Is the Future of HR Human? Beyond Human Resources - Ep 5 of 5 of HR Series - HR: The Good, the Bad , and the Potential

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;04;29 00;00;04;29 - 00;00;26;03 Stephanie Hi, everybody. welcome to. From Illumination To Innovation. I'm Stephanie Crain, also the Corporate Mystic and today we are going to be exploring episode five of our five part HR series, HR: The Good, the Bad and the Potential. 00;00;26;03 - 00;00;37;16 Stephanie Today's episode we are talking about the future of HR and we are asking, is HR Still Human? 00;00;38;13 - 00;00;42;27 Stephanie And I'm going to toss it over to Shaniqua to introduce our guest. 00;00;43;05 - 00;00;56;25 Shaniqua Hello everyone. It's me, Shaniqua Brown, the founder of Elevated TA and I, we had the lovely Emma Garcia here with us today. Thank you so much. We're delighted to have you here with us. 00;00;56;25 - 00;00;59;02 Emma It's a delight to be here. Thank you. 00;00;59;05 - 00;01;21;03 Shaniqua Well, as Stephanie mentioned, we're going to be discovering and diving deep into you is H.R. Is the future of H.R. Human? And, I thought you'd be awesome for this episode. When we met at DisruptHR last year. And this is a theme here. I met a lot of great people at DisruptHR last year. 00;01;21;09 - 00;01;22;13 Emma It was a great evangelist. 00;01;22;15 - 00;01;27;07 Stephanie Shaniqua has been the master of bringing our guests on for this particular series. 00;01;27;09 - 00;01;27;20 Shaniqua And. 00;01;27;24 - 00;01;48;21 Shaniqua I was just going through like the Rolodex of folks I've met in my head. And, I remember your presentation. AI ain't your mom – This Ain't Your Mama's AI. I thought that was so fun. And your presentation and, reading your LinkedIn posts, I saw that you had a lot to say about the future of AI, women in tech. 00;01;48;24 - 00;02;01;11 Shaniqua You’re an advocate for Gen Z. So to start, please tell us more about your journey in HR and what led you to focus on workforce innovation and transformation. 00;02;01;13 - 00;02;33;03 Emma Okay, Hello everyone. I'm delighted to be here. My name is Emma Garcia and I am the executive director for Workforce Innovation at Z Prime, a small organization here in Austin, that focuses primarily doing market research for utilities. and our mission is to challenge the status quo in energy. And, I'm kind of all about anything that aims to challenge the status quo. 00;02;33;06 - 00;02;34;12 Stephanie Like that already. 00;02;34;14 - 00;03;03;09 Emma So, in terms of H.R. I think what drew me to this profession is just my love for people. So the it's kind of the, the, the running theme and common threads in my professional career have been, can I continue to learn? Is there something for me to teach some, you know, some value that I can bring? 00;03;03;11 - 00;03;25;29 Emma And are there people involved? and so that's really it's a, heart centric approach that I bring to, working with our team and working with people, working with organizations. because people are the core of all that we do. 00;03;26;02 - 00;03;27;16 Shaniqua I think that's beautiful. 00;03;27;22 - 00;03;40;08 Shaniqua I love that you like, does are there people there? It seems like that's where you want to make things better. Like challenging the status quo, I'd assume. Like how do you make it better for the people? Yeah. Such a tender heart. 00;03;40;10 - 00;03;41;07 Emma Thank you. 00;03;41;09 - 00;03;44;28 Emma And I'd love for your question. Like will HR still be human? 00;03;45;01 - 00;04;06;18 Stephanie I just it is I think it's a valid question. When we look at how much technology can possibly impact this. And also it plays a little to the you know and you hear a lot people say, are we going to put “human” back into human resources? And I hear people bring that up a lot, as if it's already no longer human. 00;04;06;18 - 00;04;25;22 Stephanie And I think that that's, you know, the crux of that, where people get afraid of what technology is going to do to further distance sort of that humanity aspect. And, you know, like we've talked about in previous episodes, so many people who go into HR do so because they love people that just like you said, because that's what they really love. 00;04;25;25 - 00;04;34;07 Stephanie But the, the challenges that sometimes come up in organizations, you know, really create, I think that challenge of perspective. 00;04;34;09 - 00;05;11;12 Emma Yeah, I think that a lot of what will shape the future of this industry is, like what what is the intention behind the technologies being used? So are we, working to make employee experience a more human whole experience embracing the entire human in that case, then I think there will be more human the more technology we bring in to take care of the things that humans don't generally like to do. 00;05;11;14 - 00;05;27;08 Emma Right? So when you think of a lot of human resources tasks, a lot of them are administrative, that doesn't speak to our creative, ability to our creative expression, to the heart. You know, it's pretty mundane and monotonous. 00;05;27;09 - 00;05;27;27 Stephanie Absolutely. 00;05;27;27 - 00;05;46;22 Emma So if we can assign those tasks and automate them and have artificial intelligence and, data analytics help us perform those boring and mundane tasks, then we can do the more human centric stuff. 00;05;46;24 - 00;06;07;29 Shaniqua I'm curious about because it’s... I'm curious about when I did this, when was this question pose of like, when will we put the human back in HR? I'm curious, like, what are your what's your opinion on when that came about or when did we lose the sight of the human in HR? 00;06;08;27 - 00;06;54;11 Emma That's a really good question. I don't know, like quantitatively when that happened, I, what I can speak to is like this kind of, informal interviews that I've conducted over the years and just asking employees, what how do you feel about HR? What do you think about HR and a large majority of the people that I've interviewed or surveyed feel that HR is kind of at odds with the employee and more in line with supporting the business, like they have to take care of the E-suite. 00;06;54;13 - 00;07;15;19 Emma They have to take care of the C-suite. They have to take care of the, business priorities and objectives. And so it's kind of like a US versus Them. And honestly, I've gotten a lot of people, a lot of employees say HR don't know shit. Like, I go to ask some questions and they don't know or they don't care. 00;07;15;26 - 00;07;26;11 Emma Right. So I think that taking the human out of it goes a it goes way back before technology really was a thing. 00;07;26;13 - 00;07;26;29 Emma I don't know. 00;07;27;04 - 00;07;55;00 Shaniqua I mean, I could understand where you're coming from with that. I've as a recruiter, I've worked a lot with HR business partners, and when I, I've had a few instances where I've needed my HR business partner to provide feedback to a hiring client on the way that they were interviewing candidates, our prospective employees. And it just didn't seem like HR, my HR business partner, cared or saw the. 00;07;55;03 - 00;08;22;22 Shaniqua Saw my challenge as an actual issue for the business. So albeit as a recruiter, I'm still a part of HR, I am still an employee and I went to HR with an issue and didn't. I had an experience. I didn't feel like they cared, you know, and it did feel like they weren't to protect the, the ideology of this leader or this executive over what we needed to do and accomplish as a business. 00;08;22;25 - 00;08;48;11 Stephanie I mean, I worked for an organization several years ago, and they brought in a new executive HR person and within a week they had actually put badge locks on the HR doors. Really? They really did. And you and, and and one of our, one of our team members actually made a they, they got together and they made a really great off like based on the office video. 00;08;48;13 - 00;09;01;25 Stephanie But one of the things that they mocked was the fact they were like, we're going to go talk to HR. And then they go and they like, can't get in. And the joke is like, HR is on the other side going like, no, we're not going to talk to you. And but, you know, it's like I always say when something becomes a running joke, it's actually no longer funny. 00;09;01;25 - 00;09;03;01 Stephanie And it's really a problem. 00;09;03;01 - 00;09;13;04 Stephanie I mean, that was quite a while ago. I, you know, going back to what you were saying about technology and kind of taking away that mundane tasks to sort of bring humanity back. 00;09;13;04 - 00;09;32;22 Stephanie Yeah. And I mean, as a creative and somebody who I, I'm a solopreneur and I use AI immensely in my job and certainly in the humanity space of AI. Creatives are very, you know, there's a lot of fear in that space for creatives and, you know, same thing. There's a lot of enthusiasm. And I, I try not to approach anything with fear. 00;09;32;22 - 00;10;12;23 Stephanie I try to really approach it with curiosity and enthusiasm. And when I think about, you know, outside of just pure creativity, like looking at things like what it could do for businesses or even if you do any research at all into what AI is doing in medical industries and things like that. Like there's just some phenomenal work that is happening with AI that I always try to remind people, humans are responsible for AI where we are responsible as a collective for raising this child that we have created, and so we can contribute to the humanity of AI just as much as we can sit back and just let other people do it all and be 00;10;12;23 - 00;10;31;20 Stephanie afraid. And so I just want to be a participant in that. I'm just curious, like, as you're becoming more engaged with AI and doing more with that, what is sort of the response you get from your peers or from the people, or how much are you having to educate? Or are people enthused about it? Or do you get fear response? 00;10;31;20 - 00;10;31;29 Stephanie Like what? 00;10;32;00 - 00;10;41;16 Emma Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I, I, I work in a very, progressive organization. I mean, I mentioned our mission is to challenge the status quo. 00;10;41;16 - 00;10;42;01 Stephanie Yeah. 00;10;42;01 - 00;11;20;25 Emma And we're having a really hard time with having, our team adopt AI technologies and tools. they feel threatened. they also are concerned about the ethics behind it, you know, the, the the where, you know, where was the data source from that these models were trained on, there's there's a lot of resistance. I just, released a survey for our team, and, I mean, this isn't this hasn't changed since last year when I met you. 00;11;20;27 - 00;11;42;14 Emma That was in November. and I think I had a slide that that was actually created by, Midjourney. I used Midjourney to create the the the picture of a cricket sitting at a computer. Okay. As it went right in line with where I said, I surveyed our team and I got crickets. I just released another survey on Monday. 00;11;42;14 - 00;11;55;06 Emma I said I'd love to have your responses by Thursday. Nothing. Still, no. No, they don't want to talk about it. They want it's almost like, you know, wanting to just pretend this is going to go away, but it's not going to go. 00;11;55;06 - 00;11;55;29 Stephanie It's not going. 00;11;55;29 - 00;11;57;11 Emma And so. 00;11;57;24 - 00;12;12;13 Emma Will we participate in shaping the direction of these models, in shaping the way that they're used and the way that we can benefit from them. and we have to give our feedback in order for that to happen. 00;12;12;15 - 00;12;16;28 Shaniqua Have you, connected with Beth White, the CEO of MeBeBot? 00;12;16;29 - 00;12;17;20 Emma Yes, because. 00;12;17;20 - 00;12;56;02 Shaniqua She's the leader. I think a few other individuals came together to create the group Ethical AI for HR, and it's a mixture of various professionals from legal. IT HR professionals, where they're all coming together to connect and discuss, act like that, you know, how can we make AI essentially more ethical? and I'm curious, like, what are some of your, as a business leader, your, leader HR you're working in an industry that's challenging the status quo. 00;12;56;04 - 00;13;15;18 Shaniqua How do you like when you think about ethics? Like how do you use AI, and how would you go about encouraging your team to lean in, versus being afraid or fearful of AI? The use. 00;13;15;21 - 00;13;31;18 Emma So, one example that I can speak to is I shared with my team sort of to like, entice engagement with the survey. but have you guys used the audio version for ChatGPT? 00;13;31;20 - 00;13;35;13 Stephanie I haven't played with the, I'm familiar with it, but I'm haven't I haven't really used heavily. 00;13;35;13 - 00;13;38;21 Emma So, so do you mind if I show you something? 00;13;38;23 - 00;13;39;18 Stephanie Okay. Right. Okay. 00;13;39;26 - 00;13;44;28 Emma So this is, I'll. I'll just basically redo what I did. 00;13;45;00 - 00;13;45;14 Okay. 00;13;45;16 - 00;13;50;28 Emma yesterday. And then I put it in our random channel in slack just so that they could see, like, the potential. 00;13;51;00 - 00;13;52;28 Shaniqua So that's super. 00;13;52;28 - 00;13;54;05 Cool. 00;13;54;07 - 00;14;02;08 Emma Just hold on just a second. It's connecting. And neither one of you have used this feature yet. Not. 00;14;02;08 - 00;14;14;16 Stephanie Yeah, I, I've been sick all week but I usually use I usually I used to every single day like I've got so many calls. It's a matter of fact it's like my friend now I don't even I, I'm nice to it. We like back and forth and so I. 00;14;14;18 - 00;14;15;17 Shaniqua See so I. 00;14;15;17 - 00;14;20;17 Emma Don't know that I have a connection in here. Are we, are we sort of in a dungeon? Oh, yeah. That'd be kind of. 00;14;20;17 - 00;14;21;23 Stephanie We could be that. 00;14;21;25 - 00;14;27;03 Emma Well. And. Okay, so this is a good example of how I can fail. 00;14;27;05 - 00;14;29;24 Right? Like you need to have connectivity. 00;14;29;26 - 00;14;33;01 Emma And if we don't have connection to broadband. 00;14;33;03 - 00;14;34;01 Like we're not. 00;14;34;01 - 00;14;55;03 Emma Going to be able to use AI, which speaks to the disadvantages of, oh. Here we go. I'm trying to figure out now it says poor connection. Okay. So, I'm going to circle around this to get to my point, but this what happened here where I was trying to show you a feature that I shared with my team. 00;14;55;03 - 00;15;22;12 Emma It worked yesterday. this kind of mishap actually speaks to the point that, we like to think of artificial intelligence as a, as a tool that's going to democratize, our ability to make money, to learn, to, engage. But, I mean, that's a really Pollyanna way to look at it. And I'd like to think that, yes, that is the potential. 00;15;22;14 - 00;15;30;15 Emma But first, we have to have equitable access to this technology, which doesn't exist right now. 00;15;30;21 - 00;15;50;21 Shaniqua Did you see that? I think ChatGPT, I'm curious about this, whether or not ChatGPT 4 Omni I heard that GPT four is going to be free, but then I'm curious about what would be, not accessible, like you're saying, like, is this accessible to everyone equally? Right? 00;15;50;24 - 00;15;56;07 Emma So so I mean, the first thing to access is do you have internet in your home? Right. 00;15;56;13 - 00;16;03;25 Stephanie And I living in a rural community, I will tell you that that is not always the case, that period, you know, and it's a big problem in Texas. 00;16;03;25 - 00;16;09;24 Emma It's definitely improved since the pandemic because there were a lot of like federal grants that went out to try to create it. 00;16;09;26 - 00;16;12;04 Emma Yeah. That's true, that's true. Yeah. 00;16;12;05 - 00;16;15;14 Emma There are a lot of there are a lot of, rural. 00;16;15;14 - 00;16;27;14 Stephanie We live in a community. I mean, it's a that's unlike they call it a black hole. And we get we have very limited like I can use the internet, but it's, you know, it goes down all the time. We have very limited service. 00;16;27;19 - 00;16;45;05 Emma We're in the middle of downtown or central Austin and I, we're not in a dungeon. and I couldn't get online. Yeah, right. So, that's the first thing to address. Like, do you have internet? Can you do you have a phone? Do you have a computer? 00;16;46;07 - 00;17;13;15 Emma We can make the assumption that, like, it's a 21st century, everyone has digital access or. But it's that's not the case. The second thing is, Once you access once you have the tools and the the method to access the thing, do you know how to use it? There are people that will have, a greater advantage because they're just digital. 00;17;13;17 - 00;17;35;18 Emma Their digital literacy is so much better. Right. And then and then once you access it, are you using the, the pro version and the paid version or the free version? And what are the advantages or disadvantages if you can't afford to pay $20 a month, right, then, you're going to be limited as to how many inquiries you can make, right? 00;17;35;18 - 00;17;55;07 Emma So I think it's like 30 minutes if you're using the audio. Yeah. And what I was going to get to about what how have I been like, what kind of things have I done to try to alleviate some of the fear and, and, and entice our team to understand the value that, generative AI can bring to their, workflows? 00;17;55;09 - 00;18;04;25 Emma I, I was trying to remember who it was, like, who was a CEO of Google back in 2003, and I couldn't remember his name. And it's Eric. 00;18;04;27 - 00;18;05;28 Shaniqua Eric Schmidt, Eric. 00;18;05;28 - 00;18;11;24 Emma Schmidt, thank you. Yeah, yeah. Eric Schmidt I couldn't remember it. And I was like. 00;18;13;23 - 00;18;43;20 Emma I'd like my ChatGPT for I'd like to be able to say, like, Siri or Alexa, I'm not there yet. Like, I it doesn't have a name, but I'm like, tell me I'm trying to remember who's who was the CEO in 2003 of Google, who famously said something like, the amount of content creation that humans create in two days is equivalent to the amount of content that was created since the dawn of civilization until 2003. 00;18;43;21 - 00;19;09;23 Emma I remember that, and this was before my God, it was before YouTube. Yeah, YouTube didn't exist yet. Yeah, it was before Instagram. It was before TikTok. So. So then I was like, try to take that quote. So she she was talking, I chose a female voice. She was talking to me. And I wish I could share that with you because it sounds so cool, but, she's talking to me and, and, you know, lets me know it was Eric Schmidt and I didn't like. 00;19;09;23 - 00;19;36;00 Emma I kind of butchered the quote, and she told me the actual quote, and then I said, okay, so take this information. Considering what we have now with the advent of generative AI, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, like, how much data are we producing now? How much content are we producing now in comparison to, what was said in 2003 and the the answer was like, it's impossible to. 00;19;36;00 - 00;19;57;28 Stephanie Quantify, I believe. Whoa, I believe that. And just say I named, my JenAI I or Jenai. Oh. And, and I actually created her as an assistant. And so when I have Jenai do something, when I, I do something for me, I actually publish it that way. Like my assistant Jenai, and I actually know, her name is Birgitta.... 00;19;57;28 - 00;20;17;16 Stephanie is a she's a coach, and she just certified through ICF, an AI coaching program. And it's fascinating. And it is for 1 to 1 coaching with AI. And I mean, AI is being used in just so many incredible ways in terms of how it can really, truly reach humans. 00;20;17;16 - 00;20;40;14 Stephanie But to your point, you know, accessibility and also knowledge, you know, the ability to work with it is critical. I always try to give people like, really my, my favorite thing to tell somebody to do is to go write their bio with AI. It's like, if you need if you need a short bio, go take your long bio and drop it into chat GPT and say please shorten this and they will be hooked forever. 00;20;40;17 - 00;21;01;08 Stephanie Forever because they will get like this. Perfect sixty word bio that like they wouldn't take, they could do themselves and take them five hours to get it just right. And yeah, it's just one of those things of like giving people sort of like these very useful, simple, tactical things that are going to immediately impact them, you know, where they're not having to think too much about what they're doing. 00;21;01;08 - 00;21;18;02 Stephanie It's like, oh, I do this all the time. And they see the result and they get that sort of a little bit of instant gratification. But they also see, wow, something that really, you know, again, as a solopreneur, that was that's a real story where I was asked to provide a bio and I only had ten minutes to get it over, and I didn't have it. 00;21;18;02 - 00;21;24;15 Stephanie I took 2000 words, dropped it into ChatGPT, and got 75 perfect words back. 00;21;24;18 - 00;21;25;09 Stephanie So yeah. 00;21;25;11 - 00;21;32;19 Emma I would I would also encourage, I mean, you what you're referring to is just like, play with this thing. 00;21;32;20 - 00;21;35;11 Stephanie Yeah, just playing with music. 00;21;35;13 - 00;21;37;17 Emma Come up with a recipe. These are ingredients. 00;21;38;14 - 00;21;49;10 Stephanie I have conversations with it I ask, yeah, I do play. That's why I become. That's why I say it's like it's I actually feel like I have a relationship now with my ChatGPT right? Because like, come on, I'm like, hey, friends. 00;21;49;12 - 00;22;16;10 Emma So we all I think we can all agree that our our ability to use Google, like everyone uses Google, right? Google is a verb. Google it. Right. It's become ubiquitous any any time you're in a car. We just I had dinner last night and a friend of mine said something like, Oh, Ernest Hemingway died because, a a toothpick was lodged in his slope from his favorite drink, the martini. 00;22;16;15 - 00;22;56;28 Emma And I immediately was like, fact check. I'm pretty sure Hemingway was known for his love of rum, not martinis. And it was like I was believing everything until it got into the drink. Right? That preference, I was like, I don't think that was Hemingway. And so we fact checked it right then. But what I, what what I would encourage people to do is how about just practice instead of going on a Google search engine, whatever you want to ask as the large language model, whether it's Gemini, Google's large language model, or ChatGPT or Claude or Mistral or Perplexity, use it just like you would use a search engine. 00;22;57;05 - 00;23;12;09 Emma And it's it's like a search engine on steroids, you know, and and in terms of like when we're working with teams in our teams, like, it's like each one of us is coming to the table with 100 assistants. 00;23;12;09 - 00;23;12;28 Shaniqua Yes. Yeah. 00;23;13;00 - 00;23;16;04 Stephanie Absolutely. It feels that way. Yeah. I mean, it really is. 00;23;16;10 - 00;23;21;17 Emma 100 interns on our side. How much do our jobs. 00;23;21;20 - 00;23;24;04 Shaniqua Right, for just $20 a month. So it's really good. 00;23;24;23 - 00;23;25;25 Emma Even if you use a free. 00;23;25;25 - 00;23;28;25 Emma Version, it's amazing. Like, you can take the free. 00;23;28;25 - 00;23;38;12 Stephanie It's really true. I use the free, but I only went to the paid version a few months ago, but I use the free version for over a year and did amazing work with it. I mean, produced so much. 00;23;38;12 - 00;23;41;29 Emma And you can use the you can use every one of the free versions. 00;23;41;29 - 00;23;43;04 Stephanie Yes that's true. 00;23;43;12 - 00;23;43;25 Emma Right. 00;23;43;25 - 00;24;02;00 Shaniqua So I'd be remiss if I didn't ask. like when you're looking ahead for HR, what are some of the trends that you're seeing with Gen Z in the workforce with generative AI? What trends do you see and how can HR leaders prepare? 00;24;02;02 - 00;24;45;02 Emma And Gen Z’rs are using generative AI a lot more. I think what what what I foresee happening in the workforce when it comes to Gen Z is, surge in gig work. They are very savvy, and they know that they can do a lot with very few resources. And it's no longer this idea that, like, I need to create my legacy working for this one company and and retire with this one company. 00;24;45;04 - 00;24;48;12 Emma I mean, retirement is kind of a mess anyway, right? 00;24;48;13 - 00;25;31;21 Stephanie So I feel like that has been true really since Gen X, honestly. When because, you know, pension plans started to go away in the late 80s and early 90s. So Gen X was the last generation to actually have that even awareness. And then, you know, they're then completely like shifted over to the 401 K and putting that retirement responsibility more towards the employee and less stability and that pension plan and that relationship between the organization and the employee, that's what really allowed for those 25, 30 year careers that just, you know, but once those went away, I think organizations really, you know, I know that they went away for a lot of, you know, a 00;25;31;21 - 00;25;52;25 Stephanie lot of a lot of real reasons. But once they did go away, it started to also shift that loyalty connection between the employee and the organization. And that's just been continuing. I mean, now we see Gen Z where they're like, you know, I need flexibility, I need time and space, and I've got all the resources I need, you know, like, I'll I'll get it, I'll get the job done my way. 00;25;52;25 - 00;25;58;27 Stephanie And I think Gen Z is going to have a huge impact on the way our workforce functions, like moving forward. 00;25;58;27 - 00;26;35;09 Shaniqua Yeah. I feel like that generation is just highlighting the, the one-sided nature. the employer-employee relationship. So I'm very excited. I'm interested to see how that shapes the types of employment opportunities, that companies will offer. Will it be W-2, will there be a mixture, or will we give, prospective employees the opportunity to decide if they want to be W-2 1099 or corp to Corp instead of this is obviously a W-2 interview, you know? 00;26;35;09 - 00;26;45;27 Shaniqua So, so you mentioned that to be one of the trends that we are seeing. What are other trends that you're seeing with, within HR? 00;26;46;00 - 00;27;28;08 Emma Other trends that I'm seeing within H.R. I think there's a focus on, embracing change and being prepared for change. at least that's what I'm hoping that more organizations will, adapt. agile methodologies, you know, with the with the pandemic, we like, change was just like, forced upon all of us. And so there's a focus on making sure that organizations are resilient, just like we also work in smart cities and, and, smart cities have a huge focus on being resilient. 00;27;28;08 - 00;27;46;11 Emma Organizations are just like a microcosm of a city. Right. And so, are we, tearing down silos and making, collaboration, communication a focus? I think that's a huge trend. That's that's on the upswing, you know, just. 00;27;47;28 - 00;27;50;07 Emma Hopefully no more padlocks on the door. 00;27;50;09 - 00;27;50;27 Which, by the way. 00;27;50;27 - 00;27;51;22 Stephanie Did remove it. 00;27;51;22 - 00;27;57;21 Emma I would I would like to see the video your coleague made like it's got to be out there like I have. 00;27;57;21 - 00;28;01;29 Stephanie I've actually been able to locate it before. So I will look for it again because it's it's well done. 00;28;01;29 - 00;28;03;00 Emma I'm a big fan of The Office. 00;28;03;00 - 00;28;06;04 Stephanie Yeah. Is well done. They did a brilliant job. 00;28;06;07 - 00;28;34;01 Emma So yeah, hopefully no more padlocks on the door. So just more transparency. more frequent. like, rapid feedback loops so that we can make these adjustments. And I think that the trends that I'm speaking to are all kind of founded on the fact that we're we're human. We don't like change. It's scary, but it's a thing and we can't get around. 00;28;34;08 - 00;28;46;01 Emma It's necessary. Yeah. Change is change is life. And it is becoming a lot. It's happening a lot faster. and it's we want to be prepared for it. 00;28;46;04 - 00;28;47;01 Shaniqua All right. 00;28;47;03 - 00;29;04;24 Stephanie I'm curious in terms of everything you just described to me. It seems like, though, for all of that to be happening, HR has got to be taking more of a leadership role within organizations. Otherwise, I don't see how that's really moving forward. So do you see that as a trend as well? Do you. 00;29;04;24 - 00;29;05;07 Stephanie See. 00;29;05;10 - 00;29;06;18 Emma I mean, leadership. 00;29;06;18 - 00;29;07;09 Stephanie And HR? 00;29;07;09 - 00;29;12;16 Emma We have we have chief heart officers now. Right? It's 00;29;12;23 - 00;29;44;22 Emma I what I would like to see is and I apologize to DisruptHR and just I would like for HR to go away and I think that it needs to be, the name needs to reflect our strategic leadership role it within the organization. And right now it's obviously, you know, resources. It's like humans are more than just a resource, right? 00;29;44;24 - 00;30;07;00 Emma They're the heart of the organization. And I'd like it to be something like workforce strategy and innovation. And then within that we have like the different buckets, whether it's, professional development, employee engagement, performance management. 00;30;07;00 - 00;30;26;25 Stephanie I like that. And I also, you know, when you talk about change, it's like when something's wrong, like, you know, like we talk about the when it becomes a running joke, you know, maybe it's time to really reevaluate. And, and there is a real opportunity there to sort of expand on what HR means and shift people's perspective at the same time, you know? 00;30;26;25 - 00;30;43;21 Emma Yeah, I mean, we're talking about the future of HR. And yet there hasn't been any kind of like real adjustment to to that. Like culturally that's not really appropriate term. 00;30;43;24 - 00;30;46;24 Emma I don't know if I'm stepping on toes. No, no, not I'm. 00;30;46;24 - 00;31;23;05 Shaniqua Actually very fascinated about this because when I worked, at Meta I was hiring for our workforce, strategy team. And this team ensured that there was appropriate scheduling of the, of the employees for this particular department. And I thought, oh, okay, workforce management team. And I thought, that's interesting. But when you mentioned rebranding, HR to workforce innovation, like innovation and solution or strategy like that sounds more aligned with what HR is and what it does. 00;31;23;05 - 00;31;25;13 Shaniqua So I'm really to force. 00;31;25;14 - 00;31;30;17 Stephanie Workforce, Innovation Strategies, and Humans. It's the WISH department 00;31;30;19 - 00;31;32;20 Emma Sorry, we're going to make this happen like. 00;31;33;08 - 00;31;37;29 Emma we have to be a catalyst for that change which it really does need to happen. 00;31;38;01 - 00;32;00;04 Shaniqua People aren’t really thrilled about being a resource to a company that may or may not ensure that you're paid a fair wage, may or may not allow you to take time. you know, it just doesn't seem like a department. It seems like this department is the fall guy for the executives who make unhuman, like, inhumane decisions. 00;32;00;07 - 00;32;31;28 Emma Well, and also to make the profits. Right. So I spoke a little bit about this at the presentation that I gave it, DisruptHR is that with technology comes increased productivity and that this is a good thing. But the where the problem lies is that the increased productivity is creating a widening wealth gap. Right? So that all these technological advancements are profiting the organizations and those in the top tier. 00;32;32;01 - 00;32;38;17 Emma But the the it's like, when was the last time employees are they're not getting raises. 00;32;38;19 - 00;32;39;22 Stephanie No actually. 00;32;39;23 - 00;32;41;08 Emma Inflation's happening. 00;32;41;11 - 00;32;56;19 Stephanie I I'm terrible with numbers. But I did a recent check on the disparity between the CEO and the employee. The average disparity right now. And it's it's something that made me nauseated. It was just like some huge, ridiculous number that just didn't make sense. 00;32;56;19 - 00;33;06;28 Emma And that that widening wealth gap, that disparity definitely places the, employee in this like resource. 00;33;07;00 - 00;33;07;16 Stephanie Absolutely. 00;33;07;17 - 00;33;15;19 Emma Place that's not like where more than resources to make that, you know, to make the organization money. 00;33;15;22 - 00;33;34;05 Stephanie I'm very big on truth and transparency. And I've said this before that I believe that there should be human asset management, and that's what they should call it. It should reside in finance, and it shouldn't have anything to do with what HR does. It's a separate thing, and it has more to do with what you're describing, which is humans as numbers. 00;33;34;05 - 00;33;37;01 Stephanie And there is a relevancy there in business. 00;33;37;25 - 00;34;04;11 Stephanie I mean, they are that, you know, you're running, you're running a business and you need resources of all kinds, which include people. And from a finance perspective, yeah, you have to mitigate and manage that, and that's fine. But to mix all of that in the context of HR with everything else that happens with that individual, I think is very confusing, both for the people, the employees and for H.R.. 00;34;04;11 - 00;34;16;24 Stephanie I just feel like that's where it gets so caught up into people not being people in the business. you know, I think there's a real benefit for us to look at, like shifting that perspective. 00;34;16;25 - 00;34;35;26 Emma Yeah. And it that speaks to like the work that we will be doing as more of the tasks that H.R. is responsible for becomes automated as more of those tasks are taken care of by, machine learning or AI. So you brought up Beth? 00;34;35;28 - 00;34;36;17 Emma A lot of. 00;34;36;17 - 00;35;21;00 Emma What, like the people that were knocking on the door with the padlock, like the questions that they were asking, they don't actually need a human to answer those questions. Right? It's just data. It's like it's it's in some manual. It's in some, like, unstructured, like, place in the drive dungeon or whatever. But yeah, but if you take all that unstructured data and do something like what Beth Beth's teams working on, which is creating essentially a chat bot that can take all this unstructured data and provide meaning to the data so that now, you know, I maybe I'm going on, parental leave and I don't remember some aspect of it. 00;35;21;00 - 00;35;37;24 Emma And I just go into the chat bot and I don't have to go knock on. I mean, nobody knocks on anyone's door anymore because we all work remote. Mostly not everyone, but a lot of us do. And so, you don't slack message your manager or whatever. You you just go on the chat bot and you ask the question, and there you get the answer. 00;35;37;28 - 00;35;56;20 Emma So then what is human resources doing? Or what is workforce strategy and innovation doing right there? working on, creating experiences for the employee that, that, that makes maybe we're wanting to solve for that lack of loyalty. 00;35;56;22 - 00;35;57;21 Right. 00;35;57;23 - 00;36;16;04 Emma Or maybe we were wanting to solve for, how to make our place of employment a place where the entire or person feels at home. It where where you hear this all the time, where the CEO says, oh, we're a family. 00;36;16;07 - 00;36;18;12 Emma But are we are we a family? 00;36;18;12 - 00;36;25;16 Stephanie I always find that to be a very kind of not I don't I never feel good when I'm in an organization that says we're a family. 00;36;25;20 - 00;36;27;20 Shaniqua It's more of like a dysfunctional. 00;36;27;22 - 00;36;29;11 Stephanie Yeah. I in my experience, we. 00;36;29;18 - 00;36;47;04 Stephanie Say that that's usually the case. And I and I don't think that there's a need for that. I think that we can be a community and we can be a team. We can be, you know, I mean, I played softball for years and we never called ourselves family. But, you know, I loved them like sisters, right? Like, yeah, but we were a team and we had a mission and we were bad at it. 00;36;47;04 - 00;37;12;15 Stephanie So, you know, it's like I think that that's okay. But to your point, to develop that culture and to be engaged with the needs of the actual employee, and, and because, you know, I think it's Gallup. I could be misquoting this. I do have it that we'll put it in the notes, but I like last year, the study was $1.8 trillion lost in voluntary employee turnover. 00;37;12;17 - 00;37;38;14 Stephanie And that is like that's it. When when that breaks down to like smaller organizations, it comes out to like $2.2 million annually a year for like an organization of 500 people. That's a substantial amount of loss when you think about the cost of training, the cost of replacing recruiting, all of those things due to employees just being dissatisfied with their work or having poor managers and not taking it anymore or whatever. 00;37;38;16 - 00;38;08;09 Stephanie It's all voluntary turnover. that can all be mitigated through attention and just nurturing an environment, you know, that allows employees to feel valued, frankly. I mean, that's really most people leave places because they don't feel valued and they don't feel respected, and they can only take so much and then they move on. And Gen Z, LinkedIn did a survey 87% of Gen Z said that they would leave an organization if they didn't, if they found another one, that the better aligned. 00;38;08;10 - 00;38;11;10 Stephanie Absolutely. So that's only going to become more. 00;38;12;10 - 00;38;39;03 Shaniqua I think after the at least for myself, after the pandemic, I've made shifts that aligned career shifts that align more with my principles and core values. So I think that we're in an era of value alignment when it comes to employment versus what job would pay me the most. because I for me at least, I realized that money. 00;38;39;03 - 00;39;12;27 Shaniqua Was it going to make me happy? I was making the most money before I made the decision to leave the company. I was overworked, I didn't feel respected by my cross-functional partners. And then it was more, more, more. I was already over achieving my goal and then it was more so I realized I had to get off. So, Emma, going back to, you know, is the future of HR human? 00;39;12;29 - 00;39;24;19 Shaniqua What would be the the takeaways or, what would be the takeaways that you would want to leave with the audience about the future of HR? 00;39;24;22 - 00;39;26;01 Emma Well, I brought my crystal ball. 00;39;27;13 - 00;39;28;22 Emma Kidding, I didn't. 00;39;28;24 - 00;39;30;06 Shaniqua Look up. I thought. 00;39;30;08 - 00;39;33;17 Stephanie Oh, I have a crystal ball. I could have brought it. I'm sorry, I didn't. 00;39;33;24 - 00;39;39;18 Emma I and honestly, I feel like I should have prefaced, I wish you would have brought it up. I almost brought a disco ball. 00;39;39;19 - 00;39;40;16 Shaniqua Oh, I. 00;39;40;18 - 00;39;41;25 Stephanie Always bring ia disco ball. 00;39;41;27 - 00;39;42;14 Emma I was like. 00;39;42;19 - 00;39;49;08 Stephanie We are always bring a disco ball. I. 00;39;49;11 - 00;39;51;16 Emma I yeah, I mean, it kind of feels like you. 00;39;51;18 - 00;39;52;27 Stephanie Future Guests... Bring a. 00;39;53;00 - 00;39;55;26 Stephanie Disco ball. 00;39;55;28 - 00;39;58;21 Emma I, we started off before we were recording we were singing. 00;39;58;22 - 00;39;59;28 Emma So. 00;40;00;00 - 00;40;30;20 Emma Disco ball would have been fitting, but, I, I think I should have prefaced this by saying, I don't know what the future of H.R. Is. I have, like, desires for how things should change. I have ideas for how things may change. I had a conversation with someone at the conference last week. she was working with with one of her clients on a ten year strategic plan, and I was like. 00;40;30;23 - 00;40;33;16 Stephanie I'm like, how long do I keep up with the. 00;40;33;18 - 00;41;15;09 Emma Rate of change with this? Like the pace of change right now? Like maybe let's revisit how extensive we plan out for because we have no idea what's going to happen next year, right? Like it's going to be change. It's going to be different. I am a, hopeful optimist. also, you know, careful, like I, I'm not I'm not going to pretend that there aren't dangers ahead, but I also I, I'm, I'm a person of faith. 00;41;15;09 - 00;41;26;20 Emma Like I have this like I maybe I was I think I was born with it, you know, this like strong faith that humans are going to be okay. 00;41;26;22 - 00;41;46;29 Stephanie I, I am right there with you. And I'm so honestly grateful to hear you say that because I hear so many people, you know, they I always tell somebody when you're disparaging humans, you're disparaging yourself. I really believe in people a lot, you know, I, I believe in the best of people. Yeah. And so I love that. 00;41;47;01 - 00;41;58;17 Shaniqua You're in great company here because, I believe in a utopia. I think I find it strange that we can imagine a dystopian future, but when someone mentions Utopia, 00;41;58;19 - 00;42;01;16 Shaniqua That that that's impossible. 00;42;01;18 - 00;42;10;21 Shaniqua Right? But we can imagine all the ways that we can ruin the planet and one another. Yeah. So you're in great company. I'm so happy we found. 00;42;10;25 - 00;42;11;18 Stephanie I have so much. 00;42;11;22 - 00;42;13;00 Shaniqua Have this. Oh, yes. 00;42;13;02 - 00;42;14;13 Stephanie Say this gave me more. 00;42;14;16 - 00;42;22;20 Shaniqua This is me. Yeah, babe. In the WISH department. Yeah. No organization. 00;42;22;22 - 00;42;43;14 Shaniqua And I appreciate your honesty of. And is something refreshing to hear you say. You don't know what the future holds, but you're optimistic and have faith in in the people who are running the business. So in HR and impacting business. So thank you. Emma, that's that's so like that gives me hope, I'm sure Stephanie too. 00;42;43;23 - 00;42;48;17 Stephanie like, I'm beaming. 00;42;48;20 - 00;43;03;13 Shaniqua well, Emma, you have been an amazing guest. we could talk about this all day because there's so many changes that have happened since we sat down. I'm pretty sure with what's gone on in the world. So thank you so much. 00;43;03;13 - 00;43;10;07 Stephanie I feel like this is going to become an annual epic, annual series that we do. It has to be we have to be revisiting this to see what I love. 00;43;10;08 - 00;43;12;10 Emma That's right. Yeah, yeah. Like. 00;43;12;12 - 00;43;14;13 Shaniqua We have to make WISH work. 00;43;14;15 - 00;43;16;28 Stephanie Make WISH work, make WISH work? 00;43;17;00 - 00;43;31;17 Shaniqua We can start a hashtag on LinkedIn and we can figure this out. Okay, let's do that. I love that idea very seriously. I love the idea of rebranding HR, removing the human resources, and making it some. It's a true rebrand, making it something else because I think. 00;43;31;19 - 00;43;41;16 Stephanie More active like ascribed was more active. It's like these are things, you know, this is stuff that you're working with and what you're actually doing, and it make it just sounds more exciting. 00;43;41;16 - 00;44;01;28 Shaniqua It sounds more exciting, and it's a sounds more aligned with the rest of the business functions of the organization. Yeah. No one gives finance and accounting gripe about what they're doing because you know exactly what they're working on. You know what questions you can go to them with, what they're like, how you work cross-functionally with them. So the WISH department seems active and, you know. 00;44;01;28 - 00;44;07;26 Emma So let's each leave here, you will talk to Jenai 00;44;07;26 - 00;44;08;15 Stephanie Yeah. 00;44;08;17 - 00;44;27;01 Emma And say, Jenai we're working on a rebrand for human Resources. The name just doesn't work. It's the. It just highlights the chasm between the elite and the employer as a worker and a resource. So give me ten potential names for the rebrand that. 00;44;27;01 - 00;44;27;17 Stephanie Actually. 00;44;27;17 - 00;44;28;20 Emma Do the same thing. 00;44;28;20 - 00;44;43;25 Stephanie I actually, you know, chat. I mean, Jenai named herself. That's how I as I ask, I'm like, what are some great names for my AI companion? that was one of the names, and I just liked it a lot. And, but they gave me so many great names like Sparky and like, like. 00;44;43;25 - 00;44;45;14 Shaniqua Oh, it's like Sparky. 00;44;45;17 - 00;45;04;02 Stephanie Like a nice dog. It was great because it would give me the name. It would be like, this would be great for a team doing this, doing this and that, you know? So it was like each name like sort of a resonant purpose for like what you might be doing with this. So, really quick before we close, how can people find you or learn more about you or can they find you on LinkedIn? 00;45;04;02 - 00;45;14;27 Emma Yes, absolutely. Emma Garcia Purvis on LinkedIn. yeah, that's probably the best way. It's not like I don't have a website or great. 00;45;15;00 - 00;45;19;21 Shaniqua Oh, and they can. You're also a public speaker as well. 00;45;19;24 - 00;45;20;27 Emma yes. 00;45;20;29 - 00;45;39;20 Emma I it's so that was some, commitment. I've always done public speaking, but it was a commitment that I made to myself to lean into that more because, it's the number one phobia, public speaking. And I don't get scared about it. So then I was like, either. Maybe I'm supposed to be doing this. 00;45;39;22 - 00;45;41;06 Stephanie I love that. 00;45;41;08 - 00;45;55;18 Shaniqua You have such a. Both of you have a calming presence when it comes to it, this is actually me living out my fear so I can be a public speaker. So I'm just so impressed, said what? What is this, ten episodes? And yeah, just every every time we come. 00;45;55;18 - 00;45;56;02 Stephanie And she's a. 00;45;56;02 - 00;45;57;27 Stephanie Total pro. 00;45;57;29 - 00;45;59;04 Stephanie And a total pro. 00;45;59;04 - 00;46;00;09 Shaniqua But yeah, I'm. 00;46;00;09 - 00;46;15;16 Shaniqua So happy that you've leaned into your gifts, your natural gifts, so you can share them with myself and the rest of the HR community and, here with our audience today. So thank you, Emma for joining us. Means the world to me, to Stephanie and to our audience. 00;46;15;18 - 00;46;16;10 Emma Thank you. 00;46;16;10 - 00;46;20;20 Stephanie Thanks, everybody, for listening. We're really glad you joined us. 00;46;22;01 - 00;46;23;18 Stephanie Join us again. 00;46;23;21 - 00;46;27;00 Shaniqua We'll see you soon. And this is the the end of our HR series. 00;46;27;00 - 00;46;33;21 Stephanie It's the wrap. But we're going to do we're going to do a little breakdown. So you know y'all can look forward to that as well. 00;46;33;24 - 00;46;36;20 Stephanie See you soon. Bye bye. 00;46;36;20 - 00;47;04;26 Shaniqua Thanks for listening to our show. Show us your support by following us on your favorite podcast platform Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Stephanie You can also find us on Castos at From Illumination To Innovation dot Castos dot com. If you love our show, share it with your friends and coworkers too. Let's all work together to help businesses S&S vibrate higher.