Peter Louch of Vemo on Workforce Planning and Budgeting

Speaker A: I'm Al Adamson and I just had a wonderful discussion with Peter Lautz, the founder and CEO of vimo. Peter has a degree in astrophysics from UC Berkeley. He's had a fantastic journey in his career, uh, with Monster and others which led him to found Vimo in 2005. So he has been at this for a while. His perspective on the evolution of workforce planning and people analytics is unique and insightful and valuable. And it brings us today where the emergence of talent, intelligence and skills based workforce planning and the role of workforce planning and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is absolutely key. So he creating a technology company again, has a very unique perspective on the limitations of technology and the need to have processes. So organizations and leaders specifically are ready to adopt the insight to make informed decisions on how they recruit, how they design an org, how they accommodate disruptions from artificial intelligence and robotic automation and globalization and gig economy and all those fun things. So hope you enjoy the discussion with me and Peter and as always check us out@pafao.net and if you're interested in supporting this and other content like it, uh, please consider becoming a member. So thanks for being here and enjoy the discussion. Hi, welcome. I'm here with Peter Loudge. Peter, how are you doing?

Speaker B: I'm great, Al. It's great to see you today.

Speaker A: Hey, great to see you as well. I mean we've um, known each other for a number of years, my friend. And I was looking at your LinkedIn profile. It's been over 18 years since you have founded Vemo. Ah. So I'm very interested, as I'm sure our listeners are, on your perspectives on workforce planning and analytics and how it's evolved over the years. But before we get into that, I want to know a little bit about you and your background and what inspired you to get into this field because your educational background is certainly worth exploring. And I'll let you tee that up because I, as a, and I'm going to blow it, but as a layman, ah, physicist or someone who's interested in the discipline, you uh, actually have a formal education in it and how all the dots fit together and how things work. So if you would introduce yourself and a little bit about uh, vimo.

Speaker B: Great. Thanks so much Al. Yeah, so, um, yeah, it has been quite some time. It's an interesting story arc I I'm from California originally. I grew uh, up in a, uh, college town, Claremont, California. Nice place to grow up, um, and sort of uh, walk recently by snow nearby. Right. That's where all the Snows hit so hard in the sort of surprises. Mount Baldy, et cetera. I. I sort of had a background. I always sort of thought I would be a scientist originally. Um, that was sort of scientist slash musician or whatever. So those are my two key interests. So, um, you know, in my formative years you could find me walking up and down Indian Hill Boulevard, um, you know, heading to band practice where I play keyboard, bizarrely reading, you know, the Cosmic Code, which was a book on physics explaining the star of the universe. Very quirky, you know, didn't. Didn't really fit in, sort of, you know. But, um. But uh, it was consistently not fitting in. So that worked for me.

Speaker A: That's.

Speaker B: I think that's why I learned that if you're not going to fit in, you have to consistently not fit in. You're fine. Don't just bop back and forth between those realms. Um, so, uh, that's what I did. And originally, um. Um. I had like a, uh. I had a Russian roulette sort of dilemma when I decided to go to school because I had this one interest in becoming a musician. And that's kind of what I really want to do. But sort of I felt like it was unrealistic and sort of a tough life, um, and whatnot. And I really like the recording aspect in writing music more than actually the performing aspect of it. But then I also, um, did very well in sort of sciences and math type of topics. So I decided I would only apply to one school. And if I got into that one school, I would take that path. And if I didn't, it's like really bizarre behavior. Like, I try to relate it to, you know, my kids today and they're like, what is wrong with you? Who does that? Um, so I applied to Berkeley, um, and I actually got in there. So that then took me down that path. So I moved up to Northern California and went to UC Berkeley. Um, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do originally, um, in the topic, but I took a seminar, uh, um, on um, sort of comets and asteroids and extinction of the dinosaurs, et cetera. That turned me on to astronomy. So I settled pretty quickly in astrophysics, which is. It's sort of like a small. There's a large physics department and there's a small group of people who do astronomy and physics together or astrophysics. And um, that was a topic that it was really interesting to work on for quite some time. And um. My first really interesting, uh, job involving computers was that. Was that, uh, most undergraduates Were still sort of just doing the math and etc. But I got a job for a pretty famous professor, Alex Filpenko. He discovered Supernova 19AH87A. He's well known, he is like one of the most popular classes still at Berkeley today. And I, and um, he hired me to write a program. And this was before you know, the technology that could easily do podcasts and could do all the things with pixels. Um, they would take pictures of galaxies on um, large uh, pixelated frames and you'd have to do math to actually fit a light curve to understand what's happening. And so I wrote a program that would basically analyze pictures of galaxies. This was like in um, C type of language and automate the process of trying to understand what is the light curve and therefore how much quote dark matter is there in this. And so I was really sort of at that fringe area like sort of interested in the topic but really interested in sort of this, this computer science application, um, to that. And now this would all happen automatically, right? This is goofy stuff. People don't actually believe. Like is this real? No, that's not real stuff. You know, this just happens automatically. But it was my first kind of foray into like hey, what are the benefits of data automation and doing things in you know, and how much error checking? You know it's 95% error checking and 5% dealing. Right. In terms of that. Um, so that was a background um, and at that point coming out um, I didn't really perceive myself in the long term path of the PhD. I didn't perceive myself as going and getting involved sort of like in the nuclear industry, um, and things like that, which is a common path for that. So I sort of hit the job market and did various things with it. Ah, um, um, um really in sales and um, in um, things related to technology. And I eventually ended up kind of going back and forth between New York and San Francisco and got a company called Austin Knight which got bought by TMP which owned monster.com and so I was in a sales position for that company and um, got involved in the whole recruiting industry. And I was really amazed in this whole recruiting industry just um, how people would, you know, they place huge ads or they do these website efforts. There's sort of no measurement. People would just decide randomly we're going to recruit a lot of people. But there was like, didn't really seem to be a lot of planning behind it. It was just sort of like a branding and hurry up and look good and type of situation. Like that. And so, uh, I slowly started getting involved with some of these larger customers we worked on in terms of, hey, they might want to actually plan what they do. They might want to be more efficient. They might spend $10 million a year or $20 million a year advertising. So if you're IBM or SAP at the time, you might spend just really this mad money just constantly recruiting because a hiring manager says we need someone, they would cancel that. So how do you start actually thinking about planning it? And the people I work with in recruiting were sort of intrigued by this concept that they could add sort of more value, um, to this in this way. So it's sort of an interesting trajectory, still not really involving, um, the astrophysics piece. So, um, you know, at that time I developed my key sort of go to line which is, you know, this isn't rocket scientist, you know, I should know. You know, so

Speaker A: it's like you're trying to find the dark matter in recruiting. And um, there might in fact be some.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Hey, so before we go into. Because I want to hear what that experience was like with Monster and you know, how that evolved into workforce planning and you know, people analytics. Certainly, uh, Claremont, going back there. Were your parents, uh, professors, because if you don't know, if you're not part, uh, from California, that's where the Claremont Colleges are. Claremont specifically in Scripps and. And others. So did you have any affiliation with the universities, your, Your parents, that is.

Speaker B: Yeah, at the time. It's called the Claremont Graduate School. It's now called Claremont Graduate University. My dad was the chair of the philosophy department there. Um, and um, my mom had a very successful catering business in town that she catered for, um, you know, the, the dean of Pomona College and various entities. And so, um, one of my actually interesting experience in business is that um, is um, we used to cater a lot of parties that Peter, ah, Drucker would be at. And um, so, you know, um, what do you say, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And you know, and I served him breakfast a lot of times. Uh, because I worked as one of my jobs in high school is working at the, you know, working the family business, you know, cutting, you know, 1,000 asparagus, you know, um, making, uh, uh, I, I used to have some, some pretty good. I fell down on it now, but I used to have some pretty good bread baking skills where I could make the, the sheets of bread with the, you know, the designs that you see like in the window with the little cut out, little looks like A wheat, you know, plant, et cetera, things like that. So I did all that.

Speaker A: So, um, just so everyone knows, he said wheat plant. Yeah, Just for the record. Wow. That. Well, that's a skill you might have to bring back. It's uh, that. Yeah. Well, good for you. So I had a sense that, because, uh, going into astrophysics is not something that most just wake up one day and go into. And it sounds like there was a very. Not only academic, you know, when you talk about your dad being philosophical, you know, thinking big and hopefully and it sounds like. And I've known you for years, so I imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, created space for you to think more abstractly and open mindedly. And here you have a mother who is, uh, you know, if she's running a business, has, you know, discipline and you know, certain levels of regiment to, you know, organizing service delivery and you know, creating product and all that. So obviously I am writing my own narrative in between the lines here. But how much would you say, given where you are now when you're talking about these complex systems? And I have long shared that workforce planning and analytics was in a crisis of clarity and creativity and courage to do things differently because we have this inertia from the past. So that upbringing that you have had, uh, do you think it contributed to you being an entrepreneur in this field and actually applying your creativity to bring something new to life?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean a lot of those. I mean I think that a lot of things unwittingly, uh, you know, I grew up in a house where I don't think business was given much regard actually. It was kind of viewed as academics are where it's at. But I learned certain entrepreneurial aspects. Um, one is that, um, I could never ask like, what does this word mean? I was always told, look it up. So like, I used to sit there with this giant Oxford English Dictionary, you know, thumbing through it and you know, and trying to understand what everything meant. And so I learned a lot of these very entrepreneurial, um, sort of discovery, self discovery aspects because it was an area, it was sort of an upbringing where um, where I was always encouraged to sort of think about things. And then also, um, um, with what my, what my dad did. He was, he was sort of a leading scholar in constitutional philosophy, which is a really, you know, sort of very, um, dense sort of topic. And um, you're surrounded in Claremont at that time and it's a little less. So it's sort of built up a little bit more. It's sort of a destination, uh, in the San Gabriel Valley to kind of head to. But it used to be like everybody there was, you know, in the village was like their parent was this philosopher, that philosopher. Um, and, um. Or that teacher or professor. Um, not that many philosophers, actually. Well, in my case, yes, but so it's like you had that experience where you're sort of, like, immersed, sort of like, like, sort of like a close satellite to all this, you know, this learning. Um, and so I think that is an interesting thing and it does allow you to sort of, um, take some non traditional, um, approaches.

Speaker A: Um, well, you know, with that in mind, thank you for sharing. And if so, we go back to Monster and was it called Monster at that time and, you know, at that stage of your career? And again, I am coming from a very curious place on that. Here you have this big picture thinking, you have the tools, uh, from UC Berkeley on and how to think and actually how to do stuff. And I'm, uh, supposing. And again, I'm shamelessly projecting on this, that there was probably some frustration, uh, that, hey, you know, we could do so much more, but we're not able to do this, or there's not this willingness to make this investment. So for entrepreneurs, ultimately, they say, okay, enough's enough. I'm going to go do something, because it's not being done, you know, here. At what point was that? Did it take five years? Did it take 10 years? I mean, what did that look like?

Speaker B: Yeah, um, I think the thing that's interesting is that it was called a bunch of different things because it was a very acquisitive company. Um, I was, um. I was a very young manager who rose to be a district vice president. Um, really too young. And I think I was really much too full of myself. And I made a lot of mistakes along the way. Um, but the reason why I was initially very successful is that this, um, was before they talked about being agile and learning agile. I was really flexible. So a very senior executive told me, peter, Internet dollars are worth nine times more than traditional dollars. So I did the math in my head and I was like, all right, so we could sell this in New York and Boston instead. Um, um, and it'd be this much less, but it'd be actually worth like five times more to you. And we should take that risk. And they're like, yeah, do it, because we'll be rewarded in the market for that.

Speaker C: Um, um.

Speaker B: So I think I was on a fairly solid trajectory there because I had a lot of these frustrations and observations was very fast paced and I kept getting more responsibility and I didn't really, I didn't know what I didn't know. I was just going with it. Um, and then there was a really big meltdown um, at the company after 911 and recruiting industry really just fell apart um, in a very big way. And um, in the last days that really was something of a pressure cooker at the time. And um, the Martin became less interested in new ideas. I remember a meeting which I pitched. Hey, we have the job postings. Maybe we should give their job postings away and we should actually be responsible for a global job. I don't think I use the word taxonomy, whatever the right word. I didn't know that term probably to use that term that way. I thought we could own the language of jobs and give this away and if we own it then companies will come to us for this and then people really resist and like that's crazy. We would never do something like that. That's an idiot idea type of thing. Um, um. So in leaving that environment I then switched over to a consulting firm for a period of time which is, that's what really then spurred me towards the ultimate path. So I, I joined a small consulting firm called Brecker and Merriman that had just been bought by Manpower, um, to form the Empower Group. And these were, these were truly great consulting firms. They bought I think 10 or 12 of these boutique HR consulting firms that really had like you know, one of the best comp firms around that had Cisco as a customer in Australia. One of the best organizational development um firms, uh, in um, another one in the Bay Area that was one of the leading sort of OE company and, and um, leading early experts in what makes hourly versus salary work or things like that. And then the one I joined which was really into branding and recruiting. But, but um, the person who was the owner before happened to have started the HR Planning Society along with Jim Walker and had the sort of roots also in this area of workforce planning. So I came in to a company that had, was also had strong roots in recruiting and recruiting communications and sort of, but was looking to get more into these other areas like competencies and planning because of these shifts in the market, um, that was happening. And um, after uh, I was very confused about what consulting was. You know, I remember I asked the question, I said well so let me get this straight. We're, you know, we create These elaborate beautiful PowerPoint presentations and slideware and then someone brings us in and then we kind of substitute some of their stuff in it and then, you know, 100,000 bucks later, you know, that's. That's what they get. And they're like, yeah, yeah, that's it exactly. Don't overcomplicate it, you know. Um, so, um, so that sent me on a path where, um, where eventually Manpower, um, um, the CEO of Time, Jeff Jarrah, has pulled together a project, um, where he wanted to create like a theory of everything for manpower. So I got pulled onto one of these dreaded internal projects called Talent Value Management. Um, and the idea of that project was to basically create an, uh, overarching set of framework, uh, an overarching framework to describe sort of the cradle of the grave. Like everything from recruiting to onboarding to, um, outsourced recruiting to staffing, all the way to onboarding. Because in that time then they also bought Right Management, which was one of the leading, um, um, out, you know, firms of that type. So I worked on this for quite some time and it was very interesting. I worked with country managers across manpower. I worked with, um, the largest customers who were, um, hp, IBM and Honeywell, who literally had these sort of, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to spend and they were looking to start optimizing it and built like this really interesting framework. Um, and um, in doing so, I learned a lot about sort of the true, uh, area of workforce planning. Um, they brought in some leading experts like I mentioned. Jim Walker had written one that sort of original books that everyone followed. He handed that off to Tom Bechet. Um, so I met a lot of these characters who were influential. But it was interesting because they had written these texts and these approaches in a different time. And in that different time, workforce planning was like, let's kind of on paper, burn it all down, rebuild up demand planning from scratch of what we need to do, analyze our supply and make that decision, like if next year or if three years from now we should do it. So it was a very sort of strategic endeavor at that time that I was learning about. But I'd also had this experience in the sort of.com.com bubble burst, all this rapid change. You know, people were writing all these, these articles that um, you know, the future of work was starting to emerge. Workforce 2020 was a key paper that uh, Deloitte had put out that everyone was saying, work's gonna change. It's gonna be, you know, we start talking about gig economy, things like that. Um, so it was sort of, it was very dissonant in terms of like these, these Previous practices that perhaps were considered to be too slow with how fast work was starting to move with the Internet. And also, um, also, it's not even worth planning concepts. Like a lot of people say it's kind of almost like a dad discipline. I remember that, um, I presented at a BRASS spring conference early on and someone said, you know, did someone drop you on your head? You know, why would you ever want to plan? Things just move too fast. It's just like a waste of time around this. Um, so in doing that, um, I became frustrated with the fact that, um, that I was sort of responsible for a feature. Right, we're going to go in, we're going to talk this really large organization, we're going to pitch a bunch of fairly transactional things and we're going to have. You know, I used to call myself the workforce planning hood ornament. You know, I'd be like, you know, we're driving this really nice XYZ car. It's, it's. You can't even use the analogies you use with cars. It's all mixed up. Right. You know, but it's like the insert blank here. We're going to call it a Mercedes. You know, we're put the workforce planning put ornament on it. It's going to really entice all the people come in for this pitch, what they want to do. Everyone's going to dissipate. You guys go do the work now and then, and then it'll be like, hey, you know, maybe next year we're going to get into some of these concepts maybe three years down the road. This is roadmap stuff. This is fantastic. You keep doing what you're doing, um, kind of, kind of concept around it. Um, so as I went through that, um, I found that some of the customers I consulted, um, with, um, all said, actually encouraged me, there should be some sort of technology for this. And, um, you know, one thing you have to learn, you know, my, my advice for, for future entrepreneurs is that very few of the people who casually say to you, I'll be your first customer, actually mean it. Right? Very few. Right. Very few actually mean. I mean they, they feel it, but they, but they don't actually, they actually don't think that, you know, you're going to say, okay, I'll take you literally, you know, look it up. Okay, I looked it up. I'm doing it. You know, that, that just doesn't happen that much. Um, but a couple definitely did. And so, um, that ultimately led to like, how you Know starting fimo, um, as an entity where um, our first customer was, was the former Bell Labs. So was your systems. They are now they're not even maybe they're, they've been sold several times, you know, as an asset as this sort of semiconductor. And they had a big challenge around um, the fact that they were sort of the last of the major semiconductor companies to really to offshore their work, um, where most heads. So they had the foundries in the US still. Um, they had more patents than people, um, by far. You know, like they had some of the best patents but they had patents in areas that they didn't even do work in. You know they have one guy who had 60 patents and they were all in technologies they had sold off and no longer, no longer worked in many areas. So um, that was, that was the first customer that signed up and we, we basically bootstrapped into a technology company in that way. Really not knowing that much initially about sort of technology really trying to. Chasing like this problem. We want to solve this nuance problem. And one of the ways we want to solve it was that um, we sort of thought this would be a blend of consulting and technology and we're really going to focus on strategic workforce planning. Um, we thought maybe the rest of the space was sort of well taken care of. There's all sorts of reporting. It's easy enough. You know, I thought it was easy enough to get your turnover report. It wasn't and it still isn't, um, sometimes, you know, if you don't do it. But I thought that hey, that's taken care of. That's basic stuff. Ah, let's really focus on segmenting your workforce, putting these concepts of segmentation in place. And um, one that right when I was starting, one of the persons who encouraged me was there um, is a, um, sales guy in Seattle, Rich Doherty, super influential to me. Um, he was at right management. Um, he happened um, to be managing customers but had he had this whole other side I don't think he always brought, which was really intrigued by all his strategy books. And he um, he said when you start your company I want you to read these three books. I want you to actually incorporate some of that. So one of the books he gave me was the Jeffrey Moore book, um, from Crossing the Chasm around How Companies Build Strategic Advantage. So um, I think, you know, sometimes you overshoot your first thing you do. So originally we really, we really overshot. You know, we're, you know, this, you know, astrophysics background. Let's go for the Moon let's go the stars and beyond. So we thought like, hey, we could actually have software which would help people segment their workforce as part of the strategic workforce planning and um, help them figure out which workforces, help them build an advantaged organization based upon like that 16 box model of how you create value as an organization and then kind of poop out this is what your talent strategy is. And then executives would be in awe. Right. Of this whole thing. And um, we had some cool graphics, you know, really, you know, so really fit in, you know, like with a, you know, 3D sort of like, you know, dodecahedron of like what your talent was, whatever with the shading and the cross hatching and the stuff like that. And it was, it was really neat, it was really enjoyable stuff. But then um, when we went and showed to the next person, they're like, what are you? Like, wow, that's really interesting. What are you showing me? I can't even imagine when we'll be ready for that. Come back to me in 20 years, you know.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Um, and so, so, so we kind of went down a path where we, where we, we continued working um, as a young company on how do we started making this a little bit more practical for people to get started in the process. So, but basically that was the, that was the genesis l where basically doing this sort of consulting and knowing that there were really no tools out there at that time or, or very few or very few established tools, it seemed like a great opportunity to jump in. And knowing it was very early. Right. So sometimes you jump in really early and you help create the space. But, but it was a good thing to do.

Speaker A: Well, thank you for sharing that. It's super fascinating and actually creates some clarity for me because you and I have talked about this in the past in a variety of forums where the technology is outpacing the adoption, uh, and business readiness. Uh, and so I would put forth that organizations are workforce planning in this regard whether they know they're doing it or not. In other words, they're consistently making bad decisions if they're not doing it, but they're doing it in their heads, they're doing it ad hoc. They're so they don't. They're not doing it in a disciplined way. And again, correct me if I'm wrong, if you think differently, what you're bringing to the fore is that discipline is that structure by which to set up a process. So, okay, we're going to come in here with a specific purpose. We're going to have data and insights that are going to inform how we move forward. So we're not going to do this in a silo or we're not going to do this uh, ad hoc and just kind of based on gut feel. We're going to bring some data based insight that's going to help us mitigate risk and increase the likelihood that our investments reap the desired return, whether it be recruiting or design or what have you. So the focus question is, over the almost 20 years since you founded Vemo, have you seen the business readiness and adoption of workforce planning uh, increase? And if so, why is that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that um, I feel like in many ways. Well I think there's a few ways to look at it. One is that I think that there are these cycles in business and also in hr, in HR technology where a lot of depends on where you sort of on ramp. So I think there was an initial really hot period right when we joined, um, where organizations were thinking that they want to do a better job planning. But then there's um, a pretty big economic collapse, um, and, and 2008. Yeah, yeah, just, they just disbanded their internal capability. In many cases, um, there were opportunities, there was a lot, there's a lot of interest. There was a lot of people starting to recruit for these workforce planning and people. It wasn't called people analytics yet. You know, it's sort of bopping around different terms um, around that. And then a lot of organizations just disbanded their effort. So there was that. So there is part of that whole concept. Um, so. But beyond that, um, I think it used to be that people would ask what kind of company would use your company Vimo for its work. And I used to always sort of flippantly say it just depends on really the head of HR of being whether they're into it or not. But now I think that it's emerged over a period of time and it's considered to be really a core pillar of what you do, what you offer in your HR model to the business. And so now I think we're in that realm that we're sort of arguing about who owns it a little bit and how to get it done best, which is a good place to do, um, you know, to be um, as far as it goes. So we, so we've, I've seen it evolve, uh, we as a company seen evolve a lot, but I've seen it evolve a lot where uh, the sort of excitement being thinking that maybe you're in the perfect time for it, realizing you're not because of this externality of what happened to the economy, um, kind of picking up the pieces a little bit, keep on going, um, and then, um, sort of helping to really grow the field. And so one thing that's sort of interesting, I'm not a big fan of getting attribution, um, but I see a lot of things that people talk about that I feel like. I don't know, like, I think I might have been the first person who, you know, who said that or something or kind of like introduced the idea, or maybe a lot of us did at the same time. But I think that, um, being in this business for a while, um, we've had sort of an outsized impact in terms of what people think about and do in this area. But we're also fighting against a lot of myths that are happening. Because I think that there's this natural thing where people take this topic of workforce planning and people analytics and they want it to be even bigger than it is. It's already complex, but they want to say every time we have a shortcoming in one of our single threaded HR processes, we're going to say workforce planning might help us with that. Um, it's very unusual that people will put so much in it. And then it kind of got put on a pedestal where it's like, oh, I used to do this topic, but now I do. You know, I'm in workforce planning. And it's sort of like this sort of evolved state of what people do. So people a lot of times start thinking about, oh, we should only work for a plan. Like two job roles in our company, they're really critical and it's all about just being better at recruiting them or things like that. Or, um, or you know, that you have to do these, you know, with these great models out there, you have to do every element of them. You know, if you don't have the external job market piece and the internal and this piece and that piece, it's not a real program. And you have to go through every step of the process to be successful, as opposed to just basically taking those concepts and overlaying them on what you're doing to make your overall HR more effective, if you will.

Speaker A: If I'm hearing you correctly, it's effectively an overarching framework to organize how you think about your talent and your org design and all that. And I want to talk about the future in a little bit because you touched on it. But before we go to that, I want to understand your definition of workforce planning, because we're talking and you know, we've known each other for years and we have a common language. But if I'm listening, uh, you know, it invites the question, what is strategic workforce planning? What is workforce planning? And related to that, what is people analytics? And before I let you respond, I just want to set the stage, uh, a little bit, because historically, at least, I've seen workforce planning live in talent acquisition, and it is informed to your earlier point, recruiting practices and making that more efficient and effective, yet it has not in many cases identified the internal movement or design. Uh, you know, how do you partner with outsourced providers or gig economy? You mentioned that earlier. Increasingly, we have robotic automation and AI. So how we think about the future of work, how an organization actually does work is more complex, but there's more data to shed light on how that is actually happening. So if we get more systematic and we get the right people in the room looking at common insight, we can theoretically make better, more informed decisions that mitigate risk, that more efficient and effective. So I shared a lot there. Uh, but of course, I want your, your perspective, given that you've actually been enabling this work. So the pointed question again, you know, how are you defining, you know, workforce planning in this day and age? And you, if you want to juxtapose it, uh, over how that definition has evolved, you know, so be it. Please do.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I, I feel like I've been two things. It's interesting, your viewpoint on the talent acquisition. Because, Because I came from the talent acquisition background. And, um, then when I started getting the work and I felt like it was really hard to even get people on the phone. So I used to have a joke which is like, hey, remember when people never get in touch with us and we couldn't reach them? That's because they were in these other meetings with people like the new me, talking about workforce planning, and they want to get back to you on your recruiting stuff. Um, so I feel like on one hand, I've always had my eye on the ball in terms of how do we make talent acquisition and recruiting more effective. Because I was aware that, um. Because I've been aware that it's really an important problem. It's like a very important. It's the front end of your whole employee experience. Right. In terms of what's happening. Um, and I'm aware that so many organizations, it's sort of heartbreaking the companies who, like, staffed up in such an extreme way in the pandemic and then just staff down. It's like, that's okay. That's what the market expects. Because it's just because they knew they had someone there. I mean these companies are run by really smart people. They had to know they were going to need people long term. But they weren't. They didn't want to leave dollars on the table. They didn't want to take a more sort of like thoughtful approach. And it's interesting to work in a way in sort of like this cutthroat business world where you kind of think like, hey, there could be a better way. Maybe you would sacrifice a tiny bit of profit, but long term, you know, you'd be built for this long term success. Um, and I think that the pandemic, this is a little bit of a detour. I know Al, but the pandemic allowed a lot of people to kind of try to throw out some of those squishy good to work company concepts. Um, but it's not going to behoove them long term. Right. When they, when they want the next round, when these companies want to go for the next round of like the truly top talent. And there are, there are sort of companies who are more thoughtful about the employee experience, including recruiting those other smaller companies will win. You know what I mean? It's known people don't.

Speaker A: 100 I agree.

Speaker B: Right. So, um, but it's also understandable, right? You know, when you people say when you panic, you can go to your go to behavior. A lot of the stuff is learned behaviors that you're overlaying and you know, trying to be a little different than your go to behaviors of sort of the cutthroat business side. But um, so for recruiting I always felt like sort of adjacent to it. So although trying to help, I felt like that was not ever our real approach that we were really trying to integrate with the HR business partner concept of how do, how does HR work more effectively with the business to drive a talent approach that is holding hands with the business strategy approach. So that's been always what it is. And so I know a lot of folks have thought, well this is more of like recruiting aspect because there's a strong recruiting outcome. But recruiting is everybody's business, right? So, and that's everybody's business. This is trying to focus on the overall idea of not just recruiting, but also when do you not replace people when they leave and how do you move people around more effectively and how do you mine and leverage your skills more effectively? Um, so then to answer your definitions, um, for people, analytics, starting with it, um, that's complex because there's a lot of nuances in fields and there's sort of um, like anything else, you know, um, the head of engineering and gear systems told me once when I was asking him what the doing, the differentiation through different roles. And he said Peter, it's 90% test here. Everybody wants to be a strategic system architect. Everyone wants to be this, wants to be that. But guess what, it's mostly test. We try to make it look like not test all the time, but we test and we test and we test. Occasionally we do something new and then we test and we test and we test. So there's a lot of reporting in people analytics, but there are also sort of insights because a lot of people want um, what's my employee roster? What's that report on, you know, basic turnover, what's hiring versus mobility, where those different things. So people analytics is a summary of um, of a large batch of point reporting that people need, but also so an overlay of some like strategic insights they couldn't get naturally. And really good people analytics includes a lot of predictive insights where you're not just looking back but you're trying to push people to look towards those future points. Um, and it's not cookie cutter. So a lot of organizations um, do subscribe to like hey, let's just plug in this kind of cookie cutter platform. It's all pre built, all the. Every organization is very different. Every organization has very specific practices. So it's really about transforming that data but then talking in a common language that people can talk about, you know, in terms of these different measures. Workforce planning, to me the most important aspect of it is demand planning. It's really understanding what you need as an organization. Um, I've long been very passionate about that topic in terms of how can you help organizations really understand what their true talent requirements are that meet their business objectives. Um, and then it's also the heavy duty data mining behind it which is what is going to happen to our existing incumbents and new hires and uh, and people movement that comes around. So what's happening internally and then what are those gaps and then how can we then close those gaps? It's, there's a, there's definitely a plan do measure cycle happening here. We at Vimeo try to operate on the plan and the measure aspect. So the plan which is like this is producing a really high quality gap analysis, a process for you to work on that gap analysis and then how do we really hold ourselves accountable, really measure our forecast, measure what's happening. Measuring plans versus actuals to allow people to sort of adjust. We're not really in that do area. We're just trying to, you know, like any planning process, we're just really trying to provide a lot of insights, actionable information quality measurement to adjust that allow people to spend more intelligent time on the do. Right. On what they're doing and not just do the scattershot activities.

Speaker C: Uh, that makes a lot of sense to me. And it's also the case that, and again, I say this too much, but I want to invite you to offer your perspective. Um, and I say what I say too much is correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm catching myself in that. It's this, uh, what you're sharing requires that leaders understand the nature of the work that needs to be done and the amount of work that needs to be done and in turn the qualifications or skills of those to actually do the work. And I have seen in my personal experience a high degree of variability in the quality in which that work in defining the work specifically is done. Uh, many just take a scattershot approach. Uh, many just, uh, for lack of a better term are lazy about it. That just. Okay, this is what I got from finance. So it's a financial orientation as opposed to a true skills based or work based, you know, orientation. So what are your thoughts on that? Uh, on being able to define the work both in terms of the quantity of work as well as what's going to be required from a skills perspective to do the work.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I've always been intrigued by sort of companies talking about their HR finance dilemma, looking different ways because I've all the customers we work with. At Vevo, we've seen great collaboration. Often the person who's in charge of our program has worked both in finance and human resource. And I've always felt with finance they say, I've had CFO say to me, peter, this is actually what we've been wanting people to do, but unfortunately they're not giving this information. So we have to create these constraints in these models, these finance models, because they're not reflecting on what they actually need to get the work done. So I think what uh, workforce planning does is in high demand by finance. For sure there are variations and there might be some cases where finance says we don't want HR to do this work. And maybe the leaders are at loggerheads between HR and finance in terms of that way. So there's always the case for that. But we, uh, find that um, one of the key. Sometimes people talk about customers, workforce planning. We consider recruiting talent, sort of development, um, finance, real estate, to be really important customers of this process, of the information. They use this information to help their, to help what they do and all their outputs a lot and to save money and to avoid, um, a lot of overlap. So a lot of times they'll say, hey, we had 190 people who are doing work they weren't hired for in finance, and they're not actually working on what they should be because they're spending all the time mired in sort of these spreadsheets and things like that. Um, so, um, I mean, I think, I think, I think that sort of, you know, answers your question in a way.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, it absolutely does. And it's also, I just want to put this word on it, at least using my orientation. It's governance. So you mentioned several functions which in many organizations stay siloed. And there's not an integrated approach, let alone viewpoint on how what I do in this particular function is going to affect the system, whether it be recruiting, learning or design and performance. Even. So, having that governance and seeing how the organization ebb and flows over time requires some measurement, requires some planning. And that's what I hear you bringing forth. And one thing, you respond, one thing. I just want to enter into the mix, uh, because if I'm listening here, uh, I was like, okay, we're talking about workforce planning, we're talking about people analytics, and then there's a lot of buzz in the marketplace around talent intelligence. So, yeah, I really want your take too, on, you know, is talent intelligence just another naming convention? And you know, for me, a lot of it is talent market analytics. So what's happening in the external environment relative to what's happening internally. But let's say I consume that insight. It has to enter some process, some governance body ideally, so good decisions can be made and understanding how it's going to affect the system. So the pointed question again, is workforce planning relative to talent intelligence, your thoughts?

Speaker B: Yeah, and I'm, I'm going to answer that one second, but I was thinking about, I was rattling around my head about what you're talking about, the lazy part. And, um, and actually I triggered myself.

Speaker A: I know I'm going to get some. You call me lazy. No, I didn't. No.

Speaker B: But I thought about this because, um, for better or worse, I have a strong bias for practical. So I really, um, I would really, I really feel, um, a great sense of pride when we're able to get a customer really to do work differently you know, with this and practical. And I'm also, I think also a lot of times you have to accept things as they are. So there is aspects where some people, um, you know, there's, there's some people who are great at this, but there are some people who would be great at. But they're too busy may, maybe they're lazy, maybe they're just too busy. They don't have time to think about it. Maybe they haven't thought about it enough to really think about the implications or they don't have the long term perspective on it. And there's some people who are just sort of shuffling and struggling with it. They know they need to do it, they're good at other things. And so I've, I've kind of felt like workforce playing is like an organizationally wide thing and you have to actually help everybody. Of all these Personas I just mentioned. So before getting to the talent intelligence piece, which I think is the advanced part, I would say that is we've sort of remade ourselves several times. Um, I've really pushed to have VMO be something that would help all those Personas. So, um, one of the things, um, is that we believe is that we have a large amount of predictive analytics that actually predict your demand and then obviously predict your supply. So we don't want people to have to enter anything. We want to allow that person who doesn't have enough time or doesn't really know what they're doing to actually have a workforce plan of demand supply gap before they even enter a, uh, one, you know, into the tool or a two or whatever like that. But we also want people to have modeling tools who are really into it, to be able to review that as an extra voice and say, yeah, but I'm really experienced, I'm really in touch with the business, um, what we're doing, what our new initiatives are. And I know that we're not going to follow business as usual. So that's been very important to me to have something that is, that can just kind of almost run and just, you know, that you can rely on that and it runs with a great frequency.

Speaker A: Um, and, uh, sorry to interrupt. What I'm hearing is scenario planning.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So is that another word for what you're describing?

Speaker B: What I'm describing is that if you start off with a workforce plan in this first place, then everything you do from there is actually scenario planning. But if you start off with being like, hey, we're going to provide a framework for you to do scenario planning, Then no one even gets the first plan as a company overall. Right. So we want to ensure that a customer, that they get to that first plan that, you know, the data comes in, gets processed, it loads, you know, on a Monday and then Tuesday they actually have a plan and then they're modeling their plan through scenario planning behaviors. And if they don't have those behaviors, they still have a really good plan, which is better than what they do if they were sort of, you know, um, creating the artwork, throwing the paint the wall spaghetti, whatever you call it.

Speaker A: Right, right.

Speaker B: Um, the second thing is, is that it also allows you to allow business managers, directors, etc. To be planners too. Because honestly one of the struggles and frustrations for HR people who are working on it is they have all the expertise throughout all the HR domain. They have a really good sense of business, but they, they're not, uh, they can't, they can't be 500 people who are each managing a project or an initiative or a component or a product or whatever you might be talking about at that company. So if you can get those people involved into a tool and have the process, they actually know, they might need more coaching, they might need more direction in the process, but they actually know or have very specific ideas of what do we need demand wise to do this and what are we in being able to know what they're likely to do that really helps them become engaged and really get the whole voice of the business, um, in the process. And if they're involved, they accept the plan. So if HR finances the plan, then you kind of rail against it, you find the loophole, you find how to get what you want anyway. You do your own planning process on the side. If you're brought into the process, then you can't get to the due stage and say, ah, I'm not gonna do that plan. It's like, wait, you're not gonna do your plan? Why not? What's wrong with your plan? You know, uh, type of thing. Um, so if you want me to, I'm going to go on to the talent intelligence question.

Speaker A: Or do you have. Yeah, please, because I want to. When we talk about. Because what you just shared is something that just to emphasize the practicality and the practicality needs to be there, not only to your point, the HR business partner, but for the business leader. Because they're going to make the decisions, they're going to make the final call in most instances, obviously accommodating the talent constraints and the financial constraints. But here's now this emergence of talent intelligence, which sheds light not only on talent markets, supply demand in the external market, but also the visibility, uh, of a particular organization relative to that market. So, you know, is that a disruptor for workforce planning? Is that an enhancer for workforce planning? So your thoughts? There's.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think it's an enhancer, um, for what it is. And I think that in terms of, I um, think in terms of um, the talent intelligence piece, I think that it started as an area where um, it was almost like a competitive concept which is like, oh, do we want to do workforce planning where we're looking internally or do we really want to have all this information and this data at our fingertips? Um, so sort of like the organized concept versus the available. Right. So should we do an organized workforce planning effort, you know, know all the stuff but with the things that we can actually control, or should we just have really good talent intelligence available, trust people in a sort of low process kind of environment to come and make the right solutions. And so those are almost like competitive. So we've been involved in sort of presentations where, oh, we're trying to decide which we should do and you're like, you know, can you do both at the same time? Because that might be a lot more helpful. Um, so now I think there's some convergence happening and I think they're both sort of valuable because it's always valuable to have data intelligence, but it's really valuable to have a process that organizes all those points and brings it together. So I think this next frontier we're coming to right now is how to get from, you know, I think the first wave of workforce planning was how do you get from sort of cost center based or department based workforce planning to job role, sort of more competitive job, more understanding that then it helps you think about how people move around their jobs as well. So that you, you know, a lot of times what our customers do is they find out like, okay, we have a gap of 20 in the next year, but guess what, we're a net exporter, so we have a gap of 30. Or guess what, we're a net importer, so we have a gap of 10. Those are really big swings and really affect what you do and how you manage things. And, and they're a bit self fulfilling, if you typically have been. Then you learn how to be that and then you actually work those well oiled pathways and you know, you know, it's like you go hiking in the mountains, you know someone's gone through and they, you know, you can only keep on hiking if someone's clearing the paths and kind of going down those some roads. Again, it's the same, same notion. So, uh, now I think with the talent intelligence ideas, can we start applying that lens internally a little bit? Have talent intelligence in terms of what we have, can we actually learn about some of these things? I mean, a lot of times you hear companies say, like, we're convinced we have thousands of people lurking about who really have the skill. Probably not. You know, it will work its way out. If you really did, I think you would be solving that problem that way. But you definitely have some. So I can get more intelligent, you know, learn more about your adjacencies. You're not going to necessarily be able to put person A and person B because they have adjacency, but you'll be able to put person A, you know, enroll B much quicker. Right. If you know that that's a very adjacent skill. So you can start working on that. And then how do we know what's available externally so we can make better decisions? Companies would like to make better decisions about should we grow our own or do we have to get from the outside? And um, you can lose a lot of time. So if you're in a competitive market and you have six months, if you lose three months wasting time, taking the wrong approach, then you're, they're gonna, you're lose on that market in that way.

Speaker A: Yeah, guys, it's fascinating. And that invites the question for me, as we start to wrap up here, as we move forward in time, I'm going to ask pretty much the same question, but in two different ways. What are the barriers to workforce planning right now? And another way to frame it is what's the opportunity cost of organizations not doing workforce planning in this day and age? I mean, here we are at the beginning of 2023. There's disruptions in the economy politically, uh, there's uncertainty, but there's been uncertainty, uh, to a hyper degree, if you will, since the pandemic, uh, started a, uh, few years ago. So I mean, uh, I'd like to talk about where we are in the age of perpetual disruption. So for me, workforce planning is essential. Otherwise you're, you can't flex and adjust, you know, at speed and at scale. But again, you know, what are some of the blockers to it and what do you see? And on the other side of the coin, if organizations are, are doing it, you know, how are they benefiting?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think that, uh, to answer your question, I think that if, if you want to be a leader in industry, you have to do it. Now, there are a couple exceptions. I'm going to go back to my Jeffrey Moore sort of 16 square model that if you're truly in that magic square where you're, you know, an innovator and you're, you're new to your space, you can get away with a lot. Right? You can get away with not doing this. You can hire like, you know, mad, you know, you know, some of these companies are just hiring like mad. It just worked out because they were onto something and there's a lot of room for error. You know, uh, most organizations don't have that much room for error. You mean to be competitive. So if they want to be really competitive, you can't really be competitive if you don't have a really good handle on what you have internally and what you need. Um, and you can't have certain shortages to get the work done. Um, so I think that you need to have it. I think some of the barriers going forward are just that, um, um, they're kind of putting some of the technologies ahead of the process. Right. So I think that a lot of people will think there's always this nice thought that there's some magic AI, ML, et cetera. You know, the chat, you know, let's not invest because in five years we'll be able to ask chat, GPT. That's what they do. Very cool tool. The most interesting thing I saw so far in analytics is someone got it to generate a poem, um, of what it was like to be the loneliness of being a people analytics professional, which it did a great job of. Um, so, so, but I mean I think these tools are great, but they need to serve the greater process, what it is. And I think that's. So I think there's always that thing is like how do you then keep on updating your processes? So I think that's um, and that's the neat thing about being in the solar technology space. Um, if you find the right technology as a company to trust, they're then thinking about these things and they're constantly looking at everything and evaluating and deciding when to jump in. And I, my own experience with skills where I kind of refused to jump in for some time because I just felt like I was hearing nonsense out there in terms of people are doing. It just seems so disorganized. And then with the practical thing kicking in, I was seeing it getting cleaned up a little bit more, a little bit more and not really yet ready but then thinking we have to do more to make people ready in this field. Right. This is going to be really important. We have to provide that guidance, we have to provide that process orientation around getting that done. And so I think that's basically it. I think it's keeping your eye on the ball, um, don't rely on your previous success, you know, doing this work and then just keep on sort of innovating in sort of small ways, you know, to leverage more, um, and do a better job.

Speaker A: Well, I got one more uh, question about the future of workforce planning and analytics and then we'll get to our rapid fire question. And this is something that I know we're going to talk about more here in the future and the role of workforce planning in diversity, equity and inclusion. Can you provide your perspective on how it enables inclusive and diversity initiatives to gain traction and be measured and monitored over time?

Speaker B: Yeah, ah, I mean I think it's, it's a, this is the whole, you know, plan, do, measure and adapt kind of thing that we talked about. Workforce planning when the key outputs is it really helps you actually also project the future diversity of your workforce. Uh, the gender diversity, racial diversity reverse depending upon where you are in the world. Um, and it highlights where people set goals which are unobtainable too. And it helps them think about how do they change unobtainables to obtainable goals. So I think we have a big role in that. Um, and um, we've had a couple customers have really taken this to heart and they've looked at our predictive model and says what does our predictive model say about our future diversity? And is this what our goals are? They might benchmark is what our goals are. What do we need to do differently? Where are the hiccups? Where are those? And really understanding those pockets of success versus lack of success. And then I think also, um, they will plan and they can also know if they make big decisions, especially as job automation comes on board and other things, it affects different workforces in uneven manners. Um, and so I think in uneven manner actually. So you can actually get ahead of these problems and say, hey, we're going to be doing this and this will actually um, ideally right. Increase our workforce diversity or in many cases this will actually have a negative impact on what we've been working at and work against it. And then by getting ahead of it then you can sort of start thinking about a better way or how to address it. So I think it's a key voice in doesn't do the do part Right. But the planning enables that measurement that allows organizations to really adapt and do this work more effectively, and that's how we can contribute.

Speaker A: Well, thank you for saying that. For my money, I don't know how it's done. I don't know how DEI is done in a sustainable way without workforce planning. That's, that's my bias and, uh, two cents on it. So thank you for sharing. So, you ready for the rapid fire questions, my friend?

Speaker B: Ah, I am.

Speaker A: All right. And you touched on this at the outset, uh, which I'm very interested in your answer. As a result, what is your favorite genre of music?

Speaker B: Oh, well, my favorite genre of music is, you know, I'm, um. Uh, you know, I'm one of those old timers who's not an old timer. I really just like, um, I like what's new and I like to listen the heck out of it when it's new and then put it aside. So, you know, it really just varies. Um, I love going to concerts with my kids. It's a lot of fun, um, to do things like that. So, um, um, you know, coming up, we're going to go to a festival in Pasadena to see MGMT and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and some other bands. Um, I think we're gonna go see Half Alive too. Um, so just kind of rolling it out. So it really varies. I like what's new a lot. Um, I like a lot of, um, I play guitar still a lot. Um, and so I'll be, you know, I like music for the ages, but I like it new.

Speaker A: All right, well, love that response. And you've started to answer question number two. What do you do for fun? It sounds like obviously you go to concerts with your kids.

Speaker B: Yeah, I go to concerts. Post, uh, pandemic. The work in HR technology has changed a lot. There used to be a lot of travel, a lot of requirements, and a lot of the work is more virtual. Hrs remain more virtual. So I'm leveraging the opportunity to do more personal travel. So love to travel personally. Um, um, like to go a, uh, lot of, you know, good workout, healthy regime. Like to go surfing. You can find me at pipes there if you want to know where to find me later. Um, hopefully not enough, but, um, I, uh, like to go bike riding. So a lot of active things and travel. Just, um, got. Got back from a weekend getaway in New Orleans. Um, that was a lot of fun.

Speaker A: Good for you. Yeah, good for you. All right, couple more, uh, who is your inspiration or inspirational people? They could be authors, they could Be other in your personal life, but who inspires you? Hmm.

Speaker B: Um, I would say it's just a really. It's really a variety. I was. I was thinking about this a lot about. About, um, before. But I, I think I like to take inspiration from just a lot of different sources all the time and just like, little bits. So I think that, um, I am inspired. You know, like some of the things I was thinking about. You're asking the questions about my childhood. I'm inspired by certain things that my parents did. I'm inspired by some of these different sort of business authors. Um, um, I'm inspired by sometimes reading like a fictional book, you know, that will really just like, capture like the nuances of like, what things are really like. I mentioned a couple people who I work with, um, earlier in my career. Um, um, I mentioned the guy, Rich Doherty, who influenced me with the books. Here read Christina Banks, who's a lecturer at UC Berkeley, um, who's very influential in my career and helped me think through a lot of these things. And um, I'm inspired a lot also by the staff I work with and the customers. A lot of things they come up with. I really enjoy those relationships and just. And just asking them like, what they think about something and having those kind of conversations. That's what really allows you to keep on doing this kind of work. Um, and, um. Um, I was going into this, I was a little bit inspired also, or maybe a lot al, by sort of some of the work that you're doing. Because I've been thinking a lot about how you talk a lot about the importance of the ethics of everything and people analytics, doing the right thing and for good. And um, in the field I'm in, a lot of times it could be. Get kind of dark. Right. A lot about cut here, do this, do that. So I've tried to think about like, how a lot, like, am I doing good? Am I doing what I do? You know, I like to make the world a little better place. So, um, how do we actually help people do better for that? And so I've been inspired by that as well recently and thinking about that. That concept. So I like to take from a lot of things and what people are doing and try to bring them in internally in that way.

Speaker A: Well, uh, thank you for sharing that and thank you, uh, for the call out and uh, the final question, uh, what are your hopes for workforce planning and people analytics moving forward? And again, that can be a huge answer, but just your key theme of what your hopes are for the next 12, 24 months or so.

Speaker B: Yeah, My hopes are that um, my hopes are that uh, we're seeing a lot of interest in the field because of all the uncertainties. My hopes are people realize that uncertainty is the name of the game and that fast, actionable planning will be a key to this. And so that it'll be area. There's a lot of people have seen its slow evolution. So there are the naysayers like is this, you know, is this, you know, something doesn't float whatever, you know, you know, is it? And yeah, it does. It's a really valuable thing. And so my hopes are it just continues that natural growth of the 12, 24 months that you hope that natural growth where more and more organizations do it. They're sort of hopefully I, you know, maybe inspire people to really think about it a little bit more in a more holistic way. Um, and then longer term, um, I do really think this will end up being one of these key pillars of HR as it finds its way. And this key pillar is a business in fact as it goes forward. But I think that's a longer term proposition. For now I'm just looking for that natural evolution continue to create more value and more centered um, around people focusing that way.

Speaker A: Well, love it. We're on that mission together, my friend. Hey Peter, thank you for sharing. Closing comments. And how can people learn more about you and what you're doing there at vemo?

Speaker B: Yeah, so we're, we're obviously we're working with your organization. They can find us in the member area. Um, I'm, you know, look me up on LinkedIn, um, as well. And then um, we also have a YouTube, um, channel at VEMO Workforce where we are starting to publish a lot of content around how to do predictive modeling in areas like um, attrition, mobility skills, diversity, inclusion, um, and also some of the previous interviews and talks I've done either with customers and things like that. So it's a great way to kind of get some snippets and some content, um, as we try to sort of give back and sort of, you know, provide education, um, in what we do and um, or you know, see you at Pipes.

Speaker A: All right, well Peter, again, thank you for sharing. Thank you for being your awesome self. We'll see you on the beach and in the water soon and uh, you have fun with your family. So again, thanks for sharing. You be well.

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks a lot, Al.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the People Data for Good podcast with me, Al Adamson to listen to or watch more great content, please visit pal.net There you will find more podcasts, training videos, product demos, and the like. You will also see our list of upcoming events around North America and Europe. You also see who's sponsoring the PFAU community. And I want to thank all of those organizations and of course our members. Again, without you all will not be able to do podcasts and the training videos and demos and all the things that we do to help support the community. So thank you all. Finally, your involvement will continue to help us promote People data for good, that is Promoting the ethical and responsible use of people, data analytics and AI for the benefit of individuals first and foremost, teams, groups, organizations and society at large. Again, thank you for listening and please continue to make great things happen.