3Sixty Insights HRTechChat

Our latest guest on #HRTechChat is Josh Rock, talent acquisition manager at Nuss Truck Group Inc. With locations in Minnesota and Wisconsin, the company sells and services various brands of medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks and heavy equipment for construction. Before entering the field of recruiting at organizations of various sizes and in a number of industries, Josh spent the better part of a decade in sales at JobDig Media. He brings an uncommon perspective to the podcast, and following is an elaboration on three of the many areas of interest we covered:

In many key ways, recruiters are your organization's ambassadors. In many instances, they're the first representatives of your organizations that your prospective employees (and, at times, future customers) meet. As part of an effort to maximize their positive impact, it's important to equip your front-line emissaries in talent acquisition with technology that makes them as efficient as possible in their work.

It may be obvious, but it bears underscoring: Small organizations are more apt to adopt new thinking faster, and this is because bureaucracy has yet to set in and become an impediment to innovation when it comes to products and services or procedure, approach and process. Josh witnessed this firsthand in proposing the production of high-quality videos to help recruiters and Nuss Truck Group itself present a unified, rich depiction of the employer brand not only to prospective employees (for whom there is significant competition regionally with others in the organization's same business), but also existing employees. Josh notes that he was pleasantly surprised by the speed with which leadership gave him the go-ahead for this program and leeway to make it happen as he sees fit.

The mix of technology for talent acquisition is really, really important and hinges on factors such as the size, geographic footprint, and industry of the business. At Nuss Truck Group, Josh inherited an applicant tracking system (ATS) from Ceridian Dayforce and recently implemented Emissary.ai, a text recruiting software, to help anyone recruiting for the organization reach prospects via the media where those candidates are most apt to respond. (Service techs tend not to do email, for example.) In our conversation, Josh mentioned that a solution such as iCIMS or other "Cadillacs" of talent acquisition, as good as they are, wouldn't make sense for his employer. For a similar reason, solutions such as Zip Recruiter, which may create an extra step in the recruiting process, may be advantageous for some organizations, but not for his.

As noted, Josh used to work in business development in the HCM space and knows how vendors sell their technology. He brought a fresh, interesting perspective to #HRTechChat, and it was a pleasure to have him as our guest.

3Sixty Insights welcomed Jeanniey Walden, chief innovation and marketing officer of DailyPay, Inc., to the latest episode of #HRTechChat, where we explored the idea that the act of paying employees is much more than the operational aspects of running payroll. Any employer that solves frustrations related to pay can be exceptionally effective in influencing employees' feelings and, related, their motivation to be productive. Following are a few of the interesting ideas we covered during our illuminating conversation:

The exchange of physical or mental energy for pay is arguably the single most important aspect of employment.

Even so, employees have for years experimented or interacted with pay very little on a daily basis. Limitations of technology have been the largest impediment.

Mobile technology and social media have played a key role in catalyzing an expansion of our attitudes toward pay -- and can make getting paid a sharing experience not unlike getting coffee. (Jeanniey explains....)

Put differently, pay can be much, much more than a number to set and forget, more than an event that takes place in the background every one or two weeks.

Pay can and should also be an experience, and a good place to start making pay more than a number is to make the receiving of it as flexible as possible.

There is very little excuse today, with the state of technology, for the operational aspects of pay to be rigid.

COVID-19 has helped show just how much flexibility is necessary in pay.

The focus of regulations today in the realm of pay is mostly on more concrete aspects of it, and that is because society prioritizes the idea of getting paid on time.

It will be interesting when and whether regulatory bodies decide that humans are entitled to more abstract aspects of employment in pay and elsewhere.

Everyone is always fighting extinction or moving forward; this relates profoundly and inescapably to pay.

With the picturesque Australian outdoors as his backdrop, Mike Erlin, CEO and co-founder of AbilityMap, joined 3Sixty Insights in the early morning his time for this episode of #HRTechChat. A fellow alum of Cornerstone OnDemand, Mike brings ideas that slot right into the future of work. Employers today have the tools to understand their organizational culture like never before. Mike delves into some specifics and explains why any company can ward off a plethora of related challenges before they even take root. Much of the way forward distills down to the deployment of the right psychometric instrument. But there's much more to it, and if you enjoy geeking out on human capital management, then you'll have fun following our conversation. Here's some of what we covered:

How can organizations start getting deliberate and methodical about changing an employer culture?

Why are pizza Fridays, though a nice gesture, not an effective way to build an employer culture?

What are some of the attitudes that may have held the world of work back in resolving to evaluate and train for soft skills?

Why is now the time to start doing so?

How can learning benefit to become far more efficient?

How does Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs fit into this?

What do our basic vs. aspirational needs have to do with the history and timeline of the Fourth and Fifth Industrial Revolutions?

What matters to a CFO when it comes to investing in the development of soft skills?

How did COVID-19 surprise organizations in terms of inventorying and understanding the capabilities existing in their workforce?

Is it really possible to have an entire team of individuals who truly dig what they're doing for work?

Nicole Roberts, vice president of people and culture at MVAH Partners, joined 3Sixty Insights for this episode of #HRTechChat. A member of the 3Sixty Insights Global Executive Advisory Council, Nicole started in her leadership role at MVAH a year ago, in March 2020 -- just as the flurry of pandemic-related restrictions unfolded in the United States. The disruption profoundly affected the nature of her first several months on the job. On day one, for example, she took over internal employee communications. MVAH, a developer of affordable housing, has 7,000 units under its management across 15 states. The logistics around managing an already dispersed workforce suddenly under unprecedented, unique circumstances were significant and necessitated the expansion of her focus.

Amidst all this, Nicole and her team also put in the hard work to implement the following:

Paycom for suite-wide human capital management

Paycor as a point solution particularly well-suited for applicant tracking at a company the size of MVAH

Paycor partner Spark Hire for video interviewing, which was essential to scale to hiring needs under impeded candidate mobility

Nicole sat down with us for a wide-ranging discussion -- employer culture, the intrinsic drive most employees have to produce good work, her philosophy behind employee recognition, and more. Our conversation yielded several gems:

The HR department should not be the high school principal's office.

For them to realize their potential on the job, staff need approachable leaders -- mentors and coaches, not scolds and nags.

Leaders in the organization set and influence employer culture.

Technology isn't just about efficiency. It's also about communication.

Regular communication between HR and all its organizational stakeholders is paramount to success.

Effective technology can be the deciding factor in facilitating or impeding this communication.

In other words, most organizations need strong leadership and strong technology for HCM (and communication) to be successful in perpetuating a strong, healthy employer culture

Every customer interaction presents a microcosm of some expression of that employer culture.

Organizations with positive, healthy employer cultures have positive, healthy interactions with customers.

By the way...

At the Spring HR Technology Conference, a virtual event, Nicole is on the hunt this week for information on the latest thinking in employee recognition and innovative vendors providing related technology.

3Sixty Insights is happy to announce that our #HRTechChat Series is now available as a podcast on the following platforms:

Apple iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3sixty-insights/id1555291436?itsct=podcast_box&itscg=30200

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0eZJI1FqM3joDA8uLc05zz

Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/3sixty-insights

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-965220588

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6aDtrRPYoCIrnkeOYZRpAQ/featured

iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-3sixty-insights-78293678/

Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zb3VuZGNsb3VkLmNvbS91c2Vycy9zb3VuZGNsb3VkOnVzZXJzOjkyNDY0ODI1OS9zb3VuZHMucnNz

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Joining us for this extra special episode of #HRTechChat is Mike Bollinger, vice president of strategic initiatives at Cornerstone OnDemand and a member of the 3Sixty Insights Global Executive Advisory Council. Mike and I have a shared history. It was Mike who recruited me to Thought Leadership & Advisory Services at Cornerstone OnDemand, where I learned a lot ahead of joining Nick Biron to co-found 3Sixty Insights. As always, Mike and I engaged in a wide-ranging and far-reaching conversation exploring the outer reaches of what might be possible in HCM. Here are a few of the ideas we covered:

How the concepts of concrete and abstract HCM extend to the C-suite and the science behind left-brain and right-brain thinking

How these ideas challenge traditional, conventional notions of what business and work are for

What psychedelic HCM might be -- i.e., the combination of concrete and abstract HCM that produces something greater than the sum of those parts and an expanded understanding of HCM

Why it has been a challenge to persuade employers to acknowledge the tangible value in abstract HCM -- i.e., the value in how employees feel about their jobs

A brief detour into the origins of HR and how the lingering effects of its beginnings have limited organizational leadership's scope of imagination as to what HCM is capable of achieving

How the massive disruption of 2020 catapulted us into a new reality where the employee experience, the macro expression of abstract HCM, suddenly enjoys a respect that will not go away

Why a deep appreciation for abstract HCM, more than a pretense, will be indispensable to preserving the meaning and purpose that humans find in work as artificial intelligence begins to dominate task-based labor even in the realm of exempt employment

The relationship between data, judgement, intuition and decision-making in leadership

Why Skynet won't take over as long as we recognize that all managers must become leaders

How becoming organizations and institutions adept at continually re-skilling and up-skilling the workforce will be critical to ensuring that humans and robots coexist peaceably in the workplace, as a mutual benefit to each other in the future of work

Welcome to 3Sixty Insights’ latest #HRTechChat. SilkRoad Technology Chief Strategy and Product Officer Lilith Christiansen joined us this week to discuss just how profoundly COVID-19 has affected the workforce and influenced philosophies moving forward around how we manage people and the direction of technology for human capital management. The idea that this pandemic has changed HCM is a well-worn trope, sure, but Lilith and I dug just a little bit deeper. Here's a sampling of the ideas we explored:

Why it's OK to use cliches in describing the profound nature of the before and after of 2020

How plans for extreme emergencies such as hurricanes or forest fires could have been a benefit last year to organizations struggling to adjust rapidly to massive disruption attributable to COVID-19

How the concept of employee experience and the related best-practices themselves shatters partitions separating the conventional silos of talent management

What it is that makes human resources and internal employee communications such a natural fit, why they originally evolved separately, and how they merged this year (because of the pandemic)

How communication technology supporting HCM can at once be as readily accessible and unintrusive as possible

How a learning management system might curate and deliver content in real time for flash needs

How onboarding isn't just about external hiring in the emerging post-pandemic future of work

Why onboarding has evolved and matured to apply to all the major milestones across the entire individual employee's experience

Why the action of onboarding encompasses far more than compliance -- for example, incorporating in-the-moment learning

Why onboarding might not even be the best term for onboarding anymore

What an even better term might be for employee experience

Welcome to 3Sixty Insights’ latest #HRTechChat. Randy Cooper, founder of PeopleStrategy, joined us late last week. Having stepped down as CEO to become chief of strategy, Randy now focuses on longer-term goals for the company and our industry. This newfound charter of his aligns nicely with 3Sixty’s ongoing exploration of concrete and abstract HCM. In our conversation, we dove deeply into the following and related questions:

What is soft HCM, exactly—and why, exactly, is it abstract?

What are the building blocks of abstract HCM that get us to the apparent destination: a desirable, positive employer culture that results in greater productivity and staff retention?

When’s the right time to start thinking about strategic goals for HCM—goals whose value may be abstract and lack the immediacy that reduced costs have to offer?

What is it about abstract HCM that contributes to the durability of organizations?

What’s the trinity of HR, and what’s the state of it today vs. in the aughts or ‘90s?

How does the state of the HR trinity affect our ability to focus on strategic HCM, the type of activities that lead to abstract, but lasting, benefits to employers?

Why and how are enterprise-size organizations predisposed to practice, or at least explore, abstract HCM?

What are the challenges that get in the way of small businesses embracing abstract HCM?

Why, paradoxically, are the principals of abstract HCM very much worth practicing when a company is relatively young and small?

How can vendors of technology and services for HCM condition small businesses to internalize the concept that abstract HCM is useful to them now, not just in the future?

How can a vendor help small businesses practice abstract HCM despite the obstacles?

Welcome to 3Sixty Insights’ latest #HRTechChat. Jeff Cates, CEO and president of Achievers, joined us last week for an illuminating conversation around the rationale behind recognizing employees and how to extract the most value from the activity. Following are some ideas we discussed:

For any organization that wants to improve its workplace culture, employee recognition is a really good, intuitive place to start

Organizational leadership’s attitude toward the workplace culture is critical to success

The data show that employee recognition goes far, far beyond the idea of paying staff competitively (or more); day-to-day recognition has a far greater impact on changing behavior

It is exceptionally difficult for employers to institutionalize day-to-day employee recognition in the absence of a platform for doing so—let alone next to impossible to measure results

This is why systematizing employee recognition is so important: it produces a wealth of data that organizations can use to measure impacts

Analytics from these data, furthermore, help leaders maximize goodwill with their staff

With the help of these prosthetics, even leaders with strong propensities to recognize staff can improve by tailoring their intent to the ways their people comprehend or prefer recognition

A dedicated platform also introduces efficiency to workflows around employee recognition, giving the activity concrete benefits for organizations that elect to embrace the activity

Welcome to 3Sixty Insights’ latest #HRTechChat. Alex Smith, CHRO of the City of Memphis and member of the 3Sixty Insights Global Executive Advisory Council, joined us earlier in the week to discuss her department’s decision to implement and deploy Oracle HCM Cloud, along with Taleo-derived functionality for application tracking. Beyond technology, however, Alex’s experience is an uplifting tale of lasting business and cultural transformation in the public sector. Illustrative of the vision forward-thinking HR leaders embrace, the City’s journey is everything the profession aspires to inspire.

Here’s a glimpse into what we discussed during the videochat, as well as the contents of an accompanying, in-depth case study:

Leading a municipality as a business—a new mayor of Memphis wanted to bring a business mindset to the city via CHRO-style leadership and moving to a C-suite model and mentality

Introducing much-needed efficiencies—this came from not-insignificant task of replacing an on-premises Oracle installation in favor of Oracle HCM Cloud (and, for recruiting, Taleo)

Reaching accord—despite the undeniable benefits of moving to the cloud, careful consideration of several departments’ and other stakeholders’ needs ultimately drove the decision

Improving morale municipality-wide—now absent the previously heavy administrative load, and with positive leadership in place, HR turned its attention to workforce morale, with greater employee engagement and a much-improved Glassdoor rating being the eventual results

Acknowledging diversity & inclusion—Alex was ahead of the curve in tackling diversity D&I in Memphis, establishing a focus on it in 2016, when she joined the municipality, ultimately increasing the representation of women and minorities in the municipality’s workforce

There’s much more—updating and improving retirement programs, acknowledging civil rights–era staff, drastically decreasing time-to-hire, significantly increasing retention and upping pay in the all-important police and fire departments. The list goes on, and the gist of the success at the City of Memphis HR department and municipality-wide is this: Technology is the necessary tool, but leadership is the essential ingredient.

Welcome to 3Sixty Insights’ latest #HRTechChat. Last week, Michael Haske, president and chief operating officer of Paylocity, joined us for a wide-ranging conversation. Following is a taste of the ideas we discussed:

How you could replace the “versus” in concrete versus abstract HCM with “and”—and how this parlays nicely with what Paylocity refers to as “tactical” and “strategic” HCM

How tactical/concrete and strategic/abstract HCM are both incredibly important to organizational success

How most aspects of HCM are, in fact, both tactical/concrete and strategic/abstract simultaneously—think of a Venn Diagram with most of the two circles overlapping

How C-suites are really beginning to come around and take strategic (and abstract) HCM seriously

How Michael sees the shift as not only situational (e.g., the pandemic), but also generational: younger people are basically wrestling our notions of the value and meaning of business to society into a more progressive place, but without necessarily dispensing with the traditional

How more people are getting into HR for the value it can bring to the table, beyond being a cost center—and how this caliber of HR person brings a level of sophistication to the organization and can become a leader’s trusted advisor in ways we just didn’t think about years ago

How all this, especially as we exit the other end of the “COVID wormhole,” is awakening the C-suite’s right brain—the creative, people-focused interests and aspirations of C-level executives