HR Skills for the Future with Dr. Alex Alonso

A report compiled by the Harvard Business Review revealed that within the next 10 years, 65% of jobs will necessitate new skills that are not currently required. As the world progresses and changes, so too must the field of human resources. Join Alex Alonso and host Shari Simpson as they discuss the most essential skills for HR professionals in the future.

Guest: Dr. Alex Alonso, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP, Chief Knowledge Officer, SHRM

Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Knowledge Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including developing the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.

During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide to identify performance standards, develop competency models, design organizational assessments, and conduct job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).

Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.

Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.

Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards, including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.

 

Mentioned in the episode:

• SHRM: https://www.shrm.org/
• Dr. Alex Alonso: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-alonso-shrm/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
(upbeat music)
- Hey, and welcome to "PCTY Talks".
I'm your host, Shari Simpson.
During our time together, we'll stay close
to the news and info youneed to succeed as an HR pro.
And together we'll explore topics
around HR thought leadership, compliance,

(00:22):
and real life HR situationswe face every day.
(upbeat music)
Alex, thank you so much
for taking a few minutesof your day to sit with me.
- Oh, it's wonderful to be here.
I really appreciate it.
- So you have a really unique role
in the knowledge andlearning space at SHRM.
And so I wanted to startwith what skills do
you think HR professionalsare gonna need for the future?

(00:43):
- Oh, good god,
I get asked this question somuch, it's not even funny.
You know, there's the breadand butter that we always take
for granted when I think about HR,
and some of it is justthe stuff that we've seen
over the course of time.
You know, whether it'sthe compliance things
that we always thinkabout, the engagement areas
that we always think aboutand those types of things.

(01:04):
Those are the bread and butter.
And I think what we're seeingis spillover of those skills
into other parts of theworld of work, right?
So that's people, managersand what have you.
But you asked me specifically
about the future skillsfor HR professionals
and I've got three of themthat stand out in my mind.
The first one is being an engineer
of engagement experiences.

(01:24):
And notice I said experience,
not engagement by itself, right?
And I'd actually argue thatthis profession is ripe
for a name change to call ourselves really
engagement engineersor experience engineers
for people that work.
That's one thing that Isee over and over again.
And in many cases, we talkabout this specifically

(01:44):
in the concepts of, youhear it over and over again,
HR professionals need tobe better marketers, right?
And the more I see it,
it's actually aboutbuilding that experience.
How do I create that experience
that people will want tohave over and over again?
In addition, the other thingthat sort of strikes me
is I see people really looking for
the notion, we always usedto say change management

(02:04):
or that change agent.
And in reality, what I like to think of it
is you need to be a reimagineer.
And the reason I say that
in large part is what we seeis people are being asked to,
how do I reinvent thisorganization and this workforce
and what they deliver ona recurring basis, right?
I have good colleagues fromthe Department of Defense
who always share with me,

(02:26):
we're constantly dealingwith this term VUCA,
which is actually volatile,
uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.
And one of the things thatthey always ask is, people say
that this is a novel thing, but in reality
this is the common cadence ofany organization, any mission.
And to me it's the reimagineersthat will actually ensure
that we're engaged in thatreinvention over and over again.

(02:48):
And then the last thingI always look for is
I need somebody who's gonnabe a data architect, right?
And when I say that, I'mtalking about somebody who
can actually provide thearchitecture around the data
that we want to collectabout our workforce
over and over again.
And I'm borrowing from a guy by the name
of John Boudreau when I say that.
But it's really the keycomponent in terms of how well
we create and craftthose other experiences.

(03:10):
- For those three pillars,
where do you see HR goingto seek those skills
and learn more in those areas?
- So some of it, whetherwe like it or not,
is actually gonna be
from those bread and butterkind of organizations.
But some of it is gonna be trial by fire
and it's actually gonna beon the job kind of thinking.
What I always espouse though is,
and I tell people to do this,
is there's three ways that youcan really develop yourself

(03:31):
and build these skills.
The first is take a cross-functionaloperational assignment.
Do not waste your time just being in HR,
try to get yourself anoperational assignment.
The second is make sure
that you go about actuallyengaging in work and learning
that is atypical for yourself, right?
I'm an HR professional bybirth and by background, right?

(03:52):
And I'll share with you
that one thing that I love is lectures.
And I love going to training programs.
Problem with that is,that's not gonna get me
the learning that I need in this case.
And the last thing thatI always espouse is
find yourself a true mentor,but don't make it such
that you're actually forcingthat individual to teach you.
What you want to do is you wanna make sure
that that mentor actually saysto you, take this problem,

(04:15):
tell me how you'd solve it.
Walk me through the way thatyou go about that cognition
and tell me how you determinewhat the problem sets are
and what the solution sets might be.
Having that conversation
gives you half thedevelopment that you need.
- What a great example
on how to think aboutmentorship differently too.
Not just check the boxdo as I say, but like,
let's have a conversationso I can, like you said,

(04:37):
understand what you're thinking
to get you to the next level.
So important.
- You know, it's interesting,
a lot of people don'tactually think about that.
They always think aboutthe tried and true.
What are the things that everymentor is supposed to do?
What does a coach look like?
And I tell you, I'm stunnedat how it can be reinvented
and rethunk or rethought, Ishould say, over and over again.

(04:58):
- Yeah, absolutely.
So, you know, being inthe learning space in SHRM
and looking ahead at, you know, the future
of work and the future of the HR role,
do you think we're gonna see a change
or influence to SHRM'sBASK model because of that?
- So we've started to see someof that as it speaks, right?
And it's sort of funny 'causeif you go back 11 years,
I was actually involvedheavily in the development

(05:21):
of the SHRM competency model,which became the SHRM BoCK
and then now is the SHRM BASK.
And it always strikesme how far we've come
and people don't really see it,
'cause on paper it looks so small.
But, you know, one ofthe things that we talk
about specifically is in the first set,
the competency model, we reallydidn't even talk about DE&I.
And here we're sitting atthe SHRM Inclusion Conference

(05:42):
and back then 10 years ago,we didn't even invest in it.
We didn't memorialize it enoughto do something about it.
And here we are today.
It's one of the leadingkind of competencies
that exist out there,
one of the skills andknowledges that we ask people
to really take into account.
We're starting to see that,
I would tell you that we'restill another five years away
from when we're gonna havejust what we're looking for,

(06:02):
which is having that personwho's a data architect,
having that person whounderstands re-imagination
and understands how they goabout doing these things.
- I'm excited to see wherethese experience curators land.
It's such a fascinating topic for me.
And there's so much
from the marketing worldthat HR can learn from that.
And just how that translatesinto our employees
and especially with Gen Z coming on board.

(06:24):
- Oh, it's amazing to me.
And you know, the one thing I do is,
and I share this with a lotof folks, is I actually try
to influence degreeprograms to do this, right?
I know that education isnot typically where we want,
we force people to go havethese real life experiences.
But what I will tell you isI've actually been working
with a variety of differentprograms that are relatively new

(06:44):
with the idea of forcingthem to build their programs
as if they were experienced curators.
Rather than actuallythinking about them as HR.
A prime example of thisis the University of Miami
and their Experience Curation Program,
which is really their HR program.
- Wow, I hadn't heard of that before.
That's fascinating.
Do you think SHRM will startto be putting content out

(07:05):
around that as well?
- I would love to see us do that.
And I'm pretty sure that wewill in the very near future.
Ironically, we have a seriesof different kind of toolkits
that are coming out just for that.
- Oh, that's awesome.
You know, as you think forward then,
for the next few yearsand those that are new
in the HR space and new in their career,
what's your advice to make sure
that they're getting up to speed?

(07:26):
You know, should they become more focused
on a specific topic?
Should they still think ofthemselves as generalist?
What are you seeing
and what advice do youhave for the industry?
- So when I think aboutwho's entering the profession
and what they're doing in termsof entering that profession
the first thing thatstrikes me is I almost
encourage 'em to have comefrom a different path.
Make sure that you're doing that.
And I say that in largepart because when you look

(07:47):
at the people that endup leading organizations,
they've never taken a straight line.
There are very few peoplethat jump in and say,
I was gonna be an entrepreneur
and I'm gonna go lead an organization.
It's so atypical for that to happen
that it's unusual for thatto really be the case.
I almost ask them,
go take some other kind ofdevelopmental assignment
or take a whole other worldlike operational sales,

(08:08):
take your pick, and you endup jumping into that, right?
And jumping into people experiences.
The other piece
of advice that I alwaysgive people is make sure
that you actually get in the heart
of doing the bread and butter HR work.
Most people say, well gobe a generalist, right?
That's not what I actually espouse.
I call for doing a littlebit of a rotation within HR

(08:29):
and I say in large part becauseyou don't really understand
the depth of what's being asked of you
until you've done aboutthree months in each place.
I'll never forget my experience,I was working at an airline
and I was asked to jumpfrom employee relations
to compensation all theway through to benefits.
And then after that,culture and org development.
- Wow.- Right?
And I thought to myself, man,
I'm so woefully under-skilledin all of these.

(08:51):
I can't even understand what's going on.
But having done three months in each
made a real difference in my perspective.
And then the last thing that I actually
ask people to do is focus
on what they can do to bea better people manager.
'Cause any good HRprofessional understands what
it means to manage others.
And if you don't,
even if you're just anindividual contributor

(09:12):
go get assets, training,whatever it might be
to really understand whatit takes to lead others.
- Alex, what great adviceyou have for those listening.
I appreciate you taking a few minutes
of your day to chat with me.
- I really appreciate the opportunity,
and it's wonderful to be here with you.
- This podcast is broughtto you by Paylocity,
a leading HCM provider that frees you

(09:32):
from the tasks of today
so you can focus more onthe promise of tomorrow.
If you'd like to submit atopic or appear as a guest
on a future episode, email usat [e-mail].
(upbeat music)