LM Ep 85
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Hello. Hello, Lisa here. Since you're listening to this particular podcast, I imagine you're likely a leader in the area of talent, HR people, culture, l and [00:01:00] d employee experience or od. Are you also a talent leader who is longing for a safe sounding board to bounce ideas off of who's thirsty for some fresh new ideas that will actually work?
Who maybe needs to influence multiple stakeholders who don't always know what they want? Maybe you're somebody who wants to get out of their own way and who's ready for expert, ongoing, and confidential mentoring. If you answered yes to one or more of those statements, then we need to talk In addition to my group programs, I work privately with a select few clients as their talent management thought partner. I will help you over the next 90 days. Finally, create the space, the intention, and the strategy to implement an initiative that's critical to your team's, longer term impact and legacy.
Let's chat and see if there's a fit. Book me [email protected] slash contact.
Where do you find the best talent for your organization, and how do you identify the best [00:02:00] people? How well do people in different roles work cohesively together in a complimentary manner? Did you hire for that cohesion? My guest is Michael Salamay. He began his career working dispatch on midnight shift for a trucking company and worked up to HR and people operations before leaving to become a consultant to help companies embrace remote work environments.
In 2009, he eventually worked his way up to head of HR roles, earning his senior HR professional certification, and is currently acting as Chief people officer at ID plans L L C, which is a growing technology firm that provides data analytics for commercial real estate. I hope you enjoy this episode. I really enjoyed speaking with Michael and hearing about the very intriguing workforce model they have in place at ID plans.
Thank you for listening. Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Teresa. I'm your host Lisa Mitchell, and today I'm joined by Michael [00:03:00] Salamay. Michael is the Chief people officer of ID plans. Welcome to the show, Michael. Yeah, thanks. Good to see you, Lisa.
You too. So, let's begin by having you share a little bit about your, your career journey and what led you to your current role. Sure. So I've been in hr I don't know, over 20 years. I got into hr. Most people have fall into HR by accident, and I fell into HR out of spite. I had a uh, vice president of HR who I thought was so phenomenally bad at his job that I thought, there's no way I could be worse at this.
So, I went into HR and built a two decade career over that, just out of just out of spite. In all fairness, I found out that it was a much more complicated job than I knew at the time, and he was actually doing okay. Oh, it's so funny, eh, that we, it's so easy to, to judge from afar when we don't know what's in.
Absolutely. And you stayed though, right? Mm-hmm. In spite of the complexity. Yeah, I love I love [00:04:00] hr, I love leadership. You know, I'm a, I'm a shrm, s e p, I'm an executive certified leader. I have a master. I have my mba and I have a master's in management and leadership as well. I, I'm just fascinated by the idea of finding the greatness in others and.
You know, such that they acknowledge it themselves and do something with it. It's, it's just it keeps me here. It's a, it's a, it's a never green field and and hr, if anything else, is never boring. It covers so many areas. Talent acquisition, compliance, employee engagement you know, just so many other things.
And yeah, I mean, I don't know why anybody, once you're in it, I don't know why you'd leave. It's, there's, there's never any downtime. Well, I, I, I agree with you because I'm kind of, I like to, to I'm fascinated by these same things, right? I liked how you framed it. I'm fascinated finding the greatness in others.
Cuz I, I've, I share that sentiment. I don't typically use the same words, but I might steal that cuz, cuz I talk about, I like, I'm fascinated by the [00:05:00] potential in others and trying to help them live into that potential and, and including myself, right? I'm always thinking about, okay, what more am I capable of doing?
I figure you're never done so well. So at ID plans, maybe you could share a little bit about what the company does and what you do to support it. Sure. So, chief People, officer of ID plans ID plans is a phenomenal company in a very niche market. We provide data analytics and software for commercial real estate, property owners and managers to help them maximize efficiency, r o i, while delivering amazing tenant experience.
So we have a tenant portal and as well. The cool thing about our company is that we are both boots on the ground, human-centric as well as technology driven. So we're not just providing data analytics that we pull, you know, from Google or, or other sources. We use drones. We use 3D cameras, we use laser measuring devices.
We [00:06:00] have people on the ground, professionals validating and, and ensuring that data is accurate. And it's amazing. The things that our clients do with that data is, is just mind blowing sometimes. You know, we cover everything from the depth of a crack in the sidewalk to the model serial and year built of a HVAC unit on the roof to the width from a, from a toilet to the door for a d a compliance in the bathrooms.
Like every detail, we basically create a digital twin of the. Property or unit. and, and it's really amazing and you know, they, the things. I love it. I'm actually drooling. Do you see the dr. A little bit and I'll see why. Is that what that was? Why is she drooling? Well, I'm not a commercial real estate owner, but I do own some rental single family homes.
That we added legal suite basement suites too with my husband. That was part of my corporate exit plan. [00:07:00] And so I, I'm listening and I'm like, oh my God, because, you know, we've gotten pretty good at having a lot of Google Drive spreadsheets with all of that information model make serially all of the appliances and such, and names of contractors if we have to send a plumber out in the middle of the night and, you know, just so that we can be really responsive.
But there, these are the things. You know, you need to know you're getting a quote on snow removal and you wanna have an idea, is the quote they're giving you. Correct. How big is that driveway? So that's, that's really interesting. Yeah. as a retail district sales manager working for Verizon.
Many years ago I used to oversee several stores, and I can't tell you how many times, you know, the HVAC unit went out. We had to call the property manager who had to call a guy. The guy came up and said, oh, this model's 50 years old. I don't have the parts. It was just, oh, I know. Meanwhile, customers are just walking out the door left and right.
Yeah. So, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's an invaluable service. It is. Oh it is. Yeah. Cuz we, we service our properties ourselves. Right. So, [00:08:00] so yeah, having all that information at your fingertips, especially if you have big teams right at scale. So it sounds like a, a really, really value added offering. So let's, you know, you just talked a little bit about how you blend the boots on the ground, the human-centric side of things with software.
And I'd love to delve into the, the, the human-centric side cuz you have a really interesting workforce model. Yeah, we use a blend of independent contractors basically RV teams. And you know, W four W2 employees. So just, so I'm just gonna stop you there for just one sec.
So, so, RV teams, for listeners in this case literally means recreational vehicle. Okay. Yes. RV teams. So we're gonna come back to that. And what did you just say? R at W two and W four, cuz there's gonna be, there's folks. Outside the US that listen as well. Oh, right. Just full-time employees. Full-time employees.
Ok. Got it. Alright. So we use a blend of employees and independent contractors to accomplish [00:09:00] this work. And the company was founded with these RV teams. And if, if for those that don't know RVs, these are the campers you know, the big campers or small campers that people see driving up and down the road.
Yep. And these are. Mostly retired or semi-retired couples who are traveling the country. And we found this really great niche where we could pair up with these couples and basically fund their travel for them. So, you know, they're, they're. Not interested in building, typically not interested in building careers.
They've already had full careers. They're they're, they're mainly traveling, but this is a great way for them to essentially pay for the trip from one destination to another. They go onto our sites. They gather and collect the data for two or three days. They spend two or three days being tourists or just enjoying the area, and then they move on to the next site.
And and it works out very well for them and very well for us. The great thing about them and you know, I have to be delicate here as a, as an HR person, but these are people who [00:10:00] have like no corporate political ambitions. They're already solid professionals. They've been in the workforce for 50 years.
Sometimes they are solid as a rock. They just do the work and move on. They're fantastic employees or independent contractors. They're, they're great partners. Yeah. So, yeah, we love 'em. You know, if they, we, we can't find enough of them. They're, you know, they're, they're most of our, of our workforce comes from referrals.
And and there are some requirements that have to be met as well. As far as the RVs themselves go, they have to be properly insured and so forth. But but yeah, they're, they're a great part of our workforce. We, we love them. Yeah. It's fascinating though. You, you operate in 27, 28 states, I think in the us.
Yeah, we, we have employees in 20, somewhere between 27 and 29 states, but we actually operate across the entire US and Oh, okay. The little of Canada, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska. We, you know, we're, we're all over, so, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a fully distributed a hundred percent remote workforce [00:11:00] and, works out great.
Yeah. Very cool. So, I, I just, I love this model. I'm fascinated by it. So you shared with me when we first got acquainted, That what's in the interesting sort of makeup of a lot of these couples, right? The different, the specific skills you're looking for and, and you know, how they show up. Could you speak to that?
Sure. Right. So what's really interesting is to do the work that we do. There's a significant barrier to entry for competitors because the work is both highly technical and also highly mechanical. And these two things don't always go together. So, our people not only need to understand the technology, the proprietary software that we use, how to use an iPad, and how to use a 3D camera, laser measuring devices and so forth.
But they also have to just understand how an HVAC unit. You know, basically works. How to, you know, they have to be able to climb a ladder and get on a roof. They have to be okay lifting up a sewer grate or a grease trap or, you know, things like that. It's [00:12:00] not, it's not easy work by any stretch.
You know what, what a lot of people tell us is that on a, on a beautiful spring day sitting on a rooftop of a mall in Colorado eating lunch and looking at the mountains, it's the greatest job in the world. But after three weeks in August in Texas, oh God. It's a very different experience. Yes. Or you know, the, the fifth day in Chicago in March, you know, very different experience, so it's not easy, but what we find is a lot of the RV couples, and this isn't you know, these are contractors, so we, we don't really, you know, have any kind of agenda here.
Just kind of tends, they kind of tend to parse it out this way, but, The wives tend to take on more of the technical, you know, iPad work, and the husbands tend to take on more of the manual labor type of work, and it pairs up really well. The husbands go up on the roofs and get all the HVAC information and, and the wives collect and, and parse all that data out on the iPad.
That goes on to our quality assurance team who, you know, double checks the work and, and makes sure it's all good before it goes to the [00:13:00] client. But yeah, it's a, it's a great model. It works out great. They, they. These are typically tend to be married couples who've, you know, been living this lifestyle for many years.
And you know, let me tell you like yeah, there's this kind of tiny home movement, but these people have been doing tiny homes to right a degree that we can't even fathom. And they are fascinating people. They live a completely different lifestyle and they're amazing. Yeah, I, I just think there's so much to explore here.
So this idea of, it's that blend of skillset cuz when, you know, when you talk about these couples, and it's typically the, the male, and it doesn't have to be, I'm sure sometimes it can be flipped, but typically the male that's, you know, attain those, those mechanical skills and. And check out a grease trip trap.
I immediately think of me and my husband. My husband's a handyman, so you know, I'm filling the units, like doing all the, the, the ads and the paperwork and talking to potential tenants and screening and credit checks. And he's actually going out to do the showings and then he's, something breaks down that we [00:14:00] don't need a specialist for.
He's the one doing it. it's interesting. But you know, listeners, for you, I would say, you know what could. Blending of skills intentionally for deployment look like in your organization? Right, because here we have it at ID plans where it just sort of, this sort of came to be this, you know, given the geographical disbursement, the, the, the travel element.
But I wonder what's possible for companies if they were to, you know, cuz often I see people trying to hire unicorns, and you and I are gonna talk about talent acquisition shortly, but they're looking for a unicorn. Okay? I led talent acquisition for years, so I get it. And, and I, I've met with many a hiring manager, myself included, looking for something that maybe doesn't even exist.
And so what if we, you know, started designing those jobs and, and And pairing 'em up, blending them in, in creative ways to, to get what we need to get that whole package right, to get complimentary skillsets. [00:15:00] I don't know. Any thoughts on that, Michael? Yeah, no, I mean, you're absolutely right. Like, talk about equity and, and diversity if that's important to your organization.
I mean, we deploy a, a very significant portion of our, of our workforce is over 70 years old. You know, as I said, these are typically married couples and, and sometimes those roles are absolutely flipped. Uh, plenty of females who go out and do this work, and they're great at it. They love the travel, they love.
Getting their hands dirty and, and and so forth. And, and we have a lot of you know, males who are very tech savvy and they prefer to do the communication part. So it works both ways. But you, you can absolutely think outside the box here and you know, use populations that, that you wouldn't normally think of.
I mean, you know, I, I wouldn't have thought before I came to ID plans, I would never have thought to even approach RV teams for work. So, yes. Yeah, I've never heard of this thing. It's great. And they're, and they're fantastic. Like I said, they have no, you know, they've already had their full career. They're not trying to politically maneuver through the [00:16:00] organization.
They, they're very professional. They know how to do the work. They just, they're just like, Hey, gimme my next assignment. Got it. Thanks. They're amazing. We love them. Well, so, and you use these teams, these field data teams that are RV are more RV focused and you also have full-time employees, and you had shared with me about what you're looking for in those full-time employees.
Could you tell us a bit about that? Sure. So it, kind of the same blend, right? It's, it's a, it's not the easiest position. So what we found really Makes for a great team member for us is finding that employee who has kind of these, these opposing skillsets. And it's not very easy to find by the way, but number one, we're fully distributed workforce, fully remote.
So that means that most of our communication tends to happen through, for us it's Microsoft teams, but you know, for other companies that might be Slack or, or you know, zoom or whatever, and so that means that written communication skills, te tends to be the number one predictor of success for our team members.
So [00:17:00] we know right away if they, they have to be able to communicate well through email and through video and through chat. The second thing is spacial thinking skills. So, you know, these are people who are on top of commercial properties. Sometimes these commercial properties are enormous. You can be on top of a, of a, of a big mall and you, you have to know which direction you're facing, where, where's the parking lot, right?
You have to know where you're placing these items on, on the map. So, and then you have to have at least some basic mechanical and climate or, or at least not be afraid of. You know, kind of getting up on, on a roof and yeah, and you know, you, you, you have to understand how to distinguish between red and green because of electrical wiring and things like that.
So, yeah. So there's a lot of skillsets that we have to narrow down here to get to people who can do this. It's also a high level of travel. So a lot of our team members, we tend to find that meet this kind of all-in requirement [00:18:00] we find at universities. These are typically people who have just come out of GI s programs.
G i s is a geographical information system, so mapping cartography type of programs or they're people that have you know, architectural backgrounds that they're not. Quite an architect yet, but coming to ID plans and, and making a, a pretty decent living as opposed to being an intern at an architectural firm and getting the same skills works out really well for a lot of those people.
So, yeah. Yeah, it's, it's a very specific skillset and it's not the easiest to, to recruit for be honest, but but we, we manage. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Well, and I'm sure for, for people listening, you know, they're thinking about their own organizations and they probably got, you know, the a few roles too where it's just like, wow, like there's a whole list of things that we want, and does that exist?
You know, how do we blend it together? Or maybe it exists, but it's more rare than we would like it to be in the market currently. So, yeah, that, that actually brings me to to the whole concept [00:19:00] of talent acquisition. Because I know you, you mentioned to me earlier that it's been on your mind and it's been a struggle and I hear this from all corners, right?
With my clients and different people that I speak to. And for the podcast depending on where you are geographically it can change certainly. There's been people calling it the war for talent, although that's not a new phrase. Mm-hmm. And then I had somebody give me an alternative view last week who said, no, I don't believe it's there.
I think if, if we're struggling to find talent, then it just means we're not looking in the right places and we need to diversify. Literally to get a more diverse workforce diversify our methods and, and, and the where we're looking. And I thought that was quite interesting. So, what's happening for you?
How do you see current challenges and opportunities for, Allen acquisition in hiring? Yeah, I mean, this is something I think about a lot particularly because we have such a niche product and, and we need such a niche skillset to, to, you know, kind of make it work and, and succeed. So I think [00:20:00] a lot of.
I mean, for starters, like, I think it's important to distinguish between talent acquisition and recruiting. Even though, like in, in HR and, and even me in this conversation, I kind of use those words interchangeably. And you know, we work with people that we call recruiters but they're actually amazing talent acquisition people.
And I think having a. A similar jargon where everybody understands the distinction is important. So, you know, re recruiting is kind of like, that's what the Army does, right? They recruit and, and it's very outbound. They're trying to find butts to put in seats. So it's, you know, it's very external based.
It's, you know, be all you can be. They're, they're selling the, the position. So to get somebody in there, I think, The difference between recruit and acquire is, is important because you don't acquire people, you acquire a skill or a skillset or a talent or something like that's, that's what we call talent acquisition.
So, and acquiring is very internal based. You're, you, you seek a skill that takes a lot longer to do. [00:21:00] You don't just go out and, and, you know, pull a skill in and there it is, you know? So I think it's important to understand the distinction there to begin with. And, and I think a lot of HR managers.
Don't really have that, that mindset. So start from there. And then, you know, I, I think a lot about the the importance of skills versus personality and just understanding how to vet for what your needs are. spend a lot of time, for example thinking about, well, What, you know, what are those predictors of success like?
We, we all want great people in the organization, but the fact is, It's, it's literally impossible for you to, to pull together the sum of a person in a half hour conversation and understand their entire life experiences and, and every facet of their personality and, and behavior and skillset, even with you know, dubious ways of, of figuring that out, like, you know, Myers Brigg and psychometric testing and so forth.
[00:22:00] Even with that, you still don't know the sum of the person, but the fact, the singular fact that remains is we all have to deal with jerks at some point. So we're never gonna find a team that we all get along with all the time. So it's important to understand if you're acquiring the skill or you're looking for a body to fill the position, if you're acquiring a skill.
Then you have to focus more on the skillset that you're after. And, and then from there it becomes a whole other thing about, you know, managers, hiring managers typically don't really understand how to hire. They don't go to hiring manager school. There's very few places where they can gain interviewing skills.
They're usually just thrown to the wolves and, and expected to magically pull in top talent with an HR person who may also not be very good at recruiting or talent acquisition. So, And that's to say nothing for the ATS itself, the applicant tracking system. So, yeah. Well, okay. I think about all that.
Yeah. So, so a whole bunch in [00:23:00] there. So are you saying, so when you say it's important, distinguish between skills and and personality, and if you're, if you're trying to acquire a particular skill that you really need, you've gotta, you said you've gotta focus on hiring the skill. Do you mean that you wanna prioritize the skill Overfit.
Yeah, I would say that that's a fair assessment. I mean, fit is important. I don't want to dismiss that, but I think a lot of people, particularly hiring managers, are trying to find a person that they like. In fact, most of the interviewing process is really just design. It's not even about the skills. A lot of hiring managers I find, haven't even read the resume.
They're just going to have a conversation and see if they like this person. Yeah. In a 15 minute to 45 minute conversation and, and, you know, If, if that's your criteria, you are certainly set up for failure. You know, if you're lucky enough, you may find a person that that fits. And I know a lot of HR people are very, you know, there's kind of a, a, a saying out there of you can teach anybody a skill, [00:24:00] but you can't teach them personality or, or culture and so forth.
I would flip that around and say, if a skill is what you need, you need to focus on that skill because you're always gonna have to deal with people, you know, people. Regardless of the team, there's always gonna be somebody that doesn't get along with somebody that's humans. If there's two humans in the same zip code, there's going to be politics.
So, yeah. Well, and so, yeah. So how do we equip, yeah. How do we equip people to manage that reality? because we know that, you know, we hire for skill typically, right. We hire for that experience, but we, we fire when people can't get along in the, in the sandbox. So the fit does matter. Yes. Not at the expense of the skill and knowledge that we're looking for.
And, and to your point, you know, in, in a lot of cases, hiring managers don't get to go to hiring manager school. And, and I mean, you know, in my past life, I remember when I was at Franklin Templeton, I mean we certified, I went through a five day certification myself, just to be able to put all of our managers through.
A very [00:25:00] intense two-day program to certify them in interviewing skills. And I will tell you that it's not just hiring managers in different parts of the business, but also HR professionals who often aren't that great. In, in terms of, it's not just, you could have an interview guide. That's awesome, right?
That's really well written. It's the follow on questions. They either don't do them or they ask them in a way that that leads candidates and. They can end up doing the same thing that you were talking about is sort of looking for someone in their own image. Right. Someone they like that they connect to.
It's very tricky. Absolutely. It's a, it's a really important skill. I, I wrote about this on LinkedIn a a while ago, but when I was consulting I had this experience, and this kind of goes back to the, the fit part as well and the importance of that. So I don't wanna overplay the skill card cuz fit is also important, but.
I was consulting for this company in St. Pete, Florida. And they, I, I watched, I observed set in on several interviews and, and there was this one that really stood out and I'm trying to [00:26:00] remember the, the details, but essentially the applicant said something that made the interviewer laugh.
And the interviewer said, well, you know, that's a, that's a funny statement. And he wrote it down and, And then the applicant said something also that was kind of, intellectually stimulating it, it was something smart. and the interviewer said yeah, very insightful. And they moved on and, you know, ultimately they passed on this applicant.
But later on, as we were kind of, as I was sitting down with the executive team and going through my observations for the week, I'd, I'd singled this interview out and I said, Yeah. So I saw this interaction with the interviewer and the interviewee, and the interviewer asked a question. The interviewee said something.
I made the interviewer laugh and the interviewer said, yeah, yeah. Very funny. And I said, funny is, is an interesting thing, right? Like to be funny, you have to have a fast grasp of details. Be able to think through them in your mind, turn them around and make a clever play on them, right? Funny is, is an important skillset.
And then later on they said that this person was insightful. So [00:27:00] that means that they're intelligent, they grasped high level concepts, yet we turned this person away. So let me ask you, as an executive team, would you, why would you not hire somebody who's smart and funny, who doesn't want that person on their team?
And of course, there was no hands. So, you know, so, so this is what? What I mean when I say like, we're not good at interviewing. Like you had a gem right in front of you and you, you just turned it over because they didn't say the magic words that you were listening for. So, okay, so they missed that. There was this other element.
Yeah. So, and I, this, it just brings up so many questions. Cause I'd want to go and talk to that interviewer and say, so what was missing? Right? And, and, you know, did you notice the humor? Did you think about, oh, that's an interesting thing that could bring a lot of value into the workplace? Hmm. Well, so I mean this whole Idea of of, of talent acquisition.
It's so critical right now. Cause a lot of people are struggling with it, as we know, right? Even with [00:28:00] the inflation and the economy and everything, there's still more jobs in, in several industries. Some industries are going through rifts, reduction in workforce and so on, but others are still hiring and struggling to get the right people.
Something that I'd like to chat a bit about is the prevalence of ai. So we hear a lot about chat. G P T I still can't get in to play with it driving me crazy busy. But anyways chat. G p t's been in the news and so on, but AI's been around for some time. We've had it on Siri and you know, Alexa and all this kind of stuff, and also built into a t s systems.
So for those of you that may not be, As close to the hiring piece, you know, for many organizations there's an applicant tracking system, or it's part of your H c m. So you, you've, you've got some strong views on, on how, good these, these AI components are. Could you tell us a bit about it? Sure.
Yeah. You know, it's funny that the reason I went into consulting in the first place was I just couldn't find work. Like I'm a highly qualified, credentialed person [00:29:00] who's educated, has a a great work history. Yet I couldn't even get to talk to a human being, and I. And then when I went into consulting, just because I was like, well, if nobody's gonna hire me, I'll hire myself.
You know, screw this, I'll just do it myself like I usually do. So, you know, so that's kind of what got me into consulting and, and when I was a consultant, time after time, I had people just. Begging me for answers on why, what am I doing wrong? Why can't I get my resume seen? I'm not even getting callbacks.
I'm filling out a hundred resumes a week, and I'm following all the advice on Google, and I like, I'm getting nothing. And, and I've had to explain to 'em so many times, like, listen, it's not you. Like, first of all, you have to understand the volume of people you're competing against. If you're applying for a job on LinkedIn or Indeed, you're, you're just one voice in a million shouting out, right?
You know, you're, you're like a drop in the ocean to the applicant tracking system. The applicant tracking system [00:30:00] itself is designed to look for key words. It doesn't have any context with that. It doesn't understand the context of you as a human being. It just. Is looking for, do you say bachelors or masters?
And if it's not the one that they want, you don't even move forward. That's it. You're done. And, and by the way you know, depending on the ats, if it's says BA or the word bachelor's can also be a distinction there that that could rule you out. You have to say exactly what it wants. And the problem with that is that there's many ATS out there.
So you know, you, you don't know which one you're dealing with at any given point. So that's the first thing is just understanding that the system, you're right, it is broken. If you think it's broken, it is broken. It's getting better. You know, the ATS is getting smarter, the AI is getting smarter. They, we get better at it all the time, but it's still a very dysfunctional system.
So that's the first thing. And then, you know, be beyond that. I think AI does [00:31:00] play an important role and, and because it is getting better. So chat, G P T I mean, we hear, it's so funny, we now have this this underemployed situation where people are using AI to hold multiple jobs. And then we also have this.
Quiet quitting phenomenon, which, which by the way is not new. It used to new be called phoning it in, and then it was called mailing it in. Before that I called it Presenteeism. Presenteeism. Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's just, it's just new in the media. Yes. But which is kind of good, I guess, because if that's if that's newsworthy today, that, that tells me the world is in a better place than I maybe wanna, you know, I, that I'm inclined to believe so.
But anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's important to understand that AI can help with all those things. Now I could see a, a future where the AI gets so good that people aren't even there's no application, right? Like, you know, the AI matches up your skills and, and all of your. It does understand all that context of you as a human being, and it says, Hey, this is the [00:32:00] position you're going to fit best for you.
Just show up at a place on, you know, Monday and they just welcome you in. The AI is taking care of all of it. They, you know, that may be, you know, 10, 20 years down the line. I don't know, but but I could see that happening on someday today. Even I have been experimenting with AI to help you know, do lots of things and it, it, it can do so many cool things.
So we've used it, for example, to help with job postings. To help it attenuate. For the audience that we're going for, make the, take this post make this clever, make this funny. We've also used it for position descriptions and you know, it's not perfect, but it, it gets 80% of the way there. It can definitely accelerate the workflow and the throughput as long as somebody is checking it.
So, it gets better every day. So that's, that's kind of the cool part. Oh, it's so cool and I appreciate you bringing that up. So few things that, you know, we're coming up as you were describing this is, is for me, [00:33:00] AI is only as good as we make it, right? Mm-hmm. We still need the human touch and the, the, the synthesis ability that we have.
It's that garbage and garbage out piece. Mm-hmm. It's is, you know, gigo cause You know, in my experience with at s over the years and working with various different ones, not always directly, cuz I had teams that would do it, but but I knew enough to be dangerous. You know, we, we, I remember in one particular case getting really, really clear about not wanting to, to eliminate people too early in that process, in that screening process, that automated screening process.
So how many things are we saying we absolutely have to have? And do we absolutely have to have them? Or could we challenge ourselves to say, are these nice to haves, preferred, but we wanna see a more broad pool so we know what we're, what we're dealing with. Right? If we're really struggling to find any half decent, you know, resumes that seem to fit, then, then we've gotta change something up.
So I think that's really important is to be [00:34:00] very very intentional, very clear about your criteria that you're. That you're putting into that part of the ats. The other thing too is I, well I, I have a coaching client, Microsoft, who's actually an AI engineer and, and works with data analytics and everything.
And, and what I learned from him, he was sharing with me that I. You know, he uses it in his work. It's about speeding up your manual processes. So he used to have to research, you know, like he was looking for doing a paper on, I don't know, something platform they're rolling out. And, and so he would typically do say a a, a bing search, a Google search, and find all these different articles and then have to actually, he'd get a bunch of results returned.
You'd have to dig into each one of them individually and then kind of. Himself, synthesize it together. Mm-hmm. Put it together to, to then analyze it. Now he can say to chat, G P T I want you to pull this all out and find out is there some kind of correlation amongst all these different academic articles around X.
And so it's speeding up the research and I think [00:35:00] that's really interesting. So, and I wanna contrast that with then I was in a, a networking kind of a. It's a mini course that I'm doing right now, and there was a lawyer present, intellectual property lawyer, and she was explaining that you've gotta be careful about how you use it because if you're using it for research, be aware that sometimes, a lot of times it's spitting back outdated.
Data, like even a year old is too old in some cases, right? So if you're looking for it to kind of pull a bunch of stuff together or, or pull out key points, that's great, but the analysis's not there yet in many cases. Yeah, so true. And, and we found the same. You know, I, I use AI to, to do some things, but you know, I don't, I don't assume that it's a hundred percent correct.
I would never start from there, and I, I wouldn't encourage anybody else to either it's a useful tool as kind of a it's kind of an assistant who's maybe an entry level assistant that, you know, you maybe have to double check their work. kinda Oh, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. [00:36:00] That's kinda the way I look at it right now.
Like, it's pretty good. It'll get most of the stuff done, but you just gotta double check it, make sure it's, it's, it's getting it right. Yeah, and I think it's really important to understand the, the core of ai. Like, you know, there's a lot of like, fear about using these tools and, and the intellectual property and copywriting ar you know, arguments and debate.
We'll, we'll get, we'll Ray on probably for, for many years. But I think at the core of it, it's important to understand that these are tools that exist. They were created by humans to multiply human effort. So I think that's the important thing to, to take away from them, is that these are here for us.
They're here to help, you know, build efficiency, drive efficiency. Are, are they going to eliminate jobs? I don't know. Maybe, but they'll probably create as many as they eliminate. That's what history has shown us. And already I'm starting to see positions position postings out there for ai literacy.
Oh, people who, who understand how to use the search phrase as well enough to actually multiply the efforts of [00:37:00] the ai. So what an interesting field that's going to be in 2, 3, 5 years, right? Interesting AI literacy. Oh, I like that. Okay. That's, that's an interesting nugget. Well, we could probably spend all day talking about this so much to dig into with, with AI and G B T and going back to the whole hiring piece.
We are nearing the end of our time together. So I would love to your thoughts around you know, it could be actually around this AI piece. What do you see as the biggest opportunity right now for, for talent in HR leaders? Oh, the biggest opportunity for talent in HR leaders. I actually wouldn't go the AI way, although I think that's, that's a very big one.
I would probably give you something a little more esoteric. Like I would say the biggest opportunity for HR and talent acquisition right now honestly, is in the realm of Maybe skepticism for, for lack of a, of a better word, of just not believing everything you read, [00:38:00] questioning things, learning. I think the learning space is probably the biggest opportunity.
We, we you kind of opened with you know, be kind of being a lifelong learner. And I think that that is definitely the opportunity that's in front of us. We will be as professionals, quickly left behind if we're not keeping pace with some of this some of these tools and technologies that are available to us.
And I think from an HR and talent acquisition space, it's really understanding fundamentally how to use those tools to accelerate efficiency, growth and, and, and so forth. I would also add that. Another big opportunity I see for HR leaders right now is really thinking beyond hr, like stop looking at HR as its own function.
But and this is kind of where I distinguish between people operations and human resources, right? I'm chief people Officer, not. Chief Human Resources Officer, although a lot of companies use those interchangeably as well. But it's the operations part. It's understanding holistically how all [00:39:00] the pieces of the business work together.
And, you know, for, for me, it's strategically understanding where the people fit in there. Mm-hmm. Making sure the right people are in the right seat, on the right bus, got going, the right speed at the right time, et cetera. So I think those are the, the core areas that are opportunities for us to, to continue delving into.
Right now, AI is a big part of it, but AI as a, as a phrase, is probably a passing fad. There's gonna be something cooler, you know, two years from now we'll all be talking about. But the opportunity to understand business better to. Be in a position where the chief people officer can move into, you know, the, the Chief Operating officer.
The chief executive officer which is something we're seeing more and more. Seeing more. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. So understanding the value of people and, and, and how to strategically work with them and, and and, and leverage human capital to achieve goals. I think that's the big opportunity. Yes.
Well, and I think that's, you know, AI is just another tool [00:40:00] and I think, you know, let's not mm-hmm. Scared of it. Let's understand it and, you know, be smart eyes wide open going in, but, you know, sort of say like, how could this help us? I mean, if we look at talent management and it's the full. You know, a span of employee experience from how we attract someone in all the way through their entire journey.
Mm-hmm. And so how can, how could we apply? or leverage AI inquiries and so on to do some of the, the stuff for us to create capacity on our teams in each of these areas so that we can serve employees even more efficiently and effectively. So good. So it's such an awesome conversation. Thank you so much, Michael, for, for coming on the show and spending time with me today.
Well, thanks for having me. It was my pleasure. I appreciate it.
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