Leading Superworkers in the Public Sector with Denise Hemke, CPO at NEOGOV

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:00) Today, we're talking to Denise Hemke, CPO at NEOGOV, about how she leads her teams to manage over 20 products that save lives and make real-world impact. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:18) Let's talk about NEOGOV. What does NEOGOV — we know that you're passionate, you're great at product, engineering, all of this stuff — but what does NEOGOV do, and what exactly are you doing at NEOGOV?

(Denise Hemke at 00:00:28) Yeah. So I mean, at NEOGOV, we are 100% focused on the public sector. Right? And what we provide is an HCM suite — human capital management suite. So that's everything from really the whole hire-to-retire journey. And actually in government, I'd say it's even beyond retirement because retirees get into our system. And then we have a public safety suite, which is really operational tools that are used by public safety. So think law enforcement, corrections, 911, EMS — those types of roles. But I go back to saying, hey, we are focused on the public sector, which means that, you know, we aren't a private sector tool that's been retrofitted to the public sector. We really were built for the public sector, day one.

(Denise Hemke at 00:01:13) And so maybe I can elaborate on that a little bit more, because I think oftentimes that's kind of hard to wrap your head around. Like, what does it mean to be built for the public sector? Well, things like union requirements, right? Compliance with state and federal mandates. You know, those types of things. So if you think about recruiting, for example, and think about the tagline that you often hear from software companies. Right? Move fast, break things. That is actually the antithesis, right, of the public sector, which is about, like, fairness, structure, compliance. Right? And so with our applicant tracking system, and it's a great place to think about it because that's where the journey begins for candidates, is, you know, we've got capabilities like PII blinding, right, to prevent bias from creeping in, veteran preference scoring, automated eligibility lists so that you're making sure that the system is evaluating and making sure that candidates are getting in equally and fairly. And so all of that, again, is built for government workflows. And then if you think about public safety, which is very different, right? We're not just, I would say, software for law enforcement or software, you know, for a fire department. You know, we build these essential tools for them. So our PowerDMS product, our flagship product, is really policy. So that policy side of things, if you're an officer, you need to understand when is it appropriate to use force? How do I engage in a high-speed chase? You know, what about —

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:43) That's what I want to know.

(Denise Hemke at 00:02:44) Yeah. Things are happening. And so then tracking training, accreditation — like, these processes are core to the agency, and so that's really what makes us so different. Right? It's not just, hey, a software product that I'm using. It is really, like, almost like their operating system. You could think about it that way.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:01) That's pretty — so you guys touch a lot of different stuff in this lifestyle.

(Denise Hemke at 00:03:04) Touch a lot of different stuff. We have over — really, we have over 20 products in our portfolio to meet the needs of our public sector customers.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:12) Oh, that's crazy. So a bunch of different products, but they all have these themes of hire-to-retire and then policy.

(Denise Hemke at 00:03:18) Yeah. So if you think about hire-to-retire, starting with applicant tracking, you know, all the way through that retirement, when you think about benefits election, getting paid — you know, things that are really critical. And then on that public safety side, these are operational tools they're using day in and day out. So that's really it. And so I think for us, we think, you know, about every single line of code, right, has to answer that question: How can we make lives better for the people in government?

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:46) Yeah. You should — you guys have some, like, nice, quippy tagline, like "move slow, break nothing," or anything like that?

(Denise Hemke at 00:03:53) We do have a tagline, but our tagline is, you know, our mission is to serve the people who serve the people. Right? And I think, like, going back to myself, you know, I am the daughter of a retired teacher. I have twin sisters. One is actively teaching. You know, one has kind of taken a bit of a break from teaching because she's focused on her family and kids right now. I have a brother-in-law who's a detective. Right? He was in homicide, now he's in fraud. And so it's also near and dear to my heart just because, you know, I know how hard these jobs are, and I know especially in public safety and, frankly, in teaching, it's a lot of work too. You know, just like what an emotional toll that can take on you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:37) Oh yeah. Yeah. Our kids just started public school for the first time. So we homeschooled them all the way up till this year. We moved into a neighborhood right before school started, and they made friends. And they're like, "Can we go to the elementary school here?" And we went and we met everybody, we got along with everyone, and we said, "Yeah." So they're like two months into their first school experience. So I'm starting to get experience into these, like, new systems, these government-type systems, all of these new softwares that I'd never seen before. It's pretty interesting.

(Denise Hemke at 00:05:06) Yeah. And I just think about that person. Right? Like, they're busy. They got a million things they're trying to do. The last thing that they want to do is go to a bunch of tasks in their HR system. Right? And so my goal is how can I make it easy for them? Go in and do what they need to do, right, and get on with the rest of their day, because they've got a lot of other things they need to be focused on.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:28) So you've got over 20 — you're the CPO, you're the chief of it. You've got over 20 different applications that are serving millions of people. And how do you even begin to manage a portfolio like that? Do you build, like, a team that manages, like, groups of products? Does each team manage a single product? Do you manage all those? How does your structure work?

(Denise Hemke at 00:05:48) Yeah. It would be amazing if I could manage all those products, like, I would be a unicorn. No. I mean, you hire great people. Right? And so I have, you know, leaders over groups of products, to your point. So I have a leader who sits over our human capital management suite. I have somebody who sits over our public safety. I've got a leader who sits over our platform so that they're making sure that they can kind of pull it all together, because things like being able to seamlessly navigate between these products is really essential. Right? And so you've got to have a good underlying platform to be able to do that. So yes, I've got incredible leaders that are focused on, you know, areas of responsibility, and really that area of responsibility ultimately, to me, equates to users and the user needs if you think about, you know, kind of jobs to be done. And then they have product managers that work for them that really kind of, you know, obsess — I love the word obsess when it comes to product management — I want people to obsess with me about our users' needs, to obsess about very specific products and what we need to build to make sure that they are best in class for our customers.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:58) So I heard you had your own podcast. Can you tell me about your podcast?

(Denise Hemke at 00:07:02) So I would say it's my own podcast, but I do do this on the side for a nonprofit. So the nonprofit is called Products That Count. There's over 500,000 product people, and predominantly product managers, in that community. And so, as I tell people, you know, for me, I think it's probably a couple things that motivate me to want to do that. Number one, I think as a product person — and, you know, I'd spent 12 years in engineering, and I would turn around and spent 12 years in product — when you think about that, and I moved from product at a startup, right, where I was, like, employee number 32, you didn't have, like, this big framework for, like, how to do product management. Now certainly there are courses, and I took courses, you know, on product management, but there wasn't, like, a lot of structure to it. And I think generally, like, product management has evolved, right, a lot. And I say people have kind of, like, felt around in the dark trying to figure it out. And so number one, I'd say first and foremost, it's just a great way to kind of give back to the community, take those lessons learned, and, like, propagate it out to everybody else. And then I think it's such an incredible, you know, way — an opportunity to meet amazing product leaders, to connect with them, and really learn from them. And then lastly, I think kind of capitalizing on that learning piece is to really say that it is forced learning. Right? How many times have, you know, you signed up for a webinar or something that you thought was interesting? Like, "Wow, I can really get something out of going to this." And then when push comes to shove, right, your calendar takes over, you don't get to go. Right? But when you're hosting the podcast, just like you're, you know, you're doing today, you can't skip.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:37) You have to be there.

(Denise Hemke at 00:08:38) Yeah. You got to be there. And so, you know, I get to learn from these amazing people and connect with them, build relationships, and then really help the community. And that's really gratifying.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:50) That's awesome. Because you're definitely passionate about what you do. You love what you do. You get to wake up every day and do what you love. Right?

(Denise Hemke at 00:08:56) I mean, it's amazing. Right? And I think my philosophy is life is too short. If you're not doing what you love, go do something different. Go do something different.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:05) Now, have you always been in this line of work, or is this something that's newer?

(Denise Hemke at 00:09:10) Well, I spent 12 years — sometimes I round, I say it's a decade — but I spent 12 years in engineering, and then I spent 12 years in product. But, yeah, it's run the gamut. Right? I started out as a developer, you know, at AT&T, was a developer at Salesforce, for instance. Went to a startup. That startup did big data analytics and was ultimately purchased by Workday. And when Workday purchased us, they said, "Hey, you're not going to focus on the use cases you've focused on before. You're going to focus on people and money." Right? People and financials. And, honestly, that is where I truly fell in love kind of with the people side of things. I had the pleasure of building an incredible application, launched a product called People Analytics there as well. And I think that was where I really connected to that side of the mission. Right? How can I, you know, build products that really move the needle for people? I spent a couple years at Checkr, which is a background check company. Again, they also focus on people because, you know, time-to-hire is, I like to say, time-to-first-paycheck, and that matters to people. Right? How quickly can I get paid? And the background check, we don't want that to be the long pole in the tent. And so to me, you know, I think all that experience has led me to NEOGOV. Right? Lots of data, lots of products, you know, a mission that I can really get behind, and I can, you know, help make the world a better place, right — at least the government, when they do that. Right? They're serving the community better, and at the same time, grow this incredible business. So it is the dream job.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:49) And you're a private company. Right? Or are you public?

(Denise Hemke at 00:10:51) We are a private company.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:53) Okay. So I talk to a lot of, like, SaaS applications, more consumer-focused and business — all different types of — I don't talk to a lot of public sector companies that are making technology for public sectors. It's not a super common thing. So I've got questions for you.

(Denise Hemke at 00:11:09) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:09) My biggest question is adoption of AI. Right? So, are — because these are your customers, you have to adhere to the laws with data and all of that good stuff. Yeah. Are they — is policy on this AI and, like, LLMs, is that keeping up with the times, or is there no guidance on it? How is — like, if you want to get your people to adopt some of these AI tools, how do you do that?

(Denise Hemke at 00:11:36) Yeah. I mean, so there are certainly policies in place. Like, if you think about recruiting, for example, California, Colorado. Right? There have been some states that have put constraints around this to say, "Hey, we cannot let AI make hiring decisions." And frankly, that's right. Right? I think that's right. We are making decisions about people's livelihoods. Right? We want to make sure that, you know, inherent bias in some way, shape, or form doesn't creep in. Frankly, I think in many ways, AI can help eliminate bias, especially when you marry it with, like, things like redaction. Right? So that we aren't letting maybe bias that might be inherent in somebody's resume have the machine operating on that. But I think — so, yes, we have to be mindful about that. It's important for us to, you know, stay abreast of changing regulation and make sure that we're adhering to regulation. But a lot of that goes back to explainability. Right? Fairness, auditability, and can we do all of those things? And if we can do all of those things well, which I believe we can, and that is certainly what we seek to do, then, you know, they are able to adopt AI. And I think we are, at NEOGOV, really pursuing that path. We're not just experimenting with it. We've got products out there in production that are leveraging AI that our customers are using. And then we've got our Ignite conference, our customer conference, here coming up in just a week or so. And I'm super excited to talk about, you know, some new AI announcements that we'll be unveiling.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:22) You're going to leave us hanging?

(Denise Hemke at 00:13:24) Yeah. No. I mean, I could share a little bit more, certainly.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:29) Yeah. Tell me about what this conference is and some exciting things that are happening.

(Denise Hemke at 00:13:33) Yeah. So maybe I'll start with the conference, and then we'll jump to the AI side of it. So conference is incredible. Right? We've gotten, you know, a huge number of customers that are participating, and that's something that we consistently see. Right? And we see that because it really is a community for them. Right? I mean, these are their people. And so I think more than just, "Hey, we're coming here to learn about the product roadmap and what's next," which that certainly is a big piece of why they come, they're also there to really connect with each other, right, to share best practices and to learn from each other. And I think that that is kind of this incredible thing that NEOGOV is focused on, which is, you know, this customer connection, this customer community, you know, isn't an afterthought. Right? It's a very strategic intention that we have. You know? How do we create these opportunities? And I think the conference is one example, but we do it with things like our customer advisory boards. Right? And, again, I'll just kind of compare and contrast that to my private sector experience, because as you said, "Hey, you know, you don't focus on government predominantly." I historically have really been focused on building product more for private sector businesses. And so, I think there's certainly a lot of differences that I've noticed by coming in and serving the public sector, and it's this willingness to share and be open. Right? If you think about a customer advisory board, maybe, that I might have historically at a different company, you know, yes, people will contribute and give advice and guidance on the product, but how much transparency are they willing to provide to each other when the competitor might be in the room?

(Denise Hemke at 00:15:17) Right? And in government, it's not a competition. Right? You know, they're not saying, oh, wow, if I share these best practices, you know, then this other state is gonna adopt them.

(Denise Hemke at 00:15:28) Oh, no. Right? They're saying, hey, if I share these best practices, then everybody gets better together. And so I think that is what makes it, like, fundamentally unique.

(Denise Hemke at 00:15:41) And so we are very intentional then with how can we create these points for them to engage and build those relationships, and Ignite is really essential to that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:52) That's awesome. Yeah. You mentioned an advisory board. I heard you have a leadership tactic, a thing that you like to do, cultivating your own personal advisory board. Can you tell me about what that is?

(Denise Hemke at 00:16:02) Yeah. I mean, I think certainly, if you think about, you know, what is some of the best advice, right, you get? For me, I think it is building, you know, that personal advisory board. So the people I can go to and ask questions. And I think you wanna find, at least in my opinion, sort of a mix of people.

(Denise Hemke at 00:16:20) Right? Somebody who's a step or a few steps ahead of you, you know, in their career. Maybe somebody who is in a very similar role as best you can, so that you can sort of bounce ideas off of them because you're gonna run into scenarios. Right? Be that business scenarios or even personal scenarios.

(Denise Hemke at 00:16:39) Right? It's no surprise. I'm a woman, and I have an eight year old daughter. And so, like, I remember, you know, being a product leader when she was being born and trying to figure out, hey, how do I balance, right, my career in something that, like, I don't wanna put on the back burner, but with the fact that I have this young child. And so how do I approach that? And so going to somebody who was two steps ahead of me in their career and asking them that question.

(Denise Hemke at 00:17:08) You know, what did you do? Right? That was so enlightening, and I will share, just maybe for your female listeners, I loved her advice. She's like, you know, I know this statement is a little dated. You know that phrase, you know, behind every good man is a good woman.

(Denise Hemke at 00:17:22) She's like, behind every good woman is a good nanny. And she was so right. Right? She was so right. Like, without our nanny, we could have not made it.

(Denise Hemke at 00:17:31) I couldn't have made it through, you know, those initial years just trying to balance, you know, a career that was really fast paced with also feeling like I could be home. And so I think that that's important. Like, find that advisory board. And the thing that I would add to that is just to say also, you can't ask somebody, like, will you take this rose? Right?

(Denise Hemke at 00:17:55) You have to earn the rose.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:57) You just used, like, a dating analogy?

(Denise Hemke at 00:17:59) That's awesome.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:59) I know. Yes. But you do that.

(Denise Hemke at 00:18:02) Right? Like, hey, will you be my personal advisor? You know, you have to earn the right to do it. And so I think the best way to do that is, honestly, like, find somebody who has an opportunity to see your work or maybe find somebody who was a previous boss, you know, or have somebody who is a boss who knows you well and can connect you with somebody in their network, right, that you can really learn from them, and in exchange, they learn back from you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:27) That, I believe, is fantastic advice too. I did find a small trick that will also work too. If you're on this journey and you're really deep into it and you figure out the right question to ask people, the right person will respect you just because you know to ask that question. So the most annoying thing for me is when someone asks me a question that's answered in, like, the first chapter of my book. Right? It's like you didn't even, like, go deep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:59) Go try to find the conflict or how I can mix something up between chapter six and seven or something, you know? Like, ask me a really good question. I'll jump on a call with you because you're, like, invested in this. And so that's another way that I found. I mean, I like your way.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:13) Yeah. They all work. But going to people, but also if you reach out to people that you don't know but that you admire but you don't have a connection to, you can just ask them a really good question. They'll respond.

(Denise Hemke at 00:19:23) Yeah. That's also why you probably start a podcast. You know? Yeah. I think you reach out to those product leaders.

(Denise Hemke at 00:19:28) Hey, you wanna come on? Love to get to know you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:32) That's how I got some of our early guests too. I would read these people's stuff, and I would really be into it and very curious. And I would ask a specific question, and they would respond to cold emails.

(Denise Hemke at 00:19:42) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:42) And because the question was good enough, and I realized, oh, okay. This works. Right. You know?

(Denise Hemke at 00:19:47) You gotta do a little homework. Right? It makes sense.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:49) You gotta put the effort in. People respect you putting effort in. Absolutely. So eight year old daughter, just one kid, or do you have multiple kids?

(Denise Hemke at 00:19:56) Just one kid. Okay. Just one. Alright.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:59) I have an eight year old daughter as well.

(Denise Hemke at 00:20:00) Awesome.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:01) Uh, yep. Yep. Yep. I got one girl and then two boys, six and three.

(Denise Hemke at 00:20:05) Oh, man. Yeah. You've got your hands full, my friend.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:09) Yeah. We know the nanny life. You know? So I like that personal advisory board. I really do.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:16) In that tone, I'm always looking for good leadership advice. And so I've got a question for you about the best leadership advice you've received, but there's a catch. Okay?

(Denise Hemke at 00:20:25) Little.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:26) The catch is you have to have received it, put it into action, and it's had to stick with you and stand the test of time, something you're still doing today.

(Denise Hemke at 00:20:34) Oh, gosh. Wow. That's really tough. You know, I think the leadership advice, and I got this from, you know, one of my coaches once, and she's like, Denise, sometimes people like to chew things around in their mouth a little bit before they swallow. I was like, tell me more.

(Denise Hemke at 00:20:54) She's like, you will quickly, you know, jump to the answer on something. Right? Because you're steeped in the problem. Right? You've been thinking about it.

(Denise Hemke at 00:21:02) You've been obsessing about it, back to my one of my favorite words, for a while. And she's like, and when you're bringing other people into that. Right? You know? And you've gotta obviously tailor it to your audience, and that could be people more senior than you.

(Denise Hemke at 00:21:15) That can obviously, you know, be people that are working on your team. Right? You gotta walk them through all the steps on how you get there. And I think that, you know, so I think certainly that's advice that has stuck with me to make sure that, you know, don't just assume that others know what I know. And then I think the thing that I would add maybe onto that is to say, and it's that, and how can I bring them on that journey?

(Denise Hemke at 00:21:39) So I'll just share maybe one thing that I do with my team to help bring them on that journey. I did one actually just earlier today, which we call the Product Demo Show. Product managers, and I think it especially matters when you're leading in a remote world. You know, try to be very intentional about how they build connection with each other. Right?

(Denise Hemke at 00:21:59) And so I host a monthly meeting where they can come in and I say, hey, show me anything. And really show each other, I should say, not me. Anything. And it can be from clay, right, concept, and I love, I prefer clay to cement because if I give you feedback on clay, it can change.

(Denise Hemke at 00:22:13) If I give you feedback on cement, I'm breaking things, so that may not feel good. So earlier is always better, but, you know, share it with each other. And I think the great part is, you know, through that, you have these dialogues. Right? So, you know, things that somebody might be showing where you're like, wow.

(Denise Hemke at 00:22:30) That's an incredible way to solve that problem. Don't we have that problem in this place, this place, this place, and this place? And should we think about solving that in a really holistic way? That's a very real conversation that just happened this morning. And I think the nice part is, like, that's that process.

(Denise Hemke at 00:22:45) I'm taking them on that journey, and they're kind of seeing how, you know, I'm chewing around in my mouth a little bit. Right? Let's not just solve something over here. Let's see how we stretch that out. And so I think there's real specific tactics that you can put into place to help with that leadership advice, and so I think that that has stuck with me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:05) Nice. Do you ever get the opportunity to mentor, like, the next generation of women leaders?

(Denise Hemke at 00:23:11) I do. I have been lucky to do that. And, again, it just goes back to, you know, these people. I connect with them as much as I want to be, you know, on somebody's, you know, I want people on my personal advisory board. I wanna be able to be that for other people too.

(Denise Hemke at 00:23:26) And so there's a lot of people that have either worked, you know, I've worked with or have worked, you know, for me that I still keep in touch with, you know, many years later. And everything from talking about career advice to, hey, can you take a look at this strategy deck and give me some feedback on it? I think those are, it's great. And, again, you know, I'm learning from them too every time we have one of these conversations.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:50) I like what you said about the rose earlier. That's still on my mind. Because it's so awkward because when I was first starting out, you hear, you read, you listen, and there's this concept of a mentor. Right. And it's like, are you getting engaged? Is it, like, what, how do I ask this?

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:07) And what I found out really soon is you don't have to ask or really make them aware of it at all. No. You just have these people that you're like, okay, I go to this person for this reason, and you just come to them when you have good questions, and people are very receptive to help.

(Denise Hemke at 00:24:19) Yeah. Yeah. I think everybody wants to help. Right? And they're all rooting for you.

(Denise Hemke at 00:24:24) I think at the end of the day, you know, like, yeah, that's the part, you know, and I think once you kind of get over that hurdle of, like, oh, it's a little awkward to maybe ask somebody that I don't know super well for advice, or I feel like you're asking, you know, you feel like you're asking for time. Right? You might be imposing. Right? As soon as you get over that hurdle and you're like, no.

(Denise Hemke at 00:24:42) It's not true. It's like they want you to be successful, and they want to help contribute to your success. And, again, I just go back to it's bidirectional learning. Right? They're probably learning something from your experiences too, and so I think it's valuable for them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:58) Who are your favorite leaders out there?

(Denise Hemke at 00:25:01) Oh, gosh. Who are my favorite leaders?

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:04) Yeah.

(Denise Hemke at 00:25:05) Jeez. I don't know that I've got a litany of folks that I'm like, you know, these are some exceptional leaders. I think there's people that have, I like to say there's, like, slices of things, right, that make people really spectacular. You know, I like to read or listen, you know, to books. I probably do a lot less of it, you know, now with remote work than once upon a time.

(Denise Hemke at 00:25:30) But everybody from, you know, like, an Elon Musk, I think that, you know, not everybody might be a fan of his. I personally am a huge fan. And—

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:41) Why are you a huge fan?

(Denise Hemke at 00:25:42) I am team Elon. I, you know, and I think I'm a huge fan because I just look at what he is doing, and I say, wow, you wanna talk about somebody who's giving back to society in amazing different ways. I mean, I can't even fathom, like, building robotics, you know, self-driving cars, building rocket ships, and allowing people, you know, like, with Neuralink to have appendages, you know, where they don't have one anymore.

(Denise Hemke at 00:26:09) I mean, that to me is incredible. But I look at other leaders, and I say, hey, there's, like, slices of things that I can get from, you know, different people who are experts, you know, in different arenas. And so, you know, I'll read things. You know?

(Denise Hemke at 00:26:22) Some of these books are a little bit more dated now, but, like, The Everything Store. There's a ton to learn about Amazon and Bezos, you know, and how he ran that business and really the processes that they put in place. You know, I loved even listening to or listening to books like Shoe Dog and the story of Nike. You wanna talk about somebody who sort of, like, deeply knows the customer. And so I think even times, you know, you look at individual leaders, and you don't have to take all aspects of it.

(Denise Hemke at 00:26:52) It's like take the best bits of it. There's one, one I will cite, Liz Wiseman. She's got a book Multipliers, which I love her book because it's really about, you know, how do you build kind of a growth organization where people come to your organization because they want to learn. Right? And it's built on the premise that sometimes these people will outgrow you, and that's okay.

(Denise Hemke at 00:27:17) Right? Like, that is natural. That will happen over time. But you know what? What they will say is, and what I want them to say when they work on my team, is the place that I learned the most, the place that I grew the most, you know, was when I worked for Denise.

(Denise Hemke at 00:27:30) And so then, you know, they will send people to you, right, to go, you know, learn from you or to learn from kind of the environment that you're creating.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:41) I've gotta check this book out, Multipliers, How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter.

(Denise Hemke at 00:27:45) Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:46) Liz and Greg wrote it. That's amazing. So are you giving any talks at this conference coming up?

(Denise Hemke at 00:27:51) I am. So I'll talk to you a little bit about my keynote. And that'll get us actually back on the AI train, which is, you know, the buzzword that everybody can't stop talking about. So I'll spill the beans ahead of it.

(Denise Hemke at 00:28:04) But AI and I, you know, if I give it a, you know, kind of a persona, had a late night one Friday night where I thought, my daughter, she's eight. Right? Going back to her, she loves to read these graphic novels. Right? And, you know, they're great.

(Denise Hemke at 00:28:20) They're super engaging, and I want her to love reading, and so I love that it's engaging. And, you know, I would love to be able to illustrate a graphic novel. Like, it's incredible. But I don't have those kind of skills. Like, I can barely draw. Like, stick figures are the best I can do.

(Denise Hemke at 00:28:34) And so I thought, like, okay, what if I could give this whole keynote like a graphic novel? And so that is what I did. So the whole keynote is kind of graphic novel style, but the point of doing that as a graphic novel is to say, like, this is not a skill that I had. Right?

(Denise Hemke at 00:28:53) It is a skill that AI gave me because I could ask it, hey, produce an image that looks like this, but do it in this style. And so, suddenly, I'm, like, supercharged, right, with this capability. And Josh Bersin, who is, you know, an HCM kind of industry analyst, very well known in the industry, the Bersin Group, he had actually coined this term the superworker. And the superworker is really, hey.

(Denise Hemke at 00:29:19) In the age of AI, right, the people that really embrace it and use it can step up their value, step up their productivity, right, and become this superworker. And so that's really what I'm talking to our customers about is if I can continue on that sort of analogy, and the graphic novel story is I'm introducing, you know, the personas as these heroes. Right? Let's talk a minute about public safety. Right?

(Denise Hemke at 00:29:50) There's a role called a background investigator. Now I used to work for a background check company, so I know a little bit about background checks. And what a background investigator does is not a background check. Right? A background check is, hey, I'm gonna go look and see, does somebody have criminal history? Let me go look and see, did the education they said they had when they sought employment actually match where they went to school and got a degree from. Right? That's a background check. A background investigator goes through this deep investigative process to try to understand, hey, this person, this police officer that we're gonna be entrusting with the safety of our community, this really critical job, are they the right person for the job? Do they have the right character for that? And so, you know, that is an important job. It's also a lot of work, like, to be frank. And so these background investigators are doing a ton of work that can be, you know, in some agencies, that could be north of forty hours to do an investigation for one applicant. One applicant. So we built a product. It's a product called Vetted that allows them to do that investigation in digital format. Right?

(Denise Hemke at 00:30:58) Because a lot of them, one of our customers, for example, Lamar, you know, they're doing it on pen and paper. And pen and paper's hard. Right? Because, a, that means, you know, it's more intensive. Right? Copying your notes from here to there. You know, all these disparate places, you have the potential to get things wrong. Right? Oh, did I forget about this thing over here? How do I collect all this information? It's all coming in maybe via email. And so just by doing that alone, we save them over 25% of their time that they're spending on background investigations. And we see roughly that savings across the board for all of our customers using Vetted. But on top of that, we then built in this capability to take references. Right?

(Denise Hemke at 00:31:42) Because they may ask, hey, if Denise wants to be a law enforcement officer, they're gonna go out and ask for all these references about your character. And they might go talk to my neighbor. They're gonna talk to my past employer. My neighbor might say, hey, Denise was, you know, not a great neighbor. Right? She threw all these wild parties. They left trash in my yard.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:59) Oh, no.

(Denise Hemke at 00:32:00) Right? And, you know, all these things. And so that might not, you know, reflect well. They may also talk to that neighbor, and hopefully what they do say is, like, Denise is an incredible neighbor. She actually helped came over and helped cut my trees. She'd bring me, you know, grapefruits from a grapefruit tree, all the fun stuff. Right? But the point being that they're trying to figure out who is the character of this person, and they've gotta do that not just for one reference, but 20 references on average. And the time to read that reference, summarize it, and write it all down was taking them over twenty minutes per reference. Do the math on that times 20. That's a lot. And so we've now gotten that down to minutes per reference. That is a huge savings for these people. And so I like to say we just put a cape on that person. We made her a superworker. Right? That background investigator can now do that job, and especially if they're in a very busy hiring season, maybe they're trying to get a bunch of folks into an academy, she can keep up with everything that she or he needs to do because we've incorporated AI into the product. And so that's one example of how we are solving and we're taking AI and putting it to use very purposefully back for the public sector and then specifically for these public safety agencies. So that's one example.

(Denise Hemke at 00:33:16) I'll give you another quick one that my boss will actually talk about in his keynote, but one that I'm really excited about. And I think it goes back to, I'll pick back up on that point of this willingness to share, right, that is unique to our customers. And it's job recommendations. We call it smart job recommendations. If you look at the data about government hiring, you'd say, hey, government hiring, plenty of qualified applicants broadly. Right? There's plenty of applicants coming in the system. You know, there's jobs out there for them to fill. Everything looks good.

(Denise Hemke at 00:33:50) At the high level, that looks good. You drill into that data, and what you start to see is in that lowest quartile or in this lowest octile, right, that there aren't enough qualified applicants. Right? And in some cases, they might have one qualified applicant for a role. That's tough. Right? You hope that one person is the right person. And so what we're doing is we're leveraging data from agencies to make recommendations about how we can make that job more appealing so that we can increase the number of applicants to get somebody in seat to do the job faster. And those recommendations are things like, how might we adjust salary? Should we adjust the experience level or the education level? And we're not just using data from their jobs. Right? We're using data from all of our agencies to give them those recommendations. And, again, I go back to, you know, we talked about community and how the public sector is different. The public sector is really different here too because one competitor is not gonna say, hey, go use my data to go make my competitors, you know, hiring experience better and help them land candidates faster. They don't wanna give their secret sauce away. But in the public sector, they're willing to share because what they know is that all of these communities need people and that they simply want to get people into these roles as fast as possible. And so I think that that's a really incredible way that we're building AI, and it is purpose built for this sector because of that willingness to share and leverage data to provide these actionable insights.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:29) And that makes sense too because just the lack of the competitive nature between the teams.

(Denise Hemke at 00:35:35) Exactly. Exactly.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:37) Like, I don't think I've ever moved to a specific location because they had a better x, y, or z for some specific public service. But you know, this is really cool. I like that the theme within this industry is to help each other. That's very much aligned with how I personally operate. Like I live with an abundance mindset. I believe everything will come back tenfold if you just put the right stuff out there and being helpful to people. And so, I like that they're making the world a better place.

(Denise Hemke at 00:36:11) Absolutely. Absolutely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:13) Yeah. Yeah. What else would we like to get out there today? I know we've got a few minutes left here, but I wanted to make sure if there were any super important topics that we got those done as well.

(Denise Hemke at 00:36:24) I think, you know, you asked this question, right, about AI and sort of responsible use, and you were saying, you know, how willing are they to adapt it, adopt AI or not. And I gave you a couple examples right there. But maybe I think another gray area that we should talk about is around compliance, right, and procedural safety. And as we talked about hiring, right, on the Vetted side, we talked about the job recommendations. I think there's two other places that are really interesting places where we've already put AI to use, and our customers are out there using the product today. The first is on compliance, and the second is on wellness. And I think, again, these are ways that NeoGov is uniquely positioned to help this sector. And, you know, the first we talk about compliance. Maybe I can walk you through one of our particular customers and some of the ways that they're using NeoGov. So Cincinnati ECC, emergency communication center, also known as 9-1-1. Right? That is an essential service. And I know you said you never moved any place because the government service was so much better, but I think we'd certainly move away from places if the service like 9-1-1 or that schooling, right, education that your kids are going to, if that wasn't good quality, you might say, hey, this isn't the place for me to live. And so I do think it's important for us to hold a high bar and to have qualified people in the role doing this job.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:00) Absolutely.

(Denise Hemke at 00:38:01) And if I think about, you know, Cincinnati 9-1-1, I think the challenge and one of the big challenges in public safety that maybe isn't well-known or maybe thought about by the average citizen is that, take you and your job. Right? Or maybe me and my job. I mean, I don't think, I don't know. Do you have an employee handbook? I doubt it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:18) No. No.

(Denise Hemke at 00:38:21) Right? But take the average worker. Right? They've got an employee handbook. How many people, if you ask them, hey, do you know all 300 pages of your employee handbook, would they put their hand up? Right? Probably nobody. Nobody. And nobody in their right mind would want to. And that's okay. Right? Because for the most part, when you're at work, if you use good judgment, what's appropriate, what's not appropriate, then it's not an issue. Right? But in the world of public safety, if you just use good judgment, you might not be acting in compliance with your agency's policies. And so the risk that you open up to the agency, to yourself as an officer, maybe to a person that you've got in custody, for example, right, that opens up a lot of risk, right, and all types of risk, risk of injury, right, risk of death. Like, these are critical moments in time. And so for Cincinnati, they were saying, okay, we see that we've got all these policies, right, these standard operating procedures, but they're not always top of mind for people. And so how can we make sure that people are best operating when they answer the phone, that 9-1-1 call, based on the policies that they have?

(Denise Hemke at 00:39:34) And so we had launched a product last year called PowerRecall, and PowerRecall is an incredible product. I think of it, think about it as Duolingo but for the public sector. So this idea of time-based repetition learning. How can I keep teaching you something? And once you prove you know it, I don't need to teach you anymore. Maybe we ask you periodically. But if you don't know it, then I'm gonna keep asking you to help encourage you to learn this thing. Right? And so that's really important. And we're using AI to build what we call cards. Right? Because we're dealing cards of the things that they need to learn. And so the great part is from an agency administrative perspective, they're able to produce these cards really quickly. And they produced over 600 training cards for their 9-1-1 operators to better learn the policies of their agency. And they started dealing out those cards or we started dealing out those cards in this automated way. But the part, you know, I think what's fun is for them, I don't know that anybody also gets super excited about training, but we gamify it. Right? And so it does feel fun, and it's not this big lift where it's like, oh, I have to go take this class. Right? Nobody loves getting that email of, like, hey, there's security class that you've gotta take every year. Right? This is something I can do in my downtime. And so by doing this, by rolling out these cards and having these 9-1-1 operators take this, what they saw is in less than a hundred days, they moved 10 percentage points in terms of their understanding of these policies. And 10 percentage points, you might say, maybe that's not a lot. Like, if you went from a C to a B or B to an A, but I'm not talking about one person. I'm talking about everyone in their organization. So if you could take everybody in your kid's class, everybody in your kid's school, and move them up one grade level in a hundred days in terms of their performance, like, that's an amazing outcome. And not only did they just show competency, but what they saw was that these high-risk calls, like a welfare check, right, their 9-1-1 operators were handling those types of things better than they had before. And so I think that that is this great example of how we can use AI, we can use gamification, something like that in the public sector to really move the needle in terms of service quality for citizens. And that's, again, why I go back to, like, this is something that excites me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:59) Yeah. I think have you seen any of the AI operators to answer 9-1-1 calls? Have you seen any of these things?

(Denise Hemke at 00:42:07) I, yes. I mean, I haven't personally experienced it, but, you know, I know that more and more that is happening, and there's sort of a mix of calls, you know, based on typically based on the type of call, right, how critical it is.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:23) Isn't that interesting that the most annoying thing in the world is calling a 1-800 number and getting a robot, but now you'll call 9-1-1? Yes. How can I help?

(Denise Hemke at 00:42:33) I am certainly happy that there's also these humans there. I hope, I'm sure that, you know, I think these public safety leaders are taking their job seriously too. I joke about it, but I know that they're being very thoughtful and mindful about, hey, where can I put AI to work?

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:52) Oh, they are. They're also really great people. Like, I got to spend some time in a 9-1-1 center when I was doing some tours. A CTO of a city took me around to all their different stuff. And I got to see their emergency operations and 9-1-1, all that. And it's actually very sad too because they have to deal with some very difficult calls. And it's interesting to observe that. And it's like, wow, this is actually, I have so much respect for 9-1-1 dispatch people, an outsized number of respect for them. Very hard job.

(Denise Hemke at 00:43:27) A hundred percent. And, yeah, I've done some ride-alongs with law enforcement and gotten to spend some time in these 9-1-1 centers as well. And it is such a critical job, which frankly may give me an opportunity to tell you one more story. So there is another product that we also launched last year in the market that just hit, I think, its one-year anniversary recently, and that product, PowerVitals, takes information that these first responders, right, these 9-1-1 operators, these law enforcement operators, and it brings them into this vitals product. And what it does is it trauma scores it. Right? Because the challenge is when you're working in an environment like that, you don't have the same boss, the same supervisor right at all times, and so it's hard to know, okay, like, how much has Denise undergone? And so I think that's really interesting because historically, what would have to happen, a supervisor would have to go manually kind of read these computer automated dispatch notes. Right? They call them CAD systems to say, oh, Denise was sent out on five incidents yesterday, and let me read them and understand, you know, how much trauma might Denise have experienced. And, again, I go back to, you know, my brother-in-law was a homicide detective up until only recently moving to fraud, and I know how these things weigh on him. And so think about, you know, you've got kids. Think about if you were dispatched to a school shooting. Right? Just hearing those words, right, is terrifying as a parent. Now you could have incredibly different outcomes, though. You go to that incident and hey, you know, it ends up being a no-op. Right? You were able to talk to the person.

(Denise Hemke at 00:45:06) Nothing. I mean, that's still traumatic to just have to go on it on its own. But if you were to go out there and the worst case scenario happened, right, that is incredibly traumatic. It's certainly incredibly traumatic to the community. But to your point, it's also incredibly traumatic to the people that are responding to that call. And so we're looking at this cumulative trauma that they're experiencing so that we can say, "Hey, 911 operator," or, "Hey, you know, police officer, are you okay?"

(Denise Hemke at 00:45:35) Right? Are you getting the support that you need? Because you've been out dealing with a lot of traumatic issues. And so I think taking it back to maybe one of the questions you asked, which is, you know, how much is the public sector willing to adopt AI? I think that there is this probably misunderstanding that's out there that they aren't AI-enabled and they aren't willing to take advantage of these things. But my experience is actually contrary.

(Denise Hemke at 00:46:03) Right? My experience is that they are willing and they want to leverage these capabilities to make sure that they can keep our community safe, you know, operate more efficiently. You know, we're all being asked to do more with less, and they're certainly experiencing that too, just like every industry out there today. And I think that they are certainly looking to AI to say, "How can I do that? But how can I just do it that's compliant and fair?"

(Denise Hemke at 00:46:30) And that's our job, right? Is to take all that off the table for them so that they can just use the products.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:36) Well, you guys are doing a great job. Thank you. I like NEOGOV now.

(Denise Hemke at 00:46:41) Good.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:41) This is good. Yeah. You're a good representative for them, Denise.

(Denise Hemke at 00:46:44) Thank you. Thank you. Well, you know, I am happy to be here, and I'm definitely passionate about building software for the public sector. It's great to see it, and it's great to see it in action.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:55) Yeah. I didn't believe it when I read the notes. I was like, "She's passionate about building software for the best?" And I tell you, I'm like, you're brilliant at product. You also do care deeply about this.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:05) I believe it now. I am a believer. I'm a fan now, Denise.

(Denise Hemke at 00:47:08) All right. Thank you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:09) Thank you so much for listening.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:11) And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email: [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.