When IT Meets HR with Special Guest Amy Wang

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_02] Welcome everyone to another episode of the HR & Payroll 2.0 Podcast. I'm Pete Tiliakos and as always, I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome, Julie.

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks so much, Pete. And today I am super excited to have brought a guest, Amy Wang, someone that I have seen in the Shared Services Conference circuits for especially heavily. We seem to be at all of the same ones in the last couple of years. So I've gotten to know her a little bit better and understand a little bit more about her journey in Shared Services. So Amy, would you like to introduce yourself?

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, welcome.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_01] Thanks, Julie. Thanks, Pete. So I'm Amy Wang and I, you know, spent about 20 years working in the intersection of HR, operations, IT, across healthcare, higher education, automotive. But most recently, I led the HR and HR Shared Services across North America for Mercedes-Benz where I supported multiple business entities and thousands of employees. And so I think with that being said, I think my perspective is a little bit different when we talk about my career because of how IT is.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_01] And I know we met through HR. But those experiences, I think, led to shape how I think about HR and how I end up in Shared Services as well, because it's really core to the workforce. And I think that's why we talk a little bit about like payroll and payroll in HR data and service delivery. All those pieces kind of intersect in our conversations.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_00] So, Pete, maybe do you want to do the honors today? Yeah. And look at a background about how Amy got into this whole gig.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, yeah. Amy, we often ask all of our guests, right, how do they get into HR? Why do they stay? But how did you get into the world of HR or even the world of Shared Services? And what on earth has helped you here for 20 plus years?

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_01] So, you know, I actually have an undergrad in industrial organizational psychology, which I didn't know what that meant when I got it. And so...

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_02] That was an HR degree back in the day.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, back in the day. And no one really told me what it was, but I needed to finish in four years. And that was the easiest way to get through four years pivoting from a pre-med to something else that allowed me to graduate. So that's how I ended up in HR. But, you know, I really didn't have an official HR title until this last role. I spent most of my career in IT, in leadership, in operations, you know, across industries.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_01] And when you work in those industries and you work in leadership, HR is really a piece that ties across, you know, understanding your people, your engagement, your workforce. I think those are relevant pieces that you learn as a leader, right? And formalizing it when I had the official title. And, you know, and my degrees also do relate. But in the Shared Services piece, I actually had Shared Services in IT for a number of years across industries.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_01] And that's something that just kind of landed on me, right? And most of them are not the traditional side. You know, it's harmonizing and bringing together multiple business units and centralizing the function. So although I've run call centers, the most relevant Shared Services I've done is really just taking distributed units of business and functions and bringing it together centrally.

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_01] You know, whether it was in IT, whether it was in operations, and like I said, most recently in HR, just centralizing the function, harmonizing it so that you have more efficiency across your enterprise.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_02] Right. Yeah.

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00] That's awesome. I mean, in fact, Amy, I think that leads us right into when you did get started in HR. I think you had a singular focus or you had a very talent focus that then got broader and became more expansive as you went along. That's a way that many of Shared Services grow. So where did you start and how did it become a big thing?

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. How did IT lead to HR?

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I think that for me, IT was what I was interested in coming out of school because I didn't know what industrial organizational psychology degree was. Everyone said, you know what, go into tech, do something with technology. And so I went back to school, you know, learned how to be a programmer. And I decided I didn't like that. I got into project management. And so I figured I can, you know, I can lead the IT people, but I don't want to be the one that's doing the hands on work.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_01] And project management is really what got me across multiple industries. Being able to understand what the stakeholders needed, understand how to deliver a product or result or service, being able to engage people to participate in whatever need to get done. Because as a project manager, no one reported to you, right? They were all matrix individual resources that you had to bargain to help them focus on what you want to deliver.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01] And taking those skill sets into IT further, it was a natural progression into shared services because in many organizations, shared services, or at least in the ones I've been in, has been kind of like a, you have to convince the people to trust you to bring their services to you. Because a lot of shared services are formed when the work is already distributed across different organizations, the organization.

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01] So like, for example, in IT, there could be multiple business departments or business units are doing things individually. And someone decided it's more efficient to do it all at once. Yeah. In one central place, right? And so having a project management background allowed me to understand how to really convince others and also execute and produce a service that you can consolidate that makes sense for everybody.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_01] And so when my last job at Mercedes, where they were looking for someone to build out shared services, my role had been open, I think, probably for six to eight months before they found me. And they were looking for someone who can actually take shared services, the concept, the project idea into something that can be operationalized. And so it was the first time I actually had HR in my title, although I had been practicing a number of years as a leader because you have to, right?

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_01] You have to understand how to do that. And so that's kind of how I became part of HR shared services.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_02] I think you have a very interesting skill set that's converging at a great time where those things are converging in the market, right? The fact that, you know, IT and HR are getting much closer together are going to have to get much closer together. Technology is going to be the key bridge and the organization needs the agility and scale of shared services to help them handle a lot of what's coming, right? So, yeah.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00] I love that HR is ingesting that IT or project management acumen, right? Because in some organizations, it's still a separate part of the organization. There's project, you know, PMO kind of jockeys that know how to task people and follow up and just kind of bug you until stuff gets done or record what has happened. And it's so much more powerful when you can take that skill set and import it into the function. And that's happening more and more today.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_00] So it was a great crossover skill and a perfect example of how fate that brought us into our HR selves. And there's a lot of different paths to get here, right?

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_02] Well, except Amy might be the first person that described it as it landing on you instead of you landing in it. So, yeah, we got to talk about that maybe.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_00] Hey, Amy, as you went into the, I think it was the Mercedes role you said was the first one that had an HR title in it, right? And that's when you went and were like, hey, let me get SHRM certified and do some of this. What was the first domain or part of HR, the first focus area of HR to kind of centralize and operationalize for you?

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_01] So in the role, like the first domain in terms of the shared services side, it was really talent acquisition recruiting. So that was the first piece. We also did relocation, tuition assistance, immigration. So those were the core functions. And then came payroll. Payroll was the big one where it had the most, I think, high risk when it comes to, you know, what you're implementing. Right.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_01] And also the most data and the most impact because it touched every employee, right? Because not every employee will need immigration or relocation or tuition assistance. And although, you know, every employee that comes in touches talent acquisition recruiting, but many of them had already been in place before shared services. So those were things that wouldn't have touched every employee as shared services was being built. Right. But payroll was the one that touched all the employees.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01] And I think the most critical function and high visibility function that you really, we put in place for shared services.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_00] Is that the area where you also maybe got the most expansion, right? Because it was this dedicated employee function and, you know, the recruiting works with candidates. And is that where you started to see things like volume and complexity and governance expectations or, you know, like what changed as you started to grow and bring in more employee touching functions into shared services?

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01] All those areas that I mentioned also required governance, right? Just because when you start centralizing a shared service organization and for us, shared services and for all the shared services that I built, it's usually because it was previously decentralized. Right. So different departments or entities or business units would have their own function. And it was decided that, you know, each of those individuals have grown enough where we now need to bring it together.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_01] And that's what generally has happened. And the easiest part to do it sometimes is to convince some of these other organizations to join. And I say it that way because, you know, for most organizations, whether, you know, at Mercedes or some of the other companies I've worked for, you know, a lot of them have their own CEO or their own dean or their own, you know, whatever the title is, that's the executive. And they don't have to give up their control. They don't have to give up that function.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01] And they certainly don't have to choose to pay you versus paying an outside vendor. So you have to really be able to, and in my cases, there was no one dictating and say you have to. So I think it's important to build trust, right? Build the trust.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_02] That's great. I agree.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_01] And show value. Like, why will you be able to do it better? Why will you be able to provide better services, more efficiency, better trust, better whatever it is that's important in quality, employee engagement, all those things are important. And so you have to be able to show that. And so we've demonstrated that with talent acquisition and immigration, relocation. And it wasn't easy because it started before I joined, but then I had to really operationalize it.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_01] And it wasn't easy because it was centralizing technologies, centralizing the staff, centralizing workflow and policies and processes and creating governance so that each division wouldn't redo it on their own, right? Because then they will unravel quickly. And so constantly keeping people engaged and constantly keeping people as one. And so building that foundation allowed some trust.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_01] So when payroll became a question in my most recent organization as to where should it go, the decision seemed to be easy for everybody else before me. You know, it was easy for them to say, well, gosh, you know, we want to put it in HR shared services under her, under her team, because they've already shown that they've been able to do this consistently with the other functions. And so because I have a technology background, it did help with the implementation.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, that part that you talked about, about, you know, convincing, I guess I would call I always call it diplomacy and negotiation and like selling. There is a lot to that. I don't think people understand how how I underestimated that. And when I was at Disney and but I but I really learned a ton from the GE executives that we had building this with us. And and what we really tried to do is make it more, you know, at some point we made it about, hey, come be a part of this. Like, look what we're doing here. Look what we've done there.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_02] And the cool thing was, is we actually found that some of the controllers started to go and tell the other controllers, hey, they saved me $50,000 a quarter or, hey, they helped us figure this out. And that value started to started to trickle around in rumor, I guess, or not rumor, but, you know, in in in publicity for us. And I think it really helped that diplomacy and get the convincing quicker, you know.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I feel like that gets you there. But then what you know, there's additional or further resistance, organizational or operational resistance after that. Right. So, oh, yeah. I don't know if you had more to say about that, Amy, but I was going to ask you just a little bit about where you encountered the most resistance from, let's say, HR itself or employees or managers. You know, as you as you took this journey and got past the diplomacy and selling the concept.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01] It's perpetual, right? It's not just selling at once. It's continuous selling. You know, you don't realize how much sales and marketing there is in leadership and in HR or even IT, but specifically in shared services. You really have to be able to continue to sell, you know, and growing up, you know, I was, you know, in a family where you don't actually talk about your achievements. You just go on. But I've learned in leadership roles and especially in shared services roles.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01] If you don't talk about your story and if you don't share your wins, it's like a tree falling, you know, in the forest. No one ever heard it and no one knew what happened. Right. And so you have to constantly share your achievements, share the measures that you just mentioned, like where you can just say, you know, I did this type of cost savings. We, you know, we're more efficient this way. We passed this whatever, whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_01] You need to be able to set what you want to accomplish and you need to be able to show that you accomplished it and be able to tell that story and share that story.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. There's got to be iterative value for sure. It can't be a destiny. And like we say this about all process improvement, it's got to continuously create new value at scale. Right. That's the that's the hard part. That's where you got to get it right. If you can't scale, then that's shared services is pretty much doomed.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_00] I'm sure you're found. But any main themes of how that story iterated? You know, in the beginning when you first share it, you're you know, you're just trying to measure and accomplish anything that points to success versus maybe as you get that momentum going. Any any snippets of how success and what success looks like in those stories has changed for you and your and the senior stakeholders along the way?

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_01] You know, payroll specifically is one of those things where, well, no one usually appreciates it. You only hear anything when something goes wrong. Right. And I think even most of HR, unless something goes wrong, no one really hears about it. And so so what we really did, I'm not sure if I'm answering the question right, though, is that I really wanted to like broadcast some of our key milestones.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_01] And so we announced what our key milestones would be, you know, in terms of our implementation and post go live and and what operations look like. And so we announced those on a regular basis and then we would give updates, you know, in different forums, you know, some of it more formal in formal meetings and town halls, but other more social so that people recognize and can celebrate with us.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_01] Right. So I love swag. And so one of those things that we did was like, you know, when we hit key milestones and to celebrate, you know, giving someone a small token, a tchotchke for being part of that journey, whether it's my own team, whether the broader people that help support it or the individuals who are touched by payroll, which is basically everybody. You know, giving them reasons to remember that this was a big effort, but you were part of the journey and help us celebrate that together.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_01] Really, I think, tells the story and brings it a long way much, much further.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. People want to be recognized.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Everyone wants to be recognized. And so what better way than to recognize everybody who participated? And you have to make, you know, HR or payroll fun because otherwise it's one of those things when it falls behind scenes and everybody expects it to work.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_02] It's either fun or painful.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01] Exactly. So you want to make sure people remember it being fun. So when the pain comes, you know, that you it's an analogy where you have like those coins in a jar and you've already built enough coins in there, you know, of trust, of integrity, of partnership. So if something goes wrong, you have a full coin jar and one maybe, you know, gets pulled out, but you still have a full jar. And I think that's kind of the thought with what we were trying to do as, you know, build as much partnership, relationships, collaboration so that people trusted you.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_01] And so if something did go wrong, it was a very, very, very rare occasion, but it didn't take a hit on your credibility.

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Agreed. That's great advice. That's great advice. The other thing I've seen that was was beneficial is also obviously most shared services will go and do benchmarks every so many years of, hey, what if we outsource this? What if we whatever? And we would do that proactively as well and show ourselves as part of our metrics and our work to say, like, look, this is where we would compare to market. This is what we're delivering. This is where we've come from. Like you said, like celebrating celebrating these wins. It's no one's going to go and do it for you. There's no marketing team for the shared services. You know what I mean? We don't have a marketing budget.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_02] So you're going to have to do it yourself. And I've seen some good ways of doing that. Things like portals, right? Having a shared services portal where they can find all their links and all their things and you broadcast those wins or sharing it in the SLA meetings or to your point, giving gifts as at project milestones. All that really brings a lot of visibility to what you're doing. Congrats on all that. That's awesome.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_00] Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I would be interested to in in in those journeys. There's always stumbling points, right? Or failures. I constantly tell leaders, you know, like it's a journey. It is a journey. And there will be challenges, trials, tribulations, failures along the way. Might be key resources exiting. It might be, you know, something just flops and it needs to be re-thunk or re-presented to users in a different way.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_00] And those for me have always been the most salient lessons learned. And, you know, there, I don't know if you have any, any kind of snippets of stories where, you know, something didn't go right or the momentum, something, you know, hit the momentum. And it was a challenge that really then a team or you yourself or shared services learn from and move forward and move past.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_01] Going back to being able to broadcast your wins. One of the hardest parts in shared services is, you know, a lot of people who had to let go of the responsibilities wanting to continue letting go. Right. It's very tempting for those who let go of those areas wanting to take it back and wanting to find reasons why them keeping it or taking it apart would be better for them.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_01] Right. So that's always a challenge is making sure that those areas that want to take it back find little reason and they will build reasons. Right. Because they they feel like they gave up control. They gave up something that was precious to them. And now you took it from them. And especially if you made it better, more reason why they want it back.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_01] And so really trying to maintain and build like the relationships, build data, build proof why the continuous centralization is really the right thing to do from a broader organization perspective. Because there will be those who will always push back and want it back. And there's also those that don't understand what shared services does. Right. And they'll want to give you everything.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_01] And so that's the hard part, too, because as organizations start splitting off to shared services, you know, there's going to be people who won't think everything's a shared service thing and not their own work. And then there's other people that want it back and want to give you something else. So there's there's all those. And I think that's always the hardest part is making sure that we always know who the decision makers are, know where the work belongs, who's doing what, when, why. Because there's going to be handoffs.

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_01] Right. I think that's even the hard part as organizations have more shared services, especially in the HR piece. They want to separate the HR business partners from that work. Yeah. I think I wrote about that a little bit in terms of like you want your HR business partners to focus on the strategy, to focus on the business. But when they do that, it's not so much the HR business partners, but maybe the the the leader that has the HR business partners. Sometimes it's harder to separate. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And for everybody, it's like, who's doing what?

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_02] It's a wonderful ad for governance.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_00] Absolutely. That's why it's so important. It's also a great time for us just to take a moment. Right. And step back and talk about what is that division of labor and who are those parties? Because, Amy, we're talking an awful lot about your experience with shared services and building shared services. And I'm going to toss out a few other acronyms and then and then kind of ask you a question about about the division work and, you know, how you how you think about that. But there's shared services.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_00] And if folks have heard GBS or global business services, that's often a term that is outside of any particular silo. So it's not just HR or finance or or IT shared services. When you hear GBS, that's oftentimes, you know, some super group of them that function together. And it becomes oftentimes operational from a roles and reporting perspective. But let's stay in the HR tower and HR shared services we've been talking about.

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_00] There's HR business partners. I definitely want you to talk a little bit about some of your thoughts there. I know you have a blog that I know I've read. I think Pete has will probably link to it. The business partners are the folks that are out in the field, right, working with the business units. And then there's the COEs or centers of expertise. And those groups tend to be focused in domain specific knowledge areas like comp and benefits or talent and recruiting or learning, you know, those sorts of things.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_00] So you have all of these players and all of these acronyms, you know, floating around the organization. Amy, how do you think about the division of work across them and, you know, and govern how and what to bring into shared services and what to kind of make sure the handoffs are to other groups in the organization?

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Well, I think it's important that the executive leadership are aligned on top, right? So whoever's over all the individual entities or business units or departments really need a shared vision on what that looks like. And that's where I think the governance matters.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_01] But I think when we look at more tactically and how it breaks down in HR, I feel that more organizations are trying to split off where HR business partners are really the ones focusing on what is the strategy of the business and how do we align the talent? To, you know, execute on that strategy, right? And they move the day-to-day operation things into shared services, things that can be harmonized, things that can be more efficient and centralized.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01] So things like that's where payroll comes, right? And that's where benefits would be, I think. And that's where talent acquisition and in my past, immigration, relocation, tuition, and other things that you can actually centralize. Like learning and development probably can be there as well. So those types of functions. But the things that are close to the immediate user that isn't transactional, isn't repeatable, I think those are things that would belong to the HR business partner.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_01] And I think as organizations are trying to stand up their shared services, that's where a lot of the governance, the, you know, the communications, the division of labor really needs to be understood. Where are those handoffs?

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_01] You know, where is it that the business partner's working with the division, the entity, the leaders, and where is it that they hand off to whether it's the talent acquisition, recruiting teams, whether they're going to compensation to assess what this person, you know, salary should be. All those types of things. So there will be back and forth in handouts. And I think that's really going to be critical in the workflow design as organizations continue to change.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_02] I've seen those as one of my biggest struggles personally in my career or in clients that I've worked with. Those pivot points are often where the problems happen. Who owns what stuff, right? That takes a little while to get nailed, to get a flywheel going, right, with the business.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, and in fact, besides the overall or high-level governance that everybody would recognize as governance and, you know, rules of engagement, operating model is a term that's often used for the next level down of that, right, where you're specifically looking at key processes and trying to figure out how do these groups work together? How does the workflow and handoffs and escalations work among these groups? And that next click down is often missing in organizations. And I know you've built it from the ground up.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, some of your efforts there. So I mentioned an article or blog that you wrote about how it shared services and business partners and how they interact. I would love to link to that in our show notes when we do it. Any particular thoughts from there you'd like to share?

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, so that and even a step back, I think part of why all of this is important, the integration of those areas we're talking about and where people don't think about, is that all of this, the underlying piece of why we should do this and what matters is the data, right? And so people just think about like, you know, let's keep it separate or who owns the process, who owns a relationship, who should decide what. I want to have the power to buy this technology. I want the power to buy that technology. I want to name this, that.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_01] But people forget that, you know, if you have one organization that's driving the business, that business needs data. And when you're distributed and when you don't have proper governance, don't have proper lanes in which you're operating with, which I kind of touched on that, you know, in my article or my blog where, you know, you have business partnerships, shared services, you have all these different things.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_01] But if you can't get accurate data sets, right, accurate naming conventions and things that you can pull in a single source, your organization will not excel the way you would hope it would be.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_01] And your organization certainly will not be ready for AI.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_02] I was going to say, how incredibly important is that now?

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_00] In fact, this wouldn't be right if we didn't start to phase in some conversation about AI in this context. So do you want to start us down that path, Amy? I know you actually have a lot to say about AI in shared services. So I think you have a role. You serve on a board. And like, just tell us what your thoughts are and how you're involved and engaged in what's going on with AI in this context.

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_01] So, you know, I'm passionate about how technology drives organizations is from some of the things I've said. And so one of the ways that I feel I like to immerse myself in roles and understand what's out there is so I started studying AI. I got certified through Cornerstone University with a strategic AI certification. And I found the program really helpful.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_01] And I really enjoyed the partnerships that I had gained just from the cohort and from the organization that delivered the program. So that when they asked me to join the advisory board for their organization to deliver strategic AI certifications to companies and helping, you know, what looks like next, I was super excited, to be honest. And I thought it would be a great opportunity actually to bring it into my existing organization because I feel it's foundational.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_01] You need people to really work off the same book, right? So to be able to see foundationally what does that look like. And so I worked with both the organization, the Cornerstone University organization to come up with a program that I can help offer to my existing company, but also broader community, right? Because I thought it was such a great program to offer the certification and through the certification, also a device.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_01] So that was what I negotiated to kind of help, I think, thrive how AI can be used in organizations, my own and others, just because I'm so passionate about it. And I think that's so foundational to what we're doing. And so when you're on the same foundation, right, then you better understand how do you actually build your future state with your technology? And I think many organizations, although, you know, from talking to people have gone and just purchased all sorts of tech. I don't know if they're really ready.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_01] And I think that you really have to be foundationally ready first. And that's kind of things I try to talk about. You need the governance. You need to make sure you understand what is it you're trying to achieve. You need the right data. You know, like what type of data are you looking for? You know, what does your workflow look like? Who do you have doing the work? You know, where is your workforce? Yeah, get in shape.

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Build muscle, get in shape.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_02] That's what I call it in the beginning of the year. We did an AI boot camp I said you need. Everybody needs to go to fit camp and get ready for AI. You just rattled off a lot of them. That was a lot of the things we recommended. So I love it. I love it.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_03] That's right.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_02] No, I really do. I think a lot of companies are going to be forced to do work they should have done a long time ago and been kicking the can on. I really do. I think there's a lot of companies that are probably going to be in a situation where they're having to remediate a lot of things.

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_00] Sure. You're thinking data first, right, Pete? I mean, before you even get to talent and what you can put in an agent. Process and data. Yeah. You know, what processes you can shift. I mean, data.

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_02] And to Amy's point, who the hell is doing what? That's a big problem. Yeah. That's one of the biggest things when we were moving work into the Disney Shared Service Center, you know, 20 years ago, the rocks we were uncovering were, you know, the bugs. You're like, oh my God, I didn't know there was anything under this rock. And here's another process. And, you know, it was like, to your point, all the pivot points of handoffs. But it was more importantly, like all these edge use cases that people were doing that we didn't know that anyone existed. That's the stuff I think that needs to get fleshed out before you're going to be able

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_02] to start talking about process improvement or data quality or any of this in AI. So there's a lot of getting in shape for a lot of companies.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_01] Well, I think, you know, when you hear garbage in equals garbage out, when you talk about data, it's going to be exacerbated for AI, right? Think about the people who are putting the bad prompts in, putting in the bad data. Yeah, right. And what does that look like coming out, right? That's really dangerous.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_02] It's scary. I was just curious, like I was kind of goofing earlier when we, before we started recording about, you know, what is AI going to do to, and cloud has done a lot to it, but, but, you know, what is AI going to do to shared services? Are we going to be talking about obviously a much more agentic future, I would imagine, but are we going to be talking about more about their virtual centers versus maybe physical shared services? You know what I mean? I'm sure humans obviously are going to have to still be very much involved in overseeing and governing that.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_02] But how many humans are we really going to need? Are we going to be talking about much more virtual states now? Maybe.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_01] Got any predictions? Where do you see this all going? Yeah, what do you think, Amy? That would be my guess. It's going to be like, probably less your typical transactional call center person. It's going to be very virtual. And those who are working in the call center are the ones that are programming that, right? Are the ones that are building and setting them up. They're not going to be the one that you're interacting with anymore. That's my prediction.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Agreed. Yeah, I think it's going to be interesting. I think it will be leaner shared services in terms of human beings, but it's going to be interesting to see how all that's structured and what comes out of it. Maybe there's some amalgamation of COEs and GBSs and shared service centers kind of coming together and being, you know, kind of brains, engine, or I guess it would be like strategy, brains, and engine. It'll become a stack, I feel like maybe.

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_00] I know I'm finding a lot more conversations just about upskilling talent in order to be able to operate very differently. I mean, you used to have this kind of rank order of talent from the, you know, transactional and shared services was always associated with transactional and lower level, you know, types of roles.

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_02] With very lean leadership.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And right now I think, you know, if a lot of the opportunity to drive innovation and efficiency is in that particular corner, doesn't that make shared services some of the most strategic, you know, the most strategic arm of an organization?

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_01] But I don't know. Any thoughts? You know, with that being said, I think HR and shared services is really entering in a very interesting moment, right? So because for years we talk about how HR has become more strategic, but strategy without operational strength doesn't really work, right? No, no. But now you have payroll, shared services, HR tech all coming together and getting the attention that it deserves. I think when those pieces come together, HR can finally operate at the level that the business needs. And that's really exciting to me.

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Yeah. Well said.

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_00] I have one other prognostication thing for you, Amy, and that has to do with, you know, we're hearing more and more people talking about having a single data source and more and more about maybe an ERP approach that goes right back almost to your roots, right? Of not just being in HR, but of starting across and shared services across the domains. How do you see some of that evolving and those organizations relating to each other as we start

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_00] seeing ERP focus in broader and broader data activity with AI?

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_01] I think it'll be a very interesting time, right? That's where that chief role, you know, whether it's the CHRO, which I'm rooting for, will have those areas under that individual. But I see more organizations really pulling together those components into one leader, right? Versus having separate leaders. You can't have siloed organizations being able to create singular data that drives the organization. So I think it'll be very interesting how those will start coming together in the future.

[00:33:51] [SPEAKER_00] And in the past where that lever was all focused around, you know, outsourcing and leveraging IT and development, these big, heavy, you know, IT automation types of opportunities. Now we have lighter SaaS cloud and lighter, you know, organizational use because of AI types of tools and talent. You know, I know you and I had a really cool exchange where I said, man, the past HR or the

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_00] CHRO often rolled up under the CIO or the CFO, one of those folks. And in a people-centric world or people activity experiential world, maybe that could be different. That would be a very interesting, exciting new world, right? Let's see that.

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_02] Bizarro world, like Superman.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_00] Have you seen it somewhere where IT, the leader of IT, the head or chief IT person reports to the CHRO in some organizations? Or is that like maybe just a hope, wishful thinking?

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_01] Actually, you know, I know from reading the article, I think Moderna is one of the organizations that has the CIO reporting to the CHRO. And I know there's other organizations that are leaning that way. You know, being in the market myself during a transition, I've had some conversations with organizations that have asked, you know, what do I think about that? And what do you think about, you know, looking into things that would work in that direction for those organizations? And I think definitely the thoughts are there.

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm excited to see where the future could lead, where those areas will come together. So I really believe that will drive organizations into the future, right? Where these areas, where HR is finally able to operate at the level the business needs. I think it'll really take organizations into the future. Because at the end of the day, it's the people that drive the organization. So that's really exciting.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Julie, think about what Tade Savito from SAP said, right? He called, he believes payroll really are becoming data stewards. And if that's the case, makes perfect sense for the CIO to maybe work closer with the CHRO, whether it's report or not. CTO, maybe that's a different thing. But CIO, for sure, especially when you think about security and what that data means to the organization now.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_00] Well, and then we've had numerous conversations where it's the risk and compliance that is also sitting at the top of that stack. So maybe we're getting dangerously close to some type of a C-suite Frankenstein-ish type of move, where there has to be this new combination of skills and leadership because of the convergence of all of these things that come together.

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_02] Maybe the C roles get merged into together and they become these hybrid roles, you know? Chief of risk. I see that too.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_01] You know, actually, I've talked to multiple people just through networking that they're also looking at merging different functions in a non-traditional way. Not a COO, but like in a non-traditional way where they're merging all sorts of those. And so I don't know if it's going to be, you know, the Chief Frankenstein officer, which I guess conflicts with CFO.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_02] But I mean, it's not going to be about roles. It's going to be about skill, right? And I think grouping the right skills and remits underneath them of one or multiple makes a lot of sense. And if it ends up that these roles get merged together, fewer. But what I've been saying about what we heard when we were kids of the internet, right? It was like fewer but better jobs. Well, I think that's what you're going to have up and down the chain, right? Is jobs are going to change. Skills are going to be different and be necessary to evolve. So why not the C-suite?

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_00] Hey, look, it also embodies the trends that we're seeing of less and less linear career pathing, right? Yeah. So it used to be really clear how you got into some of these roles. And now there's just a whole different set of opportunities for anyone and everyone in the organization to find their way.

[00:37:44] Yeah.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_02] Yep.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_03] Yep. Awesome. Very cool.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_01] Very interesting where people land because I think there'll be careers out there that no one's ever imagined. And it'll be very interesting to see where that goes, right? Because people who are in school today studying something may not be doing whatever they're studying by 10 to graduate.

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. And so that's going to be very interesting. They may land in HR for all they know.

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, right? Or payroll. And hey, look, we all started out with some pretty crazy expectations of what we might do as brand newbies in the workplace. We'll take it.

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_02] So everybody's welcome. We need all the help we can get over here in payroll and HR. So we'll take anybody. What degree you got? We'll try you out. You know what I mean? We'll try you out. Yes.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_01] Well, I mean, talk about nonlinear, right? So I don't know. Like so far, we didn't have the luxury of linear. Yeah.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_02] No. Yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly. No, but really, I mean, hey, look, and the best part is most people, smart people, a lot of great smart people come over to this side and get stuck here and love it. So it works out really good, you know, they get it on them and they can't get it off.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_00] That's right. Well, does anybody have any last thoughts here for this conversation? Otherwise, Pete, I'm going to turn it over to you to do our usual up here.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_02] Where would you want people to get in touch with you? LinkedIn? Is that the best place?

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_01] LinkedIn is the best place. I'm always on there.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_02] And then I think you're both going to be at the Shared Services and Outsourcing Network event, right? Where is that at?

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_00] It's actually in Orlando in March. Again. Maybe by the time this comes out, there's June 1 as well. And like I said, I've been running into Amy at all of these. We've become fast friends at some of these events. So, you know, if this is published after the event coming right up in June in Atlanta, Pete. I told you we should come into Atlanta soon.

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_02] Shared Service and Outsourcing Network, if you're listening to this, I am probably one of the biggest salespeople that you have. I push so many of my vendor clients your way and I would love to go to that event. So when you guys get around to having analysts, let me know. Bring analysts. Bring me there. I would love to go there. I'm a Shared Services alumni. I'm a promoter and absolutely a fan of the event. I just never been.

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_00] Well, Amy knows I do a dinner in conjunction with every one of these just to make sure that HR leaders are networking with each other. So you'll be there, Pete, when we're in Atlanta for sure.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_02] Hopefully I'll be in town and we will, yeah, we'll get together and do it. But yeah, no, this is awesome. Amy, thank you so much. Anything else, Julie, before we wrap it up?

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_00] No, we're going to continue the conversation. And there's so much more to say. So if you're looking to have an additional conversation with Amy, reach out on LinkedIn. Yeah. And yeah, absolutely.

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_02] Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Amy. We'll see you next time.