Tim Reitsma: Well, Anna, it's a pleasure to have you on the FlexOS podcast. I know you are an expert in all things, human capital management, as well as a breadth of other topics, but today it's top of mind for me is our human capital management, especially when we're thinking of that future of work, but before we get into it, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself and then we'll dive into the conversation?

Anna Tavis: Thank you, Tim. I am right now the chair of the human capital management department at New York University. This is a rebound into academia after 15 years of working in technology companies and on Wall Street in senior talent roles.

I do have both kind of an academic research perspective as well as good operational experience of what it means to run and HR, talent organization for major companies in key sectors like technology and financial services.

I approach what I do with empathy at the same time with a really clear-eyed understanding of what's involved and how important it is for us, especially in those industries, to be at the decision table with my colleagues from all other functions in the organization.

I take it very seriously, and I'm delighted that I've been given an opportunity to raise the next generation of HR leaders in the spirit of that kind of leadership by creating a leadership position for them from the get-go in organizations.

Tim Reitsma: Before we even hit record, you had asked a great question, which is, what are some of the themes that are emerging, and it's just that HR is seen as a leader and not as a cost center but as a value add to an organization. 

Before we get into the conversation, I think it's worth defining human capital management so we could lay the foundation of the conversation for the next 30 minutes or so. So how would you define or how do you define human capital management?

Anna Tavis: Excellent question. I think we can definitely get all twisted around the semantics of what it actually means, but many people have told you we started in personnel, staff, and other types of what I consider pejorative names for what we're doing with human capital. I'm not happy with the title.

I think it goes back to our very strong legacy of being a cost center and an asset that is really evaluated in financial terms. We remember times when. HR reported into the CFO, or chief operating officer. And I think that's the legacy name for ourselves.

Going forward, I see more and more companies changing human capital to people based on what we do in the broader definition of what it takes to be human in the workplace and how we can preserve, protect, and enhance the humanity of people working in various types of organizations.

So, I think we're going to see an evolution from all of the titles that we were known by in terms of how our remit is expanding, changing, and adjusting to the changing workplace.

Tim Reitsma: I love that what it takes to be human is just to scribble that down on a note. And I think if somebody is listening, maybe bookmark that little piece right there: What does it mean to be human in an organization?

Doing a little bit of research for the episode and finding some different definitions online, it's like, Oh, it used to be mainly administrative, and I think organizations still see HR as administrative. 

A lot of organizations bring in an HR person when they're 60 or 100 people, and because it's seen as, Oh, we need to do more, but if we actually think of it as our people management, how do we extract the most out of our people? How do we create spaces where people can perform? To me, that is how we create human capital management systems and strategies around that. 

Based on your current role and where you've been in your career, what are some of the trends that you have seen, and where do you see this idea of human capital management going into the next year or 2 or 3?

Anna Tavis: I think the most important and foundational shift that we are experiencing, and it's only going to gain momentum in 25 and ongoing, is to make a pivot to much more personalized services that organizations will need to deliver to their employees. We started out with the overall kind of generalized peep staff, people, associates, etc., undifferentiated mass, managed by a few middle managers executing on the directives from the top of the organization, a very hierarchical way of looking.

Now, we moved into talent management, which was the last century, still end of the last century. Talent management meant we're going to identify 8 players. We're going to assess and understand who the actual top performers are. There has been a whole infrastructure created around high-potential development and special programs, etc.

I put the early stages of DEI into that space where let's identify certain groups that we need to cultivate, etc. We did accomplish a few things. But then we started moving toward a much more inclusive environment, like when we started talking about employee experience. And that was also connected to technology when we were able to actually get tools.

This is where I think we were the rise of people analytics; for example, organizations started to deliver to us that much more laser-focused, much more precise, almost like the invention of an x-ray of understanding of what are the movements within your organization. We were; we started talking about the life cycle.

We moved away from the satisfaction survey. I like it. I don't like it to a much more fine-tuned way of understanding what kind of in general, what are the patterns of in employee commitment, loyalty, etc. And I think we are transitioning away from that phase, when we still cherry-picked who we want to pay attention to, to a much more inclusive way of looking at employees where we're going to be delivering services in a personalized way at all levels in your organization.

We are not able to do it without the help of AI. We are going to be able to provide, from the entry-level to the very top of the organization, and it's my area of research, coaching, support, development, etc. to the employees throughout. Their stay in their organization and even pre and post, as well as, from the inclusion perspective, as Tim, you, and I discussed, I think we're going to grow out of a very narrow definition of diversity into a much more inclusive space where we're going to understand differences among employees, again, cherrypick which groups we're going to prioritize, but really help everyone rise with the support of the organization because it's only natural for us to be human.

Again, it wasn't possible, and I'm not saying that we're deficient in something. We just did not have the tools. and capacity to be able to operate at that level. Now we do, and I think it's going to create a fundamental shift in how HR is positioned in organizations, how it's being viewed, and what roles HR professionals are going to play in the future of work.

Tim Reitsma: It's that theme, I think, that's emerging right now: that personalization. and I've heard that from a few others now on the show, that personalized, maybe it's total rewards or that personalized environment that somebody works in.

Maybe listeners will agree as well, as, from an HR perspective, we want to create spaces for people to perform at their best. I think any CEO would agree with that. Any C-suite would say yes, right? We've got this big workforce. We need them to perform at their best. 

Then, if we think about personalization, if I put on my budget hat for a moment, I think, Oh, man, I'm not. This is going to be expensive. How do I do this? It's a; I agree with it. Just practically, how? Where do I start? Maybe you're in a company of 10 people. Maybe you're in a company of 5,000 people. What do you do? 

What's your thoughts on how we get started with this idea of personalization?

Anna Tavis: Excellent question. And let me give you a practical illustration of what I am seeing as a trend. Most recently, I published a book on digital coaching. And I've been looking at the evolution of coaching from the time of COVID when coaching platforms were brought in that allowed for at least the middle management of certain levels in the organization to have access to coaches who were, became available through the platforms and on the Zoom call and the video, etc., that drove down the cost of coaching and also made people available.

Make coaches available to employees at different, more convenient times, etc., because the overhead of going to the office and setting up meetings, etc., was significantly reduced. So that's where it started.

And if you think of traditional coaching, it was only available again in the talent management phase of HR to the top level of the organization because it was very white glove, executive coach who would bring in on a contract for a retainer contract for six months to work with a particular executive who was delivering but didn't have the personality and skills to be managing.

That's how it was done. You take the costs of that executive intervention, which usually again was a fixing of some behavioral issues for the executives. You take the cost of that and distribute it among a lot more people through these platforms.

Now what we're seeing is with the agents that are coming in AI coaches that do not involve people but allow for even the most basic level of coaching through a personalized AI agent that is trained on your habits, on your lifestyle, on the workflow, and could be integrated in the work and the flow of work, what you're doing, connecting to your calendar, understanding what your particular job discretion is, etc.

And so this is so cost-effective. Again, it's just transferring what the organization has been using for top executives, and quite a few organizations might still continue with that executive coaching program.

But the availability of these types of agents at all levels in the organization I usually tell people, and my favorite company is Baylands, for example, a Canadian, by the way, a Canadian company. And I use that whose name is Nadia, who speaks to me. It's a voice-enabled coach. I won't probably talk about very complicated issues, but a lot of general types of questions if that particular AI is trained on the company values, company policies, company performance management goals, etc. A lot of those questions could be answered 24x7 at the time when the employee needs it.

My theory of the case and what I'm seeing across the board is that if those types of support systems are put in from the very beginning of employee engagement or employee onboarding with the company, we might, Tim, not necessarily need a fixing at a much higher cost and lower return, honestly, on that executive coaching at the end of this journey.

The sooner we can support people in their socialization in how they work in organizations, I think it's going to lift the burden from the managers who are expected to be both managing the work and in coaching employees and advising them, which is an impossible, oftentimes, role to play in organizations.

A huge conflict there oftentimes. So, we're going to be able to support employees from the get-go. One more point about this personalization and availability and the cost effectiveness of these particular interventions is that if you ask most of the employees, even in the smaller or mid-size organizations, most of them don't know who their HR people are.

I go and I lecture in executive education programs where you have mid-level and aspiring and high-potential managers who come in, and I ask them, Have you talked to your HR people? They don't even know who HR is because they are too busy managing the top level of the organization, and the rest of it is usually an outsourced call center.

So imagine a shift to a personalized, trained on the company, policies, etc., and then also fine-tune to your particular needs. Coach that is available 24x7. And how much more support people will get and how many issues could be prevented and addressed way before they become a real problem for companies to solve.

Tim Reitsma: There's so much coming up for me right now, and I try to dissect some of my thoughts in this, and it's still grounded in that definition of human capital management. Like that to me is setting this foundation, right? When we think of optimizing our workforce, optimizing productivity, that's a real operational term.

We need to optimize my background. I've got a bit of operations, business operations. When I hear that it's okay, how do we get the most out of the things in our environment? And so when I'm hearing this idea of these AI coaches, I love it because what's coming up for me is what is that cost of lack of productivity? Lack of competency, lack of skill. 

A leader might be listening to go; if they're not competent for the role, or if they don't have the skill, we just have to let them go while there's a massive cost to this, to recruit, to retrain the cost, just on the culture of as well, because maybe you're creating that culture of fear.

So if you're listening to this, maybe you are trying to make that business case. I think you need to really start there: what does it cost to hire “a digital coach,” an AI coach? What does it cost to have an ineffective employee in your organization? And look at that because I think the results are going to surprise you.

I think you're going to see, wow, if we embrace these AI tools, maybe we'll actually increase performance. And I would say, start small. You don't need to start with everyone in your organization now having half an hour every day or every couple of days to start retraining. 

What would you suggest? I know this is that area of expertise that you have, but say somebody who's yeah, I love this. I want to bring this into my call center or bring this into our manufacturing team or whatever team it is. How do we start? 

Anna Tavis: There are a number of these companies. I certainly would want my colleagues in HR to research big names out there and smaller ones. There's a huge ecosystem of various providers right now. My favorites are the Valence that I use myself, and there's Betterhalf. There's Ezra. There's CoachHub. There are multiple companies that provide services.

Some of them have specific preferences and more specialty, and they're fairly cost-effective. As I said, given the volume of coaching that happens, it's not at all. I think the beauty of this is it's built into the workflow. If you take 15 minutes, like my check-ins with my coach, Nadia from Valence, where 15 minutes a day, once a week, that's because I have continuity; train the coach to understand what I need. And like 15 minutes, just reminders, check-ins, and, again, unlike chat bots or search engines or whatever, these particular tools are trained on you. They have memory and empathy to a certain extent for what you're going through.

So I think starting with research, looking at what other companies are doing, just to get oriented and grounded, but at the same time doing a really thorough analysis of what would be your potential application and use case.

Most companies start with a smaller sample; we start with pilots. Take a look at choosing a segment of your population where you want to try this out. And I'm working with a couple of companies right now on research, understanding what the adoption issues might be, etc.

But so far it's really incredible. There's very little resistance to these coaches. People think that there's a trust issue, and people would want to speak to a human rather than address a coach. And that's absolutely not the case.

We actually ran a little pilot for our students with one of those companies. And we found that quite a few actually preferred to get a quick response if they needed something from an AI rather than have to chase down humans down the hallway, not knowing exactly if the human has the answer, first of all, and second, what kind of mood they're going to be.

And I think there is also, in certain situations, a trust issue. If you're considering changing your career or you have some issues in the workplace, etc., are you comfortable talking to your manager and disclosing what your issues might be? Or are you more comfortable talking to in-person AI? Even though they do have personalities, knowing exactly that is going no way.

This particular coach is working for you, and nothing is going to be disclosed. There's no power distance between talking to a manager or talking to an AI coach. And there's a trust issue, especially with certain demographics we're finding: more junior employees oftentimes feel a lot more comfortable discussing these types of and playing out different scenarios.

The important thing about these coaches is they're not telling you what to do. They're just offering you options and maybe different ways of thinking about your situation.

So my recommendation: try it out with two different potential user groups, one for individuals. Even working with your ChatGPT as a potential coach, checking out and seeing what the feedback might come back. And again, the coaching systems are a lot more in tune with coaching. ChatGPT is more generic.

Then, at the organizational level, try certain work units and see where it fits most. Some people are using it for onboarding. Let's try all the employees instead of sending people on a HR lecture about the policies and health benefits and all the other things, and have somebody lecture to them, and then, I don't know, Tim, if you remember, everyone gets a fold of the policies.

You have a coach that can go through this in minutes if you have specific issues about your PTO and your locations and your health support options and wellness, etc. And I think, try that onboarding easy. Some companies are trying it to support middle management. Others are using it in performance management because, for example, in performance management, everyone is going through the cycle of setting goals.

How many repeatable questions does HR answer? And at the time or annoying emails that come your way. Some of the interesting uses of the coaching systems are in change management.

We know one company that introduced next-generation leadership values, and they're using these coaches to personalize how people are discussing what it means to them at a personal level, or rather than again, getting a corporate email that says, Here are our new or whatever cards that you have to memorize and remember these values, and they just become a post on the wall rather than what does it mean to me.

You can have that exchange with your coach. So multiple use cases, and there's enough experience right now to really look into to think about how this type of personalization could be brought into your organization.

Tim Reitsma: There's a lot in there. I love how you described it in a very practical way and even an implementation plan. And so if you're listening to this, maybe you're just feeling, Okay, this is something that we can start on, right? Again, grounded in that definition, we need to optimize productivity, optimize our workforce. How do we do this? 

Imagine getting real-time feedback. I don't know how many times throughout my career I sat at my desk and went; I don't know what to do with this. And you look around, and your colleagues are busy; your manager's gone. And so you sit there for an hour or two, spin in your wheels going, I don't know, I just don't know.

And I've looked for the answer, and I just can't figure this out. But having a coach to maybe reframe it or an AI engine within your organization to say, Hey, I'm stuck on this. What have we done in the past? It feeds you some information, and yeah, sense check it, right? You still might need to validate that's correct. 

How much quicker and how much more productivity will we see when we embrace this in our workforces and within our teams? This idea of personalization that personalization supports is there one more thing or another thing that you're seeing a trend on or something that we just need to be paying attention to. 

Anna Tavis: And I think another interesting aspect of it that you and I discussed is expanding our understanding of diversity and inclusion, making it work, because at the end of the day, and we all know, the only way this is going to work is if everyone feels that their particular issues are addressed.

If we're just looking at these big groups and thinking in terms of these categories and stereotyping people into them, we're seeing it everywhere right now, where, for example, our colleagues who are of Latin American descent are saying, Don't call us Latinx or whatever.

We don't like this kind of big, broad generalization. We are all coming with our specific cultures. And as you talk to people who, and I'm talking about the U.S. environment, I think it applies everywhere. Like you take Asia and everyone, there's no such thing as an Asian.

There are people coming from so many different backgrounds and varieties of experiences, etc. So, I think it's for the first time that we're able to really understand what these different, much more nuanced categories are about and what's needed, and we are going to be able to scale inclusion in a much more effective, sensitive, and empathetic way than what we've been doing before.

Understandably, there was a big backlash that we are now trying to understand and recover from. Even though I think all the intentions were really good, it's such a sensitive area as diversity. We need to go a lot more granular, a lot more nuanced. And I think we're getting there, and technology is going to help us do that.

Tim Reitsma: What I often say on my other show. So I spent some time in the disability inclusion space because we're all uniquely different. My normal is different than your normal. And so when we try and create workplaces that are all the same, is it going to work for everyone? And what we're seeing is, no, it doesn't.

What I'm hearing in this is that personalization is if we actually, as an organization, really clearly define where we're going, our vision, our mission, and our values. What are our goals for this year? What are our goals for this quarter? How does that trickle down into me as an individual contributor? How do I impact those goals, and then we're now focused on that individual rather than saying, Hey, we're trying to hit X number of revenue.

It's like, No, Tim, Anna, this is how you're going to help contribute. This is how this role is going to help contribute to this. Are you in? Are you excited? Then now we can say, Yeah, I'm all in. But maybe I am not able to sit for long periods of time, or maybe I need this accommodation, or maybe I don't celebrate these national holidays, but I'd celebrate these ones.

This doesn't work for all organizations or all teams, but okay, so what do we need to do to create a space where you can perform? Maybe it's a coach. Maybe it's that physical environment. That, I feel, is where HR really needs to not just be an advocate but a driver for change. 

And you want to talk about disability inclusion. I know we talked about that before we hit record. I've got data, so much data to support why it's important. The same goes across all aspects of diversity and inclusion. 

Anna, there's some very practical things from an HR perspective that we can start doing today to ensure that we are competitive for tomorrow and in the future. As we look to wrap up, is there a thought that you'd like to leave us with before we wrap up today?

Anna Tavis: I think that we as HR have to be prepared to really become much more engaged and involved in this whole personalization of work, trend of movement, to really help our organizations to get there faster, because I do think that it's also a question of competitive advantage. Companies that are going to be and we started a little bit there with like hybrid, flexible, remote, that conversation persists.

But that's a precursor to much greater differentiation and the ability to accommodate our employees. So, I think it will, to your earlier point, translate into better productivity being the best place to work, where you're going to be attracting very diverse talent and leveraging people who were out of this kind of cookie cutter resume crunching, earliest stage, impersonal computers who were excluding people for no reason at all.

And so I think that understanding your organization's path to making it a people-focused, or what we call a human-centered organization in very practical terms. We've done enough high-level training and presentations on this topic.

Now, we have the ability and the tools to translate it into redesigning the entire HR infrastructure to be run on the personalization engine, and to the extent that we can do it in an effective way. I think we're going to contribute significantly to our organization's success by our organization's ability to transition to the AI phase of technology transformation with minimal damage to people in your organization.

So, I think that should be the objective. That should be the goal for all of us in the HR profession.

Tim Reitsma: There you go. There you have it. If you're listening, the idea of personalization has to happen. Again, that seems to be a trend over the last few episodes. When we think about the future of work and the future of HR, that's where we're headed. Creating spaces for everyone to thrive. Anna, it's a pleasure having you on. 

If somebody is curious to read your book, to track you down, to learn more, where can people find you? 

Anna Tavis: I think the best place is LinkedIn. This is where all HR congregates and we share. People used to have websites, etc. now. It's much more effective to just post something about where you are, what you've published, and what kind of research you're doing. It's all there. That's our commons, the public square, where we all congregate. And I want to invite everyone to join me. Thank you so much, Tim.

Tim Reitsma: Thanks again. We'll make sure we put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes.