The Biggest Thing to Affect the Talent Industry in 2020 | with Gerry Crispin

Foreign. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Gosh, it's almost Christmas. It's 20. What? 16th December. I can't believe this year is nearly done. In two weeks or just over two weeks, this 2020 year, the year of the pandemic, the year of so much, will finally be gone. I think we're all looking forward to 21 and we hope it's going to be a better year. It might not be, but let's hope it will be. It's been a crazy year for dramatic change and we're going to talk about that this week. We're going to talk about the thing, the biggest thing to affect the talent industry in 2020. And guess what? It's not what you think. I guarantee you have a short list of things you're thinking. It's this, it's that, it's that, it's not. I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of you don't actually know what this thing is. And once you find out, you're going to be like, whoa, that's going to be big for me, my organization, my team, my CEO, her executives. This is going to something we're going to be talking about for many, many years. And I'm delighted that we're going to have such a brilliant and fantastic guest on this week to talk us through it. But I'm going to pull you back. This is the Shortlist. If you're a first time listener or viewer to the show, welcome. You can find out more about our show at socialtalent.com forward/the shortlist which will give you a list of prior episodes, links to watch video broadcasts or links to the podcast of where you can subscribe to that. But also upcoming shows we have next year and beyond. So check that, check that out@socialtalent.com the shortlist. If you're watching Live welcome on YouTube or LinkedIn, we're going to ask you for your questions and comments as we go along. I'll remind you again later. We love to bring those contributions in. So just jump into the chat on YouTube or LinkedIn and myself and our guests will gladly take those questions or read out your comments. If you're listening to on our podcast and it's your first time, welcome again. Subscribe please give us a 5 star rating. Don't give us a 1 star, just delete it and move on. If you don't like it, that's okay too. But we're available on Apple, Spotify and all podcast mediums as you'd imagine. But that Brings us back to the year. It's nearly the end of the year. I think we're coming to our last show of the year. Yes, this is the last show of the year. We'll be back again in 2021. We've got a packed schedule for January. I'm really excited, kicking off with the kind of first Wednesday of the month. But 2020 has been nothing if not a year of dramatic change. And for many of us, our ways of working were turned upside down. I know mine was with the onset of COVID 19. Nobody knew what would happen, how long it would last. Then we got to the summer, and the Black Lives Matter movement helped turn the spotlight on the inequality in both our communities and workplaces. And then at the end of the year, right now, where I am sitting here in the small island of Ireland, the big thing is Brexit. It's swung back into focus, threatening to throw BO borders into disarray, Confusion in Europe and the uk and nobody knows how it's going to end up. But like I said, what have I told you? The most impactful event of 2020 is none of these. For those of us working in talent, something else big happened this year, and I missed it, too. I didn't see this, didn't see it come through, missed the headlines because there's been so much else out there. But I think it's going to send shockwaves of consequences into companies for many, many years. And today's guest is someone who brought it to our attention. He's been a regular contributor on the chat to the show, but someone who's influenced me for many, many years. I dare call him the godfather of recruiting. This is the first person who ever presented on Internet recruitment at a SHRM conference back in the 90s. He knows more than all of you combined, trust me. He just does. Don't even argue with it. And he's a great friend to the show, great friend of the business, and he's somebody you should know and you should read. You probably know more about him already through perhaps some of his projects, like the Candidate Experience Awards. Perhaps you've been a member of Career Crossroads during your career or some of your colleagues. But Jerry Crispin is somebody who brings such insight into our industry, such kind of stories, but also such focus around what the future might hold. And he's joining us today to tell us a little bit more about this locomotive that is hurting down the track and into our lives in 2021. Jerry, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have You, Are you joining us from New Jersey today or where are you?

I am. I'm 35 miles south of New York City in New Jersey. And today is Wednesday. Monday, Monday, I get up at 4 o' clock in the morning. I drive 80 miles to long island, around New York City to a place called in Huntington that I have a home that my grandfather built in 1920, I think, and my daughter now is buying from me. Behind the home I have an Airstream, which is one of those big silver know trailer kind of things. Yeah. And it's got a full hookup. I, I get a little extra sleep, but then I set up my office and I pretend mentally that I'm on the road.

Wow.

It's great. I can air hug my grandkids when they're playing in the backyard. And several of my cousins also have homes on the same block. So we're in a little bit of a bubble and I, and I spend my day there. So one of these days I'm going to take that trailer and I'm going to do kind of a national tour of meetups. But other than that, we're good.

I can imagine you a bit like our friend deb from h4.com when she was hurling around North America with this huge big bus, driving outside conferences and doing wonderful things, bringing the party. Jerry, I know you've told me many times about your family barbecues, the get togethers you have out in New Jersey. When you bring the whole extended family together, it's a big, big ass family. How has 2020 been for you? I know you're, that you got a good situation going on. How has it been personally? And you know, what do you feel about the year? Like, you know, you know, you read all the different predictions and stories. What do you feel?

It's a, you know, it's a half full glass always. And, and I always look at it that way. So it's a year I would not have missed. Because for everyone who's experienced 2020 consciously, 20 years from now, you will remember elements from 2020 before you remember elements from 2019 or 2021. The reality is it's been an extraordinary year. People should feel like I would not have wanted to miss this, but, but it had pain points, it had interesting points. I am blown away by the fact that in our industry, in our profession, more and more TA leaders stepped up, made tough decisions with a whole level of uncertainty unlike anything else in their careers or anyone's really, and then live with the consequences of the decisions that they made. And very often. I just had a conference panel yesterday, for example, for internships. And the tough issue of moving to virtual internships, literally moving on the dime in March, April, May, June kind of thing, was tough for so many folks to honor those, but they did in many, many instances. And. And the outcome of that was because of the attention they had, the innovation that they had around. It turned out that the engagement scores went up significantly, conversion rates increased as a result of it. And so the outcomes were powerful and positive. And the learning from that is going to probably inform many of our colleagues and peers in the field for years to come in terms of how that innovation bears real fruit. So I think it's been a great year in the sense that it's not one that we felt good all during the course of the year. But 2021, by contrast, be a dream year for sure.

I like the optimism, Jeremy. Me and you could enforce any chat.

I'll tell you. There's one of the things, Johnny, that's really important to me is people. People talk about predicting the future, and the only future I would ever predict is the world that I want to live in. Yeah, you know, what choice do you have? Why would you want to go for all of the negative issues? I want to spend my time moving the world in the direction that I would enjoy living in it.

I like that sentiment, Jerry. I'm going to take that into the news as I want to get your thoughts on, because it is this time of year where you get predictions and you get summaries. I want to jump into the first of our news articles.

You have your thoughts.

So, Jerry, this first piece appeared in Forbes, and it's coming from Deloitte, and they're, I guess, sharing their five lessons from the pandemic. I think it's a positive note to kind of light a path forward to the future of work. What are your thoughts on these particular five lessons, Jerry? Would they be the five you choose, or which ones would you have chosen, or which ones would you have replaced them with?

I don't know. I. You know, none of them really hit me as truly surprising in relation to anything. You know, we. We are going to have a whole host of pivoting going on relative to, you know, where we work and working from anywhere. But all of them have unintended consequences. So I enjoyed Deloitte's view of these kinds of things. I enjoyed any number. I don't know. Are there issues that you thought were particularly outstanding from this?

Like, there's a bit, like, I'll Read them out. Right. Just for, for our listeners and viewers, human potential is our greatest untapped asset. Yeah, we knew that. True top of the House leadership looks like nothing we've seen before. I'll come back to that. Leadership and culture about connection and empowerment. Who knew work is the most underlying utilized source of value and ecosystems are essential to extend organizational capabilities.

You know, I think statements of the.

Obvious they are, you know, I think actually the, the only interesting probably line in this is maybe around how again, I think we all know this. It's, it's about that we are at the point where we're, you know, accelerating these things. These are not new themes, they're an acceleration of things. Right. And, and it just, it confirms what we already knew. It's good to have the data, it's good to have an organization like Deloitte come out and say that. Most interested to read their human capital report, global Human Capital Trends Report, which is going to come out in the next couple of weeks. I always love that because it's data, right. It's the science behind these surveys behind different executives.

To me, something worthwhile is talking about that leadership issue. Both the pivot to a kinder, gentler leadership that actually cares about the people that work for them and leaders who demonstrate that are going to get much higher engagement scores. It is stating the obvious, but the fact is we've accepted leadership in the past that wasn't like that. And I think fundamentally more and more employees and leaders within companies need to step up to ensure that we are paying attention to the whole person who's come to work for us and that it's not just their ability and skill etc, but their motivation and what is driving them that, you know, in their life that we can also help with and attend to and support. And I'm, I'm convinced that that is becoming more and more important not just to the, you know, to us, the individuals who are employees, but we're now sharing that more openly to, to our leaders that we need that attention.

Yeah, I think to me, if I was to summarize, 2020, I think it is the year of the leader that, that the good leaders and the bad leaders, you know, I think you could get by in 2019 by being a mediocre leader because the momentum of the economy and your business just kind of kept going. Your colleagues, your, your team helped you get popped by all that stuff and you went unnoticed. And similarly, there probably weren't massive challenges as a great leader that probably, you know, presented the opportunity for you to shine. I read an email. I was a blog article from Ben Horowitz, you know, from Andresen Horowitz, a VC firm. And he wrote this back in, I think, 2007. And he talked about, it was early in the. Early in the pandemic and talked about the two types of leaders. And he talked about wartime leaders and peacetime leaders. And he said, because he. And he gave a comparison of Google and the different leaders they've had over the years, with Schmidt and others coming in and out and saying that depending on your environment, you need different types of leaders. And a wartime leader is kind of no good in peacetime, and a peacetime leader is no good in wartime. There's different animals and they do different things. And I think this has been the year of the wartime leader. It's been. You got to just kind of make decisions, move with confidence, make good decisions, try and get data, bring your team with you, really try and get the, you know, get the business with you, demonstrate that you can lead and be brave in those decisions. I don't know if that's going to be the leader you will need in 2022, but I think that has been. It's been the year of those leaders, the year of wartime leaders.

You know, there's one exception or something that's a little counterintuitive to that. This is the first time when in the heat of things in March, those, quote, wartime leaders who were stepping up quickly and making decisions. And I think that's that wartime I make a decision hard or not, but, but this, this was the first time that I heard furlough being being said that I had never heard in previous recessions or downturns, if you will, where the leader didn't just make the tough decision, but also said that we would spend time, energy and effort investing in helping those people, that we have to take this choice of furloughing them to. And that meant, you know, including benefits at a cost to the company. That meant going out and trying to see if we could find partners who are hiring, who would help hire them, and on and on. And so I think more leaders entered this wartime issue with a recognition that there's painful issues that people are going to have to face into and we should invest some of our capital, if you will, in helping them. And I think that's powerful. You've seen team leaders throughout the year start meetings not talking about what are the goals for today that we have to do, but how are you, what is your, you know, mental, physical. Well, Being before we get started talking about what we can do to accomplish productivity and efficiency today. And I think that's been a shift that I hope continues in not only 2021, but beyond. And that, to me, is servant leadership, as I would define it and as I read it. And I think that that contributes to building more community among the employees poor.

Carol has made a great comment. I think that supports probably more your point, Jerry, that wartime leaders are authoritarians. It is actually the year of the chameleon. Being a chameleon is the greatest skill a leader can develop. Yeah, we've had to be many different things this year. I think that's a good point. It's not just about one type of style. I was narrowing my focus, and you're right there. It's about, yes, making maybe those quick decisions when necessary, but making the human decisions. Jerry, on that point, and I'm not to be a cynic.

Right.

How much of that was driven because you have to be like that these days for your business to survive? How much of it was genuine compassion? Leaders going, I want to do what's right. How much was it thinking about, if I don't do what's right, we won't survive. This talent will leave us, they won't come work for us in the future, our brand will suffer. What do you think is the part?

Or I won't get paid and I'll get fired. And because I do think that I don't know the answer to it, first of all, I suspect it's a little of both in relation to that. But I do think that if you behave this way, you start acquiring the attitudes around that, especially if it's successful. So if I am a kinder, gentler, more servant leader, even if I'm faking it, but I get supported, I get value back in relation to that, I begin to act that way more consistently, and I become that in the long run. And I think that's probably the critical thing. What drives that, though, is the willingness of individuals who are not in that leadership role to step up and speak about their. Either their pain or their willingness to work only if they receive something from the leader that makes sense. And I see a lot more of that with the social unrest, et cetera. We're hearing stories we never would have heard. Moments that matter in the lives of people who not only outside in their lives, but inside work in their lives, have encountered a number of issues or challenges, but. But didn't talk about them because they were afraid that it would impact their job or whatever. They're now. They're now speaking up in a much greater way that in the past, only unions might do. But now I think individuals collectively and individually are doing a lot more to step up. And I would hope that that continues.

It reminds me, I watched an episode of the Crown last night, the new series, and it was the episode about apartheid, and it was retelling the story back in the late 80s when the Queen kind of went up against the government on the issue of apartheid, going up against Thatcher, which was just never done. And it broke from that tradition and, you know, unofficially spoke out against Thatcher's position, refusing to. To condone sanctions against South Africa, against apartheid. And it kind of strikes me as been one of those years where there's been this agreement that, you know, chief executives would never speak out on political issues, and these kinds of issues never reveal themselves. But then one person broke rank, another broke rank, and it begun to just flow, and it was like, we can break rank. This is okay. You're allowed. Get into it. We're allowed. You know, we're all just bloody people. This idea that a corporation is a different entity to a person, kind of. That wall fell, I think, to a large degree this year.

Oh, don't even get me started on historical things, because I. I will tell you, I worked for Johnson and Johnson during. When apartheid was. Was in force in South Africa. Obviously, I was in the United States, but the. But JJ had a big operation in South Africa, and JJ also had an extraordinarily important credo, mission statement about its values. And in the United States, more and more of us young people, at the time I was young, basically confronted our bosses by putting in their face the credo and saying, how can we say we support this if what we're doing in this country, in this country, in this country, goes against that? And fundamentally, it is that kind of disconnect when people start to raise their voice around it that I think makes. Makes for change.

Well, speaking of change, I want to bring it to our main story, the main topic that we wanted to try and cover and. And the issue you raised with us. And this is, I think, what many of us listening today, whether you're live or listening to the podcast, may not realize. And. And it starts with this, and this is that the NASDAQ plans to require enlisted companies to follow board diversity requirements. Tell us about this, Jerry. Where did this come from? What does it mean?

So, first of all, there's a boring start to this, right? But I want to tell you a little Bit of the backstory because I think that's when it gets exciting and interesting. So the, the actual announcement was August 26th, a very quiet announcement. The securities and Exchange Commission of the United States. And I'll go back to this later as to what they are, because I think some of your listeners securities and Exchange Commission of the United States doesn't bother me. But they announced that they wanted to modernize disclosure regulations, which have a force of law. I mean, you could sue people and put them in jail over the disclosures if they are incorrect or books are cooked or what have you. But basically they said that they wanted companies to add human capital resources as a separate disclosure item to all of their quarterly filings in the United States is for every single public company and in annual report. So any human capital measure or objectives that they thought were material to how they manage their business had to be disclosed and how they measured them had to be disclosed. So that's. That started it, but it really didn't start it. There's a backstory. So I want you to imagine for a moment that you're the CEO of a corporation. And I'm going to tell you as the CEO that this really started in 2019 when a group of 26 institutional investors, so like Fidelity, people who have all of these assets, their total assets were of these 26 folks is, is about $3 trillion. They met with and petitioned the securities and Exchange Commission to require public companies to disclose information about their human capital management. So, for example, if you believe that engagement scores increase your ability to get people to perform in your organization and you operate to kind of measure and monitor that on an ongoing basis, you are now going to be required to disclose that you do that and what the measures are to an investment community that has $3 trillion to figure out where we want to spend this on your stock. If you're the CEO, you're going to suddenly wake up and go, wait a second. We were just, you know, we were just playing with that. That was like putting my finger up in the air. I don't, I don't know if I want to disclose that my engagement scores have gone down this quarter because I stopped investing in a couple programs to save some money or I laid off people or my retention scores went up or something along those lines. So that's going to. People are going to start to pay attention to that a little bit. And a couple other things that you should know or your, your listeners should know is that the SEC was founded essentially in 1934 in part to reduce investment fraud. And, and for many, many years, the only thing the SEC required were about 12 different financial things, EBITDA, you know, et cetera, et cetera, that, that you had to share every quarter legally as a public company. And, and what you put into your annual report had to be truthful. So that that has been around for 40, 50, 60, 70 years, pretty much the same. But over the course of those 70 years, those financial pieces no longer really help you understand the assets, the real assets of a company, because the assets of most public companies have shifted from tangible assets to untangible assets like human capital. Our people are our best asset, we say. But now in your annual report, you can't say that without saying how you know that and what the measure of that is. So a lot of the claims are going to go away and become much more specific in a way that's consumable by investors. And investors are going to impact the salary and bonus of the CEOs of those public companies in a big way. And so therein, I think, lies the incentive and the opportunity. Because now what we're seeing is really a couple things. There is every single public company is going to have to go, okay, so what are we going to report? Report on? And the SEC didn't say what you should report on. They gave examples. So as an example, let's say you're a mining operation and you have increasing numbers of accidents. That's a human capital measure you have to report now as part of, because that's how you're managing your human capital in part. Now, that wouldn't be appropriate for a lot of other corporations. It may be retention. Maybe retention is impacting your customer, you know, your customers, and so you want to reduce retention. So you're investing heavily in the kinds of programs that would reduce retention. And you do, and your performance increases. And the investors consuming that might in fact spend a little bit more money jacking up your stock because of the positive way in which you're investing in human capital. And so the SEC still is going to be pushed because it's not 100% clear to a lot of public companies what they mean, what the SEC means when it says you must report on the material measures you use to manage human capital. But you know, that right now is probably 90% of the value of a corporation in many corporations. And so you're going to have to come to grips with that. Now, one of the interesting things, there's a side note here, and the side note is that in 2018, the international standards organization. And for any listener you need to note this down. They published a standard. It's ISO 30414. Everybody should get that 30414. I'm actually contributing to ISO's income right now. That standards title is Human Resource Management Guidelines for Internal and External Human Capital reporting. And for three years, 40 of the 165 countries that are involved in ISO in the International Standards Organization worked together. Committees from all of those different countries worked together to come up with an agreement on what human capital measures make a difference or might make a difference in terms of the value of the company. And so this document, which is about 30, 40 pages, came up with 58 human capital measures. The SEC when they gave examples, gave examples word for word from the ISO document without mentioning it. And so anybody with any kind of intelligence ought to be downloading this, this report and consuming it whether you agree with all of it or not. This is a starting point for conversation because academics, consultants and corporations from 40 different countries agreed that these 58 should be considered among the things that might have an impact and obviously not all of them. There are I think, think 11 to 15 that relate to recruitment, mobility and turnover. And the SEC specifically said we, we definitely want you to focus in on hiring, development and turnover. And so this to me is an opportunity. How could you not, as the TA leader or the chro, start thinking along the lines of which measures should we be reporting on? Because I want to, I want to influence up for sure and, and if I'm building a business case for investing more money in my budget on new programs, I better be aligned to this. This changes the context for building a business case that's going to be paid attention to by the CEO because he or she is going to absolutely recognize the impact that quarterly filings, if you will, on those measures might actually impact my stock price.

I can ask you Jerry, on the one, the specific example from the article which is the NASDAQ proposal where they've issued specifically around the board diversity a a requirement. Well, it's proposed requirement that will take up to 270 days to go into action next year where they require companies listed on the NASDAQ within two years to report and they give an exact template on what they want from these individuals from the ISO standards on board diversity with a requirement for, for most, let's say two diverse candidates, one being female, one being one of a category of other stated diverse, diverse backgrounds. You know, is that just a subsection of it? Is that the first that we'll see.

It'S one related to leadership and it may not have an impact in some companies. Right. It may not be the most critical thing that an investor looks at for some companies, but in other companies it may be the most critical thing in terms of how, not how consumers look at a corporation. If they see, you know, 30 old white dudes all trying to sell product to people who are not old white dudes, though the people who are not old white dudes may be wondering why should be buying their product. Now, is that, is that an impact in every company, in every industry? Of course not. But as, as I said, the sec. The SEC is not requiring any particular piece, although you're going to see legislation either by country or by other groups that say, well, you know, at a base level you should be showing these things. But increasingly, what, what, what I think people are going to be held accountable for, and I think it's going to take two or three years is suits will be brought that a company is in fact using certain metrics to manage that are material to managing their workforce, but not reporting on them and will force specific measures. And it might have to do with the diversity of the hourly group or diversity of a group that is, that is totally underrepresented. You know, a software company that has no women as an example and, and, and forcing the reporting of that quarterly so that investors can see whether or not they're making improvements that they claim they're making. Right. As opposed to, you know, we care about our people, we're focused on diversity, we're spending money to save the environment and the planet. And when you look a little bit deeper, maybe not, you know, so I'm, I'm convinced that for the first time, human resources is going to have to demonstrate clean data. The data being consistently measured over quarters and reported to an investment community that, that has groups of people that give them money and say given a choice of two companies, both doing pretty much the same at the, you know, currently I want you to put money into, into companies that invest more in, I don't know, climate change issues. You know, that's, that's happening now, but the investment community doesn't have sufficient data yet to be able to make those shifts. But they will, and that's powerful.

I think what's also really interesting is that the SEC coming out and supporting the ISO standards, even if they're just implicitly doing so.

I think it's, yeah, it's. Right now it's implicit because that is probably the best foundational approach. But what it should do is, I think, tee up conversations we should have with those 58 measures in front of us. And that's what I'm going to do with my members is bring a set of, you know, kind of meetings, if you will, to examine them in light of industry issues, size, you know, etc. As to how we start thinking about that.

Yeah, I'd read also that Goldman Sachs, in advance of the SEC requirement on NASDAQ companies, but inspired by it, have already moved internationally and in the US to saying they will not work with firms or bring firms to IPO who do not meet the future proposed standards that are being brought in by the sec. I think this will happen beyond the sec. It'll become a forcing factor for many organizations. Say we don't work with you and yes, you also comply with this and it becomes the norm.

Right.

To your point around what are your metrics? It doesn't really matter what they are today. Have a look at this because they're going to probably end up like looking like this. They should because the world will use this as a, as a way to.

Bottom line the amount of real estate you own, manufacturing facilities you own, product and inventory is no longer a good value, a good indicator of the value of the organization and its future performance. We've known for a long time and claimed for a long time that the quality of the people we bring in and their motivation to move us forward is in fact the critical component. And yet we've been lagging in terms of how we systematically measure elements of that in order to help the investor community understand and predict the future performance of our organization. And so this is just a corrective, you know, approach that is the start, I think, of a whole series of things like this. And yeah, it that Goldman Sachs did that, they're probably one of those 26 institutional investors that had met with the SEC and you're just going to see more now that they've done that and there's that kind of focus. You're going to see everybody, I think, come to that conclusion and, and I think we're going to see a very interesting opportunity for anyone who wants to become a leader or is a leader in talent acquisition, talent management or HR to adjust their learning and thinking so that they are more aligned with the future approach to predicting business success. Now we're, you know, it's not just being at the table. You can bet when the CFO and the CEO are talking about what are we going to give to the SEC or what are we going to put in the annual report. They're not going to be asking hr, what color should the outline of the annual report be? You know, to be to, you know, to, to attract people to open it up. It's, it's going to be. We've got some serious freaking measures that we're going to have to report in there. And I want to know that that's good data and I want to know, you know, how you predict it. Shifting. If we make investments, better investments in hr, how should we be shifting your budget so that these metrics in fact are impacted?

I think it's, it's. So you made a point earlier on that's so important, which is that as you're a TA leader, a talent leader, this is actually great news for you because it does give you the ability to have a conversation with the executive level folks in the business in a language they'll get, which is, hey, the SEC requires a report on this number. It's currently this. And I need budget and help to get it to this other number that we know we want to get to or else we've fallen on that measurement. I've gone back and done three years of historicals. We're falling, we're going to report this. Can I help get help to develop this? You're talking their language as opposed to going, hey, I'd like to make employees happier. They're kind of going, go away. Talk business to us. This is talking business in a common language that the SEC is forcing around the globe. And you mentioned you come back to that, Jerry, and ask if you don't mind coming back to that, should people outside North America care about this and if so, why?

Yeah, I think if you are not a public company, you're going to care about it because whatever those public companies are doing, your, your bosses are going to eventually be really impacted by that and private investors in your company are also going to be impacted by that. So that's going to be important. If you are, if you're a multi, part of a multinational, in part, you will, you will be part of this at some point because you got to resolve the issues of how do you translate some of these measures to, to other countries and other cultures, you know, and how do you make choices within that framework for that part of the organization? Now remember, the ISO is not a US Based organization. It's a global, it's a global organization. They had to get somewhere between 25 and 40 countries to agree on those measures. And, and let me tell you, I, I worked within the ISO's USA committee for five years. I got bored like crazy because it takes like forever to get anything done. But so I dropped out a little bit before these guidelines were set up. But I was involved in other guidelines related to quality measures, cost per hire and other kinds of things. So I get what they're trying to accomplish. And US is just one component. All of those other countries have real strong say in terms of, in terms of how we define each and every one of those 58 different measures. And that's what that document is. It's a, it's a kind of a de facto, maybe not a de jure, but a de facto set of standard definitions for cost of hire, for internal mobility, for roi, of, of human capital, for all of these things. They have to be looked at and assessed in terms of how you would do it the same or differently in your own organization and defend it. But the fact of the matter is, as I said, it's a great starting point. And I do believe that what happens in, in a large stock market like, like New York Exchange, if you will, is going to have, is going to make waves everywhere.

I think that probably answers Jane King's question, which is, do you think this may become the same in the uk, Perhaps in limited company annual reporting or perhaps in addition to the gender pay gap reporting?

I think it's a good, it's a great question. And the answer is, I think a lot of people need a context of patience that says, okay, it's starting now. The issue is what do I want to do to be part of the learning so that I can help keep people informed? You know, that some countries and some organizations will probably go off into left field somewhere, you know, and the UK might pass a set of laws saying, here are the five things everybody has to report on. Right? I mean, as it is now, most European countries require that you do a calculation of pay disparity, right, and publish it on your website. That is one of the measures. Now the question might be, you know, pushing back and saying, well, the calculation that I'm required to do as defined by the uk, it doesn't quite show it the way I think it should be shown. So, you know, if you want to wait, you can wait until somebody tells you how to do it, or you can look at basic definitions and start building industry standards that make more sense for that industry or that subset of the industry. And those are folks who are going to be more pioneering, if you will. Those are the future TA leaders that can go beyond their own organization. And actually impact our profession.

Yeah, I think, you know, you're, you're a man who's always believed in standards. You know, you've been a critical force behind atap, the association of Talent Acquisition Professionals trying to standardize quality standards in talent acquisition. I think this is, I see, you know, I know this from a, from a SaaS perspective. Right. The, in the SaaS world, there are metrics that are used by every SAS company that have no, no broad agreement to something similar as CHURN or our CAC cost of acquiring a customer. They're broadly different, they sound the same, but they're actually different because no one's ever standardized them. You know, there are things like time to hire, your engagement rate, we talk about them, we all think they're the same thing, but there's so much variance. Just having a common language to use is brilliant because it's your point. You can compare one company against the other.

So I will tell you there's already movement, but most of the movement is among consumers, you know, high end consultants, academics and, and not necessarily visible to, to our, our people in our profession. So you're going to have to dig it out like, you know, you start googling this whole set of issues and you'll come across it. So for example, this morning I had a conference call with Zahid Mubarak who, who heads up a number of committees in Pakistan that know more about the SEC's efforts and what the. I, he was pretty, he participated in the ISO's guidelines and so he, he is knowledgeable about all this stuff everywhere and you know, and he's already thinking about building partnerships in Europe to develop a web, you know, learning, you know, experiences around this issue, certificate going, getting to certifications at some point, etc. So you, you know that the underground of folks who are engaged in this is, is starting. I would, I would tell you that by February there'll be 600 people who call themselves experts in this area. And most of them are consultants who are just going, let's, let's, you know, I, I downloaded the thing, I read it, I get it. We can, you know, we can, I can work with my clients to help them make choices. And you know, from my point of view, that's fine. I am never going to be an expert. My, my one skill is knowing enough to know how much I don't know. And, and it's a lot. So, so learning is, is the only thing that's important to me. I'm, I'm happy that I'm way Past the consulting side of things, life is good, but we're going to be a lot of fun here.

I'm so, so glad you came on the show this week to share this. I think many of our listeners and viewers will not be aware of this. They share, Should I know. Simon Johnson has been one of many to point out the link. We shared the ISO standard. They charge money to review it.

But again, you got to ask yourself, $138.

How much is it worth to be able to talk to the business and understand this massive, big change? Yeah, it's a pain, but I think it's small, small potatoes considering what value you'll probably get out of it.

And, Johnny, that's one of the problems with some of these organizations that are around for many, many years doing good work work is they spend all this time doing it. They have no idea about promotion. So they just put it behind a firewall and say, if you want it, you gotta, you gotta pay $138 for it or whatever it might be. And no one buys it until suddenly you go, oh, wait a second, I need that to get, get done. And no one ever told me it was even there. So, yeah, I'm. That's one. One of the reasons why I don't get involved in those institutional organizations anymore. But if you have patience and if you really can think 10 years in advance in your country, there is a committee for ISO that would welcome you to participate in, in developing, you know, improved standards, if you will, around issues that may be important for you long term. And that's one hell of a way to build your resume, perhaps for leadership in large companies. Just a thought.

Just, you know, Jerry, we've gone way over and I don't mind because it's worth it. It's always worth it. But we're at the point in the show. Well, at the point where I'm dying to ask this because it's you on the show, we always ask each guest to give us their piece of advice to add to our short list of either advice that they have, they have, they have been given in the past by somebody else or that they want to give to our audience. I'm really excited to hear what you have to share because you probably could pick 100 pieces. But for today, what's on your mind? What's the piece of advice on your mind today, Jerry, that you want to share? Our audience that they can take away.

On our shortlist today, I think, and I don't know who your audience is, so they could be old White guys like me, or they could be a whole diverse group. So I'm going to assume it's a whole diverse group of a lot of ages and. And everything. So we got all the demographics around. I think that for me, the most important thing that anyone can do is annually sitting back, taking stock and thinking about your job in relation to your career and your career in relation to your life, and at least establishing one thing that you can do that that helps bring that into alignment. I will tell you that the best thing I ever did when I was kind of confused as a young person was I went to a workshop, a guy named. Well, it was a workshop on. On issues around careers, because I was trying to advise people, especially people older than me, about career issues. And I realized how. How bereft I was of any kind of knowledge. And. And in that workshop, I was challenged to write my obituary. And I was 24 at the time. And for whatever reason, it caused me enormous pain. I couldn't quite do it. Every time I did it, I said, what an asshole that would be if I read that. And I ripped it up and threw it away. And it took me almost two weeks after the workshop to come up with about three or four paragraphs that fundamentally satisfied me that if that's how I was seen, I. I would be okay. That I had had a good run and I folded it up, put it in my wallet, and. And for the next 30 years, every time I had an opportunity to change or pivot or do something very different, and I did go through a lot of different types of jobs, etc, I pulled it out and asked myself whether doing this would. Would get me closer to that obituary. When I was 53. Yeah, 53. So 20 years ago, I. I pulled it out for the last time, and I realized I was that person and I threw it away. And that's it. The ish. The issue is, you know, we all need to walk our talk, and. And fundamentally, that's how to have a good life. And so my advice is periodically, if you can do it for a day, you sit back and take a little stock where you are in relation to all of the things that you value.

Jerry, it's sage advice. Write your a bit, make sure to live by it, hold yourself accountable, that every year, what could go wrong? Jerry, thank you so much. I'm a pleasure to have you on the show. It's a pleasure to know you. I'm so glad that you're coming out of this year with a positive attitude. You can see the potential, the opportunity for our space. And this is brilliant news to bring to our audience and I really hope they appreciate it. And we'll probably dig into another story on this in the new year and I hope you'll come back, Jerry.

Look forward to it. You take care. You're one of my favorite people, Johnny, so keep at it.

Mutual love and admiration here, dude.

Thanks.

I'll talk to you at the after show, but thanks for joining us on the show and thank you for listening and for joining us live. You joined us live. This is our last shortlist of the year, but we're going to be back in the new year in January. We've got tons more guests for you. We're really excited to have a great lineup for our second year of the show. We've got new ideas, new thoughts, the world is moving fast, the themes are moving faster and we're seeing lots of progression and we're seeing kind of the expansion of some of the ideas we touched on in 2020 into real concrete examples and case stud into 21. And we're really, really going to be excited to share those with you, with our guests as they come on the show back in the first week of January. Until then, hope everyone has a great holiday season in Ireland. As you say, have a great Christmas and New Year. Thanks for sticking with us during this show. Thanks for your contribution, thanks for listening, thanks for subscribing, thanks for sharing with others. If you have if you want to know more about the shortlist, of course go to socialtown.com the shortlist. But we'll be back in 21 with an exciting lineup of of hopefully 50 great shows. And if you'd love to be part of that, do join us live or check out our podcast. But we'll see you then. Hope you've got through this great year. This long year of 2020, 2021 offers so much more hope and hopefully the beginning of the future of work for all of us. Thank you. Have a great.

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