HR DATA LABS - S07/EP25:
Season Recap – A Look Back and a Look Ahead
As Season 7 of HR Data Labs comes to a close, David and Dwight take a look back at its episodes, guests, and key takeaways. They also revisit their predictions from last season and put forth some new predictions for the future of HR.
[0:00 - 7:31] Introduction
- Welcome, David and Dwight!
- Today’s Topic: Season 7 Recap
[7:32 - 22:42] Looking back at Season 7’s major topics and themes
- Common themes from the season’s episodes
- How HR technology has changed over time
[22:43 - 29:14] Revisiting emotion and vulnerability in the workplace
- Being a human at work and not an emotionless machine
- The challenges DEI leaders face
[29:15 - 45:52] David and Dwight’s predictions for the future of HR
- Have we hit customer survey critical mass, and will we start to see push back?
- Will more companies adopt a “lowest common denominator” pay transparency philosophy?
[42:53 - 43:55] Closing
- Thanks for listening!
Connect with Dwight:
Connect with David:
Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:
Production by Affogato Media
Resources:
- “AI is really driving a lot of the conversion [in HR Tech] . . . and will continue to do so.”
- “Pay transparency is going to become something that companies have to de facto do because they operate in states or next to states, [that require it].”
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 for their discussions into a beaker. Mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.
David Turetsky: 0:46
Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast ending season seven overview. And I am your host, David Turetsky alongside my BFF and co host, partner from Salary.com, Dwight Brown. Dwight, how are you?
Dwight Brown: 1:00
I'm great. You know, the way your first few words started, it sounded like you were announcing a UFC fight or something. Now, in the green corner!
David Turetsky: 1:11
It could be, could actually turn out to be, especially when we go through the review of our predictions from last season,
Dwight Brown: 1:18
True!
David Turetsky: 1:19
season six. So we'll see.
Dwight Brown: 1:21
We could be bloodied and battered from that.
David Turetsky: 1:23
No, no, never happens that way. I mean, but we might, we might want to actually start like being a little bit more edgy. So we'll see.
Dwight Brown: 1:32
Get a lot of controversy in there.
David Turetsky: 1:34
A little controversy, you know, a little controversy never hurt anybody!
Dwight Brown: 1:37
Right!
David Turetsky: 1:37
But in this case, you know, if you kind of if you're comparing this to UFC, I think that's a little bit
Dwight Brown: 1:41
I've never been prone to exaggeration. overkill. Just a little.
David Turetsky: 1:49
Oh, you're prone, very prone. But as we do in every season finale, we're going to start off with one fun thing that no one knows about Dwight, from the last six months.
Dwight Brown: 2:03
Have I talked about polishing rocks before?
David Turetsky: 2:09
Do you think that I remember you talking about polishing rocks? I should. Is this is this when the paragliding doesn't go well, and you fall down and you start rumbling around on the ground?
Dwight Brown: 2:22
Yeah, that's when I started polishing my teeth on the gravel is what happens there. But
David Turetsky: 2:29
No, no, you did not tell me about polishing, or us.
Dwight Brown: 2:34
Alright. Yeah. So here, here's a little nerd secret for you. When I was when I was a kid, I was kind of fascinated with rocks. And so my parents bought me a rock polisher. And I used to I used to get rocks from wherever I could get rocks from I'd pick them up and see something cool and try to polish it up. I tried polishing gravel, gravel doesn't polish by the way, it just disintegrates. Just in case you were wondering.
David Turetsky: 3:05
That's good to know.
Dwight Brown: 3:07
The so yeah, I would polish these rocks up. And then I would sell them around the neighborhood. I would go from house to house and people who would feel sorry for me, so they'd pay me a quarter for my polished rock. They actually look pretty good. You know what I mean? I still think they're worth a quarter. But. So that was that was my first foray into enterprise and entrepreneurship.
David Turetsky: 3:33
Did that pay for college?
Dwight Brown: 3:35
I think it paid for maybe one meal in college and that was about it. Better than nothing!
David Turetsky: 3:43
Yeah, that's true. That is true. That is true. Well, it's it's interesting.
Dwight Brown: 3:48
Oh, how about you?
David Turetsky: 3:50
One new fun thing. Um, so I was cleaning out my basement the other day, literally the other day. And I found a bunch of stamps that I think my grandfather collected as, as a as an adult, as well as the child and I saw some extremely old stamps. There are some pre war stamps. Now here's the fun thing about philatelic
Dwight Brown: 4:16
Pre Civil War, which war are we talking?
David Turetsky: 4:20
My Grandpa is not
Dwight Brown: 4:21
We've had so many!
David Turetsky: 4:22
I'm not that old. A grandfather was born in the 1900s I think just barely in the 1900s.
Dwight Brown: 4:28
Okay.
David Turetsky: 4:29
My, my father's dad was born in 1898. But no, no, this one was born, I think in 1900 and 1902. But anyway, so. No, it's pre World War Two. Thank you.
Dwight Brown: 4:41
Okay.
David Turetsky: 4:42
And some of the ones that I looked up online could be worth like, 3 $400, so.
Dwight Brown: 4:48
Wow!
David Turetsky: 4:48
But the problem of philatelics, which is kind of the study of stamps, or the collecting stamps or whatever, is that there are very few people who give a crap, that you find all these great stamps. You have to find a reputable American Philatelic Society dealer and then one that wants to look at the stamps that you've collected. Now, if they don't have it all arrayed, and you don't have it in a book or whatever, you know, that's a problem. And you know how many people run across their grandparents old stamp collections and bother these people? A lot. I found that out the hard way.
Dwight Brown: 5:26
Well, my brother is a stamp dealers, so I totally get it.
David Turetsky: 5:30
Oh, well, maybe I can send them to you. And you can go and bring them to him and he can do the same thing this guy did and toss them aside.
Dwight Brown: 5:37
He doesn't need any more stamps. So if you find one with an upside down airplane on it, then you've hit the jackpot. Yeah, the upside down Jenny. Yes, that's all I know about stamp collecting.
David Turetsky: 5:53
Yeah, but but there are plenty of other stamps that are valuable.
Dwight Brown: 5:56
Oh, yeah.
David Turetsky: 5:56
Problem is that, then you know, the difference between a valuable one and one that's not valuable, is very small differences.
Dwight Brown: 6:03
Exactly.
David Turetsky: 6:04
And Dwight do you know how much room I have in my life for figuring what that is?
Dwight Brown: 6:12
I would say slim to none my friend.
David Turetsky: 6:14
Yeah. Less than none, like negative. So I want to honor my grandfather, and I want to figure it all out. But I'm running out of time. So
Dwight Brown: 6:24
Well.
David Turetsky: 6:24
I kind of budgeted some time for it. There are apps for it, but they're not very good. And they cost a ton of money. So
Dwight Brown: 6:31
Slowly over time.
David Turetsky: 6:33
Yeah. Yeah.
Dwight Brown: 6:34
That's cool.
David Turetsky: 6:35
So that's my, that's my thing that no one knows. Now everybody knows and they're all laughing.
Dwight Brown: 6:43
Like, they just heard about my polishing rocks. Do you think they're gonna? They're gonna be laughing at your stamps?
David Turetsky: 6:50
Stamps and rocks. Yeah. One's more valuable than the other. Yours could be much more valuable. If you pick the right rock.
Dwight Brown: 6:58
Yeah, true. Very true.
David Turetsky: 7:01
Okay, this one shiny, it looks like a crystal. I can't polish it. It's destroying my rock polisher as I put it in there. Anyways! So welcome to the season finale of season seven, it was a phenomenal season. Now let's dive into it and talk a little bit about what we learned. Season Seven was interesting, Dwight, and I know that you've actually thought a little bit about kind of the themes that kind of ran through your head as you were looking at the list of the episodes that we had recorded.
Dwight Brown: 7:44
That is true. I, you know, as I listened to it, and went back and, and relistened to some of the episodes and looked at them, biggest theme in my mind was really drivers and motivations. And we looked at that from a lot of different angles. And and what I mean by that is the sub theme that I think of with this is meshing humans and technologies or, as you logged that I said, crossbreeding humans and computers.
David Turetsky: 8:19
We, we're not advocating for human hybrids by the way.
Dwight Brown: 8:22
Exactly. We may be getting there pretty soon. I'm just saying.
David Turetsky: 8:26
Mentally.
Dwight Brown: 8:27
Yeah. But that's, those were really the themes that I that I picked out of things. And I mean, to some extent, every season, we could say that about because we really do examine both humans because we're talking human resources. And we talk a lot about the technology side of things, but I felt like it really, were we really took some different angles with it with this season.
David Turetsky: 8:51
Yeah. And, and to that point, you know, because we're gonna go early in this podcast and talk about, you know, artificial intelligence, being such a gigantic topic, especially something that a lot of people are concerned about how it's influencing the world of human resources, and how it's really embedding itself into a lot of the decisions that we make, or what is it? What is it kind of doing to our roles? What is it going to do for our jobs? We actually had a lot of conversations, both last season and this season about that. And it's going to bleed into probably many more of our episodes as we go forward, because it's really driving a lot of the conversation.
Dwight Brown: 9:29
Yeah, it is not getting smaller. It's definitely getting bigger.
David Turetsky: 9:33
Yeah.
Dwight Brown: 9:34
And will continue to do so.
David Turetsky: 9:36
And rightly, it should! I mean, I was thinking about this for a presentation I'm gonna be doing this week. You know, comparing the generations and their exposure to technology and their usefulness of technology has been fascinating from you know, I started my work in the 80s when computers really weren't around. They were starting to embed themselves into the human resources world, but they really weren't there yet. And then after in the 90s, we started to see a gigantic approach because they were embedding themselves into everywhere. Well, it's that same kind of process or or, I guess you could say, seasonality, that now it went from computers embedding themselves to the internet embedding itself. And now, you know, artificial intelligence, embedding itself into every aspect of work, but most of all, into what we care about, which is how HR influences the rest of the business.
Dwight Brown: 10:34
So let me ask you this. I mean, since since you started in the work world, in the 80s, and it was just the computers were still coming in. And in the 90s, we saw that proliferation of things. Compare the conversations that we have about AI with the conversations that were happening around computers and their influence on jobs at that point, is it a recycling? Or is it a very different conversation?
David Turetsky: 11:00
I think it's a very analogous conversation. I mean, every time a gigantic innovation happens in the world of business, it influences how we work. And to your point, and, you know, I guess, to the, to the emphasis in the question, it really changes who we are and how we work. You know, I love bringing up the example of those manila envelopes that used to go interoffice. Because the mailroom would, you know, come by your desk and pick up your mail and drop off your incoming mail. And, you know, they that form that very secure merit increase form or record adjustment form that had someone's increase in it that was being sealed with a extremely secure manila envelope that had holes in it, by the way.
Dwight Brown: 11:53
Yeah, that was considered a firewall at that point.
David Turetsky: 11:55
Those holes, right? Well, it had the string, which made made sense, if that string had come undone, then then that meant somebody looked at it. Well, you know, there was some ethics there. So but but now, think about how that process has changed, we kind of don't have a mailroom anymore, right? And any mail you're getting pretty much from a snail mail perspective, gets put on, you know, a desk, and then people have to pretty much go get it themselves, or you have somebody whose responsibility is in, you know, as part of what they do to do that. But really, the concept of Mailroom is gone, the concept of those forms has now been transformed into your HRIS employee or manager self service. So, you know, that that analogy of how does the technology transform the way we work? Well, there are a few jobs we just talked about, specifically the mailroom where that's gone. Right. And the concept of those manila envelopes, we don't buy them anymore. Because they're not necessary. They that interoffice
Dwight Brown: 13:01
You can't buy them anymore probably.
David Turetsky: 13:02
Well, you probably can, and they're probably gag gifts. But
Dwight Brown: 13:06
Yeah, exactly. Either that or collector's items on eBay.
David Turetsky: 13:10
Right. And, you know, we used to have tons of them laying around everywhere until they got thrown away not recycled, by the way but thrown away. But But no, but that's that's the point. Dwight, to your question, as technology has improved, as connectivity is improved, as the computer has become more able to take away some of the things that we've been doing from an administration perspective, the job that we do has fundamentally changed. And
Dwight Brown: 13:36
Yeah.
David Turetsky: 13:37
a lot of us will say, for the for the better. I mean, yeah, I'd love to having the mailroom person come around and have a conversation with them about how the Rangers are doing. But yeah, that's that's gone. You know, that job has now transformed it's become some something else.
Dwight Brown: 13:52
It's interesting hearing the conversations around AI, because you hear so often that AI is going to take over all the jobs. And and we even touch on that some
David Turetsky: 14:03
A little bit yeah.
Dwight Brown: 14:04
in the episodes this this season. But yeah, I think that there's I don't think there's a true understanding of what AI is. And so I think it's good that we're starting to explore these explore the AI topic from different angles and throughout season seven and into the future, because I think we need to, I think we really need to set the stage for what exactly is AI? And what, what will it replace and what won't it replace.
David Turetsky: 14:37
I don't know if you remember but when we came back from HR Tech last year for season, I think it was during season six. And then we started to think we actually had them done by the end of season six because we had we had made them in parallel with the normal series. Everything that we were talking about was artificial intelligence. Every single thing, there wasn't a thing that was at the HR Technology Conference that wasn't that at least had something to do with HR tech, AI in HR tech. And to me, that kind of speaks to not what's happening in 2024, 2025, but what's happening beyond. Because those, those technologies don't get adopted right away. They get adopted slowly. And so we might see this coming HR Tech stories about adoptions that companies had had kind of early adopters and kind of taken on from the 2023 HR tech conference, and what what was the end result? And so there may be a little push back. Or they may have honed a lot of those companies that brought AI and were talking about AI may have honed their story now.
Dwight Brown: 15:51
Yeah, I think the I think the companies are honing their story, I think it's the employees that aren't necessarily the experts in HR and AI, you know, or the people who are not necessarily the experts, but put AI in this big bucket. And it's sort of a Big Brother sort of bucket that they think of it and where they just don't know enough to know. How's it going to help us? What's it going to replace? Answering all of those kinds of questions. I'm just putting the finishing touches on our white paper of the influence of AI and customer service and have some interesting data about, you know, there, there are a lot of people out there saying that. Matter of fact, I think one of our guests even said that we're at the point where AI will completely replace customer service representatives.
David Turetsky: 16:47
Yes, somebody did say that!
Dwight Brown: 16:47
And in the data just doesn't, it doesn't bear out in the data. And it doesn't, it doesn't bear out in logic, when you start to look at what AI can and can't do. And you start to think about the jobs. And I think that that's extensible across a lot of different jobs. I mean,
David Turetsky: 17:04
Oh, sure.
Dwight Brown: 17:04
I'm just looking at customer service. But all that to say that as the conversations move forward, it will be it will be interesting the myths that get dispelled and the facts that come out and where those two get mixed up wth each other.
David Turetsky: 17:22
I'm looking forward to reading your white paper. I actually listened to somebody else's podcast. I know, I actually did listen to somebody else's podcast. And yeah, yeah, don't be critical.
Dwight Brown: 17:34
Did you podcast cheat on me?
David Turetsky: 17:35
I did. I'm sorry. I have a lot of podcasts I listened to. But one of the fun things that I heard or that
Dwight Brown: 17:41
Right. I was listening to was that a person had called in for customer support, to I forget what what they said they are calling into, but they said it took them at least 10 minutes in a conversation with AI to realize that it wasn't human.
David Turetsky: 18:00
And I don't have a heavy lisp, although sometimes And while that's fascinating, it certainly wasn't my experience with T-Mobile, love T-Mobile, don't get me wrong. But their go to market strategy is you're gonna talk to a human, quickly if you want to. And that's okay. And I love that fact, because I've had so many conversations with AI that just don't understand what the heck I'm saying. Now, I don't have a heavy accent. I might. Especially if I'm tired. But trying to have a conversation with an artificial intelligence engine still to this day, I'm pretty sure I can tell most of the time when it's AI.
Dwight Brown: 18:46
Yeah.
David Turetsky: 18:46
And my first conversation with them is representative. Representative! Representative because
Dwight Brown: 18:56
What did you not understand about REPRESENTATIVE?
David Turetsky: 19:00
First before I give you over to a representative, can you please give me, no. Representative. Then I turned into my dad and my eyes turn red. My blood pressure goes up, I start turning into the Hulk. REPRESENTATIVE. REPRESENTATIVE.
Dwight Brown: 19:20
Start bashing the phone.
David Turetsky: 19:21
HULK WANT REPRESENTATIVE. Okay, Hulk, we're gonna get you over to a representative right way right away.
Dwight Brown: 19:29
Exactly. But that's what I mean. That's what I mean about the meshing of humans with technology or the crossbreeding between humans and computers. Because, I mean, let's face it, we're trying to make these computers be exactly human and the technology is getting there.
David Turetsky: 19:44
Yeah.
Dwight Brown: 19:45
It's not there yet, as we've just been talking about but.
David Turetsky: 19:48
Yeah, but but I think it still goes back to solving what problem, right?
Dwight Brown: 19:53
Right. Right.
David Turetsky: 19:54
I'll give you another example. When you ever In the context of a customer service might be okay. I think there are a lot have wonderful customer service people that I've spoken to that that really know their job. But some of them are in such complex roles. And they're dealing with things that are extremely personal, like, for example, a banking or whatnot, that, you know, you probably could get away with talking to an AI about your banking relationship until you call a package service and by package service, I mean, one it gets to the point where it says that cheque wasn't deposited and we're not going to tell you why. that has three letters in their name, or one that has five letters in their name. And you're saying, Where is my package? I'm waiting for it, it seems stalled at its current location in tracking. You cannot talk to a human, they won't let you and trying to talk to an AI about that. All it will tell you is what the current step is in the tracking process. Because other than that, it won't give you any more information, and won't be more helpful than that.
Dwight Brown: 20:58
Yeah, zero problem solved.
David Turetsky: 21:00
Exactly. And that's, I mean, we talk about AI in HR, that is not going to work. My medical benefits aren't working, you're going to tell me that an AI is going to be able to help somebody with that? I don't think so!
Dwight Brown: 21:12
Yeah good luck!
David Turetsky: 21:13
Exactly. But But that's also where the compassion of the
Dwight Brown: 21:14
Good luck! person, right? And the willingness to go the next step, an AI is probably not programmed to be as compassionate nor willing to go the next step. It's got facts. Right.
David Turetsky: 21:27
Facts are, you're not in our system. I don't know why, it doesn't tell me why. And therefore, I can't tell you, thank you very much, have a great day and hang up. And the person you know, then they actually have to go to urgent care, urgent care, because they're having a heart attack, because they're getting pissed. And I don't mean to make light of that situation. But But that's where some people are where, you know, for whatever reason, my benefits aren't showing up anymore. I still have my job. I don't know why, it's just not, it's not there. So these are circumstances and situations where, you know, we're talking right now about one of the major themes that we're dealing with in season seven, which is people are worried about their jobs, people are worried about their roles and AI in in the world of Human Resources is going to be something that we're going to talk about for a very long time.
Dwight Brown: 22:17
And we're going to hit it from a lot of different angles.
David Turetsky: 22:19
Oh, sure. Sure.
Dwight Brown: 22:20
Yeah. And I think it's important. It's here, it's part of our lives.
David Turetsky: 22:25
Yep.
Dwight Brown: 22:26
We've got to talk about it. Because otherwise, it's big, hairy and scary if we don't.
David Turetsky: 22:29
Exactly.
Announcer: 22:31
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David Turetsky: 22:42
But the other thing that we talked about during season seven, which I know that you wanted to talk about as well, is the being more human, and the ability to be more yourself, which is exactly the opposite of what we were just talking about about being more programmatic and more human. More robotic. And yeah, but we had some conversations this year were which were actually rather emotional for us because they'll focus on being a different human.
Dwight Brown: 23:09
Right.
David Turetsky: 23:10
And learning from our past woundings and our past interactions with people, and how that makes us react in the next situation, which isn't always good. And it did get really, really emotional for us in at least two or three episodes, right?
Dwight Brown: 23:30
Yeah!
David Turetsky: 23:31
There was, oh, the woundings one was Amber Ontiveros. That was that was really powerful.
Dwight Brown: 23:36
Yeah.
David Turetsky: 23:36
Really, really powerful.
Dwight Brown: 23:37
Toward the end.
David Turetsky: 23:38
Yeah. There was another one though, that
Dwight Brown: 23:42
Well there was Jacob Morgan with leading with vulnerability.
David Turetsky: 23:45
That was it! Yes. Exactly.
Dwight Brown: 23:47
Yeah.
David Turetsky: 23:47
Yeah. And that was a powerful one as well. Because, you know, we always try and show our brave face. We always try and be I'm a corporate, I'm a computer. I don't show an emotion at work. Yeah, good luck.
Dwight Brown: 24:01
Right. Well, and I gotta say, I those made me really uncomfortable for exactly what you just said. I just, you you put your work face on, you put on you know, you put up the steel wall and I don't have feelings, I'm just a machine and, you know, I don't like going there. And trust me, in my life I've gone there plenty and and so I, as those episodes were coming up and it's like,
David Turetsky: 24:28
Yeah.
Dwight Brown: 24:28
God, I admittedly, I really was not looking forward to, was not looking forward to recording them. But um, at the end, I was glad we did and it it gave a lot to think about.
David Turetsky: 24:43
Absolutely.
Dwight Brown: 24:44
And even even as I was thinking about this, this recap of the season, I went back to Jacob's Leading with Vulnerability and thought about times where I've done it. Where I've done effectively, at least effectively relative to what he was saying, the way that he was saying you should do it, and ways that I've done it ineffectively. And then ways that I just have not done it at all. And, and I think, I think I err more towards the not doing it at all, because I just don't like putting myself out there.
David Turetsky: 25:18
That's how we rode up, right? You can't bring
Dwight Brown: 25:19
Right.
David Turetsky: 25:20
And then the second one was Robyn Rodriguez an authentic part of yourself to work and that, you know, that kind of sucks. I'll tell you two other episodes that really kind of threw me for a loop and that I was really uncomfortable with and in a very similar way. We were talking about the the Becky Evan episode where we were talking about, you know, how white DEI professionals, you know, we can we can look at what their job is and, and not get worried about it or not think challenges that female leaders have to overcome, all the crap about it in the wrong way. That one I was really worried about because I wasn't really sure where we were going with it. But that is stacked against them, still to this day. And at the end of the day, it actually turned out to be a quite a fascinating episode. Because it really gave us a understanding of the kind of problems that they're dealing with or the kind of way that they're, and because they're white, how they actually have to work around that in order to be more effective or to be effective in DEI. I love Robyn, and I thought it was a wonderful
Dwight Brown: 26:30
Right! episode. But you know, kind of transitioning from those. I think if we look back, most of the conversations that we had this season, were really fascinating in their own way. They were challenging in their own way. They gave us a lot to think about. And it was, it was a good season. I think seven was a really good season. Oh, yeah!
David Turetsky: 26:57
And when we look back on season, and we look back rather favorably, it was it's one that I think we're gonna be very proud of for many years.
Dwight Brown: 27:05
And I really hope that despite our discomfort going into it, that our listeners start to see the human side of us too. And I, I hope that I'm able to bring that out for myself, whether it's scary or not. But because as we get into season eight, you know, we wrapped up with some very human issues with season seven. And we're going to continue looking at that as we go forward into season eight. Oh quit being so shallow! Quit being so shallow.
David Turetsky: 27:33
That is true. To be honest. Because of the conversation we had about AI, I think I want people to think of me as more robotic. So I'm gonna go the other way. Call me call me captain Data, or corporal Data. Let's talk a little bit about season eight, because we've actually recorded a bunch of season eight already. And I'm really looking forward to you know, those releases, there's going to be some fascinating conversations again!
Dwight Brown: 28:08
Yeah! Wow.
David Turetsky: 28:10
Some really powerful ones.
Dwight Brown: 28:12
We've got some really cool ones coming out.
David Turetsky: 28:13
Really. So stick around all of you. Because I
Dwight Brown: 28:14
Right.
David Turetsky: 28:14
So stay tuned! It is going to be a good season. Aw heck, they're all good mean, it's not gonna happen today. Sorry. But over the next couple of months, you know, we've actually had some great guests. And, again, ones that have kind of knocked our socks off. seasons. Yeah well.
Dwight Brown: 28:35
I say that every season.
David Turetsky: 28:37
They are all our children.
Dwight Brown: 28:37
It's going to be a good season, well they're all, yeah exactly. Hopefully, it's not the ugly baby!
David Turetsky: 28:43
Well, I'll take that one. That's me. 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. But now, now it's time to turn our attention to the past and the future, Dwight. Now it's the time of that episode of the season finale episode, where we get to look back. And we're looking back now on the season six recap. And we're going to talk a little bit about the predictions that were made. So now it's time to look at the crystal ball from the past and say, what did we say six months ago? And what happened with that? So would you like me to remind you what your prediction was from season six?
Dwight Brown: 29:54
No, I'm looking right at as we...
David Turetsky: 29:57
Oh I thought you were gonna say no please don't remind me!
Dwight Brown: 30:02
No, there's other other areas. I don't want you to remind me.
David Turetsky: 30:05
All right. All right.
Dwight Brown: 30:06
No, I thank you. Thank you to you. I've, I've got it right in front of me here. So I talked, I talked about as I termed it ESGs and as it turns out, I got, I got the acronym wrong. Yeah, it's really ERGs
David Turetsky: 30:16
We both did Employee resource groups.
Dwight Brown: 30:21
Employee resource groups, and and DEI, and I talked about the fact that there's going to continue to be pressure against ERGs and DEI, just based on some of the stuff that I was seeing in the news. And I want to be clear, the same way that I hope I was clear last time because, you know, somebody may misconstrue that and say that I am against ERGs and DEI, that is not the case at all.
David Turetsky: 30:51
That is not the case. Absolutely.
Dwight Brown: 30:53
In fact, I view it as a real positive that there's this pushback against it, because meaningful change, the only time change becomes meaningful is when there's controversy around it. And the only time that change is going to stick is when there's controversy around it. And so to me, it's a positive sign. Because there, there have continued to be other articles. I mean, it's not a big proliferation of articles. But there continue to be other instances where there's pushback against ERG, there's elimination of ERGs in different companies that started to go down the road, even elimination of DEI programs in companies and, and other organizations. But I, I view that as part of the natural transition of this becoming a concept to this being a way of life, then I think it's going to be I think it's a really positive thing, even though it's painful going through it. I did you know, I did continue to see some in the news about, about losing those in different companies and organizations. So so I feel like my prediction was on the mark. But I am not the appropriate judge, you are the judge of that.
David Turetsky: 32:14
Oh, no, I thought it was it was spot on. And again, both of us are very much in favor of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. And I agree with you, it'd be nice if some day, we didn't need them. But we do.
Dwight Brown: 32:29
Right.
David Turetsky: 32:30
Going to work is not a place where we can show our authentic selves and actually, that's more necessary than ever.
Dwight Brown: 32:39
Right!
David Turetsky: 32:39
And we have not turned the corner on that And the one I've got is not going to top that one. evolution yet. That it sucks. But But no, you, you get an A plus on your, on your prediction, which puts more pressure on your next prediction, which we're gonna get to in a minute. So,
Dwight Brown: 33:00
Hey, you can't hit it out of the park every time.
David Turetsky: 33:01
No, you can't, you can't, you need some singles sometimes. You know, we might hit homeruns every once in a while, but you need some singles. And you know, you strike out every once awhile. It's okay.
Dwight Brown: 33:09
It's alright. If I get an RBI I'm happy.
David Turetsky: 33:12
Yeah. Okay. I'm done with analogies from baseball. I have not a baseball fan. So I think if you talk about I mean, you score a shot in hockey, we got it. We got it. You know, you swept a series, you know, okay, great. But yeah. Okay, now for mine. So my prediction was that artificial intelligence in HR is going to get scrutinized more based on some of the court cases. And I was specifically speaking about the Workday case. And legislation, especially from the EU, and some other entities. Well, there actually has been some movement on AI legislation. It hasn't been very specific about HR, but there are HR rules that need to follow from that. And so I don't know, maybe that's more like a kind of a, B or B minus. Because,
Dwight Brown: 34:06
No, you're
David Turetsky: 34:08
No, no,
Dwight Brown: 34:08
you're undercutting yourself. Yeah, I mean, it it hasn't but I I still think you hit it spot on. And you may be taking your prediction a little bit too literal there.
David Turetsky: 34:48
Maybe
Dwight Brown: 34:49
Because there has been plenty out there about not only legislation but just self governance
David Turetsky: 34:56
Sure
Dwight Brown: 34:56
in the industry and to me, that's just as good and probably better than legislation. So I'm getting, I'm gonna give you an A on that one, maybe even an A
David Turetsky: 35:08
No, I'm going to max out at a B plus, if that I think it's more of a B minus or a C plus, you know.
Dwight Brown: 35:16
Look, dude, I'm grading your paper. I didn't say that this was a self graded test!
David Turetsky: 35:21
Aw crap, great. Just pass it to the next person in the class and they'll grade it. It is not Professor Brown. So, okay. Well, but now we actually have to put on our Carnac hats and think about and looking in our crystal ball, whatever you want to do, and come up with what's our prediction for the next six months. So we'll evaluate this in the beginning of 2025. After we've gone through a full political cycle, the political cycle, probably you will be done by then? Given the crap that happened last time, I don't know about that! It may actually keep going until well it has to end I think on January 20th. So you know,
Dwight Brown: 36:01
God, yes. The shit show merry go round.
David Turetsky: 36:04
And God help us. We do not talk politics on this program. But unfortunately, I don't know how we're gonna avoid it for this six months. This is gonna suck.
Dwight Brown: 36:13
Right? Yeah, there's no way we're going to be able to avoid it. Well, we'll just have to skirt around it as best possible.
David Turetsky: 36:20
Yeah, well. Where is your head going? Where do you think?
Dwight Brown: 36:24
All right. So my prediction? I couldn't take him any great predictions. But this one is based off my own.
David Turetsky: 36:31
It has to be accurate. It doesn't have to be great. Let's just put it that way.
Dwight Brown: 36:35
This one is based off my own exasperation and frustration.
David Turetsky: 36:38
Okay.
Dwight Brown: 36:39
I think that we're going to see a movement again, I think we've got survey fatigue at this point. I can't go anywhere, I can't purchase anything, I can't do anything. I can't make a telephone call without getting a survey, asking me to give my opinion on something. I mean, my inbox is full of more surveys than it is real email. Because every action and so I think that, I think people are getting fed up. And I think that we're going to start to see a push back against that. I know, that's I know, that's benign. But especially as we go into this political environment, I want to stay as far away from politics as possible. So and maybe it is a political issue. But anyway, I think we're going to, I think we're going to start to see pushback against companies doing surveys for anything and everything.
David Turetsky: 37:34
Okay. Is that including, like, employee engagement and satisfaction surveys?
Dwight Brown: 37:39
No, I mean, I mean, like, consumer.
David Turetsky: 37:43
Oh, we're going to the consumer world now? Okay, we're gonna have to change it from HR Data Labs to now the data labs.
Dwight Brown: 37:50
Hey, humans run the consumer side.
David Turetsky: 37:53
Are you sure? Are you sure it's not AI yet?
Dwight Brown: 37:54
Well, well, that's true. That's true.
David Turetsky: 37:58
Oh, wow. No, okay.
Dwight Brown: 38:00
The human centered robots.
David Turetsky: 38:02
All right. I'm not sure how we're gonna measure this. Because it seems like a very unmeasurable.
Dwight Brown: 38:06
I know, I know, I told you, I didn't have a great one.
David Turetsky: 38:09
Well, you're right!
Dwight Brown: 38:11
And I've been agonizing this. I've been agonizing over this for like three weeks, and that's the best I can come up.
David Turetsky: 38:18
Okay. All right. It is what it is.
Dwight Brown: 38:21
Well, blow me out of the water with yours!
David Turetsky: 38:22
No, I'm not going to. I think I'm going to stay on path with with some of the things of some of the themes that I've talked about in previous predictions. I'm going back to pay transparency again. Because we've still seen, you know, states adopting it very slowly, but but adopting it. I think that what's happening now is pay transparency is going to become something that companies have to defacto do because they operate in states, either next to or in. I mean, we're talking New York and California are two that actually have it now and Colorado as well, and, and others. I don't see how you're going to get away with not having some form of transparency. So I think I'm going to get lean in a little bit here and say that transparency is going to continue, and that there are going to be more states adopting legislation on it. And that we're going to see many companies just adopt a standard of pay transparency, just because it's easier than trying to figure out which state are we going to post this damn job in and move forward. So I think we're gonna go to that what we've been calling for a while lowest common denominator and saying, that's gonna just be part of what we do.
Dwight Brown: 39:39
Right.
David Turetsky: 39:40
So that's my prediction.
Dwight Brown: 39:41
I think that's a great prediction. It'll be it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I tend to agree with you. I
David Turetsky: 39:47
Remember I failed on one of them because I said pay transparency was going to be picked up by a lot more states and it didn't happen. But in this case, I'm not seeing a lot more states. I'm gonna I'm saying that. My specific prediction, by the way, is that more companies are going to adopt a de facto standard of pay transparency. I don't know how we're gonna measure that either, but that they're going to because they operate in so many states that already have it.
Dwight Brown: 40:11
Yeah.
David Turetsky: 40:12
So there you go.
Dwight Brown: 40:13
Yeah. I think, you know, a lot of companies here, even if they're not in a state, it seems like they're starting to, they're starting to adopt it more and more. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out over the next six months.
David Turetsky: 40:25
Yep.
Dwight Brown: 40:26
And I think he edges your bets well, so that you don't get an F on it.
David Turetsky: 40:30
Yeah, it's alright. Good enough, like my GPA for this, for these season ending episodes, isn't that great anyway, so you know. If it came down to you grading me the whole time? Yeah, it would be higher. But when I grade myself, I grade myself really low. So my GPA sucks.
Dwight Brown: 40:47
Well, give yourself more credit.
David Turetsky: 40:48
Eh, I don't need it. But But listen, you know, granted that we've been doing this now for many years, and
Dwight Brown: 40:53
Yeah.
David Turetsky: 40:54
And Carl, you know, what would we do without that we've gone over 50,000 downloads, and, you know, we're on our way to easily over 200 episodes, and it's just, it's just so much fun. And I really want to thank you, Dwight, for being a really wonderful partner in this and being a great co host. And, and really taken on a lot of burden of, of helping us get this podcast out. Obviously, we have to also thank Karissa Harris, who's been a phenomenal podcast manager and really helped us make actually this sound somewhat useful. Carl, you know.
Dwight Brown: 41:32
Carl Houde! Carl Houde with Affogato Media. We got to put a plug in there. Yeah, he
David Turetsky: 41:36
Wonderful.
Dwight Brown: 41:37
He works wonders.
David Turetsky: 41:39
He makes us sound human.
Dwight Brown: 41:40
Oh, yeah.
David Turetsky: 41:40
Not AI
Dwight Brown: 41:43
I know! He makes us sound halfway decent! Usually, well, you at least. But no, I, I appreciate you bringing me along on this journey. And we have so much fun together. And I love these wrap up these wrap up episodes.
David Turetsky: 41:53
Yeah, we do! Because I don't know, it's great being able to sit down and shoot the ball with you. And tie in a theme with it. Yeah. And the fact that people are listening to this, it's just amazing. But thank you very much everybody for, for being a part of it, and for shepherding us through all these years. And, and we have a lot of great input that we get. I just had actually a conversation today with a podcast listener who was asking questions about her workforce planning and how, how it can work inside of a larger organization. So thanks, just we get really great interactions with our, our listeners. And that's just one one part of it. And it's just just wonderful.
Dwight Brown: 42:42
Yeah, that's an awesome piece of it.
David Turetsky: 42:52
Again, Dwight, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to be with you all these episodes.
Dwight Brown: 42:57
Likewise, my friend. I love it. And here's to many more.
David Turetsky: 43:00
Yep, well actually raise a glass. I know that you can't hear it on the
Dwight Brown: 43:04
I'm raising my energy drink.
David Turetsky: 43:05
Yep, I'm gonna can't knock it against anything because everything's really expensive. And I don't want to hit against my SM70, because it'll destroy it like it did last year. But
Dwight Brown: 43:15
Your desk collapses
David Turetsky: 43:17
God forbid. But, but dude again. Thank you very much. Take care. And everybody. Thank you for listening, take care and stay safe.
Announcer: 43:26
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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.
