HRchat Podcast
Listen to the HRchat Podcast by HR Gazette to get insights and tips from HR leaders, influencers and tech experts. Topics covered include HR Tech, HR, AI, Leadership, Talent, Recruitment, Employee Engagement, Recognition, Wellness, DEI, and Company Culture.
Hosted by Bill Banham, Bob Goodwin, Pauline James, and other HR enthusiasts, the HRchat show publishes interviews with influencers, leaders, analysts, and those in the HR trenches 2-4 times each week.
The show is approaching 1000 episodes and past guests are from organizations including ADP, SAP, Ceridian, IBM, UPS, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Simon Sinek Inc, NASA, Gartner, SHRM, Government of Canada, Hacking HR, McLean & Company, UPS, Microsoft, Shopify, DisruptHR, McKinsey and Co, Virgin Pulse, Salesforce, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Coca-Cola Beverages Company.
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Podcast Music Credit"Funky One"Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
HRchat Podcast
Unlocking AI-Driven HR Transformation with Bob Pulver
Uncover the secrets behind AI-driven transformation in HR with today's guest, the accomplished technology strategist Bob Pulver.
With a career at giants like IBM and NBCUniversal, Bob shares his expertise on why understanding the human side of tech adoption is crucial in today's rapidly evolving landscape. This episode features insights straight from the HR Tech Conference and Expo in Las Vegas, emphasizing the importance of hiring for skills and potential rather than just resumes. Bob also invites you to explore his podcast, "Elevate your AIQ," where he unpacks the role of responsible AI in shaping a better workplace culture.
Join us as we explore diverse perspectives on the ethical dimensions of AI in HR with industry voices like Brent Skinner, Mark Pfeffer, and George LaRock. We delve into the critical need for responsible AI usage that levels the playing field and focuses on genuine talent. Packed with practical tips for HR leaders, this episode offers guidance on maintaining good data practices and understanding specific AI use cases. Bob Pulver provides a roadmap for connecting with him and accessing his work through the Work Defined network, making this conversation a must for anyone invested in the future of technology and HR.
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The HRchat show has had 100,000s of downloads and is frequently listed as one of the most popular global podcasts for HR pros, Talent execs and leaders. It is ranked in the top ten in the world based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. The podcast is also ranked as the Best Canadian HR Podcast by FeedSpot and one of the top 10% most popular shows by Listen Score.
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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 listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and in this episode we're going to talk about HR and responsible AI. Look back at the HR Tech Conference and Expo in Vegas and we highlight the awesome new, work-defined podcast network by William Tinkup and Ryan Leary. My guest today is Bob Pulver, a technology strategist who has spearheaded transformation and innovation across such big brands as IBM and NBCUniversal. Bob is also the host of the Elevate your AIQ podcast.
Speaker 3:Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazettecom. And now back to the show.
Speaker 2:Bob, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the HR Chat Show today. Hello, how are you?
Speaker 4:I'm good, bill, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm all right, I'm not too bad. This is an audio-only podcast, but, listeners, we are recording this episode deep into the festive period and I've got a very garish festive jumper on right now. And I've got a very garish festive jumper on right now. Bob, beyond my reintroduction just a moment ago, why don't you take a minute or two and introduce yourself to our audience? Tell them a bit about you, your loves, your career and background?
Speaker 4:Go ahead, thank you. Thank you again for the opportunity. My name is Bob Pulver and I am a responsible AI advisor and strategist based just north of New York City. I spent most of my career in large enterprise doing various transformation activities across people process technology data About 22 years at IBM, three and a half or so years at NBC Universal, and then I pivoted into entrepreneurship and the talent what I call the talent transformation space. So that's everything about re-engineering talent acquisition processes, understanding how AI is coming into the talent technology landscape and what those impacts have on the people the talent that actually is there to execute your technology and business strategies. I'm also hosting a podcast called Elevate your AIQ, which is also the name of my consultancy, and I have guests that talk about responsible AI. They talk about AI-driven transformation, they talk about employee experience and culture and they talk about hiring for skills and potential, and so that means looking far beyond the resume, as you know, bill.
Speaker 2:Okay, very good, Thank you very much. So you and I met fairly recently in Vegas at the HR Tech Conference. I think we were introduced by Torin Ellis. I think it was Exactly at the HR Tech Conference. I think we were introduced by Torin Ellis, I think it was on the expo floor.
Speaker 2:He's a good man. He's spoken at Disrupt London that we hosted a while ago, and he's been on the show a couple of times, I think. So, torin, if you're listening hello, sir, we think you are great. Why HR Tech? Why is that a good fit for what you're getting up to?
Speaker 4:well, I've always been a technologist. I've always been interested in emerging technology. I spent a lot of my time at ibm being sort of a some would call it a change agent. I would call it an innovation catalyst, which was a term term that IBM used for their innovation management program, of which I was a pretty active participant, and part of it is understanding. You know, not being a psych major, I still was always fascinated by behavior change or lack thereof when technology was tried was sort of pushed upon people where they weren't involved in how technology may impact them and the processes that they were familiar with.
Speaker 4:And I think, as I saw and got involved with some talent-related projects later in my career, I saw a lot of dysfunction. I saw a lot of overlooked potential perhaps starting with my own, where people just weren't looking at the right data or weren't gathering the right data to really understand how to make technology adoption more effective and really make those implementations go a lot smoother. But also at IBM I spent a lot of time doing informal sort of crowdsourcing and collective intelligence kinds of initiatives and I saw the power of people, not just individually and individual human potential, but the potential to aggregate and apply the sort of wisdom of crowds, if you will, in various contexts. And this was before we had a gig economy and did a lot of the headlining sort of crowdsourcing and other types of initiatives, whether that's for philanthropic reasons or just to move the right ideas forward. So just always fascinated with the people side, even though I've never formally had an HR role.
Speaker 5:Hi everybody. This is Bob Goodwin, president at Career Club. Imagine with me for a minute a workplace where leaders and employees are energized, engaged and operating at their very best. At Career Club, we work with both individuals and organizations to help combat stress and burnout that lead to attrition, disengagement and higher health care costs. We can help your organization and your workforce thrive, boosting both productivity and morale across the board. To learn more about how we might help you and your workforce thrive, boosting both productivity and morale across the board. To learn more about how we might help you and your company, visit us at careerclub.
Speaker 2:You gave a bit of an overview of your podcast Elevate your AIQ just a moment ago, before we hit record today. I think you said you were into the 40s in terms of number of episodes you've released so far Congratulations. Who have been some of your top guests so far, bob, and why? Is it to do with their personalities and their intellect? Is it to do with some of the subject matter that you're addressing? Is it a bit of all of those?
Speaker 4:Tell us more about some of the top episodes that you've had so far, and why well, it's hard to pick favorites and I'm not going to, you know, correlate them to, uh, to children, but, um, I did have a lot of great guests that either sort of fascinated me with their, their background, or it was the subject matter. I'm always fascinated by people who are able to wear like at least five different hats in their career simultaneously. So someone like Gary Bowles, who works, runs a future work program at Singularity University, you know, being an author and a lecturer and sort of entrepreneur, and you know, like five other hats, obviously a keynote speaker and panel facilitator, just so to be able to handle so much. It hurts my brain to think about keeping all of those things straight and managing that schedule. So I'm always fascinated by that, and serial entrepreneurs as well.
Speaker 4:Bill, you brought me a fantastic guest, giancarlo Era, who is also one of these. I don't want to use the term renaissance man because he's Italian, but he really is like this renaissance man. He does, he's like Gary, he does so much. I mean, he teaches and teaches people about AI and he tutors people and he mentors people and he speaks, and he's also a musician. So I just don't again, it's fascinating to me. There's people that can do all of these things simultaneously.
Speaker 4:But I'm also really impressed by a lot of the women founders I've had on the program, who are champions of diversity. They're very accomplished academically. I think the last couple I had, including Barb Herman from Sapia and Isabel Bickler from Retrain they went to law school, they worked in finance. I think Isabel was a wealth manager and Barb was in the finance sector too. She was the CHRO of Boston Consulting Group Just incredibly accomplished individuals who are also championing, you know, responsible practices in terms of their AI not just AI use, but AI design right and they're very transparent about how that occurs. So I'm just in awe of a lot of what my guests have accomplished and certainly admire the work that they're currently doing.
Speaker 2:Bob, I'm catching up with the amazing William Tinkup later on today. Regular listeners of the show will know William's been on the show a few times and I am one of his top fanboys. I think he's amazing and your pod is part of the Work Defined podcast network which William started. Why get involved with that network and what has the network done to elevate your podcast reach and brand so far?
Speaker 4:William is fantastic. I agree. I had spoken to him ages ago, before I was even really thinking about a podcast and I was working on some other things. I may have been working at talent tech labs at the time when we crossed paths.
Speaker 4:So, after I sort of pivoted into the talent space and when he told me about this podcast network that he was creating with, with Ryan Leary, I was, I was intrigued and I thought, well, as a new podcaster trying to grow my audience, which is never easy, I wanted to, and also not having a history in the space, right, I was this sort of fresh voice and I just saw it as an opportunity to pair up with a couple pros who have a great reputation and I saw it as a way to potentially amplify, you know, the audience for all those who you know want that should be listening to my podcast, because not for me, it's not. It's not about me, it's about it's about my guests and it's about the message. Right, I want everyone to understand what's happening with AI so that they don't get left behind. I don't want individuals to get left behind and I don't want organizations to be left behind when it comes to AI, and I just thought I want to partner with some folks who can really help me amplify this message so that more and more voices will understand what's coming and they will take proactive steps to sort of gain some AI literacy and essentially just be ready, not even as individuals, but to be that change agent or that catalyst for their own teams, their departments and their organizations.
Speaker 4:And so I just saw an opportunity to partner with folks who I knew I could trust, who were very transparent and who were very authentic in the way that they approached the space and the messaging that goes out. So it was just a very and they made it very simple and easy for me to join, which was a little bit intimidating because every other podcast on there was from an established voice. It was either William or William and Ryan or it's just some names that people are probably familiar with, and so I was sort of the new voice. So I just thought this is a great way to learn as well from a lot of these experienced um. You know podcasters and influencers in the space. Some of them are, you know, authors and uh market. You know analysts and um investors, angel investors, things like that.
Speaker 2:So just seemed like a no-brainer to me, honestly okay, so you've been in in this space now for a little while. In terms of creating content around the world of work, your focus, as you mentioned, is on talent. Um, who are, who are some of those influencers, some of those experts that you like to listen to? What are some of those podcasts that you most enjoy? For example, uh, uh, laurie roteman. She's one of the folks who's on the on the network with william um, share a few podcasts that you enjoy listening to I like uh brent skinner's podcasts.
Speaker 4:Um, I like the minor. My podcasts are a little bit longer. Mine are generally, like you know, 45 minutes to an hour. I get sort of into the weeds with a lot of my guests, um, so I like to switch gears sometimes. I like um brent skinner's like uh, small's small talk window where he just does 15, 20-minute conversations with folks.
Speaker 4:I like Mark Pfeffer's content because, again, it overlaps with some of the topics that I focus on, and so it's good to get an alternate perspective and just think about some of the questions and the framing of some of the things that Mark does. I know George LaRock recently joined, so I want to get in because he's, I know, going to give me those again sort of snackable items around the market more broadly and some of the things that he's seeing in the space. So definitely like to just think about the way I look at the world and then and then incorporate some of those varied perspectives, because I respect everyone's opinion about the space and it just helps me to think more deeply about how I'm viewing the space. But also helps me to think more deeply about how I'm viewing the space but also the types of questions that I might want to ask the guests that I bring on, but there's a lot more to explore I definitely want to check out.
Speaker 4:There's one that recently joined from Steven Rothberg, who's co-hosting with Jeanette Leeds. That recently got added. The title is around high volume hiring, but they really go much deeper than that and think about it, from not just problems that are unique to high volume hiring, but thinking about everything that's going on with automation and AI in recruitment more broadly. And so you know, anything that can give me a varied perspective, either about a particular industry, about a particular approach to talent acquisition or talent management, talent development, anything about learning and development, I think is really fascinating to me because, again, I'm trying to promote AI literacy and making sure that people in some cases may need, you know, sort of personalized or customized um training and upskilling, and so anything that hits on that is particularly interesting.
Speaker 2:Bob in 30 seconds or less. I'm going to challenge you here. Uh, why is responsible ai so important to you?
Speaker 4:I see and this goes back to one of the reasons I got into this space to begin with I see a lot of people being overlooked talented people being overlooked for no good reason. I see the neurodiverse population being completely overlooked. I think everything around second chance hiring or people who are changing careers, doing career, pivots. I'm sensitive to the hiring for skills and potential piece because I think every time I see this cat and mouse game between a job description and a. That is just not where we should be focusing. We should be focusing on assessing, understanding the skills that people need, understanding how to properly assess those and validate those skills, and hiring for potential. It doesn't matter what they look like, it doesn't matter. All these elements that we're using to judge people are not really grounded in their alignment to their potential to do the job, and so I just want to see a leveling of of the playing field and people evaluated on the proper criteria okay, very good, great answer.
Speaker 2:Not in 30 seconds, though, but that's okay, it was a good answer. Um, as we look to wrap up this conversation, uh, let's let's leave with some practical tips. We always like to offer some practical tips on this show when we can. Um, any responsible ai best practices that you think hr leaders should be leading should be spearheading within their organization. If so, can you maybe share a couple of those with us?
Speaker 4:well, I think it should be make sure, whatever tools you're using, that the people who built those tools are being responsible by design. So good data practices and data hygiene. Understanding the provenance of the data, because the data is the fuel for all your algorithms and AI. If the data is exhibiting or shows bias, that's just gonna flow through to the AI, which is then gonna exhibit bias. So really think about not just responsible use, applying your critical thinking as you're prompting your gen AI tool of choice, but was it done and built fairly from the beginning?
Speaker 4:The other, I would say, is understand the specific use cases that you're going after. Make sure you're solving a real problem when you apply AI. Don't just apply AI because everyone else is doing it and it's the latest shiny object. So if you're building it yourself, then follow all those practices. If you're getting your AI-powered solution from a vendor, just start asking them the tougher questions in the RFI and RFP process. Ask them those questions about the data and how their developers are aware of and tracking the evaluations of all those models. Um, so just don't lose your critical thinking. Never outsource your critical thinking to ai excellent.
Speaker 2:And just finally for today, bob, how can our listeners connect with you and learn more about all of the cool things you're getting up to? So is that linkedin? Uh, do you want to share your email address? Please remind folks how they can find your podcast. What are those key touch points?
Speaker 4:yeah, thank you. Uh, so linkedin is the easiest. Uh, just bob pulver on linkedin and um, or elevate your aiq. There's also the company page on linkedin and uh, but the email's simple, just bob at elevate your aiqcom if you want to set up a call and see how I can help. The podcast network is Work Defined. That's W-R-K-D-E-F-I-N-E-Dcom and you'll see my show, along with about two dozen others, as of late 2024.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Well, that just leaves me to say for today, Bob, thank you very much for being my guest.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much for having me, Bill.
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? 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.
