Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Make sure you have people topics very, very high on your agenda. It's simply said. And everybody would say agree, yeah, it's very high. But in reality it's seldom very high on the agenda. It's more in the, in the average. Yeah, I would say so at the end of the day, people make your success. Nothing else. It's just people.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Welcome to a new episode of the what Works podcast series. That was Joerg Dersch, Chro of expay. In this conversation we explore the evolving role of leadership in fast growing companies and how HR strategy plays a critical role in scaling businesses effectively. We discussed the challenges of balancing innovation with strategies, the impact of AI on workforce transformation and what it takes to build a resilient, high performing organization. Let's get to it.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: Joerg, welcome to the what Works podcast. I'm so excited to talk with you about the role of the Chro and your own role.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to share some insights, really.
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Looking forward to this conversation. And we were just talking about how big of a topic this is and how we're going to cram so much information and so many insights into 15 or 20 minutes. But we'll see where the conversation goes. So just tell us first about yourself, what's your role and a little bit about what's top of mind for you right now.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: So after, after a decade in, in multinationals and consulting, I took my first overall responsibility for HR and for the past eight years cho or chief people officer and been accountable for HR in various phases. I've seen a lot of things, different industries, organizational types, organizational sizes, organizational structures, different situations and phases. If you've seen a lot, it helps you for any future challenge you have because you have seen the ups and downs of a certain solution, of a certain phase and it broadens your horizons and also it enables you to find better solutions, hopefully.
So with the top of mind, I think in recent years for many people and for me as well, is AI. That's kind of the big topic and I don't think it will go away soon. And you often see shifts in also in the HR world. So these kind of shifts, like return to office, reduced headcounts, you have to look at these things also from an angle of is it, is it the right approach or are we overcorrecting, finding a good balance in these things? I think this is a general thing that is top of my mind.
[00:02:58] Speaker C: So how did you start out? Did you always know you wanted to get into hr even when you studied.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: No, actually I was not really sure what I was studying. I was really checking out everything in the beginning. What are the pros and cons for the diverse degrees? And then also during my study, which was quite broad, I tried a lot of internships, working student opportunities, side jobs, and at the end of my study it was very clear HR is the best field for me and I love it since then because it's the. It's the people business. Yeah, you need to align constantly with all sorts of people and build a very trustful relationship network within the organization. So where you have that, maybe I'm a bit blind because I'm in hr, but I really think HR is a wonderful and great function and being a chro is a great owner because you can be accountable for all the aspects of the HR world.
[00:03:57] Speaker C: I'm biased too, but I totally agree with you.
So I wanted to double down on a few things that you said before where you were talking about what are the capabilities or what are the kind of skills that are most important for maybe you as a CHO role because you started talking about a little bit about business acumen, but then also data savvy and being people oriented. What are the most important capabilities or skills that you feel differentiate an effective chro?
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Probably by having the entire skill set, especially the parts of the skill set that become more important.
So the chro role evolved from a very operational support function, from a rule enforcer to a more strategic leadership role that should be at least and in my reality is deeply embedded in decision making of the business. And that is crucial because people are at the base of everything you do in a company. And at the end of the day you will only win with the right people strategies and you will lose as well with the wrong ones. The biggest gap I see in HR over the last decades, always in data and tech. Being in a data architect, understanding data, understanding tech, software, and nowadays AI, especially AI, is super crucial. If you want to invest in one skill, it is AI, because even if you invest in a certain other skill, AI will cover that skill in half a year or a year.
[00:05:33] Speaker C: So when you say investing in AI capability and AI skills, what do you mean by that? What are the skills that a search role needs in relation to AI?
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Well, first of all, you need to understand AI for your own productivity. So really I listen to podcasts, I'm reading, I'm following and try to understand where AI is heading in a very diverse set of things. So what are the trends in AI? What are new tools, what are new use Cases, especially understanding business use cases and how companies are changing and see what companies are doing. So there's a lot of change inside the system. They say, we don't know ourselves, we can predict six months, not even 12 months. It's good to build your muscle and to think things through. Thinking things through or organizational structures.
I read that organizational structures will be affected. For example, in the middle management you have a higher span of control. But then if you think things through, you say, well, but in past changes it was the same. People said, oh, there's more time for strategy, the span of controls will be bigger. And they did not become always bigger because other things come to your plate and fill your agenda. So it's hard to do predictions. But thinking things through, discussing with people, staying ahead of the curve from an organizational perspective, from a business perspective is very important.
And secondly, you need to look on your processes, HR processes, finance processes. Everything needs to be constantly adopted. Because if you say, well, we have this tool, in half a year you have another tool or the same tool has much more capabilities and a lot of things change very fast. And that's why important is to build your own muscle. Understanding where the organization could head to enable people, make them understand how big that thing is, you know.
[00:07:54] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. How have you seen this evolve in the last few years? Or have you seen it evolve? I mean, you've been a chro for quite some time now for you said 8, 10 years in different organizations. Have you seen a shift on what the role is and if so, how did it change?
[00:08:14] Speaker A: So I have seen changes, yeah, but within my eight years I have not seen so much changes from my own perspective because I put things quite early on my agenda. That may only come up for others now, but generally, as I said, you come from this operational focus, from a focus of you are the role enforcer towards a more strategic role, value driver, strategic and trusted advisor, sparing partner. And I think as a chro, it's your responsibility to really get to this point where you bring this value. So all the operational excellence need to be in place and you should not forget it.
But where it's more the strategic initiatives enabling the whole organizational system that drives the value differentiation.
[00:09:16] Speaker C: And so how do you do that? How do you as a searcher, how do you show value, how do you create kind of impact? And how do you become the strategic advisor, the strategic consultant?
[00:09:29] Speaker A: It's actually a few, I mean it's a, it's a certain skill set you bring. Yeah, you, you need to bring a focus on People, you need to speak the language of the C Suite. But I give you one very clear and, and simple example how I do it. When I join an organization or every year having a review of the HR strategy or people strategy, I spend time with the entire C suite discussing the HR strategy and, and taking time getting everybody really on the same, getting these counterparts on the wall and discussing where we are at the moment and where we need to shift our focus in the next years. Having this strategic discussion is very important to really ensure the entire C suite has the same understanding. And the second thing is having a roadmap, a simple roadmap that you go through and decide jointly. This is our people roadmap for the next one, two, three years. But, but slice them really in three months periods where you have dedicated projects and say after these three months what have we achieved so your C suite peers will not come, Hey, I have a good idea which the HR person always had before. Often here you can take out the roadmap and say yes, but we agreed to have this, this project deprioritized due to other reasons and you avoid these ups and downs. Yeah. When you have this kind of roadmap that you look at every three months and agree that's still our roadmap or adapted accordingly.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: What experiences should people look for.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: As.
[00:11:12] Speaker C: They want to be? Either rise to the chro role or be a more effective chro.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: I think what's very simple is carving out time in your calendar and that is already the difficult part of it. And getting yourself upgraded from time to time. I mean it's hard to do that maybe every week or you can make a mixture like carve out a few minutes. Use your private time to just follow what's new in the HR world. So I'm using AI a lot, just upgrading myself. Say hey, what's a new trend in this direction? I use AI to as a learning machine for me nowadays so I think every, every half year you should take some time more than just whatever a two hours reads and, and upgrade yourself what's coming. If I talk to other HR people, I'm astonished what they don't know often. Yeah. What are the latest tools? And if you're, if you use your network, that's another advice. Ask them good question. Not just talk randomly but ask them hey, what is a cool startup you, you, you came across? What is a new cool tool you're using yourself? What are trends that you did not know before? And not talking about the long term trends we all know that helps you Upgrading that. That is kind of my new approach of staying current.
[00:12:38] Speaker C: Yeah, that's fantastic. So using AI and using tools and basically staying agile and on top of what's new, but also not getting distracted because I think that can be. Sometimes it can be hard to know where to look because there's so much information now out there. Right. So it can be the kind of information overload as well.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: And maybe another aspect is if you're more early in your career and the Chro role is still far, try to broaden your experiences. So the broader your experiences in all aspects, the better. Actually in hr, the least important for my opinion is actually industry, but organizational size, organizational types, blue color, white color, these are actually important, different experiences.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: Interesting. So we already got into what maybe advice you would have for rising Chros or somebody who wants to be a Chro in the future. But let's, let's talk about other Personas too. So what's the maybe your one piece of advice that you'd give CEOs now? How to support chros to be more effective for CEOs.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: I would be very simple.
Make sure you have people topics very, very high on your agenda. It's simply said. And everybody would say, I agree, yeah, it's very high. But in reality it's seldom very high on the agenda. It's more in the, in the average. Yeah, I would say so at the end of the day. And everybody also would agree to this one. But at the end of the day, people make your success. Nothing else. It's just people. As a chro, we need to help the CEO understand it and giving them examples, also sharing something from the HR world. But if I would talk to a CEO, which is my friend, I would just say, hey, you probably underestimate the importance of people topics just statistically. So make sure you have them really high on your agenda. It will pay off. You maybe not see it directly, but it will pay off and fully integrate your Chro into the executive leadership team. Actually, I also see it as the responsibility of the Chro. Get your seat on the table. You can also get your seat on the table if you're not in the C suite. It's easy and it's possible, but that is important.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: So would that be a word of wisdom or advice for chro's to be more effective to basically take the seat on the C suite to make sure that they capture that seat.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: And I wonder if I'm at chro dinners or HR meetings, I really, really often hear the complaint we don't Have a seat on the table. And especially in economic crisis, actually we lose seat on the table sometimes that we gained in the years before.
And everything has limits. But I think you have it in your hands. Just do good work, be proactive, speak the language of the C suite. And the first thing is really, I mean it's also common sense. But still see it as it would be your company. You own the company with your own money and you are also the CEO. So it's of A and CEO, what would you do? What is top of mind for you? And and then speak their language from all C suite members, but especially the CEO.
So come well prepared, guide them through. Be honest. That's another thing. Be, be honest. For example, we say that since decades use more data, use more data. And HR is really bad in using data.
You're getting better, but we're still not there where we should be. But also be honest when, when you have a business case that is only based on one set of valid data because you have only this data. But other things are very important also to, to take into consideration here. And I can do every business case I want in whatever direction. So be honest. So we have only this data. But there are other aspects we don't have data on. We have to discuss the influence on these other aspects as well.
And sometimes say hey, I have no data. We still have to make a decision. So, so use data. But also be honest when you can't and don't think hr, think, think company first. And that means sometimes hey, seldomly in my experience. But it could mean hey, the HR is oversized or will be oversized if we continue to grow or we don't need a golden standard process for exipsion. We don't need a super expensive tool if, if you believe it's not necessary. At the end of the day you really have to argue what's the impact. And sometimes you have fancy processes. One example is, is performance management. If you look into science, scientific proof, it's difficult to find proof for the effects of performance management. I still believe in it, but if you be very extreme, you could say we don't do it anymore because you have very extended elaborated processes. But never forget what effort you put in these processes. Whatever the people need to put in documenting things. It's the same succession, planning and so forth. So be critical with not just being proud. I have a wonderful HR process is that HR process really bring the value of return on investment.
And if you openly discuss about your doubts and the pros and cons, you become a trusted C suite member rather than just saying, hey, we want more money, we want more budget. All the processes in HR are important.
So I think that is a little advice from my end.
[00:18:46] Speaker C: Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, I know we covered a lot of ground. Thank you so much, Joerg. I really appreciate all your insight. It was such a pleasure talking with you as well.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Thank you. Was a pleasure talking with you.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Thank you for joining us for this fascinating discussion with Jorg Duisch, the Chro of xpay. We explored the critical role of AI in shaping the future of HR and the importance of the chro driving alignment of AI initiatives with business goals. Joerg's insights on leveraging AI to change the work environment for the better offer you valuable lessons for success for today and for tomorrow. Until next time, keep exploring what works for your company.
