Speaker 1: Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor.
I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise
where we help leaders activate performance without burning
out their teams or themselves.
If your team could use a boost of inspiration
and action, I'd love to support you with a workshop
or a program or a keynote.
You can find out more about me
and my work@leadabovenoise.com.
So we're back with the fourth in our four-part summer
short interview series.
And today's guest is Jamie Klein.
Jamie is the founder and CEO of Inspire hr,
which is the HR leader's go-to partner
for interim senior experts on strategy and execution.
And in this quick hit conversation, we talk about some
of the workplace trends that Jamie's seeing these days.
We cover ai, return to office,
and what's happening with DEI and more.
So enjoy this conversation with Jamie Klein.
So Jamie Klein, founder and CEO of Inspire hr.
Welcome to the Modern Mentor Podcast.
Thank you for being with me today.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Rachel, thank you
so much for asking me to join.
Speaker 1: It's my pleasure. So you
and I have known each other now for quite a long time.
We crossed paths back in the day when I was still working
full-time and you were doing this crazy
to me independent thing
and you were one of those women
who really helped pave the path for me.
And so thank you. You have been doing this now.
So you run Inspire HR
and you have been doing this for, I wanna say 19 years.
Is that correct? Yeah,
Speaker 2: This is our 19th, which is crazy
because I'm still 28,
so I'm not sure how that math works out. ,
Speaker 1: It was amazing when in fifth grade you
started up <inaudible>.
We were all so impressed .
Speaker 2: Why Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you today, Jamie,
besides just adoring
and respecting you generally is so you run this organization
where you yourself
and the amazing swath of experts
that you have on staff are going into lots
of different organizations these days
and working in the realm of hr, whether it is project based,
engagement based, you know,
whether you're covering somebody's leave.
But the point being you are just inside of
so many different companies and you're seeing things
and you're hearing things and the workplace feels like the
absolute wild west these days.
And so I wanted to pick your brain just about
what you're seeing and what you're hearing and
and what's really capturing your
and your expert's attention these days.
Speaker 2: Sure. And again, thank you for having me
and I'm flattered by what you said.
I've been a Rachel's super fan for a long time,
so, so happy to be here.
And I love your firm as well.
So what we're seeing is it's so interesting,
it's pretty consistent, no matter size of organization,
zip code industry, you bring a bunch of people together
and the same stuff goes down.
I think folks are pretty AI obsessed at this moment
and it feels akin
to when the internet first started And you know,
you would see some companies say, oh you know,
we're gonna have our customers continue to go
to our really thick phone book size catalog rather than
going on and kind of looking at our inventory online.
And some people were earlier adopters.
It feels a little bit like that.
I've heard countless people say AI is not going
to take our jobs, but the people who really are agile
with AI will take our jobs.
So I am seeing a trend across HR
where everyone is curious.
I think that there is a spectrum of kind of early adopters
to folks that have fully implemented it.
So for example, Pfizer, I think that they have co-CEOs
and we run these monthly HR salons
and we are recently talking about companies
that are quite extraordinary
and someone relayed the advisor.
It's kind of embedded the use of AI is kind
of embedded in goals at a company level and
therefore of course it trickles down to the point of
where they've had prompt aons really helping
employees understand how to come up with the best prompts.
Because what I've heard from countless authors thought
leaders is that less important
that you have the answer is more important
that you ask the right question
because we'll all be able to get the answers.
It's how you prompt and so how you ask the question.
So a lot of organizations are doing things
to look at the entire employee experience
and really challenge their HR team to think
how do we automate, create efficiencies,
get rid of joyless work.
And a hack that I heard um, recently is when you are talking
to chat GPT, Gemini, Claude, whoever it is to ask
what other questions should I be asking you
to get the most thorough answer?
I thought that was really smart.
And we've seen organizations do everything from utilize AI
in the applicant analysis system.
I think most candidates these days,
they really look at the job description
and then they attach their resume
and say, please update my resume to
most beautifully meet the moment of
what this job is looking for.
So I think recruiters assume that people have kind
of had their resume a little bit judged up.
But what people are really using AI effectively for is to
screen those resumes
and really understand who has had, you know, the basic,
you know, like successive promotions is always coming into
um, more senior roles shows innovation.
So teaching AI to do that.
Recently we were told that one of our clients had it stopped
that for the first round of interview you get on with
and the candidate knows in advance it's just a screen
and AI asks a number of questions
and the candidate answers.
So you don't have to get all, you know, gussy up
and put on, you know, a fancy outfit
because you know that you will just be talking to a machine.
But companies are using it,
I would say most heavily in the TA space
because it's such a high touch heavy volume.
You need an army of people
to find the right candidate and schedule interviews.
So there's lots of hacks there. So
we're seeing the most use in ta.
We're also seeing it used um, in other parts
of the employee life cycle such as succession planning.
So kind of what used to take data analysts, you know,
weeks now in minutes,
AI can take all this disparate information
and really aggregate it, whether it's in the form
of PowerPoint or PDF or performance reviews
and look at it to look through top candidates.
I could go on but by another example is kind of um,
all the verbatims through employee surveys
and all the things that people write, that sentiment kind
of AI aggregating all of those themes.
And of course this has all be password protected
to protect the company's ip,
but clearly everyone is exploring where they can automate
and have high impact across the employee experience.
Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: Fascinating there.
I can't even count the number of different things
that I just heard you touch on in there as far as where
AI is showing up, how organizations are using it,
it sounds like they're using it at kind of macro levels
to do data analysis,
but they're doing it in ways
to create higher touch experience with their employees.
But then it also sounds like they want their employees
to be upskilling themselves in terms of prompting
and questioning and so it's kind of touching at every level.
Speaker 2: Yeah. For folks who are wanting others to kind
of dive into the pool and kind of make all the mistakes
and kind of teach them, but companies who are just kind
of dipping their foot in the pool, what we always say
to those organizations is ask your employees
to even try doing something personal.
Like, you know, help me plan the perfect place for a picnic.
Here's my zip code, what do you recommend?
Or I have to plan a birthday party for a loved one.
What are some creative ideas? Just I'm planning
a vacation to go to the beach this summer.
What are some great spots in the Jersey shore?
I wanna go to Sonoma. What are the great vineyards?
Whatever it is, because then it's self-motivated
and folks see the user friendliness of it.
And so that is kind of a quick way to get folks excited
and interested and more comfortable.
But a lot of organizations we know they are telling their
employees paste most draft emails into AI
and just hit Polish
and it will come up with more succinct appropriate language.
Then you can say, do you want it more business-Like,
do you want it to be more casual?
And it can ju it either way,
but yeah, it's here to stay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: That's really interesting.
And what about organiz?
Are you still coming across organizations that are fearful
of AI that aren't yet for sure giving them their access
and what's your hot take there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I totally appreciate it,
totally appreciate everyone's at their own point on the
journey and I think that the organizations
that are the most fearful are so
because of the concern of data breaches.
So you know, just the notion
that you could put all your IP out there,
even if it's password protected
and you know, two years, five years,
seven years from now, who knows what's ahead.
That information could be there
and I think it is founded, right?
You need to just make sure that your tech team is very much
staying up to date on all the things that can be done
to make the organization more confident in using ai.
And you know, you think of any other type
of massive change in work
or on the home front where we've had this type
of transformation,
there are always gonna be those organizations that want to
wait and see others kind of make the mistakes,
lessons learned so that they can kind of dive in.
But Erica Swin, who's a future of work leader that I love,
she put in a, a newsletter recently that the jobs that kind
of summer interns are doing this summer
most will be able to be done by AI by Christmas , right?
Like this is the pace at which things are working.
And so yeah, just really encourage folks
to cautiously get on the bus within
their comfort zone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have one more question on the AI front for you.
And this is, this is really just kind of your perspective,
Jamie, but you know, I hear people,
on the one hand I hear people talking about, you know,
the importance of ai
and we have to, we have to develop a comfort with it.
We have to develop skill and agility with it.
On the other hand, I I hear people saying things like,
I would never use AI in my writing.
My work is all original.
I would never use AI in, you know,
and I I feel like people are sort of struggling
with this tension between yeah, you know, I need to learn it
because it's a new technology,
but I don't want people to think
that I am not doing original working or thinking.
And so how are you seeing people
kind of navigate that tension? Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've heard multiple authors
and marketing folks talk about that.
Think of all the, you know, the strikes that have happened
with, um, all the late night talk show hosts.
They're like, you know what, without my team,
I actually I'm not as funny.
That's right. And so there are, there's a lot of concern.
It's their ip, it's their craft.
So I think that there is validity to that.
I think that the art of being able to take someone
to take the ideas in our beautiful human minds
and kind of put them on paper is really a precious skill.
And what is my take, my take is that
the human will always be able to bring to the writing
true empathy, true lived experience that is shared true.
Oh my god, remember that thing that happened
to us when we both worked at American Express years ago?
I mean, AI will never know that,
but I think that there's a magic middle that probably has
to be found because three, if we were to do this, you know,
catch up again in 20 28, 29, it'd be,
it would be really interesting
to see if I'm just taking a job.
The employee communications teams at organizations
are finding a way to integrate AI in some way
that I can't even envision sitting here in 25.
But as a quick example, you can now attach documents.
So let's say that a communications leader comes out of a,
a brainstorming meeting of how to get a town hall ready
and there's disparate pieces of data, right?
There's a PDF, there's
something written on a piece of paper.
You can attach all of those things
and AI can kind of take all the disparate information,
come up with a draft to give you a running start rather than
you, you know, literally sitting there going through slides
and figuring it all out.
So I think of it more as
what did our mutual friend Ian O'Keefe from Iona say?
He said, it's not an Ivy League intern.
It's like having a really eager intern.
So someone who's like, I have, I'm full of energy.
Let me try it this way, this way. Oh, you want it that way?
You want it in bullets, I can do that.
And they never get tired.
Speaker 1: That is, that is very funny.
But that is a very helpful way to think about it.
It's like a hungry, ready, set hands. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes. And it's not perfect, right?
They may get nuanced wrong
or misunderstand that you actually want this in language
that is meant for, you know, an audience that's from Canada
and that joke would fall flat or whatever it is.
So it's, I always think of it as a first draft
or a running star,
but there's an art to creating the first draft. Yeah,
Speaker 1: For Speaker 2: Sure.
That I think is, is going to be unfolding for all of us
during our career in our lifetime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: That's awesome Jamie, and thank you for, for having
that first conversation about AI with me.
I have not talked about it on the podcast yet,
so tell me what else, what else is on
your radar, on your mind?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. OMG ,
everyone's back in the office for real.
So I've, multiple organizations are looking
to hire chief people officer as head of hr
and from the jump they're saying it's four days
in the office, one day virtual.
I think that it's harder change management
for long-term employees who have been there
and had massive flexibility.
And then it was 3, 2, 2 3.
But it's really four one that's, that's a thing.
And I was in Midtown Manhattan two days ago for coffee
and literally I walked into this coffee shop,
it was adorable at 53rd
and Lex Devo, I'm probably saying it wrong,
it has some fancy pronunciation of the word devotion
and literally they were like 14 people in line for coffee.
I was like, where did everybody come from?
But it was like, it was a long line, it was a long line.
It was a, it was a moment
where I realized people are back in the office.
They are, you know, we used to talk about how bring, we want
to bring people back for moment that matter.
The idea is, you know, if you're gonna kind
of drag everybody in, you can't have 'em sitting there on
their laptops on Zoom calls.
But now it's less moments that matter.
It's this is how work is done.
We want to be able to quickly do that old thing
where you can kind of grab someone
and say, Hey, can we just kind
of come in and debrief on that meeting?
I know we just finished the meeting in the conference room,
but now we need to like really talk about
what really happened in the room, the conference room
and kind of grabbing people in the hallway.
And I think what's happening is there was
that moment in Zoom when we were all virtual, where you felt
that everyone had a level playing field
because we were all in the Hollywood Square boxes.
And then it kind of went to, alright,
some folks are virtual,
some folks are in the room, that call will end.
The people who are virtual will feel like, wow, I dialed in.
I set that meeting. But then the people
that were there could kind of have
that side hall wait conversation going back to their desk.
And now what I'm seeing more is, it's like, like Hamilton,
you wanna be in the room where it happens,
like it's really happening in the room.
And if you are not there,
there're you're at a little bit of a disadvantage.
And this, if we had spoken Rachel like, I don't know,
12 months ago, I wouldn't have been
talking about that as much.
But I think that with this new administration that is in,
it's also set the tone
and it was always that ripple effect
into the private sector.
But I think that we, what we've seen definitely since
January is more of a urge to be in the office.
So what that means is for many of our clients,
they have employees that are in multiple states
because people, you know,
worked at the office in Pennsylvania,
but then during the pandemic they decided to move
to the Catskills in upstate New York.
But now they have that treasured employee in Catskill,
you know, in upstate New York
and they have to kind of drag them back to Pennsylvania
or say we're sorry.
But this job now sets in Pennsylvania
and I think that organizations
for a while were comfortable having, you know, new text laws
and understandings of all the things and very per state.
And now I'm seeing less and less of a interest in that.
So that's another kind of big trend I'm seeing from kind
of the, the quick coffee shop observations
to the, um, the reality.
Um, and some of our clients have gone.
So, you know, as far as to say for you
to have a strong career path here,
you are expected to be in.
So there's a lot of change happening real time.
That's kind of another big thing.
And the last thing that is really
on people's minds is the whole shift around DEI.
So I know that you
and I growing up at Amex, you know, the way that we operate
and the way that we work is, you know,
inclusion is always woven in to the work that we do.
It was in the company goals, it kind of cascaded down
and it's kind of how I approach things.
I know that you do too.
And what we're seeing is that
since the new administration has made various announcements
and changes that even, you know, private sector
companies are really impacted.
So companies have done everything from
closing down initiatives.
So picturing, you know, a big four consulting firm that had,
you know, the female partner track initiative just
closing that program down
or the program that was
for high potential women has been rebranded to now be open
to anyone high potential
and also rebranding of the way that things are discussed.
So what I'm hearing is that every organization,
every HR leader wants to very much
have the same initiatives,
but they need to make sure
that there are no metrics associated with
what success looks like and they need to rethink the word.
So I'm seeing departments now be called things like
belonging or trust or transparency,
and I don't know a lot of organizations
who have done the following.
I'm waiting if any, if you know of any, please let me know.
But I would love an organization to get up
and just say, we are rebranding things
because we want to stay sustainable as an organization
and we want to be very agile
and kind of in the moment of
how things are discussed now, the work is the same .
I think a lot of leaders that I've just kind
of read about are kind of saying, you know, as you know,
we've never focused on inclusion from traditionally
marginalized in group, you know, groups as, as a metric.
We've always focused on merit
and people in the town hall are like,
that's something I've never heard you talking about merit
as like the currency in which things are treated.
It's assumed that it's merit,
but we also knew that we had initiatives to make sure
that folks who judicially didn't have a seat at the table
had the path to get there.
And we were really intentional about it.
And I think that employees are adults
and they have long-term memories
and everyone remembers all the work
that's been done since the murder of George Floyd
and the overdue racial reckoning in our country.
And so many employees were made to go
to mandatory training and all these things.
And now those things have wound down
and employers I think need
to speak more honestly about why things
are getting rebranded.
And I think it's, we wanna stay sustainable
and be relevant as an organization.
This is kind of what we need to do.
And the work is still the same
and the guts are still the same,
but I think that more of that straight talk is helpful.
And I also think
that trust feels like a luxury item these days.
So to kind of build those moments of trust in small settings
with employees and just speak really plainly,
I think is really key
because employees know that it used to be called DEI
and like their water bottle that they had said that
and now they're, they've decided
to call it employee engagement.
So I think we are all working, living and parenting
and really unprecedented, interesting times.
And what I also see is that HR leaders who are at the helm
and trying to think about the impact
and all these changes to employees are also
having a, a little bit of burnout.
And I know you've done a lot of discussion about that
in your multi-part series
and I think that that's an important thing.
You know, self-care for HR is always top
of mind, um, for us.
So yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1: It's a, it's a lot.
I think, you know, I came into this conversation
with a firm belief that things are complicated and messy
and people are a little exhausted,
but I think you just put some really nice specificity to it.
I'm wondering what advice you have, Jamie,
for any just regular citizen in an organization who's
listening to you and thinking like, oh my gosh, yes,
I am feeling all of that.
I am feeling like suddenly we're not allowed
to talk about diversity
and we're pretending it never happened.
And also I have to be in the office four days
and that's actually gotten really challenging in my life.
Or I actually feel like I'm a lot more productive
and I have a couple of days from home
and all of this stuff is moving
and also the economy is uncertain
and so I'm not super engaged,
but also I'm not ready to leave my job
because, you know, I don't have
that confidence right now of,
Speaker 2: Of course. Um,
Speaker 1: How are you just offering people advice just around how to
navigate this season?
Mm-hmm. We're in how to keep your head
above water, how to build community.
I mean, whatever feels meaningful.
What are you advising the people
around you come to you for counsel?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I do not have all the answers,
but these are the things that I'm personally trying
and telling all of our clients to try.
So I know this sounds crazy perhaps,
but whatever you've done for self-care, double it.
So I have one of these ridiculously large things.
I try to drink two of these every day.
I mean, isn't it funny, like remember when you would go
camping for a whole day
and like your parent would have a
canteen for the whole family?
It was like this big , right?
So like, so if I know I'm gonna have an intense day, I try
to drink three, I tend to walk a mile or so every day.
If I know a crazy intense day of meetings,
I'll throw an extra mile.
I eat a lot of kale really like, I try
to get eight hours of sleep.
So kind of things that I've always thought were kind of nice
to have, I always say or need to have
because I think that our nervous system, as sophisticated
as we are, we have these devices in our hand that we can,
you know, do a thousand things
with the human nervous system is built in a certain way
where it's I think only capable of
processing a certain amount of stress
and change at a given time.
And the more fuel we kind of put in the tank,
good nutritious fuel,
I think the more we can ask our nervous system
to kind of do more.
Um, and fuel could include things like taking a
break from difficult news.
There's this, um, a newsletter someone shared
with me called Nice News where you can kind
of have a quick update on what's going on in the world,
but it is a little bit over indexing
and on sharing good news
or making sure that you take social media breaks
or make sure that you surrender yourself with people
that are optimistic, not unrealistic, but optimistic
and find joy in small things like, I don't know, you
and I both live in homes that have clean water.
Yeah. When we open our tap, you know, I don't know, we have,
I know there are occasional moments where there is
intense pollution,
but when we had, you know, various fire fires in Canada, you
and I live in the New York area
and we had those fires in Canada summer of 23.
And if you remember the, the sky was just really dark
and there was such toxic air.
Do you remember that? I do. We'd been so busy, right?
So I had, um, I had a call with an old friend
and colleague that morning who, when that all was,
was going down whose family's from India
and we were talking, she said, you know what?
She said, it smells like my grandmother's house.
She, whenever I go back
and I see our relatives in India, this is just kind
of what the air smells like.
And living in the New York area,
we have not experienced that a lot.
But on days when I'm overwhelmed, I think, you know what,
at the moment, you know, I can fill up three of these.
I got the tap water from the fridge that's kind of working.
I've got the clear, like, it sounds so basic,
but just trying to get back to kind of some
of those fundamentals because there is a lot we don't have
control over right now.
So, um, and then I do a lot of reading
and another thing, um,
and I always say to our leaders, if you can take a,
a break on the podcast all about leadership,
just give your brain a break
and just just read with, you know, fun for fun sake.
So yeah, those are just some quick things.
I mean it is nothing off the charts,
but you know, things that we haven't all discussed
or thought about, but I think it's about, um,
oh and one quick thing.
I do leadership team meetings every Monday with my team
and we always start with the one minute mindful meditation
because I know I'm guaranteed
to meditate at least on Mondays,
you know what I mean? Like, oh wonder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 2: I think it's little,
it's like literally a standing thing on the agenda.
But these little things that just kind
of help nourish our nervous system to do all the hard things
that are in front of us with being, um, you know, citizens
of the world and running companies. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Jamie, thank you. We covered a lot
of ground in a pretty short amount of time,
but I always appreciate your observations and your input
and so thank you so much
for sharing all of this with us today.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, thank you for having me.
I could talk to you forever and I appreciate
the chance to check in. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks Jamie. Take care. Speaker 2: Bye.