#HRTechChat: The Economics of HR – Speaking the Language of Business with Maria Scarangella

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In this episode of #HRTechChat, Nicole Roberts is joined by Maria Scarangella to tackle one of the most persistent challenges facing HR today: proving business value in a climate defined by cost pressure, efficiency mandates, and heightened executive scrutiny. Drawing on her 37-year career at GEICO—including leadership of a $2.5B P&L—and her current work building Marstella, Maria explains why HR risks losing its strategic seat when it speaks only in HR metrics instead of business outcomes.

Together, they explore how quantifying the true cost of hiring, onboarding, training, and turnover can fundamentally change executive decision-making—from smarter workforce planning to more targeted investments in technology and development. Maria outlines why “a lot” is not a number, how lifecycle cost visibility creates accountability across leaders, and why HR leaders must understand how the business actually makes money if they want credibility with boards, CFOs, and investors. The conversation also looks ahead at the future of HR tech, the limits of AI without economic context, and how people metrics are increasingly sitting alongside financial KPIs in boardrooms—especially in PE-backed environments. The result is a practical, data-driven roadmap for HR leaders ready to shift from cost center to value driver.

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Transcript:

00:00:00 Nicole Roberts

Welcome to #HRTechChat, where we explore how HR technology helps people leaders drive better business outcomes.

00:00:06 Nicole Roberts

I’m Nicole Roberts, Senior Analyst and Advisor with 3Sixty Insights.

00:00:10 Nicole Roberts

Today, we are exploring how HR leaders can better communicate the value of their work by translating people decisions into business language and measurable ROI.

00:00:22 Nicole Roberts

And joining me is someone who brings deep experience in doing that, Maria Scarangella.

00:00:27 Nicole Roberts

Maria, welcome to the show.

00:00:29 Maria Scarangella

Hi thanks for having me.

00:00:30 Nicole Roberts

Absolutely.

00:00:32 Nicole Roberts

So to get us started, would you introduce yourself a bit and share a little about your background and the work that you’re doing today?

00:00:38 Maria Scarangella

Sure.

00:00:39 Maria Scarangella

So I worked for GEICO Insurance for 37 years, held roles in both operations and HR and led talent for the full organization.

00:00:50 Maria Scarangella

After retiring, I started my own business and was doing business consulting for senior leaders and executive coaching and identified that there was a

00:01:00 Maria Scarangella

gap between the way that I looked at the value of talent to the way many of my clients did.

00:01:06 Maria Scarangella

So we built Marstella to help our clients understand all of the costs of talent and how to maximize their return on investment.

00:01:16 Nicole Roberts

I love that.

00:01:17 Nicole Roberts

And I’d love to start off with a theme that you and I discussed in our prep conversation, this idea that HR is losing its seat at the table because leaders just simply aren’t speaking the language of the business.

00:01:29 Maria Scarangella

Yeah, and you know, what got us here is kind of the evolution that’s happened over the past five or six years.

00:01:37 Maria Scarangella

2018, 2019, there was a war for talent and it was hard to find talented people.

00:01:43 Maria Scarangella

And then we headed into COVID and post COVID, employees really held all the cards.

00:01:50 Maria Scarangella

Interest rates got higher and money became more expensive and companies started really pulling back and looking at how they can drive efficiency.

00:01:59 Maria Scarangella

And I think that pendulum has swung the other way.

00:02:02 Maria Scarangella

Employers are laying people off.

00:02:06 Maria Scarangella

There’s a lot less flexibility.

00:02:07 Maria Scarangella

They’re expecting more from their workforce.

00:02:10 Maria Scarangella

And HR really has to be guiding the business.

00:02:15 Maria Scarangella

And if they’re not focused on how they can drive business results, then the business leaders are going to work around them.

00:02:21 Maria Scarangella

And I think they’re really at a turning point where, you know, as people are implementing more technology and they’re looking at the expenses,

00:02:31 Maria Scarangella

HR really should be stepping up and saying, this is how investments and people will drive that business strategy.

00:02:39 Maria Scarangella

And I don’t think they’re all prepared to do that.

00:02:42 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:02:42 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:02:43 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:02:43 Nicole Roberts

I, I would agree with that.

00:02:44 Nicole Roberts

And, you know, you’ve been in those executive conversations where that, that breakdown happens.

00:02:49 Nicole Roberts

So from your experience at, at Geico and, you know, obviously now with Marstella, where does that disconnect between HR and the C-suite most often show up?

00:02:59 Maria Scarangella

It shows up when HR talks about HR metrics as a final metric.

00:03:04 Maria Scarangella

So turnover is important because there’s a, a great deal of expense associated with it.

00:03:12 Maria Scarangella

And if you think about you hire someone, you train them, they become proficient in their job, they deliver value to the organization.

00:03:20 Maria Scarangella

You could hire someone that’s really talented to replace them, but they’re not going to start on day one performing at the same level of that experienced person.

00:03:31 Maria Scarangella

reason that turnover is important is because there’s a loss of productivity, there’s a loss of efficiency, there could be a loss of, likely there’s a loss of revenue, and that’s why it’s important to the business.

00:03:45 Maria Scarangella

Engagement is important because if people are engaged, they typically perform better.

00:03:51 Maria Scarangella

If they perform better, they bring more value to the business.

00:03:55 Maria Scarangella

And I think what happens is sometimes HR doesn’t make that full connection, and they really need to talk

00:04:01 Maria Scarangella

about these metrics in relation to how they, how they drive business results, and then they become a strategic business partner that are working towards the same outcomes.

00:04:13 Maria Scarangella

Yeah.

00:04:14 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:04:14 Nicole Roberts

And I, I see that as well.

00:04:16 Nicole Roberts

I teach strategic HR business partner courses, certification courses with HCI, and just getting the attendees into the mindset of like, we’ll talk about leading indicators and we’ll talk about business metrics.

00:04:30 Nicole Roberts

And for the first half of the day, probably, they’re still talking about turnover and they’re still talking about, you know, time to hire, and they’re still talking about these type of, you know, engagement surveys.

00:04:42 Nicole Roberts

And I’m like, yes, but time.

00:04:44 Nicole Roberts

that to the business, right?

00:04:45 Nicole Roberts

Why is that important?

00:04:46 Nicole Roberts

How are you going to have that conversation?

00:04:48 Nicole Roberts

So you have built a platform that I think is fascinating that really tracks the cost of each stage of the employee lifecycle.

00:04:57 Nicole Roberts

What surprises leaders most when they first see their data?

00:05:01 Maria Scarangella

I would say the most important things that they see is how much money it really costs to hire someone and train them, and then the significant cost of turnover.

00:05:13 Maria Scarangella

When we first started, I would ask HR leaders, How much does turnover cost?

00:05:18 Maria Scarangella

And they would say, A lot.

00:05:19 Maria Scarangella

And my response was, A lot is not a number.

00:05:22 Maria Scarangella

So let’s talk about really calculating that cost.

00:05:26 Maria Scarangella

And the other very positive surprise that they get is how much value they bring

00:05:31 Maria Scarangella

bring to the organization.

00:05:33 Maria Scarangella

So when they see the dollar impact that they have, and most companies, you know, 50 to 70% of their expenses are on salaries.

00:05:43 Maria Scarangella

So when the HR leaders really understand their impact, they become so much more powerful.

00:05:50 Maria Scarangella

Yeah.

00:05:50 Maria Scarangella

And they feel real responsible to the organization to help drive outcomes.

00:05:55 Maria Scarangella

And that to me is, is the even better outcome than them understanding the cost.

00:06:02 Maria Scarangella

Of course, you need to know the cost so that you know how to use this data to drive those positive outcomes.

00:06:08 Nicole Roberts

Yeah, I agree with you.

00:06:10 Nicole Roberts

So how does quantifying the hiring, the onboarding, and the turnover costs, how are you seeing that changing how executives are making decisions?

00:06:19 Maria Scarangella

So when you understand the full costs end to end, and you realize that each stage affects the stages before it and after it, you make longer term decisions.

00:06:32 Maria Scarangella

So if you think about hiring someone, you’re hiring someone who is going to be able to do the job and to stay.

00:06:39 Maria Scarangella

So some of those quick fill the job, let’s just get somebody a warm body in to fill the role, you realized, wow, that hurts us so much more than giving us just a temporary relief.

00:06:52 Maria Scarangella

If we’re

00:06:53 Maria Scarangella

need a temporary relief, then maybe we need a temporary solution while we really strive to find that right person.

00:07:00 Maria Scarangella

And then they take the onboarding process and the training process much more seriously because they also think about this is, this is costing us a significant amount of money.

00:07:11 Maria Scarangella

Let’s make it value add.

00:07:14 Maria Scarangella

And sometimes when you see the cost of turnover, you realize it is much more worthwhile to invest in your people.

00:07:24 Maria Scarangella

and work through some of the challenges than to let them go or let them leave, I should say.

00:07:31 Maria Scarangella

And you have that significant knowledge and productivity leaving the business at the same time.

00:07:37 Maria Scarangella

So it’s really a game changer.

00:07:39 Maria Scarangella

You know, if you think about marketing a few years ago, let’s say 10 years ago, marketing was about the messaging and advertising, and then digital marketing started and all of those metrics just really changed the way

00:07:54 Maria Scarangella

that people approached it.

00:07:55 Maria Scarangella

I think we have an opportunity to do that with human resources as well.

00:08:00 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:08:01 Nicole Roberts

Well, and to your point, talking about, you know, accountability with these decisions as well, if you don’t have a great way to measure this, then oftentimes the default is that the hiring expenses, all of that goes into like an HR budget.

00:08:16 Nicole Roberts

And if you have hiring managers who have ownership of P&L, but they are not owning the cost,

00:08:23 Nicole Roberts

of their people and the cost of acquisition and the cost of the turnover, then how can you hope for them to be accountable and responsible with it?

00:08:32 Nicole Roberts

Because it’s not a real number to them.

00:08:33 Nicole Roberts

They say, well, that’s part of HR’s budget and we’re, they’ve got a salary anyways.

00:08:38 Nicole Roberts

Like, what do we, they were, they’re not looking at what are the actual hard dollar costs of the training, the onboarding, you know, getting a person ramped up, that loss of productivity.

00:08:49 Nicole Roberts

And it, it truly is not just filling gaps, right?

00:08:53 Nicole Roberts

And it’s

00:08:53 Nicole Roberts

truly not just, well, you know, HR is going to be there anyways, so what do they care what they’re spending their time on?

00:08:59 Nicole Roberts

It’s like, no, you don’t understand.

00:09:00 Nicole Roberts

These have real costs.

00:09:02 Maria Scarangella

Right, exactly.

00:09:03 Maria Scarangella

And when HR understands how the business operates, they can tie all of their performance to those levers that are really driving the business outcomes.

00:09:14 Maria Scarangella

And then you have that partnership and the synergy that works so well.

00:09:18 Maria Scarangella

But HR can’t go in blind.

00:09:21 Maria Scarangella

They need to know their cost.

00:09:23 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:09:23 Nicole Roberts

So for, you know, obviously not all organizations have a true analytics team or, or maybe have a resource that they can dedicate to this.

00:09:32 Nicole Roberts

So what would your advice be as a first small step that an organization can take to start measuring ROI on people initiatives?

00:09:41 Maria Scarangella

I think the very first thing is to trap the costs and understand how much you’re spending.

00:09:47 Maria Scarangella

When we do an onboarding experience with companies on Morstella, they

00:09:53 Maria Scarangella

are surprised, they’re pulling their own budget information, and when they look at it in this context, they’re surprised at how much they’re spending.

00:10:02 Maria Scarangella

And it’s, it’s such a great experience because then the light bulbs start to go off and they start thinking about it a little bit differently.

00:10:09 Maria Scarangella

So I would say everybody today can go back and start trapping the costs and look at what they’re spending in aggregate and divide that by the number of hires or divide that by the number of terminations.

00:10:24 Maria Scarangella

And easily, you know, the whole reason that we created Marstella was to democratize this thought process.

00:10:32 Maria Scarangella

And enable an HR department of.

00:10:36 Maria Scarangella

to be able to understand their information the same way that a company with a huge people analytics team can do it.

00:10:44 Maria Scarangella

So that would be the first step.

00:10:45 Maria Scarangella

And then I would say, use a tool like Marstella because it is already laid out for you and you put your data in and it gives you the information.

00:10:55 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:10:56 Nicole Roberts

Did you find that where they were surprised it was simply because they weren’t understanding, one, what the full complement was that would add up to being that true cost, and that it was probably siphoned into some line item that didn’t necessarily translate?

00:11:12 Nicole Roberts

Is that where you’re seeing that?

00:11:13 Maria Scarangella

That’s where we’re seeing that.

00:11:14 Maria Scarangella

And also, you have the opportunity to calculate the cost of processes.

00:11:21 Maria Scarangella

So people are looking at, gosh, we touched this item three times.

00:11:25 Maria Scarangella

Every time we touch it, there’s a salary cost, there’s a processing cost.

00:11:30 Maria Scarangella

And that, that just opens a whole slew of conversations.

00:11:35 Maria Scarangella

I’ll give you an example.

00:11:37 Maria Scarangella

So there’s one of our clients that is saying, I can’t afford to purchase an

00:11:44 Maria Scarangella

any kind of online learning or learning management system.

00:11:48 Maria Scarangella

So they hire a lot of trainers.

00:11:49 Maria Scarangella

Those trainers cost money.

00:11:52 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:11:52 Maria Scarangella

And when we looked at the cost of the tools or technology that could help with learning versus the salary and the number of people that you can impact, they realized they were spending more money with old methodology than if they invested in some technology and had a combined process.

00:12:12 Maria Scarangella

’cause maybe the whole thing can’t be automated.

00:12:15 Maria Scarangella

But when you start looking at the data, it just opens your eyes to many opportunities.

00:12:20 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:12:21 Nicole Roberts

So I know, and through our conversations that you’re very data-driven and obviously so am I.

00:12:26 Nicole Roberts

So you, you managed a $2.5 billion P&L before leading talent at GEICO.

00:12:33 Nicole Roberts

How did that experience shape your view of HR as a business driver?

00:12:38 Maria Scarangella

So part of the reason that I was selected to the

00:12:42 Maria Scarangella

new role was because of my experience and because I understood all of the components of the P&L and, you know, insurance is a very low margin business.

00:12:53 Maria Scarangella

So we were very focused on every dollar that we spent and how that contributed and needed to add value to the bottom line.

00:13:01 Maria Scarangella

So taking over that role, the first thing that I wanted to do was to understand HR and talent in the same way that we did every other area of the business and having a

00:13:12 Maria Scarangella

the financial impact of it, and then looking at it as if we were spending our customers’ money.

00:13:19 Maria Scarangella

And does this make sense?

00:13:21 Maria Scarangella

Is it, is it going to add value or is it just an expense that’s a nice to have, not a need to have?

00:13:28 Maria Scarangella

So all of those years of experience of managing the business functions allowed me to move into HR with, with a different lens.

00:13:40 Maria Scarangella

And that really is, is what you need to be able to make those shifts is to understand it from the business aspect and be very purposeful in how you’re spending your money.

00:13:52 Maria Scarangella

And I think most HR leaders are really diligent and they’re very focused on not spending or overspending, but I don’t think they have all the tools to make the right decisions.

00:14:05 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:14:06 Nicole Roberts

Yeah, I would agree with you.

00:14:08 Nicole Roberts

What advice would you give HR leaders who want to strengthen their, their business acumen and their credibility with executives?

00:14:15 Maria Scarangella

I think the very first thing they need to do is understand the business.

00:14:19 Maria Scarangella

How does the business make money?

00:14:20 Maria Scarangella

What are the two overarching goals that are key for the business?

00:14:26 Maria Scarangella

And when I have this conversation, it’s kind of funny because people say, well, we have so many goals.

00:14:31 Maria Scarangella

There’s always two, you know, what is your CEO’s bonus based on?

00:14:36 Maria Scarangella

Yes.

00:14:37 Maria Scarangella

It’s probably, you know, revenue and growth or it’s EBITDA and revenue increase.

00:14:44 Maria Scarangella

If you understand those two big goals, then you can look at the levers that are beneath them.

00:14:51 Maria Scarangella

And for most companies, there’s eight or nine levers.

00:14:54 Maria Scarangella

So you want to increase revenue, you want to increase market share, you want to improve your margin expansion, you want to be scalable, you want to, you know, increase the level of talent or productivity.

00:15:08 Maria Scarangella

And then there’s some

00:15:10 Maria Scarangella

levers that you want to reduce.

00:15:11 Maria Scarangella

You want to reduce costs, you want to reduce turnover, you want to reduce leverage or debt, and you want to reduce performance gaps.

00:15:19 Maria Scarangella

So when you have that framework, then you start acting upon how you can impact those levers.

00:15:27 Maria Scarangella

And you could talk to each of the business leaders and say, where are you?

00:15:31 Maria Scarangella

Where can I help you achieve your

00:15:33 Maria Scarangella

your goals and what are your goals that are contributing to the overarching goals of the company?

00:15:40 Maria Scarangella

How can we partner?

00:15:42 Maria Scarangella

That’s a very different conversation than talking to a business partner about turnover and engagement.

00:15:50 Nicole Roberts

Yes.

00:15:52 Nicole Roberts

Yes.

00:15:53 Nicole Roberts

And why they, you have to listen to them and why it matters and why you need to care and that it’s the wrong conversation, right?

00:16:00 Nicole Roberts

Like you already are starting off on the wrong foot if that’s what you’re leading with.

00:16:05 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:16:06 Maria Scarangella

Right.

00:16:06 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:16:07 Maria Scarangella

And a lot of senior leaders see HR as an impediment or an obstacle to their business rather than a facilitator.

00:16:16 Nicole Roberts

Right.

00:16:17 Nicole Roberts

They see HR as the department of no.

00:16:18 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:16:19 Nicole Roberts

Yep.

00:16:19 Maria Scarangella

They won’t let me do this.

00:16:21 Maria Scarangella

They won’t let you do that.

00:16:23 Maria Scarangella

And in the past, you know, if you think back years ago, HR was about making sure that people got paid and that nobody broke the law.

00:16:31 Maria Scarangella

Right.

00:16:32 Nicole Roberts

Right.

00:16:34 Nicole Roberts

We’re trying to keep you guys out of jail, right?

00:16:36 Maria Scarangella

Right.

00:16:37 Maria Scarangella

Exactly.

00:16:38 Maria Scarangella

It’s not like that anymore.

00:16:39 Maria Scarangella

Now it’s a facilitator of business results.

00:16:43 Nicole Roberts

Yes.

00:16:44 Maria Scarangella

So HR needs to think of their role and it’s a really, really important role.

00:16:49 Nicole Roberts

Yes.

00:16:50 Nicole Roberts

Yeah, it is.

00:16:51 Nicole Roberts

So in, we talked a little bit about this before as well.

00:16:54 Nicole Roberts

So in my work with, you know, PE backed companies, we’re seeing more and more where board decks have, you know, people metrics that are right next to those financial KPIs.

00:17:06 Nicole Roberts

How are you seeing that trend evolving through your work and through what you’re seeing?

00:17:11 Maria Scarangella

I think that the people metrics are becoming a

00:17:14 Maria Scarangella

bigger and bigger part of the board deck.

00:17:17 Maria Scarangella

And if you think about the fact that companies are investing significantly in AI, in automation, that component is also, there’s an expectation that there’ll be an efficiency improvement, or productivity change, or the number of staff needed to do the same type of work will be less.

00:17:42 Maria Scarangella

So the people metrics and the financial metrics are so intertwined that if the HR team can speak in financial terms, they’ll immediately have credibility with the board.

00:17:57 Maria Scarangella

And I think if you can do that and tie all the pieces together, you could really leapfrog your competitors because you’ll be making decisions based on the total package, and that’s what’s important.

00:18:10 Maria Scarangella

And PE firms are

00:18:12 Maria Scarangella

For especially PE-backed firms, they’re looking for how quickly can you deliver the investment thesis.

00:18:18 Nicole Roberts

Yes.

00:18:20 Maria Scarangella

And they are very results-oriented.

00:18:22 Maria Scarangella

When everyone is talking about delivering results, you get so much more credibility and you achieve that investment thesis faster.

00:18:32 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:18:33 Nicole Roberts

So that being said, how can tools like Marstella help portfolio companies and investors to really understand the ROI of their talent strategies?

00:18:43 Maria Scarangella

So the very first stage is understanding where you are today.

00:18:47 Maria Scarangella

So what is the cost of

00:18:49 Maria Scarangella

hiring?

00:18:49 Maria Scarangella

What is the cost of onboarding?

00:18:51 Maria Scarangella

What is the cost of training?

00:18:54 Maria Scarangella

How long does it take someone to become proficient?

00:18:57 Maria Scarangella

And then when you lose people, how much productivity do you lose?

00:19:03 Maria Scarangella

How much does that mean in dollars and cents?

00:19:06 Maria Scarangella

And how long does it take it to get the next replacement through that path of proficiency?

00:19:12 Maria Scarangella

I think portfolio companies can show best practices that can be leveraged across the whole PE

00:19:19 Maria Scarangella

portfolio, they can also show the value of their investments.

00:19:25 Maria Scarangella

And the most unique thing is when you know the costs, then you can start looking for solutions and you can pilot different solutions and go into a conversation with a vendor to say, you’re promising me that you’re going to deliver X, Y, and Z.

00:19:40 Maria Scarangella

The financial impact of that will be X.

00:19:44 Maria Scarangella

number of dollars.

00:19:46 Maria Scarangella

So we’re going to prove out that theory through our pilot.

00:19:50 Maria Scarangella

And if it’s achieved, then we’ll roll out the rest of the program.

00:19:54 Maria Scarangella

And I think, especially in HR, it’s harder and harder for them to show the

00:20:00 Maria Scarangella

ROI of an investment if they don’t use this methodology.

00:20:05 Maria Scarangella

And ideally, they create a flywheel because the world is constantly changing.

00:20:09 Maria Scarangella

So they’re going to need to continue to iterate.

00:20:12 Maria Scarangella

So you do your pilot, you adjust, you iterate, you deliver the results that are expected, you roll it out, and then you go to the next area that is high cost, high impact.

00:20:23 Maria Scarangella

And when you know the costs, you could prioritize based on what

00:20:28 Maria Scarangella

What is the high cost that’s going to deliver that big impact to the other levers that we talked about?

00:20:34 Maria Scarangella

And when you do that, you really are driving business results and such an invaluable business partner.

00:20:42 Nicole Roberts

Yes.

00:20:45 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:20:46 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:20:46 Nicole Roberts

I think that this is going to be such an important conversation for the HR practitioner, even the HR executive,

00:20:54 Nicole Roberts

that is looking at their, you know, their year of results or at least their year of activities and seeing where did they drive the most value?

00:21:04 Nicole Roberts

And then as they’re planning for the new year, where can they look to drive the most value simply based on that, right?

00:21:10 Nicole Roberts

Like what is the priority?

00:21:11 Nicole Roberts

Where are our, you know, greatest opportunities that we can really drive an impact when it comes to revenue and cost and all of those things?

00:21:21 Maria Scarangella

The interesting thing is that HR is always looked at

00:21:24 Maria Scarangella

as an expense.

00:21:25 Nicole Roberts

Yes.

00:21:26 Maria Scarangella

And they really can shift to be a revenue generator.

00:21:31 Maria Scarangella

And we work with our clients to understand what is the current expense.

00:21:35 Maria Scarangella

If they can cut that expense in half, they can then negotiate with the business to say, I’d like to have half of those savings to invest in my next initiatives.

00:21:46 Nicole Roberts

Yes.

00:21:46 Maria Scarangella

And they can fuel their own revenue and to be able to really show, invest in us, give us

00:21:54 Maria Scarangella

the budget because you will get a 10x return on the money that you spend.

00:21:59 Maria Scarangella

And that really shifts the conversation because if you think of, oh, you’re just an expense, we’re going to, we’re going to try and keep this as low as possible.

00:22:08 Maria Scarangella

That makes complete sense.

00:22:10 Maria Scarangella

But if you show that investments in people and it’s an investment beyond the HR team, it’s really an investment in people across the organization.

00:22:21 Maria Scarangella

And when we look at the cost, we look at it by the aggregate company.

00:22:27 Maria Scarangella

We look at it by division, by department, and by job level.

00:22:34 Maria Scarangella

But when you get that granular information, you really can see where should I have an impact first?

00:22:40 Maria Scarangella

Yeah.

00:22:41 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:22:44 Nicole Roberts

What do you think the next evolution of HR tech and measurement will look like?

00:22:50 Maria Scarangella

I think it’s so interesting how everyone is adding AI.

00:22:54 Nicole Roberts

Everybody.

00:22:55 Nicole Roberts

Everybody’s got an AI solution that’s going to solve world peace.

00:22:58 Maria Scarangella

Yeah.

00:22:58 Nicole Roberts

Yes.

00:22:59 Maria Scarangella

I don’t think it addresses this gap that Marstella fills because AI is fantastic.

00:23:07 Maria Scarangella

It’s changing how we do things, but we still have to be solving the right business problem.

00:23:11 Maria Scarangella

And our tool,

00:23:14 Maria Scarangella

Um, it is first to market.

00:23:15 Maria Scarangella

We’ve been looking and there is nobody else that has tied together all the pieces.

00:23:21 Maria Scarangella

So I do think that, you know, this is going to give the opportunity to people to be able to see those pieces and then they can, they can decide which piece of HR tech is going to solve my solution.

00:23:33 Maria Scarangella

And there’s some great HR tech out there that will help with hiring, that will help with onboarding, that will help reduce the cost of processes, help with learning.

00:23:43 Maria Scarangella

So I think once you have a tool that helps you understand the costs and where there’s the opportunity, then you can go and find the solution.

00:23:51 Maria Scarangella

But you have to figure out the problem you’re trying to solve first.

00:23:57 Nicole Roberts

Number one question that we go through in the courses is how will you know you’re succeeding?

00:24:02 Nicole Roberts

How are you going to measure it?

00:24:04 Nicole Roberts

And it cracks me up when the initial thought is not, well, what was the indicator to us in the first place that this is what we needed the solution for?

00:24:13 Nicole Roberts

It’s not a trick question.

00:24:14 Nicole Roberts

Like go back and measure where you got your, you know, your kind of red flag indicator to start with.

00:24:20 Nicole Roberts

And if you don’t know what good looks like, you’ll never know if you’re successful.

00:24:25 Maria Scarangella

Yeah.

00:24:26 Maria Scarangella

There was an interesting conversation that we were just having with a CFO and a CHRO, and they were talking about having to do a reduction in force.

00:24:35 Maria Scarangella

And it’s an

00:24:37 Maria Scarangella

unfortunate part of what’s happening in the workforce right now.

00:24:41 Maria Scarangella

And the CFO was saying, we need to do a 5% cut across the board.

00:24:46 Maria Scarangella

And I said, well, let’s just stop for a minute and let’s think about how much it costs to hire, train, and onboard and to get people proficient.

00:24:56 Maria Scarangella

And we have that data, so let’s look at that.

00:25:00 Maria Scarangella

And if it costs us a thousand dollars to get an FP&A analyst to the level that you need so that they

00:25:07 Maria Scarangella

can be independent and contribute.

00:25:09 Maria Scarangella

And in another area, it only costs 14,000.

00:25:13 Maria Scarangella

Let’s rethink where we do the cuts so that it makes sense and also supports your business continuing.

00:25:21 Maria Scarangella

So that was a very, very interesting conversation.

00:25:24 Maria Scarangella

When we had the data, they made a different decision and

00:25:29 Maria Scarangella

shifted some of their reductions so that they could, when they get profitable again, they can go back and grow even faster because they have all the right people in place.

00:25:40 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:25:41 Nicole Roberts

And I imagine having that data was helpful because sometimes you’ll see where the decision is, you know, across the board, simply from a fear of not appearing to be consistent, right?

00:25:51 Nicole Roberts

Or like some, some aspect of that and not being confident in the data that led to the decision being made where if you’re saying, well, this is the data that you have available.

00:26:02 Nicole Roberts

This is the true cost of these pieces of the business.

00:26:05 Nicole Roberts

And then you can say, okay, well then this is our legitimate business decision aligned with our strategy of

00:26:11 Nicole Roberts

why we’re making this, these certain cuts versus and across the board?

00:26:16 Maria Scarangella

Yeah, it’s very powerful.

00:26:18 Nicole Roberts

Yeah.

00:26:18 Nicole Roberts

If you could give CHROs one piece of advice for reclaiming their strategic seat, what would it be?

00:26:26 Maria Scarangella

Understand how your business makes money, understand your financials, and the areas that the business struggles to

00:26:37 Maria Scarangella

to achieve its results, not, not HR, but the business, and then partner with them to solve those problems.

00:26:47 Nicole Roberts

Maria, thank you so much for joining me today.

00:26:49 Nicole Roberts

Your perspective on HR economics and business impact is something that I think so many leaders need right now.

00:26:55 Nicole Roberts

I think this is really going to resonate with our audience.

00:26:58 Nicole Roberts

For our listeners, you can find links to connect with Maria and learn more about her work in our show notes.

00:27:03 Nicole Roberts

Thank you for tuning into the #HRTechChat from 3Sixty Insights.

00:27:08 Nicole Roberts

Be sure to subscribe, follow, and share this episode with a leader who needs to have the reminder that HR is a strategic value driver.

00:27:16 Nicole Roberts

And join us next time on #HRTechChat.

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