I recently joined Matt on his FNDN podcast and honestly, we covered a fair bit of ground:
AI addiction
Our obsession with efficiency
why I’m not entirely convinced we need HR business partners
If our latest fascination with work as a product is helping HR evolve or just giving them shiny new vocab to learn
Somewhere along the line, I also compared the HRPPs to the human appendix, so watch out for that one.
I always like to reflect when I've been on a podcasts
With Matt being in Australia, one thing I have learned is that I am not a morning person. I remember when we were recording this, I was like man this is early…
I say early it was about 8 am in the morning that plus a little poorly so please bear with me if I go off on tangents on the podcast. However, listening back, I did have some fun
I realise there was a common thread running through the whole discussion.
Basically that we’re spending a massive amount of energy changing how HR operates without necessarily questioning what HR should be doing in the first place. It’s like we have new technology, new job titles, frameworks, but it’s kind of the same old HR
Are we becoming addicted to efficiency?
I’m a big fan of AI.
As a dyslexic, it helps my work a lot. I use it regularly, and I think it has massive opportunities to rethink how organisations work. But I’m also pro-human.
One of the things I’ve been observing is that I think we’re confusing the ability to automate something with we must automate it.
I think we’ve become obsessed with making things faster that we are forgotten to ask whether this thing speeding up is any good in the first place
It’s like we go, “Hey, we’ve automated an horrific experience. High five, everyone. Now you can be disappointed in half the time.”
During the podcast, Matt and I explored what I call minutes versus moments: the difference between saving time and creating value, and why our obsession with efficiency might be stripping away some of the most important parts of improving customer experience
This also links to a post I did recently on LinkedIn around McDonald’s, which can be found here.
Have we started collecting new HR job titles?
Another thread I reflected on was: Is HR just becoming collectors of new HR job titles, a bit like the shiny badge you get in a sticker pack.
We’re seeing generally interesting capabilities enter the people function, and I’m here for it, but HR loves to get obsessed with latest thing when we havent figure out that H in HR stand for horrific human.
We also got into why calling work as product might not necessarily be the best thing and separating the language versus the doing
Matt and I got into whether we actually need more specialists or whether the bigger opportunity is developing what I call X-shaped people that have a cross-discipline approach
And would the old guard even let this new kid on the block into the building
Talking of old guard let’s talk about HRBPs ..
And what about HR Business Partners?
This was probably one of the more provocative parts of our conversation. Matt asked what I thought the role of the HRBP would play in the future and my response probably wasn’t what you expected… I mean do we even need them?
Now, before someone starts sharpening a pitchfork to come burn my house down, I’ve met some exceptional HRBPs: commercially sharp, brilliant at navigating the organisation, and deeply knowledgeable about the business. But my question isn’t really about the people. It’s more about the role, where they fit in a future operating model, and actually separating the role from the capability
If every People function should understand the business, then why do we need someone sitting in the middle translating between the two and potentially being a bottleneck
Are HRBPs are an essential part of the future People function, or are they holding on to the role designed for yesteryears set up, if we were to design the People function today from scratch, would we create the HRBP role in its current form (I doubt it)
This is where the human appendix comparison came up
Perhaps we’re solving the wrong problems
The other big thread running through the conversation was how quickly organisations jump towards solutions. We talked about a product I call The Team MRI something I’ve been developing and using to understand what actually makes teams effective and actually elevate team dynamics and ways of working in around four weeks
I’ve been experimenting with something else
This week I tried something new.
I went live here on Substack as an experiment to see what would happen. I had no plan I just answered any questions that people who joined would have. We talked about the future of work, the capabilities, and how to bring service design into the People and Culture function.
Thank you to the people who showed up. I really enjoyed it, and it’s something I am thinking of doing more of, but I want to make it a bit more collaborative
I’m looking for people who fancy joining me live.
Maybe you’ve got a problem at work that you can’t crack, a team that isn’t working particularly well, an employee or customer experience that needs rethinking, or an idea you’ve been kicking around and you want a critical friends then come join me live next week. The link can be found at the bottom to add it to your cal
One last thing
If you fancy listening to Matt and me pull apart some of the assumptions behind modern HR, give the latest FNDN episode a listen and if your not already you can connect with him here… in my mind he’s a big of a legend!
All the link discussed
🎧 Listen to my conversation with Matt on the FNDN Series
🎙️ Add next weeks Substack live here
🎥 This weeks Substack live can be viewed below
Speak soon,
Danny
