Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / 🎙️ Reality Bytes: The Great HR-IT Merger

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🎙️ Reality Bytes: The Great HR-IT Merger · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck show with Tim
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGraw. Let's get into it.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: How they change makers. Welcome back to Reality Bites. It's
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: been a minute, but we've got a slightly smaller crew
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: on board, but we've got a great a great episode theme.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: We got Oriana, we got Sean and we got Tim
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Flower as well. And before the one of the reasons
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: we've been away from the microphones here on Reality Bites
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: for for a few weeks now, I think, is that
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: we launched Parallel Tim the the It Mystery series. If
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: people haven't heard it already, tell them a little bit
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, even even as you're talking about a time. I
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: love the.
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: I love the just the naming that we came up
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: with because it's a parallel podcast, we're normally doing right.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: We had the little brainstorming session on how we could
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: maybe bring some creativity to the air and maybe bring
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: a little a little levity enlightenness. So I was always
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: a big fan of the podcast. I think it was
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: about ten years ago called Cereal, A Murder Mystery of
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: a Teenager, A real story of a teenager who went
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: missing and a podcaster who dug into the investigation it was.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: She had a very unique cadence, a very unique style
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: of interview, real cool intro music, and it was just
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: a real fascinating thing back then. And it struck me that,
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: you know, why don't we we're always investigating things in it,
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: why don't we look at it as a murder mystery?
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: And you know, the name Parallel has so many different connotations.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: One, it's the.
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: Technology, the sister technology to a serial cable. It's a
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: parallel cable, but it's also the reverse of the serial
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: name on the on the podcast. There's so many different,
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: really cool ways to look at it. But we just
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: it's just a five five episode kind of fun, tongue
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: in cheek spoof on cereal and gives us a little
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: creative outlet to uh to have a little bit of
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: fun so the folks can find it and chuckle along
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: with us.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, a lot of for qualities you know about Tim,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: great cadence, terrific music.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: You know, it reminded me of your work on.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Parallel, and not just your work, but the whole team's
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: like there's a few different voices on there, Tim. Tim
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: has us all acting ladies and gentlemen. If you can
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: if you can believe that, and if you haven't, if
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: you haven't already heard it, you can find episodes one
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: and two on the deck show main feed. And how
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: do people what's your recommendation for searching for it, Tim,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: because I did. I remember when I went into like
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Apple podcast, I put in Parallel by itself. There's a
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: few different shows called Parallel. It's a bit confusing, was
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: the official wreck if you're trying to find the home
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: of the show.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: I did find a couple of those other ones too,
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: And I don't know that there's any active that are
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: called parallel, but I just search on parallel, next thing,
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: and then those two will come up.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Search on my name, it should come up. Yeah. But
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: you know, any combination of a couple of those searches
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: and you'll find it. Explor you know what the other
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: place is, go to the deck so then you can
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: you can find it on our website absolutely, And.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I will just say, you know, we'll be getting you
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: know that, making the episodes available and getting great response
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: so far. So there may be some more Parallel episodes
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: appearing on the deck Show feed as well in the
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: coming weeks, but for now, let's come back to a
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: reality bias discussion, and we've got a great reason to
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: come together and break bread again because regular listeners might
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: recall the episodes we did a few weeks ago. Now,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Productivity in twenty twenty five new insights on AI decks
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: and adoption, and those new insights were cutesy of part
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: one of our it's New Mandate, the Science of Productivity,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: two part report based upon exclusive Vans and Born research.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: The second installment of that report is called The Experience
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Silo hr IT and the Digital Workplace. It came out
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: two three weeks ago, and we're very lucky, We're always
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: very lucky to have next week senior editor and report
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: author Sean Malvey on the Reality by his team. So
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: we better to invite to tell us a bit about it.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: How you doing, Sean?
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: Not too bad? And happy Friday to everybody during this recording.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: During this recording, and if you're listening to it on
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Tuesday when it comes out, Unhappy Tuesday. I guess bring
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: us up to speed with this report, my friend, How
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: is it different from part one? Who was targeted and
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: what were the main findings that stand out?
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: Yep, sure thing, So same audience as a Part one one.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Senior IT leaders spread across four different countries, the US, France, Germany,
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: and the UK. And in the first part of the report,
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: Art one, we were focused on AI and digital transformation
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: and how that was going to make us more productive
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: and answering big picture of questions. But in Part two,
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: we wanted to focus in on who's going to actually
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: own the employee experience. And we've known this for a
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: couple of years now, but HR and IT have had
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: a lot of overlap over the past couple of years,
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: so we wanted to kind of dig into that topic
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: and that's exactly what we did in Part two. But
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: I'll just give you a few of the main takeaway
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: right now. So sixty four percent of the senior IT
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: leaders that we surveyed came back and said that the
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: merger is definitely going to go down within the next
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: five years. About thirty one percent think it's going to
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: happen in the next three another thirty three percent think
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: it's going to happen sometime between three to five years,
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: and then there was another close to a third of
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: respondents who think that no merger in name is going
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: to happen. But the two entities will be more collaborative
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: in practice.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Was that a surprise showing what were you anticipating of
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: that particular day a point or response?
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so. I think people naturally say three
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: to five and just put off as like that could
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: be two hundred million years away, you know. So I
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: think that, But I was actually surprised later on when
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: we dug into some of the country data to see
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: how they felt within the next three years, because three
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: years in a tech company can actually fly by. But
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: I think five years is sort of a safer answer,
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: and some people do feel like the merger is coming
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: sooner than later.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: And I think when I read the reports, I felt like,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: particularly in tandem, I felt like there's a real relationship
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: between the confusion around the areas of responsibility of it
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: is increasingly assuming covered in Part one, which we call
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: the science of productivity itself, if you will, and the
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: confusion that's come from this kind of new area of
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: technology management in terms.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Of who's responsible for what.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, is there evidence of that confusion in the
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: data in part two?
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, certainly so. I mean we could probably think of
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: it even without looking at the report. But there were
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: three specific topics that came to mind employee satisfaction overall,
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: like enterprise productivity and then employee engagement, and a lot
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: of the leaders said that they actually felt that both
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: hr IT should own all three of those variables. There
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: wasn't like any clear indication, I'll put it this way.
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: There wasn't any clear indication that like everybody feels that
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: one department should own it versus the other, you know
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: what I mean. So there was a lot of confusion
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: across those three different variables. And then to take it
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: even further, we asked them, well, if they were to merge,
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: what would be some of the biggest challenges that you'd foresee?
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: And fifty percent of respondents think that they'd just be
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: poor communication between hr IT, so they'd have to solve
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: that problem, and then just differing priorities between the departments.
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: Historically speaking, these are very different. You can be more
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: different between hr I TEA, So they would have to
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: iron out those issues before any actual merger were to occur.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just something a tinder. I mean, it's hard
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: to think of many other areas in a corporation where
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: there's that much contestation either who's actually owning things as
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: significant as the report covers. And I know you're currently
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: in the sort of last stages of producing sort of
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: individualized reports in different languages, you know, reflecting results from
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: different territories. They're coming out in a few weeks. I think,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: what if you can give us a sort of a
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: four glimpse of those What do it leaders in those
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: four different countries that you're covering in those other reports,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: How do they think differently about the possible merger?
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure, So after people listen to this recording,
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: those reports will come out throughout the summer. Just like
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: personally speaking, I didn't want to include it all in
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: the part two report. I think it would have been
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: too much. But they're very interesting. The country breakdown, so
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: the US, the UK, Germany and France, because you get
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: like kind of the cultural, political, the market context to
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: what might explain some of the data that we collected
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: and when it comes down to the merger. It was
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: interesting in the In the US and Germany, they were
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: less willing to say that like the merger was going
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: to happen in the next three years. They were kind
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: of hedging their bets and saying, well, maybe in five
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: or maybe never but they'll be more collaborative. And I
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: think one possible explanation, let's talk to the US first,
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: is that we have like a lot of obviously state
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: labor laws and employment is tied to your healthcare in
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: the US, so that could be one factor that kind
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: of complicates any type of merger. And in Germany just
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: in general, the sentiment that we found through our research
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: was that, you know, things are more long term focused
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: and they're a little bit more conservative with some of
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: these mergers and huge digital transformation projects. But conversely, in
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: the UK and France, nearly half of all leaders came
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: back in so that they think a merger is going
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: to happen in the next three years. I don't really
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: have a strong evidence as to why that might happen,
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: at least in the UK, but in France, I do know,
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: like they I think they have a policy. The translation
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: would be like quality of working life basically, so it's
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: written into law, and I know they have even legally speaking,
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: like a right to disconnect. So holistically speaking, that culture
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: and government is focused on different ways to make work
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: life better, and one of those ways to make work
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: life better is you know, digitalizing your company and possibly
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: merging HR. That's one theory that we.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Had, amazing, connecting it to the well known French predilection
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: for not working through the month of August, which is
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: we all enjoy, we all enjoy as colleagues. Yeah, excellently.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: What job title in your existing do you think would
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: be best leading this new department?
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: And why?
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Shown well, what types of personality, trade, skill sets, etc.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Should that you know? Future leader early embody?
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah sure.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: So.
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: Overall about the majority kind of split between a couple
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: of different roles. They feel like, whoever's going to lead
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: this merger? Forty percent said that they think it would
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: be an entirely new role, like a chief Employee experience officer,
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: something that you don't typically find nowadays in LinkedIn, and
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: then there was almost a third of respondents felt like
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: the CIO is positioned to take that responsibility. And then
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: of course that we had like a chief human resources
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: officer got like the least amount of responses, and then
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: a chief operating officer, which oddly, you know, across all
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: the four countries only got fifteen percent of responses. But
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: when we looked at France, for some reason, I think
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: they got the majority of respondents felt like the chief
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: operating officer is positioned to take over any type of merger,
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: which I thought was interesting. I do not have an
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: explanation why that is, but could have been just like
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: an English translation type of thing. But in terms of
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: like the personality and the skill sets, you know, for
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: like any sort of dex director role, I think it
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: just has to be anyone who has a really strong
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: understanding of like real time analytics automation. Obviously has a
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: strong IT background, but someone who also likes to solve
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: problems based on sort of user feedback and sentiment data
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: and likes to essentially blur the lines between people and
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: technology as simple as simple as that.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Pretty well, said Suan, Thanks mate, Tim. If a merger
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: does take place, interested in your vif that or expectations
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: of that. Respondents predicted that free principle challenges might stand
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: in its way. Lack of clear ownership for new existing responsibilities,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: poor communication between the current two entities, and differing priorities.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: What are some things that IT and HR leaders can
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: do now to remedy these problems? Not only an anticipation
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: of this merger, which may or may not arise, but
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: just in terms of facilitating better collaboration, better outcomes for employees.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: So I looked at the concept of a merger the
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: same way I look at companies merging, and there's kind
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: of two different ways that they go about doing it.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: One is kind of like what we did with app learn.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: You buy the other entity and you fully absorb it
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: into your team, so it becomes one entity. The second
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: merger M and A on a company standpoint is you
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: buy the other company and they act as either parallel,
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: side by side independent entities or a subsidiary, but they
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: remain their own entity while they're part of the bigger hole.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: And I looked at my opinion is IT and HR
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: are not going to become a single combined unified entity
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: where you have teams with HR and IT accountabilities combined.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: I believe that HR and IT will come together under
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: one leader and they will then force organizationally and operationally,
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: more collaboration, more cohesiveness under a single leader.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: So that's the.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: Context that I looked in at IT, and I agree
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: that those three hurdles still exist. But in terms of
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: the first one, you talked about ownership, and I'll restate
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: what I just said because I firmly believe that an
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: org should consist of a single leader across those new teams,
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: and ideally, and Sean touched on a little bit of this,
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: that leader should have prior experience managing these two teams together.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: I'm not a fan of taking somebody from JAR and
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: making them the leader, or somebody from IT and making
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: them the leader, because you've got instant potential I'll call
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: it inflict. You've really got to have a leader who
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: can define ownership of accountabilities, set clear communications, goals, priorities.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: These all start at the top. So I think that
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: you've got to combine in that leader somebody who can
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: manage that, and also somebody who's a good collaborator themselves
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: and can reach out to the organization and get feedback.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: And in terms of ownership, everyone on that new combined
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: team needs to feel that they're a part of that
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: new team and not one owning the other. And I
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: don't think that this should result in, for instance, it
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: reporting to HR or vice versa. So ownership with single
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: leadership I think hits the first hurdle that you talked about.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: The others are kind of combined communication and no offense
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: to my teammates or peers or or anyone in either
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: of these organizations, but as departments that serve the entire
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: employee base, both of these corporate functions can carry negative
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: opinions by employees. Not always and not everybody, but there
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: are times where these departments are the ones that you
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: love to hate.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: And I right, So.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't compound that problem by missing the opportunity to
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: communicate both to the new teammates. But you're also servicing
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: every employee, So you've got to community your communication goals
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: in your communication hurdle is not just with your new
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: teammates in these two teams, it's with every employee. And
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: the way I look at it is this in communication.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: It doesn't solve everything, but a lack of communication can
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: break everything. So you've got to have a person and
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: a part of this merger and program that is solely
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: focused on communicating internally into the to the external population.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: And the reason for that is these teams need information, right,
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: They've got to understand what the goals are, why they're important,
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: and how I, as an individual and my department contribute
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: to those goals. So a communication, I think is critical
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: and it comes from all areas and it can't a
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: lot like next thing, it can't be a hobby. It's
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: got to be part a core part of the project.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: And I think the last one was was around.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Priorities and goals and.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Competing, competing, competing goals, and yeah, so I have experience
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: in this kind of a thing at my prior employer.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: And like I alluded to earlier, it was not a merger.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: It was an acquisition.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: It reported to finance, and what happened in that merger,
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: in that acquisition is that it reinforced the fact that
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: it was a cost center with expenses that needed to
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: be controlled and managed and reduced. It didn't it didn't
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: form the basis for collaboration with finance, and it certainly
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: didn't improve the reputation with the business. It caused increased
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: stress in it because we were reporting to the being
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: counters and it wasn't about technology anymore. So you've got
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: to look at your combination of these teams in the
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: right way and in terms of kind of getting past
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: the hurdle of goals and priorities, you've got to just
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: you've got to make sure that you're not just setting
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: goals for the team, but you've got to talk about
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: and drive toward desired outcomes and shown the report does
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: a really good job at drawing these out productivity, onboarding, enablement,
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: adoption of new technology, training, engagement, retention. It's all the
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: outcomes that you're trying to drive for this. You need
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: to make sure that people understand that this is not
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: just moving the chairs the deck chairs around the Titanic.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: This is a bigger deal, and you're doing it for
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: a specific reason. In all of those goals and priorities
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: that you set also help with decision making when you're
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: setting those priorities, and I think if you look at
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: it that way, you're able to then balance your goals
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: across the two teams, and everybody then drives to the
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: desired outcomes and not just participating in a new.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Orchard comprehensively insightful analysis. There to many many thanks. Conscious
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: of time, and do not want to sign off about
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: getting Oriana's view of this. And last time we spoke
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: to Oriana in this context, or at least concerning report
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: installment Part one turned out, Oreana, you'd basically been pursuing
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: your own research in that very area. I don't know
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: as curious if there was any crossover all with what
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: report Part two looks at and anything you've done, and
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: then more specifically, there is a mention in the report
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: that AI could be leveraged to personalize on boarding and learning,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: and we're definitely interested in getting you take on that
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 20:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so this isn't necessarily material that I'm personally working on,
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: but it's definitely top of mind for the product product organization,
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: which means it is top of mind for me because
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: we are thinking a lot about how do we provide
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: people with the resources they need for things like onboarding,
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: learning and especially that kind of in app very contextual
• 20:30
  Speaker 6: information that helps people to smooth work processes, have really
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: tailored recommendations, be informed about what it is they need
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: to do without relying on sort of outmoded and clunky
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: systems like documentation that has to be kept up to date,
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: things like that. So I think there are really great
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: opportunities and next think is definitely investigating those. So I
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: would say when it comes to the question of personalizing
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: onboarding and learning, there's two specific applications that build off
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: of each other. The first one is understanding the persona,
• 21:08
  Speaker 6: So who is the end user, what are their needs?
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: And sometimes we think of that in terms of role, right,
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: like finance versus sales, versus engineering. But it can also
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: be things like new to the company versus very experienced, Right.
• 21:23
  Speaker 6: It can be new to a particular software but experienced.
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: And that type of nuance is something that you can
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: get at a much more sophisticated level today than you
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: could maybe in the past, where it was just you know,
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: new versus old and department based. So we start to
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: be able to understand people's needs much more specifically and
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: then address those in context. So that's applying those insights
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: to provide people with education and information that's hyper contextual. Right.
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: It's the little reminders in the product telling you something
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: has changed, something has improved. There's a workflow that you
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: can be using that sort of anticipates your needs. The
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: thing that I always think about is sort of what
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: we wish Clippy was. So anybody who was using later
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: in the nineties will remember Clippy, which was not particularly
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: useful but extremely cute and extremely annoying. But what if
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: it were actually useful? Right? I think the concept certainly
• 22:28
  Speaker 6: appeals to people on a very emotional level.
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: We have this idea of tiny unobtrusive guides that are
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: personable and relatable. We see it in video games, right,
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: we see it in science fiction. And I think that's
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: sort of the mental image that we have and that
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: we can use, as you know, not necessarily the end point,
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: but rather an inspiration for what it will look like
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: to have more contextual information and guidance.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Imagine if Microsoft AI tool launch was Clippy Clippy, a
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: return of Clippy, I mean, I would have been fantastic.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: I want my own little R two D two follow
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: me around some a little droid that can help me
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: get through my day to day exactly.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Are in a good great, great question for you to
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: finish it off? And it's possible many of the job
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: titles in the future hr I T department our positions
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: we can't articulate today. Sure, but what career advice would
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: you offer anybody interested in working in the intersection between
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: people and technology? And I have to say, what better.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Person to ask?
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Because I in a way that describes your career en
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: role arguably or Oreana would use.
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, And I love this question. I love this topic.
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: I think there's always a need for people who are
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: genuinely excited by both people and technology and are able
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: to bridge those gaps. It's something I've talked about with
• 23:58
  Speaker 6: a number of our customers. So there are already starting
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: to be those roles right at some of our more
• 24:07
  Speaker 6: mature DEX teams or centers of excellence. I've spoken to
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: people who do focus on the easier experience of it,
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: for example, And when I worked in it, right, that's
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: where I first got interested in working technology. I had
• 24:22
  Speaker 6: a BOSSO called me the human computer translator.
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: Digital communications tay call me the product therapist. And I
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: think these are sort of joking terms, but they really
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: get at the heart of the matter.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: You need somebody who is passionate about understanding what do
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: people need in order to interface with technology, what is
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: the relevant experience that technology can deliver? And I think
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: the people who are most effectively leveraging next thing and
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: are going to be able to leverage these new technologies
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: as they arrive are the people who are thinking about
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: change management from a human perspective, right, in terms of communications,
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: like you were saying earlier, and really leveraging that ability
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: to connect those dots and to bring those teams together
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: and to come up with scotto chees for making that
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: technology more human.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Beautifully said Oriana and beautifully said everyone and special shout
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: out and thanks Sean for not only joining us today
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: but as ever, but for writing both fantastic reports they've
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: they've really done phenomenally well. It generated so much interest
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: and engagement and input from customers and from listeners. They've
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: been a pleasure to kind of delve into as well.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: And if you haven't yet downloaded Part one and all
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Part two, just check the show notes. You can get
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: them both right now for free, along with the latest
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Gartner Magic Quadron, which I don't think if you even
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: had a chance to discuss it. Yeah, I mean it's
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: been as your time. But next thing did pretty well
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: spoiler all that along with along with what else along
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: with you can get you you can book now for
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Boston or London experience and of course you can listen
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: to You can go over you can find a link
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: to the Parallel Special podcast feed, or you can listen
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: to the first two installments here, released over the last
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: few weeks if you haven't yet heard it, and be
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: sure to let us know what you think as well.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: So it just.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Reminds of me to thank everybody once again for listening
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: and of course for joining.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Bye. To make sure that you never miss an episode,
• 26:40
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• 26:52
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to learn more about how next Thing
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: can help me improve your digital employee experience, head over
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to next think dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Until next time,