HR DATA LABS - S08/EP25:
Season Recap and Predictions
As Season 8 of HR Data Labs comes to a close, David Turetsky and Dwight Brown reflect on the season’s episodes, guests, and key topics. They also revisit their predictions from the Season 7 finale and posit some new predictions for the future of HR.
[0:00] Introduction
- Welcome, David and Dwight!
- Today’s Topic: Season 8 Recap
[6:01] Looking back at Season 8’s major topics and themes
- AI’s ubiquity across industries
- Normalizing discussion about emotional intelligence and employee wellbeing
[18:09] Reviewing predictions made in the Season 7 finale
- Did companies see pushback related to survey fatigue?
- Did more companies adopt pay transparency as a standard?
[25:57] David and Dwight’s predictions for what the next six months will bring for HR
- AI will continue to impact customer service but will result in workforce re-skilling instead of workforce reduction
- Companies will maintain DEI cultures despite potential challenges to regulations
[33:07] Closing
- Thanks for listening!
Connect with David:
Connect with Dwight:
Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:
Production by Affogato Media
Resources:
- “With the implementation of AI, what people don’t realize is: you need significant resources for the care and feeding of that AI.”
Announcer: 0:01
The world of business is more complex than ever. The world of human resources and compensation is also getting more complex. Welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast, your direct source for the latest trends from experts inside and outside the world of human resources. Listen as we explore the impact that compensation strategy data and people analytics can have on your organization. This podcast is sponsored by Salary.com, your source for data technology and consulting for compensation and beyond. Now here are your hosts, David Turetsky and Dwight Brown.
David Turetsky: 0:38
Hello and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host, David Turetsky alongside my co host. Best for host, best friend, buddy, pal, partner in crime and without crime, Dwight Brown from Salary.com. Dwight, how are you?
Dwight Brown: 0:51
David Turetsky, I am good, and I'm especially good because these are such fun episodes to do so. All of our episodes are fun, but these are these kind of stand alone so I'm excited!
David Turetsky: 1:04
What Dwight's talking about is today is the wrap up for season eight! Can you believe it? The wrap up for season eight? Wow.
Dwight Brown: 1:12
We were just doing season one!
David Turetsky: 1:13
No, we weren't just doing season one! That was four years ago! Literally, that was 200, more than 200 episodes ago. If you, if you can believe it.
Dwight Brown: 1:23
I know, but it's kind of like our kids growing up. You reach a point and you look back and you're like, holy crap.
David Turetsky: 1:29
It is.
Dwight Brown: 1:30
That time just flew!
David Turetsky: 1:32
Well, our kid's going to kindergarten soon. So we got a we got a budget for for school. Hopefully you have to create a 529 plan for for the HR Data Labs to go to college.
Dwight Brown: 1:45
Yeah, yeah.
David Turetsky: 1:48
By the way, that reminds me I have to pay my kids tuition bill for college, so yay. That was a great thought that just went down!
Dwight Brown: 1:56
Yeah, just when you thought your day was looking alright.
David Turetsky: 2:00
Yeah, no, yeah, no, they need to sell more stuff. Anyways! So welcome Dwight and welcome everybody to our season recap and predictions episode. We love it, as Dwight said, but first, before we get started, as we always do, Dwight, what's one fun thing that no one knows about Dwight Brown? Everybody knows Dwight Brown, but what's one thing that no one knows about Dwight Brown?
Dwight Brown: 2:20
well, on season eight, I feel like I'm running out of content here, you know? But
David Turetsky: 2:26
why? You're constantly evolving as a human?
Dwight Brown: 2:29
Yeah, some might describe it in other ways, but yeah,
David Turetsky: 2:32
That's evolving,
Dwight Brown: 2:33
That's correct. I am evolving.
David Turetsky: 2:36
Yeah
Dwight Brown: 2:37
I'm not sure I've made it past the cro-magnon stage, but, you know, I'm evolving.
David Turetsky: 2:41
yeah. But besides that, what else is going on
Dwight Brown: 2:44
so the and I think you know this already, I think I told you about this.
David Turetsky: 2:50
We're not going to talk about jumping out of planes, right? Or jumping off.
Dwight Brown: 2:52
No, no, no, no danger, no adrenaline sports.
David Turetsky: 2:56
Wow.
Dwight Brown: 2:57
Quite the contrary, in fact. I used to the I used to sing soprano in the Rochester boys choir.
David Turetsky: 3:07
Wow! I didn't know that there was a play for Tony Soprano that had that had a part for you. But, yeah, sorry, that was a joke. Really? So you got a vocal. You got chops. You got vocal chops?
Dwight Brown: 3:23
Yeah, I used to! I can't. I can't sing to save my life these days, but I especially can't sing soprano,
David Turetsky: 3:30
Come on, belt one out!
Dwight Brown: 3:31
I Yeah, exactly I swung from one, one side to the other.
David Turetsky: 3:38
Okay, that's another new thing we know about you now. Yeah,
Dwight Brown: 3:41
exactly. I polished rocks. That was my one from last season.
David Turetsky: 3:45
Yeah, that's right, I remember that one, that was a good one!
Dwight Brown: 3:48
You never know what you're gonna get with me.
David Turetsky: 3:49
You really don't. You really don't.
Dwight Brown: 3:51
I'm an enterprising guy, I guess, but
David Turetsky: 3:53
you are, you vary.
Dwight Brown: 3:55
So how about you? What is your one fun thing that nobody knows about you?
David Turetsky: 3:59
Now, let's see. Let's, let's, let's dig a, dig a hole, and see how what I can I can find with my metal detector. So I've decided to move to New York, which people may not know. I'm gonna take care of my mom. She's getting older, and so I'm uprooting my kid and my stuff and the dogs, and we're going to be moving to upstate New York!
Dwight Brown: 4:27
Gonna pack it all in the vehicle and
David Turetsky: 4:30
the multiple vehicles
Dwight Brown: 4:31
look like The Grapes of Wrath going down the highway
David Turetsky: 4:35
Yeah? Well, yeah, not, not a dumb mattress, yeah, it's not des a dust bowl scene. It's, well, maybe it will be, I don't know. Who knows it hasn't rained here in a while, but yeah, so I'm moving to New York. I'm operating from Franklin, Massachusetts, and going to New York City, New York state, not New York City.
Dwight Brown: 4:51
Man, that's a big move.
David Turetsky: 4:53
It is.
Dwight Brown: 4:53
When do you, what's your move date?
David Turetsky: 4:56
Probably around the summertime, late summer.
Dwight Brown: 4:59
Okay. Alright
David Turetsky: 5:00
but we'll see! Planning it out now,
Dwight Brown: 5:04
big step
David Turetsky: 5:05
yeah
Dwight Brown: 5:05
How long you been in Mass?
David Turetsky: 5:07
21 years! It'll be 22 next July, next Oh no, no earlier than that. Next No. Next August. That's right. Next August, it'll be 22
Dwight Brown: 5:19
I mean, I guess, I guess the good part is you won't be so far away where you'll really, really miss it. But it's,
David Turetsky: 5:26
I'm sorry? Miss Massachusetts? I'm from New York! So I miss New York right now. I miss my food, I miss my family, I miss the New York Rangers.
Dwight Brown: 5:34
Okay, so, okay, so there's Yeah, then maybe you won't miss it in Massachusetts.
David Turetsky: 5:40
No, no, I mean I have friends here I'll miss, but
Dwight Brown: 5:44
Right.
David Turetsky: 5:44
No, I'm a New Yorker. Anyways. On that basis, let's get into our first topic for today. So Dwight, now that we know all of that about us, now we have to do a little bit of a review of season eight. It was a phenomenal season.
Dwight Brown: 6:10
Yeah, we covered a lot of ground.
David Turetsky: 6:12
We really did. And Dwight and I were talking about some of the episodes, and we were like, wow, that was season eight? I can't believe it! It happened so long ago, it feels like forever. No, it just happened not too long ago. And, yeah, I mean, some of the ones we had, like, I talked to Jason Albert, who is the Global Chief Privacy Officer at ADP, that was actually one of the most downloaded episodes! It was on the EU AI Act, which really kind of set the tone for most of the year was about AI!
Dwight Brown: 6:46
right, and will continue to be about AI
David Turetsky: 6:49
oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, everything AI has been influencing a lot of HR and so we've had lots of discussions, whether it was before HR Tech or all all the HR Tech episodes really had something to do with AI! There are 14 HR Tech episodes. Each one of them had something to do with AI. Crazy.
Dwight Brown: 7:10
Yeah. I mean, it's just top of mind and, and kind of the, you know, kind of the what's, how do I want to describe it? The in thing to do, our product has AI, yeah,
David Turetsky: 7:27
trendy
Dwight Brown: 7:28
Go buy a candy bar at the convenience store, and it's an AI generated candy bar. You know, that kind of crap that you saw.
David Turetsky: 7:35
I hear they have less calories!
Dwight Brown: 7:37
Yeah? Well, you know, it's all like a hologram. You know, you don't get to taste it. It's just
David Turetsky: 7:45
right, yeah? Well, you get the guilt from eating it, but you're likely
Dwight Brown: 7:49
still makes you, still make you obese. But you know, you don't get a flavor that goes with!
David Turetsky: 7:56
yeah, it's chat GT, chat GPT flavored
Dwight Brown: 7:59
right? Exactly
David Turetsky: 8:02
Although you could get a Google one that would be Gemini flavored,
Dwight Brown: 8:05
true,
David Turetsky: 8:06
yeah. So there are lots of other, lots of other varieties now,
Dwight Brown: 8:09
yeah.
David Turetsky: 8:10
But then there were some other really cool conversations we got into. You know, we still had conversations about inclusive leadership and inclusive language. We had a really emotional couple of episodes where we talked to Dr Mark Scherer as well as Brandy Muse. And the Mark Scherer episode was really about learning about our emotional intelligence and what drives it.
Dwight Brown: 8:34
Right.
David Turetsky: 8:34
And the Brandy Muse episode was about mental health and very powerful, very emotional.
Dwight Brown: 8:41
Right. You know, it's interesting because Mark's episode, I kind of went into it like, okay, is this going to be a lot of psychological mumbo jumbo?
David Turetsky: 8:53
Yeah,
Dwight Brown: 8:54
I went into it a little bit skeptical, to be perfectly honest. But, man, it didn't take long for me to realize it was something totally different.
David Turetsky: 9:04
He's a brilliant person, and really kind of,
Dwight Brown: 9:06
yeah,
David Turetsky: 9:07
you know, whether he played a Jedi mind trick on us or not, I don't think so. He's just brilliantly. He's brilliant. And his advice was very sage, very sage
Dwight Brown: 9:17
right, exactly. He has, he has definitely dialed it in with that,
David Turetsky: 9:23
yeah, yeah.
Dwight Brown: 9:24
So that made that episode a lot of fun,
David Turetsky: 9:27
Yep
Dwight Brown: 9:27
yeah. And Brandy Muse that was, yeah, that was definitely an emotional episode.
David Turetsky: 9:34
And it was hard, yeah
Dwight Brown: 9:36
It really was. It really was. I mean, I I'm sure there's not a listener out there that was not personally impacted by listening to both Mark and Brandy's
David Turetsky: 9:47
Yeah,
Dwight Brown: 9:48
episode. There's no way you couldn't be because we're all impacted by mental health and in one way or another, whether it's our family, whether it's us, whether it's our friends.
David Turetsky: 9:58
Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and the Brandy episode really focused on mental health and suicide as well. And I think it was actually part of, if I'm not mistaken, Suicide Prevention Month?
Dwight Brown: 10:10
correct. Yeah,
David Turetsky: 10:11
September. And it was, it was just hard. I mean, yeah, that episode should have been sponsored by Kleenex,
Dwight Brown: 10:18
exactly
David Turetsky: 10:20
or Scott tissue, not the
Dwight Brown: 10:23
it was the conversation that needed to be had.
David Turetsky: 10:25
Oh, absolutely,
Dwight Brown: 10:26
you know, the one of the things when I was when I was posting the episodes on on LinkedIn, I made the statement, and I still stand by this that we have got to start talking about this, because it's around us every day, and it's a shame that we're in 2024 and it's still such a taboo subject and but we're all impacted by it. So, you know, defies logic. But
David Turetsky: 10:59
Well, I think it comes from the fact that death is such a hard subject to talk about. Just flat out, it's just hard. Whether whether you are feeling down or depressed, or whether you have someone who you know who is, who may have actually thought about suicide. It's something that deeply, deeply upsets us, and we try and shut it off. And that's why we use humor, we use laughter, we use all different types of mechanisms to kind of shield ourselves from it.
Dwight Brown: 11:30
Right
David Turetsky: 11:31
When to your point, and it's a really good point, we've got to be human about it. We've got to be honest about it, and we've got to face it. It's hard.
Dwight Brown: 11:40
Right. It really is. Sometimes I wonder if it's the actual repercussions or the fear of repercussions that come from talking about it, and I'm not, I'm not sure there's an answer to that, actually, but
David Turetsky: 11:54
I don't think there is.
Dwight Brown: 11:56
But I am glad that that through this podcast, we were able to get it out there and at least be able to start the conversation here.
David Turetsky: 12:06
yeah, well, we're, we don't shy away from difficult topics. That was a difficult topic on lots of levels, from an emotional perspective,
Dwight Brown: 12:16
right, right
David Turetsky: 12:16
yeah, you're right. It's important. It was an But as again, to your point, I don't think any of us have ever, I don't think any of us have been isolated from important episode.
Dwight Brown: 12:25
definitely. And then we had some that weren't someone or something that has either threatened suicide or has talked about it, or has thought about it, and everybody you know quite as emotional as that. gets affected by that. So,
David Turetsky: 12:48
No, no, we had some more lighted, light hearted ones. But you know the one that that was actually quite factual, very, very intelligent, Chris Fusco from Salary.com, who talked to us about job satisfaction and how to measure it, that was, that was an interesting conversation. I didn't know that where that was going to go either, but that was fascinating.
Dwight Brown: 13:11
Yeah, yeah, Chris is. Chris has got such an interesting way of looking at things, and it really is genius in so many ways.
David Turetsky: 13:20
Oh, yeah!
Dwight Brown: 13:21
As because I think, I think organizations have been trying to measure satisfaction for ages, and they've just never found the secret sauce. And granted, we didn't. It's not like we came up with the whiz bang secret sauce from our discussion with with Chris, but
David Turetsky: 13:41
no.
Dwight Brown: 13:41
but he looks at it in a little bit different way. And hearing him, hearing his thoughts on it, and how you go about it and how you look at it, just gave interest and context to the entire conversation.
David Turetsky: 13:59
Absolutely. And then the other conversation that I thought was quite fascinating was Kevin Yates with the L and D's impact to the business. Again, we had been kind of trying to get more learning and development experts on the program, and I think we had hit a home run with that one. Kevin was phenomenal, and it really gave us a great way of thinking about the investments we're making in L&D, and then to kind of piggyback on that we had a good conversation, or great conversation, with Stacy Krievins about up skilling and re skilling employees. And yeah, those, those two episodes kind of went hand in hand, and they were like, right next to each other. Yeah.
Dwight Brown: 14:38
Stephanie Krievins, but
David Turetsky: 14:40
what did I say?
Dwight Brown: 14:41
Stacy.
David Turetsky: 14:42
oh, my goodness
Dwight Brown: 14:43
I know who you're talking about.
David Turetsky: 14:44
I'm sorry. Stephanie, I apologize. I haven't had my last cup of coffee for the afternoon yet.
Dwight Brown: 14:52
Yeah, no. The it was good. The reskilling and upskilling that conversation is hitting a lot. That I'm actually going to talk about that at the end a little bit.
David Turetsky: 15:03
Uh, oh. Preview, preview. Spoiler alert!
Dwight Brown: 15:07
Spoiler alert!
David Turetsky: 15:11
I don't want to miss Wendy Sellers and Alyssa Dver we had really great conversations with them about couple of really interesting things. One of the things you highlighted last year was, or one of the last seasons was ERGs and the benefit that employers get from that.
Dwight Brown: 15:28
right
David Turetsky: 15:28
And Wendy talked about the good old topic of attraction and retention of employees and how that has changed over time. And that was fascinating. And then the entire HR tech series, which, again, 14 episodes that I recorded out at Mandela Bay in Vegas. Oh my gosh, Dwight, it was busy.
Dwight Brown: 15:53
I Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at him on my screen right now, just like, see it scrolling and scrolling.
David Turetsky: 16:01
Yeah, what was fascinating is every discussion, again, every discussion pretty much focused on AI and its impact to HR, but every every conversation was just came from a different perspective and just brilliant, like, I can't even mention one of the people, because that would be kind of unfair to the rest, because they were all phenomenal episodes, and I learned a lot from them, and I enjoyed every one of them, because every single person that we interviewed was a friend, and if they weren't a friend at the beginning, they were definitely a friend at the end. So it was just, it was just wonderful, just a great set of conversations.
Dwight Brown: 16:37
Yeah, and a lot of context for a lot of different topics, and the context of how they all weave together, they're not all independent from each other. Although I do have a I do have a question for you the you know, looking at the fact that you and Adriana DeNinno recorded at HR Tech the Alright, so listeners, for for those of you who don't know David and Adriana, every time we record, I swear they're brother and sister, because they're just at each other.
David Turetsky: 17:12
We had a little bit of that.
Dwight Brown: 17:13
I wondered what it was. I mean, you guys didn't you guys didn't drop the gloves and
David Turetsky: 17:18
oh no, no, no, we had a fun time! No, there was no, there's no fisticuffs, no rough housing. It was, it was just a lot of fun. Yeah.
Dwight Brown: 17:26
No, it's good to have good friends like that, yeah.
David Turetsky: 17:28
By the way, we were in the middle of the show floor, so even if we did come to blows, I mean, that would have to get broken up quickly, because, you know, people would have been like, Why are they fighting? So no, we didn't. No, but every one of these conversations had a different spin on how artificial intelligence was really affecting the world of HR. And it was just a great set of conversations. I was very excited about every single one of them.
Dwight Brown: 17:54
Yeah, and coming from a genius crowd, you know
David Turetsky: 17:56
oh yeah!
Announcer: 17:59
Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss a show by clicking subscribe. This podcast is made possible by Salary.com, now back to the show.
David Turetsky: 18:09
So that's the look back. I think the Look Ahead is pretty fascinating, because we have a lot of really cool episodes that we've already done, and some that that we're going to be doing, I actually think we've recorded fully a half of next season already. And if we haven't recorded them, we're about, we're going to probably record a lot in the new year, and the reason is because, obviously, we've just gone through a presidential election, which everybody knows about by now, and there'll be a lot of repercussions from that, and some of which we may talk about in the predictions, but that we actually held off on a lot of the recording until after the election, because so much will change based on the new administration and how things might work.
Dwight Brown: 19:00
Right
David Turetsky: 19:01
or not work
Dwight Brown: 19:01
or not work!
David Turetsky: 19:03
we'll see!
Dwight Brown: 19:03
Hear a lot of predictions on how it won't work.
David Turetsky: 19:06
But, yeah, but not ours, but we'll see. So now Dwight is our really fun time where we get to look back at the predictions that we made during season seven's recap. Are you ready?
Dwight Brown: 19:21
I am ready.
David Turetsky: 19:23
Are you really ready?
Dwight Brown: 19:24
Well, ready as I'll ever be. Let me put it that way. That's all I commit to at this point.
David Turetsky: 19:29
Alright! Well, you're,
Dwight Brown: 19:31
Are you ready?
David Turetsky: 19:32
Oh, I'm ready. I'm always ready for that. I was ready right after we recorded see the season seven recap. To do season eight already. I was already had my, you know, my thought of what was going to happen for the next six months. Could it? Could have predicted this. But anyways, your first or your prediction was that we're going to see pushback against companies doing surveys for anything and everything, consumer and otherwise. How'd that go?
Dwight Brown: 20:03
Well, I have seen different news articles that there's a backlash of, you know, people really getting the survey fatigue. Now, can I say that it was significant the way that I predicted it? Probably not, then again, that was six months ago. So,
David Turetsky: 20:24
You were mad though.
Dwight Brown: 20:25
oh my God, that's a rant that I have. I don't get me started. Every little, alright. Anyway,
David Turetsky: 20:33
Don't get me started!
Dwight Brown: 20:34
Don't get me started!
David Turetsky: 20:37
Poor Dwight, he must have just gotten off of one of those survey calls and was like,
Dwight Brown: 20:44
Yeah,
David Turetsky: 20:45
running into the hallway
Dwight Brown: 20:46
every, every time you go buy something at the store, survey pops up somewhere, somehow.
David Turetsky: 20:53
yeah, well, you could just not go to the store. Actually, that's that wouldn't help, because then, hey, you get stuff from Amazon or Uber Eats or wherever,
Dwight Brown: 21:04
yeah, the AI based surveys and find me some way or another.
David Turetsky: 21:08
Yeah, well, you have to serve the AI overlord. So,
Dwight Brown: 21:11
yeah, exactly.
David Turetsky: 21:13
So how do you think you did on that prediction?
Dwight Brown: 21:15
Oh, God, I'll give myself a, let's say a, B minus, you know, I think the, I think the six month time frame, it's a little too short to really see more significant backlash.
David Turetsky: 21:30
I think we have to take into consideration for this set of predictions that we do,
Dwight Brown: 21:35
yeah,
David Turetsky: 21:35
just six months.
Dwight Brown: 21:36
I think for a lot of the predictions that we do, we've got to, it's hard to come up with something.
David Turetsky: 21:41
Not much changes in six months!
Dwight Brown: 21:43
right!
David Turetsky: 21:44
Alright. Well, let's hit mine now. Mine was that more companies would start taking pay transparency as de facto, no matter where they operated from, and actually start posting ranges.
Dwight Brown: 21:57
Yeah, yeah. And?
David Turetsky: 21:59
not sure that really came through 100%. I think that that many did, but not from a measurable perspective. So
Dwight Brown: 22:09
okay
David Turetsky: 22:09
I'm gonna give myself definitely a C on that one.
Dwight Brown: 22:13
See, I'm I'm gonna disagree with you. I think that you deserve a higher grade, and here's why.
David Turetsky: 22:20
But you always think I deserve a higher grade! You're a terrible grader
Dwight Brown: 22:22
I know, I know I there's a reason I was never a teacher. And that's only one!
David Turetsky: 22:29
that's that's really only one
Dwight Brown: 22:32
One of many. Yeah, yeah. So I don't think that we can ignore the effect of the FLSA rule and how much that disrupted and overshadowed everything,
David Turetsky: 22:46
everything else,
Dwight Brown: 22:47
including and especially pay transparency.
David Turetsky: 22:50
So I think we have to give some context about that, though, because, you know, you have to tell some people who don't know what we're talking about. Because I think you're right.
Dwight Brown: 22:59
Yeah, I mean the new the new FLSA rules were proposed and put into effect, starting with one tier in July one, and the second tier at January one. And so companies were having to scramble to determine whether or not their employees should be exempt or non exempt? What the threshold should be? Should they have to pay them more? So they were busy starting through that. The legislators were busy worrying about that. So there, there probably wasn't as much pay transparency enacted legislatively,
David Turetsky: 23:38
yeah, so
Dwight Brown: 23:40
that's, that's, that's where I say, I I think that kind of overshadows things. So
David Turetsky: 23:46
That's possible. And and just so we're, we're clear that this, there was a ruling just recently from the Eastern District of Texas, which basically said that FLSA rules should not be on a salary basis, there should be on the duties tests, where, if someone passes a duty test, then they are exempt from getting paid overtime. And that was the
Dwight Brown: 24:12
right,
David Turetsky: 24:13
that was their ruling, that whether it was the 2016 legislation, the 2019 or the 2024 not legislation. The rule setting the 2016 2019 or 2024 that they should not be based on salary. They should be based on the duties test, and thus overturn both the July and January increases to the federal minimum for exempt status. And yeah, many companies were really worried about that, as Dwight said, and they basically now need to rethink everything. So I not only agree with you that that may have prevented them from worrying about transparency to their detriment, but also now they're gonna have to start thinking about what we do. What do we do now, given the fact that that exemption change is now off the books, what do I do?
Dwight Brown: 25:07
Right. Yeah, companies are really gonna wrestle with that big time. And
David Turetsky: 25:14
Yeah, I don't think they're gonna wrestle with it over Thanksgiving, and definitely not over Christmas, but
Dwight Brown: 25:20
yeah, maybe around the Thanksgiving table with plenty of wine flowing.
David Turetsky: 25:23
yeah, as they sleep, they're gonna have nightmares about the FLSA status. Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this. Well, you're in luck. We have a special offer for listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast or whatever is on your mind. Go to Salary.com/hrdlconsulting to schedule your free 30 minute call today. So now we come to that part of the program where we talk about what our next prediction is for the next six months that we will review at the end of season nine, again, six months. So let's make it a six month prediction. Dwight, what's your prediction? You always go first.
Dwight Brown: 26:14
I'm having trouble with this one being a six month prediction. But actually, with the pace of change, it's possible. So here's where I'm going to go with this. The I'm going to talk about AI. I know that it feels like a dead horse that we beat over and over again, but it's it's not going away. So here's my here's my take on this.
David Turetsky: 26:38
Okay
Dwight Brown: 26:39
I just did a piece on AI and the impact of customer service personnel. And I think that number one, there are some pretty solid stats on what's happening with customer service positions. It's been, it's actually been a downhill slope for at least the last 10 years. When you look at the statistics, the total numbers were going going up, but the growth rate was actually going down.
David Turetsky: 27:08
Wow.
Dwight Brown: 27:08
So now we've reached this peak. So we've got this data that tells us that, and we have a lot of data that indicates that AI is becoming much more entrenched in customer service so. We all feel it every time we call for customer support, we're probably talking with an AI agent, or if we're interacting via text it's chat bot. And so customer service is really being hit with this and and one so my prediction is the downstream impact of this is that HR is going to have more of their work cut out for them in terms of helping strategize on reductions in force, which actually I don't think we're going to see mass reductions in force, I think we're going to see a shift, and I'll talk about that in a second. The the other area where they're really going to be challenged is the evaluation of reskilling and upskilling positions. And that's where, that's where I say, I don't think that we're going to see massive reductions in force, because with the implementation of AI, what people don't realize is you need significant resources for the care and feeding of that AI. So you're going to see a shift in the kinds of positions, but that's really going to up the pressure on HR for implementing good reskilling, and upskilling initiatives. And I think with the pace of change of AI, I do think we're gonna see, we're gonna see pretty immediate results with that. And when I say immediate, I mean that six month time frame. Okay, so that's my long winded prediction.
David Turetsky: 28:59
I like it. And hopefully in six months we'll we'll see some movement on that.
Dwight Brown: 29:05
Yeah, definitely. And how about you?
David Turetsky: 29:09
Sure. I'm gonna go to the economic slash political world, and I'm gonna say that the the new incoming Congress, the Senate and the House and the new executive branch are going to make sweeping changes to a lot of the things, a lot of the HR facing regulations that had changed in the last four years and overturned them. That's not rocket science. We all knew that was going to happen, but I think one of the areas that it's specifically going to hit is DE&I and I think we're going to see some significant movement in that. And I take it from the perspective, I don't think that's a good thing. Now we've talked a lot about DE&I and some of the repercussions from the Supreme Court's rulings recently over the last, actually, last four or five months. And one of the sage people that I get to work with every day, Lenna Turner, and I had a conversation about this, and there's an upcoming episode on it in season nine. And not to steal that thunder, but I think one of the things that we're going to start seeing is companies are not going to be talking about DE&I, but it's already built into their DNA, and having a fair, equitable, inclusive workforce is going to be just part of what they do. So my prediction is that a lot of regulations, a lot of rules, a lot of norms that we had taken for granted over the last at least four years, around DE&I are going to start going away, but they're going to be replaced by the way normal operations already are happening, which is with the spirit of DE&I.
Dwight Brown: 31:00
Okay
David Turetsky: 31:01
So it's my hope at least that at least the spirit will still be there.
Dwight Brown: 31:05
It'll be challenged, you know,
David Turetsky: 31:09
oh yeah,
Dwight Brown: 31:10
very hard challenges with it. But yeah, I'm hoping you're I'm hoping you're correct.
David Turetsky: 31:16
Let's pray. Yeah,
Dwight Brown: 31:18
yeah.
David Turetsky: 31:19
So that's our predictions, one on AI in the world of business, and how business gets done, and how people get retrained, and whether DE&I becomes part of the soul of how companies operate despite changes in legislation and and rulemaking. Wow
Dwight Brown: 31:42
Doing the right thing for the right reason. Yeah, way to
David Turetsky: 31:45
wow. I took a turn on this podcast episode. Didn't I?
Dwight Brown: 31:51
no, but it's, I mean, it's good. We've got to talk about it then
David Turetsky: 31:55
yeah.
Dwight Brown: 31:56
I think a lot of, I think a lot of people are, are trying to figure out what that's going to look like in the future.
David Turetsky: 32:02
Let's say this, that the world of work has been evolving for decades. It's not a new thing, whether it's PCs on desks in the 90s, whether it's the internet in the late 90s, early 2000s whether it's chat GPT in 2022 2023.
Dwight Brown: 32:23
Yeah,
David Turetsky: 32:23
all those things have led to an evolution of how work gets done. So
Dwight Brown: 32:29
Right
David Turetsky: 32:29
You know, these are somewhat baby steps, and as we said, six months is tough to see lots of change, although the pace of change happening really fast, you point before, and we've been so we've been living in it. We've been swimming in it for so long that we're kind of numb to a lot of the change that we've seen.
Dwight Brown: 32:47
Right exactly. We don't even realize happening. It's just,
David Turetsky: 32:52
no, we're just, we're just doing it. Yeah, so it's fascinating, and hopefully for the better. Hey, listen one of the things that you and I really do need to celebrate, and I really am appreciative of your partnership in this podcast. And we just passed 200 episodes that have been released, which is just an incredible milestone for most podcasts, because most podcasts don't get that far. They get one season in, or a couple seasons in, they publish, you know, a handful of episodes, and they go away.
Dwight Brown: 33:30
Yeah
David Turetsky: 33:31
We've at least produced, as far as I know, maybe 220 or 230 episodes. And we've got a plateful, we've actually got, if I looked at the spreadsheet, I think we have like 60 guests lined up. 60!
Dwight Brown: 33:47
Yeah,
David Turetsky: 33:48
So, and that's not just episodes, because we know that sometimes we get repeat guests, or guests coming back to do repeats. We literally could, could do another almost two or three seasons with the groups that we have. And I got to tell you, I'm, you know, you and Karissa and Carl and all the people involved in, Stela, and all the other people involved in getting this podcast done, I am so grateful for all of you.
Dwight Brown: 34:13
Well, we're grateful for you. I mean, this was your vision, and we're realizing that. I just appreciate the opportunity to be along for the ride that you've taken me along for the ride on this and it is great working with Karissa and and Carl, our incredible engineer.
David Turetsky: 34:33
Yes, from Affogato Media.
Dwight Brown: 34:34
Stela, yeah, exactly. And he's been with us, not the entire time, but almost, almost the entire time.
David Turetsky: 34:43
Well, yeah, we had people before him in season one, and they were not good for us,
Dwight Brown: 34:48
and that was not working out
David Turetsky: 34:49
I'm not going to mention names,
Dwight Brown: 34:50
yeah,
David Turetsky: 34:51
but, but Carl was a breath of, not only fresh air, but he really did re-energize us to be able to do other things and be able to get other things accomplished, so.
Dwight Brown: 35:00
yeah,
David Turetsky: 35:01
not have to wait for a podcast episode to come out two hours after we were still supposed to
Dwight Brown: 35:07
Exactly! You missed another deadline!
David Turetsky: 35:10
Yeah, there was so much stress there.
Dwight Brown: 35:13
We've never had any of that with Carl. He's always been right on. Matter of fact, there have been times where he's kind of prompted us,
David Turetsky: 35:20
oh yeah!
Dwight Brown: 35:20
we're forgotten about it.
David Turetsky: 35:24
So we're lifting a glass to you and to everybody else who's helped us get to where we are, Carl, Stela, Karissa, but again, thank you, Dwight, and thank you everybody else for listening. We love you. We appreciate you. And if you need anything, just reach out to the podcast. We'd love to hear from you and stay safe everyone.
Dwight Brown: 35:44
Thanks, everybody!
Announcer: 35:46
That was the HR Data Labs podcast. If you liked the episode, please subscribe. And if you know anyone that might like to hear it, please send it their way. Thank you for joining us this week, and stay tuned for our next episode. Stay safe.
In this show we cover topics on Analytics, HR Processes, and Rewards with a focus on getting answers that organizations need by demystifying People Analytics.
