the world of our organizations.

Dwight Brown: 14:22

Yeah, it’s it’s an issue that so many organizations struggle with and have have struggled with for so many years and and tried to approach it in different ways. And it was it was really helpful hearing his perspective on on ways in which they can approach it and and his perspective that look, you know, this is gonna take a long time to do adopt and we know that but we need to keep moving forward with it.

David Turetsky: 14:48

Absolutely. Then we talked to Chris Havrilla, who’s one of my besties and from the ADP days, and Chris gave us a phenomenal insight into the HR Technology, past, present and future. And, you know, we learned a lot there too. She’s just brilliant. And everybody I talked to about her, they just say, you know, every time we listen to Chris, whether it’s on stage or in her research papers, we will always learn something from her. That was a great one.

Dwight Brown: 15:16

Yeah, that one I, you know, that was one of the episodes where I, I was there, just scribbling notes the entire time, just with the things that she was saying, because it was I was learning a ton from that one.

David Turetsky: 15:32

The next one after that, we’re publishing Zack Johnson. And we had a fun conversation, which was Zack, he’s a brilliant guy knows so much about people analytics as a practitioner, but also inside the world of Visier. Again, Visier. Really, it was an interesting conversation, HR tech, it was one that we actually happen to opportunistically get a chance to talk to him. But it wasn’t nice opportunistic chance. Oh, yeah.

Dwight Brown: 15:57

Yep. And it was, I remember that one that was late in the day, and it was Zack Zack comes at things with a good amount of humor and energy. Exactly, exactly. And I remember that one being the perfect close to a day. I think both our brains were fried. And at that point, totally, but yet he was able to help push them to absorb just a little bit more.

David Turetsky: 16:21

Yep, absolutely. And that kind of wraps up episodes, one through 24. And this will be episode 25 for season two. And you know, as we went through the mall, I think they a lot of them stood out that we talked about a lot of different things with a lot of different people. It wasn’t the same thing over and over again. To me, there are like two or three episodes that really stood out. One was the conversation with John Burton and the 100 lessons from people analytics deployments. My other probably or second favorite from from the entire season with the conversation was Zoe Switzer. How about you?

Dwight Brown: 17:00

I think so one we actually haven’t mentioned is our our one with Jason Averbook at

David Turetsky: 17:07

How can I forget the one from Jason Averbook?

Dwight Brown: 17:10

It and and that was that was really fascinating. Just, you know, I like his pull no punches approach. You asked him how people are going to be leaving HR tech. And I remember him saying they’re going to be leaving confused. And that one, absolutely. That one really resonated with me. Because before I got into the HR analytics area I was into I was in clinical quality analytics. And the you know, my big takeaway from HR tech is the only thing that’s different between those two is the details, the the issues are still the same integration is still the same. There’s still a ton of different companies out there that are that are selling solutions for different pieces of things. And it’s easy to get overwhelmed and confused by it. So listening to listening to Jason’s perspective was really I got a lot from that and appreciated his his direct approach with it. Yeah, he is definitely a take no prisoners. Yeah, exactly. There’s always Zoe Switzer’s episode was also it was it was a deviation from some of the the themes that we had along the way, because we have so many analytics practitioners, and Zoe came at it from a totally different angle from that CHRO angle. And I loved listening to listening to her talk about the approach to employees in the scoop shops that they have. And then, you know, weaving in the HR analytics perspective with that. Absolutely. So those were those were probably two of the top episodes for me. I can tell you there wasn’t for me, there wasn’t a bad episode that we had. Yeah. I it’s hard to really pick out any of the best ones because they were also so damn good.

David Turetsky: 18:56

They really were and to all the people who are guests on all those shows. Thank you so much. They were really wonderful. We learned a lot from them. You know, and you know if I could pick out one more, I’d say it’s Siri’s episode. Yeah. And the energy she brought to the DE&I conversation and and I actually still have people who come up to me who talked to me about that episode. So

Dwight Brown: 19:19

Yeah, that one really resonated with a lot of people, myself included.

Announcer: 19:25

Like what you hear so far, make sure you never miss a show by clicking the subscribe button now. This podcast is made possible by Turetsky consulting and listeners like you. Thank you for your support. Now, back to the show.

David Turetsky: 19:40

Let’s talk a little bit about season three. So the good news is is that we have a lot of episodes was recorded for season three already. And I think we probably even have almost a third of the season who completely in the can Right? Which is just amazing because having that kind of or that or that many conversations already. We kind of know where we’re going. And one of the fun things is we’re going to explore certain areas of HR and HR analytics that we haven’t really talked a lot about in the past. One of those areas is going to be diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. We’re going to dive into a lot of detail around that and talk through it in great detail. We’re going to talk a lot about the world of recruiting analytics and applicant tracking systems and how they’ve evolved over time. And what kind of analytics can we expect from them? Because and also, the conversation about the world of artificial intelligence in the world of recruiting,

Dwight Brown: 20:39

Those are going to be hot topics. I mean, yeah, we’ve we’ve touched on them in season two. And actually, the applicant tracking system in the AI, you and I have both been a little bit irreverent on we a little bit of bias in that arena. So good, it’ll be good to dive into that a little bit more.

David Turetsky: 20:59

And that’s really funny, too. You’re brought up the word bias in that one. And I think some of the other avenues we’re going to try and explore, we’re going to talk a little bit about mental health. And we’re going to talk about the ways in which employee wellbeing will become a new thought process in the world of HR and beyond HR, and hopefully adopted by most major companies and think how they think through how can they keep employees wellness as one of their top priorities.

Dwight Brown: 21:27

That one was one from HR tech, that was a takeaway from takeaway for me as we walked through the show floor. And seeing that I think there were probably 2,3,4 vendors there that were really focused on employee wellbeing and mental health, especially. And as we see that start to come in to the conversation, it’s, you know, it’s always been something that’s in the back of peoples’ minds. But it really underscored for me the fact that if they’re there, and they have products and approaches that they’re bringing into the mix, we’re gonna see a lot more of this into the future.

David Turetsky: 22:06

And the measurement of them.

Dwight Brown: 22:07

Yes. Yeah.

David Turetsky: 22:09

And how are we measuring success when it comes to employee wellbeing? Yeah, when it comes to mental health? And how can we change some outcomes for people.

Dwight Brown: 22:17

I’ll be, I’m really anxious to see some of those things start to unfold that that measurement piece of things because it’s just been such an elusive thing for for so many years.

David Turetsky: 22:28

And so that’s kind of a preview for what we’re going to look at in season three, I think that there are going to be some other avenues we’re going to explore but, and one of which it’s actually going to be taking some of the other conversations we had at HR Tech 2021. And putting together where you can hear some of the thought leaders in have some of their answers superimposed together, not at the same time, of course, but in the same episode, where you can actually hear what they’re thinking along the same lines and whether or not they actually clash on some where their thoughts are going. And, and we’re excited about season three, I think it’s going to be one of the most fun of the HR data labs, podcast seasons, season one was really exploratory, where we kind of didn’t know where we’re where we’re gonna go. Season two, we kind of hit a little bit of a stride and kind of had some interesting conversations a little bit more opportunistic. Season three, I think we’re gonna be a little bit more curated, and start thinking through some thought processes around different areas of HR technology, and HR analytics, and a little bit more thoughtful about the way in which we lay them down and present them to you. And one of the things we definitely want to hear from you on is where would you like us to go? What thoughts do you have about areas of HR technology analytics and data that we haven’t discussed yet? We’d love to hear your thoughts on that.

Dwight Brown: 23:53

Yeah, we need that input. Because we we want to make sure that we hit whatever is of most interest. And like you’ve talked about seasons one and two were learning seasons for us. And now we’re able to be more deliberate in what we’re doing. And a big piece of that really is going to be feedback from people as to what they want to see and hear.

David Turetsky: 24:11

One of the fun things is when we actually have people who say, Hey, I’d love to hear about this, then we asked, Do you want to join us? And they say, meet me, me, me be on a podcast, why not? Well, I don’t I don’t know. I’ve never done it before. And then they get on and they realize it’s just conversations between people. And we have something to share. And if you have something to share, and you want to be a guest on the HR data labs podcast, let us know. And if you have a point of view, and you can keep that point of view within a 30 minute time frame, we want to talk to you.

Dwight Brown: 24:43

Could be a challenge sometimes but but it’s definitely a challenge. You know, the consistent thing is that every one of our guests as as come off of it saying that was a lot of fun. And I think it’s been it’s surprised, I can tell you so David knows this about me but I had I barely knew what podcasts were at the time that I helped, what started helping with the management of this. And I thought, God, that just doesn’t seem like something I’d enjoy. And I have absolutely loved it. And the guests have been a big part of that. I’ve loved all the guests that we’ve had. And we’ve had a lot of fun along the way.

David Turetsky: 25:20

Yeah, we met some of the leaders, the thought leaders in the world of human resources and human resource technology, and you know, more to come.

Dwight Brown: 25:27

Right. Right.

David Turetsky: 25:39

So, what we’d love to do is to say, thank you so much for listening to the HR data labs podcast. And for making it as successful as it’s been. We want to thank our sponsors, Salary.com, and the former Turetsky Consulting. And thank you for listening and for giving us and our voices somewhere to go.

Dwight Brown: 26:00

I want to echo what what David said, thank you to all of our guests, thank you to you as our audience members, we are very serious when we say that we want to hear from you as to what you want to what you want to hear about. And thank you, David, for number one, giving me the opportunity to participate in this. And number two, guys, in my mind, David is the ultimate host. I know, this is just rubbing him wrong right now, because he’s so humble. And he’s shaking his head around shaking his head at me, but it’s, you know, he’s the ultimate host the so thank you for joining us, and we look forward to another season with all of you.

David Turetsky: 26:40

Yes. And again, if you don’t know how to get in touch with us, you can always put a comment here, whether it’s on LinkedIn, or Twitter, or wherever you are. And if you’d need to reach out to us our contact details are at the bottom of every episode. And thank you so much for listening, and please stay safe.

Announcer: 26:59

That was HR data labs, please visit Turetsky consulting.com forward slash podcast to review the show. Add comments about this episode, or add new ideas about upcoming shows you’d like to hear. Feel free to be creative, but please be nice. Thank you for joining us this week on the HR data labs podcast and stay tuned for our next episode. Stay safe