The debate around the office versus remote versus hybrid looks set to run and run as employers continue to experiment with different strategies. Despite the enormous advantages of remote working, there are many challenges and gaps with some current approaches that need addressing as we move forward.
So what are the key issues, how do employers address them, and what role should HR technology play?
My guest this week is Saad Siddiqui, General Partner at Telstra Ventures, a VC firm with several HR technology investments. Saad has written extensively about the future of work and the advantages of a fluid workforce strategy.
In the interview, we discuss:
• The current state of the hiring market and the longer term outlook
• Identifying gaps and challenges in new ways of working
• The fluid workforce
• Generational divides
• Building connections and mentoring
• Culture and the role of leadership
• Employee motivations and retention
• Finding the best talent on a global basis
• Key trends in HR Tech
• Consolidation and platform business extension
• How should employers think about technology?
• What does the future look like
Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.
Transcription:
Fountain (0s):
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Fountain (46s):
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Matt Alder (1m 15s):
Hi there. This is Matt Alder. Welcome to Episode 482 of the Recruiting Future Podcast. The debate around the office versus remote versus hybrid looks set to run and run as employers continue to experiment with different strategies. Despite the enormous advantages of remote working, there are many challenges and gaps with some current approaches that need addressing as we move forward. So, what are the key issues? How do employers address them and what role should HR technology play? My guest this week is Saad Siddiqui, General Partner at Telstra Ventures, a VC firm with several HR technology investments.
Matt Alder (2m 1s):
Saad has written extensively about the future of work and the advantages of a fluid workforce strategy. Hi, Saad, and welcome to the podcast.
Saad Siddiqui (2m 13s):
Thanks, Matt.
Matt Alder (2m 14s):
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Please, could you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Saad Siddiqui (2m 21s):
Sure. I am a partner at a venture capital firm called Telstra Ventures and Telstra Ventures is a global venture capital fund where we focus on investing in next-generation technologies, and I spend a lot of my time on next- generation HR tech. And we’ve been doing a lot of really good work in everything from helping folks identify the right talent to managing the Hiring process to benefits and a bunch of other stuff related to that side as well.
Matt Alder (2m 54s):
Fantastic. I mean, tell us some of the companies that you’re working with.
Saad Siddiqui (2m 58s):
Yeah. So we have invested in a couple of really interesting companies. As an example, we invested in companies like Forage, which is helping place new grads and interns to companies. Springboard, which is around training and upscaling existing employees or new employees, certain around background checks, spect around employee onboarding, especially around sales talent. And Lively, which is around the healthcare benefits primarily focused in the United States.
Matt Alder (3m 39s):
Fantastic stuff. I mean, so glad to have you on the show because there’s so much stuff that we can talk about. Before we sort of really get into work and HR and everything that’s going on, I’d be really interested in terms of your view on the hiring market at the moment. Obviously, we’re in the middle of some sort of very high-profile layoffs in tech. What’s kind of actually happening? What does the world look like from your perspective?
Saad Siddiqui (4m 5s):
Yeah, that’s a really good question, Matt. I think we’ve sort of gone from over the last decade the power was shifting more and more to the employee side, particularly in the tech sector. It was incredibly tough for employers to find the right talent and compensation was accelerating at a pretty fast pace. I think as I’m sort of seeing the market now over the last couple months, it shifted pretty dramatically on the opposite end where we’re seeing a lot of layoffs.
Saad Siddiqui (4m 46s):
We’re seeing a lot of people staying at the jobs that they’re at. The quiet quitting movement is still there, although I’m hearing a lot less about it than I did maybe earlier this year. And we’re also seeing people cut back jobs as well. So job openings are getting reduced within a bunch of different firms. So I think it’s a really interesting time because we’ve gone from a phase of massive growth and trying to identify how to keep culture as your companies are growing to now managing employee morale as you sort of see more layoffs sort of happen in the industry.
Saad Siddiqui (5m 32s):
So it’s a really interesting shift over the last couple of months, I guess.
Matt Alder (5m 37s):
Yeah, and I think what’s really interesting about it is just how quickly things are changing in terms of the market demand and what’s happening and all those sort of things. I guess I’m interested in your thoughts though on what’s happening in the long term because we’ve come out of the pandemic and we’ve seen some fundamental shifts in the way that work happens, in the way that people work, in the way that companies think about talent, and they seem to be much longer-term trends. Would you agree? Do you think that, you know, work has shifted for good despite, you know, some of the kind of the economic issues that are happening at the moment?
Saad Siddiqui (6m 19s):
Totally. I think we are believers in this concept of The Fluid Workforce. What Fluid Workforce to us, what it means to us is allowing employees to do their best work in the best circumstances and the situations that fit their lives, right? So what that means is to us nine to five is dead. People are working, sometimes they start early as they sort of think through how to kind of get their kids ready and stuff. And they may do a little bit of work before they wake the kids up for school. They may end work a bit earlier where they have to go pick up kids or take care of elderly parents and then log back on later on in the evening.
Saad Siddiqui (7m 8s):
So I think that is an example of fluidity that wasn’t there before. In addition to that, we’ve seen a complete proliferation of where people end up working, right? So there was a massive migration in the US into states like Texas, in Florida, and even on a global level, people started migrating to a bunch of different places, more tied to the lifestyle that they were looking for or tied to family connections, right? And if you can sort of make that work, people were taking advantage of that.
Saad Siddiqui (7m 48s):
So I think the hours, the way people work is all sort of shifting, but there’s a lot of gaps today, right? Like, like Zoom has been, and other video conferencing systems have been super helpful, but we’ve also seen a gap that needs to sort of be filled where people come to the office, which is sort of where our role sort of comes in, right? So we sort of spend some time trying to figure out like, hey, what are the pieces that are missing to allow people to do the best work in the way they want to live their lives.
Matt Alder (8m 24s):
I think that’s interesting because there’s still so much debate about ways of working and what’s happening and how is it gonna move forward? And, you know, you mentioned there about people looking after elderly parents or taking their kids to and from school. Much has been made about almost the kind of the generational divide in all of this that younger people, people entering the workforce, do they want to be in the office more? Are they missing out on mentoring? Have we really sort of filled that gap in terms of what the office used to the role that the, you know, other roles that the office used to fulfill? I mean, tell us your thoughts around that.
Saad Siddiqui (9m 6s):
That’s a really insightful question, Matt. I think what we’ve sort of seen is the younger generation actually wants to kind of go to the office more because if you kind of think about how they sort of like the younger generation meets people, they’re typically in smaller apartments in bigger cities, right? And it is not the best place to be if you’re kind of cooped up in a small apartment in New York City working, like working and living in the same place. And on a social basis, they’re able to kind of go out and like actually make friends through work and stuff. And that’s sort of like, I think that was a piece that was sort of missing and kind of putting a little bit of data behind it too, around your comment around mentoring being missed and stuff like that.
Saad Siddiqui (10m 1s):
About 60 or 70 percent of employees actually want some level of remote work based off a McKenzie study and a PWC study found that people believe that if you’re not in the office, your chances of getting promoted or pay raises are lower if you are not in the office or have some level some kind of face time. So what that means is people still have this desire to kind of build these connections on a like person-to-person basis.
Saad Siddiqui (10m 44s):
We’re trying to remedy that using technology and mentoring is something that is sort of lacking today, especially as new employees sort of come on board.
Matt Alder (10m 58s):
I suppose the following on from that is culture and, you know, you mentioned right at the start of the conversation that, you know, there were now in many companies it’s kind of morale issue in terms of, you know, keeping people engaged. What are the best employers doing in terms of building and promoting their culture, you know, in this sort of world that we find ourselves in?
Saad Siddiqui (11m 28s):
Yeah, so I think some of the best companies that, some of the companies that I’ve been sort of engaged with, right? Like there’s a very strong leadership at the top and a lot of the best cultures are built by companies that are very mission-driven. They’re looking to bring around a change in the world that doesn’t exist today. I think that is one really big driving sort of factor is like people are seeing their friends getting laid off, right? They’re seeing their colleagues getting laid off and it’s not very kind of keeping culture in that sort of phase is tough.
Saad Siddiqui (12m 9s):
And I think that’s sort of where leadership comes into place. That one trying to identify like what is the most important things that motivate people around the mission of the company and sort of making sure that those are right in the center and that the companies are better off kind of fulfilling that mission despite some ofthe challenges those companies may be facing. I think, yeah, that leadership has a much bigger role in setting the culture now than it probably ever has.
Matt Alder (12m 51s):
And what would your advice to, if we’re talking about The Fluid Workforce, there’s also an aspect of that in terms of tenure and how people run their careers and really think differently about the whole world of work, what are some of the other trends that you are seeing and what would your advice be to employers in terms of how best to attract and retain the best talent?
Saad Siddiqui (13m 15s):
The way I sort of think about, like it is really important to understand the motivations of either a new employee or a new hire or an existing employee. In my mind, there’s a handful of things that people really care about. It could be around culture, people wanna work with people that they’re friends with and people are willing to sacrifice their monetary compensation for a good work environment. The second one to me is around the craft making sure that people are set up to do the best work possible and becoming incredibly good at what they’re doing.
Saad Siddiqui (14m 3s):
Some people are really passionate about like being the best ML engineer or being the best salesperson, right? Like that’s something that just really motivates them and just making sure that you’re kind of providing them with capabilities to be their best in their chosen profession. The third is compensation, right? So people have monetary needs and they’re sort of like, sometimes they do base their jobs based off of that. So kind of keeping that in mind as well. And, yeah, so I think those are some of the really big sort of factors that people sort of think through when they’re sort of like thinking about like either going to a company or staying within a company is like, and every time someone kind of says like, hey, here’s a little bit more money if you stay longer.
Saad Siddiqui (14m 58s):
Or that sort of sometimes misses the point. If you are kind of looking for a place where you can be friends with people or if you are looking to be the best person in your chosen craft, right? So just kind of making sure like what is the thing that sort of really motivates the employees is very critical and making sure that sort of front and center rather than giving them more compensation to either join your company or stay.
Matt Alder (15m 28s):
Just sort of shifting the conversation to the role of technology. And I suppose before we get into that, I’ve got a question about the HR tech market for you. Over the last sort of few years, we’ve seen this record level of investment, you know, almost gravity-defined investment in HR technology. Do you think that’s something that’s gonna continue over the next two or three years?
Saad Siddiqui (15m 51s):
Yeah, I think we have seen, yeah, like to your point, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of dollars being invested in HR tech. I think right now what is really important is HR leaders are being inundated by new technology and they have to sort of make decisions on what is the thing that sort of delivers the most ROI. Like it is not, if something is 10 percent better or 10 percent cheaper, that just doesn’t cut it unfortunately anymore. People are looking for a hard ROI like how is this solution going to help me improve my workforce?
Saad Siddiqui (16m 33s):
And to me, the way I sort of think about HR technology and what the places it’s sort of having an impact is everything around sourcing talent, everything around selecting talent, onboarding, and retention. And then over time, as people transition out of the business managing those transitions and we’ve sort of seen innovations in all of these segments and I think using technologies like artificial intelligence, using technologies like data analytics, people are getting smarter around each of these segments.
Saad Siddiqui (17m 13s):
The investment in these areas will continue to like, as what we’re also seeing is the existing platforms are extending their reach into a lot of these other segments so that they’re sort of the one-stop shop for each of these components within the HR stack. So what we’re gonna probably start seeing a bit more is either consolidation or people extending their platforms or products into other areas as well. And those are the times where platform businesses are made, right? So do we see a new workday over time?
Saad Siddiqui (17m 53s):
Stuff like that sort of is really exciting right now in the HR tech space.
Matt Alder (17m 59s):
And how should employers be thinking about technology and how it can help them because as you say, they’re inundated by different solutions and different ways of working and I know that there’s a huge amount of confusion out there about the best way forward, about the best technologies to apply to some of the challenges that we’ve been talking about. What would your advice to employers be?
Saad Siddiqui (18m 20s):
To be honest, it’s very hard because every company has its own stage, right? So in some companies, it is gonna be really important to sort of understand or managing layoffs, that is one of the most important things that a company may be going through. The second is kind of like trying to understand like how to manage remote work, right? The third could be around assessing how well, how productive their workforce is. So I think it is– I guess, I wish I had like one solution to sort of solve everyone’s problems, but unfortunately, it is pretty bespoke in terms of like the challenges that you’re sort of facing.
Saad Siddiqui (19m 2s):
I think at the end of the day, the thing that sort of rises above everything else is having a clear vision and purpose of what you’re trying to get accomplished and using technology to enhance or accelerate the change or efficiencies that you’re trying to gain, right? So, I think technologies can be– They’re not a necessarily a solution. They’re sort of like a tool that can be used for a solution.
Matt Alder (19m 34s):
So as a final question, you talked about things becoming more of a platform play and we’ve talked about some of the sort of the aspects and the problems of the future of work that still need to be solved. I suppose by way of summary, I’d be interested to get your views on what the future might look like. So if we were having this conversation again in two or three years time, what would we be talking about?
Saad Siddiqui (20m 1s):
Yeah, I think what we would be talking about is generally, recessions take a little bit of time. We’d be sort of coming out of a recession at that point in time. We will be talking about, hopefully, that we’ve solved remote work in different capacities, right? Remote or hybrid work. We’ve sort of built systems that allow for collaboration. Having conferencing services is great, but like we need to sort of be able to build culture in a remote setting or hybrid setting. We need to be able to build infrastructure that allows for people to work not just within a specific time zone but on a global basis.
Saad Siddiqui (20m 44s):
I think those are some of the things that we would be talking about. And then also kind of making sure that the folks that we hire are the best people for the jobs that we’re looking for is going to be critical. I think it is really important to understand the world is finally open where you can find the best talent on a global basis rather than on a geographic basis. So I think– Or like geographic restraint. You can now hire talent, if you’re a startup in San Francisco, you can now hire talent in Brazil. We’re seeing a lot of really interesting talent come out from a technology perspective.
Saad Siddiqui (21m 28s):
I think those are the things that sort of make that easier is gonna really shape how we sort of think through work over the next coming years and maybe a decade or so.
Matt Alder (21m 41s):
Saad, thank you very much for talking to me.
Saad Siddiqui (21m 44s):
Thanks so much, Matt. Really appreciate the time.
Matt Alder (21m 47s):
My thanks to Saad. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcast, on Spotify, or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow the show on Instagram. You can find us there by searching for Recruiting Future and on TikTok where you can find us by searching for Recruiting Future Pod. You can search through all the past episodes at RecruitingFeature.com. On that site, you can also subscribe to the mailing list to get the Recruiting Future Feast monthly newsletter and the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
