Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Join James and Coby from Roman 3 as they diagnose issues and prescribe solutions to today's most important workplace challenges.
Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
What Other Trends Should I Pay Attention To In 2026?
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This episode touches on the theme of Strengthen Culture.
In this episode, we dig into some buzzwords (that will make James mad), like Resenteeism, Revenge RTO, and Conscious Unbossing, all in an effort to let James rant about how lame they are. We also explore trends and terms that are starting to shine a spotlight on hidden issues impacting our workplaces, like:
- FOBO (Fear of Becoming Obsolete): A specific, sharp spike in workplace anxiety regarding AI capabilities.
- AI as First Mate: Organizations are relying more and more on generative AI tools and autonomous agentic AI as members of their team.
- The Manager Experience: Supporting middle managers is becoming a higher operational priority, as they bear the burden of translating strategy into daily hybrid and remote realities.
- Skills-Based Talent Pools: Companies are shifting toward skills-based architecture, allowing for better internal mobility and training rather than rigid, degree-focused job descriptions.
Our prescription for this episode is to avoid renaming existing trends for clicks and likes. Also, to be realistic when it comes to the realities of AI and the vital role that managers play in our workplaces.
Past Episode Referenced:
S4 E10: What Trends Should I Pay Attention To In 2026?
S4 E23: Why Don’t Employees Go Above And Beyond Anymore?
To talk more about manager training, reach out to us at info@roman3.ca or through our LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/roman3
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About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention.
Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity.
Send us a Message! (But we can’t respond, so feel free to email us at info@roman3.ca)
For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.
Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
[COBY]:Did we lose a patient?
[JAMES]:No, that's just my lunch.
[COBY]:Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby. He's James. And let's get started with a, question. What other trends should I pay attention to in 2026? Uh-huh.
[JAMES]:Okay, so I don't have a starting answer to this because apparently not only does Coby enjoy rage baiting me with random buzzwords and trends, but you, our dear listeners, enjoy rage baiting me as well. apparently the last episode we did on this was fairly popular, so here we go again. Good, for my cholesterol, great. For my, blood pressure. let's see how angry you can make me this time.
[COBY]:Yeah. So, in our first episode of 2026, we did an episode about what trends should I pay attention to in 2026? And the idea was I was just gonna bring up some popular buzzwords through the LinkedIn and blogosphere Verse and share them with James and get James's reaction to them, because they really tick him off. They really do. The trends. Not so much as the buzzwords. The trends. He can.
[JAMES]:I just. I'm so sick of that garbage. Like, not everything. Not everything needs a. A, flashy title. Not everything needs to be a reconstructed version of the same thing that we've seen for the last 20 bloody years. Like, yeah, so. So save the rage.
[COBY]:What was funny was the response we got to the episode, because it was. I wouldn't say it was our most popular episode, but it was the one that we got the most comments about from our listeners because they. People tend to enjoy our dynamic, and they really enjoy when James gets mad. so. So it was something that they said that it was. It was your favorite episode, for
[JAMES]:many people, which is so weird that you enjoy when I get mad. So thank you for that. That's. That's reassuring.
[COBY]:So we thought, hey, let's, you know, let's, we're halfway through the year. So we did. So the one that we did was kind of preparation for the first half of 2026. Now we're. Now we're kind of into the second half of 2026. So let's look at some other trends, which will also be informative. But also, why not take James off again? so what we're going to do is James has not seen these, buzzwords or trends. I'll introduce them to him. We'll get his initial Reaction. we'll talk about the validity of some of them. And yeah, let's just see how this goes. Okay, so, the first one. The first one, and again, if you need to repeat them, let me know. is resenteeism. And that's when employees who stay in their jobs but are openly resentful or disengaged, posing a late or becoming a major turnover risk.
[JAMES]:What's the point of this term? Like, really, resenteeism. M. Presenteeism. quiet quitting. They're all the same stupid term for this. For similar natural. Like, okay, you have a problem with. What is it? Resenteeism.
[COBY]:Its resenteeism.
[JAMES]:Resenteeism. You know what the cure for that is? Just stop treating people like garbage. How about we start there? How about we stop creating a new name for everything and just treat people like a human being and then maybe we can actually get away from these. You know what this is? And okay, sorry. This is purely manufactured rage. And unfortunately it's, because this. The whole point of this, of these types of terms is not to actually accurately describe a phenomenon that we see in the workplace. It has absolutely nothing to do with trying to actually diagnose what's happening and create a solution that will provide some. Some sort of balanced and fair and objective and positive influence in the workplace. This is purely about trying to sound like you actually know what you're talking about when you don't know you're okay. Right. Professionalism when you are trying to manuf. Get clicks. Right. This is the same as, the frustration that I have with, news agencies and the way in which, headlines are generated. for it's. It's purely a. Can I create a term that sounds realistic enough that can get people up in arms enough that they will read the garbage that I spew on my blog because I need to feel like I actually do something because I have nothing to actually contribute to the world.
[COBY]:Yep. Tell us how you really feel, James. but no, but, like, you're right, because here's the thing, is that like, presenteeism is an actual thing. Like we talked about it in some of our training. Because it's the idea of people being burned out, people being stressed, people being disengaged, and they still show up for work.
[JAMES]:Anyway, I'm not saying that there isn't, that this does not. That there are not people in the workplace who are resentful and still in their jobs. Right.
[COBY]:But. But this, this is just it though is that you're right. Do we need this term? Because presenteeism like legitimately is a thing. It was an accurate term to describe an accurate situation that was being that it was a hidden risk. So absenteeism is obviously easy to account for. Presenteeism, was this a lot of the same effect, only the person still shows up and is not able.
[JAMES]:This is a cheap knockoff. This is, this is the TEMU version of presenteeism.
[COBY]:Fair enough. But yes, whether I don't like this is not a term that needed to exist. You're right because it's just. They're angrier at the presenteeism. But presenteeism really covers all of this. This is not, this is not necessarily not needed.
[JAMES]:But I can't get people to actually click on the articles that I write because I don't actually provide anything of you. So I'm just going to create a new word.
[COBY]:Fair enough. Okay, so strong start. Let's move on to the next one. this one is the hybrid creep or revenge rto. So this is when executives are incrementally bumping mandated in office requirements from two days to three days or three to four days, aiming to quietly push a workforce habits back to fully in person baselines, gradual slowly putting people back into the office.
[JAMES]:Yeah. Okay. I mean this is a little more realistic than the last one. I still think we don't need a term for this. This is, this is just manipulation and tactics. Right. It's the idea of slowly acclimatizing people to change and then pushing it a little further. And then pushing it a little further. I mean if the, the problem is not really with the term, it's the problem is with the tactics. it's that the tactics exist in the first place. And I mean we've, this is the return to office mandates are driven by such poorly thought out operational decisions and it's often driven by leaders or managers who are unconfident in their ability to, you know, make to, to surveil if we're being honest.
[COBY]:You know.
[JAMES]:so I, I. Here's the problem. I don't actually have a, I don't hate this term because it describes a tactic and it describes a tactic that businesses engage in. I think it's unnecessary to describe because what we are, I mean, do we, I don't know.
[COBY]:I'm gonna disagree with you on that. It's unnecessary because I don't like the revenge. So there's hybrid creep or revenge rto.
[JAMES]:I don't like hybrid creep. May is, is a better term.
[COBY]:I like revenge RTO well because, because the thing is that I think, I think it's actually a valid trend that we do need to, we do need to name because again, we see this in our work as consultants. We see things like scope creep. Right?
[JAMES]:Yep.
[COBY]:And that is an accurate term to describe when we end up taking on, more stuff than we expected and it kind of, we take on the shoulder pieces and the workload gets bigger and we're not accounting for it. So having a term to name when something is happening is valuable because this is, this is a thing that is actually going on. Whether it's intentional or not intentional is up for debate. But when you're kind of creeping from hybrid to back to fully to like back to fully, return to office. I think that, that, I think labeling that as a thing is something that is valuable because I don't think this will last forever because I think that if this continues to happen, we're not going to have, it's going to be the death of the hybrid, work. I think that is a problem. So I think identifying it by comparing it to something similar like scope creep or mission creep or those kind of
[JAMES]:things like that, and being able to label something allows you to identify it more easily. So I, I, I, I see where you're coming at, coming from with that. yeah, this one, I, I, I'm irritated more by the fact that the tactics exist than I am irritated by the fact that the language exists. Okay.
[COBY]:As long as you're irritated, that's what matters.
[JAMES]:Thanks. Thanks.
[COBY]:All right, so let's move on to the next one. This one, this one should be interesting. Conscious unboxing. This is a, Gen Z trend where younger professionals actively decline promotions into formal management positions so they can prioritize mental health personal boundaries over climbing the corporate ladder.
[JAMES]:Conscious, unbossing.
[COBY]:Yeah,
[JAMES]:unbossing is not a word. How do you unboss something and it's not unbossing because they weren't a boss in the first place. It's not like they are taking a demotion right now. Idiocy of the term aside, there's nothing wrong with people prioritizing their mental health. There's nothing wrong with people knowing what they want out of work and putting up clear boundaries. And there seems to, it seems to me like Gen Z is better at this than the rest of us in actually creating boundaries between what they want out of work and what they want out of Life, will that pay off in the long term? Who knows? and it also depends on how you define payoff and a return on in these activities. Yeah, but the term is stupid. I mean it's garbage. it doesn't make any sense. It is intentionally designed to create exactly what it's doing, get people like me irritated and talking about it. And I don't want to give any more of my own mental capacity or air to this term than it deserves. And it does not deserve any at all.
[COBY]:But I, I do think, I do think you're right though. I think that there is, there, this is a, this is a term that doesn't need to exist because I mean Gen Z, not looking to climb the corporate ladder. That is a generational preference piece that doesn't necessarily need to have its own
[JAMES]:well and that also it's also a reflection of a larger societal problem in that the way that we have like Gen Z, as much or more than other generations have seen the erosion or the complete destruction of what can happen when you like there is no loyalty, there is no you know, if you climb the corporate ladder, be the good soldier, show up, take the promotion, then you will have, you'll be able to retire, after 40 years with a golden watch that does not exist. And they've seen the erosion of that. They've seen the broken trust and the broken promise of that. And they're saying why, why would I put myself through that? Why would I jump through these hoops? Why would I do that to myself when work is a means to an end? Give me a paycheck, let me do my job and I will find fulfillment in my own life outside of work.
[COBY]:Yeah, we talked bad, no, we talked about this in a previous episode. We talked about the psychological contract. Right. And the idea that they're, they're, that the, the idea that there's this unspoken kind of unwritten down agreement between employees and employers about kind of what is a fair trade off. And a lot of it is supposed to be the stuff around loyalty. and then there's the kind of, there's the, the social contract of the workforce we talked about in the same episode, which is kind of what you're largely talking about, which is this idea that you know, if you come in, put your head down, do your work, you're supposed to be able to kind of live in, in, in a comfort retirement.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:you know, after 30 some years. Right. That these don't exist anymore and Gen Z picked up on it. And so, so they're not willing because again, like we've talked about this in some of the organizations that we've worked in, some people are like, you know, are programmed to want to, they want the next promotion and everything else that they do. But then they're starting to realize, well, I lose my overtime because managers don't get overtime. I, you know what I mean? Like, you know, there's this idea like my work life balance becomes less. I can't leave things at the office.
[JAMES]:I have more responsibility, less freedom. I have as much work or more on my plate, but I'm now responsible for all of these other aspects. I mean, if that's what you like, you're right. Some people are wired to want that and some people are, have the, are motivated by different things. Right. Motivated by the desire to achieve and grow and push their professional, boundaries. That's not. Just because somebody doesn't have that motivation doesn't mean that they're wrong. Motivation is individual. And what we needed to get better at as leaders and as organizations is tapping into people's intrinsic motivations, finding out what actually motivates them and how do we tap into that to create a positive and a productive environment for those who want, who are looking for that achievement, or the acquisition of power, resources, whatever. Those motivations are just as valid and valuable as those who are motivated by the want to provide a stable, environment for themselves and their families. Right. Like it's, it's when we don't tap into the individual motivations that people start looking for to get their motivations filled elsewhere. Right. It's our responsibility as leaders and organizations to know our people, to work with our people and to motivate them in a way that makes sense for them, not judge them based on what, how they are motivated or what they are motivated to do.
[COBY]:Right. Because it doesn't fit the mold that's existed with previous generations. Yeah.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:Okay, so the next one. I don't think you'll mind this one.
[JAMES]:Okay.
[COBY]:Okay. It's.
[JAMES]:That remains to be seen.
[COBY]:Yeah. I could be wrong. So it's FOBO fear of becoming obsolete. A specific, sharp spike in workforce anxiety regarding, AI capabilities in the fear that autonomous systems will make employees, years of specialization, technical skills redundant overnight.
[JAMES]:Okay. Yeah, we are, we are describing a legitimate concern in the workplace. I may not like the FOBO term. Fear of becoming obsolete is an accurate description and that's how I would probably frame it. Although. Yes. If you shorten it, the acronym becomes fobo. And that's dumb. but it's, but it's actually like it's describing something legitimate. Yeah, it is labeling. Again, when we are able to put a label on something, and I'm not saying that labels are always good because they can be used very negatively as well. But when we are able to put a label on to something, it allows us to talk about it in a more concrete manner. It allows us to identify something and it allows us to then talk about it in very specific terms. So I don't have an issue with the language of fear of becoming obsolete. Because this is a real trend and it is legitimate. The, the concerns around AI, are legitimate concerns. And part of the problem is how we talk about a, how AI is talked about by the people who are leading the AI charge. Right. If you look at the, the promotional material or the way that you know, the, the tech bros talk about AI is I'm going to replace every job with AI. Well no you're not. You're an idiot. right. But, but they present this fear and this fear is what is being driven. And there is legitimate concern because there are a number of jobs that will be primed for offloading to AI. Yeah, it's going to be it and it is going to be widespread and it is going to be incredibly disruptive. But I also present some significant opportunities and I know this is a becoming, not a popular mentality to actually promote, but the way in which if we can get away from the idea that AI replaces humans and move more towards the idea of AI enhances what humans do. Yeah, that's a more health, that's a healthier conversation around, hey, how AI can be used in the workplace because there are some incredibly powerful tools out there and yes, they can help you create efficiencies, yes, they can help you streamline your workflows. But if you are using this as an replacement for people, you are not going to be successful. This is my personal view that though the companies that go hard on AI replacement are the same dumb companies who will lay people, lay 10,000 employees off in order to get a.02% return on to their shareholders this quarter, even though they are shooting themselves in the foot for the future. Right. It is a short term mentality that is going to bite you in the rear end. as we move m. As we progress. AI has tremendous potential to be an augmentation to how we work and it it is an. I use it extensively in our work and I use it, not even to its full potential.
[COBY]:Yeah, no, but you're right. Like we, we do, we go into organizations. One of the things we often do is we help women with AI adoption because the goal is we try, we say it's part of it is to, we try and supercharge their teams by giving bot. And it's again, it's an augmentation, it's an enhancement. But there is a real fear when it comes to highly technical skills becoming redundant. Because I mean, if you're studying years of specialized training in like, in like niche areas and then you know, a well crafted prompt to an LLM can get you partial the way there it does devalue, I think the years of expertise that you may have, have, have like harnessed. But if you can't figure out a way to allow, to augment the work that you're, that you're doing, you can, it can be seen as something that, you know, it's making you, you're, you come become redundant overnight. I can definitely see that fear, being in place. And again, there are going to be some, some jobs that may become less likely to hire multiple people for a job when one or two can do because AI can pick up some of the slack. I mean there is going to be a natural piece of it.
[JAMES]:Right.
[COBY]:But I do think that this fear of becoming obsolete is something that it's legitimate.
[JAMES]:I think it is a legitimate concern and I think it is something that we need to take seriously as managers and leaders. It's something that we need to be cognizant of because whether or not it was on our radar, it's on our employees radar.
[COBY]:Yeah. Okay, so the next one we'll talk about is task masking or productivity. I think we might have talked about productivity in the last episode, but this new one is task masking, which is the modern evolution of productivity theater. And it's driven by the tracking software and restrictive, return to office surveillance, employees spending lots of energy looking busy like scheduling empty meetings or typing loudly rather than delivering actual business outcomes.
[JAMES]:Do we, yeah.
[COBY]:Do we need a new term for productivity theater?
[JAMES]:It's a new term for productivity theater, which is a revised term for performative, solution. Like it's, it's, it's all part of the same thing. It's this same mentality that if I create a new term to describe the same old thing, then I can pretend that I'm smart.
[COBY]:to me it's like this is the HBO Max of HBO Go of max of like, it's just.
[JAMES]:Yeah, it's, it's, it's unnecessary.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:now the term is unnecessary.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:The, what the term describes is real. This surveillance management is a major problem. It is something that really erodes so many positive factors of work and relationships. It erodes trust and it reinforces performative solutions. Because what you're doing by creating so any system can be hacked, any system, you are putting a system in place that rewards very specific behaviors.
[COBY]:Right.
[JAMES]:People are smart and people will treat this like a game. Can I create a game out of this surveillance technology? Right. If you're if you track the facial movements, or if, if your surveillance technology is key logging software, people can write a script that can mimic the behavior of people actually typing. Right. There are ways to hack and, or ways to get around any system. Every system has its vulnerabilities. And if you create these types of performance, formative or fake, stand in, solutions that don't actually address the root cause, which is we need to, if people are working remotely, we need to be able to trust that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. We need clear expectations so that they understand what their roles and responsibilities are. And we need to, most importantly, we need to change our metrics of success. Because success in remote work cannot only be am m I sitting at my desk for eight hours a day? It needs to. We need to move from a, time based measurement structure, which is what we use when we are in close proximity, when we force everybody into the office. I can physically tell that you, Coby, are in your little bland cubicle for seven and a half hours every day and you get a half an hour for lunch and 15 minutes for a break. And if you're not back in your office in your little bland cubicle that sucks the life out of you, then you're doing something wrong. And I can see that. And that's never been a good management tactic. It's been an easy management tactic. And what people are trying to do is replicate proximity because they're lazy and they don't know how to do it better. And the better way to do it is to actually create an environment where people create clear expectations, have specific and measurable, outcomes that are related to the tasks that somebody actually has to perform. And having a structure in place that tells them, here's how we measure success, here's what I expect of you, and here are the Things that you're not allowed to do get your work done.
[COBY]:First of all, why are you ragging on my bland cubicle? But. No, but you're, you're right. Any system can find workaround. And if you're. And the thing is that if you're creating a system that people are trying to game, they're trying to find the workarounds you're giving them. You're, you're, you're, you're incentivizing them to work on that and on their job that you want deliverables and outcomes like outputs. Outcomes and outputs.
[JAMES]:It comes down to the measurements of success. What we measure is what people are going to do.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:So if you are measuring some. How long somebody is sitting in their seat, they're going to find a way to make you think that they're sitting in their seat longer than they are. Right. Why wouldn't they? Because the only thing you care about is whether or not they're sitting in their seat. So if I can figure out a solution to that, that has you thinking that I'm sitting in my seat while I am, oh, for a walk or making coffee or having a nap. Why would I not do that? Because the only thing you've told me you care about is the, physical presence. You don't care about the quality of my work or the outcome of my work. You care about whether or not I am staring at my screen for an extended period of time. Right?
[COBY]:Absolutely. Okay, so those are the buzzwords I want us to kick into. There are a couple trends that I actually wanted to talk about. The terms are benign, but I think that they actually cover some interesting things that we can, we can spend the next, like, little bit.
[JAMES]:Oh, you're done rage baiting me.
[COBY]:Yeah, for now. I'm, I'm hoping some of these might make you mad too, but we'll, we'll see if, if you only tuned in.
[JAMES]:Don't worry. Every, if you haven't picked up on it yet, there's an awful lot of stuff that makes me mad.
[COBY]:Absolutely. But if you, if you tuned in just to hear James get angry, you may be disappointed for the rest of this episode. We understand if you want to leave now. but, Yeah, so, so, let's dig into the first one. This again. These aren't necessarily names of the trends, but they're, they're just kind of descriptions of the trends themselves. So the first one is AI as the first mate. This is really about organizations, kind of like, you know, embedding existing use of AI, and the AI tools, but also looking into more autonomous agenc AI and kind of the idea of like having AI almost need to be as closely collaborated with and monitored by HR and it as, as like employees. So it is kind of an interesting piece about kind of like the role of AI becoming in it become, it becomes everyone's like first mate.
[JAMES]:Yeah, I mean, I probably wouldn't use that term. it's not, you're right, it's a benign term. But it does go to what I was talking about around AI earlier in that like I, I really like the way that we started talking about AI what a year and a half ago, A year ago? I don't know. I, I, and I've, I've really kept that mentality front and center as I start to explore more about how we in our business and how we can support our clients to use AI in a different manner. And I really like the intern, mentality. in many ways AI is still in that situation. Now. It may be a very, very capable intern, but it still requires human verification. AI can make mistakes. It regularly does. the quality of your, the work that you produce is really tied to the quality of your instruction. the way that you use it, the way that you prompt AI systems, the way that it's structured. and it's funny, I don't know. there's an activity that's done in everything from social services training to engineering and it's how do you make a peanut butter and jam sandwich?
[COBY]:Right?
[JAMES]:AI doesn't have the ability to intuit. that's not the right. It's not the right. Anyway, it doesn't have the ability to understand your intent unless you explicitly tell it what you are trying to do.
[COBY]:If you, it doesn't have intuition.
[JAMES]:It doesn't have intuition. Thank you. if you tell something without intuition, you know, we're making a peanut, butter and jam sandwich. Clear the table. They will clear the table, right? They may break a whole bunch of things in the meantime, but they will perform that task. AI is like that, right? Like it's still at that point. and I don't want to belabor it, but it, I think it's important to understand that the over reliance on the buzz around AI, the marketing around AI is detrimental. And it's not only detrimental to the health of your organization, it's detrimental to the outputs that you're trying to achieve. The. This idea, I. I do like, and I know I'm going off on a tangent, but this was. The point of this episode was for. To get me to rant. So congratulations. All right. you're getting what you asked for. I. I think AI holds a tremendous opportunity for us that is currently being utilized very poorly because people are buying into the marketing around AI and marketing language oftentimes is very much divorced from reality.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:And that's a problem.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:And so AI literacy, understanding systems thinking, understanding how these tools can be used. M. There is a tremendous opportunity to move beyond. Beyond the generative. Like generative AI has. Has, already produced a lot of value. it's also produced a lot of garbage and a lot of slop. Yeah. But I mean, like, I go back to the stories that, kind of popped up in the early stages of generative AI of like, you know, news paper ads with the. The sign off. Is there any other questions you would like me to like? These types of things where people are just literally tossing a prompt in, taking a, whatever is generated and sending it to clients. That's dumb.
[COBY]:Yeah. Well, I mean, so. So two things. One, I do think, and I still think that us using. We call AI again, we use the various LLM models, the various dinner of AI models, or tools. We use them all the time. We use a bunch them. We refer to them all as the intern. And that is a really important way, I think, for, for people to think of it. And we. And when we help teams, that we work with in different companies and clients use AI, we intentionally try to teach them that language because it gives you a parameter of what you can trust them with because everyone has worked with, whether it's a student intern or whether it's like a college, you know, like a kind of a college work placement or whatever it is. And you kind of know the limits of kind of the work that they can do. And if you think of AI in that term, it does give you some parameters. Like some people have said, you know, like, don't you feel like you're cheating by using AI? I'm like, well, if I had an intern and I had them summarize this for me, or I had them, or I dictated what I wanted to write up into a recording on my phone and then through the transcript into AI, that's no different than what people do with interns or have done for interns for decades. Right.
[JAMES]:So it's actually, let's hire a summer student and put 50,000 files on the desk for them to organize.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah. Like it really is. Although one thing that you get mad is sometimes I like to refer to it as hey I for hey, intern. Yeah, I know, yeah, you get mad when I do that.
[JAMES]:Yeah, I know you like it. I know you like it largely because it irritates me.
[COBY]:I do I very much. Yes. But yes. So yes, I'm off. Like, hey, hi. And yeah, he gets mad with that. but, but, but it, it is something that, you know, is an important component that we want to make sure that again, there is a lot that can be done with it. This idea of it being embedded part of your team and supercharging your work is accurate. There's a lot that you can do with it. And again, and it's something that is. Especially when we, when we, like you say, you know, the generative AI has done an awful lot. But when we move into AI agents and agentic AI, there's a lot of cool stuff that can be done again to supercharge your team. It can become like a team member and can take on just like an intern can, certain defined roles with very narrow perspectives.
[JAMES]:But like, there are, but there are natural friction points in every workflow. Right? There are natural points that are going to be more suited for the automated tasks that an agent can do. But there, there needs to be human checkpoints. There needs to be human verification and validation of what is being produced. And that's the risk. And that's the, that's the piece that I think a lot of organizations are getting wrong. They're buying into the hype around AI will replace your entire workforce when no AI can enhance your entire workforce.
[COBY]:And you're right. And it still needs to be humanized on everything. And we m still putting a little bit more effort into it because it's funny, you were saying about the newspaper article about, you know, they're like the, the prompt question at the end of the article. Well, you and I just finished executive level recruiting. and was a cover letter from a high level executive that had like show more.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:End of like every sentence in their cover letter.
[JAMES]:Yep.
[COBY]:So clearly, like clearly they threw the post.
[JAMES]:I mean it was a well constructed cover letter that made me laugh.
[COBY]:Yes.
[JAMES]:And throw it in the garbage.
[COBY]:Absolutely. But like again, high level executive, very experienced, terrifically written cover letter. But every paragraph ended with Seymour. And they obviously copied it and pasted it and sent the resume and didn't, didn't review it. Right.
[JAMES]:Did not take the time to actually read and review what had been produced. and that person, although qualified for the position, was immediately discounted because obviously they can't. If they cannot take the time to read their own bloody cover letter.
[COBY]:Right?
[JAMES]:They are. They don't have the attention to detail and they don't have the, the level of, judgment that I require in the role that we're hiring for.
[COBY]:Well, the thing is, and the committee that we, that we built for the recruitment of staff and everything else like that too, everyone picked up on it. And everybody. It, turned everybody off. Yeah.
[JAMES]:Immediately.
[COBY]:Talk about a bad first impression. Right?
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:So again, just. This is. This is not just from the early AI. This is, this is still. People believe.
[JAMES]:This is a week ago.
[COBY]:Yeah, this was literally a week ago. And, and the idea. But like, people are still not realizing the limits to, to it and they're still. And they're like, I say, they're getting kind of lazy about it. So it is something that, you know, AI as a first, made as a concept is something that is here it is like a trusted.
[JAMES]:I probably wouldn't use that term, but I agree in fully with the. The intent of it
[COBY]:All right, cool. Let's move on to the next trend. This one I actually love. The term is good, but the meaning is great. The manager experience. This is about supporting middle managers is becoming a higher operational priority because they bear the burden of translating strategy into daily, hybrid and remote realities.
[JAMES]:We've only been harping on management training for a decade or more. yeah, yeah, I mean, yes, thank you.
[COBY]:Thank you for world for catching up with us. You're just 10 years behind.
[JAMES]:Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, I mean, we're not the only ones who've been calling for it obviously. And it's been called for for like management management training. Properly supporting and training your managers is critical to the success and health of your organization. These are the. Yes. These are the people who are going to translate your goals into actions. They are the ones who are going to make sure that their teams understand the strategic vision and that they are. That everybody is working towards the same ultimate ends, even though we have different roles in those goals. Yes, please, absolutely. I. What the. The term isn't bad. the manager experience as opposed to the employee experience, it creates a. Enough of a distinction that we don't lump it all into one, into one thing that then becomes too unwieldy to actually define.
[COBY]:So the actions of the employee experience, the actions of the manager experience are quite different. So it is quite different.
[JAMES]:Yeah. So I mean I, I actually you're, I, it's hurts a little bit.
[COBY]:Yep.
[JAMES]:But I agree with you this, I have no issues with this term and I, it describes something that I wish we had been doing for the last 20 years.
[COBY]:Yeah. And specifically when it comes to kind of going back to the like hybrid and remote realities is that, you know the, the decision around hybrid and remote is, was, well, it started off being made by, by Covid.
[JAMES]:but yeah, I mean there, there were companies that had been doing hybrid and remote work for a long time. Right. But this became forced on many.
[COBY]:But the decision around kind of like to do a lot of lives at the executive level and often the return to office mandates are at the executive level, but it's the middle level managers that are having to deal with the impact and the side effect and, and you know, deal with, with the having to manage this workforce that is different now than what they're used to and all, all the other kind of stuff that goes along with it. So I mean it is something that, you know, the middle managers, we've all, we've said this since I think the first episode of our podcast, are the forgotten middle child of, of the workplace. And they are such a vital element from there. They are that, that, the transition point that, that translation, mechanism from like I say, large operation or organizational goals and strategies and, and direction into daily tasks. And they are the most under trained or. Yeah, yeah, under supported.
[JAMES]:Under trained.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:And if you, I mean you can create the best strategy in the world, but if you cannot execute on that strategy, it's worth.
[COBY]:Absolutely.
[JAMES]:Fusion is where we make a difference. Execution of strategy is how we drive our organizations forward. And if you, if the execution of your strategy relies on the performance of your employees, which I struggle to think about a operational strategy that does not. You need your middle managers to be able to not only work with their teams, but they need to understand, the strategy. They need to be supported in how they translate that strategy and they need to be supported in how they provide resources and supports to their team in service of that strategy.
[COBY]:Right. 100. All right, so the last one is skills based talent pools. So this is about companies shifting towards skills based like workforce planning, allowing for better internal mobility and training rather than rigid degree focused job descriptions.
[JAMES]:Yeah. Okay. Right, so this is again, why not? Why, why are we just getting to this point?
[COBY]:Yeah, and that's just it. Because again, you and I have talked a long time about the false equivalencies with education and the, and the the problem with years of experience, the idea of like you know, 12 years of experience could be 12 great years of great different experiences or it could be one year of experience 12 times. And so it is. Sometimes it's an artificial measuring point.
[JAMES]:And I know what like I don't want to. I will try not to be too harsh because I understand why we use. We default to things like degree or thing. Things like high school, like grade 12 or clean criminal records. Check. I, I bring up those last two because I have very clear examples and frustrations of working with corporate entities around production and manufacturing roles that do not require the people to have a grade 12, graduation. The certificate. Now criminal record for theft is very different than criminal record for whatever. I don't know. Those blanket statements are easy. They are an easy benchmark that we can put in place that will allow us to cut out a large number of applications. And the problem is that what you're doing is you're limiting your options. And what I tend, what tends to go along with organizations that function this way is that they also burn through people because they have unrealistic, they have expectations and metrics that don't actually relate to the role it's itself. and so they create these false equivalencies, they create these false expectations and they burn through people. And then they, they. You burn through people while you are actively reducing your candidate pool. It's dumb.
[COBY]:Oh yeah. No, and we've seen that a ton. Anything too is like I like the skills based talent pool is something that again way to finally catch up with the realities of the workforce, businesses. but the idea of there needs to be more focus on trying to capture the skills based like hiring practices and again and workforce planning because again experience without verification of skills developed during that experience is something that again is another false equivalency. Right.
[JAMES]:So again, and let's please make sure like if we're going to move in this direction, it's a, I think I see it as a positive direction but not without its own risks.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:If we're going to move in this direction, make sure that it is actually reflective of the job that the person will be doing.
[COBY]:Right.
[JAMES]:Because you may want a, somebody who is skilled in all of these different areas that have nothing to do with the actual job requirements itself. If you're going to move, if you're going to make a change. I mean this is part of our change management. Framework is that any, the in order for any change to ultimately be successful is that towards the end of this we have to change that our measurements of success. Yeah. So if we are moving toward, away from these false equivalency standards to a skills based architecture, then we need to be able to change the way that we evaluate. because we are changing the way that we recruit. Right. We're changing the way that we we're changing what we're asking of people. And so if you're recruiting for specific skills, then there should be some evaluation of how those skills are being used to advance the goals of that particular role.
[COBY]:Right. The other thing too is that we also need to be able to accurately try and measure those skills when we're looking for the right fit. Because I mean like so, so it's funny, I was, I had coffee with an ah, employee that worked at an organization that we were part of that I still kind of do some mentoring with and she's kind of a, a fairly new director level manager and the organization, you know, when we were there had gone through a lot of crisis management and stuff like that and they're still going through an awful lot. And she been, she's developed an incredible amount of skill sets over the kind of, in the time that since we met and, and everything like that. And I was kind of saying, I was kind of saying, you know, one of the things that's really great is that even though she hasn't been a manager very long, she's developed some mastery of skills that's gonna, that's gonna majorly help her with her career, her career progression. But one of those things where you wouldn't see that in a typical, you know, degree focused or experience focused hiring structure. Whereas if you had opportunities to kind of talk about the skills developed through, you know, the trial by fire that can. Is often many people's work workplaces, it can be a really, it should be, it could be a really powerful way to move someone along the continuum. So I would suggest that if we are moving towards skills based architecture around workforce planning that we are very deliberate and how we can assess and measure those skills. And not just going to say I have these skills box checked right.
[JAMES]:So well and that's fundamentally this cannot just be a box to check, right.
[COBY]:100%. Okay. I think that's, that's all I have. So I think I, I think I made you.
[JAMES]:I think my blood pressure is up because I'm, it's bloody roasting in here now. Oh, thank you for that.
[COBY]:You're welcome. So, yeah, so I am. And, I. I feel this was a successful episode. Nothing else than just getting your blood pressure up. but no, I do think that we actually had some interesting insight into some things that are, like, are legitimate, trends.
[JAMES]:Can we just. Can we just stop with the stupid re. Labeling of things we already know? Yeah, because you have to, like. And this is. This goes back to the. Okay, I'm not done ranting.
[COBY]:Okay.
[JAMES]:it goes back to my distaste. I will be tame in my language for this whole guru, expert, culture, influencer crap that has just been nothing but negative in our society, in our businesses, in every aspect. Useless people who can't actually do something productive. So they talk about things that we already know, and they try to create headlines and buzzwords so that they can feel validated. No, it's not everybody. Yes, there are some legitimately good descriptive terms that will help us to understand what is happening in the context of our workplaces. That is by far the minority. Stop listening to influencers. Start reading and understanding academic structures. Validate the people who are out there doing actual work and those who just talk about it without actually putting anything into practice. Yeah, I have no time for them.
[COBY]:All right, so I think that about does it for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access to video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
[ANNOUNCER]:For more information on topics like these, don't forget to Visit us at Roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high productivity, increased market share, employees breaking out in spontaneous dance, dry mouth, aversion to the sound of James voice, desire to find a better podcast...
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