The Future of Work with Dave Ulrich

Bill Banham's returning guest today is Dave Ulrich. Dave has been ranked as the number one management guru by Business Week, profiled by Fast Company as one of the world’s top 10 creative people in business, a top-five coach in Forbes, and recognized on Thinkers50 Hall of Fame as one of the world’s leading business thinkers.

Dave has a passion for ideas with impact. Dave and his colleagues at the RBL Group have 30+ years of experience in helping organizations and individuals succeed through HR practices in talent, leadership, and organization. 

Questions for Dave include:

• You're one of the most successful, respected, and well-known voices in the world of work. You have probably received every accolade out there. What motivates you to continue to contribute to the HR space? 
• What would you hope your legacy will be in the world of work?
• Evolution of Employee Experience to Personalization: How has the concept of employee experience shifted in the past 10 years?
• Can you tell us about how, if at all, the expectations of Gen Zers differ from past generations and how that impacts the ways the employer brand, HR processes, and company culture shows up? 
• Tech is increasingly impacting the employee experience and changing the ways HR departments operate. How will generative AI and deep language models shake up the HR function in the coming years? 

Keep up to date with the latest content from Dave by subscribing to the Human Capability Impact newsletter.

Parts of this conversation with Dave were included in the special 600th episode of the HRchat that also featured Josh Bersin. Listen to episode 600 here. 



We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and spon

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

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Speaker 2: 0:02

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts, and business leaders for hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work. Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and visit hr gazette.com.

Speaker 3: 0:25

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. I'm your host today, bill Banham , and I'm absolutely delighted. I've got a big smile on my face. This is an audio podcast you can't see , but I'm very happy to announce that my guest today, my returning guest today, has been ranked as the number one management guru by Business Week , profiled by Fast Company as one of the world's top 10 creative people in business. He's a top five coach in Forbes and recognized on Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame as one of the world's leading business thinkers. Who am I talking about? Listeners? Of course. It's the amazing, awesome, fantastic Dave, or Rich Dave has a passion for ideas with impact, and him and his colleagues at the R B L group have 30 plus years of experience in helping organizations and individuals succeed through HR practices in talent leadership and organization. I am a huge fan of Dave , uh, and it's just wonderful to getting back on the show. Hey, Dave, welcome back to the HR Chat pod

Speaker 4: 1:32

Bill. What a delight. We've talked before and this is just one of the most exciting times I've ever seen in the HR field, so what a delight to join you.

Speaker 3: 1:41

So, Dave, you are of course one of the most successful, respected, and well-known voices in the world of work . Uh, you've, you've probably received every accolade that exists. What motivates you to continue to contribute to the HR space?

Speaker 4: 1:56

It's a great question. My wife often asks me that question, why are we still doing this? And the answer for me is, this is not a job. I was in a meeting the other day and people were introducing themselves. I work for this company, I work for this company, I do this job, and I introduced myself in a funny way. My company is the HR profession, and my job is to create ideas and frameworks that move that profession forward. I have a variety of perches . I'm perched at the University of Michigan. I'm perched in the R B L group, but my calling not just the job, is to create ideas with impact that move the hr, not just the HR profession, but that move people and organization forward. And so I define this more as a calling. Why would I retire? I love what I do, and , uh, I believe this , uh, this position, this calling is gonna continue for as long as I'm able.

Speaker 2: 2:48

Thanks for tuning in to the HR Chat podcast. If you're enjoying this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you could subscribe and leave a five star review on your podcast platform of choice. And now, back to the conversation.

Speaker 3: 3:06

I was recently , uh, a , a co-host of one of the disruptive HR events , uh, in London, uk. And I , I got chatting to someone about what I do, and they said, oh, who have you interviewed? And , uh, and your name of course came up and, and , and , uh, they said, wow, he's Mr. Hr. And I was like, yeah, yeah. He's , um, Dave , what would you, what would you hope that your legacy will be in, in the world of work? When , when, when people talk about you in 25, 30, 50 years time, what, what would you hope that legacy would be?

Speaker 4: 3:35

You know, it's interesting to look back at the icons in our field, the, the people like a J Galbrath or Peter Drucker or Warren Venice . What's their legacy? They gave people a way to think about their organization and how work gets done in their organization that gave them a more fulfilling life. I hope I can begin to create with so many great colleagues, and you've interviewed all of them , how do you think about organizations in a way that helps that organizational setting create a way of life that allow people to prosper and thrive? And to do that, I think we have ideas that change the way we think about hr. We'll talk about those, obviously. But for me, ultimately the goal is to change the way we think about work and organizations so that people thrive, they have a better experience, both at work and at home. I know that's sounds a little utopian and ambitious, but I really believe that organizations are one of the most critical settings in the world where people get their needs met because the organization succeeds in their marketplace.

Speaker 3: 4:39

Now, Dave, as part of my homework ahead of today, I was , uh, going back through some of your most recent posts on, on LinkedIn and , uh, there's one called Personalizing the Employee Experience by Navigating Paradox. And in it you write by building on participation, employee value proposition, diversity, inclusion, and moving to personalization. Leaders can help employees have better work experiences then by helping employees recognize and navigate for paradoxes, they can help each employee define and reach personal goals in ways that work for them. Thus, personalization emerges as the next agenda for employee experience. How has the concept of employee experience shifted in the past five to 10 years?

Speaker 4: 5:26

You know, one of the things I love to do, bill, and , and you're a part of that with your incredible HR chat and other podcasts, I love to build on the past. Sometimes I get frustrated that people come out and say, here's a brand new idea. We should engage people. And I'm going, give me a break. Here's a brand new idea. There is an evolution of thinking. And if we build on the past, we make the future better. So around the employee experience, we talked before about motivation, satisfaction, engagement, commitment, experience. So as you build on each of those, those areas, what's next? And when, when I began to look at organizations as an observer and people, the word personalization really comes to mind with two parts. Part one is personal. Let's build on the employee experience and really demonstrate a sense of whatever you wanna call it, the C words , compassion care concern, or the e words , empathy, emotion . We care about you as an individual person. We will tailor the work to you and we'll discover what gives you a great experience at work. It isn't a generic proposition, it's a tailored experience where you work and how you work. The other side of personalization is the work setting. How do we build a work setting where your personal concerns are cared for? We used to call that participant of management. That's a good idea. We then called it your employee value proposition. We called it diversity and building a unique setting. Now, I think what we're beginning to write , we call it hybrid work. Where are you gonna work Now? I think we're beginning to say your work setting is gonna require the navigation of paradox. I gotta be honest, bill, when I did, I'm posting on LinkedIn every week, and when I'm trying to write in 1200 words a complicated idea, this is one of the most difficult. 'cause when I as a business leader look at my employee, I say to them, I'm gonna personalize your work. On the one hand, I'm gonna care for you. I'm gonna know you. I'm gonna have empathy, I'm gonna have concern, I'm gonna show compassion. On the other hand, I'm gonna tailor the work for you. What that tailoring means. And a lot of people misinterpret it . You can work wherever you want, whenever you want, however you want. No, that's not true. The reason we choose paradox is we care for you, and we as a company have to still be competitive. We're gonna tailor the organization so that it meets your needs, but you then meet our needs. And so the personalization is both on the one hand, personal for the employee and the other hand ization , if you will, navigating the paradoxes where you work. We're gonna navigate that paradox. You can work at home, you can work in the office. We're gonna navigate those two . We're gonna care for you, and you're gonna be competitive. We're gonna care about you as an individual, and we're gonna build a collective organization. And navigating those paradoxes says, you are not just entitled to do whatever you want whenever you want. You've gotta do whatever you want whenever you want, and create an organization that succeeds in the marketplace. That is tricky, but that's where we see that employee experience, growing, personalization, caring for you as an individual, navigating the paradoxes that allow the organization to be successful in its marketplace.

Speaker 5: 8:42

Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes things up, it makes you think differently, and it leaves you inspired. That event is disrupt hr , the format is 14 speakers, five minutes each and slides rotate every 15 seconds. If you're an HR professional, a c e o, a technologist or a community leader, and you've got something to say about talent, culture or technology, disrupt is the place It's coming soon to a city near you. Learn more@disrupthr.co e o .

Speaker 3: 9:17

Thank you, Dave. Let , let's talk about tailoring that experience to, to a particular generation. A generation that , uh, many folks are scratching their heads about that they're , they're trying to grip the grips with, but they are becoming the biggest , uh, single generation in the workforce. And that's, of course the Gen Zs . Um , I , I interviewed William Tup , uh, a while back, and he said, bill, you don't get it. You've just, you've gotta do what the Gen Zs want , uh, otherwise they'll leave you. Um, so there , there's a very distinct type of personalization there for the , for , for that group. Um, in the same article that I mentioned a moment ago, you , you write in a world of increased uncertainty and change, what delivers employee experience for a previous generation may not be the same as what works for someone right now. Employee experience and expectations at work change frequently. Next generation employees often have different expectations about mobility, opportunity and voice . And Gen Z employees mindsets are more about how work facilitates their relationships and growth, which are unique to each employee. Dave, can you tell us more about how the exp expectations of Gen Z is differ from past generations and how that impacts ways that the employer brand HR processes and the company culture has to show up?

Speaker 4: 10:34

Let me, let me engage you with that one. It's a great question, bill. Bill, are you a baby boomer, gen X, gen Y or Gen Z?

Speaker 3: 10:41

I'm a, I'm gonna use a trendy term. I'm a zal . I'm , I'm a , I'm a millennial, but I was born in the early eighties.

Speaker 4: 10:47

So you're a Gen X or a Gen Y I guess. You know, I'm a baby boomer, so I'm old. Do you like autonomy at work?

Speaker 3: 10:58

I personally thrive on autonomy. Absolutely. So

Speaker 4: 11:00

Do I I'm a I'm a baby boomer. Do you like work that gives you opportunity to learn and to grow?

Speaker 3: 11:07

I see where we're going with this. Absolutely. I do. Dave? Yes. <laugh> . Here's

Speaker 4: 11:10

The point Y people work is not necessarily new. I think people get all excited about baby boomers, gen X, gen Y, gen Z By the way, most people avoid Gen X. And sadly, those born between 64 and 82, we forget about 'em. But the why of work is not that different. Believe I want meaning at work become , I wanna learn, I wanna grow, belong. I wanna be part of a community. The fundamentals of why we work are often very similar in my generation. We messed up universities in the sixties and seventies. We messed up housing markets in the eighties. We loved innovation. We loved change. I was the generation with people with long hair . I, I don't know if you have long hair at a point in time or a beard and a mustache, and maybe you still do, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting. I think sometimes when we think about people, there are some fundamental needs believe , become, belong that are transcendent. But how we work differs. I'm gonna ask a very simple question. Did your father have the same job for most of his career, or your mother?

Speaker 3: 12:17

Yeah, absolutely. Uh , my father did have the same job for most of his career.

Speaker 4: 12:21

So did my father. He worked for the government. He built campgrounds, was a forest ranger, work for civil service. Will your children, you have a three-year-old, will he have likely the same job for, and again, he's not yet quite gotten into the workforce, but when he does get into the workforce as a proud dad, will he, what's the probability he'll have the same job?

Speaker 3: 12:43

He's a few years off yet, Dave, but I , my hope would be , uh, that he, he'll move around, he'll have new experiences. He'll , he'll , uh, he'll, he'll become more well-rounded.

Speaker 4: 12:52

Yeah. Let me, and let me make the point in a very, very simple way, why people work is much the same. It's been the same forever. We wanna believe, we want meaning. We wanna become, we wanna learn, we wanna grow, we wanna belong. We wanna feel part of a community. We wanna be safe. Those are the four bss. Be safe, believe, become and belong . How we go about work is gonna change. I have three children who are , uh oh, I don't know what they are. I guess they're millennials. They're not gonna have the same job. They're gonna work remotely. They're gonna work through technology. We're gonna personalize their work, relationship , relationship , their children and your, your , your son who is will grow for them. Technology is just another extension of their life. I have a, a three-year-old grandson. He grabbed my phone and flips through it and finds some music he wants to listen to. Amazing. He did that before he could speak. Technology is an enabler for them. It's a , it's a tool for me. It's part of their identity. Where you work, how you work, how you approach work. I think we're gonna see all the issues of how we work different. What does that mean for a business leader? A back to personalization part. A, a personalization treat. People with care, respect, compassion, empathy. The b part of personalization is tailor the work to their needs. Next generation paradox. You wanna work at home? Absolutely. Here's the paradox. If you spend your time working remotely and working at home, that's gonna have a paradox. You're not as likely to be promoted into a senior management position. Management by , uh, through technology is not as likely. You can live with that paradox. You wanna be remote, you wanna be in a company that builds community and become a part of the management team. You make a choice . We will build a job that works for you as long as you produce. You can't do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. You've gotta produce something that creates value for, for a customer. One of the takeaways I have, and it's the same takeaway, the boundaries of work in my life and perhaps in your life, were , were space. I get up in the morning, I go to my office, I sit in my office, work, community building, whatever it is, and I go home. You define work as a place. Now work is no longer a place, but there is a boundary. And the boundary of work is the shared commitment to serving a customer. I've gotta get that in soon before we lose our time, because without, and so my comment to an employee today is, yes, we're gonna give you the basics. Be safe, believe, become and belong. Absolutely. And now we're gonna help you find wherever you wanna work, the way to use your gifts, your talents, your skills, so that a customer is benefited by your work today.

Speaker 3: 15:38

Dave, before we hit record today , uh, you asked me a question. You , you , it was along the lines of what, what are, what are the key topics at the moment? What , what are the, what are the most popular topics that you are , you are seeing and and influencing the downloads and such on the podcast? And , um, of course I answered , uh, one of the main ones is , uh, how generative AI and large or deep language models are shaking things up in the world of work. Um , at a, at a recent Disrupt HR event, we had 12 speakers, six or seven of those were talking about AI and its impact on the world of work in different ways. And , uh, tech is increasingly impacting the employee experience, Dave , and changing the ways the HR departments are operating. How do you think generative AI and deep language models will shake up the HR function in the coming years?

Speaker 4: 16:27

There , there's two answers. So let me give a broad answer. Once technology is always evolving and, and, and we've seen some waves of technology that are evolving. One wave is technology allows us to do things more efficiently. We got it. All the technology enabled solutions, the second wave technology is full of apps. You've worked with Josh Berson , he knows more apps of technology than I'd even seen hundreds of new apps that are populating. The third wave of digital and technology at a broad level is information. It allows us to access information we didn't see before. And the fourth wave that we're moving towards is it allows us to have a differentiated experience. As technology moves through those waves, from efficiency to application, to information to experience, it changes the way of work. We can have experiences. I just had a nice experience with you, bill, by seeing what's in your background, the ocean, the peace I get to peek into people's lives through technology and find out, I have found out so many cool stories. That's a picture of your father. Tell me the story. That's a picture of your mother, your grandmother. And I get to see the experience bill in a remote way. That's the broad evolution of technology. From efficiency to apps, to information to experience specifically with ai . Think about AI as an incredible tool. I see people saying, stop ai, stop ai. And you probably don't remember this, but many years ago in the Tiananmen Square , uh, crisis, there was a , an individual that's an iconic picture standing in front of the tanks saying, stop the tanks from rolling. We're not gonna stop ai. It's real, it's gonna happen. What's the benefit of ai? It allows us to consolidate the past. The way AI works is it goes out into the internet and it says what's been done in the past. It's kind of like a Google search extended, and it synthesizes that. And a brilliant way. I decided in November when chat G p t came out, my children who were all , uh, college professors said, dad, this is gonna change our world. So I got on, I did an exercise, what's the future of HR Chat ? G P t in 20 seconds wrote a 200 word essay. I read it and I went, oh my gosh, that's incredible. That's incredible. And then I read it again and I said, that's what people that you've interviewed on your show and I and others have written, that's what chat G p t does. That's what and neural language processing does, is it goes back and processes that it does not do two things. It does not create the future. So I wrote the 200 word essay. That was what the next generation would be. I think knowing that we don't need to do literature reviews, we can do that through chat G P T, but we've gotta have the creativity to go forward. The second dilemma that I've seen with AI chat , G P T and AI enabled, it doesn't have the ability to discern. I bet you've discovered Bill, that on the internet there are a lot of things that are not necessarily true or ethically viable. Take two seconds, you'll find them chat. G p t doesn't have the ability to discern what's ethical and what's not. And so it synthesizes all of that in an immoral , not , um, immoral. But there's no ethics about, wow, that came from a bad source. An example I love, I love it when I go on the internet and people say, I did research and I found out the skills for future HR people and I love analytics. And so I then asked them, so what was your database? I interviewed 15 people. Uh, that's not analytics. That's a focus group. And, and , and chat . G p T would look at that with the same level of rigor. And I , I don't mean to spout our stuff, but we've never served with a hundred thousand people over 35 years . We've done analytics and chat. G P T would treat those as equal, and they're not. And that's where the judgment comes in. That's a long answer to your question. I'm sorry, but it it's coming and it's gonna shape our world.

Speaker 3: 20:35

I would love to ask you that same question in about two years time. There projections aren't there , uh, for a couple years down the road , um, that maybe , uh, AI will outsmart us. Maybe it will start thinking for itself. Some people worry about, but that's a , that is a conversation for another episode later down the road. Uh ,

Speaker 4: 20:52

Dave and I don't know . I mean, that's one I just, I don't know. Uh, AI's getting better. We've worked with some of the smartest people in the world in AI lately. It allows us to do research better. I mean, it's just so cool. I'll give you one example. Uh, most research is either observation, what did I see, interviews, what did I interview or surveys, which is the most common methodology. So if I gave you a survey and I said, bill, on a scale of zero to 10, how healthy are you? What would you say? Zero to 10?

Speaker 3: 21:22

Uh , gosh. Um, my ego would say one thing. I I'm , I'm , I'm gonna say six. Six or seven

Speaker 4: 21:28

Six . Great answer. Let me tell you what the new technology will do. We're gonna, we're gonna have you wear a watch that measures your sleep. It measures your steps, it measures your calories. We're gonna have you take a picture of all the food you eat when you buy food at the store. We'll have a QR code so we know what you ate, we'll know your medications we'll know how often you resubscribed them . Over a three month period, we will now track your lifestyle with great rigor. We're gonna come back and say, you gave yourself survey, interview a six. The data says you're an eight . Woo-hoo . That's what we're doing today. We have scaled with Amazon Web Services, 7,000 ss e c security exchange commission reports in the us . We now can tell you with some level of rigor, how much you're investing in human capability. We've done it for 21, we've done it for 22. We don't need to go in and do a survey. We know what you've disclosed. If you've disclosed accurately, that bill is gonna change the way we do research. Research is not just, what did I think? It's, you come out of a training program. What did I think we're gonna track your behavior at , at least at a company level and your disclosures. We've done that with the S e C . It's amazing findings about what people are actually doing in the human capability space, not what they say they're doing. Same issue with the health. I would give myself a four and the data would probably say I'm a two <laugh>. Um , but, but that's what we're starting to see with this new technology that allows us to do data and information more , much more effectively.

Speaker 3: 23:06

And Dave, that takes us to the end of this particular interview. I will of course be hounding you in the future to come back on, but , uh, before we do wrap up for today, Dave, how can our listeners connect with you, learn more about all the cool things that you get up to learn more about R B L Group and all the other organizations that you're involved with.

Speaker 4: 23:22

You know , before we wrap up, I'm gonna make a statement and, and I know you've done 600 podcasts. So I am beginning to sense that we are about on the cusp of another evolution or revolutionary step in the HR field. I think we're about to make a major shift . We made a shift from personnel to hr, from HR to human capital. I think we're moving from human capital to human capability. And I see three shifts . One outside in. It's not enough to do HR inside the company. It's not about employee experience. It's not about our culture. It's not about our stories. It's about how the experience, the culture of the story shape customers, investors, communities shift. Two, we're getting more disciplined about human capability. It's not just your people, it's your culture, it's your leadership. And we're beginning to come up with some rigor through the stuff we just talked about. And number three, I'm gonna get in trouble with this. HR is no longer enough to be trusted to just HR professionals. I see HR becoming the issue for investors. We're spending time with investor relations. We're spending time with CEOs. We're spending time with executives. This set of issues that we're talking about is gonna make a shift. We did personnel, we became human resources. We went from human resources to human capital. I think we're now moving to human capability. And I think we're beginning to see that shift outside in through talent organization and leadership, not just talent and with much more accountability on business leaders. With that in mind, I hope people will follow me. I'm on LinkedIn. I have a newsletter , uh, I think it's called Human Capability Impact. Look me up. I've , uh, I like LinkedIn. I should become an advertisement because a lot of people broadcast. I love LinkedIn with the engagement. Somebody said, who actually makes all those comments? It's me, typos, bad spelling. But I love the dialogue with people in our field who wanna grow and make progress. And Bill, you're one of the icons of that. Thank you for all that you've done.

Speaker 3: 25:24

Oh gosh, I , I dunno about that. I'm , I'm <laugh>. I'm , I'm , I'm , uh, I'm in good company often, but , uh, I'm , I'm still working on, on building up my brand and helping the community. Um, and, and yeah, that , I just wanna comment on that before we do wrap up . Actually. I see you comment all the time and interact with people all the time on LinkedIn and, and to hear that that's always you, Dave, and it's not some assistant or, or a bot or whatever it might be. It's, it's just, it's just heartwarming. Uh , and, and I think it just goes to show how much you give to the community and how much you care. Uh, I've got so much respect for you, Dave, thank you very much for being my guest today.

Speaker 4: 25:57

What an honor bill. My honor. Thank you.

Speaker 3: 26:00

And listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.

Speaker 2: 26:07

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette? And remember, for what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show. Follow us on social media and visit hr gazette.com.