Virtual Reality Toolkit for HR and Big Data Professionals

Against all odds

Banging his shoes on the mahogany table of our senior leadership team, Chief Nerd Comrade Carl Marks (who takes 20 mg of Lexapro to stabilize his mood) shouted: “Poshel na hui, either HR hires 20 fresh big data and IoT nerds to deliver the next software release on time, or we will need to pay a hefty default fine of over $2 million dollars due to our 3^rd rate legal team which HR hired”.

CEO Stan had enforced a freeze on headcount a month ago, as well as asking his HR business partner (c’est moi) to trim off the “excess fat” from our payroll, to the tune of 80 employees. Yet Stan knows that if we will need to pay the default fine, his position as CEO will be as tenuous as the French language in global business. Stan looked worried.

Comrade Carl called out to me in his feigned Russian accent, “Gloria, in the same way that I develop world class software against all odds, HR needs to simultaneously downsize, hire and preserve engagement and trust, unless all you ladies of HR want to get yourselves fired. What is your solution, kibinimat?”

CEO Stan called his Wife, Wifey, put her on the loudspeaker, and then said to me, “Gloria, what’s the plan?”

Cool as a cucumber, I replied, “As business partner, HR will migrate into the domain of virtual reality, whereby nerds are fired in reality yet continue to work for us in the domain of virtual reality. This postmodern approach is agile, flexible, global, sustainable, evidence and data driven”. Mais oui. The fully Monty.

Wifey said over the loud speaker, “that sounds very interesting Gloria. Is this a Scandinavian approach? How does that work”?

Ever since Wifey started buying furniture at Ikea, she tends to align “progress” with “Scandinavia”.

I promised that “the moment that Comrade Carl provides job descriptions for the fresh nerds he want to on-board, the HR team will “transition” to the concrete plan of virtual reality. As a matter of fact, I have delegated the practical aspects of this task to Ms Cynthia Axe, my vigorous  down-sizer”.

Comrade Carl, never one to be fooled, retorted that “you will get virtual job descriptions within a week, Gloria. Jesus Christ, you have nice legs.”

Legs and virtual reality

Shaming lesser colleagues is not wow wow, or even wow

Coming to a theatre near you

I received an text today from a girlfriend I went to school with back in Canada, Francine Fawn. Two F's . 

She is following my career and she told me she is so proud to know me. That makes sense!

Francine also suggested that I make a movie, to spread the word about how to do HR properly, globally and in a sustainable fashion. (Francine also told me that I look great. She told me that "all the girls in public school agreed that you had the nicest legs in Saskatchewan").

Her suggestion has its pros and cons. 

My Dad, Pierre Elliot, always used to tell me "Gloria be careful. Look at the pros and the cons." My mother always told my Dad, "Pierre Elliot, she'll never get married that way!"

The pros of this suggestion is that if I am frank and earnest, no one knows how to do HR better than I do. When I look in the mirror every morning, I see a thought leader, and big data master.

The cons are that I am surrounded by the wrong people, who will not go over well in a movie.

• Comrade Carl Marks speaks with a thick Leningrad accent, although he was born and bred in the US. 
• CEO Stan takes credit for everything, and I will look like side-show Bob, or Barbara, as it were.
• Straight Hugh White from Diversity is bizarre, and his obsession with sexual preferences will make all the movie into pornography. He is also so white that he cannot be filmed.
• Cynthia Axe carries "the mark of Cain" and makes the HR profession look shameful. She lacks compassion, and suffers from a downsizing obsession which makes me ill, as it were.

I discussed this with Francine and she made it clear that I should make the film anyway. Francine is one of my most sane friends.

She also suggested that I say a few words in French in the movie, to illustrate that HR business partnership can be exotic, as it were.

I love the term "as it were."

Here is the major challenge: I do not want to embarrass my HR colleagues who would be exposed to our state-of-the-art way of doing things.

I need the input and comments. Should I move ahead, in a timely fashion?

Who am I? What am I hiding?

In a leading HR rag, I have spilled the beans about my past.

What makes me great

Obstacles to Implementing Big Data in HR

I'll have a small portion of big data

"Big Data" as a philosophical concept has always intrigued me, especially since Stan started using this term a few months ago. Before big data, HR always dealt in small chunks of data and viscous gossip.

Unwilling not to lead big data 'from an HR perspective",  I face three major barriers to take charge,  as it were.

1) Jean Marie, my all purpose training horse, who enables me to do "vendor free OD", refused to do a webinar on Introduction to  Big Data.
 "What the f--k is Big Data, Gloria?", Jean Marie asked me en francais whilst eating on his oats.

I explained to Jean Marie that Stan embraces the use of Big Data to "jump-start" Immature Products to the "next level of development". 
Jean Marie thought about it, and nevertheless, refused to do an "in depth" 90 second webinar on Big Data.

2) Miss Cynthia Axe (Head of our Early Bird Retirement Plan) has "trimmed" and "shaped" IT headcount during the last 30 quarters in what now appears to been pure recklessness! We have fired 4000 IT people.It makes HR appear "anti big-data"! 

3) My relationship with Winston Wu has been semi wow over the years. 
Winston Wu was our IT manager  and I re-positioned him out of the company; now he is now our external big data contractor, with a contract fatter than my sisters' ass.

I shall wine and dine my learned colleague Winston Wu at a French Restaurant called "Chez moi". 

Hugh White from Diversity told me to avoid an Asian restaurant.  (I love les mets chinois, as it were.)

Hugh White pays attention to the smallest of data.

French company doing due diligence-I am not at ease

The French never axe anyone

A group(e) of French investors is doing due diligence on our company.

This is very good news, except for a certain Ms. Cynthia Axe, who heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan which enables the the constant right sizing of our "capabilities".

I know that the  French only hire people and never fire anyone, which will enable Ms Axe to move on and spend more time with her family.  However,  Ms Axe has no family. 

The French investors claim that our focus will be only on the French market, and that we shall be a "mid size" or "family-like" business, if they invest. 

They are snooping around and use the term "savoir faire" all the time. That means "know how." This makes me feel global, but not sustainable. Non wow, so to speak.

Perhaps I could work for the World Bank, Apple, Google or Ottawa City Hall. Or, perhaps I can become a coach! I took a course that enables me to use "VGC" after my name: very good coach.

My listless mind is not at ease.

Not at ease