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Kyle Lagunas: AI Literacy — Not Tools — Is HR’s Real Advantage
9 Plays1 month ago
AI isn’t HR’s biggest challenge — confusion is.
In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Kyle Lagunas, founder and principal analyst at Kyle & Co., to unpack what’s really happening inside HR, talent, and people technology today. Drawing from his journey from blogger during the Great Recession to trusted industry analyst, Kyle brings clarity to one of the most overhyped conversations in business.
They explore why AI adoption is moving slower than expected, why capacity and capability — not resistance — hold HR teams back, and why AI literacy has become a critical leadership skill. Kyle also explains the growing disconnect between what vendors are building and what HR teams can realistically implement, especially in lean organizations and teams of one.
The conversation looks ahead to second-generation AI adoption and why leaders must shift their focus from pure efficiency to quality, experience, and human outcomes. Throughout, Kyle emphasizes partnership, trust, and creating space to think — not just react.
This episode is a must-watch for HR leaders, founders, and operators who want to cut through the hype and make smarter, more human decisions about technology and the future of work.
About Kyle:
Kyle Lagunas is the Founder and Principal Analyst at Kyle & Co, a modern research and advisory firm rethinking how we understand transformation in HR, talent, and technology. Known for his sharp analysis, candid point of view, and practical guidance, Kyle helps HR tech and talent leaders cut through hype and build strategies that actually work.
Today, he’s bringing research to reality and helping the industry tackle its biggest questions with clarity, credibility, and heart.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Kyle Lagunas
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome back. This is another installment of Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. In these episodes, I sit down with the people building, backing, and running better workplaces. I'm your host, Curtis Forbes, and my guest today is Kyle Lagunas.
Role and Insights at Kyle & Co.
00:00:19
Speaker
Kyle is the founder and principal analyst at Kyle & Co., a modern research and advisory firm rethinking how we understand transformation in HR, talent,
00:00:29
Speaker
talent and technology. Known for his sharp analysis, candid point of view, and practical guidance, Kyle helps HR tech and talent leaders cut through the hype and build strategies that actually work.
00:00:43
Speaker
Today, he's bringing research to reality and helping the industry tackle its biggest questions with clarity, credibility, and heart. Welcome to Behind the Build. Thanks so much for joining me, Kyle.
00:00:55
Speaker
Curtis, I need to give my publicist raise. i sound amazing. Yeah, no, right? I'm an author of that guy. and it and it And it doesn't even sound like ai slop. Somebody did their homework. Wow. Yeah, thank God.
00:01:12
Speaker
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, me too. I've been very much looking forward to this conversation. And kind of before we...
Journey into HR
00:01:20
Speaker
Before we really kind of dive into the guts, I kind of want to start with you.
00:01:25
Speaker
Your path into this work wasn't really traditional HR, was it, right? I mean, if I recall correctly from from our conversation, from our last one, you talked about starting as a blogger, sort of being underemployed early in your career, questioning how recruiting and HR actually worked.
00:01:45
Speaker
Walk me through that journey and and what ultimately pulled you into this space. Yeah, it's it's been a fun it's been a fun journey, plenty of struggle, um character building experience. ah yeah You know, I i will say as you talk as you're so as um as you're talking through that, I'm recognizing like I've always had a fire in me for this, like making this space better um because that like chronic unemployment, just so everybody knows, like I came into the workforce um I was actually working my way through college um and um got impacted during the actual Great Recession, I think, like 2007, 2008, 2009.
HR and Technology Solutions
00:02:29
Speaker
I didn't finish college and so didn't have a degree and nobody was going to hire anybody that went to school for creative writing for a couple of years.
00:02:37
Speaker
Um, except for a company that needed bloggers, I guess it used to be a job. You used to get paid, yeah not much, but still. um but honestly, yeah, I, I just, it was very, I would say fate. Um, I landed in a, in a place where I had like a mandate actually to dig into what was working and what's not in the, in HR and talent. um And I had a bone to pick, you know, which helped. I had some pretty strong opinions. um But as I dug in, I realized that it's it's not that people don't care. It's not like they don't want to do better. i started to understand a bit more of what was powering these problems. um And then I also was increasingly looking over at the technology side. A lot of ah a lot of vendors out there have a lot of of brand promise, a strong value proposition for why they are going to solve your problems. And
00:03:32
Speaker
increasingly I leaned in to be like, okay, well, what's up? What do you do? How do you do it? And you know, what are your customers look like and how are they happy and how are things changing for them? How are they moving the needle? And, um, yeah, so just, um, started asking questions as part of that blogging job.
00:03:48
Speaker
And I found out about, I don't know if you knew about this, like, like there's an industry analyst in the space. Like, what is that? You know? You know, I have to say when I sort of came upon this a little while ago, I did find it like, ah a I mean, it's interesting, right? But think about, you know, your days are probably packed. I mean, there's a lot of work to do. There's a lot. of You mentioned something and just as even a second ago. I think,
00:04:17
Speaker
the the problem wasn't intent. you know You talked about a lot of the problems in the space, right? um And it's not like people don't want it to be better or don't want it to don't want to do well or don't want to have these problems solved either for their own companies or as a platform solving it for you know the the marketplace. So the the problem wasn't necessarily intent.
00:04:38
Speaker
But yes, a lot of people come with you know, they are the silver bullet. They are the, they have this value proposition that's going to solve all these problems in this space, this particular way. uh, and, ah and there aren't or there weren't, you know, folks who could really vet them um in an and in some unbiased fashion, right?
00:05:03
Speaker
And so there's a need for it. And that's kind of what you found. You stumbled into this space and like recognized, like, there's a huge need for this.
Mission and Work of Kyle & Co.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, there really is. um And i look, I think it's... that need has increased. um Vendors are, it's easier to build product and ship features than ever, thanks to Gen So my work has actually increased exponentially.
00:05:30
Speaker
um But i I don't just, now I've i've gotten into into the space where, or into the side of the industry where I'm not just studying the vendor innovations and, um you know, value propositions. I'm not just looking at um did they ship the features that they said they were? um I have increasingly looked at like, what impact are you having?
00:05:53
Speaker
And I needed to understand that. Like I quickly learned like building a better product amazing. That's only part of the solution.
00:06:03
Speaker
um they're i mean, you're a solution provider. You know that you need to partner with your customers. yeah and And they need to partner with you, right? um And so increasingly, I've really been focusing a lot on how HR and talent leaders are navigating this wild, rampant cycle of like constant innovation and and change. And really leaning in to understand what realities are they working with? Um, so that then I can go and be a better advisor to solution providers like mustard hub. Like I, I'm not ah an advisor for you, but that's the job now. It's like, Hey, vendor, like you're operating a lot of assumptions. You think your customers are are asking for this or are ready for this or know what to do with this. I'm here to tell you, here's where they actually are. Here's what they're actually ready for. And and by the way, here's what they're willing to buy. So, um, on on the other side, I do like, i I love being able to sit down. with practitioner teams and dispelled out and create clarity and cut through a lot of the noise that exists in, yeah, coming out of product marketing, but also that's being filtered down or pushed down from the C-suite. I i like to really help them get oriented around what's what's really going on in in ah HR innovation.
00:07:22
Speaker
it's It is a cool job um and and it's fun too. I get to i get do some really fun stuff. You do. and you probably get to talk to a lot of fun people. And it sounds like, i mean, well, just kind of like you were saying,
00:07:35
Speaker
um providing that advisorship to vendors, but you're spending quite a bit of time actually connecting with the practitioners and the people purchasing that software because you need to be able to provide that advisory, right? You need to be able to provide that feedback to, Hey, this is where everybody is.
00:07:55
Speaker
This is what they're actually asking for. This is what their needs actually are.
Practitioner-led Approach
00:07:59
Speaker
um yeah so that's, ah it's an important part of, of like why I founded my own research firm. So I'm, I'm a year in, um I've been doing research, by the way, for a decade and a half since I was 12.
00:08:12
Speaker
chi um no just good I'm 40 now. But um but it's um it's an important part of the model I'm building because there has for a long time been a lot of ivory tower um analysis and a lot of aspirational thought leadership. There's been a lot of echo chamber um in the innovation side of our space.
00:08:37
Speaker
yeah And I really want to just help people find what's really going on. My tagline for my business is where research meets reality. And I'm spending a ton of time. mean, it's it's fun hanging out with and and listening to practitioners. um The best professional feedback I get is like, wow, thank you.
00:08:55
Speaker
I feel seen. i feel validated. This was really helpful because it tells me I'm i'm actually not as far off the mark as I thought. um You know, it's it's really cool. I'm starting to feel that like mission behind the work and not just like the the fun Yeah. So let's talk about let's talk about the organization. you know You're the founder of Kyle & Co.
00:09:16
Speaker
And so for anyone who isn't familiar, um tell me a little bit about it. What is Kyle & Co.? How do you describe the role that you play in HR and the people ecosystem you know beyond where research meets reality?
00:09:29
Speaker
of Sure, I would love to. So if you don't mind a shameless plug, thanks for the invite. yeah um So we are a practitioner-led research and advisory firm. And what that means is I have, um not only am I spending a ton of time with practitioners listening to what's really going on, digging into the dirt, getting the tea. um I am also built my team. They are all practitioners in their own realms. Yeah. So my head of um marketing um is a former HR tech marketer um and has been doing that work for a long time and knows what those people go through and how they get to their really shiny pitch decks um and is able to help us partner better with those teams as a result because they have empathy for them. They have sat in the seat. And so whenever we push back and say, hey, this is this is great slide wear.
00:10:22
Speaker
this is This makes no sense for what people are actually going going through. they have that bridge with them because they have that rapport. So that's really helpful. My head of product and innovation, Steve's Jake. um He was a recruiter for the first half of his career. He went right into agency recruiting out of college and ended up building a piece of software. It's called Talent Wall. He sold it. um I think that he was at like 3 million in ARR when he sold it and had a really nice little exit.
00:10:52
Speaker
And um was a chief product officer for the acquiring company for several years and realized he wanted to do whatever was next. I had invited him to come over here and um we are taking that, again, practitioner seat. he's been He's been a TA leader and practitioner. He's been a product practitioner.
00:11:10
Speaker
So when we're meeting with product teams now, he can also empathize and connect with and say, hey, I'm I know that you think you know what your customer is doing or or the operating environments that that that you're implementing in. Like, this is what you really need to be thinking about. This is how you should be thinking about that. And just helps us with that.
00:11:27
Speaker
um for For myself, I think it's um it's just kind of helpful to have sat in several seats. I've been an industry analyst for most of my career. um I did sit in the practitioner side for a quick hot minute during COVID. I spent a year at a fortune 25 as part of huge talent transmission um initiative.
00:11:47
Speaker
um Burnt out pretty bad, to be honest. It was really a lot of work. um And then I also, I have sat in the in the vendor side as well um as a strategist for a startup that was scaling up from series B to C.
00:12:01
Speaker
So we've all sat in practitioner seats. um So ah of of the entire ecosystem of innovation in our space, hr talent, product, marketing. And so I think that we have a unique lens on what's going on.
00:12:16
Speaker
um Our services are, are I mean, we we really produce a lot of research. um I published ah ah a white paper just last week on the five trends that we are tracking going into 2026.
00:12:29
Speaker
um And um i had ah in order to produce it, we had um a a client that sponsored a advisory council meeting. I brought together 12 HR and talent leaders. We talked about what was top of mind for them. I probed a lot of like the mega trends that are coming out of like the blogosphere and said, hey, how does this really land?
00:12:50
Speaker
And um with that underwriting from that meeting, I got to put a whole report together that sits on our site, goes out for free. um So it's a lot it's it's really interesting. I think that our our job is to navigate this these innovation cycles and play mediator and moderator between the people building and the ones buying, implementing, doing.
00:13:10
Speaker
I don't think that I've met anybody in the space who doesn't care about the problems that are in front of us or that eschews the practitioner um um like the partitioner role.
00:13:20
Speaker
ah But I definitely think there's a lot of misconnects and disconnects that exist across that ecosystem. And we are trying to close that gap. So tell tell me a little bit about that. I mean where do you see the biggest disconnect right now between what's being built and what ah HR teams actually need?
AI in HR: Opportunities and Challenges
00:13:39
Speaker
Oh, my God. Uh, well, so I asked, I asked this question, um, at a conference and I got one answer, which made me laugh. And I'm going to ask you and see what you land or what you think. What is HR's favorite two letter word?
00:13:56
Speaker
Favorite two letter word? Uh-huh. Me? and No way. I don't think HR remembers me. you know, um, So no, the like no like resounding room, they said no. no the answer was no. Which made me laugh because that is kind of true. But no, right now, HR's maybe least favorite word is AI.
00:14:19
Speaker
um And I think that this is just such a fraught side of our industry right now because there are the haves and have nots, the doing and the not doing. And there's also like a lot of assumption both on the solution provider side and on the practitioner side and with our executives about what we can, can't, should, shouldn't, could, couldn't do. Like there is just a lot of confusion here and ah and a major lack of clarity um that is just pervasive. That really, Curtis, has been like the primary area of research that I've been doing for the last five years. So I was like, it was really exciting to see the pendulum swing a bit with the proliferation of LLMs, the CHET-GPTs coming out.
00:15:08
Speaker
um I've really been tracking the adoption um trends on the HR side, looking at companies of all sizes to see how this is actually working, to see what people are actually buying and and how they're what what pilots they're running, experiments, what they're learning.
00:15:27
Speaker
And it's been really fascinating to see how even the companies these big global enterprises that you think have like endless resources and budgets to do all the coolest stuff with are moving at a snail's pace.
00:15:45
Speaker
And to see actually um the profile of their behavior is very similar to those that are in small and mid-sized businesses as well for different reasons.
00:15:58
Speaker
But it is like really my job is to not just observe that top level finding, which is cool, But then dig in and find out why. What do they have in common? I would like to know.
00:16:11
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah. I'm eager to hear what like HR teams of of of one, right? Think of the small, even the micro smalls, like the the owners wearing 10 hats.
00:16:23
Speaker
What do you think they they, what do most people don't understand about their day-to-day people challenges and how is that similar to enterprise? ah So that it a lot of it comes down to capacity.
00:16:35
Speaker
Capacity, capability, and resources, I think, is are the three. So capacity, I have not met an ah HR leader, whether it is somebody who's also the office manager or somebody who is running a global HR operation. um I have never met anybody who's like, oh, I've got all the time in the world.
00:16:56
Speaker
yeah you know yeah Or I made it all the way through my entire to-do list for this year or this month. um Capacity has and remains limited. And that is true regardless of company size. um HR teams have been and remain strapped.
00:17:13
Speaker
um Capability is an interesting one because in and ah ah ah in enterprise, there is an increasing number of um of AI councils internally.
00:17:26
Speaker
cross-functional, multifunctional. um um i would It's not really a team. It's more of like ah ah a council. So um you'll have IT, compliance, legal operations, um representatives of the business, especially if there's like innovation and product teams.
00:17:44
Speaker
And hopefully, but not always, HR and or talent sitting on that that seat. Finance, definitely as well. um And the reason why I'm i'm bringing this up, ah again, we're talking about capability. There is a lot of expertise at that table.
00:18:00
Speaker
yeah And what these AI councils are doing is setting org wide governance for how it can, and how they can and can't use ai Like remember everybody was like, oh, we can't use chat GPT because we can't put our sensitive company data on a public ah LLM.
00:18:16
Speaker
Well, I don't know about you all, but ah my husband works for a small kind family owned company, 200 employees, not tiny, but it's um you know not and a global enterprise. They have an enterprise chat GPT license and he actually can use put company data on his chat GPT because it's safe. um And an AI, kind like there his IT t team actually made sure of it. um The small businesses where you have a team of one or even five, you you don't have a whole lot of intentionality behind how we're approaching AI. There is a lot of interest, whether you're at a company of 5 million or five. yeah um
00:18:59
Speaker
but there is not a lot of um AI expertise um in across the organization. It's like, we we do see ah an expertise gap for smaller businesses. and Okay. um Especially within HR, HR still bogged down with like the, the, the actual HR work. Yeah. um AI literacy, AI literacy is an, is an, I think a ah rapidly emerging core competency for HR leadership. Um, but it is taking more route in midsize, um, and larger companies.
00:19:33
Speaker
It's funny. I was talking to, um, a woman who's now, uh, like a recruiting team of one, whereas, uh, two years ago she had a team of like 12 and she's a leader. Now it's just, she's running Rex for the first time in like the last six years in her career. It's just the reality, you know? And I'm telling her like, ah oh, have you looked at AI interviewers or have you looked at, um you know, um this marketing automation tool or this AI, like this interview scheduler, like things that can help her scale, you know, and and process people more quickly. She's like, Kyle, when am I going to put together a business case?
00:20:12
Speaker
When am I, like, how am I going to find the, like, make, find money? Like how, you know, like how am I going to get the business to care enough about how busy I am that they're going to, actually, you know i mean? Like that's the the capacity is huge obstacles. She's like, and by the way, I don't even know what I would put together in RFI to to go and and find a solution.
00:20:34
Speaker
She's like, I don't even know what I would tell the business I need. I just need help. And I think that that is, telling. yeah Because in enterprise, if you say, i like look, i i we there's there are there are are portfolios for IT.
00:20:50
Speaker
They are coming due to renew certain systems. They have a set investment. Those are cycles that just come up. It's like, all right Curtis, your ah your ATS license or contract is up for renewal in 18 months. Do we need to start thinking about what we need? you know Or you're going to say, like I have a meeting with my IT partner every quarter. And i'm going to say, hey, we are expecting expecting an increase in hiring ah for seasonal in the fall. I would like to start looking at staffing partners to help us support that. It's it's January now. I want to have somebody lined up for the fall. like Those things happen when there is a business like maturity, an organization maturity.
00:21:32
Speaker
ah It doesn't exist a lot down market. a lot of people are just um working through, i mean, you and I are getting on just today, like, getting through the week. yeah I'm, I'm going to small business and I, I definitely don't have those motions. i would,
00:21:48
Speaker
I would like to get better. um I'm trying to even get forecasting done, but yeah, no I'm curious. So talk to me about why literacy is such a critical starting point. i understand that there's ah a lot of, so whether it's hesitation or, you know, inability because for lack of time or, or hesitation because of, you know, ethics or privacy or what have you, why is literacy the critical starting point? And what's the real cost of not engaging with AI at all?
Building AI Literacy in HR
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah. I think the first question is like a whole book, um to be honest, a seminar. um You cannot be a part of the conversation if you don't speak the language. Yeah. You know, um and AI is a, is arguably the biggest, the the biggest conversation in business today.
00:22:42
Speaker
And I don't even just mean in for-profit companies. I mean an organization of any size. Everybody's trying to figure out what to do with this AI thing. um i the One of the reasons why it is so important for HR is because to date, largely we have been able to lean into when we're looking for a new solution for a problem, if if if we are trying to build a case for investment,
00:23:08
Speaker
or or trying to find a partner for a problem, whatever it is, we are able to lean into our experience with service providers and understand what makes a good service partner.
00:23:19
Speaker
um We might have had someone, we know someone is going to help us implement a new performance management tool, or maybe you have a workbook that I can just cut, like, you know, go through. um we can figure a lot of it out.
00:23:35
Speaker
AI is a lot more complicated, my friend. Um, there ah it is, I, you might demo with a vendor and say, I, I want you to help us facilitate our performance management process.
00:23:48
Speaker
Can you do that? The vendors will say, yeah, yeah, actually I set up a demo based on like what, like here's your branding. Here's, you know, you told me what your five steps of your process are. I've got this demo in our sandbox. Here's how it works.
00:24:01
Speaker
And, it look It can work, except for if I start to bring it into my actual organization and I didn't actually validate with IT whether I'm going to be able to give this random startup, air quotes here, um access to my my Microsoft 365 or my Google, whatever it is, my calendaring system. That's one of the most sensitive systems in email, two the most sensitive systems in a business, right? And so like then I'm going to be like, well, now I can't actually...
00:24:31
Speaker
track manager and employee one-on-ones, which was a huge part of pre-populating feedback at the end of a performance cycle. I can't, they're not going to let me take transcripts from those one-on-ones or even notes from those one-on-ones.
00:24:45
Speaker
And so I'm basically just, the AI is not going to do anything for me. I'm still going to have this completely fragmented experience. In that example, we're talking about AI literacy. I didn't know what it was going to take to make that tool work.
00:24:59
Speaker
I didn't know what inputs that the AI was going to need in order for it to function. I like in my organization, I didn't. and and And also, I didn't know how to address the very legitimate and and reasonable concerns from my partners in IT and data privacy and and legal and compliance. I need to know what their questions are going to be.
00:25:24
Speaker
And I'm going to need to be a good partner to them and help them find answers to the questions. I can't just expect them like, well, Curtis, I'm having ah like, i I really just need this to work.
00:25:35
Speaker
Like, okay, yeah I'm not gonna make this work if it's gonna expose our organization to risk for data privacy um violations or or impact. i'm I'm not going to use anything that you can't prove is not gonna have adverse impact on any person in our organization based on protected class. Like, you know what i mean? Like there are just like, we've we've looked at AI for a long time, our lack of tech literacy has been okay because I just get through a workbook to implement a tool.
00:26:09
Speaker
um Now these things are being powered by so many more layers and and dimensions of data and making recommendations and making inferences around that data and summarize, like it's doing a lot of very sensitive work.
00:26:25
Speaker
I need to understand how it works. I don't need to be an AI expert. I don't need to be writing like prompts and building custom GPTs. Although I don't know about you, I i have done a lot of both. It's been really, it's been a lot a lot of fun to figure out how these work. But I need i need to understand how to how they work so that I can make them work for me.
00:26:48
Speaker
I need to understand how they work so that I can be, again, be a good partner to my internal organization that's doing their job to make sure that these things work safely and as designed.
00:27:01
Speaker
What would you say to those the small businesses or those those lean HR teams like the one that you described? you know how do they How do they get there without being overwhelmed? right i mean Is there a way to successfully get more teams to be AI literate without having to mandate specific tools?
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah. i mean This is why we started like capacity and capability are just persistent problems. um I will say this. um Lower your ego. it's so It's okay that you don't know what you're doing if when it comes to AI. If you don't know what you're doing right now when it comes to AI. It's totally okay. um It's not here yet where it's like you're you're all out. um I would say that you can do things, very simple things. One of the things I love is, um it's actually a larger company, but it applies anywhere.
00:27:57
Speaker
The CHRL required that AI became a part of any team meeting in her organization. So that meant if there was, if not just a one-on-one, but if there's like three people getting together for anything to look at a, like we're about to get ready for open enrollment, or we are just going to look at this escalation or whatever it is, every meeting on the agenda going to have a bullet about just AI, something,
00:28:22
Speaker
So, for example, I built and to help me get to my fitness goal for this year. i built a ah menu plan, a meal planning prompt um that I use every week. It creates it asks me when I'm going to be home and eating meals at home, when my partner is going to be eating meals at home. And anything, any leftovers we have in the fridge, like, and I shared it with my friends. I'm like, Hey, this was super cool. It's working really well for me. Wow. I figured out in that, I mean, is it HR stuff? No, but am I getting more expert and more literate? And am I sharing a use case that's safe and approachable and, and actually multi-layered? Yeah. Yeah. Is that the way to to go about it without overcomplicating? If you just sort of take the the pressure and the weight off of getting it right and just encourage the exploration, that how is that how we is that how we get started?
00:29:18
Speaker
I think that we shouldn't be afraid. um I think that we should be mindful um of use cases that might be, we we work with a lot of sensitive data and information, you know, and, and we need to be stewards of, of the business and of the workforce. So like, let's make sure that we aren't just jumping in. That's not my advice. Just jump in and do whatever you think can think of. um But I think start with safe things. um Like I, I want to create a flyer to announce a company potluck for our like admin appreciation day. I don't know what it is.
00:29:55
Speaker
Like what's, I want to sound fun. um You know, or um I am trying to um yeah, I'm trying to think of new ways to incentivize our team with some discretionary bonuses that aren't just cash. um What are some ideas and brainstorm with a, a, GPT of choice or ah LLM of choice, whether it's Gemini or Copilot or whatever, and just wax philosophical with it, see what it comes up with. um I think it is getting experienced and getting it familiar with it is the most important starting point.
00:30:30
Speaker
um There are also like, there are a lot of, there's a lot of content, as you can imagine, Gen.ai producing a lot of content now, but there are um courses that are specifically designed designed for HR talent professionals to get well-versed, experienced, and and knowledgeable about AI within their own, um specifically in our domain.
00:30:51
Speaker
And most of them are offered for free because, and they're produced by like, A lot of them are produced by vendors. Vendors have a vested interest in us understanding how these things work, but that's okay. You're still going to take it be like, well, it did kind of promote their product, but I learned this, this, that, that, you know? So, um, yeah, I think that the the big advice is like, don't, don't be afraid.
00:31:15
Speaker
Um, like the, the, the fear is going to paralyze us and, and things are, are genuinely, I don't mean to be alarmist. Things are moving extremely fast in, in these innovations. It, it really, this does need to be a year where you get at least a baseline understanding of how these things work and how they don't. Um, and ah hopefully you also then go to that next level of how they work for you and what they can do for you and what they can't do for you. um But yeah, I think that um I'm hopeful that last year was the last year of wait and see for HR.
00:31:51
Speaker
Because the the world is not waiting for HR to see, you know? Let me ask you this. You described ah sort of this interesting scenario, right? Where maybe an organization adopts ah ah a tool, a performance management tool, and yet finds out after the fact that, you know, without asking the right questions, they weren't able to get the outcomes that they were looking for because, you know, they're a variety of reasons, but maybe the the tool that they were using didn't necessarily play nicely with their process. So I guess a question I would have is,
00:32:27
Speaker
If teams are getting, so you know, if we've sort of lowered the expectations, we've encouraged the exploration, um what do HR teams or just maybe individuals, you know, at large, what do they need to be asking these tech providers to learn more about them, to do the proper vetting and exploration? What what do they need to be asking them, but often maybe don't?
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah. um I think it's a fascinating question. um I've actually have been asking, um what are the, personally, what are the worst questions you've gotten from a prospective client? Worst ones?
00:33:06
Speaker
Yeah. So like, and I, candidly, I don't work a lot on advisory, like tech advisory on the smaller side of the industry. It is mid-sized enterprise. So RFPs and RFIs are a big part of how you evaluate prospective partners. And so I'll ask, yeah, look what are the worst lines in an ah RFI that you've ever been seeing?
00:33:26
Speaker
Um, and you, but you can ask that you can ask like, all right, so this sounds amazing. What is, what is one of the biggest blind spots that your clients have? Um, you know, or don't just ask about like, what does success look like? And like, what are some obstacles to success that you've run into?
00:33:45
Speaker
Um, what are some landmines that I need to be looking out for? um Or like, I'm going to need to not just make a business case to my CFO, I am going to need to make sure that my internal partners are comfortable with us taking he on something that's going to work around a sensitive use case.
00:34:04
Speaker
What kind of materials do you have? Like, like for me to go and champion this internally, not just that this is something cool, but it's going to work like probe to see what they, what they can bring to that. um It's going to just, it's going to help, I think, distinguish what real partnership looks like and versus what interesting products are out there. um The other piece is not limiting your inquiry to vendors um i I mean, everybody in my network is doing ah it' making intentional effort to get out of the office and go to industry events this year.
00:34:42
Speaker
Whether it is a lunch and learn in town or whether it's going to a major conference, they are getting out. And i see a lot of people cozy in sessions like or after a session like, did that make sense to you? Cause I'm not really sure I understood where they were coming from. It's like, Oh, okay, good. I'm glad that you said that. Cause I honestly don't know what they're talking about either. Or like, or that is so far fetched. There's no way that's going to work here. Then suddenly people start clustering up.
00:35:08
Speaker
Um, I also, I'm a loser. I live on, I log into LinkedIn every single day. And so I'm doing a lot of networking on there. um Our HR people, i know we started at the top top about the limited capacity. i do think it's really important this year to try to find some space to just reach out and connect with your colleagues and ask the questions that you don't want to throw out in the senior leadership team meeting um and find out what other people are doing and and how where they're succeeding and what they're learning. um This is definitely going to be a ah like community moment.
00:35:44
Speaker
It should be no, no HR person should, should be on an Island. Although I know a lot of us just inevitably get that isolation. Um, I, I think the only way to break out of it is to try.
Evaluating Tech Partnerships
00:35:56
Speaker
um you're not going to have a bunch of hr friends knocking on your door be like, Hey, are you isolated? You know, uh, you really got to get out there. Tell me a little bit about, well, um,
00:36:10
Speaker
two scenarios here um you know obviously there's there's there's vendors there's platforms out there that you would consider maybe best in class solutions that have you know maybe exceptionally well uh designed technology um right or incredibly sophisticated that it has all these bells and whistles that does all this incredible incredible stuff um But you know there's also a trust factor. right You have practitioners that are comfortable using ah certain tools, maybe that they've used for a long period of time. Maybe at some point they get tool fatigue and they're not really interested in learning new you know new software, a new way around, just because they know they're going to have to do it in another two years anyways. So I guess the question is, is how do you balance that? you know in your position,
00:36:59
Speaker
right? As, um you know, coming from this advisory angle, right? Best, best in class, best tech versus, you know, what people are most confident and feel good about using, which aren't always the same platform.
00:37:16
Speaker
Oh, no, almost never are. um There's no, there really is no such thing as an absolute best in class. There's just not. Um, that is a ah huge reason why, you should be evaluating the potential partner and not just the product.
00:37:36
Speaker
Um, in that earlier example of like, I'm going to go out and buy um, uh, I, need to, to enhance our, uh, and standardize our employee performance review process. I really want to use some AI to help ease the, but the administrative burden on, on managers, create standard, whatever, yada, yada, yada.
00:37:55
Speaker
Um, If I run into that obstacle where IT is going to say you cannot give them access to one-on-one notes and email inboxes and calendars. There's no way.
00:38:07
Speaker
I'm going to look to the best partners out there are going to be the ones that are going to get on the phone right away, probably a C-level sponsor for that pro that that ah that client engagement. Big or small client, by the way, is going to get on and help.
00:38:24
Speaker
and let me talk you through this, let me like show you all of our our security protocols, um you know we've run an audit um every quarter for adverse potential adverse impact, whatever it is, I need to know that that's what best is gonna look like, is who's going to be best for me.
00:38:41
Speaker
And, um, and it's especially important now because everything is so damn demoable. Everything looks, you know, really it should at least, um, you got to get below the surface and, and I'm not talking about looking at lines of code that's for somebody else. It's for us who we are trying to be good partners internally. We need to make sure that we're pulling together the right partners for us, um, externally.
00:39:08
Speaker
Um, I think that's, that's what it ultimately comes to. at the same time Curtis like there's, there are some consumer grade systems and enterprise systems that we all love and we like, um, and it might, or, or that we were stuck with, like everybody's on, we're using the same software for payroll as we are for recruiting as we are for performance. I got it. Um, it's hard to make a case right now for a better way.
00:39:32
Speaker
i'm But I will say that um leaning into real success stories for those of among the customer base of those best in breed systems, um those that are specifically designed for a recruiting use case or performance management rate or whatever. um I want to know the the business impact that people are realizing because they've invested in that partner. That's going to help me then make the case internally. Um, and overcome this.
00:40:03
Speaker
I honestly think it's a ah little overdone right now of like, do we really need that? Like HR, like it's okay for us to challenge HR to make a strong business case, a sound business case for investing in, in, ah ah in a better solution, a better product purpose-built product. Um, but I think that, um, that, yeah, it there's, there's a lot of, a lot of really interesting and in value add capabilities that are in market.
00:40:29
Speaker
Um, that's partly why it just comes down to, for HR to, I said, you can't be a part of the conversation if you can't speak the language. That's why we're gonna have to get a lot better about like our financial acumen, building a case for investment and making sure that it, that, that we have a defensible decision because they've validated there's, they're not, they're mitigating bias or they have the right security protocols and play whatever. like the burden of finding and ah new capabilities has gotten a lot bigger um at the same time as the options have expanded rapidly.
00:41:03
Speaker
um so yeah, it's, it's an interesting conundrum that we're in. um It's partly why I'm, I'm loving the work that I get to do now is because there's people need help.
00:41:14
Speaker
yeah um and um Yeah. And yeah, and we get to, we get to offer it. Yeah. yeah I wanna hear about about the shifts that you see coming up.
00:41:24
Speaker
um I know you you talked a little bit about the white paper that that just came out. Super interested to hear when, you know what what are those shifts you know that you know that those in HR and people leaders um maybe don't see coming, maybe they're underestimating, but you know when you think of the future work more broadly.
00:41:46
Speaker
I love this question because it's nuanced. I think that what I had the opportunity to do with this report is crystallize some latent ideas and experience experiences that HR practitioners are having.
00:42:02
Speaker
um It's not like I was like, ah, Eureka, I found the only answer is like listening a lot and being like, oh, you're talking about this. So first of all, um we are, like I said, innovation cycles are happening really quickly. We are getting into second gen um AI adoption already. um In first gen, we were really preoccupied with what we were talking about efficiency. Last year was do more with less. This year is do more with less and do it better than you've ever done it before.
00:42:32
Speaker
And so whereas last year was reduced time, like time to delivery and increased output. Like period. Those were, those were the KPIs. i agree with that. happened Right. But what, what happened? We totally is like totally neglected experience, excellence, and the actual quality of the outcome.
00:42:54
Speaker
And so we just got more shit, ah but more. Sorry if I cuss on your podcast, we've got more crap. And um so now I think this year we really are going to be focusing on um scaling notch. Like if you, if you look at, if you anchor your business case for a piece of technology and all of, all of this reduced time in cycle or like the reducing the time to, to outcome,
00:43:22
Speaker
that doesn't mean that the product is solving your problem because you're going to maintain, especially if you're gonna maintain the same process, that means your process itself is hugely inefficient.
00:43:33
Speaker
Yeah. it's It's exposed that, that gap. Right. So now it's like, okay, I need to think about a more efficient process, a better process.
00:43:44
Speaker
And I need to think about AI or technology enabling that. So it's like, Efficiency, sure. But the this the North Star is a better outcome.
00:43:56
Speaker
yeah um Higher quality um talent decisions, um ah better better talent outcomes, um whatever those like quality KPIs are. um That is the goal now. Aren't you really humanizing the work too that AI is producing?
00:44:15
Speaker
I mean, I hate how many times I've heard vendors say, oh, and in humans in humans in the loop, right? Humans are definitely in the loop. And it's like, m that's your scapegoat. Be like, it's not our fault if you don't get the outcome you wanted.
00:44:29
Speaker
um i hear you. I love to see hear more human centric process design and not just more human centric, like technology buying. Technology is not the like the system is not the solution.
00:44:45
Speaker
Yeah, know I would agree with that statement. And even a conversation I was having earlier today, more along the lines of, you know, technology is not going to replace certain things. It's not going to replace relationships. It can certainly augment them, right? But you can't productize a relationship with someone.
00:45:02
Speaker
um It's simply not possible to do so, right? In order to have, you know, ah a meaningful relationship with another person, right? So much of that has to be built organically.
00:45:13
Speaker
um There isn't any amount of ai that's going to allow you to productize what that is. It just isn't isn't going to exist. But it can augment relationship building, right? It can help facilitate those kind of things. And, um you know, you can be sort of tech adjacent to the organic building of relationships. And that's okay. Yeah.
00:45:38
Speaker
um 100% agree you know the past was all about how do we do more with less and now it's about how do we do more with less and make it better. I would argue, or at least even reframe that in a way, better meaning sort of almost more human-centric. right i mean you hear people You talked about being on LinkedIn. How much do you hear everybody complain about you know how much AI slop is all over that platform? Right?
00:46:08
Speaker
um You know, from some from from the M dashes to it's not this, it's that. um You know, wonderful. Hey, hey. I use, I have always used the M dash. It has always been a part of my lexicon. For the record. So that's fair. That's totally fair. um But almost imagine. For people that don't know, there's like some tells in what has been like copy paste Gen AI and using an M dash in your punctuation is amazing.
00:46:35
Speaker
One of the tells. And now, don come right tell me this. You used to use it as part of your normal lexicon, but almost now you feel like you can't do it as much as you may have before, right? Oh, I double down.
00:46:49
Speaker
I'm not even using spaces anymore. It's all delicious.
00:46:54
Speaker
I'm like, no, no, no, no. JGBT can't take this from me. That's amazing. I also was a big fan of the Oxford comma too. um I love what you're saying, Curtis, because I think what it comes down to is There is no silver bullet solution for the most complicated problems that we face.
00:47:12
Speaker
AI is not going to solve all of HR's problems and our C-suite friends need to chill a little bit and adjust their expectations. um And for ourselves, we need to take that pressure off of like, i don't know, I'm supposed to figure out how to AI-ify all this.
00:47:28
Speaker
Um, that is, that is not the opportunity and that's not the mandate. Um, and that's why literacy is, i think such an important starting point because you and I know what we mean by that, because I like we were living this, I'm hoping that your listeners are like, i get that, that clicks for me. Um, because I understand that AI cannot, is not a, is not a magic tool. That it is a piece of technology and I understand how it can and can't help me to move the needle on the KPIs I'm focused on this year. I i know how it can help us have more time to build human connections. And I also know how it can help me show up in my human connections more if like as a better person.
00:48:12
Speaker
like partner or better contributor to the conversation, you know, whatever. Like we need to understand the, like where it fits into the human experience.
Balancing Technology and Human Relationships
00:48:22
Speaker
we We're not, this isn't AI's world a yet.
00:48:26
Speaker
Although I watch a lot of sci-fi movies and I'm i'm sure it's coming. Yeah. We're getting there. um Yeah. We didn't even talk about agentic AI. Thank God. So we'll leave that for next year. I was just going to say, that'll be on the next one. You know, when we do, when we do 2027, our 2027 podcast and we look at the year in review, um that'll be your, ah that'll be your prediction for the upcoming year. But yeah,
00:48:50
Speaker
yeah Always curious. And I like, I like to ask this as we wrap up, you know, if you're, you're talking to a small business leader, you know, somebody HR of one, an owner, an operator who works with people, you know, they want to prepare for what's next, right? They don't need to chase every shiny object, right? They want to be literate.
00:49:10
Speaker
What's the single most important piece of advice you give them if you only have a minute with them? Yeah. Create space. Yeah. What like for yourself, um some some space, you know, week find an hour for yourself, find 30 minutes for yourself. I think that that is the most important thing that we can be doing right now. if we're looking at, we talk a lot about AI. I thank you for going on that journey with me because it's something I'm really passionate about.
00:49:37
Speaker
But whether we're talking about AI, whether we're talking about compliance, compliance is getting crazy these days. Oh yeah. um Whatever, you know what I mean? Like whatever business, whatever is on our plate, we will never be able to wrap our heads around it if we are running from dumpster fire to dumpster fire. And unfortunately that is where we often find ourselves when we are an extremely limited team that is over leveraged.
00:50:00
Speaker
one person, three people, I don't care. Find space for yourself. um And then you can build connections with people on LinkedIn, or you can put together a business case to go to um Transform Conference or to SHRM National.
Advice for Small Business Leaders
00:50:16
Speaker
You know what i mean? Like yeahp it starts with just finding some time for you.
00:50:20
Speaker
i know it's a tall order, um but I find for myself as an entrepreneur, I i make time when I like if I'm determined to do something, I do it.
00:50:31
Speaker
um Even if that means I'm going to work an hour later than I wanted to on a Tuesday, it's because I spent an hour doing something I wanted earlier that day, whatever it is.
00:50:42
Speaker
I love that. That's great advice. Kyle, thank you so much for joining me today. This was a fantastic conversation. Yeah, I had a lot of fun. I'm glad you enjoyed it too. I yeah i get a little verbose.
00:50:52
Speaker
I, um well, I'm going to have to make sure that when when i ah when I do post ah post this and i and I type up the summary, no spaces, only em dashes. ah How obnoxious would that be? But thanks to all of you. Thanks all you watching and listening to Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Please visit mustardhub.com to learn more about Mustard Hub. Get started for free. Discover how we help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and turn culture into a competitive edge. Until next time.