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A New Year Means Reflection, Renewals, and New Goals

I’ve been called an influencer and a thought leader, these past few months. This still sounds surreal to me because I don’t really consider myself to be either. When I looked back on 2011, when I created my Twitter account, I realized how much things have changed. I considered Twitter boring, and my Facebook community was limited to close friends and family members! It wasn’t until 2017 that I took a more goal-oriented approach to Twitter. I focused on intentionally connecting with HR Pros who are willing to share their insights on #NextChat, #JobHuntChat, #HRHour, #HRSocialHour, #DisruptHR. I started following blogs that were inspiring, thought provoking which finally got me started in blogging. In 2018 I began to see the potential for applying social media to my personal life and started adding fellow HR pros on Facebook. Twitter and other social media platforms are now part of my daily routine. A way to connect and engage with a broader world, especially fellow HR pros who continue to inspire me, inform me, and provide me a deeper understanding of evolving trends and attitudes that affect our common calling.

2018 Reflection:

It’s been a while since my last blog post, which means that I’ve already failed to achieve one goal in 2018 – publishing at least one blog per month. That said, the goals that I did manage to reach were beyond my expectations, so I can honestly and proudly say that 2018 was a great year!

Professionally speaking, being chosen as one of the #SHRMBloggers was about the best 2018 birthday gift I could have asked for. And while I wasn’t able to maintain a pace of at least one blog per month, I did publish fourteen blogs entries in total. Thanks to being a #SHRM18 blogger and #SHRMDiv18 blogger, I also became a blog contributor for Workology and a guest spot for #DriveThruHR and #HRSocialHour podcasts. I enjoyed every minute spent at SHRM18, meeting the HR bloggers who I’ve admired online and I enjoyed many post-conference adventures with them – Talk about “Expanding Our World”. The experience helped shape and merge my personal and professional brand in a constructive and holistic way. What you see online is who I am in person, and I’m grateful that so many of the individuals I followed online turned out to be genuine, unpretentious, no-BS people after my own heart!

I had the opportunity to speak at two DisruptHR events, Sioux Falls, ND, and Brookings, ND. It was awesome to connect with so many HR professionals and entrepreneurs who found that my topics resonated with them. (HR is not for Lazy People and Is it the Skills Gap, the Pay Gap, or both?). In April, I launched the #DisruptHR event in Omaha. Some considered the venture overly risky—the kind of event that wouldn’t be well-received due to the conservative nature of the local HR community. It was a sold-out event! It turned out that there were many HR pros who were hungry for disruption!

The SHRM Diversity and Inclusion Conference was an eye-opener for me! The sessions I attended were phenomenal! The speakers were passionate about diversity and inclusion, and though I consider myself knowledgeable on these subjects, I still learned many valuable lessons. Attendees shared a litany of experiences that illustrated how far we have to go as people and as employers. I highly recommend it as one of the best conference to attend!

2018/2019 Renewals:

Before the year ended, I renewed my SHRM-SCP Certification and my SHRM Membership. I consider this a necessary personal/professional investment. Though I don’t always align with SHRM’s marketing and leadership (who does?) the organization has done a lot for my career growth. The ability to update and monitor the accumulation of CE credits towards my recertification has served to make the process considerably easier than it once was. I look upon my HR Certification as an individual necessity, not a social statement. If I let it lapse, it will be me who has to shoulder the consequences, not the community.

I also renewed my license to hold DisruptHR events in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska.

2019 Goals:

My 2019 goals are coming along nicely! I’m attending #WorkHuman2019 in March. I’m always excited to visit new places and am looking forward to learning, meeting new people, and spending time with online connections in real life.

Planning for DisruptHR events in Omaha and Lincoln is well underway. I can’t wait to host events in both of these awesome locations!

I am also looking forward to attending #SHRM19 to spend time with old and new connections in real life, and hopefully I get to attend #SHRMDiv2019.

I hope to work on my blogsite and have time to blog more often. I won’t commit to one blog per month, because I don’t consider this practical.

I guess you can say that my 2019 goals aren’t any different from 2018, except perhaps I want to be able to contribute more in the HRTech landscape and the future of work. I’m thankful for UltimateSoftware for including me in their white paper on my thoughts about AI in 2018 and I look forward to sharing my knowledge and hands-on experience in various HR Tech.

I hope that whatever your goals are for 2019 that you will include getting more involved in networking, engaging, and providing positive impact to the HR community, the world of work, and your local community. I am fortunate that many in my #HRTribe helped me in achieving my goals, if I can help you in anyway in achieving your goals, lets connect!

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To Be an Effective HR Pro, You Have to Be Tech Savvy

 

HR Tech

When I started in HR, everythingwas paper driven, from employment application, personnel action notices, benefits enrollment, etc.

I was fortunate to learn every competency in HR, including payroll, and my experience has revealed the myriad ways in which administrative functions evolved with technology.

I can honestly say that my HR expertise evolved alongside the supporting technology…from the birth of electronic forms, to HRIS, Applicant Tracking Systems, online benefits enrollment, and automated billing reports from insurance carriers.  I am both a self-taught HR Pro and a self-taught HR techie. I learned HR systems hands-on in one organization after another. In some cases, I took part in the design and customization of those systems.

Many young HR Pros, especially those working with integrated systems won’t have the same experience. As a consequence, they may not have a chance to learn the technical underpinning of the applications upon which they depend. In addition, they may be saddled with products that were configured without tech-savvy HR input.

As we gear up for AI’s increasingly prevalent role, it becomes increasingly important for HR professionals to become technical conversant in the decisions that govern the way HR systems function. There is simply no other way of ensuring that they’ll work well enough to enable rather than hinder.

I am hopeful that AI will enhance our ability to deliver value as HR practitioners, but this is by no means assured. To see why this is the case, let’s think about the way the typical HR task load breaks down. About 80% of what it takes to excel in HR involves the inherently human aspects of our role, from recruiting to exit interviews. Most of AI’s value lies in that other 20%, the aspects of our jobs that are more dependent on organizing facts or crunching numbers, rather than composing strategy or judgement calls. The HR systems created in the 90s helped eliminate redundancy in data entry—a function clearly lying in that computational 20%. The next generation of products focused on eliminating paperwork and streamlining administrative processes. This left practitioners with more time and energy to provide work at a strategic level and provide face-to-face customer service.

In more recent years, the focus of HR software changed. Instead of a tight focus on the 20%, they began to include features that encouraged HR professionals to depend on them for the 80%, the aspects of the role requiring carefully considered judgement calls and nuanced interpersonal interactions. This includes functions like recruiting and onboarding—even exit interviews. This creates a new and fundamental challenge—we must avoid the temptation to depend on software for the activities most urgently in need of wisdom, humanity, and a personal touch. I fear that a lack tech-savviness on the part of those newer to the profession may make it difficult to meet this challenge. Mastering Snapchat requires a technical acumen much different from what is needed in an AI-driven enterprise. We must be prepared to deal with the impulses of automated systems that are prepared do our job for us, and not do it badly.

It is critical that we seek ways to change the equation. Training and education has to be provided that will prepare HR professionals to face these challenges. We as a profession need to protect organizations from purchasing systems that promise to “solve” the 80% of HR for which automation has little to offer. You don’t have to be a programmer to achieve this, but you do need to be able to look behind the curtain instead of buying into a slick sales rep’s unsubstantiated claims.

In additionto the challenges posed by the escalating role of AI, there are other critical technical issues that HR practitioners should understand. For instance:

  • Understand the cost gap separating “off the shelf” and “build to suit” systems. All-in-One systems may not be the best fit for your organization.
  • When you buy a-la-carte systems, make sure they can integrate with each other, and with existing systems of records in the organization. Failure to do so may lead to disastrous data integrity issues.
  • Understand data security issues and assess risks of data breaches. Don’t collect certain data before you need them. HR collects so much valuable employment and personal data from pre-hire to exit.