#30 Discussing HR Automation with Thomas Schilling from Tugela People

Hallo und willkommen zu another episode of the Process and Automation Podcast with the Automation Guys. Today's episode is another special one for us. Usually you hear just Arno, myself talking about all things process and automation, and after The great feedback we have received after our, our first interview session with Richard Farrell from NetCall, we thought it would be great to invite more interesting people along who share the same passion for process and automation as we do. And it is with great pleasure to welcome our next interview guest. His social media profile states he's helping companies to achieve their business goals with cloud-based HR solutions that align with their unique requirements. So, and with that, we welcome Thomas Schilling, Managing Director of Together People, to the podcast. Hello, Thomas. Thank you for joining us today.

Hi, Sascha. Thank you to you and Arno for inviting me.

Great. So yeah, please tell us a bit more about you and what you're doing at Together People.

Thanks, Sascha. So we're an HR consultancy, as your first sort of introduction explained. We focus on mid-sized multinational companies, typically between 250 to 5,000 employees. We partner with them to implement, integrate, and enhance their best-in-breed HR systems. You know, that can be anything from core HR systems, recruitment systems, learning management systems, payroll systems, and, and the list goes on depending on what sort of best-in-breed systems they're looking for.

Great. Then yeah, HR is a very complex topic. So Arno and I, we're helping companies in all sorts of industries and with all things process and automation really, and that mostly across different departments. Where do you see the sweet spot for automation specifically in HR?

I think one of the things I've realized is that because of the advent of cloud-based HR systems, a lot of the other departments get excluded from the selection process and the management process, uh, of HR systems, uh, which in one way is a good thing, uh, and in another way sort of creates the unintentional silos. Because really what we look to do is to help HR departments be part of the wider business. And because the information that the HR departments have and the effect that HR departments have on the wider business is far-reaching, far further-reaching than they recognize. Maybe if I take a quick step back, um, when I started Tegela just under 10 years ago, you know, I realized, a, that this target market of ours have the same needs as your large enterprise businesses, but they don't have the same deep pockets. And that's AI sort of sourced cloud-based HR systems because it gave HR the autonomy to purchase systems at a price that fits their pockets. And also in terms of the system's capability, it did a lot of what the enterprise systems did at a fraction of the cost. So that empowered HR to be able to purchase these systems. But then suddenly they then have all of this information that really should be feeding into the wider business systems to help make informed decisions based on facts. And so, you know, the sweet spot for HR automation, A, is the obvious one, automating all of the disparate HR systems. And often that's an ironic statement to make because a lot of these HR systems come either with automation built in already, and an example of that would be automatically if somebody raises an absence request or a holiday request, that request would go to the manager for approval, and that should be built into a core HR system. And most of these systems come with processes where you can actually put in those workflows for notifications if required. So automation's there, but then there's automation between the other HR systems. So maybe a learning management system where you take all of the existing employees and make sure that they are up to date in the learning management system. And the HR system can see what skills they need and make sure that they're assigned to the right training courses in the learning management system. And it's similarly from the learning management system that information can be fed back into the HR system so that you can run reports to show what skills you've got and what skills gaps you've got. Now you can start hopefully Conjuring up this image where suddenly that information can go into a BI tool and the business can say, well, we're going in this direction and therefore we've got these skills. And that could be language skills, it could be product skills, knowledge and experience and all of that. And they can make assessments about where the skills gap is. Yeah, they can then see what the probability is of, you know, of this project succeeding or failing, or similarly what they need to do to fill the gap.

Yeah, I guess my view, if I can jump in, Thomas, of HR is I sometimes look at it from the perspective of the employee, right? And I think, you know, most businesses out there, if you speak to people, you say, you know, what's your most valuable asset? And I'll be like, well, our customer base. And You know, they've got concepts like know your customer, for example, customer 360, all of these kind of attributes that you can tie to a customer to enable you to serve them better, retain them, create better journeys for them, sell them different products, you know, or services. But for me, when I look at HR and the work we do in HR, And, you know, I will be honest to say that, you know, we, apart from kind of doing leave request automation, expense claims, personal development plans and objectives, in terms of kind of using, you know, low-code to create an enterprise-grade HR systems, that's not something we generally do. But I think if I look at HR as a whole, and trying to tie it with, with, with know your customer. I almost think it's the internal version of, uh, you know, human capital is the kind of the internal version of, of a client, but it's an internal-facing client, right, where it is a very valuable asset. Um, and, you know, having a, a really almost client-centric view of your human capital or human workforce is so beneficial for, for your business. Because if you look at your employee force or your employee base, you look at their requirements, how you can serve them best, how you could ensure that you retain them, how you could obviously ensure that they succeed in their career. It's almost like the same amount of effort that you need to spend on customer retention and the way you deal with customers. I mean, would you agree with with that and kind of my view, or how do you see it?

Your analogy is a really good one. So company, in terms of a business, your employees are your internal customers, and totally agree with that. But you've got to remember that your employees, your HR also has an external focus, and this is about attracting, so not just about the retaining element and the development element. It's also about attracting, uh, colleagues and, and you want to be able to put a stamp on your digital persona using your attraction tools, your recruitment tools, you know, um, how accessible are all your terms and conditions. If you've got any questions, how can you, uh, interact with the right person to ask those questions whilst you're going through the recruitment process? Now you've been hired, but you're going through your notice period. What's happening during your onboarding? Remember, You still haven't started, they could still take the contract away from you, so you're still external. And that all sets the scene. Okay, and now you've left the business, now you're external again. You might have probably, hopefully left on good terms, and you can become part of the alumni for that business. And when the time's right and the business has tracked you as an individual who has experience of this company and its culture, and you were a good fit but there was a better opportunity elsewhere, and that's reality of life. I want to now attract you back into the business because we feel we've got a role for you. You've got some external experience. So I do feel there is an external element, but I do totally get what you're saying in terms of, you know, the customer element from a CRM point of view is akin to the HR system from an employee's point of view. I agree.

Yeah. Yeah. So we talk a lot about actual use cases here on this podcast, and it's It's a very popular topic because we are technologists by nature. We solve business problems by deploying automation and, you know, obviously making companies more efficient in that process. So, so, with inside HR, you know, what do you think is, is, you know, the most exciting or impactful use cases out there in, in the automation space specifically for HR?

The traditional ones are integrating with, with payroll as the first and foremost, so core HR with your payroll system, and then others that really help with data protection or integrating with your IT systems, making sure that those that have left are removed from your IT systems, all about access. You know, the But I'm always surprised, Arno, at how few companies actually make use of those integrations. They're straightforward, they're simple, but the impact is huge. But the one that excites me the most— and we've got a gambling company based out of Central Europe that we work a heck of a lot with— and they have taken a lot of information from the HR system, Sage People in this case, and we've integrated into their data warehouse, and they're using Power BI to generate org charts, do scenario planning, and actually have factually based decision-making based on the information that goes into that data warehouse and their analytics tool. That for me really is the most exciting where you're integrating into decision-making systems and you've got real-time information available to, to companies and business leaders to make decisions.

Great. That sounds wonderful. Yeah, I think the insights you could— if you can pull that data together, there's probably some very interesting insights you can derive and some very interesting decision-making information that can surface that allows you to do quite interesting things in that space.

It's interesting because what they do, I know, is they visualize the data too. So they've got org charting tool linked not to the HR system, They use the HR systems org charting tool for that purpose, but they're using a scenario-based org charting tool which is linked to the data warehouse, and then they're doing their scenario planning but visualizing it, which I think is quite groundbreaking.

Yeah, sounds very innovative.

Yeah, I think lots of growing companies are really, really struggling. We have lots of companies that are growing really fast at the moment with the startups, and they really need to to get these topics covered earlier than later, I would say. Otherwise, implementing those systems in those use cases, it becomes quite hard later on. But ideally, we can help as many people with that information.

I totally agree with you, Sascha. Typically, companies through their evolution, first system they would get, and I'm happy if you disagree with me, would be a finance system, you know, something like Xero and the like, and the next thing they'd get is a CRM, which probably is akin to the comments you were making, Arnoud. And I really feel that the third system, if not all getting all three at the same time, should really be an HR system. And so that will help scale the business so much quicker.

Yeah, especially the recruitment. When you start growing your team and you don't have that right system in place, it becomes really, really painful very quickly. And that's not necessarily necessarily even a problem of automation, or automation is not really necessarily the answer, isn't it? So just by putting this tool in place without automation, this is already a big, big building block.

But actually automation is part of the solution. So you get best in breed, let's say for argument's sake, you go with Workable for whatever reason. You know your business, that's the reason why you've gone with Workable, and now you've got an ATS, then suddenly you want people People HR for your core HR system, and automation will then, will take the pain away because it will get those two systems to talk to each other. So really, I think it's a part of the solution.

Yeah. Do you see a lot of innovation in this space? People using progressive technologies like robotic process automation for integration, chatbots? I mean, we've talked a lot about chatbots in the last month or so on this podcast. You know, what is the sort of exciting innovations that's happening and the sort of things people are embracing inside the space?

I've been listening to a couple of your podcasts around chatbots with interest, and mainly because there's not a lot happening in the space that we're working on, so sort of mid-sized companies around chatbots. And I think it's twofold. One is you, you'll be surprised at how many businesses are moving off spreadsheets, uh, onto HR systems. I'm not talking about core HR systems here, you know, tracking headcount, salaries, benefits, uh, absences, just core information like that. And, you know, I'm talking about multinational companies that are, you know, 500, 1,000, 2,000 employees. So, you know, in terms of evolution they've got to get onto the ladder first and foremost. And so, and I'm talking about a very high percentage of companies that are still making that leap into systemizing their HR. So in terms of all of the other automation, you know, machine learning, RPA, chatbots, artificial intelligence, it's not being talked about in this space. But listening to your, your chats, you know, there's so much because there's so many rudimentary questions that HR get asked. How much holiday have have I got? Why, you know, what is my pay for this month? Even though, you know, where can I find it? And I read it, and I think you guys have even mentioned, you know, you can have a 30% reduction in workload if you just implement, you know, things like chatbots and AI that already answers those questions on behalf of HR. And HR would bite your hand off because they, they are typically under-resourced. and it's not recognized how many questions they get asked, and they're not value-adding questions to the business at all. So if you can save that time from the HR administrators, you know, then they can spend more time doing things like when you're doing recruitment, uh, assessing the candidates properly, paying attention to the candidates, moving that candidate through the process, or moving the whole recruitment process forward far quicker so you can get your candidates into the— in the door a lot quicker, as an example.

Yes, yeah, we certainly see, you know, especially chatbots these days is sort of synonymous with HR use cases because it's more than just glorified FAQ, you know, what's the company's policy on leave, you know, can you tell me this policy, that policy, it's more what I would say intelligent FAQ where It's value add to the employee to have a quick chat with the chatbot, knowing that this will respond straight away and just tell them, you know, what is my remaining leave balance, for example, how many sick days have I taken this year, for example. So I definitely predict that a lot of the mainstream, I guess, HR products out there, core HR products, will probably start to ship with modules and already probably do have modules like that. I think the challenge starts to happen is when you have interdependencies between various systems where you have to have a more of a holistic view on employee data and records. That's when it becomes quite challenging because I can imagine that a core HR system, if the information is, is not in there and it's perhaps in another system, that's where some of the gaps start. And I think this is where leveraging a very robust best-of-breed chatbot technology with AI built in it, with robotic process automation perhaps in the background to be able to do some of those complicated cross-system lookups. I think, you know, that's almost for me a no-brainer, right, to start with. And, you know, you look at these technologies available, it's so easy to get started with chatbots, It's all low-code. And, you know, it's fairly, fairly straightforward to start picking off some of those low-hanging fruit to also, like you say, free up the HR staff so they can focus on human resourcing and development rather than human administration, right?

Without a doubt, unfortunately. And things are getting more complex in the world of HR over and above the fact that there working in multiple countries with multiple legislation. The legislation in each country is becoming more complex and the requirements become more complex. You know, just in the last few years you've had pensions auto-enrolment and there's been a whole host of automisation— automation, sorry— that has had to happen in that space. And then you've had HMRC's RTI where you have to feed real-time information back to HMRC. And so the list goes on and that's not going to stop, you know, and there's real reason, proper thought-out reasons for doing this, and I'm pleased for it. But it does mean that if you don't get your ducks in a row, as you explained, Arno, then you're going to end up in a horrible twiddle. The other reason I started Together, because my background is I used to help recruit people and hire and fire people. And but I realized that because the Chartered Institute of Personal Development does an annual survey of its practitioners and the two competencies that languish at the bottom, the capabilities of HR. One is HR technology, and I think that's the lowest ranking of all of them. And then the other one is HR reporting or reporting in general. And yet, you know, with the one feeds the other feeds the rest of the, you know, if you were in training, You couldn't understand who's got what development needs unless you had the system to do it. And if you were in organizational development or if you were in employee relations, you need to understand what history there is for somebody in terms of poor performance so that you can understand the risk before you let somebody go, for argument's sake. And that's reliant on an HR system. And so, you know, we, we feel that we want to work with companies to understand what their requirements are, what the opportunities are to free them up, give them the the right information at the right time to make the right decision.

Yeah, very wide topic as it seems. So when we look at the intelligent automation, hyperautomation, I think you hear us talking about these fancy buzzwords all the time in our Clubhouse sessions and so on. So what do you think is the next big thing for companies in the future? And what is the next sort of the— yeah, how does the future look like specifically for HR departments?

So I think that was a difficult one really. If I go back to the previous point I made, you know, in terms of the maturity model, I feel that the HR functions that I work with are way behind on the curve. And so there's a long road for them to walk just to get on, onto the, onto the rank of being able to have systems in place that they can manage and maintain themselves and then get the data out. Because, you know, we've seen that those that just started small have wanted more and more and then suddenly realized how they can use the data to make informed decisions. If I look at more of the enterprise level, they're starting to look at things like ServiceNow, and they're looking at process tools to actually now improve the types of things we just related to. So bringing in AI tools, RPA, machine learning, but that's only really at an enterprise level, which we take our lead from, and I'm quite excited about. But the other thing I thought of, you know, is potentially using sort of iPaaS or middleware where when you're looking at choosing a core HR system, for argument's sake, but knowing in the back of your mind you'll need a payroll system, a learning management system, that actually you choose an HR system that has already put itself out in a marketplace on, for instance, a middleware, something like Intragramat, for argument's sake. And all of the best-in-breed systems in the other disciplines are already available. So that opens up your opportunity and takes away some of the noise. Uh, you know, so probably for my mid-market clients, I potentially say that that's probably the next best big thing, uh, for them.

Do you ever see a future where we have got an open HR type standard where and it's not just a protocol for communicating between different HR systems. And if you, you know, you use the Integromat example, which, which is a great one for, you know, for example, or where an HR profile is linked to an employee, and it can be backed by blockchain to ensure that obviously there is a, you know, it is fully traceable and that there is a ledger. But what it actually means is that if you do employ somebody, that you have got a profile for that person, and that profile is something that could potentially be shared somehow to a degree, you know, almost like a— with their permission, of course— but an open open profile, let's call it your open HR profile, your qualifications is there, your skills, where you are, you know, all of those things that is non-intrusive and non-invasive, you know, excluding things like, you know, what's your favorite color, because you might go to a business and they don't like the color red and you don't want to be punished for that, right? Do you think something like that is Is something I see in the future?

Yeah, um, it's not anything I've ever been asked or asked myself, and, you know, I don't ever see myself as a thought leader, so not necessarily gone down that road. But as you were talking, I think there is already that there, but in control, in the control of the person themselves. So you have a LinkedIn profile, you have an Indeed profile, and you get the option when you're applying for a specific role to click on a button that says use my LinkedIn profile or use my Google profile to fill in that information. So, you know, that I think prospective employees would feel comfortable with, and you're in control of what information's filled in there. You know, you want to tip that on its head and say, well, the employer then feeds into that information or validates that information. As much as I see the value value in doing that, especially for a prospective employer. You know, you're getting essentially a reference check done for you because the employers, you know, I love the idea, but I don't think it's ever going to cotton on for all of the data protection issues that come with it. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be the bold one to put that out there.

The same as they said cryptocurrency will never catch on. But look where we are now with blockchain. So decentralized, sort of power to the people, right?

So yeah, hackers benefit, you know.

So good, okay. Right, so, you know, I've just got one kind of one more point really on innovative technologies. And again, I know we touched slightly on it earlier where you mentioned, you know, advice that you could give is for somebody to get a core HR system out there, But, you know, we often get questions from our listeners on, you know, the sort of broad range of topics we talk about. We might cover a topic, you know, if I bring chatbots in again and then people come and ask, well, where do I start with this? So, you know, from your perspective, obviously being a specialist in this field, you know, what's your advice for companies getting started? With HR processes and specifically automation, you know, what's a fairly good place, a good bulletproof, well, a good blueprint rather that could guarantee them, you know, they could reach those short-term and medium-term sort of benefits from adopting other processes automated or not, or backend systems systems with good integration points? I mean, what's your key advice there?

A really good question, thanks, Arno. And I'm a simple guy, and I always look to try and strip things back. And the first thing I'd always ask if I were asked this question, or, you know, where would you start if somebody was looking to do their own assessment of, you know, where to best automate. What is it that you want to achieve? And I think that question for me is always critical because when you've then completed the project, you want to go back to that key question. What is it that the outputs that you want to achieve? You've hopefully quantified them and you've applied the SMART principles and you'll be able to then assess whether you've achieved that particular goal. And that needs to be something that's been signed off by the sponsors and they can see the value in going into this deep dive into the process. And then you take a step back and you then look at the processes that you got and do some process mapping and look at the resources that are taken, that are used in there, and see whether there's anything that's, you know, duplicated, where there is potential to automate any of those processes, whether there are existing systems that can actually pick up the work that you're currently doing manually, for argument's sake. So look at the, the systems architecture you've got, and don't, you know, look where there's duplicate duplication there, and then start asking yourself, well, you know, this is the process, this is what we'd like it to work, which system, you know, could potentially take care of the work that we can't do through the existing systems and processes we've got, and then start looking at working potentially with a consultant who, you know, can sort of second-guess or, you know, be that critical friend. Do you really need to carry on doing this process? Is that adding any value? And are you sure this has to be done manually? Because we often get that, and the typical one is, I need to see whatever data goes from my HR system to my payroll system before it gets sent to my payroll system. And you will You'll believe me when I say that most payroll consultants or practitioners, after the third or fourth time, suddenly realize that it's a waste of their time. The system is getting it right, and they often, you know, they do payroll previews before they get processed. And, you know, you are devolving a lot of the responsibility to the managers who approve the salary increase or approve the sickness and absence. And so really it is down to the system can do a good job. It's based on the information that's there. So, you know, to come back to your question, Arno, I think, you know, keep it simple. Look at your processes, look at your existing systems where you can pick up things, you know, be critical about, you know, the work that you're doing. Is it adding any value? And you'll be surprised how much of the automation opportunities will jump out at you.

Yeah, true. I think we do something similar. I mean, we normally follow the trail of spreadsheets and we try and eradicate them first. So, I mean, generally that's a good place for us to start and also monitor shared inboxes and how people actually monitor their emails and conduct business, you know, using Outlook. And generally for us, that's a really good place to start. But it sounds like HR is just such a wonderful place where things are pretty defined, things are pretty well structured, and it is such a good place to start automation if you don't have any automation, or to fulfill automation ambitions, right? It's like you mentioned, payroll with CoreHR. I would imagine these are kind of known entities. There's not is not a lot of proprietary things in there, and it's almost for a business to look at the HR department, it just sounds like a no-brainer to get started there in terms of automation ambitions. Would you agree with that?

Oh, without a doubt. Often we, well, in the past we've been asked to compare one HR system to another, and exactly as you said, Arno, the processes captured within those systems are very similar. And I've worked in too many companies to mention, and, you know, the performance review process is very, is very similar from one company to the next. You know, the absence approval process is exactly the same in one company to the next. So there is a lot of similarities. And so without a doubt, it's very similar to finance, you know. Running a balance sheet or running a P&L is no different in one company to the next. The only difference is that a lot of it is governed by legislation in finance, and a lot of it is governed by logic in HR. And yes, I admit I'm oversimplifying it, and yes, there are some HR practitioners that will overcomplicate the processes, but if you strip it back, the underlying principles are definitely the same and the systems are pretty much the same.

Right. Yeah, and a part of the actual process, as Arno said, looking at just spreadsheets and emails that even go really in the details of the process itself. I think that's for sure something to address with priority. Great. Yeah, very useful. Session so far. So we don't have any sort of topical question anymore, Thomas, but we and our listeners like to get to know our interview guest a bit more than just the expertise around the topics, technical and the business side. So that's why we like to ask a few questions, if that's okay. So some more casual questions.

Yes, gladly. I'm quaking in my boots.

So be surprised, there's some really interesting ones. So who is your idol and why?

Yeah, that's a good question. So I'm probably going to default because you can tell from my accent I'm South African, even though my parents are both German. So I straddle the ocean. Nelson Mandela springs to mind only because of my, as I said, my South African roots. And if you ask why, I always felt, and the sort of interactions, and I didn't meet him personally, I know others that know him personally, you know, but he always put himself first. And when I did the tour of Robben Island, I'd learned something about Nelson that has always stuck with me, and it's really closely aligned to one of my passions, which is education. I'm a trustee for a local multi-academy trust in the Milton Keynes area, and so, you know, that's where I sort of do voluntary work, and I involve myself quite deeply. But what they did on Robben Robben Island, they were limited to 2 prisoners together, you know, when they were chopping away at that limestone, you know, doing useless work. But he instilled a process where everybody had a skill, you know, and some of those would even be something as rudimentary as fixing a lawnmower. So this was a tour guide who had served in Nelson Mandela, who I was fortunate enough to be taken around the prison tour with. And if he had the skill of fixing a lawnmower, he would impart that skill to somebody else. And obviously, as a trained lawyer, Nelson Mandela used his expertise and passed that on to others. And so they were, even though they were isolated in their cells, the one opportunity they had, they took to learn. And that's always stuck with me, over and above the fact that he always put others before himself.

Yourself. Yeah, great. I mean, it's quite interesting that our previous guests as well mentioned Nelson Mandela as their idol. And of course, he, Nelson Mandela, famously said, um, it always seems impossible until it's done. I think, um, you would see that quote in a lot of our internal documents as well when we have to write a brief to, to our developers. Especially when it's a challenging piece of work. And it always astonishes me when people read that quote that it actually installs confidence in them, no matter how high this mountain looks like that you need to climb. It kind of just breaks things down and, you know, it energizes people. So yeah, that's great.

Oh, thanks.

So let's bring it forward and test your HR knowledge, right? So, and no, I'm just kidding. You don't have to mention any HR books. I know mine will be HR for Dummies 101. You know, I must imagine you can get all of the contents and knowledge of the book instantly. Which book would you choose? And it can obviously be work-related or not.

Thanks for letting me look at non-work-related as well. If I'm not a bookworm, when I do get into a book, I love reading it, and I think to myself, why don't I read more? So when you make this a reality, then, you know, I want to be first in the queue to be able to, to do this. But yeah, I've had sailing theory that I've wanted to learn for years and haven't done. I've wanted to learn about astronomy, birds and animals, and I haven't done so. But the top of the list for me at the moment would be plants and trees, because we're— fingers crossed— close to buying a house with a blank canvas garden, and I'd love to be able to go to the nursery and know which trees and plants I'm picking. So if anything, it'd be something like that. That. That's great.

Yeah, a nice, nicely designed garden. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's very, very, uh, very, very useful.

Yeah, well, especially in the lockdown. And I think, um, you know, looking, looking at the neighbors around us, their gardens is just pristine because people are forever, you know, nurturing things and, um, making sure everything is, is nicely tidied. So I think if there's one good thing about this lockdown is that everybody has got a really, really good garden and has got green fingers and a veggie patch and nicely manicured lawns.

Not when you live in the city.

Well, that's it. Well, you can always have a rooftop lawn there next to your helipad, Sascha.

Yeah, okay, you're right. I haven't thought about this.

You should watch Gardeners' World. They've been previewing a few I know a few people that have got literally their living room full of plants, never mind their patios.

Yeah, that's possible. That's true. So another interesting question is, what's the best advice you have ever received?

Oh, it's a good one. And received, I'm going to use the word probably very loosely in this context, but You know, do unto others as you would want to do to them. And you might not be surprised to hear it, you know, from somebody like me. I'm, I'm probably very service-oriented and I literally got some feedback on some psychometric assessments that we're busy testing at the moment and looking to partner with. And when I got my feedback, it reminded me of, you know, how together and, you know, obviously a lot of that stems from, you know, my background and, and the like is service-oriented, you know, helping others to do a better job. So that's probably what springs to mind, you know, do unto others as you would want them to do to you. Nice.

Yes, that's great. So just kind of continue on this track of knowing you better. I think every question you answer is achieving that goal. So just, just one more for you from me. If you could be to be an Olympic athlete, um, what sport would you choose? And also, if, if you identify that sport, um, you don't have to answer the second part of the question if you don't have the athlete's name, but, you know, who do you aspire to be? Do you want to be the next sprinter? Do you want to be the next Olympic juggler?

I know you haven't seen these short legs before, so sprinter it won't be. And if you— I've tried to do the Usain Bolt move, you know, my teenage kids, really, Dad. So because it's Olympic sport, once again, South African, you won't be surprised, you know, that I'm sports mad. So it can't be cricket and AB de Villiers, or rugby, you know, the 1995 South African team, or Liverpool Football Club, or ultramarathons, Bruce Fordyce, or Ernie Els in golf. So all of those have been discounted. The only one that springs to mind is probably a heptathlon athlete. It's a multi-disciplined, you know, event, and I'm in absolute awe that these guys, you know, if you put them in 100 meters or high jump, you know, they would be competing with the best in the world, and then they do that for 7 events, you know, so You know, Katrina Johnson Thompson currently, or Jessica Innes, or Jackie Joyner-Kersee, those types of, you know, athletes. It just absolutely boggles my mind that they can do so much. And hopefully you know where I'm coming from, but that's for me. If I could be a heptathlon athlete, I'd be—

yeah, yeah, good at many things. It sounds a bit like my day job, right?

Right.

Master of none.

Join the club, Arno. Join the club.

Thomas, it was a real pleasure to have you on the show. So one last thing, if our listeners are interested to get in touch with you, so how would they get in touch with you and with Together People the easiest? Or what do you recommend?

And the website is a good starting point, so tagelapeople.com. And more than welcome to email me directly at the Tshilling@tagelapeople.com or admin@tagelapeople.com. There are similar sort of contact details on the website or chat function. Yeah, we've got a chat function on our website, so feel free to use that. And our, our contact forms integrates straight into our CRM, so we will know about you. And, you know, feel free to put my details on the chat bio as well.

Absolutely. We will, we will link all the, all the information. We'll put this all into the show notes. And yeah, and then share, share that podcast episode with the world. And yeah, Thomas, thank you very much for, for being, being here and sharing your expertise and your insights in the HR world. And yeah, I am sure there's plenty of useful stuff our listeners can take away from today's episode. Yeah, thanks again. Thank you for having me on the show and looking forward to the next catch-up. Thank you.

Thank you to both of you. It's been a real pleasure. I like the relaxed atmosphere that you've done it in. And yes, I like, as you said, love to catch up again soon.

Unfortunately, that's it again with this episode of the Process and Automation Podcast. If you like this episode, please give us a 5-star rating and don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any upcoming episode. We hope you will tune in next time, and until then, let's automate it!

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