Mark Stelzner – HR Tech 2023 – How to Make Sense of Disaggregated HR Data

Connect with Mark Stelzner:

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Connect with David:

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• david.turetsky@salary.com

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

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• IA HR
• Season 6 bonus 8
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• “If you wan to ideate about [implementing disruptive technologies], you have to derive prioritized use cases.”
• “If it’s never been written down how [current processes work] or if we’re inferring how [current processes work], we don’t know what we’re moving from and to.”

Announcer: 0:02

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 for 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: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host, David Turetsky. Like always, we try and find the best and the brightest inside and outside the world of HR to talk to you about what's going on. And today we're at the HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. And we're talking with Mark Stelzner. Mark, how are you?

 

Mark Stelzner: 1:02

I am well, but I have to be honest, I'm fatigued. I'm exhausted, not from my steps, which are I think at 485,000. There's a lot going on. There's a lot to do here, my friend, as you know!

 

David Turetsky: 1:12

I think what's fascinating is we come into it every year, we forget about the the really the the toll it takes on our bodies.

 

Mark Stelzner: 1:19

I agree.

 

David Turetsky: 1:19

But on our minds as well, right?

 

Mark Stelzner: 1:21

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. But like we were talking about earlier, the reunion atmosphere, like a sense of community and connection, we've been in this industry longer than maybe we'd like to admit.

 

David Turetsky: 1:30

Exactly.

 

Mark Stelzner: 1:31

But the idea of walking down the hall seeing the old faces a quick hello. I mean, it's warming, it really is.

 

David Turetsky: 1:37

And the beautiful part is since COVID. And obviously COVID still around to a certain extent. But since the pandemic, you know, we kind of retracted from that a little bit. And then we got introduced to it. And we slowly came back. And right now it actually feels relatively normal. Obviously, there's more hand sanitizer around, but it feels much more normal this year than it did even last year.

 

Mark Stelzner: 1:57

Yeah. And I think we're having to rebuild some of the muscles that were organic.

 

David Turetsky: 2:02

Exactly.

 

Mark Stelzner: 2:02

Because they've atrophied and it's requiring maybe a little bit more intentionality. But when you're when you're in an environment with so many people that live in our world and are passionate about our same topics, that natural sense of grace and care and connection just comes right back so

 

David Turetsky: 2:16

And the emotional intelligence to be able to look at somebody who you've known for 20 years and go, I love that, I missed that person. I love the connection. And that's what makes, and you said this too, this makes this home for a lot of us.

 

Mark Stelzner: 2:29

Absolutely.

 

David Turetsky: 2:38

Just even being in the world of HR Tech, if you come to this type of show, and you don't have that, at least a little bit of initial electricity, about what's happening? What are people talking about? What are the exhibitors showing? Is there anything net new that we didn't know before? So I think what I wanted to first start with there, Mark, is in your conversations with either Stacey Harris or all the other brilliant people that are here. What have you learned net new in 2023 that kind of surprised you a little bit?

 

Mark Stelzner: 3:09

I think it's the decision paralysis. So we work with organizations ranging from 1000 to 500,000 employees.

 

David Turetsky: 3:17

Wow.

 

Mark Stelzner: 3:18

And whether we're being briefed by the provider community, or I'm talking to the wonderful analysts and influencers and researchers that work in our industry, people are being a bit more careful about when and how they declare to chase certain initiatives, in what order, with what dependencies, and to what outcomes. And I think the catalyst that's contributing to that is the fact that we have significant organizational instability.

 

David Turetsky: 3:42

Right.

 

Mark Stelzner: 3:42

Unprecedented C suite turnover, massive divestiture, m&a activity. Organizations themselves are having to move at a relentless pace. And if you're a public entity, like every 90 days, you're trying to reinvent yourself.

 

David Turetsky: 3:54

That's right.

 

Mark Stelzner: 3:54

And then the imposition of new tools, new technologies, new opportunities globally, all of that smashes together that just when you think you've got your eye on the prize, or you've picked or three or four critical initiatives, the world turns and it turns again, and I think people are having a hard time sort of tethering themselves to something long enough, frankly, for it to take hold and for them to move to completion.

 

David Turetsky: 4:15

And there's disruption too. There's the external disruptions of war, of terrorist activity, of inflation and economic instability, political instability, political cycles. And so all of that, in the context keeps people and companies on their toes to the extent in which the rapid pace of change. I mean, we always had change. We've always had technology change. How have we are, how are companies dealing with it? I mean, you're talking about paralysis. But how do we react to that because paralysis can't stay paralysis forever!

 

Mark Stelzner: 4:48

I think it's much like we just talked about about reconnecting, it's about intentionality and clarity. But first, I think you have to have the information. I mean, one of the great ironies of being at an HR Technology Conference is that when you talk to CPOs, CHROs, the lack of real time actionable predictive impression insight is still holding them back in terms of declaring position and activity. And to your point about social political economic crisis, this old sort of BS notion of HR not having a seat at the table, I'm sorry, that was eradicated. We're in the heart, very heart center of every conversation that happens in every organization globally, where it's inextricably linked. But the problem with that, then is both capacity and capability.

 

David Turetsky: 5:28

Right.

 

Mark Stelzner: 5:29

So do we have the capacity necessary to take on all the items that are imposed upon us by virtue of the world that we live in? Do we have the capability to then stay back, separate ourselves in some respects to analyze and then make the appropriate moves with, again, the right outcomes, but it's all starting with intentionality. And I think our teams are exhausted, I it's like, it's been a hard run for HR, honestly, for the past couple years.

 

David Turetsky: 5:52

And look at the demographics of who's in HR now, the demographics are getting younger.

 

Mark Stelzner: 5:56

Right.

 

David Turetsky: 5:57

The people that are there have not necessarily gone through decades of this kind of instability, but they're living in a world of constant data, of constant change. And what are they doing about it? I mean, how are they? I mean, maybe it's the fact that they're living through constant change that they're getting used to it. But they don't have as many of the skills or they haven't seen these business cycles and the, for lack of a better way of saying it, the calm times versus the really crazy times?

 

Mark Stelzner: 6:20

That's right. Yeah, there may not be points of reference. We are seeing a good amount of mentor protege, though. So although we are seeing the kind of C suite, CPO, CHRO turnover, because many, you know, C level leaders decided I think I'm done honestly, like this took too much out of me personally and professionally. But for those elevating I'm finding that the their their prior leaders, frankly, are providing mentor protege relationships, to take some of that knowledge over decades of experience, and make sure that you can navigate through the woods and still come out, with some sense of outcome and grace. And so it's an exciting time, it's a difficult time, as you mentioned, the war and strife, it's it. I'll be honest with you, I had a hard time, sort of waking up every day in Las Vegas coming to the show, putting a smile on my face, when we know we're simply isolating ourselves from the reality that so many are struggling with right now.

 

David Turetsky: 7:12

Absolutely. And no matter what side you're on, it's got to deeply affect you that things are happening today, whether it's in Europe or the Middle East, they're happening to people that we work with, that we work for, our investors, our brothers and sisters, our family members. And so, to your point, last night, I kind of had one of those moments where I said, How can I be enjoying myself when so many people are suffering?

 

Mark Stelzner: 7:34

That's right. But but but I think what's, if there's something to be gained from that, it's returning to that deeply human connection. You know, there, there's, there's no such small number of choices here. You know, there's hundreds and hundreds of providers walking the hall. But I think there's a temptation, particularly when we're looking for speed and efficiency that there is a tech that's going to solve for that it's very tech led. What we've had to do with the organizations that we have the good graces of supporting is step back and get a process orientation, meaning that the organization has to have a point of view. It's not a technology problem. There's no shortage of wonderful tooling and capabilities out there. But it needs to be process led, we need to decide what the art of the possible might be. And then we can match and integrate and thread together these really dynamic, interesting experiences with the tooling that's available.

 

David Turetsky: 8:24

That's talking about the intentionality again. Being able to make sure that you see a need fill a need, that it's not somebody who's going rogue and using a technology in a little space. And then it kind of grows from there, like a virus. We see. We saw that happen with BYOD, with phones, iPads and things. But these kinds of disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, how do we make that intentionality? How do we start looking at our processes? If we're not thinking about what, forget about the headlines, if we're not starting to think about what it could do for us, not what everybody says it can do for us?

 

Mark Stelzner: 9:00

I think it starts with a forensic understanding of the current state. So if you want to ideate about the art of the possible, you have to derive prioritized use cases. From that then you have the application, you know, many of the providers, there are dozens, now hundreds of providers in the AI space that offer a wide litany of really interesting solutions. But oftentimes, when you engage with them, they're saying, Well, what problem do you have? I can do anything! And so it's a solution looking for a problem. Some, some have certainly started to narrow their focus in certain areas. But I think again, back to that point of organizations having a point of view, if they can prioritize a set of use cases, even to pilot the notion to get against the fear and anxiety, which is real and understandable. The legislative controls and the accountability and responsibility for frankly, the behaviors of tools that even those that are creating the tools that the highest order in our world have conveyed we don't really understand necessarily, we're very close to misunderstanding how these tools actually work. So, again, no shortage of tooling here, no shortage of possibility. Let's bring it to life through something that's measurable and impactful and build from that foundation, I think.

 

David Turetsky: 10:09

Yeah.

 

Announcer: 10:10

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David Turetsky: 10:21

Where have we seen in other parts of the organization that AI has impacted? Maybe we could say recruiting, it's already impacted and maybe not in a good way. But where have we seen in other parts of the organization where AI could give us that example of the benefit that we would in HR look at it?

 

Mark Stelzner: 10:39

I think, I think there are more real examples than the community is aware of. And therefore I think if HR were aware of other parts of the business and how that's being brought to life, obvious ones would be customer care, right? Any form of customer care, regardless of what industry you're in, it could be account management, customer care, etc. Those are obvious, but I'll give you an example. My wife, smartest person in my house, I'm lowest below my dog and my son, let's just be perfectly honest about that. My wife is in the fashion and design industry. Years ago, she worked for an organization called Stitch Fix, which was an algorithmic based service that basically curated millions and millions of data points, looked at the points of measure on your clothing, looked at what you kept in your sentiment, and continued to iterate and get faster and smarter and faster and smarter. And so to the point, right, and this is years ago, this is where AI was brought, like four or five years ago, she figured out the exact positioning of the top button on a shirt that determines whether or not a man will buy the shirt and keep the shirt.

 

David Turetsky: 11:42

Really?

 

Mark Stelzner: 11:42

If it's too low, it's a little wide, if it's too if it's too high, you're choking yourself.

 

David Turetsky: 11:46

Wow.

 

Mark Stelzner: 11:47

So she just got a certificate from MIT in AI.

 

David Turetsky: 11:50

Wow.

 

Mark Stelzner: 11:51

She's a fashion professor. And you say, Well, why would a fashion professor want to do that? Deriving creativity, right? I want you to crawl across the universe, I want you to look at Marc Jacobs fall collection from Paris in 2022. And I want you to grab the hemline. Right? And I want you. So my point being that organizations are already starting to use this particularly where we have trusted but disaggregated sources of data. So if you if you go in a store, or I go in a store, or our significant others go in a store, the sizing isn't the same, like these are real world examples. So I don't know what size I am, depending on the brand that I work with. And I'm just bringing a fashion example. But it's just one where obviously there's there's opportunity for it to tell us, to teach us, to listen to us and to provide recommendations. But it's not quite smart yet. And that's what's that's sort of the interesting part. I've heard it described as we're only about a gen away from questioning whether AI is intentions are aligned with humans intentions, which, which I think will get interesting.

 

David Turetsky: 12:55

Isn't that though the intent of the developer, then? Because the AI didn't develop itself? I mean, until it becomes sentient.

 

Mark Stelzner: 13:03

Exactly, exactly.

 

David Turetsky: 13:04

And it's never going to be the case where you can't just pull the damn plug out.

 

Mark Stelzner: 13:08

Well, but but but think about the amplification of bias and preference, which is what people are concerned about. So if naturally, our societal norms have bias and preference for or against any potential unique attribute of the individual, guess what? That's going to show up in the code, that's going to get perpetuated. And I think, frankly, that's some of the concerns that people have and as as people professionals, as we talked about, you know, the individual is the snowflake in the snowstorm, we're all unique, etc. When we amplify the needs of DEIB, the fear is, are we putting unconscious or conscious bias into these critical people transactions or touchpoints? It's a reasonable fear.

 

David Turetsky: 13:48

It's already there. It's already been there in the data for the last 50 years. Right? So

 

Mark Stelzner: 13:52

Right, but are we exponentially increasing the presence of it?

 

David Turetsky: 13:55

When you're building an algorithm on top of the old crap data? Absolutely! And that's why when whenever we've gone into situations where we're helping a company figure out, how do they look at the data, how to analyze the data, the one of the first things we do was you go back and make sure that the data is appropriate and clean it up! And there's parts of it that you can't clean up, you can't clean up a decision. The decision was a decision, it happened. But what you can do at least is note it and understand this is what's in the data, and then be able to react to it.

 

Mark Stelzner: 14:26

Yeah, and the data, as you know, because you do this every day, the data is not current.

 

David Turetsky: 14:30

No.

 

Mark Stelzner: 14:30

The data is not representative, the data isn't integrated, the data isn't mapped. And therefore, you know, this disaggregated community of very interesting, fascinating tools and capabilities cannot be federated and integrated to create hyper personalized experiences, which is sort of the dream honestly. Right? David, if you prefer a certain channel for a certain moment that matters, then great engage in the way that you need to but are we to the point of a blinking cursor, or a spoken word to be able to navigate this morass of, frankly, non current and perhaps maybe non accurate data to bring something meaningful back to life for you?

 

David Turetsky: 15:06

Going back to your example with your wife and, and being able to look at the top button about intentionality and satisfaction on the clothing, that's almost I would say, it's an emotional reaction for some people, because they, they believe their clothing is part of their, their self worth, and what they are and how they, how they actually show to other people. But in many ways, it's also I can actually just choose this other shirt too. But when we're talking about pay, for example, it's a very different thing. And there's a lot of emotion. And there's a lot of real decisions that go into it. So the thing I get upset about when we start talking about AI, and its usage in HR is that the underlying fundamentals of process, policy and data are still in such disarray that until those things actually have their day where we say, we got to clean this shit up. And I'm not just talking about the underlying demographics, I'm talking about the policies!

 

Mark Stelzner: 15:59

100%

 

David Turetsky: 16:00

Then if you put an AI in place, but your policies are all over the place, and they've been kind of catches catch can for managers making decisions, that's how your next decision is going to get made. Or at least the AI is going to tell the manager, Yeah, you can give that increase. But it might go outside the bounds of pay equity, but you can give that increase.

 

Mark Stelzner: 16:20

But to your absolutely perfect point, this is why we're emphasizing process optimization.

 

David Turetsky: 16:27

Right.

 

Mark Stelzner: 16:27

Meaning that if we have no clue or situational awareness, if it's never been written down how the current state works, or if we're inferring how we think the current state works with our variety of distributed stakeholders and countries and units around the world, we absolutely don't know what we're moving from and to. We had a, we had a client, we were telling the story yesterday, we made the CFO cry. And our intention wasn't to make the CFO cry and this organization's CFO owned payroll, to your point. We deconstructed the payroll process literally forensically every step, every touch, every movement, every copy, every audit, off cycle was, 1,452 steps.

 

David Turetsky: 17:05

Wow.

 

Mark Stelzner: 17:05

Off cycle payroll. So what we did is we drew it, we identified pain points, we identified quick wins. Well, why are you still doing? Well, Jane, when Jane was here, seven years ago, we had a problem. We're never gonna have that problem again. I said, but there's no data in the report. You could stop doing that. So we have this why wait philosophy.

 

David Turetsky: 17:24

We've always done this this way.

 

Mark Stelzner: 17:25

If we see it, undo it, but to the point about the poor CFO, he's a wonderful man, one of our team members printed on plotter paper, and she unrolled it and went over the top of her head. And his reaction has truly human reaction, not about inefficiencies, not about opportunity consolidation, was I thought I had an open door policy.

 

David Turetsky: 17:44

Yeah.

 

Mark Stelzner: 17:45

And he teared up, because he's like, No wonder my poor payroll team is working weekends and holidays and they're having to order in food, because look! Who could possibly sustain this?

 

David Turetsky: 17:56

Because it's always been the way it's done!

 

Mark Stelzner: 17:58

It's always been the way but talk about a catalyst for change. So once you do these things, you can't unsee them, but to the empowerment of then those policy changes. You don't need a new tool yet, right, we can start empowering the change management and empowering the teams to take control. But they don't feel empowered to even say or go into his office!

 

But that was the point: 18:17

until this moment arrived. And that's why there's something powerful not only about the visuals, and about just seeing it for the very first time in situational awareness, but about showing the individuals who run these functions, who run these expert functions, could be anybody in HR. That listen, you have the will and the wherewithal to make positive impacts. And you don't have to wait for a logo cake on a go live date for you to potentially achieve that.

 

David Turetsky: 18:43

But we've seen it happen way too often that they rollover process from one piece of crap software to even even a newer piece of crap software. But it's the newest one, and it's got all these bells and whistles. You can't use it. Because you've been doing the same thing over and over again. And no one asks you the three letter word. Why?

 

Mark Stelzner: 19:01

Well, but I will tell you some of this has to do with incentive. So we have a we have a large client who implemented one of the top HCM solutions, 110,000 employees brand name, you would know. They did it, they took their mess. And they put it into this market, one of the market leading platforms. But the problem is they did it 10 different ways.

 

David Turetsky: 19:22

Yeah.

 

Mark Stelzner: 19:22

Because it was always 10 different ways because regions. And so what we had to do is actually process map deconstruct it and sadly, they had to re implement their HCM solution because they never established that unified it was common as possible is necessary, but that unified point of view. But again, about incentives the HCM provider took their licenses, the system implementation and managed services partner took their fees. Nobody stood up and said to the client, client, there might be a different or better way for you to eke value from this moment.

 

David Turetsky: 19:55

Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this? Well, you're in luck, we have a special offer for listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast or whatever is on your mind. Go to Salary.com/HRDLconsulting, to schedule your FREE 30 minute call today. One of the things that on the other side as a practitioner?

 

Mark Stelzner: 20:24

Sure.

 

David Turetsky: 20:24

One of the things that we're always told is, you know, as the provider I've, I've always heard people say, we're a snowflake, we're unique. We do it this way, because we do it this way. This is always the way we've done it. We don't want to change, we're not going to change. Either you do it the way we want or we're going to find somebody who does. And they won't listen to reason, Mark! They won't say, you know, I had one client who basically said yes, yes, yes. I said, if you want to take advantage of all the new analytics, and you want to take advantage of all the new functionality, you're gonna have to stop all the custom stuff. And they said yes, yes, yes. No custom, we're gonna go to one way of doing everything. It's all good. We're gonna change. No, yeah. Well, what about this? Oh, no, no, we can't? No, we can't. Why can't you? Well, we have unions and the unions. Wait a minute, but if we did it this way, then everything the unions need can happen. Oh, no, we're gonna have to go to the workspace. We're gonna have to do. Well, wait a minute, you said you're gonna go standard.

 

Mark Stelzner: 21:18

And honestly, David, that is an absolutely fair point. Everyone's running a business. Everybody has p&l targets. Everyone needs, you know, these are interesting, formidable clients and brands. It's a very competitive landscape. But that is why we exist in the market, to be perfectly honest with you, because we're an independent advisory firm, right? We're not, we're not ticked and tied to anybody, we have no revenue from providers, we can say the things, frankly, and this is what's so hard. Because we wish you all felt empowered. And that it wasn't so detrimental for you to raise your voice to preemptively strike against something that you know is going to move them down a path of less optimization or success. And so, but, but to the clients, this goes to how ready are organizations for change? We talk about transformation. But it's one of the first questions we asked like, what is change actually mean to you? How would you define it? Because that's not change, what you just described is certainly not change.

 

David Turetsky: 22:17

No! It's just lift and shift

 

Mark Stelzner: 22:18

Exactly, exactly. Which no one wants.

 

David Turetsky: 22:20

Well, no, they want it.

 

Mark Stelzner: 22:23

You and I don't want it, how's that? Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 22:25

But as a consultant, my job isn't to ask them what you're doing wrong. My, to your point before, my job is to point out to them, the things you're doing are inefficient.

 

Mark Stelzner: 22:37

That's right.

 

David Turetsky: 22:38

And I've seen this happen before. And if you just looked at it this way, you could see from this perspective, that there's an easier way of doing this, that has absolutely no harm on the way you do business, but could help you down the road. Or today, depending on how you see it. I have no problem saying why, in fact, it's my favorite three letter word when I go into an optimization. But what we've seen is the inability for some of these clients to be able to get out of their own way. Because that's always been drummed into them from the last person that was in this job to you to the next person. We do this this way because, it's our culture, the boss won't sign off on it. Let's go to your boss and talk to him about that.

 

Mark Stelzner: 23:21

And I think there's fear I mean, I'll get back to the humans. You may be doing something in a way that logically, you know, could be improved. But you've built this, you've run this, you've operated it, new is scary, and it is different. New requires upskilling and time and the development of capability that perhaps I'm not in a place or have interest in necessarily doing that. So part of it is fear. The second part of it is, does anybody have my back? Meaning to your point about let's talk to your boss.

 

David Turetsky: 23:54

That's right.

 

Mark Stelzner: 23:55

If in fact, I go out on what's perceived to be a limb?

 

David Turetsky: 23:58

Yes.

 

Mark Stelzner: 23:59

And I take on what we know could be an improvement, a change, a positive experience, a better outcome, a more defensible, you know, strategy, what have you? Am I going to be left hanging out there on a limb? Or am I empowered again, am I empowered to sort of own this moment with my formidable partners to bring this to life in a different way. And that's, that goes that's on the accountability of the people function, frankly, to make sure that they are empowering their teams in these moments to not transact, but to truly transform.

 

David Turetsky: 24:29

What you did with that CEO was open up his eyes to what's happening. What happened, though, was he had fostered a culture before where they didn't think they had the empowerment to do.

 

Mark Stelzner: 24:42

That's right.

 

David Turetsky: 24:42

I'm not trying to beat up on him.

 

Mark Stelzner: 24:43

No, no, but but but but that moment, what was so striking, is he couldn't unsee it. He couldn't, couldn't unfeel it and the immediacy and again, this was a big tool tech service transformation. The immediacy of that afternoon and I am not exaggerating, calling his team in acknowledging that I see you. I am sorry, I've let you down. Where can I bring in staff augmentation? Where can I give you relief? Where do you need help? What are we going to do fast? We've got to go slow to go fast for the bigger picture. What can I do right now to give you some material relief, and by the way, I'm gonna schedule eight hours. So you can tell me what you're concerned about and why you're doing it. I can tell you don't have to do it anymore.

 

David Turetsky: 25:25

Well, that 1400 may take longer than 8 hours.

 

Mark Stelzner: 25:28

It took a minute to write down, I'll tell you that much.

 

David Turetsky: 25:31

Sure, absolutely. But that's so wonderful to hear. And it's empowering. And it's wonderful. Because the first thing you said there was, what can we do? And I'm gonna put money behind it, I'm going to put resources behind it. Let's go hire people. Let's go bring people in. I don't know if that's always the case. I don't know if HR always has that check to do that.

 

Mark Stelzner: 25:51

Well, and I think it starts with situational awareness. You know, if you think about, think about what it takes to be in a C level role, you are in such demand. Any C level role from every corner of the organization, you have to make imperfect decisions with sometimes imperfect information. So part of it, every business case we've ever written has been approved. And I mean, every single one, because we're storytellers. The whole idea is to is to bring the environment to life about and honestly, I will say, even weaponized the employee value proposition that if we say, if we believe what we say, is this aspirational, inspirational, factual?

 

David Turetsky: 26:26

Right.

 

Mark Stelzner: 26:27

Then here's how we need to behave.

 

David Turetsky: 26:29

Right.

 

Mark Stelzner: 26:29

But it's short attention span theater, much like we talked about earlier earlier in the conversation, right, that we're just there's so much going on and so much churn in focus. So when we have that moment, how do we take advantage of that moment to get their attention, get their buy in? And what's the ask? And I will say like, sometimes that's difficult. The ask isn't crystal clear. We've we've been with or

 

David Turetsky: 26:50

It may not just be money.

 

Mark Stelzner: 26:51

Yeah, yeah, well it can't be, what's the opportunity? What's the connection? And it can't be that I'm going to save you, everybody a fractional headcount three hours times their pay, and I'm going to save you $86 billion right now, the CFO will laugh you out. But being human to these other humans may have found, maybe shockingly to people, absolutely works. These are people with lives, with empathy, with understanding as well, if we can just bring that connection forward with the use case, the data, the logic behind it. This is why we do this, but it has to be defensible. But there has to be a very clear ask. Sometimes I feel like we're not the best communicators, to be honest with you.

 

David Turetsky: 27:30

But it comes from heritage, though.

 

Mark Stelzner: 27:32

Yeah, fair enough.

 

David Turetsky: 27:32

And unfortunately, HR has always been deemed the administrative, administrative via home, the cost center, we've never really had the fundamental chops to create a good business cases, or to be able to sell them even!

 

Mark Stelzner: 27:48

But I see that starting to change, which I think is interesting. So our job is to get ourselves fired.

 

David Turetsky: 27:56

That's right.

 

Mark Stelzner: 27:57

So I can't believe it was available, but we just bought ihateconsulting.com.

 

David Turetsky: 28:01

Oh, that's great!

 

Mark Stelzner: 28:02

Yeah. And it's like,

 

David Turetsky: 28:03

Oh, that doesn't surprise me at all.

 

Mark Stelzner: 28:05

Yeah, I know, we've met a few times. So So and the reason is, like, I don't want to get in there, get my hands into you, hold on for dear life, and then create codependency. I want to teach. We're player coaches, like I want to teach you. And I'm seeing with these organizations that now especially with the larger organizations, we're seeing the emergence of HR transformation offices, we're seeing professional program management offices, we're seeing groups that are emerging to fill the vacuum of bridging the expert functions, the GEOS, the operating units, the HRBPs, that maybe don't do this every day, in fairness to them, right. They're experts and other things. That can then funnel those use cases into someone who can actually build a storyline, understands the p&l, gets the capex OPEX treatment, understands how to calculate IRR, if that's important to somebody, and then could put it and this sounds really ridiculous. I was talking to someone about this earlier, even form and format. To my point, if you're in the C suite, and you're getting pitched, because it's a pitch, you're getting pitched on investments left and right. If you use the wrong font, if the if I'm having to search on the balance, like how you rolled up the financials, those are distractions, we're about accelerants. I want you to be able to find the information. And then I want to have the conversation, I need your focus, not looking for the data. Those little things make a huge difference. So the professionalization of this work, right? And honestly, most organizations have a transformation office not even in HR. Sometimes what we find is HR is not walking across the hall to talk to their peers to say

 

David Turetsky: 29:36

They've never been empowered to go in there.

 

Mark Stelzner: 29:38

But I think that's changed!

 

David Turetsky: 29:39

It certainly has, but we've never. They've looked at us and they go hey, you know, we've never talked about how we can help you. HR has always been the one that goes look, we need $5,000 for this and they go, Why do you need it? Well, you know, we need to do some training for this. Yeah, that's not a that's not a case study. That's not a that's not a business plan.

 

Mark Stelzner: 30:01

But but the bridge, I will tell you so because the Transformation Office and corporations, small and large, is rapidly doing restructuring, your gatekeeper into that conversation is your ODOE team. Because you're experts in talent and ODOE, organization development org effectiveness, are the ones that are saying, if we restructure this business unit, if we buy this new entity, if we move into, you know, Japan for the very first time or Lima, we've never served, like, how do we restructure our teams? You've got, there's somebody in HR that already has a relationship with every member of the C suite, the CFO, right?Total Rewards. Right? Total rewards owns comp and ben, right? These are the, so we're not but we're not leveraging that existing relationship to bridge the conversation.

 

David Turetsky: 30:47

But does that mean the CHRO has to have different skills in order to be able to know how to do that, or at least be able to call the right people?

 

Mark Stelzner: 30:53

I would say so. And the CHRO needs, she needs to be comfortable tapping into the expertise of her teams versus her being the funnel for that conversation, right? Listen, being a CPO, CHRO is not for the faint of heart.

 

David Turetsky: 31:07

Oh my god, no.

 

Mark Stelzner: 31:07

It is incredibly demanding and difficult job. It is exhausting. It is lonely. It is it is really, really challenging. But you have strong people on your team for a reason. This is the truth of any good leader, right? I've surrounded myself with experts. My job is to create the moment and the audience and to be an advocate for what we're trying to achieve, right? So part of it is not feeling like listen, get me the deck and I will bring it into the next board meeting. Right? It is I want to bring you with me, because you're the expert in this area and in this function, and let's co-present. Prepare me, but let me let me put you in front. But that's a little bit of letting go. Right?

 

David Turetsky: 31:41

Those are key skills that those people have to learn. If God forbid, something happens to the CHRO, they need to learn it. They need to build those relationships and build those bridges. Because they're probably presenting to them on other things anyways!

 

Mark Stelzner: 31:52

Oh, without question.

 

David Turetsky: 31:53

But in that moment, in that time, understanding how to present, what to present and when to leave.

 

Mark Stelzner: 32:02

100%. Because access is no longer the problem from our point of view. But how do you take advantage of the opportunity? How do you make that moment matter, because you don't get a lot of them?

 

David Turetsky: 32:11

Yep, yep. Mark, it's always a pleasure to get excited to talk about stuff like this. And it's so cool to do it with you.

 

Mark Stelzner: 32:26

Lovely to see you, my friend. Thanks for the time today.

 

David Turetsky: 32:28

Thank you. Take care. Appreciate your time. Stay safe.

 

Announcer: 32:31

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