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The State of Employment in 2024: Insights and Strategies for Success from HR Guru Andrew Bartlow
Any leader will tell you that the people are the most important part of a successful organization. But how do you find those people and how do you keep them happy and motivated. Today we are talking with someone who can help us answer that question, so stay tuned
Hey everybody, this is Chris Brandt, here with another FUTR podcast.
Today we have with us Andrew Bartlow, CEO of People Leader Accelerator. Andrew has more than 25 years in the business and co-authored the book, "Scaling for Success: People Priorities for High Growth Organizations" So let's hear from him about the state of employment in 2024.
Welcome Andrew
The People Accelerator: https://www.peopleleaderaccelerator.com/
Scaling for Success: https://amzn.to/3xeU7br
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Any leader will tell you the people are the most important part of a successful organization, but how do you find those people and how do you keep them happy and motivated? Today, we're talking with someone who can help us answer that question. So stay tuned. Hey everybody, this is Chris Brandt here with another Future Podcast. Today we have with us Andrew Bartlow, CEO of People Leader Accelerator. Andrew has more than 25 years in the business and co authored the book Scaling for Success, People Priorities for High Growth Organizations. So let's hear from him about the state of employment in 2024. Welcome, Andrew.
Andrew Bartlow:Thanks a lot, Chris. Really good to be with you.
Chris Brandt:I'm excited to hear from you because we are in a really weird time for employment, I feel like. It's, uh, you know, there's AI entering the workforce, people getting laid off, and, and, and some people having great success finding jobs. And, you know, we're technically at very low unemployment. So it's, it's like, Everything seems crazy right now, but before we get into that, you've got a long history, uh, in the, the space. Can you just tell me about, uh, you know, your story and how you got into all the HR stuff?
Andrew Bartlow:I'm a career long HR guy, human resources, uh, right out of grad school, internships, worked at giant companies like, uh, General Mills and Pepsi right out of school. Started in startups during the dot com boom and bust. I think I had my first top job at a company that went global and then went out of business during the bubble bursting in 2000, 2001. That's good experience. You know, it's, uh, it was painful, but it's good. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Painful and, you know, valuable perspective, hopefully. Yes, looking back on it. And then for the next 20 plus years, I ping pong between big companies and small companies and, um, had a lot of enterprise experience, uh, at, you know, again, companies that are Dow components that you would have heard of and, uh, you know, tiny startups that most of them don't exist anymore. And the last in house gig was at, uh, um, a company. Boy, what's it called when it's, when it's a 20 billion valuation? It's like, it's a double, a double headed decacorn or a dragon or something like that. Uh, Invitation Homes. I was the head of the HR function for them as they went public twice. Uh, long story, wasn't a SPAC, thank goodness, um, pulled my parachute, started consulting, wrote this book. I'm a private equity operating partner and advisor. I do a bunch of independent work with, uh, CEOs, uh, at companies really of all sizes. And I lead, uh, you mentioned People Leader Accelerator. It's an educational program for, uh, strategic HR leaders at venture backed founder led tech companies. It's a pretty, pretty niche audience.
Chris Brandt:You've been around the block. You've seen it all. So, um, so why did you start this, you know, people leader accelerator? What, what was, what was the thinking behind there? What did you see in the market that you wanted to fill in?
Andrew Bartlow:Well, it was, it was on the back end of my book being published and thanks for the plug. Uh, Scaling for Success came out in, uh, 2021 during the height of the pandemic. Uh, so nobody left their house to go to Barnes and Noble to, you know, pick up the book. Um, but it hit a couple of bestseller lists and management book of the year, nominated, that sort of thing. Yeah, it was cool, it was cool to get that. But you don't write a book for money, at least I didn't. It was trying to get, you know, I've heard that. I've heard that before. I get, I get four figure checks every once in a while from my, from my publisher. Um, so the People Leader Accelerator came out of the book. You know, think of it like a really high touch book club where I wrote this 200 page book on management practices at tech companies and living and working here in the San Francisco Bay area. I saw all sorts of wild. Ineffective management practices and, you know, I was Yeah, I, I had pulled my parachute. I was out of work. I was hanging my single shingle as a consultant and trying to figure out how to be useful. And I thought that collecting some of my management and HR learnings would, would be useful. And so People Leader Accelerator became a way to touch more people than would actually sit down and read a 200 page.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. So, so how, so how do you fit into businesses? Like when you come into a business and they, they've called you in and you know, like what, what's your, what does it look like when you step in there?
Andrew Bartlow:Oh, it's a, it's a bunch of different things. So I, I have a portfolio of different, um, services and offerings, people, leader accelerators, this educational program, usually for the top HR leader and series ABC company. Gotcha. Um, My independent work, I'll work with, um, I won't name drop any, uh, any current clients, but I could work with a member of the Fortune 500, uh, uh, division. I could work with a Series A, uh, tech company, and that could be anything from mentoring a CEO, you know. Um, helping to redesign a performance management or compensation program for a company, uh, could be, uh, helping an organization to set their goals and priorities. You know, lots of high growth orgs are kind of all over the place trying to do everything all at once. For sure. Uh, that's a specialty. I'll also do org design. I'm probably one of the few people that go. It goes really deep in terms of how do you organize your company to meet your goals? Um, yeah, so I do a bunch of stuff all in the organizational effectiveness space.
Chris Brandt:Yeah, well, and I, and I think, you know, I've seen a lot of startups, I've seen, you know, big companies too, and just the, the struggle they go through, and when you're, like you mentioned, when you're in a high growth, you know, like the, like the title of the book says, when you're in a high growth kind of business, it's really weird because you start from that, you know, small group of people who kind of were jacks of all trades and doing a lot of different jobs and wearing a lot of different hats. And then they got into more specialized roles. And then there's layers of management that had to come in. And, you know, I, you know, I'm sure you know this, but I mean, like my, I've always seen the, the, the big problem of like lifting people from like individual contributors into the management. Cause they just feel that's the, the career path that needs to be followed. And it's just not always. The right way to do things. You know, you see these mistakes being made over and over and over and just the wrong hires the wrong structure. Um, so I gotta imagine that's extremely valuable to businesses. Um, so like I mentioned, like work is really weird right now. So what is how would you describe the state of work right now?
Andrew Bartlow:I feel like I've used the term a perfect storm, um, repeatedly over the past few years, right? We were in this perfect storm of the pandemic and work from home and, you know, social and racial equity issues. That was a perfect storm, right? Now we're in a high interest rate environment with almost zero capital pouring into, uh, venture firms, which is starving. The cash burning, you know, tech companies, unless you're an AI, if you're an AI, it's a story of haves and have nots, right? Right, right. Um, you know, so, it's, it's been this triangulation of, you know, multiple events affecting the world of business and management and people management, HR. Yeah. Um, a, a different series of events for the past five years. And, Yeah. I, I don't know if I'm, Just that much more attuned to it, doing what I'm doing independently now and, and, you know, speaking more publicly, but boy, it seems like we've been in the throes of something really big, um, and evolving for the past four years now.
Chris Brandt:Yeah, no, and, and I would add that in also too, there's like this generational component too that I think we're seeing as well, you know, and it's, it, I mean, and it's, it's a really strange phase because like, you know, I, I, I'm in tech obviously, so I talked to a lot of people on the, like the AI front and stuff like that, like, oh my God, there's like so much work and we got blah, blah, blah, blah, and then you hear from other people in, you know, different sectors of the economy and they're just, they're just, you know, um, Starvation out there right and and it's it's it's funny too because you know there's there's there's wage issues to like you know it's I could think the economy is struggling to deliver the right kind of pay to the to the the the the entire population here and I think that's you know where where people are really struggling as well so there's so many factors coming in here like you said it's a perfect storm and it seems crazy to me. So what do we do? What do we do?
Andrew Bartlow:Yeah, yeah. Um, well, hey, let's be direct. Let's talk brass tacks. You know, what you do is you get focused. You figure out what about me? How do these things that are going on in the bigger, wider world of business and beyond, um, affect my organization? Affect my team? Affect me personally in my job? Yeah. So Where are you at right now? Are you, are you just immediately before this, um, podcast taping? I was, um, on a zoom chat with a HR leader that I've mentored and went through my people leader accelerator program, and she got laid off. A few weeks ago, and she's looking and she was looking to test, um, some of her assumptions about the market and, hey, I've been in startup tech my entire career. Um, what can I do to be appealing? Um, and, and for her, she's in a tough spot. There are a lot of HR and recruiting people that are now looking for work. Yeah. And many people grew up in. their careers in this high competition environment. Right. With an absolute bull market tear, with ZERP, you know, zero interest rate, um, easy financing for startups, and boy, HR and recruiting talent was in massive demand. Yeah. And, uh, pay rates were skyrocketing. And it is different. It is a rebalancing of supply and demand right now. Yeah.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. It's, it's a really, it's, it's, it's a really strange time out there for people. And I, I keep hearing so much conflicting feedback. And the thing is that, you know, like we keep talking about like, you know, unemployment is, you know, officially very low, you know? Um, but, but it doesn't feel like that, you know? Um, you know, so, so what do you think's going on there?
Andrew Bartlow:I'm really a giant nerd, Chris. I, I follow, uh, I like nerds. That's where
Chris Brandt:we're here to promote nerds,
Andrew Bartlow:more nerds, more, more nerds, nerds of the world unite. Exactly. Um, I follow, uh, Bureau of Labor Statistics, um, announcements and, uh, you know, it's, it's clear that with, uh, the COVID pandemic and many of the service workers and, you know, frontline, uh, workers that, uh, Left the workforce that, you know, some people argue that the government checks kept them out out of work and the extended unemployment and the covid stimulus. Maybe I don't have a lot of money in those checks. I'm not deep enough into it to identify causation, but certainly some correlation between the pandemic and work from home and locations closing and government checks. And anyway, there there was this Crisis of finding, um, skilled, but really any kind of service worker, uh, for a while there, right? The great resignation was a threat, right? Um, those folks are back to work. Like everything's open. You know, I, I traveled. We, we talked about the conference I went to in Vegas and 4, 000 people at the conference. I think I saw four wearing masks. Uh, and of course I came away with a cold, um, but people are back like the work businesses are in business again. Um, so that, that is a correction. Um, the other correction though that's happening and this is the other side of the labor market are these mass layoffs in big tech and in startup tech that arguably maybe not that arguably there was a bubble. There's a bubble of massively in increasing demand for all things tech during work from home, right? Mm-Hmm, . Everybody, everybody became an expert on Zoom. And if you didn't use Microsoft teams before now, now you do. Right? And, uh, you know, there was lots of benefit, uh, accrued by technology companies in more distributed work. And I think we agree that there's more distributed work than there was for sure. Um, but there's also been this shift somewhat in concert with the, uh, interest rate environment of a drive to productivity. I've referred to 2024 as the year of productivity. And if you can deliver the bottom line profitability results with half the number of people that are working at your organization, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you do that? So there. There's been a shift from growth to profitability in the broader market. Um, and I think that's left a lot of people on the outside.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. And I, and on that, I think, you know, one of the things that, you know, cause now we're having, there's talk about the 32 hour work week again, you know, and, and things like that. And, and, and there is this
Andrew Bartlow:insert. I roll, sorry, but really, really like if some company wants to do that, great. I, I hope they have massive product market fit, um, and a big moat. Bye. That that that does not that does not drive productivity, giving your your workforce 20 percent less time. Right?
Chris Brandt:Well, but but I think the thing I think that the underlying message behind that, though, is that, you know, we've the labor market's gotten increasingly productive, you know, so we've seen record profits from company, but those profits aren't making its way down to, you know, The workers and so rather than saying where wages are too low, I think that the conversation around 32 hour work week is is compensate them with another day off, you know, rather than than that. I mean, I think it's really more of a wage discussion at this point in some regards than that. But but I mean, I think I do see that I see I see wages people earning less than they used to in my in my area. I don't know if that's across the board.
Andrew Bartlow:I'm an amateur economist at best. Um, I I'm an HR guy, so I follow this to an extent anyway. And you hear the fed talk about the wage price spiral, right? And, and in layman's terms, what that means is when inflation occurs and people see their rent going up or see food being more expensive or getting a car or whatever, uh, that they demand. more pay to keep up with the cost of living. And in turn, that leads to their ability to buy these things and then the producers can charge more.
Chris Brandt:Right. So it becomes this spiral of virtuous, uh, virtuous cycles, right? And now they,
Andrew Bartlow:yeah, arguably virtuous, like a, I don't know, a death spiral of more inflation and more pay. Um, so what, what I saw in the HR world was that pay Increased pretty significantly well above the baselines. So, uh, world at work is one of the better known compensation resources. And they, they do broad market studies. They actually lean on a lot of BLS data. Um, and historically wage rates, you know, companies will budget three to 4%, you know, three and a half median year over year. Right. Um, over the past couple of years, Prior to 2024, we were looking at five, five and a half, you know, uh, tech companies were, were clocking in. Some of them had double digit, you know, 10 percent plus, uh, pay, uh, increased budgets. Yeah. Um, so there, there was definitely that effect of inflation is high. People are demanding higher wages. Uh, so that, that's real. Yeah, and we have good data on wages were actually going up and likewise for skilled workers and service workers, massive wage increases for them during this, uh, the great resignation and whatever tagline.
Chris Brandt:Well, and it's kind of like you were saying, it's, it may be just the perception of like wages, a correction in a bubble, like, you know, wages. grew fast for a while. And then, you know, cause I think every economy is the same way. It's not, it's not where we are today. It's where we, where we are today compared to where we are, where yesterday, right. That really matters. And, and it's all that, you know? So that's a tricky, tricky thing.
Andrew Bartlow:Well, and, and it's not a, it's not a straight line, you know, just like the, you know, your 401k investment doesn't go, you know, straight line up into the right. You'll see some, Yeah, it sure would. Uh, you'd see you'll see some peaks and valleys. And, you know, we've we've seen high inflation. We've seen high wage growth. We've seen, uh, lessening inflation. Yeah. But, uh, interest rates remain high. Um, and that's driving companies to be more focused on the bottom line. So, capital is expensive, uh, interest rates are high, you're going to try to squeeze more productivity. And that means really limiting the wage increases if you don't have to do it. And in the market that we're in right now, you don't have to do it.
Chris Brandt:Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm, I'm personally, you know, like, I feel like, you know, real wages have been low for a long time now. So, like, any correction that. You know, distributes wealth a little bit better, I think, you know, is, is, is a good one, but, you know, that's not necessarily how the corporations see it. Um, but, you know, I, I do want to like loop back to something else we, you mentioned there too, you know, it's sort of the, you know, there's like a, quite a kind of purge in the tech sector. Um, so there's both this like purge and this, you know, really hot area and, and it's all about AI really, right? And, you know, um, I feel like a lot of companies have jumped out ahead of where the state of AI is in their layoffs, you know, they're thinking, well, well, this is what's all be done by AI and as fast as AI is going, I think we have a lot of stuff to still figure out. So I imagine some of those, you know, some of that clearing cleaning the house is going to result in some new hires again soon. I would hope.
Andrew Bartlow:Yeah, I, I think any. Organization will act in its best interests. Right. So what, what is the best interests of an organization? You know, previously the priority was top line growth. Now it's bottom line profit. Yeah. Uh, or, or if you're a early stage company, it, it's trying to reduce your burn. Um, I think AI has become a convenient cul, uh, convenient culprit. Yeah. Uh, for, uh, layoffs. Um, you know, companies got fat. Across the board, whether it was a startup or a, or a mega cap enterprise company, and, uh, they, they're making tough choices, and that affects people, and you will lean on whatever reason you can, you know, it's, it's me, not you, it's you, not me, it's AI, it's, you know, the, you know, global warming, um, you know, this, this is why we're reducing costs and, and cutting jobs, and I, I totally agree with you, Chris, that, you know, AI, The productivity improvements are tantalizing, but they're not fully realized. Yet not even close to fully realized.
Chris Brandt:Well, so like what, you know, like I, I, you know, I talked to a lot of people who are, you know, trying to hire the best talent, you know, like when you get out of the valley and tech, you know, there's not as big of a talent pool. Right. And so, you know, you have people, you know, like in the Midwest, trying to hire AI people and trying to hire security people and things like that. And it's really, you know, They're really struggling with that. So, you know, like what is the key to finding and retaining that best talent? Like, what would you rec, you know, tell people out there, you know, here's what you should do to get, get the, the good ones.
Andrew Bartlow:How do you find and retain talent in today's market? Yeah. Um, couple, couple ideas, couple of tips and for context. So I'm an HR guy by trade and I do advisory. work across a bunch of different industries and sizes, stages, blah, blah, blah. I also happen to be a B2B HR tech SaaS founder. So, so I have the same problem. Yeah, like I'm, I'm looking for talent. I have a dev shop that's in Eastern Europe, actually based in the Ukraine. Interesting. Uh, so they're, they're dodging rockets. I, I shouldn't make light of it. Like it's, it's really serious. Um, and I've been working with them for two years and everybody that, that can leave the country has, and they're so deeply appreciative for, for the work. Yeah. Um, and, and they do good work at very, very different rates than you would pay in the United States, even in a low labor cost part of the United States. So, um, there, there's a point here. Right. The point is that if you open up geography. As you are looking for talent, you open up possibilities. So if you are an office based employer, yes, you can. Yes, you can demand that talent come into your office X number of days per week or per month. But you have a massively larger labor pool that you can draw from, often with a huge opportunity for labor arbitrage. Labor arbitrage, for the non nerds out there, means you can pay less, For the same work, uh, depending if somebody is living in Poland versus living in San Francisco. Right, right. Um, I think my back end developer, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this publicly, is 30 bucks an hour. 3 0, 30 bucks an hour. You're not gonna get that in San Francisco. Of course not, yeah. Um, so I, I think that's one way. To attract and retain talent is be flexible geographically. There's some stats that I won't quote accurately, but LinkedIn publishes and indeed has also published information about what percentage of jobs list a location versus remote. That's much lower now. Now it's like 15 ish percent of jobs are listed as remote work location versus closer to 50 percent Um, but those jobs that list remote as being the location, it's something like 10 times more applicants than jobs that have remote. A location and it just makes sense, right? So if you're trying to attract and retain, why not open up location if you can? And if it's tech work, like, of course, if you're trying to run a cash register at a, at an old Navy, you need somebody physically there, like folding the clothes. But if you are looking for a product manager or a back end developer, why wouldn't you open up? Geographically. Yeah, and that's a great way to attract retain is a different story. I think retain is more about the experience that somebody has and their alternatives. So if their alternative is. A better paying job with a manager that's nicer to them or doesn't work them as hard or that you get to work with a more cool technology or you have better, you know, growth and learning prospects. Then then you start to trade off. Uh, but attraction. Uh, is about opening up the top of your funnel. And the best way to do that is, uh, offer work remotely.
Chris Brandt:A lot of people have been, you know, overworked and, you know, stressed. And I think, you know, I don't talk to anybody who says that they would work for a company that doesn't. Demands that they're in the office, you know, I mean, that is just, you know, like at least in my circles, it's like everybody's like, Oh God, I mean, I know a couple of people who like to get out of the home to go to an office, but, you know, for the most part, like the remote work piece is a community. Yeah. Um, you know, that's, that's, uh, that's a non negotiable item. I
Andrew Bartlow:think it's non negotiable. Until it is. Until it isn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's non negotiable if you're, uh, you know, uh, uh, HR, if you're a recruiter at Facebook that just got laid off and you're, you're trying to find another high paying, you know, 180, 000 a year recruiting job, um, and you have moved to, uh, Denver, Colorado, Colorado, so you could ski. Um. And how choosy can you be if you want to get a paycheck, it's different, but your, your realities will, will drive. Yeah. And I,
Chris Brandt:but I, but I mean, like in some regards, a lot of those tech workers, you know, like moved out of the valley and things like that. And they moved to, to, uh, you know, cheaper markets, you know, like in Arizona and Texas and places like places like that. So like they're. Their needs aren't as great, too, so maybe, you know, they can settle for something that's more enjoyable than the big, than just the big paycheck, too.
Andrew Bartlow:For tech workers, just the nature of the work means it's more possible to do more of it remotely. Um, you know, as, as a founder myself and as an advisor to senior executives, I understand the, the fear, the cynicism, the skepticism of if I, if I don't see somebody doing it, how do I know that they're doing it? And what you're working on, what you're working on. Yeah. Like where, how do I know that my team is working on the right stuff and that they're getting the help they need? And you don't, you don't get the casual collisions. Yeah. That you do in an office and you know, I get it. I get the poll. I would argue as a organizational effectiveness expert. You should it's a balance. You should think about both sides of that of that seesaw. And yes, you might have more confidence because you can see your team and you can, you know, interact with them more easily by walking around. But, you You'll have a smaller talent pool. You'll be paying more for those people there. You know, it's there's some trade offs involved Yeah Well, and
Chris Brandt:I know like, you know We were talking before about sort of the concept of hybrid and you know How that doesn't really get you get you much right? Well,
Andrew Bartlow:I have a spicy take on hybrid And you know, I've published that I think hybrid is the worst of both worlds As opposed to 100 percent in the office or 100 percent remote distributed. Um, one of the bigger, so two big advantages of distributed one is. Well, maybe three. You open up your, the top of your funnel, your, your labor pool becomes the world or the country or however big you want to make it. Um, that enables labor arbitrage. So you can pay less for theoretically the same talent. Um, so that that's, that's talent pool upside of being distributed. The other big distributed, um, benefit that you get is commercial office space is really frigging expensive. I did the math at one point. Yeah, it really is like San Francisco has cratered. Uh, but at one point the average. Square footage per person. Class A office space in San Francisco is about 150 square feet per person. So, you know, call it a 12 by 12 space and that takes into account common areas and kitchens and blah. 150 square foot per person. And then at the average price per square foot of Class A in San Francisco, you were paying 18, 000 per person per year. To have commercial space to house them and if somebody's making an average of 150 call it 180 grand a year, that's 10 percent of their paycheck. Like what? Why would you pay? That commercial office load, if you didn't have to, why not pay somebody instead of 180 grand plus 18 grand for their cube, you pay somebody 80, you pay somebody a third all in and they're, they're working in Atlanta or they're working from home in, uh, in the suburbs of Chicago. Or they're in Ukraine. I should not say the Ukraine, I should say Ukraine, they're in Ukraine. That's right. That's right. So that, that's, those are the advantages of being distributed. It's both, you know, talent pool, better value labor, and cost avoidance. Um, being in office, um, fully, you get the casual collisions. You get the management by walking around that was so popular in 1950s through 1990s or, or even more recent. Um, going hybrid, you lose all the advantages. Of both of both of those polls, right? So people aren't really around. And you say you need to be in two or three days a week. But what days actually line up? Like, do you ever really have a full team? Do you ever really know when somebody is going to be there? It gets really messy. You're still paying for the office space. If somebody needs to be there on a weekly basis, you can't have them work out of Poland. They're going to still need to be within commuting distance from the office. So your labor arbitrage goes away. Okay. Your talent pool size is constrained at commuting distance. So hybrid, you lose all the advantages and you have all the disadvantages. Yeah. You have the very lumpy, weird, you know, productivity issues, uh, you're paying for the space, and you have geographic constraints. Like, why be hybrid? Yeah, I don't get it. That's just, that's like the, the, the biblical story, or the Solomon story of splitting the baby. Splitting the baby.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. Yeah. Except they made the wrong choice on that one. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, and you know, it's interesting, too, you know, like, you see, there's huge backlash, too, for some companies, you know, I don't know if you caught wind of the, the whole WebMD, you know. Debacle that happened where they, you know, came in and they said, we're demanding that you come into work, you know, two days a week or whatever it was, and they just got dragged through social
Andrew Bartlow:media. Yeah, I mean, social media is a mudslinging, you know, event of its own. You know, I, I, I encourage companies to think through their big decisions. And stand by your big decisions, like if you're going to let social media mudslinging, you know, decide your workplace policies, you're, you're in trouble. Well, I think, you
Chris Brandt:know, like when you have the, it's like, it's that bad PR all of a sudden, you got it, it's crisis PR mode you're in, you know, with, with some of that, because that, that blew up pretty big. I mean, I saw it everywhere, you know, that didn't speak well to WebMD,
Andrew Bartlow:you know, I somehow missed it. You should check it out because it's a very,
Chris Brandt:it's a very cringy video that they made. You know, telling their employees, they got to come back and it just got circulated
Andrew Bartlow:everywhere. I just try to avoid the side. Every time I open it up to check a symptom, I have like all the worst
Chris Brandt:diseases. Yeah, it's like the, the Google, Googling your workplace, uh, equivalent, you know, for Googling your health. Right. Um, so, Okay. So like, how can, um, how can you help HR people be better at, at, at doing all of this?
Andrew Bartlow:Oh, what a great softball question. Thank you. Um, I, that, that's really, yeah, that's not, that's not my business. That's my passion. Like I've been an HR guy for a long time and I wrote the book and I started this program because I was frankly really disappointed In the sort of people management practices that I saw taking place in tech all around me and in the San Francisco Bay Area and I saw HR people doing their best that kind of fell into the function that were maybe recruiters that took on the broader, you know, people and people ops roles. Um, I, I, I saw, you know, the, the rise of the, uh, foosball and ping pong tables. I, you know, saw the mental health and wellness apps and all the, all the stuff. How can an HR person be better? It starts by understanding what your role is. And your role, in brief, is to help your organization meet its goals. Start there. Start by understanding what your organization is trying to accomplish. Maybe your organization is a food kitchen and you're trying to feed the, the homeless. Great. That's your goal. Maybe your organization is a for profit Enterprise and you're trying to bring in EBITDA. Maybe your organization is a cash burning startup and you're trying to increase ARR. Whatever it is, understand what your primary goals are and line up your efforts and your activities and your priorities. With that, where HR people go astray is where they become union stewards and employee advocates that set themselves up in a, in a oddly adversarial way with management and ownership of an organization, and you start advocating for the people, and that's a union steward, um, and the employees outcomes without regard For the organization's outcomes, like people should be paid more and more time off and more benefits and more, more, more, um, and, and that does not set you up to be successful and influential at an organization. We, we, we use the word seated a table, but I don't know what table you'd be sitting at. If you, if you take that. That tact. So like, understand what your role is to help your organization meet its goals. That doesn't mean treat people badly. That's probably not in alignment with your, with your goals. But it's understanding the tradeoffs. Like, where can we get talent? How much do we have to pay for it? What, how do we help people be effective in their jobs? It's, it's not about happiness. And I actually, like, I, I honestly cringed a little bit. At the introduction where where you mentioned something about, um, happiness and I will stand on my soapbox and loudly proclaim that effective management is not about happiness. It's about helping an organization meet its goals. Again, I am in no way suggesting that you be, you know, a terrible overlord, uh, authoritative organization that takes advantage of its people. Well, um, like a good employer will be more likely to meet its goals, but understand how it fits together rather than going, you know,
Chris Brandt:Would you say, I mean, like that, that almost sounds like there should be, uh, you know, cause you mentioned there's an adversarial role between the company and the HR people a lot of times, but does that then mean there should be an adversarial role between the, the HR and the, the employees then? Or, you know, like how, how does, how does that work? I mean, is that just like, you have to just be constantly, I mean, maybe the alternative to that is just constantly, you know, Setting appropriate expectations and being very communicative.
Andrew Bartlow:Yeah, yeah, that's, that's well said. Like, set expectations. Make sure people understand what they're here for. And what you're here for. And you can't expect, uh, the CEO or the frontline employee and customer service to know what your job is. So we have to understand our job first. And our job is to help the organization meet its goals. And so, you know, often we'll fall into the role of compliance cop or recruiter, that's legitimate, or, um, program administrator, party planner, uh, event and culture steward, which is mostly like activities. At our highest and best, where we're doing really good work, and this is where I have this intensive MBA like program, we are an internal management consultant function. We can coach and advise managers and leaders. We can help design and determine appropriate policies and practices that will help the organization meet its goals. Um, yes, you need to check I 9s and yes, you need to, you know, process the benefits and the new hire paperwork. That's the stuff that can and should kind of happen under the waterline in the background. If we're being really effective, we're helping organizations to think through, how can you operate in a way that's in your best interests? internal management consulting.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't see many HR people, you know, like running with that, that sort of HR, you know, consultant sort of perspective. So I think that's, I think that's a really interesting, that's a really interesting point. Um, so like, you know, what's, what's that, what's next for you? I mean, you got, You've got a lot of irons in the fire. You're writing books, you're starting SaaS companies, you're helping consultants, and you know.
Andrew Bartlow:Yeah, I mean, I, I am so fortunate that I, I had a good exit, uh, with Invitation Homes, and you know, thank, thank you to them, and thank you to the, you know, original founder of what was Waypoint once upon a time that gave me my shot. function. Um, and I, I am balancing my various audiences, just like I try to teach HR people to understand who their stakeholders are and what they care about and find an appropriate balance between employees and investors and executives. I'm trying to find my balance between my independent clients, my, you know, PE, Responsibilities, my venture advisory work, this sass product I'm working on, but really my passion project is people leader accelerator. I think you can see how energized to get about this. Like I've I've honestly been embarrassed telling people outside the function that I'm in HR for much of my career. And and so the book and this educational program has has been an effort to try to enable. more HR people to level up. Yeah. To elevate. Help us to understand how we can contribute better. And that'll, that'll make the overall function that much, that much stronger.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. Well, so, so like if I assume the book's available, not only in Barnes and Noble, but on Amazon as well too, and all the, all the other places.
Andrew Bartlow:Yeah, my publisher, you know, thank you. Columbia University Business School. Uh, you can get it on their website. You can get it on Amazon. It comes in a Kindle version. There's an audiobook with a guy with a very intelligent sounding uh, accent. Wasn't me. Um, yeah, you can get it at all the places that you would, uh, get a book.
Chris Brandt:That's awesome. And then, and so if, if people wanted to get into the people, people leader accelerator and they wanted to, you know, contact you about coaching and things like that, where should they reach out?
Andrew Bartlow:Yeah, I, I am, uh, very active on LinkedIn, uh, follow me, connect with me. There are links to get into all the various things that I'm doing there. Um, people leader accelerator is a mouthful. It is also a very long website. That starts with a www and ends with a dot com. Um, and, and you can, uh, you know, learn more about the program there. And I have a bunch of free guides and resources for people that want to learn more about. Management practices there. Well, yeah.
Chris Brandt:So, I mean, if you're in HR and you want to up your game, go check that out. And if you're, uh, you know, an executive of the company and you, you feel like your HR is not living up to expectations, get some consulting and send your, uh, send your HR leaders to the, uh, to, to the program to learn up.
Andrew Bartlow:That's right. Let's, let's do it. Yeah, yeah, no, sounds great.
Chris Brandt:Well, Andrew, like really appreciate you coming on. You definitely gave me some interesting perspectives, you know, because like, you know, it's such a confusing space. So it's really great to hear your perspective on it and your take on it. And I appreciate you bringing that over and thanks so much for being on.
Andrew Bartlow:Yeah, well, thanks again for having me. Really, really appreciate the opportunity to speak with your audience and would love to be helpful. Uh, that, that's what
Chris Brandt:I think you've already been helpful. So, you know, that you check that one off your list of busy things you've got going on. So thanks so much.
Andrew Bartlow:Thanks, Chris.
Chris Brandt:Thanks for watching. I'd love to hear from you in the comments. And if you could give us a like, think about subscribing and maybe sharing it with some friends and I will see you in the next one.