February 12, 2026 • 35 mins
What happens when a global consulting giant decides AI proficiency is the new baseline? We dig into Accenture’s headline-grabbing cuts, its billion-dollar bet on upskilling, and the ripple effects this kind of mandate has on culture, fairness, and everyday HR work. The story isn’t robots taking jobs—it’s people who learn new tools outpacing those who won’t, and leaders choosing whether to invest, communicate clearly, and measure what actually matters.
We start with the human side: how fast change collides with real teams, the pressure that public targets create, and why skills-based expectations land differently across age groups. Then we get practical. We share how we evaluate AI-enabled ATS options that free recruiters from busywork without outsourcing judgment, and why prompt craft, data hygiene, and clear workflows beat flashy features every time. We also zoom out to the trust problem—self-checkout friction, surveillance at retail, and what happens when technology feels like a cop instead of a coach. Those same dynamics show up at work. AI that reduces toil earns buy-in; AI that polices without context breeds resistance.
If you’re an HR pro, manager, or curious employee wondering where to start, we sketch a path: pilot small, track time saved and quality gains, reward learning in performance, and set explicit expectations that tools will change every few years. We trade doom for agency, making the case that your value grows when you can wield modern systems with judgment. And yes, we still make time for the real workplace issues that spark outsized drama—like cream cheese gone missing during a bagel drop.
Hit play to get a candid, no-fluff take on AI at work, the skills race, and how to build teams that adapt without burning out. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review so more HR folks can find us.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:01):
Had you actually read the email, you would know
that the podcast you are aboutto listen to could contain
explicit language and offensivecontent.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present, or future employers.
If you've ever heard, my manageris unfair to me, I need you to
reset my HR portal password, orcan I ride up my employee for
(00:25):
crying too much?
SPEAKER_01 (00:26):
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Welcome to JR.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
Welcome to JDFHR, the podcast by two HR
professionals who want to helpyou get through the workday by
saying everything you'rethinking, but say it out loud.
I'm Warren.
SPEAKER_03 (01:03):
I'm Cece.
SPEAKER_00 (01:04):
All right, we are back after a couple crazy weeks.
This is take two, by the way.
Yeah.
And not only is it take two, weare going to record, edit,
produce, and publish thispodcast all in the next three
hours.
Yes.
Oh shit.
It'll be fun.
We don't get we don't have anymore take twos left in us today,
(01:27):
but it's gonna be fun.
It's great.
SPEAKER_03 (01:28):
It's gonna be fun.
It's it'll be fine.
Everything's gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
Exactly.
I saw last recording, we weretalking about all the snow you
got.
We got our 10-inch is crazy.
It's melting very quickly.
Now we've had days in the 50sand 60s, but I like getting
snow, but I'm done with it.
We've had more snow than mydaughter in Utah has had.
And like, yeah, that's there'ssomething absolutely wrong with
it.
SPEAKER_03 (01:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53):
They keep coming up with these names.
We've been hearing the term bombcyclone for a couple of years,
but now they're calling snownados.
SPEAKER_03 (02:00):
Hell of a snow NATO.
SPEAKER_00 (02:01):
Yeah.
Gotta have a snow NATO.
We had winds in the 50s, 60s,not anything above 73 miles an
hour for a hurricane, but it wasreally no a snowy key.
They were calling a snow a key,not a snow nado.
Oh, that's a good thing.
There we go.
Yeah, that's what they werecalling.
See, I can't even tell a goodstory anymore, but it was really
good.
Professionally, we're in themidst of open enrollment and
(02:24):
meeting numero uno, which we hadat seven in the morning.
And remember, I live an hour anda half from my work, so I woke
up at 4:30 so I could be there.
We had zero people come in forthe first meeting that was at 7
a.m.
We have a number of people workat client sites, and we wanted
to have them be able to come inbeforehand and make it
(02:45):
convenient for them to do it.
We're trying to make it asconvenient.
But I was like, nope, we're notdoing any more 7 a.m.
meetings, period, end of story.
SPEAKER_03 (02:54):
I don't miss that.
I used to work at a 24-7 plant,and yeah, I got voluntold
because it would be good for mydevelopment to meet people in
the organization.
So my manager, when I startedthere, was like, you should
really do this with this safetycouncil.
And there's one person from HRthat goes there, and it was all
about making sure everyone'sstaying safe on the floor, 6
(03:15):
a.m., so that both ships couldattend.
I did it once a month.
And after a while, I was like,You did this on purpose.
And he was like, Yeah, I didn'twant to go anymore.
SPEAKER_00 (03:25):
My wife, when she worked at Target many, many
moons ago, Target stores used tobe a 24-7 type of thing.
They're not anymore far andaway.
But when they would have HRthings, they would do, they
would, her and her other HRperson would divide up.
Okay, I've got first shift,you've got third, and divide
things up pretty equally.
(03:45):
So sometimes she would have tobe there like O Dark 30.
But nowadays, I think part of itis you can't hire people.
And Dawn, we went to Target notthat long ago.
And she was like, now she's beengone for 18 years now.
But she's like, if you had morethan three people in your line,
you were calling backupcashiers, and everybody was a
cashier.
Now they don't care.
(04:07):
They're as bad as Walmart withthe relying on the self-checkout
and nobody working in an actualregister or anything like that.
SPEAKER_03 (04:14):
So I heard somewhere that they're actually going to
be backing off theself-checkouts because they're
such a negative experience formost of the customers.
And also they're likeshoplifting with it between
everything is just not worth it.
Like they might as well justhire more people for the
registers.
I thought that was interesting.
(04:34):
I think that was Walmartactually that said that.
SPEAKER_00 (04:37):
The closest Walmart to me has 30, 40 self-checkout
lanes.
There's never more than six openat a time.
You still have a line.
So why bother?
It that frustrates me when theydon't have all the self-checkout
lanes open.
I actually prefer a lot of timesthe self-checkout.
Same.
But there's two particularstores, they're both actually
(04:58):
grocery stores.
I inevitably have to have theguy come and check at least once
or twice.
It thinks that I moved, I baggedsomething without doing it.
And heaven forbid if you takeyour bag.
SPEAKER_03 (05:08):
Is it Kroger?
It's because it does it with metoo.
SPEAKER_00 (05:12):
You take a bag off because you only got little four
little racks for bags to put itin your cart.
Now the thing's going off andthe guy's got to come back
because it thinks they'restealing something.
I'm like, she says, all right.
SPEAKER_03 (05:21):
Oh, and I don't know about yours, but now it has the
footage.
So they have to watch thesecurity footage to make sure.
And if for some reason it'sKroger, I don't know what
they're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (05:30):
The worst is their sister company, Harris Teeter.
I got frustrated.
Everything I did, it would stopme, and I have to have a little
kid come over.
I felt bad for him as I did yellat the kid.
I was buying six things and hehad to come over three times
because it would stop and say itwasn't registering on the scale.
I felt bad.
It's not the kid's fault, but Ihaven't been back to that Harris
(05:51):
Teeter since, even though it'spretty convenient to uh on my
way home from work with that.
SPEAKER_03 (05:56):
So I think I just bag too fast.
And I'm pretty sure that all theself-checkout people think I'm
just stealing shit and theyrespect it.
SPEAKER_00 (06:06):
Oh, yeah.
The closest grocery store to medoes not have a self-checkout,
and I'd really prefer if theywould have a self-checkout
because I'd rather just getthrough without the
conversation.
Yeah.
But one thing I do like I dolike Sam's Club's scan and go,
where you can scan it yourself.
Yes.
And what but I did learn I wastrying to be efficient.
(06:29):
I've got two things of chickenbreasts, and I put them in the
same little bag so the drippingsdon't get everywhere.
I did get stopped because I puttwo of them in the same bag
rather than them in their ownindividual bag.
I got stopped there once.
And the other time, it has to bein a cart.
So my wife and I went in, wewanted three things in and out,
scan and go.
And I'm walking out and I'mcarrying it, and she had to look
(06:50):
at everything.
It just now even if you're justgetting one or two things, you
should get a register for a cartif you're doing the scan and
goes that's gonna stop you.
But I have a much higher opinionof Sams Club now that they have
scan and go than I did beforethat.
And it's been had it for a yearor two now.
SPEAKER_03 (07:08):
So we have a Kroger here who's like one of the
locations is testing a scan andgo with this special high-tech
cart and everything.
And uh it just look it lookscomplicated.
It looks like they made itcomplicated.
It's because you put it, youput, you don't get like the
scanning done like I've seen itdone.
The cart itself is the scanner.
(07:29):
Oh so like when you putsomething in the cart, the cart
registers what it is.
But the carts look a little likeclunky and obnoxious, and you
have to log in.
And I'm like, it's too much.
I'm just gonna do thisself-checkout.
SPEAKER_00 (07:44):
First world problems, I know.
It really is.
SPEAKER_03 (07:47):
Interesting, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole on
self-checkout and AI.
I think it's what Target andWalmart are doing with
shoplifters and how their assetprotection teams they'll let
people because you punch in withyour membership codes and then
also with facial recognition,they will allow people to steal
(08:07):
little by little until itreaches a threshold and they can
get them for a felony.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_03 (08:13):
And I'm like, don't steal, don't be that person.
But at the same time, there'sjust a piece of me that's
unsettling facial recognitionfor a sort of the amount of
information these places arecollecting on you is just
insane.
Yeah.
And I think Kroger is alsolooking at facial recognition
with a lot of their stuff tobetter serve the customer.
(08:34):
There's just a bit of me that'slike, I don't really, you don't
need to scan my face when I'mbuying deodorant to like log it
somewhere.
Like that.
SPEAKER_00 (08:42):
Well, you like secret.
We're gonna send you a threebillion secret ads.
SPEAKER_03 (08:45):
Yes, everywhere.
It's gonna be like someone at myfront door is gonna show up with
a sign at this point.
It's weird.
SPEAKER_00 (08:52):
Exactly.
Well, before we get too deepinto our we actually got a topic
for today, some show prep wasdone.
So AI.
Actually, I should have usedsome AI otherwise, could have
done better.
But I want to thank oursupporters, Hallie, the original
JD Day Trial Rock star, Bill andMike, thank you for your
support.
And also In Ruculpa, the voiceartists at the intro.
(09:14):
And the songs are Devil theDevil by the underscore
orchestra.
So now let's move into some meatof a topic.
I came up with the the topic, Istarted going in one complete
ADD at its finest.
I started going one direction.
I had a quote from the guests onthe most recent episode of Good
Morning HR.
He's a guy from Harvard, Iforget his name.
(09:35):
And I didn't cite my sourceswhen I was copying and pasting
my notes.
So no sources will be sent.
But, anyways, he had a line thatI put down, and it may not be
verbatim.
You have to have someone who'sgoing to be comfortable being
told basically every two orthree years, you're going to
have to master a new systembecause the rate of technology
change.
And I started this not on thatline, but he'd said some things
(10:00):
earlier in the podcast, which Iabsolutely disagreed with.
But when he got to this line, Iactually went back and recorded
it and listened again so I couldget the line correct in there as
close as I could while drivingand scribbling.
So, anyways, the whole point,the rabbit hole I ended up going
down was a series of articlesabout Accenture, the consulting
(10:21):
firm Accenture, and what theyhave done most recently.
And this I none of the states toended, it's all uh ends look
like December 2025.
So it's not that old, but notthat new either.
So their CEO, Julie Sweet, madea statement.
She says, We're finding thatthere's an element of our staff,
they're not interested inmastering AI.
(10:44):
And so what that means, betweenAugust and November of last
year, Accenture has reduced itsworkforce by approximately
11,000 employees, and they'respecifically targeting people
who would not adapt to AI-drivenroles.
And okay, I don't like peoplelosing their jobs.
(11:06):
No, and uh, you know, but uhyou're at a point when you're
with a leading consulting firmin the world, and if you're not
keeping up on the technology,you shouldn't be expected to
retain your job for terriblylong.
Uh but as I kept going down therabbit hole, it kept getting
better.
Well, first I really seem tolike this Julie Sweet person.
(11:28):
Another line she had is that thecompany is exiting on a
compressed timeline, people forwhom reskilling is not
considered a viable path.
And I like that line too.
SPEAKER_03 (11:42):
Yeah, I yeah, I have thought.
I don't know how I feel aboutthat.
I need to digest it a littlebit.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (11:49):
Okay.
I'll let you digest.
I'll keep rambling on and youkeep rambling.
Okay, so we already said 11,000people are going to lose their
job, people who aren't keepingup with the times and keeping up
with AI-driven roles and thingslike that.
SPEAKER_03 (12:02):
But that's just such a weird statement to make.
We understand that we know howthe sausage is made.
So we understand as HRprofessionals, if we have
employees that are not gonnakeep up, not gonna upskill, not
gonna learn, they could probablyend up falling in that box one
of the nine box, and then youwant to X them out of the
(12:23):
company.
Totally get that, right?
But to put a number out thereand be like, we are getting rid
of 11,000 roles.
11,000?
Yeah, yeah, 11,000 roles, itturns into the hunger games of
okay, you got to be better thanthe person next to you, or you
could be one of those 11,000people to lose a job.
(12:44):
So, from that aspect, I kind ofhate that because it's just such
a weird.
Now, on the other hand, I had aCEO who recently who said that
uh the new expectation of ourroles was to be proficient in AI
as it relates to our work.
And at that point, if there areperformance issues and people
(13:05):
who just don't want to learnthings, then you can quietly
exit them.
SPEAKER_00 (13:08):
But they're gonna be moved here.
There's no quiet exit tier.
SPEAKER_03 (13:13):
Yeah, this is just hey, fight for it.
It's like a really twistedreality show.
SPEAKER_00 (13:17):
Well, see, I have a different take on it.
Okay.
If I were there at Accenture,first uh I like learning new
things, I like doing new things,and I'm gonna keep I'm I think,
especially given my age groupand my peers, I think I'm ahead
of the curve on other people,and I would welcome this.
Let's get rid of this deadweight.
(13:38):
You know, little Johnny overhere has been quite quitting for
the last two years and hasn'tkept up on his CPEs or whatever
else he's doing.
I think people like you and I,because we've discussed a few
times how you are a verygoal-driven and very
achievement-driven person.
We're not gonna be affected bythis if we're at Accenture.
I would really welcome this, butthis is where I like another
(14:00):
thing she said of two things.
Accenture is reinvesting over 1billion with a B dollars in
upskilling our reinventors,those people who are willing to
learn.
And they're gonna also not onlyupskill their current staff,
they're gonna hire specializedAI talent.
Accenture has doubled its dataand AI specialized workforce
(14:23):
from 40,000 people in 2023 toover 77,000 people last year,
2025.
So they're not only giving theslackers the boot, they are
like, okay, Warren, you want tolearn AI.
Here you go, here's some money.
Learn this.
And they're upskilling theworkforce.
These people are not per selosing their job to AI.
(14:44):
They're losing their jobs totheir own lack of skill sets.
And if they're continuing tohire based on AI, I think this
is just win-win-win.
And then the company has saidthey've already allocated$615
million for severance packagesaround this restructuring.
And that was only quarter fourof 2025.
(15:06):
They're scheduled to have anadditional$250 million projected
additional funding forseverances.
So they're not just kicking youto the street.
It sounds like they're going togive you a little farewell
package with it.
So I I don't see anything Idon't like too much about the
page.
SPEAKER_03 (15:23):
No, I think it's all positive.
I think there's going to be newexpectations, new tools.
You can use the example ofemail, right?
You can't work somewhere todayand not know how to use Outlook.
Where, you know, 30 30 yearsago, that might have been
different.
So I guess I am so for it.
I'm just curious about theculture that that creates.
(15:44):
I don't even know what theculture of Accenture is like
because I feel like it's just awhole bunch of high performers
who work hard, play hard types,who are very competitive.
So I guess it fits for them.
It's just maybe not a culturethat I would enjoy.
SPEAKER_00 (15:59):
I see, I don't think you're going to get hired.
I'm vaguely familiar withAccenture.
I've never worked directly withthem.
They were part of which Big FourCPA firm, and that's how I
became somewhat familiar withthem.
I think they spun off onto theirown.
They just have a stellarreputation.
If I'm one of their clients, I'mgoing to say, oh, look at what
they're doing.
I like this.
(16:19):
This is also a marketingemployee I can see.
They're upscaling, they're goingto be on the cutting edge of
technology, and they're going tobe able to better help me than,
say, Arnston Young or Booz Allenor one of the other giant
consulting firms like that.
I really think there's a lot ofpositive here.
Now, I did go, I made this,well, I don't know if it's a
(16:41):
mistake because it's good fodderfor the show.
I went on to YouTube and putsome of this information in.
I found some haters.
And and they were sayingpeople's jobs are being replaced
by AI.
Nowhere in here is somebody'sjob being replaced by AI.
They're hiring, they went from40,000 to 77,000 AI specialists.
(17:03):
They're hiring people.
It just you don't have the rightskill.
You're stuck in Windows 3.1, andwe're way past that now.
And keep up with your skills.
I don't know.
But I saw a few peoplecomplaining about that.
SPEAKER_03 (17:17):
I all I will say is that quote I like where it says,
you're not going to be replacedby AI.
You're going to be replaced bysomeone who is proficient in AI.
Yeah.
It goes back to a skill set.
And I know there's like negativesides to AI.
And I know there's all theselike crazy ramifications, even
environmental.
Yes, we could go down thatrabbit hole.
But at the same time, it's hardto put the genie back in the
(17:39):
bottle.
SPEAKER_00 (17:40):
Nope.
SPEAKER_03 (17:40):
Now that it's out, use it wisely.
Like maybe not waste fivegallons of water to find out, I
don't know, how to make a cake.
Use it wisely.
That's you just have to learn itbecause you will be replaced by
someone who is proficient in it.
SPEAKER_00 (17:57):
Yeah.
And I think if you use it as atool, it can make your jobs
easier.
Actually, shop easier.
I'm shopping new ATSs right now.
And I'm actually looking at onesthat use AI, not to screen out
people.
I want mine recruiter doing thatherself, but to help her be
better organized and betterstructured in her work and be
(18:20):
able to automate some tasks.
Uh like I said, I've already uhI haven't talked to these
salespersons.
You know, my my opinion on doingthat.
I'm doing my homework on my own.
And now using AI, by the way,I'm asking Jim and I at work,
hey, my company has this manypeople.
I have one recruiter and we hirefor this many people a year.
Recommend the top 10 ATSs youwould recommend to me.
(18:41):
And then it would give mesomething I'm AI, using AI is
very important to me.
Budget's important to me.
And it would narrow down thelist.
And it's it's done pretty well.
And I'll have a pretty narrowedlist of companies I'm ready to
talk to after I've done myhomework on them.
But I'm using AI for it andgiving it, you know, yeah, we're
(19:03):
going to hire 75 people, wethink, this year.
I mean, that's a lot for us,maybe not for bigger companies,
but for us, that's gonna be areally big year.
And so I'm I'm all on board.
But let's say other things thatthe naysayers were talking about
was it's going todisproportionately affect older
workers.
And they said those workers intheir 50s and above.
Here I am, I'm in my 50s.
(19:24):
I feel very confident that Iwould not be affected by this.
Like I said, this would make mea happy camper if I was at
Accenture, because they'regetting rid of dead weight.
And I want to say dead weight,but if you haven't kept your
skills up to be able to use AI,and that's that as your job as
an employee, that's yourultimate job, regardless of what
(19:45):
you do, is to add value to yourcompany in some way, shape, or
form.
And if you're not using themodern technology, the amount of
value you can add issignificantly diminished.
SPEAKER_03 (19:55):
Yeah, I do wonder like that is such a gray area
because it is going todisproportionately affect an
older population.
So it just takes one goodlawsuit to get them for wrongful
term.
SPEAKER_00 (20:09):
I would hope not.
I've used the story on thepodcast before.
My company's had some surges inwork, but the surge isn't enough
to warrant hiring someone, andwe don't want to go through
agencies.
And I've just told our COO oneday, I said, Hey, this guy
retired from us two years ago.
Look, why don't we just give hima call and see if he's
interested, available, andthings like that?
And let me we called him.
(20:29):
He was like, I'll be theretomorrow.
And he once again, I'm in my50s.
He's older than my mother, buthe is on top of technology.
I love him.
And he brings energy to work.
He's not a grunky pin's oldperson or anything like that.
He says, I love this part-timeretired work.
He says, If I want to work, I Ican work.
(20:50):
If I want to go see mygrandkids, I go see my
grandkids.
I love that.
He does what he wants.
We just asked him, hey, can yougive us 20, 30 hours this week?
And he'll tell us yes or no.
It was much better than goingthrough an agency or hiring
someone part-time.
He's a known entity.
And yeah, it's been really good.
So I think I definitely feel itwill affect older people more
(21:12):
because there's so many peoplethat don't keep up on technology
as older.
But I'll use another empiricalevidence type situation.
I have some 20-some odds at mywork who can't use Microsoft
Work.
They can't put an emailattachment.
Now, if I were to ask them togive me a TikTok video, oh man,
they knock my socks off.
(21:33):
But if I ask them to doproductive work, Microsoft
Excel, I get frustrated.
I have the unrealisticexpectation that if you're
younger than me, you should havebetter technical skills than me.
And I should be on the edge ofmy seat because you're coming up
behind me and gonna want to takeover from me.
I have no such fears.
SPEAKER_03 (21:55):
I gotta be honest, like technological knowledge
having to do.
With TikTok, social media,editing on your phone is nothing
to do with the technology youneed to utilize at work.
Right.
And I think there's just likethis expectation that because
they're younger, they shouldknow more, but they're still
(22:16):
learning their job.
So like I think back to when Iwas like my first job, I
accidentally, I didn'tunderstand distribution lists
and outlook.
Like I didn't because I neverhad to do it before.
I found the list to let themknow that leftover food was in
the break room.
And I accidentally sent it tothe entire company in multiple
(22:36):
states.
And it was just like somethingstupid like that, you know?
And they probably rolled theireyes at me, being like, oh, look
at this.
Yeah.
And it's fine.
It's like a rite of passage.
SPEAKER_00 (22:47):
It is.
It absolutely is.
But okay.
Squirrel, the rabbit hole typesituation, letting people know
there's like so fruit in abreakthrough.
SPEAKER_02 (22:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:56):
I had a discussion with an employee today who was
very upset because a vendor ofours brought in a ton of bagels
the other day.
And they had their own personalcream cheese in the
refrigerator.
And their cream cheese got usedon these bagels that got brought
(23:16):
in.
And they were not a happy camperabout it.
And they wanted me to put a signon the refrigerator that said,
please do not only take use yourown food from the refrigerator.
What people they wanted to say,but something like, don't eat
other people's food in therefrigerator.
I said, No, I'm not gonna, thisis a one-off situation.
We have eight boxes of Panerabagels in our break room now,
(23:38):
and then there is a block ofcream cheese.
I'm not gonna it's in thecommunity refrigerator.
Do that for two dollar block ofcream cheese.
SPEAKER_03 (23:48):
I will buy you cream cheese if we can end this
conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (24:26):
I went by the break room, and guess what?
Even after I said I'm not gonnaput a sign up, there was a sign.
SPEAKER_03 (24:32):
Oh, look at her.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
But anyways, I go by the break room and there's a
sign on the refrigerator thatsays I'm low, I do, I take it
off.
Really, dude.
Uh and it by the way, it was hiscli his vendors who brought in
these bagels, and it was hispersonal cream cheese that that
got used.
And I'm like, yeah.
Anyways, that's all.
SPEAKER_03 (24:57):
The thing I love about my fridge is that's all my
food.
I don't miss any of this.
SPEAKER_00 (25:04):
And of course it sucks if you have your own food
in the refrigerator that someoneelse eats it.
But if I'm putting my food init's not now, if it was in your
lunch bag that's a broth on it,my after Thanksgiving special
sandwich and that got eaten,then yes, I would be upset.
But if it's just a block ofcream cheese and there's I kid
(25:25):
you not, there were more boxesof uh bagels than I'd think I'd
seen in a very, very long time.
So I can uh only imagine, hey,what goes well with bagels have
cream cheese and somebody justsaw it in the fridge and grabbed
like that.
That's so silly.
These are things HR has to dealwith, and that's that's why
(25:48):
people come to HR.
So anywho.
Let's see here.
Those were the main that was themain story I had was this this
eccentric story.
I can't be too jaded about it.
It sucks that people don't golose their job, like I said, but
I think I see nothing butpositive.
And I also think the budget over$1B billion dollars.
(26:11):
On upskilling your team.
I would be asking, if I was anemployee I read that, I'd be
asking, what can I do?
What hey, where can I learn whathow can I get my hands on some
of this upskilling?
I wouldn't do it.
I would just uh an L and Dbudget of billion dollars.
That that tells you where theirfocus is.
And I just can't say anythingnegative about it.
SPEAKER_03 (26:36):
I do love a big L and D budget, more budget for
LD.
SPEAKER_00 (26:40):
Yeah.
I thought those things would getyour attention as well.
But like the original quote thatgot me started on this, I think
it's pretty accurate to sayyou're gonna have a lot of
employees are gonna have to becomfortable every couple of
years mastering new systemsbecause the technology is going
to change change.
That rapidly.
(27:00):
You know how old I am.
When I went to college or thecollege I went to, we got free
versions of WordPerfect andLotus Notes.
That's what we learned.
Who uses WordPerfe?
Well, law firms we've still usedat least used past since
WordPerfect when I last workedat a law firm as it did some
things that Word wasn't doing atthe time, but that's been many
(27:22):
years now.
Is WordPerfect even a thing now?
And I know I haven't heardanything of Lotus Notes, but you
didn't learn email.
Why did we didn't have email?
We're given his school emails oranything.
SPEAKER_03 (27:34):
We had an email in undergrad, but it wasn't
something I checked every day.
I would make a point to go tothe computer lab and log in and
see if my professors left anynotes.
It wasn't accessible as it isnow.
SPEAKER_00 (27:48):
Yeah.
And I was one of in mypaternity, I was one of only two
people who had their owncomputer back in the 90s.
Most people didn't have theirown computers anymore.
You go into the computer lab.
And I only went to computer lab,I needed to print things on that
wonderful paper that was dotmatrix, and it had the little
things you had to peel off andtear off of it was like one
(28:09):
almost continuous sheet.
Yeah, I went to to do that.
Old school stuff.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (28:13):
I didn't even we didn't even have Wi-Fi in my
freshman dorm.
There was just no Wi-Fi.
And if you wanted internet, youhad to call the cable company or
the internet company to come inand set it up.
And then you had to get like awireless router.
Like now it's just Wi-Fi as likea whole campus is Wi-Fi.
I was like, no, we didn't havethat.
(28:35):
You either that or you went tothe library for the library and
you worked in the library.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
Yeah, library.
I avoided the library like theplague in college.
SPEAKER_03 (28:46):
I love a library.
SPEAKER_00 (28:48):
In the 90s, and it's not this way today, the East
Carolina Library was so jackedup.
It was like three separatebuildings that were somewhat you
had to take a class calledLibrary Science.
It was a required class in yourfreshman year, and it told you
how to use the East CarolinaLibrary.
I could be on floor numberthree, section A, but to get to
(29:11):
floor number three, section B,I'd have to go down to the
ground level because they onlyconnected on the ground floor.
And then, oh, it was such amess.
But guess what?
Moron failed library scienceslearning how to use in library.
I got F in that class.
I had the mentality back then ofI don't like this.
I'm not going to do it.
Nice.
(29:31):
That did not serve me the best.
SPEAKER_03 (29:34):
Nice.
SPEAKER_00 (29:35):
I later grew up and learned how to play along to get
along.
SPEAKER_03 (29:39):
I miss a library.
SPEAKER_00 (29:42):
Okay, completely off type.
When's the last time you've beento a public library to actually
go in and get a book or dosomething?
SPEAKER_03 (29:49):
Warren, a month ago.
SPEAKER_00 (29:50):
Oh, really?
Yes.
SPEAKER_03 (29:52):
Because I finally got Bean's getting old enough
where she can do those librarystory times.
So my mom and I went to go checkit out, and I ended up getting a
library card.
Oh wow.
I am committed.
SPEAKER_00 (30:04):
I keep saying I'm going to get the library card so
I can get the app where you candownload audiobooks for free.
SPEAKER_03 (30:09):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:10):
Uh I uh I keep saying I'm gonna get a library
card.
I think the last time I went tothe public library was probably
when my kids were not Dean'sage, but uh still very young and
did some activity at the libraryI took them to.
But yeah, that's about it.
We uh my county has a wholewhopping two libraries.
Well, one is actually quiteclose to me, relatively
(30:31):
speaking.
But yeah, it's cool.
Uh libraries, I I wonder howlong those are out with the
internet.
SPEAKER_03 (30:39):
Well, it's good to have non-digital media and
books.
SPEAKER_00 (30:43):
Are you a physical book reader?
Are you an e-book reader?
Are you a computer reader?
How do you read your books?
SPEAKER_03 (30:49):
I am an audio book reader.
SPEAKER_00 (30:52):
Yes.
Okay.
Complete.
I know we're going longer today,but my maybe my last tangent for
today.
I am currently reading fromAudible the book Endurance.
It's the true story of theexpedition to cross Antarctica
by late and the early 1900s,like 1911 and things.
(31:14):
And anything that can go wrongdoes go wrong to these people.
But here's the HR nerved in me.
Uh Captain Shackelford is thecaptain of the expedition.
I'm like reading all thisorganizational behavior
techniques that he's doing intothe book.
And I think this book could be avery good case study for
(31:38):
organizational behavior.
The expedition took place inlike 1911 to 1915.
But, anyways, he hired people.
The first people he hired werethe people he knew and were
trusted and true.
And then other people, he justmet with him for five minutes,
and it was strictly based on didhe like you or not.
And that's some foreshadowingbecause things go very wrong.
(32:00):
And if you had a prick in yourgroup, that's not going to work
too well.
And yeah, like his meteorologisthad zero meteorology training,
but he liked him and he sent himsort of to go get some
meteorology training.
I'm not even finished with thebook yet.
So spoiler, I already know howthe book ends, but I'm sort of
like the Titanic sunk.
(32:20):
But I know how the story ended.
But I'm I'm actually enjoyingthis book much more than I
thought it's nice how I got thisbook, came up with this book.
I listened every time I read abook or do an audio book, I put
it into Gemini.
I have a whole question seriesabout my books.
And I like this one, and I saywhy I like it, and I don't like
this one.
I say why I don't like it.
And then I finally said, I wantI want to try something
(32:43):
different.
Uh give me something that'sdifferent, that's not a normal
comfort zone that you wouldrecommend for me.
And it one of the books it cameup with was this.
And I have to say, it hit themark.
Most of my books are sciencefiction, fantasy.
I love that genre, and that'swhy I do it.
But I was like, let me justchange it up a little bit.
I do like historical fiction,and this is a fiction, this is a
(33:05):
true event.
So it's it's cool.
And I think AI did a good jobeach and every time after I'm
finished with this book, I'llsay, in this case, I liked it,
and here's why I liked it, andkeep using AI to recommend books
to me.
SPEAKER_03 (33:19):
Oh, nice.
I should try that actually withbooks I've liked.
Huh.
Especially think about that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:24):
In the sci-fi fantasy genre, uh I like
fantasy.
I hate romanticy.
I think so many of the fantasybooks that are out there now are
romantic.
And the only ones that I willstick with, I've read all of
them already.
I'm waiting for the next in theseries to come out.
(33:46):
Oh, Rebecca Yoros, her book, uhI forget.
It's been so there's a littleromance in it, but not to the
point where I'm just like, okay,I'm over it.
You know, you're screwinganything that moves, and I'm
over it type of thing.
It's there's enough, there'ssome in there, it doesn't get
inappropriate, and I'm not thatI'm a prude or anything, but
it's just that's not my cup oftea.
Yeah.
And I want a fantasy type ofbook.
(34:09):
Her series is pretty good.
Someone recommended some books,and I just I got through the
first one.
I was like, if I start a book,I'm gonna finish it, even if I
despise it.
I don't think I can't remember abook I've ever stopped.
Once I start, I'm gonna gothrough the end of it, even if
it's uh sucks.
Actually, I should say one ofthose self-published books that
we were sent by somebody.
(34:30):
I couldn't even read uh Icouldn't follow it.
It was horrible.
SPEAKER_03 (34:33):
I know a few self-published books.
SPEAKER_00 (34:36):
And you need an editor.
So it was anyways, but anyways,uh that's another that's enough
rabbit holes for us to go downtoday.
So we'll be back in two weekswith more HR fun.
And yeah, wow, it's it's socrazy.
It's it's the middle ofFebruary.
We're gonna be straight intoMarch, and then for our next
(34:57):
season of jaded HR we'll belaunching where we got some
ideas in plan.
Hopefully, we can actuallyexecute those ideas and go from
there.
So thank you for listening toall our little reimburses.
And like I said, now I've gottwo hours and 15 minutes to uh
edit, produce, and publish thispodcast.
Yeah, if I want to stay onschedule, I don't have anything
(35:18):
else going on tonight.
So it'll be fun.
So with all that fun stuff said,as always, I'm Warren.
SPEAKER_03 (35:25):
I'm Cece.
SPEAKER_00 (35:27):
And we're here helping you survive HR one.
What the fuck moment at a time.
Had you actually read the email, you would know
that the podcast you are aboutto listen to could contain
explicit language and offensivecontent.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present, or future employers.
If you've ever heard, my manageris unfair to me, I need you to
reset my HR portal password, orcan I ride up my employee for
(00:25):
crying too much?
SPEAKER_01 (00:26):
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Welcome to JR.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
Welcome to JDFHR, the podcast by two HR
professionals who want to helpyou get through the workday by
saying everything you'rethinking, but say it out loud.
I'm Warren.
SPEAKER_03 (01:03):
I'm Cece.
SPEAKER_00 (01:04):
All right, we are back after a couple crazy weeks.
This is take two, by the way.
Yeah.
And not only is it take two, weare going to record, edit,
produce, and publish thispodcast all in the next three
hours.
Yes.
Oh shit.
It'll be fun.
We don't get we don't have anymore take twos left in us today,
(01:27):
but it's gonna be fun.
It's great.
SPEAKER_03 (01:28):
It's gonna be fun.
It's it'll be fine.
Everything's gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
Exactly.
I saw last recording, we weretalking about all the snow you
got.
We got our 10-inch is crazy.
It's melting very quickly.
Now we've had days in the 50sand 60s, but I like getting
snow, but I'm done with it.
We've had more snow than mydaughter in Utah has had.
And like, yeah, that's there'ssomething absolutely wrong with
it.
SPEAKER_03 (01:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53):
They keep coming up with these names.
We've been hearing the term bombcyclone for a couple of years,
but now they're calling snownados.
SPEAKER_03 (02:00):
Hell of a snow NATO.
SPEAKER_00 (02:01):
Yeah.
Gotta have a snow NATO.
We had winds in the 50s, 60s,not anything above 73 miles an
hour for a hurricane, but it wasreally no a snowy key.
They were calling a snow a key,not a snow nado.
Oh, that's a good thing.
There we go.
Yeah, that's what they werecalling.
See, I can't even tell a goodstory anymore, but it was really
good.
Professionally, we're in themidst of open enrollment and
(02:24):
meeting numero uno, which we hadat seven in the morning.
And remember, I live an hour anda half from my work, so I woke
up at 4:30 so I could be there.
We had zero people come in forthe first meeting that was at 7
a.m.
We have a number of people workat client sites, and we wanted
to have them be able to come inbeforehand and make it
(02:45):
convenient for them to do it.
We're trying to make it asconvenient.
But I was like, nope, we're notdoing any more 7 a.m.
meetings, period, end of story.
SPEAKER_03 (02:54):
I don't miss that.
I used to work at a 24-7 plant,and yeah, I got voluntold
because it would be good for mydevelopment to meet people in
the organization.
So my manager, when I startedthere, was like, you should
really do this with this safetycouncil.
And there's one person from HRthat goes there, and it was all
about making sure everyone'sstaying safe on the floor, 6
(03:15):
a.m., so that both ships couldattend.
I did it once a month.
And after a while, I was like,You did this on purpose.
And he was like, Yeah, I didn'twant to go anymore.
SPEAKER_00 (03:25):
My wife, when she worked at Target many, many
moons ago, Target stores used tobe a 24-7 type of thing.
They're not anymore far andaway.
But when they would have HRthings, they would do, they
would, her and her other HRperson would divide up.
Okay, I've got first shift,you've got third, and divide
things up pretty equally.
(03:45):
So sometimes she would have tobe there like O Dark 30.
But nowadays, I think part of itis you can't hire people.
And Dawn, we went to Target notthat long ago.
And she was like, now she's beengone for 18 years now.
But she's like, if you had morethan three people in your line,
you were calling backupcashiers, and everybody was a
cashier.
Now they don't care.
(04:07):
They're as bad as Walmart withthe relying on the self-checkout
and nobody working in an actualregister or anything like that.
SPEAKER_03 (04:14):
So I heard somewhere that they're actually going to
be backing off theself-checkouts because they're
such a negative experience formost of the customers.
And also they're likeshoplifting with it between
everything is just not worth it.
Like they might as well justhire more people for the
registers.
I thought that was interesting.
(04:34):
I think that was Walmartactually that said that.
SPEAKER_00 (04:37):
The closest Walmart to me has 30, 40 self-checkout
lanes.
There's never more than six openat a time.
You still have a line.
So why bother?
It that frustrates me when theydon't have all the self-checkout
lanes open.
I actually prefer a lot of timesthe self-checkout.
Same.
But there's two particularstores, they're both actually
(04:58):
grocery stores.
I inevitably have to have theguy come and check at least once
or twice.
It thinks that I moved, I baggedsomething without doing it.
And heaven forbid if you takeyour bag.
SPEAKER_03 (05:08):
Is it Kroger?
It's because it does it with metoo.
SPEAKER_00 (05:12):
You take a bag off because you only got little four
little racks for bags to put itin your cart.
Now the thing's going off andthe guy's got to come back
because it thinks they'restealing something.
I'm like, she says, all right.
SPEAKER_03 (05:21):
Oh, and I don't know about yours, but now it has the
footage.
So they have to watch thesecurity footage to make sure.
And if for some reason it'sKroger, I don't know what
they're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (05:30):
The worst is their sister company, Harris Teeter.
I got frustrated.
Everything I did, it would stopme, and I have to have a little
kid come over.
I felt bad for him as I did yellat the kid.
I was buying six things and hehad to come over three times
because it would stop and say itwasn't registering on the scale.
I felt bad.
It's not the kid's fault, but Ihaven't been back to that Harris
(05:51):
Teeter since, even though it'spretty convenient to uh on my
way home from work with that.
SPEAKER_03 (05:56):
So I think I just bag too fast.
And I'm pretty sure that all theself-checkout people think I'm
just stealing shit and theyrespect it.
SPEAKER_00 (06:06):
Oh, yeah.
The closest grocery store to medoes not have a self-checkout,
and I'd really prefer if theywould have a self-checkout
because I'd rather just getthrough without the
conversation.
Yeah.
But one thing I do like I dolike Sam's Club's scan and go,
where you can scan it yourself.
Yes.
And what but I did learn I wastrying to be efficient.
(06:29):
I've got two things of chickenbreasts, and I put them in the
same little bag so the drippingsdon't get everywhere.
I did get stopped because I puttwo of them in the same bag
rather than them in their ownindividual bag.
I got stopped there once.
And the other time, it has to bein a cart.
So my wife and I went in, wewanted three things in and out,
scan and go.
And I'm walking out and I'mcarrying it, and she had to look
(06:50):
at everything.
It just now even if you're justgetting one or two things, you
should get a register for a cartif you're doing the scan and
goes that's gonna stop you.
But I have a much higher opinionof Sams Club now that they have
scan and go than I did beforethat.
And it's been had it for a yearor two now.
SPEAKER_03 (07:08):
So we have a Kroger here who's like one of the
locations is testing a scan andgo with this special high-tech
cart and everything.
And uh it just look it lookscomplicated.
It looks like they made itcomplicated.
It's because you put it, youput, you don't get like the
scanning done like I've seen itdone.
The cart itself is the scanner.
(07:29):
Oh so like when you putsomething in the cart, the cart
registers what it is.
But the carts look a little likeclunky and obnoxious, and you
have to log in.
And I'm like, it's too much.
I'm just gonna do thisself-checkout.
SPEAKER_00 (07:44):
First world problems, I know.
It really is.
SPEAKER_03 (07:47):
Interesting, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole on
self-checkout and AI.
I think it's what Target andWalmart are doing with
shoplifters and how their assetprotection teams they'll let
people because you punch in withyour membership codes and then
also with facial recognition,they will allow people to steal
(08:07):
little by little until itreaches a threshold and they can
get them for a felony.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_03 (08:13):
And I'm like, don't steal, don't be that person.
But at the same time, there'sjust a piece of me that's
unsettling facial recognitionfor a sort of the amount of
information these places arecollecting on you is just
insane.
Yeah.
And I think Kroger is alsolooking at facial recognition
with a lot of their stuff tobetter serve the customer.
(08:34):
There's just a bit of me that'slike, I don't really, you don't
need to scan my face when I'mbuying deodorant to like log it
somewhere.
Like that.
SPEAKER_00 (08:42):
Well, you like secret.
We're gonna send you a threebillion secret ads.
SPEAKER_03 (08:45):
Yes, everywhere.
It's gonna be like someone at myfront door is gonna show up with
a sign at this point.
It's weird.
SPEAKER_00 (08:52):
Exactly.
Well, before we get too deepinto our we actually got a topic
for today, some show prep wasdone.
So AI.
Actually, I should have usedsome AI otherwise, could have
done better.
But I want to thank oursupporters, Hallie, the original
JD Day Trial Rock star, Bill andMike, thank you for your
support.
And also In Ruculpa, the voiceartists at the intro.
(09:14):
And the songs are Devil theDevil by the underscore
orchestra.
So now let's move into some meatof a topic.
I came up with the the topic, Istarted going in one complete
ADD at its finest.
I started going one direction.
I had a quote from the guests onthe most recent episode of Good
Morning HR.
He's a guy from Harvard, Iforget his name.
(09:35):
And I didn't cite my sourceswhen I was copying and pasting
my notes.
So no sources will be sent.
But, anyways, he had a line thatI put down, and it may not be
verbatim.
You have to have someone who'sgoing to be comfortable being
told basically every two orthree years, you're going to
have to master a new systembecause the rate of technology
change.
And I started this not on thatline, but he'd said some things
(10:00):
earlier in the podcast, which Iabsolutely disagreed with.
But when he got to this line, Iactually went back and recorded
it and listened again so I couldget the line correct in there as
close as I could while drivingand scribbling.
So, anyways, the whole point,the rabbit hole I ended up going
down was a series of articlesabout Accenture, the consulting
(10:21):
firm Accenture, and what theyhave done most recently.
And this I none of the states toended, it's all uh ends look
like December 2025.
So it's not that old, but notthat new either.
So their CEO, Julie Sweet, madea statement.
She says, We're finding thatthere's an element of our staff,
they're not interested inmastering AI.
(10:44):
And so what that means, betweenAugust and November of last
year, Accenture has reduced itsworkforce by approximately
11,000 employees, and they'respecifically targeting people
who would not adapt to AI-drivenroles.
And okay, I don't like peoplelosing their jobs.
(11:06):
No, and uh, you know, but uhyou're at a point when you're
with a leading consulting firmin the world, and if you're not
keeping up on the technology,you shouldn't be expected to
retain your job for terriblylong.
Uh but as I kept going down therabbit hole, it kept getting
better.
Well, first I really seem tolike this Julie Sweet person.
(11:28):
Another line she had is that thecompany is exiting on a
compressed timeline, people forwhom reskilling is not
considered a viable path.
And I like that line too.
SPEAKER_03 (11:42):
Yeah, I yeah, I have thought.
I don't know how I feel aboutthat.
I need to digest it a littlebit.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (11:49):
Okay.
I'll let you digest.
I'll keep rambling on and youkeep rambling.
Okay, so we already said 11,000people are going to lose their
job, people who aren't keepingup with the times and keeping up
with AI-driven roles and thingslike that.
SPEAKER_03 (12:02):
But that's just such a weird statement to make.
We understand that we know howthe sausage is made.
So we understand as HRprofessionals, if we have
employees that are not gonnakeep up, not gonna upskill, not
gonna learn, they could probablyend up falling in that box one
of the nine box, and then youwant to X them out of the
(12:23):
company.
Totally get that, right?
But to put a number out thereand be like, we are getting rid
of 11,000 roles.
11,000?
Yeah, yeah, 11,000 roles, itturns into the hunger games of
okay, you got to be better thanthe person next to you, or you
could be one of those 11,000people to lose a job.
(12:44):
So, from that aspect, I kind ofhate that because it's just such
a weird.
Now, on the other hand, I had aCEO who recently who said that
uh the new expectation of ourroles was to be proficient in AI
as it relates to our work.
And at that point, if there areperformance issues and people
(13:05):
who just don't want to learnthings, then you can quietly
exit them.
SPEAKER_00 (13:08):
But they're gonna be moved here.
There's no quiet exit tier.
SPEAKER_03 (13:13):
Yeah, this is just hey, fight for it.
It's like a really twistedreality show.
SPEAKER_00 (13:17):
Well, see, I have a different take on it.
Okay.
If I were there at Accenture,first uh I like learning new
things, I like doing new things,and I'm gonna keep I'm I think,
especially given my age groupand my peers, I think I'm ahead
of the curve on other people,and I would welcome this.
Let's get rid of this deadweight.
(13:38):
You know, little Johnny overhere has been quite quitting for
the last two years and hasn'tkept up on his CPEs or whatever
else he's doing.
I think people like you and I,because we've discussed a few
times how you are a verygoal-driven and very
achievement-driven person.
We're not gonna be affected bythis if we're at Accenture.
I would really welcome this, butthis is where I like another
(14:00):
thing she said of two things.
Accenture is reinvesting over 1billion with a B dollars in
upskilling our reinventors,those people who are willing to
learn.
And they're gonna also not onlyupskill their current staff,
they're gonna hire specializedAI talent.
Accenture has doubled its dataand AI specialized workforce
(14:23):
from 40,000 people in 2023 toover 77,000 people last year,
2025.
So they're not only giving theslackers the boot, they are
like, okay, Warren, you want tolearn AI.
Here you go, here's some money.
Learn this.
And they're upskilling theworkforce.
These people are not per selosing their job to AI.
(14:44):
They're losing their jobs totheir own lack of skill sets.
And if they're continuing tohire based on AI, I think this
is just win-win-win.
And then the company has saidthey've already allocated$615
million for severance packagesaround this restructuring.
And that was only quarter fourof 2025.
(15:06):
They're scheduled to have anadditional$250 million projected
additional funding forseverances.
So they're not just kicking youto the street.
It sounds like they're going togive you a little farewell
package with it.
So I I don't see anything Idon't like too much about the
page.
SPEAKER_03 (15:23):
No, I think it's all positive.
I think there's going to be newexpectations, new tools.
You can use the example ofemail, right?
You can't work somewhere todayand not know how to use Outlook.
Where, you know, 30 30 yearsago, that might have been
different.
So I guess I am so for it.
I'm just curious about theculture that that creates.
(15:44):
I don't even know what theculture of Accenture is like
because I feel like it's just awhole bunch of high performers
who work hard, play hard types,who are very competitive.
So I guess it fits for them.
It's just maybe not a culturethat I would enjoy.
SPEAKER_00 (15:59):
I see, I don't think you're going to get hired.
I'm vaguely familiar withAccenture.
I've never worked directly withthem.
They were part of which Big FourCPA firm, and that's how I
became somewhat familiar withthem.
I think they spun off onto theirown.
They just have a stellarreputation.
If I'm one of their clients, I'mgoing to say, oh, look at what
they're doing.
I like this.
(16:19):
This is also a marketingemployee I can see.
They're upscaling, they're goingto be on the cutting edge of
technology, and they're going tobe able to better help me than,
say, Arnston Young or Booz Allenor one of the other giant
consulting firms like that.
I really think there's a lot ofpositive here.
Now, I did go, I made this,well, I don't know if it's a
(16:41):
mistake because it's good fodderfor the show.
I went on to YouTube and putsome of this information in.
I found some haters.
And and they were sayingpeople's jobs are being replaced
by AI.
Nowhere in here is somebody'sjob being replaced by AI.
They're hiring, they went from40,000 to 77,000 AI specialists.
(17:03):
They're hiring people.
It just you don't have the rightskill.
You're stuck in Windows 3.1, andwe're way past that now.
And keep up with your skills.
I don't know.
But I saw a few peoplecomplaining about that.
SPEAKER_03 (17:17):
I all I will say is that quote I like where it says,
you're not going to be replacedby AI.
You're going to be replaced bysomeone who is proficient in AI.
Yeah.
It goes back to a skill set.
And I know there's like negativesides to AI.
And I know there's all theselike crazy ramifications, even
environmental.
Yes, we could go down thatrabbit hole.
But at the same time, it's hardto put the genie back in the
(17:39):
bottle.
SPEAKER_00 (17:40):
Nope.
SPEAKER_03 (17:40):
Now that it's out, use it wisely.
Like maybe not waste fivegallons of water to find out, I
don't know, how to make a cake.
Use it wisely.
That's you just have to learn itbecause you will be replaced by
someone who is proficient in it.
SPEAKER_00 (17:57):
Yeah.
And I think if you use it as atool, it can make your jobs
easier.
Actually, shop easier.
I'm shopping new ATSs right now.
And I'm actually looking at onesthat use AI, not to screen out
people.
I want mine recruiter doing thatherself, but to help her be
better organized and betterstructured in her work and be
(18:20):
able to automate some tasks.
Uh like I said, I've already uhI haven't talked to these
salespersons.
You know, my my opinion on doingthat.
I'm doing my homework on my own.
And now using AI, by the way,I'm asking Jim and I at work,
hey, my company has this manypeople.
I have one recruiter and we hirefor this many people a year.
Recommend the top 10 ATSs youwould recommend to me.
(18:41):
And then it would give mesomething I'm AI, using AI is
very important to me.
Budget's important to me.
And it would narrow down thelist.
And it's it's done pretty well.
And I'll have a pretty narrowedlist of companies I'm ready to
talk to after I've done myhomework on them.
But I'm using AI for it andgiving it, you know, yeah, we're
(19:03):
going to hire 75 people, wethink, this year.
I mean, that's a lot for us,maybe not for bigger companies,
but for us, that's gonna be areally big year.
And so I'm I'm all on board.
But let's say other things thatthe naysayers were talking about
was it's going todisproportionately affect older
workers.
And they said those workers intheir 50s and above.
Here I am, I'm in my 50s.
(19:24):
I feel very confident that Iwould not be affected by this.
Like I said, this would make mea happy camper if I was at
Accenture, because they'regetting rid of dead weight.
And I want to say dead weight,but if you haven't kept your
skills up to be able to use AI,and that's that as your job as
an employee, that's yourultimate job, regardless of what
(19:45):
you do, is to add value to yourcompany in some way, shape, or
form.
And if you're not using themodern technology, the amount of
value you can add issignificantly diminished.
SPEAKER_03 (19:55):
Yeah, I do wonder like that is such a gray area
because it is going todisproportionately affect an
older population.
So it just takes one goodlawsuit to get them for wrongful
term.
SPEAKER_00 (20:09):
I would hope not.
I've used the story on thepodcast before.
My company's had some surges inwork, but the surge isn't enough
to warrant hiring someone, andwe don't want to go through
agencies.
And I've just told our COO oneday, I said, Hey, this guy
retired from us two years ago.
Look, why don't we just give hima call and see if he's
interested, available, andthings like that?
And let me we called him.
(20:29):
He was like, I'll be theretomorrow.
And he once again, I'm in my50s.
He's older than my mother, buthe is on top of technology.
I love him.
And he brings energy to work.
He's not a grunky pin's oldperson or anything like that.
He says, I love this part-timeretired work.
He says, If I want to work, I Ican work.
(20:50):
If I want to go see mygrandkids, I go see my
grandkids.
I love that.
He does what he wants.
We just asked him, hey, can yougive us 20, 30 hours this week?
And he'll tell us yes or no.
It was much better than goingthrough an agency or hiring
someone part-time.
He's a known entity.
And yeah, it's been really good.
So I think I definitely feel itwill affect older people more
(21:12):
because there's so many peoplethat don't keep up on technology
as older.
But I'll use another empiricalevidence type situation.
I have some 20-some odds at mywork who can't use Microsoft
Work.
They can't put an emailattachment.
Now, if I were to ask them togive me a TikTok video, oh man,
they knock my socks off.
(21:33):
But if I ask them to doproductive work, Microsoft
Excel, I get frustrated.
I have the unrealisticexpectation that if you're
younger than me, you should havebetter technical skills than me.
And I should be on the edge ofmy seat because you're coming up
behind me and gonna want to takeover from me.
I have no such fears.
SPEAKER_03 (21:55):
I gotta be honest, like technological knowledge
having to do.
With TikTok, social media,editing on your phone is nothing
to do with the technology youneed to utilize at work.
Right.
And I think there's just likethis expectation that because
they're younger, they shouldknow more, but they're still
(22:16):
learning their job.
So like I think back to when Iwas like my first job, I
accidentally, I didn'tunderstand distribution lists
and outlook.
Like I didn't because I neverhad to do it before.
I found the list to let themknow that leftover food was in
the break room.
And I accidentally sent it tothe entire company in multiple
(22:36):
states.
And it was just like somethingstupid like that, you know?
And they probably rolled theireyes at me, being like, oh, look
at this.
Yeah.
And it's fine.
It's like a rite of passage.
SPEAKER_00 (22:47):
It is.
It absolutely is.
But okay.
Squirrel, the rabbit hole typesituation, letting people know
there's like so fruit in abreakthrough.
SPEAKER_02 (22:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:56):
I had a discussion with an employee today who was
very upset because a vendor ofours brought in a ton of bagels
the other day.
And they had their own personalcream cheese in the
refrigerator.
And their cream cheese got usedon these bagels that got brought
(23:16):
in.
And they were not a happy camperabout it.
And they wanted me to put a signon the refrigerator that said,
please do not only take use yourown food from the refrigerator.
What people they wanted to say,but something like, don't eat
other people's food in therefrigerator.
I said, No, I'm not gonna, thisis a one-off situation.
We have eight boxes of Panerabagels in our break room now,
(23:38):
and then there is a block ofcream cheese.
I'm not gonna it's in thecommunity refrigerator.
Do that for two dollar block ofcream cheese.
SPEAKER_03 (23:48):
I will buy you cream cheese if we can end this
conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (24:26):
I went by the break room, and guess what?
Even after I said I'm not gonnaput a sign up, there was a sign.
SPEAKER_03 (24:32):
Oh, look at her.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
But anyways, I go by the break room and there's a
sign on the refrigerator thatsays I'm low, I do, I take it
off.
Really, dude.
Uh and it by the way, it was hiscli his vendors who brought in
these bagels, and it was hispersonal cream cheese that that
got used.
And I'm like, yeah.
Anyways, that's all.
SPEAKER_03 (24:57):
The thing I love about my fridge is that's all my
food.
I don't miss any of this.
SPEAKER_00 (25:04):
And of course it sucks if you have your own food
in the refrigerator that someoneelse eats it.
But if I'm putting my food init's not now, if it was in your
lunch bag that's a broth on it,my after Thanksgiving special
sandwich and that got eaten,then yes, I would be upset.
But if it's just a block ofcream cheese and there's I kid
(25:25):
you not, there were more boxesof uh bagels than I'd think I'd
seen in a very, very long time.
So I can uh only imagine, hey,what goes well with bagels have
cream cheese and somebody justsaw it in the fridge and grabbed
like that.
That's so silly.
These are things HR has to dealwith, and that's that's why
(25:48):
people come to HR.
So anywho.
Let's see here.
Those were the main that was themain story I had was this this
eccentric story.
I can't be too jaded about it.
It sucks that people don't golose their job, like I said, but
I think I see nothing butpositive.
And I also think the budget over$1B billion dollars.
(26:11):
On upskilling your team.
I would be asking, if I was anemployee I read that, I'd be
asking, what can I do?
What hey, where can I learn whathow can I get my hands on some
of this upskilling?
I wouldn't do it.
I would just uh an L and Dbudget of billion dollars.
That that tells you where theirfocus is.
And I just can't say anythingnegative about it.
SPEAKER_03 (26:36):
I do love a big L and D budget, more budget for
LD.
SPEAKER_00 (26:40):
Yeah.
I thought those things would getyour attention as well.
But like the original quote thatgot me started on this, I think
it's pretty accurate to sayyou're gonna have a lot of
employees are gonna have to becomfortable every couple of
years mastering new systemsbecause the technology is going
to change change.
That rapidly.
(27:00):
You know how old I am.
When I went to college or thecollege I went to, we got free
versions of WordPerfect andLotus Notes.
That's what we learned.
Who uses WordPerfe?
Well, law firms we've still usedat least used past since
WordPerfect when I last workedat a law firm as it did some
things that Word wasn't doing atthe time, but that's been many
(27:22):
years now.
Is WordPerfect even a thing now?
And I know I haven't heardanything of Lotus Notes, but you
didn't learn email.
Why did we didn't have email?
We're given his school emails oranything.
SPEAKER_03 (27:34):
We had an email in undergrad, but it wasn't
something I checked every day.
I would make a point to go tothe computer lab and log in and
see if my professors left anynotes.
It wasn't accessible as it isnow.
SPEAKER_00 (27:48):
Yeah.
And I was one of in mypaternity, I was one of only two
people who had their owncomputer back in the 90s.
Most people didn't have theirown computers anymore.
You go into the computer lab.
And I only went to computer lab,I needed to print things on that
wonderful paper that was dotmatrix, and it had the little
things you had to peel off andtear off of it was like one
(28:09):
almost continuous sheet.
Yeah, I went to to do that.
Old school stuff.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (28:13):
I didn't even we didn't even have Wi-Fi in my
freshman dorm.
There was just no Wi-Fi.
And if you wanted internet, youhad to call the cable company or
the internet company to come inand set it up.
And then you had to get like awireless router.
Like now it's just Wi-Fi as likea whole campus is Wi-Fi.
I was like, no, we didn't havethat.
(28:35):
You either that or you went tothe library for the library and
you worked in the library.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
Yeah, library.
I avoided the library like theplague in college.
SPEAKER_03 (28:46):
I love a library.
SPEAKER_00 (28:48):
In the 90s, and it's not this way today, the East
Carolina Library was so jackedup.
It was like three separatebuildings that were somewhat you
had to take a class calledLibrary Science.
It was a required class in yourfreshman year, and it told you
how to use the East CarolinaLibrary.
I could be on floor numberthree, section A, but to get to
(29:11):
floor number three, section B,I'd have to go down to the
ground level because they onlyconnected on the ground floor.
And then, oh, it was such amess.
But guess what?
Moron failed library scienceslearning how to use in library.
I got F in that class.
I had the mentality back then ofI don't like this.
I'm not going to do it.
Nice.
(29:31):
That did not serve me the best.
SPEAKER_03 (29:34):
Nice.
SPEAKER_00 (29:35):
I later grew up and learned how to play along to get
along.
SPEAKER_03 (29:39):
I miss a library.
SPEAKER_00 (29:42):
Okay, completely off type.
When's the last time you've beento a public library to actually
go in and get a book or dosomething?
SPEAKER_03 (29:49):
Warren, a month ago.
SPEAKER_00 (29:50):
Oh, really?
Yes.
SPEAKER_03 (29:52):
Because I finally got Bean's getting old enough
where she can do those librarystory times.
So my mom and I went to go checkit out, and I ended up getting a
library card.
Oh wow.
I am committed.
SPEAKER_00 (30:04):
I keep saying I'm going to get the library card so
I can get the app where you candownload audiobooks for free.
SPEAKER_03 (30:09):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:10):
Uh I uh I keep saying I'm gonna get a library
card.
I think the last time I went tothe public library was probably
when my kids were not Dean'sage, but uh still very young and
did some activity at the libraryI took them to.
But yeah, that's about it.
We uh my county has a wholewhopping two libraries.
Well, one is actually quiteclose to me, relatively
(30:31):
speaking.
But yeah, it's cool.
Uh libraries, I I wonder howlong those are out with the
internet.
SPEAKER_03 (30:39):
Well, it's good to have non-digital media and
books.
SPEAKER_00 (30:43):
Are you a physical book reader?
Are you an e-book reader?
Are you a computer reader?
How do you read your books?
SPEAKER_03 (30:49):
I am an audio book reader.
SPEAKER_00 (30:52):
Yes.
Okay.
Complete.
I know we're going longer today,but my maybe my last tangent for
today.
I am currently reading fromAudible the book Endurance.
It's the true story of theexpedition to cross Antarctica
by late and the early 1900s,like 1911 and things.
(31:14):
And anything that can go wrongdoes go wrong to these people.
But here's the HR nerved in me.
Uh Captain Shackelford is thecaptain of the expedition.
I'm like reading all thisorganizational behavior
techniques that he's doing intothe book.
And I think this book could be avery good case study for
(31:38):
organizational behavior.
The expedition took place inlike 1911 to 1915.
But, anyways, he hired people.
The first people he hired werethe people he knew and were
trusted and true.
And then other people, he justmet with him for five minutes,
and it was strictly based on didhe like you or not.
And that's some foreshadowingbecause things go very wrong.
(32:00):
And if you had a prick in yourgroup, that's not going to work
too well.
And yeah, like his meteorologisthad zero meteorology training,
but he liked him and he sent himsort of to go get some
meteorology training.
I'm not even finished with thebook yet.
So spoiler, I already know howthe book ends, but I'm sort of
like the Titanic sunk.
(32:20):
But I know how the story ended.
But I'm I'm actually enjoyingthis book much more than I
thought it's nice how I got thisbook, came up with this book.
I listened every time I read abook or do an audio book, I put
it into Gemini.
I have a whole question seriesabout my books.
And I like this one, and I saywhy I like it, and I don't like
this one.
I say why I don't like it.
And then I finally said, I wantI want to try something
(32:43):
different.
Uh give me something that'sdifferent, that's not a normal
comfort zone that you wouldrecommend for me.
And it one of the books it cameup with was this.
And I have to say, it hit themark.
Most of my books are sciencefiction, fantasy.
I love that genre, and that'swhy I do it.
But I was like, let me justchange it up a little bit.
I do like historical fiction,and this is a fiction, this is a
(33:05):
true event.
So it's it's cool.
And I think AI did a good jobeach and every time after I'm
finished with this book, I'llsay, in this case, I liked it,
and here's why I liked it, andkeep using AI to recommend books
to me.
SPEAKER_03 (33:19):
Oh, nice.
I should try that actually withbooks I've liked.
Huh.
Especially think about that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:24):
In the sci-fi fantasy genre, uh I like
fantasy.
I hate romanticy.
I think so many of the fantasybooks that are out there now are
romantic.
And the only ones that I willstick with, I've read all of
them already.
I'm waiting for the next in theseries to come out.
(33:46):
Oh, Rebecca Yoros, her book, uhI forget.
It's been so there's a littleromance in it, but not to the
point where I'm just like, okay,I'm over it.
You know, you're screwinganything that moves, and I'm
over it type of thing.
It's there's enough, there'ssome in there, it doesn't get
inappropriate, and I'm not thatI'm a prude or anything, but
it's just that's not my cup oftea.
Yeah.
And I want a fantasy type ofbook.
(34:09):
Her series is pretty good.
Someone recommended some books,and I just I got through the
first one.
I was like, if I start a book,I'm gonna finish it, even if I
despise it.
I don't think I can't remember abook I've ever stopped.
Once I start, I'm gonna gothrough the end of it, even if
it's uh sucks.
Actually, I should say one ofthose self-published books that
we were sent by somebody.
(34:30):
I couldn't even read uh Icouldn't follow it.
It was horrible.
SPEAKER_03 (34:33):
I know a few self-published books.
SPEAKER_00 (34:36):
And you need an editor.
So it was anyways, but anyways,uh that's another that's enough
rabbit holes for us to go downtoday.
So we'll be back in two weekswith more HR fun.
And yeah, wow, it's it's socrazy.
It's it's the middle ofFebruary.
We're gonna be straight intoMarch, and then for our next
(34:57):
season of jaded HR we'll belaunching where we got some
ideas in plan.
Hopefully, we can actuallyexecute those ideas and go from
there.
So thank you for listening toall our little reimburses.
And like I said, now I've gottwo hours and 15 minutes to uh
edit, produce, and publish thispodcast.
Yeah, if I want to stay onschedule, I don't have anything
(35:18):
else going on tonight.
So it'll be fun.
So with all that fun stuff said,as always, I'm Warren.
SPEAKER_03 (35:25):
I'm Cece.
SPEAKER_00 (35:27):
And we're here helping you survive HR one.
What the fuck moment at a time.
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