As Season 9 of the HR Data Labs podcast comes to a close, join David and Dwight for a reflective look back at the season’s episodes, guess, and key topics. They revisit their predictions from the Season 8 finale, evaluate hits and misses on trends like AI adoption and expected DEI shifts. Finally, they peer into the future, offering bold new predictions for what HR professionals can expect regarding financial strategies, AI integration, and the evolving landscape of HR data and analytics
[0:00] Introduction
[4:43] Reflecting on Season 9 & announcing our new live podcast
[15:25] Grading our Season 9 predictions
[20:55] Predictions for Season 10
[28:14] Closing
Announcer 0:01
The world of business is more complex than ever. The world of human resources and compensation is also getting more complex. Welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast, your direct source for the latest trends from experts inside and outside the world of human resources. Listen as we explore the impact that compensation strategy, data and people analytics can have on your organization. This podcast is sponsored by salary.com Your source for data technology and consulting for compensation and beyond. Now here are your hosts, David Turetsky and Dwight Brown.
David Turetsky 0:38
Welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host. David Turetsky alongside my co host, best Friday, best friend, partner in crime, from Salary.com
Dwight Brown 0:47
Dwight Brown, mostly partner in crime,
David Turetsky 0:49
especially given the fact that we've just spent a couple days together in Las Vegas. And you know
Dwight Brown 0:55
what happened in Vegas? Stays in Vegas exactly,
David Turetsky 0:58
except for COVID, which I've gotten a couple times,
Dwight Brown 1:03
and the sore throat that I have other people who have visited exactly,
David Turetsky 1:08
oh yeah, but this
Dwight Brown 1:11
time of talking, we've been doing, oh
David Turetsky 1:12
my gosh, we've been here at the ADP Major Accounts Pro Summit in the beautiful Bellagio Hotel and Resort.
Dwight Brown 1:22
It is resort. It is a sight to be seen.
David Turetsky 1:25
It is. And we've had a lot of fun. I've lost a lot of money,
Dwight Brown 1:30
as have I
David Turetsky 1:31
Yes, and the hotel found it. They are not giving it back. To give it back, they are not giving it back to us. And so
Dwight Brown 1:39
we asked nicely,
David Turetsky 1:40
but yeah, they will not, and that's our one fun thing that no one knows about us is that Dwight and I have a gambling problem, and we are admitting it right now. Every time I come to Vegas, we drop a few dollars.
Dwight Brown 1:52
My gambling problem is that I lose, but I have fun. I have fun doing it. Yeah, I blew my gambling budget the first night we were here, yes, all of what, a half hour at the blackjack table.
David Turetsky 2:07
Yes, although you did have actually, it's more than a half hour. But you had fun, yeah,
Dwight Brown 2:11
oh yeah, I had a blast.
David Turetsky 2:12
We had one dealer who was great, yeah. And then Sheila came, and she just kept winning.
Dwight Brown 2:23
Yeah, it it was, we didn't like Sheila. No, we liked her. Personally. She was, she was very nice,
David Turetsky 2:29
but we let her know that we thought that her performance evaluation, while positive from the Bellagio perspective, would definitely go down in history as being one of the worst from a gambler perspective.
Dwight Brown 2:43
Yeah, exactly, yeah. I don't think she should get her merit bonus. No
David Turetsky 2:47
merit increase, a bonus anything. Well, actually, she's probably gonna get a bonus for all the money she stole. I mean, sorry, took from the poor slobs at the at her table, which was more than just Dwight, by the way,
Dwight Brown 3:01
oh, yeah, yeah. Everybody else was losing to everybody, yeah,
David Turetsky 3:04
yeah. It was awful. So today is episode 25 of season nine.
Dwight Brown 3:10
Can't believe we are, it's season nine, the end of season nine.
David Turetsky 3:13
Season thing. So, so that means that our next episode is the start of our 10th season. Yeah, yeah. People have tolerated for that long. Holy crap.
Dwight Brown 3:26
They have tolerated us, although it's their fault for going ahead and downloading,
David Turetsky 3:29
yes, it's your fault. It's all your fault. So, so today we're going to review season nine. We're going to talk a little bit about season 10 and some of the changes for season 10. We're going to talk a little bit about our new podcast, the HR Data Labs Brown Bag Lunch, which we started in January of 2025 but we're also going to talk about our predictions from last six months, from Season Eight, Episode, 25 and our new ones, and we had some interesting ones, I think that we're going to regale you with,
Dwight Brown 4:10
yeah, yeah, we, we really did have a good lineup this this season and, and, you know, Being able to parlay that into predictions based on some of the thoughts that we've had as we've gone through these episodes.
David Turetsky 4:26
Yeah so why don't we first start diving in? We're going to hit season nine. Yeah.
So season nine had some amazing episodes. One of the first was actually working with our colleagues, the consulting team @ Salary.com and we had a really cool conversation with what their predictions were for 2025 Now, by the way, that happened in January of 25 right? And so we kind of shocked ourselves about some of the predictions. I think some of them were have already proven out, yep, and some yet too. And we'll, we'll revisit them next year. Then we had some interesting ones. I'm not going to go through each of them. But Peter Laughter was on the program, and he's always fun. We've had Siri Chalazi, who is brilliant, and she has a new book out called Making Workplaces Fair by Design. And she went on a book tour after that, by the way, and has done quite well for that. And then Kasara Weinrich from ADP talking about the future of ADPs AI initiatives. And that was actually kind of fun. Then we had a lot of others. I mean, you know, I don't think we had a bad episode. We had John Baron, the CHRO of the great State of Utah.
Dwight Brown 5:56
We had so much fun with John.
David Turetsky 5:58
You became instant best friends with John.
Dwight Brown 6:00
Oh, totally. I got to, unlike most of our guests, I actually got to meet him in person and sit down with he and his staff. Go, you know, go to have a little bit of fun outside of work. Or
David Turetsky 6:17
you didn't kill him, though
Dwight Brown 6:19
I did not kill him.
David Turetsky 6:20
He was supposed to take him up on paragliding.
Dwight Brown 6:23
Yeah, didn't happen.
David Turetsky 6:24
Thank God.
Dwight Brown 6:25
Yeah, the winds just were not our friend that day. So,
David Turetsky 6:28
or they were,
Dwight Brown 6:29
yeah, depends what angle.
David Turetsky 6:32
Well, you know, as you know, from past episodes, I like the safe route,
Dwight Brown 6:36
right? Yeah, and, and, you know, that's where David and I are opposite, because I prefer the adrenaline pumping unsafe stuff. So
David Turetsky 6:46
I enjoy the adrenaline pumping safe stuff, like playing hockey, because I'm a goalie. Yeah, that's true. That's so safe. Yeah, I think I'm up to my 12th or 13th concussion. So yeah. Then we had Martha Curioni, who's one of our best friends, from the people analytics world, and she came by to talk to us about using AI responsibly in HR. That was a wonderful episode.
Dwight Brown 7:09
Yeah, I like Tana Danica too. Yeah, empowering women in a male dominated industry, yeah. Industry, yeah. Is is such a you know, at least for me, was such an unknown entity, right? But realizing that it is truly male dominated and and really hearing from Hannah how, how that's progressed over the years,
David Turetsky 7:33
she had a great personal story on that too. Yeah, totally was wonderful. And, you know, as I said, wonderful lineup we had Anne Kuss, Beth White, Stephanie, krevins, Ron Hetrick, your friend, Isaac, yeah, wonderful conversation with that. And then Danielle Buchen, are one of our best new friends. We were talking about one of our favorite topics, HR data governance.
Dwight Brown 8:00
Totally geeked out on that. Yeah, we completely geeked out there. Yeah, loved it fun.
David Turetsky 8:05
And then to round out that that's actually the middle of the season. I mean, look at the amazing people we had at the beginning of the season. Then to end the season, we had CJ Gross, another new best friend of ours, talking about their zip codes, people's ZIP Code Story, learning about people beyond, you know, the first impression.
Dwight Brown 8:25
Yeah, I loved CJs approach. I I loved his personality because he, he came from it from a totally different angle, you know, an angle of openness. Yeah, totally unexpected. Yeah, exactly.
David Turetsky 8:39
Then we had Mike Ohata. We were talking with him about building a resilient workforce and re skilling, yeah, Desiree Goldie, and bridging the gap on talent. And we were talking about communications with her. And then my friend Mike Gomez from the Tasty Restaurant Group, talking about the secret sauce of employee engagement,
Dwight Brown 8:59
yeah, I missed that one. I was bombed. Yes, well,
David Turetsky 9:04
you can't be on all of them, right? That was that ADPs Meeting of the Minds. Oh, yeah. And that was in Vegas as well. Yeah, so I've been to Vegas a couple times this year. Time here, yeah. And so, by the way, that I'm not going to be able to go through all of our episodes right now, but the lineup for the rest of the season is just amazing as well. And one of the things we wanted to try and highlight with season nine is that we lost someone very near to us. She's not dead. She's just gone.
Dwight Brown 9:38
I just just gave David the look like, wait what?
David Turetsky 9:43
We lost Karissa Harris, who is our podcast manager, and we've been with Karissa for almost five years. Yeah, and we love her. And she took another job, and so she left us.
Dwight Brown 9:57
Yep, she. She really kept this podcast going and did a lot that was huge loss for us, yes, both from a podcast perspective. But more than that, just you know, Karissa was a good friend of ours, and we really appreciated everything that she did for this podcast.
David Turetsky 10:19
Yeah, and so Karissa, we love you and we'll miss you. One of the things you'll notice is on season nine, Karissa had actually recorded the intro and the bumps, and now, in honor of her, we're replacing that audio. And I think you've just heard a theme that we've had throughout season nine, which was artificial intelligence being used as a tool for pretty much everything. Yeah, and so we are embracing that here at the HR Data Labs podcast. Yes, we are. And we have recorded artificial intelligence bumps for the podcast, and you'll hear that starting in season 10. Yeah, so that'll be fun.
Dwight Brown 11:08
We are, we are all in on AI.
David Turetsky 11:12
We are embracing AI with all feet, hands, arms, the whole, whole kit and caboodle. And one of the things we're going to talk about about our season 10 is how we're embracing new and we're actually maybe even talk about it for our predictions as well. Yeah, let's start by talking a little bit about season 10, because season 10 kicks off with a different tone. And we're not going to go into all the different episodes for season 10. I will tell you, it's going to be a little different, and it'll be fun and exciting.
Dwight Brown 11:50
Oh yeah, yeah. We try to keep a lot of different topics out there, yeah, and explore those topics. In fact, as we've been at the conference here, we've had a lot of opportunity to talk with people about the podcast, and what they ask us is, what do you talk about?
David Turetsky 12:09
Exactly and what don't we talk about, right?
Dwight Brown 12:12
Exactly? That's that's sort of the the answer that we have is, we used to be all about HR, data and analytics expanded to other HR topics, and now we've really started to get get outside the realm of just being strictly HR related. And I mean, it all ties back in some way or another, yeah, but
David Turetsky 12:37
of course, to measurement and data and yeah, and how to overcome these business issues. But I think it also, a lot of it is the expansion of the focus that we're taking on personally. You know, we we started this as you know, HR data and analytics experts, yeah, and we've really kind of taken on new roles and and taken on new responsibilities, and kind of expanded our horizons as well,
Dwight Brown 13:00
exactly.
David Turetsky 13:00
And one of the ways in which we've expanded that is, as we talked about before, we've introduced this new HR Data Labs Brown Bag Lunch, yep, which gives it gives you the opportunity to interface with us on a weekly basis. It's every friday from two o'clock Eastern to 230 Eastern. It's only a half hour, right? And we have a guest on each time, hopefully, unless the guest cancels.
Dwight Brown 13:27
Every once in a while, every once in a while, no show or two happen,
David Turetsky 13:31
yeah? But, I mean, you know, to be fair to them, things happen. Life happens, and you know exactly. But we've actually had people who are on the podcast, the audio podcasts say, oh, you know, we had fun. Let's do it again. And we go, Well, why don't, why don't you do the Brown Bag Lunch? Right?
Dwight Brown 13:47
Michael Ohata did that?
David Turetsky 13:48
Mike Ohata did that. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, so what you're going to find and, oh, Richard Rosenau did it. And Jordan Morrow, he'll be he'll be back on soon. So anyway, so what you're going to hear from us on the HR Data Lab Brown Bag Lunch is a fun opportunity for you to ask questions while we're live right on the air, yeah, through LinkedIn, and be able to provide us with what your thoughts are, where your questions are, right away, and get answers right away.
Dwight Brown 14:27
Yep, it's nice having that interaction, that sort of real time interaction, absolutely, because every once in a while we get a question or comment from people, but it's always after the fact.
David Turetsky 14:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a real time opportunity,
Dwight Brown 14:40
Yeah and, you know, it's been, it's been a lot of fun just moving to a live environment, too. And we, of course, we have to be careful with what we say, because we can't say, okay, Carl, edit that out when we say a bad word or something like that.
David Turetsky 14:58
Yes, that is. Definitely true and and, you know, we do have to care about that because we want to be a PG 13, you know, podcast, and that's not exactly what we can do all the time. So, right? You know,
Dwight Brown 15:14
especially when we get in these topics where we feel especially passionate about it,
David Turetsky 15:18
we get passionate?
Dwight Brown 15:19
every once in a while and irreverent,
David Turetsky 15:23
Wow. All right, well, now it's the time for us to talk about what were our predictions for last for the last time. Yeah, and what are the predictions for the next six months, yeah.
Announcer 15:43
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David Turetsky 15:53
So Dwight, your prediction for episode 25 of season eight was that we're going to see an increase in the use of artificial intelligence in the customer service world, and that there's gonna be a lot of reskilling and upskilling, yeah, in that environment. How did you do on that?
Dwight Brown 16:13
I think, I think I did well with that, you know, with AI, and I think this is settling down some, but with AI, there's been sort of this sky is falling mentality. And, yeah, and I had written a white paper on customer service, the impact of AI on customer service reps and and in there my, you know, both in the paper as well as the prediction that I made from this last season. I I said that customer service representatives will be replaced by AI to a certain extent. But what's really going to happen, instead of mass layoffs and that kind of thing, what's really going to happen is more reskilling and upskilling of people, because to be able to use AI effectively is really the key to a lot of this. It's not just, you know, it's not a piece of software that a company brings in and it magically replaces everybody in the company, exactly so. So my prediction really was, we're going to see this in the customer service industry continue to play out, but we're going to see a lot of reskilling and upskilling. And so I, I feel like I, I feel like I hit the head the nail on the head, the head on the nail.
David Turetsky 17:38
So an "A"
Dwight Brown 17:40
yeah, we'll go with an A on that good
David Turetsky 17:42
I agree with you on that one. Mine was, I can't say prophetic, but damn close, yeah, which was with the and remember, this goes back to January, yep, right? I say, with the incoming Congress, you know, the Senate and the House being one party, with the President, there was going to be sweeping changes to a lot of stuff, yep, especially HR stuff, I don't think I could have possibly imagined though, it was going to be this sweeping,
Dwight Brown 18:21
Right
David Turetsky 18:22
and this impactful. Now, by the way, not a lot through legislation, but a ton through executive order,
Dwight Brown 18:29
Right
David Turetsky 18:30
And while we're still seeing some of the challenge of this at the federal district court level and the Supreme Court level,
Dwight Brown 18:40
yep.
David Turetsky 18:43
Gosh, there was a ton of change, yes, especially with that three letter acronym that has become almost verboten to say out loud, yeah, I'll say it DE&I Yeah.
Dwight Brown 18:56
We might have to have that one beeped
David Turetsky 18:57
out. Yeah. No, we're not going to do that. We still have some we're still brave. Let's just put it that way. But I think the other part of that, that I, that I kind of got, was that DE&I was going to take a shot, and that the hope was, was that DE&I has been so embedded in corporate culture that it didn't need to be said anymore, right? That we were gonna live it, whether or not we were talking about,
Dwight Brown 19:27
yeah, exactly.
David Turetsky 19:27
And so there's been so much said and so much done, but I truly hope it is operations as normal. But gosh, it took a hit.
Dwight Brown 19:39
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's aggravating, it's frustrating. But I, I'm with you that it's, it's embedded enough at this point that it's going to keep going.
David Turetsky 19:51
Let's pray that it is, yeah,
Dwight Brown 19:52
yeah. It's not going to look like we may have pictured it would look, you know, if we had talked about this a year ago. Now, yeah, the way that we pictured DE&I versus the way that it's probably going to play out. Yeah, two totally different pictures.
Yep, exactly. So I'm going to give myself an A on this.
I'm with you on that. I think you hit the nail on the head. I wish I was right on the nail, like I said before,
David Turetsky 20:21
I wish I hit my thumb instead of the nail. Yeah, and this one, unfortunately, I got it right.
Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this. Well, you're in luck. We have a special offer for listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast or whatever is on your mind. Go to salary.com/hrdlconsulting to schedule your FREE 30 minute call today.
So Dwight, are we ready? We need to talk about what your prediction is for the next six months. Karnack?!?
Dwight Brown 21:03
Yeah, yeah. The So, the prediction that I have is more on the economic front, a lot of a lot of companies, a lot of organizations, especially especially organizations that depend on federal dollars have sort of stopped spending, and really have taken a wait and see approach and and I know this because we work with so many different companies and what we do, and we just hear over and over from them, Hey, we are just in a holding pattern right now and but I what I predict for the next six months is we're actually going to see a little bit of a loosening in the economy. Not long ago, I figured we were going to have a deep recession that we went into. But you know what? Now, with the trade talks seemingly being phase two of this, I think where, I think people are starting to feel very slightly more comfortable. We're not going to be so we're
David Turetsky 22:13
not saying the plug is going to come out and everything's going to flow.
Dwight Brown 22:17
No, I it, it's not going to be like that, but I do think that we are going to see a little bit of loosening in the economy.
David Turetsky 22:26
So you're not predicting two quarters of GDP recession. GDP, right, declining. You're not ready to call for q2 to be a recession.
Dwight Brown 22:40
Correct
David Turetsky 22:41
Okay,
Dwight Brown 22:41
Yeah,
David Turetsky 22:42
Okay, just wanted to ask.
Dwight Brown 22:44
yeah, no good clarification, yeah, that's
David Turetsky 22:47
which would have ramifications for all of us,
Dwight Brown 22:49
Right
David Turetsky 22:50
Okay, we hear you, yeah,
Dwight Brown 22:53
that's interesting to see. What happens
David Turetsky 22:54
that is your season nine prediction.
Dwight Brown 22:57
Official prediction, yep.
David Turetsky 22:59
Okay, so I guess it comes to me then,
Dwight Brown 23:04
yeah, this one, next one's on you. What do you got? Well,
David Turetsky 23:08
so if you haven't gotten the theme for season nine, I'll tell you. It starts with A and the second word starts with I, AI. We have talked about AI ad nauseum on this show, and
Dwight Brown 23:25
we'll continue to,
David Turetsky 23:26
and we will continue to so my prediction is that people are going to fall into two camps. We're going to start to see people falling into two camps. The first camp is the people who adopt or start learning about artificial intelligence, and then they're going to be the resistors. Dwight? What is it that says, What's this? What's the tagline you have in your or the quote that you have in your signature of your emails?
Dwight Brown 23:59
So the quote is that AI will not, will not replace people, people who know AI will replace people who don't know AI.
David Turetsky 24:10
And that is what I'm channeling. I am buying that 100% Yeah. So I'm predicting that people will start to adopt it slowly at first, but then in a storm, and I'm talking the next six months,
Dwight Brown 24:25
yep,
David Turetsky 24:26
people will see they cannot get away from it. They're going to start to hear about it in every facet of their lives, if they haven't already,
Dwight Brown 24:34
yep.
David Turetsky 24:35
And they're going to start to take training on it, and they're going to start to utilize it more so than ever. And we're going to see artificial intelligence start to become as mainstream as the big corporate entities had had wanted it to be maybe a year or two ago
Dwight Brown 24:52
Yeah, I agree with you, and
David Turetsky 24:56
one way that we're personally adopting is I just. Some certifications in AI not too long ago from Coursera, and you are actually living it as well. You're dipping your hands in it from your Calgon commercials. You're actually building bots.
Dwight Brown 25:13
Yep, you know, it's interesting, your prediction, because I think what happens with technology is it goes through a life cycle. You look at the the use of PCs in the workplace, and the proliferation of PCs, and it was, it was sort of the same battle cry of, oh, this is coming. This is gonna, this is gonna replace everybody. And you know what's that it did, to some extent. Yeah, exactly. But you had the early adopters who got on top of it and learned to use the technology and the stage that we're in that's consistent with what the other was, was companies are realizing and individuals are realizing how much efficiency it can add. And right now it's a novelty, that efficiency is a novelty, but pretty soon it's going to become an expectation. It's going to be an expectation that you know how to effectively utilize chatgpt in your day to day work
David Turetsky 26:14
Just like you use Excel or Word or right outlook Exactly. And by the way, if you haven't seen it already, Microsoft is building co pilot AI yep into those technologies,
Dwight Brown 26:28
Right
David Turetsky 26:29
So if you haven't seen it yet, and by the way, you have, you've seen the spell checker,
Dwight Brown 26:36
yep,
David Turetsky 26:36
which has been around for decades,
Dwight Brown 26:38
yeah,
David Turetsky 26:39
you've seen the grammar checker, which has been around for decades. Those things are AI,
Dwight Brown 26:43
yeah,
David Turetsky 26:44
and they are going to continue to grow to impact your life in ways in which you're not going to recognize,
Dwight Brown 26:51
right?
David Turetsky 26:51
But that's you swimming in it. And so that's why I'm thinking that people are now going to recognize this and want to adopt it, and they're going to go to the Coursera(s), Udemy(s), and other places, even Microsoft and Google have free online courses for this. Yeah. And we're going to start to see the rise of the AI kind of educational push,
Dwight Brown 27:18
right, exactly.
David Turetsky 27:19
And so that's my prediction.
Dwight Brown 27:21
I like it. I I'm with you on that prediction.
David Turetsky 27:25
It's, it's, it's non political, yeah, and I haven't done a non political one in a while, so, so first of all, I wanted to make sure, because I promised someone at this event that I would give them a shout out. And that's Victoria Kennedy, the VP of HR from People's Bank. And she said, There's no way that you're going to mention me on the show. And I made her wait through the entire episode for that shout out. So Victoria, this one's for you.
Dwight Brown 27:59
Never, dare David
David Turetsky 28:01
de never, never, never dare me. Anyways,
it has been an absolute pleasure Dwight in this season.
Dwight Brown 28:17
Likewise, we've had we've had great conversations this season that's kind of disappointed to wrap it up. But at the same time, I always look forward to the next season and what that what that holds for us?
David Turetsky 28:30
Yeah, I'm not sure what you're talking about. I mean, we have these recordings on our schedule, ad nauseum,
Dwight Brown 28:35
booked out for the next six months.
Yeah, exactly. And
people ask us, okay, when's my episode gonna air? And we're like, wait a minute, what year is it? It's it's a good problem.
David Turetsky 28:45
It is definitely a problem to have. Yeah, and especially if you look back early on in our existence, we had to kind of beg, borrow and steal people to be on the program. Most of them are my buddies. Now, you know, we're, we have an embarrassment of riches and and that's a testament to you listening, and it's a testament to the people who help us put on the show.
Dwight Brown 29:05
Yeah
David Turetsky 29:05
And so we thank all of you very much. We thank our employer and our sponsor Salary.com, yeah, for enabling us to be doing this right, because we love it. It's part of our it's part of our favorite time working together.
Dwight Brown 29:20
Yeah. So it's great.
David Turetsky 29:21
So Dwight, thank you very much for being here.
Dwight Brown 29:24
David, thank you, and thank you to every one of our guests, and especially every one of our listeners that's correct, for making this podcast what it is
David Turetsky 29:34
That's right. Thank you all for listening. Take care, and as I always say, stay safe.
Announcer 29:43
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