3 C's for CHRO Success, with SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.

​[00:00:05] Mo Fathelbab: Welcome to the 100th episode of People and Strategy. I'm your host, Mo Fathelbab, president of International Facilitators Organization, People and Strategy is a podcast from the SHRM Executive Network, the premier network of executives in the field of human resources. Each week we bring you in-depth conversations with the country's top HR executives and thought leaders.

For today's conversation, I'm excited to be joined by your renowned SHRM, CEO, Johnny C. Taylor Jr. Welcome, Johnny. It's so good to see you, Avan, great to see you normally, you're on some big stage. so Johnny, for those that don't know you, let's, talk about your journey, to the role of CEO of SHRM.

[00:00:54] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: Yes. So it's a little bit of a  circuitous one, but the short version of it is I'm a lawyer first and foremost. I first a tax lawyer and then a labor and employment litigator. Yeah. And then I, became an HR head . For, for those who don't know, blockbuster. Blockbuster, the young leader. Like, what is that?

Yeah. Blockbuster. So that started my corporate So you worked back with Wayne Hga? Back with Wayne hga back in the early nineties. Yeah. And, oh, did I just date myself now? What happened? But anyway. So, and then I went back and forth. I worked at Paramount Pictures, I worked at Blockbuster Entertainment. I worked at IEC.

I've worked at a lot of companies and then I, at times I was both the HR person and the head of HR and the head of legal. So I've been general counsel and head of HR once when I was at Paramount, and then ultimately became CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Before that, I was CEO of a, search engine.

Oh, yes, Mia. Which people? Which one? it was Ask Gees. We bought Ask I remember asks at one of the operating divisions of Ask Gees. Yes. Called Rushmore Drive. And then finally I got a call one day from the search firm saying, we're looking for someone like you to run SH rm and what an amazing sort of.

Perfect job for me. 'cause it, everything that I'd done led to this and I didn't plan it that way. This is, I aspired to be the CEO of SHRM, but that's how it all turned out. And I've been here now, I'm coming seven and a half years. Seven and a half years this month. Seven and a half

[00:02:18] Mo Fathelbab: years. So as far as I know, it's only been Johnny C.

Taylor, Jr. Since I've been involved in SHRM's. Yes it has. And that yes it has. Yes it has. So over that seven and a half years, yes. What. Has changed the term. I'll tell you two things.

[00:02:33] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: One, we really focused on elevating HR. When I got here, we were celebrating our 70th anniversary, and so we knew it, but we didn't articulate it, and so you couldn't really focus and rally behind it.

That was number one. The second and most important thing that we'd beginning to do in the last couple of years, Mo, is we're expanding our remit. When we got here seven and a half years ago, it was very much. A large group of HR people talking to about HR stuff, to other HR people. So it was kind of very insular in some ways.

Now we've gotten really brand, really bold in our vision now, and it's very much about if it's a work thing. Yeah, it's a SHRM thing, it's a work thing It's a SM thing, a work thing. It's a SHRM, so it means broad remit. All things work. We should be the go-to organization for you and resource for you.

So those two things alone have probably been, if I'm reflecting on seven and a half years, those are the two things that we are really, really focused on.

[00:03:32] Mo Fathelbab: And what about 2025? What are you focused on for 2025

[00:03:36] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: future proofing the organization? Okay. Which is gonna be hard. And what does that mean? what does that mean?

We, we saw technology coming, but AI is going to literally transform our profession and SHRM the business. So I'm gonna break it up on the profession side. Just the other day we saw two announcements, sort of a tale of two cities. IBM lays off hundreds of HR professionals because they fully embraced AI and HR practice.

Okay. How do we help HR professionals prepare for this AI world? The flip side is Moderna combined IT and HR. First time, we hadn't seen anything like that, and the CHRO got the combined job, so. That's a wonderful thing. So you've got these two things happening at once. So very much thinking about how do we help future proof the profession, people who are doing it.

The, work of HR that you did for the last 10, 20, 30 years is transformed. It's turned on its head because of technology. And so that's what we're really focused on that side. Then the business of SH rm. Historically, we, you know, we created big convenings and perhaps people are convening less than they used to be joining with 340 some odd thousand members.

It could be that. We have a new generation of people who are joiners, like they don't go to church like they used to. We do know that that's just fact. And so there's some things happening in the broader space that are impacting our business. Ai, AI will literally, transform how we do business.

So in the past you had to come to us and or we were a great resource for it. And we like to say you had to come to us for templates, for job descriptions for this, that now. You just go right to your G-B-T-G-T-P or whatever it's called, one of your chat, GBT and Gemini, whoever, and you just get the answer.

So do you need us uhhuh not so sure anymore. And so we are busy, busy thinking about what's the next version of SHRM. So that we just celebrated our 75th anniversary. You know, in Chicago you are with us and we need to be around another 75 years, and you can't take that for granted. How do I know that?

Because I mentioned in the beginning, early in my career, my first corporate job was Blockbuster. Yeah,

[00:05:55] Speaker: yeah.

[00:05:55] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: And if you recall, I recall, blockbuster was it, it was bigger than any brand today. It was on. Every corner. We made it a blockbuster night. It was a part of the American sort of experience. Yeah.

Friday night families lined up to get their copy before you ran out of 'em at the local video store. You remember? I remember Popcorn City at home. And then not. And then Netflix. And then Netflix and then we file for bankruptcy and there's one remaining store somewhere in like Oregon or something. But it's not real, you know, in a sense.

Yeah. But that's the notion. I have seen that happen and it didn't take 30, 40 years. That happened in just 5, 6, 7 years. We, technology took us over. So if that happened, then imagine what could happen to SHRM in a very short period of time if me and the executive team are not focused right now on future proofing the business.

So that's it. That's really, and so future proofing the business called SHRM, the profession called HR, I. That's what I'm focused on in 2025. And you say, but that's not a 2025 issue. Yes, it is. Because 2026 and 2027 will be very hard if you don't address those. Now it's moving fast. Yes, it's moving. God, I've never seen anything like it.

[00:07:05] Mo Fathelbab: Were you at Blockbuster during the wind down?

[00:07:08] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: I came to Blockbuster, we had about 300 stores. Okay. As you know, we got about 9,000 before the decline. Okay. So I was there during its heyday and we really, really were doing well. And yeah, just. It was an interesting time. It was so much fun because we were, if you go, we were like the sexy brand.

Everyone knew what Blockbuster was and if you didn't, you were not living, you know, it's like today not knowing what Apple is, we were, omni the present. Right, of course. So it was a fun time. And by the way, that was the first time I was, that was my VP of HR. That was my first head of HR. I was head of HR for North America.

Okay.

[00:07:47] Mo Fathelbab: Okay. Okay. And that's where you fell in love with HR? Yeah. so as you're talking to other CEOs Yes. What are their concerns right now? I.

[00:07:56] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: Well, so great question because I was just at an event now, three weeks, maybe a month ago, and 92, you can't name 'em 'cause it was Chatham House rules, not even who was there.

But

[00:08:07] Speaker: yeah,

[00:08:08] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: big companies, company CEOs, all the names you would know. And there were two conversations going on. I mean, every table we break out tariffs. And talent. There are only two things that they're talking about right now, and obviously they're talking about a whole bunch of things, but these dominated the conversation, so tariffs.

At a level of uncertainty expense that you can't control. You know, you're selling cars, you produced a car for $25,000 and now someone drops a tariff on top of a, that makes 50% higher. That's something that's really difficult for you to manage. So, and it therefore makes all CEOs think globally.

Even if your business is just a domestic business, you likely receive part of your parts or whatever. However, almost all of us have to think about the impact of tariffs. Yeah. As consumers, we do. Yeah. So big conversations around that, and it impacts us at SHRM because if we are nonetheless a discretionary spend, so if I as a CEO of another company have to spend more money producing my product or whatever, then I'm less likely to let my people come to a SHRM conference because that's discretionary spend.

That's an area that I can cut, no travel disc professional development, et cetera. So anyway. Tariffs. Talent. Talent. I was really surprised, pleasantly surprised that it dominated the conversation. Yeah. Along with tariffs. Tariffs I think are a momentary thing. It'll be sorted or not. What I heard consistently CEOs saying is, I'm struggling to find enough of the right talent and what does right talent mean?

The skills work ethic. attitude generally. Who fit within our culture. So it was just all of these things. And then interestingly, they were talking about things like demographics, how big the world has gotten, but how old America has gotten. Oh. The aging, we call it the browning and graying of our country at once.

It is, of course, diverse, far more diverse than it's ever been, and not as diverse as it's going to be. From a race and ethnicity standpoint, but it's also graying. People are looking like us a little bit, you know? What do you mean us? Right? More than half of the US population, workforce, 168 million people in the workforce, but more than half of 'em over 45 years old.

How about that? So this is, and over the next decade, people 65, 55 and older are gonna take more than one half of the jobs. I mean, so the workforce is gonna be predominantly us, and we've never seen that before. Usually you have this big group of young people coming in and I. Americans stop having children in meaningful numbers.

So we have a birth rate challenge, a replenishment rate challenge, which creates a whole bunch of challenges for CEOs 'cause what's the next generation gonna look like?

[00:10:57] Mo Fathelbab: So some countries have opened up their immigration policies for that very reason. How do you think we are going to be impacted?

[00:11:05] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: So we are, we, you know, Japan is a classic example where they, they did not, I mean, if you think we have a no border policy, Japan had a real no border policy like that was it.

And so you wake up and Japan has a real problem. In fact, I, read a stat the other day that said, Japan sells more adult diapers than baby diapers. Fact, fact looked it up to confirm it. So it's this idea that they've aged out. To your point. Yeah. One of the opportunities is you can't make more babies.

Yeah. So our country is going to have a real hard conversation about. And workforce immigration. Now, SHRM doesn't get into borders and all of that. That's not our stuff. Yeah. Humanitarian, all of that is another, that's some other nonprofit space to focus on. We say to your point, if you need more people, plenty thing is you can't just create people.

And even if everyone, if you and I went out and procreated and had babies for the world tomorrow. That's 20 years before they can come to the work to work for. Yes. So we have got to address it. And, fortunately, I think there's serious conversations occurring right now and, they've been occurring, right?

It's a tough topic. How do you, bring in the workers that you need to compliment and supplement your workforce needs while at the same time ensuring that you have safe borders and you know who's in your country? Yeah, those are, that's, you know, that's what the politicians do and the policy makers SHRM's job is just to make them clear.

these are the numbers, right? Heads up. We are now have a replenishment rate problem. You all go sort that.

[00:12:37] Mo Fathelbab: I wanna talk about the relationship between the CEO and the CHRO. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, first, from your perspective, what, why is that so important?

[00:12:49] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: It is the most critical relationship.

And, and this is gonna be a strong statement. I typically don't make these statements, but I, suggest it is the most important of all of the C-Suite. Why? Because it transcends every function. I. The HR person has the marketing function to staff, the finance function, to staff, the legal function, the operations staff, the it.

So ev, when you're the HR person, you have touched every department within your organization. You also have your fingers on the pulse of the organization because you hear from people from the ground up what's going on. And if the CEO, who I think is the chief culture officer at the end of the day, as much as your CEO, but you're also the CCO.

The way this thing runs is you understand what's going on deep within your organization. What is the ethos of your organization? How do things happen here? And so guess who has an insight? The C FFO is very much focused on the CFO stuff, technology people, very much so. And not to suggest that, you know, executive teams and the collective don't work together, but HR just has this very interesting vantage point across the organization.

I call us the keepers of the culture. The keepers of the culture. And so if you're the CEO, and I know in my role, I want to know what's happening within the culture of what is SHRM. Yeah. And. HR just has that special vantage point. So yeah, that means, and this is what happens. So HR knows what's happening.

Yeah. But HR has to have, the CHRO has to have a deep relationship. One of trust. Yeah. The confidant nature with the CEO. If that's absent, no matter how great you pay people, no matter how great you professionally develop people, no matter you can do all of the tactical parts of HR, but if you are not a confidant to the CEO, you are not being maximized.

Yeah.

[00:14:40] Mo Fathelbab: And what do Cs need to know about the role of the CEO?

[00:14:46] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: Yeah. two things come to mind. Yeah. You eat it, you, sleep it, you, this is, it is an all consuming job. Yeah. So it's exhausting. Yeah. And I think CHROs and all members of the C-Suite. I need to understand. Yeah, the CEO, Dr. this is his or her baby.

It's your life, it's your life, it's your life, and there really is no time that I don't think about SHRM. And to that point, I'm always representing Shem. Once you're the CEO, you are the visible sort of personification of a company. Yeah. So if I'm at Lowe's or Home Depot shopping Yeah. And people say that's the CEO of SHRM.

Yeah. That means I'm never off. You're never off. Most of my employees can go off and they can disappear. And if they don't have their SHRM stuff on Then no one knows where they work. Unless they ask. I often, I'm stopped in the airport, I'm stopped at Lowe's. I'm stopped everywhere grocery shopping because people know and that's the most, so that is, it's an exhausting job.

Yeah. And it's, It's a lot of pressure. Yeah, it's a lot of pressure. So I, remind 'em. So those days when I'm a little irritable, well just imagine having to be on forever at all times. The only safe spaces in your house. And frankly, if something goes on in your house that leaks out, that could impact you and the company.

So you are. Always on it. It also becomes your identity. Oh, to That's the danger. Yeah. So I will tell you it's positive, but it also is your identity. And because CEOs typically don't last, I think the average now is three, four years. Think about that. You have wrapped yourself up, you, because it's all consuming.

You've defined yourself by the job, and the job is defined by you, and so there you go. So, so how can a CHRO support their CEO in that capacity? You'll surprise you what I'm gonna say. Yeah. It's as much about mental wellness as anything else. Forgetting mental wellness, helping your CEO keep his or her mind in a good place.

decluttering it, dealing with the bad days, focusing on the good days. It's very, the right CHR is coming in and saying. I know what you're up against is, let me help you, because if you are performing well, we're all benefiting from it. And that's where the CHRO is at their best, is when you can help your CEO perform at his or her best.

In some ways, you're sort of the special assistant, executive assistant to the CEO in some weeks because your job is to ensure that he or she is unencumbered in the right head space so that they make the right strategy decisions and tactical decisions so that this whole thing floats in. Payrolls made every two weeks and everything's good.

[00:17:24] Mo Fathelbab: Yeah. And what advice do you have for CHROs out there or aspiring CHROs for what they need to do to prepare to be the best they can be in that job? So I, have this real simple rule about three Cs, and it's so, I'm a lawyer, so alliteration works. Number one. You must be competent. You must be the smartest person in your executive team about people issues and you study it.

[00:17:51] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: You know, there's no reason to have a general counsel or legal person in the room, and everyone else knows a lot better than him or her. We oftentimes get into these roles and don't know HR. So competencies number one. The second one is that confidant relationship that you, the. Only when you are gonna prepare to be a CHRO one day, you've gotta begin building deep, deep trust relationships with the executives that you're working with before you work with the ultimate executive, the CEO, and then that third C.

So it's competence, it's confidant becoming a confidant, and then it's courage. Courage that is something that no one can teach you. You have to dig deep, deep within, but having the courage to come and talk with that CEO and explain the good and the bad to tell your colleagues around the table, like, I know you're so smart, you know what you're doing, but let me tell you how people operate and if you don't do this, this is what's gonna happen.

So it's just those three Cs. If you can master that, you'll be a phenomenal CHRO, but it's not two of the three. the best CEOs, the successful chs, I should say, master all three. And it's hard. It's hard because it's your EQ and your iq. How do you encourage the courage? I've debated whether or not people are just born with a certain amount of courage or you can develop it.

So I encourage it by doing things like this conversation, just talking about, like saying it's not good enough to have to be a brilliant person, but not have the courage to step up and call things what they are, truth, sayer, et cetera. We talk about it. That's the best thing that SHRM can do is to talk about it.

Now, one thing you can't be, and, I use, I try to explain it this way. You can't be courageous without being competent. I've seen people jump out there and say something in a meeting and it's like, based upon what our people need, this why I. So, yeah, you have the courage to speak up, but you were not, you didn't have your stuff in order, you didn't know the data, you didn't collect the info, like, so you just made a statement without it.

So you, I think I am more confident and more courageous when I know what I'm talking about. Talk about preparation. When I'm prepared, I then can become courageous. Absent that I'm a fool, right? It's just like anybody can say anything and raise hell. But getting called on it and being able to respond right away when you're being challenged on it, sticking to your position.

So we talk about it a lot, but it's based foundationally incompetence. Yeah.

[00:20:18] Mo Fathelbab: I wanna talk about the CHRO benchmarking report. I believe it talks about turnover being the same as pre pandemic levels.

[00:20:26] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: Yes. what, are your thoughts about that? It's a hard job.

It is a hard job for all the reasons that we've discussed.

I, I, again, it's not just 'cause I'm at SHRM. I would be saying this no matter what I do, I'm the CEOI would argue. That the CHRO is the second most difficult job on that team. Mine is, number one, is the CEO, but the CHRO, and it is because you carry all of that, every employee, and the more that you have, you got 80,000 employees.

One of them could do something that goes viral. Right. When COVID happened, we began to fully appreciate what the CHRO had to do.

[00:21:05] Speaker: Yeah.

[00:21:06] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: They didn't just have to take care of their HR people, they had to take care of everyone else's people. Yeah. And so it, you understand how difficult the role is, and I keep saying it, it sounds like I'm, but when I tell you.

Yeah, that's it. What, can CHROs do to reduce that turnover? Hire really strong, talented people. Number one, your people have to be incredibly sharp. You can be a star, but if you stack yourself or surround yourself with average people, you're gonna fail. So that's number one as hiring other really smart HR talent.

Number two. And this gets back to this concept of mental wellness. You really do have to take some time for yourself. You've gotta step away from this. And, you know, rejuvenate kind of reflect. And, so that is, we don't do enough of that. 'cause that CHRO runs almost as much as the CEO sometimes. To the CEO if they're doing their jobs right, and you get consumed, you know, one day you're working on strategy, and then the next day one of your employees loses a family member.

And it's a very personal thing that you have to dig down into and spend time with this person and bring them out so you don't leave it at the office. You literally are consumed with what's happening. 'cause you know everyone's story. You know, the benefits program reports to you. So you know it when other people in the organization don't know it, can't know it, protect, you know, the law doesn't allow them to know it, et cetera.

Sometimes even their boss can't know when, you know. So you're just dealing with a lot. So I tell HR folks, in terms of turnover, before you burn yourself out, you've got to seek. You know, therapy and counseling because you're carrying the burden and the weight of the entire organization.

[00:22:46] Mo Fathelbab: The other thing we talked about, quite a bit is the skills first hiring.

tell us why that's becoming more and more important. I know that a lot of companies are turning to it, but some may not be there just yet.

[00:22:59] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: Well, we don't, you mentioned it. We don't have enough people. I mean, it was kind of simple, you know, and so. In times passed when you had all of these young bumpers coming out with all of their bachelor's degrees and MBAs and everything you, you could choose.

Now we don't have that. So there are more open jobs than there are people looking for jobs, and therefore we've gotta rethink talent and what we think talent is. Historically, we relied on the degree and multiple degrees as a proxy for smart and competency, and now we don't have that luxury. So we said we've got to, and so there's two reasons for it.

One is we need the people and we said, let's start right now figuring out what the talent is, who can actually do the job. That's lead with skills first, not degree. Not fixed. Yeah. And we're not anti-D degree. Let's be clear. I don't want anyone thinking that German's anti-D degree, I have a degree. I got multiple degrees and I want my kid to get one.

All that good stuff. But we do understand that you can't solely make decisions based upon if someone has a degree from what school, where were they in their class, et cetera. There are other factors there. First and foremost, can you do the work? And you gotta do the work? 'cause you can have a degree, but not be able to do the stuff I need you to do.

Yeah. And especially when you think about the trades. We need welders, we need carpenters, we need people to do these jobs. All of us. Let something happen in your house. Your plumbing backs up. You don't need a PhD from MIT. You need someone to come solve this problem. Right? Yeah. So the skills part is, actually born out of necessity.

From a talent standpoint, business can no longer operate if we don't start looking at what people can do versus what degrees they've attained. I. That's number one. The other side of it is what it's done for society. We have overlooked a lot of talent historically because of this, over-reliance on the degree.

And so that has become, like, the thing now is we're saying imagine how we could unleash the talent. You talk about the need for immigration reform, workforce, workplace immigration reform. Got it. But we have talent right here in this country who we aren't taking advantage of because we don't think they have the credential.

And if we could simply ask them and somehow ascertain if they have the skills to do it, then we could solve some of our talent shortages. So that's why we do it for the good of the people. We do it for the good of the organization. Imagine there's dignity in work. So imagine being rejected and rejected forever 'cause you didn't have the degree and then all of a sudden someone says.

Guess what, Mo, you can actually do this. We now know you now can provide for your family, yourself, your community, et cetera. So this is good for society and that's why we are leading the charge with skills First, how can HR leaders make those changes in their organizations? Yeah, so it's a sales job. At the end of the day, because we have historically been so reliant on the degree convincing a hiring manager, even if you got past the talent acquisition organization.

Right. And I think increasingly HR practitioners are good with that. They're like, got it. We should look at people for what they can do. Got it. Convince your HR people is number one, but after that, you've gotta sell it to the hiring manager. 'cause that's who's gonna make the decision. And that literally requires that confidant relationship where you say, listen, here's three people.

The best talent. Is the young lady without a degree, but here are her skills. I can articulate them. She can show you how these tie directly to what you want. Give her a shot. Yeah. That's what we're doing now as HR professionals is selling this, within our organizations, using our influence in our relationships to get people and then just hire one.

And when he or she works out, then that manager is more willing to do it going forward. So we introduce it at HR when we scream as we look for talent. You ensure that you don't. Degree desired. Sometimes you don't miss, you don't mention degree at all. You say, here are the 10 or 12 things that you must be able to do, and if you can prove to me that you can do these.

We don't even mention the job descriptions. Increasingly, the degree at all, if it comes with, if you have a degree, great. But you don't have to. So that's what we're doing is reorienting the organization. That's hard. 'cause our country, this isn't just your business, but culturally we value that degree. You want your kid to get to 18, your seven, 10-year-old boy to graduate next year and go to college and go to college.

And if he doesn't go to college and go to the military, you still want him to get a degree part-time. Right. You want that college degree. That's the part of the American dream. Yeah. Yeah,

[00:27:43] Mo Fathelbab: absolutely. So, back to the CHRO Yes. And, this changing landscape that we're in. What do you think the next five years looks like and what do CHROs have to be mindful of as they go into those next five years?

[00:28:00] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: we're, increasingly going to merge humans and technology, IE robots and AI and chatbots and AI agents and all of that. So I've been talking about this for years. We're, instead of talking about manpower or labor planning, increasingly the conversation will be work. What is the work we need to get done?

Can machine do it? Can a human do it? Can a machine do most of it? And then the human's quality checking, or does the human do it? And the machine check, like this combination, this bringing together of ai, artificial intelligence, and hi human intelligence, bringing that together is what the next five years is gonna be about.

Because let's face it, trillions I'm told of dollars, or at least a trillion, has been. We poured into investors support into ai, and they need a return on that investment. And that means we need enhanced productivity. We need efficiency, we need higher quality, we need speed. And so I think what we're gonna see over the next five years, I.

Is the HR profession, helping organizations figure out how to merge these things so that we are as productive as we can be, as innovative as we can be, which is why I use example of the Moderna. Moderna. Yeah. That's where you were seeing the functions come together. Someone asked me the other day, Johnny and HR.

Is, is AI gonna take my job? An HR practitioner? My response is, no, Someone who is proficient in AI is gonna take your job. Yeah. So thus the human and the AI together, and that's what we've gotta do is upskill the entirety of the profession, including up to the CHRO. You've, we now have got to figure out how to embrace this because it's gonna be a part of the way work is done going forward.

[00:29:47] Mo Fathelbab: So in some ways I see the AI component as another, source of talent. Yes,

[00:29:54] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: that's a to do work. Yes. To do work. To do work. Again, we used to always talk about labor planning, how many people we need or you know, and it's different. What is the work? And some of the work will be done by people. Some will be done by machines, and that's a big shift.

For us. I, often refer to the movie Hidden Figures. Remember that movie again? Yes. Yes. For those who don't, it's a great movie, but four, three or four African American women in the South who worked for nasa. And they were called in that movie Computers Uhhuh, because they were mathematicians, statisticians.

They were brilliant women. Right. Yeah. well-trained, scientists and they helped put Man on the moon Yeah. For the us. Yeah. And then all of a sudden IBM created a machine.

[00:30:41] Speaker: Yeah.

[00:30:43] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: Now. We didn't call them human computers 'cause there was no machine computer. Now technology and human had to come together.

Yeah. First they had to all re-skill. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because their jobs went away. I no longer need you to write out these long calculus, you know, calculus trend. No. The machine will do all of that. So now you gotta figure out, do you just go away and cry and die? Or do you say, I'm gonna reinvent myself.

And they re-skill themselves to either design a new computers, repair the computers program, the computers, they had to find new jobs. Okay. So now that was the introduction of technology and human beings doing work. Yeah, the machine took. At TM machines. Yeah. Remember they were tellers ERs that remember, and you stood in line.

Now all of a sudden, I don't have to interact with a person. So that job went away. Yeah. Right. And now there's a new job. So that machine is doing the work, counting out money that a human being used to do. And now that human being is doing a different type of work, perhaps you're fixing those machines, maybe you're loading the money in those machines, those 18 machines, et cetera.

So that's what we are seeing and I think. We're at that moment again, where there's an introduction of this new technology that is literally going to, yes, it's going to take some jobs, it will create new jobs. The question is, can we help our people as HR professionals train for the new jobs? Your hidden figures moment, what do you say to those four women who were trained to compute when something else is going to do the computing now?

[00:32:12] Mo Fathelbab: So something that we talked about a year ago, SHRM 24. Okay. Was a concern a lot of people had about AI taking jobs from people, but we're also talking about a shortage of talent at once. Yeah. So what point is this shortage gonna be quelled? By ai, AI will

[00:32:32] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: help. It'll help for sure. 'cause you have a shortage of people, you know, they're talking about, for example, re I forget the phrase, but reshoring manufacturing jobs ringing back into the country.

So tape, there was a factory that had 500 jobs. Yeah, it then went to another country. Yeah. They come back. When they come back, they only bring 200 jobs, not because they left 300 jobs in the other country, but because now with the use of AI and robots and other technologies, you need fewer people to operate.

So the point of that is that what we now have is technology is going to allow us to operate more efficiently with fewer people. So it is gonna help solve some of that problem, but the people you have then have to be really skilled differently. You can actually have 10 people in a room, but if only two of them have the skills you need, you still have a shortage.

Shortage. Right. You still have a problem. So we have a skills shortage even more than we have a human being shortage. It happens to be right now that we have both shortage of human beings and a shortage of human beings with the skills that we need. So that's the problem right now. And it's only getting worse.

Yeah. So how do HR leaders prepare? Right. Well, we, this is the perfect time to. Sit down with our organizations and try to plot what's the work of the future? How much of it do you have, what are the skills required to do it, et cetera. And then ai, I mean, tech, HR professionals now are going to have to be thoughtful about how do we get this work done?

Then there are gonna say, some of this can be done by people. Some of this is gonna be done onshore, some of it's gonna be offshore, some of it's gonna be outsourced, et cetera. And some of it's gonna be done by machines. So ai, what's fascinating now is. CHROs are literally, and have the potential to have a really key role in an organization to say, this is the work.

This is how it's gonna get done. And here are, and you'll plugging people. And machines. And machines. Fascinating. That is fascinating. Is that starting to happen here at SHRM? Oh yeah. And and, you wanna be really careful 'cause it's threatening. Yeah. And I say this a lot. there are two things that present an existential threat to human beings, threat to their lives, which was COVID or their livelihoods.

Which is this technology and AI people are scared. So as a CEO, you know what technologies are available, but people are fearful of it because it threatens their ability to earn a living. Yeah. So we've gotta introduce it in such a way, right here at SHRM where guys, yes. If you don't take, I'm gonna re-skill you.

I'm gonna prepare you for the next job. Yeah. You've gotta come with me because I assure you the job you do today. Will either go away or be so meaningfully reconstituted that it's gonna go away. So the good news is, I'm not saying your job's going away in three years and you're outta luck. I'm saying your job's going away in three years, and here's what you can do to prepare yourself for the next version.

That's great HR, because you're serving both the organization and the human being. Remember, I started with this whole thing, elevating HR, so equipping HR practitioner to do their job well. It's elevating our profession and its reputation. And I did not forget elevating human beings in that process. And this talent upskilling and reskilling is a part of our work as SHRM, and that's why I feel very confident saying if it's a work thing, it's a SHRM thing.

[00:35:50] Mo Fathelbab: It's a, SHRM thing. I love that. And I'm also hearing from you, you can't just keep doing your job the same way you've done it yesterday.

[00:35:58] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: Nope. No, not even. In fact, you can't keep doing the job an hour later. I mean, things are changing that. Fast and that's what we are. People are used to that, right?

Used to be able to go to college as an accountant and practice 30 years doing some form of accounting. And if you're lucky, you become the CFO and you just, you know, there's some small changes to the laws in this, but nothing significant, not a transformation. We are seeing transformation in. Every profession.

In every business. And that's hard. 'cause people generally don't like change mode. That's right. It's like, that's right. As much as they say the word Yeah. They're like, no, this ain't broken, so let's not fix it. And we are now fixing things that aren't, we don't appear to be broken. That's right. I'm

[00:36:37] Mo Fathelbab: curious, Johnny, what,

[00:36:39] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: motivates you?

Yeah, several things as a father, and that's my number one, I'm motivated to. Make sure that my daughter, one benefits from everything that I've experienced, the good and the bad, and lives her best life. So that's, my primary motivation. Hands up. 'cause that's what I'm gonna leave the world when I leave here.

Secondly, it is a motivation to bring this HR profession into, Into, I don't like it's 21st century 'cause it's in the 21st century. But to bring its reputation up to that of other professions, doctors, lawyers, cfo. Like I want that. That is something that motivates me. And I'm gonna end with this funny story.

So when I first, I was a lawyer, I told you and I got the opportunity to become VP of HR at Blockbuster. I called my grandma, who I love with my, lost her a couple of years back. She was loved my life. Yes. And I, And I called her first call, not mom, not dad, my grandma. And I said, guess what? I just got a promotion.

And she says, to what? And I said, I'm gonna be the VP of HR. And it was silence in the end. Now mind I'm a lawyer and after about seven, 10 seconds or so, 'cause it was silence on the follow her first thing was, why would you go do that? Broke my heart. Oh God. She went on to say. You're gonna go be a personnel guy, you're a lawyer, why would you go do that?

And it was really that moment when I, and I could remember it so vividly, and I was like, I'm gonna prove, not her wrong in a bad way, but I'm gonna prove to her that this is actually a positive thing for me to join the HR. Profession. So that's, that drives me even today when you talk about a motivation, I want people to think about us, and I have the good fortune of having been a lawyer.

Yeah. So I don't have to, you know, when you say you're a lawyer in a room, people are like, oh, you are smart. They make certain assumptions about you. They also make certain assumptions about HR professionals. I am absolutely laser focused on raising that up so that people are like, oh, that's something I wanna do.

Something that would make your

[00:38:43] Mo Fathelbab: grandma proud. Make it aspirational. That's right. I think that's wonderful. That's right. Thank you, Johnny. Last question. Yes. What is one piece of advice. That you have received that has shaped your work or life

[00:38:55] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: the most? Yeah, so I, this is an easy one 'cause I was so impacted by it on the stage and I don't remember the city, I should remember the city we interviewed.

I had the great fortune of interviewing President George Bush. And, he said something and I'll, forever remember, he said, number one thing you as a leader must do is project calm. Two words, project calm, and of course he was the president when we were, our twin towers were attacked on 9/11, and he said, everyone is looking to see if you freak out. They're looking for their leader to be strong. Even if inside you're a disaster 'cause you don't know what to do, your team has to see you project calm. And that is a leadership lesson I'll never forget, is no matter what's going on, your employee base is looking to you. To lead and give them confidence that everything's gonna be okay.

During COVID, my number one job was to say, everything's gonna be okay. I'm gonna make sure you get paid. I'm gonna make sure that your families are safe and healthy, and if you get sick, you're gonna have great benefits that you can go to the hospital and get well and project calm.

[00:40:07] Mo Fathelbab: I think that is a great place to end it.

Project calm yes.

[00:40:11] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: Yes, yes, yes my friend.

[00:40:12] Mo Fathelbab: Thank you, Johnny.

[00:40:13] Johnny C. Taylor Jr.: Thank you.

[00:40:14] Mo Fathelbab: And that where we'll end it for this episode of People and Strategy. A huge thanks to Johnny for helping us celebrate our 100th episode. You can follow the People and Strategy podcast wherever you get your podcast. Also podcast reviews have a real impact on podcast visibility.

So if you enjoyed today's episode, leave a review to help others find the show. Finally, you could find all our episodes on our website at SHRM.org/podcasts. Thank you for listening and have a great day.