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Why the Best HR Conversations Aren’t Overproduced with Robin Schooling
4 Plays22 days ago
What makes a conversation actually matter? Why do so many leaders overcomplicate it?
In this episode of Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes is joined by HR veteran, author, and podcast pioneer Robin Schooling. With more than 25 years in HR, Robin shares what she’s learned about community, curiosity, and the power of honest dialogue. Robin also reflects on her writing journey, including her upcoming book Real Work, and how a life-altering health scare reshaped her urgency and perspective.
This conversation is a reminder that meaningful work — and meaningful leadership — doesn’t require polish. It requires humanity.
About Robin:
Robin Schooling is an HR leader, author of Real HR, and People + Work Strategist with advisory firm Velvet Cubicle where she helps teams and organizations turn people strategy into something real, practical, and human. A veteran of more than 25 years in HR, she’s led people and culture work across industries from healthcare to gaming and has a particular love for diving into the middle where strategy and everyday work collide. She’s co-host of the long-running Drive Thru HR podcast (on the air since 2010 and close to 1,700 episodes!), speaks to HR and Talent audiences around the world (3 continents thus far), and has, somehow, never stopped blogging. Her second book, Real Work, will be released in January 2026.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest Robin Schooling
00:00:07
Speaker
Hi, everyone. It's time again for Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. In these episodes, we speak with the people building, backing, and running better workplaces. I'm your host, Curtis Forbes. Welcome to today's Fireside Chat.
00:00:21
Speaker
My guest today is Robin Schooling. Robin is an HR leader, an author of Real HR, and people, work strategist with advisory firm Velvet Cubicle.
00:00:34
Speaker
where she helps teams and organizations turn people's strategy into something real, practical, and human. A veteran of more than 25 years in HR, she's led people and culture work across industries from healthcare care to gaming.
00:00:49
Speaker
and has a particular love for diving into the middle where strategy and everyday work collide. She's co-host of the long-running drive-through HR podcast on air since 2010, close to 1700 episodes, speaks to HR and talent audiences around the world.
00:01:08
Speaker
That's three continents thus far.
Robin's Book 'Real Work' and Podcasting Insights
00:01:11
Speaker
and has somehow never stopped blogging. Her second book, Real Work, will be released in January of 2026. Welcome to Behind the Build, Robin. I'm really happy that you're here. Curtis, I am delighted to be here. i love having these sorts of conversations because I think we're going to good one. um i You know what? judging by ah Judging by the bio, we have a lot to talk about. and and And hopefully I'm going to get a lot of tips on how to run really good podcast. Let's talk about that to start off. What is Drive Thru HR? Who's the show for What should your audience expect, et cetera?
00:01:57
Speaker
So Drive Thru HR ah began in february of um it'll be We'll be hitting so seventeen hitting our 17th year next year. So um in February will be our anniversary. And I was not one of the starters, nor was my co-host. of A man named Brian Wempin started DriveThruHR.
00:02:20
Speaker
um And he did it by himself for a couple of years. And then he he um he got a co-host in William Tin Cup. Two of them did it for a while, and then they felt the need to sort of ah move away from it, and my co-host Michael joined in, and then I joined Michael. So I have not been there for all 1,700 shows, although I was a guest very, very early on.
00:02:45
Speaker
cool. But i ah Michael and I have been co-hosting together now for almost nine years, I guess it is. Wow. And Drive Thru HR has always been – about the the community of of anyone working in or around HR. And so, it you know, these we were doing that show before the term podcast was even used. We used to call ourselves a radio show.
00:03:14
Speaker
And used to do it live, you know, completely live. People would call in. It truly was an old school radio show. And we have...
00:03:26
Speaker
our guests have ranged from, ah you know, practitioners. I love talking to a ah HR practitioner practically more than anything. um But lots of founders, founders of, of HR tech companies, um you know, authors and influencers to use the word that you know, we love to throw around in HR so much um people doing, you know, interesting work, interesting projects, people with interesting jobs. We've sometimes we just, we just get somebody on who has a really cool job that we've never thought about before. And we, approach it from, you know, our angle of that. Let's talk about what you do. And so um it's, it still remains what it started as at the beginning. It's just a conversation with people who are doing interesting work. And we always managed to wrap it back to, you know, what we consider the center of the universe, which is human resources. And I joke when I say that.
00:04:30
Speaker
Well, you've you you have been, I mean, first of all, doing anything for nine years, right, is going to lead to some level of expertise. We're obviously two seasons in. I would love any tips, tricks, advice you have for me as we gear up for for the third season. Yeah. give me Give me some advice.
00:04:51
Speaker
i think I think part of what we've maintained over all the years is we are not overly produced.
00:05:03
Speaker
um And we've sort of kept this this ethos. and And we often say to our guests, it's as if we're sitting down at, it's, you know, for your beverage of choice. That's the coffee shop. That's the corner bar, whatever it is, right? And we're just having a conversation.
00:05:19
Speaker
it And so we've always sort of kept that vibe um until a few years ago. We didn't even send, we didn't even really kind of prepare any kind of questions. oh wow We've gotten a little bit into that.
00:05:31
Speaker
somewhat depending on the guest, um, over time. Um, ah but you know, we, we haven't overthought it. It truly has always been, let's just sit down and talk about, here's this concept, you know, what you do or your take on,
00:05:49
Speaker
the latest, you know, ah you know, national labor relations act, you know, update, whatever it might be. and And we're going to dive into that and we're going talk about it. And we just, and we just talk.
00:06:00
Speaker
And so I think that that, um that sense of, of community building, learning from each other, just hearing what somebody has to say, that's really what's driven the show. um And so we,
00:06:15
Speaker
ah Again, until we used to use a different platform than we use now, um who went out of business. We lost 1600 plus shows to the, you know, Internet, you know, um we've lost the show to the Internet. You know, theyve they've they've disappeared. You know, so all all these shows that we had, um you know, 15 plus years of shows just are gone.
00:06:40
Speaker
Um, which is okay. It's not that anybody was going necessarily going back and listening to them, but they could, if they wanted to. And we sort of had this historical record plus really great SEO. Well, that all went away, um, because they went out of business. And so we've gone to a new platform and out of necessity now, uh, because this is what's out there, right? Um, we've got all the fancy tools, right? So we record and we, you know, edit. No, we didn't edit until a year ago.
00:07:06
Speaker
Um, and we very lightly edit now. Um, but we, you know, we don't use, we're, we're still kind of old school. We don't use video. yeah Um, you know, we're just, it's just audio and, um, and we just have these conversations and that's just sort of been our, our jam.
00:07:25
Speaker
I like that. I like that. well And you're an author. And I'm an author. So tell me about the upcoming book, Real Work. Yeah.
The Velvet Cubicle and Workplace Dynamics
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah. So I wrote, this is one of those things i had wanted to forever and ever, right? I'm goingnna i'm going to write a book.
00:07:40
Speaker
um I had a um a near-death experience just about a year ago. i almost died. Yeah. And when I kind of came out the other end of that, um beginning of 2025, I thought, well, I'm finally going to finish this book that I started. And so i picked up what I'd started 10 years ago, reworked on during COVID, never finished it then, and said, let's let's get it together. It's not long. It's not cumbersome.
00:08:09
Speaker
it's It's not some heavy-duty, heavily-researched thing, but i needed to i needed to finish it. And so real HR is part, I call it part manifesto, part guidebook, part memoir.
00:08:25
Speaker
um This is why i work in HR. This is how I practice hr This is why I do the things I do, how I believe HR should be. It's really written for h r professionals, HR practitioners who are perhaps questioning, especially those who are questioning,
00:08:47
Speaker
why do I continue to work in this crazy chaotic profession? um is Do I need to leave? Because I see a lot of HR folks over the years, I've seen a lot that, you know, could get burned out and and just want to perhaps start something different because they are exhausted from working in ah HR. So this book is written for them because, ah and the memoir part comes in when I talk about how I went through that and yeah came out the other side. So that's real HR real work is coming out. Cause once I got the bug, right, let me write this little book.
00:09:26
Speaker
Oh, well let's write a companion book. So real work is coming out in January. Yeah. And it's somewhat of a companion book. Like if real HR was, you know, backstage, that was for HR folks and, and real work is, you know, center stage. It's for everybody. It's um it's for anyone who's ever had a a job or hated their job or survived a job or, you know, worked at all and wonders why, why is what we do? So, so freaking ridiculous. Yeah. Um, what, ah why do these rules exist? Why, why, um, yeah you know, why are workplaces the way they are? in because it's sort of this, um, this absurd thing, if you really think about it, we have these systems, we have these rituals, um,
00:10:22
Speaker
we have these ways of operating from, you know, in industry to industry, workplace to workplace, there's these things that are kind of truisms, no matter what, why?
00:10:33
Speaker
yeah and why does it have to be that way? And why, um you know, why do we put up with the, the angst of working and how can we make it better?
00:10:46
Speaker
And, in that and, this is not a, This is not a, you know, to coach you through some great, you know, make your learning moment of do this and all will be wonderful. And if you're a leader, this is what you need to do. This is more of a um ah think about it as a person in the workplace and what you can do to make your life better at work um and how you can have an impact on perhaps changing the nonsense that
00:11:18
Speaker
at at your organization, um, when to ask things, when to bring things up, when to point out the absurdities. Um, so it kind of gets at that. I like that. I love that. And I can't wait to read it. Um, definitely will. Uh, yeah, it's definitely going to shoot to the top of my list. Um,
00:11:38
Speaker
I had no idea that you had a near-death experience, number one. I did. And number two, I actually would like to clarify that you did not come out the other side. You actually stayed on this side. And I think we're all happy about that. Because had you come out on the other side, this would be an entirely different podcast. yeah Yes, yes, I would.
00:11:57
Speaker
So um let's talk about the Velvet... Cubicle. um I absolutely am in love with that name. um Let's talk about what it is first. What is the Velvet Cubicle?
00:12:10
Speaker
So I, um ah you know, I have I've played around in lots of um organizations and roles over the course of my career and recently just left. Yeah.
00:12:24
Speaker
a firm named humor research is a HR consulting firm. Uh, it's our outsourcing firm, uh, primarily and, um, struck out for the moment, um, at least on, on my own. And it's another one of those, what do I want to do moments? Right. Um, and so velvet cubicle, um,
00:12:48
Speaker
was actually ah i've owned the domain for quite some time because I, I love the name as well. And I always thought, what am I going to use this for? I don't know. Well, when I decided to sort of hang, hang my shingle up, um I thought, well, I think that's a perfect one um to use as, as the name of an organization and thinking about what I want to work on with people. Um,
00:13:17
Speaker
and And it got me thinking about, again, these lot of these elements that are in real work, the book, um as well as real HR, the previous book, which is, okay, if I'm working with HR teams or ah HR professionals, you know how do they impact what real work is like, right? Well, that all sort of comes together when you think of The Velvet Cubicle. So it's it's a little um it's a little naughty sounding, which was also on purpose, um because it's it's thinking about this lifestyle, if you will, that we have have at work. And so there's this like velvety seduction.
00:14:00
Speaker
um You know, it's the smiling recruiter at the university job fair or, you know, the HR team that's, you know, branding what it's like to work at the company with smiling faces all over their, you know, career site, whatever. um You know, the rah-rah kind of stuff that, that sucks you in to an organization. That's the velvet part. And it's very enticing and it's very appealing.
00:14:26
Speaker
And then you get in and you're in the cubicle and that's like, you're ah you're a beautifully appointed cage. um And the cubicle can be an actual by God cubicle. Yeah. Or it could be, you know, i'm I'm behind a register because I work in a service industry or I'm on the plant floor and I'm at my station doing whatever. It's whatever your work place is and your place in that workplace. And so that there's the velvet cubicle. It sounds great until you get in there and and we're in there and then we become. I'm telling you I take this analogy a long way, right? But it's then we become blindfolded.
00:15:08
Speaker
Yeah. if it If you will. And we don't see what's right in front of us. Why are, again, it's it's those absurdities that we put up with at work.
00:15:21
Speaker
um And this this consensual, quite frankly, restriction that we place on ourselves. And and we're we're handcuffed and we're blindfolded and we just kind of go along with the you know, these, again, these rituals and these ways of working and these ways of doing things um that we have just normalized. And what if we could step back when we need to and, and stop doing that and question it.
00:15:55
Speaker
And how do we question? So how do leaders stop themselves from replicating these patterns and these rituals, you know, forever? And then how do, again, I speak from the HR side because I am HR, right? by yeah How do we as HR leaders or HR professionals also break um break those things that can be broken, that should be broken?
00:16:24
Speaker
How do we stop doing um some of these things that are unnecessary um and need to be changed? you're asking You're asking all the right questions. You're asking, in fact, you're even asking the questions that I want to ask. and I feel like you're you're supposed to have the answers to these, Robin. But let me ask you, before we get, I want to touch on all of those things. In fact, I don't want to ignore any of them. um Before we jump into that, before we talk about leadership, before we talk about some of the pitfalls that they often find themselves into, before we talk about some of the things that they're often doing,
00:17:00
Speaker
blindfolded to that they don't even see. um Tell me about the kinds of clients that you work with. Let's kind of set the context, right? We don't have to name any names. Tell me a little bit about, you know, what, what the, who those clients are and, and how you collaborate with them first. Yeah.
00:17:18
Speaker
Well, and again, it's, it's um it with this iteration of, of this new velvet cubicle, you know, brand, if you will, um You know, it's a it's at the infancy stages, quite frankly. My sweet spot has always been um mid small and mid-sized businesses. That's my jam.
00:17:45
Speaker
um I am not the, let's go work with a great you know enterprise organization. um Could I? Would I? Sure, of course. Sure. But um where I think the conversations can happen and the change can come faster um and an impact can be measured, observed and measured quicker um are in small, meat mid-sized businesses. um i
00:18:18
Speaker
you know, industries, any um industry agnostic. I've worked with worked at as an HR practitioner, but also then worked with everything from, um you know, hospitality and, you know, retail to manufacturing and healthcare, you know, so I've worked in and in around all of those sorts of industries. So, you know, I think it's really where I see,
00:18:47
Speaker
ah the types of organizations ready to ask these questions and say, okay, we're on this precipice of change in the world of work right now. um and i And where I see that question being asked tends to be there are newer leaders coming in um
00:19:16
Speaker
that are new, new to the organization. They've maybe inherited, um, some past practices. Um, I think of someone here that here local to me that I recently talked to family owned hundreds of employees been around forever in a day.
00:19:36
Speaker
Um, the original family, you know, and there were a couple of generations, right. It's sitting at the, you know, leadership level over, over time.
00:19:47
Speaker
um Those family members, while they are still financially involved in the organization as owners and whatnot, every one of them has moved on out as day-to-day leaders.
00:20:02
Speaker
It's no more a family member who's a CEO and the COO is somebody's daughter and whatever. they are now after several generations, this organization is, there's a new CEO who actually even came from in, from out of town that they hired in, which is unusual where I am.
00:20:19
Speaker
Um, they are at this turning point right now. And, um, this is when they're and This is when they're asking those questions, need to be asking those questions of themselves. What are these things, what are these rituals that we have always had because we've done it this way for 50 years?
00:20:42
Speaker
And is that still the way to do it? How do people want to be um led Or managed? does it mean Does it mean the same thing as it used to? So those, I think, organizations sort of going through that are ripe for change.
00:21:01
Speaker
I'd like to ask you something along these lines because you've described really well, I think, the questions that they're having, right? The questions that they're asking, whether they're asking to themselves or they they find somebody to help them, they're asking the questions.
00:21:22
Speaker
What I'm curious about is when these organizations show up on your doorstep, do they usually have some clarity around what these obstacles really are? Like they're asking the questions, and I'm curious if they think they already know what the answers are, what they should be doing. Do they sometimes think one thing's the problem, but it's actually something else? Or how tuned in are employers when it comes to the actual issues with their workforce and HR people ops yeah after just asking the question?
Engagement Surveys and AI's Role in HR
00:21:53
Speaker
I think... Yeah. And I think that that gets, that gets right at the, at the crux of it. um There are the the natural default that a lot of, and kudos to them for at least having this level of awareness, original, original and natural default is for, you know, God bless the CEO that even thinks this way. Right. Cause HR will usually think this way.
00:22:24
Speaker
God bless a CEO who does. ah Well, let's, um you know, let's let's do a let's do a pulse check, right? Let's do it. And I hate the word engagement survey, but let's do an engagement survey. Let's do some pulse surveys. Let's take the let's take the temperatures, kind of how i I like to phrase it, right? um And so they'll start with that. Kudos for for asking the questions and wanting to get some feedback.
00:22:50
Speaker
Hooray. However, there's this, still this sense of, okay, we'll do that. And, you know, and maybe we'll even, um it's not even an an annual sort of survey or feedback cycle. Maybe it's a, Hey, maybe we're, we're, we are going to do a weekly pulse check, whatever it might look like, but they'll,
00:23:15
Speaker
there's not enough thought given to what do we really want to uncover? And so sometimes those typical, if you will, engagement questions, you think of the Gallup, you know, 12 type of thing, right? Which everybody can answer in their sleep by now.
00:23:31
Speaker
um They start and stop with that. And there's a secondary piece of this assessment that, that is harder for leaders to do. And that, because it becomes much more of a, of a mirror on them, you do an engagement survey, typical engagement survey. It's very easy to say, okay, well, we uncovered these things. And the problem is with, you know, what our employees right now, of course they're mad and they're upset and the score is X because blah, blah, blah.
00:24:05
Speaker
And so they will, you somewhat readily wash their hands a bit. Well, it's because of the employees that we have. and it's also yeah it's easy to point It's easy to point the finger at the people taking the assessment, right? There's no mirror that they have to see themselves. Exactly. And so I think that mirror, the second piece and what needs to happen now and what leaders, executive teams need to do is ask different questions and measure different
00:24:37
Speaker
um criteria, you know, take ah take a look at different things. So that may be things like, um you know, it's it's doing an assessment on, well, how do we work?
00:24:49
Speaker
How do we work together? How do we, um what are what um the, what are the rituals that we do? What, you know, are our leaders visible in the hallway?
00:25:02
Speaker
Um, you know, whatever it is, but it's, it's getting a much more granular look at some of these workplace idiosyncrasies and how that colors the workplace.
00:25:15
Speaker
Um, we say it's, you know, work is a nine to five, um there was a a damning article. I don't know if you read it that came out last week in business insider about every everyone's favorite or not favorite professional HR organization.
00:25:37
Speaker
um And it talked about the um the workplace angst to use my phrase for that. I use with velvet cubicle of, of what people are going through as employees,
00:25:53
Speaker
At that organization. And that um there were there were stories that that employees had told the reporter of, um you know, working at headquarters at the headquarters office in D.C., that if you walked in at one minute past 9 a.m., you had to stop at the security desk.
00:26:15
Speaker
And before you could go up to your office, a member of the executive team had to be called to come down and escort you to your office. Because they were trying to make the point that, you know, we want you here at nine o'clock, we want you here at nine o'clock. And if you got there at 901, that was not nine o'clock. And so this humiliation ritual had to happen.
00:26:37
Speaker
um that's the kind of stuff that needs to be uncovered. And that's very hard for leaders to listen to feedback on that. But that's it an employee who writes that or captures that in, in the typical narrative answer to engagement survey, they're discounted.
00:27:03
Speaker
Oh, well that, you know, I think Trixie wrote that because you know, she was upset. um I'm curious about, you talk about uncovering some of these things, right? I think ah ah to some degree, right, you're also talking about, you know, educating some of these leaders, leadership, employers, yeah and, you know, obviously, you know,
00:27:29
Speaker
You provide, first of all, I think you provide a lot of education and workshops, right? And and yeah it's important because the training, the upskilling, the reskilling, things like that are super important. Not just, you know, upskilling and reskilling, but also, you know, the things that you're talking about and all these different things that you're uncovering, you have to teach people how to deal with them, how to fix these problems, how to right how to create these better workplaces. And and you know it's it's you know as vital now as it ever has been, arguably more important. I'm i'm curious if the employers, and I guess members of the workforce, everybody, right is...
00:28:07
Speaker
engaging with continuing education to a degree that's required to stay competitive, to stay competent, um, you know, to kind of stay on that, on that front line. Is it, is it happening as much as it should?
00:28:19
Speaker
i think, um, again, I think we're at this really, think we're going to look back at, at 2025, 2026 is this really weird time, um, where this convergence of all these things are happening right now.
00:28:35
Speaker
Um, you've got the explosion and, and yes, it's been around. Yes. You know, we all, what was that three years ago? I think chat GPT came up, opened up for the first time, right?
00:28:47
Speaker
But this year has been insane in terms of people in their day-to-day work, interacting with pick your tool, right? Claude perplexity, whoever, right. And people interacting with it.
00:29:01
Speaker
um So we've got that exploding um coupled with, the uncertainty in the economy, what's happening, there's layoffs, there's jobs being eliminated, there's, you know, all what's going to happen. Oh my gosh, if I, if I'm ah a tariff dependent business, you know, oh my gosh, i am I going to keep the doors open? All of this stuff.
00:29:24
Speaker
And so I think learning has taken somewhat of a backseat because there's budget constraints on the one hand, and then there's, you know what,
00:29:37
Speaker
um maybe for 2025 and I think for 2026, we're to just charge everybody in our organization, especially if you think of an an office-based workforce, right?
00:29:50
Speaker
We're just going to charge everybody with learning AI tools. And so in there's, you know, go forth and learn,
00:30:01
Speaker
But go forth and learn on your own and here's some resources and maybe we'll, um you know, okay, we've built an internal whatever. We're using, you know, co-pilot internally or whatever. So here's, you know, it's kind of this internal stuff.
00:30:16
Speaker
But we've we've told people to learn on their own. i think more rather than budget or build something. that's applicable to our organization or to our industry. And I think we're going to be, um we're going to regret that because simultaneously, if you look at recent grads and new grads that will be coming out of, that'd be high school or college in the next couple of years, um the schools are struggling with the same thing.
00:30:54
Speaker
And we're going to have um a challenge in in the next five years of we didn't teach people um how to work.
00:31:10
Speaker
I feel like that needs to be framed and sort of meme memed or something like that. So just, you know, off the cuff reaction to this, is AI a positive or a negative ah driver?
00:31:23
Speaker
Man, you know, Instant reactions, Robin. Instant reactions. think it's both. I really do. i'm I'm going to go right in the middle of the the road on that one um big because i think I think it's both. um I think the the benefits are... And and again, I'm speaking...
00:31:45
Speaker
especially in the world of HR. i have seen more HR professionals latch onto in 2025, something new and exciting and how to make their jobs easier. And I see a lot of people using some of these tools to help them, the generative AI tools, right? To help them with a lot of the day-to-day stuff.
00:32:08
Speaker
um I've got HR ladies that will say, oh my gosh, here's this prompt I used and look and it generated this letter for me. Fantastic. You just saved yourself whatever, 20 minutes. Yay. Right? So that's spectacular. And I see a lot of people excited about how um they can use that generative AI and or set up some agents to do some of that administrative work. That's great. And with that then also comes an understanding of, you know, the stuff that we never really kind of want to, you know, Ooh, I couldn't say what an LLM is and now know what I mean. Right. So we sound really, we're we're learning as we're using these tools.
00:32:50
Speaker
Um, the bad part is when, um, and again, it's, there's, there's two, two things that are the cautionary things, right? It's the ethic, the ethics behind it.
00:33:04
Speaker
Um, are these tools built and or being used ethically? Are we, you know, mitigating bias, all that kind of stuff, you know, is worrisome. um And then again, the worry of will people become too reliant and, and not learn what's behind it. Right. It's like you know,
00:33:27
Speaker
You know, we're of a certain age. So back in the day, even though we had calculators, we couldn't use our calculator in class sometimes. Right, right, right. Because the teacher wanted us to learn how to do the math.
00:33:38
Speaker
The critical thinking. It's the same sort of thing. Yeah. there's lot of other people problems in organizations today also, right? Yeah. Burnout's a big one. Yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
Something I imagine you could probably speak a lot to given your you know experience in consulting for so long and and and being on the outside of the organizations looking in Is that something you see getting better or getting worse? Do you think that ai and other technologies are helping or hurting that particular situation? Are that are they helping or hurting what?
00:34:15
Speaker
The idea of burnout. The burnout piece, yeah. specific Some specific context is I know that AI can – look, people are getting let go because ai can take their jobs. yeah But also not only can a AI take a job, it might not be able to take every job, but it can certainly do a lot.
00:34:33
Speaker
It's also created this expectation where folks should – not could, but now should – 5X-ing, 10X-ing their output because of the new tools that they have available. so Talk to me about that.
00:34:48
Speaker
Yeah. i I think you're spot on with that. And that, yeah, when we think about burnout not now, I think that is just, we're going to have to come to a reckoning with that, I think, also in the near future. I think people are starting to realize exactly what you said of, yeah,
00:35:11
Speaker
okay, well, Sally's got all these, you know, she can just go plug that into, you know, Claude and pull something up. Well, you know, Sally's working. it was bad enough when Sally had to work, you know, between Zoom and five emails and Slack. And now she's got, you know, five different chatbots open that she's working with and expected to do the work of three people.
00:35:34
Speaker
And at some point, Sally's, it's going to be too much. um And so it's, I think we're going to see the same,
00:35:47
Speaker
um you know, sort of effect on the human beings that we've seen with any other kind of burnout, right? It's stress. It's being overwhelmed. It's, um, oh my gosh, why am I working longer hours when I'm supposed to have this technology that's helping me? And we're going to see the physical manifestations of that, um,
00:36:10
Speaker
Coming out. Yeah, i like I really feel like that's, and you know, people talk about AI taking jobs. People take ah to talk about AI augmenting our our capabilities. yeah But don't hear a lot of people talking about because of the new expectation of what a how AI should be able yeah to augment your work. There's a new expectation now that will eventually lead to more of this burnout. We know that burnout is is a factor that leads to lower productivity yeah and employee engagement or disengagement, I guess, for that matter. yeah It leads to a lot of turnover. yeah I think it's kind of interesting while it can increase your productivity, Yeah.
00:36:54
Speaker
Now, the the level of or that of that burden right and that expectation that's placed on you to 5X or 10X your output right yeah leads to this burnout, which will then lower your productivity. right So it's it's it's an interesting cycle that nobody's really talked about. Maybe and maybe it hasn't happened yet, right where the cycle has completed itself, so we don't know, or it's you know we're simply just – prognosticating I think we're, I think we're so, I think to your point, it some of it maybe hasn't happened yet because, you know, I forget the exact statistic, but it's, you know, the shelf life of skills now, you know, what used to be outdated and, you know, every two to three years now is, um you know, is shortening, shortening, shortening, right? If so, yeah,
00:37:43
Speaker
If we as an organization go to our employees and say, upskill yourself, right? Learn these tools, adapt. Here you go ah This is what you need to learn. Go forth, do it.
00:37:56
Speaker
um
00:37:59
Speaker
if If I'm out there trying to teach myself something, I have to start wondering, this isn't even going to last two or three years. This might be out of date in six months. yeah So I'm burning myself out.
00:38:12
Speaker
While I'm doing it, starting to wonder, is this even worth it? Talk about crippling anxiety. Yeah. Crippling anxiety of, you know what? and And that might lead me then to just, you know what? So I'm just going to do nothing because this is going to be out of date in six months. So you know what? I'm just going sit here and take my my pen and my paper and do that.
00:38:35
Speaker
So I'm curious your thoughts on the current employment market, number one And then you know, sort of that next sort of tangential thought from there would be, you know...
Employment Market and Human Connection
00:38:50
Speaker
um You know, in the context, I guess, of of the the employment market, right, for for those organizations that are hiring, looking for workers, for new opportunities, what opportunities exist. But what employers can do to attract and even retain the right folks, right? that That's sort of number two. And then I would sort of follow that up with, and I know this is kind of a long, long question, but...
00:39:15
Speaker
are Are they even, are these employers who want to hire people in this particular climate, right? And what do they need to do to find the right people or keep them? And are they even doing the right things right now as far as you can see, right? are Is the workforce getting what they need from employers, right, from these organizations they work for?
00:39:35
Speaker
i think um
00:39:40
Speaker
there's a lot of work that needs to be done by employers. um and and And always... hate Always has been. um There's always room for improvement. um I think in sort of how we talk to candidates, how we,
00:39:56
Speaker
um how people, how we find people and or how people find us, right. As the employer. um I think where a lot of organizations now are missing the mark is they have totally abdicated human,
00:40:14
Speaker
the humans or humans who used to be at the center of the hiring process. and that is with large organizations who are dealing with tens of thousands of candidates a month.
00:40:30
Speaker
That is with, and and it's also with smaller organizations. So one of the things that I've done ah ah bit of work on um over the years and sometimes for fun, which is really strange, but um is to um apply for jobs and and and And I've also done projects for for clients on this too, where what is your, um what's your talent attraction process system?
00:41:01
Speaker
ah what What are candidates experiencing that sort of thing? And just do a quick assessment for folks on what does that look like? And um that's, what's your website? You know, what's the apply process like? When do they hear from people, et cetera?
00:41:14
Speaker
How can that get better? And as we have, put more and more technology into the process, we've gotten worse and worse when we should have gotten better because quite often this technology lets you um communicate more effectively. um and ah And organizations don't even flip that switch and turn that on.
00:41:36
Speaker
So the story of candidates applying and falling into the black hole is of applications is very, very true. And that's only gotten worse. um and and some organizations think it's gotten better um because they can manage the flow of candidates. So they can manage hundreds of applicants at a time because, well, everybody's getting a message real quickly of, you know, thanks, but no thanks. We're not interested.
00:42:04
Speaker
um But there's zero human intervention in there. um And so I think that's the biggest mistake because, know, even even if you're an organization that is in a downturn for right now, right? Maybe I'm not hiring. Maybe I canceled all my open positions. But you know what? A year from now, I'm probably going to want to. Do I still, am I still going to want to have that talent pool?
00:42:30
Speaker
Probably, although that's sort of changing quickly too, because as a recruiter, I could go out and probably, again, through some of these AI tools that are available now. Not even recruiting specific ones. I can just go to a you know, pick somebody, but there are, there are certainly HR technology tools available now where I can create that talent pool like that quickly.
00:42:56
Speaker
Do I need to maintain my own? Maybe not. Cause if I, a year from now I can maybe start fresh. So the,
00:43:06
Speaker
That's sort of, there's a lot of thinking going on around there. And what does that mean? um And as an employer, how what do I need to do?
00:43:17
Speaker
What is the right thing? And I think it still becomes keep keep humans at the center. Humans want to talk to humans. um Be communicative with applicants.
00:43:28
Speaker
um Be truthful. with candidates, be truthful with, with applicants throughout the process um and get back to people and keep them in mind and make it a good experience for them.
00:43:41
Speaker
um No matter how much technology we surround it with, people will still remember how they were treated and we'll tell um that story. hundred percent. You know, I love all of those things. I'm, I'm, I'm right there with you. you know, and as, know,
00:43:57
Speaker
As this world of work changes, you know, as your own work changes and evolves, do you see your own work?
Evolving HR Needs and Leadership Advice
00:44:05
Speaker
You know, how do you see it moving, right? Will your clients need something different? Will you provide your services differently? Do you think you're going to find yourself advising on on new and different things that you, you know, haven't had to really talk about much?
00:44:23
Speaker
I think... you know, we always talk about this, right? The speed at which things are moving now is so fast, but it it really is. And I think, gosh, halfway through next year, certainly by the end of next year, I think a lot of what um what companies will need, or when I think of the ways that I were work with companies, is i think people will be looking to me and or others to say, help me make sense of what I've discovered, what I, Mr. CEO, have discovered through my interactions with AI tools and with technology. It's been a year now we've been interacting with this. Help me make sense of it and help me.
00:45:11
Speaker
Maybe not so much from an operational standpoint, don't I don't need to necessarily operationalize it, but I need to peopleize it. Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just makes it more human centered. Yes. yeah Which kind of leads me to a question. I mean, as we look towards that future, you know, do you see a certain people related insight, a certain people centric skill or competency that, that tomorrow's leaders are going to have to develop in order to thrive? Maybe more than one.
00:45:42
Speaker
I think. yeah Yes. and And it gets back to that. um That point about. you know, how we, everything moves so fast. And so I think that leaders now more than ever need to master um what I would call ah making, making meaning, finding meaning in the face of velocity. Yeah.
00:46:08
Speaker
Ooh, I like this. Yeah. and and And it's, you know, it's kind of taking all of those things and saying, um you know, we're in this era where the ground is shifting constantly and technology is disrupting and the market conditions are pivoting and the economy, God knows what that's going to look like tomorrow, whatever.
00:46:27
Speaker
um and And we can't even rely this moment in time, right? We can't even rely on some of the predictions, data from last month to help us predict, you know, three months from now, those things were in like this vacuum right now. It's really weird.
00:46:47
Speaker
um But to make, make meaning in this face of velocity, I think there's a couple of things underlying that it's, it's being agile.
00:46:59
Speaker
um But it's also being, Agile in an interpretive way. So it's not just saying, hey, here's what's changing. um And, you know, hey, we need to pivot.
00:47:11
Speaker
But that interpretive part of it is understanding why that matters. um You almost have to kind of be an anthropologist ah and and, you know, then be agile on top of that.
00:47:23
Speaker
um I think the second piece under underlying that making meaning in the face of velocity is um stewarding
00:47:36
Speaker
stewarding one's own identity. um it's like It's like stewardship of my identity um because my expertise that I have, my knowledge that I have, this is a hard one to think about. my knowledge that I have, the expertise that I bring might become obsolete or my role might transform beyond recognition.
00:48:02
Speaker
um Because, you know, what, what does that role of an HR generalist look like when an answer to any question can, I can go out onto the internet and Google something and, or an AI tool and pull everything up and a scorecard and a this and a that, what am I needed for?
00:48:24
Speaker
My role became at obsolete. Perhaps my expertise might become obsolete. So how do i how do I steward my own identity through this change? I think leaders need to think about that.
00:48:40
Speaker
And then it's, it's, um, it's also being, you know, in addition to being agile, it's also being flexible. Um, so it's, um,
00:48:52
Speaker
a it's being fluid um to some degree, but it's also knowing what needs to stay solid and what needs to stay as it is. And that becomes, that goes back again to sort of that whole, what does work look like? What our organizations look like in the land of the velvet cubicle, right?
00:49:09
Speaker
um Here's this stuff that is non-negotiable. This is the solid footing at Acme Corporation that will never change. But then here's this other stuff that might, and here's why.
00:49:22
Speaker
Yeah. I, um, I like that. i do like that. Um, you know, in the face of, uh, velocity, I think that that's, uh, that's really, that's really, yeah, you never to use that one I think it's really powerful. Um, last question and just, you know,
00:49:44
Speaker
kind of feel like I can get a lot of value out of this, right? Something I always like to ask as we sort of wrap up here, you know, if if an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur, an executive, one of those folks that that comes to you really looking for help, um if you have an opportunity to only tell them one thing, right, you just have 60 seconds, right? Your single most important piece of advice before they maybe turn around and walk right out the door. What can they do better as a leader when it comes to the people they work with What are you going to tell them?
00:50:15
Speaker
the greatest i yeah I'm kidding. I would say that that there what they need to focus on and and understand is that their greatest gift um as ah as a leader is is is to give themselves the gift of self-awareness. And the gift of self-awareness becomes really important when they can focus on the gap between their intellectual understanding. What do I know? What do I do? What's my expertise?
00:50:48
Speaker
And the organizational change that they want to affect. Yeah. So I may know these things. What's the change or the direction I want to go in?
00:51:01
Speaker
And where's that gap? What is that gap? And that because that becomes that self-awareness that becomes understanding the constraints that which might be around as a leader might be at a knowledge constraint. It might be a, what do I understand about people?
00:51:18
Speaker
um It might be my unwillingness to do something that's uncomfortable, yeah but it's finding that gap um and then pick, pick doing that, that self, you know, getting that self-awareness, understanding that um and then find ways to, to operationalize that.
00:51:40
Speaker
to to make it better, to get to that change. I love it. I love it. And I love the word operationalize too. I think that we- I think I've said it about six times.
00:51:52
Speaker
Well, that was great. Robin, thank you so much for joining me today. I really got a lot out it. And I just appreciate you being here and sharing with us all of your, ah you know, your experience and expertise.
00:52:03
Speaker
My pleasure. Thank you. Yeah, you bet. Big thanks to all of you tuning into Mustard Hub Voices behind the build. Please like, share this episode, subscribe so you don't miss the next one. Visit mustardhub.com to learn about how we help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and turn culture into a competitive edge. Sign up for free while you're there. And until next time...