How HR Leaders Turn AI Into Workforce Strategy with Ray Culver, Global MD of Talint Partners

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Transcript

Welcome And Ray’s TA Journey

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the HR Community Podcast. Today I'm joined with Ray Culver. Ray is the managing director, global managing director for talent partners. Good morning, Ray. Hey Shane, how are you? Very good. How are you doing? You're zooming in, you're joining in from the US.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I am. Yep. I live in Southern California. So it is afternoon for me and morning for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Well, thank you for joining us, and I appreciate you being kind in our time zone over here in Australia. Ray and I have known each other quite some time, particularly in the talent acquisition circles. For myself, it's been more Australia and Asia Pacific. You are the global talent acquisition advocate. You've traveled the world for many, many years. You've hosted rooms of talent leaders, workshops with talent leaders. You've been online and on webinars. You've worked in the industry yourself on the front line of talent for many, many years to where you are now as the global MD of talent partners. Over to you, Ray. I'd love to hear a little bit more about you and your journey and your role. And that'd be great to sort of unpack a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. You know, I started my career, gosh, 30 plus years ago. When I say that out loud, it makes you just feel old. 30 plus years ago with Ronstadt when they very first entered the US market. Was in the staffing recruitment industry for probably about a, I'd say, 25, 30 years, and then pivoted a bit, went into my own consultancy and advisory firm, and then have been working with talent partners for the last four to four and a half years. As you mentioned, you know, getting to interact with and host events and talk to global talent leaders across the world has been just an incredible experience. Here in the U.S., we have a very, very strong TAHR contingent workforce community. We also have equally as strong communities in the UK and mainland Europe. And then, of course, we've built what I think to be a very strong community down in the APAC region. It's exciting to get to have these conversations across the world and to get to draw parallels. You know, no matter what market you're in. And I think you've probably heard me say this before. The topics are the same no matter where you are in the world. There's different nuances dependent upon the city and the country, but the topics are the same. Everybody's thinking about the same thing. So, you know, what we always tell people at workshops or dinners is if it's on your mind, let's talk about it. Because if you're thinking it, I guarantee you there are probably another five people in this room who are thinking the exact same thing. So it's just it's been interesting to get to hear it across the world.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Amazing. What is on the mind of talent leaders across the globe right now? You know, what are you seeing from a HR and workforce strategy perspective right now that, you know, maybe feels different over the last 18 months?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah. You

AI Shifts From Fear To Action

SPEAKER_00 3:10

know, I hate to open this box this early in our conversation. It's going to happen, but I'll go ahead and open open the box and let those two letters out that just can't stay in the box, no matter what conversation you're having. AI. That is such a big conversation, such a multi-layered and multi-pronged conversation when it comes to talent leaders. I would say probably 12 to 18 months ago, there was a bit more hesitation, and I hate to say fear, but a bit more hesitation around AI. Fast forward to today, uh, we hosted a workshop in San Francisco a few weeks back. That hesitation or fear is not really there. It's more like, okay, what can we do? Like, how can we use it? How can we know there is the excitement? And so it's been interesting to watch the journey of the TA and HR leader to go from being very hesitant about AI to now being excited about it and trying to figure out, okay, how can we use it? How can we embrace it? You know, how can it make our teams better? How can it help me as a leader to really step into that strategic seat at the table that leaders have been asking for for years now? So it's been exciting to see that conversation pivot from one of a hesitation to now. Exciting.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah. And I'd agree with that because I've been speaking to a lot of talent leaders across Australia, Singapore, and you know, AIPAC in general. And it's been quite a similar theme. You know, if we had this podcast 18 months ago or two years ago, we'd still be talking about AI, but probably not as evolved as we can now. Back then, dare I say, there were still a few pessimistic views on AI. Is this a phase? You know, will will we just move on like humans tend to do to the next shiny thing? But it's it's very clear that it has continued to evolve, and a lot of organizations have actually become quite aggressive in their evolution and adoption of AI. The area, I guess, where I still seem to be having conversations with my community is when does AI stop being a tool and be, I suppose, becomes more of a this is how we we work now as a business.

Using AI To Redesign The Workforce

SPEAKER_00 5:39

I think, I mean, when you think about that, the first thing for me that comes to mind is as companies are adopting these AI tools and solutions and things like that, like really trying to figure out what exactly is it that they want to do with it. And then, you know, once you figure out what you want to do with it or what you think it can do for your teams and your organizations, and then once you go through the process, you identify the solutions, things like that, then really look at it and say, okay, how could we redesign our workforce? You know, how could AI help our workforce? How could it create maybe new positions within the organization? How could it potentially, and I know this is not a happy topic, but you know, are there positions that now you know AI can step up and maybe do that we don't need a particular employee for? Again, that's not a happy topic, but it is something that I think we're having to address and be realistic about. So I think that's been exciting to watch. Okay, once you adopt AI, once you figure out how can it work within your organization, then take a step back and try and figure out, okay, do we need to do any kind of redesign to the workforce that we have today? How can we begin to leverage what it can do for us as we start to look at workforce planning for the future? And I think that's important as well. Yeah, I think there's a whole component around like AI readiness. Are your internal teams really ready for it? How to use it, how to embrace it? And then as you look to like, say, workforce planning and you're starting to bring people into the organization, what does AI readiness mean to you as an organization? And how are you making sure that whatever talent you're bringing in is at the level of AI usage and just education that you are as a company? That's interesting as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Love that. We actually have been seeing more of AI literacy and AI fluency becoming part of the job brief with more of our senior HR leadership roles, sitting down with the CEO and understanding, you know, what skills they're looking for right now for this role, but also sort of mapping out where this role or where the function needs to be from a HR and talent perspective in the next two years. Quite interesting, especially over the last six to 12 months. CEOs are now bringing AI more and more into that conversation, which I find is really interesting, but also quite exciting for HR. I think it's a great opportunity now to be the advocate for AI, be the driver for AI in an organization. But I also think it's becoming a bit of an expectation now that these leaders are going to come into the business with an AI strategy, essentially, as to what this function is going to look like, what this team's gonna look like, what are the roles and the skills that we require, you know, to be the best that we can be with within the HR and talent function. And then that scope goes out to all the other business areas, whether it be IT or finance, et cetera. So I've definitely seen that coming up in conversations more and more as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yeah. And I think, I mean, if a leader comes into a company and maybe they aren't quite as well versed in, you know, AI and what's out there and that type of thing, I think also just the whole thing of don't be afraid. You know what I mean? Like be curious and be curious about what's out there. Don't be closed off from what it can potentially do. Again, I go back to the not happy conversation. There are going to be positions and situations within organizations that it will reduce some jobs. But I'd argue this counterpoint that it will also create jobs. I also think that, especially here in the US, you hear a lot of conversations around layoffs here, layoffs there, reduction in force.

Calling Bluff On AI Layoff Claims

SPEAKER_00 9:27

This is my opinion. They say AI. In my opinion, it is too early in the AI journey to be fully laying these reduction in forces on AI. To me, that is that's an excuse that companies are using today to be able to kind of say, oh, what's AI? I I would call a bluff on that. I just thought it's a cursed word. I would call a bluff on that because I just I don't think that all these reduction enforces that we're seeing are AI driven.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

I say that because when you hear a big company is laying off five, 10,000 people and they blame it on AI, that creates fear and hesitancy in leaders and in workforces. So, you know, we just got to figure out a way to get around that.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

We spoke a little bit about this a few months ago at an event. I'm going to hazard a guess and say it was Singapore. It was quite interesting because when we actually started to look at it, a lot of things come in cycles, right? So six years ago would be, you know, officially, unofficially, the pandemic. So a lot of organizations then went through this huge mass restructure. There was mass redundancies, talent acquisition was on its knees. And then, you know, the year or two following, the market rebalanced, and a lot of organizations back then were running around in circles, wondering how can we get more talent people to deal with the volume of recruitment that they were going through. And similarly with HR as well. So I do find the conversation around AI replacing jobs at mass quite interesting because I do feel like this could be an excuse, but also that same cycle again where, hey, let's just use AI here as this reason why we can restructure a thousand people globally. In reality, where our PL isn't looking very good. So we need to cut costs. The rebuilding phase in the next year or two is probably where I have most of my interest because I wonder will that rebuilding phase not just be humans? Will it actually be humans, agents, bots? Yeah.

Leading Humans Alongside AI Agents

SPEAKER_00 11:33

George that's I mean, like kind of when you start to talk about stuff like that, and you start to talk about a leader within an organization not only having to manage a team of humans, but also a team of agents. You know, we we started talking about that. I think it was at a workshop either that was probably late last year, because we're only in May. Late last year is in the US, I think we're in New York, I don't know. But we started talking about it. We're like, you know what? Can you in the audience, this was global TA feeders, can you imagine a future of UB and having to manage humans and agents? And that little emoji with like an exploding head, you can just see some of them being like, I've never thought about that. Yeah, like that was just such an aha moment for people. And it is a cool thought to think that in the future, not too far away, happening now in some companies, you have your human team, you have your agent team, and you know, they work in harmony. Yeah, you know, and they kind of work with each other. So the future is it's coming. It's coming.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

The ideal scenario where the leader is very AI fluent, and the bots and the agents of the humans are all working together in harmony. It could be a little bit different in reality. I mean, what are your thoughts, Ray, on I guess, leadership capability for an organization like that or you know, the future of what that's going to look like? Because I'm I'm sure that will change how leaders lead. It'll also introduce new new skills that leaders will need and maybe hold hone on essential skills that they may or may not have now.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, I think it goes back to what you mentioned a few minutes ago. You know, leaders either within an organization or coming into an organization, needing to have either fluency or true understanding and not be afraid of AI and agenda, things like that. And if the leader is not at the level where they can do it or they feel comfortable, how are organizations helping to get that leader to that state if that is a route that the organization wants to go? You know, or do you look at bringing in someone who maybe layers underneath, let's say a global head of TA, layers underneath them who basically is the, I'm not gonna make this up, but you know, the the bot owner or the bot leader or whatever it is. Do you do you bring someone in who that is their specialty, that is their skill set? And to that point, is that a new job that we just created? You know, a bot leader who comes in and they're like just the the knower of all when it comes to AI and agents and workforces. You know, that could be a whole new way, path for people to go who maybe let's say you grew up in the static industry, you grew up and now you're shifting, you're learning about AI and a gen tick. That could be a new path for you. Come into an organization, come into the in-house side and run you know this agent farm that we have.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

That's cool to think about stuff like that. Yes, it can be scary, but I very much believe in kind of the cup half full versus half empty. Yeah. So I think it's gonna be cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Yeah, I I agree. I mean, look, I'm a huge advocate for it, as you know, and I always have been with stuff like this. Like I've always really loved technology way back when my dad worked at digital, which became Huey Packard, and it might even be called something else now. I can't recall. But I remember in our household being a kid and seeing like the first or one of the earlier laptops, and it was it was a block. And then, you know, seeing seeing the different laptops and desktops and stuff evolved since then, but it was always a cool thing. I mean, our ASIC was just full of this stuff. I think dad ended up donating it to a to a museum in recent years. So I've always sort of personally been a huge fan of technology.

Agentic AI Inside Recruiting Workflows

SPEAKER_01 15:35

So, you know, four or five years ago when when we started this business, we were a strategy first business. We are a strategy first business with a lot of investment in how technology can enable us to be better. We sort of scale that way. So in our business now, and we started our journey in recent years with Claude, and in particular, Cloud Code has been a game changer for us. But you know, we've got a number of different tools that we use across the business. But Claude Code is essentially our core agent, and the agent has multiple subagents that manage different tasks for us. So, for example, if you look at an executive search, all the different layers of that search from you know, before you put in a proposal through to getting the brief right, through to the going to market, the engagement, the sourcing, the screening, the testing, that whole process has so much opportunity for AI to work in the background. And I think what I've found really cool is as our agents have evolved, and so have our sub agents too. So, you know, you talk about a bot manager, it's essentially like we're giving the agent manager the task that we need, and then it's filtering out to the different subagents what tasks they specialize in. So that's been pretty, pretty cool for us across the business, not just the recruitment operations. So I am a huge advocate for it. Now, we had the luxury, I must add, where we started our business five years ago, we started from a clean slate. Businesses that are a lot larger, enterprise global businesses, highly regulated businesses. What kind of challenges do you see, or what kind of challenges are you hearing from them, Ray, from a from an AI perspective?

Legal Risk And Compliance As Blockers

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Some of the biggest things that we hear, and this is, and we do hear this from you know large global enterprise organizations, is that their initial blockers, I'm not saying that that they are true blockers, but their initial kind of gears up coming into the company with, let's say, an AI tool is legal. And of course, risk compliance. You know, and at the end of the day, your legal teams and your risk teams are just trying to keep the organization protected. So, I mean, you know, it's not let's parking like that. We'll come back to where I think that needs to go. But I think that's the biggest thing is that getting large companies over the risk issue and the compliance issue and the legality issue, to me, that's the biggest hurdle. We have several members of our TA community here in the US here with global companies, and let's say they have workday as their their uh internal system, and they're wanting to turn on certain aspects of workday, certain modules. And you know, you would think okay, but their legal has that absolutely not, just because of of some of the ways that it does things. And it's not, I think it's just that the legal just needs more time to feel comfortable with it, you know. So I think they'll get there. But at least initially they're like, no, and this is a large, you know, global tens of thousands of employee company, and their legal is just like, no, just black out there. And so that just shuts the global TA leader down because she, you know, she or she just can't get past it. To touch on that though, I think legal departments, risk compliance departments, I think they've come to our point earlier, they've come so far in the last 12 to 18 months. Yeah. Because you know, they they're they're they're you're starting to see it come into more and more companies. So the examples that I just gave, there are equally as many examples of companies who their leadership has come along on this journey. Now they're starting to let things in, maybe even pilots. Maybe it's not we're gonna deploy it across the entire organization, but if you have an AI tool or solution who's willing to pilot some things with us, we will do that, prove it out, and then maybe move it across the bigger organization.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah,

Pilots That Prove Value Fast

SPEAKER_01 19:31

I love that. And and with the pilots, I guess talk to us a little bit about that. Like what have you what have you heard maybe or seen that that works well? Is it quite a structured stage-by-stage process, or is it a little bit loose? Let's let's have a crack at this for the next 90 days and and sort of trial test error.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

What we see at least within our talent tech community is there are a lot of solutions out there who are really leaning into the whole pilot because they know that to get some enterprise organizations on board, you're gonna have to kind of bring them along. You're gonna have to prove this out and prove that that it's it can work and all that good stuff. So I think that's part of the journey of the AI solutions is that they're they're needing to lean a bit more into pilots and they're starting to do that. It's interesting when we talk to the TA side and they're starting to talk about these pilots and do some of them internally. You know, I think they're uh trying to identify issues within the organization, and then they can bring these AI tools in to solve those issues. So again, identify it, bring it in, prove it out. If it fails, fail fast. You know what I mean? Like say, okay, we know this could fail, we're gonna fail fast, we're gonna move on. But if it succeeds, then take that, build out the internal use case, build out the internal white paper, and then just replicate it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like because success is the best breeder of future success. Yeah. Show a success, and that's gonna create more success. Yeah, so that's what we're seeing. I mean, start small. You had 10 departments within an organization, and you could run small pilots and two to three of them, and each one has the different nuances and that type of thing. You know, you're proving out multiple things here and you're doing it small. You're not exposing the company to a lot of you know risk and legal issues. Of course, you have them on board with you, but just start small and show success and then move bigger.

ROI Cases And Real Tech Partnerships

SPEAKER_01 21:30

I find it quite interesting as well. Like we talk about pilots previous to that, we talked about a lot of the risk and the compliance, a lot of the barriers, a lot of the challenges. One thing that I've noticed with some of the companies that we've had in similar rooms and different rooms is HR and talent leaders feel, or some HR and talent leaders feel their organization is quite progressive with AI when it comes to their their own products and their own services. You know, we've We've seen this a lot in in medical and healthcare, for example, among other industries technology, obviously. But then when it comes to the HR and talent side, there's there's still a lot of blockheads or or or barriers up by the organization. And you know, something I find quite interesting is when I speak to the organizations, which I know you do too, that are a bit more progressive from a HR and AI perspective, you know, they've been able to bring a case to the business with you know actual ROI and actual data, how much this is actually going to cost, but you know, the value that we're gonna get from it. Do you see that happening as well in your world with organizations that are that are doing it well? Like there's a lot of ROI case, there's a lot of data and metrics behind it.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yes, but I also think some of that. And when we when I have a conversation with a TA leader and we're talking about tech and we're talking about, you know, maybe a problem that they're trying to solve or who should they look at, and this is what they think. My recommendation and suggestion to them is no matter what solution you go with, make sure that the tech provider is comfortable with maybe introducing you to clients of theirs who are similar to you. In other words, like let those clients help you to almost build a case for maybe you know there's gonna be change management, you know you have internal blockers, talk to a similar company to you, who's a client who may be gone through the same thing, ask them how they handled a lot of the things that you know you're gonna come upon because you know your company. Like when I was with Manpower Group, God love Manpower Group, yeah. I guarantee you that when I gave my legal team a contract, it would come back red. I mean, red line to heck and back because that's just the way that we were a very conservative organization. Yeah. So again, it's like talking to an MSP provider or talking to a tech solution to say, okay, these are these is where I know the blockers are gonna be. Help me to understand how to talk to my legal team or my compliance team or whatever about these things to get them comfortable with it. That's very important. If a solution isn't open to doing that, that's one potential kind of X from when it comes to a partnership.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

If you're gonna sign a contract with somebody, it really needs to be a partnership. And it needs to be both of you kind of wanting to make sure the other is very successful. Yeah, so that would be, I think that's what we hear.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

I think that's great as well, because there's so much talk about AI now that you know, obviously a lot of organizations, big, medium, and small, are starting coming out of the woodwork with different solutions. There's a lot of selling. I get hit up daily with different vendors and and businesses looking to automate our uh stuff as well. Talk to

How Work Gets Done Next

SPEAKER_01 24:52

us a little bit about the the future. I mean, the last 18 months have been pretty fascinating, pretty full on, but pretty exciting. You know, what are you sort of seeing? What do you what do you predict for the next next 18?

SPEAKER_00 25:05

You know, I think we will continue to talk about and really start to deep dive on how does work get done? So, like I mean, and it goes back to kind of the top of our call. When you look at a task within an organization, does it have to be human? Can it be a bot or an agent? You know, how does it get done? Does it need to be a mixture of both? I think if you look at the staffing and recruitment industry, they're having a lot of the, and you live this every day, they're having a lot of these conversations right now about how far can we take the agentic AI down the path of recruitment before we have to insert a human. So like I think that's good, you're gonna see those conversations continue into the in-house side on the enterprise side, and they're gonna continue. So it's like, how does that work get done? And then beyond that, just a bit, if it does need to be a human, does it need to be a full-time person? Can it be a contractor? Can it be contingent? Can it be gig? Can it be fractional? Can it be freelance? Can that person sit if you're in Sydney? Can that person sit in uh you know Poland? All those conversations that are being had now. But I think it's just the talent scarcity continues to get tighter, but those conversations are going to continue to get louder. Also, you know, talent is choosing to work differently these days than it ever has before. Talent's choosing, and maybe you mentioned the pandemic, maybe the pandemic kind of opened this box for everybody. But it's like, you know what? If I want to go and be a nomadic traveler, you know, I'm choosing to do that. And if you want me as an employee, you're gonna have to meet me where I'm at. And if you don't, that's cool because there's 10 other companies who will. I think all that's gonna continue to build and build and build.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Yeah, and I agree with both. I feel like organizations, not all, but you know, some are just not set up for today's talent market, and therefore a lot still don't know how they're gonna approach the future talent market and the future work. You know, we've we've talked about this before, where you look at build, borrow, buy, boss, there's another BS is not coming to me. So there's all these different ways of getting the skills in an organization that you need, but you know, that just doesn't work for organizations. It works for the candidate and the talent market too. You know, if you want to operate as a fractional chief people officer in today's world, it can be quite a fulfilling and lucrative role. Um, 20 years ago probably didn't exist as much. It did exist, but not as much. Um we're seeing it more and more now as well. I mean, international teams and remote teams is a very common way for businesses to operate now. I would say the only difference in our world is in organizations where there is a lot more sort of frontline workforces like construction, manufacturing, logistics, et cetera, like HORC still sort of need that on-site relationship with their team. So again, I guess it depends on there's no one size fits all. I guess it it definitely depends on everything. You know, we could see economies across the world. I mean, not making it easy for businesses. Do you see other countries and regions maybe using that as an opportunity now to attract businesses and workers to their region?

SPEAKER_00 28:41

The idea of kind of outsourcing or remote work or whatever you want to call it these days, I don't think that's going anywhere. I think it's continuing to grow. I think you you've seen over the years, you've seen those outsourcing centers, we'll call it shift. Obviously, I mean India, Philippines, you know, the South Central America from a US perspective, because it's a near story. You know, when I was down in the APAC region last with you, and we were talking to the folks, looking at like Singapore and being having that being kind of that the gateway to Southeast Asia, and I heard a lot of that from Australia

Global Remote Talent And Regional Advantage

SPEAKER_00 29:13

leaders and businesses who were looking to get into that because there are there are more cost-effective labor markets who you can tap into potentially. Do they have the skills? Do they have the the educational requirements? I have no idea. But it's being talked about and it is happening. If you look at let's say Eastern Europe, probably pre-war, because I think a lot of companies have pulled back a bit just because of the uncertainty of the war right now with Ukraine and Russia. But if you look at that, there were some of the most I don't say obscure, but just countries that you would never have thought in a million years had incredible education, incredible language because they saw the outsourcing boom happening and they started to really react and be able to pull companies in. So I think you're going to continue to see countries who stand up, you know, education and language programs and things like that to be able to attract companies. Yeah, and you mentioned earlier kind of around the frontline workforce. When I was last with you down there a few months ago, one thing that we talked about with one of the groups was talent, younger talent leaving Australia. Yes. To maybe come to the US or to go to Europe. And so how is Australia, New Zealand, how are you all keeping the talent? Like, you know, creating an environment where it's like, you know what, you want to be here. I think uh focusing on that front line and keeping that talent internal on the front line is equally as important in trying to keep this high-skilled talent, which you hear more about. And I think also that's gonna come to a head because you know, you're gonna have to figure out you, us everywhere, is gonna have to figure out how to really utilize the younger and the talent coming into the market and keep it in Australia or keep it in the US or keep it wherever. That's also gonna be a big thing in the next 12 to 18 months.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Yeah, 100%. I've seen some examples, particularly in that more industrial, the industrial sectors, where it's not even just about going to a university now to catch the the pre-graduates. It's not even about going to a high school to catch the pre-territory, it's territory for education. It's it's it's actually going into primary schools and you know, some of these organizations spending a day with these kids and talking about what they do and you know, really just trying to, I guess, re-educate. I mean, even from me leaving school, you know, there was a huge push, and and I guess still is today, to go to university. And, you know, for for generations, I know that went to university, got degrees in things that they couldn't actually get a job from. So

Preparing Young Talent For AI Change

SPEAKER_01 31:56

I'm just wondering now, as we enter this era of AI with the possibility of a lot of, especially the more junior roles being automated or replaced with AI, what are we going to do with the youth entering the world of work? And I think not that everyone needs to be a trade if they don't want to, but I think those kind of roles where there is still you know critical thinking, uh practical work, you know, hands-on sort of labor, I think that's a lot of the stuff that kids leaving school will will most likely pivot into now, unless they continue into technology and become 19-year-old multi-billionaire CEOs, which which which I know a lot of them want to do, but I think you know the the the list the list is long, but it's it's not as long as you think. I know it's a busy day for your race, so I don't want to keep you too much longer. And I absolutely loved, as I always do, conversations like this with you. Before I close out, I wanted to maybe pick your brain on one last question. I mean, one piece of advice for hey, J oran talent leaders right now.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Be curious. Like to me, now is the time to be curious and to really be, you know, be open to the way that the world of talent or the future could work or whatever you want to call it is changing. I would also say, and this is gonna sound so cheesy, but I mean to me it's so true, from a talent leader perspective, now is the time for these leaders to really step into their greatness. They've talked about it for so many years. They've talked about wanting to move away from just being that transactional HR task taker or order taker to really being strategic, having a seat at the table. You have that opportunity right now. Now is the time. With everything happening in the world, with all the advancements and things like that, now is your time. And that's what I would say to them is just really figure out

Be Curious And Step Up Now

SPEAKER_00 33:46

how to take everything that's at your fingertips or everything that's available to you and just bring it into the organization. Don't be afraid of it. Again, I'm happy subject. There are gonna be some people who shops. There's gonna be some roles that, but it's also gonna do great things. So just and again, cheesy as hell, but just step into that greatness and just really be take advantage of the time that we're at in the world that we live in right now.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

That's awesome. Love that. Very rare to see you in your home office because of all the travel that you do. When are you visiting us down under next?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yeah, I'm excited. June's gonna be a busy month. Next week, I'll be in Atlanta to host our large conference and Black Tie Gala for the U.S. in Atlanta. Next week I'll be at an event in Philadelphia. I'm home for a week, and then I get to come back to Australia. I'll be down, I think it's the last week of June, and we are hosting our talent and transformation summit in Melbourne on the 25th, and then we'll have our signature Black Tie Gala that evening.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Amazing. Well, I will make sure to see you there. Thank you again, Ray. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. That was a great chat. And thank you to all our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Thanks, Shane. I appreciate it.