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Why Losing HR Data Is a Bigger Risk Than You Think with Gabe Bell
12 Plays1 month ago
When companies switch HR systems, critical data often gets left behind — and the consequences can be serious.
In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Gabe Bell, VP of Channel Sales at ResNav Solutions, to unpack why historical HR and payroll data matters more than most leaders realize. Drawing on more than 20 years in HR tech, Gabe shares what happens when organizations change platforms every few years without a clear data retention strategy.
The conversation explores compliance risk, litigation exposure, M&A complexity, and why “out of sight” data can quickly become a business liability. Gabe also explains how HR, finance, and IT leaders can be more proactive during system transitions, what questions they should be asking before implementation begins, and how historical data can become a strategic asset — not just an insurance policy.
This episode is a must-watch for HR leaders, CFOs, and operators navigating platform changes, compliance pressure, and the growing importance of people data in an AI-driven world.
About Gabe:
Gabe Bell is the VP of Channel Sales at ResNav Solutions, where he leads new partner development and strategy and is building out the company’s channel sales ecosystem. He began his career at ADP, where he was quickly immersed in the (ever-changing) world of employer compliance, gaining firsthand insight into the risks and challenges businesses face when managing their workforce data.
Over the past 20+ years, Gabe has held sales, business development, and partnership roles at DailyPay, Jobvite, and Joynd, helping build go-to-market strategies and partner programs that deliver real impact. At ResNav, he’s focused on enabling partners to offer secure, scalable, and compliant historical data solutions to their clients.
Gabe lives in Spearfish, South Dakota with his wife and three children.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello again, everyone. Welcome to Mustard Hub Voices, Behind the Build. In these fireside chats, I sit down with the people building, backing, and running better workplaces. I'm your host, Curtis Forbes, and my guest today is Gabe Bell.
00:00:20
Speaker
Gabe is VP of Channel Sales at ResNav Solutions, where he leads new partner development and strategy, and is building out the company Channel Sales Ecosystem.
00:00:30
Speaker
He began his career at ADP where he was quickly immersed in the ever-changing world of employer compliance, gaining firsthand insight into the risks and challenges businesses face when managing their workforce data.
00:00:44
Speaker
And over the past 20 years, Gabe has held sales, business development, and partnership roles at DailyPay, JobVite, and Joined, helping build go-to-market strategies and partner programs that deliver real impact.
00:00:58
Speaker
At ResNav, He's focused on enabling partners to offer secure, scalable, and compliant historical data solutions to their
Career and Industry Experience
00:01:06
Speaker
clients. And Gabe lives in Spearfish, South Dakota with his wife and three children. Thanks for joining me on Behind the Build, Gabe. Welcome.
00:01:15
Speaker
Thank you, Curtis. Thanks for having me. ah I suppose maybe the most important question that everybody is wondering, what took you to Spearfish, South Dakota?
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question. So we visited in the fall of 2020 and my family, I've got three young kids, as you said in my intro. We love the outdoors. It's got sunny, sunny weather. Don't tell everybody.
00:01:43
Speaker
But we fell in love and we decided to why not buy a house? And so here we are. oh my goodness. OK, well. You are closer than I am to my beloved Cornhuskers, but we don't have to talk about that today.
00:01:58
Speaker
um I know this conversation is going to be good. um You know, I've gotten to know each other just a little bit, but you have tons of experience in the HR tech space. What brought you to the HR vertical and and what keeps you here?
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think what, so after college, I decided I wanted to try sales just very basic interest was that I didn't want to be in an office all day. And I had an uncle who was in sales. So I thought, Oh, get out. I like traveling, being in front of people. And then through the hiring process, ADP contacted me, they had a really robust training program. I was really concerned with, I've never done sales before. How do I make sure I'm successful?
00:02:41
Speaker
And they had a phenomenal program. The other thing about ADP is they're their own ecosystem in terms of career mobility. so day one, my sales leader sat me down. i thought were going to talk about my sales role, but he started asking like, what's your next step? What do you want to do next? do you want to get into leadership? Do you want to do sales training? And so they had a good program that developed talent, made me feel like I you know could learn how to sell to businesses. And then ah it was working well and you build a lot of friendships. I was there for 13 years. And then I think
00:03:16
Speaker
Once you're in an industry, that industry tends to value you more than ones that you've never worked in before. So it's always been really natural to stay within HR tech and and leverage the network and knowledge that I've had.
00:03:28
Speaker
i imagine so in 13 years. I mean, that's not a small amount of time. um Totally understand not wanting to be in an office. um Probably also don't have to worry about that being in Spearfish.
00:03:41
Speaker
I might keep coming back to that over and over again. um no but I think that makes a lot of sense. And I can certainly appreciate that on on every level. And I didn't realize that there...
00:03:53
Speaker
um you know, that that internal mobility, I guess, and, and, and training was so robust at ADP and
ResNav Solutions Overview
00:04:00
Speaker
that's kind of neat to hear. And I can certainly imagine how after being there for 13 years and the network that you've built and the relationships that you've developed over time, i mean, kind of give you that experience, credibility, you know, everything that you really need to kind of succeed in that space. So,
00:04:15
Speaker
I mean, today you're VP of channel sales at ResNav Solutions. So we have to unpack both of these things. um Let's start with ResNav. What is ResNav? What do we do there?
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah. So we're the we're the industry leader within HCM and payroll space for historical data and document extraction and management. So what that means is organizations, when they change platforms, which midsize companies do every 3.2 years, according to our data, ah you know leaving a payroll system, a time and attendance system, benefits, anything that manages candidate or employee data.
00:04:54
Speaker
They have to make a decision about what do I do with all this historical data that I'm going to lose? And there's not great options out there. We think we do it better than anyone. So we we've done over 18,000 extractions from 200 plus different systems, have over 5,000 clients that have used us. We'll go in, extract all the relevant data and documents they need, structure it, and then store it in our ah compliance platform so that they can stay compliant with federal state industry record keeping requirements.
00:05:26
Speaker
Plus with the onset of AI and all the great things you can do with data, there's all kinds of ways that that data could be useful to them now or in the future. And so we're finding a lot of employers, they just don't want to lose it. It's their data. It's important to them.
00:05:40
Speaker
let's Let's keep it. so So maybe we'd make an argument that there is at least one good solution out there, right? Instead of... i i think there's one. I'm biased, though.
00:05:54
Speaker
Very, very cool. So I guess I would ask, I would be curious, um because it's a very interesting statistic that you have, right? Every 3.2 years, what ultimately drives an organization to switch platforms? what why What are some of the reasons behind those changes? And then why so frequently? Because that's not, I mean, that's not a long amount of time. It's pretty short.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's certainly the data skewed based on the size of the company. So a smaller business under 50, they're probably changing even more frequently. um And then larger enterprise, maybe it's you know over a thousand or tens of thousands, probably not quite as frequently.
00:06:32
Speaker
What we're seeing, though, is there are just so many more options. When I started in the payroll industry in 2005, which makes me sound really old saying that, it was it felt like in my market it was ADP, paychecks, and then maybe a local provider, a CPA firm. And now if you just think about the companies out there that exist whose first name is Pay,
00:06:53
Speaker
It's dozens. And they're all, I would say, candidly, as someone who's sitting over top of the space, everyone does a really good job, more or less. And so I think there's always the appeal of something that's a better fit for your business. um And then the movement has been point solutions for different systems. so you've got one for, say, time and applicant and benefit.
00:07:17
Speaker
But as you grow, that becomes harder and harder to manage. And so you'll see CFOs or CHROs, the the value of putting everything in one place is really appealing. So that's a transformation that we typically, that we'll frequently see. And then the other thing is sometimes it's not the employer's decision.
00:07:34
Speaker
As tech gets more and more advanced, you'll find vendors will sunset legacy platforms, and then they'll try to migrate them to their own internal, but sometimes that provokes the clients to look
HR Data Management Challenges
00:07:47
Speaker
outside. So we'll be involved in projects like that too.
00:07:51
Speaker
I didn't even actually think about that. So talk to me a little bit about the products that ResNav offers. What are they? What kind of organizations are they are they for? Are they segmented by size, industry type?
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, we're, ah frankly, i like I like to, I tell people that this is this is the most boring business that you can imagine in the sense that if I go to a cocktail party and you ask me what I do and I say we oversee historical data and document management, it's not exactly an exciting topic. However, it's very much needed.
00:08:27
Speaker
because there's all kinds of federal, state, industry record keeping requirements. So they have to keep the data, which makes us a really useful business. We found anything related to data for candidates or employees, we'll extract, we'll often extract from multiple systems at one time. And then there's also documents on the company level and within employee level, things like I-9s, policy acknowledgments, disciplinary action where employers want to keep that, we'll extract all of it. Now, in terms of who who tends to really and see value in ResNav, I would say it's organizations where there's some level of complexity. They've got multiple systems that they're leaving to go to one provider.
00:09:11
Speaker
There's some complexity there. If they're in multiple states, states like New York or California, which have regulatory environments that are you know, sometimes can create some complications or they're doing M&A activity. So they're acquiring companies where they're going to sunset that platform, but that data is still useful to them as they migrate them.
00:09:30
Speaker
ah Organizations that are, for lack of better term, like exposed to litigation or, you know, legal inquiries from terminated employees, they want to make sure they always have that data so they can defend against those sorts of events.
00:09:46
Speaker
um I mean, that's really interesting. You brought up a lot of different use cases. And is it is it generally the same process for everybody? It's like one single solitary product, which is essentially data extraction and storage and then file management.
00:10:03
Speaker
um Or is there a variety of things that you do for folks beyond just that? So ah it's a here's I would say the end goal is often the same in that they're going to have a think of it as a data lake platform where they can access historical data and documents.
00:10:24
Speaker
But what what you know, for folks that are in the payroll space, they'll agree. with what I'm about to say, every company, especially as they get larger, has unique requirements and then there's unique ways that they're using their systems and unique ways that they're using the modules. And so we have, in some ways we've standardized the process, but we're also very custom in the sense that we have to get very creative sometimes in order to get the data out.
00:10:51
Speaker
manage it, name it correctly, work with the client. The good thing is, though, we've done this almost 20,000 times. And so there's not a lot of scenarios that we haven't seen before. you You mentioned that you know you do this with HR data, except...
00:11:10
Speaker
you know, what's considered HR data, right, is i think kind of slowly expanding right into what is people data. um And so I guess ah I'd be curious, i mean, how...
00:11:25
Speaker
How much does this extend into other types of HR-adjacent platforms, vertical SaaS, messaging, ah anywhere where they'd really want to sort of keep this kind of historical data for a variety of reasons? I mean, there have been...
00:11:42
Speaker
you know, histories, even recent histories, you know, of corporate espionage and a need for, you know, discovery into messaging systems and, you know, hundreds and thousands and millions of lines of messages that people might want to go through, right? So, i mean, does ResNav produce or provide some kind of archiving for, you know, things that aren't necessarily traditionally HR? ah you're It's like you're in our roadmap meetings. Yeah.
00:12:12
Speaker
Okay. well go Even though we've been around for a while, we do operate as a startup. where we're We're a strong but mighty, small but mighty team, I would say. So we're being very disciplined and focused right now with the HCM payroll, also PEO market. And I'm overseeing strategic partnerships that we're building where their teams can refer us when they have clients or prospects where this...
00:12:36
Speaker
challenge arises and ResNav fits in well to their overall strategy. That being said, we do believe that there are all kinds of other systems that are adjacent or even maybe not adjacent where systems are being sunsetted, deprecated, and there's reasons why that data is important. And so I think long term we're going to be the not just in the industry that we're in, but for all of tech,
00:13:03
Speaker
the leader in historical data and document management yeah i mean i can imagine just even in with crm and and sales data and information i mean stuff that companies simply aren't going to want to lose right but um you know as all of these different categories become commoditized right i can see them you know see smaller mid-sized businesses you know, routinely switching. If they're switching payroll systems every three years, I can't even imagine how often they're going to switch some other, you know, point solutions that, you know, might not even touch money.
Data Management Risks and Stakeholders
00:13:34
Speaker
So, you know, could be even more frequently. I guess a question that I'd be curious about, how often are are these organizations, when they come to ResNav, how often are they being proactive? How often are they being reactive due to issues with, i don't know, specifically their data management and compliance?
00:13:51
Speaker
So part of my job is to try to help them be more proactive. This is not, the rough analogy I use is everyone thinks about how they're gonna summit the mountain, but people don't always think about coming down. And so i would say right now, the industry, people focus on the implementation of the new system that they're going to, all the data they need to stand that up. That's a very comprehensive project for often lean teams to begin with. And so a lot of times they don't realize that they're actually going to lose data that's important to them until they're well into implementation. And so we have we've built an operations team that's focused on speed. We can do turnarounds in 30 days or less.
00:14:38
Speaker
um My goal, though, is that we can surface this problem sooner so that organizations can think about it as part of their overall plan to change systems and then just makes a little easier on their team and and and ours as well. But I would say there's still a lot of folks that even make a transition and that's, there's an access end date and we've got a couple of weeks to get data out before they lose that.
00:15:05
Speaker
You know, I'm curious about when it comes to this data management in HR, what are the ramifications, you know, if, they know If they don't get it right. I mean, how much trouble can they get into? What have you seen,
00:15:20
Speaker
um you know, when somehow they just, they don't nail it and they move systems and it's all gone? Yeah, i mean, if you think it's very sensitive data, it's going to, the data shows if someone was eligible for overtime or not. So wage and hour cares about that. The data is going to show if you had I-9 documentation confirming someone's eligibility to work.
00:15:45
Speaker
ah The data is going to show if they were benefits eligible. The data is going to show if they were terminated, you know, if you were discriminated against them or if, say, you're a government contractor and,
00:15:59
Speaker
somebody applied and you've got to defend about whether or not, you know, you discriminated based on their class. So there's fines associated with all of that. We we have a, you know, sometimes there's fishing expeditions too, where there's attorneys who maybe just, you want to send out notices to employers and see if they can catch someone who's not responding. And so I think especially as they get larger, there's the state and and the federal regulatory bodies that oversee this, but then there's also lawsuits and things of that nature that you have to address, but they don't have value to your business. And so our goal is when that happens, we've equipped them with the data that they need to defend and they can keep operating their business.
00:16:46
Speaker
Who is it that you generally work with in the organization? Is it sweet C-suite? Is it the HR leader? ah is it Is it ops? I mean, who's who's typically the point person that comes to you?
00:16:59
Speaker
What I found is usually whoever the whatever the project team is. So, i mean, we're our business is unique in that we're very much tied to a ah very specific trigger event. We're only useful to companies that are in transition.
00:17:12
Speaker
leaving one platform or system, set of systems to go to another. Once you're live, there's no, you know, there's not, There's no real trigger event for us outside of that. So that being said, I found that most of the projects we're engaged in, we're working with ah whoever the project team was that was leading the transformation to the new platform. So CHROs, CFOs, CIO, o whoever the stakeholders are with payroll, it tends to bubble up to pretty senior people within the organization because there's so much risk involved if they don't get it right.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, I bet. and And I bet that even those leaders sometimes probably don't understand yeah everything that goes along with it, right? Or there's some lack of clarity around data management, compliance, labor law, you know, just because we can't all know everything, right? And sometimes it's not in our lane, um even for those folks who are the ones leading that transformation.
00:18:15
Speaker
And so... but would you say to those folks in terms of like where do they even get started learning about, you know, that kind of stuff? and And maybe it's even including working with you and that is where they get started. But, you know, how do they educate themselves?
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, I think people do their best to keep up, but the regulatory environment changes. It's also specific to industry, states and your employee size. And so we've used some literature from SHRM before to help also done research for their specific use cases based on the states that they're in. um our Our approach though is instead of just focusing on, hey, that there's three years of statute limitations for this law or that law, we've built our commercial model so that they're not penalized for excess years of data.
00:19:05
Speaker
So we've had groups that have had 20 years on a system or even 30. I'm even told of a story, I haven't verified it yet, of someone who had 62 years of data and leveraged us. And so our viewpoint is get it all, you're ah you'll comply with the record keeping
Future of HR Tech and AI Integration
00:19:22
Speaker
requirements. But then to my earlier point,
00:19:24
Speaker
Now you have this data to use to be intel to help make intelligent decisions going forward in your business. And I think we've all probably been part of companies where you're just really curious to know, like, what was going on here before I joined? Yeah. And if I'm a CFO or CHRO or a leader of payroll, I want to know that information.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. Well, so do you provide, tell me about some of the tools that might exist, you know, at least with ResNav where, you know, I can get that, that kind of information, right? I mean, um how deep has ResNav gone into building out AI solutions that can, you know, tell me all these really interesting things that I want to know?
00:20:08
Speaker
Yes. it's Again, it's like you're in our roadmap meeting. So we don't have AI built yet, but 2026, huge part of our strategy is developing more reporting, trend analysis, AI functionality to basically unlock a lot of the data that the clients have at their fingertips. What we've done so far historically has been focused around compliance. So we've got standard reports that they can use to comply with a DOL audit or things of that nature. But yeah You know, our big bet is that this data is going to be very useful to clients and let's use AI and modern tools to make it even easier to access.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah. So i i can only imagine, right? what I can only imagine the AI capabilities that you're going to be able to build and do with the massive amounts of data that you're, you know. Gabe, I'm super curious. do you Do you see opportunities in the future to maybe somehow combine either, you know, real-time current system data along with the historical data that you've already, you know, gathered for those clients that have gone through a transition?
00:21:20
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. And if we're listening to the market, we hear that consistently from employers and also from our partners. And so we're thinking, you know, in the future, one of the North Stars that we want to get to is being able to completely embed our historical data and document management platform inside of HCM payroll, PEO providers. So a client, CFO, CHRO, whoever, can easily navigate between their current system, real-time data, and their history. And then beyond that, have the ability to do cross-system reporting. So if you're a nonprofit or educational institution, healthcare, care maybe you're on a fiscal year that's July to...
00:22:07
Speaker
June, a big pain point in the industry is you're having to do dual maintenance, combine data for multiple systems. If you made a change in January, which is when that commonly happens, we think, hey, we could be really useful if there's a reporting layer that sits over top of the new provider and allows you to combine all the historical data for as far back as you need.
00:22:28
Speaker
to run your financial reports or do projections, et cetera. So I'm, I mean, there's, nobody's doing that in the market. And so we're, we're excited to, to build towards that and be first and, and add value to our partners and to our employers that way.
00:22:44
Speaker
I mean, I can see that as being an incredibly powerful tool, even if it was some,
00:22:49
Speaker
The ability for an organization to be connected to some platform that can in real time ongoing ingest all of their data, regardless of the platform that they're on um would be an just an unbelievable value add, right? So that even no matter when or where they choose to go, right? Whatever platforms they choose to switch to, if they choose to switch, right? if if They're already connected to this, you know, this place, ResNab, for example.
00:23:23
Speaker
It's already happening. It's already ingesting all of that data. It's already storing it and managing it and doing whatever it needs to with it, um regardless of where they go. Right. It's almost like you're it's it's it's it's almost like the ultimate in in data portability.
00:23:39
Speaker
Yes. yeah so I mean, i i I said earlier when I started the industry, there was kind of two options. yeah And now there's so many great choices out there. Our viewpoint is let's liberate clients to go move to the platform that's the best fit for their current situation and for the future. And they don't have to feel handcuffed by whatever systems they've been on for a long time where they're just it feels too risky to make that move. We think we can unlock a lot of potential in those areas.
00:24:09
Speaker
uh processes where to your point curtis they don't they feel like they can move without worrying about losing their data and if we're truly embedded and we have the different we have all of the ecosystem built out from our work then they can choose what's the best fit for them and In 3.2 years, they can make another move. They can go wherever they want to go. And and and maybe at that point in time, it's just a matter of hitting a button like I'm switching providers. and Do you ever help an organization multiple times? Is this usually a one-time thing? Or if they're if they're switching so regularly...
00:24:45
Speaker
Are you their first call when there's another change to be made? So this is it's a really interesting question. i When I joined in July, i thought we would be used once and we'd store data.
00:24:58
Speaker
what we're so what i'm seen What I've seen though since I've been here is Yes, clients keep us on board. We had a group, they had one system in 2019. They made a move.
00:25:08
Speaker
we use We store that historical data and then they grew rapidly. So now they've outgrown there provider their provider. They're sunsetting that new system already, layering it on to their existing ResNav platform. And then they went out and acquired a company that was using yet another system.
00:25:26
Speaker
And we're becoming part of their overall M&A strategy ah because they now have a single place where their CIO, CFO, CHRO can access all of the platform data that they've lost or they would have lost otherwise over you know a six, seven year period.
Client Interaction and Data Strategy
00:25:44
Speaker
Any way for you to recover, like if if somebody comes to you after a transition has been made, any way to recover something that you know, they didn't prepare for?
00:25:56
Speaker
ah Sometimes. So I have a group that we've talked to. They have this extreme example, but they have, I think 20 to 30 years of paper files for employee records.
00:26:08
Speaker
And whenever, whenever they say the time is right, you know, that's a project that we can help them with. We also have gone in to systems that have been sunsetted as long as they still have some level of access You know, we can get the data out, we can store it for them.
00:26:27
Speaker
Unfortunately, sometimes people lose access and then the data is deleted with the incumbent or the former vendor. And so far haven't figured, our product team hasn't figured out a workaround. There's probably not nothing we can do, unfortunately, in those scenarios.
00:26:43
Speaker
You talked before about um about the trigger, right? About where ResNav comes in. And I'm curious, you know after a transition and and presumably before the next one, right? If this is a company that's you know and using some M&A strategy or if they themselves are are switching every 3.2 years or what have you.
00:27:07
Speaker
Are there, is there any reason to have regular touch points for this organization? How do they tap into this data ah that's in ResNav? Do they need an account executive? Do they have a place that they can go and interact with it somehow, download the things that they need?
00:27:27
Speaker
There's a little bit of that. We provide customer support. um And so they have contacts that they can leverage. Part of, I think in the future, we're going to have even more reasons why that someone would want to be on in the system on, say, a weekly or monthly basis. In some ways, though, we are a little bit of an insurance policy in that, you know, you you might not need us for several months.
00:27:51
Speaker
But then when you do need us, you really need us. And so I'd say that's the main use case that we've seen on the client side. Now, in terms of partnerships, we are have we they are the partners that we work with are the ones who are following that trigger event. So it could be pe firms or payroll firms, consultants, anyone who's seeing that a company is going to go through a transition of their tech stack.
00:28:19
Speaker
We do work regularly with those folks because we want to be useful and make sure that we have advanced notice so that we can join that project as needed. You know, a lot of conversations we have here are about how a lot of business leaders, HR teams, they have the tech know-how, you know, to use and get the most out of these platforms, including ResNav, I guess. Do you do you feel...
00:28:46
Speaker
that most ah HR teams are very tech ready. But one additional sort of add on question to that I guess about the size of the organizations that you work for, because, you know, in a lot of midsize companies um and ah you all work with ah ah a range, right? So there's, there's, there might be a wide range.
00:29:06
Speaker
Are you typically working with larger teams or is it more of an HR of one to three? I'm just kind of curious, like how big are these teams? How tech ready are they? You know, how open-minded are they to, you know, a lot of this new stuff that they're going to have to learn?
00:29:23
Speaker
We've worked with really lean teams, teams of one or two. it tends to be a factor of the size of the employer. So somebody with 120 employees, maybe there's one or two folks that we're talking to. We've also dealt with large enterprises, ah publicly traded companies where there's teams of 10 to 15 people that are part of the project. I do i do think...
00:29:47
Speaker
HR and payroll have gotten much more tech ready in the last several years. The challenge though that I see is people inherit systems.
00:29:59
Speaker
There's turnover internally. Sometimes there's consolidation. Sometimes the vendor is putting you on a new product. I mean, we've all... implemented tech probably or used tech where we probably don't fully understand all the capabilities or know everything that's in there. You know, we've got jobs that are demanding. And so that's, I think that's one of the biggest learnings I've seen is Sometimes people are inheriting assist systems, and then there can be gaps in terms of knowledge about what actually is in these systems. What documents are we actually tracking?
00:30:35
Speaker
And if you think about it, I mean, we've had groups that have hundreds of thousands, upwards of a million employee documents. It can be hard to know specifics about what all is in there. And so part of what materializes with ResNav is They'll get a clear understanding of what everything was that was in the systems. We'll structure it, make sure it's useful for them on the HistoryLink platform that we provide to them. And so there can be some unexpected learnings that come out of the transition.
00:31:03
Speaker
I'd be actually really interested to kind of lean in into that a little bit. Have you ever provided, you know, some folks with this historical data, you know, and and sort of a compilation, right, of the TLDR of what's in there and um just completely shocked any of the the HR teams that see it?
Tech Transitions and Company Culture
00:31:25
Speaker
I don't know if we've completely shocked. I will say implementing. So in our sales process, we do a lot more guiding than maybe you would expect. Because we've we've learned some of the systems that we extract from pretty well. And often there's folks on our team who maybe know them even better than the the client. And so we'll guide them on, hey, here are the modules that we commonly see. heres Here's the version that you're on. Here's where we've seen other clients store that level of data. Here are the things that sometimes pop up that are in there. Here's the things that we found within your industry tend to be important. And then we try to do as thorough of a job as we can as part of that scoping.
00:32:09
Speaker
In implementation, though, it's not uncommon for a couple of things to happen, clients to realize, I actually have more data in there or I'm using this module and we didn't know about it. Or, hey, there's actually this other system that I think we could use you for, or we're going to sunset more systems in 2026. And so there tends to be a lot more things that materialize the more that we work with with the client.
00:32:37
Speaker
How do you begin to you know change the culture for these ah HR teams when it comes to more advanced technologies, right?
00:32:48
Speaker
How do leaders begin to make these shifts so that you know the HR professionals can get more proficient when it comes to a lot of the tools that are available to them?
00:33:01
Speaker
I wish, I mean, if I knew the answer to that question, I might be speaking at HR Tech next year. I think hi i think in the world that we're in to- today, we can educate them on why the historical data and documents are important and try to help people think about other ways it could be useful. Some of things that we're thinking about with AI and reporting, et cetera.
00:33:27
Speaker
But I mean, it's there's just so many, I don't envy anyone in the HR practitioner world. There's just so many options out there. There's so much noise and the risk of making the wrong decision decision is so much higher now than it was 20 years ago. Maybe you're choosing between three options.
00:33:48
Speaker
And now just imagine you go on LinkedIn, you're CHRO and you say, hey, we've got... 900 employees and we're looking to make a change for payroll and HCM for 2026, that would go viral.
00:34:01
Speaker
You know, the number of sellers that would contact that poor person. Yeah, you're probably right. But, you know, it then it it makes me wonder because folks are folks come ResNav because there's a specific event that they are preparing for, right? There's a tradition, ah tradition a transition that's going to be made.
00:34:22
Speaker
um They want to make sure that they don't screw something up. They want to be able to maintain all of their historical data, right? We spend a lot of time, especially on these episodes, really talking in the future. The irony here is that we're talking about maintaining historical things, right? um But I'm kind of curious, knowing that this is an event that people come to you in preparation for, what are the things that they could do at the very beginning to make sure that in the future, given any type of transition that may happen, they're well prepared.
00:34:57
Speaker
How would you tell them to you know either prepare now or how to how does knowing what you know help inform them to make better choices about where they decide to go?
00:35:09
Speaker
i would say... if they think really long and hard about why you want to transition from your current tech stack to something new and really dig into the business reasons. Are you about to go M&A and you really need something that's scalable? Are you consolidating departments? Is there an initiative around engaging employees where you just need better tools and ways to evangelize to them the investment you're making in their total compensation and then
00:35:43
Speaker
Also, what are the need to have current state reporting requirements you have for compliance that you' you depend upon to protect the asset, the business from all the regulatory bodies, from lawsuits, all the things that no one wants to think about, but you have to do in order to keep the business viable. I would say be very detailed about that. And then the second thing is,
00:36:10
Speaker
I would think three to five years ahead. ah You know, you're going to make this change now, but are you also going to sunset an applicant tracking system? Are you doing something different for performance or learning? Are there other ways that you're looking to consolidate?
00:36:28
Speaker
And the more thorough you can be and the more that you can include your internal stakeholders, I think you're setting yourself up for a great transition. And then to the degree that ResNav can be helpful and useful and part of that process early, we can help with that planning so that you're not creating an unnecessary project in the middle of holidays or when there's a lot of other things going on, you can be thoughtful about it and make sure you get it done right.
00:36:54
Speaker
I'm curious with shifts like this, you know, in a lot of platforms that people use that they get comfortable with, If there is you know this routine, and every three years or 3.2 years, that can that can feel routine to to some degree.
00:37:15
Speaker
What does that say to the employees when they're constantly switching new systems? um Does it create chaos? Does it sow confusion? Do you see any type of...
00:37:28
Speaker
um
00:37:32
Speaker
you know ways that it maybe affects the culture, you know either in a positive or or negative way. right Obviously, if it's if it's sowing some confusion right and creating chaos because you're constantly switching, you know maybe that doesn't look or feel great to to employees who are in search of some stability. Maybe on the other hand, they might actually see this as my organization I'm working with is trying to i don't know, optimize these things or make it better. I mean, do you do you get any visibility into how organizational culture winds up changing for the better or worse when these transitions happen?
00:38:07
Speaker
I got a real upfront view of that when I was at ADP. So I can just speak briefly there. But yeah, I mean, it's employees aren't going to always understand why you're making the change. And sometimes they don't believe the best.
00:38:20
Speaker
ah I had a a project i dealt with a large franchise, multiple locations, working with the CEO on a transition with ADP. And when there were some bumps with the go live for payroll, he was calling my cell phone because If we messed it up, it was a reflection on him and his business.
00:38:40
Speaker
And there could even be employees who didn't come into work on Monday over it. So it's the thing about payroll is it's an a or an F industry. If you get it right, nobody's talking. But if it goes wrong, you're dealing with someone's pay, which is...
00:38:56
Speaker
has such an impact on their personal ecosystem. So, i I mean, people that are leading these transformations know that. I think the more you can message the reasons why, why it's beneficial to the employees.
00:39:08
Speaker
um But the other thing, too, is i think employees are using these systems more than maybe when I was... selling in the space because self-service capabilities, maybe they're enrolling in benefits. It's how they punch in every day. Maybe they have a check-in with their manager on every two weeks. And so you do need to be really thoughtful about what that rollout looks like so that you don't take a step backwards in something that, you know, is really, the the goal is to improve things for the organization.
00:39:36
Speaker
And i also see a lot of these platforms are are trying to own, you know, more of the employee experience under their own brand, right? So they might roll up point solutions, you know, so it's not just payroll anymore on there. You know, you talk about how, you know, how important it is for you know these ah HR leaders to be investigating and really understanding and defining why they want to make a switch. And if they're looking for more advanced capabilities, right, different types of features or functionality that might not exist in their current solution, but you know may exist in a
00:40:10
Speaker
in ah In another place, um you know, and as I think, you know, the more things that exist on the platform, right, the more opportunities there's going to be for the employees to touch parts of the system.
00:40:23
Speaker
Right. like Like you're, you know, talking about having these regular meetings or maybe there's an engagement solution that's part of that, you know, or maybe there's some. sentiment questionnaires or ENPS or pulse surveys or whatever it happens to be, you know, so that they're using it regularly.
00:40:41
Speaker
And that can obviously also, I think, again, it can create some confusion when we're switching so often and then it we have a different way of doing it, right? And, and you know, folks might not be used to it or or for whatever reason. And, you know, I'm just kind of curious, like not everybody is great at, you all of these solutions, right? we have to learn them, right? And um so I ah assume that when you were at ADP, you probably saw that a lot, right? When you had folks transition to ADP, they had to learn an entirely new system, right? You probably see right now at ResNav when folks are transitioning away from whatever they're using to a new one, there's a huge learning curve.
00:41:22
Speaker
So talk to me about like, you know, this next generation right? you know, leaders, you know, are there any new roles or demands that you feel like they're going to need to be prepared for? Is this world of work changes?
00:41:39
Speaker
Any thoughts on how organizations begin to plan and prepare for this kind of stuff? Well, something you said, actually, I wanted to comment on, which is one of the, I've said, you know, there's so many options now versus when I started my career, but I would say a positive is,
00:41:57
Speaker
With integrations and how tech is built now, I think the point solution play is easier now than it was, say, 10 years ago because of the ability to be embedded or do integrations and APIs. So to your point, Curtis, like nobody's going to be like Microsoft is a huge company.
00:42:15
Speaker
I don't think they're the best at meeting software. I don't think they're the best at you know a number of other things. And so. That can be the same in the HCM market. Maybe their core payroll HR functionality is the best, but maybe there's a better solution for your applicant process or for onboarding.
00:42:35
Speaker
um So that's something that's cool I think that's cool that is emerging is you don't have to use one vendor for everything. You know, there's there's ways that you can build it. So it's purpose built for your organization, what your needs are in terms of roles that are emerging. Everyone's always talking about AI.
00:42:53
Speaker
I think the ability to prompt effectively is where you can differentiate. like telling the AI, like what the data is that you're looking for and digging in. There's a, I've talked to some folks that are talking about, you know, sitting over top of that tech layer to do just that, like help people uncover what's in there. Are we utilizing this? Are there roles that we could repurpose and make more strategic? Where can AI step in and take off some of the tactical workload?
00:43:24
Speaker
And really and so that we're enhancing the value from our employees, not necessarily replacing them with AI, but there's a lot of tactical and administrative tasks that still exist within tech that I think AI could be really useful for.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah. Including, you know, with what you guys are doing here in 2026, sure. um Because I think a lot of people are going to want to look back and see, you know, in know, trends, some analysis of all of that stuff, because, you know, obviously, I think we we make good decisions about the future if we better understand, you know, what's behind us. um But keeping an eye on that future.
00:44:01
Speaker
What do you think the future of work is going to look like? you know a lot of people like to talk about changes, switches, and and how and where we work. But what do you see? I mean, you're working with organizations that are constantly in transition.
00:44:18
Speaker
That's a... i I do think the... I think we could see a little bit of reaction in that, like I i joked, I started in sales because I didn't want to be in an office all day.
00:44:31
Speaker
Well, now with remote work, which allows me to work from a woodshed in Spearfish, South Dakota, which is- Everywhere is your office. Everywhere is office. But I am in an office every day. And you know there's a lot of people who are like that. we've I think- I'm seeing a a reaction where people are valuing in-person, true human connection and experience. And I think, you know, this year at HR Tech, there's a lot of energy in the room. And I think part of it is it's exciting to see people in 3D.
00:45:00
Speaker
Now, I don't think i don't think ah like a hybrid work model where you're making someone come into an office two days a week and then work remote the rest. I'm not saying that. I just... The degree that we can personalize our interactions, ah I think that's gonna uptick. On the sales side of the world, which I'm also very exposed to, i think all the AI tools that are coming out, once they're fully effective, they become useless because it's just gonna spam everybody.
00:45:28
Speaker
And that's why i think you're seeing more and more organizations move to a partner led sales motion because you realize, hey, it's the human connection, the referral, the the mutual trust.
00:45:40
Speaker
That's where you can differentiate. And maybe that's the ludic in me. But I do think, you know, it's not all not all tech is progress. And there's still human elements that I think we hunger for and will exist in the future.
00:45:54
Speaker
I love that you just said not all tech is progress. And i really think that people forget that. you know i think that to some degree, you know with as as far forward you know that AI takes us, you know you talk about you know that that next big, most important thing in the world is really going back to that human connection because we miss it. We crave it. We need it, right?
Generational Differences in the Workplace
00:46:26
Speaker
We don't want to be best friends with a ah computer that is going to think faster than us, is going to be probably more articulate than we are, um right? So it's almost like going backwards to some degree, right? Going back to go forward.
00:46:42
Speaker
Yes. and and i And I really like that. And I think that that's a very cool way to to look at it. Um, it makes me wonder because, you know, talking about how the human connection being really that one of those next most important things, I want to hear your opinions on some new challenges and, you know, and, and maybe even requirements for employers, like how much are payroll and benefits and compliance and worker classification and and the like, how much are they going to wind up changing over the next year or five
00:47:20
Speaker
I don't know if the regulatory environment will change a lot. I do think in terms of benefits, we have to be thoughtful about what people value.
00:47:31
Speaker
And maybe there's a demographic where, you know, a PPO health plan with all your voluntaries and your elections is really important to you but i also think especially with gen z they're just wired a little differently you know like the career mobility moving fast i mean a lot of them have peers who are founders and so the whole you know i'm kind of more on the gen x side of things like you work your way up and you earn it and you get promoted based on your experience i don't think gen x or gen z thinks that way and it's easy to pick on them but if you look at what's going on in the market like gen z is dominating a lot of categories and they're disrupting and so they're probably surrounded by peers who have had tons of success without having tons of years
00:48:23
Speaker
in the work world so thinking about things like what's important to them flexibility i think being able to be nimble move fast develop product really quickly those are all things that i mean they're just used to an instant on-demand culture whereas you know i came up and you know, every three years, maybe we came out with an enhancement and the way tech is now.
00:48:46
Speaker
It's kind of great. It's crazy to think that the only thing that separates Gen X and Gen Z is like one letter. You think that it'd be like half of the alphabet. But, um you know, yeah you bring you bring up a very good point and and I'm reflecting on that.
00:49:04
Speaker
How do you see your own work you know, changing or or, you know, what ResNav does evolving? I mean, some of we shared, I shared a little bit of some thoughts. I also think something that we as a leadership team and our our CEO has set the culture with this is if you can move fast and be decisive, you can differentiate. So we do move really quickly.
00:49:31
Speaker
If we see something, we go after it. He, he was a, um, college, he he played football at in college and he had a coach who said, Hey, there's going to be times where you don't know what the play is.
00:49:46
Speaker
And he's like, just hit somebody. You might get the wrong guy. i don't care. But what I don't want is for you to stand around be like, don't know what happened. And so i I think at least at ResNav, that's our culture is like, we're going to go hit somebody. We'll make the wrong decision, but like fail fast. And yeah.
00:50:04
Speaker
you know we're seeing So like documents is a big thing in our business that materialized over the last three months. We used to not do it. Now we've got automations being built. We've seen it as a need. So we're moving fast. And if there's other adjacent industries where we see that there's historical data document problem, we'll move fast. If there's ways that we can be more useful to our partners and build connectivity, we'll move fast.
00:50:29
Speaker
I like that. Go hit somebody. As long as they're on the other team, um go hit go hit somebody. My final question, I really love to ask you know people everybody this really. you know you know if If you're approached by an HR leader or an entrepreneur, you know business owner, operator, those folks that you know come to you for for help, you know what's your single most important piece of advice about managing their workforce and their data What do if you only had, you know, a minute on an elevator up to the top floor before the door opens and they walk right out of there? What is that, you know, one thing that you tell them?
00:51:06
Speaker
I would say, i think crawl, walk, run, like start, do things excellently. So sometimes it's easy to get lost in like huge transformation, but where I see the most impact is like where you implement it right, you build it right, you message it right, and then you build on there. it doesn't mean you have to move slow, but HR leaders are being tasked.
00:51:28
Speaker
It's such a cliche, but do more with less. Like everyone wants to cut HR spending to the degree that they can. So, but if you can get results that show meaningful outcomes and you can really, really, really engage with employees, be transparent, recruit them in the right way, set them up for success. I just think you'll, you'll differentiate. There's ah it's it sounds easy, but it's hard to do.
00:51:55
Speaker
Yeah. I love it.
Conclusion and Engagement
00:51:57
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me today, Gabe. i really appreciate all your insights. Thanks for having me, Curtis. Yeah, you bet. Well, this has been another installment of Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. Thanks for joining us. Please like, share this episode, subscribe while you're at it.
00:52:13
Speaker
Be sure to visit mustardhub.com to learn how we help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and turn culture into a competitive edge. Be sure to sign up and be one of the first to get started with Mustard Hub for free. Until next time.