April 27, 2025 • 59 mins
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.
Connect with Ammara on LinkedIn
Learn about the Top Employers Institute
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Connect with Gerry
Website
LinkedIn
Wide Circle
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Leading People with me, gerry Marais.
This is the podcast for leadersand HR decision makers who want
to bring out the best inthemselves and others.
Every other week, I sit downwith leading authors,
researchers and practitionersfor deep dive conversations
(00:22):
about the strategies, insightsand tools that drive personal
and organizational success.
And in between, I bring you onesimple thing short episodes
that deliver practical insightsand tips for immediate use.
Whether you're here for usefultools or thought
thought-provoking ideas, leadingPeople is your guide to better
(00:44):
leadership.
Have you ever wondered what itreally takes to be a top
employer, what separatescompanies that win the war for
talent from those still stuck inoutdated practices, and what
are the key HR trends thatmatter most right now?
(01:04):
Today, I'm joined by AmaraNaeem, client Experience
Director at the Top EmployersInstitute, where she works with
thousands of HR leaders acrossthe globe to shape what the
future of work actually lookslike.
In this conversation, we digdeep into what top employers are
doing differently, why HR needsto evolve its own skills, and
(01:33):
how empathy, systems thinkingand smart use of data are
changing the game.
So if you're curious aboutwhere work is headed and how to
bring out the best in yourselfand others.
This episode is for you.
Let's dive right in.
Amara Naeem, welcome to LeadingPeople.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Hey, gerry, thank you so much for having me Really
looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Great, and you're joining me today.
From which city?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
The Hague, the Netherlands, best there was.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Den Haag that's what you like to call it the famous
Hague.
Um.
Okay, so now you're.
You're the client experiencedirector at the top employers
institute and you talk to a lotof HR folks, which means you
have your finger on the pulse ofmany aspects of organizational
life.
And I know from some of our ownclients at Wide Circle, my own
(02:22):
company, that becoming a topemployer is quite a big deal for
many organizations, which isanother good reason why I
invited you on the podcast today.
But first so my listeners canget to know you better how did
you get to working at the TopEmployers Institute and what
people, places or events standout in your journey to where you
(02:42):
are today, and were there anyepiphany moments along the way?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Oh for sure I mean.
That makes me want to take youback to the very beginning,
right?
So I started out as a pre-medstudent, but somewhere along the
line I decided to swap my whitecoat with the corporate blazers
.
But please don't judge me forthat, don't you dare?
Anyway, and somehow it wassupposed to be a temporary
(03:06):
assignment.
I ended up working for like asmall role in HR and completely
fell in love with the field.
Not that I didn't like workingwith people and trying to save
lives, but it made me realizethe potential of the field, the
impact it could eventually haveon people.
Potential of the field, theimpact it could eventually have
(03:27):
on people and all that there wasto do, so much to do in that
field.
And that made me continue onwith it, gone on to create
different HR departments,different sizes of companies,
worked for employer branding fora bit, quickly realizing along
the way how important it was toreally speak the language of the
business and how far HR can befrom actually speaking that
(03:49):
language.
So I quit my job, went for myMBA just trying to, you know, in
search of that.
What is it that would make thistick, that would make this
collaboration with the businessmore tangible for me, ended up
in the Netherlands where Icompleted my MBA and right after
that, top Employers Institutefound me or I found Top
(04:10):
Employers Institute, and thatwas eight years ago.
Within that journey, I think onething that stands out is people
.
I do enjoy working with people,but instead of diagnosing
pathology, I ended up diagnosingHR challenges.
So I've worked as an HR auditorat Taubman Employers Institute.
(04:30):
That's how I started out, butwent on to build client success
advisors team and now as adirector of client experience.
Of course, the experiencecomponent, but also client
success and advisory for HRleaders, also sits in my team.
Advisory for HR leaders alsosits in my team and that's how I
get to really learn every dayfrom HR leaders that are leading
these amazing organizations allaround the globe, and that's
(04:53):
how I'm here Great.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Actually, I think I attended one of your own
webinars there last year at somestage, which also was one of
the reasons why you stuck in myhead at the time, because you
were having quite an informedconversation about trends in HR,
and we'll get to that shortly.
How many people are in yourteam then, just out of interest.
(05:16):
Right now it's a team of seven,but settled all across the globe
, so you're looking at southafrica to singapore, to germany,
to spain so not only are youable to talk about the, the, the
insights and the work you'redoing with the top employers
institute, which we're going toget to now in a minute, you're
(05:37):
also a practitioner in terms ofbeing a leader yourself, so I
guess that also informs andgives you a mirror sometimes or
a reference point for how you'redoing your own job.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I guess, oh gosh, yeah, I have no idea every
single day, and it's not only,you know, leading a
multicultural, geographicallydiverse team, but also a virtual
team.
That has been a learningexperience, I think, for for
many of us here.
But on top of that, I findmyself to be very lucky in the
(06:09):
sense that I am talking to allthese HR leaders again across
the globe and they teach me somuch every day in so many
different ways.
So it's been quite anexperience, especially through
the pandemic journey, I can say.
I think all those changes werebound to happen at some point in
time, but I think the pandemicjust somehow expedited all those
(06:32):
philosophies or things thatpeople thought, yeah, that's
going to come around in the nextfive, 10 years.
But yeah, bam, you're right inthe thick of it.
And yeah, there you go, andhere we.
We are where we were stillarguing if well-being was going
to be a topic that was part ofthe business strategy or not, to
(06:52):
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, andthey'd say things like yeah, but
we provide so much for ouremployees.
We have the best possiblebenefits, so we don't see the
(07:12):
need of having a well-beingstrategy.
And here I am telling them likeno, this is how you need to
look at holistic well-being, notjust physical well-being.
Yada, yada, and fast forward totoday.
It's's like I don't need toconvince anyone anymore.
It's literally like no otherway to go yeah, so that's.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
We're probably going to unpack more of that in a few
minutes.
Let's get to the top employersinstitute as a sort of let's get
a high level helicopter view onit.
How would you describe theinstitute and its work and where
are you based and who do youserve, etc and let's get get the
sort of like very basic stufffor first.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
So, yes, we are headquartered in amsterdam, but
you're looking at 2400, morethan 2400 organizations that are
certified top employers.
So not everybody gets to becertified, obviously, but I'll
get into that in a bit.
But those 2,400 plusorganizations are spread all
across the globe, but ourheadquarters are in Amsterdam,
(08:15):
with offices in differentlocations as well.
So we're present in the US,we're present in South Africa,
singapore, india, so, like youknow, bigger sort of hubs, as I
may, you know, call them in theUK, germany, et cetera.
So, yeah, we've got presenceall over the world and the
(08:36):
leading factor for that is we dofollow a global methodology.
So whatever we are doing oranalyzing in one country is the
same as we would in another.
So whether you're in Spain orin the UK, it doesn't matter,
we're going to look at youbasically the same way, and
that's also, I consider, ourcompetitive advantage in some
way.
But at its core, top employersare organizations who have
(08:59):
basically made a very consciousdecision to prioritize people
right and they're investing intocoming up with something that's
evidence-based, action-orientedand measurable.
Also, these top employers arecompanies who understand that
the new world of work in orderto thrive in it, you've got to
(09:20):
have your people's strategy justas intentional as your business
strategy, so that working withus is one of the ways they can
co as your business strategy, sothat working with us is one of
the ways they can co-own thosebusiness outcomes.
And how we do that is.
I think it's important to giveit some context.
Our purpose at Top EmployersInstitute is to create a better
world of work, and how we bringthat to life is mainly through
(09:40):
our flagship program ofcertification.
Through our flagship program ofcertification, and what you're
looking at here is a collectionof 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 herewould fill in that assessment.
(10:00):
So you're talking abouteverything from your strategy to
infrastructure you've got inplace, covering the entire
employee journey, from employerbranding to developing employees
, to engaging them throughwell-being, rewards and
recognition, etc.
And they would fill that in andhave a conversation, a
discussion, an in-depth reviewwith one of our HR auditors.
(10:24):
So no, you cannot buy the seal,unfortunately.
You have to really work for it,and these HR auditors are
basically trying to decipher howyou're bringing these practices
to life.
What does it mean in yourcontext?
If you hit a 60% score, you getthe certification.
And whether you get thecertification or not, what's
(10:45):
waiting for you at the end ofthe tunnel is this beautiful set
of benchmark data where you canactually see where you stand in
relation to some othercompanies, whether that's in
your region, in your industry,workforce, comparable workforces
, setups, et cetera.
But it gives you a roadmap towhere you can grow, where you
(11:07):
can move forward.
So when you're becoming a topemployer or you're becoming part
of the journey, you're lookingat continuous improvement.
That's the key here.
It's not about just gettingthat certification.
It's about really creating animpact.
That means something and I tellyou, jerry, our HR leaders,
they love this stuff because itarms them with data, with some
(11:28):
language, credibility that theycan really take to their
boardrooms and say like hey,this is why I'm claiming we need
to invest into x, y and z sothat's, very valuable.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's what we do that's very valuable to uh,
valuable to HR leaders, becausenearly everybody else sitting in
the boardroom has pretty gooddata or data to support their
proposals and strategies thatthey want to do.
I'm going to ask you a questionnow because it might be
something that's on the mind ofmy listeners and I had the
(12:01):
Belgian CEO of Great Places towork on a while back and many
organizations get bothcertifications.
What would you say are thedistinctions between what they
do and what you do?
On Leading People?
(12:31):
The goal is to bring youcutting edge thought leadership
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joining our leading peoplelinkedin community of hr leaders
and talent professionals yeah,that's a great question, jerry.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Uh, because for me it's something.
A great place to work and topemployer certification kind of
are how do you say two pieces ofthe puzzle.
Because Great Place to Workmeasures your employee sentiment
.
Like you know, your employeesare filling it in, etc.
Whereas we at Top EmployersInstitute we're looking at all
(13:16):
the people practices that HR hasput into place, the business
has put into place, and we'retrying to guide you as to what
you're missing.
So when you look at those twodata and compare, like yeah,
I've got all the brilliantcareer stuff in place, but my
employees are saying they're nothappy with it, or they think
that we don't have enough inplace, what's the gap here?
(14:07):
Well, maybe it's communication,and often it is that you're not
communicating enough in theright way to the right, like, um
, exponential gains that cancome out of the comparison here
so it's.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
It's not just not really a case of either, or it
could be a case of both and forthe to get the the bottom up and
top down aspects covered, soyou get a more holistic view
exactly.
It'll make the picture completethat those two pieces of puzzle
okay, so you've talked a littlebit about the methodology with
the 250 hr practices etc.
(14:36):
And what are some of the keytopics that you you know, if you
bunch them into sort ofcategories, what sort of
categories stand out to you asin part of your auditing process
?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
yeah, we actually have six different domains, as
we call them here, but let'savoid our jargon here.
Just to put it in like verysimple words, there are six
categories where the top two arestill in shape, and here we are
looking at do you actually havea strategy in place, right,
that's aligned with yourbusiness priorities as well?
And then in shape.
And here we are looking at doyou actually have a strategy in
place, right, that's alignedwith your business priorities as
well?
And then in shape.
(15:09):
We're talking about all thedifferent things like digital HR
, so the technological setupyou're supporting your work
environment, all the differentpractices you're putting in
place to support your strategy.
But the most fabulous one ofthem all, I guess, are the three
middle domains all the way fromattract to engage and this is
(15:34):
where what I mentioned earlieras well you start to look at
your employer branding.
You look at your talentacquisition, you look at
onboarding, so you know whensomebody gets exposed to your
brand, all the way to when theybecome a new hire, to where
you're taking their learningdevelopment, their leadership
development, their careerdevelopment, and then well-being
, rewards and recognition, howyou're engaging them, your
(15:55):
employee listening strategies.
Those are the topics we exploreunder those three domains.
And then there's unite, andthat talks about things like
sustainability, which is afairly 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 stuffgoing on around.
(16:17):
We're also talking about ethicsand purpose and values within
this domain.
So all of that, in total,you're looking at 20 different
topics that cover basicallyevery component of HR.
So it's not just a one-man show.
It's your HR team that has tocome together and work on this
assessment.
(16:37):
Also, the byproduct that youget out of it also applies to
everybody, so it's that breakingthose cross-functional barriers
as well, in a way.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So I guess, to just take what you just said and
expand upon it, I suppose aquestion that people out there
might be wondering about is whatare some of the big trends
you're noticing recently in HR?
Because you've mentioned a fewthings, like the whole
well-being thing, and then fiveyears ago it was like, well, why
(17:09):
bother with that?
And now it's mainstream.
And now you're talking aboutsustainability.
Like, well, why bother withthat?
And now it's mainstream.
And now you're talking aboutsustainability.
I have friends who actuallywork in organizations where a
big part of their sustainabilitynow is the people side.
It's it's not like are youputting certain products into
your you know, puttingcomponents into your products
that meet certain environmentalrequirements, etc.
(17:29):
It's actually talking about thepeople side and the social
aspect of that and and how yourpeople show up in the world as
representatives of your company,etc.
Etc.
However, you're probably theperson who has the most
expertise on this, becauseyou're looking at the data and
what sort of big trends are youreally noticing now in the hr
world?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
just putting a little bit of context here.
Uh, jerry, what we started tonotice was, obviously, macro
trends have always impactedbusinesses in one form or
another.
Right so, political environment, et cetera.
But what's happening now isthere are other trends like
declining birth rates, agingpopulation, all of that kind of
(18:11):
contributing to labor shortagesas well.
We are looking at AIrevolutionizing the workplace,
so all these things have veryquickly become so integrated
with the business but also thepeople side of things, that it's
impossible for any company tobe completely alienated from its
society.
(18:31):
In a nutshell, so that's wherewe are seeing that the role of
HR is also evolving and, by thevirtue of that, the leaders of
the company and in HR as well,where you are kind of in the
middle of the businesspriorities, the employee
expectations as well as thesocietal expectations.
So the concept of systemsthinking is one of our trends
(18:56):
that we've also spoken aboutquite a number of times is needs
to become ingrained within HRthat you cannot any longer make
a decision by just thinkingabout hey, I'm just in talent
acquisition team, so I'm goingto do my job, I'm going to look
at my KPIs and be done with it.
That's just not an optionanymore.
You need to start thinkingabout any decision that's going
(19:20):
to come into play.
How's that going to have aripple effect on everything else
that's going on around you.
The advent of Gen Z, and I meanI think I can safely say the
changing employee expectationsin general as well.
You don't have a choice anymorebut to keep your finger on the
pulse, you know whatever's goingon around you.
(19:43):
So one of the trends that wespoke about is basically that,
like the role of HR andemploying that systems thinking,
that design thinking mentality,and also looking at the future
of HR.
What would the role of an HR BPlook like in the future?
It's definitely not going to bethe same.
There's a lot of revolutionthat needs to happen in that
(20:05):
aspect.
But coming in with, let's talkabout the multi-generational
aspect.
Right, the workforce today hasseveral different generations
that we are expected to manageas leaders as well.
Right, and understanding whattheir expectations are becomes
the top priority.
Gen Z we did some research intoGen Z and we quickly, very
(20:27):
quickly something that wasreally obvious came out that
they're looking fordevelopmental opportunities.
They want to work fororganizations that provide them
with that.
They want to work fororganizations that actually
stand for something.
So it's not just about visibleactivism, right, it's about it's
expected of you.
(20:48):
It's not just about the wordsanymore.
You have to show that withaction.
Just about the words anymore.
You have to show that withaction.
And that's also somehow leadingto another trend we're noticing,
and that's the concept of newbelonging, and what that implies
is that Gen Z and, I think, tosome extent, the employees in
general by far are makingconnections that are even
(21:09):
extending beyond the confines ofyour company.
You're looking at people whoare not staying in the same job
for 30 years, like my father did.
He worked for the same bank for30 years.
That's just not possibleanymore.
People switch jobs.
It's about talent fluidity andit doesn't mean that employers
(21:30):
are not good anymore.
It's just the nature of how theworld is evolving.
And in fact, we have some topemployers who are putting
practices in place.
Like you know, boomerangemployees you go, you learn, you
pick something else up, yougain new skills and then you
come back to us.
We welcome you back with openarms.
So that just goes on to showyou that those connections are
(21:52):
just forming very differently.
Now the challenge for HR andleaders becomes how do we manage
that extended sense ofbelonging this is the new
belonging how do we leverage it?
So if my employees are workingin a shared workspace, they're
forming some connections there,they're picking up some stuff
there, how do I proactively makethem bring it back to the
(22:17):
organization and use that goldmine of information for the rest
of the population?
So that's another thing that weare, you know, really actively
talking about with the HRleaders.
And one thing that is reallybecoming more and more obvious,
more and more accentuated, isthe skills-based organization.
(22:39):
One part of it is skills-basedhiring as well, right?
So when you're looking atinclusion, for example, you're
talking about I think one of ourtrends is also neuro-inclusive
by design, right?
So that means you don'tspecifically put people in boxes
and start to create different,different things, accommodations
(23:00):
for different groups, butrather you build your systems,
your processes, your work designin 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 theway of accommodation, but by
(23:20):
default, to different receptionmodes, right?
So people take informationdifferently.
Let's proactively think aboutthat.
Let's think about how yourteams work, the strengths, the
skills they've got.
Let's start to hone in on theskills rather than putting
people again in boxes andtalking about the different
roles.
(23:40):
How can we leverage thosespecific skills and create teams
that deliver the best possibleoutcome for the individual, for
the team and for theorganization by far?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
So I'm hearing a lot about the skills-based
organization and I'm curious howare organizations measuring
skills?
Because anybody can put a skillon their CV or resume because
they think they have it and yetthey may not have it, and people
(24:13):
are prone to exaggerating whatthey can do.
So how are organizations goingabout?
You know this whole skillsecosystem.
How are they actuallydetermining who has the skills
in terms of the ones that can beapplied for what need going
forward?
You're listening to LeadingPeople.
(24:37):
With me, Gerry Murray.
My guest this week is AmaraNaeem, from the Top Employers
Institute, Coming up next howtop employers are redefining
development performance and therole of AI in the employee
experience, Plus what HR needsto do to stay future-proof.
(24:58):
Stay with us for more greatinsights.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
That's a very, very interesting question, jerry,
because I think there's not yetbeen a magic solution.
Why?
Because the skills that areneeded for the future probably
don't even exist at the moment.
So where campus hiring used tobe the go-to, you know, you
bring people in with certainskillset, train them for an
entry-level position and you'regood to go.
(25:25):
The question becomes if AI,with AI coming in, your basic
stuff is going to be done by AI.
The skills gap there starts towiden even more.
And these universities,educational institutions, are
they going to keep up with thepace of change and the pace of
the needs changing for theorganizations as well?
So, long story short, what I'msaying is why I said that
(25:49):
there's no magical solution,because most of the
organizations are still figuringit out.
What we're seeing is many arecoming up with their own sort of
skills taxonomy.
So what skills are needed forthe organizations that are
specific to the organizationsand in this case the business
sees will be needed movingforward, like, let's say, next
(26:09):
two years, next three years, andthey train people or they
upskill or reskill theiremployees based on those
specific skills.
I have examples in especiallytech consulting industry where
they started to allocate skillstags or badges.
So once you acquire a skill,you get a badge or a tag.
(26:31):
These are global organizations,right?
So it also enables them to dothose internal movements.
So if a manager sitting in theUK is looking for something for
a very specific skill for aproject, for a specific project
for the client, at this point intime, they would look at their
internal career marketplaceagain AI-driven and pick out
(26:52):
people who have actually gainedor acquired those skills tags
and they know okay, this personhas these skills, I'm going to
use this person on this project.
So there's a lot of thatinternal career marketplace
going on as well.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And who's determining ?
Like who's determining ifyou've got the skill?
Because this is something Imean.
Many, many years ago when I wasdoing my MBA, we did a
fantastic course calledmanagement in society and this
was at a time when the wholedebate about I was based
actually at the UK at the timeand they had kind of stopped
being a manufacturing nation andmore of a services nation, and
(27:28):
I remember our lecturer talkingabout how the Germans had the
best model in Europe becausethey had the apprenticeship
model and you could only getcertain jobs if you had passed
all the apprenticeship and themaster, in whatever domain,
would certify the people beneathit.
Are you seeing organizationswhere there is an internal
process to say that, for example, amara actually has that skill
(27:50):
because we've seen her do itfive times or 20 times and it's
producing results for theorganization?
Or are people just filling inthese databases by themselves
and saying I've got that skillbecause I went to a meeting once
and I was we talked about?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
it.
The skills tags, example, forinstance, that I spoke about.
That's a mix of theorganization taking so the
employer sort of takingownership of making sure you
have that skill, and that's amix of like okay, we're going to
put you through this training.
So, like you know, yeah, youget trained, etc.
So that counts a certainpercentage, but then you don't
(28:27):
immediately get that skills tagor that badge.
You go through a project orthere's an expectation set, like
in order for you to get skill a.
You go through a project orthere's an expectation set, like
in order for you to get skill A, you'll go through this
training, but then you'll workon a project and then you'll
spend X number of months workingon X, y, z and once you've
crossed all those, you will beallocated skills A, skill A, and
then it becomes part of yourinternal resume skill A and then
(28:50):
it becomes part of yourinternal resume.
It's not necessarily like yeah,I think I'm really great at
public speaking, so, yeah, I'vegot that skill chat.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I think they're a little bit more controlled is
what we are noticing now.
Okay, my favorite is thekaraoke example.
You know there's lots of peopleget up on a Friday evening and
claim they can sing to thekaraoke backing track and no
matter how many Fridays they getup, it's quite obvious that it
may not be the case, you know.
I want to explore one or twoother things you talked about,
(29:26):
because and I think you stillhave maybe one or two of the
trends that you can elaborate onI'm just curious, like there
are many people out there whotalk about this term, human
resources and say that it itselfis outdated, and what are you
seeing in terms of changes inthe nature of how those
(29:50):
departments and individuals arebeing described?
Because we're still talkingabout described, because we're
still talking about HR and we'restill talking about HRBPs and,
yes, I can understand thebusiness partner aspect of it
other emerging factors or trendsthat are suggesting that that
particular concept is no longervalid for going moving forward.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I think one of the earliest indicators I can speak
to and this is already a fewyears ago, it's not like right
now is the switch to basicallychanging the name of the
department itself.
That speaks to something aspeople and culture is what we're
seeing more and more,especially among multinational
(30:30):
organizations and for a whilenow.
So, yes, maybe the HRPP rolesdo exist in some organizations,
but now we're looking at, youknow, talent partners.
We're looking at different jobslike employee experience
managers.
So there's definitely a shiftthere and I tend to agree.
(30:54):
The word human resources is notonly that it sounds outdated,
but it's coming from a time whenHR was about payroll and admin
and all that stuff.
That I never really enjoyedmyself A bit biased there, but
if we want seat at the table, italso comes with its own
branding and perception.
(31:15):
Right, that's the reality of it.
Uh, if you're gonna sit withjust yeah, hr admin and hr
payroll and all that, um, we'rejust not gonna make a move.
Uh, there either.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So completely see what where you're coming from,
jerry yeah, and the concept ofculture probably dovetails
nicely into the idea of thesystems thinking approach,
because I'm a big fan of systemsthinking for many, many years
and culture itself is a systemand therefore to understand the
dynamics of that system,understanding systems thinking
(31:50):
is probably quite valuable,which would then lead to a
question around what do hrpeople need to do to help skill
themselves going forward?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
right on, right on.
I was also going to get intothat as well.
When you talk about skills, forexample, we we tend to very
quickly talk about skills foremployees um, you know how
they're going to help thebusiness.
But I think it's also very fairto say that, as people function
(32:19):
, that HR functions, whateveryou call them.
We need to also do thatself-reflection, because
sometimes we do become a littlebit of a cult.
That's the reality of thesituation.
Let's just call a spade a spade.
We do also tend to get stuck inour ways and not wanting to
change.
And we have done things becauseit has worked, we're going to
keep doing it, but we kind ofdon't have that option anymore.
(32:42):
Moving forward, we need to lookat ourselves as well and see
where do we need to build thosecertain skills that are going to
be future-proof?
When you talk about speaking thebusiness language, I mean,
we've seen that for quite awhile, but still, when I talk to
people, what I'm witnessing, weare not there yet.
We don't speak their language.
(33:04):
We don't know how to reallybecome a business partner.
Yes, you have it in your title,but are you really a business
partner?
Because guess what happens whenyou say we have a 10% increase
in employee engagement.
What is your CEO taking fromthat?
Like, yeah, you did a great job, but how is that bringing him
(33:27):
anything?
How does that translate intorevenue, profitability, the
market growth?
I I don't have like manyexamples of hr people doing that
very, very well or very closeto the business.
So you know, with great powercomes great responsibility.
So if you're getting that seatat the table, you've got to make
(33:48):
uh sort of strides in thatdirection as well.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I suppose by nature the challenge that a lot of
departments would have this.
But somehow the HR departmenthas this challenge that when you
talk about the payroll etc partof it, it becomes perceived as
very transactional.
You know, you get the HRdepartment to do a transaction
for you, which then diminishesthat perception that HR can be
(34:13):
very strategic.
And I had a former colleague ofmine, former CEO on the program
was it last year and he kind ofput the challenge out there
because he spoke at a conferencemany years ago and he said he
asked the room of HRprofessionals how could they
name on one hand, the number ofHR CHROs or directors who'd
(34:34):
become CEO?
You know as having had a careerin HR and went straight into
CEO role, and he said no peoplestruggle there and it's strange.
You could ask how many financedirectors or CFOs become CEOs
and you're going to get a biglong list.
Same with sales and marketingpeople or in engineering
companies, the operations peopleor head of engineering.
(34:56):
And yet it's kind of in manyorganizations, particularly the
service sector, it's a surprisethat you don't see more CHROs
becoming the natural successorto the CEO because you think
that's, you know, the businessis the people and the talent and
the skills, so it's interesting.
It's a very interesting.
You know, the business is thepeople and the talent and the
skills, so it's interesting it'sa very interesting you know.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
It reminds me of this that I read recently jerry um.
It was a survey of um ceos and38 of them said that they would
rather resign than lead alarge-scale workforce
transformation project.
There's so many things you cantake from this stat right.
(35:38):
On one hand, your business isnot going to survive without
people.
On the other hand, everybody'sscared of touching that with a
barge pole.
So it is definitely surprisingthat not more CHROs get into the
CEO position.
But I also believe that thetime is right for us to change
that, with AI coming into thepicture that can support all the
(36:02):
transactional stuff that HR hasbeen responsible for for
decades and that gives us theopportunity to actually set
ourselves the right way, themore strategic way.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I've had the privilege in recent years of
meeting some outstandinglytalented uh hr, senior hr people
who really can do the strategyvery, very well.
I mean, it's a pleasure to bearound them because they're not
just thinking about, you know,this one little project that
they want you to help, that youknow you can actually have a
conversation about the longerterm impact on the business,
(36:36):
what the sort of challenges thebusiness has had, how this is
going to help the business.
Often many, many projects thathave leverage take time to put
in place.
They're not.
They're not put in place inthree days or three weeks.
Sometimes it can be threemonths to up to three years
depending on the type of project.
And yet I've noticed thistalent that these people have.
(36:59):
They can see how all the pieceslike the systems thinking.
They can see how the pieceswill eventually plug in together
and create a new dynamic andmaybe a new way of working, but
a positive way of working foreverybody in the organization.
Are you starting to see thatyourself in?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Oh, absolutely Absolutely.
I for one, I always say wealready have so many proven
practices in the business.
I mean I'm client experience.
I mean I speak HR, hr is myclientele, everything.
But I'm technically business.
I'm talking about clientexperience.
Why can't we replicate thoseclient success, client
(37:40):
experience principles to HR?
And we're seeing that kind ofhappen more and more.
I had this conversation with anHR 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.
So it's really all right.
Let's take one step to movecloser to the business and start
(38:04):
to speak their language, butalso replicate what they do well
.
If we can manage clientexperience so well, if we can
invest into setting up processes, design thinking and all that
great stuff for that, why can'twe use the same for our
employees?
Because these are the people.
It's been proven that if youkeep your employees happy, your
(38:25):
customers are also going to behappy.
So there needs to be that linksomehow, somewhere.
But definitely seeing the the,the change start to form.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
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 calledthe employee experience, and
his whole drive for writing thebook was, he said, when you look
at how organizations create thecustomer experience and he had
made that link that you'retalking about, which is he
(38:56):
couldn't see the same evidencefor the employee experience and
yet in so many organizations,how the employees feel about
working there, et cetera, isgoing to impact how they
represent you and how theyinteract with.
The most important person inyour organization is your
customer, Because withoutcustomers, nobody's going to get
paid.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
So exactly that's the thing, right, and I all the
other day I was having thisconversation where it just made
me think like, okay, should hrstart to report into chief
customer officers?
Yes, because you're looking atthe same, the same picture,
basically, uh, would it help toalign all those pieces together
(39:40):
because your people aredelivering the experience for
your customers?
So, anyway, that was just mywild thinking right there.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Well, I mean why well thinking is is often changes
the world.
You know it can have great umimplications.
If people start to just explorethe concept, it can land
somewhere, maybe slightlyelsewhere, but it can still gets
people to think outside the box.
You know, absolutely, I meanit's a fascinating experience to
walk into a room and ask peoplewho pays their salary and
(40:10):
they'll say the payrolldepartment.
At the end of the day yes, ofcourse the transaction.
However, I, you have some sortof 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 taxpayerand the government organizations
that collect that who fund thegovernment.
At the end of the day, in theprivate sector, it's your
(40:33):
customers.
It's like if they don't buy andyou can't make a profit.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
You can't pay your people.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
It's as simple as that, you know in the world of
hr.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Uh, we always say our customers are internal
employees.
Right, but what if we were tochange our thinking to our
customers are also actually thecustomers.
What would that change?
What would the impact be like?
Obviously, you have to work foryour internal employees, but
let's look at the bigger pictureand in many cases, your, your
(41:03):
employees, are your customer.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Particularly if you make a consumer good, they often
, they often are your customer.
I want to just talk about oneor two other things here, um,
that you you've kindly some ofthe stuff you sent me in advance
, but also some of the stuffthat I picked up from clients.
Uh, on some of the areas whichhave emerged as quite important
and we talked about gen zearlier you know, going back
(41:26):
many years ago, the whole ideaof having a career in an
organization was you made yourway up the organization.
This was testament to and, atthe end of the day, this kind of
illogical, becauseorganizations are quite
pyramidical and only a fewpeople can actually get up to
the higher echelons and you'restarting to see, perhaps today.
Go back to your point aboutdevelopment and more of a focus
(41:48):
on can I have a career in thisorganization, which doesn't
necessarily mean I have tobecome, try to become CEO, cfo
or whatever but can I go to workevery day and, you know, get
new challenges, grow myself,develop myself?
What have you been seeing overthe last few years in terms of
how employers are rating on this, in terms of when you do the
(42:08):
audit and what sort of step upthey're doing to, because it's a
great way to retain people,isn't it, if you can offer them
somewhere to belong where theyfeel.
Well, I do a job for two years,then I can take on new
challenges and move intosomething else without
necessarily having to becomesomething higher level, etc.
So what sort of challenges, orsorry, what sort of trends are
(42:30):
you seeing in this area?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Definitely a lot going on there, One of them
being or just an obvious one, Iwould say.
You see, more and morecompanies are using Courier as a
hook in their EVPs to attractcandidates, so clearly there's
something happening right.
They're seeing the need.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Unpack EVP for Employee value proposition.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Yeah, okay, yeah, that's my blind spot, right?
Speaker 1 (42:57):
yeah, I know it's, everybody should know it I'm
always trying to imagine being alistener out there who's going
absolutely right.
What's an evp?
Is it an electric vehicle?
Or is it some sort of anelectric vehicle powered purse?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Okay, the employee value proposition, so like any
corporate value proposition likewhat do you bring to the
customer?
So he's like what do you, as anemployer, bring to your
candidates?
Why should they come and pickyou instead of the other
organization?
And the war for talent has beengoing on for quite a while and,
(43:35):
of course, the pool isshrinking.
We all know that we'restruggling to find the same set
of skills that are already maybenot existent at the moment.
So, anyway, it's becoming moreand more part of that.
So everybody's trying to saylike, hey, we're going to help
your career, these are thedevelopment opportunities we
offer.
So it's still about the money,and you know the Maslow's
(43:58):
hierarchy of needs.
Obviously, that has to be met,but this is becoming more and
more what we see.
Another thing is very obviousthat more and more organizations
are investing intopersonalizing learning and
development.
Right, because not everybodyneeds the same set of classroom
training that they used to get,or you know we are used to.
(44:20):
It's more about investing intothe systems that apply that, and
again I'll refer to the AI anddigital components that play a
role here.
So, based on, say, for example,what my development plan is,
the system suggests differenttypes of learnings, but
basically, the investment isthere and it's getting to be
(44:40):
more and more, which tells you,the trend indicates this is
important.
That's why the employers areinvesting into it.
The career moves are I'm notsaying they're not vertical
anymore, but there's a lot ofhorizontal shift that's
happening as well.
So if you studied marketing atthe university doesn't mean
(45:02):
you're going to end up in amarketing career.
So I think organizations aremore open to such shifts.
If I look at myself, like, no,I studied something, I did
something, and then now I'mdoing something completely
different, and I think that's anorm now.
Yeah, and Gen Z and currentemployee population in general
(45:25):
as well, I think we're gettingused to of learning by doing,
whether that's sort ofaccentuated by the fact that the
skills that are needed are notexisting at the moment, um, or
simply that, yeah, we are notgoing back to the classroom to
learn something, we're justlearning it on the job and
(45:46):
actually what's your point aboutstudying something and ending
up with something else?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I mean a little interesting conversation piece
at a dinner party I mean we'vehad this a few times in the last
couple of years maybe there'dbe seven, eight, nine, 10 of us
around the table and ask whohere is actually doing something
professionally today that theyactually absolutely directly
studied.
Now, of course, if you didmedicine and you became a doctor
, it's likely that you've donethe path.
(46:12):
If you went into one professionand at the same time, it's
quite remarkable how many peopleare doing something quite
different, right?
And that brings me to aninteresting you were talking
about.
I want to do a little bit on ainow and the experience across
the entire workforce, just toget towards the end of this.
And one of the things that'sstill going on out there which
(46:33):
is which is kind of a bitshocking is amongst certain
people in the academic world,they're really against their
students using ai to do theirassignments.
And the thing is, I mean I havea friend uh, he was, he was
also um on this program a coupleof years ago and he specialized
in customer experience and hehas said openly that he is he's
(46:55):
a professor.
He's encouraging his studentsto 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'mstill looking for how they're
interpreting it, how they'reusing the data, etc.
Et cetera.
Because in many cases, all theAI is doing is helping you
(47:15):
gather data faster, but itdoesn't mean the data is still
valid and you have to be able tocheck it the same way you check
your sources and anything.
And yet there's still peopleout there saying, no way, we're
not allowing it, we're notallowing it in schools, et
cetera.
And yet kids are using it, foryou know, know, planning their
vacation time, and that they Imean my kids do it.
They go.
(47:35):
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, youknow, 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 employeeexperience now going forward?
Um, what I mean?
We, of course, we need acrystal ball.
(47:56):
We don't have it.
At the same time, you must behearing things from
organizations, are they sort ofsaying we have to do it slowly
because you could get completelycarried away with this and and
do stuff that just won't work orcost us a lot of money.
What are you hearing out thereand seeing?
Speaker 2 (48:14):
um, my personal take on this I'll speak to first is
it's kind of like burying yourhead in the sand.
It's not something of thefuture anymore.
It's here and it's moving veryfast.
So, you know, just closing youreyes to it is kind of not going
to do much good to anybody.
As far as the organizations ortop employers that we speak to,
(48:39):
there is definitely movementthere.
Some are much quicker to adaptthan others, obviously, and I
think industry also has a largerole to play here.
So if I'm talking to my techconsulting clients, obviously
they're already developingsolutions, yada, yada.
If you're talking about someother, like FMCGs, they've
(49:00):
already started, they're ontheir journey, but maybe the
focus area is a little bit moreon like, okay, let's just kill
the very basic stuff with AI.
So the needle is moving.
There's no going back.
However, the trend that weexpect to see this year is you
need to figure out that cusp ofhuman and AI interaction, like
(49:26):
you very well alluded to, jerry.
It's not like AI is gonna doeverything for you.
It's gonna impact every singlerole I mean that much we can be
sure of but it's not gonna takeaway every role.
It's gonna either help you doit better or it's gonna change
it into something something else, something much more meaningful
(49:48):
, but that doesn't take away thehuman 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% ofour workforce and replace it
with AI.
I have not heard of thatstrategy yet at all, but it's
more like okay, let's just useit, for example, in HR.
(50:09):
How do we get rid of thetransactional stuff that we've
had to do and help us be morestrategic?
One of the things that wementioned in our trends report
is the AI powered leadership,and that means that, for leaders
as well, this is gonna mean somuch more because it's gonna
help you make better strategicdecisions, because it's gonna
(50:30):
provide you the information thatyou were maybe finding in 10
different places or you didn'thave access to, or whatever the
case might be.
But at the end of the day, it'sgoing 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 itor not?
(50:50):
That's not going to replaceyour leadership capabilities,
but you can use it for thingslike hey, within my team
dynamics, let's use AI to figureout what the strengths and
weaknesses are, for example, sowe can have a much more
efficient productive team inplace.
It's things like that, and sodefinitely the value is there,
but in no way is it going toreplace human intuition.
(51:14):
Rather, it's going to be apartnership.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Is what we are seeing , and also in terms of
experience.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
I'm sorry, I'm just gonna finish up on the
experience component of it.
That should do wonders toemployee experience as well as
it is doing for customerexperience, by the virtue of
simply being able to aggregatethe data that's available in
scattered places, analyzinginsights that can make you a bit
(51:41):
more predictive, like in inclient success.
We look at data to see what'sthe uh.
How do we predict the renewalswill pan out for this
organization?
Based on x, y and z factor.
Why can't we apply it toemployee experience to say who's
at flight risk or you know?
Uh, you know they're gonnaleave the company in the next
(52:01):
two years, based on a, b and c.
So those um principles aredefinitely useful and something
that I'm really looking forwardto seeing how they pan out and
just to take one or two of yourpoints there.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
I mean, there is this kind of perhaps
misunderstanding ormisinterpretation at times.
Like many blue collar at thethat word blue collar you know
many work, jobs and factoriesand that we tend to think about
a lot of this stuff on the whitecollar.
You know the of the money.
The asset base is equipment.
(52:36):
You know it's.
You know that's a huge thingand so they can't just shift
(52:59):
systems willy-nilly around anorganization.
But what's one question Iwanted to ask you about is, with
all the talk about AI and theexploration of what it can do in
different industries, what areyou seeing in terms of how
workers councils and unions arereacting to this type of thing,
because surely they havesomething to say about this, and
(53:21):
particularly in europeancontext, there's a lot of
countries where workers councilsare very strong of course, lots
of discussions around that andwe 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 thatalready.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Let's look at the debate on DEI around the world,
based on what's happening in theUS.
So, again, the macro trends weare no longer immune to.
So, yes, unionization, it isexpected that we will see more
of that.
But I just want to hone in onthat AI and blue collar
(54:06):
workforce point as well, becausethis is also something that
came up in our trends.
We are looking at this newcollar category where it's not
that the blue collar jobs willbe taken away by AI, but we
there'll be people who have, whohave these technical skills who
traditionally would have beenblue collar workers, who would
(54:28):
be able to develop these digitalskills using AI, et cetera, and
creating this new category ofnew color workforce that's
actually going to be much moreimportant than any other color,
basically because those are theskills that you won't be able to
replicate, necessarily, veryeasily.
(54:49):
So that was another veryinteresting trend that we
observed, and I think it's alsoabout we're kind of in the thick
of it right now, with theunions talking and everything
agreeing or not agreeing tocertain aspects.
It will evolve into a situationwhen the dust settles.
I expect it will be a positivespin for everybody involved.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
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 howpeople use the blue collar term
in the past.
So that's a welcome developmentin how we talk about the
various workers in anorganization.
We talk about the variousworkers in an organization.
(55:37):
So, coming to the end, what's acouple of key insights or tips,
or even one key insight or tipyou'd like my audience to take
away from this conversation?
Speaker 2 (55:45):
I think, as a leader, we get a lot thrown at us.
I understand that on a personallevel or on, like, a client
level and everything, and we'renot always prepared to handle it
.
But what really works is to notlet go of your empathy with
(56:07):
your team either, because whatyou are absorbing is also
reflected on them.
So I think if I were to sayanything, that's what I would
say Don't lose your empathy andacknowledge.
I mean, I know you cannotchange the world.
You cannot change everythingthat happens within an
organization, and sometimes itjust helps to acknowledge that.
(56:29):
Yes, I'm aware.
Speaker 1 (56:31):
Okay, so how do people get in touch with you,
amara?
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Find me on LinkedIn.
I try to be active butdefinitely respond to messages.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
And reach out and mention that you heard the
podcast Leading People podcast.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
And I guess then there's the.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
I'll put links in the show notes.
But I guess the other thing isif an organization out there is
curious about becoming a topemployer, they can go to the
website.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
Yeah, absolutely.
You can find us easily onlineat wwwtopemployersinstitutecom.
If nothing else, just reach outto me and I'll put you in touch
with the right person.
If you're interested to findout more, I'll be happy to have
a chat.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
So feel free to get in touch with the right person.
If you're interested to findout more, I'll be happy to have
a chat, so feel free to get intouch.
Speaker 2 (57:24):
Oh, okay, as always, thanks Samara for sharing your
insights, tips and wisdom withme and my listeners here today.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
Thank you, so much, Jerry, for having me Coming up
on Leading People.
Speaker 3 (57:31):
That's a great point and, you know, there's something
interesting that came out thattalks about the fact that just
because we can does not mean weshould.
And I think it's extremelyrelevant today when we think
about technologies that are ableto automate a lot of the
aspects of the employeeexperience, when we start
thinking about the utilizationof things like generative AI as
part of the employee experienceand there's a very interesting
(57:51):
case study that talks about thefact where an organization tried
to replace the performancemanagement discussion between
the manager and the employeewith AI actually facilitating
the feedback, and it completelybombed out because the employee
gave the feedback to say there'sno humanness towards this
typical interaction that we have.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
My next guest is Dr Dieter Felsman, organizational
psychologist, chief scientist atAIHR and co-author of Work for
Humans.
During our conversation, wedive into how employee
experience is being reinvented,why leaders must stay human in
an AI driven world, and howsmart organizations are creating
(58:30):
workplaces people actually wantto be part of.
It's a conversation packed withinsights you won't want to miss
.
And remember before our nextfull episode, there's another
One Simple Thing episode waitingfor you A quick and actionable
tip to help you lead and livebetter.
Keep an eye out for it whereveryou listen to this podcast
(58:54):
Until next time.
Welcome to Leading People with me, gerry Marais.
This is the podcast for leadersand HR decision makers who want
to bring out the best inthemselves and others.
Every other week, I sit downwith leading authors,
researchers and practitionersfor deep dive conversations
(00:22):
about the strategies, insightsand tools that drive personal
and organizational success.
And in between, I bring you onesimple thing short episodes
that deliver practical insightsand tips for immediate use.
Whether you're here for usefultools or thought
thought-provoking ideas, leadingPeople is your guide to better
(00:44):
leadership.
Have you ever wondered what itreally takes to be a top
employer, what separatescompanies that win the war for
talent from those still stuck inoutdated practices, and what
are the key HR trends thatmatter most right now?
(01:04):
Today, I'm joined by AmaraNaeem, client Experience
Director at the Top EmployersInstitute, where she works with
thousands of HR leaders acrossthe globe to shape what the
future of work actually lookslike.
In this conversation, we digdeep into what top employers are
doing differently, why HR needsto evolve its own skills, and
(01:33):
how empathy, systems thinkingand smart use of data are
changing the game.
So if you're curious aboutwhere work is headed and how to
bring out the best in yourselfand others.
This episode is for you.
Let's dive right in.
Amara Naeem, welcome to LeadingPeople.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Hey, gerry, thank you so much for having me Really
looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Great, and you're joining me today.
From which city?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
The Hague, the Netherlands, best there was.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Den Haag that's what you like to call it the famous
Hague.
Um.
Okay, so now you're.
You're the client experiencedirector at the top employers
institute and you talk to a lotof HR folks, which means you
have your finger on the pulse ofmany aspects of organizational
life.
And I know from some of our ownclients at Wide Circle, my own
(02:22):
company, that becoming a topemployer is quite a big deal for
many organizations, which isanother good reason why I
invited you on the podcast today.
But first so my listeners canget to know you better how did
you get to working at the TopEmployers Institute and what
people, places or events standout in your journey to where you
(02:42):
are today, and were there anyepiphany moments along the way?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Oh for sure I mean.
That makes me want to take youback to the very beginning,
right?
So I started out as a pre-medstudent, but somewhere along the
line I decided to swap my whitecoat with the corporate blazers
.
But please don't judge me forthat, don't you dare?
Anyway, and somehow it wassupposed to be a temporary
(03:06):
assignment.
I ended up working for like asmall role in HR and completely
fell in love with the field.
Not that I didn't like workingwith people and trying to save
lives, but it made me realizethe potential of the field, the
impact it could eventually haveon people.
Potential of the field, theimpact it could eventually have
(03:27):
on people and all that there wasto do, so much to do in that
field.
And that made me continue onwith it, gone on to create
different HR departments,different sizes of companies,
worked for employer branding fora bit, quickly realizing along
the way how important it was toreally speak the language of the
business and how far HR can befrom actually speaking that
(03:49):
language.
So I quit my job, went for myMBA just trying to, you know, in
search of that.
What is it that would make thistick, that would make this
collaboration with the businessmore tangible for me, ended up
in the Netherlands where Icompleted my MBA and right after
that, top Employers Institutefound me or I found Top
(04:10):
Employers Institute, and thatwas eight years ago.
Within that journey, I think onething that stands out is people
.
I do enjoy working with people,but instead of diagnosing
pathology, I ended up diagnosingHR challenges.
So I've worked as an HR auditorat Taubman Employers Institute.
(04:30):
That's how I started out, butwent on to build client success
advisors team and now as adirector of client experience.
Of course, the experiencecomponent, but also client
success and advisory for HRleaders, also sits in my team.
Advisory for HR leaders alsosits in my team and that's how I
get to really learn every dayfrom HR leaders that are leading
these amazing organizations allaround the globe, and that's
(04:53):
how I'm here Great.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Actually, I think I attended one of your own
webinars there last year at somestage, which also was one of
the reasons why you stuck in myhead at the time, because you
were having quite an informedconversation about trends in HR,
and we'll get to that shortly.
How many people are in yourteam then, just out of interest.
(05:16):
Right now it's a team of seven,but settled all across the globe
, so you're looking at southafrica to singapore, to germany,
to spain so not only are youable to talk about the, the, the
insights and the work you'redoing with the top employers
institute, which we're going toget to now in a minute, you're
(05:37):
also a practitioner in terms ofbeing a leader yourself, so I
guess that also informs andgives you a mirror sometimes or
a reference point for how you'redoing your own job.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I guess, oh gosh, yeah, I have no idea every
single day, and it's not only,you know, leading a
multicultural, geographicallydiverse team, but also a virtual
team.
That has been a learningexperience, I think, for for
many of us here.
But on top of that, I findmyself to be very lucky in the
(06:09):
sense that I am talking to allthese HR leaders again across
the globe and they teach me somuch every day in so many
different ways.
So it's been quite anexperience, especially through
the pandemic journey, I can say.
I think all those changes werebound to happen at some point in
time, but I think the pandemicjust somehow expedited all those
(06:32):
philosophies or things thatpeople thought, yeah, that's
going to come around in the nextfive, 10 years.
But yeah, bam, you're right inthe thick of it.
And yeah, there you go, andhere we.
We are where we were stillarguing if well-being was going
to be a topic that was part ofthe business strategy or not, to
(06:52):
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, andthey'd say things like yeah, but
we provide so much for ouremployees.
We have the best possiblebenefits, so we don't see the
(07:12):
need of having a well-beingstrategy.
And here I am telling them likeno, this is how you need to
look at holistic well-being, notjust physical well-being.
Yada, yada, and fast forward totoday.
It's's like I don't need toconvince anyone anymore.
It's literally like no otherway to go yeah, so that's.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
We're probably going to unpack more of that in a few
minutes.
Let's get to the top employersinstitute as a sort of let's get
a high level helicopter view onit.
How would you describe theinstitute and its work and where
are you based and who do youserve, etc and let's get get the
sort of like very basic stufffor first.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
So, yes, we are headquartered in amsterdam, but
you're looking at 2400, morethan 2400 organizations that are
certified top employers.
So not everybody gets to becertified, obviously, but I'll
get into that in a bit.
But those 2,400 plusorganizations are spread all
across the globe, but ourheadquarters are in Amsterdam,
(08:15):
with offices in differentlocations as well.
So we're present in the US,we're present in South Africa,
singapore, india, so, like youknow, bigger sort of hubs, as I
may, you know, call them in theUK, germany, et cetera.
So, yeah, we've got presenceall over the world and the
(08:36):
leading factor for that is we dofollow a global methodology.
So whatever we are doing oranalyzing in one country is the
same as we would in another.
So whether you're in Spain orin the UK, it doesn't matter,
we're going to look at youbasically the same way, and
that's also, I consider, ourcompetitive advantage in some
way.
But at its core, top employersare organizations who have
(08:59):
basically made a very consciousdecision to prioritize people
right and they're investing intocoming up with something that's
evidence-based, action-orientedand measurable.
Also, these top employers arecompanies who understand that
the new world of work in orderto thrive in it, you've got to
(09:20):
have your people's strategy justas intentional as your business
strategy, so that working withus is one of the ways they can
co as your business strategy, sothat working with us is one of
the ways they can co-own thosebusiness outcomes.
And how we do that is.
I think it's important to giveit some context.
Our purpose at Top EmployersInstitute is to create a better
world of work, and how we bringthat to life is mainly through
(09:40):
our flagship program ofcertification.
Through our flagship program ofcertification, and what you're
looking at here is a collectionof 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 herewould fill in that assessment.
(10:00):
So you're talking abouteverything from your strategy to
infrastructure you've got inplace, covering the entire
employee journey, from employerbranding to developing employees
, to engaging them throughwell-being, rewards and
recognition, etc.
And they would fill that in andhave a conversation, a
discussion, an in-depth reviewwith one of our HR auditors.
(10:24):
So no, you cannot buy the seal,unfortunately.
You have to really work for it,and these HR auditors are
basically trying to decipher howyou're bringing these practices
to life.
What does it mean in yourcontext?
If you hit a 60% score, you getthe certification.
And whether you get thecertification or not, what's
(10:45):
waiting for you at the end ofthe tunnel is this beautiful set
of benchmark data where you canactually see where you stand in
relation to some othercompanies, whether that's in
your region, in your industry,workforce, comparable workforces
, setups, et cetera.
But it gives you a roadmap towhere you can grow, where you
(11:07):
can move forward.
So when you're becoming a topemployer or you're becoming part
of the journey, you're lookingat continuous improvement.
That's the key here.
It's not about just gettingthat certification.
It's about really creating animpact.
That means something and I tellyou, jerry, our HR leaders,
they love this stuff because itarms them with data, with some
(11:28):
language, credibility that theycan really take to their
boardrooms and say like hey,this is why I'm claiming we need
to invest into x, y and z sothat's, very valuable.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's what we do that's very valuable to uh,
valuable to HR leaders, becausenearly everybody else sitting in
the boardroom has pretty gooddata or data to support their
proposals and strategies thatthey want to do.
I'm going to ask you a questionnow because it might be
something that's on the mind ofmy listeners and I had the
(12:01):
Belgian CEO of Great Places towork on a while back and many
organizations get bothcertifications.
What would you say are thedistinctions between what they
do and what you do?
On Leading People?
(12:31):
The goal is to bring youcutting edge thought leadership
from many of the leadingthinkers and practitioners in
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Each guest shares theirinsights, wisdom and practical
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Please subscribe wherever youget your podcasts and share a
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joining our leading peoplelinkedin community of hr leaders
and talent professionals yeah,that's a great question, jerry.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Uh, because for me it's something.
A great place to work and topemployer certification kind of
are how do you say two pieces ofthe puzzle.
Because Great Place to Workmeasures your employee sentiment
.
Like you know, your employeesare filling it in, etc.
Whereas we at Top EmployersInstitute we're looking at all
(13:16):
the people practices that HR hasput into place, the business
has put into place, and we'retrying to guide you as to what
you're missing.
So when you look at those twodata and compare, like yeah,
I've got all the brilliantcareer stuff in place, but my
employees are saying they're nothappy with it, or they think
that we don't have enough inplace, what's the gap here?
(14:07):
Well, maybe it's communication,and often it is that you're not
communicating enough in theright way to the right, like, um
, exponential gains that cancome out of the comparison here
so it's.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
It's not just not really a case of either, or it
could be a case of both and forthe to get the the bottom up and
top down aspects covered, soyou get a more holistic view
exactly.
It'll make the picture completethat those two pieces of puzzle
okay, so you've talked a littlebit about the methodology with
the 250 hr practices etc.
(14:36):
And what are some of the keytopics that you you know, if you
bunch them into sort ofcategories, what sort of
categories stand out to you asin part of your auditing process
?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
yeah, we actually have six different domains, as
we call them here, but let'savoid our jargon here.
Just to put it in like verysimple words, there are six
categories where the top two arestill in shape, and here we are
looking at do you actually havea strategy in place, right,
that's aligned with yourbusiness priorities as well?
And then in shape.
And here we are looking at doyou actually have a strategy in
place, right, that's alignedwith your business priorities as
well?
And then in shape.
(15:09):
We're talking about all thedifferent things like digital HR
, so the technological setupyou're supporting your work
environment, all the differentpractices you're putting in
place to support your strategy.
But the most fabulous one ofthem all, I guess, are the three
middle domains all the way fromattract to engage and this is
(15:34):
where what I mentioned earlieras well you start to look at
your employer branding.
You look at your talentacquisition, you look at
onboarding, so you know whensomebody gets exposed to your
brand, all the way to when theybecome a new hire, to where
you're taking their learningdevelopment, their leadership
development, their careerdevelopment, and then well-being
, rewards and recognition, howyou're engaging them, your
(15:55):
employee listening strategies.
Those are the topics we exploreunder those three domains.
And then there's unite, andthat talks about things like
sustainability, which is afairly 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 stuffgoing on around.
(16:17):
We're also talking about ethicsand purpose and values within
this domain.
So all of that, in total,you're looking at 20 different
topics that cover basicallyevery component of HR.
So it's not just a one-man show.
It's your HR team that has tocome together and work on this
assessment.
(16:37):
Also, the byproduct that youget out of it also applies to
everybody, so it's that breakingthose cross-functional barriers
as well, in a way.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So I guess, to just take what you just said and
expand upon it, I suppose aquestion that people out there
might be wondering about is whatare some of the big trends
you're noticing recently in HR?
Because you've mentioned a fewthings, like the whole
well-being thing, and then fiveyears ago it was like, well, why
(17:09):
bother with that?
And now it's mainstream.
And now you're talking aboutsustainability.
Like, well, why bother withthat?
And now it's mainstream.
And now you're talking aboutsustainability.
I have friends who actuallywork in organizations where a
big part of their sustainabilitynow is the people side.
It's it's not like are youputting certain products into
your you know, puttingcomponents into your products
that meet certain environmentalrequirements, etc.
(17:29):
It's actually talking about thepeople side and the social
aspect of that and and how yourpeople show up in the world as
representatives of your company,etc.
Etc.
However, you're probably theperson who has the most
expertise on this, becauseyou're looking at the data and
what sort of big trends are youreally noticing now in the hr
world?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
just putting a little bit of context here.
Uh, jerry, what we started tonotice was, obviously, macro
trends have always impactedbusinesses in one form or
another.
Right so, political environment, et cetera.
But what's happening now isthere are other trends like
declining birth rates, agingpopulation, all of that kind of
(18:11):
contributing to labor shortagesas well.
We are looking at AIrevolutionizing the workplace,
so all these things have veryquickly become so integrated
with the business but also thepeople side of things, that it's
impossible for any company tobe completely alienated from its
society.
(18:31):
In a nutshell, so that's wherewe are seeing that the role of
HR is also evolving and, by thevirtue of that, the leaders of
the company and in HR as well,where you are kind of in the
middle of the businesspriorities, the employee
expectations as well as thesocietal expectations.
So the concept of systemsthinking is one of our trends
(18:56):
that we've also spoken aboutquite a number of times is needs
to become ingrained within HRthat you cannot any longer make
a decision by just thinkingabout hey, I'm just in talent
acquisition team, so I'm goingto do my job, I'm going to look
at my KPIs and be done with it.
That's just not an optionanymore.
You need to start thinkingabout any decision that's going
(19:20):
to come into play.
How's that going to have aripple effect on everything else
that's going on around you.
The advent of Gen Z, and I meanI think I can safely say the
changing employee expectationsin general as well.
You don't have a choice anymorebut to keep your finger on the
pulse, you know whatever's goingon around you.
(19:43):
So one of the trends that wespoke about is basically that,
like the role of HR andemploying that systems thinking,
that design thinking mentality,and also looking at the future
of HR.
What would the role of an HR BPlook like in the future?
It's definitely not going to bethe same.
There's a lot of revolutionthat needs to happen in that
(20:05):
aspect.
But coming in with, let's talkabout the multi-generational
aspect.
Right, the workforce today hasseveral different generations
that we are expected to manageas leaders as well.
Right, and understanding whattheir expectations are becomes
the top priority.
Gen Z we did some research intoGen Z and we quickly, very
(20:27):
quickly something that wasreally obvious came out that
they're looking fordevelopmental opportunities.
They want to work fororganizations that provide them
with that.
They want to work fororganizations that actually
stand for something.
So it's not just about visibleactivism, right, it's about it's
expected of you.
(20:48):
It's not just about the wordsanymore.
You have to show that withaction.
Just about the words anymore.
You have to show that withaction.
And that's also somehow leadingto another trend we're noticing,
and that's the concept of newbelonging, and what that implies
is that Gen Z and, I think, tosome extent, the employees in
general by far are makingconnections that are even
(21:09):
extending beyond the confines ofyour company.
You're looking at people whoare not staying in the same job
for 30 years, like my father did.
He worked for the same bank for30 years.
That's just not possibleanymore.
People switch jobs.
It's about talent fluidity andit doesn't mean that employers
(21:30):
are not good anymore.
It's just the nature of how theworld is evolving.
And in fact, we have some topemployers who are putting
practices in place.
Like you know, boomerangemployees you go, you learn, you
pick something else up, yougain new skills and then you
come back to us.
We welcome you back with openarms.
So that just goes on to showyou that those connections are
(21:52):
just forming very differently.
Now the challenge for HR andleaders becomes how do we manage
that extended sense ofbelonging this is the new
belonging how do we leverage it?
So if my employees are workingin a shared workspace, they're
forming some connections there,they're picking up some stuff
there, how do I proactively makethem bring it back to the
(22:17):
organization and use that goldmine of information for the rest
of the population?
So that's another thing that weare, you know, really actively
talking about with the HRleaders.
And one thing that is reallybecoming more and more obvious,
more and more accentuated, isthe skills-based organization.
(22:39):
One part of it is skills-basedhiring as well, right?
So when you're looking atinclusion, for example, you're
talking about I think one of ourtrends is also neuro-inclusive
by design, right?
So that means you don'tspecifically put people in boxes
and start to create different,different things, accommodations
(23:00):
for different groups, butrather you build your systems,
your processes, your work designin 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 theway of accommodation, but by
(23:20):
default, to different receptionmodes, right?
So people take informationdifferently.
Let's proactively think aboutthat.
Let's think about how yourteams work, the strengths, the
skills they've got.
Let's start to hone in on theskills rather than putting
people again in boxes andtalking about the different
roles.
(23:40):
How can we leverage thosespecific skills and create teams
that deliver the best possibleoutcome for the individual, for
the team and for theorganization by far?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
So I'm hearing a lot about the skills-based
organization and I'm curious howare organizations measuring
skills?
Because anybody can put a skillon their CV or resume because
they think they have it and yetthey may not have it, and people
(24:13):
are prone to exaggerating whatthey can do.
So how are organizations goingabout?
You know this whole skillsecosystem.
How are they actuallydetermining who has the skills
in terms of the ones that can beapplied for what need going
forward?
You're listening to LeadingPeople.
(24:37):
With me, Gerry Murray.
My guest this week is AmaraNaeem, from the Top Employers
Institute, Coming up next howtop employers are redefining
development performance and therole of AI in the employee
experience, Plus what HR needsto do to stay future-proof.
(24:58):
Stay with us for more greatinsights.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
That's a very, very interesting question, jerry,
because I think there's not yetbeen a magic solution.
Why?
Because the skills that areneeded for the future probably
don't even exist at the moment.
So where campus hiring used tobe the go-to, you know, you
bring people in with certainskillset, train them for an
entry-level position and you'regood to go.
(25:25):
The question becomes if AI,with AI coming in, your basic
stuff is going to be done by AI.
The skills gap there starts towiden even more.
And these universities,educational institutions, are
they going to keep up with thepace of change and the pace of
the needs changing for theorganizations as well?
So, long story short, what I'msaying is why I said that
(25:49):
there's no magical solution,because most of the
organizations are still figuringit out.
What we're seeing is many arecoming up with their own sort of
skills taxonomy.
So what skills are needed forthe organizations that are
specific to the organizationsand in this case the business
sees will be needed movingforward, like, let's say, next
(26:09):
two years, next three years, andthey train people or they
upskill or reskill theiremployees based on those
specific skills.
I have examples in especiallytech consulting industry where
they started to allocate skillstags or badges.
So once you acquire a skill,you get a badge or a tag.
(26:31):
These are global organizations,right?
So it also enables them to dothose internal movements.
So if a manager sitting in theUK is looking for something for
a very specific skill for aproject, for a specific project
for the client, at this point intime, they would look at their
internal career marketplaceagain AI-driven and pick out
(26:52):
people who have actually gainedor acquired those skills tags
and they know okay, this personhas these skills, I'm going to
use this person on this project.
So there's a lot of thatinternal career marketplace
going on as well.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And who's determining ?
Like who's determining ifyou've got the skill?
Because this is something Imean.
Many, many years ago when I wasdoing my MBA, we did a
fantastic course calledmanagement in society and this
was at a time when the wholedebate about I was based
actually at the UK at the timeand they had kind of stopped
being a manufacturing nation andmore of a services nation, and
(27:28):
I remember our lecturer talkingabout how the Germans had the
best model in Europe becausethey had the apprenticeship
model and you could only getcertain jobs if you had passed
all the apprenticeship and themaster, in whatever domain,
would certify the people beneathit.
Are you seeing organizationswhere there is an internal
process to say that, for example, amara actually has that skill
(27:50):
because we've seen her do itfive times or 20 times and it's
producing results for theorganization?
Or are people just filling inthese databases by themselves
and saying I've got that skillbecause I went to a meeting once
and I was we talked about?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
it.
The skills tags, example, forinstance, that I spoke about.
That's a mix of theorganization taking so the
employer sort of takingownership of making sure you
have that skill, and that's amix of like okay, we're going to
put you through this training.
So, like you know, yeah, youget trained, etc.
So that counts a certainpercentage, but then you don't
(28:27):
immediately get that skills tagor that badge.
You go through a project orthere's an expectation set, like
in order for you to get skill a.
You go through a project orthere's an expectation set, like
in order for you to get skill A, you'll go through this
training, but then you'll workon a project and then you'll
spend X number of months workingon X, y, z and once you've
crossed all those, you will beallocated skills A, skill A, and
then it becomes part of yourinternal resume skill A and then
(28:50):
it becomes part of yourinternal resume.
It's not necessarily like yeah,I think I'm really great at
public speaking, so, yeah, I'vegot that skill chat.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I think they're a little bit more controlled is
what we are noticing now.
Okay, my favorite is thekaraoke example.
You know there's lots of peopleget up on a Friday evening and
claim they can sing to thekaraoke backing track and no
matter how many Fridays they getup, it's quite obvious that it
may not be the case, you know.
I want to explore one or twoother things you talked about,
(29:26):
because and I think you stillhave maybe one or two of the
trends that you can elaborate onI'm just curious, like there
are many people out there whotalk about this term, human
resources and say that it itselfis outdated, and what are you
seeing in terms of changes inthe nature of how those
(29:50):
departments and individuals arebeing described?
Because we're still talkingabout described, because we're
still talking about HR and we'restill talking about HRBPs and,
yes, I can understand thebusiness partner aspect of it
other emerging factors or trendsthat are suggesting that that
particular concept is no longervalid for going moving forward.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I think one of the earliest indicators I can speak
to and this is already a fewyears ago, it's not like right
now is the switch to basicallychanging the name of the
department itself.
That speaks to something aspeople and culture is what we're
seeing more and more,especially among multinational
(30:30):
organizations and for a whilenow.
So, yes, maybe the HRPP rolesdo exist in some organizations,
but now we're looking at, youknow, talent partners.
We're looking at different jobslike employee experience
managers.
So there's definitely a shiftthere and I tend to agree.
(30:54):
The word human resources is notonly that it sounds outdated,
but it's coming from a time whenHR was about payroll and admin
and all that stuff.
That I never really enjoyedmyself A bit biased there, but
if we want seat at the table, italso comes with its own
branding and perception.
(31:15):
Right, that's the reality of it.
Uh, if you're gonna sit withjust yeah, hr admin and hr
payroll and all that, um, we'rejust not gonna make a move.
Uh, there either.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So completely see what where you're coming from,
jerry yeah, and the concept ofculture probably dovetails
nicely into the idea of thesystems thinking approach,
because I'm a big fan of systemsthinking for many, many years
and culture itself is a systemand therefore to understand the
dynamics of that system,understanding systems thinking
(31:50):
is probably quite valuable,which would then lead to a
question around what do hrpeople need to do to help skill
themselves going forward?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
right on, right on.
I was also going to get intothat as well.
When you talk about skills, forexample, we we tend to very
quickly talk about skills foremployees um, you know how
they're going to help thebusiness.
But I think it's also very fairto say that, as people function
(32:19):
, that HR functions, whateveryou call them.
We need to also do thatself-reflection, because
sometimes we do become a littlebit of a cult.
That's the reality of thesituation.
Let's just call a spade a spade.
We do also tend to get stuck inour ways and not wanting to
change.
And we have done things becauseit has worked, we're going to
keep doing it, but we kind ofdon't have that option anymore.
(32:42):
Moving forward, we need to lookat ourselves as well and see
where do we need to build thosecertain skills that are going to
be future-proof?
When you talk about speaking thebusiness language, I mean,
we've seen that for quite awhile, but still, when I talk to
people, what I'm witnessing, weare not there yet.
We don't speak their language.
(33:04):
We don't know how to reallybecome a business partner.
Yes, you have it in your title,but are you really a business
partner?
Because guess what happens whenyou say we have a 10% increase
in employee engagement.
What is your CEO taking fromthat?
Like, yeah, you did a great job, but how is that bringing him
(33:27):
anything?
How does that translate intorevenue, profitability, the
market growth?
I I don't have like manyexamples of hr people doing that
very, very well or very closeto the business.
So you know, with great powercomes great responsibility.
So if you're getting that seatat the table, you've got to make
(33:48):
uh sort of strides in thatdirection as well.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I suppose by nature the challenge that a lot of
departments would have this.
But somehow the HR departmenthas this challenge that when you
talk about the payroll etc partof it, it becomes perceived as
very transactional.
You know, you get the HRdepartment to do a transaction
for you, which then diminishesthat perception that HR can be
(34:13):
very strategic.
And I had a former colleague ofmine, former CEO on the program
was it last year and he kind ofput the challenge out there
because he spoke at a conferencemany years ago and he said he
asked the room of HRprofessionals how could they
name on one hand, the number ofHR CHROs or directors who'd
(34:34):
become CEO?
You know as having had a careerin HR and went straight into
CEO role, and he said no peoplestruggle there and it's strange.
You could ask how many financedirectors or CFOs become CEOs
and you're going to get a biglong list.
Same with sales and marketingpeople or in engineering
companies, the operations peopleor head of engineering.
(34:56):
And yet it's kind of in manyorganizations, particularly the
service sector, it's a surprisethat you don't see more CHROs
becoming the natural successorto the CEO because you think
that's, you know, the businessis the people and the talent and
the skills, so it's interesting.
It's a very interesting.
You know, the business is thepeople and the talent and the
skills, so it's interesting it'sa very interesting you know.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
It reminds me of this that I read recently jerry um.
It was a survey of um ceos and38 of them said that they would
rather resign than lead alarge-scale workforce
transformation project.
There's so many things you cantake from this stat right.
(35:38):
On one hand, your business isnot going to survive without
people.
On the other hand, everybody'sscared of touching that with a
barge pole.
So it is definitely surprisingthat not more CHROs get into the
CEO position.
But I also believe that thetime is right for us to change
that, with AI coming into thepicture that can support all the
(36:02):
transactional stuff that HR hasbeen responsible for for
decades and that gives us theopportunity to actually set
ourselves the right way, themore strategic way.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I've had the privilege in recent years of
meeting some outstandinglytalented uh hr, senior hr people
who really can do the strategyvery, very well.
I mean, it's a pleasure to bearound them because they're not
just thinking about, you know,this one little project that
they want you to help, that youknow you can actually have a
conversation about the longerterm impact on the business,
(36:36):
what the sort of challenges thebusiness has had, how this is
going to help the business.
Often many, many projects thathave leverage take time to put
in place.
They're not.
They're not put in place inthree days or three weeks.
Sometimes it can be threemonths to up to three years
depending on the type of project.
And yet I've noticed thistalent that these people have.
(36:59):
They can see how all the pieceslike the systems thinking.
They can see how the pieceswill eventually plug in together
and create a new dynamic andmaybe a new way of working, but
a positive way of working foreverybody in the organization.
Are you starting to see thatyourself in?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Oh, absolutely Absolutely.
I for one, I always say wealready have so many proven
practices in the business.
I mean I'm client experience.
I mean I speak HR, hr is myclientele, everything.
But I'm technically business.
I'm talking about clientexperience.
Why can't we replicate thoseclient success, client
(37:40):
experience principles to HR?
And we're seeing that kind ofhappen more and more.
I had this conversation with anHR 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.
So it's really all right.
Let's take one step to movecloser to the business and start
(38:04):
to speak their language, butalso replicate what they do well
.
If we can manage clientexperience so well, if we can
invest into setting up processes, design thinking and all that
great stuff for that, why can'twe use the same for our
employees?
Because these are the people.
It's been proven that if youkeep your employees happy, your
(38:25):
customers are also going to behappy.
So there needs to be that linksomehow, somewhere.
But definitely seeing the the,the change start to form.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
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 calledthe employee experience, and
his whole drive for writing thebook was, he said, when you look
at how organizations create thecustomer experience and he had
made that link that you'retalking about, which is he
(38:56):
couldn't see the same evidencefor the employee experience and
yet in so many organizations,how the employees feel about
working there, et cetera, isgoing to impact how they
represent you and how theyinteract with.
The most important person inyour organization is your
customer, Because withoutcustomers, nobody's going to get
paid.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
So exactly that's the thing, right, and I all the
other day I was having thisconversation where it just made
me think like, okay, should hrstart to report into chief
customer officers?
Yes, because you're looking atthe same, the same picture,
basically, uh, would it help toalign all those pieces together
(39:40):
because your people aredelivering the experience for
your customers?
So, anyway, that was just mywild thinking right there.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Well, I mean why well thinking is is often changes
the world.
You know it can have great umimplications.
If people start to just explorethe concept, it can land
somewhere, maybe slightlyelsewhere, but it can still gets
people to think outside the box.
You know, absolutely, I meanit's a fascinating experience to
walk into a room and ask peoplewho pays their salary and
(40:10):
they'll say the payrolldepartment.
At the end of the day yes, ofcourse the transaction.
However, I, you have some sortof 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 taxpayerand the government organizations
that collect that who fund thegovernment.
At the end of the day, in theprivate sector, it's your
(40:33):
customers.
It's like if they don't buy andyou can't make a profit.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
You can't pay your people.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
It's as simple as that, you know in the world of
hr.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Uh, we always say our customers are internal
employees.
Right, but what if we were tochange our thinking to our
customers are also actually thecustomers.
What would that change?
What would the impact be like?
Obviously, you have to work foryour internal employees, but
let's look at the bigger pictureand in many cases, your, your
(41:03):
employees, are your customer.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Particularly if you make a consumer good, they often
, they often are your customer.
I want to just talk about oneor two other things here, um,
that you you've kindly some ofthe stuff you sent me in advance
, but also some of the stuffthat I picked up from clients.
Uh, on some of the areas whichhave emerged as quite important
and we talked about gen zearlier you know, going back
(41:26):
many years ago, the whole ideaof having a career in an
organization was you made yourway up the organization.
This was testament to and, atthe end of the day, this kind of
illogical, becauseorganizations are quite
pyramidical and only a fewpeople can actually get up to
the higher echelons and you'restarting to see, perhaps today.
Go back to your point aboutdevelopment and more of a focus
(41:48):
on can I have a career in thisorganization, which doesn't
necessarily mean I have tobecome, try to become CEO, cfo
or whatever but can I go to workevery day and, you know, get
new challenges, grow myself,develop myself?
What have you been seeing overthe last few years in terms of
how employers are rating on this, in terms of when you do the
(42:08):
audit and what sort of step upthey're doing to, because it's a
great way to retain people,isn't it, if you can offer them
somewhere to belong where theyfeel.
Well, I do a job for two years,then I can take on new
challenges and move intosomething else without
necessarily having to becomesomething higher level, etc.
So what sort of challenges, orsorry, what sort of trends are
(42:30):
you seeing in this area?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Definitely a lot going on there, One of them
being or just an obvious one, Iwould say.
You see, more and morecompanies are using Courier as a
hook in their EVPs to attractcandidates, so clearly there's
something happening right.
They're seeing the need.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Unpack EVP for Employee value proposition.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Yeah, okay, yeah, that's my blind spot, right?
Speaker 1 (42:57):
yeah, I know it's, everybody should know it I'm
always trying to imagine being alistener out there who's going
absolutely right.
What's an evp?
Is it an electric vehicle?
Or is it some sort of anelectric vehicle powered purse?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Okay, the employee value proposition, so like any
corporate value proposition likewhat do you bring to the
customer?
So he's like what do you, as anemployer, bring to your
candidates?
Why should they come and pickyou instead of the other
organization?
And the war for talent has beengoing on for quite a while and,
(43:35):
of course, the pool isshrinking.
We all know that we'restruggling to find the same set
of skills that are already maybenot existent at the moment.
So, anyway, it's becoming moreand more part of that.
So everybody's trying to saylike, hey, we're going to help
your career, these are thedevelopment opportunities we
offer.
So it's still about the money,and you know the Maslow's
(43:58):
hierarchy of needs.
Obviously, that has to be met,but this is becoming more and
more what we see.
Another thing is very obviousthat more and more organizations
are investing intopersonalizing learning and
development.
Right, because not everybodyneeds the same set of classroom
training that they used to get,or you know we are used to.
(44:20):
It's more about investing intothe systems that apply that, and
again I'll refer to the AI anddigital components that play a
role here.
So, based on, say, for example,what my development plan is,
the system suggests differenttypes of learnings, but
basically, the investment isthere and it's getting to be
(44:40):
more and more, which tells you,the trend indicates this is
important.
That's why the employers areinvesting into it.
The career moves are I'm notsaying they're not vertical
anymore, but there's a lot ofhorizontal shift that's
happening as well.
So if you studied marketing atthe university doesn't mean
(45:02):
you're going to end up in amarketing career.
So I think organizations aremore open to such shifts.
If I look at myself, like, no,I studied something, I did
something, and then now I'mdoing something completely
different, and I think that's anorm now.
Yeah, and Gen Z and currentemployee population in general
(45:25):
as well, I think we're gettingused to of learning by doing,
whether that's sort ofaccentuated by the fact that the
skills that are needed are notexisting at the moment, um, or
simply that, yeah, we are notgoing back to the classroom to
learn something, we're justlearning it on the job and
(45:46):
actually what's your point aboutstudying something and ending
up with something else?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I mean a little interesting conversation piece
at a dinner party I mean we'vehad this a few times in the last
couple of years maybe there'dbe seven, eight, nine, 10 of us
around the table and ask whohere is actually doing something
professionally today that theyactually absolutely directly
studied.
Now, of course, if you didmedicine and you became a doctor
, it's likely that you've donethe path.
(46:12):
If you went into one professionand at the same time, it's
quite remarkable how many peopleare doing something quite
different, right?
And that brings me to aninteresting you were talking
about.
I want to do a little bit on ainow and the experience across
the entire workforce, just toget towards the end of this.
And one of the things that'sstill going on out there which
(46:33):
is which is kind of a bitshocking is amongst certain
people in the academic world,they're really against their
students using ai to do theirassignments.
And the thing is, I mean I havea friend uh, he was, he was
also um on this program a coupleof years ago and he specialized
in customer experience and hehas said openly that he is he's
(46:55):
a professor.
He's encouraging his studentsto 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'mstill looking for how they're
interpreting it, how they'reusing the data, etc.
Et cetera.
Because in many cases, all theAI is doing is helping you
(47:15):
gather data faster, but itdoesn't mean the data is still
valid and you have to be able tocheck it the same way you check
your sources and anything.
And yet there's still peopleout there saying, no way, we're
not allowing it, we're notallowing it in schools, et
cetera.
And yet kids are using it, foryou know, know, planning their
vacation time, and that they Imean my kids do it.
They go.
(47:35):
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, youknow, 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 employeeexperience now going forward?
Um, what I mean?
We, of course, we need acrystal ball.
(47:56):
We don't have it.
At the same time, you must behearing things from
organizations, are they sort ofsaying we have to do it slowly
because you could get completelycarried away with this and and
do stuff that just won't work orcost us a lot of money.
What are you hearing out thereand seeing?
Speaker 2 (48:14):
um, my personal take on this I'll speak to first is
it's kind of like burying yourhead in the sand.
It's not something of thefuture anymore.
It's here and it's moving veryfast.
So, you know, just closing youreyes to it is kind of not going
to do much good to anybody.
As far as the organizations ortop employers that we speak to,
(48:39):
there is definitely movementthere.
Some are much quicker to adaptthan others, obviously, and I
think industry also has a largerole to play here.
So if I'm talking to my techconsulting clients, obviously
they're already developingsolutions, yada, yada.
If you're talking about someother, like FMCGs, they've
(49:00):
already started, they're ontheir journey, but maybe the
focus area is a little bit moreon like, okay, let's just kill
the very basic stuff with AI.
So the needle is moving.
There's no going back.
However, the trend that weexpect to see this year is you
need to figure out that cusp ofhuman and AI interaction, like
(49:26):
you very well alluded to, jerry.
It's not like AI is gonna doeverything for you.
It's gonna impact every singlerole I mean that much we can be
sure of but it's not gonna takeaway every role.
It's gonna either help you doit better or it's gonna change
it into something something else, something much more meaningful
(49:48):
, but that doesn't take away thehuman 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% ofour workforce and replace it
with AI.
I have not heard of thatstrategy yet at all, but it's
more like okay, let's just useit, for example, in HR.
(50:09):
How do we get rid of thetransactional stuff that we've
had to do and help us be morestrategic?
One of the things that wementioned in our trends report
is the AI powered leadership,and that means that, for leaders
as well, this is gonna mean somuch more because it's gonna
help you make better strategicdecisions, because it's gonna
(50:30):
provide you the information thatyou were maybe finding in 10
different places or you didn'thave access to, or whatever the
case might be.
But at the end of the day, it'sgoing 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 itor not?
(50:50):
That's not going to replaceyour leadership capabilities,
but you can use it for thingslike hey, within my team
dynamics, let's use AI to figureout what the strengths and
weaknesses are, for example, sowe can have a much more
efficient productive team inplace.
It's things like that, and sodefinitely the value is there,
but in no way is it going toreplace human intuition.
(51:14):
Rather, it's going to be apartnership.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Is what we are seeing , and also in terms of
experience.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
I'm sorry, I'm just gonna finish up on the
experience component of it.
That should do wonders toemployee experience as well as
it is doing for customerexperience, by the virtue of
simply being able to aggregatethe data that's available in
scattered places, analyzinginsights that can make you a bit
(51:41):
more predictive, like in inclient success.
We look at data to see what'sthe uh.
How do we predict the renewalswill pan out for this
organization?
Based on x, y and z factor.
Why can't we apply it toemployee experience to say who's
at flight risk or you know?
Uh, you know they're gonnaleave the company in the next
(52:01):
two years, based on a, b and c.
So those um principles aredefinitely useful and something
that I'm really looking forwardto seeing how they pan out and
just to take one or two of yourpoints there.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
I mean, there is this kind of perhaps
misunderstanding ormisinterpretation at times.
Like many blue collar at thethat word blue collar you know
many work, jobs and factoriesand that we tend to think about
a lot of this stuff on the whitecollar.
You know the of the money.
The asset base is equipment.
(52:36):
You know it's.
You know that's a huge thingand so they can't just shift
(52:59):
systems willy-nilly around anorganization.
But what's one question Iwanted to ask you about is, with
all the talk about AI and theexploration of what it can do in
different industries, what areyou seeing in terms of how
workers councils and unions arereacting to this type of thing,
because surely they havesomething to say about this, and
(53:21):
particularly in europeancontext, there's a lot of
countries where workers councilsare very strong of course, lots
of discussions around that andwe 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 thatalready.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Let's look at the debate on DEI around the world,
based on what's happening in theUS.
So, again, the macro trends weare no longer immune to.
So, yes, unionization, it isexpected that we will see more
of that.
But I just want to hone in onthat AI and blue collar
(54:06):
workforce point as well, becausethis is also something that
came up in our trends.
We are looking at this newcollar category where it's not
that the blue collar jobs willbe taken away by AI, but we
there'll be people who have, whohave these technical skills who
traditionally would have beenblue collar workers, who would
(54:28):
be able to develop these digitalskills using AI, et cetera, and
creating this new category ofnew color workforce that's
actually going to be much moreimportant than any other color,
basically because those are theskills that you won't be able to
replicate, necessarily, veryeasily.
(54:49):
So that was another veryinteresting trend that we
observed, and I think it's alsoabout we're kind of in the thick
of it right now, with theunions talking and everything
agreeing or not agreeing tocertain aspects.
It will evolve into a situationwhen the dust settles.
I expect it will be a positivespin for everybody involved.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
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 howpeople use the blue collar term
in the past.
So that's a welcome developmentin how we talk about the
various workers in anorganization.
We talk about the variousworkers in an organization.
(55:37):
So, coming to the end, what's acouple of key insights or tips,
or even one key insight or tipyou'd like my audience to take
away from this conversation?
Speaker 2 (55:45):
I think, as a leader, we get a lot thrown at us.
I understand that on a personallevel or on, like, a client
level and everything, and we'renot always prepared to handle it
.
But what really works is to notlet go of your empathy with
(56:07):
your team either, because whatyou are absorbing is also
reflected on them.
So I think if I were to sayanything, that's what I would
say Don't lose your empathy andacknowledge.
I mean, I know you cannotchange the world.
You cannot change everythingthat happens within an
organization, and sometimes itjust helps to acknowledge that.
(56:29):
Yes, I'm aware.
Speaker 1 (56:31):
Okay, so how do people get in touch with you,
amara?
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Find me on LinkedIn.
I try to be active butdefinitely respond to messages.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
And reach out and mention that you heard the
podcast Leading People podcast.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
And I guess then there's the.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
I'll put links in the show notes.
But I guess the other thing isif an organization out there is
curious about becoming a topemployer, they can go to the
website.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
Yeah, absolutely.
You can find us easily onlineat wwwtopemployersinstitutecom.
If nothing else, just reach outto me and I'll put you in touch
with the right person.
If you're interested to findout more, I'll be happy to have
a chat.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
So feel free to get in touch with the right person.
If you're interested to findout more, I'll be happy to have
a chat, so feel free to get intouch.
Speaker 2 (57:24):
Oh, okay, as always, thanks Samara for sharing your
insights, tips and wisdom withme and my listeners here today.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
Thank you, so much, Jerry, for having me Coming up
on Leading People.
Speaker 3 (57:31):
That's a great point and, you know, there's something
interesting that came out thattalks about the fact that just
because we can does not mean weshould.
And I think it's extremelyrelevant today when we think
about technologies that are ableto automate a lot of the
aspects of the employeeexperience, when we start
thinking about the utilizationof things like generative AI as
part of the employee experienceand there's a very interesting
(57:51):
case study that talks about thefact where an organization tried
to replace the performancemanagement discussion between
the manager and the employeewith AI actually facilitating
the feedback, and it completelybombed out because the employee
gave the feedback to say there'sno humanness towards this
typical interaction that we have.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
My next guest is Dr Dieter Felsman, organizational
psychologist, chief scientist atAIHR and co-author of Work for
Humans.
During our conversation, wedive into how employee
experience is being reinvented,why leaders must stay human in
an AI driven world, and howsmart organizations are creating
(58:30):
workplaces people actually wantto be part of.
It's a conversation packed withinsights you won't want to miss
.
And remember before our nextfull episode, there's another
One Simple Thing episode waitingfor you A quick and actionable
tip to help you lead and livebetter.
Keep an eye out for it whereveryou listen to this podcast
(58:54):
Until next time.
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