Ambiverts: Learning How to Be Two Very Different People

Posted on by Stuart Murray
large bubble and soap suds on bright cobalt blue plate against w
Large bubble and soap suds on bright cobalt blue plate against white background. Photo courtesy of Lori Greig.

My favourite memory of a great party started at the end.  Five of us stayed behind after the others left, and the host said “hey, let’s clean the apartment right now.” We all played along like it was game, still laughing because we were tipsy.

One person loaded the dishwasher, another did the recycling.  My job was to round up the glasses and beer cans and wipe down every surface.  I remember having to avoid the vacuum cleaner, a big old thing that shone a bright light on everything it devoured in its path.

Because there were five of us, we were done in 15 minutes.  Then we washed our hands, cracked open one last cold one, and sat around chatting in a clean house just before bed.  It freed up several hours for more important things to do on a Sunday morning.  I was 19.

I’m an extreme extrovert, but after a big party I need my quiet time.  Just me and the dishes, doing our craft.  That is the moment when I understand introverts.

Over at Susan Cain’s Quiet Revolution, authors Karl Moore and Sara Avramovic describe the experience of those who are a blend of introvert and extrovert.  This hybrid identity has a new term – ambiverts.

In describing ambiverts, the authors point to a 2013 article in Psychological Science entitled “Rethinking the Extroverted Sales Ideal.”  That article runs an analysis of introvert-extrovert indicators against the sales performance in a call centre.  The study finds that those with an extraversion score of 4.5 out of 7 have the highest level of performance.  According to the study:

“Because they naturally engage in a flexible pattern of talking and listening, ambiverts are likely to express sufficient assertiveness and enthusiasm to persuade and close a sale but are more inclined to listen to customers’ interest and less vulnerable to appearing too excited or overconfident.”

It is not so much about having the “best” personality but rather being adaptable.

The article notes that extraversion is a by-product of people having a need for stimulation, because the internal state of the extrovert is dissatisfied and bored with what’s going on inside.  They look to the outside world to get their kicks.  Introverts and ambiverts are closer to being satisfied or balanced in this regard.  Hence the act of selling is not some deep burning social need, and they can hang back a little, play it cool.  And sometimes that can close the deal.

There are nuances to the actual results of the regression analysis.  First, hours worked and job tenure are actually the biggest drivers of performance.  That is, if you work many hours per day and have many years of experience, with practice you become a lot better at your job.  But performance was also tested against the Big Five personality measures: Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Openness, and Neuroticism.  The traits were assessed on a straight-line and curved-line basis.

Just to get geeky about this for a few seconds, a straight-line measure would look at the two extremes of a personality indicator.  If there was a slope, the highest performance would be at one extreme or the other.  For example you need to be agreeable to be good at sales, but not all the time (it wasn’t statistically significant).  By contrast, if there was a curved-line relationship, and the curve was negative (downward), then there would be a “peak” in the middle, like a volleyball that tips just over the net.  And that is what they found with extraversion; that there is a sweet spot in the middle where you can sneak the volleyball over the net and score when you’re not expecting it.

Back at Quiet Revolution, Moore and Avramovic reported on interviews they conducted with over 50 ambiverts.  They note that being part-way between introversion and extraversion has its strengths and weaknesses.  In terms of strengths, ambiverts have the ability to move back and forth between two different modes, which may be exceptional if they are free to choose.  But ambiverts don’t always get to choose how they will behave.

In terms of internal motivations: “Ambiverts need to be both outgoing and independent, seemingly at random and sometimes with very little regard to what disposition would be best suited for the present moment.”  It may be ideal to sit quiet and listen right when someone else has something important to say.  But the ambivert could just-so-happen to be gearing up to assert an opinion of their own.  They could experience the worst of both worlds if their internal thermostat it out of synch with their environment.

The authors’ advice on how to be an effective ambivert is largely in taking initiative to match to their environment.  They recommend ambiverts control their environment, moving back and forth between alone-time and socializing at their choosing.  They recommend ambiverts plan ahead, building-in some alternation between social and alone moments.  And they recommend ambiverts learn to say no when something won’t work out for them.  All of these recommendations are very much about the person having autonomy, self-directed flexibility, and the independence to choose their mode.

Perhaps this is good advice for everyone?  Even though I’m an extrovert, I still need alone time.  It may be cleaning up after a party, or folding the laundry, or thinking through something private during my daily commute.  These moments are chosen and planned, by me.  Do introverts have an equivalent experience?  Do they occasionally need social time to share their deep reflections, connect with one person they trust, or ask for help from someone who can help them get what they need?  If I have this right, what is important is that they be able to choose.

Perhaps this is why power-sharing is so important, at work and at home.  We don’t entirely get to prescribe that people should behave one particular way at one precise time.  And we don’t get to choose which part of a person we want.  We can only invite the whole person into the room, and go with the flow.

Think about that during your spare time on Sunday morning.

BLT McMuffin Ruined My Morning and Possibly My Career

Posted on by Stuart Murray
BLT McMuffin Ruined my Morning and Possibly my Career
steak mcwheel. Photo courtesy of jordanalexduncan.

The new Egg BLT McMuffin nearly ruined my life.  I have data, I can prove it.  Don’t get me wrong, it tastes good.  But if you’re trying to get some morning mojo by picking up something in the drive-thru, do not buy this sandwich.

The bacon is an inconsistent shape and flatness, and the lettuce has a springiness that makes things unstable.  After three bites, my McMuffin started to fall apart, and the mayo ended up on my shirt and pants.  My first experiment with this horrible sandwich was on the day I met my new top client for the very first time.  When the moment came, I started talking before she had finished her sentence.  Twice.  My first impression with a very powerful person happened the day that McDonald’s chose to ruin my career.  I hereby call for a boycott of the Egg BLT McMuffin.

Your morning mood, prior to arriving at work, has a measurable impact on your workplace effectiveness.

Nancy Rothbard from University of Pennsylvania wrote an meaningful article in July 2016 in Harvard Business Review.  Rothbard was summarizing a paper she co-authored, “Waking Up on the Right or Wrong Side of the Bed: Start-of-Workday Mood, Work Events, Employee Affect, And Performance,” by Nancy Rothbard and Steffanie Wilk.  Academy of Management Journal, 2011, Vol. 54, No. 5, 959-980.

The study looks at customer service representatives in an insurance company — which had good performance metrics to begin with — to which they added surveys about employees’ moods.  They found that people who started their day happy “…stayed that way throughout the day, and interacting with customers tended to further enhance their mood.”  Those with a good start “…provided higher-quality service: they were more articulate on the phone with fewer “ums” and verbal tics, and used more proper grammar.”  And I bet they don’t cut people off, either.

By contrast, those who started their day in a bad mood “…didn’t really climb out of it, and felt even worse by the end of the day…”  The negative moods caused people to take more breaks, and the breaks were significant, “…leading to a greater than 10% loss of productivity.”  In my case, I struggled in the bathroom trying to get the oil out of my shirt with paper towel and hand-soap.  I am paid to do metrics, not laundry.

What can managers do to help?  Rothbard suggests that not sending evening emails will improve the employees’ recovery time, improving the likelihood of a good mood the next day.  And managers “…can allow employees a little space first thing in the morning, for example to chat with colleagues before an early meeting.”  Beyond Rothbard’s comments I think there is much more that can be done.

Managers are first and foremost the leaders of the mood of their team.  They need to share inspiration and positivity, since their mood has a contagion-effect on those who look up to them.  The manager needs to decide to be in a good mood, organize their life accordingly, and use their emotional contagion for the better.  If you are a leader, you might not be free to control the home life of your staff.  But you can finesse your own morning routine, and boost your team indirectly with a contagion-effect.

In a helpful article in Inc.com, Allison Davis suggests that in order to have an effective morning, we need to take care of morning tasks the night before.  Your gym bag, your lunch, and your wardrobe must be in place before you wake up.  You need to plan your week or month prior to arriving at work, so that you arrive with a clear game plan.  You need to think through your “worry” items ahead of time, then write them down, forget about them, and arrive at work with a clear mind.

For this reason I ensure my shirts are cleaned and pressed on the weekend.  All I need is for McDonald’s to put a McMuffin into my hands, and I’m ready to get to the office a few minutes early and rock my day.  Just another perfect morning, with a spotless shirt and an Egg McMuffin in my hand.

I once took a great course on emotional intelligence through Coursera, taught by Richard Boyatsis from Case Western Reserve University.  The course is called Inspiring Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence, and you can find it here.  Emotional intelligence is a complex field because it’s not just about being positive.  There’s significant brain science involved, and your understanding how the brain works in a clinical sense has a big impact on understanding and managing your gut response.

My favorite take-away was the distinction between two modes of thought.  The sympathetic nervous system is the mode where you are under some stress.  This mode is good for rules compliance, cranking-out large volumes of identical outputs, and – in my experience – a certain kind of perseverance.  By contrast, the parasympathetic nervous system is a relaxed state where you are open to new ideas; grateful and hopeful; and superior at creative thinking, strategy, and looking at the future.

In terms of how to get into this positive state, you should know that you typically wake up that way.  As frustrations and annoyances pile up through your morning, your blood thickens with stress and your mind narrows.  You’re usually done by noon, ready for an afternoon producing large volumes of rules-compliant outputs.  You can minimize these frustrations if you can plan a good morning routine.

Managers under significant stress are routinely pulled into the sympathetic nervous system.  They become uncivil.  They display a lack of emotional intelligence as they rise through the ranks.  Their reduced ability to understand those unlike themselves has an adverse effect on inclusion.

To be a good leader you need to control your stress, not just on-the-fly, but also in terms of how your life is organized.  Your get-out-the-door errands are typically thoughtless and mundane.  Therefore, it is best to take care of them when your sympathetic nervous system is active anyway, such as on evenings and Fridays.

Early in your day and early in your week is the natural time for creating great new ideas.  By contrast, bad decisions are typically made on a Friday afternoon.  How many really bad ideas can you think of that happened on a Friday afternoon?

I can think of one.  The sandwich-that-shall-not-be-named.  The Egg BLT McMuffin from McDonald’s.  I’ll bet five bucks it was invented on a Friday afternoon.  Because that’s the worst idea that has ever existed.

Love Will Keep Us Together, Even at the Office

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Hugging Zebras. By Nicole Doherty
Hugging Zebras. Photo courtesy of Nicole Doherty.

Sexual dynamics in the workplace can be troublesome even when they turn out well, and the worst-case scenarios can be a disaster.  Yet, if you think about your experience and look at the stories in the news about workplace sexual harassment, there is a recurring theme that harassment displays a lack of love.  We live in a pivotal era when harassment is rightly being called-out on a mass scale. At the same time, emerging research indicates that workplaces with love are higher functioning.  What shall we do?

This is a longer post than usual because the well of love is deep.

One of the main studies is aptly named “What’s Love Got To Do with It? The Influence of a Culture of Companionate Love in the Long-term Care Setting” by Sigal G. Barsade and Olivia A. O’Neill, Administrative Science Quarterly, May 29, 2014.

Barsade & O’Neill conducted research on the work environment in long-term care facilities.  Their research is summarized in a Harvard Business Review article, concluding that:

“Employees who felt they worked in a loving, caring culture reported higher levels of satisfaction and teamwork.  They showed up to work more often.  …this type of culture related directly to client outcomes, including improved patient mood, quality of life, satisfaction, and fewer trips to the ER.”

For those skeptical that long-term care facilities are too focused on care to embody a larger workforce trend, these findings were repeated in a follow-up study of seven different industries.

Barsade & O’Neill make a distinction when describing companionate love, which is “…based on warmth, affection, and connection rather than passion…”

In analytics, data definitions are extremely important because people can apply a word to multiple meanings, causing errors before they run the numbers.

The School of Life has a four-minute YouTube video asserting that “love” is a troublesome word which creates confusion and unrealistic expectations.

The video notes that the ancient Greeks used three different words with better meaning: eros is passionate love, philia is a warmer and more-loyal type of friendship, and agape is a charitable love that we feel for those who have acted badly, are in pain, or whose faults and weaknesses are endearing.  I interpret that companionate love it is a blend of philia and agape.

In a Harvard Business Review article from 2016, Duncan Coombe discusses people’s tendency to use euphemisms to avoid saying the word love.  “You might prefer to use words like compassion, respect, or kindness.  That’s okay.  They all speak to the core idea, which is intentionally expressing concern and care for the well-being of another.” (emphasis added)

A lot of business leaders are nervous about love being connected to lust.  Barsade & O’Neill tell an interesting story:

“…we talked with employees at a large aerospace defense contractor who told us about a newly acquired division that had a strong culture of love.  Employees there routinely greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek. Visiting executives from the parent company were alarmed to see this gesture, finding it not only inappropriate but possibly an invitation to sexual harassment lawsuits. Although they initially tried to prohibit such displays of affection, ultimately they decided to allow the culture to flourish within the division…”

Reflecting on the different types of love, it is important to consider that passion and concern for others are two very different things.  Sexual harassment largely consists of advances made with little concern for the well-being of others.  One of the central problems with our sexual culture is that women are often perceived as objects devoid of perspective, opinions, and feelings.  The opposite of this would be a world in which men are sincerely curious about, and interested in, the perspectives and opinions of women in the workplace. 

Men are reading the news, reflecting on their past, and getting nervous about whether they are going to be accused of harassment.  But this is healthy, since they can’t feel nervous without cultivating a concern for the feelings of others.  It is not so much that our culture needs to be de-sexualized, rather that we should all be aspiring to greater concern for one another’s perspectives, emotional state, and general wellbeing.  As such, organizational love — a combination of philia and agape — complements a harassment-free workplace.

Andrew Rosen at jobacle.com has a humorous blog post, asserting that the co-worker crush is good for the office.  In brief, people work harder, dress better, communicate more clearly, and have more spring in their step getting out the door on Monday morning.  Mind you, this is a description of outward behaviours.  Entry-level attempts to create a harassment-free environment include prescriptions about how we ought to behave.  Don’t stare at a colleague’s cleavage, say firefighter not fireman, don’t ask people where they are from.  But you have to go deeper.

I once spent several years reading manuals on good manners.  I was raised by hippies and I needed to up my game.  It turns out that etiquette is the display of behaviours that adhere to certain rules.  By contrast, manners are good behaviours arising from a concern for the other person, with the goal to not cause harm or discomfort.

Looking closely at each prescribed behaviour, you learn that each of the correct behaviours are intended to prevent the social pain of others.  When you “get” manners, you do not get a high score for memorizing rules.  Instead, you learn to feel the other person’s feelings and choose your behaviour accordingly.  Once again, it comes back to love.

For example, I hold the door open for people all the time.  There’s a secure door in my workplace, and I feel the other’s person’s frustration about having to fumble for their key-card.  I put a small effort into relieving them of this frustration, not because of rules, but because I sincerely want them to be free of discomfort.  I think they know I feel this way, and that may be why I have never been asked me to stop opening the door for strong women.

Once you know yourself a little better, and get to know others as well, you also have a shot at influencing the collective wellbeing.  One of the books that Coombe referenced is Love Works (by Joel Manby) which veers into religion-based love.  I was starting to think this was taking me off-topic.  But then Coombe noted:

“I have previously suggested that love is indeed the underlying impulse behind corporate citizenship and sustainability. We believe that love is a much-needed antidote to many of the challenges facing our communities and planet.”

That is, if we reach into our hearts to find motivation to make a better world, we can’t help ourselves to live our values and apply our best efforts.  Coombe noted:

“…founder-led businesses, family businesses, and the military are where we have seen the most frequent references to (and comfort with) love. Why is this? Our understanding is that love requires high levels of personalization — it is the opposite of the detached corporate automaton.”

If you did a double-take when you saw references to the military having a lot of love, remember our more nuanced Greek definitions.  Philia is a warmer and more-loyal type of friendship, which includes the collective sense of brotherhood.  As Shakespeare described it in a speech in Henry V, “For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”  Let’s love each other as a group, march forward into our best efforts, and share our victory or defeat, together.  This loving sense of sisterhood is also noticeable in the #metoo movement.

It’s not all unicorns and cupcakes.  Some people have had a difficult history with love.  Bringing up love in the workplace can make some people uncomfortable, and preaching to such people about love doesn’t work, according to Coombe.  This makes sense because you would only connect with them if you were considerate about where they were coming from.

Love is something you can give; it is not something you can ask for. But, if you add a little nuance, watch your manners, and give freely of your understanding and compassion, maybe a little love can make your workplace better.

Cheap Labour May Soon Be a Thing of the Past

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Migrant Worker Style. By Matt Ming
Migrant Worker Style. Photo courtesy of Matt Ming.  (In communist China, being a labourer is considered dignified, hence they often wear nice coats)

What would happen if the world ran out of cheap labour?  It’s a threat, or an opportunity, depending on your perspective.  But it could happen in our lifetime.  In an earlier post I described how unemployment was low but wages weren’t rising.  If job growth were to continue all around the world, we could soon be surprised that there are few people left on earth who will work for low wages.

In a January 2018 New York Times article from January 2018, the article points to a global economic up-swing.  The reason why the economy is improving is different in every country.  The global economy has been recovering for a decade, since the 2008 recession arising from the sub-prime mortgage fiasco in the U.S.  This time around, the thriving economy is different.  Economists note that because the growth is broad-based, there are fewer star performers.  If any one country slips into a recession, the rest of the global economy could keep things going strong.  The world economy is forecast to grow by 3.9 percent in 2018 and 2019.  This growth includes a lot of developing countries.

However, this may be a house of cards about to come crashing down once you factor in the “Lewis turning point.”  The Lewis turning point describes when a developing country grows enough and creates enough jobs that there is no more surplus labour.  That means that in order for businesses to grow they must offer higher wages than other employers to draw people away, such that economic growth causes wage growth.  Before the turning point, investors grow their businesses taking for granted an unlimited supply of cheap labour.  After this turning point, the country sees notable changes in their society.  People suddenly stop working in the very lowest-paid jobs.  Employers offering benefits and job-permanence develop an edge over the competition.  Workers get picky about where they want to work.

In this interesting article on a website called The Diplomat, researcher Dmitriy Plekhanov looks into the speculation that China’s era of cheap labour has come to an end.  The methods of measurement are complicated and confusing, but in brief:

“No matter which indicators are employed, they all point out that wages have more than doubled since the year 2009. Such a pace of growth obviously has serious implications for the Chinese labor market and its international competitiveness in terms of relative wages.  The pool of cheap labor has definitely dried up.”

These changes narrow the wage gap between Chinese labour and the rest of the world.

There has been an active debate for some time about whether China has reached, or is about to reach, the Lewis turning point.  One paper from 2011 asserted that it had already happened.  Over at the International Monetary Fund a paper in 2013 estimated that the turning point “will emerge between 2020 and 2025.”  The paper notes that demographics will be a major issue.  Due to the aging of the population and their drop in fertility a few decades ago, China’s labour market is now at its peak size and will start to shrink in the near future.

It’s important to consider China in the context of the global economy.  For some time, globalization has been perceived to be a phenomenon of manufacturing job disappearing in the industrialized world and then re-emerging in China.  Yes, there were other low-wage countries to relocate to, but China was the big kahuna.  If this low-wage option disappears for investors, they must suddenly look to other countries with fewer workers.  Switching countries for a second, an article from January 2017 notes that India needs to create 16 million jobs to reach the Lewis turning point.  The article interprets that this is a lot of jobs, but that’s almost nothing in the global scale.  We’re not very far away from both China and India running out of surplus labour.

This means that investors must go farther afield.  The Times article describes a major investment being made in Rwanda, which might have been a no-go zone in years gone by.  In those cases where investors stick with their domestic populations, they need to change their perspective and seriously consider hiring ex-convicts, people with limited education, people with disabilities, and those who have experienced prolonged bouts of unemployment.  Employers can find contractors in the gig economy, but those contractors can also become scarce given that gig workers are part of the labour market.

All around, it is employers themselves that must put on a good show at the selection interview.  So if you ever thought human resources was a support function, think again.  Your competitive pay position, the quality of the employment experience, and the effectiveness of your recruiting function might become critical to business success.  Oh, and by the way …don’t tell the unions.

All Qualified Felons Are Encouraged to Apply

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Under Arrest, by Chris Yarzab
Under Arrest.  Photo courtesy of Chris Yarzab.

When you think of a prison work force, your mind naturally drifts to chain gangs in striped clothing smashing rocks with pick axes. Well, it may be time to update your perception. Employers in the US are increasingly hiring job applicants who have criminal records.  It’s a sign of a tight labour market where employers are desperate to fill positions.

In a great New York Times article from January 2018, Ben Casselman details the many ways in which people are getting a little more out of the jobs market.  To clarify, workers are getting more out of it.  But employers have to put in extra effort.  The criminal-hiring phenomenon appears in varying degrees depending on the unemployment rate, particularly in places where unemployment is below 4%.

“In Dane County, Wis., where the unemployment rate was just 2 percent in November, demand for workers has grown so intense that manufacturers are taking their recruiting a step further: hiring inmates at full wages to work in factories even while they serve their prison sentences.”

The effects of the low unemployment rate go beyond those with criminal records.

“Burning Glass Technologies, a Boston-based software company that analyzes job-market data, has found an increase in postings open to people without experience. And unemployment rates have fallen sharply in recent years for people with disabilities or without a high school diploma.” (Emphasis added)

Those who have experienced prolonged bouts of joblessness are also able to make gains.

When governments attempt to design better social programs, they often say the labour market does the heavy lifting.  That is, when those dependent on social supports are suddenly able to work and then they find work, employment does big things for their wellbeing.  A man named Jordan Forseth is showing up at work in a car that he bought with the money he earned while in prison.  He says that this arrangement is giving him a “second chance.”

In the United States, labour force participation fell dramatically over 20 years.  During those two decades a lot of people lost good jobs in the manufacturing sector, or lost jobs in their small-town locale.  They assumed they would never find similar work.  Discouraged workers create the illusion of low unemployment, because they don’t show up in the statistics for “people seeking work”.  But as employers exert more effort to hire those who had been passed-over, there is encouragement, and those workers come back into the market.

It’s a feel-good story, reading about employers who are going out of their way to hire the disenfranchised.  But what does this mean for ordinary employers who have not put in this effort?  Well, they could soon be in a bind, and this could mean you.  The active recruitment of discouraged workers is a social technology, if we were to define technology as a way of organizing production.  If the external environment has created a combination of opportunities and threats that imply that we should adopt a certain technology, then the businesses that adapt first can have a competitive advantage.

It can take a year or longer to adapt to other social technologies such as anti-bullying legislation, the acknowledgement that addiction and mental health are one-in-the-same, and the obligation to terminate super-stars who sexually harass juniors.  These new methods of organizing can be just as disruptive as computer-based technologies such as cloud computing, online delivery of learning tools, and the use of analytics.

One of the most challenging features of this new social technology is that people will need to trust prisoners and ex-convicts in order to work with them comfortably.  Similar to a newfangled device being brought into your workplace, you might worry that the new way of doing things can cause harm.  However, it should be noted that in several jurisdictions, there are human rights rules that prevent an employer for screening-out applicants based on crimes that are irrelevant to the job requirements.  For example, a drunk-driving conviction might be prohibited grounds for a job that does not require any driving.  This means that the social technology may already be in place, as legislation, and it’s just a question of whether you will comply and keep up with the times.

It’s ironic… that in order to screen-out job applicants who have broken society’s rules, an employer would be put-upon to break a different societal rule.  These rules are tucked inside human rights codes alongside rules against discriminating on the basis of race and sex.  And we should know from the advanced class on employment equity, that in order for us to all get along we need to know each other’s stories.  So what was the convict’s story?  Are they so much different from you, as a human?  Perhaps with your strength and wisdom you have an obligation to cultivate trust, rather than use mistrust as an excuse.

In order to stay at the cutting edge, employers need to adapt to one more compelling, externally-imposed change:  rethink your ideas about the less-fortunate.  Because one day they might be helping you.

HR Technology – Get Ready For the Big Shake!

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Day 119 - Shake it all about. By JLK_254
Day 119 – Shake it all about. Photo courtesy of JLK_254.

Looking back, it feels like 2017 was a big crazy dog that we watched playing in the water.  That dog has now come out of the water, it’s coming right at you and… get ready for the shake.  There’s never a dull moment in the world of technological disruptions in human resources and workforce analytics.

It’s becoming clear that the disruptions of the near-future will rely increasingly on human resources departments.  Items such as workplace learning, change management, and leadership development are being increasingly flagged by leaders outside of HR as critical to success in their own fields.  Meanwhile, and the ground level looking upward, employees are getting blunt about their expectations for career growth, workforce diversity, and a sense of organizational purpose.  Organizations trying to get on top of these issues without saying “human resources” are running out of euphemisms.

With a new year ahead of us, Josh Bersin of Bersin by Deloitte has published his forecasts for 2018.  In this case Bersin’s forecast is a list of emerging trends in human resources technology, a narrower focus than in the past.  Nonetheless, as everyone grips for emerging technological disruption in a variety of fields, it makes sense for us to consider how technology will disrupt human resources itself.

In my two subsequent posts I will describe how these innovations imply a different workplace culture and  leadership style, and increase the importance of qualitative information and our interpretations of the employee context.  For now, just consider that all work can change, and the people helping workplaces adapt to change are also changing themselves.  HR is just getting a double dose.

At-a-glance, Bersin’s top ten trends are as follows:

  1. A Massive Shift from “Automation” to “Productivity”
  2. Acceleration of HRMS and HCM Cloud Solutions, But Not the Center of Everything
  3. Continuous Performance Management is Here: And You Should Get With It
  4. Feedback, Engagement, and Analytics Tools Reign
  5. Reinvention of Corporate Learning is Here
  6. The Recruiting Market is Thriving With Innovation
  7. The Wellbeing Market is Exploding
  8. People Analytics Matures and Grows
  9. Intelligent Self-Service Tools
  10. Innovation Within HR Itself

For the uninitiated, Human Capital Management (HCM) cloud solutions (#2) is the technology that delivers databases known as human resources management systems (HRMS) on a fee-for-service basis through off-site cloud-based servers.  It’s disruptive because previous systems involved the purchase of an application which was stored on in-house servers alongside the data itself, with everything being owned and modified by the buyer.  Switching to cloud solutions means that you must steward and cultivate data carefully to allow it to dovetail with the rented solution, like a millwright, but with data.  These solutinos allow employers to take full advantage of all configurations in the latest version of the software.  There is far more functionality.  But the increased functionality won’t work unless your data is good and you figure out how to use the new modules.  This change has large implications for human resources, information technology, and daily users of the database.

Prior to now, most People Analytics (#8) was a combination of advanced analytics interpreting data that comes off the core database, plus a bunch of emerging data coming out of engagement analytics (#4).  But now, those two items are just the major platforms.  There are systems that used to be fringe players in HR but are now increasingly critical… and they need their own enabling technology.  Some of the technology hinges on the HRMS, but some of it does not.  For example, workplace learning (#5) and wellbeing initiatives (#7) used to be something that you could operate off an Office suite using a research-based model that followed the best literature in pedagogy or public health.  The best content would be distributed face-to-face, with limited need for software to make the difference.  Now the technology can help out so much more, and tools are becoming available to empower the traditional delivery methods to be more effective, more targeted, and better connected to analytics.

To some extent, everything is being disrupted in a manner that obliges us to think less about the technology itself and more about general productivity (#1).  Those delivering generalist human resources services are also seeing innovations in their own area.  Recruiting (#6) and performance management (#3) are being improved by technology, and a variety of self-service tools (#9) are automating operational tasks such as case management, document management and employee communications.  First we must obsess about the technology to get it to work for us, then we can clear that obstacle and get into new challenges.  Breaking new ground every day will give people in HR a lot of mojo, but only if we keep moving forward.

Bersin brings it all together by noting that it’s not just the purchased solutions that are transforming human resources teams.  In-house HR departments are disrupting themselves (#10), regardless of help from vendors.  Then they ask for help and the vendors themselves are struggling to keep up with clients.  When dealing with complicated case-work and finicky databases, in-house staff sometimes have a home team advantage.