Behind the Buzzwords of HR Transformation with Sarah Smart

Speaker A: This podcast is powered by shockingly different leadership. The go to firm companies trust when needing to up level their leadership development, improve their HR operations, realign their workforce infrastructures and increase their capacity to handle business critical people initiatives. Check out our world class experts@soundingly different.com and see why SDL should be your number one ally to help your HR learning and talent functions become future ready today.

Speaker B: So we'll start with the trends. About five years ago, everyone was implementing a large scale erp. Everyone moved to the cloud. It was an exciting time. We thought, boom, that was a transformation that was going to stick and it was going to be sort of, yes, there was going to be iteration and growth from there, but that was it. And then all of a sudden, three years later, it's followed on the heels by AI, is now transforming hr. And dirty little secret, AI has been in HR for probably the past decade and a half.

Speaker A: Really blended workforces are one of the hottest talent strategies today, where employers are using a mix of traditional employees with external resources like independent contractors, coaches, consultants, vendors and technology solutions, all in order to enhance competitiveness, ensure cost flexibility and expedite business goals. But how are the successful companies infusing blended workforces into their business strategy? And what are the critical success factors and pitfalls to avoid during implementation? And on the flip side, what does it really take for suppliers to improve their chances of finding and landing contract opportunities? The devil is in the details, my friends. I'm your host, Karen Farrell Rhodes, and it's time to get smarter about Blended Workforces at Work. Hello, my superstars, this is Karen and welcome to another episode of the Blended Workforces at Work podcast. We are super excited to have on today's show, Sarah Smart, who is a co founder of Horizon Human, which is a company where she and her team works to design and lead HR transformation initiatives. But what's very unique about them is they leverage their expertise in evaluating AI intelligence and automation to really help supplement talent strategies and organizational effectiveness. So that is definitely a mouthful. And we'll get deeper into what, uh, Sarah and her team does in just a moment, but we would first love to welcome Sarah to the show. So welcome Sarah.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker A: Oh, this is awesome. We're just super excited to have you, as I mentioned, and I am just fascinated about how companies are leveraging technology to get work done or make decisions about their workforce and including transformation initiatives. So I know, uh, we only have 30 minutes, but I could need to talk for weeks with you about this.

Speaker B: Awesome. Um, looking Forward to it.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Same here. Now, before we delve into our conversation deeply, we always love to learn just a tad bit about our guests. So for just as much as you feel comfortable, would you mind giving us a sneak peek into your life outside of work?

Speaker B: Sure, of course. And I love this question. My life outside of work is my family. It's work or family. There is no skydiving hobby in between. I have an 18 year old boy and a 12 year old girl and a very active 4 year old dog in this house and they are my life and I love hanging out with them.

Speaker A: Oh, that is amazing. Well, we have a lot in common with, um, kids and love for dogs and activity and family is definitely top of my list as well. So I love that we're recent empty nesters. So I will say there's light at the end of the tunnel. But, but enjoy them as they're continuing to, you know, grow up and experience life.

Speaker B: We will, we will.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, let's go ahead and jump into our conversation. Sarah and I would love to first start off, if you don't mind if just share a couple of milestones of your professional career and then what led you to co founding Horizon Human?

Speaker B: Sure. I've had a varied career and the milestones are sort of pivot points in my career. So I will say that I don't know many people that wake up up and think that they're going to go into recruiting or technology or talent acquisition or that they went to school for it. There are certainly some, but that was not me. And so I spent my early career in advertising and my first pivot point was being asked to join an executive recruiting firm very early in my career to recruit for advertising executives and media executives straight out of working in project management and advertising. And I fell in love with it. I fell in love with connecting people to opportunities. I loved talking to people and hearing their stories and helping to connect them to better stories that could further their life. So absolutely fell in love with it. And then I was very fortunate to be introduced to one of my mentors, Dr. Dana RD. I just had an hour long conversation with her yesterday and this was more than 25 years ago and she worked for a company called Flatiron Partners, which was a venture capital company and she invited me to join as her search associate and she was an executive search partner at the firm. Staffing. Staffing is sort of the wrong word, but really building the teams for all the venture backed companies.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Did that for several years and did that with her and A variety of different companies. And then I went into executive search briefly, I missed the team environment. Executive search can sometimes be a lonely sport. And so when I had the opportunity to go back in house, I actually took the opportunity first to build an executive search teams at Freddie Mac and then later at Hilton. Had the fortunate opportunity at Hilton to actually grow my career there for almost a decade and become their global head of recruiting, uh, for the organization. The pandemic hit, that was another pivot point. Hospitality of course was flattened and there was not really an opportunity for me to remain at Hilton. So I joined JPMorgan Chase first to run the Chase talent acquisition function, which is about half 50% of the talent acquisition organization, or was at the time. And then moved into a global product role at JPMorgan Chase, running all of their talent acquisition technology, business processes and transformation.

Speaker A: Amazing.

Speaker B: And then when we got to Horizon Human is sort of like the next big pivot point. I'd always dreamed of starting my own company and creating a new way of working and living for myself, for the people that work with me. I'd always dreamed of transferring my subject matter expertise into the ability to help other people learn my lessons without having to learn them the hard way. And we've been very successful. It's a year in, we have enjoyed every single moment of it.

Speaker A: Oh, amazing. Well, similar walk to your shoes as well. After, uh, 14 year career at Microsoft. Had some of the same feelings. Wanted to share the expertise outside the four walls. Although I will forever be a Microsoft fan, uh, for all the opportunities they gave. But starting your own company and firm is on a whole nother level. Don't you agree?

Speaker B: It is terrifying. It is definitely fun. Uh, every single day I wake up and I'm like, what is today going to bring? And you know, it's an adventure in a way that I did not anticipate. But I love it.

Speaker A: Oh, I can imagine. Well, I know I didn't do Horizon Human justice. So can you share with the audience a little bit more in depth about what you all do and how you help support your clients?

Speaker B: Sure. So Horizon Human was born out of a need and an observed experience, which is that HR itself is going through massive transformation. We talked about management consultants and they're typically working with CEOs or large scale organizations to redesign the organization because of some sort of outside business force or technology, et cetera. HR is going exactly through that. And sometimes it's hard to see the forest through the trees when you're going through that transformation. And I've lived through multiple HR transformations. I've seen the good and the bad and frankly, the ugly of some of those transformations. And my business partner, who was in HR digital strategy with me at JP Morgan, which is where we met, and then a former Deloitte consultant, has also been consulting on HR transformations for almost two decades now. And we sort of came together and we said, there's a problem. There's not necessarily a team that is advising Chros on the change that's happening to their organization with all of this new technology that's coming at them, with the need to change business processes, with the need to change how you're supporting your clients, with the urgency of the change that is happening in the marketplace at any given time. This is a dramatic shift in hr and we need to start acknowledging that and we need to start supporting our Chros and helping them to make great decisions for their business and their function.

Speaker A: I so agree with that because I had a very varied career, as you did as well. I was that person they couldn't put in a box, but always tapped on for, you know, major change initiatives or transformations or mergers and acquisition work streams that had to do with the people side. And, you know, one thing that was common throughout my entire career is that HR was never quote, unquote, trained or upskilled in technology, um, and how old I am. Right. But we've had to, especially, I would say, since what, the 2000s or 2010s, and with technology changing at the nanosecond, we've had to become proficient. Well, the company needs to become proficient, but so many of our fellow colleagues just aren't. And that's where I see the huge need for you and your team to help support the Chros and the C suites on, um, really rethinking their talent strategies and how they need to transform in order to remain viable. I'm curious your thoughts on that and what trends you're seeing from your clients at this point in time. Sure.

Speaker B: So we'll start with the trends. About five years ago, everyone was implementing a large scale erp. Everyone moved to the cloud. It was an exciting time. We thought, boom, that was a transformation that was going to stick. And it was going to be sort of, yes, there was going to be iteration and growth from there, but that was it. And then all of a sudden, three years later, it's followed on the heels by AI, is now transforming hr. And, you know, dirty little secret, AI has been in HR for probably the past decade and a half, really forever. Um, but fundamentally, my observation Is that for the most part, the ERPs that went in, they're systems of record. They don't transform how you work necessarily. They are where your data sits and how your data moves inside the organization. But I think a lot of chros expected transformation from those ERP implementations. Whether it was a business case around efficiency or thinking that they were going to get more time for their business leaders, their HR business partners, to be able to become strategic advisors. All of those, those concepts were kind of sold during the ERP gold rush, and they didn't all come to fruition. And that doesn't mean that someone did it wrong or that the tool wasn't there. It's more that just the advancements that most of those tools provide are not as transformative as you would expect. And in fact, what happened was a lot of companies had to realize business cases based on the transformation of purchasing an erp, but they weren't really ready. So it ended up being, I call them Scotch tape systems. You end up with Scotch taped technology in the background, sort of shoring you up, holding up the organization. And then you start looking around and you start thinking about, have I created a good experience for my employees, you know, the customers of hr? Have I created a good experience for the HR practitioners that are using my technology? And in my case in talent acquisition, have I created a good experience for my candidates? And the answer pretty much uniformly has been no. And that's sort of where, where we come in and where Horizon Human comes in and my work begins, which is, let's talk about the experience and let's identify the Personas that are having that experience. And then let's see if we can help you transform that experience through technology. So this is one way to answer your question, right?

Speaker A: Oh, no.

Speaker B: Technology trends today, when you look around the HR tech space, which is incredibly crowded, incredibly crowded, you want to look at it through the lens of experience and what experience you're trying to transform and what is the ROI or the result that you're trying to get it? And it could just be an experience uplift, it could be a savings, it could be a growth. But how are you measuring the impact of that technology? So the trends that we're seeing in hr, ah, tech and in that space are very much around, hey, we're going to make this a more commercial experience. We're going to make this a less administrative experience, for example, gentic AI. We're going to help your HR practitioners or your employees take advantage of AI in a way that helps you transform your HR organization. But uh, through all of that you need to start looking at all of that technology as a worker itself. You need to start thinking about, okay, great, I'm going to take away the responsibilities of this role because AI is going to do that work for us and then I can repurpose them or redeploy them in different ways inside the organization. And so when you start to evaluate your tech stack, your tech stack almost becomes a Persona.

Speaker A: Yeah. I'm just curious, Sarah, uh, and you're more deep into HR tech than I am. I'm more of the, I would say strategic implementation if you will, and change management. But I'm curious on some of the clients that we have and leverage. I love what you said earlier about what is the experience that companies would want their employees or their customers or whoever to um, have based on using the um technology. And where I see so many fall short is they don't consider the experience or their workflows as much as they should up front. They are so focused on okay, this is a great piece of tech which has all kinds of builds and features and they so focus on implementation and not enough focus on okay up front. This is the experience we want and these are the workflows that are needed and the tasks that are needed to be executed to get to that experience. How can we custom fit or ensure that the tech is supporting that experience we want to create? So I'm curious if you're seeing that as, as well or am I way off base?

Speaker B: No, no, you're not way off base at all. I think bringing a design thinking lens to implementation. So it's not just design. You know, there's great product designers that sit in all the major ERPs and all these great HR tech companies, but they're not necessarily thinking about the use case that me, the company buying it is trying to solve for. Right. So then you need to take it almost a design thinking lens into your implementation. And you're absolutely right. Customizing workflows. I advocate for avoiding the golden client as much as possible. Meaning do whatever the last client did.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Which is a very common approach for implementation shops. It is an easier way for them to do things and uh, it's often sold as an easier way for a company to do a large scale implementation. But what I say is that hey, whatever worked for the last client may not work for you. You need to understand your existing processes and why you do it that way. Not just that you always did it that way, but why. Right? And seek to understand approach with Curiosity, but I do a lot of journey mapping before any kind of implementation. I find it's actually a really good tool as well for that change management curve, um, because depending on who you can bring into the journey mapping sessions, you can start talking to them and helping them envision the future and hear their real pain points live, which gives sort of a venting experience and starts the change curve, uh, in many ways. So the implementation and the design, I would advocate for being customized no matter what shiny, happy tool you pick, um, don't just flip a switch. I would also really advocate for defining your KPIs and metrics before you start an implementation. What are you expecting to get out of it and what is and be solid on your use case. Right. Are you trying to solve for X problem in the business? Have you quantified what that problem is? Can you quantify it? If you can quantify it, great. Do you want to see an increase or a decrease in something? And then how will the tool allow you to measure that? I think that those are really important factors in being able to determine if an implementation was successful.

Speaker A: I love it. So I love, uh, this, that information you just shared. But I'm also curious, are there. Because we always love to try to give a tip or two to our listeners. Are there any blind spots or obstacles that any company that is considering an, um, HR tech implementation or transformation effort that you would love to share, to call out for them to make sure that they incorporate as they're thinking through things, what are maybe one or two common lines?

Speaker B: This is not going to make me friends with oracles in the work days of the world.

Speaker A: We'll, um, still be your friend, Sarah.

Speaker B: They have great sales teams, they have wonderful sales teams. And those sales teams will promise you the world and they will show you demos and you will immediately imagine how that works inside of your environment. Beware, beware. Because often what they're showing you are things that work in their environment. Specifically the companies that have developed that product, but again may not work inside of your use cases. So that's sort of point number one, right? Really? Again, it goes back to be solid on your use case before you buy anything. Don't fall for some of these. They're not sales tricks, they're not gimmicks. They're showing you great product. But does the product work for you is really the lens that you need to keep on when you're taking a look at everything? Two, I would say with AI being tossed around as being in everything, it's time to get AI literate, and that doesn't mean that you need to be a technology expert. I do not claim to be a technology expert, but I spent a lot of time getting literate over AI in HR tech over the past three years. Understand how the models are built, understand how the data is fed, understand what kind of AI it is. Is it machine learning and just sort of very basic? Is it actually a large language model that learns on its own? Who owns the data is really important, especially in hr as we think about all the privacy that we have to sort of address as HR practitioners.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah. And then what is it going to do? Right. So AI is particularly hard to measure if you don't understand the foundational aspects of what's meant to do. What kind of speed, what kind of enhancement, what kind of experience is it meant to, to drive. So really get under the hood and don't be afraid to ask questions. You do not need to be a data scientist to understand all of AI. You do need to be a data scientist to measure AI in some cases, but you don't need to be a data scientist. And you shouldn't be intimidated. And I think that that is one of the lessons that I have from almost a decade ago, first go around implementing an AI tool is that I was a little intimidated. I didn't want to ask the questions because I didn't want to sound stupid. Ask the question.

Speaker A: Yes. No stupid questions. That's only going to increase your knowledge once you get the answer. So absolutely. I love that. Uh, where do you think, in your opinion, the future of HR transformations are going to go? Maybe in the next six to 12 months? We no longer look five years out anymore. But what are you seeing on the horizon for your clients in your type of work in your industry?

Speaker B: Sure. And that's part of our job. Right. And we think about this a lot. We're working with traditional chros. And when I say traditional, that doesn't mean bad. That means very, very steeped in their company culture. Great senior level advisors, really strong in bringing teams together, identifying resources and prioritizing. So exceptional leaders. But what they're missing is that technology expertise. And, and what I'm seeing now, and you can already see it, is the next wave of chros are not going to be traditional HR executives. They could be from HR and have an expertise in technology. They could be from technology who have been taught hr. They could be a sort of combination platter. But you're going to see HR tech moving from being a pillar that is separate from HR into a, uh, part of the function. It's no longer going to be sitting underneath a technology team and you have to go to that technology team and ask for resources. They're going to be part of the work that you do as you look to transform the service and the value that you bring to your organization. So I think that that is a really big, it's been a trend for a while but I think it's going to become even bigger. And you can see that in so many organizations that are adopting the product operating model in hr. Separate from that, I think that you're going to continue to see AI as a huge trend. Uh, I think you're also going to see a lot more knowledge, very fast knowledge build around AI, especially with recent lawsuits like the Mobley v Workday and a couple of other areas that are really drawing attention to AI in hr. So I think you're going to see a lot more AI literacy. And then finally I think we're going to see the rise of agentic AI within the next year where you're going to have agents that can actually effectively do the administrative work of uh, parts of hr, freeing up those parts of HR to spend more time on strategy, storytelling, which I think should be a huge part of HR and uh, strategic advisory work with their senior clients.

Speaker A: I agree with you. I'm seeing that trend as well. It's already here and I think it's going to become more profound as you said, over the next year or so and will continue to evolve. And I'm all in for it. Me personally. I was reading a research study a few months back, um, about blended workforces and they were saying approximately on um, average 30 to 45% of the tasks that are done in the workplace actually could, you know, be done by tech or even external talent. That it doesn't have to be your typical full time employee. If companies actually assess that for their own organization, there's ways that they could leverage transformation to become a lot more efficient and agile as they need to scale up and scale down as needed. And I do believe that.

Speaker B: I love that. And you can see this in certain companies and I think it's going to happen in all companies is that eventually a chro is going to look at workforce planning as I have my people, I have my technology and then I have my subject matter experts that maybe aren't employed by my company. Maybe they're consultants, maybe they're fractional. We're certainly seeing the rise of fractional all over the world right now. Uh, for A variety of different economic reasons, I think. But you know, it's also people are making the choice as subject matter. Experts are saying, I'm ready not to be attached to a company. I want to work for myself. And we're seeing that globally. And I think workforce planning is going to become really interesting, uh, as you start to think about, okay, great, I have got bots that do this work, I've got a person that does this work, and then I've got my contractors that come in and do this work for me.

Speaker A: And how do you do it more efficiently? And how do you. I'll just say for the U.S. you know, how do you not cross IRS rules and the other things to consider? But how do you leverage all of these ways to get work done and still make it as seamless as possible? It'll be a challenge for, um, hr, but it'll be also a challenge for the business leaders in their organizations as well. And HR is going to have to lead that effort. To help from a change perspective is

Speaker B: a m, massive seismic change. How we work seismic change. And you can see the ripples already. We all see the news around AI is coming from my job. I actually don't believe that that is the case.

Speaker A: I don't think it is either.

Speaker B: I think that we'll have to make a concerted effort to protect entry level jobs in order to train people and develop them into becoming great leaders. I think that we're probably going to have maybe a half a decade of missteps in that area before we get it right. So we're going to learn as we go. But I think fundamentally our workforce is changing dramatically in a way that we could not have anticipated 10 years ago.

Speaker A: Oh, absolutely not. And I think you'll become, it's actually a mandate now, but become even more of a mandate as a skill set to be AI literate, as you mentioned, versus it totally wiping out, um, the workforce. I mean, there will be some tasks and jobs that, uh, is prime and ripe for AI, but I do think in my lifetime anyway, I do think a human element is always going to be needed in any company. It just will look, as you said, a lot different than it did 10 years ago.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. Exciting and interesting times.

Speaker A: Very much so. Well, Sarah, this has been a great conversation, but we can't let you sneak out of here without asking you our signature question that we ask all of our guests. And for my newer listeners, you may not know that our company did a lot of research on leadership execution. And then out of that research Came seven big buckets that all high potential and strong leaders always do. And we always love to ask our guests which of the seven really pop for them. All seven are equally as important and you use them at different times. But usually one pops out for our guests. And Sarah was so kind to share that. Leading with strategic decision making really popped for her. And strategic decision making is just as it sounds. It's either making good decisions yourself or leading a good decision making process with your, um, teams and colleagues in order to meet your top strategic goals and priorities. So, Sarah, curious minds want to know why strategic decision making really resonated with you?

Speaker B: First of all, it was really hard to choose. There were seven things that were really important for being an amazing leader. I think a lot about what I've learned in my career, and they come down to taking calculated risks, whether it was calculated risks with my career or calculated risks in terms of a business initiative. And the reason that I say calculated risk is that sort of aligns a little bit with strategic decision making, which is I had all the information that I could possibly gather. I had this moment in time where maybe more data would have been better, but that wasn't available to me and I had to make a decision and I had to lead and get people on board with that decision. So when I think about strategic decision making, it is the ability to take in as much data as you can trust yourself and then drive forward on that strategic decision knowing that you're bringing value to the organization. And I always sort of put in a couple of elements into strategic decision making. So, yes, it's data gathering to understand the problem, and then it's defining the metrics, understanding what you're trying to change and why. How are you going to measure it is the third piece. And then, uh, set up the routines right. Make sure that you're continuously measuring the work that you set out to do. So once you make a decision, don't just abandon it. Go back and check, did you make the right decision and learn from it over and over again. I can think of several inflection points in my career where I felt like I almost had to hold on to a steering wheel as we're going down a bumpy road. And it all came back to a strategic decision that I'd made and I needed to bring the team along and I need to have confidence in the decision that I made. And that is the crux to me of leadership.

Speaker A: Is it? That's kind of a drop the mic moment right there. The only thing I'll Add to what you said is that when you make a decision, it's okay if it comes to light that you have to pivot. That's another decision as well. Right.

Speaker B: You know, again, this would come back to sort of like courageous leadership and some of the other pieces that your research has touched on. Be okay with making the wrong decision. Admit it. I want it. Be okay with making mistakes in the. In the organization or in your leadership. And own it and learn from it.

Speaker A: Absolutely. That's all we can do. Continuous learners. So. And that help make us better. Well, Sarah, this has been such a wonderful conversation, and we're going to have, you know, your full bio, tons of notes, and information on where to find you in our show notes. But I always love to give our guests a little bit of airtime to share as well. So if people want to learn more about you and your firm, where can they find you?

Speaker B: Sure. Well, you can always find me on LinkedIn. Believe it or not. I think I'm sarahsmartinkedin.com like or like backslash LinkedIn. Right. I don't know how I got the first Sarah Smart, but here we go. Uh, there's a lot of us out there, but really the best place to find us is on our website, www.horionhuman.com, where you can find all kinds of information about myself, my business partner, some of the work that we've done, some of our podcasts and publications, and some of our bylines.

Speaker A: Wonderful. Fantastic. Well, thanks again for the gift of your time. This was a, uh, tremendous conversation for my listeners. Highly encourage you to check out Sarah and their company. There's not a single company or firm that I know that is not undergoing some kind of people or HR transformation, and they're the experts to, uh, check out to get assistance with that. So thanks so much again, Sarah, and hopefully we stay in touch and see how things are going in the future.

Speaker B: I'd love to touch base again in another year. Thank you for having me. It was a really enjoyable conversation.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And thank you to listeners for the gift of your time as well. Um, we know there are literally millions of other podcasts you could be listening to, and we do not take your patronage lightly at all. All that we ask is that you like and subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform of choice and just share our podcast with just one friend, because by doing so, we'll all get smarter about blended workforces at work. Thanks a ton and see you next week. Well, that's our show for today. Thank you again for listening to the Blended Workforces at Work podcast. You can check out the show notes, additional episodes, bonus resources, and also submit guest recommendations on our website@, uh, blendedworkforcesatwork.com youm can also follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or YouTube by searching for the name Karen Rhodes with Karen being spelled K A R a N. And if you like the show, the greatest gift you can give would be to subscribe and leave a rating on your favorite podcast platform of choice. This podcast has been a production of shockingly different Leadership, a global consultancy which helps organizations execute their people talent development and organizational effectiveness initiatives on an on demand contract, fractional or project based basis. Huge thanks to the SDL production and editing team for a job well done. Bye for now.