A shift in the future of Work – John Sumser [Interview]

About John Sumser

John Sumser is the principal analyst at HRExaminer, an Independent Analyst firm. He works and researches on HR technology and includes all aspects of the newest technologies to solve problems. He also conducts three weekly podcasts and written commentary for HRExaminer. He’s been well known for his keynote addresses and ideas about all things HR. We are very happy to have someone with his expertise today on our interview series.

Aishwarya Jain

We have the pleasure of welcoming John today to our interview series. I’m Aishwarya Jain from the peopleHum team. Before we begin, just a quick intro of peopleHum. peopleHum is an end-to-end, one-view, integrated human capital management automation platform, the winner of the 2019 global Codie Award for HCM that is specifically built for crafted employee experiences and the future of work with AI and automation technologies. We run the peopleHum blog and video channel which receives upwards of 200,000 visitors a year and publish around 2 interviews with well-known names globally, every month.

Aishwarya

Welcome John, we’re thrilled to have you.

John

Thank you very much. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Aishwarya

Thank you for your time. So, John, I’d like to dive into the questions that I had for you. And if you could start by telling us a little bit about your work as a principal analyst with HRExaminer.

John

So, HRExaminer.com is an analyst firm and we do several things. We have a weekly podcast. We have daily editorial content and we do an annual report. The annual report has been focused on AI for the last four years now and we’re gonna continue to do that.

The interesting thing is that in this time of the pandemic, AI is coming into deeper consideration. And so I’m spending a great deal of time talking to heads of HR departments, CHROs, CEOs and vendors who are supplying stuff.

Aishwarya

All right, that is excellent.

And, what is your opinion about the latest trends with respect to human capital management platforms? Because there’s just so much talk about automation and these employee engagement platforms. So how do you think that would redefine the HR space? And will there be a refresh cycle upon us since the major ones are now being looked at as a legacy?

John

Complicated question, and it’s further complicated by the COVID 19 virus. So it’s my view that we’re headed into a time where the very nature of HR is going to change.

That means, on the one hand, that what you want to do is have tools that change quickly because we’re gonna be re-doing things. And on the other hand, there’s something to be said for the stability of a platform, but by its very nature, the platform makes you slower, and so the question going into, once there’s a plateau for the spread of the virus and we start to normalize. “So, the question is, where do you want to be when you get there? The thing to worry about right now isn’t the major trend. But it’s what’s your business is going to look like when you hit the plateau? And how’s HR gonna be different?”

“So, the question is, where do you want to be when you get there? The thing to worry about right now isn’t the major trend. But it’s what’s your business is going to look like when you hit the plateau? And how’s HR gonna be different?”

Some of the ways that HR is gonna be different include: Today we have succession planning and succession Planning tends to mean who’s gonna replace the top executives if something happens.

Well, in an environment where you’re going to lose one or two out of every 100 people in your organization and 15 to 20 of every 100 are going to require hospitalization, the question is, how do you plan for the succession of people in smaller roles?

Because it turns out that the people at the very front end of the business, are actually how revenue happens and in some ways are far more essential than the executive to manage. So how do you understand which of those frontline employees are essential and which aren’t?

How do you know who would be a good person to replace them if they get sacrificed? Those are the kinds of questions in the future. I don’t think, at least in the United States, we don’t have a good track record for thinking that way about this.

Aishwarya

Yeah, I think succession planning – not a lot of people talk about it actually. And with the recent outbreak, it’s it will be, you know, more essential to kind of look at who’s gonna replace whom and then, you know, really strategize as to how your corporation is going to get restructured because a lot of laying off is happening.

And there are a lot of people who are gonna be out of jobs. So, that demand and supply are not going to be equal. So, there would be a lot of reskilling and upskilling. And I agree with you, the succession planning part of it should also be given a lot of impetus.

So do you also think that the future of work is going to change because of the whole Coronavirus situation? And how should HRs particularly deal with it, you know, such a grave situation?

John

So it would be my view that, the future is happening, that the now of work is about making the necessary adjustment, some portion in the States, it’s 30% of the workforce is now operating from home, and it was never anything like that before now.

And so we’re gonna have to learn what it means to have corporate work at home. How closely do we supervise people who are at home? Should the supervisor make home visits? And what does that mean? And what’s okay with that? And how much notice do you have to have? All these sorts of things that are realities with a distributed workforce.

We have to figure out now, this is not a project for the future. We’re in the future and we have to figure out what to do about that, So I think there are a whole lot of questions and we don’t even know what they are yet.

Aishwarya

Right, Yeah. And, as you said, right? The future of work is actually the now of work, but there are so many terminologies around it. You know like, future of work, flow of work, now of work then there’s employee engagement, employee experience, and now there is even human experience.

So there’s like so much confusion as to what is what, and do you see all of this settling and coming to one particular terminology?

John

Oh, I certainly hope not. I think that a singularly dangerous idea is that there’s one answer to all of this. So if you’re an insurance company and you’ve had to go from centralized working to distributed working, you’re gonna have to figure out all sorts of things and they boil down to employee experience, they’ll certainly affect engagement. But, it doesn’t really matter.

But first, the first thing is, can you get the people up and running in their work? Right? And then it’s in everybody’s interest once people are up and running in their work to make it better. Here are some of the questions we’re gonna have once people are used to working in a distributed way, then there’s a real estate question, right?

The company will have office buildings that it needs to get rid of because people don’t work there anymore. “But if I’m doing your work in my house, shouldn’t you be subsidizing my rent? And different companies will have different answers to that. That will be a business model question.”

“But if I’m doing your work in my house, shouldn’t you be subsidizing my rent? And different companies will have different answers to that. That will be a business model question.”

And it isn’t that one way is better than another way. It’s that all of these things that we’ve been talking about: engagement, future of work, what to do, how does my company get its work done? All right.

And what really matters isn’t some speculative fiction about some long term future. What really matters is what’s the best way to get our work done now and so I think we’re gonna be sort of redirected to ‘What’s the best way to get work done?’ Now if we’re not doing it the best way, how do we fix it? If a fix doesn’t exist, how do we get about it?

Aishwarya

Absolutely. Yeah. I think that would be a change of mindsets now. And people will have to look at different kinds of strategies, really, to, you know, get into that perspective of how to keep, um, running and not only surviving but also flourishing and thriving, right? And I think the situation is really going to teach us a lot of things.

And, how do you think that technology can play a role in this and you know, surely a lot of people think it’s the devil. But you know, how do we really become more productive, there’s so much advancement in technology now.

There is AI, there is machine learning, so how can we enhance people’s processes and experience through this. And are they here to stay as an enabler or will it take over, you know, some or most aspects of the process?

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