HR Data Labs took the studio mobile and went live at HR Tech 2021 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV, talking to thought leaders in People Analytics and HR Technology. Join us as we go on this enlightening journey gathering cutting-edge insights from our guests!
Jason Averbook is an analyst, a thought leader, and a consultant in the field of human resources. He helps executives rethink the design and delivery of employee services to better meet the expectations of their workforce and the needs of their business. He has more than 25 years of experience in the HR and technology industries and has authored two books: HR from Now to Next (June 2014) and The Ultimate Guide to a Digital Workforce Experience (June 2018).
In this episode, Jason talks about his time at and thoughts on HR Analytics & Technology as reflected through HR Tech 2021.
[0:00 – 0:49] Introduction
- Welcome, Jason Averbook!
- Today’s Topic: Observations from HR Tech 2021
[0:50 – 10:33] Interesting Notes from the Conference
- How HR is reacting to a changing world
- The importance of listening to your employees
[10:34 – 13:09] Can Strategic Partnerships Solve Our problems?
- Mindset over technology
[13:10 – 15:36] The Future of HR Tech in 2022 and Beyond
- Let’s talk less about HR and more about people
[15:37 – 17:00] Final Thoughts & Closing
- Episode summary
- Jason shares his closing thoughts
Resources:
- “If managers and leaders don’t like doing performance management, you can have the best tools in the world and it’s not going to matter.”
- “The great resignation is what’s happening; the awakening is that we have to think differently about people. We have to figure out: how do we stop just counting people, and [how do we start] making people count.”
Announcer:
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, pour 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, but 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:
How are you today? Good. Yeah. What have you liked about the show? So far?
Jason Averbook:
I’m just fascinated with the number of new vendors in the space, the number of new tools that are in the space. And overall the confusion about what people should be focused on.
David Turetsky:
And that’s funny, because every year we come to the HR Technology Conference, and there’s some new stuff. And we typically look for that new stuff. And we try and find what’s the newest? What’s the most different? Yeah, what do you think’s causing most of the confusion right now?
Jason Averbook:
The world. Yeah, every single HR organization is changing. Yeah. Every business is changing. And workers have changed. So how to know what to do next spring within an organization based on that business strategy. In what their people strategies are, right? They are changing so rapidly.
David Turetsky:
And so how do they affect change through new technologies, when they’re still catching up with the changing world around them?
Jason Averbook:
They affect change with new strategies, not new technologies.
David Turetsky:
Do you see a lot of strategy companies here? That’s why my question. Because a lot of times we found is, is that the technology companies don’t focus on the change inside the company. They don’t have change management, they don’t have a consulting. There are some companies here you can talk to who actually do have consultants who can go in and help them. I mean, obviously, Leapgen, you lead with consulting, too, don’t you?
Jason Averbook:
Well, yeah, that’s what we lead with. I’m mostly concerned about people buying new things. And then later on question adoption.
David Turetsky:
That happens all the time. And that’s why they have to, what we found is bring the consultants in before you implement even if you want to bring them in before you’ve made the decision to go with a problem. Figure out if you’re mature enough, or you’re ready enough to go.
Jason Averbook:
Yeah, and till the soil. Sow the soil so you can plant the seed.
David Turetsky:
What farmer doesn’t tell soil before they plant seed?
Jason Averbook:
Right, right, and try to understand exactly what it is that the organization is trying to solve, what their measures of success are going to be, so that they’re not just saying our measure of success is go-live. And that’s what like, the number of vendors have told me that they’ve got these customers live. I’m like, it doesn’t mean anything to me.
David Turetsky:
How many of them have told you about their adoption statistics?
Jason Averbook:
I want to know what the outcomes are, right? The outcome that that strategy is driving. That’s what’s really interesting to me, even if everyone adoption, right, like everyone can adopt wearing socks. You know everyone can adopt wearing masks, but if COVID still goes through masks, we’re doing that. So it’s not the adoption. It’s the actual impact. That is most important.
David Turetsky:
What do you find is the most impactful change that they could make? Is it the ability for people strategy to meld with business strategy, where it doesn’t become people’s strategy anymore? Or is it? You know, people talk about costumes all the time, or the harder measures that HR is asked for from the CFO.
Jason Averbook:
To me, it’s really listening to the business, understanding what the challenges are. So if I’m Caribou Coffee, and I live in Minneapolis, caribou, coffee can’t stay open. Like that. Literally, the coffee the Caribou Coffee that I can walk to can’t stay open.
David Turetsky:
Because they can’t find people.
Jason Averbook:
They can’t find people. But that’s, that’s the that’s like the point. That’s where they’re starting. The problem is, is that they’re leaking people. So like, they’re, they’re attacking, they can’t find anyone to work with recruiting. But the fact is that people are lasting two or three weeks because of a bad employee experience. So it you have to look at what are you trying to do? We’re trying to stay open. We’re trying to drive revenue, we’re trying to drive profits, like if I can,t you know, I kind of said if I attack the nail with a screwdriver, even a sexy screwdriver. It’s not going to work. And I mean, to me, that’s the biggest problem. I mean, that’s all these vendors are great. And I you know, for years, I’ve been saying we have better, the best technology in the space every year we do. But we have the least ready HR organizations for the best technology.
David Turetsky:
And that’s a great point. I’ve met some CHROs who lead because they’ve thought about problems differently. And the one I love to use as an example is my friend Zoe Switzer from Jenny splendid ice cream, who she thinks about the business problem differently. She was a consultant, but she’s an HR person. And she takes the CHRO role seriously and considers a business person. And the one thing that she told me, which I love, and I’m sure you’re gonna agree with this, listen to your employees. Don’t assume you know what’s going on in their head. Because she went to a store and scooped shop and said, Hey, how can I help you? Let me tell me your problems. And the fun thing is, they said, I want a better customer experience. So we did this differently. Everything would be better to but wow, I thought they talk about pay or the recruiting cycle, or this. They didn’t they focus on the customer outcomes.
Jason Averbook:
And the other thing I’d say this around those same lines is listen to your managers and leaders. You know, I, we constantly have to remind people that people work for managers and leaders, they don’t work for HR. So even HR listening, because HR is sometimes seen as the Grim Reaper. Like told exactly how you’re feeling, right? So how do you actually listen to managers and leaders? Managers, I was just tweeting during Josh Bersin’s presentation a few minutes ago about performance management is a great new performance management tool. So like, if managers leaders don’t like doing performance management, you got the best tools in the world, it’s not gonna matter, right? Like we live this story right? Over and over and over and over again, right? And learning. If it’s buried on a link farm portal that no one can find. It doesn’t matter if it’s the best tool.
David Turetsky:
But it comes back to the structure of job. Does the person know why they’re being paid? Do they know what their incentives are about? Do they know what their manager really wants from this the manager now, right and can manage articulate that we found so many times where managers say, look, I everyone, every year, I get asked one time a year, is my person good or bad? And I judge them on, you know, generally what I feel about. What have they done? What are the hard numbers? And until that process fundamentally changed? And the architecture underneath that the job and the learning and all that stuff? Do you know your job description is? Do you know what it took to get there? Do you know what takes (not you) but yeah, does an employee know what it takes to get to the next level? What’s their career framework?
Jason Averbook:
Yeah. So I think, and this is not meant to be negative, I realized I have to be careful. Sometimes when I say just everyone says, in general, I think people are going to leave this conference confused. very confused, as to what to do next.
David Turetsky:
What themes will confuse them the most?
Jason Averbook:
How do I tap talent, the talent issue? Do I attack it with a point solution like a recruiting solution or skills taxonomy, like, between skills, taxonomy, recruiting, learning, like where do I start? You know, this concept of, hey, I need an employee experience. Yeah, that’s gonna come from my core HR system, or is it gonna come from one of these bolt ons? I, I’d be confused.
David Turetsky:
Does it change the equation at all for the employee? Well,
Jason Averbook:
Well that’s the big thing. The question is, what does the employee like we talked about a second ago, what is the employee need right now? The employee needs something and demands something that’s personalized, something that’s consumerized something that’s empathetic.
David Turetsky:
How does it help the resignation? I mean, it’s happening. I hear clients say to me, we have people leaving, and they’re saying, money’s not the answer. Don’tgive me more money.
Jason Averbook:
Yeah, the great resignation, you’ve probably heard this line, but the great resignation is nothing more than a great awakening, in my mind. Right. But the great resignation is that’s the what’s happening. Yes, the awakening is that we have to think different about people, you know, and we have to figure out how do we stop just counting people on making people count, like I’ve talked about before? Yeah, you know, that’s what this is. It’s not I mean, the resignation is the action that’s being taken. Because we were all one step closer to mortality than we were 18 months ago. And we’ve all realized,
David Turetsky:
And we all saw better life, of being able to stay at home and do things.
Jason Averbook:
Or whatever better is for us. And that’s what understanding our people, back to your point is so, so important, because we all like, that’s what I mean, the great resignation is not just all of a sudden people are resigning, you know, because we don’t have HR systems. The great resignations are a result of the fact that we went through the biggest boom, bust like ban that we’ve ever gone through as a global economy. And it was caused by multiple pandemics, as I’ve said, at the same time, and like this, I mean, yeah, this is the all this technology has the potential to be a huge problem. You think
David Turetsky:
You think of it more as a disrupter than a solution. That’s a bad word disrupter by the way.
Jason Averbook:
I think people are just right now feel like the shiny object is the way to go. And I And by the way, I love the vendors. I love what they’re doing. Like I said, it’s better than ever before. But if we don’t figure out how do we not just put technology in and hope the changes stuff, like people don’t have that we used to have a patient when it was the HR department, I could use them, you know, use them all day long as guinea pigs. I can’t use employees, right as guinea pigs. And that’s a huge problem. It’s a, it’s a big change.
David Turetsky:
We don’t want to get it unless you tell him, right, unless you say, Hey, listen, you’re a beta. Can you help us work this through? It’s really going to help you.
Jason Averbook:
Yeah.
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David Turetsky:
I have to ask you a different question. One of the things I found very brave was Visier created this open partnership with a whole bunch of other companies, competitors, as well as competition, where they said, We want to create an open framework where data can be shared more fully, almost like the flow is a promise more than like, HR. Have you found that is going to solve problems like this faster, where the industry can get together and talk about it? And try and figure out a solution?
Jason Averbook:
Theoretically, yes, in actuality no. So it sounds good. You know, and, yeah, great, it’s great. But until vendors actually are willing to do it together and write till, as long as the vendors are driven by a competitive force, which is money and competing against each other profit. Yeah. I mean, how many I, in my career, your career? How many have we try?
David Turetsky:
I was part of HR for a really long time. And I did get people to sign up to it. Did they make any changes from it? I don’t know. But we published a standard. Yeah. Now, that being said, You’re right, compliance on that stuff. It’s not regulatory, you’re not gonna get in trouble for it. They made a promise. And if they come up with that, but I’m asking if there’s a way for the industry to come together in enabling each other help the problem your clients are talking about.
Jason Averbook:
So I think it’s through mindset, not through technology. I think that if everyone approaches the issue with a mindset of outcomes, with a mindset of what we’re trying to achieve, with the mindset of what the value is like to share the case studies, share case studies! But at the end of the day, it’s okay, what’s the right tech for me? Then I’ll decide based on me, right, but like, I’d rather people, the collective. So let’s just say that that’s what we want to focus on the collective? The collective helping HR unlearn is going to be stronger and more powerful right now than the collective of trying to get people to measure the same things out of the data standpoint.
David Turetsky:
Well, we’ve tried to create this. And SHRM did a pretty good job, they published way too much. And while a lot of it was adopted, a lot of it was ignored. So we talked a lot about a lot of stuff. I want to end with what you hope next year’s conference looks like, what’s the future of HR tech next year? Because I’m not gonna go too far in the future.
Jason Averbook:
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, so one of the things that, you know, we talked about is the now of work, not the future of work. I think HR tech at this moment, to be able to say what I would want to look like next year would be premature. Because I really think that there’s a lot of change, that’s still happening. If there’s one thing that I would hope that it would be, is that it would be less about HR, and more about people, and more about the workforce. If I was running the show, I would get rid of the name HR. Because not that it’s not, these aren’t tools for HR. And not that I don’t want HR people learning and not the HR people are not on the front lines. But the more I say HR tech, which means technology for HR, the more I exacerbate the fact that Oh, I really listening to who’s gonna be the listener, HR. No employees gonna do it. Like, this is a business conference, this isn’t an HR conference.
David Turetsky:
I hope at some point that translates into the world of HR technology change inside these companies. Yes, and not be about HR is or payroll Correct? Or how do we get benefits, right? We get caught, but it is all still cyber,
Jason Averbook:
Right. But it goes back to also what do I measure? I’m measuring the effectiveness of my HR technology, and the I want to measure the impact on business. And that’s to me, like, I don’t think it’s gonna happen next year. Like I wish it wasn’t for next year. I don’t think it’s gonna happen next year. But if I could, I mean, we from an analyst could be on your own driving towards that change within HR is the biggest challenge. And you know, I watch watching presentation For the last 24 hours, I’m like, Yeah, BUT, like who’s gonna unlearn? Who’s gonna teach them the unlearning?
David Turetsky:
Well, I think that’s, and I think as you speak
Jason Averbook:
That’s the collective right. I’d rather have.
David Turetsky:
But I mean, your voice resonates with people. And that’s why what I hope is is that when people listen to this, and people think I know you, right, like, are you publishing, I know you have your podcast all the time. My hope is that people in the industry, not just the analysts, but in the industry they listen to, and they start thinking about it as an employee problem, not an HR problem.
Jason Averbook:
And I, you know, I’m, like, you know, this has been a little bit bold, it’s probably, but like, I’m running out of patience. Like there are, there are just too many ineffective HR organizations in the world. And anyone who’s not paying attention to what we just talked about, and thinking about the business outcomes, and are still focusing on HRIS and all that crap. Like, you’re just ineffective, but you’re effective at doing what you think you shouldn’t be doing, because that’s what you know,
David Turetsky:
But they’re also looking at the short term problem, and trying to solve the short term problems on the long. Yeah. So Jason, we have to go.
Jason Averbook:
I could be here all day.
David Turetsky:
I know and we wish we could go we could talk upstairs in the HR analyst. Yeah. But it’s wonderful talk. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Take care. And thanks. So thank you, everybody for listening. See you soon. Take care.
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