One way HR tech platforms are failing is by having a weak dashboard. This part of the application should provide an optimized "at a glance" view of critical data points and tasks that require action. However, it seems as if most of these platforms are designed around HR compliance, data, and metrics...yet that shouldn't be their approach. It's unfortunate that these platforms are used by employees, HR, and also finance. That typically forces designers to choose who to build the platform for, so it's always going to be a losing scenario for someone.

There are some hot buzzwords that are floating around in the industry lately, particularly skills, and up-skilling. While a focus on skills and its development is a noble pursuit, it's quite possible that a lot of these organizations are just blowing smoke. Everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon on this topic without actually making any improvements to the skills development aspects of their platforms.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast.

We used to live in a very company-centric economy, and the paradigm of power has finally shifted towards the candidate. With this change comes the necessity to up your game. There are even situations where candidates can tell which hiring tools you're using, and prefer to not apply simply for that reason. The applicant has the means to look elsewhere for work, so with that comes the responsibility to transform your place of work into an organization worth investing in.

On the topic of resumes, it seems as if the industry is finally evolving past the static idea of a piece of paper defining someone. Showing your skills will always be more important than stating them (or rather convincing the hiring manager that you have them). Self reporting should not be a way to judge an individual, and there's a possibility that in the near future what defines a good candidate will drastically change.

Skills, however, has become such a hot topic in today's landscape that many business leaders can't agree on what direction to take. What does it look like to build a skills based job description? What is the correct assessment strategy? Higher level though like this is almost muddying the water in a sense, when it should be as simple as going back to the basics. What are the educational requirements, the technical requirements, and soft skills that accompany it. We can evolve recruiting without making it more complicated.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast.

People get so hyper focused on their deliverables that they seem to forget that humans are behind it all. Employee engagement tools seem to be a way to bring a human element back into HR. We have to make sure we're taking care of our employees to give them the opportunity for them to be their authentic selves.

Human resources traditionally helped to protect the company and to ensure compliance, yet nowadays it feels like it's actually becoming what the title suggests. We have tools to clock into work on our phones, conveniently request time off, or discuss important issues through an online portal instead of the anxiety of addressing another human. These technologies have both benefits and issues, though. Removing all of these vectors of human interactions could make an employee feel as if the company is not a set of people, but a structured platform of programs. It's important to balance carefully between technological advancement while also retaining the human element.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast.

Skills are not just buzzwords that will disappear, giving way to the next new hot topic. Companies like Fuel50 back in 2016 were working on internal mobility, and nowadays it seems like that sort of thought process was leaps ahead of the times. While it is a popular focus nowadays, having a properly catalogued taxonomy of employee's abilities will be a cornerstone of both the recruiting industry and all companies moving forward.

A focus on up-skilling is great for employers and also employees, as it's a very human focus. Being able to develop a range of skillsets allows employers to focus less about recruiting and more about internal growth. On the other side, employees get the recognition they deserve and the opportunity to improve their resume, capabilities, and even to some extent: their self worth. Growth is something most people constantly thirst for, and bringing the opportunity right to our feet allows individuals to satisfy those basic instincts.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast.

On the topic of skills, it's easy to not fully grasp the abilities of your workforce. If you don't successfully get an inventory of skills for your team, you might let a really amazing worker transition into a different company. Building talent isn't the only step, however. You need to cultivate a positive work environment so that these employees have the inclination to stay. Building skills doesn't always foster loyalty, that's a whole separate ballgame.

We've built a culture around YouTube centric learning environments, where the younger generation understands that learning can happen in short and efficient segments. Gone are the days of hour long classroom marathons. We in the industry have started to make multi channel engaging content that delivers the information while actually engaging the viewers.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast.

The phrase skills has become the new buzzword of the year, but a lot of these vendors and executives don't exactly use the phrase correctly. A lot of skills development platforms don't seem to be as effective as advertised, and it has a lot to do with talent mobility being the supreme issue to tackle. Having your talents be recognized is important, but personal interest and the desire for self development is the driving force to talent mobility. Understanding how your employees want to grow is an incredibly important aspect to your company's growth.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast.

Live at the HR tech 2022 conference, our two guest Jason Averbook (CEO of Leapgen) and Jess Von Bank (Head of Brand Strategy at Leapgen) speak with Mark Feffer about acquired and desired skills, the ebb and flow of this fluctuating industry, and the shift in employee power.

There's been massive shifts of trust, work types, empathy and humanity over the past few years. This industry has been flipped on its head and we need to rethink almost every single aspect of HR. We're in the middle of the biggest work experience shifts in human history.

Employee power has also shifted as well. The individual is finally given the opportunity to work on their own terms, in their own homes, and with little supervision. This isn't a loss for employers, they just need to figure out how to play the game differently. But these changes are not a moment in time, or based on the current economic climate, it's an evolution that's here to stay.

Every day 4 people retire and 1 person enters the workforce. Talent scarcity is only getting worse, so organizations have to cater to these new youthful archetypes that are breaching into the labor market or else they won't ever be able to keep moving forward. But do we actually have a labor shortage, or do we have a skills shortage? Skills have seemed to transition from "what you know" to "who you are" which is an even harder, more abstract concept to wrap our heads around.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast!

Russell Klosk talks about how we're finally living in a "data-driven" profession. There's been a lot of talk across ATS systems, talent marketplaces, and analytics organizations and that information has finally become accessible enough to make analytics a fundamental part of the HR space.

It's not about creating more jobs, its about the adaptability to up-skill the workers you currently have. But when it comes down to it, will this up-skilling help your employees grow? Adaptability is the new hiring technique. You already have that employee within your organization if you're patient enough to allow this individual to blossom.

We're overusing the term "AI" in this job environment. We have machine learning, massive intelligent databases, robotic processing, but if we're gauging the strict definition of the word...we are not there yet. Digging through the data trenches is a little messy, because it begs the question: at what point is this data collection pass into the creepy territory? Asking your employees to give up their freedoms for the sake of innovation is a pretty hard conversation to have in today's market. People are still quite estranged by anonymous data, as there's quite a lot of circumstantial evidence to figure out who this person is.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast!

We're bringing everything back to our roots at this HR Tech conference. Companies are reenforcing their core offerings, and it seems sticking to what they're good at is the best way to shine. Products and organizations are trying to stay their course and make sure they're the best product for a specific goal, instead of trying to be the "all in one" solution that does everything in mediocre fashion.

Buy, Build, or Borrow...the age old question.

Borrowing skills will never go away, because it's always going to be the most efficient and quick way to solve a unique problem you'll only encounter a few times. Buying skills is difficult, as talent is scarce nowadays. Growing skills might just be the best solution in today's market. Who would have thought that growth platforms and LMS's have become a reasonable alternative to hiring platforms?

The only issue is having to rethink titling and compensation for these up-skilled workers. Most companies want to grow their employees from within, but that comes with the added challenge of letting these blossoming employees shine in the manner that they deserve. Internal growth comes with more financial overhead than just the training process; you need to be comfortable with compensating these individuals more for their newly acquired skillset.

Getting to a point where learning is acknowledged as an important organizational goal takes a lot of restructuring. Business leaders, upper management, and the company culture all need to be on the same page so that identifying internal growth opportunities is seamless enough to even attempt it. Propping up your employees is no easy task if you never have done it before, but with the right effort and mindset any organization that puts in the effort can get there.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast!

Chad thinks that these HCM systems and companies are so big and bloated that they're sort of broken, yet some of the smaller companies don't have the baggage of living in the past. He is hopeful that these newer organizations will help change the industry.

Joel, however, is a bit "old and grizzled," and doesn't get very excited over the newer startups in the scene. He's seen plenty of these smaller organizations rise and fall in the past, and has little faith in the small dogs. Joel is also ready to bow down to their robot overlords, and is awaiting the day when his lunch will be delivered by a pair of steel hands.

Ninety percent of candidates eject from their application simply due to the cumbersome nature of the process. Can we work toward flipping that number so that we can actually get a decent pool of candidates? The hiring process sucks right now, especially for the younger generation. They don't check email, so what other communication methods can we use to stay in touch?

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast!

A lot of companies will blame the technology they purchased for their own failures. If we aren't clear on what problems need to be solved, often times you end up pointing the finger in the wrong direction. New tools without the appropriate support can sometimes make things worse. It's the common issue of using a wrench to hammer in a nail, or being given a table saw without any instructions and then wondering why you only have 9 fingers.

Skills seem to be a driving force of this conference, but is this a hot topic or a relabeling of the same conversation? Skill definitions helps managers and leaders find the gaps in their workforce, and hopefully this dialogue actually pushes the industry forward. Learning has become quite the issue lately as technology platforms get so robust. Often times we're looking for a solution to a business problem, but it's buried in a package of other skillsets that you need just to do what you want.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast!

HR needs to understand the business that they're working in so they can be a part of the conversation in company decisions. We have a lot of people exiting the workforce because people want to make their own rules.

If you don't build the skills of your employees, they are more likely to leave. People are hard to find, so instead of hunting these rare few gems, how about let your current workers shine and enable their growth? Having an inventory of skills that you need is the first step in the process, then you need to close the gap. "Buy or Build" is a common theme of this industry as of late, and it's a hot topic as to whether to hire out your problems or grow from within.

However, technology could be the solution here. Employees can finally add their input to the conversation by adding their abilities to this inventory of company capabilities. Now, we have the ability to organize our companies in such a way that will allow these workers to grow in the direction they want. If you can up-skill your employee, it will make them feel heard, engaged, and appreciated. It's really easy to answer that recruiting email when you don't feel as if your company values you as an individual.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast!

Skills are a common conversation at this conference and in HR in general. Building these abilities has consistently been a difficult issue in this industry because the first thing to get cut in a recession is training. Companies are more inclined to find a fast solution to their problem, so the "buy or borrow" options look much more lucrative than building skills inside the company. However, they're missing the big picture.

Not investing back into your employees will allow them the chance to seek this growth elsewhere. Incremental, self-guided learning needs to be accessible enough that your workers will jump towards the chance to build their skillset. If you can give them the self satisfaction of building their abilities, they will return that gratitude with loyalty.

But, learning is just a component of the bigger picture. The company needs to CARE about the employee. Showing empathy and awareness of your employee's needs is the best way to have a strong retention rate. Don't just try to grow your employees yet give them the cold shoulder, and then expect their undying dedication! Get them a certificate of completion, shower them in appreciation, and don't stop the dialogue at "good job!"

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast!

There's a lot of focus on how to identify and source the best talent, along with ensuring growth of your employees within your organization. Labor shortages has hit almost all industries, and it's making up-skilling more important than ever. There is also a strong interest for employees to be taken care of. People would prefer to evolve, changing jobs is a risky move that a lot of people don't want to bother with. Funny enough, all of this dialogue about employee needs and desires yet pay is the last thing on anyone's mind. It seems like as long as income is reasonable, in a lot of cases fulfillment is the priority for employee satisfaction.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast!

The pandemic has changed everything. There's been a shift of power to talent, and organizations have to do things differently now.

In regards to the common topic of skills, you need to have a long term plan. It seems like the biggest issue right now is that nobody knows the capabilities of their own employees. Some organizations such as Fuel50 are shedding insight into the skills of employees, but the entire industry needs to get on board with identifying what their workers could do with the proper training.

It seems like you need to have an AI enabled HR tech stack to succeed in this industry nowadays. These technologies give you advice on the probability of getting your call returned, precise job history, and even what sort of diversity groups they belong to. Trying to do everything "the old way" without all this data means you're flying blind...and good luck with that.

Employee experience is another important avenue for growth. Every culture is different, so these solutions can't always be standardized across organizations. Keeping people feeling included, prioritizing mental fitness, and preventing burnout seem to be successful strategies to keep your workers on board and motivated.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to our friends at Fuel50 for sponsoring this podcast!