Join us as we chat with Yvette Cameron a recognized HR tech analyst who works with many startup organizations who are innovating new solutions for critical business challenges. We completely align with her passion for helping individuals to own and manage their careers. She shares her approach to recreating how we use career credentials using blockchain and self-sovereign identity.
This episode is an empowering conversation to keep exploring and always find the opportunity, even in these unprecedented times. We can all benefit from Yvette’s advice she shares around using this period to re-evaluate your career and propel yourself for the future, enjoy!
Find Yvette on Twitter @YvetteCameron, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvettecameron/ or via email y@nextgeninsights.net.
For more insightful conversations visit www.talentexperiencepodcast.com. We hope you enjoy this episode of the Talent Experience podcast!
Join us as we chat with Yvette Cameron a recognized HR tech analyst who works with many startup organizations who are innovating new solutions for critical business challenges. We completely align with her passion for helping individuals to own and manage their careers. She shares her approach to recreating how we use career credentials using blockchain and self-sovereign identity.
This episode is an empowering conversation to keep exploring and always find the opportunity, even in these unprecedented times. We can all benefit from Yvette’s advice she shares around using this period to re-evaluate your career and propel yourself for the future, enjoy!
Find Yvette on Twitter @YvetteCameron, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvettecameron/ or via email y@nextgeninsights.net.
For more insightful conversations visit www.talentexperiencepodcast.com. We hope you enjoy this episode of the Talent Experience podcast!
Rhonda: [00:00:29]
Welcome to TalentX. This is a podcast that serves the talent community, talks about career pathing, employment engagement and all the wonderful aspects of your employees careers. So today with us, we have a wonderful guest. We have Yvette Cameron. Yvette Welcome to TalentX.
Yvette: [00:00:50]
Rhonda. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Rhonda: [00:00:55]
Great Yvette. You and I, we bumped into each other several times. I knew you as an employee. I guess what was it that SuccessFactors you were with?
Yvette: [00:01:06]
Oh, probably many years ago.
Rhonda: [00:01:08]
Many years ago. That's right. And now you're a recognized analyst. I'm going to just turn it over to you and tell us about what you're doing and some of the things that you're seeing in the marketplace right now.
Yvette: [00:01:23]
Yeah, sure. So I have the opportunity to work with a number of organizations. I see I spend a lot of time actually working with many startup organizations who are innovating on new solutions and looking for new and creative ways to solve some of the critical business challenges. And despite all of the tremendous turbulence that we're facing right now in this market, there is still a lot of people who are able to remain focused and invest in solutions and approaches so that when we get to the other side of this disruption, we are not in the same state that we were before. There are new approaches, new ways of thinking, new ways of engaging with individuals and so forth. One of the biggest initiatives I've been involved with has been consuming a tremendous amount of time is, you know, working with a group who's now trying to recreate the way that we exchange career credentials and using blockchain and self-sovereign identity to really help individuals own and manage their career profiles and help get them to work in opportunities faster. And a lot of benefits provided to the employer side on that as well, reducing cost and friction and risk and so forth. So a lot of really good things going on here from my side as far as engagement and activities.
[00:03:01]
I will say, though, it's heartbreaking to see what's happening as far as job losses and people concerned about, you know, their immediate situation are their losses going to be temporary or permanent. It's a very disruptive time. So, you know, there's a lot of activity in some areas and in many other areas, of course, Rhonda, there's not so much. And it's a challenge for people and families trying to balance this. Of course.
Rhonda: [00:03:32]
Yeah, we're really seeing in this economy that the haves and the have nots. The healthcare sector, the lavatories and during their creative work to the investment world. Some of them are just going crazy, keeping up with what's going on. And then we're seeing the manufacturing industry, but we're seeing a lot of transition in these manufacturing industries. And, you know, do you think the impact of what they're doing now to sort of like a knee jerk response to Covid-19 is this going to be the new way for these manufacturing companies or do you think they'll be going back to their old ways?
Yvette: [00:04:25]
Well, you know, it's not just manufacturing where we're seeing significant changes. You know, we've got restaurants, you know, who have now moved to, you know, take out and delivery. And that was something that some of the restaurants never would have supported in the past. But now they are. And in my own local economy here in Colorado, we saw a shutdown of casino workers as non-essential work who were able to quickly move over to the cannabis industry. Apparently, that is an essential job in Colorado. I won't comment on that. But it's fantastic that these individuals were able to shift their careers so quickly, in large part because their background check requirements were very similar. So they were able to be put to work very quickly.
[00:05:15]
And as you said, you know, in manufacturing and warehousing and whatnot, different models, different approaches, I think overall. Yes, some of the changes that we're seeing are temporary, but a lot of it is going to carry over into a new way of working. So greater support for remote work. We're not going to see the, you know, 80 percent of our white collar workers working from home in the future. But there will be a significant increase because some of the jobs are just really well tailored for that. We're going to see new, you know, new approaches in how we're how we're engaging with our customers and how we're engaging with our workforce carryover.
[00:06:00]
But, you know, to your point, there will be some fallback. I mean, at the end of the day, there's a lot of pressure on share on organizations to meet shareholder requirements. There is a lot of human nature of going back to what you know and have always done. So it's it's going to be a mix from my perspective. New innovations coming forward. I think there's a greater, greater focus on empathy and trust in the workplace.
[00:06:29]
We're going to see a significant change in cultures and the way that organizations have treated their employees will remain with them. That brand that they're developing now is going to remain with them as they move forward on the other side of this situation. And that will cause some shifting, I think, workforces and expectations. So there's yeah, we're going to see some great changes, but we're going to also see ssome fall back. Just human nature, too, to what's comfortable for some. And the end of the day, though, I expect some of the most impactful changes to be happening around cultures, which I'm really excited about. I think it's even just the fact that video conferencing has become so much the common way of engaging. We've seen each other in our personal lives working. We see kids behind us and cats walking across the video screen as we're doing meetings. And, you know, that's brought us all a much more level understanding that we're people first and we're people as we go into our work lives. And I think, again, that that empathy is going to carry over into the new workforce. On the other side of all of this.
Rhonda: [00:07:44]
You're so right. I've always said work is life and life is work. And the two, merge. And this is Covid-19 is really ingraining this in all of us, you know. Now, you know, it's hard for all of us to think about our careers and the career pathing that we had, you know, we were undertaking before going into Covid-19, but this is definitely proven to us that our careers are like G.P.S.'s, we're zigzagging right now, we're having to pivot. But it's not all bad. It's actually good, you know. What do you think the evaluation points are for us as we pivot well on this journey with our careers during this time?
Yvette: [00:08:42]
Yeah, well, you know, an obvious evaluation point is exactly what we're facing now. Right. There's the loss of a job. And at any time, you've got either a reduction in hours or a temporary or, you know, layoff or just being let go entirely. That is an opportunity to re-evaluate your career. And, you know, those are the obvious that business points that cause those reevaluations. There's a personal side to I think as people are sitting here at home, either working from home or not working or on reduced hours or having shifted to a new role, as I said, the example of casino, to cannabis worker, you know, all of these work and personal changes give you that opportunity to say, you know, am I on the right path? Is this what's going to carry me to the next step?
[00:09:39]
We are in such a fortunate situation from the fact that the ability to continuously develop ourselves is so really has been made so easy for us online learning of all forms. You know, how do you want to develop your artistic skills, your cooking skills, your writing and communication or your technical and professional skills, etcetera? You can access that that ongoing lifetime learning from so many different sources. And now in this particular situation, a lot of those resources are free or extremely low cost. So this is a great time, despite all the challenges that we're facing to pick yourself up and focus on yourself and your development and make sure that you come out of this time, this down period, potentially with new skills or new excitement and new energy for what's possible for you, for the future. You know, this situation, as I said, gives you a chance to learn.
[00:10:44]
But, you know, for many years, we have been facing what I call the the era of portfolio careers Rhonda, where people had multiple gigs, multiple jobs that they held, sometimes out of necessity, to drive additional income into their family lives, but also because people were exploring new opportunities. You know, I'm working as a technologist here, but I've also got this side gig where I'm doing writing, right. Or I'm doing this other thing. I'm freelancing in these other areas. Maybe, you know, in the health care. I've gotten multiple different roles that I'm doing this portfolio career is one that I think has has become more prevalent, I think, because of the gig economy. But it has allowed people to explore different aspects of their interests and personality and start seeing what fits. Right. Does this job fit me as well as that one? Does this project fit me? What's the right coat or the right shirt that I should be wearing? What looks best on me right from a career perspective.
[00:11:50]
So I think always we should be exploring and, you know, whether it's a change in job hours and job type or whether it's an illness in the family, whether it's just being presented with a new opportunity. These are always the chances to kind of ask yourself, is your career compass? You know, where do you want to go? And if you don't have to always be headed north in your career, it's fine to take detours and explore because remember, it's the journey, not necessarily the destination.
Rhonda: [00:12:25]
Absolutely. I love that. It really is the journey. And you bring up you brought up a really good point about the opportunity to learn. And when this all happened and the lockdown was announced. Everybody went into like a state of panic. An element of fear existed just not in your workplace, but at home and now. And it was like we witnessed it on Monday. It was just like somebody turned the lights on. All of a sudden, everybody seemed to become more strategic, more methodical. And, you know, I just you know, I had a girlfriend who lost her job, said, hey, Rhonda, here's my Website. Can you evaluate this? People are just moving on. And although they had that many had been promised to be brought back. But there's no guarantees.
Yvette: [00:13:28]
There are no guarantees. And unfortunately, here in the United States, we're feeling the impact of that when it comes to, you know, a safety net for pay and for health insurance and the level of stress and disruption that those things cause cannot be underestimated. And as much as we do want to focus on our careers, if we're not able to address MAB Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right. Where health and safety in those things are secured. It's hard to focus and be aspirational to growing myself professionally. I think that doing what we can to again, continuously develop ourselves. Think about, you know, new ways of growing our skill set, you know, capturing and accumulating those those capabilities so that we're ready to present it to others when the time comes is important.
[00:14:25]
And even in the midst of some of these really scary, traumatic times, I think that as we as a culture look, at kind of, you know, how are we adding to the talent of our organization. How are we staffing, whether with gig workers or employees? You know, one of the exciting things that I've seen over time is that the requirement for, you know, a four year college degrees, traditional learning, etcetera, has kind of gone by the wayside or certainly in less demand than say evidence of skills and capabilities and the ability to, you know, demonstrate that you can execute on different things. So alternative forms of learning, online books, etc are all, I think, good, good ways. And to propel ourselves for the future. Yeah. There's the I, I wish there were some promises out there though and it falls back on our own responsibility.
Rhonda: [00:15:32]
Yes. But you are so, you are so right. We always saw in the past. You'll get your university degree. And that's your ticket into the corporate world. But now the corporate world looks more at potential. You know, if I looked at university degrees, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates would have never became the individuals that they were because they had such potential.
Yvette: [00:16:05]
And, you know, what's exciting too Rhonda. I'm sorry. I just want to say that what I'm what I am loving to as far as creative thinking, it's not just about looking at alternative backgrounds and new ways of thinking about it, but it also comes up to how are we staffing people? I love that there are tools and solutions now that are looking at. If I don't have the right job for this person, how do I get them placed at another organization? Right. This community of sharing talent across companies, not just within companies and the mindset of, you know, it used to be this talent is mine. I'm going to hoard it. I'm not going to share it. But I think in this environment, we are seeing the rise of more thoughtful consideration for how do we help people be successful even if outside of our organization? Because that will help us as a community. It will help our our brand to show that, yes, we truly do care. And it comes back to organization. So, you know, again, these talent sharing capabilities or as I said, the ability to have, you know, better processes to get people to work faster. I love that. You know, we can say this industry is closed down, but there's a good fit for these types of workers in these other industries. Let's get them to work. I just think there are some creative things that are happening that didn't happen in the past. As far as, you know, talent sharing and a lot of it's brought about by what we're facing today, thinking differently, acting differently. You know, there's no promise, but I think we're seeing some innovation that's going to help people along.
Rhonda: [00:17:49]
Yes. And if by chance, you know, all these people have still had access to any talent management, employee engagement, career pathing platform, they should they should open it up. Take a look at what's there. Maybe up date it. But what's more is like these platforms are like a talent marketplace. You could take a look and see, you know, there's twenty three jobs either within your existing institution or with outside the marketplace. But in the Gap analysis, you need to do this in order just to be competitive in these jobs.
Yvette: [00:18:35]
I mean, that's exactly what I'm talking about. So if I've got a comprehensive view and I've aggregated all my experiences across different gig work and my different, you know, my portfolio career, and that information is trusted right now, when I go out and look at these talent marketplaces, I'm able to be better matched to those opportunities or to be recommended with the training that will help get me to some of those other opportunities. The problem we have is so many of our H.R. systems today or student information systems have such a myopic view of who we are. They capture a little bit of information that, you know, the algorithms are matched to my limited profile. And so the opportunities are usually limited themselves. The idea of a greater marketplace that's cross company is great. My ability to present a better, more comprehensive picture of myself will ensure I've got better matches. The challenge, though, is, is that aggregated picture trusted? Is it comprehensive? And that's part of what I said at the start of this.
[00:19:46]
One of the initiatives, the major initiative I've been working on is, again, how do we help individuals assemble all of their experiences, many of them gleaned online through online development and coaching and mentoring and other things. How do we get those assembled into a trusted environment? Maybe on my mobile phone so I can literally have my credentials with me as I'm looking at opportunities, share them digitally with these various pieces and have them trusted so that once a gig or an employer is interested in me, it doesn't take the traditional five to seven or longer days for a background check that I'm literally able to be put to work in the next one to two days because my background is already validated and sitting here on my mobile phone. So this idea of, again, a blockchain based self-sovereign identity, you hear a lot about blockchain and H.R. and there's a lot of startups and I work with a lot of them in that space, but ultimately I'm hoping that out of all of this as we get to the other side of this initiative. We see some really great advances in how individuals have more ownership over their career credentials, are able to continuously develop them and ultimately present themselves for better work and education opportunities in a trusted, verified way.
[00:21:04]
I don't know if, you know, this is actually an initiative that has the support at our White House, you know, here in the United States, at the White House level. They're also driving for what they're looking for this opportunity to give Americans better access to work and job opportunities. And it all comes down to can the individual assemble and own their career profile? And that's one of the biggest initiatives I've been working on for the last two years. I think it's going to change the game. And we don't there's no promises from employers out there. But if you take responsibility for your profile, you take responsibility for that. You know that the promise of better opportunities should indeed be there.
Rhonda: [00:21:47]
Yeah. And, you know, Josh Bersin said in H.R. today, trust is the new currency. Yes. And you're absolutely so right about your platform that hosts your career and in your your G.P.S. your journey. It if the more input that you as an employee has. The more the more secure you are in in putting your faith in the platform.
Yvette: [00:22:23]
Yeah. And I ultimately that platform should be owned and managed by you. You're the one who is driving. What goes into that platform you're make. You're ensuring that it's kept up to date, but it all has to be frictionless. You know, so there's different methods and approaches there. I just I do see that there's a lot of investment from a series of different points of view. But ultimately, you know, the more we know about individuals, the more I as an individual can aggregate and demonstrate as validated certified information, the quicker I'm going to get to to better work and education opportunities. So there's different ways to get there. But ultimately, it's about self sovereign control of my career.
Rhonda: [00:23:11]
Yeah, you know, I wish you the best of luck. I love the idea of our Career path becoming part of the block chain. It's part of the bigger picture. And that way we will as individuals feel like we have more control.
Yvette: [00:23:35] Absolutely. That's what it's all about.
Rhonda: And on that note Before we let you go, I have one final question that we asked all our guests. I know you love your job and your excellent at it. What keeps you going? What do you really enjoy about what you do?
Yvette: Well, that's a great that's a great question. You know, I've been in the human capital management space for 30 years, actually over 30 years, and I probably shouldn't have admitted the years. Oh, well, it's out there. And from the first day I started in Human Resources and then I moved over to technology. But in all of the roles that I've held and even through today, the ability to talk with people and find creative ways to address challenges, whether it was a process in H.R., whether it was a new product or a new approach in the software I was delivering or new partnerships to address, you know, things that needed to happen in an ecosystem that the vendor couldn't do. Creative problem solving is what drives me this ability to think a little bit outside of the box or sometimes a lot outside of the box and solve something in a way that's sustainable and quick. Man, I live for that. Right. I'm laying in bed every night thinking about new approaches, new tactics. And I love creative problem solving. And I've had the joy of in the different roles I've had to address that through so many different ways. So I love it. I feel like I'm doing puzzles every day just on different levels. It's fun. I love it.
Rhonda: And you're and you are awesome at it Yvette. You really are. Yvette if somebody wants to get a hold of you. How do they track you down.
Yvette: Yeah. So let's see. The best way is probably to connect to me through LinkedIn. I'm just. Yvette Cameron. My name is my LinkedIn handle. You can also get me at my next gen email. I'm at y@nextgeninsights.net So that's why the letter Y. Not the question why.
Rhonda: And with that why we're going to do a wrap up and say thank you for joining us today and we hope to see you in the future when the hr world comes back to normality. Thanks Yvette.
Yvette: Thank you, Rhonda. You take care. Stay safe.