IAMPHENOM 2020: Day 2 Recap

How do you follow up two phenomenal days of training, inspiring sessions, and crazy fun parties?

You keep up the momentum, of course!

In true Philadelphia style, the final day of IAMPHENOM kicked off with an early morning Rocky Run in the city of brotherly love. The conference continued with the newest product innovations from Phenom, as well as the future of HR, the importance of designing an empathetic experience, and how to defeat HR’s biggest threat: experience thrash.

Check out our recap for the biggest highlights of the day!

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Phenom Innovation Keynote

Mahe Bayireddi, CEO & co-founder at Phenom & Phenom Team

Talent experience is your competitive advantage.

"Digital transformation is about delivering the right experiences. In HR, the most important aspect is Talent Experience. It’s your talent competitive advantage."

"Make experiences personal and personalized. Ask talent stories about who they are, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Make sure it’s familiar and trustworthy."

AI & data play an important role in delivering personal experiences.

"When creating an EVP or experience for employees, candidates, or recruiters, are we thinking about different contexts? If you want to scale experiences globally, you need 1-to-1 personalization, which connects with AI."

“Human + AI” is what our future holds. AI is different for different people: it plays the role of companion, assistant, advisor—it’s all okay, as long as it can make a difference."

"To make experience and AI work for you, the most important things to consider are data and feedback loops. How do you make assumptions, learn, and improve?"

"What we showed today in the Phenom TXM Platform: True 1:1 Personalization. Phenom Scheduling, Phenom Gigs, and Frontline Hiring Manager. These all came together because customers asked us to deliver them."

The Role of HR in a Cultural Transformation and Its Impact on the Employee Experience

Andrea Euenheim, Chief Human Resources Officer & Labour Director at Metro AG

Business transformation cannot happen without cultural transformation.

Culture is something that is not tangible. As leaders of a company, we’re really good at putting a vision out there or laying out strategies. There are policies, procedures, and goals. But that does not make the culture of a company.

I asked over 200 people to describe the culture of this company. And I got 200 different answers. What became clear is that the company focused so much on business transformation, it somehow did not take the cultural transformation with it.

Let your company values guide the employee experience.

If you think about guiding principles & values, they need to be applicable across all levels of the organization. I have the chance to define who we are, how we want to be seen, how we work together, and weave it into an employee experience we want to form.

We need to find those touchpoints in the employee experience that defines who we are, and helps the company grow to further meet the needs of our customers.

Employee experience is more than just what is happening to me at this moment. It’s guiding me, it’s retaining me, it’s developing me, it’s making me happy because I can have an impact. The people around me also feel the same and have the same purpose.

Creating Moments that Matter

Chip Heath, NYT Bestselling Author & Stanford Professor

The most impactful experiences are made up of moments.

When we talk about experience—employee experience at work & customer experience with product—we’re not talking about a continuous film strip, we’re talking about moments that stand out in people’s minds.

We found there were 4 common experiences in every moment: elevation, insight, pride, and connection... If we build these principles into our lives, we’re going to have more moments.

It’s up to us to create moments.

Why don’t we prep more people to make someone’s day? It’s a positive cycle once we start creating moments. You can build peak moments. The tragedy is we don’t do that nearly as much as we should.

You all are makers of moments for your workplace, customers, and families. You have the skills. You have the ability. All you have to do is go back home to create them.

Panel: The Future of HR

Moderator: Steve Goldberg, HCM Practice Leader at Ventana Research

Panelists: Colleen Stratton, Global Leader, Workforce Development at SEI | Mitch Schwartz, Head of Talent Acquisition at Micro Focus | Rahel Schellenberg, Global Head of HR Solutions at Marsh & McLennan Companies

AI can be a powerful driver of productivity & talent experience.

"From a TA function, it was about productivity. How do I help recruiters hire people more efficiently? This led us to engage with Phenom, starting with the CRM." — Mitch Schwartz

"We used AI to monitor the productivity of developers, and we saw they were most productive between 2pm and 5pm. So we established quiet hours, which has helped with productivity. We can reconstruct the work environment so people can be more productive." — Colleen Stratton

“Data is more important than anything. Digital is important. You need to understand the tools and the technology to get better at optimizing processes and experiences.” — Rahel Schellenberg

"Between the #MeToo & pay equality movements, we looked at those things internally. Our internal mobility was not okay. We started getting as excited about internal candidates as external ones. Women can see opportunities for themselves—they can take classes and get the skills they need." — Colleen Stratton

Designing for Empathy: Accessibility for TXM

Eric Offner, VP Sales at Phenom | Sean ODonnell, Product Manager at Phenom | Suman Damera, Principal Accessibility Engineer at Phenom | Parker Bettis, Product Manager at Phenom

The key to accessibility is empathy.

“If I cannot search for a product properly, view colors, fill out shipping information, and it’s not accessible, it’s impossible for a person like me to buy the product. Designing with empathy enables a person like me to take action.” — Suman Damera

“An accessible mindset starts with curiosity. We ask ourselves, “What is the problem? What is the cause of the problem? How can we fix it?” And we acknowledge it will be frustrating. The answers will not come easy, but we will stay positive.” — Sean ODonnell

“71% of people with disabilities leave the career site if it’s not accessible. With Phenom, you’re WCAG 2.0 compliant out-of-the-box so you’re serving an accessible experience to candidates. We’re focusing on accessibility so you can focus on people.” — Eric Offner

Thrash Talk

Jonathan Dale, VP of Marketing at Phenom | Devin Foster, Product Marketing at Phenom

Experience thrash is the single biggest obstacle for HR.

“Last year, we introduced and unmasked a villain. No one acknowledges it, but it impacts everyone in the talent lifecycle. And the name for this villain is Experience Thrash.”

“It’s the single biggest barrier to acquire, manage, and evolve talent. But if you can acknowledge it, recognize it, address it, and be proactive, it becomes the biggest opportunity sweet spot in your organization.”

It’s also the biggest opportunity.

“There’s no better area to learn and impact humans than HR.”

“We need a hero. And that hero is Talent Experience Management.”

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Thank you to all of our attendees, speakers, sponsors, and employees who helped make IAMPHENOM 2020 not only possible, but an incredible conference.

We'll see you next year at IAMPHENOM 2021!