Episode 902: A Conversation With Christoph Niebel (AMS)

Speaker A: Welcome to another all new edition of the Future of Work Exchange podcast. I'm Christopher J. Dwyer, your host and I am super excited to welcome another very, very special guest. Here we have Christoph Niebau, Chief Client Officer, the Americas at ams. Christophe, long overdue to have you here.

Speaker B: Great to see you again. Great to have the time with you and I'm excited to be on the pod with you.

Speaker A: Great. Well, thanks again, Christoph. So it's funny, whenever we have someone on the podcast that has as much expertise and experience in our industry as you, um, I always say things like, oh, you've spent a long time in the space. And it's like, I don't want you to feel old, but like, we have spent a long time in the space. Right. Um, it has been. But just given all of. Actually, let's back up, let's have an introduction, a proper introduction. Let's do that first.

Speaker B: No problems, as you said. Christoph Niebl here, I'm the Chief Client Officer, um, and President of the Americas for ams. We are, ah, about a eight and a half thousand people strong, consulting led provider of outsourced talent acquisition services. It's a mouthful, I know. Um, we respond for about 270,000 perm hires and billions of external workforce spend for a client set of blue chip companies which add up to roughly about 12, uh, 13 trillion in combined market cap. So some real blue chips. And the reason they work with us is that they have all realized that while filling jobs faster and cheaper is super important, but in the current environment, of course it doesn't cut it anymore. And CEOs really, that's what we see need talent strategies that drive real business results. But HR and talent leaders face what we see, three big problems associated with that. Number one, their operating models can't adapt fast enough. They're stuck in rigid, outdated processes that add cost and complexity. Number two, there's a massive gap between AI hype and what's actually been deployed. And without the right environment, data, workflows, and importantly, redesigning of how work gets done, AI, unfortunately, can keep disappointing. And number three is workforce productivity is often stagnant because companies can't shift the workforce mix to improve expense ratios and reduce risks. And at ams, we solve these problems by what we like to say, bridge the gap between talent and shareholder value by transforming how organizations hire, deploy, manage talent, permanent M and external, so they can actually fuel growth and prove it, ideally in the language a CEO and a CFO understands. And that's what we call here at AMS people, powered partnership.

Speaker A: Love it. So just two. Two quick comments Christoph. Uh, you've celebrating what year and a

Speaker B: half at AMS exactly.

Speaker A: Went by fast. We were just talking in the green room about that. And the second thing, I mean I have to ask right after spending so much time in our industry, you know, what draws you to an organization like ams?

Speaker B: Yeah and as you said we had a bit of a chat about this. Having had the opportunity to operate for now without making myself to all 20 plus years in the industry, you know started in, in Australia effectively but I'm German and operated through Asia Pacific Europe and the last 13 years living here in New York. So I've seen just a little bit. I've had um, you know, 14 odd years um, with a great organization called the Adeco Group. Right. Which you know from a career perspective, you know gave me a lot and there I saw um, and had the benefit to, to see across the permanent external uh, you know, employee or non employee, um, life cycle. And when I had the opportunity to look at what's new in the market, I could have looked at three different kind of angles. One was what does early kind of tech, HR and workforce tech look like and would that be something to be associated with? I quickly made a decision that I'm, I'm you know, contextualized. Not probably a startup, uh, guy, a zero to ten guy but I like scale and I can make impact in that context. Plus I have a deep service background so that wasn't really where I ended up going. And then I looked at different operating models and, and, and what is required in the future and there's obviously a lot of uncertainty and you know effectively had to make a human capital bet. And for me there were three things that were really important. One was um, you know, tech enabled service business, who has the best people. And I was fairly convinced after spending a good amount of time consulting actually into ams that there was an incredible talent density both at the top but importantly throughout the organization and globally with a lot of diversity of thought and, and the capability to, to out innovate and out learn our competition in the context of competition. Right. Which was important to me. The second part was the incredible um, you know, integration into our clients. Um, you know we have about 100 uh, 80 plus odd clients and, and again as you said I've seen a few relationships and they uh, arrange from vendor to kind of real deep partner. The overwhelming relationships here have been 10 plus years long in a context where we have reshaped the operating model many a, uh, times and where we have deep partnerships and then when you combine that, that we are still, while we are now in our 30s year, it feels like we only, only getting started because there's so much um, you know, market share opportunity ahead of us and where externally you might see there's a lot of complexity hitting our clients that obviously provides both a, a uh, responsibility but also an opportunity for us. And I thought AMS is pretty ideally positioned also in its kind of ability to move at speed because of its you know, um, operating model to, to help our clients and therefore also have fun and some success. And that what really drew me to um, to AMS in the end, great.

Speaker A: I have to say I, uh, we, we had Orly, Orly Becker of your team on the podcast. I think it may have been about four or five months ago. Um, and I think one of the things I had said was like, I remember being on like the reveal call, there was myself and a handful of other industry analysts um, about the rebrand from Alexander Mann to ams. And I think what's interesting is a lot of the visionary elements that the team had laid out. And this was January of 2021 I believe. Um, it's amazing to see that come to fruition over the past five years. So, um, so again that's, I think it's a great, a great way for you to sort of um, you know, chat about what drew you to the organization. And it's, it's good to hear all that. So before we move on and I ask this of every guest, right? But you know, state of the market, where are we? And I mean I know that's loaded because is it state of staffing, is it state of hiring, is it state of full time, is it state of talent, tech or services? But you know, everything that's happening in the world today from your perspective, all the expertise you have, you know, where are we as a market?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think back to what I just said. My experience in seeing both employee, non employee lifecycles from hiring, defying effectively the consistency which I have, where I'm still perceiving the market, tells me that every client, every market, every cycle has still some of the same core questions that uh, a choo or a head of TA would ask. And that's like, how do you change the skill set and makeup of our workflow force at the speed the business needs to drive transformation? Now that question has always existed and as it comes to the state of the market today, today it's being compressed by AI from a multi year, uh, planning exercise to something the board wants to, quite frankly want to serve, answered by next quarter. But we all know this is really, really hard. And anyone telling you otherwise is, I guess, selling you something, right? And so what 20 years of seeing this end to end I think have taught me is, well, what has ended up for me is with two beliefs that I think connect direct to the state of the market right now. Number one, the first belief is about. People actually posted about this recently. We just talked about LinkedIn. There's a, there's, there's something people like to say, whether it's you know, HR and the business or LinkedIn, right? And it's something like some version of your new colleague won't be human. Now, LinkedIn, everything needs to sound slightly clever, right? Um, and you know, while it's probably not incorrect, I think it misses still slightly the point. And the question, you know, that obviously then always often is asked is, you know, who can I replace with AI? But to me still it is what combination of people, technology and process do I need to achieve the best outcome? And I do think in terms of state of the market, that's not just an HR question anymore, that's a business design question. And it fundamentally changes what's required from the person running effectively. Also a talent function, number one, they have to think beyond the function, they have to be cross functional because talent decisions don't sit neatly within HR anymore. They cut across ops, finance, IT curant, product, legal. So it's a team sport. And if someone can translate between those worlds, they get into the rooms where the calls get made versus sitting outside waiting for the brief and taking the demand. Right. And there are other things I think the current market rewards for talent leaders, for example penile fluency, which means stop talking in terms of roles and hires, but start talking about cost delays and productivity uplifts. It doesn't mean your work changes, but your contextualization of the impact changes. And again, the closer you bring talent decisions to business outcomes, the more influence I guess they will earn. Um, next point is like, you know, the market rewards folks that are ia native but now doesn't mean subscription to every tool, but understanding where technology creates value where it doesn't. And the best teams, I think they won't choose between AI and human intelligence, they'll design for both. And lastly, I think it's those who hold an external perspective. I mean the days of self contained talent function are over and you touched on it. I think the future belongs to leaders who can orchestrate an ecosystem, whether it's partners, market intelligence, advisory networks, internal external talent in all the forms that come, not just operate as an internal delivery team. And the reality though is that combination is rare, but it's non negotiable. And my second belief is simply about speed. You know, AI is creating what I started to call a K shaped career trajectory. The concept of a K shaped economy, you know, is simply after a shock, some segments grow upside of the K and while others decline downside of the K. And I write an AI right now, is the shock that creates that vertical line of decay. And from here the paths diverge, the up and the down. Leaders and organizations that rethink the operating model and build for the future, they'll be accelerating, pull away. And the ones that are slow to adapt using AI only at the edges, a chatbot here, sourcing tool there, they will fall behind. And I think the gap is widening every quarter and here, and you know, while it's not super comfortable, that's your question. That same bifurcation applies to vendors and service providers in the space. Right. And if we are not transforming at the same space speed that we're asking our clients, we have no credibility in that conversation. And to me that's kind of for me, the state of the market, we are bifurcating. And um, you know, we'll see some really great and fast shifts from here.

Speaker A: I mean speaking of shifts, right, and you definitely see this in your role and especially within ams, right? I mean the fact that AMS sits very nicely, as you put it, sort of into the employee and the non employee life cycles. Right. You know, with whether it's RPO or it's, you know, contingent workforce solutions slash MSP direct sourcing. AMS really has played a big role in uh, reshaping hiring, reshaping talent acquisition strategies. So you're talking about shifts. So what do you see as the biggest structural shifts in the way organizations think or maybe rethink or reimagine how they hire, how they find people.

Speaker B: Yeah, I um, may almost want to reframe the question because you, as you said, it's focused on finding people and hiring. I think the biggest structural shift right now that we're moving actually from, we have an open job here, let's focus how to fill them as in hire to what are the outcomes that we need and how do we actually achieve them. Now it sounds simple and corny, but it's not. Because once the outcome is the anchor, not the job, I think we start deconstructing this differently task sill skills. What's done by a person, what's done by AI, what's done by a contractor, uh, still a person, um, bought through an internal move. But it shifts the way where talent is just one element of this into kind of a bigger question. And again that comes back to what I said earlier. How does the operating model need to shift to actually deliver those outcomes with what's now possible? And this is again where the market is splitting. I often come back to this old Henry Ford quote who said if I ask my customers what they want, that would have set faster horses. And I think that's still that environment we are in right now. Um, you know, most companies are using AI for example to look for faster horses. It's not a bad thing. But productivity and efficiency inside the existing model, where is often the, the focus. And so they're solving for today's problem, not building for tomorrow's operating reality. Um, and this comes back to those companies that are pulling away right now, the vendors that are winning right now, they're asking a different question. How does work get done? How are roles structured? How do humans and I collaborate not in theory, but in practice. And I think that's the mindset shift in a talent function. But it also requires an operating context to make it real. Because we have talked about a lot of things in theory in the industry for a long time and it comes back to therefore the caliber of the leader. This isn't a uh, tinker at the edges moment, it's the reshape moment. And not everyone is simply ready for that. Now that makes it interesting for service provider. Right. Um, and I would say the most forward looking clients we're working on, they do this right now. They're moving from. And I think we'll get to talk a little about this, maybe even a little bit more later. Like from traditional TA to what we call next generation talent acquisition, powered in our case by a tooling called AMS1. And that's an orchestration platform. Unify siloed TA data with external and operational data to enable AI driven workflows, demand forecasting, global sourcing across all labor categories aligned to business outcomes, not just open bracks. And the insight here is simple. You can't separate talent strategy from an operating model design. And the companies trying to run a next gen talent strategy on a legacy, legacy operating model are going to keep getting legacy results. And then that's why we're building toward an orchestration layer that lets clients think outcomes first and then shape the human and AI mix to achieve them. And I think that's literally the difference between optimizing the existing model and architecting for the future. And that to me is the biggest structural shift I've seen in a long time, which we are trying to take advantage of.

Speaker A: And so Christoph a lot to unpack there. So I'm going to peel a little bit away.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker A: uh, you mentioned, you know, sort of the, the, the design and I think the, the phrase workforce design means a lot more than its, its true definition. Right. So that's one element. The second element you talk about outcome based hiring. Right. And again I'm not trying to jump on the bandwagon of skills based hiring because I don't think it's a bandwagon. I just think that's a phrase that gets overused. I feel when you sort of deconstruct outcome based, more of a focus becomes on skills and is that part of workforce design? How do you marry that together?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think. Interesting to hear why you said that. But you talked about not jumping on the bandwagon because it seemed like you had a bit of doubt on the efficacy of skill based hiring. Right. And you said workforce design. And I mean let's be clear. There is a gap between what is being said and what is being hyped and I think what is being adopted and what is real. I mean I wouldn't be surprised if you know, the majority of companies say that they use skill based hiring because it's, it's neat. Right? Like why wouldn't you. Most of uh, that adoption is probably still surface level. I mean we see it being applied in screening and interviewing for sure. Right. But that's not fundamentally reshaping how work gets done. I stumbled across a Deloitte survey, um, that touched about 10,000 leaders globally. It was, it was something 70 odd percent recognized. They need to fundamentally reinvent how the people work alongside technology. But only I think it was something like under 10% made real progress. And that gap between knowing it matters and doing something about it I think was where most of the market is stuck right now. So the question then is where are uh, enterprises actually winning and the ones getting results I think are doing something that most aren't. And I said it before, they're deconstructing roles individual into individual tasks and skills and then deliberately match human capability to AI capability for each of those tasks. And that's not just regimen screening, that's operating model redesign. And I give you a couple of examples. One of Them is we published a recent paper with Standard Chartered that's a um, big financial services organization that we operate with in a global level and they um, are embedding AI across the entire TA life cycle. Sourcing, mobility, hiring, onboarding in you know obviously banking, very regulated industry. Yet they have tangible results because over 50% of roles and a third of high potential moves are filled internally through combining AI skill matching with human led interventions which brought them close to 10 million in cost savings and about 90 something odd percentage higher manager satisfaction across a network of over 200,000 candidates. So it's possible but it required quite a bit of um, you know leaning in because it was not just experimenting but it's the difference of doing experiments and deploying at the enterprise scale responsibly is huge. And um, where do organizations simply get stuck in this like it's my God, I don't have any foundational data infrastructure to map skills accurately, accurately to roles. That's really unsexy work. But if you don't have that, you not look, you don't. So they may be changing how they screen candidates but they're not redesigning the workflows or operating models. And number two they're not connecting skills based hiring to then continuous learning and internal mobility so it stays disconnected from business outcomes. And that's the point I mentioned beforehand this, this kind of cross functionality and P and L fluency. And we've also done another example, we've done work on this winner ourselves. Now as you can imagine at the context ah said about ams, we have a lot of recruiters. It's just a core and critical role we are um, whether it's in the context of the external or permanent workforce, you know effectively direct sourcing and building these um, these functions is core to what we do and people are core to what we do. So we looked at the recruiter role um, and deconstructed it into its component task and skills. Can ask what does a human recruiter do best and what should AI handle? And we call this at AMS the evolved recruiter framework. And so we ended up with four categories of work. There's pure AI tasks, scheduling, passing, initial screening and there's AI with human oversight, sourcing, shortlists, assessment, scoring and then there's human tasks such as relationship rebuilding, influencing hiring managers, coaching candidates through really complex decisions. And then there is I think importantly evolved human tasks. What could I not do on my own without AI? And there we come back to your earlier point. Workforce planning, talent intelligence, strategic advisory. So the Point is not to push everything into pure AI, but to move people up into the tasks that require judgment, empathy and partnership. And then that's the difference between talking about skills based hiring or workforce design and actually implementing it. It requires leadership willing to reimagine the role, not just the hiring process. Again, you know, standard charter is a proof point. But also show us what's required. Sponsorship, governance, change management. A clear view of the measure of success isn't just efficiency, but business impact. So that's my way I land on that. I'm interested in your view because it's certainly a topic that um, um, you know, is, is ongoing. But I do feel like it will get now finally the skills based hiring piece. A more efficacy behind it.

Speaker A: Yeah, and I mean Christoph, there's a. I feel like every answer you give, like I can unpack and ask 10 more good questions. Right? It's, that's, that's a good thing. I think it's a great foundation to the podcast here. So yeah, I mean, just, I mean I'll give my quick commentary on skills based hiring. And I know you'd agree we're in an industry where it's very easy to hype up ideas and strategies. Right. I mean you and I could argue and have fun about total talent for 45 minutes if we needed to. But you know, and, and that's, I think that's the problem. That's maybe the downside of sort of like the power of like social channels like LinkedIn. It's very easy for an idea to take off without, you know, without true definition behind it, without true rigor or true uh, you know, having you know, true strategic value behind it. But to me and you, you touched on this, you know, skills based hiring needs more than just sort of like that overall strategic vision. It needs, he needs data, needs skills, intelligence. Um, and I think that other lever is AI. Right. You do need a, ah, sort of automation to give you the real time insights that you need to as you said, you know, break down the roles and become more outcome based. So um, and I think just because I talk about it so much, I can get a little bit, I don't know, not disillusioned but it's very easy for. It's like direct sourcing. Right. All the years that I've been writing about and theorizing and talking about direct sourcing, you know, if you ask a hundred organizations are you, are uh, you do you have direct sourcing? Maybe 85% say they do. But when you break that down, it's like 70% of that.

Speaker B: 80.

Speaker A: They have elements, right? Talent curation, very easy. Right. Building talent communities, even easier. But do they have talent nurture? Do they have an infusion of, you know, a skills based orientation to how they map or you know, uh, sort of uh, optimize their talent pools in their talent communities? Probably not. Right? So there's a lot of that, I think happening in the space and I think skills falls into that bucket where a lot more organizations say they're doing it than truly are. So actually let's just wrap this part of the conversation up because I do want to talk more about AI and I want to talk about RPO too, because that's another exciting topic. But where do organizations, and I think you hinted at this, but how do organizations get over that hump? You know, but you say that some organizations get stuck in skills based hiring, right? And it's usually a process choke point that they get stuck. How do they get over that?

Speaker B: I think you gotta go consider first principles. I mean any strategy should incorporate the question of what makes this hard. We often, you know, look, I'm um, the first one to admit if I see a good demo of a vendor, I'm like, yeah, this is gonna solve all my problems. But it's the unsexy part that needs to be mapped out. So that means, you know, solid understanding of existing processes, processes potentially in its current status, are falling short. And having the ability to assess, you know, where process improvements can exist, but at the same time in the context of AI, makes things happen that there weren't beforehand. Even having the opportunity and the, and potentially the guts to say, what would this look like if we totally reinvent it? And then keeping asking self and keep asking yourself the question, what makes this hard? Where's the risk? And then looking at that same problem, call it skills based hiring through the lens of many different views. So my earlier point ta having a, or talent or hr, having a view can be quite theoretical. Mhm. Until it hits the business and you're like, look great. You spent a year on workforce planning on something that's out of date now. So how do you push a very constructive feedback loop where you might bring in hypothesis to the head of legal, a business leader, the cio, to make you thinking better and stronger. Because what you would ultimately need is sponsorship in the organization. Because quite frankly you will probably end up at the point where in a world where a lot of people looking for limited resources, and that includes money and time, you know, how do you make sure that you conclude your pitch has both sponsorship and is bulletproof and then ensure that you find maybe the positive deviants in the company who might already leaning in with you and get them, there might be your biggest challenges at the beginning, get them to lean in with you. So none of that really speaks to the concept of, you know, here's uh, a silver bullet for skills based hiring, but probably much more around what does it look like to drive effective, you know, business casing for transformation, which is again in itself a skill set. Because through, through the, through the pathway in making this work, there will be a lot of bumps. Um, you want to be able to kind of, you know, withstand that and be a little bit anti fragile. I would be remiss to say, um, you know, if I wouldn't say that, you know, companies should find a good partner who maybe has some practical expertise to help them with that. Um, and I do think, you know, there's always a benefit of getting that external perspective and you know, and what other companies have been doing and potentially find some capability and skill that might not exist in their own teams.

Speaker A: So we want to pivot to RPO M. Right. And I think this is a topic that in and of itself. Right. You know, there's so much change happening within the RPO space and there's a lot of evolution. What to you, what does the next generation of RPO look like and how do you feel? AMS is preparing for that?

Speaker B: Yeah, good, uh, timing. We just published some research. Uh, you know, it included about 150 senior TA leaders at organizations with um, 10,000 plus employees, which is kind of really, kind of the sweet spot that we're working in. And there were a couple of findings that jumped out to me which lead to also the context of what your question. Um, so we assessed them against a kind of a maturity model. And without going into too much detail, fewer than one in six enterprises have achieved what we call a fully orchestrated TA model. One in six. Meanwhile, more than a third are still operating what I'd call execution led, which is pre traditional compliance driven, really focused on reqs, requisitions and partners are typically engaged in those models for transactional delivery. And I think that's where some of the tension also now is being created. Because at the same time, while the majority of that um, of everyone sits in that bucket, over 60% of those same leaders say that they expect their partners to deliver measurable business impact. Not just capacity, not just efficiency, but business impact. Again, lots of numbers, but only about 1 in 5 report true outcome, co ownership with their partner. So in a nutshell, the expectations has moved. Mhm. But the model hasn't. And that you know, makes things break. In an environment like an rpo, you can be as a provider, but also as the, you know, ah, the head of TA or whoever you want the relationship, you can get a lot of pressure if things don't work. You don't get a lot of kudos if things do work. But certainly a lot of pressure. They don't. Mhm. And there's a, there's a line from the research that I keep coming back to. It's that what's holding TA back is not a lack of ambition or effort. To my point, we always dream and um, it's a lack of, I would have it say, and that's not new. And I um, touched on that connection between people process, the platform and partner. And I think the orcs are pulling away that small percentage, about 14 who achieved that true orchestration kind of maturity. They're the ones who build coherence across all those four. They really shape what a next gen to your question RPO looks like. So it's not a better version of what we've been doing because it started as labor arbitrage, right. Then it became process optimization. And the next generation here is simply orchestration. And that means three things. First, the partner doesn't just fill roles. The partner co owns outcomes. That's my point earlier. From moving from open jobs and how to achieve them to outcomes. Sorry open jobs and how to fill them to outcomes and how to achieve them, which means shared accountability for quality of hire, workforce readiness, time to capability. These are uh, not just SLA compliance focus, but it's business results. Second, I'm gonna come back to your point beforehand. Total talent. We're just gonna use it. But not siloed channels. Let's put it this way. You know, uh, our research shows, and I think you know, you probably agree there, nearly above 50% of TA functions now have ownership not just for perm, but also contingent in early careers together certainly as more companies who moving towards that. And that's a massive shift because at most operating models and most RPO models haven't really caught up at that. And um, we could you know, talk forever as we said about direct source in my mind ought to be, you know, uh, the sweet spot for an rpo because that's what they should be doing if they're not having an agency model and that had total transferability in the external workforce. But you can't orchestrate a total talent strategy through three separate programs with three separate providers. I don't believe that. And the third point for next gen is think about a control tower. It's not a dashboard but like a reporting and insights layer. So governance and orchestration construct that defines the North Star of outcomes and then monitors the capability across the people, process, platform and partner. Those four Ps and surfaces, the trade offs before they become actual problems. Because today what we often still are uh, is reactive. And where we want to be proactive is where is technology investment outpacing recruiter readiness because that's real, you know, where we think it's just a tech upgrade but we need to have people who use it. Another example is where's process standardization limiting agility. Everyone wants to focus on standardization, but we have edge cases and we have the business needing agility. 3 Whereas partner integration lacking platform development. And that means like okay, many companies run over core HRIs or maybe have an ATS, but then they need to have elements of innovation and speed to impact around them. And so how can a partner integrate really fully in that context and make sure that they can get a transformation of the operating model feels much more like an iOS update versus the three year uh, transformation program. And that's the kind of questions a control tower should answer. But almost nobody has that. And as I showed earlier, this is what strategically led us to bring Next Gen TA powered by AMS1 to the market to connect the ecosystem, every tool, every workflow, every stakeholder, every hiring type in a unified single view. So you don't have another point solution, but the orchestration layer that makes the existing investment work harder. Um, because you can have the best platform in the world, but if your people aren't ready, your processes are still linear and your partner is still operating on a transactional SLA model, you don't have any compounding improvement. And I think that's where the organizations who will win aren't just the ones with the most tech, but the ones with the most connection. Coherence and coherence at scale is what next gen RPO partners need to deliver. And that's our bet. And I think we're leading the market on.

Speaker A: Great, great, great answer. I want to pivot again a little bit. One, one avenue of um, the future of work movement that I ah, feel is sometimes overlooked, uh, are the non talent and the non tech components. Right. And I always feel like um, you know, and I've had to do this, you know when we have a podcast called the Future of work Exchange. When we have a website and we have an event called the Future of Work Exchange, you know, you do often get asked, you know, how do you, how do you find the future of work? And I always say there's, there's, to me there's, there's, there's three layers, right? There is the evolution of talent, right? Everything we're talking about, whether it's recruitment, it's skills based hiring, it's contingent, it's full time, whatever, uh, the tech, obviously there's the AI components and then obviously all the other, both service and service, uh, service solutions in our space as well as things like VMs and other platforms. But I feel like that third layer is sort of the, the sort of the transformation of business leadership. Right. I mean one that I was talking about a lot during um, you know, the pandemic was you know, like things like empathy and you know, sort of next gen leadership focusing more on the human side of. So I have to say, I mean you again, Christophe, not calling you old. So don't think that you've spent, you know, a long time in the space, but you've led teams through massive change, you've helped clients through massive change, right? So along that line of leadership being a core future of work principle, what leadership behaviors matter roast most right now when you think about workforce disruption, AI skills, all of the things that leaders have to navigate.

Speaker B: Yeah. Preface with uh, that what I'm going to say is while I have a fairly strong opinion, it doesn't mean that I do perfectly what I say every day because I think I see myself very much on a leadership journey. But you know, obviously I do agree with you. It's comes at the callback to this. I, I recently saw a stat and it was something like close to 60% of the US workforce is, I think what is called job hugging right now. Didn't really know the term but it makes inherent sense because basically what it means, people stay in roles they don't want because the alternatives feel too risky. And look at Gallup or anything else I haven't recently looked at it, but global employee engagement numbers don't look great. Um, and you know, probably not much better than during COVID Right. At the same time we are all under pressure to transform our businesses and do that really fast. And you know, that's certainly, you know, that's what every CEO and every board wants. So the instinct for most leaders in that environment is quite simple. Push harder, move faster, drive the transformation, set the vision, expect people to follow I know that instinct well, because, you know, that's been my default for many years. But, uh, here's what I've learned and it took maybe longer than I like to admit. When people get pushed, they could develop anxiety, they could be maybe scared of what's happening in the future. Right. And pushing harder doesn't create movement, but it can actually create calcification. People freeze their job hug, or they comply without being committed, they perform without actually growing. And then we mistake that compliance for alignment. Believe that is what's, you know, some of the data is showing us across all industries. So the real leadership challenge right now isn't getting people to move faster, but it may be giving them the confidence and clarity to move at all again. I learned through reading and I've had many mentors that I haven't met. Authors I like, Dan Pink, for example, and he wrote quite a bit on this concept of intrinsic motivation. And he thought that there's three things that actually drive human performance, and that's purpose, mastery, and autonomy. And I think these three map perfectly to what in my context, it's often TA leaders need to provide their teams right now, but also what I need to provide my team. To be clear. Right. So start with purpose. If your team doesn't understand why in this context the TA function is changing, not what's changing, but why it matters, you may up getting resistance dressed up as compliance and give you an example. At ams, we changed, uh, our vision last year from something like we want to be the best, blah blah blah, a lot about ourselves to we are the people who achieve your vision, not people who fill your roles, but, uh, people achieve your vision. So the language shift changed the conversation internally because it told our teams, you're not here to just process requisitions.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Or make AMs win, but you're here to help a client achieve something that really matters. Because every client's vision obviously is somewhat nuanced and unique to them. So purpose with that shouldn't be just a post on the wall. It's the answer to why should I care about this change. The second thing that Dan Ping talks about is mastery. Now, are people afraid of AI potentially? Mhm. But may they be also afraid of being incompetent in front of this new possibility of AI? We all know that there is a reality, um, or there's certainly an anticipation if you just look at the news that job losses may be coming because of AI. Right. But I think what's real right now is the concern about skill, loss the feeling that the ground is shifting and I don't know if I can keep up. I mean, I tell you, I mean I see myself, I really don't think I'm a Luddite. I think, I mean I'm trying things out and I'm testing, I'm learning, but I feel constantly behind. Right. And I think the antidote here is not another training program. It is rapid feedback loops. Now the risk is here. Overwhelmed but small. Experiments, weekly learning, visible progress. Let people feel themselves that getting better at the new thing is possible. Not just tell them how to do it. And you know I told you before and that's, that's came back to also our evolve recruiter work. We didn't just hand down a new role description, say figure it out. We showed people those four categories. Pure AI, AI with oversight, human AI evolved.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And human. And let them see where their value was growing or shrinking. So the reframe is from a I taking my task to I'm moving up into higher value work. That's the mastery shift because everyone arguably he wants to get better at the craft. And the last thing is autonomy that Dan Ping talks about in times of disruption. The instincts centralize, tighten controls, standardize everything, remove all ambiguity. But what actually it does is remove the one thing people need most and that's agency. And the best teams I'm seeing right now are the ones where the leader sets clear direction and then gives people the real ownership of how they get there. Now let's be clear, they hold them accountable, but they're not like here's the playbook, follow it step by step. But they say here's the outcome and here's the boundary. Now figure out how to get there and uh, I'll go back to you and help you. Mhm. I like to talk about this thing about uh, tight, loose, tight. Be very tight in setting the boundary and what they can do and what the achievements. Then be loose about how they achieve it and be tight in coming back to the accountability. Mhm. And I think ah, um, that's one way to kind of unfreeze the workforce that's scared to move. Not by pushing harder, but making it safe, meaningful to move. And I think some of that comes out instead. So Gartner reported, I saw it recently that you have one in three CHOs say that their employees are exhausted from constant change. But like three quarters of them say their leaders can't lead it effectively. And I think those numbers are connected to what we just talked about. Right. Because the leaders can't lead the change because they're trying to drive it. And force doesn't work when the workforce is frozen. So purpose, mastery, autonomy, that's what I'm trying to get better at leading my team through. And I think that's one option that could, you know, get us in the right future across the board.

Speaker A: And Kristal, maybe this is a nice segue into my last question for you. Right. Um, I think, and again like I think at a very core level I, I don't, I don't disagree with anything in that three tiered approach towards leadership this year. The thing I keep coming back to, and again is this a one off example or not? But you look at an organization like Oracle that lays off 30,000 people with a 6am email, right? How does something like that. Again, you're talking about one of the three biggest technology companies in the world. You know, uh, that's probably, is that a quarter of their workforce? I think they have 120,000 people. But how does that affect, how, how does that type of news. Right. It can be very jarring to not only workers but leaders too. So how, how do leaders contend with something like that? How do workers contend with that? When you have that type of news happening in, in the business realm. And then that's first part and then the second part. This is when I want to, I, I'd like to go out optimistically your outlook for 2026. So apply those in.

Speaker B: But yeah, I think these things are probably connected. I don't know the specific Oracle example. I haven't read into it and I haven't um, so I haven't done my research so I'm not gonna, let's not assume this applies here. But generally speaking I think my contention is we've seen companies that have been putting cuts, layoffs before the realization of the story that they have told. Of course many companies right now say hey, be doing all this because AI is helping us with all productivity. Right. If you maybe scratch that surface a little bit, maybe some of those companies are also overhired in the last couple of years. Maybe they um, you know, using AI as a front to you know, reduce their uh, efficiency and cost ratios. Maybe they um, see that the market is rewarding that in terms of stock price. But my read is we have and are seeing layoffs in anticipation of AI driven outcomes. So before the technology actually has delivered what these companies are betting on. And that could be potentially a ah, risky bet because what happens when the dust settles? You cut the people but you know it's still a bet to see that AI has replaced everything that it did and now you need to potentially rehire at a premium in a tighter market with less institutional knowledge that you had before because you have to cut the people. But the AI hasn't really replaced what they did. And um, and I think that's um, I think that's a real risk because as you just said, that impacts leaders, that impacts morale. This to me will play out. Now the flip side to this is, you know, we've all heard AI, it's taking pretty much all jobs, but certainly software engineering jobs. Uh, just this week on LinkedIn and sorry, I don't have the name of the source but I saw some data that showed software engineering jobs openings are actually growing. Despite all that AI narrative though, uh, I think about something like 70,000 plus opening and new worlds and trending upward. Because the explanation is AI has made cheaper to produce software, but you still need people to manage it, maintain it, evolve it and fix it when it breaks. And as long as AI agents require human who understands what to build and how to maintain the systems, how to handle edge cases, these jobs aren't disappearing but they're reshaping. Which is, which kind of leads to that question of like what's my outlook? And the pattern is of course not unique to engineering. So not all roles will go away. I'm actually long term bullish on humans and people, but the work inside them is changing. And I see a real possibility that the orcs that cut first and figure out later are going to face a harrowing uptick when reality catches up to the narrative. And so that me, that kind of maybe then gets me to the details of the 26 outlook. Companies that cut in anticipation will spend 26 and 26 rehiring what they've lost. I think there is a uh, real reality. And let's look at Oracle maybe in a year the companies that redesigned roles like we talked about the evolved recruiter. I saw something recently about IBM where they're 23 that said like X number of roles we don't need to hire anymore to now 20 tripling their entry level hiring, including entry level developers.

Speaker A: Hm.

Speaker B: And then you know, we talked about Senate Chartered as an example. I think those companies who redesign roles, they'll, they'll already be ahead. And the gap between those two groups, similar to the K shape I talked about beforehand, I think will give us um, you know, significantly different outcomes and diverging paths. And so my contention would be leaders who invest in their people and redesign how work gets done, they'll pull ahead. And leaders who cut and wait, they fall behind and they keep falling. And, and, and I leave kind of listeners with this, you know, to your point also, positively, and I said it before, we changed our vision at ams. People who achieve your vision. And I don't think that's a tagline, it's a belief about where this industry is going now. Brand prom, brand promise is people powered partnership. And so we could easily have dropped people. And it's at tech, but, you know, in a world where we move from open jobs and how to fill them to outcomes and how to achieve them, I'm, um, I'm long, um, term bullish on people. And the leaders who make that shift, I don't think they survive what's coming, but they'll be the ones everyone else is trying to learn from. Maybe I'll be wrong, but that's my outlook for you, Chris. Great.

Speaker A: Well, Christoph Niebel, Chief Client Officer of the Americas at AMS M, really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with us today. Uh, I know, uh, I enjoy the conversation and I know our listeners and viewers will as well. So, Christoph, thanks again. We appreciate your time.

Speaker B: Thank you, Chris.