In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, Melissa Olson, RPI’s Director of Infor HCM Solutions, returns to the pod for a candid conversation about one of the most important workforce transformations of our time: the shift from job titles to a skills-based economy.
Tune in as she offers insights into how AI is reshaping the way we work, what employees can do to stay relevant, and how organizations can support upskilling without losing the human element. Melissa offers practical advice on self-advocacy, identifying transferable skills, and using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity not just to survive the shift, but to lead it.
Whether you’re adapting to new tech, rethinking your role, or guiding a team through change, this episode will inspire you to approach AI and the future of work with a fresh perspective.
Interested in listening to this episode on another streaming platform? Check out our directories or watch the YouTube video below.
Meet Today’s Guest, Melissa Olson
As RPI’s Director of Infor HCM Solutions, Melissa Olson has been at the forefront of massive Infor CloudSuite and legacy Lawson implementations for well over a decade. Nowadays, you are likely to find Melissa in the role of Executive Oversight ensuring quality in HR Talent implementations and out in the community presenting, demonstrating, and connecting with clients.
Over the last 20 years of Melissa’s career, she has modified the Lawson code set as a programmer for a transportation agency, led an North American HCM implementation while tending to her day job as a HR Business Partner for a marketing and merchandising firm and built an HCM Practice with RPI from scratch while consulting.
With her unique mix of experience understanding organizational needs, deep knowledge of Infor People Solutions, and the boundaries of the Infor technical extension toolset, Melissa enjoys tackling organizational problems with solutions that are process focused more so than product focused.
Meet Your Host, Chris Arey
Chris Arey is a B2B marketing professional with nearly a decade of experience working in content creation, copywriting, SEO, website architecture, corporate branding, and social media. Beginning his career as an analyst before making a lateral move into marketing, he combines analytical thinking with creative flair—two fundamental qualities required in marketing.
With a Bachelor’s degree in English and certifications from the Digital Marketing Institute and HubSpot, Chris has spearheaded impactful content marketing initiatives, participated in corporate re-branding efforts, and collaborated with celebrity influencers. He has also worked with award-winning PR professionals to create unique, compelling campaigns that drove brand recognition and revenue growth for his previous employers.
Chris’ versatility is highlighted by his experience working across different industries, including HR, Tech, SaaS, and Consulting.
About RPI Tech Connect
RPI Tech Connect is the go-to podcast for catching up on the dynamic world of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Join us as we discuss the future of ERPs, covering everything from best practices and organizational change to seamless cloud migration and optimizing applications. Plus, we’ll share predictions and insights of what to expect in the future world of ERPs.
RPI Tech Connect delivers relevant, valuable information in a digestible format. Through candid, genuine conversations and stories from the world of consulting, we aim to provide actionable steps to help you elevate your organization’s ERP. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the ERP scene, our podcast ensures you’re well-equipped for success.
Tune in as we explore tips and tricks in the field of ERP consulting each week and subscribe below.
Transcript:
Chris Arey
Welcome back to RPI Tech Connect. I’m your host, Chris Arey. Today we’re going to be talking about one of the biggest shifts happening in the workforce; the move towards a skills-based economy.
How do employees stay relevant in an AI-driven world? And how can businesses ensure that they’re using AI to empower employees rather than replace them?
It’s a complicated situation, but today we’re going to simplify things with the help of RPI’s Director of Infor HCM Solutions, Melissa Olson. Melissa, welcome back to the show.
Melissa Olson
Thanks Chris. Thanks for having me. As you said, I’m Director of HCM, Infor HCM solutions, but you know, I spend a lot of time working with organizations on managing their workforce, their people, and people solutions.
How do you get to the data that you need to make the right decisions, informed decisions? Patterns. And you know, AI has been a huge topic of conversation over the past year and a half or so.
Is it coming for my job? How will it affect my industry? So on every level, I think people have a lot of questions about how can they be more proactive around their careers or organizations. How can they be more proactive around leveraging tools without displacing the people that make their organizations?
Chris Arey
Yeah, I’m excited to talk about all of those things with you here today. I think a great place to start would be to look at what’s changed with careers over time. Previously, job titles played a big role in determining what people would do at work.
Now, it seems like there’s been this shift towards skills-based models. So from your perspective, what do you believe is driving that change?
Melissa Olson
I think there are a couple of things, right? There’s the AI revolution that we are seeing today. We’ll talk about that in a second. But many changes came about because of the pandemic.
People’s roles fundamentally shifted, whether that meant people working remotely or frontline workers becoming burned out.
As a result, we saw a large shift, with people moving out of healthcare and other frontline jobs. Both Gen Z and Gen A are arriving in the workforce, and they have different expectations of what kind of work they want to be doing & what kind of organization they want to work for.
They’re not staying as long in roles so they can continuously upskill because we are living in a gig economy. People have decided to use their skills and work for different places to find out what they’re best at.
So we have all of these factors that were reinforced by the pandemic when it comes to younger millennials and Gen Z that are specifically related to the workplace environment. It’s the investment that organizations make in their employees.
Chris Arey
Yeah. So you mentioned something there about up-skilling, transferable skills, and things like that. So the reality here is that jobs have evolved since the onset of the pandemic.
For example, we’ve seen that a job title and its actual duties are changing. So what do you think employees should be doing to secure their roles?
Melissa Olson
Advocate for themselves, right? Yeah. So that’s sort of an easy answer, but it’s more difficult in practice. You know, you do have to advocate. You do.
As employees, we all have to advocate for ourselves and let our managers and our organizations know what else we’re able to do. So, you know, just because today I am managing employee records, I may be doing some analytics around that.
I might be like, I’m great. I’m more tech-focused, doing analysis. That’s probably one of the first jobs that AI will be able to take over. AI is stronger in the analysis piece, but it’s not, it’s not there in the interpretation piece around your organization.
So it’s thinking about what you currently do in your role that AI or some sort of automation might take over and do better than you. You don’t want to compete against it. You don’t want to start from scratch and say, now I need to find a new career or a new job.
You have your domain knowledge, you have your expertise. And where that’s going to be important is being able to interpret or guide these AI tools to give the results and the outcomes that your organization really needs.
Right now we’re speaking in reference to skilled tech workers with degrees & others in back office positions, but it’s the same thing when you’re looking at field workers around inventory, or anywhere that you can see machines taking over the actual human pieces.
Learn as much as you can about what those machines are, and what they do, because somebody is going to need to run these processes and machines. You must ensure that they’re operating in the way they are meant to. It’s not like you plug in an AI model and it automatically works for you.
It does have to have to be trained in what you need and what’s important to your organization. And a lot of people understand that they’ve been doing their job for 5, 10, 20 years, and really know what their organization needs.
So, think about those things and how you’re going to be able to create some necessary skills. We’ll also talk about that today. How you can manage your busy job and your family while making sure that you do stay relevant and you can offer some of your skills.
And I know you did ask, can organizations know? A lot of organizations will have an employee portal where you can self-report what skills you have.
As you know, we’re Infor partners, and the Infor system features that capability.
Chris Arey
So that allows employees to self-identify their skills that are maybe not related to their role and log them in the system.
Melissa Olson
Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, a lot of organizations don’t do this because they’re worried about these skills not being validated.
That is okay because when you apply for a job as a candidate, your skills aren’t validated either. It gets you to the interview and could potentially get you the job.
When the offer is there, those skills, credentials or certifications will get verified. So it’s the same thing here.
Chris Arey
Yeah.
Melissa Olson
They’ll have a drop-down of all the skills that are relevant to the current jobs. But I think organizations should also put skills in there that may become relevant in the next year or two.
There’s no way you’ll know what’s going to be happening in five years, but you can kind of see the trends.
So you drop those skills in, even though you have no job descriptions with them, and you let your employees say, “Hey, you know what? I do have really strong analytical skills.”
Or, “I was a programmer for many years before I went into consulting and I still have the ability to program.”
So what else can you contribute if you are contributing in a way that’s consistent with what’s expected from your job description today? Certain skills still may be needed in the future, and if your organization knows you have them, it’s easier to kind of brush up your skills and move you into a new role than it is to hire from the outside.
Especially given the importance of having that institutional knowledge. So I think this is kind of advice for both the employee and employer.
Chris Arey
Yeah. For employees then it sounds like, you know AI is here and a lot of tools are now available that should be embraced as a way to help them do their jobs better, as opposed to feeling like, man, this thing is coming for me. It’s going to take my job.
There are ways to educate yourself, and I think organizations can play a role in that too. They also have a responsibility to help their staff take advantage of what’s out there and what they can do to perform their jobs more efficiently. Is that right?
Melissa Olson
Do their jobs more efficiently, but also get them ready for what’s next. You know, in your performance reviews, you generally have a goal section. In that section, a company should be outlining organizational goal skills around learning X, Y, and Z relating to AI.
Determining where it applies to your organization or, you know, if we’re cascading that goal down, where it applies to your department.
Chris Arey
Okay.
Melissa Olson
And you should have your workforce understand it. Earlier, you were talking about it being scary. You know, we’re afraid of things that we don’t know, either the unknown or something we see that is very tangible, but we have no idea how it works or what it is, or we’re really too scared because it’s so big and so overwhelming that we have no idea how we’ll ever know it.
So I know a lot of people feel like that and they’re like, you know, I’m close enough to the end of my career that I’m going to see if I could skirt around this, right? But just like they say on NBC: The More You Know! We’ll put the little graphic in here.
But really, the more you know about it, the more it can positively impact your work.
Chris Arey
Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Olson
What do you do? Go into ChatGPT or another AI model and input in your whole job description. What you do, what you’re good at, your organization and then ask: how can AI take my job? You know, are the possibilities that AI might, might be able to do that?
Chris Arey
Ooh.
Melissa Olson
We can be more efficient if we do something this way. Organizations should be looking for these creative minds that are saying, everybody knows how to do their job.
Everybody knows there’s probably a better way to do their job. If you’re the one that suggests that better way, what better to create your next job than to be the one that suggests what to do by leveraging some of these tools.
Chris Arey
Get ahead of it, I see. That’s a great idea. And it reminds me of something that you and I had chatted about previously. We talked about how doing something scary is good for you. It’s a positive piece of development and you’re putting yourself out there.
I love the way that you as a person have, you know, shared that. And then you’re applying it in this context of AI here. I think it’s a fantastic idea.
That’s something I never thought about doing either is like using these AI models to ask it for feedback in that manner. Here’s what I do. How can I do it better? Or where are the gaps? Where AI could do these things that I’m not currently doing, which could be a risk in the future.
But now that I’m aware of it, I can present it to my boss or my team or whoever. And now you look like a star, right?
Melissa Olson
Right. Right. And you could say, you know, I’m not afraid of saying where I use AI to make my job better with the things I do, because I want everybody, all of my peers to also be the best they can be, you know, with their jobs.
And if they’re leveraging these tools that help them, you were talking about seeing those gaps, those blind spots that we don’t necessarily think about because we’re doing this day after day in the same manner.
Chris Arey
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Olson
There are so many new blind spots because this is a new world. Leverage those models! There are a lot of them out there that are free. I personally love Perplexity. I’ve been using it for well over a year because I have access to a lot of models for about the same price that a ChatGPT subscription can cost.
What I like to do is run my questions through multiple models. I’ll copy and paste and run it through Claude, I’ll run it through ChatGPT, I run it through R1 with Perplexity. It doesn’t share my data with China, which is important to me.
Chris Arey
I see.
Melissa Olson
And because there are still hallucinations, there’s going to be a lot of stuff in there that isn’t real. It’s trying to extrapolate a bunch of data and give it back to you.
It might not necessarily be correct what it extrapolates. So, you know, don’t take the first answer, just constantly play around with it and run it through a bunch of different models.
You’ll start seeing those trends and you’ll be like, okay, that’s the skill. That’s the skill that I need to work on. And how do I do that? I’ve got a full-time job. Spending 15 to 20 minutes a day, going to YouTube, LinkedIn learning, or Coursera, there are plenty of learning tools out there to take advantage of that are free and low cost.
There are some mid-cost ones out there that are also great if your organization is able to sponsor or pay for some education programs. Again, organizations, if people are listening, you should set aside some budgets for scaling up your workforce on some of these AI tools or education.
Chris Arey
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Olson
That way, everyone within the organization can come to the table with the same amount of knowledge.
Chris Arey
So you mentioned using a couple of different tools to get feedback from the AI model. Do you have one that you like more than another? Is there a favorite you have?
Melissa Olson
I do love Perplexity. I’ve loved it for a very long time. Claude is one of the models that I find understands me the best. The information that it gives me matches what I was looking for to extend my brain a bit, right?
Chris Arey
Okay. Yeah.
Melissa Olson
Claude for me works well. I know Infor uses Claude for some of the digital authorship and for helping to write job descriptions within our AI offerings.
Yeah, Llama, part of the Facebook meta, that’s a really great model and it’s open source. So for anybody that happens to dabble in technology, Llama is a good model to use if you wanna start trying to build with a model.
Chris Arey
Right.
Melissa Olson
There’s Grok, Elon Musk’s AI platform. He’s got access to a lot of data. ChatGPT, you know, there, there are only a handful that are great right now.
There may be a whole bunch of other ones, but the aforementioned are AI models that organizations or Silicon Valley as a whole are investing in.
Chris Arey
Okay.
Melissa Olson
ChatGPT, OpenAI, Anthropic, Claude, Meta, Llama, and Google Gemini. I’d say those would be the ones to kind of start with.
Chris Arey
Okay. You mentioned something there that I think is important here too about prompting. Your prompting style may lend itself better to a different solution.
That’s great advice for people to go out there and try different ones and see which engines are yielding the results they like the most.
There are best practices around prompting, but I feel like at the end of the day, everyone has a unique way of coaching things and telling these models what they want. So that’s fantastic advice.
Melissa Olson
Right. And use AI to figure out your prompts too. Say, I want a prompt for this. Help me build my prompt. Do not use it like Google because you’re not giving it enough context. That’s why I say you want to give enough information about yourself, your job, and your organization.
That being said, I do want to talk about governance and security. If you are using it for work, don’t use your company’s name. You want to be able to be a little bit vague about company specifics unless you have a model in-house that you have trained.
You do not want to put any of your organizational, secure data out in the Ethernet or the AI world, even though it says it may not be training the model. Never place blind faith in technology, especially when it comes to AI right now, because it’s too new.
Chris Arey
Hmmmm. Yeah, that’s risky.
Melissa Olson
However, it’s an exciting time to be here. Everybody who missed out on the Web 1.0 era back in the late 90s, this is your time to be a part of that next push where everything is gonna be supported by tools.
Chris Arey
A good comparison. It is. Yeah. I want to revisit something that we touched on earlier, and that’s the idea that employees are perhaps fearful of AI. We talked about how they should embrace it and how there are tools for doing so.
We talked about the importance of identifying one’s skills and it’s like, how sometimes employees may not know that these additional skills they have could be valuable to the business.
What do you think is the best approach for organizations to show that these additional skills could make an impact at work, potentially maybe in a different position? What do you recommend there?
Melissa Olson
So that’s a tricky thing, right? Because organizations don’t want to commit to messaging along the lines of: “put these skills down, you will get another job in the organization with these skills.
I think it shouldn’t be, let’s wait and see. I think it, again, should be out there for self-reporting. Let the organization and the employees know, hey, put down everything you’re good at or your skills.
Chris Arey
Okay.
Melissa Olson
As this organization evolves, we need to be nimble and adapt. Maybe it takes shape as a sort of prototype and maybe there is a program where an organization can say, okay, let’s use this skills talent pool that we’ve built, and let’s build a new role from scratch.
Let’s see how this will work. Or at least, get some of these internal employees within the talent pool of an open job posting that you may have thought you didn’t have the skills for.
I think it’s just about diversifying your pool of candidates there.
Chris Arey
Okay.
Melissa Olson
And there’s not really any harm in doing that because just like if you took the traditional route, you would screen them out if their skills don’t match your needs.
But, if you see that they’re just really close to being developed, it’s cheaper, cost-efficient, and better for your employee engagement, among other things.
Chris Arey
Yeah, retention, etc.
Melissa Olson
To invest in an internal employee that has shown potential, maybe it takes six months or eight months to get them to where you need them to be.
The benefit in doing that versus bringing somebody cold off the street who doesn’t know anything about your organization is definitely worth it.
It also serves to show your employees the level of investment you have in them. You are essentially saying you’ve been a loyal, good employee, and this is how we want to ensure that we keep you here.
The best way to really put your money where your mouth is, is by moving people around the organization in a way that highlights their strengths, or in a way that you’re creating something new and you’re trusting those employees to create something new with you.
Chris Arey
Nice. That’s awesome. Thank you for that. So we’ve talked a bit about why the workforce is changing and this impact that AI is having. As you mentioned, we’re still in the early days of this next movement here.
I have to ask, do you have any thoughts on what might be coming next or how AI is going to continue shaping workforces?
Melissa Olson
Man, I have too many thoughts about that. That is a multiple part discussion. But you know,I stay on top of as much as I can because I know there are so many opportunities out there and I want to shoot for RPI to be a part of them.
Chris Arey
That’s a loaded question you can talk about.
Melissa Olson
Again, it’s scary for some people. For people who are not creators or risk takers or dreamers, this is scary. I will 100 % admit that. Especially for people who are used to what they do and good at what they do.
Chris Arey
Sure, yeah.
Melissa Olson
This and implementations. I mean, this is so similar to making the transition to new software because you’re like, my gosh, I’ve got to now be able to show everybody that can still do it.
But now, you have to do so in a whole different environment, potentially using different software or dealing with whatever the changes might be.
And so, you know, the number one takeaway is that adaptability is at an extreme premium in a skill or gig-based economy. It is important to not be the saboteur against change because those are the people that make it difficult for a company to embrace change and those are the people that may not be along for the ride.
It’s going to happen whether you’re there or not. So be adaptable more now than ever before. There are no longer going to be roles that you can just sit in for 20 years and retire from.
So this is the time to start just listening to podcasts and expanding your knowledge base.
Chris Arey
Listen to RPI Tech Connect.
Melissa Olson
Exactly. Exactly. It’s easy. It’s quick. You can do it in the car. And that’s, you know, a way I learn a lot is by listening to an audiobook or podcast because I don’t have the time to sit down and read.
When I’m sitting down, I’m probably binging something on TV because I need to shut down from computers and reading. So there are lots of opportunities. Again, AI is so powerful.
Chris Arey
Yeah. It is, it is.
Melissa Olson
You no longer need to get a degree because all of the education out there is online. You can learn whatever or ask whatever you need.
I find that I use my perplexity app on my phone five or six times a day, just asking random things that I need to know about, whether it’s before I’m about to buy something, or inquiring about red light therapy for my face.
How does it work? What are the studies on that? The subject matter can range from questions about work to asking about the quickest way to get somewhere.
Chris Arey
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Melissa Olson
Whether it’s internally, like where I wanna get or externally, like, you know, on the road. So.
Chris Arey
I think that the takeaway you just shared there about being adaptable is so important. Not only in the context of what we’ve talked about today with your jobs changing and skills-based economy and AI, but also in terms of an ERP project, embracing change and being open and leaning in on these things that might seemingly be scary, is it going to be good for you in the long run? I really appreciate you sharing that.
Melissa Olson
And if you are here, I mean, don’t internalize that, right? You know, let your manager, let your coworkers guide you. I mean, some people can help you on the journey. Find the person that’s really good with technology and say, give me some tips. Help me figure out my way. know, we’re always here. I’m always here. You’ve got my email. Can email or whatever. Text me. I don’t answer the phone.
Chris Arey
Yeah. Haha.
Melissa Olson
I am often on a lot of calls or getting spammed. But, you know, there are just little ways that you can start improving your skill set. Start today.
It doesn’t matter what skill it is, because, you know, everything’s constantly changing. So find something you love. This is your opportunity. If there is going to be a job or career change, find something you’re good at and figure out prompt AI.
Figure out how you can take what you’re great at or what engages you and what interests you and turn that into a skill that you can offer or find a role with.
Chris Arey
Awesome. I love that, Melissa. Thank you again for sharing all these great insights with us today and for joining me on the program. It’s always good to have a nice conversation with you.
For those of you listening in, if you have questions about today’s segment, want to learn more about AI, or how RPI Consultants can help you, we encourage you to contact us. You can do so by emailing us at podcast@rpic.com. Again, that’s podcast@rpic.com.
This is RPI Tech Connect and I’m your host, Chris Arey.
We’ll see you next time. See you Melissa.
Melissa Olson
Thanks. See ya.
