Gary Bragar is the HR Outsourcing Research Director at NelsonHall, a leading BPO research and analysis firm, where he has global responsibility for HRO. In this key role, Gary helps both buyers and vendors assess the opportunities capabilities of HR outsourcing, including: recruitment, learning, payroll, benefits, mid-market HRO, and multi-process HRO. Gary is a member of the No. America Board of Advisors for the HRO Today Services and Technology Association, as well as a member of the HR.com Talent Acquisition Advisory Board.
In this episode, Gary talks HR technologies of the past and present. He also discusses how to navigate the busy HR technology landscape of today.
[0:00 – 4:12] Introduction
- Welcome, Gary!
- Today’s Topic: HR Technology of the Past, Present, and Future
[4:13 – 12:05] What HR Technology Trends Have You Seen in the Past?
- Comparing past recruiting technology to present-day, automated systems
- The focus on employee engagement
[12:06 – 17:17] Navigating Today’s Myriad HR Tech Options
- Communication tools being used as employee engagement tools?
- What to do about an overwhelming amount of HR technology options?
[17:18 – 18:37] Final Thoughts & Closing
- Final thoughts on the HR Tech conference
- Thanks for listening!
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“Another trend I’m seeing now that’s a big focus—on one hand, it’s nothing new, it’s just increased importance—is employee engagement. Once you get those hires on board, you want to keep them happy. You want to communicate with them.”
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“Even when I was at AT&T and we use different tools, there were so many you used. You’d try one thing and that would work and you’d use it for a couple years—and maybe it was a performance management software and everybody was gung ho. And then all of a sudden it just died. That’s why I think leadership commitment—it has to be top down driven.”
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, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here’s your host, David Turetsky.
David Turetsky:
Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I’m your host, David Turetsky. Like always, we try and find innovative, fascinating people inside and outside the world of human resources, technology, data and analytics to talk to you about their experiences of what’s going on. To give you practical examples. Today, we have with us my friend, Gary Bragar from NelsonHall. Gary, how are you?
Gary Bragar:
Great. Thanks, David. Great to be with you.
David Turetsky:
Thank you for coming. And we have my friend and colleague, as always, Dwight Brown, Dwight?
Dwight Brown:
Good to be here, David.
David Turetsky:
Outstanding. So today we want to do is we want to talk about HR technology past, present, and future. And so we can set some context, what we first want to do, Gary is talk about who you are. And how long have you been at NelsonHall. And as we talked about something interesting about you, but no one knows. Let’s start with who is Gary?
Gary Bragar:
Sure. Hi, I’m Gary Bragar with NelsonHall. I joined NelsonHall in April 2007. And in the analyst community, that’s probably the equivalent of two careers. But prior to that I did have a career I started at Bell Labs in New Jersey. And most of my career has been in HR. My first job was as a COBOL programmer, but being more of a people person, I quickly luckily had great management. And that’s what the company was noted for is developing people and I moved into HR and I actually did compensation for the physics division.
David Turetsky:
Wow. So you’re working with really brilliant people, and you had to be at their level.
Gary Bragar:
My boss’s boss was Cooper Patel, he invented the laser, and at the time our vice president was Arno Penzias who got the Nobel Prize for the Big Bang Theory. So yeah, it was really cool to work with people like that.
David Turetsky:
So I gotta tell you, I love COBOL. It was one of the first languages I actually learned in college, that’s because I’m really old. So what’s one thing that no one knows about?
Gary Bragar:
I don’t believe anybody at this conference, or anyone except for my wife would know about me, except that about 20 years ago, I actually used to compete in weightlifting competitions, and its kind of like wrestling. It’s based on your age group and your weight class. So I was in the weight class of people that weighed between 168 and 181 and the age 40 to 44 weight class and I actually won a couple competitions and my benchpress was 310 pounds. I think I weighed like 175 and there’s people that lift more but it was pretty good because this was what they consider it a drug tested competition. So I wasn’t competing with people that are on steroids. Well that and it wasn’t like a gym lift where you can bounce it off your chest. You actually have three three judges. There’s one behind you and two on the side. You have to take it off the bar hold it on your chest for like a count of three until they say pressed and you have to bring it up can’t bring it up like this it has to be nice and even then you have to wait for them to tell you to lock it. I’m sorry bracket once it’s locked, and you can bring it back on the rack. So yeah, so it was it kind of interesting fact. Now I just you know, I still exercise but no, no more heavyweights.
David Turetsky:
You know what? That’s one of the best ones we’ve ever had. It is pretty cool. That’s great.
Gary Bragar:
It was a lot of fun, thanks.
David Turetsky:
So let’s transition to our topic, which is the state of HR technology and what happened in the past, to set us up for context for today, what’s going on today, what you’ve seen, and then what’s gonna happen in the future and what you know, just what are your thoughts? So let’s start about the past. Let’s talk about what do you think of when someone says to you, where has HR technology come from?
Gary Bragar:
Yeah, HR technology to me was a tool to use, whether it was for learning management or recruiting and that’s probably a good place to focus on if I did take one specialty in HR that I would consider a strength or more of an interest to be, you know, talent acquisition or, you know, talent management in general. And I think where we’ve been was, you know, just tools to do the job to recruit candidates, they get people in the door. And really, that’s, that’s changed today where we’re looking, combining that with, with assessments and data, to both recruit people that are actively looking for jobs, but also passive candidates, people that may not even be looking for a job. And we have got tools and technology today that can actually scan databases, whether it’s LinkedIn or other places and find, you know, talent they need and reach out to them. Actually, what a coincidence this morning, what plan for me to talk about, I just happen to check my messages on on the elevator down coming to the conference this morning. And it was from a company saying, We’ve reviewed your skills, and you would be a great fit for our company. If you’d like to reach out to us now I have no interest because now, you know, I’m happy where I’m at. But it’s it’s just so interesting that, you know, if you were in the market for a job today, I think it’s easier for candidates to find jobs. The problem is now a lot of people are having, you know, trouble getting the talent. But if you’re looking for a job today, I think the candidates more in the driver’s seat. So really the switch today worth, you know, going back to where things were, you know, it was a tool to find candidates, but it was was not customer focus for candidates. Right now. It’s all about improving both the employee and the candidate experience. And there’s different tools that are out there that are being developed by a lot of the vendors that make it not only easy to find and apply for jobs, but one of the most common problems and the past with recruiting that’s got the biggest knock is that candidates when they would apply for jobs, would never hear back or like go into like a black box or something. And now companies are ensuring that every candidate, that’s applying for a job gets a response, whether it’s they’re moving forward or not. And then certainly if they are moving forward, then where they’re at at every step of the process, and you’ll be able to find out.
David Turetsky:
Yeah, one of the issues and challenges I’ve seen today with recruiting software, maybe that some of that stuff gets too automated, and we have the robots who are going through and looking at the resumes and parsing out the ones that are not as attractive, and literally within minutes of the application, sending that rejection letter and saying we’ve thoroughly vetted your resume. And we don’t think that you’re a good fit for us. But thank you for keeping us in mind, we’ll keep you will keep you in mind too. And that’s totally disingenuous, if it’s a computer who’s done it minutes after you’ve applied.
Gary Bragar:
I think the more successful, you know, companies, and in my view, I mean, a technology is definitely important, we absolutely need it. But I really think the service component that goes hand in hand with the technology, so we work with a lot of the NelsonHall, a lot of the RPO providers, and what they’ll they’ll do is create talent, pipelines, and they’ll have an actual recruiter, right? That’s their job is to really communicate with with candidates, even if they don’t have an immediate job opening to tell them information about things that the company’s doing. Maybe it’s, you know, what they’re doing for socialization in the community, or maybe, you know, money, they’re donating to different organizations just to make sure candidates know hey this is the type of company I’d like to work for. And there’s nothing like somebody picking up a phone too once you know, you know, you have, if not the type of people that your company would like to hire, when you do have an opportunity. I think the human touch is still important, because people are so bombarded today more than ever, not only their work messages, but in your personal life. I mean, I’m not sure how this happened. But I think I get just as many personal messages outside of work as I do now at work. Yeah. So it’s just really hard. So if you want to differentiate yourself, I think he can just send a text or an email sometime that’s good to pick up the phone and really engage with the candidate.
David Turetsky:
It’s very refreshing to hear you say that because a lot of the conversations that we’ve had a lot of the conversations around HR Data Labs, we’ve talked to people about, a lot of people say that technology is the answer. And I know I’ve always advocated, I think you have too Dwight, you’ve talked about this, that you cannot divorce people from the equation because we’re a people business. And people have so much more skill today than than the robots do and an AI does for context. And to your point, I love the idea. And I’ve actually seen this at some vendors, where they create the talent pools, and they click, create resource groups, yes. Where they’re stoking those really hard to get client facing or non client facing employees that are ready to go, you keep them warm. Yeah. And while you’re hiring a bunch of other people, you keep this pool warm, because if they fail, you’re gonna go to that group and pull those people out. And having that human touch, the personalization of that, then gives a face or a name and a voice to those people.
Gary Bragar:
Exactly. Yeah. So I think it’s really improved. And other trends I’m seeing now that’s a big focus. On one hand, it’s nothing new, it’s just increased importance is, is really, employee engagement. So once you once you get those hires on board, you want to keep them happy, you want to communicate with them. And so at this conference, now, I’ve met with several companies that that’s really what they do. They have software. Now, it’s really a tool for not only recruiting team, but you know, managers to keep in touch with their employees.
David Turetsky:
Like an onboarding solution you mean?
Gary Bragar:
Both an onboarding solution is one piece, as well as once those people have come on board, just the whole communication tool, just to make sure, and then some companies or do and engagement surveys, or people come on board is just making sure that, that they’re happy and getting feedback and seeing where they can improve. And I mean, that’s stuff that, you know, was when I got in HR we were doing in the 1980s. But I think it’s just an increased focus now, because it’s just more important than ever to retain the talent that you have.
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David Turetsky:
So what’s funny is that I don’t know if you’ve ever used Slack as a communications medium, but a lot of companies are actually using that to be their almost employee engagement platform, their communications platforms for employees, as well as their team management platforms. And they’re using slack as a platform for driving other things like knowledge management. So that’s one thing and it was one thing, and then it transitioned to a bunch of other things. Obviously, you could say that about Salesforce and everything else. But have you seen companies like that, which will primarily like communication tools like Slack, who have then transitioned to become almost like HR centric tools?
Gary Bragar:
Yeah, I think that, you know, companies are doing that. I think, I think that I don’t know what to say the hard part. Or maybe it’s the challenging part is I think there’s a lot of separate tools to do different things that, you know, some are just for onboarding, some are tools just for when people, you know, come on board. And I mean, I guess you can integrate these things together, but I’m just thinking from the client side, is trying to make a decision, you know, what you’re going to buy? So, you know, it should, it’s just hard. I know, you know, even when I was at, you know, AT&T and we use different tools, there were so many used, and you try one thing and you that would work and you’d use it for a couple years, and maybe was a performance management software, and everybody was gung ho on and then all of a sudden it just died. So unless somebody is, and that’s why think leadership, you know, commitment, it has to be top down driven, is to use the tools because you might start out well, well, intent, maybe a company makes inroads to sell a communications tool with the head of HR, you know, that starts to be used for a year or two. I don’t know it just kind of dies out, people aren’t using it anymore. So just it is like, you know, you need the more commitment. And I think what I say in the future, or what I would hope to envision is maybe fewer tools that can do more things. So you don’t have to be buy things piecemeal. And patch them together.
David Turetsky:
It’s so cyclical. You say that way back, it may have been 17 years ago, John Watson from I think it was Dell at the time. He was the manager of HR IT, he put out this really cool article I think it was in it may have been HR Executive Magazine and may have been late in the iron bag. But he put up this article about how awesome it was that he had all best of breed tools. To do compensation, to do HRIS, to do recruiting, and how he had this consort of people that can manage everything and put it all together. And I reached out to him a couple years after he because he and I became friends about that article. And I reached out to him a couple years later, and he said, What a nightmare. Yeah, having to integrate all these things. At first, it was great. But then the cracks started. Because one thing would change one thing, and then you had to get back to another. And I think we’re going through that as well. You can have a million pions, but you still have to keep all the data in order.
Gary Bragar:
Exactly. Yeah. That’s what I was thinking the last two days, I’m meeting with all these different companies telling me what they’re doing. But it’s all it’s all different things. It’s all different, too. And they’re all good. They’re all great, great tools. But if there could be fewer tools that could do more, perhaps and you know, just would just make it easier for the user.
David Turetsky:
You know, I don’t know if you remember, but there was this concept called HR open or HR XML. And we were a consortium that tried to bring everybody together in the HR landscape to make the data exchange easier. And to create taxonomies. And to create schemas that would enable, you know, payroll to happen, passing payroll from one thing to another, or 401k file, participant files or benefit files. And I was the chair of the compensation. And to get the participants from all of the different groups together was a nightmare. I think we have a call today more than ever, of being able to come together as an industry to be able to bring all the taxonomies together all the data together to sing. Isn’t that doesn’t that make sense?
Gary Bragar:
I agree completely. Yeah, it would make things so much easier.
David Turetsky:
And, you know, at the end of the day, we want the best thing for our clients. So I just can’t imagine that. You know, and I know the Visier is starting, you know, they have this pledge that they are asking companies to take to make people analytics more interconnected. And Turetsky Consulting had that now part of Salary.com, a little work on that. Yeah. But it’s it’s one of those things where you just hope the industry starts to make it easier. So we don’t run into this problem.
Gary Bragar:
Exactly. Yeah.
David Turetsky:
Gary, I know I promised 15 minutes. It’s a little over. Thank you so much for joining.
Gary Bragar:
My pleasure. As always, thank you so much.
David Turetsky:
I look forward to talk to you again soon. And hopefully, I’ll see you and the wife at another conference.
Gary Bragar:
Thank you so much. You’ve always been very nice. I appreciate that.
David Turetsky:
You guys are awesome people. And it’s wonderful running into you. Hopefully, we’ll get to talk soon. Thank you for being here.
Gary Bragar:
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
David Turetsky:
And thank you Dwight for being here.
Dwight Brown:
Thank you.
David Turetsky:
And thank you for joining. And if you like the podcast, please subscribe. And if you know somebody who would like this topic, please share it. Please stay tuned for the rest of HR Data Labs podcast. That’s the at the HR technology show. Thank you very much. Take care and stay safe.
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