January Talent Report with Jim Morgan

Talent Report+THRIVE

Description: We're here with the latest talent trends in January, with a spotlight on the evolving role of AI in the workplace. Join us as we discuss the latest advancements, challenges, and opportunities surrounding artificial intelligence, and how organizations are harnessing this transformative technology to shape the future of work in the early months of the year.

Resources:

Talent Report+ Webinar Series

MRA Membership

About MRA

Let's Connect:

Guest Bio - Jim Morgan

Guest LinkedIn Profile - Jim Morgan

Host Bio - Sophie Boler

Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler

Transcript:

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:04
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.

00:00:21:05 - 00:00:42:16
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Hi, everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minute Thrive, which is on the January edition of MRA's Monthly. Taylor Report, which is an up to the minute review of what's going on in the world of business with an emphasis on talent. With Jim Morgan, MRA's vice president of Workforce Strategies. So thanks, Jim, again for being here.

00:00:42:17 - 00:01:06:01
Unknown
Yeah, it's good to be back in the studio. yeah. Well, this month the special focus was on essentials for HR Professionals. So I guess my first question to you is really why this topic now? And maybe before we get into that, let's look at your quote of the month, which was related to A.I.. So can you kind of speak on that for a little bit, why you chose that and then the topic.

00:01:06:04 - 00:01:34:02
Unknown
Yeah. Sure. The quote was A.I. is moving from traditional Human Resources Shared Services Administration up to human resources, business partner work using virtual assistants who provide us with cognitive insights like Alexa. It's going to happen faster and harder than HR people are ready for. And that was somebody from Deloitte. And I just thought it was interesting because where we're at right now with A.I. in HR is the very beginning.

00:01:34:04 - 00:01:55:20
Unknown
And, you know, we did some polling of our own members and talking to our own staff. I mean, it's really at its beginnings stages, and we're just trying to help our 4000 member companies kind of get out in front of it, see what's happening, you know, and where do I belong in all of this? And I think what really launched this is it took someone in the technology field to explain this to me.

00:01:55:20 - 00:02:18:04
Unknown
But they said, you know, when they're when they're working on products, theirs is very much a ready fire aim philosophy. It's it doesn't have to be done. Let's just throw it out there and see what happens because our customers will scream at us with whatever is wrong. And if you think of any new version of Microsoft or any new Apple phone, there's a reason it's 2.02.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2.

00:02:18:06 - 00:02:38:24
Unknown
And that they put something out there and they say, okay, what don't our people like? And then we'll fix it. And that's different than most any other industry that usually is like, we got to get this thing right to our customers or satisfied. But in the technology world, everything's moving so fast, it's more or less put it out there and then we can just pivot and go in a different direction of That's all we need to do.

00:02:38:24 - 00:03:06:10
Unknown
So we pick now at the start of the year because I think this is going to be a huge year for artificial intelligence and certainly for our members and people in HR. Yeah, absolutely. And you had kind of subject matter expert Chris Krause, vice president and principal consultant at Naviant join you for this talent report as well. And he gave kind of insight into all things AI related in terms of implementing it in companies and with HR teams specifically.

00:03:06:11 - 00:03:34:17
Unknown
So can you highlight some of his key points that you kind of talked about? And Yeah, and I would encourage people to watch that. One is Chris really did do a good job, but he was just sort of breaking it down in terms of where are different places that this will be used in HR And a lot of people have used Chad GPT or some other generative artificial intelligence to do things like how to write a job description or put together a career path.

00:03:34:17 - 00:03:53:06
Unknown
And he was sharing examples of that. And again, you know, everybody has to understand this is is not perfect. You don't ask a question, print it out and send it out to an interviewer, closest friends. But it's a good place to start. And he used the example of a machinist he just typed in, you know, what's a good job description for a machinist?

00:03:53:08 - 00:04:14:24
Unknown
And it came back with responsibilities and requirements and then he asked what would be a good, you know, career path for a machinist. And it came back with beginner, intermediate, advanced Leader and so, again, it wasn't the it wasn't the this is what's going into our policy handbook answer, But it was, wow, this is a pretty good start.

00:04:14:24 - 00:04:32:02
Unknown
And now if I'm a company looking for that machinist, I figure, okay, this is a good start. Now I need to add what is it that we need and what are the things that we're looking for? And he talked about, you know, using things like chat bots because there's just so many things that are standard questions in HR

00:04:32:07 - 00:04:53:20
Unknown
And i know that when benefits come around our age, our department and everyone would like to have some. If there was a way to just answer these, you know, what's the difference between plan one and plan two? What's duct to bowl? What does it mean to be out of service area? Those are all programable easy, you know, ready to answer questions.

00:04:53:22 - 00:05:17:16
Unknown
And so looking at it from a what are the administrative tasks or the redundant things that might be able to be better done in a different way? That's kind of where he started, but then went on to say, you know, artificial intelligence is being used in learning and development, it's being used in recruiting, and all of it is how do we take advantage of this asset and use it for good and not for you all?

00:05:17:16 - 00:05:37:06
Unknown
And he just had some real good examples of ways in which it was being used specifically in human resources. Yeah, I was going to say he did give a lot of great examples and I would urge you to take a look at that recording. And also while we're on this topic, do you want to kind of give an inch of the AI series that's going to be coming out?

00:05:37:07 - 00:05:57:10
Unknown
Yeah, sure. We're we're very excited by this, are just putting it together. It'll probably be March, April, but we're really trying to break it down into sections and talk about, you know, here's a AI, here's the basics of what's going on, but then talk about what does this mean for our administration? What does this mean for HR And learning development?

00:05:57:12 - 00:06:17:11
Unknown
What does this mean for HR and employee engagement? Yeah, all of them have samples of ways in which artificial intelligence is being utilized in a jar already. So i think it'll be a really good starting point for a lot of people who are like, I don't know where to go. I don't know where to start. I even know what the possibilities are.

00:06:17:13 - 00:06:32:12
Unknown
We're going to bring in some folks. I think they're going to be able to lay things out, not here's the answer, not here's prescription as to how you should do it. But, you know, here's the possible you got to figure out where it fits in your company. So I'm we'll be putting those out pretty soon. I think that'll be very exciting.

00:06:32:15 - 00:07:02:21
Unknown
Yeah. We also have a whole section on artificial intelligence at our employee law update that's coming up. So that's another one that, you know, again, we're trying to just help our members see where this might be going and they figure out what's going to be best for our company for sure. So stay tuned for that. But I'm kind of moving on here, looking at your actual talent report now with recruiting and retention innovation, it looks like you've pulled some stats from a new report from intelligent AECOM on some new and interesting happenings in recruiting.

00:07:02:21 - 00:07:26:09
Unknown
So can you kind of highlight what was seen here in some of those stats? Yeah, what we what we pulled out there was really it was looking at bachelor's degrees, quite frankly. And I think I think a lot of companies have picked up on this already. But, you know, many if they haven't updated anything in a while, Bachelor degrees 30 years ago were a separation of two piles of resumes like has one doesn't have one.

00:07:26:09 - 00:07:59:19
Unknown
And that's kind of the way things functioned. And the world has changed. And now it's you might be looking for a specific skill set and you might be looking for a certificate. You might just be looking for someone who's got the right attitude and fits your culture, and we can teach them the rest of it. So it was just looking at companies now that are starting to drop bachelor's degree from something that might have just been in there because it's always been in there and saying, what is it that we actually have to have, especially at in some entry level jobs and even middle level jobs where they may have gotten all kinds of experience

00:07:59:19 - 00:08:23:13
Unknown
somewhere else or have the ability and the skill set to do things and don't necessarily have that degree. So it was really encouraging companies to take a hard look at their the job postings in their job descriptions, to say even beyond just bachelor's degrees. You have a bunch of things in there that maybe just don't apply anymore, or that if you find the right person, you can teach them some of the things that.

00:08:23:15 - 00:08:53:17
Unknown
So it's just interesting. I think companies, again, are trying to get as big a funnel of candidates as they possibly can and not eliminate someone that might still have the ability to do the job. So get rid of those just qualifiers. Yeah, that is interesting. Kind of moving on from that point, then going off of recruiting and retention specifically going into more of the talent thinking talent pool, it looks like LinkedIn released its 34 big ideas that will change our world in 2024 or less.

00:08:53:19 - 00:09:16:20
Unknown
And I know you took you looked at that list and from that list, what do you see that's really of interest to HR Professionals specifically? Yeah, it's a really interesting list. And if someone's got the time to go, look, i'm sure if you just google linkedin's 34. Interesting things for 2024, you'd find it. It's just overall, it was a look at just society in general and some things that are going on.

00:09:16:22 - 00:09:41:01
Unknown
But some of the interesting ones that I thought, okay, well, these applied HR Specifically we've been talking about employee shortages, you know, here in the united states, but they had an interesting section in there on, you know, other countries that are actually encouraging and trying to put incentives in place for people to have children, whether that we're going to pay for child care or there's a bonus when the child is born.

00:09:41:03 - 00:10:17:03
Unknown
They're really trying. I mean, they've got some serious problems. And, you know, years and years of China, you know, people having one male child, that's got consequences to it. And now some of those countries are starting to see it. So it's not just happening in the United States. It's it's happening other places as well. Were they also we're looking at this might be the year where tensions kind of come to a head between primarily, I would say, newer and younger employees and traditional employers where new employees expectations might not mij meet employers.

00:10:17:05 - 00:10:35:04
Unknown
And I'm not saying one sided right or wrong, but if this is the way we've been doing things for 100 years and now you're coming in and you're telling me you want it done completely differently or you were expecting 10% raises every year, or the employer is saying, no, you have to come back to work, you have to be in the office.

00:10:35:06 - 00:11:05:09
Unknown
A lot of these things may be coming to a head, you know, this year to say, all right, whereas an employee do I bend, whereas an employer do I bend, and probably somewhere in the middle is the fair answer. But we may see some some long held beliefs that are going to be tested this year and and see, you know, employer versus employee, you know, who ends up winning out on that and expected unretired payment wave in 2020 for people who just said, this is it, I'm getting out.

00:11:05:11 - 00:11:25:02
Unknown
But now they're out and one they might miss the money, too. They might miss the socialization. Three, they might miss the purpose in life that some people maybe don't want want to go back to work in 60 hours a week. But they did get an awful lot out of work. And so now they might be taking a look at it again.

00:11:25:05 - 00:11:46:05
Unknown
Yeah. And then just some interesting things around, you know, I think colleges and universities are starting to figure this out, teaching a little bit more about entrepreneurship and creator society and helping people. 1920, 21, 22 that might be looking to get into, you know, their own gig and get out there and get going sort of that might not have been taught.

00:11:46:05 - 00:12:04:12
Unknown
There might have been more traditional business practices. Yeah. And so even they are now starting to see that there's a market here to say let's let's start looking at this creator environment and see if there are some things we can do there. So the world is changing and that was like three or four of them. But there was some pretty interesting insights into what might be coming down the pike.

00:12:04:13 - 00:12:31:14
Unknown
Yeah, that just made me think of I saw a class, it was being offered online, unlike how to be an influencer, which I just thought was funny, but it's like that's kind of where you're shifting almost and it's funny, but it's true and it's happening. So. So the Healthy Boulder influencer on her podcast, you know, I guess you could say that class, I feel like there's so many different types of influencers though, so anyway though, let's talk about our creativity.

00:12:31:14 - 00:12:58:23
Unknown
So you bring up generational diversity and what HR Professionals and MRA's roundtables are kind of sharing around this topic. So i'm curious to know what what are some of the things that they're saying about generational diversity that, you know, a lot of this, you know, looking at especially younger workers, you're starting to see some things like as a younger worker right now, I would say most look at it as like, I'm going to try out a bunch of things.

00:12:58:23 - 00:13:17:14
Unknown
I'm going to have three, four, five, six jobs in the first ten years that I'm working, and I'm going to get this great breadth of experience that makes perfect sense. I understand what they're doing. My life, it was, Well, I'm going to find this job and I'm going to learn as much as I can about it, and I'm going to climb the ladder and I'm going to be here for ten or 15 years.

00:13:17:16 - 00:13:33:15
Unknown
I'm not saying either one of those again is right or wrong, but if I'm looking at a resume and I've got my bias, I'm thinking, Wow, this person's moving all over. They can't hold a job. Yeah, that person's thinking, Wow, I'm a great candidate. Look at all the places that I've gone in order to get as much experience as I can.

00:13:33:17 - 00:13:55:10
Unknown
So there's just a little bit of a we got to understand, you know, where each one's coming from. So I think people are starting to look at that a little bit. The feedback issue, you know, the traditional once a year will have some sort of review and we'll go through your entire year. Well, I'm not sure that's the best way to That's why it's been done.

00:13:55:12 - 00:14:17:11
Unknown
But okay, So I'm trying to remember right now what my employees did last February. I'm likely to remember what did you do in December and January or December? In November. And if they had really good months, I'm probably thinking now is a great year for you. And if they had a maybe a mess up or two in the last two months, I'm thinking, boy, this has been a rough year and that's not what a lot of the younger talent is looking for.

00:14:17:11 - 00:14:38:22
Unknown
It's, you know, monthly, it's immediate. You know, these sayings like, well, you'll learn if I go, don't make me make too many mistakes in order to learn, just tell me what you want me to do or what I didn't do, right? I guess so, Yeah. Yeah. So you're you're a living example of it. So I think it's, you know, understanding that that immediate feedback actually makes more sense.

00:14:38:24 - 00:15:01:11
Unknown
It's more helpful, it's more productive when you've got, you know, a happier employee. And then we've talked about this before, but just the generational differences with communications. I text with you. If you know that you want to find me right now, you're liable to text me not emailing sure is like you're not picking up your phone and calling me, but that's the preferred method.

00:15:01:11 - 00:15:22:14
Unknown
And for a lot of older folks, it's like we have email, just email. We need to do it that way. Am I giving you my phone number? Yeah, I'm not. I don't know which one is right, wrong or indifferent, but they're different. And so we either as a company have to figure out what our policy is or just as employees and employers figure out, you know, what's our philosophy going to be on this so that we're at least consistent with it?

00:15:22:16 - 00:15:59:19
Unknown
Absolutely. Well, kind of going into some HR Trends from the field section. McLean company recently released some HR trends in 2024. So what were some of the interesting findings that you saw here? I think some of the things are still not surprises. Recruiting was at the top. Providing a great employee experience was up there and I think that has to go with the retention part as companies are seeing that now controlling labor costs is in there, which is interesting because we did go through a few years where we were just about paying whatever it took to get people, and I think we did that.

00:15:59:19 - 00:16:24:23
Unknown
We had to do it. But now there is there's a business decision to be made here that we can't be increasing by six, seven, eight, 9% our employee costs every year because we can't afford to do it. So now there might be an emphasis on how do we get smarter, how do we maybe use machines, how do we use technology to do it a little bit better so that one's on their developing leaders is on there?

00:16:24:23 - 00:16:50:11
Unknown
We're seeing a lot of that and I think a lot of that is all kinds of retirements, younger people coming in and how do we train them a little bit more quickly. And the good news side, actually a good news bad news side for the HR Folks, an increase in HR Departments and HR People that are being used and are a part of organizational strategy and over the last three years rose from 36% to 50% that they are involved in those decisions.

00:16:50:13 - 00:17:12:08
Unknown
I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but at the same time, we saw an increase from 34% to 47% of our professionals saying they're stressed out. so I wonder why you asked for something. You got it. Now you got more work, you know, as a group. But, you know, the good news is I think that companies are much more conscientious about our people are a big part of our strategy.

00:17:12:08 - 00:17:29:01
Unknown
And so folks are more engaged. And while I think that's part of the stress, I think the stress has more to do with just more things on their plate. You can of COVID. Now we're into remote work and where are people going to work and how do we get more out of less and how do we figure out where our compensation is right now?

00:17:29:01 - 00:17:47:19
Unknown
Because the market is changing so quickly, we can't my people or I'm not I'm keeping people. There's a lot going on. And so I think that had an awful lot to do with them with the stress and the last one, I think is about 80, 81% of the people said, we think we're settling into the whole remote work thing.

00:17:47:19 - 00:18:04:09
Unknown
Now, I think people are starting to figure out whatever that means for them, were totally remote, were totally in the office, or most likely we've got a combination, but we've we've kind of figured out what it is. It's three days a week. There's a week two days a week, whatever it might be. Companies are starting to figure it out.

00:18:04:14 - 00:18:28:16
Unknown
Yeah, So I think we're getting there with that one. Yeah, definitely. And I feel like maybe part of the reason why there's more HR Folks doing more strategic work now too. Could be because of ai or that i could help grow that percentage just because, like you've mentioned, i kind of helps you focus on the strategic work while ai is helping you with more of the operational day to day routine tasks.

00:18:28:16 - 00:18:52:14
Unknown
Yep. And kind of going off of AI. Then Emery actually released a recent hot topic survey on AI in the workplace in this month and charts you kind of looked at a couple of the questions from that survey. So can you give us some of the data and what were the questions? First of all, I guess, yeah, first, we were trying to figure out where our members were at, you know, because our job is to is to really to serve them.

00:18:52:18 - 00:19:21:11
Unknown
Yeah. But we asked them the first question we asked them is what percentage of your employees are currently testing out AI? And we laughed at that broad. But really we're willing to take, you know, almost anything. You know, I've been on chatbot once. Okay, yeah, that qualifies. But we still had 76% of our members have less than 5%, or at least they think less than 5% of their folks are active in in AI and another 14% that 5 to 10%.

00:19:21:11 - 00:19:43:20
Unknown
So still very new. You know, for all of them. We also asked them if they had an individual or a department, somebody responsible for whatever they were going to do and whether that was can you just figure out what's going on all the way to strategic development? And 74% of them were at a point of we have nobody in charge.

00:19:43:20 - 00:20:01:15
Unknown
We might have people looking at it, we might have people taken, you know, stabs added, but they really didn't have someone who said, you know, your job is to make sure we know where we need to be and what's going on. So very new with all of them at the same time, you know, we said, well, what do you need from us?

00:20:01:17 - 00:20:25:03
Unknown
And we had, you know, 80% of the people saying, geez, I could use some user guides and goals and objectives. I could use more content on what's going on. So they're looking for can you give me some things and start feeding me stuff? Because I think people know this is coming. Yeah, I'm not going to stop and you're not going to be able to control it, so we better get out in front of it a little bit.

00:20:25:05 - 00:20:50:18
Unknown
So there was a lot of interest in that. And then because we had the webinar series coming up, we asked them about, you know, what exactly in age are you looking for? Is it? I think we offered them learning and development, just the admin side of our employee engagement recruiting, and all of them came back and, you know, different mixes and matches, but all of them, there were about 60 to 65% had an interest in every one of those.

00:20:50:20 - 00:21:15:07
Unknown
Yeah. So I think it's I just need some help, Right. Well it's like just provide me something and I think that I'll be happy. So we are, you know, like everybody else, we not only have to figure it out for mirror with our own products and services and our own staff, but also figure out where our members are at and, you know, try to help them get to where they got to get because there's going to be a big year for I think a lot is going to happen.

00:21:15:09 - 00:21:31:06
Unknown
I mean, we all got to be ready for it. Yeah, well, good thing we have the air series coming out. We do? Yeah, we do. So. So we've got your Alberts. Well, Jim, as a kind of close out here, can you give us a look ahead at next month's or February's talent report and the kind of topics you'll be talking about there?

00:21:31:10 - 00:21:58:05
Unknown
Yeah, we're we're going to look at internships again, but a little bit deeper around. I think it's becoming one of the leading ways for companies to find people. But those strategies around how, you know, when do I find them, how do I find them, how do I prepare them, how do I make sure their experience is a good one and how do I hang on to them and kind of give them a path right into our organization?

00:21:58:05 - 00:22:21:21
Unknown
Because if we're going to invest in bringing these people in and having these interns and helping them learn, it can't just be three months of busy work. Now we have to look at them as we're almost onboarding them, right? Three months. We're trying to prepare them, one, to understand the business and two, to want to work here. And then especially for those that, you know, maybe have another year of school left, we've got nine months now.

00:22:21:21 - 00:22:35:17
Unknown
They figure out how to hang on to them. So what are we doing to make that a good experience that they're not looking anywhere else and we know we can count on them when they graduate the next May. So it is kind of going to be a, you know, right from the beginning to getting them to come work for us.

00:22:35:19 - 00:22:57:22
Unknown
You know, how do we just look at this as this is our supply chain and we all take care of it? Yeah, well, that will be a great topic and February is a great time to start that conversation. So looking forward to a time to all. Jim, thank you again, per usual for all the back. Great information and kind of recapping what you were seeing, January's talent report.

00:22:57:24 - 00:23:24:02
Unknown
But to our listeners, if you liked our chat and our topic for today, don't forget to share out this episode. Give it a like we recommend and consider joining MRA if you are not a member already. As usual, we have all the resources for you in the show notes below, so make sure to look at those. We have Jim's LinkedIn profile if you want to get in contact with him or have any questions for him and we'll see you next week for our next episode.

00:23:24:07 - 00:23:42:06
Unknown
So thank you again. Jim. Yeah, my pleasure. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect for more podcasts updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes THRIVE so you don't miss out.

00:23:42:06 - 00:23:47:00
Unknown
Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.