How the analytics revolution will transform the way companies value human capital with Cole Napper

Cole Napper explores how people analytics can transform from a support function to the future center of HR itself. Drawing from his extensive experience across major corporations and his upcoming book, he challenges traditional thinking about workforce planning in an era of demographic shifts and AI disruption.

• Connecting internal workforce analytics with external labuor market intelligence is crucial for meaningful insights
• Two economies exist simultaneously: knowledge workers facing wage pressure and blue-collar workers seeing unprecedented wage growth
• Demographic shifts and labour shortages aren't predictions but inevitabilities that organizations must plan for
• Cole's new book offers a provocative roadmap for people analytics professionals to lead business transformation
• Four operating principles for analytics teams: alignment, innovation, credibility, and accountability
• HR leaders must make concrete financial commitments about their value ($50M+ ROI)
• Workforce planning must balance quarterly business needs with 5-20 year talent development horizons
• The future of HR could be analytical, with people analytics professionals becoming the strategic drivers

Pre-order Cole's book "People Analytics: Using Generative AI and Data-Driven HR to Make Business Impact" coming August 2025 from Kogan Page or Amazon.

People Analytics: Using data driven HR and Gen AI as a business Asset | Kogan Page

The Reimagined Workforce podcast is brought to you by Workforce Transformations Australia Pty. Ltd.
All opinions expressed are the speaker's and not the organisations they represent.
If you have a story about a workforce transformation to share and would like to be a guest on this podcast, please contact us at kathhume@workforcetransformations.com.au.
Connect with Kath Hume on LinkedIn

Purchase Kath's book Learn Solve Thrive: Making a difference that matters in a fast and complex world:
Learn Solve Thrive: Making a difference that matters in a fast and complex world : Hume, Kathryn Lee: Amazon.com.au: Books

Transcript

Understanding What Leaders Really Care About

Cole Napper 0:00

And so I think about those things all the time is like do I really know what my CHO cares about? Do I really know what my CEO cares about? Do I really know what the board of directors and the stockholders and everyone that's putting pressure on this company to make changes or stay the same? Do I really know what their reasoning is? And if I do know that, then I can be a more conscious actor in the world.

Speaker 2 0:22

Welcome to the Reimagined Workforce Podcast brought to you by the Director of Workforce Transformations Australia, kath Hulme. In each episode, we explore the stories, strategies and successes of curious, creative and courageous people who are daring to address workforce challenges differently. Together, we'll discover how we can harness human potential and reimagine the workforce for a brighter, more fulfilling future for everyone. And if you would like to learn more from Kath about how we can make this happen, be sure to get a copy of her latest book, the number one Amazon bestseller Learn, solve Thrive making a difference that matters in a fast and complex world. Now for the episode.

Kath Hume 1:07

So Cole Knapper is the Vice President of Research, innovation and Talent Insights at Lightcast, a labour market intelligence and insights firm. He is also the co-host of Directionally Correct a People Analytics podcast, substack newsletter and owner of Directionally Correct LLC. Cole is a globally recognised leader in the people analytics, workforce planning and talent intelligence space. In previous roles, he brought a strategic focus and invaluable insights to both large and multinational corporations spanning various industries, including FedEx, texas Instruments, toyota, pepsico, grainger and venture capital-backed startups like Motive, booster, organostic and CultureAmp. His expertise extends to emphasizing the transformative power of people analytics and human capital labor data in contributing to organizational growth and efficiency. Cole Knapper, this is a very well overdue conversation, but great to have you on the Reimagined Workforce podcast.

Cole Napper 2:10

Thanks for having me, Kath. I'm super excited to be here.

Kath Hume 2:12

As am I in real time, and it's particularly. We were just having a conversation offline about how you're a bit of a guru in my mind, this superstar of the people analytics world, so very chuffed that we are here and you're taking the time for us. So we will jump in. We've got a very loose agenda today, but I do suspect we could go off on tangent. So let's see where we end up. So let's start like we always do and just ask you if you can share a little bit about your background and how you came to be where you are now.

Cole Napper 2:48

Yeah, it's actually hard to do in a short amount of time. I've switched jobs so many times. I like to say like the millennials had a stereotype of being job hoppers and I'm just a stereotypical millennial. But I started out. I have a background in IO psychology and I think there's probably four phases of my career. You could say the beginning phase is where I was doing kind of bread and butter IO psychology work in big organizations.

Cole Napper 3:18

I moved into doing workforce planning. Workforce planning kind of evolved and became workforce analytics, which became HR analytics, which became people analytics, and that's where I spent kind of evolved and became workforce analytics, which became HR analytics, which became people analytics. And that's where I spent kind of the most of my time, whether it be in large organizations like Texas Instruments or in kind of what you read in the intro about, like venture capital, backed startups, and most recently kind of culminated with me leading the global people analytics and workforce planning teams at FedEx. But recently I started at Lightcast, which I'd say is kind of the fourth phase of my career, where I get to play a quasi-labor economist even though I have no background in that. Awesome, it's exciting and fun and I'm really enjoying what we're doing here.

Kath Hume 4:00

I really like the mix of what's happening in the outside world compared to what's happening inside world, because you really cannot take the two apart. And I think it's interesting the number of times I see people focus on the internal analytics and you might say that retention's improved. Excellent, that's great, but the labour market is locked up because the cost of living is creating limited opportunities, so people are staying put. So is it what you're doing internally or is it the labor market? So having that blend of insights is so important.

Cole Napper 4:34

Yeah, it's kind of interesting if, like, if you're a people analytics organization and you're only looking internally focused, you don't recognize key levers in the economy like supply and demand, and so things like you know, a few years ago, when everybody was talking about the Great Recession, things like that catch you completely off guard. They're like we have our turnover prediction model. Why isn't it predicting turnover any longer? It's like you're not understanding. There's been an immense increase in demand and supply has stayed flat and therefore wages are going through the roof. So it's actually de-incentivizing you to stay with your current employer that if you switched employers you could get a 20, 30, 40% salary bump. And then the inverse is happening, kind of at the moment where demand is actually well for knowledge workers, let's say, because I actually think there's kind of two economies going on right now.

Internal vs External Labor Market Insights

Cole Napper 5:24

For knowledge workers, demand is actually decreasing, supply is increased because there's so many college graduates and you're actually seeing wage pressures on those roles for the first time, perhaps even in history, whereas the inverse is happening for kind of the service economy, the skilled worker economy, the blue collar economy, there's an increased demand and a decreased supply, so you're actually seeing wages for those positions go to all time highs, at least in the United States, and that's some of the work that we get to do at Lightcast.

Cole Napper 5:54

We have a term for that. There's a big research report we put out called the rising storm, which talks a lot about kind of these demographic variables and how they play a role in shaping the economy. And if internal again people, analytics, workforce planning teams aren't thinking about these things, they're going to be caught completely off guard. All of them are knowable, they're not predictions. I wrote an op-ed the other day that got published in HRcom and it was called you know, workforce shortages aren't a prediction, they're an inevitability, and so a lot of these are just inevitabilities because demographic factors are controlling these and it's good for organizations to be aware of that.

Kath Hume 6:33

Exactly because then you can actually plan and you've got I mean I'm preaching to the converted, but the ability to actually anticipate what's coming.

Kath Hume 6:42

So then you've got the scenario planning that you can pull together. It's interesting too, that mix, because when I did my first undergraduate degree, it was a mix of HR and economics, so I think it's a real natural place for me to sit within the workforce planning space and bringing in all those labour market insights, and I think too at the moment. So, just to position ourselves in time, it's the 10th of April 2025. And there's a lot of disruption going on because of the tariff situation. It changes by the hour, correct, correct, and I don't want to go into the politics of it, but it's just to try and position where we are, because normally when I do a podcast, or when I started this a couple of years ago, it didn't matter so much about what actual day you were recording it on. At the moment, with the retaliation effect of the tariff notifications and, yeah, it's just interesting and who knows where we'll be when this actually gets released in a couple of weeks' time.

Cole Napper 7:50

Why don't you say that, like? We've actually one of my, and so I'm the VP of Research at Lightcast, and we've tried a few times now to do some research on trying to understand the labour market impacts of different tariffs, whether they be just generalized, based on different regions or countries, or what have you, or specific industries like the auto industry or something like that, and we can't ever complete it because it takes a few weeks to complete the research, and by the time the research is completed, the whole calculus of the situation has changed, and so it's really a fascinating time to be in right now.

Kath Hume 8:25

It really is and I just wonder if it is this point in time or if we're going to move to a new normal, and I actually hope that we're at a point in time where it starts to settle down, because it does feel a little bit crazy and chaotic at the moment and, I feel, for people in the workforce because there's so there's so much disruption and so much uncertainty. That's a very, very stressful place to live when you've you know you've got costs of living, pressures going on and responsibilities and things.

Cole Napper 8:59

Well, I have no inside information, nor am I, like, actually that informed on a lot of this stuff, but I was talking with a co-worker about this earlier today and the way I look at it is sort of like a play, where in a play generally there's three acts and I feel like we're in the first act and in a play. Obviously, whatever happens in the first act is not where the play ends up. I don't know what's going to happen in the second and the third acts, but whatever happens, this is probably not what it's going to be. So you know, that's kind of how I'm thinking about the current situation.

Reimagining the Workforce with Curiosity

Kath Hume 9:33

Well, maybe we'll have to revisit the podcast in a couple of weeks or months time and see where we ended up. Mind you, we're knowing that we never actually stop. But probably good segue into my question that I ask all my guests what does your reimagined workforce look like?

Cole Napper 9:46

Well, can you tell me more about what that means? I'm sorry to kind of put you on the spot here, but I know that's the name of your podcast and I'm sure it's a running theme in what you're talking about. But what does that mean to you? And then I can tell you kind of in line what that means to me and how that played a role in my career or how I'm looking at the future.

Kath Hume 10:06

Love to. So the reimagined workforce for me is I was doing a lot of work where I was trying to get people to think differently and trying to bring in some. So I talk about the three C's, which are curiosity, creativity and courage, and I talk about that. We really need to interrogate the world and ask questions about ourselves, the world, people in it. So that's the curiosity piece, so really making sure we ask lots of questions. The courageous part is let's come up with new ideas and let's give them a go, and let's be brave enough to actually voice our thoughts about what might happen and then pull those all together and create this new world and be brave enough to say let's do things differently. And so the question, I guess and the podcast is about trying to the reason I started the podcast is I wanted to bring stories forward of people who said do you know what? This isn't necessarily working the way we've always done things.

Speaker 2 11:01

What if?

Kath Hume 11:01

we did something completely different. What if we reimagined this whole approach that we've got to workforce? You know, 20 years ago, the concept of people working from home at the volume that we do it was unimaginable. What are the things that we could look at today? To virtual care in health care, for example, follow the sun, all of that sort of thing? I don't want to put answers into your mouth, but what are the things that, if we really were brave enough to change, what would that look like for you?

Cole Napper 11:34

Well, you know, I mean it sounds like you've followed some of the stuff I've done before and I've never suffered from the disease of not sharing what I think with the world. So I don't know if that's courage or stupidity, but it is something. Well, it's working. Yeah, so the way I think about it is and I'll kind of reframe this a little bit just to fit into the narrative that I have kind of seen in my career which is it's not necessarily been in points in my career where I needed courage or bravery to share with leaders it's that we had fundamental disagreements about what was working and what wasn't working Right, and so most of the times I was giving prescriptions to the problems that I saw with how organizations functioned or how work was conducted, and what I was met with is like I just disagree, that you see something that's wrong, and so I know one of the reasons why you wanted to have me on the podcast today is I have a book coming out. That was part of the motivation, for the book is specifically in the practices of people analytics, workforce planning and talent intelligence.

Cole Napper 12:46

I just see a whole lot of disruption coming down the pike and what I hear from people again, then this isn't universal. I think that there's a lot of forward leading people in this face, but what I hear largely is you know, we're just kind of going to hunker down and we're going to just keep going, and you know, if the music stops at some point, then you know, maybe it's my time to go. And I think that is such a defeatist mentality where in my mind it's like no, this is our time to shine. This is the moment I've been waiting for my entire career. Is that, finally, technology disruption in the form of things like, you know, generative AI, or it could be demographic characteristics that I talked about at Lightcast, or it could be? I mean, there's a variety of factors going on right now of just generalized let's call it HR transformation that are going on that, I think, actually position people, analytics and technology and workforce planning and talent intelligence right smack dab in the middle. And it's like this is our moment. Are we ready to step up?

Cole Napper 13:50

And so that was my motivation for writing the book, because I had written kind of a series of articles, probably almost a year ago now, and I had kind of put forward a few ideas or concepts of what I see coming in terms of generative AI, and I spoke about it at a conference or two and the generalized reaction I got from people was they were like demotivated and depressed and it was like not what I was expecting at all. And so what I realized is that the tone I needed to take in the book when writing it is I need to give a motivational and aspirational message that if we can make these changes, if we can make these adoptions, that we are so well positioned to be the leaders of HR of the future. Like I even have kind of a controversial take on this, which is like what if, in the future, hr like doesn't it's not that it won't exist. It's like what if HR becomes people analytics?

Cole Napper 14:47

Like what if it all that's left of HR is people analytics, data, decision-making and technology? Who is most well positioned to lead in that future? It's probably not an HR business partner, you know. It's probably not a recruiter. These are the like, the people who are doing these are really becoming the early adopters. It's either going to be the technologist or the analytics people, and so in my mind, it's like if analytics people are willing to step up to the plate, they're going to lead in the future. And I just want to give them a playbook for how to do that effectively.

Kath Hume 15:21

Yeah, it's interesting because what I love about what I do is that blend of art and science, so the analytics there, but then being able to bring that so what do we do about that? And have those conversations with people and bring that out. It's really interesting what you say about that, because I am so guilty of that. I get really excited and I talk about this future that you know I'd love to create, but I think then I don't realise.

A New Book on People Analytics

Kath Hume 15:47

At the same time I'm terrifying people because they don't know how to get from A to B, and I think what I've learnt over the last couple of years is I need to actually then say and here's a toolkit for how we're going to work through that process. So I don't know the answers, for I can't give you the here's the map and here's the steps we're going to take yet, but I can definitely give you some tools to do the thinking to how we might get there. But it all starts with that analytics, because those analytics inform the questions that I'm going to ask of the people and those answers to what's the problem we're trying to solve is how we come up with the solutions. Let's not jump to the solutions, because they're probably not the right solutions. So, yeah, fascinating though that I hadn't really ever thought about if we've just got people, analytics people, have you seen that happen anywhere?

Cole Napper 16:44

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no-transcript. I have some pretty wild views on what HR is, and so I think people confuse HR as if it's one function, when really it's two and possibly more than two to play the arbiter, the organizational therapist, the talent advisor, the kind of like the person who throws the company party, like they play this really weird role. And in my mind, a lot of that role actually is not the purpose of why HR exists, which is to maximize the human capital of an organization, why HR exists, which is to maximize the human capital of an organization. And so we have folks that you know came up in a world and in an environment where that was what was rewarded. And I see what's changing again, not just at the current moment but let's say, over the last three or so years, is HR is being turned on its head to say you know, that was part of what you do, but we need a true, you know person with a seat at the table who has expectations on them and accountability on them to drive the business forward. And HR has been, again, historically pretty reticent to make that kind of commitment, to step into that leadership role, to have that level of accountability. Like name a company where an HR person has a P&L right. It just doesn't exist. And I think in the future there's actually going to be expectations on HR leaders to be business leaders first, right.

Cole Napper 18:31

And so I broke my book into three sections for that reason. It's because I think the catalyst for a lot of this is demographic changes that are going on in the workplace. Again, we talk about it like house, where you've got the rise of millennials, baby boomers, retiring, there's going to be labor shortages coming and that's putting pressures on workforces that have never existed before in history. But then there's this secondary factor of AI and it's coming in and organizations are saying not only do we need to justify the existence of HR, but we need to justify the unit economics of every single human being we employ. Human beings are a portion of their role. So how many human? We're asking for the perhaps for the first time, the question how many human beings does an organization need to function? And so, and they're expecting that HR functions to have answers to questions like that. And HR is like we don't know, right.

Cole Napper 19:30

And so the first section of the book is all about business value, right, and it kind of goes to first principles thinking of like not only how do businesses make money, but how does HR and how does people, analytics, talent intelligence and workforce planning contribute to bringing value to businesses? And it's not just value in a really vague sense where, like I always call it, people liking our work is considered value. It's important that people like our work, but that's not value. I mean true dollars and cents, true P&L. Can you make a commitment with your KPIs or your OKRs on a yearly basis to say, my team is bringing 10 times its value over every year, or my team is bringing $50 million of ROI to the business? That's a real commitment I've made to prior organizations, right, and I've talked to hundreds, if not thousands, of people who lead people analytics or workforce planning or talent intelligence at other companies. I've never heard a single leader who's made a million dollar commitment, and I think that those are the types of things that leaders of the future are going to have to make.

Cole Napper 20:36

So then the second section of the book is about okay, generative AI is here. What are we going to do about it? And so I go through and it's kind of like a primer, if you will about what is generative AI, how is it going to have an impact, and specifically focusing on use cases in the moment, how we need to reinvent our data foundations to accommodate for it. How you're going to use AI to predict the future, in terms of like traditional predictive methods, but in more advanced ways, using AI. And then the ethics of using AI. And then the third section of the book, and this is all forward looking, but this is the playbook I was talking about earlier. It's like otherwise, if you don't give people a playbook, they're going to be the ostrich that sticks their head in the sand, and so I literally go through every single thing that I could think of that people analytics, workforce planning and talent intelligence teams do so if it, or and I've included some IO psychology things and they're like employee surveys- and culture.

Cole Napper 21:32

But I went through everything that they do and I said here's the way you should be doing it today and a lot of that was even controversial because I don't think a lot of teams are doing it the right way today and then I say here's exactly what it's going to take for how you're going to do that in the future and what you're going to need to make that successful. And so I go like line by line through every single section, using real world scenarios, what types of technology you need. And the last chapter is called the future of HR and business is analytical. And so it's basically saying how do we roll HR and how it functions into being a business function rather than just a side kind of overhead function that businesses are always trying to minimize the cost of?

Cole Napper 22:13

And then a through line that cuts through all of this is it's not just about looking internally at ourselves. It's about how do we take an external lens at every point in time and say are we taking into account what our competitors are doing? Are we taking into account what's going on in the external labor market? Are we taking into account what's going on geopolitically, since apparently that's really important at this moment in time, and what are we doing in terms of things like the AI revolution, but also all of the different labor impacts that are going on in the economy, whether it's knowledge workers or skilled workers or what have you and so I think it's a fascinating look at what the future of business could look like. I say anybody who reads it's going to find something that they find controversial or that pisses them off, and that's probably a good thing, because I think it's very provocative, but I think I mean I wouldn't have written it if I didn't think it was the right way of looking at the future.

Kath Hume 23:10

Funny, because I released a book last year too. It's not, it's just a small scale self-publishing.

Cole Napper 23:16

Congratulations by the way.

Kath Hume 23:17

Thank you. Yes, it's out of my head now on paper, which is nice, but someone's doing a book club with it and so they've invited me to the book club a couple of times and it's actually as much as I knew that it's intentionally provocative. So my claim in the book essentially is that we need to be self-directed learners and more, so not rely so much on people to train us or educate us, because the world changes too fast, so we need to develop the skill of learning. Anyway, just some of the conversations in the book club, as much as I've intentionally been provocative to get that emotional reaction. So people then have to actually think about well, hang on, what do I feel about this? It's interesting when you actually hear people then debating your philosophies and thoughts.

Cole Napper 24:08

So yeah, but I think it's like a focus group on your book and you're like, willingly or unwillingly, hearing the results. I don't know if I can do it. To be honest with you, you're braver than I am.

Business Value and AI's Impact

Kath Hume 24:19

I think you've got probably thicker skin than me, but anyway it's not terrible. But I did it intentionally to provoke a reaction and it's good to see it being debated. I guess.

Cole Napper 24:32

So the funny thing is I'm very rarely intentionally provocative. I just can't help it. Yeah, like I just like. The thing is, I always feel like there's such a big delta between the things that I'm seeing and the things that everybody else is seeing. I just feel like if you reason it from first principles, if you look at this situation and you say why is what's happening? Happening from a deductive reasoning standpoint, you're going to come to the same conclusions that I come to, and so what it leads me to believe is just nobody's actually thinking about this stuff. They're just parroting off what other people are saying, and so I guess one of the reasons why I want to have a voice out in the world is at least, perhaps maybe they'll start parroting what I'm saying.

Kath Hume 25:16

I think it was funny. You said earlier about having disagreements when you presented scenarios and things, and I think that's really interesting to hear because I could imagine that you would come with a full range of evidence behind you with all of the analytics and that even with that, people will still believe what they believe.

Kath Hume 25:38

And in my workshops and things I'll talk about that whole cognitive bias codex yeah, motivated reasoning correct and all of the ways, all the assumptions that get us in the way, and I'm not for a minute thinking that I don't have any of those either, but I just also think I'm so like you where I will be in a room and I'll be. It's so clear to me where we need to go and so clear that the strategic direction and and the way we get there that then I start second guessing myself and thinking well no one else seems to be thinking the way I'm thinking.

Kath Hume 26:10

Is it me, or? And how do we have that conversation and and become more aligned rather than just thinking? Neither of us, really.

Cole Napper 26:19

I love that you use that word, aligned because in my career I always said when I've led teams, I have four operating principles and the first one's alignment, and they're in order for a reason and we can't do anything until we get alignment. And so, internally speaking, I always felt like you catch more flies with honey. You know that kind of expression and I used to suffer from a disease called I'm right itis early in my career, and I think a lot of PhDs suffer from that disease frankly, almost all of them at one point or another. That I I'm not like, cause I'm not very humble person. It's probably clear through this podcast, but I'm not doing it from a point of humility, it's just I realized that like there's really smart people out there and if you are only talking but not listening, you can't learn a lot of things, and, and so, just for my own selfish purposes, I don't. Actually, when I've gone into organizations, I don't try to convince a lot of people of things Like I can. I can bring data. I know all the cognitive biases around things like motivated reasoning and why they're probably not going to change their mind Even if I hit them with a whole slew of facts.

Cole Napper 27:25

All I want to know really is like why are you doing what you're doing? And if I know that, then we can, we can get alignment. And if I am not willing to listen, we can't. And so the problem really is me. If and if I'm not willing to listen, we can't. And so the problem really is me. If, whether how I approach the situation and so I think about those things all the time is like do I really know what my CHO cares about? Do I really know what my CEO cares about? Do I really know what the board of directors and the stockholders and everyone that's putting pressure on this company to make changes or stay the same? Do I really know what their reasoning is? And if I do know that, then I can be a more conscious actor in the world. But if I don't know those things, then I'm just a zealot, and being a zealot, no one likes a zealot.

Kath Hume 28:10

I did a people analytics certificate with the Academy to Innovate HR and they consistently referred to what do your stakeholders lie awake at night worrying?

Cole Napper 28:16

about.

Kath Hume 28:18

I just see it through that frame now, just like thinking, because then I can actually talk to those stakeholders in that frame of. Okay, I know this is what you're concerned about. How can I solve that problem for you? Yeah so we talked about what problem you're trying to solve. So I think we're clear about that, and you talked briefly about how you arrive at the solution. You started with alignment and then you talked about did you say there was four parts to that process?

Cole Napper 28:45

So it's alignment, it's innovation, it's credibility and it's accountability Right, and I've used kind of slightly different variants at different organizations, but I would say alignment is go slow to go fast Right, and that's one of the things I learned at Toyota. It's like if you, if you can get the appropriate alignment and it takes a little bit of time, it takes some stakeholdering but once you get alignment you can go as fast as you ever want, right. And then, in terms of you know, the next one is is innovation. So I would say that there's a personal component to that, and then there's a team component. The personal component is we have to be innovating ourselves every day, so we have to be focusing on our own personal development. We can't, if we're not getting 1% better ourselves, our team can't get 1% better either. And so the goal ultimately is at the team level, to be able to innovate and to do things differently and to kind of challenge the status quo, which I think is kind of the premise behind the three C's that you mentioned earlier.

Cole Napper 29:47

The next one is credibility. Because you're an analytics function, you have to measure twice, cut once, because I always say credibility loss is never regained. Yeah, right. And so the reality is, if you share the wrong number once, why would anybody ever believe you again? You're in a position of confidence, and if people don't have that confidence in you, you're kind of worthless to them. And so we always have to measure twice, cut once. We always have to share the right information.

Cole Napper 30:13

And then the last one this is kind of the newer one, because I used to have an older version is accountability, and the primary reason behind it is you cannot be a function of value if you're not willing to make a commitment, and you can't make an actual commitment if you're not willing to be accountable to the results, if you're not willing to fail.

Cole Napper 30:43

And so there has to be a component of I'm making something that is an uncomfortable commitment to what we're going to do, but I'm willing to catch myself and deliver on that commitment, all right. And so that accountability matters so much because every leader in the business has accountability. They have skin in the game and they just want to know are you, do you have skin in the game too? Are you in this with them? Are you just on the sidelines? And so, if you're in this with them and this is one of the reasons why I feel like being internally always had kind of a different voice, like I cannot tell you how many times in my career I've been told wait, you're in HR, because I just don't talk like an HR person.

Cole Napper 31:17

Yeah, yeah yeah, but it's the other reason why I think on the vendor side of things, whether being at Orgnostic in the past or at Lightcast at the moment we're trying to change the world and how the world of work works with the data that we sell or the analytics that we use to sell at Orgnostic. And if you don't have skin in the game, why would anybody ever believe you, why would anybody ever buy your product, right? And so the reality is I, you know I could probably work at, you know, 150 different HR technology startups, so there's like three of them that I would actually consider, and it's because I actually believe in what they're doing and I want to have skin in the game to see that the future of the workforce that we're trying to put forward happens because of the cool things that we're doing.

Kath Hume 32:03

Yeah, I love the premise that we are the leaders in the business space, not just the people space. And what fascinates me always is and it has been this way for a long time, I think is that the people cost in the business is, you know, we're talking 60 to 80% of the cost most of the time. It fascinates me that we're at this point you know it's 2025 and we're still having to convince that we've got a business opportunity here. To convince that we've got a business opportunity here we can actually leverage a significant change within the revenue of a business.

Cole Napper 32:46

Can I lean into that for a second?

Kath Hume 32:47

Please.

Cole Napper 32:47

Because I've made that same argument a bunch of times and there's a hole in that argument that I think what we were just saying about accountability fills the hole. Because the premise of it is the reason why somebody is making that argument and again I've made it before in the past is we're trying to say why don't people take HR more seriously? 70% of the business expenses come from HR. The reality is they don't. A lot of these businesses actually own the cost of salaries of the people that work in those businesses and the reason why HR doesn't own it generally. In a world where HR steps up to the plate and has more accountability, they actually, for the first time, may own that true 70% and in that world then HR really can make that argument in a more credible manner.

Cole Napper 33:51

But if you if like again me, as a person working internally at one of my prior employers, went to the CEO's office and said you should take me more seriously because I control 70% of the business expenses, they would laugh at me because they say no, you don't, I control 100%.

Four Operating Principles for Analytics Teams

Cole Napper 34:07

And the reality is in a world in the future I think there is a potential that HR they may never control 70%, but I think that they especially are thinking about. You know, whether it's salary or benefits or fringe is what sometimes it's called. Actually, hr usually does control the fringe spend for a firm. And if we started to treat the employee value proposition which is really what fringe is meant to do for a business as a more tangible lever that we can pull and again I talked about this in great length in the book If we can talk about how we can pull and again I talked about this in great length in the book If we can talk about how we can pull that more strategically to be again more of a leader in the business and thinking like business leaders, I think we actually will be able to make those credible arguments in the future.

Kath Hume 34:52

Interesting. Oh, I'm desperate now to read this book. I'm very, very, very keen.

Cole Napper 34:58

And again, that's like what I just said is incredibly controversial and provocative, but in my mind I just see it as a logical deduction from how businesses operate.

Kath Hume 35:09

Yeah, I guess the way I see it is, we can help people to optimize that spend. So, and what I like is you're talking about those metrics. So what are we measured against and what can we do? And I love the accountability piece and, yeah, and as a, as a, can I interrupt you here just to talk about one thing you were saying about, you know, if we could optimize the spend.

Cole Napper 35:39

One of the things I always say this is probably another coalism is, I tell my teams, you know, sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you is you getting exactly what you want. So I just imagine a CEO going into a CHRO's office and a CHRO says to you you know, we could optimize the spend of the 70% of the business if you just give us the ability to. And then what if the CEO said, sure, optimize it. And then what would the CHR do? And I think they would be deathly scared because they actually wouldn't know how to optimize it properly. And again, and so I think that's actually a very fearful situation rather than a situation of empowerment.

Kath Hume 36:19

So how do you see it working?

Cole Napper 36:22

Well, I mean, do you know much about like optimization algorithms and things like that? No, If you do you would think like I actually probably wouldn't use the word optimize, first of all because that implies like what if you were doing, you know, hiring up or laying off people on demand using an algorithm? That seems pretty unsavory, right.

Kath Hume 36:41

Yeah, but that's what an optimization algorithm would do.

Cole Napper 36:45

It would say we are not properly allocated in these places. We have these skill imbalances and we're going to level the scales on this using the powers that be that we have, and usually the powers are hiring, it's pay and it's layoffs. And if those are the only be that we have, and usually the powers are, is hiring, it's pay and it's layoffs right? And if those are the only levers that you have, you're going to have a pretty chaotic, unsavory environment, kind of going full, full, uh, full circle. Back to the tariffs. Conversation is like it would actually feel like the tariff situation, but internally in an organization, because at any point in time, if there was any change in supply or demand, you would see these levers shifting wildly, and I don't think we actually want to live in that world.

Kath Hume 37:24

No, I don't want that. No, I'm glad you're enlightening me on this. Yes, that's definitely not a world that.

Cole Napper 37:32

I want to create. Sometimes, the worst thing that can happen to you is get exactly what you want.

Kath Hume 37:36

You know what?

Kath Hume 37:37

I've used that word optimization so many times in the past.

Kath Hume 37:40

Now I wonder if I'll ever use it again.

Optimizing Human Capital Investment

Kath Hume 37:43

But it's interesting because that's definitely not what I mean. I mean understanding what the demand is and having a plan in place to say how we best going to feed that. And I think when I think that through it's not on a day-to-day basis, it's that longer term, and the levers I've got as well are succession planning or learning and development. So we're saying I guess it's not optimization, I guess it's best case scenario, and knowing that we're dealing with humans, not widgets, and also knowing that there's lead times for things and that we've got industrial instruments that prevent us what we definitely do in Australia anyway so that protect employees from us being able to turn them on and turn them off, but also understand that we're dealing with humans and that we've got a responsibility to humans who have livelihoods that depend on the work, that we're dealing with humans and that we've got a responsibility to humans who have livelihoods that depend on the work that we're providing, and so there's got to be that mutual benefit that comes out of this relationship.

Cole Napper 38:49

Well, this is why I find workforce planning to be so fascinating, because I use this kind of rhetorical question it's meant to be tongue in cheek which is how many years does it take to create 20 years of experience?

Cole Napper 39:03

And the answer is obvious it's 20 years, right, and there's many, especially in highly technical disciplines.

Cole Napper 39:11

There's many roles that take 5, 10, 15, 20 years of experience before somebody is truly contributing their real value to an organization. And so, in a world of businesses changing by the quarter, or by the day even sometimes, you also have to have a counterbalance, which is how are we thinking towards 15, 5, 10, 20 years into the future? About not just today's success, but our business's success as it transforms. And a lot of times again, transformation isn't an immediate term thing. It's something that takes years, if not decades, to truly go through as an organization. And so I find Workforce Plan to be fascinating, because, if I'm doing it effectively in an organization, I have to not only be thinking about how again to use that word optimize, how to optimize the business for today, but also to plan for the future effectively, so that we're not just navigating the problems that we're going to be having in the next six months, but also in the next six years or next 60 years, depending on what's going on at that organization.

Kath Hume 40:17

Yeah, and that's that whole today and tomorrow I think I've got that in on my website or something like that that we're transforming the workforce for today and tomorrow. It's really interesting and that's why I think the planning is so important, because we're not going to go from A to B and I know I said that earlier. We're going to go from A to B to C, to D to E and we're going to transition progressively, but those all need to be planned out. So it's each move we make, I'll say it is directionally correct.

Cole Napper 40:48

Yeah, the name does a lot of heavy lifting. I love it.

Kath Hume 40:53

It is wonderful to speak to you, but I am watching the clock and thinking we're probably close to time the book when is it coming out?

Cole Napper 41:03

Yeah, I actually just found out they pushed it back a month, so I think it was supposed to come out July 28th and I think it's August 28th. I may be wrong about that, but it's coming out in August of 2025, if you're listening, two years from now and it's called People Analytics using generative AI and data-driven HR to make business impact. I believe I should probably memorize that first, but I'm excited about it and I'm really excited about a lot of the work that we've got coming at Lightcast and that we've published recently. I think we do really excellent, world-class research and I think everybody should be checking it out really excellent world-class research and I think everybody should be checking it out.

Kath Hume 41:40

Yep, definitely, and I will include some links in the show notes to all of those things.

Cole Napper 41:49

I suspect we won't have a link for the book, yet Where's the best place to get access to it once it's published? I'll shoot you the link. You can actually pre-order it now, but it's on Amazon or Kogan Page is the publisher of their website and I'm sure anywhere you can buy books you can find it.

Kath Hume 42:01

Excellent, all right. Thank you so much for your time, cole. It has been great, and I think let's book in that second podcast in a couple of months or just to see where we end up, because we are at a very interesting juncture in time at the moment.

Cole Napper 42:16

Well, kath, thank you so much for having me, and I've been thinking about coming on this podcast for a while. I know you probably don't believe me when I say that, but I've been watching your rise from afar and I am super thrilled to be here and I'm super grateful that you would have me on.

Kath Hume 42:32

Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, that's an absolute privilege. I really appreciate it. Thanks, kath, an absolute privilege.

Cole Napper 42:39

I really appreciate it.

Kath Hume 42:40

Thanks, Kat.

Speaker 2 42:42

Thanks Cole. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Reimagined Workforce Podcast. We hope the conversation inspires you to consider new ways to solve your workforce challenges. Feel free to check out our other episodes that are available on our website workforcetransformations. com. au/ podcast. And if you're looking to create a brighter future for yourself, be sure to grab a copy of Learn, Solve Thrive Making a Difference that Matters in a Fast and Complex World, available on Amazon and most book retailers globally.