The Future of HR: Slaying Your Company’s Org Debt Monster

At Work with The Ready

Spooky season is here, so it seems fitting to share a horror story. Because there’s a monster draining time and energy from most of our organizations. This sneaky shapeshifter can take any form, show up at any time, and is one of the more destructive, chaotic forces we’re forced to deal with at work.

We’re talking about the monster that is org debt—and HR has been trapped in a maze with it for decades. Worse still, the maze’s towering walls and serpentine corridors come from outdated policies and processes HR largely built themselves. And it’s historically been impossible for many leaders to find the time to clean up org debt—or even know where to look for it.

In this miniseries, Brave New Work’s Rodney Evans is joined by friend-of-the-pod and Ready OG Sam Spurlin to dive into how HR can become more resilient, efficient, and equitable.

Today on episode 10, they help you learn how to identify org debt, shine a light on its hiding places, measure what it’s really costing us, and start eliminating it from your organization for good.

Mentioned references:

• The Ready's video about Org Debt
• Marie Kondo
• Murmur
• Meg's episode about centralization/decentralization: FoHR Miniseries Ep. 3
• Zapier
• "MBT" (Mission-based Team)
• "MVP" (Minimum Viable Product)
• Ali Randel, partner at The Ready
• Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, authors of Humanocracy, where the org debt annual cost is attributed

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Learn more about The Future of HR at our website.

Curious where your company sits on our 5-stage maturity model? Take our assessment and find out!

Have a burning HR question for Rodney and Sam to answer? Email us at [e-mail].

Ready to get started moving your HR department into the future? Email us at [e-mail] or [e-mail].

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: Do you remember the first CD you ever bought, and if so, what was it?

03:20 Intro to org debt

06:41 Why companies struggle getting rid of it

13:36 Clear examples of org debt in HR

20:10 Why org debt is such an issue now

25:51 Stopping the cycle of org debt and creating capacity

33:05 Nipping new org debt in the bud

35:14 Psychological behaviors behind types of org debt

41:43 Financial costs of org debt

42:45 Wrap up: Leave us a review and share this episode with your HR friends!