Chris Hoyt, CXR
Well, I’m happy to tell you about it. But my mom’s birthday happened to be just happened to fall on Saturday with Mother’s Day, of course on Sunday. So I was, uh, drove up to Dallas for the weekend spent spend time with my mom and the family. And then this morning I got up super early and drove back down.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 0:18
Your a good son.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:20
While I’m working on it, I don’t know if I’m I don’t know if I’m the best son, but I’m working on I’m working on it. Did you have good Mother’s Day weekend?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 0:26
I did. My kids are back East. And my grandkids are back East. And you know, so we chatted and texted and all that good stuff. And my husband took me to on a garden tour, which was really awesome.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:40
Oh, lovely. Well, what’s a garden tour.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 0:42
I live in Auburn, California, which is in the Sierra foothills. And every year the master gardeners for the last 35 years have put on this amazing garden show. And there were six of them all over the area. And they were just amazing. It’s like, I’m a I’m a gardener myself. But I own a small lot. Now we use to have acreage, but we moved into town and the health you know, it’s like I don’t have the big land that I used to have to garden I was in such awe and in such envy.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:19
I am really good at well like killing plants. I’m not the best at growing them, but I’m very good at planting them and then having to unplant and then plant new ones. So that seems to be my sweet spot in the gardening area. Are you ready? Are you ready to get started Lexy?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 1:33
Sure.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:34
All right, let’s go.

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Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:06
Okay, welcome back to the show watchers and listeners, we’ve had a whole week to think about what we’re going to talk about today. And of course, the topic du jour is going to be inclusion analytics and data ethics. But before I introduce our guests, I’ll remind you that the Subscribe and Share buttons that are actually on your device, they’re not cosmetic, they actually work. And they are a great way to make sure you don’t miss any of these sort of 20 minute chats that we do with recruiting industry leaders and practitioners. If you are with us live on LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook, you should drop a hello or thumbs up in the live chat. We can say hi right back to you certainly connect with you. You can also pop a question or comment in there, and we’ll see if we can get to that. Or at least follow up with you directly. Now. With us today is another I guess first time guest on the show. It’s Lexy Martin. Lexy is the chairperson of the People Intelligence Alliance Council. And similarly to career crossroads, as a community of practitioners and leaders that are so passionate about various aspects of TA, the PIA, is a community of folks who could be called data lovers, who are certainly on a mission. And we are most definitely going to talk about that. Lexy Welcome to the show.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 3:16
Thank you so much, Chris. It’s a great introduction.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:20
Well, thank you very much. Thanks. For those who don’t know you, or who may not have had the pleasure of meeting you. Can you give us what I like to call sort of an escalator pitch about who is Lexy? Like just just just spiel of like a little bit of your background and what you’re excited about? And kind of why the PIA, why is data something that we want to talk about today?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 3:42
Absolutely. So yeah, for those of you that don’t know me, I’m a really long time researcher. So I’m, I’m a Research geek. I love data also. And I think I’m probably best known for the fact that I started and manage the Sierra Cedar HR systems survey that focused on HR technology adoption and the value that organizations get from adopting all that. All that technology. I managed that for its first 15 years. It’s since been taken over by Stacy Harris who I hired. And it’s now called the Sapient Insights survey. I joined this year, six years ago. And now I focus on the value of applying people analytics. And I work with our customers to tell their stories tell their stories about the financial value they get from adopting people analytics, but also the value they get from adopting people analytics and using it to improve their diversity and their inclusion and their equity. And as you mentioned, my latest role is as the chair of the people Intelligence Alliance Thought Leadership Council a lot of words there.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:04
It’s a mouthful. Lexy me let me ask you when we talk about, like when we say people analytics for those who may not be familiar with it, what what are we actually talking about? What makes up people analytics?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 5:18
Oh, my gosh, well, what we’re going to talk about a little bit today is, you know, really, it’s all the data about your people that’s needed to make the best business decisions. So it’s data about your employees, it’s data about your extended workforce. It’s, you know, for your audience, it’s talent acquisition data, it’s, you know, all that data that enables your people to attract, engage and, you know, ultimately hire such that organizations can retain employees, and there’s just such a breadth of data that can be, you know, brought to bear to improve the decisions we make about individual people about the humans that that work for us. Is that Is that enough?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:13
Yeah, it does. And I think we’ve seen most recently really increase on I mean, for years and years the people analytics piece right that people data has been important. But I think over the last maybe and correct me if feel differently about this Lexy, but I think over the last maybe, I don’t know, 10 years, I think we’ve exponentially seen more interest, certainly from ta leaders in using data to make people decisions. Little little more science and a little less art slowly over the years, would you would you agree with that?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 6:44
Yes. And you know, I really am a longtime researcher, I started that Sierra Cedar HR systems survey was actually called something else when we started it in 1997. And I started tracking, first manager reporting, and then kind of in 2000, saw, there was this this group of technologies called Workforce analytics, and it sends name talent analytics, sorry, people analytics and talent analytics. And, you know, it’s got other names, but really, it’s just, there’s so much rich information about people, you know, whether they’re inside the organization, or in the extended workforce, their contractors, or their candidates wanting to get hired. And we just don’t know as much as we can can about them, so that we can really do the best for them and the organization.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:47
Well, and that’s kind of my question to you is that if we’re collecting all of this information, all of this data, what what should we be doing with it?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 7:58
Well, one of the things we want to talk about today is inclusion. Right? And I apologize. I’ve got somebody outside my door making noise. Are you still able to hear me?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:08
I am. It’s landscaping day for you today?

Yes. It’s landscaping day. This is the work at home.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 8:13
I just activated the doorbell. I so apologize,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:21
no worries.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 8:25
He will go away in a second.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:27
That’s okay. You actually sound just fine. You sound perfectly fine.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 8:31
Ask me your question again. Well, I

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:34
was just curious, like if there’s just all of this data that we now have, and you could argue that we have more data than we’ve ever had before? What could we be? What could we be expected to do with that data when we talk about, you know, an inclusion experience?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 8:50
Yeah. You know, you asked me in the introduction to tell you what I’m passionate about. And, you know, having been a longtime researcher, I’ve been in the workforce for over 50 years now. I have been in the HR in the tech industry since I started back then. And, you know, the we haven’t made as great strides, as I think we need to about diversity, you know, just looking at women in the tech industry. We’re still not at equity with men. And of course, there’s a broader, you know, community of diverse members of the workforce that are not at equity as well. And then there’s also, you know, there, there’s not equitable inclusion. You know, so if we’re talking about inclusion, you know, people want to make a difference. They want to be able to be recognized for that difference, you know, so I think I think that, you know, the topic of inclusion, inclusion analytics, the inclusion experience is a really important one that we can bring data to bear about. And, you know, with the purpose to improve it with some of the research that I’ve done with our customers, I’ve been able to see that those that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, actually financially outperform organizations that don’t. So, you know, there’s a financial reason for focusing on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. But it’s also just the right thing to do. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s just important that we be able to get the best of who we’ve got in the workforce. And that’s why we need to include more.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 10:51
Is that sort of the mission behind the People intelligence Alliance Lexy?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 10:56
Let me put this in context. You know, the people intelligence Alliance is a a community of people who love data, like you said, and we’re steering the future of work towards openness and transparency of data, and collaboration. And, you know, I really personally want to encourage the talent acquisition community, especially those that, you know, creator use data to improve their processes, their results to join our growing community, because we really need the wisdom of many, you know, I was introduced to you through Gerry Crispin. And if your community is like Gerry, we just really want more people like you. And we want to know, you’re not your knowledge about the data on candidates, we want to bridge the gap, you know, between it, and supporting the best business decisions about them. And, you know, the the People Intelligence Alliance, which I now in the chairperson of, we’re responsible for content. And we do webinars, we do forums, the council itself is made up of practitioners that are dealing with the difficulty sometimes of you know, getting data, and you’ve seen it. We’ve got vendors like Gloat, Medallia and dizzier, which is the founding member. We’ve got researchers like Stacia guard caphyon, Daris, from the Burson community, OWL Adamson, from Palau. And we’ve got an academic teaching on this, we’ve got a consultant from a major consultancy, Wes Wu from Accenture. So we’re all kind of focused on and the issue of data interoperability, that was our first theme. And then our second theme was to talk about inclusion analytics and the inclusion experience, because it’s just such a great use case where there’s just this plethora of data.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:01
Yeah, I want to get to the inclusion experience. But I want to ask you first, what does it mean to be a member of like, if I’m a head of a talent acquisition function? And I and I like what you’re saying about the People Intelligence Alliance, and I want to join? What does that mean, for me, what’s it mean to be a collaborator or a contributor to the to the P IA effort?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 13:26
Well, so it’s really easy to join, just just join, there’s no cost.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:32
Just join.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 13:35
But, you know, there’s some things that you too need to, to believe in. We have this, this this pledge, if you will, to, you know, place people at the heart of our work, you know, eradicate bias, make people count. So you’ve got to believe in that. And who doesn’t believe that, you know, we want to connect information seamlessly. And we want collaboration, so with organizations that are practitioners, with experts in the field of TA, because we really think the wisdom of many kind of block innovation, and then we ultimately want to ensure a fair, ethical, secure use of information while respecting the privacy of individuals. And, you know, honestly, I think that the TA community, you know, if I done research on TA, and sometimes I see that there’s the TA community over here in the in the organization, there’s HR, and there’s people analytics, there’s the business, there’s hiring managers, you know, and they’re not all connected and collaborating and we really need that we really need the wisdom of the TA community. So I’m sorry, long story. Just join what you get is access to the site, the webinars, the forums, we’ve got a ethics and privacy center where you can download these principles, sample principles for an ethics charter. We’ve got sample privacy and data statements. But more than that, we’ve got a communicating community, if you will, that is really sharing their their issues. And you know how they’re resolving them?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:33
Lexy is it expensive to join?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 15:36
I, it’s free.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:39
We had to get that in there.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 15:41
But yes, it’s expensive to join, because you really want to collaborate, communicate, ask questions, share your wisdom,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:50
Lean in, that’s what we want. So let’s talk a little bit about inclusion experience. I think you brought up the slide, you want to you want to set it up?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 16:00
Yeah. Would you set that up? Yeah, you know, inclusion analytics is just a really great use case where multiple sources of data can be brought to bear to measure and improve the inclusion experience. What we’re looking to do is to uncover the lived inclusion experience of employees. And, you know, as I said, earlier, I think people want to make a difference to be recognized. And so this inclusion experience framework that you’re seeing right now, is, is a, it illuminates the connection between all the moments in an organization where the organization itself, its culture, its leaders, its people, its processes show up as being inclusive or not. And then there’s these signals in all this data that you can bring to bear that can then be correlated with key outcomes that really matter. And I can dig into this with you if you’d like or, you know, ask a question about a particular area.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 17:14
Yeah, well, look, why don’t we do that for the sake of time, because we keep these about 20 minutes? So let’s just go down the outcomes that matter piece? Because I think, usually that’s part of the conversation, right? When people are saying, well, what’s in it for me, and I think you alluded to some of this a little bit earlier, but let’s just kind of go through those four, those four big takeaways.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 17:33
So, you know, again, the outcomes that matter around inclusion are that people want to be included, they want to be able to make a difference, and they want to be recognized for that, that, that difference that they’re making. They want to be included in key places, you know, where decisions are made, look, look at the, the decision around hiring someone, you know, we want a good candidate. Slate, we want good hiring managers to be involved in that. And they need to be of, you know, diversity that matches the candidate that they’re seeing. And, you know, what we’re seeing is then greater employee satisfaction of the hired candidate, as well as you know, greater adoption of the person, inclusion of the person when they come on board, you know, some of these outcomes that matter can be the data can be collected in these key moments, you know, like in the employee processes related to, you know, attracting and hiring the right person, doing the interview with that person. And ultimately hiring that person in onboarding them, making sure that they’re really well included. We have a great process, that vizier where everybody does their own social introduction, and they talk about their role and their passions, and, you know, their background. And from that, everybody can reach out and include them in the various communities within the organization, whether they’re Scotch lovers like you are, I mean, sorry, whiskey lovers like you are IPA,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 19:24
I’ll drink them both. If I’m being honest, I drink them both.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 19:28
Okay, that, you know, the point is, you know, you bring people on board, you want to include them as a whole person, you know, not just for the role they’re going to play. And then, you know, you need to recognize that whole person once they’re within the organization. I’m sorry, I’m rambling here.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 19:48
Not Not at all. I do want to ask you though, there was a there was a hot take, and a hot take posted, I think recently where it said that a a more more inclusive workforce experience starts with good design. So and I think, Lexy, you were featured in that it was it was a LinkedIn post. So I wanted to ask you what, what is good design mean, in that? Right for it to be relevant to that piece? And how is that important to a positive employee experience?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 20:18
What a what a wonderful thing. And I don’t recall the LinkedIn posts that, you know, reflected in design, to me is about, you know, thinking about the outcomes that you really want to accomplish with something, whether it’s financial or inclusion or employee satisfaction, or, you know, inclusive participation. And then it’s all those places, you know, that that inclusion shows up or not, you know, so this framework that I showed earlier, is part of that design, in my, from my opinion, you know, it’s like, think about all those places where the employee is recognized or not included, and capture the signals, the data that can actually be used to show where you are, with inclusion in the organization, how it contributes to those key outcomes. And from that you can then improve upon it.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 21:29
Yeah, I love that you’re talking about and I think your slide said there are those moments that matter. Right, and both from a company and from an employee standpoint, that view and then those inclusion signals that then lead to ideally those favorable outcomes. And I think the roadmap that you’ve put up is super, super helpful.

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 21:46
Thank you, Chris. And you said it better than I did much tighter, so you’re hired, please.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 21:53
Well, hopefully, the sound the salary will be a little bit more than the fee for entry. Right? Lexy. Let me ask you, we got a new question that we’re gonna start asking all of our guests. And so here it comes. Are you ready? Okay. If you had to boil down your message today to be the title of a book, what, what would the title of that?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 22:22
Apologies. shouldn’t turn that off. The title of my book. Yeah. You asked me this earlier. And thank you for the heads up on it.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 22:34
We gave you a whole 30 seconds heads up. So it’s

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 22:39
okay, here’s mine. Everyone wants to love and be loved.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 22:45
That’s, that’s powerful. So so I’m going to ask you, who is the first person you’d give a signed copy of that to and what would you write inside the jacket sleeve?

Lexy Martin, Visier & PIA 22:56
Everyone and I love you.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 22:58
Oh, my God. That’s fantastic. Lexi, thank you so much for joining us today. We were so excited to have you on. I’m just so grateful for your time. Thanks, Chris. All right. I’m going to put Lexy in the green room. And I’m just going to share with you that upcoming on May 17. Our monthly CXR lecture series, we’re doing remote 3.0 And that is I think the topic there is shifting and working from home experience to an effective working from anywhere strategy so members can join us to see what that actually means. Also, Barb Hyman from Sapien AI is going to talk with us here on the podcast, about the humanity that’s needed in AI and what she’s doing about it coming up on May 19. We have a member and alumni meeting you probably heard me promote that last week. That means if you are have ever been a CXR member, you are 100% welcome to join that with us. So it’s for current and former members. We’re talking about transparency in talent acquisition so don’t miss out because we’re going to start to cash in on this call to action around transparency and baseline practices in our space so these and much more you can find at cxr.works/events and also don’t forget to subscribe and listen and share the CXR podcast and you can also catch up obviously on hundreds of previous there are hundreds Believe it or not of previous episodes out at CXR.works/podcasts. So until next time we’ll see you around.

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