The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Navigating HR Challenges: From AI to Workforce Development Shifts with Elina Kokorotsis

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Navigating HR Challenges: From AI to Workforce Development Shifts with Elina Kokorotsis Intheworx.org About the Guest(s): Elina Kokorotsis is a highly regarded HR consultant and the owner of "In the Works" Coaching and Consulting, an HR consulting firm renowned for its innovative strategies tailored to HR professionals and corporate leaders. Elina Kokorotsis brings her multicultural background to all client interactions and leads the Disrupt HR Rochester chapter in New York, providing a platform for cutting-edge ideas in the world of work. With over 17 years of experience in HR, including roles in training, development, recruiting, and HR technology, Elina Kokorotsis has a comprehensive understanding of the field. Her expertise is particularly focused on creating empowering and strategically aligned HR environments in the midst of overwhelming transitions. Episode Summary: In this insightful episode of "The Chris Vos Show," host Chris Vos welcomes Elina Kokorotsis, a trailblazer in HR strategy and consulting. Together, they delve into the dynamic world of human resources, exploring how HR professionals can lead boldly amidst constant shifts and changes. Elina Kokorotsis discusses the ongoing challenges HR faces, from managing workforce diversity to the impact of technological advancements and the changes spurred by recent global events. She emphasizes the importance of aligning personal values with organizational culture to effectively drive change and create an inclusive and supportive work environment. Exploring topics such as remote work, the influence of AI technology in HR, and the evolving needs of a multigenerational workforce, Elina Kokorotsis offers strategic insights into the future of HR practices. With her extensive background in HR technology, she highlights how AI tools are reshaping job roles and creating hybrid teams of humans and AI agents. Alina also shares her thoughts on leadership roles in balancing employee well-being and technological advancement to foster workplace innovation. The conversation touches on handling legal compliances, DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives, and building resilient organizational cultures amid political and economic changes. Key Takeaways: HR professionals need to transition from compliance-focused roles to being strategic drivers of change in organizational culture and people operations. Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming HR functions, aiding productivity while prompting new leadership challenges of managing hybrid human and AI teams. The future workforce will demand adaptable strategies for managing diverse generational preferences, emphasizing purpose and flexible working conditions. In light of political changes, maintaining an inclusive work environment through evolving DEI practices remains crucial for organizational resilience. Organizations must prioritize understanding employee motivations and values to create meaningful, supportive work experiences, thereby reducing burnout. Notable Quotes: "HR professionals have an opportunity to be the glue in looking at what motivates people because it might be different for different individuals." "I think leaders will continue to lead humans, but also AI agents. So, future teams I truly believe are going to be a hybrid of bots or AI agents and people." "Instead of seeing what motivates people,… meet your people where they are."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

When the shrill lady sings and that makes an official welcome to the big show. It's always a wake-up call when you hear that high-pitched operatic voice delivering the Chris Voss show. I delivered that line for, what, 14 years? And I got sick of it. I think everyone else loved it because they run up and scream at me when they meet me at events. The Chris Voss here to come! I'm like, security. Anyway, guys, go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfast, LinkedIn.com, 4chesschrisfast,

chrisfast1, the TikTokity, and all those crazy places on the internet. Today, we're going to be talking about HR professionals, what's going on in the HR area of job hiring, firing. I like the firing part. You know, if it's deserved, of course. But we're going to be talking about all things about HR, what's going on in HR professionals, the struggle they're facing at firing people. I mean, the struggle they're facing at whatever HR people face.

I mean, we'll find out. We'll just get into it on the show. Alina Cocorotis is on the show. coaching and consulting and HR consulting firm that provides strategies to HR professionals and corporate leaders who are facing overwhelming transitions in their personal and professional lives. She brings a multicultural background to every client interaction. She also leads the Disrupt HR Rochester chapter in New York, where she creates a yearly platform for speakers to share out-of-the-box

ideas in the world of work. She'll be discussing today about how HR professionals can lead boldly when shift happens and life is still, as she likes to call it, in the works. W-O-R-X. W-O-R-X. I'm learning to spell this morning. Welcome to the show, Alina. How are you? Hi, Chris. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be part of your show today. Thanks. We're excited to have you as well. Give us your dot coms, wherever we want people to find you on the interwebs. Yep, yep. So mainly on LinkedIn, a little bit on Instagram, the handle on Instagram at Life is in the Works with W-O-R-X. And really just join me, join the mailing list at intheworks.org. That's where, you know,

I share a lot of either programs or workshops or things that are coming up for HR pros directly through the intheworks.org mailing list. Great. So give us a big overview of what you guys do there and how you do it. Oh my goodness. I'm like, where do I start?

Just a synopsis. You know, we don't have to. Yeah. I mean, we only got 30 or 35 minutes or so. Yes. Yeah. No problem. So for the past five years, I've been helping mostly solo HR professionals who are feeling

overwhelmed, unclear, really stuck in that reaction mode of, you know, HR profession, to become and feel a lot more empowered, clear, strategically aligned with their organizations, and really to be able to lead themselves and lead their teams and organizations with confidence. There's a lot in the world of work that is happening currently. So I'm sure, you know, HR professionals are already trying to survive or still the pandemic, believe it or not. There's so much left from the pandemic. Really? Yeah. And change is nonstop. Things are coming up and we'll talk a lot more,

you know, about things happening, but there is a big overwhelm. Yeah. What are you, what's going on in HR right now, job-wise? I know that there was a shortage of workers during COVID, and then it seems like they caught up, or they just laid off enough people to where they caught up. And now I want to hear from some of the events that I throw, and people coming and talking to me, you know, the companies are more selective. There's the remote work thing that's kind of, you know, the thing everyone's battling about. What's the big things going on in the big picture of HR and hiring? I mean, there is definitely the changing workforce, you know, multiple generations

in the workplace. You have a lot of D&I discussions, political changes, changing economy. You have, you know, a few wars happening, especially if you're an HR professional who is supporting, you know, international organizations. There is, you know, you mentioned the low unemployment rates. So then the hourly workers, there's shortage of retail, frontline, nurses, healthcare, manufacturing, so forth. I mean, everywhere I feel. And then throw in artificial intelligence and trying to figure out new tools and new technologies. And you've got a recipe where HR pros' stomachs, they can't handle anything anymore. It's transition is, I feel like it's no longer a state but or it's no longer a

phase it's really a state and how do you lead and how do you support employees when burnout is the norm it's kind of going to be the new thing to start talking about yeah i mean because god forbid you should hire more people so you are hr after all see what i did there um but yeah so hr officials they they have to deal with a lot sexual harassment claims i know those there was the biden law there the the biden administration law that kind of opened up the whole thing with sexual harassment stuff or you you can't you can't go to mediation anymore goes It goes right to lawsuits. Imagine that's a big deal in HR. Firing and hiring, of course. You know, ageism was one thing we talked about

before the show where it seems a lot of people are struggling with stuff. My understanding, too, is we're in a declining market of available people that you can employ. And I think one of the figures is for every seven baby boomers going into retirement, there's one person to replace them that's youthful. And those seven workers are really at the top of their game. They're at the peak in their industries, journeymen, et cetera, et cetera.

But these new folks, they're just green. So there's some real shifts in our economy happening, basically. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of the discussions, at least, you know, at the strategic level, when we look at skills and skill-based hiring, and how do we support the different generations in the workplace to either upskill or reskill? Right. So upskilling would be like learning new skills where reskilling is maybe a skill that they already have, but refining it and adding more to it.

So this is where like learning and development organizations within HR are going to start to become a lot more crucial. You'll see a lot more culture type work that will be initiating, you know, from a strategic perspective. Right now, HR is considered that hiring and firing, right, like the police. So when I ask, what do you think HR does, you know, I'll get all the compliance stuff and the legal stuff and the but but a lot of what we do is becoming that glue between departments between leadership and employees and of course compliance and legal stuff it's always going to be there but at some point i think hr professionals and maybe 2025 is the year that they are going to have to be driving change, not just being part of change,

but driving change at a level where how can you create cultures and employee experiences that people want to be part of work or they want to come to work. And I think those are the things, or at least the conversations, that I'm part of, even in smaller organizations or even bigger ones, too. You know, what about AI? AI is coming on the market. There's training that has to be done for employees and stuff, retraining that has to be done for employees. Talk to us about some of that. So when I think of it, or at least when I talk to people about AI is, you know, most people think

of AI as a technology that is, you know, like the SAPs of the world, the workdays of the world, or the sales forces and all these tools. And yes, you know, HR tools have been in the world of HR and in the world of work for quite some time. And now a lot of these tools, I mean, the market out there for HR tech is phenomenal, and you can find tools for every single thing from you know hiring all the way to retiring but and a lot of these tools are taking ai now and embedding it to really make it you know easier for the hr professionals to to streamline some of the processes and get some of the daunting work out of the way. But I think where AI is going to really shift how we do work,

and shift is truly like the word I'm emphasizing a lot this year, it's AI and agents. They will help individuals really improve their performance, which in turn could improve their time to market or customer service or sales efficiency, creativity, marketing. But I think we're going to have these super humans that leaders now, you know, will have to support. And not only that, but I think leaders will continue to lead humans, you know, but also AI agents.

So future teams, I truly believe are going to be a hybrid of, you know, bots or ai agents and people great so now i gotta lead machines and people too huh we're already struggling leading people now pro machines in it too yeah it's already enough work as it is you know plus i i don't know how to get i know how to get in the hearts of mind to people and motivate them and move them and you know get them inspired and stuff you know being a cheerleader but i don't know if i know how to get in the hearts of minds of robots i don't know i mean i gotta find something do they have hearts and minds i mean probably minds but i don't know about hearts maybe they're learning i don't know they're just ai they're just looking at me going this guy's an idiot we should yeah we should kill him now hear that terminator music so there's that's probably what's going to happen there so how did you get into hr we'll delve into this a little bit as we

come back yeah but how did you get into hr and down the fields and roads that you're in what was some of your motivations and influences you came up? I am originally from Albania. It's this little country out at Mediterranean, you know, and at about seven years old, my family decided to move to the country of Greece. And I came in United States at 21 for college. I initially was a finance major, believe it or not. And after some soul searching, I felt like I've always been part of supporting people one way or another from even my first jobs. So I got into training and development for a while and then recruiting. And I kind of have been in every aspect of HR except employee relations, which is probably the tough one, one of the most

toughest ones. But what that gave me throughout the past 17 years or so, I have created a better understanding of every function of HR. So for the past five years, I've been mostly in HR technology where creating, you know, using tech to create better employee experiences at work has been a passion. I think the future of HR is going to have to be out of that compliance mode and into people operations where, you know, using tech as a means to improving, you know, employee experiences is going to be a key, we like it or not. Yeah. And we talk about this actually a lot on the show. You were asking before the show if we do a lot of HR conversations. We do talk about with leadership and cultures and stuff, the new up- the gen alpha the Gen Z the gen the Millennials no one

cared to give him a gen thing you guys started ruining everything that's basically and I think it was the boomers actually but you know we're gen X so we're standing the we're standing the greatness of ourselves we're all in the works chris we're all in the world every generation is in the works we blame everybody you know the the new young people i think millennials kind of started this and then gen z really filled it in but they they want more purpose and you know some of the things you're talking about from working and getting things out of their lives than, you know, some of us prior generation, you know, boomers who are just like, oh, just give me a paycheck and I'll show up today.

But these younger people, they seem to want more. They want to work for a bigger purpose. They want to, you know, all that good stuff. Can you expand on some of that? Yeah. And I think this is where, you know, with AI being introduced, that human element is going to be crucial. So we'll have, you know, tech throughout. I mean, you have tech in your home and your everyday life in your work and,

you know, you use tech to do these podcasts. There's so much of that, that I think that human element will become even more necessary for every generation. And I think this is where HR has an opportunity to be the glue in looking at what motivates people, because it might be different for different individuals. So how do we create experiences that motivate people from different angles and different perspectives? And that means you've got to listen to your people. You've got to be out there. You cannot be behind a door, you know, a closed door dealing with compliance stuff all the time.

You've got to figure out a way to be out there with your people, because otherwise you won't be able to support them or create better cultures for them. I can't just have them, you know, put the little notes in that one box on how we can do better. The suggestion box. Suggestion box. The one that the janitor throws everything away every week or so. He cleans that out.

So the, yeah, AI and leading is, is become more challenging. I think remote work, my understanding is remote work's kind of dying. I had heard, and I'm not a HR professional, that's why you're here. I had heard that, just want to make that clear unless you're confused. I had heard that there's only about 10% of jobs out there in the market that are remote now, and there's 40% of people looking for them. That kind of number kind of struck me. Does that sound about right? It is a challenge, right? I think out of all the different functions, the recruiting function right

now is struggling significantly. There is, I mean, just, you know, a job rec gets posted and you get like hundreds and hundreds of resumes. So trying to deal with that alone, it's a big struggle. I think it depends on the company and their values and what they're driving for. There are companies out there who are saying, you know what, remote work is here to stay. And we will find a way to lead better to support our employees or teach our leaders how to support their teams in a remote environment. And there are companies who maybe, unfortunately, are using this tactic of getting back to work as a tool for people to self-select out, which I think that's a horrible tactic to use, but it's happening. That's the reality of it. And then there are companies who are,

you know, with a hybrid work. They are fine with, you know, a couple of days in the office and some remote. Can I ask you this? Because it made me think of it when you said that. I mean, I know there are companies that are trying to push people to go back to work and come in from remote and they're doing what you mentioned. They're doing that. What's the HR word for it?

Selective. Self-selecting. Self-selecting. That's what you mentioned. They're doing that. What's the HR word for it? Selective. Self-selecting. Self-selecting. That's what I, that sounds like my dating life. The 2025. Who you dating, Chris? I'm self-selecting right now because I'm the only one who seems to be able

to make myself happy. Crack me up. I love it. It's what we do on the show. Anyway, but you know, but it seems that's a broad paintbrush that you're painting that those people don't have any value. And maybe you got a few screw-ups in there you want to get rid of, but there's got to be a percentage of those people that are probably highly valuable and maybe highly loyal and they've been with the company for a long time. You know, maybe it's a mother who has kids and the reason she doesn't want to come in for mode is because, you know, I don't know if you've seen the cost of child support lately. Child, that too, but, you know, child care.

It's expensive. I mean, we had five kids. I had to sell one just to pay for the child care. I had to look at Johnny and just go, Johnny, sorry, man, you were the last in line. You're out. But those kidneys and livers, they're worth a lot of money, buddy. That's why you have two of the kidneys at least. You have one now, but daddy needed a new BMW.

But, you know, it's expensive. I mean, it's almost more than a mortgage, I think I've seen. Oh, it's almost more than it is more than a mortgage, I think I've seen. Oh, it is. And we saw a decline of females and mothers specifically during COVID. They self-selected out because they just could not continue to pay for child care. So they decided to leave the workforce. So then we will see an influx of mothers returning to the workforce. And then, you know, what support do they get? Yeah. Yeah. But back to your point about that's, you know, a paintbrush that, you know, you're losing high performers as well as individuals who might not be as high performing.

And I think that is where I disagree with that strategy per se for attrition, because it's not a good strategy. You're harming your culture without realizing it to some extent. So instead of seeing, you know, what motivates people, if I am a mother, I do have two kids, I have a 10 year old and a seven year old. And to be honest, I am looking for that flexibility where, you know, I can be home at 3.30 and let my kids get in, you know, when they dropped off from the bus versus paying for additional childcare after, you know, meet your people where they are, you know, what are, what is it that motivates them or they need support at? And that is how you build a culture. Those are the employee experiences that I'm talking about. So like when an individual,

you know, comes back from maternity leave, what is their experience? Or, you know, if they have a serious medical condition and they have to be out, what is their experience going out on that leave? Or whatever those experiences are that you're identifying in your employee experience journey. Yeah, I remember one time we were getting a health policy for the company and the health officials came to us and said, there's two employees you have that are going to severely tilt the average cost of what everyone else is going to pay. And we'd really like you to consider maybe moving them out of the company so that we don't have to insure them. My one gal, her name is Glenda. She had shingles and she had, she was older. So she had a lot of health problems because it kind of comes with age, but she was my best worker. And the two, the two people that he told me they wanted me to get rid

of were my best workers. They were the people that, you know, half my, not half, maybe 70% of my employees, they, you know, they they would i would go to their office and they'd be in that that marathon runners that sprint runners position down on the ground you know with the with the butt up ready to run right at five o'clock you know 450 455 goes by you know they got the light off in the office they're just waiting to make a break for it as soon as that clock gets five and but you know my best employees they were the ones that, you know, I'd be coming by around eight o'clock and I'd be like, Hey, you know, you should go home. Cause I appreciate you working hard for me, but you know, you should, you should go home. I know you need to rest and

you have family and stuff. And so it's interesting to me that you can't just wholesale fire a bunch of people. I mean, I guess you can. Welcome to 1980s since America. Gordon Gekko. Greed is good, but you can just throw away so many people. I mean, it's just crazy. Yeah. And this is where, you know, as an HR professional, you are in those tables, I guess, or conversations.

And when you see a lot of like my one on one coaching is around, you know, how do you deal with situations like that. And a lot of times comes down to your personal values, and the organization's values and how much you align with that. And if you see that, you know, this decision that they're making to fire those two people is truly, you know, kind of that, that gauge, it's going towards your personal values of I have integrity, I cannot do that to somebody knowing what I know. Maybe that is not the company you want to work for. Maybe that is not the place you want to be at. And I mean, recently, there's a lot of talk with Meta's decision to dissolve their D&I department. And you have individuals in the company who are like, you're labeling me as mentally ill. Guess what? I'm

going to take a leave. And now employees have the ability to kind of you know say no this is not the place for me i'm out yeah dei seems to be taking a really big hit with what's going on uh politically in our country and the supreme court actually i think kind of started the whole ball rolling there with their knockdown of different i forget what it was but equal rights things and things where you had to give people kind of an edge. What are your thoughts on the future when I should note this, cause we have an 18 year old YouTube and people will say something like that wasn't last year. That was 10 years ago.

Yeah, this is January, 2025 and the incoming administration of the Trump administration, I guess, isn't a favorite let's put it that way of DEI. And it's kind of, I don't know, DEI kind of did get a little out of hand there. I felt it got out of hand. We've had lots of DEI professionals on the show. I felt once it got to, what was the incremental offenses or something, the incremental, I don't know, the microaggressions. I heard the term microaggressions.

I'm like, okay, we need to start punching people in the face with what the hell is going on. So I don't know what some of your thoughts are on DEI. Is it, is it dead and it's on its way out with, I don't think it's that I think maybe some of the funding might be dead, but I think here's where I stand with that. And, you know,

it's interesting to see how those are going to play out in the next four years, but without, you know, getting into politics or anything like that. But, you know, I am seeing kind of a schism, if that is the right word. It is a Greek word, by the way. But I do see a divide. I do see a divide in this HR profession to some extent, and I see choices and decisions are being made at the top to kind of align with the administration coming in. But D&I will morph, I believe. It might not be specific to these programs or different, I don't know how to say, but I think it's going to still remain to some extent as a concept of how do we still are inclusive and supportive of each other versus, you know, what are the specific programs that we are rolling out? I think this is where HR people have to be the glue. There's so much divide everywhere in the world. Like you have a couple of wars happening, you have so much in the economy that we need more people being together and supporting each other versus dividing. I still see D&I as a way of, you know, being inclusive and supportive of each other,

not necessarily in the, you know, oh, we need more funds to roll out programs. Maybe that is what is being hit right now. So we'll see how it's going to play out, honestly. Maybe use those funds to save people's jobs, eh? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. But no, it's kind of interesting

how that whole thing has kind of collapsed. I mean, there seems, you know, Facebook just recently caved on a number of different fronts when it came to just,. I mean, it was, there seems, you know, Facebook just recently caved on a number of different fronts when it came to just, oh,

what was it? They've caved on DEI. They recently, it seems everyone's dumping DEI stuff ever since the SCOTUS thing. But I imagine

people might go to places to work that they feel safe at, right? Yeah. And still support those programs. Maybe that will become

a premium that people will search for. You know, just like they're searching for 40% of the people, they're searching for 10% of the remote jobs. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like they're aligning their strategy to, you know, either align with Trump's administration or not. And there are companies out there who said, we are not dropping D&I from our culture or programs or funding. So it's still there.

Again, it comes down to the values of the organization. Are there the values that you see on the poster board in the cafeteria reel? Or are you actually living those values day to day? And it's going to show. Yeah. This is why the values of my office are the thunder drum. Right? Two employees enter, one employee leaves. That's how we settle things here at the office. I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We even have the Tina Turner or whatever comes by every now and then. She has the get up too. You're too funny. I don't think she's alive. She's a wonderful person, the singer though. She is a wonderful, she was a wonderful singer. I think she did pass away. God bless her. A couple years ago, wasn't it? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, but she lives on through her music, but and also through the character of Thunderdome. On your website, I think you have several offerings. Let's talk about some of the offerings you offer to people. And I think you have a yearly thing we should probably get a good plug in for. Oh, the yearly.

So Disrupt HR, as I would. I think so. I mean, it's your business, not mine. Disrupt HR is really, you know, my passion here locally. Disrupt HR as a brand is owned by Jennifer McClure. And she has created this movement for years now where there's over 160 chapters throughout the world, I think, but I lead the one in Rochester, New York. It's about 13 or 14 organizers and we put an event together every year where we bring just speakers and voices who want to share ideas out of the box ideas for the world of work so we do that once a year

our event here in in rochester is coming up on april 8th at the strong museum of play so we're very very excited for that so follow us on linked LinkedIn if you're listening and you're either Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, kind of on the western side of New York. Follow us and we'd love to see you. Yeah. What other things do you do to work with people one-on-one, coach, teach courses, any of that we need to know about? Yeah, yeah. So a lot of one-on-one support. I am launching a Shift Happens membership in March.

So go to intheworks.org and subscribe to the mailing list so you can be kind of in the know. I do a lot of team work as well as fractional HR support and HR technology implementations for small businesses. But really, my main audience is the solo HR professionals, companies between 200 and 300 employees. We look at, we can do an employee experience audit or any HR project implementations and strategy. I've been offering some sessions lately, I'll be honest, on the big ass calendar behind me.

People are loving that concept and it fits very well in kind of like developing a 90-day strategy for your HR team and HR department. So that's been fun. And when we do them in person, we could do them virtually or in person, but when we do them in person,

it's a lot of fun with lots of sticky notes and preparing for what's about to come in the next 90 days. So it should be a fun ride. You also have a free personal framework guide on your website that people can... I do, I do. And there is a couple of sessions coming up. You can download the guide and do it by yourself, or you can pick one of the dates for with an upcoming workshop. I think there is one on February 13th and another one on February 20th that you can create a one pager with what are your values and, you know, the things that are important to you. And then, you know, how are you looking to embed those things throughout your year. Because what happens is work will fill in every box on the

calendar, every, you know, time in your calendar on your electronic calendar. But you got to be intentional with the things that matter to you. You know, I have two kids, I want to make sure I am present and I'm here, you know, for them. And work will always fill in those gaps. When we launched the membership, a big piece of that is, you know, how do you deal with change, but also really focus on the things that matter to you. Yeah, definitely. Those are, those are important aspects. So give us your final thoughts as we go out, tell people how they can onboard with you, how they can reach out and find out if you guys are a fit in working together. Sure, sure.

So final thoughts. Oh, my God. So let me think about some predictions for HR or at least the world of work. I think, you know, as we shared a little bit in the beginning, like upskilling, reskilling, redefining jobs, I think it's going to be the forefront this year. Leaders will have or will be exposed to managing both humans and, know those machines pretty soon if not already happening i think everybody's gonna have to you know live in this world or learn how to live in this world that burnout is the norm and it's so sad jesus it's so sad i mean there's this there's not enough employees and it's so sad. Jesus. It's so sad. I mean, there's just not enough employees.

And it's going to get worse, from my understanding. It's going to get worse. Not have enough employees to do everything. I mean, it's going to cost you. I mean, they're already like welders now getting paid more than doctors. And like, probably the same is going to happen. Most of the trades are going to happen that way. Because most kids didn't want to get into other trades.

Yeah, that's a huge. Yep. That's happening a lot, especially in our area here in Rochester and Western New York. Yeah. Significant shift. Workforce development planning is at the forefront of the city of Rochester. And we have a lot happening with big companies coming and settling in this area. A lot of training and development organizations, you know, supporting workforce development planning and nonprofits with wraparound care. It's actually really nice to see in our area.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how that all works out. I mean, I'm just, you know, calling a plumber in the future is going to be more expensive than me going to get my hernia fixed or something. Yeah, crazy. It's going to be more expensive than me going to get my hernia fixed or something yeah crazy it's going to be just crazy i mean i was like i should probably go into trades it seems like that's going to be uh it's going to be a job skill you know because we still need people to build stuff and uh you know there were some robots we saw at ces but they're a long ways away from you know being something you could you could go and hit that roof on that house. They're a bit away.

So give us your dot com as we go out. Yes. As I'm wrapping up, just think about the shifts in your life. Chris, you too. Think about reflect what are you going to have to navigate in the next year? But please follow intheworks.org.

That is I-N-T-H-E-W-O-R-X.org. And join the mailing list. Shift Happens is launching on March 1st. It's going to be the to-go membership for both leaders and HR professionals that want to navigate transitions. And, you know, even if it is a personal or professional organizational change, I will be providing a lot of support and tools and peer coaching and a like-minded community where people can get together. So thank you. I'm so grateful for you having me in this show today. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. We hopefully we solved all the HR problems in the world. I wish, I wish I had a magic wand and solved them all.

We'll try. There might be a few more shows we have to do to do that. Anyway, Alina, thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. Take care. Thanks, Arnaz, for tuning in.

Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that should have us.