The New HR Playbook: Lead with Questions, Build Trust, and Embrace AI

Welcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. I'm excited to welcome Jason to the Built By People podcast. Jason, thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could tell us a little bit more about your career journey.

Hi everyone. My name is Jason Descentes. I have the privilege of leading the chief human resource function at Toshiba Americas based out of Houston, Texas. I've spent over 20-plus years in manufacturing, mostly automotive, you know, industry, but I do have experiences in many other industries, including financial services, healthcare. I also have owned a consulting firm for 5 years consulting on everything HR from startups all the way to Fortune 500 companies. I've been very blessed over my career to have sat in almost every HR chair possible as a high potential in a lot of companies, large and small, where I've had the opportunity to see everything global as well as, you know, a lot of local and cultural differences across the globe as well. My family, I have a beautiful wife of over 26 years. I have two beautiful children, boys that are in college. And, you know, my career journey really started off as an accident in HR. I was going to be a police officer and had my undergrad in criminal justice and decided at the last minute after I graduated that that's not really what I do, even though I come from a family of police officers on my mom's side. And it was something that I always enjoyed as a kid. But at the end of the day, I tried law school and law school. Then I did that for about a semester and that really wasn't for me either. I did really well, but it wasn't for me. And I fell into HR, like, I don't know if some folks like myself. There really wasn't a degree back then. It was labor relations was the only degree at the time for HR. So I didn't really feel like the union negotiations was my avenue, but I became a trainer. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan. So my sister happened to work at Ford Motor Company and she said they were hiring trainers. So that's how my HR career kind of took off. And from there I went and worked at Ford Motor Company. I also had most of my career at Chrysler. We defected from one company to the other competition, which was, you know, in the Metro Detroit area, they call it the Big Three for a reason, Ford, GM, and Chrysler. So I had the opportunity to work at Chrysler most of my career where I had great mentors that moved me around HR from training and development where I started off, got into HRIS, then I got into compensation and org planning. And then from there, I jumped into the generalist role where I serviced everybody from finance, tax, treasury, sales and marketing, communications. And then I also had a stint in OD/OE, which was really great because that's that change management. Function along the way. And along that way, as I learned as an HR professional, you need to have the business acumen. So I went back and got my master's in business, and then I actually have my doctorate as well in business. So educationally and having owned a business, it helps me influence and really connect more with the business leader. So long-winded answer, but that's kind of my short of the HR career, a little bit about my family and my passions.

Thanks, Jason. I wanna discuss the importance and how behind establishing better influence as an HR executive. How do you go about doing that as a leader?

So I have a philosophy I start with, which is called listen, learn, and lead. Uh, it's, I didn't make it up. It's been around for a while, but it is something that I use. And really when I walk in, create that relationship and influence, you gotta build trust. And if you think about the business side of our brain, which is the left side of our brain, which is the logical academic side. And, and if you were to take a picture of it, it would look like a bunch of cubicles in an office building because it's very structured side of our brain. But when we connect with people, we connect more on the right side of the brain, which is that belief system, that trust system, that awareness, that intuition side of our brain and creative side. So too often people think you have to come at it always from a business perspective, but just listening to start is huge because what does that build? That builds, oh wow, you're actively listening to what I'm talking about, which means you understand kind of where I'm coming from. And then you start to learn. And that's the second step. And that's really where I come in and start to say, well, tell me more. Help me understand what that means. Why did you start off that way? And really what it does is it furthers that listening actually, and then it starts to get you to understand different perspectives of, of the journey of that, any decision that they're making. And then I start to lead, the last part, which really gets into, and even then it's not a commanding lead, it's a question lead. It's, oh, have you considered, or did you think of, or when you tried that, would you consider maybe something else? And really the influencing then gets into that trust. Once you build trust, then you pretty much start more of an open hand-in-hand conversation. But that first initial step of that listen, learn, and lead is so important that 9 times out of 10, it's me asking people, tell me more, tell me more. And you know, Simon Sinek, who we all know, and he really had a really good speech about that and listening to a friend of his. And all they wanted to do was really say something to them and ask them to listen. They don't always want advice. Advice sometimes is given just naturally by yourself as you talk through something. And that's really what, in my opinion, we're the confidants to not only just the CEO, but to every employee, including the entry level. And we're there to listen, learn what the situation is, and then lead through the situation, if that makes sense.

In thinking about HR, there are those who work on the process and those who work in the process. What's the balance there, and how do you ensure a balance between those two priorities to drive outcomes?

Those are my favorite things. I talk about in HR, think of a triangle split between two sides. It's, you got those that work on the process and those that work in the process. Those on the process, those are your creative side, right? That's your compensation benefits. They create programs. That's the side of my group that I focus a lot about in the creation side. And having come to Toshiba recently, you know, I'm there to look at their current sets of processes. It's a 150-year-old company. If you could imagine, there's a lot of process there that's been there for quite a long time. You may have to relook at those sets of processes, but always keeping in mind those that work in the process, those are your field HR people, right? Your business partner, generalist, whatever you may call them. That's those that work in the process. You don't want to be the company that creates it and throws it over the wall. What I tend to do is even though I know the bifurcation of on the process and in the process, I make sure that my teams talk to each other and they have to get buy-in from those that work in the process before they create something, because that side will give you an indication of, will this work? Will we have challenges? I want to get a business person's perspective. So HR, what I tend to do when anything, we create something, I'll bring in certain leaders or even just individuals depending upon what we're creating. And we try to get some feedback. Because the worst thing HR can do is be paternalistic and provide things that we think people want versus actually providing things that people actually want. So what I tend to do with my teams is make sure everybody understands their roles and responsibilities, but also that together they need to work, including the ones in the process when they're creating coaching or when they have employee relations issues, they need to make sure that the process steps to address those employee relations issues may need to go back and be modified depending upon different generations. For example, as Gen Z's coming into the workforce and dialing up things, right? The way you approach them and the way they respond is completely different than what you would do from a boomer to an Xer to a millennial. So those are the things that we're constantly, um, on top of, constantly asking ourselves as HR, and then more importantly, Keep it simple. If I can make it a one-page process, I will. Because the challenge of any successful HR organization is they create processes that actually work, that, that are meaningful, and that are, quite frankly, don't have to be overly complicated.

Jason, let's talk about competency models. What are they and how do you develop them?

So competency models can range from actual almost skill sets, competencies, like having a skill set to be analytical, or it could be behavioral, having an ability to collaborate, right? The competency model in my mind are twofold. You have those that are the skill sets, competencies that the job needs to have. So if you're a finance person, for example, you need to be able to be pretty decent at math, right? Or at least pretty decent at Excel. Those are the tools by which are the skills of the job. On the other hand, Everybody needs to know how to collaborate. So there needs to be a 50-50 split between skills and behaviors. What I say is it's what you do, but more importantly, it's how you do it. And that's the behavioral side. So when I set competencies up for any process, first we have to have a quick assessment of what is it we're trying to get? What's the end game of it? Like, why are we trying? And any competency that you set up that you're measuring should drive certain outcomes. Meaning if you're trying to drive a certain outcome on a business model to increase whatever it may be, sales, production, productivity, what have you, you have incentives on behaviors that usually help drive them. And then you have compensation incentives that reinforce them, right? So all of it is really based on what you're trying to do and how you're trying to do it. And the challenge that most companies have today are if you look at any engagement survey, What are the top 3 things that typically pop? Compensation's always up there, and sometimes that's out of a company's or HR's control 'cause of budgetary reasons. But the next 2 are really important. Leadership communication comes up as a challenge of why people are disengaged, followed by career development. I have been falsely promised things that haven't come to fruition, or I'm not being developed. So what I tend to do with folks in talking about these things is make sure that they understand, um, the leadership. On why these are important and making sure that they, you know, we do everything that we can to try to influence that as much as possible.

Jason, PTO is a hot topic these days, and from my perspective, it's hard to get large traditional companies to buy into approaches like unlimited PTO. You have some experience in this area.

Lots.

Could you talk about it and how you've evaluated PTO programs and pushed for change?

Sure. If you were to ask me 20 years ago, I'd probably say I'm more of a traditionalist and it makes sense. You get 2 weeks to start, you go to 3 after so many years and blah, blah, blah, right? Over the course of my career, again, generations will help guide these things or pandemics will help guide these things for you. We never thought hybrid workforce was here at all, let alone to stay. And it takes that dramatic change for that kind of shift to happen in the marketplace. I had been looking at unlimited PTO for many years. I've studied it over many years, and it's pretty prescriptive if you do it the right way. And it's not really unlimited PTO. I think sometimes can sway whether people adopt it. What I call it is a flexible vacation program or flexible holiday program if you're European or global in that sense, right? And what does that mean? Well, that means you can't just take time off whenever you feel like it. There is somewhat of an approval process by a leader, because if we had everyone take off all at the same time, we're not going to run production or we can't support the things that we do. So we have to set up parameters of the program, but it also can't be restrictive where a person can't take time off, right? So there is some parameters. So the best way I've been able to do this is put what I call constructive parameters in place that both appease, you know, the leadership, but also the employees feel like they're not held down by a, by this structured format. And another thing to influence is Through finance. I tell finance, a lot of companies do carryover on vacation. Well, if you carry over any vacation, you have to accrue for it. So finance always has to accrue for it. Plus, if you have accrued vacation, you have to pay it out. In many states, that's required. And some, and if you do that PTO carryout, if you go to a flexible vacation program, not an unlimited, then you never have to do that again. You, HR, the administration, goes away, right? Because it's unlimited. It also takes care of a lot of the restrictions on absences due to state regulations as it relates to being sick. Some states require minimum number of absences, but if you have unlimited, aka flexible vacation program, then that also addresses that. It actually addresses a lot of different issues that I always point out. So I show the cost-benefit analysis and the average many, many studies will tell you most leaders and above take no more than 3 weeks off. It typically, that's American, right? If I was in Europe, I'd have to be careful because all of August would be off as most of Europe is, right? Going global. So I think you have to also be culturally sensitive to how that would work in other countries. But I know in the States specifically, it works very well. And I'm actually potentially, hopefully to maybe present it to the leadership team at Toshiba. I can't do it for hourly. You can do it for salary and that's the difference. So I've had a very high success rate, especially in my consultancy firm, putting those in place.

Jason, what's a major challenge you faced in your journey as an HR executive and how did you overcome it?

I get this question a lot and I comically, I always say my biggest challenge is people, but I think it's just the dynamics of how people approach situations, right? Before I go in and address a situation, I try to assess it first to understand how I'm going to de-escalate if there's a situation. The biggest challenge is de-escalation of a situation. And 9 times out of 10, the issue is miscommunication between individuals who tend to get in, you know, whether it's debates against each other, whether then they argue. I've had so many crazy stories of things that have happened that you wouldn't think would be humanly possible, but it does happen. I'm sure a lot of us HR people can get together and write a book that we can't just make up. Maybe that's the title, because it really did happen. But a lot of the challenges is really understanding people's approach, making sure that I have all the data available. So not all the time, and I think this goes to any department, quite frankly, and this is really, if you think of engagement index, you also need to think about the enablement index, and that's, do I have the right tools to do my job effectively? That has always been a struggle for me in HR is making sure I have the right tools. So whether it's an HRIS system that, by the way, no HRIS system does everything perfect., but does it perfect enough that if I need to get what I need to get done, it's done and efficient? And it's the user experience is really important to me as well. But making sure I have the right tools has always been another challenge. So it's really dealing with some of the challenges of individuals, but the other side of it is having the right tools to then prescribe different solutions to mitigate those

risks. Jason, what parting advice would you like to share with our audience?

You know, HR is, I always say people are always like, we don't need HR. It's going to be outsourced. AI is coming in. It's going to take over everything. I'm here to tell you people are people and HR would have gotten rid of a long time ago if people really thought it was something that they can automate. I don't want people to freak out. I'm hearing it a lot. My own staff asked me about the AI and like what's going to happen. And I think I've told you I'm going to a couple of tech conferences and speaking. It is a hot topic. But, you know, if you look back at manufacturing and where I come from, robotics, when it first was a topic, everything's gonna be a robot. Yeah, do we have robotics? Sure. But is it taking over the world? No. So I think we just need to be cautious about how technology is used. And really, let's not use the scare tactic or fear tactic out there. In my opinion, folks, I really want people to understand it's a tool. And let's figure out the best use for it. It's going to eliminate some work, but guess what? It's gonna create new work. So rather than focus on what it's going to get rid of, we need to focus on what it's going to enhance, focus on what it's going to create, and then how can we use it to get rid of some of the paperwork stuff that no HR person really loves, let's be honest. So then I can go and we can go create some really fun strategies and maybe do more social, you know, social responsibility work out in the communities, as all HR people love. Again, I just want everyone out there to realize that It's going to be okay. Let's ask the questions and let's be curious rather than be scared. So that would be my parting advice

to everybody. Jason, thank you so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure having you involved.

Thank you so much. It's, it's been a privilege.