Interview Edition: The War for Talent Is Over. Here's Who Won. ft. Jim Link, SHRM CHRO

The talent market feels calmer on the surface, but the real shift is deeper: after the pandemic, people rewrote their relationship with work, and companies were forced to take human capital management seriously. I’m joined by Jim Link, Chief Human Resources Officer at SHRM, to talk about what actually happened to the so-called war for talent and why HR leaders suddenly became essential to keeping business moving when the world got unpredictable.

We dig into the practical side of modern HR strategy: why skills-based hiring beats relying on old job descriptions, how skill mapping strengthens internal mobility, and what “cultural clarity” looks like when budgets are tight but expectations are high. Jim also shares how he thinks about generative AI in HR, especially using AI for augmentation such as job description drafts, analytics support, and coaching prompts for difficult conversations, with a clear reminder to protect employee privacy by sanitizing what you share.

Then we get blunt about retention and succession planning. Waiting until a resignation to offer growth is a costly habit, and most leaders underestimate how far honest career conversations can go without spending a dollar. We also challenge the “spreadsheet theater” version of succession planning and talk about building real bench strength, being transparent about potential, and creating space for grace when high potentials stumble.

If you care about talent management, employee experience, and the future of work, this is the kind of conversation you can use immediately. Subscribe, share it with one colleague, and leave a review with the one leadership habit you think would fix retention fastest.

Register for the SHRM 2026 Talent Conference: https://shop.shrm.org/SHRM-TALENT-2026?_ga=2.11244402.75391506.1775908899-634450247.1775908899&_gl=1*6e2gv8*_ga*NjM0NDUwMjQ3LjE3NzU5MDg4OTk.*_ga_HQNM4FGPDS*czE3NzU5MDg4OTkkbzEkZzEkdDE3NzU5MDg5MzAkajI5JGwwJGgw*_gcl_au*MTAzNzc4ODA0My4xNzc1OTA4ODk5

Transcript

Legal And Policy Disclaimer

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered formal legal advice. Please note that the policies of your company and laws in your country may vary. Also, the views expressed by the host or his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of any other company or entity.

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:27

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the My Friend and HR podcast. My name is Jasonic Courtney, your friend and your guide through the elusive world of human resources and your path to career fulfillment. If this is your first time joining us, welcome to the show. We at My Friend and HR are practitioners first. We do not deal with theory for the sake of having theory. We don't use bug words for the site's sake of sounding smart. We have real conversations with real leaders about the things happening inside our organizations right now. And today's episode is as real as it gets. I have been looking forward to this. My guest today is someone I have immense respect for, both personally and professionally. It is none other than Jim Link, the Chief Human Resources Officers for Sherm, the Society of Human Resource Management, which is the largest HR membership organization in the world. Jim has more than 30 years of experience leading HR as some of the most complex organizations on the planet. He has sat in rooms with some of the biggest decision makers in the world. And today he is sitting across from me virtually. Jim, welcome to the My Friend and HR podcast. How are you doing, sir? Hey, Gizzani, I am absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

It is a beautiful day in Alexandria, Virginia, and I'm excited to be here. This is my type of stuff where you get to talk about real things with real people doing real things.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

So I want folks who are listening to this podcast to understand something. Jim and I were actually on a LinkedIn live session this morning. So today is Monday, and the LinkedIn live session started at 8:30 in the morning, and people showed up. For professionals to show up on a Monday morning at 8:30, tells you about how passionate this community is about these kinds of conversations, about talent and how are we doing to cultivate and man and manage our internal talent. And what we started this morning, we're going to go a little bit deeper. So buckle up because this is going to be a good one. You ready, Jim? I'm more than ready. Let's rock and roll.

Who Really Won Talent Wars

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I want to start with a headline, right? Because everybody keeps saying that the war for talent is over. Some people say companies won because the labor market is a little bit shifted, employees have lost their leverage. But some people say that the talent actually won because workers fundamentally changed their relationship with the work after the pandemic. In your opinion, what actually happened?

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yeah, what actually happened is because of the pandemic, employers began to realize that this entire world of human capital management actually matters to the long-term success of their business. Human resources professionals became for the maybe for the first time. Um, you know, you often say you have a seat at the table. Well, what during the pandemic, the table actually moved into the HR leader's office, right? That's what happened. So, you know, listen, it all started there. This bringing people back to work, the whole movement around remote work, hybrid schedules, all those kinds of things made HR important, valued, realized, appreciated, and all those other kinds of things because no one else had that expertise to keep businesses running when the world had gone crazy. So, yeah, and so who won? I think we all won because the world of human capital management got more visibility. Employees learned and realized that that work could get done in many places at different times for different reasons. And businesses won because they learn new and exciting ways to accomplish what would before have been crippling to that.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

You know, and it's funny you bring up about the pandemic because really, in most organizations around the world, that is where HR really stepped up because the world was going through something that it had never gone through before. And so CEOs who may not have always brought HR to the table had their CHRO or VP of HR on speed dial. That's right. Because we were navigating waters with people that Earth had never seen before. That's right. And so your point about getting being at the table and the table moving into CHRO's office was completely dead on.

HR Change Management Reality Check

SPEAKER_01 4:20

And it's one of those things where as we move into this next phase of like the work, the workforce evolution, when you think about the things that would that have changed and how HR has had to step up in ways that we haven't thought before, whether you're talking about AI or hybrid work schedules, what grade would you give the average HR professional in our ability to navigate those waters?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Probably a C plus or a B minus. There are those who do it incredibly well. And when you think about change management in particular, that should be a competency that we as human capital leaders have, you know, coming out of our pores, right? I mean, we should absolutely understand change management like no other competency because we need to be good at it to drive change in organizations. Now, the role of technology has only made that move incredibly faster with much more precision. I mean, it was just a little more than two years ago that we learned about and started utilizing generative AI, right? Chat GPT, Anthropic, you know, some of these other tools that are out there now. I and think how fast that's been adopted in too many workplaces. HR should be and has been leading that charge. Here at Sherm, we have an entire section of our website devoted to teaching HR leaders how they can do that, not just for themselves, but teach and run their entire organizations through all of the advantages that technology have to offer. And by the way, we should be leading that. HR should be doing it. Uh Sherm believes that very strongly. So let's absolutely be out there learning this. We're as good to learn it as anybody else and can see the applications of it for the entire workforce more easily than others.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

And it's one of those things when we talk about AI, even the conversation about AI is almost becoming a buzzword because that's what everybody's kind of harping on right now. But when you see how HR departments are utilizing, whether you're talking about generative AI or anything else, where those companies are actually doing well. They're they're actually realizing some of the efficiencies, they're getting some level of ROI versus some that have completely missed the boat.

Practical AI Uses For HR

SPEAKER_01 6:24

How have you seen HR practitioners really leverage the power of AI?

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Mostly in what we call augmentation, right? So they're learning ways to uh utilize AI either through agents or just inquiry or through prompt engineering. That prompt engineering, those are fancy words for asking. Yes, fancy. For asking the right questions, right? So learning how to get more out of the technology because of the way you prompt it or ask it uh for responses. So there's all kinds of capability there for human resources leaders, whether it's in analytics, outcomes, predictive trends, looking at your own data, which you should do very privately, by the way, and very carefully, uh, you know, to see things that you hadn't seen before. Uh I can't tell you the last time I wrote a job description because I use AI. Now I edit it, right? But I utilize those job descriptions. Um I the for me, I use a lot for a lot of script writing and narrative writing, right? Whenever I'm in front of audiences and saying things like that. So it's great for first drafts, it's not good for final drafts. But you can ask the AI to help you prepare something to talk about AI, and then you can tell it says, hey, make this sound like it came from Jim Link, the C H R O. And I see words that I use normally start to pop into the lexicon of the narrative because it's there. But there's all that to say, uh, Tisani, there's all kinds of capability out there that AI can can utilize. You just have to get in there and play with it and learn how to do it. Build you a bot, you know, build you an agent. Doesn't that sound fancy? But you can do that very simply. Um, you know, we have uh an agent now that that is our first response for benefits questions for our internal employees at Cherm. Right?

SPEAKER_01 7:59

So there's all kinds of capability there. You just got to get in there and learn it. So, yeah, there was a lot of fancy in there. It's so fancy. I'm gonna like stick out my pinky when I drink my water, my coffee here. I'm gonna handle it. But but you're absolutely right. And I will tell you how I how I personally use AI. Um, I use it as a sounding board. So ChatGPT, Claude, all these different generative uh uh tools, they have a voice feature. And there are times I'm thinking of a problem that I need to solve or an email or a situation that I know once I get to the office I have to deal with. And there are times I will actually reach out to Claude. I'll start the, you know, I'm driving, so I'll use the Bluetooth feature and I'm just speaking to it. It's almost like a phone conversation. And I will start off by saying, Claude, I have to have a difficult conversation with a leader. It deals with, and I'll keep it very sanitized and I'll, you know, high level, because you got to be careful what you put out there in the ethosphere. Um, but I'll uh and I will walk through the problem. And by the time I get to the parking garage, I kind of have a flushed out idea of what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it. It'll create a bit of an email that I have to draft for maybe for the meeting invite. Um, but it's really great because you you've actually worked out a few problems. Be careful with what you put out there. Sanitize it, don't use names, be very general about the conversation, and it will still give you some great solutions.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

I agree. And hypotheticals work, right? In in in AI. So you can, and by the way, the other way to do that is to do that in in incognito mode, right? Where you're not getting that out there into the broader world, at least that's what I've been told. I I think the other thing too to think about is this interplay that you're describing, this back and forth between an artificial intelligent bot or inquiry that you're doing and legitimate questions that you have. What I like is the refinement that, you know, so if something comes back and it's not exactly like you want it to be or thing, you can ask for a different version of it or a different layer or what have you. And this back and forth works for how do you coach other people? How do, as you mentioned, how do you have a difficult conversation, how do you convince someone to do something, right? So even that skill of persuasion and conviction is something now that we're seeing it come across or as an output from artificial intelligence that's better than it was just six months ago. Right. So more and more of this is going to happen. And as we give it feedback around what's happening that that's successful, it gets smarter, right? It's a large language model, so it learns. Just you like only put the things out there that you're willing to have out there in the broader ethosphere.

Winning With Skills Based Talent

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Switching gears back to what we were talking about earlier about the war on talents, you have the opportunity to talk to leaders around the world, around the country, Fortune 500, small mom and pop shops, all across the spectrum. And when you look at the organizations, Jim, that are actually winning in the talent game right now, not just surviving it, but actually winning it, what are they doing differently than everybody else?

SPEAKER_02 10:54

I think it goes to skills. And what I think they've done is they've moved away from traditional job descriptions, traditional um uh postings whenever they're looking for new talent in their organization, and they've gone to a skill-based model. So think of it as skill mapping, skill competencies, skill capabilities. They've really moved to an idea of what is the skill that I really, really need to have in order to be successful for the future. A job description is really good at telling you what the components of the job might be. A skill-based map is very good about telling you how the person is going to need to perform in that job to be successful. Huge difference, right? Big, big, big difference. So I see organizations not only utilizing the skill mapping and the skill competency idea for people that are coming in the organization, I actually see them using it more and more inside for those of us who are already here. So if you have a skill map, if you actually understand what makes people successful for performance in that job, not just today, but what it's going to be tomorrow, that's the differentiator, and that's what I'm seeing is making people successful.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Follow-up question to that. So you may have seen my post I did on LinkedIn last week. It was talking about um stop chasing talent and start attracting it. Oh, yeah. In today's workforce, and the, you know, we people want to talk about generational differences. How does a company even do that? How do they try, how do they become the employer of choice from a talent perspective, especially when budgets and PLs are tight?

Culture And Reputation That Attract

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yeah, it's tied in my mind to culture and brand reputation. Let's start with those two. I believe that the best organizations today are still bringing in skilled talent into their workplaces and they're making them better, smarter, quicker, faster. So they're giving them all of this capability and skill to do their jobs better. Now, what does that mean? That means that, you know, whether you're working in um, you know, blue-collar roles or whether you're working in office roles, whatever it is, you are giving folks the opportunity to be successful by what they know. And what they know is skill. So that that connection there empowers people, gives them strength, gives them durability, gives them capability in an organization. And that within itself is engaging and rewarding. So those organizations who are very good at that have what I believe is called a great sense of cultural clarity. They know who they are, they know what makes them successful, they know how they make money, and there's a great connection between what an employee does every day, whatever that is, wherever it is, and how that business then succeeds. That's hugely important. For those of you who don't have that connectivity through cultural clarity or otherwise, you ought to figure out how to build it. And there are ways to do it by figuring out what's really important in that organization, um, uh identifying it, writing it down, making it part of your mission, vision, values, purpose, part of your mission uh driven initiatives, and hire fire and reward based on those principles. That's that's how it works. Easily said, admittedly, but it's a ton of work. But we're we're HRP practitioners, so it's what we should be good at.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

This this is what we do. You go back to your point about change management.

Retention Starts Before Resignation

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Let's talk more about a topic that most HR people spend so many countless hours dealing with, and that is the topic of retention. Here's something I hear constantly from employees, and I mean the real people, the frontline people who are actually doing the work. They raise their hand for promotion, they ask for a stretch assignment, they signal that they want to grow, all those things that we as leaders say we want people to do, and then nothing happens. Then they find an opportunity outside the company and they resign. All of a sudden, everything's on the table. Counteroffers, title changes, the flexibility they never had, the choice projects. Why on God's green earth do organizations wait until they exit to invest in their people who are still in the building? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

It's I think the answer is supposed to be they're out of their ever-loving mind, right? That's that's you know, the best organizations are doing all those things that you described well before it gets to the point of an employee walking out the door. As a matter of fact, if you do those things very well, you will at least slow down them from walking out the door. You won't completely stop it, right? Because there, there are always going to be people who believe that that grass is greener, right? On the other side, you just you won't be able to uh manage against that. But you can make it incredibly difficult for people to leave. And the way you make it incredibly difficult for people to leave is you give them a great experience. And that experience is often starting with you, the human being that they they work for or work with are supervised by. That is that relationship that exists between employee and employer in the form of a frontline or next level supervisor or manager is we know this from the studies, the most important relationship that you can have in the organization. The second most important relationship that you can have is the relationship that a person has with their work. They need to actually enjoy what they're doing, they need to be good at it, they need to feel like they're performing well, uh, and they need to be told that. So that interaction and that dialogue is also very, very important. And the third thing I believe that makes an employee a little more sticky in an organization is that they can see themselves there, maybe doing the same thing, maybe doing something different in the next two to three years. It used to be five to ten years. Now it's two to three years. And for some of our younger generation of folks, that it may even be a little bit long. But you know, when you s when you look at the average tenure in organizations today, across, you know, across all industries, across everything, it's just it's right at two years. So that two-year number, uh all managers and leaders and organizations who are preparing for this need to expect to experience turnover in roughly two years from every position. The way you slow that down is you make it hard for people to leave.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

You know, I've talked to a lot of people over time, and you know, in terms of like their own job, their job progress, their tenure. And it's real interesting. Almost every talented person that you know gets poached, right? They, or a recruiter or a headhunter reaches out to them, and they talk about, hey, we got this great opportunity. And employers and managers, sometimes we sometimes dilute ourselves to believe that those conversations are not happening. And what's really interesting, there's some data by Harvard Business Journal that came out a couple of years ago, and they talked about how employees who who are able to have career conversations with their manager about what's next, what's next in my career, are less likely to leave, even if they get offered more money because they understand where they're going and where people tend to leave for another dollar an hour or whatever the that perk is, is when they no longer feel connected with that greater purpose, or they feel like they're being, you know, taken for granted, or they feel like they're not having a clear conversation about what's next. When I give you that data, Jim, you do you do you say malarkey or do you agree with that? What are you what are your feelings?

SPEAKER_02 17:48

I tend to agree with you. I I do think that money, particularly if you're already in an organization, money is not usually the primary motivator for a personal league. Not usually. Now, sometimes it is, but generally speaking, it's not. It's those three things we talked about earlier. It's that relationship they have with you, it's the ability to see what might you know come somewhere down the road, and it's feeling like they're valued, appreciated, and and can perform in the role that they're in today. Those things make it make you sticky in an organization. And by the way, all those things that I just described for you cost you as the manager nothing. Zero. That is right. Big old goose. So, you know, when we when we think about these things, you don't have to go to someone and throw more money at them, even though that's you know, something you can do, certainly. But it's often not the first thing that's on an employee's mind whenever they're thinking about looking outside an organization.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

You know what's really funny, Jim, is the fact that I've, again, you know, you and I both have worked with managers uh, you know, for 20, 30 years longer than I would love to care to say. But um it's funny as much as we try to safeguard the PL and we safeguard the budget, when there is an issue or retention problem, it's amazing that despite how much we try to safeguard those dollars, managers find it easier to throw money at a problem than it is to sit down and have a genuine career conversation about what it is they want to do. And I find that interesting because again, you work with operations leaders, it is about the bottom line, and it it has to be. But then a person leaves and or a person resigns or a person's frustrated and they say, okay, let's give them an extra $10,000 a year. And I'm like, did he ask for more money? Or did he ask for clarity?

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Yeah, and you know, the money's often used as a substitution for for communication and clarity. You're you're 100% right. Those leaders and managers at all levels, right? Whether they're on an operating floor or whether they're in a corporate tower somewhere, find it easier to throw right the the money than they do, in many cases, than they do and have the clarifying conversation. Well, that's just a fact, right? I mean, you described that perfectly well. I don't know that we're ever going to get over that. Now, remember we were talking about AI in a session ago. We were talking about how that you can utilize AI. Prompt in. You know, how how can I talk to a dissatisfied employee? Right? Just ask the question and then ask another layer and another layer and another layer to get more clarity around that. I've I've not yet seen AI provide terrible advice. Now it needs to be fine-tuned and reviewed by you. But you know, it's it's no longer an acceptable excuse that you can't or don't want to have those conversations because I first of all, there's all kinds of coaching from people like me and you who do this for a living. And there's also coaching that's available now from technology that's a few keystrokes away. No excuse, leaders and managers. You don't have an excuse anymore not to do this.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Well, and and the biggest excuse I see is, well, I'm too busy. And I'm like, really? Are you you're too busy to have a career conversation to retain your employees, or are you too busy to have to recruit later on when that person leaves? Right? It's it's it's a weird, it's a weird dynamic in terms of that, trying to convince leaders that it's easier to try to retain your talent than try to replicate that that talent if that person leaves. And leaders, I don't know, it's an interesting thing because I know some leaders who are really good at it. There's some leaders who are really good about having those career conversations and being intentional about though that dialogue. But then there's others who avoid it like the plague, and I call it lack of managerial courage to have those conversations.

Manager Courage And Human Connection

SPEAKER_01 21:10

When I talk about performance management or I talk about retention, I try, I paint the picture of it's like taking care of your yard. If you do it every week, it's not a big deal. But if you go on vacation and you don't manage it, you look back in three to six months and you're gonna have a mess on your hands. And it's in leaders who say, I don't have the time, I'm busy. Again, I'm with you. I I call I'll call BS on that. And I get it. We're all, you know, sometimes we become slaves to our inbox and we're so busy firefighting. But you, but as a manager of people, there are sometimes, there are some days that I even don't, I don't even get to my inbox because I have so many team issues. Because there's no way I can be successful in my role if my team is not successful. And how do I know what success looks like and how do I communicate what good looks like? It requires consistent communications because in this agile workforce or agile business, Business environment that we're in, sometimes the goalposts move and what good looks like changes. And it is up to me as the leader to consistently communicate what that looks like. I'm not always perfect at it. I try, but there are some leaders who don't even engage in that arena.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Nothing I have ever experienced in any business environment in which I've ever worked over a very long career would suggest that the people quotient of running a business is static. Nothing else is static. Why would the people component of it be static? So you're right. You have to massage it, you have to fine-tune it, you have to clip the weeds, right? I mean, whatever. Pick your metaphor, right? You but but it requires maintenance and care. And that is that's the nature of business, that's the nature of the folks who work in that business. And I actually view you're shirking your responsibilities if you're not involved in maintenance mode to some degree. The best leaders and managers out there are not overly supervising their employees, they're engaging in dialogue with them about what's happening on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, whatever the rhythm is for that. And those are trustworthy. Um they don't even have to be deep, but they but they just have to show interest and some command of the knowledge that you are appreciating what that person is doing. And you can reflect that by asking a simple question, by knowing one fact about every person who works with you, which is something I always encourage managers to just know one fact. And you can come back to that fact every time. If you're working the factory floor and you know that the son or daughter of that particular employee plays baseball or softball, you can ask how the game was over the weekend, or if they had a game over the weekend, or you know, what position they play on the team. I mean, there's there's 500 versions of that. And if you can't think of one, ask AI what you would ask for the baseball playing employee, right? So there are ways, right, that we can do this by simply returning to our roots of being human, right? With social activity, with dialogue, with connection, those things still matter for us. The pandemic made them worse because we were all separated. And now we need to come back together in such a way to rediscover our manageri and um and care. And you know, you know, you know what I call that?

SPEAKER_01 24:15

You know, you know what I call that, Jim? Management by walking around? No, yeah. I call I call that I call that giving the damn. Well, that works too. Right? But you but you do, you you and look, and and I again I I give managers a hard time because I come from the philosophy that to whom much is given, much is expected. So I do, I do have a high expectation for those of us who are in leadership. But I understand from a leader's perspective, right? They may not be the best communicator. They may be nervous to have a conversation, they may have a really aggressive employee who they just don't want to have potential conflict with. And what I'd love to say to leaders is like, look, you are the manager, you have been entrusted, and uh, we ought to put this in a gold plaque, the company's most valuable asset, right? You have been in charge of of stewarding that. And you're if you don't, the conversations that you don't have are the conversation that are going to come back and bite you in the butt later because they don't go away with time. They only get worse. And I just I just charge leaders, say, listen, if you don't, if that if you're not happy, uh if you're not comfortable having those conversations, Jim threw out a couple of great anecdotes. Talk to your HR person, go to Chad GPT, you know, again, don't go verbatim, but get some advice. Uh go to, you know, talk to talk to any other leaders. But there are people who do it well, but ignoring the problem should never be an option. Ignoring retention, uh retention uh duties should not be an option. And not having continuous career discussions, not every week, not every other day, but at least once a quarter should not be an option.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

I remember, do you you probably remember this too? I mean, back back earlier in my career when I was a younger manager and leader, I I can think of two or three times I made mistakes in this space, right? Where I didn't give someone the time and attention that I should have, where that I made assumptions that turned out not to be true, uh, where I mean I really those were some humdingers, right? Mistakes that I made. And I I think I haven't forgotten those. I try to not repeat them. And that I'm far from perfect in that space. But I've done more good than I have bad in the world, you know, relating related to those things. I'm absolutely sure of that. But you know, I also have learned from I understand those managers because in a couple of those circumstances, if I would have been braver or smarter, quicker or faster, I I would have made a better decision. And you know what, I haven't forgotten that ever.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Absolutely. Listen, I I you can write you can write a novel about the number of mistakes I've made in that uh space. But I will tell you, employees do appreciate the attempt. The employees do appreciate when you have those conversations. And again, leaders, if you don't do it for any other reason, remember that when those recruiters come a knocking, when that competitor comes a knocking and and they start off throwing money, there are a lot of employees that will sacrifice immediate financial gain for an organization that says, hey, they have a plan for me. Hey, there's a career path, there's a there's a progression. Um, and that means more to me than another two or three hundred bucks on my paycheck. Um, so just remember that from a retention standpoint. And so, leaders, you know, and you're listening to this, if you feel a little bit called out in the last few minutes, that's actually kind of good because that means you're paying attention. You know, the the retention crisis is not a mystery, the data's not hidden, the answers are not complicated. The hard part is the willingness to actually change. And Jim, you've given the audience something to really work with today. So, Jim, I kind of want to be direct with you, right?

Succession Planning Beyond Spreadsheets

SPEAKER_01 27:56

So, in my opinion, most succession planning in organizations is kind of theater, right? There's a spreadsheet, there's a non-box grid, their names in boxes, and then someone actually leaves. Something, someone retires, uh, a VP gets promoted or recruited away, and the organization panics. And no one refers to all of those different, no one refers to those spreadsheets because the bench wasn't ever really ready. It was just documented. Why, in your opinion, is succession planning one of the most discussed and least executed strategies in the entire uh uh talent space? I it's for all the reasons that you just described, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:35

It's whenever it's a cap, usually it's a capture of a moment uh whenever you build a succession plan. Now, the problem with this is a little bit in the language that we're using. We should always be preparing for what's next. And the way that we've thought about succession planning is that it's indeed this thing that you do. It's an exercise where you officially consider who's ready to go into what position next and who should move where and what the backup plan should be and all those kinds of things. And whenever it actually comes to reality, when someone walks out the door or or retires or what have you, everybody's hair's on fire running for the excess, right? Um it shouldn't be like that. Succession is a discussion that to me is part of the natural development process that it should occur. Whenever you're having normal development discussions, the way we capture it in the succession plan, which is in this three-ring binder that you put on a shelf, that's the wrong part of this. The idea of succession itself is still robust and valid in organizations and done well, it can be quite successful.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

That's that's that's that's really, really powerful in terms of just just keeping those things in the forefront to try to drive those results when it comes to succession planning. And in in organizations, you know, I think where we where we sometimes fall off is we get so busy with the day-to-day. We get so busy managing the business that we forget part of the business is managing the people and building that bench and building that strength and looking at the people who are gonna retire and start playing golf full time and try to get all that institutional knowledge out of their brains because when they finally retire and Mama Bear says, Okay, I've been patient. I need you at home. Um, you got to come a callin', right? You got to go home. And and and leaders, you know, leaders have to be prepared for that. Um, when you see, when you have discussions with leaders and you talk about this topic, what is the sense that you get that leaders are really prepared to build that the depth of bench strength that today's workforce truly needs?

SPEAKER_02 30:36

I think some leaders are quite good at it. Um some of them are it's part of their DNA, right? They they they know they have to have this bench, to use your word, in order to continue to be successful in their organization. The ones I like are not only those who are building benches within their own purview, but they actually are keeping an eye on talent that's throughout the organization inside the company. So, you know, somebody that's great in finance or somebody that's sitting in the engineering department is particularly good, has the leadership potential, et cetera, et cetera. And they're paying attention to those folks that they know outside. Right. So they're building an internal bench, they're building an uh an external bench, and they understand the value of bringing people, you know, into these roles. I that to me, that's that's vital important. But let's let's talk about a place where that this can go all wrong. Right. So, so just just real quickly, have you ever been involved in a succession discussion where you sit down with the employee and the this the discussion goes something like this? So, Sally, um, I understand that you spent three years uh as a manager and leader in your former organization. Uh are you interested in doing leadership work here at our company? Is this something that you that you would like to do? The employee freezes, looks like a deer in a headlight, right? They're scared to death that to answer the question. So you sense this as an HR leader. You're like, okay, uh so Sally, what should I know that you don't, you know, you want to tell me? You know, so a lot of times there's tears, there's gnashing of teeth, right? There's all these other kinds of things when these discussions go poorly. What you really learn and you get into the nitty-gritty and talking with these folks is they had a horrible experience as a leader and manager. They didn't like that. They want to be an individual contributor. They don't like the expectation that a new company might have that they even turn out to be a leader. So there's all kinds of things that can go wrong with these discussions, and you need to be prepared for that. Some of the best discussions I've ever had have been about the future of an employee in the organization, and some of the worst discussions I've ever had have been about that that exact same topic. And the mistake I made as a leader was that I assumed that I knew what that person wanted before I asked. And I and I think 15 years ago, I finally stopped, I finally realized what I was doing wrong and started asking a whole different series of questions to get into what a person really wants to do. And oftentimes, just honey, I'm actually surprised by what people want to actually want to.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Right. And you know what's really interesting is there's this phenomena that when we go, when companies actually go and do the work, right? They go through and they do the talent assessments, they do the nine box, however, however you frame it up, um and they do all

Transparency Around Potential And Progress

SPEAKER_01 33:12

these things. But then we treat that information like it's a secret. So we've sat down, I'm your manager, Jim, and I have said, hey, Jim is my successor, um, or Jim is gonna be next in line for this sales director role. Um I tell everybody except Jim. Yeah. And and we keep it a secret because we're like, oh, well, I don't want to tell them that because then they're gonna start having expectations. And my response to this is they should. They should have expectations about being grown uh and developed. They should have expectations about career progress, where we as leaders need to continue to step up is kind of guardrailing that conversation um and making sure we're following it up so that we don't let people start making assist uh making uh assumptions. But I think one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is that they keep the high potential list um a secret. Um, and then you find out, well, you're next in line for this role in Seattle, and they're like, uh, my wife has a very successful lawyer practice. I can't move to Seattle, and now your entire success and succession plan is shot um because you never bother to have that conversation. What is your thought about that scenario?

SPEAKER_02 34:22

You know, this has been a raging debate in the human resources world for a long time, which is who do you tell when and how much do you tell them? Uh and there so I've asked organizations about this, right? It's been one of those constant sources of inquiry I do with how you manage or handle something. And what I find is that the majority of organizations today, now this is different than it was uh, you know, 10 years ago. The majority of organizations today, if you're a successor, right, if you show up on that proverbial list, they tell you, right? Or they they engage with you uh in that discussion. But then but that's only a few folks. What I worry about are all those other employees who don't show up on a succession list and they don't know that, right? Or they're they're they're they're never told whether they're a successor or you particularly if you rank employees, right? So you have your best bets, you have your rising stars, you have your steady eddies, and then you you have those, you know, the first opportunity when the door opens, I'll kick them out, right? You kind of have all these categories uh of people. I I think that to a point, uh you should absolutely engage with people who are usually in the upper right-hand quadrants, right, of the way most of these are laid out. When you typify that people that way, I think you should actually share that. I actually believe you should also share with the steady eddies that you value them, you appreciate them, you need them for your business to be successful, and they play a very important role uh in the organization. Most of the time, those steady eddies don't want to be something that they're not. And if they do, you can actually um craft a way for them to get better, not just at what they do, but perhaps for what they aspire to do.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

And you hit the nail right on the head, Jim. It's really about regardless of where that person falls, having a discussion and having a conversation. Because when you look at when you do the whole uh when you when you do the whole graph um and you talk about okay, who how many of your employees are gonna be high potentials and how many will be the steady eddy, um the bell curve, you know, most in most organizations, 70 to 80% of your employees are gonna be the steady eddies. Um, you know, the the reason there's a reason why the cream, you know, the the creme de la creme, you know, they are at the top. It's like the top 10%. And I think it's important that you don't just have those conversations with the high potentials, but you do have that conversation. So then I know that some leaders who are listening to this will say, Jasani, that sounds great because you're an HR and this is you guys live this, but when in the world do I have time to have those discussions? And what I challenge leaders to think about is, again, the lawn example I used in the previous episode. If you do it consistently, it's not a big deal. If you have, if let's say you have a group of, let's let's say somebody has a group of 10 people. Now, studies show, first off, if you're managed, you have 10 direct reports, that's a little bit higher than you should, because your ability to really impact those many, that many people diminishes after you get about seven diminishing returns. But let's say you got 10 people. Honestly, what we're saying, or what I'm saying, is once a quarter, everybody should have at least one conversation. Now, the first one will be long because especially if you hadn't done it in a while. But afterwards, they're just checkups, they're check-ins, and you're talking 30 minutes. So now you're talking five hours in one quarter. Yeah. Not we sp we spend that at the coffee machine. Wait, do you because I work hard. Now I don't know both.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Hey, just hell, here's here's one for you.

When High Potentials Struggle

SPEAKER_02 37:45

How do you think that you should have a conversation with somebody who falls out of favor, right? Or falls off of a previously high successful or high potential, whatever language works, right, in in your respective organization. Somebody who's in that upper right hand quadrant of and they they get promoted, they go into a new job and they bomb, right? I mean, they're not they're not prepared. They you you've miscalculated, you've set an expectation that that person was going to be the next whatever, whatever. How do you have that conversation with them?

SPEAKER_01 38:15

I'll be honest, it really depends on the scenario that we're talking about because that fall from grace can happen for a multitude of reasons. And let's just be honest, right? Some of those falls are recoverable with time, some aren't. And you'll just have a label. And are you willing to put in the time and the effort to try to change that label regardless of what that is? Um, and I will tell people, I've actually encouraged someone that not in my, you know, not in my organization, but I had someone give me a similar scenario a few years back. And I encouraged her, you probably need to find another another place. And it took her back. And I said, she said, well, why? I've I've invested all this time in this company. I said, here's the thing time is the one commodity they're not making more of. And you have to invest your time wisely. Are you willing to put, you've been at this company for seven years, are you willing to put another five in at the hopes that you can pull yourself out of this? Or do you just start say, hey, I learned some things and I'm gonna make sure I don't repeat that and I'm gonna move to another organization. And each individual has to figure that out for themselves. But you but you you remember though, we only got so many days on this earth, and you know, and you only need to invest so much in so many things. So it really comes down to if they've fallen for grace and there's really a learning thing, and organization and leadership recognizes that maybe we didn't set them up for success because of training or whatever, then it's really important for the company then to reinvest in them to make sure that next time an opportunity opens up, they'll be successful. But if it's one of those, if it's one of those where, you know, Wiley Coyote, that you fell off the cliff and there ain't no coming back. Um sometimes you got to have that hard conversation with those folks and just say, let's talk about how we can set you up for success, maybe at another organization.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Yeah. Those have been some of the most difficult, heart-wrenching discussions I've ever had in my career, right? Where people wanted to do X, Y, or Z and they just it either didn't work or they didn't have the capability to do it, or something happened. That I mean, that's just heart-wrenching, right? To for somebody to come to that realization in front of you. Right. Absolutely. That's verifying that. Right? That's our job is to help navigate through.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

That is what that's that is that is, and that is those are those are very challenging situations because you know, uh, again, people who fall into that scenario you just described, you know, one day at one point they were the golden boy, the golden girl, right? They were the, they were the, you know, they were the talk of the town. Um, and it and not everybody has the and the emotional intelligence and maturity to recover from that. That's true. Um, because it there it can be embarrassing. It could be there's a lot of things that go into that. Um, but I will tell you though, I I've seen, but I've been very fortunate that most people that I've seen that have that temporary uh misstep do eventually recover, um, do eventually learn from those mistakes, they buy their time. Um, but the organization, you have to have good HR people to make sure that those folks aren't forgotten about. That's right. And and do that. We call that space for grace. Space for grace. Like that. I like that. I I'm I'm hopefully that's not that's not uh trademark because I'm well it's not mine.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

I can't remember where I heard it, but it um I it pops into my mind often. I'm gonna use it, whoever wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Okay, appreciate it. I appreciate that.

SHRM Talent Conference In Dallas

SPEAKER_01 41:35

So I want to bring up Dallas. And people are like, Well, what what are we talking about Dallas for? Um so next month, um, Sherm was holding its annual talent conference in Dallas. Now, for folks who know me and watch my channel, they're gonna be like, What? You're going to Dallas, a Houston uh Texan fan? Yes, I'm gonna go deep into enemy territory because this is important enough to do so. Um again, sit you know, you guys, you you Cowboys fans know where to send your hate mail. Bring it on. Um But I think it's really important because I want to talk about it really quickly because again, the conversation about talent is something that needs to happen. And we as HR professionals need a space that we can talk to different practitioners, talk to people who do it well, and also talk to others where it has not gone well to give us a little bit of sanity to say, hey, it's not just my company that that's challenged with this. Um, and I'm really, really excited because there's a great lineup. But for those folks who are on the fence right now about like, I don't know, I don't know, it's another, oh, it's another conference, and I'm so busy. What if people decide not to come, what do you think they're going to miss by not being in the room for these conversations?

SPEAKER_02 42:52

I think it's the latest thinking around all things talent from identification of talent, you know, related to your brand and how you draw people in, all the way through to how you offboard effectively and everything in between. The the talent, the people who show up at at Sherm Talent, which you're right, this year's in Grapevine, Texas, just north of that airport there at at DFW, uh at that Gaylord, uh big Gaylord property. Um that, and by the way, it's April 19th through the 22nd, um, with the 20th being the kickoff day. So those things that really matter in the management of people uh and the management of talent will be discussed there with a special emphasis on the role of technology in in all of that today, secondarily around talent development, because we we actually aren't spending enough time talking about how you actually develop people. And the biggest thing uh that we're going to discuss is how you address the skill shortage that's going on out there in our world right now. We all feel it, we all know it. Um, how you address that and how you can build a more actually a more effective organization if you focus on skills. Folks, check out the the shirt.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

The Sherm page or Sherm site, they have uh the talent 26 2026 uh page up, and you take out take a look at the list of folks who are going to be at this conference, and it's gonna be some great conversations. I'm really excited. There's a few folks that I can't wait to maybe I can buy them a cup of coffee and pick their brains. Because again, for those of us who are in those rooms with leaders, the conversation about talent is real, and all it takes is one idea, one concept that will happen at these conferences, and you can actually solve real-world, real-time problems within your organization. Because guess what? We're all figuring this thing out. The world of work is continuously changing and evolving. And we as practitioners who have a merit badge in change management, or at least we should, we should be upfront leading that change. So I'm I can't wait for it. Um, believe it or not, I actually get to spend some time with Jim. Um, he has not gotten sick of me yet, which is crazy. Um But he, you and I are gonna, you and I and a few other great HR leaders are gonna kick off the the conference, aren't we?

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Yeah, we uh we are the opening keynote panel. Uh I'll be moderating that. So, and I like to moderate interesting panels, so um exciting folks. Uh, we have the head of HR for Omni Hotels, uh, who has a great story to talk about the impact of immigration on their work uh coming up, particularly this summer. Um, and we have the uh CHRO of Kirig, Dr. Pepper, along with you uh and me on on that stage to kick off. We've uh got a great series of questions, which we've already fired off to you all to take a peek at. And uh I can't wait to uh to see how all this comes together on April 20th.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Oh, it's so funny. I had a have a buddy of mine, he's in HR. He saw the Sherb advertisement and he says, Oh wow, the head head of HR for Omni. Well, the head of HR for Curie Dr. Pepper, Jasani, huh? How many how many people got sick? For you to come up in the queue. I said, shut up. That's how many?

SPEAKER_02 46:03

Wow, that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Uh, but no, I'm looking forward to the conversation. I can't wait to uh be on stage with you to kick this thing off because it's an important conversation. Last question for you.

Advice For Undervalued HR Pros

SPEAKER_01 46:13

So an HR professional who is listening to this right now, they're sitting in their car, they're sitting at their desk, they're listening to this, and they're frustrated, they feel undervalued, they're trying to do the work, they're showing up every single day. But as an HR professional, they feel like they're not being heard. As the CHR for Sherm, what if you were sitting in front of that person, what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_02 46:35

I first make for sure that they were taking good care of themselves. Right. I mean that physically, mentally, emotionally. Um all things that are important. I would I would try and dig into that to make for sure that they were checking in with with with themselves. That's number one. Number two was would be I would just say, hey, look, how can I help? Right. Just having a friend, someone, I mean that's the title of this podcast, right? Friend NHR. So just having someone that you can connect with to just understand and shoot the breeze, right? Just understand what's going on and how you can do that. It's is good medicine for good folks, right? That's what I'm saying. And I think I think the third thing too is if there's something that you can help with that's tactical, right? If it's a a skill gap or a skill deficiency or how you do something or whatever, there's a wealth of resources that are out there, including the organization I work for, Sherm.org, uh, you know, where you can go and get that kind of helps. I check on their well-being, you know, check on on their relationships with others, right? The connectivity with others in a network, and then making sure they know where to go to get further help and knowledge and information.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

That's what I would like. Let me tell you guys something. And let me tell you what's magical about Jim's response. He could have taken it a bunch of different ways. He could have talked about, you know, what is your own career progression and all these, but he started off with wellness. He started off with how they are, you know, in terms of mental health. And that's just, you know, and that that's that's compassion. And for someone at Jim's level to to immediately take the solution to that speaks volumes. And and I I think that's something that we as HR people do not do enough of, which is take care of ourselves, our mental well-being, and our health well-being. So thank you so much uh for that response, Jim. You're welcome.

Closing Thoughts And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 48:16

And there it is, folks. Jim, I want to thank you uh for for this conversation. Not just this conversation, but the conversation we had this morning, folks. If you want to check that discussion out, it's out there on LinkedIn. It'll be on my YouTube channel. But Jim, I want to thank you not just for today, but for everything that you do for this profession. And to everyone who listened to this episode, whether you caught the whole thing or just one of these segments, I want to thank you as well. Sharing this with one person in your network who needs to hear it is the greatest thing you can do for this community. I'm gonna have the link to register for the uh for the Sherm Talent 2026 conference in Dallas in the show notes. Um, and so make sure you're in the room because you're not gonna want to miss these great conversations. And look, guys, as you all know, as you know, if you want to connect with me, you can follow me on LinkedIn under Josani Courtney. You can check out my video content over on the My Friend and HR uh YouTube channel. Thank you guys for more than 8,000 subscribers in just a few months. So I thank you guys so much for it for that uh for the attention. I'll keep doing it as long as you like it. Um, but uh you can also follow me on Instagram uh at myfriend and hr um or as I like to call it, HR After Dark. We talk about some really funny things and sometimes we make fun of ourselves in the HR professions, but you don't want to miss any of our content. And if you have a question you'd like me to answer on the podcast, feel free to send me an email at myfriendandhr at gmail.com. And folks, I want to leave you as I always do, because I mean it every single time. Be well. Not just to each other, but to yourselves as well. You cannot pour from an empty cup, and you deserve to be full too. And remember that your job is meant to support your life, your life isn't meant to support your job. I'm Josani Courtney. This is my friend in HR. Until next.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Please note that the policies of your company and laws in your country may vary. Also, the views expressed by the host or his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of any other company or entity.