Buying effective HR and/or Talent Acquisition technology is extremely hard. Setting the right objectives, understanding analytics and knowing whether to go for an end to end solution or a combination of best of breed services are some just some of the issues to be faced.
My guest this week is Matt Burns from The Global HR Collective. Matt is an award-winning former HR executive with a wealth of experience in building successful technology strategies.
In the interview we discuss:
- Where to start with HR and Recruiting technology
- The importance of defining outcomes
- Using data to predict and prevent issues
- Establishing effective ROI
- Automation
Matt also shares his thoughts on the future of the HR profession and talks about his approach to social entrepreneurship.
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
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Matt Alder [00:01:06]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 197 of the Recruiting Future podcast. As many of you working in HR and talent acquisition will know, buying effective technology is an incredibly difficult process. Setting objectives, understanding analytics, and knowing whether to go for an end to end solution or a combination of best of breed services are just some of the challenges need to be faced. My guest this week is Matt Burns from the Global HR Collective. Matt is an award winning former HR executive with a wealth of experience to share about building successful technology strategies. Enjoy the interview.
Matt Alder [00:01:51]:
Hi Matt and welcome to the podcast.
Matt Burns [00:01:53]:
Hey Matt, how’s it going?
Matt Alder [00:01:55]:
Really good, really good. A real pleasure to have you on the show. Could you introduce yourself to everyone and tell us what you do?
Matt Burns [00:02:02]:
Of course I can, yeah. My name is Matt Burns. I’m the founder and CEO of Collective Matt. I spent about 20 years in the corporate world, 15 of those in HR and the last five of those as an HR executive. And I came to the conclusion that I wanted to have an impact that extended outside the four walls of a single organization. And we landed at the Global HR Collective where we do essentially three things simultaneously. The first one is we help organizations architect procure and implement HR technologies. The second thing we do is that we do, we work with organizations to help operationalize and better aggregate and utilize their analytics and data. And then the third thing we do is we spread information around the world. So I am a practitioner myself and I love advancing the HR profession globally. So we share thought leadership across multiple mediums. And we do that as a means of giving back. And giving back is deeply ingrained in our purpose. The reason we are a social enterprise is really to influence two things globally. The first one is mental health advocacy and women entrepreneurs and we are doing so through the donation of a million dollars as we raise revenue.
Matt Alder [00:03:03]:
Fantastic, fantastic stuff. And it will be good to maybe hear a bit more about that as, as we kind of move through the conversation. Just to maybe take a step back slightly to start with, could you just give everyone a little bit of context around your background in terms of what you’ve done in HR before?
Matt Burns [00:03:20]:
Yeah, happy to do that. So I started hr. Like a lot of folks, I kind of fell into the profession. It wasn’t certainly part of my design, but I really came to enjoy it. For me it was an opportunity to influence the organization broadly and have important conversations around, I think the most important asset which is the human resour in an organization. I worked in a number of HR capacities, business partner, specialized in training and development for a period of time, did some work in recruitment and the last five years as an executive was really highlighted by two kind of core functions. The first one was I participated in and architected a lot of restructuring activities and that for me was an interesting exercise. But ultimately what I did not see my path forward being and then what I was most known for now is the work I did with technology and analytics. I walked into an organization in my last corporate role that did not have HR technology and they were looking for a solution to really take the HR profession to the next level along with help the organization grow quite rapidly. So we went to the market and we talked to all the traditional vendors that are in the space looking for that, you know, that typical end to end solution. Because we only had a payroll module, we had no other solutions to speak of. And ultimately Matt, we arrived at a solution that was, we found that because we were still quite small potatoes compared to those larger companies in the world, we were 1500 employees. We just weren’t going to get the solution we wanted going end to end without a lot of customization, which for us meant a lot of cost and a lot of complexity. So we went to the market and found five different solutions and went best of breed with our model and in doing so essentially purchased a separate applicant tracking system, a separate learning management system, a separate hris and then hired a solutions architect, tethered them all together on the back end and create our own end to end solution at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time and in doing so created a bit of a unique approach to how we put together our HR technology. We were successful in winning an award here in Canada for 2017 for the most innovative use of HR technology. On that effort and then following that up, we wanted to leverage the information that came from those systems. So we pulled together a pretty robust analytics strategy and then in 2018 won the award for best HR department in Canada for retail and hospitality. On the strength of that, it’s been a real fun ride. Along the way we’ve been trying to tell the story and tell the journey and that’s really what prompted me to leave the corporate world and start my own business, was when I started to tell the story of what we had done in my previous organization, people were very encouraged by it, they were very interested by it, and I had lots of requests for help on the back of it. And ultimately I wanted to help influence the profession globally.
Matt Alder [00:05:58]:
So let’s kind of start by talking about HR technology. I mean, obviously in the last few years the amount of technology in the HR and recruiting space has grown exponentially. Huge amounts of investor money are coming into the market. And I think for, you know, for a lot of, you know, a lot of people sort of working in recruiting in hr, you know, there’s just a huge amount of confusion about what role technology should be playing, how they define that, why it’s important, where they should start. What would your advice be to someone looking at the confusing world of HR technology?
Matt Burns [00:06:35]:
Yeah, first I would say be easy on yourself because it is a confusing world out there. As some somebody who spends most of his waking hours in that space right now, I have a tough time keeping up with all the new entries into the market. I would say first thing Matt, that that brings me a lot of optimism because it means that for the first time in a long time, HR is getting the attention that it deserves. From a tools and resources perspective. There are lots of solutions on the market now that solve for the end to end process, but there are many more solutions that solve for a very specific piece of the process. And there are different entrants in the market at different stages. So no longer do you need to spend a ton of money and resources to purchase technology. There are many best of breed type SaaS, solutions that are month to month payments, low fees that you can really implement in your organization. I would say this question. I get quite a large amount when I travel globally and speak on the issue. And I would say the first thing you need to think about is what do you actually need from an organizational perspective? What is the outcome you’re trying to achieve so that the business case to purchase technology becomes more clear? And that could be that you’re trying to build more efficiencies, you’re trying to better leverage your finite resources, you’re Trying to automate your processes, trying to reduce cost, that could be one aspect you’re looking at. The other situation you could be looking at is maybe you want to enhance your employee experience or drive employee engagement, provide better learning and development tools. Getting very clear on what the outcome you’re looking for is something that is absolutely critical. And then secondly is doing your due diligence in the market. You can do so a couple different ways. You can certainly go out and do the due diligence yourself. There are many great options to do that. Whether you’re using website aggregators, whether you are engaging in thought leadership and talking to thought leaders. There are organizations like myself that help other companies navigate through those spaces and help find the right technologies that fit their needs. There are a lot of different options to help wade through that. And I just think that it’s being very clear on what outcome you’re trying to achieve is for me the first step in this, in this very exciting journey. Because you’re going to get a chance once you start using technology, Matt, you’re never going to want to go back.
Matt Alder [00:08:42]:
Absolutely. And you know, you’ve kind of alluded to it a little bit there, but what’s your view on what people’s strategy should be in terms of buying? I work with clients who want a total end to end solution so they can have all their data in the same place and you know, consistency in all their processes. And I work with other people who want the, you know, the best possible technology in every aspect of HR and recruiting and are prepared to sort of work with multiple vendors to achieve that. You know, what’s your take on a kind of a one stop shop solution versus working with sort of niche players.
Matt Burns [00:09:21]:
Yeah, it’s a great question. I think it really comes down to the organization itself. So Mat, if you asked me and I was the chro of a large regulatory organization, perhaps in the public service, I would want an end to end solution, a single solution that provided me with the conservatism, the data security, the comfort of knowing I’m dealing with an established vendor. If I was any organization that wasn’t in that kind of that bureaucratic public service type model, I would be looking at best of breed, which is buying the best solution for the problems you’re trying to solve. For me, the advances in technology over the last five years in HR are unbelievable. Whether it is open APIs which allow you to connect systems together seamlessly, whether it’s data aggregation efforts which allow you to pull data from different systems, store them in One location, analyze them, report on them, visualize them and action them. There are so many different options nowadays. It is no longer a cumbersome process to buy and implement technologies. In the example that I gave Matt, where we purchased five technologies in one year, implemented them, those were all on month to month contracts, they were all in the cloud, all open APIs, all had single sign on which meant that no people in the organization had to remember additional passwords. It was a seamless process and at any point in time we could have canceled our contract with 30 days notice, pulled our data out and gone to a new solution. I remember when I first started buying HR technology 15 years ago, it was not like that. It was two, three, four year contract. It was painful to get into a system and even more painful to get out of a system. They’re making it so much more easy now for customers to be transient and find the solution that makes sense for them. And when you think about the majority of customers are in small to medium business, it’s that flexibility that you need to be able to have as your company grows and evolves and as you need new capabilities. It’s great to be able to have options that can grow with you and adapt with you. So it really comes down to what is the current state of your organization and where do you want to go with that technology.
Matt Alder [00:11:23]:
One of the things that we mentioned is data and obviously within HR and recruiting a massive move towards collecting and analyzing data. So we’re starting to see the evolution of HR analytics companies. Getting this right, what are you seeing? What’s kind of happening in this HR analytics space?
Matt Burns [00:11:45]:
Yeah, it’s a really interesting space actually. And I’ll say we’ve been on this journey for quite some time. So I remember actually 15 years ago when I started in HR, data was going to be the salvation of this profession. So the thought leaders of the day, the Dave Ulrichs of the world, were talking about how data was going to be used to transform the HR profession. We were finally going to, quote, get our seat at the table by using data to quantify our impact and show our true value to the organization. Unfortunately Matt, though, what I’ve seen in most organizations I’ve worked in or worked with, is that the data just became another administrative task. It became a reporting tool, it became a dashboard, it became a scorecard and did not allow HR to become strategic, but rather complete one more task on the many tasks that we have to complete their administrative. What excites me now is that the tools that we have to use and the skill sets being built in this profession really are advancing to a place where through things like predictive analytics, where you can take data and forecast actions and mitigate risk, and through much more machine learning and artificial intelligence, you can draw more clear insights that HR business partners can take and action and spend the time doing what they should be doing, which is working with their partners to help them through a journey that blends the quantitative data with the qualitative instincts that they bring to the table. And for me, Matt, I think for the predictive analytics pieces is the most exciting, if only because it graduates the HR profession from firefighting to fire prevention. And I say it’s exciting for a few reasons. First, if I’m a chro, I know that I have a limited budget and finite resources and it’s always a struggle in HR trying to allocate resources because the quote unquote work is uncertain, especially in an operating environment. You don’t know when the next investigation is going to be. You don’t know when your next crisis is going to occur. You’re really just waiting by the phone or by your email hoping that it all seems to work out in the end, that you can shift resources on demand. But the ability to use data to predict issues before they occur, whether that is the departure of a high end talent or potentially an engagement issue in a certain work site, gives you the ability to proactively go in and solve problems and do so more efficiently. I use the analogy firefighting versus fire prevention because it is far more efficient use of resources to prevent issues than it is to solve them because you need to keep the resources around to solve them with an undetermined timing and seriousness attached to those issues. So for me, giving the HR profession the information almost to forecast and project what is going to occur is just critical because it transforms us from list takers and problem solvers into true business partners that are strategic in nature as we can advise the business on their future path in a way we haven’t been able to do before.
Matt Alder [00:14:31]:
And what do you think is the best way to do that? Because you know, I see a lot of organizations just, you know, literally just collecting reams and reams of reams and reams of data and actually not perhaps getting across the power of it very well kind of elsewhere in the organization or not, not actually using it to its full, full potential. What would your advice be in terms of really, really making the most of the create action within organization?
Matt Burns [00:15:01]:
Yeah, that’s a great point. Going back to your last question, Matt, the problem we had 15 years ago was we didn’t have any data, so everything was in paper, and it was very hard to draw insights from sheets of paper. The problem we have now is the inverse, which is there’s so much data. Most HR departments I talk to are drowning in it. And I think the advice I would give to them is to start small and start with a single problem. So what problem are you trying to solve in your organization? How can you use data to quantify it? Both its current state, secondly, its impact, and third, the path you go from A to B. So let’s use an example of turnover. Let’s say as an organization, you’re having significant challenges around turnover for employees in their probationary period. Well, you can clearly quantify that now with HR technology and systems to say, okay, we’re losing this many resources in this timeframe, and here’s the financial cost of the organization by putting some dollar values to it, whether it is their annual wage prorated, whether it’s the cost to acquire talent, which should include things like the cost of your recruitment team or your agency to bring that talent in, the cost to onboard and train, the cost to equip those individuals. When you bake all those costs in, there should be a volume or a number that tells you, here is the cost of attrition and here’s what it costs the organization. And that’s to say nothing, by the way, of all the intangible costs, things like productivity losses, things like loss of culture. You can work to quantify those numbers. But a very quick back of the napkin is, what are you spending to hire somebody? What are you spending to onboard and train them? And then figuring out, based on the volume of turnover, what that opportunity cost is. Then you take that same methodology and you apply it on the opposite end of your project, which says, as we see progress and as we introduce programs or initiatives to try and solve this problem, we’re going to quantify using exactly the same measures we used to quantify the issue originally so we can determine what the delta is between the two. And then we get to do which is the most exciting part for HR people, which is actually introduce the programs that we would like, the programs that we’re great at creating into that situation. But then the second piece is we have to use that second layer of quantification to determine what the impact is of those actions. So let’s say, for example, the data tells you that there’s a significant issue around turnover in a particular business unit as it pertains to people losing or people leaving their roles in the first 90 days. Well, what if that involved a conversation with the HR business partner and the leader of that business unit? To say, let’s talk through some of the feedback from exit interviews. Let’s talk through building some action plans around how we can better retain your talent. There seems to be issues in these two or three areas. Let’s solve them together. We do that, we measure the impact, and we take the delta to show what is the impact of the actions and build the business case for further work with analytics. So really, Matt, it’s not much different than what we’re doing today. It still involves a lot of the same skill sets. It’s just being a bit more thoughtful and planful around the quantification of cause and effect.
Matt Alder [00:17:56]:
Could you give us, you know, maybe a few more thoughts on what you see as the future of the HR profession?
Matt Burns [00:18:03]:
Oh, yeah. I am so excited about this profession for a few reasons. I think for the longest time, mat as a profession really were entrenched in this belief that we were the qualitative profession. That yes, technology and data are in the background, but those are the forums of it, of finance, even of marketing more recently. But HR was largely the function of people, and what we did was very intangible. And that should remain the way that it is, except that it’s not. People have the ability to perform. We can quantify their effort, we can quantify their impact, and we can do so in a way that actually blends the quantitative with the qualitative. And I think as a profession, we’re going to see a number of very exciting changes in the next three to five years, as we’re already seeing today. And I would put those as a couple of examples. The first one is we’re going to see a proliferation of technology across organizations big and small as there are more tools on the market that find their place, whether it is in the top end of the market for the organizations that have large budgets, or at the bottom end of the market for organizations that are just starting their technology journeys. There’s going to be a solution for you that allows you to automate all the manual administration that doesn’t add value in an organization is inefficiently performed by humans in a lot of cases is not as accurate as machines and as computers. And that’s going to strip away all that work from the organization and put it into the technology. What that does for the human, in this case the human resources person, is it actually frees up their time to spend their effort on the things that actually and what we should have always been doing, which is spending time with the managers, spending time with employees and really utilizing our skills such as emotional intelligence and empathy and creativity and innovation to really drive things to the next level and leave the manual repetitive administration to the machines where it’s best left with. That’s kind of the first big change that I see. The second change that I see is, as you mentioned, the proliferation of analytics and data. Again, using data as another tool in our toolbox. It shouldn’t govern your decisions in its entirety. You should never just move blindly with data. But I use the analogy, Matt, of if you’re trying to solve a problem in human resources, it’s often like finding a needle in a haystack. People are hard to predict in a lot of cases. People are complex problems when they involve humans. So it’s like finding that needle in a haystack. Data is not going to find you the needle, but it makes for a smaller haystack. And again, as you’re looking at allocation of resources, as you’re looking at better spending your time in the areas where it’s making a difference, data helps inform you so that you can make the right decisions for your business and then as well quantify the impact of your efforts in a way that traditionally we haven’t been able to quantify. Any HR leader that I talk to who’s been around for 5, 10, 15, 20, 20 plus years can tell you stories about training budgets being cut when financial performance isn’t great, having to do major cuts on wages or on headcount to help kind of right the ship, if you will. The ability to quantify the impact of those decisions will be able to inform organizations and their leaders and their boards about what is actually healthy for the business, what is going to make the impact. Because in a lot of cases, making drastic cuts to headcount or making drastic cuts to training and development budgets may have a short term benefit, but ultimately can have a long term impact to the organization.
Matt Alder [00:21:30]:
So final question. Can you tell us a little bit more about the social entrepreneurship side of your organization? Because I think you’re doing some, you do some really interesting stuff there.
Matt Burns [00:21:39]:
Yeah, I’m happy to. So it’s been a really exciting journey, Matt. I’ll be honest, I’d spent, as I mentioned before, most of my career in the corporate world. So for me, being an entrepreneur one has been a very interesting personal journ. And I’ve learned a lot about myself and about business along the path. And being a social entrepreneur has also proven to be very interesting because I still think that we’re in our infancy in society and understanding the fact that business can really have impact and have impact in beyond financial terms. So what I’m doing really is taking the skill sets that I’ve built over the 20 years I spent in the kind of the big business and helping organizations advance their own agendas and mandates using technology and data. And one thing I’m really excited to share is that why do Matt sometimes can be quite intangible. Every organization is at its own starting place and it’s unique to them. And they also have a unique destination based on the industry, based on the geography, based on the leadership, based on budget, based on just the needs, requirements and problems. We are developing right now. A productized solution, productized service which essentially helps organizations architect, strategize, ProCure and implement HR technology at scale. And we’re calling it Bento HR. And the reason we call it BentoHR is certainly after the bento box terminology. So if anybody has any Japanese food fans out there, you pick your box as you would on a menu. We’re organizing Bento HR in each of those boxes in terms of outcomes. So if you’re looking to streamline your overheads, reduce your costs, become more efficient, there’ll be a bento box for you. And we will work with you to help architect a solution, procure the technology and implement the technology in a way that achieves your goals with you. But there could be a bento box for employee experience. And the architecture, procurement and implementation of technology looks very different. It doesn’t have as big of a cost implication to it. Although you will gain some efficiencies. It’s much more about how do we give the employees a better experience with technology to better enable them as they’re completing their tasks within the organization. So with Bento hr, we’re really trying to help empower HR and HR leaders to realize their strategy using technology. And I’m just so excited about that opportunity to share that vision with people. I think it’s going to make it very, very relatable. I just think that to your earlier point, Matt, the HR profession has had a love hate relationship with technology and data in particular. And you’re right, it is very difficult to navigate those worlds, especially today where everything is moving so fast and most people I talk to don’t have an abundance of free time. We’re so proud and so privileged to be able to come in and offer support that allows Organizations to trust that their strategies are going to be co developed with us and that we can take on the heavy lifting for them so they can focus on what they’re doing best, which is working with their organizations and more importantly, their people. From a social enterprise perspective, how that looks for me is as we generate revenue and as we make money. Whether it is in the bento HR format, whether it’s be public speaking around the world, whether it’s me doing other side consulting projects, I cover my overheads, I pay myself a nominal salary and the rest of the money goes to charity. And I’ve decided to dedicate my monies to mental health advocacy and women entrepreneurs in particular. Two causes that for me are very important personally. I can share with you, Matt, that I have personally in the past struggled with mental health issues, whether those be anxiety or depression. It’s a challenge that I consistently go through and I’m fortunate to have a support network and resources around me to help me through those challenges. And I’ve had friends and I’ve had family members who’ve suffered with it as well. It’s a major issue around the world these days and I think an issue that continues to require resources and attention and time. So for me, I’m so privileged to be able to give back to those causes. For me it just made sense. And then with women entrepreneurs, Matt, I mean I grew up in the HR profession. Most of my leaders were women. And I’m so thankful for each and every one of them that helped me grow my career, grow as a person. But oftentimes I saw in large complex environments that for whatever reason, those women just didn’t have the success they were looking for or the success that they deserved. It happened for a number of reasons, Matt. Sometimes it was organizational constraints, sometimes it was individual constraints. But ultimately I think we’re at a stage in society where we need to have a dialogue that is much more diverse. I look around at the decision makers and governments and big business and I see a lot of people, Matt, that look like you and I. And I think the first change we need to make is by introducing more women into the conversation. I think it’s going to lead to a more rich dialogue. I think it’s going to lead to a more balanced conversation. And I think the best way to achieve that is by enabling women to have success in an economic context because ultimately economics that drive society in our modern day world. So I’m working with women in the context of providing funding to support women entrepreneurs. But I’ve also joined several organizations that have female CEOs or female founders where I’m helping them navigate their own startup journeys as a means of helping them have success so they can create and scale impact.
Matt Alder [00:27:04]:
Matt, thank you very much for talking to me.
Matt Burns [00:27:06]:
It’s been a real pleasure, Matt.
Matt Alder [00:27:08]:
My thanks to Matt Burns. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts or via your podcasting app of choice. The show also has its own dedicated app, which you can find by searching for Recruiting Future in your App Store. If you’re a Spotify user, you can also find the show there. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com on that site, you can subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
