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AI Natives Don't Exist Yet: The New Career Reality | Mervyn Dinnen · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey, it change makers, and welcome to the Deck Show
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: with tom Ac gra Let's get into it. I think
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we're wonderful. But the most wonderful thing about the Deck
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Show is that we get to sit at that intersection
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: between technology and talent, between tech and the employee, an
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: intersection was right there in the name Digital Employee Experience
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and delighted to welcome. You know, actually, before I welcome
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the guests, I will say, we have the opportunity this year,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I think, to lean here and there a little more
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: towards the employee than we have in previous years. So
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: regular listeners will remember, we had Gabby Tafanions representing us
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: of an HR leader to discuss the kind of impact
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: of AI on talent selection and the sort of HR
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: side of house. And then we had Benedict Lady Bell
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: talking about what it's like to be a younger employee
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: making their way in their career at a time of
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: huge transformation. And with that, it gives me enormous pleasure
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: to welcome today's guest who's really stood out to us
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: as a thinker, who sits so comfortably on that borderline,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: in that gray area between technology and talent and brings
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: that kind of expert, expert perspective, that almost kind of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: philosophical perspective to the issue. He's mervined and then welcome Mervin,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So so lovely to have you on, Michelle.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: How I'm great, I'm great, Thank you, thank you for
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: inviting me. And after that introduction, I'm not sure what
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I can say, Well.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Do I do? I have that about right now? That's
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: how we think of you here as somebody who kind
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of is interested in the way that balance between tech
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: and talent is kind of manifesting itself in a modern workplace.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: I think so, yes.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I mean it's I've, without boring your listeners, I've had
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: a fairly securitous room in that. You know, when I
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: left school, I actually trained as an accountant, and I
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: went through accountancy, I went through I was a tax specialist,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: and I did a complete about turn halfway through my
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: career and became a recruiter. And from there I've I've
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: kind of I was an earlier doctor of social media,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: way back, probably before you can remember. I don't know
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: if you know a time before Twitter, and I.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Sure do, movin, I knew a time before before the Internet.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: You know, Oh, well, BlimE me, Okay, you're older than
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: you look, thank you, and like me no, but I yeah,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And I've just kind of it's been interesting because if
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: I find things interesting, then I find that that I
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: want to know more about them, and I do research,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I start speaking to people. And I suppose there's a
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: restlessness around the career or in that always looking for
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: not not what's next, but something knew, something different. Is
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: there a better way of doing this? Yes, there is
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: now a way we can do this that we couldn't
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: do that before. And that's the kind of thing that
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: really interests me. And when there is a new technology
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: or a new way of doing things, or a new
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: outlet like podcast or something, how can we actually make
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: the best of it. How can we use this to
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: really help other people, to shine a light on what's
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: good and what isn't and you know, how people can
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: maybe do their work better. So I think that there
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: is a bit of a theme there, but it's it's
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: it's some of it's a bit of restlessness or always
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: interested in what's next, and some of it is trying
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: to make sense of, you know, what.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: We can do.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: So as there is a new tech innovation, how can
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: we use this? Yes, obviously the people who've created it
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: say this is how you must use it. But nearly
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: everything in since the dawn of technology has always had
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: another use, if you know what I mean, other than
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: the one intended when it was created.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: One hundred and I guess that kind of mutability you've
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: had in your own career is now the kind of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: what do they call it agility? I think you just
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: use the words yourself know that the present kind of
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: we're going to get into it in more detail, but
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the present kind of demands of the person at the
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: beginning of their career or actually, forget it, wherever in
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: their career they happen to be.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean it's the the traditional I suppose,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: the linear career, where you know, you specialize in something
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: and you get better, and you get promoted, and you
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: go and ultimately you end up on a board or
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: as a partner, or you go off and do it
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: for yourself with other people, maybe on your own. That
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: kind of path I kind of I suppose still exists,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: but it's almost without without getting cold philosophical, it's almost
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: like an ecosystem of a lot of people, particularly around
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: things like podcasting around people are blogging and writing, and
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: you know that there's an ecosystem of people sharing best practice,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: sharing what's new, and sharing you know, different thinking.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: That's very interesting moment. I know exactly where you're coming from,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and to go just pick up a philosophical issue in turn,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: which is when I think about the decline of the career,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I worry about those of us at whatever stage of life,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: who are in the getting older bracket, right, because that
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: is who the career service pretty well, you know. And
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: with the decliner for career, yeah, we're going to get
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: to the young momentarily, and the young understandably acquire a
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: lot of discussion and focus, but it doesn't necessarily time
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: too well with the people at the other end of
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: that spectrum either.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: No, what I mean.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: The the concept of a career and people working on later,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: shall we say, is still relatively new in that I
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: always go back and I sort of bore anybody. The
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: reason that, say, in a country like the UK, the
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: reason that the state pension age was set at sixty
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: five back in nineteen forty eight or whenever it was
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: was because average life expectancy was sixty eight, so on
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: average you'd only get it.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: You've got you've got three years off.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Some people never got it and others lived a bit longer.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: But you know, if you look now average life expectancy,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I think last time I looked sometimes eighty one or
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: eighty two for men and eighty four or eighty five
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: for women in the UK. So you've got people who
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, when I started work, it was an accounting firm.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: There's about one hundred and twenty people, and I was
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: a young, nineteen year old trainee. The two eldest people
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: in the firm were aged fifty two and fifty five. Right,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: there's nobody older, and you know that they someone like me,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: They looked old. But that's obviously changed a lot. And
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: with that, I know we're going to get onto the
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: generational side, that we now have five generations in the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: workforce and things like that, which is a lot of
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the writing and speaking and stuff I do is around that.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: But so it's kind of evolved, it hasn't there hasn't
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: been a plan for right, this is now what we'll
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: do now that people are living longer, people are active,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: they want to carry on working. Because again, the assumption
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: was that you would get to an age where you
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: think I've had enough of this. You know, I've made
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: some money, I've got some money aside. I can just
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: eke out my final years now kind of eating, drinking
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: and traveling and kind of you know, doing not much.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: But you find.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: That that kind of cohort that people thought twenty years
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: ago would be there actually still want to be doing
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: things they missed, the daily nip and tuck of not
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: so much business, but I mean of actually using the brain,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: using the gray cells, interacting, meeting people, talking to people.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: It still gives them a buzz for sure.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: And there's there's increasing amounts of necessity to keep working
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: into interolder age as well, going around, isn't there there's
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: a sort of the comfortable pension that's going to see you.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: You know, it's a bit of a diminishing reality. But
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: as you just alluded to mer when you first came
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: to our attention free working on through through your work
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: for your writing on gen Z, ironically it's specifically in
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the AI workplace. Maybe a good way to set the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: scene would be to ask you to sort of explore
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: what what you think is and isn't working for this
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: very significant generation in the future of our economy in
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: today's workplace.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Well, one of the things that I suppose isn't working
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: for them is the fact that the old people like
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: me are still in the workplace. No, but but that,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: I mean that has to be so, I mean it
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: goes back to a point. Obviously I've already made that
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: that people you know, there was a retirement age, people
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: didn't work. A lot of people didn't reach that, and
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: if they did, they then stopped working. But there is
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: no necessity on people stop working now because as long
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: as they remain active. As long as they remain you
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: want to keep using the gray cells and everything. And
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: there are more and more roles, particularly in areas I
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: suppose like consulting, and particularly where you know, we're talking
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: primarily about an area like human resources for example, an it.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: So you've got people with a long track record in
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: those sectors who have a lot of wisdom and a
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: lot of things to share, and they're quite happy to
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: share them and still keep active. So I think that
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: the kind of winding down towards the end of you know,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: the last few years, you know, I'll retire and kind
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: of tend to my guard kind of thing has It's
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: it's changed now the structure of work hasn't necessarily changed
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: with it, so you know, it's we then get the
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: generational I suppose situation, which is something that I, as
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: you say, spend a lot of my time writing about
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: thinking about. I've had a podcast series with the gen
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Z Influence, so we did thirty episodes on that, and
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: you know, just looking at the world of work from
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: the perspectives of two very different generations. And I think
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: that that in itself is something that we in a
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: way we still don't know. We still haven't explored fully
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: and how we actually structure work. One of the problems,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: and without getting political, one of the problems, certainly in
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: the West and certainly in countries like the UK we
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: have is the cost of housing. So I think the
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: overall stat is that over the last forty years or something,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: property prices have increased something like forty times, but salaries
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: have increased nine to ten times. So whereas you go
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: back forty years, a couple could get together and on
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: relatively okay salaries and jobs could say for deposit and
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: buy property. And of course we haven't been building properties
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: at the rate we need to to because we weren't
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: expecting people to live longer and want to be active
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: for longer, and so you've now got the pressure on housing.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: So that I think the expression, the expression used is
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: the Inheritocracy, which is a book by doctor Eliza Philby
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: in the UK who's an academic who researched his generations,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: and that is, if you're like a generation of people
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: who are effectively waiting for inheritance to move, not not
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: move up the ladder, but to get that stability to
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: create a home, raiser, family things, to get on the ladder, Yes,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: to get on the ladder in the first place.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, Well we've leant towards the sort of people aspect
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: of that sort of spectrum. I do to the top
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: of conversation leaning towards technology a bit because what is
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: the impact then of AI on the career per se,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and what if it implications of AI in your view
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: for perhaps older generations of workforce. For first of.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: All, well, I think the common the common expression amongst
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: not people who are gen Z or why or even
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: X is we're doing a way with human race. Pretty
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: soon there'll be humans with nothing to do because the tech,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: the AI will do it all. So I mean, there
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: is an element of that, but you know, as the
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: capabilities of technology expand, so obviously we still need people
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: to I won't say keep it in check, but to
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: to to be a part of that and to help
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: that get I suppose used and manifested in the right way.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: I think that it's there are things that you know,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I will talk to people when I'm out and about
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: going to conferences, you know here in the US Europe,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: you know, I'll be talking to people who are doing
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: work or have very specific projects that you know, I
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: myself might think blindly when when did that become a job?
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Or when did that become a project? Or you know it.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: So I think there will always be ways in which
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: we will create this. But yeah, I mean it's the
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: short answer is I don't know the the I did
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: say many many years ago that and this wasn't about
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: gen Z. This was a generation that's much more established now.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Is that that that you know, it's going to be
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: a generation of people sitting around waiting effectively for older
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: people in the family to I'll say, move on. That's
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: a nicer way to say it, before they can get
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: ahead in terms of maybe housing and things like that,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: so it's it's I don't think that anybody has designed
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: a structure for a longer life. So it's kind of
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: and that is why we're kind of almost finding our
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: way in the workplace with people wanting to work on.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: People you know who would previously have probably retired or
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: moved on, you know, are still you know, taking up capacity,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: are still doing jobs, are still offering services. And I'm
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: not sure that we've really we're still feeling our way
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: how this looks. So you know, I couldn't say in
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: five ten years time how this will manifest itself because
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: we don't know, because we're still finding different ways, new ways.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: You know, barely a month goes by out some new
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: technological iteration which is going to change how we do
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: some aspect of work.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: And the funny thing about gen Z, I actually missed
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: this question out, this topic out is they're not they're
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: they're they're maybe digital natives, right, but they're not Ai natives,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: you know, so this must be intensely destabilizing for them,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: you know, probably more so the outset of your of
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: your working life or earlier in your working life and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: people later in it.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, and I think I mean the assumption will be
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: that because they are the the younger generation of the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: younger coat or in the workplace, that they will be
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: very adapted.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: It right, you find me a young true?
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Joke in offices I don't understand is find me a
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: younger person that that's yeah. They will be the one
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: saying find me a younger person to explain No, sorry,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: gen Z, sorry I didn't mean that.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, or does anyone need anything explained anymore? C
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I I will explain it to you exactly exactly. It
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: is fun as we found, as I say this year
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: in other shows, to explore some of the ways that
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: AI is really disrupting HR in general. It's interesting, you know,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: from the interview process to the to the internal presentation. Right,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of change. What areas are stood out
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: to you perhaps in your your podcast where you've been
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: considering these these disruptions or whatnot.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: I think that I mean there, I suppose that the
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: standard you know, when you get involved in these conversations,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: the standard thing is kind of automating, kind of you
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: know the routine U mystery duties, you know, recruitment, you
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: know that kind of using the AI maybe to assess
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: candidates something like that and getting hr more focused I get,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: I think on data, having some kind of data driven strategy,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: so things like you know, screening cvs, you know, initial
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: outreach basically you know, the initial not interview stage, but
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: but you know where you're trying to assess whether or
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: not the suitability. I suppose there's a lot more of
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: AI and tech involved in that now to maybe try
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: to get down to the cohort that you then want
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: to get more involved with, meeting, speaking to understanding, maybe
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: giving them some tasks to see how they perform.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: So recruitment and hiring, you know, is in.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: One of the big areas I guess, and again using
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: AI to maybe match skills to jobs. Things like payroll
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: obviously and things like that and the general you know,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: company policies and this is how we do things around here.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: We don't need somebody we'd on need office manager to
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: explain to us on our first days. This is how
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: we do things around here. It's all there. And you know,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: I mean the the chatbots, you know, the routine inquiries,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: immediate kind of you know, how do I do it this?
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: How do I you know, how do I I need
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: support for this? You know, we've got that there, and
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: things like benefits, payroll, you know, I think very much
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: handed over to AI now. I think that where it's
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: more interesting almost is the kind of data and analytics side,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: so you know, and analysis predictive tools, looking at workforce
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: trends that you know, being able to maybe begin to
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: forecast turnover, to identify people who may have other skills
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: or extra skills, could fill skill gaps, optimizing teams and
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: structures within teams and divisions, that kind of thing. And
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: then I suppose again learning is we can personalize training
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to a certain degree, give people different pathways to allow that,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: you know, enabling them to upskill in areas that they're
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: particularly interested in, that particularly interest to them, that can
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: match their goals if you know, this is what I
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: want to get out of working here, and and you know,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: to to maybe get a program behind them to to
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: get that.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: I think that's.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Things like we're still in the early stages of things
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: like the AI, you know, building some kind of corporate
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: culture or you know, creating some culture around the business
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: that I think is important. Things like I don't know
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: how many businesses get involved in you find that they
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: have a lot of conflict within you know, conflict resolution
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: and that kind of thing.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, it can help with that, but I'm not
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent sure that it's a major kind of
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: AI case at the moment. Leadership helping to support leaders,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: maybe leaders and managers who particularly in you know, find
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: themselves having to lead and manage emerging generations, so Z
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: and Alpha, maybe helping them understand maybe this is how
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: to reach and connect, this is how to maybe get
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: people on board and maybe to involve them, you know,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: are much more interesting. There'll be much more involvement if
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: we do this as opposed to that that kind of
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: thing I think, and of course AI governance itself is
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: a whole area. And you know, I think the jobs,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: you know, or new technologies or new iterations of technology
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: have always as somebody who started with pen and paper, Yes,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I'm that old started with pen and paper. Having said that,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: having said that, there was a computer that we did
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: when I started as a training accountant. There were good
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: old fashioned mainframe computers there, but mainly it was it
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: was pen and paper and kind of you know, so
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: it's kind of I've seen that evolve and you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: it's you know, there's experience and help there which I think,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: you know, can be passed on to to you know,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: others around the organization.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: You talk about the earliest workplace computers almost right, But
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: what about the way it has evolved in those decades since?
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And now where does that? Where is the silo, the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: traditional silo? What is the future of the traditional silo
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: between HR and it devose divisions start to converge now?
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: And if so, how.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: I think?
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, you know, they must converge. So
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I think that you know, I you know, HR in
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: you know doesn't no longer operates in isolation. I'm not
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: sure it ever did. It was personnel when I started work,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: and it was it was basically timesheets and contracts and
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: that was about it, really timekeeping. And obviously there's a
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: lot more now, be much more interested in the experience
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: of work and how we engage people, how we retain them,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: how we upskill them, how we we we we I
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: suppose build you know, work for them in a way
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: that enables them to bring them their best selves to
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: work every day and want to be part of it.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: So we we understand a lot more of that now
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: than possibly when I started work, which was, you know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I need to earn money, you know, so it's kind
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: of like, you know, this looks like a decent job,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: I'll do it. My dad was an accountant or at
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: the time, he's an accountant, and so his two friends
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: that I know best their accountants. Oh, be an accountant,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: you know, And that's a bit like kind of school
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: careers was a bit like that, what does your dad do?
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: What does your mother do? What do your uncles do?
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: What are you? Well, why don't you be an accountant
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: as well?
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: You know, that's what he was.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: What do you what are your thought some of the
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: future for human network? I think, you know, as much
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: as you kind of cited that as as something that
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: was kind of of its time, I actually think that
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that that not necessarily what your dad did does for
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: a living is going to dictate what you do for
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: a living, But who you know maybe grows in importance,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: and particularly you know, like this whole sort of phenomenon
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: around the screening process with AI as the intermediary between
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a new role and the job seekers and whatnot, people
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: are feeling like there's no hope. You know, everyone you
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: speak to who's looking for work it's like, I mean,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: it's partly to do with the diminishment of opportunities, but
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a sense that oh, you know, you
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you can't get an opportunity unless you know somebody. You
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: hear that more important?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I would agree. There is a very
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: strong element of that. We have, you know, connectivity at
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: a scale and speed that you know could could could
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: never have dreamed about when I was that age. But
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: the U but that does make you know that we're
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: so connected. It's almost as an emptiness around it, because
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: you know, we can do anything we want and immediately
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: contact anybody we want and in seconds, And that's almost
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: a kind of as I say, not emptiness, but it's
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: kind of it's not the same thing as you know,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: a physical kind of meeting or actually being in the
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: same space as somebody or having a one to one,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: but it's conversation or whatever. So that I mean, there
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: is a big difference. And certainly when I speak to
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: people who you know, have got kids growing up and
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: the kind of careers they're talking about are obviously quite
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: technology based, but it's kind of you know, how you
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: get the entry point into that. I'm not one hundred
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: percent sure. I think that again, there will be an
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: element of the broader network of you, your family, your
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: friendship group. And again, some of it probably still comes
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: down to where you went to school, where you went
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: to college, where you went to university, where you know, uh,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: and what connections you made there and what doors that opens.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's still an element to that, but there
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: is a lot more of from what I see, of
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: people wanting to be I won't say self employed, but
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: just wanting to be there are be an influencer beer this,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: beer that, but there is a path for them to
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: do that. There is a path for them to build that,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: and you know, it's kind of the the you know
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: that a presence online helps with that. So I think
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: that you know, on the one hand that it's difficult
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: because the structures that used to support people for long
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: term lifetime careers have now gone. But we now have
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: a very different kind of as opposed to a formal structure,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: we have a loose set of if you like, nodes
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: and stuff, where where connections and kind of yeah, I
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: met this person, all these little bits of contact which
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: can lead to something, and where I think people are
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: now much more adept at self taught at kind of ah,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: you know, I've learned something and not waiting to be
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: taught as probably my generation were. Okay, it's kind of
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: it's you know, I've passed my first level examine accountancy.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Now I need someone to teach me how to go
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: to the next level kind of thing. It's people I
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: think are much more a debt at finding their own
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: way and upskilling themselves.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Well, they need to be, they need to be one
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: hundred percent there. I completely agree. So what would your
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: main guidance be to specifically technology professionals majority of our
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: listeners right seeking to lead or even you know, add
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: value to the AI transformation process inside for organizations? What
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: do you think of the right mind state and career philosophy.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Is always be learning, always be connecting, always always be looking.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: I suppose to know more and find out more. Be interested,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: be interested in people. I mean, I know that if
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I go back to my days as a recruiter, you
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: know a lot of the best conversations when you're just
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: trying to find out about a person. You know, what
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: what really you know? What drives you? What are you
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: most interested in? What the success look like for you?
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: What you know, what what are you hoping to build?
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: You know, if if if I if there were these
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: six different jobs available, which one would you be most
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: kind of interested that kind of thing. Always be interested
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: in people. Uh, And and try and understand, you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: if what I suppose what Rather than question decision making,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: try and understand it.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Try and you.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Know, say well, okay, you've made a choice to do this.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I understand that. And and you know, try and help
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: support that as opposed to why do you want to
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: do that? Why don't you do this? You know, we
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: we we can be a bit judgmental humans, and I
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: think that particularly now with so many different routes and
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: piles people can go on. It's rather than being judgmental,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: it's I think it's much more about helping support. Yeah,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I use the terms support and enablement a lot, but
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I mean it's helping brought people and it's actually you know,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: enabling people to achieve the kind of thing they want
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: to achieve.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: We're almost out of time, Mervin, but love talking to you.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to end then with a with a
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: question that was kind of pivotal to the show. I
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: was going to end by asking you about how AI
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: is kind of changing your own plans and expectations for
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: your career and where the anxiety. But I think we
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: kind of we kind of covered that, and you have
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: a nice overview in what your career history has been
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: and what's guided you through it. So, you know, with
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a deck show digital employee experience. So we have a
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: bias perspective, but I genuinely have felt for a long time.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: But there's a real additional value in being able to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: measure employee experience during an era of AI transformation. Specifically,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on that as a metric and
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: indeed as a as a as an afterthought on experience
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: more generally as the if you will human Glover continues
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: to hold the workplace together, Hoby economy together for effectively.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Well, if there's one area within HR over the years
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: that I've been most interested in and done most research around,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: and I used to co author research reports with different
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: tech companies and stuff, it's experience. To me, employee experience
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: is the most important thing. Without you know that there
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: is a school of thought. You know, who cares what
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: the employee thinks? You know, it's there. They're here to
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: earn money. Kind of thing, and it's but I think
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: it's always, you know, it's always what experience you give
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: your people, because that's what will keep them, that's what
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: will make them perform, that's what will make them help
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: your business to grow and succeed. Is the way we
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: treat people, and that comes down to a certain extent
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: to the experience that we give them. So whilst you
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: and I didn't actually pre prepare anything, you actually ended
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: with something that I have believed for most of my
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: working life is probably the most important thing, which is
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: the experience how people get of working with us.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Well, we knew there was a reason we wanted you
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: on the show for all this time. Event it's been
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a pleasure to have you on for the first hopefully
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: not the last time. Man, thank you so so much.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Anyway we can send people interested in exploring your work
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: more fully.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm usually to be found on LinkedIn
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: and I usually post two three times a day. It's
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: nobody else has my name, and even the odd person
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: you might find with the same surname as me most
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: likely to be related to me in some way. But yeah,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm a lot online. I mean I go
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: to a lot of the I suppose the big conferences,
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: the hr tech conferences, unleash things like that. You'll see
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: me there in October, influenced greatness in September. That's in
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Salt Lake City. So if I did, I ran a
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: workshop in Kola Lumpa last week, and so it's a yeah,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I do get about thankfully.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: It makes a long trip.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: It was, actually it was. It was a long way
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: to run a workshop.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Don't do that remotely, No, no, no, no, no, great
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: great Persian Morvin. Nice to meet you, Nice to have you,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and you too. That's it for this week's Deck Show.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: We'll be back next week, and if you don't already,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: be sure to follow the show so you don't miss
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: an episode until next time.