The World of Work in 2023 with Chris Bjorling

In episode 666 of the HRchat podcast, Bill Banham and Chris Bjorling reflect on the world of work in 2023.

Questions for Chris include:

• Reflecting on 2023: What were some key developments and trends in the labor market that had a significant impact on human performance, and how did Fidello respond to these changes?
• Leadership in a Changing Landscape: As we look back at 2023, what qualities and skills emerged as crucial for effective leadership, and how can leaders proactively develop these attributes in the coming year?
• Navigating Challenges: In a year marked by unprecedented challenges, what were the most common issues faced by HR professionals and corporate leaders, and how can organizations better prepare to address similar challenges in 2024?
• The Remote Work Paradigm: You have I have worked together in a remote fashion for a while. With the continued impact of remote work, what lessons did 2023 teach us about working with virtual teams, and what advice can you offer HR professionals and leaders as they adapt their strategies for the evolving remote work landscape in 2024?
• You’ll be speaking at DisruptHR Buffalo next year. Any insights into what you’ll share in your 5-minute talk? 

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Transcript

Intro: 0:03

Welcome to the HRc hat 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 HRGazette. com.

Bill Banham: 0:26

In this episode I talk with Chris Bjorling, President of Fidello, my awesome co-host at the People of Performance Podcast, Associate Editor at HR Gazette and all- round lovely human being. Chris, welcome back to the HRc hat Show.

Chris Bjorling: 0:39

Hey, Bill, thank you so much. It's so nice to be communicating with you on this side of the microphone right now as a guest on your show. I'm excited to be part of this and to wrap up some of the year and talk about some of the things I've had the opportunity to see and to learn and to focus on for this year, plus some of the things for next year too.

Bill Banham: 1:01

Yeah, well, this episode is certainly going to focus on 2023 and what you've been getting up to and some of the trends you've been seeing, and so on and so forth. We will certainly be touching upon a few things happening in 2024, but, listeners, there's going to be a part two to this conversation, where there's going to be another episode specifically asking Chris to get his crystal ball out and make some predictions for the world of work next year, in 2024. But this one, this episode, we're going to be sort of reflecting mainly. But before we start reflecting, let's focus on you, and why don't you take a minute or two, chris, and reintroduce yourself to our listeners? So I will reflect on myself.

Chris Bjorling: 1:45

Thanks on that one. I am the president of Fidelo Inc, and Fidelo Inc is a consulting organization that provides both consulting services as well as tools that help organizations to manage the performance and get people you know better word in alignment with your goals, your strategies, the maturity of your organization and to help them produce better for your organization as you roll forward, so that you can have a more streamlined process on the HR side to get people to produce better down line. And so I've been doing this since 1986 or so and have met a lot of great people over the years. I've seen a lot of different things come and go and come back again, and it's been a great opportunity for me to not only, you know, have a workforce in this area or work workforce and work within this area, but also for me to you know, learn and to grow and to develop and to really kind of sink in with a lot of things that are people related and watching and help that, transfer those skills to the clients that we work with.

Bill Banham: 2:54

Okay, thank you. Since 1986, eh, that was a different world. I was watching Gremlins the other day as part of the Christmas buildup. Chris, I love that as a Christmas movie Made in 1984. The power suits, the shoulder pads Wow. They should definitely never bring those back, okay.

Chris Bjorling: 3:13

I was going the other way, bill, on that. I love the shoulder pads Not on me, but anyway, yeah, and I was going to say it was before 86. They were there. So anyway, so good, good points, good ideas.

Bill Banham: 3:26

And Gremlins 2 was 1990. There you go, listeners. I watched that one in quick succession. I started binging Gremlins, okay. So let's do some of that reflection now. Mr Buehling, going back on 2023, as we record this, at the end of December 2023, for you, what were some key developments and trends in the labor market that had a significant impact on human performance, and how did Fidello respond to some of those changes?

Chris Bjorling: 3:56

Yeah, that's a great question as we look back, as I sit here and look back and I said, well, what was some of the things? You know we had some instability in the world. We still do. That comes and goes, which shakes up some of the global clients that we have and some of the efforts we've tried to put forward along those lines. So we'll chat about that.

Chris Bjorling: 4:14

But, from a common standpoint, it was an interesting year to see organizations shifting, continuing to shift, back out of their COVID response mode, and you see a lot of organizations creating more of a hybrid workspace and bringing people together. And then how do we deal with that? How do we deal with it? Do you support it? Do we have tools and processes in place that support, you know, the managers You're being in on Monday and then the employee being in on Tuesday and vice versa.

Chris Bjorling: 4:44

So, as you go along, there were a lot of learnings that occurred as the organizations started to try to move forward and, you know, continue to come back. Now some are still on the same path that they were, you know, coming out of COVID. Some are forcing their employees to come back in, which is interesting, but all of them have their different challenges to them and when you're trying to provide process and consult on processes and you're trying to provide tools, you have to be reflective of the current state and what's occurring around them and making your tool and your process be supportive of what the organization wants to do. So you know, inside of there too, we're also maturing DE and I efforts along the way and sense of belonging, and you know that's coming around more full circle. It's being integrated into more processes to more tools and it's becoming more of a workflow item versus a specialty item, which you know is good because you know now we're always considering it, we're moving forward along the way and you know we're we've raised that bar into practice and practical efforts.

Chris Bjorling: 5:52

So along those ways. So for Fidel, you know it's for us just being agile, still to focus on our clients as unique individuals. From that standpoint, again, as I referenced before, you know what's their, what are their goals and objectives and what's their culture and what's the maturity level for them to work forward in processes as well as tools and then make it happen for them. Because if you know, as you make it happen, it's smooth, it's an integrated thing. You know, one thing that hasn't changed is people still don't like doing HR process activities if they don't have to, so make it effortless for them, make it easy to do and as well as gathering the data you need, Okay, thank you very much.

Bill Banham: 6:33

So quick follow up to that one then. What are you most proud of? Can you maybe share some of the big wins for you and for the company in 2023,? Chris, and part of that, maybe you might even want to do some name dropping and mention some case studies.

Chris Bjorling: 6:49

Oh, interesting. Thanks, Bill, for that. Louie, and yeah, we kind of focused very well in 2023 and continuing a strong support for our current existing base. Along the way, We've had the opportunity to speak to a lot of different potential new clients and queuing them up for 2024, such as parts of Disney and so forth down the line. So, as we continue down this path, we're looking at all the pieces that are out there and so, from dropping names, we've had a lot of clients. If anybody wants to check out our Fidolacom website, you can see a lot of our names.

Chris Bjorling: 7:25

I'm not going to necessarily name them here because I'll forget somebody the next thing. You know, I'm like of the awards winner up there that forgets of their wife or their significant other and then it goes downhill from there for them. So I'm not going to go into any of the big names that are there, but we did have a strong year moving forward. We got a lot. We had a lot of opportunity to strengthen a lot of our clients based on their environments, becoming stronger and more focused and where they need to go, and so that was a major win for all of us that were there and, like I say, we're prepped for next year, which is great. I always want to walk out of one year into the next year ready and raring and have people lined up.

Bill Banham: 8:05

So I think the trick with an accepting an award is just don't slap the host, you know, because that does happen sometimes, apparently. Will Smith.

Chris Bjorling: 8:16

That wasn't his award, that wasn't even even you called up for it.

Bill Banham: 8:19

Well, he came up later on to accept the. The best actor, didn't he? After After, yeah, yeah, that was pretty interesting for him.

Bill Banham: 8:28

Okay, so sounds like we're going to Disney World next year, chris. I'd like to learn more about that. That sounds quite exciting. I'll carry your suitcases for you. Let's talk about it, okay, but let's continue through. For now, I want to focus on leadership in a changing landscape. It's been. It's been another topsy-turvy year, you know. Thank goodness we're not in the pandemic anymore, but things are changing at pace for lots of different reasons, lots of different contextual reasons, and technology is changing everything we're doing and a whole bunch of other things. As we look back at 2023, what qualities and what skills emerged for you as crucial for effective leadership, and how can leaders proactively develop those attributes in the coming year?

Chris Bjorling: 9:13

Yeah, that's a great question, you know, as we're looking at coming out in out of 2023, what were the big ones that were there? And you know there are a couple, a couple that are here and and they're kind of polar opposites. Okay, so the first is business analytics. You know we in the HR space we deal with humans and we deal with this, but there's a lot of analytical effort that we can put forward to really help craft business decisions. So, as I look at just HR, we're focusing in the business analytics, or predictive analysis of things. But also our leadership is is wanting that more and they need to understand those pieces more.

Chris Bjorling: 9:52

So, as you look at the concept of the skills and the and the pieces there, the you know just the facts, ma'am, you know came out of the dragnet years ago, just the facts, and you know the concept here is that what can our data tell us? How can we move forward? So there's a lot of effort in in our leaders understanding that, moving forward with that, both at the general leadership level as well as in HR. You know the analytics and then the predictive pieces. You know whether it includes, you know, introducing artificial intelligence as a support tool on how to you know, interpret and how to manipulate the volumes of data that we may have.

Chris Bjorling: 10:29

So that's one side of the that equation. On the flip side, it's not really a skill, but it's more of a trait or quality it's being a human leader having more compassion. We're seeing that as our, you know, workforces have been flow and flex from generational standpoints as well as from just life, work balances, and you know, as a manager, you have to have the compassion to allow that life balance to sometimes teeter into. They need to support that now as they continue to provide for us going forward. And so how do you make that appropriate level of human commitment into managing and into leading an organization, as well as then providing for your client, as well as providing for your shareholders and such going forward? So those two really opposites one cold heart facts and two warm compassion.

Bill Banham: 11:28

It has been another topsy-turvy year can contextually and also within the world of work. What were some of the most common issues from the conversations that you've had, either on the People in Forward's Pod that you and I do together, or with your customers? What were some of the most common issues that youth feel have been faced by HR pros and corporate leaders, and how can organizations better prepare to address similar challenges in 2024? So, for example, you mentioned AI a moment ago. I feel like, even though it's been around for a very long time, it's kind of come around and slapped a lot of leaders in the face, so to speak, to say, hey, here we are, we're replacing jobs, we're doing all these things now. So maybe that might be an example of something that they can be better prepared for next year.

Chris Bjorling: 12:16

Yeah, I mean you're hitting it on the head there. It's an interesting factor. The AI piece is huge. There's a lot of scare about that, there's a lot of unknowns. There's a lot of happiness because it helps people produce better results for some of their deliverables. They have to do so on. A common factor, it seems to be hey, it's helping in the right areas and more, what's happening in the future? Is it going to replace jobs? Is it going to make things moot? We don't need to do that. We don't even have people doing that because we can just ask grandma chat and get an answer back. So you have those pieces that are there. And then you also have robotics too. You have the AI in a robotic model or a robot that's doing things.

Chris Bjorling: 13:06

Just the changes that have occurred at a McDonald's, where you don't really talk to people at the front counter anymore except when you're being handed your items as you buy them. They're moving them forward. So cost-cutting ways and organizations are dealing with not just costs. But we came out of COVID and a lot of people don't want to work in those areas, and so part of it is facilitated by need, too that are out there. So how does technology change our workforce model.

Chris Bjorling: 13:41

Going forward is one piece. The second piece is how do I still get top-line quality talent and acquire them? How do I make job postings that are attractive and interesting enough for people to want to respond and potentially leave their current existing position to take a chance in our world and to take a chance in understanding and working inside a new organization that may have a different culture and different meanings that are out there. So, going forward, these challenges of putting it there are kind of on the forefront. And then we also have the concept of quiet quitting. You're just kind of there and you check in, you check out and the productivity is low, and so how do you manage that performance model now? How do you still move, effectively, move ahead?

Chris Bjorling: 14:32

And maybe that goes back to the compassion I referenced in the first question how do we get our workforce engaged more? So, really, technology acquisition and engagement are still some of the big pieces, and one of the keys that I've seen or I'm feeling is coming down the line from 2023 and moving us forward in 2024. Because HR policies and practices need to be more agile, they need to be functional and fastly functional. A lot of times it's like oh, I never thought that before, and therefore we have to make a policy for it, or else the organization has a risk management issue. So, anyways, the agility of your HR teams to move forward is something else. That, I think, is some things that we've seen this past year and we're going to continue to see them going forward.

Bill Banham: 15:24

Okay, okay, thank you very much. Let's talk about remote working now. You and I have had the. I certainly have had the privilege of getting to work with you in a remote capacity for quite some time. Now I'm not sure if the feeling is mutual. I'd like to think so. I can't speak for you Now.

Bill Banham: 15:44

This isn't the new topic. Of course. This is something that people have been talking about for a number of years, particularly during the pandemic, where everybody was working remote pretty much unless they're on the front lines. But specifically in 2023, as the dust settled after the pandemic and people got used to new ways of working together and you know, you chat with loads of leaders in nature leaders and whatnot. Chris, many of those folks have been reigning folks, their employees, back in and trying to get them back into the office and whatnot. With the continued impact of remote work, what lessons did 2023 teach us about working with virtual teams, working in hybrid environments, and what advice would you offer to HR pros and leaders as they try and continue to adapt their strategies for the evolving remote work landscape in 2024?

Chris Bjorling: 16:34

Excellent question. I love it. Yeah, I, you know I've been. I started practicing remote in 1987. So we talked about 86, late 87, I started, you know, running some stuff in a different place location. I didn't have a real office and it was. It was really strange back then, but so I've been practicing it for a long time, you know, and I still love the concept of being in a meeting today with somebody from Great Britain like yourself. And, by the way, I do love working with you, and remote's the best because we've been working with you for so much better.

Chris Bjorling: 17:09

No, I'm just kidding on that one, but I love being in a meeting where we're, you know I'm with you, or I'm with somebody from Germany, or you know India, the Philippines, france, you know the US, different countries, you know all at the same time. We're having this discussion, we're solving some work needs that we need to move forward with, and then we process for an hour or two and then we're done, and then we're back into our own personal existence and we're productive again. And and you know just, the value of being able to collectively bring this diverse group of people together is still very important for us to do it and to make a great. You know, work-life balance for us is impeccable. We see some companies still moving forward, you know, with a hybrid model or stay at home work we don't care wherever you are it's still going to continue to develop as we go through 2024 and beyond.

Chris Bjorling: 18:05

I would think organizations are going to have to get to the happy medium for what they're doing. You know, we hear some of them now saying I have to have my workforce back in their office, you know, because I don't think they're productive. And you know, ironically, some people actually moved. You know, they're no longer 15 minutes down the road, they're, you know, around the world, or they're so many miles away and and it's it's different for them. And so I think figuring out how to continue to move forward with this is going to be a big thing.

Chris Bjorling: 18:34

And that goes back to the agility that I talked about in the previous question, which is how do we handle this, how do we make it a win for all of us and how do we, you know, manage leadership expectations in these efforts as well? And then, how do we have the processes and tools in place to support them? So, as we go forward, we always continue to need to look at what are we doing and how does it go, and if we stay in a virtual environment, we need to look at from an HR perspective, how do we continue to advance people's careers and keep them engaged with our organization and not just pigeonhole them to a box which says this is their job, this is all they do. I never think of them outside of this. So we need to continue that growth and development of these individuals. Even though they're not in front of our face, they're not demanding the same attention that we would give them if they were just down the hall.

Bill Banham: 19:27

Okay. Yeah, I think I'd support those sentiments Good work, good work. Okay, so I introduced you earlier. Part of my introduction was the co-host with the most of the people and performance pod. Regular listeners of the show will be familiar with the fact that Chris and I also host the people and performance podcast, which is a focus on all things to do with getting higher performance out of the organization and out of your people, and we break down the seasons based on different themes. I think the next season we've got coming up is on talent attraction, on boarding and similar. It's a whole bunch of fun. I love doing it with you. We get to release episodes most weeks, but we take little breaks in between, but most weeks and we chat with some very clever people. Chris, I'm going to put you on the spot now, in the year of 2023. Who are your top guests and why?

Chris Bjorling: 20:27

Listen, bill, are you really setting me up for that? You know one thing I forgot to mention I'm the father of seven. I can't answer a question like that. I've grown to understand a question like that. Hey, let me tell you why.

Chris Bjorling: 20:40

In our people and performance podcast, as you mentioned, we kind of focus in certain areas, but we're also short. We're really a micro bite of knowledge and wisdom, and so we have these top guests that come in with backgrounds from NASA to colleges, to you know, thought leaders to practical implementers, to everybody. You know it's the diversity of our guest is astonishing to me, and most of that's you bringing wonderful people and I thank you for that. But what's really cool is in that moments of time, those few moments, we're able to get a great bite of knowledge from them, something that we can take from their career and their learnings that they've had through the lifelong process and effort in this area and really take and walk away with it. You know, in the cool part about what I'm saying here is that because it's short and we get to meet them, get some personality from them, but we walk away with a core nugget of wisdom. It's easier for us to do that than a one hour episode of discussion where there may be 10 core concepts that we have. This allows us to get that bite size and come back, and we always.

Chris Bjorling: 21:53

One of the best things that I think we do, bill and this is you, of course, leading out on this is hey, how can people get to know you better to our guests?

Chris Bjorling: 22:01

And so we're always looking for a guest to help leverage their exposure to people, because somebody's going to be inspired by something that said in any one of those talks that we have, any one of those opportunities we had with them, and when they're inspired, they're going to want to know more, they're going to want to understand the case study, they're going to want to understand the process that was employed and we've given them a connection and that you know this part of my career. You know I talked about the 80s, so that makes me old, bill, and thanks for putting that on reference. Okay, but it's a great way to give back to the HR space as this, this dedication I've had in my life, to commit to this HR world but also these other individuals who are just as skilled or more skilled in certain areas and functions and concepts and thought leaders, to give them a chance to be heard, and so when you ask me to pick my top ones, I can't pick one. That I've learned from everybody. Thanks, bill.

Bill Banham: 23:03

I'll take issue. We just said that you're not old, you're just wiser. Okay, you like it. You're like a good cheese. You get better as you mature. So so, despite what you said earlier about how you love the fact that we work remotely, you don't have to see my ugly mug on a regular basis. We do get together sometimes. We got together a couple of times in 2022 at sherm, and you kindly showed us around your Neighborhood in upstate New York last year as well. We're on a wee bit of a trip. This year. You spoke an event that I was involved with in Toronto.

Bill Banham: 23:42

Next year, one of the things we will be doing together in person is disrupt HR Buffalo. So you are one of the co-organizers of disrupt HR Buffalo. You're also going to be a speaker and you're going to take on that challenge. It is a unique challenge. I've done it myself. I took me long enough to do one. I was telling other people how to do it, but I've done one myself. Now I get the. I get the intensity of it, but when it goes well, it feels pretty good, and then the talks are shared on the big website and then the big email newsletters and you get really famous and all the rest of it. It's five minutes. It's 20 slides. It's 15 seconds per slide. It's your first time doing a disrupt talk. I believe the event is on April 11th. By the way, if you're in the Niagara or Buffalo Region, be. There will be a rectangle. Chris, any insights into what you'll be sharing in your five minute talk?

Chris Bjorling: 24:34

Well, first of all, I'm excited to be in person with you and to be part of this disrupt HR conference. You know the reputation proceeds itself and I'm excited to be part of there and hopefully I don't let it down. So you know. You asked me what I'm going to talk about. Well, this is Buffalo, new York, home of the Buffalo Bills. You know, if they win the Super Bowl for once and they're in their 600 year existence, you know I might have to talk about the bills a little bit, but I don't know.

Chris Bjorling: 25:02

Anyway, where I'm really gonna focus on is, you know, one of my, one of my pet areas is the employee experience. You know, regardless of what we're doing in an organization and our processes and actions we need to do, we need to focus on what's the experience that and our employees are having and and why are they doing it. What are they doing? Are they enjoying it? Are they moving forward with ease or the hating what they're doing and the hating what? What's happening around them?

Chris Bjorling: 25:29

So the concept of crafting HR tools and processes into the concept of, you know, making it smooth for the employee, enjoyables but much as can be possible, is really going to be my focus. And so for those five minutes we're going to talk a little about research into this area and To some of the focus points on how to enable it inside your organization, how to make it part of your processes as as a leading objective as you go through anything you do. So that's kind of where I'm going to go right now, unless you tell me differently. So, but I do look forward to seeing you in Buffalo and it's past the snow season, so I like that part too.

Bill Banham: 26:09

It's the week of the of the eclipse, actually, um, which is one of the reasons why we decided on that particular date, because we thought it would be a magical week.

Chris Bjorling: 26:20

Business what about we can? We can make a magical statement in the next five minutes. I will make the sun disappear. Yeah, it'll be great.

Bill Banham: 26:29

If you manage to make the sun disappear, uh, then I think, uh, you'll probably have the most popular disrupt talk of all time, and they've been about 6 000 of them. Um, in terms of other inspiration for a disrupt talk, this year in the uk we had a chap who's on the on the circuit at various uk disrupt events where he Basically got he stripped down, he came in on in his normal clothes and he'd leave as a wrestler in his lycra. And next year, at one of the events we have got a guy who's going to present dressed as a dalek from dr who.

Intro: 27:01

So Do you know?

Bill Banham: 27:05

Food for thought there. You might want to, you might want to try something, something like that.

Chris Bjorling: 27:09

Um, yeah, by public referendum. I will not go into his little speedo thing. I will not do that.

Bill Banham: 27:15

I would love to see that people have spoken.

Chris Bjorling: 27:17

Don't do that.

Bill Banham: 27:20

Chris, as we look to wrap up today's particular conversation. Firstly, thank you very much, as always, for coming on, and I enjoy our conversations. But, before we do wrap, any final thoughts from you in terms of what 2023 has been like or what people can it can be optimistic about for next year and, of course, how can they connect with you and learn more about Fidelo.

Chris Bjorling: 27:40

Excellent. Well, handle the connection part easy. So I'm on LinkedIn, chris Christopher B Orling, you'll find me there. Wwfiddalocom. It's very easy. It's F-I-D-E-L-O Com. Take a look at what we do. Reach out to us, go from there. Reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'd be loving that Final thoughts bill.

Chris Bjorling: 28:01

It is a joy to work with you and to have this time. It's as we've spoken and I've said before. I said I just enjoy doing this and Our people performance podcast, as well as the time together, and you know we first got together on an HR chat Podcast several years ago and it was a, it was a start of a great friendship and I thank you for that. As we close out a year here, another year From the business side, you know what we just got to keep moving on and we need to continually reinvent ourselves based upon the environmental variables that were given, and that reinventing inventing, you know, needs to focus on delivering results and making sure our employees are engaged and and happy and we're successful. And so, as we have this pause at the end of the year for a lot of Different holidays that are occurring and it's kind of a, you know, new chapter for everybody to think about goals for 2024.

Chris Bjorling: 28:56

And there you know, think of where you've been, think of your journey, your own personal journey in this HR space, and think of how your knowledge and wisdom that you've had there can really actually help you down the road, because oftentimes we get too far in the weeds and we don't think back and we don't look at those moments that have made us better and made us more intelligent and made us more ready to handle the next challenge. And I I leave you with that opportunity to just to take that moment as we started this discussion on reflecting, reflect on yourself and Move yourself forward with, with confidence. You've done a lot, you know, for our listeners there, you've done a lot, you are a lot and you offer a lot more, and thank you.

Bill Banham: 29:38

Beautiful, beautiful I would. I would throw that back at you. You're a good man. I also value our friendship. Listeners. I'm not gonna tell you what because it's none of your business, but before we hit record today, I shared something very personal with Chris. I've not told anybody else because we have that kind of relationship. As I mentioned at the beginning of this Conversation today, this is actually kind of part one of a part two. We're gonna be back very soon with Chris again For a special 2024 preview episode, but for now it just leaves me to say, as always, listeners, happy working.

Intro: 30:12

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