HRchat Podcast

Civility and Leadership with Jim Link, SHRM

• The HR Gazette • Season 1 • Episode 719

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SHRM Annual Conference and Expo is about to get underway in Chicago so who better to feature in the HRchat show than Jim Link SHRM-SCP, CHRO at SHRM.

As a recognized thought leader in human capability and the future of work, Jim is a sought-after commentator with the national and international press, features widely on the lecture and speaker circuit and consults with leaders, companies, and boards of directors worldwide on matters related to the workplace.

Listen as Jim discusses the two pillars of this year's conference - civility and AI. Jim also gives the lowdown on sessions not to miss in the Windy City!

Questions for Jim include: 

  • Why is SHRM Annual a key event in the HR calendar?
  • What can we look forward to at SHRM24?
  • Why are Civility and AI SHRM's pillars this year?
  • Tell us about the 1 Million Civil Conversations initiative you launched in March
  • What does incivility look like?
  • What can organizations and individuals do to become a catalyst for change?
  • What sessions will you be leading at SHRM?


About Jim Link

Jim is an Atlanta-based business consultant and former Fortune 500 executive specializing in equipping leaders with the tools needed to build best-in-class, inclusive workplaces that drive revenue and profitability.

Jim’s experience includes roles of increasing responsibility in human resources, mergers and acquisitions, and operational effectiveness.  His interests include talent acquisition management, employee and leadership development, equality and equity, employee engagement, internal innovation, and driving rapid business scalability through organic and inorganic, often complex, growth opportunities.


We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.



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Speaker 1:

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 hrgazettecom and visit hrgazettecom.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and joining me back on the show today is no other than the amazing, awesome, wonderful, fantastic Jim Link, who is, of course, the CHRO over at SHRM. Now we are recording this interview today just a couple of weeks less than a couple of weeks before SHRM Annual Conference and Expo in lovely Chicago. I'm very excited for it. I've not been for a couple of years actually, so I'm pleased to get back and we're going to talk all things SHRM with Jim. Jim, welcome back to the show today.

Speaker 3:

Bill, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be back with you and I cannot wait to see you live in Chicago.

Speaker 2:

Let's start by getting you pleased to reintroduce yourself to our audience. Take a couple of minutes and tell our audience all about yourself.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thanks, bill. So hello everyone. My name is Jim Link. I'm the Chief Human Resources Officer at the fantastic world's largest human resources organization known as SHRM. I've been doing that job for about two and a half years now, after spending time as the CHRO for Ronstadt North America and prior to that spending time in several relatively large consumer companies probably known to you General Electric, porsche Cars North America and the Pillsbury Company. So I've been a SHRM member since 1991, a SHRM volunteer on the SHRM Foundation Board. So now I've come full circle in my career to have the privilege of serving as SHRM's Chief Human Resources Officer.

Speaker 2:

Rock and roll. And it's not just that. Shrm are kind enough to set me up in the media room and give me sandwiches. I genuinely believe that SHRM is the best HR association in the world. And if you don't know much about them, where have you been? Do you live under a rock? Check them out, listeners. Jim, in your opinion, why is the SHRM Annual Conference and Expo a key date in the HR calendar?

Speaker 3:

You know, bill, it's the largest gathering of human resources professionals in the world, and the size and scope of the conference itself just allows us the opportunity to do so much and to help people in so many ways along the pathways of understanding the connection between what they're doing every day, the broader service that they're providing to the businesses in which they operate, the communities in which they live and, even more importantly, now more and more so on, society at large. So, whether you're looking to come and build your network, or to learn the latest and greatest, or to become more innovative or more collaborative, we certainly provide an opportunity for human resources leaders and even more and more business leaders to come into one central location to maximize learning opportunities. This year that happens to be in Chicago. It's a great event, lots to do, of course. We have all kinds of entertainment. We have just session after session for the better part of three and a half days for people to learn and grow and become the best version of themselves they can be.

Speaker 2:

And not just any entertainment listeners, amazing entertainment. So, for example, Jay Leno and Kelly Clarkson are going to be.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, those two certainly Bill are on the docket. I'm actually very interested that our opening keynote on Sunday is Jason Sudeikis from Ted Lasso fame is Jason Sudeikis from Ted Lasso fame, so I'm actually very much intrigued to hear what he has to say as well, obviously because of his success with that, but more importantly, how, what the lessons that he taught through the writing and shooting and eventual production of Ted Lasso really are lessons in leadership and human capability and I can't wait to hear him string all that together so, listen, he's an amazing actor.

Speaker 2:

Uh, ted lasso is an amazing program. I get it. However, as a brit who's attending sherm, I know what's going to happen, because this happens quite a lot when I'm in the us. They're like oh, you're british? Yeah, yeah, I watched ted lasso. That's my, that's my one and only cultural reference to soccer and your country. That happens to me all the time. But, uh, there you go. Other other folks on the main stage, other other other key speakers include, of course uh, johnny c taylor, uh, and we recently featured his awesome uh podcast on this show uh, sherry shepherd, jessica jensen, uh, janet gibson and a whole bunch of other amazing speakers and and there are hundreds of speakers across all the different, uh, different stages, of course, listeners.

Speaker 2:

So you're in for a treat. What are you particularly looking forward to, jim? Uh, if you could, if you could, highlight a couple of sessions that are exciting you this year. What would those be?

Speaker 3:

you know, I I think the the most interesting thing that I'm seeing right now and we're hearing this from our members, I'm speaking about it on various stages and presentations across the SHRM network is really this focus that SHRM's had in really kicking off in March, so for the last several months, on this idea of civility in the workplace, and there are several very specific workshops or sessions at SHRM24 that are going to be focused on this entire idea that civility is something that we may need to focus on, not just as human resources leaders, but that we are uniquely positioned as human resource leaders to talk about the role of civility in the workplace, how it might have been eroded over the course of the last few years, really depending upon what country you live in and what environment you work in, but really this idea that we might have lost some of the art related to civility, and I'm very keen to focus on what some of those things are and how people are going to be interpreting what civility means in the workplace.

Speaker 3:

Here at Shermville we've done a round of research came back related to what people were experiencing in the workplaces related to civility. I actually thought the numbers were wrong. I literally thought that I was reading it incorrectly, and what we really saw was just a huge, huge representation of a lack of civility in the workplace, and folks that responded to our survey were willing to tell us about it and those results were just fascinating. And I think that SHRM is onto something, and what better organization to talk about civility in the workplace than SHRM? So I'm very excited to hear some of those presentations and to hear what others are thinking about the role of civility, not just in our workplaces but in our broader society. I think that's going to be fascinating.

Speaker 2:

Yeah well, let's just keep talking about that for a minute, if you don't mind. You were instrumental in launching a civil conversations initiative back in March, I believe. Can you tell our audience about the 1 million civil conversations initiative that you launched?

Speaker 3:

Yes, bill, I can and I'm really excited to talk about this initiative. You're right. I was one of the fortunate and lucky ones to get to kick off this campaign for SHRM and again, it was really driven by what we were hearing from our members, which was civility certainly is something we need to think about. So SHRM said look, if this is something that's on the mind of our members, it's obviously on the mind of business leaders and it probably should be on the mind of our government leaders and our community leaders and broadly in society at large. So what we did was we figured out a way to activate this call for civility. That became, bill, what you just referenced the call for 1 million civil conversations. You can hashtag that, by the way, if you're interested in talking about civility in your own workplace, and SHRM actually has built an entire research model and practical application model around civility and how you can actually think about applying civility in your workplace, with some very practical tools and even capabilities to help leaders establish this as a responsibility for future leadership development and future mission, vision, values and purpose for that specific organization. So we kicked this off to great excitement. It really resonated well with attendees at all of the events. I certainly were where I was presenting and I will tell you that the reaction that we've received from people both inside and outside of the human resources space has been absolutely fascinating to understand more about how they can transform their organizations into one that is more civil and reflects that, and where that they can hold their leaders accountable for role modeling it.

Speaker 3:

The 1 million civil conversations bill just became a way for us to track that.

Speaker 3:

We've developed a civility index and in that civility index we've just really identified the ways that workers are looking at civility. We can cut and slice that by region of the country, by all kinds of exciting demographics, for example, just one of the scores that we received when we looked at this the most recent civility index score was 42.3 out of 100 for workers' everyday lives, where those results are really showing that workers are experiencing or witnessing an average of more than 171 million acts of incivility per day in the workplace. Now that's just amazing and if you think about that, that gives us a lot of room for improvement, right, if you really think about it and if we think about how we can apply that and think about it on more of a long term, if we just change and teach people how to dialogue more effectively, to rediscover the lost art of civil dialogue, we're going to go a long way toward demonstrating what should be happening in workplaces but, more importantly, what should be happening in society at large.

Speaker 2:

Interesting what you said there at the end, Jim. It's a lost art. Why is it a lost art? It's social media to blame, Jim. Is that why people can't communicate anymore? What's?

Speaker 3:

your take.

Speaker 3:

I've presented on this topic and there's one thing that's very clear to me is that because of the rise of social media and, more importantly, bill, the rise of the anonymity that social media may give you, I think people certainly feel braver, right. They almost feel an obligation to express their feelings in such a way that may or may not be supportive of what was posted or stated or said. And I think that anonymity has given us the opportunity to walk, walk away from grace, from civil dialogue, even from the idea that you should be held responsible for what you say in a setting. And so, yeah, to some extent, I think certainly social media has been an exponent on the mathematics of civil dialogue, but if we think about what happens in day-to-day interaction, it's also been driven by the fact that we were all isolated and lonely for the better part of two years, depending upon where you were in the world, and that idea of isolation and loneliness certainly didn't help in people's responses and how that they viewed the whole world of digital media and what could happen out there.

Speaker 3:

So I don't think there's any one factor bill, but certainly there were things in our society including here in the United States anyway the bigger idea around the antagonism that exists right now in our governmental systems. We're certainly seeing not great role models out there for civil discourse and dialogue, and so it's just time that somebody called that bluff and said something about it and said, look, it's time to refocus on what's important, and what's important is empathetic listening, demonstrating some degree of emotional intelligence and actually regaining our perspective that perhaps there's something to learn from a human being with whom you might not agree, and we want to refine those skills, and I think this civility campaign that SHRM is launching certainly encourages us all to think about this a little bit differently and perhaps to reimagine a workplace and even a work world where that civility is once again a factor that we hold dear.

Speaker 2:

Okay, follow up to that then, Jim and it could be a one-word answer, it could be yes or no. If you're an HR leader or a people leader, do you need to have empathy? Do you need to have compassion? Do you need to have good communication skills? I'm assuming that this is a pretty straightforward question. What's your take?

Speaker 3:

The answer is absolutely yes, and it's more important to realize what emotional intelligence really means in a leader in particular. And so we asked people. We asked them what that means, and the results were very, very interesting, but not overly surprising. So what are people looking for in a highly emotional and intelligent leader? They're looking for transparency, they're looking for genuineness, they're looking for authenticity. They're looking for genuineness. They're looking for authenticity. They're looking for strong communicative skills. They're looking for strong empathetic listening skills.

Speaker 3:

They're looking for some establishment of the fact that leaders are indeed human and they do indeed have to lead right. They have to make decisions and move forward, but, more importantly, if they have the capability to do that in the right way, by demonstrating those competencies that I just described to you, that's effective leadership. And effective leadership, I think, is the goal and aim that we certainly have in this conference right To give people knowledge and skill about how to be an effective leader. But it's more important that we see that in our daily lives, whether you're a leader in your own household or at work, or in the communities in which you live and work, I think it's vitally important that emotional intelligence be demonstrated. We know what those factors are now, and let's hold leaders accountable to being emotionally intelligent, leaders capable of driving fantastic results for their businesses, their communities and even their homes.

Speaker 2:

Love it. Thank you very much. Okay, then, so there are two pillars at the SHAM annual conference and expo this year. One is, of course, civility, the other is and here we go listeners. I can't do an episode without talking about AI. Jim, how does AI continue to change the ways that you and your team do your jobs and, more generally, from what you're seeing from the conversations that you're having, the surveys that Sharon puts out there, et cetera, et cetera? How is AI continuing to impact and change HR processes?

Speaker 3:

You know, bill, it's having an incredibly huge and significant impact. I think it's short enough to say that it's changing human resources processes in many cases, in every way, every day. We are just in this week alone, I've had seven or eight conversations with individuals who have told me about new ways that they're utilizing artificial intelligence in their workplace. Now we all know we've been using artificial intelligence in some shape, form or fashion for many years, but what has really gotten people excited is the whole idea of generative artificial intelligence, and I can just give an example from my own team, my own human resources team at SHRM. Recently, we launched a learning program inside our organization for our entire employee population around generative AI and how to best utilize it and the productivity and capabilities that can be gained from that, and one of my own team members wrote the script for that particular learning exercise. And when he wrote the script, he thought, okay, well, I can voice this over or I can go to an AI tool and give the AI tool examples of my own speech, download the script to that speech and then have the AI read out the script as the learning progressed. So that's exactly what he did. He did not tell us he did that, and so I'm listening to I'm kind of one of the final editors, of course, for the learning and development exercise and I'm listening to it. I'm like, oh wow, this guy could have another career in broadcast media. Right, he's smooth, he's got a silky voice. It had its own distinctions, which made it rather unique.

Speaker 3:

And, lo and behold, come to find out, bill, that this was his AI voice it was not his actual voice and the work product, the output that came from that. We probably saved multiple hours in the studio. We probably saved multiple hours in, you know, just the scripting itself for the content, and it was a fantastic production. And if you listen to it, bill, you would not know. I didn't know. Matter of fact, I wrote him back and said, great, you've got this silky, smooth voice. You would be great for radio, you know all these other kinds of things, and you know, I kind of get this smiley face back. And then later that day, he revealed to the rest of our entire team that it was his AI generated voice.

Speaker 3:

So much about productivity and creativity and just getting better answers and better responses and better capability being driven by the proper usage of AI in the workplace. So we built an entire tool set. It's called the AI Playbook. It's actually available to both SHRM members and non-SHRM members. It's completely free to download this online. You go to SHRMorg backslash AI playbook and you can find this particular tool. It's just great reading and we're keeping it currently updated on what we're seeing out there and how to use this in the human resources space. Short answer, bill. Ai is going to change the face, scope and capability of human resources professionals if they learn how to use it. So we are encouraging people to get out there to experiment, within guidelines and frameworks, of course, but to get good at this, to become the profession of all of the professions in business and industry that owns this space. And here at SHRM, we certainly believe that human resources practitioners are capable of and willing to do that, and we're trying to provide them with the playbook to just make that happen okay, thank you, jim.

Speaker 2:

Jim, we've only got a couple of minutes left. I can't believe it. I had a whole bunch more questions for you. I'm just gonna wrap up the two more, if you don't mind. Uh, let's continue the conversation around ai for a moment. Um, I have recorded a lot of episodes on this show just to show alone. Okay, I think when this one goes out, it'll be in the region of episode 720. Okay, that's that's. That's a lot of time chatting to cool hr people like yourself and others in the hr space. One thing I'm hearing a lot at the moment, jim, from senior hr leaders is yes, they are happy to implement ai in most of their processes. The two areas or two stages within the employee life cycle they are more hesitant to do that are sourcing and the hiring phases, because they worry about inherent biases within AI generated technologies. What's your take?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, certainly that's a watch out. When you think about what happens with artificial intelligence right when it's based on large language models, like most of the generative AI is you absolutely have to ensure that the output that you're receiving is bias-free, and the best way to do that is ensure that the data upon which you're driving your conclusions or driving your outcomes is also bias-free. So this brings me to a very important point that I think is often overlooked when it comes to the role of AI, and that is that AI, human intelligence, is the foundational tool upon which we should operate. Ai Johnny says this very nicely. Our president and CEO, johnny C Taylor Jr, says HI plus, ai equals ROI, and I think that's right.

Speaker 3:

But I think there's even a more accurate mathematical model, which is human intelligence represented as an exponent, meaning human intelligence, and then you have an exponent which is artificial intelligence equals ROI to the nth degree, meaning, if we think about what AI can actually do for us, it can only do so much because the core human intelligence and usage of AI has to be there and has to be in place for AI to be an effective tool.

Speaker 3:

And, bill, that applies to bias, to discrimination, to any other factor that you can think of that could turn out to be nefarious or bad for the world of human resources bad for the world of human resources. And let's never forget that, as good as AI is and as much capabilities it can provide to us in our workplaces, there are nefarious actors out there in the AI space and we just need to be alert for those. I would never take something that comes out of an artificial intelligence engine of any type and take it on face value ever, and I think we have to teach all people who are utilizing artificial intelligence, let alone in the human resources space, that, yeah, it's a great tool, but it's only a tool. Human intelligence begin should be the beginning and the end of any use of technology, and artificial intelligence is just another one of those technologies this guy is a wordsmith listeners.

Speaker 2:

Okay, great answer. Thank you, jim. Jim, I am super excited for sherm. It's coming up in. I think it's eight days actually from today. Uh, it's gonna be the last time that I get to uh, do any sort of travel. For quite a while. I've been super busy going to be the last time that I get to do any sort of travel. For quite a while. I've been super busy going to different conferences like ATD. I was at CIPD yesterday. It's SHRM for me in eight days and then that's it, because we're having baby number two in August. Oh, congratulations, thank you, thank you, but I get to have one more cheeky trip to beautiful Chicago. I'm hoping to get some ballames in a couple of days after the conference as well. So I'm hoping to see you there. Jim, for our listeners who'd like to connect with you, how can they do that? Also, can you just run through the different options for folks to attend the event? Obviously, there's the in-person component, but there are other ways that people can get involved as well. Is that right?

Speaker 3:

There is. There certainly is the in-person component. We're expecting close to 25,000 people this year in Chicago, at McCormick Place, just south of downtown Chicago, but we also have a virtual option, and the virtual option is a fantastic way. If you cannot attend in person, then just go to SHRMorg and take a peek at the ways to attend. Just go to SHRMorg and take a peek at the ways to attend, and certainly one of the ways to attend is virtually. We are very excited to continue to offer that.

Speaker 3:

It came about as a result of the pandemic and has proven to be very popular, so we would certainly like that, and you can also go to SHRMorg, and at SHRMorg, you can look specifically at the program overview that's available for you there and learn everything that you would want to know about the conference the ways to attend, what the experience is like, the types of sessions that we have. You can look at the schedule online and you know employment law and regulations, global HR, mental health and wellness, leadership and personal growth, HR technology and data analytics, the HR department of one because most of our members are still that people and talent management, recruitment and talent acquisition, strategic HR and then, finally, workplace culture, empathy and work-life integration. So there's something there for everyone, Bill. And then, finally, workplace culture, empathy and work-life integration. So there's something there for everyone, Bill, and we cannot wait to see all of you in Chicago.

Speaker 2:

Rock and roll. Hey listeners, I first interviewed Jim after he'd been in the role the CHRO role at Sherm for I think, about two weeks. I just want to say, jim, that I've been watching you from afar grow into this very impressive and terribly important position within SHRM. You are an awesome guy and you are credit to the organization, so thank you very much for being my guest today.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, Bill. It's been my pleasure have a great day.

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 1:

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 HRGazettecom.

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