Kenneth Ceaser

▶0:00IntroWelcome 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.

▶0:39HostI'm excited to welcome Ken to the Built By People podcast. Ken, thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:49GuestYes, thank you, Dan. Dave, I really appreciate taking time to be on your podcast today. A little bit about my journey. It all started 24 years ago when I joined the Air Force. I spent 24 years in the Air Force all around the world in HR. In 2008, I decided to— after I left my deployment in Iraq, I decided, okay, it was time for me to retire. And so we retired from Georgia and moved back here to Dallas, Texas. I was to have a recruiter that is and was a former military that really looked at my resume and understood my resume and gave me an opportunity to interview with Flowserve here in Dallas, Texas. And interviewed and got that position at Flowserve. I spent in several different industries as HR business partner, OD, organizational effectiveness. From there, went to Boeing, spent some time at Boeing on the international side of it. I think my expertise in understanding cultures, as we mentioned before, I spent time all over the world and really understanding cultures and how to integrate with cultures really focused, allowed me to excel at Boeing. They had just purchased a global company, and I actually did real well in that job with Boeing. And then from there, I went to the food services industry. I went back global with AmerisourceBergen. We were in 50 different countries, and I loved that role, being able to integrate what I knew with HR, in with a global environment was really great in itself. And then I went over and moved over to nonprofit. Now I'm with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. I'm the Chief People and Culture Officer here at MADD. That journey started back in 2008 when I retired. And so I was very fortunate.

▶2:40HostKen, can you share a story about a time when a mentor significantly impacted your professional development and how that experience shaped your approach to mentoring others?

▶2:51GuestThat's phenomenal. I had— so let me just tell you, I had 4 phenomenal mentors, and the 4 mentors I had were extraordinary women leaders. One was actually when I retired from the military and I went to Flowserve, my VP of HR and OD was a phenomenal mentor. Her name was Lisa Esparza. And so she was at AutoNation now. She was a phenomenal leader. She was the first one that truly taught me what it meant to be a true business partner. Now, coming from the military and to becoming a business partner, she taught me that in itself about the business side and understanding the business side. But more importantly, Dave, what she taught me was that the product and how we present ourselves to our business partners is just as important as the information itself. Quality product, making sure that the product that you're delivering to your business partners is top notch because you don't want to lose your credibility over a bad presentation or a bad spreadsheet. So she really taught me that in itself. And honestly, I take that to my mentees now and individuals that I teach now. It's not all about what you know, it's how you present it and yourself to your business leaders, because As an HR, it takes us a lot to build up credibility, and it only takes one bad, oh, you forgot to dot an I, to lose credibility on a presentation. That was really one of the areas that I still revolve around that as well. Another one, great mentor, Dave, was a mentor that I had at Walgreens. And so she was a business leader. She really taught me how to ingrain myself into the business side. And to be a good business partner, you have to understand the business. And I mean, from the financial side all the way down to you name it. Because if you don't understand what the employee or the business leaders are doing, you can't be an effective business partner. And so she taught me that. And to this day, I still teach that. And it's one of my ethos that I teach my mentees as well, is really to understand, to be effective, you have to understand the business, even from the business side, from financial acumen to operations. So I think that's another aspect that I really learned that I still teach my mentees today.

▶5:14HostKen, can you describe a specific instance where you successfully applied AI prompts to— in HR to achieve a notable outcome? What were the challenges and what did you learn from that experience?

▶5:26GuestGreat question. That is a phenomenal question. And it just happens that I was at a conference this week that I spoke about AI and the future of AI and how we're integrating that piece of it there. One thing that I did tell the group that I discussed about AI is the importance of HR professionals must understand the core functions of a particular program initiative to be able to understand prompts. Because if you don't understand how something is supposed to be, you cannot truly provide prompts into AI to get the product that you need.. And I think that's more extremely important. And then also to be able to ask the correct prompts to generate, to have the agent generate exactly what you need. My team and I are working on predictive analytics with AI right now, and it's being able to understand what information does the agent need, historical information that the agent needs. Also what prompts are needed to be able to drive out your predictive analytics. So those are what we're working with. Now to be able to understand that piece of it. Also, we're doing turnover trends now within the agent that allows us— and we're using Microsoft Copilot to be able to help drive some of these agents since we're using a Microsoft environment. Being able to prompt the agent to provide us exactly what we're needing is what we're asking for now.

▶6:56HostKen, when was a time you led an Incognito certification HR training session, and how did it benefit the participants? What feedback did you receive that affirm the impact of that

▶7:09Guesttraining? Oh, it's funny that you did that, Dave. That's a great question. What I found is I do an incognito HR generalist certification, like a quasi-HR generalist certification course. What I found is that in HR, we have our certifications, we have our SHRM and HRCI certifications, but what we don't have is a true HR generalist certification. They are out there, Dave, but what young professional is going to pay upwards to $1,000 to go through a certification course? So I developed that kind of a quasi-HR generalist certification where we go through the body of knowledge of what a true HR generalist should understand, given about anywhere from 1 to 3 years of experience recruiting, onboarding, compensation, chief finance. Are all those areas that we're focusing on as well. And feedback that I provided is that there are a lot of information that our HR generalists don't know. For example, workforce planning. Dave, you and I both know not a lot of people understand workforce planning, but that's a core function that an HR generalist should know to be able to help understand from a recruitment standpoint. So the feedback that I got, they loved it, by the way, loved the fact that information was provided. We incorporated some AI aspect into this generalist course, still included what are typical prompts that an HR generalist should be asking the agent to articulate, help screen candidates from a particular— with particular resume and job descriptions. I loved it because I really love teaching and the feedback that I provided is really good from the participants and they love the fact that we were able to take deep dives into it and provide practical application with it. With the certification course, we've given scenarios that participants can go into and actually, even from employee relations, we gave scenarios that the participants will be able to use and apply. How would you investigate these? What would be the outcome from it using particular employment laws as examples?

▶9:19HostKen, how did you develop your passion for teaching and mentoring in HR Inc.? Could you provide an example of a mentee who has benefited from your guidance?

▶9:29GuestGreat question, Dave. I think now one of my mentees that I have is my current employee, and it drove passion behind why I really believe in leaving a legacy for myself through mentorship. This person was told that They didn't grow up in HR, they didn't have the certification, but I knew that this person had a phenomenal work ethic and wanted to learn. So what I did was turn my mentorship and my learning aspect to this person, and she really grew with the learning and mentorship that I provided with her and turned out to be a phenomenal HR business partner. So I really believe it is looking at a person's work ethic and their aspirations to become something larger in the HR profession. I think mentors should look at that and provide a lot more mentorship and guidance to those individuals. She's phenomenal. She has been promoted several times in the HR profession and she's doing phenomenal work.

▶10:30HostKen, what parting advice would you like to share with our audience?

▶10:34GuestI think one of the parting advice I would be is that AI is here and AI is here to stay. And I think that it will not replace jobs, but it will help augment jobs. And HR professionals, we need to help facilitate not only the technology itself, but teaching individuals how to integrate that technology and also upskilling individuals as well. So I think that is one of the areas itself. And the other one is really is continue to mentor, find those shining stars, that people who have that aspiration, the work ethic, look for them and really grow them in the HR profession. I think that excites me the most is looking at the young professionals that are coming into the HR career field, and it excites me about the direction in which we're going.

▶11:22HostKen, thanks so much for joining us on the Built By People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you.

▶11:26GuestThank you very much.

▶11:27HostIt was a pleasure to have you.

▶11:27GuestThank you very much. Thank you very much, Dave. I appreciate it and appreciate you.