AI Hit HR Like a Tsunami: What HR Leaders Do Next

0:08Okay, welcome everyone to this episode of the Talent Fix. I'm delighted to be joined by Marisa Lynskey. Marisa is the CHRO, it's CETO in Atlanta. So welcome Marisa, thanks so much for joining us. We've got a great episode today. We've got lots and lots to dive into. But before we kick off, Can you give us a quick intro, quick, short, quick bio of your own background?

0:30Marisa Lynskey: Absolutely. I appreciate it, Barry. Thank you for inviting me on this as well. So my background has been HR for over 25 plus years. And mostly my background is with consulting. I do have government consulting. I've got media and entertainment consulting. I do have private equity as well, which thrusts me into more of the fintech world and the franchise world. And so some of the larger companies I've been with are Pinnacle Data Systems as a government consulting agency and firm. And then Quest, which is a media and entertainment consulting firm as well. And then I was with Rourke as a private equity firm as a head of executive talent.

1:17Marisa Lynskey: and currently I'm with CETO, which is a fintech management consulting company. We're also building our software as well internally, and we help banks and credit unions optimize their performances. Fantastic. Okay. And it's a family-owned business as well, which is a great story. It is. It's a lot of fun. Great, great, great. So let's just dive into it, because obviously we're going to talk about kind of the impact of AI on HR, therefore recruitment. but you know you've you've talked a bit lately about HR being at an inflection point and if you could talk to us a bit about what that what you mean by that when it comes to kind of the day-to-day shifts in strategy when it comes to kind of the CHRO becoming the sort of the the CEO's left hand and obviously then the impact that that AI is having on HR right now.

2:13Marisa Lynskey: Absolutely. So I think a lot of us, especially that have been in the CHR role, have seen a shift, I would say, within the last five years at least, especially within the last two years. And HR has always been known as kind of the back end, the one that sits at the end of the table, taking notes, hiring and firing. That's what everyone seems to think. and more of the administrative duties. And one, that's not what HR does, but we've actually become even more of a, I guess, front end of the house, expertise-driven individuals with human capital, that transformation background now. Because we've actually had to take on the operational duties.

3:07HR has become, like I was telling you earlier,

3:10Marisa Lynskey: the left hand of the CEO, the right hand is the finance and operations. The left hand is now the human capital end. And so it's not just the administrative functions anymore. That's still there and that's very important, but it's making sure that the employees are taken care of and making sure that you've got the right people, the right roles, doing the right things. And And so transformation, the HR operations behind how a company actually grows is becoming much more suited to companies that are actually trying to scale now, which seems like they're all over the place. There's a lot of M &A that's going on right now.

3:50Marisa Lynskey: and HR and when I say HR I mean more human capital now than anything because that involves the administrative side from an HR standpoint and also the transformation side that's happening now and there's just a lot of moving parts and we are having to stand our toes constant research and making sure that everyone is on the same page so we can scale quickly okay no that makes sense And so let's talk about scaling and hiring now, because, you know, I think you had a great expression there, a kind of AI hit like a tsunami. And, you know, really, I completely agree. And everyone's trying to get to grips with how to implement it, how to deploy it.

4:34There's lots, there's tons of really good ideas out there. And obviously, there's a lot of mistakes that people are making as well as to be expected. But, you know, from a hiring perspective, I mean, what we're seeing is companies probably do more with less people or do the same with less people. You know, we are seeing now tasks being replaced by AI and we're seeing the knock on effect on headcount as a result of that. But I do think it means that probably every hire is now even more critical than it was before. It matters. Every hire now matters more. So what does that mean for you now as you're hiring, you know, principal consultant in Atlanta and, you know, a number of key roles?

5:16I mean, what does that mean for you and how does that impact maybe how you hire?

5:21Marisa Lynskey: So, yeah, I completely agree. AI did hit like a tsunami. It slowly came in at first and now it's all over the place. I know a lot of people are extremely nervous about AI. I'm myself. I am too. People are scared of change, but I'm actually very excited about it. Using AI, especially like you're suggesting with within the recruiting arena, trying to scale a business with the right people is is key. I look at AI as a tool. It's it's it could replace some types of roles, but I look at it as more of a streamlined process. You're you're always going to need that human touch. That's how I feel. And so I don't want people to be scared of something.

6:09Marisa Lynskey: It's another tool to make your job better. And so it is up to us to learn how to use AI better, if you will. And so some of the things that we've noticed within recruiting is we are wanting individuals that have the background, for example, of a principal in management consulting. And in Atlanta, that should not be too hard to find. Management consulting is huge in Atlanta. We've got some amazing management consulting individuals. But we're looking for people right now that have that AI capability, the excitement for it, because a lot of our clients who are also banks and credit unions are looking at us to not necessarily come in and give them the same ideas.

7:00Marisa Lynskey: It's to teach them the new way of doing things and streamlining processes, not with just our solutions, but bringing ideas to the table. And so, believe it or not, we are having some difficulty finding individuals that are extremely, I guess, gung-ho, if you will, on learning AI from an expertise standpoint, but also doing their original job for hire, if you will. and not saying it's not out there. We are going to find these individuals. It's becoming more and more prevalent, especially within our industry. But it's exciting. And to be honest with you, internally, we're building systems through AI right now.

7:49Marisa Lynskey: And so we want individuals that are excited about that, that want to learn it. But we're not just hiring to fill management consulting seats anymore. We're hiring those individuals that want our A players, but also want to incorporate AI within their capabilities to work with the banks and credit unions. Because there's so many, so many different platforms out there and so many different possibilities to make their job better at what they do. Absolutely. So you're looking for people who are excited by the prospect of learning AI, even if they mightn't be experts yet, but they want to learn. and they have the ability to learn as well and are adaptable enough to be able to maybe change their job roles because obviously, you know, yeah, 100%, it's having a massive disruptive effect on, you know, so many job roles and job descriptions.

8:44So you do need people who are adaptable and can succeed and can thrive in that kind of, you know, environment that's so full of change.

8:54Marisa Lynskey: Yes, absolutely. You hit the nail on the head. And we want people like that. We want people to be able to to delve into, you know, the areas that are changing and, you know, look at AI, especially any type of AI right now that creates more possibility for them and gives them the opportunity to be better at what they do. Yeah, sure. And I think, you know, we were chatting offline and yeah, it's interesting. You know, you mentioned, I think you got like 10 applicants or something from LinkedIn from your ads, which is just crazy, right? Like, how are you going about that search? I mean, what's working?

9:39Yeah.

9:40Marisa Lynskey: So at first I thought it was was back on HR saying, you know, we didn't write the job description the right way. And that trust me, that can happen on a, you know, an easy basis. We make mistakes all the time, but we did go back and look at everything. And it actually says exactly what we're looking for. But then I realized it's not just LinkedIn. It's not just, you know, looking at the same group of individuals or the same bench, if you will, of individuals. And so we actually I've been reaching out to our our third party provider, which I'm not going to name on here. But it's a it's a, you know, a pretty robust HRIS or an HCM, if you will.

10:27Marisa Lynskey: And we have our ATS through them, our applicant tracking system through them. And I wanted to understand everything that they can do from an AI standpoint. Is there an AI bot that we can use? Is there an add-on that we can use that will give us the ability to select individuals, not just through LinkedIn, but other areas that we might not even be aware of? And it's not just about hiring a recruiter. It's about understanding what we can do with the technology that we currently have at our hands to find the best individuals out there. And shockingly enough, I was actually surprised by kind of how little the current HRIS has in way of artificial intelligence for recruiting at this time.

11:21Marisa Lynskey: Now, not saying they're not working on it because everyone's working on it right now, but I was actually surprised how far behind they are. And it seems like everyone's scrambling right now to figure out the best way to do things with H.I. Or H.I. H.R. and A.I., sorry. Human intelligence. It's becoming the same thing at this point. Yeah, I know. Yeah. We're just having to figure out different ways. Yeah. Yeah, and it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think the legacy HR systems who are trying to wrap AI around them are probably struggling a little bit versus the newer AI native systems, I think.

12:00And I think it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. But certainly that's our experience anyway. But I think when we spoke before, if you had a magic wand, you'd love to design your own kind of AI-enabled HRIS. Can you give us an insight into what you love, what features you love to see, what would the dream system look like?

12:27Marisa Lynskey: There's so many things. I think I've got a notebook that I carry around. And I think I told you when we were offline, I wake up at 3 o 'clock in the morning. Just like any other CHRO, they wake up and it's in the middle of the night and they think of an idea and you have to write it down. So I have that notebook I take with me everywhere. My CEO is actually a little nervous of that notebook because there's so many ideas. Exactly. But for me, you hit the nail on the head. Everyone's trying to catch up. And the older HRAS systems, they're great. But they're playing catch up as well. So the new AI systems, I think, that have kind of started in the last few years are actually further ahead, it seems to me.

13:12Marisa Lynskey: One of the things that if, you know, and this has been discussed, you know, maybe down the road we will be, you know, creating our own CEDO kind of HR talent system, if you will. You know, that's always, you know, for an idea. But for me, companies are always looking for that one source of truth for information. A lot of companies have systems everywhere. My idea for something like this would be that one source of truth. Having the ability to move from, you know, from literally the applicant, there's an ATS, you know, into an, you know, employee flex system, if you will, that employee system, which they all do now, but there's so many little nuances.

14:01Marisa Lynskey: It should be streamlined and easy. If we can build an AI bot, and we can name it anything. Heck, I'm going to name it Cedar right now because Cedar is the company. Exactly. And we can have that AI bot to literally pick up on everything that that person has put within their resume, that has put in the applicant tracking system from the very start through the entire system. And when I say the entire system, that is the, you know, the flex systems, that is the benefit systems to understand kind of what they need. Are they a family member? Are they a single working employee, you know, looking at their age?

14:45Marisa Lynskey: What type of 401k would be best for them? You know, just giving us ideas, little simple ideas that in reality we do now. We look at everything. We hire brokers. We negotiate everything. That would be something very simple to build out. But it's not just that. It's making sure that the industry you're in has what they need. My background in private equity and being with portfolio companies, things of that sort, there's so many moving parts. Sure. And they all need to connect. We still don't have that one source of truth system. And to me, I think that is extremely valuable and something that I think could become very useful within the next few years.

15:36Marisa Lynskey: So I don't want to get into every single thing. No, no, I love that. And if I could ask you, because we're actually surprisingly up on our time already, but that was fast, I know. So but if I could ask you just to finish bearing in mind, we're obviously talent and recruitment focused. Like, what would you like to see from maybe a recruitment perspective or what do you think is missing or, you know, what's what's your what's your unmet need there? Yeah. So I think it all goes back to, you know, as companies try to scale or at least find the right people in the right roles doing the right things.

16:13I always look at people, process, tools, the urgency. You want to find the right people, but we also want the sense of urgency.

16:23Marisa Lynskey: So it's kind of a double-edged sword right now. What I would like to see happen is recruiting firms and headhunters using AI to quicken the pace to find the right people. Right now, headhunting is one of the hardest jobs. I've been in recruiting. It's part of HR. It's one of the hardest jobs, so do not get me wrong. But I would like to see them using AI a little bit more even to, because right now you have to level set. You have to find a few individuals here and there to make sure that you're looking for the right person. You interview a few people to make sure that what we're providing to the recruiter is being heard and it's a fit right there.

17:07Marisa Lynskey: What I would like to see is the AI portion up front, getting all the information, having it all together so we can bypass the kind of the balance of trying to find the right type of people. The AI individual or the AI bot, the AI chat, the app, however you see it. Yeah, the agent would be the one doing that up front to help the urgency to find the right people immediately. So speed, basically. yeah it's the key thing and uh yeah and it's so funny because we mirror that advice on the on the client side when we talk to clients you know we tell them the number one the really the number one um issue to tackle is speed you know because you know you're especially in tech and fintech you know they're dealing with candidates when you make an offer those candidates have another offer so you really need to move quickly um to close the best talent i think that's that that's really good advice.

18:05And then obviously from the agency side, you know, tools to uncover that talent as quickly as possible will be super useful, you know. So I think that's a really great way to finish. Great point to close on, Marissa. And thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day and look forward to hopefully catching up during Atlanta FinTech Week. Absolutely. Yeah, look, thanks so much today. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening. And please like and follow the podcast where you get your podcasts.