My guest for this episode of "Small Talk Window" is Nikhil Arora, CEO of Epignosis. A learning technology company, Epignosis is known best for TalentLMS. So, logically, Nikhil and I decided to talk about unlearning, instead....

Wait. It makes sense. Really, it does. You'd think that unlearning would be the opposite of learning. And, by definition, it is. But unlearning is, in fact, a part of learning — boom, there's that logic....

In the world of work, we must get good at unlearning as we embark upon upskilling and reskilling ourselves. When we unlearn, we dispense with adhering to ways we’ve always done things. In this way, unlearning enables us to get better at doing these same things in better ways. Unlearning also means to let go of the things we’ve learned and become very good at, but that may no longer be needed — something we all need to do as artificial intelligence continues to enter the workplace.

Nikhil shares many insights related to all this during the 12 minutes we captured. By unlearning, we clear the mental white space to learn entirely new things to create future value, thus future-proofing our own livelihood as we enrich the lifeblood of organizational competitiveness.

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From here on out, we're switching to the first person when it comes to descriptions here of the latest episodes of "Small Talk Window." It's more fun this way.

Prompted by the seemingly breakneck pace of artificial intelligence's evolution, I found myself recently thinking anew about Robot Dreams, a compilation of short stories by the famous science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov. I must've still been in high school when I read that book.

How the final novelette in that collection is a profound mid-20th century take on how we may eventually relate to AI is unrelated to this episode of the podcast, which features guest Mike Stafiej, CEO of ERIN, an employee referral and internal mobility platform. What's funny, however, is that Lucy, my dog sleeping behind the microphone, was having what seemed like a dream during the recording. Mike and I were so far down a rabbit hole on the topic of how to keep humans in hiring in the face of AI as we barrel into the future of work, that we both wondered whether Lucy's dream was a nightmare about AI.

Of course it wasn't. Knowing Lucy, I suspect she was dreaming about a squirrel getting away. You'll hear Lucy dreaming around midway through this episode. And please do listen to this 16-minute conversation with Mike. With ERIN, he has a front-row seat to AI's impact on recruiting today and where things may go. (Hint: the humans in hiring are here to stay -- no, really.)

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Today marks the announcement of an agreement to merge between The Cloud Connectors, an integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) in enterprise HR technology, and Joynd, a provider of HR technology integration solutions. In an on-demand webinar, members of TCC's and Joynd's leadership explain the merger's rationale and many benefits.

And the news makes today's episode of "Small Talk Window" all the more special. Host Brent Skinner's guest is none other than TCC's chief technology officer — Jeff Tremblay. And a potentially brand-new industry buzzword emerged from their discussion: People Data Chaos — or PDC, for short.

What is PDC? Depending on the complexity of an organization's HCM and HCM-adjacent tech stack, people data sprawls across multiple systems and applications -- sometimes, far more systems and applications than anyone would care to count.

The many, many integrations holding all this together are flimsy. They break, and with ever increasing frequency as the tech stack grows.

That is the very definition of people data in chaos.

And, yet, vendors of technology for HCM continue to regale us with visions of a future of work. They promise exciting, fancy things like self-evolving workforce skills ontologies fusing with artificial intelligence, modern psychometrics and learning content and more to produce ever deeper, more insightful and accurate people analytics.

It all sounds great. We'll never reach the future of work with PDC in the way.

Listen in to hear Jeff and Brent discuss PDC and much more.

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For this episode of the "Small Talk Window" podcast, Ian Cook, vice president of product management at Visier, joined host Brent Skinner for an illuminating conversation. If you're in the profession of managing the employment of people, you've probably heard the mantra: advanced people analytics will help you finally get granular with your workforce to boost productivity and spark innovation, the lifeblood of competitiveness. And it's true. The newest stuff out there really works.

It's understandable that people analytics may seem out of reach, however. All the administrative inefficiencies of untamed HR has a way of cascading throughout the enterprise (or small company) to lay bare a lack of maturity in human capital management. The circumstances are overwhelming. People analytics may seem like a luxury reserved for those who get their act together first.

But it's unnecessary to be a well-oiled HCM machine to get started with people analytics now, not later. Ian and Brent explore the idea that businesses can get right down to it, right now, with people analytics no matter where they are with their sophistication -- or lack thereof -- in HCM. It is very rarely an either-or proposition.

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The guest for this episode of "Small Talk Window" is Ashlie Collins, director of solutions at Joveo. An expert in neurodivergence in the workplace, Ashlie has conducted a ton of research on the topic especially as it relates to job seeking and talent acquisition.

When we talk about diversity, it’s important to emphasize that it can apply to all sorts of things, including the mind. This isn’t just about people along the “spectrum” of autism, either. Say you have someone who’s suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD runs along its own spectrum. So does ADHD, for that matter. These are all forms of neurodivergence. Neurodivergent individuals can be some of the best talent out there, it turns out, but entrenched practices and norms in hiring can inadvertently leave them slipping through the cracks.

Different minds respond to recruiting differently, and Ashlie recently wrote about all that at the Joveo blog. As for this episode of the podcast, she and host Brent Skinner dig deeply into how organizations can add flexibility to their talent acquisition processes to accommodate and promote broad neurodiversity in the workforce.

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For this episode of the "Small Talk Window" podcast, host Brent Skinner went deep into the paint with guest Alex Furman, co-founder and CEO of Performica. What was their topic? Going into the recording, they weren't exactly sure except that they wanted to explore how we measure the return on investment of HR and people performance. And they concluded the discussion with a newfound respect for just how deep this rabbit hole goes. You probably know already, for example, but it's worth repeating and highlighting: payroll and a bunch of other things we spend on an organization's people show up as liabilities, not investments, in accounting spreadsheets. The reason why is complicated, but employee compensation isn't exactly, strictly outgoing money. Suffice it to say, we need to think this through better because the outcome will be to do better by our organizations' people.

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The bulk of the HCM technology conference season for 2024 has come to a close, and the holiday season is nearly upon us. But let's turn the clock back about one month's worth. This is the second in a two-part series of "Small Talk Window" podcasts recorded with isolved from the floor of the HR Technology Conference & Expo -- the last week of September, millennia ago in HCM technology time....

Host Brent Skinner spoke with Jaylene Owen, PHR, MAIOP, director of HR and payroll at Sitka, Alaska-based Hames Corporation, where the HR technology installed is -- you guessed it -- isolved.

Fittingly, it was HR Professional Appreciation Day. Joining Jaylene were isolved Vice President of Corporate Marketing Amberly Dressler (a content pro) and Amberly's former colleague there, Geoff Webb, an author, speaker and, yes, master storyteller.

The topic was the book that Amberly and Geoff wrote together, "Center the Pendulum: HR Tales of Transformation for Better Business Outcomes." Their book highlights the challenges that People Heroes, as isolved calls them, face in simultaneously operationalizing HR and improving the employee experience.

When it comes to improving the employee experience, you don't have to boil the ocean -- you just have to take your next best step. It was an intriguing conversation against the backdrop of a teeming expo floor, with Jaylene providing valuable context from an HR leader's perspective.

By the way, isolved Connect 2024 is a virtual event taking place today and tomorrow (Oct. 29-30). If you're there, expect to hear plenty about the book's theme.

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The HCM technology conference season for 2024 is coming to a close. Think of this episode of "Small Talk Window" as a redux. From isolved's snazzy, very pink exhibitor booth last month, at HR Technology Conference & Expo, host Brent Skinner spoke with Yutaka Takagi, their principal product evangelist -- amidst a bustling expo floor on HR Professional Appreciation Day, to boot.

Every organization has an employer culture. Many work hard to define it. Many work hard, too, to embody it as leaders. But how many organizations give thought to whether an employee knows it's OK, on a whim, to mosey on down to the breakroom for a midafternoon coffee?

"You can take a lot for granted," Yutaka says, and HR has an opportunity to lead in communicating the granular details of the employer culture. Who knows? You might even ward off quiet vacationing and other things your employees could otherwise be tempted to do behind the organization's back.

Listen in to hear Yutaka's thoughts around this. The timing couldn't be better. At isolved Connect 2024, a virtual event taking place later this month, Oct. 29-30, the nit-and-gritty of employer culture will be among the central themes.

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Sean Behr, CEO of Fountain and the guest for this episode of “Small Talk Window,” had a laugh with Brent Skinner, the host, over the headline here. You probably won’t reach anybody anymore on Hotmail, of course. But you probably won’t reach any of your frontline workers through email, period. Did you know? The vast majority of them, 84 percent, lack a computer, according to a 2023 survey by MarketSplash. And, according to SHRM, 60 percent of them will abandon an online job application process if it’s too lengthy or complicated. You’re losing frontline workers before you even get them. Making a frontline workforce’s experience as frictionless as possible is not easy, and yet it’s critical.

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Today is a special day. It’s "Small Talk Window" host Brent Skinner's birthday, for one. Far more important, however, today is the day of the Women in HR Technology Summit, which again, this year, kicks off the in-real-life much-awaited annual HR Technology Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. So it’s only fitting that Brent's guest for this episode is Natalie Stones, co-founder of Talent Collective, whose tagline is, "paving the way for women in TA." Talent Collective focuses on women recruiters helping women recruiters. In this job market, Talent Collective's mission is critical to DE&I and all sorts of other things.

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