Layoffs, AI, and Respect: A Conversation with Shashank Bhushan

00;00;01;23 - 00;00;30;00 Ashley Welcome to Ask Ashley, the podcast, where we shine a light on the unsung heroes of the workplace. I'm your host, Ashley Russo, financial AI board member, thought leader and wealth management advisor. Each week we sit down with inspiring leaders, exploring their journeys, motivations, and the real challenges they face, from job insecurity to the evolving role of AI in a world where many feel overlooked. 00;00;30;01 - 00;00;43;10 Ashley These guests are building hope and connection for their colleagues.

Join us as we uncover their stories and discover how they're making a difference, one conversation at a time. 00;00;43;13 - 00;00;54;18 Ashley Hello everybody! I'm here today with just a fabulous guest. I'm going to let him introduce himself, and then we will dive in and have a great time, I'm sure.

00;00;54;19 - 00;01;20;02 Shashank Hi everybody. My name is Shashank Bhushan. I lead HR for for a global media technology company. I've spent over 25 years in HR and business, and I bring in a perspective which is very people centric, yet which drives business forward very deeply.

Family person I love reading, and it's a great opportunity to have a conversation with all of you today. 00;01;20;02 - 00;01;21;12 Shashank Thank you very much for having me. 00;01;21;13 - 00;01;23;29 Ashley Thank you for being here. What's your favorite book right now?

00;01;24;00 - 00;01;34;12 Shashank Well, I'm reading a book called Leap Forward. It's written by a friend of mine, and it's fascinating reading at the moment as as I'm going through that. 00;01;34;13 - 00;01;44;15 Ashley Love that love that. Well, as you mentioned, you spent quite a bit of time in the technology business.

I'm curious what drew you into this world? 00;01;44;19 - 00;02;09;16 Shashank Well, you know, that actually makes me feel ancient, because I started off in the technology business when Y2K was just the thing, the opportunity to be in that space, which was scary, unpredictable. Nobody knew where it's going to land up in and be able to be there to shape, guide, absorb. What was happening was fascinating by itself, right?

00;02;09;18 - 00;02;36;16 Shashank And fortunately, everything panned out well, we're on the other side of it significantly, in 25, 26 years from then on. And then the sheer opportunity of working with such smart people that the technology business has, has, has always had, you know, your peer group is outstanding. You get to see the cutting edge technologies, you know, coming to life, impacting our lives in such a significant way. 00;02;36;18 - 00;02;42;15 Shashank It is just been so, so exciting just for that reason that, you know, once I got into the tech businesses, I've been here.

00;02;42;17 - 00;02;59;02 Ashley Yeah, yeah that's fair. Certainly. Lection of incredible minds, that's for sure. I'm curious, looking back over your career, what has been a key turning point that's maybe influenced or change the direction of your work?

00;02;59;04 - 00;03;25;22 Shashank You know, I feel nothing happens overnight, okay. And I feel that every you know, there have been various inflection points. Much of that started when I was a child, as you know, as I was growing up, all my life so far, I've lived in nine cities now, the second continent. I've traveled extensively.

I've had, you know, 5 or 6 key jobs or roles that I've done across my career. 00;03;25;25 - 00;03;48;15 Shashank Each one of them kind of prepared me for the next one. I did not start off thinking, you know, this is where I'm going to be. Nobody has a crystal ball, neither did I.

So it has just evolved from each stage. Like in my previous role, when I was leading HR for a company in India, I became the CEO of that operation. 00;03;48;16 - 00;04;18;24 Shashank I had not really planned for becoming that, but because I always feel I've always felt I'm a business leader first who happens to have had specialization in HR. That was very natural transition for me to have, and then from there on to move over to the US to to really do a little bit of crystal gazing, if I could, you know, and very often referencing backwards to look forward to identify what the future of work looked like.

00;04;18;26 - 00;04;30;16 Shashank So, you know, all of this has, in my mind, organically developed over time. And I always felt that whatever I did till today is kind of preparing me for what comes tomorrow. 00;04;30;16 - 00;04;42;06 Ashley So with that, you know, thinking about the future of work, focusing on that, what does the future look like to you and how are you getting people prepared for it? 00;04;42;07 - 00;05;04;09 Shashank It's an interesting question, and perhaps a very complex time to answer that question, or even to attempt to answer that question.

So I don't know how that sounds, but think of this. You know, I think we are in the fifth industrial revolution. Okay? All the previous revolutions that we had starting in the first one, which lasted for over 100 years, the next one lasted for about 60, 70 years.

00;05;04;16 - 00;05;27;04 Shashank The third was, you know, almost 40, 45 years. The fourth one, which is more like a digital one. And, you know, nobody's calling the AI revolution as the next stage of industrial revolution. But I will see that that it took about 25 years or so for the digital revolution to come in.

But the AI revolution is is not something which is going through years or decades. 00;05;27;07 - 00;05;49;04 Shashank It is happening as we speak. Every month. There's a new model.

There's an upgrade on, on the speed in processing. We are no longer talking about hallucination by AI models as much as we were talking to years back and so on. And so I think the future of work is changing a lot more rapidly than it ever did in the history. 00;05;49;04 - 00;06;18;16 Shashank So if you think in the first Industrial Revolution, it was probably it lasted over two generations.

So people had enough time to move on. Okay. The second one, which lasted over 60 years, again, you know, a couple of generations had the opportunity to to to upskill themselves and move on and get access to the work. This one is a lot more complex from a human perspective, because, you know, your skill depreciates in no time.

00;06;18;18 - 00;06;39;02 Shashank It is no longer that you have years to to build your skills, sometimes a matter of weeks today to build out a new skill, and then it takes another few weeks for it to depreciate. So I think that is the the complexity of the future of the work, the agility that is required, the adaptability, adaptability that is necessary now to acquire new skills. 00;06;39;02 - 00;07;13;09 Shashank The newer ways of thinking and doing that is something that is changing.

If if from a from a human perspective, I feel that is something. And that obviously brings a lot more insecurity issues for individuals from their own psychological safety perspective, from information safety perspective on how you cognitive safety, you know, with so much of fakeness around because of AI, etc. and those are things that all of us have to navigate as we get on to the future of the world today. 00;07;13;14 - 00;07;33;16 Ashley There's a lot to unpack there that was beautifully articulated.

One of the insecurities that people are feeling in this moment is certainly layoffs, losing their jobs across the industry. How do you help mitigate that risk or that fear for your workforce? 00;07;33;17 - 00;08;10;14 Shashank So this is too serious a topic for us to, you know, just, you know, skim on the surface of it. So first of all, I would say this, layoffs or the reduction in forces, which have been happening at a scale in the recent times, have always happened, by the way, because business needs evolve, change.

The dynamics are, you know, of the business are ever evolving, and therefore people with certain skills sometimes become redundant, quote unquote, the way we talk about it in our workplace today. 00;08;10;16 - 00;08;39;11 Shashank But more and more, I feel it is no longer a function of a person's competence any longer. Sometimes it's just a matter of where you are. You know, you're a number on a spreadsheet when you're looking at cost, when you're looking at at a skill or a rubric that you know does not fit a person in there.

So those people who get impacted by this, my first messages would be, it is not about you. 00;08;39;18 - 00;09;14;18 Shashank Okay. No. This I think it's not a reflection of who you are or what value do you.

It is just in time and place that the organization has to look beyond, you know, a set of people. Okay. Second, I think how do you if you are an individual who everybody would like to avoid being, you know, on on the other side of this stick, it goes back to my previous answer that I had was your ability to adapt has to be lightning fast. 00;09;14;18 - 00;09;43;20 Shashank Now you're learning should never stop.

When you are quite a new skill, you should always be already be thinking about what is next. How do I evolve and grow myself? Acquire better skills, work with the AI ecosystem better because that is something that is here. Now.

Your new work colleagues are going to be, you know, bots. Your manager could be a bot in the future. 00;09;43;20 - 00;09;59;07 Shashank So how do you really work in that situation and be effective? How you drive governance of AI, not just be a user of AI.

So I think there are a whole lot of things that needs to be done to be able to avoid getting laid off, quote unquote. 00;09;59;09 - 00;10;25;08 Ashley Yeah, that's that's incredibly insightful. I appreciate that. In our previous conversations, you remind you mean you had a great reminder that behind an employee ID is a person and is a family?

How do you keep that human you alive in not only, you know, the hustle of day to day business, but obviously within all this tech. 00;10;25;11 - 00;10;55;28 Shashank And that's a great question. I think I always anchor this in some basic values, you know, respect, dignity. Doing it right, doing it the right way.

So my my focus always has been whenever on when I'm on this side of the table, either deciding or executing upon a layoff situation is, is to anchor those conversations in respect making it. 00;10;55;28 - 00;11;22;06 Shashank I can't take away the pain the person would have would go through. The family would go through. When the person gets laid off.

What is in my realm of control is to make it as easy as possible, as respectful as possible, acknowledge the person's contribution. Make sure that there is like. For example, I always, always advise managers who are laying off their team members or their colleagues is help them find newer opportunities. 00;11;22;09 - 00;11;48;07 Shashank Place the calls that you think you can.

Everybody has a network. Everybody has some people that they know. Go a little bit out of the way to help in such situations, like I said, and you were mining is a human behind a number and a family behind the person and all of that that continues. Right.

So and the world is small, by the way. 00;11;48;08 - 00;11;57;14 Shashank You know, you know, the ancient Hindu philosophy about karma is very, very true. You know, everything comes back to you. So be mindful.

00;11;57;16 - 00;12;17;14 Ashley I love that and love that. So diversity and inclusion have become obviously charged topics, right. There's a lot of heat there. How do you lead through that with your teams while keeping performance and fairness in mind?

00;12;17;17 - 00;12;43;13 Shashank Again, go back to the and anchor. There will see an inclusion on values and the organizational objectives. I think that is the safest and the fairest. You know, means of ensuring inclusion and diversity.

Let's understand why do we need diversity or why do we why should we have more inclusion in organizations? I think it's it's common sense in a diversity brings in innovation. 00;12;43;13 - 00;13;11;00 Shashank It brings in, different ways of problem solving, perspectives which always propel, you know, things forward, you know, the organizations forward, and which is why we need to have diversity. And I've always said this, and I truly believe in this, that diversity is not at the cost of performance.

If there is a line that goes by all things remaining equal, look at diversity. 00;13;11;00 - 00;13;33;18 Shashank And I think that if you cut it into values of doing it right, being respectful, collaborative, it is not a political agenda. Very often it becomes very political. But if we anchor it back onto the values and you take away the heat and the, the, the passion that it generates, it's very, very common sense.

00;13;33;21 - 00;13;57;25 Ashley I like that. Imagine if the world worked from that perspective. That would be an incredible thing. You in our in our previous conversations, which I loved, you talked about giving people permission to learn in different ways, learning throughout Moses rather than pushing.

Will you expand on that and how you build environments where that happens? 00;13;57;26 - 00;14;23;10 Shashank It has been my observation that when I started my career, for example, learning was largely, you know, in the realm of training in organizations focused on doing training. And those back in those days, training used to be classroom learning or a facilitator led learning. Only then came there of electronic learning and learning, you know, remotely and so on and so forth.

00;14;23;13 - 00;14;58;25 Shashank But I think more and more I'm convinced that and it's not just me. I mean, I think there's enough research which which shows that you learn the most by doing. And so there's a 70 2010 rule for for learning is by doing, by observing and by by training. But the first two also happen a lot by osmosis.

Like you said, being in an environment where you absorb, absorb and observe both, you know what is happening here. 00;14;58;25 - 00;15;22;11 Shashank And that has been, you know, the most powerful way to learn. So in my early days, I brought in a book club and I found that was such a it was a small experiment, starting with five people, and it slowly became like a movement within the organization because people would read, you know, one book every week they're reading and they come back and have a conversation around it.

00;15;22;12 - 00;15;49;11 Shashank So even those who were not reading books were encouraged to do that. And second, people who were reading it were able to bring different perspectives because a written word has many, many ways of interpretation sometimes. And when you bring in in a group conversation, it evolves into a, you know, into new insights for people. So that was something that I really found the other way.

00;15;49;11 - 00;16;08;11 Shashank I also, you know, appreciate the fact that different people learn differently. Some people learn by, you know, by watching a video. So YouTube, for example, in my mind is a great source for learning today because everything if I have to fix something in my house today, you know, you and I would most likely go to YouTube and say, how do I fix it? 00;16;08;11 - 00;16;36;12 Shashank Because, you know, if you are a visual person, you know, you respond better to that.

So I think it has also become incumbent upon organizations to find multitude of ways of learning, imparting learning within the organization, whether it's a video or a classroom learning or facilitated one, or coaches or mentors or providing exposure to people so that they can just, you know, imbibe it from the environment that they operate in. 00;16;36;13 - 00;16;49;11 Ashley I love that. And on that note, I mean, you started community groups before these ideas were common. Yeah.

What was your drive to start building these things back then? What was the inspiration? 00;16;49;11 - 00;17;20;00 Shashank So I started my career when and I used to be in India and the technology business was was doing exceedingly well. It came from a very narrow, self-serving perspective of engaging employees because you don't want to lose them.

You know, there's a lot of effort that goes into hiring and bringing them on board and making them effective. And then there would be somebody else who would offer a better competition or a better dream or a project, and people might just leave. 00;17;20;03 - 00;17;57;29 Shashank So it all started from how do we engage people better? And my take is the kind of business that we operate in.

There's very little social life people have outside of work. A lot of socializing happens while you are at work. So. So my take again is having friends around you is the best way to engage yourself.

And how do you promote that friendship within the organization is when my in one of my earliest jobs, I created a social group called Georgia Means Energy and and and we formed five teams amongst in the organization. 00;17;58;04 - 00;18;25;23 Shashank I'm talking about way back in 2000, 2001, and the entire organization was divided into five teams, which were compete for, you know, various things, you know, like debates or, or a sports event or a, you know, or quizzes. So it kind of brought people, first of all, it brought innate energies of people out, you know, because, you know, if you're trying to engage people, there are different energies people have for different.

00;18;25;24 - 00;18;56;02 Shashank When somebody is excited by sports, somebody is excited by dramatics. So, you know, or playing a guitar or a music session. So it created and spawned of those social groups within the organization, which became a glue for people to come together, and it made the environment so much more enjoyable and fun that, you know, when when people say, you know, I'm working long hours, it does not mean they are working long hours, but they are having good fun while being at work.

00;18;56;04 - 00;19;13;23 Ashley A lot of your work, based on what you shared, seems to be about upscaling people. So they stay relevant so they stay engaged like you just talked about. How do you help someone go from point A to point B if they're not sure where to start? 00;19;13;24 - 00;19;49;03 Shashank So my my previous role, that was something that when I was doing the future of the work, bits of pieces and work on that, I was focusing on building a skill based organization.

And if you think of it, wherever you are today as your starting block or starting point to the point that you want to get to. So you're starting as an engineer, for example, and you want to become a CTO or, you know, over time, in the good old days, there was no way for us to articulate that other than to say, okay, go talk to a CTO and find out what he or she did over their careers to be able to identify 00;19;49;03 - 00;20;17;03 Shashank how they moved. That's that's still a good way to to to build your career or a pathway for yourself.

But it does not give actionable insights to people, you know. But of course, it gives them very high level. But part of my work was around understanding what skills people have today and what skills are required for the goal that they're setting for themselves, and then help them identify, you know, those goals that they need to have in between. 00;20;17;03 - 00;20;38;15 Shashank You don't become a CTO from an engineer or entry level engineer overnight, right?

There's a there's a journey that you happen. You go through various iterations of roles and the kind of exposures that you need over time. So I focused on building the rubric of those skills and competencies that you need to get from one point to the other point, and then from that point to the next point. 00;20;38;18 - 00;20;57;17 Shashank And that also included the exposures that they would need, the learning that they would need, the training that they would they would need to go follow, etc.

, to be able to acquire that level of competence to get to the point on that. It was a and this is where I think we are in such a great space today. 00;20;57;19 - 00;21;25;04 Shashank Five years back, when I was working on it, it used to take weeks, if not months to put together one career journey. Today, thanks to AI, I can do multiple of them within minutes.

So the ability to articulate what we have today and what we need for tomorrow, and then map it out with actionable steps for individuals has become that much more easier. 00;21;25;04 - 00;21;37;11 Ashley Today you come across is so grounded and calm where I just must know where does that steadiness come from for you? 00;21;37;13 - 00;22;05;27 Shashank I think I think this is just good old middle class upbringing, if nothing else. And I think I've been blessed to have had great mentors in my career.

I have always looked up on those people, and I've always had multiple mentors, you know, at different points in times, and that has helped. Of course, families are very strong. 00;22;06;00 - 00;22;20;25 Shashank Rock, my wife, my kids, my parents, parents and I must thank them for if you think that I'm grounded in calm, there's a lot more inside than than you see outside. 00;22;20;27 - 00;22;38;06 Ashley You, you you present so well, you call me.

I love your perspective on all this. I'm curious. What do you think? Especially in this moment in time is so much going on that we talk through what's the most important soft skill leaders should have and why?

00;22;38;11 - 00;22;54;16 Shashank A few, and sometimes it's very hard to say whether it's a skill or an attribute. I think resilience comes to my mind. That's my top of the mind because times are only going to get harder. My, you know, when I talk to my kids, they always say, oh, your time was easy.

And, you know, this is more difficult. 00;22;54;18 - 00;23;21;26 Shashank My take is every era is tough now because you're looking when you look back, it's always very easy to see all this happened. Okay. And when you think of it, it looks like it just happened all of sudden.

Like I said earlier, everything happens over time. So in my mind, having resilience to go through the grind that that time needs when things are tough is one of the most important attributes. 00;23;21;26 - 00;23;31;10 Shashank Anybody needs to have to be able to grow themselves up. Everything else will, will come around.

Will will fall into place if you only persevere into the right direction. 00;23;31;10 - 00;23;46;05 Ashley If you could change one one way that organizations communicate with people, or if you can change one thing about how, let's say, organizations communicate with people, what would it be? 00;23;46;08 - 00;24;22;21 Shashank Be on that? I think people consume communication very differently today than they used to in the olden times.

And I think the organizations have still not completely solved that problem. It's not that there's lack of intent on that. Like, for example, of ten, 15 years back, if the CEO sent out an email communication, everybody would read it, okay, or it would be put up on a notice board, a physical notice board, and people would still read it today, everything is landing up in your inbox every day throughout the day. 00;24;22;21 - 00;24;45;04 Shashank And and still people don't get it.

People don't read it. So organizations have to really evolve to see how communication can be personalized and made interesting enough for people to consume. I don't have an answer, by the way, for this. I'm also as as much as part of this problem, and I'm problem solving as as anybody else for that matter.

00;24;45;04 - 00;25;04;06 Shashank But I think for personally, for me, for something to catch my attention, it needs to be interesting to me. It needs to be relevant to me. And I think that is where the organizations need to be focusing on is how do they make the communication interesting enough for people who need it to understand what it what it is? 00;25;04;06 - 00;25;15;18 Ashley My final question.

My favorite question if you can say anything to your younger self, knowing everything you know now, what would you say? 00;25;15;19 - 00;25;42;09 Shashank Be patient. I think you know, back then I used to be extremely impatient. And if you find me calm today.

This wasn't the way I would have been when I started my career. I was all fire and and impatient and it hurt me quite a few times. It hurt a lot of people as well. So I think if there's anything that I would want to change is, is that.

00;25;42;10 - 00;26;08;04 Ashley I love that. I think a lot of us can relate to that. You, as I have said today before, you are you were just a wonderful combination of calm and articulate, and I really appreciate your perspective. There's a lot going on right now in the world, and your perspective is not only comforting but real.

And I appreciate you taking the time. 00;26;08;04 - 00;26;11;06 Shashank Thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure talking to you.