Monthly Archives: March 2023

AI isn’t racist. You are.

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I’ve been on the road and super busy over the last few weeks and haven’t written anything in a minute. So, hold on tight. I have some stuff floating around in my brain that needs to get out!

It’s conference season, and I’m hitting a bunch of them. So far, one thing everyone wants to talk about is ChatGPT and Generative AI. You guys know I like to educate you on this stuff, so GPT and Generative AI are basically the same thing. GPT is the OpenAI generative AI large language model, which is basically owned by Microsoft at this point. Google has Bard as their generative AI, and while they are built to be similar, Google is currently behind Microsoft by a lot. We all expect them to catch up.

One of the biggest issues around generative AI is there are a lot of ethical issues with the use of AI. From folks being concerned with bias in AI to the elimination of jobs that humans currently do to the spread of false news and ideas that seem very real.

“Tim, AI has bias! I read an article in the New York Times! Didn’t you see the lawsuit against HireVue?” It’s one thing I hear in the HR community a lot. Most folks, who don’t really understand AI, love to believe AI is biased! It’s kind of funny when you actually explain to them the reality. Currently, no one is using Generative AI (ChatGPT) in their HR Tech stack. Many are using “Conversational AI” in their stack, which is like old-school chatbots went to college and got smarter. Conversational AI is AI with guardrails. All the responses are built purposely so you actually know anything the bot might answer. This type of AI is incapable of being racist.

So, where does the biased/racist talk come from?

Early machine learning models. Machine learning has been the big buzzword in HR tech over the last 5-7 years or so. Some of the first tech companies to build ML into their tech had some backfires. For the record, the Hirevue thing was one of these issues while testing the potential of using facial recognition as a way to determine if any facial attributes could be used as a potential attribute in helping a company select the best talent. Turned out the machine learning model actually had a really hard time deciphering dark faces over light faces. It was quickly found out and shut down and never used again. But people still pull that one example from five years ago as the only example of AI being biased.

The reality is machine learning learns human preferences. So, when you say your AI is racist, all you’re saying is you, yourself, are racist. It learned your behavior and mirrored it back to you! That’s the funny part! Think of AI as a baby. A baby that can learn a lightning-fast speed. But if you teach your baby bad things, it’s going to grow up and do bad things! Unless the folks who build the AI actually build in guardrails and audits to constantly check that the AI is learning and producing the “right” things. Which is currently the situation. If fact, to Hirevue’s credit, from their early learning, they are leading the industry in building ethical AI policies and third-party to ensure their AI is as biased-free as possible.

Here’s the reality in 2023.

I’m way less concerned with my AI being biased than I am of Jim the hiring manager making the final selection of each hire! I can actually audit and control my AI’s bias. I can not do that with Jim! Goddamn, you Jim!

I actually was on a panel recently with an AI professor from Stanford who said, regarding bias in AI, that in reality, every time you add a human into your process, you add bias. But when you add AI into your process, you eliminate bias by comparison. That made my head turn! Because we love to think the opposite. For some reason, we have a lot of pundits in our industry trying to scare people away from AI in HR. I’m not saying anyone just blindly go forward with AI in HR. Go into it with eyes wide open, but don’t go into it with fear of what AI was five years ago.

I’m fascinated by where and when we’ll see massive usage of generative AI in HR. It’s going to take some time because most HR leaders and legal teams aren’t really excited about using a tool where they have no idea what the response might be to a candidate or an employee! But, I do think we’ll continue to see massive adoption of conversational AI within our tech stacks because there is much less legal risk and, as I mentioned very little risk of bias.

Do we still have ethical issues in AI? Yes. Generative AI is very new, and there is so much we don’t know yet. The use cases are massive, and we’ll begin to see, almost immediately, tech companies testing this in certain parts of your processes to help automate tactical things. The one major ethical issue we’ll have is when we start asking models like GPT questions, and we get answers, and we don’t really know how those answers were gathered or who had an influence on those answers behind the scenes. Because if someone behind the scenes in OpenAI manipulated the AI to answer a question in a certain way over another, we now have to question every answer and who’s pulling the strings behind the curtain.

It’s exciting to think of the possibilities, but we still have a ton to learn. More to come. I’ve got this AI bug now, and I think it’s going to dominate our space for a while!

The Future of HR Tech, AI, & ChatGPT #HRFamous

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On episode 116 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Madeline Laurano, Jessica Lee, and Tim Sackett come together to discuss their favorite Super Bowl commercials, Chat GPT, and how you can utilize AI to be a better leader.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

:30 – JLee had Chat GPT write an intro for this episode! It didn’t do a good job the first time, so she had it do a second pass to make it funnier. 

2:00 – The crew didn’t think the Super Bowl commercials of 2023 were too exciting. Madeline and JLee’s favorite was the Clueless one, and Tim shouted out the Workday and Dunkin commercials

7:30 – Another podcast, another convo about Chat GPT and AI. Microsoft Bing is trying to become the top browser again, and JLee is on a waitlist to use the program. 

10:00 – Tim’s 2023 keynote is all about the future of recruiting with AI. He thinks that the only limit of what AI can do in TA is the limit of our imaginations. 

14:15 – Tim speaks to the importance of narration with AI. With AI, you have to be the expert on your topic, but you don’t have to produce anymore. 

17:00 – Madeline thinks another area that AI will completely change is travel. Imagine traveling and having the whole trip planned by AI. 

20:00 – Madeline is surprised that we haven’t seen more people talking about AI and Chat GPT in the TA space. She thinks some people may feel threatened by the topic. 

23:45 – JLee runs through examples of how to use AI to help handle a tough situation with an emotional employee. 

27:00 – JLee talks about how being open and not intimidated by AI can allow you to use it as leverage and become better.  She uses a Teams tool that critiques how she speaks on calls and helps her improve the words she chooses. 

31:00 – Tim thinks that Microsoft is the winner of the future of HR tech. 

Disruptive HR Technologies at #SHRM Tech 2023

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I’m in San Francisco this week at SHRM Tech 2023. This is SHRM’s first time holding a technology-specific conference in the US market. They have had a SHRM Tech conference in India for a few years. My session will be talking about the most disruptive HR technologies currently in the market and those coming in the near future.

Honestly, it feels like I could spend the entire time just talking about ChatGPT (generative AI), as that seems to be the topic of conversation everywhere in the tech industry, regardless of your function. Generative AI and the large language model AI will impact all technology, including every part of HR.

But generative AI isn’t the only disruptive technology in the HR space. Since HR is overly laggard as tech consumers, it’ll take a lot of organizations some time before they even adopt a lot of the artificial technology that will hit the market first. Also, many organizations will have to really work through the ethical side of using AI across their people technology stack.

What other technologies are currently disruptive in the HR industry:

  • Marketing technology – Employees and Candidates want a “consumer-like” experience. This idea isn’t new,, but we’ve been awful and delivering this. The reason for this has basically been we are awful and using and adopting marketing-level technology. This is part automation, part conversational AI, and part communications tech and strategy. I will also throw Programmatic tech into this bucket from an advertising perspective.
  • Old School Tech We Still Don’t Use! Video, text, and employee referral automation. Some of the greatest tech built in the last 5-8 years is still not being used in mass by organizations. If I speak to 100 companies with over 1,000 employees, only about 10% will be using both text recruiting software and/or employee referral automation technology, but both have a giant ROI and help deliver more candidates quickly. So, why are we talking about ‘disruptive” tech when we don’t even use best-in-class technology for our own industry?
  • Business Intelligence – Another technology that is widely used in every other corporate function that HR has been really laggard at using. Over 90% of HR and TA pros I speak with will admit they aren’t very good “at data.” We have to be good “as data”! Part of being data literate is having an understanding of what and where is our data and then how do we pool this data into a business intelligence (BI) tool to be able to manipulate this data in a way that helps us make much better decisions,
  • Augmented and Virtual Reality – Facebook will spend billions of dollars in 2023 and beyond building dynamic AR and VR tech. Why? Because it can have massive usage by all kinds of people, including employees and candidates. The future of training will be changed forever by AR and VR. Being able to train new employees in real-time by having them wear AR glasses that will watch and show them what to do and not do is amazing tech. Having all employees, regardless of work environment, meet in the same environment on an equal footing will be a great cultural add for so many companies.
  • Artificial Intelligence – Okay, yes, we have to understand the power of AI and the different levels and kinds of AI we can build into parts of our HR tech stack. Most of the AI currently used in HR technology is machine learning. This is where the technology learns what you like and dislike based on actions taken. A simple example is an employee asking how they can change their contributions for 401K. Machine learning will see many employees asking about this, and it will reply in ways you train it to reply. But it’ll also see the additional questions, and it might ask a question back. “We see you’re looking to change your contributions. Would you like to talk to a certified financial advisor? The company pays for it, and it can help you make better financial decisions.” AI will end up replacing almost every tactical part of the HR function. That’s just reality.

Yes, ChatGPT will change how we work in HR. There is so much to come on this. But we also have so much great technology available to us that is proven that we don’t use, that we also should not be forgetting about.

I’ll be at SHRM Talent in Orlando and SHRM Annual in Las Vegas this year. Let me know if you’ll be attending and I would love to catch up and meet live!

If you have a baby, you’ll never have to pay Income Tax!

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Well, at least if you’re under 30 and live in Hungary!

Like many wealthy countries around the world, there is a baby shortage! Countries like Japan have been fighting this issue for decades. For others, like America, this is a recent dilemma that most still don’t know or understand. Hungary has known about their problem for a few years and has tried a couple of policies to encourage women to have more babies.

The first policy they attempted was to eliminate income taxes, for life, for women once they had four children. Yep, 4! As you can imagine, that wasn’t super popular. Also, they found that it takes a while to have four children! The new policy states that if a Hungarian woman has a baby before the woman turns 30, she will now be exempt from income taxes for life. That seems like a very aggressive policy!

The new policy just got approved in Hungary, so there isn’t a lot of data on the impact, but I’m guessing there will be many women and families who will take part. The estimated savings is about 17-20% more take-home pay for the women not paying income taxes.

Should the US have a similar policy?

We have a major baby problem in the US, and as Japan did two decades ago, we are mostly ignoring we have a problem. Young people are having fewer babies and waiting longer to have babies. The human replacement rate in the US is 2.1 to stay even with the current population. The US is currently at 1.7 and trending downward.

Why is a shrinking population a problem? Aren’t we overpopulated? It seems like fewer people would mean more for everyone else!? The thought being, “Fewer people would be more jobs and resources for those of us here.”

The problem is the math doesn’t work that way. Fewer people mean fewer workers. Fewer workers mean less productivity. Less productivity means less of everything. Japan’s economy has been flat to negative for two straight decades. Imagine being in a recession for twenty-plus years!?

The US needs both a baby policy and new immigration policies. We can not grow as a country with a negative replacement rate.

What could a US baby policy look like?

Here’s where it gets fun. I think Hungary, while aggressive, misses a ton.

One of the major issues that women and families have about having a child or multiple children is childcare. Hungary’s assumption is women will have a baby and then go right back to work to get that extra money. But in reality, the extra money will be eaten up by childcare. So, the truth is there isn’t any economic advantage.

To make a policy work, it has to work for both sides. The country needs more babies, and families need better economics that make sense and don’t burden them with crazy financial debt. The current cost to raise one child to the age of 18 in the US runs around $310,000, or $17,000 per year. That seems light as I know many families who pay way more than $17,000 a year just in daycare! And this doesn’t include college, which can run in the hundreds of thousands. Basically, you’re looking at $500,000 per kid. Who the hell wants that!?

Here are some things I would add to a US baby policy:

  • Zero Income Tax for one of the parents, assuming the working parent is caring for the child and the other parent. Mom decides to stay home and care for the child. The other parent gets the income tax elimination credit. If both parents work, the higher of the two incomes get tax-free income, and they also get a tax credit for childcare expenses.
  • Single parents with kids get tax-free income and daycare reimbursement until the child reaches school age, and then pre and post-school reimbursement once they reach school age.
  • For every kid you have over two, all children in your household get free college tuition. So, you have two kids. You pay for college. You have three kids, or four kids, or five kids, and they all get their tuition paid for.
  • Government-paid surrogates. For families who want children but can’t have their own, the government will pay for the surrogate cost. The government will also pay for your adoption expenses for you to adopt children from foreign countries to be raised in the US.
  • Parents get fully paid six months of parental leave that can be used simultaneously or segmented for any baby births, surrogates, or adoptions. Let’s get these kids off on the right foot.

I know, how will we pay for this? I don’t know, maybe we buy one less nuclear fighter jet that costs $25B. The amount of government waste is colossal, I’m sure we’ll figure it out.

Recruiter Experience Matters! (err. All Employee’s Experience Matters…) #HRFamous

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On episode 115 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Madeline Laurano, Jessica Lee and Tim Sackett come together to discuss Ted Lasso, the everchanging recruiter experience, and Tim’s experience with the Michigan State shooting.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

1:45 – Ted Lasso season 3 is on the horizon! The crew gives their prediction for the new season coming in March. 

4:00 – Madeline and Tim did a roundtable recently about recruiter experience. Tim doesn’t think it matters anymore and JLee asks Tim to define it. 

8:00 – Madeline mentions that a lot of people don’t know what recruiters do. Tim says that recruiting is the job that everyone thinks they can do. 

9:15 – Tim says that when he was running TA at larger companies, senior leadership felt very comfortable giving advice to him about how to recruit, even though their advice was unfounded. 

12:00 – JLee and Tim talk about how being a recruiter isn’t one of the hardest jobs that one could have. There are a lot of other jobs that require a lot out of the people who hold those positions. 

15:30 – Madeline brings up a study they did at Disney where they found that the most important position at all of the Disney parks was the street sweepers. 

18:30 – Tim’s opinion is that Chat GPT is going to change the landscape of everything in TA & recruiting. He says that the only thing that can’t be replaced by AI is the real conversation a recruiter has with a candidate. 

21:30 – Madeline mentions a company who measures their recruiter productivity by getting them to “inbox zero”. She says she could never be a recruiter if this is a standard she was held to. 

24:00 – Tim and JLee say they’d never judge one of the people they manage by the number of emails in their inbox. JLee judges people by the battery level of their devices. 

27:30 – Tim’s son goes to Michigan State and he runs a business in Lansing. He talks about his experience with and the aftermath of the shooting that happened on campus recently. 

36:15 – Madeline asks Tim what he did about closing his business in the aftermath. Tim said that his Teams work groups were very active around the time of the shooting