Episode 304: The Role of the CHRO and People Analytics

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Episode 304: The Role of the CHRO and People Analytics

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Welcome to the Workology Podcast, a podcast for the disruptive workplace leader. Join host Jessica Miller-Merrell, founder of Workology.com, as she sits down and gets to the bottom of trends, tools and case studies for the business leader, H.R. and recruiting professional who is tired of the status quo. Now, here’s Jessica with this episode of Workology.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:00:26.70] Welcome to the Workology Podcast sponsored by Upskill HR and Ace The HR Exam. This podcast is part of a series on the Workology Podcast focused on the roles and responsibilities of that Chief Human Resources Officer, or CHRO. The CHRO, sometimes called the SVP of H.R. or the Chief People Officer, is an executive or sea level role that deals with managing human resources, as well as organizational development and implementing policies of change to improve the overall efficiency of the company. The CHRO podcast is powered by Daily Pay and Ginger.io. One of the reasons I wanted to do this series is because there is a lot of mystery around the role and I wanted aspiring CHROs to know what type of skills and experiences they need to promote into a future role, right along with hearing from senior leadership about how they’re partnering and collaborating with their executive peers.

Episode 304: The Role of the CHRO and People Analytics With Charlie Judy

 

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:01:25.02] Today, I’m joined with a long time friend of mine, Charlie Judy. He’s the Chief People and Culture Officer at Intelligent Medical Objects. Charlie joined IMO in November of 2019 as its first Chief People Officer. He now leads a collaborative effort to manage the culture and employee experience that attracts, connects, and advances the company’s world class workforce. Charlie has over 26 years of experience as an HR executive with some of the world’s most prominent professional service firms, including Baker Tilly, Navigant, and Deloitte. In 2015, Charlie founded WorkXO®, a cloud based workplace culture management platform that was purchased by QuestionPro in 2018. Charlie, welcome to the Workology podcast.

Charlie Judy: [00:02:11.52] Thanks, Jess. So glad to be here. Thanks for having me on the show.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:02:15.66] Charlie and I go way back. We met on Twitter about 12 years ago.

Charlie Judy: [00:02:20.16] That’s right. I mean, that’s that’s one of those things that you didn’t say 20 years ago that I met somebody on Twitter.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:02:27.74] No. Yeah, but that’s how you meet people these days. I feel like smart people, you meet them on the Internet.

Charlie Judy: [00:02:35.07] Yep.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:02:36.63] I want to start with your background. You’ve held a number of HR leadership positions over the last 25-26 years. How did you get into H.R. and how has your work evolved over time into your current role?

Charlie Judy: [00:02:49.65] So I did not study to be an H.R. guy. You know, it’s weird. I obviously talk to a lot of people in this profession and it’s not unusual to hear somebody say, you know, I never thought I’d be an HR person. I’m one of those people. In fact, I don’t even really know when I was in school whether they had kind of formal H.R. programs, certainly out of, you know, Cornell’s industrial and labor relations program. There were probably few out there. I actually started my career as an accountant, as a public accountant, CPA with with Deloitte and Deloitte, like like many firms, was just one of those larger companies that was willing to give people, you know, an opportunity to kind of pivot in their careers. And I had one of those opportunities almost by accident, almost by kind of maybe even by mistake. But I had a chance to go to work with the firm’s Chief HR Officer as his kind of his Chief of Staff, like, you know, national product or project manager. And I didn’t know a lick about H.R., but, you know, I could manage a project. So he took me under his wing for a few years. And I liked this, liked the subject matter enough that I, I stuck with it.

Charlie Judy: [00:04:00.18] I started in the field like like everybody. And, you know, was an HR Business Partner and looked for experiences along the way that would, I think, you know, prepare me for an executive role at some point. And kind of that’s where I’ve been for the last ten years or so. I mean, the profession has changed considerably in that time. Obviously, my my work has changed considerably. I think we are and I don’t know that this is necessarily just my my platform, my philosophy. I think I think a lot of people are experiencing this. I think we are much less programmatic than we used to be. I think we’re a lot more focused on behaviors and and cultivating the right experiences for the individual, not necessarily just for the workforce. I think we’re relying a lot more on technology. I think we’re relying a lot more on the analytics. You know, I think we’re more naturally integrated with the business. We’re not we’re not fighting as hard to have a voice, which is something that you might now remember talking a lot about maybe even just 10 years ago. So, yeah, things, things have have changed a lot.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:05:11.09] So looking back and thinking about the, what an H.R. person right now, what kind of skills and experience do you think are absolute requirements for somebody to step into that CHRO role, whether they’re just starting out or maybe they’re thinking about their next step in the next 24-36 months?

Charlie Judy: [00:05:32.95] Yeah, I mean, I wish there were a cleaner recipe on that. I’m not sure that there is one. I would I guess I have a couple of general things to say and then, you know, a couple of specifics as well. I think in H.R. person that can have as many different kinds of experiences and in the realm of work will be better prepared than than any one HR person who may be single track. And by experiences, I mean not just. You know, kind of the traditional HR competency framework, but but business at large. So and I think there’s lots of ways to do that. But but, you know, I think a stronger, a deeper, a wider appreciation for all of the various operating systems in the business is invaluable as part of your your your path towards leadership roles in the HR realm. I’m one of those people that kind of believes, admittedly biased, that everybody should start their business. If you’re going to be in business, like start your career with a degree in accounting, you know, like learn the brass tacks of business. I mean, that’s that’s where it all starts. Like, that’s the that’s the skeleton of any enterprise, whether we’re talking industry A, B or C, and and that deeper appreciation for how we account for a business leads to so many things.

Charlie Judy: [00:07:00.77] I can give you real life examples of how that experience has not only allowed or afforded me some credibility, you know, that I think is harder to establish for some, but it also, like, allows me to understand what the hell people are talking about. So, you know, and that’s somewhat hyperbolic. I’m not suggesting you need to go out and get a real degree. But I think having that experience is really important. I also think that leads to what is increasingly important for our profession, and that’s the analytical side of things, I think just being able to understand data and leverage it and to rely on it really for better decision making. Having that kind of analytical mindset is, I think, really important. I think every HR executive needs to have done real time in the recruiting realm. I mean, I think you need to be a recruiter. It’s such an important part of our business. I think it will always be an important part of our business. Right now, I think it’s the most important part and certainly one of the most important parts of our business. And I think having that first hand experience of what it means to not just identify candidates and and to attract them to the business, but to find those candidates that are really the right, and I hate the word fit, but but will complement and will ultimately thrive in this particular environment.

Charlie Judy: [00:08:31.09] That’s an art that’s not, you know, that’s not something that you get by studying or watching. You really have to have had that experience. And so I would really strongly encourage anybody out there that’s considering seriously considering a leadership path to, to make sure they get that experience. And then the final thing I’d say, I think, is all around communications, which is a nice kind of catchall phrase. It means a lot of different things. But I think now it’s more about, you know, how good are you at telling a story? How good are you at understanding, you know, the intricacies of an employee? Value proposition as an example, how good are you at influencing others in a room? How good are you at being a champion for and, you know, kind of mouthpiece for the really important things, you know, the things that are central to your culture or to your people, to the career experience that they’re having. All of those things. I think the better you are at expressing, articulating and telling that story, the more effective you’ll be as and HR leader. That was a long answer. Sorry.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:09:38.16] Oh, don’t apologize. I, I find your background fascinating with the accounting because it’s something that I wished I personally would have spent more time in because it’s so much a part of being able to talk that language and understand the point of view from the rest of your leadership team.

Charlie Judy: [00:09:57.97] No question.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:09:59.17] So you stepped into this company. You’re the first Chief H.R. Officer at the company. I wanted to ask you, in your experience, how does that CHRO role change how company leadership works with H.R. or vice versa?

Charlie Judy: [00:10:14.92] Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of levers there and there. I think it’s really important for anyone, you know, considering bringing their badass selves to another organization to make sure they’re assessing those levers and kind of how they all, how they all come together. I mean, we all talked ad nauseum and now it is a cliche around this kind of seat at the table. And that’s a really very easy thing to pay lip service to. I don’t think there’s a CEO on the planet that wouldn’t, you know, say out loud that HR is important to their business, but but what does that really mean to them? So Intelligent Medical Objects, IMO, was a software company in the health care space where high growth, we’re about three hundred employees and very much in kind of build mode. And I’ll just tell you that when, when I took this role, first of all, I was kind of my own kind of career transition after doing the entrepreneurial thing for a while and not I wasn’t really sure whether or not I actually wanted to go back and be an HR leader, certainly not in a traditional, you know, kind of corporate space.

Charlie Judy: [00:11:32.90] And as I was talking with the CEO about this particular role, she said to me point blank, she said, listen, I’ve had a conversation with our private equity firm about hiring a Chief HR Officer. And they said to me that they weren’t really sure we were ready for that yet, that we didn’t have the critical mass, that we you know, that at this point that kind of investment was warranted. And she said, I turn to them and I said, listen, I’m not sure you heard me right. I’m going to hire the Chief HR Officer. That is as an important part of what we’re trying to do here as as anything else. And so I just want you to know that. I’m not asking. And those are my words, not hers. But, but, but it is, it is that kind of level of commitment that I think is, is, is crucial to having the space to do what we are good at doing. And I think paying attention to those signals is really important before going anywhere.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:12:31.99] Can you talk to us about your high growth company during a pandemic? Building out your HR team and supporting the organization, what was that like for you in the company and the HR team?

Charlie Judy: [00:12:48.00] I mean, certainly it has been disruptive, eye-opening, challenging, frustrating. But also exhilarating, exciting, we’ll all acknowledge the how terrible this pandemic has been in so many ways to so many people at the individual level, at the collective level, and for our global community. Obviously. But I think, you know, it’s it’s. I don’t want to be flipping about this, but, you know, it kind of almost already feels like a flash in the pan to to us. And I don’t know if it’s because we are high growth. I don’t know if it’s because we are, you know, a software company. I think we already had a good dose of of kind of agility and, you know, tolerance of ambiguity and change in those kinds of things in our systems. We adapted very quickly to the environment and if we, you know, segment just the remote working part of that environment, we were already familiar with the tools and the technologies, we already had a remote, you know, highly or at least a good proportion of our people that were remote. I mean, we you know, we have brick and mortar and beautiful office space in here in the Chicagoland area. We have two, we have two offices. And I’d say that at any given time we were before the pandemic, we were operating at probably 60 percent capacity. So and that wasn’t by program. It wasn’t by design. I wasn’t by policy. That’s just the way that we worked. We kind of worked where we needed to work to get, to get it done.

Charlie Judy: [00:14:29.68] I do think I mean, obviously, it forced us to confront some things that we knew were coming. I mean, we we we knew that that kind of hybrid environment or that flexible environment, that remote environment was going to become increasingly important. We knew that we needed to practice developing software, you know, remotely. We developed our software, you know, kind of on a, on a team basis, much more hands on. I mean, even physically in the same room together, and we had to change our way of thinking there. So, I mean, we had to think about it. But but I, and we worked at it hard and we had some really, you know, good response plans in place. But I think having the workforce that was already already primed to kind of think on its toes. Made things very, very easy. It was interesting, I was, I was in the office yesterday and somebody was walking by for a tour of the office and it was the first time that they had seen the office in a year. They joined us in May of 2020. So, you know, it’s, it’s that kind of stuff which is really weird that we part of our workforce has never had. You know, that communal experience and so getting back to that, I think is going to be really important. I think we have to be very intentional about that. It’s not going to happen naturally. We’re going to have to give people a reason, reasons to get back together again.

Break: [00:16:01.01] Let’s take a reset. This is Jessica Miller-Merrell, and you were listening to the Workology Podcast sponsored by Upskill HR and Ace the HR Exam. We’re talking about the role of the CHRO in private equity with Charlie Judy. The CHRO podcast series on Workology is powered by Daily Pay and Ginger.io.

Break: [00:16:20.41] Every employee has different mental health needs from preventive behavioral health coaching to therapy and psychiatry. Ginger offers effective, convenient mental health care for any level of need, all from a smartphone. Learn more. Visit Ginger.com.

HR Metrics as They Apply to People and Workforce Management

 

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:16:40.00] I want to go back to kind of, again, your background in accounting. I feel like it’s such an important, the business acumen side of what we do in H.R. and, and having you speak to analytics and H.R. metrics as they apply to people management. So or maybe measuring employee engagement, for example.

Charlie Judy: [00:17:01.15] Yeah, I mean, measure something. First of all, you know, I really don’t care what it is. Just start measuring stuff, start paying attention. You need signals. You need signs. Need context. And those signals are signs that context is not in and of itself the answer to your questions, the solution to your problems, but it’s a piece thereof. And it and it helps you think. It helps you solve, it helps you be informed, stay informed, and it helps you stay out in front of things. If you think about every aspect of your business, any operating system, your business, finance to marketing and sales, each of those functions have relied heavily on data for decades and decades, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be doing the same thing in HR. In fact, that there are lots of reasons why we should be doing it more so. So that’s the first thing I look at. We look at analytics here. You know, people analytics is kind of being in two core buckets. One is, you know, workforce analytics. And that’s the. That’s the kind of the stuff about your existing people, how they’re employed, their demographics, the levels of workforce architecture, performance, compensation, it’s kind of the more name, rank, serial numbers stuff.

Charlie Judy: [00:18:33.36] But it’s important to understanding the kind of how is your workforce comprised? And there’s obviously lots that you do with that stuff, from measuring turnover to cost of hire to, you know, even just demographic makeup, racial diversity, ethnic diversity, etc.. You know, just keeping an eye on that stuff is really important. And then and then we talk about everything else is kind of being employee experience. Employee engagement is a is a great measure, but it’s it’s an outcome. It’s an outcome of all of the things that your people experience, the words, the actions, the values, the behaviors, beliefs, the the things that they encounter from the moment that they first meet your organization to the moment that they’re looking at it in the rearview mirror, all of that culminates into some outcome. Some people call it employee engagement. Some people talk about employing net promoter score, that’s the one that we use, by the way, affiliation, connection, belonging, all of that stuff is important, but that’s the outcome. And knowing what the level of engagement is, for example. That’s interesting. But knowing what’s behind it. Knowing what’s driving it. Knowing which levers, which factors, i.e., behaviors, actions, values, beliefs, cetera in your workforce, drive or change or influence that outcome.

Charlie Judy: [00:20:10.86] That’s where the that’s where the real value is getting down to that kind of behavioral level. And an understanding what’s important to your business, to your culture, to your employee experience is an extremely introspective exercise. It’s got to be based on your company, your vertical, your workforce, your aspirations, your business objectives, your strategy, your et cetera. All of those things are very unique to you. One of the biggest problems of the world of work, maybe not problems, but one of the lessons, because lessons that we’ve learned about how we’ve measured things like employee engagements over the last couple of years is that, you know, what makes an employee engaged at one organization is not necessarily the same as what makes employee engagement another organization. And I mean, there are some shared things. Right. But but getting down to what matters to you. That’s the important piece, and if you can get there, then you can measure it, how much are they or how little are they experiencing those things that we know are going to drive success in our business. That’s what we really try to do when we talk about employee experience, metrics and analytics.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:21:32.14] And I know you’re passionate about this so much so that you found it and started and ultimately sold your own H.R. and Workplace Engagement Analytics Company.

Charlie Judy: [00:21:44.18] Yeah, and and that was kind of the foundation of it was let’s stop worrying about good or bad. Let’s stop worrying about whether you’ve got a high score or a low score, and let’s stop worrying about whether or not the industry benchmark for employee engagement is seventy five or sixty five. Let’s just talk about moving the needle and understanding what it’s going to take to get there. And that all starts with just some awareness, paying attention to the signals, but making sure that the signals that you’re measuring. Are your signals, and that was the foundation for the model that we built with work, XO and then ultimately sold and yeah, and and we try to do the same thing here at IMO for sure.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:22:29.78] Well, you mentioned IMO as a high growth software company and they are private equity owned. And I wanted to have you talk a little bit about what he owned means for those maybe who don’t know.

Charlie Judy: [00:22:43.64] So there are different ways. You know, there are lots of ways to fund a business and fund a business’s growth and evolution, however, you define that. From bootstrap, like we’re going to fund it ourselves by bootstrap work. So I didn’t have an investor, I didn’t borrow money, I did it kind of from the ground up. You can raise money through venture capital and angel investors and other private investors and then kind of a layer on top of that is private equity. And then there’s like you can go public, right. And in many organizations, certainly in this day and age of of startup to entrepreneur to multibillion dollar multi national organizations, it’s a continuum. And they go through all of those phases, the phases. Private equity firms are usually a conglomerate of really talented investors. They have a fund of cash to invest in whatever they think is kind of part of their own mission. Many private equity funds are lined up maybe by vertical, particular industry by product. You know, there are some that are now aligned by social cause, et cetera. But it is a commitment to investing in certain kinds of organizations. Our private equity firm is one that has had great success and track record in the in the health care space.

Charlie Judy: [00:24:29.34] And then they also invest based on maybe where a company is in their own evolution. Some are early stage investors. They would rather get into the front end. There are mid stage investors and there are late stage investors. And to be owned by the private equity firm means that basically the stock and certainly the majority thereof of your capital structure is is owned by that private equity firm. Some are more involved in the management of your business. The day in, day out, some are more hands off. They’re typically very much focused on getting the right leadership team pulled together. They’re very much focused on, you know, kind of understanding and helping to establish the growth objectives, as is the case obviously, with us monitoring those objectives or our progress towards them, holding us accountable to them, they have their own resources to bear. So if we’re struggling with a particular issue, they may bring in some experts to help us figure that out. It’s like having a, you know, a much more active investor in your business, somebody that has a real vested interest in seeing you achieve those those targets. Does that answer that question?

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:25:41.39] I think so. I just you know, I was talking to somebody actually yesterday and he works for a Fortune 200 company and he’s in a senior level recruiting role and was thinking about moving over to another organization. And and it’s it’s a startup. And he’s like, well, I don’t know what their path is. Maybe it’s IPO. And I was like, well, there’s a lot of other options other than just going public. And we talked about private equity is one of those.

Charlie Judy: [00:26:13.17] Yeah. And I mean, obviously that that private, you know, private capital right now is it’s just really, really hot. And I think it’s important for any of your listeners who are considering a path with an organization, any organization to understand what that ownership structure is like and what the implications are. Because, I mean, working for a public company is on a completely different end of the spectrum than working for a private equity owned company, then working for a privately held, closely held company. I mean, understanding those things is really important and understanding what it means to you and your own role. And by the way, if you’re going to work for a private equity owned company, I would suggest you take as much time to understand that private equity firm as you do to understand the company. How does this firm operate? What’s their own philosophy? What’s their investment strategy? What are they? Are they a six year old or are they a three year old? And where are they in that process? Where is the company in that cycle? Are they three years in or are they six years understanding? Those things have probably as much an impact on your own experience as an H.R. leader as one of the offices look like? And what does your team look like and who are you reporting to? I mean, that’s all really important stuff.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:27:27.65] Well, thank you for for sharing, because, again, it’s not something that I think we talk enough about, like these kinds of business conversations, not just our unemployment gauge and metrics, but things like who are your investors and how are they going to support you and what are their plans or strategies for your business?

Charlie Judy: [00:27:50.49] Yeah, I mean, I think that’s that’s really true. I mean, one of the things that I’ve been thrilled about and I knew a little bit of this before getting into it, but now there hasn’t been a board meeting that’s gone by since I’ve been here and I’ve been here for 16 months now. That hasn’t had some kind of are certainly people piece of the agenda. And I don’t know that that’s usual. I mean, it’s it’s just nice to know that our PR firm is as interested in understanding kind of how we’re investing in our people and the growth of our business as they are other kind of more traditional things. And, you know, that’s, I think, maybe more rare in the private equity space.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:28:35.24] I think you’re right, but, I mean, I am glad that more. Leaders, executives, board members are interested and want to learn more about what HR is doing and how we’re supporting the business, no question. You talked a little bit about your plans for opening back up, and I wanted to talk more about that for just a minute. The approach that you’re taking in terms of opening back up, whether it’s on site, remote, fully or a hybrid model, what direction are you guys leaning?

Charlie Judy: [00:29:12.03] So we use the term hybrid for us. Hybrid means you’re no longer a remote employee or an office employee. Everybody is both. To me, the most advantageous thing about this is that we are explicitly like this is this is all about finally recognizing that, listen, we hire smart, talented, trustworthy people, they’re adults, they can make good decisions, and where they work isn’t something that any one of us should have to worry a whole lot about. And that my whole coming around finally, finally is not just doesn’t necessarily relate to, IMO, but I think the world of work in general really struggles with that notion. And if you start to kind of dissect it, it doesn’t it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Like I mean, yeah, we trust you with our clients, trust you with our product, but we don’t trust you to figure out where you need to be on any particular day like that just doesn’t make any sense to me now. I mean, take all that depends on your industry and workforce structure and lots of other things. Right. But that the thing that I think is really important for us, and I alluded to this a little bit before, is that we.

Charlie Judy: [00:30:40.10] It just means you got to be a little bit more intentional about taking advantage of the right time to be together. We still value, in fact, we really cherish what comes of our time together in the same room know we we are a collaborative organization. We’re an innovative organization. We’re a creative organization. A lot of that stuff comes from the physical interaction, not to mention that we believe that human beings need and get some sort of kind of lifeblood from being around other human beings. So this is less about like where you plug in every day and more about let’s use our time together really wisely. Let’s make sure that we’re making and creating moments and opportunities for us to get together, but then to to to really extract the value from that togetherness and that requires that requires work on our manager’s part, our leaders part, we’re really trying to be a lot more intentional about that.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:31:57.68] I love that. So today is Podcast Recording Day, and I’ve done three podcast interviews today and three of the three have used the word intentional. And on completely different topics. But I feel like it’s really important right now because we don’t know what tomorrow is going to be. And we have had so much disruption in the last 18 months that we do need to be really focused and intentional.

Charlie Judy: [00:32:26.43] Yeah, and, you know, I’ve said this a couple of times, you know, in various forms over the last several weeks and people keep saying, what are you doing in the new normal? And my answer is that this is not the new normal. The only new normal is, is that there is not anymore like we we need to stop. Like preparing or figuring how to deal with the next, whatever disruption is in front of us today and equipping ourselves to deal with whatever disruption comes our way, as there are going to be so many of them in our certainly in our own careers, but in our lifetime, etc.. And I think I think the more we teach our people to to adapt to whatever comes your way, the better off we’re all going to be.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:33:13.26] Yeah, I think it’s equipping yourself and your team with whatever comes next, knowing that everything is going to change again and just thinking about the future state, what what’s what do we think might happen and how can we get ourselves skilled up, trained resources, whatever it is, to be prepared for whatever? The future has in store,

Charlie Judy: [00:33:38.82] Yeah, and that’s where that whole intentionality thing comes into play. You just you just have to be intentional.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:33:45.62] So I want to close with. I feel like the one of the hardest questions, I think that we’ve ever asked on the podcast because and it’s also different for everybody else, but what is the best leadership advice that you feel like you’ve received in your own career?

Charlie Judy: [00:34:05.13] One is…and I honestly don’t remember where I learned this from, but it’s not certainly not my concept. It’s out there in a lot of places, and I’m sure it’s there today, but this whole idea of having kind of your personal board of directors, I mean, I think, you know, making sure that you have people to offer that advice and counsel and that some of the people on your personal board directors. It may not be directly invested in, you know, whatever your current job is, per se, but but but just have an interesting perspective on on the world and. Life and maybe your profession, career, etc., but but and have a diverse board of directors, have people that will tell you you’re wrong and have people that will tell you that you’re right. But you have more than just one person that you’re looking for that kind of counsel from. I’ve been really fortunate to have, you know, a number of those people throughout the years that I kind of go to again and again. You know, there’s some some little things. You know, the. That wouldn’t necessarily make headlines here, but one thing that I’ve learned, and it’s probably saved me a thousand times is. Put the keyboard down. Pick up the phone. You’re not going to solve you’re not even going to really effectively communicate anymore if it’s something of significance of substance via email. Or slack or. Teams, I mean, it’s night, it’s awesome to have those tools. But in our business and our profession, it’s still about meaningful conversations.

Charlie Judy: [00:35:57.10] It’s still about human interaction, it’s still about connecting with somebody, and I think that involves old fashioned, you know, good old conversation. So pick up the phone, man, put the put the keyboard down. I mean, one of the things that I think I’ve learned a lot in or certainly become a lot better at in the last several years. And I think some of this has come from my experiences as a technology entrepreneur is like get comfortable making mistakes, you know? I mean, I just. The faster we make mistakes, the faster we learn from them, the better our product is going to be. Whether you define that product as some major program that you’re putting together a response to a particular issue that you’re trying to solve. You make a mistake. I mean, there are some things that we do in H.R. that you obviously want to be really careful about making mistakes around, but there aren’t many of. So make a mistake, you know, fail fast, learn from it, move on. I’m all about iteration incremental improvements, getting stuff delivered quickly, even if it’s not perfect. I’ve seen a lot of people in this profession over the years be kind of hyper focused on making sure that we’ve got a bow on top of everything. And it just it just that’s just not how we develop anymore in the world. And so I think we have to get more comfortable with that as well. I think that’s good leadership advice that I’ve learned from others that aren’t necessarily in the H.R. space.

Charlie Judy: [00:37:29.47] But I think that’s highly transferable. And then the last thing I’d say is, I know you didn’t ask me for three or four things you asked me for one, it goes back to maybe one of the first things I said in this podcast and that’s fill up your dance card. I think dance card is is is really an outdated reference. Now, it wasn’t even relevant for my generation, but my mother’s generation. You know, the idea is you go to these these dances and the the the objective was to get as many to dance with as many people as you could to get as many people sign your dance card as you could, get different experiences and meet more people. I mean, for me, dance card is is get as many of those experiences as you possibly can on that card, do as many things as you can. Somebody taps you on the shoulder with something that is way outside of your comfort zone. Take it, go do it, check it out. If if something makes you nervous, then it’s probably something you ought to be doing because it’s going to stretch you in ways that you would not otherwise be stretched. And I want my dance card to be filled when I’m finally hanging up my hat. And I think having that full dance card helps you really prepare yourself for any kind of move in your career. So that’s the last thing that I would impart.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:38:51.69] Well, it’s always a pleasure talking to you, Charlie Judy. I love just listening to your points of view and your experience, and I know the audience is gotten so many valuable nuggets out of out of this conversation. So thank you for taking the time.

Charlie Judy: [00:39:09.99] Thanks again for inviting me. It’s always a pleasure talking to you.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:39:12.96] I’m going to link to Charlie Judy’s LinkedIn profile if you want to connect with him and pontificate on dance cards and employee engagement metrics and everything that we’ve talked about today. So thank you again. And I appreciate you being a part of the conversation here.

Charlie Judy: [00:39:31.26] Thank you.

Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:39:33.10] Personal and professional development is essential for successful H.R. leaders join upscale H.R. to access life training community and over one hundred on demand courses for that dynamic leader, H.R. Restart credits available visit upscale H.R. Dotcom for more. It’s really interesting to delve into how a role like the CSIRO, whose experience more closely connects them to the strategy and operations of the overall business with the rest of the company leadership team around things like innovation, diversity and inclusion and business partnerships. I have known Charlie for over 12 years. Yes, we met on Twitter over 12 years ago. I love hearing about his role and the work that he’s doing. And you can hear the passion throughout the conversation. The CHRO (and Charlie is a testament to this) doesn’t just lead H.R. within the company. This role is key to structuring the leadership for the company’s executive team. And I appreciate Charlie taking time to share his experience and expertise with us today. I also want to thank you for joining the Workology podcast. It’s sponsored by Upskill HR and Ace the HR Exam. This podcast interview has been part of our CHRO series, which honestly is one of my favorite series of interviews we’ve ever done for the Workology podcast in our over 300 episodes. This CHRO series is powered by Daily Pay and Ginger.io. This podcast is for the disruptive workplace leader who’s tired of the status quo. That’s why I’m here talking to you and you’re listening because we are here to change the workplace, push boundaries and help support our organizations. My name is Jessica Miller-Merrell. You can check out Workology.com to listen to all our previous Workology podcast episodes.

Connect with Charlie Judy.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

 

– Charlie Judy on LinkedIn

– Charlie on Twitter

– CHRO Job Description

– Episode 301: The Role of the CHRO and Employee Well-Being

– Episode 297: CHRO Series – How Did You Start Your Career in HR?

– Best HR Metrics for Human Capital Management

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