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
Disrupt London and HR Analytics Summit with Douglas Leach
In this episode of the HRchat Show, Bill Banham talks with Douglas Leach about the upcoming Disrupt London and HR Analytics Summits.
Doug's journey to founding the HR Analytics Summit reads like a masterclass in entrepreneurial resilience. Launching his venture in October 2019 - mere months before a global pandemic would shut down in-person events worldwide - Doug faced what seemed like insurmountable challenges. But as he reveals in this captivating conversation, what initially appeared disastrous ultimately became advantageous.
"Not every disaster is a disaster," Doug shares, explaining how multiple postponements created extended marketing windows that drove registrations. By the time the event finally happened in 2021, it had completely sold out. Even a venue cancellation one month before the show transformed into a blessing when they secured the prestigious Brewery venue at a discount, accommodating their larger-than-expected audience.
The discussion dives into the current people analytics landscape, revealing surprising disparities in implementation maturity. While some organizations operate sophisticated systems seeking marginal improvements, others – including unexpectedly large companies – still rely heavily on Excel. Doug offers a memorable analogy: "Big companies are oil tankers, small companies are speedboats," explaining why smaller, more agile organizations often implement modern analytics solutions more efficiently than their enterprise counterparts struggling with legacy systems.
Artificial intelligence emerges as a central theme throughout the conversation. Doug and Bill highlight the significant challenge organizations face when implementing AI: employee skepticism and fear of replacement. The discussion ventures into thought-provoking territory when addressing Bill Gates' recent prediction that AI might enable two-day workweeks. While acknowledging the potential benefits, Doug raises important questions about economic implications, as he imagines shareholders saying: "If we can get away with having two days a week work, why should we be paying people for five days?"
Connect with Doug on LinkedIn or at hranalyticssummit.com to learn more about his work transforming the people analytics landscape.
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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.
Speaker 2:HRGazettecom. Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and joining me on the show today for the very first time is Douglas Leitch, founder of the popular HR Analytics Summit and guest co-host of Disrupt London 24.0, happening May 29th. With nearly 15 years of experience navigating the varied and occasionally chaotic landscape of events and conferences across numerous companies and business models, doug founded the HR Analytics Summit back in October 2019, perfectly timed, as fate would have it, just before the global pandemic, and we're going to get into that in just a second. Hey, doug, how you doing? Welcome to the show thank you, bill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very well, thank you you well.
Speaker 2:I am good, I'm excited for our chat. Uh, be on my reintroduction just now. Why don't you take a minute or two and introduce yourself to our listeners and, as part of that, tell them, tell them what gets you up in the morning?
Speaker 3:Okay. So yeah, I'm the founder of the HR Analytics Summit. As my bio suggested, I've worked in events for quite a long time before the greys took over the top of my head. But, yeah, I started my own business, fatefully, in October 2019. And then, almost immediately, the pandemic broke out, which proved its own challenge. But, as I say, we can get into a little bit of that down the line. What gets me up in the morning? Um, I love the excitement of creating events. I love, um, I love creating what is essentially something from nothing. You know, an event is just an idea, really, when you start. So that's one of the most exciting things I find that you can just sort of come up with an idea, talk to people and convince people that it's going to be really good to come along and people go.
Speaker 3:yes, I believe you and I will come along and support you on this. I find that really exciting.
Speaker 2:And why specifically the HR analytics space? Doug, what would appeal to you about that area when you were thinking about creating an event series?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it's kind of a trifecta of a few things really. I've worked across so many different industries working in events. I was working in a company that well, most of my career has been fairly industry agnostic, so we did events across all sorts of industry sectors, job titles, locations, et cetera, and the HR crowd were always a really nice bunch, always friendly, happy to speak open, so they were great fun to deal with. I worked at another company that specifically looked at data analytics events and obviously data analytics is always in the papers, always in the news, it's everywhere, it's everything, and that's only served to grow in recent years. And so I was sitting down looking at forming my own events company and essentially I looked at right, well, I like the HR lot, what's big at the moment, data analytics and then landed upon sort of HR analytics and people analytics and strategic workforce planning, those sorts of topics, and so did a bit of research into it.
Speaker 3:Um, I mean, obviously HR is a really I like HR as a discipline. Uh, I feel it's it's a great cause to get behind. Um, you know, I our event supports mind the charity. It's something really close to my heart. And, again, for professionals who can support things like well-being and inclusivity and diversity, those sorts of nice topics. It's something I'm really happy to support.
Speaker 2: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:We're going to come back to the HR Analytics Summit in just a minute, but, as I mentioned in the intro, I have the privilege and honor, sir, to be co-producing uh, our latest disrupt london with you. Uh, it's on may 29th. It's at the brand new wave maker office, which is, uh, just off southwark bridge. Uh, doug and I have been busy getting our lineup of speakers together. Uh, those include suzanne lucas, aka the evil hr lady. Uh. Andres garcia, group head of people analytics and workforce planning group hr over at legal and general. Ira watts uh, who, um, it's just joined the lineup just today. Uh, and he's the senior manager, strategic people information over at fidelity international.
Speaker 2:Ria west, who's the head of people experience at wavemaker, and a whole bunch more speakers. There'll be somewhere between 10 and 14 speakers. Each of the speakers speaks for five minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide. So it's that usual rapid fire lightning talk format. Listeners, if you are in the london area, come and join us, be there or be a rectangle. Uh, what excites you about the event on may 29th? Dog?
Speaker 3:I'm really excited to see how it works. With regards to the ignite presentation format, um, I mean, most of my career it's been your sort of standard at least 30 minute presentations. That can be quite stodgy, so I'm quite keen to see how the specific format forces people to be ruthlessly efficient with the way that they do their presentations, to be fast moving, to be as economical as possible with their time, to see what messages they get across. Really, that's the thing I'm most excited about, cause, again, it's not really anything I've ever seen okay.
Speaker 2:Well, if you enjoy it, then I think I'll have to get you on stage at another disrupt and you can give it a go yourself so I've done a couple now.
Speaker 2:uh, it takes a lot of practice, that's sure, because five minutes it ain't long and those, those slides do rotate very quickly. Uh, but listeners, if you do want to come along, uh, it's all over eventbrite and linkedin the disrupt london linkedin page, and doug and his team are promoting that kind of it as well, so do check it out, come and join us. Let's get back to talking about the People Analytics Summit. Having launched the Analytics Summit just before the global pandemic hit Doug, what key lessons did you learn about resilience, innovation and having to pivot in a crisis and, as part of that that perhaps you can share, how have those lessons shaped the growth of your event since then?
Speaker 3:The pandemic was marked, obviously, with a huge amount of uncertainty for quite a long time. So it meant, when we were initially we launched in like October 2019, I believe we were planning to have the event in, I think it was April, uh, 2020, so a sort of six month odd run, uh, to get it done, sorted and and delivered, and then, obviously, the pandemic hit. So it was. It just meant a huge amount of time in flux, um, so, while we were waiting to find out what was going to happen, and then then you know, the lockdowns happened and the sort of decision was taken out of my hands. In that regard, it actually worked out to be quite beneficial in the end, which sounds weird. So I suppose one of the lessons is not every disaster can be a disaster. It can actually be quite fortuitous, because it meant we had to delay the events on three separate occasions, so by the time it actually rolled around, it wasn't until like 2021, which meant that we had three lead-ins for the events, so three opportunities that we could talk about. You know how it's early bird pricing and how it's coming, and, and you know this, this event's on the horizon but it's approaching bird pricing and how it's coming and you know this event's on the horizon, but it's approaching quickly and all this sort of stuff. So it meant by the time the first event rolled around, it had sold out. It was we had to get. We had a disaster as well, in which the original venue that it was planned for about a month before I phoned up just to check it was all sorted and going ahead, and they were oh, did you not get? Did we not send you an email? Or did did you know, lucy, not call you? Yeah, no, we're not doing any events for the time being. So, no, we haven't got your event. So I was like, oh my god. And then it meant again, in the end, we, we ended up getting a much, much better venue. Um, we, we. It was held at the um, at the brewery on Chiswick Street, next to Barbican, which is a really nice venue. I was desperate, they were desperate, so, with like a month to go, so they gave me a really good price and so again, it increased the venue. The venue was much nicer, it was much bigger, it meant that it could accommodate all these extra people that we had, and so again, by the time the actual event happened, it was a huge, huge success.
Speaker 3:And in the events world, if you do a good event, it's kind of the easiest job in the world because everyone has a great time. The next question you have with them is when's the next one? Where can I sign up? And it just sort of makes life a whole lot easier. If you do an event that is average or an event that is poor, you might as well be starting again the next year. You know it's a very competitive landscape, so if you're not performing with a degree of excellence, then you're starting again really. So I mean, lessons learned is not every disaster is a disaster. It can be good, there can be goodness there that you just need to uncover and again a certain amount of grit and carry on. It wasn't the best time. Obviously. I was just eating through savings at the time because it was like just waiting for things to happen, but stead the course and pulled it off in the end, which was great.
Speaker 4: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, 5 minutes each and slides rotate every 15 seconds. If you're an HR professional, a CEO, 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 at disrupthrco.
Speaker 2:Well, kudos, you create great events and you are fairly unique in the space in terms of events in London as well. Your other point there was lots of other events happening, so you know competitive landscape. There are two key events, I think, that happen in London each year for HR analytics, so you're well positioned there as well. So sounds like a wonderful business model. So kudos to you. Business model, sir. So kudos, thank you to to you. Uh, okay, so 2021 is when you, when you got things off the ground following the pandemic. Over the past four years, doug, your event has grown lots and lots. What, what trends or industry shifts do you think have fueled the rising importance of people analytics, and how is your event uniquely positioned to address those evolving needs? And I guess I'll throw in there as well, because we have to talk about it on every show that we do these days how is the rise in AI shaking things up in the world of people analytics?
Speaker 3:I mean I can only really talk about it from what I've seen. So, as I say sort of quite often, I'm no expert in people analytics in the practical sense, if that registers. I speak with a lot of people who are running people analytics systems, who are implementing them, who are upgrading, who are renovating, who are revamping or again just introducing these systems, and so all my information is secondhand. From what people are saying, the trends we're seeing, I mean a lot that the industry is growing massively at the moment. There's a lot more solutions out there that are credible, that are off the shelf and implement they work. They're good. I think a lot of.
Speaker 3:There's still a huge amount of disparity with regards to the complexity and the finesse of the people analytics systems that are in place. Some are really mature and they are trying desperately hard to get those marginally small gains in that respect. And there are still some companies that don't even really have a people analytics system, companies that don't even really have a people analytics system and they're at that wonderful place of the journey where it's all the low hanging fruit where for implementing a relatively basic system can still reap huge, huge rewards. So we're still seeing, I mean the industry is moving forward as a whole, but we're still seeing quite a few companies that actually aren't really too far along and I'm not going to say any companies, but some companies that you would be quite surprised in in which you would think you should be much further along in this than they actually are. There's still quite a few people out there with Excel, spreadsheets and things like that, whereas you would assume a lot of companies actually would be at the forefront.
Speaker 2:And I'm guessing here in terms of being at the forefront, we're talking more about larger organizations, right? Those still struggling to catch up are generally the smaller companies, or actually, are they more nimble? Are they in your experience, from what you've seen, are the smaller companies actually getting to grips with things in a better way?
Speaker 3:In my experience, the smaller companies are generally the most agile, as in I mean, the big companies are oil tankers, the small companies are speedboats, you know. So it's it's takes a long time to move, to move the big oil tankers, and there's a huge amount of you know, disparate systems that are all working together, which you know you knock one out and the whole thing falls apart and then suddenly you know it's linked to payroll and people aren't getting paid and that's that's never a good place to. So I think generally you see a lot of the smaller companies who are able to implement these systems and a lot of the small companies as well. You know they're coming from cloud based systems that are much easier to integrate or just upgrade and bolt things on, whereas you find a lot of the more traditional systems still have sort of in-house solutions that they work with as well.
Speaker 3:But then I mean the other part of the question was about AI. I mean that's obviously progressing really, really quickly. Still a huge amount of skepticism about AI, a lot of the stuff around it as well. I mean I've spoken with various people who are implementing AI programs and I mean half of their job is essentially convincing their own employees that they're not implementing a system that is designed to replace them, because that's obviously going to dampen enthusiasm towards technology like that. So a lot of it comes down to kind of trust and so I think a lot of companies. It depends on the historical nature of various companies if they've earned that trust or if they haven't.
Speaker 2:and yeah, it's, uh, it's an interesting place to be yeah, so as as we record this conversation today, which is middle of april, uh, just a few days ago, bill gates made some comments around uh, within around about the next 10 years, I think he said uh, certainly the near future is is, is the quote um, a lot of people can expect to be down to a two-day work week because because of ai uh, I was I was recording another episode with someone else yesterday. He was very optimistic about how ai will just help existing employees and not replace them. I am not as optimistic. I'm more, perhaps, towards the bill gates camp here. What, what's your take? Where do you think? Where do you think the world of work is taking us in terms of number of days folks can expect to have paid employment in the near future?
Speaker 3:um, well, I mean looking at the various experiments run in in um a number of european countries. You look at the sort of compressed hours model of working four days, but longer hours and that's as far as I'm aware have been shown to be very, very successful with regards to actual workload. I mean, it's, it's, it's an interesting I mean you look at the speed that AI is progressing. If we use the litmus test of Will Smith eating spaghetti. You look at the video that was released a year and a half ago versus the video that was released recently, it's coming along in leaps and bounds with regards to the sophistication of that sort of technology.
Speaker 3:I think I mean, it's the dream really, isn't it to work less and be able to have more free time. I think the problem is always gonna be at longer heads with regards to companies and shareholders and things like that. I mean, really, at the end of the day, I find it at times hard to see that if we can get away with having two days a week work, why should we be paying people for five days a week? And we're all kind of not many people can make ends meet on that basis. So I think that's going to be the challenge really.
Speaker 2:Shameless plug. Regular listeners of this show will know that I am not afraid of a shameless plug. Uh, please, to check out my previous uh interview with the amazing joe o'connor, ceo and co-founder over at work time revolution, who talks exactly about this stuff. Uh, so, at work time revolution, they focus on um espousing the virtues in countries like canada and ireland and the us and the uk and elsewhere, of the four-day work week. So check out that episode, listeners. Um continuing through here, though, doug people analytics can sometimes seem abstract or overly technical to outsiders. How does the HR analytics summit bridge that gap, making complex insights actionable and relevant for business leaders? How do you guys, I guess, offer takeaways that people can action post-event?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, we put together the agenda in a sort of with a strategic focus, so we're not really going down into the full nuts and bolts, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:So it's generally taken from a strategic standpoint, that is, looking at more generalized lessons, so, rather than the sort of ins and outs of coding and things like that. But, to be honest, it's generally down to our speakers. As I say, we spend a huge amount of time finding the right speakers, engaging the right people, having back and forth and trying to find topics which are appealing, which are practical, which are thought-provoking, um, as well as finding ways that our audience are really gonna gonna have fun and engage, uh. So again, and also with the help of our sponsors, uh, to put forward their material in a way that shows the benefits of their own individual solutions, as well as the sort of implementation side of things as well. So, as much as I would love to claim credit, it's more the talent of the uh, the speakers that we have on board very good, I've got so many more questions for you.
Speaker 2:however, I am conscious that you and I need to save a bit of time to talk about, uh, the event happening uh in london on may 20 may. So, with that said, just one more question for you for today, and that is how can our listeners connect with you? So maybe LinkedIn email addresses you told me that you're not on the Instagram anymore, so that's out of here. And, of course, how can they learn more and maybe apply for a ticket to HR Analytics Summit, to HR?
Speaker 3:Analytics Summit Sure thing. Well, I mean, I'm on LinkedIn named Douglas Leach, L-E-A-C-H. The company's on LinkedIn as well. Hr Analytics Summit you can Google HR Analytics Summit or there's wwwhranalyticssummitcom. And if you want to email me, my direct email is douglas at hr analytics summitcom, or our more general one of info at hr analytics summitcom. But, as I say, type in hr analytics summit and we're bound to come up excellent.
Speaker 2:Well, that just leaves me to say for today I will be uh, harassing you to come back on again, I'm sure pretty soon. But for Doug Leach, thank you very much for being my guest.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
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 episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for.
