Show Notes for the cavnessHR Podcast

Jason Cavness: Hello, and welcome to the cavnessHR podcast. I'm your host Jason Cavness. Our guest today is Janine Truitt, Janine are you ready to be great today?

Janine Truitt: Yes I am.

Jason Cavness: Janine is the owner, Chief Interface Officer for Talent Think Innovations LLC, a business strategy and manager consulting firm. Her career spans fourteen years in HR and Talent Acquisition that has taken her through the world of pharmaceuticals, health care, staffing and R&D. Janine is a dynamic speaker, entrepreneur, an important and respected voice bringing both a human touch and business savvy to the companies and businesses she works with. It is through the trials and tribulations of her current travels and her passions for business, technology, digital transformation and talent management that she created Talent Think Innovations in January 2013. Her aim is to provide practical and sustainable solutions, programs and strategies that are a catalyst for innovation. Through her work she has used her experience to get business individuals from surviving to thriving, allowing them to succeed in an age of rapid transformation. Janine, thank you for being here today I really appreciate it.

Janine Truitt: Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

Jason Cavness: What are you focusing on right now? What's keeping you busy?

Janine Truitt: So this year my focus is really on trying to apply a more organizational effectiveness, industrial psych lens to what I've been doing in HR. Kind of just getting back to looking at work structures, what's working, what's not working. How does HR need to reposition itself given some realities that we have to look forward to going into the 2020s. I've gotten really interested too in wellness, on the corporate wellness side. Just recognizing that there's been an uptick in people talking about how either they don't feel psychologically safe at work or that they're battling mental illness and attributing that to some of their experiences at work. So I've gotten pretty interested in what wellness need to mean in terms of how we're treating our employees and what kind of things we need to be doing to facilitate them being at their best while they're at work. Those are my focuses.

Jason Cavness: Janine, I think you do a great job at putting yourself out there on social media. Why do you think it's important for us as HR professionals to utilize social media platforms?

Janine Truitt: I think in general there's never really been a time in which an individual could simply hop on a platform and build a name for themselves. For me, I was just Janine Truitt, whatever my title was at all of my jobs before I got on social media. What it's done for me is given me visibility beyond the desk, beyond working a desk. There's something to that, there's something to doing your job, which is great. But also a field that can feel really lonely and really siloed and so it is nice to get on social media and realize that you're not one unto yourself. That some of the trials and tribulations that you're dealing with everyday running is not just your own but things that other HR professionals are dealing with, not just in the U.S. but globally. I think it is a unique opportunity to get out there, to share ideas, to share what is working, to share what's not working. Also brainstorm collectively as an industry as to what the trajectory of HR should be going forward. Those would be my reasons for them getting on social media beyond the fact that if you are looking for a job, or looking for your next HR job. It is a good way for people to know you, what you're about and have a lens for perhaps hiring you into their next opportunity or position.

Jason Cavness: I tell college kids all the time you've got to be on LinkedIn. Tell people about yourself, nobody is going to know how good you are unless you tell them. To me it is amazing how many college people are not on LinkedIn like they should be.

Janine Truitt: You know I think LinkedIn has a bit of a branding problem, and I don't think that it is necessarily one that is intentional. I just think that it speaks to a certain demographic. So college students aren't really on LinkedIn, neither are blue-collared worker, they don't tend to be there. You tend to find a lot of white-collar upper-management types of professionals on LinkedIn when in actuality a lot of people could benefit from it. But there's something perhaps that LinkedIn may want to do or needs to do to get more people or even college students on there. I just don't think it is speaking to them, and that's why they're not there.

Jason Cavness: I agree, you'll see it all the time. Somebody will post on LinkedIn, I don't want to do this but I need help finding a job and instantly have a hundred people replying, helping them out.

Janine Truitt: It's great, especially with the video now I feel like a lot more people have gotten engaged in that way. It is a great platform, it has served me greatly. Not only from a job perspective but even now in business, so definitely a great tool.

Jason Cavness: Janine let's talk about your thought process when you decided to go from your corporate job to starting your own business. How did that play out with you?

Janine Truitt: It wasn't a simple decision. I'd really decided I was going to start a business years and years ahead, it was a ten year plan. What ended up happening is I had a few jobs. I had good jobs and I felt I didn't really like how HR was being executed in a lot of the places that I was working. I also found it increasingly difficult for me to rise the ranks in a meaningful way as a woman of color. There were definitely some barriers in place that I didn't find my other co-workers that are not of color experiencing. To the point of your question around social media I had started to get on social media not because I wanted to, but because I was working for an employer who got the bug that social media was the next big thing. They were like you have to get on social media, and you have to talk us up and make us look good.

Janine Truitt: So I got on there and I didn't want to do any of that because I hated where I worked at the time. But I realized quickly that there was a community there and I started tweeting out HR tips and things like that. Fast-forward and I had built a pretty good network through social media of not just professionals who were like me. But also some older professionals who took an interest in me mentor-wise. They knew my situation, and several of my last jobs and they said you outgrew this. That idea that you had for that consulting firm that you said you were going to do in ten years, you need to do it now. This was around 2012-2013, I'm like what do you mean, now. I took it to heart, and 2013 happened and I was working for a federal contractor and it was around the time we had the government shutdown. So in those cases the government shuts down and then if it goes on long enough federal contractors also have to shut down. It was the first time in my career that I had ever experienced something like that where I was going to be out of work. We all got pulled into an auditorium with a lab director and he said hey we're next in line. We don't know if you're going to get retroactive pay but we'll keep you posted. I remember sitting there thinking this is crazy. I never want somebody to have my livelihood in their hands like this. We got through that, we never ended up shutting down. But it was a wake up call for me and I basically went to starting my business soon thereafter just to test the concept, to see if I even had the chops. I was running the business at the same time I was working full-time just because I couldn't afford to leave and jump into it. I realized pretty quickly that it was something I could do and that people actually had a need for the way that I was thinking about work, and how we should be doing it and how we should be working with employees. Or how we should be setting the tone within an organization. To be quite frank it was intoxicating. I didn't have to go through the typical red-tape that you do when corporate where you've got to get buy-in with this person and you've got to shmooze that person and only if you do it well do you move up the ranks and get those opportunities. This for me cut right to the people that are decision makers, they knew who I was. I had a background that they respected and then it was like okay we want to work with you. I immediately was thrust into a situation where I was able to start helping organizations shape their strategy and the trajectory of their business. There's no possible way I'd want to work a HR desk again if this is how I can impact business.

Jason Cavness: Janine, from my point of view there are people like you who I want to do HR the new way. For every one of you there is a hundred stuck in the old ways. How do we get these people who are in he old ways to go to the new ways or is it just a matter or them retiring and bringing new people in to move HR forward so to speak.

Janine Truitt: A lot of the jobs I've been pulled into I was pulled into to be a change agent if you will. So if you know a little bit about how change happens at all you're always going to have your allies. You're always going to have those that are agnostic, and then you're going to have your dissenters. The old HR in this case would be your dissenters. With them I was in a position at one point where I thought we'll just retire them all and get new blood in. But there's tons of value that they have. I found that sometimes you just need to understand what exactly it is that they're scared of in terms of what that change is and manage their expectations and their perceptions around that. Sometimes when you do that you can actually bring them over to the ally side and then you have a really good ally. Because the one thing that is good about some of those legacy people is that they are legacy. They are the keepers of how business was done and how you've gotten to a certain place. So I'm not inclined always to say throw them away. But

Janine Truitt: I've also encountered a bunch of them that it doesn't matter what I say or do that the new is bad and the old is better. They're just going to continue to be stuck in their ways. Those people I say it is unfortunate for them because the change is happening and they are the ones who are probably going to find themselves not working fairly soon. By and large I try to manage the perceptions around the change that is happening to them. I find more often than not that when I can have those conversations and also empathize with what they feel they are losing there's a common ground you can find.

Jason Cavness: Janine next question, so this is not scientific, just my own point of view. It seems most HR people regardless of whether they are entry level, mid-career or VP. It is taking an average of two years to find their next position. Why do you think it is taking so long for HR people to find their next job?

Janine Truitt: I don't know. I'm saddled with this currently only because I've been coaching a few people who are in the industry and I'll say this. I think HR has an identity crisis of sorts. I don't think we know who want to be when we grow up. I feel like we keep bending and weaving depending on what people's or different conglomerates perceptions are of who we are, what we are and what we do. There's not a lot of consistency across the board if you go from coast to coast as to how HR gets executed from an industry perspective. It varies widely and success in one company doesn't necessarily beget success in another. A certain skillset for an HR professional in one organization may not even be remotely a palatable set of skills in another organization. I think we're in a period of time where we are re-imagining what HR is going to look like five or ten years out.

Janine Truitt: So you have people who are writing resumes or getting resumes written in a way that speaks to a more archaic level of HR and they're trying to operate in a new eco-system. Where perhaps companies are looking for a more creative professional and that is not serving them. In one case with somebody that I am coaching now, she has a lot of education behind her. That was the mandate by many of her employers, go and get your PHR, go get your Masters Degree, this is what we need. They all ended up laying her off, now she has spent all this time at a middle to senior level in most of her roles. She doesn't want mid level or senior roles anymore, she wants a more junior role. So this is a situation where her education is working against her in the sense that now everybody is questioning that you have a Masters Degree. Why do you want an assistant role? Not recognizing that she may have very good reasons why and she is not going to leave your organization. She legitimately needs the work and the money. But because she has a Masters Degree they're questioning her worth or whether she is somebody that should be hired. Because why aren't you going for director or generalist roles? I just don't think we have enough of a cemented formula for what makes a good HR professional. I think we've been testing it for a really long time through certifications and the PHR's and the rest of it. But I don't think that we have a cemented idea or ethos around what makes a good HR person.

Jason Cavness: This is my point of view. I think a lot of HR people say I want to be at the table and then they get to the table and say I didn't really mean I wanted to be at the table. I just wanted to talk about being at the table. I think that happen a lot too. Janine can you tell us about your recent talk at Stanford?

Janine Truitt: That was really cool. I was asked to speak at Stanford to a group of students who are in the Management Science Department with a focus on future work. They're part data-scientist but also looking at how they can better maneuver around the future work. The professor asked me to talk to them about predictive analytics and data, the place of data. What it means to be a data driven HR person and why that is important in this time and why it is going to be important going forward. I did a small talk for them illuminating not just the opportunities around data. But also what the challenges were around data. At present we have more data than we have ever had, there's a bit of fatigue and overwhelm around how you actually use that to make good business decisions. I thought it was a good point of view to share with the next generation of HR leaders about what the opportunity is for them. It is not so much about getting the data. It is more or less about how we can get HR people to a point where they can look at data and extrapolate the different narratives that they need to be looking at and are pertinent to the business. Then being able to take those narratives and spit that back at leadership that leadership understands that these are the action items. This is the trajectory we need to be on. It was very cool to be called to an organization like Stanford, I didn't go to an Ivy League school so it was pretty cool. The students were super smart and very curious, which is something that I think we lack sometimes in HR is curiosity. I think we don't think we have enough room to be as creative as we would like to be around how we're doing what we are doing for an organization. It was nice to be thrust into a situation where the students were excited about the work and the industry, but also coming to it from a place of curiosity, about what is possible, what is my place in it.

Jason Cavness: Janine so you have quite a few speaking engagements coming up in 2019. Can you talk about how speaking has increased your brand and business capability?

Janine Truitt: Speaking is important, I think we talked about this when we met at the summit about how we are both introverts. It is so hard for people to understand when I tell them that it is truly who I am. But I have learned that putting yourself in the situation to speak can be really advantageous to your business. It is a fertile test ground to test the things, models and methodologies I am using in my business every day. I'm taking in clients, I'm working with clients through complex HR issues and business considerations. With that I've had to develop methodologies, ways to lead them down that thinking process. It is good when you know it works for your client for obvious reasons, sometimes you want to be a bit of a scientist and test it in a bigger arena to see if it sticks. I find that speaking is a good way to put those ideas out there that I'm flirting with or tried and true ones just to understand whether it works, does it seems reasonable. If not, what are the true pain-points so I can come back and start building some other things that would really cater to my customers.

Janine Truitt: I find that as much as I'm teaching people when I hit a stage, I'm also learning from them as well. I'm hearing from them, they're asking questions, they're coming up to me after the talk and wanting to have side conversations. Those things are super illuminating, especially when you work for yourself. I don't work with anybody anymore. It is nice to get out of my silo and talk to people and get a real-time perspective. Just on a very basic level, putting yourself in a speaker role you immediately elevate yourself to a subject matter expert so long as you're good at what you're talking about. People respect that, and they're much more likely to patronize your business when they've seen you on that stage or in that light.

Jason Cavness: Janine next can you tell me about a time you've had success in the past, where you've learned from your success and what you learned from the success you had in the past.

Janine Truitt: A few years ago I created an academy with a colleague and now friend of mine to help moms who had been displaced from work, had been out of the workplace too long to re-enter it without some re-skilling. We created an academy to help these women get re-skilled so they can either start a business or go back into the workforce. I had done that for two years and then I realized in running it that we had done it for six women that were wanting more from me. So I created this accelerator that went on for four weeks where they would get one-on-one coaching with me, and I'd talk them through their specific plans for whatever they were going to do. It was good, it went on for about a year and a half and then it was done. I had always had an aspiration to see that be a thing for women of color specifically. Largely because I think we think get forgotten in the workforce and it is trial by fire in terms of how we learn, develop and move up the ranks. At the time there just wasn't a time and place for it, the timing of the concept wasn't there. It was only just really working within this group of women that I had the privilege to work with. Fast-forward to last year, I run a live-stream show every Thursday and I was talking about something around women and upward mobility. Suddenly there was a few women on the show that said I would love to work with you and learn with you. It would be great if we could exchange ideas and do it in this really protected environment where we wouldn't be judged and could still learn and get our skills up. It occurred to me that I had a framework already. I told them to give me a few weeks and went back to the framework and looked at it, re-worked it, put out an intake at the end of last year just to understand from them what their specific learning objectives and needs were. I thought I was going to get five women, I ended up getting fourteen women to mentor and kicked it off in February. A seven week program where it is completely on my platform, I do one call with them a week, a video call and a presentation. All the topic they're getting, they're getting it based on things they said that they wanted. I took a poll and whatever the poll said is what I created the content around. We're in week six, we have one more week and has been so refreshing. They're all professional women, they are all so grateful for the feedback and coaching. They would have never gotten it in their respective places of work if not for this thing. I feel like I've created a safe space for them to come and not be judged about the stuff they are seeing and enduring in the workplace. I'm really proud of it, it is called the T.T. Power Circle. I'm hoping I've gotten some insights from other people I've seen talking about it, that this is something that needs to be duplicated elsewhere. Whether it is in organizations or other places in the world, and so I am open to that. It is one of the things I've done of late that I am super proud of, it is not a hundred people but for fifteen women it is everything.

Jason Cavness: Just the impact you make on those people though, that is a huge impact.

Janine Truitt: It's been good.

Jason Cavness: Janine next, talk about a time you failed in the past, what you learned from this failure and what we can take away from this.

Janine Truitt: This one I always go back to, and this is not through my current business but it was my last job. I had been thrust into a diversity inclusion role and I started doing some outreach at work with some organizations that cater to people who are differently abled, if you will. I had gotten really gung-ho about creating apprenticeships, I had this whole framework planned out for this one organization to come in and have a lot of their people be able to get some on the job experience. It had been worked out with higher management, I had gotten buy-in, all the things that were supposed to happen did happen. In the end it got hung up with salary bans of all things. I don't know that that was necessarily the true reason why they didn't want to move forward, but I felt very culpable that the thing never happened. Already for these sorts of organizations it is hard for them to place people who are differently abled. For the most part people in business. I don't want to say that they don't want to help. I'll say that they are afraid of it. I think they don't know enough about what it is to be a differently abled person and how important it becomes to have meaningful work in that situation. They just shy away from it, and if there is not anything legal on the books that says they must hire those people they just don't. Because it is just easier to hire able-bodied people. It became something that I became passionate about, and I felt horrible to have to go back to the company and say I'm sorry that they got so excited but this thing is not happening. For me it felt like a failure, like I missed something, like I didn't quite cover all my bases or maybe I didn't educate my own company well enough that they were poised for this thing to happen.

Janine Truitt: Luckily enough it is a failure and I always see failures as a way you learn. I learned that even though I have the heart for certain things doesn't mean the organizations I was serving had the heart for it and those are two different things. I only came to realize that when the actual client I was working with cut me that slack and held that space and grace for me. They were like we know you tried, we're not holding you accountable, you tried. This is what it is but for me understanding how important those opportunities were to their consumers felt like failure at the time. I certainly learned from it.

Jason Cavness: Janine I understand you have something for our listeners today.

Janine Truitt: Yes! For anybody that is interested in career coaching or if you are already in a leadership position and you want coaching on how to take your next step or where you should be looking next or what you should be doing, I am offering a free thirty minute coaching session. Hopefully you take advantage of that and I am happy to work with you.

Jason Cavness: Janine can you give us your social media links about yourself and your company so people can reach out to you?

Janine Truitt: Sure, so I'm at czarinaofHR on all platforms. I'm on IG, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. On periscope as well every Thursday at 10pm for czarina live.

Jason Cavness: For listeners who have the links to her social media, you can find them at www.cavnesshrblog.com. Janine we're coming to the end of our talk, can you provide our listeners any last minute wisdom or advice on any subject you want to talk about?

Janine Truitt: For talking about HR I would say that despite some of the negative talk that there always is about HR and HR professionals. I tend to look at it with optimism. I think that we are in a really exciting time in HR where we have the ability to rethink how we serve the organizations we serve, and really be looking at the world of work in a really different way. I would encourage you if you are in HR or leadership or whatever you are or however you affect the organization really be looking at this entire time with optimism and thinking about the unique way in which you can contribute to the greater good.

Jason Cavness: Janine thank you for your time today, I know you're a busy person doing a lot of great things so thank you very much for being here today.

Janine Truitt: Thank you for having me, this was awesome.

Jason Cavness: And to our listeners, thank you for your time as well. Remember to be great every day.

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Show Notes for the cavnessHR Podcast

A tale with Janine Truitt of Talent Think Innovations, LLC

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