Biotech Bytes: Conversations with Biotechnology / Pharmaceutical IT Leaders

The Human Side Of Human Resources | Traci Chernoff On Fixing HR, AI & Candidate Experience

• Steve Swan • Episode 35

Share episode

HR isn’t just about policies, metrics, or compliance, it’s about people. When that gets lost, the whole system starts to crack.

In this episode, I talk with Traci Chernoff, host of Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources podcast and Director of Employee Engagement at Legion Technologies. She’s spent over a decade shaping how HR impacts not just hiring but retention, morale, and long-term business strategy. 

We get into the reality of mis-hires, the true cost of poor candidate experience, and how companies sometimes lose their way chasing the wrong metrics. And, we talk about how AI fits into all of this without replacing what matters most: the human connection.

This one’s packed with thoughtful takes and real-world insights from someone who’s lived every side of HR. Give it a listen, especially if you're hiring, building teams, or just trying to understand the real role HR plays.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

  • The long-term impact of candidate experience on employee retention
  • Where HR metrics go wrong and how to actually use them
  • Why AI should enhance, not replace, human roles in recruiting

Links from this episode:

𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬.
https://www.youtube.com/@Biotech_Bytes/?sub_confirmation=1 

🔗 Stay Connected With Us.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-swan-group/ 
Website:  https://swangroup.net/   

=============================

🎬Suggested videos for you:

▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF7iwNZiIis 
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQN6X206A94 
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWXIIe66-kI 
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqpB3pGywkU 
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9QyuG6p3Ys

=============================

#humanresources #candidateexperience #employeeengagement #hrmetrics #tracichernoff #recruitmentstrategy

Steve Swan [00:00:00]:
Join me for a great conversation with Traci Chernoff, bringing the human Back into human resources. We chat about AI, we chat about metrics in hr, and we talk about metrics as they pertain to AI. Hope you enjoy it. Hello. Welcome to Biotech Bytes. I'm your host, Steve Swan. And today I had the pleasure of speaking with Tracy Charnoff, who hosts and owns the podcast Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources. Thank you for joining us.

 Traci Chernoff [00:00:31]:
Thanks for having me.

Steve Swan [00:00:33]:
And so what I want to do today, what I usually do, is our podcast talks about. Talks usually with IT leaders within Biotech, but we're so tied to human resources and such with what we do. You know, as executive recruiters, I really, really enjoyed our conversation and enjoy what you do. So I, I kind of want to dive into that a little bit. I think that my audience and a lot of the folks that pay attention to what we do would enjoy your angle and your thoughts about these things. So that's really what I'm talking about.

 Traci Chernoff [00:01:05]:
Yeah, no, I really appreciate the opportunity. I mean, it's interesting because when I think about HR and when I think about recruiting, of course, you know, it's all so connected, but the way that I try to look at HR and our purpose in terms of, you know, what role we play in business and, and for organizations, it's relevant for all parts of an organization, whether it's recruiting, whether it's sales. I mean, you know, if we think about what it means to be a successful, in my opinion, what it means to be a successful HR partner or HR professional, it should be someone, again, my opinion, who is helpful, supportive, looking to help solve problems, strategic, and can really help to scale businesses. And that's so relevant across every industry, across every department. Again, within an organization, especially with recruiting. I mean, I always say that someone's experience in a company starts with their first interaction with that company. And that's most of the time with a recruiter or someone on the recruiting side.

Steve Swan [00:02:14]:
External. Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:02:15]:
Yeah, yeah. And it matters. It matters. When someone has a great recruiting experience or a great candidate experience. It sets them up. I almost want to say that they have an advantage starting in a company because then it's like they have all of these positive experiences that they're bringing with them going into a company, a new company, which can be pretty terrifying to start somewhere new. And, you know, and they're going into this new experience and, you know, they have all of these things that worked really well. Maybe the interview process was seamless, maybe getting the salary that they Wanted was seamless.

 Traci Chernoff [00:02:47]:
Maybe the conversations were great, whatever it might be. Maybe it was all of those things. Then they're starting out, hopefully with a great onboarding experience, and it just really sets the stage.

Steve Swan [00:02:56]:
Right. Well, so, and I, I always put that all in the candidate journey. Right?

 Traci Chernoff [00:03:00]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:03:01]:
And so the candidate journey starts with the first time I call them, you call them, anybody calls them to talk to him about Company X, talking about the swan group, whatever. But it goes all the way through. Like you just said, the onboarding and then, you know, the, the, the, the, the teaching them about the organization. It begs the question to me that why do you think or why do you feel in your opinion that some companies. I'm using your, I'm using your words.

 Traci Chernoff [00:03:30]:
Yeah. I have a lot of videos.

Steve Swan [00:03:31]:
Why some companies I don't want to see. Maybe I'll use the term. Don't emphasize candidate experience or candidate journey. Why would that be? What is it? Are they getting lazy?

 Traci Chernoff [00:03:43]:
Maybe?

Steve Swan [00:03:43]:
Are they not interested in it? We're, we're the Swan Group. Everybody wants to be here. We're good. Yeah.

 Traci Chernoff [00:03:50]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:03:50]:
I don't know. You know what I'm saying? So totally. Because, you know, I've had, I've had instances where the candidate journey is awesome. And you know, as an external recruiter, you know, you really want to partner with a company who gives the same experience or, or as high level. But then there's other companies that maybe they lose their way and we can talk to them about it. And, and you know, I've had, I've had, I'm looking around my conference room here. I, I had one time somebody come in from Cal. I'll give you a quick experience.

Steve Swan [00:04:15]:
Guy comes in from California to interview with a company here in New York. He calls me to complain. They didn't even put him in seats with extra legroom. You know, he expected first class. We didn't even get extra legroom. And when he gets here, he's here for a whole day interview. They stick him in a conference room and give him a tray of food. And this is a big company.

Steve Swan [00:04:32]:
Give him a tray of food for 20 minutes with nobody to talk to, say, hey, we'll see in 20. You know, so he's like, I'm done. I'm, I'm not. He didn't even want to stay for.

 Traci Chernoff [00:04:39]:
The second if the leg room wasn't enough. Yeah, I mean, I, obviously, I'm scoffing at that a little bit because anytime I was flown out for an interview, I was in coach but, or like on a train because I'm in New York, so whatever. But you know what I'm trying to say. But at the end of the day, it's a great example because this company that you're, you're referring to, they probably thought they were doing an amazing job. They were probably like, oh, we got this tray of bagels, you know, maybe some locks, cream cheese. It's going to be great. But people, when they're interviewing, they're looking to get insight about the company. And when that's what they're getting, they're not, they're not getting a whole lot.

 Traci Chernoff [00:05:18]:
They want to meet people. They want to see what they, what's the vibe, what's the energy, what kind of experience are they going to have? So to answer your question, I think that there are a few reasons why companies might not focus on candidate experience either. A, they don't understand the connection and that there is a correlation between candidate experience and employee experience. And then even further from that, employee retention, they also might not care. To your point, they're, you know, big Fortune 500. Oh, it's a, you're lucky to even be interviewing with us. You'd be lucky to have a job with us. It could be that.

 Traci Chernoff [00:05:56]:
And, and maybe for some companies, it really is truly that. And then I also think it's possible that there are companies that don't really emphasize or understand the importance of HR and our function in a business because again, even though sometimes recruiting teams are a little separate from HR or aren't necessarily as cohesive because especially the larger the company, sometimes you see those teams kind of branching out from one another. But I find that companies that really put an emphasis on strong HR practices, especially when they, the leaders themselves are not HR leaders. That's where you see the importance being placed on those things like candidate experience, like employee experience, like employee retention and so on and so forth. I have worked for companies that have kind of fit all of those things, which is why I, I say that, or share those three examples because I think they're real. And maybe there's, maybe there's just, you know, a caveat there where maybe it's like all of the above. Maybe there's a company that's like, oh, that person's lucky to interview with us. And we don't really care about what, you know, what experiences look like because, you know, HR is not a significant part of our focus, of our business strategy.

 Traci Chernoff [00:07:17]:
It's highly possible.

Steve Swan [00:07:18]:
So I'll finish that example by saying this gentleman Ended up consulting there. So he's making a lot more money, Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:07:23]:
Oh, good for him.

Steve Swan [00:07:25]:
But, but yeah, so they didn't hire him as a full timer, they hired him as a contractor.

 Traci Chernoff [00:07:29]:
No, but he won in the end. Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:07:31]:
So do you have any metrics? Do you know the dollar amount that it can cost an organization for a MIS hire? Right. And some of these things can lead to a missed hire, right? Yes, yes, you have the right person. But boy, we didn't quite get our process right, so we had to hire number two or three or, you know, because a lot of folks talk about today. What I see a lot of is with, with my business, I'm getting the calls from folks where the leaders that are saying, well, we had either a MIS hire or turn downs or whatever. And I think a lot of folks are shortcutting the process. That, that's, that's kind of different from what we're talking about here. But nonetheless, it's still a MIS hire. It's still somebody that they, they miss in the process.

Steve Swan [00:08:14]:
So, you know, do you, do you know any numbers? Like, I mean, I'm thinking about the CFO who's watching this right now. He wants to know. He or she wants to know. Right?

 Traci Chernoff [00:08:22]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:08:22]:
What's it going to cost me when I miss one of these? And, and yeah, my investment going to be on the other side to not miss one of these.

 Traci Chernoff [00:08:29]:
Yeah, well, it's a great question. I did a bit of research on this a few years ago. I can't remember if it was for my podcast or for something work related, but as of a few years ago, I believe it was a Gallup study. I'll see if I can find it so we can share. It might not be Gallup, but it was something, it was a notable. Yeah, I'll, I'll share with you what I can find. But at that time it was $10,000 at minimum per hire that was missed. So that's factoring in the hourly rates of every single person that is working to get that person through the interview process.

 Traci Chernoff [00:09:05]:
That's your recruiter, that's your person scheduling them, that's your, you know, someone sourcing those candidates. That's the hiring manager and the full interview team. And some people are making a whole lot of money and when you add up those hourly rates, it becomes exorbitant. So if you think about even, you know, more senior level roles that are missed, like this person for example, that you used in, in your previous example, even though he ended up consulting and it wasn't totally a miss. If that was a miss, that would be a lot of money. And you factor in more tangible things like a flight, a hotel, cars, stipends, and things like that, I mean, it can really be well above 10k.

Steve Swan [00:09:44]:
Let's just say it's 10k. And I think what you're talking about is all the way till the day that that person walks through the door. Right. Can we, I mean, we can't measure. Let's. Let's say they paid me a fee to find that, that, that missed person. Right. They miss one person.

Steve Swan [00:09:58]:
They, they hired their number two. Maybe not the best hire, but a decent hire nonetheless. You know, maybe a year later they're gone because part of this happened or that happened or they weren't the right fit. Yeah, yeah. It took down some of their folks internally for training for all that stuff.

 Traci Chernoff [00:10:13]:
Yeah, that number goes even higher. I don't know that there are so many studies on the cost of po.

Steve Swan [00:10:20]:
Okay.

 Traci Chernoff [00:10:20]:
Because that's really what, that's what we're calling, you know, once, once someone is hired. Yeah. Then it's like, well, hiring the wrong person is even more costly if you ask me, because then you're, you're having a reverberation throughout the organization. And by the way, I'm sure this goes without saying, but just to vocalize it, when you have a candidate who has a poor experience, you inevitably do your brand a huge disservice because they're going back out into that wide world and they're not speaking so highly about your company. It happened to me once. I was still working in retail at the time. This was like when I probably when I was working at Target. That's kind of where I sharpened my HR knives.

 Traci Chernoff [00:11:02]:
That's what I always like to say. It was a great experience. And I was just kind of, you know, I wasn't necessarily looking to leave, but I was doing what any, you know, good person would do. And I was kind of seeing what's out there because that's a totally normal good thing to do. And, and also to keep your interview skills strong. And so I was interviewing with a really well known company and they put me through like, I don't know, eight interviews, probably more than 10 hours of total interviews. They had me staying in a hotel here, staying in a hotel there. And then they were like, oh, you know, you don't have enough experience for the role.

 Traci Chernoff [00:11:34]:
And I was like, you didn't know that when you read my resume after eight injuries. So, you know, it's Totally fine. It's fine when you don't get a job. And frankly, I didn't necessarily put all my eggs in that basket. I ended up leaving a year later for a different role. And it was the right move for me. But at the end of the day, I would never interview for that company again. And my family knows that experience that I went through, they were like, what a waste of your time.

 Traci Chernoff [00:12:03]:
And so this is what I say. It's like, you know, every experience that we have with candidates and with employees, which goes back to kind of your original point is like, when we around, when we bring someone on that isn't the right fit, you have the potential to make or break your brand, your, your brand awareness and the message that's out in the world. And so in the same vein, when we hire someone that isn't the right fit because we're being hasty or because we feel that we have to have an immediate fill in that role and we're cutting corners maybe, or we think that that person is going to be the right fit. And sometimes we do that with good intentions. We think that that person is really the right hire. But sometimes people don't work out. You have this again, this whole reverberation throughout the organization, but then that person potentially will end up losing their employment. And that's not a great experience either.

 Traci Chernoff [00:12:58]:
It's not a great experience for the person communicating that to them. Um, and it's certainly not a great experience for someone on the receiving end of that message. And my final anecdote there is that I have, I have been in many situations throughout my 10 plus years as an HR partner to many business leaders across many industries. And there have been people throughout my career who I say to that, that hiring manager, you know, I don't know, they, they didn't show up for your interview. Seems like a risky hire. They don't have what you're really looking for. Wouldn't you rather take a little bit more time to whatever feedback I've given? And then maybe a year later, or maybe even less, maybe more, it comes around where then I have to be part of the termination conversation. And I'm not the kind of partner that's like, oh, I told you so, right, but you can do that here.

 Traci Chernoff [00:13:47]:
Sometimes I'm like, yeah, exactly, I can do that here. Sometimes I want to be like, this is exactly what I'm saying. And so then there's a learning experience where the hiring manager is like, oh, you know, you did kind of call this out. It's like, yeah, look, it's all. It's all what we learn from. There's never a bad experience. It's just all a learning experience. As long as we are learning from.

Steve Swan [00:14:09]:
Sure. Yeah. And, you know, I find with the processes that I go through with a lot of companies, you know, they will come to me, they will ask questions, they will, you know, whether it's about salary, whether it's about, do we need these skills, you know, whole bunch of different things. But at the end of the day, lots of times, like, well, no, something. Not lots of times. Sometimes, well, you're wrong. We think this. Okay, that's cool.

 Traci Chernoff [00:14:30]:
Totally. You know, every business leader knows best and we can give, you know, until. Until there's someone who maybe knows better. And, you know, I have found a lot in my career that, you know, especially being in a position where most, most of my career I've spent as an individual contributor. And there's a lot of, A lot that rides on your ability as an HR person to influence. And the same kind of goes with recruiting too. Like, there's a lot of, you know, how do you leverage those relationships to really drive the right candidate forward? And similarly with, with hr, it's like if you can have really strong relationships that you can influence more decision making. And so I found that there are some times where I know I might know what, what's going to happen five months down the line or five steps down the line.

 Traci Chernoff [00:15:25]:
And no matter how much importance I've placed on that relationship, no matter how much influencing I've done to help guide a different decision, a business leader might just say, you know, and it could be any person within an organization. It could even be an HR leader. You could tell them until you're blue in the face this, maybe we should try this, or maybe we should do that. At the end of the day, that leader might make their own decision, regardless of the, you know, the insights that you have. And you have to be able to overcome that and just keep going and influence in other directions. And eventually sometimes you are proven right and then it comes back around and that's great. Otherwise, sometimes you're proven wrong and you're like, okay, maybe there was a different approach to this particular problem.

Steve Swan [00:16:07]:
Yeah, I mean, I, I've been doing this 26 years and I've found if I had to put one. If I had to say one thing that I think is sort of the. I don't. The silver bullet in our business, communication, you know, effective communication. You've really gotta make sure that you Keep, you know, let everybody know each side, what's going on all the time. You know, I've had several people come to me at the end of a process and say, you know, Steve, I was interviewing with three other companies and the reason why I went with this one group or whatever, you know, is because of you. You would call, I would call them two, three times a week, just say, hey, I haven't heard anything. Because people's brains wander, you know, they just go.

Steve Swan [00:16:45]:
And in order to keep folks, you know, the right candidate, right, going in the right direction, you got to continually communicate with them. You know, I had to get back to the point you were making a minute ago in 2013. I'll never forget this. I was recruiting this guy for a role that a decent sized company. The company had a few thousand folks in it and technical role. They were, they were going, they were doing bring your device to work kind of stuff. So they needed somebody that had done that. And, and so I found this one gentleman.

Steve Swan [00:17:15]:
The company was down here in our area, but I found this one gentleman up in the Boston area. So I was going up for a World Series game, went and met him for lunch, you know, said hi to him. But I, I went to the, you know, they interviewed some folks through me. Then the hiring manager came to me and said, you know, Steve, I don't know that we're going with candidate X. The guy that, that I had there, they wanted to go with candidate Y. And I said, well, what's the difference? And candidate Y had, was a consultant right now. And he was, he had been putting in a particular security software for these devices. Basically, they only needed somebody to implement a software that, that would be live in six months.

Steve Swan [00:17:54]:
The gentleman that I had in place, based on the description he had set up twice, bring your own device and two other biotechs and so on and so forth. So I'd never done it before, but I called the CIO and I said, hey, can you interview both candidates? Just if I'm totally crazy, call me crazy. And we're calling it a day. He got involved and then he called me back and said, I, I can't even believe they were interviewing the gentleman that was the consultant, you know, and yeah, so they hired this person, you know, and he's still at the organization.

 Traci Chernoff [00:18:20]:
But no, it's a great, great point, Great example.

Steve Swan [00:18:23]:
Yeah, you just, you needed somebody to handle the whole thing. And if you needed this somebody to do that little piece of, hire the consultant, you know, you can get done quickly. So I Guess my point is, is that you're continual communication like I did with everybody in the process, but also understand, you know, being able to stand back and see where the organization is and what they're really looking at and are they getting too close to the trees to see the, you know, and I have that conversation all the time.

 Traci Chernoff [00:18:47]:
It happens especially if, if a company is, is hiring like in a new market or they're hiring a bunch of people at once. You know, the, the focus goes from quality to quantity and hopefully you get both. Hopefully you hire your critical mass with the right quality candidates. But that's to me that's like where we come in, where our process comes in. Because we should be able to not only say, hey, this is really what you're looking for, but with the right candidate, here's the potential, but also be able to bring someone out of the weeds and say, look, you know, sure, they fit your budget fine, but is that enough? Or they have, you know, the years of experience that you're looking for, but is that enough? Like I, I, throughout my career I've always tried to focus on okay, what, what are we going to need in five years from now? What will, what can I anticipate from our needs from a strategic standpoint for the business needs in five plus years from now? And five years for some companies is a very long time. For most companies, it's a very long time. You know, the, the small businesses especially, or smaller businesses. At the end of the day though, you do have to think that way because otherwise every decision you make today is going to be such small potatoes and you're not going to be thinking strategically enough.

 Traci Chernoff [00:20:09]:
Certainly you could say, okay, in five years I want to have, you know, this automation built out so that X, Y and Z can happen without me being involved. Fine, maybe that's not something that you can use today, but finding the right system that can grow with you, for example, is the way to, to think about that. And I think it's the same thing with candidates with human resources. Literally, not necessarily like the, the department, but human resources, right? It's like when you find a candidate who has like all of the, the will in the world, it's like skill versus will, all of the will in the world. And maybe they just have, they're just shy of the number of years of experience or they don't have that specific industry, but you can train them. And sure, that takes time and it takes resources, but they have everything else invest in that person. Like I, we, I don't Know, if you watch Shark Tank, but they talk about this all the time that you invent. They invest in people.

 Traci Chernoff [00:21:04]:
They're not investing in the business because the business can go one way or another at any point, but the person is the, is what you stand behind. And I fully subscribe to that 100%. I think it's a great way to a great outlook.

Steve Swan [00:21:17]:
I follow Warren Buffett and was listening to his annual meeting again this weekend, and classic. Yeah, he, he says you can't make a good deal with a bad person. Just if it's a bad person, just walk.

 Traci Chernoff [00:21:27]:
It's a bad deal. That's right. Walk away.

Steve Swan [00:21:29]:
Walk away. Yeah. You know, I've had, you know, many instances over the years where I've had to walk away or figure out what's, what's, you know, what's under the, you know, under the covers or what's behind the curtain. And, and, you know, we, we've, you know, we've had to make those, those calls and those choices with many, many, many companies. You know, again, they start small, a lot of them that I work with, and then they continue to grow and what, what, what ends up happening. And you kind of brought it up there at the beginning. What I see a lot of these companies doing as they get, I don't know if it's overwhelmed or what it is, but they start focusing more on the metrics than the person. Right.

Steve Swan [00:22:09]:
Do you see that?

 Traci Chernoff [00:22:09]:
Totally. Oh, yeah, all the time. This is why they do that.

Steve Swan [00:22:12]:
What's going on there?

 Traci Chernoff [00:22:14]:
Why do they, why do they do that? That's a great question. It's also quite loaded because this is kind of the whole mission of my podcast is that, you know, four, almost five years ago at this point, right? Yeah, almost five years ago, I started my podcast because I was so fed up with seeing business leaders, including HR leaders, by the way, talking about people. And keep in mind, almost five years ago, it was Covid time, it was the fall of 2020 that I started my podcast. Everyone was talking about, like, what was happening in the world without talking about the impact to the individual furloughs. It was like, oh, 5% of people are being furloughed, whatever the number was. And I'm like, well, what does that mean? What is 5% of a. Of an organization with 10,000 employees? Right? Like, that's a significant number. What's 5% of 200 employees still a significant number? Like, you're talking about 5% of an organization.

 Traci Chernoff [00:23:09]:
What does that mean? And so I found myself, like, Wanting to pull my hair out. And this is like, not an exaggeration.

Steve Swan [00:23:14]:
Don't do that.

 Traci Chernoff [00:23:15]:
What is everyone. But I was like, why is everyone not, you know, focused on the right thing? And so that's what helped me to create my podcast, Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources. Because I was like, we can't talk about people as numbers. Sure, we're going to, we're going to analyze people. When we look at percentages and dollar amounts and, you know, overhead or whatever, fine, that happens. But every number is represented by a person, right? So if you're giving, you know, even when you look at good stuff, like, oh, we're going to have 4% increases on merit and an annual performance review or something like that for a company. Right. That's.

 Traci Chernoff [00:23:57]:
I think they're actually saying in the news that 4% will be the average, by the way, for annual merit increases this year, which is pretty high. It's higher than inflation. Yeah, it's pretty good, which is great. But as an example, that's good news. But some people are not going to get that.

Steve Swan [00:24:13]:
Well, they're not working, so.

 Traci Chernoff [00:24:15]:
Right. Or they're not working. So it's like. And when we look at these percentages, what, what actually shakes out at the employee, at the individual, at the human level. So why do companies only look at numbers? I, I don't think it comes from a bad place. I don't think that people are like, I don't care about people. I, I hate these guys anyway. Like, I don't think that's what's happening.

 Traci Chernoff [00:24:35]:
Instead, I think what's happening is that as you scale in your career and you get higher and higher and higher, you're obviously, look, you're, you're not so focused on the individual and you're more focused on, like, the overall, the high level, the holistic view of things. And so you're just looking at numbers, you're looking at spreadsheets, and you're not taking that time to say, oh, well, we're going to be, you know, maybe a company is going to have a reduction in force. We've seen layoffs happening. Even PwC, I think, just announced they're going to have 1500 job cuts by the end of the year. Those 1500 people, they're looking at it like, okay, maybe it's a percentage, right? And this is the amount that we're going to be paying out in severance at the end of that, at the end of 2025. But for those individuals, it's extremely impactful. All of those individuals have families and mortgages.

Steve Swan [00:25:20]:
Their sample size is one. Right?

 Traci Chernoff [00:25:22]:
Their sample size is one. Exactly. So I think it's just a matter of like the distance away from the recipient of information or the end user, so to speak. If we think about, you know, like technology. And that's where, when, at least in the processes that I'm involved in, I really try to help leaders think about what their decisions actually mean. So throughout my career, of course, I've had to, you know, support with furloughs or layoffs and things like that. Even if we look at my experience during COVID we had to furlough a handful of people, a lot of people. And when we were making that decision, I was like, okay, well we have our methodology for how we're going, who we're going to furlough and how, and what is the impact? Who are these people? Where are they located? What, what, what other things do we need to think about? And so sometimes when you take that extra step to take all of those numbers and then take that again, take that extra step and attach them to the actual people, it helps leaders to remember what decisions they're actually making.

 Traci Chernoff [00:26:28]:
Because it's much easier to reduce numbers than it is to reduce people.

Steve Swan [00:26:33]:
Sure, yeah. Yeah.

 Traci Chernoff [00:26:34]:
So I don't think it's coming from a bad place, but it is really important for people at that table. Hopefully there is an HR leader at the table helping to guide some of those decisions or support in some of those decisions while they're not making them. They certainly can influence the trajectory of them. But there should be someone at the table thinking about that.

Steve Swan [00:26:53]:
So focusing on the metrics, right, the HR metrics, are there good metrics and are there bad metrics as you see them, in your opinion? And I tend to tag everything to economic incentive. Right. So is there an economic incentive? Are things rewarded maybe in the wrong way in the HR community when it comes to some of those economic incentives? And if I'm getting too close to the bone, let me know, I, I'll, I'll back off. Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:27:19]:
No, it's funny, I, I grimaced there because I definitely think that there are things that we over incentivize from a good metrics versus bad metrics standpoint. I believe that data is great regardless, because data helps to tell a story, it helps us to make decisions. And I find myself very frustrated or annoyed when people make decisions without as much data as possible. You know, like if, if someone gets pushed back on a budget for a salary, but they're just looking at Total costs based on, you know, the U.S. but they're not considering cost of living, for example. That doesn't make sense. So this is kind of just a very basic example of how data is your friend. And I think some of the best metrics that teams can measure are employee referral information.

 Traci Chernoff [00:28:10]:
Because that, you know, that's a great measure of how engaged people are. It's the same, you know, kind of goes hand in hand with Employee Net Promoter Score. If people run surveys, they're familiar with that metric, which can be helpful. But I think that the enps or Employee Net Promoter Score is asking how likely are you to recommend X company as a place to work? There's nothing more directly correlated than employee referrals. So to me it's like, okay, what does a number. It kind of goes back to the same thing. What does that number mean? So we have the quantitative, but what's the qualitative? And when you measure the, how many people at the company were employee referrals or who were once referred by someone that once worked for the company, how long they've been here, what the average 10 years of employee referrals are. All of that is really interesting to me.

 Traci Chernoff [00:29:03]:
And then I also think, you know, looking at growth across an organization, I will say in my career it's been very hard to find reports that, that have, that were like automatically generated by my tools that we used that said, oh, you have had X number of promotions, X number of organizational changes, X number of, you know, individual contributor to team leaders, whatever it might be. But all of that growth information, if people can start to track that, because again, the data lives somewhere. So it's just a matter of someone pulling it together. Can be really interesting in terms of bad metrics, I think. And this is kind of going back to like why I grimaced around, you know, what, what are we over incentivizing? It's, it's metrics that we, we don't actually care about as a company or that a company doesn't actually care about. Meaning they're measuring something that they're never going to do anything about. Like if a company is like, look, De and I has been a huge talking point over the course of the last few years. And diversity, equity, inclusion has been a part of organizations for decades.

 Traci Chernoff [00:30:09]:
So as long as companies are not doing anything illegal, they should continue to focus on creating an organization that brings people from all different backgrounds, educational backgrounds, work experiences. All of those things are good things. And that's not changing anything about an organization. But we also See that there are organizations who have measured some of these things without having a whole lot of intentions or have, you know, done so just because they felt they had to. And so these are, these are things that don't actually help promote any of any of the things that we, a company might look to promote. So on the other hand, it's like if you see a company saying, oh, you know, our regrettable attrition, our goal is X percent. Right. Maybe their goal is 20% regrettable attrition because it's so egregious today, which I would think 20% would be pretty high.

 Traci Chernoff [00:31:08]:
But they do nothing to improve the experience of an employee. They, they collect feedback on a survey and they don't do anything to improve on that feedback or close the loop on that feedback. Those are bad metrics because then you're committing, you're, you're saying, hey, we really want your feedback, we really want you to stay. We want to improve regrettable attrition. But then you do nothing to problem solve those things. And this is why I bring up D and I also because, you know, there, I think it's a hot button topic because of a lot of misunderstanding on both sides of, of the, the coin. And similarly with employee engagement, it doesn't have to be that heavy of a lift. Like if people are telling you that they need more work life balance, maybe help them to prioritize or maybe you have to look at how you communicate things.

 Traci Chernoff [00:31:58]:
Right. So I went on a very long tangent there, but it's. No, that was good to me. Those are, are bad metrics when we do nothing with the data.

Steve Swan [00:32:05]:
Yeah, well that's, that's the definition for you of a bad metric. Right?

 Traci Chernoff [00:32:08]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:32:09]:
Collecting data just to collect data. Right, Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:32:11]:
Like who's, and then you're wasting your own time like what are you doing?

Steve Swan [00:32:14]:
Right. And then that's. Right, that's everybody spinning wheels right there. And I think that again, I'm going to go back to, I like tagging everything to some level of economic incentive because there's got to be a reason, like you said, for doing things. And so if we go back to. I'm just going to stick with your example, De and I. Right. If organizations understood that a more diverse work place.

Steve Swan [00:32:36]:
Right. Would lead to better, more well rounded decision making, which could lead, can lead. You know, if you look at stock, stock market performance or company performance could lead to that, you know, then, then it makes sense.

 Traci Chernoff [00:32:49]:
Yeah. Sometimes you do have, I mean actually probably 90% of the time you do have to appeal to the bottom line. Like, why is it helpful for, you know, a CFO potentially? Even though I'm not saying that a CFO doesn't care about those things, but a CFO's job is to, you know, keep the purse strings tight and really ensure that the business is going to maintain its financial stability and grow over time. So how, you know, something that they might care about emotionally, societally, that's fine. But you also do have to appeal to your audience and you have to know how some of these things shake out and play a role for people outside of your own function. And actually, one of the things that I was thinking about too when you mentioned that is that with regard to creating a diverse workforce, can you, like, as much as we both would probably love to be in a room full of Steves and Tracy's who always agree with everything that we say, that's not how we grow.

Steve Swan [00:33:43]:
I'll hang out with the Tracy's. I don't need to be with these.

 Traci Chernoff [00:33:45]:
I'm good. Fair enough. Fair enough. I would love to be in a room full of me. No, I'm just kidding. But it's like you don't really want to be in a room full of people who always agree with you.

Steve Swan [00:33:55]:
Correct.

 Traci Chernoff [00:33:55]:
Like, diversity is also in thought. People from different backgrounds, from different educational levels and, and even work experiences. This is why sometimes in different industries can be an okay thing because they're, they're bringing in experiences that you might not have had. And, and that does create a very productive workforce because you're innovating and you're challenging what exists. And challenging the status quo to me is one of the best ways to really stay progressive. I mean, I actually did an episode once on the blockbuster effect. This was like early on, like maybe four years ago or so. And I talked about how companies run the risk of being the next blockbuster if they don't figure out how to innovate and challenge the status quo and listen to other people's ideas.

 Traci Chernoff [00:34:41]:
You don't want to be the loudest person in the room. You should really hear what other people have to say and offer.

Steve Swan [00:34:47]:
Sure. There was a. I'm gonna digress for a second here. There was an old show called the Twilight Zone. You may or may not.

 Traci Chernoff [00:34:55]:
Of course.

Steve Swan [00:34:55]:
I know he did one episode, one guy. You know how the show always starts with somebody thinking about it? And so one, one, there's an episode where this guy's like, I wish everybody was like me. Well, the rest of the show, everybody wore the same stuff. Had the same job, drove the same car, lived in the same kind of house. And the. The guys walk around like, this sucks. Like, yeah, everybody's making the same decisions. There's no diversity.

Steve Swan [00:35:20]:
We're not getting anywhere. We're just going in circles, spinning.

 Traci Chernoff [00:35:23]:
You know, I am so well acquainted with the Twilight Zone because of my parents and my grandparents, but also, I went to Binghamton University. And I don't know if you know this at all or if you're familiar, but there's a library tower in the center of campus, and it looks very similar, actually, to the Tower of Terror in Disney or Disney World. But actually, the. The word on the street, the lore, is that that library tower was based on the. Wait, maybe I'm getting it backwards. That the ta. Yeah. That the library tower was based on the tower in, in the Twilight Zone.

 Traci Chernoff [00:35:59]:
There was like a, you know, the hotel scene.

Steve Swan [00:36:01]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 Traci Chernoff [00:36:01]:
But I, I. Now I'm like. As I was saying it, now I'm like, is it the opposite? Yeah. Confuse myself. But this is why I can't be in a room full of mesa. But Rod Sterling, he was from Binghamton. Oh, that's why. That's the connection.

 Traci Chernoff [00:36:13]:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Good school.

Steve Swan [00:36:14]:
Very good school. Yeah, I read.

 Traci Chernoff [00:36:15]:
Thank you.

Steve Swan [00:36:16]:
Yes. Yeah. Very good.

 Traci Chernoff [00:36:17]:
Thank you. I'm very proud to be a. Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:36:19]:
Alum. Good. But, yeah, I just, you know, I think about those things and I look at everything again. You know, people are going to get motivated to do things when there's a reason to do them. And that's when I say, you know, you look at economic incentive, and sometimes some of these metrics that are rewarded, you know, are, you know, miscued sometimes. Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:36:41]:
So totally.

Steve Swan [00:36:42]:
Sometimes in the hiring process, the speed to hire metric, you know, which is fine. That's nice to have, and I'm totally cool with it. But, you know, if we lean on it too much, that can. That can. Yeah. You know, and that's just one thing.

 Traci Chernoff [00:36:54]:
You know, I totally agree. I totally agree. That's where I think, when quantitative data is being collected, the qualitative matters so much, because if you see, okay, it's taken, you know, 70 days to hire, you know, the average days to hire is 70 days. Well, there could have been a highly critical, like, senior role that was open for 150 days. You're not going to just hire someone off the street. Like, you really want to make sure that that person is the right fit, they go through the right number of interviews. Maybe they even have a project. I mean, these Are things that.

 Traci Chernoff [00:37:26]:
I agree there has to be a balance between how a metric is weighed and how a metric is understood qualitatively. And actually, when we think about the, the economics of this, every business makes an investment every time they hire someone. We talk about investment all the time. You talk about investment all the time. I'm sure when you're talking about candidates for companies. And the same goes with things like programs and incentives and perks that employees are offered, like an employee referral program, for example, you're, you're not going to lose money on that, like throw money at that program because you're going to like. Studies show that employee referrals stay longer, they're more engaged, they're more productive, and they're more connected because someone brought them there. And all of those things really matter.

 Traci Chernoff [00:38:15]:
You get so much ROI when you really think about where your investment is. This is why I say like, some things are low hanging fruit. To me, that is low hanging fruit. Like, why wouldn't you invest in an employee referral program?

Steve Swan [00:38:28]:
Exactly. I don't, I don't know. You know, and again, I see, seriously and I see some companies, I, I won't name a company, but there's one company that I know that there's, I don't know, 10, 12,000 employees. They won't hire anybody that has any even distant blood relationship to a current employee. And I mean, I would think that that would be kind of a, a great thing. Right. Let's say my second cousin wants to work there. Nope.

 Traci Chernoff [00:38:55]:
You know, you know what I call that? I call that too much fear over litigation and litigiousness. Unfortunately, it is, it a hundred percent is. And this is where HR leaders have to be really discerning about how far they push certain policies. Obviously those are things that are also supported by attorneys. Like hr People are not just creating those policies. But it seems like there was probably a situation at some point where two people who were relatives, you know, there was an issue and it created a whole issue in a department or across the company and they were like, we're not going to do any of it.

Steve Swan [00:39:37]:
Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:39:38]:
And so, or maybe they were even sued over something. Who knows?

Steve Swan [00:39:41]:
Yeah.

 Traci Chernoff [00:39:41]:
And, yeah.

Steve Swan [00:39:42]:
And so then again, economic incentive there. We're coming back to it, right?

 Traci Chernoff [00:39:45]:
Exactly. We're coming back to a full circle. Right. So then it's like you have this fear of litigation. You know, obviously some states more than others are more litigious. And so they just don't want, they don't even want to touch it. They want to avoid it 100%. And I've seen that in some of the larger companies that I've worked for where they just, they don't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole.

 Traci Chernoff [00:40:03]:
So they just say no to everything. And I get it. But at the same time, this is where you, you can't hold everyone's feet to the fire. You have to give organizations and leaders the ability to be flexible. So you also, I learned from actually my, my last boss who was amazing, she taught me something really impactful, I'll say, and very interesting, which is that not something that I ever thought about, which is when you write a handbook, which I've part, I've partaken in many handbook writing sessions over my career, probably every year, frankly. And when you write it, when you write a handbook, you can't automatically either become a hypocrite or contradict yourself. And I was like, huh, that's a really great perspective. Like, if a company has relatives employed, your policy has to be flexible.

 Traci Chernoff [00:41:01]:
It can't say no, no relatives can be employed here. Like, it has to be like in the event that blah, blah, blah, blah, that you have, you have to seek manager approval, whatever that flexibility is. Right. Whatever the verbiage is. And it was a very interesting learning experience for me because I come, I, you know, I kind of grew up in very, very like strict, very conservative, policy driven companies. And then I found myself in an organization that was much more fluid. And that can be a very hard thing to reconcile that you think that policy strictness is the way to go. But then it's like, how do you, how do you create a policy that's more flexible, that allows for even more gray area and then how do you navigate within all that gray area? But my point being that when companies create handbooks like that, they better not contradict themselves.

 Traci Chernoff [00:41:49]:
They better not have, you know, in like manager to employee relationships, they better not have employees who are related. They better not like all of these things. So I would imagine that it's really coming from the, you know, getting too close to the sun and pulling so far back that now they're way too strict.

Steve Swan [00:42:07]:
It's gotta be, it's gotta be. Because with a company that size, that's a huge source of referrals.

 Traci Chernoff [00:42:14]:
Absolutely. And it could just be that they don't work on the same team.

Steve Swan [00:42:17]:
Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:42:17]:
They don't work in the same department, or they don't work in HR in.

Steve Swan [00:42:20]:
Mexico City, they can't work there. Or secondary.

 Traci Chernoff [00:42:23]:
That's crazy. I Think that's insane at the end of the day, I mean, like someone that, that is a family member or relative, like, they're not going to refer a family member to work at a. You don't automatically want to work with your family. So if they're referring, like, this is where you have to. I think companies and really HR leaders just have to think, am I preventing my business partners or my company from operating productively and easily by enforcing these things? And it is sometimes a song and dance because sometimes you do have to have more strict policies around things like harassment. Policies are always going to be strict and they always should be strict, for example. But something like this, you know, maybe it's a matter of like, where they can work or what functions within the business that maybe they can't have access to employee data like finance and HR and accounting. That's fine.

 Traci Chernoff [00:43:16]:
Let them work elsewhere.

Steve Swan [00:43:17]:
I knew an instance with this company where the recruiters internally reached out to a candidate, spoke to the candidate, liked the candidate. Do you know anybody that works here? Yes, they knew somebody, you know, XYZ relative. Sorry, strict policy. We can't even talk to you anymore. Click. That was the end of that.

 Traci Chernoff [00:43:34]:
Oh, my gosh.

Steve Swan [00:43:35]:
Something. Yeah, Last question here that I have for you. And I'm sure you hear about this and I'm sure you talk about this AI in it. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't want to. It's a big rabbit hole. I don't want to. I don't want to kill you with that one. What are your thoughts there? I mean, I get different, different perspectives from a lot of different folks.

Steve Swan [00:43:54]:
I'm really curious about yours.

 Traci Chernoff [00:43:57]:
Yeah, well, first of all, we have been using AI for way longer than we realize.

Steve Swan [00:44:01]:
Yes.

 Traci Chernoff [00:44:01]:
You know, Google, for example, is a search function, not artificial intelligence. At some level, obviously. I. It goes without saying, I'm not an engineer. I don't code. I have no idea whether that's true or not, but I can only imagine that the first iterations of AI of the way that we use AI technology started much long ago. Anyway, I think AI is great. It's like any other tool or resource.

 Traci Chernoff [00:44:26]:
You have to know how to use it. So, like, sure, you could, you could onboard like QuickBooks or Intuit or whatever for your business. But if you don't know how to actually manage your books or manage your, you know, accounting in and out, then what good is it? So. Yeah, or like, if you don't know how to use FaceTime and you're trying to use FaceTime, what good is it if you don't know like it, it goes with anything. So to me, AI, I use chat GPT every day for, whether it's for and I don't use it for, you know, confidential or personal information because you don't know where your inputs are going. That's one caveat, I'll say. So you don't want to put, you know, like any intellectual property or confidential information into these things. However, they are really great brainstorming tools.

 Traci Chernoff [00:45:12]:
And I think similarly with AI and especially on the basis of automation, I mean I work for a company that leverages and, and is an AI based company. I mean I work for Legion Technologies which is a workforce management software company and we, you know, we're all about like intelligent automation and that's, that's on the back of AI. And so I really believe in knowing how to harness the power of AI. I don't believe that AI is something that should or will take over human centric jobs for the most part. I do think that people who you know, are kind of stagnant, don't really think about innovating in their roles. They're not really thinking, you know, kind of broader strokes and aren't kind of part of this strategic process within a business. They might see more of an effect on AI on their jobs like you know, someone in an administrative role. But that's not a guarantee because you can always level up your skills, you can always be more competitive than a tool.

 Traci Chernoff [00:46:19]:
Like we, I'm sure you've seen different AI powered like recruiting tools. They never replace a human like interacting with a candidate because they can't, because candidates still want the human interaction. So as long as you know, the customer or the, the candidate or the employee wants that human and face to face interaction, which by the way, they always will. I think putting my stamp on that then there's always going to be a need and a demand for the human. And I, you know, you can use another example where you chat with someone. Like, I don't know, I fly Delta a lot, I use Expedia a lot. If I'm chatting with someone I'm like, just connect me with an agent, just connect me with an agent. Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:47:02]:
And that to me is like a good example of how you have AI as a tool to answer basic questions that could really suffice. But then other times you also have a person to be able to support with whatever that other person might need. So big fan.

Steve Swan [00:47:18]:
Yeah. It's going to make us all better, faster, smarter what we do, it'll take the mundane stuff, knock that off our plate. Right. And then we can focus exactly on the other, the stuff that we spent, you know, two hours a day doing. Now we can expand our, we can get rid of that two hours. Now we got a full eight hour day. We can do two more hours more productive. And in, in recruiting with AI, I mean, AI along the same lines can help you, you know, hone down your list of who you're going to call.

Steve Swan [00:47:45]:
It's not going to make it a perfect because it's, because it's unstructured data really, but it will help you make that list a little bit shorter. But you still, you talked about it earlier. You know, I still got to, you know, advise folks. I still got to talk about dollars. I still got to talk, I always call it their drivers. I still got to talk about their motivation, the company's motivation. I got to talk about where do you want to live, how hybrid can you be? You know, those kinds of things.

 Traci Chernoff [00:48:06]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:48:06]:
Throughout the whole process. I'm a salesperson, I'm an arbitrator, I'm a negotiator, I'm a psychologist, I'm a marriage counselor, I'm a real estate agent. Right. AI is not doing any of that, you know.

 Traci Chernoff [00:48:15]:
No. And you know what, this is a great way to like kind of bring all of what we've talked about together because first of all, the blockbuster effect, if you're not using AI, you're going to fall behind because it's, it's here, you gotta. Companies have to figure out how they're going to use it, what their policies around AI usage are. And the other side of things is that we know that from a productivity standpoint we can't be all or nothing with these tools. And so when we, when we think about like even these policies that we talked about that being way too strict or way too lenient, like you can't. There were companies I think earlier this year that were like, oh, we're. I think maybe it was, maybe it was UKG who said, we're, you know, we're going to eliminate these roles and we're investing in AI. That's not the way to do it.

 Traci Chernoff [00:49:03]:
It's just not. And again, these are my opinions, not like a reflection of anyone else other than my own opinions. And I, I just think like anything else, you can't be all or nothing. You have to learn how to use these tools to make your jobs better, easier and more productive. Like What I use ChatGPT for has eliminated hours of work that I'm then able to spend and invest in other things that are much more impactful on the organization.

Steve Swan [00:49:29]:
Agreed, Agreed. And that's where I think we are, and that's where I think we should be, at least for now, with AI. But to eliminate. I think that, you know, because I talk to the.

 Traci Chernoff [00:49:39]:
The.

Steve Swan [00:49:39]:
The heads of IT and at these companies, and I can see it in their. In their eyes, and I can hear it in their voices. They're getting pushed by the COOs, the CFOs, the CEOs, who hear about AI on the Golf course or whatever, and their buddies are making a lot of money with it or something, and they're not. The use cases aren't there. They're starting to get different use cases. Right. Comparing contracts, whatever it might be.

 Traci Chernoff [00:50:04]:
But, you know, look, everyone was afraid of bitcoin at one time.

Steve Swan [00:50:07]:
Sure.

 Traci Chernoff [00:50:08]:
And now there are all of these other types of cryptocurrencies. Like, we. We have two options. We can be afraid and never use it and avoid. And then become blockbuster.

Steve Swan [00:50:17]:
Yeah, Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:50:18]:
Because look at Netflix, right?

Steve Swan [00:50:19]:
Yeah.

 Traci Chernoff [00:50:21]:
It is like the antithetical example to blockbuster. And then the other option is to embrace it, figure out how to leverage it and really harness its power to do some really good work in our own roles and our own organizations.

Steve Swan [00:50:35]:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this was all great stuff. This was awesome.

 Traci Chernoff [00:50:40]:
Thank you. Now, it was so fun being on this side of the podcast.

Steve Swan [00:50:45]:
You were going, I like it. So I have. Unless you have something else you want to cover, I have one final question. This question I asked of all my guests. Okay. I like live music. So I. We.

Steve Swan [00:50:56]:
My wife and I, we go and we see a lot of concerts and this and that thing. So I like asking every guest if they've seen live music. What was your favorite concert you ever saw in your entire life?

 Traci Chernoff [00:51:08]:
Okay. I have to say, I'm a huge Beyonce fan. I'm actually seeing her in, like, two weeks. Very cool. I've seen her many times and I've spent a lot of money seeing her, so she's always tired. Top of the list for me. I have to say, I saw Coldplay a few years ago and I was blown away. And I was not really a Coldplay fan.

 Traci Chernoff [00:51:28]:
And when I saw them live, I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, why am I not listening to their music? Yeah. My in laws just, like, took us. And I have to say, I had the pleasure of seeing B.B. king when I was in middle school or high school. And that Was so cool. Like, he was, I guess, in his 80s. When I saw him, I won tickets on the radio.

 Traci Chernoff [00:51:48]:
I think I was listening to like 101.5, which is a New Jersey radio. This is like kids, if anyone's listening that's like Gen Z, they're gonna be like, what do you mean, radio? No one listens to that. But this was like already, you know, 20 years ago or so, and I won tickets and my mom and I went and I was like, this was amazing.

Steve Swan [00:52:04]:
Yeah, he's good.

 Traci Chernoff [00:52:04]:
So I have a few people. Yeah, I have a few people up there.

Steve Swan [00:52:07]:
That's funny. Yeah, we go. We go to see a lot of music and I go with. I have two daughters. So my wife and I go to see different concerts, but one that we're going to go see in September that I just bought tickets for the four of us to go to is Lady Gaga in msg.

 Traci Chernoff [00:52:18]:
Oh, that's going to be amazing. I've never seen her.

Steve Swan [00:52:21]:
My 25 year old says the same thing. She's head over heels right now that we're going to that, so.

 Traci Chernoff [00:52:25]:
Oh, my gosh, she. I heard first of all, she like beat the record. She just had a free show in Casablanca, I think.

Steve Swan [00:52:31]:
Saw that. Gigantic.

 Traci Chernoff [00:52:32]:
Yeah. 2.5 million people.

Steve Swan [00:52:34]:
Yeah, that's.

 Traci Chernoff [00:52:36]:
Yeah, she's very talented. I. To me, you know, you can really appreciate someone's talent when you're sitting and you're experiencing live music. Oh, like, yeah, sure.

Steve Swan [00:52:47]:
People sound right, you know.

 Traci Chernoff [00:52:49]:
Yes.

Steve Swan [00:52:49]:
Candidate Journey in. In. The concert is different for everybody. Right. You know.

 Traci Chernoff [00:52:53]:
Have you ever heard of like the concert Hangover? No, like when you. It's that feeling after the concert ends and you're like, I wish it was still going, you know, like that.

Steve Swan [00:53:02]:
Maybe that's why I like going to so many concerts because.

 Traci Chernoff [00:53:04]:
Yeah, because you're like, I want that feeling again where you're just enjoying like the moment and you're enjoying the experience and the music and then like, you leave and you're like, I need that again.

Steve Swan [00:53:13]:
Well, for me it's a. So I meditate. Right. I don't. You know, I use Calm. The Calm app. Right.

 Traci Chernoff [00:53:18]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:53:18]:
Which is great. Tamara Levitt and you know. But concerts are kind of the same. Like you said, you're in the moment, you're right there.

 Traci Chernoff [00:53:24]:
Yeah, yeah, that's. That's awesome.

Steve Swan [00:53:25]:
So it is the same sort of thing.

 Traci Chernoff [00:53:27]:
So anyway, yeah, well, enjoy Lady Gaga.

Steve Swan [00:53:29]:
Yeah, it should be fun. We're really excited, so. Yeah, they're excited too. So anyway, well, thank you for joining me. This has been great, you know, for. For our listeners. If you liked what you heard or saw, like us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, go find us there, follow us like us, and we'll see you on the next one.