#HRTechChat with Dr. Chris Mullen, Executive Director of The Workforce Institute at UKG

Our most recent guest on the 3Sixty Insights #HRTechChat was Dr. Chris Mullen, executive director of The Workforce Institute at UKG. Chris brings an extensive background relevant to the #HRTechChat conversation. Prior to joining what is now UKG, he carried out a leadership role in HR at the University of Chicago and helped to lead employee and faculty recruiting at Colorado State University. For this episode, we delved into why employees' feelings matter. By feelings, we mean employee sentiment. What is the role of human capital management and the technology for it in bringing about and supporting positive employee sentiment. Chris notes that there's plenty of research showing that positive employee sentiment matters to organizational success. And he's right about this. The obstacle many HR professionals run into as they argue for investments in related solutions is that improvements in employee sentiment, the very results that bolster an organization's ability to succeed, do not translate to financially quantifiable line items in a spreadsheet. Leaders on the financial side of the equation struggle to see the value, efforts stagnate, and inertia sets in. My own key takeaway from this conversation with Chris, partially covered in the podcast itself, is the following. One way to get around these seemingly intractable differences in perspectives is to understand that the nuts and bolts of HCM deeply influence employee sentiment too -- and show how these effects are not discrete, but part of the whole of the rationale, both tactical and strategic (i.e., concrete and abstract), for investing in efficient clocking-in technology or efficient, accurate, modern payroll processing software. The result is a toehold that HR can build upon to expand organizational leadership's concept of what constitutes worthwhile investments in the workforce. This is only a small snapshot of the our chat. We covered much ground, and Chris is a wellspring of knowledge and wisdom on these topics.