Susan Richards and Teri Zipper – HR Tech 2023 – How HR Might Be Revamped by the Next Generation of HR Practitioners

Connect with Susan Richards:

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Connect with Teri Zipper:

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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

Resources:

• Sapient Insights
• Season 6 bonus 6
• Season 6 bonus 4

• “The next generation of HR professionals, who didn’t grow up in a compliance environment, [will make] a push toward empathetic HR.”
• “[In a survey we conducted that] had participants from all walks of life—all backgrounds, all races, all education levels, and all employment levels— . . . everybody was concerned about how an organization treats the environment.”

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, here at the HR Tech Conference 2023. And I'm here with my best friends from Sapient Insights, Susan Richards and Teri Zipper. Hello, both of you.

 

Teri Zipper: 1:00

Hello, David.

 

Susan Richards: 1:01

Hey, David.

 

David Turetsky: 1:02

They're sharing a mic. So this is gonna be a lot of fun today. And since we're at a conference, there's gonna be a lot of ambient noise. So I think a lot of people know about Sapient, anything new that we might want to bring to the fore as to what's going on with Sapient?

 

Susan Richards: 1:15

We have a new service offering! Yeah, we have launched our coaching and

 

David Turetsky: 1:18

Awesome! What is it? leadership development offering in middle of 2023. Awesome, we'll be building that out over the next year or so. Offering leadership development and executive coaching and mid level manager coaching. That's excellent

 

Susan Richards: 1:35

Assessments and all of the fun that you need to know about when you're learning to lead people.

 

David Turetsky: 1:41

That's great. A lot of leaders need help.

 

Susan Richards: 1:44

Yeah, and, you know, that's, that's, that's the exact reason that we chose to launch this, we had many of our clients come to us for change management help during big transformations. And they got a little taste of the kind of coaching and mentorship that we can offer. And they didn't want to let us go. So

 

David Turetsky: 2:06

You guys are really good. So that's why.

 

Susan Richards: 2:07

Well, I think I think we kind of might be!

 

David Turetsky: 2:11

You found a good formula.

 

Susan Richards: 2:12

I think so. You know, just being down to earth and pragmatic and, you know, telling it to the clients in plain language and not using a lot of big crazy words and, and not jumping on to every bandwagon that comes down the pike.

 

David Turetsky: 2:29

It's almost being like an anti-consultant, because consultants try and sell everything to everybody.

 

Teri Zipper: 2:35

Yeah, I love that. We also have some news for the Friday launch, which will be old news by the time people hear this but, it might be new news to some people. One of the really interesting things that will be coming out in the survey data on Friday, that we're going to want to look out for is the fact that in 2023 40%, of the HR professionals have between one and three years of experience.

 

David Turetsky: 3:02

Wow! That's dramatic.

 

Teri Zipper: 3:05

Yes.

 

David Turetsky: 3:06

That means there's been an influx of a lot of people into HR.

 

Teri Zipper: 3:10

And an outflow of a lot of people. So last year that people with 10 plus years of experience fell off a cliff,

 

David Turetsky: 3:16

Wow,

 

Teri Zipper: 3:16

in terms of numbers, and that trend is continuing.

 

Susan Richards: 3:20

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 3:21

So have you gotten any reasons why of this exodus? Because that's huge.

 

Teri Zipper: 3:26

So I think we need to dig into the data a little bit further to see what's going on there. But I, you know, I would attribute a lot of it to, literally the last couple of years.

 

David Turetsky: 3:38

Post pandemic burnout.

 

Teri Zipper: 3:39

Just the strain it has put on people. It's a it's a burnout. Lot of, you know, mental health challenges, you know, HR is sort of I wouldn't say they're responsible for looking out for mental health, but it's, it's something that's on their radar to take care of.

 

David Turetsky: 3:54

Yeah.

 

Teri Zipper: 3:55

And at the same time, who's looking out for them?

 

David Turetsky: 3:58

Right.

 

Teri Zipper: 3:59

Right?

 

David Turetsky: 3:59

I think we heard a lot about this in the nursing industry too, where the nurses, certainly during the pandemic totally burned out. We didn't expect that from the HR group, although the HR group really took a lot on their shoulders during the pandemic and right after it as well.

 

Susan Richards: 4:14

They absolutely did it.

 

David Turetsky: 4:15

It doesn't seem shocking, but it is kind of shocking.

 

Teri Zipper: 4:18

It is. And it'll be interesting to see what that means for the next couple of years as these people get their legs and really start to learn, you know, what HR is all about.

 

David Turetsky: 4:31

It may mean that we're gonna have a lot of work to do to be able to shore up that capability. Yeah.

 

Susan Richards: 4:39

We do a lot of work with teaching new HRIT professionals how to build an HR technology strategy. And what we're seeing is just a hunger for more of that because there's really not a good place for those folks who are coming in into the industry and who are now starting to move from doer roles into leader roles. They don't, they don't have a good place or good infrastructure to learn that they're they're learning it on the job.

 

David Turetsky: 5:13

Yeah.

 

Susan Richards: 5:14

And learning it from, you know, from from people who are walking out the door, who are exhausted, and either may not have a whole lot of of energy to do that knowledge transfer. And they may be transferring knowledge that this new generation is not really interested in following. I think we're gonna see a lot of upheaval, and a lot of fun and innovation over the next couple of years, as Gen Z gets gets their feet under them, and and really step into those, those analyst roles. And they're gonna question why we did a whole bunch of stuff that we did, and why we can't do it differently.

 

David Turetsky: 6:00

I know we're kind of blending into where we're going to take the topic. So I might reserve another comment that I have, which might lead to what you just talked about, which is the way in which the work might transition over time. So I'm going to, I want to park that for a second.

 

Susan Richards: 6:16

I just got tabled!

 

David Turetsky: 6:18

Because of one thing. Because you know what's coming. What's the one fun thing that no one knows about both of you? Got to do it, happens every episode. You remember we did this last time?

 

Susan Richards: 6:32

I don't know what I said last time.

 

David Turetsky: 6:33

That's because you're not supposed to remember. So you're supposed to give us something new, Susan.

 

Teri Zipper: 6:37

I know what I said, because it's the only thing I think that's interesting and funny about what so I don't want to say the same thing again. So I got to think of something else, you go first.

 

Susan Richards: 6:47

So the one fun thing about me is I have three doodles. I have a Burnedoodle, and a golden doodle and a poodle doodle.

 

David Turetsky: 7:03

A poodle doodle?!

 

Susan Richards: 7:04

A poodle doodle. They're all rescues and they all came to live with me within the last year. And they're all puppies about the same age. And they keep me on my toes.

 

David Turetsky: 7:16

That's awesome. You're going to have to send me a picture so I can put it on the show notes.

 

Susan Richards: 7:19

I will absolutely do that. Ollie, Stella and Theo.

 

David Turetsky: 7:24

So I have two rescues. One's a pug and one's a pug, Norwegian, Elkhound rat terrier and boxer mix. I did the 23andme for the dogs.

 

Susan Richards: 7:35

Oh my gosh! Well, we'll have to, we'll have to have a puppy playdate?

 

David Turetsky: 7:40

Absolutely, I'd love that. We have to try and find a good place to meet for that.

 

Susan Richards: 7:45

Well, you know, my puppies love zoom. They absolutely love zoom, it absolutely cracks me up. I'll be on a zoom call and they will hear my tone of voice change. And all of a sudden, they're all three in the camera shot. Because they know that I'm getting ready to get off the call. And when I'm done with a call, that means it's time to play.

 

David Turetsky: 8:06

Right, right. All right, Teri, it's your turn!

 

Teri Zipper: 8:08

Oh my gosh. I'm a biker.

 

David Turetsky: 8:12

Okay.

 

Teri Zipper: 8:13

So I don't know. That's about the most interesting thing I can think of about myself.

 

David Turetsky: 8:18

That is cool!

 

Teri Zipper: 8:18

I love to bike.

 

David Turetsky: 8:19

How many miles a day do you bike?

 

Teri Zipper: 8:21

It depends on I mean, you know, a work week I'm biking maybe 10 miles, but if it's the weekend 20 to 30.

 

David Turetsky: 8:28

That's amazing!

 

Teri Zipper: 8:29

You know, so maybe 50 to 100 a week, depending on the week. But I just I love doing it. I've been doing it since I'll tell you we lived in Okinawa for three years when we were first married. And there was, we didn't have a way to get around so we bought bikes. And we rode those bikes everywhere around that island.

 

David Turetsky: 8:50

Wow.

 

Teri Zipper: 8:50

It was wonderful. And it just stuck!

 

David Turetsky: 8:53

Well, Japan has a bike culture, too.

 

Teri Zipper: 8:55

They do. Okinawa, a little less so. But you know, the people only drive there like 17 miles an hour. It's like most of the speed limit was 35 clicks.

 

David Turetsky: 9:05

Oh, wow.

 

Teri Zipper: 9:05

So you know, you didn't really have to worry about getting run over. And at the time people didn't have cell phones so you also didn't have to worry about that.

 

David Turetsky: 9:12

So it was a long time ago.

 

Teri Zipper: 9:13

It was a while.

 

David Turetsky: 9:23

So let's transition back to what you were talking about Susan, which is the World at Work for HR is going to change.

 

Susan Richards: 9:32

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 9:32

And one of the keys that I've been talking about, especially at the show is we see artificial intelligence on every single booth here at the HR Tech show. And one of the things you're talking about is because the cultural aspect of the people who are populating HR now, they don't want to do the stuff that we used to do.

 

Susan Richards: 9:53

No they don't.

 

David Turetsky: 9:54

Or the stuff we still do today.

 

Susan Richards: 9:55

No they don't and they question every single day. Why are you doing it that way?

 

David Turetsky: 10:00

which isn't the wrong question to ask.

 

Susan Richards: 10:03

No, it's not! I love those questions.

 

David Turetsky: 10:05

Because we can give that to the robots, the robots can do some of that valueless. Maybe not,

 

Susan Richards: 10:14

It's got to, it's stuff that's got to get done,

 

David Turetsky: 10:17

It's got to get done!

 

Susan Richards: 10:17

And if it doesn't get done correctly, then HR loses credibility. So we want it. We want it done consistently, efficiently and effectively.

 

David Turetsky: 10:29

And there's no reason that the AI can't do that stuff.

 

Susan Richards: 10:32

100%.

 

David Turetsky: 10:33

And so what's fascinating is think back to our, the old way we used to do things. I used to do personnel action forms, I used to audit them at Morgan Stanley. Somebody used to send one to me, and as compensation, I used to review the grades, I used to review the ranges, person's pay, see their job description, all that stuff. And then I used to sign it when I approved it, or sign the denied and send it back to them in the manila envelope with that extremely secure string around it.

 

Susan Richards: 11:04

Oh yes, that string the red string.

 

David Turetsky: 11:06

The red string.

 

Susan Richards: 11:07

Did you ever put it in a red envelope?

 

David Turetsky: 11:10

Well, we had the stamps that you can put in the envelope that was mostly secured by a piece of tape. And then you put urgent and confidential on it from two separate stamps with a red pad, right? Remember that?

 

Susan Richards: 11:26

Oh, my goodness, I wish I didn't.

 

David Turetsky: 11:28

But we used to do this. And it was all manual. And then when we developed our HRIT, what did we do? We took that personnel action form exactly as it used to be. And we used to just put it in the system.

 

Susan Richards: 11:42

We digitized it.

 

David Turetsky: 11:44

Exactly. But we didn't set up the validation tables at that point, they didn't exist. We just put it into a workflow. We asked them to fill it out, it was still all wrong. But it went through either, remember was Lotus Notes that it went through, or whatever that system was. I forget what the other system was at the time. But Lotus Notes was really made for that HR workflow crap. Remember that? But we at least routinized it. We made it more efficient, because we didn't have to do the paper. But it was still all wrong. And then we made those validation tables associated with it. We put validation rules on it. But it was still exactly the same. In fact, it kind of still got transmitted similarly.

 

Susan Richards: 12:27

Yes.

 

David Turetsky: 12:28

You see where I'm going here?

 

Susan Richards: 12:28

I think I know where you're going!

 

David Turetsky: 12:31

So this evolution has now gotten us to have the robot do it all. Still the same process! Still the same bullshit, still same stuff we did in 1989 1990 1995. But now we're just having them do it all instead of completely rethinking the process. Right?

 

Teri Zipper: 12:49

Until the robot doesn't want to do it anymore. Gets sent to you, hey I don't want to do this.

 

David Turetsky: 12:54

Why are we? The robot's gonna come to you, Teri, and go, Teri, why are we doing it this way? Why don't we just eliminate this process and just let them do what they want to

 

Susan Richards: 13:02

Why do we need all this stuff? do?

 

David Turetsky: 13:04

Right.

 

Susan Richards: 13:05

And then you say, thank you very much robot, your position has been eliminated. And then the robot's gonna take revenge!

 

David Turetsky: 13:13

But but that's an interesting point, because

 

Susan Richards: 13:14

I don't know! you gave the robot a position. And in a lot of the conversations I've been talking to people about, one of the things I've been talking about is humanizing the AI to actually have a budget for it. Give it a position, give it a name. And actually, and I mean, when I mean humanize, I mean, literally, put it in position, put rules around it, have it have a job to do. Because we're going to have to have some rules of engagement with it. We're gonna say things like go around it. And the way in which we rationalize that is by having a job with a job description, with pay rates, and it's not going to

 

David Turetsky: 13:54

It's not millennials, it's Gen Z. Yeah. be free! AI is never free, nothing new, even technology wise, nothing is ever free. am I painting a picture that kind of gives that millennial what they want out of not doing those work those jobs?

 

Susan Richards: 14:12

Yeah, that the millennials

 

David Turetsky: 14:13

You can't blame the millennials in this.

 

Susan Richards: 14:14

The millennials are starting to take charge.

 

David Turetsky: 14:16

Yes.

 

Susan Richards: 14:17

And they're the ones who are saying, we don't want to do this the same way anymore. And I, my, my generation, our generation is, is starting to step out the door and go live on the beach,

 

David Turetsky: 14:31

If we can.

 

Susan Richards: 14:32

sounds like a really good idea.

 

David Turetsky: 14:33

It really does.

 

Susan Richards: 14:35

And the millennial generation is, I think the first generation to really push back and challenge. Now the institution may not be ready to give up the the norms and the processes that have been embedded into all of the fabulous systems that we've all purchased and implemented and have designed, all of this, all of those manual processes into automation, so it very well could be that our Gen Z colleagues come in and, and ask the question, why are we doing it this way and blow the whole thing up!

 

David Turetsky: 15:16

I knew you were gonna say that, blow that whole thing.

 

Susan Richards: 15:19

Just blow the whole thing up and start over! That may be the next, the next generation of their rip and replace in systems.

 

David Turetsky: 15:28

But the problem is one of the reasons why we did that one of the motivations doing all this stuff was purely because we had regulations we had to follow. And there were artifacts we needed to create and things we needed to do to support those regulations, and report on those issues. And get thiss all done. Because we need transactions in order to be able to do that, especially from a Sox compliance perspective. So how does that happen? In a world where we blow this shit up?

 

Susan Richards: 15:56

Maybe we need less regulation?

 

David Turetsky: 15:59

Yeah, but you know what? The funny thing about that is the regulations right now are being pointed on the AI, to not enable AI, to put guardrails around it.

 

Susan Richards: 16:09

Well, we're trying to save people's jobs. Right? I mean, that's the position.

 

David Turetsky: 16:14

But do you really think that's the motivation for the control of the AI?

 

Susan Richards: 16:18

Yeah, no, no.

 

David Turetsky: 16:20

So what is it?

 

Teri Zipper: 16:20

And I think we already have, you know, rules around around this in some regard. So think about Alexa and Siri and the other, you know, AI things that we have responding to our ever changing needs, like, you know, call my mom or set my alarm, or, Hey, play some music. You have to interface with them in a certain way.

 

David Turetsky: 16:43

Exactly.

 

Teri Zipper: 16:44

Otherwise, they don't like it.

 

David Turetsky: 16:46

Right.

 

Teri Zipper: 16:46

And they've been programmed to not like it and not respond.

 

David Turetsky: 16:49

But they're also not smart, as smart as the generative AI that's being displayed now and being developed now. They're much stupider because they're consumer facing.

 

Teri Zipper: 17:01

Yes.

 

David Turetsky: 17:03

And frankly, we just don't know how to use them. We were given them, but not told how to use them.

 

Teri Zipper: 17:08

When have we ever had instructions for doing anything though really? I mean,

 

David Turetsky: 17:12

but that's the interesting part. A lot of the technology we've gotten never needed anything. The one thing that was really funny about what Steve Jobs said, I think it was Steve, or maybe it was Tim Cook at that point about the iPad. Analysts asked him, What's the purpose of the iPad, isn't it just a bigger iPhone? And he said, that's up to the user to decide. And it's been one of the most popular platforms they ever built, for no reason, other than to say, it was a bigger platform and let's let the consumer decide.

 

Teri Zipper: 17:46

Well, and that's that particular item is interesting, because that was the one interface that brought my dad who's, you know, who was a Luddite, like he didn't want to have anything to do with the computer, never had an email address, never touched the computers that I gave my mom. And the day I brought an iPad over there, he'd figure that thing out and, you know, two seconds and was surfing the web, and thought it was the greatest thing ever. So it brought the internet to the people who had been separated from it, because it was too big of a leap for them to understand how to use the gap. The generation gap was too big for them, how they had grown up.

 

Susan Richards: 18:27

That's interesting, Teri. My mother, same same situation. She's worn out three iPads, and the woman would not touch a computer.

 

David Turetsky: 18:36

Apple had a phenomenal ad. You had a little kid who was playing with their iPad, and the mom sees the kid playing with the iPad on the ground outside and says, Hey, honey, can you put the computer down and come do something else? And she said, what's a computer?

 

Announcer: 18:55

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David Turetsky: 19:06

In the context of generations that never grew up with a computer, they've only grown up with the iPad. It's been a completely different paradigm.

 

Teri Zipper: 19:17

Yes.

 

David Turetsky: 19:18

And now my son is 11 years old. He had an iPod Touch, and an iPad since the day he was born. The day he was born! Me? I had to wait until I was what? In my late 30s, early 40s until the touch, you know, computing revolution happened.

 

Teri Zipper: 19:42

Yeah. I mean, think of the, you know, numbers of people in jobs where they don't sit at a computer every day and didn't for 20 30 years. So people even in our own generation, couldn't use computers, but the iPads sort of bridge that gap. And I think, as we look forward to the next couple of years, and there is another interesting tidbit in the survey that's coming out on Friday, that HR is not spending money on AI right now.

 

David Turetsky: 20:15

That's fascinating, given the fact that every single booth that HR Tech has the words artificial intelligence, I literally am being very serious. Every single one of these booths say AI everywhere. So that means they're shooting completely blanks at this moment.

 

Susan Richards: 20:32

Or they're telling people that it's just embedded in the subscription price, and you get it for free.

 

David Turetsky: 20:38

But they don't need it.

 

Susan Richards: 20:40

Haven't found a use case for it yet.

 

Teri Zipper: 20:42

Right.

 

David Turetsky: 20:43

But that's interesting. What's the use case? Is it what you were talking about before, Susan? I don't want to do that work. I want something else to do at work. Can it do it for me? I don't think the answer's yes, right now, is it?

 

Teri Zipper: 20:56

I don't know. I think HR has been, tends to be late adopters to everything partly because of the amount of compliance and legal challenges that they face all the time. They have some

 

Susan Richards: 21:10

risk averse

 

Teri Zipper: 21:11

temerity. Yeah, for sure.

 

David Turetsky: 21:14

Well, and then we have the problem of the auditability of decisions that possibly get made by AI in HR.

 

Susan Richards: 21:21

and who then ultimately is responsible? And where does the buck stop?

 

David Turetsky: 21:26

Who configured the AI? Who runs the AI system? Who programmed it?

 

Susan Richards: 21:33

Are we going to blame the consultants?

 

David Turetsky: 21:35

Well, so there's actually a court case going on right now, about one of the biggest players here, which actually have the smallest booth, who they're getting sued by people who did not get invited to participate in a recruitment process, because they were automatically filtered out using artificial intelligence. That's one of those cases that could blow the doors off of this, especially for that use case. And make people very risk averse, or who are normally risk averse, as you say, from ever touching this.

 

Susan Richards: 22:12

And then I go back to the next generation of HR professionals who didn't grow up in a, in a compliance environment. There's a push toward empathetic HR and empathetic leadership. And the our, our next generation of workers, employees, and leaders are expecting that. And they're expecting, they're expecting to be able to break some of those rules in order to be empathetic and be good leaders. So

 

David Turetsky: 22:53

Are they expecting to be empathetic?

 

Susan Richards: 22:55

Yeah!

 

David Turetsky: 22:56

Encourage empathy?

 

Susan Richards: 22:57

Yeah!

 

David Turetsky: 22:58

Really?

 

Susan Richards: 22:59

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 22:59

That's awesome. Because right now, corporations just don't give a shit about their employees.

 

Susan Richards: 23:05

I hear you. And I also hear that very large wave that has entered the workplace that is demanding it.

 

Teri Zipper: 23:15

Hence why HR is so burnt out, because they've been trying to deliver empathy and the organization as a whole has not supported that culture.

 

David Turetsky: 23:25

Well think about all the layoffs that have just happened, because investments are made right after the pandemic, and they didn't pan out. And so the CEOs cut that staff back tremendously. And they get their bonus the CEOs get their bonus, and those people are out on the street. We saw this happen famously with certain companies, but there's no empathy there. And the boards have no empathy, because the boards are still awarding crazy compensation packages to the C suite.

 

Susan Richards: 23:54

And those organizations, the vast majority of those organizations are going to have to learn through trial by fire, when the productivity drops, when organization or when or when people walk out the door. And they become free agents, freelancers, gig workers, where you don't have to deal with the cultures that are embedded that are not empathetic. I believe there is a shift coming, and organizations who, you can be empathetic and still hold people accountable.

 

David Turetsky: 24:31

Oh, absolutely.

 

Susan Richards: 24:33

And I think organizations that figure that out quickly, are the ones who are going to be successful in the next the next 3, 5, 10 years.

 

David Turetsky: 24:44

But just to touch on that, Susan, empathy is to my interpretation. Someone who tries and fails, doesn't get fired,

 

Susan Richards: 24:53

Correct.

 

David Turetsky: 24:53

they get trained, or they use that failure as a learning mechanism for being successful next time.

 

Susan Richards: 24:59

Right.

 

David Turetsky: 25:00

Failure doesn't necessarily mean you're fired.

 

Susan Richards: 25:04

Right.

 

David Turetsky: 25:04

But we've seen way too much of that, especially recently.

Susan Richards: 25:08

We have an entire we have, we have three generations in the workforce right now that had been brainwashed. And and also seen what happens to their colleagues when they fail. Failure is not, it's not an option. It's not accepted. It's, it's, it's not encouraged. And if you do fail, you find a way to CYA.

 

David Turetsky: 25:34

Exactly.

 

Susan Richards: 25:35

So that it doesn't, it doesn't land. It doesn't land in your lap.

 

David Turetsky: 25:39

Do we have any blame here for Wall Street and the the rise in the risks that the investors have kind of put companies feet to the fire for no failure, constant growth, constant profitability, instead of, you know, being a mensch or being good people, and just taking normal profits that we learned about in college and, you know, not expecting crazy shit every quarter?

 

Susan Richards: 26:14

They're addicted to the profit.

 

David Turetsky: 26:16

And it's gambling. Wall Street's gambling, it always was.

 

Teri Zipper: 26:20

It really is. And we see you now here in Las Vegas, how many people like to gamble!

 

David Turetsky: 26:26

Yes, I'm one of them.

 

Susan Richards: 26:28

But if you have a problem, you can call 1-800.

 

David Turetsky: 26:31

There are places that you can seek help. But you know what I mean, right?

 

Teri Zipper: 26:36

Yeah, I think I don't, we're not going to fix Wall Street.

 

David Turetsky: 26:39

No.

 

Teri Zipper: 26:40

So I, you know, I like to stick to the problems we can work on, Wall Street is definitely not one of them. Although that's not to say that this next generation won't fix it through some of the things that they do and change within these organizations. Because I think you're right. I mean, you can't expect to make this, you know, the same level of profits year over year over year without doing things that don't necessarily make sense. It's just it's not possible. And so maybe there will be some changes at the board levels that start to have some impact on how that gets viewed down the road. But I think that's going to start at the organization level, not not in Wall Street.

 

David Turetsky: 27:26

No, it's not that we're not going to be able to change Wall Street culture like that. 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. But but the last piece that I certainly wanted to try and touch on, which we haven't touched on yet at all, yet is climate change, and how those people that you're talking about, Susan, feel about the earth. And they feel like we've totally screwed it up. And they have to do something to fix it. And if they don't, this planet's going to hell in a handbasket anyways, but it's gonna go faster.

 

Susan Richards: 28:18

Yeah, it's interesting, we did some research with one of our colleagues at KickMotor, and it was around ESG. And looking at what just the regular employee thinks about ESG. And it was a survey, we had 500 participants and from all walks of life from all all backgrounds, all races,

 

David Turetsky: 28:39

That's amazing. all education levels, and all employment levels. I mean, it was one of the most well balanced sample groups that I've ever seen. And the one thing as I was reading through the data, the thing that jumped out at me is everybody almost, you know,

 

Susan Richards: 28:57

You know, of the data that the research that we to a person or to a response was concerned about the environment, you know, of everything that they could have been concerned about diversity, inclusion, belonging, the one thing that they were all very concerned about was how an organization treats the environment. And, and I know that intrinsically because we we have started to educate and we have started to educate at an early age about what we need to do to protect our planet. I just I I was just really surprised that that was that was the thing that jumped to the top. we did.

 

David Turetsky: 29:46

That would not be an expected outcome that

 

Susan Richards: 29:49

I was shocked!

 

David Turetsky: 29:50

Yeah.

 

Susan Richards: 29:51

In a good way. Well, I'm like, Okay, so let's do something about it!

 

David Turetsky: 29:55

But that's the other thing is it goes back to the conversation about expected profits, and what are you doing to either save the planet or make money? Is a lot of times that's orthogonal.

 

Teri Zipper: 30:08

Yeah. What do you think about that new advertisement by Apple about the planet? Have you seen that?

 

David Turetsky: 30:17

I haven't seen it. No.

 

Teri Zipper: 30:18

Okay. So literally mother nature comes down to do an audit on that.

 

Susan Richards: 30:25

She does an ESG audit.

 

David Turetsky: 30:26

That's right. And it was actually part of the last Apple announcement. Yes, I think Apple has been leading in trying to be as green as possible, given the fact that they're also pushing us to be one of the most gross consumers of electronics and technology that includes batteries and other things that are not recyclable, but they're trying to make strides to do it. But it's still a consumer culture. We want the latest iPhone, we want the latest Apple Watch, we want the latest AirPods, or whatever they're called.

 

Susan Richards: 31:01

And, you know,

 

Teri Zipper: 31:02

I just sorted my iPhone 15. So

 

Susan Richards: 31:04

and we've got the shareholders to be accountable to, so hey.

 

David Turetsky: 31:10

I'm a good consumer. And I'm a shareholder. But I'm not looking to get rich on it. I love, I put my money where my mouth is, I believe in this company. And I have for decades, maybe four or five decades, as long as I've been alive, as long as they've been alive I've been an Apple fan. In fact, my first Apple Computer was an Apple two plus back in 1979. So I've been a big, big believer in them. Is that change because they're green? No. But I'm more proud of them. I'm more proud of buying their products and services, because they're more green. And because they are empathetic about what's going on with the planet. Products that they make are very destructive to the product, by the way. So you know all the processes they have in China. God knows what they're doing to the environment in China. So am I proud of them? Yeah, but I'm still buying the next iPhone. So

 

Susan Richards: 32:03

Me too. Well, maybe not the next one. I have an iPhone 12 right now. So I'm, I'm three generations behind.

 

David Turetsky: 32:10

Why skip? Why I go to 13, 15, 17? Yeah, yeah. To that point, though. And that's a really important one, I think, does that generation, that's taking over from us, do they change corporate culture to focus on the right things, to care about the right things, and to do the right things? Are they gonna push us there, and are they going to do it in enough time to save the frickin planet?

 

Susan Richards: 32:33

I believe they will. I really believe they will. And this, this generation has grown up with just lots of challenges. And I think they are, I think they're not gonna back down. And, and I am cheering them on, and I am ready to help educate them, and help them learn what they need to learn, help them be good business people. And to help them be good stewards.

 

David Turetsky: 33:11

I pray that's enough to save this frickin planet. Because we don't have another one to go to. There's nowhere to go. So not to end on a really somber note.

 

Teri Zipper: 33:19

I believe we can go to Mars. I mean, Musk is supposed to take us to Mars, so. That might our option right? I'm joking.

 

David Turetsky: 33:32

Yeah okay. Nothing against Elon, I'm sure he has a great plan for that in his head. But he'll have to fix Twitter before I, fix X before I.

 

Susan Richards: 33:40

I'm really hopeful for this next generation. I'm excited about what I see. These are my kids, my consulting kids and my literal kids who are are starting to take over and they're asking a lot of the right questions.

 

Teri Zipper: 33:55

They've put a different lens on the problems in HR, I think, and they're saying some of these things don't work. And why are we doing it that way? And how do we upend that? And it's going to take a little time, but I wouldn't be surprised if, I think that's gonna happen a lot more quickly, than we're gonna have robots working in HR.

 

David Turetsky: 34:18

Really?

 

Teri Zipper: 34:19

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 34:20

I think it's simultaneous. Because I think, to Susan's point before, they're gonna say, I don't want to do this shit. Let the, let the robots do it.

 

Susan Richards: 34:28

Yeah. And then they're gonna eliminate the step that the robots are doing and we're just not gonna do that stuff anymore.

 

David Turetsky: 34:35

We've tried that the past and you know what we got told? This is the way we've always done it. Remember, we used to. I was change agent and they told me no, we can't do that. We've got to do it this way.

 

Susan Richards: 34:45

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 34:54

So on that note, anything else you want to end with? Any other things you think might be coming down the road that you found from either your research or from the brilliant work you do with clients? And that's going to burn people out faster.

 

Susan Richards: 35:03

The pace of change is going to continue to And we will continue to see Gen X, the accelerate. And we're we've we've gone from now a handful of enterprise changes a year to now I think it's like 16 changes per year per organization. And I think that flywheel has really begun to turn. And yes, I think COVID was a, an accelerator. And I don't think there's any going back and I think it's, it's just going to get faster. boomers, and the greatest generation exit the workforce in even higher numbers and higher percentages, making space for our millennials and our Gen Z's and the generation coming up after them.

 

David Turetsky: 35:53

If they can afford it, if we have Social Security funded enough, and if their 401ks have any money because some of them have to work, because they've lost it all. And a couple of the recessions and a couple other problems. On that note!

 

Susan Richards: 36:07

See here I was trying to turn this around and give us a little hope.

 

David Turetsky: 36:14

On that note back to the studio. That was, that's a joke from those people who've watched British television, a motoring show. Anyway, thank you very much Sapient Insights! Susan, Teri, love having you on. You guys are awesome. And I love the fact that you're totally color coordinated for Sapient. It's wonderful.

 

Susan Richards: 36:35

Powerful pink!

 

David Turetsky: 36:36

Powerful pink, that is awesome.

 

Teri Zipper: 36:37

Thank you, David. We appreciate it.

 

David Turetsky: 36:39

Thank you too, take care and stay safe.

 

Announcer: 36:44

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