Managers' Guide to Leveraging HR Tech Now and Evolving for the Future with Melanie Lougee of ServiceNow

How can managers harness the power of HR technology to enhance their teams' performance and productivity? That's the crux of a stimulating chat between William Tincup and Melanie Lougee, the Head of Future HR Products at ServiceNow. Melanie is a prominent figure in the HR technology sector, and has some profound insights on how managers can efficiently utilize HR technology to foster productivity and elevate employee experiences. 

Lougee strongly advocates for integrating managers into the design and selection methodology of HR tools. This involvement guarantees a user-centric approach that perfectly meets their needs and hurdles. The result is an empowered managerial force armed with technology to streamline workflows, minimize manual processes, and cultivate a seamless employee experience. Lougee's expertise equips managers with the know-how and strategies vital in making the most of HR tech.

This informative discussion provides the key to seamlessly integrating HR tech into your managerial practices, leading to a positive, efficient, and highly productive work environment.

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Transcript

William Tincup: 0:32

This is William Tincup. You're listening to the Recruiting Daily podcast. Today, we have Melanie on from ServiceNow. And our topic today is Manager's Guide to Leverage HR Tech Now and Evolving for the Future. So let's do some introductions. Uh, Melanie, would you do us a favor and introduce both yourself and what you do at ServiceNow? Maybe even an overview of what ServiceNow does.

Melanie Lougee: 0:54

Sure, absolutely. So, um, so ServiceNow was founded in 2004, uh, by Fred Luddy, and he had a vision of employees being able to, uh, seamlessly route work all over the enterprise, um, as opposed to what was going on in the market at that time, which was A lot of siloed, uh, systems and, and broken processes. So that was his initial vision and he started with IT workflows, but then rapidly expanded into employee workflows and customer workflows and finance workflows. So we've grown, um, quite a bit. Uh, so today we are at, uh, 7, 400 customers, um, customers like. Coca Cola, um, Deloitte, WNBA, um, so a lot of large, uh, enterprise customers and, uh, my role, uh, within ServiceNow, um, is, uh, I head, uh, future HR products, uh, for, for ServiceNow. So I work within a very cool team called NALAX, um, and we are the incubators of ServiceNow. So we develop the, uh, stealth, uh, projects before they're ready to graduate and go generally available. Oh, I

William Tincup: 2:07

love that. This is the Skunk Works team. You get, you get to really, in the future of work and kind of what's next, what's around the corner, et cetera. Uh, I love that. How do y'all, how do y'all, first of all, before we get to the topics, which is fascinating as to what you do, how do you, how do you think about, I mean, when you go to a, uh, a technology conference, you're looking How, how are you and the team, how are y'all looking about what's, you know, what's next? How do y'all kind of coming up with that, that list?

Melanie Lougee: 2:36

Sure. Um, so it's always a balance, um, with product leadership between, you know, what are you trying to get out of any release? Um, is it a competitive advantage? Is it innovation? Is it customer? You know, that type of thing, but, but for me, I like seeing what's out there, but I get my inspiration and I read my tea leaves. Uh, not from reading analyst reports, not from walking around the floor at conferences. I read the news and I read a lot of it. So, um, I get it much more from the Wall Street Journal or I get it from the BBC or Al Jazeera or Harvard Business Review. Um, I like looking at what's happening in the world, um, and then kind of pulling the thread and say, well, what is that going to mean? And then what will that mean? And then what will that mean to employers and employees? I like

William Tincup: 3:24

that. I like that. It's more grounded. Yeah. It's, it's like, oh, go ahead

Melanie Lougee: 3:28

and I'll finish with that. Yeah. I was going to say, like, I, I, you know, I, I look at like very much what you just said. So, um, you know, if HR tech today is what's today, what's the future? Um, I think to figure out the future, you have to look outside of today.

William Tincup: 3:41

Yeah. And outside of the echo chamber, which I think is, Uh, really, like you said, analysts and walking the floor. That's great. That's all cool. But a lot of those folks are using the same language and, uh, and copying each other. And so that's, again, there's no harm. There's nothing wrong with that, but some of it might be far too far away from like the reality that, that, that folks are feeling in HR, recruiting, et cetera. So I like that. How do you Before, again, I'm so curious about this. How do you cap the, the, the future in terms of not going out too

Melanie Lougee: 4:16

far? Right, um, that's a good question. So, I cap the future within 7 to 10 years. Um, I think Got it, got it. Um, you know, considering how fast the world is changing, you know, predicting anything has gotten, um, extremely difficult. So I look at trends and try to be like, well, we better plan for agility and flexibility. There you go.

William Tincup: 4:41

Yeah. Yeah. I tell people whenever I'm talking about that type of stuff, I go, I'm like, yeah, not flying car stuff. We'll get there. However, let's just look at this thing. And it's a little bit more immediate than what you're dealing with, which I like. This, the topic that we, that we have in front of our managers guide to leverage the HR tech now, so let's, let's parse that between leveraging the HR tech now. And then let's talk about how they, and we evolve in the future and how we leverage HR tech in the future. So how do they, how do you see it right now? In terms of them leveraging the tech that they either have now or they're about to buy.

Melanie Lougee: 5:18

Sure. Um, so I'll even, I'll even take it just a half step backwards and say, how did, how did we get here, if that's okay? Sure. So I think, you know, we went through this era of, um, of HR, you know, wanting to be able to enable managers so that they could. outsourced some of the tasks that they had to managers and then somehow HR was supposed to get much more strategic. Um, and then there was this huge proliferation of point solutions that happened and a lot of that went to managers. So over time, managers ended up with 20 something different apps that they were using as part of their management duties. Everything from, uh, you know, managing goals to approving expenses to, um, you know, setting, uh, you know, doing performance reviews or recruiting. Like, every single thing, you know, had different apps. And managers really didn't ask for any of it, you know, to begin with. Nobody asked the manager what was going to be helpful, um, for them. And so, you know, what has happened is that managers have now ended up with, you know, 20 plus different apps that they're trying to reconcile and they have different workflows and different approvals and it's frustrating. So I think right now we're seeing a lot of, of, uh, customers looking for solutions for managers that are beginning to bring it all together. So at least, you know, give them one place to go, one common approval process, fewer. Uh, different experiences that they have to, to hop through. So we're seeing a lot of interest there right now as in consolidation and at least being able to have an entry point that's common.

William Tincup: 6:47

Yeah, that tracks for me because of the spring, I went to five tech conferences and kind of a theme that developed over those conferences was, uh, when I talked to practitioners, it was, uh, William, I just want less tech. And, and I'm like, you're at a technology conference, they hire me, you're at, you're at, you're at Unleash or Transform or whatever the, you know, whatever the conference was. I'm like, you're at this conference. Like, why are you here? If you want less tech. And what, what I kind of got into in terms of kind of digging into that and unpacking it, it's like, they don't want less tech. They want less entry points. They actually want more tech or more, you know, more from their tech in some cases, but they want less entry points for their managers, for themselves, et cetera. So it was fascinating. So that tracks for me.

Melanie Lougee: 7:36

Yeah. Right. One ring to rule them

William Tincup: 7:38

all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the advice. Okay. So we got here now leveraging that the, the, the tech. Uh, stack that they have, if you will, one of it's kind of auditing, understanding what you've, what you've purchased, uh, and understanding, especially if you're new, if you're CHRO and you're new to the organization, uh, having doing that audit and finding out, okay, well, we're paying for this, we're paying for that, et cetera. And then. You know, you're finding out user adoption, like, okay, what, are we using it or is it effective? Uh, and then connecting those kind of disparate systems to, to one another. I know that. I know that's obviously that's something that's important to y'all. Yeah. Um, how do you, I mean, I think the, the, the audience gets it because they're feeling the pain. So, so if they get it and, and it's a little bit easier now than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago when consultants had to actually do all of this integration type work, um, what's the barrier? And, uh, right now in terms of leveraging the technology that they've purchased, what do you see as kind of common barriers that you have to kind of coach or your team has to coach, uh, practitioners

Melanie Lougee: 8:54

through? Sure. Um, so I think there's, there's a couple of different things. So first I would say is that, um, decisions about HR tech or tech that managers are going to be using. is you really need to consult the manager. So I think a lot of the adoption problems that we've seen have really stemmed from HR building tools without asking a manager. What they need. Um, so HR, building tools for HR that then missed the, the user on, on the other end. So I think that's something that has to change is we really have to design around the users, um, you know, for sure. And if it's something that is actually going to be meaningful for them and help them with their job and be useful and not be difficult to find or completely detached from anything else, um, You know, then I think we will see much better adoption, um, especially if it's harmonized with one entry point, like we were seeing. And I think we saw a big push for that happen, you know, when everybody went home for the pandemic, right? They went home and they went home from their fancy buildings that cost, you know, campuses that, you know, billions of dollars on these campuses. And they went home and realized that they hadn't updated their intranet. 15 years and everything's broken and nobody could get a hold of anything. So I think that's something else too, is this, the role of the personalization of, you know, if I log into, um, work and get to the intranet, it should know that, you know, I'm a certain level and I'm in this location and I have this role and these are the things that I'm doing, like it should know me and it should know who I am and support me as, as a manager, I shouldn't have to go to some static place and look around for things and, you know, not have search that works and. You know, those types of things. And I think that we're there now. I think that's about where we are today is companies are adopting that type of technology right now to be able to simplify. And in some ways they're, they're putting in layers, you know, like an employee center, like workflows, you know, like these, this user experience layer. To kind of wrap some of these old systems and harmonize them. That's one of the things that ServiceNow does very well. And then when you provide this layer, um, you know, then that can actually make it easier to sort of replace things underneath or consolidate underneath without actually disrupting the user experience.

William Tincup: 11:03

I love that. And I love the, the concept of, you know, on two levels, building products that are manager centric. Mm-Hmm. uh, which is really what we can control on the, on the technology side, but also buying Mm-Hmm. uh, and kind of refocusing the buying process and making sure managers are somehow involved or a part of, or help build the short list or part of the demo. Like again, I think you're, uh, I mean, I know you're right. The, in terms of them, it's delivered to them. It's bought for them, purchased for them, and then it's delivered to them and they didn't have a hand in, you know, I think it's a famous quote of, uh, oh, I can't think, Bill Parcells, if you, you know, if you, if you want me to, uh, to cook that you should let me, you know, get the groceries. Exactly. Kind of, kind of, kind of sounds simple, right? But it, but it's with this idea of like getting them involved in the buy, how do we, how do we encourage? Or how do you think that we best

Melanie Lougee: 12:05

encourage? I think it needs to be an argument around, you know, productivity and efficiency. Um, and also just looking at the, the, the lackluster adoption records that are out there. Um, so you're making these investments and nobody's using them unless they absolutely have to. Um, you know, so I think that that's evidence that, that these things need to be designed the other way. And the other thing that I'll say too is most managers don't care if it's HR or IT or finance or, you know, whatever else, you know, they, they still, you know, they just want to be able to do the things that they need to, to be able to develop their teams and also do the administrative end of managing and facilitate thing. And they want to be able to do that, you know, easily without a lot of silos and barriers. I love

William Tincup: 12:50

that. I love that. And then again, getting, getting them involved, getting the adoption up, I, I sometimes laugh because you know, people will ask me about ROI pretty much every day. And uh, and I'm like, well, here's the deal. Every ROI business case that's ever been built in HR is flawed math because in every case it assumes a hundred percent adoption. And in no case has there been a hundred percent adoption. So, I don't care what technology we're talking about or the feature set that we're talking about or company or this, that, and the other, it's never been a hundred percent adoption. Never will be a hundred percent adoption. So that's a little, it's a little dark, but it's true. There'll never be a hundred percent adoption, but that means you don't strive for that. But the, the, the math. Is based on 100 percent adoption. There's no, it's not punished in any way. So, uh, I kind of, I laugh about ROI on, on some levels. Um, I

Melanie Lougee: 13:48

had to build some ROI calculators in my life. And I, I, you know, I don't, I don't disagree.

William Tincup: 13:55

Take the math, punish it by 50%. Okay. Yeah. No, yeah. No, you're good. Yeah. Now it's going to take you 10 years to recoup. Yeah. That's fine. That's it. That tracks. Uh, But, you know, it's harder to get past the CFO with a, with a 10 year ROI. Um, as we talk about, uh, evolving for the future, I want to kind of bifurcate HR and helping them kind of evolve, like, okay, how do we, how do you consume all this new technology that's going to be thrown at you? Sure. And then also how HR tech, so how HR tech is evolving as well.

Melanie Lougee: 14:31

Yeah, that's absolutely. So I, I think. Um, you know, we're, we're at this, uh, this, this point in time where employees are about to become extremely, uh, self directed. Um, they were already becoming self directed and, and, you know, starting to drive their own careers and things along those lines. But if you start thinking about the possible combination of not just AI, skills AI, that can help people find a role, find a mentor, do things like that. But if you then sort of layer on, you know, Gen AI, which will allow people to teach themselves, learn their own courseware, you know, do all of these types of things, then, you know, they can, you know, re skill themselves, you know, kind of with or without a manager, with or without an employer, you know, actually, you know, to a certain degree. So at that point, You know, managers who are kind of old school and are just kind of looking at the output of the team and maybe they're guilty of doing some talent hoarding, you know, things along those lines, you know, they're really going to have to change and become much more of a talent agent, if you will, much more of a facilitator of somebody's career. Um, to be able to help that person be happy at this organization and feel like they're a part of this organization and help them move around the organization because, you know, being, you know, impeding their growth within, within a company or not facilitating that growth, um, I think will very quickly, you know, lead towards them, you know, finding, finding their own way to either a different department or, or a different company. Um, because this, the level of information that's available of learning about, not just learning about an opportunity, but then being able to figure out how to get there. which is a positive, but that also means that managers need to rethink their relationship to an employee. Um, I also think that as that happens, um, that managers will, you know, not only will they need tools that will help, you know, allow them to engage better with, with employees, you know, as they, as they grow and, and Go along their path, but I think they'll also start needing to be evaluated differently so that as a manager, a larger portion portion of my evaluation and compensation are going to be, what opportunities do my people have, right? Are my people growing? Are they thinking about career paths? Do they want a career path? Um, am I, um, giving them exposure? Am I giving them opportunity and being looked at much more as a talent agent, um, instead of a talent hoarder? I

William Tincup: 16:54

love that. What do you, I'm trying to think of the kind of the crossroads of training and managers. What's, what's the responsibility of the organization to train them to become those talent agents?

Melanie Lougee: 17:07

Well, I don't even know if I would call it a responsibility of the place. I would call it, um, you know, a critical thing to do, right? You know, so I don't think it's a nice to have. I think it's like if you want to stay competitive, if you want to continue to grow your business, you, you have to grow your employees or you're going to have to replace them. Um, so I don't, I don't really think of it as a nice to have. I think of it as a critical thing to have, um, you know, to, to be able to, to foster a culture, you know, for one where growth is encouraged. Um, you know, and then also to be able to, to have there be coaching and encouragement, um, and then also the tools. Um, I think past tools have been very siloed, like all other tools that have been created, very siloed, um, so that you've got a learning system over here, and you've got some goals over there, and none of them talk to each other, and you've got, you know, flat skills in four different systems, and they don't harmonize or learn from each other. Um, you know, and it's kind of like, well, you know, even a blind squirrel occasionally gets a nut, like, maybe you'll be promoted someday and, you know, might take this course over here and then not be connected to anything. But, you know, where it's going, you know, if you think about something like employee growth and development, which we, um, you know, recently released. Uh, it, it, it allows you to harmonize, again, you know, like, what are my aspirations, and then be able to tie in other things, like, do you have a mentor, you know, is there some coursework, is there some shadowing, is there an internal gig, and be able to create much more of a plan, and be able to do that collaboratively with a coach, or, you know, with your manager. Um, and I think that's where managers can play to be able to, um, you know, have their relationship with their employees to be much more productive and, and stickier, if you will, become much more of that talent agent. So,

William Tincup: 18:55

when you look at talent agent, uh, and again, managers becoming more like talent agents, and you've got to be great at your job. So if you're, you know, an engineer and you're leading a team towards whatever, uh, in that you're leading them, you're also a talent agent. So at the same time that you lead a team and you do this, you know, job, job that you have, you're also a talent agent is, do you kind of, uh, already have kind of in your mind, kind of an adoption curve of those of all their managers and how they're kind of, you know, you've got your early adopters and the people that are kind of doing things on pace and then laggards, if you will, to kind of keep it real simple. Do you already kind of see organizationally that Some managers are going to move faster than others.

Melanie Lougee: 19:41

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, and I think what companies look for in a manager will change too, right? Um, you know, so if skills and, um, learning and things like that can be. self attainable, um, you know, and, and that kind of training can happen largely independently, then a manager really needs to be hired more for their softer skills, for their leadership qualities, for their, um, you know, ability to, uh, motivate, um, and, and coach and manage, um, a team, you know, more than, you know, do they know how to do this technical thing that's going to be obsolete in three years.

William Tincup: 20:24

So I love that. I love the, first of all, I love pe people being hired more for their soft skills managers. Excuse me. Mm-Hmm. managers being hired more for their soft skills. Is that a now today thing or?

Melanie Lougee: 20:38

I think we're seeing the beginnings of it. Okay. Um, I think we're seeing the beginnings of it. Um, and I also think that, you know, companies, their interest in things like soft skills and thinking about the future and stuff like that, um, you know, goes up and down with. What the, what the labor market looks like. Right. So, you know, we always see companies be much more interested in things like diversity and inclusion. Um, you know, when the job market is tight and it's hard to hire people. Um, you know, so I think that, you know, some of this is, is also along with that. So, you know, companies that, uh, you know, are employers of choice and they're getting 400 resumes for, for a job. Um, you know, they might have, um, you know, sort of a, a different environment. Yeah. Desire to quickly weed through, find good candidates, develop the right people, um, you know, that type of a thing than a company that has a difficult time attracting people to begin with. Right? Um, you know, they, they might be interested in different parts of the, the talent and leadership process.

William Tincup: 21:40

What do you, what do you see, uh, think of the theme or, or trend right now for hiring for potentiality? For

Melanie Lougee: 21:48

potentiality.

William Tincup: 21:49

Yeah. Do you have a take on that?

Melanie Lougee: 21:52

I do have a take on that. Like I'm pro hiring on potentiality. Although I know that potentiality it's, it is, it is very, um, uh, it's a little squishy. Yeah, it's, it's, it's squishy. It exactly. It's, it's hard to measure. It's hard to prove. You know, anything along those lines, but I think it is something that that potentially opens up opportunity, um, you know, and I also think that, you know, as we see, uh, especially younger generation being a little bit less interested in a four year degree, being a little bit more interested in managing their career and going for certificates that they can update every few years. Um, you know, I, I, I do think that, um, you know, there, there's going to come a time where, you know, maybe somebody's SAT scores is going to be what gets them into their first employer. Something like that, you know, maybe it's aptitude testing, um, you know, right out of high school instead of, you know, a four year degree that, that may or may not still be relevant, um, you know, four years afterwards. Yeah,

William Tincup: 22:54

it's almost like Moore's law as it applies to skills and how fast those things. We talk a lot about, especially in our market, we talk a lot about upskilling, but we rarely talk about how skills decay and, and, you know, okay, you have that degree from so and so and that was 10 years ago. Well, is that information or is that those skills that you attained, do you still have those skills? And so, you know, just as much as we talk about the plus side of adding new skills and all the cool things that go along with that, the access points in which we can do that, we're not really talking about how our skills, as you add two, you're losing probably two. If you add six, you're probably losing two or three, you know, like it's okay. But uh, I was telling somebody the other day, I'm like, you know, I ran an ad agency, oof, uh, over 10 years ago. Uh, I don't have those skills anymore. Like I could, I learned those skills pretty quickly. Yeah, of course. Throw me back in, uh, to running an ad agency. It'd probably take me three months, but. But I don't have them now. If I were to do that inventory, I don't have those skills right now.

Melanie Lougee: 24:10

You know, I relate to that a lot on a very deeply personal level. Um, you know, uh, um, so I'm back in a product leadership role, you know, right, right now. And I love it. I love my new role. Um, but for the, uh, seven years prior to that, um, you know, I was leading, uh, employee workflow strategy for ServiceNow. So, um, across other things other than, you know, just the HR piece. And before that I was, uh, uh, vice president at Gartner for four years. So living in the analyst world. And so now I'm back leading product again. And, you know, by the way, leading products changed a lot in seven years. The last time I was doing this, like, things were a little bit different. And so I've been like, okay, like some things, again, the soft skills, right? Like I can motivate a team and I can treat people well and respect them and encourage them and, you know, help guide their career and mentor them. Like those kinds of things don't change. Um, but the tools that we use change that the, you know, pace at which things get released has changed. The geographic makeup of the teams has changed, you know, like all of these other things have changed. So

William Tincup: 25:20

I love it. And, and you know what, if you, if you, for whatever reason, if you ever became an analyst again, it turns out there's a lot of things that are similar. Yep. Check. Got it. There's a whole bunch of it that's changed and, and Gartner and even Gartner has changed just like it is, it's unrecognizable to the company that I knew 15, 20 years ago, like Totally. Last question is just your take on, is there anything that you see there in practice or something that you hear from some of the customers around generational things that come out of managers? Like, do you see anything where millennials or Gen Z or even, you know, other, other, you know, other generations where they're kind of consuming this new model, this talent agent model, either poorly or successfully, like, do you see anything there?

Melanie Lougee: 26:13

Well, I do think that younger generations tend to be more fluid in general about, you know, about their relationships, uh, with their employers, um, and, you know, so I think that, that they, you know, are, are taking to this pretty naturally as well as the self directed careers and taking advantage of the tools that are there and, um, you know, demanding, um, these opportunities and if they don't see them, they will go find them, right? So I think that, um, that they seem far less likely to sort of accept a status quo, where they don't see themselves growing, or they see themselves being held back in some ways, you know, they tend to advocate for themselves, I think much more strongly than than older generations. Um, you know, where we, you know, and, and some of that might be because they have the freedom, they have less responsibility, right? Right, right, right, right. You know, on the, on the other end of the spectrum, you know, where, uh, you know, a leader, um, you know, might be in a situation and they've been a leader for a long time and they're being asked to do things in a different way. Maybe they agree with it, maybe they don't, you know, it's, it's very different for them to think about. You know, helping my talent find other places to be, um, you know, that might be very, very different for them, um, because it's a, it's a, it's definitely a change in the culture of work, uh, over, over time. Yeah,

William Tincup: 27:33

they've, they've also, they've also got to want it, regardless of gender or generation or any of those types of things. They've got to want to become a talent agent.

Melanie Lougee: 27:41

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and, and, you know, if they don't want to become a talent agent, you know, it might be uncomfortable or, you know, maybe they'll, they'll find, you know, another, another way to contribute. Um, you know, so, right.

William Tincup: 27:54

Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah.

Melanie Lougee: 27:58

Anytime. It's a, it's been my pleasure. Thank you.

William Tincup: 28:00

A hundred percent. And thanks for everyone listening until next time.