How to Retain Your Top Talent in 2025
Paaras Parker, Chief HR Officer at Paycor, explores the future of HR and its role in business impact. She discusses the importance of continuous onboarding, employee engagement, and shared language in building a strong workplace culture. Learn how HR can support employees and drive better outcomes by staying connected and aligned with business goals.
In today's episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we welcome Paaras Parker, Chief Human Resources Officer at Paycor, a leader in human capital management.
She explores the evolving role of HR in business, sharing how companies can navigate retention challenges and better support employees throughout their journey. She emphasizes the importance of fostering a continuous onboarding experience and how businesses can leverage data and flexibility to improve employee engagement.
🎓 In this episode, Paaras discusses:
The role of shared language in building a cohesive, value-driven culture.
How HR can partner with leaders to add value and drive business outcomes.
The critical moments that matter during the first year of an employee's journey.
How companies can support their people through changing roles and responsibilities.
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Paaras Parker 0:00
Think about tying your shoes. You don't get taught to tie your shoes one time. It's over and over and over again. And I think there's these critical moments that matter, what matters the first week, what matters the first month, what matters the first 3060, 90 days. But then sometimes we, like, forget people after 90 days, yeah, because we're like, Oh,
Chris Rainey 0:19
bye, good luck.
Paaras Parker 0:20
You're fine with like now you know all the things. You figured everything out. Well, then what matters when they change a role, or what matters when they become a people leader, or what matters when they're eight months in and maybe they're starting to get a little bored? Are we reminding them? Are we showing them? Are we teaching them things that are that are important? Six, 912, months down the line, and then 357, 10 years down the line.
Chris Rainey 0:52
Paris, welcome to the show. How
Paaras Parker 0:53
are you I'm so good. How are you doing?
Chris Rainey 0:56
Not too bad. Nice to see you. Where are you joining me from in the world?
Paaras Parker 1:00
I am in the States. I'm in Cincinnati, Ohio. It's a rough it's a rough morning. Our home team played last night for Monday Night Football, so it was a late night. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 1:13
I feel like, in the US, like you have to be a fan. It's like, you have no choice. It's like, is it like, you know? Yeah, you got to take sides. Well,
Paaras Parker 1:20
you know, it's so interesting. Chris, so I'm not from the States. I was born overseas, okay, and so when my family moved here permanently, it was like, right before I started kindergarten, and they told my mom and dad that one of the best ways to, kind of, like, assimilate into the states was to pick a baseball team, pick football team. Watch Oprah and the Golden Girls. Those were, like,
Chris Rainey 1:46
interesting, yeah, yeah, that was, but that was a checklist. You've also just immediately done that and made enemies, though, because you've picked a side, so, like, you've chosen America, America, right? Yeah, that's true. You've chosen a side, but no worries before we jump into more detail to level a little bit more about you and your back and the journey to where we are now.
Paaras Parker 2:13
Yeah, sure. So you know, I am, I am a die hard HR professional. I love the I love the world of HR, but wasn't born. Wasn't born here, started thinking I was going to be a child psychologist, and found my way into the business world. And the thing that I love about business, and actually, Chris, you and I were talking about this earlier. You know, when we think about now, we call them people teams. Were even like transitioning again from personnel to human resources,
Chris Rainey 2:48
human capital,
Paaras Parker 2:49
that's where I work. So I worked for a great HCM company called paycor. And the thing that I love about my job is that, you know you you get to run and work with your teams, so my people team, all the people that we get to serve at paycor. But then there's also this really unique opportunity to connect with HR leaders, employees and employers of all the customers and potential customers that we get to support. And what I love about that is, I think we're always trying to find these ways where we're different and better, when there's so much value in figuring out what other people are going through that's the same, and how we can actually, like, work together to improve the ecosystem. And that's, you know, oddly and maybe uniquely, one of my favorite things about this job is that you get to be a partner and empower all of the functions in your business. And we get to remind people every single day that, like our special sauce is the human beings that that said yes to us when they accepted the job, and then that say yes to us every morning, right when they wake up to do when they wake up to do their very best. And it's so exciting, because I don't know about you, but I'm not the exact same person every single day, and businesses aren't the exact same every single day. Sometimes the trends at a macro, you know, level feel like they never change, but the day to day is so different, and being able to add value is, I don't know about you, but it's kind of like boring at work when you don't feel like you're adding value or making something better, and we get the chance to do that every single day. No,
Chris Rainey 4:38
it's interesting because it is, like you said, because you're you're doing, you have an impact, both internally and externally to your customers. It's kind of like supercharged your role, yeah, impact that you can have
Paaras Parker 4:51
well, and it's my favorite thing, you know, I, I love meeting with either current customers or prospects. Course, and not just like talking to them about how to use tools, but just in this virtual environment now, just being able to pull up my screen and say, This is what my dashboard looks like. This is what the one on ones look like with my team. This is how we think about recognition. This is how we bring this really important like people process and people outcome to life. And I love people's reactions, because they're like, is that a PowerPoint slide? And I'm like, No, it's just, this is my real it's my real work. And I and I love that because, you know, in this, in this realm of I think, like social media filters and retakes and editing yourself. We've, like, forgotten, I think, like, the genuine awesomeness and just real and just being able to share exactly what you're looking at with somebody else, particularly when it comes to how you empower the people in your business, I think, is super powerful.
Chris Rainey 5:59
Yeah, quickly go. I just want to quickly transition back to the how do you go from being child psychologist to HR, yeah. I
Paaras Parker 6:07
mean, basically like that. Some of it is, I had a professor tell me that what would make me great at being a child psychologist would probably also like, kill my kill my insides. And so I was left at this fork in the road of the job that I thought I was always going to have, and then a lot of uncertainty. And so I was working for Limited Brands, Victoria's Secret at the time as a summer job, and just really learned through that experience that I loved, I loved the business of business, right? How businesses make money, how people
Chris Rainey 6:41
you just said you normally people say, I like the business, like the people bit, but I love the fact that you said business, because businesses, and that's right, that's and
Paaras Parker 6:52
people, people. We say, you know, empowering leaders to build winning teams. Or we talk a lot about powering people through perform, or powering performance through people. And people is what powers a business right, regardless of if you work in healthcare, if you work in a service industry, if you work in retail, if you work in technology, none of those things happen really, really well and in a scalable way without human beings. And so I fell in love with the business and business, and then I fell even more deeply in love with how people impact a business. And if you can really get to know people, if you can really understand what matters to them, how magically right, you can be a motivational factor to people finding success, not just in their day to day, but like, long term success and wealth for themselves or their families or whatever else is important to them. And it's really cool, like it's so cool, it's so rewarding, and I'm excited to do it every day.
Chris Rainey 8:00
I'd love talking about the new report that you and the team just launched the HR in 2025 insights and predictions from 7000 plus HR Finance and IT pros. So I love to so the first one the report talks about is recruiting. What are some of the sort of challenges that you're seeing in recruiting and hiring right now?
Paaras Parker 8:27
How many can I say, like 100 a
Chris Rainey 8:30
whole season? Yeah, we
Paaras Parker 8:32
can do a whole season, you know, but they're they're challenges, and they're also really exciting. So I think we're seeing a couple things. One people are still trying to figure out, like, how do I find a job without ever talking to anybody? Chris, you and I didn't get to chat about, you know, how old we were, what the workforce looked like when we joined. But like, you know, when I got my job at Victoria Secret in the States, we used to do this thing. You walked the mall, you got dressed up in work clothes. You went store to store. You picked up applications, if you were lucky, right? You got an interview with an actual human now, you know, think about how many times you've applied for a job, and then 60 seconds you get a thanks, but no thanks email back, right? And you never even, you never even have that opportunity. So I think one human beings are still trying to figure out, well, how do I navigate this? And I think one of the outcomes that we see from that is sometimes we see people applying for everything, and you're like, Well, did you read the job required? Like, do you know what the job is. And so for candidates, I think it's hard. They're they're trying to figure out what to apply for, how to stand out. I think for recruiters, it's hard, because you're getting such a influx in applicant flow, but not necessarily the types of profiles that you need. For a role, and then it's a mix of, are you interviewing virtually? Who are you interviewing with? Is it a panel? Do you ever get to go anywhere on site? How do you ask questions while showing that you're interested, but also as a human being, trying to identify if that job is right for you. And so while those can seem like challenges, I think those are also the things that make our jobs and jobs of people leaders really exciting. And how do we really know our companies? How are we really clear on what we want this role to accomplish? And then, how do we merge all of that together to ensure, when we are getting the opportunity to interview people, that we're really helping them to see what it means to work here, what the day to day is going to look like. You know, one of the other trends in the report is how quickly sometimes new hires are leaving after, you know, being selected for a job. And I think sometimes what we find is a lot of that is, once they get into the job, it's not the job that they thought that it was,
Chris Rainey 11:09
yeah, I saw now think about that's pretty like, I think it was 38% are likely to leave in the first two within
Paaras Parker 11:16
the year. Oh, yeah, within the first two years. And I think in next
Chris Rainey 11:20
12 months. No, you're right. You're right. Yeah, wow. That was just really shocking. It is. But
Paaras Parker 11:26
think about the control in that, right? So like, if people are leaving within a year, there's something that's happening in the system that we can fix, either we're not being clear on what the role is going to feel like or the person's not getting the supports that they need to be successful when they're there. So you can look at and say, Oh, well, 38% of people are going to leave. Or you can look at it and say, I have an opportunity to really save the right amounts of those 38% of people by doing what's in my circle of control, right? Or better or differently, based on, based on who's coming into the workforce?
Chris Rainey 12:07
If that isn't a case, to invest in a robust onboarding experience, I don't know. I don't know what is, because a lot of that, I'm sure is going to be how they were onboarded. The reason, yeah, how they
Paaras Parker 12:18
were, how they were onboarded. And I think remembering, I'm trying to think of like a fun like, Okay, think about tying your shoes, right? You don't get taught to tie your shoes one time. Nope, you don't get onboarded to tying your shoe one time, right? It's over and over and over again. And then you get a little bit better, and then we teach you how to do it a little bit differently, and then you get a little bit better, and we teach you maybe two other ways to think about it, and then you find your own way. And I think there's, you know, these critical we call them, like moments that matter. A lot of a lot of please places think about it in that way. But like, what matters the first week, what matters the first month, what matters the first 3060, 90 days. But then sometimes we, like, forget people after 90
Chris Rainey 13:08
days, yeah, because we're like, Oh, bye, good luck.
Paaras Parker 13:11
You're fine. Like, now you know all the things, you figured everything out. Well then like, what matters when they change a role, or what matters when they become a people leader, or what matters when they're eight months in and maybe they're starting to get a little bored, right? Like, how do we, how do we make sure whether you're calling it onboarding or you're calling it engaging? But how, how do we go from these like, checkbox moments of, did you tell them who their manager was? Did you tell them what the acronym stood for?
Unknown Speaker 13:44
Yeah. Did
Paaras Parker 13:45
you tell them who to call for, what to also like? Are we reminding them? Are we showing them? Are we teaching them things that are that are important? Six, 912, months down the line, and then 357, 10 years down the line?
Chris Rainey 13:59
Yeah. And that's when it comes to also making sure that your values and are embedded in the business. You know, it's just not. It's not, it's not a thing you just do in the first it shows up every day, whether in your one to ones, or your team meetings, your processes, how people were rewarded, how they're recognized. That's an ongoing process. Well.
Paaras Parker 14:21
And like, language is so, yes, language is so, yeah, get like, not give them the language and then show them. What does the language mean? What does the language look like? What does it look and sound like when it's when you're doing it right? What might it look and sound like if you're not doing it right, I use this analogy all the time, so if people that know me are listening to this, they're probably rolling your eyes, their eyes. But Chris, you and I just met this morning, let's pretend that you had spinach in your teeth, right? And we got or the other way, I had spinach in my teeth, and we get done with this podcast. You and I talked about never being able to use the bathroom during the day, but let's pretend we make it to the bathroom and I see that I have spinach in my teeth. I'm gonna be like, really pissed that we sat on the phone for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, and you didn't tell me
Chris Rainey 15:15
Well whilst we're here, because you've got something, right? Imagine, Chris, yeah, how
Paaras Parker 15:22
easy is it to say, hey, you have spinach in your teeth. But we struggle so much at work saying, hey, yeah, like, we didn't hit the mark here, or, Hey, you like, really hit the mark here. Let's talk about that. And so, you know, one of the things that my work, that I love, is one we have great guiding principles that really, I think, showcase who we are, but we've also built our leadership model around those guiding principles. So when we talk about things like, take care of each other, we can tell people what does take care of each other? Mean, at paycor. So not only why is it important, but like, what does that behavior look like? Yeah. How does it show up? Because then if people know what it looks like to be good at something, then it's a choice. Are they going to
Chris Rainey 16:07
do it, totally Yeah, or are they not going to do it?
Paaras Parker 16:12
And then what are we going to do if they do it? And equally as important, what are we going to do if they don't do it? But we can't, like, we can't leave everything to guessing. So while I said everything shouldn't be a checklist, language is really important, and having shared language, but also having shared understanding of what something means and what it looks like at your company, is so important. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 16:35
I was having a similar conversation last week. Sorry, before that, we had a global well being panel, where we had around 1000 heads of global well being from companies. And one of the key things was around that was to your point of giving people the language to have those conversations, especially when it comes to topics like well being and the stigma attached. Sometimes people just don't want to say something because they don't know how to say it and they don't want to offend someone. Or you give people the language to be able to have to open up that all of a sudden, you know, it opens up doors and relationships and breaks down stereotypes to be able to do that. And
Paaras Parker 17:09
I think what, what you just said, is so important, and this is, it's not so much that I worry is a strong word, but I do worry about it sometimes, which is the importance of relationships, right? Like, if you and I just met today and I said something that maybe didn't land with you the way that I wanted, we don't really know each other. We don't have a trusting relationship. So now you could say that part, she's a real jerk. Listen to what she said, versus, if I'm your business partner and we've worked together for a long time, and I say something and you're like, you know what? That doesn't either I'm not hearing it how she meant it, because it doesn't sound like something that she would say or something that she would mean in that way, because you have a relationship. So we talk about it. I used to work for a consulting firm, and we talked about familiarity, comfort and trust all the time. Everybody wants to get to trust I trust you. Don't trust you, but, you know, putting the time in to become familiar with somebody and then getting comfortable with that person. It's those, it's the outcomes of those behaviors that lead to trust. Trust doesn't just happen or not happen. It's through intentionality and how we build relationships with one another. And the thing that I worry about is one, you know, how, how can we support people in building those relationships virtually, yeah, or in a hybrid format? And then number two, you know, when we look at what's happening on the world around us, and you know, you make one comment on social media and you get 6000 nasty comments back, because it's so easy to say something to somebody that you're never going to see
Chris Rainey 19:05
or to take or to say or to take something out of context, absolutely. And we just do negative and it's something where it's like, no, that's not what I'm in Yeah. Like, and
Paaras Parker 19:16
how many times have you seen something and then you immediately hit comments, and someone immediately says, just here for the comments, because they know it's going to be outlandish, right? Like, you know it's triggered somebody, and now we're finding entertainment in the comments. I would
Chris Rainey 19:30
say 90% of the conflict that I find in even in my own company, comes down to miscommunication. Someone misinterpreted something, someone would say, Oh, someone didn't mean to say something like, and then all blows up. And then we kind of meet together, we talk about and we're like, Oh, is that ours? You just, you know, like, and someone's read into something a little bit more, you know, and taking it the wrong way. And I'm like, and I'm guilty of this too, where I'm like, I've sent a text, quick, quickly to someone, or sent an email without really thinking. How I've worded and how it could be perceived, right? Learn, learn that the hard way. Now, actually, that you know these, these conversations have to be had in person, because you know, you know how people can perceive that, I would say, like 80% of the conflict or challenges that we face through that, absolutely,
Paaras Parker 20:16
I literally, I just had this the other night. There's a there's a woman on my team who's like, so, so good. And I was rushing. I was rushing. And so I sent a note back to her, really fast. And then when I got her reply back, I was like, oh gosh, she she thinks something bad happened. And so I immediately wrote back like, hey, hey, all good. This is what I meant. But think about how many times we don't go back and say, all good. And
Chris Rainey 20:42
people just sit with it. People just
Paaras Parker 20:44
sit with it. Yeah, they sit with it, and they still want it. Are you when
Chris Rainey 20:50
they're leaving, they find out on the in the exit interview, they're like, what would that something? We the amount of times I've people leave the company in, you know, in my previous company, where I was for 20 years, or in this company, or I'm like, if you asked me, could have that been avoided? It's like, almost, like, 100% of the time is yes, like, nearly.
Paaras Parker 21:07
How many times have you I'm like, Yeah, I
Chris Rainey 21:09
wish we had a conversation around if you were to come to me, you know, you know. But then I sometimes, I'm like, I didn't create the environment where they thought they could do that says it's on me to do. I did create that psychological safety. You know, all the business itself, the larger business I worked in at the time, didn't, you know, create that environment where they felt like they could step forward and, yeah, express their concerns.
Paaras Parker 21:31
And Chris, we were talking about earlier, loving the business of business and business people and people as business like, think about what you just said. What is the environment? Who creates the environment? Yeah, people. It always comes back to people and how we show up for each other, how we don't show up for each other. Do we spend time and building, you know, relationships that matter, and that doesn't mean that like we agree on everything all the time. Actually, science will tell you, you know, you talked about miscommunication. Our brains are wired in certain ways, so if I tend to be more right brained, and you tend to be more left brain, we're always going to miscommunicate with one another, because our brains work differently, but unless we take that time to understand that about each other and our muscle memory goes to that's just how he processes versus he's a jerk. Do
Chris Rainey 22:28
you know, one of the things I've been doing recently, which if anyone listening, should practice this, if you're having this issue, is, whenever I start my meetings, I start by address, by sharing my intention. So I say my intention for this meeting is x, and that just sets you up for success, because everyone understands, even if the topic gets a bit heated or people disagree, this is the intention of why we've set this meeting and what we want to achieve. And it just stops you from going for people to misinterpreting it or feeling attacked, you know. So, you know, sometimes it's like, my intention is meeting is to get to the bottom of why x isn't working, and it's okay, that's right, that's yeah, no. And all of a sudden it kind of breaks down the barrier. And everyone's like, All right, we're to get together. We're gonna figure this out. It's not like, no one's been attacked, no one's been, you know, pointed out. It's just like, this is the intention of and I've just been to doing I learned that recently, I've been like every meeting. This is the intention of what I want to get out is, mean, you know,
Paaras Parker 23:26
Chris, what I love about that is, if you think about the transformation of like product organizations, it's just that it's going from being task oriented to being outcome oriented. So if you declare the intention, right, or you declare the outcome, you can still have really great dialog and debate. You're set up. Actually, I believe in your studio to have some really cool debates, but you can have dialog and you can have debate, but what you're aligned on is that you're solving for the same thing, and I think what you want is the diverse dialog, because that's likely the best you're going to get to the best solution when you have lots of different brains trying to tackle the problem, and now you've worked through the muck because you've declared, This is what We're trying to solve for, or this is my intention, and so I really appreciate that you use that
Chris Rainey 24:25
word. Yeah. No worries. I want to get into somewhat of data this report, because it's so cool, and if anyone's listening, I'm going to share it in the description of wherever you're listening or watching right now. So one of the surveys you did was around the biggest challenges to recruiting, and it kind of goes back to the conversation earlier. Number one, biggest challenge was actually finding quality workers. And I didn't think that would be number one, but given your feedback around now, how quickly people are just applying to jobs, it's almost so easy that you're actually spending you getting more applications, but the quality is. Now a challenge, so I didn't really make those connections until you said that, okay, because now it's so easy, right? You know, turns your LinkedIn into it see if you automatically, you press a button, is gone, and some and sometimes people are applying for, like, five jobs in the same company. And you like, to your point, did you even read job description? Or did you hit reply as well. And then secondly, the second one was actually then convincing candidates to accept the offer, which was 15% and I feel like this is where technology helps, because if you can automate somebody admin work, your recruiting team can spend more time on that second part, really building the relationships, not making it feel like a transaction, moving jobs is one of the biggest decisions people make in their lives. So they want to feel like it's a moment that someone actually is there. And I feel like freeing up our recruiters to have those type of conversations and build those relationships, and it could be over a period of time, right? Will probably increase that 15%
Paaras Parker 26:00
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, and I think it's, it's recruiters and hiring managers, yeah, and hiring, you know, because the applicant is also like, okay, is the recruiter telling me? The same thing with the hiring manager is telling me, is the job? Like, really, what I think the job is, and is everybody telling the same? Am I getting a clear message of what this role could be? And then the other, the other piece is which I actually am, like, very excited about things like pay transparency. I get a nice amount of calls from reporters that'll say, Is it true that people are paying less for jobs? And the fact of the matter is, how businesses look at how they pay for jobs is quite data driven, right? But what we forget to realize, I think, sometimes as human beings, is that that can ebb and flow based on the needs of the business. So if you have, I'm going to make this up, Chris, because I don't, I know nothing about all that it takes to to create content right the way in which you do but I'm assuming you have a producer, you have a director, you have a host, maybe you have some writers. Well, there's going to be some times where you really need some writers, and so you're gonna flex up your energy, maybe flex up some of your pay on how you attract writers, which I don't know about for your business, but my business, there's not just like unlimited piles of just like money that are laying around and Right? So if I'm going to invest here, that might mean I can't invest here in the same way. And so it's not about companies or people just paying less or not wanting to pay more, but I think people want to work for a company that's making really intentional choices about the roles, how they market value those roles, and how they pay for those roles, because those are the types of companies to your words that have that business intention and focus to not just be around in 2024 but to be around and thriving in 2034 4454 64 you can't make, you can't, kind of make those rash judgments and assume or hope right that you'll be able to scale or thrive for years to come.
Chris Rainey 28:35
I agree one on that point I want to that was, I was surprised to see in terms of the section where you speak about turnover or retention drivers, that the most important things that people look for when considering a new job is pay or benefits. I thought it'd be flexibility, but that is second so 23 23% pay and benefits, second place, more flexible schedule at 15% I thought that would be their way around. Well,
Paaras Parker 29:01
I think I don't want to, I don't have this data in front of me, but I think three or four years ago, it would have been flipped. But I think the muscle memory has changed in that because of what a lot of companies that were able to allow a different type of flexibility. Started doing that during covid, yeah, because they had to. And so that flexibility component, I think, in some industries, is just more readily available now. So you know, for me, for example, paycor is the first place that I've worked that's been virtual. First I worked for a grocery retailer before I came to paycor. And during covid, you know, we went virtual for a short period of time, but we were also essential workers, and so the hybrid environment became more of our norm, but even that provided more flexibility than five. Days in the office, and now you're seeing so many companies either be completely virtual or have more hybrid models that are already allowing for that flexibility
Chris Rainey 30:11
that people are seeking more common practice, commonplace. It's less of a, you know, a standing out factor, because most companies offer that anyway. They kind of understand is table stakes at this point. That's
Paaras Parker 30:23
right, that's right. And in certain industries, you know, you you if you work in a warehouse, you cannot work from a from a warehouse, from home. But those companies have also found ways to offer flexibility. Those industries have found ways to offer flexibility in a way that makes sense for them.
Chris Rainey 30:41
Yeah, they've done it in terms of, like their schedules, like giving them traceability around the hours, absolutely as well. So and in third place, no, no surprise, their career growth. It's more and more important now, you know, people kind of expect that walking into the organization, even me. I had two interviews this week. It was one of the first questions. They both asked me, what a career opportunities, development opportunities at HR leaders, and that didn't really get that five years ago. You know, it wasn't kind of top of the agenda, but now, like there's this real hunger, hunger and appetite for this Gen X generation like to grow and and develop very quickly, whereas when I was young, it was quite a slow going up the ladder. Over at, literally, yeah, in my my experience was literally a 10 year process until I became a director in the company that seems like a million miles away for now, this new generation, 10 years like, no, we want it now. Yeah,
Paaras Parker 31:42
you know what I think is, what I what I do think is different, and I'm, I'm eager to see how it plays out, as we have generations leaving the workforce and generations coming into the workforce is like, even your hands, you did like this, yeah,
Chris Rainey 31:59
but now it's like this,
Paaras Parker 32:00
and now it's like this,
Chris Rainey 32:02
exactly which I like this, you know, any direction? Yeah, exactly yes.
Paaras Parker 32:07
And now you're seeing people that were like, here and have made it here that are like, I want to go back to like, here.
Chris Rainey 32:14
That's how I felt, because when I became when I was being a manager for the first time, I was like, Oh, this is not what I thought I was signing up for. I want to go back to go back to being an individual contributor. Take me back there.
Paaras Parker 32:25
So Chris, you know, that's a trend that we're seeing again, really now, yes, where you're seeing people leaders say, Cool, did it? I want to go back. I want to go back. And it's like, and, you know, we use the word go back. I love this for people. I think this is,
Chris Rainey 32:50
I think this is before that wasn't a career pathway. So the only way you could make more money was to go up. But now we do have, companies do have the opportunity, so it's cut you off,
Paaras Parker 32:59
no, but you're absolutely right. And I think it's, it's changed how we think about it. Like, going back now doesn't mean what going back meant 20 years ago, right? Like, it's not this negative connotation. I think there's more power behind I'm like, deciding what I want to do, how I want to work, what I value, how I want to live, and I can do that at the company that I've been at, or I can find, you know, I can find experiences in other functions or with other employers, which I think is, is, is pretty neat. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 33:36
talking about moving around, one of the interesting predictions that you share in the report, and I've seen this firsthand play play out is the number of HR leaders that are resigning. I don't know who you've seen this, but I'm seeing a lot of HR resignations over the last couple of years. I think some of that off that is off the back of the pandemic, which is fully understandable as well, but the data in the report said nearly 50% of HR professionals that have been in their roles for two years or less, or less were likely to resign or leave the company. So kind of like an average lifespan of a HR professional was like, two years now,
Paaras Parker 34:23
yeah, and it's crazy. I i I think there's this parses opinion, but like, I think there's so many reasons for that. I think one is HR becomes more like, I tell my team all the time, we're not a support function, right? Like we can if we want, which we we we can't, because I've made the choice for us. Like we're not paper pushers,
Chris Rainey 34:49
we're
Paaras Parker 34:51
not order, but we're also not just like, do this because the process, right? Like we're in it with the business. Our jobs to understand. They own from a business leader, what their wins are, what their problems are, how they think about their work over the next two to three years, and then how, through people, do we partner with them to achieve those goals? I think we're seeing the same shift. Chris, you and I talked about it the work of a people team professional is different from when we were personnel, right and and our job was to hire and fire people. But we also, we also have to realize that for some people, that is actually what they wanted to do. And so as the HR function, as the people team functions transform as people transform and businesses transform. It's not going to be the job for every it's not going to be the job for everybody, and it's a high hustle. But I think high reward job, you're always on. You're always modeling the way I always, I never miss an opportunity when people are like, Oh, I shouldn't say that HR is in the room. And I always say, No, you shouldn't say that because you're a grown up and you know better. It shouldn't. It shouldn't be because HR is in the room, right? It should be because, like, you're super smart person, and you know, it's appropriate. And what's not appropriate, because then I can spend my time doing other things that are really going to drive your value forward, versus like Chris, you shouldn't. You shouldn't say those words in a room full of people. Chris knows that.
Chris Rainey 36:32
Yeah, yeah. You know that that's your point as well. Though, like, you need a constant growth mindset, right? You think to your point, how, how the skills of what it meant to be a HR leader when I started, 20 years ago to now is like the digital data literacy, the digital transformation piece, the everything says everything. It's just moving so fast you're now leading workforce councils in the company. If you're involved in AI, councils in the company, you know, there's just like you're dealing with pandemics, you're dealing with reactions to wars. You know, you're dealing with the politics, politics and the DEI back, so many things being thrown at you from different directions, and there's always another thing, like, it's another there's always another thing. And now every company is supposed to have a stance on all of those things. So employees are looking to their HR team and the business say, hey, what's our stance on all of these things? And now you're like, how do we think about it? How do we, how do we, you know, we can't please everyone, and this is tough time,
Paaras Parker 37:41
you know, Chris, it actually goes back to what you were talking about, though. If, if you spend the right I'm going to use another one of your words, intention on what your values are, it makes such a difference, because it's not every, every vote that a company has isn't going to go your way. But if you understand that, hey, our intention, or what we're trying to solve for, or the type of workplace that we want to be is x, is it going to be 100% perfect, 100% of the time? No. But if, if people understand what the y is, or what the focus is, whether you agree with it or not, it's
Chris Rainey 38:26
your foundation. Like one of the things that I realized, especially with us, where we went through such a big transformation, where, you know, we lost 99% of our revenue during the pandemic, we were an events company trying to figure out how to survive, and there's just all of this chaos. Is that your why and your purpose becomes your foundation. So rather than making decisions out of fear, out of you know, just you know, or just reacting to the climate, whether it's politics, etc or covid, sort of, if we make a decision based on our principles and our foundation and our why, and you just remove all the noise. That's what served us well. So when Absolutely we're confused or we don't know where, like, we just go back to that, and we're like, okay, yeah, let's make it. Make a decision from here. And typically we get it right because we're doing it from that place, not, you know, not out of scarcity or fear or any other emotion. And think
Paaras Parker 39:23
about it as a business leader, how much pressure you carry, and if you can go back to that center, or some people call it a North Star, we're also taking our emotion and our feeling out of it. It becomes a very clear, this is what's important. This is what's going to help us get to that, versus how I feel about every every I
Chris Rainey 39:48
make decisions how I feel. I don't know if it will be here exactly that long, and one of the things we did during that time as well is actually just bring the team together to let them make decision, to make the decision. So like, you know the day, it's gonna affect all of our lives, and sometimes being vulnerable is its biggest strength for so for me, walking in, walking in a room that day, saying to the team, I don't have a plan. I don't know what we're gonna do, but the intention of today's meetings to figure it out, yeah,
Paaras Parker 40:21
the intention of today's meeting is we're all gonna work together to get there. And we did,
Chris Rainey 40:25
and we can that, and that involved building this digital TV studio to continue our work. And it was a, you know, everyone thought we were crazy, and everyone said you should furlough and just wait out. And we were like, Nah, we're gonna run into, yeah, we're gonna run into the headwind together. And, well,
Paaras Parker 40:41
you know, we were talking about the in a different way, but we were talking about some of the trends that we're seeing and in retention, or how long people are staying. I think the other like muscle memory that we're working through is, I hear people say all the time, regardless of industry. You know, during covid, we focused on three things, and we just did those three things. And I think what we also need to realize is like we had to, during covid, focus on three things. They were usually like, how do we stay safe? How do we keep people alive? And then, how do we do the work that we need to do in some way, shape or form? Right now, we've figured out how to live with covid, and we're and we're past that, and there are 68 priorities again, and that doesn't mean that companies aren't prioritizing properly. It's just like we went from this very extreme, just do these two things, do these three things, and do them really well, to now we're back to needing to figure out, how do you prioritize 50 things? How do you give the right amount of attention to more than three things? And that doesn't mean that what we did during covid was was wrong. It was exactly what we needed to do then. And now we have to shift to do exactly what we need to do now. And those things are different.
Chris Rainey 42:01
Yeah, one of the things that how we've spoke about the HR function evolving, but how do you, what do you think the future looks like for the HR function?
Paaras Parker 42:12
Yeah, I think it's the HR function is going to continue to be more and more integrated and how the business businesses. So I'll give you an example. It used to be such a value to have a people, team, partner that could give you the data that was important for your function. Now everybody can get the data, and they can get the data really fast, so the value instantly, so the value the HR. I tell my team all the time like we're we're not here to report the news. If you show up to the meeting and you're reporting the news, we have added no value. What we can do is say hey, because we know this is the news, and we know these are the trends, and we know these are the things that are coming up over the next one month, two months, three months, here's what we need to do better, differently, to impact it so that the newspaper the next time around, like, isn't saying the same stuff, right?
Chris Rainey 43:13
I love this. HR is not here to report the news. I love yeah, we're
Paaras Parker 43:18
just like, that's not what we're here to do. And again, you know, you are either excited about that and you're like, yes, let me figure out, right, how to help this, how to be a partner to this business leader, to make a turnkey decision, or to, like, really double down and do something the same over the next quarter, because we're seeing a lot of results from it, or shift it, because we're not That's how I see this function continuing to transform, is that we have to transform with, alongside, and sometimes ahead of the people that we're lucky enough to serve so that we can help them see the next north star we can be their path to yes versus Here all the reasons that you like can't do something, help me understand what you're trying to solve for, and then trust me to help you come up with solutions that can do that, even though it might not be like the exact same solution that you want, but a solution that will get you to the outcome that you want. Listen,
Chris Rainey 44:20
I feel like we need to do a whole series at this point. I know I have to let you go at some point. I love some of the like, the one liners you have I've been writing them down like and the analogies that you,
Paaras Parker 44:32
I'm sure you wrote down spinach in your teeth, right? Like that has to be the top of your list. Next
Chris Rainey 44:37
time we do an interview, I'm gonna intentionally put spinach in my teeth, just to see if you let me know. You know, just gonna, I
Paaras Parker 44:45
will. I mean, I let people know if you're unbuttoned. I let people know if they have a stain, because I would want somebody to do
Chris Rainey 44:51
that before I let you go. Parting piece of advice for those HR leaders that are going to be sitting in your seat one day, those they're on their way. H. Up, there's HR leaders of tomorrow. And then where can they people connect with you if they want to reach out and
Paaras Parker 45:04
say hi? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, trust yourself, and don't forget the value and power of people. No matter what seat you're in, connect with not just your people teams and your and your business leaders, but people who do the work, I think, staying in touch around what's really happening in your business, what people are really feeling, even though sometimes your feelings are going to be hurt because you're really trying to kill it and you might find out that you're not knowing is always better, right? We can make better decisions, different decisions, if people are feel safe in telling us how things are, how things are going. So stay connected. I think the value of relationships and building familiarity, comfort and trust will never not be important. Never like people are always going to matter how people feel, how people feel because how we treat them, how people feel because of how we don't treat them, is always, always going to matter. And then as far as connection, you know, parse, I have all the piece so parse Parker on LinkedIn. Parse Parker for on Instagram, I like to share, you know, pictures and stories about what we have going on at work and my family sneaks up in there also. But always, always, always happy
Chris Rainey 46:27
Triple P, because you've got pay core as well at the end. So now your new name's Triple P.
Paaras Parker 46:32
Well, you know my Do you know? Have we emailed so I actually go by p square? No, you don't, I swear.
Chris Rainey 46:41
Where's the extra one? Come from there? Where's the where's the fourth four feet? Well, no,
Paaras Parker 46:46
p squared is parse Parker. Oh, of course, it's p squared. And so then p cubed, right? Would be the parse Parker. So
Chris Rainey 46:54
now you seem like Inception, right? Now, it's getting too deep, yeah, I
Paaras Parker 47:00
literally all my emails are saying p2 really only because I can't I, oh, my God, I'm
Chris Rainey 47:05
gonna check it. I gotta check it. Yeah, email
Paaras Parker 47:08
me, and when I email you right back, I thought Triple P
Chris Rainey 47:12
was pretty cool, actually. Now, like, I feel like your ones were even better. You
Paaras Parker 47:16
know what, Chris, let's, let's play that back. You're right. That's great idea.
Chris Rainey 47:22
Listen. Everyone watching right now, there's going to be linked. Obviously you can go to check there'll be a link to your your link, your LinkedIn below, right? So we'll connect everyone LinkedIn. Check out paycor.com Also there's going to be a link to the pay core HR in 2025, insights and predictions report in the description. Wherever you listen to watching. There'll be a link below. Pleasure have you on the show. It was super fun.
Paaras Parker 47:44
Thank you so much. It was lovely to meet you. Congratulations to you. This is great.
Chris Rainey 47:49
That's fun. We'll do it again soon. See you later.
Paaras Parker 47:51
That would be awesome. All right, take care.
More from the HR Leaders Podcast
Casey Bailey, Head of People at Deel.