Janine Ramírez: Hello, everyone, and happy happy new year. Welcome to Erudite Shockwave Talks. I am Jane Ramirez. I work for Erudite to empower organizations with people, analytics and insights. Without the employees surveys. So at Erudite, we love learning. And this webinar series called Shockwave is our way of learning from experts and sharing all the insights with all of you. So thank you very much for joining us today to learn about how we can unlock potential in 2023 from not one, not two, but three resource speakers. They're all from the tech industry. Okay, before I introduce our guests, I just want to quickly go over some reminders so that we get it over with. One time is precious, so we'll keep everything within an hour to leave. Make sure you use the chat and ask questions and share your insights and thoughts anytime throughout the webinar.

Janine Ramírez: If we have extra time, I'm going to read them out for you so that we can get answers for them. Third, the more the merrier. So right now. Share, share, share this this event. And invite colleagues to join us and start the conversation. And lastly, this is being recorded and we'll be sending you guys a link to the video after the event. Again, please feel free to share the events right now. Okay, let's get to it. Time to welcome our guests and unlock our secrets for 2023. We have three six best resource speakers today that are so, so excited to learn from. First, we have senior people, analytics manager from Google Tunji Oki. Welcome to Tunji. Thanks for being here.

Tunji Oki: Thanks for having. I'm doing well. Thank you. So I just do a quick intro. My name is Tunji. I have been at Google for the last six years, working currently as a senior people analytics manager and specifically over equity research we do to our people processes. So I have my Ph.D. in industrial organizational psychology and have done a lot of consulting just in various formats. And so really excited to join this panel today.

Janine Ramírez: And we're excited to have you today. And next, we also have Stacey Milton. With over 15 years of experience and balance operations for companies like Meta and Accenture, it's an honor to have you here with us, Stacey.

Stacey Milton: Yeah, thank you for having me. I am so excited about being a part of this platform and learning from others and hopefully giving a lot of my in my opinions to this group. As you mentioned, I have well over 15 years of experience in talent acquisition and talent operations. I'm a bit of a unicorn because I spent early of my career in accounting and finance. So I spend a lot of time doing many different things that's culminated to a lot of good work, I must say. So thanks for having me.

Janine Ramírez: And thanks for being here. We're excited to hear your perspective on challenges and all the questions that I'm going to be asking because I'm super, super curious. Okay, last but definitely not the least. A game designer and head of the people and operations in Silicon Valley, Fabio Frezza, thank you for joining us, Fabio.

Fabio Frizas: Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. And I'm humbled to be part of such events and with amazing guests as Tunji and Stacy as Disney Animation. I actually came from a technical background. I used to be game designer and product manager for an online game. I turn it to people and right now I'm doing eight years. So far I have been doing recruitment people, operations in general, and right now I used to be head of people and operations in Silicon Valley Company doing mostly software and they are creating and operations in general. So I'm excited to give my more out of the box perspective here and talk to you guys about the secrets of H.R..

Janine Ramírez: We love that we have a gamer on board, so I'm excited to hear what you have to say today. Okay. We can't thank you guys enough for lending your time and sharing your experience with us. We have three interesting perspectives today to help us unlock the potential of H.R. in 2023. So let's get to it. It's it's a new year.

Janine Ramírez: The question is this the new year bring new challenges or will we be seeing more of the same issues from 2022, like the great resignation, the shift, the remote or hybrid work this is a question for all three of you. What would be the biggest challenge for your team or H.R. in general that they'll be facing this year when it comes to managing the workforce? And how do you think they should prepare for it? So let's start with what do you think?

Tunji Oki: Yeah. So I think it's kind of mixed, right, in terms of, you know, are we going to see the same from 2022? I think we're going to see some of the things at the same. We're going to see some new things in 2023. You know, 2022 really was the year of kind of remote work flexibility based on everything we saw with the pandemic. But I think 2023 is going to be a really defining year for the future of work. And if these, like, remote slash hybrid practices are actually here to stay. You know, we last time we were kind of forced into this situation throughout due to the pandemic companies established guidelines on how they're moving forward. But now, as you see today, there are some companies who are dialing it back in and wanting folks to come back into the office. There are some companies that are sticking to their remote policies and using that as like a somewhat of a competitive advantage. And so I think that's an area that's going to be a real focus. Know employees and prospective candidates are really going to be thinking like, where does a company stand on remote slash hybrid work? And then I would also say the another area that's going to be a kind of a big area is just kind of with the layoffs.

Tunji Oki: Everything that we've seen with, you know, in the in the tech industry, especially in 2022, you know, job security, whereas in tech, we don't usually it it's not as much of a concern in tech or job security. Usually there's like, you know, compared to other industries. But I think now with everything that's going on, like, H.R. is going to have a really strong input to really reassure folks and that well-being, that mental health, all the aspects that come with not being certain about your job. Like I think that's going to we're going to need to double and triple down in those areas.

Janine Ramírez: Right? I mean, it's interesting because it's like we have the issues and we still haven't quite resolved them and we're coming into a new year and we're it's feeding into that as well. What do you think, Stacey? What do you think the greatest challenge will be this year?

Stacey Milton: Yeah, and probably from my vantage point, I certainly believe that the layoffs and how that's affected our talent organizations. We've seen our big tech companies in the past several years. I do a great bit of hiring, really lean into diversity. And so this is an effort in 2023 that companies are taking to be more prescriptive about rightsizing the organizations. However, I will take a twist on this and say that I would love to see are companies that are contemplating or that are even engaging right now in layoffs to really bring the or shift the mindset and the work behind this more into how do we promote it pro to productively bring this and shift these resources either into other places and spaces within our organizations, or start to look at more internal shifts rather than internships for the talent that we currently have. So hopefully that will maybe sort of shift the narrative, if you will, in the coming year.

Janine Ramírez: Right. I think we're going to hear more about this in the next part of the webinar. But I want to know what Fabio has to say. What's your observation is it's similar to doing G's and spaces.

Fabio Frizas: Yeah, I think so far we are on very similar grounds. There are three main points of concern and attention on my side. Those will be remote work layoffs and actually one that may be newer is the rise of A.I. so on on remote. Since I was 17, I used to hear about companies going remote, first going, school distributed. But as soon as you say that there are a lot of companies that actually had a force at hand into going remote. So right now it's time going out of the lockdown that people are maybe reassessing. They actually need to go remote if they actually want to see this as a competitive advantage or was something that they had to do.

Fabio Frizas: So this may be seen as a downside from a candidates perspective, but I actually see as that opportunity to frame off companies that actually want to go remote, actually want to be remote first, or others that just see this as something that it had to do beforehand. On layoffs. I think that's very adjacent to the DC perspective and the end of the day, the error. So it's the time of adjusting workforce into the actual needs instead of having surplus that actually they repurpose later. And as Stacey mentioned, I think that's one of the best perspectives that I have seen so far are companies that want to readdress people that they are not seeing as much as needs right now in the workforce doing at, say, sales, marketing or even recruiting that they can shift and transfer this knowledge to other areas. And I think that's the big novelty right now with the rise of chat. That's something that actually rolls out of it already. But right now come to the attention of everyone and I think many jobs are going into this. Also reassessing is, for example, both writers or marketing professionals or sales people. Doing just outbound sales is the core thing that I'm doing replaceable or is it something more a more specialized that I can refine? Is they going to help me out via a better output of my previous results or something that will be competing with me? So I think those are the three main points that I'm assessing right now.

‍Janine Ramírez: Awesome. I'm glad you brought up AI and I want to touch on that later on. But I completely agree. Like my my job is basically writing and now I'm using A.I. to help me out today. So it's something that we can discuss either. Just a quick roundup on what you guys think of going remote, remote first and flexibility. Are you pro, remote or pro? I don't know. We're all in office. We're the three of you, Fabio.

Fabio Frizas: And yeah, I think I'm kind of cautious right now to just say remote. Many companies are talking about this, are using hybrid, but they are actually enforcing in off work. I'm actually very buys it to distribute it workforce so I think that's once we can tap into in international markets and we can enable people that have just like digital jobs like that of people that are doing manufacturing, for example, I think we should go as much remote as possible. But again, I prefer to have this as an innovative edge and competitive advantage and competitions that I would commit to equipment.

Janine Ramírez: Okay. And just Stacey.

Stacey Milton: Yeah, I'll make it simple. I'd love to see organizations give the choice.

Janine Ramírez: Right. That's that's what we want. Yeah. I mean, they say, you a lot of people learn micro flexibility, but it's up to you, right? Like it's great to have a choice.

Stacey Milton: And I feel like I was just going to say, I feel like we just like we all learn differently. I think we all work differently and can show our productivity in different environments.

Janine Ramírez: Yeah. Awesome. Completely agree. And you know.

Tunji Oki: I think plus one what Stacey mentioned, just the flexibility, right. Giving empowering the employee to choose what works best for their situation. You know, sometimes you think the desire to be remote. Remote may just have to do with like not wanting to commute. But it's such a layered, you know, aspect of the real reasons why people want to be remote, that it's kind of, you know, the more flexibility we can offer, the better we'll do for our employees.

Janine Ramírez: Great. So now we know where you in stands. You guys mentioned the issues in the challenges of this year. It's a bit sensitive, like there's a rise in inflation. People are talking about a recession, employees are still quitting. And unfortunately, we're also seeing like massive layoffs in the tech sector. So a question for Stacy, how have these factors impacted the talent landscape for tech companies and how do you think organizations should adjust their talent sourcing and recruitment strategies?

Stacey Milton: Yeah, I alluded to it a moment ago, just in terms of where in the air quotes, quiet era, quiet quitting, quiet hiring, which is really a cover up for doing more with less. I do. I think we're in a recession. I'm not an economist. I think that there are waves of recession that shows up at various times. We have record spending during the Christmas holidays and, you know, all of the events and holidays that happen in the month of December. We've shown record hiring. Our unemployment rate is 3.5%, down a couple of percentage points from November, even even with the layoffs, even with quiet quitting, even with, you know, all of these factors. So I do believe that organizations will probably look to change their talent model a bit. And you know, I talked a moment ago about internal shifts, really moving people around into areas where their skills translate into other areas. For instance, I've been in talent operations. My experience is really sort of organizational effectiveness. Where does that lean into an organization that may not be aligned to talent? So really changing our framework in our narrative during this time is going to be extremely important. The other side of that is I think that because there's this just platform of uncertainty that companies will need to push towards more staff augmentation rather than moving in to, you know, more of this full time operation, old type model. Within the quiet hiring standpoint, I think that there is the opportunity to build from that, to take that position of if we are going to move around resources and do more, less, how do we play the game of chess here with the human capital that we have?

‍Janine Ramírez: Right. It's funny that we have quiet hiring now, right? Like there was quiet quitting, quiet firing, and now it's quiet hiring. But I guess like just really means, I don't know, creating internal career paths or internal career growth for employees as well. Right.

Stacey Milton: I think here's an opportunity for us to build out maybe a redeployment sub organization. How do we redeploy these skills? Not necessarily leave it up to the manager or the person, but really take more of an in-depth, participatory kind of framework in who do we have on the bench and where can we move them, right?

Janine Ramírez: Be more strategic about it and get feedback as well. Right. From from the employees. You mentioned uncertainty. And I'm curious to know the thoughts of like how for how will the uncertainty affect the mindset of employees in the tech sector? You think so? And I think we have a question or a mention about like managers, like the struggles of managers. So what should managers keep in mind as they endeavor to retain their top talent in light of the ups and all don't can be.

Tunji Oki: Yeah, right. So I think there's going to be a few kind of areas that's going to be impacted by the uncertainty. I think I was alluding to one earlier about like just like the job security of just, you know, employees not feeling as confident about the, you know, the trajectory of the company or so just maybe as they used to feel before. But I think now something that you'll also see is employees being a lot more or even candidates being a lot more forecasting which which roles they take within a company, you know, before was mostly aligned to like skills, interests and backgrounds. But now, like, you know, we see certain pockets that are being disproportionately affected by these layoffs. Right. And so now it's kind of like you're seeing like sometimes newer business units that like maybe haven't been established yet. We're seeing, you know, sometimes in recruiting or as we're seeing sometimes, you know, in other parts of the business. And so right now, I think, you know, the new mindset from employees are going to want to try to be in the same safer areas, right? The areas that may be more resistant to if there is another economic downturn or if there is another change. And I think you know what the manager can do. I think, you know, stations alluding to some of it as well, but just really, you know, sharpening skills, right? Like, look, let it be a continuing, ongoing conversation where, you know, you're looking for opportunities for your direct report to grow their skills, to grow their capabilities.

Tunji Oki: And then that wide application of like, this is all the things that you can do with this skill set because it's very varied, right? And so like kind of connecting those dots, but then also being that kind of that sort, the sense of calm like in this environment, you know, we there's many different perspectives in terms of, you know, if you hear something, should you share with your direct report or should you hold off until you the full story is coming out? There's kind of two like differing opinions. I'm always on the side of transparency. Like, even if it's like, hey, I'm not I don't know if this is going to be what happens, but just in this area where, you know, people are, you know, life impacting decisions of like layoffs are being happened right now. As a manager, if you can even give them one extra week or two extra weeks of just like head's up that this may be happening, I think then they would be able to have more of the resources and the kind of emotional capabilities to kind of like handle it and maybe even be able to pivot to something else before they get laid off.

Janine Ramírez: Right. We are they previous shock off on building a culture of trust. And that was like one of the topics is that, you know, being transparent and trusting your employees with with information especially, that's going to be kind of life changing, right. Okay. I want to ask the similar question to Fabio as well. So how do you think the recent US recession and tech sector layoffs affect the mindset of managers and employees in the tech sector? And what should they keep in mind as they endeavor to retain balance in each organization?

Fabio Frizas: Yeah, I think that's a very good question because it entices the different perspectives into both sides. On the management side, I think that's very similar to the term we usually use in the financial markets, like the great vest here. So in our recession, it's time to play it safe. Maybe you have to, you know, be with less and think more about our life and business and data. So managers should be having a stronger balance of doing stakeholder management and try to justify it into that endeavor that they want to do. On the candidate side, it's also something kind of strange and require some adaptation because as they mentioned, there's probably going to be a rise in third party temporaries that people should maybe be doing more entrepreneurial work, they should be doing more consulting, especially since many people should be affected by layoffs.

Fabio Frizas: So one of the ways due to the is running, I think candidates and we will both feel more comfortable talking with people with shorter tenure as companies and doing more small gigs into different companies. And probably the term that should stay is still trust, transparency and communication for both sides and both parties. Once you guys have like smaller friction and you can just work without all this more political constraints is to the other side, trust me is the work that I'm seeing that I'm doing is being seen. Once we cleared the air with this, we can actually focus on focus on getting results and the conversation will probably be shifting to a more result oriented one.

Janine Ramírez: We have a question from Rex in the chat and I'd like to ask Blake, fabulous head of people, because he's asking, does that pose a legal issue like be open about possible layoffs in the company as Heather people like what how would you answer that question actually yeah.

Fabio Frizas: I think that's also something that I didn't mention earlier. But one of the topics that may come to mind is to founders to be either open in some or external way about the layoffs that they have been doing, but also to think about on the long term, what is the ripple effect that you may have, like a founder just laying off dozens of people, other of people in a day and writing the next month when they they've got to scale their hiring again. What what is the message that this is forcing on a legal standpoint? That's probably not my expertize here, but I think that people should be cautious if they want to just be outspoken about everything and in the terms of more job security and providing everything that you may need, I think this even has to come over back to the investment side, because you may be paying people off, too, to go outside of the company. And you have really high costs to hire them or you may have any labor issues in the way that you've been layoff people. So I think this is a concern and right now a clear topic on this, too, to be talking about.

Janine Ramírez: All right. Thanks for the question, Rex. And yeah, I think it would also depend on on the company. And they do have to discuss it with the legal as to how to best communicate it in a legal way. But also on that sensitive and inspiring work for the employees. We have another LinkedIn user that mentions challenges for emerging technologies. So I want to jump into think. So we've established the challenges. On the other hand, we're seeing like leaps in the fields of technology and I think we're seeing news of Microsoft's plans to invest in open AI and chatbots, for example. So there's a lot of excitement as well when it comes to the SEC right. So maybe we can start with with Fabio again are game designer. What role do you think Melody playing in addressing these challenges and how do you envision H.R. Professional if you think back to drive better outcomes for the organization?

Fabio Frizas: Yeah, i must say i'm one of the ones that may be dream of the day that a.i. is going to be helping us to augment the work that we have been doing. So it's not so much as a track, but how can we just use this like an extra arm into everything? As Janine say, it's copywriting, for example. So into H.R., there are a lot of guitar tech that are on the rise. Even before we are talking about the AI, I think people should be using AI into their jobs, but right now it's a more tactile feel. So for example, we have into equipment a broad range of solutions into how to write jobs, just how to enhance them, how to evaluate if you're being any kind of different thing to your employee value proposition. We have gifting systems, we have ATS as a care up software to even host meetings are everything that we can do into the H.R. And our ops side. I think that's a big plus into making teams more effective. And this is probably enabling more and more people to start thinking about people first because I'm one of the few that think, for example, into the starting founders of a company. We could have someone really thinking about people or even with people expertize and right now being enabling this kind of more linear ops to go from 0 to 0. It's amazing and I'm actually looking forward a lot into what I can do to our field.

Janine Ramírez: Awesome. Yeah. I want to talk about that, that insight that you had a little bit later about having someone really just focus on developing people. But I have a question for Stacy. When it comes to think like what are the ways in which the technology has revolutionized the recruitment process, in particular in your in your opinion and in your experience?

Stacey Milton: Yeah, I think about this question, too twofold. First, from an internal perspective, we see organizations utilizing a AI from the standpoint of matching resumes to job descriptions. So really that automated résumé reviews. So when a job is opened internally or externally, your CRM team is able to match profiles that are already in your system to these roles that are being opened. And then from an external standpoint point and you know, I think this would probably be go down in history as the ninth wonder of the world. The more we can focus on really simplifying the application process, that would certainly breed a lot of opportunity for us to quickly go through profiles and and skills that match our roles, but at the same time create a much more relaxed candidate experience in our process. So I'm taking this angle on AI where we can really lean in to less cumbersome processes both internally and externally.

‍Janine Ramírez: Okay, I want to. I didn't forget you. Okay. I have a question for you, too. And it's a little more sensitive. So but like as a senior people analytics manager, you've had a front row seat to the way that technology has transformed H.R. So can you share any specific examples of how tech has changed the way you and your team work at google, for example?

Tunji Oki: Yeah, I would say, you know, just kind of piggybacking off what Stacy mentioned, the ML aspect, right? Like in recruiting and like those functions like even that being a capability, right? That, you know, years ago it was something that, you know, you dreamt up weren't able to do. Now we're like, we're in phases now where we actually can like see that that's actually part of a future strategy. And you know, of course, you know, with anything email, like the important part is getting the precision right and then getting the, the fairness and equity right as well too. Right. So, you know, I'm really excited for the just the progress that has been made year over year. I almost feel like every year, probably for the last four or five years, Miller is probably like the biggest thing that's like coming in, like we make progress but you know, really excited to kind of see how things are going, how we can use more. ML Like tools like in terms of forecasting, right? People need to know information yesterday and so you know models can really help teach us and tell us like, you know, forecasting the market too. So an uncertain macroeconomic environment in terms of how that should impact on hiring, thinking through like what is the best construction of a team given like certain characteristics or certain information that we do have.

Tunji Oki: Right? These are all areas that like ML could help, you know, really lend a hand in as well as really, you know, from specifically from a people analytics data analysis perspective just like analyzing large quantities of data, you know, using specific tools to like, you know, before you have to go in line by line to read qualitative data and understand, okay, this is the general themes of the summary. And here now we have tools that like will provide these like summaries for you based on like the insights and it's, you know, again, a pretty high precision. So it's just really an exciting time that's making work more efficient. Hopefully we don't get replaced by robots.

Janine Ramírez: But it is crazy how much it has changed in the past year, years. I mean, it's it's crazy like for me with what technology can do, know and see, seeing how like it's finally like harnessing the power of data and technology is it's I don't know, like I can't imagine what would the future of the work place is going to be speaking of data like I'm glad that you have something you want to add.

Fabio Frizas: Yeah, yeah. If I may just add something here because I think both Steph, if they tend to mention something about augmenting the capacity of AI with there may have spending profiles and some people watching us may be seeing us talking much about the prospect of the people professional, but maybe on the candidates perspective, there are a lot of people that may be more just, for example, not only robots replacing us, but if they have, for example, actively not being screened by a professional. So bringing up on the legal standpoint in a lot of US states and companies, we are required to to go to see a person. And also something that may not be as clear for everyone is that the way that we want to use the AI is to actually actually be able to see more and more profiles. And then for them, we we love a big and healthy pipeline. For example, someone that has worked with now a lot of engineers. Usually the problem is on the other side to not have enough people. So as long as we can reach out and see more people, this is the kind of capability that we are automating. Not, for example, not screen people are usually just behind a wall, as some people may say. So just do it to get this.

Janine Ramírez: You right. Like more options and more options. And in finding the best fit, which isn't just good for for the organization, it's good for for the employee. The new employee as well, right? Yes. More data. Better for me. So stuck about data because these days it's like this the complete shifted digital. There's like no there's no shortage of data to to understand like employees in the workplace. And we're seeing this push for hard to be more data driven there and now like people analytics teams and now more than ever so a question for all three of you like how do you see data playing a role in shaping our strategies and decision making in the coming years? And if you have any concrete examples of how data has led to positive outcomes, would be happy to hear it. So maybe like now let's start with Stacey.

Stacey Milton: Sure. I feel like in many of my leadership roles, I have championed data for building out strategy, annual calling for my teams and all of that on the basis of predictive analytics and our talent intelligence teams and our talent insights teams are somewhat new to the table, if you will. But I love that we are many organizations are building out their strategies based on the utilization of these teams. I can also say from data we've been able to build build out a talent pipeline winning future for, you know, accelerating hires based on planning. And I do apologize. Someone's cutting the grass at my house right now. That makes that this is real.

Janine Ramírez: We're used to these zones now, I think.

Stacey Milton: Yeah. So but you know, also data has helped a lot in the organizations that I've been aligned to in terms of succession planning. Where will where do we see the headcount? I will say as especially big tech companies as they are building out new strategies and data is not readily available in terms of from a talent perspective, how to find this talent or where to find this talent. I think data will certainly play a big role in to how talent is identified and then, of course, how we engage that talent and, you know, keep them aligned to the work that they love. So the final analysis is predictive analytics has been a huge part of the work that I've done, the teams that I've built as well. I think the one glitch in that though, is the global pandemic and, you know, not a lot of information or data that we could draw from those very, you know, unclear years of how we hired and who we hired. And, you know, building those candidate personas, if you will. So I know that I have some experts on this call in terms of data. So I'm also curious about the other panelist in their thoughts.

‍Janine Ramírez: Yes. So I maybe we can go with do Tunji, what do you think? How how is that going to shape the future of H.R. I hope in a positive way. I mean, i have a job as a people analytics manager.

Janine Ramírez: Largely.

Tunji Oki: But no, seriously, i think, you know, data.

Janine Ramírez: What do you do.

Tunji Oki: Exactly? And, you know, there's just such a need for data for for just insights. Companies are really seeking to make more data driven decisions. And so they need to have data readily accessible, available in a way that's broken down so they don't have to have like an analyst in the room to help explain. And so I think that's that's something we're going to continue to see, you know, in the way, you know, data is. It just helps like, you know, really transform like your general people processes like I know specifically at Google like, you know, do data analysis. You know, we were able to see like what is the actual number of interviews that we need to have to have, like a predictive like hiring process, right? And so like before way back, you could have ten, 12, 13, 14 and we found like, oh, you're only four for that. You're just as predictive before as you are with, you know, 14 or 15, right? That's all like a data informed decision, you know, market data as we seek to like understand where do we expand, right? Where are the untapped markets? We have racial equity commitment goals that we're trying to hit and that what markets lend ourselves to be able to achieve those goals and like have those the level of representation that we're seeking for.

Tunji Oki: So not just like general H.R. Data, but even like market data like plays such a huge role in like our overall strategy and location and expanse strategy data for like, you know, employee surveys, right? The employee engagement surveys that we send out just to get the pulse right. What are employees feeling? What are they, you know, what are the top concerns? Were they you know, what are they loving? Right. So and, you know, having that like huge survey that, you know, center employees at Google. Right. It's just you're able to see just a general pulse, right? Then you can cut the data however you need to and then really see like where should we be investing in? Like as team, as like a leadership as an or, you know, in the future, you know, maybe it's wellbeing, maybe it's more job clarity, maybe it's, you know, there's just so many different factors that it could be.

Tunji Oki: And again, all of these are data driven decisions. And lastly, I just mentioned that even something as like the diversity annual report that we put together and pretty much we release, you know, every year just a report of how we are kind of like tracking to some of our like representation goals and like where our hiring number is by demographics, our attrition numbers and like other kind of like relevant factors. And even that like, although you know, the questions asking about like positive outcomes, but I think that's led to accountability right now if we have one year post a certain number of results now and we're being very transparent about it in the next year, it's completely different. Like we're going to have to explain it. We're going to have to be able to justify why we're seeing like a drop and then, you know, and also has an opportunity to celebrate when we're seeing like upticks in like we're actually hitting our targets. And so I think data is going to be here to stay and just people are just going to want more of it and in a quicker fashion.

Janine Ramírez: Right? I mean, it's like from gut feel to tangible data that proves whether you're doing well or you are it. I have like a follow up to that, but I want to hear from Fabio first, the power of data to the trends for me.

Fabio Frizas: Try to wrap it up if it's using some of the former questions that we have been shot at, one of them is talking about layoffs. I think there is going to be a rise of data literate to professional. So people with a technical background can use this as a competitive edge. And people that don't have this can try to maybe in the house enhance and champion their skills to be different from the crowd. So the first thing is that although we mentioned there may be less analysts in the room, but I think someone had their own should be able to understand and leverage this data so it may not be like it's on the floor, but, you know, if it's the people professional, maybe have this kind of role and that's why you can use the other is talking about low I think recently we have two I mean one year and New York Transparency Act that maybe are enforcing more more companies to post their salary events on their campus and at the end of public and private dynamic may be somewhat friction in some cases.

Fabio Frizas: I think this is very healthy for the long term to enable and increase transparency. And how can companies it it is actually is an opportunity that those that adapt first as we saw in the case of DTP are they can be compliance ready they can close more deals and they can attract better candidates. Again, talking about PR, I think that's a very good use case and a lot more real examples here because you to a recruitment or in apps or software being to be compliant is not only a business competitive edge right now for each of those more enterprise deals but also in the internal narrative, I think that's very healthy as it it's sharing the power in more between the companies standing by. So people are having the opportunity, for example, into what kind of data is being created in that case. Let's talk about your workforce, for example. Not every company is just watching people doing the work and they have to be more trust based. It candidates may just opt out from retaining their data for the long term.

Fabio Frizas: And again, if the kind of friction into the B2B scene, because a lot of companies used to be able to handle this data freely, but in the long term, I think it clears the path for a more have inspection and the sheriff are into this narrative so candidates may experience more control into the long term and and have opportunities for that to to embrace.

Janine Ramírez: That leads me actually to a question that they had for for Tunji, because you you work a lot with data and I'm sure when you talk to your friends about what you do, they're like, what? Like, are they watching the, you know, like questions like how do you ensure that the data or that how you use your data is they use it ethically, responsibly within an organization. And what do you say? And I don't know. Do do help employees feel comfortable with the fact that the company is using their data to better understand them?

Tunji Oki: Yeah, so I think there are a few things. One in any kind of like whether it's a research project or like broad scale analytical project, there is a very strict kind of review process that you have to clearly spell out what data you're collecting, how long you're going to have the data, right? Because you can't just have data in your system forever. What you're going to do with the data, who's going to be privy to the data and like this goes to a very rigorous review from not just like privacy, legal, senior stakeholders, you know, just to make sure no one is collecting data, just to collect data, right? And so we kind of go through that process of making sure that we're being as fine tuned in what we're asking. We're only asking questions that we actually have a dedicated intention of acting on. And I think the 1 to 2 ways that I would say we get people to, you know, be comfortable with collecting data. One is this consent forms, right? Like there is there's there's always going to be some form of a consent form that, hey, you're saying that you're feel comfortable you're comfortable with us connecting this data to this data.

Tunji Oki: It's going to be used for this purpose. And I think the real key, though, is showing finding some way to show a return on investment. Like if I gave you this data, if I'm sharing a survey insights, which you be very transparent about how the data like what was actually done based on that as if you could say like if it's, you know, folks compared complained about you know how rigid the remote policy was for two years straight and then nothing was done right. They're less likely to want to take surveys and less likely probably want to engage, want to give consent, use their data because they feel nothing. Nothing's ever happens with this. It just sits and like I'm just, you know, using the emotional labor to express a concern and nothing's ever happening. So in some situations you'll be able to act to do something. And of course there's going to be situations where you can't necessarily do something, but in such situations where you can, or even if you can't just be transparent in terms of, you know, we did this in response to what we heard about this. And even just that small snippet will really instill trust into like the kind of population. And if you can't do something, you know, based on the feedback, you know, just be communicative and say like, we heard this, we're still looking for ways like, you know, to address this. But like right now that's not in my current plans or current strategy here. You know, I think it goes a long ways for the employees to feel like, okay, I didn't do that for nothing. Or like my data is not being used. It's being used for good purposes.

Janine Ramírez: Or something as simple as, okay, I was heard and they're, they're trying to do something about it so as not to get this survey fatigue. Okay, then check. We have like 14 minutes left. So let's I wanted to see that's going through the chat. We have equal question about how we can leverage data to improve companies, culture and employee engagement, in particular. Fabio, would you would you have an answer to this? Like, how can someone use data to improve the culture of a company or employee engagement?

Fabio Frizas: Yeah, maybe two ways of thinking from the top of my mind here. One is using actually tech solutions that can leverage this data. So there are solutions right now that can add to those are 360 feedback sessions and you can just later exploit this into a better way that for example and and the other is to I think then pretty much say it all is use this as an opportunity to create a better balance between management, people, culture and the employees. So if you have you have to have this talk between those two bodies on how to use data. Why don't you leverage these to have as an H1 one, a one session or a performance review and you talk to what you have been doing or you can tell out the kind of future project. So you can have people buying and be on board with what you're doing so much easier and the end of the day and have that so lower friction if everyone is on board into the same path. Right. And companies you may be going with for directions. And at the end of the day, the best way is to just sit down, talk and trust.

Janine Ramírez: Right. With what we see in everyday is that like with the data, you see how different each team can be, how how different each organization can be. And like the next step forward isn't necessarily like a best practice that, you know, one size fits all solution. But sometimes you have to look at what's happening, this particular team, to come up with a solution and to improve the culture and engagement. So, yes. Okay, sorry, I had to get I want to go back to our challenges and goals for 2023 before we wrap up. So it's called unlocking H.R. Potential in 2023. Right. Or webinar. So what would be the top lessons or even like the top tools that you think H.R. professionals and people either should keep in mind that truly unlock their potential and the potential of their human capital in 2023. So let's start with Tunji.

Tunji Oki: Yeah. So I think kind of one area that, you know, we talked about a little bit is again that remote work optimization. You know, we kind of we've been thinking a lot more about like, you know, is it let people work remote or don't let people work remote? That's kind of been like the main discussion point. But, you know, for those leaning into more remote work, how could we optimize that experience? Right. So I haven't seen that companies really go out of their way to see, you know, all we've heard is the concerns. It may not be like this may not be as much visibility connection, may lose some culture. People may not have company culture, but, you know, how could we actually maximize that experience and improve that experience and change those biases? Right. So really doubling down on that and using that as a competitive advantage for you as a company to say that, you know, hey, we have this remote process, but guess what? It still feels like you're in office. And I'm not sure if that's possible, but it's like something that i think it's a worthwhile endeavor for for HR in 2023.

Janine Ramírez: Great. Like, what about Stacy?

Stacey Milton: Yeah, i as TNG was talking, I was kind of jotting down just like my quick thoughts here and I'm going to bring us back to one thing I'd love to see our organizations do, and that's really build upon redeployment of skills and figuring out how do we better capitalize on the skill sets that are within our organization and kind of layer into that those passions and interest of the individual that's beautiful.

Janine Ramírez: Like that's a take a dream for the future.

Stacey Milton: Why would you have work? Right.

Janine Ramírez: Exactly I love the answer. Okay, Fabio, what do you have to say?

Fabio Frizas: Yeah. So my lessons and even trying to give a segment here until I think Janine, of course, said about erudite and your solution is great. I was trying to think here more on some of the recruitment solutions that I have seen recently. And first of all, the biggest lesson that I have seen not only in this past year, but the best years are maybe the lesson that I had most in my career is that you should watch out for trends, but you shouldn't let them be the one setting where to go. As some of the times everyone may be seeing this as the big new shiny object and later at it's not the not quite this narrow. Yeah you just left hanging and so one of the things is to understand the norms but don't just conform by item to the default. And maybe if you are just following your passions and the thing that you're actually above average into doing it, you may find yourself doing the next trend beforehand and until I think with one of this topic being going back to the remote setting and some of the companies not still kind of figuring out exactly the the terms to use if either remote or integrated.

Fabio Frizas: One of the solutions that I have been quite fond of is vented and curated job boards. That's like four or five years. In the past there wasn't such a need. So people were tending to go like into bigger funnels like LinkedIn for sourcing and right now one of the trends is that most classes actually go outside of it. So they don't have a very good right into just the main finals and they should be using their own pipeline and especially augmenting with that same tech using GitHub, using StackOverflow or small communities. So one of the things that I actually loved to see recently are creative job boards specially done for, for and by people into their sectors. So that say if you are between software engineers that are, let's say, and give a shout out, for example, to the pragmatic engineer job board, that is a guy that used to work at Uber and other big tech and he did like his own newsletter. And most companies to be there, they have to comply. So let's say, for example, build their salaries and they have to have a good culture. They have to, for example, not have recently laid off and behind right now. So at this kind of an hour shift dynamic into smaller niche communities and people that are walking the talk is something that I think is going to maybe blow up and be the biggest advantage. So I would encourage everyone, if you have been laid off recently, for example, to go out and look forwards into jobs at a or companies that they didn't lay off recently. So you don't have to spend all that time into associates. For example.

Janine Ramírez: Also, these are such idealistic and positive like and I love it. We have a.

Fabio Frizas: Little we try to dream as much as possible.

Stacey Milton: Yeah, right, exactly.

Janine Ramírez: But I want to squeeze in one last question. There are articles now saying, like the future CEOs are going to be coming from H.R. They're going to be the chief people officer is the sea rose, what is your take on this? Do you think the future of the leaders of the company are going to be coming from from H.R..

Stacey Milton: Stacey as it should be? Yeah. Because of, you know, when i think about how companies are built, how they grow, how they innovate, it all starts with what the human capital and knowing that we are the pioneers ideas and how we forge these ideas forward and build from them. I certainly think that our C-suite should be filled with individuals that if for nothing else, maybe they may not be career professionals in H.R. but they've had a stint or an opportunity to work in the human capital space so that they understand things like emotional intelligence. They understand how to care for the individuals that really put their heart and soul into building these organizations. So yeah, you get a big thumbs up from me all day long on that idea.

Janine Ramírez: Great. What about you, Fabio? You.

Fabio Frizas: Sorry I was on mute. Maybe said you were in the body here. So although I am idealistic and I would love to have every year founding team had someone just as a chief people officer, for example. I actually don't believe this will happen so soon. And and that given the fact that we are going to fall, i don't see so much H.R. leaders right now talking about funding companies and this should be the norm. Right? So there's everyone into executive roles right now. Some years in the past, they had to drop it all and they actually formed a company. But the good news is on very first time founders and second time founders, I see a difference in how much they they waiting people into their decisions and data. So people that have like the battle scars and they see how hard it is to recruit far to even a good life value proposition, how people scape can leverage their work and actually save up time, money and efforts for the long run. They can then into the second round, if they are starting out a company, they can think about people already. But still I think like trying to be as real as possible people, leaders in it's probably something close to the 20 employees marginally. But I would love to be into the first three, for example. But usually people are having a CEO, CFO and let's say a chief product officer. So maybe into a context that the product officer is also the people there. And I would love to see more of this.

Janine Ramírez: Right. Okay. So we have two different answers.

Tunji Oki: So I'm going to kind of play depends on the middle like I would love to see.

Stacey Milton: Come on to Tunji.

Tunji Oki: On I would love to see more are like folks in this like CEO positions right and I think part of this conversation is just because really everything we've been through the last like 2 to 3 years. Right. Where is that a human element, whether it was, you know, starting with the pandemic and then now it's like great resignation and like quiet quitting and all of these different factors. Whereas like people are looking for leaders to make humanistic decisions based on like what's going on. And so, you know, unfortunately, I also feel that, you know, everything kind of works in cycles. And so right now it's like the hot topic thing or like, you know, the human side of things. And I think that may get outweighed in the future, like just by the, again, just regular business and how things have historically operated. But what I will say is that I think the future, the in the past it was it was seemingly, quote unquote, okay for a CEO to not have that human element and like still thrive. I think in the future work like every CEO is going to have to have that component like as part of their core capabilities and core responsibilities because that's we've been through too much as a workforce like it, it's non-negotiable. I think at this point.

Janine Ramírez: Wow, that's a great end, right? With the safety and value. It's a good.

Stacey Milton: Yeah. Now you straddle that fence really well. Sorry.

Janine Ramírez: Yeah, exactly. I like this. Okay. I just think the our if we buy really quick so thank you guys so much for all your awesome insights and for sharing your experiences and expertize with us today. Your contributions have made this webinar super valuable for everyone, so just want to ask if you guys have any final words for the audience before we say goodbye.

Tunji Oki: 20 Yeah, so I'll just end by saying one. Thank you for going to be on this panel. But you know, in terms of everything we've seen, you know, with layoffs, just reprioritisation, I encourage companies just to use this opportunity to triple down on your DTI functions. These are some areas that like get cut like in these type of scenarios. And, you know, in 2020, there was a lot of strong proclamations made about like a company's commitments to diversity and to equity and to inclusion. And so this is not the time to kind of get out of that race, because I think it's going to be a lot harder to get back in if you kind of pull back, you know, now. So I just encourage folks to really zero in there.

‍Janine Ramírez: Thank you so much. The movie was great having you next.

Stacey Milton: Yeah, since we're right at time I will just say thanks for having me. I had a whole lot of fun doing this and I look forward to the next one. 20 I'm going to use some of your garbage that you know, certainly our D I in this time has suffered and I really think it's a great time to lean in and to rebuild and recommit in these areas.

Janine Ramírez: It was lovely having you say thank you so much. And lastly, we have Fabio.

Fabio Frizas: All right, thank you all for this opportunity. I just love the interaction and the questions being provided here by the chats. Hope everyone had a good time. If I had my final words here or maybe word of advice, since we have dreams on my show, try to keep it more real. It is all these changes that the market has been having as an opportunity for you. So if you have been recently laid off for the fall hanging to be trying, but there are some opportunities that some people may not be seen. And we talk about the rise of AI and of the barriers to start companies and start products is even lower right now. There is a trend micro starts right now that people are doing just like one product. You fix one solution. And if you can get this ready with now quote and have this being profitable, you can scale, you can do it all. Or even if it doesn't work out, you can use this and a set back time between jobs that you have been experimenting as a greater use case for your insurance sites and inside of companies. They think that also going to be a really good advantage right now with people that have been this intra neutropenia experience. They have been work out into their own projects. They understand how to leverage private data and is definitely a long term asset for you. So try to grasp these opportunities and if there's anything that I also can do, guys do free to reach out to me. Now, I'd love to extend this conversation moving forward.

Janine Ramírez: Thank you so much, all of you, for your inspiring words. And thank you to all three of you, to Tunji, Stacey and Fabio. You guys rock a big thank you as well to our production team, who is one awesome lady, Anna, behind the scenes, putting this all together. And thank you to all our participants for joining us. We hope you come away with some new ideas and strategies for unlocking potential in the coming year.

Janine Ramírez: So don't forget to follow Erudit. If you want the feature articles that we're going to be making from this session, we touch on lot of interesting topics that we hope to go much deeper into in future shockwaves as well. So that is a wrap for erudite Shock Me talks I'm locking in 2023. Thank you all for tuning in. I'm Janine and we'll see you on the next one by.