Leading People
Gerry Murray talks to leading people about leading people. Get insights and tips from thought leaders about how to bring out the best in yourself and others.
Leading People
Discover the Secrets of the World’s Top Employers
What does it really take to become a top employer in today’s world of work?
In this episode, Gerry Murray talks to Ammara Naeem, Client Experience Director at the Top Employers Institute, about what smart HR leaders are doing differently to stay ahead, from systems thinking to AI-powered leadership.
In this fascinating conversation, you'll learn:
- What top employers are doing that others aren’t
- Why HR needs to speak the language of the business
- Gen Z, talent fluidity, and the rise of the “new collar” workforce
- The link between employee and customer experience
- How to prove the value of learning, development, and culture to the C-suite
Ammara shares practical insights from working with 2,400+ certified employers across the globe and explains why empathy still wins in uncertain times.
Curious?
🎧 Listen to the full conversation now to discover what others are doing.
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Wide Circle
Welcome to Leading People with me, gerry Marais. This is the podcast for leaders and HR decision makers who want to bring out the best in themselves and others. Every other week, I sit down with leading authors, researchers and practitioners for deep dive conversations about the strategies, insights and tools that drive personal and organizational success. And in between, I bring you one simple thing short episodes that deliver practical insights and tips for immediate use. Whether you're here for useful tools or thought thought-provoking ideas, leading People is your guide to better leadership.
Speaker 1:Have you ever wondered what it really takes to be a top employer, what separates companies that win the war for talent from those still stuck in outdated practices, and what are the key HR trends that matter most right now? Today, I'm joined by Amara Naeem, client Experience Director at the Top Employers Institute, where she works with thousands of HR leaders across the globe to shape what the future of work actually looks like. In this conversation, we dig deep into what top employers are doing differently, why HR needs to evolve its own skills, and how empathy, systems thinking and smart use of data are changing the game. So if you're curious about where work is headed and how to bring out the best in yourself and others. This episode is for you. Let's dive right in. Amara Naeem, welcome to Leading People.
Speaker 2:Hey, gerry, thank you so much for having me Really looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Great, and you're joining me today. From which city?
Speaker 2:The Hague, the Netherlands, best there was.
Speaker 1:Den Haag that's what you like to call it the famous Hague. Um. Okay, so now you're. You're the client experience director at the top employers institute and you talk to a lot of HR folks, which means you have your finger on the pulse of many aspects of organizational life. And I know from some of our own clients at Wide Circle, my own company, that becoming a top employer is quite a big deal for many organizations, which is another good reason why I invited you on the podcast today. But first so my listeners can get to know you better how did you get to working at the Top Employers Institute and what people, places or events stand out in your journey to where you are today, and were there any epiphany moments along the way?
Speaker 2:Oh for sure I mean. That makes me want to take you back to the very beginning, right? So I started out as a pre-med student, but somewhere along the line I decided to swap my white coat with the corporate blazers. But please don't judge me for that, don't you dare? Anyway, and somehow it was supposed to be a temporary assignment.
Speaker 2:I ended up working for like a small role in HR and completely fell in love with the field. Not that I didn't like working with people and trying to save lives, but it made me realize the potential of the field, the impact it could eventually have on people. Potential of the field, the impact it could eventually have on people and all that there was to do, so much to do in that field. And that made me continue on with it, gone on to create different HR departments, different sizes of companies, worked for employer branding for a bit, quickly realizing along the way how important it was to really speak the language of the business and how far HR can be from actually speaking that language. So I quit my job, went for my MBA just trying to, you know, in search of that. What is it that would make this tick, that would make this collaboration with the business more tangible for me, ended up in the Netherlands where I completed my MBA and right after that, top Employers Institute found me or I found Top Employers Institute, and that was eight years ago.
Speaker 2:Within that journey, I think one thing that stands out is people. I do enjoy working with people, but instead of diagnosing pathology, I ended up diagnosing HR challenges. So I've worked as an HR auditor at Taubman Employers Institute. That's how I started out, but went on to build client success advisors team and now as a director of client experience. Of course, the experience component, but also client success and advisory for HR leaders, also sits in my team. Advisory for HR leaders also sits in my team and that's how I get to really learn every day from HR leaders that are leading these amazing organizations all around the globe, and that's how I'm here Great.
Speaker 1:Actually, I think I attended one of your own webinars there last year at some stage, which also was one of the reasons why you stuck in my head at the time, because you were having quite an informed conversation about trends in HR, and we'll get to that shortly. How many people are in your team then, just out of interest.
Speaker 1:Right now it's a team of seven, but settled all across the globe, so you're looking at south africa to singapore, to germany, to spain so not only are you able to talk about the, the, the insights and the work you're doing with the top employers institute, which we're going to get to now in a minute, you're also a practitioner in terms of being a leader yourself, so I guess that also informs and gives you a mirror sometimes or a reference point for how you're doing your own job.
Speaker 2:I guess, oh gosh, yeah, I have no idea every single day, and it's not only, you know, leading a multicultural, geographically diverse team, but also a virtual team. That has been a learning experience, I think, for for many of us here. But on top of that, I find myself to be very lucky in the sense that I am talking to all these HR leaders again across the globe and they teach me so much every day in so many different ways. So it's been quite an experience, especially through the pandemic journey, I can say. I think all those changes were bound to happen at some point in time, but I think the pandemic just somehow expedited all those philosophies or things that people thought, yeah, that's going to come around in the next five, 10 years. But yeah, bam, you're right in the thick of it. And yeah, there you go, and here we.
Speaker 2:We are where we were still arguing if well-being was going to be a topic that was part of the business strategy or not, to now where it's a. It's a no-brainer, trust me. I've had conversations, uh, prior to the pandemic, where I was questioned, like you know, talking to these companies at that point, auditing them, and they'd say things like yeah, but we provide so much for our employees. We have the best possible benefits, so we don't see the need of having a well-being strategy. And here I am telling them like no, this is how you need to look at holistic well-being, not just physical well-being. Yada, yada, and fast forward to today. It's's like I don't need to convince anyone anymore. It's literally like no other way to go yeah, so that's.
Speaker 1:We're probably going to unpack more of that in a few minutes. Let's get to the top employers institute as a sort of let's get a high level helicopter view on it. How would you describe the institute and its work and where are you based and who do you serve, etc and let's get get the sort of like very basic stuff for first.
Speaker 2:So, yes, we are headquartered in amsterdam, but you're looking at 2400, more than 2400 organizations that are certified top employers. So not everybody gets to be certified, obviously, but I'll get into that in a bit. But those 2,400 plus organizations are spread all across the globe, but our headquarters are in Amsterdam, with offices in different locations as well. So we're present in the US, we're present in South Africa, singapore, india, so, like you know, bigger sort of hubs, as I may, you know, call them in the UK, germany, et cetera. So, yeah, we've got presence all over the world and the leading factor for that is we do follow a global methodology. So whatever we are doing or analyzing in one country is the same as we would in another. So whether you're in Spain or in the UK, it doesn't matter, we're going to look at you basically the same way, and that's also, I consider, our competitive advantage in some way. But at its core, top employers are organizations who have basically made a very conscious decision to prioritize people right and they're investing into coming up with something that's evidence-based, action-oriented and measurable. Also, these top employers are companies who understand that the new world of work in order to thrive in it, you've got to have your people's strategy just as intentional as your business strategy, so that working with us is one of the ways they can co as your business strategy, so that working with us is one of the ways they can co-own those business outcomes. And how we do that is. I think it's important to give it some context. Our purpose at Top Employers Institute is to create a better world of work, and how we bring that to life is mainly through our flagship program of certification. Through our flagship program of certification, and what you're looking at here is a collection of roughly 250 different HR practices that are researched, that have proven to have impact on employees, their engagement, their happiness and all that great stuff, and HR teams here would fill in that assessment. So you're talking about everything from your strategy to infrastructure you've got in place, covering the entire employee journey, from employer branding to developing employees, to engaging them through well-being, rewards and recognition, etc. And they would fill that in and have a conversation, a discussion, an in-depth review with one of our HR auditors.
Speaker 2:So no, you cannot buy the seal, unfortunately. You have to really work for it, and these HR auditors are basically trying to decipher how you're bringing these practices to life. What does it mean in your context? If you hit a 60% score, you get the certification.
Speaker 2:And whether you get the certification or not, what's waiting for you at the end of the tunnel is this beautiful set of benchmark data where you can actually see where you stand in relation to some other companies, whether that's in your region, in your industry, workforce, comparable workforces, setups, et cetera. But it gives you a roadmap to where you can grow, where you can move forward. So when you're becoming a top employer or you're becoming part of the journey, you're looking at continuous improvement. That's the key here. It's not about just getting that certification. It's about really creating an impact. That means something and I tell you, jerry, our HR leaders, they love this stuff because it arms them with data, with some language, credibility that they can really take to their boardrooms and say like hey, this is why I'm claiming we need to invest into x, y and z so that's, very valuable.
Speaker 1:That's what we do that's very valuable to uh, valuable to HR leaders, because nearly everybody else sitting in the boardroom has pretty good data or data to support their proposals and strategies that they want to do. I'm going to ask you a question now because it might be something that's on the mind of my listeners and I had the Belgian CEO of Great Places to work on a while back and many organizations get both certifications. What would you say are the distinctions between what they do and what you do? On Leading People? The goal is to bring you cutting edge thought leadership from many of the leading thinkers and practitioners in leadership today. Each guest shares their insights, wisdom and practical advice so we can all get better at bringing out the best in ourselves and others. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share a link with friends, family and colleagues and stay informed by joining our leading people linkedin community of hr leaders and talent professionals yeah, that's a great question, jerry.
Speaker 2:Uh, because for me it's something. A great place to work and top employer certification kind of are how do you say two pieces of the puzzle. Because Great Place to Work measures your employee sentiment. Like you know, your employees are filling it in, etc. Whereas we at Top Employers Institute we're looking at all the people practices that HR has put into place, the business has put into place, and we're trying to guide you as to what you're missing. So when you look at those two data and compare, like yeah, I've got all the brilliant career stuff in place, but my employees are saying they're not happy with it, or they think that we don't have enough in place, what's the gap here? Well, maybe it's communication, and often it is that you're not communicating enough in the right way to the right, like, um, exponential gains that can come out of the comparison here so it's.
Speaker 1:It's not just not really a case of either, or it could be a case of both and for the to get the the bottom up and top down aspects covered, so you get a more holistic view exactly.
Speaker 1:It'll make the picture complete that those two pieces of puzzle okay, so you've talked a little bit about the methodology with the 250 hr practices etc. And what are some of the key topics that you you know, if you bunch them into sort of categories, what sort of categories stand out to you as in part of your auditing process?
Speaker 2:yeah, we actually have six different domains, as we call them here, but let's avoid our jargon here. Just to put it in like very simple words, there are six categories where the top two are still in shape, and here we are looking at do you actually have a strategy in place, right, that's aligned with your business priorities as well? And then in shape. And here we are looking at do you actually have a strategy in place, right, that's aligned with your business priorities as well? And then in shape. We're talking about all the different things like digital HR, so the technological setup you're supporting your work environment, all the different practices you're putting in place to support your strategy. But the most fabulous one of them all, I guess, are the three middle domains all the way from attract to engage and this is where what I mentioned earlier as well you start to look at your employer branding. You look at your talent acquisition, you look at onboarding, so you know when somebody gets exposed to your brand, all the way to when they become a new hire, to where you're taking their learning development, their leadership development, their career development, and then well-being, rewards and recognition, how you're engaging them, your employee listening strategies.
Speaker 2:Those are the topics we explore under those three domains. And then there's unite, and that talks about things like sustainability, which is a fairly new concept for HR as well. I still remember discussions, right? Why are you asking me this? This is a very business topic, but yeah, here we are again with ESG and all that great stuff going on around. We're also talking about ethics and purpose and values within this domain. So all of that, in total, you're looking at 20 different topics that cover basically every component of HR. So it's not just a one-man show. It's your HR team that has to come together and work on this assessment. Also, the byproduct that you get out of it also applies to everybody, so it's that breaking those cross-functional barriers as well, in a way.
Speaker 1:So I guess, to just take what you just said and expand upon it, I suppose a question that people out there might be wondering about is what are some of the big trends you're noticing recently in HR? Because you've mentioned a few things, like the whole well-being thing, and then five years ago it was like, well, why bother with that? And now it's mainstream. And now you're talking about sustainability. Like, well, why bother with that? And now it's mainstream. And now you're talking about sustainability. I have friends who actually work in organizations where a big part of their sustainability now is the people side. It's it's not like are you putting certain products into your you know, putting components into your products that meet certain environmental requirements, etc. It's actually talking about the people side and the social aspect of that and and how your people show up in the world as representatives of your company, etc. Etc. However, you're probably the person who has the most expertise on this, because you're looking at the data and what sort of big trends are you really noticing now in the hr world?
Speaker 2:just putting a little bit of context here. Uh, jerry, what we started to notice was, obviously, macro trends have always impacted businesses in one form or another. Right so, political environment, et cetera. But what's happening now is there are other trends like declining birth rates, aging population, all of that kind of contributing to labor shortages as well. We are looking at AI revolutionizing the workplace, so all these things have very quickly become so integrated with the business but also the people side of things, that it's impossible for any company to be completely alienated from its society. In a nutshell, so that's where we are seeing that the role of HR is also evolving and, by the virtue of that, the leaders of the company and in HR as well, where you are kind of in the middle of the business priorities, the employee expectations as well as the societal expectations. So the concept of systems thinking is one of our trends that we've also spoken about quite a number of times is needs to become ingrained within HR that you cannot any longer make a decision by just thinking about hey, I'm just in talent acquisition team, so I'm going to do my job, I'm going to look at my KPIs and be done with it. That's just not an option anymore. You need to start thinking about any decision that's going to come into play. How's that going to have a ripple effect on everything else that's going on around you. The advent of Gen Z, and I mean I think I can safely say the changing employee expectations in general as well. You don't have a choice anymore but to keep your finger on the pulse, you know whatever's going on around you.
Speaker 2:So one of the trends that we spoke about is basically that, like the role of HR and employing that systems thinking, that design thinking mentality, and also looking at the future of HR. What would the role of an HR BP look like in the future? It's definitely not going to be the same. There's a lot of revolution that needs to happen in that aspect. But coming in with, let's talk about the multi-generational aspect. Right, the workforce today has several different generations that we are expected to manage as leaders as well. Right, and understanding what their expectations are becomes the top priority.
Speaker 2:Gen Z we did some research into Gen Z and we quickly, very quickly something that was really obvious came out that they're looking for developmental opportunities. They want to work for organizations that provide them with that. They want to work for organizations that actually stand for something. So it's not just about visible activism, right, it's about it's expected of you. It's not just about the words anymore. You have to show that with action. Just about the words anymore. You have to show that with action.
Speaker 2:And that's also somehow leading to another trend we're noticing, and that's the concept of new belonging, and what that implies is that Gen Z and, I think, to some extent, the employees in general by far are making connections that are even extending beyond the confines of your company. You're looking at people who are not staying in the same job for 30 years, like my father did. He worked for the same bank for 30 years. That's just not possible anymore. People switch jobs. It's about talent fluidity and it doesn't mean that employers are not good anymore. It's just the nature of how the world is evolving. And in fact, we have some top employers who are putting practices in place. Like you know, boomerang employees you go, you learn, you pick something else up, you gain new skills and then you come back to us. We welcome you back with open arms. So that just goes on to show you that those connections are just forming very differently.
Speaker 2:Now the challenge for HR and leaders becomes how do we manage that extended sense of belonging this is the new belonging how do we leverage it? So if my employees are working in a shared workspace, they're forming some connections there, they're picking up some stuff there, how do I proactively make them bring it back to the organization and use that gold mine of information for the rest of the population? So that's another thing that we are, you know, really actively talking about with the HR leaders. And one thing that is really becoming more and more obvious, more and more accentuated, is the skills-based organization. One part of it is skills-based hiring as well, right?
Speaker 2:So when you're looking at inclusion, for example, you're talking about I think one of our trends is also neuro-inclusive by design, right? So that means you don't specifically put people in boxes and start to create different, different things, accommodations for different groups, but rather you build your systems, your processes, your work design in a way that caters to different populations as well. Whether you're neurotypical, neurodivergent, you are, for example, communication systems, the way you're communicating it caters to by default not by the way of accommodation, but by default, to different reception modes, right? So people take information differently. Let's proactively think about that. Let's think about how your teams work, the strengths, the skills they've got. Let's start to hone in on the skills rather than putting people again in boxes and talking about the different roles. How can we leverage those specific skills and create teams that deliver the best possible outcome for the individual, for the team and for the organization by far?
Speaker 1:So I'm hearing a lot about the skills-based organization and I'm curious how are organizations measuring skills? Because anybody can put a skill on their CV or resume because they think they have it and yet they may not have it, and people are prone to exaggerating what they can do. So how are organizations going about? You know this whole skills ecosystem. How are they actually determining who has the skills in terms of the ones that can be applied for what need going forward? You're listening to Leading People. With me, Gerry Murray. My guest this week is Amara Naeem, from the Top Employers Institute, Coming up next how top employers are redefining development performance and the role of AI in the employee experience, Plus what HR needs to do to stay future-proof. Stay with us for more great insights.
Speaker 2:That's a very, very interesting question, jerry, because I think there's not yet been a magic solution. Why? Because the skills that are needed for the future probably don't even exist at the moment. So where campus hiring used to be the go-to, you know, you bring people in with certain skillset, train them for an entry-level position and you're good to go. The question becomes if AI, with AI coming in, your basic stuff is going to be done by AI. The skills gap there starts to widen even more. And these universities, educational institutions, are they going to keep up with the pace of change and the pace of the needs changing for the organizations as well? So, long story short, what I'm saying is why I said that there's no magical solution, because most of the organizations are still figuring it out. What we're seeing is many are coming up with their own sort of skills taxonomy. So what skills are needed for the organizations that are specific to the organizations and in this case the business sees will be needed moving forward, like, let's say, next two years, next three years, and they train people or they upskill or reskill their employees based on those specific skills.
Speaker 2:I have examples in especially tech consulting industry where they started to allocate skills tags or badges. So once you acquire a skill, you get a badge or a tag. These are global organizations, right? So it also enables them to do those internal movements. So if a manager sitting in the UK is looking for something for a very specific skill for a project, for a specific project for the client, at this point in time, they would look at their internal career marketplace again AI-driven and pick out people who have actually gained or acquired those skills tags and they know okay, this person has these skills, I'm going to use this person on this project. So there's a lot of that internal career marketplace going on as well.
Speaker 1:And who's determining? Like who's determining if you've got the skill? Because this is something I mean. Many, many years ago when I was doing my MBA, we did a fantastic course called management in society and this was at a time when the whole debate about I was based actually at the UK at the time and they had kind of stopped being a manufacturing nation and more of a services nation, and I remember our lecturer talking about how the Germans had the best model in Europe because they had the apprenticeship model and you could only get certain jobs if you had passed all the apprenticeship and the master, in whatever domain, would certify the people beneath it. Are you seeing organizations where there is an internal process to say that, for example, amara actually has that skill because we've seen her do it five times or 20 times and it's producing results for the organization? Or are people just filling in these databases by themselves and saying I've got that skill because I went to a meeting once and I was we talked about?
Speaker 2:it. The skills tags, example, for instance, that I spoke about. That's a mix of the organization taking so the employer sort of taking ownership of making sure you have that skill, and that's a mix of like okay, we're going to put you through this training. So, like you know, yeah, you get trained, etc. So that counts a certain percentage, but then you don't immediately get that skills tag or that badge. You go through a project or there's an expectation set, like in order for you to get skill a. You go through a project or there's an expectation set, like in order for you to get skill A, you'll go through this training, but then you'll work on a project and then you'll spend X number of months working on X, y, z and once you've crossed all those, you will be allocated skills A, skill A, and then it becomes part of your internal resume skill A and then it becomes part of your internal resume. It's not necessarily like yeah, I think I'm really great at public speaking, so, yeah, I've got that skill chat.
Speaker 1:I think they're a little bit more controlled is what we are noticing now. Okay, my favorite is the karaoke example. You know there's lots of people get up on a Friday evening and claim they can sing to the karaoke backing track and no matter how many Fridays they get up, it's quite obvious that it may not be the case, you know. I want to explore one or two other things you talked about, because and I think you still have maybe one or two of the trends that you can elaborate on I'm just curious, like there are many people out there who talk about this term, human resources and say that it itself is outdated, and what are you seeing in terms of changes in the nature of how those departments and individuals are being described? Because we're still talking about described, because we're still talking about HR and we're still talking about HRBPs and, yes, I can understand the business partner aspect of it other emerging factors or trends that are suggesting that that particular concept is no longer valid for going moving forward.
Speaker 2:I think one of the earliest indicators I can speak to and this is already a few years ago, it's not like right now is the switch to basically changing the name of the department itself. That speaks to something as people and culture is what we're seeing more and more, especially among multinational organizations and for a while now. So, yes, maybe the HRPP roles do exist in some organizations, but now we're looking at, you know, talent partners. We're looking at different jobs like employee experience managers. So there's definitely a shift there and I tend to agree. The word human resources is not only that it sounds outdated, but it's coming from a time when HR was about payroll and admin and all that stuff. That I never really enjoyed myself A bit biased there, but if we want seat at the table, it also comes with its own branding and perception. Right, that's the reality of it. Uh, if you're gonna sit with just yeah, hr admin and hr payroll and all that, um, we're just not gonna make a move. Uh, there either.
Speaker 1:So completely see what where you're coming from, jerry yeah, and the concept of culture probably dovetails nicely into the idea of the systems thinking approach, because I'm a big fan of systems thinking for many, many years and culture itself is a system and therefore to understand the dynamics of that system, understanding systems thinking is probably quite valuable, which would then lead to a question around what do hr people need to do to help skill themselves going forward?
Speaker 2:right on, right on. I was also going to get into that as well. When you talk about skills, for example, we we tend to very quickly talk about skills for employees um, you know how they're going to help the business. But I think it's also very fair to say that, as people function, that HR functions, whatever you call them. We need to also do that self-reflection, because sometimes we do become a little bit of a cult. That's the reality of the situation. Let's just call a spade a spade. We do also tend to get stuck in our ways and not wanting to change. And we have done things because it has worked, we're going to keep doing it, but we kind of don't have that option anymore. Moving forward, we need to look at ourselves as well and see where do we need to build those certain skills that are going to be future-proof?
Speaker 2:When you talk about speaking the business language, I mean, we've seen that for quite a while, but still, when I talk to people, what I'm witnessing, we are not there yet. We don't speak their language. We don't know how to really become a business partner. Yes, you have it in your title, but are you really a business partner? Because guess what happens when you say we have a 10% increase in employee engagement. What is your CEO taking from that? Like, yeah, you did a great job, but how is that bringing him anything? How does that translate into revenue, profitability, the market growth? I I don't have like many examples of hr people doing that very, very well or very close to the business. So you know, with great power comes great responsibility. So if you're getting that seat at the table, you've got to make uh sort of strides in that direction as well.
Speaker 1:I suppose by nature the challenge that a lot of departments would have this. But somehow the HR department has this challenge that when you talk about the payroll etc part of it, it becomes perceived as very transactional. You know, you get the HR department to do a transaction for you, which then diminishes that perception that HR can be very strategic. And I had a former colleague of mine, former CEO on the program was it last year and he kind of put the challenge out there because he spoke at a conference many years ago and he said he asked the room of HR professionals how could they name on one hand, the number of HR CHROs or directors who'd become CEO? You know as having had a career in HR and went straight into CEO role, and he said no people struggle there and it's strange.
Speaker 1:You could ask how many finance directors or CFOs become CEOs and you're going to get a big long list. Same with sales and marketing people or in engineering companies, the operations people or head of engineering. And yet it's kind of in many organizations, particularly the service sector, it's a surprise that you don't see more CHROs becoming the natural successor to the CEO because you think that's, you know, the business is the people and the talent and the skills, so it's interesting. It's a very interesting. You know, the business is the people and the talent and the skills, so it's interesting it's a very interesting you know.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of this that I read recently jerry um. It was a survey of um ceos and 38 of them said that they would rather resign than lead a large-scale workforce transformation project. There's so many things you can take from this stat right. On one hand, your business is not going to survive without people. On the other hand, everybody's scared of touching that with a barge pole. So it is definitely surprising that not more CHROs get into the CEO position. But I also believe that the time is right for us to change that, with AI coming into the picture that can support all the transactional stuff that HR has been responsible for for decades and that gives us the opportunity to actually set ourselves the right way, the more strategic way.
Speaker 1:I've had the privilege in recent years of meeting some outstandingly talented uh hr, senior hr people who really can do the strategy very, very well. I mean, it's a pleasure to be around them because they're not just thinking about, you know, this one little project that they want you to help, that you know you can actually have a conversation about the longer term impact on the business, what the sort of challenges the business has had, how this is going to help the business. Often many, many projects that have leverage take time to put in place. They're not. They're not put in place in three days or three weeks. Sometimes it can be three months to up to three years depending on the type of project. And yet I've noticed this talent that these people have. They can see how all the pieces like the systems thinking. They can see how the pieces will eventually plug in together and create a new dynamic and maybe a new way of working, but a positive way of working for everybody in the organization. Are you starting to see that yourself in?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely Absolutely. I for one, I always say we already have so many proven practices in the business. I mean I'm client experience. I mean I speak HR, hr is my clientele, everything. But I'm technically business. I'm talking about client experience. Why can't we replicate those client success, client experience principles to HR? And we're seeing that kind of happen more and more. I had this conversation with an HR leader recently who said I am now evaluating my team on NBS, so it's just a first Net promoter score for the business, exactly.
Speaker 2:So it's really all right. Let's take one step to move closer to the business and start to speak their language, but also replicate what they do well. If we can manage client experience so well, if we can invest into setting up processes, design thinking and all that great stuff for that, why can't we use the same for our employees? Because these are the people. It's been proven that if you keep your employees happy, your customers are also going to be happy. So there needs to be that link somehow, somewhere. But definitely seeing the the, the change start to form.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I had a professor from Columbia business school, professor Stefan Meyer, on the program a while back and he wrote a book recently called the employee experience, and his whole drive for writing the book was, he said, when you look at how organizations create the customer experience and he had made that link that you're talking about, which is he couldn't see the same evidence for the employee experience and yet in so many organizations, how the employees feel about working there, et cetera, is going to impact how they represent you and how they interact with. The most important person in your organization is your customer, Because without customers, nobody's going to get paid.
Speaker 2:So exactly that's the thing, right, and I all the other day I was having this conversation where it just made me think like, okay, should hr start to report into chief customer officers? Yes, because you're looking at the same, the same picture, basically, uh, would it help to align all those pieces together because your people are delivering the experience for your customers? So, anyway, that was just my wild thinking right there.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean why well thinking is is often changes the world. You know it can have great um implications. If people start to just explore the concept, it can land somewhere, maybe slightly elsewhere, but it can still gets people to think outside the box.
Speaker 1:You know, absolutely, I mean it's a fascinating experience to walk into a room and ask people who pays their salary and they'll say the payroll department. At the end of the day yes, of course the transaction. However, I, you have some sort of customer at the end of the day paying your salary. Now, even in the public sector, it's the taxpayer, it's the, you know. Ultimately, it's the taxpayer and the government organizations that collect that who fund the government. At the end of the day, in the private sector, it's your customers. It's like if they don't buy and you can't make a profit.
Speaker 2:You can't pay your people.
Speaker 1:It's as simple as that, you know in the world of hr.
Speaker 2:Uh, we always say our customers are internal employees. Right, but what if we were to change our thinking to our customers are also actually the customers. What would that change? What would the impact be like? Obviously, you have to work for your internal employees, but let's look at the bigger picture and in many cases, your, your employees, are your customer.
Speaker 1:Particularly if you make a consumer good, they often, they often are your customer. I want to just talk about one or two other things here, um, that you you've kindly some of the stuff you sent me in advance, but also some of the stuff that I picked up from clients. Uh, on some of the areas which have emerged as quite important and we talked about gen z earlier you know, going back many years ago, the whole idea of having a career in an organization was you made your way up the organization. This was testament to and, at the end of the day, this kind of illogical, because organizations are quite pyramidical and only a few people can actually get up to the higher echelons and you're starting to see, perhaps today.
Speaker 1:Go back to your point about development and more of a focus on can I have a career in this organization, which doesn't necessarily mean I have to become, try to become CEO, cfo or whatever but can I go to work every day and, you know, get new challenges, grow myself, develop myself? What have you been seeing over the last few years in terms of how employers are rating on this, in terms of when you do the audit and what sort of step up they're doing to, because it's a great way to retain people, isn't it, if you can offer them somewhere to belong where they feel. Well, I do a job for two years, then I can take on new challenges and move into something else without necessarily having to become something higher level, etc. So what sort of challenges, or sorry, what sort of trends are you seeing in this area?
Speaker 2:Definitely a lot going on there, One of them being or just an obvious one, I would say. You see, more and more companies are using Courier as a hook in their EVPs to attract candidates, so clearly there's something happening right. They're seeing the need.
Speaker 1:Unpack EVP for Employee value proposition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, yeah, that's my blind spot, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, I know it's, everybody should know it I'm always trying to imagine being a listener out there who's going absolutely right. What's an evp? Is it an electric vehicle? Or is it some sort of an electric vehicle powered purse? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Okay, the employee value proposition, so like any corporate value proposition like what do you bring to the customer? So he's like what do you, as an employer, bring to your candidates? Why should they come and pick you instead of the other organization? And the war for talent has been going on for quite a while and, of course, the pool is shrinking. We all know that we're struggling to find the same set of skills that are already maybe not existent at the moment. So, anyway, it's becoming more and more part of that. So everybody's trying to say like, hey, we're going to help your career, these are the development opportunities we offer. So it's still about the money, and you know the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Obviously, that has to be met, but this is becoming more and more what we see.
Speaker 2:Another thing is very obvious that more and more organizations are investing into personalizing learning and development. Right, because not everybody needs the same set of classroom training that they used to get, or you know we are used to. It's more about investing into the systems that apply that, and again I'll refer to the AI and digital components that play a role here. So, based on, say, for example, what my development plan is, the system suggests different types of learnings, but basically, the investment is there and it's getting to be more and more, which tells you, the trend indicates this is important. That's why the employers are investing into it.
Speaker 2:The career moves are I'm not saying they're not vertical anymore, but there's a lot of horizontal shift that's happening as well. So if you studied marketing at the university doesn't mean you're going to end up in a marketing career. So I think organizations are more open to such shifts. If I look at myself, like, no, I studied something, I did something, and then now I'm doing something completely different, and I think that's a norm now. Yeah, and Gen Z and current employee population in general as well, I think we're getting used to of learning by doing, whether that's sort of accentuated by the fact that the skills that are needed are not existing at the moment, um, or simply that, yeah, we are not going back to the classroom to learn something, we're just learning it on the job and actually what's your point about studying something and ending up with something else?
Speaker 1:I mean a little interesting conversation piece at a dinner party I mean we've had this a few times in the last couple of years maybe there'd be seven, eight, nine, 10 of us around the table and ask who here is actually doing something professionally today that they actually absolutely directly studied. Now, of course, if you did medicine and you became a doctor, it's likely that you've done the path. If you went into one profession and at the same time, it's quite remarkable how many people are doing something quite different, right? And that brings me to an interesting you were talking about. I want to do a little bit on ai now and the experience across the entire workforce, just to get towards the end of this.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that's still going on out there which is which is kind of a bit shocking is amongst certain people in the academic world, they're really against their students using ai to do their assignments. And the thing is, I mean I have a friend uh, he was, he was also um on this program a couple of years ago and he specialized in customer experience and he has said openly that he is he's a professor. He's encouraging his students to use the tools because he said, at the end of the day, when, when I give them a unique situation to to look at, I'm still looking for how they're interpreting it, how they're using the data, etc. Et cetera. Because in many cases, all the AI is doing is helping you gather data faster, but it doesn't mean the data is still valid and you have to be able to check it the same way you check your sources and anything. And yet there's still people out there saying, no way, we're not allowing it, we're not allowing it in schools, et cetera. And yet kids are using it, for you know, know, planning their vacation time, and that they I mean my kids do it.
Speaker 1:They go. Okay, I want to go there. Let me go in, chat, chat, gpt, uh, what I should be doing when I go to whatever place, and, you know, could I do a road trip or do something like that. So, so, that whole ai thing, uh, and and and how is that going to impact the, the employee experience now going forward? Um, what I mean? We, of course, we need a crystal ball. We don't have it. At the same time, you must be hearing things from organizations, are they sort of saying we have to do it slowly because you could get completely carried away with this and and do stuff that just won't work or cost us a lot of money. What are you hearing out there and seeing?
Speaker 2:um, my personal take on this I'll speak to first is it's kind of like burying your head in the sand. It's not something of the future anymore. It's here and it's moving very fast. So, you know, just closing your eyes to it is kind of not going to do much good to anybody. As far as the organizations or top employers that we speak to, there is definitely movement there. Some are much quicker to adapt than others, obviously, and I think industry also has a large role to play here. So if I'm talking to my tech consulting clients, obviously they're already developing solutions, yada, yada. If you're talking about some other, like FMCGs, they've already started, they're on their journey, but maybe the focus area is a little bit more on like, okay, let's just kill the very basic stuff with AI. So the needle is moving. There's no going back.
Speaker 2:However, the trend that we expect to see this year is you need to figure out that cusp of human and AI interaction, like you very well alluded to, jerry. It's not like AI is gonna do everything for you. It's gonna impact every single role I mean that much we can be sure of but it's not gonna take away every role. It's gonna either help you do it better or it's gonna change it into something something else, something much more meaningful, but that doesn't take away the human intuition component from it, and I think top employers, for most part, realize that. They understand that. So nobody's looking at. We're going to lay off 50% of our workforce and replace it with AI.
Speaker 2:I have not heard of that strategy yet at all, but it's more like okay, let's just use it, for example, in HR.
Speaker 2:How do we get rid of the transactional stuff that we've had to do and help us be more strategic?
Speaker 2:One of the things that we mentioned in our trends report is the AI powered leadership, and that means that, for leaders as well, this is gonna mean so much more because it's gonna help you make better strategic decisions, because it's gonna provide you the information that you were maybe finding in 10 different places or you didn't have access to, or whatever the case might be. But at the end of the day, it's going to be your brain kind of analyzing it and saying, okay, does this make sense in our context or not? Shall we move forward with it or not? That's not going to replace your leadership capabilities, but you can use it for things like hey, within my team dynamics, let's use AI to figure out what the strengths and weaknesses are, for example, so we can have a much more efficient productive team in place. It's things like that, and so definitely the value is there, but in no way is it going to replace human intuition. Rather, it's going to be a partnership.
Speaker 3:Is what we are seeing, and also in terms of experience.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I'm just gonna finish up on the experience component of it. That should do wonders to employee experience as well as it is doing for customer experience, by the virtue of simply being able to aggregate the data that's available in scattered places, analyzing insights that can make you a bit more predictive, like in in client success. We look at data to see what's the uh. How do we predict the renewals will pan out for this organization? Based on x, y and z factor. Why can't we apply it to employee experience to say who's at flight risk or you know? Uh, you know they're gonna leave the company in the next two years, based on a, b and c. So those um principles are definitely useful and something that I'm really looking forward to seeing how they pan out and just to take one or two of your points there.
Speaker 1:I mean, there is this kind of perhaps misunderstanding or misinterpretation at times. Like many blue collar at the that word blue collar you know many work, jobs and factories and that we tend to think about a lot of this stuff on the white collar. You know the of the money. The asset base is equipment. You know it's. You know that's a huge thing and so they can't just shift systems willy-nilly around an organization. But what's one question I wanted to ask you about is, with all the talk about AI and the exploration of what it can do in different industries, what are you seeing in terms of how workers councils and unions are reacting to this type of thing, because surely they have something to say about this, and particularly in european context, there's a lot of countries where workers councils are very strong of course, lots of discussions around that and we do expect like, again, talking to different clients, they're and we do expect, again, talking to different clients, they're expecting there will be more protectionist governments, there will be more unionization, and you know, we see that already.
Speaker 2:Let's look at the debate on DEI around the world, based on what's happening in the US.
Speaker 2:So, again, the macro trends we are no longer immune to.
Speaker 2:So, yes, unionization, it is expected that we will see more of that. But I just want to hone in on that AI and blue collar workforce point as well, because this is also something that came up in our trends. We are looking at this new collar category where it's not that the blue collar jobs will be taken away by AI, but we there'll be people who have, who have these technical skills who traditionally would have been blue collar workers, who would be able to develop these digital skills using AI, et cetera, and creating this new category of new color workforce that's actually going to be much more important than any other color, basically because those are the skills that you won't be able to replicate, necessarily, very easily. So that was another very interesting trend that we observed, and I think it's also about we're kind of in the thick of it right now, with the unions talking and everything agreeing or not agreeing to certain aspects. It will evolve into a situation when the dust settles. I expect it will be a positive spin for everybody involved.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a term I hadn't heard before today, so that's new collar workers, because, of course, there are certain connotations to how people use the blue collar term in the past. So that's a welcome development in how we talk about the various workers in an organization. We talk about the various workers in an organization. So, coming to the end, what's a couple of key insights or tips, or even one key insight or tip you'd like my audience to take away from this conversation?
Speaker 2:I think, as a leader, we get a lot thrown at us. I understand that on a personal level or on, like, a client level and everything, and we're not always prepared to handle it. But what really works is to not let go of your empathy with your team either, because what you are absorbing is also reflected on them. So I think if I were to say anything, that's what I would say Don't lose your empathy and acknowledge. I mean, I know you cannot change the world. You cannot change everything that happens within an organization, and sometimes it just helps to acknowledge that. Yes, I'm aware.
Speaker 1:Okay, so how do people get in touch with you, amara?
Speaker 2:Find me on LinkedIn. I try to be active but definitely respond to messages.
Speaker 1:And reach out and mention that you heard the podcast Leading People podcast. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I guess then there's the.
Speaker 1:I'll put links in the show notes. But I guess the other thing is if an organization out there is curious about becoming a top employer, they can go to the website.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. You can find us easily online at wwwtopemployersinstitutecom. If nothing else, just reach out to me and I'll put you in touch with the right person. If you're interested to find out more, I'll be happy to have a chat.
Speaker 1:So feel free to get in touch with the right person. If you're interested to find out more, I'll be happy to have a chat, so feel free to get in touch.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, as always, thanks Samara for sharing your insights, tips and wisdom with me and my listeners here today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, so much, Jerry, for having me Coming up on Leading People.
Speaker 3:That's a great point and, you know, there's something interesting that came out that talks about the fact that just because we can does not mean we should. And I think it's extremely relevant today when we think about technologies that are able to automate a lot of the aspects of the employee experience, when we start thinking about the utilization of things like generative AI as part of the employee experience and there's a very interesting case study that talks about the fact where an organization tried to replace the performance management discussion between the manager and the employee with AI actually facilitating the feedback, and it completely bombed out because the employee gave the feedback to say there's no humanness towards this typical interaction that we have.
Speaker 1:My next guest is Dr Dieter Felsman, organizational psychologist, chief scientist at AIHR and co-author of Work for Humans. During our conversation, we dive into how employee experience is being reinvented, why leaders must stay human in an AI driven world, and how smart organizations are creating workplaces people actually want to be part of. It's a conversation packed with insights you won't want to miss. And remember before our next full episode, there's another One Simple Thing episode waiting for you A quick and actionable tip to help you lead and live better. Keep an eye out for it wherever you listen to this podcast Until next time.
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